Sunday School "Clothing" June 17, 2018 Part 3

Clothing and Identity in the Story of Joseph

About clothing, what clothing has to do with our identity. So before we begin, let me open with a word of prayer. Father, we come before you this morning and we confess our need for you to give us the grace to worship.

We need your Holy Spirit to illumine our hearts, to bring the meaning of your word home to our own lives. Please help us to understand the scriptures in light of Christ and always help us to hold fast to him.

We know that you hold fast to us. Pray all these things for his sake, amen. Okay, now in Genesis 37, in Genesis 37, we're hearing the story, the continuing story of Israel, of Jacob and his many sons.

And we come across a story that is a staple in terms of Sunday School, VBS, and so on, is the story about Joseph. One of the reasons why is it's one of the best stories ever told, ever written. It's a fascinating tale, and actually, the more you get to know it, as with all other Bible stories, the more different it looks, the more you learn about it.

But we do remember the coat of many colors. So, we see that in Genesis 37 and verse three. Somebody wanna read that for us? That's right, a coat of many colors. This coat was so unique that even after Joseph's brothers betrayed him and sold him as a slave to Egypt, they covered this coat in the blood of an animal to then let Jacob draw his own conclusions that his son had been killed by a wild animal.

But it was still recognizable, even covered over in blood. Now, Joseph went down to Egypt as a slave, was sold to Potiphar, and he served Potiphar so well that he became his right-hand man, and Potiphar didn't have to worry about anything in his household, Joseph just ran the whole thing.

And obviously, Joseph had some kind of distinctive type of clothing as part of his living that Potiphar gave him, because when Potiphar's wife was trying to ensnare Joseph, she laid hold of his garment and he fled, leaving his coat with her, his cloak with her.

And everyone knew whose cloak that was, right? So, it's Joseph's, obviously, we know who he is. Again, Joseph is identified by his clothing. And again, he gets in trouble because of his clothing, a different kind of context, but it wasn't jealousy because of a coat of many colors, but this was something else.

And so, he gets put in prison, where he labors, and once again, by his wisdom and his diligence, he achieves the right-hand position of the jailer. So, he's the right-hand son of Israel, he is the right-hand man of Potiphar, he's the right-hand prisoner in jail.

And when, by God's providence, he's lifted up out of prison to come interpret a dream for Pharaoh, there's a note there in chapter 41 and verse 14, then Joseph sent and called for Joseph and they hurriedly brought him out of the dungeon.

I mean, when the king of Egypt says, I wanna see so-and-so, everybody snaps too. But they take the time, notice, that he has to shave himself and then change his clothes when he comes to Pharaoh. Why is that?

Because he is a prisoner and he looks like a prisoner, and nobody identifying with prison life is gonna be allowed to be in the throne room of Pharaoh, so he has to change his clothes. And after Joseph interprets the dream and gives the counsel to Pharaoh, Pharaoh promotes Joseph to his right hand, which again ends up in another change of attire.

Verses 41 and 42 of chapter 41, Pharaoh said to Joseph, see, I have set you over all the land of Egypt. Then Pharaoh took off his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph's hand and clothed him in garments of fine linen and put the gold necklace around his neck.

So everywhere we follow Joseph in his story, as his position in life changes, so also his clothes change with him. Now, that can remain in the realm of observation, but there's important understanding of that.

This is something that's innate in who we are as humans. We see it as just part of the details of the stories that are told in the scripture, but also these details, and because clothing is so closely connected to how we are identified by others and how we identify ourselves, that the metaphor of clothing takes on very important meanings throughout the rest of scripture, especially pertaining to the salvation story, especially pertaining to the gospel.

Clothing as Identification, Vocation, and Reputation

Let's think a little bit. We live in a post -911 illegal immigrant world, don't we? We live in a culture that is filled with the sociopolitical language of identity politics, don't we? When we deal with clothing in the scriptures, we are touching on the hot button issues of our day.

Do you have ID? And we're dealing with people who say, I identify myself as.

Right?

You talk about things that are pervasive in our culture today. Well, the Bible has a lot to say about that because the Bible has a lot to say about clothing. So we've got identification. This is how other people identify us, right?

