in your precious name, amen. Good morning. It's so good to see every one of you, even if I don't know you. I think, you know, Friday, Brothers at breakfast encourage me, challenge me. Today somebody says, it's so good to be with you, haven't seen you for a month. Christian praise for the first time I think up here. Is that right? That's good. And then I hear Terry say from the word, I am your God, you are my people. If you're a Christian, do you believe that? You are a witness to me. Some of you know that I often serve in court as an expert witness. This was not a planned part of the teaching, but that's good, right? I serve as an expert witness in court. I've done that over, I think, 70 times across the United States and in Canada. To what am I witnessing? Like, the best way to educate children? How much better what we all get to do every day? we get to be a witness to a living God, not a tin chunk of metal that's made to look like something, a beautiful seed or a pretty flower or a weird looking man. You can't speak, can't talk, can't walk, but if you're saved, you are a witness to the truth. You're a witness to the only way that you can be with the Father in heaven forever. You're a witness to the blood of Christ. You're a witness to the Trinity. You're a witness to all the truths of the Word of God. And if you're feeling guilty, like, oh, I don't do that, well, then get with it. It's like, what are you doing? What are you a witness to today? What are you a witness to tomorrow when you go to work or when you're at the store, when you're at the gas station, when you're at home with your wife or your husband or your friends, to what are you a witness? What am I a witness? And that actually relates to the sermon. And I was thinking, what did we do before we had the Bible book house. Does anybody remember the Bible book house in Salem? On Lion Avenue? I just drove by there yesterday. It's by Terry's shop where we had the men's breakfast. It's shuttered, isn't it, Terry? It's gone. What did we do before we had great Christian books, paper catalog, and now online? What did we do before, I don't know, all those different things? Monergism.com and Ligonier Ministries. What did we do before that? We had the Word of God. And 2,000 years ago, well, 2,000 and how many, they didn't even have half of what we have, right? They didn't have it. So would you stand as I read the passage for today, and then I'll go back to the book house and all that in a minute. 1 Peter 3, 1 Peter 3. 1 Peter 3, 8 through 12. To sum up, let all be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit, not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead. for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing. For let him who means to love life and see good days refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking guile, and let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it, for the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears attend to their prayer. but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. Father, please help us to really hear you through your word by the Holy Spirit. Help me to speak what is true and right and encouraging and building up of the brethren. And I ask you to help all the hearers to listen carefully and take what is good and true, what's said during the next hour or so, only that which is good and true, and apply it in our lives to your glory so that we can be your wonderful witnesses and witness. Amen. Please be seated. And I'm going to get to that passage at the end, but it's going to be the focus in the end, but not at the beginning. So back to the book house and monergism.com, by the way, I hope that's a good website so nobody goes back and says, Brian Implied, it's a good one, a bad one, whatever. Whatever, and you judge me. It's awesome. Okay, at least one of you says it's awesome. Did I do a good job, Jesse? By mentioning that one? Okay, okay. All right, so. But before we get much further, I'd like to read Ecclesiastes 12, 12. My son, beware of anything beyond these, of making many books, and I'm going to insert, hopefully not violate the word of God, and podcasts, and videos, and articles, and chapters in books, and YouTube videos, beware of anything beyond these, of making many books, there is no end. and much study is a wariness of the flesh. And our good buddy, Matthew Henry says, the sacred inspired writings, if we will but make use of them, are sufficient to guide us in the way of true happiness, and we need not, in the pursuit of that, to fatigue ourselves with the search of other writings. And further, nothing now remains but to tell thee that of making many books there is no end. Of writing many books, if what I have written serve not to convince thee of the vanity of the world and the necessity of being religious, neither wouldst thou be convinced if I should write ever so much. If the end be not attained in the use of those books of Scripture, which God has blessed us with, neither should we obtain the end. If we had twice as many more, nay, If we had so many that the whole world could not contain them, John 21, 25, and much study of them would but confound us and would rather be a weariness to the flesh than any advantage to the soul, we have as much as God saw fit to give us, saw fit for us, and saw us fit