Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / June 12, 2016 | Timm Collins - Labeled, Part 3

Transcript

June 12, 2016 | Timm Collins - Labeled, Part 3 · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, Topeka Bible Church.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're excited to be here.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hope you're excited to be here as well.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're gonna wrap up a series that we started a couple weeks ago, a three-week series called Labeled.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a little detour on Route 66.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: We've taken a little break, and so uh we've been walking through the book of Ephesians and uh specifically the first chapter of the book of Ephesians.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: And really the idea behind this series has been uh that you know different people label us in different ways.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: It starts out when we're really young and it doesn't really change.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, for a lot of us, as we grow older and make decisions that people don't like sometimes, uh those labels can increase even more and more, and they're not fair.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh sometimes they're not accurate, but they're almost always defining for us.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Along the way, we also learn to label ourselves, and sometimes we don't do much better at labeling ourselves.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're also unfair with ourselves sometimes, and it can also be defining.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: But really, the idea behind the series has been the most important labels that we can pay attention to, the most important weak labels we could wear would be the labels that God gives to us.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where we read uh what we've been reading through the book of Ephesians, chapter one, and that's where we're gonna be again this morning as we kind of wrap up this series.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I wonder if any of you have ever had a situation where you just decided you were gonna be right no matter what happened.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I I did this a while back.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was an interesting experience.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: My wife and I had been married five years at the time.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: We had a one, our oldest son now, uh, was our only son then.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: He was a year old.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: So uh we decided to leave him with the parents and go off by ourselves for weekends, anniversary weekend, five years.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we were living in Florida at the time, so we went up to Gatlinburg.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've been to Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a pretty interesting place.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the main reason I went is because they have a lot of that's a really popular place.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people go there, so therefore, there's a lot of cabins, really cheap to rent.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I found us a cabin to rent, and this was years ago.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we go up there, we drive up, and uh, we didn't have a GPS.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: This was before you had GPS on your phone or anything like that.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so we drove up to Gatlinburg and we were looking for the office of the place that rented all the cabins because we had to check in there and we had to pay them, and we had to get the key, and then they would give us directions to where we're gonna be staying.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we make it into town.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, my wife had never been before.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I grew up as a kid.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: We would go to Gatlinburg every summer for family vacation, but it had been a long time.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like it had been probably 20 years since I had been at this point.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: But we so we went and uh uh so as we get into town, all we had was kind of like a sheet of paper with directions on it.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't have a GPS.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: So uh as we got into town, you know, I was just kind of letting my wife know, I know you've never been.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: I've been several times, so you know, I'm gonna probably show you the ropes of how Gatlinburg works, you know.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: So so we got into town, and I realized it was a lot of lot more grown up than I had remembered.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like 20 years had gone by, so there were a lot more buildings and a lot more roads and just a lot more stuff.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: So we're driving through town and we come to this intersection, we're trying to follow our directions, and they weren't the best directions.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I was driving, my wife's in the passenger seat.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: We come to an intersection where either you can go straight or you can turn right, right?
