Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / May 8, 2016 | Hunter Ruch - 10 Years Of Wisdom

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May 8, 2016 | Hunter Ruch - 10 Years Of Wisdom · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: How are you on this Mother's Day?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Glad to see you.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is the third most populated day in church in the country.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right next to Christmas and Easter, then there's Mother's Day.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's because when you ask the moms, what do you want to do on your day?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: They say we're going to church.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I realize that there may be many visitors here and guests.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Either you're with mom or mom's with you, and we're really thankful you're here.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I realize you have no idea who I am because you don't go here, and that's okay.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Some people who go here have no idea who I am, and that's okay too.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: But my name is Hunter Rue, and I have had for the past 10 years the privilege of serving as the community group pastor here on staff at Topeka Bible Church.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: That includes overseeing areas of our small group ministry, partnering with our men's ministry, our grief share ministry, and a variety of other tasks as assigned, as happens in any industry, including church work.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we have been here for 10 years, my wife Blair and our four children, and we leave a few weeks from now into a new chapter.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: We are going to be moving to Virginia, where I will be taking on a different role at a different church there, a church that my parents happen to attend, and so we are excited to be with family, close to family, also excited for a new challenge.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also a bittersweet deal because we have been so blessed through our time here in Topeka, specifically at Topeka Bible Church, for the past decade.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And as I prepared for this message, which I knew was going to be the last opportunity I'd have to stand here and share from God's Word with you, I began reflecting on the reality of 10 years.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't care how old you are, but ten years is a long time.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And when I would share with people that we'd been here 10 years, oh wow, it doesn't seem like that long.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's about everybody kind of says that.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess if we really believe the adage that time flies when you're having fun, then that means that it's been great.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because no one believes we've been here that long.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: But that's like a quarter of my life.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's a humongous investment of time and resource and heart energy and spiritual energy serving the Lord.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: We've been really blessed.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: It has been a very rewarding and literally fruitful decade of our lives.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: We showed up here with one child and we leave with four.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: This place has been so good to us.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a place where we have seen God do amazing stuff, changing lives, saving marriages, bringing children, turning people's hearts away from things of the world to things of the Lord.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: It has been such a remarkable blessing.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And Blair, my wife, and I are extremely grateful.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: We will be forever marked by the people of Topeka Bible Church and our experience here.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I am blessed, have been blessed by the leadership of this church, entrusted with the stewardship of ministry, and from time to time entrusted with opportunities like this to stand before the people of God and the body of Christ and proclaim the truth of God to his people.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm so thankful for that.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, this is my last opportunity to do that.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And in preparing what I thought would be appropriate to share, I decided to draw upon ten years of experience, so to speak, and share with you five principles.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I've entitled this Ten Years of Wisdom as Seen Through the Eyes of a Fool.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that fool would be me, a nice lady after the service, said, just remember you're a child of God, and she is right.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes still act like a fool, but so blessed, so grateful.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about ten principles, and I remembered it's Mother's Day.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: People want to go eat, they would not like you at the end of this if you share ten principles, so I'm going to share five.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And this will be different than a Mother's Day message.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: This would be different, really, than any message that I would normally share for obvious reasons.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: I would probably get a D minus in preaching class for sharing this message.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And but that's okay.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, I'm excited and humbled to do this.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And what I really hope is that wherever you are in the spiritual spectrum, because I realize we have a lot of visitors, we have some people here who love Jesus with their whole heart, and some people who have no care for Jesus, and the only reason you're here is because mom made you come.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I get that, but I'm glad you're here because what I want you to know at the foundation of anything I share is the gospel message and the gospel man of Jesus Christ, who is the Savior, and I believe He has you here today to either hear for the first time or hear for the 100th time that He is the Savior of the world.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: He is the divine Son of God.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: He died for your sins and my sins on the cross almost 2,000 years ago.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he did not stay dead, but he was raised to new life in the resurrection.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the hope of the gospel.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: That is why we're here.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: That is why the church exists.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that is why we celebrate and gather together for occasions such as this.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: So wherever you are in that spiritual spectrum, my prayer is that you will hear some of what I share and realize that applies to me, just as I've realized that it applies to me in my life.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to do that, I want to start us off with a word of prayer, and I'll share some lessons, and then you can go have lunch with mom.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: How does that sound?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Does that sound like a plan?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Alrighty.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Father, this is really about you.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about me, it's not about mothers, it's about you.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's about you, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's about what you have shared with me, some lessons that I have been privileged to learn, lessons that we know, but lessons that we all need to hear.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: So please keep our hearts and our minds fixed upon you so that we might take away from this what we need to in order to grow more in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: In His name we pray.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we'll start off with lesson number one, and that is that God's people often need to be reminded more than instructed.