The Danger of Short-Sightedness

♪ There was a moment when the lights went on ♪ ♪ When death had claimed its victory ♪ ♪ The King of love had given up his life ♪ ♪ The darkest day in history ♪ ♪ They were on a cross they made for sinners ♪ ♪ For every curse his blood had torn me ♪ ♪ When final breath the name was finished ♪ ♪ But not at the end he could have known ♪ ♪ For the earth he came to shame ♪ ♪ For the name was done ♪ ♪ What sacrifice was made ♪ ♪ Is in the room ♪ Come on church, it's freezing this morning. ♪ Oh, he came to Jesus ♪ ♪ All hail the Lord of heaven ♪ ♪ All hail Jesus ♪ ♪ All hail the Savior of the world ♪ ♪ He's the Savior of the world ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ There was a moment when the Savior ♪ ♪ A flash of light is breaking through ♪ ♪ When all was lost he crossed eternity ♪ ♪ The King of life was on the moon yet ♪ ♪ When the daughter called to it ♪ ♪ Where my love was made ♪ ♪ You were miraculous friends ♪ ♪ In my forever days ♪ ♪ We changed forever ♪ ♪ All hail the King of Jesus ♪ ♪ All hail the Lord of heaven ♪

♪ All hail Jesus ♪ ♪ All hail the Savior of the world ♪ ♪ All hail the King of the world ♪ ♪ The Lord of heaven and earth ♪ ♪ All hail the Jesus ♪ ♪ All hail the Savior of the world ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ When we stand to let every be ♪ ♪ From now on before the King of Jesus ♪ ♪ Let every turn confess that he is the Lord ♪ ♪ To lift up your shell ♪ ♪ Let us try to call the heaven and sea ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ We're singing, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ We cry, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ We're singing, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ All hail the King of Jesus ♪ ♪ All hail the Lord of heaven and earth ♪ ♪ All hail the King of Jesus ♪ ♪ All hail the King of the world ♪ - All right, well good morning everybody. It's great to have all of you here in the room, and welcome all of our campuses via video today. Love all of you, wherever you are at, you produce a body like you are right here in the room with us. And as we get started, let me give a big congratulations to all of you parents and grandparents across the campuses who had your children dedicated to the Lord today. Let's give it up one more time for all of those kids.

Praise God for all of you. It is one of our greatest privileges as a church to get to partner with you as you raise your children. And we are thrilled to be able to do that. Let me give you a second word here today. Mid-term elections coming up, one encourage you to go out, be a good citizen, be a good Christian citizen, and vote biblical values. And I want to encourage you to do that. Every election is important from those that are local all the way to national, hope you'll involve your life. Men and women have paid the price with their life so that you can have this freedom. And we are honored to be able to do that. If you have questions about all that, we have voter guides in the lobby that give you a breakdown of all the issues being voted on, people being voted on. And again, I want to encourage you to go out and be a good citizen in that respect. Third thing for you, if nobody's told you this week, I love you, I really do. I really do, glad you're at church today. And it really is like one of my highest responsibilities to push you to things that matter and to push you towards things that matter for eternity. We're going to talk about that today, but we really do have an opportunity two weeks from now to do that through Legacy Sunday. What an incredible privilege it is

to be able to be generous with others because of your generosity and what an exciting thing that is on the video we got to see today. Trust me, Nick Methay said it right. You don't want to miss next Sunday because the one next Sunday we're doing, it's really good, really good. And can't wait for you to be able to see that. But I'm being honest with you when I say that on Legacy Sunday, we really do not set a monetary goal. We don't have a number in mind that we would like to reach. What we have in mind is participation goal. Everybody who calls cross-church home, we want you to be pushed towards radical generosity on that one day. Meredith and I are tithers to our church. We have been ever since we've been here. In fact, we left 10% a long time ago of what we actually give to our church. But on this day, every single week, every single year, I should say, we talk about what do we want to do together for Legacy Sunday as a family. We talk to our kids about what we want them to do. And so we come together and we give generously to the Lord and to our church through this offering. Here's our only ask. You just ask the Lord what He wants you to do. And then you do that.

