A Church in Waiting

00:01 If you want to turn in your copies of the Scriptures now to the book of Acts, the first chapter, verse 14 and following. As we come in our newly begun series on the book of Acts, we want to look at verse 14 and following. 00:19 In fact, I think we'll look first of all at verse 12 to the end of the chapter, to the end of the chapter, yes. "Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem a Sabbath day's journey. 00:32 And when they had entered, they went up into the upper room where they were staying: Peter, James, John, and Andrew; Philip and Thomas; Bartholomew and Matthew; James the son of Alphaeus; and Simon the Zealot; and Judas the son of James. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary, 00:52 the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. And in those days, Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples - altogether the number of names was about 120 - and said, 'Men and brethren, this Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, 01:13 who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was numbered with us and obtained a part in this ministry. Now this man purchased the field with the wages of iniquity, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his entrails gushed out. 01:31 And it became known to all those dwelling in Jerusalem so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood. For it is written in the book of Psalms, 'Let his dwelling place be desolate, and let no one live in it.' And let another take his office. 01:52 Therefore of these men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John to that day when he was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection.' And they proposed two, Joseph called Barsabus, who was surnamed Justus, 02:14 and Mathias. And they prayed and said, 'You, O Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which of these two you have chosen to take part in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.' And they cast their lots, 02:33 and the lot fell on Mathias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.'" What do you do while you're waiting? What do you do in a waiting room? What do you do at a doctor's office? What do you do when you're expecting a baby? 02:49 Now, we had five of those occasions, and it was always interesting what my wife would do just about the time it was ready to happen, the birth was ready to happen. And sometimes she'd clean the house. She'd get a burst of energy and clean the house. Wanted to have the nest just right. 03:08 She'd wash windows and wash clothes and wash blankets and take walks and make food and all kinds of things, pack a suitcase. Women do a lot of things while they're waiting. Waiting for what? Waiting for a significant event to happen, something that will, in a sense, 03:27 change their world as well as the world around them. What did the disciples do? What did the disciples do while they waited right after, at the end of the crucifixion? They went into hiding. They went fishing. They hung out behind closed doors. They reminisced. 03:47 They cried. They expressed their emotions. They maybe didn't express their emotions, but whatever they did, they were waiting. Waiting for what? They didn't know what was coming, but they were waiting. Now, what did they do when the Lord said to wait for the coming of the Spirit? They waited. They waited. 04:06 Jesus said to them before he went away, 'But wait for the promise of the Father. Do not depart from Jerusalem until you have received the promised Spirit who is coming in my place and the birth of something that would transform the world for the rest of time and for eternity,'" the birth of the church. 04:28 The birth of the church. I don't know what they understood in chapter one about what was coming. They knew something was coming. Jesus said it would come. And yet how much did they grasp? How much did they understand? How much did they I mean, we read it now and know what happened. Yes, we do. We know what happened. 04:48 But they're living this happening and waiting, waiting. They went to the upper room in obedience to the Lord's command, awaiting the promised outpouring. They also did kingdom business. They did church business while they were waiting. 05:05 "The church, however, is poised to receive the blessing of the Spirit and walk by faith in the promises of Christ." They were gathered together, the text says, verse 14, in one accord, in prayer and supplication. Now, 05:24 we see the list of disciples here, apostles, who had returned from the mount of Olives, about probably between a half a mile and three-quarter mile, which was a Sabbath day's journey. And they went to the upper room and began to pray, began to pray for the promise of God to be unleashed upon them. 05:45 And I want to share with you this morning that we have the church here in waiting. We have the church in prayer and worship. And we have the church studying. And we have the church calling. And so while they were waiting, we notice here in verse 13 that there's a name missing. 