Living by the Spirit

And we invite everyone to be seated.

Good morning, welcome. I'm Thomas. I'm the rector here at Church of the Advent.

! And if you're new, some of you are new, joining us for the first time.

This is a really great time to be here visiting, exploring Church of the Advent

because we're taking time right now to remind ourselves who we are, why we're here,

what we're aiming at as a community, and some of the values that are most important to us.

So this week is the second week in that. If you look at our bulletin,

all of the topics we're covering are printed on the front page.

This week we're asking a really particular question.

It's a very personal question for us as a church.

What does it mean to live by the Holy Spirit?

What does it mean when Christians use this phrase, living by the Spirit?

If you're not a church-going type person, if you're not a Christian,

this might sound like a bizarre kind of question.

Living by the Spirit, what does that mean?

If you're not somebody who sort of knows the lingo, I understand it might sound strange.

There's also a lot of Christians who, depending on our background or how long we've been in church,

have different associations when it comes to a question like this.

So really any time we reference the Holy Spirit, by that I mean the third member of the Trinity,

the God we believe in, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Some of us come from a more purely intellectual background or grew up in churches where this wasn't emphasized.

So on the one hand, what we're going to see this morning is that the church is not just a social club

or a social service organization.

And we're not just here to do a few rituals and to hear an inspirational talk.

That this is a place where we come expecting to encounter something, someone.

When we gather here, we expect to encounter God.

So on the one hand, Christianity is more than just a set of beliefs and practices.

It hinges on our experience of God.

And I would go so far as to say, if that is missing from our life as Christians,

then something very crucial and central is missing.

On the other hand, experiencing God doesn't always mean miraculous signs and wonders,

the things that people often think of.

Most often, the Holy Spirit is at work in very subtle ways,

through very ordinary means that we may not even be aware of.

Over the last couple of years, if you've been a part of our church

and been on the journey that we've been on,

you know that the Holy Spirit has worked in very powerful and very subtle ways,

but undeniably so,

in ways that have inspired us to actually spend time on this right now.

Part of what we're doing is making sense of what we've seen and heard and experienced ourselves.

So we're going to be leaning into that in the months and years to come.

What does it look like to do this well?

So we're going to be looking at Ephesians chapter 5, verses 15 to 21.

Ephesians 5:15–21

What does it mean to live by the Spirit?

We're going to look at the text and what it means,

and then we'll ask a few questions about what it means for us.

Please join me. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for the fact that it's not merely ink on paper.

We thank you that when we open these words,

because of your Holy Spirit, these words come to life.

Lord, through them you speak to us.

Lord, I pray in us that we would have open and receptive hearts.

I pray that you would do your work through your word,

and that because of your Spirit,

as we open your written word,

we would come face to face with your living word, Jesus Christ.

And it's in his name that we pray this morning.

Amen.

So I want to look a little bit at Ephesians 5, verses 15 to 21,

Ephesians 5:15–21

and you can turn to that in the Pew Bible if you'd like,

or you can just follow along with me.

Throughout his letter to the Ephesians,

Paul uses various metaphors to talk about Christian conversion,

the process of going from a non-Christian to a Christian.

So in some places he says it's like being dead

and then coming to life again, Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

He also says that it's like being in darkness

and then coming into the light,

moving from darkness to light.

Just before our passage, he says it's like being asleep

and then waking up.

And he quotes an old hymn,

a hymn that was old and known in the time that he's writing.

And the hymn says,

Awake, O sleeper, arise from the dead,

and Christ will shine on you.

Now this image is really helpful for us because,

and maybe some of you can relate to this,

many, many people go through their lives spiritually asleep.

Get up, go to work, spend money,

go out and have fun on the weekends,

date, marry, have kids, raise kids, retire.

Without ever wondering,

how did I get here?

What is my purpose?

Is there anything more to life?

Where am I going?

And what's going to happen after I die one day?

Some people go through their lives

never even asking those questions.

They're not concerned with those things at all.

There's no spiritual curiosity.

They don't feel a longing or desire

to connect with anything bigger than themselves.

This isn't a lack of intelligence.

It's not about where you grew up

or who raised you

or what culture you were a part of.

And it has nothing to do with the lack of education

or exposure to various ways of living in the world.

It simply means that people are spiritually asleep.

That part of them is dormant.

But then the Holy Spirit begins to work in some people.

