1 Peter 3

Hello, and welcome to the Kalamazoo church of Christ podcast.

Thank you so much for listening.

We're startup church.

We just planted in September, 2020 and at the Kalamazoo church, we believe that Christianity is done best when it is done together.

And so if you live in the Kalamazoo area, we would love to connect, be it coming to a Sunday service, one of our small groups, or even just grabbing coffee with a member to learn more.

You can visit kalamazoo.church in order to do that.

We pray that you are inspired by what you hear today, but what I do have, I have some jokes for you all.

Some dad jokes.

Uh, okay.

Here we go.

You know, in the Bible, there was somebody who had a six pack, uh, which, which person in the Bible.

Do you guys know who had a six pack?

No.

Absalom.

Actually.

Absalom.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

Uh, here's one, you know, I don't know.

I don't know the crowd.

Uh, but I, I, I, I want, yeah, how do you, how do you know that Adams are Catholic Adams?

Adams like the, that you make matter out of.

Well, because they have mass.

Who, who in the Bible knew the most people?

I don't know.

Abraham knew a lot.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Here we go.

Here we go.

These, these get progressively better or worse.

I don't know.

You know, where's the first tennis match mentioned in the Bible?

First tennis match.

Yeah.

Well, I, it was when Joseph served in Pharaoh's court, actually.

All right.

Here we go.

Here we go.

This is where they get good.

In the Bible.

This is biblical here.

What kind of car does it say the disciples drove?

Well, it has to be a Honda because in Acts 2 12, it says the apostles were all in one accord.

Okay.

Okay.

Last one here.

Last one here.

Who was the most, I could have kept going.

Who was the most business savvy woman in the Bible?

Business savvy.

But it had to be, it had to be Pharaoh's daughter, right?

She went to the bank and pulled out a little profit.

All right.

You guys can go to first Peter three.

They're kind of good.

There we go.

I didn't record.

You guys can look them up.

It's, it's first Peter three.

Got a little lesson.

Uh, it's, it's a, it's a fun text.

Actually.

It's probably a text that, uh, that you guys have read and maybe explained away.

I don't want to do that this morning.

We want to make sense of it.

Actually.

Uh, it's, it starts out, uh, for Kalamazoo church.

Welcome.

Uh, we're in the book of first Peter.

You guys know that.

So here we go.

It starts out in first Peter three.

I didn't organize it cause it was father's day, but at the first sentence, maybe some of the fathers will say, well, this is what I'm talking about.

It says wives in the same way, submit yourselves to your own husbands so that if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives.

When they see the purity and reverence of your lives, your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold or fine jewelry.

Rather, it should be that of your inner self.

The unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight for this is the way the holy women of the past put their hope in God, uh, who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves.

They submitted themselves to their own husbands like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her Lord.

You are her daughters.

If you do what is right and do not give way to fear, we're going to keep reading.

And then so, so, uh, men in general husbands, uh, certainly, uh, you're not off the hook, but, uh, Peter, Peter starts and he's giving direction to Christian women.

Uh, what amazing direction he gives.

He says, you can win your spouse just based on how you live your life.

Uh, that's, that's really cool.

I bet you, you can look at people in your lives or maybe in the churches that you've been a part of, and you can understand that, that just by living your life in one certain way that people decide to follow.

It's pretty powerful.

Uh, but then the, the other direction that he gives is to what, how should you concern yourself or with what should you concern yourself with?

It says, don't worry about, and don't concern yourself with outward adornment, uh, instead be focused on your inner self.

And so the way that he communicates outward adornment, he says, elaborate hairstyles, gold jewelry, and fine clothes, uh, elaborate hairstyles.

I bet you, maybe if you have a different version of the Bible, it even just says braided hair and, uh, don't wear any and don't wear any gold jewelry.

We're not a church who says don't braid your hair.

Uh, we're not a church that says don't wear gold jewelry, but what is he talking about?

Uh, well, I think it's pretty, it's pretty interesting because even talking about this, this idea of outward adornment, as I was thinking about it, I tried to look up, uh, what would somebody who he's referring to, what would they look like in that time?

And I didn't have an awful lot of success.

Maybe you, maybe you have an idea in your mind or maybe you've seen what is outward adornment look like to them.

