Faith, love, hope (1 Thessalonians 1:1-3)

First Thessalonians chapter one, verse one.

Paul and Sylvanus and Timothy to the Church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace.

We always thank God for all of you, making mention of you constantly in our prayers.

We recall in the presence of our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor motivated by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Will you please pray with me?

Lord, we thank you so much for your word.

We thank you that we get to open it.

We thank you that we get to hold it in our hands, this New Testament that the Thessalonians did not have in their hands at the time.

But Lord, what an amazing thing it is to have your word, to be able to open it up so freely in this place.

So I pray that we wouldn't take that for granted.

We pray that you would open up our minds, our ears, our hearts, our eyes to everything that you have for us, not just in these verses today, but in this book.

The things that you want us to glean as a church and as individuals.

We pray that it would affect our life and that you would use it to continue to sanctify us and to make us more and more like you on a daily basis.

Lord, have your perfect way in our hearts through your word here this morning.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

But keep a finger in Thessalonians or a bookmark, but turn to Acts 17.

Because there's a chunk of Acts 17 that I want us all to read together.

And if you're having trouble finding it, it's wedged right in between the Gospel of John and the book of Romans, if you're looking for Acts.

But Acts 17.

And I want us to turn there because it's going to tell us about Paul's first visit to the church in Thessalonica.

And this is during his second missionary journey that he visits here, and he goes with Silas.

Silas is with him on this journey.

Now we have a map just to kind of give you an idea.

This is the Mediterranean Sea right here.

And you can see that we're looking right here up at Thessalonica.

You can see a lot of the books we've actually gone through.

You know, we've gone through Romans, we've gone through Corinthians, we've gone through Ephesians, we've gone through Colossians, we've gone through Philippians.

So you can see all of these towns that Paul has been to, where he's planted churches, where he's written letters to encourage this church along the way.

But up here, you can see that this is a coastal city, it's a port city.

And if we zoom in a little bit on this, you can see, I know it's kind of a crazy mess here, but Thessalonica is right up here.

It's in a major thoroughfare.

There's a major road that goes through it, and it's a huge port city.

There's about 200,000 people in this city, they estimate, at the time that Paul wrote this letter.

So this is a big, happening city with a ton of commerce going through it, both by road and by ship.

And so it's uh you see this theme in this pattern with Paul that he goes to these major cities where the gospel can go out, where people can hear the gospel and they're on their way to somebody else and they can take it with them.

And this is one more of those cities.

Uh this is really um, Thessalonica is really a melting pot of culture and of religion and ethnicity.

So it's there's just a lot of different things going on, a lot of different religions that are happening from Judaism all the way down to very pagan, horrible idolatry as well.

Uh, they have temples where you can go worship with prostitutes and things like that.

It's it's a very debased society.

But we're turning here to Acts 17 because maybe more so than any other letter.

The story of Paul's first visit here, which we're gonna take a look at here, it's really crucial to understanding the rest of this letter.

And Paul's going to refer back to this visit quite a bit as he's writing through the first couple chapters of Thessalonians.

And this is most likely one of Paul's earliest letters that he wrote.

It's probably the first.

There's some people that think maybe Galatians, but he's writing it about 50 to 51 AD, so the early 50s A.D.

And Acts 17 may be the reason why he wrote this letter so quickly to this church.

So if you're there, just look at it with me.

We're gonna read Acts 17 starting in verse 1.

It says, After they passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.

As usual, Paul went into the synagogue and on three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures, so from the Old Testament, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and rise from the dead.

This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah.

Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, including a large number of God-fearing Greeks, as well as a number of leading women.

Good job, ladies.

But the Jews became jealous, and they brought together some wicked men from the market from the marketplace, formed a mob, and started a riot in the city.

Attacking Jason's house, they searched for them to bring them out to the public assembly.

When they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city officials, shouting, These men who have turned the world upside down have come here too, and Jason has welcomed them.

They're all acting contrary to Caesar's decrees, saying that there is another king, Jesus.

The crowd and the city officials who heard these things were upset.

After taking a security bond from Jason and the others, they released them.

And this security bond was assurance, really, that something like this wasn't going to happen again, even though they weren't the ones to blame.

