Who You Say I Am | I Am Redeemed (April 7th, 2019) - Mike Armstrong

Alright, we'll get your Bibles open if you got a copy of one to uh Ephesians chapter one, which is where we've been at uh in our series on uh on identity today.

If you need a copy of God's word, we have some at the back table.

You can uh you can head back there and grab one if you don't own one, or you can download a Bible app on your phone.

We uh we use the English standard version, the ESV here, uh generally speaking.

And so um yeah, get one and uh and turn to it and get there, all right?

Now, redemption, okay, we just sang about that, right?

But redemption, it's a concept, it's a it's it's a theme that's always been a prominent one in our world.

Have you noticed that before?

It's it's a narrative that that's that that's run through humanity really since the beginning of time.

Okay, we love redemption stories, don't we?

We love them.

We love you know we love movies about redemption.

I mean, so many of us love the movie, you know, Shawshank Redemption.

You know, we're all we're all about that.

We we like books like the The Count of Monte Cristo.

I mean, even video games are about this, like Red Dead Redemption is one, apparently.

I've never played that.

Okay, but but we and we love these because they involve storylines that that always begin with some kind of you know scandal, right?

Some kind of crisis.

It's you know, some kind of injustice that's been committed that now must be made right.

All right, it it's gotta be, right?

These these stories then conclude with with that, you know, some kind of resolution to that to that problem.

The wrong is righted, the the person or the situation is is restored, right?

I find it in kind of incredibly fascinating, really, that we're so drawn to these types of storylines.

And I I think in a simple sense, it's it's because we we just flat out, we we like to see problems solved, don't we?

We don't like loose ends.

We don't like it when things are are left hanging, open-ended.

But I think on a deeper level than that, all of mankind, I think, really has this awareness somewhere within us, somewhere under the surface, that that we actually need this ourselves.

We need redemption.

We all have this nagging sense that we're not right inside.

Something is broken, something is seriously off.

Something is is warped inside each one of us, and the longer we go through life and the more attempts we have to fill those voids and those brokenness with what the world has to offer, the more we start to realize that what the world offers, it it just doesn't cut it.

Right?

It doesn't fix us, it doesn't cover the wound, it doesn't heal us, it doesn't redeem.

Now, unsurprisingly, the world's various you know versions and and and definitions and solutions when it comes to redemption are different than how the Bible casts it, right?

We shouldn't be shocked by that as Christ followers.

Right?

Movies and and books and video games and all those types of things typically define and and display redemption as revenge in a lot of cases, right?

Like I will pay back, right?

I will go after the bad guy and kill them for what they've done to my family, right?

That's that that's cast as what redemption is, but in many cases, it's just it's it's revenge, really.

Yet best, maybe it's kind of defined as a person's journey to fixing themselves, right?

Redeeming themselves.

I mean, think about, you know, so much of so many of us have heard the story of Tiger Woods' fall, right?

And the very public scandal that he went through, I don't know, something like 10 years ago.

And all of the discussion throughout culture was you know, will Tiger ever get back to the top?

And it was like, if he can win golf tournaments, he will like fix the black mark that is on his on his life, on his record.

The scandals, people will forget about the standards, scandals, if he can just like win.

I mean, think about how crazy that is, right?

We look at that.

We want people to redeem themselves.

And so where the world takes redemption story in the or stories in the direction of you know us fixing our own problems, we're the solution.

The Bible tells us of how our deepest need for redemption, which is from the curse of sin, it's not something at all that we can accomplish ourselves.

Right?

It's not.

Our redemption is purely something that Jesus Christ and and Jesus Christ alone can do.

Right?

In fact, it's about something that He has already done and He's done it for us.

That in Christ we are redeemed is really the core of the gospel.

Right?

That's it.

It's a theme of the entire Bible.

It's it's it's the hallmark of the church.

Right?

We are about redemption.

It is it is who we are, right?

It's our identity.

And listen, church, to to misunderstand this and and to not to not get this is to seriously misunderstand the gospel.

It's to misunderstand the Bible, God, your yourself as well, and your purpose, the whole point of life.

Okay, but the flip side to all of that and the misunderstandings is that is that if you and I would just learn to catch even a glimpse of what Jesus has done and realize that this was done for us, and and and we see the beautiful picture of all of that, if we catch even a shred of all of that, we're transformed.

