Respectable Sins: Worldliness and Greed

When we trusted the Lord for this church, we realized right away that I didn't want

to be the only one preaching.

And so in the history of Watermark, we've had 12 other men from within the congregation

come to preach and to bring God's Word.

We've had only two from the outside, which has been exciting to me because God keeps

raising up people from within the church family to preach and bring God's Word.

And so today we have Bernard Yee, Bernard and Angie.

Bernard and Angie have been with us for a long time.

When Christina and I were praying about the church, we didn't know a lot of people, but

we knew Bernard and Angie and their kiddos, and we prayed that God would allow them to

have the same heart and to join us to be a part of this journey.

And it was really encouraging that he did.

So if you turn in your bulletins, the passage today is from the first book of John.

John chapter 2.

John 2 · chapter mention

Follow along in your bulletins.

Do not love this world nor the things it offers you.

For when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you.

For the world offers only a craving of physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see,

and a pride in our achievements and our possessions.

But these are not from the Father.

These are from the world.

And this world is fading away along with everything that people crave.

But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.

This is the reading of God's Word.

Good morning, everybody.

Good morning.

Thank you, Tobin, for the introduction.

For those who are visiting us, please do come back next week.

It does get better.

Okay?

So unfortunately, you have struck amateur night today.

So we're in the middle of a three-part series titled Respectable Sins.

Okay?

So these are sins that we think are kind of lesser sins that somehow that we feel justified in committing.

Chris started this series two weeks ago and shared with us that we are much like the Israelites that return from exile.

And Chris's sermon was on apathy.

So like the Israelites, not that they didn't love God.

They loved God.

But they were busy.

They were busy rebuilding their city.

They were busy rebuilding their nations.

So they thought, wow, you know what?

The things that I know I'm supposed to do for God, I can do that when I'm a little less busy.

Which sounds a lot like us in Hong Kong.

Last week, Eric reminded us and talked to us about people-pleasing.

And especially highlighted that in this day and age whereby every one of us has got a smartphone and we're kind of very connected and we're in every social media known,

that it's very easy to live our lives for the likes.

The likes in the Facebook, for your Twitter comments.

And that it's very easy to fall into this world of people-pleasing.

Hi.

Okay.

Today, I'm going to talk about, just spend a bit of time and talk to us about really a topic that none of us believe we have a problem with.

Okay.

And that's precisely why we need to take time to talk about it at church.

And that's a topic of worldliness.

Okay.

And the most common manifestation of worldliness is greed.

So I'm going to use the words worldliness, materialism, and greed interchangeably today.

Now, I'm going to break the sermon into three parts.

The titles may be a little strange to you, but just stay with me.

You'll get to know, you'll get to understand it.

The first part I'm going to talk about is, has anyone seen the monster?

The second part, the monster's under the bed.

And the last part is, how do we tame the monster?

Okay.

So the opening line in verse 15, in 1 John 2, said,

Do not love this world, nor the things it offers you.

What John is warning us against here is the love of the things of this world.

It's important to clear up what it's not saying.

John is not telling us that we should hate the world.

Okay.

Because John, in John 3.16, said,

For this is how God loved the world.

He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal lives.

So John himself wrote in John 3.16,

For this is how God loved the world.

It's important for us to clear this up because, you know, the other major religions of our world do not have the same view of the world that we currently live in.

Let me just share with you a few of them.

Buddhism, for example, says,

Your purpose in the world is to avoid suffering and gain enlightenment and release from a cycle of rebirth.

Confucianism says the purpose in life is to fulfill one's role in society.

Hinduism said,

In the world, humans are in bondage to ignorance and illusions.

Purpose is to gain release from rebirth, or at least a better rebirth.

In Islam, in this world, humans must submit, and that's what the word Islam means, submit,

to the will of God to gain paradise after death.

Do you see a common theme?

When I did the research into these different world religions,

basically, if I could sum it up in kind of layman's term today,

is you're working very hard for parole so you can get out of jail.

So the view of this world we live in for much of the world is not a world that is good and we should love it,

but one we should try to escape from.

In contrast, the Bible tells us God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.

In 1st Genesis 10, when God was creating the world, he said,

God called the dry ground land and the water sea, and God saw it was good.

God saw it was good.

God loved the world.

God loved the world.

So what John is warning us in 1st John 2 is not love the world.