So you can imagine after Paul left, you can go back to Thessalonians if you want to, but you can imagine after Paul left that this persecution from this city continued against a very young church filled with new believers.

And if the three Sabbaths that we see here in Acts 17, if they're consecutive, if they're sequential, that's not very long for Paul to plant this church.

You know, to teach them and to help them get on their feet and then to say goodbye, you guys are good to go.

I mean, think about it.

Three weeks to establish a brand new church filled with new believers.

And they didn't, I referred to this when I was praying, but they didn't have the New Testament in their hands to look and say, okay, what do we do now?

And what does the scripture say about how we handle this situation and things like that?

A few of the gospels are probably being written about this time, but they don't have them in their hands.

They really didn't have much to go on.

You know, they're only going on what they had heard from Paul, what they knew of the Old Testament, if they knew anything of the Old Testament at this time, and the Holy Spirit that was now inside of them.

And it's amazing because we're going to see it was enough.

Those three things, that was enough for them to go on, for God to use them and get this church up on their feet in such a short time that Paul had with them.

And as you can imagine, Paul had this great concern for them.

You know, this church that was so young in their faith that was already going through so much with all the persecution.

So we find out as we read through Thessalonians that Paul actually sends Timothy to them.

You know, that Timothy's his trusted young apprentice disciple, if you will.

And this young man who he's gonna write 1st and 2 Timothy 2 eventually.

And it's kind of like, hey Timothy, can you go help this church out?

They have questions that they need answered.

Can you make sure that they're on the right path and they're encouraged to keep going?

So Timothy does.

And then he comes back and he reports to Paul everything that he had seen and what was going on in Corinth.

And then after that, Paul writes 1 Thessalonians.

Taking all of that into account, he writes this letter to this church.

And we'll see that this letter from Paul, it's really to encourage this church to bolster their faith, to give them hope specifically in Christ.

He's also we're gonna see answering some questions.

He's gonna uh instruct them on a few things regarding sanctification and things like that.

But uh all things that we're gonna be touching on as we go through this uh as the weeks come.

But one of the interesting things that we're going to see is every chapter is gonna end with an encouragement of Christ's second coming.

Every single chapter ends with that.

And the chapters and verses were not there when Paul wrote this, but in our Bible, we're gonna see that after each kind of theme, uh we're gonna see that he ends it giving them hope of the return of Christ.

Then he's gonna tell them to encourage each other with the hope of the return of Jesus Christ.

And it's actually from 1 and 2 Thessalonians that we get some of our theology about the return of Christ.

So we're gonna be digging into some end times of events, especially once we get to chapters four and five of this book.

And I just want to encourage you, because he's gonna be talking about this quite a bit, that if end times of events freak you out, I really hope that this book or these two books, first and second Thessalonians, set you at ease.

Every time Paul mentions these events, it's to encourage the church to stir up hope and endurance in them, to really bolster their faith and give them something to look forward to.

And it shouldn't be any different for us today, almost 2,000 years later.

So I really hope, and I've been praying this week as I've been getting ready for this, that at the end of these two books, that we are all more excited for the return of Christ than we are right now, today.

Than we've ever been.

You know, we really should be looking forward to his return with eager anticipation.

So I really hope, and I'm praying for you guys, if this freaks you out when we start talking about things like this, that you're gonna be so excited once we finish these books about the return of Jesus.

And then one last thing before we jump into verse one, we need to realize that this letter is just as much for us today as it is for the church 2,000 years ago in Thessalonica.

Whether Paul realized it or not when he was writing, God was using him to bring his word to written permanence.

This is so applicable to us today.

And we're gonna see Paul's gonna sign off 1 Thessalonians with, I charge you by the Lord that this letter be read to all the brothers and sisters.

It wasn't just for this church.

He's just saying, spread it out in all of Macedonia, that's the larger region that Thessalonica was the capital of.

And he signs off 2 Thessalonians 3, 14 through 15 by saying, If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take note of that person, don't associate with him, so that he may be ashamed.

Yet don't consider him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.

So I 100% believe that this is for us today as well.

We all need to read this letter, we need to put it into practice.

