Should You Love The Church? (part 2) - [Ephesians 5:25]

Father in heaven, we just thank you this morning that we're able to gather together To come to Worship you to learn more about you to learn what you've said in your word and to be encouraged

To just love the church as Christ does father.

I pray that you would bless our time this morning that you would bless those of us Who are concerned by this upcoming storm and to just be

Reminded that you are in control and that all things Work together for our good father.

Would you bless our time this morning in Christ's name? Amen well, I got a

Chuckle out of a Facebook post this week somebody posted on my wall and they said they transcribed part of a no compromise show in which pastor

Mike had asked me to explain the difference between Calamari and a chalmenean and You have to know that Although our shows are carefully scripted

And our crack team of writers spends literally weeks of preparing things. I was caught off guard a little bit by that question

And so he transcribed exactly what I said, you know, what's the difference between calamari and a chalmenean and I said

Well, one's really chewy tough and hard to take and then there's calamari and And he so he transcribed that name then he put rimshot and I'm like, you know, it's just kind of on the fly

We just do what we do What does that have to do with anything? I don't know. I just thought I'd share that with you in case you missed it

Now you are in the know We started talking about Loving the church last week

And just as a reminder the opening scripture that I read Was for Matthew 16 18 and I tell you you are

Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it

And I think if we look around Evangelicalism today we would see that One of the great assaults that's going on is actually on the church and on the nature of the church.

We talked about various issues And most of them have to do with assaults on the church, for example women and leadership

Homosexuals and leadership all these kind of things. They're meant to undermine What Christ has designed the church to be?

Certainly, there's an assault on the Bible. But you know, I I mentioned that I have been to Saddleback church on multiple occasions and The number one thing that you come away with isn't so much

I mean you walk on the campus and it is It is beautiful, you know National Park should be so beautiful as Saddleback Church.

I mean, it's huge There's places for kids to run around. They've got Latte bars, they've got outside latte bars.

They've got iced tea bars. They've got everything going on the one thing that they don't have is the

Bible being preached which is kind of a problem and This is kind of the mode now in which the church has

Evolved as it were starting with Willow Creek and Saddleback People don't come to church to hear the

Bible. Why did they come to church? What's that? Well to have their ears tickled, right?

But I mean, you know, it's something that you do on Sunday In fact, I really am thinking I'm gonna write a book while I'm on we're

It's not vacation next year, but just about just about basically Evangelicals turning into Catholics by the way, they live their lives and one of the things that we do

I think we generically Sunday is a day where you are supposed to go to church

It's the wrong attitude But if you take that as a church and you imbibe that then what do you do?

You say well people naturally want to go to church on Sunday, but let's make it as painless as possible Let's make it as practical as possible

And that's what the church has done so we started talking last week about Expository preaching which is one of the first things that goes out the window

If you're looking at a pragmatic Way of doing church church that works

Church that doesn't When you're in California, we got an advertisement in the mail I've mentioned this one before but it just it always cracks me up because it was for Easter Sunday And it had balloons on the front and different things and it said that this church was going to have

Clowns for children, you know One of those little bubble things that the kids go run around and jump in and all this other stuff

There's again Easter Sunday, and they said one thing we can promise you is we won't waste your time

This is gonna be practical did it and I'm just like this is your Easter Sunday fire You're gonna celebrate the risen

Lord and Savior by having balloons clowns You know and those little funny one of those things called bouncing houses, whatever they're called, you know, the places where kids go and get concussions when they crack their heads together and That's what you know church means for so many people is it's not a waste of time.

It's something they have to do But it's not a complete waste of time horrible just horrible

It would so we started talking about expository preaching which means to expose the text which means to go through and explain what the original authorial intent was and It's such a way that not that it's necessarily practical

Because when we think practical we're thinking about you know, 15 ways to get better postal service

I don't know what we're thinking about, you know eight ways to be a better father, you know Nine ways to mow your lawn and have green whatever it is that's what the world means by practical what we mean by practical because The Bible is practical

What we mean by practical is it provides everything that we need regarding life and godliness

So when we expose the text, that's what we get so we began talking about that and I read

I believe last week. Yes 2nd Timothy 4 verses 1 to 4 and why don't we start there just to give us a little bit of a setting to where we are

In fact, I better make sure I have the well, I'm sure I do yes

Paul writes Timothy and again important to keep in mind. I would do this again and again in the IBS class