for. Much less can it be expected that those who will not by these be admonished should be wrought upon by other writings. Let men write ever so many books for the conduct of human life, write till they have tired themselves with much study. They cannot give better instructions than those we have from the word of God. So, I'm going to violate that a little bit by the beginning of this sermon, and we have all kinds of articles and books about what is a true church. The title here is Are We There Yet? How to Know Your Church is with the Lord in Spirit. And we could do a lot of things. And some of you know some popular books, even some books maybe we've recommended from this church. And there's some good articles on what are the traits of a biblical church, a true church, a healthy church. And I'm going to go through those briefly because I think they're important. But keep in mind that whenever we summarize something like that, it is taking the whole wonderful, amazing, rich counsel of all the scriptures and trying to put it in this old nutshell. And then sometimes it could almost look like a checklist, right? And that's why I'm gonna come back at the end to 1 Peter 3. I believe that basically we are a good, sound, biblical church. But I'm going to make some linear academic points, and you'll look at that and say, okay, let's see if that's where we are. How can we identify the marks of a true church? Well, we can only do it by looking at scripture. And in Ligonier's article, it says, by God's appointment, the church is a vital and necessary institution. I think that relates clearly to what Terry read at the beginning and what, and he encouraged us with. Each Christian needs the fellowship and the ministry of the church. whatever it might look like, and we all have different ideas about exactly what it should look like. And that's part of also what I'm going to get at later in this teaching. The Reformers, I didn't know this, I think it's true from what I read, focused on three marks of the true church. And then some of you know we have lists of five, and we have nine, and we have 12. They focused on three, and I think it was partly because of the historic context of the time. Three things that they focused on were preaching the word of God, teaching the word of God, the sacraments, or what do we call them, ordinances, and discipline. and don't think only of, you know, the rod, but discipline. So just very briefly, the preaching, the Reformers stressed that God's great means of speaking to his people was by preaching. Luther talked of the several forms of the word that the word takes. The first is the eternal word. Who's that? Christ. The second person of the Trinity. The second is the incarnate word. Jesus, the third is inscripturated word, the Bible, the fourth is the shouted word, and that could be together at a meeting, it could be at a gathering like this. And that's one of the marks that shows that you are of Christ and of the written word, is speaking the word to one another, and especially in a group setting. Secondly, were the ordinances, they were practiced and they were held dear, and we do that. The ordinances, I'm not gonna go into all of that, but some in the churches call them sacraments, and we won't get into theology of that, but we talk mainly about baptism and the Lord's Supper. The Lord has blessed us just in the last, what, month, with four baptisms? Pretty exciting. Pretty exciting. And then the third thing that the Reformers focused on was discipline. And in the specific sense, we would talk about using discipline to keep the church pure. And a lot of us think of, oh, excommunication or whatever, disfellowship and all that. That's the final step in keeping the church pure. But there's more than that often that come to be for it. But also in the general sense, discipline is everything we do in terms of teaching, encouraging, discipling, challenging each other, exhorting each other. And we're growing and changing and helping each other in the S word, sanctification. That's all part of discipline. And I think it's so important, especially when we're talking about raising children. When we say the word, the D word, discipline, people automatically think of, do you believe in corporal punishment or not? But there's so much more in discipling and discipline of children. There's so, so very much more. So just a quick summary of these three. Each is an expression of the one great mark, the Word, with a capital W. Each mark expresses an aspect of the Word's life and power in the church. The true church submits to the Word of God. So that's the key right there. The true church submits to the Word of God. And oftentimes in our discussions or even our arguments, like, well, you're not submitting to the Word of God the way I see it. I think there's a great little video that Clayton sent to some of us about being right. To me, that was so good. I know some of you might disagree. I'm right, you know, and the guy put up a picture of a gun, and a pro-life symbol, and socialism versus free market, and I'm right, I've got it right, and you've got to agree with me, and that's it. All right, is that really what being a Christian is about? Or is it something else? And we're gonna get to that something else. I keep telling you we're gonna get there, but we are. They are