As we continue in our study, we've been looking at Ephesians. I would like to return there as well to go into chapter 3. And as Greg did this morning with our call to worship, reading an entire chapter, I think it's important that as we go through our worship service and as he prays so much, let us go back to the Word of God and not miss it. A lot of times in our churches we are not hearing enough of the Word itself. We hear more about man's opinion and commentaries on the Word instead of the Word itself. The most important thing is God's Word, that which changes us, cleanses us. And one of my favorite parts of the worship service is our assurance of pardon. We are great sinners, and I need a great Savior. And I'm glad that we can come to the table and see that. And let's come and break bread with one another. So let us look at the Word. We'll go into Ephesians in chapter 3. And then I also want to look at Psalm 87, which is a look at the church. We've seen the hymn, Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken. And that's what that hymn comes from. So let's look at Ephesians chapter 3. And the Word of God says, For this cause I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, If you have heard of the dispensation or the administration of the grace of God which is given me toward you, how that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote afore in just a few words, and that was from chapters one and two, whereby when you read you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ by the gospel, whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power, unto me who am less than the least, of all saints, in this grace given that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hidden in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ. to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him who is Christ. Wherefore, I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints, which is the breadth, the length, and the depth, and the height, and to know the love of Christ, which passes all unknowledge, and that you might be filled with all the fullness of God. Now unto Him that is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us. Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. And let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, and we thank you for such a powerful chapter, and that you have spoken to us, and that you've given us the revelation, and that we now know the mystery of the atonement of God becoming man to die for our sins. Lord, I pray that you forgive the preacher of his sins, because they are exceedingly many. And I thank you for the opportunity to preach yet again, and I pray that you will give me the unction of the Spirit, and that your words will remain true in whatever is not of any substance will be burned up, Lord, but you and your word remain true. And we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Now, as we return back to looking at the whole of the epistle to the Ephesians, as we talked about at the beginning, Paul front loads his epistles with theology, and then he backloads them with application. And how we view God determines how we look at life. Your theology, if we break it down by its word, logos is word, theos is your Greek for God, so it's the God word. How we view God determines how we view the rest of the world and the rest of life. There's basically two philosophies in the world. You've got that which is according to Christ, that which is not. Now, when that which is not, you've got a plethora of others. You've got Aristotle, Plato, Nietzsche. Whatever. Fill in the blanks. And all these different philosophies. The one thing they have in common is that they do not adhere to the Word of God, the Revelation. Everything is man-made. And when we look at all other religions, aside from Christianity, every single one of them is fashioned after man's own thinking. That's the difference. And it was such a blessing for me Friday. As I'm a tour guide at the cave, I had an eclectic little group. We had an atheist or agnostic, I'm not sure exactly what he was. He and his wife from British Columbia, Canada. We had a biker who was a Christian, and then another fellow, his buddy, who was anti-religion. I think he'd been burned a time before, and then another group. And all of us come in together to talk about Jesus in a rock, inside a hole in the ground. And as I'm thinking about philosophy, and the fellow asked me, how do I reconcile science with religion? Well, I have to begin with the presupposition that there is a God who made all things, not that this world just kind of made itself. You've got two competing philosophies, either you've got one, the world made itself, which means it just kind of poofed out of nothing, or somebody spoke and it existed. And Socrates understood that, though he was wrong in his implications, but he says that there is an unmoved mover, which would be God, and we understand that. Spoke. In the beginning, God spoke, and there it was. Socrates was lost, but he understood that there is a God. Now, when we're speaking about apologetics, it's our defense of the faith. In our first three chapters, we have to get it in our minds who God is. How did He form the world? By the word of His power. Now, how do we go out and apply it in our lives? And as we were speaking, how do I reconcile it? It's not the idea of religion. It's not the idea of science. It's the philosophy behind each of them. I have to come with the presupposition that God spoke. And as Francis Saber said, there