All of Christ for All of Life: Christ Over Other Philosophies

Ishmael LaBiosa: Well, I'm always concerned in a short message series that it begins and it ends, although it doesn't end today, but we're over 50 % done, that you lose the main point since it starts and it finishes and there's a lot going on in your life. So I wanted to drive home a few central ideas and then talk about our text today. The simple idea all of Christ over all of life, I put forth this idea that your life is lived in realms or in spheres, that there are different aspects to your life. I'm a dad, I'm a husband, I'm a pastor, I'm a citizen, and I could keep going, and all of these areas in my life, I am to submit myself to the teaching and instruction of Jesus in each one of these areas so that I can live a life obedient to Christ. And the reality is that you can be doing well in one area, not be doing well in another area. And so the purpose of this message series is that all of Christ would be obeyed in all of life. And so if you don't take anything else away from the message series, that's the main idea. And the question is to think very carefully about in every one of these areas, there are foundational truths that have been given to us from the Bible that should inform all other learning and all other application in these areas. What God says first to me as a Christian husband, a Christian father, as a pastor is the first word that should go in and that any other words that are given should be filtered and I should discern if that is from God or not by the foundational truth that has been given to me by Christ in every one of these areas. Now today, in the letter to the Colossians, Paul writes the letter, I would say, because of a problem. If you remember, some of you, it feels the 40 days to the New Testament has been a minute ago. It hasn't been that long ago. Easter hasn't been that long ago. Time moves quickly. That's the way it goes. But I say that a lot of Paul's letters are occasional. which meant there was a problem in the church and Paul, on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, has to pick up his pen to write the letter to correct the problem. And today, here's the problem. The Colossians, after the church is planted, they decide that they're going to have Jesus plus they're going to have a little bit of some of the rituals of Judaism. Plus they're going to have a little bit of paganism and they're going to stir it all in a pot and they're going to do worship like that. And Paul says, no. writes, you'll see that in a moment. You know, I've noticed that we are inundated with so many ideas. So the algorithm on my phone, has figured out I'm a pastor. Yep. You say, how do you know that? Man, I get so many church services recommended to me and I'm thinking, I've had enough church services. I don't need your additional church services. But for this week, just for the fun of it, I said, I'm gonna go with the algorithm. The algorithm will not control me. I will control it. So I decided to see where it goes. And I guess they think I'm pretty wild because I got some wild church services. Would you like to hear what came through my algorithm? Here's the first one. It looked like ⁓ the first church service looked like it was a little closer to Appalachia than it was to Appomattox. Nothing wrong with Appalachia, by the way. If Virginia keeps going the way it is, I might move to Appalachia. I might just jump the mountains ⁓ and hang out there nevertheless. But the first one. And there was a lot of it was some upbeat music and the pastor he was really into it it seemed and about middle way through the singing He jumped on top of the pulpit and he started running on top of the pulpit And I'm sitting there just amazed waiting for the pulpit to tip over for here. I'm not gonna try it on this little flimsy thing, you know, I'll be dead in a hurry. But he and I thought well I was pretty mesmerized by that. And so then I just said we'll see what this next comes up. And then I keep getting this one. There's this very theologically liberal church in Richmond and they keep putting it in my feed. And I'm like get this thing out like. I'm like, how do I hit? don't want to see this anymore. But ⁓ there's this guy, speaks in deep tones. And so I listen to it just to object. ⁓ He can't hear my objection, but he'll start making a point. I'm like, that ain't right. No, that's way out in field. That has nothing to do with Christianity. ⁓ my goodness. I can't believe you said that. And so I have a go at that for a few moments and then I swipe up again. That's all this week. And then it's a lot of organ music, you know, but it's upbeat organ music, you know, and a lot of, lot of hankies going in the air like this and a lot of screaming. And I think they take a few laps around the church and I'm like, well, I mean, I like this better than the liberal preaching, you know, and then I swipe up again. It's a podcaster. He looks like he's a mature age of 19. You know, and he's looks like and he's in his mama's basement and he's talking about stuff and I just want to, I'm talking to him too. And I'm like, kid, go to seminary, read the Bible. You're way too young to be doing this. Not that you should despise your youth, but you shouldn't be talking when you don't have anything to say. And so he's just talking, talking, talking, talking. And I'm thinking, okay, I've had enough of this flip up. And then the prophecy guy. I'm thinking, oh