Greater Worth Than Gold - Victory (North OC)

My name is Marcel Hall, and I'm one of the ministers here in Orange County and

grateful and honored to be able to preach, got word haven't been able, uh, haven't

spoken in a long time, so I might be a little rusty, and so I'm sorry about that,

I'm just playing, but, alright, so, uh, actually I might be a little rusty, but

anyhow, we're gonna have a good time, as was mentioned, the Olympics end today,

and I don't know about you, but I've been fired up about the Olympics my daughters,

they do competitive swimming, so we've been we've had a different angle this year

looking at the Olympics because we can appreciate the swimmers a whole lot more.

And so we've been into it.

We just caught up.

We recorded things and we're fired up to see what's going to happen today.

Hopefully USA gets a couple more golds and, uh, gets beats, has the

number one slot as far as golds go.

Uh, but the Olympics are inspiring to see and to hear the story.

People who persevered or people who had challenges when they were growing up

and now to be elite athletes and just to make it to the Olympics is a huge feat.

But then for those who have the ability and the fortune to

medal, that's pretty incredible.

And then you also have the other side, the agony of defeat.

Those in the pain and the working so hard, but yet not achieving their dreams.

And we know in the scriptures that.

They're actually parallels to athletes and really the Olympics

and our spiritual journey.

And so we started, as Daniel mentioned, a series during the Olympics which

we called the greater worth in gold.

And so we're learning from the Olympics, things that apply to our faith.

And how we can take these lessons and apply them in our walk with God.

And the Christian faith and journey actually is compared many times in

scriptures with athletic events.

And so the first week, we talked about the goal.

And the, this is the scripture that was the main text.

It says, these have come so that the proven genuineness of your

faith of greater worth than gold.

Again, it's been our main scripture here throughout the couple of weeks.

Which perishes even though refined by fire may result in praise, glory, and

honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

And to have a proven genuine faith that is of greater worth than gold.

That's what you and I have, and this is the goal that God is trying to do

in our lives, is refine this faith, so that it can be imperishable.

And then we talked about the training.

Dallas Kawhi, uh, priest on this passage, 1 Corinthians 9, 24 27.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize?

Run in such a way as to get the prize.

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.

They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get

a crown that will last forever.

Therefore, I do not run like someone running aimlessly.

I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.

No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I

preach to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

And we talked about how training is required in our faith.

And today we're going to be talking about, , victory.

that's supposed to say victory, but it says faith.

I told you I'm a little rusty.

So there you go.

So it's victory.

We're going to be talking about victory today and achieving

the victory in our faith.

Let's go to God in prayer.

God, thank you so much, uh, for the chance to have some fun, to, uh,

compete, to be able to sing out to you, to already encourage one another, to

hear about how, uh, one another, how we're doing and father, we continue

to pray for each other and God, we pray right now that your word may be.

spoken.

Father, I know you have a message for every single one

of us, no matter where we are.

Father, we pray that you cast it aside anything that disrupts so that we may

hear from you in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Again, we're talking about victory in faith.

You know, to achieve victory in the Olympics is the greatest

achievement in all of athletics.

The joy, the relief, the excitement, the change for their future.

You know, spiritually achieving victory in faith is even

greater, the joy, the relief, the excitement, but the eternal rewards.

You know, we have to ask this question, what is the victory of our faith?

The Apostle Paul inspired by the Holy Spirit is going to give us

this answer here to this question.

So we're going to go on over to second Timothy.

Chapter four.

Brothers and sisters, are you with me this morning?

Second Timothy chapter four.

This is a letter by, , the apostle Paul.

He writes a letter to his protege, Timothy, who is

really like a son in the faith.

They've been through many battles and went out and shared the faith and

he's trained him and in this letter he writes, giving him some more wisdom.

He's imparting wisdom and he's charging Timothy to take the

mantle, to take the baton and to go ahead and continue the good work.

In which he's been trained in now thing that's also important to know is that

Paul at this time He's actually imprisoned and he's awaiting the sentence and he's

convinced and he knows that actually his death is Coming and so that's the

context of the overall letter And so we take it up in 2nd Timothy chapter 4 we

come really to the close of His letter to Timothy and he says for I'm already

being poured out like a drink offering You And the time of my departure is near.

I have fought the good fight.

