I invite you to turn this morning in the book of Acts, to the book of Acts, and we are continuing our study in this book, and this morning we come to chapter 6. You'll find that on page 1163. I have, this is a particular passage that deals with the establishment of the diaconate and deacons, and you'll notice I gave the title, The Magnificent Seven. They're not gunslingers, they're mercy slingers, okay? This is Acts chapter 6. This is the word of the Lord. We'll pick up at verse 1. Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, It is not right that we should give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, and Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch. These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them. And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. And there ends the reading of God's word. Well, we all know when something is new and something is fresh and something is exciting, that is a wonderful project to be a part of. It gives us a renewed perspective in what is most important, doesn't it? We all like new beginnings. We all like something that is fresh and happening. In these first five chapters of Acts, there have been a lot of tests for the early church and a lot of trials for the early church. But I think if you would have asked any church member in the first part of Acts, any of these new converts to the faith, how is it going in First Apostolic Church? They would have said, this is wonderful. We're hearing the message of life. We're hearing the gospel proclaimed. This message has set us free. And the growth that the Spirit is giving the church, what's happening, this is one exciting project and building project to be a part of we love it beginnings as wonderful as they can be you all know are not the normal life of things it's not the normal course of things it's not how things will play out and continue to go the newness of something always wears off in fact we know that life is like this that's why we're always looking for something new to replace the mundane the trenches the hardship of it all that then, especially in the midst of the growing pains, we have times where we look back to the past and romanticize the past because of that, especially when we're in the thick of it. Things seem to go nowhere. The struggles enter in and everything becomes old hat and we've got to reinvent ourselves. We need something new. Well, the early church has now entered this phase of church life. they were seeing these phases come about and as time has gone on now they're facing some new challenges they of course have faced persecution they have faced these sort of things but the spirit has continued to bless the church but here comes something we can really relate to this morning in acts chapter 6 because the good old days have come to an end and now we start to see the church take shape in ways that we know we're recognizing with the common daily struggles that the church goes through the many the ministry of the apostles ironically is already slowly beginning to fade out already i mean think of of now the emphasis that will follow on philip the deacon and in the next chapter, Stephen. Things are already being shown to us about ministry as it taking shape in the ways that we know it, especially today as we see the beginnings of what we know unfold in the priorities of what we call the office of elder, pastor, and of deacon. In fact, Acts will really focus for some time here now on the diaconal ministry. It's a wonderful thing to study, even though I do think there were extraordinary aspects to these offices that would give way to more normal courses of what we know as the diaconate. We learn so much here in this early part of Acts from the structure of the church and what it's supposed to look like. This was a big moment for the early church because now a complex problem had developed in the church and led to it the formation of something that the Spirit wanted us all to study and to consider for generations to come to look at priorities of ministry. I think that's the heart of this passage, that if you said, Pastor, what is the heart of this particular passage this morning? It is to say, I want priorities in the church maintained. and you need to think about that that's why these offices exist and not to become buried in the great amount of work that goes on in the church and how we serve in the world becoming buried in anything is bad you do it in your own lives look at how government continues to bury us with regulation look at how you bury yourselves in your own life with more and more and more and more, and you don't stop. This is what goes on in church life. This is what happens in church life, and we forget the simplicity of things. We've got to go back. We've got to go back and think about the original design of something, to think about how that design solves certain problems that we have now fallen under. That's this. I think you'll see how helpful this is this morning and keep to keep in front of us what is most important. Acts 6 shows us and this all develops in light of a great complaint that arose in the early church. It then shows us from this complaint the wisdom and solution that the apostles came up with and the consequences of this. That's a basic breakdown of this particular short section in Acts chapter 6 and we learn a lot today about this in the daily grind and struggle of life and ministry of how they dealt with the same problems and how we are to go forward in thinking about how to help with the needs of the congregation you have needs the lord cares about those needs how does he meet those needs how does he shepherd you jesus is ascended jesus is risen how