If you take your Bibles and open with me up to the book of Exodus, as we continue to work our way through this grand epic story of Exodus, we're in chapter 18 this week, and we will be looking tonight at verses 13 through 27. Beginning in verse 13, The next day Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning till evening. When Moses' father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, what is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone and all the people stand around you from morning till evening? Moses said to his father-in-law, because the people come to me to inquire of God. When they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another. and I make them know the statutes of God and His laws. Moses' father-in-law said to him, What you are doing is not good. You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you. You are not able to do it alone. Now obey my voice. I will give you advice, and God be with you. You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God. And you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do. Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens, and let them judge the people at all times. Every great matter they shall bring to you, but any small matter they shall decide themselves, so it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. If you do this, God will direct you. You will be able to endure, and all this people also will go to their place in peace. So Moses listened to the voice of his father-in-law and did all that he had said. Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over all the people, or over the people, chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. And they judged the people at all times. Any hard case they brought to Moses, but any small matter they decided themselves. Then Moses let his father-in-law depart and he went away to his own country. as we continue to read the story of Israel's exodus out of their bondage in Egypt and their travels through the wilderness. As we have seen so far, we are actually reading here the story of our own walk with the Lord. The exodus, the leaving of Egypt and the breaking of the bondage of Egypt foreshadows our own salvation and our justification and our being set free from the power of sin and death, as well as the pilgrimage in this life as we read through the wilderness journeys. And as we look forward to the arriving at the land that God has promised to give us, we too are wandering around in this wilderness that we call this present evil age, or the life in which we know and live here and now, that is certainly infected by sin and certainly has many trials and hurdles that we have to endure and jump through and go over as we continue to look to God to lead us through this wilderness on our way to the Promised Land. But it not only foreshadows the life of the Christian, but it also foreshadows the life of the Church, which is more clear for us in this particular passage than in most. Once the wilderness wandering began, once Israel was enrolled in Wilderness University as we've been referring to it. Moses started to wear a lot of hats in his responsibilities. He was the prophet of the Lord. He was also the leader of Israel as well as its judge. He was all three branches of our government combined into one as well as its religious leader. Any one of these roles would have been much more than a 40-hour-a-week job, not unlike the pastoral ministry is today. Pastoral ministry takes as much time as it is allowed to take, and the job is never done. There are services to plan, there are sermons to prepare, there are classes to teach, people to disciple, questions to answer, meetings to have, people to visit, conflicts to resolve, missionaries to oversee, to send, to support, to provide for, to pray for, and people in the church to pray for and visit as well. The job is simply never done. And the larger the church, the more work there is. I recognize that and I work in a very small church. The church that Moses was overseeing in Exodus was over two million people or somewhere around that. So the work of the ministry for Moses was exponentially greater than the burdens that an average pastor today shoulders. And we see Jethro coming and giving our brother advice in the midst of not being able to handle the burdens of the ministry as well as he may have thought he was able to do. When that many people, when some two million people are living together in a community, It is inevitable that conflicts are going to arise between people. When two people live together in the context of a marriage relationship, it is inevitable for conflicts to arise. Am I right? When two million people live together, conflicts will arise as well. And they're going to need a judge. They're going to need someone to make decisions about what is right and what is wrong, who is in obedience with God's law, who is wrong so-and-so, and what the reparations ought to be. And so Moses sat to function as a judge for this people who brought to him their disputes from amongst one another. And he sat and he judged the people from morning until evening. And the line of people that were waiting to have him hear their case probably got longer as the day went on rather than shorter. When Jethro saw all that Moses was doing, he basically asked Moses, what in the world are you doing? It's common vernacular, of course, but he basically said, what are you doing? You don't seem to understand what you're doing here, Moses. You and the people will certainly wear yourselves out, for this thing is too heavy for you. What you are doing is not good. You are not able to do this alone. Jethro had enough wisdom to know that if Moses continued trying to do everything that he was presently trying to do, that he would soon burn out. And it is not difficult to see that the wisdom that Jethro imparted to Moses in this text applies to almost every ministry situation