Well, congregation, let's continue to worship our God this morning by considering His Word. And this morning, specifically, we are continuing our exposition of the book of 1 Peter. And we find ourselves this morning in 1 Peter chapter 5. And I'm going to read in your hearing verses 1 through 5. If you're following along in a pew Bible, you can find that on page 1016. As many of you know who have been here during the exposition of this book, this is now the sixth treatment of verses 1 through 5 out of chapter 5. We're concluding our consideration of the role and responsibilities of shepherds and then the role and responsibility of the congregation. So let's give our attention to the reading this morning of 1 Peter chapter 5 verses 1 through 5. The Apostle Peter says, so I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Likewise, you who are younger be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. As far as the reading of God's word, may he add his blessing to it. Grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of our Lord stands forever. Let's ask the Lord for help one last time this morning as we come before the ministry of the word. Father God, this morning, as we have worshipped you through song, through giving, through confession, through hearing of your word, we pray now, Father, as we come to the exposition of your word, that you would level all of our pride. That Father, we would come to the word as we come to the foot of the cross, empty, empty of ourselves, empty of our own selfish ambition, empty of our own pride. Father, we want to be as humble children before a loving Father as we come before this Word. People and preacher alike, Father, I pray that you would hollow us out and that your Word would act as a megaphone for the voice of your Son to come to us this morning and speak to us as a tender shepherd so that we, Father, might find comfort in the pastures that he brings us to. and that we might happily eat and drink there, knowing that we are safe within the fold of the Son of God. Give help to your servant this morning to unpack this word, to do it for your honor and your glory, and that your Son would be magnified, Father, in all things. We ask this in your Son's name. Amen. Well, as we come now to our last installment, if you will, of 1 Peter 5, 1 through 5, let me just give something of a review, especially for those of you who are visiting and have not been with us through this exposition of chapter 5. We read in Ephesians chapter 4 that when Christ ascended, He ascended on high, and Paul depicts this picture of Christ's ascension as this victory parade that a victor, a king coming back from his conquering, gives as he opens the gates of the city and floods in with his whole entourage, not only of horses and chariots and soldiers and war machines and slaves and the treasures and the spoils that he has gained. But he also takes many of those spoils and he throws them out to the people. And Paul takes that imagery and he applies it to Jesus that as he ascends to the Father in heaven, he gives gifts to men. And those gifts that he gives are preachers and teachers and evangelists and prophets. And he gives them to whom? He gives them to the church so that the church may be built up and be strong so that they are not tossed about by every wind of doctrine to and fro, but that they might grow into the image of Jesus Christ. And so we see that pastors and teachers, leaders in the church are given as a gift to the church. And I hope this morning, as we've been working through this passage, that that is your attitude as we come to the text, that your pastors are gifts. by the ascended Lord. And we saw last week or last time that in verse five, Peter moves from the instruction to the shepherds, that they are to shepherd and exercise oversight and not be domineering, but to do so willingly and not for shameful gain, all those roles and responsibilities of the shepherd. And now in verse five, he shifts to the congregation and he tells them very simply what their role is and their role is to submit to the elders in the church. And we've seen that this is a real God-given authority, just as God has given a real God-given authority to husbands as they exercise headship over wives, to the state or the government as they exercise authority over the citizens. So also, the elders in the church have been given a real authority to exercise over the congregation. But as I've said in weeks past, there have obviously been many abuses of this authority, and so last week I sought to give you three things that submission does not mean. And I'm just going to rattle them off just to jog your memory before we get into our text this morning. But first, submission does not mean that you give to your elders absolute authority over your consciences and wills. There's only one entity to whom you give that kind of authority, and that is the triune God. He alone, God alone is Lord of the conscience. But secondly, submission to your elders does not mean that you are to regard your elders as infallible in their interpretation and application of Scripture. While we have an infallible Word and while we have an infallible interpreter, that is the Holy Spirit, we do not have on earth an infallible man interpreting. And so the pastors do their best, do their due diligence, not only pray over the text and seek