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Okay, I'm going to start this morning with a little exercise, but it is a very dangerous exercise.
Okay, it's a dangerous exercise for the first thing on a Sunday morning because I'm going to ask you
to close your eyes.
All right now.
I need you to promise yes exactly.
Charlie.
I need you to promise that when I ask you to close your eyes that you are not going to fall asleep on me.
Okay, so let's hold it together.
We can do it.
Take another sip of coffee.
Okay here.
We go so close your eyes.
And I want you to imagine.
Try to picture for yourself that you were there at day one of creation.
Okay, you see in your mind you can see the spirit hovering over the
face of what best I can describe as primordial waters and you hear
God say let there be light.
And.
Instantly you are blinded by the sudden burst of brightness filling everything around
you.
But now I want you to imagine.
Just a little before that so take the VHS tape in your mind and do a little rewind.
Okay, and you're a little bit before that and you're there, and it's dark and.
The waters themselves have just been created, but the earth is without form.
Try to imagine in this moment the anticipation of what we just imagined the anticipation of
God speaking for the first time into creation and.
Now I want you to hit the rewind button in your mind one more time and a little bit before that
there is nothing.
We have crossed into Genesis chapter 1 verse 0.
Territory we are before the words in the beginning, but here
Here you have to understand there is no before.
Because there is no time at all.
All right open your eyes.
Genesis 1 1 in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Right in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and that very famous verse has within it the four
fundamentals of physics the four fundamentals of existence.
Itself captured in those ten words there is matter earth.
There is volume space heavens.
There is force and action God.
Then there is the fourth one time in the beginning.
Like all else ex nihilo.
Time itself was created at Genesis 1 1
and so of all God's attributes today.
This one that we're going to talk about today Might be one of the hardest to avoid words
of accommodation because we simply have No concept of what anything is like
outside of time.
I.
The beginning.
But even then in your mind you are picturing the passage of time you are
there and you're imagining a succession of moments up to a moment when suddenly
waters appear and suddenly light appears.
But you have to remember that there was no succession of moments before
time.
Yes, Andrew,
right exactly, right.
Yep.
Yeah, and so this passage of time the succession of moments is incredibly fundamental to our
existence because everything for us is a sequence of events a Succession of moments.
I'm gonna use that phrase a lot today.
Okay a succession of moments.
Every one of even our thoughts that in some sense feel like they occur to us
instantaneously.
Right take time we learn from the past
we are try to be say like mindful in the present or present in the present right as
Folks would advocate nowadays and we plan for the future right
and of course that also means because we are in time that we are very Incredibly restricted by
How often do we say that we want to pause?
Right or we want to go back.
Or maybe fast forward.
But we cannot we talk about a watched pot that never
boils time flies when we're having fun and
The old sports writers favorite saying when the superstar finally enters the twilight of his career.
Is that the only undefeated opponent is Father time.
So today we're going to talk about eternality.
God is eternal and The question that Barrett asks in chapter 8 at the
for the title of the chapter is God in time.
Is God in time?
So, how do we define this notion?
Sorry, I already missed it.
So why is in question one of the worksheet?
Why is God's eternality the hardest of all of God's attributes to avoid words of accommodation?
It's because we have no sense of what it means to be outside of time and
All of our language is wrapped up in in time words.
That's another phrase.
You're gonna hear me say a lot today.
Okay in time words.
And by that I mean literally in timeline.
As opposed to outside of time.
We have what like our language is literally based on the notion of past tense present tense future
tense.
Right, and I'm gonna use past tense words today about God, but understand that
that's wrong.
Because there is no past tense.
When it comes to outside of time, there's not even really present tense, but we're gonna try.
Okay, we're gonna try yes.
Yes.
Yeah, I'm Andrew's right.
I'm sorry, but there's gonna be moments where you're gonna think I'm talking about Star Trek right today.
But is what it is.
So like we said at the beginning of class today is a very good day to take that metaphorical duct tape and wrap it
around your skull.
