Daily Holiness

Over the past couple of decades, and maybe even for a little bit longer than that,

there's been a new brand of Christianity that's popping up for a variety of reasons.

It's kind of a new flavour of church.

And this movement is led by people who basically say that they couldn't live up to the standards

that the traditional church was holding them to.

And their response to that is to create churches where sin and failure is almost celebrated.

In these churches, the pastors pride themselves on swearing from the pulpit.

They pride themselves on gaining street cred with outsiders through drinking exploits, sexual conquests,

and a bunch of other things that the more conservative churchgoers amongst us might find a little bit embarrassing.

But here's the thing.

These people, to their mind, are trying to follow Jesus.

Their life choices are guided by the understanding that God welcomes sinners on no merit of their own,

so why stress about trying to change?

And let's especially not put that pressure on anyone else.

Their gospel message amounts to something like,

do whatever you want, God will love you anyway.

Now, as you can probably imagine, this gospel has been well received.

I mean, it's all the perks of God, minus any of the more difficult bits.

It's all grace.

It's no holiness.

And let's be honest, there might be a small part of us

that hears that and thinks,

I wouldn't mind that version of following Jesus.

The version that says, hey, Jesus died for you so that you could be forgiven,

so don't worry about the rules.

Well, that's what we're up to in Leviticus.

Last week, we looked at the Day of Atonement in chapter 16.

God had provided very strict rules and guidelines for how this day worked,

very strict rules for their worship.

There was priests that had to be dressed certain ways.

There were specific sacrifices,

all for the purpose of making atonement for the sins of the people.

So God has drawn the people into his presence by grace.

God has just dealt with the fact that the people are failing at following the rules.

He's just overcome their inability to obey him.

And so you would think that more rules would be a strange place to go.

Having just dealt with the failure of the rules,

to then give more rules seems a little ridiculous.

And yet, chapter 17 begins like this.

The Lord said to Moses, speak to Aaron and his sons,

to all the Israelites and say to them,

this is what the Lord has commanded.

Chapter 18 begins,

the Lord said to Moses, speak to the Israelites and say to them,

I am the Lord your God.

You must not do as they do in Egypt, where you used to live.

And you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I'm bringing you.

Do not follow their practices.

Chapter 19, the Lord said to Moses,

speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them,

be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.

Holiness still matters to God even after grace.

Even after dealing with the problem, holiness still matters.

I mean, Israel has just been visibly and ritually, symbolically cleansed.

That was the point of the sacrifice of the day of atonement.

Laws and rules are straight away brought back into the equation.

So atonement didn't actually remove the law.

It didn't even make it unimportant.

So what did it do?

We've got to remember the big picture, the main game of what God is doing here in Leviticus.

And not just here in Leviticus, but in all of the Bible and in all of human history.

God's agenda for Israel is not just to wipe them clean.

He wants to dwell with them.

Relationship is the goal.

He wants them to be in his presence, to have ongoing relationship.

And so everything in the Bible up to this point, the rescue from Egypt,

the commandments being given, the clean and unclean food laws,

the specifics of the priests and how they dress, the tabernacle and how it was to be made,

the purifying of sacrifices, all of it was to make it possible for people to enter the presence of God.

That was the whole point, that God wanted them to be able to come and worship him.

Because that's really what worship means.

Worship is entering into the presence of God, drawing near to God through the way that he has opened.

Worship is relating to God appropriately, the way that he deserves.

And God wasn't looking for visitors.

That wasn't the goal, that Israel would come visit him occasionally and be appropriate or clean or acceptable.

God wanted worshippers, full-time worshippers, people who lived for him and with him.

And so now that they've been cleansed and already drawn into God's presence,

the law functions to define what worship looks like.

The law's function is to show us what life looks like now that they've been drawn into God's presence.

It's you've been cleansed, so now live clean.

It's kind of like God's way of saying, your old life was you playing around in the mud.

I've done the hard job of cleaning you off, don't jump back in the mud.

I've provided some fresh, pristine grass over here, play there.

God is defining what life is like now that you're clean, not do this in order to be clean.

Now that Israel is the other side of the Day of Atonement,

the law is not trying to answer the question, how do I get into the presence of God?

That question's already answered by the Day of Atonement, by the sacrifices repeated annually.

These laws are God defining what day-to-day life looks like for his people.

