Imitators of Christ (1 Thessalonians 2:13-20)

We are in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, and we're gonna be starting in verse 13.

1 Thessalonians 2 · chapter mention

This is why we constantly thank God, because when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you welcomed it not as a human message, but as it truly is, the word of God, which also works effectively in you who believe.

For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God's churches in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, since you have also suffered the same things from people of your own country, just as they did from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and persecuted us.

They displease God and are hostile to everyone, by keeping us from speaking to the Gentiles, so that they may be saved.

As a result, they are constantly filling up their sins to the limit, and wrath has overtaken them at last.

But as for us, brothers and sisters, after we were forced to leave you for a short time, in person, not in heart, we greatly desired and made every effort to return and see you face to face.

So we wanted to come to you, even I, Paul, time and again, but Satan hindered us.

For who is our hope or joy or crown of boasting in the presence of our Lord Jesus at his coming?

Is it not you?

Indeed, you are our glory and joy.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you so much for your word.

Lord, we thank you for this gathering of your people here this morning.

God, I pray that through your word here this morning, that you would speak to each and every one of us.

We've come in from different places with different things going on, different praises and joy in our heart, different struggles and trials as well.

And we come here, Lord, to just bear our soul to you here this morning and say, God, what do you want to do in my life?

Uh as we're going to be seeing here this morning in this passage, Lord, I just pray that we would come with openness and with a desire to please you and to be changed by you, by your spirit and the power of your word here this morning.

So I pray that you would do those things in our hearts that we would be open to receive those things.

Lord, have your perfect way in us we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

You know, it's been a while since we've been in 1 Thessalonians.

You know, between the Fishers of Men message that we did three weeks ago and then Palm Sunday and then Easter last week.

So I wanted to do a real quick overview to get us back up to speed here in 1 Thessalonians.

So so far in this book, you know, it's really been a lot of Paul reminiscing while reminding and also encouraging this church and the things that he had already taught them when he was with them.

Now, this is a church that Paul had planted, but he didn't get to spend much time with them after he helped start this church.

And it was because the persecution against him was so intense while he was in Thessalonica.

He's gonna say, as you probably noticed as we were reading verse 17, that he was forced to leave, but that he has made every effort.

Do you notice that?

Every effort to return to them.

Because he left this heavily persecuted church to survive with probably only about three or four weeks of teaching that he had been able to give them.

Of course, they had the Holy Spirit.

I don't want to leave that out.

So the Holy Spirit's leading them and guiding them as well, but only about three weeks of Paul being with them.

But we see that this church was heavy on Paul's heart.

And you get that sense all the way throughout this book.

He thought about them and he prayed for them constantly.

He was so concerned for them after he got driven out that he actually asked Timothy to go and to help them out and to be with them and probably to answer some questions and continue to lead them in the way.

And after that, Timothy comes back to Paul and he gives Paul a report of how this church is doing.

And I would imagine that Timothy's report back to Paul, we don't know exactly what it is, but I would imagine it's probably something along the lines of you wouldn't believe how well this young church is doing in the midst of intense persecution.

Their faithfulness is exemplary to all churches.

But they have some questions, Paul.

They actually have a list of questions, and you really need to address these things.

And it's then that Paul sits down and he writes this letter to them.

Now, we left off four weeks ago in chapter two with Paul encouraging them to persevere in persecution.

He mentioned in that time how he was mistreated in Philippi, which drove him to Thessalonica.

If maps help, we actually have a map we can throw up here.

And you can see, so he was really mistreated up here in Philippi.

This is the Aegean Sea here, if that helps you out.

And he was driven them from Philippi to Thessalonica right here, and then he was treated so badly there that it drove him to Berea.

But the people in Thessalonica, they hated Paul so much that some of them followed him to Berea, where he actually had a pretty good reception there.

And the Thessalonians chased him out of Berea because they despised him so much.

That's the church that he's writing to.

Eventually, out of Berea, he ends up at Athens.

God does an amazing work through him there.

But that's how much persecution is in Thessalonians or in Thessalonica, that they're willing to follow people to other cities just to persecute them there.

And this is where this church is getting started.

They didn't have somebody strong like Paul to say, no, no, no, we stand up here, we back off here, we move forward, and all that, those kinds of things.

