I Know Whom I Have Believed

We are in lesson four. And I think, I quickly was trying to listen to where we got. I think we got through question six last week. And we're in question seven. So we are in Second Timothy, let me get back up there. and verses 10 and 12, but again, I always think it's good because many times we parse this into the minutest little details and look for words, and we forget what the whole passage is about. So I like to go back and just kind of get the whole passage together, how it all fits together before we dice it up into words and little sections. So I'll read 2 Timothy, excuse me, 2 Timothy 1, 8 through 12.

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me, his prisoner, but join me in the suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity. has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher. For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed, for I know whom I am believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.

So again, a great passage. And just a reminder that this is Paul's last epistle before he was martyred. This is the last epistle that he's giving to Timothy and the personal aspects of it. Again, just the encouragement that he's trying to give to Timothy and just saying, again, we went through about he's not ashamed of the gospel and the hope that he was proclaiming in question six. It was kind of a combination of both. He's not ashamed of his faith nor of the hope, the things that he told was going to happen. So we get down now to, let me get back down there, to question seven.

So why wouldn't Paul be ashamed of the gospel? So in verse 11, for which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher. For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed. So why wouldn't Paul be ashamed of the gospel? Why wouldn't he be ashamed? Would you be ashamed? Why wouldn't you be ashamed? Why wouldn't Paul ashamed? Stunned silence. You're all ashamed. Come on now. Hi. Oh, yeah. Hi.

I always like Romans 1, 16. I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile, and then for in the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith. So the gospel is just everything to him. I mean, he just lives it, breathes it, There's nothing more important than the gospel, teaching and living God's word. So you looked at my notes.

Romans 1.16. That's exactly it. He wrote, the question is, has Paul stated the same thing, not ashamed, in other of his epistles?

And in Romans 1.16, which Ingrid just read, For he's not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek He's not ashamed of that. He's not absolutely ashamed to remember. He's about ready to be martyred So is he ashamed? Not at all. He's willing to die for it. And he knows that his death and his martyrdom, he's going to be martyred in a very short period of time. And he's still not backing down.

Because he knows in Romans 1.16, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. That's what he's not ashamed of, because he knows what the power of it is. So he's not ashamed. And by translation, we shouldn't be ashamed of that. We shouldn't shy away from the gospel and letting people know about it. And the hope, as we in the previous question, faith and hope, the hope we have in the gospel.

You know, I think there's a, you know, I just referred to all these songs. I think it's a Big Daddy Weave song. That heaven changed everything. When you realize heaven and where we're going, does that change your thought? You know, the hope that's ahead of us? And we're going to be in heaven. We're going to be face to face with Christ. That's the hope that we have. We're not ashamed of that. Paul is saying the same thing here. Heaven changed everything. When we realize where we're going, that changes everything. That changes how we should react, how we should live. We have that full promise of being in heaven, being the bride of Christ. And we should never be ashamed of that. Never be ashamed of that. Never doubt that. But never be ashamed of it. I think of Peter denying Christ three times. He denied him three times. But that changed him when Christ looked at him when he denied him the third time. And Peter was never the same after that. He spoke boldly to everybody after that.

So again, for us, we should not be ashamed of the gospel. Not be ashamed of it, in the hope that we have in it. So, any thoughts? Yeah. Do you think we realize how powerful the gospel message is? Yeah. Excuse me. Yeah. Yeah. Is it powerful? Yeah. You know, and in the Romans 1, for it is the power of God for salvation. The power of God. How powerful is God? How powerful is that? You know, for salvation to everyone who believes. Amazing. So again, Paul is very, very much, you know, not ashamed of what he was preaching.

I think for me the question is kind of the other way around when I read something like that. his cultural context. Because shame, I mean he's obviously talking about before men, it implies a certain relationship to the people who you live among. And something about the gospel in the first century was shameful to a member of that society.

It was looked upon by the general population as, oh that's, you're a shame to your people. It's weird here, because in America, we're a God's nation, and it's like, we don't have to be ashamed, but what if your culture was such that, oh, you, Christian, you have such a shame to your family, and your society, Well, look at Ahmed. If you're in India in some cultures, you're banished from, you know, if you're in Iran and you become a Christian, you are banished from your Afghanistan. You know, there are several of those that if you were a believer in your family, you were banished from your family.

