Investing in Souls

Good morning again to you. Welcome. If you're new with us today, I'm Jason. I have the privilege of serving here as a pastor, and I get to open the Word with you today.

And it's spring. Are you happy about that? Yay! All right. I mean, it's been wonderful. A little cool, a little chilly, but we're going to get out of that.

But it's a good time of year to be with you. It's good to have you here this morning. I know we've got a busy season of college students finishing finals.

We had a graduation, I think, at Bethel University yesterday. We've got all kinds of fun things coming upon us here in the summer. So I'm excited about that Donuts and Doctrine course. That looks really good, by the way.

Let me ask you if you would turn in your Bibles to the book of 2 Corinthians. We have been in a series for quite a while, and we are almost ready to finish that.

Some of you are wondering what's next, and I will just tell you what's next. We're going to go to the Old Testament. We're going to go to the book of Joshua.

I'm looking at the summer as kind of a summer in conquest, not for us, but for God's people, the Israelites. And we're going to walk our way through those, at least the first half of the book of Joshua,

and hear the story of what God does to bring His people to a place where they have some things to do. And God has to show up big on their behalf, and He does. Very excited about that.

But today, this morning, I want to start out, I want to ask you a little bit about this area, this topic of investing. We're going to talk about investing in souls, but before we get to that, I want to just say that this is probably one of the most important things for a young adult to think about.

When I have an opportunity to talk with maybe a young adult or a young couple that's getting ready to get married, we talk about investing. Hopefully, you know by now that even if it's only a little bit, over time, investing can make a big difference.

There's the secret of what they say. It's not really a secret. The power of compounding interest. I did a little fun thought experiment. Say someone had invested for me as a baby.

That's like 30 years ago. As a baby, a little bit more. 1972. $100. Put it in the S&P 500. $100. What's it worth right now?

$25,136. $100. $25,000 and change. Not too shabby. The only problem is, and we find this to be true, don't we, when we're younger, is that we have bills.

We have to pay for our own life. We might have school loans to pay back. Soon, and very soon, children may come along. And that makes finding that money to invest a challenge.

Because you know what the number one thing scholars say, experts say, the number one thing that babies bring into this world. Need. They need, they need, they need everything.

They need diapers. They need parents. They need parents who will give them diapers, and food, and clothing, and shelter, and all those things.

That's why I often describe the enterprise of parenting as itself an investment. You think about it that way? Instead of just, I got to spend for these kids.

You are investing in the next generation. You spend for those children, yes. Sometimes you even find yourself feeling spent for those children.

But it's an investment. Well, interestingly enough, as we turn to the Apostle Paul here in 2 Corinthians, we find him touching on the subjects of both parenting and investing.

He talks about himself spending and even being spent, I think that's investment talk, for these spiritual children in Corinth. That's how we seize them, as his spiritual children.

Let me share a verse with you, a couple verses from 1 Corinthians 4, verses 14 and 15. This is what he says. He says, I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children.

1 Corinthians 4:14

For though we have countless, though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Yet Paul's their father. And in our passage today, he tells them that like a good parent, he's been investing in them. Spending himself, and like an overtaxed parent, and how many of us have ever felt this way?

He says he even feels spent. So you can imagine how it must have felt to get something back from these spiritual children, like ingratitude, like rejection, like being pushed out so that they could make way for new leaders,

like having your motives questioned, all of which was happening at precisely this moment as he writes here in chapter 12. So if you've got it open before you, let me read our passage for us.

2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 11. We'll read through the end of the chapter. I have been a fool. You forced me to it. For I ought to have been commended by you.

2 Corinthians 12:11

For I was not at all inferior to these super apostles, even though I am nothing. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.

For in what way were you less favored than the rest of the churches, except that I myself did not burden you. Forgive me this wrong. Here for the third time, I'm ready to come to you.

And I will not be a burden. For I seek not what is yours, but you. For children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.

I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less? But granting that I myself did not burden you, I was crafty, you say, and got the better of you by deceit.

Did I take advantage of you through any of those whom I sent to you? I urged Titus to go and sent the brother with him. Did Titus take advantage of you?

Did we not act in the same spirit? Did we not take the same steps? Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you?