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And in case you forgot it, I'll say it again.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: God's people often need to be reminded more than instructed.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times when we come to the Bible, whether that's one-on-one in our personal study of the scriptures, or whether that's in a small group community, or whether that's sitting in a Sunday morning church service, we should expect, and it's healthy to expect that we would receive some new instruction or new information, something we had never heard before or seen before in the Bible.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's appropriate and that's good.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Especially in this day and age where we are constantly bombarded by new information on social media and all the outlets and all the news and everything coming at us.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: We should expect that it's appropriate that this infinite word of God that expresses the infinite mind of God in words that we can understand would still have something new to say to us.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that is fine.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: That is healthy.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: But if that is all we ever do, which is say, God, I just want something new.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I just want something new.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: I want something new.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: What we may be failing to do is to remember something we've already learned or something old.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: In our pursuit of new, our pursuit of new, we want new, we want more, we want new.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: We fail to realize and remember many of the things that God has already taught us and already shown us in the scriptures.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we intentionally forget the old because it's too convicting.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I don't want to do that.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: I know the Bible says that, but I'm not gonna do that now.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Just give me something new.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I understand this, I'm guilty of this as well.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the problem isn't that we need more and more information, even when we come to this book.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's that we need to remember what we've already been taught and what we already know because we forget it and we forget to apply it.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: A ministry uh pastor who I've come in contact with over the years, named Bill Search, says that the average American is educated well past their level of obedience.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think he's right.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the problem is not that we need more information, I think the problem is that we have too much.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that we don't, in humility, apply and remember what we already know to be true, all for the sake of pursuing the new.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's because the old truth is too convicting.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to go there.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna kind of tuck that away in the recesses of my Bible knowledge.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: But whether our forgetfulness of the old is intentional or not, we do well to remember what God has said to us as his people, and he makes it clear in the Bible.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: I came up with a simple list of some of the commandments in the Bible.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Love God, love your neighbor, be generous, be patient, forgive each other, put others first, meditate on the word, proclaim the gospel, pray.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Do not worry, do not fear.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Folks, if you're like me, you've heard these commandments time and time again.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: None of these should really be new.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: But yet, time and time again, I think like me, you also violate these commandments because you forget what God has already said about himself and about who we are in him.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: We have the remarkable ability to forget what we should remember.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And God knows this.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Peter also knew this as he was writing to the group of believers in the first century who are experiencing persecution in their faith.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: In the book of 2 Peter, chapter 1, verses 12 through 15.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he already told them about these different qualities and these different ways to live life righteously with faith.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he says in verse 12, Therefore I always, I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: They knew these things, but they needed to be reminded, just like you and me.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think it is right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Peter was going to die.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was going to die a death that he did not want to die, but Jesus had told him, You are going to die at the hands of others.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so Peter wanted to make sure that he reminded these people, and as long as he was living in his body, then he would remind them of what they already knew to be true.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 15, and I will make every effort so that after my departure.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now on Peter, he's talking about his departure is his death.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're just leaving Topeka.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we're not like planning, you know, we don't have plans, at least not in the next, you know, however many years, to die.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: We're just talking about leaving Topeka, okay?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to read too much into this that, oh my goodness, what's he talking about?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: But Peter is talking about his departure from life.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: After my departure, you may be able at any time to recall these things.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Folks, recently in my quiet times, as I've been spending my own personal time in the Word, I'm in the Psalms.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: The book of Psalms is wonderful.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: And time and time again, as I read a lot of these great psalms, the psalmist is writing to the nation of Israel, not to tell them necessarily something new, well, that's part of it, but always to remind them of what God has done, about how God has been faithful to them as a nation, about how God called their ancestor Abraham into a covenant relationship with himself, and how he does the same for the nation.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because what's amazing if you look at the pages of the Old Testament, that God called his people out of Egypt, out of a land of slavery.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was terrible.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: He brought them through the miraculous work of ten plagues upon the people of Egypt, about two million people, to the foot of the Red Sea.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then they look back and they see Pharaoh's army running down the hill at them, and they look at the water and they go, Oh well, we're dead.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: We might as well go back to Egypt.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't remember just like the day before what God had done to get them out.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it continues, they parch the Red Sea.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: They walk on on dry ground.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Pharaoh's army is drowned.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: The next chapter in Exodus, they're already complaining that they don't have anything to eat.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have anything to eat.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're starving.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Might as well go back, go back to Egypt.