We’ll be back in the letter to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians, starting chapter 2, verse 14.

Let us read the Word of God. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind. We have the mind of Christ.

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not with solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, I follow Paul, and another, I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human?

To help bring a little bit of clarity to the passage, I want to read it in the NIV. I think it simplifies it a little bit. It says, It says, It says, It says, It says, And cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments. For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit, but as people who are still worldly, mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? For when one says, I follow Paul, and another, I follow Apollos, are you not mere human beings?

What separates us from the rest of the world? What separates us from the animal kingdom? Science would put man in the animal kingdom. What separates us from dogs, or monkeys, or lions, or whatever else you can come up with? It is that you are created in the image of God.

So, being in the state that we’re in, of the fallen race of Adam, and that image has been all but destroyed. It’s been distorted and twisted, what it means to represent that image. It’s certainly not in focus with anyone. No one has the complete perfect image of God who is of the race of Adam. So, what separates us here in this room this morning, I hope all of us, what separates you from other people who are created in the image of God? It is that we possess the Spirit of God.

That’s what separates us from other people and from animals.

You can’t… Let me see if I can put this in layman terms. Kathy, I’m sorry, this is going to be southernese.

Southernese. You ain’t what you don’t want to be, and you can’t be what you ain’t. Okay? Verse 14. You ain’t what you don’t want to be, and you can’t be what you ain’t. Okay? You following me, Miss Kathy? Alright, alright. I don’t want to…

Yeah. You know, I got to understand it in simple terms. Me. The natural person, or as the NIV puts it, the person who does not possess the Spirit of God, he can’t accept the things of God. You preach the gospel, you share with him truthful things, he rejects it. Because it’s foolishness. It doesn’t make any sense. The human mind defines it as, it’s just rubbish. It’s foolishness. But we’ve already learned in Corinthians that God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, or those who would consider themselves wise,

from a fleshly perspective. So, he doesn’t have it in himself to lay his pride down, to see past what he understands and knows, and accept the things of God. And so, we were talking about this yesterday at the race. Sometimes it’s hard to go out and to preach the gospel, because you just kind of assume that people are going to smirk, and scoff, and I don’t want none of that. It’s silly. And so you start to believe that you are silly. We as Christians, we have to come to the place where we understand that that is the mind of the flesh. It doesn’t want your message. It’s offensive. It’s silly. It has nothing for them. It doesn’t cater to their wants and their desires. They just don’t want it. They don’t have the ability to properly evaluate what you are telling them.

So, you can’t be, you ain’t what you don’t want to be, right? I don’t want to be a Christian as a carnal-minded person. I don’t want that.

And you also, as a fleshly person, you don’t have, the faculty to even accept it. There is no way that you could properly understand the message of the cross. The most basic, fundamental part of the Christian message, yes, probably the foundation, right? It is essential. You start there, the message of the cross. The worldly person doesn’t have the capacity. He cannot understand it. There is no amount, of arguing, and reasoning, and evidencing, and all this stuff to convince this person. Because Paul makes it very, I don’t know that there is a more clear passage in scripture. And I kind of came to that conclusion as I was studying this. He is not able to understand them. Why? He doesn’t have the proper tools. He doesn’t have the equipment. The last time I preached in 1 Corinthians, I sort of defined us who do have the knowledge of God as sort of a secret club. One of my favorite preachers, not on this text, but having to do with the same principle, he sort of refers to it as the we know club. Like we know these things. Why? Why can’t that person know these things? He doesn’t have the tool to know it. You must have the spirit to believe the things that I am telling you.

Again, I’m not going to go too deep here. But it sort of sheds a light on what they call the ordo salutis, the order of salvation. I must possess the spirit of God before I can accept the things of God.

Puts us in a tough spot. It’s an impossible place.