Just do not love the world more than God.

Do not love the things the world provide us more than God.

You know, in all of us, we have things in our lives that we think,

if we only have those things, our lives, we would be happy.

That's all I want, okay?

If I could only get that promotion, if I could get that spouse, okay?

If I could have that perfect family, if I could only get into that university,

then my career would be set.

Even in the Bible, Abraham.

For Abraham, it was Isaac.

For the Samaritan woman at the well, it was her relationships with men.

And in Matthew 19, for the rich young ruler,

when Jesus said that you should give away all that you own and come and follow me,

it was his wealth that defined him.

You know, for many years, when I read Matthew 19,

it really kind of disturbed me a little bit,

because I read it as, if you want to be a Christian,

therefore you should give everything away and just follow Jesus.

Then I actually dug into the verse and tried to understand it a bit better,

and it became clear to me,

nowhere else in the Bible that we are told as Christians

to give away everything we own and come and follow him.

Even with the extreme case of Zacchaeus,

he only gave away half his wealth.

So what Bible commentators have said,

what this verse means is,

Jesus looked, when the rich young ruler came to Jesus,

Jesus looked into his heart and saw that his identity was in his wealth.

Okay?

So what God wants is to free us from the treasures that you think,

that we think,

that would give us a life of joy and happiness without God.

So let me repeat that.

What God wants is to free us from the treasures that we think,

that would give us a life of joy and happiness without God.

Our problem is not the desire to get into that college,

or that next promotion,

or that relationship with that special someone.

Our problem comes about when we want those things more than God,

more than we want God.

This is not a new problem.

Genesis 3.

Let's go right back to creation.

Okay?

Genesis 3, 5, it says,

God knows that your eyes,

this is the serpent talking to Eve, okay?

God knows that your eyes will be open as soon as you eat it,

and you will be like God.

You will be like God.

Last week, I think Eric used a quote from St. Augustine,

so I'm going to borrow that today.

Augustine understood that desire itself is not the problem.

It ain't wrong to want.

It ain't wrong to want.

Indeed, none of us can actually stop wanting.

The real problem resides in our disordered loves,

is what Augustine said.

Either we love the wrong things,

or we love the right things in a wrong way.

We want things more than we want God.

In other words, we want to be our own God.

Augustine said,

Without you, what am I to myself,

but a guide to my own self-destruction?

Augustine knew how easily we want things that bankrupt us,

how diligently we will pursue success and pleasure.

Which is only ever a promising note.

An American author from the middle of last century,

F. Scott Fitzgerald, you might have heard of him,

in his book, This Side of Paradise.

So please, get the image of Leonardo

in a white Ralph Lauren tuxedo out of your head now.

Different book.

That was the Gatsby.

This one is This Side of Paradise.

And in his book, one of the characters,

Emery Blaine said,

I'm a slave to my emotions,

to my likes,

to my hatred of boredom,

and to most of my desires.

I'm a slave to my emotions,

to my likes,

to my hatred of boredom,

and to most of my desires.

For us, we all know from experience

that there are some things that we think,

if we only have those things,

we would be happy.

But we also know from our own experience

that those things never fulfill their promise.

They are only ever a promissory note.

The promotion that we worked so hard to get,

that we thought would satisfy us,

just becomes another job.

That dream apartment,

suddenly,

after you move in,

a few months after you move in,

it feels just that little bit small.

It could do with a little bit more room.

And you know what?

If we bought just another five floors up,

the view would be just so much better

than what we have now.

And I hate to say it,

the spouse that we thought

was going to complete us,

it's no longer the same person we married.

So, do you see the monster that's in our lives?

Just to sum up this section,

I want to say,

the monster we have is not loving the world.

The monster we have is loving the world

more than we love God.

If Scott Fitzgerald reminds us,

it's a small step from having desires,

from having desires to having those desires,

to being a slave to those desires.

And we can't easily see the monster

because it's hiding.

So, the monster is under our bed.

The problem with greed and williness

is it hides itself in our lives.

Like the monster underneath our beds

when we were a child,

we don't dare to go and look,

we don't dare to go and investigate,

we don't dare to go and look under the bed.

I think David Foster Wallace,

the American novelist,

puts it best in his commencement address

to the graduating class at Kenyon College in 2005.

Let me just read this to you.

