Turn to, in your Bibles, to 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. I don't know if you were here last time I preached, The last time I preached, I preached on page 1838 in the Bibles. If you were here last time I preached, I preached on 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. And what we said was this church in Thessalonica was a phenomenon. It was a miracle. Paul had been there for three weeks. He preached three times on the Sabbath. A few people became Christians. There was a massive riot and Paul had to flee for his life. And he left this church who'd been established only three weeks. And he was very, very worried. He sent back his friend Timothy to say, how are they doing? Timothy came back and said, Paul, they're doing okay, they're still going as Christians. And last time we saw, what an amazing thing that is, that even a church with only three weeks of teaching could be surviving and flourishing. And it was proof that God was working in them. It wasn't just that they'd changed their minds, actually they were being persecuted, they were being attacked, they were suffering. but God was working in their midst and that was really a phenomenon, something you don't see day to day. And this week in chapter 2, we've got another phenomenon, another thing that you don't see in the normal course of things. And this phenomenon, this amazing thing, is how Paul behaved when he was first there as a missionary. And I want you to bear that in mind as we read 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, page 1838. You know, brothers, that our visit to you was not a failure. We had previously suffered and been insulted in Philippi, as you know. But with the help of our God, we dared to tell you his gospel in spite of strong opposition. The appeal we make does not string from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you. On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men, but God who tests our hearts. You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed. God is our witness. We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else. As apostles of Christ, we could have been a burden to you, but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the Gospel of God, but our lives as well, because you have become so dear to us. Surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship. We worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the Gospel of God to you. You were witnesses, and so is God, of how holy righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God who calls you into his kingdom and glory. Let's just pray. Father God, You are the Sovereign over all things and we know it's no coincidence that we've been brought here this evening to hear this message. And Lord, we pray that Your Word may come alive, may be powerful, that Your Spirit would use it in our lives to bring us to a better understanding of what You've done for us, to help us to understand more what You have to say into our lives. And we pray that as a result we may all be strengthened in our faith and made more useful to You. So what I'm going to try to do first of all is to put this passage into a bit of perspective for how I think it applies to us. We're going to begin by looking at our society and what it says, why this passage is so remarkable. And then we're going to go into more detail and look at the passage in a bit more detail to see what we can learn. about the Apostle Paul and his ministry and what we can learn from that for ourselves. I want to begin by suggesting that there's a crisis of authority in our society. If you were to go back maybe 65 or 70 years, as some of us perhaps can remember just about, 65, 70 years ago, Society was very different, maybe at the end of World War II. If you went to your bank manager and asked for some advice about your money, you would probably trust that he was going to give you the best advice on what investments to make. If you went to your doctor, you'd probably have faith in your doctor that your doctor would tell you the best treatment for whatever disease you had. You would expect the police to be fair and even-handed in how they investigated crime. You would expect your politicians to be governing in the best interests of society. Footballers used to play for the love of the game, that's why they played, they wanted to win and they loved playing football. Journalists, they were just after the truth. Church ministers, well you may or may not have agreed with what they said, but you'd expect that they would be doing their very best to explain the Bible. And looking at the Bible, most people would have thought that the Bible is truth. That's God's Word. I may not like it, but it's truth. Now, it's very different. Your bank manager is probably going to try to mis-sell you some PPI insurance. They're probably gambling your money immorally on the stock exchange. Doctor, well you hope you haven't got Doctor Shipman who's quietly murdering 200 of his patients. The police have been accused of institutional racism, of selling stories to the press. Politicians are in league with big business, they're doing dirty deals behind our back. Footballers just care about the money they're earning. Journalists make up stories for personal gain. Church ministers, well, they're probably just trying to get you to donate large amounts of money to pay for their Mercedes-Benz. There's terrible stories of child abuse in churches. They're just trying to grow their own empire, make their church nice and big. And the Bible, well, at best it's just a myth, it's just an inspiring story. No one really thinks in our society that the Bible has authority today. And as a result, we've all become very cynical. We don't have a natural deference