We not need to uh these aren't just like nice suggestions that Paul was giving this church, and nice suggestions that we can give each other.

This is the word of God that Paul was writing down to encourage that church and to encourage our church.

We get to hold it and study it here today.

So we need to take on these things for ourselves the encouragements, uh the teachings that we're gonna see, the direction that Paul is giving this church, and the hope of Jesus' return as well.

So that's kind of a little background on this letter.

So we're gonna start in verse 1, but we're really gonna be zeroing in on verse 3 today.

So he starts off Paul, Sylvanus or Silas, and Timothy.

So right there, I have to believe, as this church is receiving this letter, and they read those three names, you know, this intro alone, that they have to be so excited.

They have to be so thrilled to see these three guys uh at the heading of this letter.

Three guys that they knew well, that they probably considered to be spiritual fathers in a sense, because they probably hadn't received any sort of update from Paul since he left the city.

They may even be just rejoicing that these three guys are still alive.

You know, consider the amount of persecution that Paul and Silas have been receiving as they've been going uh along from Philippi to Thessalonica in particular.

There's a ton of danger when you're traveling uh along these roads, and uh, whichever way you're traveling, it was just so dangerous at that time.

So, right off, they probably see these three names, and they're like, these guys, they're alive.

They're thinking about us.

They wrote us a letter, they've been praying for us.

They have to be so thrilled at just that first sentence in the letter.

You know, they're probably so hungry for this letter.

Now, do you think, question for you?

Do you think that they received this letter from these three spiritual fathers?

They assembled the church together and said, Today we're gonna be reading verses one through three.

And if you come back next week, then you get to read verses four through ten with us.

I think they probably got this letter and they couldn't read it fast enough.

Cover to cover, back and forth, over and over again.

And then they probably came back to it the next day and doing that same thing, just reading it cover to cover, so excited and really wanted to catch everything that these three spiritual fathers had uh had told them through the hand of Paul.

And then I'm guessing they probably came back and then they probably picked it apart like we're gonna be doing.

Like, okay, you know what?

Let's just focus on verses one through three.

Let's really chew on this, let's ask some questions, let's see, you know, what it is, and then maybe next week we'll take another chunk of it and really break it down.

But I think when they first got it, they just were gobbling up as fast as they could, was so much excited.

Probably run around, Paul send us a letter, Paul send us a letter.

So I want to encourage us this week to do the same thing.

To put yourself in the Thessalonian shoes almost 2,000 years ago, of being these young Christians in a new church, and pretend like you received this letter from your three spiritual fathers for the first time.

And read it from that perspective.

Not having any knowledge of probably anything else that's written in the New Testament other than what Paul had told them with the short time that he was with them, and just do it a couple times.

It's a short letter, five chapters, some of the chapters are even really short, but just sit down a couple times this week and read it cover to cover from that perspective.

I just did it this morning, and it's just so, I don't know, it's just so neat to read it from that perspective and to have that same hunger and thirst that they had in the beginning.

And what that's gonna do, it's gonna help you with the context, it's gonna help you with the themes that we're gonna be covering, maybe even bring up some questions that you might have.

But I just want to encourage you, try that a couple times this week and just see what the Lord does with that.

All right, let's look at the next part of verse one.

To the Church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace.

So this is both the Greek and the Jewish greetings, as Paul, this is Paul's custom.

Grace always first, because you can't experience the peace of God until you've experienced the grace of God.

And I don't know who said it first, but grace is the fountain and peace is the stream that flows from it.

So Paul starts off by just saying grace and peace to this church.

To a church that desperately needs both of these things right now.

You know, again, new followers of Christ experience intense persecution.

They still have lots of questions to be answered, uh, probably just a lot of unrest going on in the city and maybe even within the church.

They may be struggling with some doubts, you know, because they have some big questions regarding persecution and what happens to the believers that die before Jesus comes back.

That's one of the big things that Paul's going to address for them.

They're in major need of God's grace and his peace, both of which only God can give.

Now look at verse 2 with me.

We always thank God for all of you, making mention of you constantly in our prayers.

If you look at that, there's some strong language in there, isn't there?

Always, all, constantly.

You know, I think this really just shows the relationship that Paul already has with this church.