You know, why was this book written? 2nd Timothy written to Timothy by Paul at the end of his ministry to give him an instruction about How to operate how to run a church to address some of the issues that were already cropping up in the church

And Paul writes this I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus Who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing and his kingdom?

preach the word Be ready in season and out of season Reprove rebuke exhorts with great patience and instruction for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine

But wanting to have their ears tickled they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires

And we'll turn away their ears from the truth and we'll turn aside to myths

And I said last time I I think that was true or it is true now. I think was true then too

There's always been a Desire to have something more. I mentioned the Gnostics last time because that's been recently here in the news

There have been all manner of challenges to the Word of God and so what people do in Practical pragmatic churches as they adapt the culture

They adapt to well, they adapt the Bible to the culture. They change the message to please the largest possible audience

And that's upside down What we want to do is preach our messages so that they please the audience that we have who is

God I mean it couldn't be clearer in Paul's writing He's challenging him in The presence of God and of Christ Jesus courtroom language

You know, basically I'm putting you under an oath. This is what you have to do. This is your non -negotiable preach the word

And we talked about how that's been under assault quite a bit and we had some discussion about that and what

I want to stress we're doing we're Starting this series on the church and I'm introducing the nine marks of Written by Dever and my suggestion is that we're expository preaching is practice the other nine marks

They are the other eight after this one are more likely to follow. Why do you suppose that is?

Why do you suppose that a church that preaches expository messages is more likely to be a biblically sound church

The foundation's late, right?

That's exactly right. It's hard to Have the dancing ministry, you know if somebody goes well, wait a minute pastor

I don't see the girls with streamers running up and down the aisles. I don't see that anywhere in the

New Testament Can you explain why we would do that? well There'd be no answer, can you explain why we have clowns and You know balloons and everything else on Easter Sunday, and there's no focus on Christ It and if you preach through the

Bible, you can't get away with things like that But I do think that there's a systematic effort to discredit solid biblical teaching

Why do you think that is? Why do you think we would see things like from Barna where he you know, he talks about the standard old -time church model is

Antiquated or why would you see more and more people thinking that they should get their church on TV?

Why do you think that would be Okay, because there's a lack of desire to be obedient to the

Word of God. They yes Steve They want a

God of their own creation Okay, and the idea basically like Peggy was saying is to pack the pews to fill the churches

But I mean some people even don't even want to go to church. They just you know, well, you know what? It's more convenient for me to do something else

I think that biblical teachings under assault when we think about You know, you hear questions about what's practical and stuff like that Why I think it's so that what

I call the cancer of non churches Can spread To quote the title of one book by Steve Lawson there is a famine in the land.

There's a famine of preaching Why because a lot of people just don't want it and if churches were hearing expository preaching.

I Think that if there were believers hearing expository preaching and the other eight items that I'm gonna list weren't present

They would demand them. They'd say well, this is what the Bible teaches. This is how we should think about things

But some people say that preaching is broken Some say it is irrelevant. Listen to what?

an emergent church leader said He said a sermon is often a violent act

It's violence toward the will of the people who have to sit there and take it There's no opportunity for interaction

I object You don't get any of that it's just one man and Exposed people say

Well pastor that's just your opinion I Realize that you spent 18 20 25 hours this week studying that text, but that's your opinion

My opinion is well, can't we have a multitude of opinions? Why does there have to be a position of authority anyway?

Are we all equal in Christ? Shouldn't we all have equal say? What's a good answer to that?

I think there are a couple good answers to that You know, should we have a conversation or should we have a month?

It should it be a monologue or a multi log? Stephen Yeah, it's very it's very kind of you know

We're all equal and so nobody's above anybody else and it really denies I'm not saying obviously the man of the pulpit is not

God, but it denies God his place It's his word being proclaimed and other people's opinions are pretty much irrelevant

Charlie Well, that's that's a brilliant observation because we're we're to sit

We're to submit to the word. So let's listen to that again. A sermon is an often violent act

It's violence toward the will of the people who have to sit there and take it. I hope so I hope so why because the

Word of God is coming forth and we should listen and go I Don't know if I like that, but it's true and I need to submit to that So in that sense, he's exactly right

The Word of God comes and it afflicts us It makes us uncomfortable. It makes us think

I need to change my way of thinking. I need to change my way of acting here's another quote to treat the sermon as an

Oratorical performance delivered by a paid and trained professional who claims to speak for God Sets up artificial power imbalance within the congregation

This man was a pastor a Baptist by training Who's no longer at this church?