even today. It applied in the Old Testament as well as today. The people of God never run out of needs. The Kingdom of God always has work that needs to be done that is yet unfinished. But a single man can certainly run out of both time and energy. It becomes a problem when a man tries to shoulder more burdens upon himself than the Lord has given to him to bear. And that is what Moses was attempting to do in Exodus 18. God never intends for us to do all the work of the kingdom by ourselves as individual Christians. That's why it's a Kingdom. And which is why also He has placed us within the Body of Christ. Which is a very apt name for the Church. We are the Body of Christ. Which I hope we will see and understand more clearly as this sermon continues to go on. We are in the Body of Christ where we all need to learn to depend upon the help of others within the body. And we also all need to learn to give help to others in the body as well. Sometimes, like Moses was doing, ministers today try to do God's work all on their own, rather than training and discipling other men to help shoulder the burden in the local church. Sometimes A man tries to do all the work in a particular church simply because there is no one else qualified to help him. And it's a necessity. And it's something that he yearns for. Whenever I go to a General Assembly, I always meet several pastors that are in a small work or sometimes not even such a small work. And I ask them, what are your greatest needs? How are things going in your church? How can I pray for you? And I inevitably run across pastors who say, We really need a plurality of elders, but I'm the only elder in a church and it's more than I can bear. And I need your prayer that God would raise up a man to come alongside and help me to shoulder this burden. But at other times, men try to do all of the work in a church because they don't trust other people who actually are qualified to help them. And in cases like this, ministers need to be reminded of the principle that we read in Romans chapter 12, where we read that I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body, we have many members. You're not the only one in the body of Christ. We have many members in the body of Christ. And the members do not all have the same function, So we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another and having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us. We have different gifts, but we need to learn to rely upon the different gifts. I praise God that we have different gifts. And I praise God that this church is not dependent only upon the gifts that God has given to me. Because if that were the case, we would be in trouble. Because there are many gifts that our church needs that I don't have, that God hasn't given to me, which is why God gave us deacons, which is why God gave us other co-elders who have different strengths than I have, which is why God gives different gifts to all of us sitting here. And we need to learn to rely upon the Holy Spirit as he works in and through each and every one in the Church, each according to the measure of faith and according to the particular gifting that God has given to us. Some have the gifts of leadership and others don't. Others have different gifts. In order to use the gifts which God has given to us wisely, we need to know our own limitations, which is something Moses needed to learn here. When any man thinks he can do all of the work of the ministry, sometimes it is unwise and also can be very dangerous and detrimental. It will be harmful to him and his own reputation and his own Spirit shall walk with the Lord in his own sanity at times, but it is also dangerous and harmful to others, as verse 18 points out, where Jethro tells Moses, you and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out. This is detrimental upon the body of Christ when a man tries to shoulder too much upon himself. So what is the solution to this problem? What should we do when the job of the ministry within the church is too big for one man to shoulder? Well, military strategists would call it divide and conquer, or economists would call it division of labor. In the context of the New Testament church, we refer to it as a plurality of elders and deacons who share the burdens of ministry together, each according to the gifts the Lord has given to him. Jethro's advice was for Moses to certainly continue in his calling, saying, you shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God. And you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do. These were Moses' primary responsibilities to the people of Israel at this time. Moses was The only man God had called at this time to represent the people before him. Moses didn't come and speak to all of the people of Israel in a burning bush. He came to Moses. He didn't speak to all of the people on Mount Sinai. He spoke to Moses. This was something Moses needed to focus upon. He couldn't find other able men to help him shoulder that burden. That was his alone that God had given to him. Jethro says, you need to focus on doing that to the best of your ability. and you need to represent God to the people and the people to God. That is what Moses needed to focus on, but of course that was not by any means all of the work that needed to be done for this people out in the wilderness. So Jethro goes on and he advises Moses to look for men who are able, from all the people who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate bribes, to set them over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. and to organize them, and to set up other men to help shoulder these burdens. Jethro's advice in verses 21-23 is really the heart of this passage, and also in it he lays out three basic principles for men that are placed in the roles of spiritual leadership, not only in the time of the wilderness, back during these days, but also times today and in the