And you begin to stir.

You begin to become curious.

And so for some people,

this simply begins with a basic curiosity.

Where did I come from?

What is all this for?

Or it can come with a sense that something is missing.

You know, I did all the things

that the life script told me I was supposed to do.

I went to school and got good grades.

I went to college and got good grades.

Maybe I went to grad school and got good grades.

I got an internship and a fellowship and a residency.

And now I have a family and I have kids

and I have a job.

And I've done all the things

that the life script tells me I'm supposed to do.

And I'm at this place in my 30s or 40s

where it feels like I have it all

and I should feel satisfied.

But I'm not.

I still feel empty.

And I'm married, but I still feel lonely.

And what's that all about?

Something's missing.

For me, I grew up, some of you know my story,

I grew up going to church,

but none of it mattered at all to me.

Completely irrelevant to my life.

As a teenager, growing up in the 90s,

I didn't care about any of it.

And then around age 22,

it just started to matter more.

And I can't tell you why.

There was no one thing that happened.

I just started to care more.

I felt this openness inside me

and this desire that I was embarrassed to admit

that I wanted to know more about Jesus

and who Jesus really was.

And then for the first time, really,

that I could remember when my Christian friends,

I had a few Christian friends

where I went to school,

when they started to talk about their faith,

I wouldn't cringe and try to get away

like I always would have done.

I actually wanted to listen.

I wanted to ask questions.

I wanted to know.

And I was hungry to know more.

And only later did I realize

that this was the Holy Spirit

working inside me to wake me up.

I didn't, I wasn't aware of that at the time.

I didn't even know what that meant.

And ultimately, as Paul says,

it was the Holy Spirit working in me

so that the light of Christ could shine into my life

so that I could come to faith in Him.

But at the time,

it just felt like looking around and thinking,

there's got to be more.

But the process of spiritually waking up

doesn't always happen all at once.

And many of you know this from your own experiences.

It's not like you're sitting there one day

and then, bam, all of a sudden,

you're awake, the lights come on.

Right?

For some people, that's the case.

But even the most powerful conversion experiences

in the Bible,

like what we call the Damascus Road experience,

the Apostle Paul,

this is a different sermon,

people think of that as a sudden conversion.

I would say absolutely not.

In one place, Jesus says to him,

why are you kicking against the goads?

And what he means by that is,

I've been working in your life for a long time.

Why are you resisting me?

And this is what we come to.

The process of spiritually waking up

doesn't necessarily happen all at once.

And you know,

this is where the parallel to sleep is really helpful.

Sleep studies,

I've historically had trouble sleeping,

and so I read a lot about sleep studies.

And sleep studies show that the process of awakening

actually involves two levels of awareness.

You can be awake enough to be conscious,

but not necessarily alert and aware.

And those are the times when you're conscious enough

to want to hit the snooze button,

but you're not alert enough to realize

that you're already late for work.

Right?

There's this sort of in-between time

where you're not sufficiently aware of your surroundings.

And I have found that the same can be true spiritually.

Listen to how St. Augustine

talks about his own conversion in his confessions.

It's a little snippet from the confessions,

and I'm going to give it to you

in a kind of more modern version of English

just to make it easier to understand.

He says, he's writing this,

the weight of my worldly attachments

felt strangely comfortable,

like the heaviness of sleep.

When I thought about you,

and he's talking to God,

when I thought about you,

I was like someone trying to wake up,

but repeatedly drifting back to sleep.

Nobody wants to sleep forever.

We know we need to get up,

yet when we feel heavy and drowsy,

we keep putting it off.

Even when we know it's time to rise,

we give in to the pleasure of staying asleep.

And Augustine says, that's how I felt.

I knew it was much better to surrender to your love

than to follow my selfish desires.

You showed me in every way that your words were true.

I knew you were right,

but all I could offer were the sleepy replies.

Soon, yeah, soon, just give me a little longer.

He's writing this centuries ago,

but how many can relate to that?

I read those words,

and I think about so many times in my life

when that's exactly how I felt

in my relationship with God.

I think we all know that feeling.

And we certainly know it physically.

You know, you're in bed,

the alarm goes off,

you know you need to get up,

but the bed feels so warm,

and you're like five more minutes,

and so you keep hitting the snooze button.

If you were here last night for the dance that we had,

which was awesome, by the way,

we had so much fun.

