Transcript

Take your Bibles and let’s go to Ephesians. We’ll go to the very last part of the book of Ephesians as we’ll finish this up tonight as the Apostle Paul is giving his final benedictory admonitions to the church there. Interesting that we’ve been in Ephesians and this is the church Timothy was left in charge of as we’re studying about in our new series in 1 Timothy.

Before I do that, I want to ask you to keep in prayer Anna Catherine or Anna Gardener, rather. I think Anna Catherine is her daughter. Anna Gardener’s mom who passed away, Marcia Ann Mulligan. So I know her small group is already ministering to her but please be remembering her in prayer.

Ephesians 6. We’ll begin in verse 19. Again, Timothy was placed in charge overseeing this church as Paul was unable to be there and in this letter he sends to this church, he ends the letter in this way. Verse 19 of Ephesians 6,

19 and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. 21 But that you also may know about my circumstances, how I am doing, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will make everything known to you. 22 I have sent him to you for this very purpose, so that you may know about us, and that he may comfort your hearts.

Then in verse 23 and 24 he gives a prayer admonition on their behalf.

23 Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 24 Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love.

That’s a very interesting phrase but we’ll get to that in a few moments.

So here Paul begins in this benediction by making a prayer request of the Ephesians and then offering a prayer on their behalf. So let’s talk about this prayer request and it’s centered on if you wanna jot down the outline, it’s centered on I.: praying for his continued boldness in preaching the Gospel, and I would admonish you if you pray for your pastor, make sure that’s one of your top prayers, “God, give our pastor spiritual, God-wrought boldness in preaching the Gospel.” Now why do you think he added the word “boldness” there? Boldness was because there was every pressure upon him and every logical temptation for him to shrink back and bend the corners on maybe some doctrine, or compromise on maybe some points because he was under bitter persecution. He’s incarcerated. He’s in prison for it but he says, “Even in these circumstances, what’s important is the preaching of the Gospel.” So pray for me that I’ll continue on faithfully as God called me to preach.

I have several subpoints to undergird why he would ask such a thing for a prayer for continual boldness and preaching of the Gospel. First of all, A., because preaching the Gospel is God’s primary means for winning the lost and building up the church and glorifying himself. It’s God’s primary means for winning the lost, building up the church, and glorifying himself. The Gospel and the preaching of the Gospel is the power of salvation. Paul said to the Corinthians, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” So the Apostle Paul and the New Testament writers make it very very clear that this thing of a herald, this thing of proclaiming God’s word is primary, it’s foundational to God’s work.

Now we say that a lot around here but I have to say it a lot because there it is again, it’s right there in the text before us, Paul asking them, “Pray about my preaching. That’s what I want you to pray about. Pray about my faithfulness.” And brothers and sisters, listen to me on this Sunday evening: do you recognize if you just take the 40,000+ Southern Baptist churches that we are now loosely affiliated with, very loosely affiliated with a little bit, if you take the 40,000+ Southern Baptist churches, listen to me, if every Southern Baptist church had a pulpit that was aflame with spiritual anointed preaching of the word, our country wouldn’t be where we are today. If those pastors in those, look, you couldn’t get elected to office, you couldn’t have a platform of pro-abortion or all the sexual perversions that men are celebrating and embracing, it wouldn’t work if every pulpit was solid with the preaching of the word in the power of the Spirit. Brothers and sisters, there’s no problem on this earth, there’s certainly no problem in this country that strong pulpits wouldn’t cure. Are you listening to me? We need that. So certainly be active in politics. I hope some of our young people grow up and become judges and good, solid, Christian, constitutional committed judges and be involved in the political process, all that’s fine and good but whatever else happens we need strong churches with strong pulpits.

