1 Timothy lesson 11 continued
1 Timothy · Miles Driedger · Sep 29, 2024
1 Timothy, No. 33
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261936436037

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So we are on lesson 11 um first timothy 2 verses 7 and 8 And we just got into question 1 at the end of uh at the end of the Lesson last week. So we were talking about question 1 what define what a preacher is I guess that's an imperative not a question.

So yeah um So we talked about that a little bit. We said that there are only three times that the word preacher, this Greek word for preacher, is used in the New Testament. Twice of Paul and once of Noah, actually, which is kind of interesting. Noah was a preacher of righteousness. I actually get to talk about Noah here at 10.30, the main service here. They asked me to share something about our visit to the Ark Encounter, so I'm going to do that, and I'm going to talk about gospel as well, because of the parallels that we see between the flood and the gospel message, that one way of salvation, that our salvation is secure because God provides it, not us. So anyway, Noah was a preacher of righteousness.

And then we talked about the fact that the word for preaching actually appears quite a bit. So the verb that's related to the word preacher shows up a lot. And we said that I'm not sure exactly how far we got there. I think I mentioned that Jesus and John the Baptist both were preaching. But I wanted to ask the question, what were they preaching? What was Jesus preaching in his earthly ministry?

In the kingdom. Yes, that's it Yeah, exactly right. Cheryl. Yeah, jesus and john the baptist were preaching the gospel of the kingdom, right? um and so Uh that that word preaching was applied to that that gospel, which is not the gospel that paul was preaching Um, so what about the church? Um, what what is preached? in the church Actually, if you look at acts 8 verses 4 and 5 um you see, uh A good example here of the word preaching. Acts 8 verses 4 and 5. You actually see two words here. There's actually a synonym to the word for preaching, which is keruso. Keruso is the word for preaching that's related to our word for preacher, kerux. So you have keruso and you have euangelizo.

And so in verse four you have, therefore those who had been scattered, this is in that when persecution broke out against the church. right after Stephen's stoning. Therefore those who had been scattered went about preaching the word. That's actually euangelizo, that's not our word here. And then it says in verse 5, Philip went down to the city of Samaria and began proclaiming Christ to them. And that is the word heruso. So we could ask the question, were Philip and those other scattered Christians preaching to believers or unbelievers? Clearly, in this context, it's unbelievers.

So this actually isn't a Sunday morning sermon referred to as preaching. This is evangelism. And they were proclaiming Christ, specifically. And in fact, if you flip over a chapter to Acts 9, verse 20, you'll see that Paul, right after his conversion, he became a preacher of Christ.

It says, and immediately he began to proclaim, and again, that's our word, eruso, related to our word here, preacher, and he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogue, saying, He is the Son of God. And we talked a little bit last week about the fact that a kerux, a preacher, is a herald. Someone sent out by a... by an emperor or a king, a ruler of some kind, someone in authority, sent out with a message. We could use the word herald. And so we see that the message that is heralded by Paul and others is Christ Jesus.

And in 1 Corinthians 1.23, Paul says, but we preach Christ crucified. And that is the key, that is the heart of the preaching that exists in the church. The preaching is Christ, not the gospel of the kingdom, despite what many churches are preaching. The message that's proclaimed is Christ and Christ crucified. So, a couple of questions. Is preaching Christ always good news? It's a trick question, but I want you to think about it. Is preaching Christ always good news? Yes.

Okay, who was that? I didn't see him mouth moving. Mike? Okay, Mike says yes, and he knows? Because all things work together for good. We may not see it as good news at the time, but God works it out. For sure. Okay, awesome. Yep. Turn over to Acts 10 verse 42. We're just making our way through Acts here. Look at Acts 10 42. This is actually Peter now. And Peter is preaching to Cornelius. So we have our same word. Okay, Russo, preach. And it's going to go there as well.

Does someone want to read verse 42? And he ordered us to preach to the people and solemnly to testify that this is the one who has been appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. Okay, so Is that good news if you're not saved? If you're rejecting the gospel? That sounds like bad news, right? That Christ is appointed judge of the living and the dead. But if we continue on, why don't you read verse 43 there now, Mike?