true churches which hold to what they receive from the apostles. Okay, so the fourth mark of a true church is biblical theology. What's biblical theology? It's what you find in the scriptures. It's kind of simple. It's a circular argument. And I would say that We believe in biblical theology. Of course, almost every church does, but I believe we believe in biblical theology. If anybody is new or you haven't looked yet, look at our statement of faith and say, well, does that comport what I think is biblical? We have it up there because we think it's biblical, and we do teach it consistently, and I believe faithfully. The gospel, next point, is consistently presented and discussed. I do think we do that, the basic gospel. How many of you could sit down right now with somebody you meet on the streets and lay out the basic gospel? Could you do it? I didn't ask you to bring a paper and pencil. Right now, could you sit down and could you just list the basic components of the gospel? Could you go through with somebody? The story, can you go through the Genesis story of how God created man and woman, and all the animals, and the plants, and the stars, Dan, and Jupiter? And he said, this is what? Good. Could you explain to somebody how Adam sinned? And then could you go on and be honest and say, and by the way, Bob, you have sinned too, have you not? Could you go through that with somebody? Could you explain that sin has separated you from God, not only separated you in the sense of where you would be eternally, but now you have God's, would you be willing to say God's wrath is upon you? Would you be able to say that and would you be willing to say that? Are you confident that you could say that? And then could you explain who Jesus is, always was, and always will be, and what he did, and how he came to earth in the form of a man, and taught, and suffered, and died, and rose on the third day? Could you explain to somebody that you need to repent of your sin and believe? Without getting too complicated, if you got into the conversation, could you say, you need to repent and believe, and you need to be humble enough to say that it was God who gave you the ability to repent and believe? Now, you don't have to get too complicated, but are you willing to do that? Can you do that? Can you lay out the basic gospel for somebody? I think people in our church can do that. I think you could do that. And I think you know how to do that. And I kind of hinted at that in conversion. Could you explain that to this person that you were dead in your sins? You were like rotten flesh. You had no ability to believe and overcome your sin. Could you explain that a little bit? You don't have to do it like R.C. Sproul would do it. You don't have to have that much depth. But could you let the person know that you are thankful that God was so loving that he changed your heart and your mind so that you could believe. Could you explain that? I think you could. That's conversion. That's a sign of a church that understands conversion. In evangelism, here and there over the last years, I've heard somebody say, well, what are we doing about evangelism? Of course, you know me by now, I'd say, what are you doing about evangelism? That's just how I'm wired, because that's kind of how my dad treated us. It was like, well, don't look at me. What are you doing? And I still believe that. But I also believe as a church, we need to have a focus on telling people about Christ. And I'm very thankful that I see that the Lord has brought people in the past and the recent past into our church who do have a heart and I would say a special gift to tell people about Christ. And some of you might be sitting there and thinking, is he thinking of me or should he be thinking of me? I don't know, but if you want God to give you more of that, ask the Holy Spirit for more of that. But I think that some of us do do that. In biblical church, we recognize that there is something called membership. Now, I know that right now in our church, we kind of have some discussions about what does that mean, and how do we apply that, and how do we live it out? But by membership, I mean we are members of the body of Christ. We all agree on that. And I'm pretty sure we all agree that somehow that's connected to a group of people you can touch and hug and cry with and argue with and agree with and everything. We've had all of that, haven't we? That is a sign of a true church. even if it's all hunky-dory for seven months in a row, or even if there's some turbulence for a couple months. That's a church. You have people who are connected to one another and love each other and actually want to be with one another. Another sign of a true church is one that has biblical leaders We see in the scripture the term elder, bishop, pastor, and as far as we understand that, those are all the same thing, the same office, and God gives those as a gift to the church. That's God's design. He does that. You also see in a church, a true church, corporate prayer, which means you pray together, Several of you were here this morning. That was, you know, I don't want to get too overly spiritual. It was very special this morning. Sometimes you get together and you feel like it's almost forced a little bit. And then sometimes it's a little awkward. But it was just flowing out of people this morning. Just flowing. The heart, I could just sense and feel by the spirit a heart of prayer, enjoying praying with one another for other people and for each other in the church. We do that Sunday mornings, and we do that Wednesday evenings. And some of you pray together. You pray together as a small group or a larger group. So that's a list. That's kind of linear. It's kind of academic. It's a big picture. It's metacognition. It's an overview. And you say, oh, yeah, look at that. How did we do? How many were there? I can't remember. 