You don't have to ask me, just ask the Lord. And you do what He says. And we believe God is gonna do a great, great work. All right, let's grab our Bibles. First Corinthians chapter 15 is where we're gonna beat today. This is the next to last sermon in this series that we've been in in First Corinthians called 11 Dangerous for Every Christian. Hope it's been a meaningful one for you and your Christian walk. And today, as I mentioned, I do want to talk to you about what it looks like to live a life that matters for eternity. And the title of our message today is this. I want to speak to you about the danger of short-sightedness. Of short-sightedness. By a show of hands, every campus, how many of you wear glasses or contacts? Raise your hand. Okay, many, we are struggling congregation right there. Many of us have glasses or contacts. You are either far-sighted or near-sighted. Those of you who are far-sighted, you're like me. Like you can see things far away, pretty good. But then up close, you struggle a little bit. So most of my life, I don't wear glasses. But when I have to read my phone, read something, like I pretty much got to have glasses now at this point in my life.

Others of you are like my wife Meredith. She is near-sighted, so she can read up close fine. But then if we're like at the game Friday night, she's got to have her glasses on or contacts in. She sees it in a different way than I do. When you go to the doctor, the doctor gives you a prescription to correct your vision. And so my doctor has even described to me on my far-sightedness that I have a focusing problem. What that means is this, is that if I don't have my glasses on, I will strain to read things, and my eyes will work harder than I even realize, and my eyes will begin to hurt, or my head will begin to hurt if I don't have my glasses on while I'm reading, okay? And here's what I would say to us about the Christian life. Many, many, many Christians at our church have not only a vision problem, but a focusing problem. We don't think about eternity. And as a result of that, we just simply are focused on the wrong things. Everybody listen to me loud and clear. These are not bad things. They're just not best things. The best things are things that matter for eternity. And that is obviously what I'm going to spend my time talking to you about today. Now, first Corinthians 15 is a pretty familiar chapter in the New Testament. And I would say it to you this way. If you are at church today and you've never trusted Christ by faith, I would encourage you to read part of the passage that I'm not going to read today. For the sake of time, I'm going to begin reading in verse 50, like all the way down deep in the passage. But I want to encourage you later this afternoon to start beginning reading in verse 1. What you're going to see is one of the clearest gospel presentations anywhere in the Bible. And one of the clearest pictures of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It will then move into a section on a resurrection of believers who have died. And we'll even get into that a little bit today. So let's look at the passage together. And I want

you to look at it with me in verse 50 of chapter 15. If you don't have a Bible, just look at the screen. Here's what the Bible says. "I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable, underline the word perishable, inherit the imperishable, underline the word imperishable." What does this first mean? It is speaking about our present condition. We are perishable people. Even when it speaks about flesh and blood, it speaks about our perishable condition. You say, well, what does that mean? It means we're all aging. We're all decaying. We are, some of us at least, are balding, right? Okay? We are, in a sense, listen to me, we are all dying as we live. Things are not getting better in our bodies or in our health. They are actually getting worse. And so what verse 50 begins by teaching us here is that we cannot enter heaven as a perishable being. There's got to be a transformation that takes place. And that's exactly what this passage is about. Look at verse 51. He says, "I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable." There's that word again. I tell you this, brothers, flesh and blood cannot, I just read that. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be underlined or circled this word changed. We're all changed. Verse 52, "In a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable." And here's that word again, "We shall all be changed." Here's what Paul is saying, okay? Not every person who's a Christian will die. Now, many people who are Christians have died, but the Bible tells us there's a day coming when the return of Christ happens. When those who are alive in Christ, they will be taken to heaven immediately, and those who are already dead who are Christians, their body will be raised imperishable to join with their soul that has been in heaven with God. So every Christian, whether you are alive or whether you've already died, will undergo the change that we're talking about today. I believe verses 51 and 52 is speaking about something known as the rapture of the church, okay? Every Christian, and when I say every Christian, here's what I mean. Christians are not people who come to church. Christians are not just moral good people. Christians are people who have heard the gospel that God has loved you, sin has only sent Jesus to die on the cross for you, and you have heard that message. You have turned away from how you've lived for your entire life. You've lived for yourself, you've lived for sin, and in that moment you turn in faith to Jesus Christ, and you say, "You're the only one who can save me. You're the only one