Oh, okay. Yeah, can you do 43 as well? Of Him, all the prophets bear witness that through His name, everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins. Ah, there we go. Now that's good news, isn't it? Right? So, we could say that in a sense, preaching Christ is both good news and bad news. Now it's good news to anyone who will receive it.

But to anyone who will reject it, it's the message that you stand judged. Right? I think of 2 Corinthians 2, 14 through 16, that Christ is the fragrance of death to some, right? And to others, he is the fragrance of life. So, um, the resurrected seated Christ spells death to those who are perishing and life only to those who receive him by faith. But you're right.

I mean, obviously the good news is, is, um, for everyone who will receive it. Right. So that's why I say a bit of a trick question. It's always good news, but that's something you hear me. Yeah, I can hear you now, sir. Yeah. Go ahead. Truth. Truth comes in, uh, in different forms in the sense that the way a person perceives it, right? So truth can't hurt. Yeah. And I think that's the case that the truth of your situation doesn't feel good. It may feel like bad news, but the thing that a proclaimer or a herald has on their side is truth. Yeah.

And it does hurt to hear that. And it hurt to all of us, right? At some point, it was like, you had to take a minute and recognize who you are and what you're capable of as a sinful human. So truth is, it divides in the sense of the mind, and it penetrates joint and marrow, and so, yeah, there's that two sides of the coin analogy with mind. For sure. Yeah, that's good, JD. Mike, you got a comment? It parallels kind of what we're going to talk about later this morning, but One of the huge pitfalls in Christianity in 2024 is what I call a subjective gospel.

People won't read God's Word and take it for what it is. They filter it to the point that they say, well, what it means to me is more important than what it really says. And so, we live in a society, a Christian society, in which that, in fact, is their overriding principle in most environments, that what it means to me is more important than what God's Word really says. And so you have a lot of, you know, exegetical teachers and people who search out the Word just to see, well, what does God say? And obviously, God's Word is always going to be offensive to the old man, because it doesn't give any room for him. But it's going to be encouraging for the new man in Christ. So that's really what the Word means to me, is really the foundation of what Reformed theology is all about.

You know, it's how I feel about it and it's way more important than what it says. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, most of what goes on in the Church today is based on feelings, you know, subjectivism, rather than the Word of God. I'm going to talk about that this morning as well, as we talk about the Flood. Why does it matter that the Flood be a literal, historical event? Because the Word of God matters, you know? Well, you can see that here, where Paul is really putting an emphasis on objective truth. Yeah, he is. You know, he sort of just lays it out and says, well, here's what it is. And, you know, I'm not lying. The truth is in Christ. I'm emphasizing that telling the truth is the most important thing. And my truth is open for inspection. Help yourself.

You don't get to interpret it based on how you feel about it. And I think that is one of the things about teachers, in this case. We love by telling people the truth. And that truth can be pretty divisive to a person. And to your point, like, any old man, that's offensive. That is love, from a believer's standpoint, from what Paul said. What's scary about the truth here, you know, it's the truth about salvation.

You're going to go to hell with your own opinion. So I'm really doing you a favor by telling you the truth. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. No, I think that's so true. I mean, as much as we are to love the unbeliever, because God does, you know, I mean, we'll talk about that a little later here, maybe, but At the same time, it's not loving to avoid telling them the bad news truths, you know, of their situation. They have to come to grips with that in order to accept the good news that is offered to them, right? Yeah, for sure.

That is translated, truthing in love. You remember? Say that again. Truthing in love. Yeah, that'd be the... Yeah, that's... I can't remember the reference here, but... the phrase that's speaking the truth in love, and you can probably translate it as truthing in love because it's a participle. I'd have to look up the reference. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's right. Yes, that's absolutely it. Right.

I mean, and it's crazy because no matter I mean, Paul, I mean, I'm, you know, working through Romans 9 and Paul's love for unbelieving Israel. I mean, that was an intense love for the unbeliever. And because of that love, he was willing to tell him the truth, the hard truth. And it often got him in pretty big trouble, right? He was not well appreciated, typically, by the Jewish.

One last thing about The Word of God is that there has to be a source of absolute truth. And that's God's Word. And we live in a world today that the mindset is, is what I think the truth is, is what it really is. And so therefore, you know, you got six billion people with six billion different attitudes and opinions and feelings and emotions. And that would really get to the truth because none of them have it. Yeah, that's right. Absolutely right.

