Look Up #11 - Look Up for Moral Purity
Message Description
Adult Ministry Director Russ Brasher continues the message series "Look Up" teaching out of the New Testament book of 2 Corinthians. God calls us to worship only Him and not the things of this world.
Message Transcript
Well, good morning and welcome to Orchard Hill Church. Before we jump into today's text, would you join me in a moment of prayer? Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for the chance to gather here today. Lord, we thank you that when we woke up today, the sun was out, and we do not take that for granted living in Pittsburgh. Lord, we thank you for your son, that through Jesus Christ, we can know you and be in a relationship with you. And so, I ask that you bless the word today, that you bless the giving and receiving of the word in a way that would draw us to know you, to know your son, and to draw us into a relationship with you. We ask this in your name. Amen.
I would like to start today by giving you a date and seeing if you can figure out the significance of this date - September 27th, 1986. September 27th, 1986. And I'll give you a few clues to try to figure it out. It is not my birthday or my wife's, so that's off the table. And it has something to do with video games. It's not my birthday, and it has something to do with video games - September 27th, 1986. Anyone in the room figured it out?
If you don't know, I'm here to tell you. This was the day that the original Nintendo gaming system was released in the United States, and it forever changed our country. You see, the younger generation, this was the original Nintendo Switch. Now you're all with me. Okay, here's what this meant. This initiated a whole new way of life where every Friday, as a kid, I looked forward to the day when I could get home from school and spend all Friday night gaming on my Nintendo game, staying up all night trying to beat whatever game I had.
Today's generation will have no understanding of the struggle we had back in the eighties. Where are those cartridges? In today's games, you don't even need a disc. You just download it. It streams. Back in the eighties, you had a cartridge that if you blew in it four times, it wasn't enough saliva. But if you blew in it six times, you fried the whole system. You had to blow five times into the disc and then stick it in with a gummy bear, a Slim Jim, and three cards in order for it to work. You guys know the struggle.
But here's the thing about the gaming system. It was a roller coaster of emotions. Its highest highs, were when you were conquering the game and doing so well. But its lowest lows were when you would die and realize that you were out of lives. And the games back then, once you were out of lives, it completely started over. There was no saving and you had to completely restart your entire life. It's all that we knew. And a lot of times what happened was all of a sudden, rumors began to spread that there were these things called codes. And if you could use your investigative skills to unlock these codes, to discover who has these codes, and what these codes were, it changed everything because there was a code out there that could give you unlimited lives.
I've got a prop up here that I'll grab many times and hopefully not drop and break because it's not mine. But as kids, we would had to use our private detective investigative skills to try to figure out who knew these codes and what these codes were. And this meant that we had to investigate the playgrounds, schools, and neighborhoods. We had to follow clues and leads because the Internet didn't exist back then. The best part about this was you had to trade valuable information and items in the lunchroom. This meant trading snack packs, gummy bears, and pizza rolls for “up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, start,” and it was worth it every time.
But you see, there are a lot of people who say video games are destroying today's youth. Well, I am standing here living proof that, no, it doesn't. Here I am. And guess who is listening to who? But here's how video games actually prepared me for adulthood. All my investigative skills trying to find codes for unlimited life in the gaming world led me as an adult to save tons of money and discount savings through investigating and finding who and what promo codes exist for one free tier, 10% off, or free items.
I have now learned the skills of investigating promo codes and when you have four children and it's getting close to Christmas, that is like gold in my house. But there's one store that I have never been able to crack. No matter how good my investigative skills have brought me to this day, I can't figure it out. And it's a store called Kohl's. Do you know it? Do any men in the room know the struggle that I'm talking about? Ladies, you've got it all figured out. My wife is a master.
We walk into Kohl's, and there's so much anxiety in my life because there are so many things in the Kohl's department store, and I have no idea how much any of it costs. I see the price tag, but something in my gut tells me that's not how much it costs. There's a code to figure this out, and I look at something and say that thing says it's $100. My wife will grab it and through her codes, investigative skills, and private detectiveness, we go to check out and that thing that I thought was $100, she gets it for $2.97. She's a master. I bow down and worship her in Kohl's.
