Square One: Spiritually Disciplined Life

Hello, Southeast family. We are glad that you're joining us either online or here in the room? So, excited about our new series. Every year, what we want to do is take a chance to go back and revisit, this is who we are. It’s kind of one of those Vince Lombardi moments each year, right? Like this is a football. It's kinda one of those spaces where we go back and we want to revisit. About a year ago, our elders put forth some fresh vision in some new ways that were some purposes that were going to be built around as a church. It's very godly, very biblical stuff, and I'm excited to be a part of what they were working on. Our vision statement for our church is that we are a Christ centered community of world changing disciples. That's who we are. Super simple. We're a Christ centered community of world changing disciples. Like, and I love the vision statement because the thing is, if we're not going to be Christ centered, then what are we doing here? If we're not going to be world changers, then what are we doing here? If we're not going to be disciples, that's what we're called to -- rise and go out into the world, make disciples. Like, if we're aren’t going to be disciples, what are we doing here? And I think that for a lot of believers, they kind of see the church, like a bit of a social club. It's kind of this thing that, I'm a part of where I can get with people who believe in God, like I do. And then I don't have to feel bad about talking about my faith in that space. I just want to offer that the church is supposed to be way more than that -- way more than that in our life. 

I know that we define, you know, spiritual maturity. We define it in all kinds of ways. Some people define it as I kind of know generally what the Bible says. I don't drink, smoke, cuss, chew, or hang out with the girls that do, um, whatever. How are we defining it? But here's what I think we can know for sure. And I think you could back me up on this. You can come to the church for 20, 30, 40 years and not really have ever grown up in your faith. And so what we want to do is to invite people into this deepening relationship with Jesus. It's not enough for us to just come to church on Sunday morning, and it's not enough for us to be able to quote scriptures and I’ll prove it. America believes, based on research, that the most quoted scripture in the Bible is God helps those who help themselves. That's not in the Bible. That's not even in the Bible -- Ben Franklin wrote that. 

Like, we're missing. And I, I wanna pause at an idea for us. I believe that if America is going to turn around, it's going to be because the church stands up and reclaims its role in culture. It’s role from God's perspective, not from us being whatever, but from doing things God's way, doing God's things God's way. We've tried doing God's things our way, and it's not working. It's not working! It's time for the church to step up and be who she was intended to be. She's a beautiful bride, if we will just become what God's invited us to become. I'll give you an example. This actually happened 20-ish, years ago, it was early in ministry and I was part of a church plant that really exploded and got large quickly. We had another church in town that was a great church, about 1200 people. We had about 5,000 people in the church at the time. And there was a person who was in one of our small groups -- because we built everything around life groups. That's what we did then. And it's what we do still. And they were in one of our life groups, but they attended this other church -- they liked the preaching better. And so this was going back and forth. And this, in this family unit, the husband committed suicide. It was tragic. And it was, there was a lot of mental illness and different things involved. It was tragic. That group leader of his life group went over and spent all night with his family. Super powerful. Now here's the thing about that group leader -- high school dropout never went to college. Construction guy, very basic salt of the earth, blue collar, great guy. Just not, not a lot of degrees, not a lot of letters behind his name, fairly new believer, but was committed to trying to look and act like Jesus in the process. The next day, his small groups community pastor called the other church because we wanted to partner with them in stewarding this family right and serving and loving on this family. So they called and said, Hey, we know that this family went to your church. We would love to partner with you in taking care of the family. We want to do it well, so we're not doubling our efforts. Here's what the senior pastor of that church said. I quote, “you guys are the big church in town. You take care of it. “ Bible college degree, teaching the word every week vs. no education, no experience, new believer -- which one looked more like Jesus? Exactly. Here's my thing about spiritual maturity. You can have all the great scriptures in your mind that you want, but if you don't look and act like Jesus, then what are we doing? We're missing it. Jesus’ heartbeat for his church was this, God, we want to hallow your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth just like it is in heaven. And I think that part of the issue with the church in America is that some of us, and I'm not, I don't know if it's you or not. I'm not accusing anybody. I just know that this ethos exists in the church in America, that we look at this as if we get the privilege and blessings of Christianity, but we don't have to take on the responsibility of it. And so we don't have any need to grow up in Christ. It's like an adult who spiritually still wears a diaper. If we want to be Christ center, community of world changing disciples, then we're going to have to focus on growing up in our faith. We just don't have another option. We don't get the privilege of Christianity without taking on the responsibility of it. Privilege and responsibility in life go hand in hand. Like that's not new. That's not a weird, that's a truism of life, privilege and responsibility go hand in hand. What we love in our culture is that we get privilege without responsibility, but raise your kids that way and see how it goes. Give them all the privileges of the world and no responsibility. See how they do. By the way, at the end of it, they will not thank you for it. They'll go to therapy. They will.