10, right? Check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check. Oh, school. We're in church. It's all good. But you know that's not true. These are important elements. These are necessary elements. But they're not everything. And then you see, we go back to that list of 10. Within any one of them, we could have some disagreements. We could have a little bit of rough edges, a little bit of rubbing shoulders. Or we could just be all great on all of them together. But I think there's more. Is there anybody, is there a bottle? Do we keep bottles of water here? Oh, he gave me one. Oh, look at that. Thank you. 1 Peter 3. 8 to 12, and I'm going to focus on verse 8. So I'm gonna read the whole, I'm gonna read verse 8 again. Finally, all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Okay, now think of that list of 10 things. And what if we had everything all set with those 10 things, but we did not have this? I would not want to be in that church. I would not want to be in that church. Do I have to see perfection in all of this? No. But I want to see some of this. How do we live out the things that we looked at, those 10 items? How do we live them out with each other? How do we live them out in our homes? How do we live them out at a women's meeting or a men's meeting? How do we live them out in church, quote, business meetings, end quote? What do we see in each other? What do other Christians see when they look at you individually or when they look at Gracious Cross Reformed Church? James 1, 22 to 25 says, but be doers of the word. James 1, 22 to 25. But be doers of the word and not hearers only. Because what's happening if you don't? Deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself goes away and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. So considering being a doer of the Word, not just a hearer, I want to slow down for verse eight of 1 Peter 3. After Peter, given a lengthy discourse on submission to authority, which we all have to do in certain places, in certain ways, at certain times, he comes to a practical application. I just want to stop and ask the Father right now, please, Holy Spirit, Give us a spirit of delight to be under your word, under your holy word, and not to stand against it. Help all of us have a spirit of delight to be under your word and not stand against it, amen. So let's look at the first thing, unity of mind. And I realize that any of you who have been Christians for at least a few years, I pray that you know by now, that does not mean perfect agreement in everything. I think that some of you, when you've been in certain churches, you've had the sense, whether it was taught explicitly or implicitly, you thought you had to agree with everything that the main teaching elder taught. I know some of you have thought that in the past. And that's so dangerous. It's so dangerous. You don't have to be in perfect agreement with everything that the elders teach. Now, you could say, well, but what if everything they teach is perfectly biblical? I'm sorry, there's no such thing. I mean, there just isn't. How many churches, Betsy, have we been a part of in 42 years, or 44 years? At least six? Yeah. And let's face it. I would look back in history, and I know, I know in September, around September of 1977, the Lord saved me. He changed my heart. He changed my mind. He made the dead man come alive and repent and believe. I know that. But since then, I've been in some churches that were, you know, I'm not gonna name them, but, It's a pretty bad theology. But while I was there, there was pretty good unity on the basics of the gospel for me with the others in the church. I mean, look back at your history. We could just sit here right now and say, oh, it has to be all right. It has to be all good. It has to be all perfect. That's just not how life is. We strive for a good teaching, we strive for unity. But this is the kind of unity, you know, when you think, you know the saying, birds of a feather, what? Flock together. And researchers and sociologists look at churches and study you, you know that? Pagan sociologists study you. And they say, oh look, they clump together like all white Anglo, or they all clump together like upper middle class, or they all lump together by language. And that's, there's some truth to that. There is some truth to that. But biblically, what's it supposed to be? We all flock together because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. and knowing that he saved us and loves us and wants us to spread the gospel, live with one another, and part of that living with one another is in unity on the essentials of the Christian faith, on the essentials of the Christian faith. That is what we're talking about here. That's absolutely necessary for a healthy