Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for your day. We thank you for the one day and seven that you've set aside, Father, to assemble together, to devote ourselves to your worship and praise and, Father, to holy things. And we ask, Father, that you bless the day, Father, cause the means of grace to be full of grace, cause our hearts to be encouraged and uplifted and, Father, challenged. We ask, Father, that you would come and you would meet with us in a special way. And Father, even during this Sunday school hour, as Father, I bear testimony to what you've done in my life. Father, I pray that you would give help and cause what's said to give you glory. And Father, to edify your people. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Well, let me just begin, first of all, by mentioning that I believe that there were probably about, or at least, three reasons for giving a testimony. First of all, a testimony is an invitation from one person to all of you. I'm giving an invitation for you to glorify God with me for the particular acts of grace that He's performed in my life. And so I'm hoping that as I mention how the Lord has worked upon me, that it would provoke you to praise God with me for what He's done in my life. Also, I want to give my testimony to you, usually when I bear my testimony anyway, so that others can learn from my mistakes. And so I might mention some of the things that I've gone through. A friend of mine once mentioned that a life is somewhat like a minefield. We can make mistakes. We err, we go aside in certain areas. Our desire is not only to avoid as many minds as we can ourselves, but also to warn those who follow after, not to step upon the same things that we did. I'll mention some particular mistakes or lessons that I've learned so that you might not have to learn them in your own experience. This is a little bit different crowd, but I trust you can still learn from my own mistakes. And then the third reason for giving a testimony, I would say, is that you can come to a better understanding of who I am. And by the end of this hour, the end of this next 45 minutes, I trust that you'll have something of an understanding of who I am and what I've gone through in my life. So now, what I've done here is I've tried to intersperse into my testimony various lessons or various doctrines that I want to call attention to as well. I hope that'll be beneficial and not confusing. I grew up as a Pharisee and as a reprobate. By the time I was in the fourth grade and while I was enrolled at a Christian school, in fact, I was already the leader of a gang with close to 20 members. And this seemed like the right place to start because we all know that the best testimonies are given by ex-mafia members and gang leaders. Well, my gang was a very wimpy gang. We were called the Bugs, and we basically played soccer. So, the Lord has saved me from a life of drugs, alcohol, murder, and theft, but he saved me from most of these things by his restraining grace before conversion. And I thank God that even before I was converted, he kept me from entering into many of these sins. And I wanted to Give a brief word here many times. I think those who've grown up within the church We have almost a sense of embarrassment when we give our testimony We would want almost to have sinned more greatly so that we could have a more dramatic conversion to testify about and I would suggest it's a very foolish thing for us to want to have sinned more it's a very gracious thing for the Lord to have preserved us from many of those sins and The Lord has given us much reason to... He's protected us from sins that we don't have to repent of or don't have to regret experiencing in our life. He's protected us from entering into many habits which would be difficult to break later. And so if you have grown up within a moral home or a religious home, you have great reason to praise. The Lord has preserved you from even entering in to many sins that others have experienced. And that was my experience. I grew up in the southwest of Washington in a moral home. I was baptized into the Christian Reformed Church as an infant, and I grew up as a young hypocrite within that church. And I don't know how well the Christian Reformed Church is known over here in the east. Up in the northwest, it's rather well-known perhaps, but it's a descendant of the Dutch Reformed Church. And all of my great grandparents came over from the Netherlands. It was in a Dutch community that my parents were raised and in which they met one another. And so our family went to this Dutch church. And I usually want to refer to the home that I grew up in as a moral home rather than a religious home. Because looking back, I was raised up in what seems to me to be a lot of cultural Christianity. People go to church because their mommy and their daddy go to church. And it's expected in that part of society, in that part of their culture. And so in these Dutch communities in which my folks lived and in which I grew up, it's just part of the culture to go to church and to be a regular attendee within the church. So you go to church because you're Dutch, not necessarily because you're a Christian. But all of our family professed faith in Christ. We attended church every Sunday. But looking back, I don't see a lot that really marked us as