We are back live, so I am very sorry for the inconvenience, for the switcheroo. And I do not know, something's going on with our provider, so I don't know what the deal is, what the problem is. But I'm gonna start over. Acts chapter two. and I'm gonna read verse 37 to 42. Acts 2, 37 to 42. Now, let me remind you that we're in Acts 2. This is a sermon that Peter's preaching that we've been focused on. But this all began with the meeting in the upper room of 120 people. 120, and we know because it says the number of the names was 120. They had a roll, they had a list, they knew who was there. There was 120 people that had gathered in that upper room. So remember, that's where it started. The Holy Spirit came, and then this commotion, this loud noise, this call in tongues of fire visible, and then the audible, and then a speaking in tongues, which remember was a sign of judgment and a sign of blessing. All of this happened And a crowd gathers and Peter begins to preach. And that's where we have at the end of chapter two. Now, when they heard this in verse 37, they heard Peter's sermon. When they heard this, they were pierced to the hearts and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brethren, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, repent and each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children, and all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself." Now, I said this already, forgive me if you're hearing it again, but maybe it's more clear now. This, in verse 18, Verse 39 is a statement about what we term the effectual call of the Holy Spirit. This salvation that you have experienced by repentant faith, this gift of the Holy Spirit that you will receive, This is for not only for you, this is not just for you for now, this is for you, this is for the next generation. He says this is for your children, this is for generations to come. And he says this, it's for as many as the Lord our God will call to himself. So what is the extent of the gospel? We have a tendency to want to say the gospel is for everyone, and there's certainly a sense in which we can say the gospel is for everyone. The gospel should be preached to everyone, but we know the Bible tells us that some, that is speaking life unto life, and for some, it is speaking death unto death. So the gospel is for everyone, but the gospel is not effectual to save for everyone. So what is the extent of the gospel? For as many as the Lord our God will call to himself. Well, how many is that? I don't know how many that is. And you don't know how many that is. And nowhere in scripture are we instructed to try to know how many that is or to try to know who that is. Well, I see you're called and you're not, and you're called and you're not. We're not instructed to do that. That's not our job. That is the job of the Holy Spirit. As many as the Lord will call to himself, he certainly calls through the outward call of the gospel, but more importantly, through the inward call of the Holy Spirit as it meets the outward call of the gospel. So this is a statement of God's effectual calling, as many as the Lord our God calls to himself. Verse 40, and with many other words, he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, be saved from this perverse generation. So then, Those who had received his word were baptized. Those who had received his word were baptized. Not those who had received his word along with their spouses. Those who had received his word along with their children. Those who had received his word along with their servants. Those who had received his word were baptized. And that day there were added about 3,000 souls. That day there were added about 3,000 souls. I wanna stop here a minute and talk about there were added. Most of the newer English translations say it in this way, that day there were added 3,000 souls. We have to ask, added to what? What is this addition that takes place? for them to be added, there had to be something there. And that's why I mentioned at the beginning, at the top of this, that there were 120 who were gathered there. That was the church. The church was 120 souls. And there were in that place, 120 souls. Then there was the gift of the Holy Spirit. Then there was the preaching of the law and the preaching of the gospel. And then there were added 3,000 souls. Now the King James says they were added to the church. And that is how we should understand this, that they were added to the church. I wanna bring up here that this is important. this church membership. They were added to the church. They did not just loosely meet and have a sense of belonging. They had a sense of belonging. They had a unity as a body because they were added to the body. And I think we'll see much more of this, this coming Lord's day. I've kind of gotten, focused on this section of scripture being the marks, the specific characteristics of the church. So I want us to understand they were added to the church. So, and then it says, verse 42, Here's the marks, the characteristics of the church. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of the bread, which is the Lord's table, and to prayer. This past Sunday, we kind of focused in on the baptism portion of this, because in this, we have the means of grace. We have the preaching of the word, the apostles teaching, we have prayer, we have the Lord's table, we have baptism, all of the means of grace and the activities of the church are included here. This is what a church is. Without these things, you're not a church, no matter how many other things you add on. And the other things that may be added on are add-ons. So this is what defines a church. And I would say this, we focused on baptism this past Lord's Day. I believe it was last Wednesday night, we talked about prayer. And I wanna just spend a little time and speak about two things tonight, about the unity, especially as we get into the next verse 43. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe Many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles, and all those who had believed were together and had all things in common. This is not just that they were together in one place because this beginning in 43 is a summary statement, is a 30,000 foot view of the church and what it looked like as the early church, the first century church. And we'll see more of that this coming Sunday. But tonight I wanted us to talk about unity, they were together. This is more than being together in one place, there was unity. They were not unified in a common nationality. Remember the list that we read earlier in chapter two of all of the people from all of the different places which had come in, and this is gonna be important on Sunday too, just remembering that all these people had come from all these foreign places, and they had come in for the Pentecost celebration, and now they have received the Holy Spirit, they are believers in Jesus Christ, now they're part of this church in Jerusalem. and they're staying and that puts them in a very interesting place. Just imagine, I don't know how many people we met with Sunday morning, but just imagine if we had, oh, let's say 100 extra people or 200 extra people. Imagine if we had 1,000 extra people show up Sunday morning and hear the word preached and be saved and join into the church through baptism. A thousand people, that would change things. That would put things, we would be, it would be a joyful thing. but it would also be a difficulty as far as how to deal with these things. And that's where they were. They were in a very difficult situation as to how to deal with the things that would arise here. And not 1,000, 3,000 people were added. So they were in this place of unity. And I have, this is something that some of you may have heard in the past. on my computer just about every statement, every order of worship that I've ever done, every sermon that I've ever done, just about. And every time that I would stand and speak to the church and say something, I have notes just about on all of that. And this is a statement about church unity. And I wanted to go through this again. and kind of reinforce it. We have a lot of new people. The Lord has done some great things in bringing new folks to the Waco family. We've had people come by transfer of letter, by transfer of membership. We've had people come by baptism and what a blessing that is. But I want us to talk about unity and who we are. we are a church, a doctrinal church. I guess I should say doctrinal. We are a doctrinal church. And that offends many people that you would say that you're doctrinal, that you are doctrinal, because doctrine, the word doctrine, I mean, we can say the word doctrine means teachings, and we say that often, but even more specific, teaching can be done in many ways. Doctrine, biblical doctrine, and that word particularly means that we have a dogmatic teaching. this is not a way, this is the way. When we teach what the scripture says is the way, it's a dogmatic teaching. And that's very offensive to some people. And how dare you be so exclusive and how dare you be so offensive to those who would reject the teachings of the Bible, but we are a doctrinal dogmatic people. Here's what I want to share with you about church unity, and I need to hurry. Doctrine divides. That's what we hear from the outside world. That's what we hear from inside the church. Those churches, those assemblies who are not very specific about what they believe, in an effort to give the appearance of unity, they say, well, we're not going to focus on doctrine because doctrine divides. But that type of unity, when you open things up to be so ambiguous that you can have quote unquote unity with everyone, we deny that this unity is any type of unity at all. A group of people may appear to be united and not really be united, not really be so. The apparent unity, something that looks like unity, could simply be an issue of disagreement that has not yet arisen. In other words, there's things that we haven't talked about. We appear to be unified, but we haven't talked about it yet. Or we appear to be unified, but we refuse to talk about the things that we know will divide us. So there's no need to be divisive in those situations at a particular time, because we want to keep up the appearance of unity. But the elders and the members of Waco Family Baptist Church, we believe that doctrine does divide. We do believe that doctrine divides, that old statement, doctrine divides, we believe it. Clear, plain spoken, thoroughly explained and biblically defended doctrine divides. It divides truth from error. It divides right from wrong. It divides love for the world from love for God. Doctrine does divide. Doctrine draws those