The spiritual person, that is, the person who does possess the spirit, he can survey those things. So, the spiritual person who God has endowed his understanding and spirit with, whenever you preach the gospel to him, and it falls on that fertile soil, this man has the ability to rightly measure what you are telling him. He can come to the conclusion that, yes, this is truth. He has the ability to properly investigate and weigh and measure. The word judge, it has a sense, it’s not like you’re in the docket and you’re slamming the gavel on whether what this person is telling you is true or not. No, it’s more of an evaluation. You have the proper tools. If you were a jeweler, you need some particular tools to get down in the nitty-gritty and properly study these jewels and these gems and these diamonds. You have to have a certain looking glass. You have to be able to magnify this thing to see the detail that you need. You’ve got to have the right tools. If you’re a plumber and you ain’t got no plumbing tools, you ain’t much of a plumber. If you’re a carpenter and you don’t know how to use a saw, well, you ain’t much of a carpenter. You see what I’m saying? You have to be endowed with the tools necessary to survey what is being given to you. You have to know how to use it. The spiritual person, the one who possesses that,

has it. And so I believe what I’m saying today gets to the heart of the matter.

And the heart of the matter is that you need the Spirit to know God and to know His Gospel.

Paul does not mince words here. That is what it is. You must possess the Spirit. And so we find ourselves in a position of great need, great desperation, because you can’t go sign up for seminary and pay however much you’re going to pay, $20,000 to get this plaque on your wall and all of a sudden possess the ability to understand the things of God.

You can do all the seminarian you want. If you ain’t got the Spirit of God, it ain’t doing you no good. You’re just as dead as you were when you signed up.

Lord, be merciful to the lost. Lord, be merciful when we go to preach the Gospel. Would You send Your Spirit to quicken and to give the ability to receive what You’re offering? We’re at Your mercy, Lord.

If you are a person who possesses the Spirit, you have the ability to see the truth for what it is, to believe it as truth. You can investigate it. This should give you a great confidence in what you find there. This is what I mean. Don’t let anyone who has the Spirit or doesn’t have the Spirit argue you out of believing what you know to be true. How are you going to let somebody who has never been a carpenter to tell you how to build a house?

Don’t let the schemes and the phrasing of the world because they’re cunning. They’ll come at you with some facts, right, in air quotes there. They’ll come at you with a lot of stuff and they’ll have you doubting, have you thinking, well, maybe this is a bunch of rubbish. That person has no business telling you what you believe is false. They don’t understand it. How can you say that something is false if you don’t even understand it? You can’t. So go about with a great confidence because of the fact that God has given you His Spirit and the ability to understand the message of the cross, what it means to be in Christ, the fullness of God’s revelation. Go about with a great confidence in that. Don’t let the world woo you away from what you know without a shadow of a doubt. Paul says, I’m persuaded. I’m awaited. I’m convinced. I know. Again, he’s saying right here the spiritual person has the ability to survey all these things, but can be judged by no one. That’s not that we as brothers and sisters in Christ cannot look at each other’s lives and say, hey, brother, you’re kind of off here, or hey, man, this is great. I see you growing in this area. No, I’m talking about by the outside world, by the ones who, or yes, above dogs, but do not possess the Spirit. They are still broken images of God. You can’t let them educate you on something that they know nothing about.

It doesn’t matter to what level you understand it. God has given you and deposited something in you, an understanding that He has seen fit. Some people know more about the revelation of God than others. That’s fine. That’s God’s business. But if you possess the Spirit, you at the very minimum know what it requires to be saved and to be reconciled to God. You know the basic fundamental principles of the Christian faith. So rest in that. Have a great confidence in it. Don’t be willing to give an inch on it because you know the person doesn’t have an understanding.

Lastly, if you’ve been given the power and the equipment to know these things, be thankful. There shouldn’t be a day that goes by that we don’t wake up. If you woke up this morning and God was on your mind and you had it in your plans to come to church, learn some more about Him, worship Him for what He’s done, for what He’s promised to do, be thankful. Because you didn’t come on that on your own.

You didn’t do it.

When you dive into the depths of that, it gets scary and it gets hairy and there’s a lot of arguments over it. I’m preaching the Word. I know people fall on different sides of the aisles on this type of stuff.

I’m just preaching the Word. You cannot understand it without the Spirit. And you don’t want the Spirit. So if you have the Spirit this morning, it is because God has freely given Him to you. And so be thankful. Because you were running headlong into hell.

Six gear, cruising. Rear view mirrored and broke off and you ain’t worried about putting it back on.