And you know, when we talk about this word creature, here, like we said, the idea is a herald. Someone sent out with a message that's really not their own message, is it? They're sent on behalf of the sender. And it's very parallel to the word apostle. I think these are roughly synonymous. And we'll talk about that next. But they're sent with a message that's not their own.

And you cannot distort the message that you've been given. You know, that's the whole idea with an apostle and a herald. You come with orders, right? You military guys understand that, right? You do not deviate from your orders or the message that you're given to deliver.

So, why don't we look at question number two. Define the word apostle. So, we're pretty familiar with this word because every time we start one of Paul's letters, we get to talk about apostolos, right? So any comments on that? Can I just add one thought to the last question? Oh, yeah, for sure. We're not.

Ephesians 4.15. That's the reference that we were talking about. Sorry, say that one more time.

Ephesians 4.15.

Ephesians 4.15, thanks. I'm going to choose that one. There we go. So it's not just a matter of let's just love each other and set truth aside. It's love happens in the context of truth. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, that's right. No, that's good. That's good.

Because I think so much I've been reading Tri-S number three, and Miles is talking about body life and the whole idea that we're just going to kind of come together and share openly with one another and that whole thing. That's still going on in a church, right? Is that we're just going to share my truth and you share your truth and you tell me how you feel and I'll tell you how I feel. And you just devolve into this maddening chaos, you know?

There's no truth. There's no meaning. And if we're not speaking the truth in love, that's where we end up, right? There would be no need for an apostle if there was no truth. So true. Yeah. Except that you could be an apostle to your own feelings, right? I mean, I'm sending myself out into this prayer meeting here to tell you how I feel about things. But you're right. There would be no apostleship. There'd be no one sent to teach the Word of God. Yeah. No, I'm just kidding.

So Apostolos, like I said, we're pretty familiar with it. It's actually fairly similar in the meaning to Keroux, except perhaps that the Herald has specifically a message that Apostolos, an apostle, is sent on a mission, we could say, perhaps. But I think in this case, they are very, very similar. We could say that it has the same idea as an ambassador or an envoy. you know, we kind of get that concept, right?

You represent your country, you know, in a foreign place, which is very true for us as citizens of heaven. You know, we represent the throne in this world. That's how Theophilus Sparks always refers to it as the throne, which, you know, Christ's seating in heavenly places says we represent the throne. And that's true. We're Christ's body. We're here on his behalf for his purposes.

So Zodiatis made the following comment about the word preacher and apostle used together. He says, when both designations are used, Teruk's preacher designates the herald according to his commission and work as a proclaimer, while Apostolos, apostle, indicates more his relationship to the one who sent him.

So that's interesting. I thought that was valuable. So you have a relationship to the one who sent you, you are his apostle. And that, you know, I don't know exactly where he gets that from, but I think it's valid in terms of our, um, our relationship to, um, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are, um, we are here as, as his ambassadors. Now, um, we should probably talk about that question a little bit. What do we have? Um, uh, I kind of deal with it in, yeah, okay.

I have the question here, are you and I apostles? Because as we get talking here and I kind of start talking about us representing Christ in this world and so forth, and we're talking about the word apostle, I think we've got to be a little bit careful about that and how we use that word, right? So Paul was an apostle sent by Jesus Christ, but who made Paul an apostle? How did Paul's apostleship come about?

You look at Galatians 1, 15 through 17 is a great place where he talks about this. Of course, in verse 1, or the first day of his greeting in Galatians as well, he says, not sent from men, nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ. And then a little further down, he's kind of talking about this a little more. And in Galatians 1, 15 through 17, he says, but when God, who has set me apart even from my mother's womb, and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me, so that I might preach. Now that's our synonym word, euangelizo. Uh to that I might preach him among the gentiles.