the help of the Spirit, but also just the rolling-the-sleeves-up kind of work of opening their lexicons and looking at the Greek and the Hebrew and church history and context and trying to bring out the meaning of the text and then shepherd you with its application. But then finally, we saw that submission does not mean that members must agree with their elders in matters of judgment and wisdom, which are not explicitly addressed in Scripture. And we saw last time that above and beyond the things that the elders lead with in the Word of God, there are also many judgment calls that elders in the context of a local church are going to make. Things that are not explicitly prohibited or prescribed in the Scriptures, they're just not spoken of. The Scriptures are silent on them. How we deal with nursery, how we deal with what time our services are, how many services we have on any given Sunday, Lord's Day. Those are judgment calls that the pastors are to make and the congregation is called to submit to them. So we've seen what submission does not mean, but now I'd like to turn and give you just a very summary statement about what submission does mean on the part of the congregation to their elders in the context of the local church. And I'm going to give you a working definition, and then from there, we're going to look at three positive statements that tell us what submission is. So here's just an overall summary. To be submissive to elders means that as a member of the church, You consciously embrace from the heart every aspect of their Bible-based efforts to shepherd and oversee you as part of the flock of God committed to them. Now, I just want to key in just on a few words there. Notice that this submission is conscientious. That is to say, you conscientiously make an effort to submit to the leading of your elders, and secondly, it is from the heart, which means that we are not white-knuckling our submission to the elders in something that we may have a disagreement on, not a jugular theological issue, but a matter of judgment, but rather we are stealing ourselves to say, if this is how the leaders are going to lead and there's no sin in what they're doing, then we will, from the heart, submit to their leading. This is very important. And we see the parallels not only in the citizen's submission to the state, but also in the wife's submission to the husband. In all cases, church, state, and marriage, there are situations when the leaders make decisions that we don't agree with, and only time will tell whether it was a wise decision or a foolish decision. But in the meantime, we are called to submit. So the best way to get at what submission is, if we could put some shape and contours to it, is very simply to look at what Peter says in 1 Peter 5, 1 through 5, about what the shepherds are to do, what the shepherds are to be, and what the shepherds are to give, okay? That is the active roles and responsibilities of the shepherds, and then go on the other end of those duties and responsibilities and consider what the congregation's role is on the receiving end of those actions. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna flip it by looking at what the shepherd should do and in light of what the shepherd should do in any given area, say, now, what is the congregation to do in light of those roles and responsibilities? So I'd like to give you three specific things that submission does mean this morning in the context of 1 Peter chapter five. So here's the first thing. And this is probably the most important thing, and I'm going to spend most of my time on it this morning. It's not only the most important thing, I think it's the most obvious thing, and yet it is important for us to remember it. It is the congregation's duty and privilege to be present when their shepherds feed them with the Word of God. Now, I want you to look at verse 2. Look at verse 2, chapter 5, verse 2. It says, shepherd the flock of God that is among you. And we know from this Greek verb in the text that he's using an analogy. He's using it from agrarian life that just as a shepherd, a real shepherd out in the fields with his flock, whatever it is, leads them, he also feeds them. He brings them along to the grass where they shall feed. He brings them alongside still waters where they shall drink. And the analogy, the crossover is this. When the minister of God leads his people, he is not feeding them with his own thoughts. He's not feeding them with his own opinions. He's not feeding them with his own preferences. He's not talking about his favorite sports team or how he decides to mow the lawn or something ludicrous like that. What he is doing is he is leading them and feeding them with the word of God. And if the responsibility of this gift that the ascended Christ has given to the church for the building up of the church, for the equipping of the church, is to feed them with the word of God, then as we look at the other end of that responsibility, we see very simply that the congregation must be present when the shepherd leads them into those pastures of green grass and leads them along still waters." We must be present. You see, it's not only the pulpit that is to be filled, but in every case where there is no legitimate reason for absence, the pew must also be occupied. Regular attendance upon the means of grace, which if you're