church, for the people to be of one mind, not mindless, but of one mind. Mindless would be just, if you have, okay, to put it in the extreme, if you have only one person who teaches every single Sunday, you all gotta agree with 99% of what he says. That's close to mindless. I'm just telling you, that's close to mindless. Can any of you think of one single preacher on the internet or church you've been in where you should have agreed with 99% of what he said? I can't think of any. I'm sorry, I just can't, because I'm right, remember? So I'm right, because, so then if I get up there, and then you all have to agree with 99.5% of what I say, I'm just as bad. That is cult-like. But the apostle is making here a plea to have agreement on the substantive matters. Does anybody have, pop in your mind, Ephesians 4, 5 to 6? One Lord, what else, one faith, One baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. That's pretty simple. It's pretty simple. Then on top of it, we have a lot of, we know that there are many other things besides that that are taught in the word of God. But we also know And I want all of us to get this really strongly, we all have preferences. Some of our preferences might be perfectly, absolutely, biblically correct, and right now you have to sit there and say, some of my preferences are wrong. I don't know it right now, I don't see it right now, but some of my preferences are wrong. I think they're right, but I gotta admit, some of my things that I believe are probably wrong. We have to be able to do that. Apostle here when he says be of one mind is not talking about insignificant matters, but he's talking about significant matters and on other things there is room for disagreement. I'm confident that right here this morning there are no two people in here who agree on everything. There's just no way. There's no way. But you're here loving each other, listening to some preaching, singing some songs together, hugging each other. Some of you maybe are inviting each other for a meal afterwards. That's what we're talking about. I was thinking about worldview stuff. In the education field, I talk with people when I'm in those court cases. They always talk about, do you care about the best interest of children? And everybody says, oh yes I do, the best interest of children. It's like, well, could you define that? Oh man, all of a sudden, you've got a Christian worldview, another Christian worldview, an LGBTQIA worldview, a statist worldview, a socialist worldview, a critical race theory worldview. Now all of a sudden, there's no agreement. But you all said you agreed on the best interest of children. There's more than just one term for us, but we do have agreement on the most important things. And I really, really appreciate sometimes in the past few months talking about some things where maybe I'm kind of bothered by somebody else over there. And Terry says, I don't know exactly how he says it, what are you focusing on Brian? Or what are you focusing on those other people? Are you focusing on Christ? and the gospel and how he's adopted you into his family? Are you focusing on something else? You do that, don't you, Terry? He does that. It's really good. It's really good. I really appreciate it. What is our focus? How am I seeking after a holy God? And this is so very, very important. This is a quote from R.C. Sproul, I'm stealing from some of his teaching on this, by the way, I wanna give him credit. Where is he now? We think he's in heaven, don't we? This is so very important, to share a common faith in the truth of God, the communion of the saints. Isn't that a wonderful term, the communion of the saints? And that like-mindedness, that on which we should be like-minded, is so precious. and we need to guard it so carefully. I just want to repeat that. The things over which we should absolutely be like-minded, he says, are so precious, we need to guard them very carefully. Wow. And we get like-mindedness by submission to the Word of God and submission to the Holy Spirit. It's not gonna come through our flesh, because each one of us, as we, well, as we get older in the Lord, we're supposed to become more humble, aren't we? But some of us, or all of us, as we get more mature in the Lord, we think we know more right what everything is, right? It's just, what a paradox. We're supposed to become humbler, more humble, but we also oftentimes think we're more right. That's really hard. That's very hard to deal with. As Matthew Henry put it, Christians should endeavor to be all of one mind in the great points of faith, according to Christ Jesus, Romans 15, five. Not according to man's pleasures, but God's word. Okay, the second thing in this passage in 1 Peter 3, is having compassion for one another. And it's from the word having a fellow feeling or sympathetic. That's another translation of sympathetic. Mutually commiserative. It doesn't sound good, does it? It's supposed to be mutually commiserative. Like, what does that mean? I was thinking, I didn't ask Dan permission to say what it was, but anyway, Wednesday night he told me something about how he was, how he's doing. And I thought, oh, and I asked him, I think I expressed some commiseration, is that the word? But then I went away and I thought, the next day or two I thought, do I really care? Do I really