Podcasts about capital hill baptist church

This episode was originally published on 4/01/23. Today, Dr. Mark Dever joins me in the studio. Mark has served as the Senior Pastor of Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington, The post Best of Preaching and Preachers, Episode 273: Preparing Your Congregation For Their Next Pastor appeared first on Preaching and Preachers Institute.

This episode was originally published on 4/01/23. Today, Dr. Mark Dever joins me in the studio. Mark has served as the Senior Pastor of Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., since 1994. He is also the President of 9Marks ministries and has authored numerous books and articles. 

Today, Dr. Mark Dever joins me in the studio. Mark has served as the Senior Pastor of Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D. C, since 1994. He is also The post Episode 273: Preparing Your Congregation For Their Next Pastor appeared first on Preaching and Preachers Institute.

Today, Dr. Mark Dever joins me in the studio. Mark has served as the Senior Pastor of Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D. C, since 1994. He is also the President of 9Marks ministries and has authored numerous books and articles. He is on the campus of Midwestern Seminary this week for our annual 9Marks Conference with this year's theme of evangelism.

The last time I talked about parenting my title was “Raising Parents.” We're raising kids, yes, but we don't want them to stay kids. We can, or should, see far enough ahead to realize that how we train them today will affect how they train their kids some future day. It's still by God's grace; thank God He fixes many of our failures. And yet we also know that God's grace can work through our good works. We want our kids to grow up and be fruitful, joyful, #blessed.Toward that end we parents talk up the glories of parenting and we try to live the way God says to. If we get to see our children's children, and if we get to hear our children talking to and playing with their children, we'd want to see our grandkids being loved in truth. So we love our kids in truth. That's not less than an example, but it's also an investment that matures. If we sow hypocrisy, then we'll reap generational hypocrisy. But if we demonstrate the good of parental responsibility, it won't be a surprise that our kids want to have kids. We are raising parents, and we're leaving an inheritance of prizing parenting.My emphasis for today is that *we are raising Christians*. It depends who you hang out with, but there are more Christian parents who are waiting to see if they have Christian kids than raising kids to be Christian, as if it were a spiritual lottery. Maybe the difference sounds subtle, but I hope to show that the mindset matters. How you view your kids has a lot to do with what they grow up to be.We want them to be Christians in a family of Christians who are part of a church of Christians. A Christian is an individual believer, who has personally repented from his sin, who learns the ways of obedience as a disciple of Christ, and who worships and serves as part of the Body of Christ, expressed in the assembly of a local church. A Christian loves God and fears the Lord and walks in the Spirit for sake of fruit. A group of Christians living together have a kind of *culture*, a way that they do things, a shared vocabulary, a common set of values.Toward that end we Christians talk up the glories of Christ and we seek to live according to all that He's commanded (Matthew 28:20). Part of what it means to be a disciple is to *make disciples*; there should be no fruitless/barren disciples. Each Christian is gifted by God in different ways to serve the body, and every different part is necessary. But giftedness relates to the analogy of being a church member, not to whether or not you are a disciple-maker. Disciples reproduce. Disciples who don't reproduce are *disobedient*. You ought not be a single-generation disciple of Christ. Speaking figuratively, you ought to see your *spiritual* children's children. We are raising Christians, and we're leaving an inheritance of prizing Christ.This is all the life of **faith**. Salvation is for all who believe (Romans 1:16). We live from faith to faith. “The righteous shall live by faith,” from justification through sanctification. We are born again in faith, we are guarded by faith (1 Peter 1:5), and “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7).What I'm about to say is fundamental, vital, urgent, consequential, pressing, high-priority, essential, of upmost importance, and so kind of a big deal. Believe in your heart that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead and you will be saved (Romans 10:9). Believe in your heart that God will work through you as you raise your kids to believe in Jesus Christ. Have faith in God to be a Christian, have faith in God that He will bless you to raise blessed Christians.Some parents might object, “But they're not Christians!” It depends on what age your kids are, but think with me about what “ideal” looks like for our children's children. If your kids are still really young, this message should be like a softball right across the plate. If your kids are older, or even grown up, fine, but think about what we want our church *culture* to be. This is just as much about for all our children's children.What does *damage* is when mom starts getting more and more anxious about her kids' salvation, and/or when dad buries his apathetic head in the sand. Maybe even worse is when both parents go all major prophet toward the Assyrians about it. “Woe to you, little pagans, who call evil good and refuse to eat your vegetables. How long until you clean your room, and your hearts?!” And professing Christian parents can raise pagans. Parents who think about their kids as enemies often find that they've raised enemies.I got a timely email just two days ago from a friend. He wrote,> “My wife and I are two (sometimes seemingly lonely) kuyperian dispensationalists…. We're surrounded by many baptists we love, but sometimes they're a little too **glum**. Particularly when it comes to how we raise our children.> Something I can't seem to wrap my head around is the promise of the Spirit given to our children. It's a generational promise of God to Israel, and since we're grafted in, to us too. Right? (*Right?* is my question to you). This is something I've been wrestling in prayer with God about. I want to raise my children as *part of God's family* - not as "little sinners" who can only obey truly if they're saved.> Do you have any idea what I'm talking about? No, I'm not convinced of the presby baby baptisms. Yes, I'm convinced I want to raise my children as those receiving God's promise. I don't want to teach them all that He has commanded while always sowing doubt in their hearts and minds.”How should you view your kids? At birth? While little? When should your kids be baptized? What does their baptism mean? How do you treat them after baptism? How can you, as a good man, leave an *inheritance of faith* to your children's children?# Baby Baptism Is Not the Cure for Raising ChristiansThis is something I've been thinking about for a long time, and have had multiple conversations about in recent years. It does not require baptizing infants (or having a “dry baptism” public parent dedications) to believe that God is gracious and to make disciples of your kids, to raise them as Christians. The proof is in the Presbyterians, or rather, the negative proof is there. Some of my favorite people, the people who I depend on most for edification and sharpening, are Presbyterians who don't seem very self-aware of their own history. The Cross-Politic guys are a good example (they have some helpful things to say, and many of you listen to them), they've basically turned baby baptism into a brand. They talk like baptizing your babies is the answer without acknowledging the generations of the baptized-as-babies that have gone after all kinds of false gospels and woke versions of Jesus; Presbyterianism has a lot to learn from, but it doesn't guarantee anything. There are by God's grace a remnant of Presbies making great parents, not necessarily because of their Presbyterian theology but because of their faith.It doesn't take too long to look back in history or look around in our generation to see that baptizing a baby “into the covenant” doesn't guarantee generations of faithful Christians. There is often high presumption that comes (which, ironically fits with many who maintain a kind of Jewish-replacement theology) from being “in the covenant” (while many of them aren't sure which covenant that is anyway). Their kid is baptized, done deal.Many Baptists have a *worse* approach. Typical Baptist parents, apart from a remnant, often refuse to accept an immature profession of faith and question seeds of faith any time they sense sin in their kid. They withhold the spiritual food until their kid can prove that he can live without food; they treat their kids like the dogs who only get the crumbs that fall off the table (Matthew 15:27).Baptism isn't really my primary subject, but it applies to the subject of how parents think about their kids. Some baptize too early, and tend to leave an inheritance of presumption. Some hold baptism off too long, and tend to leave an inheritance of doubt. The problem is the same: a lack of faith and discipleship to faith. They are not raising Christians. One isn't worried about the “raising” part, they think they already have a Christian. The other thinks that there's nothing they can do to “raise” a Christian.# Covenant Language Is Not the Cure for Raising ChristiansWhile they sometimes go together, the talk of our kids being “in the covenant” has some of the same problems as infant baptism. Covenant language sounds great, regularly to those who grew up in Baptist circles where kids were seen more as on the outside than inside. I'm not picking on anyone, I'm interested in understanding the best way to leave an inheritance for my grandkids. The trouble with using covenant language about our kids is multi-headed. It starts with, which covenant?One option is the "covenant of grace," which in Reformed theology is an extra-biblical name for "all of the saved of all time" (Pascal Denault, _The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology_, Loc. 704). In much capital "R" Reformed theology the Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants are seen as different administrations of this one covenant of grace. The Jews were born into those covenants though non-ethnic peoples could convert (to Judaism).In order to say that kids of Christian parents are *born* into the covenant of grace, one must make a distinction between being in the covenant "naturally" (by birth) and "spiritually" (by belief). Covenantalists typically don't think their infant is a believer (though this is common among Lutherans), but has obligations to believe because of being in the covenant. Put another way, to use this language we would need to make a distinction between the administration of the covenant (which Presbyterians initiate at infant baptism) and the substance of the covenant (which is salvation accomplished by Christ for all the elect, and which becomes visible when the elect are regenerated and profess faith).But this changes the definition of "covenant of grace" if you can be “in the covenant” it but not actually be saved.Birth guarantees nothing, which ironically is the part of the Jewish problem with the other covenants, Isaac and Ishmael were both sons of Abraham; Jacob and Esau were both sons of Isaac (Romans 9).We might also be tempted to say that our kids are born into New Covenant. Many Reformed theologians, when they do give attention to the New Covenant (first named in Jeremiah 31:31-37, see also Ezekiel 36:22-38), understand the New Covenant simply as the summary of the others, as a new administration but not different in substance (Denault, Loc. 2229). But beyond the explicit reference to “the house of Israel and the house of Judah” there are at least two problems. First, the revelation of the New Covenant clarifies that the Lord saw it not as the summary of the others but as something *different* from the others.> Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, **not like the covenant** that I made with their fathers…my covenant that they broke…. (Jeremiah 31:31–32 ESV)Second, the great difference is that New Covenant promised/guaranteed new/spiritual/believing hearts, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33). Or as stated in Ezekiel:> I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Ezekiel 36:26–27 ESV)The Lord effects effectually, and it will not be broken. If the New Covenant has a distinction between administration and substance than it is *no different from the others*, covenants that included salvation blessings only for some. There were elect within the covenant nation (Romans 9:6), but there cannot be non-elect within the New Covenant. The glory of the New Covenant is that no one “walks away” from the New Covenant.> Henry Lawrence wrote, "Now we pretending to be Abraham's children by faith, not by carnal generation, cannot pretend to ordinances by carnal generation as the others did.” The paedobaptists did not purport to be in the covenant of grace as the natural descendants of Abraham, but as his spiritual descendants; however they practiced a spiritual ordinance (baptism) on the basis of natural generation. (Denault, Loc. 1423)To use the word *covenant* as a reference to external and temporary privileges for our kids is to gut the word of its power and what's worse, it denies the actual New Covenant terms. That does not mean that there are no external and temporary privileges for our kids. It means they are *providential* blessings, for which we are accountable to God, but not the same as being being guaranteed salvation blessings.You don't need covenant language to believe that God will help you to raise Christians. And again, the covenants given by God were an advantage to the Jews, and yet we know it didn't guarantee that every one of their kids would believe. The Jewish “covenantalists” presumed on the sign of circumcision and tried to establish righteousness apart from faith in Jesus (Romans 9:31).We are sons of Abraham by faith, but not even all Abraham's sons were in the covenant? We and our kids benefit from the Noaic covenant, because we'll never see a global flood again, but that's not the same as faith. The Davidic covenant is about a Messiah ruling from Jerusalem. And again the New Covenant affects faith, it doesn't obligate faith.It is ironic, especially for those with covenantal leanings, for them to depend on the *covenant*, when *that is what messed up the Jews*.# An Inheritance of Anxiety Is Not BetterIf there is a kind of over-presumption by some, there is also a catastrophic and treasonous over-scrupulous, burdensome-pessimism by others. We want to be precise with our language, but we should also have high standards for our attitude. Too many professing Christian parents are the “glum.”There are multiple ways to raise kids to doubt. The most obvious way is to disciple them in doubt. “They're too young.” “They don't know everything about what they're saying.” “They keep sinning, struggling with the same sins over and over.” And a lot of us have been *discipled* to question our salvation in exactly the same way. For as much as I love the Puritans, they were preaching to a culture of presumers, most of whom had been baptized as babies, and trying to get men and women to actually examine their souls. The Puritan preachers took sin seriously, and that is good. But not all of them *discipled* how to believe, to then water faith and weed and water some more.Other parents say things like, “I don't want my kids to have my faith. I want it to be their own.” And we are living in a culture where our kids really took that to heart; they are spending the inheritance we gave them. They don't have our faith, and they've made self-discovery and self-affirmation/self-transformation and unbelief their fown.We're trying to give our kids a culture, of feasting and gratitude, of worship and Kuyerian-sized interests in all the things Jesus is interested in. But that's all in faith.We confess our sins as Christians. We understand baptism as obedience not by the parents but by the one professing faith, and we understand that baptism as a weapon in the battle against sin (Romans 6:2-5). Why withhold it until they prove their sanctification?I came across [this statement of the Capital Hill Baptist Church elders about the baptism of children](https://www.capitolhillbaptist.org/ministries/children/baptism-of-children/) again recently.> We believe that the normal age of baptism should be when the credibility of one's conversion becomes naturally evident to the church community. This would normally be when the child has matured, and is beginning to live more self-consciously as an individual, making their own choices, having left the God-given, intended child-like dependence on their parents for the God-given, intended mature wisdom which marks one who has felt the tug of the world, the flesh and the devil, but has decided, despite these allurements, to follow Christ.Is really this the path of wisdom? Does this promote a culture of faith?Yes, some seed falls on bad soil (Matthew 13). But, parents, this illustration is different for you. *Keep tending the soil.* It's not one seed sowing and done. And it's not baptism as end, but as beginning of their life of discipleship, and you are making disciples.We will leave an inheritance of anxiety to our children's children, or an inheritance of fearing the Lord (Proverbs 14:26, Psalm 103:17). We ought to be investing today in an inheritance of faith. Faith is a gift of God, faith is powerful, faith is fruitful. Faith begets faith.# What Instead?The Bible does not start the call to faith with a call to examine one's covenantal responsibilities, among Gentiles or even among Jews. “Brothers, what shall we do? And Peter said, to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'” (Acts 2:38 ESV) The call is to Christ.And Peter continued: “For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” (Acts 2:39 ESV) This promise is the gospel of Jesus Christ, *for all who believe*.That said, there is something special about Christian homes. When Paul wrote 1 Corinthians many marriages were *newly* unequally yoked, meaning that they got married when both were pagans and then one got saved. He gave instructions for spouses living with an unbeliever, whether as a husband or as a wife.> For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. (1 Corinthians 7:14 ESV)The phrase “made holy” doesn't mean that you only need one parent with faith in the house and everyone is guaranteed to go to heaven; kids don't get to ride on mom or dad's ticket, so to speak. But it does mean that there are practical *and spiritual privileges*. Paul summarizes it as a kind of holiness, a setting that is not common but set apart. These relationships have someone with light living in the home.In addition, there is an imperative for Christian homes.> Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4 ESV)ἐν παιδείᾳ, training or even *culture* of the Lord. One way to provoke them is to barrage them with doubt. Instead parents, and fathers in particular, are commanded to bring kids up to know and believe and love and obey the Lord.> as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 3:14–15 ESV)The Word should dwell in you and in your home. The Word is living and abiding and causes people, and young people, to be born again (1 Peter 1:23). How kind that you don't need blessed feet to cross the mountains to bring good news (Isaiah 52:7, Romans 10:15). There you are! You have it! Share it! Show it!> Train up a child in the way he should go;> even when he is old he will not depart from it.> (Proverbs 22:6 ESV)The way of righteousness, yes, but in the fear of the Lord. The way of wisdom, yes, in faith.> In the fear of the LORD one has strong confidence,> and his children will have a refuge.> (Proverbs 14:26 ESV)# ConclusionWe are saved by faith alone, thank the Lord. This is good news when you realize how many ways you've been a ridiculous parent. Have faith that Jesus forgives and cleanses, and have faith that He will continue to transform you, your parenting, and generations.So in summary, what is the spiritual status of our kids? I am trying to work toward clarity, not being combative. While this presents a tension (for a time), it prevents other inventions and confusions. We serve our kids, and one another, better by building a culture of faith (paideia of the Lord) than by telling them they are in the covenant by birth. (Note: We could say that by birth our kids live in a *covenant household*, as fruit of the marriage covenant between the husband and wife. We could also say they live in a *covenant community*, being brought up among Christians who receive many of the fruits of the New Covenant. I would still want to make a distinction about whether they are “in the covenant” prior to faith.) Here's a first-pass toward answering the question about how Christian parents should think about their kids in order to raise Christians.Kids born to (one or more) Christian parents are holy, which includes spiritual blessings of protection/refuge and opportunity. Kids are to be discipled **in faith to faith**, then affirmed by the church as members upon their public profession of faith in baptism and received into communion with the assembly.Prior to their profession of faith they have temporal and spiritual blessings/privileges, and so therefore they also have greater accountability. They not only have no excuse before God as their Creator but also no excuse for repenting from their sin/rebellion and confessing **faith** in Jesus Christ as Lord.As with all Christians, their **faith** is what identifies them as participants in the New Covenant and that identity is renewed at the Lord's Table (not baptism, per Luke 22:20). Their **faith** only needs to be as big as a mustard seed.Living faith is *rare*, Matthew 17:20, and we want rare heirs of faith. Faith moves mountains *and generations*.

