The Power of the Gospel

If you would take your Bibles and turn to 2 Timothy, we're going to be in chapter 1. We're going to look at verses 9-12, but I'll read starting at verse 8 here in a second. But while you're telling turning there, I wanted to share some things with you. I have um as a lot of you know, I've been trying to complete a master divinity degree. And to do that, I've had to do an awful lot of study in the original languages. And and I've had to study the Hebrew and the Greek. And I've I've completed my studies of the Hebrew and I'm I'm getting close to completing my studies within the Greek. And as we go through uh getting better and better at at translating and understanding the language to help us improve, what they do is they have us start to translate passages that aren't in the Bible.

Uh writings from the same time that the Bible is being written uh in coin a Greek uh so that we can be better at understanding and translating uh the Bible in Greek. And so one of the things that I've spent time translating recently is the dedicay. And if you're not familiar with that, the dedicay was written about 50 AD to 100 AD. So So it's right in the window when the New Testament is being written. And what the dedicay is is the dedicay is a a pamphlet or a small book that was either read or given to uh new Christians so they understood the faith. They understood what was required of them within the faith.

Very similar to what we do today. pastor made an announcement that we're going to start having another class start up soon that's that's for those who are new in the faith to provide the the foundations for what it is to be a Christian. So that kind of idea and and they would do that and give that out and and as I was studying this and translating this I learned something and what I learned is that within the early church at this early period of time uh when it came to baptism uh what they would do is they would ask the people that were coming to baptism to fast to fast for two days 48 hours and within those 48 hours to set a couple times aside uh each day to to sit and to pray before they got baptized.

But not only were the ones that were the ones that were coming to baptize were called to fast, but the ones who were going to baptize them were also called to fast. And they were they were also called to fast for two days and and to also spend time uh in prayer uh for the up andcoming ceremony. You know, as I'm looking at this and I'm reading this and I'm I'm thinking what a reverence they have for their faith. What a reverence they have for God's commands and the ordinances that he's laid out. And and I thought, you know, as we've kind of moved along through history and we've become Americans and we're confident in our freedom, I think we've lost some of that some of that reverence and and and it made me think also of Peter, how he makes us stand when we read.

And so I'm going to ask that we could follow in that example and would you stand out of reverence for God's word. Let's try to recover a little bit of what we lost. And I'll read 2 Timothy verses 8-12 starting verse 8. says, "Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel, according to the power of God, who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his purposes and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before the world began, but is now made manifested by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, where to am appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles.

For the which cause I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I am not ashamed. For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he was able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. Let's pray. Father Lord, we thank you for your word. And Lord, we uh confess that we have not held it to the level that we should, the reverence that we should, for it is the power of salvation. and it and it teaches us uh the truths that you have for your children. Lord, we thank you for this passage and I pray that as we go through it together here as a group that we would grow in our understanding of the gospel, Lord, that we may be encouraged, that we may be bold in our faith and that we may be uh confident and assured when suffering comes along as we ministered for you.

That that is an honor that you have given us to experience. And I pray you'd bless this time in your heavenly name. Amen. You can be seated. Well, if you're here two weeks ago, you know that Peter actually took us through verse 8. And technically our passages or passage we're going to talk about starts at verse 9 tonight. But but we need to go back to 8 to kind of pick up some momentum to get into verse 9. And in verse 8, as Peter taught us a couple weeks ago, there are two commands that are given to Timothy that are then also given to us. And these commands in verse 8 are that we are to not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of Paul.

And also we are to be a partaker or we are to join in together with Paul in the afflictions that come from following and proclaiming the gospel message. Now when Paul says not to be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, we want to understand what he means when he when he references the Lord. And when you when you see the word Lord, what is the image that pops into your mind? Is it an image of kind of God in general or is it an image of the father? Well, anytime you see Lord within uh the writings of Paul, what he's doing is he's referencing Jesus Christ. Look back to verse two of First Timothy.

