Supernatural Pastors: How to Minister in God’s Strength

0:00 So I have three aims in this message tonight. I'll tell you what they are before we pray together. Thank you so much. This is a huge, huge privilege to be with Barnabas and all of you. Aim number one. I want to impress upon you that the Christian ministry, especially the pastoral ministry, is a supernatural ministry.

0:27 Meaning, all the distinctly Christian aims of the pastoral ministry are humanly impossible. and God alone is the decisive cause. If he doesn't make them happen in your ministry, they won't happen. That's aim number one. The Christian ministry is supernatural to impress it upon you. Aim number two, I want to try to show how you go about ministry or life when it's impossible. How do you use all of your natural powers to become the agent of the supernatural? number three, I want to exalt with you that the reason God designed it this way is so that he will get the glory. So those are the three aims, and now let's pray that they would happen. So, Father, I pray that you would press down upon us the reality that the ministry you've called us to is supernatural, and if the distinctive Christian aims of the ministry are not done by you decisively, they will not be done, and I ask that you would show us, well then, what in the world are we to do if we can't do this?

2:13 And I pray that as we see the answer in your word, you would indeed get the glory in this message and then for the next four or five decades in the lives of these graduates. I pray that in Jesus' name. Amen. So you could sum them up like this, and to say it like this tips you off about the answer to the second question. By his grace, through your faith, for his glory. And I didn't make that up, so we're going to go to 1 Peter chapter 4, verses 10 to 11. And I think it'll be on the screen up here, or if you have your phone that you want to open up, that's great. 1 Peter 4, 10 and 11. You look for those three aims in this passage, and it won't be a mystery.

3:10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace. Whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God, whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies. In order that, in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Now, I suppose that text is, I mean, I know it is very precious to me. and it is largely because in my 33 years of preaching in my pastorate, no text was more frequently prayed over me in the 30 minutes before I walked into the pulpit than those verses.

4:21 Father, they put their hands on me, these eight or nine folks who gather around me. Father, cause Pastor John to serve in the strength that you supply so that in everything you get the glory. Those words were prayed over me hundreds of times.

4:41 I hope they are over you and I hope you pray them as well. So let's focus on this text and let it make these three points. Verse 10, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace. You have gift, charisma at the beginning, and you have grace, caritas at the end. and not when I talk to ordinary folks I don't use Greek. You're not ordinary folks. Okay so I'm gonna cheat, homiletical cheat. Because there are a few things in this text that matters, and here's a little advertisement that's not in the manuscript.

5:41 You don't, I don't think you have to have Greek to graduate here. So let's say you're 40 years old. Most of you, some of you are older, but... let's say you're 40 and you live to be as long as i'm alive now that's you've got 38 years of ministry in front of you or if you're 50 28 that's a long time right suppose you spent the next five years in your discretionary time weekends saturday evenings doing an online course on greek all of you all of you that would not be a wasted five years it wouldn't just just dream i mean there are people who learn new languages at age 70 we we write ourselves off so quickly you don't need to rush take five ten years and then you got 20 years to do what i'm going to do right now okay let's close that advertisement So you've got God's supernatural gift at the front of the verse, and you've got God's supernatural grace at the back of verse 10.

7:04 Same root chorus and same reality. Supernatural grace. Now, grace is not only God's disposition to pardon guilty people. Thank God it's that. Anybody going to heaven if that weren't true. But it is also God's powerful, gracious action in the life through charismata and through grace that we steward. That's important to see in verse 10. So a gift to each at the front of the verse and varied grace at the back of the verse, that's where ministry comes from. Ministry comes from supernatural grace.

7:58 If it doesn't, it doesn't happen. I mean, you can grow a church without it. It's just not a church. Yeah, yeah. So stay here in verse 10 for just another minute. There's two ways he describes handling. Now, this is the hard way to talk about grace, right? Handling supernatural grace. But what word would you use?

8:27 Use it. That's what it says in ESC. Use it to serve one another, this gift. Use it to serve. Now, I said to my wife a few minutes ago while we were still at the hotel, I said, did you know that in Greek and in English, the word serve can be transitive and intransitive? Huh? That is, you serve people and you serve food to people. It's amazing that that's true in Greek. 2,000 years ago, it's true in English today. Can I have a direct object or not? Well, guess what? The direct object here is the charismata, which is surprising to me. Literally, it goes like this. As each has received a gift, serving it to one another.

