We're continuing our study in the epistle of Paul to the Ephesians, the book of Ephesus. Salvation, individual and corporate. And it is subtitled, The Unity that Believers Have in Christ, brings unity in the church, which is the body of Christ. This is sermon number 100. And this part of our text is entitled, Equipping the Saints for the Work of Ministry, Part 5. If you will, let us read Ephesians 4, verses 11 to 13 for our context. And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets. some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man in the measure of the statue of the fullness of Christ. Shall we look to the Lord our God in prayer? Our Holy Father, we ask that as we come before thee today, that you would be with us in this time, that we come before your presence to worship you. God, grant your spirit to move among us. Open our eyes to the truth of your word. Teach us to apply it faithfully in our lives. For we know that thy word is the final authority. on all issues of life, faith, and practice. And so we ask, O God, teach us, teach us to yield to your word, not to the opinions of men, not to ancient writers, but thy word, for that is the confession of our faith. Be with us now, O God. We ask that in all these things we would be able to have eyes that understand thy truth. And so we do ask God, give us a heart to receive, eyes that can truly see, and a heart that will yield itself to thy truth. For these things we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen. This Lord's Day, we're going to continue with our study here in Ephesians. We're going to be looking in particular at verse 12. If you'll remember the last sermon on this text, we examined the idea of Christ preparing his church for the carrying out of his ministry by calling and equipping them for office. We were called to be ministers of the gospel. whether it is apostles at the time that they did exist with an office. And again, let me reiterate this. No qualifications for office, the office doesn't exist today. You must understand that principle. I've been watching an argument and kind of involved a little bit in one thread in which the argument was Can street preachers as evangelists go out without the authority of the church? After all, they are officers. No, they're not. First off, there is no office of evangelist. It passed away when the Canada Scripture came into its fullness, by 8070, and all three temporary offices passed. There are no apostles, there are no prophets, there are no evangelists within the church. We have pastors and teachers who carry on the ministry of preaching and teaching in the church of Jesus Christ. We are carrying out the office of Christ who is our head. representing him and his truth with the duty and responsibility of proclaiming and declaring it among the nations. And so it is, if there are offices, they must be identified in scripture, but to show for the principle of practice. The historical rule within the Reformed Church, and throughout most of the history of the church, is the office must have qualifications for a person to get into it. If not, you're in mysticism, at best. Well, Timothy and Titus teach us there are only two offices left. Elders, of which there are three functioning type, pastors, doctors, and church governors. Now, as I told you in the past, this is not the way Calvin structured it, because church governors for him was simply just about the equivalency of a sheriff's department. They monitored the people, that's all, reported them. As a matter of fact, they never laid hands on church governors. They were not considered ordained. The two offices that actually teach, pastor, teacher. Pastors, in the pulpits of the church, teachers normally, which they would call the doctors of the church, are usually within that construct of a professorship or instructor of some type at a university or college or even a Bible institute. or even as scholars in residence within a church, who then may not serve necessarily on any session, but they still have an office and are recognized by Presbytery. The pastors and the teachers come under the qualifications of the elder, and therefore such function and practices are recognized under that requirement for eldership. The diagonate has also that same qualification, with a caveat. Wives must be examined. Just a warning to you, wives, of their future officers on the day in which they are examined, you will be examined too. Not over what they're being examined, but as a testimony to who they are in their function as a husband, and if necessary, as a father, those who are married. and those who have had children, to their faithfulness to the word, to their ability to be a servant. So, this is important for us to realize and understand. And there's a reason for that. You must have accountability. for those who say they are called of God to preach the truth. If not, you get some very strange preachers. And believe me, you don't have to spend much time watching television to see how strange they can get. But they have no accountability. For if they were accountable, They would probably not be in the ministry. Accountability is very important. That's why we maintain not only the authority of Scripture on all things as being final, but the subordinate standards, the Westminster Confession and catechisms are what we believe the clearest description of the summary of doctrine that is taught in the Word of God. It is the doctrines that bind us in We are bound. When we take vows to maintain those doctrines, we have bound us to them. Our conscience is not free to do as we please. When we accept the denomination's book of church order as being, viable within the constructs of Scripture on how to carry out things and all the other things that are indifferent, setting up times for worship services and stuff, all that