Show Notes
2 Corinthians 12:11-21
Pastor Christopher Chelpka
View Full Transcript
Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Let's pray.
[00:00:07] Lord, as we come now to the reading and preaching of your word, we do ask for your blessing. We ask that your holy spirit would be poured out on us and would be at work in our hearts. That our thinking might be conformed to truth, your truth. That our wills might be encouraged, emboldened that our consciences might be adjusted, calibrated, corrected.
[00:00:36] To be sensitive to the things that we ought to be sensitive to and not to the things which we ought not to be.
[00:00:45] Lord, we also ask that you would continue to move in our emotions as well, move in us in such a way that we might love the things you love and hate, the things that you hate, that we might rejoice in the things that make you happy, and that we might fear what we ought to fear. Lord, in all of these things, we are looking to you that your work would be done and that your word in every way would be applied to all the particulars of our life, of our individual lives and our lives together.
[00:01:22] As your church, we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:01:27] Please remain standing, and let's turn our attention to two corinthians, chapter twelve, verses eleven through 21.
[00:02:05] Let's hear God's word.
[00:02:09] I have been a fool. You forced me to it. For I ought to have been commended by you, for I was not at all inferior to these super apostles, even though I am nothing.
[00:02:22] The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience with signs and wonders and mighty works.
[00:02:30] For in what were you less favored than the rest of the churches? Except that I myself did not burden you. Forgive me this wrong here. For the third time, I am ready to come to you, and I will not be a burden, for I seek not what is yours, but you. For children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.
[00:02:55] I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?
[00:03:04] But granting that I myself did not burden you, I was crafty, you say, and got the better of you by deceit. Did I take advantage of you through any of those whom I sent to you? I urged Titus to go and sent the brother with him. Did Titus take advantage of you? Did we not act in the same spirit? Did we not take the same steps?
[00:03:27] Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you? It is in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ, and all for your upbeat beloved. For I fear that perhaps when I come, I may find you not as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish, that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit and disorder. I fear that when I come again, my God may humble me before you. And I may have to mourn over many of those who sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality that they have practiced.
[00:04:13] May God bless his word to us. Please be seated.
[00:04:43] I remember one time finding a website that had found things, grocery lists, letters, just things people found, and then they would post them. This was a long time ago, and it's a little odd, right? If you ever find something like this to sort of read into someone's personal life, right, without all the context, but maybe some context, and you get a sense of the particulars that are going on, maybe a particular name is mentioned.
[00:05:20] Send Bob to the store to pick up the eggs and milk and cheese, and you go, who's Bob? Right?
[00:05:27] And all of a sudden, you have three people in your mind, right? The person writing the letter, the person receiving the letter and Bob.
[00:05:35] Or maybe it's a love note, or maybe it's a note of mourning or loss.
[00:05:42] And perhaps you've found letters in your own house, going through the belongings of relatives who have passed. Maybe you've found your own letters, things that you wrote a long time ago and forgot about. Who is this person?
[00:05:57] In a way, we come to two Corinthians like this.
[00:06:02] We come not being a part of the original audience. We're not Paul, we're not the Corinthians. We're not even the first generation of people to hear this and perhaps know Titus personally. Even though we may not know the people in Corinth, we are some distant from it, and there are some gaps that we feel, in a way, like, for example, when he mentions the brother, who's the brother? We wonder, who is that person? What was going on there?
[00:06:36] And there are these very other particular things that are mentioned that we wonder about.
[00:06:44] But at the same time, we do have enough information about to get a sense of what's going on here.
[00:06:52] The other thing that is good to keep in mind, good to keep in mind is that as we learn about these things, this isn't just a letter that's been accidentally found on the Internet or in a parking lot or even in your own home, but it's been delivered to us on purpose by the Holy Spirit.
[00:07:12] We have been given this letter so that we might understand it and might read it and think about it in light of the particulars of our own lives. And so we pay attention. We think about these things.
[00:07:25] When we think about the context, what are some of the things that we see even just from this passage? And we've been thinking about this all along, and we're getting very close to the end now.
[00:07:35] One of the things that we see is that Paul is away from the corinthians, but he has been there before, right? He says that he is ready to come for a third time in verse 14, ready to come for a third time.