9:21 so the picture is of a diakonos table servant going to the kitchen and getting the grace on a tray and he serves it to the guests at the table the church you are you are handling grace you're handling grace in the form of a gift and it is being taken from the kitchen where God prepared it for your people and you're serving it to them. That's the first half of the verse. That's the picture. And then the picture changes to steward. An oikonomos is not the same as a diakonos. They both are kinds of servants, but you've got a table servant and you've got a household manager, right? So you've got a household and the owner of the house has all kinds of goods. The job of this steward is to use and handle the gifts, which are called varied grace, and give it to the household to make it run, to make peace, to make prosperity for the household. Those are two different pictures. Beautiful, glorious pictures of a chef, say, a servant at the table just serving the charismata to the people, and of a steward managing varied grace. So, verse 10 is all about the origin of your ministry. It comes from grace, and you are a servant of it or a steward of it. And if it's not there and supernatural, the church you grow will not be God's church. It won't be produced by His grace. You must find out how to manage steward grace.

11:18 Verse 11 doubles down on making sure the waiter and the steward, whether handling the word by speaking, or handling grace by speaking, or handling grace by other service, is done. in God's power, not your own. Verse 11, whoever speaks, you understand, let him speak as one who speaks oracles of God. You're going to speak? Speak God's oracles. Second, whoever serves, let him serve in the strength that God supplies. If God gives the oracles, God gives the strength to preach the oracles. That's the doubling down on grace. You are dependent on grace. You get oracles from God, you get strength to do your ministry from God. So on Sunday, supernatural grace you are called upon to handle is the oracles of God in the pulpit. You're going to speak. It's the first half of verse 11. Let him who speaks speak oracles of God.

12:39 on Monday, you might be handling grace in the car at 10 p.m. on your way to the hospital, exhausted. You're bringing grace. She just had a heart attack, and you're bringing grace to her. You're going to use the word, but there's way more involved in your sacrifices to pour out your energies to make that happen. So in the first case, Peter says, if you're going to do good to your people, lasting good, Christian good, by speaking, you speak the oracles of God.

13:23 And you can take either one, whether you're a table waiter, you get oracles in the kitchen, caramel tray, and you don't put your, you don't reach in your pocket and put your ham sandwich left on there. This is God's oracles. Don't mess it up. Tell people what the Bible says and explain what the Bible means. There's thousands of pastors who've lost confidence in the Bible, and they're doing all kinds of stuff. They're showing movies and doing drama and telling stories because they don't believe that the oracles of God are going to feed anybody. Or, if you're a steward, the oracles of God would be the goods of the household. You're going to steward them and minister them in a hundred ways to your people. And that's what you do with the oracles of God.

14:20 And they are varied grace. They are grace. And on Monday, you drive them to the hospital, 10 p.m., verse 11 says, whoever serves, whoever drives the car, whoever gets in the hospital elevator, whoever walks into the room, whoever puts his hand on her bruised arm with intravenous in it, you do that in the strength that God supplies. Or it's not a Christian act.

14:53 There's a lot of non-Christians who do that. If it's going to be a Christian act with Christian aims and Christian accomplishments, it'll be done in the strength that God supplies. So, here's the upshot so far.

15:14 God's table waiter and God's steward are go-betweens. There's grace, and there's guests, and there's a household, and the table waiter and the steward are go-betweens. And now we've seen they are helpless go-betweens.

15:37 You say, I'm not helpless. I can get out of bed. I can write a sermon. Yes, you can. But it won't be God's if you don't do it in the strength that God supplies. And that means you're helpless to do what needs to be done. you can't do what needs to be done only God through you can do what needs to be done it is a supernatural ministry the things that you want to happen most are impossible for you to make happen or it wouldn't say do it in the strength that God supplies you know that you can build a small group ministry you can do evangelism without God you know that goodness there's so many big churches across the country doing it without God. And it's just insignificant. It doesn't accomplish the distinctively Christian goals, like getting people to heaven, making them holy, making them sacrificial and loving and kind, bearing the fruits of the Holy Spirit. The miracles that have to happen in people's lives can't happen if you're doing it in your own strength.