does he continue to shepherd you these are the questions we explore in this passage so let's begin by looking at this particular problem that acts chapter 6 shows us this particular problem and you'll notice there in verse 1 it says now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number a complaint a complaint rose i want you to notice how this section you could almost if you're if you you like to do a study of text and linguistics and all that and structures of text you'd see there's a kind of chiasm here and what i'm saying there is that if you look at the beginning of this passage it says in those days when disciples were increasing in number you'll notice that in the middle of verse seven and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in jerusalem so whatever is going to happen in between those two statements the solution came so that it did not stop the increasing of disciples it's i think that's a very important point in looking at what he's doing structured structuring this because it's essentially saying the great commission was not hindered remember what jesus said in the great commission go into all the world and make disciples whatever was happening was not hindered they came to a solution that would not hinder the great commission that would not hinder the teaching that would not hinder the baptizing but as act six begins he says the disciples were multiplied and in the next breath comes a great threat to that that's how you have to see this a great threat to the multiplication of disciples which is what jesus was after what would you think would be the greatest threat to multiplying disciples be interesting to hear answers to that to think about a little bit what would be the greatest threat as church life goes on in the mundane and the trench work of church life what is the greatest threat to the multiplication of disciples how did they overcome it well we have to understand a little bit of what happened you notice a big word is chosen in verse one that in those days when the disciples were increasing in number a complaint arose they began to complain that has a loaded history doesn't it that's a loaded history if you know the bible there are certain words that the bible uses over and over and we should stop and reflect on exactly what was happening here because when the bible says complain that had a lot to do with israel in the wilderness didn't it they uh their great besetting sin in the wilderness of israel was complaining complaining against the lord in fact the new testament so predominantly and prevalently picked up on this that it would use the same words in the septuagint it would use the same words of the complaining that took place by the jews against jesus in the wilderness to say the same thing was happening it's the same word here the same word here and this problem alarmed the apostles it alarmed them they knew what first corinthians said the first corinthians would instruct us not to complain like they did don't do that complaining well here we are we've already had this same problem up here in the early church of complaining going on and they were very proactive to stop it right away complaining will destroy a church complaining will wreck a people especially with this particular problem and they were here very proactive and concerned about what was leading to this spirit of complaining that was filling the church well what exactly was happening well we're told in verse one that this complaint was made against the hellenists the hebrews by the hellenists because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution now this is the benefit of studying acts you'll remember what was happening in acts that people were making large donations in the church remember when barnabas made his donation back in um the end of chapter 4 it said so all these people were making their donations and laying them at the apostles feet the apostles feet it obviously meant that the apostles were the ones distributing all the the goods of people and the monies to the people they were trying to figure out how best to do the distribution this would be a big issue in the new testament they didn't have government programs they didn't have bailouts they didn't have social security so this this was important in the early life of the church wasn't it the synagogues would commonly do this and they were slowly making breaks from all of that even though many of these these jewish christians probably went up to the synagogue to try to still receive that they were making breaks from this and based on the old testament they were considering uh god's commands to care for the widow and the orphan God cares a lot for the widows and the orphans. Well, what is clear here is that the Greek Jews who spoke Greek and who were born outside of Israel, so this is the issue, they were born outside of Israel, and then you had the pure Hebrews, the pure blood Hebrews who were born in Jerusalem and Israel within the borders. And the charge was favoritism was being played. favoritism was being played, a kind of classism, a kind of racism. Maybe Peter was already involved in this. It would later be a problem, wouldn't it, in Galatians where Paul observes, but when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles, but when they came, he drew back and separated himself fearing the circumcision party and the rest of the jews acted hypocritically along with him so this is interesting so that even barnabas the great giver was led astray by their hypocrisy but when i saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel i got right in his face. Now, I saw what he was doing, that he was showing favoritism contrary to behavior that