From Ephesus: Faithfulness

Well, good morning, good morning, welcome to venture. If you're

joining us online, thanks for jumping on with us. If

it's your first or second or third time here and

I haven't met you, my name is Die. I'm super

glad that you are here. I'm part of the team

here at our mil Cree campus and I am tasked

with the responsibility of continuing our sermon series that we're

in right now on the Fruit of the Spirit, which

if you've missed any of these, you can go back

and listen to for extra challenges in your life, because

what we've all realized is how hard the fruit of

the Spirit is. We're basing this series off of a

verse found in Galatians chapter five. It's verse twenty two,

and it's basically a list of characteristics. It says the

fruit of the Spirit is, and then it's the list love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness,

and self control. And we've covered so far more than

half of that list. We've covered life of joy, peace, patience, kindness,

and then we jumped to the end and we did

self control. And today we're going to pick up that series.

And what we've learned so far is we can't fake

these fruit. That's like, first and foremost, they are in

fact fruit of the spirit, and it's fruit singular, not

fruits of the spirit. And we've learned that we can't

fake it. We can't like staple the fruit onto our lives.

The best we could actually do on our own and

our own humanness.

Is work really hard to will ourselves to.

The best of our ability, to sort of have these

characteristics evident in our life. For example, patience, which we

could will into existence until we get in traffic and

it's evaporated and gone, and.

We laugh about that, but it's.

Also really true. It's really hard or impossible to fake.

What we've learned is these characteristics, these fruit are deduced

by the work of the Spirit in our lives, when

we are planted in the soil of a relationship with Jesus,

of his spirit at work inside of us. This is

the fruit that is produced in our life as a

result of being planted, not our own efforts or our

own will.

So today we're going to look.

At the next nearly impossible fruit called faithfulness. And I

will admit this was a heavy thing to study.

I struggled.

I really felt like I had to apply this to

myself first. Let the spirit work in me first, which

is always a good practice if you're writing a message.

But it's a heavy one.

And I want you to hear me say right off

the bat, I will do my best to not deliver

this in any way that relates to condemnation, because I

am just like you. I'm a human being, and I

just can't. I can't fake the fruit, and so will you.

And I have to be connected to the spirit. It's

the work of the spirit inside of us that produces

this fruit.

And I want to compare it today, just for.

The simple illustration of putting these two things next to

each other. What is not a scientific term but is

now trademarked as my term human faithfulness. I want to compare, like,

what does the fruit of faithfulness look like? By comparing

it to what we might understand better, which is the

human kind of faithfulness.

But first, let's pray. Would you join me? Lord?

I start with myself and say, I can't produce these

characteristics in my life without you, and that is true

of this entire room and those listening line. We cannot

force these fruit into existence, and yet these are things

that should be growing in our life as a result

of knowing you. I know that there are some people

here that it's their first or second time, and so

these fruit are maybe just brand new little buds on

the tree, or maybe not even growing yet. But corporately, Lord,

can I just pray on our behalf that our hearts

would be open and sensitive to the areas that you

want to put your finger on. And I do ask

that you would bring conviction, not condemnation.

That's not your way.

Conviction where we need to have our attention. God, it's

in your name, we pray Amen. Faithfulness. So humanly speaking,

let's give a human definition for this word faithfulness. So

humanly speaking, I will go to my notes. If it's

not going to bear, oh there it is. Faithfulness is

the quality of being loyal or steadfast. Those are words

that we're familiar with, particularly in relationships and commitments.

I will now open the altars for us to respond.

I mean, I don't know if you're like me.

As soon as I wrote down the human definition of faithfulness,

I was like, well, struggling already. The human version of

faithfulness is actually all around us. I like this idea

that we're marinating in the human kind of faithfulness every day.

It's literally all around us. We promise to be faithful

to a spouse, We pledge loyalty to an organization or

to a job, or to even a political party. Maybe

we become a member of a church. We commit ourselves

to support our family, we commit ourselves to support our friends,

and we buy the jersey of our favorite sports team,

which is why I'm where wearing Mariners jersey, and God

bless the worship team who decided to support me by

wearing it as well. And you might wonder why is

she wearing that jersey that is so unlike her? And

I want to say two things. One, this is a

heavy message and I'm just going to try and lighten

it up as much as I can. And two, I

really think commitment to a sports team is sort of

just like a base level.

We all understand it. So it's helped me out here.

How anyone know how long the Mariners have been a

professional Major League baseball team?