to authority. We don't trust people who try to lecture us, who try to tell us things. We suspect that they're just acting in their own interests. We don't really believe that people act in the interest of others. And every year, the polling organisation, Ipsos Mori, does what they call a veracity index. They do an opinion poll of, I think, a thousand people, and they ask them, who do you trust to tell you the truth? Now, interestingly, doctors come out top. 88% of people think that doctors will tell them the truth. Teachers, 81% of the society thinks that you're telling the truth. Judges, 72%. Clergymen, sort of leaders of churches, 68% of people think that they're basically going to tell you the truth, they're not going to lie or mislead you. The police, only 63%. Businessmen, 29%. Only 19% of people trust journalists to tell the truth. And politicians, only 14% of people believe that politicians tell the truth most of the time. Isn't that interesting? We've all changed. I guess if you were to do this 60 years ago, the numbers would all be around the 80-90%. As a society, we've become cynical. We've started to doubt people who are in authority. Well, how is any of this relevant to the passage we just read? Well, first of all, I want to suggest that all of us belong to our society, and all of us accept this stuff. Maybe all of us have grumbled about police and about the politicians and about the journalists. get into this mindset ourselves. And we might struggle with authority. We might struggle to accept what's said in church. We might start to doubt, aren't they just trying to grow their own empire? Don't they have a prejudiced view of the Bible? Maybe we think, well, they're not very impressive. There's lots of churches that look a lot better than this one. I don't want to be controlled. I don't want to be told what to do. Maybe we do the same with the Bible. We say, well, I believe this bit, but that bit, I'm not really happy about that. I'm going to sort of downplay that. I'm not going to accept the whole of the Bible as having authority. kind of use it how I think is appropriate. We shift the authority to ourselves. We're going to accept what we think is appropriate. Maybe we find it difficult to listen to sermons, difficult to be told what to do, to be told what the Bible says in church. That's the first reason why I think it's relevant. The second reason is because we live with people who buy into this mindset. The people we know at work, our friends, our neighbours, many of them will be very, very cynical. They may be very, very cynical if we try to tell them the gospel. If we try to say to them, you need to believe in Jesus, you need to become a Christian. They may be very, very suspicious about us. What's he trying to gain? Why does he want that? Has he got a financial stake in the church? Does he just want to have more friends there? Does he want to add converts to his list of conversions? They may be very suspicious of the church. What do they want? Do they want money from me? Do they want me to sign up? They may be very suspicious of the Bible. They won't trust it. And yet, what we claim is that the Christian message, which is revealed in the Bible, and which is preached in church, is authoritative. And this is where I think we've got a clash here between what the Bible teaches and what our society thinks. We believe that the Bible is authoritative. It does tell us what to do. But when you come to church, if the preacher is preaching faithfully, if he's explaining the Bible, we should be listening. We should be trying to do what the preacher shows us in the Bible. The Bible is what we need to live by. We do need to join churches. We do need to join together to praise God. The Bible is an authoritative document, and that cuts right across what our society thinks. So how do we convey that in a world which is so cynical, so doubting of authority? Well, amazingly, the answers to these questions are in this passage. And it's not really very amazing, actually, because the Apostle Paul lived in a very similar time The people of the ancient world weren't stupid. And if you lived in Thessalonica, kind of 2,000 years ago, when these Christians did, almost every day when you went to the marketplace, there'd be a different person standing there, built of a little box, would be standing there and would be preaching. We don't have this nowadays, we have TVs or whatever. In those days, they used to go to the marketplace for entertainment and there'd be wandering teachers who would wander between different cities and they would set up their box and they would stand there, dressed in their robes, and they would start to explain philosophy, or ethics, or politics, and they would start these long speeches. The language would be very impressive, they'd work, there'd be maybe jokes, there'd be lots of quotations from poets and philosophers. They'd give these really engaging discussions, and everyone would stand and listen, and they'd think, wow, that was amazing, this guy must be really clever. And so there were lots of these travelling speakers and one day when these Christians went to the marketplace and to the synagogue, one day there were three random Jews who turned up in Thessalonica. Their names were Paul, Timothy and Silas. And they were just, in a sense, like any other of these speakers. They turned up and they said, no, it's a different message. It's about a man called Jesus. He's the son of God. He came down, he died, he rose again, and all of you need to believe in him and change your life and come and form a church and learn to worship God. So how different was Paul, Silas and Timothy than any of these other people? You see, because so often these other teachers, what they would do is they