Becca was saying, well, I don't have my voter ID card. I'm gonna go vote, it's a big election coming up, and I said, well, all you're gonna have is your driver's license. They already have you down on the list.

You know, her card's somewhere in the file, somewhere probably in the storm shelter for safekeeping. But she has her driver's license, and that's okay. As long as you have your ID, this is what you need, right?

So others have to identify you by something, okay? And clothing can serve like that. Clothing can be your identification. You know a police officer by the way he or she is dressed. You know a firefighter, so on and so forth.

By uniform, okay? You can identify these things. But also, we're gonna talk about clothing throughout the scripture is used for identification in the following ways. Clothing can identify, according to the scripture, your vocation, your reputation, your social class, your gender, and your religion, your God, okay?

So that's listed there on your handout. But because clothing can identify you with all those things, it's no great surprise that clothing and identity are so closely associated. So in other words, Richard Lentz wrote a monograph called Identity and Idolatry, and he's piggybacking on some work by G .K. Beale.

We become what we worship, we resemble what we revere. It's important to recognize biblically, a human identity is rooted in what it reflects. Human identity is rooted in what it reflects. And when our clothes identify all these things about us, how can they not help but communicate our identity?

We find our identity very often in what we are wearing. We're reflecting who we are by what we wear. Keeping that in mind, that's just kind of the background of who we are as humans and how we operate.

But we can talk about vocation, and we could spend a lot of time in this study at this point thinking about the particulars of how different people are identified in the Bible by their roles or by their vocation.

I'm gonna save most of it in terms of kings, priests, prophets, and wise men get identified a lot in scripture by what they wear, but we're gonna save that for a later lesson when we talk about mediation and mediatorial roles that are fulfilled in Christ.

But a small sample will do. Second Kings chapter one, verses seven through eight. Second Kings chapter one, verses seven through eight. Anybody remember a guy named Elijah? And what was his style? Anybody remember?

Rustic, yes. Very good, rustic. Yeah, so could someone read for us verses seven and eight? Of Second Kings chapter one. Elijah is really easy to identify. It's not hard to know that was Elijah who came through town or came to deliver a message.

So you can identify Elijah easily by his clothing, but why he dresses that way speaks to his identity. Yes, his style is rustic, why? Because he's an outsider. He is not an insider. When Jesus spoke about John the Baptist who dressed the same way, he said, what did you go out into the wilderness to see?

Not a man in soft clothing, no, that such people live in king's palaces. But John the Baptist was not an insider. He was an outsider because of his message. And Elijah was not an insider in the power structure of Israel.

He was an outsider because of his message. Because he stuck with the truth, he was not in the halls of power. And this is very often the case in the history of the sinful. Soldiers obviously wear a certain type of attire.

You can always tell a soldier by the way they dress when they're going about their work. Second Samuel chapter 20 verses eight through 10 is just a little note about Joab and his many bloody acts as a soldier.

Verse eight says, when they were at the large stone, which is in Gibeon, Amasa who was the commander of the opposing army came to meet them. Now Joab was dressed in his military attire and over it was a belt with a sword and its sheath fastened at his waist.

And as he went forward, it fell out. So he's moving in a way, stooping in a way that his sword is gonna be falling into his hand with one swift motion. And Joab says to Amasa, is it well with you my brother?

And Joab took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him. But Amasa was not on guard against the sword which was in Joab's left hand. And so he struck him in the belly with it and poured out his inward parts on the ground and he did not strike him again and he died.

This is, you know, if you have an eighth grade boy who doesn't wanna read the Bible, this is the passages you point him to. Yeah, I was enthralled with judges and first and second Samuel and first second Kings.

Wow, good stuff. Well, you can identify a soldier by their attire. You can identify the prophet Elijah and John the Baptist by their attire. But clothing, since it identifies not just our vocation but also our class and gender and religion, speaking to our identity, it then is also a wonderful metaphor for reputation.

So Joab, let's stick with Joab for a moment. What kind of a guy is he? He's, you know, deceptive, underhanded. He's a very bloody man. David's on his deathbed and he's talking to Solomon and giving him the last minute instructions about how to handle his kingdom and how to stay in power and not get betrayed in his first few months.