proclaimed and set forth in principle and practice, we bind ourself to those. There is no office or teacher or preacher, no matter what the venue, who is not to be called of God, recognized by the church, placed under authority for his skills and ability and life. And so it is very important that we recognize that. Too many people call themselves to be officers, call themselves to be preachers, call themselves to be apologists, The problem is, few are chosen, and most of them are false preachers and teachers. They've usurped the authority of the Word of God, and it is simple rebellion to reject the truth. And I will remind you that rebellion is considered in Scripture the sin of witchcraft. Be careful what you say you believe and what you practice and how you practice it. So anyway, we've looked at these offices, apostle, prophet, evangelist, and then that fourth and fifth office of pastor and teacher, and how they continue to this day in the Church of Jesus Christ. Well, now he follows up with verse 12, and it's a description of the job or work that we have to do. If you will, then turn our attention to verse 12 of this section. He says in verse 12, and I have a first section of verse 12 with me for this, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Now, the apostle begins with the Greek term pros, for. accusative preposition, which means that the focus is upon the action of the verb. Here it is that Christ has given these officers for a particular purpose, or if you will, they have a clearly defined job description here in verse 12. The key term in this verse is equipping. which is from the Greek and it means that this is the thing that they do. It is the thing that results from men being called to an office in which performance is demanded in that particular calling toward the ultimate goer view, which is the purpose and the end of which Christ hath created officers within the church. Now, Christ created the offices. We've said that. I want you to keep this in mind. You're going to run into people who will say, well, you know, we just really let the men of the church take their turn to stand up. I just heard this last week on Facebook. And it's not any one person. We just allow everybody to get up and do a look. You're saying Christ didn't do what he did. That's wrong. And it's not just an error, it is a sin because you're going against scripture. Christ gave these offices to the church. They are clearly distinct from membership. And what he's teaching us here, their job was designed around the purpose of equipping the saints of God. Christ has an intended purpose. This is for the complete instruction, for purification, if you will, for correcting of that which is deficient so that it's no longer incomplete. He's talking about the church, so that the church is united Is that not the theme of what we've been dealing with in chapter 4? The unity of the church? How can the church have unity if everybody gets up and it's just espousing whatever they believe? That's confusion. That's not unity. That's not orderliness. People who are speaking who God has not sent. And that, he says, is sin. so that its unity is a proper and regular manner of instruction," says Calvin. That is to say, everything within the body is being perfected so that the church is orderly and arranged according to Christ's calling. and toward the perfection of the saints thereunto, thus being settled, established, or matured, if you will, in the kingdom of God. That their job. We go out to take the gospel. Well, unequivocally, we preach the gospel here. Our goal here is not to equip unsaved by preaching evangelism every week. I was reared. You notice I got that right grammatically. I was not raised. Goats are raised. Children are reared. I was reared in a Baptist fundamentalist church, which the basic tenets of John 3.16 were to be preached every week. We are trying to evangelize. With as much nonsense that is taught within those churches, they probably needed the gospel every week. But even then it was not giving a clear sound, as it should have been. Enough that people were getting saved, not enough to make people grow in the grace of God. We gather here for you to learn. for you to grow, for us to perfect the body, the church of Jesus Christ. And yes, we even have Paul saying in 1 Corinthians, better to speak five words of a known tongue than an unknown one, because if someone happened to come into the church service who was not a believer, I like the way he places that though. The idea is, this isn't where unbelievers go, hey, you know, they got a great program down there. Let's go down. Let's get involved. Let's watch, you know, and see what's going on. People don't do that. And that wasn't the purpose of the church. Take the gospel out. Take the gospel out and reach people for Christ, your personal life and testimony, the work of the office of the church. Go out and preach it. But when the saints gather, they're designed for the purpose in that gathering to be equipped, to be built up in the faith that they will know the truth and not a lie. What we are doing here is trying to eliminate the confusion. restoring the body, as it were, to a rightful understanding and position before God. This orderliness and unity in the church is to the benefit of the saints, the Haggaios, the holy ones, literally, of God. They are the ones being consecrated unto the Lord. The church builds through the faith and the grace that is given in the ministry of these officers. As the members care for one another, they show love one for another, and manifesting the gifts of God that he gives to those men who are called to fulfill those duties. The church must benefit. The church must ask, what did I learn today from the teaching of Holy Scripture? Have I benefited? Has that truth become important to me in a way that