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so my wife says, uh, I think even though it's not obvious on our directions, she said, I think we're supposed to go straight.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Oh no, babe.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: We we we turn right here.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we're supposed to be.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: We turn right and it's right up there.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, over her very gracious objections, we turn right because I was driving.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: So uh we we start driving on this new road after we turned, and and it didn't take long for it to become obvious that that was not the right turn for us to make.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was not the correct turn, uh, but it didn't matter because I decided that I was going to be right.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we kept driving.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we kept driving until it was painfully obvious.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: She several times was very gracious going, you know, I think maybe we should have gone straight back there.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: No, babe, you don't listen.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I've been here before, I've got this under control.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we drive, drive, drive.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes painfully obvious that we aren't getting anywhere near where we're supposed to be going.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, we had been driving so long at that point, it was like, okay, even I have to admit we made a wrong turn.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: So begrudgingly, I said, All right, well, I guess we'll turn around and try it your way.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: We'll go back.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we make a U-turn, we go back to this intersection and turned the direction that she wanted to go in originally, and about a hundred yards down, on the right, was our destination.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't imagine what she must have been thinking as she's riding in this car, having this experience where she goes, you know, I know we're supposed to be going in a certain direction, but I don't think we're going there.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: I know we have a goal, I know we have a destination, I hope we have, I know we have a place we're trying to get to, but I think the road that we're on does not lead us there.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not just something that happens if you're on vacation, it's something that happens in life, and for many of us, it's kind of the way we live our lives.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: We know there's something we're supposed to be doing, but we can't really define it.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's this really interesting passage.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to read you a couple verses from Acts 17, uh, when Paul was on his second missionary journey and he makes it to Athens, and he notices that they have all these kind of altars and these uh different statues, so that you can worship to any kind of God that you can imagine.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, there was a there was one kind of catch-all God, and he makes this statement in Acts 17.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you're very religious.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription to the unknown God.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, in other words, he's kind of saying to these guys, listen, you're obviously very worshipful, and you're not sure if you're worshiping the right thing, but you know you're supposed to be worshiping something, you know you're supposed to be pursuing something.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: So in fact, you've kind of set up all these different options, and then you have one option which is, you know, none of the above.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you have something else that we're supposed to be worshiping and we haven't covered all the bases, there's kind of this extra catch-all basket.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: I find that fascinating that Paul called them out on that.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh also, there's a quote, a famous quote from Henry David Thoreau, that I think illustrates this perfectly.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: He says, the mass of men lead quiet lives or lives of quiet desperation, go to the grave with the song still in them.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: We know we're supposed to be pursuing something.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: We know we're supposed to be moving in a certain direction.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Many of us have put ourselves on a road, we've decided that we're right, whether we're right or not, and we're just gonna go as far and as fast as we can go in this direction.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, sometimes we wind up realizing that we were just wasting some time.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: We know there's a goal, we're just not sure if we're getting any closer to that goal.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us know what the goal is, some of us don't know what the goal is.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're wired for a couple of things.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're wired to pursue hope.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um for many of us, uh, maybe growing up we didn't have the best home life, and so for us, hope was finding the right person that we could marry and get into a better home life and a better situation there.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: For some of us, your hope moves beyond marriage into children.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: You think if you can have kids, if you can have X number of kids, or if they'll act a certain way, that that'll bring you hope.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um we really kind of have two avenues that we pursue hope in.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh one of those is riches or money or or or you know material things.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I know that when I say that, your first thought is to think of somebody being greedy.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know for many of us, maybe that doesn't define us.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And yet still, if we're not careful, we can wind up pursuing riches.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we can wind up pursuing stuff.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: We think if I can just get the next thing, if I can just get the next thing, I know that this is the, you know, this is the silver one, but there's a red one that comes out.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And if I can just get the red one, then I'll be happy.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: If I can just get that thing, that new car, that whatever, that lake house.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh for some of us, we don't think in terms of things, but it's still uh riches and wealth because we think in terms of experiences and what riches and wealth can provide for us.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that, you know, we we've got to get out of this small town and go see the world and go see big things and go do big things, and you know, uh, you know, I'm from Florida and we have a whole economy based around people thinking they need to be somewhere else.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: So uh it's true.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then for many of us, for when we talk about wealth, what we're really talking about is security.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: We see the security that comes with wealth that I need to be saving for a rainy day, that I need to be saving for retirement, I need to be saving unless we have an emergency, and it's not just for me, and it's not just for my kids, but I want to be able to pass something on to my grandkids.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong with having that mindset.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: But if that's what you're pursuing, if you make that the focus of your life, uh before long you're gonna be frustrated and you're gonna, you know, leave a lead a life of quiet desperation.