This is a big deal for the transition from one leader to another. Remember, Saul didn't transition so well. David doesn't want his lineage to be a one-shot deal either. So he really wants Solomon to stay with it.

And so he gives him instructions and he talks about Joab in 1 Kings 2 verse 5. He says, you also know what Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me and what he did to the other two commanders of the armies of Israel, to Abner the son of Ner and to Amasur the son of Jephthah, whom he killed.

He also shed the blood of war in peace. Now look, and he put the blood of war on his belt about his waist and on his sandals on his feet. So all of a sudden, the clothing that Joab wears stands for his reputation.

You see that belt that Joab wears? It's stained with the blood of the innocent. Do you see the sandals that Joab walks around in? They're covered in the blood of the innocent. This is the clothing all of a sudden gets attached to the reputation.

You see how that works? And it's not only in a negative sense. The woman of Proverbs 31 in verses 22 and 25, she's known for the clothing that she makes. And this clothing expresses her character and thus becomes her reputation.

Verse 23 says, her husband is known in the gates. Well, let's start in verse 22. She makes coverings for herself. Her clothing is fine linen and purple. So she makes her own clothes and it's the best kind.

Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. Obviously, he's gonna be dressed for the position as he sits in the place of highest honor. Verse 24, she makes linen garments and sells them and supplies belts to the tradesmen.

Now look, verse 25, it's not just that she's dressed in fine linen and purple, folks. Strength and dignity are her clothing. All of a sudden, you're hearing her reputation and are we not already moving toward the idea of character?

Not just reputation, but character. And she smiles at the future. And this metaphor is in scripture as well. Isaiah 11, verse five, also righteousness will be the belt about his loins, Christ's loins.

In faithfulness, the belt about Christ's waist. The character and the clothing are so closely connected. This is helping us get our minds wrapped around the idea that clothing doesn't only just identify us, but it speaks to our identity.

We see that connection in scripture. Because clothing and reputation go hand in hand, not only in the biblical world, but also in our world today, a high priority is often placed on the way in which someone is dressed, right?

If anyone is helped at all, as a young person going in a job interview, one of the first things that the person of wisdom at all tells them is to dress nicely. What the job is, show up and be dressed correctly, respectfully.

Obviously, dressing modestly, and people call it dressing sharply or appropriately, respectively, neatly, so on and so forth. There's a lot of wisdom in that. But because we use clothing to quickly identify someone, there is this caution that is involved.

Clothing is also used to identify a class, a rich or poor, free man or slave, depending on what your context is. And this identity, this identification process then leaks into, when we identify someone by their clothing, we then begin to make assumptions about their identity, and we have to be cautious about that.

In James chapter two, verses one through four, we can go ahead and put eyes on that, that'll be helpful. We are cautioned about ascribing a certain level of worth to someone based on the way that they're dressed.

Okay, so we have to be careful about that. So James two, verses one through four, my brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. For if a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, okay, stop right there.

How do you know who the rich man is and who the poor man is, based on these verses? Just by their clothes, right? That's the only way you know. Well, having now neatly divided up the people into their classes, that in itself is not a sin.

The fact that you know someone who is poor by the way they're dressed, that could just be, oh, opportunity to help someone, that's not sinful. The sin comes when we ascribe a certain level of worth to these people based on their identity that we have now discerned.

So verse three, if you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes and say, you sit here in a good place, and you say to the poor man, you stand over there or sit down by my footstool, have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil motives?

It's not the fact that we're judges, that's not the problem. We have to make discerning calls all the time. It's the evil motives that's the problem. It's the evil motives. So we have to be careful, right?

I mean, okay, so clothing is a kind of identification. And very often we get to identity by identification, but we have to be careful in the way that we then make our value judgments. Now, let's move on to gender.

Some people who are very poor because they want to avoid the natural prejudice that comes at them will often mishandle their funds and try to dress nicely so that nobody will look down on them, okay? And other people who have a lot of wealth don't want to attract any attention to themselves, and so they'll dress like they don't have very much.