Christians in our home and in our everyday life. And I want to give a qualification that it may be that my eyes were blinded by the deadness of my own heart. I don't want to say dogmatically that my parents or my sister were not saved, but I didn't see much. Maybe just because my eyes were blind of Christianity and life in Christ when I was growing up. So from the earliest memories, I attended church. My folks even managed to pay for Christian school from the third to the seventh grade. And that was a little bit of a different experience for me. I came to see the Christian school had some associations with the Methodist Church. And so every Friday there was chapel, and almost every chapel service there was a sinner's prayer. And when I was in the fourth grade, I prayed my first sinner's prayer. It wouldn't be my last, but it was my first. And during that time there was no noticeable change in my life. In comparison with the world, I was a moral boy, but I was still a sinner. I was not a good brother. I was not a good son. I lied and I stole, and yet I called myself a Christian. I was still professing faith. But during this time, when I was being raised up in the church and going to the Christian school, I did learn a lot about the Bible, and in the CRC church I was catechized with the Heidelberg Catechism during some of my later years in the Sunday School. Now, compared to the way catechism was done, this was a pretty wimpy type of catechizing, I was only made to memorize part of one question and answer, and that was question and answer one, what is your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own but belong body and soul to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. And that's it. That's all I memorized. I'm glad I still remember at least that portion. But it wasn't an extensive or an aggressive catechizing. My theology was weak. My theology was man-centered. I distinctly remember in the seventh grade mentioning that I believed that God elected others based upon his foreknowledge. He looked down the corridors of time and he saw those who would choose him and therefore he elected those that he saw would choose him. And so ironically, I was attending a Christian Reformed church and I was neither Christian nor Reformed. When I went away to college, I quickly joined several youth groups and Bible studies. I remember that, for a short time at least, I had 17 hours a week that was involved in some type of Bible study or church service. But that didn't last very long. And I had some influence by Christian friends early on. But within a year, I had dropped almost all connection with Christian fellowship. I found that I preferred the company of the world, worldly friends. I moved from a corridor in the dorms where I had some good influences. I moved away from those influences into a dorm in which I had some, really a bunch of non-Christian friends that I was hanging out with and who were influencing me. For a while there, I went to an assembly of God Church, which was the first time I'd seen individuals speaking in tongues and raising hands and slain by the Spirit. But in time I used my studies as an excuse not to attend church at all. And I very much regret, there was one gentleman in particular who was part of the on-campus group there and he had taken special pains to reach out to me. He would, every Thursday, take me out to lunch and we would talk and he was always buying me lunch here and there. And I eventually stopped meeting with him as well, saying that I was too busy. And I very much appreciate the fact that he reached out to me, and I don't even remember his name today. But I cut off almost all Christian influence. I was away from the authority of my parents, and my morality was much decreased as well. I still called myself a Christian. But at that time, I believe that I not only besmirched the name of Christ, but I also built up stumbling stones in front of others. My tongue in particular was worse at this time than any other time. If I could tell a lie instead of the truth, it seemed like I always chose the lie. And I did a lot of drinking at this time, at times drinking myself sick. or not being able to remember all of my actions from the night before. And yet, I remember defending Christianity or defending the existence of God while having a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I even remember a particular time quoting James 19, you believe that God is one, you do well, the demons also believe and shudder. And quoting that without ever applying it to myself while I was defending Christianity. Now I am grateful that during this time I was still restrained from certain sins. And some of that was by God's grace. Some of that was also by fear. I was afraid of certain worldly consequences. I was absolutely terrified of any type of addiction. And so I never touched any type of drugs. I was afraid of becoming addicted to cigarettes, but in that sense I said, well I'll never purchase a pack of cigarettes. So I bummed a lot of cigarettes off of friends. But I set myself a line, well I'm never going to purchase any and that will keep me from becoming addicted. And it's somewhat foolish. But out of fear, I was also kept from entering into many things. Then while I was home from college one summer, my parents encouraged me to make a profession of