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: For some of us, though, it's not money.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: We would we would maybe I would use the term power to describe uh for us, we love influence.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we love knowing that if we have the right job, people are really gonna look at us in a certain way, and we're gonna be able to have power over people and and and influence people in the job and out of the job.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, that's this is kind of what social media is about.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you figured this out.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know that everything you read on Facebook's not true?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know that, right?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and I'm not just talking about, you know, the stuff that Facebook's cramming down our throats, but you many of your friends, people that you love and respect, uh, are quite possibly posting things on there just to look a certain way.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about status, and you know, we want to have the perfect family and the perfect house and the perfect job and the perfect everything.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but you and I both know that's not reality.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the way things work.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And for many of us, uh, power is about respect.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we want to have the power that comes with being respected by everyone.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we try to make sure that everything in our life fits in a nice, neat little box and all the duties are fulfilled and all the obligations are seen to.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we if we're not careful, we wind up pursuing these things.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: But for many of us, we would tell a different story.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: We would tell a story that says, you know what, that's the way I used to be, but then I uh put my faith in Christ.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: I became a Christian.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I gave my heart to Christ.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so you started following Christ, and you started coming to church, you started reading your Bible, and you think things changed.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: But if we're not careful, and I think this is all of us, if we're not careful, we wind up just Christianizing the same things that we were pursuing before, and we pursue the same things, we just pursue them in the name of Jesus.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: We believe that God's job is to deliver these things to us.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was seeking, seeking, seeking, trying to get these things.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't find them on my own.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: I gave my heart to Christ.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what I really did was I invited God to come be my co-pilot, and he's sitting in the passenger seat.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're still on the same road, still headed in the same direction, but I'm now depending on him to get me there, that he wants me to have these things, and that it's his goal for me to have these things.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we chase the same blessings, and if we're not careful, we begin to believe that it's our job to uh manipulate God.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, think about riches that some of us believe uh that if you give the right amount and if you save the right amount and if you handle your money well, that God always, that he's obligated to give you more.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: He has to give you more, he has to protect what you have, nothing's ever going to be taken away from you.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: But you and I can tell different stories, can't we?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's maybe it's not something that happened to me or not something that happened to you, but we've watched people who were good and godly, and their story didn't end as happy as they wanted to, or as happy as we wanted to see that end.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I think.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think for those of us who are Christian, which I know it's not everybody in here, but for those of us who are Christian, uh, we're really good at pointing our finger outward and telling people uh there's some things that you don't understand about it, what it what it means to have a relationship with God.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: There are some things that you don't understand about what it means to follow Christ.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that's true, and that's accurate.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I think every once in a while it's good for us to maybe take that finger and kind of redirect it right back here and say, you know what, there's some things that I sometimes forget about following Christ.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: There are some things that I need to be reminded of.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: There are some old ways of thinking.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: We kind of begin to do life from muscle memory.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, the muscle memory that we're using to do life from was before we were redeemed.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was before we became Christians.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we're not careful, we slip back into those old ways of thinking and those old ways of speaking and those old ways of doing, and God wants something new for us.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: God wants something fresh for us.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to read through the book of Ephesians, chapter one.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to actually read about four verses, four or five verses this morning.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in Ephesians one, you know, I've told you every week, uh, Ephesians, this phenomenal, deep theological, almost a treatise that Paul writes.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he wrote it about a decade after he had helped to plant the church in Ephesus.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: He writes them this letter.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the first half of the letter, he doesn't really tell them to do anything.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: He just really spends a lot of time explaining to him who they are in Christ.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And these are the verses that we're reading.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is not about doing anything, it's about who you are and who God made you to be.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Or specifically, if you're a Christian, which is who this letter is written to, who God remade you to be, when you were born new, when you were born again, which is where we get that term, uh, when you when you receive this regeneration, uh, you there were some things that are true about you now.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul writes these verses.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so we're gonna begin reading in verse 16.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: It says, for this reason, because I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards all the saints, and I know he didn't say much there, but I just gotta stop for a second because I think this is so cool.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: He says, for this reason, because I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and your love towards all the saints.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, Paul didn't know what he knew about them because they had told him.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, he says, I'm not saying you guys have told me a lot of things about your love and about your faith and about all these things.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, I'm hearing this from other people because of what I've heard, because of your testimony.