So Paul said, “Whatever else you guys pray for, I’m closing out my letter to ya, pray because that’s God’s primary tool for our good, winning the lost, building up the church, and glorifying himself.” Now as I talked about the effect on the culture, I do want to say this, we’ve got to be careful that God hasn’t primarily put the church here to fix the country. Did you hear that? It is true where there are strong churches, the country and the culture does better, it has a salt and light effect, but it can very well be that God prospers his church while the country and the culture around it goes completely backwards and goes into degradation and into sin and despair. So a point I’d like to make, and there’s a lot of people throwing stuff around right now that’s out of balance biblically where they’re talking about, “Man, all we need’s the Gospel and that’ll fix our country.” It may not. It will build his church and it will have a good effect on the culture but it may not fix it. Read the end of Revelation. It don’t get fixed til he gets back, but the church, the church can be right in a wrong culture. The church can be righteous in an unrighteous culture. The church can be holy in an unholy culture. It’s a challenge, ask Paul, it put him in prison but he said, “I’ve stayed faithful now you pray I’ll keep remaining faithful in boldness and preaching of the Gospel because it is God’s primary tool for winning the lost, building of the church, and therefore God glorifying himself.”

Romans 10:14-15, notice how central this thing of preaching is to God’s work. ” How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? How shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a personal witness?” That’s important. That’s not what he says. “How shall they hear without a preacher?” A preacher. And, “How shall they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, ‘How beautiful at the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things!'”

So you may say, “Well, Brother Jeff, you’re going to all these passages. 1 Timothy has a lot to say about pastors and preaching. Now Paul ends his letter talking about pastors and preaching, what about us?” This is about you. Do you support the preaching of the word? Do you pray for the preaching of the word? Are you committed to that being the primary instrument in your life and in your family’s life and in your children and in your grandchildren’s life so that they might be drawn upon by God and wrought upon by the Spirit of God to love the Lord and honor the Lord? Preaching of the word in the power of the Spirit is everything for our growth in Christ. I believe if you make sure your family sits under sound, expositional, Spirit-anointed, Bible preaching, you can face your Lord one day and him say, “You did all you could have done to have reached your family for Christ.” Now certainly I’m not suggesting you can be some kind of hypocrite when you get home. We all know the family discipleship needs to be consistent with the church and the pulpit but what I’m saying to you is that is your job. You’re involved. Look, your receiving of the word is as important as my preaching of the word and that’s one of the reasons why God’s used your witness to help and encourage these other pastors and church leaders because they see you after these decades thriving on the preaching of the word when everything in the world and everything in the culture and many people within professing Christendom keep telling these pastors, go to other stuff. Do other things. Be clever. Be creative. Go to drama. Go to super-fantastic presentations with light shows and smoke and all this nonsense. What are you gonna do when that gets old? I’m gonna tell you, you raise up a church that’s addicted to the preaching of this book but they’ll never get over it, they’ll just want more of the book. And I have found through the years, you get away from it for a little while, I’m talking about you, you get away from it for a little while, you’ll be just like a sheep that’s put out of the pen of sheep. You can put a sheep out of the sheep pen and it’ll wander around for a little while and then it’ll come right back and want back in again. You’re just drawn back to it. It’s sheep food.

Well, you have a role in this. You should support it, you should encourage it, you should pray for your pastor, you should generously support your pastor and you do those things and praise the Lord for your faithfulness and that’s why you’re a good role model. You have not succumbed to the ever-alluring seductions of there’s 1,001 other things “to make the church grow.” Whatever they are, they won’t last and you might build a congregation but you hadn’t built a church if you use anything other than the preaching of the word as the foundation stone as concerning the means of God doing his work.

Okay, secondly, Paul says, “Pray for me that I’ll have boldness and continue to preach the Gospel because preaching the Gospel is the most awesome of all callings.” It is the most awesome of all callings. Now I’m not using the word “awesome” as “cool.” We throw that word around today like, “Well, that’s awesome,” and that’s okay but that’s not the original meaning of the word “awesome.” The original meaning is “awe-inspiring.” The calling to preach has aspects to it that, um, should put some fear into your heart. It has aspects to it that should put some sobriety if not trembling in your soul about all that’s involved in it. It’s not easy for myself to think that your soul, your precious eternal soul and the soul of your families, your children, and your children’s children to a good degree depend upon this pulpit. Any man that understands that and does not feel that this is an awesome task is a hireling and not a God-called man. There is an awesomeness. You must pray for your pastor because God’s given him a job that human flesh is just not capable of carrying. The eternal nature of your soul and the eternal worth of your soul demands I give this my very best and I covet your prayers.