is a God who is there, and He is not silent. He does speak. Now, chapter 3 tells us, whereby you read, you may understand my knowledge and the mystery of Christ. In chapters 1 and chapter 2, we talked about the mystery, which is the atonement. Well, visibly we see it in the cross. That's why we come to the table daily. Or we should come weekly. And physically we come to the table daily, breaking the bread. And we can really see it, and as Calvin says, it's spiritualized. Jesus in his body is present with us when we break the bread and drink the cup. And we are remembering that which he did for us. So that affects how we live when we walk out the door. And this ought to be in our thinking daily as we wake up, as we go to sleep, and as Colossians. If you want to do a parallel study, read Ephesians and Colossians together. Colossians 3, 17 and 23. Whatever you do in word or deed, do it all for the glory of God in the name of Christ. And that's basically what he's saying here in chapter 3 of Ephesians. The mystery is our atonement. Funny little word. We have mystery novels. You've got Nancy Drew, Alfred Hitchcock, all these other things. We understand what mystery means. What we have put it in culture. And what our culture has deemed to be mystery. It's a perfectly good word. Just like dispensation. It's a perfectly good word. But it's been taken and skewed. Kind of like dispensationalism. It's a different kind of thing. Dispensation, all it means is administration. And mystery, what God says is mystery, is that which has not been completely revealed. And as I spoke to begin with, looking at the order of salvation, we've got the bouquet of flowers, and that's our salvation. Or you've got your calling, your election, your regeneration, your conversion, your justification, your sanctification, your adoption, and then ultimately your glorification. We get the whole bouquet. We get them at different times. Number one, you're justified. And that's a one-time act. That is a legal declaration. You were adopted. And as Paul is preaching to the Gentiles, which is us, we are brought in by faith. We are legally declared the sons of Almighty God. And if you look at the Roman system, those who were adopted had more rights, and just as equal rights, as a blood-born heir. You could dismiss a blood-born heir, but you could not dismiss an adopted heir under the Roman system. So we are equal, if not above. the blood boy, which is kind of cool for us Gentiles. Now, reconciling all of our faith, our science, our philosophies together, the Christian is the only one that can make mind and matter matter. We have the idea, which is platonic. You have the material, which is Aristotelian. You've got to put the two together. Now, how do we do that? Jesus. By faith of him, the worlds were made, spoken by Christ. Right? Whereby when you read, you may understand my knowledge of the mystery, where in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men. He's talking about from Adam up to the writing of Scripture. And it is now revealed to his holy apostles and the prophets by the Spirit. Now, my Bible here has the apostles in little a's and the prophets in little p's. The capital A and capital P would be your office of prophet and apostle. What we are missing in the church today is our charismatic brothers believe that there are still apostles and prophets walking around. And that's why we have such a faction and breaking in the church. God views his church as glorious. Even though we are broken, we are factioned, we are schismed, God still declares his church glorious. That has not changed. Though one church may be purer than another. Your marks of the church are the proper administration of your sacraments, baptism, and breaking of the Lord's Supper. Number two, the preaching of the word. And number three, proper church discipline. Those are the true marks of a real church. Some are more true than others. But none is any more glorious than another. Psalm 87 says, Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God. That's where your hymn comes from. That's why I wanted us to read it. And we will shortly. Glorious things. says God of the Church. Now, as we go out tomorrow morning, let's reconcile all things together and have our philosophy and our mind wrapped around our God Word. And for this cause, verse 1, he's going back to the first two chapters, I am a prisoner of Christ for you, for us. As you've heard in the administration of the grace of God which is given to me for you, how that by revelation we have this now. The revelation was given to Paul. We have the revelation in paper. To his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. Paul was an apostle, and you've got eleven others. The qualification for an apostle who was writing scripture, you had to have walked with the Lord Jesus, see him, and then see his resurrected body. We don't have those walking around today. The prophets were Elijah, Moses, and the ones we have in the Old Testament who were writing the scriptures. We don't have those today. We have got, as John says, we've got the Word. We have the printed Word of God. And that's what, as Greg was praying earlier, we must return back to the Word of God, and I hope that General Assembly this year has done that. I don't know what they were meeting about, or the outcome of their meetings. They were voting on women deacons, women elders, and some other important issues. Let us return back to the Word. I pray that we do. that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body, partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel, which