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: They had forgotten.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we begin looking at their life, and if you're like me, you're tempted to say, Well, I would never do that.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: I would stand up in the midst of the community of two million and say, Don't you remember what God did?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: No, I wouldn't, and neither would you.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: We'd be right there with the complainers.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: The manna comes, oh, we're bored of this.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: The quail comes, we have too much.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Complain, complain, forget, forget.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible tells us that just as that was true in the land of Israel, the people of Israel, it is true for us in the church today.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: But what we have to do is be reminded just as they did that God was faithful to them and God is faithful to us.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And he wants us to know this so that we might live lives that honor him and reflect him for the world to see.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem is, too often we forget what he's already told us.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to remember and seek him.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now I realize as we conclude lesson one, some of you are saying, I know that.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, good, I have good news for you.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Lesson two is just for you, because it deals with humility.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Lesson number two, humility, and I really believe this because it's true in my life, is one of the most important virtues, if not the most important virtue in the Christian life, and yet one of the least practiced.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Humility is one of the most important virtues in the Christian life, but one of the least practiced.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And this is, I am guilty of this, just ask my wife.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately for us, we do not live in a society where humility is really held up as a true value.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And now, and I let me explain what I mean by that, because we see wonderful acts of sacrifice by service members and by police officers and by firefighters and people putting their lives on the line.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Many people uh jumping in front of dangerous situations to save other people, and that is humility.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that is displayed, I believe, by the fact that we are made in God's image and we have an innate uh yearning to do that kind of stuff.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: But when we really begin to look at kind of the values that undergird our society, and even in the church, we're guilty of this, we see pillars of self-actualization and self-dependence that say you can be whatever you want and you make it happen.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Every graduation speech happening like this weekend, next weekend, it's all about you and you can make it.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: You fulfill your dreams, you, you, you.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's not humility.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Humility says, apart from him, I can't, I'm nothing.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: I need him every day.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, it is far too often the case where even in the church we put humility aside and embrace its equal and opposite vice, which is hubris or excessive pride, excessive uh infatuation with self.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: That is often what we do.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's our default in our fallen humanity.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: But this was not the way of Jesus.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus modeled the way of humility in all that he said, and all that he did, and all that he was about.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Even just the very fact that Jesus was here was an act of humility.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: As we see in the book of Philippians, chapter 2, verses 3 through 8, which is known as the canosis passage from the Greek word kana'o, which means to empty something.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Paul writes in Philippians 2, 3 and following, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others as more significant than yourselves.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as a thing to be grasped.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: What Paul is saying is that Jesus was deserving of all the privileges and all the blessing of being the divine Son of God.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: But he did not consider that as something that he wanted to hold on to.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, verse 7 said, He emptied himself.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Some translations say he made himself nothing, taking on the form of a servant.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: You don't usually empty by taking on.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's like subtraction by addition, it doesn't work.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: But that's what Jesus did.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And in verse 8, being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Folks, that is what Jesus was all about.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that he would leave the privileges of heaven to come to this place should baffle us until we realize it was a choice made out of love and commitment that God had to his fallen creation.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, the all-knowing, all-wise, all-sufficient, King of kings and Lord of Lords, became a humble servant for you and for me.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And he calls us as those that follow after him to do the same.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most remarkable ways that Jesus illustrated this idea of setting aside the divine privilege is in John chapter 13, when he literally set aside his outer garment to kneel before his men and wash their feet.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: That was one of the lowliest jobs that anybody could do in the ancient world.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because, unlike us today, yeah, it's kind of gross to think about washing feet because they're sweaty, you know, take off the shoes and the socks, and yuck.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Back then it was a lot worse because they wore sandals.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: In some cases, they didn't wear any shoes at all.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And they traveled on dirt roads, as did the animals.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you know where there's animals, there's stuff.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they stepped in it.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: And yet here's Jesus washing that off of their feet in the most remarkable act of humility the world has ever seen, which was to be a foretaste for his death on the cross, which was even greater.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what he said to his men in John 13?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I have set an example for you that you are to do to others.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: And what we see is this revolutionary idea where Jesus is redefining what leadership is, he's defining it as servant leadership.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: The late Howard Hendricks, longtime professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, said that this is really the only kind of leadership.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: The only true kind of leadership is servant leadership.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: All other forms of leadership that promote self are false counterfeits of leadership.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus defined it, defined leadership differently and greatness differently.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Greatness, according to Jesus, is found in Mark 10, verses 43 and 45, which, if you were here last week, our lead pastor Jim Congon shared his Route 66 message from the Gospel of Mark.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And these verses were central to that gospel.