He uses the phrase in the verse here, verse, um, 8, 19 rather, “that utterance may be given me. Pray that utterance.” That has the idea of the liberty of the Spirit. “Pray that the Spirit will help me express things clearly and accurately.”

He uses the phrase “in the opening of my mouth,” and that speaks of the solemn nature of the message. In other words, “I’m opening my mouth but pray for me because even though it’s my mouth that’s opened, it’s God’s message that must come out. My mouth may be opening but it’s God’s truth that must come forth. Pray for me,” Paul says. You should pray for your pastor in that way.

Then he talks about the mystery of the Gospel, “Pray that I’ll have this liberty of the Spirit that when I open up my mouth, God’s truth comes forth and the truth of this mysterious Gospel.” It doesn’t mean “mystery” like it’s hard to understand, he means a mystery that it was one time hidden. In the Old Testament dispensation, they only knew the Gospel in figures and types and in shadows, but now it’s made clear, it’s unveiled. It’s a mystery that’s been made known. Jesus has come. “We have seen him,” the apostle would say. “He went to the cross. He died. He was buried. He rose again. Pray that I’ll preach that great Gospel truth.”

To point out the awesomeness of this task for a human being to carry, 2 Corinthians 2:15- 17. I think it’s on your screen. “For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved,” now listen to this, “among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death.” He said, “There are some people we preach to and we’re just we’re walking death to them. It’s just dead to them. They don’t they’re not interested in it at all.” They’re the guys that say, “Take me out down to that other church over there, it’s at least fun over there. I’m not gonna listen to that death stuff down there at Grace Life anymore.”

He said, “And then to others we’re an aroma from life to life.” Others light up and say, “My very life depends on the faithful preaching of the word of God. I have to have it.” Some it’s a death but to some it’s life itself.

Then he says, and here’s the statement that the awesomeness, “who is adequate for these things?” How can you, he’s saying, “How can you expect a mortal human being to handle the weight of that?” He says, “For we are not like many, peddling the word of God,” so in Paul’s day already there were a lot of preachers popping up that were just playing games with the word of God to draw crowds and typically to gain financial or or to get financial gain, “but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.”

We are fallen, preachers are, yet we are saved men with finite minds and finite tongues and we need prayer to be used of God. Thank you for your prayers. Paul asked the Ephesians, “Please pray for me in this task.”

A third thought of why he would ask them at the end of his letter to pray for him and in his preaching is because persecutions and suffering accompany Gospel preaching. Persecutions and suffering accompany Gospel preaching. I have never seen an exception to that. It’s just interesting through the years as we have tried to encourage and help these church planters and young pastors, I guess in one level or another it would be hundreds of them now, that’s one level or another, and I don’t remember a one that went into their work thinking, “Okay, suffering and persecution is coming.” I just don’t remember a one of them starting with me that thought that. I thought I was so sharp that we’d just burn the woods up and it’d just be fun all the way through. That’s laughable if you know my story. The first week of my pastorate, the first, the fifth day of my pastorate we dismissed a senior staff member for adultery. That’s the way I started in the ministry. I mean, it’s just part and parcel of it. But of all the brothers that we’ve helped through the years, every single one of them starts out thinking, “I think I can get this thing going for the glory of God and I won’t go through these difficulties and these wars in the church, and these divisions, and these factions and this trouble.” But every single one, so far every single one has had to go through it. No exception. I do not know any exception. So actually biblically speaking it would be wiser for them to say, “I think it’s coming. I don’t know how much it is but I think it’s coming.” And one of the things that makes it difficult if it comes often from the people you least expected it to come from.

So Paul says, “Pray for me.” Now we see specifically the particular persecution he’s enduring at this moment is, verse 20, ” I am an ambassador in chains.” Now that’s not figurative language, he’s literally chained to a Praetorian guardsman in a Roman prison.