lines of division. But we also believe that while doctrine divides, doctrine also unites. clear doctrine, plainly spoken, thoroughly explained, unites God's people with the truth. That's what we see in Acts 2. They had the truth of God preached, and that was the uniting factor. That was the center of their unity was in Christ and the truth of the gospel. Doctrine divides, but doctrine unites. Doctrine unites God's people with righteousness and love for God and with his revelation of himself through the word of God. Doctrine unites God's people to the only begotten son of God, Jesus Christ. And clear doctrine unites God's people together. There's one another's. We have one another's of scripture that unite us. We are united as a church body. And at Waco Family Baptist Church, we want to be united. We want to be together over doctrine. We want the uniting thing to be doctrine. Think about this. Think about where our confession begins, chapter one. If you're familiar with our confession, you already know chapter one is not like some of the general Baptist statements of faith, which begin with God or begin with the Trinity or begin with some other thing. Our confession chapter one is called of the Holy scripture. Because if we don't have the scripture, then we can't even begin to talk about God. We can't begin to talk about the Trinity. We can't begin to speak. about anything else. Scripture is where we begin. So we want to be a people at Waco Family Baptist Church who are united by the Word of God, who are united by our body of doctrine. The Word of God is mishandled and it is misused by so many in our day. But we are united in saying that the Bible teaches certain important truths clearly for the glory of God and for our benefit, and they are clearly defined. And we would say that our confession is a summary statement or what we might call the best expression of those Bible doctrines that we hold to be true, that we hold dear. Things outside of our confession, things not addressed by our confession, we would hold more loosely. We would hold with more opportunity to differ without being argumentative about those things, but the things that our confession is clear about are the things that the scripture is clear about, and those things we will argue over, we will stand for, we will debate because we believe them to be very important. Some of the things that are outside our confession, some of the things that don't that are not addressed by our confession. And this is with limitations. I have written down here things like eschatology, end times, study of end times. Our confession does not declare a particular view of end times as the right thing. but I would put some limitations there. There are limitations that we would say some views of eschatology could be so far out of bounds that they become problematic with other clearly defined doctrines in the confession. Another Non-confessional or unaddressed confessional issues not addressing our confession would be issues about marriage Divorce and remarriage where you have the Westminster addresses those things, the Baptist confession does not. And it's not because the Baptists forgot to include it. It was probably because there was some disagreement among those men, and they deemed that it was not so important or so vital that they had to add it. This brings to mind a word, essential. essential. And I hope to, in the beginning of the sermon Sunday, to speak about essentials and what is essential. And I hope to maybe, for some of you, change your thinking about what is essential. Let me get back to this unity around doctrine. The things that are addressed in our confession that we hold dear, we do not waver on those. Your elders, your deacons, those who have been around, who are holding to our confession in a manner that we refer to as full subscriptionists, this means that we hold the doctrines of the confession to be the doctrines of the Bible without any exceptions and without any explanation. Well, there may be explanations, but without explaining anything away, without any excuses. We do not require the members of our church, the members of Waco Family Baptist Church, to hold to a full subscription view, but we do seek substantial agreement And our goal, our stated goal is that as members come in, just think about it, some members are new believers, they're babes in Christ, some have been believers for a while. We can't require the same doctrinal requirements from everyone, but our goal is to teach and to preach and for you to see that our confession is the best expression of the doctrines of the Bible and we hope that you will be a full subscriptionist in time and with teaching. Your elders always welcome discussion about items that you may have questions about or that you may differ on. There are doctrinal matters. You may come to the confession and say, hey, I don't know that I agree with this. And we would welcome any discussion about that. But the elders and the deacons and our church members, we do not welcome contrary doctrines to be taught or to be posited as truth. Because you may say, well, I'm not a teacher. I wasn't teaching a Sunday school class. But if you gather three people together in the corner, that's, you know, not your family, just church folks or visitors or whatnot, and posit things that would be opposed to our confession. We would not welcome