Should I hear it? Forty eight? Thank you very much?

Forty eight years? How many World Series have the Mariners won?

Goose seg how many World Series have the Mariners been? To?

Dang it? Anyone know how many times they've even made

it to the playoffs.

Of those forty eight years, five five times, good job,

good guess, five times. That's ten percent of the years

they've been in existence. And so I just want to

say I, in some meager little part of my life,

understand faithfulness. I can't count how many games Brandon and

I have been to over the past thirty three years

of being married, plus the years we were dating. We

have been Mariners fans since we met each other, and

before that, we have been to games in the Kingdome

where we'd buy the ticket.

For the third level.

Some of you are like, I wasn't even alive when

the Kingdome was standing darn it.

But we would go to the three hundred level of.

The Kingdome and then the dreaded words would come out

of Brandon's mouth where he would say, let's sneak down

to a lower seat, and then I would begin sweating

immediately and wonder how many times we have to move

in a game because the real seat owners show up

and turns out, if the Mariners are losing, it's not

very money.

That you have to change.

You can just except for the time that we sat

behind the backstop, and an usher came up and said, now,

I know you're not in the right seats because this

is reserved for the Mariners wives.

Darn it. But I will say.

You can judge someone's faithfulness as a sports fan, specifically

as a Mariners fan in this example, based on their

win loss record. They're winning, the place is packed, or

they're playing Toronto and all the Canadians came down to

support them. One of the two, they're losing, the place

is crickets and empty. And that's exactly the problem with

the human kind of faithfulness.

It has limits. It has limits.

The human kind of faithfulness loves the team until they're losing.

The human kind of faithfulness is committed to the marriage

until it's hard or maybe painful. The human kind of

faithfulness will stick with the friend until they're going through

something really hard, maybe a deep depression, maybe they're going

through health issues, and maybe our attitude turns into like,

I'm totally committed to this friend until they're just a

drag and then I'm out. Human kind of faithfulness will

support their church family and tell something better comes along

down the street or someone else meets their needs better.

The human kind of faithfulness is tough to hear, it's

tough to face. I think we actually, over the years

have become a little better at the human kind of

faithfulness to ourselves, like prioritizing my dreams and my goals

and my health and my boundaries and you know, having

my life in order, my priorities, all those things. I

think we've gotten better at that. But the human kind

of faithfulness to others is where we go. Oh, because

that kind of faithfulness, we're good at commitment until it's painful,

costs us, something is inconvenient, it's time consuming, or just

plain isn't fun anymore. But to know the human kind

of faithfulness, the limit that it has, all we have

to do is look at the sports fans, the marriages,

the friendships, the church commitments, and ultimately.

The commitments to God.

People that say I'm going to follow Jesus and where

their lives take them from there. And I know this

is heavy, and please hear me. This is not meant

for condemnation. This is meant for us to take an evaluation.

There might be no better way to understand the limits

of human faithfulness than to compare our lack to God's example.

Of faithfulness.

So I'm going to ask you if you have your

Bible or you have your Bible app We're going to

go back and forth from Galatians where we started, but

now we're going to go to a very obscure, maybe

little or not much at all read book called Hoseiah.

It's found in the Old Testament, in the It's in

the books of the Prophets. This is probably infrequently read,

but I think this is an incredible example for us.

So Hoseiah is a man that God calls on to

be a prophet. Now, in the Old Testament of the Bible,

this was God would call a person and he would

speak through that person to his people.

So we would choose a person that will.

Listen and will relay what He's saying to his people.

So it's how God spoke to his people.

So this man, Joseah, was a prophet who listened to

God and shared with God's people what God wanted them

to hear. Now, what we have to understand is that

God had promised his people from the beginning to be

committed to them, to be faithful to them. Now, we

finished a series where we went all the way through

the Book of Genesis, and that's where this faithfulness of

God is established. And then when you go to the

second book of the Bible, which is Exodus, that story

takes off with God rescuing his people from slavery in Egypt,

and he rescues them in showing his faithfulness. He leads

them through the wilderness and constantly is repeating to them,

I am a God who is faithful. I will be

faithful to you. And you can go and do some.

Study on this.

But God is establishing his faithfulness to rescue and walk

with his people, and he's asking them to be in

this set apart covenant relationship with him where they are

also faithful in return. But God's people struggled to be

faithful and we can relate, so their unfaithfulness to God

would eventually lead them back into captivity. And Joseiah's message

is situated right in that time period where God is saying,

this is what happens when you're unfaithful, and it's not

because he's vindictive. He's not trying to get even with them.