new to Grace Covenant Church, we talk about the means of grace a lot. Word, sacrament, and prayer. These are the funnels or the channels through which God administers grace to us. And if you've been a Christian for five minutes, you know that grace is the principal gift of God, not only by which we are justified, but by which we are sanctified and one day will be glorified. Grace is who we are as a people. That's why we as a church have taken it for our namesake, Grace Covenant Church, because grace is the most beautiful word in the vernacular and vocabulary of the Christian man or woman. And that grace comes to us chiefly and primarily with an attachment of a promise by God that to the degree that we give attention to and diligent attention to those means of grace, God saves us, God sanctifies us, and God preserves us. And so if we are going to submit to the leading of our elders, the primary way in which we do that is when they administer those means of grace, we are present. Let me just make an observation here. You know, the shepherd in any given congregation, if he's doing his job correctly, you know what he's not doing? He's not crafting a generic message for a generic Christian. He's not making canned messages that he can then go on the conference circuit and give to every other Christian out there. You know what he's doing? He's doing his job. He's really thinking in three different categories. He comes before first the text, and he's exegeting the text, and he's studying the text, and he's examining the text, and then he's getting the meaning out of the text, and then secondly, he's examining himself. Because he must understand where he fits in in the story of that text, the admonitions of that text, the warnings of that text, the encouragement of that text. He needs to apply that to himself. And he does that first, after he's gotten the meaning from the text. But then thirdly, you know what he does? He thinks about you. He thinks about his various shepherding efforts that he is undertaking during the week. He thinks about some of the perhaps painful counseling sessions that he's had during the week. Maybe some of the encouraging counseling sessions that he's had during the week. Maybe some of the encouraging phone calls that he's had. Maybe some of the challenging phone calls that he's had. But he brings to bear upon his sermon preparation you. The congregation. And He is crafting that message toward where you are as a people. Now, if you don't want that as a congregation, if you don't want that as a people, I don't think you understand what the ministry of the Word is. The ministry of the Word is not generic. The ministry of the Word is this gift that God has given to you, spending time in prayer over His desk and over the Word and reflecting on His own heart and then crafting a tailor-made message for you. That's what He does the majority of the week. And that's why it's heartbreaking when after looking at the text and then going from the text to his own heart and then from the text to his people and crafting and thinking, oh, this is gonna be so encouraging for this person to hear. It's gonna be so encouraging for this family to hear. It's gonna be so challenging for this person to hear. And this person needs to hear this warning because they're walking on the edge of danger. It's disheartening when after all that preparation, a person doesn't show up. And his heart is doubly broken when he finds out later that it's not that they were providentially hindered, but it's just because they just didn't feel like coming. Can I ask you a question? What would you do if Pastor Jim got up next Sunday and he said, I know it's Easter and all, but Pastor Josh just didn't feel led to preach the sermon this morning. his back was aching, he's got some shoulder spasms in his back from lifting weights, and he's just not gonna do it, so we're not gonna have, what would you think about that? You know what you would say? You'd say, get the bum out. I mean, if he doesn't repent, get him out. If he does repent, give him another chance. But that's not the kind of shepherd that we want. We want a shepherd who's going to feed us with the word of God. Well, in the same way, the responsibility of the congregation is that you be there when the shepherd leads you into those pastures of green grass and leads you along waters of stillness to feed your soul. Sometimes I hear people say that they either don't want to come to morning service or the Vesper service because I just don't get anything out of it. Can I humbly submit something to you? I think that if that's your mentality, you have fallen prey to a very negative element of broad-line evangelicalism, which is this. Worship is like going into a movie theater with a big box of popcorn and an 82-ounce Coke and just taking it in passively. It's all entertainment. We have the smoke and the mirrors and all that kind of stuff. It's just entertainment. It's all passive. Beloved, that is not what worship is. There is a passive dimension to it, which I'll get to in a moment, but can I just point something out to you from the text of the New Testament? One of the frequent words for worship used in the New Testament is the word from which we get our word for worship, which is liturgy. It's liturgeo. And you know what liturgeo means? It means to render service to God, work. Worship