Christ Jesus Our Lord (1 Corinthians 1:1-9)

Alright, like I said, we're gonna be in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, and this is our first day in Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

We spent I I looked at the podcast that we that we uploaded, we spent 33 weeks in the book of Romans, and it was awesome, and it was a rich time, and I don't know.

I feel like I got a ton out of it talking to you guys.

I feel like everybody got uh a ton out of that.

But today we jump in for the first time, and that's always exciting, it's always a milestone when we're able to jump into the next book.

So, before we jump in and actually read through verses one through nine, as we read through this text and as we read through this book as a whole, we're gonna see that the Corinthian church has a lordship problem.

That is really the theme that we're gonna be getting out of this from beginning to end.

They have a lordship problem.

You know, for most, when we think of 1 Corinthians, the first thing we think about is unity.

And they did have a unity problem, and we're gonna see that in a lot of different places, but it was rooted in their lordship problem that they had.

The church in Corinth had a problem surrendering their lustful and their fleshly desires to God.

And I mention this because as we read through just these first nine verses, we're gonna see the term Jesus, Christ Jesus, or Lord Jesus Christ nine times, just in these nine verses.

And then we're also gonna see Jesus referenced another two times in he and him.

And then on top of that, God is referenced six times in these nine verses.

So Corinth had a lordship problem, so Paul reminds them 17 times in these nine verses of who they worship and who is their Lord.

Just in these nine verses.

So I wanted to tell you that before we read through it so you can kind of start taking note of the repetition of God's Lordship just in these first nine verses.

So let's stand for the reading of God's word if you're able.

And Sosthenes, our brother, to the church of God at Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called as saints, with all those in every place who call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their Lord and ours.

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

I always thank my God for you because of the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus, that you are enriched in him in every way, in all speech and all knowledge.

In this way, the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, so that you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you will be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God is faithful.

You were called by Him into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

God, we thank you so much for this book that we get to jump into together.

Lord, we pray that you would soften our hearts.

Lord, that you would show us the areas in our life where we have a lordship problem that you want to deal with, that you want to change, that you want us to surrender to you.

So I pray that we would come with humility, that we would come with open minds and hearts and ears and eyes to see all that you have for us here.

We pray the work of the Holy Spirit would be present uh in each one of us, Lord, for convicting and for and for teaching and for counseling and just all of those different ways, uh, Lord, that He enriches us.

Lord, so would you do your work?

Would you help me to rightly divide your word here this morning?

And would you be the one doing the speaking, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So Corinth is an interesting city geographically.

We have a map that we're gonna put up here.

You know, it sits right here on this isthmus that separates northern Greece from southern Greece.

So it places uh Corinth in a very interesting place geographically.

So any land travel between northern and southern Greece had to be through Corinth.

But Corinth was also a hub for those that were traveling east and west by the sea as well.

Because sailing around the southern end of Greece, right here, it's called Cape Malaya, was extremely dangerous.

It said that they would somewhat jokingly tell sailors to write their will before sailing around Cape Malaya.

So what they started doing, if boats were small enough back in the beginning when they started to use this isthmus, is they would actually drag their boats for four miles across that isthmus as opposed to sailing around Cape Malaya.

Sometimes they would empty the cargo and they would carry the cargo across and then drag the boat behind them if it was small enough.

Or sometimes they would just empty the cargo, they would transfer it across the isthmus to another boat that was waiting, they would take the cargo and then they would uh take off.

But they had a road specifically made for that.

You want to go to the next picture?

And they made this road just for dragging boats and cargo, just those four miles from sea to sea.

And then when the Romans took over Greece, they adapted a method of rolling ships and cargo over this isthmus on logs, because it was so much better than going around southern Greece.

Now, in present day there is a canal, and that was finished in the late 1800s, much like we see in Panama, where they can actually take ships through there.

So, as you can imagine, Corinth became this huge hub for travel, for travel and for commerce, because in four ways it was kind of a funnel where people had to go through it, and it really became a melting pot of language and of culture and of religion with all kinds of influence from the outside world coming into that city.

Now it was a very wealthy city, it was very prosperous in a lot of ways, and it was also known for new ideas, and it was known for innovation at the time.

It was where the Isthmian Games were held, which was second largest only to the Olympic Games at the time.

