We want to end our time with a Q&A off of what it is that we've just walked through, pressing in a bit more, thinking through a bit what that might look like in our own lives, just from your own personal study and walk with the Lord. Again, thank you so much, Dr. Mbewe, for what you've walked us through and for agreeing to this time of the Q&A. In that last session, There were a few items that you were walking us through, the power of pastoral preaching, and it began with some extended discussion about the study life of the pastor, that God calls us to love him in our totality, and how that begins with our mind, that our minds are to be employed for the Lord, and what that looks like with reading the Bible regularly, reading good books, digesting them for the Lord's sake and for the sake of His people. Now, it might just be that we have a picture that we want to put up on the screen that we want to just put it up there. Can you put that up there? Do you recognize that man? Yeah, yeah. That's me when I was working as a mining engineer before I became a pastor. So a few years ago. It's the picture, the reason why I particularly remember it is I was a bachelor and I just didn't think much about dressing up. So I bought about five trousers that were exactly the same. gray in color, and I just used to go, you know, just changing them throughout the period. And at one time I invited some young men who needed a bit of petty cash, pocket allowance, come and do the laundry for me. And then one of them, when he now saw all these trousers that exactly the same said, I used to think you wear the same trousers every day, and so forth. But yeah, that would have been, I think it would be closer to the end of those years, so that would probably be 1986 or 87, yeah. Okay. Now that we know a little bit of the back story, of course our eyes are drawn to those wonderful trousers. But, you know, something also catches our eye. In fact, some of those titles look familiar with what we have in our own bookstore right now. And you did talk about the importance of reading good books. We see some up there. Could you take a moment and reflect on some of those titles, some of the titles the Lord has used in your own life? Again, just to further press in and challenge us not to be lazy, but being stewards of the time that we have to read well, to make the most of that time. Yeah, well first of all, at the time I was becoming a Christian, I became a Christian in 1979, became a pastor in 1987. The economy of Zambia was going down, but there was still some, the ability for people to run bookshops. And one particular denomination in Zambia called the Evangelical Church in Zambia had at least one bookshop in the major towns and cities within the country. And how they got tied up with Banner of Truth, I've got no idea. But we used to find Banner of Truth books in those bookshops. And part of me knowing that God had called me to the preaching ministry, I figured I needed to prepare myself because I may never have the opportunity that many others have to to go to Bible college. And so I made sure that with my student allowances, I was buying whatever books I could. In fact, in my last year, a friend came into my room on campus and said to me, Conrad, what are you studying? And I said to him, mining engineering, of course. And he said, not if someone looks at your bookshelf. If he looks at your bookshelf, he would think you're doing a major in theology and a minor in mining. And I remember turning around and looking at my bookshelf and realizing he was actually right. I had fewer books on theology and more on on theology, rather fewer books on mining, and more on theology. Now most of the books you see there would be commentaries, and yeah, almost all the books are probably Banner of Truth books there. So you do have, especially the ones on white behind me, that's a Geneva commentary series largely, I also have the works of Jonathan Edwards in the two volumes, is what I can make out there. Then in front of me, you have the works of John Owen, which I'm sure you've seen in there. The Sermons by Martin Lloyd-Jones, I think that's Romans and then Ephesians, that is lined up there. And then you also have his Sermon on the Mount, mentioned there. Then at the top, a lot of those would be the Puritan paperbacks, which I've seen quite a number in there. They have been since given better clothing than they were once upon a time. The content is the same. Yeah, and so forth. A bit of the works, I think down there, they'll probably be the works of John Flavell. I've seen, that's Calvin, I think, on Ephesians. There's the works of Thomas Goodwin, and so forth. So, yeah, I realized I needed to study to prepare for what I thought was what God had for me. And yes, Induces on the Lord opened the door to pastoral ministry in September 1987. And yeah, that's the books. That's wonderful. Yeah, we had to do a little bit of Facebook stalking to find and get that picture. Thank you, thank you. Speaking though, maybe a bit more, you did talk about guarding and trying to carve out time for that, the demands of ministry. blessings in ministry, but real demands in ministry. And sometimes it feels like you're juggling and you can't handle all of it. But how do you, maybe personally, make sure that you have that time for reading, digesting? Is it just when it's connected to your sermon prep? In the week, what does that look like? Is it in the morning? Is it a particular day? Could you help us here? Yeah, yeah. Well, I think as a general principle, my Mondays are my days off. And I try to, part of my relaxation, try to do a bit of reading. The home is quiet. My wife works outside the home. She's a research nurse. So I do have, and the children have grown up. They've all left home. So I do have a