I did not immediately console with flesh and blood Nor did I go up to jerusalem to those who were apostles before me But I went away to arabia and returned once more to damascus So this is actually if you think about the grammar there what he says he says those who were apostles before me that implies two things um, he is now an apostle on the basis of of that encounter with jesus christ, um But there were others who were apostles before him, right? So it implies not. If you were an apostle and you were an apostle before me, right, that implies I am now an apostle and you were before me, right? So there's two different categories of apostles that Paul talks about here, and we see him make reference to that in 2 Corinthians 11 5 where he says for I consider myself not in the least inferior to the most eminent apostles or super apostles so he did recognize there's a distinction between the twelve and himself and yet he did not consider himself in any way inferior to them but back to the main point who who made Paul an apostle who who sent him on this mission I think he had to be appointed directly face-to-face with Christ himself to be an apostle. He couldn't get voted in. He had to call you and tell you personally. It's interesting to think about Paul in this situation because there were those that went before him, but they only knew so much.

And they were face-to-face on the earth with Paul, right? So, declared an apostle, not just a proclaimer, or a preacher, a teacher. They were face-to-face with him, they learned from him, and they proclaimed those messages that they witnessed. And then you have Paul, who spent time with the Lord Jesus in Arabia, and learned a lot more. Yet, he still remains humble in the sense of, you know, there are those that came before me, but this is the latest message from the Lord Jesus that I got face-to-face, right?

Yeah. Yeah. After the most work of the cross. After. Yeah. Christ in the glory. Right. On the resurrected side of the cross. Resurrected Christ, yeah. Actually, even further than that, the seated glorified Jesus Christ. Because the Twelve saw Jesus after his resurrection, but only Paul saw Jesus glorified at the Father's right hand.

So Paul was sent as an apostle of the glorified Christ. And the other 12 were apostles before him, yes, and eminent apostles, yes. But Paul was the one who was an apostle of the, how can we say it, the glorious reality of the body of Christ, the church, what the church is. That was Paul's apostleship.

You say it a lot, Miles. A union. He was supposed to face the Lord with regards to what a new man was in the union with Christ. Yeah, that's right. That's really good. He was also the only one that was sent to the Gentile world. Not that the others weren't to be involved with, but his specific focus was Gentiles, even though he had this great love for the Jews. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Because even as he says there in that Romans 9-11 section where he talks about his great love for the Jews, he also refers to the fact that How is the church related to Israel and so forth?

Well, it has to do with the fullness of the Gentiles coming in. So it really does have to do, that's why his ministry was to the Gentiles in large part, because it's related to his plan with Israel in that when the church is complete, he will resume that plan and purpose with Israel. So back to the question now, are you and I apostles? Now that we've kind of dealt with that, how Paul received his apostleship, how the Twelve received their apostleship face-to-face with Christ, would we say that we are apostles? I think we're ambassadors, but I don't think we're apostles.

Okay. Good. Good. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's a similarity, but we have to be very careful about the distinction as well. For sure. Like we say, we are ambassadors. We represent the throne before this world. You know, Christ living through us, you know, manifests himself to this world and to the body. But we're not apostles in the same sense.

As a quick side note, there's a couple of oddball references in the New Testament. You might know that in Acts 13 and 14, Barnabas gets to be called an apostle a couple of times. So what's going on there? Why are Paul and Barnabas both referred to as apostles, plural?

This is my take on that. I think if you look back to Acts 13, verse 3, we see that the believers in Antioch laid hands on Paul and Barnabas. And that was a visible gesture or a symbolic gesture that they were identifying themselves with Paul and Barnabas.

Same as we have the expression of laying hands on an elder. later on, but these men were sent out on behalf of the church at Antioch. I personally think they were the apostles of the church at Antioch in terms of their missionary endeavor. Paul, of course, was an apostle directly of Jesus Christ, but Barnabas, I think, perhaps his apostleship was being sent out on a mission by the local church at Antioch. So, that could be, but we don't see anyone referred to as an apostle until after that, sending out on behalf of the church at Antioch.

And that would make sense, in that when a local body sends out a missionary, they send him out as their representative on their behalf. He's not a lone wolf, right? is actually there as an extension of a local body and that goes back to a couple things Mike you and I were talking about in terms of is all ministry rooted in a local body of believers and And I think that it ought to be. So I'm not entirely sure whether that's why Barnabas gets to be called an apostle there. We see one other place where James is referred to as an apostle, the half-brother of Jesus.