And it was also a center for military and for government.

So just picture all this is a hopping city.

There's a lot going on in it.

But along with that, Corinth was known for its immorality.

It was known for its debauchery, it was known for its drunkenness.

You know, the way that historians make it sound, it sounds like it would make Las Vegas blush.

Like it's it's that kind of debauchery that we're looking at.

You know, calling somebody a Corinthian back there was actually an insult back in this time.

Because people were that were sexually immoral or people that were drunkards were the ones that were called Corinthians.

And that was like a bad insult at the time to be called that.

Even in plays at the time, whenever there was the portrayal of a Corinthian, they were always drunk in the plays.

Like it was just known.

That's what they they did, that's what they were known for.

And on top of that, it was a center for pagan worship.

There were temples in Corinth to Apollo and Poseidon and Hermes and Athena and Isis and a bunch of other Greek and Roman gods as well.

You know, one of the main centers for uh worship was the temple to Aphrodite that was there in Upper Corinth, actually in the Acropolis.

That's what it was built for.

And there are claims that up to a thousand temple prostitutes, mainly women, but also men and children, would come down from the temple each night to offer sacred sex, for a fee, of course, as an act of worship to Aphrodite.

Up to a thousand a night would descend on that city.

So you imagine this wealthy city where drunkenness and debauchery were commonplace, where prostitution is seen as a good thing, what's actually seen as an act of worship.

And then you have these sailors that were coming from sea for maybe months at a time, and they arrive with pockets full of money that they just received completing their voyage, and you can just imagine what would take place from that point forward.

You know, I say this because I think we often sanitize our mental picture of settings in the Bible, in our Bibles, in Scripture.

We picture Paul riding to this church in Corinth that's sitting in this beautiful coastal white building overlooking this clear Mediterranean Sea, and Christ's followers sitting in this peaceful circle, you know, contemplating the deeper truths of Scripture.

But I'm thinking that the scene in Corinth was closer to a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean.

Have you ever been on that ride in Disneyland?

You know, that is the scene we should probably have in our mind when we're thinking of Corinth at this time.

Just the crazy sin that's going on, and these rough, rough people that are just trying to get drunk and looking for prostitutes, and just you can imagine the debauchery in this place.

Uh, you know, I think that's a lot closer to the image that we should have as opposed to maybe some of the beautiful pictures that we see of Greece, you know, in this time.

And I think it's important that we have that picture because ministry to the church in Corinth must have been really messy.

Like really messy, for especially for Paul.

And I'm not talking about the church building.

This was a church filled with people who have just come to faith in Christ.

That are just learning for the first time that it's not okay to get drunk.

They've never known any different for all of their life, maybe.

And it's probably a huge struggle for them to stop getting drunk.

You know, the city's probably filled with people who have never even considered that it was wrong to keep a mistress on the side in addition to their wife.

That was common practice in this time.

Who never considered that prostitution might not be okay.

You know, they're being told that so much of what they were doing their whole life for the first time, now they're being told that it's not okay for the first time.

And then Jesus has different plans for them.

He has something so much better for them.

And they're trying to sort through all of this, each one of them in the Corinthian church.

You know, I think a modern-day example of the Corinthian church that we could probably relate to would be something like this scenario.

And I really want you to paint this picture in your head because it's going to be really helpful in the weeks ahead that we have this picture of what this church probably looks like.

So I want you to imagine that we hold this evangelistic event down in Sunken Gardens right here in the middle of Atascadero.

And in that time, we see a bunch of people give their life to Jesus Christ for the first time.

And pretend that ten of those people that came to Christ were employees of a strip club.

Ten people were living down in the creek bottom that got saved.

Ten were local prostitutes, ten were people addicted to heroin.

Then there's ten people from the local Jewish synagogue that gave their life to Jesus Christ for the first time.

And then there's ten high-ranking city officials that give their life to Jesus for the first time.

And then they all show up here the next Sunday to be a part of our church.

That gives me anxiety just thinking about that.

Like, that is a lot of work ahead, isn't it?

I mean, look at think of how different our church would look if those 50 people showed up from those backgrounds, just like, we have no idea about Jesus or anything like that.

Like, what do we do?

Help.

You know, that's like, oh, okay.