David Foster Wallace wasn't a Christian,

so he was just a contemporary novelist.

because there's nothing else that's weird,

there's something else that is weird but true.

In the day-to-day trenches of adult life,

there's actually no such thing as atheism.

There's no such thing as not worshipping.

Everybody worships.

The only choice we get is what to worship.

If we worship money and things,

if they are where you tap real meaning in life,

then you will never have enough,

never feel you have enough.

That's the truth.

Worship your body, beauty and sexual allure,

you will always feel ugly.

And when time and age start showing,

you will die a million deaths

before they finally grieve you.

Worship power,

and you will end up feeling weak and afraid.

And you will never, ever,

you will always need more power over others

to numb your own fears.

Worship intellect.

Be seen as smart.

You will end up feeling stupid,

a fraud,

always on the verge of being found out.

But the insistent thing about these forms of worship

is not that they're evil or sinful,

it's that they're unconscious.

They are our default settings.

Wallace warns us,

there's no such thing as not worshipping.

Everybody worships.

The only choice we get is what we worship.

The only choice we get is what we worship.

He warns us.

And you know what?

In the world of worshipping the world,

we slip into that unconsciously.

Tim Keller, in his book,

The Counterfeit God,

puts it this way.

Nowhere is this slavery more evident

than the blindness of greedy people

to their own materialism.

Notice in Luke 12,

Jesus says,

watch out,

be on your guard against all kinds of greed.

That's a remarkable statement.

Think of another tradition,

a traditional sin that the Bible warns against,

adultery.

Jesus doesn't say,

be careful,

you are committing adultery.

He doesn't need to.

When you're in bed with somebody else's spouse,

you know it.

Halfway through,

you don't say,

oh, wait,

I think this is adultery.

You know it.

But nobody thinks

that we have a problem

with spending too much on ourselves.

The monster that is greed

is camouflaged

and has a cloaking technology,

to use an analogy,

from the Predator Trilogy,

which is a,

I,

it's a sore point

that the Academy has always overlooked,

a great actor like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But in the Predator Trilogy,

for those kind of,

in my era,

know that he had this cloaking technology.

It was on his arm,

he pushed it

and he became invisible.

The monster that is greed in our life

also have this cloaking technology.

For the younger ones among you,

it's the Harry Potter invisibility cloak.

So,

so,

okay,

personal confession time.

So,

just,

when,

when Tobin asked me to share

on this topic,

I immediately thought,

hey,

I'm pretty good.

I don't have a problem,

you know,

with,

with greed

and spending too much on myself.

And after much soul searching

and some amateur repressed memory therapy,

I was able to identify,

I did have a monster

of materialism.

And it was right under my bed.

You see,

I have a problem.

I can't walk away from bargains.

Okay?

I have a fear of missing out on a deal.

And for those of you

who are from Hong Kong,

okay,

there's a

very

at Hong Kong

saying,

嗯相接住.

Okay?

So,

嗯相接住 is a technical term

that basically saying

you have this fear

of missing out

on a deal.

And,

and I do have that.

Just give you an example.

The other day,

I was walking in Wan Chai

and I was walking past

298 Hennessy Road

which is a

dingy computer mall,

total fire trap.

I don't expect,

you know,

I don't advise you to go in there.

I walked in there

and I saw this

Bluetooth speaker.

Okay?

And,

and the shopkeeper said,

it sells for $3,000

at the Apple shop

but for you,

$1,400.

Okay?

So,

without a second thought,

I just bought it.

Okay?

So,

I took it home.

Now,

it doesn't seem like a big deal

until you know the fact

that this is the fifth

Bluetooth speaker I've bought.

Okay?

So,

the point is,

it's so easy for me

just to go and buy that.

I don't even think.

Okay?

The speaker itself

is not the problem.

It's not the issue.

But the fact that

I didn't even think about it.

I didn't even want to pass up

on this bargain.

I mean,

if I walked away,

I would have thought,

you know,

I could have got this $1,400.

For $1,400,

I could have got a $3,000.

speaker that they're selling.

And every time I walked past

Apple Shoppe,

there would be a speaker

shouting to me,

you missed out on this deal.

So,

I've asked Angie

for permission to share

that,

you know,

what is the monster

in her life.

And she's not much

of a shopper,

but she does love good food.

She loves to cook.

Okay?

