SPEAKER_01: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_01: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: Aaron, I chose as my text for your ordination, the 23rd chapter of Jeremiah, because I think it's indicative of the culture in which God's called you to do ministry, and I think it's indicative of your heart for ministry.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord from Jeremiah chapter 23, starting in verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: But in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing.
SPEAKER_00: They commit adultery and walk in lies.
SPEAKER_00: They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his evil.
SPEAKER_00: All of them have become like Sodom to me, and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets, behold, I will feed them with bitter food, and give them poison water to drink.
SPEAKER_00: For from the prophets of Jerusalem, ungodliness has gone out into all the land.
SPEAKER_00: Thus says the Lord of hosts, do not listen to the word of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes.
SPEAKER_00: They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: They say continually to all those who despise the word of the Lord, it shall be well with you.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, No disaster will come upon you.
SPEAKER_00: For who among you has stood in the counsel of the Lord to see and to hear his word, or who has paid attention to his word and listened?
SPEAKER_00: Behold, the storm of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest, it will burst upon the head of the wicked.
SPEAKER_00: The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intents of his heart.
SPEAKER_00: In the latter days you will understand it clearly.
SPEAKER_00: I did not send the prophets, yet they ran.
SPEAKER_00: I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied.
SPEAKER_00: But if you had stood in my counsel, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their deeds.
SPEAKER_00: Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far afar off?
SPEAKER_00: Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him, declares the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Do I not feel heaven and earth, declares the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.
SPEAKER_00: How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart, who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot my name for Baal?
SPEAKER_00: Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully.
SPEAKER_00: What has straw in common with wheat, declares the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who steal my words from one another.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who use their tongues and declare, declares the Lord, thus saith the Lord, behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the Lord, and who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness.
SPEAKER_00: When I did not send them or charge charge them, so they do not profit this people at all, declares the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Aaron, God is looking for men in ministry who are not in it for what they can get out of it, but they're in it to invest their lives and to profit God's people.
SPEAKER_00: These are the men who, verse 18 says, and God asked this question.
SPEAKER_00: This question is going out over the over this country even now.
SPEAKER_00: And it's coming back.
SPEAKER_00: There's an echo coming back, Aaron.
SPEAKER_00: If you can hear it when you're at school and you look around, there's people that are there.
SPEAKER_00: Just because they got to get a seminary degree to get a church, this echo is coming back.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the question that reverberates for who among them has stood in the council of the Lord to see and to hear his word, and who has paid attention to his word and listened?
SPEAKER_00: And then God says, Behold, the storm of the Lord, wrath has gone forth, or whirling tempests, it will burst upon the head of the wicked.
SPEAKER_00: The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intents of his heart.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why, Aaron, I charge you in the presence of God and your church to stand in the counsel of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's because only by standing in the counsel of the Lord and not just hearing his word, but seeing his word, God's looking for men who he can confide in, the intent of his heart.
SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of preaching these days, Aaron, is not the intent of God's heart.
SPEAKER_00: It's this vapid kind of a moralistic therapeutic deism.
SPEAKER_00: It's just this thin life management principles.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're gonna be a man who stands in the counsel of God's word, and his word is so tangible to you that you don't just hear it, you see it, you taste it, and you touch it, then there's some things I want to charge you with.
SPEAKER_00: Basically, five things very quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, uh to accomplish this, Aaron, number one, you've got to live like a dead man.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta live like a dead man.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says in Galatians 2, I am crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
SPEAKER_00: In the life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the beauty, Aaron, of being dead is that there's no face to save.
SPEAKER_00: There's no fear of being embarrassed or looking foolish.
SPEAKER_00: You can finally be fully alive to what God created you for because you're dead to everything else.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have a hold on you, it doesn't interest you, and if you believe it or not, the Bible puts great value on dying.
SPEAKER_00: And so you gotta die.
SPEAKER_00: You just gotta, Jesus said in John 12, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of men that are going to ministry and they're gonna make a mortgage payment and die, and there's not gonna be anything to show for it.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Because they were selfish and small and competitive and driven and never called.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus says, he says, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone.
