So turn with me please to 1 Corinthians chapter 16 verses 1 through 11. You will find the passage printed for you in the bulletin. You can follow along that way. Hear now the word of God. Now concerning the collection for the saints. As I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of the week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem. If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me. I will visit you after passing through Macedonia, for I intend to pass through Macedonia, and perhaps I will stay with you or even spend the winter so that you may help me on my journey wherever I go, for I do not want to see you now just in passing. I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits. But I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries. When Timothy comes, see that you put him at ease among you, for he is doing the work of the Lord as I am. So let no one despise him, help him on his way in peace, that he may return to me, for I am expecting him with the brothers. This is God's word, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, all of it, Father, which is your truth, given by your Spirit for your people. So we pray, Father, that you would write your word on our hearts this morning. Help us to see Christ, your spirit, your calling to us as your church, that we might faithfully respond to who you are and what you've called us to be and to do in this world. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. So Sean gave you all the logistical information about our upcoming worship plans. We're going to be back at Knights of Columbus next week. Next week will also be our concluding sermon in the book of First Corinthians. So we're finishing First Corinthians next week and then In June, we're starting our summer in the Psalms. In the summers, we take time to look at the Psalms. And we're gonna be starting with Psalm 42 and 43, which is what we used for worship this morning. Those were actually originally probably one Psalm that then got split into two. So we're gonna look at Psalms 42 and 43. We're gonna be in the Psalms of the sons of Korah this summer. So if you wanna just go through your Bible and look for the ones that say sons of Korah, those are the ones we're gonna be doing this summer. And we're gonna be focusing our heart on who God is, how God reveals himself to us as our covenant Lord, and who he is and how we respond to who he is. So that's coming up this summer. But first we have chapter 16 of 1 Corinthians in front of us. And it sounds a lot different, Chapter 16 of 1 Corinthians sounds a lot different from Chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, if you didn't notice, right? We're all of a sudden dealing with very practical, everyday kind of concerns, right? It feels a little bit like taking an airplane ride somewhere, you know? If you take an airplane ride somewhere, particularly if you haven't done a lot of flying, it can be kind of an exciting experience, maybe a little bit fearful. I've flown a decent amount in my life, and it still amazes me that we can get these huge machines that just weigh thousands and thousands of pounds. We can get them up off the ground and soaring tens of thousands of feet in the air, going hundreds of miles an hour. It's just astounding, right? I love going to the Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. And you look at the Wright brothers' flyer from 1903 and sort of where we were then after hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years of trying to figure out how to fly, the Wright brothers had this breakthrough. And then you can see that within 50 years, we're sending up these massive, passenger planes, and it's amazing to me, right? So if you've flown, you know there's kind of a routine to the experience, right? You've pre-flight, the flight attendants are giving you the safety instructions, which usually get my imagination going as to what I would do if there actually was, you know, if we had to ditch over the ocean, what would I do, where would I go, right? And then when you're taking off and when you're landing, to me, that's the exciting part of the flight, because I like to look out the window as things get smaller and smaller, and then as things get bigger and bigger on the way down. And, you know, I always hold my breath a little bit during that touchdown. You know, I've had a few where it was like, down, down, down. And you're just like, please stay on the ground. Don't go sideways, right? So I always hold my breath a little bit at the touchdown. But then you're just coasting, right? And the flight attendant comes on and says, oh, beware, because the overhead storage might have shifted during the flight. And all of a sudden, it's sort of back to Earth, back to reality. But the whole point of your flight has been to get you to where you're going. And for me, most of the flying I do is work and ministry related. So when I land, I'm usually thinking, okay, time to get to work, time to hit the ground running. And that's kind of what we have here in 1 Corinthians 16. 1 Corinthians 15, had us soaring to some wonderful heights of gospel hope in the resurrection. It was a dazzling display of the glorious hope of the resurrection that's coming, and it culminated in verses 55 to 57 with that wonderful boasting of our coming victory over death. Oh, death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. And then Paul started giving us the charge, the application of that resurrection hope. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. And with that verse, we were coming back down to the ground. And now we're getting the fleshing out of that. What does it mean to be? Steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Well, it looks like taking up an offering for the needs of the saints in Jerusalem. It looks like supporting ministers as they serve the church. Looks like gathering for worship on the first day of the week. It looks ordinary. It looks even mundane. But you know, that is actually where the gospel is applied. The measure for how much the gospel really means to us is not how emotionally we respond to the glorious, triumphant good news of the resurrection. And we should, we absolutely should. But the measure of how much that really means to us is what we do day to day and week to week. How do we live our lives? Imagine if, those of you who are married, imagine if when you got married, guys, you remember seeing your wife come down the aisle and you're thinking, I cannot believe she is going to marry me. I am the luckiest guy in the world. This is just amazing. This beautiful woman is going to be my bride. Well, imagine if you had that swell of emotion and you said, I do, and you had the first dance at the wedding reception, and then you got in separate vehicles and went back to your own homes and just lived life like nothing had ever happened. It would be a good reason to question like, what actually happened there? Did that actually mean anything to you? You said these things, you did these things, now what, right? And so we're in the now what in chapter 16, in the practical and in the mundane. But it's the important, it's the vital. It's where the rubber meets the road. It's where we step off the plane and we walk in the life that God's given us. And it starts with a reference to the worship gathering of the church. and a special collection that's being taken up for the saints. Verses one to four. Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so also you are to do, on the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper, that there may be no collecting when I come. And when I arrive, I'll send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem. If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me. I wanna start with this on the first day of the week and the reference to as I directed the churches of Galatia. This is one of the places in the New Testament where we get evidence that the pattern in the early church from the beginning was to gather for worship in the morning on the first day of the week. We have reference to that within, you know, after the New Testament's written in letters and things like that. But even here, you know, the churches in Galatia are gathering every first day of the week. The church in Corinth is gathering every first day of the week. So when you gather, put something aside. Take up the offering, this special offering. Why would the church worship on the first day of the week? You know, for, 1500 years or more, God's people had worshiped on the last day of the week. In fact, in creation, we're told that on the seventh day, the Lord rested from all the work that he had done, and so he blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. And really from that time on, but really since, especially since the law of Moses was given around 1500 B.C. or so, that the people of God had worshiped on the last day of the week in imitation of the Lord's rest at the end of His creation work. Why shift to the morning of the first day of the week? Well, it's because something really important happened in the morning of the first day of the week, something that changed everything, and it's what chapter 15 has been all about, resurrection. So the reason why the church is gathering every first day of the week is that that's when Jesus rose again from the dead as the firstborn from the dead, as the beginning of the new creation. And that's why we call the first day of the week the Lord's Day. Because we're no longer looking back on God's finished work of creation in this creation, but we're looking ahead to when Jesus will come again on the day of the Lord. And in the Greek and the Hebrew, the Lord's day, the day of the Lord, it's the same exact expression. And so we're looking ahead to the day of the Lord when Jesus will come again, and just as He was raised on the first day of the week, we gather to remember and celebrate His resurrection, but also to look forward and anticipate our own coming resurrection. We get this phrase, the Lord's Day, not from some Presbyterian manual of church government, but from the Bible, from the Apostle John in Revelation chapter one, when he writes this in verses 10 and 11. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, write what you see in a book. and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamum, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. And John writes this in such a way as he expects that the people who are getting this letter in these seven churches are gonna know what he's talking about when he says, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. So it was a commonplace phrase by then, the Lord's day. Well, that's the day we gather for worship, that's the first day of the week. And this actually begins at the very beginning of the New Testament church with the resurrection of Jesus, because when was the first gathered worship service of the church after the resurrection? It was on that very first resurrection day, in the evening, in the upper room, when Jesus appeared to the disciples, and he showed himself to them, and they worshiped him. And then because Thomas wasn't there, When did Jesus come back? The Bible says he came back eight days later, but if you understand the way that the days are counted in the ancient world, he came back the next Sunday, the next first day, and that's when he appeared to so-called Doubting Thomas, who made his great profession of faith, my Lord and my God. So Jesus intentionally made his first two resurrection appearances on the first day of the week, and the church picked up that pattern and has been worshiping on the first day of the week ever since. And it's the first declaration in our week that the resurrection of Jesus and our resurrection hope in Jesus changes everything. Because the