It is in the sight of God that we've been speaking in Christ and all for your upbuilding. Beloved, for I fear that perhaps when I come, I may find you not as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish,

and that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder. I fear that when I come again, my God may humble me before you,

and I may have to mourn over many of those who sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality that they have practiced.

Let's pray once more, shall we? Father, we come today and we simply say, teach us. Lord, many of us have so many demands in life that call for our attention, that call for us, that tempt us to want to make them a primary investment.

And so this morning, we want to hear about investing in the most important thing there is, souls of people. Teach us in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, to say that Paul's been dealing with a slightly problematic church would be the understatement of the millennia.

This is a church where there are folks in it that are doubting him, like we mentioned. Others are gossiping about him, slandering him. We got the so-called super apostles, who we think actually like the title, by the way, are outright challenging his authority and trying to displace him.

But what Paul offers here, as he says right here in one of these verses, it's less a personal defense about him, and it's far more a conversation about how he has been investing in them.

And I think there is something very relevant here for us today, even here in 2026. Because a lot of us, yes, we also are investing, and hopefully you are investing in more than just the things of this world.

Whether you're here as a friend, as a fellow church member, maybe as a parent or a grandparent, or a sibling or a child, you are investing in others.

We are investing in each other. And what I think Paul gives us here is a very helpful picture of what it looks like to invest in souls. So let me just kind of give you a big idea right up front.

The big idea is this. Spend yourself to invest in souls. Spend yourself to invest in souls. I would even say expend yourself for the most important investment you can ever make,

and that's the investment in another soul. You say, I want to invest in my personal health. I say, good, go for it. Some of you say, I'm investing in my education.

That's good. Do that too. Others of you are like, I'm thinking about retirement. I've been investing for that. It's good to plan. It's wise.

But do not overlook the most important investment you can make, and that is the investment in souls. This is Paul. And I want us to understand that's what he's been doing with these Corinthian believers.

And today I think he shows us five things, five things about what this investing in souls will look like and what it won't look like. It starts with this.

Number one, soul investing will not be, won't be transactional. Transactional. Soul investing won't be transactional. Look at how Paul starts off in verse 11.

He says, I've been acting like a fool. You know, he's come off of what we call the fool's speech, which has been the previous half of the chapter.

And he says, this boasting duel, the boast-off that we've been having, me and the super apostles, is kind of dumb. I didn't really want to engage in it.

In fact, you made me do it. You forced me to it. Doesn't he sound like an exasperated parent? Look what you made me do. To think that I'm inferior, Paul says, to those super apostles, even though I'm nothing.

Nothing in my own power to brag about. But then look what he does draw attention to in verse 12. He says, you guys know that I've had God's power.

You guys have all witnessed the signs of a true apostle from me. All the signs and wonders and mighty works that have characterized my ministry everywhere I've gone.

And yet somehow, verse 13, here's the accusation you guys have against me, church, that I didn't burden you financially. That's how I misbehaved.

I, your apostle, somehow favored you less than the rest of the churches because I didn't take your money. What Paul's trying to tell them is that he has not behaved with them in a transactional way.

His ministry of investing in their souls has never been transactional. And it's not about to start being that. By transactional, he means something that revolves around cost and benefit.

Give and take. Mutual influence and exchange. Payment received for service rendered. That's what he's talking about when we say transactional, the word that we use.

It's like when you have an appliance breakdown at home. Anybody been there? You're like, every appliance breaks down. It's like they're all lined up to break down.

What do we get out of our appliances now? Is it like seven to ten minutes? Right? Like many of you, when an appliance in our house breaks, I go to YouTube to learn how I can't do it.

It never works for me. Seldom. Many of you are much better. So what I do is I call the appliance repair person or repair man.

And if Mr. Repair Man spends his gas and invests his time driving out to my house and then comes and brings his expertise and his energy and actually fixes my appliance, I'm expected to pay him appropriately.

Right? He is not coming to render me this service because he likes me or because he's doing me a big favor, helping me out out of the goodness of his own heart.

It is a transactional relationship. And it's not wrong. It's very appropriate. Transactional. Paul's saying, between me and you, church, it's not that.

It's not transactional. And it couldn't be. And I couldn't receive any pay from you, although I can receive it in other places. And I do. But I couldn't there in Corinth because of your corrupt system of patronage.