is work. It's not the kind of vocational work that you're supposed to rest from on the Lord's day. It's a different kind of work, but it is nonetheless work. And I want you to just think for a moment as we think about this concept of worship being work. Remember when we went through the book of Acts in chapter 13, it was in Antioch, that when the church was gathered, what were they doing? While they were worshiping, note, while they were worshiping and fasting, the word of the Lord came through them in the spirit and told them to set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work of spreading the gospel. Do you see the connection there, dear congregation? It is through the work of worship that we find our mission as a church. Let me underline that. It is through the work of worship that we find and grasp and feel around for the contours and texture of what Grace Covenant Church is to be in Virginia Beach. It comes through the work of worship. It is through the work of worship that we find direction as a church, especially, especially, especially as we pray. Especially as we pray. It is through prayer that the Lord bends our wills to His own and prepares us and strengthens us for His work. It is through worship that our hearts, which have been put out of tune throughout the week as we follow our social media feeds on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, as we're following them and we're getting all disoriented and coveting is just overflowing in our hearts. Oh, look at that family, they're in Hawaii vacationing. This is the third time this year. And look at that family, they had a new car. And look at that guy, man, look how much weight he's lost. And look at that guy, you could see it's not a six pack, it's an eight pack, right on Instagram. And what happens? We start covening and covening, or we start getting angry, or we start getting unhappy with the lot that the Lord has given us. What are we doing? We're getting disoriented. That's what we're doing. And you know what happened? If I could put into modern vernacular how this took place in the life of a psalmist named Asaph in Psalm 73, he was looking at his Facebook feeds. You know what he was seeing? He was seeing how all the wicked were prospering. Everything that they were doing, it's like they touched and it turned to gold. And he's like, I look at all this Facebook feed and I see all the wicked prospering and then I look at my poor, miserable life and I see that I'm suffering and I don't understand the disparity, God. He was disoriented. He was disoriented with life. And maybe it's not that kind of extreme disorientation for you. Maybe for you, the disorientation is you just don't care. You just don't care that your heart is apathetic. You just don't care that your heart is turning cold. When you hear a sermon like last week that the veil has been torn, you're just like, huh, big deal. I don't care. That's disorientation. That's where you need the Lord to come in and work through the means of grace to modify your heart, to recalibrate your heart, to reorient your heart toward true north. And that's exactly what happened with Asaph. How did Asaph get disoriented from, or get reoriented from his disorientation? Beloved, it wasn't by saying, I'm going to stay home from worship today just because I want to. I'm going to watch the 8th century BC version of Netflix rather than coming to worship service. You know where the turn took place in Psalm 73? He said, when I entered the sanctuary of God, then I discerned therein. Who's in? The end of the wicked. The wicked who are prospering. The wicked who are pasting it and paneling it on social media. The fact of the matter is, as prosperous as they may or may not be, which by the way, they're probably lying in a lot of the things that they're putting on social media. As prosperous as they may or may not be, their end is destruction. That changes things. You know what he gained through coming into the sanctuary? You know what he gained? An eternal perspective. And Monday through Saturday, you know what happens to you and to me? That eternal perspective gets denigrated. That eternal perspective gets lost. That eternal perspective gets muddled. You know what's happening Monday through Saturday? The world, the flesh, and the devil are joining in this three-man camaraderie to steal your identity. to muddle your identity. They want to do what they can to make you think that I'm not primarily a Christian who has an eternal inheritance reserved in heaven for me. That I'm a Christian whose payment has been made by Jesus Christ on the cross when he said, it is finished. A Christian who has open access to God and can come to him and say, Abba, Father, a Christian, that's not my primary identity. My identity is my identity as a husband, or a worker, or a black man, or a white man, or a yellow man, or a woman, or a child, or a worker, or a student. All of those, it's like identity wars going on Monday through Saturday, identity wars. And as you emerge from the fray on Saturday night, what you should be thinking is, wow, I'm disoriented. And there's a sense in which I forget who I am until I come into the sanctuary on Sunday morning, on that day, which make no mistake, I know next week, you know, our tradition and our culture were, you know, oh, Jesus resurrected on this day. Well, every Sunday