In Trent Moody's sermon, 'A Shepherd's True Work,' he explores the responsibilities of a shepherd as illustrated by Peter in 2nd Peter chapter 1, verses 12-15. The sermon emphasizes the importance of reminding believers of the truth of God's Word, highlighting Peter's diligence in his ministry to ensure that the church remains steadfast in faith. Peter's work is depicted as a labor of love, aiming to protect the church from false teachings and to encourage spiritual growth and holiness. The sermon also underscores the significance of the ministry of remembrance, where both historical and scriptural examples demonstrate God's provision and guidance for His people. Peter's impending death motivated him to leave a written testimony to ensure the continuity of his teachings. The sermon concludes with an encouragement for believers to continually immerse themselves in Scripture, reinforcing faith through repetitive reminders of the Gospel truth.

Thank you brother for bringing that Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to 2nd Peter chapter 1 and we're going to be looking at verses 12 through 15 on This theme I want you to be thinking a shepherd's true work a shepherd's true work in 2nd Peter chapter 1 verse 12. And thus says the word of the Lord by Peter the apostle, for this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth. Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. Moreover, I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease. Let us pray.

Our gracious Father, Lord, it is a happy day when you washed our sins away and as we think about this wonderful text laid before us, I just pray Lord that you would help me to to rightly divide the Word of Truth. Lord that you would cast before us these reminders, these continual reminders of the things that we need to know that we would be established, Father, in the present truth. That we would not be as children tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine but Lord that we would be established and settled in the truth of your word and Lord please help me now and bless your people Lord with a preaching of the word of God we pray in Christ's name. Amen. A shepherd's true work and I'm sure that you picked up on this of the repeating word of being reminded or I remind you so Peter when he was writing these epistles and in the whole of his ministry, in the work of an elder and as a shepherd of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, he took this task very seriously, as every true elder would.

It was not something that he went at haphazardly or with minimal effort, but rather one that he labored at with diligence. Unfortunately, most people in our day do not value the importance of the ministry of the Word of God. They do not value the importance of the shepherding work, nor do they hold in honor those who do that shepherding work. It has really fallen in just in bad times in that sense. I remember early on in my ministry that, and especially the location in which we were, in which I was located, that even lost people respected the office of a pastor.

I used to be a chaplain with the sheriff's department in Virginia, and on one such occasion, I was driving with them and we went up to a domestic dispute. When we pulled up, it was a son and a mother who were in this argument. The deputy got out and said, just stay right here, I'll crack my window just so I can hear what was going on. He was using some pretty foul language with the deputy. The deputy looked at him and he says do you see this man right here this man is a preacher and immediately this man's face turned and looked with dread and he kind of sheepishly walked over to the vehicle and he said, pastor, he said, I'm really sorry.

I didn't know that you were a preacher. And I said, sir, I said you need to fear God, not men. I said what you say before me will not send you to hell, but God hears everything that you say and he sees what you're doing to your mother and you need to stop it and you need to act right and you need to repent and trust in the Lord Jesus but I say that to say even a lost person had some form of respect towards that office. So in our day it is falling really by the wayside and I don't blame the people as much as I blame those who claim the office of an elder or a pastor or shepherd of the church. Unfortunately, the primary reason of this, I believe, is faithless shepherds and false teachers.

They have really brought shame upon the church, the visible church of the Lord, and shame upon the office. But not with Peter. Even though this was a time of great persecution, Peter took the work of ministering and shepherding. As we read in 1 Peter chapter 5 there, Peter calling himself an elder who was an elder like them. He labored hard and diligently because of his love for God and for Christ and his love for the church.

Unfortunately, this false teachers and faithless shepherds was nothing new. It was happening in his time. He actually gives us warning of that here in the next chapter that we'll be looking at at a later date. That there were false teachers. Now there will be false teachers just like there were false prophets in the Old Testament.