06:06 We have the name Judas, but this was a different Judas. This was Judas the son of James. The one who's missing is Judas Iscariot. And so much of the chapter here, the end of the chapter, will be to find a replacement for him to bear witness to the resurrection. So we have, first of all, here the church waiting. 06:26 They all continued with one accord. It is amazing what God can do with his people when they are in agreement. I have seen it happen both in church life and in other ministries that when there is agreement and oneness of mind and oneness of purpose, 06:46 there can be some mighty things done by God and in the name of Christ. 06:51 But when there is lack of agreement, when there is fussing and fuming and fighting and discouragement and distrust and disunity, it really does hinder the working of God. And so Jesus said, 07:11 "Whenever two or more are gathered together in my name, as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done." They were praying together in agreement. Psalm 133 talks about the unity and the blessedness of unity being like the anointing oil upon the priests. 07:28 And so even the brothers of Jesus here came into unity with them. 07:34 Some time or another here in the post-crucifixion time and maybe even after the resurrection, the brothers of Jesus and possibly even his sisters, because the word brothers there also can imply it can be used for male and female in the Greek. 07:54 And so the brothers and maybe the sisters came to faith in Christ as the Messiah, as the Lord. And they came into agreement. And they were all together in one purpose, in one mind, actively waiting with expectation. Say, "How do we wait anyway? 08:13 How do we wait? Do we wait on the Lord in just passivity? Well, Lord, I guess if you want something to happen, you're just going to have to drop it down here, and we'll just receive it when you get around to it. And we just kind of kick back in our spiritual recliner and think that God's going to work. 08:32 Or do we work expectantly?" That's the word hope, is an expectation, a confident expectation that God is at work even when we don't see it and even while we wait. We also remember the promise in Isaiah that, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. 08:54 They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint. Wait, I say, on the Lord," the Scripture says. After all, the Lord said that something special is about to take place. And so we wait. We work and wait. We're waiting for the return of the Lord. 09:14 We're in a different place, at a different time than what they were 2,000 years ago. And so we're waiting for the second coming, the second Advent, the glorious appearing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What do we do while we wait? We work. "Work for the night is coming," Jesus said, "when no man can work." So we see the church waiting. 09:36 And then we see the church praying. And they continued in prayer and supplication. The word prayer here can also mean worship, that they continued in worship and prayer, prayers of worship, prayers of supplication, of requests, of intercession. 09:58 I'm sure that they recalled the prayer that Jesus taught them to pray, "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." They were waiting for his will to be done. They were doing his will as they understood it. 10:17 And they were coming under his authority, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." They were praying for daily sustenance, "Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." It's significant here that they were praying together. 10:36 The family that prays together stays together. That used to be a motto on some old times, years ago. The family that prays together stays together. And it's true. The church that prays together stays together because there's something about praying together, something about worshiping together. 10:58 There's something about interceding together. When you pray together, it's hard to be at odds with someone that you're praying with. And it's even harder to be at odds with someone that you're praying for. You want to pray for someone and deal with bitterness, you pray for that person, and you pray with that person. 11:19 And it's hard to have hatred when you're praying for and with someone. And it's hard to gossip when you're praying with and for someone. It's hard to criticize and have a critical spirit when you're praying with someone and for someone. And therefore, 11:38 the family that prays together stays together. And the family that stays together and prays together can see the working of God in marvelous ways. It would be hard to overstate the effectiveness of the church united in prayer. It can even release prisoners from dungeons. 12:00 Amen. All you have to do is just look at Acts chapter 16, where they were praying and worshiping together, Paul and Silas down there in the Philippian jail, one heart, one soul, one purpose, one mind, one prayer. And God delivered them. 12:18 You can see it in the life of Peter in a few chapters from now, where the church was gathered together to pray for Peter. "The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. 