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: As Jesus says to his disciples, whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus was turning our whole human idea of what greatness was on its head, defining it in terms of humility.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, C.S.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis, the British philosopher and writer and theologian, has written at times that humility is not thinking less of yourself.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Humility is not humiliation.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Humility is not saying, I'm just the worst.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we're sinners, but even that, where's the focus?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's on me.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm the worst.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: I, I, I.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Where you realize my focus has got to be fixed upon Christ.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: My focus has got to be putting others before me.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's humility.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: John Dixon, who's an Australian speaker, teacher, and writer, has defined humility in his book Humilitas by referring to it as the noble choice to forego your status, deploy your resources, and use your influence for the good of others before yourself.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what Jesus did.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And folks, I really believe this is huge.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's vital for the Christian life because if humility is a virtue of heaven, which we can argue that it is, then pride, its equal and opposite vice, is the national religion of hell.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you see, pride says, I deserve this because I worked hard.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Humility ultimately says, I don't deserve anything.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I worked hard, but I don't deserve anything.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: God blessed me anyway, graciously.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Pride says, I am right, and others are wrong.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Humility says, I might be right, but I might also be wrong, and I want to learn from that.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Pride says, I must put my own needs before others in order to survive.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Humility says, I must put Jesus first and others' needs ahead of mine, trusting that the Jesus who says he's good will be good and he will provide.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Pride is what led Satan to fall from heaven.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And since then he's been terrorizing the earth, trying to lead people in his proud ways.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Contrary to that, humility is what led Jesus by choice lovingly to leave heaven, to come to this earth in order to redeem and restore that which was lost, to lead people in his ways of grace and truth.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Amen?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: God wants us to follow the same path.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we get to a fork in the road each and every day.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Will I choose path A, that path of self-dependence and self-importance, or will I choose path B, the way of humble obedience, recognizing my need, my weakness, my absolute dependence upon Christ, in order in humility to put others ahead of myself.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: We can see from Scripture, which is the way that God would have us choose.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, our first two lessons this morning are kind of conceptual.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: These next two lessons will be more practical, allowing us to apply lessons one and two.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: First lesson three is Is that personal study of the Bible is of prime importance in the spiritual life?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Personal study of the Bible is of not secondary, not tertiary, not, oh, where's that Bible?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta go to church.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I left it here last week.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: It is of primary importance in the spiritual life.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: And hey, I'm not trying to beat anybody up.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: I say this to myself just as much as I say it to you.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: If we are not reading this book, we are not growing.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: That is the truth.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: So many people will say, well, I'm just not experiencing God.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully you're listening to his word.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: In the summer of 2007, a large church in the outskirts of the Chicagoland area called Willow Creek Community Church made a surprising discovery.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: They thought, as they have put forth, that they were doing a lot well and that the people of their church were really growing.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're huge, 20, 25,000 people.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: But what they started to realize is that more and more people were leaving their church, and they began to ask them why.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you even served and led in our areas of ministry.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: They said, we just weren't growing.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: We weren't satisfied in our spiritual walk.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, oh my gosh, we have a problem, a crisis.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so they began a three-year series of surveys and interviews along with six other churches, and they really sought people who had left and began to ask them, What was, why, why did you leave?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: What wasn't satisfying to you?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: And uh they came up with this publication called Reveal, Where Are You, and they shared it with other churches so that other churches might learn what they learned.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: And what's fascinating to me is not just the whole study, but what it showed about the importance of the Word of God.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because what they looked at is uh what they call a kind of a spiritual continuum.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: And they said that there are sort of four, you could say five, but really four points along the spiritual continuum where some people are disinterested in Christ.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: They want to have nothing to do with Jesus.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's point A.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Point B is curious about Christ.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're coming to church, maybe they even have a Bible and checking it out.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Then point C is trusting Christ, and then point D is committing their life fully to Christ and serving Him, putting Him first.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: And what's amazing is all of these points along the way, the major catalyst for moving someone from point A to B to C to D was personal study in the Word of God.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Amen?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: That should not surprise us that this book would change lives.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: It has changed my life, and I know that it has changed your life as well.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: This book is unlike any other.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if you read it, you will find the benefits that come.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: If we look at the very beginning of the book of Psalms, Psalm 1, verses 1 through 3, these would be great family memory verse verses.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Writes to us that blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor sit, stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates, not once or twice, but he meditates day and night.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's always on his mind.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: And here are the results.