Under Control: What Am I Living For? | 1 Peter 4:1-6 | Micah Hales

All right, all right.

Y'all can go ahead and take a seat.

Welcome everybody.

Uh it's a salt company.

My name is Micah.

If we haven't had a chance to meet yet, that's no, no, no, no.

We're good.

We're good.

Um if we haven't had a chance to meet yet, uh I get to serve here on staff with the Salt Company.

The Salt Company uh, again, is the college ministry of Ambassador Church.

Uh, and we meet normally at 9 and 11 on Sundays, but like Max said, we have our one year anniversary uh coming up this Sunday, uh, free food games after the service, 10 o'clock, one service time.

Don't show up at 9.

We'll put you on a serve team because you're there early.

Um, which wouldn't be a bad thing for a lot of you guys.

Um, but yeah, one service at 10 o'clock.

Hopefully, uh y'all can make it, especially if you don't have a church home.

We'd love to welcome you into our church family.

Um so uh last week we wrapped up our series uh in Genesis 1, 2, and 3 called In the Beginning.

All right, and so this week we're actually starting a new series, a brand new series called Under Control.

Okay.

Uh and what this series is gonna be about is essentially it's about reclaiming your desires, your thoughts, and your soul.

So we're gonna be talking at about self-control over the next three weeks.

And so we're gonna look at three different passages in the Bible about uh answering three questions over the course of three weeks.

Okay, so the questions are gonna be this What are you living for?

What are you thinking about, and what are you holding back?

So if that sounds exciting to you, if you want the answer to those questions, if you want to answer them for yourself, uh come over the next three weeks.

We'd love to open up the Bible with you and answer those questions.

Um, so I'm excited to get into this series, and this week we're gonna answer our first question, and that is, what are you living for?

What are you living for?

Okay, the answer to that question varies if we're being honest here.

All right, some of you, if I asked you this question, you might say things like, my family, or you might say success, or you might say money, you might say relationships, okay, you might say just having a good time, or you might even just say yourself if you were being honest.

But here's the problem with all these answers is they cannot give you what you truly desire.

They can't give you what you truly desire.

And while some of these things aren't inherently bad in themselves, right, like family is not bad, success is not bad, relationships aren't bad, or even money isn't inherently bad.

But when they become the answer to our question tonight of what you're living for, they can turn bad for you very, very quickly.

So this begs the question: if those are the answers to the question that we should be giving, then what is?

Okay, what is the answer to that?

What should we be saying?

So tonight we're gonna open up God's word to see exactly what that answer is.

So if you have your Bibles, you can go ahead and open them.

We're gonna be in 1 Peter chapter 4 tonight.

1 Peter 4 · chapter mention

If you have no idea where 1 Peter is, it's towards the end of your Bible, almost towards the end.

You get to Revelation, you're a little too far.

Use your table of contents if you need to.

Um if you don't have a physical copy of God's word, you can borrow the Pew Bibles around you.

Um and we'd also love to give you a free copy of the Bible if you don't have one back at our Connect table in the back there after service, or you can go grab one right now.

1 Peter chapter 4 verse 1.

1 Peter 4:1

That's where we're gonna start tonight.

Okay, so if you got it, say got it.

Seems like, okay, that was a struggle, Diego.

You got it out though.

Okay, 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 1.

1 Peter 4:1

That's where we're gonna start tonight.

I'll read it for us.

Therefore.

Okay, pause.

You're like, why are we pausing it therefore?

Okay, Peter, the writer of this letter, he's gonna start with therefore in verse 1.

Okay, and this tells us that we need to ask what is the therefore, therefore.

Anybody?

No?

Okay, come on.

Come on, somebody.

Uh in this case, he's going to be finishing a plea to Christians that are reading this.

All right, so he says this therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same understanding.

Because the one who suffers in the flesh is finished with sin.

Okay, Peter says, since Christ, since Jesus suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same understanding.

Because the one who suffers in the flesh is finished with sin.

Okay, so the question you might be asking yourself, what is suffering in the flesh?

Okay, suffering in the flesh means denying the temptations to sin.

It means denying the things that can give you gratification for a brief moment, but can't satisfy you.

It means to willingly suffer by not partaking in sin, just like Jesus did.

Now, Peter knows that suffering in the flesh does not mean perfection like Jesus.

He's not putting an expectation of you need to be perfect on the reader.

He himself, Peter, he denies Jesus three times the night before Christ was crucified.

Okay, directly going against him, acting like he didn't even know him.