12:30 How much more many righteous men and women praying together avails much." And so Peter was released from prison by the angel in response to the prayers of the saints. It is hard to overestimate the effectiveness of the church united in prayer, prayer of worship, 12:51 prayer of supplications. "Be careful for nothing," the Scripture says, "be anxious for nothing. 12:57 But in all things, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." The Bible says that the prayers of the saints are like smoke or odor, like incense that ascends unto God. 13:17 The Bible says in Revelation 5, "Having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of saints." Can you think of your prayers as being odors? Well, hopefully, they're sweet-smelling odors. They're fragrance that ascends up to God's throne as a sweet-smelling incense to him. 13:39 And it goes on to say in Revelation 8:4 that the smoke of the incense with the prayers of the saints ascended before God from the angel's hand. Yes, it's hard to overestimate how important and how impactful the church waiting and praying really is. 13:59 And then we have the church studying. We have the church studying the Scriptures. They say, "Where do you see that?" Well, we see it in the address of Peter here. As Peter stood in the midst of the disciples and addressed the disciples, the men and women that were there, 14:19 men and brethren, the Scripture had to be fulfilled. And so somewhere, they had studied the Scripture to know that it needed to be fulfilled. And so they were studying the Scripture to exercise the key that God gave to Peter to ordain leaders. Jesus had given some keys to Peter. 14:40 And one of those keys, I believe, was the authority to ordain leaders. 14:48 And so here we have the church exercising that authority in the call of a replacement apostle to replace Judas Iscariot. They regarded the Scriptures as authoritative. Look in verse 16. This is what Peter thought about the Scriptures. 15:09 "This Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David." Now, where did David get his message? From the Holy Spirit. David wrote the message. David spoke the message. But he was speaking under inspiration of the Holy Spirit concerning Judas. 15:30 And then he goes on to describe the thing that happened to Judas. But what I want you to notice there, they had a high regard for Scripture, that the Scriptures were the Word of God, not just the Word of David, but the Word of God through the prophet David, the mouth of David. Yes, he functioned as a prophet as well as a king. 15:52 And so they took the events of the times and held them alongside the Scriptures and said, "How do we understand what's happening here?" We understand them by comparing the current events with what the Scripture says. After all, that's what Jesus did with them on the road to Emmaus. 16:08 I suppose that the men that were walking with Jesus on their road to Emmaus were probably in this group of 120 when Jesus opened to them the Scriptures concerning himself and helped them to understand the times that they were living in. Someone has said, I think it's in the biography of Billy Graham, 16:29 that said one of the reasons that he was such a popular, 16:35 not the word popular, but an engaging preacher, was that he took the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other hand. And he was able to apply the Bible to current events that people were living at in the now, here and now. 16:53 In other words, he made the Bible practical so that they could interpret and understand their current situation. And that's what Peter is doing here. So they took the events and compared them alongside the Scriptures, primarily in this case concerning Judas, who our Scripture reading describes this morning, 17:15 Judas one of the 12, chosen by Jesus. Let us not forget that, chosen by Jesus. He was the one he was the treasurer of the group, one of the Gospels says. He had the money box. He often dipped in that money box for personal gain, which didn't impress anybody. 17:34 And they didn't actually possibly know that until after his little charade there with the 30 shekels of silver, 30 pieces of silver. And they began to look back and say, "Oh, there's too many dots don't line up about what Judas had been doing." And he sold the Lord for 30 pieces of silver, 17:56 a dreadful, dreadful betrayal of the man who he had lived with and walked with and listened to and possibly even had a life-changing experience. 18:08 We don't know what happened to Judas or when it happened that he actually went haywire, as it were. He went nuts. He went berserk. He was lost. There's no question that Judas was lost. And some people will look at Judas and say, 18:28 "Well, he was never saved." Well, we don't know that. We don't know if he was never saved. I'm assuming that he had some sort of relationship with Jesus Christ, with the Lord Jesus. And we do see that in verse 25, "He by transgression fell." Now, 18:47 you can't fall from something from a position that you haven't been in. But they can't make too much of that falling. He fell out of the office. He fell out of favor. He fell out of grace because of his own personal choices. So let us not say that too much more than what we actually know, that he ended his life in sin. 19:09 And he went to his own place, to the place of hell, the place of unbelievers, the place of unrepentant sinners, the place prepared for the devil and his angels. 