You know, I think partly because of that,

that's how I felt this morning.

I was like, I know I need to get up,

but I'm so tired.

So in verses 15 through 17 of Ephesians chapter 5,

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

Paul is talking to Christians

who are just now waking up

because of the Holy Spirit.

So that's the context for him to say,

be very careful then how you live,

not as unwise, but as wise,

making the most of every opportunity

because the days are evil.

We need to be sufficiently aware of our surroundings.

Therefore, he says, do not be foolish,

but understand what the Lord's will is.

He's really addressing Christians who are awake,

but they refuse to get out of bed.

Right?

And he's like, you need to wake up.

The Holy Spirit has given you consciousness.

There's something alive inside you now.

Now it's time to get up and start living.

You're in a kind of half-life.

And you need to get out of bed.

You need to seek the Lord's will for your life.

So, you know, if Paul had the language for it,

he would probably say something like,

stop hitting the spiritual snooze button in your life.

But then Paul keeps going.

He says in verse 18,

do not get drunk on wine,

which leads to debauchery.

Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit.

And the way we need to understand that

is that the Christian life is about more than just waking up.

That is just the beginning.

That is just the beginning.

The Christian life, friends,

is an invitation into fullness.

Jesus says,

I came that they might have life

and have it abundantly,

have it in abundance.

It's an invitation to fullness.

The Christian life is an invitation

to share in the life of God

so much that it touches every corner of our lives.

There's no aspect of our life

that is not infused

with the power and the presence

and the life of the living God.

And you know, you read this out of context

and at first it may seem odd

for Paul to compare getting drunk

and being filled with the Spirit.

But I just want to make it clear in context

that the focus is not on the fact

that drinking alcohol is a sin.

Some of us struggle with alcohol addiction

and that's a battle that we have to fight.

But drinking alcohol itself is not a sin.

You see Jesus drinking wine

on a number of occasions

such that he's actually accused

of being a glutton and a drunkard

even though I don't believe he was.

You see him actually turning water

into some of the best wine

people had ever tasted.

I hope one day when we're with him

in the New Jerusalem

we get to try that wine.

I think it's probably pretty good.

So it's not about that.

The point,

the emphasis here is on influence.

Don't be under the influence of alcohol

because you know where that leads.

chaos and destruction.

Be under the influence of God.

Let that be your primary influence.

So friends, it's worth reflecting

what are the influences

that most shape how we live?

What are the influences

that hold sway in your life?

Now it might be alcohol.

Or you might have found

other ways to numb yourself.

It could be food.

You know, that's one

that I struggle with.

You know I love food.

If you were here last week,

you know I love food.

And I found in myself

a tendency to use food to escape.

It could be shopping.

It could be pornography.

It could be any number of things.

So that might be the influence

that we're talking about here.

It could just be the amount of time

we spend on screens.

You know, statistics tell us

that the average person these days

spends about 49 hours a week on screens.

And a lot of that is being shaped

by the algorithms, right?

The social media algorithm.

And we need to understand

that is a profoundly powerful influence

that is constantly shaping and forming us.

Many of us who refer to ourselves

as Christians are actually being discipled

far more effectively by our algorithm

than by anything to do with our faith.

And so what that means

is that our entire view of ourselves,

our world, God,

is constantly being shaped

and influenced

by something like the algorithm

shapes everything.

Right?

And so it's worth asking,

what are the influences

that most shape how we live?

And the larger point here, friends,

is that some Christians are awake,

but our lives are still primarily

under the influence of something

or someone else.

So if you ever feel that sense of disconnect,

like I know I'm a Christian,

but my faith just feels irrelevant.

It doesn't feel like it really

has anything to do with my job

or, you know,

or you deal with Christians

who they,

we talk about kindness

and love and charity

until you get into

a political conversation.

And then all of a sudden

it's like the rules change

and it's like bam, bam, bam.

You know?

I love and care

and pray for my enemies,

but I pound these people

into the ground,

you know,

every chance I get.

Or any number of things,

when you feel that sense

of disconnect,

I think it's often

because the primary influence

is driving us

or that person

is not Christ,

it's something else.

This is Paul's concern.

The aim of conversion,

the whole reason

the Spirit of God wakes us up

is, as I said before,

so that we can be filled

with the Holy Spirit.

