Living Life | January 25 2026 (Part 3)

Well, once you turn with me in your Bibles to Philippians

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3. And for those of you that are

joining us line on line, Philippians 3, we were in this

letter last week, small little letter in the New Testament.

And we'll put the Bible books on the screen there so you can find

your way there if you're having trouble.

We're gonna let the Apostle Paul help us to conclude our series

today, which is living the life. And I will ask you one more

time, are you living the life? Are you living the life?

Jesus said very truly. I tell you, whoever hears my

word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not

be judged, but is crossed over from death to life.

Have you crossed over from death to life?

Summary of where we have come from.

We've looked at this idea that there is an actual, there's a

line that has been drawn in the sand, so to speak, a line that

we need to cross over from death to life.

It's a very distinct line. We may not know exactly when we

have crossed it, what that moment was, but the fact that we

have crossed it is really the critical thing.

And so we've looked at where is that line?

Like what is where is that line? We looked at that.

We also looked at how do we cross that line of moving from

death to life? And last week we looked at how

do we know that we've crossed that line, looked at some of

those vital signs. And so if you, if I'm speaking

kind of mysteries to you right now, you might want to just

check out some of the, the, the previous 2 messages to kind of

get yourself up to speed. But today we're going to look at

if you have crossed that line now what?

Now what many people will think of the, you know, the Christian

life in terms of, OK, I've crossed the line from death to

life and that's the finish line. I'm done.

I've broken the tape and I've, I've, I've crossed, crossed it

and that's it. But it's actually the beginning

of the journey. This is the beginning, so to

speak, of the race. And so we need to be thinking

about that. So the question this morning,

couple more questions to ponder. Do you know what this journey is

about? Now that you've crossed that

line from death to life, do you know what the journey is about?

Do you know what the goal is in this journey?

Many people, even even Christians, will think about

what we'll think about it in terms of this.

Their answer to that question would be, OK, well, the goal is

to live a good life, and it's a good thing to live a good life,

but there is so much more to it than that.

Some who want to be a little bit more specific will say, well,

the goal is to obey God's commands that are shown to us in

the Word, and it's good for us to obey God's commands that are

shown into Word. But if that is our focus, we're

actually going to miss it. We're going to miss the goal.

Others will say, well, you know, it's heaven.

Heaven is the goal. That's what we're heading

toward. And heaven is beautiful and it's

great, but it's actually not the end goal.

Heaven's not the end goal, Philippians Chapter 3.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

Apostle Paul tells us what it is we're shooting for, what the

goal actually is. And he's so blown away by it

that and overwhelmed by that. He's saying, you know what?

Everything else in my life, not everything pales in comparison

to this laser focus on this one thing.

And the incredible thing is, is that we miss this so often.

We miss it even when we have the answer, we can still miss it,

forget about it, lose sight of it.

And so, Father, I pray, we pray together as we open up this

precious word from you in the Scriptures, that you would open

our eyes to see wonderful things here and that you would inspire

our hearts for the goal that you have set before us.

We pray in Jesus name, Amen. I'm in Philippians chapter 3 and

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

we're gonna start at verse 7 and the apostle Paul is saying this.

But whatever were gains to me, whatever were gains to me for

him, it was he's looking back on his background, on his

education, on his capacity to, to serve God, all of these kinds

of things. And he's looking back on and

say, these are the gains. And we may not be able to

identify that exactly, but we can think of, you know, what is

it that we, you know, that, that we can kind of hang our hat on

what, what is it that I have got going for me?

And you might think, OK, maybe it is my background.

Maybe it's the family that I belong to.

Maybe it's my intelligence. Maybe it's my good looks or the

good looks of my partner, right? Maybe it's my work ethic or you

know, my my capacity to be able to do things well, whatever it

might be, Paul says. That's the category.

Whatever I might consider to be gains for me and continues on

now, I consider loss for the sake of Christ.

In other words, those things Paul said that I had going for

me, those things that could hang my hat on and feel, you know

what? I can feel really good about

this stuff now. I consider all of that a loss.

In other words, all that stuff that's actually working against

me in the end. Verse 8.