Just completely cut off. I just kind of think it's hard for us to identify with that. the shame that was placed on those who would, and I don't know that I totally understand it because in part you'd have to be in that hole for a ton of it. But I mean, I went to public school and then, I mean, you get a little bit of a flavor of, oh, you know. backwards, you know, you're hitting it. But yeah, so that's kind of the question. What was it that made it such a shameful thing to be a Christian?

I don't know that we totally understand that, but in any case... Well, on top of that, not only from the Gentile world, the Jews. The Jews were after him. Yeah, absolutely. They were running him out of town. He was preaching a different thing than what was taught in the synagogue. And so he was shamed out of town. There are several instances where the Jews would run him out of town. That is true, in the Jewish context. The Jewish context. Except for Jesus Messiah. Yeah, it was worse by the Jews, I think, than the Gentiles. The Gentiles were, you know, you're just another cult or whatever or something, you know.

So, yeah, something like that. From a cultural standpoint, Paul being a really bright man, You know, what he's saying is that, well, the gospel, I sold it in Ephesus. I sold it in all these other towns. It's going to sell in Rome, too. Yeah. It's powerful. Yeah.

And again, when you think about that, too, they didn't really have a Bible. They didn't have this stuff. They had these circular letters from Paul and other stuff. How did, you know, God had to be so much working in the first, you know, church. Paul left whatever town he was in and he left the teaching. They couldn't quote 2 Timothy 1. They couldn't quote that. How did the church go?

It had to be through the Holy Spirit working through the people that Paul taught in a powerful way. I don't know if they were gifted and had amazing gifts that they had, but how did it spread and keep going? In a time where there wasn't a printed Bible, there wasn't the internet, there wasn't anything to keep it going, it had to be God working mightily through individuals indwelt by the Holy Spirit and just rock solid in the Word.

And again, why Timothy is saying, in 1 Timothy and now here, you've got to be rock solid in the Word. Because this is the foundation of what we stand on, was the early church. And I'm just amazed how the power of the gospel has maintained through all this time.

Question 8. What kind of knowledge does Paul have of experiential and personal? He said in verse 12, For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted him until that day. So, is this personal or experiential knowledge? Knowledge of what?

Well, that's a good question. I'll ask you that from the previous verses. That's what we're asking. Does he have experiential or personal knowledge of Gospel the word I think it's all of what we in in the previous verses He was a His knowledge of but I think if I go back up I didn't copy it here For I'm not ashamed of the testament of our Lord or of me his prisoner okay, and and and Yeah, but join me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God. So I think it's his personal knowledge of the gospel and the testimony of the Lord. So is this his personal knowledge or his experiential knowledge of the testimony of the Lord or the gospel, I think, is going back to the reference at the beginning of this section. Maybe it's helpful to define what we mean by personal knowledge and experiential knowledge.

Yeah, and it's really looking at the Greek words for it. You have to really look at the Greek on it. The word no here is not ginosko, experiential knowledge, but oida. uh... absolutely on a uh... uh... shadow of a doubt of knowledge the latter being the stronger word the knowledge here is not a personal knowledge gained by experience such as uh... fellowship with god but a knowledge of what god is in himself which makes him absolutely dependable in any circumstance so this is this is absolute knowledge it isn't that he saw it experience that this is absolute knowledge in in god's power and through the gospel the testimony of the lord I think one of the least talked about issues in Christianity is right here. We're really focused on Gnosko, experiential book knowledge, but there's very little...

I shouldn't say very little, but there's not a lot of discussion about what God is after in terms of intimate personal knowledge of Him as a person. And that He is the one, as a person, who is the power, who is all of this. And the focus is on the objective knowledge, experiential knowledge, rather than the personal knowledge of the person. the Lord Jesus Christ, and I think that's critical because really, when I trust the gospel, what am I really doing? I'm trusting what God the Father said about the Son. In other words, the trust is in the veracity of the person who said it.

