Sermon
The Ministry of the Holy Spirit in the Church
November 8, 2003
Pastor Donald Sheley

Take your notes and also have there in your hands have your Bible open to 1 Corinthians 12. For you folks that join with us for the first time, we've been in a series this fall considering some of the great doctrines of our Christian faith. Our first lesson we started in September we talked about what the Bible teaches about water baptism, so we took the doctrine of water baptism. And then we went to the doctrine of Christian stewardship. From there we talked about the doctrine of heaven, and then we talked about the doctrine of hell. Then we moved on to what the Bible has to say about the return, the second coming of Jesus Christ; the doctrine of the second coming of Christ.

Then we started what has now gone into four or five weeks...we wanted to go through the Scriptures and see what the Bible teaches about the Holy Spirit. And I realized that once starting on that subject, and going through my New Testament, almost on every page the person of the Holy Spirit is referenced, almost in every page of your New Testament, so I realized the subject could not be handled in just one or two nights. So we've divided the subject into a number of different studies. Our first study on the person of the Holy Spirit was the consideration of the Holy Spirit as a person of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit; coequal, coeternal, yet one.

And the reason why we emphasize that is because across the church world today there is somehow that idea that the Holy Spirit is an energy or is an influence or is something intangible in the sense, hard to understand. We can understand at least somewhat the concept of God, and we can go through the Scriptures and understand the person of Jesus Christ, but for most Christians and for most people who go to church the concept of the Holy Spirit is kind of elusive. So we've decided that we're going to really understand.

So after considering the Holy Spirit as a person, then we went to the subject of the Holy Spirit and His work in our lives as He brought us from our life of sin into the kingdom of God. The work of the Holy Spirit in the work of salvation, of regeneration. That was one study. Then we went to the next aspect of after we are in the kingdom of God, how does the Holy Spirit work within us as Christians? What does He want to do within us? And I believe that was last Sunday's message, and we learned one thing that...I have had a great number of people come to me this week and they said, you know Pastor, somehow I had the idea I had to seek for more of the Holy Spirit. And my journey as a Christian has been frustrating because I never seem to grasp this idea of getting all the Holy Spirit that I was supposed to have gotten.

You remember we took the position from the Scriptures that when we become a Christian the Holy Spirit comes to live within us, totally, not half of Him, not a third of Him, and so we become the temple of the Holy Spirit and He lives within us. But what the problem is...that process begins where He transforms us into the image of Christ and now you have the Holy Spirit working within us and we have all the tendencies to flesh, and all the tendencies to sin, and thus the great spiritual conflict, the great Civil War that goes on inside of us. Paul expressed it in Romans 7. What I want to do, I don't do; and what I'd do, I shouldn't do it. O wretched man that I am! He's talking about that tremendous struggle.

So here's what we learned -- it's not a matter of seeking for more of the Holy Spirit, it's a matter of learning to yield and surrender to His presence within us and allow Him to take over a larger portion of our life. As long as we fill it with our own ambitions and our own desires, we quench and we grieve the work of the Spirit of God within us. But when you realize that the Spirit of God dwells within and I don't have to go seeking for Him, what I need to learn is to learn how to yield when He speaks to me in that still small voice and the conscience registers something that He wants out of me -- to change to make me more like Christ. It's learning to yield to His presence. It's the great secret of growing as a Christian.

Now, tonight, we move into a subject that is controversial. We're going to talk about the work of the Holy Spirit within the life of the church. Now I think today there are two major problems in the evangelical world. There's a great theological crisis going on in the evangelical world today folks. Number 1: The great crisis is that there has been this seeker sensitivity move where the idea is don't make the sinner uncomfortable when he comes to your church. Adjust your services so that he's comfortable. If you want to bring the Christians in on Wednesday night to give them a Bible study, fine, but don't in any way make the sinner uncomfortable in the church. It has absolutely grabbed the hearts of thousands of pastors and churches across the nation.