[00:07:50] We also have a sense that he's upset, isn't he? He's frustrated and concerned. He uses the word fearful. He is fearful, worried, anxious about what has happened or what might happen.
[00:08:08] He has this telling line in verse 20 when he says, I fear that perhaps when I come, I may not find you as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish.
[00:08:25] Right. What does Paul want?
[00:08:27] Paul wants them not to be continuing as he says.
[00:08:34] He's concerned that he may have to mourn. This is in verse 21 over many things, or sorry, over many of those who sinned earlier and have not repented. In other words, Paul, as an apostle, as a minister of God, has come and has written to this congregation, these congregations. He has spoken to them and he has disciplined them. He has said that there are problems here and they must be dealt with. And he's spoken to them in all kinds of various ways. And he's concerned that when he comes again, he's going to find that the situation has not changed, changed, that there's been no repentance, that there's been no growth, that there's been no faith, but they will be continuing in impurity and sexual immorality and sensuality that they were formerly practicing.
[00:09:27] He's concerned that when he gets to Corinth, this letter, that they will have received by that point, that there will be quarreling and jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit and disorder. That when Paul, who came and who originally helped to plant this church, when he comes to see and visit them, he has concerns that things are not going well and legitimate concerns. He's been hearing reports and receiving letters, and there's all these things going on, and he's taken a deep breath in a way, and he's in a way telling them, let this not be so.
[00:10:06] Right, kids, have you ever been left at home for a little while by your parents, and they tell you, okay, by the time you get. I get home, I want the kitchen done, I want the laundry folded. I want to make sure that, you know, this list of chores have done. And then you get a text or a phone call about half an hour before they come home and they say, hey, I'm on my way. I hope things are done. And you go, uh oh, right. And there's maybe a little bit of a scramble.
[00:10:34] I've been there.
[00:10:36] Perhaps you have, too.
[00:10:40] Perhaps the corinthian church is finding themselves in this moment. Perhaps Paul, in his fatherly loving care for them, is saying, children, don't let the mess continue.
[00:10:53] It's time. I'm coming.
[00:10:56] I'm worried that I'm going to find the house in a mess and that you may find me not as you wish.
[00:11:07] That sounds like a little bit of a fatherly. Is threat too strong of a word?
[00:11:13] Discipline? We can put it in that category.
[00:11:17] He is concerned that when he comes, the house will be a mess, things will be in disorder, and that they will not be, they will not find happy Paul, and for good reason.
[00:11:32] When the Lord comes and speaks to his churches, does the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who rules over us and who is the head of the body, does he want his body, his people, his sheep, to be quarreling, to be in fits of jealousy and anger and hostility and slander and gossip and conceit and disorder? Is the body of Christ one that is supposed to be mixed up with impurity and sexual immorality and sensuality?
[00:12:04] Is this what is supposed to mark the body of Christ?
[00:12:08] And if the Lord, who came to die in order to save us from our sins, finds parts of his body that are not healthy, that are not well, that are sick, that are weak and are dying, is he going to just shrug his shoulders and say, eh, you lose a sheep?
[00:12:31] No, that's not what our Lord does.
[00:12:34] He cares for his own body. He cares for the church. He cares for his bride. He cares for his sheep. What does he tell us in the parables? When one sheep goes astray, he goes after them. He brings them back.
[00:12:48] Our Lord pursues holiness because he loves us.
[00:12:55] And so when he sends out his ministers, his ministers don't shrug and not care about these things when they find these things, because they are ministers of whom they're ministers of Christ.
[00:13:12] And this is the heart of Paul's work. Paul's not just an angry dad who wants things in a particular way.
[00:13:21] He is a loving father ministering the work of the father through the Son and by the spirit.
[00:13:32] Paul comes unto these, his spiritual children, and he has concern for them.
[00:13:40] Sometimes we think that freedom is disorder. Sometimes we think that freedom is getting to live however we want and do whatever we want, whether that's how we organize our lives or our hearts or whatever.
[00:13:59] But that's not the will of God.
[00:14:03] And we know that, too, because we look at the consequences of lives that are in disorder. We see the consequences when our hearts pursue every single passion that sort of comes our way. When anything that attempts us, we just grab onto anything that we desire, we try and get. Things always end badly for us.
