[Sunday School] Holy Spirit 12

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:32

I'm going to invite you to please open your Bibles to Titus 1, 5 through 9. Today we are taking a break in our regularly scheduled programming in the book of Luke because we are getting ready to ordain and install two new ruling elders. In case you didn't know, this is a Presbyterian church. It's not on the sign, it should be on the sign, eventually it'll be on the sign, but this is a Presbyterian church. And that word Presbyterian, it sounds super weird and churchy, but it's actually based on the Greek word presbyteros for elder. So in its most basic sense, a Presbyterian church is a church that is ruled by elders. So that being the case, and since we are getting ready to ordain and install new elders, I thought it would be good for us to go to Scripture to see just what an elder is, why we need them, and what they're supposed to do. So for that, we're looking at Titus chapter 1, verses 5 through 9. Titus is one of the so-called pastoral epistles. These were letters written by Paul to his gospel co-workers with guidance on how to set up and run the church. In Titus specifically, we have this young man, probably young man, this man who was left behind by Paul in order to set things right and get the church going on the Greek island of Crete. Crete was a famously immoral and treacherous place. It was full of mercenaries and pirates. It was so bad that the Greeks had a verb, Cretidsein, for people who behaved like Cretans. Even that word, Cretan, you're such a Cretan, it's a word we use today based on that island of Crete and its rampant immorality. So this was a tough place. It was a tough place to plant a church. And part of the answer to the problem, part of the blueprint for setting up a thriving church in such a hostile place, was to raise up godly men to lead the churches according to the word of God. That was God's MO then. It's God's MO today, and it will be until Jesus comes back. Godly elders are a gift, quite literally, a gift to Christ's church, to this church, given by Jesus Himself through the power of the Holy Spirit to help us all stand on the firm foundation of God's truth. So consider this morning not just an explainer in Presbyterian church government, consider it a charge. A charge to our elders, our old elders or our incoming elders, but also to us all as a congregation, to demand what Scripture demands of your leaders, and to follow them as they lead you deeper into the word. So with that said, I'll invite you to rise as you're able, and we'll read Titus 1, verses 5 through 9. This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you. If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife and his children are believers, and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer as God's steward must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy workworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction and sound doctrine, and also to rebuke those who contradict it. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Father, thank you for your word. And thank you for the fact that you have not left us to figure this all out on our own. But Lord, you have given us gifts, you have given us structure, you have given us a blueprint, so that we might order your church according to your word. Send your Spirit now to help us understand these things and to apply them not just to our church but to our individual lives. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. So as I said, Titus was left behind to strengthen the newly planted church against the pressure that these churches experienced from the Cretan culture, but also from non-Christian Jews. There was all kinds of pressure coming from all kinds of different directions in these early churches. And appointing elders was step one in that process of strengthening the churches. So we're going to look at that and unpack it along three lines. The need for elders, the nature of elders, and the norm for elders. So if you're taking notes, those are your three key words. The need, the nature, and the norm. We start with the need for elders. Paul reminds us, or he reminds Titus of his mission in verse 5. This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you. When he says what remained here, he's not talking about some uncompleted project that he undertook. He's talking about the churches that he left behind, the churches he helped to plant. And he's charging Titus to order them according to the model that he's seen in Paul and the instructions that he's about to give him as a reminder. Now that word order, order, it's a really important word for Presbyterians. We're all about our order. We even have a big blue book of church order. I'll knock you over the head with it sometime if you misbehave. Order. Our life verse, if we were to have a life verse as Presbyterians, is 1 Corinthians 14, 40, all things should be done decently and in order. So Paul leaves Titus to establish order, specifically by appointing elders in every town according to the criteria that he's seen Paul use in the past. And we're going to look at those criteria in a few minutes, but I first want to linger for a few minutes over the need for church government, specifically