2 Timothy

This is a series, an occasional series that we've been doing, in Paul's second letter to Timothy, and, the last installment I think was September so it's been a while since we are dipped into this book together, but we're back in it this morning. So 2 Timothy chapter 4 First 1. In the presence of god and of Christ Jesus, who would judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge. Preach the word. Be prepared in season and out of season.

Correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead to suit their own desires, they will gather round them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you keep your head in all situations.

Enjoy hardship. Do the work of an evangelist discharge all the duties of your ministry. For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time of my departure is near. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race.

I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. We're gonna pray, before we look at this passage, and I'm gonna pray as well for Daryl, who's preaching away this morning. Father, we, thank you for your word. We thank you that it speaks to us that it's not some ancient textbook, that means nothing that is your living word.

Lord, we pray you, take it this morning and buy your spirit, put it in our hearts and our minds, that we might be changed by it. Laurie pay for, Daryl as well as he preaches at New Mold and Baptist help him to speak the truth. To be clear. And again, that the the people are listening, will hear from you and be changed by your word In Jesus' name, amen. What would you what would you say this morning?

If I asked you, what you thought your ministry actually was. Did you, even know that you were supposed to have 1? Maybe that's never occurred to you after all, you know, you're not employed by the church. You have a family or a day job. How much more can you be expected to do on top of that you might be thinking?

Yet the Bible is clear, you see, that we're saved for a reason that we're saved to be part of the body of Christ. And as we see in Romans, as we saw when we were going through Romans, in ephesians actually that we're studying in home groups. At the moment, the body is made up of all sorts of different parts with different different skill sets, but each part of the body with its individual function is there to benefit the whole body. So no part of the body is supposed to do nothing, whether it's your foot or your eye or your stomach or your knee, Whatever bit it is, it's not supposed to just hang there, functionless, wasting away. We're supposed to play an active part in church life so that we grow and mature into being more like Jesus Christ.

Serving in ministries part of that. Paul in colossians, 1 verse 28 says of Jesus He is the 1 we proclaim. He is the 1 we proclaim admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom. Now why doesn't he just say he is the 1 Jesus is the 1 we proclaim Full stop. What's all this stuff about admonishing and teaching?

Well, he carries on the same verse so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. So that shows us, doesn't it? That verse straight away that we're supposed to go through a process of maturing as we're taught, as we're corrected, as we're urged, basically, as we sit under the word. Immediately then, we should be asking ourselves, where are we in that maturing process less. And hopefully if we think like that, if we dwell on that, if we think about our lives, we'll identify areas where perhaps we're more of a consumer And that's important because we grow fastest by living out our faith, by serving, by exercising our ministries.

By making mistakes, which we will inevitably do, we will make mistakes. And we apologize, and then we go again. We move forwards. So I've noticed you might have a different experience. I don't know, but I I've noticed that some of my non Christian friends, people in the office and so on.

They seem to be better at this than we are. You know, they mess up, they apologize, and they just carry on. And it it worries me a little that because we're Christians, because we're church family here together, we have 2 high expectations of each other. You know, we hold each other to some higher standard in our head. So we don't forgive enough.

When we get hurt or when we get let down by a brother or sister in Christ interacting with the church family is a maturing process because none of us are perfect. So we're going to get it wrong. And this maturing is what these verses in 2 Timothy chapter 4 are about. Now if you keep it open in front of you, you'll see a a verse that's pretty familiar to many of us, verse 2, preach the word, it says. And a lot of people, particularly in our sort of church circles, would basically preach on that.

They would emphasize verse 2, preach the word, and I understand that that is very important. I understand that it's an important command, and we're going to spend quite a lot of time on it this morning. And of course, it is very tempting if you're a preacher to do a sermon on how important it is for the church to stay faithful to preaching the word because you know there are so many churches out there that aren't. But I think we need to see that verse 5 is the wrapper around which 2 to 4 are inside. Verse 5, but you keep your head in all situations and do a hardship, do the work of an evangelist.