church. These three principles are that they need to be mature, they need to be representative, and the responsibility needs to be shared. First, they ought to be mature. Jethro told Moses to select men who are able. He didn't just randomly select whoever, but men who are able. If Israel was going to have wise leaders, they needed to be wisely chosen. Moses was to look for men with ability, but he says nothing here about their work experience, the work experience of these men, or their level of education, or their financial success, or any of the things that the world tends to look to as they judge a man to know if he is able for a role of leadership, but rather than financial or educational qualifications that the world tends to always immediately look to, not that those are necessarily bad, but that's not what God's word tells us to look for as we identify who are qualified and ought to be put in leadership of his people. The qualities Moses was to look for were moral and spiritual, not educational, not financial, but moral and spiritual. It would be better to have a spiritually mature man as an elder in this church who works as a janitor during the week than to have a man who is a CEO of a very large company who is spiritually mature. Would you agree with that? They need to be mature. They need to have spiritual maturity, have moral and spiritual maturity. Specifically, he says they are men They need to be men who fear God. That's a mark of someone who is spiritually mature. They fear God. Why is this important? Because these men who are being placed into these positions to help judge and to discern right from wrong and to apply the law that Moses would bring from God to the people, they needed to be able to strive to obey God rather than pursuing their own agenda or fearing fear God, you fear something else. You fear either what other people think of you, or you fear yourself, but you don't fear God. That means that he needs to be willing to give the people of God counsel or advice that they may not want to hear. The man who fears God will be willing to give advice to people that they may not like. A man who fears God knows that at times he says things to people that are going to make them not like the minister very much. But who do you fear more? What the people think of you or what God is going to say to you on the day of judgment when you stand before him? And he asks, how well did you tend the flock that I placed under you? He must be a man who fears God rather than man. Second qualification is that they must be trustworthy and hate bribes. These two ideas really work together and they complement one another. Whenever a person is in a position of authority, in any authority, those under his authority will inevitably try to influence or manipulate his leadership for their own personal gain. We see that in every sphere of authority here on earth, don't we? because every sphere of authority is affected by sin. Some people try to bribe those in authority with money, others try to use flattery or all other sorts of temptations to encourage the person who has authority to render them a favourable verdict rather than trusting them to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord. These men who would later be referred to as elders of the people of God, must be men who will not abuse their authority for their own personal gain, whether that be a financial gain or a gain of people's respect in their own eyes, but rather they would be men willing to do what is right in the eyes of God, even if that means that they will not be popular at times. And sometimes it means they will not be popular most of the time. The second main principle that Jethro gives Moses here is the idea that these men must be representatives. Moses was not to set up an elite ruling class to rule over the people of God, but rather he was told to select men from the people, or actually from all the people. He was not supposed to appoint his own friends and family into positions of authority. or to appoint men from his own tribe, but men from all the people, to represent thousands, hundreds, fifties, tens. In Deuteronomy chapter 1, we see Moses actually implementing the advice that Jethro gives him here. I think that he contemplated Jethro's advice here, because if you remember, they're at the foot of Mount Sinai at this time, and after Jethro goes home, Moses ends up going upon the mountain, and after Moses comes down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments and the Law of God, we see him actually implementing the advice that Jethro gave him. In Deuteronomy 1.13, Moses tells the people of Israel, saying, Choose for your tribes wise, understanding, and experienced men, and I will appoint them as your heads. And Moses told the people to choose their own leaders based on the qualifications that he gave them. And then Moses appointed them to rule over them following the advice that Jethro gave here in Exodus 18. These must be men that are chosen from all the people and they must represent all the people. And there's wisdom in that. In my church back in Ohio, we had five elders in that church. And all five of the elders in the church had very different strengths and different weaknesses as well. But we were representative of the whole body of that particular church, which was a huge blessing to that church and to us as an elder board. Pastor Fred was the experienced minister. I was the recent seminary grad. Another man was an organizer and he did this in his vocation in the corporate world as well. Another man worked in finance and he He helped us a lot when it came time to oversee how the deacons were working on the budget. We relied upon him in that area. And the fifth man was a man who by profession was a painter who was affectionately referred to by the congregation as the blue collar elder. And all five of us seemed to gel with different groups of people within the church. so