No, that's it He goes on and he says in an emerging church culture that values authenticity above all else

Such an approach to preaching creates an artificial distance within the congregation

Yeah, Brad It's his job to do what okay

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're the What Brad was saying at a previous church was you know?

They they had a discussion about different issues and the pastor basically said it was his job to interpret the church and every

Yeah, and yeah interpret Scripture And he was basically the final authority and is it is true

Let's say, you know something is said from this pulpit and it's demonstrably wrong Would it be right then to go to the man who said it and say, you know what pastor?

I I think you Heard I just like to say that Made a mistake, you know, and here's why yes, that would be the right thing to do

And I remember MacArthur telling the story that he was preaching once About I'm gonna mess it up a little bit, but I think it was like seven reasons why you know

Jesus is coming back in Whatever it was, you know, it wasn't predicting a time but seven reasons why

I believe in this particular eschatology and so the next during the intervening week

Someone came up to him and pointed out his errors And so he came out the next Sunday night and he said seven reasons why you know

I was wrong last week and this is what you know, I'm just like that's right You know when you you preach your conviction and then you go.

Oh I was wrong. Well, then you Preach that's what you're supposed to do

We're fallible. We're not perfect. So that's a good point listen to Rick Warren, this is from the purpose -driven

Church When I discovered that the greatest complaint of the untrust in my area was boring irrelevant servant sermons

I decided I'd better seriously re -examine my preaching and that's what led to Eight to ten minutes a song and I'm telling you the songs are really

Tonight's show worthy. I mean they're quality and Then you know eight to ten more minutes of teaching or preaching

Whatever you want to call it And They're not boring or irrelevant. They're just not particularly deep or convicting or biblical

Okay, let's see our unchurched people or unsaved people Because this is what he says the greatest complaint of the unchurched people.

This is what you know, just give you a little background This is what Rick Warren did. He started a church in Orange County many years ago, and he went around and he did what?

Survey the neighborhood, which is something you would do if you're gonna start what a business You want to make sure that there's enough demand for your business.

So if you're gonna open up, I don't know a guitar store in Hubbard Center or wherever, you know, you're gonna open up a guitar store then you do a survey to make sure that there are enough people interested in your product that they're gonna

That they're going to you know frequent your store and keep you in business So just think about what it says if you're gonna go out and do a survey to find out what people want in a church

Reminds me of an old song by the kinks give the people what they want You know if that's how a church is run.

It's a disaster God is the

Lord. Jesus is the Lord of the church, but we care more about what people think unsaved people no less

What's the big problem unchurched unsaved people have is they think sermons are boring.

Well, let's not make them boring They think they're irrelevant. Well, let's make sure that we give them all kinds of practice lots of practicality in the

Bible And so if we're gonna do the you know, ten ways to a better marriage who doesn't want a better marriage

What does that mean though? It means rather than just preaching say through Ephesians 5 We're going to use part of Ephesians 5.

We're gonna use part of first Peter 3 We're gonna you know go here and there and everywhere so that we're not going to dig deeply into a passage

We're just gonna proof text everything and to make things even more interesting You don't have to carry your

Bible That's the good news because we're gonna project the verses that you need to read up on the screen

And by the way, I'll use maybe 15 or 20 different translations depending on my own personal need

That's what they do. So the question is are

Unchurched or unsaved people the priority on Sundays? Do we care what unchurched or unsaved people want on Sunday morning?

Stephen That's true.

The preaching is to equip the Saints and we gather together to worship Christ together But do we care at all about unsaved people

I do personally What I most want them to hear on a Sunday morning is what? The word

I want them to come under the conviction of the word. I want them to think There's something wrong with my life

I need to repent but if we aim and here's the point better put if we aimed at unsaved people

You know what? I have a great way to pack them in every Sunday morning We won't meet on Sunday morning we'll meet on Sunday afternoon

We'll change our the name of our church to the National Football League Church of you know,

West Boylston We'll show games and then you know during halftime We'll turn down the volume and talk to him for just a couple minutes about the

Bible That'll pack him in Bob Yeah, God's Word changes lives.

So if people say well, I don't really care for all those Bible preaching What are you gonna say?