Right. Yeah, and that's the, I don't want to say factual knowledge in that. That it's not just you're experiencing it in life, but you know it. It's factual. And Paul, all through his epistles, he's going in that direction. He says, that I may know him, Oida. Instead of just experientially, but to know him like you're sitting right there. Knowing him like that. Not that you have the peripheral, that Mike did something over here, and you know about that experience, but you know him as you're sitting there. That kind of knowledge.

Yeah, because we can say about personal knowledge we have of people that someone will say, well, so-and-so did such-and-such, and you say, no, no, I know them. They wouldn't do that kind of thing. Or I do know them, and yeah, they would do that kind of thing.

The other is the verb tense in here. It's a perfect tense, which we'll get into in the next question. But it basically is specific here. It's active voice. I do it. The mood is indicative, which is a statement of fact or reality. So I'm jumping ahead a little bit because the next question is what I think the perfect tense is.

But yeah, and from Zodiatis on the Oida, contrasted with Oida, Gnosko, to know experientially frequently suggests inception or progress in knowledge, while Iota suggests fullness of knowledge. So experiential progress of knowledge, you're getting to know where Oida is, full knowledge. You know it. So that's again, kind of in here, it's the full, full absolute knowledge.

So, let's get into question nine, because I want to get into perfect tense. So, I have believed and I am persuaded are in perfect tense. What should we understand by the perfect tense here? So, in verse 12, for this reason I also suffer these things, but I'm not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard that what I have entrusted to him until that day. So what does the perfect tense mean in the Greek grammar? Do you know what the perfect tense means?

I know some in the back row know what that is. And the front row. So what does perfect tense represent? And I have a little cheat sheet from Winnie that I always keep in my Bible that I stole this from. The definition that Winnie had in her, do you have that too? Yes, I also have it on a PDF here that I can pull up to. The perfect tense represents a past completed action with present or current results.

So, with that understanding of the verb tense, what does it mean when Paul states, I have believed? What was the action that had continuing results in his life? What did he believe? And there was a big flash of light. It fell to the ground. And he says, who are you, Lord? Well, it's an important thing.

It really is important to understand because The point in time faith, permanent results, you really have to hold it out. The truth of the gospel, there's too many people who say you have to continue in faith or you were never really saved. And Paul says, no, I place my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the results of that are permanent. And the way, the definition that Winnie had is, I like it, past completed, completed action with continuing results. That's what continues from that action. And I like it. Because it's the Calvinists, they'll say, well, if you're really safe, you will continue in faith. Yeah. You know, and certainly there's faith involved in our walk, but that's not faith work.

Yeah, that's a point in time point in time and that's really the point of this so that it's it's it's Well tiger I have believed is in the perfect tense in the Greek text is in full meaning I have believed with the present result that my faith is firmly settled one It's firmly settled.

I Believed the rock solid and now I progress from that that rock solid faith in in the gospel Noah, once the door was closed and the ship started to rock back and forth, do you think he ever wondered if the thing was going to sink? He probably had moments and he built the thing. wondered, am I really safe? But it didn't matter because he already put his faith in the Lord. The Lord closed the door. He was safe. And so that continuance of faith, it's like, oh, we'll have moments where we doubt or we waver in our faith. But that completed action in past time, the Lord closed the door. Yeah.

I think I had more, what am I going to do with all these animals? How long am I on this bus with all these animals? That would be more of mine. I built the boat, I think I'm okay with that part, but I've got a whole bunch of animals here and how long am I on with these guys?

I wonder if any of you have ever said, please let it stop. Well, you know, and even in that, you know, even before that, you know, you're building a boat for a hundred years. Yeah. You know, I mean, you had to have rock solid faith that what God told you is true. You don't build a boat for a hundred years and, and with not a drip of rain, you know, and you're building a boat. Yeah.