Be thankful. God does not owe any of us anything. Certainly not to restore us and redeem us and to give us all things. What a good God. What a good God. Doesn’t owe you nothing. But He’s going to give you everything.

The heart of the matter is that you need the Spirit of God. To know God and to know His Gospel.

So,

now addressing those people,

Paul says that when he came to the Corinthians, he couldn’t address them as mature people, but just infants. Babes in Christ. Just barely above the mere human. Just right on it. Just Spirit of God. That’s it. Nothing else. You got the basic knowledge. That’s it. That’s all he could address. And that was okay. That was okay. Because when you’re born or reborn, there are only certain things you can handle. When you receive a baby into the world, you don’t go to stakeout and order a kid’s meal for them. You can’t handle that.

You have to know who the person is. You have to know their level of maturity. And especially as a pastor, it’s a great… It’s not a burden. That’s not the right word. It requires much thought. And it requires much consideration. To know your people. It would be foolish, I think, and this isn’t saying anything about you all, it would be foolish to stand up here and preach Ph.D. level, you know, just high, lofty, dry stuff. Honestly, I hope you would all be like, alright, that ain’t going to do me no good. Alright. I need some common man stuff. I’m just a village preacher. I have some understanding. I’m not the smartest guy in the shed. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed. So I think you all have the self-awareness and the humility to confess that about yourselves. I mean, I think there are very few people in the world who operate on that stratosphere level, right? Like, I’m walking on the ground. I’m doing good to be walking. Honestly.

And God knows that. God knows. He has a way of feeding infants and grown men and women with what is necessary to nurture them. For a newborn baby, milk is sufficient. It works. It’s got everything that they need.

When you preach the gospel, to infants. And I think it’s the same approach when you’re evangelizing lost people. They can’t handle… You don’t need to feel the burden to present to them these lofty theological ideas. You don’t need to feel the burden to exhaust your knowledge on who Christ is. Even if you’re above an infant. They can’t handle that. They just need milk. They just need the very essential, basic things of the Christian faith.

Read, like, the Apostles’ Creed or something. Just the very, the very minimum. Like, it basically… I was thinking about this. I need to think about it some more, but… I think it’s… Like, what is required for justification? It gets you to that point of restoration with God. That’s it. Just the start. Just the beginning. Just the beginning. That’s all that person can handle. And so, don’t feel… Don’t feel insufficient in evangelism because you’re maybe not as smart as the next person. I think if you have… If you have the bare minimum, then you have what’s necessary for them to come to the bare minimum as well. That’s all that they can handle. So, just keep that in mind. With your kids, it’s been some months back… No, were you seven, Isabella? I think she was… She might have been six. But we’re sitting at the house, and I’m trying to explain something to her. And I explain it, and then I explained it a little bit differently. And she’s obviously getting frustrated with me. And she says this, Dad, I’m just sick of this. I’m six years old.

Right? That is the… The Lord can speak through the mouth of a donkey. He can certainly bring truth from the mouth of a six-year-old. I needed to hear that. I needed to be reminded of how there is a proper way to administer truth to people. You don’t need to come with a wrecking ball when a ball-peen hammer will get the job done.

It’s okay to be a babe in Christ. If you’re sitting in here this morning, and you’re new to the faith, that is okay. That is God’s design. You were born as a baby, as an infant, and God has designed it that you can only drink milk. That is good. We should celebrate that. And we, as adults, should know how to raise and nurture and take care of the infant. We have to be aware of that. But, He says that

you’re still not ready.