Where you've got these people running around, these rich people who are paying, putting on the payroll, other people to run around and say how wonderful they are.

We know it was very big in Corinth, patronage. And Paul says, because of that, because it would look like a transactional relationship to you, I could not take your support.

And now you're going to hold that against me?

In verse 14, he goes on to mention that he's getting ready to come for a third visit. First visit was when he planted the church, stayed a year and a half.

And then he had that painful visit a little while ago. And now he's coming for visit number three. And he's like, hey guys, listen up. I'm ready.

I'm ready to come. But even when I am with you there again, I'm still not going to take your pay. I will not be a burden. Because what I seek is not what is yours, not your possessions.

I seek you. I seek you. Paul understands that the first lesson in the business of investing in souls is that it can't be transactional.

And when I think about our world today, I don't have to tell you that the world we live in is very transactional. You give in order to get. You serve in order to be served back in some way.

You think that the waiter or waitress at the restaurant is just being nice to you? And when I think about our world, I think that it's a totally deficient way to approach our relationship with others in the body of Christ.

Whether you're investing in another person in your church, in another soul. Whether you're investing in someone that you live with, like a spouse or a child or an extended family member.

Taking a transactional approach is not the way to do it. This is what I can give you, dear spouse. And what am I going to get back in return?

Or, yeah, I'll make this sacrifice for my kids, but I better see such and such in return. This is how far I'll go in being a good friend to you, but you're going to owe me.

You'll be beholden to return the favor. Remember, Paul's showing us that in the body of Christ, in these areas of relationships, in our churches, in our homes, we don't interact with each other in a merely transactional way.

Our investing in one another has got to involve something more. And on that note, that's what Paul goes on to next. In fact, he does it in the very same verse.

So let me get to point number two. Number two is this. Soul investing will involve loving, sacrificial, self-giving. It will involve loving, sacrificial, self-giving.

Look at the last half of verse 14. He says again, I will not be a burden, for I seek not what is yours but you. For children are not obligated to save up for their parents, but parents for their children.

Children. I think all of you know that Terry and I have been blessed with some children. We have four of them. Most of them are about grown.

And we're looking at a couple of nurses by profession. They're actually here with us today. And Lord willing, we're looking at a future engineer and a future doctor.

And the youngest says he aspires to a career as a basement dweller.

That's what he's been telling us. Not quite sure what that means. But you know, it's not lost on me. It's not lost on me that all of these careers, except for maybe the last one, they're probably going to pay better than ministry.

And I am super excited about that. Because listen, Terry and I have been planning. Here's our plan. As soon as the incomes start coming in, we're done with you.

We're taking super early retirement. And we're going on the dole. And I hope our kids save up big time for us, guys. You've got to give it all to us parents.

You know it doesn't work that way, right? It doesn't work that way. And it's not supposed to. And that's what Paul's trying to say here. It's not like that.

Children are obligated to save up for their parents. It's the other way around. Are you listening, Mom and Dad? It's the other way around. Parents save up and sacrifice to leave something for their kids.

Right? Because we really love them. At least you're supposed to. We really don't mind. We don't begrudge it. In fact, on a good day, you might even say that you do it gladly.

Ironically, that's what Paul says. Take a look at verse 15. Talking about investing in his spiritual kids. He says this. I will most gladly.

It's not begrudgingly. It's not reluctantly. I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. And there it is. It's almost like it's the key verse of the whole passage.

To spend and be spent personally for you guys, he says. To invest all that I have as an apostle. All that I am. My very life. In the betterment of your souls.

So no, I wasn't a burden to you. I didn't take your money or your things. I had the utmost patience with you guys, he says in verse 12. And he says, if you want to know why, it's because I love you.

Look, maybe you're saying, now where did he get that? Love you. Well, I got it in the second half of verse 15. Take a look. Check it out again.

Verse 15. I'll gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less? Love. That's what's on our apostle father's mind for his kids.

His great love for them. This is what leads him to ask this rhetorical question. If I love you more, if I love you increasingly, are you going to love me less?

It's like the more I patiently sacrifice for you guys, the more that I sacrificially and give and spend myself and allow my very life to be spent.

He's been talking about this in this book. Spending my very life. That shows you that I love you increasingly. And yet the more I show you my love, it seems like the less you love me back.