So Paul is really worried about this church.

So just keeping all of that in mind, this is what Paul writes to them next in chapter two.

Let's start in verse 13.

This is why we constantly thank God.

Because when you receive the word of God that you heard from us, you welcomed it not as a human message, but as it truly is the word of God, which also works effectively in you who believe.

Now, remember, and we've talked about this a lot lately, the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, is the power of God to salvation.

And when Paul and his associates preached the word that they had received from the Lord, it says the Thessalonians not only received it, but they welcomed it as the word of the Lord.

They realized this is not Paul's message, this is a word from the Lord.

And look at what happened at the verse uh at the end of verse 13 there.

It says, and it worked effectively in them.

The word of God worked effectively in them.

You know, as we've been talking about this so much over the past couple weeks regarding being fishers of men and the power of the gospel, the word of God is powerful.

The message of Jesus is powerful.

We don't need to dress it up.

We don't need to come up with a slick presentation in order to give somebody the gospel message of Jesus.

A lot of times that puts added pressure on us, and then it makes us be intimidated, and so we don't do it at all.

Paul and his companions simply reiterated God's word to these people, and they received it and they welcomed it, and then God established this church in this heavily persecuted city in Thessalonica.

God's looking for us to simply be faithful to share the good news of Jesus, and then be available to follow up with those that we share it with.

Be faithful and available.

And then leave the results up to him.

God can do incredible, amazing things with faithful and available from his children.

And I think that's exactly what we see with Paul and Silas and Timothy, the three guys that uh are sitting here helping Paul write this letter that's gonna go to the Thessalonians.

Just remember that.

Available and faithful, because it's gonna come up again.

Look at verse 14 with me.

For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God's churches in Christ Jesus that are in Judea.

The persecution of the church started in Judea.

And if you don't know, that's the southernmost uh portion of Israel.

That's where Jerusalem is.

And as soon as the church was in existence, the persecution started.

You know, we see people like Stephen in Acts who are being killed for their faith.

You know, and what's incredible, and a true, I think, testament of how all things work together for good to those that love God, is God has used the persecution of the church for the advancement of his kingdom since the church was ever in existence.

You know, we just talked about it with Paul and how he was driven from all of those cities, from Philippi to Thessalonica, then to Berea, then to Athens.

And that led to Paul giving his famous Areopagus address in Athens.

Who knows how long he would have stayed, you know, in Thessalonica if he wasn't, excuse me, persecuted.

You know, on top of that, it was because of persecution that Paul's prison letters came to be.

They may not have ever been written if he wasn't stuck in one place, because he would he loved to get around.

But if he had that ability to visit those churches, and he says over and over in multiple letters how much he longed to get to places and to get to people, who knows you know what would have been written and who would and what would not have been written.

Maybe without persecution, he would have been tempted to stay in one place too long.

And then God was like, Yeah, I'm just gonna use this to move you along, plant some more churches, encourage some more people along the way.

You know, I think as Christians and specifically the the church in America, I think we've become too persecution averse.

Yes.

And so averse to going through trials.

You know, we so often look at trials or persecution in our own life or even in the life of others, as we or they must be doing something wrong if they're going through something like this.

You know, I think it usually means we're doing something right when we're being persecuted for the sake of the gospel.

And that's the key here, that it's for the sake of the gospel, you know, because there's some people that blame everything on Satan, and you just look at it and you're like, no, you just make really bad life decisions, you know?

It's like I don't think that was Satan.

I think you did that all by yourself.

That's not what we're talking about right now at all.

This is being persecuted for the sake of the gospel.

You see, God uses the hard things in our life to shape us and to build our faith.

Sometimes, as we see with Paul, even to move us from one location to another.

So often he uses it to knock the rough edges off of us because there's some shaping that needs to be done, and he'll use persecution, he'll use trials to do that.

You know, it's so often in the hard times that God is building our trusting faith, not our salvation faith, but our trusting faith in him.

Unfortunately, trusting faith doesn't get downloaded automatically.

We pray for it and God's like, bam, there's another dose of it, or something like that.

It's usually built up through seeing God come through time and time and time again, so that when we face the next trial, we can look back and think, oh, God got me through that.

He's gonna get me through this.