Welcome back to The Stoop Sessions where we have casual conversations about ministry on the Baltimore stoop. In each episode, Joel, Stephanie, and Eric talk through different topics and occasionally bring on a friend. Today, while Eric is unable to join, we visit a friend. Join Joel and Stephanie as they meet with P.J. Tibayan and discuss new life for dying churches. P.J. serves as pastor at Bethany Baptist Church in Bellflower, CA near Los Angelos. As the conversation begins, P.J. shares his background and experience in church ministry. Listen as P.J. explains how he debated once debated R.C. Sproul on the meaning of John Piper's book Desiring God; How his love for the local church led to an internship at Capital Hill Baptist Church with Mark Dever; and to Bethany Baptist Church as senior pastor. As P.J. arrived at Bethany, the church was dying and in need of revitalization. P.J. defines what it means to revitalize a church and why we shouldn't just let dying churches die. He also shares his approach in discipling others along with practical and Biblical lessons on helping dying churches live. Listen and be encouraged to love those around you and help them grow in their love for Christ. Joel Kurz serves as the pastor of The Garden Church and director of ONE HOPE. Stephanie Greer is a Gospel Worker funded through ONE HOPE serving with The Garden Church. Learn more about ONE HOPE: www.onehope.gives Support the show: www.onehope.gives/donate Learn more about P.J. Tibayan and Bethany Baptist Church at https://bethanybaptist.church