19:22 He became overcome with guilt and remorse, not repentance, although the old King James does say that Judas repented. But the actual word there means he had remorse. He had remorse. He was sorry for what he did, but mostly sorry for what it did to him, not so much what it did to Jesus. 19:44 Overcome with guilt, overcome with grief. And he tried to return the money but was rejected. And instead of dealing with his guilt and shame, he hung himself. He threw the blood money onto the temple floor. 19:59 And they said, "We cannot use this for temple worship and temple needs." So they purchased the burial place for strangers and called it the Field of Blood. You could also call it Judas's Field, that's probably what they thought about when they thought about that field for many years. That's Judas's Field. In fact, 20:18 there's a post there on the road from the Mount of Olives down into Jerusalem. It's called the Judas Post. They're still talking about him in Israel and what he did. And I understand that people, when they walk past that, they strike that post as a curse to Judas. 20:38 His name is still a curse. 20:42 However, I believe that had Judas repented, truly repented, that he would have been forgiven. They say, "Brother Todd, where do you find that in the text?" I just find it in our Lord, 21:02 in our Lord Jesus Christ, who is in the business of forgiving repentant sinners. I mean, after all, he forgave Peter. The only difference really between Judas and Peter is that Peter had more of a passive denial, where Judas had an active betrayal. 21:25 Nevertheless, it was a sin against Christ. And Peter was received by Jesus. And Judas could have been forgiven, I believe, because it's in the nature of Jesus' heart to forgive when we repent. But he would not. 21:45 And he did not. We know that for a fact. 21:49 What a great comfort it is, though, to know that no matter what we have done, how we have failed, how we have sinned, no matter where we've come from or how bad we've been or how unfaithful we've been, that there is mercy from our Lord Jesus Christ at the foot of the cross. Upon our repentance and confession, 22:11 we too can be forgiven. And so the issue here is a little bit of a discrepancy here in the text. Verse 18, verse 19, we see here in the Gospels, it says that he hung himself. 22:28 And by here in verse 18, we have him falling headlong and bursting open in his middle and his guts coming out, his insides coming out. Well, you don't find that in the Gospels. You find it here. But it's very easy to think of those two accounts meshing together. It's not a contradiction. They're just giving more information. 22:49 The bigger issue, well, some people have surmised that maybe he had hung himself on a tree over a cliff and that tree branch broke. Somehow, or he had fallen somehow in his attempt to hang himself. We don't know. The bigger issue is that he fell from grace and went to his own place. 23:12 Now, we have the church calling. We have the church waiting, the church praying, the church calling, the church studying and now calling. Some have been critical of Peter because of his action here in selecting a replacement apostle, 23:31 believing that the replacement apostle should have been the Apostle Paul, who would have come later. But Paul even called himself an apostle born out of due time. And so I don't think we should be critical of Peter. I think Peter was doing the best that he knew with the situation. I think Peter looked at the Scripture, 23:51 studied the Scripture, and said, "Let another take his place." And so we need another witness of the resurrection. It's very difficult for me to be critical of Peter here, 2,000 years later, without all the information that Peter had and looking at that. They're also critical because of the use of the lot. 24:11 They would say, "Well, the lot was used. And ever after that, the lot was never used again after Pentecost." And so they're critical of the use of the lot. I think some of that is implications rather than instruction. 24:29 And so I don't think we can just rule out the use of the lot just because it was pre-Pentecost. I think I have seen I would have been at one time rather critical of the use of the lot, was raised that way. Our church never used the lot and had critics of the lot in it, and sometimes very vocal critics. 24:50 But I have seen the lot used. And I have seen it used by God to make decisions between two equally qualified men. And we've used it here. And we have seen God use it. Interestingly enough, on the two times that we have used the lot here, 25:11 I think both times, the one who was not chosen at the first, the first one was chosen the next ordination. And so we had Brother Dwayne and Brother Lynn in the lot in 2007. Dwayne was chosen. A year later, Lynn was chosen as deacon. 