2 Corinthians 11:23-29, “Are they servants of Christ?” Paul is talking about those who would oppose him or oppose his ministry. He said, “I speak as if insane–I more so; in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked,” a day and a night or “a night and a day,” rather, “I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from robbers, dangers from rivers and robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure upon me of the concern for all the churches.” Paul says, “Who is weak without me being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern?” He said, “I’m carrying all of this.” So Paul said there is great physical and emotional toil and persecution and hardship connected with preaching the Gospel, or it was for him.

We know John, like Paul, suffered from constant verbal attacks. That’s when you proclaim truth like preachers are called to proclaim it, there’s always a host of people Satan sets on fire to take everything you say and put a twist on it, but everything you say and put a twist on it to make it look as bad as possible. Now this thing of putting a spin on things did not start in the political arena, it started in the church and those are just difficult things to deal with. I have literally gotten sermon tapes and when people come to my office said, “You said this and this.” I said, “No, I didn’t,” and I’d put the sermon tape on and when I got through they’d say, “Well, no, you didn’t. That’s the way I heard it but you didn’t actually say that.” Now I’ve said things that I need to be corrected on, trust me, but many times I’ve been accused of things that I didn’t really say.

3 John 1:10, John said this about his preaching ministry, “For this reason, if I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words; and not satisfied with this, neither does he himself receive the brethren, or he forbids those who desire to do so and puts them out of the church.” Now he was talking about a renegade, rogue spirit in the church that’s putting him in the worst light possible. All the point I’m making is all of this is a part of the pastorate. This is one of the reasons why Paul says, “Pray for me. Pray for me.”

In Colossians 1:24, Paul makes this interesting statement where he says, “I’m filling up in what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. I am filling up in what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” What does that mean? Well, he doesn’t mean when Jesus did on the cross he didn’t satisfy the redemptive price. Yes, redemption is satisfied but Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins and now there is a continual suffering that Christ performs through his church in the converting of the of his elect and bringing them together into the church. So now he’s suffering through us. We’re his body, are we not? And primarily through his preachers. He suffered on the cross redemptively, he suffers through us to bring the conversion and the collecting together of the saints of God. So it’s not that Christ was lacking it’s just this is the way he’s fulfilling his purpose of building his church. This is why when Paul commanded Timothy in 2 Timothy 4 about his preaching, he said, “You gonna have to be ready in season and out of season,” he says, “for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, they’ll want to have their ears tickled,” he said. The point being Paul is saying, “Pray for me, there’s just ever-present toil, dangers and difficulties in preaching the word.”

Another aspect of why he would ask them to pray for him is because outward success is sometimes hard to find. So a a a a minister, a faithful preacher will sometimes look outwardly and can’t find proof that anything good is happening and it’s really hard to hang on in those times. It’s really hard not to be discouraged in those times. Ah, Jesus for example in Mark 13, they took offense at Jesus and he did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief so because of the people’s unbelief, the ministry of Jesus was not as effective there. Now it could have been if he wanted it to be but he purposefully pulled it back. There are times when God for his own glory and purposes pulls back the effectiveness of the ministry. Sometimes it just doesn’t look like it’s working like you think it ought to be working.

There was that time when the Apostle Paul said, “All have left me. Outwardly,” Paul says, “I’m not seeing much good. As a matter of fact, I’m seeing my numbers go down.” We’re counseling with some pastors right now who are doing a good job and as I told you, I just left Grace Life Church, our church plant in Pryor, OK. Man, they’re doing good. Their attendance is good, but that was a few years ago I went in there and there was hardly anybody there and they were discouraged but they were doing the right thing. Outward success wasn’t there but as the years have rolled by, now God’s bringing the success. So we need to pray for guys like Brother Derick and these other brothers who are purposing to be faithful.

Well, another reason why he would ask for these Ephesians to pray for him is because false prophets and false gospels abound. In other words, there’s all every morning when Paul woke up there was more false teachers and more false doctrine to deal with. They have to refute it, correct it, try to get people back on track again. 2 Peter 2:1, ” But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly induce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.” In Acts 20, he talked about, “After I leave,” here’s what he says, “I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock, and from your own selves men will arise speaking perverse things to draw the disciples away after them.” Jude called them hidden reefs in your love feast. They’re just below the surface. They’re just waiting to pop up and cause trouble. So Paul says, “Pray for us, in this case pray for me particularly because there’s always the war to try to deal with false teachers and false doctrine.”