So that when it explodes later, you can find all the pieces.
Okay.
So let's start by trying to define God's eternality.
Now the word that the Bible uses a lot is everlasting.
Okay everlasting and we see that in places like First Chronicles 16 Isaiah 9
Isaiah 26 in fact, can I just I want to read all three of those references.
So can I just have three?
Volunteers, please who have Bible semi ready?
Yes, you want to start Daniel you can have First Chronicles 16 36
Mark Isaiah 9 6.
Charlie Isaiah 26 4, please.
All right, Daniel your first if you've got it from everlasting to everlasting.
Everlasting father.
Okay, Charlie.
Oh, hey, we can rock to.
Whoo two metaphors for the price of one on that verse.
Everlasting rock, okay.
So we hear everlasting and you have to understand there is a sense in that word of time,
right?
There's this is an in time word everlasting.
So it is a word of accommodation for us.
Because when we see everlasting It's an adjective to describe
our experience with God.
God is Einstein.
Relativity here.
God is everlasting with respect to us.
Right or compared to us who are in time here.
We are posited at this present moment.
Oops.
Sorry.
We just missed it.
We're a little further along but here we are.
Posited in this present moment and we can go backwards everlasting and there's still God and we can go
forward Everlasting and there's still God right?
That's the from everlasting to everlasting and all the other.
And the other two everlastings that we saw today were.
Just read were our forward -facing.
So eternality here's one sort of succinct.
Let's just go with this as a working definition.
Okay for the first part of the class.
And we'll see how well it holds up as we discuss all right.
It's almost like a catechism sort of answer right.
God is eternal.
God created time and exists outside of it.
Like we said at the beginning Genesis 1 1 in the beginning that is the start of time
any thoughts on that.
Have you ever tried to imagine what it must be like God outside Jonathan.
I don't know.
Yeah, I love that comment from Augusta.
Yeah, he's like if you don't ask me I feel pretty confident.
I know what time is but if you want me to explain it I'd suddenly don't feel very confident at all.
Charlie ah.
Don't get a teacher.
Yeah, yeah, no no so yes.
So so he so I think what's important to understand is with when we're talking about eternality is that he
exists outside of time.
Right, that's what I'm so for the definition of that, but you are completely right.
Particularly when we're talking about the incarnation.
Right that God chose to enter as Charlie's.
One of his favorite phrases has been right he's chosen to enter time -space continuum for us
right in the person of Jesus Christ.
The second person that God had right.
So yes, he exists in time.
So it's it's less maybe it's less to say that he exists in time so much as that he Enters and
interacts in time with us who are the time bound creatures, right?
Yeah.
Into our time into our experience, right?
Yeah good segue to this which is number two.
Bodhi Hodge who's one of the apologists for answers in Genesis he says God didn't
come from anywhere or anyone.
God is the source of everything and he created time.
Time is not absolute.
God is absolute.
When someone asks where God came from or who created him?
They are assuming that time is absolute and God isn't but this is not the God of
the Bible.
All right.
So number three these attributes, right?
We've looked at all these attributes previously and They all have connections to the idea of God
being eternal.
God is subject to no limitations and he is the source of all things.
What would limit God if he in
terms of what we're talking about today, what would limit him?
Well, if if if he has subject to no limitations, but he's source of all things hypothetically what would limit him?
Yes, but I'm talking I mean specifically with what we're talking about today about eternality.
What would what would be a limiting thing to God?
What are we limited by?
Time so if God existed in time, would he be?
He'd be limited by it, right?
He'd be subject to a present and a future at a past.
There would be a time before God was or there certainly would be a time before God did something, right?
Like there's all that type of thing.
So Existing in time would limit God.
So that's what is that attribute that we talked about God having no limitations.
Anybody remember it's the Latin one.
The CID, yep.
See it.
So you can connect the line there.
Existing in time would limit God but a CID tells us that God has no limits.
Here's another one.
The next one God is not a composition, right?
So to compose or decompose is an action that would happen in time.