Looking for a Reformed Church in Orange County? Check out Santa Ana Reformed (a United Reformed Church plant) meeting Sundays at 2 PM at Davis Elementary School in Santa Ana! Contact us: santaanareformed@gmail.com Please help support the show on our Patreon Page! WELCOME TO BOOK CLUB! Dr. Bobby Jamieson (PhD., University of Cambridge) is Associate Pastor at Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington D.C. Dr. Tyler Wittman (PhD., University of St. Andrews) is Assistant Professor of Theology at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in New Orleans, Louisiana. We want to thank Baker Academic for help setting up this interview and providing us with the necessary materials to interview Dr. Jamieson & Dr. Wittman! Purchase the books here: BBiblical Reasoning: Christological and Trinitarian Rules for Exegesis Have Feedback or Questions? Email us at: guiltgracepod@gmail.com Find us on Instagram: @guiltgracepod Follow us on Twitter: @guiltgracepod Find us on YouTube: Guilt Grace Gratitude Podcast Please rate and subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you use! Looking for a Reformed Church? North American Presbyterian & Reformed Churches --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gggpodcast/support

Preached by Ryan Lowe from Capital Hill Baptist Church.   For more information about New Life, please visit our website: www.newlifemd.org.

Session 5 in our series on Neighboring - Limitations and Boundaries--We have been casting a vision for loving our neighbors and neighborhoods, but what happens when that vision meets reality- What happens when our neighbors aren't interested in building a relationship or they don't like us- What if they are not interested in the Gospel- We discuss these things and many more in this 5th session. --This series is from the -Neighboring- Core Seminar created by Capital Hill Baptist Church.--The manuscript for this and handouts can be found at their website- https---www.capitolhillbaptist.org-resources-core-seminars-series-neighboring-

Session 3 in our series on Neighboring - Loving Your Neighbor - Your Neighborhood--This series is from the -Neighboring- Core Seminar created by Capital Hill Baptist Church.--The manuscript for this and handouts can be found at their website- https---www.capitolhillbaptist.org-resources-core-seminars-series-neighboring-

Session 4 in our series on Neighboring - The Church - the Neighborhood--Engaging neighbors and neighborhoods as the church scattered and the church gathered.--This series is from the -Neighboring- Core Seminar created by Capital Hill Baptist Church.--The manuscript for this and handouts can be found at their website- https---www.capitolhillbaptist.org-resources-core-seminars-series-neighboring-

This is the second lesson in our Neighboring Series. -What Will Last----This series is from the -Neighboring- Core Seminar created by Capital Hill Baptist Church.--The manuscript for this and handouts can be found at their website- https---www.capitolhillbaptist.org-resources-core-seminars-series-neighboring-

Neighboring Series- How Should Christians Love their Neighbors--This series is from the Neighboring Core Seminar created by Capital Hill Baptist Church.--The manuscript for this and handouts can be found at their website- https---www.capitolhillbaptist.org-resources-core-seminars-series-neighboring-

- Speaker: Jon Kopp - In today's study we will consider the astonishing claim the Bible makes that suffering is a gift—and then look at seven different purposes that God, in His wisdom, has given us for suffering. This study adapted from Capital Hill Baptist Church, Core Seminars - https://www.capitolhillbaptist.org/resources/core-seminars/

1 Peter 4:12 - Speaker: Jon Kopp - We begin today by looking at the Bible as a whole to understand it’s basic response to suffering. How does the Bible respond to suffering—especially undeserved suffering—in a universe sovereignly governed by a merciful God? So we’ll start with the Biblical origin of suffering, and then follow the story of Scripture where this problem is handled most clearly. That’s our outline for the rest of this morning: the origin, and the answer. This study adapted from Capital Hill Baptist Church, Core Seminars

6/2/2019 - Jonathan Keisling from Capital Hill Baptist Church unpacks Psalm 42 for our church

This is a six-part series on knowing and determining God's will that was gleaned from the -Guidance Core Seminar-at Capital Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. If you would like to see the full transcript of the class from Capital Hill, go here- https---www.capitolhillbaptist.org-resources-core-seminars-series-guidance-

In episode 10, we discuss the thorny issue of discipline (and spanking). This subject is highly controversial but as parents who seek to disciple their children according to Scripture, it must be carefully considered. Every parent struggles against temper tantrums and defiant attitudes from time to time. Some consider this topic outdated or confusing but God carefully instructs parents on disciplining their kids. Join our conversation and talk about it with your church family.What the ladies are listening to:2pm Grown- Korean popSam SmithLeslie Odom Jr. Pentatonix- Christmas albumThe Hobbit soundtrack - Howard ShorePastor's Talk- podcastResources:Shepherding a Child’s Heart, Tedd Tripp’s Shepherding a Child's Heart (audio) Capital Hill Baptist Church, Parenting Core SeminarsDon’t make me Count to 3, Ginger HubbardGospel Centered Family, Tim ChesterDo the Next Thing- Adrian SegalEncouraging Words Young Mothers Need, TGC