I cannot buy that. I believe that when Jesus Christ is presented the cross is always an offense, and I never would ever for a moment compromise on the subject of sin. We're sinners and until Christ saves us we are on our way to hell. Now you'd never say that in a seeker sensitive church, even though they call themselves evangelical.

The other crisis is this whole crisis about the charismatic move, and tongues, and miracles. And what we want to do...we want to as a people sincerely go through the Scriptures, verse by verse, so that when we walk away next week, the Lord willing, because it'll take us a couple of weeks to cover chapters 12 and 14 of 1 Corinthians. Herein Paul gives the instructions as to how the Holy Spirit works within the life of the church, and he does it in a very interesting context. He's addressing a very, very carnal church, the Corinthian church, and they had so misused the gifts of the Holy Spirit within their church that the church was absolutely at chaos and bedlam. And Paul's ashamed of it, and so he writes 1 Corinthians 12 and 1 Corinthians 14, and between the two he tucks in that wonderful chapter on love. But in those three chapters Paul was seeking to correct and instruct the church as to how this Holy Spirit wants to work within the life of the church. All right?

Now let's take our notes, and we begin by reading 1 Corinthians 12:1-14. And again, as you notice that I'm putting all the Scriptures verses in the notes themselves. And the reason being is that these notes are being used in two or three prisons for Bible studies for the prisoners, and many of those do not have Bibles and can't turn to them, so I put the verses in the text itself. And then many of you know our sermon notes are put on the Internet and they go worldwide, and so they are used worldwide. And last month we had 48 countries around the world that were taking the notes, and so I put all the Scripture text right within the text itself.

"Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God called Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." Now I'm reading from the King James and so they use the phrase Holy Ghost, but Holy Spirit is the same and comes from the same original words.

"Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit. To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will. For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit."

Now I start our lesson with these words: Christ came to establish a new society here on earth. It was not enough for Him to call individual sinners to God. He promised that He would build His Church and it would be the most powerful force on earth providing it could be created, inspired and sustained with His life and His love. Nothing could stop, or else has ever stopped the revolution of love which He began two thousand years ago.

Someone once commented: "I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever sailed, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together have not affected the life of man upon the earth as has that One solitary life...Jesus Christ!"

Now in John 17 we have the prayer that Jesus prayed just before He went to the cross. And we have in that prayer a glorious picture of the purpose of God's church on earth, as Jesus prayed that it should be marked by four main things: the glory of God, the Word of God, the joy of God, and united in the love of God.

Let's take those briefly. The glory of God -- now this is clearly the main burden of Christ's prayer from the fact that the words glory and glorify come no less than seven times in that short prayer. The word glory means basically the visible manifestation of the splendor and power and the radiance of God. It is God revealing Himself so that, as far as possible, we can see the beauty and majesty of His living presence with us.

The secular Greek, the word glory means reputation and opinion. And it's a sobering thought that God's reputation in the world, or the world's opinion of God, will depend to a large extent on how far His glory is seen in the Church. Listen to Jesus pray: "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word; That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in Us; that the world may believe that Thou has sent Me. And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one."

Paul prayed that the Ephesian church, according to the riches of God's glory, might be strengthened by God's Spirit and rooted and grounded in God's love; that there might be 'glory in the church' as well as in Christ Jesus. Let's stop there for a moment.

What Jesus prayed for is that the world would see that glory, and the glory which He has reference to is the glory of unity. And what I've suggested in the use of that word is God's reputation in our community is determined through the Church. When you go back, ladies and gentlemen, into the early years of our American history, the newspapers, as they would print them, they always on Monday morning had the sermons of most of the pastors in town. Now today, 150 years later, the Church has so diminished in its glory that the world doesn't take much notice any more, and very seldom if never do you see a Monday morning sermon printed of a preacher that preaches in that community. And because there is such division within the body of Christ, the reputation of God and the world's opinion about God has been deeply, deeply injured.