It's gonna be a mess.

There's gonna be a lot of work, there's gonna be a lot of sorting out to do, a lot of needs that need to be met, a lot of discipleship that's gonna need to start taking place immediately, and a lot of disputes to settle.

Not just among them, but among us as well.

Like, hold on, what do we do?

Wait, we should be doing, no, we should be doing this.

You know, you kind of get that picture of what that would look like for us.

I mean, think about it.

Twenty of those people would need to quit working in the industry that they were in and would need to find new jobs.

Another 10 would be looking for work for the first time in probably a long time.

A good number would need help working through addiction problems.

A good number would need to wrestle with doing business honestly for the first time in their life.

This is a lot for a church to help 50 people sort through.

And that's basically what Paul did while in Corinth.

He was there for a year and a half, just kind of discipling and sorting things out and trying to help them.

This is um, and this is his follow-up letter to the church.

He was with them for a year and a half, but this is his follow-up with them.

And this is actually, we find out, the second letter that he sent to them, to the church in Corinth, but we don't have the first.

So 1 Corinthians is actually the second, but he references writing to them previously.

You know, and since we've talked so much about Paul, our author, as we're going through the book of Romans, we're not going to talk a ton about him today as we intro 1 Corinthians, other than this is the Apostle Paul who wrote so much of the New Testament that we're holding in our hands.

Who was called to make disciples and to plant churches specifically among the Gentiles.

Now, we do get a little insight into Paul's relationship with the Corinthian church out of Acts 18.

So I want to read you a short passage from Acts 18 to kind of give us a little context of what we're looking at.

Acts 18, verse 18.

Acts 18:18

He says, After this, he left Athens and went to Corinth.

This is speaking of Paul, where he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontius, who had recently come from Italy with his life with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome.

Paul came to them, and since they were of the same occupation, tent makers by trade, he stayed with them and worked.

He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and tried to persuade both Jews and Greeks.

When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself to preaching the word and testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Messiah.

When they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his clothes and told them, Your blood is on your own heads.

I am innocent.

From now on I will go to the Gentiles.

So he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius, Justice, a worshipper of God, whose house was next door to the synagogue.

Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, along with his whole household.

Many of the Corinthians, when they heard, believed and were baptized.

The Lord said to Paul in a night vision, Don't be afraid, but keep on speaking and don't be silent, for I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to hurt you, because I have many people in this city.

He stayed there a year and a half teaching the word of God among them.

And that was the second longest he ever spent in one place on a missionary journey, second only to Ephesus.

A year and a half that he spent with these Corinthians.

And I think I know why he spent so long.

Picture the scenario that we just talked about earlier with this diverse group.

He had a lot of ministry, he had a lot of work before him.

Now, after Paul's year and a half at Corinth, he finished his missionary journey by going to his home base in Antioch.

And it was on his next journey as he was in Ephesus that he caught word of the struggles in Corinth, and they were asking Paul to clarify a few things for them as well.

So he wrote this response to them that we're holding in our hands here today in 1 Corinthians.

And reading this response is a lot like being in a room with somebody that's talking on the phone, and you're only hearing one side of the conversation.

We can hear what Paul is saying, but we can't hear or see what the Corinthians are asking, and we can't hear or see what they've been reporting back to Paul that makes him write this response.

So a good amount of time we can kind of figure out what the questions were and what was reported to Paul, but we're really only hearing one side of this conversation.

You know, the same thing happens in our house.

You know, sometimes I'll walk into a room and my wife's on the phone, and I could just, just by listening, I can figure out, oh, she's talking to her mom.

Oh, she's, you know, they're talking about this upcoming event or something like that.

You can figure out a lot just by one side of the conversation, and that's kind of what we're holding here in 1 Corinthians.

Now, it's very different from Romans that we just came out of.

Romans was Paul writing to a church he had not visited, and he wrote to them based on what he knew of the makeup of the church and the people in the church.

So he wasn't addressing specific issues, he wasn't really calling out individuals by name, he was just kind of writing a general theology to help out this church in Rome.

Now, conversely, 1 Corinthians will get real specific on specific issues.

So we're we're gonna see that as we dig into it deeper.

So, with all of that said, that's kind of the picture of who Paul is writing to.