church government in the form of human leadership. Because we are living right now in a remarkably anti-institutional age. More and more we are turning away from institutions that we used to know and trust, and we're turning to things like online influencers and television personalities to tell us what we need to know. So instead of doctors, we go to health bloggers, instead of epidemiologists, we go to TikTok. Instead of our pastors, we go to YouTube or we listen to podcasts. And I get, I get it, right? Some of our institutions have flagrantly abused the public trust, and they are reaping the whirlwind, the whirlwind for it right now. There are a lot of people that we shouldn't trust, and we are trying to sort that out as a culture. And sadly, many of our churches, many of the leaders in our churches, have abused their position and wounded people. You might remember the church two movement that came on the heels of the Me Too movement and how it exposed so many cases of spiritual and emotional and even physical abuse that came at the hands of church leaders. It's a real thing. It's a thing to be named, it's a thing to be called out, it's a thing to be dealt with, it's a thing to be lamented over it. But even before that church to movement really picked up steam and people started highlighting these problems, people have been turning from the institutional church. The numbers all bear it out, and turning to a more individual a la carte mode of spirituality or Christianity or whatever. Whether that looks like small church house gatherings or a purely me and Jesus kind of faith, where you don't really have to shoulder any of the risk of being misled by church leaders who are unworthy of their office. That's been a move that's been in the culture for decades. And again, I get it. But when we read epistles like this one, along with 1st and 2 Timothy, along with the book of Acts, really throughout the New Testament, we see that the church is not our idea. It is not some human institution that we came up with way back when. And now that we're in a new phase of history, we can come up with another mode of Christian content delivery. The church is not a human institution that we can make or remake according to our own organizational wisdom. The church is a divine institution designed by God Himself. And elders are a part of God's plan for the church's government. Ephesians 4 tells us that the ascended Christ pours his gifts out upon his church through the Holy Spirit. And among those gifts are the very church leaders that Paul describes here. Now notice what I just said there. So do elders do elders screw up? Yeah. Elders screw up. I see elders in the room nodding their heads. Do churches and their leaders hurt people? Yes. Yes, churches hurt people. And I can look around this room and pick out people who have been wounded grievously by churches and leaders who have misused their spiritual authority in the past. But the failure of individuals does not entail the failure of the institution. To give up on the church because someone hurt you makes as much sense as giving up on hospitals because a doctor prescribed you the wrong meds once. And to try to remake the church into something that you and your wisdom think might be safer and is like replacing the doctors with WebMD. It's not going to work. No, bodies of believers governed by elders under the guidance and empowerment of his word and spirit. That's God's blueprint for his institutional church. And because he places such a responsibility on the shoulder of elders, you better believe that his word has quite a bit to say about what kind of men those elders ought to be. And so that takes us to our second section. We've looked at the need for elders. Now we talk about the nature of elders. In verses 6 through 8, we have several qualifications for office in the list of virtues and vices. There are a number of lists like this one in the New Testament. And these virtue and vice lists were a very, fairly common rhetorical device used in ancient Greco-Roman letter writing that dealt with moral instruction, right? And the purpose of a list like this one, it's not just to give a checklist or a set of criteria. It's actually to paint a holistic, comprehensive vision of the right kind of person. And in this case, a picture of the right kind of person to lead in the church. And it's not that these qualifications, don't misunderstand this, don't misread this. It's not that these qualifications only apply to elders. As if you're allowed to cheat on your spouse or get into angry brawls at the corner pub just because you're not an elder. That's not what's happening here. Paul is not setting up an upper tier of extra holy Christian men, like varsity Christian belief. That's not what's happening here. What he's saying is that the elder ought to be exemplary. Not perfect, but exemplary. He ought to be the kind of man that Christians can look to and say, I want to be like that guy. Now notice how Paul says here in verses 6 and 7 that the elder must be above reproach. He says it twice. That tells us that's important, and we need to pay attention to it. And to be above reproach, another way to translate that is to say that the elder must be blameless. Now, again, that doesn't mean we expect perfection