no. Christ is going to come in the next 17 minutes here. 17 reasons it's going to happen. Here's a good way to know that the prophecy guy's way out in left field, if he says the book of Revelations, yes, it is not the book of Revelation, it's the book of Revelation. Okay, and it drives me crazy when they say that. It's like, just show me you're ignorant with one word, Revelations. And then I'm like, okay, I've had enough of this. And so then up swipe again, a tearful testimony about how God changed them. And I'm thinking, well, this is a change of pace, you know. a lot of crying, a lot of emotion, that's the case. And then I said, well, I can't do this, this is kind of depressing me. Swipe up again, a good revival preacher, amen. And I'm like, amen. know, you know, and I'm like, okay, we got this going on now, so we got a revival happening. And then I'm thinking, ⁓ this is about done. I'm about done doing this. I swipe up again, a Greek Orthodox priest. And I don't even know what he's saying. You know, he's talking in different language. And I'm thinking, you know, this is pretty confusing. And that was just me having fun in my office for a little bit. And that's just religion. And all of these happen to be Christianity. I mean, the end list just, why we're at it. You know, what do they say? Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. So that's what I plan on doing today. Well, since then you've listened to all of that and you got so many ideas, you don't know what to believe. So then you say, well, you know, I'm done with this. I'm gonna... I'm going turn on TV. I need to my phone down for a minute. I'm going to see what's going on in politics. 24-7, by the way. We can't do it in 60 minutes. got to have it 24-7. Do we have something to talk about 24-7? No. Right? And so you click on one, you're like, oh, we're doomed. You click on another, you're like, we must be doing great. You click on another, you're like, I don't even know that they're living in the same reality. And then you're like, well, I'm done with that. ⁓ Let's, ⁓ I tell you what, let's think about education for a moment. I'm sure we got that one figured out. And then you're like, what are we supposed to be doing? Classical education? You're supposed to be doing reading, writing, and arithmetic. You're supposed to do, support the public school. You're supposed to be in private school. You're supposed to be, then you say, well, you know what, I can't figure this out either. And then you say, well, I tell you what, let's just think about science because we got that figured out. ⁓ You know, medicine, that's real straight and clear cut and we trust all the doctors now. I don't think you guys do. You know, you guys are super scabbing. You're like, forget that. We don't have that figured out either, I don't guess. Technology, that's the one we got figured out. Because there's no way that technological companies would monetize things to like manipulate you. I couldn't imagine that would happen. I mean, not in the world of AI. That wouldn't be happening, would it? And you know what I see in a culture like this? A bunch of overwhelmed, confused, depressed people. If you don't hear anything else, this might be your most important takeaway from this message. You know what some of you need to do? You need to take the old B-I-B-L-E, what we call the Bible, and you need to go, I'm not envious of anybody, but I am envious of one thing. I'm envious of Billy Graham's cabin that he's got in Monterey, North Carolina. Okay, I'm envious of it. Because if you hear one day Rusty has disappeared, I might have disappeared on the top of a mountain in a little cabin. And I actually do believe one of the reasons he was able to do what he did is that he could take his B-I-B-L-E, he could go retreat to a secluded place, he could get alone with the Lord, read the Bible and wash his head of all of this stuff that fills our minds. And that he could emerge out of that moment with something to say, with real clarity, real conviction. that wasn't loaded up in the noise of the president. I'm concerned, the Apostle Paul was concerned. The Apostle Paul was concerned about the Christians in Corinth, that their minds had gotten so cluttered up with everything that Jesus was actually being sidelined and in an attempt to be spiritual, they were actually moving further and further away from Jesus. And I'm concerned in a similar but different way. that with all the noise that we have in our heads, next week the Apostle Paul will tell the church to let the words of Christ dwell in you richly. And I think sometimes the noise is so great and Jesus is so small and then we wonder why we're so confused. And we need to exalt Jesus in his word and we need to turn down or maybe cut off the noise so we can hear from him. That really is at the heart of what the apostle Paul wants to say today to the Colossians and what I hope God the Holy Spirit says through my feeble attempt through me to you today. You have a Bible Colossians chapter two verses six through twenty three. We'll see. how Christ is going to be elevated over everything else. All the teachings, all the practices there in Colossae. Paul says we need to see Jesus more clearly. Two big ideas today. ⁓ Here's the first one. To put Christ over all of life, we need to appreciate the comprehensiveness of Christ's person and work. Verse six says, therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus, the Lord walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith just as you were taught and overflowing with thankfulness. Be careful no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human traditions, tradition, based on the elemental forces of the world and not based on Christ. For in him the entire fullness of God's nature dwells bodily and you have been filled by him. who is head over every ruler and authority. In him, you were also circumcised with a circumcision not done with hands by putting off of the body of flesh and the circumcision of the Messiah, having been buried with him in baptism. You were also raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead. And when you were dead in your trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made your life with him and forgave us all our trespasses. He erased the certificate of our debt with its obligation that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it out of the way by nailing it to a cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities, he disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly. He triumphed over them by Him. The vision of Christ that is given in Colossians is not paralleled in the rest of the New Testament. Jesus ⁓ is going to be shown to be as exalted as he is in the letter to the Colossians precisely because the Colossians are not seeing Jesus for who he is rather they are minimizing him. here is a three minute crash course in many of the things that Paul has said in Colossians including this ⁓ few verses and I would propose that lots of us have a part of the truth but not even all of the truth when it comes to Christ's person and work. So put these together. Okay, first of all, who is Jesus? He is the God-man, fully God, fully man, one person, two natures. That's the orthodox teaching about Jesus. Jesus existed before he took on a body. Very important. If Jesus is God, he has no beginning. And so, Jesus... was there since he was there in the beginning, he was present at creation. But then Jesus took on a body, this is called the incarnation, the word incarnation just means to take on flesh. He takes on flesh and by taking on flesh he does two very important things. Paul says that he makes God plain to us. He says that Jesus is the image of the invisible God. God is spirit. That's what the gospel of John says. God in his essence is non-physical. But Jesus takes on a body so that we can conceptualize in a much clearer way what God is like because now he's taken on flesh and relates to us. Furthermore, not only is Jesus God, he's man. So when we say, what does real humanity look like? What does it look like when I'm fully restored? Well, you look like Jesus. is not only God, He's man. He is the perfect man. He is the one person not tainted by sin. And so in some ways, Jesus reveals to us who God is and reveals to us what man should be. Jesus then lives a sinless life. The end of Jesus's life is on a cross. Jesus does not die for him alone, he dies for us. And thus, the death and the sin that was ours has been paid by Jesus in full. Not only Jesus died, He rose again. And so it shows that He has defeated death. Actually Paul says here at the end of this passage that He has triumphed over all the rulers and authorities. The only thing the rulers of this world can threaten us with is death and Jesus has defeated death showing that He has more authority than the authorities. Nevertheless, Jesus has risen again and is currently, currently seated at the right hand of God the Father, ruling and reigning. One day at the end of human history, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father, but you get the opportunity before the end of time to confess Him now. And so, if you confess Him now, if you trust in Him now, just hold to it, you think, ⁓ I got this. Well there's more. Because if I put my faith and trust in Jesus, listen carefully, the death that Christ died is now a death that I participate in. Paul says, if I say that someone is spiritually dead and they are made spiritually alive, do you know what we call that? A resurrection. Okay. And Paul says when we come to Jesus that we were dead in our trespasses and sin, but God made us alive. This is what we call a spiritual rebirth. Listen carefully. My spiritual resurrection in the present will guarantee my, you ready for it, physical resurrection in the future. But in this meantime, I am spiritually raised, but yet not physically raised. I get the opportunity to let the words of Christ dwell in me richly. This is next week's sermon. And I can in this moment put to death the old person that is rusty and live in the new person that Christ has given to me. And how do I do this? In the power of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. I'm living the life of the future in the present. then when the Lord returns, I get a new body. dwell with Jesus in the new heavens, new earth. The tabernacle of God is among men. We'll be His people. God Himself will be our God. He'll wipe all our tears away from our eyes. and I will live with him for eternity." And you say, why did you tell me all of that? Because if you've got all of that, you don't need anything else. You got salvation past, you got salvation present, you got salvation future. And Paul says, Colossian Church, if you could just see Jesus and what He's done for you, you wouldn't be looking for anything else. Rather than trying to glean something in the culture of Colossae, why don't you glean