is our good news, whereof I was made a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power. You all do have a copy of Westminster Confession. And it states out, and most of it comes from Ephesians, in that chapter of effectual working of his power. Chapter 1, it says, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his own will. That's in your decrees of God in your chapter, in your Westminster Confession. Whereof I was made a minister unto me who am least of all the saints. This is Paul speaking. The Apostle Paul, who wrote 13 books in the New Testament, says that he is the least of all saints. I wish I could say that. I wish I was as humble as Paul the Apostle. And as we look in Psalm 131, when David says, Lord, my eyes are not lifted up, my heart's not haughty. I can't say that either. I wish that I could. And I hope that one day, when I'm old enough, I can say that. That I'm humble enough to say, Lord, I don't concern myself with matters I just don't understand. I hope I can do that. That I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ. And you all just got a very brief look into where my life has been and testimony. I have got a fraction of the money that I used to have when I was cooking and selling drugs. But I've got more stuff now than I've ever had in my life. And that's because of Jesus Christ. The unsearchable riches and the whole thing was that He has changed my utter nature. And pointed me toward the bread of life. And now I understand what it is to look at Jesus and how do we handle Him as we talked about earlier. How do we handle Jesus? How do I handle Him in the cave when I'm talking to these atheists and agnostics who are totally against Christianity and who think that we're idiots? We're not. There is no reason why the church at large should not be number one in science, number one in mathematics, number one in art, literature, music, as we used to be. We ought to be the forefront of all of society. But we've towered. Now it's time to get back up again. And I hope that as Paul went out and preached with power and demonstration that we will do the same thing, showing that the self-control, which is the fruit of the Spirit, is our power of a changed life. It's not being crazy, holy, rolling on the floor. The controlled living is the power of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. This is the fruit of the Spirit that He cultivates within us. And I'm actually seeing what that means because I've got a big garden with a lot of weeds in it. A lot of weeds. I don't have a problem growing weeds. Thanks for helping, Ed. It's a lot of weeds that we have to pull up all the time. Cultivation, the fruit of the Spirit gets cultivated and I need the Lord to cultivate and pull the weeds out of my life no matter how hard it hurts. Because those weeds feel good. But I hope that like the Apostle Paul in Acts chapter 9, that Jesus came to him, came to me, and changed my heart. That now I'm not a religious terrorist, but one who's preaching the gospel of Christ, the good news that came and changed my heart. That's in our theology in the first three chapters. 4, 5, and 6 is application. How do we go do it? How do we defend it? How do we live it? How do we look like Jesus? And as we've talked before, we may be the only Bible that anybody ever reads out here. How many folks are not in church this morning? When we left the house on Bristol Caverns Highway, how many folks were on the porch just hanging out on a Sunday afternoon? How many were going to church? I don't know what's in the heart. God does. But how many folks are in the pews? Not just here, but across the city. Across the Tri-Cities, across the state, across the country. And we have more churches here in the little Bible Belt than we have in the whole of the country. And that was one thing that that atheist from British Columbia noticed. You know, up north, they've got a Dollar General or a drug store on every corner, which we've got those too, but we've got a church. One on just about all four corners of an intersection. And that's, quote, volumes to somebody who wasn't from here. Why is that? Well, that's because of the morality of the nation. That's what we were about. And as we've talked about the Southern heritage, the St. Andrew's Cross, which is what they call our rebel flag now, we were a Christian society. The Bible Belt is a Christian society, or it should be. Though our pews are not filled, there is still the sign of the Church being here. And God will revive us again. That's not just me thinking. That is the Bible telling us that God will reign. And He does reign, Psalm 2. He has set His Holy Hill, His King, on His Holy Hill in Zion. He shall reign. And He does now. and I, and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, the saints coming together to worship on Sunday, and to come together, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Christ." And Colossians says that Jesus is the glue that holds it together. "...to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers and heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God." We don't bring people into the church and get them saved in here. We go out. We go out, get them saved, bring them in here and teach them what the Bible says. We have to understand doctrine. Because orthodoxy in meaning is straight truth. What is straight truth? God said, that's it. There is no other option. No plan B. God spoke and it is. And Romans 13 explains to us that we