But what attribute of God tells us that he does not?
Compose or decompose.
Simplicity right simplicity he is.
Simplicity tells us that he is in his attributes in all their fullness to the absolute
degree.
He is them right all time.
Okay, and then the last one God is once.
And some this is a good one.
God is once simultaneously in unendingly, right?
His eternality is a shield against all kinds of the opposite of the word
Right.
You already know what it is, right?
Immutability.
It's the last one a shield against all kinds of mutability.
You cannot talk of change that it was or will be.
It does not exist in a changeable way.
It is what is once simultaneously in unendingly
any kind of succession in time Would introduce a change in God, but we know God
does not change because of the attribute immutability.
That's the three connections, all right, so at this point I'm gonna have to use
an in time word and Even though as I said a few minutes ago any in time word is a divine
accommodation, but here goes.
We're gonna spend a lot of time talking about the notion of God being eternally present.
Eternally present but present is an in time word, but we're gonna just try to use it as a way to picture.
What's going on here?
He is eternally present.
Now Andrew last week and myself the week before we talked of God always doing
Right always in motion.
Do you remember that there is a Latin phrase for that that Anselm coined?
And if you remember the Latin phrase, it's really close to English.
So it's Not too hard,
what's that?
Something momentum.
We're gonna purus actus.
What did that mean?
Pure act.
God is pure act.
Sorry, that was an Anselm.
That was Aquinas.
Aquinas coined to that phrase my bad the other a team guy I think I could keep him
straight by now.
That God is always doing right?
He's the first mover and I mentioned how.
When we were talking about immutability, this was this was one of the refutations of the notion of God being like
rigidly immobile Right the fact that there is motion In the viewers
that if God were rigidly immobile, then there would have been nothing to kick off motion
happening in existence.
But he is the first mover and thus Things move, but he's the source of
movement the source of action.
But Alright when we think about the notion of God being pure act is that here comes the objection from the
skeptic the skeptic would say That to act or to will anything seems to suggest
some kind of succession of moments.
I wasn't doing something and now I'm doing something Right, or even if even if we
you know go with pure act.
It's like well God was doing something first, and then he's doing something else right is sort of the thing We would
potentially start that's what the skeptic would argue.
That there's a series of acts that stem from the will of God.
Now there is an urban legend Christian myth, I don't know how would he want to say about Augustine
That that supposedly someone once asked him.
What was God doing before he made heaven and earth?
Augustine supposedly replied God was preparing hell for idiots that ask questions like that.
Yeah, yeah, that's that's the kind of urban legend.
We can get behind right, but actually um.
And I do I really I do like being a myth buster.
So I'll say this what's fascinating is there's a lot of truth to this myth in that someone really did ask
Augustine that question.
But he didn't find that answer all that funny and In fact what it was is that other people had
answered that he had heard that joke of an answer.
And he wrote a little treatise refuting like like
Rebuking the people who were telling that joke and Ironically somehow over the
mists of course of time now We associated as if Augustine was the one who said the joke when he was actually writing
about how we shouldn't say that joke.
I Feel bad for him.
I he he didn't want.
He felt like it was evading the force of the question with crude humor.
Augustine said I would have preferred him to answer I am ignorant of what I do not know.
Rather than reply so as to ridicule someone who has asked a deep question and to win approval for an answer,
which is a mistake.
It's pretty good.
But Augustine in true Augustine fashion his real response not nearly as pithy and he
goes on for many many pages to Give this long discourse about the nature of time.
And I don't have the time to go through the whole discourse about the nature of time.
But Anselm he comes along a few hundred years later, and he Gives us a nice pithy summary of
Augustine's thing and he says God has no temporal present.
God has no temporal Present
and so if he's not temporarily present that leaves us only with eternally present.
Temporally present would be the notion of that.
You've probably heard before time stretched out.
Sometimes some people have tried to use the analogy when we're talking about eternality that like it's it's that God is God
sees time stretched out.
Right and experiences time stretched out that would be a temporal present.