I have often said that churches that are not sensitive to their reputation within the community, when they allow friction and when they allow division when they allow splits within their Church, really that brings such shame to the cause of Christ. And it may sound a little harsh, but it's true, I would rather see churches that constantly go on fighting and bickering and constantly injuring one another within that little congregation; it would be better if they nailed the doors of that church shut because fighting, a congregation in conflict, is a terrible disgraceful thing for the reputation of God in the community. And Jesus' prayer was that as the world looked on that glory of unity that He shared with His Father and the unity that we have between us as brothers and sisters in Christ would be such a radiance testimony that the world would know that Jesus was sent by God.

Then Jesus went on to pray that the church would be guided by the Word. In John 17 Jesus prayed much about the word of God. "I have given them Thy word...They have kept Thy word...Sanctify them in the truth; Thy word is truth..."
Many of the great revivals of the past have begun with deep repentance, great joy, fresh love and spontaneous praise; but have withered away due to the neglect of God's Word.

That's true. It's a great study in history to watch how God, by His Holy Spirit, moves across a community and there's great joy and a great ingathering of souls, but if there's neglect of the word of God that revival quickly fades away. Thus, what Jesus prayed for was that the church would be very much centered in the word of God.

Thirdly, He prayed that the church would be filled with the joy of God. Christ longed that His joy might be fulfilled in His disciples. Often He referred to this: "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be full." The New Testament church was filled with this remarkable quality of joy, even in the midst of the fiercest trials, and this in itself was a powerful witness of the life of God's Spirit within that Church.

A national newspaper once had an article entitled: "Why must Christians be so miserable?" That is certainly the general impression. But God wants His people to be bathed in the beauty of His glory and filled with the radiance of His joy. That's true folks. You know, I've often wondered why it is that some people think that a church service should be conducted like a funeral service. Over the years as we have added to our worship and our musicians and our organ and all that goes with a great Sunday morning worship, some folks have been highly offended because we sing a lot of songs filled with joy, and we enjoy clapping our hands if we want to. We enjoy raising our hands if we'd like to. There's an expression, but you know, some people, that's not their concept of church. The church should be very drab and very ordered. But Jesus prayed that His joy might fill the house. I'm not speaking of fanaticism, but I'm speaking of a radiance and a happiness that comes through wonderful unity in fellowship and great joy in the expressions of our worship. Jesus prayed for that.

And then He prayed that we might be united in the love of God. Jesus prayed four times that His disciples might be perfectly united in love: 'that they may be one, even as we are one...that they may all be one, even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee...that they may be one, even as we are one...that they may become perfectly one, and that the love with which Thou has loved Me may be in them.' It's interesting that over and over again Jesus prays for the church to be united in love.

And I make a statement: The proclamation of the gospel apart from the unity of the church is a theological absurdity. If a non-believer walks into a church and there's bickering and there's fighting and you sense tension, how do you ever preach about love? How do you ever preach about forgiveness? And thus, a church without the love of God is really a theological absurdity. The heart of the gospel is that through death, the death of Jesus Christ, all the barriers are down. We have access into God's presence, and we are all one in Christ Jesus. There are no more walls of hostility-except those of our making. How, then, can we preach a message of love, forgiveness and reconciliation-between man and God, and between man and man-unless the reality of that can be seen by unity and love as Christians? This should be the distinguishing mark of all true disciples of Christ: that we love one another.

And such then is the character of the church, the Christian church, for which Christ prayed so fervently before He went to His death. Later, after He had risen from the dead and ascended into heaven, the Spirit was poured out upon the disciples, and Christ's prayer was answered. When they were filled with God's glory, His Word, His joy, and united in His love, nothing could stop them. On and on they went, against all human odds and terrible persecution, and they began the greatest spiritual revolution that the world has ever known.