Well, we'll do something that'll make your life better. Well, that's great Because if you have a better marriage, can you go to hell? Absolutely, you know if you're a better neighbor, can you go to hell?

The reason that we focus so much on the Bible and Christ and him crucified is Why because that's what the

Bible tells us to focus on that's what believers are to focus on So when unbelievers come in here and they go there's something wrong.

I Don't really get what's going on or there's something wrong with me, but I don't know what it is good And if they think well, this isn't particularly relevant, that's fine, too

But unbelievers unchurched people want their ears tickled they want myths and fables They want entertainment

Fascinating tales practical advice what they don't want is the Word of God explained in such a way that it what it cuts them open

It says Hebrews 412 it just it's sharp it cuts it opens up and it exposes sin

It shows us where we stand before a holy God and people say I don't like that Who would imagine that you would?

Only believers who think I needed that I Needed the Holy Spirit to whack me with a two -by -four because I haven't been thinking rightly about this or that the other thing

That's what people need. That's what Christians need and that's why we come together Do I see a hand?

Join Yeah, it really is amazing how often

Believers are willing to have a superficial Set of beliefs and not really dig deeply in it when as Joni's saying, you know, if you were looking for somebody to be a

Bridge builder or an architect or you know to I don't know why I'm hung up on guitars today But to design guitars or something like that, you wouldn't just take some guy off the street and say hey, can you build me a guitar?

you'd want to know that he had the educational background and the skills to do that and Here at church, you know a lot of people just come in and and again, they're punching the clock

They're doing their religious duty and they're not thinking rightly about I come to church to worship God and to be transformed by his

Word That's why we come here Robert Murray McShane said this.

I am just an interpreter of Scripture in my sermons and When the Bible runs dry, then

I shall in other words when the Bible has nothing left to say then I'm done Because he understood one truth, which is he's not gonna run out of stuff to say

Another man said this regardless of what new directives Directives and emphases are periodically offered that which is needed above everything else to make the church more viable

Authentic notice that word more viable authentic and effective is a new declaration of the scriptures with a new purpose passion and power

There's nothing wrong with the Bible There's nothing wrong with Scripture. There's nothing wrong with expository preaching

When people come away and say, you know, what's pastor Mike's Solution when somebody comes up and says

I think preaching is boring. What does he say? You're boring

The Bible is not boring. You're boring if the story of creation sin salvation

Christ if all these things are not enough for you. The problem is you not the Bible So again, why must expository preaching be such a priority?

Because it is what the Holy Spirit through Paul commanded one of the first pastors to do Again, notice he says

I charge you he cannot stress it more highly as I said as courtroom language He's calling as witnesses the

Father and the Son in fact back in first or second

Timothy chapter 4 When it says I charge you it really has The NAS is better there where it says

I solemnly charge you but that verb means to exhort with authority in matters of extraordinary importance frequently with reference to higher powers

Listen and or suggestion of peril In other words Paul writes of he says listen

There's judgment coming for you Timothy if you don't do this What did

James write he said I urge you not many of you to be teachers why because there's a stricter judgment

There is a burden that comes with preaching there's a lot of joy, but there is a

Burden too because you're going to be judged and make this even more clear

Paul reminds Timothy of the authority of Jesus and is soon coming He says who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearance and his kingdom

Listen Paul could not be more plain Timothy you do this, right? And you do it because you're under authority and because the

Lord will hold you accountable if you don't Paul gives Timothy four qualities that must accompany biblical preaching four qualities first biblical preaching demands

Exclusivity One man writes this according to scripture then heralding or preaching is generally the divinely authorized

Proclamation of the message of God to men. It is the exercise of Ambassadorship which immediately calls in my mind what second

Corinthians 5? Where he says we're ambassadors for Christ we plead with men and that's what we do in the pulpit

We plead with people we plead with believers to be transformed

By the renewing of the Word of God and we plead with unbelievers to be transformed by the

Bible When we preach it's not just giving you information It's preaching for a verdict.

It's preaching for a change a transformation Biblical preaching also demands excitement on the part of the preacher

Timothy's told to get ready. It's not or to be ready Not get ready.

It's more like stay ready be ready at all times Master seminary we say a few things but Be ready to preach prayer die in a minute's notice that my other one.

I really like is we don't call in sick. We Crawl in sick. That was my face

The best seminary we don't call in sick. We crawl in sick But there's there needs to be not just a readiness in the pulpit.