There in verse two, it says to Timothy, my beloved son, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father, one portion of the Trinity there, and Jesus Christ our Lord. Another part of the trinity to Paul Jesus is Lord. Lord is is curios in the Greek. And what that means is that means master. It means owner. What Paul is saying is that Jesus Christ is his owner. It's using slavery um um imagery and and Paul is saying he is uh by by noting this Paul is saying he is the slave and this is his master Jesus. and and and and the slavery idea holds that his will is no longer his own but but but he is subjected to his master's will the Lord Jesus Christ and to this idea Paul is is filled with joy and he

often breaks into doxologies over this idea rejoicing in the fact that the Lord is his savior because as humans we are either uh slaves to our passions and to our sins or we are slaves to the Lord Jesus Christ and Paul had been freed from those sinful passions and brought under the the loving guidance and the loving will of his Lord Jesus Christ and that just brought him joy and for this Lord Paul says that the testimony of him we should not be ashamed of now why would there be a reason to be ashamed of Jesus and we can think of that in in in our day and age and how that would apply in our day and age but it's but it's more appropriate to think about it how it applied in Paul's Paul's day and to become a Christian in Paul's day was to take on an aspect of shame because to the culture that Paul lived in to follow Christ was to follow a shameful thing.

For the Jews, they they looked at Jesus at first as he as as a king, but as things continued to get revealed and they saw that he wasn't taking on the Romans and he wasn't restoring the nation to what they thought it should be, they realized he was not the Messiah that they wanted. and they didn't want him and they didn't believe that he was the Messiah. And then when he was put to death and hung on a wooden cross, it just reinforced that idea that this is not the prophet. This is not the Messiah. And they would turn to ideas or passages like Deuteronomy 1:es 22- 23. And let me read that for you.

There it says, "A if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day. For a man hanged is cursed by God." And Christ was hung up on that on that cross on that wooden cross. And the Jews would would see that as a man cursed. And so Jesus to them was a a failed prophet, a man cursed by God, a man that they could not believe in. That's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1 verse 22 that they kept asking for more and more signs because there wasn't an aspect of Christ and who he was that they sought to accept.

To the Romans and to the Greeks, the gospel was also complete folly. A crucified savior to follow after a crucified savior was to follow after a dead god. And to the Greeks and to the Romans, this was just nuts. and their understanding of the gods. What would happen is when two nations go to war and and one nation is beaten by the other, what that meant to them is that the the nation that was beat, that God was either weak or put to death by the by the God who had was victory or had victory over that other army or that other nation. And for Christ who was put to death on the cross by others, they they saw him as defeated, weak, and likely dead with no power.

And so to become a Christian was was a thing of shame in that world and and and Christians would pull back also from the the common the common activities that were taking place within society as well too. So much of the ancient culture revolved around pagan worship and and and all the the the social functions would be held at the temples and as Christians wanted to pull out of that worship they would also have to pull out of those social aspects and in doing that they would set themselves apart and and in one sense in that way they would um committing themselves to God and doing this but in society's views they see these odd people that are following this dead god that then pulls away from what they view as all good about society.

Because within these pagan um um temples, you would also have your your work meetings and your political meetings and your social gatherings and and and the Christians pull out of that. And so all society in a in a general term has a has a negative view towards Christians at this period of time. And we can understand why there would be that temptation to be ashamed because to share your faith would put you in association with a group that all of society looked at and thought were weirdos and and fools. And yet what Timothy and believers in his day deal with is quickly becoming the reality for us today.

I had an opportunity this past week to go see our grandkids. They're off in Texas now. And we we had a short trip over there and so we went to see them and that was fun, but it was very tiring. We didn't get a whole lot of sleep. And and on the plane flight back, usually what I like to do on the plane flight back is like to study. it's a time where I can just kind of just really dig into stuff and get some reading done. And I was I was doing that but but then I was so tired I couldn't keep my eyes open for at a certain period of time and I thought I'll just watch a movie. I'm not going to be able to concentrate it anymore.

And so I look around I and I find a movie that I think is is going to be decent. There's not going to be a lot of junk in it. And I start to watch it. And of course there's even junk in PG-13 movies nowadays, right? And so I'm I'm fast forwarding through some stuff and I'm I'm I'm missing the main idea of the of the movie. But yet, one thing I'm catching, because it keeps coming up again and again in the movie, is that they're presenting people of faith as people that are dumb, people that are uneducated, people that are fools. And I'm studying this passage and watching this movie and recognizing that Holly Hollywood sees Christians today exactly way the way the ancients did.