is the resurrection day. Every Sunday is the day that we commemorate and celebrate that Christ has conquered death, hell, and the grave. Every Sunday. That's why we do it on Sunday. That's why we do it on the first day of the week. Reorientation through resurrection and restoration of all things. So worship, beloved, is active. It's not merely passive. Now, some of you, when you hear all this talk of identity wars going on through the week, you say, well, I already know who I am as a Christian. I don't need to be reminded. Then why do you doubt the way that you do? Why do you fear the way that you do? Why do you covet and lust the way that you do? Why do you have the cold heart toward God and his word the way that you do? Beloved, don't think that you are any greater or any stronger or any mightier than any of the saints throughout redemptive history. In fact, all the saints throughout redemptive history in the Old Covenant, you know, it constantly assaulted their ears from the lips of God. Remember. Remember, remember, remember that I brought you out of the house of slavery and made you children of freedom. Remember that I took those shackles off and I brought you through the Red Sea. I parted it just for you, children. I parted it for you. And I destroyed all your enemies by enveloping them in the waters of judgment. I did it, child, for you. Remember, remember who you are. Don't let any other identity take precedent or take command center of the center of gravity of your life. Remember, remember, remember. And the New Testament writers, they do the exact same thing. They just take the model of God, redeeming the people from the slave house of Egypt, and they transfer it to what Jesus did. In fact, in the book of Jude, interestingly enough, he says it was Jesus who brought the children of Israel out of Egypt. Redemptive history moves forward. Jesus is second member of the Holy Trinity. Jesus is the one who has saved us from slavery, slavery to sin, slavery to passion, slavery to false identities, and he has given us a new identity. You all need to remember, I need to remember, and remembering comes through, listen to me very carefully, the means of grace. Word, sacrament, and prayer. No altars, no sacrifices, no smoke and bells, no vestments, no pictures of Jesus, no stained glass windows per se. Word, sacrament, and prayer. So how do I get recalibrated through these means of grace? You must put yourself under them and diligently seek to apply them to your life. Beloved, this is work. There's no two ways around it. It's work. Anyone can sit under the teaching of the Word of God with a hard heart and a drifting mind, like some of you are probably even doing right now. Anyone can do that. Satan can do that. Hitler can do that. But it takes work, you see, to steel yourself to approach the Word of God as a mirror and see yourself in it. Is that what you did this morning when the Word of God was read from Deuteronomy 29? Did you see that reading of the Word as a mirror and say, oh, I see my tendencies in that? I see my hard heart in that. I see that I am a poisonous root of bitterness sometimes in the congregation. I see myself, and so the word of God has functioned as a what? As a mirror to show you yourself. That's what the Word of God does, but you know what? The Word of God won't do that for you. You have to steal yourself to do the hard work of seeing yourself in the Word of God and then crying out to mercy for God when that law thunders against you and tells you how miserable of a wormish sinner you are, and then wonder of wonders. There's not just one word in the Bible, there's two that gospel gets ushered in and it tells you, though you have failed miserably, Christ has done it for you. You see, in this word, we have the means by which we are recalibrated from the Monday through Saturday identity theft that goes on in the world through the means of grace. You got to see. yourself running to Christ for cleansing and forgiveness. See yourself united with Christ through faith. See the promise of the Lord's coming being as one day closer than it was yesterday. You ever think about that? Today, Jesus' coming is one day closer than it was yesterday. Hallelujah. But instead, some of us are like, yeah, I know, but Monday's also one day away and I've got a lot of work to do. See the sin that so easily entangles you and prevents you from making much of Christ. All of this is hard work, but it is active work, and we must put ourselves in the bullseye of God's sanctifying activity by putting ourselves under the Word of God. So this is how worship, big picture, is active. But does that mean that worship is not passive? Worship must be passive in some sense because we don't think that we are the center of gravity and we have all authority and we have free will in the way that Adam did. We believe that our wills have been dampened by the effect of the fall and therefore we believe that desires do not come naturally but by the Spirit of God. And so what we also recognize is that there are three channels, if you will, that must feed into the tributary of worship or illumination, and that is word, spirit, and a pliable heart. So I want you to consider this cyclone that comes together in the means of grace on Sunday morning and evening. It's a cyclone. It's the word of God and the spirit of God, and they come to