would start speaking all this stuff and it would sound very impressive and people would go up to them afterwards and they'd say, ah yes, you can all join my followers. They'd grow a big band of followers. Then the checkbooks would need to be produced and they'd collect in money to pay for their services. Sometimes very dodgy, sexual things were done and the person who was speaking was elevated. They had their big band of followers, they gained money, they gained other things. from the people who came to follow them. And the suspicion was, aren't Paul, Silas and Timothy just the same as these other teachers? Is there really any difference? In this section, Paul is explaining how he is different from all of these other kind of teachers. And in verse 4, he makes it very clear. He says, On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the Gospel. We're not trying to please men, but God who tests our hearts. So Paul is saying, you've seen all these other speakers, there's loads of them, these philosophers, these wise men, but there's something different about me and what I say. I'm not doing the same as them. And so through the whole of this passage, Paul sets out how his ministry is totally different from what these other speakers used to do, these other philosophers. He gives us, in doing so, a model of godly ministry. He explains to us what we should be doing when we try to share the gospel with other people. And it's very, very different from what these pagan teachers do. So as we go and look in a bit more detail at the passage, we can use what we learn both to evaluate Christian ministry that we know. So you all come along to this church at least once. Are you going to listen to what's preached in this church? Are you going to bring your friends along? Can you trust what's said here? Well, let's see if it conforms to what Paul is saying a true godly minister should be doing. And secondly, what are we going to do when we go out with our friends, our non-Christian friends, our relatives, our colleagues? How are we going to behave? How are we going to explain the gospel? Because actually, it matters enormously how we explain the gospel. Christian ministry is not just about saying the words. It matters hugely how we do it. So there's lots for us to learn from this passage. Let's look in a bit more detail then. Verses 1 and 2. Paul has a different definition of success from these other speakers. Verses 1 and 2. You know, brothers, that our visit to you was not a failure. We have previously suffered and been insulted in Philippi, as you know, but with the help of our God, we dared to tell you his gospel in spite of strong opposition. Paul begins by dealing with the accusation that was going around the church in Thessalonica that Paul is a bit of a failure. Now, I summarised to you before what happened when Paul went to Thessalonica. And briefly, he turned up, he preached for three weeks, a few people became Christians, there was a riot, and he had to run for his life. It was only there three weeks, and he caused the most massive pandemonium. We're told it went to the city authorities. There was a huge riot, there was probably a punch-up, there was a great civil disturbance, and Paul had to be sneaked out in the middle of the night, three weeks later. It hardly sounds like the stuff of legend. In many senses, it looked like a very embarrassing defeat. And this was a story that was going around the church in Thessalonica. They were saying, Do we really trust Paul? He wasn't very impressive. And look, if he really was a man from God, why hasn't he got a huge band of followers? Why isn't he still here? Why hasn't he built a big church building? But in verse 2 we learn that Paul doesn't view this as a failure. Why? Because he says, with the help of our God, we dared to tell you his gospel in spite of strong opposition. So we're talking about success here. The worldly view of success is you're there, you've got lots of followers, you've got lots of money, you live in a very successful and secure environment. For Paul, the definition of success in ministry is whether or not the gospel is spoken. He's not looking primarily to get lots of people following him, he's looking to explain the gospel. There's a famous old English poem called the Vicar of Bray. I don't know if anyone's heard of it. It was written, well, it's about a period in English history, and it's about this chap who was the Vicar of Bray. And whenever there's a different king or queen on the throne, he changes his beliefs in order to keep his position. So first of all, there's a Catholic king, and he says, I'm a good Catholic. I believe in the Pope. I believe in the mass. I make my church very gaudy and decoratively. And he says, at the end of it, you know, and I'll still be the Vicar of Bray, sir. Then next comes along a very Protestant king, and all the crosses are got rid of, all the finery's done away with, and I'm a good Protestant, and I believe in the Bible, and I'm going to speak the word of truth, and I'll still be the vicar of Gleisa. And then there's a great Tory king, and he becomes a Tory, and very grandiose, and talking about the divine right of kings, and how you can't challenge the aristocracy, and I'll still be the vicar of Gleisa. And then there's a great liberal king, and that's all stripped away, and he's a parliamentarian, and he's anti-the pope, and anti-authority. And I'll still be the vicar of grace, sir. And he justified it in this poem. It's a very satirical poem, laughing at how some religious people can justify just about anything in order to get on in the world, in order to get recognition. Paul is very different. That vicar of grace was desperate to get preferment. He keeps saying, I'm looking for preferment