And we see this type of this false shepherd if you will in Jeremiah 23. You don't have to follow me in this, I'm going to read just verse here verse there verse there kind of scattered out just to give you a little glimpse of what Was taking place in Jeremiah's day and so in Jeremiah 23 He says woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture says the Lord Therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel, against the shepherds who feed my people, you have scattered my flock, driven them away, and not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doing, says the Lord. Therefore their way shall be to them like slippery ways. In the darkness they shall be driven on and fall in them, for I will bring disaster on them the year of their punishment says the Lord.

Thus says the Lord of hosts do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you they make you worthless. They speak a vision of their own heart not from their not from the mouth of the Lord. They continually say to those who despise me, the Lord has said, you shall have peace, and to everyone who walks according to the dictates of his own heart, they say, no evil shall come upon you, But if they had stood in my counsel and had caused my people to hear my words, then they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings." I read that passage to you there because at the end of this God is telling them what a true shepherd should do. What would be the work of a true shepherd? This work of a true shepherd is just that to stand in the counsel of the Lord and to cause his people to hear the word of the Lord, and then they would have turned from their evil way and the evil of their doings.

For faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And that is our only hope in this, is that when we preach faithfully the Word of God that God by His power would work into the hearts of people to make them His. It is a work of God alone. But God uses earthen vessels to do an astounding work. He calls men to preach the word of God and he calls them to do that in truth and to be a faithful minister of the gospel.

This second epistle is really all about false teachers and is a warning to them and all the ways they seek to lead God's people astray. Peter, however, will have none of that. He was a true shepherd. He loved God and He loved God's flock. He would not be negligent, as He says here, for this reason I will not be negligent.

Because He had the continual ministry of reminding them of the truth of God's Word. So first and foremost I want to point out here the reason for Peter's diligence. The reason for Peter's diligence found in the first part of verse 12. For this reason I will not be negligent. And So as we see these words here, it's pointing us back to what has come before, but I believe that really this is somewhat of a hinge point in the sense that it encompasses all that he's saying in the whole book, the whole epistle of 2 Peter.

Throughout the two epistles, we see the faithfulness of Peter's care for the people of God as he exhorts them in righteousness and warns them of false teachers and of their ways. He was a faithful shepherd. And really, that is my desire. I desire to be a faithful shepherd, a faithful elder of this flock that God has so entrusted. And sometimes it is really overwhelming to think of that responsibility, but it does spur me on to want to be faithful in the preaching of his word and to be a faithful example to the flock.

Here Peter's concern we see even reached beyond his own temporal life in this passage here. He speaks here of him putting off this tent that just as the Lord Jesus showed him, he would put it off. And the tent, of course, he's representing his body and his life that he would put this thing off. And so his concern was going beyond that. My desire is not only to be faithful in preaching the Word of God, but to do it in such a way that it goes beyond me.

Though they are dead yet, still they speak. That is the sense and that's what we have in the Word of God. That it would go beyond us. That it would be reminders in your mind and in the mind of my children and in the mind of those around me of my friends. That it would go beyond my life and into the next.

So his concern was for their care, his concern was for their diligence in the Word of God and as we see this, and I'll read some of these here in just a moment reminding us like what Peter was saying here of what he has said before and then even looking at some of the things that we'll go after this that we'll look at more intently later on in later sermons. Matthew Henry notes here regarding this diligent duty and this calling of an elder and a shepherd of God's people. He says, the importance and advantage of progress and perseverance and grace and holiness made the apostle to be very diligent in doing the work of a minister of Christ. That he might thereby excite and assist them to be diligent in the duty of Christians. If ministers be negligent in their work, it can hardly be expected that the people will be diligent in theirs.

Therefore, Peter will not be negligent, That is, at no time or place, in no part of his work, to no part of his charge, but will be exemplary and universally diligent in this labor. The scripture calls the work of an elder as a labor. It is something that we labor and that we work in and it's for the benefit of God's people. But this calling here, this reasoning here, so one of the reasons of this is seen in two preceding verses in chapter one here of 2nd Peter in verse 10 and 11 which we were looking at last time but he says this, Therefore brethren be even more diligent to make your call and election sure for if you do these things you will never stumble for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." This was the heart of Peter. He desired to present them in such a way that this entrance would be supplied abundantly to them into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior.