faith. And most churches that practice infant baptism don't practice infant communion. Now that's changing a little bit today. We're finding more and more churches that practice infant communion. But most churches don't practice infant communion. And so, those churches need, in a different stage, a division of members from members of the church to communicant members, those members that can partake of communion. And even if you're baptized as an infant into the church, well, you're not allowed to take of communion until you make profession of faith, or in the Catholic Church, that would be called confirmation. Well, my sister had made profession of faith. My sister is almost two years younger than I. My sister had made profession of faith some time ago, but I'd kind of slipped through the cracks or something, and I didn't really feel any pressure to join the church. But my parents had kind of asked me, well, why don't you make profession of faith? And my reservations at that time were not, am I in a state of grace? Am I truly one of Christ's? Am I truly saved? My concerns at that time were, well, you know, do I believe all the doctrine that the church upholds? So my concerns were doctrinal ones. And I said, well, I don't know if I understand or fully accept predestination. And so I read through what's called the three forms of unity, the Canons of Dort, the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism. I found those explained well enough that I could accept those doctrines. I went before the elders of the church. I went before the church council as an applicant for making profession. The only thing I remember is, well I guess I remember two things. I remember that when they asked me about whether or not, what my belief in the Bible was, that I stated, well, I believed that the autographs were inerrant, but I wasn't sure about our English translation. I was seen as very intellectual. I was seen as knowledgeable. In fact, my father was actually part of the eldership at this time. And he told me that after I had left the room, the elders had asked if I had any questions. I didn't have any questions. And my father told me that after I had left, one of the elders had mentioned that he was concerned that I would ask a question and that they wouldn't know the answer. So, I was seen as intellectual, I was seen as knowledgeable, but I don't remember the elders ever asking questions to ensure whether or not I was truly one of Christ, whether or not I was truly saved. Now once again, it may be that my memory is at fault. It may be that I just, being in a dead state at that time, that I just don't remember them asking those questions. But one way or the other, I don't remember any concern over whether I was showing evidences of grace in my life, it seemed entirely doctrinal concerns. And here let me mention a danger, it's more prominent among Presbyterians and infant Baptists, but we're not entirely immune to it, of what I would call educational regeneration. You may have heard of baptismal regeneration, which is the idea that when you become baptized, it's almost as though the water itself in some way causes you to become born again. You may have heard of the term decisional regeneration, which is the idea that when you make a particular decision for Christ and pray a prayer or sign a card, that is that which causes you to be born again. Well, I would say that certain churches at least have the practice of educational regeneration, where somebody is born within the church, educated up through Sunday school, catechized, and once they're catechized, what's the natural process? Now they make profession of faith, and they just roll over into the membership of the church. And it's almost as though through the education process, or through the rearing of the child in the church, that they become a Christian. And we're Our view of baptism, where we want only to baptize true believers, protects us a little bit from that, but it can still be natural in our own circles. When a child becomes a certain age, whether that's in the early teens or the later teens or something, that there's almost a practice of, well, there's an expectation that, you know, you're of such and such an age now, have you thought about baptism? They make a profession of faith. They're baptized. We need to beware, assuming that those who grow up within the church are saved. Now, let's see, it was 1993 when I graduated from Washington State University with a Bachelor's of Science in Electrical Engineering. And I had plans to take a contract. I was going to be a contract engineer for about the next nine months at a particular company. And during those nine months, I planned to look for a permanent position. Well, the budget never went through for me to be a contract engineer. And at that time, the markets were rather glutted with engineers that Boeing had laid off. And so I returned home and spent the next nine months looking for work. And there were two good benefits in what would appear to be a frowning providence. not having work to go to after graduating, there were two important benefits that came to me. One was I redeveloped the habit of going to church. And so being under my parents' roof again, coming back to my home church where I had grown up and not having anything else to do with my time, I started attending