in the church. I'm looking to rise and become well thought of. Paul is utterly different. What matters to him is the truth. What matters to him is preaching the gospel. I want just to challenge us before we move on and ask us whether you and me love popularity a bit too much. How important is it to you that everyone likes you, that you're well thought of? How important is it to you that life is easy, that life is secure and comfortable? How important is it to you that you're a success, that you get on in life, that you achieve things? You see, sometimes we can put these things so important in our lives, none of which are wrong in themselves, but they stop us from being an effective Christian witness. Because we're so busy trying to be popular with people, that suddenly we're not going to tell them the truth about the Gospel. There are some things in the Gospel that are hard to explain, that are hard for people to hear. telling people that they're sinful, that we believe that Jesus was risen from the dead. These are not easy things to do. They're not going to make you popular. They're not going to make you rich or successful or have an easy life. And if we're seeking those things, we won't be faithful ministers of Jesus. We won't be faithful missionaries. Have you read a missionary biography recently? Some of these stories are amazing. If you want, go and look at the back. I think there's some missionary biographies there. These people like Hudson Taylor gave up really good careers in Britain or whatever and went out to China or to Africa. Gave up everything because what they really cared about was telling people about the Gospel. We can lose that sometimes. We can let things crowd in and we want ease and success. rather than the truth. I think that's a real challenge to me as I come to this passage. It's worth just thinking as well at this moment, you can often trust a person who suffers for what he says. This is one reason why the Thessalonians can trust Paul. Paul had nothing to gain from what he was saying. He wasn't going to become rich and successful and popular by talking about the Gospel. And he's almost saying, you can see, this is a proof that what Paul is saying is true, because he said it anyway, even though he was going to suffer, even though he'd just been persecuted in Philippi, and he comes to Thessalonica and there's a riot, and he doesn't stop saying it, because he really believes it's true. So if you're doubting, do we really believe what's in the Bible? Do we really believe what Christian ministers are saying? Well, if it leads to them suffering, It's tough being a Christian. If you see people suffering because they're declaring the word of God, that may be just an indication that they're declaring it faithfully. Let's move on and look at verses 3 to 5. We've just seen that Paul had a different definition of success. In verses 3 to 5 we see he has a different set of motives. Verse three, for the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you. On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We're not trying to please men, but God, who tests our hearts. You know, we never use flattery, nor do we put on a mask to cover up greed. God is our witness. We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else. One of the great hallmarks of someone who is a false teacher about Christianity is that they're gaining, personally, stuff for themselves. You need to be very careful about pastors who wear tailored suits and drive Mercedes and live in eight bedroom mansions. You need to be very, very cautious about pastors who always tell you the number of letters they've got after their name, the number of qualifications, the number of books they've written, the number of conferences they've been invited to speak at. We need to be very careful about pastors who name their ministry after themselves. The David Vandal ministry. Sky Channel 7-4, look up the David Landell ministry. You see, we've got to be very, very cautious about people who game for themselves, who claim to do God's work. It's not what Paul was doing. He's not trying to gain praise from men. He's not trying to be well thought of. What is the reward that Paul's looking for? What's the reward for being a true minister to the Gospel? Verse 6. We were not looking for praise from men, not for you or from anyone else. Sorry, end of verse 4. We are not trying to please men, but God who tests our hearts. This is another reason why the Thessalonians can trust Paul, because he wasn't trying to fleece them. He wasn't telling them to get their checkbooks out. He wasn't trying to tell them that they had to join his gang. He wasn't saying, you've got to all vote for me to become a local politician. You've got to all buy my book. There was none of that. Paul was directing people to God. Almost, he was directing people away from himself and towards God. It's another mark of true gospel ministry. Be very cautious about people who want to attract you to themselves rather than to be God, and likewise in our own ministry. Be very careful that you don't just want to win arguments with people. It can be so tempting, can't it, if you've got someone who just seems to be stupid, they seem to just have a load of bizarre beliefs. And you just want to beat them in an argument. So you bring out all your clever-sounding arguments and you drive them into the ground. And you haven't actually brought them to Jesus. You've just shown that you're cleverer than they are. We've got to be so careful, haven't we? We don't want to bring people to us. We don't want to gain from men. We want to gain approval in the sight of God. And as we go out into our non-Christian environments, this is what we should be thinking. What should be driving us is the