They see us as fools, uneducated. And so there's in a sense a temptation to be ashamed. But Paul's encouragement here is for Timothy to be bold. And the motivating factors that we're going to see within these passages apply not only into Timothy's time to but but to our time because they to drive us to be bold and to drive us to be willing to suffer in our pursuit of the kingdom. And the amazing thing that I find with this passage is Paul doesn't look to come up with something unique or something something something you know the different to grab the Timothy's attention. Simply what he does is he goes and he preach preaches the gospel again to Timothy.

He's preaching the gospel to another pastor, someone who knows the gospel. But to encourage his heart and to and to build boldness within this young man Timothy and to and to encourage Timothy to endure during the sufferings, Paul recounts the gospel because it's the gospel that has power. It is the gospel that has brought life to Timothy and to Paul. This is the gospel that has opened their eyes to the reality of what they have in Jesus Christ and is the gospel that gives them hope in time of persecution. And so he brings to Timothy and really to every Christian after Timothy who reads this passage a hope that we have heard again and again and again.

But is that it is that hope that builds within us a boldness to proclaim the truth that we hold so dear within our heart. And so let's look at that. We're going to start in verse 9 and it says, "Who hath," speaking of God here, "who hath saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." Paul here starts with an understanding of the gospel and that fact that God has chosen to save prior to creation prior prior to the world beginning. And the reality of this truth for Christians is is it's going to bring joy, but it's also going to going to bring an aspect of being humble.

Because you see, for all of eternity past, prior to creation, God was satisfied within himself. God was without need. There was no need to bring humanity into existence. There was nothing in heaven that was lacking. I personally struggle with that song that that that that says um Shucks, I'm drawing a blank on it right now. Um [clears throat] heaven without us. Thank you, Sam. Couldn't have heaven without us. Got to love my brother. The thing is God was complete for all of eternity. There was no need. But yet, what does he do? He chooses to bring a people into existence and then rescue out of that that group of people a nation that will then come in and enjoy the fullness of the communion that he has had within himself within the Trinity for all of eternity.

He purposed and he chose to save. Not out of need, not out of out of want, but out of desire to do it, and had nothing to do with our works, whether good or bad. You know, some folks in struggling through trying to understand predestination, they'll they'll say that God looks forward in time to see who would believe, and then he chooses them for faith. But but that's not what this passage teaches. It teaches that he purposed to save doing nothing or or having nothing to do with what they would do instead solely on the fact that he wanted to do it. And while the reality of this this this purpose that he has draws up questions because then we wonder, well, okay Lord, if you purpose to save, why do some have such easy access to the gospel and some have no access to the gospel?

Well, we have questions that come up with that and we and we we struggle with those and we struggle with what God teaches about those ideas. One thing we can say for certain is that if we are saved, if we have faith in Jesus Christ and if we believe that he has died for our sins and that he has risen from the dead and that he now lives ruling in heaven, that faith that we have was purposed by God to be within us. And it was purposed according to his desire with nothing to do of our works. And what this means for a believer is that he has made you special. He has called you to himself and made you special.

Now, is this you? Do you have faith in Christ? Have you come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and you are in the family of God? Well, if this is you, we have to realize that this is not according to anything that we have done, not according to any of our works. And when we think about the fact that God saved us with nothing to do with what we have done, there's a settled joy that just sits in our hearts to know that we have been loved by God in such a manner. And there's a joyful confidence that we have knowing that that we have been saved that that he has taken us and that he has made us from nothing into something special and that he's he's taken us and made us into a child of his.

But it also means that we have to be humble because this purposing to save has nothing to do with our actions. We have nothing to take pride in. And we have to be humble. Not only do we have to be humble is that we cannot look down on other sinners. And I know we're tempted to do that at times. We look at the evil that's going on and we think, "What are you doing?" And we want to look down on them and call them scum. And and in a sense that is true because there is wickedness there. But the reality is we are only one step away from being the same. We have been rescued from that. And so we cannot look down upon that.