We are called to grow up in our faith. To live spiritually disciplined lives. And if you think about it, discipline is not flashy. It's not glitzy. It's not fun. It's not this amazing thing. But what I can tell you is discipline is absolutely a part of our life period. It has to be. Life without discipline is a train wreck waiting to happen. It's this, it's this reality that we, we want, we want to have everything -- like you would never, well, I mean, you might think it -- would be like, man, I wish I was buff, so I'm going to sit on the couch. We all intrinsically know that it's better for us to eat right and exercise. It's better. We know that ! We know that to be true. And yet, how many of us will actually make the effort to do it? But then we want to complain about the fact that we don't feel good and we don't -- like I don't, my mind is all foggy and I don't feel right. Like here's the thing. Discipline is a part of life. And the good news is we have the power to change it. If we don't like where we are, we have the power to change it. But it doesn't come from wishing upon a star. Same thing's true in our spiritual life. If we're going to grow up spiritually, it's going to happen because we chose to discipline ourselves spiritually. It doesn't happen any other way.

So I want to look at some truths about a spiritually disciplined life. And this is not a typical sermon that I would do. Normally we would jump into a bunch of context and we would unravel the scriptures from historical perspective and all that stuff. Today, what we're going to do is the classic three points in a poem. That's what we're going to. So what we're going to do today, and, I don't really have a poem, but I have three points and maybe I'll sneak a poem in there. My dad, here's a poem -- I'll just give you one. My dad used to use this poem all the time in his sermons. Cause he was one of those preachers. You're writing the gospel a chapter each day by the things you do and the words you say. People read your gospel, whether tried or true. What is the gospel according to you? I know it's pretty good. It's a poem. Now I can get to the three points. Now I get to the three points. Some of that stuff that my dad preached actually sunk in. I can't -- like it's the weirdest. I see my dad in the pulpit. My dad, my dad's got this super smooth Southern voice cause he's born and raised in Kentucky. Right? He had this lady tell him all your smooth, like Southern Comfort. I was like, that's not smooth, uh, burns all the way down. Like I don't ever want to be called that. Like this voice, if you did, if you knew my dad, you know, that's a really good impression. Okay? 