are under authority. I'm under authority right now by your elders. You all called me to come and do this. I'm accountable to you. I'm accountable to Westminster Presbytery. I'm accountable to the folks at Grand Bible College. I'm accountable to my mom and dad. I'm accountable to my in-laws. I'm accountable to my bosses at work. Ultimately, I'm accountable to God. We all have authority. And that is basically pictured in the family. Husband is the head of the wife. Direct representation of the church. Husband head of the wife, Christ head of church. We've got to see this in public. We were at the house last week and Samantha was looking on MSN. The PCUSA has now openly ordained homosexual marriage. We've got a problem. Our mainline denomination, the PCUSA, is openly endorsing homosexual marriage. If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, I will heal their land, forgive their sin. We must be a praying people. We must be a praying church. And we must speak straight truth. No matter what society says, and my first thought was, oh boy, I'm going to go back to prison. And I can see it, because it's wrong. It's against the natural use, as God says, man and woman. Christ is married to His church. And it's female. Christ is married. Direct representation of marriage. Husband, wife. What are we going to do about it? Tomorrow morning when the phone rings and the world begins and we see two guys walking down the road kissing, what are we going to do about it? Are we going to risk speaking truth? Am I going to risk speaking truth when I'm at work? Losing my job? Am I going to risk going to prison for this? Paul did. He wrote this epistle from prison. And this is not like the Hilton that we have here. I've been there. And it's a Hilton. No, you don't want to go. It's nothing like being chained to a wall. As Paul was. Are we willing to do that? To go out, speak truth, and bring them in? People want truth. Are we going to give it to them? Are we going to be the orthodox people that we are called to be? Are we going to follow in our duty to follow Christ? To the intent that now, by the church, be made known the manifold wisdom of God. Sin makes us do stupid things. We must be wise. If we don't understand who God is and who we are, we can never apply this to our lives. And if I don't preach to me first, I can never speak to anybody else. If I don't apply it to me first, I can never stand up and be a Pharisee and a hypocrite. I can't do it. According to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord and Whom, we now have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Christ. It took Christ's faith in Himself and in His own God to do this. We see this in John 17 when he's praying in the garden. If this, Lord, if there's another way, take this cup from me. Nevertheless, thy will be done. Jesus was faithful to the end. And on the cross, He said, it's finished. Our salvation is wrought in Him. According to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ, in whom we have boldness. Wherefore, I desire that you do not faint. at my tribulations for you. Do you know that in Ephesus that Paul was thrown to beasts? And then he was stoned outside Derby and left for dead? And in Philippians, he says, thank you for sending me all this stuff, but I don't need it. I've learned to be content where I'm at. Though we know Paul needs something, he's in prison. But Paul says he's content. And he's bold in the preaching of the Word. Are we really going to go out and live it tomorrow? Because we've got a lost and dying nation out here that needs us, that needs to see Jesus. We've got a community in Halston Valley that needs to see Jesus. You've got a community right here in Johnson City that needs to see Jesus. And not just some church dropping a little Easter egg with a key in it, out of a helicopter. We need Jesus. We need truth. Our truth today in our society, which is called post-modernism, there is no absolute truth. If your 2 and 2 is not 4, I'm not driving across your bridge. We've got a problem. And then when I'm speaking to this guy about how we have laws, my philosophy and science, well, 2 and 2 is 4. That is a stated law. It's idea. I can only conceptualize. I can't put it tangibly that 2 and 2 is 4. It's an idea, but it is a law. If there is a law, there is a lawgiver. Who is he? He is the one who speaks and forms the worlds. He is the one who speaks and raises you out of dead. As Ephesians 2 tells us. You who were dead in your trespasses and sins because you inherited from your father Adam. In the day you eat thereof, Adam, you die. Jesus speaks life into us. That's the eternal purpose is for His glory and for us to be with Him. John 14. For this cause, I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and in earth is named." I'm glad you read Revelation 4. All the saints who are worshipping with us right now, that's why the church is so glorious, because we're not just worshipping right here. It's not just us. We're with the entirety of the saints that have gone before us and those that are in heaven. Look at the myriads of angels that we're worshipping with. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come. Isaiah 6 is the same thing as Revelation chapter 5. We are worshipping with God Almighty and He is in our midst. Wherever two or three are gathered, He is here. Let us bask in His presence and as Paul says, I bow my knees. to King Jesus. And oh, as I said before, how I wish we understood what it is to serve a king. God's not a politician. He's a monarch. He is a king. He has spoken. He has decreed. Though Jesus died and fulfilled every jot and tittle, we are still expected to carry out the moral law of God because that's His impeccable character. Table number one, love God. Table number two, love your neighbor. Upon these rests all the law and the commandments. That He would grant to you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. Paul is chained to a Roman guard and he's chained to a wall, but yet his inner man is strengthened day by day. Day by day. And this is where we come to get our strength. Week by week. Moment by moment. Let us come to the table and feast upon Jesus. We're not cannibals. Let us feast upon God Himself that's broken and given Himself to us that we can be strengthened in the inner man because this stuff's dying daily. I hurt my hand pulling weeds. Come on. Pulling weeds. My outward man is dying daily. But the inward man is being strengthened daily by the Spirit of God who dwells within me. And I am humbled that the Spirit of God actually wants to dwell in this, knowing who I am when I look in the mirror. Jesus came and met me where I'm at, pulled me up out of the muck and the mire, and has set me on the rock of salvation, which is Christ. That's why I bow on my knees to King Jesus, speaking the same thing that Paul says. Now I understand why he says that. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. And Colossians says, let the Word of Christ dwell richly within you, just as Christ Himself dwells within you. That you will be rooted and grounded in love. And Paul uses this expression several times in his epistles. Established in the faith, rooted, built up. that's in Corinthians, that's in Galatians, that's in Ephesians, that's in Colossians, rooted, grounded in Him, that we may be able to comprehend with all the sense what is the breadth, the length, the depth, the height of God. There was an expression that I heard once, you can climb up every mountain in the world, And when you get to the top, you think that you've got to a theological mountain and you've exhausted one idea and then you look on top of it and think about God and there is an infinite number of mountain tops still to climb. And another expression that I heard was if you've flown over the ocean, you're just looking at the top of it. How much water is underneath you? That's just the top of the ocean. And Isaiah says that the knowledge of God will cover the earth as water covers the sea. What a concept. That the water covers the sea. The depth, the width, the length. The Atlantic Ocean is a pretty big pond. But the love of Christ is deeper. And He dwells within us, that we may be able to understand it with all the saints, not just us here. But Revelation 4 and 5, that we are with all the saints. And one day I will see my grandparents again. One day I'll see them again. If we'll understand. And to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge. That you might be filled with all the fullness of God. In Hebrews chapter 1 it says, it pleased the Father that all the fullness of the Godhead bodily dwells in Jesus Christ. And verse 19 of chapter 3 says, to know the love of Christ which passes all knowledge. We can't understand it. And that we may be filled with all the fullness of Almighty God. Isaiah 55 says that His Word will go out and will not return to Him void. His Word speaks life. And if I am lifted up, I will draw all men to Myself. Are we lifting Jesus up? How are we really handling the Bread of Life? Are we comprehending the love of Jesus toward us? Are we thinking about it? Psalm 1 says, Blessed is the man who does not walk according to the counsel of the wicked, or standing in the seat of sinners, or sitting in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of God and on that law he meditates day and night. I've got to repent of that because I don't think about God's law all the time. I think about what I want to do and what I need to do. I think about my petty little circumstances instead of meditating on what changed my life and why I am where I'm at. That God loved me enough to pull me out of where I was at. to set me on that rock and give me a new hope, a new foundation, and a new nature. That's 2 Corinthians 5.17. If any man is in Christ, he's a new creation. He has a new nature. And then I get to see the bouquet in my life flowering. When I get stopped at a red light or some silly little circumstance happens and I think, well, thank you, Lord, that I'm not cussing. that I'm not extremely angry, that I can understand control in a situation, that I don't rebut with evil when someone speaks a slur against me or speaks a slur against God, but I speak in meekness and gentleness. And instead of telling somebody that they're an abject fool, the Bible says that they're a fool if they don't believe in God. The fool says in his heart there is no God. But show them why there is a God. Why must you believe in God? Because when you close your life, your eyes in this life, there is another one coming. And you're either going to go to heaven or you're going to go to hell. You can't cancel the trip either way. Where are you going to be? That's the message we take. There is hope. The same hope that saved us will save the world if God opens their eyes. Faith comes by hearing. Hearing comes from the Word of God. How can they hear without a preacher? Not just hearing from the pulpit, but hearing you speaking outside in the world. I need our older generation. I need you all. Desperately, because my generation is foolish. You all