Okay, but suffering in the flesh does mean that we, this is the key word here, strive to suffer in the flesh like Jesus did.

Okay, we aim to deny the temptations that will inevitably come in our life.

We aim to let the Holy Spirit work in our hearts and our lives and our minds to the point that we would willingly suffer the pleasures of this life that we know are sinful in order to live more like Jesus.

This is suffering in the flesh.

Okay, it means being done with willingly sinning.

It means becoming more like Jesus and less like our sinful selves.

Okay, but Peter used some pretty strong language in verse one.

He says, arm yourselves.

I don't know what image that conjures up for you, but I think of like someone getting ready for battle, right?

Arming yourselves.

So why are we arming ourselves?

Like why what why are we supposed to be finished with sin?

Verse 2, Peter gives us an answer here.

Okay.

Suffering in the flesh in order to live the remaining time in the flesh, no longer for human desires, but for God's will.

Okay, in order to live our lives on this earth, no longer for human desires, but for God's will.

Okay, now what is God's will?

All right, a lot of people ask me that question when they're thinking about their life.

What is God's will for my life?

Right?

That's the grand question.

And most of you are probably thinking of something like, what should I do for work?

Or like, who should I marry?

Or like what kind of car should I get?

Or where should I live, or some questions like that.

But God's will, it's for us to repent of our sin and believe in Him.

It's for us to be led by God as our heavenly Father.

It's for us to give thanks in all circumstances.

It's for us to do good works, it's for us to delight in him.

That is God's will.

Guys, this is the answer that we should be giving to the question of what are we living for?

Okay?

This is what we were meant to live for, not ourselves, not success, not relationships, not money, not partying, but God's will.

So if God's will is what we're supposed to be living for, how do we even do that?

Like, how do we live for God's will?

So our text tonight gives us a pretty clear pathway.

Okay, so for you note takers, here's what we're gonna be answering tonight.

Three ways to live a life for God's will, they come right from our text.

Okay?

Three ways to live a life for God's will.

The first is this, and it's suit up with Christ's mindset.

Okay, suit up with Christ's mindset.

Okay, so when we read that definition of suffering in the flesh, like some of you might have just like, ooh, like winced a little bit to yourself.

Okay, like we don't like the word suffering.

Right?

And a lot of that is for a good reason.

Like we don't want people that we know and love to suffer.

We don't want them to be struggling financially and living paycheck to paycheck.

Like we don't want them to be in pain.

We don't want them to have an injury, we don't want them to go through a heartbreak, we don't want them to be diagnosed with cancer.

Like that is a natural response to those we love going through all of these forms of suffering.

Okay, that's natural.

But there is such a thing as good suffering.

See, the fascinating thing about suffering is that it can be incredibly painful in the moment.

Each one of us has suffered in this room, but suffering is also a great catalyst for growth.

Okay, you ever heard the phrase nothing worth having comes easy or something to that like that degree, right?

You ever heard that before?

Okay, allegedly it's attributed to Teddy Roosevelt, former US president.

I don't know if that's true.

Okay, but this quote, I actually do believe is true.

Let me give you some examples.

Okay, most everybody would love to be in great physical shape, okay, and be able to be like strong and fit and have good cardio.

But if you actually don't work out, if you actually don't suffer through the difficult thing of pushing your body to its limits in like lifting weights and doing cardio or whatever else you can think of, then you won't get to that great physical shape and be able to be proud of the suffering that you endured and say that you stayed the course.

Okay, you cannot get to great shape without great suffering.

Okay, also, most everybody wants great relationships in their life.

Nobody sets out and says, I want terrible relationships.

No one says that.

Everybody wants strong friendships.

Like you want strong romantic relationships.

Ultimately, you want a strong marriage.

I know I do, but if you don't actually walk through hard and difficult things with your friends, if you just run at the first sign of trouble, if you walk away when you have to begin to suffer and realize that people aren't perfect, you'll never get to the other side of suffering and be able to look at those people and say, we've been through a lot, but we're stronger for it.

Okay, you have to suffer to get great relationships.

Okay, most of you probably ultimately want to have a great job, right?

That may be the only reason why you're in college right now.

And I hope that the Lord does give you a great job at some point, right?

You want to ideally make good money to be able to provide wealth for yourself and ultimately your family.

But if you don't actually work hard, like if you don't actually work through difficult times in your job, like if you quit at the first difficult moments, if you do not see it through, then you will never get to that great job where you look, you can look back and say, I worked incredibly hard through difficulty to get here, and I'm a better worker because of it.