He's so concerned about how they are doing in their young faith and how they're holding up through all of this against the jealous Jews that Paul actually had to face while he was there.

Maybe other religions telling them, well, yeah, you can worship Jesus and do this.

You can worship Jesus and worship with the temple prostitutes, whatever it might be.

So he tells them, I pray for you constantly.

You know, I heard a pastor say once that Paul treated some of these churches that he's writing to almost like he's in a romantic relationship with them.

You know, he was there for a short time, he fell in love with these people, and then he was forced into a long-distance relationship.

And he just can't stop thinking about them.

You know, Michelle and I spent six of our nine-month engagement in a long-distance relationship.

And it was horrible.

We absolutely hated it.

She graduated a little before me from Cal Poly and uh started working for an architect down in Ventura.

I was finishing my last quarter at Cal Poly, so for about six months we were in this long-distance relationship.

But the thing was, it was horrible, but we had phones.

It was a landline, but we had.

Do the kids here know what a landline is?

Maybe not?

Okay.

One does.

Some shaking their head.

It's like a phone you actually have to plug into the wall.

Like you can't walk around with it.

Paul's only line of communication was through prayer and maybe an update from a traveler from time to time.

You know, maybe you've been there in the beginning of a relationship, and this person at the time is just the best thing ever.

You know, you can't stop thinking about them.

Any mental downtime that you have, you're thinking about that person, and the next time that you get to see them.

This is what Paul sounds like as he writes this letter.

You know, I just imagine him, like, I wonder how they're doing.

I wonder if they're okay.

I wonder if their faith is standing up in the middle of this persecution that they're experiencing.

You know, if I could only be with them and help them and support them and walk them through the suffering that they're going through for Christ and tell him it's not a bad thing.

Like we should actually expect this when we follow Christ to suffer just like him.

But he's prohibited from going to them.

So he just prays and he prays and he prays and then he writes this letter.

And in verse 3, he expresses his love and his adoration for this church.

And verse 3 is really kind of the thesis statement of this book.

You know, we're gonna be able to point back with every theme that we cover to one of these three things of faith, love, and hope.

You know, it's the the well-known New Testament triad.

You know, with everything that we cover in this book, we're just gonna be able to point it back to this thesis statement that we find in verse 3.

And the neat thing is Paul has already seen all of these attributes we're about to go over in them already.

And the rest of this book is really simple encouragement to keep going and to keep going.

So let's look at verse 3 together.

We recall in the presence of our God and Father, so we remember this about you guys, your work produced by faith, your labor motivated by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

So I just want to take some time to look at each one of those things.

So the first thing is your work produced.

By faith.

So we need to distinguish between work and labor.

Because in English those seem kind of like they're similar, but they're different words in the Greek.

Work here means like undertakings, business things, endeavors that you're going to partake in.

It can be something that's enjoyable and even adventurous if you want.

So this is about what they're doing.

This is about what they're taking on as believers.

Their faithfulness to do good works, to participate in good things.

And it's being generated, if you look here, by their faith.

It's not being generated by legalism or guilt or just knowledge of, well, this is what I really should do.

No, it's generated by faith.

And we're not talking about their salvation faith alone here.

We're talking about their trusting faith as well in Jesus Christ.

The kind of faith that says, no matter how bad things get, we're living for something so much greater.

And we know that Jesus is going to walk us through whatever we face in this world.

Basically, they're trusting him with everything that they have and everything that they do because of their faith in Jesus Christ.

Now, if you look at the next part, it says, your labor motivated by love.

Now, labor, in contrast to the word work, this is blood, sweat, and tears.

This is like boots on the ground kind of labor.

And by definition, it's labor in conjunction with hardship and toil.

So it's not just going out and you know and sweating.

There's hardship and there's toil involved in this.

And that definition, I don't know about you, but when I read that definition and start talking about work and toil, I always go back to thinking about the curse on Adam after he first sinned.

Painful labor and work is what part of that curse was.

And if you know me at all, by now, you probably know what I'm thinking about.

Plumbing.

My least favorite thing to do that always requires at least three trips to the hardware store, and it should only be a 20-minute job, and three days later you're still trying to figure out sizes and fittings and all that kind of things.