bit of time for that. In the more recent past, I'm not exactly sure what has happened to my brain. I'm finding myself only waking up when the alarm goes off, which is at six in the morning, unless I've got a problem on my brain, on my mind. Often it's in the church that keeps me awake. But prior to that, I would deliberately wake up at least an hour before and then just put in my own devotional reading, including my own reading. And then, usually when I would travel, I would also throw in an extra book or two. And traveling has become very much part of my life. For some reason, my wife and I have just never been TV watching people. So even when the television set is there in front of us, I mean, we've been in America, for instance, for six whole weeks, every time being in different hotels. You can ask her, I don't think we turned on the television set not even once. It's just something that has been part of our years together. So a book to read tends to be, again, something that I do. But coming to the more recent past, the more recent past has forced me a little bit more to read more in relation to what I'll be writing about. Not necessarily what I'm preaching about, but especially what I'm writing about. Because I realize that fresh thoughts keep coming to my mind, which give me a more comprehensive view of what I will be pinning down when I'm just reading around that topic and taking note of some of those points. But I do want to agree with you that with the passing of years, because of the demands upon my work and ministry, I have to be a little more intentional, to borrow the phrase, to claw back some time from the work of ministry. Thankfully, unlike some of you, I am an introvert. I may not look like one, but I am. I treasure being away from the crowd. I just find it draining on my energy when I'm a lot with people. So that works in favor of my reading. Yeah, so I go to a place, I have minutes like this, and I can't wait for my brother here to take me back to the hotel room. so that I can spend some time there. And so that lends itself to the reading. Those of you who are more extroverts, I think you thrive on people. There's a way in which your batteries are recharged the more you are with people. That eats into your reading time, inevitably. So we've got strengths and weaknesses in that sense. Touching that one more comment or question, no doubt there are introverts in here, and we might have that self-awareness, but how is it then that you have sought to make sure you don't fall back too much on that, but again, be with the people, be in amongst the sheep? What have you sought to do to not let that become too routine? Yeah, well, with respect to our congregation, I must admit, I'm a little surprised at how people keep coming to the church and really feeling like this is home and they enjoy both the church and myself there. But what I find is I'm very friendly with the people at the door as they're coming out, greeting them, how are you and so on. When the church is empty, thankfully our weather in Zambia is such that the weather outside and inside is basically the same. And so a lot of people quickly come out of church instead of talking inside the church building. So from there, I basically begin talking to people as I'm slowly edging towards the car. When I do get to the car, I don't jump in. But, you know, I'm there now, and a few people are coming over, and I'm mingling with them. The one person that makes me take longer is my wife, because my wife is a people's person. So she's in the place where the visitors are, and she's just enjoying herself. And I'm thinking, where on earth is this woman? You know, we need to... to get home, but that then gives me a little more time with the visitors, the congregation, and so forth. So I think that's really where we're at. But beyond that, during the week, I am a little more intentional to fill up especially my lunchtime periods with appointments with people for fellowship and also just talking over issues, sometimes in the evenings as well. But yeah, so that gives me a bit of time with the congregants. And really, as is pointed out, for those of us who are a lot more introverts, we must be intentional. You can't just think that appointments will just somehow come up in the course of the week. You have to say, okay, here are my slots, who can I call up so that I meet with them, and so forth. Because it's just not the first thing that happens to us. That's helpful. Can we take a few moments to talk about preaching itself? Obviously, the whole theme here has been pastoral preaching. And you, in the first session, walked us through making sure we're doing what we can to preach the whole counsel of God, that our people aren't malnourished or, you know, we have one theme that we're only preaching and emphasizing so that other aspects are missing in the growth and development of our people. Specifically, I think every one of our hearts in preaching, we want to lift up the Lord Jesus Christ. And we want to see him proclaimed. But what you said earlier, we want to guard that every message in and of itself isn't just a canned gospel presentation. How do you think through preaching the authorial intent of the passage? say even in the Old Testament, still exalting Christ, but safeguarding that we're not inserting or putting Christ in a particular passage where he may not be. How have you tried to think through that and practice that through the years? First of all, there was a time when I really struggled, especially in the Old Testament, to preach Christ. The one book that helped me the most at that point was Lloyd-Jones' Old Testament Evangelistic Sermons. They're published by Banner of Truth. And I remember pulling it out primarily because I was struggling to preach Christ in texts