What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the

surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose

sake I have lost all things. This is this is at the the the

heart and soul of it, the surpassing worth of knowing

Christ Jesus. My Lord, Paul had met Jesus and

he's absolutely floored by this one that he has met.

His immense grace and patience towards Him, His mercy towards

Him, his faithfulness toward Him, that he would actually give

up his life for his sake to give Paul life.

I wanna know this person. This was everything.

Everything to Paul, so he says, I consider them.

So this is all these other things.

So he says, um, for whose sake? I've lost all things.

I consider all those things like garbage, rubbish, refuse, that I

may gain Christ and be found in him not having a righteousness

of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through

faith and Christ, the righteousness that comes from

God on the basis of faith. Paul is against saying that all

of those things that could hang, hang my hat on, all those things

that make me really feel good about myself.

He's saying I'm considered that garbage compared to the

surpassing greatness worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord to

be found in Him. You know, when, when, when a,

when an individual receives Jesus Christ, but believes who

he is in receives that person receives Jesus into the life we

actually, we, we actually enter into him.

That's the language of Scripture.

We are actually in Christ. It's kind of like he's got a

home and he's allowed us to enter into the home.

Now we're under his roof, we're in his family.

We're, we're under his protection and everything that

belongs to him now belongs to us.

And for Paul, the most critical thing is that righteousness, the

righteousness of Jesus Christ. All the things that I, all the

things that I'm trying to do in order to gain approval, to gain

acceptance to, to have that good feeling about myself, all that

stuff, I can never quite get there.

But in Jesus, in him were given out.

All were given his righteousness as a gift.

Paul says, actually that it comes to us.

You know, Paul spent so much of his life trying to please God,

trying to live a righteous life so that he could be accepted by

God. And now he realizes at the end

of the line, I can't get there. I can't get that, but Jesus

Christ is actually given it to me.

Righteousness I can't go get. Righteousness comes down to us

as a gift that we receive. He lived the perfect life.

He lived the life that we're meant to live.

And now he says, I'm giving my righteousness to you.

Verse 10. He says I want to know Christ

and if that if that part isn't that lies phrase isn't underline

your Bible. This is a good time.

It's OK to write in your Bible. You know you can write circle

highlight. I want to know Christ.

This was his all consuming passion.

This is at the heart of everything that we're talking

about. This is the goal that he is

referring to, knowing Christ and you remember it was we speaking

about that word knowing Conosco. It's not just knowing about,

it's knowing intimately knowing personally, knowing

experientially. I want to know him.

I'm gonna participate in his life.

This is this is what Paul is saying.

He says, yes, I want to know Christ, yes, to know the power

of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings,

becoming like Him in his death and so somehow attaining to the

resurrection of the dead. He's talking about power.

He wants to know the power of the resurrected Christ, not in

the sense of something impersonal like I want.

I want God to give me his power so that I can do such and such.

I want to know the power of his resurrection and sense of of

knowing Him, knowing Him who is all powerful to staying, staying

close to Him in relationship with the risen Lord.

But notice here how he is connected these two things.

I want to know the power or participate in the sort of the

power of the resurrection and participate in the sufferings of

Christ. Notice how those two things are

linked Power and suffering. We often think of power as

something that we could use in order to avoid suffering.

But here what Paul is saying is that we're given power in order

to suffer, to suffer for Christ. We are given power, We're given

grace by the risen Jesus in order to live the kind of life

that he lived which was to be poured out for the sake of other

people, to be serving to looking for that, those opportunities to

serve one another and to suffer for the sake of one another.

That is not something that comes naturally.

That is not the human way. Everything is about the survival

of the if you remove God and the spiritual life out of the

equation, all we have is a material existence.

All we have is survival of the fittest.

What heaven has done and coming down in Jesus Christ is showing

us know there's so much more to life than that.

It's in fact, when you lay down your life, that's when you're

experiencing the fullness of life.

This is what Jesus came to show us.

You have been given power, power, the risen Jesus, in order

to suffer well on behalf of other people.

You know, if you're in a place where you're saying, you know

what? Life is good.

Life is so good. There's a reason why it's so

good. You get being given the capacity

to look at those with whom could not say life is good, life is

actually very, very difficult right now.

And to help them, to serve them and to love them.