of elders. If that were the case, then I may as well step out of the pulpit right now. I am not perfect. And neither are any of the other guys who serve as elders in this church. There is no perfection on this side of glory. And we will, even the holiest among us, will walk with a limp until we get into the new heavens and new earth. But to say that an elder is blameless or above reproach is to say that there is no valid ground of complaint against him. Like if someone were to walk through that door and to complain that I that I were a serial adulterer who who takes candy from babies and clubs baby seals on my free time. There would be absolutely no basis for that allegation, right? Except I steal candy from my kids all the time, but parents understand. Charges should not stick to him because his Christian character is so obviously and demonstrably upstanding. Now, does that mean we dismiss or ignore charges that are brought against elders? Not at all. One of the virtues of Presbyterianism is that we have a robust system for investigating and dealing with charges against elders. No denomination is perfect, right? So I'm not going to stand here and toot our own whore. The PCA isn't perfect. But there's a reason why we haven't had the same massive and pervasive problem with systemic scandal that you've seen in some of the other denominations in our country over the past couple years. It's because we have tools, we have the biblical blueprint for handling it. We don't squash charges, right? We expect and we hold our elders to a higher standard. So let's look at that standard for a couple minutes. What are the actual qualifications for office? Verse 6 begins with the elder's household. Why? Paul doesn't spell it out here, but he assumes an obvious point that he makes in 1 Timothy 3, 4 through 5. It says, the elder must manage his own household well, with all dignity, keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God's church? So, household management, right? And that begins with an elder being the husband of one wife. That's not to say that he absolutely must be married, or that he can't have remarried after having, say, lost his wife. But what it means is that he can't be an adulterer, he can't be a polygamist, like so many of the other leading men in Greco-Roman culture in that day. A one-woman man, a one-wife kind of guy. He also needs to be a good father. That is, if he has children in the home. Maybe he doesn't, but if he does, a good father. Some translations, like the ESV that I read for you earlier, will say that his children must be believers. That's really an unfortunate translation. That word there could just as well be translated as faithful, and it probably should be translated faithful, because a father cannot make his children believe as much as he might like to. And I know a lot of fathers in this room would like to. So it would be strange for the Bible to require elders to do what only the Holy Spirit can do. So what this is saying is that an elder's children must be faithful in the sense that so long as they're living in their house, in his house, they obey their father. They're not known to be wild, they're not known to be promiscuous, they're not insubordinate, they're not living in a kind of flagrant disregard for their father's authority. They're obeying. They're under control. And again, this the standard here is not perfection. Things might be chaotic at times. The kids may not be nailing it in terms of their respect for their parents. The family might have its own share of rough patches, like any other family has. But overall, the elder has to have things under control. He needs to rule well in his house before he can rule in God's. That's baseline. Now in verse 7, we turn from that sense of household management to personal character. And Paul uses the word here, overseer, as a synonym for the word elder. The actual Greek word is episcopas, which is often translated as bishop. A church ruled by bishops like the Roman Catholic Church or the Anglican Church is an Episcopalian church. Episcopas, bishop, episcopalian. Now, where Presbyterianism differs from these other church traditions and forms of church government is that we don't believe like they do that bishop is a separate office from elder. We believe that the two are one and the same. And so, you know, I'm I'm part of various, you know, inter-eclesial like ministry partnership things around here in Wilson County. And we have a pastor, he's like the senior pastor of a Baptist church down in South Mount Juliet. And he's taken for himself the title bishop, or the church has given him the title bishop. And you know, everybody calls him that as kind of a sign of respect. You know, whenever I see him, I'm like, you know, I'm something of a bishop myself. I am. And so are all the other elders in this room. Because the New Testament uses the words elder, bishop, and pastor interchangeably in order to bring out the different flavors or the different aspects of the one office of elder. The elder as elder is someone who possesses a depth of maturity and wisdom. The elder as pastor, and all the elders are pastors, that's how the New Testament talks about it. The elder as pastor uses that depth and maturity of wisdom to shepherd the flock of