That's my desire. That's the desire of an elder is that we would have an abundant supply for God's people. That this entrance would just be seen as a 12-lane highway of holiness. That we would just be entered into the kingdom of God, knowing whom we have believed. So we desire that each of you will be even more diligent to make your call in election sure.

We desire that you will never stumble. We want the entrance into the kingdom of God to be supplied abundantly. So our heart is to shepherd your soul. That is what we must give an account for according to the book of Hebrews. We desire soul prospering.

That's what we're looking for and striving for. Not only do I believe that Peter is pointing us back to verses 10 and 11, but I do believe that it's really all of these things that came before even into 1st Peter. I won't turn there too much but in verses 3 & 4 of 2nd Peter chapter 1 he says as his divine power has given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." And so he's pouring these things out as a reminder to them and this purpose is because he's wanting them to be partakers of the divine nature. He's wanting to see in them this growth in holiness that they would be focused upon the things of the world. That they would not be a double-minded person who has one foot in the world and supposedly one foot that's holding on to the things of God.

But to be a single-minded man, he was reminding them of these things, these great and precious promises. We desire that you would escape the corruption that is in the world through lust. It grieves us when someone named a brother or sister falls into grievous sin and is overcome. We understand that this comes about through what I have termed the ministry of remembrance. It's really nothing new.

I really don't have anything new to tell you today. And really I don't have anything new to tell you any Sunday that I stand here. I just want to remind you. I just want to remind you I just want to remind you of the things that you already know that's the task that is the true work of a shepherd is to remind you of things that you know because he is saying here that these people he says though you know and are established in the present truth so this method of Peter's ministry is is nothing new you know I've lived long enough to know that one of the negative realities of the fall is that we forget things. The older I get, the more I forget.

Unfortunately, we forget the things that we should remember and that I wish we remembered but we remember the things that I wish I could forget. How many times have I stood up here and tried to call some passage to mine in some text and I can't find it, that recall button is stuck or something, I can't find that text, but yet some worldly song that I learned when I was a kid, I could probably quote every word to the song. Grevious. So, As we think about this, I don't want us to understand this so much as a neurological disorder as it is a spiritual disorder. And one, really, that is common to all men.

God knew this, and therefore through the ministry of the elders of the church, He gave them this ministry of remembrance to call to your mind. This wasn't just something that's done in the New Testament, but as we'll see in just a moment, it goes back into the Old Testament. God set these things up from the beginning. He knew what happened to mankind when we fell. None of these things were a surprise to God and he knew that there would have to be set up not only the call of an elder or a pastor or shepherd to bring to your remembrance continually, but even in the Old Covenant he set up stones of remembrance, he set up things that would cause them to remember, the temple itself was there to point them to something so that they would remember.

And so this ministry and the ministry of elders to his church is to regularly call his people to remember what God has told them and to not forget what has happened and what God has done in the past. In Numbers 15 verses 37 through 40 we read this again the Lord spoke to Moses saying speak to the children of Israel tell them to make tassels on the corner of their garments throughout their generations and to put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners and you shall have the tassel that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and to do them, and that you may not follow the harlotry to which our own heart and your own eyes are inclined." Listen, harlotry is in your own heart and your eyes are inclined because of the fall and God sets up remembrances for us and he goes on and he says and that you may remember and do all my commandments and be holy for your God. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord your God." So think about that.

You think about the tassels that they would wear and they were on the four corners and I guess I don't know all the meanings behind that I didn't get into the study of that part of it but no matter what direction they were going and no matter what direction somebody may be coming towards them they would see the tassel and they would be remembered or they would be reminded of the commandments of God. Should we not live that way? That no matter where we go or what we do and no matter who is coming to us that we are reminded of the things of God. And that's really, that's the true ministry of a shepherd. That we constantly remind you, we're calling you to holiness, and calling you to remember the things of God.

Turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter 8, and I am going to read the entire chapter of chapter 8. It's a little, not real lengthy, 20 verses, but I find it very helpful. Deuteronomy chapter 8. Listen to what he says. I actually read part of this this morning for the Lord's Supper.

Deuteronomy 8. Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers and you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these 40 years in the wilderness to humble you and to test you to know what was in your heart whether you would keep his commandments or not. So he humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with man in which you did not know nor did your fathers know that he might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. Your garments did not wear out on you nor did your foot swell these 40 years. You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you.

Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God to walk in his ways and to fear him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water and fountains and springs that flow out of valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey, a land of which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. When you have eaten and are full then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which he has given you." Listen, easy living leads to forgetfulness. Verse 11, beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments, his judgments, and his statutes which I command you today, lest when you have eaten and are full and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them and when your herds and your flocks multiply your silver and your gold are multiplied and all that you have is multiplied when your heart is lifted up and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage, who led you through that great and terrible wilderness in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water, who brought water for you out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and that he might test you to do you good in the end.

Then you will say in your heart, My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth. And you shall remember the Lord your God for it is he who gives you power to get wealth that he may establish his covenant which he swore to your fathers as it is this day then it shall be if you by any means forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and serve them and worship them I testify against you this day that you sure shall surely perish as the nation which the Lord destroys before you so you shall perish because you would not be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God. It is hard not to find parallels to our day. I speak to you this afternoon by way of remembrance. Remember the Lord your God.

Remember these things. Establish them in your heart. Do not forget. So the method of our ministry is to remind you of these realities of God and that it is God who blesses you. It's not the economy that blesses you.

It's not presidents and it's not governors and it's not senators who bless you. It is God who blesses you. It's not the strength of your own hand. It's not the wisdom of your mind. It is God who blesses you.

Don't ever forget that. Rest upon the goodness of God. Remember his goodness to you. It is God. Also throughout other Old Testament passages, God had his people set up stones of remembrance so that every time they saw it, not only would they remember, but their children would ask them, what does this mean?

Remember. And they were required to remind their children or to tell their children and for them to remember of what God had done for them. How He brought them through the wilderness and how He provided for them their every need. So the method of Peter's ministry really isn't anything new or profound. It is the method of repetition.

It is calling the believer to remember what you already know to be true. How often have I heard someone say after a sermon, I knew that, but it was so helpful that you reminded me. That's really what it's about. I want to tell you the things that you know. We need to be reminded of gospel truth daily.

So often we can get in this rut of looking at our sin where we come and become so pressed down with it that we become inactive and unuseful. And I must remind you for every, as one Puritan said, for every one look to self, look ten times to Christ. How often do you need to hear that? Yes, look at your sin, but ten times look to Christ. He is the sin bearer.

He is the one that has set you free. He is not putting you down and throwing you into the dust. He is wanting to call you out of that. He's wanting you to stand up and to live for the Lord Jesus Christ and to be reminded that He has purchased you and that He has paid for all of your sins. We need to be reminded of this gospel truth daily.

You see our bent is to forget that we are saved by grace and not works. As a shepherd of this flock, I call my ministry, the ministry of remembrance, to pour forth for you on a continual basis the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ that you have heard from the time you were a child, many of you. A really big part of this ministry here is really just to stir you up, as Peter says here, to stir you up by reminding you of what you know. Peter says, I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things though you know and are established in the present truth. Yes, I think it right as long as I am in this tent to stir you up by reminding you.

How many times has one of your elders come to you and stirred you up by reminding you of the truth of God's Word? And it gives you the strength to go forward. So often we can just get beat down on these things. How often have you had an elder come to you in time of grief and remind you of the sovereignty of God over every circumstance? In reading that in Deuteronomy chapter 8, We saw there and we read that God calls them to hunger and to thirst and to test them.