Right?

We're transformed by his grace.

And as we see that and as we absorb that and we apply that to our lives, we're changed, and and God is glorified.

And so these are the things that we're talking about here today.

And I want to read the passage now.

So if you're there, join me.

It's just two verses Ephesians chapter 1, verses 7 and 8.

Ephesians 1:7

Follow along.

It says, In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for the redemption that we have in Jesus.

I mean, even saying that is so easy to say without truly meaning it, without truly being shaken by the awesomeness of that.

Lord, we have been made new.

We have been made right with our with our Heavenly Father, Lord, the sin that was that was in them in the way that uh that that ruined an opportunity to be uh in right fellowship uh with the God of creation, that is, that has all been fixed through the cross.

And so, Lord, I pray that as we you know work through this, uh, these couple of verses here and look at a few others in the scripture that paint this picture of what our redemption really is, Lord, I pray that you would teach us.

I pray that you would instruct us, Lord, I pray that you would change our hearts through this.

I pray that we would be more and more sold out to you.

Lord, I pray that we would want to follow you.

I pray that as we think about how these things relate to our identity, Lord, I pray that the different idols that we have that become our identity, I pray that you would you would shake those loose from our hearts, God.

I pray that we would be quick to repent of those things.

I pray that we would be quick to not look to our ultimate meaning and hope and happiness and all of those things from idols, Lord, but to realize that we've got it all in you.

And so, God, do a work in our hearts here today, Lord.

Transform us, Lord.

This is by your Holy Spirit through your word.

That's what it is, Lord.

I don't have anything in and out.

I am nothing, Lord.

We rely on you.

So, Holy Spirit, meet us here as your word is opened.

We pray all this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

So, one point here this morning, and that's been kind of the tradition of this series so far.

But here it is, in Christ I am redeemed.

Okay, in Christ I am redeemed.

And we see this again uh in these two verses here.

So let's just look at this again.

It says in verse 7 it says, In him, that's Jesus, we have uh redemption.

There's the word redemption.

And then it goes on to give us the how.

It says, through his blood.

Through his blood we are redeemed.

And now this is what our redemption really boils down to.

Keep going, it's this the forgiveness of our trespasses, right?

The forgiveness of our sins.

It says there that it's according to the riches of his grace.

I love that word riches there.

It's it means like boundless, right?

It's this it's this bottomless wealth.

That's that's where the grace that God gives us comes from.

You you you you cannot out sin God's grace.

So many of us, you know, just feel like we carry this guilt and this burden around of our of our sin and feel like, well, God, you know, could never forgive me, and I am too much of a mess, and I could never truly be fixed.

Oh, yeah?

Not according to the scriptures.

Right?

His grace is rich.

He it says that he lavishes it.

So he lavished it upon us.

That word lavished is awesome too, verse 8.

Means over and above the number.

It means more than enough.

It's this idea of superabundance.

He lavished his grace upon us.

And then it concludes there saying, in all wisdom and insight.

Now that last part there we're gonna focus uh more directly on in the next message.

But I think here as we're kind of starting to wrap our minds around this or trying to get a get a handle on this, it's really important that we, you know, as the church, we build uh, you know, a solid, you know, definition and understanding of what redemption really is.

Right?

We we looked at how the you know the world has these sort of you know counterfeit ideas of what redemption is, and and it's not exactly in the same strain as as what the Bible says.

And so we need to, you know, we really need to have this thing locked down.

We don't want pseudo-definitions rolling around in our hearts and in our minds.

We wanna we wanna have this tied to the scriptures.

All right, so that's what we're gonna do here this morning, really build a definition and understanding of this.

Now, we first of all have to start off by recognizing that the word redemption there is really a legal term.

It's a legal term and it carries kind of two primary uses or or uh or meanings.

Okay, first of all, it refers to this idea of purchasing and buying.

Okay, purchasing and and buying.

So you kind of picture like a marketplace, okay.

Maybe we don't think about you know the word marketplace very much anymore.

Think about think about the mall, right?

You go there and and you buy things right for yourself.

