All right, we’re going to be studying through the word of God again today, going back to First Corinthians. So we’ll pray and then we’ll get started. Father, we come to you, we give you glory and honor and praise because you’re worthy of our attention. You’re worthy of our effort to pursue you and to seek you. Uh you you delight when your children pursue a relationship with you because you’re always pursuing us. You’re always working in our hearts and in our lives, pursuing us, but we rarely pursue you. So I know that you are worthy of us to seek you today. You’re worthy for us to lay down our lives and all the things that are on our mind and our health concerns and our financial concerns and all the problems of our life. You are worthy for us to set them all aside and say we love you and we need you, but we love you first. We are called to a relationship with you first, where we know you as our Father, we honor you as our God. And then, Lord, we do ask that you would come into our lives, that you would you would um help us to see your hand of strength come into our lives, that you would deliver us from the things that we’re struggling with, that you would um answer our prayers. Lord, we some of us have children that are lost. And that’s that’s painful. Some of us have children that we we have broken relationships or parents that we have broken relationships with, and those things hurt. And we need you in those places. Some of us have sicknesses that are not gonna get better, and we need you to meet us there and to give us comfort and to help us. Father, we need you and we cry out to you. And Lord, we want to be ready to serve you. We want to be ready to honor you and to live our lives and pour our lives out to you today. So, with all these things, Lord, we just we we lay our hearts open, our lives before you. And Jesus, we ask you would speak to us through your word. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. Amen. So the series we’re going through is called Grace Glasses today. We’re gonna be the title of today’s sermon is Seeing the Church Through Grace Glasses. Okay, so seeing the church through grace glasses. We have been learning through about our identity as we’ve been going through the beginning of chapter three and all of chapter one and two. And the new covenant of grace that we’ve been that that Paul has been teaching us shows us that we are completely new, completely alive, and Jesus lives in us and through us. That’s what the new covenant is telling us. And that’s all great, but the problem is that we also have to live with each other. And this is the great plan of God to have a bunch of crazy people, difficult people, get together and learn about their new identity and practice living out their new identity with each other. And that’s what we call church. It is not a building, as we harp on obviously every week. It is a group of people that learn about their identity together and then practice living their identity out together. So the church is maybe your family with you and your kids. That’s the smallest expression of church, and then it’s friends getting together, and then it’s an entire community like us here, all practice learning about their identity and practicing. That is what church is. Now, many people have church hurt. I’m not gonna have you raise hands because we would just all raise our hands. I totally get it. We have all been there. Because if the church doesn’t grasp their new righteous and holy identity, we’re gonna act like the world, which means we’re gonna be selfish and self-centered. Have you ever been connected with a Christian who was selfish or self-centered? It’s like, how can that be? We call them hypocrites and we talk bad about them and we have been them ourselves. That’s not the true identity of the church. That’s with our old flesh habits that are coming out, but our that’s not our life anymore. And that’s what causes the hurt and the pain that we’ve experienced in church. It’s not the design of church. Church itself is not a flawed design. It’s the people inside when they choose to live by the flesh. That’s the old life that we’ve been delivered from. This self-centered, selfish life. The new life we have in Jesus is love giving, not selfish. Those are the complete opposite spectrums, okay? You have the satanic identity that we had before we were saved, which was it’s all about me and what can I get. And I need comfort, I need validation, I need, I need, I need, I need, I need what I want, what I need, I need what I want. It’s all about me. And then you get born again, and your heart, your your mind still works that way, but your heart, your spirit is now, I just want to pour out love because that’s what’s in my spirit. You have the Holy Spirit inside of you, and the Holy Spirit is always giving love, giving, giving, giving love. So the new life in Jesus is always giving love. We are free from the law. As Christians, we are not under the Ten Commandments anymore. It’s very clear in the Bible. We are not under any rules anymore. And you’re like, oh, this is one of those type of churches. Okay? It’s very true. Okay, theologically, we are not under the law anymore. And churches are scared to say that. You know why? Because they think people will sin more when you tell them that they are forgiven of all their sins. But they’re horribly wrong. Because when you tell people God has loved you so much he has set you free, it does not motivate