And he says there, so that I might do good to you. Isn't that amazing? The testing that you are experiencing is so that God will do good to you. You need to be reminded of that. That is helpful for me.

It's been helpful in my past. We must be remembered a thousand times I'm sure you've been reminded of that truth. God is sovereign over this. Yet when you're going through some trying time, you need more than anything to be reminded of that truth. It is a comfort to the soul.

It is a help to press you on through the difficulty. This is the ministry that God gave the watchman we read this in Isaiah 62 I have said a what I've set watchman on your wall listen what he says old Jerusalem they shall never hold their peace day or night who make who make mention of the Lord do not keep silent and give him no rest till he establishes, until he makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth. That is our call. That is the true ministry of a shepherd of God, to never remain silent. We preach the word in season and out of season, and if there's no season, we're going to preach it anyway.

We're just going to keep preaching and telling you of the goodness of God. Listen to what he says, never hold their peace day or night, continually proclaiming the truth of God. Till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. That's our job. That's the job of a shepherd.

We are watchmen. We are never to hold our peace. We are to always make mention of the Lord. We are never to be silent. It reminds me a lot of what Paul says in Ephesians here regarding this watchman.

He says until he makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth, in Ephesians 4 we quoted this dozens and dozens of times when we were going through the teaching on the church. And it says, and he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith, of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, and the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting but speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head Christ from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effective working by which every part does it share causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. This was the method of Peter's ministry. He was going to preach it and proclaim it until the church is appraised in all the earth.

And that is my desire. And lastly note Peter's care and diligence of passing on the truth even into his final days. Verse 14, knowing that shortly I must put off this tent, off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. Moreover, I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease. So some reasons for this carefulness of Peter and some of these are implied and some of them are deduced from other passages but I look at three things specifically Peter's impending death.

This is what made him careful in this ministry of remembrance. Peter knew that his life was quickly coming to an end. Christ himself told him and when they walked along the shore he explained to him the method of his death. It was going to be soon. He knew that he would not be there for them physically to comfort them and to continue to write letters of encouragement to them.

So he did this before his death. He wanted them to know, therefore he wanted to be careful to equip them with all that they needed to be able to withstand the onslaught of the enemy and the pressures that they would feel of the world and the pressures that they would feel of the world and the pressures that they would feel through trials and through temptations. Think about 1 Peter being set up there to encourage these believers of how to live godly lives in an ungodly world in the midst of persecution. That's what he was equipping them for and now he is equipping them to be able to stand against false teaching from false doctrine or false doctrine from false teachers and to help them through that and so he's wanting to press in on them these truths and this was the carefulness that he knew he needed to write with. He did not want them to be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine but he wanted them to be steadfast in what he had taught them and one of the ways that he did this was again reminding them of the proper view of scripture.

This is the second thing. He did it because of his impending death and he also did it because of his view of scripture. We see this in 2 Peter verse 1, 16. So looking forward into verse 16, he says, for we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but were eyewitnesses of his majesty for he received from God the Father honoring glory when such a voice came to him from the excellent glory, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." And then skipping on down to verse 20 or verse 19 he says, and so we have the prophetic word confirmed which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts, knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation. For prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

You see, Peter had a proper view of Scripture. If you do not hold a Biblical view of the Scriptures, you will not be able to stand in the evil day. You will be tossed to and fro. If the Bible is just another book, you're in real trouble. You are in real trouble.

But if you understand it to be what it declares itself to be, then you have a sure foundation on which to stand against false teachers and all heresies and in your times of troubles and temptations. 2nd Timothy 3, 16 and 17 very popular verse that we memorize when we're children all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness why that the man of God may be complete thoroughly equipped for every good work This is the doctrine of Scripture that we hold here. We understand that the doctrine that we have and the prophecies that we have did not come by man, it came by God. We also understand that this doctrine that we have, this Scripture, is by inspiration of God. It's breathed by God, the very words of God that we need.