first thing we do every week is we wake up and we gather together to worship. And as part of our gathering together for worship, we give to support the work of the Lord, which is what he's giving them instructions about. This is a special offering that's being taken up to relieve needy poor believers in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was an interesting city because in many ways it had this spectacular temple and it also had this impressive Roman fortification, but for the people who lived in Jerusalem, There was not a lot of natural economy. There weren't a lot of natural jobs. It's on the top of a mountain. It was surrounded by a wall. There weren't farm fields. There weren't, you know, and so most people who lived in Jerusalem were rather poor. There was some tourist trade to be had during the festivals, especially during Passover when the city would swell to many times its natural size, but most of the people who lived in Jerusalem day to day were poor people. The money that came in came into the religious leaders, and we all know how wonderfully generous the religious leaders in Jesus' day were, right? They were all about lining their own pockets. Now, they did set aside some so that the poor in Jerusalem wouldn't starve, and even wealthy Jewish people from around the Roman Empire would send money to Jerusalem because it was known that the poor in Jerusalem really needed help because there wasn't a lot of work for them to do and a way to earn a living. Well, the problem became, in the early church, if you believed in Jesus, even if you were Jewish, When you professed your faith in Jesus, you were booted out of the synagogue. They kicked you out of the synagogue. They did it with the blind man that Jesus healed in John chapter nine. They kicked him out of the synagogue because of his faith in Jesus, and that became a regular pattern. Well, guess what? If you're not a member of the synagogue, you don't get the relief that's being distributed to the poor of the city. So these Christian Jews, Christ-following Jewish people, were kicked out of the synagogue and left without any financial support. If you add to that, In Acts chapter 11, the prophet Agabus prophesied a famine coming to Jerusalem, and there became this urgent need that before this famine hit, we really need to get some relief to the saints in Jerusalem, or they're going to starve to death. So it was a desperate need, and the apostle Paul, you can read in the book of Acts, he starts organizing an offering that will be collected among Gentiles, to be sent to Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. And this will be a powerful testimony to the world of how Jesus tears down the dividing walls between Jew and Gentile and brings together a new people who share one another's burdens and who care for one another. We have a modern day example of that that we are participating in right now. I don't know if you got my email earlier this week, but Reformation Hope, which is a ministry that we support in Haiti, they're getting ready to send another shipping container down to Haiti that will be full of food, medical supplies, school supplies. There's 90 some kids in the orphanage. There's a medical clinic. Haiti is a country of desperate need right now. And much like Jerusalem in the days of the New Testament, the poor in Haiti are left without very many choices. There are not good jobs for them. You can't just say, well, go find a job. Well, there's not good jobs. And there's such corruption that even if you do start to develop your own land and develop something, you get going, armed thugs will come in and take what you have. And so it's a very, very challenging place for God's people to live. And so we have an opportunity to send relief to the people in Haiti. And so that'll go out. The container is gonna be packed up on June 2nd and 3rd, and it'll be shipped out to Haiti. So that's one of the things that we have an opportunity to do. That's part of what the church is supposed to do. But notice that Paul is very careful that while he's encouraging them to take up this offering to meet the needs of the poor, he's going to do so in a way that guards the integrity of the church and that protects him from any appearance of impropriety. Paul makes it very clear that he doesn't want to be involved in any collecting of money when he comes. So he says, gather what people can bring as they prosper on the first day of every week and store it up. So probably the deacons in the early church would take up this offering week by week and they would store it up in the church treasury. Today, of course, we use bank accounts, but they would accumulate the funds. Paul wasn't gonna be coming to Corinth and asking for money. That's not really an appropriate thing for an apostle to be directly involved in doing. That's why the church has deacons. And even at that point, Paul is not going to take the money from them and take it to Jerusalem. Because people could accuse them of all sorts of things. Oh, you're just raising money for the poor so you can line your own pockets. And sadly, we see examples of that in the world today, right? Lots of people have started charities and have raised millions and billions, even in Haiti. where it really just went to line the pockets of the corrupt people who were running the system. So how to guard against that? Well, Paul says, look, I want you to set aside some people whom you accredit by letter. That means you pick reputable leaders within your church, you write letters endorsing their character, and they will carry the gift to Jerusalem. And again, it's not just one person, but it's two or three guys so that there's accountability and there's transparency. It's very important that the offerings of God's people that are gathered together on the Lord's Day mornings are handled with proper procedure so that everything is done above reproach and in