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: How incredible is that that they had enough of a testimony that Paul had heard about it.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: I just think that's incredible.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the other thing that I find fascinating about this, and we've said this every week.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not a Christian, if you're not a church person and you're not sure uh about, you know, uh how uh these things should be navigated, and you're just trying to discover what faith means, uh, if that's you, then uh we're kind of letting you off the hook because these these messages are kind of too Christians.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, if you're trying to learn what it means to have faith in Christ, these are great messages to listen in on.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to know what it means to be in relationship with God, these are the types of things you should be listening in on.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the cool thing about it is, even though what we're saying does not apply to you necessarily, however, this is really awesome, the instant that you put your faith in Christ, it does apply to you.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: The instant you find the faith and the courage to step up and to trust Christ and to choose to lay down your life and follow Jesus Christ, uh, these things are going to be true for you.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that's just this really cool corner that you get to turn at any time when you're ready.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we keep reading.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Because I've heard of all this about you, I've heard about your faith, I've heard about your love.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Say it with me, the Spirit.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, time out.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's a capital S, isn't it?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder what's up with that.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's important.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is not just any Spirit, this is the Spirit of God.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking about the Spirit of God here, and specifically the Spirit of God is gonna bring some things to us.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not just any wisdom, it's wisdom that comes from God and from his spirit and revelation, not just any revelation, but God's revelation.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: In thee, say these last three words with me, knowledge of him.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: So Paul's prayer is that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ would give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Specifically, the type of supernatural wisdom and supernatural revelation that can only be brought by God's Spirit.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And when you get this, the result is you come to know God, you come to know Jesus Christ in a very real and very profound way.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: I love this because the knowledge that's mentioned here, when he uses this word, it's a really specific word.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: He also uses it in the first chapter of Ephesians, and he's talking about not just any kind of knowledge, but this very specific, very precise, very correct knowledge, a full knowledge.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just any knowledge, but that you have real knowledge from God about what it means to be in relationship with Jesus Christ.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's Paul's prayer for us.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'll tell you this.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: In order to do that, you and I know there are some things we have to do.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: We have to read our Bible, uh, we have to pray, we have to practice things like what you and I would call spiritual disciplines.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you've really thought about this or if you've noticed this or not, but some of these things are tough to do.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm just gonna go ahead and be honest with you.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I went to school to learn about the Bible, and I've spent a lot of time reading the Bible.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible is not always the easiest thing to read.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like you're reading the funny papers, okay?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like you're reading the newspaper.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: When you read it, there's something heavy about it.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying it's hard to understand, but when you read it, you really have to slow down and process what you're reading.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is not to read as fast as you can read and get through.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is to get something out of it.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so, therefore, at times you really have to put some effort into it.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we call these things spiritual disciplines.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: They're called disciplines because sometimes you have to actually carve out some time.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: You have to dial your alarm clock back 15 minutes or 30 minutes earlier, or you have to carve out some time on your lunch break that you can sit and be quiet and read your Bible, or maybe you stay up a little bit later.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: You have to make time for these things.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: These things are not easy.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the question I want to ask you.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think you and I know, if you've been to church for any length of time, I think you know that we're supposed to be doing these things.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the question I want to ask you, and I don't want you to answer it out loud, but I do want you to answer it because I think it's important.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: If these are the things we're supposed to be doing, why are we supposed to be doing them?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: In your mind.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: How would you answer that question?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Why should we read our Bible?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Why should we pray?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Why should we do these things?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, there's an answer.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure when Pastor Jim gets back, we can ask him and he'd give us a great answer, wouldn't he?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, I don't want to know his answer.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know yours.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: How would you answer that question?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's what I think.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes we lose sight of the goal of doing these things.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in losing sight of the goal of doing these things, we lose sight of the importance of doing these things.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: We don't remember why it's important.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just going through the motions.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just doing this stuff because this is what you're supposed to do.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing it because somebody preached a sermon and made me feel guilty, so I'm getting up a half hour early every day and reading my Bible, and I don't remember why.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, God bless you for having that kind of discipline.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: But we can do better than that.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, God's calling us to do better than that.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's something deeper, there's something bigger, there's something better than all this.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: I want to read to you some verses.