Calvary Road Baptist Church
“IF”
John 15.18-20
My text for this message is John 15.18-20. Before reading that passage, let me point out that when we read the passage, we will see the word “if” used four times by the Lord Jesus Christ, six times in verses 18-24.
Although we will revisit this passage soon, what immediately struck me as I considered these verses for this message was our Lord’s use of the word “if.” I reflected on the word “if” for a bit in my private study, and then my mind retrieved from my memory a catchphrase reputed to have been used by the ancient Spartans. The Spartans competed with the Athenians for dominance among the Greek city-states in the centuries leading up to Alexander the Great, located roughly between Athens and the island of Zakynthos, where our missionary Taki Korianitis serves with his wife, April.
Americans have always admired the warrior culture of the Spartans, with the 2006 movie “300” recounting, with very little faithfulness to actual history, King Leonidas of Sparta and a force of 300 men fighting the Persians at Thermopylae in 480 B.C., and adding in our minds to Sparta’s mystique. The Spartans pioneered the laconic phrase. Lakonia was the general region around Sparta in southern Greece. They were tough people, wasting little time with flowery phrases, and got to the point quickly. If they had a chance to inject a little humor with their remarks, they did, but they particularly excelled at delivering stinging words to some of the most powerful leaders of the ancient world.
Others have followed the Spartan’s example. When surrounded by the Germans at the Battle of Bastogne [during the Battle of the Bulge in World War Two], American General McAuliffe was offered to surrender as he was hugely outnumbered. His response? “Nuts!” I have observed that it is not uncommon for men employed in decidedly masculine lines of work to display a pretty good imitation of the Spartan’s approach to using few words and wry grins when dealing with women those they perceive to be comparatively effeminate or incompetent. Here are some of the most epic Spartan quotes that have lived on for millennia.
Spartan women participated in athletics and were ready to handle the numerous slave uprisings if their men were away at war. When asked by an Athenian why Spartan women were the only ones who could rule men, the great Queen Gorgo replied, “We are the only ones who give birth to men.” Boldly stating that only Spartans could claim to be real men.
“With it or on it.” Most people are more familiar with the longer “Come back with this shield or on it,” but in everyday use, it was shortened to just the five words as a Spartan woman handed his shield to a departing soldier. In battle, if soldiers had a disorderly or cowardly retreat, they dropped the heaviest piece of equipment they had, their shield. No Spartan woman would welcome home a coward, so different from American women who castigate their men in public, who emasculate their men with pleasure and then criticize their men to others for disappointing them. In place of cowardice, a Spartan soldier struck down doing his duty would be carried home with his shield serving as a stretcher. A Spartan could only come back holding his shield in victory or die in the attempt.
“Molon Labe.” A Greek phrase many history buffs and Second Amendment people are familiar with, in English, “Come and get them.” At the famous battle of Thermopylae, the scene was dramatically set. Xerxes had about 100,000 men at his disposal compared to 7,000 Greeks led by 300 Spartans. Xerxes attempted to be rational and requested the Greeks to lay down their arms, and he would spare them all. Sparta’s King Leonidas replied, “Come and get them.” “Molon Labe.”
Translation and sources muddle this quote up a bit, but it is still worth mentioning. On the eve of battling the Persians, Dieneces, a Spartan, learned from an informer that the Persian arrows were so numerous they would hide the sun. Dieneces listened to the foreboding news and replied to his informer, “You bring us good news! For now, we can fight in the shade.”