care? I mean, it's just a test all of us have to think about. If a brother or sister in here tells you something, or if a 15-year-old tells you something, do you really care? If you do, you are like this. God has made you like this, and you can get better at it. If you don't, I just wanna challenge you right now. If you hear something from a brother or sister, even if it's somebody you know or a visitor here, and you don't have a little bit of emotion, a little bit of feeling for that person, it's time to ask God to help you have that, because that is part of love. And then following, maybe following up. I mean, that sounds so businesslike. I don't like that. Maybe later. contact your brother or sister and say, how are you? Or you're praying for that person and maybe say, I actually have been praying for you. Not just praying for you. Something real. I think it's so ideal. I'm sure it wasn't like this, but back in the day when there was a little town, you could just walk five blocks to all your brothers and sisters' houses. It sounds perfect. It probably wasn't perfect, but it just sounds better, doesn't it? Many times during our marriage, Betsy and I have talked about, we should go get 15 acres and everybody can build houses on the property. We can have a commune. There are some really good things about that, and some people do it, and it sometimes works out really well. But we've heard other stories where it turns out really horrible. But I think it usually turns out real horrible because we're sinners, not because it couldn't work out well. And I think it also often turns out real horrible because we're Americans, and we like a lot of independence, and we like our own space, and we just don't do it that way. But it could be that way. So even though we don't have that, you have a phone, and you have, Most of you have texting, but a phone is pretty good. I think often better than a text. Physical embrace. We have compassion for one another, and some translations say sympathy. That is a sign that you're applying what it means to be a true church. The third thing in that verse is brotherly love. and the Greek is fond of brethren. I like that. Or fraternal. Love as brethren. And most of us, I don't even know if I can say most of us, I think most of us growing up in the 60s and 50s, there was a lot of family bond and loyalty and all that. I don't know what happened after that, but things got kind of crazy. Growing up, I knew of one divorce, family, that was it. So I think fewer people today understand that. But even then, Some of us know from personal experience, even though you had or have had a strong biological feeling of connection and loyalty and all that, some of you have also experienced that it doesn't always stay that way. And some of you never had it. Some of you have told me your stories of growing up and I think, wow, that is horrible. But what we see in the scripture is that in the church amongst brothers and sisters, you can have that. Even if you did not have it or cannot have it in your family, your biological family, you can have it in the church. And that's what he's talking about here is that you, one of those saying is you stick with the stuck. So you might think that your brother or sister's stuck in a problem or stuck in a way, or you might think everybody else in the church is stuck, but you stick with the stuck. The fourth thing we see in this verse is to be tenderhearted. That is you're well-compassioned or sympathetic or pitiful or tenderhearted. And this is the one in this passage that probably for me was the most difficult because I've been slowly, slowly, slowly learning with Betsy what I do and don't have in this area, my wife. And this means that you know, you've all met people who are tender. You can think of them right now. And it seems like no matter what you do or what you say, they listen to you. And you can just see in their face and the way they treat you and their touch that they're really sensing it down deep and they care about you. Others, I'm not asking you to think about them. Again, they're just kind of mean, harsh. You tell them your deepest hurts, and they just move on. It's like, what's with that guy? What's with that woman? I mean, there are men and women both like that, by the way. It's not just men. I know there are people in my family growing up, it was Dan had it a lot in the army. When you say jump, you say how high, and you think there's no feeling inside there anywhere. You know there's some, but you don't get to experience it very much. But right here, the apostle, under God's authority, tells you, be tenderhearted. This is a visceral thing down deep in the chambers of your heart. It's not a mean heart. It's not a thoughtless heart. When you see gentleness, you know it. How Jesus, when he was with the Pharisees and Sadducees, who were hard-hearted, he was pretty tough with them. And he did not ask for any quarter and he didn't give any quarter. But what was he like when he was with the meek and lowly and tenderhearted and the broken reeds? Very, very tenderhearted. He didn't just move on. He talked with them and he cared about them. He spent time with them. Our Lord wants us to be tenderhearted with one another. And I know many of you are like that. Again, if you're not like it, ask the Lord to help you be like