that and we don't want to see that. That is how we would hold to unity in that way. We consider those who are babes in Christ, those who may be weaker in the faith, and we want to teach them, we as elders of the church, who are called by God to this and will give an account before God for this, We want to teach them in a way that we believe the Lord would have us to do that. And for those who are not called to that, who are not called to pastor and lead these people, we would say, when your opinion is going to depart from our confessional biblical position, then either come and discuss it with the elders in private and with others, please keep silent on the matter. So, I'm sure that you may have questions about this statement of unity. It's unity around doctrine, and it's a statement of unity and where we're at. We are not, in confessional matters, seeking truth. We're not looking for someone to come in confessional matters and convince us of something else. Anyway, enough said about that, and I kinda wanna shift gears, because I said I wanted to talk about unity, but I also want to speak about the other means of grace, the other observance, the other ordinance that is listed here, and that is the breaking of the bread, the breaking of the bread. And there again, I have, I have these affirmations concerning the Lord's Table that, it's been several years ago now, but we studied through what the Bible teaches about the Lord's Table, and we came to these affirmations, so I just wanna share these with you. After studying the ordinance known as the Lord's Table, or the Lord's Supper, we have gained valuable insight into its observance. We affirm that the whole function of the church is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and call sinners to repentance and faith in Him. This means that we look to Christ in everything we do, including the observance of the Lord's table. This truth leads us to conclude that the ordinance is not focused on the elements of bread and juice, but on Christ. We do not come to the elements, rather by faith we come to Christ. So that's affirmation number one. Number two, we affirm that the ordinance of baptism is the one which marks the beginning of a believer's following Christ, and the ordinance of the Lord's Table is the one that is continual throughout the believer's life. We practice weekly observance in an effort to conform to the practices of the early church, as in Acts 20, verse seven, and to proclaim Christ's death often. So the ordinance of baptism is that initial beginning of a believer's walk with Christ, and then the Lord's table is throughout their walk. Thirdly, we affirm the spiritual presence of the Lord Jesus at the table, while denying the physical or local presence in any way. This means we reject transubstantiation as well as consubstantiation, viewing them as a form of idolatry, and a denial of Christ's physical and local presence at the right hand of the Father. This also means that the spiritual presence of Christ at the table goes beyond an assertion that God is everywhere. So he is at the table by logical deduction. As we would affirm a special presence of Christ in prayer, in worship, and in the ministry of the word as something more than Christ's presence in a public marketplace, we would affirm the special presence of Christ in the observance of the Lord's Supper. We affirm, fourthly, the benefit to believers who come to the table in faith, examining himself, as well as the detriment to unbelievers, as well as any who would come in an unworthy manner. Fifthly, we affirm the use of unleavened bread at the Lord's table because of the many and varied pictures and symbols in the Bible. Unleavened bread symbolizes the sinlessness of Jesus, the bread of life. which he lived out on earth in physical human body. We affirm the use of the fruit of the vine based on the scripture and Christ's statements that he would not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom, until he is with us in his kingdom. We do not see a requirement We do not see, I'm going to skip that statement because I'm going to tell you that I have changed my position and I believe that Pastor Brent and I are on the same page in this. I'm going to skip that statement and we're going to teach further on the cup. in the Lord's table and what we see there. I would say this, the statement says that we do not condemn those who choose to use wine or grape juice. And I would say that that is still true, that we would not bring a condemnation or say that it is sinful on their part. Okay, I believe I'm at six. One, two, three, four, five, six. Yes, number six. We affirm the physical position and manner of coming to the table is far less important than the spiritual and mental attitude. We affirm that the physical position and manner of coming to the table is far less important than the spiritual and mental attitude. But we recognize the physical posture and actions are important. These outward appearances are at times reflections of the inner man, and at other times may not reflect the inner man, but always communicate to others and teach a generation that follows. For this reason, we must guard against physical actions and postures that seem to worship the elements or honor them in any way. holding on display, et cetera. We recognize the Lord's institution of the ordinance was likely