It's God showing them what it looks like to be in his presence.

Obedience to the law has now become how you worship God.

It's become an extension of their gathering, an extension of their formal time together in the tabernacle.

This is a part of their response to his holiness and to his grace in drawing them to himself.

Now for them, that whole connection to go from formal worship to all of life worship would have been kind of obvious.

See, for them, life was literally built around the tabernacle.

The camp of Israel had the tabernacle at the center.

At the center, that was where they met with God.

That was where the sacrifices happened.

That's where the priests worked.

It was at the center of the camp and around that tent was where everybody lived.

And so sure, you went to the tabernacle on specific days and at specific times and for specific reasons.

But when you came out the front door of your tent to go and buy bread from next door,

you were literally in the shadow of God's house.

When you were yelling at your kids for making too much noise and waking you up early,

you were literally in the shadow of God's house.

God is saying, my presence is especially in the tabernacle, but it's more than that now.

You've been brought into my presence, into a relationship with me.

God is saying, if you want to worship me, it can't be limited to a set of rituals,

a set of formal gatherings.

They're important, they're even essential, but it can't be just that.

Daily holiness, daily obedience, full-time worship is what God desires and what he deserves.

And the law is the gift that he gives us to show us what that will look like,

to show us how we're supposed to function now that we're in his presence full-time.

It's obedience to his standards, holy living in response to his grace.

Grace came first, but law remains because of who God is.

Law remains to help us understand more of his character.

Israel has been brought into the presence of God, but he remains a holy God.

And so holiness is required for life lived in his presence.

But how much more for us now compared to them?

We live on the good side, not just of Israel's Day of Atonement Festival with the goats and the bulls and the priests and all that sort of stuff.

We're on the good side of Easter.

We're on the good side of God providing the once-for-all sacrifice for sin in Jesus.

We're on the good side of God saying that I can deal with all of your sins irreversibly in the sacrifice of my son.

We're on the good side of God saying Jesus is now the only priest forever who sits at God's right hand interceding for us.

And because of him, we have confidence, the New Testament says,

confidence to march into the throne room of a holy God and call him Father.

How much more with the access that we have, which is far greater than they ever enjoyed in the Leviticus.

How much more do we need God's law as a guide for us for how we might best live in his presence?

How we might best worship this God who has done everything to draw us into relationship with him.

How much more do we need and should we appreciate this gift of the law?

Because it gives us the answer to the question, how do I love?

How do I reflect and communicate gratitude to the God who gave his son so that I could know him?

Jesus himself says when you get to the New Testament,

if you love me, you will obey my commands.

The evidence of love for God, the evidence of worship,

is not just how holy you seem on a Sunday night,

how focused you seem, how many notes you took,

how many weeks in a row you've been here, how loud you sang.

They're all good things.

But the evidence of a holy life, the evidence of worship,

is what the rest of your week looks like.

How conscious you are of the presence of God in your day to day.

Now, if obedience is the evidence, we need to make a quick detour,

a quick side point here.

So obedience matters.

That's clear.

But obedience to what?

Obedience to what?

For us who are living on this side of Jesus' death and resurrection,

which laws still count?

Which ones do we have to do?

How do we figure it out?

Or, as Steve put it in week one of this series,

in case you missed it,

if I can eat prawns,

why is gay sex wrong?

Because just a couple of chapters ago,

there was all these rules about what to eat and not eat.

And in chapter 18 that we didn't read today,

in chapter 20,

which is the other side of today's passage,

there's a whole bunch of specific rules about sexual purity,

including the call not to have gay sex.

So how do we figure out which ones we have to listen to?

Well, firstly, and this is really important,

grace, Jesus, doesn't delete the law.

Jesus says in Matthew 5,

he's come to fulfill the law,

every bit of it.

He says we're not allowed to remove even a word from it.

So as a starting point,

all of it matters.

But even though grace hasn't deleted it,

it has done something to it.

It has transformed it.

What do we mean?

What does Jesus mean when he says he's fulfilled it?

Well, let's look at three different kinds.

First of all,

there's the laws about clean and unclean.

Laws around foods and different things.

Those laws are superseded.

They're replaced.

They existed to create a distinction between God's people

who did one thing and everybody else who did something else.

They were physical markers.

But Jesus makes it explicitly clear in the New Testament.

In Mark 7,

he says food doesn't have the power to make you unclean.