So, people say that video games have destroyed youth. I've said it's prepared us for adulthood, but it's also helped me realize this. It's helped me to see that there is also a code to life. There's a code to life that actually exists. And here's the thing. This code is called a moral code or our sense of morality. This code, somewhat similar to video games and promo codes, is a set of rules, guidelines, or principles that a person is to follow to help them know the difference between right and wrong, good and evil. Therefore, based on our moral code, we as individuals will make every decision in our lives based on this code.
The mystery, though, is still the same as it was for video games in the eighties and promo codes today. When it comes to our sense of morality, our moral code, we have to still try to figure out where to look to find it, use our investigative skills to figure out who has this moral code, and what this moral code is going to be. Our mission for today is to solve this mystery.
As we begin to solve it, we need to first ask a question. And it's an important question. Why is this code, this moral code, this sense of morality, what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong, why is this code not widely known? Why is it not universally understood? And why is it not accepted by everyone? How is it in a room like this that there is a potential to have a thousand different moral codes? The answer to this question remains a mystery because it seems that all of us do not agree on who or what the creator of this code should be. We don't agree. The world doesn't agree on who and what the creator of this code should be.
Today's text that you heard read is going to help us solve this mystery as we look at Second Corinthians, chapter six, verses 14 through 7:1. But before we look at Paul's words here and ultimately God's word for the right answer to solving our mystery, let's do a little bit more investigating to that in the two most popular areas of which we think, or a majority of people think moral code can be found, should be developed, created, and have authority.
The first is by holding a magnifying glass up and trying to look inside ourselves. People have often said I know in my heart, or my gut tells me, so we try to hold a magnifying glass up to our heart or our gut. That's probably not a good idea for most of us, especially me, you know, because I haven't been to the gym in a while. But that's not what I'm talking about. And here's the problem with number one, trying to look inside. It's actually partly true, but in the end, it can't be trusted. Here's how it's partly true. If you look at scripture, scripture actually tells us in multiple places, First Jeremiah 31, verses 33, that God actually wrote, when he created us, when we are created in God's image, that He wrote His law, his rule on our hearts. God wrote His moral code on our hearts. So, there is partially a sense in which we can think oh, I can just trust my heart or trust my gut to know what is right and wrong. And it's partially true because God wrote it on there.
We also know from the book of Romans chapter one that God says he wants to be known, and he has made it plainly known to us how we can know him, how we can know God's code, his sense of right and wrong, and good and evil. We know that this is partially true because there is something deep down inside of all of us that when we look out into the world, we can automatically sense and know when things are good or bad.
When you see someone being bullied or made fun of, you look at that and go that just doesn't seem good. It doesn't seem right. I feel like that's not how life ought to be. If you were ever bullied in school or you have experienced that for yourself, you know this is not fun, I don't enjoy this. This doesn't seem like this is where life is found and how life ought to be experienced.
Trying to look inside is partially true because God put it on our hearts in the first place. C.S. Lewis, one of my favorite authors, says this, “Human beings all over the earth have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way and can't really get rid of it.” We know how we ought to behave. We have this sense of it, and we can't really get rid of it.
But here's where it ultimately can't be trusted. It's partially true, but it ultimately can't be trusted. Scripture tells us that, yes, God put it on our hearts. The Scripture also tells us about the brokenness of sin. When we were created by God to worship Him and look to Him for moral code, we said God, thanks, but no thanks. We just said it a lot worse. And what we did is we took the truth that was written on our hearts by God, and we exchanged it for a lie. Scripture says straight up that we exchange the truth of God for a lie. And whatever truth we didn't exchange, whatever was still left, whatever remnants were still on our hearts, scripture also tells us again in Romans that we suppress that truth. That we say God, thanks, but no thanks. We are going to figure this out. This moral code, this way of life, how life should be best experienced and known, we can do it without you. In fact, we think we can do it better than you. So, we exchange the truth of God for a lie and whatever is still left over, we suppress it down and say not your way, God, but mine.