people to sin more. When you tell people they’re still under the law and they have to do all these things, that actually motivates us to sin. It causes, it invites us to a life of sin. That’s what Paul says in Romans. But for us, we have been invited into a free relationship of love with God, where he has forgiven us of all our sins. This is our new identity that we’ve been learning about. And he says, I love you, and I have done a sneaky little thing where I put my heart inside you. So now you don’t even want to sin. So I can remove all the laws and all the rules from your life and say, Hey, you’re free. You’re truly free. Only I have a secret. I put my spirit inside you, so now you only want to do what is holy and righteous. Isn’t he sneaky? So God puts his love in our hearts and he says to us, just go do the most loving thing in any single moment, and that’s how you should live your life. When Paul’s writing the New Testament, he says, basically, you’re free from all rules. You just need to ask yourself, what is the most loving thing I can do at this moment? And that’s what the new law is that Jesus writes on our hearts. What is the most loving thing I can do right now? It’s God’s will for me. Do the loving thing. That’s God’s will for you. What do I actually do? What does that look like? Love God and love others. Is it that complicated? Spend your life currency on love. Invest your life in love. This is the great plan of God for your life and for the church. For every person who is part of his family, which we call the church. Again, this is not the building or denomination, this is the people of God. So the church is a place where we learn our new identity, all this stuff that we just talked about, and we practice it. But the church is not school, even though we’re all sitting at a lecture right now. It’s an organism, it’s a body, it’s his body. The church is not something that we make fun of, that we degrade, that we hold a grudge against. They are my body. So if you want to give Jesus a hug, my buddy Frank here would like to talk to you. That doesn’t mean that we’re not going to experience hurt, frustration, and all the other stuff. But the way to move forward through all those things is always love. Always. The church should be the most loving place in the world. Because that’s who we really are. That’s what we’re truly filled with is perfect love, the love of God. And who seems to hurt us most in the church? The leaders. The leaders usually are the people who hurt us the most. So Paul starts here with the leaders to help us understand the way the church is supposed to operate by grace and how we’re supposed to see it. So the first section we’re going to look at is the leaders of the church. Part one here. The leaders of the church, which is, they’re all on the same team. Okay. First, verse 5, 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 5. Who then is Paul and who is Apollos, but ministers or servants through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one. So leaders are not the ones that we should be looking at. God does give leaders to the church, but they’re all different, and but they’re all on the same team from his perspective. That’s that’s what God is doing. And the word ministers is the word servants. Okay, so that’s so the leaders should be the ones who are serving the most. And Paul and Apollos back in this church were just tools that God used to help his family to believe. That’s the whole point. The whole job of any leader is to help you believe. Believe what? Believe in the Word of God, the truth of God, the plan of God for your life, the grace of God. That’s the job of believers is to help you believe. And yes, a lot of pastors out there are tools. Take that however you want. But God has every intention of helping you and helping everyone in his church to understand and connect with his son Jesus by the work of the pastors preaching the word of God. And it is work. It takes work to help people believe. The only reason why we study the word of God is to help you believe. I already believe. The Lord has helped me to believe, and a lot of you already believe. But that’s what we’re doing here. We are learning to believe, and I’m helping you to believe more by learning the word of God. It takes a lot of work to help people believe. Do you believe that you’re loved perfectly by God? Do you believe that God is always faithful? Do you believe that you have a gift and a calling and a role to play in God’s family and in God’s kingdom here on this earth? Those are the things we are we want you to know 100% and believe 100% so that you can be used by God. This our church and every church is about you, the people of God. It’s never about the famous pastor flying an airplane wearing three-piece suits. You can wear a suit, but you’re a nerd if you do. Just kidding. I used to wear ties all the time because I thought they were cool. Um this is the life we get in God’s family, is we’re called, we’re gifted, we’re blessed. This is this is what you get. And the church is to is designed to help you know what you’ve been given. It says that as the Lord gave to each one, the Lord is giving all kinds of stuff. He’s like, you could say like Santa Claus, like just giving gifts all the time, and he the church is here to help distribute that, like help you know what has been given to you because you are so blessed, you’re so loved, but we don’t even know it. We have no