SPEAKER_00: But if it dies, it produces many seeds, many people.
SPEAKER_00: People ought to come up to your kids when your kids are 19 and 20 and when they're adults and you're dead and say, hey, is your last name Cotton?
SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't know a guy named Aaron Cotton, would you?
SPEAKER_00: And they kind of smile and go, that's my dad.
SPEAKER_00: And they go, hey, I heard your dad speak, and it turned my heart and changed my life.
SPEAKER_00: Only dead men preach like that.
SPEAKER_00: All these living men out here that are just quoting Tim Keller and taking credit for it, they haven't died.
SPEAKER_00: They're still fully alive, living for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: So, number one, Aaron, I want to charge you to live like a dead man.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, I want you to live like a called man.
SPEAKER_00: That means like John the Revelator, God has put his hand on your shoulder and ruined you for everything else.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible talks about in Acts 13, and in the church at Antioch, there were prophets and teachers.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then it lists off these people.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, there was Lucius of Cyrene and Menead, uh, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetarch and Saul.
SPEAKER_00: And it says this, while they were worshiping the Lord in fasting, the Holy Spirit spoke and said, Set apart for me, Barnabas and Saul, for the work to which I had called, I've called them to.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're here to set you apart.
SPEAKER_00: God says, set these people apart for me.
SPEAKER_00: God takes the called man as his portion, Aaron.
SPEAKER_00: And so when God takes a called man as his portion, you don't need a lot of affirmation from people.
SPEAKER_00: It's great.
SPEAKER_00: You probably got some this morning for the sermon that you preached, uh, but you don't need a lot.
SPEAKER_00: You don't live for it.
SPEAKER_00: You don't do ministry, so so you get a little cookie at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_00: Because you've been set apart, and God has taken hold of you, and you reciprocate that by taking hold of that for which God has taken hold of you.
SPEAKER_00: So, Aaron, don't ever be ashamed to put words to what God's taken hold of you to do.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you're gonna live with this vague uncertainty, and no one's helped by that.
SPEAKER_00: God says, set apart for me.
SPEAKER_00: And God takes the called man in his portion, and the called man is content to have God as his portion, which is why there's not that many called men.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of desirous men, there's a lot of boys with emotional wounds trying to heal, and they use ministry in the church and Jesus to do it.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a shortage, Aaron, of called men.
SPEAKER_00: Men who've been ruined for the ordinary, who burn hot at injustice.
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean burn hot at injustice?
SPEAKER_00: Who walk in a room at youth camp and some Yahoo sound guy is playing a bunch of pagan music, and kids are gyrating around, and your chest gets hot.
SPEAKER_00: And everybody in the room is smiling, going, What's the big deal?
SPEAKER_00: We're just dancing before we start a worship service.
SPEAKER_00: And you are so angry that you gotta go outside.
SPEAKER_00: God's looking for men that feel about stupid nonsense the way he feels about stupid nonsense.
SPEAKER_00: God's looking for called men who burn hot at injustice and burn long for God's glory, who didn't choose it, but it chose them.
SPEAKER_00: These are the called men in whom God confides.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, Aaron, I charge you to live like a compassionate man.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 9, uh, Jesus comes up and looks over the city, and the Bible says that he was moved with compassion because he looked at the people and they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.
SPEAKER_00: No one to lead them, no one to stand up and say, I've been with God and I got something burning so hot in me.
SPEAKER_00: If I don't get it out, it's gonna burn me to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing, Aaron, you don't burn them down with it.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard, Aaron, to be right and not hurt people with it.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to be right, and sometimes God's gonna put things in you and you're gonna have to set with them until they can come out in a palpable way.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, it's like trying to drink from a fire hydrant.
SPEAKER_00: No one's helped by that.
SPEAKER_00: People move away from that man and they wait till the water pulls up down the block so they can drink it.
SPEAKER_00: To be compassionate.