Sparta never accrued significant amounts of wealth and almost entirely focused on their military and maintaining control over their slave population. This minimalism cropped up when King Lycurgus was asked how he would keep Sparta from being attacked. His answer was to “remain poor.” Sparta was one of the most unappetizing places to conquer by not having a significant appeal, as shown by Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander’s reluctance to march against the city, even as its citizens openly defied them. However, the perfect representation of Spartan character is seen in this exchange, which initially came to my mind as I considered today’s text. As Philip II of Macedon conquered Greek city-states left and right, he left Sparta alone. Philip had achieved crushing victories, and Sparta was relatively weak and without walls. Yet, when he sent a message to the Spartans saying, “If I invade Lakonia, you will be destroyed, never to rise again,” the Spartans replied with one word. “If.” Philip decided to bypass Sparta, an impoverished region, and not worth the fight. Neither Philip nor Alexander attacked the Spartans while they ruled.[1]
We tend to admire the Spartans for their courage, for their wit, for their fearless resistance to foreign domination. Yet we must remind ourselves not to overlook their ruthless brutality that resulted in the murder of their newborns deemed less than physically perfect, their system of communism for their citizens while mercilessly subjugating their large slave population, and their revolting child-rearing practices that turned little boys out at a young age to survive by theft and to dominate one another by cultivating a bully culture. Thus, though they are grudgingly admired by many in our day, they were idolaters who were mostly heartless sociopaths and bloodthirsty killers.
Let us turn from the Spartans and their clever and courageous use of the word “if” to the Son of the living God, and three samples of His use of the word “if” just hours before He offered Himself a sacrifice for our sins on the cross of Calvary:
18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
Do you notice, right off, that the Lord Jesus Christ’s use of the word “if” was so entirely different than the use of the word attributed to the Spartans? Their use of the word reflected a cold, hard, calculating, brutal, violent, deadly, ferocious, defiant, and death denigrating approach to existence. As we proceed, you will notice that the Savior’s use of the word springs from love, from life, from mercy, from grace, from kindness, from tenderness, and a concern for His men, while in no way denigrating the significance of death, as He approached death, gave up the ghost to experience death, and would rise from the dead as the victor over death.
Let us consider the three verses that record some of His use of the word “if”:
First, VERSE 18
“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.”
Those of you who are familiar with John’s 15th chapter may have read it enough to appreciate the chapter’s major themes. In verses 1-8, our Lord speaks of fruit, using the wonderful allegory of the husbandman, the vine, the branch, and the fruit, with His emphasis on abiding. Verses 9-17 deal with love from various perspectives, beginning with the Father’s love for Him in verse 9 and concluding His directive for His apostles to love one another in verse 17. Beginning in verse 18 and continuing through verse 25, before He speaks of the Holy Spirit of God, He speaks of hatred.
Before we narrow our focus to John 15.18, I want to read verses 18-25 to you to provide an overview of where the Lord took His eleven remaining men as they walked from the Upper Room to the Garden of Gethsemane:
18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.
22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin.
23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also.
24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.
25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.
Do you see how effectively the Lord Jesus Christ pointed out the harsh but true realities of the spiritual realm? His goal was to not only teach His men about their relationship with God and with Him, which ought to be reflected in their conduct toward each other, but also how opposed to God, to the Savior, and to believers they are who are in and of the world as unbelieving rebels against God and rejecters of Christ. Too many believers in Christ think they are demonstrating kindness by disputing what our Lord says in this passage, but they only deny reality.
Adjust your focus to verse 18 and the first use of the word “if”:
“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.”
To get a handle on the meaning of verse 18, I want to consider it in three ways. First, the structure of the verse. Next, the first phrase. Then, the final phrase.
A. T. Robertson reminds us that John 15.18 is a first-class conditional statement. He writes, “If the world hateth you (ei ho kosmos humas misei). Condition of the first class. As it certainly does.”[2] What does that mean? The first-class condition affirms the reality of the condition using a certain Greek word meaning “if.” This construction confirms the condition....”[3] Recognizing this verse to be a conditional statement of the first class is helpful when trying to understand this first phrase, “If the world hate you.” “There is no doubt the world hates you,” is the essence of our Lord’s comment. “Since the world hates you,” to paraphrase. It is then left to us to understand what is meant by the word translated “world” and the word translated “hate.”
In John’s Gospel, the Greek word for world, ká½¹smos, means at least seven different things. The word can be used to refer to the universe as a whole, to the earth, to the world system, to the human race, to humanity minus believers, to Gentiles in contrast to Jews, and to believers only. In this verse, I am persuaded the word world refers to the created moral order in active rebellion against God. This same Apostle John writes of the world in the same sense, in First John 2.15-16 and First John 5.19:
15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.