So probably a little bit of work to do there in regards to that. But I just wanted to touch on that because we do see the term apostle applied to a couple of other people. And so just something to think about. No, he's not. Apostles today. So sorry, go ahead. What was that? So he's there. Apostles today.

And if not, why not? Not in the sense, certainly not in the sense that Paul was or or the 12, because they were they were those who were who saw Christ face to face, were sent out by by him. And that was particularly related to the founding and establishment of the church. They spoke on behalf of Jesus Christ, and as such, they were writers of scripture as the New Testament was still being written.

We can't do that, you know. If we had the same commissioning as they did to reveal new truth, which is a prophetic gift, right? The prophet speaks as the mouthpiece of God, right? And that's one of the things that these apostles were doing in this ministry. They were actually speaking, and that really is what a herald is. You're just the mouthpiece for the sender. And that's what they were really doing.

So that's why I think no, there are not apostles in the church today. I've not been involved in a church that claims apostleship for believers today, but I have, you know, heard of a few. So I know it's out there, but let's talk about any other thoughts on apostle and preacher and apostle. We've kind of, we've given it a pretty thorough treatment, I think. Only one thing that we could talk to that question would be 1 Corinthians 9 where Paul says in defense of his apostleship, have I not seen the Lord Jesus? Yeah. And I think that having a relationship with him in the church age is not equivalent to having seen him in the military. Yeah.

Yeah, let me test them because it is completed the breath Apostles need new revelation in order to replace there's more truth. There would have to be more there would have to be more revelation, right? Yeah, there is not we have to fool. We have the holy word of God, right?

Yeah You look at the number of times that Paul relates the the event or the account of his seeing the risen Lord Jesus Christ. Why is it repeated? Because we need to realize how important that is that Paul would face-to-face with the Lord Jesus Christ and receive his revelation directly from Christ because his message is so critical. If we don't realize and understand that he received that directly from Jesus, then we're way off track.

And like one, sorry, I missed that. It was a bad joke. Sorry, the audio's terrible. Yeah, he's got the real deep, deep thoughts. That's some special revelation going on. Yeah, because otherwise just commenting on Paul's apostleship and how significant it was, I mean if you don't understand what Paul's apostleship was, where it originated, you'll come off like the guy who was talking to me recently who said, I don't get why Paul was so arrogant. That was his opinion of Paul, that Paul was just a proud guy, that he was so singularly, anything but. Because though he says, I could have become very proud because of the exceeding greatness of the revelation that he received, but the Lord actually gave him a thorn in the flesh to keep him from exalting himself. Um, so, so the revelation given him was, um, monumental. Um, but, uh, but it wasn't from Paul, you know, Paul wasn't anything special.

Right. Um, so anyhow, um, I told Mike we were going to get done less than 11 today. He didn't believe me. Uh, well, we'll, uh, That's okay. Someone's just going to have to pick up for me because I have to teach Philippians next week, but we've got a few minutes left. We're not done yet. So, um, and we touched on this a little bit, but question three or yeah, it says comments on the words.

I speak the truth in Christ. I lie not. So now apparently the words there in Christ are probably not in the Greek, but that's doesn't really matter that much. I mean, uh, He uses a very similar expression in Romans chapter nine. He says, I'm speaking the truth in Christ and there the words are the words in Christ are there. So it's probable that somebody just carried over that phrase in Christ and inserted it here.

Um, either way, Paul is always operating in Christ. So, um, so yeah. This was touched on a little bit earlier, but Paul's speaking the truth, not lying. We could roll this into question four as well. Why does Paul emphasize he is telling the truth? Let's just talk about that a little bit here.

Of course, it's related to the fact that he's an ambassador. He's an apostle, I should say, an apostle and and a herald of God's word. This really isn't Paul's message. He'd better be speaking the truth, because he's sent as one with orders. This is a message not from him, but from God.

It is an interesting thing to look at how many times Paul has to say this, you know, speaking the truth, I'm not lying. Do you think maybe Paul was accused of lying now and then? Look at his message, they would have to have accused him of lying because it didn't make any sense.

Yeah. You know, the secrets that were revealed to him and that he was preaching Well, we're so different. They were a mystery, obviously. And he's laying out the mystery. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, something not previously revealed. Right. And so it came off to people as as nonsense, really, you know, a stumbling block, a stumbling block and foolishness is what Christ preached sounds like to the unbelieving. Right. And and so he has to say, I mean, I'm not lying. This is this is the truth. For sure. Yeah.