where it was not too obvious where Christ was. And I thought the best way is to go to somebody who's been successful in his preaching ministry and I look at his actual sermons And I know that there's also the New Testament evangelistic sermons, I think at Baravon or something like that But now I was in the Old Testament and I needed that. And I must say, if you're struggling, read that book. Because by roughly halfway through the book, it clicked. How Lloyd-Jones was doing it without forcing Christ in the text. And without sounding too simplistic, there's a way in which he often in working around the story or the character was showing the heart of sin, the outworking of sin, and then pointing to the remedy, and that is Christ. So in a lot of cases, it wasn't so much that Christ was in the text, but the need for Christ was in the text. The need for redemption, the need for a heart transformation, and so forth. And yeah, when I saw that, you know, I would have jumped up in my own study with three shouts of hallelujah, because where the struggle had been the most, it was resolved. I was often looking for, you know, that red cord through the window in Rahab's case, this could be Christ, you know, looking for little things like that all over the place. And now I was comfortable with the whole Bible. So I could handle even the book of Proverbs without necessarily just wanting to see how Jesus is a fulfillment of that text, but showing again how that picture is one that can be true of you when Christ has genuinely dealt with your heart, and so forth. So I think that was a great help. There are texts, however, which lend themselves to bringing out Christ as prophet, priest, and king, the anointed one, the coming servant of the Lord, and so many others, as Moses lifted the, separated the wilderness, the Son of Man lifted up. So there are a lot of such texts, the Psalms as well, a lot of them lend themselves directly. But I think on the whole, I was helped through, I want to repeat, Lloyd-Jones, and then since then, of course, reading even further. Yeah. That reminds me of a professor I had at the Master's Seminary who, speaking of preaching the Old Testament, he said, men, don't preach it Christocentric. He said, preach it theocentric, God-centered. but in the sermon, Christotelic, where it sounds like if it surfaces the need for a Savior or sin is exposed, then in the course of a sermon, leading people to Christ, showing them that that's helpful. Thank you. Let's talk a bit more still on preaching. Pastoral preaching as well. Sometimes there's a struggle and a balance where in application, we want to address the person and preach to them second person, you. But then there are times where, including ourselves, because you said it, we are Christians first before we're even pastors. There's place for we. How do you...is there a balance we ought to strike in that? Is it governed by The passage, the tone of the text, how have you sought to think through that through your own congregation? The you versus we. Yeah, well first of all, I think there's some aspect that is cultural. So where I come from in an African context, the me and you is not as easily offensive as it is in the Western context. So if I'm speaking in terms of we and we and we, the people in the African context will be wondering what the problem is with me, why I can't just speak more directly. So that aspect does not translate directly into your context. I think your context tends to be a lot more on the we side of speaking. That's what at least I have found. However, where I find that there is commonality between here and back home, is especially when offering Christ. At that point, I do want to take the position of this is your need, come to Christ. So it doesn't make sense for me to be saying we need to come to Christ. Well, I'm already in Christ and with Christ. I want to invite the listeners to this Savior So I think, generally speaking, I find that even here, when I'm drawing towards the end, when the application is more than just application, it is now invitation that I, even here, I more easily will be speaking in terms of myself inviting people to come to the Savior, to come to the Lord, to bring their burdens before the Lord, and so forth. I think the key is always to allow the text to determine the atmosphere in the same one. Because yes, if, for instance, I'm just using this as an example, if the text is really out to rebuke adulterers, Surely, I won't be saying, now, we adulterers are being addressed. I mean, even if I'm in the Western context, that will inevitably make the congregation wonder, then what are you doing in the pulpit if that's your lifestyle? At that point, I will know that this kind of text is going to be largely you, me, and I'm seeking to be gentle but firm on the sexual lifestyles that might be represented in the congregation So I think it's not just Western or African, I think we must be guided by the text of scripture and what it is doing there. So, for instance, in the minor prophets, especially the earlier ones, where there was stubborn sin, not just among the people in Israel, but even among the leaders, and therefore there was this scathing messages from the prophets. Yeah, you will want to be warning stubborn sinners. But at that point, it's difficult to be speaking in terms of we stubborn sinners. So you will have to be addressing those who are stubborn sinners, even as the sermon is being worked out. Yeah, so I think allow the text to determine the we and I and me, but at the same time, the nuances between Africa and the Western world. No, that's helpful. I had a follow-up question. in that making sure we're not coming across domineering, but you almost answered that already where we have to be firm, but there's still a way for gentleness, even