I can understand the one, and there's discernment in the other, perhaps. And I'm not calling any of that particularly evil, I'm just saying, isn't it true then, we know that people can dress as what they're not?

That if since clothing is a matter of identification, we'll talk more about this next week, but since clothing is a matter of identification, very often there can be some misidentification, there can be some purposeful deception that occurs.

So we have to be careful with that. So let's take a look at the idea of gender. Deuteronomy 22, verse five. Deuteronomy 22, verse five. Let's put eyes on that. I think that we have to remember that this is part of a subset of passages that we're gonna look at that has to do with holiness.

This is kind of our next item there on the handout. But it's worth isolating and highlighting because of the world in which we live. Here's a very simple and plain verse to help us. Deuteronomy 22, verse five.

A woman shall not wear a man's clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman's clothing, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God. I read that to my wife. We were kind of discussing the Sunday school lesson and all that, and then she was like, so I gotta throw out all my pants?

I was like, no, those weren't made for a man. You know, it's very clear, right? The difference is very clear, okay? But why is it a sin? Why is it an abomination to the Lord our God? It's in the sense when a woman dresses so as to appear as a man.

In other words, my identification, I want you to see me as a man because that's my identity. When someone's trying to change their identity, when someone is trying to identify in a way that is not true, clothing is how we identify and thus reflects our identity.

So for a man to identify as a woman, for a male to claim a female identity is an abomination to the Lord, no matter what they wear. It's the heart of the issue. For a woman to identify as a man and for a female to claim a male identity is an abomination to the Lord our God.

God gives gender, as so many rightly claim, but look for specifics. God gives those he makes in his own image, either a male gender or a female gender, which are permanent blessings from a good creator.

And every confusion, contortion, corruption, and conflation of these identities is either due to sin or just outright sin. So that's a helpful, I think, if we're talking about clothing, and I was surprised to see this.

I went into the lesson not expecting very much, and then of course, very surprising what you find. But when we recognize identity and identification in terms of our clothing, and then that verse has a lot to say to our culture today.

Now that passage from Deuteronomy occurs in the same context as two other garment statutes. So would somebody please read for us Deuteronomy 22, verses 11 and 12. It's Deuteronomy 22, verses 11 and 12.

Okay, hey Israelites. Here's a couple of ways that you're going to be identified as God's people, by the clothing you wear. Not only are you going to wear clothes of only one material, but in addition, you're gonna hang blue tassels on it.

So that anybody who sees someone walking around in their wrinkled cotton with blue hanging all over it, oh, there's a Jew. Instant identification. Now why are they supposed to do this? Well, these instructions are part of a very long, seemingly miscellaneous list of stuff you're supposed to do.

If you trace it all the way back to the heading under which all of it comes, you come back to Deuteronomy 14, verses one through two. Now, this is where you can't give up when you're trying to find out context, okay?

I almost gave up. I'm like reading back, reading back. I'm like, oh, come on. Where do we finally get the heading, the overarching idea under which all these things are listed? We gotta go back a ways.

And you come back to Deuteronomy 14, verses one and two. It says, you are the sons of the Lord your God. And Moses is already throwing in the miscellany instructions. You shall not cut yourself or shave your forehead for the sake of the dead.

Why?

For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his own possession. Another way to translate it, peculiar people. A people for his own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

And yes, indeed, they look mighty peculiar because they don't do things the way that everybody else around them does things. And why are they so peculiar? Because they are a people of God's own possession.

And that's why when you come to the language about clothing, there are distinct instructions about clothing. Now, we have to recognize that these clothing instructions have to do with identifying with God and thus finding their identity in God.

This is the way we're looking at clothing. They're dressed that way so everyone knows they're identified with the one true God, and they're dressing that way because that's what they see their identity as.

I am of the people of the living true God. To clarify that, you have Leviticus 19 .19 and Numbers 15. But in Leviticus 19 .19, listen to the way it starts. You are to keep my statutes. Whose statutes?

The Lord's statutes. This particular people, they were to keep God's statutes. Therefore, you shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle, as you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together.