And with this attitude now of joy because we've been saved and humility because it's not of our works. We have no pride in what we have. And and when it comes to comes to feeling ashamed, ashamed finds its its source within pride because we don't want our pride to be hurt. And so we we we watch out for things that would bring us shame. Well, if we don't have that pride and we're already filled with joy, there's nothing about Christ that's going to cause us to be ashamed. And as the world looks down upon us for what we believe in, we recognize that we have been lifted up. And we recognize that we have been lifted up.

There is no reason to be ashamed. And we can stand before the world that thinks we're crazy. And tell them, "No, we're loved. We're rescued. We're saved." Verse 10, Paul continues on and he says, "But now is made manifest." He's speaking of God's purpose and grace here. by the appearing of our savior Jesus Christ who hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. You know in Judaism there was a problem there was a dilemma in a sense they struggled with and it's this is that how can God forgive the wicked? In Proverbs 11 21 it says this. says though hand join in hand the wicked shall not be unpunished.

God's word says that the wicked will be punished. Yet in Exodus 34 we get this 34:7 we get this contradiction speaking of God. It says that he's keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgressions of sin and will by no means clear the guilty. So if a man is is guilty of the law and God does not clear the guilty and that the wicked do not go unpunished, how is he forgiven? How can he reach that? How does God remain a just God holding the standard of righteousness, judging wickedness that must be judged and at the same time forgive? And this is where grace and our Lord Jesus step in.

For God's grace was given to us in Christ Jesus. It's God's grace that answers this dilemma. And and and I like the acronym that describes grace where it says that God's riches are at Christ's expanse. G R A C. Because this description of grace reminds us that that Jesus has taken on sin to pay the penalty of our debt that God requires. solving that dilemma that the the Jews dealt with, which is the expense aspect of that acronym, so that then our debt is paid and the righteousness that we have is now from Christ, so that God can now lavish riches upon us for all of eternity. And I and I like how that acronym grace pictures that idea.

But but the thing with that is is it's woefully inadequate to describe the depths of the grace that we have. And the depths of the grace that we have uh according to this passage is found within the revelation of Christ, the coming of Christ Jesus. And to understand the the grace we have to get a better understanding of it, we have to go and look at the life of Jesus. And we have to look at the time of crucifixion to understand. And if we pick up the story in Matthew 26 where Jesus heads off to pray, we start to understand the grace that God has revealed through Jesus Christ. In Matthew 26, Jesus goes to Gethsemane to pray.

And in verse 28, I'm sorry, verse 38, he talks to his disciples and he says this about his upcoming crucifixion. He says, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful even unto death. Try you here and watch with me." Jesus here knowing that he's going to be crucified, knowing that he's going to die, make that sacrifice, speaks to the disciples and he says that his sorrow is so great that it's even unto death. And I do not think this is figurative language because Luke when he records this story, Luke says that when Jesus prays, he's he starts to sweat. And he's he's not sweating like like we sweat. He's sweating sweat like blood.

And it's not like a little glistening sweat. It's sweat that's running down his body and it's dripping down onto the ground. This is not normal. You know, I go and I do my yard work and it it takes me a solid two hours to do my yard work and I'm out there with a giant hat uh my sunscreen on trying to stay cool out there and after two hours of hard work, I'm drenched in sweat and that's that's dripping down and falling onto the ground. Christ here is in the evening on his knees not moving and yet his body is reacting so much that this bloodlike sweat is coming out of his body and running down him and dropping onto the ground and and he's experiencing a stress that that is beyond what any of us will ever grasp because our Lord Jesus Christ is divine and because he controls when he gives up his life during this huge emotional turmoil that he's under his heart doesn't collapse like one of ours would, but he endures.

And and because he endures, it takes him to a level of of suffering that you and I can't reach. We see this actually with with the with the physical torture that took place with Christ as well, too. There's an interesting journal that's out. You can still look it up. It's it's it's in the uh medical journal, I mean, sorry, the Journal of of American Medical Association. It's from March 1986. But if you go up and Google that and look at that in that article, you'll find that the medical association at that time studied the crucifixion and they determined that that Christ would have died before he ever got to the cross.