In episode 9, we discuss a few of the many joys, blessings, and challenges that come with motherhood. Whether you’re a mother of one child, multiple children, or have yet to begin growing your family, the idea of motherhood can be both exciting and daunting. From learning how children impact other relationships such as your marriage, church family, and extended family, to learning how to correct your children, (or have them correct you?), we explore how God’s grace is evident through the gift of children. We hope that all mothers or mothers to be that listen are encouraged to seek support from other mothers in their church family, and grow in joy and love for the Lord through loving their children.Resources:Shepherding a Child’s Heart, Tedd Tripp’s Shepherding a Child's Heart (audio) Capital Hill Baptist Church, Parenting Core SeminarsDon’t make me Count to 3, Ginger HubbardGospel Centered Family, Tim ChesterDo the Next Thing- Adrian SegalEncouraging Words Young Mothers Need, TGC

I. Introduction: Guarding the Treasure That's a marvelous song. How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. And I have the joy and privilege of Bringing good news to this morning. In this passage, we have a fantastic description of the gospel itself and I'm looking forward to being able to explain to you just how beautiful is the Gospel that we cherish and that we treasure. Perhaps you didn't know this, but 30 miles south of Louisville, Kentucky, there's a treasure as well, a treasure more vast and more measurable than any of you can imagine, greater than Bill Gates and Ted Turner put together. Probably you never thought of Louisville, Kentucky in this way. I didn't either, until we went there and realized that we were just 30 miles north of Fort Knox. So, we wanted to go down there and see all that gold. Christi and I got the kids, and we put them in the car and we drove down to see bricks of gold. I don't know why I wanted to see that. I saw a National Geographic article on it, so we drove down there and there's a military museum and some other things down there. But when we came to the place where the actual gold was held, we were somewhat disappointed, because instead of a visitor center we saw a guard booth and instead of some kind of a museum or some tour that we could take, we saw barbed wire and an ugly blockade look, reinforced concrete, sunk below the surface of the earth, impervious to bombing and also in impervious to visitors. So, we had hoped to visit this gold and see it, but we had no chance of doing so. There was going to be no visit that day. And nor is there a visit at Fort Knox any day. And why is it so protected? It's because the federal government has the majority of their gold holding there. Now, we're not on the gold standard anymore, but they understand if that gold were somehow to be tampered with, if it were to be stolen, that the United States economy and the whole world economy would be devastated. And so they think they will stop at nothing to protect it. There's no length that they'll go to protect it. But we have a treasure in the gospel that is of far greater worth than all those bricks of gold. And in the passage this morning, the Apostle Paul charges Timothy to spare nothing to protect that gospel message. To spare nothing to cherish the words of the gospel that we're entrusted to Paul by Jesus Christ himself, and then through Paul to Timothy, and through Timothy and others ultimately to us. Spare nothing to protect that message. This is Paul's third charge to Timothy. What I'm going to do is I'm going to read the first 14 verses of Chapter One, just to get a start and then we're going to look more carefully at the beautiful, the good deposit that was given to us. We're going to survey it. We're going to feel it’s worth and its value, and then we're going to look at how it is we are to protect it. So listen out of verses one through 14. "Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus. To Timothy, my dear son, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus, our Lord. I thank God whom I serve as my forefathers did with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I've been reminded of your sincere faith which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded now lives in you also. For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you, through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord or ashamed of me, His prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the Gospel, by the power of God who has saved us and called us to a holy life. Not because of anything we have done, but because of His own purpose and grace, this grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time. But it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and brought life, and immortality to light through the Gospel. And of this gospel, I was appointed a herald and an apostle, and a teacher. That is why I'm suffering as I am. Yet I'm not ashamed, because I know whom I believed and I'm convinced that He is able to guard, what I have entrusted to him for that day. What you have heard from me keep as the pattern of sound teaching with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you, guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us." II. Paul’s Circumstances: Persecution under Nero What a charge. The third charge that Paul gives to Timothy. Now let's remind ourselves of the context. Paul was suffering persecution at the hands of the insane Roman Emperor Nero. As you remember, Nero head for one reason or another, burned half the city of Rome, and had decided to blame it on the Christians. This was the first persecution by the Roman government of the Christian people and the Apostle Paul was to die under that persecution, and Paul knew it. When he sat down to write this letter, he knew he was going to die, he'd already had his first trial. Second trial was coming up very soon. And he knew he was going to die. And so he wants to write a final letter to Timothy, to entrust to Timothy a serious charge, the Gospel ministry. That charge have been entrusted to him by Jesus Christ and now he was going to entrust it with all seriousness to Timothy who had been his right-hand man on his missionary journeys. We've already looked at the first charge that Paul gave to Timothy in verse six. He says, "Fan your gift in the flame." We know that this is Timothy spiritual gift of preaching and teaching. The second charge, we discussed a couple of weeks ago. Namely that Timothy should never be ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, or of Jesus Christ or the people of Christ, but rather, with boldness, with fearlessness, he should preach this Gospel message. III. Assessing the Good Deposit (vs. 8-10) So, now we come to the third charge that he should guard the good deposit. Now, we need to survey this deposit in order to understand what Paul was commanding Timothy to do. Thankfully, in a beautiful way, Paul condenses the Gospel in just a few verses. In verses 8-10, we can survey the whole good deposit. There we see the character of our salvation, we see the source of our salvation and the ground of our salvation. In verse eight, it says that God has saved us, and He's called us now to a holy life. And then in verse 10, it says that Christ has destroyed death, and brought life, and immortality to light through the Gospel. He has saved us. I could say He is saving us now and He will save us in the future. The character of this gospel message is that it's comprehensive. It's a total salvation from sin. The character of salvation Some people have summed it up into three P's. That Jesus Christ has saved us from the penalty of sin. He is saving us now from the power of sin and some day he's going to save us, we who are his children, from the very presence of sin. Oh, what a day that'll be. No more temptation, no more suffering, or struggle with sin, what a day. To be totally free from sin, and all of its manifestations. It's a comprehensive salvation. Well, when we say that Jesus Christ has saved us from sin's