He's warning them, if you're not faithful, I'm gonna let

you live out your unfaithfulness to me, but it will

come with the consequences of captivity. A neighboring nation is

going to come and conquer you and take you into captivity.

So this is not God being vindictive. Instead, this is about.

God calling his people back into a faithful covenant relationship

with him. So to illustrate the relationship between a faithful

God and his unfaithful people, we find this message that

God gives to Joseiah. We're gonna read chapter one, verse two.

This is where it says the Lord first began speaking

to Israel through Joseiah, and he said to him, He said,

to who Hooseiah, go and marry a prostitute, so that

some of her children will be conceived in prostitution. This

will illustrate how Israel has acted like a prostitute by

turning against the Lord and worshiping other gods. I don't

know if you've ever read that verse before. I mean, what,

go and marry a prostitute. The original word for prostitute

is woman of harl trees, which is colorful and means

not someone who commits adultery, someone who repeatedly engages in

unfaithful betrayal relationships with people that she's not married to,

like a prostitute would and it is in the present tense,

as in it's going to continue.

So let's just make sure we understand.

God says to Josea, as an example of my faithfulness

to my people, but their unfaithfulness to me, go marry

someone who's going to continue to be unfaithful to you

and will have children that are not yours, that are

born and conceived from her unfaithful relationships. And sadly, then

we have the rest of chapter one which describes exactly

how unfaithful Joseiah's wife is. Her guilt is painful, obvious, unmistakable,

her guilt is shameful. There's no question about the fact

that Joseiah shouldn't have had to put up with this.

He didn't deserve a marriage to somebody that was unfaithful

to him. Maybe even we would say her guilt is unforgivable.

And some of you know this pain, You know the

pain of unforgivable betrayal in a marriage relationship. And some

of you have caused this pain. You have been the

unfaithful one. And this is not meant for condemnation. This

is meant for us to do a spirit check, where

where am I at? In faithfulness, and I want you

to hear me say. This story in Hoseiah is bigger

than sexual sin, as painful as that is, It's broader

than a story that was a thousand years ago that

happened to a group of people that we don't know

and haven't ever met. This is a picture of the

unfaithfulness of God's people to God and his faithfulness in

how he responds to them.

So how does God respond?

How does the faithful God respond to the unfaithful people?

Well? Chapter three tells us.

First one, God says to Joseiah, as a picture of

his faithfulness, Joseiah, go and love your wife again, even

though she commits adultery or read there, even though she's unfaithful,

like still not just she did that while ago. This

will illustrate that the Lord still loves Israel, even though

the people have turned to other gods and loved to

worship present tense worship them be unfaithful.

Verse two tells us that.

Joseah obeyed what the Lord said, So God said, go.

And love your wife again. But it adds something. Verse

two says that.

Joseiah went and bought his wife back.

He bought her.

Now, don't hear slavery here where she was required a

physical price from him.

He's already paying the emotional price.

There's already the damage relationally, he's already carrying the pain

of the infidelity.

But he obeyed.

He went and bought his wife, He rescued her, he

brought her back into their home, and he cared for her.

This act is redemptive, and your Bible may have a

little heading that say the redemption of Joseiah's wife redemption.

It actually costs something.

Her unfaithfulness demanded a price be paid, and the innocent

guy she was married to paid the price. It's a

picture of Jesus in the future, the innocent god Man

who paid the price for our sin that we couldn't

pay for on our own. And in case we miss

the imagery here, in case, in case we or Israel

at this time period are like, well, that's just Joseiah

and his wife.

God doubles down.

Like, I want to make sure my people understand that

was just an illustration, that's just an analogy, So that

they understand this is about me and them. Translate that

me and us God, in us, you and I and God.

Hoseiah Chapter four, Verse one.

This is where we look and say, how do we

see what Hoseiah is turning this illustration to Israel?

How do we see that?

The first thing is he calls out the people's unfaithfulness.

So God through him is first going to point out

your unfaithfulness Hoseah four to one.

There is no faithfulness.

God says, there's no kindness, there's no knowledge of God

in your land. You make vows, you break them, You

kill and steal and commit adultery.

There's violence everywhere.

There's one murder after another, and that is why your

land is in mourning and everyone is wasting away.

My people are being destroyed because they don't know me.