But you know, somebody I saw somewhere recently says, nobody has seen you at your worst more than your local Home Depot.

And I was like, that kind of makes sense.

But you know, you go back for that third trip for your plumbing supplies, and it's just like, keep your witness, keep your witness, keep it up.

But not too long after my surgery, I was still in pretty bad shape, pretty tired, uh, couldn't really do anything in the afternoons whatsoever.

I was home alone one day, and it was in the evening, so I was already, you know, couldn't do a whole lot, but I walked into our middle bathroom at our house, and water was coming out of the front of the cabinet, and it was getting all over the floor.

And I was just like, oh, and nobody's home.

And so I look, you know, under the cabin, I start pulling stuff out.

I got towels and all that stuff, and I was just so out of it.

I thought I'm gonna turn the supply lines off, and I'm dealing with this in the morning.

Come back in the morning, and I start you know looking and trying to figure out where it's coming from.

Nothing obvious.

So I turn you know the supply lines back on and I'm looking, nothing.

There's no leaks, nothing.

Everything's saturated, the drywall saturated, but I can't see any leaks in it under there.

So I'm like, well, I'm gonna come back in a little bit and I'm gonna see you know if something starts leaking again.

And so I come back in a little bit, sure enough, there's water on the cold water supply line dripping from there, and the drywall is freshly wet.

I'm like, okay.

So um I'm like, okay, supply line.

I'm just gonna replace both of them just to be safe.

I so I go to the hardware store, I get two supply lines and I put them under there.

And I'm like, okay, we're set, no leaks, we're good to go.

Come back in about an hour.

There's water on the cold supply line, and the drywall is wet again.

And I'm thinking, what's going on?

And again, I'm so tired at this point.

I just turned the supply lines off.

I'm dealing with this in the morning.

Come back in the morning, I turn everything back on, and I'm looking and I'm looking, nothing.

There's no leaks whatsoever.

And so, anyway, I said I'm gonna come back in a little bit and look again.

Come back in a little bit, sure enough, there's water, cold supply line, drywall's freshly wet.

So I'm thinking, what on earth is this?

So I got a reading light, you know, that you click on your on your Kindle or whatever, and I put that underneath the sink and I crawl under there, and I'm just waiting, like just waiting for a drip, anything.

And sure enough, out above the supply line where the stem from the faucet comes down, there's this little pinhole.

You couldn't even see it with your eye.

And it was spraying this little cloud of moisture and just soaking the drywall and then dripping down the cold supply line.

Like, oh my gosh, we gotta replace the whole thing.

Our cabinet requires a special extra long faucet to make it into the sink.

So I had to order that, wait a couple days for that to come back in, and finally get it.

I'm in no shape to replace it.

So I made my daughter do it.

She did a great job.

It's still working today.

But all of that, I always that's just labor and toil.

Just is not working out.

Before the curse, they didn't have to worry about stuff like that.

Labor, pain and labor and toil.

That's part of the curse.

My daughter and I, we labored and toiled and fought that thing because we had to.

We didn't want to.

It was not a labor of love.

It was like a labor of grudge, is what it was.

But Paul saw this church laboring.

Not because they felt like they probably should, not because they felt like they had to or were guilted into that.

They were motivated to labor and toil in hardship by love.

You know, if we're doing anything for the Lord, and it's motivated by anything other than love for him, we're doing it wrong.

Our labor and toil, especially in ministry, whether formal or simply to our next door neighbor, whatever it might be, it needs to be in love, motivated by love.

And there's gonna be times in ministry where we don't want to do something, but we have to do it anyway.

That's just part of the labor that Paul is talking about.

We're gonna have to do things that we don't want to.

You know, the question is where is the source?

Where's the motivation coming from in that labor and in that toil?

It needs to be motivated by love or it's gonna burn you out.

It's just gonna be another plumbing project, but we're gonna call it ministry.

And then lastly, the end of verse 3 there, it says, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Do you remember I told you each chapter is gonna end with Paul pointing in some way to the return of Christ?

Where he's inspiring them even more to look to Jesus and look to what's ahead.

That's where we find endurance.

Endurance to keep going.

Because maybe we don't want to labor anymore.