In fact,

he declares all food clean.

So he explicitly tells us we can leave those ones behind.

But the reason we can is because

the physical marker has been replaced by a spiritual marker.

Because uncleanness is not a dirt issue.

It's a heart issue.

And it's an issue that can only be overcome through Jesus' death in our place.

So the cleaning work is a work of the Holy Spirit,

not a work of your diet.

And so we can leave those things behind.

Cleanness still matters.

Clean and unclean distinction still matters.

But it's just not expressed in diet anymore.

It's expressed through those who trust Jesus and have been made clean

and those who are trying to make themselves clean.

And it's not working.

That's the first one,

the clean,

unclean laws.

The second kind of laws that we've looked at as we've been through Leviticus

is ritual laws.

The laws that tell us about who can be priests,

what the priests have to wear,

what day they should go to the tabernacle,

what shape the tabernacle should be,

what material for the temple in the tabernacle,

what material for the utensils in the tabernacle,

how to clean them,

who cleans them,

when they clean them,

that sort of stuff.

All of that stuff has been superseded by Jesus.

It's been replaced by Jesus.

Again,

in Hebrews in the New Testament,

it's explicit.

Jesus has become the once for all sufficient sacrifice for sin,

which means there's no more sacrifices required.

So laws about sacrifices are redundant because the complete sacrifice is done.

The account is settled.

And then on top of that,

we know that he's our high priest forever.

So you don't need priests anymore,

which means you don't need someone standing at the front in special clothes.

Jesus has replaced that.

But the third group within that law in the Old Testament,

which is sometimes referred to as the moral laws or the ethical code,

the laws about sexual purity,

about caring for the poor,

about respecting your parents,

that sort of thing.

Those are the ones that we have more trouble with,

the ones that might be more controversial.

Firstly,

how are those laws fulfilled?

Well,

what Jesus does is live in perfect obedience to them in a way that we never could.

What he does is perfectly tick the box,

more than tick the box,

so that he has passed the standard that the law sets.

And then what he does is for the person who comes to him seeking forgiveness,

he takes his perfect obedience and puts it onto them,

so that they have a past level of obedience.

And so our inability to live up to those standards

no longer is a barrier to keep us away from God,

because Jesus has dealt with that by being perfectly obedient.

But,

this law still matters,

and let me tell you why.

See, for Israel here in Leviticus,

having just been made clean,

already now in a relationship with God as his people,

the laws are there to reflect and reveal God's character to them.

We don't get to the New Testament

and have Jesus start flicking away these moral laws as outdated or unimportant.

The function of the law was for Israel to see what God cared about,

see what mattered to him,

to see that he is a pure God who requires purity.

He is a preeminent God who requires exclusive worship.

These laws shift from being oppressive standards that we have to reach

to being a model of what it looks like to live the life that God has designed.

A model of what it looks like to live in the presence of God,

because these are the expressions of him,

the extensions of his character.

God's grace to his people in the day of atonement,

and ultimately in Jesus,

drags worship out of a formal ritualistic setting

and spills it out into the day-to-day life of people.

And so now,

through obedience to these laws,

we worship God.

We don't convince him to take us into his presence.

He's done that.

But these laws are there to show us,

if you love me,

this is what it looks like to love me.

If you want to worship me,

this is what it looks like to worship me.

Now all of life can be lived

and must be lived worshipping God for those who belong to him.

Now at first,

this blurring of lines between

formal worship in the temple

and all of life worship

might feel like this is a little oppressive.

Like there's even more opportunities for you to stuff this up now.

You can kind of understand those churches that are thinking

this would be easier if we just pushed the laws to the side

and focused on the forgiveness stuff.

Because if we're supposed to worship God all the time,

if these laws matter that much,

it feels like there's more pressure.

That is except for one thing.

Worship doesn't just include this all of life daily obedience.

It empowers it.

Worship doesn't just include every minute of every day

and the obedience to these laws.

Worship, being in the presence of God,

empowers obedience to these laws,

motivates obedience to these laws.

Now what made Israel holy

here in Leviticus

is not what they did.

It's God.

It's what he was doing.

He is the basis for their holiness.

Holiness means being set apart,

being chosen.

When God chose them,

he made them holy.

It was he who chose them

and in choosing them,

set them apart as his,

belonging to him as holy.