Paul and 2nd Corinthians 9. He puts it this way.

You know you, you have been. How does he put that now?

He says, oh, you'll be enriched in every way so that you can be

generous on every occasion. The reason why you've been made

rich, not just financially, but relationally and and and and and

and physically is in order so that you can actually show

kindness and grace and generosity to other people who

are not necessarily having a good having a good time in life

right now. We've been given power to suffer

and to do so on behalf of other people.

This is Jesus. This is how we operated.

This is who he is. He used his great power in order

to serve us and in so doing bringing life to many like

Hallelujah. And Paul says, I want to be like

that. I want to know Christ.

And so I want to participate in his sufferings, becoming like

him in his death, so that Paul is saying I want to be like him.

And he knows that as he participates with Jesus, just as

he has been carried over from death to life spiritually, he

knows that physically, the moment he dies, he is going to

be raised to life physically as well, just as Jesus.

He's following Jesus into death and he knows that the

resurrection is his and it's coming as well.

It's been just so inspiring walking with some of the

individuals in our congregation who where death is right on

their door, they're facing it and yet they are so alive.

They are so alive and just looking forward to meeting Jesus

Christ. Whether they live or whether

they die, they know they're going to be living with Christ.

It's a beautiful thing, so inspiring, so inspiring.

So Paul is saying the goal, the goal is knowing Christ is, is

and, and becoming more like him. And so verse 12, he says this

not that I've already obtained all this or have already arrived

at my goal in in other words, I'm not there quite yet.

I haven't been made perfect. I haven't become like Jesus yet,

but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took

hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not

consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.

But one thing I do forgetting what is behind and straining

toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to

win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ

Jesus. He's all about pressing on

toward the goal. In that, in that, in that word,

Gioco, it means to pursue. It means to run after, to

literally run after. Now I've entitled this message,

staying alive, right? First one was crossing the line.

Second one was, you know, restoring our vital signs.

This one is staying alive. And what I mean by that is not

that now that I've crossed from death to life, and now there's a

possibility that I might cross back over the line here and

become dead again, I need to stay alive, work to stay alive,

because I just might die. That's not the idea.

The apostle Paul says that Christ Jesus took hold of me.

If Christy, if you've received Christ, he has taken hold of you

and he ain't letting go of friends, and his grip on you is

so much stronger than your grip on him.

So be encouraged by that. But alive in Christ, we can

still live like dead people. We can still be operating in the

flesh. We need to stay alive in Christ,

to be alive to Him. And so how do we do that?

Once we cross that line, we do the about face and we pursue

Christ. We pursue Christ with all our

heart. We run after him.

This is what Paul is saying. And the prize is not heaven.

Actually, the prize is actually Christ knowing him, enjoying him

as a person. That's part of heaven, of

course, but it's so much better than just clouds and angels and

harps and that kind of stuff, right?

Many of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus have crossed

the line, but there's no pursuit.

And we wonder why life is just kind of this monotonous plane.

Like what has God done for me lately?

Yet Paul is just saying, press on toward the goal to win that

prize. Many of us are what Johnny Cash

wrote a song called I Walked the Line, right?

And this is how very this is. This is how we as when we're

religious are doing it. We're we're doing life.

We're walking the line now. It's actually a pretty precious

song. He wrote this song as a song of

dedication to his wife, who he wanted to stay true to while

he's on the road. He didn't want to be cheating on

his wife while he's on the road. And so he's walking the line.

He's walking the line, walking the line.

Now, from a religious standpoint, when we're walking

the line, because there's so many pulls toward death, This is

what half of the actually the large majority of the New

Testament is all talking about. Like wake up guys, You're,

you're on this side of the line. Why are you hanging out so close

to the line? Why are you being pulled in?

The temptation is so strong. It's because we've lost the

pursuit. We're not pursuing Christ.

We're just trying to. We're just we're trying to do

this stuff in the religious life without the relationship.

And so the pull is so strong to be getting back into that life.

It's kind of like, you know, the story of the Exodus God with a

mighty deliverance brings his people through the out of Egypt,

out of bondage, through the Red Sea and moving them into the

promised land. Now when life started to get a

little difficult for them before they hit the promised land, it's

like, you know what? Egypt didn't, didn't look so

bad. And they longed for Egypt.