that. You could say, well, I'm in my 40s. This is just how I am. Forget it. You can change. I'm in my 60s. This is how I am. Forget it. You can change. I'm in my 20s. This is how I am. No, you can change. And then fifth, be of humble mind. or courteous. This is kind of fun listening to R.C. Sproul on this. The word, I didn't know this. I don't know if any of you know this. Courtesy comes from court etiquette, like back in the Elizabethan times. So there was a way to behave, right? And you were to be respectful, honor the other person, kind, lowly, submissive, Courtesy. How many of you have spent any time or grew up in the South where they say, yes sir, yes ma'am? Yeah. I mean, for some people, it's real there. For some of them, it's just form. But even if it's just kind of form, It just sort of emphasizes it. It starts to make you feel like somebody's respecting somebody. It's amazing. There's a man who is now helping me with the research institute. And I won't say his name because we're being recorded. But he's, I don't know how old he is. He's 50 or something. And he always, he's a doctorate guy, but he always calls me Dr. Ray, and yes, sir, like, stop that, you know, it's just, but it is very respectful. Even in his emails, it's Dr. Ray. And I just say his first name and then end with my name, but he just keeps doing it. He won't stop. I don't know, I don't know what all it is, but it's respectful. So we are supposed to be of humble mind and courteous toward one another. And this is very different because outside of the church, especially nowadays, I was, Terry was telling a story at breakfast, I think it was. I don't know if it was at breakfast or men's breakfast. about this person in your family, the language, and the language, and the language, and saying this language, and I need a priest so I can confess my sins, but all the while he's using this horrible language. I thought, wow, it's just like there's no respect, you know, just no respect. Hope that wasn't too specific for the sermon, for a recorded sermon. Oh boy. So, you know, by Peter, we've just been called to live by these five virtues. And I think it's amazing. I'm not saying, I mean, we are not an ideal church. Does anybody know one? We're not an ideal church. We do not always share the same thoughts and feelings and perfect unity with one another. We are not always of one mind. We do not always love each other as a perfect family. We are not always tender with one another. We are not always courteous and respectful. And at the end of the passage, Peter kind of switches here, and I'm not gonna go into this, but I do wanna read it because it does kind of finish the flow of thought there. Whoever desires to love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it, for the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous. and his ears are open to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. So within a church that is practicing biblical ideas, biblical thoughts, biblical principles, teaching scriptural ideas, we also want to remember to have people who are on a daily, everyday practice. loving each other in word and deed. And I'm very encouraged to see how much of that is in our church, and the Lord can help us to have more and more. We are called to bless people, not curse people, not revile when we've been reviled. And I want to end up with something that happened on the way here. What do I do with my Bible? Please open to 2 Peter 1. Second Peter chapter 1. And I asked my wife in the car, well, how are you? And then somehow that was just connected to what she was reading last night. I thought, well, that's an interesting way to answer how are you. And I was thinking, oh, I wish I could always answer how are you by being so pious as having been in the word of God, but that's my woman. And then she read it, she read it in the car and thought, that's the end of the sermon today. Because I felt like the end of the sermon that I planned was kind of weak. You know how we have to perform when we preach, right? We're supposed to be able to perform, but we don't have to perform when we preach. So here is the wrap-up of the sermon. 2 Peter 1. Actually, I liked her translation. Betsy, could somebody hand me her Bible? I'm going to go beep if I go out here. Thank you. 2 Peter 1, 3 to 11. Pray, Lord, help us to really hear this. And if I've made a poor segue connection to what I've been teaching on this morning, Lord, please fix it. But regardless, Lord, I am confident that your word is wonderful, perfect, sharp, goes down to our marrow, cleansing and powerful. So help us to hear you and be moved by your Holy Spirit as I read your word, amen. 2 Peter 1, 3 to 11. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence. by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion and become partakers of the divine nature. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge. and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these things are yours and abound, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these things is blind and short-sighted and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be the more zealous to confirm your call and election. For if you do this, you will never fall. So there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. I almost did it. I almost won.