16:45 Now, why did God set it up this way? And I suppose the reason this passage was prayed over me as often as it was is because my people, for all those years, knew what I believed about the goal of the universe. Namely, it's about God and His glory. And so here's a text that is as crystal clear as any text in the Bible, how God gets glory. Namely, in order that, you see it in the middle of verse 11, in order that, that's about the most important word in the Bible, henna in Greek, henna, in order that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. My people knew, Pastor John wants to know, that's why he's in the pulpit. I'm going to remind him of that every Sunday.

17:47 You want God to get glory? Yes, I do. Well, then here's how. Don't do it in your own strength. that's pretty clear. So the content, the oracles, and the capacity, the action, are both from God. The oracles are from God. The strength is from God. You see that? That's just so clear here. It's gloriously clear. The oracles, you're going to speak, speak God. You're going to work, work in his strength. Everything is dependent on this grace that is coming. to us. Whoever serves, reading verse 11 again, whoever serves as one who serves in the strength that God supplies, in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. So your ministry stretches into eternity forever and ever. Amen. The giver of the oracles gets the glory. The giver of the strength gets the dominion. And we get the eternal happiness of praising God for his glorious grace, which is what Ephesians 1.6 says we exist to do.

19:08 Let me sum it up so far. Aim number one, impress upon you that the pastoral ministry is supernatural. All of the distinctly Christian goals in your pastoral ministry are humanly impossible. And God alone is the decisive cause if those goals are to be attained. that's what I see in 1 Peter 4 10 to 11 we are powerless go-betweens and you understand powerless to accomplish what God means to be accomplished distinctly Christian distinctly Christian and churches don't have to be Christian Thank you. there's lots of them that don't depend on Jesus.

20:04 They don't depend on the Word. They don't depend on the Holy Spirit. They're just big and popular, and a lot of people go there because it's the thing you do. That's not what we're talking about. And we talk about it's just being impossible. The goals God has for supernatural effects in people's lives is impossible for humans. The oracles are from Him. The strength is from Him. And it's supernatural. Second, how do you go about it? How do you serve, preach, speak, serve? How do you do ministry when ministry is impossible to accomplish God's ends? And the answer he gives is do it in the strength that God supplies.

20:59 Now we're going to come back to that because that's the answer, but what I want to end on is, what does that mean? I mean, how in the world do you do that? How do you do that? Third, and I am exalting with you, I hope it's with you, that God has designed it this way. It all comes from grace. You can't do it. He does it by supplying the strength in order that he gets the glory so that if you love the glory of God, you are super happy about the way this world, this verse ends. Just happy. Yes! In order that he may be glorified. To him belong dominion. To him belong the glory. Yes! That's what we're alive for. That's what the world is for. Yes, amen.

21:51 So those are my three points. Now, let's go back to number two because I think it's the pastor's job not to just say things that make people go, yeah, yeah, that's there. what in the world does that mean? And if you leave people like that Sunday after Sunday, yeah, I see it in the text, but I don't know what to do with it this afternoon.

22:20 Like, serve in the strength that God supplies. Do that this afternoon. Well, what? How? That's where we are now for the last few minutes. How do you do that? How do you get up in the morning? How do you go about your mundane tasks in the ministry in such a way that it's not you, but the grace of God with you? Right? That's really basic. This is why Every one of you here who's not a pastor, this is for you. Because this is not just pastoral ministry, this is life.

23:05 The Christian life is a supernatural life, or it's not Christian. Really basic. If we believe with Peter that the pastoral ministry or life is supernatural, and if we want God to get the glory, not ourselves, we have to have an answer to this question. How do I use my natural mind, which thinks, and my natural mouth, which speaks, and my natural hands that wave around. How does that become supernatural? Like right now.

23:51 In this room. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15 10 by the grace of God I am what I am That's significant. And his grace toward me was not in vain, but on the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. and you just want to say, could I have a little seminar on that? What in the world do you do, Paul? So that you can say, I worked hard, but I didn't work.

24:46 Well, what do you mean? Grace worked with me. And he talked like that over and over again. 2 Corinthians 3, 5, not that we are sufficient in ourselves as claiming anything as coming from us. Our sufficiency is from God. Or Colossians 1.29, I toil, struggling with all the energy that He powerfully works within me. Or Galatians 2.20, I have been crucified with Christ. it is no longer I who live, but Christ. Those are nice words, but what in the world does it mean practically? Like when you leave tonight and get in the car, will you have any knowledge of how to do that? Huh? Well, what does it mean? That's what pastors do, right? You bang your head against the desk, you pray, you read, until you can say something to help your people do that.