They longed for the bondage. Just this is this is what we do

when when we have lost sight of the relationship and it's all

just about following the rules and our heart is really not in

it. The pull of the world is so

strong and the apostle Paul is saying, and I'll do an about

face on the line and you pursue Christ.

You press on toward the goal of knowing him, loving him,

experience him, experiencing him, walking with him,

participating in the life that he is living.

In this world. It is so much harder to walk the

line than to pursue Christ. So much harder in the parcel.

Pause is inviting us. Come on guys, come join me in

this pursuit. He put it this way in in in

Romans chapter 6. He said count yourselves dead to

Romans 6 · chapter mention

sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Count yourself dead to all that stuff, but alive to God in

Christ Jesus. How can we stay alive to Christ?

How do we do this? I want to leave with you as we

close this series with one habit.

One habit to instill, one habit to adopt in your life.

There are, there are a lot of spiritual disciplines and

they're very important for us to to continue to engage in those

disciplines. But I want to leave you with one

that to me is this the show stopper, and that is this to

enter the presence of Jesus, just entering into the presence

of Jesus. OK, well, you know, God is

everywhere. His presence is everywhere.

What do you mean enter into his presence?

How to do that? He is everywhere, but we're not

always aware of his presence. Like how often do we forget?

Like you just forgot like 5 minutes like a few minutes ago,

right, right. Like cause that's human nature.

We forget about God. That's what we do naturally, and

God in his mercy wakes us up. I'm here, I'm alive, and I'm

calling you to life. Entering into the presence of

the risen Jesus on an ongoing basis and re entering because we

continue to forget. Continue to forget.

Brother Lawrence calls this the practice of the presence of God.

Just getting accustomed to enjoying God's divine company.

Just just getting into that, into that mode.

Brennan Manning spoke about this as being aware of the present

wiseness of Jesus. This is so critical.

It's so critical because he is alive.

I'm in his presence now and I can relate to him and I can draw

near to him and I can converse with him and I can lean on him

and I can follow him when I'm aware of that.

It makes all the difference in the world and allow it making us

come alive to Christ. So I want to just talk about the

details of that just to kind of get into the nitty gritty and

say let me micromanage your life.

No, that is not at all what I'm saying, but I do want to kind of

walk through a day. What would this look like?

So to start with, how do you start your day?

Let's just get really practical here.

How do you start your day alive to Christ?

Most of us, what what I should say is, is that by nature we

start our day off guard with God nowhere to be found in our

thoughts. That's what we naturally do.

And so we need to get into a habit of entering into His

presence the very first thing. Maybe if you can drop to your

knees when you get out of bed. If you can't do that, no

problem. But before you get out of bed,

before you even do anything, just have that reminder.

Maybe it's a note on your bedside.

Maybe it's, you know, maybe it's a voice message that you give

yourself. It's going to go off with your

alarm. Remember to enter into the

presence of Jesus and in that moment just say, good morning,

Lord, good morning, Father, good morning, Jesus, good morning,

Holy Spirit, good morning, good morning.

Just just to acknowledge His presence right here and this

thank Him for His mercy. Like the reason why you're still

on the planet is because of His mercy.

I think it's a good reminder. Just thank you for your mercy

and Lord keep me close. Doesn't have to be a long

prayer, but just talk in a few seconds.

Keep me close to you today. Wake me up to your presence

today. And that's how you begin before

you brush your teeth, before you get your coffee, before you do

anything. The very first thing to start

your day is to enter into reenter into the awareness of

the presence of God. Francis de Sales, his book, the

introduction to devout life, he he talks about this practice as

you pray just before you know, sometimes we'll devote time to

pray. Just put yourself into the

presence of God. Like just take that moment just

before before you say anything. Or just just be aware of His

presence, aware of the one that you're speaking to.

And then begin, begin to speak. That's how you start your day.

That's a good place. Now, I'm not saying you have to

start your day like that, but it's a good way to start your

day. That's a good habit.

OK, let's carry on. Get into the Word, get into the

Word of God. Why are you reading the Bible?

Why would you ever read the Bible?