[00:14:26] And the scriptures tell us that's not true, just in our experience of everyday life. But ultimately, the wages of sin is death and the wrath of God and his eternal wrath and curse.
[00:14:42] This is not what we should want, and this is not what God wants.
[00:14:47] And so he comes in love into this world through the Son who humbles himself and suffers in order to save us from all of these things.
[00:14:59] And not only does he do that, but the Lord then sends out his apostles, his prophets, his ministers, his elders. He sends these servants out to continue that ministry. Even after his resurrection, even after his ascension, when Jesus ascended into the heavens, when sat down at the right hand of God, he's not sitting there just wondering what's going on. He's not sitting there bored, just hoping something will happen and things will work out. Jesus is a sovereign, awesome, mighty king who is ruling and defending his people, subduing our hearts to himself. And he does that through the ministry of the gospel.
[00:15:49] So that's why Paul acts the way he's acting. That's why Paul is saying the things he's saying. And that's why he has put up such a strong defense of his ministry. As we've been reading and considering over the last several weeks, here we come to the conclusion of that a defense.
[00:16:12] And the first thing he does is he reminds us, as he reminds the Corinthians, that he did the signs of a true apostle. He worked among them with utmost patience, signs and wonders, and mighty works.
[00:16:27] The Lord demonstrated that his apostles were his apostles by having them do, excuse me, by having them do the same things that he did. We read this in the acts of the apostles, right in the book of acts. It's volume two of the Gospel of Luke. Volume one is called Luke. Volume two is called acts. And in volume two, the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ continues after his ascension through the apostles who are raising people from the dead, who are healing people, who of blindness, of lame, of lameness, and many other things.
[00:17:10] And by the word of Christ forgiving sins.
[00:17:16] These things were done among them. Paul doesn't spend time to point them out, but just reminds them of that.
[00:17:24] The second thing he says is he reminds them that his work among them was not only marked also by signs and wonders and mighty works, but it was marked by not a love of money.
[00:17:38] He was not in it for the money. Now, why does he say this? He says it because people are accusing him of being in it for the money and in a really nasty way. I think I want to say.
[00:17:56] Well, I'll explain that in a moment. First, let's see what he says. It begins in verse 13, with some sarcasm in his tone. He says, for in what were you less favored than the rest of the churches? Except that I myself did not burden you. Forgive me for this wrong.
[00:18:17] What is Paul doing here when he says this?
[00:18:20] He's using sarcasm. I think he's using sarcasm to help them to see the backward way that they're looking at things.
[00:18:30] They're looking at things in a really backward way. First of all, it is not a burden. It should not be a burden of the churches of Christ to support other ministers and the work of the gospel.
[00:18:46] Not a spiritual burden, anyway, remember, we saw back earlier the church of Macedonia, begging, even in their poverty and extreme affliction, begging to be a part of the giving of the donation that was going to be given to the saints in Jerusalem.
[00:19:05] They did not want to be left out of the work of ministry. They did not want to be left out of what God was doing. This was not a burden to them. The burden, the problem from their perspective was being overlooked. They were worried that someone was going to think, well, they're really poor. We don't want to bother them and encourage them to be a part of this. They're saying, no, don't think of it like that. An amazing thing. The Corinthians, who probably, I think, had a fair amount of wealth, considering where they were and the kind of city that they were, had a different perspective. Instead of begging for the opportunity, there was this. It sounds like there was a sense of little bit of burden here. And Paul says, I. But Paul says, I did not burden you in this way.
[00:20:03] So there's a couple layers of things going on here. One, they had the wrong perspective. And two, Paul didn't take a salary while he was with them on purpose. He made this conscious, careful decision because of his ministry, of them, to make it really clear in a place where there was a lot of confusion that his aim was not money.
[00:20:27] So he reminds them of this. Remember, my aim was not money.
[00:20:33] Then he explains this more. He explains the heart behind this choice.
[00:20:39] He says, I'm ready to come to you, verse 14.
[00:20:43] And I will not be a burden again, for I seek not what is yours, their money, but you.