church again. I would go to particular Bible studies at that time. But it had more to do, once again, with not having much to do to fill my time, to fill my week. Not so much with a desire to pursue God or spend time in His Word. Let me mention something that occurred during this time. I'd always had doubts about my salvation at this point. And I remember somewhere in this time mentioning to someone, an older saint, mentioning that I had had doubts about my salvation. And the answer that I had from them was, well, don't worry about it, John. You're saved. And I'd like to say something here about doubt. And I want to suggest that in many circles, maybe not so much ours, but in many circles, there's a misunderstanding about doubt. In the evangelical church in general, what do you hear about doubt? Well, doubt is evil. Doubts are from the devil. If you have a doubt, what are you supposed to do? Well, thrust that doubt away from you. Don't think about that. And I want to suggest there's two things wrong with that view. First of all, doubts are not necessarily evil. Doubts can be very, very good. If you are not saved, then God be praised if you have doubts. Because those doubts might bring you to the understanding that you're not saved. Even if you are a Christian, doubts can be beneficial. Because why is it that you would doubt if you were a Christian? One of the reasons why you would experience doubt is perhaps there's something in your life some habitual sin, some besetting sin, that is causing you not to have assurance. And those doubts are a sign pointing you to something that needs to be changed, something that needs to be not ignored, but something that ought to be dealt with in your life. The second error I wanted to point out regarding doubt is the response that some churches would say about doubt. Just ignore it, thrust it from your mind, don't think about it. And I would suggest exactly the opposite. If we have a doubt, what ought we to do? Consider it. What's at the root of that doubt? What is causing me to doubt? Is it that I'm going through a period of grievous sin? Well then, I ought to work upon that grievous sin. But if it's, okay, well, I've been physically sick. Well then, that's not a concern. If we're just physically sick, it might affect our emotions. That's not something to be concerned about. So depending upon what produces the doubt depends upon what reaction we should have to it. But we should always examine the doubt to consider what it's being sourced from. Eventually, I accepted a job at a Bentley Nevada Corporation down in Minden, Nevada. I developed the habit of attending church, and so I was going to continue that habit. And I looked for a Christian Reformed church in the area, and there wasn't. And to show you how much I didn't know about churches at that time, I thought, well, you know, I'll try the Baptist church, and then maybe I'll check out the Nazarene church. And to me, there was no understanding about the vast differences between some of these churches at this time. So I started to attend the Baptist Church. Never did get around to checking out the Nazarene Church. I was quickly glommed on to by the pastor there and a particular gentleman who became my first really good friend. I was immediately involved with Bible study classes, immediately involved with working with the youth at the church. And I was like, and maybe this is a particular practice in certain churches, but Look, here's a young warm body, let's throw him to the youth. So I became involved in many things, and during that time I did come to understand and accept believer's baptism versus infant baptism. And for some reason, I don't know quite why, but I resolved to do a bunch of reading of a lot of the classical works. And I thought, well, let me devote myself to some of the Christian works. And so, at that time, it was sometime during the beginning of 1995, I read Pilgrim's Progress. And Bunyan's character, Ignorance, made a very great impression upon me. And you may remember, Ignorance was the gentleman who had false assurance. He believed that he was saved, that he was in the faith, but he had no evidence of grace in his life. He very easily crossed the river of death, the river that Christian himself had such great difficulty crossing, but ignorance had this ferryman called vain hope that allowed him to cross with ease. But then when he was at the gates of the celestial city, he was denied entrance, he was bound hand and foot, and he was cast into hell. And the dreamer then says, then I saw that there was a way to hell even from the gates of heaven as well as from the city of destruction and that totally freaked me out and I did not in any way want to be ignorance and in the fall of that same year as the Lord was working upon me, helping me see something of my state, have concerns and during the fall of 1995 I was taking a discipleship course called Experiencing God, Knowing and Doing the Will of God. Now, I'm not certain that I can recommend that course today. Maybe I shouldn't have even mentioned the name of it. But it was very good for me then. And there was something that Henry Blackaby said that was very important for my life. And he stated that our beliefs are shown not by what we say, but our beliefs are shown by what we do. And so here I was making profession about these