This is how the number one breaks down of trying to look inside ourselves for a moral code. His example of this is the phrase, it's good to tell the truth and it's bad to lie. Well, if you know Scripture, this actually comes from Scripture. This isn't some universal moral code that the universe made up. God made this up. It's one of the Ten Commandments. Do not give false testimony. And so, yes, most of us would say, oh, yeah, we agree with that. It's good to tell the truth, it's bad to lie. But here's what happens. We all might agree, but in reality, as soon as a perceived benefit comes from the opposite, as soon as we see a purpose or reason or value in lying, what happens is we start to drop change and lower our standards.
We altered our code to justify the lie. We start to say well, I think maybe just this one time, or you don't understand if I lie about this. Really there's no ultimate authority to hold you or me accountable for whatever we've made our code to be. This is also true if you've ever come across someone who you might wholeheartedly believe that telling the truth is good and lying is bad, and someone might come up to you and say I disagree. In fact, I think telling the truth is bad, and I think lying is great because my whole life I've lied, and it's gotten me ahead. I lie in my marriage so that I don't get in trouble. I lie at work so I can get an advantage and make more money. I lie in school because it's easier that way, and I don't have to do homework or study.
And it goes on and on. And what that person is going to come to you and say is okay, fine, you think lying is bad. I think it's good. Who put you in charge? Who gives you the ultimate authority to say what is right and what is wrong? Because when I look inside myself, this is hypothetical, when I look inside myself, I say lies are good, and you say it's bad. Well, who's right? You see how quickly number one begins to break down. And we're just talking about one thing, to tell the truth or not to tell the truth. Have you ever experienced this before in your life? Have you ever felt, or can you think right now of another way, maybe multiple ways, where this idea begins to break down?
If you've ever felt the confusion of this approach to how life is found, how life should be best lived, and what your moral code should come from, the second one's worse. And when holding the magnifying glass up to our hearts or our gut doesn't work, we then say well, if it can't be found inside, it must be found outside in the world and in culture. And we hold the magnifying glass up to it and see, well, that's where moral code can be found.
There's a guy, and again, this is partially true, but in the end can't be trusted. And there's a French man whose name I am going to butcher, but I don't think he's here today. And so, we'll give it a shot. Dr. Clotaire Rapaille. No idea. I took Spanish. I didn't know Jesus then. And so, I did a lot of cheating and lying. I didn't take French. Dr. Clotaire Rapaille is alive and well today. He is an expert in marketing and advertising, and he has become an expert in this way. He claims to know the secret access code for what makes countries and people tick.
He agrees with all of us that there is a code. This guy has figured out the secret code on what makes countries, you and I, and all people tick. He says my code, if you buy it, will influence people's decision-making. So, if you're a company looking to sell a product, come hire me to come talk to all your employees, and I will give them the secret code and you will become successful.
Well, this man has to be onto something because he is extremely successful. 50 of the top 100 companies in the world are this man's clients, and they pay this man $30,000 for every 45 minutes that he speaks. I saw that and I thought, I need to set a meeting with Kurt. But his secret is that he's figured out what a country or an individual worships. And if he can figure that out, if you can figure that out, you can sell someone anything. He literally is quoted as saying, “Suddenly, once you get the code, in other words, once you figure out what people or countries worship, you understand everything. And this code, understanding what people worship is like getting a new pair of glasses in which you will see the entire world differently.”
And the reason that Rapaille is so successful is he has actually figured out biblical truth. He's figured out a biblical truth, but he figured out how to twist that biblical truth to sell products. And here's the biblical truth. We were, in fact, created by God, created in his image to worship. It's not a matter of if you and I will worship, it's not a matter of if, but who or what we will worship. We don't know what else to do. It's what we were created. If you believe the Bible to be true, it's what we were created to do, worship. And Rapaille’s figured it out. If you figure out what people worship, you can sell them anything.
Our hearts were designed to worship, created by the Creator, to worship. The book of Exodus, chapter six says, God says, I am the Lord, and I will take you as my people and I will be your God. Scripture is clear, God says yeah, I created you. I created you to worship me, to look to me, and to find everything that you'll need in this life. Your sense of purpose, identity, meaning, love, understanding, relationships. It's all going to be found in me, by worshiping me, God says. That's what the narrative of Scripture tells us. And if you look to me for all of those things, you will develop a sense of moral code that comes from me, that was designed for you to experience and live life to its fullest, to its best. Scripture says life is found when we actually worship God, love him, understand him, and revere him. And in doing so, know his rule, which is written on our hearts, and then live life according to that rule in obedience.