[00:20:53] What a beautiful phrase. I seek not what is yours, but you. He wants their hearts. He wants their lives, as we see from the things that he, he's saying. He's coming up, he says, in the last part of this chapter. And then he uses this wonderful metaphor to describe this heart of his. He says, for children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.
[00:21:20] It's my job to take care of you, he says, and I will most gladly spend and be spent personally, right? With his own body, with his own heart, with his own finances. I will spend and be spent for your souls.
[00:21:39] If I love you more, am I to be loved less?
[00:21:43] The more Paul seems to give, the more dishonor he seems to have.
[00:21:52] He explains what's, you have to read it carefully, but he explains what's going on in this next verse or two.
[00:21:59] He says, but granting that I myself did not burden you, I'm going to read it with certain tones so that you understand. But granting that I was myself was not sorry, but granting that I myself did not burden you, I was crafty, you say, and got the better of you by deceit.
[00:22:21] There's an accusation. You say, listen to this real, I'll call it evil, this evil double bind that they put Paul in.
[00:22:34] If you take a salary, Paul, we're going to accuse you of being in it for the money.
[00:22:42] And if you don't take a salary, we're going to accuse you of being deceitful and crafty. The more that you give of us, the less we are going to love you.
[00:22:58] What's a guy to do?
[00:23:02] I don't do this, and you think I'm bad. And I do do this, and you think I'm bad.
[00:23:08] He's frustrated, right? And this is not coming. But notice, he places the blame at different levels. On the one hand, he is saying this of the corinthian church, but you can always see in the background who's driving this, where this is coming from. The air quotes here. Super apostles, right? These people that are inserting themselves into the lives of this congregation and teaching and demanding things that are, as we've been looking all along, and I won't review now, but are demanding things that are contrary to the heart of the ministry of the gospel.
[00:23:47] And Paul is saying he's almost begging through all this kind, all these different ways. He's saying, look at my life. Look at the ministry, look at the decisions I made. And then here, as we go on in the passage, he says, look at the people I sent you.
[00:24:04] Take your eyes off me for a moment. Look at Titus. Look at the brother. Did they take advantage of you?
[00:24:12] I think these brothers were probably not being accused of these things, just Paul. And so he's trying to say, look, I'm the one who sent these people. Their heart is mine. We took the same steps. We acted in the same spirit. You accept them. Why not accept me and what I'm doing?
[00:24:33] The answer is because these super apostles were constantly undermining him and making all of these accusations and accusing him of these various things, accusing him of wanting too much money, accusing him of not wanting money.
[00:24:47] But what's Paul's heart? It's for his children. It's for their souls. It's for their advantage. This is why he does what he says or why he does what he does.
[00:25:02] So first, he finishes this defense by talking about the signs and wonders, reminding them of that. Second, he reminds them that his aim has been their hearts and not his money.
[00:25:14] Not their money. And third, he gives the answer to all of this, or, sorry, underlines all of this by talking about the defense itself, why he's been defending himself in this way. And it's so rich, rich with gospel heart. If I could say it that way, he says in verse 19, have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you?
[00:25:51] You might answer, well, yeah, it kind of sounds that way, right? All this defense, right. Of himself to them.
[00:25:58] And in a sense, it's true. But there's a sense in which it's not true. A higher sense, we can say, a greater purpose. And it's this. Here's Paul's aim. It is in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ, and all for your upbuilding, my beloved.
[00:26:21] In other words, he's saying, I'm not here to defend myself because Paul needs defending.
[00:26:28] I'm here in, and not looking because I need to impress these super apostles, or I need to impress you, or I'm worried that you won't like me anymore, or something like that.
[00:26:40] How does Paul see himself?
[00:26:43] He sees himself in the sight of God.
[00:26:47] That's why he defends himself. That's why he does what he does.
[00:26:52] He is doing it in the sight of God. He is speaking in Christ, and he is doing it all for their edification, their upbuilding beloved.
[00:27:03] So after some rough words and some sarcasm and some difficulty and some of frustration, he reminds them in yet another way that they are his beloved. And they are his beloved because they are Christ's beloved.
[00:27:25] We are Christ's children. And that's why true ministers of the gospel do what they do in the sight of God.
[00:27:34] They love their congregations, they love their flocks because of Christ and because of his love and because of what he's doing. That is the heart of everything, that is motivating everything.