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean you're afraid to be right.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to be right and hurt people with it.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be afraid of being right.
SPEAKER_00: In the world today, the greatest sin we can commit is to be right, to be certain, to be unmovable in what you know to be the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody is helped by this bland vagueness of uncertain men who never really preach.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, they kind of just take people on this verbal joy ride on the bandwagon of their uncertainty, and when they're done, put a big bowl on it called community.
SPEAKER_00: Called men, compassionate men, dead men get more from God than they get from people, regardless of what you call it.
SPEAKER_00: If you go, we make an idol out of the word community.
SPEAKER_00: God says, hey, what about me?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm your portion.
SPEAKER_00: Have some buddies, do biblical community.
SPEAKER_00: We love community here.
SPEAKER_00: We got community groups, we got Bible community, we got community coffee in the lobby, we got community coming out of our ears here.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a difference, Aaron, between community and communing.
SPEAKER_00: And you've come to be a man to say to God, I will candidate myself to commune with you.
SPEAKER_00: That means you've got to wean yourself off of all of the affirmation of people.
SPEAKER_00: Because affirmation is not a bad thing.
SPEAKER_00: But affirmation, if you're not careful, it will turn preachers into politicians.
SPEAKER_00: That's why the Bible says a man is tested by the praise he receives.
SPEAKER_00: Be careful what you let in.
SPEAKER_00: Living as a compassionate man in a culture of cowards, uh, in a culture of cowards, truth is uh is hate speech.
SPEAKER_00: So you've got to learn to be compassionate so that the truth of the gospel can be manifested.
SPEAKER_00: Fourthly, Aaron, I charge you to live as a man of authority.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus first spoke, the people said he doesn't speak as a scribe or a Pharisee.
SPEAKER_00: We've got enough.
SPEAKER_00: Mama called, Daddy sent, grandma financed people in ministry.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus stood up and talked, he didn't need to do a GoFundMe account.
SPEAKER_00: No, because he had something, and people said, I will inconvenience myself to hear that.
SPEAKER_00: We got men that could go online and tell a sad story and get people to send them checks.
SPEAKER_00: You shouldn't need so much from people if you're getting stuff from God.
SPEAKER_00: We got way too much, we got fundraisers, Aaron, and they're like thieves in my father's house.
SPEAKER_00: And you got to know how they got in here, and you gotta know how to get them out.
SPEAKER_00: Because when you say a man of authority, Jesus stood up.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't he didn't sell people on his vision, he didn't have meetings to say, hey, this is what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_00: He stood up, and the people said he doesn't speak as a scribe or a Pharisee, he speaks as one who has authority.
SPEAKER_00: Scribes and Pharisees are always quoting other people because they live in the shadow of another man's life.
SPEAKER_00: Aaron, we don't need another millennial boy in skinny jeans and a cool haircut running around ripping off Tim Keller.
SPEAKER_00: That's the last thing we need.
SPEAKER_00: Reputation is about what people think you are, authority is about what God knows you to be.
SPEAKER_00: And men of authority don't concern themselves with being somebody in the religious subculture in America.
SPEAKER_00: No, men of authority are concerned about being known in hell.
SPEAKER_00: And you can't have it both ways.
SPEAKER_00: You can't have people writing about you in their blog or quoting you or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 19 tells the story of seven sons of Skeva.
SPEAKER_00: These guys, they saw Paul, a man of authority, and they just thought, I'm gonna say what he says.
SPEAKER_00: And so they did it.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul was casting out demons because authority recognizes authority.
SPEAKER_00: And so they saw that and they thought, that looks fun, and so they thought they'd go do it.
SPEAKER_00: And they said to this demon-possessed person, in the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says, one day the evil spirit answered them.
SPEAKER_00: You might want to understand authority when that day shows up.
SPEAKER_00: And the evil spirit said, Jesus, we know, and we know about Paul, but who are you?
SPEAKER_00: Because, see, the seven sons of Skeva, Aaron, were somebody in religious subculture.
SPEAKER_00: They lived in the shadow of their dad.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible didn't even take the time to tell us their names.