Discharge all the duties of your ministry. In quite a few of the other translations, that just says, fulfill your ministry. Paul is saying to Timothy, and he's saying to us, fulfill your ministry. And yes, for Timothy, that includes preaching the word. But it also includes the earlier bit of verse 5.

Keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist. And that last 1, do the work of an evangelist, does mean preach the gospel, that's what we think of as evangelism, bringing people to Christ, but it actually has the sense of stepping out of your comfort zone. See, it's the idea that for us, it's not enough just to do church meetings on a Sunday, Wednesday, mid week thing, you know, looking after the flock, helping each other, we have to do more than that. We have to step out of our comfort zone and actually try and reach Kingston. In both 1 and 2 Timothy, Paul puts huge responsibility on his son in the faith.

Way beyond just preach the word. So in summary, if I wanted to summarize the 2 letters, Paul tells Timothy Look Timothy, you've gotta do the following, rebuke heretics, preach the word. Meditate on sound doctrine, confront false teaching, be an example to the believers. Read and explain the text carefully. Apply it.

Give god your life, endure hardships suffer for the gospel. And there's no suggestion is there here that Timothy turns around and says, why me? You know, this is way too much. In fact, we know from Hebrews, which is probably written a little later than to Timothy, that the writer says this chapter 13 verse 23 of Hebrews, I want you to know that our brother Timothy has been released. So clearly, In the end, sometime after this, Timothy goes to prison for the gospel.

Timothy accepts all the responsibility given to him because he's called to this ministry. Now we may not be called to be a preacher or a church leader, but there'll be a ministry, a form of serving god that we are called to, And when we found that calling, take it on. Take it on with a joyful and a glad heart willing to work hard at it. You see, churches who promote the sort of Christianity where nothing is required of you. Where you're basically a spectator.

Well, they're catering to the to people whose first love is actually self. Who don't care for god, unless they can have him without disruption to their own lifestyle. We had, quite a few of you involved in this. We had a fight club social this week, and our little table group, went out. We went to the Chinese don't know why I'm telling you this, but anyway, we went to the Chinese all you can eat buff raising.

There are clearly some people in there who must eat there every night. They were gigantic. And, they were loving it, and we struggled to after 4 or 5 plates to keep going. We were trying to get our money's worth. So, you know, we were there.

Anyway, 1 guy was who was with us said he felt god was really growing him at Cornerstone. He was excited by how many ministries we were trying to do. Whether it's international cafe, whether it's board games, whether it's breakfast church, whether it's hub club, whether it's beside, but he also commented, it's quite interesting that he he'd felt, when he when he first came that at our prayer meetings, there was an expectation that he'd pray, and he had to get his head around that. Because the church that he'd been to before was basically a Sunday service, an optional mid week meeting and nothing else. No involvement required.

Even at their prayer meetings, he said, we always stayed in 1 big group. And the result of that is the elders prayed, or a few other people, and no 1 else did. Now how does that structure help us fulfill on our ministry? The sort of preaching that panders to a consumerism is not what Paul expects of Timothy. Look at verse 2.

Preach the word, be prepared in season and out of season, correct rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction. And you see, our first point really is the 1 I mentioned earlier from this verse, preach the word. Now, you've got to bear in mind Timothy's a preacher, Timothy's a church leader, Timothy's a church planter, Paul wants to be absolutely clear the most important way in which he fulfills his ministry is to preach the word. And whilst we might not be preachers here, or church leaders, we do need to think about our own ministries, our own service. How do they incorporate this goal?

Preach the word? How do they enhance it? How do they at the very least not take away from it? So for example, when I see, the work that Katherine does behind the scenes, the organization of a lot of what happens at Cornerstone, it's to facilitate the word being preached, same with the sound desk, same with the media group, same with the stewarding, same with the coffee. You may not be preaching, but by fulfilling your ministry, you're often enhancing the word being preached.

And that should encourage us, shouldn't it, to do the job to the best of our ability? If we if you can't hear me, or if the sermon isn't recorded or if the creche is understaffed, and so mothers are constantly being texted and say, can you come back? Or if there's no coffee beforehand because the urns weren't put on on time, then we get in the way of people hearing god's word. See, little things make a difference to how we concentrate. We know we're creatures of habit, We try our best here to make it hard to be a creature of habit by changing things, but we know we are.