That's actually not slavery. That’s the freedom to know how to live life the way we're created to. There's something inside all of us that when we look out in the world and see brokenness, we go oh, I feel like that's not how life ought to be. And Scripture is saying it's not how God created it, but we broke it by choosing to worship something other than God.
What we worship will become the thing that we look to, to define our moral code, our sense of right and wrong. So, if you're not worshiping God, and the truth is we will worship something, we start to look to other things. We start to worship money, sex, relationships, family education, you name it. I can list a thousand amazing things. I can list many bad things, but we will worship something. It doesn't matter if it's a good thing or a bad thing, if we worship it as the ultimate thing, it is to our destruction and not for our good.
So, when we try to hold the magnifying glass up to culture or to the world, what happens when two people who worship two different things collide and try to say who is right? Do you know what happens with those two people? They start to fight. They fight over who's right and who's wrong. Do you know what happens when two countries worship two different things and have two different senses of moral code of what is right and wrong? Do you know what happens when they collide? We go to war. I don't think I need to try to explain any further that both of these types of investigation, looking inside or outside, look and cause nothing but confusion, chaos, pain, and brokenness. And that is exactly what Paul's text is going to try to tell us and show us today that if holding a magnifying glass up to look inside or outside is our answer and our hope of who and what is the true creator of moral code, we will find nothing but chaos, pain, brokenness, hurt, and confusion.
And so, Paul is going to suggest to us that instead of holding a magnifying glass here or there, we need to hold a magnifying glass here on the Word of God. And this is his big idea. That the mystery of morality, the mystery of the true sense of right and wrong is only solved when we take a magnifying glass and hold it up and look at God's word, see God's promises.
So, when we go back to our text for today, starting in verse 14, Paul is going to do this. He's going to actually affirm what we just talked about in verses 14 and 17, that we can't look outside and try to combine worship. We can't look outside or inside and try to compare worship options, and we cannot look at and come and try to figure out worship by committing to multiple worships.
Paul is going to give us three “c’s” to help us see where to look. In verse 14, Paul says straight up, do not be yoked together with unbelievers. Right out of the gate. Paul says do not be yoked together with unbelievers. This is Paul saying, do not combine worships with other people, with nonbelievers. And he uses the phrase yoked. This was a term understood and used multiple times in the Old Testament. The original audience would have understood this because it was an agricultural term that they would have been able to picture in their head. A yoke is a wooden cross piece that combines the necks of two animals together with the purpose of them now working together to plow a field so that a family can plant seeds, grow crops, thrive as a family, provide, and produce.
And believe it or not, in the Bible, in Deuteronomy 22, verse 10, God actually forbids yoking an ox with a donkey. And you might say to yourself why does God care about stuff like that? Is that actually in the Bible? Yes, it is. But here's why. God knows that if you try to put a donkey with an ox, an ox is the stronger animal, and the donkey is the weaker. And so, the ox is not only going to have to work twice as hard to get the job done, but the donkey is a little stupid, okay? And the donkey gets distracted and tries to veer to the left or to the right. The donkey is going to try to pull that ox off course. And what was supposed to be a straight line made for a true purpose, all of a sudden is willy-nilly whatever.
God says, don't yoke a donkey to an ox, if you want to thrive in life, including work, do it the way I tell you. Paul is saying the same thing. That's why he's using this. Paul is saying you cannot try to worship the things of God as a believer and also try to worship the things of this world that a nonbeliever thinks. If a nonbeliever says moral code is found in ourselves or in the culture, in Scripture and worshiping, God says no, it's found in God. You can't try to combine those things and come up with a sense of moral code. It's like yoking an ox and a donkey together and expecting a straight line.
This was in the context for Paul and his audience with Temple Worship. What these people were doing in the city of Corinth is they were saying that they were believers, and they were going to the Temple of God to worship, but then they were also choosing to worship in the temples of pagans, of false idols. And one of the primary reasons for doing that is, again, in that society, your relationships mattered. And so, they saw the benefit, they saw reason, financial gain, social acceptance, you know, not trying to cause ripples by choosing to worship and blow both. And Paul is saying, if you do that, no matter how hard you try, you are going to be influenced by all of these false idols as to what your true sense of morale should be, where life is found. You can't do that. Don't try to combine them.