desire to be approved by God, approved by Him as a faithful and effective worker for the gospel. Let's look at verses 6 to 9 as a different model of service. As apostles of Christ, we could have been a burden to you, but we were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the Gospel of God, but our lives as well, because you have become so dear to us. Surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship. We worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the Gospel of God to you. In the ancient world, if you turned up as a sort of celebrity speaker in a local town and you started speaking and people liked what they heard, they would come and become your disciples. And your disciples were responsible for looking after you. They would come, they would get you your food, they would buy you your clothes, they would wash your feet, they would look after you, they would make sure that you were well fed. Paul, what he said here, is revolutionary. Paul was not looking for the Thessalonian Christians to serve him. Quite the opposite. He was looking to serve them. We were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. We shared with you not only the Gospel of God, but our lives as well. You remember our toil and hardship. We worked night and day. This is not someone who's living a life of ease, being supported by all his followers. You know, sometimes you get churches where there's such a focus on giving because we've got to support the pastor. And the pastor actually does very little. He's just supported by all the money gained from his activities in the church and from poor people in the congregation giving money. Paul was someone who worked so hard. His whole view of himself was that he was a servant of these people. He was trying to look after them. He even uses this extraordinary phrase, like a mother, We were gentle among you, like a mother caring for her little children. It's not the children who look after the mum, is it? I've got some brilliant mums here today. When you've got little children, they're not looking after you. Maybe once very nicely they'll come and bring you your slippers or something like that and that's a real luxury because it doesn't happen very often. More often than not, the mother's up at 6 o'clock in the morning and she's washing the clothes and getting the breakfast and making the school uniforms ready and taking them to school and coming back and tidying and all this, working really, really hard to serve her children. And Paul says that's the way he was. about the Thessalonian Christians. Throughout the Bible there is a link between leadership and service. And this is completely different from what we see in the world. If you get on very well in business and you rise up in your company and you become CEO of some great FTSE 100 company, you're going to have loads and loads of people serving you. You're going to have a PA, you're going to have someone, you're going to have a driver, you're going to have someone to book all your appointments, you're going to have someone to answer your emails, you're going to have someone to get your shoes ready, to pick up your dry cleaning. Everyone's looking after you. Paul says he's one of the leaders of the New Testament church, and he views himself as a servant serving these Christians. King David, the great shepherd king, is king of the people, but actually he's there as a shepherd to look after them. That's the picture of kings in the Bible, that they're shepherds. They're there to make sacrifices, to look after the people. And we see this, don't we, in Jesus coming down and washing his disciples' feet. Jesus who gives up his life for us. It's not just a message for pastors this, so it's one way we should look at pastors to evaluate, is this man really faithfully being a minister of God? Are they trying to serve the congregation? Or are they trying to get the congregation to serve them? That's a test which you should apply to any Christian minister. But it's not just a message for pastors. It affects all of us because all of us are there to care for each other, we're all there to shepherd and look after each other. I really hope it's the case if you come into this church that people feel looked after, that they feel cared for, that they feel that people are going out of their way to look after them. to supply their needs. We really need to be careful of this, that we don't develop into a hierarchical church where certain people are higher up and they get looked after by the lowly people. Quite the opposite. The weakest person in church should be the most supported, the most served, the most looked after. And a person who is the most mature and spiritual Christian should be the servant of all. Jesus said, didn't he, if you want to be great in God's kingdom, become a servant of all. And finally, we're going to look at verses 10 and 12. There's a different idea here of morality that Paul has. You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous, and blameless we were among you who believed. For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting, and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory. In some places you go to, in some things that claim to be Christian churches, often they're closer to cults, you have a very, very strict set of rules. You must do this, you must give this amount of money to the church, you must wear these type of clothes, you can drive these kind of cars, you can do these kind of jobs, you can marry this person, you can do this, you can do that, you can do the other. And there's a very powerful and very distant leader. who might live a life actually of decadence. He's living the high life, he's spending all the money he gets from the people in the church, he