25:31 A couple of years ago, we had Trevor and Ryan in the lot together. And Trevor was chosen. A couple of years later, Ryan was chosen, both Lynn and Ryan, without the use of the lot. And I could tell you more stories about using the lot. But I just believe that God can use it. 25:49 He uses imperfect means when we're honestly trying to discern His will. And that's the issue. Are we deciding God's will? Are we trying to determine God's will? Or are we trying to impose God's will on a situation? So the criteria was laid out. 26:10 One who was with us from the beginning, that was one of the criteria. He was probably one of the 70 that Jesus had sent out. At one point, He sent out the 12. Another point, He sent out the 70. Likely that these two men were one of the 70. And who had seen the resurrected Christ, 26:29 who had been with them from the beginning and seen Christ as risen again. And as long as this criteria were met, they left the decision up to God. And they had a process somehow where they nominated two men, Barsabas, who is surnamed Justus, and Mathias. 26:51 And they prayed. They prayed, "O Lord, You who know the hearts of all, show which of these two You have chosen." I doubt if they had two songbooks with a piece of paper in it on the table in front of the church. So that's a little different. But somehow, there was a discernment process, a casting of lots. 27:12 And the lot fell on Mathias to take part in this ministry and apostleship, which Judas vacated. Interesting things about Mathias. There's much debate and uncertainty about Mathias. 27:28 Clement of Alexandria referred once to Zacchaeus in a way that could imply that he thought that Zacchaeus was Mathias just by a different name. That's one possibility. Some identify him as Barnabas or Nathanael, who we met in John chapter 1. 27:50 Where did he go? What happened to him? Greek tradition says that he spread Christianity around Cappadocia and on the coasts of the Caspian Sea. And so he left Jerusalem eventually and spread the Gospel, as did the other apostles. 28:09 Some say that he preached the Gospel in Judea and then to Ethiopia, not Ethiopia. But there are some that think that he went to Ethiopia as well. And now modern-day Georgia, they say that he went there and was crucified. 28:24 Others say that Mathias preached the Gospel to barbarians and meat eaters in the interior of Ethiopia. And however, another tradition maintains that Mathias was stoned at Jerusalem by the local people and was then beheaded. We don't know what happened to Mathias. It's not important. 28:44 He was a servant of God. He served God in the best way that he knew how, under the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit. And wherever he went, he left the mark, as did the other apostles. So we have the church waiting. We have the church praying and worshiping. We have the church studying. 29:04 And we have the church calling, the church calling. They showed us how to call. Number one is to nominate, verse 23. They proposed to, to evaluate, verse 21 and 22, did he meet the qualifications? 29:21 Now, our qualifications for ministers and for church leadership is a little different because none of us were from the beginning and none of us saw the resurrected Christ. However, Paul gave us qualifications to evaluate the men with and by in the book of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. 29:41 And so we evaluate. And then we supplicate, supplicate. And that is to make a humble entreaty. We entreat the Lord, "Lord, who are You calling? Speak through Your people and then speak through this decision, if necessary, 30:00 by the lot." And then to congregate, congregate around them and follow their ministry as duly anointed and appointed by God. Now, I want to spend the rest of our time this morning, the next several minutes, talking about something that is rarely, if ever, talked about from this passage. 30:22 And that is, how do you handle the loss of a leader? How do you handle the loss of a leader? Now, how did they handle the loss of Judas? I think this was a big deal. 30:43 I mean, 12 men, they ate together, they slept together, they walked together, they worshiped together, they cast out devils together, they listened to Jesus together, they asked Jesus questions together. They were together for three and a half years. 30:58 And suddenly, they see a side of Judas that they had never seen before or at least identified. How do you deal with the loss of a leader? Now, I realize, as I was preparing for this message, that there might be someone who thinks today, "Well, 31:18 Pastor Todd is setting something up here that maybe we're going to lose a leader." No, that's not the case. So I'm just addressing something that needs to be addressed from the text. And I know of no reason why our men in leadership are disqualified. And I don't expect that to happen. 31:40 And so that's not why we're tackling this subject. What we are tackling this subject is because we see a lot of Christian leaders around us that are falling and that have fallen. And so what do you do with that? What do you do with that? 31:57 We have had ministers fallen in our own biblical Mennonite alliance. How do we handle that? Well, that's one thing to lose a leader by death or by loss of health. 