I have finished the race.

I have kept the faith.

Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which

the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day.

And not only to me, but also to all who have longed for His appearing.

We'll stop right there.

Paul uses this imagery of the Greek sporting games, the Phanhelic, uh,

uh, Greek, uh, games to, to describe and to reveal this incredible truth

that lays for every follower of Jesus.

And he goes on, and, and, and really to capture what he says is,

Here's the victory of our faith.

And it's this, is that achieving victory in faith.

It means remaining faithful to God until the end.

The victory in our faith isn't a medal, it's to be faithful to God till the end.

And that's how he summarizes our spiritual journey.

You know Olympians, they're achieving, to achieve victory is what?

A medal.

Gold, silver, bronze.

But for the disciples of Jesus.

Achieving victory is to end our lives faithful to our God.

That's our victory in faith.

And so we're gonna break down this text some more, and so let's

go ahead and let's look at it.

He says, For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and

the time for My departure is near.

This is a euphemism.

He's, he's alluding to his, His impending death.

And so he says, Hey, my time to depart is near.

He's not talking about departing from his sentencing.

He's talking about departing from life.

And so this is really interesting.

It's so cool.

When you think about that is his perspective and the things he reveals

after sharing this, you know, I was just in Virginia a couple weeks ago

with my dad who was literally dying and there's something different

when you know, you are dying.

What you want to connect, what you want to say, there's something different.

Your view about life changes drastically.

And so Paul here, knowing that his death is coming, he goes on and he says this,

he says, I have fought the good fight, finish the race and kept the faith.

He uses these athletic metaphors to help us understand what

our Christian journey is like.

And you know, the ancient Greeks, they had four, uh, kind of sporting

games, which the Olympics were the, the, the ground jewel.

That was the biggest one.

And, and many people, many scholars believe Paul is referring, referring

more to the, this mean, uh, games, which would take place every two years.

So you had the Olympics.

And then you have these games, and then every two years, you

would have, uh, these games here.

And he goes on and he says, I have fought the good fights.

And so in these games, they would have matches of wrestling.

That's one of the most classic, you know, battles and competitions you could have.

And they would have battles and they would wrestle.

And you know, it's kind of a weird thing that they would wrestle naked, but

we're not gonna talk about that, okay?

You know what I'm saying?

And so that they would fight and they would have boxing matches.

And so he says, hey, he's alluding back.

And so that everybody can understand because they're familiar with the games.

He says, I have fought the good fight.

I've wrestled.

I've had opposition.

But I've fought the good fights.

He says, I have finished the race.

They would have uh, horse races or chariot races, but they also had foot races.

And they would run around and it was, you know, you look up,

it's almost the equivalent of the 400 meter race that we have.

So one time around the track.

He says, I have finished.

The race, and he says, I have kept the faith and this probably or possibly

could be referring to the, again, the athletes in the games, because before

the games officially started, they had a ceremony and they had to pledge

that they would compete by the rules.

And so he could be saying, Hey, I have kept my oath.

I have followed the rules of Christ.

I think more likely meaning I have been faithful to God.

But what is the results?

What is the prize that Paul says?

Okay, if we have the victory, where does that victory lead to?

What's the reward for completing our faith, for finishing faithful to God?

He says this, it's the crown of righteousness.

Now for the ancient winners, they would receive, uh, the, the, the, the, the

laurel, uh, laurel, uh, uh, wreath here.

And so sometimes it might be a celery, depending on the

games, or a pine, or olives.

And so this was a prize, and so you would receive this.

And we've all seen pictures, right, where we've seen somebody from,

from ancient Greek times, and they had the wreath on their head.

And so that was the crown that they would receive for being a

victor in their specific game.

And Paul says, okay, hey, look, we're not receiving this type of crown.

He says we're getting the crown of righteousness.

The crown of righteousness.

And you know, this crown could be because Paul has been righteous, which

would mean because Christ was upon him.

He said, I'm righteous only because of Christ.

And if you read others of Paul's letters, you know, that is definitely a

possibility of what he's referring to.

Not righteous as if I've never sinned, but righteous because Christ has been in me.

Also, the possibility that the crown is what's righteous and it says here

is given by the righteous judge.

So only a righteous judge would give a righteous crown, therefore completing and

fulfilling our righteousness in Christ.