is appropriate in the essence of our message, and I opposed him strongly. That was the problem in Galatia, and we see that this was a continuing problem already at the beginning in the early church in the daily struggle of life. Which, by the way, has always been a problem. This struggle has always been a problem. I hear people talking about the church today and how it fails, and it doesn't incorporate all kinds of peoples, and I think this has always been a problem. This is what's being shown to you here. This is one of the struggles. And this ethnic suspicion was ripping apart the the people because of this issue the new testament confronts this head-on it's all over the place uh it warns us against showing partiality it cautions us against doing this because god does not do this he has made us all one he is a god of the jew and the gentile and we are one and in the new testament it constantly warns us against putting our our our people our families our blood over others or even making class distinctions this way in the body of christ in the way that we care that is the essence we've seen already of hypocritical religion and god is constantly checking and calling us, checking our motivations to love the most unlovable, to love with extraordinary acts of kindness, to the most offensive, to the most different, to the most unlike us, to the most needy among us. That is what James says, pure and undefiled religion, to visit these kinds of people, to love these kinds of people, the widows and the orphans, to not play the favorites, to not just talk to the favorites. So the apostles took this seriously. In fact, you'll notice in 1 Timothy, you have a great section of detailed instruction on how you even give to the widows and who met the qualifications. They were very concerned about this problem and thought about this a lot. Now, I like to think about this, about what did they see was at stake in this? And how did they solve the problem before us? There's so much wisdom here. There's so much help here. They saw it. Was it just a mere problem of poor distribution? That would solve so much for us today, wouldn't it, right? If the problem was not really, we think about here, racism primarily, What were all of these symptoms exposing was the heart of the real problem here? I want you to think about that for a minute. What was the real problem here? We've been through our study in Acts trying to look underneath the surface at what's happening in the life of the church, aren't we? Don't you see a strategy here of Satan for a minute to think about? We've been trying to do that. The apostles are doing the distributing. They are becoming overburdened with the daily struggles of the people, and they're tackling them all. They're doing it all. They've become chief administrators. Oh, they cared. Of course they cared. The question of was it good for them? Was it good for the church? They certainly had abilities, didn't they? What does this do? What is this exposing? Well, I think so far you should look at Acts and say, well, this is really beginning and probably the problems that are resulting is because the apostles are already being stretched too thin. What is building the church is under assault. So in light of their calling and in light of their gifts, this spread them way too thin so that now they weren't really accomplishing too much that was helpful. I want us to see this this morning and what did that lead to? Neglect of what was most important. Now what is most important in this case? We have to think about this. We have to look at problems at their root. We have to look at problems at their root. What has caused this problem in the life of the church? How do you fix complaining hearts? How do you deal with these problems? How do you fix sort of classism or racism or all these things how do you view one people viewing themselves as better than another people how do we as pastors address this in the ministry the needs are endless aren't they i think you can see what satan's doing he's trying to rip the church apart with these kinds of divisions this is how he's always been successful in the church satan's greatest His pressure upon the apostles was to pull them away and make it all about solving people's social problems and struggles. Now this gets, I believe, to the heart of a greatly neglected subject and something that still to this day the church doesn't seem to understand. We struggle to grasp this. There are mountains of problems. Mountains of problems. The poor? Injustice? Strife? Divisions? Fightings? Family problems? Divorce? People hurting? Where do I stop, right? Is that the Apostle's job? Is it? Satan was, of course, sowing all kinds of tears in the church. Jesus told us that this would happen. Look at the havoc that all this can breed. Look at the havoc. This is a strategy. Remember, Paul would commonly say, we are not ignorant of Satan's devices. We look at Satan's devices. We look behind the scenes to see what this is. And I think here you have to understand what Satan wants the ministry to become is this. What do I mean? Where those who are set apart to minister the Word of God leave the Word of God to do everything else. This is what Satan wants. Study it. Think about it. Why? Because in this way, you have undermined the key to the church's ministry and success. Remember what Pentecost was all about? You say the giving of the Spirit. The giving of the Spirit so that the gospel would be preached. So notice what they say. Study what they say here very carefully at the beginning of Acts 6. It's a very powerful statement in verse 2. And the 12 summoned the full number of the disciples and said, it