And so little things like can't have coffee this morning change the whether we can listen or not in the sermon. I remember, Rachel Rolf, telling me she was telling me off, actually. I was on duty fairly early on in the crash, and we were at our limit in terms of kids and adults ratio, and we'd it only been 5 or 10 minutes in, so we had quite a long way to go. And I said, oh, I need to go to the Lou. And she said, farewell, will you pee before you come in the creche?

And she's right, you know, because I was dumping other babies on some other people. You know, let's think about what we do on a Sunday. Are you on time? Do you speak to the person sitting next to you? Do you see somebody new sitting there and go and sit next to them?

Do you make people feel welcome? You see, it could easily be that your kindness in the way you speak to somebody next to you helps them listen to the word preached. Now we must also, of course, support and pray for the people who like Timothy do have a ministry of preaching, encourage Pete and Tom in their ministries, encourage Ben Reed as he heads towards joining the team, encourage the young fight club preachers, pray for them Tell them when the Bible has spoken to you. When you've been built up in 1 of their talks, drop them an email or a text. Again, you see, I wonder if we're not as good at this as we think we are.

If you do something quite small, I've noticed, to help somebody at work, you get a nice little thank you note, or at the very least, a sort of gushing thanks at the time. We got a letter recently, from, a couple here who, were thanking Cornerstone for how it had changed their lives. And, you know, they'd enclosed a check with it. And I read it to the elders, and it was terrifically encouraging. It was a lovely thing to receive I don't want us to start writing endless notes, but when did you last thank a Stewart?

Or the musicians, or drop a note to any of the staff team that wasn't a complaint. You know, I hope we don't think, and it and it it might just be me. I hope we don't think, well, I'm on this roadster and no 1 thanks me, so I'm not gonna thank someone else. Preaching the word is the ministry, but all those other ministries can build on that or take away from it. Preaching the word is also the Ministry of the Church itself.

Did you know that? Our job collectively is to preach the word. See, Paul emphasizes this instruction, with verse 1. We're going to look at verse 1 very briefly. Does it in, a few ways?

Firstly, he says this, look chapter 4 verse 1 in the presence of god and of Christ Jesus. So he's saying straight away, to Timothy. Preach the word because the because god, the father, and the son Jesus Christ are watching. That's what they want you to do. Then he says, secondly, who will judge the living and the dead?

He's talking about Jesus. Now of all the things Paul could have highlighted about Jesus. He chooses this 1, who will judge the living and the dead. The point he's making here is preaching is a high stakes activity. It is life and death and beyond that to the final judgment of all of us by Jesus Christ.

The reality is the preacher deals in eternal life and death. That is why it's so crucial to preach the word. These these little, breaking this verse 1 into bits is, they're called intensifiers. And the final intensifier is, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge. Now what he's saying there is, look, a preacher must keep in mind that he proclaims the coming king of the universe.

Now I know at the beginning of half term, nice weather that seems remote, doesn't it? But Paul's saying, look, I'm telling you Timothy to preach in the knowledge that Jesus will appear. And when he does, he will be king, and all the truth that you have proclaimed will be vindicated. Let's turn back to chapter 3 in verse 16, the verse before. Let's just look at that.

3 verse 16, and I'm going to read through without the chapter heading. All scripture is god breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. So the servant of god may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. It's about maturing again, for every good work. In the presence of god and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, And in view of his appearing in his kingdom, I give you this charge, preach the word, be prepared in season and out of season, correct rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction.

It's 1 train of thought. Paul is saying preach the word. Yes. But he's saying preach all of it because all of it is inspired. All of it is profitable.

All of it make wise to salvation through Jesus Christ, all of it equips us, all of it matures us, preaching the whole Bible is Timothy's ministry, it's the Ministry of Cornerstone. That's why, in case you wondered, that's why we tackle books like song of songs that some churches don't cover. That's why we spent months rather than weeks in Romans because we want to cover it all, not just the bits that we like, or the bits that are palatable. Acts 20, Paul says, for I've not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of god, or in other versions, the whole council of god, saying exactly the same thing, proclaim all that god has said. So if Timothy's gonna fulfill his ministry, he has to preach the word.