Whether it's both, the point is that we receive a spiritual

crown from the almighty judge, Jesus, the righteous judge.

You know, judges.

They, they might be able to be paid off back then or, or, or whatnot.

But he says, or he may be referring to his judgment that

awaits, which will be unrighteous.

But he says, the righteous judge will give me a crown of righteousness.

You know, that crown that we showed earlier, obviously

that crown wouldn't last.

It would wither after a couple of days.

But Paul is certain that our crown, the crown that awaits him,

is one that would never fade.

We go back to 1 Corinthians 9, he says they do it to get a crown that

will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last how long?

Forever.

This doesn't fade, this doesn't dim when there's too much light exposure.

This isn't going to wither and fade, this won't get old and

crusty, no this crown will last.

Forever, he has finished the competition and now awaits

the award ceremony from God.

And this is when the Savior returns.

You know, this is an amazing perspective, isn't it?

When you think again, like, wow, what perspective about life?

What perspective about death?

About the Christian journey and our faith journey.

Amazing confidence and resolve and trust.

I don't know about you, but I want to be like that when I get older.

I want to have that same confidence, that same trust, that same

resolve, but I don't want to have it just when I'm on my deathbed.

I want to have that today.

And I believe that the scriptures are leading us to have this faith, resolve and

trust Today as well, because here's the incredible thing, brothers and sisters.

I hope you caught it.

We're going to talk about this right now.

Here's the incredible thing is that here's what he says.

Is that crown of righteousness?

What did he say?

It's not only for him, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

Not just for Paul is this cool crown of righteousness, but this

crown will be placed upon every soul who is in Christ Jesus.

Jesus, you know, we can think this is only for the superstars.

We're like, Paul, he's a superstar.

It makes sense for him to get one.

He's like the Simone Biles in the face.

He's a superstar, you know what I mean?

And we can think, well, yeah, it makes sense.

But no, he's saying no.

Guess what?

Everybody who's on the team who completed the race, they're

going to receive the same reward.

Because that's you and me.

You know, it made me think of, uh, the, the, the women's gymnastic team.

And some of you guys ran into it, man, it's crazy.

There's some drama going on right there if you read about it.

They're trying to rescind one of the bronze medals, but we

won't get into that right now.

Um, in this you can see there's five.

Now some of you, you might be looking going, you know what?

The one on the, uh, look on the far right, I don't remember that girl.

What did she do?

Her name is, uh, Hesley Rivera.

She competed in one event to qualify.

For the finals, and then you never saw the girl again.

They would only show her in the stand, and she'd be smiling like, yeah.

She wasn't even on the side, like, she wasn't even geared

up, she wasn't even dressed.

But guess what, when it was time for the awards, what did she receive?

The same gold medal that Simone Biles has.

Now think about that for a second.

She put in the work, she put in the efforts, but she's not the

superstar, but guess what, her reward?

It's the same thing.

Brethren and sisters, what does it say?

Did y'all catch that?

What does it say?

That what?

It's for all who long for His appearance.

It's for you and me!

So we don't have to be the superstar.

Yes, we should try our very best, but if we're not the superstar,

we're going to see the same spiritual reward as Paul the Apostle.

That's incredible.

That's incredible that we get to receive this.

What, what, what, what, oh my goodness, I wish we could understand this.

We get a chance to receive this reward, all who are in Christ Jesus.

You know, Paul says something interesting.

He says, I have finished the race.

He didn't say I finished the race first.

Did you notice that?

He actually didn't claim gold.

He said, I just finished the race.

Guess what?

And we just finished the race.

It's not about really trying to be first in this race.

It's about finishing the race of our faith and the eternal award awaits us.

But now it does say this, for those who longs for his appearing,

that word long actually is the same, uh, word for love, agape.

So it actually could be.

Actually, more accurately translated as for all who have loved his appearance.

And so there's the same principle, there's this desire for Jesus.

There's a longing for Christ to appear for his second coming.

But there's this love, this longing, this attitude to be with Jesus forever.

Now, again, we have to make sure we understand this caveat.

It's not for all who just claim to be a Christian.

He says this is the word for all who have loved or longed for Christ's appearing.

And so we have to ask this question.

Am I longing or loving His appearing?

You know, I, I, I want to caution because my fear is some of us will answer

that question too quickly with a yes.