And it's through the ongoing meeting with him

that they progressively become

more sanctified or more holy in their actions.

God's holiness,

his purity rubs off on them

as they spend time with him.

So if you think of it like

God is the sun.

Now when you lie in the sun,

its radiance will bring you color

and warmth.

Different colors depending on your skin type.

But it will bring you color

and warmth and heat

and health to your body.

Case in point is

the two fairly tanned,

relaxed, healthy looking people

in the front row.

Now in the same way,

basking in God's presence,

basking in his glory and holiness

in the formal gatherings

at the temple,

at the tabernacle,

using the forms that God

had prescribed for Israel

was designed to make them holy.

to progressively transform them.

In fact,

we can push this analogy

a little bit further.

Having just understood

that worshiping God's presence

now kind of flow through all of life,

what's the uniqueness of gathering then?

It's almost like the difference

between sunbaking

and just walking to work

when the sun is out.

Now if the sun is out both times,

you will get some heat,

some light,

some warmth.

You will get some awareness

of its benefit.

But when you sunbake,

you focus your attention

on the sun.

You position yourself.

You pour your energy

towards the sun.

You limit your other activities

so that you can absorb

as much as possible

from the sun.

And the result is

you will get more from the sun.

You'll get more red or brown.

You'll get more warmth,

more vitamin D.

Likewise,

everything that God has established

in terms of the rituals for Israel,

the Sabbath gathering requirements,

function as an opportunity for Israel

to sunbake in His radiance.

to focus themselves

on His holiness

and His majesty

and His power.

Now He specified

how it happens,

when it happens,

and everything that He specified

in Leviticus.

You thought they were just

random details

about which material

and what shape things should be.

Every detail

was supposed to focus them

on Him.

From the shape of utensils

to who was up the front,

everything was to focus

on God Himself

so that the result would be

an encounter with God

that transformed them,

that progressively made them

more holy.

God is the active party

and He has been the whole time.

He's the only one

who can sanctify people,

who can wash them,

who can make them holy,

even in the Day of Atonement

which God gave them instructions

on how to do.

In the sacrifices,

in the ritual,

it's God who must

cleanse the people.

The goat's not getting it done.

The rituals themselves

don't guarantee God's action.

They can't achieve cleansing

in and of themselves.

They are absolutely dependent

on God's decision,

on God's power.

God is the key.

And that's why every aspect

of Israel's corporate worship

was directed towards

showing God's holiness,

revealing His glory

so that as they dwelt

in that glorious presence,

they would be changed

progressively

and they would be better equipped

to be the priest nation

they were supposed to be.

be glowing with His wonder

and majesty and power

so that the world around

would look

and see the sun

that they were basking under.

The corporate worship of Israel

was the key means

by which God would achieve

the day-to-day holiness

of His people.

Time in His presence

equipped them

to live with Him

during the week.

Now this side of Jesus,

we've taken a big step forward

when it comes to gathering

as God's people.

There's a lot less blood.

We did have it in our mind

to decorate the Leviticus backdrop

with animal carcasses,

but we thought better of it

at the last minute.

We have come a long way

when it comes to gathering

as God's people.

We've already reminded ourselves

that we have confidence

to enter the most holy place,

the throne room of God,

because of the blood of Jesus,

who died once for all

that we might be forgiven

and cleansed.

But God still encourages us

to gather.

In fact, in Hebrews 10,

just after telling us

that we have confidence

to enter the holy place,

the writer goes on to say,

therefore,

don't stop meeting together.

God is present among His people

by His Spirit all the time.

Always present,

and yet there still seems to be

something unique

about when we gather.

Some unique opportunity for us

as the gathered people

around God's Word

to encounter His presence

in a special way.

And in fact,

that's the whole point of gathering.

That's why we bother doing this.

So that you might encounter

God among His people.

So that you might see His glory,

taste His glory,

feel His glory,

and then be transformed by it.

Is that what you're expecting

when you came to church tonight?

Is that what you were hoping for?

When you walked in the doors,

that you would get to encounter

God's holiness and glory?

Were you expecting to come here

and walk out different,

transformed,

because you'd encountered

the living God?

Or were you hoping for a service

that finishes on time?

Good supper?

Maybe a half-decent conversation?

God gathers His people

so that they might encounter Him

and be transformed.