you, dear ones, this morning, and they will come to you this evening, but they will not have their effect upon you unless you have a pliable heart. And so you must cry out to the Lord and say, Lord, as I go into this time of the ministry of the word, even as I go into this time of worship, give me a pliable heart so that that supernatural cyclone of word, spirit, and pliability of heart will give me grief over my sin and joy in my Savior. Beloved, we must put ourselves in the bullseye of God's sanctifying grace. And can I just ask a question? What is that bullseye? I'm using this figurative language. What is that bullseye? If we were to think of the Christian life as a target, and there was a bullseye right in the middle, right in the center, where God most efficiently throws His means of grace and channels His means of grace to you, what would it be? Would it be your personal Bible reading? No, that's good, but that's an outer ring. Would it be your personal prayer? No, that's good, but that would be an outer ring. Would it be doing good works, whether to the city or to the people? No, that's a good thing. That's an outer ring. You know what the center of the bullseye is? It is the Lord's day. It is the Lord's day. The Lord's Day is the God-ordained bullseye for saving and sanctifying His people, and we are called to put ourselves in that bullseye. You see, our public worship services on the Lord's Day are the primary way in which we share life together, and the primary venue where the means of grace are put on display. It is the principal and primary day on which we take rest from the rat race of life and focus on our rest in Christ. There's a good and biblical reason why your elders are zealous that you, each and every one of you, make much of the Lord's day. We're zealous about that. Extremely zealous about it. It isn't simply our personal preference or some hobby horse that we have. You know what it is? It's the fourth commandment. It's the fourth commandment. Yes, refracted through the person and work of Christ, we're no longer under the old covenant, but there is a continuity of the fourth covenant. You shall keep, we'll say it in new covenant terms, the Lord's day holy. It carries over into the new covenant. And we are not only responsible, but we have, listen, more importantly, the exquisite privilege of keeping the Lord's day holy. It is the fourth commandment. And I fear that for some, I fear that for some, we've turned the Lord's day into the Lord's 90 minutes. Some of us have turned the Lord's day into the Lord's 90 minutes. And then we just go off and do whatever we want. Beloved, it is the Lord's Day. It is for rest. It is for corporate worship. It is for private worship. If you would like to do that, it is for service. It is for works of necessity and for works of mercy. It is for all those things. How you arrange them is up to you. But one thing is for sure, when the doors are open in your local congregation on the Lord's Day, you're there and you're putting yourself in the bull's eye of God, sanctifying and saving grace through the means of grace. Now, that being said, we know that for some of you, this whole concept of the Lord's Day is a new concept. We understand that. Not all of you are coming from Reformed backgrounds. We get it. Some of you are coming from broad-lying evangelical backgrounds where it's like, two services? That's what? I mean, let alone three services? Those people in Michigan, what are they thinking? We understand that, but if one of your pastors ever graciously puts his hand on your shoulder and lovingly tells you, hey brother, hey sister, we missed you last Lord's Day, is everything all right? He's doing that for two reasons. He's doing that for two reasons, above and beyond everything I've already said. Number one, He doesn't want you to miss out on the benefits of the means of grace. It's not a guilt trip. Please don't receive it as that. And if you receive it as a guilt trip, God have mercy on your soul. That's not what we're trying to do. It is a desire that you not miss out on the benefits of the means of grace because, you know, just take into consideration for a moment, just for a moment, that maybe you don't know as well as you should how much you need the means of grace. Just take that into consideration for a moment. And then secondly, take into consideration that maybe your pastor has a pretty good idea of how much you need the means of grace. Okay, he's not perfect, he's not infallible, he's certainly not omniscient, and he's a lousy sinner, but he knows and believes in the power of word, sacrament, and prayer, and as he looks out as a shepherd into your life, and he sees some things that are warning signs, he says, that dear sheep needs more of the means of grace, and not just to be present, but to be diligent in the use of them. So don't get your, I don't wanna say that, don't get your dukes up, okay? Don't get your dukes up when your pastors come to you lovingly and graciously and just say, brother, sister, we didn't see you. Is everything OK? Were you abducted by aliens? Like, what's going on? Are you OK? They care for you. But the second reason is this. And please listen to me very carefully. OK. The second reason why your pastors would lovingly and graciously approach you and ask about your absence or your habitual absence on the Lord's Day is because