Let's jump into verse 1 here.

Paul, called as an apostle of Christ Jesus by God's will, and Sosthenes, our brother.

Now, remember, Paul is writing to a church that he knows well.

So it's kind of interesting that he confirms his apostleship.

And that his apostleship is not something that he took on himself or something that was given to him by man, but something that God ordained.

His apostleship was something that Jesus had called him specifically into by the will of God, as he as he points out right here in the first verse.

And as we'll see, Paul's apostleship was something the Corinthian church really wasn't impressed with, that they didn't exactly accept.

And we see Paul in some ways trying to kind of defend his apostleship, that this came from Jesus Christ directly.

So Paul reminds them that Jesus Christ called him into this apostleship personally, as we remember in Acts on the road to Damascus.

Jesus made a special appearance to Paul after Jesus resurrected and ascended and called Paul into this apostleship specifically.

Now we know that there were only twelve apostles that Jesus had, that Jesus sent out with authority as apostles.

Because in Revelation we see that the twelve apostles' names are on the twelve foundation stones of the New Jerusalem.

So the original twelve disciples, minus Judas, of course, and then assumedly plus either Matthias or Paul.

That's what most assume it would be the twelfth apostle, whose name we'll finally see once we see the New Jerusalem.

And there's a lot of debate about whether it's Matthias or whether it's Paul, but there's really no way of knowing through Scripture which one that 12th is.

Because, and I think this is something that we need to recognize that word apostle is used also for Barnabas, for Matthias, for Paul, for Apollos, for Timothy, and for a handful of other people in the New Testament.

Because the word apostle really just means sent one.

Literally, it means a delegate, a messenger, one sent forth with orders.

Much like the word that we use for missionary, as we're just talking about with the Johnson family.

You know, that's kind of that they're being sent forth for the ministry of Jesus Christ as delegates.

But there were only twelve sent specifically by Jesus that he gave that authority as apostles.

And there haven't been any more of those twelve ever since.

Otherwise, we're gonna see, we would see a lot of stones with a lot of names on the foundation of the New Jerusalem.

So, was Paul one of the twelve?

It really doesn't matter in the end.

But what does matter is what he points out here in this verse, that Jesus called him by God's will to be a sent one.

And that's what he's confirming right here.

So after Paul mentions himself and he confirms this calling, then he mentions this guy, Sosthenes, a brother in the faith that is accompanying Paul in this current missionary journey that he's on from Ephesus.

This mention.

Here gives the impression that Sosthenes either helped craft the letter or was Paul's scribe or secretary that was that Paul was dictating to.

Now, follow me on this one, okay?

When we just read from Acts 18, we saw that the leader of the Corinthian synagogue was Crispus.

He accepted Jesus, which obviously means that he can't be the leader of the synagogue anymore.

And a few verses later it says that Sosthenes became the leader of that synagogue.

You know, some speculate here that this could be the same Sosthenes that Paul's talking about, that he also gets saved and starts accompanying Paul on his missionary journeys.

Which would be a great reason to mention him to the Corinthian church.

Hey, your buddy Sosthenes, he's here with me.

You know, and he wants to send you his greeting as well.

It also could be a completely different guy, and just had the same name as the Sosthenes, but we don't know for sure, but it's interesting to think about.

So that's Paul and Sosthenes.

Look at verse 2.

So the church of God at Corinth.

So Paul makes sure from the get-go that everyone knows whose church this is.

It's God's church.

Because one of the big issues he's going to address in this letter is that the Corinthians are identifying with the guys that either led them to Christ, the guys that baptized them, or the guys that discipled them.

They're finding their identity in those men.

And in chapters 1 and chapter 3, he'll address those issues specifically.

So he makes a point of saying from the get-go that this is God's church.

Look at the second part of verse 2.

It says, To those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called as saints.

And I love this verse.

Paul calls these people that grew up in this scene, like pirates of the Caribbean, that are still struggling with it.

These people that are causing all this drama in the Corinthian church, he calls them sanctified in Christ Jesus.

And I point this out because he sees them as God sees them.

Set apart for a purpose and made holy through the work of Jesus Christ in each and every one of their life.

Yes, they were still very rough around the edges.

This is a crazy group that's come together to worship Jesus.