Now, I think that our church,

our tradition,

we get nervous

about some of this sort of language.

Some people have misused ideas

like experience when it comes to God.

And the point isn't that you come to church

chasing an experience.

The point is,

you come to church chasing God.

And that will be an experience

when you encounter Him.

But what I'm trying to say here is,

the goal for us gathering

is not that you know

that God loves you.

The goal of us gathering

is that you feel loved by God.

The goal is that you come here

not to gather some new information,

but that you taste

and feel God's love.

That you know His holiness

and His purity.

That you get a vision

of who this God is

who has drawn you

into a relationship with Him

so that you walk out the door

just busting with desire

to love and serve that God

for the rest of the week

and the rest of your life

and every day

until He calls you home

to be with Him.

God has designed this

to be your taste of heaven.

However imperfectly

we might execute it.

God gathers His people

so that they might encounter Him

and be transformed

and that's the key

to growing in holiness.

Doesn't matter how many strategies

you have,

how self-disciplined you are,

how many books you read,

if you're going to grow

to be more like Jesus,

you need to spend time with Him.

And one of the key ways

that you can do that

is by gathering with His people.

This matters because

holiness is not a behavioral issue.

It's not an effort issue.

It's not something

you've got to try harder at

if you're not doing it well.

It's a heart issue.

In the New Testament

in Luke chapter 10

Luke 10 · chapter mention

there's this story

where a young man

comes to Jesus

and says,

Rabbi,

what must I do

to be saved?

The end point

of the story

is that Jesus

tells the story

of the Good Samaritan

and basically says

to this guy,

you've got to

love your neighbor.

which is exactly

what Leviticus 19

said to Israel.

But before Jesus

gets into this story

of the Good Samaritan,

his first response

to this guy is,

keep the commandments.

Now,

undeterred by this response,

not feeling shut down

at all,

the young man

presses Jesus

and says,

all these I've kept

since I was a boy.

He's like,

yep,

done.

Box ticked.

Now,

you might be thinking

he's just an idiot

and doesn't know

how bad he is

and he's ignorant

of his sinfulness

but Jesus doesn't

argue with him.

Jesus doesn't go,

hey,

you think you're holy

but nah.

He just kind of

moves on

and talks about

loving your neighbor

as the true

fulfillment of the law.

Now,

there's two things

that we need

to grab there.

Firstly,

it seems like

it's possible

to tick the box

of keeping the law

without actually

being holy.

I mean,

it's possible

that this guy

had done the,

you know,

only God,

not lied,

respected his parents,

not given false testimony,

not coveted,

not committed adultery.

It seems that

you can actually

tick the box

of obedience,

you can do

the right actions

but not actually

be holy

or honor God

in the way

that you're doing them

which gives us

a clue

that that was never

the point of the law

in the first place.

If you can meet

the standard

and Jesus says,

yep,

not quite there,

the law wasn't

designed to get you there.

That's the first thing.

The second thing is

it shows us

what's missing.

For this guy,

the missing element

is his heart.

Because the laws

were there

as a display,

a revealing

of God's character.

The point of the law

is not to give you

boxes to tick

or a bar

to jump over.

That's why Jesus,

when he gets to

Matthew 5,

going through

a whole bunch of laws,

sets up this pattern

where he starts with,

you've heard it said

to the people long ago,

you shall not murder

and anyone who murders

will be subject

to judgment.

This is the box

that this young guy

was ticking.

Yep,

done.

But Jesus continues.

He says,

but I tell you

that anyone who is angry

with a brother or sister

will be subject

to judgment.

The point of the law

wasn't to give you

a baseline.

It wasn't just

to limit the act

of physically

ending someone's life.

What it was

communicating

was that people

and life

matter to God.

And not just

whether that life

is alive or not,

but the day-to-day

experience of living

and even anger

flies in the face

of a God

who cares

and cares for

and values

that individual.

God's grace

and specifically

his grace

in atoning for sin,

in offering forgiveness,

transforms the law.

Now when we come to it,

we need to read it

through the lens

of Jesus.

We need to read it

hearing Jesus' words,

I have fulfilled it.

Which isn't the same

as deleting

or cancelling.

What he's done

is explicitly

put the law

and the rules

where they were

supposed to be

the whole time.

Not as a standard

to be lived up to,

but as a description

of the heart of God.

As a revelation

of what matters

to him.