a way that would not cast any shade of impropriety on the church. So, we do that at Forest Hill in several different ways. Our deacons are really involved in the counting and the storing up of what the offering is that's brought in. I play no part in that whatsoever. Every once in a while, someone will hand me a check and that's okay, but I prefer not to do that. It should go in the box, or it should go online, or it should go in the plate. And none of the elders are really involved in that at all. We don't collect the money. We don't count the money. That's handled. Whenever we have people count, there's always two people counting. the people who make the deposit slip, and there's somebody else who confirms that deposit slip and checks it off. So there's levels of accountability so everything is done in a way that is above reproach and in a way so that the spiritual leaders of the church are not involved in the money business of the church. So you keep that separation of office for the integrity of the church. Now relief for the poor was just one reason why the early church would take up offerings on the Lord's Day when they gathered for worship. Another reason, perhaps the main reason that they would take up offering, is to support those who were ministering among them, laboring in the word to present the gospel to the church faithfully. 1 Timothy 5 says, let those who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. And this phrase, double honor, refers to a financial stipend that elders, especially teaching and preaching elders, would receive from the church. Earlier in 1 Corinthians, chapter nine, Paul had written, Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and that those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings? In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. That's 1 Corinthians 9, 13, and 14. And then the third major reason that we see the early church collecting offerings is to support missions work. So relief for the poor, support of the ministers of the congregation, and support of the mission of the church. So when Paul was in Corinth, in Acts 17, when he's first bringing the gospel to Corinth, there's no church in Corinth. The believers who come are brand new believers, and he doesn't expect them to start supporting the work of the church right away. They don't know their ABCs of the faith yet. So it was the church in Philippi that sent him a gift so that he could set aside his tent-making work and concentrate on full-time gospel ministry. So there are tent-making missionaries that you may be familiar with who are, you know, they have secular employment that keeps them gainfully employed to support their work, but then there's also the church is able to support them so that they can stop doing that employment and focus full-time on the work of the gospel. And later when Paul wrote to the Philippians from prison in Rome, He said to them, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And then in chapter four, Paul goes into detail about the nature of this partnership in the gospel. I wanna read this to you, I want you to pay attention, because there's two verses in here that you've probably heard before. quoted out of context, and I want you to hear them in context. So if you have a Bible, turn to Philippians chapter four, and I'm gonna read verses 10 through 20. I always think it's helpful, if you've heard a famous Bible verse that you've seen quoted, or you've seen it on a card, or on someone's basketball shoes, or something like that, that you get the context. Go and look it up and get the context, and make sure that it's being quoted appropriately. So this is Philippians four, verses 10 through 20. Paul's writing to this church in Philippi, who've been partners with him in the gospel from the very beginning of their existence. He says, You have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I'm speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In every and any circumstance, I have learned the secrets of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. It's not about being a superstar, it's about being content in every situation of life. Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble. And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving except you only. Even in Thessalonica, you sent me help for my needs again and again. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit. I have received full payment and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts that you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God. And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever, amen. So this is about meeting one another's needs. and about being faithful and content in whatever circumstances we're in. Paul's in prison in Rome, and in the Roman system, there wasn't a prison cafeteria. If you were in prison, the only food you ate was food that your friends brought to you. or gave you funds to be able to have purchased for you. If you didn't have friends bring you food, you starved. So when he says, I'm well supplied, it's a very practical thing. He also wanted paper and pens so that he could write letters to the churches, including the letter to the Philippians. So it's about being practical. It's about meeting the needs of the saints, of the missionaries. And so one of the great things we love here at Forest Hill is keeping the number of missionaries that we support small. We support three. Reformation Hope, which is the work in Haiti, Reaching Africa's Unreach, which is the work in Uganda, and RUF International, which is the work to international students on the campus of Johns Hopkins. We support three so that we can pray for them every Sunday, and we can give to them, and we can develop a strong partnership with them. Partnership in the gospel is a committed relationship that says, we are for you, we are going to meet your needs, we are going to pray