Okay, or or maybe think about it in terms of buying a house or or or purchasing a vehicle, and how when you do that, the the rights and the and the ownership to that vehicle that you're you're buying, it transfers from one owner to uh to you, okay, as as an agreed upon sum is exchanged.

Okay, secondly, okay, secondly, the word redemption refers to not just buying and purchasing, but also a setting free or releasing someone from captivity.

Okay, this would have absolutely resonated with uh Paul's readers here, Paul's audience, as slavery was a very significant aspect uh to Israel's history.

Okay, both uh to Egypt, right?

We remember that in the book of Exodus and Moses, and they were, you know, the Israelites were slaves to the Egyptians, and and and they're led out of that through Moses.

The hand of God leads them out, and and then later, even they were uh slaves and in captivity to uh to Babylon.

But in each case, right, in both Egypt and in Babylon, they were released from their captivity and they were set free, right?

They were they were redeemed.

All right, so you put these kind of two ideas together here, and and you start to get that redemption is about paying a price, or or a ransom is a word that the Bible likes to use, paying a price to secure someone's freedom.

All right, we're gonna kind of look at a couple of definitions here.

Here's another one.

I like this one.

This is by Francis Foles, or Folkes.

This is how he puts it.

He says the fundamental idea of redemption is that of setting free of a thing or a person that has come to belong to another.

Now, let's look at some verses here that will kind of help us, I think, paint a picture, or again, kind of put some meat on the bones here of what our redemption uh was really all about.

So let's walk through a few of these.

We'll have these verses on the screen for you so you don't have to flip around like a crazy person.

All right.

But here we go.

Here's the first one to understand biblical uh redemption begins with, you know, primarily or initially, you gotta uh accept that we are all sinful beings.

Right?

We have to we have to start there.

We have to realize that.

Psalm uh 14, verse 1 says this the fool says in his heart, there is no God.

And this is what it says about them.

They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds.

There is none who does good.

Okay, now the world's message is the opposite of this.

The world will tell you that that mankind is inherently good, and that you know, sometimes, you know, we do bad things, but at the core, in the heart, the core of a person's being is good and and pure and righteous.

The Bible tells us the opposite of that.

The Bible says, no, we're actually warped human beings because of sin.

We're messed up, we're we're off, we you know, and and we try to do good things, we try to we try to behave well, we try to act a certain way, but at the core it's evil, and and that comes out.

And you would know this from your experience.

You and I, we can we can like put a good face on uh with people, right?

And we can act like we've you know we behave well and we're so holy and all of that, but then you know you're driving out of the parking lot and and and someone cuts you off, and pretty soon it's you know one hand's going up, and one finger on that hand is going up.

And you start to realize, whoa, that's uh that got dark quick, right?

Right?

We're we're we're warped inside.

I mean, Romans 3 verse 10 carries that same thought forward in the New Testament.

Romans 3:10

It just says simply, none is righteous, no, not one.

Not one human being, not one person is at the core righteous and good and pure.

Okay, this is describing the the spiritual state of every single human.

We're flawed.

We are corrupt, we're again morally bankrupt, we're we're unrighteous, we're unclean.

These are all words to describe our willful disobedience.

This is this is because of our willful disobedience to our to our holy creator.

All right, so that's kind of like the starting point here.

You gotta start there, but then to really appreciate that in Christ we have redemption, as Ephesians 1 verse 7 tells us, to be able to appreciate that, how incredible that is, you have to again kind of go back into what sin is all about, and and you have to realize the the effects of our sin and and and what our what our sin actually does to us.

Ephesians 1:7

So many of us, I think, have uh such a surfacey understanding of sin.

And we don't realize how dark it is and how how bad it is and the problems it creates for us.

And because we don't we don't get it so you know deeply enough and and we're so afraid to look at our sin, we wonder why we're not so captivated and so amazed and in awe at the redemption that we have in Jesus.

Well, you have to know how bad it really is before you're gonna appreciate the rescue that came from him.

So let's look at John chapter 8, verse 34.

John 8:34

And Jesus here, this is what he says.

He says, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

This is describing our our spiritual state and where we're at.

In other words, it's like saying that that sin functions as a as a slave owner, okay, and and we are the ones in in shackles or chained up in a dungeon because of our sin and to sin.

Right?

We all practice sin, it says there in that verse, which which enslaves us to it.