What's that?

Yeah.

Yep.

Yep.

That's me.

But as I had a chance, and actually it was a little more yesterday than prior

in the week, I was really humbled and sobered by, you know what, I, I do

long for his appearing, but I focus too much on the blessings in the now.

You guys get what I'm saying?

It's like, yes, I want you to return and I'll tell God, I say,

God, I want you to return, but I just have some family members that

haven't made the decision yet.

So can you just hold off a little bit until they get into this?

You know what I mean?

And that's sincere.

I'm like, I just, God, you know this.

I want you to come over.

You just hold off on that.

I would like to see Europe, but it's okay if I can't.

You know what I'm saying?

But I'm like, God, but then I noticed that I, I battled this

tension and I'll tell God this on.

I'm like, God, I.

I, I, I just, the way I am right now, I need your help because it's hard for

me to keep in view eternity and, and, and not mess up the here and now or

I look too much at the here and now and then I forget eternity's on us.

So I need your help.

You guys get what I'm saying?

And so I love God.

I can't wait to be a God, but my challenge here is that I, I, I really appreciate and

enjoy the blessings of the here and now.

And so God, I have to pray.

And if you want to say a prayer for him, pray that again, that I can

hold it in tension, both of these things that yes, I can be, you

know, presence with what's going on.

I can appreciate and praise God.

But yet that's not my reward.

My reward is the crown of righteousness of eternity with God Almighty.

And so again, it's a war.

It's for those who are keeping or who have fought the fight, who has finished

the race and have kept the faith.

You know, Paul's comments, you can say, wow, that sounds either

he's either possibly arrogant or he's deceived about where he's

at or he's truly lived this out.

I think it's that.

I think Paul knew who knew God.

He knew.

He knew what his life was like in Christ.

And so it wasn't arrogance, it wasn't deception, but he knew real from the

fake, that he wasn't counterfeit.

He knew the character of God, he knew God's love and the grace

that he found only in Jesus through his relationship with God.

He knew he wasn't perfect, but he knew he was a real disciple of Jesus.

You know, you can tell if you long for Jesus paring.

By how you are living today,

we can tell if we're longing or loving for his appearing by how we live today.

Does your life reveal that you desire to be with God, that you're looking

forward to the coming of Jesus someday?

Do you spend time with God, making every effort to add to your

faith to become more like Jesus?

And do your choices show that Jesus would accept it if he came back today?

Again, let's hold off on answering the question too quickly so that we can

make sure the spirit can minister to us and refine this where necessary.

And wherever you are, the beauty of the day is that God's grace

is being offered to you today.

Meaning you have an opportunity to make a decision to either get back on

track, or for some of us, we've never made a decision to truly follow Jesus.

You can make decisions today.

And so every one of us, no matter where we are, there's hope today for our

lives, and we can make a decision to go on this faith journey with Christ.

Brothers and sisters, are you still with me here?

You know, Olympic athletes, they dedicate their lives to their sport.

As we see here from Paul, he, he gave his life to the only cause worth his devotion.

And you know, we too, we too need to live wholeheartedly for God in

response to Jesus for all that he is and all that he has and all that

he is and will do in our lives.

You know, the Olympic athletes, they need to give it their all and just

like them, we need to give it our all because giving half won't cut it.

Giving yourself half commitment won't cut it in the faith spiritually.

Why?

Well, we'll be less confident of our salvation.

I'm not really sure.

I, uh, well, if I'm giving my all, I don't need to have this fear.

But also, when we're given half commitment, oftentimes

it leads to quitting.

And what, we know the old phrase, quitting, what, quitters never what?

Prosper.

Some of you know it.

Okay, listen, everybody, quitters never prosper.

Okay, here you go.

Why?

Because they stop.

So there's no prosperity.

They stop before they can receive it.

And when we give half commitment, it will lead to ultimately quitting

and therefore forfeiting and missing out on that crown of righteousness.

Wow, how sad would that be?

But when we give full commitment, we don't have to worry about that.

Why?

Because we're going to stay faithful.

Here I believe the application here for all of us today is

to stay faithful to the end.

To make a decision that Jesus, I will be faithful to you for my whole

lifetime because you were faithful on the cross, you didn't come down,

you've been faithful to me, and the only proper response is to be faithful

to you until the day you call me home.