He then goes into verses 14 through 17, and in this, he says, “For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial?” Which is a word for Satan. “Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: ‘I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.’ Therefore, come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.’”
What Paul does here is he asks five rhetorical questions. He does not demand an answer. The answer should be clear. He says it five different ways. What do these things have in common with each other? Righteousness and wickedness, light and darkness, Christ and Satan, believers and nonbelievers, and the Temple of God and the Temple of Idols. What do they have in common? And Paul from the text is screaming to all of us, nothing, absolutely nothing. They have nothing in common. You can't say that you're going to try to worship God and also worship this other stuff. And if you try to compare them, there's nothing to compare. One leads to life the way that life should be found, the way that life is best, and one leaves to pure chaos, destruction, and ultimately death. Trying to combine these two things is like trying to combine light and darkness.
Finally, he says in verse 17, he talks about another “c” word “commit.” Here's what he says starting in verse 17. “Therefore, ‘Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord.
Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.’” The imagery here that Paul is using is this idea of commit. Again, what he is saying with combine and compare is you cannot if you call yourself a believer, you cannot commit to worshiping God and worshiping anything else. And this text, 2 Corinthians 6-14, is often used and applied to marriage, especially in pre-marital counseling. But this idea that you shouldn't yoke a non-believing spouse with a believing spouse, there is a lot of truth to that.
But that's not the primary and only way in which this text is used in Paul's context in his case. But I will use marriage as an example to make Paul's point. Back in 2009, I got married to my wife, Lyndsay, and when we were on stage in front of those that we love and in the presence of God, we made a commitment to each other. Part of my commitment to Lyndsay was that I would separate myself from every other woman for the rest of my life, and I would commit to her. No longer would I look to try to date other women, because if I did, then my commitment to her would not be genuine. And if I didn't separate myself, I would not experience what marriage was meant and created for by God to know what it's like to be in a true relationship and experience. The love that can only come from committing to someone. That's what Paul is saying here. You need to separate yourself completely from what nonbelievers worship if you are going to worship God.
I literally have in my notes here with multiple stars, a disclaimer, make sure to say it. So I'm going to say it. Notice here that nowhere does Paul say, and if you open up Scripture, nowhere in Scripture does it say from God anywhere that we must completely separate ourselves from nonbelievers. What I mean by this is in order for us to completely separate us from nonbelievers, if you call yourself a believer, or a Christian, it is physically impossible for you to separate yourself unless you somehow remove yourself from the world. And I don't think that that's really possible. What also makes this impossible to completely separate is you have to take into account the great commission that Jesus gives in Matthew 28 to go and share the good news of the gospel with nonbelievers.
Well, how the heck are we supposed to do that if we are to completely separate ourselves? How are these people supposed to find out the truth about Jesus and the good news of the Gospel if we're never interacting with nonbelievers? Neither God, Jesus, or Paul himself demonstrates in any of their ministry, word, or actions, that this is the approach that if you call yourself a believer that we should take. And that's not what Paul is saying here with compare, combine, and commit. Paul is making the exclusive point that separation means if you call yourself a believer, you cannot choose to worship the things that nonbelievers worship. You must separate yourself and worship God.
It is okay, it is good, and it is needed to be friends with nonbelievers, to do business with nonbelievers, and to associate and establish relationships with nonbelievers because that gives the opportunity to share the gospel and change lives. Paul is strictly warning against making sure that we don't worship what nonbelievers worship. Finally, in verses 18 through 7:1, Paul switches and says, I told you, don't hold your magnifying glass up to those things because it ultimately leads to death.