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: In all, in its leaf does not wither, and all that he does, he prospers.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we are not talking about a prosperity gospel that says, if I read my Bible, then God's going to give me money.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: God's going to make me happy and healthy and wealthy.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: That is not what we're talking about in prosperity.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about the prosperity and blessing that comes by seeing life through the lens of Scripture that reminds us of God and who He is and our need for Him and to see ways in which He provides.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't always provide our wants, but He does provide our needs.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: And spiritually speaking, those are the most important needs.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's where we find true blessing and prosperity when we read and meditate on this book.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: The scriptures, folks, are our primary weapon in the spiritual battle.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's why the Word of God is called the sword of the Spirit in Ephesians 6 17.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: What soldier does not go to battle with his sword?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is also the primary vehicle through which God renews our mind and transforms our lives.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Romans 12, 2.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I have to throw a disclaimer out there that simply reading the Bible and studying the Bible does not mean you will not struggle with sin.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, some of you, if you're like me, you read the Bible and have some of your greatest times in the Word of God.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And yet it seems like that sin temptation meter has been amped up even more.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so you say to yourself, what does that mean?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that just means that there is an enemy and an adversary who wants to throw you more into the ways in which he wants you to follow than the Scripture.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: While I cannot guarantee that studying the Bible will give you victory over sin, I can guarantee that not studying this book will definitely guarantee your loss in the battle to sin and your defeat.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: We need to read this book.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: It is the inspired word of God.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul, writing to his young protege Timothy, who was leading a church of his own, wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3, 15 through 17, saying that from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: All Scripture is breathed out by God and is useful and profitable for teaching, reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, with the result that the man or woman of God may be competent in every good work.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not reading, you're not growing.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm not reading, I'm not growing.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you're one of these that's kind of curious still about this whole Jesus thing.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're like, I don't know, I'm not sure I really believe it.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Test this book, folks.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Read it.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe start in the Gospel of John or the book of Proverbs, and you will find more that is true to life in this book than you give it credit for.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: And for those of us that know Christ, we must also allow his word to be implanted into our hearts to change us.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: And when you read it and you meditate on it, you will ultimately be transformed by it.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Each one of us needs to get more into the Word of God so that God's word might get more into us.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Amen?
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Lesson number four.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Another practical lesson.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: The Christian life is not designed to be lived in isolation.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: The Christian life is not designed to be lived in isolation.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: You see, while we need the Bible, that's not all we need.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: The Christian life is not just me and Jesus and this book, and I'm good to go.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because I am blind to my ways and my weaknesses.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you and I ultimately need other people in our lives to call us to something greater together.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Biblical community together.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: In order for us to live the life that God wants us to live and find success in that life, we need other people around us.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is true from the very beginning of the pages of Scripture.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: We see that man and woman are made in the image of God, the Imago Dei, which means that just as Father, Son, Holy Spirit exist as God in constant relationship with one another, so we have been created in his image to need relationship with other people.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, what society and what the enemy have done is that they have made relationship an idol and put it up on a pedestal so that we make the relationship their main thing rather than Christ who uses relationship for us.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: That means boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, a child.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Those things are never meant to be the ultimate thing.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: And in the same way, in the body of Christ, Jesus wants us to have a healthy perspective on relationships, which is to realize our need for them and our desire to pursue them along with Christ together.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I can say over the years, as my wife and I have been involved in small group communities together and have had friends that we meet with one-on-one, that we are better in Christ together than we are by ourselves.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: The church that we used to attend in Dallas had a tagline that real life change to the glory of God only happens in the context of biblical community.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't just mean gathering like this several hundred on a Sunday morning.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: That means gathering in a smaller group of some kind, or maybe a Sunday school class of some kind where you can know others and they can know you and share life together.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: This may come as a surprise to you because after all, in this age of social media, Facebook, and the technology we have to pick up our phone and I can call my sister in England and talk to her face to face.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: We may feel like we're more connected than ever.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: When in actuality, we are more disconnected than ever because we use that as a fake substitute for the real thing.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sociologists call this crowded isolation.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: The modern-day philosopher Taylor Swift calls it standing alone in a crowded room.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Not particularly a fan, but that's good theology.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: But this is a phenomenon even in the church.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it must not be so.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: We cannot pursue Christ in isolation and be fully successful.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: God's word tells us over and over throughout its pages.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: The book of Proverbs, probably most clearly.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 12, 15, the way of the fool is right in his own eyes.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: But a wise man listens to advice.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: How has that been for you?