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: These are from Philippians 3.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Philippians is my favorite book in the New Testament, and this is just this is all opinion, so you can throw it out.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: I might be wrong.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Philippians is my favorite book of the New Testament, and Philippians 3 is my favorite chapter.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: For me, this is just a mountaintop of scripture.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the things that Paul's sharing here are so personal.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And specifically, before we read these verses, I want to tell you kind of the context.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: He's in the middle of this conversation.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have time to read it all.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's in the middle of this conversation where he's made a list of all the things that he's done, all the achievements that he's had in his life, his pedigree, his uh resume, whatever word you want to use, that this is what Paul's saying.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Here are all of the things that I used to take pride in, all the things that I used to pursue, the road that I was going down as fast as I could go, this was where it was leading, and kind of I had all these things piled up, and then he says, This, listen.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: But whatever gain I had in all those things, I count it as loss.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: For the sake of Christ.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Indeed, this is so huge.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: I count, or specifically, it's a present continuousness.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: I continue to count, everything is lost.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because of the surpassing worth of, here's our word, knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for his sake, I have suffered the loss.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: I've suffered the loss of all these things, and I count them as what?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Rubbish.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: I count them as garbage.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: These things are worthless to me.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need these things anymore.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: I spent so much time and so much energy and so much passion pursuing these things, but I'm done with this now.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: I've suffered the loss of all these things for his sake, and I count them but ru as rubbish.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: In order that I may gain.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Christ.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I want to say to you.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: We can pile up the things that we're trying to pursue.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I could maybe preach a sermon to convince you to leave those things behind and go on to something else.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: But we can do better than that.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Paul did better than that.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Do you hear the language that he used there?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know what he said?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: I choose, I voluntarily turn my back on these things because I was pursuing them, but that road wasn't taking me where I needed to go.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: That road did not lead to the destination I was seeking.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so when it comes time to, I turn my back on it and I move on because I have found something better.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's knowing Christ.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: My oldest son Noah is 10 now.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: When he was young, when he was a little guy, I mean, just first starting to walk, first starting to talk, year and a half, two years old, he got really into Thomas the tank engine.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: We have a picture.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, when I say he was into it, I mean he he blew my mind.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's always been a really sharp kid.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: But even then, when he was first learning how to talk, he could tell you what all the trains were.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: And there are a lot, if you've ever watched it, or if you ever have kids or grandkids that get into this, there's a lot of, like in that little universe of Thomas, and they watch the shows and they play with the toys, there's a lot of different trains.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of different kinds of trains.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: They all have a name.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's this whole subculture.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Noah was all over it.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: At two, three years old, he could tell you what the names of the trains were.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: You could show him a train, he'd tell you that train's name.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: He could tell you whether that train was a steam engine or a diesel.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: He could tell you what the helicopter was and the car and the guy and all this stuff.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: I pulled him over last night when I found this picture and I showed it to him.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: That is actually the real Thomas the Tank Engine.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: When he was a little guy, my wife and I took him, we were living in Florida, we took him down to Miami because Thomas the Tank Engine was there.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's a real train he got, and you could, he's not excited at all, is he?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: He's just loving it.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so we took a picture with it.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Then we got the chance to get on the train and ride the train, and he was just in heaven because that was his whole world.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Everything, and we quite literally had a pile of Thomas the Tank Engine toys.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: There was a table that you could make your train tracks on.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: There was all this stuff that his grandparents, you know, grandparents, they bought all this stuff for him.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll never forget, over the course of about six months, I didn't catch it when it was happening, but I caught it after it was finished.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Over the course of about six months, he just quit playing with all that stuff.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was his whole world, and he just moved on from something, moved on to something else.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: He just left it all behind.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the reason he left it behind is because my wife and I sat him down and we said, Noah, look, you're five now.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's time for you to move on from Thomas the Tank Engine.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I put together a sermon and I preached him a sermon of why Thomas is no good and you need to leave Thomas behind.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's silly, right?
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's not how life works.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was actually a little sad that he moved on from Thomas the Tank Engine because we had a lot of money invested in Thomas the Tank Engine.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: But then he had a brother that came behind him, so you just put him up and hold him, right?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Do you follow what I'm saying here?