Uh, but what I did realize and what I bet you, you could realize too, is that the idea of what's going on on the outside is very dependent on the culture that we live in.

Right?

Like if we were, if it's 2000 years later and we read this and we say, wow, elaborate hairstyles.

Oh my goodness.

That draws attention to ourselves.

We shouldn't do that.

And we said, oh, gold jewelry that draws attention to the out of ourselves.

We shouldn't do that.

And if it made sense to us without having to look at context, then, then you'd say, well, outward adornment is kind of, it's a, it's a normal thing that happened 2000 years ago that people focused on this specific group of things and we focus on the same specific group of things.

And so I guess it's just the same for them as it is for us, but it's not, you know, outward adornment.

So dependent on the culture that we live in, right?

The jewelry is not exactly the same.

Uh, the, you say diamonds are forever, but how you style them changes, uh, fine clothes then perhaps are not fine clothes now.

Uh, and I, even, even our Bibles take liberty to, to make some of this direction applicable to us by just saying elaborate hairstyles instead of the exact translation braided hair.

Uh, if you were to put a woman in Peter's day that he's, he's writing about, and if you threw her in the audience today, I think she would draw attention to herself based on how she looked probably.

But it wouldn't be like, Oh wow, that's very cool.

Or what are you like?

She could be, you could put her down in the Kalamazoo mall and people would look at her like, what is she selling or what is going on?

Maybe she wants us to buy a specific type of food or, but it wouldn't be like, wow, I, that's, that's elaborate.

That's beautiful.

That's the signal of beauty.

And yet to them, it was, I think what, what this communicates though, is that this outward adornment isn't lasting, right?

It's not lasting because it was outward adornment to them or what's beauty according to them is a little bit different than what's beauty according to us.

It's something that, that, that it doesn't, it doesn't live forever.

It doesn't die.

But, but listen to this then it says, focus then on your inner self, this unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, putting your value on what God sees and not making yourself the exception.

He says, Hey, look at the evidence from the people in the past.

Just, just follow what they did.

You're not the exception.

This, this inner self, this inner self is actually evident to everybody.

And this is, this was evident then it was evident years before that.

You can look in so many Proverbs, Proverbs 31 is a, is a great one that you can look at and it, and it echoes so many of the qualities that are talked about here.

And then what you can do is you can think about right now.

And if you were to describe what, uh, what somebody who, you know, when I, when I think about a woman like this, um, I think about someone who's just an easy person to talk to, right?

Somebody who's a great friend to all around her.

Uh, somebody who's not too proud, someone who loves to hear what other people have to say, who is secure in God and, and desires to be led.

These qualities are all timeless.

Peter is saying, focus on the timeless qualities and don't focus so much on what's going on on the outside.

I, you know, it's, it's father's day.

Uh, but I, but I, I was reading this and I have to imagine a father communicating this to his daughter, right?

Say, Hey, it's, it's easy.

Uh, the outward adornment in some ways is easy to, to look, to look a certain way or to draw attention this certain way.

It's easy.

Anybody can do it, but no daughter focus on the important things.

Focus on the things that, that, that nobody, that, that people don't value right away.

Focus on the things that are deeper, that, that really are your true character.

Uh, I, I, I imagine that that's what he'd be communicating.

Uh, I think, what does this mean for us or what, what, what, what can we take from it?

Why?

I think we have to ask ourselves, are we more focused on the outside or on the inside and are we focused for ourselves on what's going on on the outside?

Are we focused on what's going on on the inside?

If we're focused on the, the outside, uh, then our outside is going to look beautiful.

I believe it.

Uh, but if our inside is not, then it doesn't really matter.

Right?

Uh, the, the, the Bible keeps talking.

He says, husbands in the same way, be considerate as you live with your wives and treat them with respect as the weaker part partner and as heirs with you in the gracious gift of life so that nothing will hinder your prayers.

What is he telling?

He tells husbands to treat weaker people as heirs.

Uh, and then he says to notice this, he says, uh, in the same way, be considerate, but then as you live with your spouse, this, this live or dwell, it's to be present, to be attentive, to be there, not just physically, but then also mentally, emotionally, to just be present.

It's so powerful.

Again, we're not the exception, right?