I want to begin with, uh, Hebrews 5 and just this invitation that the writer of Hebrews is making to these Hebrew believers. Here's what it says, “About this we have much to say, and it's hard to explain, since you've become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.” Here's what he's saying at this point. I'm going to stop it and I'll jump back into the scripture in a second. There is a subtle trap in hearing the truth over and over again, that lures us away from actually doing anything with it. We've become comfortable. He says your ears are dull. So you got to go back to the basic principles. Like you've forgotten the basic tenets, like the general basic stuff. “You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” This is our sacred task. In fact, in Genesis 1:1, it says, “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” And then it says that on day one, he separated light from darkness and the rabbis teach that on day one, God separated light from darkness. And from there forward, that has become our sacred task --  is to separate light from darkness. We have to do that, but we don't get to do it any old way we want. We have to do it consistent with the scriptures because what happens is, we start to cut off things that God never intended to. And we start to add and keep things that God never wanted us to add and keep. If left to ourselves, we can never do that well. We have to do it rooted and grounded in the word of God. Which here's the thing about the Bible. It's the most amazing book. Like how do you, how do you go – it’s so boring? So it's a huge book with all these words and not very many pictures, right? Well, it's not a comic book. It's not that, but the Bible -- number one, the Bible deals with the most profound mysteries of the universe. I mean, we're talking about the deepest truths of the human condition. We're talking about everything that makes us human – how’s -- It's boring? But secondly, the Bible is dripping with the presence of God. Like you ring out the presence of God it's as if God like in not just the words, not just the letters, but the spaces in between the letters are inspired. It's alive. The book -- like the power that holds the universe together is contained in this book! It's boring? What the, how, how, Whoa, I don't know what it's supposed to. I don't even know where to begin. Well, you can just flip it open and read. Like, I don't recommend that long term, but that's a good place to start. This is a joke, cause this is a three points in a poem sermon. Here's a joke. So this guy trying to get serious about reading the Bible. So he opened it up. He said, God, I'm going to do whatever you show me today. And he flipped it open dropped his finger and he read it and it says and Judas went out and hung himself. And he goes, Aw, that can't be right. So he closes it, opens it to another spot, puts his finger down and it says, go down and do likewise, nah, that can’t be right? So he closes it again, opens it up, puts his finger down and it says whatever thou doest, doest quickly. Not a great strategic approach to the Bible. But if you're like, I don't even know where to begin. Begin that way. Get a reading plan, like get on the YouVersion Bible app or get on Bible Gateway or get on any number, like get online and type in this: Bible reading plans. Google that and you will have 1 billion webpages. That'll give you, like, just to get started. This gets started. You're like, you don't have to know it all today. But to know one more verse today than you did yesterday moves the needle. And we're like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if I have time. I don't know if I have time. Gere's the deal. You will always have time for your priorities. You will always have time for your priorities -- I guarantee you that the TV show that you love or that project thing that you've been working on in the house or in the garage or whatever, like I guarantee you that those things are going to get your attention. You know why? Because you always have time for your priorities. Like when was the last time that you were so absorbed in the word of God that you're like, Oh my goodness, I'm going to be late for work? Like we don't do that. And I would suggest that maybe that's where we need to begin is to get so lost in the word of God. It’s alive! It's like it lives, right? It's the most incredible book.

So I want to give you three pieces to growing up spiritually that I think are particularly important. And here's the first one. We need to be connected to a spiritual family. We will never become spiritually mature apart from spiritually focused relationships. We've talked about this over and over and over, over the last year, but the Bible calls us to community again and again and again. And one of the things that we do in our Western culture is we want to value growing up to the point where I don't need anybody. But the problem with that is that's not spiritual maturity. Spiritual maturity drives us toward community. Not away from it. Spiritual maturity always leads us toward relationship, not away from it because there's this growing awareness of this piece of the divine that's been put in us, since creation, and it calls us toward relationships, not away from it. Spiritual maturity doesn't call us to not need one another. And I know that we live in this tension right now because, um, you know, we're still working through COVID and all that stuff. And I get like the it's for people who are like, I'm just, it's just not safe to come out yet. That's totally fine. But there is a growing number of people in America that are like, Hey, even when COVID’s over, I'm not going back to church. Why? Because I liked church in my jammies. I like to go to church in my sweats. In fact, we're thinking about changing our name to Sweats Church. I mean, here's the deal like this? Isn't this like, it's the reason why that's a problem. Isn't because we watched church in our living room. The reason why that's a problem is because it disconnects us from spiritual community. That's the issue. It's not whether or not we're watching online. It's whether or not we're connected to our spiritual family because the spiritual maturity is actually us growing toward one another, not away from our need for one another. Hebrews 10:24-25 says this, “And let us consider how to stir one another up towards love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” That's like the Day, the capital D -- big the day -- judgment day. As we see it drawing near, we want to encourage one another and stay connected all the more, not less. What's interesting to me in our culture, and it's happening across the board, we were getting more and more polarized, right? But it's not just politics. It's everything. Like people are more and more like putting their flag in the ground on things. And it's happening in the church. And this should not be, that's not who we are as the kingdom of God! The kingdom of God is pulling for community, not against it. Ephesians 4. Here's why, here's why we need community. Here's why -- Ephesians 4:11-14, here's what it says: “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry.” Here's why we need one another-- because we don't have a complete picture. We need one another because we each bring a piece of the puzzle of God's kingdom to the community. And when we do it together, we get a better picture of who God is and what he's like. “For building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God, to mature manhood -- that's human hood -- to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes.” Here's the deal. If we try to do the spiritual thing by ourselves, we never attain to the full measure of Christ. We can never grow up and be mature because there's pieces about who Jesus is and what he's like, and what a relationship with him looks like that you bring that I don't have. Nobody has the complete picture. And so we need to be in a community where there's apostles and prophets and teachers and pastors and evangelists and all those people who are speaking in from a perspective. They're speaking into the life of the community so that we can get a fuller picture of what God's like. Because when we do, then we grow up in our faith and we'll be more like him. What we do when we try to live out our spiritual life by ourselves. We start to look like a healthier version of ourselves, which is not wrong. But when we live out our spiritual life in community, we start to look a whole lot more like Jesus. And that's what matters. 