The persecution and the and the torture and the blood loss and the stress to his body would have caused the man to give in before he ever actually got to the cross. And yet Christ continues on and what we see is that Christ and his divinity is not going to give up his life until it's time. And so they could not take it from him until he goes to the cross and he determines when it's time to give it up. But what that means then is that they could torture him beyond what any man could take. And so our Lord Jesus is suffering emotionally and physically greater to an extent or to a greater extent than anyone can can can can reach.

And I think that emotional suffering that he goes through is is actually greater than the physical suffering because he he knows what's coming. Because you see, for our Lord Jesus Christ, he has been united with the father for all of eternity in a perfect beautiful union where there's been perfect love between them and perfect contentment between them and perfect fellowship between them. And now what's going to happen is the father is going to turn away from him. And the reason why the father turns away from him is because Christ is going to now be made sin. 1 Corinthians chapter 5 21 for he speaking of God hath made him Christ to be sin.

Christ goes from this perfect union of love and fellowship with his father completely free from sin to taking on every single wickedness that we have done. From every small little white lie that we have given to every shameful thing that we have committed that we hope nobody ever knows about and to every wicked thought that slips into our mind. Not only what has already been done but will be done until the time we die. But not only for us, but for an entire kingdom of people. And he's taken all that on. This is grace. This, brother and sisters, is that CE at the end of grace, Christ's expense. It's huge.

It's massive. and it is done according to what 1 Corinthians 5:21 says for us. There's a movie that came out a couple years ago. It was a local production. Maybe you've seen it. It was called The Islands from a theatrical aspect. Um the movie probably wasn't very good, but I enjoyed the story. It's a good story. story about Princess Capolani. If you're not familiar with her, she was a princess on the Big Island. She did not know God. She was following in the Hawaiian traditions. And as a young girl, she took fruit. She took a banana. Took a banana which was not to be done. And she took it and she ate it.

And she had had a a servant boy bring it to her and she took it and she ate it. And the problem was is a priest had seen her eat it. And the priest saw that and he and he made it known that he saw that and it and he wanted to require the the life of Princess Copyani for that for that breaking that rule. And what happens is they is they because she's royalty, they're not going to put her to death. What they do is they wind up taking her servant and they take that boy into the temple. And she finds out later on that that boy was sacrificed to Pelle because of her breaking of that Hawaiian rule. And when Herm Bingham, the Christian missionary that comes to the Big Island, comes to her, and this is what you see in the movie that's so beautifully portrayed.

He comes to the princess and he gives the princess the gospel story and he tells the princess that the Lord sent his son to die for your sins that you can be saved. And she hears this and I don't know how historically accurate this is. This is a movie but but within the movie the princess is shocked [clears throat] and she says what? Not another man. And your God doesn't require a man to give up his life. Your your God sent his own son to die so that I could be made free. And here Bingham says yes. And that is our God. That is the grace that we have received. That is the purpose that God has laid out as a grace that is manifested in our Lord Jesus Christ.

And because of that, our Lord Jesus Christ can give us his righteousness and God can now save the wicked. And the result of that suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ opens the door up to God's riches to us. Which we pick up in the second half of verse 10 there says, "Who hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Jesus, he was risen from the dead and his resurrection is proof of God's accepting his sacrifice. But it was also a victory over death. Colossians chapter 1 verse 18 says or calls Jesus the firstborn from the dead. And you don't call somebody the firstborn unless there's others that follow.

And the thing is is that while we will face physical death if the Lord does not return for all believers, they will follow in the firstborn and they too will be risen from the dead. And we've received that because of the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the life that we receive out of that is an im uh is an eternal life that goes on forever and ever. But but one of the things I like about it and it's and is pictured in this passage here is it's not just immortality, it's life and immortality. Because simply im im simply being immortal is not enough. As a younger Christian, I I struggled with this idea because I thought, you know what, if if I have eternity through God or through Christ, at a certain point, that's going to become a horrible thing because if I have if I have all of eternity at a certain period of time, I will know all things.