Secondly, he has to do it even when it's tough. Preach the word be prepared in season and out of season. So whenever we have an opportunity to preach not just as some of us do from the pulpit, but as we all do in our lives. You all preach You've preached your neighbors, your friends, in a discussion, in your 1 to ones, in your home groups, at the school gates, at work, We have to do it in season and out of season, which means when it's convenient and when it's not. When it seems suitable and when it does not.

When it seems easy and when it seems hard, when we feel brave and when we don't. To fulfill our ministry, we must proclaim god's word at all times. And whether we do it or not mustn't be influenced by, our culture, you know, whether it's viewed as the right thing to talk about. Or by tradition or by a desire to be liked or by a desire to seem reasonable. We mustn't kid ourselves.

When you talk to people, the fact that they like what you say doesn't mean you're getting it right. May just mean you softened it. Copula doesn't necessarily mean pleasing in god's eyes. The gospel has to be preached even when it's tough. About a week or so ago, most of you know this, I took my mom's funeral.

And, and, to be honest, it would have been entirely it would have been much easier to say nothing about the gospel. There was nobody there really that wanted it it would have, it felt slightly inappropriate in a way because of the circumstances and the people there, but Pete pushed me He pushed me quite a few times in the week or so before you've gotta say something about the gospel. And in the end, I decided which is my logical way of dealing with it, that, I was never gonna see most of those people again. In other words, I was a coward, and I thought, well, I'm never gonna see them again, so I will. And in the end, I put the whole gospel in.

Now I've no idea whether it went well, or whether it was the right thing, or whether I did it well, and all that sort of stuff. It doesn't matter. Preach in season and out of season. See, that little phrase in verse 2, be prepared in seasonal out of season, be prepared can be translated as be ready. It's used actually of a soldier going into battle.

Now is that how you describe yourself? When you go to the office, when you talk to your neighbor, are you ready? Famous verse 1, Peter 3, verse 15, always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But you see, that little phrase be prepared, always be prepared to give an answer is the same phrase as we've got here. Are you prepared?

Paul then goes on in chapter 4 to give us characteristics of the sort of thing he expects Timothy to have in his preaching. Again, we can apply this to ourselves to the church. Be prepared in season out of season, correct rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction. It's interesting. I don't know if you notice that when you read it.

2 out of, 3 of those words, correct, rebuke, and encourage. 2 of them are negative. Only 1 is positive. Some of us need to hear that. You can't always just encourage and be lovely, and smile, and want to be liked.

1 commentator said this. It's pretty strong. Just listen to this. 1 commentator said, all valid ministry All valid ministry has a negative tone. The preacher who fails to correct and fails to rebuke is not fulfilling his commission.

Now the idea of correcting someone through preaching means to affect their mind. You're trying to help them understand that what they believe is wrong. Your neighbor, the person you chapter at the school gate, the person who thinks there is no god, there is no hell, life's fine. Life is all there is, is wrong. And you're to to use corruption to show them what is right, alter their thinking, bring them to the truth.

But the second negative he mentions, the 1 where it says rebuking is actually stronger than that. The second negative rebuking is less to do with the mind and more to do with the heart. The job of the preacher in the case of rebuking is to bring a person under the conviction of their sin and guilt, and then stop them going the wrong way. Bring them back to a path under god. So the preacher's responsibility is to continually expose and correct and rebuke sin.

Our favorite preacher of mine, John McCarthy, he says this, Jesus never preached a message simply on the theme of god's love. The unrepentant sinner has no hope in the love of god, because god's love is inseparable from his holiness and justice. A person who refuses to be cleansed of his sin by god's grace has no prospect of being accepted into heaven by his love. Pretty strong. But just think about when you're talking to people, are you giving an opposite message to that?