You may remember Paul had what he called a thorn in his flesh, as he calls it.

Something that was tormenting him and something that would not go away.

And I'm kind of glad we don't know what it is.

People speculate was it his eyes, was it you know, some sort of a sickness or something like that.

But I'm glad we don't know what it is because I think more of us can relate to it because we don't know what it is.

And Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12 that he prayed three times for the for the Lord to take that thorn away from him.

And here's how the Lord responded in 2 Corinthians 12, 9.

God told him, Jesus told him, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.

You know, our flesh, in our flesh, we tend to think, man, if Paul didn't have that thorn, if he wasn't in prison so much, if he wasn't persecuted so much, think of how God could have used him.

If he didn't have all of that junk against him.

But I think God's sitting there saying, well, if he didn't have that thorn, he would have gotten credit for things I was doing.

If he wasn't in prison, he wouldn't have written those letters to these churches.

If he wasn't persecuted, he would have stayed in one city way too long instead of moving on and planting all of these other churches.

God used the persecution and the trials in his life for his own purposes to build his kingdom.

And believe me, they're not fun to go through.

I don't know anybody that looks forward to their next trial or is looking for persecution, not if they're in their right mind anyway.

But I think there's a big jump in our maturity as believers in Christ when we stop looking at trials as simply inconveniences that we're trying to get to the other side of as fast as possible, but we start looking at those things as opportunities.

Opportunities specifically for growth in our faith.

You know, I think God, instead of us asking, why me, God, why me, He wants us to turn that into, how do you want to use me, Lord?

Or what do you want to teach me right now in the midst of this, Lord?

And I think this is really part of the heart of what Paul wants to teach this church in Thessalonica.

The persecution's coming to them because they are Christians, but Paul's trying to say, you are not alone.

This is normal, this is to be expected.

Look at how God used it in my life, the previous church's life, and Jesus, you know, as well, and that's the things that we're gonna get to right now.

But look at the next part of 14.

He says, Since you have also suffered the same things from people of your own country, just as they, so he's still speaking about the church in Judea, just as they did from the Jews.

We need to remember, Paul wrote this letter for the purpose of encouraging this church.

So he's trying to encourage them here, first by relating his experience to theirs, and now relating the Judean church's experience to theirs.

And I think the reason he's doing it is because there's just something so comforting for us when we talk to somebody who has been through the exact same trials that we have, isn't there?

Or maybe they have the same thorn in the flesh, so to speak.

Or they have experienced the same persecution that we have in some area, maybe it's at work or or whatever it might be, or at school.

There is something so comforting about shared experiences when somebody knows exactly how you feel when you are going through something.

So Paul reassures them here, what you're experiencing is something all of these other churches have experienced.

And in fact, you saw us experience when we were with you for that short time.

You know, in a way I think he's saying, hey, Thessalonica, don't doubt, don't get discouraged, don't second guess if you're doing something wrong.

Just keep doing what you're doing.

You are not alone in this.

Now, Paul will comfort them by telling that that even Jesus went through what they are going through with the uh with the Judeans.

Look at uh verse 15.

Who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and persecuted us.

As King Solomon wrote, there is nothing new under the sun, is there?

This persecution of God's true worshipers goes back all the way to the prophets in the Old Testament.

And the prophets were those that God had sent to Israel to give them his word.

And then those Israelites, a lot of them at least, turned around and they persecuted those prophets and eventually killed a lot of them, including Jesus, the Son of God.

And then they went from that after Jesus' resurrection, they went on to then turning that anger towards the church and that persecution towards the church.

Think about this.

If Jesus, God himself, was being persecuted by his own countrymen, I don't think we should be surprised when we come across persecution at all.

Jesus was perfect, and we're sinners, and Jesus still got this from his own countrymen.

And Jesus is our compassionate high priest in that same way.

He understands when we go through persecution, when we go through trials, Jesus understands that.

Now look at the next part of verse 15 with me.

It says they, still speaking to the Judeans, displease God and are hostile to everyone.

This is an angry bunch, isn't it?

They killed the prophets, they killed Jesus, now they're killing those, persecuting those in the church.

You know, I had a conversation with a relative uh a few years back on the phone, and he's a Christian, but he asked me a question.