God. The elder as overseer or as bishop leads the flock as an institution. So these words overlap, which is why Peter can say in 1 Peter 5, 1 through 2, I exhort the elders among you, shepherd, aka pastor, that's the verb there, the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight. Elders, shepherds are pastors, bishops or overseers. These things all kind of come together. Alright, now coming back to Titus, we see in verse 7 that the elder or overseer is not just a manager of his own home, he is a steward of God's house. So again, Paul says he must be above reproach, not just in terms of his household management, but in terms of his personal character. He must not be arrogant. He can't be the guy who thinks so highly of himself that he refuses to receive wisdom and direction from other people, especially from his fellow elders. He must not be quick-tempered. When unbelievers hurl verbal rocks at the church, or even when believers resist his shepherding, he can't flip his lid and start shouting at people. He must not be a drunkard. There's nothing wrong with a good glass of bourbon, especially amongst Presbyterians. But an elder needs to possess a sobriety of character and a spiritual sensitivity that allows him to serve well the flock. And he can't do that if he's, you know, not two sheets, but one sheet to the wind all the time. He must not be violent. An elder's calling is to step to the wolves who threatened the sheep. But the weapons of our warfare are not physical, they're spiritual. So we don't get in fist fights for the sake of the flock, unless we have to. He must not be greedy for gain. The elder's position is a position of trust. And if the elder abuses his position for the sake of personal gain, he squanders that trust. And trust is a lot easier to lose than it is to build. So these are five vices that Paul lays out for us that ought to disqualify a man from the office of elder. But it's really not enough to say who this man should not be. We can't just look at vices, the negative. We also have to look at virtues, the positive. And so Paul goes on in verse 8. He says the elder must be hospitable. Hospitality is the opposite of greed. The elder ought to be the first person in the church to open up his home, to open, to share his resources with others who are in need. He must be the lover of good. The elder ought to be a good dude who delights in good things for goodness' sake. He behaves because he genuinely wants to, not just because he's supposed to, or because he likes the way people think about him when he does good things. The elder ought to be self-controlled. If he can't rule over his own passions, then he can't rule in Christ's church. He needs to be upright. Elders are called or just, right? That's the word for justice. Elders are called to judge matters of church discipline. And the last thing you want in that position is a man who has no concern for justice and fairness. He must be holy. The Scottish pastor Robert Murray McShane once wrote that the greatest need his people had of him was his own personal holiness. Why? Because God's people, we all are called to be holy as God is holy. And if our leaders are unholy, then their trying to lead us in holiness will go about as well as washing a car with a dirty rag. Holiness. And finally, discipline. He must be disciplined. Maybe a better translation of this word would be temperate. The disciplined or the temperate man is one who keeps himself in check. There is no influence or indulgence that rules over him. Instead, he maintains presence of heart and mind in whatever situation faces him. Temperance. So you see, in all of these, we just pile up these words and we've really given them short shrift, right? We could have a sermon on each one of these characteristics. But Paul is painting a picture here of exemplary character. This is the standard to which we should hold our elders. This is the kind of man we should look for when we raise up leaders in the church. And again, the standard is not perfection. I'll have a few more things to say about grace when we get to the end of the sermon, but this is the ideal. This is the standard. And when churches compromise on the standard, either because they don't have any qualified men in the congregation, or because they're growing super fast and they need as many bodies as they can to fill up their elder board or their session, or because their pastor has a few guys that he really likes and he's cherry-picked and he wants them to be in leadership. When churches compromise on the standard, they do violence to the body of Christ. They invite the very mischief that we talked about earlier in terms of church hurt and spiritual abuse. Sometimes folks wonder and ask why we spend so much time here training and vetting the elders who might serve in our church. Well, that's why. This is why. Because Scripture sets the bar high. And so we want to set the bar high as well. You wouldn't entrust your body to a physician unless you knew that he or she had cleared all the appropriate bars in terms of their personal training and their licensure and their experience. If you wouldn't entrust your bodies to a subpar physician, why would you entrust your soul to an elder who does not clear the bars set for him by Scripture?