who can forgive me." That is what a Christian is. If you've never had that experience before, I'm going to give you an opportunity to do that as we conclude our service here before you even leave. Here's what the Bible is telling us about this passage. Every Christian, when Christ returns in the clouds, they will be raptured out of this world, and they will go to and meet Jesus in the air. Those Christians who have already died, they will rise with new resurrection bodies, and they will also meet Jesus in the air. This is how 1 Thessalonians 4 says basically the same thing. Look at the screen. Paul says, "For we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep." When the Bible says the word asleep, it just means we don't want you to be uninformed about those who have already died, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died in rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep. So if you are alive at the time of the rapture of the church, you're going in second place. The dead in Christ will rise first, that's verse 16. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with the cry of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first, verse 17. Then we who are alive who are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Here's the great thing about eternity as a Christian and so we will always be with the Lord. Anybody looking forward to this day right here we just read about like what a great thing. The Bible says the trumpet will sound and believers who have died, their resurrection bodies will meet Jesus in the air and then we will also meet them in the air.

So if you're like, I didn't know I could fly. Well, one day you're gonna be able to fly, all right? This view of these two passages is what is known, what theologians call the pre-millennial pre-tribulational view of the end times, all right? Pre-millennial, pre-tribulational view of the end times. Let me give you the basics here. You may wanna pull out your phone and just snap a picture of the screen 'cause I'm gonna just rattle through these very quickly. This is how this view interprets the end times passages in the Bible. Number one, there's the rapture. It's what we're reading about right here. This leads into the seven years of tribulation. Let me just tell you this. You do not wanna be around when the tribulation happens, all right? It's gonna be seven very bad years on this earth. Then we have the second coming of Christ when Christ will come and He will lead us into the millennium. This is the 1,000 year reign of Jesus on the earth and then ultimately it will go to the final judgment, all right? That is a basic, basic picture of this view of the end times. Now listen to me, your view of the end times is a secondary issue in your life, okay? So just like we talked about your view on the miraculous spiritual gifts a few weeks ago in chapter 12, how you view that, this is a similar thing. You're gonna be in heaven with people who had a different view

of how the end times would ultimately roll out, okay? So this is not like our primary issues of our faith, primary issues, Jesus is the only way to salvation, amen? Bible is the word of God, amen? You wanna fight about something? Let's fight about that, all right? So if you don't believe in the premillennial pre-tribulation of view, as I do, I just say this, it's okay to be wrong, okay? It's okay to be wrong. You will find out one day, I'm just kidding. Here's my point, we don't break fellowship over this. What do we break fellowship over? Like there's a primary issue within the end times. Here's what it is. Do you believe that Jesus is coming back? Like if you don't believe that, then we gonna rumble, okay? But that is the primary view here in this passage. Let me give you some clarity on 1 Corinthians 15. You ready for this? Two statements I want you to write down. Number one is this, the focus of this chapter is not when Jesus will return. I think that's part of it. I just don't think that's the focus of the passage, all right? It's not about when Jesus will turn, even though we get some details. However, I would say the focus of this passage is that when he returns, here's what it is, we will be changed.

We will move from perishable beings to imperishable beings. Do you see the difference there? What Paul is getting across to us in these verses is that when Jesus appears in the sky, you are going to be changed. This is good news. He said, when, Nick, what does this change look like? I appreciate you helping me with the sermon today. Let's look at verse 53, goes on. He says, "For this perishable body must put on "the imperishable and this mortal body "must put on immortality." Verse 54, "When the perishable puts on the imperishable "and the mortal puts on immortality, "then shall come to pass the saying that is written." Y'all, this is good. Death is swallowed up in victory. He goes on, O death, where's your victory, O death? Where is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Y'all, this is a passage today, is it not? I mean, what a promise. Let me simplify this. If you're reading this and your eyes are starting to cross, that's not abnormal, okay? Let me try to simplify it for you. The Bible is saying that your perishable mortal body, like the one that you got on right now,