He has to be excited Pastor Mike has a little something he scribbles on his notes from time to time

In fact when I get up in the pulpit and I'll just see the little post -it there He'll have a list of instructions for himself

But one of them is preach your guts out I mean, what's the point in getting up here and you know holding something back or gee?

I hope I don't go over the top or I don't stress this too much or I don't want to come off as being too judgmental

We're to be excited. We're to be Enthusiastic about what we're doing why because it is it is the

Word of the Living God biblical preaching also needs to be timeless Be ready in season and out of season

Another way to look at that would be when it's convenient when it's not convenient all the time There's never a time where a biblical sermon is wrong is out of place

I mean this Where was I just reading this Somebody talking about I can't even imagine doing this here.

I guess maybe they did in the past I don't know but like the whole idea of children's church When we gather together to put kids now

I know I did this when I was a kid in the Mormon Church. I can remember being like 12 13 14

We would have a couple of kids Kids that age, you know get up every month and give five -minute talks

For what? For what purpose? What could we possibly

I don't I don't even remember one of them, but Thankfully, they're not saved either by tape or by you know computer anything.

They're erased and they're under the blood but But it says something when you put kids in charge of a worship service.

It says something about how seriously you take the worship service and when somebody gets up and They have prepared and they've got an outline and they've got a text and they're preaching through it and they've spent hours and hours and Hours, it says something else entirely about it.

It says how seriously you take the Word of God biblical preaching is also

God's means For solving many problems. Look it says in 2nd

Timothy chapter 4 It says to reprove rebuke exhorts with great patience and instruction

And by the way, it's not just As I've had it pointed out to me by one man early on in my

Christian life This passage doesn't just refer to public export exhortation but also to private exhortation

But we're using it primarily for the public exhortation But it's right for pastors for elders to come alongside those who need some encouragements in their lives or some correction

Okay, so biblical preaching is a necessity. Let's look at it. We'll at least start this with biblical theology.

Let's turn to 2nd Timothy Verse 1 or I'm sorry chapter 1 verses 13 and 14 2nd

Timothy chapter 1 verses 13 and 14 and when someone read that when they get there, please Will okay

Okay Sound words sound doctrine sound teaching

These are all things that Paul had instructed Timothy in And he says retain those things keep them

And then in verse 14 says guard the treasure the truth the gospel Our tendency when we think of theology is to think well that's for other people that's not that important But let me ask you this for anybody here today

Even as we heard in the first message or if you haven't or the first service if you haven't been here You will hear in the second service

Can you have a Theological well a gospel presentation without theology.

I Missionary capacity and asking this person to give us the gospel

They couldn't do it Gave them help. They still couldn't do it And I just thought okay.

I'm not I'm not I can't judge anyone whether they're lost or saved based on their ability to Preach the gospel.

Here's what I can say though if you can't Articulate it in some form or fashion

There's something wrong If you can't tell people what Christ did in you if you can't tell them what

God has done in your life Then there's something wrong mark. It's an excellent point.

I mean, can you love somebody into the kingdom? Can you love someone into being a Christian? Can you?

You know like pastor Mike was saying this morning, you know this kind of Friendship evangelism

You know, how will they know that we're Christians by the way we mow their lawn By the way, we turn their hedges by the way we paint their you know their fences

Wow, why did you do that for me? Because I'm a Christian I'd like you to be a Christian too great And so then your neighbor goes over and does what for his neighbor?

You know paints the you know and does all the stuff. Well, that's what that's what Christians do So you want to be a

Christian sure pretty soon everybody's painting everybody's house and everything else and everybody's a Christian People need to be and this is this is hard.

I Mean if you don't get a little bit nervous, especially if it's somebody you know What the easiest thing to do in the world?

Easy seem to do in the world is to give the gospel of somebody that you know, you'll never see again. Why is that easy? What's that you'll you'll never see him again if they don't like you so what

Look three minutes ago. I didn't know you I Don't care if I ever to meet you again

It's no loss to me. I don't mean that really but it's kind of like now now what's the difference though?

If you're talking about family Are you talking about friends every time about your next -door neighbor?