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: He chose, because he had found something better, he chose to leave that behind and move on to something else.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly the language that Paul is using here.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: I chose to leave these things behind because I've come to know Christ, and it's this very specific kind of knowledge.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's this full and accurate knowledge that the Spirit of God has led me into because I've leaned into my relationship with God and I'm reading Scripture, even though some days I don't feel like it, and I wrestle my flesh and say, you know what, you're gonna do this anyway.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: And there are some Sundays when I wake up and I don't feel like coming to church, but I say, you know what, you're gonna go to church anyway.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, isn't it true?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's true for me.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Every one of those Sundays when I get in the car to go home, I think to myself, I am so glad I didn't sit at home and do nothing.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad I talked myself out of that.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad I figured out how to discipline myself.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because these things are worth it.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, if you'll do this hard work, you're gonna find this knowledge that will cause you to pull away from these other things voluntarily, not because somebody made you feel guilty about it.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Paul's response is whatever it costs, whatever you have to leave behind, it's worth it.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: So what did he know that we don't know?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Why was he volunteering to give up things that we're trying to make ourselves give up?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we gotta read the last part of our passage this morning.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: His prayer is that we would know God, that we would have this really specific, precise knowledge of God.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we finish out.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Having the eyes of our hearts, this is what's gonna happen when we have this knowledge of God.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: We'll have the eyes of our hearts enlightened so that we may know what is the, say these words with me, hope to which he has called us, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we started off talking about how we're all wired to pursue to pursue hope and riches and power, and Paul just used that language.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: But you don't get those things because you pursue them.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: You pursue Christ, and you get those things thrown in.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it may not be hope the way you had defined hope, and there it will almost certainly not be riches the way you think of riches, and it will often not be power the way that you think of power.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is so huge.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is such a big deal that we can know Christ.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: So this is what Paul said, and this is what I would say to you.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: If I could pray one prayer, it wouldn't be that your wildest dreams come true, and it wouldn't be that you achieve all your goals.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: My prayer for you would be that you know Christ so well that the eyes of your heart are enlightened, so that you can see things for the way they really are, that the scales would fall from your eyes, and you would see the world and heaven and hell and everything the way that God sees it.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you would see that the most valuable thing you could ever have is a relationship with Jesus Christ.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're on a road that doesn't lead there, make a U-turn.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Don't do what I did with my wife, don't do it.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: You make a U-turn and you go back as fast as you can and you get on the right road.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, that's called repentance in the Bible.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: You make a U-turn and you go in the, I'm going in the wrong direction, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, suck it up, and I'm gonna make a U-turn and I'm gonna go in the right direction.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna find humility enough to be able to admit, and I'm gonna find the courage to be able to admit that I was wrong.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got to get on the right road.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, let's look at some verses from the New Testament.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Real quickly, we're gonna kind of do a drive-by on some verses that Paul wrote.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Paul wrote all these verses.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, dealing with hope, Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4.13, this is a verse that we hear often in funerals because that's the proper context for it, but it's not the only context for it.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: He said, We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking about people who have died, people who have passed on.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: That you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it beautiful to know that you and I don't have to fear death?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: And when we grieve, a believer who has passed on, a believer who has died, we don't grieve without hope.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: We grieve with the knowledge, and many of you could tell stories, and I can tell a story about a grandfather who left this incredible godly legacy, and we buried him a few years ago, and it was tough.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was a tough thing to do.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: We grieve with hope.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: We grieve with hope.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Even in the darkest hour that life can throw at us, we don't have our hope taken from us.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Our hope will always be there.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Galatians 5, 5, this is a different kind of hope.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Paul using the same word, but talking about something different.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: He says, through the Spirit by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the what?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: The hope of what?
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: The hope of righteousness.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: We ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I love about that?
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's that we don't eagerly work for the hope of righteousness.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: We don't work for righteousness because that's no good.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't get us where we're headed.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: You can't work hard enough to be righteous.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: You have to wait for it and put your faith in Jesus that he's going to give you his righteousness.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: And he does, and he does, and he does.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Titus 2.13.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Love this passage.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: Our blessed hope is when Jesus Christ appears.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Think about it.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Do you believe that he's going to show up like bodily in the flesh?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to step into our reality.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do you really believe that's going to happen?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: Does that bring you hope?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is a different kind of hope than something you or I may have defined hope as.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then riches, I got a verse about riches.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: I love this.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Colossians 1.27.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: What's the mystery?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Christ in you.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Which is the hope of glory, by the way.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Christ in you is a mystery that listen, your most valuable thing that you could ever have is Christ living inside of you.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you get to take that with you everywhere you go.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't care who says what or who does what to you, no one can take that from you.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's real riches.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: Eternal riches.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then power, some power verses.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Romans 1.16, you have heard this before.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, the Jew first and also to the Greek.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, the gospel story is a story of God's power, and I want you to look at me.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's a story of God's power because it's a story of your weakness and my weakness.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel begins with us saying, I can't do this.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have what it takes.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: And for you, maybe that was decades ago, but it's also true tomorrow morning when you wake up.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have what it takes.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: We continually go back to the gospel.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: We never get over the gospel.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then this one, 1 Corinthians 1.18, I love this.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see the two sides of the coin there?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: The word of the cross is folly to some people, but it's power to some people.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's folly to those who are perishing, but for those of us who are being saved, it's the power of God.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, how do you go from viewing the same thing as folly to shifting and then seeing it as the power of God?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: You have the eyes of your heart enlightened.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you used to see it one way, and the scales fall off, and God speaks to you, and God's Spirit brings this specific and precise and correct knowledge to you, and you go, you know what?