SPEAKER_00: They were that insignificant.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, we know, and we know about Paul.
SPEAKER_00: And I just wonder if hell knows about Aaron Cotton.
SPEAKER_00: You better give your life to that end of being known, and not so much to this part of being known.
SPEAKER_00: This will take care of itself.
SPEAKER_00: That won't necessarily take care of itself.
SPEAKER_00: You can get degrees, they can print you a degree a week.
SPEAKER_00: You can get degrees to the day you die.
SPEAKER_00: Man can't give you authority.
SPEAKER_00: That comes from God.
SPEAKER_00: And I charge you, be a man of authority.
SPEAKER_00: Live as a man of authority.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, Aaron, I charge you to live as an ordinary man.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 53 says, of Jesus, he had no form of comeliness that men should desire him.
SPEAKER_00: The bane of ministry today is men who let people say of them what should only be said about God.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_00: The bane of ministry today is men who let people say of them what should only be said about God.
SPEAKER_00: And so if it hadn't gotten back to you yet, let me just let me let it get back to you right now, this morning, right outside that door, a well-meaning person in this church who heard you preach said to me, Oh man, did you hear Aaron?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And they said, that was awesome.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, No, it wasn't.
SPEAKER_00: And she took that as a statement about you.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not, it's just a statement about God because how many things can you say are awesome and then say to God, you're awesome?
SPEAKER_00: Here's the bane uh uh of ministry nowadays.
SPEAKER_00: The problem with this affirmation-driven world, Aaron, is that we quickly run out of words that can mean anything to God because we've used them all up on people.
SPEAKER_00: So we're obligated to say to God what we say to people, and God's not really moved by that.
SPEAKER_00: And so get you some words.
SPEAKER_00: And so I've come to tell you, as a man who loves you, and I ain't gotta love you like everybody else loves you, I'm not interested in that.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, the way some people love you bores me to death.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to go eat lunch with the two you and some of the people that love you, with just, oh, Aaron, oh, oh.
SPEAKER_00: Make of me whatever you want.
SPEAKER_00: I tell you this though, you're not awesome.
SPEAKER_00: You're not extraordinary.
SPEAKER_00: There's greatness in being ordinary.
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: I want to close by reading uh D.A.
SPEAKER_00: Carson, one of the probably greatest minds, uh biblical thinkers alive today.
SPEAKER_00: His dad gave his life.
SPEAKER_00: D.A.
SPEAKER_00: Carson wrote a book about his dad, Tom Carson.
SPEAKER_00: It's entitled Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor.
SPEAKER_00: And it's fallen apart, and I could take pages out of here, and you say, Why is it falling apart?
SPEAKER_00: Because I keep it and I pull it out and read it every once in a while.
SPEAKER_00: Like last week, someone said to me, Oh, we had over a thousand people on Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: And your flesh is gonna want to rise up in that.
SPEAKER_00: And you've got to find a way to crucify your flesh, and so I just pull this out.
SPEAKER_00: This is the way ordinary people ordinary has got a bad rap.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody wants to be extraordinary and cutting-edge and different and authentic and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: Shut up.
SPEAKER_00: Be ordinary.
SPEAKER_00: This is ordinary.
SPEAKER_00: This is his journal from Sunday, March the 5th, 1964.
SPEAKER_00: Rose at 6:50 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer and study, preached poorly from 2 Corinthians 2, 24 people present.
SPEAKER_00: Rested, studied.
SPEAKER_00: Evening 19 present.
SPEAKER_00: Preached from Romans 1, 1 to 17.
SPEAKER_00: Poorly.
SPEAKER_00: Saw Mr.
SPEAKER_00: F to his home, went to mother's, watched TV with her until 11:30, and was not edified.
SPEAKER_00: Home.
SPEAKER_00: Went to bed reading my Bible.
SPEAKER_00: How much better that is for my soul.
SPEAKER_00: You okay with preaching to 24 people, Aaron?
SPEAKER_00: Enough for you?