You, you, we just read Peter's talking to, to, to women and now he's talking to, to men and he just says, you got to be present at home, but that's a struggle of yours.

He says, be attentive to be there, to be locked in.

I bet you, if you'll be honest with yourself, it's a, it's a little bit of a struggle of yours when, when you come home from work to just let me, let me just have my, my me time.

Let me just not, I don't want to have to worry about it.

I want to breathe for a few minutes.

This is, this is a struggle and Peter's saying, you got to live with your wife.

And then he says, heir, to consider them heirs of the gracious gift of life.

And it's to see people outside of their current circumstance and more closely see them how God made them as heirs, as somebody who's an equal to us.

This is a quality that's timeless, isn't it?

When you see somebody who has so much power and decides to stoop down and actually befriend the, the lower or the lesser or the less fortunate, these are things that we value in our society, right?

These are things that are absolutely timeless.

And as husbands, but even as men, this is our responsibility.

Our responsibility, you know, is to live our lives in such a way that helps other people and treats them as heirs instead of competition.

And so as I was, I was considering this and I wrote some things down here and, and I, I actually, I tried to delete it because I was like, I don't know.

I don't want to say this out loud, but I'm going to, I'm going to say it and it's going to be on the screen as well, even if I don't say it correctly.

But if you're a woman whose worth is found more in her appearance than her spirituality, you're being manipulated by the devil.

And if you're a man who is competitive at everything, if you're not present at home, if you're not gracious with others, you're going to live a sad life being used by the devil.

There's not, there's not two ways about it.

We'd love to say, well, we're growing in it.

We're working on it.

We're going to get there one day.

I want to stress the urgency with which we have to work on these things.

Then it's not, it's not just for, it's not just for husbands.

I think we can say men in general, right?

We talked about being present is a difficulty for all men, not being competitive.

That's a difficulty for all men.

And you can communicate the same thing for women as well as wives.

We ought to be people who live this out.

It keeps going though.

We're going to keep reading.

Just finally, all of you be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil or insult with insult.

On the contrary, repay evil with blessing because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.

For whoever would love life and see good days must keep their tongue from evil and their lips from deceitful speech.

They must turn from evil and do good.

They must seek peace and pursue it for the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer.

But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

So much of this, we covered, we covered a lot of this last week.

And so I'm just going to I'm not going to make too many notes on it because we're going to read a little bit more text that communicates more.

But if you if you're you know what what what is this communicating?

Do good to people and let them look down on you for doing good is what is what the Bible is saying.

But before that is really cool.

This this just one one sentence.

Right.

If we were to live just verse eight out perfectly, I think we'd have some pretty harmonious relationships.

Right.

Like minded that we're just not intent on conflict.

We don't we don't need to create conflict where it's not there.

Sympathetic, actually considerate of what other people are, what's what's happening with other people.

If we had this this love for one another, this genuine concern, and I really want to connect with you.

If we were compassionate and if we were humble, if we just lived out this sentence, I bet you our relationships would go pretty well for the most part.

If you look at the breakdown in relationships, you might be able to point to one of these things, man.

They always there's just always something with them.

They always wanted to.

I couldn't do anything right.

Not like minded.

And he doesn't know how I'm feeling.

He doesn't want to listen, not sympathetic.

Right.

And we can go down the list and you see a lot of this breakdown happens just just from this sentence.

We just followed it.

I think we'd be well, we'd be closer to Jesus for sure.

Let's let's keep going.

There's a bit at the end that I want to I want to cover as well.

We will I will drop right to 15, actually.

It says, but in your hearts, revere Christ as Lord.

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to keep to ask you to give the reason for the hope you have.

But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

For it is better if it is God's will to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous to bring you to God.

He was put to death in the body, but made alive in the spirit.

Verse 15 is it's a powerful one.

It's quoted frequently.

Right.

Be prepared to give an answer.

There's a there's a book even is it Gordon Ferguson that wrote it called Prepared to Answer.

And the book is it communicates what's the answer for the hope that we have.

And it shares a bunch of different doctrine and false doctrine and shares a bunch of different religions and where they they fall short or where they're mistaken about their understanding of who God is.

But I would say that's that's good.

We should give we should be able to give a technical answer for what we what we believe, what we hope for.