Right?

Then you have, keep going, Romans 7, verse 14, which says something fairly similar to that.

Romans 7:14

It says, For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

Okay, so again, sin is our master.

Right?

It's our ruler.

Sin owns us.

We've been sold to it, it says here.

We we we belong to it now.

You see that this is this is not uh this is not a pleasant picture.

Right?

This is this is not good.

We're completely enslaved.

We're in we're in bondage to this very cruel master.

Our flesh, it says there in that verse, which is which is really our sinful nature.

Some of your translations might put it that way.

Our sinful nature is the it's the core of your your desire in our heart that you know the motive for why you do what you do, our our our flesh, our sinful nature cannot help but follow this master.

We're enslaved to it.

We're driven by by evil desire to commit uh sinful acts against God.

Right?

In in Romans chapter 7, the apostle Paul, as as a believer, as one who has been saved and who has been redeemed, he is redeemed, he's working out the redemption part in terms of his his sanctification.

Romans 7 · chapter mention

He he explains to us just the the challenges of of being a Christian.

And he talks about how he's like, when I when I want to do good, evil lies close at hand.

And he's wrestling with the fact that I I've been redeemed by the Holy Spirit in me, but in me, but my but my but my flesh is still corrupt, and the Lord is still kind of fixing that and changing that.

We all get that.

That's that's that's that's our lives.

How many of us are gonna come out of today being like, yeah, let's do this, let's live for the Lord?

And then this afternoon it's like doing the opposite.

Right?

That that's life.

That's it.

We're sold under sin, and and even when we get saved, we're still wrestling with the effects of sin.

And the truly sickening news is that because we've all sinned, and because our sin is against a pure and holy and righteous God, it means that we actually deserve death for it.

It means that we deserve eternal separation from God.

I referred to Romans 6, 23 last week, for the wages of sin is death, right?

Death is the wage you earn for your sin.

That's what you get coming to you.

That's what everyone has coming to us.

We deserve it.

2 Thessalonians 1.9, it's not on the screen there, but it speaks to the judgment coming to sinners uh uh apart from faith in Jesus Christ.

When it says they will they will suffer punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.

Right?

This is all very troubling.

Now, let's begin to turn a corner here a little bit.

Romans chapter 8, verse 21 speaks to the fact that as bad as our spiritual state and our captivity and our destination might be for us, God had a redemption plan.

Romans 8:21

We even saw last week, how it was before the foundation of the world that he had this all ironed out.

But here's what it says in Romans 8, 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

Okay, God's plan was to set you and I free from captivity, to release us from the bondage of our of our slavery to to sin, our our our cruel uh slave owner.

How amazing is that?

And what was the rescue plan?

Jesus.

Right?

So, what exactly did Jesus do?

Like what is this?

Well, Galatians 1, verse 3 and 4.

Galatians 1:3

Take a look at that.

It says, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Here it is, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our God and Father.

So you see there that Jesus is our redeemer, right?

He delivered us by giving himself, right?

You see there that it's a it's a substitutionary thing.

He was a substitute.

It was him in our place on the cross.

We should have been there.

That's what our sin earned us.

That's what we deserved.

He stepped in and took the bullet, so to speak, uh for us.

There's a transaction that happens in that moment of faith.

Now, 1 Peter 1, verse 18 to 19 speaks further to this and refers to it actually as a purchase.

1 Peter 1:18–19

Okay, it says, knowing that you were ransomed, okay, there's that word I referred to earlier.

Ransomed from the futile ways, the sinful ways inherited from your forefathers.

Okay, it says there, so so we were we were ransomed by Christ.

He paid the price necessary to buy you back from sin's ownership of you.

Awesome.

Right now, now how?

We'll keep going in the verse.

Not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.

Like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

So his precious blood, that was the payment, that was the currency required and used to secure my release and your release from sin.

I mean, Hebrews 9 22 don't have it up there for you, but it just says, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins.

Remember, death is what automatically that's what happens for sin.

So sin leads to death.

Jesus' blood, Jesus' death foots the bill.

Now, if you're feeling like, man, that's a lot of that's a lot of verses, man.

I feel like, wow, we're we're kind of in the weeds here, and I need to come up for error a little bit.