that there was no one in the church who did not think that at least one of the elders in the church was really one of them. At least one of the elders, if not more, in that church. Everyone could say, at least one of the elders is one of us, and truly understands me and where I come from, no matter what their background was. And that was a blessing to have. It was a blessing to have. It was a beautiful thing. We were chosen from all the people, Not from one socioeconomic class or from one circle of friends in the church. We truly represented the whole body and that is how it ought to be in every church idealistically. Though it's rare that that can actually be accomplished as well. But what we see here is that Israel had a representative form of government. You choose for yourself people to represent you and I will appoint them over you. You choose people who are of you and from you, that are one of you, and that's important, and I will set them over you, as long as they meet the right qualifications. It was a representative form of government, but it was not a democracy, which is interesting to think about. Imagine what would have happened to Israel if Israel was a true democracy at this particular point in time. First of all, the Book of Exodus would probably be about three chapters long. Because right now we are only in Chapter 18 and five different times already, if the democratic will of the people would have prevailed, they would have returned back to Egypt, back into slavery and bondage, because that's what the people wanted to do. Thank God it was not a democracy. God's people are not capable of governing themselves through a democracy. And I'll say more about that in a few more minutes. And let me say I'm not saying anything at all about how the secular government ought to run here. OK. This has nothing to do with that. So if you think that I'm trying to make some kind of comments because of the election or because we have politically charged minds right now because of things going on in our country. This has nothing to do with secular government. This has to do with how the Church of God is run. We'll look more at that in a few moments. The third principle for spiritual leadership here that Jethro shows that was true then as well as now is that leadership must be shared. And this may be the primary thing that Jethro was communicating to Moses here. There was far too much work to be done for one man to do it alone. And that was Jethro's primary goal in giving him this advice, that these men would be leaders of thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. They would be able to do the vast majority of the work. And only very great matters or matters of difficulty or matters where they had to judge over a case that there hadn't been precedent set or they truly didn't know what God's will was, they would bring those issues to Moses. but they would handle all the other issues themselves. The work of the Kingdom of God is to be shared by all of these people working together. It's interesting to note that this sound advice for how to govern Israel, which established precedent for how the New Testament Church is to be governed, came from Jethro and not directly from God, at least in this text. In fact, Jethro wasn't even an Israelite or a Jew, and he was a recent convert to Christianity. He wasn't converted last Sunday night, but we looked at his conversion last Sunday night. He was recently converted when he was giving Moses his advice. Some theologians think that this is problematic, but I don't think that we should see it that way, because the reality is that many of the decisions that we face in the life of the church are not explicitly addressed in the Bible. It's just the truth. And sometimes God uses other people to help us to know what to do when Scripture does not give us an explicit answer. And we have to rely upon the wisdom of those who are more spiritually mature than us to help us to identify biblical principles and to know how to apply them. And it's one of the ways in which God's people help one another. And the important thing that we must do in cases like that is to test the advice that is given to us by the wisdom of men against the perfect standard of God's Word. Does their advice contradict the Word of God in any place? Does their advice accord with the principles laid forth in Scripture? That is how Moses judged the advice given to him by his father-in-law. He wasn't being told this directly by the angel of the Lord in a burning bush, but by his father-in-law, who was a recent convert. Yet ultimately, Moses was still trusting in God and not in Jethro, which Jethro himself recognized as he was giving him this advice. In verse 19, Jethro says, I will give you advice and God be with you. May God guide you as you contemplate this advice I'm giving you. May He guide you in this. And then also in verse 23, At the end of his advice, he says, if you do these things, God will direct you. So even Jethro, in giving him this advice, is recognizing, ultimately, it's the Lord that has to guide you in these things. Jethro's advice was not contrary to following the Lord, but quite the contrary. Jethro knew that the Lord would be with Moses and help and direct Moses to do these things. And he was imparting wisdom to Moses that God had given to him. God often gives us wisdom and advice through other believers, doesn't he? Sometimes we say we want to see it directly written in black and white letters in the Bible. But sometimes God sends other Christians to us to give us wisdom, which is spiritually mature wisdom, and we need to recognize that. And we need to learn to do what Moses was encouraged to do here, to pray that God would be with us as we take advice from men, pray that God would direct us as we strive to implement advice that we receive from men, and that God would give us wisdom to understand the principles in God's word. Obviously, there