Immanuel Sermon Audio
Knowing God's Will (1 Peter 2:13-17)
and find the book of 1 Peter, way in the back. 1 Peter chapter 2. There is an outline, if you want to follow along on the outline. Our series is called "Knowing God's Will." In over four weeks, we're just looking at some scripture passages that very clearly spell out for us and tell us. And no one's certain terms, this is God's will for your life. And so this is week three of four, just remind you that in week one, we talked about the idea that God's will for your life involves sanctification. Whatever else is included in that, God desires for you to become more and more holy, to become more and more Christlike. That is always His will for your life. Last week, Ron shared with us and Ron looked at a passage in Thessalonians and Ron told us, look, "God's will is that you are joyful always, that you pray without ceasing, and that you give thanks in all circumstances." Both of those ideas, the first two weeks, really focus on our relationship with God. What is God's will in your relationship with Him? Well, that you be sanctified, you become more holy, more Christlike, you rejoice always, you pray without ceasing, you give thanks in all circumstances. But you know as well as I do that in everyday life, we have to interact with people other than God. You have to interact with real people, the folks sitting next to you on the pew, the folks who you work with at the office, the folks that you go to school with, and so an important aspect of understanding what is God's will for your life is not only in our relationship with Him vertically, but also in our relationship with other people horizontally. And that's where Peter comes in in first Peter chapter two. He gives us one general principle and then several important applications of that principle. And so let me just start with the principle, the overarching idea. This would be the big idea of our passage this week. God's will for your life involves doing good. Now, I hope that doesn't sound too elementary for you. I hope you don't think, well, this sounds like a lesson that we ought to have done in the nursery end in the preschool land. God wants you to do good. But that's what Peter says. And I think that as we talk about it this morning, you and I, I hope, leave understanding. It's not quite as simple as we might like to think it is, especially when Peter starts applying it to different situations in our life. So look with me. We're going to read our passage. First Peter chapter two, beginning in verse 13, and then we'll pray and then we'll jump in. First Peter two, 13. Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free. Not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. This is the word of God, let's pray. Father, this is not a long passage and this is not really a complicated passage, but it's one that is challenging and convicting to apply to our lives. And so while we come to you and we ask for wisdom and insight to understand these words, we also come asking that you would make us humble, that we would hear what your word has to say. We would be willing to admit where we need to change, where we need to repent. Father, in that your spirit would be active in our hearts and active in our church this morning as we submit to the authority of your word. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Right in the middle of the passage is pretty clear. Verse 15, this is the will of God that you would do good. That's the overarching premise. God wants you to do good. And we're going to talk about how Peter applies this and that can be a convicting part of the passage. But first I want to give you two clarifications. Maybe you could say two caveats and I just want to make sure that when we hear Peter say to us, God's will is that you do good. We really hear what he means for us to hear and we don't filter that through our sort of American, Christianity, cultural Christianity and maybe hear something that Peter never intended for us to hear. So two qualifications. Here's the first one. Doing good is more than mere moralism. Peter's not talking about moralism. And as a quick follow-up to that idea, I want you to understand that moralism is different than morality. Those two things are not exactly the same as we're going to talk about them this morning. Doing good is more than mere moralism and moralism is different than morality. When I use the word moralism, what I'm talking about is the idea that I am going to be a good person moral and you attach an ism onto the end of it, meaning you make it sort of your overarching worldview and you end up saying I'm going to be good enough to work my way into heaven. I'm going to do enough good things for God, maybe to outweigh the bad, maybe to cover up the bad, maybe to make up for the bad, but I'm going to do something good so that God will then in turn accept me. I hope you understand that churches in the Bible Belt of the United States of America are filled with people who are followers of moralism. They really believe when you get down to it that the things that they are doing are earning or paying their way with God. You contrast that with morality. Morality we could just sort of define as a system of ethics and it's got some sort of foundation. I hope that if you're a follower of Jesus, you say the scriptures, the Bible, the Old and the New Testaments is the foundation for my system of morality, how I decide what is right and wrong in the situations that I face on a daily basis, but that's morality, ethics, figuring out what is the right thing in the wrong thing. All of us have to do that on some level you understand and all of us base our morality on something. I hope yours is based on scripture, but it's a