Okay, you won't get to be that person with the great job if you don't suffer greatly.

Okay, now most of you could relate to the desiring the end of one of these things that I mentioned, maybe two, maybe all three.

All right, most of you would be willing to suffer to get to the end result of those three desires.

Okay, but my question to you is are you willing to suffer to get to the end result of living your life for God's will?

Are you willing to suffer in order to live a life that honors God and his will for your life?

Peter, he tells us in verse one that Jesus himself suffered in his time here on earth.

Okay, Jesus spent his entire time on earth suffering in the flesh to the point where he actually never sinned.

Okay, and Jesus didn't just endure like an hour of suffering in the flesh, like trying not to sin.

Have you ever like sat down and like tried not to sin before?

This is a thought experiment.

When you get home tonight, try not to sin for an hour and see how it goes.

Okay, try to suffer in the flesh for one hour and see how far you get.

All right?

But Jesus endured a lifetime of suffering in the flesh.

Okay, he never gave in to temptation.

He never sinned.

And we need to know that Jesus didn't endure a lifetime of suffering in the flesh for no reason.

Okay, verse 2 told us that Jesus didn't just suffer for some mindless purpose.

Okay, he didn't just suffer so that he could gloat over us for not being perfect like him.

Okay, that's not the kind of God that he is.

He didn't just suffer so that it'd be a great story for us to read 3,000 years later.

Okay, that's not why he suffered.

He suffered so that we could have the ability to actually live for God's will.

Okay, that's why Jesus suffered.

Jesus suffering in the flesh and living a sinless life is the only way that we have the ability to live for God's will.

Okay, and what Peter is trying to get us to see is that in order for us to live for God's will in our lives, we have to suit up with Christ's mindset and not our own.

Because on our own, we'd be living like everyone else in the world.

Like if it were up to us, we'd be living like everybody else.

And this leads us to our second way to live a life for God's will, and that is to break free from worldly living.

Okay, break free from worldly living.

If you've looked at all around your campus, okay, maybe, maybe your workplace, maybe you're working full-time right now, maybe even your home, you've probably noticed that there is an underlying way of living that is considered like normal.

Okay, what do I mean by that?

There's a pathway of living that is like allowed or even encouraged in almost every group or circle that you are a part of.

Okay, and that is what we will call tonight worldly living.

Okay, worldly living.

Peter tells us what worldly living actually is in verse 3.

Okay.

Verse 3, it says this for there has already been enough time spent in doing what the Gentiles choose to do.

Carrying on an unrestrained behavior, evil desires, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and lawless idolatry.

Okay, and so the Gentiles in this verse are people who do not know the God of the Bible.

Okay, these are people who do not walk with Jesus.

These are people that we would call today non-Christians or just non-believers.

All right, and Peter tells us a whole list of things that these people partake in and do.

Alright, we're not gonna break down each one of these tonight in long detail, but I do want to give us like a list of modern language so that we can understand what Peter's saying that worldly living entails.

Okay, it's up on the screen for you.

Worldly living entails a lack of self-control.

It entails sinful desire, or that just means anything contrary to God and his word.

Okay, that entails getting drunk or high.

Okay, that entails sex outside of God's covenant in marriage.

That entails partying.

Carusing literally means drinking parties in the Greek.

Okay, this also entails idolizing things that are not God.

This could be anything.

Alright.

Now, before you think that this is like a bash fest on anybody who has ever done any one of these things, okay.

First of all, we've all done at least one of them, okay?

At least one at some point.

You need to know two things.

Alright, one, everyone, every single one of us in this room, from the moment they are born, they have this sinful nature that drives them towards worldly living.

Okay, they're not necessarily doing every single thing on this list at any given time, but they have a nature that drives them to do these things.

And see, these things are unfortunately normal in this world.

Like last week, if you were here for the end of our in the beginning series, we saw that in Genesis 3, the world became broken.

And it still is.

We saw that the world is the way that it is because of a choice by the first humans to sin.

And we saw that because of this, the normal way of living had actually shifted from living for God's will to worldly living.

Okay, one decision changed what was normal in the world, what we were drawn to do in the world.

And we now have this desire within us to self-gratify, to live in the way that benefits our own desires more than God's.

And like this is widespread all over the world.

Look on a map, pick a country.

This is what people are like.

This is just true.

But we also saw in Genesis 3 that God didn't just completely scrap this like human project that he started.

He didn't just start over from scratch, but he actually provided a way to come back into right relationship with him, to come back into the Garden of Eden in harmony with him, and it's through coming to faith in Jesus.