Why do you open it up? We might think, OK, well, you

know, I want to gain Bible knowledge, which is good.

Bible knowledge is good. Or I want to learn the

principles that are in the Bible so that I can apply them to my

life. You know that that's good too.

But we're missing the point. The whole reason why we read the

Bible is to encounter Jesus. It's to know him more.

That's, that's the whole kitten caboodle there, Kit and

kaboodle. You mean You know what I mean?

Jesus on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection was

talking to a couple of the disciples and who were kind of

trying to figure out everything, you know, you know, anyway, but

Jesus says beginning the the the commentary is beginning with

Moses and all the prophets. Jesus, he explained to them what

was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

All the scriptures, all of them are talking about Jesus.

All of them are concerning Jesus like everything is about Jesus.

When we read the scriptures, a great, great way to do it is to

visualize Jesus reading to you. Because this is his word.

This is weird to you, just to just picture that for those of

you who have kids, parents who have kids, young children, man,

sometimes it's hard to do like like table devotions at dinner

time. You know, the kids can kind of

get a little wild, but bedtime is just the perfect time to draw

near to them. The reason why I'm saying this

is that you can help to coach your kids into the kind of

relationship Jesus wants with between us and His Word.

Lay down on the bed with your kids and open the Bible and read

to them just like God would be reading to them.

And you're not God, but you're, you're representative of God and

just allow them to pause and ask questions and to talk about

what's going on in the Scriptures.

And you have this, this, this glorious opportunity to coach

them and how to interact with the word because the same thing

with us as we open the word and read it like Jesus is is

speaking to us, is is reading this to us.

And we can pause from time to time and just thank Him for it.

Or asking the questions that are deep on our mind like this Lord

just doesn't make sense. Like it's a conversation is what

I'm trying to say. Reading this text is a

conversation. It's a it's, it's, it's an

experience of Jesus Christ. That's what it was meant to do.

So get into the Word. Get into the word Third thing

walking through your day. How to be walking through your

day. We need to do it aware of

Christ, aware of the presence of Christ.

You know, we often think, OK, well, you know, God, God is the

number one in my life. And once I've done the God thing

in the morning, check and now I'm on to the rest of my day.

You know, God, God is meant to be at the very centre of

absolutely everything that we do.

And so we need to walk through our day just pausing off them to

remember him, just to think about him.

We read it, we sang it in the song.

You know that he's our best thought by day and by night.

Just keep coming back to thinking about him, re entering

into his presence moment by moment, thinking about him,

praising him, asking him to draw us closer all the way through

the day. Need to slow down in order to do

that. Question for you, the pandemic,

after the pandemic, Did anybody feel lazy after the pandemic

now? Is it laziness or was it just

that we were actually getting back to a human pace?

I think for those of us in southern Ontario, there was some

good things about the pandemic that it slowed us down.

I, I, I have been wavering back and forth my blazier than I was

before. Or is this just the human pace

that I'm supposed to be living? And I have come to the

conclusion, I think this is more the human pace that I was meant

to be living because as I'm following Jesus, as you read the

Gospels, there, there there was never a more productive human

being than Jesus Christ. And he moved slowly.

He moves slowly, the way that Paul put it in Galatians 5.

He said let us keeping step with the Spirit, keep in step with

the Spirit. That's the pace of Jesus in the

step. You might even think of it as

sort of like a dance, right? We're dancing with Jesus.

It is not a Sprint. Paul is talking about a race

here. He's using race analogy, but he

is not saying, you know, Sprint your way through life.

That's not the point that he was making.

He was making that we need to go at his pace.

So when we enter into work, you know, for those of us who are,

who are say, say we're engaged in a, in a job, maybe for an

employer, you're, or if you're running a business and you're,

you know, one of the main priorities you have is to make a

profit. You need to remember that your

primary responsibility is actually to a higher authority,

and that is to God Himself, and that you're going to be a better

employee, you're going to be a Better Business owner if you're

doing it in the presence of Jesus and for his glory.

To be pausing often, to be looking for opportunities to be

serving people, not just head down in the computer or kind of

just doing my job, but I'm actually looking for

opportunities to suffer on behalf of others, to be using

the power that Jesus is giving me.

That's the dance. That's a dance.