32:10 And all of these situations that I'm about to name, I can take you to churches that have had these situations by name with individuals and church names applied because these things happen. Pastors get cancer while they're pastoring. I know of a church in Pennsylvania. 32:29 Pastor got cancer. He died still as their pastor. We had a brother in BMA that died while pastoring a church from cancer. People have heart attacks and strokes. A church in Ohio lost their pastor from a heart attack. My own wife's father, pastoring here in the city of Goshen, 32:50 died of a stroke while pastoring. He was a young man, 48 years old. Pastors die by car accidents. I know of a pastor in the state of Oregon. I'm not sure if he was pastoring at that moment, at that time or not, that was killed in a car accident. And when we see these things happen, they happen to preachers. 33:11 They happen to church leaders just like they happen to everybody else. They're not immune from being snatched out at any moment. The primary question we ask at that time is, "Why? Lord, why? Why? 33:30 Why did You take a man before we were done with him? Why did You take a man when my wife's father died at the age of 48?" The people ask, "Why, God, why did You take a man who was a beloved pastor, a man of God, functioning in the kingdom of God, bearing fruit? And God, 33:50 we're not done with him." But God says His time is gone. It's done. So how do you relate to that? Then there's a loss of leaders by circumstances. How do you cope with the circumstances that take out leaders? 34:11 Mental health issues. There is a man that I know. If I said his name, you would know that was preaching one day. And Alzheimer's and dementia was beginning to set in. And when he got done with his, while he was in the middle of his message, he blacked out. He could not continue. And that was the last message he preached. Financial problems. 34:33 I remember getting, was not in church one morning and was ministering in another place with a singing group and got home back to the headquarters there and had found out that our pastor had resigned from financial difficulties. And then that church had to respond to that. 34:52 How do you respond? What do you do when a pastor is called to another field of service, another place, another field? 35:02 We've had men that have been called to EBI, to DNI, to other locations, feeling the call of God to other fields of ministry and service. We ourselves did that when we moved from Oregon in 1991 to minister with Gospel Echoes. 35:23 This is a sad one here. What do you do when there's trouble in the church that precipitates a leader being lost? Trouble, for some reason, people lose confidence in the ministry, in his ministry, or they lose confidence in the team, or they lose, or even worse yet, where there's separation between leaders. 35:45 Far too many times, churches lose leaders because of trouble in the church and separation between leaders. And then there's aging and retirement. 35:57 We live in an age where leaders age, leaders retire, and get reassigned sometimes to other ministry that will be less pastoral and more possibly evangelistic or nurturing. The primary question here is, 36:17 how will we get through this? Well, we do because God is still raising up leaders. God is still raising up leaders. But the biggest question and the most difficult question is not when a pastor dies or when a leader dies or is taken out by health issues or age. 36:39 The most devastating is when there is a loss of that leadership due to apostasy, due to apostasy. What do we mean by apostasy? Falling away, falling away from the truth. That can happen by false doctrine. 36:58 I can tell you churches on every one of these points. False doctrine will take out a pastor. Moral failure will take out a pastor. Criminal activity takes out pastors. Thankfully, not very many, but it does happen. 37:17 And the primary question then is not, why did this happen and how do we get through it? But is, how could you do that? 37:27 And with that question then becomes a sense of betrayal and anger and blame and brokenness and sorrow and grief. I was 15 years old when that happened to my pastor hero. 37:47 Some of you know this story. Others of you don't. Our bishop was my hero. He was the man who recognized, aside from God and my parents, he had more to do with my initial call to the ministry than any other person. 38:10 And one Sunday evening, I think it was Sunday afternoon, a church meeting was called. And he resigned from the ministry. Why? Why? Because of illegal activity, moral failure with children. 38:31 How could you do that, brother? How could you do that? That's the question that we asked. There was a sense of betrayal, anger, blame, brokenness, sorrow, and grief. How do you cope when leaders fall? And like I say, I'm not anticipating that this is, 38:51 I hope this is not, I don't believe this is prophetic. Let me say it that way. This is not prophetic. This is practical. I worked through this. I had to live through this, as some of you have. Well, how do you cope? First of all, you have to recognize the frailty of man. 39:11 Everyone is vulnerable. Every man is vulnerable to sin. Every one of us can fall. And so, as someone has said, don't put your leaders on a pedestal where they can be knocked down and fall off, but put them on a, 39:33 I forget how it goes exactly, but on a prayer list where they are being prayed for. You see, it's still true. The enemy's, one of his primary methods is to strike the shepherd so that the sheep are scattered. And that doesn't mean just scattered from one church to another. 