I see even more so my responsibility, my duty, how I ought to walk and think as a Christian before God? That's what the minister ought to be doing, training you in basic theology and a world and life application of it into every area of your life. Because if he's not, he's not doing his job. You need to grow. Granted, one hour a week is not going to be fast growth. It needs to be supplemented. That's one of the things that the Westminster divines were doing in writing catechisms. Then let them go home and learn and teach themselves and their children the basic theology. That theology should be what is reflected from the preaching of the pulpit each and every week. We have been set apart as a holy body of Christ, and therefore we must have needs to demonstrate that unity and oneness together before the world. And yet there's nothing more neglected than the unity. The rule of the day is divisiveness. not unity. Well, the offices are identified by promoting unity, not diversity and not in destroying. Here he says in verse 12, what is this designed for? For the work of ministry. The word work is Aragon from the Greek, meaning that labor or occupation wherein such men who are called to do a particular work among the body of Christ bring it into the unity of faith. This is the work not of the saints, he's speaking about the work of the ministers. They're doing it because this is their ministry. Thus God has called these men to do the work of ministry. The diagona, the teacher, are the ones who are those instructing according to the call of the office. Here the five classes are ministered, are in view, as each of the duty in particular is held in common. In this context, gifts are given unto men by Christ to qualify them for service in their office. First, we have the preaching of the gospel, which is the common work, and it is a laboratorious one at that. And what man is sufficient for that calling of himself? He cannot be. God does not bless the words of men who are not called. That's why we put such a primacy on the qualification of men. Yes, they need to know theology, but yes, they also need to live the theology, and they need to demonstrate the ability to teach that theology under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to illumine the minds of people. And when I say inspiration, I don't mean they are saying things like the apostles were inspired. but the fact that they have their minds also open to that truth and that they are teaching and instructing that truth to the people. And they are growing. This is their ministry. This is their service before God. They are not preparing people to all become ministers, which is kind of the way the English reads in the translation. But it's a misunderstanding. When you look at it, it's talking about this is their ministry. That's what they do in their ministry. They equip the saints toward working in that fulfillment and perfection and correction to living the gospel of Jesus Christ out in their life. These officers, within this work of teaching the truth of God, requires faithfulness, for it is a good work that they do. Thus, when it has been performed well, those concerned, or who are the receivers of that ministry, those who have labored to deliver that ministry to the saints, they are worthy of their respect, they're worthy of their esteem, they're worthy to be honored, to be sure this is a ministering work, a service, and it is not a domain with absolute authority, but it is clearly a limited authority given by Christ, who is the head of the church. And so he has chosen men to lead his church. He has chosen men to teach the church. He has also given the church a government by which all those men have accountability. This is the work of this dispensation. That is to say, it is for this time in which we dispense the word of God that has been completely revealed to us and all that God intended us to know for the dispensing of all those ordinances which it appertains thereunto. It is also implied within their whole work of the ministry that they have been gifted and specially called by God to do His ministry, His bidding. This implies that the work of the teaching or preaching elder is called and equipped with gifts that are equally the same. Therefore, the ministry or calling to the office means that ministers not only are gifted, but they're going to be able to perform according to their gifting. There's nothing more sad today to hear among so-called professed Christians than people saying, well, what do you like about your church? Oh, we've got a great ministry of music. And you can ask them that probably a hundred times in 99 times, they're going to say, it's our music program. Oh, it's dynamic. Oh, it's our youth group. It's just dynamic. What about the preaching of the word, which is central to the whole worship of the service? You rarely hear a lot. As a matter of fact, it's interesting. I think they mostly prefer that. Well, as long as the preacher doesn't meddle and step on my toes, I'm happy, as long as we got some good music and something for our children to do. It is amazing. But at the same time, then it should not be surprising that America is heading in the direction it's heading. The church no longer is capable to be the salt of this nation. and we're plummeting fast to destruction. If God does not gift you, you cannot be qualified for the office. It's very simple. You're qualified, then you've got to be gifted. If you're not qualified, you're not gifted and you shouldn't serve in the office. It's very simple. It's not a hard principle. That doesn't mean everybody has to be able to teach at the same level, but men have to be able to teach, to train in the faith. They have to be men who have that ability to understand the faith, to be able to convey that faith to others. It's not just meeting one of the