unknown 25:36

Right?

SPEAKER_00 25:36

So we're not going to relax that. It is absolutely vital for the spiritual health and safety of Christ Church that we obey the words of 1 Timothy 5.22. Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands. We're called to search diligently for this kind of man. And then if there are no men like that in the congregation, we are called to wait patiently until the Lord provides them. So much for the nature of an elder. Let's talk for a few minutes about the norm and then we'll be done. The norm for elders. When it comes to the requirements for office here and in 1 Timothy 3, Scripture actually gives us very little in terms of technical competence. There are all these kinds of words about what sort of man the elder should be, what are his characteristics, what are his virtues. But the list of things he needs to be able to do is only two items long. He needs to be able to manage his household well, like we've talked about, and he needs to know how to handle God's word, both for himself and for the people of God. Starting with himself, Paul says in verse 9, he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught. It's not enough for an elder to have a passing interest in the Bible. No, he has to cling to it for dear life because it is the word of life that he trusts to give him everything he needs. And notice the last two words in that clause. Again, that's an important word for all of us. There is no point in the Christian life at which any of us gets to say that we have arrived in terms of our knowledge of God and his word. Not even those of us who have spent almost a decade in seminary. We always have to be learning. And for the elder especially, the more we learn, the better we're able to instruct God's people and to fend off the wolves. See, those are the two ends that Paul gives us in verse 9. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word is taught so that he might be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and to also to rebuke those who contradict it. This is a word for teaching elders like me who are paid to do it full time, and ruling elders who aren't paid to do it full time. We get that distinction from 1 Timothy 5.17, where all elders are called to rule, but some are called to especially labor in preaching and teaching. This is a word for all of them. Every elder is called to lead God's people in teaching. It may look different for different elders. Some guys have different gifts that suit them to different venues in the church where the word is able to be taught. But positively, this looks like instructing the saints in doctrine from the pulpit or in the Sunday school classroom, in small home groups, at the coffee shop. It looks like coming together as a session and working together to determine what our teaching ministries in the church need to accomplish, praying together over the needs of our people and thinking well how to bring the truth of God's word to bear in all of our lives in a way that makes sense to us here in 21st century Mount Julia, Tennessee. Negatively, it looks like working together to identify the wolves in our midst. Whether that's a particular person in the congregation, or more usually, it's a negative influence coming in from the outside. It means speaking truth to falsehood wherever we find it and equipping you, the people of God, to process the world through the filter of biblical truth. That's a big part why we're doing this, you know, the upper room discussions on Sunday nights in our evening worship service, to take a look at these dominant ideas and isms in our culture and equip the church with tools for thinking biblically about those things. So the elder himself must hold firm to the trustworthy word so that he can lead you and he can train you in holding firm to that word for yourself. A man might be a good dude, he might be a godly dude, he might be sweet, he might be sensitive, he might be the most encouraging person in the church. If you need a hand, he's always there. But if he is unskilled in the word of grace, if he is unable to help you grow in your knowledge of the God who has revealed himself in Scripture, then that man may be a great gift to us all. But he's not qualified to shepherd the flock as an elder. That's how important this function of teaching is to the office of elder. Now I've said a lot here. Talked about the need for elders, we've talked about the nature of elders, we've talked about the biblical norm to which elders must hold for their sake and for ours. And you might be thinking to yourself, who is sufficient for these things? John and Jason have melted into their pews long ago and they are hiding right now. But the key thing to remember here is that the standard is not perfection. The standard is a man who knows what to do with his imperfection. The standard is a man who knows where to go, not if, but when he comes up short. The standard is a man who knows how to run to the throne of grace to receive everything he needs to get up off of his face and to follow Jesus where he's going. And to inspire and encourage the rest of us to get up off our faces and to follow Jesus. I've spent almost a year with Jason and John, from their first interviews with the session to all the training, all the vetting to their final exams. And I can say with confidence that these two men are that kind of man. They're the kind of man that this passage describes, not because of anything in them, but because of Christ in them. And the grace of God at work through the power of his Holy Spirit. These are the kind of men the passage describes. And they will continue to hold firm to the word, both for their life and yours. God has called them to this place in this time. And he's done that through you as a church. He's called them through you to serve you. He's equipped them with the gifts that they need to serve, and he will continue to equip them as they grow in grace and learn more and more what it looks like to shepherd the flock of God. Are they perfect? No. They're not perfect. But they know what to do and they know where to go with their imperfection. And now all that's left for us is to recognize what God is doing in them, what God is doing in our church by ordaining and installing them to office. So I'm going to invite John and Jason up. I'm going to invite our whole session up as we do this. You guys get to stand front and center right here. Ordination, it's a biblical doctrine. I won't bore you with all the particulars, but I'm very happy to talk to do that if you want to. Ordination is recognizing what God by His Spirit has already done in these men. And what you have recognized as a congregation by way of your vote, your unanimous vote last week. So we'll ordain them now. I'm going to ask some questions of them, and again, you get to answer a question too, because this is a two-way street. And this is the means by which we formally set them apart and accredit them as ruling elders in Christ Church. So you guys ready? In one way, shape, or form, I've asked them these questions like a hundred times already. John and Jason, do you believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as originally given to be the inerrant word of God, the only infallible rule of faith in practice?