That's why we have to preach messages that expose sin See it's what we saw earlier, preaching is life or death, and that sort of preaching changes lives. In acts 2, Peter preaches to the people, doesn't he? Big crowd. And it says, describes the people after the sermons finished. As having been cut to the heart.

See, that doesn't come just so encouraging. Now having said that, the third word is positive. And there are some people, and I may fall into this category, who need to hear that, that 1 out of 3 is positive, 1 out of 3 is encouraging. You know, Pete said last week, if you were here, don't spend all your time hunting the little foxes in your relationship. On the problems in your marriage.

You don't want a completely negative relationship where every time you're together and talking, you're discussing the problems. Well, it's the same here. You don't want a preacher that's constantly bashing you, leaves you heavy hearted every time you hear a sermon. In our preaching, whatever format that takes for you, as well as correcting and rebuking, which we must do, we have to come alongside people and encourage them to change spiritually. 1 thessalonians 2, you don't need to look it up.

I'll just read it to you. 1 thessalonians 2 verse 11 says this. For you know that we dealt with each of you, as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting, and urging you to live lives worthy of god who calls you into his kingdom and glory. Look, we know this when we have babies around. We don't say to the baby that's learning to walk.

Why are you so slow? Can't you run yet? That's why it says in verse 2, we're too encouraged with great patience and careful instruction. We mustn't get frustrated with people's apparent slowness to respond or their tendency to repeat past errors. But on the other side of the coin, and the tone of this verse is too negative, 1 positive.

If they should know better, If they start moving away from god, if they start heading into sin, then encouraging is not the way to go very rarely. They need challenging, rebuking, correcting, and you're not fulfilling your ministry. And indeed, you're not being a friend if you don't do that. Thirdly, third part of this command to preach the word is preach the word despite opposition. Look at verse 3 with me.

For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching is, want to hear. See Paul's warning that he must press on in this gospel work of proclamation and teaching, but he must understand that there will be periods of time when people will not accept what he says. They may very well leave the church. They will go and find teachers who scratch where they itch.

And Paul is saying, look, don't let this deter you. It's not a sign of failure. We may preach the truth accurately and faithfully here and still numbers might fall because people want something else. You know, we've we've been very blessed over under Pete's ministry over the last, what, 15 years or so, to see good growth. And that's coincided with faithful preaching of the word, but you can't assume that 1 equals the other.

Gospel preaching won't always produce growth because of itching is. Success in god's eyes is measured by faithfulness, not by numbers. Yet even then, low growth isn't really the warning of this verse. The root problem in verse 3 of those who reject sound teaching, wanda into myths is not intellectual, but emotional. So we must be wary of what it is that in our own hearts makes us discontent.

See, Paul doesn't say that people won't endure faithful teaching because of doctrine or confusion or theological debate He says they won't put up with it because of itchy. So it's not that people are accumulating teachers to suit their own thinking their own ideas, it's they accumulate teachers to suit their own desires. That's what he says. Their own passions. So we don't usually leave a church because we don't like the elders' view on, I don't know, limited atonement.

Probably don't know what it is. We leave because our desires and our passions in many ways, our sins are being challenged. That's not always the case. We've got some people in newcomers, cup couple of people, a few people, actually, who've left churches because they've seen it teaching wrong things, and that's fantastic. But most people leave because we're not scratching where they itch.

So we must fight for the truth at an emotional level, at a heart level, as heroes of the word us as individuals analyze how you're responding to it, as it's preached, are we letting god speak to us mold us, change us? Rebuke us and encourage us, or are your ears already itching? They're itching for a message that will allow you to continue with a lifestyle that you know is anti Bible. They're itching because you want to go down a particular path of greed or adultery or idolatry whatever that take sport it could be. When this happens, and people leave, we mustn't despair, we mustn't get down about it, and we mustn't respond by watering down the message to make it more palatable.

We just keep going. We just keep preaching the truth and fulfilling the ministry that god has given you. And that brings us right back to our opening. What's your ministry? Are you fulfilling it?