idea. So, what is included in this grace you speak of? Good question. That’s my job to help you know. So now, Pastor uh Paul, Pastor Paul, you call him Pastor Paul, he shifts our attention from how the church uh lives and grows to how the church lives and grows like a living organism. Okay, so the first way we’re gonna see the church described is like a cell phone. No, sorry, like a like a farm, like a farm, okay. Paul says, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, they’re on the same team. And each one will receive his own reward according to his labor. Did anyone here grow up on a farm? Okay. Then you’ll get these jokes. By the way, what kind of things do farmers talk about when they’re milking cows? Utter nonsense. Cows go. No, cows go move. Oh, okay. That was worth it. That was awesome. I had four more, but we’ll we’ll stop there. Paul says it doesn’t matter who plants or who waters, but God gives the increase. God’s the one working in all these things. So God brings the life and the fruit to every single church, uh you know, to the church. Just like every farmer doesn’t know how plants even work. They just know that if you make an environment that plants like to grow in, that they grow. Not you can’t explain the science of how life comes from a seed, you know, like I mean, you can kind of, but not really. You don’t really know what’s going on there. All they can do is make a healthy environment for the plants to grow in, and then God does the work of the life-giving work. It’s never the plan or the strategy or the giftedness of the men that do anything in the church. So you’re like, oh, I don’t know what to do in the church, and I’m stupid anyway, so what can I do? You totally miss the point. Because it is not about you and your giftedness and your abilities and your talent. You have a calling and you can do it, and God will give the life to it. Twice he says, God gave the increase. Twice. Paul emphasizes it. That’s always God’s job to cause growth. Our job is to lovingly serve, because he said we’re ministers, in the way that we’re called and gifted to. However, everyone look at Isaac and make him feel awkward. We love you, Isaac. I know you love attention. You can cut this out of the podcast, by the way. He’s doing all the editing. So I just made his job more difficult. Well, God’s job is always to bring the life. Ours is to lovingly serve how we’re gifted and called to. Um, however, we can help people to grow in his grace, to understand his grace, to believe in his grace. Remember, that’s the goal of the church, helping people believe you have a role to play in that. Maybe it’s just smiling. Maybe that’s the most you can do. Even the worst of you can serve as a bad example. Uh you’re like, that’s my gift. See, I know my gift is watering. That’s what I think this is. It’s watering. I love to bring the water of the word to the relationships I have, you know, to highlight God’s word and God’s faithfulness. Sometimes I plant seeds though. I’m not as gifted, I don’t think, in planting seeds, but sometimes I do. I certainly don’t like making plans. Whatever gift that is, I don’t have it. Organizing things. That’s not my gift. But my wife is very gifted at that. So why does this all matter for us for us? Because the church is our farm. We share in this church. This isn’t our my church, my farm. This is our farm. I’m gonna read that verse eight again in the New Living Translation because it says, the one who plants and the one who waters work together with the same purpose, and both will be rewarded for their hard work. So we all have the same purpose who are part of God’s family. We’re all working towards the same thing. And you will only feel the true reward of accomplishment when you serve God’s kingdom by doing your part to love God and people. You’re like, I wish I could feel accomplished, I wish I could feel the meaning and the value in my life. Well, what do you do all day, every day? Whatever I want. You’re never gonna feel it then. In your soul, in your spirit, you’re never gonna know that you’re doing what you’ve been called to do. It’s when you love God and love others. Through faith that you have that reward. It’s not about getting paid. When it talks about rewards, God is not saying, I’m hiring who wants to be part of my church. It’s lucrative. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about what makes you delighted. What really delights you in your spirit, what really makes you feel that deep sense of accomplishment. I’m telling you, you won’t ever be satisfied with anything like when you pour your life out for God and his family. It is the most satisfying thing in the entire world when you know you got to play a part in the eternal souls of people and connecting with God, who is also eternal. It just means your life went from mattering for these 70 years that you live to eternity. And there’s such a vast difference in that. This is our family farm. You could call it a funny farm. But our family business, what we’re growing here, is love. We’re planting love, we’re harvesting love, we’re producing loving fruits. That’s what’s going on here. Look at the next verse. Verse 9 in 1 Corinthians it says, For we are God’s fellow workers. So that’s His context here. He’s talking about us participating with God. We have been invited by God to work with Him in the family business. You’re like, well, I didn’t choose to be part of this business. I know you were