You've forgotten the laws of your land.

So, in case Israel missed, this is not just about

Joseah and his wife. God first says, none of you

know me, you're not faithful to me, and as a result,

here's all the destruction. Secondly, God reaffirms his love for

his people.

This is God speaking, Oh, how can I give you up? Israel?

This is in chapter eleven. How can I let you go?

My heart is torn within me and my compassion overflows.

Can you just stop for a second.

Ago If this was your life in the middle of

unfaithfulness to stop and go. My heart is torn with compassion.

Inside of me, my love overflows. Thirdly, God calls for

the repentance of his people to recommit themselves to know him.

This is in Joseah twelve to six. So now come

back to your God. Number Four, God reminds the people

of his faithfulness to them. This is in Joseah thirteen,

where God says, I have been the Lord, your God

ever since I brought you out of Egypt. I have

been faithful for all of these years I took care

of you in the wilderness. He's reminding them, I've been faithful.

We just sang about it. You're always on time. It

doesn't mean we're not going to go through hard things.

A relationship with God does not mean we won't face

Surely we face heartache, Surely we face broken promises. Surely

we face sickness and need. And it's not that we

are spared all of those things. It is that God

is always there with us, right in the middle, because

God is faithful. And Fifth, God states his promise to

heal the repentant the repentant. He promises to heal the

repentant Hoseah fourteen four, Bring your confessions and.

Return to the Lord.

Then the Lord will heal you of your unfaithfulness. And

then he says, my love will know no bounds. This

is just one of many places in the Bible that

we can understand God's faithfulness. It's probably the most illustrative

and grim. But if you and I, if you've known

the Lord for more than even just a day or two,

if you and I were to sit and recount the

ways that God has been faithful in our lives, the

times that he showed up right when you needed him,

the time that he provided when it looked like there

was no way to move forward in provision, the time

that he healed your body, the time that he showed

up in a relationship because you called on him to

show up in a relationship.

He has been faithful, He will be faithful. He remains faithful.

He will be faithful. We can't trust him if he's not.

And let's be clear, Hoseah's story is about God's faithfulness.

It is not about Joseah's faithfulness. It's about God's faithfulness. Now,

I think you'd agree with me that Joseah deserves a

bit of credit here. Joseah deserves a little shout out

because he obeyed the Lord, taking an unfaithful wife that

he knew would remain unfaithful to him, committing himself to her,

remaining faithful to her, buying her back when she had

reached the end, bringing her back into his home, caring

for her and caring for the children that she bore

out of her unfaithfulness.

Would you would I? Have you been faithful when you've

been betrayed?

Have you had a situation where somebody broke their vows

and you stayed faithful?

What if we told Josea's story?

What if everyone went home in our assignment today was

to read Joseah's story and put our name in it.

It's not Joseah, it's me die because you took your vows.

I took my vows. You said for better or for worse,

for rich or poor, for sickness and in health. And

then he cheated or she cheated, or he didn't hold

up his into the bargain, or she left even though

you didn't wanter to leave, or you tried and he

or she didn't try, and you said, what I deserve

better than this? I don't have to live my life

like this. I don't have to stay in this relationship.

I could be happy, which is all true, by the way,

but that's human limited faithfulness.

And don't get lost here. Don't get lost.

In the What are he's saying we have to stay

in a marriage that's abusive. What are you saying that

I have to be married to someone who doesn't love

me for the next thirty years. What are you saying

we fight every single day. I'm not defining that for you.

I'm just pointing out that the spirit produced fruit of

faithfulness is not human faithfulness. Human faithfulness says I don't

deserve this. I don't have to put up with this.

I can leave.

I have biblical grounds, whatever those are, I get to go,

and whatever else I know I can. I know I

committed to this friendship, but frankly, this is just causing

me a lot of work and I don't have to

be it. I don't have to have this in my life.

This doesn't have to be part of my life.

The point is.

That we think we're supposed to be faithful. When faithfulness

is returned to us, and we think that we're supposed

to be faithful when we're loved, and we think we're

supposed to be faithful when it's part of an arrangement

or an agreement or relationship, and both parties hold up

their end of the deal. But that's human faithfulness. The

faithfulness that is born of the spirit says I will

be faithful when it feels or maybe even actually is

unfair or one sided. The spirit produced faithfulness says I

will be faithful period. That's Can we just all say

that's tough. I mean, I'm not living your life right now.