qualifications, or maybe even two or three. But all the qualifications for the office, wherein a man is shown to demonstrate that he has been called, set aside, gifted to the office. He's matured and he's developed in his Christian walk. The qualifications, if you remember, for the office. Listen to Timothy as Paul writes to him. and espouses those qualifications. Chapter 3, verse 1 through 7. This is a faithful saying. If a man desires the position of a bishop, a preacher, The elder of the church, he desires a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous, one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence, For if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God? Not a novice, lest, being puffed up with pride, he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. Moreover, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. Again, if you will, let's just go through and look at these individually. First, he is a man who has a desire. That literally from the Greek means one who stretches out for the calling. He really wants to be a servant of Christ. Not for himself, but for Christ. It's not about me. It's not about some individual other than the person of Christ alone. Thus, he has set his heart therein, and he feels that he can do no other. That is part of the calling of God. He needs to be blameless. That is, he needs to be unrebukable. The husband of one wife. It doesn't require that he has a wife, but if he has any, it better be one. One biblical wife. He must be temperate. It means to be sober-minded. Not up, down, emotional, all over the place. He must be temperate. Sober-minded. He must be discreet, is what the word means. He must be able to be discreet in how that he handles and works within the ministry where he is going to be interacting with the people of God. Good behavior means he's a modest individual, hospitable, enjoys entertaining, enjoys sitting and talking with people, enjoys working with them to correct problems in their life. He must be able to teach. Teaching there literally means he must be able to instruct in the doctrine. But it also has another implication. He must be teachable. Show me somebody who is not teachable, who thinks they know it all, and I'll show you someone not qualified. What you do learn, and I'm glad to say that the officers in the officer training program are beginning to see it, the more we learn, the more we realize how much we don't know. That's the reality of being equipped. You begin to realize your own shortcomings. I have not arrived, I've just begun when I complete all my seminary training. And the more you read, and the more you study, and the more you seek to broaden the horizons of your understanding, the more you begin to realize just how unequipped you were, and how much more you need to equip yourself. He must not be given too much wine. He must not be a drunkard. Not violent, one who fights. One who fights, likes to fight, likes to start a fight, who's willing to fight. Not greedy for money, that is money ill-gotten. Gentle, literally means patient. It's got to be a person who is patient. Not quarrelsome, by that he means they're non-confrontational, they're not argumentative. We've gone in the past, and most of you have now, there's only a few of us who can remember, at one time we had guys in the church that were confrontational, argumentative, and you walked on eggshells around them, hoping you didn't say the wrong word that caught their red flag, and it went up, and they're ready to fight at the drop of a hat. And I'm glad to say they're gone. And I'm glad to say they haven't come back, and we won't let them come back. But ministers can't be that way. It's not an option. They might be a Christian and they may have this problem in their life, but that would disqualify them forever being an office holder. They're not covetous. They're not greedy people. One who rules his own house, well, he governs his house. If he can't run his own house, how does he serve in the church of Jesus Christ? If his wife trumps him, she's going to trump him in the church. That's not her role. And it means he hasn't taught her, and as one who has not taught her, or she's not willing to submit to it, then he needs to make her submit biblically, demand for her to submit, to be under his authority. That is a requirement to be in the ministry. He must have His children, it says, in submission and reverence. Submission to His teaching. Now, according to the Old Testament, that structure runs to about the age of 12 to 13, when they became an adult. That's what they would do. They would take them to the city gates. They would declare them at 13 years old. my son or my daughter, primarily it was sons back in there because it was in Israel, it had to be a male. You take him and say he's responsible for himself and his actions. If he murders someone, it's no longer on my head. He has to stay in trial for it. He has to give an account. That was what the declaration was for. And so when they're talking about he needs to have his children at submission, we're not talking about 30-year-old women who have yet to get married. His children are those who are in that age of being taught in the way of the covenant. Remember Proverbs? Train up a child in a way that he should go in the covenant. And when he comes to age of majority, he comes to the age of being accountable for his own life, to stretch out and begin to take responsibility for who he is. He will not depart from it. It wasn't old age as in 80 years old. It's when he comes to the age of being an adult. He knows nothing else but what you've taught him. His morality and the way that he sees and governs himself, his responses to those in authority, whether it is civil, ecclesiastical, he respects in his employment. He respects them for their authority. So we're not