doctrines most of my life. But now Blackaby called me to look at my actions. And when I looked at my actions, I was convicted at first about what I thought was the lack of obedience in my actions. For example, I'd become convicted, convinced of believers' baptism, but I hadn't been baptized, and what's the very first thing that you ought to do, right? And so, at first I was convicted by what I considered to be the lack of obedience in my life. I came up to the pastor, actually walked the aisle, but I told him it was time to join the body. And at that point, I experienced a change. Now, I don't attribute the change to walking the aisle, but at that point, When Blackaby told me that my belief was shown by my actions, and I seriously looked at my actions, a change took place in my life. I became very active in the church. I had always refused to pray, when even asked to pray. I remember one time, someone in the Sunday school saying, John, would you close us in? No. Now, my prayer life was very different. I voluntarily chose to pray often and was often called upon to pray. And as other changes began to take place in my life, when I looked back upon it, I realized I wasn't just changing from a disobedient Christian to an obedient Christian. I was convicted about my actions and I repented of those actions And what actually took place in my life was a radical change, and I started to look at that as, that was the point when I actually became a Christian, not an obedient Christian. And here I wanted to notice something that was important. I had had an incorrect view of saving faith for much of my life. And I thought I was a Christian simply because I believed the facts of the Bible. And it's not enough to believe that Jesus is real. It's not enough to believe that he took on the form of man. It's not enough to believe that he lived and that he died and that he rose again. It's not even enough to believe that Jesus died for your sins. The object of true saving faith isn't facts about Christ, truth about Christ. The object of saving faith is Christ. It's Christ that we trust, not facts that we believe. We must trust Christ as our Savior. And there's also an important tie here between repentance and faith. And oftentimes the picture that's used is we'll talk about faith being like two sides of a coin. They always go together. It's maybe even better to say that repentance and faith are like two halves of a scissors. You can't do much with one half of a pair of scissors. Repentance and faith always go together. True faith is always accompanied by repentance. And godly repentance is always accompanied by faith. And in the early part of my life, I showed an intellectual belief. But it was void of any repentance. And that ought to have been enough to cause me to examine my salvation. But nobody was looking at my life. Nobody was pointing at my life until Blackaby pointed at my life. Now just one month before I had started attending this church, they had hired a youth and education pastor by the name of Dennis Wells. And because of my own involvement in the youth as a warm body, I began associating with Pastor Wells. We became good friends. And it was through his influence that I started becoming interested in Reformed theology and the doctrines of grace. He introduced me to the works of R.C. Sproul and John MacArthur, and I've always been one who's read the footnotes. It annoys me when the footnotes are at the end of the book, because then I'm always paging back and forth. But I've always read the footnotes, and Sproul and MacArthur led me back to the Puritans. And so Reformed theology and the sovereignty of God started to come out in my teaching to the youth and in Sunday school. And actually it created something of a stir among the deacons of the church who were all Arminian. And so there was a bit of a controversy there. And I found that I had been an Arminian in a Reformed church. Now I was Reformed in an Arminian church. And then, in the fall of 1997, I first heard of Grace Community Church and Pastor Brian Borgman. And a few of my friends had started to attend Grace Community. Some of those who had also become Reformed. And I would hear certain things about Brian and Grace Community. And in particular, there was a particular statement Someone had told me that when reading a quote in one of his sermons, Brian had said, now this isn't from a dusty Puritan book. And by the way, my Puritan books are not dusty, he said. And I was reading a particular book called The Coming Evangelical Crisis. And there was an article there on substitutionary atonement. And the writer in that article mentioned his belief in particular redemption or limited atonement. And in the footnote, remember I always read the footnotes, he mentioned John Owen's conundrum. And this John Owen's conundrum is a particular argument in support of particular atonement, and he said it's an argument that has not yet received an answer. And I thought, well, what's this argument for limited atonement that no Arminian has been able to refute? Well, he didn't tell me in the footnote. He just said, go see Owen, Volume 10. And I thought, well, how am I going to figure this out? But I thought about that quote, about Brian's Puritan books not being dusty. And so I picked up the phone, and my first words to Brian were, Hi, my name is John