Yeah, yes.
It's the same concept as those who the some Arminian folks would like to say like that God can look down the
corridors of time.
And see you know ahead of time who would believe on his name and so thus
Predestined those folks to salvation.
Yeah, Charlie.
For Criollary and yes in in this yes in the eternal present yes.
Yeah, I didn't mention that earlier, but thanks Charlie for bringing it up.
Which is that even angels?
Clearly experience time.
Right so so and and in in heaven when Jesus talks about everlasting life and eternal life that that
kind of eternal that he's talking About is the passage of time so it is not that time is Going to
go away For us right I think we will always be temporarily
bound creatures With God in the everlasting.
And to that end it's why I say that this feels although I don't I don't hear a lot of theologians
talking about it when I read or I should hear I don't read a lot of theologians talking about it, but The
eternality I think is one of those incommunicable attributes of God that no one, but God exists
Not not even the other spirit beings.
Right yeah, yeah, there's a
transition.
Yes, exactly yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, so so.
Yeah, sorry.
Yeah, that's what I'm going with for now.
It's a line yes, yes, Dave.
Possibly I mean there's also as Andrew's saying that there's a new heaven in a new earth.
So there's also the possibility that time is different right in the in the new time, and I'm.
But God doesn't really give us much clue or hint about what it will be like other than that it will be
Everlasting in the terms of our ability to understand them right now right
yeah,
oh yes, yes.
He's visible as yeah, yeah, right.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so what I what I want to
say just to go back to the idea about time stretched out in Temporally present is that I want you to understand that God experiences
no duration.
Okay, he experiences no duration.
Because it's not an it's not a lot of people where they get confused where they do this Timeline stretch
out thing for God is that they say that it's that God has an unending timeline.
And I say no God has no line at all right, and that's I know but.
Right no.
No, I just think it's an I think that verse is an accommodation in that we could maybe paraphrase it a different way to say
That to God you know a thousand years is nothing to God a day is nothing right or
or as Charlie's puddle analogy right that they're they're both part of the same puddle.
I am however restricted by time, and I'm running out of it.
Sharon go ahead, but then we got to move on that's okay right exactly right.
Well, but whatever regardless God has no beginning.
I think we can very clearly say that compared to all else right that that everything else because it is sourced from him
has a Beginning.
I know that's an in time word, but let's just go with it, right.
You know all else is created.
It has a start that God is the only one who is eternal in both directions
so all right, so.
Again, let's try to deal with the question of succession and acts.
Let's answer this objection from the skeptic.
Okay, if he is timeless eternal.
How can he also be purist actus.
Well let me let me first ask this all right is there an order to God's decrees?
Can somebody give me an example is?
There an order to God's degrees.
Sure, yes, yep.
There's a decree to create mankind then there's a degree to create the for the fall.
There's six days of creation right there's an order to that.
Yep, yep, yep.
Yep, what else you got one sure okay?
Yes, yes.
Different covenants, okay.
Anybody else have another example?
Yes, right.
Yep, yeah now in all those does the fact that there is an order.
Okay, then ipso facto require that they happen in succession.
Yes, but where are they unfurling?
In time there we go.
Yes in our terrarium of time yes, that's very good.
The theologically precise terminology here is to say so they're they're occurring in time, but when did
they?
I'm gonna hate saying this word originate.
Before time outside of time right so was there a succession in how they originated.
No.
Right and so that like I said the theologically precise terminology here is to say that God's acts and
decree and will have a Logical order, but not a
temporal one.
Okay a logical order, but not a temporal one and
this is I Can't even say the word.
What is the super lap for Sarah that stuff?
Yeah, super laps area like this is like deep seminary this is what seminary
students argue about on their free time kind of thing, but.
But I'm not even gonna try to explain it, but I mean this is you know or or dos or dos salutas right same idea are we gonna
let's argue over the order of the house.
Salvation works right does justification come before you know all that kind of stuff right so
Barrett gives a really cool analogy.