Okay, it's through Jesus that we are even able to have a life that is lived for God's will.

It's through Jesus that I myself was able to begin to live a life for God's will.

Okay, and the second thing that you need to know about this worldly living list that we have up on the screen is that I myself have committed everything on this list before Jesus radically changed my life.

Every single thing.

Everything on that list.

Okay, I'm not standing here as someone who is better than you.

Okay, I'm not standing here as someone who has never lived a life contrary to what God's will says.

But I have actually been the worst of all of you in here when it comes to living in a worldly way.

I can pretty much guarantee that.

Like there was a time where I was living exactly like the way that Peter describes at the beginning of verse 3.

Okay, I was living exactly like the Gentiles were living.

And it's for people like me, like who I was before Jesus, that Peter says this at the beginning of our verse.

I don't know if you caught it, but he says, For there has already been enough time spent in doing what the Gentiles choose to do.

Okay, and Peter is trying to tell the Christians that are reading this letter, this was a letter originally, it wasn't compiled into one big book, that because of what Jesus has done, because of Jesus suffering in the flesh without fail, because Jesus gave us the ability to suffer in the flesh, that it's time for Christians to live for God's will and not their own will.

Why?

Because they've spent enough time living like the people who straight up don't know Jesus.

Peter himself has lived like someone who doesn't follow Jesus.

He even pretended he didn't know Jesus when he was asked about him the night before he was crucified.

Like, I have lived like someone, too, who doesn't follow Jesus.

We all have lived like someone who does not follow Jesus.

And Peter is trying to get us to break free from worldly living because living for God's will is the only way to actually truly live.

Guys, living for God's will is the way that we were created to live.

Like there's no other way that we were created to live.

Way back in Genesis 1 and 2, even at the beginning of our series that we just finished, when God creates humans, he designed us to live for his will.

He designed us to live in harmony with him.

And God gave us a way to, in spite of our sin in Genesis 3, to actually break free from worldly living and live for God's will again.

And it's only through Jesus.

And when we break free from worldly living, when we actually live for God's will, we will be living how we were always intended to live.

Okay, but breaking free from worldly living and living for God's will is not without its consequences.

Okay, Peter says this in verse 4.

He says, They, this is the Gentiles, this is the people who don't believe in Jesus, they are surprised that you don't join them in the same flood of wild living, and they slander you.

Okay, it says the Gentiles, the non-believers, the non-Christians, the people trapped in the cycle of worldly living, they will be surprised or shocked that you refuse to live that way.

Okay, it will be counter-cultural, and not only will they not be surprised, or not only will they be surprised that you are not partaking in that, but they will actually slander you.

They'll make fun of you, they'll gossip about you, they'll talk about you in the group chat, they'll do all of the things when you choose to live in a countercultural way that lives for God's will instead of the world's way.

And you want to know how I know that this is true?

Because it happened to me.

Okay?

It happened to me, and not only has it happened to me, but it has happened to countless others when they break free of this cycle of worldly living and start to live for God's will.

Okay, and can I be brutally honest with you for a second?

Like when you first make this decision to live for God instead of the world, it can be an incredibly painful reality.

Okay, some of you have probably already walked through this.

Like people that you have lived your life with, that you've been through stuff with, people who you have suffered with, even, people you have even lived in a worldly way with, they will not understand.

Some might even turn fully against you.

Okay, I've lost many friends for my faith.

Like I've lost many people that I thought that I would be close with for life.

And I believe that Peter puts this into our passage, not as like a bummer for us to read, but for a heads up of what will inevitably happen to those who truly break free from worldly living and start to live for God's will.

Okay, he puts this in here as a warning of saying, guys, this is gonna happen when you live for Jesus.

This is gonna happen when you truly break free of worldly living.

And despite that being painful, despite that being a brutal time in your new walk as a Christian, it is painfully worth the suffering.

Because living for God's will is ultimately the only thing that truly matters in this life.

It's the only thing that truly matters.

If you take nothing else away from this, it's the only thing that truly matters in this life.

Verse 5 shows us why.

Verse 5, it says this.

They, these are the these are the non-believers, will give an account to the one who stands ready to judge the living and the dead.

Okay, they, the people who are not following Jesus, along with every other person on this planet, will have to give an account to God at the end of their life.

Okay, and what's true about the people not following Jesus is that they're ultimately not living with eternity in view.

Okay, and this is our final way to live a life for God's will.

Live with eternity in view.