more from the person of Jesus? And I just want to say to you, Church, if you're looking for a higher spiritual life than one, that is found in Jesus, ready for it? It does not exist. And if you feel dry and if you feel confused, the answer is to go meet Jesus again, to understand His ways, to appreciate His grace, to be thankful for the salvation that He's given you. There is no higher form of spirituality than the one that has been given in Jesus. And Paul just wants to say that, yes and amen to the Colossians, because you ready for it? They don't believe it. because they're trying some other things. Now this really gets to the heart of what they're doing, because I'm going to have to kind of explain to you what they're doing. And then even after I explain it to you, you know what some of you are going to say? Well, that's kind of weird. Well, if you think what the Colossians did is weird, just wait just a little longer. And then you might figure out that what some of you are doing is kind of weird too. OK, here's a second big idea. To put Christ over all of life, we need to be able to discern false ideas that lead us from Christ. Now he points these out very directly, which you may not relate to them, but I'll explain them. Just listen. Therefore, don't let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of what was to come. The substance is the Messiah. Let no one disqualify you insisting on ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm and inflated without cause by his fleshly mind. He doesn't hold on to the head from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, develops with growth from God. If you died with Christ to the elemental forces of this world, why do you live as if you still belong to the world? Why do you submit to regulations? Don't handle, don't taste, don't touch. All these regulations refer to what is destroyed by being used up. They are human commands and doctrines. And verse 23 really is the summary here. Although these have a reputation of wisdom by promoting ascetic practices, humility and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value against fleshly indulgence. Now here's what you need to know. Let's travel back to Colossae. Where's Colossae located? Modern day Turkey, biblical Asia minor. Right down the street from Ephesus, three big ideas are in Colossae. Three big things that are influencing. The newest idea on the table is Christianity. Christ has been preached, Apaphras, Paul did not plant the church at Colossae, probably Epaphras did. He comes and preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ and evidently a significant amount of believers come to, a significant amount of people believe there's a Christian church that's established. But now there are two other ideas that are in Colossae. Prior to Christianity getting there is Judaism. Judaism precedes Christianity. And we get a lot of language of Jewish practices here. You get... food and drink. There clearly if you read Exodus and Leviticus, there's a lot of food and drink regulations there. You have festivals. There's a lot of festivals in the Old Testament and notice Sabbath. So there's these Jewish practices that are still there in Colossi. And then there's a third stream. You ready for it? Paganism. Okay. And paganism, ⁓ they are saying, We're gonna get in touch with angels. You need some spiritual protection with angels. And so as soon evidently as Epaphras leaves, somebody else applies for the job as pastor in Colossus. And this is his sermons on Sunday. You ready for them? You people wanna get spiritual? They're like, amen. Well, let's do Jesus, amen, plus. Let's do the best of what we had in Judaism. And I tell you what, if we really want to go deep, come Thursday night, we're going to get in touch with an angel. I'm afraid if I did that today, somebody might show up. You know what? They said, well, that's that. And then that sounds like you're doing a little something extra there, Rusty. We're going to get touched by an angel. And Paul says, you don't need to be touched by an angel. You've been touched by God himself. He says the whole idea that you're moving closer to spirituality by doing this. You know what Paul says? You're moving further away. He says all this stuff that's dressed up in, how spiritual we're going. He says the Old Testament was a story without an ending. These are signs and symbols that were fulfilled in Jesus. He says these were the symbols and Jesus is the reality. He says and angels. He says you want to talk to an angel. Why don't you talk to the one who created all the angels? Created the heavens and the earth. He says, you think this is more? No, this is less. And he says that your whole approach to spirituality, you think you're going in all the right directions and you're going exactly the wrong direction. Now this, ladies and gentlemen, we don't have a lot of point of correspondence to this because nobody's thinking, you know what? Especially since we're nine minutes from lunch right now. Nobody's thinking, I want to do Jewish food laws today because you couldn't eat about half of what you're about to eat. You know what I'm saying? So that's the case. ⁓ so that's not our temptation. But let me tell you what I think is. You know, now connect back to the beginning of my message. Americans now have, listen carefully, a do-it-yourself spirituality. You got all of these ideas available to you. And so if you're under the age of 40, under the