We should be able to have scriptures to pull to.

That's that is true.

But probably more than that, what it's communicating is that you have to you have to give an answer for the hope that you have.

And it's and it's tough.

You can give a hundred sentences about hope.

You can give all these different reasons for the hope you have.

But if you don't share your life and if your life doesn't look different, you're not going to look very hopeful.

You know what I'm saying?

If you want to be prepared to answer, then we ought to live lives that are full of hope that we ought to live lives that are entirely different.

This is certainly there's we need to be a group of people who understand the scriptures and can and can share them with people.

That is absolutely true.

But I think more than that, if you could choose between the two, if you could either be too technical or just be able to give a great testimony, let's choose to be able to give a great testimony of our life every single time.

You know, I bet you you've I know I've gotten myself into trouble by by thinking I can just debate my way out of any I can prove to somebody that this doctrine is correct.

I can show somebody how God has to be real based on this.

I bet you I can win this argument.

And I've left feeling like a dope.

I've left feeling like I didn't convince anybody.

I actually got more frustrated.

I don't think I was a great example of who Jesus is.

Maybe you've been in conversations like this where you speak too much.

And isn't it the worst feeling when you say, hey, what scripture is this?

And you say, I don't know what it says in the Bible somewhere.

I know scripture says this and you can't point to it and you just it is it is one of the most difficult feelings.

And then I felt it time and time again.

And and now I do feel like I'm able to win arguments and debates, but I'm pretty.

I also know that I don't think people are converted that way.

I'm sure there's a place for it.

I really I want to believe there's a place for it because very, very smart people, intelligent people, thoughtful people.

Certainly, Paul was one who gave the you know, he was a great orator, but he gave he debated people.

And the scripture shares that and he convinced people with his words and the scripture shares that as well.

There's a place for it.

But I don't know if it's at a grocery store.

You know what I'm saying?

I'm not I'm not sure if it's just a happenstance conversation on campus.

Maybe it is.

Generally, I found that when I debate with people, they end up leaving with a worse interpretation of who Jesus is, because I probably didn't give them a great interpretation of who Jesus is.

So how are we going to combat that malicious talk?

It's by sharing our testimony.

And it's by living like people who are changed.

Nobody can know you can't.

How are you going to debate?

I used to live this way, but now I don't live this way because Jesus changed my life.

How are you going to debate that?

I can't tell you.

No, you don't.

You didn't used to live that way.

No, I guess you did used to live this way.

Being comfortable to share.

This is where I came from and this is what God has done in my life.

That's not tacky.

That's not corny.

That's not played out.

It's who you are.

And it's beautiful.

My I remember my my campus minister.

This was he shared a story in Milwaukee and we were we were meeting and I figured out that his mom became a Christian.

And so I just said, Dwayne, how did your mom become a Christian?

Did she become a Christian first or was it you first or what happened?

And he said that he grew up in a single parent household in a really tough upbringing.

It just it wasn't wasn't a good situation.

And he went down the list of the things that he did that he did.

It's a miracle that he that he became a disciple, but he became a disciple.

He was reached out to at Toys R Us by by by a disciple who was leading the church at the time.

He was he was working at the Toys R Us.

And then by the time this was a few years.

And then by the time he he was leading the campus ministry, he got a degree.

He was leading.

And time and time again, he had communicated to his mom, Mom, you got to do this.

Mom, you're wrong.

Mom, this is how you raised us.

I love you, but it was not the right way.

And he tried to debate with her and tried to convince her with his words.

And she didn't want to have anything to do with it.

And then what he said, he said, I just started going over to her house.

And I started cleaning her dishes, started sweeping her floor.

I started doing everything I could to follow what the Bible teaches to honor my my my mother.

And he said the first time he did it, she told him to get out of the house.

She said, son, what are you doing?

Get out, get out the house.

You haven't done this ever when you lived here.

Don't don't start now.

And it was just just in this way.

And he just communicated, Mom, I'm a changed person.

I didn't do a good job of honoring you when I lived in your house.

I'm going to do it now.

Over the course of years, his mom studied the Bible and became a Christian.

This is this is this is true for all of us, though.

Our actions are going to play so much more of a factor in our friends and our family following God than our words ever could.