SPEAKER_01 34:24

I do.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Do you sincerely receive and adopt the confession of faith and the catechisms of this church as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures? And do you further promise that if at any time you find yourself out of accord with any of the fundamentals of this system of doctrine, you will, on your own initiative, make known to your session the change which has taken place in your views since the assumption of this ordination vow?

SPEAKER_01 34:48

I will.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

Do you approve of the form of government and discipline of the Presbyterian Church in America, in conformity with the general principles of biblical polity?

unknown 34:57

I do.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

Do you accept the office of ruling elder in this church and promise faithfully to perform all the duties thereof and to endeavor by the grace of God to adorn the profession of the gospel in your life and to set a worthy example before the church of which God has made you an overseer?

SPEAKER_01 35:14

I do.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Do you promise subjection to your brethren in the Lord? Do you promise to strive for the purity, peace, unity, and edification of the church? Now your question, members of Hickory Grove, do you acknowledge and receive these brothers as ruling elders? And do you promise to yield them all that honor, encouragement, and obedience in the Lord to which their office, according to the word of God and the constitution of this church, entitles them? We're gonna lay our hands on these men now, in the kind way, not in the violent way. And Al is gonna pray.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

But Father, we thank you for uh for this. We ask you to guard them with the armor of the gospel so that they can be strong to defend the faith, to defend this congregation from wolves, and indeed to shepherd, and to be co-laborers in the gospel. Father, set them aside for this work, grant them a full measure of your spirit. And Father, be with us as a congregation as we work with them and through them, as we accept their leadership, and we know that, Father, these are things ordained from you, and we bless you and praise you in the name of your son Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

Amen. Amen. I now pronounce and declare that John Iker and Jason Prophet have been regularly elected, ordained, and installed as ruling elders in this church, agreeable to the word of God and according to the constitution of the Presbyterian Church in America, and that as such they are entitled to all encouragement, honor, and obedience in the Lord, in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. So it's customary at this point, not just customary, but actually required by our Book of Church order, that I would exhort these men. We've had a lot of that. So just to put a point on it, John and Jason, God has called you both to serve in this time, in this place. He's brought you to Hickory Grove. You've felt it in your hearts, you've had it confirmed for you by the congregation. He's given you the gift of the Holy Spirit, and by that same Spirit, He's given you as a gift to these people. So I encourage you both, I exhort you both, receive from Him so that you can give to them and to us. Run to Him for grace so that you can share with us out of the abundance of that grace. Hold firm to the word so that you can minister it to us, to me, and to them. And for the church. You get exhortation too. We need them. And they need you. Hebrews 13, 17 says, Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. So receive from them as they receive from Christ. Follow their lead as they go to the throne of grace, and they invite you to come along. Hear and hold to the trustworthy word of God as taught by them. Do that, and you will make this ministry a joy and not a burden. Let's hear it one more time for our new ruling elders. And see, since these guys are newly minted, they get to serve right here, right now. I'm gonna ask you guys to set up the table. It's like I told the kids earlier: this table is a gift of the risen Christ, where we come to share with him. We come to share in him, and as we share in him, we share with each other. We are one body. We are the body of Christ. So when we come to this table, we get to profess that and we get to experience that. So if your faith is in Christ, if you have turned to him for your salvation, if you have been baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, if you have joined yourself to a body of believers where you can walk in accountability and mutual encouragement, then come to the table. Jesus Himself invites you. But if you've not yet done those things, if you've not yet experienced those things, then Jesus says, wait. Say yes to Jesus first before you say yes to his table. Because these are the gifts of the risen Christ for the people of Christ. These are some of the means by which our good shepherd tends to and feeds his flock. If you're not part of that flock yet, please keep coming. This is a safe place for you. You are welcome, you are loved. And any of us would love to talk to you and encourage you and answer whatever questions you have. But on this one thing, Scripture says, wait, the time is not right yet. But by grace through faith, it will be. And again, if you want to talk about that, let's talk about it. But now I'm going to pray and ask the Lord to bless our time. Father, thank you for this meal. Thank you for these men that you have called to serve it. But thank you ultimately, Lord, that Jesus Himself sits at the table and serves us as we come forward. I pray, Lord, for your people that we would be served by you today and strengthened and encouraged. In Jesus' name, Amen.