Another reason why he would ask the Ephesians to pray for him was because Paul was mortal, he was still human, and he would get discouraged. It’s common for preachers to get discouraged in the work. I I spend more time counseling discouraged preachers than in any other counseling I do these days. 1 Corinthians 2:3, Paul says, “I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling,” in other words he was saying, “I wasn’t doing very well.” I remember I had a man come to my office years ago and we were talking and he said, “Pastor, are you doing okay?” I said, “No, I’m not.” Charles Haddon Spurgeon, remember the phrase Spurgeon used to have about his ministry? Spurgeon said, “Beneath the castle of despair is a dungeon and that’s where I live much of the time.” He just said it’s just tough. Spurgeon would get attacked by the hyper-Calvinist on one side and the Arminians on the other side. They just all were trying to get him. Martyn Lloyd-Jones in his book on preachers and preaching which is a classic, helped me a lot. He would get discouraged and he and his wife would get on a train and go across Europe and he’d just take some time away and look at museums to get over the discouragement he was experiencing in the ministry. It’s just part and parcel of the process and so he says, “Pray for us. I’m mortal and you can get discouraged at times.”

Well, now let’s shift gears. Not only does he say, um, well, let me just let me note this though, why do you think of all the things that would have been legitimate requests that Paul says, “Okay, pray this. Pray that I’ll have boldness to keep preaching the Gospel”? Because he understood Matthew 6:33, you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things, including being released from prison, all these things will be added unto you. Paul got that. It would’ve been nothing wrong and I think in other places he alludes to the fact to pray for him and pray for his release etc., it’s certainly right, but I wonder how many of us today, you know, we’ve had some of these men, I think some of them were good and faithful men of God who were, um, North Korea, Turkey, these men were incarcerated, accused of being spies or something because they were Christian missionaries. I never heard anybody saying, “Let’s pray they’ll have faithfulness and boldness to preach the Gospel.” That’s what Paul said to pray for him when he was in jail. Nothing wrong with praying and working for their release, and thank God our President I think’s gotten about every one of them out and there may be one or two left that we’ve heard in the news that hadn’t been released, but several have been released. But Paul it’s not what he asks for first. First he asks for, “Pray that I’ll have boldness in preaching the Gospel.”

Now he turns around and he gives this invocation of prayer for the church and we see it down in verses 23 and verse 24. First of all, he says, “Peace be to the brethren.” Peace among believers. I think what he’s actually saying is when God’s Holy Spirit has changed us, it automatically puts us in a a a a bond, a unifying thing. Now let’s walk that out, is what he’s saying. Let’s live out the peace that’s already there for us. Ah, that capacity the Spirit of God has given you to get over your own preferences, to get over having to have things your way and saying the good of the church and the glory of God and the advance of the Gospel is more important than my petty opinions or viewpoints. Peace. Pray that we’ll walk with that kind of selflessness. Pray that we’ll walk with those kind of priorities, the kingdom, church planting, supporting pastors, missions, the church having a good witness. Pray that will be vital so that the peace we have been given is actually manifested and lived out. The Bible says in Ephesians 4:25 we’re “members of one another,” so we certainly should have harmony and peace with each other. Ephesians 2:19 says we’re of the same household.