Is that how it works?

You know, when I think about loving, sacrificial self-giving, probably the most important place, the first place I think about this, is in the context of marriage.

Is this how you approach your life together with your spouse? If you're married here today, loving, sacrificial, self-giving. If you do, it's going to work out all right.

You might have problems, but you'll get through them. If you consider your spouse before yourself, if you do what Paul says in Romans 12, you literally try to, he says, outdo one another in love, that's a good recipe for a marriage.

But more than just the marriages out there, we have other kinds of relationships here too. All of us are called to invest in relationships with the same attitude, the same approach.

Costly self-giving, sacrificial love. And how do we pay these dividends? We do it with our time. We do it with our help. We do it with our energy.

And you know, a lot of times we do it at some kind of cost, some kind of personal sacrifice, about things that we might want to do differently.

We might have other ideas. If you serve in, say, a ministry in some way, you know what I'm talking about. There's sacrifice. There's self-giving.

It might mean you need to come on a Sunday morning here earlier than others. And some of you do that regularly. It might mean that you have to decline a weekend excursion once in a while because you committed and signed up in some way.

And there are different ways outside this building that we serve each other. You take someone a meal. You watch someone's kids. You help fix somebody's car.

You come fix Jason's appliance in his house because he can't. And you do that for each other. We do these things out of a sacrificial, self-giving love.

And as Paul reminds us, having that increasing love for each other, he would tell us it's only made possible by the love of Christ at work in us.

Of course, sadly, sometimes the love of Christ is not at work in a person. And when it's not, well, that brings us to a third point from Paul about soul investing.

Point number three is this. Soul investing won't be shady or underhanded. Shady or underhanded. You know what I find the most absurd about this passage?

Is that this is exactly what the Corinthian church is accusing Paul of being. Shady. They're accusing him of acting underhandedly. They are accusing him of having hidden, ulterior motives.

Verse 16. But granting, granting that I myself did not burden you, I was crafty, you say, and got the better of you by deceit. What's Paul talking about?

He's talking about the rumor mill. He's talking about the rumors that were circulating around him lately. Probably started by the super apostles.

He's talking about the accusations. Yeah, Paul. He seems to be on the up and up. He seems all high and mighty and benevolent by not taking anybody's money.

But you know what? He's playing the long game. You know that collection for Jerusalem he keeps talking about for all the poor believers. He's got his hands in that.

We think he's got a dastardly plan. He's trying to skim off the top in some way. We know it. He's got us to trust him. Got us to let our guard down.

And this collection, it's just a ruse. We know at the last minute he's going to take a huge cut for himself. He's playing the long game, con game kind of deal.

Isn't it funny when Paul's opponents seem to be accusing him of having the very same motives and intentions that they actually have? There's a word for that, right?

It's like psychological projection when you accuse someone else of having the same bad motive that you actually have. But Paul makes it very clear.

He says, that's not what my ministry's all about. That's not what I do. I've never done it. He said back in chapter 4, 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 2, if you remember this.

2 Corinthians 4:2

He said, but we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word. But by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

I mean, it's kind of funny to think that they're accusing Paul of trying to get in their good graces to get over on them. Because if that's what he's trying to do, he's not doing a very good job of it.

Because every time he writes to them, he's confronting them about what's wrong and their sin. You don't do that if you want somebody to like you.

You overlook it. You tell them it's okay.

Paul says, I'm not like my opponents. Chapter 2 verse 17 of this very letter. I don't peddle the word of God for profit. And now he continues by offering these Corinthians some additional proof.

He says, not only is my own record squeaky clean, you can look at the people I've been sending to you. Look at my associates too. Verse 17. Did I take advantage of you by any of those I sent to you?

And he goes on and he names his partner Titus. Verse 18. I urged Titus to go and I sent the brother with him. Did Titus take advantage of you?

Did we not act in the same spirit? Did we not take the same steps? The answers to those questions are no, no, and a big yes. No, I didn't take advantage of you.

No, Titus didn't either. Who, by the way, is probably standing right in front of them delivering this letter, reading it to them. And yeah, we all acted in the same spirit because we have the Holy Spirit.

All of us have taken the same steps. Meaning, we've all taken great pains to guard our integrity and the integrity of that collection. I mean, why do you think we have these brothers from up in Macedonia coming too?