with all the participants seated, so we may partake seated. We also recognize that as strangers and aliens, we are to be in the service of the Lord, so we may partake standing and ready for obedience. What we're really getting at there is those who would bow before the elements, or those who would hold up the elements in some way that cause attention, that it makes, even if it's not in our hearts to say this, it may look to others like we are worshiping the elements and we want to avoid that at any rate. And then lastly, number seven, we affirm that the Lord's table is a means of grace. By this, we do not mean that merit or favor of any kind is gained with God in any way by receiving the elements. We do mean that observing the ordinance is an act of obedience, and in that we find grace for our daily walk with Christ. We mean that as a person comes, examining himself and repenting of sin, he finds grace. And I have this written, we mean that as a person comes, I would say, as a baptized believer, just to be specific there, as a baptized believer comes, examining himself and repenting of sin, he finds grace. Those affirmations are important for us to keep in mind as we think about the Lord's table. And then finally, this should be familiar to most of us. This is something that we read often in fencing the Lord's table. Fencing the Lord's table is that thing that you see, I hope that you see it done every week in our church, where we are specific about who the table is for and who it is not for, trying to build that fence to keep those who would come unworthily away. This fence is not to protect. We do not want to profane the Lord's table. And if we just said, no fence, everybody's just anyone, come one, come all, then that would be profaning the Lord's table. We don't want to do that, but we also want to understand that while we are protecting the ordinance of the Lord's table from being profaned, we are also trying to protect those who would come and who would be found to be weak or sick or die from coming to the table in an unworthy manner. So this is how we fence the Lord's table. Let me say this, we make these statements and I try to fence the Lord's table in a way that I believe is in accordance with the scripture and in accordance with the law of God and in accordance with what is right. However, we do not slap people's hand away. We have had people, when we fence the table and we know that they should not come to the table, you know, as the elements are passed, they still take the elements, even after being told repeatedly and told very clearly that they should not, they still take the elements. And if that happens, then we, We pray for their soul, but we do not slap their hand away from the table. I would say this, we fence the table, and you'll hear this in a moment. We fence the table for those who are believers in Jesus Christ and who have subsequently been baptized by immersion. And if you're noticing, and it's been brought up several times, did you realize that you're fencing the table and that would exclude our Presbyterian brothers and sisters? The one who everybody used to bring up, that would exclude R.C. Sproul. Are you saying if R.C. Sproul showed up for our church that you would exclude him from the table? I believe that infant baptism and not baptizing subsequent to faith in Jesus Christ is a sin, a clear sin. I believe that is plain, it is clear, and I believe that it is sin. And I would say to any one of you, If there was a known sin that you were holding to that I knew about, I would come to you and I would say, please abstain from the Lord's table because I know that you have this sin for your own good and for the protection of the Lord's table. Do not partake of the elements. I would do that to you or for you or with you for any sin that you might hold to. unrepentantly and for that reason I fenced the table in this manner. I will say this, I've had and we have at Waco family had people who attended our church on a regular basis who were Presbyterians and as we spoke I told them, I'm going to fence the table the way I believe the Lord would have me fence the table. And as the elements pass, if you take the elements, then you are taking that on yourself. And I believe that I'm not guilty. Your blood is not on my hands, so to speak. So this is how we fence the table. We We say the ordinance of the Lord's table is a great visible expression of our unity with Christ and our union with one another as his people. For this reason, as many as are fit, we hope as many as are fit will join in participation as we receive the elements of the table. We see certain requirements in the Holy Scripture for those who would come to the table in an unworthy manner. These requirements for a worthy partaker are, and there are four that we have here, that you are truly repentant and displeased with yourself because of your sin, confessing your sin to God. Now, I have written in my notes Scripture references, 1 John 1.9 and Matthew 1.6.28. We don't normally say that in the fencing of the table, but this would be useful if we had a conversation with someone about it. So truly repentant, displeased with yourself because of your sin. Number two, that you have repented of your sin and then subsequently been baptized by immersion in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit for forgiveness of sin. Number