I think about a light switch.
When it comes to logical order all right versus temporal order.
And that is if I walk into a room and I flip on the light switch the light turns on.
Okay, now Temporally speaking they seem to us as if they are
Instantaneous right switch light, okay?
The light does not cause the switch to flip though the logical order is switched.
Flipped switch equals light on right switch has to come first then light.
And so that's a logical ordering right that that that outside of time
these this order was originated in Together
the same time except not time.
Sorry I can't do it.
But there's a logical order to them.
Okay, but just because there's a logical order.
I guess is what I'm trying to get at I'm trying to argue from a very hypothetical point of view, but it's a hypothetical with a
real actual real Basis in reality that
that there can be a logical order without necessarily there being a temporal ordering.
All right, do you remember do you remember with the lessons on God's immutability that we talked about?
And we sort of talked about this already that when we spoke of the God's the
things about God that do not change.
Yeah, and one of the things about like God that do not change is God's purposes all right his
purposes and.
What did it mean when I said that I said that God's purposes do not change?
I said maybe another P word besides purposes would be Plan right.
God's plan does not change so.
It essentially means that God's plan.
He's always had the same plan for history.
Right from before the foundation of the world the same plan for salvation the same plan for how he deals with
us.
And we see we in time see a progression.
We see that the calling of Abraham was step one.
We see Exodus maybe step two Davidic Covenant step three incarnation of Jesus step four right and I'm
Not arguing that these are the actual steps, but I'm just saying you know there's there's steps right maybe step ten.
I should have just skipped the numbering.
But that does not mean that God is changing from step two to step three.
Right, but rather that it's the same plan that was always was that's now being executed
the plan is the plan.
And when we said does God change his mind and we answered?
We saw lots of times about the Hebrew word that was used for God's repenting and all those Old Testament
passages.
Did anybody remember what the Hebrew word was?
Let me get it out of your throat.
Nothing okay nothing.
And it it is the word of us that has a sense of to breathe strongly.
To be sorry to pity or as the ESV translates it to
regret or relent right old old translations use the word repent because it
was sort of an idea of regret as well with repenting and ESV other modern ones tend to say
regret or relent but the breathing strongly one is the one that I found the most interesting because I sort of
have that anthropomorphic picture of.
Right, so when when first Samuel 15 it talks about God regretting relenting of
making Saul King you sort of get the sense of like With Saul,
but Samuel also told us that the glory of Israel will not lie or have regret for he
is not a man that he should have regret.
And We what we talked about there to
explain that was the notion that the distinction between God who can regret things with foreknowledge.
Right he can he can regret
Making Saul King, but he always knew what was going to happen when he made Saul King whereas us when we
regret things It is because we didn't know What was going to happen?
Right I can regret taking the turnpike to get to work one morning.
Because of the traffic because I didn't know that the traffic was going to be bad.
Or I didn't know there was gonna be a big accident.
Right and thus making me late to work.
Or I can regret eating the scallops.
Always regret eating the scallops.
Because I didn't know they'd give me the food poisoning, right?
And One commentator had told us that God may be capable of looking back on the very act of bringing
something about and lamenting that act in some regard, but affirming it still as best in
another regard and Andrew you told us What's the what was what's the perfect
analogy for us as parents here discipline.
Right where you know, it's best you still don't like it.
Right, you regret having to discipline your children, but you know, it is the best thing to do.
So if God can say I feel sorrow that I made God King is not the same as saying I would not make him King If I had to
do it over right, that's not the kind of regret that God has.
So I reviewed all that just to reemphasize the point.
But there is no change here with respect to God because if there was any kind of possibility of that
change.
And that means that God would have potential and as Andrew taught us last week.
God has no potential.
I know that sounds bad.
Right, we always want to talk about like yes, it's great.
Yo, you have potential way to go, right.
But truly to have potential means is kind of a Damning with faint praise because it means
that you haven't actually reached that potential yet, right?
Well, he's got great potential.
Yeah, Dave.