age of 50, you're being influenced. Probably if you're over that age, you're being influenced. Because what is happening is ⁓ by every metric. I don't want to be doomsday. I'm not doomsday. God is on the throne. and God can still do what God wants to do. But if we just look at the metric, the institutionalized Christianity in America has been going like this for a while. And unfortunately, I mean, I'm kind of waiting for it for churches to shutter because they just run out of people and run out of money and for no other reason. And part of the reason in my life that since I saw that coming and feel like it's awful, I've thrown myself into revitalization whenever it's possible, whenever it can happen, because I think it is awful that that is the case. And yet there's so there's, if you listen carefully, that there's almost this quiet applause that the, institutionalized Christianity has owned the demise because, you know, the institutionalized churches hurt people. It has institutionalized church hurt people. Sure. Sure. But you know what's taking its place? I say that we've moved from a world of institutionalized Christianity to intuitional Christianity. It used to be, well, if you want to know what the Bible says, the first person that you probably ought to ask is the pastor. You say, no, no, no, we don't need him. I can do it. And if I don't like what he says, I'll just find another one. You see what's happening here? And if this idea strikes me, well, then we'll just put that in the bucket. And so people are going out and about and they're kind of just picking what they like and they're putting it all in a bucket. And they're like, this is my relationship with God. And I look in that bucket and I say, that's a big mess of every idea from every different place. And guess what they're saying? By doing this, I'm getting closer to Jesus and you know what I think most of the time they think they're getting closer to Jesus, but they might actually be getting ⁓ yeah further away I'm not going quote all the books I've read on this subject, but let me just say this. If you think the institutionalized church hurts you, where there were checks and balances, wait until the new one comes online. You want to see this? ⁓ Let me tell you why it's good for the Bible to be preached, for a community of Christians to be gathered, and for us to meet. If I start going crazy in my preaching, it ain't gonna take too many of you about half a second before I even get down those steps. You know what you're gonna do? You're gonna say, come on over here, we need to talk. You're going crazy, okay? And we're gonna have a little meeting where you get you back on track. You know what that is? Good. You know what I can do? If I was, and by the way, I feel called in the ministry. I serve, I genuinely think I serve out of a heart of love for you. But unfortunately, I now know in this day that if I was more nefarious, which I'm not, I could go set up a little camera in my office and I could talk to people with no controls and people could be manipulated and harmed. Because you know why I know that? Because I see it every day. And then people are going to people who are not there because they're called to be shepherds. They're not called to be pastors. They're just doing this for whatever reason they're doing it. Maybe out of good intentions, maybe out of evil intentions. And then here comes the American consumer. They're coming to say, I'm going to get a really upgraded version of spirituality. And the person on the other end is, I see a sucker when I see one and I'm going to monetize this into the ground. And a whole culture's like, away with the old churches, away with the old pastors. Can we get rid of that so we can do it, have a do-it-yourself spirituality that we can be upgraded? And I am standing here to say the day in which an accountable community that meets together to read the Bible, to love one another, to know one another, when that goes away, For this other isolationist, do-it-yourself spirituality, the harm that this will do will pale into comparison to whatever a church hurts you doing. Do hear what I'm saying? If you don't hear what I'm saying, play the tape. Now I'm showing how old I am. Play the video 20 years from now. Because, ⁓ you know, here's the reality. Americans aren't becoming atheist. They're becoming their own spiritual remix artist. Tara Burton says in her very influential book called Strange Rites. Now, what do people do? They say, I want to be spiritual. So rather than to just say, well, what does the Baptist faith and message 2000 believe? You know, what does it say? That's a tried and true or what does another, what does a Westminster confession say? Or what does Apostles Creed say? You know, some reputable things. We say, they go, well, why don't we just look around and see what I say? And so they sample from many traditions and then it's not institutional, it's intuitional. They disregard anything that feels restrictive, institutional or conflicts with their identity and they prioritize. their feelings. By the way, I'm not against your feelings. Okay? It's just one of many things that should be utilized in your decision making process. And we have a confluence of things that honestly, I say this today really out of ⁓ a pastoral heart of love, because I genuinely, my job as pastor is to say, as Paul I think is saying in Colossians, watch out. Beware of vain philosophy. Beware that this is coming for