I don't know how you're applying this right now, going yeah,

but you don't know you're right, I don't.

I don't know. I just know that spirit.

Produced faithfulness, illustrated in the life of Joseiah is not

how I thought faithfulness was supposed to go. God's word

promises that God is faithful. God is He is faithfulness,

and when he's at work inside of us, his characteristics

are produced in our lives. And if we're missing these

characteristics or fruit, we have to ask the logical question,

where where Where's God in my life? Does he have

access to that part of my life? Have I said, yeah,

I'll live for you? Except I just can't do this part,

and I'm not. I'm not here telling you.

What to do.

That's that's up to the Holy Spirit at work in

your life. He's doing that in me, He's got to

do that in you. I'm just here to tell you

that God promises he will never leave you. He's never

leaving me, even though I'm unfaithful. He's never He's never

gonna forsake me. He's he promises to be beside me,

even in the mess that I created out of unfaithfulness.

To him, he is faithfulness. And that faithfulness is a

fruit produced by the work of the Spirit in us.

How how is that fruit produced? Well, let me just

throw in one more really lighthearted word today, how how is.

That fruit produced in us? Crucifixion.

Crucifixion is the word Galatians five sixteen. Now that verse

is just a few verses before Galatians five twenty two,

which is where we started. Now, the fruit of the

Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness

is self control. That's five two. But if we just

go a couple verses above it to five p. Sixteen,

Paul the author says, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives.

Let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. And then it

goes on to say when we do that, we produce

those good fruit. But there's a section in there that

also says when we don't do that, we produce revolting

things in our life. And I'm not gonna list them

all out. Encourage you to go do some study if

you're not aware of what those things are. But they're

all just what our human selves produce when we are

not surrendered to the Lord. It's our human nature, what

we crave, what we feel like we deserve.

That's what comes out of our life.

If we are not letting the Holy Spirit work in

our lives, then Paul.

Doubles down on it.

So five point twenty two is the list of the

fruit of the Spirit, but five twenty four is where

Paul doubles down.

Listen to this.

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions

and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and

crucified them there.

Since we're living in the spirit.

Let us follow the Spirit's leading in every part of

our lives. And there it is crucifixion. We're invited, we're

not forced. Nobody's making you. We're invited to take the

human versions, the human stuff inside of us, our human desires,

our human passions.

All the things that run wild if we let them.

Were invited to bring those things to Jesus and nail

them to the cross, and make a choice to say,

Spirit of the Living God, Spirit of the living God,

not a dead God, not a God who's just a

block of wood or something. Creator of the universe. God,

work inside of me. I give you the access to

work inside of me. And when the Spirit works inside

of us, that's when we produce the fruit of love

and joy and peace and patience.

Let me say it to you this way.

Here are some of the descriptive words of characteristics that

we produce humanly that we should nail to the cross,

and just notice they're the opposite of the fruit we've

looked at so far.

We're invited to nail indifference to the cross.

That's the opposite of love. It's not hate, it's I

don't care. I just don't care. We're invited to nail hopelessness, anxiety, meanness, indulgence, fickleness,

all the human versions of the fruit of the Spirit.

We're invited to nail to the cross to actively say

I do not want this produced in my life, but

I can't produce the good stuff by myself, so therefore

I must submit myself to the spirit. We're invited to

let the spirit of the Living God do a deep

work inside of us, even when it sounds scary, and

even when we think I don't I can't do that.

You're right, you can't. But the spirit of God can

we get to choose. We can walk out.

You can walk out of here and go I didn't

need that today. You can walk out of a friendship

because it's just a pain in the rear. You can

walk out on your marriage because this is where he

or she is not holding up there end of the deal.

You can This is not meant for condemnation. I'm not

telling you what to do, but I am saying that

the spirit produced fruit of faithfulness stays. The fruit of

faithfulness says, I'll keep my promises. I will be found

trustworthy and reliable and loyal, and I will be curious

about standing next to those I have made commitments to.

And I will respond to God's faithfulness by living out

my faithfulness to him. And that is the only response

we can have besides rejection is God, You've been faithful

to me. The only response that's appropriate here is my

faithfulness in return to you. That must come by the

work of the Spirit. I'm gonna read one last verse

from the ever popular Book of Lamentations, chapter three, verse

twenty two, such an anthem to just like latch onto

the faithful love.

The faithful love, the faithful love of the Lord never ends.

His mercies never cease, They never come to an end.

Great is his faithfulness, His mercies are fresh. Every morning.