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Major decision.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Just kind of do what I think is best.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: Versus counseling with others, allowing others to speak truth into your life.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 15, 22.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisors, they succeed.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: I love Proverbs 18.1.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: He who isolates himself seeks his own desire.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that true?
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like when you and I want to do what we want to do, we go off by ourselves.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem is he breaks out against all sound judgment.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: From the beginning of the Bible, God says it is not good for man to be alone.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Through the nation of Israel, we see the covenant community needed each other, and through the history of the church and your life and mine.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: We see that God wants us to live the Christian life in the context of others.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: My wife and I have been privileged to gather with our small group over the years.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: We have been sharpened as a husband and a wife, as parents, as Christians, through the support and encouragement of our friends.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: And when you look at the Bible, what's interesting is that even Jesus needed others in his life.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: I can remember one of the first weeks I was on the job here, overseeing the small group ministry of this church.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: I sat in a Sunday school class in the corner of that part of the building, and a very intelligent but kind of a stern gentleman, don't worry, it's none of you, he looked at me and he said, Give me a biblical proof for the need for small groups.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let's jump in.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, in that moment, the Spirit gave me a thought, the Lord gave me words, and I said, uh, Jesus.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is that proof.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus needed a small group.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus needed men around him.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: He called them his disciples.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: He needed them, especially in his greatest moments of agony, to pray for him, to support him.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: I said, if Jesus needed a small group and a group of friends around him, folks, then so do you and so do I.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: We need to engage with others.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not doing that right now, call the church office.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I know I'm leaving, but we have a team of people that we will do what we can to help you find and connect with others in a small group community.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Whether that's a small group, whether that's an if table this summer, whether that's a one-on-one conversation with a friend over coffee about how you're doing spiritually, whether that's a Sunday school class here on a Sunday morning, we must engage this Christian life together.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: An African proverb says, if you want to go fast, go alone.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want to go far, go together.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's lesson number four.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the practical side, we had kind of conceptual and then practical, and now the final lesson, the fifth lesson, this is more on the personal side.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've saved it for last.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is the principle I'd like to share with you finally before we really say goodbye.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that is that the people of Topeka Bible Church are precious to God, and they are also very precious to us.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: And folks, this principle is difficult not because I don't understand it, but because I understand it too well.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: My wife, my children, and I have been so significantly blessed through each of you and through our involvement here in this church family.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: But the truth is we knew this lesson before we even set foot in Topeka.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'll share with you a story.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's worth it.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: A little over ten and a half years ago, I was sending my resume out to different churches and happened to send it off to a part of the country I'd kind of heard of.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Kansas.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: And a place called Topeka, which means something about land growing potatoes, or I don't even know.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: You guys don't even know.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sent my resume to this guy named Jim Congdon.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: And oh, a few days later, we returned from running some errands in Dallas, returned to our apartment, and on our voice machine, on our answering machine, was a message that went something like this.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, Blair and Hunter, Jim Congden, Topeka Bible Church.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, got your resume.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Love to see ya.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: You can imagine Jim's actually down in Dallas right now.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait till he hears this.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: He said he wanted to meet with us.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: He was going to be in Dallas because their son Doug was starting seminary when I was starting my final year.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: We said, sure, great.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we had him to our apartment and he walked in carrying a bucket of KFC under one arm, and we shared that chicken.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Our daughter, she was about a month old.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: We sat there, we talked.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: Jim sat on our couch with his feet up on our coffee table in his Birkenstock sandals.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, okay, that same coffee table is for sale starting Thursday at a garage sale.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: 2516 Southwest Leguido Court.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: Come and get it.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: For some, this coffee table is a piece of history.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: My wife says it's a piece of something else, so you're gonna get a great deal, okay?