And now Paul tells us where we should hold our magnifying glass. He says, starting in verse 18, “’I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.’” He's quoting scripture. And then he says, therefore, and that's a very important word in Scripture. Any time you see it, therefore, because God says, I will be your father. “Therefore, since we have these promises.” And there's the keyword promises. “...dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.” Paul says you want to know where to hold your magnifying glass? Hold it up to God's word and see God's promises, see and know God's promises. These are the clues that lead to true morality. We must hold our magnifying glass up to God's promises found in His Word. If we are to truly know who and what is the Creator when we look to see, when we look to know, and when we look to understand, we begin to fall in love and worship God's promises. And then by doing so, we now also see everything else in this life, in this world, with a new set of glasses, a gospel lens.
C.S. Lewis, again, I quoted him earlier. He, this time says, “I believe in Christianity. I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” The promises of God become the new set of glasses that we see everything else in our lives. And when we have these gospel glasses on, we have a deep reverence and respect for God. We see who we truly are when we worship and give permission to God. This will begin to influence our sense of morality, our moral code, and God's promises can be described in three things. That we were created to be God's people, that we were created to know God, and live with God. In other words, God's land, and that we were created to be under God's rule and in doing so receive His blessing.
If you open up Scripture and look at the Gospels, you see that Jesus Christ is the ultimate fulfillment of all of God's gracious promises. All the work that God has done throughout history, all this gracious work of redemption, that what He created in the beginning was for our good to know him, to be in relationship with him, and worship him. And we said God, thanks, but no thanks, and fractured and broke the world, broke this relationship. Throughout history, if you open up the Bible and look at it, you see text for text, word for word, and chapter for chapter how God has been working throughout history. Holding up His end of the bargain, His promises to restore you and me to the way that we were created, to know God, to be in a relationship with God, and to look to Him and worship Him and in doing so have life to the fullest.
All of God's promises come to this pinnacle climax in the name of Jesus because when we look at Jesus, we see the Gospel that Jesus came to do, what we could never do for ourselves, pay the price of our sin by living a perfect life, and sacrificing himself, dying on a cross so that our sin, our debt, could be forgiven. And three days later, when the rest of the world was looking at, well, I thought Jesus was the Savior, and he was going to redeem us but He's dead in the grave, three days later, Jesus. Boom. I'm back and I have conquered death. My resurrection proves that the payment has been made in full. You are forgiven, redeemed, and restored to worship God in relationship with Him by believing in me and what I have done for you. Because this is how God created and made it so.
You see, when we look at the Scriptures, this is what John Edwards said, almost 300 years ago. “It should make one fall to their knees the reality of the completeness of the purchase which had been made by Jesus, therefore, are your sins many and great. Here is enough done by Christ to procure their pardon. There is no need of any righteousness of yours to obtain your pardon and justification. Come and know. You may know freely, without money and without price, since therefore there is such a free and gracious invitation given to you by Jesus. Come, come naked as you are. Come as a poor, condemned criminal. Come and cast yourself down at Christ's feet as one justly condemned and utterly helpless person, knowing that for Christ to reject one that comes to Him would be to frustrate all those great things which God brought to pass from the fall of man to the incarnation of Christ Himself. Therefore, you may be sure Christ will not be backward in saving those who come to Him and trust in Him, for he has no desire to frustrate himself or his own works. And neither will God the Father refuse you, for he has no desire to frustrate himself and all that he did for so many hundreds and thousands of years to prepare the way for the salvation of sinners like you and me in the name of Jesus.” These are words that Jonathan Edwards said almost 300 years ago, and they hold true today.
As we reflect on God's text for today, the mystery of morality will remain unsolved if we continue to hold a magnifying glass up to anything other than God's Word. It’s only when we learn to look up and hold our magnifying glass to God's Word that we will know deep down in our hearts, what we already know, that God is the who and His Word is the what to the Creator of our moral code. He is our true moral purity and life with Jesus gives us a new focus.
Hebrews 12 one through two says. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” And so, as we close, my question for all of us is this, what direction is your magnifying glass currently pointed? And who and what is it focused on? What direction is your magnifying glass pointed at today and who and what is it focused on? One leads to life, and the other leads to death.
Let's pray. Father, thank you for your Word. Again. thank you for your Son. Thank you that you call us, that you draw us, and that you pursue us. Lord, I pray and lift up each of our hearts here today that we would come to know you, that our eyes would be fixed on you and all the things that we seek we can trust and know that it’s found in you. It’s in your name we pray. Amen. Have a great morning, everybody.