[00:27:49] Paul is finishing this defense by explaining why he's doing what he's doing. And it's that the health and the ministry of the gospel has been put in danger.
[00:28:01] When the Corinthians gave their hearts over to prideful men who made much of themselves but little of the Lord's true servant and the Lord's desired message and the Lord's desired ministry, that's when he is standing up, and not for Paul, but for Christ.
[00:28:21] You know, as a side note in thinking about this defense that he's making, not of himself, let's just remember for a moment this Paul does not have this Paul only mindset, as if there's no place in the Lord's ministry for anyone else, that everything needs to be about him and his attention and all these sorts of things.
[00:28:50] Some people live this way, right? They live their lives thinking that everything that can be done or needs to be done needs to come with sharp elbows and getting people out of the way and harsh words and climbing up a ladder. Paul doesn't do that.
[00:29:08] That's what the super apostles quote, unquote, are doing.
[00:29:12] When we reject faith in Christ, when we embrace self confidence, the world of opportunity that God provides for service and meaning and importance and impact, and all these things gets reduced to whatever. You can just claw for yourself.
[00:29:36] That's the actions of these super apostles. They're blaming, they're condemning, they're making up lies, they're saying all this kind of stuff. Why? Because they're seeing the ministry of Christ like a pinata broken at a party, right? Little pieces of candy falling all over the ground and people clamoring after it. I gotta get it now. Pinatas are fun, right, when done at a party. But it's a terrible way to live your life.
[00:30:06] It's a terrible way to minister the gospel. And Paul, didn't we read about Paul's co laborers, the brother of Titus, of Timothy, of others?
[00:30:20] He wasn't clawing to get people and get people's money or their devotion or anything like this. He instead was constantly sacrificing himself to give these things.
[00:30:34] How was he able to do that?
[00:30:37] Because he knew that the ministry of the gospel and the gospel itself doesn't come from clamoring and clawing and elbowing people out of the way. It doesn't come from doubting God's promises and putting all your confidence in yourself.
[00:30:56] The gospel is about this open freedom, about all of these blessings that are infinite, really, that come from an infinite God who is giving to us his steadfast love.
[00:31:11] It's out of that generosity, out of that openness, that we don't need to claw and clamor and scrape and defend, but we can trust the Lord.
[00:31:23] Paul doesn't know what's going to happen when he gets to Corinth, and he obviously doesn't want certain things to happen because of his love for them and love for Christ.
[00:31:32] But I think ultimately, Paul's heart is for the Lord, and he knows that Corinth is in God's hands, Thessalonica is in God's hands, and the church in Ephesus in God's hands. And so are we.
[00:31:50] Where's Paul's heart, though?
[00:31:53] When Paul hears about all of these awful things that are being said about him, all these awful things that are happening, how easy would it be for you to give up in an instance like this, to feel and be slighted and dishonored and rejected and say, oh, forget you, you don't want my ministry. You don't have to have my ministry. I'm out of here.
[00:32:18] Paul's not knowing what situation he's going to walk into. He knows it might be tense, but why is he going to go anyway?
[00:32:26] Because he is a minister of the father's love, in the Son and by the spirit. And that love doesn't reject a people when they're wandering, when there's opportunity for confession and repentance, for calling back, for discipline, the Lord does not let his sheep go, and so his ministers rightly pursue after them.
[00:32:55] It's in that love that the Lord goes after his sheep. And it's in that love that Paul is going back to the church of Corinth.
[00:33:03] It's in that love that the fathers discipline their children, and it's in that love that the Lord will discipline his as well. Paul is coming to Corinth again as a father, and they may not like it, and he may not like it either, frankly, but out of love, he's going to do it anyway.
[00:33:21] He's a minister of Christ. And what did Christ do? What does Christ do? Exactly what Paul does and says he does here. He is spent and he spends for the sake of the beloved.
[00:33:36] Our Lord Jesus suffered and died so that we might be saved. And he continues that work of love and sacrifice through his servants, through Paul and through me and through you.
[00:33:51] Whenever you have to sacrifice, maybe even your personal safety or your reputation, to stand up against a bully and you might get hurt, and you do it as a Christian and in the name of Christ you are spending and being spent for him.
