About this sermon
Paul rebukes the Corinthians as infants in Christ who can still take only milk, and their factions and worldliness prove it. The passage offers no support for a separate class of ‘carnal Christians,’ as some teach. Paul and Apollos are only servants, and God alone gives the growth. Believers grow toward maturity through the means of grace, the word, prayer, and the sacraments, and they live out their unity as God’s field and God’s building.
Sermon transcript
Please remain standing for the reading of God’s word. This evening, we take a break from our consideration of the Psalms to consider a passage from from Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians, first Corinthians. Chapter 3, verses 1 through 9 is my sermon text this evening. I want to begin back in chapter 2, verse 14, which is towards the end of that chapter and read through chapter 3, verse 9. So beginning at 1 Corinthians 2, verse 14, let us hear God’s holy word. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord that he will instruct him?
But we have the mind of Christ. And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly? And are you not walking like mere men? For when one says, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are you not mere men? What then is Apollos, and what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.
Now he who plants and he who waters are one, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord’s blessing upon the preaching of his word. Once again, dear Lord and Father in Heaven, we ask that You would make our hearts tender, malleable, teachable, and we pray that by Your Spirit that Your Word would find a lodging place in our souls, and that You would use this Word to cause us to grow in the knowledge and love of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We ask that You would grant unto me, Your unworthy servant, the grace and assistance by Your Spirit, so to speak Your Word, that it would be edifying to Your people, glorifying to Your name, and would be a source of blessing even for the lost.
We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said, Amen. Congregation, you may be seated. There are a number of words you can be listening for in my sermon this evening, especially the children, and I’d like to encourage the children to help them follow along in the sermon to be listening for these words in particular, the words infancy, church and grace. The title of my sermon this evening is The Problem of Spiritual Immaturity. Well, as you all probably know, newborn infants cannot eat solid food. It’s pretty basic. Try to spoon a chunk of steak into a newborn’s mouth and what is likely to happen? Well, that newborn is likely to choke. They’re simply not at the point in their development where they have the capacity to handle solid food. So what do their parents feed them?
Their parents feed them milk and baby food. But as long as the child is healthy and doesn’t have any special developmental issues, it is expected that as she gets older, she will eventually learn how to handle solid foods. A normally developed, healthy eight-year-old who is still walking around in diapers with a baby bottle in her mouth and who’s not yet learned how to eat solid food would be a cause for some serious concern. Well, dear ones, in our passage for this Lord’s Day evening, the apostle Paul confronts and rebukes a serious problem in the church at Corinth. And that problem was the problem of spiritual immaturity among the Corinthian Christians. See, on a spiritual level, the Corinthian Christians were like that eight year old in diapers who couldn’t handle solid food. Spiritually speaking, the Corinthians were still in the stage of spiritual infancy when they should have made progress in their faith and in their growth in Christ.
They were still, as Paul describes them in verse one, they were still still mere infants in Christ. They could only handle the spiritual milk of God’s word. when they should have grown by this time to the point where they could handle the spiritual meat of the word. Now, how does Paul know this? What gives him this assessment of them? What leads him to this conclusion about their spiritual state? Well, one glaring evidence of their spiritual immaturity was their factionalism and their worldliness. So let’s dive into our text, and I want us first to focus on verses one through four of First Corinthians, chapter three, as we take to heart an apostolic rebuke to spiritual immaturity and worldliness in the church. What we have here, first of all, is an apostolic rebuke to spiritual immaturity and worldliness in the church.
And so Paul writes here in chapter three, verse one. And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. Now, I want to point out that term spiritual there. I believe that the S should be capitalized. I would not speak of you as spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. What is the setting here? Well, to quote from one commentator, Paul now shows the Corinthians how God’s choice to work through weakness for his glory applies to their divided church. Just as Paul and Apollos work together for the advancement of the gospel, so the Corinthians should stop boasting about their favorite Christian leader and build a united church. See, it was their disunity, their factionalism, their divisiveness that evidenced their spiritual immaturity.
And in the first two verses, Paul points out the problem of remaining in spiritual infancy and not advancing to Christian maturity, as he not only describes them as mere infants in Christ. He then goes on to say in verse two, I gave you milk to drink, not solid food for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able. Now, I want you to notice a couple of things. Paul does take them to task for their lack of Christian growth and maturity here. But notice how Paul addresses them. He addresses them, first of all, as brethren or brothers. Even though Paul is about to rebuke these believers, he addresses them in a very pastoral, brotherly manner. He’s not talking down to them. He’s not trying to be nasty with them.