25:54 Because that's the Christian life. This is right at the heart of pastoral ministry, right at the heart of Christian living. Like, walk by the Spirit. Galatians 5.16. What is that? Be led by the supernatural Spirit. Romans 8.14. What is that? What does that feel like? How do I do that?

26:20 Bear the fruit of the supernatural Spirit. How do I do that? put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit. Is the Spirit an axe? Stored? Oh, how I long for pastors to not skim across texts. And just say words and your people stay at this level of I don't know what that means, but it's right there in the Bible. So I'll keep saying it. Ministry is supernatural or we're just playing games.

27:01 How do you do it? So I'm going to tell you how I do it. Alright? And how I've tried to do it for 40 or 50 years. how to serve in the strength that God supplies. And my plea to you is that you consider seriously what I'm about to say. We've got another five or ten minutes in this message to tell you how I have attempted to answer the question for myself, how do you serve in the strength of another so that it's not you who's serving but the other? How do you do that? and my plea is that you seriously consider what I'm about to say and if you find it biblically faithful and authentic that you would adapt it to your life and if you don't if you say oh that's cute but I don't think I think that's kind of hokey or artificial that's the way you do it it's fine I just want to say especially to you, take the next 30 years and figure out something better.

28:17 and I don't doubt that there's a better way. I'm not God. Good grief. I'm just saying, if you blow this off and say, it doesn't matter, you're crazy. You're outside the will of God to say, serving in the strength that God supplies. I don't like Piper's way of doing it, and here's mine. And if you can't say, here's mine, you got work to do. And I'm saying, take 30 years to do it. Because it's just the most important thing in life is to know how to be a Christian. Be a Christian. I call yourself a Christian. Be a Christian. Being a Christian is to live supernaturally. That is to live by the strength that God supplies so that in everything God gets the glory. Okay. So here's my way of doing this. and I get a little teeny bit of comfort from this.

29:19 After I had developed this, I found on page 126 in J.I. Packer's Keep in Step with the Spirit, my exact strategy. My. I said, oh, this is so encouraging. There's two of us anyway.

29:40 In 1980, I became a pastor. I was 34 years old, and one of the first books, I can't remember what was the first, in that first year I read was E.M. Bounds, Power Through Prayer. It's got seven little books on prayer, and I recommend that first one very highly. And in that book, he said this, and it affected me for the rest of my life. He said, God deliver us from the professionalizers. deliver us from the low, managing, contriving, maneuvering temper of mind among us. And everything in me said, I don't want to be a professional.

30:39 So we've given you 17, the books. I called it, can we order these books for these guys? Brothers, we are not professionals, so make sure you get the copy. that. And I came away from reading that book and wrote a whole slew of articles for our denominational magazine. They became the book, and I asked these questions because this is the way it affected me. Is there professional praying? Is there professional dependence on promises? Is there professional weeping over souls? Is there professional pleading with sinners? Is there professional meditation on divine revelation? Is there professional rejoicing in the truth? Is there professional adoration of God's name? Is there professional treasuring of eternal riches? Is there professional dealing with demons?

31:32 Is there professional night vigils with a dying saint? Is there professional perseverance in a hard marriage? Is there professional playing with children? Is there professional courage in the face of persecution? I hate professionalism in ministry. doesn't mean you're stupid. Like, we don't need parking. Like in Wall. That's just stupid. That's not, you don't. Don't be stupid. To be spiritual is not to be stupid. Just use your common sense. And turn on the air conditioning. But don't get sucked into a thousand books on how to use your techniques to accomplish supernatural ends.

32:31 God does supernatural things. So I have tried to do counseling and hospital visitation, weddings and funerals and baby dedications and planning capital campaigns in the strength that God supplies so that everything God gives glory. And I've done it with my acronym APTAT. Some of you have seen it. It's online. You can just type APTAT into Desiring God. You get a couple of articles about it. So I'm sharing you an old, tried and true, decades-long strategy myself. and I'm going to walk you through a moment in ministry. Let's just say preaching. It could be driving to the hospital. It could be the half hour before a really utterly perplexing counseling situation. It could be you're about to discipline your child because of some terrible act of disobedience.