whole nother step to then fall into the danger of moralism where you say I'm earning my way with God. I'm working for my relationship with God. You realize all of the major religions on planet earth, other than Christianity, fall under the category of moralism. At the end of the day, there are all subcategories of this. For example, Islam, Islam has five pillars and the basic idea is really simple. You do these five things and in the end, you'll be good. Islam has an understanding of sin and right and wrong and God being the judge, they get all that, but the idea is here are the five things that you need to do and if you do these things, you're good to go. Another example, Buddhism, they don't have five pillars but they have the eightfold noble path and a good Buddha says, look, your purpose in life is to follow this path and if you follow this path, then the end game for you will be what you want it to be and the end game in Buddhism is not what we think of as the end game when you think about heaven. Their idea is just sort of being snuffed out of existence and that's the goal, that's what they want to happen, just to cease to be. But that's only going to happen if you follow this eightfold noble path. It's moralism. Here's some good things that you need to do and as you look at that list, you can look it up and read about it. I don't know that there's really anything that we would say is wicked on that list. It's just do some good things and in the end, it's going to come out in your favor. Can I tell you a great tragedy? A lot of churchgoing people try to turn Christianity into a subcategory of moralism with the Ten Commandments or maybe with the greatest commandment from Jesus and they say, look, if you just keep the Ten Commandments, if you just love your neighbor as yourself, just try to do these things, be kind to other people. Jesus said that we should be kind to other people. Then in the end, we're followers of Jesus and it's going to work out in your favor. I just want to make sure, although some of you may get this, I just want to make sure that all of us understand that when Peter says in verse 10, this is the will of God that by doing good, he's not talking about moralism. He's not asking you to pay your way or earn your way with Jesus. That's not the gospel message. Here's the gospel message. It's really simple. It begins with God. And the Bible says that the one true living God is holy, holy, holy. And that's a problem for me and you because we're not holy. We're sinners. We've fallen short. And sin has a number of terrible consequences in our life. One consequence of sin is that it separates us from God. Isaiah 59, too. Your sins have separated you from God. Another consequence of sin is death. The wages of your sin, the consequence, the result, the payment is death. So we're separated from God. We have this sentence of death hanging over our heads. There's this idea that we have a debt that we can never repay. And the good news of the Bible is not that you need to follow the 8-fold noble path or the 5 pillars of Islam or the 10 commandments of Moses. The message of Christianity is that God sent Jesus to do for you, which you would never be able to do for yourself. He paid the debt that you ran up with God. He took the punishment that should have fallen on you because of your sin. Peter describes it right here in 1 Peter. Look at 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 18. He says, "You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spot." Look over in chapter 2, 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 24. He's talking about Jesus. It says, "He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed, not by the 8-fold noble path, not by the 5 pillars, not by the 10 commandments, by the wounds of Jesus you've been healed. You were straying like sheep, but now you've returned to the shepherd in the overseer of your souls." You understand this morning just to be very clear that what God wants from you is not better morality or you to fall under the bullet point of moralism, but for you to say, "God, I've made a mess of it. I can't fix it, but I believe that you have done, through Jesus Christ, everything that needed to be done for me to be brought back into a genuine relationship with you." The Bible describes that process in two very simple words, repentance and faith. You turn from your sin, you change your mind about your sin, and you put your trust in your hope in Jesus Christ. If you've never done that in your life, you've never repented of your sin and trusted in Jesus. Can I just explain to you? The last thing that you need to be worrying about is what is God's will for my life. The first thing you need to be worrying about is, "Do I have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and you need to repent, and you need to believe?" And once you've truly done that, you need to step back and you need to say, "Now what does God want from me? When I roll out of bed in the morning, what does He expect of me?" Well, number one, He wants you to grow in holiness. Christ's likeness, He wants you to be sanctified. Number two, He wants you to rejoice always, to pray without ceasing and to give thanks in all circumstances. That is His will for you. In this morning, He wants you to do good. Understand that that doesn't mean He wants you to earn your way or try to pay your way with Him. So that's first qualification, second qualification. Doing good is more than negative morality. Doing good is more than negative morality. Negative morality is the idea that we define right and wrong only in terms of the things that God says not to do. The negative commands, the thou shall nots. And there's a lot of them in the Bible that shall not