is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. What if I just stopped and said, it's not right that we should give up the word of God to serve. You'd be a little uneasy, wouldn't you? Serve tables. What does this mean? That would be the most dangerous thing that we could do. Now, this is why I said people don't understand this. Our natural thought, as time goes on, and the pressure is, as the problems mount, less preaching, more programs. Less preaching, more programs. Less preaching, more programs. But what we're learning in Acts is, already at the beginning, that was not the thought in the early church. it was more preaching, more preaching, more preaching. That's how they're thinking. That as normal church life went on and they were getting pounded with problems and inward struggles and strife and division, their answer was, we know and we believe strongly that the priority that we have to maintain in the ministry is prayer and the ministry of the Word. those go together. We've got to give ourselves to that. That's the best thing we could do for you. That's the best thing we could do for the people. Mark my word, if you ever look at a church ripped apart in divisions and conflict and members complaining and members disgruntled with the ministry and you listen to what they're complaining about it's anything and everything else than the priority but i would suggest you here's what you will see at the pastoral position a ministry of the word is second second the ministry of the word is second his heart is not there and that's why the church is is floundering and ripped apart in division he is if he is outside of his study doing anything and everything else or even become a cultural warrior or the great visitor he is the one fueling this dissatisfaction in the body and the body doesn't even know how it's happened here's the thing it's that approach to ministry that produces the complaining people don't think this way because none of the other things that he is doing fit the primary calling to preach the word and so he's not satisfying that way he's not giving real power to people as the lord has put it in place that's why i don't know how many times i've heard of ministries and pastors and denominations talking about all the goals for ministry all the the goals what's your goal setting what are you doing and nobody i've heard stops and reads for setting any kind of goals and plans for the ministry simply to put timothy i charge you by the living god preach the word in season and out of season that's it that's the goal timothy i i charge you to go out and fix all the world's problems go fix racism no i charge you to preach the word preach the gospel and watch what happened i forgot it i had it printed out i was going to bring it for you when when donald gray barnhouse went to 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, took the call, I have it in my mind, so I'm pretty close to the direct quote. He said, and his wife wrote a biography and his quotes are all through there. And he said to 10th Presbyterian, when I first, I'm gonna make, in the first year, I'm gonna make one pastoral call to you. And he said, if you ever see me again behind me, you will either see the sheriff or the mortician. You believe he said that? What he went on to say was, I want you to know, his point was, I want you to know, I'm going to give my whole life to the delivery and preaching of the Word of God for you. I'm going to give myself to that for you. When we think about that, we start to struggle a little bit because we think, doesn't that isolate the pastor from the people? And please hear me correctly, That does not mean we never visit. That does not mean we aren't among the sheep. We don't love the sheep. That we don't care for the sheep. That we don't deal with the problems of the sheep. That's not at all. The apostles weren't isolating themselves. What it's saying is, what all this is saying is priorities have to be in place. Priorities. That's the heart of this passage. It is the apostles saying we are prioritizing our lives to stick with what is much more difficult. What is much more difficult that requires a lot of prayer and giving of our minds to study the Scriptures? Because Satan, we see what's to pull us away from this. But this is the best thing for your souls. We can do. For when this is done, guess what begins to happen? The congregation becomes satisfied. The Word of God is feeding them. I mean that. Look at places of peace. Look at churches running well. Look at places of people growing and uniting. What is the key factor that's happening in that place? The Word of God is filling all kinds of voids in people's lives. Let me give you an example as I thought about it this week that I think supports this. For eight months now, my mother has been absolutely frantic. Living and believing dad will get better. Dad's not going to get better. She's living and believing dad will get better. She has been running frantically. She's on edge. She's restless. A doctor the other day says, listen, it's my opinion, and the reports are pretty clear in showing it, that the cancer is back in the liver. It's just a matter of time. stop rest with your husband that has really affected her um you know what that word did for her calmed her it calmed her she's been running do you know what the preaching of the gospel does for you i have rest for you calm calm down jesus's voice is being heard right now come to me and I'll give you rest for your weary souls because I know what you're doing out there. You're running everywhere. You're weary. Calm. Come. That's what this day is, a day of rest. This is what the Word does for you. Are you stressed about sin? Are you weary about