Who, then, hates believers in Jesus Christ? Unsaved people, all unsaved people, every unsaved person, who comprises a collective of individuals who are each and also together arrayed against God and also the plan, the purpose, and the people of God. Remember, our Lord did say, in Luke 11.23,
“He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.”
Now to ascertain what is meant by the word hate. Translating the Greek word misá½³oo, the Lord informs His men that the world of unsaved men hates them. It is an ongoing and continuing hatred, despite the abilities of different unsaved people to convince themselves that they do not hate us, and the opinions of some believers that the unsaved do not hate us. The Lord Jesus Christ insists they do hate us. But why? That is where the final phrase of the verse comes in:
“ye know that it hated me before it hated you.”
The verb form of the same Greek word translated “hated” in this phrase is perfect, meaning a permanent attitude of hatred is being referred to.[4] Thus, the Lord Jesus Christ here informs His apostles that the world of unsaved men under the control and influence of the Devil has a permanent hatred for and toward the Lord Jesus Christ.
Think about this dynamic for a moment. We know that God loves Christ, that God loves us, that Christ loves us, and we are therefore to love God, love Christ, and love each other. But the world hates us because it hates our Savior. Yet there is always the tendency of believers to love the world that hates us and to love the world that hates our God and our Savior. Is that messed up, or what?
Next, VERSE 19
Here the Lord Jesus Christ uses the word “if” to explain the hatred His remaining apostles are about to face, and that we who believe through their word also face in varying degrees when He says,
“If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”
I frequently point out what are referred to as conditional sentences, most typically first-class conditional sentences affirming the reality of the condition. Verse 18 is such a first-class conditional sentence:
“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.”
If the first phrase of a first-class conditional sentence affirms the statement made, “If the world hate you,” and it does, the second-class conditional sentence does the opposite by making a statement that is contrary to fact. Verse 19 begins with such a second-class conditional sentence, contrary to fact:
“If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”
Because it is a condition of the second-class, we understand the first part of the verse to mean,
“If ye were of the world (which you are not), the world would love his own.”
Our Lord elaborates by explaining the consequence of the contrary to fact condition:
“but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”
Why does the world system of unsaved humanity, living their lives in rebellion against the Person, plan, purpose, and people of God, hate God and us so? Two provocations instigate the animosity and antagonism the Savior refers to here:
First, because we are not of the world. We used to be of the world, but we are not anymore. This world is no longer our home. We are just passing through on our way to glory and the presence of the Lord.[5] Not so for the unsaved. In John’s Revelation, the phrase “them that dwell upon the earth” is found in three verses, referring each time to those who are unsaved and have no future hope.[6] In those verses, the Greek participle, katoiká½³oo, refers to those who, unlike we who are believers in Christ, live and have their home here.[7] They, who have only the here and now, hate those of us who have a blessed hope in Christ.
As well, they hate us because we are chosen by Christ out of this world. There is nothing in Scripture that suggests any superiority of the chosen over the not chosen, to suggest that any Christian is more worthy of heaven than anyone whose destiny is eternal Hellfire. Even though, however, the not chosen hate the chosen.
Being chosen has profound implications for those who are chosen by Christ. Let me read those verses to you in John’s Gospel and the rest of the New Testament following John where we find the word “chosen”:
John 6.70:
“Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?”
John 13.18:
“I speak not of you all: I know whom I have chosen: but that the scripture may be fulfilled, He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his heel against me.”
John 15.16:
“Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.”
John 15.19:
"If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”
Acts 1.2:
“Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen.”
Acts 1.24:
“And they prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen.”
Acts 9.15:
“But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel.”
Acts 10.41:
“Not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.”
Acts 15.22:
“Then pleased it the apostles and elders, with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas; namely, Judas surnamed Barsabas, and Silas, chief men among the brethren.”
Acts 15.25:
“It seemed good unto us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul.”
Acts 22.14:
“And he said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth.”
Romans 16.13:
“Salute Rufus chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine.”
1 Cor 1.27:
“But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.”
1 Cor 1.28:
“And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are.”
2 Cor 8.19:
“And not that only, but who was also chosen of the churches to travel with us with this grace, which is administered by us to the glory of the same Lord, and declaration of your ready mind.”