the undercurrent of it's love for your soul that I'm addressing such things that would bring me to speak in such a way. Yeah, again, you know, I keep using the example of a visiting preacher. A visiting preacher can get away with an attitude, a stance of a sort of hellfire and brimstone preacher. And yeah, it's good once in a while for the congregation to feel their seats getting hot as, you know, the guys in the pulpit. But for you as a regular preacher, Yeah, I mean, people will be saying, we need a break. We can't go on like this any longer. And so forth. So I think it's just important that you learn to to balance and the balancing is often the text itself giving you something of the way in which you come across so that you are conveying the ambience of scripture itself. That's helpful. In addressing, though, some of these sins, sometimes behind the scenes as elders, we're seeking to counsel, to shepherd, sometimes very serious cases, even what you said of maybe simple cases, the congregation that's maturing, they're ministering to one another, but then these heavier, more difficult cases rise up. Elders are seeking to meet, counsel, care for. So you might know of things happening behind the scenes and say your particular passage this next Sunday touches on some of these sins that you're counseling, say, this individual or this married couple. How have you sought to preach that and address that, but you're trying to do it in a way where you're not so obviously calling out that particular couple? Does that make sense? Yes, it does. I think the worst case that I ever handled like that was We had a very difficult week in the family. And it was really between my wife and our eldest adopted daughter. And I was preaching through Paul's letter to Philemon. And the point at which he came about basically accepting a sinner back is right at that point where my wife was struggling to accept this sinner back. And everything in me wanted to skip that same line. Everything in me. Now, the advantage with consecutive expository preaching is that if I had skipped, my wife would have noticed. Yeah, and she would have seen that, well, let me quickly check where has this gone past this and so forth. So I still went ahead and preached it. I tried as much as possible to be gentle. I didn't want to betray that this trial was happening in my home, in the congregation, so I didn't give away anything in my presentation. I simply faithfully handled the text and applied it. When we got into the car and we're heading home, at some point, I just brought it up to say something that you can well understand, that when I was in the study preparing that same one, it was a real difficult one. And thankfully, because they knew that that was my way of preaching, they both acknowledged. that, yeah, if they were in my shoes, they wouldn't have enjoyed what I had to do that day. But they expressed the fact that they were grateful I was faithful to the text. And even in application, I tried to apply in a number of ways and not just one because of the fact that I was conscious of that. However, so that illustrates the issue of consecutive exposition. And I think it's, because it doesn't happen that often, you hope that the individuals that are sitting there have seen that you've been coming along, and that that application of the text is is of integrity, that not to apply the text that way, you would have been running away from reality. I think it's helpful to do that. And if you know the individuals well enough, I would prefer chatting with them afterwards than before. Instead of you saying, oh, no, this Sunday or tomorrow, what I'll be dealing with is this, don't think it's about you. I think it's best to teach, and then since you are meeting them afterwards, to simply say, you know what, before going in that pulpit, this is the struggle I genuinely had. But I knew you would have more respect for me if I did what I regularly did than if I had skipped because of what I was dealing with in the background. And because they know that this is not you all the time, I think they generally will generally accept it. One of the things that I do, I do a regular article in Sunday Mail, it's a national newspaper back home, and the column is entitled Your Family Matters. And it's an area I constantly have struggles, because it's about family. And yet at the same time, I don't want any of our people to read the newspaper and say, he's writing about me. And especially because there it's not consecutive writing, just different topics and so on. So there what I normally do is if what I have in mind is closely related to an issue that I'm dealing with, I take note of it, I store it away for another six to eight months, and then I deal with it later than at that point, because it's a topical approach then, so I can afford to shelve it. So that's a little bit of a different context. That's helpful. You mentioned that when you have something even close to home with family, wrestling with that, what about if it's in the course of your private study, the passage, your time with the Lord, that's uncovered something in your own life. How do you respond to that? Yeah, well, it usually does because I'm walking with the Lord, I'm learning from His Word, So yes, if it's a sin I need to confess before the Lord, I do. If it's a sin in terms of I owe somebody an apology, then I meet with them or I give them a call or something. And it's a Christian thing to do, to simply say, you know, I was reading the Bible it talked about this. I was reminded of this, and I realized I owed you an apology. I thought I should do it. It's just Christian, because that's what Christians ought to do. They are working with God, and God is reminding them. Thankfully, it's not always that is to do with other people, it's