must put on the imperishable body. "the greatest news that has ever been given to you "as a believer in Jesus. "Death is swallowed up in the victory of Christ. "Death will not win anymore, "death will not sting anymore. "If you've got your sermon journal, "I want you to write down two Old Testament passage "that Paul is alluding to here in this passage." He's actually pointing to Isaiah chapter 25 and Hosea chapter 13. All right, Isaiah chapter 25 and Hosea chapter 13. That's what he's referencing in those three or four verses right there, all right? Death is our ultimate foe. And the weird thing about our perishable, mortal lives is we forget that fact. We go on as if life is going to continue forever and then death hits our door. We have a friend die, we have a co-worker die, we have a loved one die. We get the bad diagnosis, we're told we're about to die and we are reminded that death is our ultimate foe. No one will escape this. One out of every one person dies. You will face death if Christ has not returned before them, okay? Some of you are feeling the sting of death a little bit more this year than normal. You're already looking ahead with some grief towards the first Thanksgiving without a loved one,

the first Christmas without a loved one. Man, we grieve with you. There is something unique about death where no human has power over it. None of us can't escape it, but we as believers, according to this passage, we look at the sting of death and we say, "You have no victory with us." I do funerals from time to time, obviously. And I have been to some really sad grave sites. And I can remember one specifically where it was almost like I just grit my teeth 'cause it was just so tragic and so sad that I remember just standing there almost like a renewed resolve of death will not win this story. And what I'm giving my life to, of giving the gospel to people to deal with death, it is all worth it. And I'm going to do whatever I can to tell people about the hope of Jesus Christ, that they really can't escape death. For the believer, this is weird. For the believer, death is a promotion. You ever been to a memorial service or a funeral service and you see the family before or after and they're smiling and they have joy? And yes, there's tears and yes, there's that, but like they're laughing in the services. There's a funny story told and maybe there's a song of worship played or a hymn

and they have their hands raised and you look at them and you're like, I don't, I don't understand that. Like I don't get that. And what you got to understand is that these people who are living in that such a way, they are grieving with a different kind of hope. They look through death with a different kind of lens and they believe something different about death. I called today the danger of shortsightedness. I titled it that because it's better than a theological perspective that the Christian should have towards death. Really I'm teaching you today about how you as a Christian should view death. The Bible says something very interesting in the book of Psalms. Psalm 1 16 says this, "Precious in the side of the Lord is the death of his saints." Is that odd to anybody else in the room today? I don't know that I've ever had a death situation where I thought, oh, that was precious. And yet God sees things from a different perspective, obviously, and the Bible says that he looks upon a Christian who dies, and here's what he thinks, gosh, what a precious thing. He said, well, why would God look upon death of a Christian as precious? Because he knows what they're coming into. He knows that they are undergoing a transformation

from being a perishable broken body of a person to an imperishable person who's going to heaven. You don't get anything else today, I want you to get what I'm about to say, all right? When you get to heaven, you will not miss earth. Let me say it to you again. When you get to heaven, you will not miss earth. When you get there, you will not want to come back here. I don't know what, I know the Bible says that heaven rejoices when a person gets saved. So like, are they watching a church service and they see somebody get saved? And somebody's like, "Clit the music." And heaven, boom, boom. Like they're having a party in heaven. I don't know if it's that kind of thing or there's just like a red light that comes on. It's like, "Somebody else got saved, let's go." (congregation laughing) But let's just imagine for a moment here that people in heaven can see things on earth, at least to an extent. Can I tell you what they're not saying? Like, let's say there's like a looking glass. You gotta go to a specific place in heaven. You're like, "Okay, you know what they're not saying? "I can't believe I missed that hall game last night. "Gosh, what a game. "We beat Vandy, let's go."