And obviously that's the, that's, that's, that's not his, you know, faith and So, with that understanding of the verb tense, when he says, I believe, so, I have believed with the present result that my faith is firmly settled. I think that's the key part of this, is that, you know, he believes now, but it's based upon his rock-solid faith in his salvation and what God is offering. So that's the moment in time is when he first believed, and to the continuing results, and what is in his continuing results is spreading the gospel. So he's firmly settled on what he knows is the truth of salvation through Christ. And now the continuing results are he's spreading that as much as he can.

I think in that verse, it's I know Not what I have believed in, but whom I have believed in. So, again, it goes back to the veracity of the one who makes the statement. God made the statement, the gospel message, and it depends on God's following through, not the message. The message itself, as important as it is, it's gotta be backed up by whoever, like salvation wasn't my idea, it was God's idea, you know?

Well, you know. And my faith and trust is in him and what he said. What he said is really important. But anybody could have said it. Well, that's what I'm saying. If Zeke down on Colfax said salvation is based in McDonald's over here, It's a great message, but I don't believe Zeke at all. There's no trust in Zeke, who told me that.

But trust is in God. Paul's faith was placed permanently in God, whom he knew, and whose faith was immovable. So his faith was in God, and he couldn't be moved. He's not ashamed. He's not ashamed of this. He's not going to be moved. He knows God. He knows the message, and he's not going to be moved. So it was his completed action, faith in the salvation through Christ, and that is the bedrock of all of his message from that time on, immovable.

And especially with Paul being in the new creation and knowing that relationship, That had to have been, it should be a message to us, but those that don't understand positional truth... They get into the fix-up-the-old-man thing, and that's not where Paul was. No, not at all. That's so much today, so much of the missed message is, now that I'm a Christian, I have the power to fix-up-the-old-man. And you had the indwelling of the Holy Spirit too. So, the next one is, what about Paul stating that he is persuaded in the perfect tense? So, again, what is, I go to, what is persuaded? What does persuaded mean? Convinced? Yep. Any others? Actually, I went to Webster, and there's a lot of great ones. They just had synonyms. Webster let me down on this one. The definition was pretty bland, and I think they even used being persuaded or persuasive or something. It was the first foul in doing a definition.

Synonyms would be convince, satisfy, or convert. So, from Webster, so again, convince. You're convincing somebody of something. So, Paul was persuaded. He was convinced about the gospel. You know, I have believed and I am convinced or persuaded that He is able to guard that which I have entrusted Him until that day. So He is convinced. He is persuaded. Nothing is going to move Him off this knowledge of Christ and the Gospel. Nothing is going to move Him. He is persuaded. You can't convince Him otherwise. So he is persuaded.

And that's also in the perfect tense. So same sort of thing. He is convinced. Rock solid. Point in time. Done. And now with continuing results is that he trusts God in all that he's doing and how he's working. So Paul had come to a settled persuasion regarding the matter and was fixed in an immovable position. You could not budge him. So he is persuaded, convinced. Nobody's going to tell him otherwise. All right, any other thoughts? How about you? He spent some time, personal time, in the Caribbean desert.

You know, and we can know the Lord Jesus that way too. The same, we can spend time with him. Yeah. Yeah, in his word, that's how you get to know him. Maybe we can know him through experiential things in our life, working in our lives and things, but it's really through the word that we get to know him. Paul was kind of unique because that That was a new thing coming to the people. It was a lot more convincing there on his part. We've talked about this before.

I think about, why did he choose Paul? Why did he choose Paul? Of all the people, why did he choose Paul? And I think it is because, this is my speculation, no, it's just, I think he took the most rabid anti-Christian guy he could find and converted him to show how strong, you know, we moved Paul, the guy who was stoning people to prison and killing them and chasing them to different countries to try and find them.

And then suddenly he's now proclaiming the gospel. You know, if it was somebody, you know, one of the maybe the early apostles, you know, they were with him, living with him, and understandable. But they picked the guy who was going after them to kill him, to convert him.

And I think that was to show the power of the gospel. And that's what he's not ashamed of. They picked him because he was the greatest example of changing. that what the Holy Spirit can do in a person. So that's why I said he's not ashamed. He knows who he was, and now he's proclaiming the gospel in power.