talking 18, 19, 20-year-old children. It's in the way that he trains his children to become adults. And I remind you, in spite of modern-day psychology, children from 13 to 18 are not adolescents. The Bible calls them young adults, and we should see it that way. By 13 to 14 years old, they ought to be making decisions, and you have a responsibility to trump a bad one, but they ought to be able to start governing themselves biblically by then. That's what was being required in Israel. Why should it be any different in the church of Jesus Christ? not a novice, he cannot be untrained in doctrine, he can't be new to the faith, and he must know how to practice its teaching. Must not be puffed up with pride. A little knowledge brings a lot of pride. He must have a good testimony from those who are outside of the church. He's not one who steals or violates the Ten Commandments toward other people. Teaching those things, not only in word, but he teaches them by deeds. That's what he's saying here to us. That's what he's saying about the qualifications. Oh, let me warn you. No one call to those offices is perfect. We'd like to think we are, but we're not. You only have to ask my wife and she'll tell you. I'm not perfect. And I know I'm not. No one in these offices is perfect. But we strive to try to fulfill these requirements. That's what the Presbyterian's duty is to do, is to ensure that we are following them. We are living by them. We are teaching according to what we believe and what we have commanded as our practice. And we are held accountable because these are derived from the Word of God. This is the work of their ministry. Why? Because my job, the job of those who are called in those five offices, three of them now gone, the last two in place, is to teach, to equip the saints of God that they might mature, grow strong in the faith. That they would not leave the faith. But they would grow in it. They would grow in its grace. They would grow in the knowledge of the truth. Maturity does have a relationship to knowledge. You can't become mature where there is no knowledge of the truth. But you can have knowledge of the truth, but not applying it. And therefore you're not wise, nor are you really maturing. It requires both. We have to spend our life contemplating those things. That's what the minister is designed to try to help you do. To see these things, to understand them, to equip you that you can go forth and before God be considered a just and a righteous and a holy man before Him. Well, he finishes off by saying, for the edifying of the body of Christ. This is their work of ministry for what? The edifying of the body of Christ. This is not speaking of Christ's natural body, not the one that the Father prepared for Him. Edifying here means to build up the body which is the body of Jesus Christ, the Church, if you will, as we have defined it already over and over again. But this is the same principle of what they are to be doing, as Paul says in Colossians 2, if you will listen, verse 6-9, "...as you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him." rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in all thanksgiving, beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ, for in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Not talking about the sacramental practices, of the Lord's table, but rather it's the mystical body. It's the church. The church is to be, according to the teaching of this principle, it is to be edified, to be built up, to be strengthened. These gifts were bestowed upon men to prepare them for that work of ministry. that the church, which is compared to an organization or society here, might be built up toward a properly organized group. Therefore, the several societies of Christians, and in particular believers, have this spiritual edification that they are to be receiving from these men, learning to walk in the fear of the Lord and in the comforts of the Holy Ghost. These men have this responsibility to see those numbers increase through that preaching of the gospel in evangelism, and that their graces be in lively exercise within the church, one with another. How do we unite to be one? Isn't that the purpose again? Did he not exhort us to have unity within the body of Christ? Do not allow diversity to reign. Allow for the diversity, but put unity above diversity. Now I realize these are not popular things, especially among people who haven't been trained and reformed in Scottish theology. Unequivocal, or even for that matter Puritan theology. Because most people have been trained in Baptist independent churches and you know the idea there is basically independency. Do what I want to do, when I want to do it, and no one has a right to tell me otherwise. I know I was raised in that same nonsense, but that's not the way Jesus Christ organized his church. He organized it, he gave it men who were qualified to carry out its work throughout the history of the world. There are people out there, there are babies, infants, Someday the calling of God will show forth and they will come forth to answer his call. That will go on until the end of history. And he's also called men to leadership. A lot of them are in leadership that shouldn't be there, who probably were never called to be leaders in the civil side. But he's called people to be civil leaders as well. Why did he give us this? For the purpose, civilly, of restraining evil, and spiritually, within the church, to restrain evil in our life. To know how to walk, to be equipped, to be united, to be edified in that way. That everything we see and do, everything we say and do, we do to the glory of Christ our King. Well, let me close just simply by, I want to read a quote. There was no way for me to do anything but quote John Calvin on this. And I think it's such an appropriate quote. Calvin