Ephesians 1.4:
“According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.”
2 Thess 2.13:
“But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.”
2 Tim 2.4:
“No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.”
James 2.5:
“Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?”
1 Peter 2.4:
“To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious.”
1 Peter 2.9:
“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”
Rev 17.14:
“These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.”
To be chosen by Christ results in an eternity of bliss and delight in the presence of the Lord. However, in preparation for life on the other side as one of God’s people come to faith in Christ, you will be hated this side of eternity by those estranged from God and opposed to Christ.
Finally, VERSE 20
Notice that the Lord uses the word “if” twice in this verse:
“Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.”
Continuing their walk from the Upper Room to the Garden of Gethsemane, the Lord advances His instruction to instill in His men their understanding of the basis for the world’s hatred of them. And in this verse there are three important points made, which I will deal with in four parts:
First, our Lord issues a directive to the eleven, a command:
“Remember the word that I said unto you.”
The Greek word translated “remember” is pronounced mnemoneÏoo, and is the word from which our English loan word mnemonic is derived. Mnemonic pertains to the memory.[8] This is a Greek imperative verb, meaning our Lord is telling His men what they need to do. They are to remember what He had earlier taught them, which He restates here.
Next, our Lord repeats what He had said in the Upper Room immediately after He washed the apostle’s feet:
“The servant is not greater than his lord.”
This is an exact quote from John 13.16, which is relatively rare in John’s Gospel.[9] The apostle does not typically quote verbatim what he refers to. To do so here suggests that this is an important reminder. The question is what does the Lord mean by this statement? I would suggest that He is preparing these men for rough treatment by the world, by pointing out that no servant is greater than his lord, as a universally accepted principle. Meaning? If the world has no hesitation about resisting the Son of God, opposing the Son of God, and even crucifying the Son of God, do you think the world will hesitate to treat you poorly? We should not expect treatment from the world to be essentially different than their treatment of our Lord.
Now comes the specific explanation of the general principle our Lord just stated in the form of a first-class conditional sentence, using the familiar if/then format:
“If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”
If they have persecuted me (and they both have and will), then they will do likewise to you. The specific word used by the Lord translated persecuted, diookoo, which means to pursue. In context, it has here to do with chasing someone, which is why it is translated persecuted here. Can you appreciate the irony of the Lord Jesus Christ using a word related to following someone, but with a context that shows the following is not as a disciple but as a harasser, as a stalker, and as a persecutor? If they did that to the Son of the living God, the sinless Savior, He points out that “they will also persecute you.” Diookoo is used in the first half of this statement and also in the second half. In the first half, the verb form refers to what is being done to the Savior, with the second use of the verb being a future tense form. Persecution of the apostles (and all subsequent believers) has not yet commenced, but it will. We observe their persecution in the book of Acts. And we see the apostles Paul and Peter addressing the certainty of Christian persecution. Writing to Timothy in Second Timothy 3.12, Paul asserts,
“Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”
Here is a portion of Peter’s comments related to a Christian’s persecution, First Peter 4.12-13:
12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
13 But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.
For the last 2,000 years, the Lord’s prediction to the eleven has been fulfilled in Christian history. The relative freedom from religious persecution that has been enjoyed in this country for the most part for the last two centuries has been a departure from the norm that may soon become the more common experience of American Christians.
The last phrase of John 15.20 is where some Bible students part ways:
“if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.”
If you are not careful, you might be persuaded that our Lord is introducing yet another first-class conditional sentence and suggests that if they have kept my saying, and they do, they will also keep yours. That is the position advanced by Logos Software. But we must ask if the Lord is referring here to those who are contrasted with His persecutors, meaning that He is now suggesting that those who keep His saying, who follow Him as disciples, will keep the apostle’s sayings also?
Not so fast. If we adhere to the principle that context rules then we must pay attention to the fact that this phrase is set in the midst of comments before and after dealing with the hatred of Him and His followers by the world. Therefore, I would suggest that you adopt the position that this last phrase is actually a second-class conditional statement, a contrary to fact statement. I think the Lord meant, and His men understood Him to mean, “if they have kept my saying (and they most certainly have not), they will keep yours also (in the same way they have not kept my saying.”