He said, How on earth could Israel still be God's chosen people?

And from his view, it was because, you know, all through scripture there was evidence of them rejecting God, rejecting and then killing his prophets, ultimately rejecting and sending Jesus to his death, and then persecuting the church after that.

And his take ultimately was shouldn't we be mad at the nation of Israel for killing Jesus?

So I asked him, so do you think if our family was God's chosen family, like Abraham's family, and we were born into God's chosen nation, do you think we would have acted any differently than they have?

Because I don't think if I was born into that family, I would have acted any differently than the Israelites did in the Old Testament.

You know, and on top of that, Jesus willfully went to his death.

He was not forced to it by the Romans or by the Jews.

I think of it kind of like Adam and Eve.

You know, people love to be mad at Adam and Eve, don't they?

Oh, they messed it up for all of us.

Do you really think that you would have done any better or lasted any longer in the garden than Adam and Eve did?

Because I don't think I would have.

You know, we have all of Scripture here today in our hands.

We have the Holy Spirit.

If you're a believer in Christ, you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you.

And we still sin daily.

And you think you would last longer in the garden than people that didn't have either one of those things?

The thing is, there was always a small, faithful remnant in Israel, wasn't there?

But I don't for a second assume that I would have been a part of that small, faithful remnant.

Yeah, we can't even imagine what it would be like to have the full canon of scripture, to um, to not, I'm sorry, not have the full canon of scripture and not have the Holy Spirit living inside of us because since we gave our life to Jesus Christ, we've had both of those things.

I'm kind of afraid of what I would have been like or done if I was born into Israel in Old Testament times.

All that to say we can't sit here and be mad at Adam and Eve.

We can't sit here and be mad at Israel for the way that they treated the prophets and the way that they treated the church, because I think if we were in that same position, we probably would have done the exact same thing.

And next here, Paul mentions one more way Judea was hostile.

Look at verse 16.

By keeping us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved.

The Jews that were opposed to Christ, you know, they couldn't fathom that Gentiles could be welcomed into the family of God, as we actually saw when we were covering Romans.

So they were doing whatever they could to prevent this, even though they didn't believe in Jesus.

They still didn't want the Gentiles to believe in Jesus because they still thought that this was some sort of a Jewish thing.

And there were even Jews that had come to Christ that were trying to say Gentiles basically had to become Jewish before they can become Christians.

They were called the Judaizers.

They were generally just very hostile against any outsiders.

And even though they didn't believe in Jesus, they didn't want anybody else that was a Gentile believing in him either.

So here is their fate.

Look at the next part of verse 16.

As a result, they are constantly filling up, think like piling or heaping up their sins to the limit, and wrath.

Has overtaken them at last.

So the idea here is not that we have a daily limit of our sin and we hit that and then we can't sin anymore.

The idea really is that they sin so much they can't really sin more than they do.

And think about this.

This includes the religious leaders of Israel.

Not some swindlers in the marketplace, but deceived religious leaders overtaken by wrath.

And Paul's telling them, we know you're going through the same thing in Thessalonica.

But you're not alone, Thessalonians.

You're not alone in this.

Like so many more people.

This is just a part of following Jesus, and this has been going on for a long time.

What you're experiencing from your countrymen is the same thing that the churches have been experiencing from Judea since Jesus resurrected, basically.

Now look at verse 17.

Paul changes gears here a little bit.

He says, But as for us, brothers and sisters, after we were forced to leave you for a short time, in person, not in heart, we greatly desired and made every effort to return and see you face to face.

Again, we've talked about this a couple times in Thessalonians so far.

Paul's familial love with this group just really shines through here.

First, he related to them as a mother in chapter 2, then as a father, now as brothers and sisters.

And says, he never left them in a heart.

He wanted to make sure that they knew that.

Physically he wasn't there, but in his heart he was with them.

But again, if it weren't for the persecution, you know, we may not have this letter in our hand here today.

Paul may still be in Thessalonica instead of writing this from Athens as he did.

And when I read this, I really doubt Paul is writing this letter and thinking, oh, this is all part of God's greater plan because the church in Ascadero, 2,000 years later, is going to sit down and be blessed by what I'm writing here today.

No, he really wants to be with them.

He made every effort to be with them that he could.