born into it. You didn’t choose what family you were born into. You were just born into that family. And when we got born again into the family of God, we got automatically drafted into the family business, which is love. And so as we live our lives, that is always going to be the only thing that ever really matters in your heart. Am I loving? So he says, We are God’s fellow workers, and you are God’s field. So that’s looking back to the illustration he just did of a farm. And then he says, You are God’s building. So now Paul, I love how Paul does things. He like said, he uses this one sentence to say, here’s the one illustration. And then my next illustration is you are God’s building. So he connects the two illustrations together. I love that. So the second illustration is the church is like a building. So let’s read that. According to the grace of God that was given to me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one he take heed how he builds on it, for no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. So key words there. If you’re highlighting, if you’re underlying, underlying for the grace of God, the foundation is Jesus Christ. Okay, those are the key words. Now, if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, that’s your first group of three, those are good ones, and then wood, hay, straw, those are bad ones, each one’s work will become clear. How? Well, the day will declare it, because it will be revealed with fire. And the fire will test each one’s work of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. Okay, so the first illustration taught us we’re all in one farm, the farm of love, the love farm, the church. This illustration teaches shows us how ministry should be done in the church. We have to be wise how we do stuff in the church. Okay, when we came into the church, we’ve been asking, why do we do what we do? Why do we do this? Why do we do that? Because, not because we want to be weird or controlling. I don’t, definitely not controlling. Um, I want to be wise. Why are we doing every single thing that we do in the church? There’s nothing more wise than grace. That’s what the Bible says. That’s what Paul’s teaching us. He says, because it’s simply grace is simply the life of Jesus given to us. Grace is the life of Jesus given to us. So if we’re building, we start with grace as the foundation. We’re gonna we’re gonna tell you, you want to get saved, the foundation of a relationship with God is I do nothing, I just believe in what Jesus said he would do for me. That what he did for me, I believe in it, and I can now ask him, forgive me, and it’s done. Okay? So that’s the foundation. And then how do we build on top of it? Each layer above that foundation has to be the same faith in Jesus. We are simply believing what Jesus said when he said, Now I live through you, and what you want to do is you want to serve me. I was sneaky and I put my stuck my spirit inside you. I made you holy, and now that’s who you really are. That’s what you want to do. It actually grieves your heart and your soul when you choose to participate in sin. And you’re like, Oh, that’s why I’ve been discouraged. That’s why I have been frustrated with my life. Because I’ve been participating in things that’s not really who I am anymore. So we have to build each level based on grace. There’s a lot of ministries that will be nothing when the fire tests them. Why? Because they were built by law and human efforts. They were built by law, rules, and human efforts. Anyone ever go to a church that had just lots of rules? Lots, right? There, I think there’s a few of those in Texas, right? There’s there’s a lot everywhere. The church for many, many years fell into a horrific, terrible, legalistic valley where they thought that it honored God to have more rules. They’re like Ten Commandments, not enough for us. Women shall not wear pants. Or whatever rules they decided to make up. That’s just a fun one to make fun of. The fire will reveal that those churches were stupid. They were. Those rules were stupid. Because rules do not produce righteousness or holiness. If they did, Jesus didn’t have to die for us. Because he made a set of ten rules that are pretty good. Those ten commandments are perfect. And if any one of us could keep even a single one of those, God would have made salvation through the Ten Commandments. But we can’t, so he sent his beloved Son to be murdered and crucified for us so that he could take our lives and him be punished for us and then live through us by his spirit. It’s amazing, right? You can shout amen whenever you feel. I’m totally good on that. So there’s a lot of ministries that are not building with the precious stones, but they’re building with the wood, hay, and stubble. I’m gonna read. There’s a guy named David Guzek, who’s a great pastor. And if you go to blueletterbible.com, it’s an awesome website to help you do your own Bible study. And he’s the one that you can click on any verse in the Bible and click on commentaries, and he’s the first commentary listed. Really good Bible commentary. And he says this about the precious stone. It doesn’t mean jewels. It doesn’t mean jewels. Sorry, jewels, but fine stone materials like marble and granite. Mixing the wisdom of men and the wisdom of God in the work of building the church is like using alternate layers of straw and marble in building. So that’s about the wisdom of man versus the wisdom of God. The wisdom