33:29 Just anything. It could be, and I'm just picking preaching because this is where I practice it most vigilantly. So APTIT is an acronym. I pronounce it APTAT just to be able to remember it. But it stands for A, admit, P, pray, T, trust, A, act, T, thank. That's my strategy. And I'm going to unpack each one now for just a minute. And for how to preach so that it's not me preaching. Admit. So picture me on the front pew, and it's 30 seconds before I preach. The text is being read. What are you doing at that moment? Curses on you if you're looking at your notes when the Scripture's being read.

34:22 I've seen something. This is another little parenthesis in my notes here. I really get ticked. When we are singing to Christ alone, you know, and the pastor is there thumbing through his notes, so he's ready to go in two minutes. I said, that is so horrible for your people. What are you doing? We are worshiping. We are singing to King Jesus, and you're boning up on your notes? Come on, pastor. Set an example for these people. Get engaged with God or they think you're just a professional. Okay, close that parenthesis.

35:12 A, admit in that 30 seconds. I do this. I was doing it here. I did it this afternoon. Say, Father, I admit with all that theologically, emotionally is within me that I can do nothing of any eternal value. And I believe it because Jesus said, without me, you can do nothing. John 15, 5. It is ground zero for preaching. Without me, you can do nothing. Would you please, pastor, admit it. Admit it to God. Admit it to yourself. Admit it to your people. That's the A that starts apt. I admit I'm helpless. if you don't show up in the next half hour, it will be in vain. No matter how many praises I get, it will be in vain.

36:09 Two, P-A-P, pray. What do you pray for? Ask and you will receive matters at that moment. Pray. Now there are dozens of things you could pray for. You can pray for yourself at that moment, and you can pray for your people at that moment. and pray for visitors at that moment. There's a thousand things to pray for at that moment, so you have to choose what to ask for in those 30 seconds before you step into the pulpit. And I think the answer of what you pray is, what's God been doing in your life to get you ready for this moment? What's he been saying during the preparation? Where do you think God's going to act here? What do you want to happen? Are there marriages you want to save? are there lost people sitting in the back over there and you know they're always there because their mom drags them here what do you want to happen and it'll narrow down and you ask him you know your own weaknesses god i want i'm not as ready as i'd like to be please help me to remember my nose help me not to get lost help my ipad not to shut down That's why I use this.

37:25 I'm so afraid of iPads. So you pray, don't let this blow away. That happened to me one time. The air conditioning just blew it away. But thankfully, it was in this pile. God's been good to me. Don't let me lose my place. Please, Lord. And you pray desperately. You can't pray long because you've only got 30 seconds to do all this. And you ask him. You ask him. For example, God, please grant me humility. Grant me clarity. Grant me courage. Grant me prophetic power. grant me to save marriages, to deliver the enslaved, to save the lost. That's just a few that I wrote down for myself here.

38:24 So you pray. Number three, T. Now, many people, trust, many people move from pray to act without this one. and I think this one is the crux of how to serve in the strength that God supplies.

38:47 And I have something very specific in mind because you say, whoa, all Christians trust God. That's true. But we're called to walk by faith, which I think means in the moment trust specific promises. God has promised to do certain things for you. Do you trust him right now for those particular things? I didn't read all of Galatians 2.20 a minute ago, and some of you knew that, like, why do you stop?

39:20 So I'm going to read the rest of it now, because this is the answer to T. This is where I get T. I have been crucified with Christ. it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me." That's where I stopped. and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So I'm not alive. I'm dead. I'm crucified.

39:57 Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ. Explain, Paul. Okay, I'll explain. and the life I now live, I live by faith. That's as close as you get, I think, to a Pauline answer to, you're dead and you're alive and you're not supposed to live as dependent on yourself but on his strength which he supplies. And he says, right, that's what I said. I live by faith. So, I mean, a lot of us just, we hear that and we say, well, yeah, we're Christians. That's what we do. We're believers. No, no, it's way, way, way, way more specific than that. Really. At every moment in your life when there are peculiar challenges, do you have a promise ready?

40:53 Remember Pilgrim in the castle and he couldn't get out? He says, oh, I forgot. I have a key. Promise. Turns, he's out of the jail. That's the way life is. We need a promise, which means, here's the way it works for me. I've got a bank of promises. I could probably quote 30 promises to you if you gave me 20 minutes without looking at the Bible. So there's a bank of promises in here. But every Sunday morning, I prayed over the sermon. I said, God, what are you going to do for me so that I don't serve in the strength that I have, but in the strength that you supply? What are you going to do? And I would get a particular promise. And if I didn't get a particular promise from the Bible, he's not talking to me.