SPEAKER_00: 19 people on a Sunday night, enough for you?
SPEAKER_00: See, there's power in ordinary, Aaron.
SPEAKER_00: Tuesday, January the 24th, 1964.
SPEAKER_00: Quote, greatness is not a matter of lofty position and exercise of authority, but of service.
SPEAKER_00: Let me take this to heart.
SPEAKER_00: Sunday, March 18th, 1973.
SPEAKER_00: Very distressed at the message this morning.
SPEAKER_00: This is beautiful, Aaron.
SPEAKER_00: He went and heard some other Yehu preach, and he didn't go up and just say, hey, brother, that was good.
SPEAKER_00: This cat would confront you if you misrepresented the text.
SPEAKER_00: Very distressed at the message this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The text was 1 Peter 5.
SPEAKER_00: The pastor was, quote, expounding, God resisteth the proud.
SPEAKER_00: And he used Joseph as an illustration, picturing him as being very full of pride, such that it finally brought him to all the troubles of Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: I was so shocked, I said to him on the way out, you have slandered one of the saintliest characters in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: We had a talk this evening, and I asked him if he considered that he was not called to the pastorate.
SPEAKER_00: I also mentioned other matters.
SPEAKER_00: I just wonder if you've got any friends in your life like that.
SPEAKER_00: Sunday, March 25th, 1973.
SPEAKER_00: The pastor again preached from 1 Peter 5, this time about resisting the devil.
SPEAKER_00: His message was sober, good, but missed the text.
SPEAKER_00: He took establish to mean re-established and talked mainly of Peter's denial and later confession and said the Lord was willing to re-establish backside in Christians, as he said in this text.
SPEAKER_00: The message was true, but had nothing to do with the text.
SPEAKER_00: See, ordinary ordinary people, ordinary men, I don't care what everybody else thinks.
SPEAKER_00: They're just ordinary.
SPEAKER_00: Sunday, February 22nd, 1984.
SPEAKER_00: He's now late 60s.
SPEAKER_00: I preached at Hull, 1 Kings 18, 41 to 46.
SPEAKER_00: J, G and LB, he never writes names.
SPEAKER_00: J, G and L B came for the first time with M and R.
SPEAKER_00: I weep for them, caught as they are under the burden of their sin.
SPEAKER_00: Oh God, may I truly learn that only your solutions to problems offer real peace and joy.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, this is October 26th, 1992.
SPEAKER_00: His son D.A.
SPEAKER_00: Carson writes this.
SPEAKER_00: One more small tragedy was about to unfold.
SPEAKER_00: On Dad's last day, the 26th of October 1992, Joyce had briefly.
SPEAKER_00: Left owing to other responsibilities and was about to return.
SPEAKER_00: For some time, Dad had been slipping in and out of consciousness, but that afternoon he was in a coma.
SPEAKER_00: That Monday was a critical election day in Quebec, and Jim, ever his father's son, knew to put duty first and drove home to Montreal to vote, expecting to return the next day.
SPEAKER_00: Besides, I was there to hold vigil.
SPEAKER_00: About 11:30 p.m., I checked with the nursing staff and they thought he was stable.
SPEAKER_00: I'd crossed too many time zones, so I decided to go to dad's house where I was staying, have a shower, get into some clean clothes, snooze.
SPEAKER_00: I've always been able to be refreshed from 15 minutes of sleep and come back.
SPEAKER_00: I drove to dad's home less than five minutes away by car.
SPEAKER_00: I walked in the door and the phone rang.
SPEAKER_00: It was the hospital.
SPEAKER_00: There has been a change.
SPEAKER_00: I raced back to the hospital and dad was gone.
SPEAKER_00: And he had died alone.
SPEAKER_00: Tom Carson.
SPEAKER_00: Tom Carson never rose very far in denominational structures, but hundreds of people in the Ottawa are beyond testify, and beyond testify how much he loved them.
SPEAKER_00: He never wrote a book, but he loved the book.
SPEAKER_00: He was never wealthy or powerful, but he kept growing as a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Yesterday's grace was never enough.