Maybe I don't know, maybe you're feeling that way.

Well, I think MacArthur sums kind of all of this up for us well here as we look at how the Bible kind of reveals and defines what redemption is.

Here's what he says.

He says, sin is man's captor and slave owner, and demands, it demands a price for his release.

Death is the price that had to be paid for man's redemption from sin.

Biblical redemption, therefore, refers to the act of God by which he himself paid as a ransom the price for sin.

Alright, so I I think here we've seen, you know, what our redemption is according to the Bible.

We looked at some scriptures.

There's, you know, plenty more that we could have gotten into and all of that.

But I mean, we we've seen what Christ has done.

We've seen that the transaction is in place.

It was it was his blood.

Now, now, how do I, how do I receive that, right?

Like how do I make that my own so that I can have my sins forgiven?

Well, Romans 3, verse 24 and 25 gets to that.

Romans 3:24

Okay, it says this.

It says that we are we are justified.

I love that word.

It just means that we are made right.

Okay, we are justified by his grace as a gift.

Okay, you're made right purely as a gift.

It's unmerited favor.

You didn't earn this.

You didn't bring like a good moral record to the equation, and God said, Wow, I'm really impressed by that.

No, you don't earn it.

All we bring is our like filth.

Right?

The Lord takes it away and gives us grace, gives us salvation.

Right?

We are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a fancy word alert, propitiation by his blood.

Okay, propitiation is an awesome word.

It's not really a word that we use in everyday language, but it essentially means that God the Father poured out his wrath, his just wrath, his holy wrath on his son Jesus on the cross, so that you and I wouldn't have to receive it.

Right?

Starting to like the word propitiation now?

Right?

It's pretty good, right?

And and and how do we get this?

Well, look at it says there: to be received by faith.

Right?

You receive salvation, you receive this redemption from Jesus Christ by faith, meaning belief, meaning trust.

Meaning that as you're you're hearing the scriptures kind of read and explained here, you're like, I believe that that that's true.

I believe that Jesus actually did this.

And beyond just the fact that he did this, because the Bible says that even demons believe that, I believe that he did this for me.

I believe that this was a personal act.

When we, when you and I, when we do that and and we receive the redemption that you know secured through Christ's sacrifice, what do we get?

Forgiveness.

Right?

That's what the that's what we really need.

And that's again what our redemption is is all about.

Ephesians 1, verse 7, look at our verse again.

Ephesians 1:7

It says, In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, our sin.

Truth is, you and I, we have offended a holy God.

A wonderful, uh, a loving, a merciful God.

Our sinfulness is a deeply problematic stain on our record, and nothing, nothing, nothing but the blood of Jesus Christ washes that away.

Nothing but the blood of Jesus Christ pays the price that that being forgiven demands.

Right?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus Christ restores us to a right relationship with our Maker.

So, hey, important question.

What are you gonna do with that?

Right?

What are you gonna do with that?

Listen, here's the answer.

Bend the knee, man.

Right?

If there are any of you in this room right now who have not gotten right with your maker, you are not right with the Lord, you are not a Christ follower, what are you gonna do with what you've been taught here this morning?

Are you gonna be like, hmm, I'm gonna think about that for a long time?

You're not you're not guaranteed tomorrow.

I I still think I can find real hope and meaning and life and happiness apart from that, and I'm gonna go find it in the world.

Listen, you're not you're not gonna find it.

Surrender your pride, surrender your sin, confess it, confess it all.

Some of you here, you are running, man.

Like you are running, running, running.

You're you're chasing after redemption in all the wrong places.

Right?

You you think you're gonna find it in money.

You think you're gonna find it in fame and accolades.

You think you're gonna find somehow this this hope and and happiness and and and a redemption of sorts in just getting people to respect you.

You're not gonna find it in that.

Jesus is your redemption.

That's it.

In him you are redeemed.

So listen, I would urge you, I would leverage everything that we're saying here today to push you as strongly as possible to confess your pride and your sin, your rebellion against God, and rest in the fact that his blood was shed to buy you back from the tyranny of sin.

It's according to the riches of his grace, which he has lavished upon you and I.

Trust Jesus by faith.

Believe that what he has done, A, was for you, what he has done is enough.

I think that part right there, that what Jesus has done is enough, is what the rest of us need to hear constantly.