So why didn't he?

Well, look at verse 18.

So we wanted to come to you, even I.

Paul, time and again, but Satan hindered us.

We start talking about Satan, and people can get really weirded out really quick.

But the truth is he's real.

We have an enemy that wants to kill, steal, and destroy.

Scripture tells us.

And it's just a reality within our faith.

There is an enemy.

But if we're in Christ, we shouldn't fear him or his demons or minions or whatever else because he was defeated when Jesus died on the cross and when he rose again.

But he's real.

And we still live on this earth.

Which scripture tells us he is the prince of this earth.

He was defeated on the cross, but we still have to deal with him.

He hasn't come to his ultimate faith and our faith, fate in hell for all of eternity.

And he won't until the final judgment.

So we have to deal with him while we're here on this earth, and it's just a reality for every believer that we currently live in enemy territory until we die or until Jesus comes back to get us.

But we have Jesus right now with us and the Holy Spirit in us to help us walk through what we're going through on this earth.

You know, in Genesis, we have the story of Joseph.

I would imagine most of you are probably familiar with it.

You know, he was sold into slavery by his brothers.

He was bounced around in Egypt and wrongfully imprisoned, and then God raised him up through a series of events to be second in command in Egypt.

And his brothers came to Egypt during a famine.

They don't recognize who he is.

They don't know what he's been up to over the years.

And then they end up bowing down to him.

And then Joseph has this dramatic reveal to his brothers of who he really is.

And his brothers are so scared, they're afraid that he's gonna kill them.

But do you remember what Joseph told his brothers in that moment?

It's Genesis 50, 20.

He says, You planned evil against me.

God planned it for good to bring about the present result, the survival of many people.

You know, the enemy was trying to stop Paul and trying to stop his ministry and the things that he was doing for the kingdom of God.

And God said, Okay, go ahead.

I'll just have him write a good chunk of scripture for me while you're trying to put up these roadblocks in his way.

You know, and if this is Paul's first letter that we have record of, which many scholars believe, this may be where Paul finally realized, I don't need to be with them.

I can just start writing letters to all of these different places, and I can bless them with the word of God in that manner.

And then gives us about half of the New Testament books by writing letters to places he couldn't physically be.

What Satan intended to be evil against Paul, God planned it for good.

Spiritual warfare is not always a bad thing.

Sometimes it's God desiring to do something greater than we can even imagine.

You know, it doesn't feel like it in the moment, though, does it?

If we're honest.

But he's always working.

And no matter what, God can and will work all things, including spiritual warfare and trials and all of those things, together for good to those that love him and are called according to his purpose.

You know, one more thing I want to point out is that Paul knew it was Satan working against him, didn't he?

In Acts 16, it says about Paul and his companions that they had been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.

So there's the Holy Spirit.

And then a little bit later it says that they tried to go to Bithynia, and the spirit of Jesus did not allow them to go.

And then here it says Satan stopped us.

You know, I only bring this up because Paul could discern between God saying no and Satan putting up roadblocks.

He knew the difference.

And we need to know the difference as well today.

Because God wants us to press through spiritual warfare, and he wants us to stop pressing when he says no.

So we have to be able to distinguish between that voice.

We need to hear the voice of the Lord and understand those times when we need to press forward and those times where he wants us to back off.

Satan stood in the way of Paul's visit, but Paul kept trying.

And when he couldn't get there, he wrote a letter thinking, God's word and his encouragement, it's gonna get to this place, even if I can't.

He kept pressing and he kept pushing, and he ended up writing this letter.

With Asia and Bithynia, as we saw in Acts, God said no and he listened.

And we get to see in Acts that it was because God wanted him in Macedonia.

He had that dream about the Macedonian man.

God's like, no, I need you over here.

Not in these places, I need you over here.

Paul backed off.

He says, Okay, I'm going to Macedonia.

God did amazing things with Paul there.

And the thing is, the big question now is like, well, then how do I distinguish between the two?

How do I know when it's God speaking to me and how do I know when it's Satan?

Or how do I know when God's saying yes and God's saying no?

Stay in prayer, stay in God's word, abide in Christ, and walk by the Spirit.

If you do those things, he's gonna let you know.

Might be directly through prayer, might be in your time of reading that you're having during the day.