Schaeffer, and I was wondering if you had owned Volume 10, and if I could borrow it. So there was a short pause, after which Brian mentioned that, well, he didn't typically lend out his books, and then, wait a minute, is this the John Schaeffer that, and he had heard of me from some of my friends, So we had gotten together, he gave me a little brochure about Owen's Conundrum, he let me borrow Owen Volume 10, and actually within the next five months, next six months perhaps, I was attending Grace Community Church. Let me just mention that I had a little confusion even then. It was actually only about two months until I was attending Grace Community Church, but for five months I stayed at First Baptist. And so I would teach Sunday school at First Baptist and then I would get in the car and teach Sunday school and go to the morning service. And then I would get in the car and drive through town. I would go into Grace Community Church just about 10 minutes late and catch the morning service there. And I thought that I could serve in one church and be fed at another. Maybe you've heard others say that. And I see now that that is just completely idiotic to think that as an ear you could be fed from one body and listen for another body and so my doctrine of the church was rough at that time but eventually another brouhaha arose regarding my teaching of God's sovereignty and about five months after I started attending Grace Community I resigned from the other church and transferred over in whole Now, during this whole process, I'd also become increasingly involved in ministry. I was involved in teaching the youth, teaching Sunday school. I went to China Spring, a boys' detention camp, twice a week. I was taking seminary extension courses in Reno. I was leading Bible studies, small group studies, on Friday nights and Saturday nights. And so I was very active. I don't know quite why I was taking the seminary extension courses. There had been a thought of mine that I might be called to the ministry, but I wasn't pursuing it with much zeal. It was in December of 1998 that Brian asked me to consider coming on staff at the church. I did a bit of teaching that next year, and Brian then later asked me after a year's candidacy, basically, whether I would come on staff at the church. And in December of 99, I entered into the eldership, and the next month left Bentley, Nevada, in order to enter the ministry full-time. And God bless those patient souls that listened to my first messages. It's been about 11 years since that day, and I've had to learn a lot of things in that process. I now have a master's degree in biblical studies. I have a lot more experience under my belt than I had then, and the Lord will continue to grow me as well. Let me also mention, there's a couple more things beside my conversion story I wanted to mention. Let me also mention how I met my wife. I was single when I entered the eldership, and I came to expect that I would remain single. Now, I desired a wife, but I thought the Lord had slated me for singleness, and I was seeking at that point to submit myself to His will. But, on March 2nd, 2003, Pastor Edwin Gonzalez from the Cornerstone Bible Church in Miami was speaking at our church. He spoke in the morning and he needed to fly out that afternoon. And so I took him up to the Reno Airport that afternoon. And I did not know that Edwin was something of an infamous matchmaker. and his wife had told him to remember Becky Fernandez when he had left on this recent trip and so we're on our way to Reno, we're making small talk and Edwin asks me about my marital status and he mentions that he had someone in his congregation that I should meet and he preached Becky up a bit and I remember saying well I didn't really feel that I deserved someone like that but But he didn't give up. And Pastor Brian Borgman and Edwin Gonzalez have always been fast friends. So they formed a conspiracy. And Pastor Brian on the Nevada end and Pastor Edwin on the Florida end were prompting Becky and myself to begin a correspondence. Becky tells this part of the story better, but as soon as Edwin came back from this trip, he approaches her and says, now Becky, I'm your pastor. And I know this young man. He's a nice young man. He's a pastor. He's a nice young man. He's in Nevada. He's a nice young man. And I believe I can bring him down next week. You can spend the entire weekend together. And I think he's like, what? Pastor? Nevada? What? And eventually, she said, and some of the Cuban coming out in her, she said, OK, well, he can email me, but you stay out of it. And so Becky and I eventually, there were other things that were going on, I would be in my study studying and all of a sudden somebody would come in and snap a photo of me and leave. Brian was prompting me to start writing Becky. Eventually, I did begin emailing Becky. I remember the title of my first email was Busy Pastors. And we began corresponding, first by email, then by instant messaging, and then over the phone. And eventually I came down at, let's see, it was September of 2003. I came down for a one-week trip, staying with Pastor Edwin, and it rained the entire week. which was actually a sign of God's kindness towards us. Because what do you do in Miami if it's raining? Well, we just walked through every single mall I think that Miami has, but