have been around life. You know what you're doing. I need you. My generation absolutely needs you and the one behind me is even worse. We're stuck here. So I'm not even going to have that iPad anymore. Because it's a time waster. Our technology is killing us. And we think we're so smart. Not that the technology in itself is wicked because it's not. God gave us a brain to manipulate things and create and move on. But how are we really using those things? I need to know what you all know. So that I can teach that to my grandchildren. And so they'll know who God is in your life and who God will be in our life. To know the love of Christ which passes all knowledge. And I love how Paul concludes in the middle of his epistle. Now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly and abundantly all that we ask or think. according to the power that works in us. Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. World without end. Is that not what we sing in the Gloria Patria? Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, Was and ever shall be world without end. Amen. Amen. That came directly from this. Glory be to the Father. That's why I want you all to read your hymns. You all know your hymns. Where'd they come from? Psalm 87. Glorious things of thee are spoken. I told you I'd get to it. Sometime. Psalm 87, which is post-exile. They're coming back from Babylon. His foundation is in the holy mountains. That goes back to Psalm 2. The Lord loves the gates of Zion, the church. He loves His church. More than the dwellings of Jacob. More than the individual homes. He loves His church. Though He loves your house. Though He loves your marriage. He loves your life. He loves His church even more. Glorious things of thee are spoken, O city of God. Selah. I will make mention of Braheb, which is Egypt, and Babylon, to them that know Me, those when I was in exile. Behold, Philistia, Tyre, and Ethiopia. This man was born there. Those are children without God, outside of a covenant family. And of Zion, it will be said, this one was born there. We can physically see that. Samantha and I can physically see the blessings of a covenant God, because we were born in Zion. What about these that are not born in Zion? We were born in covenant families. We come back. We come back from exile. This one was born in Zion. And the highest will establish her. The Lord will count. He will write up His people that this man was born there. The world will know that we were born in Zion. The world shall know you were born in Zion because of how you live in the light of the revelation of Christ in the face of the world. As well, the singers and the players on instruments shall be there. All my springs are in you. We've got a spring in the bottom of Bristol Caverns. It's about 98% pure water. It's the best water I've ever had. All of our springs. are in Zion. Our fresh, clean, God water, as folks call it around here, is there. The water that quenches thirst. Drink from me, as Jesus said to the woman at the well. Drink from this well and you'll never thirst again. Let us come and drink. And let us show the rest of the world where we go to get bread. Where we go to find solace while we bow our knees to King Jesus. And what we have to do comes in our later chapters. The 4, 5, and 6. How must we go forth? We don the armor of God. We look like Jesus. We control our living. So let's go. And as we worship God together, how thankful I am to be in the presence of God today and to be able to speak. And that He has taken me from where I was to speak and preach the Word. To Him who is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above what you ask or what you think. According to the power that works in us, unto Him be glory in our churches, here and through the rest of the world by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. Let's pray. Our Lord, our God, we are thankful. We are humbled that we can indeed come into the presence of God. You've given us boldness and access to the throne of grace. Father, please forgive us of our sins nationally. Lord, we are a pitiful people. And I do pray, Lord, that you will in the PCA help us to remain orthodox and to teach straight truth that comes from the revealed Word of God. You've given us a manual to live by. You've given us the word and revelation to live by. Let us stick to it and never waver. And I pray that you will give us boldness as you gave Paul boldness to speak, even in the light of Caesar. Lord, we are not far from that. And I pray that You will help us to be bold in days to come, that You will keep us safe, keep our families safe as we go through whatever may come. But I pray, Lord, that the goodness of God will be poured out upon us, Your people, and that we will take the light of Christ to the rest of the world and that You will not utterly destroy us. But thank You for Your Word that refreshes, that cleans, and gives us the Spirit. And I thank You, Lord, that it just works within us and that You renew us day by day. We love you because you loved us first. Without you, we are nothing. I do pray that you will go before us today and that we will continue in our worship of you, not just here, but as we leave and as we exit and as we just pronounce benediction, I pray that you will benedict us. That you will pronounce your blessings as you already have and that we will live in the light of those blessings in the face of the world. Now bring us back again, Lord, to be refreshed from your Word. And we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.