At some point, you’ve got to move on from milk. At some point, you’ve got to grow. Maybe it’s not 100% your fault. Maybe you’re malnourished. You’ve got a poor church or a poor pastor. I don’t think that’s the case here. I believe that Pastor Chad labors and is gifted sufficiently to feed each and every one of us. I believe that everyone in this room does a wonderful job of taking care of one another and providing an environment that gives room to grow. And, it fosters healthy life. I believe that’s true about Providence. And I certainly believe that’s true about our pastor. But, I think that if we’re all honest, we should at least ask ourselves the question, are we still only drinking milk? Whether that be from just pure laziness. Like, I just, I don’t want to put in the hard work. And start to build on this now. Like, when a baby starts to grow a little bit and you reach a few months or a year, whatever age your kid did it, they start to flex their muscles and roll over. They’re exerting some energy. They’re going places. Like, I’m moving. I’m making, you know, they’re not Usain Bolt speeding down the track at the Olympics, but they’re moving. They’re making some progress. There’s a little book. It’s Kathy gave me. And I had read some of it before. But he makes the point. And here it is. For the infant, it’s in the realm of justification. You come to that point where you were declared righteous. You received the Spirit of God. And you’re drinking milk now. But you need to grow. And he makes the point that sanctification, our growth and maturity in the Christian faith, some of us are so weak and so just burdened or weighed down or we’re just a little duller than others. Whatever the case may be for you, some of us merely limp and crawl forward towards the finish line. And I want to say that that’s okay. He makes the point that having to do with sanctification, as long as you’re making some progress in the way, that is Jesus, if you’re moving somewhere, don’t beat yourself up too much. Maybe you should be scooting along a little bit faster. Maybe you should be a little farther along. But, but don’t write yourself off, certainly don’t give up on the race if you’re making some progress. If you’re farther along today than you were yesterday, praise God. Praise God. We all move at different paces. In a bodily sense and a spiritual sense. We all have our own pace and it’s how the Lord has designed it for you. And so, let’s not, let’s not knock one another for not being where we think they should be. But let us be people who consider where we think the Lord would have us to be. Let’s be, let’s be aware enough to know whether we are growing or not. And again, if you’re not growing, what is the reason? Why, why aren’t you growing? And I think there’s probably one, one reason

that is at the heart of all symptoms. And the heart of the matter is that if you possess the Spirit, you must walk with the Spirit.

You don’t, you don’t, you can’t have the Spirit right now. The Spirit, cause, the Spirit and the Spirit know that, you’re not Donald, maybe beyond that, if you’re not that blessed, when you’re not that blessed. It’s the difference between what the Spirit is That power or the Spirit that exists within. And in a personal way, how do you explain that? Well, I like it because we don’t get to that. It’s not, it’s a completely objective Panic. I make some coffee in a few minutes, and I go back. Oh, this eye is glowing red, and the water is sitting over here. Not even on the heat.

That ain’t going to do much good.

When you boil some water, some boiled peanuts. Some southernese for you again, this guy. Some boiled peanuts. All right. That’s enough.

When you boil water, it is a process. The molecules at first, at room temperature, are kind of sitting. That’s where they’re supposed to be at that point. You don’t want boiling water coming out of your cold spigot. Something’s wrong. The molecules are sitting there. But when you set it on the heat to rest, slowly but surely, those molecules, when they start kind of moving around a little bit, and it gets a little more rapid, they start bouncing off one another. And before you know it, you’re erupting into this bubbly thing to the point where you’re even changing form. You’re going from a liquid to a gas because you’ve set on the heat so long. And it’s brought about a change in you. Don’t read too deep into that analogy, changing forms and whatnot. All right, just let it be what it is, okay? But isn’t it true? If I set my mind on the Spirit of God, and He moves me, and He moves me, and He moves me, at some point, I’m going to be something that I wasn’t before. It’s going to change. It’s going to change. It’s going to change me. If I set my mind on the Spirit and allow Him to influence me day in and day out and day in and day out, and I’m constantly renewing my mind by the power of the Spirit in the Word, I’m going to end up being something that I was not. At some point in time, it’s going to be all together because justification leads to sanctification, and then sanctification, it has this big climax, and glorification. We will be changed into His likeness. We will be just like Him. That is Christ. It’s a process. You’re not saved and boom, glorified. No. I don’t know why the Lord set it up like that, but that’s how it is. It’s just how it is. You’ve got to set on the burner.

Are you setting your mind on the things of the Spirit? It says that the mind set on the flesh leads to death, but the mind set on the Spirit results in life. Again, it’s not this hole-punch type deal where I said that prayer and maybe even had a nice emotional experience, in a church one time, and I can recite to you intellectually the things of the Word. That doesn’t matter if you are not set on the Spirit. The true Christian moves where the Spirit moves him. The Scripture has, keep your mind on the Spirit, walk with the Spirit, live in the Spirit, pray in the Spirit. That’s it. The Spirit is the source of everything that you have in the Christian life.