Second truth. Second piece of this whole spiritual maturity piece that I want to wrestle with is this -- choosing to stay immature in our faith is foolish. If you saw a mid-twenties, early thirties, adult male, go to the grocery store in a diaper with a pacifier and no shirt on, you would look at that and go, Hey, put on some clothes and be an adult. Because that's what you are. Like, it's silly. It's silly to do that. But I would suggest that many of us have been walking around in our spiritual lives the same way. And we wonder why people look at that and go, I don't want to be a part of that. That's weird. Choosing to stay immature in our faith is foolish as much as choosing to stay immature in our physical appearance is foolish. Choosing to stay immature in our spiritual appearance is foolish as well. 2 Timothy 3, here's what Paul writes to Timothy, to his disciple. “You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch at Iconium, and at Lystra -- which prosecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, (just know that) while evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” People who are trying to do the right thing are going to be persecuted while people who are doing the wrong thing are going to keep going on like nothing's going on. “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ. Jesus. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” How do we become equipped for every good work? By studying the scriptures? How do we do that? We’ve got to spend time in the word. And I know, I know that -- I don't have time. I don't have time. How about this? I've got an idea. I don't want to come with just a problem. I want solutions. Here's an idea. Don't listen to talk radio in your car, listen to the Bible. You have more than a five minute commute to work. Even if you have less than a five minute commute to work, it doesn't matter. Listen, listen to the Bible. You can pull it right up on your phone and hit play. And that guy's voice is mesmerizing. You can listen to it for hours. Listen, listen to the Bible, like listening to the news on the radio is so disturbing anyway. So, during quarantine, I got bored and that's never good. So, I decided I was going to automate my house. So, I got Google home stuff and kind of was like, Oh, well, if we added, but what about, you know, how that process goes? So, I was like, I need like a light switch and one other thing, and then pretty much everything is now automated in our house. And now the bummer of it is if we ever move, I’ve got to decide if I'm going to leave it or take it all out and put the old stuff back in. But every once in a while, I'll come down the stairs and I'll be feeling particularly spry when I'm, cause I'm a morning person and I’ll be like, Hey, good morning. And Google will say, hello. The weather outside in Parker is, and the birds are chirping. And today you will have a high of blah, blah, blah. And you will have a low of this. Tomorrow will be more excellent weather because we live in Denver. Right? It says that every day, tomorrow will be more, unless there's a bomb cyclone, it'd be like, tomorrow will be one of the rare days that you don't want to get out of bed. Um, so does it? Yeah. And it's all one and I feel good about myself. And then it says here's some of the latest headlines. I can never get past two or three of them where I'm like, ah, Google stop. I can't take it. I got to put worship music on. Cause that here's it -- I'm just going to offer you. You don't need, don't plead ignorance. Like you need to know what's going on in the world, but don't be consumed with talk. When you're in a car, driving to work, turn your Bible app on, listen to worship music, turn your Bible app on, make that sacred space. Then at least you can say that you did some Bible work every day. Like we got to take that seriously.