That was Peter's view of Scripture and because of this view of Scripture it was this reason for carefulness. He understood what it was and how careful he must be in what he taught. And thirdly in this reason, this third reason for his carefulness was Peter's love for God's people. We see this back in 1 Peter in kind of an implied way but in 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 22 he says since you have purified your souls and obeying the truth through the Spirit and sincere love of the brethren love one another fervently with a pure heart and so as Peter this is this implicit command or this implied understanding of his love for the brethren. He's telling them love one another fervently with a pure heart.

In saying those words, he was loving them fervently with a pure heart. He loved God's people. And then also in 1 Peter 5, in his instruction to the elders specifically, he said, the elders who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed." And then he says this, out of love for God's people, shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly, nor as being lords over those entrusted to you but being Examples to the flock and when the chief shepherd appears you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away Peter loved God's people and that's what shepherds are to do. There's really no amount of money that could be paid to a shepherd that would cause him to love you enough. It is the love of Christ working through your elders that calls us to love you, to speak the truth to you, to remind you constantly, to say things sometimes that you don't want to hear because we love you.

This is the work of a true shepherd. And then not only was he careful But the way of passing on this truth is important. In 2 Peter 3, look with me there in 2 Peter 3, 2 Peter 3 verse 1, Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle, in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder." So he knew that not only was it based upon his impending death that was coming. And not only was it Peter's view of Scripture that he knew of this carefulness and that he wanted them to know the truth of God. And so he told them the truth of God and he did it because he loved the people of God, but he wanted to secure this way by, and this is all the work of God in him, he wrote it down.

Scott mentioned that this morning about the importance of the written Word of God, that we have the written Word of God that we hold in our hands. And so Peter's care and diligence for the church is seen in the fact that he labored to write it down by way of continual remembrance even after his death. And we are recipients of that. We are experiencing what he did those many years ago. And he's given it to us to remind us of the truth of God's word over and over and over again.

One of the fascinating things about children is when they see you reading through the Bible in a year, they're like, well, we're gonna read next year, we're gonna read the Bible again. Well, we just read it. Yeah, we're gonna read it again. And then next year we're gonna read it again, and then next year we're gonna read it again, and again, and again, and again. Because we are slow of heart, and we are so forgetful.

We need the Word of God washing over us every Lord's Day, every day to feed us so that we will remember to love God and to keep His commandments. Peter did not want to leave this world without first leaving God's people with a written testimony of the truth of God's Word. And if the Bible was what it claimed itself to be, then it was worth writing down for generations of believers to read and to study and to have to guide them on their journey. Men and women have given their lives for this book. They have shed their blood so that you could read it in English.

They gave their lives so that common men could read the Word of God because it was life-giving and life-changing. Because it is what it claims to be. It is the very word of God and I will be diligent of reminding you of this over and over and over again until my dying day if the Lord allows me. Over and over. So don't expect anything new when I stand up here or when Scott stands up here.

We're just going to keep telling you the things that you know and that's why the the Reformation call of Sola Scriptura, it is it's the Word of God that we need. And may God grant it. May He grant a rich abundance of the Word of God to wash over our souls so that we would be renewed by the Spirit of God. For faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Pray with me.

Our Father, thank you for the Word of God. Thank you Lord that you have so wisely had it written down for generation after generation after generation to read it. Thank you Lord for reminding us dull-hearted hearers. We need it. Lord, we are like little children.

We need to hear it over and over again. So Lord, I pray that you would wash us with the water of the word on a daily basis. And as we gather together each Lord's Day, Father, just pour out your word more and more upon us. And may we never get tired of hearing it. Lord may we never tire of hearing the gospel.

It is the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. So would you wash your people today, fill them up Lord, and help them to stay on that straight and narrow path until the church is then the bride of Christ. And we are at the marriage supper of the Lamb that we heard about and had a foretaste of earlier this day. Lord, what a glorious picture. We thank you for your word and we thank you, God, that you've given it to us in such a way that we could read it over and over again.

We love you and we praise you in Christ's name, amen. All right, you are dismissed.