So undervalued and shame on the modern church. We either go too far or we just altogether write them off. The Spirit is life. You must possess the Spirit. So, are there things in your life that you should be ashamed of? Because if you were walking in the Spirit, they would not be happening. I want to brag on Miss Patty. She was just saying, because of a previous sermon, she was moved to go and to make amends with a family member. And that relationship has been restored. If you’re not in step with the Spirit, you’re not going to do that. I ain’t going to say nothing to him. He owes me an apology.

The fleshly mind, the carnal mind, does not do those things. Again, for the infant, you can’t expect much. So don’t get mad at lost people when they’re acting like lost people. Don’t get too mad, don’t get too mad at infants and toddlers and young children in the faith when they’re acting like infants. Don’t get too mad. I say this all the time to remind myself, to keep myself in check. I’ll say it kind of like just in a sideways, backhanded way to myself. I’ll be walking around here and Isabel, not Isabel, Emma, she’s over here like, or, you know, just disrespecting me. And I just want to, oh, no, go over there and, you know. But I’ll say this. I’ll say this. What are you, a two-year-old? Yes, she is a two-year-old. And she does two-year-old things.

I want to praise Brother Andre for that. He was just confessing to me the other day. I don’t want to go into details. It’s not my business. But he was just telling me that he had a similar experience where his children were doing something and he corrected them in a way that, you know, wasn’t warranted and not overboard, okay. But the same principle, he recognized they’re doing things that they’re going to do and that they should be doing. They don’t have the capacity yet to go above that. It is our job. To train them up. For the Christian infant, you don’t leave them there. So it’s kind of okay, right? You recognize that that’s going to be the case. So you don’t lose your cool. You don’t overreact and go out of bounds yourself as a mature person, hopefully. But you also don’t ignore it. You have to know how to teach them. You have to know what to give them at that moment in time that’s going to elevate them above what they’re doing.

You, so, Lord help me.

Consider your own life. Are you doing things that are not fit for where you should be spiritually? Are you a grown adult acting like a 15-year-old spiritually? I mean, yeah, some people need to, you know, act more mature on the outward. But I mean in the heart. The heart of the matter. Are you in step with the Spirit? Are you easily offended and then you hold a grudge against a brother or sister in the church? How? How, Mr. Mark? How? How? How? Well, by the Spirit. Can you look over here at Richard or anybody else? And he might have said something off-color and it wasn’t right. How can you hold a grudge against that person if you possess the Spirit of God? You shouldn’t be able to. They’re not congruent with one another. If that’s the case, then why did Christ forgive you anything?

How can we do some of the things that we do? And claim to know God and be indwelt by His Spirit? It doesn’t, it’s shameful. We shouldn’t do that.

Evaluate yourself. Know where you are and where you should be. See, these things that Paul says, he says, there’s jealousy among you and strife and, you know, you’re just acting fleshly. And I’m thankful for Pastor Paul. And Pastor Chad, I was just kind of, you know, even while he wasn’t feeling well, Lord helped him, I was just kind of perusing over this passage and he said the word symptom. And I was like, yes, that’s it. Like, this is just a symptom. Don’t focus too much on the specific of the jealousy and the strife.

Because the root of it, the root of it, not walking in the Spirit, it comes up in all sorts of ways. There’s all sorts of fruit of… Not the Spirit. And you can evaluate yourself and say, do I have fruit of the Spirit? Are you a jealous person? Do you allow the way you think about people, the way you interact with people? I need to, I want to publicly confess. Brother, Mr. Richard, I apologize. The other night we were having a conversation and we were just having started out as a friendly debate. It was fine. I think we ought to have debates. I think we ought to sharpen one another and challenge one another. Well, why do you believe that? Well, where is that found? Where does it say that? We should do those things. We should challenge one another. That is acceptable. What’s not acceptable and what’s non-compromisable is the way you do it. The Spirit that you debate in cannot be in a backhanded manner. And I want to confess that I did not have a right spirit in that debate. I said things from the flesh because I wanted to be right. Why do you believe that? You can ask the same exact question two different times. One time be completely justified and one time be as rotten as they come. Well, where is that found? Where is that found? Even if you say it in the same tone, your heart is projecting it in its own tone. Your heart is saying it for a reason. It’s either in the Spirit or it’s not.