you. Five things are kind of having a confluence right now. Number one, cultural DNA. Americans, we've always kind of been pretty individualistic. There's a very famous church historian named Mark Knoll. He's a Catholic. But he says in America, even the Catholics are Protestant. That'll take you a while to understand that, which means they have this like American spirit. We're going to do it. We're kind of a rugged individualist. OK, well, that's OK. That's done a lot of good for us. But it doesn't. make us very... ⁓ it doesn't make us do well in a group sometimes. Let's just put it that way, you know, because we're our own individual. Second of all, we have the internet. Nothing wrong with the internet. Internet's not evil, but it's given us so many options now that I'm individualistic and now I got a million options. And then what's worse than this, I used to remember the old days, not that the old days are perfect, you know, I don't want to go back to the old days, but if I wanted a book... Like when I was a child, do you know who I would go see? The librarian. And she was using this very dainty old woman, you know, with glasses, and she'd go, what do you need, honey? And I said, I need a book. And she would go, ⁓ I can help you find a book. And she would, you know, I think this might help you. Most of you, when you got your phones, think it's the cute little librarian. You know, on the other hand, giving you information. You know what it is? It's commerce and capitalism and people trying to monetize you. That's what it is. Do you not know this? And they give you more of what you already like so that they can get you to stay longer, so they can get you to, yeah, bye. Not the cute little librarian anymore. Go, here you go, And then we think this is all fine, because now we say, well, I can't trust all these institutions. They're all corrupt. So now the person I will trust is... You know what that sounds like? Hubris. Pride! Let me give you what real Christianity sounds like. Real Christianity sounds like this. Word of God speak. And I will sit here and let the words of Jesus wash over me, correcting me, changing my mind, convicting my heart. And as Jesus speaks and I listen. I don't leave from this place thinking, what would I like to do? I leave the place hearing the words of Jesus. If any man would like to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. These are worlds apart, by the way. And my deep pastoral concern is this do-it-yourself spirituality over here that people think it's getting me closer to the truth is driving you further and further and further away from an authentic faith in Jesus where we just say, God, you are God in heaven and here I am on earth. I'll let my words be few. If God had one profound grace in my life, He's given many graces. Is A, I was called to ministry early, and B, from the age of 16 to 30, I spent an inordinate amount of time in the Bible. And that enabled, not that I'm perfect, certainly not, but that enabled to put a core down in me that when ideas come, I can go, no. That's laughable. That's truth. Do you hear that? That's truth. And I just want to say, if that's not in you... Put it in you. Today's the day. So you know what some of you say, what am I supposed to do today? You might need to go right outside that door, see if you can lease the same cabin that I'm trying to get, okay? Open the Bible as long as it takes to say God detox my brain from all of this noise until the words of Christ dwell in me richly. And rather than that, leading you away from Jesus, ladies and gentlemen, it'll lead you to the throne room. And you'll get an audience with the king. And you'll learn from Jesus' feet. And you're ready for this? You'll be changed. That's real, authentic, genuine Christianity. I hold it up before you today. is Paul held it up before the Colossians 2,000 years ago and says, if you think you need anything more than Jesus, you don't fully know Jesus. If you're here today and you're not a Christian, say Rusty, what does it take to be a Christian? You turn from sin and self and put your faith and trust in Jesus for your salvation. If you don't know where you spend eternity, I'll be here, Pastor Ishmael will be here. We'll take a Bible and show you how you can be a Christian. If you are Christian today, my question to you is, is your mind and heart centered on Jesus? Or have you been pulled in so many different directions? You do in so many different things that Jesus is kind of mixed up in everything else and he doesn't really have prominence in your life. Maybe today, during this genuine altar call, say, Jesus, may you go to your rightful place. May I worship you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we ask. God, we ask that your church will be protected from harm. God, when the cultural crosswinds blow. God, when things can seem to be true but are false. When there's a way that seems right unto man, but the end thereof is a way of death. God, may we take note today. God, may we get alone with you, get alone with your word. And God, rather than putting us on the throne, God, may we put you on the throne and may we humble ourselves. May we submit ourselves to you. May you teach us. May we learn from those who care about us, who demonstrate the qualifications necessary to teach us. God, may we grow and grow and grow unto Him that is the head that is Jesus. God, we ask that all of Christ would be over all of our life in Jesus' name. Amen.