As an invitation

to love

what God loves.

To care about

what matters to him.

And as an invitation

to set our hearts

apart

for him.

That's the heart

of what true

and right worship

of God looks like.

That's real holiness.

Not simple rule keeping

or box ticking,

but a heart

that loves God.

A heart that loves

what matters to God.

It looks like

treasuring Jesus.

Living every minute

of every day for him.

Not 65 minutes

a week on a Sunday.

But treasuring Jesus

in the way you treat

your family.

Loving and treasuring

him in the way

you treat other

commuters on your way

to work or uni.

Loving and treasuring

him in the way

you eat your breakfast.

Every moment

lived consciously

in the presence

of the God

of heaven and earth

who gave his son

so that you could

live in his presence.

what he requires

is your heart.

The very center

of you.

He's not keeping

a scorebook

of what you have

and haven't done.

He wants your heart.

The bit that drives

your decisions.

Your reactions.

And laws

can't change hearts.

Rules

won't make you love.

love.

But time

basking in the grace

of God to you.

Time spent

focusing

on how majestic

and powerful

and holy

our God is.

Time spent

with your eyes

fixed

on Jesus.

That

produces love.

That produces

a desire

for holiness.

A desire

for obedience.

That produces

the kind

of security

that means

we can receive

the law

as a gift

rather than

carry it

as a burden.

We opened

tonight

reflecting on

the relative

appeal

of a new

brand of

Christianity.

Built

around the

concept of

conceding

on holiness,

giving up

and even

affirming

the presence

of sin.

And it

does sound

appealing.

But it

just doesn't

work.

Because what

it reflects

is a

complete

misunderstanding

of what

God has

done in

Jesus and

how secure

that makes

us.

I mean,

it misses

the whole

point.

God wants

you to be

holy for

your sake.

God wants

you to be

able to be

with him.

That's the

work he's

doing in

the life

of a

Christian.

He's

progressively

making them

holy in

preparation

for heaven.

In

preparation

for

completely

uninhibited

joy in

his presence.

To reject

the call

to holiness,

to reject

the law

like it

doesn't

matter,

is to

reject the

invitation

to live

with God.

To

reject

obedience

and law

as

unimportant

is to

reject

the

grace

that

God

has

worked

in

sending

Jesus

to die

so that

you can

be in

his

presence.

The call

to be

holy is a

call to

pursue

God.

It's not a

call to be

good.

It's a

call to

love God.

God.

So lack

of holiness

in your

life,

if you're

not more

like Jesus

than you

were 12

months ago

or two

years ago

or 10

years ago,

lack of

holiness is

not a

behavioural

issue that

you need to

fix with

self-discipline

or with

guilt or

with scolding

yourself.

It's a

heart issue.

And so if

you're not

growing more

like Jesus,

the question

you've got to

ask is not

have I been

trying?

The question

is am I

pursuing God

in my life?

Am I

getting myself

into his

presence?

And if the

answer is no,

then the only

place you can

go to change

that, to fix

that, the only

place you can

go to have

your heart

reshaped and

moulded and

set on fire

with love for

God,

is to

bask in

the glory

of God

revealed in

the face

of Jesus

who died

and rose

again so

that we

might know

him.

Let's pray.

Father God,

we want to

concede that

laws are

intimidating,

that often

we're known

as hypocrites

because we

speak about

how we're

supposed to

be but we

don't back

it up with

how we

live.

We want to

thank you that

our failures

are completely

covered by

Jesus.

We want to

thank you that

there is nothing

that we could

do that would

undo what has

already been

done on the

cross.

And Father,

we want to ask

that you would

help us to

see you,

to encounter

you, to

experience you

in such a

way that we

would see the

law as the

gift that it

is, that we

would desire

holiness not so

that we could be

good but so

that we could be

with you, so

that we might

enjoy your

presence even in

the mundane

details of

catching a

train or eating

a meal.

God, open our

eyes to the

invitation that

sits behind the

law, the

invitation to be

with you, to

love you as

you deserve.

Father, make us

more like your

sun.

Shine on us in

such a way that

we glow so

that the world

around us might

see the joy and

peace and hope

that is offered

in you.

Father, thank you

for gathering us

tonight that we

might sunbake in

your radiance.

Please reveal

yourself to us

tonight and don't

let us walk out of

this room the

same.

Amen.