I will have experienced all things. I will have mastered all things. And at that period of time, life becomes an ultimate boar. And that boar lasts for all of eternity. And I thought, "This can't be right. Something's wrong." And I was wrong because what you see in this passage is it mentions also life. And the idea in that is that the is that not only is there eternal life, but it's a fullness of life. You and I as we go about our life, we we have this aspect in us where we're always longing. We're always desiring. It's a it's never fully filled. And and what happens is is is in our eternal life that we have through Jesus Christ is we have that that complete fullness fullness within our humanity.

It's life of abundance that we have for all of eternity. It is the fullness of life that we have in Christ. And this wonderful grace that brings about these these riches comes to us through the suffering of our Lord or Master. And so when Paul encourages Timothy to partake or or join in with the afflictions of following after the gospel, what he's saying is join into the afflictions that your master also did. And it also means that as we as we struggle within following after Christ, the the struggles and the afflictions actually become an honor because we can do it for our Lord. This isn't an unusual idea.

I noticed that in the in the CrossFit exercise world, what they do on Memorial Day is they always do this special workout and and and I've looked at it. It's pretty tough. And the guys that do it are completely exhausted after doing this workout on Memorial Day. But but they do that specific workout because that was the workout of a of a special operations uh soldier who was killed in battle. And so to honor that man, they always do his workout on Memorial Day to honor him. And in the same way as we struggle and we and and and we suffer, we're honoring our Lord, but but yet for the CrossFit world, maybe they get some some physical health benefits out of it.

For us in as we do it for the Lord, it's a way that the kingdom grows and the Lord works through that to build his kingdom and to work through us and to build us as well, too. And this suffering that that Paul is alluding to is not simply the suffering that comes from persecution. When we are proclaiming the gospel message, Paul is speaking to Timothy. And Timothy is a minister. And not only he is he one who is proclaiming the gospel, he is also, as we saw from first Timothy, the one who's leading the church and having to deal with all the issues that are wrapped up within leading a body of believers.

the issues of putting in the extra work, of putting in the study, of of losing the sleep, of having people don't like you because you're standing for the truth or or or making a mistake up front and then having to suffer the uh consequences of that and all the issues that come from that. The reality is if is if we commit to serving our Lord Jesus Christ beyond the call of our daily life, the reality is that that there's going to be some kind of suffering because in in ministry to our Lord that always comes. I was thinking of our couple that been long-term members here, Con Don and Connie Nordstrom, because Don and Connie have been so faithful as children leaders downstairs watching little kids.

And it's it's a it's a ministry that is that is really thankless. They minister to children that that then move on and probably forget who they are in a couple years and don't even know who Don and Connie are. And yet Don and Connie, what you see is year in and year out they have been faithful to that to that ministry and it's been a struggle for them. They're very busy people and yet they commit to that. And if you know that couple, you know that they pray for those children all the time. And if you have children in that class, you know that that they send letters and birthday greetings and and and they're they're they really do care about the kids and they really put the effort in to try to encourage those kids towards Christ.

But it's effort and it's a struggle and it's a sacrifice that they make. And any aspect within ministry if we do it for the Lord and really really commit to doing it is going to have that aspect to it. But the thing is is that when we run into that, we must recognize that that is an honor. That is a privilege because our Lord Jesus suffered to rescue us far more. And for us to join in his suffering, it's only a privilege to be able to do the same. It is in these two ideas that Paul was willing to suffer and he was not ashamed of the gospel. And so brothers and sisters, as I close, I just want to summarize by saying, be not ashamed of the gospel message.

Be bold because God has purposed to save without regard for your works. And in doing that, you he has made you special to him. And if you choose to follow after him in ministry, whatever aspect that is, if you choose to give of yourself to follow after him, and I I pray that you do, I pray that you don't simply uh have a simple belief in him and then go about your business and and and don't give any effort. I pray that that there is a a concentrated effort devoted to following after him. And and if you do that and you find the struggles or when you find the struggles, be reminded that your Lord Jesus Christ rescued you through struggles and that the struggles that you're going through are simply putting you in line with him. And it is an honor and a privilege to serve along our Lord along the side of our Lord Jesus Christ.