Here's the third piece that I want to give us about a spiritually disciplined life. Salvation looks like a thing. We don't get to claim, I'm a Christian and I live, however I want. Right. And this gets dicey because we want to give people grace and you're not my judge. Yup. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But the Bible says what it says and I don't get to negotiate that. I get to adjust my life to it. I don't get to let my life change what the scriptures mean. I get to let what the scriptures mean, change my life. And if we don't get that right, then we can start distorting and twisting all kinds of things. Here's what the Bible says. Matthew 6:33, Jesus says, “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Here's what he's saying. If you want to call yourself a follower of Jesus, then you are a resident of the kingdom of God before you're a resident of anything else you need to know that! Seek first, the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Matthew 7:21-23 says this, “not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven…” like you don't get to say, I believe in Jesus and walk through the pearly gates. Satan believes in Jesus. Oh, and by the way, but what the temptation of Jesus tells us in Matthew 4 and Luke 4 is that Satan goes to church and quotes scripture. So, I don't know how we measure our spiritual connectedness to the Lord, but Satan does that much. It goes on to say, “On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons and do many mighty works in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” Like you can do a whole lot of things for God, but if we're not doing anything with him, it doesn't matter. There's a whole lot of people that are doing a lot of religious activity. But the goal isn't that we accomplished a lot of religious activity. The goal of it is that we develop connectedness to the Father.

So, we talked about last week when we're talking about marriage and Sinai and all that stuff, the purpose of this isn't so that God can control you and tell you what to do. The purpose of this is that God desires, connected relationship with us. So we can do a whole lot of things, good things, just not God things. James 2 popular passage, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works is dead. But some of them will say, “you have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe --and shudder!” Good work. And I know that the rebuttal to this is, that sounds like a works/righteousness. You're being a legalist. Get off my back, legalist. I mean, maybe you didn't take it that far. I would. And then Ephesians 2 is the passage that we're saved by grace through faith. We're saved by grace through faith. That's a – listen, that's true, but it's not the whole picture. Look at what Ephesians 2 says. It says, “for by grace, you've been saved through faith. And this not of your own doing; it is the gift of God, not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” And I'd love to pull that apart. That phrase, not the result of works, but that's another sermon for another day. He says this, “we are his workmanship,” this the next verse. And this is why context matters. Exclamation point. We can't cherry pick verses and make it say what we want it to say for. “We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. “You are saved for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Like, the whole reason why God saved you was to do the good works that he called us to. We don't get to be spiritually lazy. We've got to be spiritually disciplined, just like any other part of our life requires discipline. We've gotta be spiritually disciplined.

And I want to go back and catch all this. We got to do it in community because it's too easy for us to justify, based on our skewed perspective, the wrong thing, if we're not connected in a community, which is harder, it's harder, It’s to be connected in a bunch of relationships who all have opinions. Yep. Just bring up masks. Like, it's hard. Relationship is hard. It is. But we got to do it together because in the process of us wanting to be godly, before we're right, we start watching a better version of Jesus live in all of us. And that becomes something really, really powerful, but we got to do it in community, got to do it in community. We can't choose to not grow up. It's silly. It's foolishness. It looks weird. And I would say that maybe  -- part of the way that the world views the church is like, it's weird that you claim to have access to the answers of the universe, but your life is this. Like, I, I see you. You're the church. The divorce rate in the church is the same as the divorce rate out of the church that our addiction rate is the same. Our debt rate is the same. It's the same. Maybe the issue is we need to live different. Maybe the issue is we're not growing up in our faith.

I have some implications. Implication number one is that we're called to grow up in our faith. There's a, there's a myriad of verses we could pull from on this one, right? Like, forgetting what is behind a person to take hold of that? Which God called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. We're called to grow up in our faith and that's going to take discipline. We don't accidentally become a tour.