Are you helping us to grow god's kingdom here at Cornerstone? Because you see, when I read these verses, There's nothing here that leads me to think consumerism in church is fine. That being a passenger is fine. Of course, if you need to be carried for a while, if because you're hurting, or you're injured, or you're new, or you're tentative or you're worried, that's fine. This is the place to be.

Don't pull away when there's something going wrong in your life. But for the rest of us, Paul is saying, look, keep going. Keep going, Timothy. And the beauty of these verses is that we know, actually, it's tough. We know we can't do it.

A lot of what we're asked to do, we just can't do. We can't manage it on our own, but he deals with that in verses 6 to 8, and it's our final point, fulfill your ministry because it's worth it. Verse 6, for I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near, I have fought the good fight. I finished the race. I have kept the faith.

Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness which the lord the righteous judge will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. Paul is saying, look, press on, press on Timothy, press on Cornerstone, do the work that you to do, fulfill your ministry because I'm near the end. I'm near the end, and I fulfilled mine, and I know what it's cost me to finish my race. And I know what it's cost me to fight my fights and keep the faith. And Timothy and Cornerstone, I promise you it's worth it.

I promise you it's worth it. It's worth it because the crown of righteousness that awaits us in heaven. We'll compensate more than we can imagine for any suffering in the service of Christ now. Jesus Christ, who died on a cross, taking the punishment for our sin has risen again, and now he sits at the right hand of the father, and he's holding out the crown of righteousness to you and to me. And verses 6 to 8 make all the difference, don't they?

Why work hard to fulfill your ministry? Why work hard to serve in the church. Why work hard if your ministry's Sunday school or youth work or leading a home group, you know, all the preparation and praying and caring for the group. Why do all that? If your ministry is going to be beside, why go through the training and attend prayer meetings and deal with difficult visits and things that you might really not want to see.

Why do any of that? Where Paul says here, we're doing them in the light of a heaven to come. And because we're persuaded that as we fulfill our ministries, a great reward awaits us, namely the crown of righteousness given to us by Jesus when we die. Now whether Paul means we're rewarded for being righteous now or that the reward is final and perfect righteousness, I don't know actually both are true. We will be perfected in righteousness when we die, and we will be rewarded for the measure of righteousness god has worked in us in this life.

So keep going because we want that crown. Did you notice though what it says in those verses is being rewarded? Cause it isn't things we do. It's not works. Mustn't hear that this morning, say, oh, I've got to do more.

It's the good fight of faith In 1 Timothy 6 verse 12, Paul says, fight the good fight of the faith, take hold of the eternal life to which you were called. In other words, what is rewarded is the life of faith in Jesus Christ, trusting him, welcoming him, treasuring Jesus What is being rewarded here, it says, is loving Jesus. That's why it says at the end of verse 8, not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. Meaning those who love Jesus in such a way that they want him to come, they treasure him. So Paul is saying to Timothy, fulfill your ministry, preach the word, accept your suffering, do the work of an evangelist, but do it all.

Because you enjoy the fellowship of Jesus Christ, and you desire its fullness. And to us, Paul is saying, fulfill your ministries, do it well, do it regardless of opposition, do it whether it seems to be successful at the time or not? Because you love Jesus. And if we do that, if we love Jesus, if we respond to Jesus, if we walk closer with Jesus, Then on the other side of death, we will receive the crown of righteousness and be with Jesus in glory forever. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for these words, we thank you for what an encouragement it is. To know that as a church family, there are so many people, serving you, putting on new and exciting ministries that we hear about even this morning in these slots. Lord help us as individuals not to give in to itching ears. That we won't, calm and consume, and then decide that it doesn't really fit in with the lifestyle that we want. And so we'll go somewhere that where they give us a message that does.

Help us to preach the word here continually faithfully, accurately, truthfully. That there will be a negative overtone in the sense that we need to be cut to the heart by your word. We need our sin, exposing, and we need to be forgiven as we bring that sin to the cross. Lord, we thank you for Jesus, we thank you for his death, his resurrection that he is risen again and with you in heaven, and we want that crown of righteousness. Father help us to keep going, help us to be passionate about Jesus, to love him.

That we we might 1 day be with him in heaven. In Jesus' name, amen.