it caused us to have a lot of time to talk. If we were doing activities, oftentimes if you're doing an activity, you're sharing an experience, but you're not really relating to the other person very much. We were forced to do a lot of talking. We got to know each other actually very quickly in that way. I thought it was very good. The world is kind that way. I was fairly smitten and by the end of the week already I had asked Becky to come up. I was planning a trip to my parents in Montana for Thanksgiving. I asked her to join me and then my parents were smitten as well. By the end of that year, I had come down and proposed to Becky. Actually, that was an experience in itself. I came down for a quick two-day trip. My sole purpose was to come down and propose, but I knew that I needed to ask Becky's father if I could have permission to take his daughter's hand in marriage. Becky would not leave my side. So I couldn't very well talk to the father. Anytime Becky left me for two minutes, her whole family was like, go entertain him, go entertain him. So I had a difficult time that entire Christmas day. I was unable to get her father alone. And I knew that the next morning he had kidney dialysis, he had to leave early, so I got up early and I went out and I asked him if I could have his daughter's hand in marriage and he said that he'd think about it. And I thought, what? And one of his other daughters, one of Becky's sisters, dropped him off at dialysis and came back and then told me, well he says he's going to ask Becky. Well, I need to ask Becky. So things were rather confusing there. In the end, I did ask Becky to marry me that day, even though I didn't have a straight answer from her father, and he did forgive me. I think it was nine months later then that we were married. Our engagement then being just as long as we'd known each other thus far, But I took my final semester at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, which allowed me to spend the weekends with Becky and also go through premarital counseling with Edwin. And so that allowed us to get to know each other even better. There's stories about Hurricane Francis then, too. We were scheduled to be married on September the 4th. But that was also the time that Hurricane Francis wanted to hit Miami. And so we had ended up having to bump our wedding up two days earlier. Well, last month we celebrated our sixth anniversary. The Lord has given us two sons, John Benjamin and Matthew Caleb, and just recently a little girl that we're in process of adopting. And so we have now three kids under four, so Becky is very busy. But let me just mention a little bit as well about some things that have happened recently. And you may know even just as many details as I do about what's happened recently in Roanoke, but in the last year and a half, they have gone from a rather decent-sized membership, losing about over half of their members, going from five officers down to three, losing all of their Eight officers, down to three, and losing all of their elders. They had disparity even at times in this last year of even continuing to exist. But through a strange providence, we came to one another's attention. Back last December, Bob Lunetta had called. I wondered if I was interested in coming out. I was open to coming out. I wasn't looking for a pastor. I was happy at Grace. But I came out for a weekend in January. I came out for a week in April. The whole family came out for almost two weeks in June. And as we discovered that we were very much like-minded on not only essentials, but also on a number of non-essentials, but maybe some important things that are non-essentials. As we were coming to find how like-minded we are, the Lord also knit our hearts close together. It was soon after our visit in June that the church voted to extend a call, and we accepted. It came down in the middle of August, and so it's been about two months that we've been in Virginia. Two weeks ago we had our installation service and it was blessed. I appreciate your prayers for that service. There was a sense of excitement and energy and unity. The Lord was kind to give unction to Pastor Fisher and Pastor Johnston as they preached. It was just an enjoyable time and we hope that those are indications of the Lord's favor upon us in the future as well. Now, I have left myself with maybe eight minutes. Let me close in prayer. If you have particular questions, I might take some of those up. Let's close in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, We thank you, Father, for your grace. I thank you in particular for restraining grace, but, Father, most especially for saving grace. We thank you, Father, for the provision of a Savior to rescue us not only from the penalty of sin, but Father, also the power of sin. We thank you for your gifts of faith and repentance and Father of salvation. I thank you for, Lord, what you've done in my own life. I pray that you would encourage some of my brothers here and Father, also perhaps cause some to to learn lessons from my life that they might avoid some of the mistakes I've made. Lord, I praise you for your generosity and your kindness, your love, even for rebels. Lord, we pray for the rest of the day as well. We ask that your word would go forth to your glory and to our benefit, and we ask it in Christ's name. Amen.