You don't have to feel don't feel don't feel dumb if you don't know if you don't know a specific verse.

It's OK.

Let's figure it out together.

I don't I feel like I know the answer.

I want to give you a good answer.

Let's sit down.

Let's open it up.

I don't have a great response for you right now, but let's talk about it later.

That's OK.

There's nothing wrong with that.

It's OK.

We're not supposed to have all of the answers.

If we had all the answers, we wouldn't have to show up to church.

We wouldn't have to read our Bible if we had all the answers.

Right.

We know that we're people that without God, we can't do anything good.

Right.

So as we as we as we as we read this, I certainly.

Yeah.

Let's get the technical answer.

But more than that, be inspired by your testimony.

If you've got a great testimony and everybody here who's a Christian has a great testimony.

Go ahead.

Hold it in.

Make it make it powerful.

Do whatever you've got to do.

But but feel great about sharing that with people, how you are a different person.

Let's keep reading here.

That's fine.

We'll go over here.

So now it's talking about now it's talking about Jesus.

And he's he's sharing something.

He says after being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits.

To those who were disobedient long ago, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built in it.

Only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water.

And this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also.

Not the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a clear conscience towards God.

It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

The beginning of this passage has been the topic of debate.

I was I don't I you know what?

First, who were the imprisoned spirits?

And there's people that they're smart people at smart.

The smartest people say we just don't know.

We're not really sure.

Yeah, that's a good answer.

Right.

But so in prison spirits, what he's preaching to this group of people, what did he say?

Could they become saved?

We don't really know.

Some some theologians say yes.

Some scholars say no.

We don't we don't really know what was what was communicated or what was preached.

I think perhaps perhaps some of it was to fulfill what this says, actually.

Therefore, God exalted and this is Philippians to nine to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

And every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the father.

So so perhaps that this was that lived out perfectly where he's saying, I'm going to proclaim and give a message to the people.

Even long ago when they were disobedient.

Hey, you guys were wrong.

I am victorious over sin.

Perhaps they had an opportunity to follow.

Perhaps they didn't.

Nobody.

We can't really.

We can't really say what we can say is it would have been probably a pretty good comfort or really it would have provided great comfort to the readers of this letter.

Remember, these are the people who are in small pockets of Christian groups in a nation that is that is not at all Christian.

That can feel like, man, is justice ever going to be served?

Is our good things ever going to happen?

How come the bad keep being raised up?

And Peter's pointing to he's like, hey, remember those guys?

Even they got preached to even they were proved wrong by Jesus himself.

And so probably they would feel some joy or some comfort with that.

But then it says this other thing, and I really want to I want to talk about this just for a little bit.

It's such a great such a great, great text.

It says this water he's talking about, you know, the flood water.

He says this water, it symbolizes baptism that saves you also not the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a clear conscience to God.

It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And so what's what's going on right here is he's making this this beautiful appeal.

And what I want to do is I want to make a similar appeal.

I will say that we're all on our spiritual journeys and some people are at different spots.

Some people are at other spots.

Some people are at a spot right now where there's like this this thing missing.

And you're in this thing is actually baptism.

And what what is it?

What's the point?

Why?

Why is it important?

This is this is what the Bible is teaching, though.

There are there are many, I believe, that have been coming around.

And if you feel like you're in this camp, then I'm talking to you.

If you feel like I'm not in this camp yet or I'm not in this camp anymore and I'm not talking to you, that's OK.

But what I want to say is there's an there's an appeal that's being made of this pledge of a clear conscience to God as you enter the waters of baptism.

And you have to ask yourself, if you were baptized before, did you do it with a clear conscience?

What does that mean?

Well, a clear conscience is without outside pressures.

My parents really wanted me to become a disciple and my parents really wanted me to get baptized.

My spouse really wanted me to get baptized.

The preacher really wanted me to get baptized to be in a relationship.

I had to get baptized.

These are all things with outside pressure that if you if you did that, I would I would question my baptism if I were you.

That's without a clear conscience.

Another way.

So for outside pressure, but then also some inside pressure that that there's there was unconfessed sin that knowing unconfessed sin.

There's we can't confess everything, but there's stuff that I'm holding on to as I walked into baptism that I felt like I don't need to share it.