But he needs to confront sin in their midst. And he does so in a very brotherly way. He recognizes them as his brothers in Christ, his brothers and sisters in Christ. And he says, I could not speak to you as to spiritual men. That term spiritual in the Greek, pneumatikoios, is contrasted with fleshly or sarkenoios. Whereas back in chapter two, verse 14, The spiritual men, the pneumatikos in the Greek is contrasted with natural men, the psychikos. Back in chapter two, verse 14, he says, but a natural man. does not accept the things of the spirit of God. Now, what’s the significance there? What’s what am I trying to say here? What I’m trying to say here, friends, is that back in chapter two, verse 14, when Paul talks about the natural man, he’s talking about an unbeliever.
He’s talking about someone who is not in Christ. He’s talking about someone who is devoid of the indwelling spirit of God, an unregenerate person. Whereas when Paul describes here the Corinthians as being fleshly, He’s not denying that they are born again. He’s not denying that they’re Christians. He describes them as as being infants in Christ, thereby acknowledging them to be in Christ Christians, but Christians who have some growth that needs to take place in their walk with the Lord. Furthermore, later on in this chapter, Paul affirms that God’s spirit lives in them as God’s temple. So he’s not denying that these Corinthians are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. He’s not denying that they are regenerate. He is simply, he describes them elsewhere as God’s temple. As we see in verses 16 and 17, Paul writes, Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the spirit of God dwells in you?
They are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. They are in Christ. They are believers, Christians. And he goes on to say in verse 17, if any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him for the temple of God is holy. And that is what you are. You are so again. Paul’s language here at the beginning of chapter three is not to be interpreted as if Paul is denying that these believers are true believers. He’s not saying you folks aren’t even born again. You need to be saved. He is addressing them as immature believers, as those who are only in the milk stage. As it goes, as he goes on to say in verse two, I gave you milk to drink. not solid food, for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able.” The Corinthians were still not ready for the meat of the Word.
They are still in the milk stage of spiritual development. They still need spiritual farina, spiritual baby food. They can’t handle the meat of the Word yet. Dear ones, God expects us as individual believers and as a church to graduate from the spiritual diaper stage and to press on towards spiritual maturity. Now, here’s the thing. Our catechisms, our confessional standards rightly teach that sanctification is not our work. It’s not something that we do. We don’t ultimately sanctify ourselves as our catechism reminds us of. Sanctification is a work of what? Of God’s free grace. Just as justification, God’s declaration of us as being righteous in his sight is an act. of God’s free grace, something God does outside of us, declaring us righteous in his sight. Sanctification is a work of God’s free grace. The spirit works within us to grow us up into Jesus.
If that’s the case, why does Paul take these Corinthians to task for their lack of growth in grace? Well, while it is true that we cannot grow ourselves up spiritually, just like in the natural realm, you know, our children, they don’t grow themselves up. It takes time. However, in the natural realm, it is possible to stunt a child’s growth. What do children, young children, need in order to grow up to be healthy, well-adjusted young people and ultimately adults? They need some vital ingredients. They need adequate nourishment, adequate rest, adequate exercise, and they need a loving, nurturing, caring environment in the home life. All of these things combined together will naturally produce, over time, a mature and maturing young person and eventually an adult. If that is the case in the natural realm, I think there’s an analogy here.
It’s not a perfect analogy, but there is an analogy in the spiritual realm. Ultimately, the Spirit will work in our hearts to ultimately conform us into the image of Christ in due time. But let us not put obstacles in the way of the Spirit’s work. in our lives. And let us diligently use those means of grace, especially the word and the sacraments and prayer and worship. These are means that God uses to grow us up in Jesus as we seek to. And furthermore, let us heed the exhortation from the scriptures to grow in the knowledge and love of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so, dear Christian, let me ask you, where are you in the process of your spiritual growth? Are you still an infant in Christ who can only handle the milk of the word?
And by the way, there’s no there’s no shame in being an infant in Christ. If you are a new believer, we all start off as infants in the natural, in the natural realm. Likewise, in the spiritual realm, a new convert to Christ starts off as a spiritual infant, even if that new convert is 70 years old. If you’re a 70 year old, who is, you know, you can be highly intelligent and well adjusted and and, you know, be very competent and worldly wisdom. But if you’re new in Christ, you are spiritually an infant in Christ with the need to grow like the rest of the rest of us. We all start off in that stage of spiritual infancy. But over time, God intends to grow us up in Jesus. And so let me ask you, where are you in your spiritual growth?