So,

sometimes,

she asks that

we should go to

a nice restaurant.

Nice and expensive.

Okay?

It's what nice means.

Okay?

So,

I'm sitting there,

I'm looking at the menu,

and I am having,

you know,

a heart attack

on just the appetizers.

So,

I'm going through

in my head,

okay?

So,

I studied finance,

I'm going through

in my head,

I'm calculating

how much this meal

is going to cost me,

and Angie's like,

uh-huh-huh,

enjoying the ambiance,

and,

you know,

the next thing you hear

is,

you know,

pass me that

pink Himalayan rock salt.

Okay?

Pink,

any restaurant

that has pink Himalayan rock salt,

it's a pretty good recipe

that,

you know,

you're going to get overcharged

for the meal.

Okay?

So,

what's the monster

in your life?

You know,

I mean,

if we are honest

as to ourselves,

is it passing up

on a bargain?

Is it,

is it,

you know,

is it good food?

I mean,

there may be just

other things.

So,

but,

what is this thing

with just money

flying out of a wallet?

Okay?

Now,

there's another danger

with greed.

If you know anything

about drug addiction,

when you're addicted

to drugs,

to get that same high,

you're going to have

to take more and more

of the drugs

or a stronger and stronger

dose of that drug.

That's known as

the tolerance effect.

Okay?

That is the same problem

with materialism

and greed.

Okay?

So,

I'll give you an example.

We all live

a certain way.

We all live within

our,

the means of the income

that we have.

But if we come

into possession

with a little bit more money,

we go out

and we maybe

buy that little

extra thing

that we would

consider as a luxury

that we wanted.

But very soon,

those luxuries

becomes necessities.

You may have heard

of the saying

that yesterday's luxuries

becomes tomorrow's necessities.

That's the tolerance effect.

Okay?

So,

it's very easy for us

with these little

micro upgrades

that next minute

all the things

that we used to

consider as luxuries

becomes necessities

and we always,

we always don't have enough

because we're always

looking at that

next upgrade.

But ultimately,

we'll need

our worldliness

and the love

of the things

that are money,

the love of the things

that are will

can become monsters

in our life

and feel like

we deserve more.

I work hard.

We deserve more.

Why isn't God

blessing me with more?

Okay?

Two weeks ago,

Chris,

in his sermon,

referred to

an ancient philosopher.

Her name is Madonna.

And in 1986,

her famous

vanity article quote

said,

because even though

I've become somebody,

I still have to prove

I am somebody.

My struggle

has never ended

and it probably

never will.

Now,

1986 is a long,

long time ago,

right?

The world has changed.

We've gotten smarter.

Eric reminds us.

We now have more

friends on Facebook.

We've got more

followers on Twitter.

So,

what has modern

philosophers got to say

about

how

this generation

is interacting

with money?

So,

two contemporary

philosophers

that I like to

use today

in my sermon

is

Eminem

and Rihanna.

Just an explanation

for those

who were born

before the 90s,

Eminem

is actually

a rapper

from the United States.

It's not

the color-coded

candy

from Mars.

So,

don't think

of a big

yellow

kind of

with an M

on it.

Eminem

is actually

a legitimate

name

of a rap artist.

So,

in his

2013,

last year,

hit song,

The Monster,

Rihanna,

in the opening

line,

sang,

and I won't

sing it to you,

I'll just

quote it.

I'm friends

with the monster

that's under

my bed.

Get along

with the voices

inside my head.

You're trying

to save me,

stop holding

your breath.

You think

I'm crazy,

yet you think

I'm crazy.

I wanted

the fame,

but not the

cover of Newsweek.

And the song

goes on

to tell

the anguish

Eminem

has,

or is having,

coping with

the fame

and the

attention

that came

with his

global music

success,

and how

that has

created a

monster

that's

killing him.

He can

no longer

control it.

His success

and fame

is controlling

him.

He needs

to keep

writing new

songs

and performing

hits,

otherwise his

ego is going

to crush him.

We'll come

back to Eminem

a little bit

later.

So,

just to sum

up this

section,

David Foster

Wallace said,

everybody

worships.

The only

choice we

have is

what we

worship.

He also

warned us

we will

gradually

slip into

worshipping

the world

because that's

our default

setting.

Tim Keller

warns us

that in his

40 years of

pastoring,

nobody has

ever come

to him

to say,

pastor,

help me,

I'm greedy

and materialistic.