When you study history, ladies and gentlemen, when Christ died the Romans were in charge, then you had the Emperors that came along and killed the Christians, but the Christian church marched on and when you get to the year of 313, Christianity had so God in the hearts of the Roman Empire that that the Roman Empire in 321 declared Christianity to be the religion of the Empire. What I'm suggesting, when the church is vibrantly alive and preaching the word of God and enjoy one another in genuine Christian love, there's nothing, ladies and gentlemen, that can stop a church like that in a community.

Who is it then that empowers the Church to be the kind of Church that Christ prayed that it might be? It is the Holy Spirit. And in the passage we've cited in 1 Corinthians 12, we observe that the Holy Spirit ministers in and through the Church in various ministries. Now before we explore the manifestations and the administrations of the Spirit of God, there's one very important thing we have to deal with...and that is the question, Did the Holy Spirit intend that His gifts be given only to the first generation of the church or can we expect that the Holy Spirit continues to bless the Church of Jesus Christ with His presence and with His gifts today?

Now in the study of theology this is known as the cessationists theory. Let me explain it. There are those and a large segment of Christianity today hold to the point that when the first century ended and when the apostles died and when the church had matured, no longer did the gifts remain within the church. That's known as cessation or the bringing to an end of the work of the Holy Spirit within the church. Then others on the other side say, no, there's nowhere in the Scripture that tells us that the gifts ended at a certain time. But what you do is when you go back to the cessationist argument -- down at the bottom of page 3 -- here is the verse that is used to defend the position that no longer can you expect the gifts of the Spirit of God at work within the church today. It's found in 1 Corinthians 13:8-13.

"Love never ends; as for prophecies they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease, as for knowledge it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

Now here's the argument. The argument by the cessationists say that because of this verse Paula is saying when the perfect has come the imperfect is done away with, and the imperfect is classified as the gifts. So the question is, then when did the perfect come? When will that event happen when will shall see Him, when we shall see face to face? When you go through all of the text, when that phrase appears throughout the New Testament, face to face, it is always in reference to the second coming of Jesus Christ. So many and much of the evangelical world say this is not a verse that supports the fact that all the gifts ended. There's nothing there.

And ladies and gentlemen, this is the only verse that they can use as a reference. The rest of this just some logic. Really in the text what Paul is saying is, within the church until the Lord comes back for His church the imperfect will always be present. The preaching will always be imperfect. Anything we do, any gifts that is presented in the church will always have the imperfections of our human nature. When that day comes, when we see Him face to face then the imperfect will no longer exist because we'll know fully as we can know in His eternal presence. But this is the only verse, or section of verses, that the cessationists hold to in saying we cannot expect the work of the Holy Spirit and our day. I disagree with that.

The presence of the Spirit in power and gifts makes it easy for God's people to think of the power and gifts as the real evidence of the Spirit's presence. Not so for Paul. The ultimate criteria of the Spirit's activity is the exaltation of Jesus as Lord. Whatever takes away from that, even if they be legitimate expressions of the Spirit, begins to move away from Christ to a more pagan fascination with spiritual activity as an end in itself. Now let's pick up our Bibles that let's move through quickly. I'm saying that I believe we can still expect the work of the Holy Spirit. I'm not at all fascinated with fanaticism. I'm not at all acceptable to the nongenuine, but I'm saying this: as a pastor, I believe the Spirit of God is still active today and we want His presence and we want His joy and we want His glory to fill our congregation as we worship together.

Now Paul starts in verse 12, 'Now concerning spiritual gifts'. And when he starts a phrase like that, you remember he's gotten a letter from the Corinthian church and they've asked him a number of questions. One of the first questions they ask him about marriage, remember in chapter 7, and now he's answering a question because they are perplexed and confused there in Corinth as to how the Spirit of God should work as far as spiritual gifts are concerned. So now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you to be uninformed or ignorant. Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. Now let's stop there.