So yeah, a lot of different things. The last question was, can we say the same things? Do we believe and are persuaded about the gospel of Christ? Perfect tense. We say the same thing as Paul said. I think that's a challenge to each and every one of us. Are we persuaded? Are we immovable in our faith? Are we convinced? From when we believe to now continuing results, we're never ashamed of the gospel. We're fully convinced, immovable off the gospel. That's the message to us today.

Question 10. Whose power is it to keep Paul? This should be an easy one, folks. For this reason, I also suffer these things. But I'm not ashamed, for I know whom I believed, and I'm convinced that he is able to guard what I've entrusted to him until that day.

So whose power is Paul referring to? God's power. The one that's omnipotent. Omnipotent, all-powerful, all-powerful. That's the one who he's trusting. For he, he, God, is able. You know, that's a pretty good statement, I'd say. I think God's pretty able. He can do this.

To guard what I've entrusted to him until that day, and we'll get to that in the last question, which is kind of an interesting question. The notes that Mike had with the expositors, and I went to Constable. I looked at his because it was kind of, yeah, the differences of what he's entrusted.

So, the power is from God. So, and we can look at the words able and that is dunamite, which we get dynamite and different things. But thus when Paul uses the word here, he's not thinking merely of an ability to do something, but of the might and power resident in the being who is of ability to do what he trusts him to do. He's trusting in God. God's able to do it, and he knows it. He's firmly convinced in it. He's persuaded. He's convinced that God is able to do what he has entrusted to him. We'll get into that in the last question, what's entrusted.

Yeah. I find it interesting that having come out of the Catholic environment and have a few guys around that are still around and they're my age. We talk about the Lord occasionally, but every one of them is trying to save himself. And my answer to them is that in my Bible, it doesn't call David the Savior or George the Savior. It's Jesus Christ the Savior.

So your confidence can't be in you to save yourself, even if you're following religious principles you think that's going to be pleasing with God. Well, there's only one. human being that ever was pleasing to God, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's where your faith belongs, is in Him and what He did, not in your ability to, what, rise up to His standard? Yeah. You know? You know, every time I hear those and the people who say that, I keep thinking about one thing. Who's the one driving that thought? Yeah. Who's the one who's driving that thought? It's the flesh. It's the sin that indwells me. The sinful flesh.

Because that's the one who wants to do something. If you get to a position where you understand that you have died and the old man has judicially been taken care of, There's nothing, we can't fix it up. But the one who screams about fixing it up is the flesh, and trying to convince you that you need to fix me up. And that is the driving force of all, I think, all the books in the Christian, the nominal Christian bookstores, is how to fix yourself up. And it's a done deal. Why don't we understand what God said, that he's done with it? But the flesh is so powerful that it wants, it just keeps clamoring to you to do something.

You know, we always talk about, you know, I get to see, you know, the devil and the Satan and all that. I'm not worried about that as much as I am my flesh. You know, the flesh is the one that's eaten me alive. You know, and that's the one that I have to fight. The stupidity and, you know, the Roman seven is just classic. You know, that's, that's, I think all of us to some degree. We think we can do it through whatever. We try and we try. What I want to do, I don't do.

It's a person who gets you. It's just what he's saying here. God is able. God is the one that's able. And so yeah, it's just, I said in the last, by translation to us from this, do we have the same trust in God that he's proclaiming here? That he is the one you trust. God is able. That's Paul's message. God is able. Do we believe that? Do we trust that? And I think if you do, you have peace in any circumstance. He is able. God is able. There's nothing he's not capable of doing. And I think that's what Paul is saying here. He trusts him implicitly. So we can quickly get to the last question, which I hope I can get done in four minutes.

What did Paul mean by the words, that which I have committed unto him? So again, verse 12. For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed, for I know whom I believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day."

So, the question is, what did he entrust to God? His bank account? What did he entrust? Don't worry, because what Mike put in his notes, a couple of them have differences, I have differences. So what I have entrusted him until that day, what did he entrust to him? I would say it's the gospel, and from verse 11, I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. So his personal ministry. He's reading your notes. Reading my notes again? Oh. There are a couple different things in here. It looks like you're getting out of the other. Let's see if I can get through this quickly.