Man, I'm really missing that Thanksgiving dinner. Those mashed potatoes, again, I don't think they're doing that at all. If they can see at some level what's going on on earth, I think if anything, they're going, man, y'all don't even have a clue. You think that that is the thing, this is the thing. You think that your perishable, mortal lives are like really cool? You have no idea what God has prepared for those that love Him. Isn't that good? This is the message of the word of God. And so when Paul says in 1 Thessalonians, we don't grieve like those who have no hope. He's not saying we don't grieve. Is it okay to grieve, yes or no? Is death sad, yes or no? By all means, you should grieve. I think it's weird if you don't grieve. But Christians, look at my face. Christians, we grieve with a different set of lenses on. We view death from a Christian theological perspective and we think differently about it. So we get into the last verse of the passage right here, verse 58. He says, "Therefore, my beloved brothers, be what? Steadfast, immovable, and always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain."

All right, some of you have been in church services before, the pastor said this, whenever you see the word, therefore in the Bible, you're supposed to ask what's it? Okay, you're a dork too. All right, I've been in those services as well. So you're supposed to ask what's it, therefore? Can I give you a different way to say it? Whenever you see the word, therefore, just look up. Not like up, just look up in the passage. Like, look at what was just said. And can I sum it up for you? Therefore, because when Jesus returns, we will all be changed in a moment. And because death has no hold on the believer's life and it has no sting anymore. And because of what God has prepared for those who love Him, because of all of that, do this. Like, be this. You say, well, what are we, what is God calling us to be? Look at what the passage says. It gives us two words, number one, steadfast. This word stands for spiritual firmness and the idea of being unwavering. So we're not tossed to and fro by the winds of culture, but we are firm. Second word is the word immovable. What that means is you are unshaken and you are steady. So, man, wouldn't it be great if people in North Historic and Sol viewed cross church and the people of cross church?

Man, that's an unshaken group of people. They don't move. They got a mission and they stick to it. Can I give you a third word? This is not in the Bible, but I think it's the point of what the Bible's saying here. How about the word fruitful? Fruitful. In other words, giving our lives to eternal things that matter, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Here's the hard part. We often do just the opposite of that. Can I end with this? Let's talk about the danger of shortsightedness. It's really the exact opposite of those three things. Because of our desire to fit into a world that we do not belong to. Because of our desire to fit into a world we think this is the thing. We often are things like this. We become, here's a deep Greek biblical word. We become squishy. (soft music) I call this squishy because it's churches who won't ever say it clearly. It's Christians who won't say it clearly and it's like trying to nail jello to a wall. Why? They're not thinking of eternity. They just turn squishy. How about shaky, not spiritually firm, but instead we go up and down with the ways of today. If my life's good, I'm going to be good. If my life's bad, I'm going down. And there's not a consistency. We're just real shaky. How about a third word? How about stagnant? No spiritual growth. You're just stuck, stagnant in your walk. No fruitfulness in your life. No sense of abounding in the work of the Lord. You're just distracted with the things

of this world. Not even bad things. Just not best things. Makes sense? Your time is dominated by things that really don't matter. Your money is spent on things that really doesn't matter. Your family is focused on things that really don't matter for the sake of eternity. I just want to share my heart with you as I wrap up here today. I have a burden for you that I don't know that I can describe rightly. I think it's a supernatural burden as your pastor. One of the words for pastor is the word shepherd. And I think about you all the time. And I'm burdened for you all the time that you are spending your life on things that really don't matter. And I want to be honest with you today. I am burdened for our church. I am burdened for all of you. That you would spend your life on things that actually matter. A few weeks ago, I was in a meeting and I was leaving the meeting and had people around the table and were talking. And I was cleaning my glasses that I have here in my hand. I have a black pair and a brown pair. And if you ever ask me, I probably have a little glasses wipe in my pocket all the time. Because if you're a glasses where, they just get dirty all the time. I always got in my pocket. So I'm sitting there in the meeting and I am like cleaning my glasses. And they snapped in too. I was really disappointed right there in the middle of the meeting. And so I really disappointed. I don't know why they broke. I mean, maybe stronger than I thought. They just snapped right there in the meeting. But the meeting was still going on. And so I didn't have mother pair of glasses. So I needed to read stuff on the piece of paper that I had. And so I'm literally, I put these on and they're like falling off. And so cameraman, can you just zoom in right here? I want to give a good picture of this. All right. Like, do I look? I look pretty ridiculous. Do I not? Imagine if I try to do this. I've got a replacement care pair coming. That's why there's no lenses in them. But I think this is a pretty good picture of many of your spiritual lives right now. Broken priorities that have led to a broken focus where you're like half in, half out with the Lord. Or you get convicted, you come back to church and you're like, man, I'm trying to stay together right now. But this, I don't know. I look pretty ridiculous. Do I not? I think that that is a picture of a Christian whose life is not fixed on eternity. I think that's ridiculous. And so I say this with all the love and my heart that I have for you, I genuinely do. But for some of you, you got to take off broken glasses with broken priorities that lead to broken focus. And you need to put on eternal lenses today. First Corinthians 15