writes, if the edification of the church proceeds from Christ alone, he has surely a right to prescribe in what manner it shall be edified. But Paul expressly states that, according to the command of Christ, no real union or perfection is attained but by the outward preaching. We must allow ourselves to be ruled and taught by men. This is the universal rule, which extends equally to the highest and to the lowest. meaning positions of life. The church is the common mother of all the godly, which bears, nourishes, and brings up children to God, kings and peasants alike. And this is done by the ministry. Those who neglect or despise this order choose to be wiser than Christ. Woe to the pride of such men. It is no doubt a thing in itself possible that divine influence alone should make us perfect without human assistance, but the present inquiry is not what the power of God can accomplish, but what is the will of God and the appointments of Christ. in employing human instruments for accomplishing their salvation. God has conferred on men no ordinary favor, nor can any exercise be found better adapted to promote unity and to gather around the common doctrine, the standard of our general." I don't think it gets any clearer than that. God has ordered a church in Christ. Christ has been given the authority through the work of the Spirit to appoint men to office. Men, as Calvin says, are called to rule And men are to listen and learn to obey. And as Calvin says, if you don't like that, then you must be wiser than Christ. That's a little bit of sarcasm by Calvin. I always like this sarcasm because it's always very just light. But he says, woe to a person who has such pride to think that way, because that's all it is. It's not easy. It's not easy to be a leader. Try it sometimes. You'll find out just how quickly it goes. We had a guy one time who left our church. Had an opportunity to take a group of homeschoolers that didn't go to church. They had an interest in our church, but he thought and tried to convince them that he could start his own church and he could do better than coming to our church. So he never did come to our church. And six months, they threw him out. He was never equipped. He was never qualified. Sad. Sad for men to think that way, rather than to submit themselves to those who have been called to be examined, kept under their authority, to be accountable. They truly are doing the thing and the work that God has given them to do. May God help us to understand that. The future of this church will fall in the hands of young men here. Men who need to be seen for their calling and ability and gifts, to be supported, to be loved, to be honored, to be respected for all the work that they're doing. And believe me, they're doing a lot of work. And they've got a lot more to go. But they're doing well. It should be a very smooth transition for the days coming when I will not be here, but they will be. And I'll tell you now, if you goof up with these guys, I'll be back in one way or another to haunt you if I have to. Respect the ministers of Christ for when you do, You respect Christ. You cannot be greater than Christ. And his judgment as to who is gifted and not is not given to the body. It is given to the presbytery who are also gifted and called. You may not want a person to minister here because you do not feel he's doing what you would like for him to do. to help you grow and mature in your faith. You have the right of popular ascendancy to choose who you want to minister to you, but you don't have the right to determine if they're qualified or not for the office. You have no right to challenge that office. That's the job of the Presbytery. That's why we're Presbyterians. It is to be both a guardianship to the offices that Christ has given to his church, and at the same time, ensuring that those who are in the ministry, are equipping, are teaching, are doing the work that God called them to do. I want you to never forget that. Because the day will come, and I believe that this church will grow in time, when those men have responsibilities and duties to be faithful to them, to honor them. Because if they can pass the exams, and get by Presbyterian, and demonstrate their calling and ability to equip, and that is recognized, you need to respect that. It's important. God help us to be a church at peace. That's what we need. We'll never grow if we have confusion. We'll never grow where there is sedition. We will only grow when we are at peace with each other. And the only way to be at peace with each other is to have unity above all diversity. That was the real issue with Puritan theology. Our unity is in Christ. If you miss that, you've missed the point. God help us to think that way. God help us to act that way. God help us to pray for the future of this church, that when God raises up other men, they would be faithful to that calling, not for themselves, but for Christ and for your equipping, for your education in the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. in all of its doctrinal implications. God help us to always want to learn, to grow, to reach out, to expand, that we might become a body sanctified before God, pleasing to Him. And then when the trials come, and believe me, I believe we're not gonna escape trials, I think those are coming, they're around the corner, we will stand. Even at the point of death, we will stand. But that's what we've been asked to do. We're to be keepers of God's word. Doers of God's word. without qualification and without question. I hope that I will leave you with that desire and the strength to carry on. Those who come to lead after, that they'll continue to build, continue to expand, and our church for years will be a church known as one of unity and one of peace in Christ. God help us to that very end. Shall we pray?