That's about keeping God's statutes. It's about being set apart unto God, identifying and finding their identity in this one. Now, Numbers 15, and verses 32 through 36 is the background about the first guy to really break the Sabbath and get caught.

He was breaking the Sabbath in front of a whole lot of people and so an example was made out of him. He's going out gathering sticks, gathering firewood on the Sabbath, no big deal. Well, it was a big deal, and so they stoned him to death.

And so that this wouldn't happen again, we get the instructions about the blue tassels. Numbers 15, verses 37 through 41. The Lord also spoke to Moses saying, speak to the sons of Israel and tell them that they shall make for themselves tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and that they shall put on the tassel of each corner, a cord of blue.

It shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord so as to do them and not follow after your own heart and your own eyes after which you played the harlot so that you may remember to do all my commandments and be holy to your God.

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord your God. You see, the emphasis is dress in this way because of who I am and who you are in our relationship, which, so not only are you identifying as my people, but you find your identity as my people.

Okay, so that connection with the clothing. So it's all very nice, right? But didn't Christ fulfill the law?

Yes.

What good are all these references in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy when we live on this side of the cross in the New Testament? Well, what good were all of the plans, supplies, and arrangements that David made for the temple?

Solomon built the temple with all those materials and with those plans that David made ready. In the same way, the true son of David in the new covenant builds the true temple, and he does so with all these preparatory matters and materials of the old covenant.

So yes, Christ fulfills the law. He is the end of the law for righteousness for all who believe. This does not now mean that we are righteous so that we are righteous in Christ, then we can cross-dress.

We can identify ourselves as new genders and root our identity somewhere in the spectrum of worldliness and orient ourselves in sexual perversion and so on. To put it a different way, Christ does not give us the life of Antichrist.

Christ does not give us the life of Antichrist. So I think it's a culminating passage for our study of clothing as identification and our identity. There's no better passage to turn to than Galatians chapter three.

I did not mean for that to rhyme. I did not plan that. Galatians three, verses 25 through 29, and someone please volunteer to read that for us. Let's see, 25. Now for context sake, okay, no, it's okay.

25 through 29. So when it says, verse 27, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ, the Greek word most commonly is translated as clothed. You have clothed yourselves in Christ.

So we're talking about clothing, aren't we? Here is the penultimate expression of the clothing metaphor. When we are clothed with Christ, think about all the different ways in which clothing identifies us and thus expresses our identity.

But we see here, if you're baptized into Christ, you have clothed yourselves with Christ. Now, when Paul says, therefore there is neither Jew nor Greek nor slave nor freeman, neither male nor female, he's not an existentialist.

He's not saying you get to choose your own meaning for who you are. He is saying that, he's not saying that black people aren't really black or that an ethnic Jew is not really a Jew. He's not claiming that there's no classes of folks.

There's no such thing as poor or rich. That's all imaginary, right? He's not saying that. He's not denying the objective biological realities of gender, but what is he saying? He's saying that all such identities are covered in the greater, brighter, more glorious clothing of Christ.

This is the way we are going to identify ourselves. And this is where we find our true identity. I'm no longer to primarily identify myself as race, class, gender, vocation, reputation, and so on. And I'm surely not supposed to identify myself by a sin or sinful desire, no matter how enveloping that might be in my life.

No matter how deep the roots are in my soul, I don't get to call myself a sinful by a sin and also call myself a Christian. And I'm putting this this way. And many of you know the context, but with the Revoice Conference pushing this idea of gay Christians, that the desire for something is morally neutral is the language.

The desire for something is morally neutral. I tell that to Jesus. Tell that to Jesus, Matthew five. And so therefore, to have these desires makes you that whatever it is. And therefore, with that identity, you need to understand the particular challenges that you have in your existence.

So just to simply have the desire of homosexuality makes you a gay Christian or a lesbian Christian or LBGTQ plus Christian. And therefore, you're a sexual minority and the church needs to repent of the poor way in which they're treating you, calling you to repentance because that means that you have to betray yourself, so on and so forth.

So that's the language of many. Not everyone, but that's the language of many. Now, that is an identity issue, right? What does the scripture say? If you are united to Christ, you're clothed in Christ and he's your identity.