Are you still an infant in Christ who can only handle the milk of the word or by God’s grace? Are you striving to make progress toward further growth and maturity in Christ? I would encourage us to heed, as I’ve already referred to this passage, But I want to just read it at the end of 2 Peter chapter 3. We read these words as as Peter rounds off and finishes up his second epistle. He says, You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness. But what grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. Let us, by the grace of God, strive to grow in the knowledge and love of our Savior.
What are the evidences of continuing spiritual immaturity in the congregation here in Corinth? Well, as I’ve already mentioned, and as Paul makes very clear in verses three and four, the evidences of their ongoing spiritual immaturity include jealousy and the idolization of their favorite preacher. Look at verses three and four. Paul writes, For you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly? And are you not walking like mere men? For when one says, I am of Paul, you know, I really love the apostle Paul. He’s my guy, you know. I’m Pauline or I am of Apollos. Are you not near man? What’s what’s Paul mean here? Paul says you are still fleshly. The NIV translates it as you are still worldly. And it goes on to ask, are you not like mere men?
What’s the point that he’s making here? Well, as one commentator puts it, although the Corinthians are Christians and dwelt by the spirit, their divisive behavior shows that they are acting like the unbelieving world around them. In terms of these particular behaviors that were going on in the church at Corinth, where there was where there was bickering, there was division, there was jealousy, there was strife, there were competing, competing factions. You know, I follow the Apostle Peter. I follow the Apostle Paul. I follow Apollos. I follow Christ. I’m more spiritual than all of you. That kind of mindset in the church evidenced a fleshly immaturity. That’s what we would expect from the unregenerate. That’s what we would expect from those who are still of the world. Beloved, when there is jealousy and divisive behavior in the church, it shows that the church has a lot of growing to do.
It’s also shameful because it makes the Christians in such churches look like they are no different from unbelievers. Dear ones, Division in Christ’s church is a terrible testimony to those outside of the faith. If we want our church’s testimony and outreach for the gospel to be taken seriously by the unbelieving world outside, we need to walk together, yes, in orthodox sound doctrine. Absolutely. That’s foundational. But also as an outflow of that, we need to walk together in unity, harmony, peace and love by the grace of God. And insofar as it depends upon us. Otherwise, it is very likely that our gospel witness as a church will be ineffective. It’s unlikely that our gospel witness will be effective or will produce lasting fruit for God’s kingdom. And so again, Paul is addressing these issues in the Corinthian church.
And again, as I mentioned before, Paul loves these brothers and sisters. If you read, if you’re familiar with the Corinthian correspondence, the Corinthian letters, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Paul has a heart for these folks. He loves them. He affirms their giftedness in the Lord. But here he’s confronting areas of carnality or worldliness in their attitudes within the church. And, you know, this this this language that Paul uses here at the beginning of chapter three has been misinterpreted and misapplied, especially in recent times through the so-called Christian carnal Christian teaching. Are you familiar with that? Paul writes, I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men. But as to carnal, as to men of flesh, and some have latched onto this language here and said, well, see, there’s there’s two types of Christians. There is the carnal Christian on the one hand and the spiritual Christian.
What is the carnal Christian? Well, this is the teaching that says, well, carnal Christians are those who have accepted Jesus as savior, but not as Lord. Whereas spiritual Christians are those who have accepted Christ as both Savior and Lord. And according to this teaching, there’s a whole category of Christians who are dominated by carnality. Yes, they’ve made a decision for Christ, quote unquote, or they’ve accepted Christ as their Savior, but they’re not living for the Lord and their lives are characterized by carnality and unrepentant sin. But those who are spirit-filled, those who have submitted to Christ as Lord, as well as trusted Him as Savior, these are the spiritual Christians. But this is a twisting and perversion of the language that Paul is using here in this passage. Yes, Paul uses some shocking language. He describes these Christians as fleshly, as mere infants in Christ, as those who are only able to handle the milk and not the meat of the Word.
But to say that true believers may have areas of worldliness and carnality and immaturity in their lives, as Paul in this passage tells us was the case with the Corinthian church, that’s one thing. But to say that a true believer’s entire life may be characterized as carnal and fleshly and thus completely dominated by the sinful flesh, that’s an entirely different thing. Paul affirms the former, that yes, true Christians can and most of us, in fact, we all in one form or another, we do have areas of ongoing carnality and worldliness and fleshliness in our lives. Do you continue to struggle with sin? If you’re an honest Christian, you will say, well, yeah, I do. Well, then you are fleshly in certain areas of your walk with the Lord. But that’s a different thing from saying that you are dominated by the sin nature.