He's saying that as a church most all of those folks who became Christians had a terrible pagan background. When you study the history of the city of Corinth, it is pagan and heathen to the core. You'll find that there was the temple to the goddess of love, and plying the streets every night would be thousands of prostitutes who would sell their bodies and the moneys would come back to the priests at the temple. They had all kinds of heathen practices going on in those temples, and can you imagine the challenge that Paul had of walking into Corinth and something so pagan something so godless as that city, and he starts preaching. Well he's going to have results because he's a powerful man of God and; he's an apostle, and yet when those folks come into the church they've come fresh out of heathenism, fresh out of paganism. They've still got their idols. They still understand the ways of the pagan worship, and Paul realizes that they dragged and a lot of their paganism right into the Christian church.

Now I can understand that, because as you remember back when the iron curtain dropped in 1989 our church decided we're going to move into Eastern Europe and we're going to start ministering to those folks who haven't had any Christian influence for 70 years because they were under communism. Now the thing that amazed me when we walked into the churches, these old man who are pasturing to realize that they had never been to a Bible college, they had never been in an atmosphere of training, they had lived under the concepts of communism. You knew their hearts were in love with God, but they still had a communist head on their shoulders.

You say, what do you mean by that pastor? Well, they as communists they believe that what's yours is mine. And even if it was another's, to steal was nothing wrong. However you could get something was right. And if the neighbor was gone and you wanted his front door, you would take his front door home with you. And the point was that here we had these pastors with Christian hearts, but with communist heads, and they thought like communists. We were trying to help the children by giving them stipends to come to Bible college and he was taking half of their stipends and pocketing it. I confronted him one day and said, Pastor, I give you funds for using your church, but these are funds for the children to buy food and whatever they need. Well I ought to get something out of it he said.

And I wrestle with it, and I understand that oft times when you come from backgrounds where the mind is so steeped and drenched with the philosophy of the day -- and that's what Paul's got. He's got a Corinthian church fresh out of paganism, who had been following idols, worshiping like the idols did, and the interesting thing is you could go down to the temple area in Corinth and they would have these people that you could pay and they would dance and frenzy until they got themselves almost beside themselves uncontrollable and they would start giving forth these ecstatic utterances. And then when they were all finished you went to somebody next-door you paid them and they interpreted what you had paid the priestess of some religion to supposedly have divine communion with God. Now that's what Paul is dealing with. They had brought some of that pagan kind of worship right into the Corinthian church, and Paul is saying, listen, you can't do this anymore.

Now look as he goes to verse 3. This one really bothers us. He says, Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. What is Paul talking about? He's talking about something that has gone on inside the church that is totally wrong. They are calling Jesus accursed, and they are crediting it to the Holy Spirit.

Now you don't have it in your notes, but I went to another writer and I found out an explanation. This is what he says, Only one thing seems to explain why such a wicked condition could have come to exist especially in a church established and pastored by Paul himself. During the first century, the philosophy of the early developing Gnosticism was a great threat to the church. It taught that everything physical and natural was evil, and that everything supernatural and spiritual was good. And when adapted to Christianity it taught that the supernatural Christ only appeared to be the natural Jesus. The human Jesus was an imperfect, evil and poor representation of the spiritual Son of God, who because of His divine nature could not possibly have taken on physical form. Gnosticism simply taught that nothing that is spiritual has anything to do with the natural and the human body, therefore, whatever this person was who was supposedly Jesus in the natural, it wasn't really the real Jesus because the supernatural Jesus, the spiritual Jesus, would have never taken on a physical body. That was their logic.

And then they went on to say: Christ's spirit descended upon Jesus at His baptism, but return to heaven before the crucifixion therefore Jesus died an accursed death as no more than a mere man. So while glorifying the divine Christ, the Corinthians may have felt perfectly justified in cursing the human Jesus. Now that we don't understand, but Gnosticism simply says that Jesus, if He was truly spiritual, would have never taken on a human body; and because He took on a human body He was a fake. He was imperfect because He died an accursed death on the cross. So now you can see that with that influence of Gnostic philosophy into the church they would make that kind of a statement cursing the Christ. And Paul said, listen, that doesn't come from the Holy Spirit. And to say Jesus is Lord, that can only happen when Jesus really is Lord of our life. Because in those days the crying confession of a Christian was 'Jesus is Lord'.