Staying alive. Great song by the Bee Gees.

Anybody remember dancing on in the late 70s?

You know, to the, to, to the Bee Gees, You know, if you ever

wondered about the words that you're dancing to life's go and

no, let's go nowhere. Somebody help me.

Somebody help me. Yeah, staying alive, right,

Right. Life's going nowhere.

Somebody helped me. That's that's the song of

survival of the fittest. I need some help just to get

through. That is not the song of the

redeemed, friends. The song of the redeemed is is

that though my life was going nowhere, somebody did help me.

His name is Jesus Christ and he rescued me and he's brought me

from death to life. And now my priority is staying

alive in him, pursuing him with everything that I have.

This is Paul's encouragement to us.

Don't forget it. Keep that song.

There should be a song in our hearts.

You know the reason why we come together?

One more scripture. Ephesians chapter 5 Paul, This

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

is Paul again. He's saying be filled with the

Spirit speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and songs

from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your

heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for

everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It's it's, it's a, it's a there's one of the reasons why

we come together to worship is we're singing to one another.

We're singing the truth to one another to encourage one another

to stay on that track, continue to pursue Christ.

But that song was never meant to die.

Once we leave this building, we need to keep that song alive and

well in our hearts, singing to God, praising Him, thanking him

again and again and again. It's one of the ways that we can

stay alive to him and in His holy presence.

And then the last thing you're walking through our day.

It's good just to review your day.

Good to review your day. Your heads hit the pillow is a

great opportunity to re enter into the presence of God just

your awareness of him and have that conversation again thanking

him for your day. Maybe asking him how did we do

not how did I do, but how did we do like how how did the

relationship go today Lord good conversation was alive to you

was I was aware of you? How did I love today?

Did I love you? Did I love the people around me?

And that's not to berate yourself, because we never get

perfection out of that, but it's just another way of reengaging

with Jesus and keeping Him there.

He's our first thought in the morning and our last thought at

night, and that's gonna help us to keep him in front of us

throughout the day, to stay alive in him.

So every day, every day, focus on staying alive in Christ by

entering, reentering, reentering, reentering into the

presence of the living Jesus Christ and walk out our days

with Him. Yeah.

We've got a great opportunity as we celebrate Communion this

morning, because Communion is really Jesus's invitation to us

to enter His presence in a much more tangible way, to receive

grace from His hand, to enjoy His company, for Him to fill us

and nourish our spirits so that we can live the life that were

called to live. And He offers us his body,

signified in the bread, And he offers his blood, signified in

the cup. And he invites us to feed on

him, to be strengthened mind, body and soul, to live for Him

with everything that we have now.

You may be thinking about coming to the table and maybe you don't

feel worthy enough to come to the table.

And let me just say this. None of us are worthy to come to

the table. None of us are worthy to enter

into relationship with Jesus Christ, but He invites us here

and He covers us with His mercy. This is the beautiful thing.

You know, a lot of people are talking about football right now

because we're getting close to the close to the Super Bowl, but

the 1929 game between this is a long time ago.

Georgia Tech in California and into the second near the end of

the second quarter and there's a fumble and, and Roy Riegels

recovers the fumble and isn't in his, in his excitement, he runs

in the opposite direction 65 yards before he's tackled by one

of his own teammates on the on the 2 yard line, right.

And of course, he's humiliated and absolutely devastated.

And they get into the locker room and everybody's just

silent. And there there's no, you know,

roaring speech from the, you know, pep talk from the coach.

But what the coach does say, he says this.

Everybody was on the field in the first half.

They're going back on to the second-half and Roy with his

face in his hands, he says I can't go, go.

So everybody's running out and and he's just there alone.

I can't go back out there like I've ruined this team and the

coach, said Roy. Stand up, You belong on the

field. Get out there and play.

And of course he did. God in his grace is speaking to

each one of us and saying you belong.

You belong to me. You belong on the field, no

matter how badly you might have messed up, no matter how much

you've been walking the line and not pursuing me, saying I want

you to come to the I've got a hold on you and I'm never gonna

let you go. If you've received Jesus as your

Lord and Savior and your desire is to follow Him, you are

welcome to this table. Every single one of us.