God dealing with issues like maybe of attitudes or sometimes it is more something I need to start doing and therefore I am responding to God's Word, but responding in terms of adding something in terms of personal relationships and so forth. I was speaking, a typical example, I was speaking about our son whom we lost last November, and I was so engrossed with my own grief for about a month that one day I'm having my devotions and it is as if God just hits me. and says, hey, you are a family shepherd. You've got a widow, my son's wife, and the mother, well, the mother, I think I was ministering to her a lot more because she was still in my home, but siblings to your son who are also grieving. I can't remember what passage I was reading, but It hit me like a thunderbolt that I was so engrossed in my own grief, I forgot to watch over others. So I wrote a quick note to all the individuals in the immediate family and basically said to them, I've realized this and therefore beginning now for the next one month I will be sending something to each one of you on a daily basis that I'm learning from God's Word about this whole grieving process. And that's what I began to do every day. So it wasn't because I'm a superhero dad or husband or anything. It's something, again, that just came out of my own time with the Lord. Yeah, so I think the basic issue is simply learning what I was taught as a young believer. And it's a phrase that is borrowed from Paul. Lord, what would you have me to do as one is reading the Bible? And sometimes it's just to worship or to pray. Sometimes it's to positively encourage somebody. And sometimes, as we've spoken here, it might be a confession that needs to be made. But to just make the intake of God's Word practical, I think that's the main thing. We appreciate you opening up even personally. We have seen and saw the updates and our church even had been praying for you and for your family and by all accounts and testimonies, maybe like a Robert Murray McShane, at a young age how the Lord called him home to glory. I mean, in a personal way, because we look out here, there are men suffering or struggling or their own trials and the grief amidst them. Obviously, you mentioned the Lord at a certain point. brought about a reminder of how you need to care for others, but what is it that's helped you persevere, endure, keep your eyes on the Lord? What has strengthened your own soul amidst great trial? Yeah, well, first of all, I should thank God for Tim Chalice's book, Seasons of Sorrow. A lot of books counsel the grieving, and so you are learning from them some biblical thoughts to help you. My wife and I found Seasons of Sorrow to be like somebody who is walking through grief with you. It's more or less like the way the Psalms are. The psalmist is wrestling with something that's going on, sickness, enemies, whatever, being away from the people of God, depression, and so on. And then the light shines through. And that's what we found with that. that one-year book that he put together. Now, I had read it before when I was preparing my own endorsement. My wife had also read it when the book came out. and it arrived at home, and it was completely something different. Now beginning to read it day by day in the midst of the grief and sorrow, and then talking with each other after a chapter, we say, okay, what is it that sort of scratched with itching for you and so on, and we talk about it, and then we went from a daily reading to a weekly reading and so on, as we're getting towards the end. So that's the first thing that I would mention there. The second is something I've also touched on, and it's the Psalms. I found during that period, well, I still am more or less in the same because it's almost a year now, that the wrestlings of God's people in the midst of frowning providences and then still saying basically, God, you are God. God, you are of steadfast love. God, your people are special to you, that still coming through really was an encouragement to me and continues to be. So that's definitely one aspect. If I can throw in a third one, It's the fact that my wife and I realized that God has sent this into our lives, among many reasons, to help us better minister to the flock. It has enriched our own perception because we've been there. And one example I can give is soon after it happened, there was one lady in the church who almost made it a personal project to encourage me. And she had lost her son, who had committed suicide about a year earlier. What specifically spoke to my heart was that when that happened to her, I was involved very briefly, round about the time she lost the son, and I moved on. For the first time, I realized that she was going to need some form of regular regular ministry. If not from me, at least from my wife and myself, or at least somebody else. But we needed to ensure that somebody is working with her. That only registered when we were now in the same shoes. What I did was I got our elders to go through a very brief sort of training session on ministering to the grieving. And the reason why I was very open with them, I said to them, I always thought about grief in terms of like a wound that you heal from, And now I'm seeing it as an amputation, that you are now having to learn how to walk without your leg, and that process, the need that you have in that period. So as I began to minister to others more deliberately, who had even lost their loved ones a little earlier, and encouraging my fellow elders by saying, hey, who's been to this home? When were we last there? And so on, so that we are active again in those lives. It gave it something of a positive aspect as well. So I think those have helped. Apart from, of course, what you mentioned earlier, that our son was really extraordinary