Okay, people that are not following Jesus, they are not thinking about their eternity at the forefront of their minds.

Okay, they're not viewing life through an eternal lens.

Okay, you know how I know that?

Because I wasn't living with eternity in view before Jesus.

None of my friends were living with eternity in view before Jesus.

My thought was that I had all the time in the world to get right with God.

Okay, when you're in college, it feels like you're never gonna die, right?

Feels like I can literally survive anything, right?

Maybe some of you have that mindset right now.

You're like, I'm good, man.

I'm gonna be here for another 30, 40 years.

You don't know that.

It can feel like that, but you don't know that.

Okay, I thought the way that I was living was normal.

Okay, I thought my worldly living was just how all college students live.

But I could not have been more wrong.

See, I got to the point in my worldly living where I was deep in the party scene.

Okay, and there was one night where I actually drank so much that I should have died.

Okay, straight up, should have died.

I drank so much that I got alcohol poisoning.

Okay, it's where your organs are like, we can't do anything more.

All right, and I don't remember anything about that night, but what I do remember before that night, before I got so drunk that I couldn't remember anything, that I might as well drink myself into oblivion because that's the best way to live in the here and now.

That's what I thought.

And when I woke up, literally, when I woke up by the grace of God, both spiritually and literally, what he showed me is that I was not living with my eternity in my view.

Okay, I was not living in a way that cared anything at all about what happened after I died.

He showed me that I was living in a cycle of worldly living.

He showed me that he showed me that I was living like this world was all that there was.

Okay, he showed me that despite me going to church like once a month to like show face and like kind of fake repent of my sins over the weekend, that I was not living for Jesus at all.

And in that moment of waking up, feeling literally the worst I have ever felt in my entire life, I remembered the reality that every single person will give an account for what they have done on this earth to God.

I began to remember growing up in church and hearing all the stories from the Bible about how messed up everyone was, but God loved them anyways.

I began to remember the reality that everybody in this entire Bible, they all have lived in a worldly way apart from God except Jesus.

And I began to remember the gospel that I'd heard so many times before.

Like I remembered the truth of what God's word had said about Jesus and who he was.

I remembered the beautiful truth of why the gospel of Jesus is preached in the first place.

Okay, verse 6, it says this for this reason, the gospel was also preached to those who are now dead, so that although they might be judged in the flesh according to human standards, they might live in the spirit according to God's standards.

The gospel was preached to those who are dead.

Okay, the imagery here is that all of humanity, while they are alive with a pulse physically, they are all naturally dead spiritually because of what happened in Genesis 3.

Okay, but God does not desire for us to stay dead spiritually, he desires for us to come alive in him spiritually.

He wants us to live in the Spirit, walking in His will.

This is living with eternity in view.

And when we're living with eternity in view, though we might be judged by non-believers, as Peter tells us, though we might be slandered for living in this way, we can truly live in the Spirit just like God intended us for us to live all along.

And the only way to do this is through placing your faith in Jesus.

Okay, hear me when I say this.

You cannot live a life for God's will apart from Jesus.

You cannot live a life for God's will apart from Jesus.

And I know in a room this size, there's some of you in here who are not following Jesus.

Okay, I know that there are some of you who might even be realizing that you're actually living in a way that has not been for God or his will.

Like you may be realizing that you have been living in this cycle of worldly living.

You might have seen that list that we put up on the screen and thinking that's actually me to a T right now.

There are likely even some of you who are trying to live a life from God's will apart from Jesus.

Okay, and you're realizing that it's not working out for you.

And if you're any of those people, if you are any of those people, whether you claim to follow Jesus right now and you're realizing maybe you're not, or maybe you've never claimed to follow Jesus, the message to you is simple.

It's come to Jesus tonight.

Come to Jesus tonight.

Okay, and even when I say that, you might be thinking that there's this long list of things that you need to do in order to actually come to Jesus.

Okay, and you would actually be wrong.

There's not a long list.

See, what's true about coming to Jesus is that you can actually, you can't do anything to earn your way.

We talked about this last week.

You cannot earn your way into God's good graces.

There's no amount of good deeds that you can do.

Okay, there's no amount of wrongs that you can right.

You cannot earn your way.

You can't do anything to clean yourself up before coming to Him.

But instead, you need to do just two things.

Okay, this is you, as you are right here in your seat, with all your baggage, with all your sins, with all your history of worldly living just like mine, you need to do as Romans 10, 9 says.

You need to confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.

Confess it to him.

You don't need to say it out loud, but confess to God.