You know, when we're tired of laboring or struggling with doubt, we're up against some sort of persecution because of our faith.

You know, maybe we're thinking, I should just throw in the towel.

Everything is just not working.

No matter what I do, it doesn't seem to be working.

Everything's just so much harder than it should be.

Everything that I do is just met with opposition.

And it's just so much harder than it should be.

Our endurance and encouragement to keep going needs to come from our hope in Jesus Christ.

In Christ and the future that we have in him.

Because he's our hope now, and he's also our future hope.

He's what we get to look forward to.

You know, the next time things are hard, and maybe you're suffering, or maybe you're going through some sort of persecution, or there's just extra hardship.

It's just all piled on.

Maybe it's in ministry.

Like I said, it doesn't have to be Sunday morning ministry.

Maybe it's ministering to your neighbor or a friend or somebody at school or whatever it might be.

See, our will to keep going needs to be motivated by these three things that we looked at by faith, love, and hope.

They all are found in Christ.

You know, if you try to follow and serve Christ and you aren't trusting in him, you know, that trust faith that we talked about, you're not trusting in him to walk you through it, or you aren't motivated to serve him because you love him, or you aren't enduring all things because of the hope that we have in him, you're gonna burn out.

Filled with discouragement, filled with exhaustion, and no will to move forward.

You know, Paul wrote when he was writing to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 13, he said, now these three remain faith, hope, and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

You know, all of this begins and ends with a love for Jesus.

Or at least it should.

All of this comes from Christ.

You know, if you work on that relationship between you and Christ, all of these other things that we've been talking about are gonna fall into place.

A deeper love for Jesus leads to trusting him more.

A deeper love for Jesus leads to us willingly doing things for him and for his kingdom.

A deeper love for Jesus leads to a deep desire to spend eternity with him.

You know, a deep desire for him to come back for his church, for his bride.

A deeper love from him, though, it comes from spending time with him.

Talking to him, listening for him.

Things like prayer, things like reading your Bibles.

He is the Word of God.

Spending more time with people that love him as much as you do, you know, that's fellowship.

He came to make a way for us to have these things and to have this relationship with him, to give us hope on this really messed up earth, and to give us the hope of a future with him.

And this morning, if you don't have that relationship with him, he made a way for all of us to have this relationship with him on the cross and then resurrecting on the third day so that not only wash away our sins, but that we get to share in his resurrection as well.

As new creations in Christ Jesus.

We simply need to believe that he did that for us and confess with our mouth that Jesus is God, and Scripture says that we will be saved.

So if that's you, there's a living hope.

And if you've been walking with Christ for 25, 50, 70 years, whatever it might be, we have a living hope in Christ Jesus.

We have a secure future in him, with him all through eternity and perfection in heaven.

And if you haven't made that decision to walk with Christ, to follow him as your Lord, to accept him as your Savior, this is a great time to do it.

Right from your seat right now.

To say, I believe and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.

And you can have this exact relationship and the faith, the hope, and the love of Jesus Christ that he will provide for each and every one of us.

And this is a great time to do it.

We're gonna uh have communion here this morning.

This could be your first act as a follower of Jesus Christ, of sharing in what we're about to do, which I'm gonna let Pete explain when he gets up here.

But wouldn't you first pray with me?

Lord, thank you again for your word.

We thank you for all of the things that you have for us in 1 Thessalonians.

But Lord, I pray that today we wouldn't just walk out of here and forget what we've heard, the things that you've had for us, the things that you've been teaching us just here in the last 30, 40 minutes, whatever it's been.

But I pray that we would take to heart the things that you've been showing us along the way.

Lord, I pray that our motivation for everything would be our love for you.

That we would find our faith and our hope and our love because of the relationship that we have with you.

Lord, things are hard in this life, in this world.

Just all the things we see in the news, the things that we go through on a daily basis.

I just pray, Lord, against burnout for all of us.

That you would just give us the endurance to keep going because of the hope that we have in you.

Lord, that our work and our labor would be because we love you so much.

We trust you so much with everything.

So help us to come to a deeper place of surrender today and a deeper place tomorrow and the day after that than the day previously.

Lord, help us to become more and more like Jesus on a daily basis, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.