39:53 That means scattered away from the Lord. If he can smite the shepherd, he can scatter the sheep. So we must recognize the frailty of man. 40:03 And while we trust others and we want to trust and we want to be faithful and we want to be led by trustworthy men, there is a problem with idolizing people. And the evangelical world does this to a fault and writes a book. 40:22 "Oh, man, that guy is a great, great author. He preaches a sermon. He's got a radio program. Man, he's great. You ought to listen to him. He has an international ministry. 40:34 He has podcasts." And all of a sudden, boom. Sometimes it takes five years. Sometimes it takes 10 years. Sometimes it takes 20, 30, 40 years. Sometimes the man is dead and you find out he fell. 40:55 We recognize the sin of worshiping men. Recognize the pain and damage that have been caused. This is real damage that gets done when leaders fall. And it's damage that happens not only just to a church, but it happens to the name of Christ. And it happens to the gospel. 41:18 Damage to the gospel message because the gospel message is a message of transformation. And then to find out the one who's been preaching the message of transformation is himself untransformed can be devastating. And we recognize the need for healing, both personal and corporate. 41:38 When our church went through that, when I was a young man for about a year and a half, two years, and probably longer, probably longer, 41:50 the church suffered. The church grieved. The church was catapulted into a controversy as to the sincerity of the bishop's repentance. And can he be restored? Can he come back? Those are big questions. We recognize a need for healing. 42:11 We recognize a need to forgive. We recognize a need to learn to trust again and thank God that for every leader that falls, there are hundreds, hundreds, maybe thousands of leaders that are faithful. So don't get cynical and say, 42:31 "Well, they're just all corrupt." I mean, just throw out the whole batch. Judas was, I mean, they weren't all Judas. Yeah, they all forsook. They had their failures and their foibles, but they repented, came back. 42:50 How do you restore a leader? That's a whole subject I don't have time to go into this morning. But it takes time. It took time to get there to the place of brokenness. It takes a time to get back. It takes repentance and brokenness. It takes requalification, requalification to become once again blameless, 43:12 not covetous of good reputation within and without. It takes time to rebuild all that. There must be complete surrender. 43:22 There must be a team that works to restore this man to his relationship with God, to his relationship with his family, and possibly someday down the road to be restored in ministry. I asked this question to a biblical counselor one time. 43:38 I said, "Is it possible for a man to be restored after he has fallen in the ministry?" I love the answer that was given. And it's one I've quoted many times. 43:52 He said, "It is possible, but only when he becomes known more for his righteousness than for his sin." So many people, when they fall now, are known as are identified by what they've done. 44:14 And you can say that shouldn't be that way, but it is. We are human. But that can be restored by walking consistently as a man of integrity over an extended period of time. We can once again be known as a man of righteousness. Maybe you've heard this story before. 44:34 I don't know if it's true. If it isn't, it should be. Years ago, in a place where they raised sheep, there was a man, supposedly, as the story goes, who was a sheep thief. And he was disgraced for stealing sheep in the community. 44:54 What did they do to the man? Well, I don't know if he did prison time or what, but they marked on his wrist, "ST," sheep thief. That was a curse. That was something derogatory to him to remind him and others that this man violated the community. 45:16 But when he's released from prison or whatever happened to him, he came to know the Lord and began to serve the community. And his life was totally changed. And when he died, someone noticed, one of the little children noticed as he was laying there, "ST." And he asked his parents, 45:37 "What does ST stand for?" And the parent replied, "I don't remember. I think it stands for saint." "ST," sheep thief, can become "ST," saint. Father, thank you for your grace and mercy. 45:55 Lord, I pray that you will protect your great name and your servants, those of us that are leaders in this congregation and those of us that are leaders in our families, in our homes, in our church. We all have positions of influence and we all have positions of testimony. 46:18 Lord, let us uphold the great name of our holy God. And yet, Lord, let us also extend mercy and grace to the repentant. In Jesus' name, Amen.