penalty, what are we saying? Romans 6:23 tells us what that penalty is, it says the wages or what we deserve for sin, is death. The wages of sin is death. What do we mean by death? Well, we all know about physical death, physical death is the separation of the soul from the body. Now, we know from Romans 5 that death entered the world because of sin, physical death. We don't say that people die because they committed this specific sin, but just death entered and hangs over all of us because of sin. But the scripture has more to say about death than just physical death, there's a spiritual death as well. Ephesians chapter two tells us about that. It says in Ephesians two that all people who do not know Jesus Christ are dead in their transgressions and sins while they live. That's somewhat of a paradox, dead while you live, living dead. If you don't know Jesus Christ, you're dead in your transgressions and sins, and you can't respond to God, you can't understand what he's saying to you. You're like a spiritual corpse until Jesus Christ, by His power, raises you from the dead you won't respond, but he has that power. And all of you who are born again who know Jesus Christ, you know what I'm talking about. The power of God to raise you from the dead, spiritually. But there is a more serious death, and it's where that spiritual death that we experience now, when we don't know Jesus becomes permanent, eternal, final on Judgment Day. It's what scripture calls the second death. Revelation Chapter 20:14 says that the lake of fire is the second death. Jesus Christ came to save us from that, to suffer on the cross so that we would not have to suffer eternally away from God. He came to save us from sin's penalty and by His death on the cross, that's what he's done. But he's also come to save us from sin's power. It says that He has saved us and has called us with a holy calling. He's called us to a holy life. He's called us to be different, to come out of the world and to be different. The church of Jesus Christ is to be a holy church. We're not to be like the world. We're to imitate, to follow Jesus Christ and all of His ways. He's called us with a holy calling. Are you taking that calling seriously? If you're a born again Christian, you should be holy, you should be growing in holiness, you should be more holy a year from now than you are now. More faithful in putting sin to death. This is the holy calling, that He's called us for. And in the end, He will save us from sin's very presence. He will save us from the existence of sin in our lives. 1 John 3 says that when we see Him, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. When you see Jesus Christ face-to-face, all sin will be removed forever, there'll be no more temptation and no more suffering under temptation, and under sin. So, this is the character of our salvation. And isn't it comprehensive? Isn't it beautiful? It's a total salvation from sin. It's a salvation in the past, because Jesus died on the cross. We have been saved from sin's penalty. Salvation in the present, as God's power works in us. Holiness and righteousness and it will be a salvation in the future, when Jesus Christ comes back and we see Him face-to-face and all sin is removed. The character of our salvation. The Source of Salvation But what is its source? Where does it come from? As we look at the river of our salvation.Where are the headwaters? The cataracts of this? As we trace it back, what's the origin of it all? In 1860, a British man, named James Hanningspeak traced the Nile River back to its origin. Now this had been a problem that had eluded people for 2000 years. They wanted to know what was the source of the Nile. And so they had traced it from Egypt up, following along into Sudan, but they reached physical difficulties, they couldn't keep following, it was too hard and no one knew where the Nile came from. Well, James Hanningspeak found that it originated in what he called or named Lake Victoria in the center of Africa. 4150 miles away from where it's spilled out into the Mediterranean sea, longest river on earth. As we look at the river of our salvation, we trace it back to its origin, where is it? Well, Paul answers that, both negatively and positively. Negatively in verse 9. He says, it's not because of anything we have done. Not because of anything we have done. This message of salvation is not about what you have done, or have accomplished, it's not about your actions at all. It's about what God has done through Jesus Christ, on the cross. That's the origin. It's not anything that we have done. Paul taught the same thing in Ephesians 2:8-9, it says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves. It's a gift of God, not by works. So that no one can boast." I won't stand any boasting before Him on that great day. Salvation is His gift, He offers it freely. It's not because of anything we have done, negatively. He says. But positively, he says it is because of God's purpose and His grace. God's purpose means his will, his reason, his decision, it's what he wanted to do. You look at the first verse of the entire book, he says Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus, what, "By the will of God, God wanted me to be an apostle, and that's what I am." The will of God. Each one of you who is a Christian, you're a Christian because the will of God. His purpose, also His grace. What is grace? We sing that wonderful hymn, Amazing Grace. What's so amazing about grace? Well, let me say, if you meditate on sin and understand yourself before a holy God, you'll see what's so amazing about grace. Grace is amazing. Why should He give His beloved son for you? Because He loves and not because of anything He sees in you or me, just because He loves. That's what's so amazing about grace, it's His purpose and His grace. But when was this grace given to us? When was this plan worked out? Well, here's a mystery, but it says that this grace was given us in Christ Jesus, before the beginning of time. Before the beginning of time. I was reading a book recently by what many people consider to be the most brilliant man alive, today, Steven Hawking, some of you have heard of Stephen Hawking, he's a British physicist. Confined to a wheelchair because of Lou Gehrig's Disease, but his mind is active and sharp. And he wrote a book called "A Brief History of Time." A Brief History of Time. Many of you perhaps have seen it, it was on the New York Times Best Seller list. It's physics made simple for people like you and me who are laymen, don't really fully understand physics. But what he sought to do and he spent about 30 or 40 pages doing is proving that time had an origin. Many Physicists believe that there is no origins of time, that the universe has always been here, and will always be here, etcetera. That time had an origin. He proves it through mathematics and through observation and other things like that. Well, sometimes I think this is really wonderful. Physicists are somewhat like mountain climbers, climbing up the mountain of truth. And when they get to the top, they find that the theologians were already there, especially believers. All you need to do is read it in the Bible. This grace was given us when? Before the beginning of time. Time had a beginning and before that, God was active, He was doing thing. He was giving you grace. Well, how can that be? I wasn't even made yet. In the mind of God, you were. God has been having a relationship with you, if you're a Christian, before the world began. Jeremiah 31:3 says, "Since I have loved you with an everlasting love and therefore in love and kindness, I have drawn you." Our salvation comes out of an everlasting changeless love of God. Your relationship with God is not like the stock market going up, going down. Up, down, up, up, up, down, down. I think about that. I think, "Is my relationship, is God's love for me affected by how I behave?" No, there's a settled assurance on God's part that I'm a child of God and that He is going to bring me into His very presence at the end of the world, and