in terms of the intellectual capacities, the devotion to the Lord, the ministry, and so on. And that feedback that has come to us, that we were not, most of it we're not aware of. in itself has been an encouragement. And I remember saying to my wife, especially about the lady who lost her son through his committing suicide, that imagine how hard, multiplied by 100 perhaps, it would have been for us if that was our son. So the spiritual condition has in itself a therapeutic effect for which we are grateful. Thank you. Well, maybe for our last few minutes, not even thinking of pastors and elders here, but looking out, surveying, we are Christian men. And you mentioned the battle against sin. There's indwelling sin that remains, and it's not until glory that we'll be freed from that. What counsel, what exhortation can you give us to not grow weary, but to be on alert, to put on the full armor of God, to persevere fighting sin. Even with recently such sad public, it seems often men are falling. And we don't want to be counted in that. How would you counsel us? Yeah, I think as I mentioned at the very beginning, you know, we are sheep before we are shepherds. We are as much in danger as other Christians who fill the pews. In fact, we are an even greater target of the evil one because if you can knock down the shepherd, the effect among the sheep is bigger. So to be more intentional about our own spiritual lives. And I know you may say, well that's what everybody else does, they need to be more intentional. But the temptation for us who are pastors and preachers to get carried away with ministering at the expense of being ministered to is huge and I do find myself there every so often when you're so busy in ministry giving, giving, giving that your own times of spiritual reflection that can allow the torch into your life end up being thrown under any other business, if you understand what I mean by that, which you don't get to because you're so busy. The temptation is huge. The temptation, especially when success comes our way, to to judge our success by the comments and praises and thank yous and so on from everybody rather than am I truly living in the light before God? Am I in a relationship with my wife that's at optimum, and if it's not, am I working on it? Am I in that relationship with my own children? That's thrown into the corner And it's all about the books you are writing, the messages you are preaching, the organization of the church and everything else. And I think that's Satan's way of making us come to the point where the door at the back is wide open. And he comes in with everything. So to just make sure that we are walking with the Lord. Now, our God is a personal being. So he's not at the finishing line waiting for us to get there. He's in the present moment with us. And often, when we are beginning to be careless about something, it begins to knock. He does, and we know it. He's knocking. Hey, there's this issue that you need to deal with. And we need to learn at that point to deal with those issues. Because if we don't, well, when that knocking stops, it's a large ban that comes. And as somebody said, I think it was John MacArthur, that when men fall, they don't fall far. In other words, they've already been by the edge and playing there rather foolishly. And so now just a little bit of an elbowing and they go down. So I think, so we are God's people like all God's people. there's a bigger reward, if I could put it that way, for our downfall because of the effect we have on others. Let's just make sure that we prioritize the fact that we are Christians. and make sure that our walk with the Lord is where our greatest fight is. Our walk with the Lord, our hearts before the Lord, and just being in love with Him, and wanting to be more like Christ, and in the midst of the trials and triumphs, seeking His glory, and so on. We're passing through this world, we are, we'll soon be gone. And eternity is eternal. So it's worth paying the price now for that aspect. And just making sure we are repenting properly. We are genuinely repenting when the sins are small. We are repenting so that we don't wait until the things become too big. Yeah, so there, it's we. Let's make sure we, we. It's not me, you. It's we. Remember what you talked about earlier. I'm one of you. And yeah, I need to share in the very words that I'm sharing with you. Thank you. To that end, would you pray with us and for us? Amen. Well, let's pray, brethren. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we draw near to you this afternoon We count ourselves greatly privileged that among your people, you have chosen us to provide leadership to the Christian church, especially to do so through the ministry of your word. Oh God, not to us, not to us, but to you be all the glory. And even when people come to express their appreciation through genuine gratitude, may we always remember that this is about you, your kingdom and your glory. May we reflect all that back to you, knowing that all that we have is but by your grace. Lord, in a room this large, in a group this large, we are at different levels in terms of our current work with you. Grant that from what we have learned, where you have been knocking in our lives, Help us to be malleable. Help us to be genuinely humble. Help us to, in the midst of wrestling with you, learn from you and make a beeline to the cross for cleansing, for encouragement, for strengthening by your Holy Spirit that Lord, we may be pleasing to you. we might be walking genuinely with you. And Lord, do keep us to the very end of our lives. Help us, O Lord, to not bring shame to your name, which we are all prone to. O God, help us, we pray. and glorify yourself through these vessels of clay that fill up this room. For Jesus' sake, Amen.