And also because everywhere Paul went, you know, people were questioning his apostleship. They were questioning whether he really saw Christ, whether he really received this message from Christ. And so he was adamant about the truthfulness of it, for sure. Well, and that was the whole opposition from the Judaizers towards him.

His method was he'd go into a town. If there was a synagogue there, he'd go there. Because he was a Pharisee, he could get the platform and he could teach. And he would, you know, start to teach and there were believers, there were Jews there that would believe him. And their eyes of their understanding would be open. But there are others who not only rejected the message, but vehemently so. And were, you know, aggressively against him. And then there was this group of people that followed him around from town to town to try to, you know, silence him. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. Well, it's a couple interesting thoughts there.

One, the Lord chose a guy who had the credentials to get himself into any, any synagogue in in the Roman Empire, right? You know, that guy was trained under Gamaliel, he could walk in and say, Hey, you know, you want to hear from a real rabbi, you know, I've got the I got the ID card, you know, and so he could go in and he could preach. What he didn't have was that selfie with the Lord Jesus.

I think there's another interesting thing here that the whole method of communication is verbal. And that's the way it was then, and continued for a long time. And so the spoken word was really important, and Paul being trained like he was, especially from a Jew, if he was challenged, he could show from his knowledge of the Old Testament why what he was saying now was true and how it was prophesied. The whole issue with the Jews, it's only one issue, is Jesus Christ. That's the whole issue. That is it. That is it. Yeah. Paul had the credentials.

Actually, if you think about it as well, not only was he a Pharisee, but he was the greatest persecutor of the church in his time. And so, you know, it's kind of like the fellow I heard talk who leads a kind of a prison ministry. He was at one time Canada's most wanted criminal. It gives him a lot of credibility with the inmates, right? Because he's been there. He's been that guy. He became a believer in prison. Supposed to be a life sentence, but he got out because his life was so radically changed.

And Paul, in the same way, he could go to these Jews and he could say, look, I know exactly what you're thinking. I've been there. I hated the church. I tried to kill it. I tried to snuff it out. But I'm here to tell you about the church. It is an amazing individual that God used. He very carefully, I think, curated the events of Paul's life so that he would be kind of that vessel that was selected for this task. And kind of like Paul says there, chosen from my mother's womb. It's like, wow, Lord, you let me grow up in Judaism, become a Pharisee, become a you know, bloodthirsty, uh, persecutor of the church and then meet Christ and then be sent as the apostle. It's just an amazing thing.

So we won't get into verse eight today. That's probably okay. Cause it, it kind of, um, it, it, it changes, uh, well, he moves to giving instruction for ordering in the church. Right. So we're going to find out about, um, men in every place, lifting up hands and, and so forth, um, in prayer. And, but we did kind of, I kind of want to, note here that Paul is establishing his authority as an apostle before he gives direction to how the church ought to be functioning in the local assembly.

So tomorrow, or sorry, next week, next time, when I'm not here, you guys will get to discuss the issues of I don't know, evangelical feminism and whether women have a place of authority in the church or so forth. But I'm sad to miss out on that. But it'll be good. I'll move into verse eight next time.

And what's Paul talking about there was men in every place praying, lifting up hands. And don't forget, that it's tied back to the verses at the beginning of chapter two, where Paul urges that in treaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgiving be made on behalf of all men. This is related to that, which is related to the fact that the Lord desires all men to be saved. So anyhow, we better close in prayer. Great, great discussions, guys.

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for what you have done through your servant, Paul. We thank you that his words, which are your words, still speak today. We thank you that your word is authoritative and true. We thank you that we can be at rest in your revealed word, knowing that these things are unchanging. and unchangeable. And Lord, we just... pray that we would more and more understand and value the realities that you sent Paul to reveal to the church, that of our union with Christ, our identification with him and his death, resurrection, and seating in the heavenly places, and that we would, though not apostles, We would recognize our being in this world as representatives, ambassadors of your son, Jesus Christ, and that he desires to live out through us his life so as to make himself known and glorified even today. And we just thank you for these things in Jesus name. Amen.