three, that you believe that salvation is by God's grace alone for the sake of Christ's obedience, death and resurrection alone, which is imputed to the sinner by faith alone. And number four, that you are in right standing with the local church congregation of which you are a member and not under church discipline. Let me just address right quick that while we fence the table for baptism by immersion subsequent to salvation, which as some people have pointed out, that excludes Presbyterian brothers and sisters from the table, Some have brought this and said, do you realize that if you have a typical Southern Baptist person, or if you have a person who comes in from another denomination who has been baptized by immersion after salvation, that you would welcome them to the table, but you're excluding the Presbyterian. Let me say this. being repentant of sin, believing that salvation is by God's grace alone, for the sake of Christ's obedience, death, and resurrection alone, and imputed to the sinner by faith alone, that is narrowing the scope for many. That would narrow, for instance, Much of my family is United Pentecostal or Assemblies of God. That would exclude either one of those groups. If we're talking about their church doctrine, it would exclude their church doctrine. If a person says they believe this, then my question to them would be, why are you at that church? But this would exclude that church doctrine that they would hold to because we are fencing for this specific doctrine. that we believe is the doctrine, the gospel of Jesus Christ, salvation by God's grace alone, imputed to the sinner by faith alone, because of the obedience, death, and resurrection of Christ. And then lastly, we fence the table for right standing in the local church congregation of which you are a member and not under church discipline. This particularly has a two-fold effect. issue there, I guess. Number one, we live in a day where many people just say, I don't need to be a member of a church. I used to call Lone Ranger Christians. I don't need to be a member of a church. Oh, if you don't need to be a member of a church, if you question your need for church membership, I believe you have cause to question your salvation. Wow, that was strongly stated. If you question your need for church membership, I believe you have need to question your salvation. You can't look to scripture without seeing a belonging, a membership, even though the word membership is not there, the membership itself is there, so we don't fall prey to the word thing fallacy. by saying if the word membership is not there, then it's not there. Church membership is in scripture. We see it and it is clear. Maybe we'll see that more on Sunday. But so that we are trying to exclude that person who is not submitting themselves to the church by becoming a member, because we believe that to be sin. that to be clear, unrepentant sin, if they're not submitting themselves to the church for membership. Now, there are exceptions, those who have moved. I remember we had a man come to Waco family at one point who said, I moved to Waco nine months ago, and I've been looking for a church of which to be a member. we would not have excluded him from the table while he was considering where he should be a member. And that man wound up being a member of our church for several years before he moved. But church membership, we believe, is important. And if you're not a member of a local New Testament church, we believe that to be sinful. We believe that to be an unsubmissive rebellious heart. So the other thing is, for those congregations, for those people who have been excluded or excommunicated from a congregation, there are at times, though rare, there are at times churches who practice, would practice church discipline and may find a person in unrepentant sin and exclude them from the table for a time or permanently, depending on how that church discipline goes, for their own good. And for that reason, we don't want to see those people who were excluded from the table for a good and right reason at one church, walk over to our church and us welcome them to the table. We want to protect them in that way as well and protect the Lord's table from being profaned in that way. I would say, and we always would encourage those who had questions about this to come and speak to the elders, because there are also times that churches use church discipline I should say so-called churches or churches who are not acting as churches should to abuse their church authority and exclude people from the table that should not be excluded from the table. So we would encourage people if you believe that you were excluded from the table at a church, in a unjustly, if you were excluded unjustly, we would hope that you would come and speak to the elders and we could work through that process with you and try to figure out how to make that happen. So we've covered a lot of different ground tonight. Let me encourage you, this section, Acts 2, 37 to 42, but even really 37 to the end of the chapter, I believe it's 47. Oh yeah, 37 to 47. I would encourage you to read through that to become familiar with it. We will be addressing these verses again on Sunday in the preaching of the Lord, Terry's His coming. We will be back in this section, but not only just to prepare for Sunday's worship, but also to prepare