murder, that shall not commit adultery, that shall not steal, that shall not lie, that shall not covet, on and on and on they go. And there's a great temptation for believers to say, "I'm going to define what's right and wrong only in the things that I'm not supposed to do." There are some things you're not supposed to do, but there's also a lot of things you're supposed to do in the Bible. A lot of positive commandments, a lot of thou shall passages. And the temptation for us as Christians sometimes is to step back and to only be against these things and not really to be for much of anything. You understand this is tricky in the year 2016. It's really tricky because on a daily basis, unless you live in a cave, you get bombarded with things that you should be against. They come across the TV screen, they pop up on your cell phone, they come across your email, they sit face to face across from you at work or at school, you can't avoid it. And you know what? As a follower of Jesus Christ, there should be certain things that you're bold enough and courageous enough to say, "I'm against this. I'm not for that. I don't believe that it's right." And you got to have some moral gumption to be able to do that. Here's a problem. I think in 2016, at least in the United States of America, Christians are known more for what we're against than what we're for. And maybe you could say, "That's just the environment we live in and there's no way around that." Maybe, perhaps, when you're living in an increasingly secular society, you get defined more and more and more every day by the things that you're against. I understand that. But when I think about myself and I think about my family and I think about us, a manual Baptist church, and I think about the witness that we bear in Odessa and in Texas and around the world. While I do hope that we're bold enough and courageous enough to be against some things, I also hope that we're proactive enough so that people know we're also for some things. And so I'll put a few scriptures in your outline. I hope that the world knows a manual Baptist church is for taking care of widows and orphans. That's not being against anything. That's just saying, "This is something we want to be for." Matthew 5. I hope the world knows that a manual Baptist church is for praying for our enemies. That's a tough one. We're not just a bunch of vengeful, spiteful, angry followers of Jesus, but we really do pray for those who persecute us. Micah 6.8. I hope that people know a manual Baptist church is for doing justice and loving kindness and walking humbly with God. Those are things we should be for. Nothing negative in that. Leviticus 19.18. You may have thought Jesus made this up, but I hope that like Leviticus 19.18 says, "We love our neighbor as ourself." That's not something new with Jesus. That's all the way back to the beginning. There's nothing you're supposed to be against. It's just something you're supposed to do positively. Matthew 28. I hope that people know that the world knows a manual Baptist church is for finishing the mission of making disciples of all the nations. Listen, in a sesecular society, are you going to have to be against some things? Yes. Is it going to take guts? Yes. Is it going to cost you? At some point in time, probably so. But we don't want to only be defined by this negative morality where we're only against these things. We also want to show the world the things that we're for, so we can't reduce it to some sort of negative morality. I want to put a picture up on the screen, put up the picture of that first face. Anybody know who that is? The man's name is Phil Visher. Put the next guys up. You know who those guys are? Bob and Larry. Bob the tomato and Larry the cucumber. So Phil Visher is the guy who created the guys next to him on the screen. He came up with veggie tails. And he's the original voice of, I think it's Bob. He looks more like a Larry, but I think he's the original voice of Bob. And so he comes up with this little cartoon. If you don't know what it is, it's a, I guess you would call it sort of a Christian cartoon and there's talking vegetables and they do different things and sometimes they act out Bible stories, sometimes they act out other stories. But each sort of video is designed to teach this moral, that's the word we've been talking about, morality, negative morality, moralism. Each video teaches some sort of moral lesson. And so he runs veggie tails for about 10 years in the early 90s to the early 2000s. And then I don't know the exact story here, but he went bankrupt and he had to sell it. And a few years went by, I think he sold it in about 2003. A few years go by and he sort of had time to look back and reflect on this thing that he's made and it continued after he sold it, they continue to make more of these movies. And he gave an interview in a magazine called World Magazine and they just asked him some questions about veggie tails. And I think that his response is really, really interesting. Here's what Phil Visher said. I looked back at the previous 10 years and I realized I spent 10 years trying to convince kids to behave Christianly without actually teaching them Christianity. That was a pretty serious conviction. You can say, hey kids, be more forgiving because the Bible says so or hey kids, be more kind because the Bible says so. But that isn't Christianity, that's morality. That's right or wrong. And it's very close to, I would say, to moralism, if not put in check. He says, we're drinking a cocktail that's a mix of the Protestant work ethic, the American dream and the gospel and we've intertwined them so completely, we can't tell them apart anymore. Our gospel has become a gospel of following your dreams