We don't

think it's a

problem that

we have.

In Luke

12,

he said,

watch out,

be on your

guard against

all kinds

of greed.

There is a

monster hiding

in our

lives.

We know

it's probably

under our

bed,

but do we

have the

courage to

go and

look for

it?

And can

we tame

it?

So,

in my

final section,

how do we

tame the

monster?

Remember

earlier we

said,

all of us

have this

thing in

our life

that we

think if

we only

have that

thing,

we would

be happy.

We refuse,

sometimes we

refuse to

look for the

monster,

to confront

it and

to tame

it.

But if we

do that,

if we refuse

to look for

it,

it will

one day

surface,

it will

overrun our

lives and

we won't

even know

it.

Anything that

we believe

would allow

us to

have a

life of

joy and

power

without

God

will not

only

disappoint,

it will

become the

monster.

That's why

God had to

bring Abraham

to the point

of sacrificing

Isaac.

That's why

Jesus had to

reveal to the

Samaritan woman

her issues

of men

before she

could understand

her real

spiritual thirst.

And that's

why ultimately

the young

rich ruler

ultimately went

away

downtrodden.

Money,

and more

precisely the

perception that

money would

allow all of

us to have

total control

of our lives

is often the

hidden monster

in our lives

in Hong Kong.

We love

money because

it gives us

power,

gives us

status,

gives us

recognition.

But most

dangerously,

we love

money because

it gives us

control.

We think

that what

money would

do is free

us from the

basic worries

and anxieties

of everyday

life.

If we have

lots and

lots of

money,

we can

weather any

storm.

We would

be able to

maintain our

same style

of living

even if we

lose our

job.

But ironically,

the reason,

but the irony

is the reason

our lives

is out of

control is

because we

are afraid

of losing

control to

God.

The reason

our life

is often

out of

control is

because we

are afraid

of losing

control to

God.

Eminem had

this to say

at the end

of his song,

The Monster.

He was

talking about

how fame and

his success,

and he always

wanted that,

but now he's

got it.

It didn't give

him fulfillment,

it didn't give

him happiness,

and certainly

didn't give

him control.

He said in

the end of

his song,

fame made

me a balloon

because my

ego inflated.

When I

blew, see,

but it was

confusing because

I needed an

interventionist to

intervene between

me and this

monster and

save me from

myself in all

this conflict.

Because the

very thing that

I love is

killing me and

I can't conquer

it.

My OCD is

conking in

my head.

Keep knocking,

but nobody's

home.

He said,

I needed

an interventionist

to intervene

between me and

this monster.

And Eminem

knew he

wasn't going

to be able to

overcome this

monster on his

own.

He said he

needed somebody

to intervene

between him

and his

monster to

save him from

this conflict

that's killing

him.

And he was

looking for

help, and he

said, keep

knocking, nobody's

home.

keep knocking,

nobody's

home.

When I hear

Eminem's cry

out for help,

it just brings

me to Revelation

3.20, where

Jesus said,

look, I

stand at the

door and

knock.

If you hear

my voice, open

the door, I

will come in,

and we will

share a meal

together as

friends.

Christ is

standing at our

door, knocking,

ready to come

in and have a

relationship with

us.

the will

needs to hear

the gospel

message, the

will needs to

hear Revelation

3.20.

Because success

and money will

not give us

control, ultimately

it will control

us.

In Eminem's

words, because

the very thing

that I love is

killing me, and

I can't conquer

it.

Williness, the

love of money, and

worldly success is

dangerous.

It can kill us,

just like it was

killing Eminem.

it's not only

money and

success per se, but

the desire for it,

the desire that

is greater than

our desire for

God.

God wants you to

give up control

and hand it over

to Him.

Jesus wants us to

give up trying to

control our lives

with money, and

instead trust in

control of Him.

But that's hard,

right?

Giving up control

to God, how do we

fight the monster?

How do we give up

control?

The last part of

the verse, in 1

John 2, 17, it

says, this will is

fading away, along

with everything that

people crave.

But anyone who

does what pleases

God will live

forever.

We need to see and

understand what it

means to live

forever with God.

Do we see Christ

and what Christ has

done for us?

He has purchased

for us the

eternal life through

dying on the cross

for us.