Confess to Jesus that he is Lord.

And the second thing you need to do is as you are right there in your seat with all of your doubt and with all of your questions, with all of your thoughts about Jesus in eternity, you need to do what the second part of Romans 10, 9 says, and that is believe.

Believe in your heart that God actually physically, bodily raised Jesus from the dead.

And when you do this, when you genuinely confess and believe in Jesus, you can now suit up with Christ's mindset.

Okay, you can now break free from the chains of worldly living.

You can now actually live with eternity in view in your life.

You are now free to live a life for God's will.

And if you've made that decision to follow Jesus tonight, if tonight's the first night, or maybe you thought you were saved before, you realized you weren't, and tonight's the night for you, let me just be the first to tell you.

Welcome home.

Welcome home.

Welcome to God's broken, messed up, beautiful family.

We're all trying to live a life for God's will here.

And we're not gonna do it perfect, but you we can do it together.

Now, like every week here at SAL, we don't just want to hear about what God is telling us and just kind of leave it here in this space.

Okay, but we actually want to make changes and to apply what we have heard.

We want you to be transformed students on your campuses and in your workplaces.

So what we want to do, apply the first way this week that we can apply this is identify one area in your life where you are living in a worldly way.

Identify one area of your life, just one, that you are living in a worldly way.

Like take a quiet moment this week to pinpoint one specific area that you are living in a worldly way in, or like self-gratification that you've been leaning on instead of God's will.

Pick one way that you've been living in a worldly way.

The second is this bring it, that thing, bring that thing, the way that you've been living in a worldly way to community.

Bring it to community.

Like share that struggle with a trusted friend.

Okay, your campus group leader or someone from your campus group, so you don't have to actually fight it alone.

And if you're not in a C group yet, goodness, you can join one tonight at the connect table.

Like it's the easiest thing that you can do tonight is just walk back there and join a group.

Okay, if you don't have community, please do not fight this fight alone.

We want you to connect.

The third is this, and that's choose difficult obedience.

Choose difficult obedience.

Okay, when temptation arises, remember that suffering in the flesh means choosing the temporary pain of saying no to sin over the long-term pain of living outside of God's best.

Okay, choose the temporary pain of denying sin, denying temptation, and choosing to live for God's will.

Identify one area of worldly living, bring it to community, and choose difficult obedience.

Okay, what actually happens when we apply this?

Okay, what actually happens when we arm ourselves with Christ's mindset?

Okay, when we actually try to break free through Jesus this way of worldly living, and we live our lives with eternity in view.

What happens?

It changes everything.

You can no longer live like someone who does not know Jesus.

You're living set apart, you're living in a way that lives for God's will above your own will.

And what happens when that takes place?

It doesn't just transform your individual walk with Jesus.

Because living in a way that is for God's will, it affects the people around you.

When you're changed, others ask questions to why.

When you live in a way that lives for God's will, people ask you, what's your secret?

What's different about you?

And you can tell them it's Jesus.

And when you do, you're gonna see your classrooms are changed, your dorms are changed, your teams that you play on are changed, your families are changed, your friends are changed, and ultimately this place, Milwaukee, and even the world can be changed because of that.

We're just taking this and applying it to your life so other people can see what Jesus has done for you because he can do it for them.

Apply this because ultimately we want to give God his glory.

That's what he deserves.

So live a life for God's will because Jesus has given you the ability to do so.

Let's pray that this would be true tonight.

Jesus, thank you.

Thank you for enduring a lifetime of suffering in the flesh.

A lifetime of denying sin, denying temptation, so that we don't have to stay dead in our sins.

Okay, so that we don't have to live in this cycle of worldly living, but we can instead live in the spirit, that we can live for your will.

God, I pray for the courage for this group to break free from worldly living, to live in a way that's countercultural to what the people around them are doing and what the world says that they should do as a college student, but what you say they should do in living for you and your will.

Give them the courage to do so.

God, give them the endurance when following Jesus brings pushback from the world.

When they have to lose friends because of their faith, give them the endurance.

Give them the power to push through that.

God, help the people around them to see how changed they are and be affected by that transformation.

Help them to ask questions.

Help them to be curious about you because of them and how they're living for your will.

God, I pray that our campuses would finally see a generation that's fully alive and living in God's will.

That we would see a changed world because of these students here in this place.

God, you've done it with 12.

Do it with 80.

Reach the hundred thousand college students in this city and reach the rest of the world because they decided to live for your will above their own.

I pray all this in your name.

Amen.