When you made the profession 'Jesus is Lord', and you said that in front of an emperor, you were slain immediately. That was your testimony and it cost you your life. So what he is saying is this, you are giving credit to the Holy Spirit for something that is totally not from God. But here's the fascinating thing to me -- and you can read the rest because the notes will explain the various gifts that take place -- but here when Paul starts talking about spiritual gifts he wants to correct immediately the problem of their approach and their love for Christ. And what he is simply saying it is, if the church does not have a biblical concept of Christ and Christ is not honored, then there's something wrong within the church -- no matter how spiritual it may seem.

What I have found, that oft times there is this fascination for the fanatic, for fanaticism. And I've talked with people who are so fascinated with all of these supposedly which looks like it's spiritual. They don't stop and pause long enough to wonder, is this really of God? I'm cautious of what I'm going to say because I pray that you'll understand me. I have a very heavy heart when I observe some of the things that are going on television. When I see people being pushed over and the Holy Spirit is being insulted by you've got to have catchers, I grieve for the reputation of Christ in our world. And yet, it looks so spiritual. And such a vast number of people are so fascinated by what looks like it's spiritual, but when you really think it through, it really does disgrace to our wonderful Christ.

And this is what Paul is saying: I don't care how much you think your church there at Corinth is so spiritual, let's begin with the person of Christ and you've already brought Him great shame, and yet you have said that that's the work of the Spirit of God.

You know, when Jesus said when the Spirit of God comes He will not speak of Himself, but He will glorify Christ. This is one of the things about the work of the Holy Spirit; He doesn't attract attention to Him. He has come to draw men and women to Christ. Jesus says this in John chapter 16. And therefore when the attention is given to the supernatural and to the extremes, it automatically is unbiblical because the Holy Spirit does not attract attention to Himself; He brings people to Christ.

So our prayer should be, Holy Spirit of God, we want You to minister through Your various ways in our church that as You minister through us the world and our community will be drawn to Christ, because the work of the Holy Spirit lifts up Christ and never draws attention to Himself.

Now in your notes I go through then as he discusses those various gifts, and you can read about them. The Lord willing, what I want to do next week is we're going to move to chapter 14 because the great problem at Corinth was this whole problem of public tongues. And when you read through 1 Corinthians, and we'll do it verse by verse, you'll have a biblical knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. And Paul does a marvelous job correcting the church in this one area.

And the reason why folks I'm going through this as meticulously as I can, is because you know there is a lot of confusion out there in the church world. There are a lot of things that are being called spiritual that are really not of God, and we want to know what the Bible says is really spiritual, what is right and what is godly. Amen?

Father, we are really trying to understand. We realize that it's a vast subject. We really want the church, Lord Jesus, to be everything You want it to be; a place of love, a place of joy, a place of unity, and a place where Your word is proclaimed. And Lord Jesus to make it that way You have sent Your Holy Spirit to work within the life of the church, and you have given the church gifts that bring honor and glory to Christ. And we want to be that kind of church.

We would not be in agreement with those who believe, Holy Spirit, that You stopped Your work amongst the church 2000 years ago, that You withdrew all the gifts. We would not accept that because it's obvious from the study of church history that down through the centuries of time You have moved and worked in marvelous dimensions of power and grace. We want that to be so of our church. For You, precious Spirit of God, know that our hearts are open, we are desirous that Christ be honored and magnified in our community through the life of this congregation. We want that with all of our hearts.

So thank you for the evening, Father, that we've had to study. And I pray that as tomorrow comes we'll have the joy of being again in Your house, and I pray the precious Spirit of God that You'll come in all of Your power and Your glory and You'll make it a wonderful day of fellowship, a wonderful day of joy, a wonderful day as Your word is proclaimed. I ask this in Jesus' name, and everybody said...amen. God bless you folks. God bless you. Thank you for coming.