So Father in Heaven, as we gather again and turn our sights to these often overlooked,

often misunderstood perhaps, and such important topics of the day and day out work of what it means to be pastor, elders.

I pray that you would provide clarity and I pray that we'd all grow in these things.

There can be this sense of that these tasks,

these abilities, these virtues are givens or nots.

And I pray that our focus here in this session would clarify that, that these are virtues

and graces in which you love to train your people, mature your people, even where there was no seeming gift of teaching

in some season of life that you change that, you give it and grow it, you mature it.

And so would you bless us now on this focus on teaching

and sober-mindedness?

In Jesus, name we pray.

Amen. 44 years ago this fall the day is October 14th, 1979. John Piper felt himself, he says, irretrievably called to pastoral ministry.

He was on sabbatical after teaching six years at Bethel College.

He was studying Romans 9, and reflecting back on that season, he would say this, and this is from 2002,

in John's words, I'll resist the urge to do an impression.

As I studied Romans 9, day after day, I began to see a god so majestic and so free and so

that my analysis merged into worship.

And the Lord said, in effect,

I will not simply be analyzed, I will be adored. I will not simply be pondered. I will be proclaimed.

My sovereignty is not simply to be scrutinized, it is to be heralded.

It is not grist for the mill of controversy.

It is gospel for sinners who know that their only hope is the sovereign triumph of God's grace

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