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: Come by.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: But there he was.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: He made himself at home.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: Jim was talking to us, and he said something that I'll never forget.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: He said that, because at that time he was coming on uh 30 years of being here at Topeka Bible Church.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, over the years, people have said to him, Jim, you could minister here, serve here, teach here, travel here.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: But you're in Topeka, Kansas after three decades.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: Soon to be four.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Jim, why?
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he looked at us, I'll always remember this.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I just tell them I have grown to love the people.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that struck me as profound.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I now know, and I have known for some time, exactly what he means.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: When I first came on staff here, a friend told me, You will be blessed more by the people of Topeka Bible Church than you bless them.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was right.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think about how God has used you to mark our lives in a way that we will take with us as we move to Virginia.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: We will always remember the ways in which you have invited us to be a part of life and share life with you.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think about what the Apostle Paul writes in Philippians at the beginning of the book, verse 3, when he says, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine, for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the very first day until now.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I know, and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: Folks, as Blair and I look back on our ten years of life and ministry here, we will always remember how grateful we are to the people of this church.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: You guys are the best.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is a special family of faith.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: I want to clarify for some people that because they've said this, as they've learned about where we're moving to and how my parents now live there, and Blair's family is not far from where we'll be.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: They said, Oh, you must be excited to go back home.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't have in the moment to correct them.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I just want to say that this has been our home.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: Ten years in one place grows on you.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: We will be closer to biological family in Virginia, but you have been more than family to us.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: You have walked through life with us, and you've given us the privilege of walking through life with you.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: As I just recount all the many ways.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've celebrated with us as we've had children.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: We've celebrated with you as you've had children of your own.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: You celebrated with us as I was able to baptize two of those children, as I've been able to celebrate and in some cases even baptize your own children.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: You you've allowed me, my wife, the privilege to serve some of your children through Iwana.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: I've been able to have the privilege to perform weddings for some of your children and seeing them have children of their own and to see them grow.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: We've also walked through difficulties with each other, loss, tears, hard times.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: When I think about what I refer to as family, folks, that's what I think about.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's why you all have been more than family to us.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we leave being changed because of you.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I have been shaped as a leader, as a pastor, as a husband, as a father, as a friend, as a follower of Christ because of you.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: The constant ways in which you have blessed us through your thoughtfulness, your encouragement, your generosity, and your love is something that we will not forget.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: We are extremely grateful.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: As I conclude, I was asked by one of the pastors that I'll serve alongside with in Virginia what's one of the most difficult things about leaving Topeka?
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought about what I'd miss, and I could have said the gorgeous sunsets in the West.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: I could have said the constant road construction and detours.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: That for some reason, Southwest Topeka is a birthing uh place for roundabouts, and they're just always re-I I could have said, and I'm I'm really bitter about this, we are literally gonna miss the freestanding Chick-fil-A on Wanamaker.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: I I just, why God?
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not yet.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: But when I thought sincerely about his question and my answer, it was easy.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: The hardest part of leaving Topeka is leaving the people.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we love you, and we always will.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, in conclusion, remember, number one, God's people often need to be reminded more than instructed.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, humility is one of the most important virtues in the Christian life, but one of the least practiced.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, personal study of the Bible is of primary importance in the spiritual life.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: Number four, the Christian life is not designed to be lived in isolation.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: We need each other.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then, fifth and finally, the people of Topeka Bible Church are precious to God and precious to us as well.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, there's so much more that goes in on my heart and my mind when I think about how special the folks of this church are and how they have loved me, they have loved us.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: God, I'm so grateful and excited to hear how you will continue to work in and through the lives of these people.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: The good work that you began in them will continue.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so thankful that to know that I'll get to hear about that good work from a distance, but that one day we'll all get together in the kingdom and celebrate that good work together, all that you've done, so that you might receive praise and honor and glory.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for the privilege of being here this morning and for the privilege to share.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: In Christ's name.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: Happy Mother's Day.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy lunch.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: You're dismissed.