We have lots of eyes on this collection for added accountability. And I wonder how this might speak to your life, my life today. I would just say I hope that you can say that the things that you do to invest in others are not being done for your own benefit.

I hope you're not doing things serving in different ways just to look good. Or worse, that you're working an angle with somebody. You're investing in a friendship with somebody only because you want something from them.

You pretend to care for other people because you're really trying to get something back from them. That's not genuine soul investment. That's just a form of self-investment.

And Paul reminds us that like Christ himself, we do not serve in order to be served. We spend and invest ourselves, not for ourselves, but for the benefit of others.

Soul investing won't be shady or underhanded. Instead, it will be something completely different. And this is the fourth thing that we learn about soul investing.

Number four, soul investing will be for up-building. Up-building. Verse 19. Paul starts off this last paragraph and he kind of challenges them.

He says, Have you guys been thinking that all this time we've been trying to defend ourselves to you? Is that what you think this is about? That we're worried about our own self-vindication?

That we're worried about mounting the best defense against some of those people that would attack us? I mean, listen, Paul could say, If my side, the true apostle side, loses, everybody loses, you lose too.

Because if you reject us, you reject our gospel, the true gospel. And that's going to mean a loss for you. And besides, church, are you really our judges anyway?

Do we answer to you? No.

Everything we do, Paul says, end of verse 19, we do in the sight of God. It is in the sight of God that we've been speaking in Christ and all for your up-building.

Up-building means your edification, your growth, construction in the gospel. Both as individuals and as a church. As Paul had reminded them back in chapter 8, verse 10, he says, even there he says,

All the ways that we've ever used the Lord's authority has been for building you up and not for destroying you. Our investment is an investment that builds.

It doesn't tear down. And again, I think this one really hits home, not just in our churches. It should there, but I think it hits home in our homes.

I think about many of you who come here today and families. And I ask you to think about what's the atmosphere like in your home. And more than just what's it like, I guess I would also want to ask you, what are you doing to contribute to it?

Some of you are not the parents. Some of you are the children. And you're like, you know, that's out of my control. Well, I mean, a lot of it is, but not all of it.

You don't have to be a parent to contribute to the atmosphere of your home. Are you up-building? Or are you constantly tearing others down? Are you encouraging?

Are you encouraging to your kids? Are you encouraging to your fellow siblings? Or are you constantly crushing everybody? Remember, whether you're a parent or a child or a sibling or a friend, whatever your role, the work of soul investing will be for people's up-building.

Up-building. Of course, building on the foundation of any relationship is going to require one key element, an absolutely indispensable element.

And it's what Paul gets to in the last couple of verses. And it's the sure foundation to build anything upon. And it's the fifth way we invest in the work of souls.

Accountability. Number five. Soul investing always involves accountability. Yes, it's in the sight of God that we do all of our ministry with you, Paul says.

And I myself am accountable in the sight of God. And so are you.

And I'll have a moment where I need to give an answer for my work and what I've invested in you, Corinthians. And he tells them very honestly, you know what, right now, guys, take a look at what he says in verse 20.

Because I think our apostle might be a little worried. He says in verse 20, I fear that perhaps when I come, I may find you not as I wish. And that, this will necessarily mean you may not find me as you wish.

As for what you wish, you'd probably wish for me to come all super nice and gentle and affirming and encouraging. But listen, when there's unrepentant sin going on, when I show up and find you not as I wish,

but instead find you guys all caught up in these sins that he mentions in verse 20, I find a church that's all caught up in quarreling with each other, in jealousy, with fits or outbursts of anger.

Sounds like a pleasant church to visit, doesn't it? When I come and I find a church in complete disarray with hostility and slander and gossip going on in every conversation, in every corner.

When I come and find a church run by people filled to the brim with themselves, swelling with conceit, when it's total disorder in your ranks, I gotta come with a whip, Paul would say.

I gotta come with correction and admonishment and maybe even discipline for those who are unrepentant. But worse yet, as if these would appear to be fresher sins in the community at Corinth aren't bad enough to humble Paul when he comes,

he goes on in the next verse, doesn't he? In verse 21, he says, I'm actually afraid that God may reveal to me that there's more. That there are still some of those older patterns of sin still at work in your church body.