He's your identity. So I don't get to eclipse his glory by starting off by saying, well, I'm a white male Christian. I don't get to say that, do I? I'm a father of five Christians, so I'm in a special category, right?

The ever-increasing quest for victimhood, right? I'm a Calvinist Christian, so I'm a theological minority and I feel oppressed, right? Trying to find something to make myself a victim, therefore, I get special privileges.

There's a never-ending quest for that. Now, here's what the scriptures say. First Corinthians 6, 9 through 11. First Corinthians 6, 9 through 11, another identity passage. And look, this is not just about revoices, this is not just about homosexuality or anything else because this is the controversy of today and there's gonna be something else down the road.

So, you know, this. First Corinthians 6, 9 through 11. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, or effeminate, or homosexuals, does anybody know what effeminate means?

The man who feels like a woman or who has desires for another man. The desire, okay? Now, your NIV doesn't have that word in there. Neither does the ESV, they've dropped it out. It's not there, is it?

They have something else, men with men, yeah. That's not what the Greek says at all. I went and read it over and over again. It's a very simple construction. This sin, neither this sin, neither this sin, neither this sin, so on and so forth.

It's a very straight, the Greek word hude, which means neither. Hude, sin, hude, sin, just very clear construction of the Greek, can't be any more clear. But the NIV and the ESV have decided to take effeminate out so that we're no longer talking about the desire, just the act.

It's a horrible translation, horrible. Neither effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. Now, these are the identities, right?

I identify as a fornicator, I identify as an idolater, I identify as an adulterer, so on. Such were some of you, capital W-E-R-E, were, such were some of you, but you were washed. You were sanctified, and here's the identity.

You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. Where's the new identity, folks? Is the new identity of Jesus Christ, the name of Jesus Christ, is that compatible with the previous identities listed here in this list?

You tell me, I'm not making this up. I cannot be, identify myself as a, well, I'm a covetous Christian. I have all these desires for all the stuff around me. Man, everyone's got better stuff than I do.

I'm thinking about that all the time. I don't act on it, I don't act on it. Man, I, you know, everything about me is just wanting everybody else's stuff.

That doesn't work, does it?

Then why do we make special category for another sin in this list? Because the culture tells us so, right? Because the culture tells us so. That's the only reason why we're, we're reading something into the text at that point.

All right, well, we can see the problem of calling anybody something Christian. As long as we insist that we are some kind of special category of a Christian, we, then we confess Christ's identity to be insufficient, lacking somehow.

Okay?

Whatever we name, we slap onto the beginning of Christ as an attempt to eclipse the glory of Christ. Now, if we learn anything, anything at all about the clothing and the holiness code and Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, what's the value of that?

We learn that it's our identity and how we identify. It's wrapped up in who the Lord is, right? God says to Israel, you will dress this way to identify yourselves as my people and see that as your identity.

No wonder Paul says we're clothed in Christ. Who's the fulfillment of that law? No wonder he says that. It's a very natural progression of the holiness code and to see Christ fulfilling the law that we identify ourselves by Christ and find our identity in Christ.

What does Paul say? I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. In the life that I now live, I live in the flesh by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.

You see how wrapped up Paul is in that? We have a lot of challenges in our day, but I think the Bible is always sufficient, always living and active and able to answer the quandaries of our time. And just in an example, what will we do when we dress for work, when we dress for the day, we dress for the occasion, whatever is going on, we ought to remember my identification ultimately is in Christ.

I'm identifying myself as in Christ and he is my identity. We've got two minutes left. Any questions or thoughts?

Thank you, Ms. Wylene, about remembrance,.

Keeping who we are very clear in our minds.

Very good.

Identity in Christ and the Closing Prayer

All right, let me close with a word of prayer. Father, I thank you for the time that you've given us in your word. I pray that you would help us to live here on earth as the amen of your will in heaven, that your word would resonate in our hearts that we would remember that our identity is in Christ.

And I pray that you would help us to remember that every day that we live, that we would, rather than to seek to save our lives and lose it, that we would sacrifice and lose our lives for Christ's sake in the gospels and in him find our life.

We pray these things for Christ's sake, amen.