I say to theself, the Lord is my inheritance.

I will hope in him.

Our hope goes to the Lord, because we can't produce

this stuff on our own. And I want you to

hear me say. The tendency is to go backwards over

many years of mistake making, and go I'm the worst.

I'm so ashamed of my life. And I want you

to hear that the grace of God for you is enough.

In fact, the.

Bible says it's sufficient, which means it is perfectly hand

carved exactly for your need. Everything that you have confessed

and surrendered to the Lord is in the past. We

don't beat ourselves up with that today today, our question

is where am I?

Where am I? Am I producing the fruit of faithfulness?

Or am I a walk out?

Because it's hard kind of a person and hard truth.

I'm gonna ask you to bow your heads because I want,

I want a moment of inward. I'm gonna pray in

a minute. But really, when I started studying for this message,

the line I kept coming back to was Spirit of God,

do a deep work in us.

Holy Spirit, do a deep work in us. We can't.

We can't produce the reflections of God or the fruit

that people see in us and go.

She didn't come up with that on her own.

We can't produce that fruit without you helping us conform

to be more like God. So Spirit, we're asking that

you would move. I'm asking Holy Spirit bring conviction where

someone needed to hear the hard truth of yes, you

can quit. Are there places where we have to walk away?

That's not the point of today's message. Today's message is

for those of you that have fought. This is harder

than I thought it was going to be. It's not

as fun. I don't want to be in it anymore,

and you know what that is.

I don't, But I gotta wrestle with it too.

So if you're in this place and you would say,

I needed this challenge and I want to submit. I

want to submit my life, my heart, my will. I

want to submit that to the Lord. Would you just

raise your hand around the room?

Thank you? Up? Up, down, up, Great, you can put

your hands down.

I'm not gonna apologize. I don't know if any of

us are really really outside of needing to respond to this.

I think our our faithfulness in a world where we

marinate in a culture of unfaithfulness affects us.

More than we want to admit.

So if you're in this place and you would say,

or listening online, and you would say, I want I

want God to have his way in my life. I

want I want to surrender my entire heart and life to.

Him, would you stand to your feet. I know that's bold.

And if if that's not, you don't feel pressure. You

don't have to stand. Lord. I want to. I want to.

I want to live for you, but I need your

help to do it. That's what that's what we're saying.

I'm standing too. I mean I already was, but I'm

standing more now. With your head's bowed, I'm going to

ask while your heads are bowed, that some of our

prayer team and staff would make their way to the front.

We're going to be available to pray with you. I

will I will be here too to pray with you.

We need the Lord to show up. And the thing is,

he's always on time. He always shows up right when

we need him.

The spirit. The Spirit works in ways that.

We can't will ourselves into doing something that the Spirit

gives us the strength to do. So I'm going to

pray a prayer blessing over you, and if you would

like someone to pray with you, I'm going to ask

while I'm praying that you just step out and come

to the front.

I know that's a big step.

For some of you, but I also see your prairie

quests on.

A weekly basis.

I know the heavy things that some of you are carrying,

and I don't know a lot of the heavy things

that are being carried. But you don't have to carry

them by yourself. So allow us to pray with you

and join me as I pray this final prayer of

surrender and blessing. Lord, we give you our lives, we

give you a heart, we choose, and this is so

hard for us to do, but we make a choice

to crucify our own desires to your cross, Jesus, to

lay down our own rights. That I get to leave

because this is I have grounds to leave, or I

get to break this commitment, or I get to not

follow through on what I said I would do because

of this I'm tired, or whatever it is. Lord, bring

conviction that we are to stand strong by the strength

of your spirit in the places you have placed us.

Sometimes we are in difficult circumstances because we put ourselves there.

So Spirit of God, forgive us for trying to do

things on our own, Forgive us for not listening. Bring

us back into right relationship with you. We surrender our

will to you. Help us look more like you, Jesus,

by putting your spirit inside of us.

Amen.

I'm gonna ask again if you need prayer, I'm gonna

ask you to make your way.

I'm gonna dismiss.

We're just gonna take a minute if you want to

hang around for a minute or two while we just

make this like a sealed thing where we sing and

just kind of sing it as a prayer. If you

need to go, be blessed, Go represent Jesus.

Well, go wrestle with the Lord.

We have a What's Next page for you to have

follow up steps. Otherwise, let us pray with you. Make

us stand in your life. In Jesus name be blessed.