lenses today. And you know what you'll find as you do this, if you focus on verses 50 through 57, you know what naturally happens in your life? Man, I'm steadfast. I'm immovable and I'm always abounding in the work of the Lord. And when I'm not focused on eternity, you know what I've become? Pretty squishy, pretty shaken, pretty stagnant in my walk. And so today, Number one, there's some of you who've never met Christ personally, and I'm going to ask you this, if Christ were to return like right now, like Trumpet sounds and you think it's like the sound system, but the Trumpet sounds and people all around you start heading up, are you going to be with Jesus? I don't know that for your life, but if Christ were to come today, what do you think? Did He take you with Him? If not today's the day to do exactly what I said a moment ago, to hear what Christ has done for you, He's given you the opportunity to move from perishable to imperishable, from unforgiven to forgiven, from unrighteous to righteous. And all you got to do is just respond to the Lord and say, I don't want to live this way any longer. The Bible calls this repentance and I'm ready to put my faith in Jesus Christ, and if you'll do that today, you'll experience this personally. This whole passage becomes your life. You may be here today and you say, Nick, I'm already a Christian. That's settled in my life, but I wonder if that's you today, maybe you're convicted. You say, man, Nick, I'm not living the way that I should be living right now. I'm not doing what God has called me to do, but man, I want to get right. I'm just going to ask you to come to the altar and get on your face for the Lord. I want this to happen in my life. I'm not where I need to be. I'm asking you to take me where you want me to be. Others, if you, you might not be convicted like that you're doing something wrong. You're just convicted of, man, I just want to do that right. Like I want my family to count for eternity. I want my life to count for eternity.

I'm going to encourage you to come and just say, Lord, I want that for my life. Maybe bring your Bible with you, bring your open sermon journal. Lord, I want this to be said of me. I want this to be a reality in my life. How many families need to make their way to the altar today? Lord, we want this to be said of the Johnsons or whatever your last name is, okay? If you're a Johnson and I guess God's speaking to you, all right? I want us to bow our head before the Lord right now. Our staff is going to make their way to the front of each aisle. If you're here today and you need Christ, again, this is the moment. If you're uncertain about where you would go if Christ were to return today, I'm going to invite you to come. The men and women of our team are here. They are prepared to meet you. And if you're ready, you can just say, listen, I'm ready to give my life to Jesus, don't know what to do. Or maybe you say, Nick, I'm not sure what would happen. Why don't you come and say, hey, can I ask you some questions? Can we talk together? I'm not exactly sure where I am with the Lord. If you need us to pray with you about something in your life, we'd be honored to pray with you about something in your life. You come. But again, if you're here today and you'd say, I'm not where I need to be with the Lord, man, I'm living for things that are not eternal things, but man, I want to be where God wants me to be. I'm going to invite you to come and just get on your knees at the altar. If you're convicted, man, I just want this to be said to me like I want this to be my life. And again, same call to you, I'm going to invite you to come to the altar, maybe bring

your spouse, bring your family. You just pray together, Lord, we want our lives to be lives that matter. We want our family to be always abounding in the work of the Lord. So Father, whatever it is you desire to do in us today, we give you full authority in this room as if you need us to give you full authority. We just say yes to you, I pray that you would draw people to salvation today, whether you draw people who are Christians to steps of obedience today. And it's in the powerful name of Jesus that we pray, amen.