The value of

what that is worth

far surpasses

anything we can

amass in this

world.

There, our

treasure is in

heaven.

Beyond seeing the

value of what is

installed for us

in heaven, we

also need to see

how we are

valued in Jesus'

eyes.

He left His

Father's side to

come down, to

be broken into

the world, and to

die on the cross

for us.

He wasn't just

an interventionist

in the sense a

lawyer, as an

interventionist, arguing

our case.

He was the

ultimate interventionist.

He took our

monster.

He died on the

cross to free us

from our monster.

He had to die on

the cross because

we chose the world

and the things of

the world more

than we chose

God.

So if we let

Christ and what

Christ has done

dwell deeply in our

hearts and our

minds every day,

we will be able to

see money is just

a tool, a tool

for social justice,

a tool to heal

Hong Kong, a tool

to build community.

We will not be a

slave to this

monster.

But how do we

know if we are

making progress?

So just to sum up,

I want to get

practical, and some

of you are going to

hate me by the end

of this.

Because it's pretty

easy to stay

theoretical and talk

about Augustine and

Eminem.

By the way, I

think that's

probably the first

time ever those

two guys have been

referred to in the

same sentence.

We need to ask

ourselves just two

simple questions.

Two simple

questions.

One is, are we

spending too much

on ourselves?

Second is, are we

giving back to God

his share of what

he has blessed us

with?

Are we willing to

be accountable to

somebody about what

we spend on

ourselves?

And are we

willing to be

accountable?

accountable about

what we're giving

back to what God

has blessed us

with?

I mean, are we

willing, I'm not

asking you to

provide a full gap

compliant financial

statement.

All I'm saying is,

I mean, are we

willing to be

accountable for

our discretionary

spending on

ourselves?

And are we

willing to be

accountable to

somebody for

tithing to the

church?

That's the

monster x-ray.

That's the

monster x-ray.

And now that I've

said it in the

sermon, it's on

record, so we'll

make it into your

discussion questions

for your CG.

So that's a good

place to start.

And don't even

think about missing

next week's CG.

Because, you know,

it was just, you

were just pleading

guilty.

Okay?

So, I told you

you would hate me

by the end of

this, when we

get down to

where the rubber

meets the road.

But I think we

need to hear this

in Hong Kong.

Some churches

may skate around

it for the fear

of offending,

but this monster

of greed and

williness will

eat us alive.

And if we don't

help one another

here, we can

tame it.

And a good

first step of

breaking free from

the grip of this

monster, it's get

accountable with

one another about

how we tithe and

how we spend on

ourselves.

And given I'm

not part of the

staff, nor part of

the leadership, and

I'll probably never

get asked to preach

again, I want to

lay down a challenge

for all of us to

get accountable with

this tithing to the

church.

Are we willing to

do this?

Sure, the church

needs our finances

to keep the ministry

going, and there's

serious needs.

But even more

importantly,

there's a real

battle for our

souls.

It's fought on a

battlefield of our

bank accounts.

C.S. Lewis said,

enemy-occupied

territories, that's

what the world is.

Christianity is the

story of how the

rightful king has

landed, and you

may say landed in

disguise, and

calling us to take

part in a great

campaign of

sabotage.

Are you going to

join the revolution?

Today, there's one

out there in

Aberlty, in

Causeway Bay, in

Mong Kok, but

recognize there's

another revolution.

It's fought in our

hearts, and the

barricades are not

in Aberlty, but the

barricades across our

bank accounts.

Are we going to

make a stand against

this monster called

greed?

Are we going to help

one another with this

stand in our CGs?

Am I going to see you

at the barricades?

Let us pray.

Father God, we want

to live up to you.

We want to give you

thanks that you have

promised that where

two or three are

gathered together, you

are in our presence.

Lord, we just pray that

you would help us,

Lord, to find our

identity in you, not

in the things of this

world.

Lord, we just ask you

that we can't do it on

our own strength, that

we can come alongside

one another in this

community to overcome

this monster that is

williness and that's

materialism and that's

greed.

Father, we just pray

that for each one of

us that we recognize

that there is a fight,

there is a war, there

is a revolution and

it's in our hearts.

It's across our bank

accounts, it's across

our credit cards, it's

across how we spend.

Lord, we just ask you

that you would come

alongside us and help

us in this battle.

All this we pray in the

name of our Lord Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.