There were things that God still needed to deal with in each and every one of their life.

But the work of Jesus was already done, and they were already pure in God's sight.

But the work of Jesus needed to continue in them as well, in that process of sanctification that we talk about so much.

But they're pure and holy in God's sight.

And then Paul calls them at the end of that sentence saints, which is simply translated sometimes in our Bibles as holy ones.

It's almost as if Paul is reminding them of who they are in Christ before he jumps into the correction portion, which is the majority of the letter, and before he points out the specific sins that are found in this church.

As David Guzick points out in his commentary, he says, There is much in 1 Corinthians that is unflattering to the Christians of Corinth.

They are shown to have at times morality problems, doctrine problems, church government problems, spiritual gift problems, church service problems, and authority problems.

It might be easy for us to think they weren't even saved, but they were.

They were called saints.

You see, our unsanctifiedness, I don't think that's really a word, but I don't know how else to say it, doesn't affect who we are in Christ.

But God doesn't want to leave us in the wretchedness of our sin, in the wretchedness of our flesh.

He wants us to become more and more like Jesus daily, even though God already sees us as holy and pure.

We're holy in his sight and we're already saints.

For every one of us here today that identifies as a follower of Jesus Christ.

And Paul reminds them of this as he's about to bring some strong correction.

It's like he's saying, You got it, Corinthians.

I'm not questioning your salvation.

I'm going to be addressing the things that God wants to grow in each one of you.

You're saved, but God is not done with you yet.

Which is true of every single one of us sitting here today as well.

Look at the last part of verse 2.

With all those in every place who call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both their Lord and ours.

And here, I really think this is a reminder to the Corinthian church that they're a part of something that's so much bigger than themselves.

And bigger than the church that they're a part of.

They're a part of the church.

You know, when there's drama within a church, or when there's disputes among members of a church, it's so easy to think that this issue is the biggest issue in the world.

And the biggest issue within the greater church and within the smaller community church as well.

So before Paul corrects, he wants to establish this perspective with him.

That you're a part of something so much bigger.

Don't think that your circumstances are special, and don't think that you're alone in your circumstances.

You're a part of something joined by everyone that calls on the name of Jesus.

So don't get too self-focused, Corinth.

I really believe that's what he's trying to communicate to them.

Verse 3.

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

This is really Paul's normal salutation.

We see it, I think, at least five other times as he's opening up different letters in the New Testament.

But it seems especially appropriate, I think, for the Corinthian church, considering that the specific issues that Paul's going to be addressing in this letter.

So he's establishing grace is from God.

And you need to have grace with each other as well.

And then the peace part, which I think is both Jesus bringing peace between God and man, but also peace within the body.

Because they're going to need a lot of that because they're a little crazy still.

You know, there's a lot that Jesus still wants to work on in their lives.

Verse 4.

I always thank my God for you because of the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus.

Remember, Paul saw these people at their worst before they gave their life to Jesus.

And he helped them walk through their infancy in the faith as followers to become followers of Christ.

He saw them at their worst before that.

And he's going to spend much of this letter correcting them.

But I don't think he wants them to forget about God's grace.

And he wants to mention how thankful he is for the work of God in his grace in these people.

Because he knows firsthand how God's grace has affected each and every one of them personally.

And he's probably been blown away by witnessing God's grace with this particular group of people, just as Paul witnessed God's grace in his own life.

Verse 5.

That you were enriched in him in every way, in all speech and all knowledge.

In this way, the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you.

As we talked so much about, these were depraved and wicked people, just like all of us were before coming to Jesus Christ.

But by the grace of God, he enriched them, it says here, in speech and in knowledge.

And this is the work of the Holy Spirit in every believer's life.

The Holy Spirit gives us the words that we need in the time that we need.

He gives us the words that we need to share the gospel with other people.

And knowledge.

He gives us knowledge as our teacher in the mysteries of God.

You know, it's a gift of the Holy Spirit that does that in us and through us.

And it confirms the testimony of Christ in us, as Paul mentions right here.

You know, it's a result of following Christ.

And the sign of that is the seal of the Holy Spirit, as we see in Ephesians 1.13.

Look at verse 7 with me.

So that you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul's telling them, the Holy Spirit is in you.

And as a body, you lack nothing as far as that gifting goes.