And when you say that

to a room

where there are

a lot of Christians,

some people always get confused

and we say,

well, I thought

when I came to faith

I received the Holy Spirit

and how could you

talk about being filled

with the Holy Spirit?

Because what's interesting here

is that Paul's actually

talking to Christians.

He's just spent several chapters

talking about their

coming to faith

and that they have the Spirit.

And now he's saying

we should be filled

with the Spirit.

and he's not just talking

about being like a top-off,

like it leaks out

and we need a little top-off.

He's talking

you need to be filled

to overflowing.

My favorite image of this

is an oldie but a goodie

and I didn't come up with it.

But the image is of a balloon.

You know,

and you blow some air

into the balloon

and then you ask

is this full?

People say,

yeah.

And then you take it

and you blow a little more air

into it.

Is it full?

People say,

yeah.

Then you blow a little more air.

Right?

And every time

the answer is yes,

it's full.

But can it get more in it?

Yes.

So a couple of chapters earlier

in chapter 3

Paul prays

essentially

that our capacity

would be

expanded.

Right?

So that we would be able

to come closer

to comprehending

the magnitude

of the love of God

in us.

And this is,

I think,

going back to that.

He's saying,

you need to be filled.

Your capacity

needs to be expanded

because there's more.

You're dealing with

an infinite God

who wants to pour

his life into you.

And you say,

don't you want more of that?

Yeah,

give me more capacity

for that.

That's what he's talking about.

So those who have

the Spirit,

Paul is saying,

I would say,

yeah,

if you're a believer

and you have the Holy Spirit,

one of the evidences

of that is that

you should have a hunger

for more of the Spirit.

And there should never

even point in our lives

where we say,

you know,

that's enough.

I'm good.

More,

more,

more.

And so then Paul,

as we have this image

of overflowing

with the Spirit,

he sort of sketches out

a non-exhaustive,

right?

This is just a representative,

non-exhaustive list.

Here's some of the things

that you see

when people are filled

to overflowing

with the Holy Spirit.

First thing you see

is singing.

Singing.

Spirit-filled singing.

Praising Jesus

with our voices.

Not just people

who like to sing.

You know,

people like Michael

and Nate

who can sing,

unlike people like me.

But people so moved

to sing

that there's a kind

of self-forgetfulness.

They sing with abandon.

Singing praise to the Lord.

Singing can be

a profoundly spiritual act.

It's interesting,

Charles Darwin

had no idea

how to make sense

of music and singing.

Did you know this?

In all of his evolutionary theory,

it explains so much.

It made so much sense.

But he says,

all the way

to the end of his days,

you know,

I never really figured out

what to do with music.

And the fact that

all human beings

and all cultures everywhere,

they all seem

to really care about

creating and celebrating

and performing musically.

They want to sing

and play instruments.

Doesn't make sense.

No evolutionary benefit

that he can find.

People have researched this

ever since his day.

And to this day,

no one has ever

really been able

to explain

why,

from an evolutionary,

biological perspective,

all human beings

everywhere

want to sing

and make music.

You know,

one contemporary

neuroscientist

named Daniela Samler,

there was an article

maybe last year

in the New York Times

about this,

but they quote

Daniela Samler

and she says,

here's her conclusion.

This shows us

that there may really be

something that is universal

to all humans

that cannot simply

be explained by culture.

And you know,

I read this

and I thought,

that's right.

Of course there's no

purely evolutionary

explanation

for the human impulse

to create music.

Because we were created

to be worshipers.

Our capacity

and desire

for music

comes from the fact

that we are living

musical instruments.

So imagine

coming across

a clarinet

or an oboe

and having no concept

of human breath

and looking at it

from a purely

materialistic lens.

What is this?

What's it for?

How did it get here?

Why does it look like this?

You know,

Jamie in our church

plays for the NSO.

If you were to invite

Jamie to come

and to blow her breath

into that

instrument

and you hear the sound

that comes out,

it all makes sense.

In the same way,

when you see

a human being

filled with the breath

of God,

that's how the Bible

talks about the spirit,

the ruach,

the breath,

the wind.

when you see

a human being

filled with the breath

of God

and they are singing

with abandon

praises to the living God,

you say,

it all makes sense.

We were created

to be worshipers.

We were created

like a woodwind instrument

to be filled

with the breath of God

until we overflow

with song.

So it looks like singing.

It looks like gratitude.