Consider verses 21-25 so you can see why I think the immediate context supports my understanding of the phrase:
21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.
22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin.
23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also.
24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.
25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.
What is the Savior seeking to accomplish in this verse? Suppose I am correct in my understanding of the passage. In that case, the Lord Jesus Christ is tamping down on His apostle’s understanding of something He had initially stated minutes earlier to reinforce His comment in John 13.16. Do not think you can stand by and watch the world unleash its fury and venom on the Son of God and hope to escape their attention because the servant is not greater than his lord, what the world heaps on the Savior the world will heap on the Savior’s people alike. The first conditional sentence is a first-class conditional sentence. The second conditional sentence is a second-class conditional sentence introduced to markedly contrast the first one. However, both statements are designed to impress upon the apostles that the world’s opposition to the Savior will guarantee the world’s opposition to the Savior’s own.
Meaning? Meaning there is a price to pay for being a disciple of Jesus Christ. The cost of privilege is high. However, as Paul pointed out in Romans 8.18,
“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”
It will be worth it all when we see Jesus.
Three verses in our Lord’s discourse to His apostles. Three verses in which He makes use of the word “if” in a markedly different way than the mighty and frequently admired Spartans purportedly used the word.
I think the Spartan’s use of the word “if” was clever, even humorous, and reflected their legendary toughness and fearlessness. Then there is the Lord Jesus Christ.
While the Spartans were tough, they were also wrong, being idolaters, being sadistic, being baby killers, and being confined to Hell and then the lake of fire for all eternity. Let us always be careful about characteristics we admire, and what the underlying causes are of what we sometimes naively admire about them.
The first time the Lord used the word “if,” He was not being clever or exhibiting a dry wit. He was honestly displaying loving concern for His men, establishing the reality that they might not want to face, that unsaved mankind hates the Savior. And because they hate the Savior, they hate you, down deep inside, where it counts.
The second time the Lord used the word “if,” He was reminding His men that, because of their relationship with Him, they were not of the world. Christian, the world hates you because the Lord Jesus Christ chose you. Their envy, their outrage, is prompted by Christ’s choice of you.
The third verse the Lord used the word “if,” He used the word twice. The first time He uses the word “if” He uses it the same way He did in verse 18. The second time He uses the word “if” He uses it the same way He did in verse 19.
To communicate what? Four things: First, remember. Next, the servant is not greater than his lord. Third, since the world persecuted the Savior, they will also persecute us. Finally, because the world does not keep Christ’s sayings, the world will also not keep our sayings.
“If” is such a little word, but how differently the word can used. Cleverly, defiantly, humorously, brazenly by the strong and powerful of this world who are doomed to a Christ-less eternity of torment. Then, there is the Savior. Kind. Gentle. Good. Loving. Merciful. Gracious. Informative. Instructional.
You live in the Spartan’s world, with its meanness, its cruelty, its brutality, its unkindness, its wickedness, and its inevitable destruction. Would you not rather live “in Christ,” where there is grace, forgiveness, life, love, kindness, goodness, meekness, direction, and, after a bit longer in this nasty world, eternal bliss?
I urge you to come to Christ.
__________
[1] https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/best-spartan-laconic-phrases-boldest-wittiest-lines-ever-recorded.html
[2] A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures In The New Testament, Vol V, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1932), page 261.
[3] Ray Summers, Essentials of New Testament Greek, (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman Press, 1950), pages 108-109.
[4] Fritz Rienecker & Cleon Rogers, Linguistic Key To The Greek New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Regency Reference Library, 1980), page 253.
[5] 1 Peter 2.11
[6] Revelation 3.10; 11.10; 13.8
[7] Rienecker & Rogers, pages 820, 837, 841
[8] Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1996), page 1153.
[9] Leon Morris, The Gospel According To John - Revised Edition, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), page 603.
Would you like to contact Dr. Waldrip about this sermon? Please contact him by clicking on the link below. Please do not change the subject within your email message. Thank you.
Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church