and being good. There it is, be good so that God will make all your dreams come true. According to Phil, he says it's the Oprah God, so he had to peel that apart. Obviously, when he wrote that, veggie tails is no longer under his control. They're still making new movies and whether he likes the way they're making them or not, he doesn't have any say in it. He looks back on it, the creator of it and says, I wish I had done it differently. Now, some of you are squirming because you say, I got veggie tails at home. Are we going to have a DVD burning up here at the church? We'll bring them all to the front and light them on fire. Well, I'll just tell you, I've got them at my house and I'm not bringing them to be burned, okay? We're going to keep them and we're going to watch them from time to time. But I just want you to understand that when you watch something like veggie tails, the message of veggie tails to your kids or to you and they're listening and you're listening is be good. Be a good person and I just want to make make really certain that when we look at this verse in 1 Peter 2 verse 15, this is the will of God that you do good, that we don't dip our toe into only morality or even worse into moralism. Yes, we want to be people who do good, but we don't just want to be known for the things that we're against and we certainly don't want to be people who trust in our own goodness to be enough to earn our way with God. Are we all on the same page? Teaching kids, youth, adults, senior adults to behave Christianly is not Christianity. You got to let that sink in. You really, really got to get it and some of you may have been sitting in church for decades, listening to preaching, listening to the gospel and it's just never hit you quite right. Teaching people to behave Christianly is not Christianity. Christianity is the message that the Holy God did for sinful people what we could never do for ourselves through Jesus Christ and He calls us to repent of our sin and to believe. Then we step back, only then do we step back and say, "God, what is your will?" And only then does He say, "I want you to do good." And if you're in the position today where you say, "I've never had that moment where I turn for my sin and trusted in Jesus," don't leave hearing me say, "God just wants you to be a good person." That's not what I'm saying to you. If you do know Jesus Christ, you have repented of your sin, you have trusted in Him for salvation, then yes, I'm saying God's will for your life involves you, doing good. Now let's see how Peter replies it. This is where it gets dicey. Number one, doing good includes our relationship with government. Doing good involves our relationship with government. This is in verse 13 and verse 14 and then even down in verse 17. We're going to look at it in just a minute. Secondly, I want you to see doing good involves includes our relationship with other people. We're going to talk about that. That's in verse 17. And then thirdly, doing good is impossible without a genuine relationship with God and that comes up in verse 17 again. And so let's look at this application starting with this idea that doing good includes our relationship with government. Look at verse 13 and 14, "Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution." Human institution referring to government officials and Peter says, "Be subject to them not just to be a good person but for God's sake, for the Lord's sake. As part of your relationship with God, you're subject to these institutions. Whether it be to the emperor or supreme or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil, to praise those who do good." Meaning whether it's the head honcho or one of the head honcho's guys, you are subject to these institutions. Verse 17, he says, "The very end of the passage, honor the emperor." You understand, if you are going to leave this place doing what God wants you to do, walking in his will, part of that is being subject to the governing authorities over you. When I read that, there's a couple of questions that pop into my mind and I bet they pop into your mind also. The first question that pops into my mind is, "Okay, be subject to the governing institutions to the authorities over you." Question one, Peter, what if they're not respectable? Now I know that's hypothetical, right? Hypothetically speaking, what if you look at those institutions and you say, "You don't deserve my respect. You haven't earned my respect. You're not worthy of my respect. What do I do then?" And you know what my answer is based on what Peter says here? It doesn't matter if they're worthy of it or not. Think about what Peter says, "Honor the emperor." Can you name very many Roman emperors in the first century who loved Jesus? Can you name many Roman emperors or Roman governors in the first century who ruled according to biblical principles? You find one in history, you let me know. There weren't any. There were scoundrels. The wickedness and the immorality and the corruption makes our government look like day school, preschool, nursery school. I mean, it's ridiculous. And those are the people that Peter is talking about when he says, "Honor the emperor." Wait a minute. You mean the one who persecutes Christians? Yes, that one. You mean the one who doesn't give Christians their natural-born rights? That emperor? That's the one I'm talking about. You mean the governor who does wicked things and immoral things and everybody knows about it? Yeah, I know about it. That's the one you show respect to, difference to. That's the one that you're subject to. The next question that pops up in my mind is, "That's ridiculous. Why would we do something like that?" And Peter's answer, you don't have to like it, but