Patterns seen earlier, which I myself tried to address with you in my first letter, but which some of you have apparently not repented of. Verse 21, I may have to mourn over many of those who sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity,

sexual immorality, and sensuality that they have practiced. If you're familiar with Paul's first letter, you know in 1 Corinthians 5 and 1 Corinthians 6, he had some problems he addressed.

One was a man that had apparently an incestuous relationship with his stepmother. Paul had to call that out and call the church out for that.

And then he seems to be dealing with another group in chapter 6 of 1 Corinthians, the group that's very lax on sexual sin, saying things like, Oh, we can do whatever we want.

Everything's lawful for us.

We wonder, had the church failed to rein in the sinful man that was living a life of immorality? Had they failed to check these people that were running around and saying, We got freedom to do whatever we want.

We know that this kind of behavior outside the church in Corinth was very common in that seaport town, especially with all those pagan shrines and temples, and all those pagan shrine prostitutes that were big business in the seaport city of Corinth.

Had the free love crowd won the day? Trying to argue with Paul that everything's permissible and it's fine?

Well, Paul suspects as much. And he's coming for his third visit. And we know that when he arrives, he's going to call the spade a spade. And he will uncompromisingly call out unrepentant sins in these areas.

Because he's a man to do whatever it takes. Pay whatever the cost. A man willing to, as he says, spend himself and even be spent for their souls.

And he knows that the foundation of any soul building is accountability. Soul investing always involves accountability. Let's wrap this up.

I think this really warning here to the early churches is a good reminder for every church, including ours. To remember that all that we do, whether we're at home, or out in the neighborhood, or at work, or even here in the church,

all that we do is done in the sight of God. And that we do speak in Christ. Everyone who knows that you're a Christian, if you are one, sees you as speaking in Christ.

Here we have Paul, I would say literally, almost literally, bending over backwards to sacrificially spend everything he has, including his very life, for the sake of this church.

But he never does it at the cost of truth or accountability. He doesn't glance past unrepentant sin. He doesn't overlook it or make excuses for it.

Whether it's these sins in the community, these interpersonal sins of mouth, words, or sins of the flesh. So if you're someone who's investing in souls, and I hope you are, please remember this.

Yes, there's utmost patience that we need, as Paul says in verse 12. We should have increasing love, but never at the cost of accountability.

Parents can't change their minds about God's standards because the children they love choose to miss the mark. Friends can't move the goalposts on morality simply because a good friend has.

Pastors, like me, and church leaders can't overlook untamed tongues and sins rooted in words and attitudes. It might be humbling for us. It might mean that someone we love doesn't find us as they might wish.

Paul knew all about that. But he also knew that he had to speak in Christ. And that he was accountable in the sight of God. This is the business of soul investing, my friends.

And I suppose it's not for the light of heart. But it is worth it. And it is desperately needed both in our church and in your home and in your relationships.

And today Paul's taught us a few things about it. How it's not going to be transactional. How it will involve loving, sacrificial, self-giving.

It won't be shady or underhanded. But it will be for up-building. And it will always, always involve accountability.

Would you stand with me as we prepare to pray? And then we're going to sing our closing song. As always, I'll stay up front. If there's any need for prayer today, we'd love to pray with you.

Let's go to the Lord.

Jesus, you are our great Redeemer. We think about those outstretched hands that were stretched out at Calvary on the cross. Paying for our sins.

And now, Lord, you stand in heaven resurrected and glorified with healing in those hands. With forgiveness in your name. We praise you. We thank you.

Jesus, we are not perfect people, as Josh prayed a little while ago. We still struggle. Many of us do. And so, Lord, help us in this work of investing in one another's souls.

Help us, Father, to do it in ways like your apostle shows us. Lord, help us to have the patience that we need. Sometimes, Lord, the home is the hardest place.

Maybe the marriage is the hardest place. To have patience. Because there is so much familiarity there. Lord, help us in the church as well. Just to be about words that are upbuilding.

Behavior that is sacrificial and self-giving. That builds one another for the kingdom. And Jesus, let this flow out of our own church family into this community.

Help us, Lord, with the friends that we know. With the neighbors. The people that we work with. That we go to school with. Father, help us to be a bright light for the transformative power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And it's in his name that we pray. Amen. Amen.