41:49 He's pointing to his Bible, right? God talks to me. Yes, he does. It's in black and white. E-S-V. Black and white. He talks to me. And the text that he has used most often, I've quoted it. I remember riding my bike over to my oral exams when I was 28 years old, finishing my career as a student. Thank God. So ready to be done studying as a student. I'm riding my bike, and I'm just... here in God.

42:33 Fear not, John. I'm with you. I'll strengthen you. I'll help you. I'll uphold you with my righteous right hand. I have said that to myself a thousand times. Walking into sermons, walking into counseling, walking into crises, walking into anything where I feel I need help, which is always, but you're really conscious of it sometimes. Now that's a promise, and it's spoken with an eye. Remember Spurgeon used to say, I love the I wills and I shalls of God. There's a lot of third person promises in the Bible. And they're glorious. But the first person promises, that's like talking to you. I mean, I hear God saying as I step into the pulpit, I'm going to help you. I got you.

43:25 I got this, Piper. Act. Go ahead. I got this. Trust me. You trust me? Do you trust me? Do you trust me? That's what I mean by T. A very specific promise, a very specific act of faith, and I'm trusting him. as I preach. I think that's as close as you're going to get to the crux of the matter. A bank of promises, a specific one. You can't quote to yourself five promises in 30 seconds as you walk into the pulpit. It's just totally confusion in your brain. You need one good, solid word from God. My word never comes back empty, Piper. Preach it. Just, you just, and you say them over to yourself and you believe. A, A-P-T, admit, pray, trust, specific promises, act.

44:30 What do you do right now? This is my mouth talking, right? Piper's mouth is talking right now. That's so clear, right? It's just so clear. It's obvious. It's natural. that doesn't look supernatural at all. Piper's mind is thinking. His hand just went to his head like that. See that? I don't know where that came from. I didn't plan that. I don't stand in front of a mirror to get ready to preach.

44:56 I'm on my knees to get ready to preach. I want God to show up. But it's me talking. And you've got to talk. You've got to drive the car. Nobody's going to do it for you. but something is happening from God to make it distinctly Christian make the church be strengthened make souls get saved make people's faith be built up you served in the strength that God supplies so that in everything God gets the glory so you act there's no getting around it Paul said I worked harder than any of them nevertheless it was not I but the grace of God that was with me finally thank give thanks in all things Ephesians 5 20 and you say step down I'm going to step down in about two minutes and say thank you what are you thanking him for God worked he worked he is working in this room I do not doubt it his word does not come back empty something's changing in somebody somebody will remember this night 40 years from now they will or the effects will be there if they don't remember it we're not wasting our time ever to speak the word of God So here's the way it happened.

46:38 So I'm done preaching. It's about 1230. Second service is over. I stand in line for probably 45 minutes or an hour praying with people every Sunday. It's over. I'm almost the last one to leave. I've got an eight-minute walk home. And I cross that bridge, 11th Avenue Bridge, over 94. and at 745 that bridge was an AP bridge. Admit, pray. God help me. God help me. God help me. I'm on my way to church. On the way home it's a T bridge. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know all you did but I heard from about 15 people of what went on in their lives and I'm thanking you and I'm still praying for the effects I've crossed that bridge 20,000 times I've done the math in the last 40 years and it is a revelatory bridge it's a worshipping bridge to me as those 15 lanes of freeway go under my feet so thanking God is what you do next so brothers graduates in particular ministry is supernatural or it's not Christian all distinctly Christian goals are humanly impossible God must act in and through you or nothing eternal of any spiritual God exalting will happen so we serve up his oracles we serve in the strength that he supplies by admitting we can do nothing praying for his help trusting a particular promise acting and then thanking him and then we exalt together that he gets the glory

48:46 because that's what the verse says in order that God might be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom belong glory and dominion forever and ever let's pray Father in heaven it's done and now what you have been doing I just breathe on it I pray that you would blow and turn the ripple into a wave in lives in churches in families and that from this day forward either the way I approach it or a better way would be granted, especially to these graduates, that they would serve in the strength that you supply so that in everything you would get the glory and not they.