This answer has great potential.
I can tell.
Yes,
thanks, thank you.
It was better it wasn't better for Judas is.
The idea it was it was best in that it was what it was the best of the plan
for existence for everyone.
You know like as Romans 8 says the good of them who love him.
Right, it would have been better for Judas Himself to not have been born,
but that doesn't mean it was not the best for the order of God's plan.
I mean guess think about what amazingness he did write about and yet there was things he could not write.
Let me define number answer number five here so we can put a bow on this particular part of the discussion
so to define logical ordering theologically speaking is the order of.
The observed results of God's decree as they relate to each other in terms of cause and effect.
Not in terms of succession of time, but in terms of cause and effect.
This one happens first it causes this the effect is that which then causes this which is the effect.
Is that?
So on and so on.
Okay, all right.
God's Eternality though is very good news for us.
It's very good news for us.
Why well Romans 8 29 and 30?
Lot of people call that the golden chain.
Right the golden chain.
Can somebody quote that right off the top of their head or just read it for us Romans 8 29 to 30.
How many I want it we have no one of kids in here this morning.
I?
Want to leaders anybody?
All right, well, I'll wait and let somebody look it up.
You don't want to get it wrong in front of the whole crowd of people I understand.
Yes, sir in the back go for it.
Right okay.
That's the chain right for new predestined called
Justified glorified right okay there.
We go.
That's the check.
Now all of these are experienced by us as temporal creatures temporally.
Temporally however you want to say it right.
But Not so for God, and that's the great news about this chain not so for God.
They were ordained by God Eternally before time.
Barrett uses the phrase.
He says that they were cemented in the mind of God in timeless eternity.
But even that isn't really a great way to talk about it because it's using that past tense word.
Cemented as if there was a past tense to it that there was once a moment in time in God's mind
where we weren't predestined and now we there is because no.
Right it is outside of time eternal present always cemented.
Which is why we have nothing to fear about anything in time as Romans 8 goes
on to say.
Nothing to fear about anything in time to have any possible opportunity to break that golden chain.
Because it's cemented outside of time there there.
Our salvation is outside of time secure in the eternal mind of our eternal God.
That's a joy.
There's Understand that there isn't even a when to God's promises.
You know I make a promise and there is a time at which that promise will be executed.
Right that I like that.
I then also have to follow through with said promise not so for God because there's not.
That what he is not bound by that when?
At them at the outside of time time that he makes the promise he is executing
the promise.
It's already executed.
It is cemented this Barrett says.
It's no wonder that his personal name is I am that I am
right as sort of like emphasizing the present of him.
I Am that I am.
That's the very good news about his eternality.
So let me conclude by doing a callback all the way back to chapter 4.
And we spoke about God's a city, and I quoted the Greek philosopher Heraclitus anybody remember that
guy Chapter 4 that was like four score and 16 weeks ago, I
think.
Okay Heraclitus he had this quote.
That it's a very philosopher quote on those stepping into rivers.
Staying the same other and other waters flow.
Right interpretive dance time.
On those stepping into rivers staying the same other and other waters flow.
Right and Plato paraphrased him by saying essentially like you can't step into the same river twice.
All right, thanks, Plato.
But Heraclitus was pretty dense and and the the you know the probably a better way to our
Plato's little way of doing it is not really getting it perfectly.
It's it's the notion of that of the statement is on its surface.
Paradoxical, but it's not supposed to be taken false or contradictory.
It's makes perfectly good sense in this we call a body of water a river.
Precisely because it consists of changing waters.
That's what makes it a river.
If there's waters did not flow if they did not change it would cease to be a river it would instead be a lake
or store a dry stream bed.
So there's this sense in which the river is this remarkable kind of existence.
The philosophers say one that remains what it is by changing what it contains.
If the river remains the same One can surely step in twice, but not into the same waters to be sure but into the
same river so and again.
What that tells us is that our only perception of being?
Ourselves when we talk about being is Of things that are changing.
A river is a river, but every moment it is made up of different water.