And if you are walking in the Spirit, you’re not going to be perfect on this side of glory. But you will be less prone to do those types of things.

Grow. Grow in the Spirit. So when you start eating solid food, when you move on from milk to a higher knowledge, it’s not some secret wisdom. It’s not some secret knowledge that is hidden to some and revealed to others. That’s not what it is. Here’s what I think it is. The Lord Jesus gave the main point. To love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul. And love your neighbor just like that. So to grow from milk to solid food is to grow in your ability, and your desire to love the Lord your God with all that you are. And to love your neighbor just like that.

Yes, it contains intellectual knowledge. Yes, you learn things on how to do that. But it’s for the person that tool that you have to measure with. You get a little better with it. And so you have a more keen ability. You have a more keen ability to decipher and determine, okay, what’s the right thing to do here? Well, to some, this could be kind of a gray area. For me, it’s black and white because this is my conviction. You grow in your ability to know what is good and what is evil, what is right, what is wrong, what is even maybe not even right and wrong, but this is good and better. Maybe it’s okay to say this, but I probably shouldn’t because of this. Yes. You hone in your ability to determine those things and how you handle different situations.

Here’s the point, just to sum it all up again. The heart of the matter is that you need the Spirit, to know God and His Gospel, and that you must walk with the Spirit in order to grow up into Christian maturity. That is the goal and the aim of the Christian life, to grow up into maturity, to become more and more and more and more like Christ each and every day. We have the mind of Christ. We survey things. We look at things and consider things, and we make our decisions based on that knowledge and mentality, the mind of Christ. So I just encourage you and I challenge you to grow and walk in the Spirit. Evaluate yourself. Test yourself. See how you’re doing. Watch yourself. When you handle a situation at work this week, maybe afterwards kind of think back on it and see what did I actually say, and even beyond that, what was the motive in my heart behind what I said? What was the tone of my heart in what I said? Constantly evaluate yourself and just grow and grow and grow. And so I don’t want to condemn you if you are not as far along as you should be. Again, I’m one of the weak ones. I’m crawling. The fact that I’m on this side of the road today and I was on that side yesterday, praise God. I’m making it. Because if you keep moving, sooner or later you’re going to reach the finish line. You’re going to reach the goal.

The heart of the matter, that you need the Spirit of God to know God. You need to walk in His Spirit in order to grow up into Christian maturity. Lord, I pray that you would be heavy on us, that you would be… gentle, as you always are, Lord. But, no, rather, Lord, be what we need. I pray that you would handle us in the way that we need to be handled. And only you know how to do that like you do, Lord. And so often, even though we need a heavy hand and a swat on the rear, Lord, you’re just gentle. And you have a way of teaching and growing us that we don’t have oftentimes. I pray that we would be a church who just loves one another. I pray that we’d just love you with our whole being. Lord, I pray that we would just constantly just lean in on the Spirit and have the mind of the Spirit and just go about our lives there. Lord, by your provision and power, we will do that. I pray that the world, around us, would be awakened to your truth. I pray that your Spirit would be so that it would go before us and that we would be a people that would just exude Christ-likeness, that we would be seeping with love and compassion and generosity and faithfulness and goodness and gentleness and self-control. Lord, I pray that we would just be a people who just shout the glory of God and that you would use us in a mighty way, Lord. I pray that you would bless our people today. Would it be a day of rest, a day of just knowing that you have saved us and redeemed us and we’re safe and secure forever in you. Let’s pray this in Jesus’ name, Lord, and I also ask that you would just continue to heal Cronin’s. I pray that you would continue to just heal Brother Chris and that next week, Lord, we would be back to full capacity, and that it would just be a wonderful Lord’s Day again. But until then, Lord, may you be with us. In Jesus’ name, amen.