life? The Gospel says, I've answered you. The Word of God is given in all kinds of creative, beautiful ways to make the truth of love and peace and rest known to you. But it takes effort. It's effort of men to do this. You need this. And you don't even realize you need these words. That's the thing. They come to you when your attitudes don't even want to be here. And those words come to you and you're blessed. Well, pastor, what are you saying? We just all sit around and do nothing with all this mountain of needs? No. There are many needs here. What was their solution? The Magnificent Seven. I love this. They said, you know what was actually happening here? The apostles were becoming super dominies, weren't they? And in the process, they were preventing the use of real good gifts that others could use who had been touched by the gospel that could actually meet the physical needs of the people. So the apostles had a great theology of gifts. Oh, they loved a theology of gifts. They thought about a theology of gifts. But God has so composed the body, Paul got this, that giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body. We're going after this division problem. But that members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. Jesus cared a lot about this. But we're not Jesus. I'm not Jesus. Pastors aren't Jesus. Apostles aren't Jesus. So therefore, brothers, we, given wisdom from the Spirit, have an idea. Pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word. Notice what happened. They called a meeting. Some of you are thinking they established a committee. No. One pastor had a sign over. If one of you wants to build me this, I'll be thankful. One pastor had a sign over a study that said, God so loved the world that he refused to send a committee. Whatever the case, notice what happened. They looked to the church and they said, we need to recognize seven men among us who have really strong reputations whom this ministry has really affected, who are full of the Spirit and wisdom, who have understanding and knowledge, who will tend to this matter of serving tables. What they were establishing was an office specifically designated for servanthood. They wanted to oversee the distribution of the donations of the people, but it was more than that. It was much more than that. Boys and girls, when you see these men walk around collecting your offering, I want you to think about what you're looking at here for a minute. They wanted to put something in place that would be in view before the sheep. What? This was an office motivated by love. In other words, if the complaint was, there's favoritism. If the complaint was, there's racism. If the complaint was, there's injustice. There's the poor. We're worried about this. And it's being done all wrong. If the complaint is that, then we're going to put something in place to deal with these things. When we neglect these things, the very problem that happened with Peter and Paul will happen that people's conduct will not be in step with the gospel. It's an important phrase there. People's conduct will not be in step with the gospel. So think of what just happened. Seven magnificent men were appointed. Their office was to be servants in the body of Christ. Servants among the body of Christ. To show, now listen to this, to show what conduct in step with the gospel should look like. To model it, to teach it. Do you understand the importance of this? It wasn't just go get the offering, or the qualification would have been, these guys need to be really good financial managers. Just that. But there's spiritual qualifications here. So that as the apostles preached the word, these would be specifically gifted by the Spirit to teach the church what conduct that belongs to Christian fellowship and the gospel produces. So in other words, you want application, you got servants who are called to rise up and show it. If anyone wants to be great, he must become a servant. Jesus puts an office in place to teach you it. a deacon jesus clearly demonstrated in his body real care for the sheep feeding them washing feet providing showing that as a king he loves even to feed and care for your bodies do you know that you know he loves to care for you that way and jesus when he when he demonstrated this was showing it to show that god has no partial he was going to blind bartimaeus he was going to the poor. He wasn't running to Caesar. He was running to the needy so that the entire office would embody here before them the very actions of Jesus through the message that was preached. They needed examples of this. Do you ever stop and say, what is the Christian life supposed to look like? Well, think of what the Spirit just did. They needed to see hands at work in front of them they need to see it the kind of love and care that christ is after in the body and the effect would be of this office was to be a kind of training ground for the whole congregation to learn it that's the deaconate what a blessing the office of deacon is you know that that office is for you you know for all the charges today in the church and i hear it constantly and sure the church fails for all the charges of racism and all the problems and I hear all this talking. Everyone talks, talks, talks, talks. Telling us how the church always fails, always fails, always fails. Do we ever stop and say, you know, have you missed what God did put in place for you? Are you seeing what this office was set up to address? God put servants in action for you. which means you need to be very proactive in who you put into this office. Notice that was important here. Do you know you have deacons here who you can call on to come pray with you and love you