In case I didn't ask to test, now the meaning of the words, that which I've committed, and the expositors and Alford concur in saying that they refer to the apostle committing the salvation of his soul into the keeping of God. Vincent maintains that they refer to the deposit of truth and the responsibility to preach it, which you're saying a herald and all that, that God has committed to Paul. So there's a difference between here.

The Revised Standard Version has, he is able to guard until that day, which is what has been entrusted to me. Paul has been speaking of himself as a herald, an apostle, and a teacher. In verse 13, he exhorts Timothy to maintain sound doctrines. In verse 14, he charges him to guard the deposit of truth which God had entrusted him. Vincent says, the meaning of the passage is that Paul is convinced that God is strong to enable him to be faithful to his apostle calling in spite of his sufferings which attend it. until that day which he shall be summoned to render his final account." So, part of it is being the herald and, you know, that, an apostle. So I looked at Constable and what he had to say. Paul suffered imprisonment from the discomfort associated with it because he preached the gospel. Nevertheless, he was not ashamed of the gospel or of himself.

His confidence lay in the person of God. He believed that God is faithful. God would protect something that Paul had placed with God was, let me say that again, his confidence lay in the person of God. He believed that God is faithful, God would protect something that Paul had placed with him for protection and preserve it until that day he would see Christ face to face at the rapture or at death.

And then he quotes 2 Timothy 1.18 and some others.

The deposit view of many refer to the truth of the gospel. Probably it refers to Paul's life including his work. Another less likely view is that it refers to faith entrusted to Paul that he would figuratively hand back to God when he saw him. Paul used the deposit in this in this last sentence so it's kind of about his apostleship, his heralding, it's also the gospel.

There's several different things. I think it'd be all of them. I think with all of them kind of doing it, he's entrusted the gospel, is entrusted to him being a herald. It's all of the things, at least from the commentators, it sounds like it's both or could be both. So that's what he's entrusted to God that of his I think his ministry his and the gospel Those are the two things that he's entrusted him until that day God God is It's a work that we can't do.

We can't carry that out. But we can't trust him to completely. And the other, which I go back to, is entrusting the hope. We talked about the hope. The hope is the future. He's entrusted that to God. That God's going to do what he said in the future. And I think that's another part of this, too, is he's entrusted God to do what he said or is going to do. That's part of the hope. And that came from that old wretched man that I am who can deliver me from the body of sin. Who is that? But I think it's part of all of that. He's just entrusted.

He's convinced that God is able. I would say too that it applies to believers from the standpoint that The Word of God says that every believer has at least one gift, spiritually. And, you know, we get all wrapped up, well, I wonder what mine is, and do I see it happening? No, you have to trust God about that, and you have to trust the implementation in your life of that gift.

He's the one responsible for that. You mean the 20 question thing on what my gift is? No. The handoff to him. Yeah, that's a good way to say it. Yeah, he's handing off the same. He's saying, have the same trust that I had. And have the trust that God is able. I still think that's the biggest thing right here, is God is able. And all of this, Paul is saying God is able. And that's the important fact for us. God is able. God is able to save us. God is able to do all the things that are future to us. He's able to do that.

Trust it. Be persuaded. Be convinced. Don't be moved. It is true. That's the message here for us. So anyway, we're late. Let me close. Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you again for this time. We can open up your word. We always just enjoy opening your word and just to see what truths you have for us. And as we've learned here, We trust you, God. You are able. There is no doubt. You are omnipotent. You have unlimited power to do anything. You are a sovereign God. You have us with an eternal love. All of those things pieced together just give us peace, rest, comfort. in our lives here, and for the future. We realize that the future we have, it's a hope, but it's not in doubt. It's secure. It's positive. It will come true.

All the things you tell us that are ahead of us, and we just derive great peace and comfort through that, that we trust you. You are able to do all the things you said you have for us, and we rest in those facts. And Father, we just, again, thank you for your word, Importantly, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And Father, we just thank you for all that you do in our lives each and every day. And Father, we just pray for Miles to give his message in the next meeting and just pray our hearts to receive it. And we ask for all these things in Jesus' name, amen.