Paul says spirit-filled people

are thankful people.

You know,

everyone's thankful

sometimes,

you would hope.

The spirit leads us

to be thankful

always

for everything,

even the hard stuff,

even the experiences

that we wouldn't choose,

that we have to face.

Because when you're filled

with the spirit

such that the overwhelming

influence in your life,

the way you make sense

of everything,

is through the lens

of God and his love,

then you know

that even in the hardest

situations we face,

God is intimately

and lovingly involved

in every aspect

of our lives.

And so there's

a kind of gratitude.

Even if I don't understand

why, Lord,

why, why, why?

Make it stop, Lord.

But I thank you

because I know you

and I trust

that something

is happening in my life

that ultimately

is for my good.

It looks like

self-giving love.

You know,

if you read on to verse,

different translations

handle this differently.

The NIV versus the ESV.

And this passage

originally is just

one whole passage.

It says,

being thankful to God

for everything

in the name

of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And then it says,

comma,

submitting to one another,

right,

out of reverence for Christ.

And so it's all

a continuation

of the same thought.

And so,

so some translations

separate that

and some hold it together.

But the point is this,

one of the marks

of being a spirit-filled person

is the posture

and the attitude

of self-giving love

toward other people.

And I would say

it's a distinct mark

of the spirit

to be willing

to live

in a posture

of submission

to other people.

What do I mean by that?

I mean,

to willingly put aside

your own agenda

and to prioritize

the well-being

of that person

even at your own expense.

Because our culture

tends to value

the opposite.

We value independence

and autonomy

and competence

and ambition

and success

and strength

and self-promotion.

We learn how to do it

in ways that aren't

so obvious.

We don't just brag.

We humble brag,

you know.

We know how to do it.

We know how to kind of like,

but really what we value

is that.

And what this is saying

is that spirit-filled Christians

reflect a different influence.

And we reflect

the heart of Christ.

You know,

as Paul says

in Philippians,

Jesus didn't grasp

after glory.

He wasn't self-promotional.

He had

greater glory,

greater esteem

than any of us

could possibly imagine.

He was willing

to empty himself

of that.

To let it go

and to become

a way of saying

it would be

the ultimate servant

of humanity.

Willing to give

his own life,

to be humiliated,

to suffer,

and to die

on the cross

to set human beings free.

And so Paul is saying

spirit-filled Christians

reflect that heart

in all of their,

it just radiates out

in all of our relationships.

relationships.

And as a final note,

friends,

this is not an exhaustive list

of what it means

to be filled

with the Holy Spirit.

Paul is such a wonderful

theologian of the Holy Spirit.

He is thoroughly charismatic.

And he writes about this

in Ephesians and Galatians

and 1 Corinthians and Romans.

He describes the impact

of this on our character

in Galatians 5,

the fruits of the Spirit.

In Ephesians and 1 Corinthians

and Romans,

he talks about

the spiritual gifts,

all the ways God works

through us

in the life

of the church.

But all of this

comes from the same place,

from Christians

who are fully alive,

fully awake,

and filled

with the life of God.

And that's the aim.

So I just want to spend

a little of our remaining time

asking what this means for us.

Because as we said

at the beginning,

the Christian life

is more than just

a set of beliefs

and practices.

It is sharing

in the life of God.

And what we see here,

I hope,

is that the Holy Spirit

is at work

in every single one of us

every step of the way.

The Holy Spirit

is at work

every step of the way.

So living by the Spirit,

right,

if you're going to be

part of this community,

we ask,

what does it mean

that we care about this,

that we live by the Spirit?

It means a couple of things.

One,

it means that we depend

on the Spirit

for our life

and growth.

There's this great place

in Galatians 3

where Paul says,

listen,

did you come to your faith

by the law

or by the Spirit?

And so then he goes on

to ask them,

then why are you continuing

to believe

that your growth

and your sanctification

is entirely dependent

on words?

It's not.

You need the work

of the Spirit,

right?

It's the same for us.

So this is not just

about swapping out

one way of living

for another.

It's not just

behavior modification.

We should come

expecting to encounter

the Spirit here

through the worship,

through the prayers,

through the preaching

of God's Word,

through the sacraments.

When we come to the table,

we should be sufficiently aware

of what we are about

to receive.

We should come

with that expectancy.

And the second thing

it means,

if it means depending

on the Spirit

for all of our life

and growth,

the second thing

it means is this.