he made up his mind about this, if we can speak in that kind of language, before the world began, before there was a sun shining in all its radiance, before the moon reflected the sun's light, before there was an earth to walk on, before there was a Nile River flowing down from the center of Egypt into the Mediterranean, God gave us his grace in Christ, Jesus. That's what it says. This idea, this doctrine should produce in us simply two things, deep humility and total security. Deep humility because our salvation is not based on any achievement on our part, nothing we can boast about. The only thing we contribute to our salvation is the sin made that makes it necessary. But it should also produce in us total, complete security in Christ. We will be saved when that great and final day comes. We've seen the character and now we've seen the source of our salvation. The Ground of Salvation What of it's ground? What's it based on? What's the structure of our salvation founded upon? It says this grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed, or it has now appeared through the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ. When Jesus entered the world, in Bethlehem born as a baby, born of a woman, born under the law at just the right time, God's salvation plan became evident. And as he grew and lived a sinless pure life, and as He did the things He did, and said the things He said, performed those great miracles. And as He was nailed to the cross, suffering for sin. And as He was raised from the dead on the third day, God's salvation plan has become explained and made known, and that story is the ground of our salvation. It's the foundation on which we rest. It was hidden and now it's revealed. Now, that ground again, Paul describes both negatively and positively. Negatively, he says that Jesus Christ has destroyed death. Positively, he says that he has brought life, and immortality to light through the Gospel. Now, what does it mean negatively when he says that he's destroyed death? Now, I talked earlier about the three kinds of death, we see that. But this word "destroyed" is very interesting. You could say, some translations say abolished. I prefer to look on it as rendered impotent, strip the power away from death. You can imagine a scorpion for example, with its tail curving up over its head, with that stinger ready to strike, deadly poison. But then an expert coming and removing that stinger, the scorpion has no sting. There's no power left to death or you can imagine, perhaps, a man, in a rumpled German private officer May 21st, 1945, very end of World War II. Trying to make his way through the British lines, had 11 other men with him. Just trying to get back to his homeland in Bavaria. They pull him off to the side, begin to question him, find out that he's Heinrich Himmler. Heinrich Himmler was the leader of the Gestapo, one of the most feared, one of the most evil man in history. Two or three, four years before then, he had all his power, all his army around him. And he could do all of his evil deeds. But now, he's been stripped of his power by the Allied victory, the military victory. He had no power left, he was a rumpled man. No power. Still alive, still there, but no authority. This is what Jesus Christ has done to death and all of its evil power, its ability to terrorize. And here is the Apostle Paul seated in this prison cell, waiting to die. Is he terrified of death? Oh, absolutely not. "For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." He just wants to finish his earthly work, he knows he's being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for his departure. He's not afraid of death at all. There's no fear in Paul, he just wants to finish his work. Jesus Christ has abolished death, he's pulled the stinger out of it. We as Christians have no need for fear of death any longer. That's negative. What about positive? He's brought life, and immortality to light through the gospel. Jesus said, "I came that they may have life and they might have it abundantly." Jesus came to show us a life that apart from Him, we would never know. A life of joy, a life of fellowship with God. John 17:3, he says, "This is eternal life, that they may know you. The only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." Knowing God, walking with Him, living with Him, that is life and Jesus alone can give it, and He does give it freely. The word "immortality", which we translate immortality, you could translate or say as freedom from corruption or surrounded by rust, withered flowers, things that age. The life that Jesus gives is free from all that. Jesus holds on to it and protects it. Paul says, "I know whom I believe, and I'm convincing that He is able to guard what I've entrusted to Him." What you entrust to God is safe. Your life is hidden with Him in God. Protected and safe. But I love what it says that he has brought this life, this immortality to light through the Gospel. A beautiful illustration of this. King's chapel Cambridge, England, has the most magnificent display of stained glass in all of Europe. Made in the 15th and 16th century, 13,000 square feet of it. Can you imagine? I don't know how many square feet there are here in this sanctuary, but I doubt it's 13,000 square feet. But these are spectacular stained glass windows. Well, during World War II, they thought it was wise to remove the stained glass and get it out of the chapel, bury it, so that it wouldn't be destroyed by the Luftwaffe, by the German bombers. And so that's exactly what they did. Well, after the war was over and enough time had past, they knew it was time to bring these stained glass out of hiding and re-install them at King's Chapel, and so that's what they did. The workers covered them with shrouds and cloths to keep them protected, during their installment, and then at the right time when everything was prepared, everything was ready, the word went out and all the local populous came and they surrounded King's Chapel from the outside, and it was night. And at just the right moment, the word was given and floodlights from inside the chapel were turned on and the light streamed out through those steamed glass windows and all the people gasped, they'd forgotten the beauty of the windows, the glory of all the colors. That is what Jesus Christ has done by His resurrection from the dead, and by the Gospel that we preach in His name. People walking in darkness see a great light, the light of life, freedom from sin, freedom from fear of death, eternal life forever. The shining of the light, and that's what God has called us here at First Baptist Church to do, to shine that light. The light of this beautiful Gospel that he's entrusted to us. We've seen the character of salvation, how comprehensive it is, past, present, and future. We've seen the source of salvation, not anything that we have done, but God's own purpose and grace given us before the world began. And we've seen the ground of salvation. In the past, hidden in the mind of God, but now revealed through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So now Paul commands Timothy, to guard this message because it's so precious. He says, "What you have heard from me keep as the pattern of sound teaching with faith and love in Christ Jesus, guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you. Guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us." IV. Guarding the Deposit Well, what does Paul mean to guard this message? He said, "What you have heard for me, the words you heard from my mouth, hold on to them. They're precious, they're valuable, keep them safe." He says, "Guard them as a pattern." There's a sense in which he's given an outline, like an architect sketch, have you ever seen these architects sketch of what a building is going to look like? A pen and ink description? ] This is exactly what Paul did with the doctrine, he said "Timothy, color it in. Make it brilliant, but don't color outside the lines, stay inside those lines. Don't innovate, don't change it, don't rearrange it. Give