So start acting as the body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He's reminding them of that Lordship one more time.

As you eagerly await his return.

So just some further instruction there.

This was a gifted church, but their flesh was still out of control in a lot of different ways.

Their spiritual gifts were not surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

And having gifts without lordship within a church, that's a really dangerous combination.

Gifted and given over to the flesh.

We want to avoid that with everything that we have.

That's why when we see the requirements for pastors and elders in the book of Timothy and the book of Titus, it's almost all about not being given over to your flesh.

That's why when we see the requirements that we do, that a lot of it's not about talent.

A lot of it's not about gifting, a lot of it's about character.

To make sure that we don't put people in positions of authority just because they're talented.

And then just see it all crumble from there.

Now, Paul's gonna address the issue of spiritual gifts being used decently and in order and go much deeper into that in chapters 12 and 14.

So that's all we're gonna talk about it for today.

Let's move on to verse 8.

He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you will be blameless in the day of our, there it is again, Lord Jesus Christ.

This is an encouragement for the Corinthians to lean on Jesus, especially in their hour of weakness, to depend on him to strengthen and also accomplish everything that he desires.

You know, it's only by his strength that we can become more like Jesus, that we could walk through this process of sanctification that he wants to walk us through, so that we can finish strong, so that we can be found blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Verse 9.

God is faithful.

You were called by him into fellowship with his son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

There it is again.

This is Paul's last sentence before he moves into the correction phase of the letter.

And I really believe he's encouraging them that in Christ they can come overcome all of the things that he's about to point out.

First by reminding them of God's faithfulness, and then second by reminding them that God called them into fellowship with Jesus and still desires them, still desires that fellowship.

And then third, that in Christ they are blameless.

These are the things that he wants this church to know before he goes into the correction phase.

Paul says something similar in Philippians 1 6.

He says, I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

So I think Paul's saying, Corinthians, he's not done with you.

You're not done becoming more like Jesus.

You're pure and you're holy in God's sight, and you are saints, but he who started this good work of salvation in you wants to carry on this process of becoming more like Jesus until Christ comes back.

And I think that's our takeaway as well today.

So I want to say that to you.

You're pure and holy in God's sight.

And you are saints.

But he who started this good work of salvation in you wants to carry on that process in each and every one of us.

That process of becoming more like Jesus all the way until Christ's return.

So I want to ask you this question.

What is a work that God started in your life that he wants to continue to advance?

You know, I know the main thing, the obvious answer, is us becoming more like Jesus.

Absolutely.

But I think we need to ask: what are the areas that we here today, each one of us, is struggling with in our life as far as lordship goes?

That we're not allowing God to advance in our life.

Or maybe what is he asking us to surrender?

But we like having authority over it.

And we don't want to give it to him.

We don't want to surrender that thing to him.

So I want to challenge all of us to take this time today, take time this week, and ask God to reveal that to you.

God had Paul write, if God had Paul write you a letter, what would be the areas that he would want to address in your life?

God really wants to reveal those things to each one of us.

He doesn't want those things to remain veiled.

He wants us to know what those things are.

So my challenge and the takeaway I really want us all to have for this week ahead is would you just ask him, Lord, would you show me, would you unveil the areas of my life where I'm struggling with Lordship?

Where I'm struggling to surrender these things to you.

So we're actually going to do something a little different this morning.

Ben's going to come up and play a little bit of music, but I just want us to take about a minute.

Just individually in the chair that you're sitting in, and just ask God.

Like, God, what is it that you want to unveil?

Maybe he's already stirred that up as we've been going through these verses already.

But just ask him, Lord, where am I not giving you Lordship in my life?

What am I holding on to?

What's an area where I enjoy having the authority, but I need to surrender that to you.

So let's just take about a minute of solemn prayer before the Lord and ask him to examine us.

Lord, we pray that you would do that now.

That you would examine us, that we would be sensitive to listen and to hear and to allow you to speak.

Lord, we want to surrender those things to you.

Maybe we're not even aware of what it might be right now.

But would you show us today and throughout this week?

Would you just point out, yeah, you need to give that to me.

You need to surrender that to me.

And that's going to be part of that process of you becoming more like Jesus daily.

So let's take that time and do that now.