for you, we're gonna be there for you. So, we're helping out with this shipping container now. And if you want to give to that, you can. In September, I can tell you, in September, Jacob and Carol Lee are going to be with us. So, they're going to visit us and Jacob's going to preach and we're going to hear from them and get a ministry report and have a chance to spend time with them. They're going to stay at the Riber's house when they come. it's a chance to strengthen that partnership before they go back to Uganda. So this is the pattern in the early church. The church offerings on the first day of the week when the church gathers for worship to support those who proclaim the gospel in the local church and on the mission field, and then relieving the needs of the poor, especially poor brothers and sisters in Christ. The offerings are given by each person as God prospers them. Notice that language, as he may prosper, so that each person gives according to their income. And those funds are handled in a way that ensures the integrity of the church. Now, after giving instruction about the offerings, Paul goes on to discuss his own ministry plans of when he plans to come see them. I will visit you after passing through Macedonia. For I intend to pass through Macedonia. Perhaps I will stay with you or even spend the winter so that you may help me on my journey wherever I go. For I do not want to see you just in passing. I hope to spend some time with you if the Lord permits. But I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost for a wide door for effective work has opened to me and there are many adversaries. There's a few things in this section worth noting and imitating. First, notice the humility with which Paul discusses his ministry plans. He doesn't confidently boast of what he is definitely going to do, but he uses phrases like, I intend, and perhaps, and if the Lord permits. We should always make plans with that kind of mindset. I intend to do this. if the Lord permits. James writes about the arrogance of those who think they can predict and control their own futures in James chapter 4, verses 13 to 16, when he says, come now, you who say, today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit, yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are but a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. We should approach everything in our lives, especially in the ministry life of the church, with a due humility that understands how small and weak we are and how wise and powerful and in control God is. So we've purchased 11 1�2 acres of land on Jarrettsville Road that we hope will be the future home of the church, for a church building, if the Lord intends. And if you were to talk to elders or church leaders about what the plan is, what the timetable is, you're going to hear a lot of, well, we're hoping that we can get the land paid off this year, or maybe early next year. And then we intend to go through the county approval process as the Lord provides, right? That's the kind of language we're gonna use because that's what God tells us to do. And it's not that we lack faith. Some people would say, oh, you're lacking faith, brother. No, that's actually faith. It's actually faith to say, we're not in control, God is. It's His land, not ours. It's His church, not ours. It's His future, not ours. And so we will do what we believe God's called us to do as faithfully as we can do it, but we know that God ultimately has to provide the means and the favor that will it take to get us from here to there. Now, Paul says he's going to stay where he is. He's gonna stay where he is for two reasons, which I think are interesting. There's a wide door for effective ministry, and there are many adversaries. And so he's gonna stay where he is. where you're planted." That's a saying that actually has some wisdom behind it. For Paul he was very keen to stay on site and to stay on task in Ephesus as long as he had this wide door for effective ministry work. In Acts 19 we read about this ministry in Ephesus and it's pretty amazing. Paul was there for well over two years. And here's what we read in just a couple of verses that summarize it. And he entered the synagogue for three months, spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading with them about the kingdom of God. But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus. This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks." Think about this for a minute. Paul was in one place, one place, the Hall of Tyrannus in Ephesus, for two years. And yet, the result of that faithful ministry, there was such a wide door of ministry activity, was that all the residents of Asia, that is present day Turkey, All of the residents of that area heard the Word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks. That's because people would come and hear Paul, and they would learn from Paul, and they would go back and they would tell their neighbors, and they would start a church. And others would come from other towns, and they would hear Paul, and they would be taught by Paul, and they would go back, and they would start a church. This is why, by the way, the main teaching hall at Reaching Africa's Unreached is called the Hall of Tyrannus. It comes right out of this passage because the idea is that people would come to the REU compound, get discipleship, get training, get equipped, and then they would go out and start churches. And I am really excited because that's what the Lord is providing right now, right now. I've been three times. The last two times I went, I was very privileged to be able to work with a group of men who were mainly from Sudan. Sudan is a Muslim-majority country that's been closed to the gospel for years, and yet we had a chance to train up and invest in pastors. About a year and a half ago, the Sudan opened up for the first time. The government was changed, religious