of man says, if we don’t make rules saying don’t cuss, then they’re just gonna cuss. That’s the wisdom of man. The wisdom of God is you’re filled with the Holy Spirit. So say whatever you want. But know that if you say something that dishonors God or men, you’re gonna grieve your own spirit. You’re gonna grieve your own spirit. That’s the wisdom of God. So that’s what we teach. We teach the grace of God that transforms us. So yeah, we’re getting close to some amens here. We’re getting riled up. I love it. Straw may be fine, it may have its place in the barn, but it is an adequate, it is an inadequate building material. In the same way, human wisdom and fleshly interactions may have their place in life, but not in building the church. So I like that quote. That was a good one. This is why I will always talk about grace and nothing else. And I will fight anyone who disagrees. This is how every church should do ministry. I’m I 100% believe. But it’s a lost truth, I fear, for the most part, at least here in America and all around the world, to be honest. We’re so caught up with the wisdom of men. We abandon the grace of God for what men tell us we need to do or to become. And grace is the free gift of God’s life given to us in Jesus. He forgives us freely and completely by grace. That’s the foundation. Then he transforms us freely and completely by grace. That’s the layer upon layer upon layer that we continue to build in our understanding of grace. We do nothing in that process except believe. That is your job. Why do I keep struggling with sin? It is a believing problem. It’s not because you’re a sinner, because Jesus says you’re not a sinner anymore. Once you’ve believed, you’re a believer, which means you’re a saint. You’re not a sinner anymore. So we walk around like, why do I keep sinning? And the real thing is you just don’t believe that you’re a saint. You believe you’re a sinner. And that’s why we keep doing it. And so there’s nothing that we do in this process except believe, which means step forward in faith, because believing has to be a step. You have to step. Remember Indiana Jones? Remember when he had to walk across the invisible bridge? We should make an invisible bridge here. Isaac, get on that. So he he had to step forward, believing it was there, for it to show up and be there. That’s how faith works, right? It’s a it’s a great illustration. You have to step forward in faith and confidence in Jesus, not yourself. You know what the world says? So the world influences the church. Satan, see, he hates the church, so he joined the church. He joined the church and he said, you know what? Let’s teach all the people. The way you get fixed is you join accountability groups. Now, accountability groups can be fine until you start trusting in accountability groups. Then they suck. Because you the whole thing is who do I trust in? Do I trust in myself and my friends, or do I trust in God? That’s right. What is going on here? Satan joined the church so we could convince everyone it’s fine if you go to church, just at least just trust in yourself. You can do this because you’re American. Look at your belt buckles. I’m so proud of you. You’re so amazing. Your life is amazing. You can find that message on TV Sundays at 8 a.m. on TBN. I don’t know who’s on at 8 a.m. I’ve just made that up, but probably. The world has infiltrated the church with man’s wisdom. And the church is like, yeah, bring me man’s wisdom. Instead of, no, we will trust in the grace of God exclusively. Exclusively. Man, I you don’t know the sin I’m dealing with. You don’t know what I’m going through. This is too much for God’s grace. Oh, really? Really? No, it’s not. God’s grace is sufficient for every and any sin. And I will stand on that hill and I will die on that hill. And you know, the world will laugh at us and say, You think God’s grace could fix that? And we’ll say, Yeah, God’s grace can can transform any person. And the world cannot believe it. You know why? Because they’re not believers. They can’t believe. Once you become a believer, though, we have to learn that God is faithful and this is how God works. So the second application we can have for this text that we just read is, and I’m just gonna mention this one briefly because it’s not the main thrust of this text, but it’s eternal rewards. Anyone ever wonder about, you know, do we get crowns in heaven? Am I gonna be rich and bling and in heaven, have a grill? He says if anyone builds on this foundation, you know, he they’re gonna get rewarded. That your life matters. And I think that’s that’s the way to think about eternal rewards. It’s not like how many mansions am I gonna have? Is there gonna be a roller coaster with my name on it, like sponsored by Pastor Sean in heaven? No, but our lives matter eternally. That’s what he’s saying here. Your lives do matter eternally. Your stuff won’t matter, your kingdom won’t matter, but God’s kingdom that you invested in by loving God and loving others will matter. All the loving actions you do matter, even when no one sees. Actually, especially when no one sees. Well, can you get alone in your closet and pray for the people in your church? Connect with your father, love him, love the people in your church, love the people you’re connected to, your family, those things that you do in secret, they do matter, and God says, I will freaking reward you for everything you do that’s loving. Because that’s you participating