in your own mind. What is a church? What does a church look like? What is a church marked by? What is it that, as a member of a church, what is my role and how am I to be involved? And I think we'll cover that again. Let me just give you a hint. When we find New Testament writing, we may have a tendency, especially as Americans, especially as Texans, in this world today as individualistic people, we may have a tendency to think that God wrote this big book and he wrote it to me. I mean, it's even got my name in the front of it. We may have a tendency to think that this is all written to me, me, me. And we change all the we's to I's. We change all the us to me. We need to understand that Christianity is not to be lived individualistically, that we are in a covenant body of believers. that this, as we read in Acts 2 and we see this distinction, this characteristics of a church, that it's not individuals, that this is a body. How are we then to be part of the body? And if my Christian life consists of me and my Bible and my prayer closet, That's insufficient. That's not enough. We are members of one body, and as members, we are members of one another, and we should be a part of that body. We should be an active part, not an absent part. So, more on that on Sunday. I just want to share these things with you. Now, I got distracted and I got to see if there have been questions. I hope there wasn't questions like 45 minutes ago. I don't see anything so far. Do you see anything? Thank you all for tuning in and I'm glad we finally got this straightened out and I hope I hope that we don't have these problems again. I think Sermon Audio just had a glitch or something because I tried to get on with this camera and it was saying, there's a problem with your server. So that's Sermon Audio. And then when I got on my phone, it was very poor quality. And then when I disconnected from my phone, we tried this again and we're back up and we're going. So that's a good thing. So I hope that's good. I'll post this in the group me if I need to. upload this recording, then please let me know. I'm not gonna upload this if we've all tuned in and we kind of got it, but if we need to upload it or get it for somebody, then let me know that and we'll make it available. All right, thank you very much. Let me pray as we finish up. Lord, we love you. We thank you for the blessings that you've given us. God, we come before you knowing that we are sinners, knowing that as sinners, because of our inherited guilt and bent towards sin from Adam, our first parent, that we deserve hell. God, we recognize that that we are so far from deserving to be in your presence. We are so far that the distance between the creator and the creature is so far. Though we are created in your image, sin has marred and scarred and ruined who we are, who we were meant to be. We have missed the mark. So God, we recognize that as sinners, we are undeserving, we're unable. What could we do to erase our sin? What could we do to gain righteousness, to earn merit in your eyes? We are helpless. We are hopeless without a savior, without atonement. So God, we thank you. that in your sovereign power, in your infinite wisdom, in your grace, you decreed to save a people, to save a people for yourself, knowing that you would have to do everything, us being hopeless, helpless, unwilling and unable, So God, we thank you that you decreed to save a people. We thank you that you did it through Jesus Christ. And God, we thank you that we poor wretched sinners are the recipients of your grace. We are the recipients having heard and received your word by the work of your Holy Spirit in us, regenerating us, bringing us to spiritual life. We are the beneficiaries, the benefactor. We are the ones who gain our souls. We are the ones who are joint heirs with Christ. God, we pray that you would never let us tire of hearing what you have done for us through Jesus. Help us, strengthen us, enable us to live in light of the great salvation that we have in Him. God, when we, as your people, see ourselves sin, help us to quickly run to the cross, to quickly remember that we are forgiven. to repent of our sin, to cast all of those things on Christ our Savior, and not to try to pay pittance, not to try to fix things ourselves. God help us to preach the gospel to ourselves in those days, in those moments. God, help us to preach the gospel to one another as brothers and sisters in Christ in this local New Testament church together. Help us to encourage one another in Christ to stir one another up to love and good deeds. God, we pray for our upcoming worship services on Sunday. We pray even now that you would begin to prepare hearts God, for the ministry that is happening, the ministry of the word that is happening through this week, we pray that you would be with the elders and the deacons of our church who are ministering to your people. Strengthen us, give us wisdom, God, we pray that your Holy Spirit would go before us. We have nothing to offer but the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we pray that your Holy Spirit would meet the outward call with that inward effectual call, that sinners would be saved, that saints would be sanctified. God, be with us now this evening. We pray that you would apply these things that we've discussed tonight to our hearts. We pray this in Christ Jesus' name.