It's a decision.

It's a mindset.

I am going to see you face to face and it will be a welcoming

and not a day of judgment.

Amen.

I might not be perfect, but I'm going to finish this race.

I may stumble and fall, but trust I'm going to finish this race.

I'm going to be faithful to the end.

That means we need to daily fight the good fight.

You guys with me here?

That means we need to daily run to the finish line.

That means daily we need to keep the faith.

You know, it's the training that Dallas referred to a couple of weeks ago.

The training that now leads to eternal reward.

I love what he said.

He said, life is too short and eternity is too long to take days off.

You know, you can't take days off if you're trying to win an Olympic medal.

Hey, I want to win the gold.

Now, I'm going to take a month off to just kind of chill and relax.

That doesn't work, buddy.

You know what I'm saying?

And so we can't be like, yeah, man, I'm just looking

forward to the eternal rewards.

But you know, for the next two weeks, I just got to be

about me, give it to my flesh.

Let me go ahead, God, you know, I love you, but I'm going to just take a step

outside of your will for a week, that's not going to lead to eternal rewards.

We need to go back to the basics, you know, personal devotional time with God.

Remember that?

The basics are the basics for a reason.

If you don't have the basics, then you can't do anything else.

We need to be involved in people's lives and allowing others

to be involved in our lives.

We're getting open about our sin, our temptations.

Hey, here's what I'm struggling with.

Here's what I'm fearful of.

Can you help me?

Can we pray for each other?

Can I be in your life and help you as well?

It's showing up.

Being, not only on Sunday service, but being when the family group

meets together, being together when the midweek happens.

Oh, no, did he go there?

Yes, I did.

I would say it again, but I forgot what I said.

I'm just playing.

But again, we can't be pointing fingers.

If any of us are like, yep, that's where so and so, you

need to think about me first.

Am I doing the things daily in my life that show I'm still on the

path and I'm still running the race that God has called me towards?

And again, it's like this.

Hey, let's do this together.

It's not like, Ooh, look at you.

You did.

Uh huh.

Yeah.

No, no, no, no, brother.

Hey, let me help you on up.

Hey, you know what?

I'm a little slow.

Hey, hey, hey, help me out, man.

I'm getting a little tired.

I'm thinking about stopping.

I need your help.

For instance, it's the basics.

It's that training that leads to eternal rewards.

Serving in the church.

Sharing the good news of people who aren't running toward the finish line.

You know, there's a lot of people who aren't running toward the finish line.

And here we are, we're trying, but we see people on the

sideline, we're not calling them.

What's, what's, oh wait, they won't have that crown of righteousness.

But God wants to use us to join Him in His work.

To bring others into the fold.

So that they too can have the crown of righteousness.

Brothers and sisters, are you with me here?

You know, some days are harder than others.

Some days we do better.

Some days they're tough.

Some days they're awesome.

But this is that genuine faith that Daniel referred to.

That genuine faith that's worth more than gold.

That faith that's been tested and it's proven to be genuine.

Anything that's tested to be genuine, you have to, you have to examine it.

Let's make sure.

Let's run it through some tests.

Let's examine to make sure it's real.

And so as we persevere, we can see for ourselves, but most of all, to the glory

of God, our faith is genuine and real.

And it's worth more than gold.

So let's remember the eternal crown that awaits us.

I love what, uh, there's the, uh, track star, Gabby Thomas.

She, uh, she ran, uh, man, she had like three gold medals, but she ran a 200

and we were watching it and after the, uh, the second heat, I believe, yeah,

second heat, but it was the semifinals.

She said this, and they asked her this question.

They said, hey, You know, you're so good down the back stretch, the last 60 meters.

You know, when you're coming in because of the 200, so they make a turn.

And so they said, why are you so good down that back stretch,

the last part of the race?

And here's what she said.

She says, I feel so happy running when I see the finish line in my sights.

I just have that boost and I know I can get there, stretch my legs out and go.

She says, man, I'm coming across that turn and I see the finish line.

And she said, I just get happy and it gives me a boost.

She's like, well, I'm gonna get these girls.

You know what I'm saying?

She said, it's the finish line though.

It says, see the finish line.

And it motivates her.

She's already running fast.

But it gives her that extra boost.