them the sound doctrine that I've given to you." Now, the word sound means, sound doctrine means healthy. Like, for example, when you have a last will and testament, you say, "I Andrew M. Davis being of sound mind do here by such and such." It means I've got a healthy mind. This is healthy doctrine and it strengthens and it gives life. "Don't change it Timothy, but stay with it." Why does the gospel message need to be protected? Well, first and foremost, because it's from God, God gave it to us. Paul says in Galatians 1, he said, "I want you to know, brothers, that the Gospel I preach is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, rather I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. He revealed it to me, showed it to me, I got this message straight from him. And I preached it faithfully. Now you, Timothy, don't change it. Don't rearrange it, don't leave out unpopular parts of it, preach the whole message. You don't have a right to change it, it's from God." This message is life. You also, it says, were dead in your transgressions and sins but you were included in Christ, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. These words are your life, protect them, hold them safe. But we also need to protect it because Satan hates this message, he really does, he hates the Gospel, that I'm preaching in front of you today. He'll fight against it. He has in every generation throughout history, there's been an attack on the Gospel. Early on, false teachers came up and they questioned whether Jesus Christ was really man. Or, perhaps the question whether he was really God. God raised up faithful teachers to fight back against those heresies. In recent years however, there's a more subtle attack on the Gospel. It started in the enlightenment when a man named Emmanuel Kant came and said, "You know something, you really can't know truth as it really is, you can only know truth as it appears to you." This other man, a theologian named Schleiermacher said, "That's especially true in religion. You can't know religious truth, the Bible is not full of religious truth but only people's spiritual experiences, that's all this is, just a record of spiritual experiences." And you also can't know the truth but only have experiences of religious fervor, etcetera. And so people come to church now and they come expecting to have some kind of religious experiences, they're not looking for truth. All of this is an innovation, it's a twisting. It's ultimately a heresy, it's falsehood because there is a truth. The truth is that the tomb is empty, that Jesus Christ has in fact risen from the dead. Believe it or not, there was a theologian at the end of the 1800s, who said it really doesn't matter to me if Jesus ever lived or not. It doesn't matter if the tomb is empty, or full. All that matters is the life and the experience that we have from studying the Bible as it's come to us today. And his motto was, "Life not doctrine." Do you see what a changed this is? This is a perversion, it's a twisting. The life we have in Jesus Christ comes from the teaching, from the doctrine. Well, how is Timothy to guard this life, this doctrine, how is he to protect it? Well, it says guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us. Only with the help of the Holy Spirit can we guard this message. There are two threats that we have to fight against. The first is surrounded by a culture of people who hate the message, surrounded by a culture of people who are drifting further and further away from Christianity, true Christianity. We are tempted to start to change the message a little bit, or maybe include some things that would be a little more popular, kind of broaden the tent a little bit, get the stakes a little wider. Include some things and leave out some other things, change it a little bit. It's temptation, or there's another issue and that's something we would do knowingly by the way. Something that we would do ignorantly, where false teachers come in and deceive us, trick us and we begin to change the message because we didn't really know what the true message was and were tossed back and forth by every wind of teaching. Either one can happen. By the Holy Spirit, neither one needs to happen. In the first case, we realize by the power of the Spirit, we don't need to be afraid of what surrounding culture says. We don't have to be afraid of death or anything, we live to God, we live to Jesus Christ and we preach this message. People hear it, and they come and they are saved because it's a true message from Jesus Christ. And we don't need to be afraid of false teachers coming in either because we're going to study the message, we're going to know it. We're going to understand what it says. Last week, I was in Washington, and I met a man who was a member of the Capital Hill Baptist Church. And his profession is that he works for the Secret Service and I didn't know that much about the Secret Service. Of course, we know that they protect important officials, elected officials, but one of their original purpose, original function, after the Civil War was to discern true and false currency. They actually work for the Department of the Treasury, and they work against counterfeit money. Counterfeiters. So, I talked to him, I said, "Well, how do you go about doing this?" He said more than anything, "We study the genuine article. We study how the bills were made. We understand the ink, we understand the paper, the procedure." Now, I think you've seen the new bills with the watermark in it, looks like Monopoly money. I think it's kind of funny looking. I actually look at it twice and think that it's counterfeit but it's a new dollar, you hold it up to the light and you see that watermark. I asked him how it was made, he said, "that's top secret". They can't tell what that is, that watermark. But what they do is they study the genuine bill so well that as soon as the counterfeit comes along, they know it and they recognize it. So, it is with the church. We immerse ourselves in this book, we get to know the Scriptures. We memorize, we meditate on them and then as soon as the falsehood comes along, we say, "That's just not true." For it says in Galatians such and such, or it says over in Ephesians such and such. We recognize it immediately, and we have no fear of false doctrine. And that means that a next generation, the people who come in behind us, our disciples, our children, they're teaching the same doctrine that Paul taught. That's how it works. God has given this Gospel message, this beautiful deposit to us as a sacred trust. We are to proclaim it boldly, and faithfully, not to innovate or change it in any way, but to give it to the people so that they may have eternal life. We have to guard this message more faithfully than the gold is gone at Fort Knox. N ow today, you've heard the Gospel message in the midst of this exposition. It could be that some of you have never heard the message preached in this way, it could be that the Holy Spirit is speaking to you. But today is the day of salvation for you. If you feel the leading of the Spirit, don't resist, give your life to Jesus Christ. Let Him take the death penalty that hangs over your head if you're not a Christian. Let Him stand in your place and give you eternal life. For all those of you who are Christians, re-commit yourself to the gospel ministry. You know that tomorrow night we are beginning our visitation ministry, it's a practical application. Come and be with us. 7:00, Morgan Hall. We're making a commitment to visit the visitors of our church, share the Gospel with them, find out what their needs are. I've told people on my staff, I'm trusting God for one person to come on Monday night, a church member who's stepping out in faith and doing something that they've never done before. And I'm also asked them that that person come and tell me who he or she is. I'm that person that's trusting God to be here. I hope there's going to be a lot of people like that. But God has committed this Gospel ministry to us and we are to be faithful.