here's his answer in verse 15, is that when you do good, you silence the ignorance of foolish people. Did you know that in the first century, when Christianity was new on the stage, that it got made fun of a lot? By Jews and non-Jews. They laughed at Christians. They called them atheists because they didn't believe in this pantheon of gods and goddesses. I believed in only one god, so they called them atheists at times and they mocked them and they laughed at them. They tried to slander them by saying things like, "They have this feast where they get together and they're cannibals." Taking the body and the blood of Christ. They're cannibals. Those things aren't true. It's slander. It's lies. We know that. But Peter's living in that environment where people are slandering the church. They're saying things about the church that aren't entirely true or true at all. And he says, "Look, when you just over time consistently do good and you're subject to the people over you in authority, you're going to silence those foolish people. You and I live in a day and age where more and more as every week goes by, every month goes by, every new legislative session goes by, there's more and more things being directed our way that we stand up and say, "Wait, that's not fair. That's not true. That's not right." And Peter is saying to us, "Just do good and be subject to those over you and be respectful to those over you, even when they don't deserve it." My last question when I listen to what Peter has to say here is, "To what extent do I have to do that? When do I get to call it quits? When have I crossed the line?" In the biblical answer, when you look at the book of Acts or the things that Jesus had to say in the Gospels is pretty clear, you subject yourselves to the governing authorities until they tell you to cross the line in disobedience to God. That's the line. It's not what you would like to happen or would not like to happen or this right or that right. It's when they command you, instruct you, demand that you now disobey God actively. That's when you step back and say, "I'm no longer subject to what you have to say." But the funny thing is when the apostles did that in the New Testament, they didn't do it as an act of open rebellion. They stood before those authorities and they said, "Look, we have to obey God rather than man. I understand that you're in authority and you have to do what you have to do and I respect that." But you need to understand that up to the point where you tell me to disobey God, "I'm going to track along," but when you tell me to step over that line of disobedience at that point, I can no longer be subject to you. So this is a tricky thing to think about. What does it mean in our relationship with government to do good? Secondly, including our relationship with other people, here's just a big umbrella category in verse 17, honor everyone. Do good in your relationship with everyone. So that includes your mom and your dad and your kids and your grandparents, et cetera, et cetera. That includes your boss and your coworkers and your employees and your schoolmates and all of those folks. Everyone also would include the guy on 42nd Street who cuts you off and gives you a friendly wave. He's in here. He's part of everyone. And the waitress at the restaurant this afternoon who's more concerned about talking with the other servers than bringing you a refill of iced tea. She's everyone. Do good. That's God's will for your life. The people who don't want the best for you. The people who say ugly things about you. The people that do hurtful things to you. They're everyone. Honor everyone, Peter says. And then he, he goes even further and he says, "Love the brotherhood." And he's talking there about your church family. You should love the people at your church. Now, I understand that in a church of our size, you can't have genuine loving relationships with every single person, but you should have those relationships with people here. And I'm not just talking about negative morality. So when I say to you, love the brotherhood. Love your fellow church members. Don't kick back and say, "Well, I haven't keyed any cars in the parking lot." And the person behind me, I mean, they sing off key all the time. They come in at the wrong time, they sing the wrong words. I've never turned around and slapped them. I've wanted to, but I've done good and I've restrained myself and I've never lashed out at them. Okay, there's negative morality. Don't start keying cars and don't slap the person behind you when they sing off key. But what about the thou shouts? Not only the thou shall nots. When Peter says, love the brotherhood, he's assuming a couple of things. He's assuming number one that you're actually part of the brotherhood, a church family. He's assuming number two that in your relationships with the people who go to your church, they're deep enough and they're real enough that on some level you can genuinely say, "I love this person." Not just, "I've never done evil things to them," but actively, "Here's how I've shown love to them." And thirdly, there's no caveat, no asterisk, no exception for the people here in this room. Again, this is probably hypothetical, who get on your nerves. When you look around and you say, "Well, that's easy for me to love this person. It's my best friend. We grew up together. We've gone to school together. We spent our whole life together." That guy over there drives me crazy. I can't stand that guy. He's part of the brotherhood. And Peter says, "God's will for your life is to show love to that person." So we're doing good in our relationship with government, in our relationship with other people. And then lastly, this is a big one. This brings us back