Elsewhere, the apostle Paul himself teaches that those whose lives are completely dominated by the flesh or the sinful nature, as the NIV translates it, will not enter into the kingdom of God, which is to say that they have not been born again by the Holy Spirit. They are unsaved. Look, for example, at what Paul writes in Galatians 5, verses 19 through 21, I’m sorry, Galatians chapter five, verses 19 through 21. After he exhorts the Galatians to be led by, after he gives the promise, if you’re led by the spirit, you’re not under the law and so forth. He goes on to say, now the deeds of the flesh are evident and he lists a sampling of the deeds of the flesh or the fallen nature. which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, excuse me, jealousy, outbursts of anger. disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Paul is not saying if you’ve ever been guilty of any of these sins that he lists that sorry, there’s no hope of heaven for you. That’s not what he’s saying. He says, if you practice these things, if these things characterize your lifestyle, you will not enter the kingdom of God because these behaviors demonstrate that you have not been born again by the Holy Spirit, that you are still dead in your trespasses and sins. Now, certainly true believers can be fleshly and fall into patterns of worldly attitudes and behaviors. After all, in this present life, no Christian is perfectly sanctified. However, true believers cannot be dominated by the sin nature to such an extent that their entire lives are characterized by willful, conscious, unrepentant sin. True believers may sin. Indeed, they do sin. And sometimes we sin often and sometimes we can sin seriously.
But the difference is that the true believer experiences conviction for sin because the Holy Spirit dwells within us, and the true believer continues to repent and believe. The Christian life is not a life where you get saved, you have initial conversion, you initially repent and believe, and then it’s just smooth sailing from that point on, right? That’s not the way the Christian life is. Yes, there is an initial conversion. And whether you can remember your initial conversion or not, your Christian life is a life of daily, ongoing repentance and faith. Initial repentance and faith leads to a life of dying unto sin and rising unto newness of life. It is to live out our baptismal identity as those who are united to Christ in his death and resurrection. That’s the normal Christian life. It’s a battle.
It is a life fighting against sin, against the world, the flesh and the devil. And so, brothers and sisters, I would urge you, I would urge you to live a life by the grace of God of ongoing daily repentance and faith. And here’s the wonderful promise. The mercies of the Lord are new every morning. Every new day is a new opportunity to die to sin and follow Jesus, to believe upon Christ and enjoy the blessings of His forgiveness. Christ not only forgave you, When you came to Christ, when you put your trust and faith in him as your Lord and Savior, he continues to forgive you day by day. His mercies are new every morning. In the language of our confessional standards, I would exhort you from this passage to improve your baptism, to consider the implications of what your baptism signifies, that you indeed as is symbolized in your baptism, you’ve been united to Christ in His death and resurrection.
Therefore, having been united to Christ, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound, as Paul says in Romans 6, by no means, or I like how the King James translates it, God forbid. For how can we who died to sin in principle, we have died to sin through our union with Christ and have been raised to newness of life in him. And that’s really what Paul is getting at here as he’s exhorting these Corinthians. He’s saying, look, live out your identity in Christ and stop, stop your bickering, stop your factionalism, stop your divisiveness. Dear, dear listener, the bottom line is this. Jesus will not be your Savior if you willfully refuse and reject him as your Lord. Are you trusting Christ, the Son of God, as both your Savior from hell and as the sovereign Lord of your life?
And to say that is not to suggest a works righteousness scheme of salvation. It’s trust in Christ. It’s receiving and resting upon Him as your Savior, not only from the guilt of sin and the penalty of sin, but trusting Him to graciously reign in your life, enabling you more and more to subdue and die to sin and live unto righteousness out of gratitude for His gift of salvation unto you. Trust in Christ. Come to Him. Receive and rest upon Him as your Lord and Savior. by the grace of God, and you will be saved. And God’s Spirit will dwell in you and will enable you over time to grow in the knowledge and love of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, as we move on briefly, consider a few more points from this passage.
Consider next how you are to view your spiritual leaders in the church. They are to be viewed as servants of the Lord and mere instruments in His hands. These Corinthians were gravitating towards their favorite celebrity preacher. And we in the American church can kind of relate to that today. We have a tendency to be to be drawn towards our favorite celebrities, whether we talk about the celebrities in the entertainment industry, the music industry, or even in the church. We in the Reformed church sometimes exalt certain popular preachers and they become celebrities, whether they intend to be or want to be or not. And so Paul is here reminding these Corinthians of who these leaders are. As Paul writes in verse 5, what then is Apollos? What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? His answer is servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one.