SPEAKER_00: He was not a far-sighted visionary, but he looked forward to eternity.
SPEAKER_00: He was not a gifted administrator.
SPEAKER_00: But there's no text that says, By this shall all men know that you're my disciples if you are good administrators.
SPEAKER_00: His journals have many, many entries bathed in tears of contrition.
SPEAKER_00: But his children and grandchildren remember his laughter.
SPEAKER_00: Only rarely did he break through his pattern of reserve and speak deeply and intimately with his children, but he modeled Christian virtues to them.
SPEAKER_00: He much preferred to avoid controversy than to stir things up.
SPEAKER_00: But his own commitments to historic confessionalism were unyielding, and in ethics, he was a man of principle.
SPEAKER_00: His own ecclesiastical circles were rather small and narrow, but his reading was correspondingly large and expansive.
SPEAKER_00: He was not very good at putting people down except on his prayer list.
SPEAKER_00: When he died, there were no crowds outside the hospital, no editorial comments in the papers, no announcements on television, no mention in parliament, no attention paid by the nation.
SPEAKER_00: In his hospital room, there was no one by his bedside.
SPEAKER_00: There was only the quiet hiss of oxygen vainly venting because he had stopped breathing and would never need it again.
SPEAKER_00: But on the other side, all the trumpets sounded.
SPEAKER_00: Dad won entrance into the only throne room that matters.
SPEAKER_00: Not because he was a good man or a great man.
SPEAKER_00: He was, after all, a most ordinary pastor, but because he was a forgiven man.
SPEAKER_00: And he heard the voice of him whom he longed to hear saying, Well done, good and faithful servant.
SPEAKER_00: Enter into the joy of your Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That enough for you, Aaron Cotton?
SPEAKER_00: Do you need people to know how hard this is?
SPEAKER_00: You need people to know when you suffer or when you make a sacrifice?
SPEAKER_00: Or is it enough for you that your ministry ends with no fanfare, not even 30 people and some bad cake in the fellowship hall?
SPEAKER_00: But in a hospital room somewhere, all by yourself.
SPEAKER_00: No trumpets in this world, but plenty in the next.
SPEAKER_00: And is it enough for you on that day just for God to say, well done, well done.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you're doing this, for what you're going to get out of it, you're going to live and die an angry man, an entitled little boy.
SPEAKER_00: And we have enough of those.
SPEAKER_00: But if that's enough for you, just to hear him say, Well done, enter into the joy of your father.
SPEAKER_00: Then you're in the right place.
SPEAKER_00: And therefore, I charge you with these things.
SPEAKER_00: Aaron, I'm going to ask you to stand up, please.
SPEAKER_00: Do you affirm your faith in Jesus Christ and your loyalty to him as your Lord and Savior?
SPEAKER_00: And will you strive to show forth his spirit in all of your life and ministry?
unknown: I do.
SPEAKER_00: Do you affirm your belief in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as containing the Word of God?
unknown: I do.
SPEAKER_00: Do you affirm your determination in your study of the Scriptures?
SPEAKER_00: Prayerful in your attitude toward God, gentle, patient, and faithful in your ministrations to the people, friendly in your relations with other Christians and in your feelings and actions towards all races.
unknown: I do.
SPEAKER_00: Do you affirm your determination to give your life to the ministry of Jesus Christ, whatever difficulties may lie in your way?
SPEAKER_00: I want you to step forward, Aaron.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to turn around and face these people.
SPEAKER_00: I have a question for you all.
SPEAKER_00: Do you affirm your confidence in Aaron Cotton and promise your prayers for God's blessing upon his ministry?
SPEAKER_00: And if so, would you signify that by standing to your feet?
SPEAKER_00: Look around, Aaron.
SPEAKER_00: These people have come here.
SPEAKER_00: They've inconvenienced themselves to come and add their yes to the yes God put on you a long time ago.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of life is figuring out, a lot of life in ministry is figuring out what matters and who matters.
SPEAKER_00: Don't ever forget that, Aaron.