to sort of where we started. Understand it's impossible to do good without a genuine relationship with God. And that's why in all these horizontal relationships, the emperor, the governors, the brotherhood, everyone, he throws in, right here at the end of verse 17, this statement, "Fear God." Fear God. He's talking about all these human relationships, and then right in the middle of it, he throws it up. Fear God. You understand, if your relationship with God through Jesus Christ is not what it's supposed to be, you can't do good. It can't happen. Fear God. Fear God. I hope you understand how this idea of fearing God applies to your decision making. You're thinking about, "Okay, God's will for my life is that I do good," and all these relationships, and government, and church, and everyone, all these things. Fear God. A lot of the times when you and I start to think about God's will for our life, we make a big mistake, and we come to God, and we treat Him like a palm reader. You say, "I've never done that in my life. I bet you have." You come to God with this big decision, this big issue, and you don't know exactly what to do. So you come to Him and you say, "God, I need you to tell me what to do. I need to know what's right and what's wrong." And it's not necessarily a moral issue of any kind. It's just a big decision, and it's weighing on you, and you're saying to Him, "I want to make the right decision," and that's good, but you're really saying to Him, "Can you just tell me exactly what I'm supposed to do and what the future holds or doesn't hold so that I can make the right decision in the present?" And really what you're trying to do is put God at your disposal. God, I have a decision to make, and what I need is for you to tell me the right thing so that it works out the best for me. And I'm just telling you that when you read through the men and the women whose lives are described in the Scriptures, that's just usually not how God operates. Does He give direction sometimes? Yes. But a lot of the times He doesn't just spell it out step by step by step predicting your future and telling you what to do every step along the way. If He did that, what's the point of faith? What's the point of trust? He says to people like Abraham, "Just go, and I'll tell you when you get there." Well, do I go right or left? Just go. Well, do I go north or south? Go. When you get there, I'll tell you. He says to the church facing persecution in the early chapters of Acts, and they say to Him, "What are we supposed to do? They're taking away our rights. They're throwing us in prison, and the church comes to Him, and they don't ask God to spell out the future. They say, "We know that You've told us to be bold, so help us to be bold." They don't ask Him to change anything. They don't ask Him to change their leaders. They just say, "Help us to do the one thing that You've commanded us to do." And you stand here today and you say, "Well, I have some really big decisions to make. Make them, make them, and use these principles as a guideline for making them." You notice what Peter says here, verse 16, "Live as people who are free." You're free. Don't worry about, "Am I going to make a decision that's going to derail God's entire cosmic plan?" The answer to that is no. You won't. Here's what you worry about as you make decisions. If I make this decision one way or the other, can I become more like Jesus either way or only one way? Because that is God's will for you to be sanctified, to grow in holiness. You say, "Am I rejoicing always? Am I praying without ceasing? Am I giving thanks in all circumstances?" Yes or no, because that is, Paul says to the Thessalonians, "This is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances." And now Peter chimes in and he says, "Look, do good. Do right." Not as an attempt to earn your way with God. Not as some crazy person who's just negative and against all of these things, but do good. And Peter says, "When you do that, understand that you're free." Don't worry about these little decisions. These are the things that God is concerned about in your life. And when you do these things, you're free to make the decisions in your life as you see fit. Live as people who are free and do good. Let me pray for you. Father, we look at this passage and we see things that are convicting to us. Father, forgive us when we turn morality into moralism and we try to earn our way with you. Father, the blood of Jesus has been spilled like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. The Son of Man bore our sins and His body on the tree and we're free. Free from guilt, free from death, free from condemnation, free from worrying about the small details of our life that at times we think are just mountainous decisions that might derail your plan for us. And Father, help us to remember that your will for us in any situation is to become more like Christ, to rejoice always, to pray without ceasing, to give thanks in all circumstances and to do good. Convict us when our horizontal relationships are not what you would have them to be. Father, help us by our doing good to silence our critics. And Father, help us to trust you and to live as free people. Father, I pray for those in the room who maybe have never repented of their sin and trusted in Jesus. I pray for those maybe who have gone to church all of their life and they've been taught to behave Christianly, but they've never truly embraced Christianity. And I pray that today the light bulb would go off and they would see the difference and they would run to Jesus. Father, as we sing, as we lift our voices together, we pray that you would be honored and glorified and we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.