Maybe I can just hold it.

This is this is, you know, I'm going to be judged if I share this stuff.

It's not going to be proved that the church isn't going to forgive me if I if I share this, whatever it is.

These are these are things that if you were baptized and you had either of these outside pressure or unconfessed sin, I think I would question, did I do it with a clear conscience?

And maybe you say, well, I haven't I haven't done it at all, and I'm still concerned.

What is what is the point?

Why?

I don't I don't see it.

I think, you know, what I want you to know is that the Bible teaches that it's not an outward sign of an inward faith or something like that.

It's not like, oh, yeah, it's OK if you do or you don't.

That's not what the Bible teaches.

It's not something that's optional.

You can read all over the book of Acts and you see there's somebody who is literally going through a desert, sees water and says, I've got to be baptized right now.

If it wasn't that important, then he wouldn't really care to do it that way.

It's not optional.

It's it's it's the forfeiture of your life and a decision that's similar to marriage that just says, I don't know everything this entails.

I'm not sure if I can.

I believe I'm going to I'm going to but I'm going to give everything I possibly have to this relationship.

And in that way, it's actually better than marriage, because if you give everything you can in your marriage, you know, it can still happen as your marriage can still fail.

If you give everything you can to Jesus and if you pursue God with your whole heart and if you make this public declaration, certainly that has eternal consequences, then Jesus is never going to turn his back on you.

He's never going to he's never going to be wrong.

He's always going to be there for you.

This is it is it's something certainly it's a cost to count because you're giving up your life.

But it is the best cost to possibly count because the rewards are so much greater on this earth and then in heaven as well.

But the Bible, the Bible is clear, though, I would say if you are in that camp where you're coming around, you're like, I don't this baptism thing.

What's it all about?

Why make a big deal out of it?

Just talk to the person that you've been studying with.

You know, this is one thing that we love to do that.

You guys know Matthew 28.

It says make disciples of all nations, says baptize them.

And then it says teach them to obey everything.

And I know there there can be a fear that once I get baptized, they're just going to let me go on my own way.

And I'm just on my own.

That's not what the Bible teaches, either.

There's there's a teaching to obey everything that we want to be involved in people's lives.

And we're committed to to it.

Amen.

The the we're going to prepare our hearts for communion right now.

But I want you to know something else.

And somebody might say that baptism.

Oh, it is it's it's just a work and we're not saved by works.

And I would say it is a work.

But by who?

It's a work by Jesus Christ, because it says it saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

It's not about the water.

It's this pledge of a clear conscience because Jesus died.

Yes.

But then he rose again.

Amen.

We are going to take communion.

And I want to just welcome you to to go there with God.

Go there with where your where your beauty lies.

Go there with what you value in this world.

Go there with your testimony and how you have totally transformed or how you are on the path to transformation.

But then go there with your conversion as well.

Amen.

Let's pray right now.

Dear God.

Jesus, we have no we have no way to stand up before you.

We're we're we connect with those words that say that that every knee is going to bow.

Lord, I pray that we will be those who who who bow down now instead of being forced to bow down on the final day.

But we realize that regardless, we are going to proclaim you as Lord.

We want to do it on this earth, in this life, Lord.

And I want to pray and thank you so much that you that you are worthy of our of our praise.

I thank you so much that you did go on the cross.

I thank you so much that you decided to take the punishment for sin.

I thank you so much that we're where we said that whenever we turn to God, he never turns his back on us.

That you were the only one ever who when you turn to God, he had to he had to turn his back on you in order to see you as sin.

And in order for you to die, we are so we're so grateful that you decided to give yourself to death.

Lord, everybody else and nobody else decides when to die.

It just happens.

And yet you decided to give yourself to death.

You made yourself obedient to and we're grateful for that, Jesus.

We're so grateful not only for your sacrifice, but we're grateful for your resurrection and your making us worthy to receive salvation.

Lord, we love you so much.

This is in this is in your name that we pray, Jesus.

Amen.

Thank you so much for listening to the Kalamazoo Church of Christ podcast.

If you're in the Kalamazoo area, we'd love to get connected.

Please go to Kalamazoo.Church and fill in your information to come to a Sunday service or any other event that we have going on.

In any case, you'll be hearing from us next week.