So he prays and invokes God to give peace among the brethren and then he says, “love with faith.” Love with faith. You know, Romans 5:5 tells us that “hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” Now here’s the key to all of this and I’ll be a little repetitive but that’s okay. You need to hear it a lot. And that is, that everything he’s praying for them to have is something they don’t have unless God gave it to them. Everything he prays for this church to have and experience are things they could not have naturally, it’s things that they now do have because of the new birth but he wants them to grow in it, mature in it and live it out. Peace and now love. Where does your love for the brethren come from? Where does this unusual love for all these people in Grace Life Church that many of them in the natural realm you wouldn’t have anything to do with them, but now that you’re saved and they’re saved, you’re beginning to actually really love them, where did that come from? It came from the Spirit of God that God put in your heart. They’ve got the Spirit, you’ve got the Spirit, and there’s something about it that causes us to bond and be drawn together. May we grow in that love, the love God put in us for one another through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Then faith, that our faith that we all have but may it grow. May it mature. May it be what it’s supposed to be. May it be lived out. And let’s remind ourselves that whether it’s the peace we’re supposed to be walking in, the love we have for one another, or the common faith we have together in our Lord Jesus Christ, all three of these have their origin in God and they are in us because God has changed us and made us different than the world, therefore we ought to walk in this difference.

It further comes out strongly in the very last verse where he says, “Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love.” Now that’s an interesting phrase, “with incorruptible love.” Where do you get an incorruptible love? I’ve been around some of you long enough to know that your regular love, the love you were born with, the love that’s natural to the natural man, it’s not incorruptible. As a matter of fact, it gets corrupted really quickly. But every single one of you who’s been born of the Spirit, has been given, placed in you an incorruptible love.

So he says, okay, every single one that’s had the new birth and therefore has this love for Christ and love for one another, love for the church that you can’t explain it, can’t understand it, but God gave it to us. The more you sit under the word, the more it grows, the more it’s stirred up in you, the more you fellowship with the brethren the more it’s realized, the more you grasp what it really is, this incorruptible love is a part of the new birth which he has given us and this is God’s favor and that’s what grace means. He talks about having grace here. This grace is sustaining. This grace is continuing. This grace is sanctifying us so that we can live out the peace and the love, this incorruptible love that he has given us.

So Paul concludes his letter to the church at Ephesus. Remember, this is a a church planted in an exceedingly vile, perverse, corrupt community. Very very terribly perverse community, but he asks them to pray for him that he would be faithful preaching the word because it is the backbone of the church’s inward and outward growth. Then he says, “I’m gonna pray for you, the church, that you’ll grow in peace and faith and love because when you do that, then you actually exemplify and show to the world around you that you’re different and they see the power of God in your lives because no other group can do that. They see the wisdom of God because no other group can come up with that. They can’t think that up. So they see the power and the wisdom, and by the way, it’s a beautiful thing and it shows the world the beauty of God when the brethren dwell together in this kind of peace and unity and love for each other.” So what’s the end result of the world seeing all of that? God gets the glory and that’s why we’re here. You’d better get tied in. If you’re not tied into the glory of God, you’re missing it all. We don’t have churches to help us raise our kids so they’ll be moral and good. Now they are will be moral and good if we raise them right and God changes them, but having good kids is secondary to God getting glory. We want our kids to love Christ and be born again and love the church and have this love and unity in the church so they’ll be a part of God getting glory and a wonderful byproduct is they will be better people by far. We’re not Mormons. We’re not about behavior modification. That’s secondary. We’re about the glory of God.

He wants all this to happen in the church at Ephesus so they will be a light of God to the world around them. The church is God’s greatest light when it’s really the church and that’s what we’re striving to be and by the way, I plan on keep striving to be that until I’m too weak or old or die. I appreciate you staying on the journey with me for the glory of God. Can’t quit. No quitters. No quitters. No quitters. You can’t stop what you didn’t start. I didn’t assign myself this post, God did. By the way, if you understand God, you didn’t start your membership here, God did, and you don’t get released until God releases you. “Well, pastor, how will I know if God releases me?” I’ll tell ya. I don’t really mean that but if you think God’s released you so you can lay down your responsibilities at Grace Life and go do something else, why wouldn’t you come and talk to the pastor about that? Wouldn’t you want to be sent out with his blessing? Goodness gracious, I’m not gonna keep you hanging around here if you don’t love us. No quitters until God gets through with us. You get to quit when I come by your casket. Amen? Or you come by mine and say, “Well, he’s already he’s quit now.” No, I’m not, I’m with Jesus. I’m with the glorified bride in heaven worshiping him then.