is promiscuous, he is greedy, he's gluttonous, he's self-indulgent. And again we see this as we look out into the world. This is the pattern so often. This is what makes people so cynical about Christianity often. the idea that the leaders are such weak moral examples. Look at Paul, imagine being able to say this, you are my witnesses and so is God of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. What a thing to be able to say, you are my witnesses of how holy I am, of how blameless I am. You see, Paul was living a life that was in keeping with his message. He wasn't just declaring things with his mouth that had no impact on his life. Paul is there setting an example of what it's to be a Christian. And this is something we should look for in pastors. They should be an example. They should be showing us how to live the Christian life. Paul uses another parental analogy here. He's previously said he's like a mother caring for her children. Here he says he's like a father. disciplining, encouraging his children to be better. He's setting an example. He's not like, you know, sometimes our dads are bad, they lose their temper, they get cross, they do all kinds of awful things. But a good father sets a lead. He's there in the family, setting an example. This is how we're going to behave. This is the standard. And when people fall below that, he's encouraging them, he's disciplining them, he's helping his children to achieve that standard of behaviour. And that's what Paul was like. He was an example. He wasn't leading from the back saying, go on guy, you go and behave in this way and I'm going to sit back and enjoy myself. Quite the opposite, he was saying, come on, leading from the front, follow my example. He says this in many of his letters, follow my example. I'm following Christ, you follow me. He's setting an example of what he expects the Christians to be like. He's encouraging them, comforting them and urging them to live lives worthy of God. Isn't that three really amazing words telling us about how Paul related with his churches. He encouraged them. Sometimes we get depressed or low or we wobble, we err. Paul comes alongside these Christians and encourages them to keep going. He comforts them when times are hard. Just like a good dad, don't worry, things are okay, keep going. He urges them to live lives worthy of God. Once again we see Paul leading people to God. That's what it finishes with. Encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God. who calls you into his kingdom and glory. This is the destination that Paul's ministry is heading for. He wants to lead people to God. He doesn't want to lead them to him. He's not welcoming them into Paul's church. He's welcoming them into God's church. not trying to bring them to know about Paul's teaching, he wants to bring them to know about God's teaching, not lives worthy of Paul, so that all Paul's disciples look very good and very impressive. He wants God's disciples to look good and impressive, so that they glorify God, not to glorify him. So, we live in a very cynical world, maybe you're a cynical person, maybe you don't know whether to trust this church, Certainly, you'll be surrounded by cynical people who will be very, very doubtful about what you're telling them about the gospel. They just won't believe. How do we challenge that? How do we go about it? Well, first of all, what's your definition of success in ministry? Do you think this church is a success? Paul's definition of success was that the gospel was presented. It wasn't about numbers. It wasn't about money. It wasn't about power. Secondly, the set of motives. What's motivating you to go and tell your friends the gospel? Do you want to chalk them up to another notch on the side of your Bible, another conversion? Or are you really seeking to honour God? Are you seeking approval in God's eyes? Is that what this church is doing? Is it seeking approval in God's eyes or in the eyes of men? Service, a different model of service. Are we seeking to serve our non-Christian friends? Are we seeking to serve other people in the church? Or are we looking to get other people working for us? And morality. Are we setting an example in how we live of what it is to be a Christian? Or are we quietly making compromises while being harsh and pushing other people to work harder? I hope, looking at those things, that you can have confidence in this church. I think this is a true gospel church. It's got its imperfections. If you can see imperfections, raise them. Tell Dan, myself, or the deacons, or Henry, or Ed, as elders, raise these things. I think this is a gospel church, and I hope you can have confidence to bring people here, because they will hear the gospel. We need to seek to develop in our own lives a style of Christian ministry that is the same as Paul's style of ministry, that doesn't direct people to ourselves, but directs people to God. And in all of this, what we really need to do is to try to be like Christ. because Christ was the one who deserved to be praised and worshipped above everyone else. And yet he came down, he took the very nature of a servant who was found in his appearance as a man and he went to the cross and was subject to death, even death on a cross. And in doing so, he enabled all of us to be saved. We all owe our Christian lives to this most amazing act of service that was done by the great servant king, Jesus. And really, if you want to be great in the Kingdom of God, you've got to be a servant of all, as Jesus said. We need to copy our Messiah, we need to copy our Lord and learn to be servant-hearted people who can glorify God. We're going to finish by singing a song that talks about Jesus' servant-heartedness, and that's number 396 in the Blue Book.