If you're staying close to Christ and you're clinging to him, he's gonna place his desires into your heart.

And if you walk by the Spirit and just keep saying yes to the Holy Spirit in your life, he's gonna let us know.

You know, I know in my life, and I've heard this from a lot of other believers as well, the voice of the Lord is a still small and calm voice when I hear the voice of the Lord.

When I'm doing any one of those things.

Satan's voice is that quick, hurry.

You gotta do this now.

It's the kind of that frantic feeling, it's gonna slip through the fingers of your hands.

Panic, panic now, now, go, go! You know, we need to listen for the Lord to say, either persevere or stop.

And right now, he's telling this church through Paul, you need to persevere.

Just like I, well, if I was Paul, Paul's saying, you need to persevere just like I have persevered for you.

Now, Paul shifts gears here in verse 19 back to how well they are doing.

Verse 19.

For who is our hope or joy or crown of boasting in the presence of our Lord Jesus at his coming?

Is it not you?

Indeed, you are our glory and joy.

Look at that.

Paul's hope and his joy and boasting was not in the things of this earth, was it?

Wasn't in his 401k or his bank balance or anything else in this world.

It was in God's kingdom.

You know, as we talked about this last Sunday at Easter, Jesus and his kingdom should be where our hope is placed, in eternity with him.

And Paul saw the Thessalonians following Jesus as a part of that.

Part of Paul faithfully running the race that was set before him.

That was part of that prize that he was expecting, part of that crown that he was expecting.

And it was about the Thessalonians being faithful.

It's just interesting how Paul wants to boast in the faithfulness of others.

His boasting's not in himself.

And gosh, Paul had a lot to boast about.

God used that man in a lot of ways, but he's like, no, no, no.

I'm gonna boast in the faithfulness of others.

Look at what God has accomplished in this church over here.

Look at all of their faithfulness in the midst of persecution.

Look at how they're still continuing to walk with the Lord.

You know, I think Paul knew that this was all a result of being faithful to preach the gospel, being available to participate in the lives of these believers, not because he was amazing, but because God is amazing.

You know, we're all called to this in some capacity.

Probably not in the same capacity as Paul.

Few have been called to be like Paul.

But within our own circles, we're all called to this to some capacity.

Moms and dads, you're called to this with your kids, to be faithful and available for God's kingdom.

Employers with employees, employees with employers, with our neighbors, with our friends, with our family.

God can do so much more than we can imagine when we're simply faithful to Him and available to do the work of His kingdom in all circumstances, even in the midst of persecution.

So I think that's our encouragement today to be faithful and to be available in whatever circle the Lord has placed us in.

As Paul has said in other books, you know, let's imitate Paul in this way as he imitates Christ, as we just saw the Thessalonians doing and imitating Christ in this way.

Would you please pray with me?

Lord, we thank you again so much for your word.

We covered a lot of different topics today, Lord, and I'm sure a lot of those different things were for different people in this room, myself included.

So, Lord, I pray that whatever you're teaching us right now, whatever you're speaking to us, whether it's encouraging us, whether it's challenging us, whether it's making us think about things maybe in a different way, just pray that your spirit would continue to work, that you continue to change us and to make us more like Jesus.

And we just thank you so much that we get to hold this letter here about 2,000 years later, that Paul wrote in the midst of persecution.

So, Lord, I pray as we look at persecution in our own lives, as we look at trials that we're coming up against, whether they're spiritual or physical or against this world or the enemy or whatever it might be.

Lord, I pray that you would give us your perspective.

That we wouldn't just crumble and say, why me?

But we would listen to your voice.

We would listen to you when you say yes, when you say go, when you say stop, that we'd be able to discern by your Holy Spirit what is you saying no and the enemy putting up a roadblock.

That you would let us know when to back off, that you would let us know when to press forward, whatever that might be.

Help us to walk so closely with you that we can hear your faintest whisper.

Or whether it's in prayer, it's in your word, it's um just walking by the Spirit as He gives us prompts from within.

Lord, we just want to be like you.

We want to abide in Christ so closely that we're an extension of you in that way.

Lord, help us to be Jesus to our community, to our families, to our friends.

When they see us, Lord, I pray that they would see you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.