freedom was opened, and people are allowed now to preach the gospel and start churches. So many of our former students are back among their tribes in the Sudan, tribes that are 99 to 100% Muslim, and they're preaching the gospel and they're starting churches. And it's my prayer that all of the Sudan will hear the word of the Lord that came out of the Hall of Tyrannus at REU. This is the work of God, and yet, there are many adversaries. Paul had been driven out of many towns in his ministry journeys, but God kept him in Corinth for a year and a half. Despite strong opposition from locals, God kept him in Ephesus for over two years, despite powerful local opposition. God's work in this world will always be opposed. If we think, well, there's people who don't like us, we can't do this anymore. That's not the measure of ministry effectiveness. God's work will always be opposed. There will always be people who badmouth Christians, who badmouth the church, who oppose the gospel, who call us names, who think we're dumb, who think we should just be quiet and go home, who think that this whole gathering is just a waste of time. That's the world, and the world's never going to stop being the world, but we keep on. We keep on faithfully giving, faithfully doing what God's given us to do. Finally, Paul takes time to commend Timothy to the Corinthians. As Timothy's moving into the area to do ministry work among them, he says in verses 10 and 11, when Timothy comes, see that you put him at ease among you. Timothy was Paul's young protege in the ministry. He'd been brought up in a Christian household, but he was very young, and that's why people would be tempted to despise him. Paul says, Let no one despise him. Later, Paul's writing to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4.12, and he says, Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in faith, in love, in purity. And you can see, knowing the church at Corinth from our study of this letter, you can just see the people are like, boy. He's just a kid. How are we supposed to take him seriously? Well, because he's commended by God, he's well-trained, and he's doing the same kind of work that Paul himself was doing. Paul is encouraging the Corinthians to receive and financially support Timothy. Put him at ease among you and help him on his way. Probably means when Timothy's with you, he shouldn't have to work. He should be supported by the church while he does ministry among you. And when he leaves, you should provide him with funds to cover his traveling expenses so he can go back to the Apostle Paul in Ephesus. Timothy does go back to Ephesus. He eventually takes over as the pastor of the church in Ephesus. And he's there when Paul writes 1 Timothy to him. So it's another example of supporting and encouraging those who are faithful in gospel ministry. So again, this is very, very different from chapter 15, isn't it? It all seems like, okay, we're taking up an offering because there's poor people in Jerusalem. Paul's gonna come visit us, we think, but he's not sure when. Timothy's gonna come, and we should treat Timothy with respect. Okay, this is all very practical, but it's just not as exciting as that, you know, this imperishable must put on, you know, this perishable must put on the imperishable, and we're gonna be in the glorious resurrection hope But this is how the work of the church is actually done. The work of the church is not done through the spectacular, amazing, astounding things. Although the gospel is spectacular and amazing and astounding. The Corinthians were wrong because they thought only the spectacular and the supernatural gifts of prophecy and tongues could grow and advance the kingdom of Christ in this world. Paul's writing these instructions to let them know that's not how God works. God works through the ordinary, the everyday. As parents pray for their children at bedtime, As fathers lead their families in family devotions at the dinner table. As Sunday school teachers faithfully teach the Sunday school class week after week. As pastors preach through books of the Bible and don't skip chapter 16 of 1 Corinthians just because it might be considered boring, right? As missionaries go and serve, and sometimes serving as a missionary looks like for Jacob and Carol, they couldn't leave their compound for nine months. They're like, why are we even here? Well, because God was using them and they were a witness and they were a testimony and they were able to provide relief and help to the poor in that part of Uganda who were devastated by COVID because of everything that happened. Faithfulness sometimes doesn't look like being a rockstar. In fact, I'll say this, faithfulness almost never looks like being a rockstar. It looks like being a servant. and doing the ordinary things. Even Jesus, God incarnate, when he came to earth, yes, he did miraculous things, but what he said was the most important thing that he was called to do was to teach the people about the kingdom of God in every village and every synagogue. That's faithfulness, that's gospel ministry, and that's where the Lord works. So pray with me that God would unite our hearts together as a body to be committed to these things that God calls us to, and that God would bless them for his glory and for the growth of the church in this world. Let's pray. Father, Father, the most important spiritually powerful moment in the history of the world looked to the world like utter defeat and absolute foolishness as Jesus hung on a cross, crucified as a criminal outside of the gates in Jerusalem. It was ordinary, it was dirty, it was bloody, it was humiliating, and it looked pointless. yet it is our salvation. It is the hope of the world. It is the gospel we preach. It is the power of God for salvation. Give us eyes to see what you see, hearts to value what you value, and the faithfulness to do what you call us to do. In Jesus'