Servants. Church leaders are servants. Dr. W. Harold Mayer says, the point is that no Christian worker is ever to be idolized. Believers are to realize that Christian workers are simply God’s servants. The word here in the Greek is diakonoi, from which we get the word deacon. Agents through whom people believe in Christ. And notice also, Paul points out that church leaders have different but complementary tasks and gifts. Look at verses five and six. What, then, is Apollos and what is Paul’s servants through whom you believed even as the Lord gave opportunity? Paul says, I planted, Apollos watered. But do Apollos and Paul, should they get the glory? No, because he goes on to say God was causing the growth. Growth comes from God, not from Paul, not from Apollos. Not from R.C. Sproul. We love Sproul here.
We, you know, Sinclair Ferguson, these are all gifted men of God from whom we can learn much. But ultimately, God is the one who uses these servants and they are just servants to grow God’s church into the image of Christ. And so God gives different leaders different spiritual gifts, and that’s true even among leaders that that fulfill certain offices. I mean, there are some pastors, for example, who are better at, say, counseling or administration Whereas other pastors are better at preaching and teaching and so forth. There’s even the gift mix of different pastors and different elders and even different deacons and other servants in the church can be different. But God gives these different gifts to build up the body of Christ. Our differences, brothers and sisters, are meant to complement each other, not to contradict or be in conflict with each other.
And that leads me to my final point based on verse nine. And I know this is a very quick overview here. There’s much in this passage that we could learn. The people of God take to heart your identity as God’s field, God’s building. And Paul goes on to say. He mentions that, you know, Apollos watered, but I planted Apollos watered. God gave the growth. Verse seven, so neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything but God who causes the growth. Stop looking to these men. Stop putting them up on a pedestal. Look to God. God is the one. who gives the growth. And again, let’s remember Paul is addressing a church. He’s primarily addressing the church corporately considered, although this has implications for our lives as individual believers. And then he says in verse eight, now he who plants and he who waters are one, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.
There’s a division of labor in the kingdom and church of God for we are God’s fellow workers, we apostles and preachers like Paul and Apollos. He says we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. He uses agricultural and architectural language here, describing the church, first of all, as God’s field. Consider the church as God’s field. Christ brings his church into being through what? Through sowing the seed of his word in the hearts of his elect. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. And as Paul says in Romans 10, how can they hear without a preacher? God’s ordinary way of of calling his elect to faith in Christ is through the preached word. Although certainly God uses the written word, the word as it is read, but The church is God’s field.
The preachers scatter the seed of the word, but God, the spirit, makes the heart good soil and causes that word to take root and bear spiritual fruit. And then the church is also described here as God’s building. Paul often uses this imagery in his epistles, and Peter does as well in 1 Peter 2. Christ is the chief cornerstone and we are living stones built together into a holy temple of the Lord. And I’ve I love this passage. I’ve read it, I think, recently, but I’m going to read it again because it’s so good and so relevant here. First Peter 2, 4 through 12. Peter writes, and coming to him, Christ, as to a living stone, which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God. You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For this is contained in Scripture. Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious cornerstone, and he who believes in him will not be disappointed. This precious value, then, is for you who believe, but for those who disbelieve, the stone which the builders rejected, this became the very cornerstone and the stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word. And to this doom they were also appointed. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. For you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God. You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Because you and I in Christ have received mercy, we are God’s field, we are God’s building, and God is building us up in Christ as a holy temple in the Lord. Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us live out the implications of our identity as God’s field, God’s building. Through the Holy Spirit, God is conforming us by his grace and grace alone. He’s conforming us more and more into the image of his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, and he is fitting us for the age to come. Therefore, let us seek to live up to our identity by striving to grow in the knowledge and love of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. May we grow. May we go forth and grow. from spiritual infancy and childhood into Christian maturity so that we can feed on the meat of the Word.
How do we grow again? Ultimately, God is the one who grows us up. Sanctification is a work of God’s free grace. Let us let us use the means of grace, the word and prayer and the sacraments and so forth. Let us diligently use these means by which the Holy Spirit causes us to grow in the knowledge and love of Christ. And let us strive to live out the implications of our unity in Christ, for we are one body. We are united in one spirit. So let us let us in the way that we treat one another manifest that reality. Amen. Let us pray. Gracious Lord and Father in heaven, we thank you once again, Heavenly Father, for the richness of Holy Scripture. We ask, Lord, that by your Holy Spirit and through the word, you would indeed give us the grace to mature and grow in Christ.
And grant us grace, O Lord, to go on from from strength to strength, to be able to receive not only the milk, but also the meat of your holy word. We ask this heavenly father in Jesus name and all of God’s people said amen. Let’s rise and we’ll sing is our closing hymn. Number 467 cast down, O God, the idols.
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