are some major differences between the way in which Israel was governed back in the wilderness and the way in which the church is to be governed today. We understand this. One of the most obvious differences is that We do not have a prophet like Moses that we can go to and ask for a direct line of communication with God. You can't come to me and say, Pastor Keith, God, I'm wrestling with this and God's Word doesn't explicitly say which way to go. Could you go talk to God and come back and tell me what he says? And I'm not going to go directly before the face of God and speak to him as a man the way that Moses was able to do. We don't have a Moses to do that in the church today. We don't have a single leader like him who always makes the final decision over the entire Church of God today. Sometimes we might wish that there was someone that we could go to with our questions and know that his answer was a direct word from the Lord. But the truth is that in the New Testament Church, we actually have a prophet who is greater than Moses, who is also our king, and he's also the head of the church. Another difference between the church today and Israel was Israel was a theocracy. It wasn't just a church, the church of God. It was a nation. We are the church and not a theocracy, but we have a prophet greater than Moses. We also have a king who rules over his kingdom and who also is truly the head of his church. Of course, I'm speaking of Christ. And some would say, yes, but Jesus is in heaven and not here on earth. We can't go to him with the same way that we could go to Moses. But this type of thinking denies the truth that Jesus works in and through his church in the way that he promised to do so in scriptures. Where two or three are gathered amongst you, I will be with you. Do we really believe that? Is he really with us? Does he work in and through us, through the power of the Spirit? Is he truly the head of the church, in name only? Or do we need a vicar of Christ to stand in his place and hold his office until he returns, as the Church of Rome would teach us? Here's how the Book of Church Order from the PCA actually explains it. I like the way that they word it here. They say that Jesus, the mediator, the sole priest prophet, king, savior, and head of the church, contains in himself by way of eminency all of the offices in his church. He contains in himself all of the offices of the church by way of eminency, by way of his being near to us and working in and through us. All of the offices in his church He is present with the Church by His Word and Spirit, and the benefits of all His offices are effectually applied by the Holy Ghost." There's a whole lot packed into that phrase. But it's really important stuff that we understand. This is really the foundation of all Church government, and how we as a Church ought to govern ourselves Looking to Christ to work through in his church Jesus Christ is the head of his church and Exercises his rule and authority by means of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God which leads which guides and gives gifts to men to help them serve as representative leaders in the church Lord willing they are men who fear God men who are mature who represent the body and and who share the responsibilities of ministry with other able men in accordance with the various gifts the Lord has given to them and as Jesus Christ himself through the Holy Spirit works in and through them and the offices that they hold. Jesus Christ himself works in and through his church. He is not distant and aloof from us. He has not left his church to fend for herself. He returned to his Father in order to send the Spirit, which would be an advantage to the Church. It is better for you that I go. We may think, I wish Jesus was still here in the flesh, and kind of functioning like the Pope of the Church does today, or the Catholic Church does today. But Jesus says, no, it's better for you if I go, because then I will send the Spirit. And then I will be able to work in and through each and every one of you. in a way that the Pope can't do. And it's a beautiful thing when we understand it. It's a wonderful thing. It's a tremendous thing. This is why, in our own confession of faith, we are exhorted not to take matters into our own hands as members of the Church by leaving the Church when others in the Church may offend us or sin against us. Well, fine, I don't want to have to see so-and-so in the Church anymore. I'm going to leave. Or I'm going to hold a grudge against them, or I'm going to slander against them. We're not to do these things, but rather, our confession says that when we're in a situation like this, we are to wait upon Christ in the further proceeding of the Church. It doesn't say we are to wait upon Christ as well as the further proceeding of the Church. We are to wait upon Christ in the further proceeding of the Church. Because we recognize that Christ works in and through those who hold office in this Church, in one way, and he works in and through all believers, through the power of the Spirit working through us. We Americans don't like submitting to authority. It's not really our cup of tea. As Baptists, we tend to like authority even less. It's kind of in our DNA as Baptists, isn't But when we understand that when we submit to those whom we have appointed and chosen to represent us in the offices of the church, that we really are submitting to Christ himself as he works in and through them by the power of the Holy Spirit. And that understanding that it's really Christ working in and through his church is what guards our hearts from every or from the sin of autonomy and pride to which we as human beings are so susceptible to and especially as Americans and especially as Baptist Americans. We like to be autonomous. But Christ didn't set up his church to be a whole bunch of autonomous Christians running around doing their own