You're just like okay now things are a little bit different because I have to live with this person or this person is gonna be you know

Give me grief for a long time Charlie Yeah Yeah, I mean it's and really it is selfish because we're putting we're not putting them first we're putting their

Feelings or emotions their response to us above their souls You know if we thought this way if we thought this person that I'm talking to right now one day first of all is an image bearer and as has a soul and it's gonna have to stand before God and Answer for what they've done with Jesus Christ, you know,

I thought I don't want that person To go to hell then.

What do I need to do? Give him a hug paint their fence What do

I what do I do? I have to tell him the truth and the truth might offend them That's okay

Peggy Sure Right kindness and and hospitality and all those things are good, you know, but it's a lot of times like there are

Missionaries overseas who are digging wells who are doing a great as long as they're giving the gospel, too But if your idea of being a missionary is making sure people have fresh water

Well, they're gonna be not thirsty when they arrive in hell. I don't know what good that does So the focus the focus needs to be there on but anyway,

I'm kind of getting off track we're talking about biblical theology and Why we need to everybody has theology and we need to there.

Actually we need more of it Whoever we are. We need more of it Now, why must the church have biblical theology?

Biblical theology as opposed to systematic theology just means according to books, but that's not what I'm referring to I'm not talking about the technical term biblical theology.

I mean theology as filtered through the grid of the Bible So why do we need it?

Well, because if we don't have biblical theology, then what do we have? we have some other kind of theology man -centered man -driven theology and then we've got a

Foundation that is going to crumble The Bible is not Let me let me change that the

Bible cannot err or err as I like to say it Cannot err.

It's never wrong And that's a pretty good foundation and if we start tinkering with that then we've got problems it is objective truth

You know people say well I don't really care for that I don't know what else to tell you Well, if we just think about the

Cultural issues around us abortion Homosexuality and even this

November, I guess we'll be voting on euthanasia in These states are in this state and I remember, you know, the high school joke because we were knuckleheads

What about the youth in Europe? What about I can still remember that like it was yesterday.

What do you mean euthanasia? What about they? We were dopey

But all these issues are very plainly spoken about in the

Bible It shouldn't be any kind of mystery and I for the life of me. I cannot understand it

I see it all the time people on Facebook and other places. I cannot understand. I cannot fathom voting for someone who is

Pro abortion. I Can't get that It's just so It's upside down to me and you know,

God hates abortion and The man that we're gonna vote or the woman that we're gonna vote for supports abortion in all cases.

Oh, okay Well that makes sense to me God says, you know I've created everybody with my every man woman and child with my image and we say we don't really care about that We want to put those babies to death.

I Don't understand that Homosexuality the Bible is very plain about that euthanasia again the idea of being an image -bearer and Trusting God in all things not taking things, you know death with dignity.

What does that mean? It means death on my terms not on God's terms

Charlie well, and you know talking about hastening the trip to hell, you know, who do you think?

Who do you think would be most in favor of euthanasia? Satan An image -bearer, you know, basically his last act on earth or her last act shaking their fists at God and You know being welcomed into eternal hell

No one would like that more than Satan and I don't see how anybody could argue that God would be in favor of euthanasia

But the you know, the culture is going to tell us something else. The Bible is counter cultural That's why you run into so many problems when you try to adapt the words of Scripture So that they don't offend the culture

We we're not here to offend anybody. It reminds me, you know when I was on the sheriff's department somebody wanted to change

I just saw he's retiring the other day They wanted to change our motto instead of you know to protect and to serve which wasn't our motto when he was

LAPD But he wanted to he wanted to make it to protect and not to offend And sometimes

I think that should be a lot of churches mottos, right we want to protect your self -image

We don't want to offend you We certainly wouldn't want the Word of God coming forth from the pulpit to you know

Make you feel like less of a person Or that there's something wrong with you in any way shape or form

You're good enough. You're smart enough and people like you That's the kind of therapeutic nonsense we get in most in today's churches

The Bible cold it cuts against the culture And that's why we need it

We need it because we're gonna go back out into that world and we need to be armed for the battle, let's pray

Father in heaven again. We just are thankful for your word for its capacity to Cut into us to remind us who we are what you have done for us

Father to put us in our place as a word to remind us that whatever the world might say that we are but dust and Father apart from you left her ourselves we would have

Joyfully run off into an eternity without you but you

Grabbed this you arrested us. You made us your own by the work of your spirit through the work of your son

Jesus Christ on the cross and by his resurrection and Father it's with great joy that we pray in his name