in my family business of love. The third one that we’re not gonna get to today, we’re just gonna briefly mention it. Next week we’re gonna study this third illustration of the church. So we did a farm, we did a building, and next we’re gonna do a temple. So, verse 16, I’ll read it to you. It says, Do not do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? So as the church were the temple of God. And if anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are. So this is the third illustration. Again, we’re gonna go really deep into this next week. We’re gonna have videos and charts and maybe a wild animal. I don’t know. We’ll see. We went to the the uh fragile kingdom animal park yesterday, and they have like a calf that’s like so fun and friendly and perfect age for like sacrifice. So we won’t do that, I promise. We won’t. But can you imagine the illustration that that would be? Wow. Okay, we would have so many people visiting the next week. Okay, so we just saw how fire was described as the building, that the building of the church is gonna be, there’s gonna be fire and it’s gonna test it, and the bad stuff will be burned away. It’s gonna completely destroy everything that’s not of God. And this is the reason. God’s church is pure and holy. That’s the the message of the third illustration of the church here. The church is like the temple, and God’s temple is very special. Do you know why God spent like all of Leviticus and a lot of Exodus describing how every like button and piece of wood and tent was made in the temple? Do you know why it was so specific? Because God wanted to get through their head, this temple is very, very, very special because it connects a world that’s physical with an invisible God that is holy and righteous. And if you just try to talk with God, you die because he’s holy and you weren’t. They weren’t. And so he wanted to make a way, though, for there to be a connection, but he said, we can’t just make a willy-nilly connection. You have to understand the holiness and the incredible danger that it is to connect with God. Because you will never be the same, and you cannot take your sin and be like, God, what do you think of this? And God will be like, get out of my sight. I cannot, I cannot have you in my presence because just my glory will devour anything that is unholy. So God was protecting them by making a very, very special temple where they knew they could not, no one could just walk in and be like, God, what do you think of me? God’s church is pure and holy. Fire is what made things holy or tested how holy they were in the Old Testament. So next week we’re gonna dive into that so that you can understand. But I wanted to read it here today so you understand the flow as we go. But I want to close by saying, you, what he’s saying here is you are holy because you are part of God’s holy family because you believe. You didn’t make yourself holy. Oh, good Lord, no. You didn’t do anything to make yourself holy, it was a free gift of grace. In fact, you were very far from holy. And if you want to be as holy as God as a Christian, let me tell you, you already are. You already are. You can march right into God’s presence today and say, God, what am I? Look at me. And God will say, Yes, my son. Yes, my daughter. You are welcomed in my family, you are welcomed here because I have made you holy by the blood of Jesus. I’ve washed away all of your iniquity, all of your sin. It’s gone. Past, present, future, it’s all gone. So you’re welcomed here. You are holy. You can believe that. And that might be hard to believe, but you can believe it. And if you ask God, God, speak to me, teach me how holy I am, he’ll be like, okay, I will teach you. And he’ll teach you in your heart how holy you are. Because you have the Holy Spirit, which is as holy as God, because it is God living inside you. If you want to be as holy as God, it is offered to you today. And this is what we get to preach and what we get to offer the world every single week. If you know that you are not holy because you have never believed in Christ and you have never asked him to forgive you, then you can take a moment and confess your sin to the Lord and say, God, I have sinned. I know that I’m not holy, but I choose to trust in Jesus today. God says, anyone who believes in their heart and confesses with their mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and that he died on the cross for them, and that God raised him from the dead, that they will be born again that moment. And the holiness now is theirs, the righteousness is theirs. They are brand new. The old is gone, and the new life has come, which is welcome to the church full of crazy people. That’s what we are. All right. There we go. Worship team, come on up here. Let’s get ready to respond. Would you guys all stand with me? Time for your solos, budnik.
Amen. Father, we um choose to believe that we’ve never been loved like you love us.
And sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. But your word declares that it’s true. And I pray that through our sermon today, through the loving handshakes and hugs and the way that we have behaved with each other and acted, God, that your love has been demonstrated in a real, legitimate way to every single person here. Father, we respond to your love by saying we believe in it. And we ask you would do wonderful things in our lives this week. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.