Ad Testudinem! (Form the Turtle!) - Audio
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But I'm also going to be meeting with Baylor University Press. For those of you who know, my dissertation was passed last June 2015 and June. And Baylor has graciously decided to publish it with their University Press. And so it should be coming out September 2017. And I got to meet with them and finalize a few things. So thank you. [APPLAUSE] And so I-- yeah, thanks. And I hope that I can represent Coast Bible Church, our mighty congregation in the world a little bit. So that's happening. Today, though, I kind of wanted to just kind of level with you a little bit. Sometimes I worry about this place. I do because I grew up here. I've been here since 1990 for those-- I say it all the time. I'm a broken record, and I apologize for that. But it's true because it's deep in my heart how much I love this place. Coast Bible Church is where I fell in love with the Bible. It's where I fell in love with doctrine. It's where I found out that just because you're not related by blood, just because you don't share the same heritage, just because you don't have the same amount of money, just because you don't have all the things that the world says are so important in common, doesn't mean you can't be family. This is the place where I learned that what life really should be around is God. And the way he preserves that is by three things-- Bible, grace, and family. That's who we are. And so I worry sometimes. I worry because we're coming up to our 50th anniversary, July. July of 2017, 50 years, 1967, Coast Bible Church was founded. We're coming up on 50 years. And sometimes I start to think, what's it going to be like in 2067? A lot of us aren't going to be here. I probably won't be here, statistically speaking. I mean, I'm right on the edge, right? I think I'll be in my '80s. So if they get some really great new medicine, maybe I can be here for the 100 year. But I sometimes wonder, is this church still going to be here? Is this still going to be the church on the hill? I worry that this place will somehow founder. I think we have a picture of Harvard. This is Andover Hall at Harvard University. It's where their Divinity School meets. This particular building was built in the 1800s. By the time this building was built, if you were a seminary student at Harvard, you probably didn't believe in most of the things that traditionally Christians believe. Harvard was founded in 1636 or '38, I can't remember exactly. But in the 1600s by Calvinists, by Puritans, who came over seeking religious freedom. And they wanted to make sure that they're clergy and their ministers were well founded and doctrine in the war and would hold it fast for people. Just 50 years later, around 1700, you could no longer trust that a Harvard grad believed
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In his message on Ephesians 6:10-17, Pastor Tom relates the spiritual armor of God to the ancient Roman battle-armor formation, "the turtle", encouraging us to "turtle up!", putting on the whole armor of God for the benefit of others in the Body.