Number two, expressing our faith is still important even when we feel inadequate. Well, I don't know enough. I don't have enough figured out I gotta go clean myself up first and then that no, no, no, no. Your neighbors need Jesus today. You'll your coworkers need Jesus right now. Well, I don't know. 
I don't get to share faith at work. I'll get it. Yeah, neither did Paul. You know, when he wrote the new Testament, he wasn't allowed to share Jesus either, but we have the new Testament in the face of not being able to share with penalty of death. Expressing our faith is important. Even when we feel inadequate. Listen, if you don't feel inadequate in your faith journey, you're not walking in faith. If you're really serious about walking with Jesus, you're going to constantly be on the line of, I cannot do this and God's going to be like, right. Let's go. Oh. And by the way, 10 steps back, you could have never done that either if I hadn't been there, that's what God tells me all the time. Like, it's not like this is anything different. You weren't that great back there. And you're still not that great. Like, let's keep going. Cause I got you. Like, your faith journey should be so moving to you that when you think about what God's asking you to do, you pee on your leg a little bit, you know? Like, like seriously, don't get offended by that. But like, you're like, Whoa. Yeah, that's, that!. And then global pandemic. Boom. And you're like, when did this get in? God's like, I don't know when, when I'm done, when I come take you home. But until then, expressing our faith is still important. Even when we feel an adequate, it doesn’t like, that is walking in faith. We do hard things because when we do those hard things, then they become not hard. 

Implication number three, we're not saved by works, but we're also not saved apart from works. That's significant. We don't get to claim salvation and then sit on our tush and go, grace is this grace, its all grace, we don't get to do that. It's time for the church in America to go make a difference. I

Implication number four, if we're going to call ourselves Christians, we have to be willing to take on the responsibility that comes with the privilege of knowing and walking with God. We don't get privilege without responsibility. They go hand in hand. They always have, and they always will. 

We're going to take communion together. We take communion every week in our church because every week we want to remind ourselves that it is only through Christ alone, that any of this is possible for us. And I would just invite you to consider as you prepare your heart for communion, and we'll take it all together here in just a minute. Is there a place in your life where you have stepped back? Is there a place in your life where you have reduced your passion, your focus? Paul says in Romans 12, keep your spiritual fervor serving the Lord. Like, is there a place where the fervor has waned, distracted? There's a lot going on where we're in these crazy ups, topsy, turvy times, right? Like there's a lot of things to pull our focus away. Even this morning, as I was standing down here during the worship time, I was like, Lord, I have all these things and this conversation and this, and, and he was like, Hey, worship. That's what you're here for right now. So, I was like, Oh, it’s so easy to get distracted. Communion is our opportunity to say Lord at its core, this is what my life is about is lying it down so that you can use it for whatever purpose you want. Where are the places where maybe you've let yourself get focused, pulled off a little bit. Let's think about that as we prepare hearts for communion.

On the night, Jesus was betrayed. He took bread and he broke it. And he said, this is my body, which has given for you. So whenever you eat this bread, do it in remembrance of me. And then after the dinner, he took a cup and he said, this cup is new covenant, my blood which is shed for you. So whenever you drink this cup, do it in remembrance of me.

Let's pray. God, thank you for your gentleness and your conviction and solar today, as we consider what it would mean for us to be more disciplined in our spiritual life, I would ask for both of those things, that we would be able to be honest and open and that you would respond with gentleness and conviction. God, thank you for your grace. As we get so easily distracted, the world is full of distractions. And Lord, we know that there's an enemy that's working against our progress. And so Lord, I pray that you would, um, focus our eyes, chisel our ears, give a speak for the path. We love you Lord in your name. Amen.

Let’s stand and sing one more song.

Hey, this morning, if you need prayer for any reason, there's some people up here in the front that would love to pray with you. If you want to talk with somebody about what it means to have a relationship with Jesus, they're here to pray with you over that as well. My hope is that we can leave out of here, not feeling beat up, but committed. I'm committed and focused to being more in line with God's intent because I believe that the future of America rests in our churches, the rests here in this space, when we can become the kingdom of God that has were intended to be. So may you live well, the call to be the kingdom of God. Thanks for coming and have a great week.