Because as the church, as Christians, we're so quick to kind of put aside the message of the gospel and we like to take parts of it.

Right?

We like to, we like to believe on some level, yeah, Jesus is my savior and all of that, but then kind of functionally speaking, we still look to other things to redeem us.

It's all those same things I just mentioned.

If I would just have you know the security of a big bank account, if I would just have, you know, if I could just be married.

Some of us are looking for that, and we think that that's somehow gonna be our redemption.

If I could just get the best career, the ultimate career.

If I could just, you know, look better.

And so we think on a level in our hearts that those things will be our redemption.

We have to constantly, continually remind ourselves that it's not found in those things, it's found in Jesus.

And so the message to the unsaved, it's the same message to the saved.

Do you hear that?

Continually reminding ourselves that chasing after idolatry, chasing after redemption in the world's way, in the world's virgins, and all that's all lost, it's all a lost cause.

Fight that that broken and and wobbly pursuit.

Fight it today.

Fight it this week, fight it every day.

How do we do that?

Well, well, well, simple things, but important things, things like being in the scriptures.

Right?

Like, why do we encourage us to be in the word every single day?

Well, because it's constantly reminding us of of our redemption.

It's telling us on every single page who Jesus is and what he's done for you.

Here's what you've got.

You're redeemed now.

We need that reminder every day because we have this, as Paul Tripp puts it, this gospel amnesia.

We forget.

And so we think we need to make ourselves whole.

No, Jesus makes us whole.

We gotta be in the word of God.

We need to do this through prayer, too.

Right, Lord, would you help my heart to get this?

Lord, I would you forgive me for continually running after these empty pursuits.

They will not satisfy me, they will not fulfill me, not ultimately.

Only you do, Lord, help my heart get this.

When we we we we we get the gospel into our hearts by by building strong relationships here with each other, right?

Relationships where we can be real with each other, where we can we can go deep beyond the surface.

Now listen, I'm not anti-surface conversation.

I'm not.

We need to do that too.

Right?

We need to have conversations about how the leafs are doing.

We need to have conversations about the weather, right?

We need to do all of those things, but we also need to go deeper too.

We need to, we need to be, you know, gather people around us who who we trust, we can be like, you know what, I'm I I'm really feeling like I need to, you know, go hard in the gym to look great this summer.

And if not, I'm gonna I'm gonna feel this sense of despair all through the warm months when I gotta wear a bathing suit.

Right?

Well, that's too awkward, I couldn't share that with somebody.

Really?

Right?

As we talk about these types of things in in small groups, it's nothing but but mercy and grace to each other.

Right?

We want to be able to pray, let's pray the gospel into that situation in a person's life.

Right?

We need people around us.

Don't live in a silo, don't be the lone wolf, don't be the lone ranger.

Let's let's build this up.

Right?

Galatians 5, verse 1 says, for freedom Christ has set us free.

Galatians 5:1

Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

That verse shows us that we tend to go back into living like a slave, even though we've actually been freed.

Right?

The gospel is so key to tune our hearts and to teach our minds and the course of our action and how we behave and how we live.

Rest.

Rest that in the fact that in him we have redemption.

We've got it.

It's through his blood.

It's the forgiveness of our trespasses.

It's all according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight.

That's right.

Lord, so encouraged by how the scriptures just continually point us to what is true, points us to what is real.

Lord, we thank you that through the cross and through the precious blood of Jesus Christ, we have been set free from sin and we are now slaves of righteousness.

Lord, I pray that as these truths permeate our hearts, God, I pray that those desires to sin, that that corrupt part of us that you're still kind of transforming on a practical, uh, everyday basis, Lord, I begin, I pray that your Holy Spirit would overcome that, overwhelm that, and the desire of our hearts would be uh to live for Jesus Christ and Jesus alone.

Lord, I pray that you would give us a desire for your mission.

I pray that you would give us a desire to praise you and worship you and bring you glory.

I pray, Lord, that it would rest in the fact that the moment that we put our faith in Jesus Christ, we are made right with you.

We are redeemed.

Lord, continue to settle these things on our heart.

Give us a love for you, Lord.

Give us a passion for these things.

Encourage us here today, we pray in your name.

Amen.