Church, how we doing?

Good, all right.

Hey, I may have sung a little too loud, preached a little too hard,

and maybe got a little too worked up over the Florida, Tennessee basketball game.

But I've got some tea right here, so my voice should make it,

but we'll be good, all right? We good? All right, here we go. Hey, we have been in a sermon

series on the book of First Timothy, and it's called a field guide for the family of God.

And it picks up that family of God language from Timothy

chapter 3, where Paul talks about being a household of God. And what Paul is doing,

Paul is a senior, more veteran pastor, planter, church planter, and he's writing to Timothy,

who's kind of his young protege. And what he's writing to Timothy in this letter is,

hey, Timothy, as you step into this new church in Ephesus and begin to pastor this new church,

here's what it means to be a pastor.

But more than that, what he's doing is he's saying, here's what a church is like.

Here's what a church is to be.

And it's not just that Paul is writing to Timothy

or even writing to that church, but that God is speaking to us. And God is telling us what it

means to be a church and what it means for each of us individually to be a part of the church.

And so here's what we're going to do. We're going to jump in to First Timothy

chapter two. So if you've got a Bible, go to First Timothy chapter two or I think it's page 18

in your journal. And Paul writes this. He says, first of all then. So we just have to stop right there for a second.

Because you have to ask, well, then, what's the then there for?

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