in times of crisis if you have needs that they're going to be there? Do you know that's in place for you? Or are you too proud to make that call? When you're failing, they have meetings where they gather and spend a lot of hours to think about all the blessings that come out of this place financially of how to be a blessing to you and if resources permit to this community. I have to say it's a challenge to the diaconate to never become a ministry of scrutiny but to remember that this office we see as the greatest application of the gospel. We see hands in action that promote love and unity and we are taught to think this way In other words, the deaconate doesn't look at the guy on the corner and says, get a job, right? The deaconate realizes we're all a mess and that people do a lot of stupid things and mess up their lives and they'd rather show mercy because that's what Jesus does constantly to us, doesn't he? If we're going to beat divisions in the life of the church, maybe we need to think about the office God put in place to do it. Maybe we need to hold this office in a lot higher regard than we do. Listen to the qualifications. Not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dishonest gain. They must hold the mystery of faith with a clear conscience. Let them be tested first, then let them serve as deacons if they prove themselves blameless. Which means they need to be here in church whenever there's a service to lead that way. To show they value what's most important because they're exhibiting the Word of God. Deacons shouldn't be home. Their wives likewise must be dignified, not slanders, but sober-minded, faithful in all things. Let deacons be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well. Listen to this promise here. This is just great. For those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great boldness in the faith that is in Christ Jesus. You see how they answered the problem? How'd they answer the problem? You say, well, they established the office of deacon. No, that's not how they answered the problem. That's not how they ultimately solved it. What did they establish this office for? Listen to this in the beginning again. We'll close with this thought. Now, in the days when the disciples were increasing in number, then comes the complaint. Here comes all the struggles of daily grind in the church. And now, at the end of verse 7, look at this. And the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem. Problem solved. And a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. The complaint stopped, in other words. How? Why? People were really responding, and they overcame this problem. How? One statement shines in the text today. You should highlight. Did you see it? And the Word of God grew. I love that. How does the Word of God grow? That is a remarkable statement. Did you see it in verse 7? And the Word of God increased continually. That was the solution. That was the solution. The apostles said, we've got to stay with that priority. Church is getting big. Church has needs. Satan wants to take us all away from this to disrupt our preaching and marginalize it and make it not all that important. And people think it should be this and that. We cannot do that. against all the pressures. We cannot do that. We cannot do that at all. We need to set up something so that we don't leave the word of God and establish this office of servanthood. That's going to free us up in the priority to pray and to preach, and that's going to be a blessing to the deacons, and the deacons are going to be a blessing to the people that way. Servants will be made through the word is what I'm trying to say. When we have the men most affected by it, the men who have really been taken by the gospel that is preached to them, then they're going to be set apart to go love their brethren. That's what they're going to do. That's how the Word's going to grow among us. That's the solution. As the Word grows where? In your hearts. That's where it's growing. The Word is as large as it could be. It has to be enlarged in you. lord has to open the heart we're going to see that in acts the word of god is preached and the lord will open lydia's heart that will be the answer to division that will be the answer to struggle what a beautiful design isn't it overall isn't that what we're doing right now you came here today to sit under the word of god did it increase in your hearts because that increases in your hearts look at the servants today who are set apart among you who collected your money a lot more going on isn't there they walk among you as examples to have conduct and stepped with the gospel to teach you it this is the ministry of jesus a ministry among us that should be in every way a ministry that replaces all complaining that doesn't show favoritism but loves people it's an office that loves people may we all be in action in the service of the lord let's pray heavenly father what a blessing what a clarity for us help us to appreciate what is said in front of us and i'm so thankful that you gave a specific moment in the book of Acts by Your Spirit to shine a light on this office because it's the office that we disregard the most. And yet it is a solution to division. It is a solution to show conduct that the Gospel should produce. Thank You for helping us today to understand Your Word. May it grow here in this place. Your Word in our heart. And may love abound here and unite us as one. May we be a people of peace and may the Word of God always have its place right here in its primary place as it's preached and in our hearts as we receive it. Thank you for your gospel. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.