absenting yourself from the Lord's Day worship when you are not providentially hindered is often the sign of a cold heart toward God. Make a qualification. I'm not talking about works of necessity, works of mercy. I made that qualification. But let me say this. You remember, some of you who are members here, that about a year, year and a half ago, we had an ex-member walk away from the faith. You remember him, okay? And I went through a series of four Lord's Day expositions of the book of Hebrews to try to just help us understand the phenomenon of apostasy. But do you know this? Do you know the way that we were first turned on to his cold heart toward God? was not something he posted on Facebook, okay? It was he was absenting himself from the Lord's Day. He was absenting himself from Lord's Day worship and Lord's Day prayer. He was absenting himself from the accountability that comes on Lord's Day worship. And so we lovingly looked into his life, and it turns out he had a cold heart toward God. We fought for his soul on our knees, but it wasn't the Lord's will to give him to us. And he walked away from the faith. We carry that in our breast when we pray for you, dear congregation. We carry it in our breast and we see as our God-given responsibility to shepherd you. And the Lord's Day, if the Lord's Day is, and I believe it is, the principal bullseye through which the Lord administers the means of grace, then to the degree that you are neglecting those things, you better believe we're going to come after you. You better believe that we're going to be praying hard on our knees, that you would make much of them and that your priorities would be rearranged so that the center of gravity and priority in your life is Jesus together with the Father and the Spirit on the Lord's day, worshiping him, praying to him and hearing from him. That's what we're going to do as shepherds. And many of you have come to this church because you said, that's the kind of shepherding that I want. And we thank God that some of you, even in the last few, four, five weeks, have written us emails of encouragement, thanking us for our, yes, broken, but hopefully consistent efforts to shepherd you and keep you in the fold. All right. I'm just gonna stop there. I've got two more points, but I clearly went longer than I expected, and I don't wanna keep you. Next week, well, next week's Easter. At some point, we will consider two and three, but let me just encourage you this morning, dear congregation, I say this from the bottom of my heart and from Pastor Jim's heart and Pastor Ken's heart, we love you. We love you. And we have bent over backwards in the last few expositions to say, where the limits of our authority stop. And if anybody ever comes to you in this congregation as a pastor and is saying, I don't like the color of the tie you're wearing, how in the world could you call yourself a Christian and drive a Ford pickup? We're not interested in that. But I'll tell you what we are interested in. We're interested in shepherding your souls, and we believe with all, every fiber in our being, in the efficacy and the power and the authority of the Word and the Spirit. And we're going to bring it to you. We're going to bring you the Word. We're going to lay it upon your consciences, and we're going to lay the salve of the Gospel wherever we can. It is for Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, who came and laid down his life for his people and lived a perfect life, that we have access to God and it is him we proclaim. And if there is anyone here this morning who does not know of this Jesus Christ, you are dead in your trespasses and sins. And if Christ were to break through the clouds today, you would be damned. But dear friend, I have good news for you this morning. If you turn from your sins and place your faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ, today you will be saved. Let's pray. Father God, thank you for your Word. Lord, you know the elders were just talking this morning about Paul's words that who is sufficient for these things? Who is sufficient to shepherd your people? I can't imagine Paul who didn't have one congregation but had multiple congregations. I don't know how he slept at night, Lord. I don't know how he slept at night with all the concerns and the baggage of all people's problems and the fear that somebody might drift into apostasy or drift into false teaching or fall from the faith by the enticement of some beautiful woman or beautiful man. All these cares and concerns. They weigh us down, and we say, who is sufficient for these things? But, oh Father, we thank you. We thank you that your Son has conquered death, hell, and the grave, and you have determined what shall be, and you are superintending your purposes on the church even now, and we will, with Christ, Be more than conquerors. We thank you for that. Father, would you please give help to your shepherds this morning? And as we continue to shepherd your people and give help to your people, father, that we as a church would have an elevated priority of your day and your means of you as you have laid out in your word for the healing of our souls and the recapturing of our identity after has been stolen by the world, flesh and the devil throughout the week. We ask all these things in your son's name. Amen. Let's stand for the doxology.