We are people, but every moment we are made up of slightly different molecules.
We breathe in we breathe out, and there's a little bit of carbon of me.
That's no longer there that was there a second ago.
But yet I still am me.
Charnock.
Stephen Charnock says that God isn't a river.
He says that God is an ocean.
That he's fixed and stable and overwhelmingly huge.
He calls him an unbounded sea of being.
I really like that quote an unbounded sea of being.
And Barrett takes it further.
He says while the river of time is always Changing and developing the ocean of the
divine remains constant consistent and invariable.
He is changed by no succession of moments for he has none.
He has no beginning.
He has no end.
He just is.
Remember it was back in chapter 4.
I told you was RC Sproul who said that the Real way that we should talk about
Human beings is that we are actually human becomings and
that there is only one true being and that is God.
That is God.
Act 1728 in him we live and move and have our being.
He is.
The eternal one.
Yes, Dave.
Maybe not exactly.
Maybe because we have no data.
We have no frame of reference to talk about it.
Other than that he was and it again you just you threw in the word before.
Yes, exactly right yeah, yes.
Daniel
yes, but again, we're we're.
We're we're we're dying by we're.
We're breaking everything and trying to talk use the word before right, but yeah.
Are changing right yeah, yeah,
yes?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so I think there's this the notion of create with respect to
creation right?
God yeah, yeah, Charlie.
Yes, nine days ago that potential energy.
Yeah, mm -hmm.
Because now multiply that out across billions and billions of stars
that are all Exuding an amount of energy that is unfathomable to us
all across the cosmos.
And in God yeah, exactly and it didn't it didn't like drop his energy at one iota.
All right, thank you.
Well if you'll permit me one last moment of indulgence.
I just wanted to say Yesterday we had pastor Bob's memorial service here and lots of people got up and
said something about pastor Bob and I didn't.
I wasn't you know one of the speakers or whatever and I just wanted to take a moment though because I
The one thing about the thing I most interacted with pastor Bob would be here in Sunday school when I was teaching Sunday
school and I Loved having him here in the audience
he He was fantastic.
Knowing just the right time to rescue me.
When he could tell that you know.
It was time to chime in with some amazing insight.
And you know and lots of people yesterday in the service talked about just the intelligence he had that
God gifted him with and what a blessing it was then to all of us and There was nothing
that made me feel better About teaching Sunday school than when Bob would come up to me afterwards
to tell me what a great job.
I had done and It just meant so much he never pulled rank
which was the other thing that I just was really amazed by.
That you know he could have right like founding pastor.
So to speak, but he never he never pulled right he never you know Corrected those of us who were up here
teaching in that way.
And instead he'd come up.
He would you know just encourage just so encouraged and tell us what a great job.
I think all of us as Sunday school teachers all had this experience at one point or another where he'd come up and tell us What a great job we were doing
how thankful he was for it.
He'd give us like a little suggestion of oh next time you know.
If you're gonna talk about it next week, but you should mention so -and -so.
You know and just it was just amazing, and I'm just so thankful for That ministry
that small part of his giant ministry, but that small part That was how he ministered to me,
so I just want to close in prayer and thank God for him
Heavenly Father Lord I Thank you so much for this time that you give us each week in
Sunday school and to give us a time to discuss together and build each other up.
It's just it's an amazing moment in the life of our church body in which we can share with each other
the knowledge that you have gifted to each one of us and allow us to think through
things and just challenge each other sharpen
each other and really grow and deepen our faith and Lord
we thank you especially today for The gift of Pastor Bob and how he
participated in that here in our Sunday schools.
And we we miss him dearly Lord, but we thank you for that which you did
give him to give to us and Thank you for all those times in which he enriched
these discussions and I know Lord that he is Having having
a great time right now having discussions like that In heaven with all the redeemed
Saints of all time, and we look forward to Seeing him again that we we do not
we are sad, but we are said With great hope and expectation of being together with him and
and all of us again in Jesus name Amen.