You know, our eternal finish line can give us that boost.

It can motivate us to persevere when life gets hard and we have some heartache.

It can motivate us to overcome that sin and that temptation.

It can give us that boost to motivate us to focus on the right

things and prioritize correctly.

And I believe one of the things I love is when you see the

Olympians, especially those who win medals, how fired up they are.

You know, the ones who win gold sometimes, or even silver,

bronze, and they're crying.

And, oh, I can't believe it.

You know what I mean?

Like, are they sad or are they happy?

You know, sometimes you don't really know.

But they're just crying or they're so elated.

They just can't, they're just jumping around.

They're so excited.

And the thing that hit me the other day as I was watching, I

was like, they have no regrets.

When Olympians, they medal, there's no regrets.

You never see them.

You know what?

I kind of regret training so much.

I really wish I wouldn't have done all this.

Oh, you know, it's not really all that.

I don't think it's worth it.

Have you ever seen that?

No, they go into today's show the next morning and all they do is just smile.

Because they're talking about man and what they say.

It was worth it.

The hard times, the discipline, the training was worth it.

You know, I believe spiritually.

When we get to heaven, we'll have the same mindset.

It was worth it.

When the day of that spiritual podium, when we're receiving

the crown of righteousness, not one of us are ever going to say,

you know, it wasn't worth it.

I wish I wouldn't have given so much.

I wish I wouldn't have sacrificed so much for this.

I don't believe we'll have one regret.

If any, we'll have regret that we didn't give more.

And so we can learn again.

The lessons from the Olympics.

You know, another thing that hit me, modern Olympians, they step off the

podium and they usually go celebrate or some of them retire depending on their

age or something about the next Olympics.

Right?

You know, but for us, we have eternity with God, the angels and

all of God's people to celebrate.

Doesn't even compare.

And so as we come in for a close for the sermon and for the series, you

know, the Olympians will remind us again, the Olympians achieving victory

is gold, silver, or bronze, but for the disciples of Jesus, achieving victory

is to end this life faithful to God.

And God wants you and I to have the same confidence that Paul has

and achieve victory in our faith.

God wants us to persevere so we too can receive the eternal treasures in Jesus.

So let's remember that the faith, which really is our life in Jesus, that it's

proven and refined, that it's a greater worth than gold and that our faith in

Jesus requires training and that our faith in Jesus leads to eternal life.

Victory.

Let's celebrate the journey of faith and the ultimate reward that awaits

us all who fight the good fight, who finished the race and keep the faith.

Right now we're going to take communion and community time where we reflect

and remember Jesus is a sacrifice upon the cross and we take the emblems

representing his blood and his body of a sacrifice for our salvation.

Amen.

And amen.

I want to say this last thing, and, and again using the analogy and the metaphor

of, of the Olympics here, is that the Olympians, you, when, when they're on

the podium, what do they, they usually have on their either USA outfit right?

Or whatever country they're from, and uh, or they have, uh, may

maybe their sponsors are on right.

Nike, Adidas, or whatever the case may be.

Right?

But, you know, we have our uniforms.

It's Christ in the cross.

Because on them, we represented because again, as they're

representing either USA or Nike or whatever, we're representing Christ.

We've been sponsored by Christ.

We've been covered by the blood of Christ and we've been empowered

by what Jesus did on the cross.

Let's close out here in second Timothy four, verse seven and

eight, I have fought the good fight.

I have finished the race.

I have kept the faith.

Now there is in store for us the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the

righteous judge will award to us on that day and not only to us, but also to

all who have longed for his appearing.

Let's pray.

Father in heaven, I thank you so much for the scriptures, for the comfort, for

the encouragement, for the perspective.

That you give us the revelation that we have a, we have an eternal crown that

awaits us on the day that Jesus returns.

God, we thank you so much for that promise.

We thank you that we can have victory today by being faithful to you.

Thank you for Jesus and his example in his life.

How he was faithful to his cause.

Thank you for his faithfulness by staying upon the cross.

Thank you by showing your faithfulness by resurrecting him from the dead.

And thank you so much for calling us to run the race of faith.

I pray, Lord, that not only you accept our offering, but Father, that we

too can follow Jesus example, that we can fight the good fight, we can

finish the race, and keep the faith.

It's in his name we pray.

Amen.