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was wrong about that.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel isn't folly, the gospel is my lifeline.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: I have to cling to it with all that I am.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why Paul's prayer was not for us to find hope, and it was not for us to find power, and it was not for us to find riches.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was for us to find Christ.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: All the other stuff gets thrown in.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: But you and I are so focused on Christ, we're not even paying attention to that.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: We just want to know Him, we want to know Him, we want to know Him.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why the most, please hear me and please look at me, the most important quest you will ever undertake is not to find hope, and it's not to find riches, and it's not to find power.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: The most important quest you will ever undertake is to know Jesus Christ.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: See, the labels that God's given us are defining for us, and Paul's prayer was that the Ephesians and that you and I would be labeled enlightened.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: That through knowing Christ we would be enlightened, we would have the eyes of our hearts enlightened.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: I want to share with you one more verse and we're done.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: As I was reading this week and studying, praying about what God wanted to say to me and to you through this, he kept bringing me back to this verse.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's a verse that many of you are familiar with.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 423, and I put it up here in the NIV because I just love the way that it's worded.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: It says, above all else, guard your what?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Your hope?
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: Does it say guard your riches?
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Does it say guard your power?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, those are the things we're busy guarding, though, aren't they?
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: And if we're not careful, we'll guard the wrong things and we'll leave our hearts exposed.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not wisdom, that's folly.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: No matter what, above all else, guard your heart.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because everything you do flows from it.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: Everything you do flows from it.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: So quit guarding all these other things.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: The most important thing you can guard is your heart.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if anything that you're pursuing does damage to your heart, or if it does damage to the work God's doing in your heart, stop it.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Get off that road.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: Make a U-turn.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: Go back and get on the right road to a relationship with Jesus Christ.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think that just because you're a Christian, this can't be true of you.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: You better wake up.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: We fall into these things all the time.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Your Heavenly Father wants to cultivate your heart into a place that knows Him well, into a place where He's welcome, into a place where you can commune and communicate with each other.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then He wants everything you do to flow out of that.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: That relationship with Jesus Christ.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: God, you are so good to us.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know how to deliver exactly what we need.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: And often you deliver not what we're pursuing.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: You deliver something totally different.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we get frustrated with you because you won't answer our prayers and you won't let us catch the things that we're pursuing.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: But you know best.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you're always wise and you're always good and you're always loving.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you know that we may just be on the wrong road.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we may be pursuing the wrong things.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, God, my prayer today for everyone who's listening is that you would give us an impactful, powerful, spirit-led relationship with Jesus Christ, that our number one goal this week would be to know Jesus Christ.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: And through that and out of that, everything else would flow out of our hearts from that.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we know that everything else is just going to fall in line if we get the main thing right.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, God, I pray for those of us who may have strayed, for those of us who may have become distracted this week, for those of us who may have taken some detours and some wrong turns, that you give us the courage and the discipline to get back on the right road, to admit that we're wrong, to repent, to backtrack, to get back on that right road, and to continue pursuing a relationship with Christ.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: I pray for those of us this morning who haven't yet committed to be in a relationship with Jesus Christ, who haven't yet put their faith in Jesus.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: Give them the courage to step up.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: Give them the courage to begin this journey that will always, always, always lead to joy and peace.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: If we'll just lean in and do the work of reading and trying to connect with you, your Holy Spirit is ready and waiting to meet with us.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for Jesus Christ, who delivers more grace than we could ever understand, and all the grace that we need.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's in his name that we pray.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: Down front on your right, uh, there will be some folks here if you want to come and pray with somebody or talk with somebody.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing's true in the cab.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you're over there down front on the right, there are some folks you can pray with.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we pray that you would have a great week.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're dismissed.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: God bless you.