thing. Christ set up his church so that we would all be part of one body who is knit together in love and works together in an organized way. The topic of church government may not seem like a very important topic, may not be your favorite conversation piece when you go home and you're meditating upon the word of God, but it is an important topic, especially because it is an important topic. We know that there are other topics within Christianity which are more central, doctrine of justification by faith alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone, is definitely more important. And it would be wrong for us to give so much attention to the governing of the Church that we neglect the preaching of the Gospel. But just because Church government is not the most important thing within the Church does not mean it is not an important thing. It must be important because it's taught to us in the Bible in a number of different places, from the passage that our brother read earlier and from Genesis 18 as well. It's also important because sound Church government is important for the welfare and well-being of the Church. It's how Christ works in and through us. It's how Christ ministers to us through other believers. Without the right leaders leading in the right way, who meet the right qualifications the Scripture sets forth, and without Christ actually working in and through them through the Spirit, a Church will become just like Israel would have been without Moses and Aaron to lead them. They would have been a bunch of autonomous thinking people that made decisions as a group based on a democracy and they would have gone back to Egypt in a heartbeat. The church would falter and die. We would wander away from the gospel. Every Christian in the church has the responsibility to promote the good of church government. The way that the elders and the deacons go about this is fairly obvious, as it's our responsibility to hold these offices. But it is also important for all of us to constantly be in prayer for our leaders, asking that Christ himself would be working in and through them as they minister, that God would teach them constantly to fear God, that God would keep them from stumbling not only with personal sins, but sins which Many ministers are susceptible to by either trying to take too much authority upon themselves, which God didn't give to them, or by not taking any authority upon themselves and therefore not actually fearing the Lord, but rather fearing man. Pray that God would give the right men the right gifts in our church to meet the spiritual needs of our church. God knows the spiritual needs of this church, the unique spiritual needs of this church. We need to trust and pray that God will raise up men who are given gifts by God to meet the specific spiritual needs of this church. And we trust that Christ and God will do that. We also ought to pray that God will continue to raise up men from all of the people of this church who meet the requirements laid forth in Genesis 18 and in Titus and in Timothy and in other places. And when we do see such men in the congregation, we as a church need to recommend that the elders consider whether or not God is calling them to an office in the church. How the government of the church operates is an act of the church as a whole, not an act of the elders, not an act of the deacons. It's us as a whole. We all have these responsibilities. We can also show honor and respect for those through whom Christ leads his church. Sometimes it's a lot easier to criticize the church than it is to submit to its leaders, isn't it? But the truth is that pastors and elders are fallen and sinful people. I hope that you guys know that I'm a sinful person and that I'm fallen. And if you don't see my fault yet, you will. But your faith and trust isn't in me. Your faith and trust is in the Lord Jesus Christ working in and through His church. He works through sinful people. to minister to His people as the Holy Spirit works in and through people that He has given particular gifts to. It's not the gift of perfection. It's not the gift of being the best possible preacher in the world. God has given me only the gifts He's given me. But your faith and trust is not in me. It's not in Kent. It's not in Wes. It's not in us collectively as leaders. It's in Christ Jesus who works in and through his church through the power of the Holy Spirit. That's how it is. That's how it should be viewed. And when we understand it that way, the leaders need to understand it that way. And the congregation needs to understand it that way. And we understand that we are all knitted together in the body of Christ. And we look to him to be the one to truly minister to the needs of his church in a way that only he can do. Let's bow together in prayer. Father, we do come before you and we give you thanks for The beauty that is the Body of Christ, we know that we indeed are knit together, not only by a common confession of faith, but we are knit together by the spiritual reality of our life in Christ Jesus, which is given to us through the Holy Spirit working in and through us by the power of the Gospel of Your Word. Father, we may not always fully comprehend how these things work, but we do trust and believe that Your promises in Your Word are true. that Christ is present among us, that he is active among us, that your Holy Spirit does work in us. We thank you, Father, for saving us from the bondage of Egypt, the bondage of our sin, as you have given us the gift of regeneration and justification, and we pray that you would continue to work in and through us as you guide us and lead us through this wilderness, and as we continue to learn the many lessons that we need to learn, as we look to you, the author and perfecter of our faith, Father, may Christ Jesus always and ever be present and working among us. And we do pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.