[00:34:10] Whenever in the name of Christ you have to do the right thing and risk getting called a prude or a teacher's pet or a goody two shoes or arrogant or prideful, and you do it anyway, you are spending and being spent for Christ and out of love.
[00:34:30] Whenever in the name of Christ you tentatively and lovingly go to a brother and sister to rescue them out of their own sin and you go, this is going to be uncomfortable and I really don't want to do this, and you risk backlash and you risk a broken relationship, but you do it in the name of the Lord Jesus and you do it in the way he calls you to do it. You are spending and being spent for the sake of Christ and for the sake of his beloved.
[00:35:01] In these moments, we aren't just doing actions for Jesus, and we are, but Jesus is also acting through us.
[00:35:10] It's an amazing thing. It's an extension of his ministry, and it's a blessing for all those who partake in it.
[00:35:18] For those who do this, despite what the world calls lost, we find great gain.
[00:35:25] We find great gain in knowing Christ, in serving Christ, in experiencing the joy of his salvation, in glorifying God.
[00:35:36] For those who receive these blessings look like the Corinthians here.
[00:35:42] And those who receive the ministry of the Gospel, as I hope all of you do this morning, who let go of their pride, let go of their quarreling and jealousy and anger and hostility. For those who let go of their sexual immorality so that they might be healed and forgiven, so they might heed the call of the gospel instead of rejecting it, what do you receive?
[00:36:07] Hope, healing, forgiveness, sanctifying joy, joyful sanctification, and much more.
[00:36:19] Brothers and sisters, we are all in need of being both receivers of Christ ministry and of ministering Christ's love to others.
[00:36:29] The more we recognize this, the more we live out of this, and the more we will please God and enjoy him. This happens not by clamoring and clawing after bits and pieces of things that we think we need right now. But it happens by freely receiving all that God has to give us.
[00:36:46] May God humble us in the ministry of his gospel. May he humble us.
[00:36:52] May God bless us in the ministry of his gospel. May he bless us and may God use us in the ministry of his gospel. May he use us. Let's pray.
[00:37:08] Our heavenly father, we thank you for the boldness and the passion and the love of the apostle Paul. We thank you for this mighty servant of yours who was rescued out of his own blindness and darkness and evil into an amazing place of salvation and hope and boldness.
[00:37:34] Lord, we thank you for his ministry to the church in Corinth, a ministry that was full of wisdom and gospel, full of Christ everywhere, all done in the sight of God and for your work.
[00:37:51] We thank you, Lord, not only for the ministry that was given to them, but through your spirit recording these, recording and inspiring these letters, giving them and delivering them to us that we might benefit. Lord, help us not to hold on to impurity.
[00:38:13] Help us not to hold on to sexual immorality.
[00:38:17] Help us not to hold on to sensuality or quarreling or jealousy or anger or all these other things that the flesh loves to hold on to.
[00:38:26] But having heard the heart of Christ through the ministry of the word, Lord, let us. Let them go.
[00:38:33] Give them up and give them to you, that we might receive forgiveness for them and no longer be enslaved to them.
[00:38:42] Lord, we ask that you would run after us like the father ran toward the prodigal son as he came home.
[00:38:52] Lord, we ask that as in the parable of the lost sheep, you would come and rescue us. Use your rod and use your staff. Guide us and direct us on your paths to still waters, green places in quiet and peace.
[00:39:13] Rescue us out of the clamor of our lives, out of the noise in our hearts. Rescue us out of the temptation of the evil one. And gather your people together, Lord, into a congregation, into a body that is marked by holiness and love.
[00:39:35] Lord, we pray for the ministry of the gospel here in this church and in churches throughout our presbytery and throughout the world.
[00:39:43] We pray for our.
[00:39:45] We pray for our fellow churches and ask that you would bless them, that you would strengthen them as you strengthened the church in Corinth, as you strengthen us. Help us to learn to minister your word more and more faithfully and giving it to others, not in our own strength and power, but in the sight of God and speaking in Christ for the upbuilding of others.
[00:40:09] Help us, Lord, to learn how to spend and be spent knowing that we draw from a well of infinite resources. In Christ, we pray all these things in Jesus name. Amen.