Living in the Spirit,

living by the Spirit

means that we encourage

the work of the Spirit.

We encourage

that each person

to take that next step

no matter where you are

on the journey.

It's a community

that says,

my job in your life

and your job in my life

is to help you figure out

where you are

in the life of the Spirit

and what does that next step

look like?

Right?

So some of us

may still be asleep

and that's totally fine.

We're just delighted

that you're here.

No one's going to try

to force you

to believe anything

or change anything

about your life.

I'm just delighted

that you're here.

Whatever change

is going to happen

in you,

it's going to have

to come through

the work of the Holy Spirit

in your life.

So our role

is just to make you

feel welcome.

It's just to make sure

you know what's going on.

It's just to help you

meet people

who want to be your friend

and we're going

to be praying for you

and if you want us

to pray with you

we would love to do that

but you don't have,

there's nothing required.

You're just welcome

to be here.

Some of us

and I know

because we've had

these conversations

actually in the last few weeks

some of us,

you're just starting

to wake up

and I think that's

tremendously exciting.

You're just starting

to be open

to the possibility

of God

and there's a longing

in you

that you can't quite place

and what you need

is slightly different.

You need a place

where you can ask questions

and never have to worry

about being made fun of

or judged.

You need a place

where you're allowed

to just sort of explore

and you do frankly

it would be great

for you to have people

in your life

who can help you understand

some of the words

we use

like gospel

or how to read

and understand the Bible

or you know

why are we wearing

these robes

or any of the other things

that might be confusing.

You just need people

to help you understand

that we would love

to do that.

Tons of people

in this church

we have core groups

that are for that.

We have classes

that happen at 9 o'clock

in the morning

that are for that.

We're going to be

offering the Alpha Course

next year

which is an introduction

to Christianity

that's exactly who it's for.

So some of you

are just starting to wake up.

Some of us are awake

but we keep hitting

the snooze button.

Right?

You keep hitting

five more minutes

five more minutes

you know

I'll get serious

about following Jesus

you know

next month

you know

I know I should be

more generous

and I'm hoping

that when I get

to this place

in my career

I'll be able

to do that.

You know

I know I need to

I know I need to

apologize to that person

but I'm just not ready

to have that conversation yet.

You know

whatever it may be

you're hitting

the snooze button

on Jesus

and so you believe

but you keep getting

lulled back into living

as though he doesn't exist.

And listen

we've all been there

I've been there

many times

but you need something

slightly different

in your life.

You need accountability.

You need people

you trust.

Asking

where in your life

might you be refusing

to follow Jesus?

Where are the parts

of your life

where you're still

saying to God

that's mine

you can't have that

you can't touch that.

And

you need those people

encouraging you

to make

Christ your highest

priority in life.

And then some of us

are fully awake.

Right?

Because here's the thing

if you have active

disobedience

in your life

that has to get

sorted out

if you want to have

the ability

to experience

the fullness

in the life of God.

If there are areas

in your life

where you're actively

rebelling against him

then that needs to be

your highest priority.

But then there are

some of us

who are fully awake

and we are hungry

for more.

And we have a posture

of repentance

we're doing everything

that we can do

to surrender

all of ourselves

to God

and we just want

more of him.

And what you need

you need spirit filled

worship.

You need people

praying for you

and with you.

You need to know

and be using

your spiritual gifts.

You need the Holy Spirit

to continue to transform

your character

and your relationships.

So you need

a community around you

that's going to

encourage that in you.

So I would just

leave you with this

question for reflection.

Where are you

right now?

Does one of these

categories seem to fit you

or are you somewhere

in between?

Where are you?

Where is the spirit

at work in your life?

And what would it

look like for you

to take that next step?

And how can this

community help you

do that?

That's what it means

to be a church

that lives by the spirit.

Let's pray.

Lord, apart from

your spirit

these are just words

and ideas.

we need this

to become flesh

in us.

We need your spirit

to make possible

what is not possible

in human wisdom

and effort.

Lord, but we know

this, that we are

created,

we are here

to experience

your life

and to share in it.

And so we pray

that Lord,

even as we gather

in confession

and in prayer

and around your table,

Lord, that we would

have that sense

that we would know

that you're with us,

that we would know

that you love us,

that we would be

filled with your life.

It's in Jesus' name

that we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you.