Glory God with Your Body - 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

Have you ever heard the phrase, It's my body. I'll do what I want to. About once a year, I go to the doctor, get my physical, and he probably says something like, You know, you probably should quit eating so many snack foods at night, and I'm like, Hey, it's my body. I do what I want to. You may have used that. It's a phrase that's used often in our culture often, around sexuality, medical decisions, all sorts of things. It's my body, and I'll do what I want to. And it's trying to capture an idea that we have of bodily autonomy, that we have the right to do what we want to with our own body, for it not to be coerced or abused. And there's some truth in that, but it can slide into, if we're not careful, as Christians, the idea that I'm the highest authority over myself. Parents can't tell me what to do. Spouse can't tell me what to do. The government can't tell me what to do, that I have, ultimate control, over my body, and then we read something, like Paul's statement that you are not your own. You were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body. And it runs up against this cultural idea we have of bodily autonomy when Paul's saying that you're not your own. If you're a Christian, you are bought with a price. Paul isn't trying to deny our dignity as humans. He's actually trying to show us our identity in Christ, and who we are, that our bodies matter deeply to God. that God created us, both body and spirit that Christ redeems us. Both body and spirit, the spirit of God, indwells us, uniting our spirit with God, indwelling our body, that God deeply cares about our body. So the things we should be asking is not what I want to do with my body, but how can I honor God with my body, with what belongs to him? Think about maybe, as parents, how we kind of raised our children. There are a point in a child's life where the parents are making all sorts of decisions for that child. When do they eat? What do they eat? When do they go to sleep? Medical decisions. And they do that for the well being of the child. We don't want four year olds, making decisions like that. We need to be spoken into, any parents that will do that, and they're doing that for their well being. God, when he starts talking about our bodies that our cultural reaction is to say, I get to do what I want with my body, that God's a good father, who wants what's best for us. And when he starts putting restrictions on things we can do with our body, he does that for our well being so that we can flourish so that we don't find ourselves suffering and hurting and damaging our own bodies, our own spirits, and those around us, he wants to lead us to flourishing. The main idea from 1 Corinthians 6, 9 to 20, If you have your Bibles, you can turn there, that I want you to take away is this. We belong to God. Our bodies should glorify him. We belong to God. Our bodies should glorify him. We've been working through 1 Corinthians. It's a church that Paul planted. He's writing a letter to them several years after he had planted the church. There's a lot of issues in the church, there's divisions among people, they're kind of picking sides. There's sexual sin in the church we saw in chapter 5 that they hadn't dealt with it. were kind of celebrating. There are church members. Last week we saw who were going to pagan courts to have their disputes resolved. And Paul saying, Why are you going to these pagans? He called them these unrighteous people who don't know Christ, who aren't followers of Christ, to decide things between believers, and today, he's going to show us that the Corinthian church was struggling with sexual immorality, wrestling with, could they do these things that Paul had told them they couldn't do, and he's going to explain why, and how, because we belong to Christ, that we can't do whatever we want with our bodies, and that God is looking out for us. If you have your Bibles, 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 11, the first thing we see in these verses is kind of a transition from last week's message, into what he's saying now, and even into next week's and beyond message, and he's giving us the Christians before and after picture. I know you've seen these kind of pictures, right? Where there's a before shot, and then an after shot, often with, like, home renovations. I found this one on the internet, this before and after of a kitchen. And you're like, whoa, that's kind of, this is like a college dorm kitchen. on the left. This is, like, a single guy's kitchen, and then he gets married, and he has this kitchen on the right. And we see, I mean, there's this, you clean it up, you replace some things. Paul is doing this. He's saying, hey, Corinthians, this is what you were like before, and this is what you're like after in this passage. Read along with me. It says this. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? This phrase do you not know? Paul uses it throughout the Corinthian letter. We'll put a slide up that shows you all the places he uses it. He uses it as a rhetorical device. He knows that they know what he's talking about. So maybe your boss at work, or maybe you're the boss, and you've said something like this when someone comes in late. It's like, Don't you know when the job starts? I teach at Midwestern, and my one o'clock class? If students come in late? You know, it's like, hey, don't you know class starts at 1 o'clock? It's obvious they do know it this. And we're using that to help them realize, you do know and you've done wrong. So Paul repeatedly uses this phrase. Do you not know? Not because they're ignorant? about this thing, and he's trying to teach them new knowledge, but because they know it, and they're not paying attention to it. He says, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Now, last week, we saw that he was talking about, you're going to these unrighteous judges to judge your disputes among yourselves. Some Christians in Corinth had gotten cross with each other. We don't know the reason why, but they're ready to go to this pagan judge. And Paul is saying, even in chapter 2, chapter 6, verse 2. Do you not know that the saints will judge the world, do you not know that we'll judge angels? He says, You're going to go to these people? And he says, don't you know the unrighteous won't inherit the earth? This coming kingdom, this new heavens and new earth that's happening? And then he says, Do not be deceived. There must have been something in the Corinthian church where they were unsure about this. Or at least their behavior was leading Paul to think, you're not paying attention to what's going on. Do not be deceived. And then Paul gives a list. of various sinful activities, unrighteous activities, to wake up the Corinthians. This list is not exhaustive. So he's not going to say, let me name every bad thing a person could do. He's naming just certain things. And we're going to see that he's probably naming these certain things, this before shot of what they were like, because there were some in the Corinthian church who were that way. Look what he says. He says, Do not be deceived, neither, and he's describing what he would cause the unrighteous, neither the sexually immoral, just so we're clear on sexual immorality and scripture. The Bible says that sex can take place in one location, between one man, one woman, in marriage, anything outside of that is sexual immorality. So he says sexually, sexual immorality, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. And so Paul, as he's writing this list, in his mind, probably, I remember, Billy, Billy, you are a drunkard, such were some of you. That's the before shot. He's just letting them know. Here's what you were. But then he says this. Look what he says. But you were, washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the spirit of our God. Here's what he's saying, Before you are this way. And then Christ got a hold of you, and you gave your life to Christ, in the name of Christ, and the Spirit came upon you, and now you have been washed. That language conjures up like that kitchen that you saw. Somebody needs to come in and just wash it. It needs to be cleaned. You got to get this trash out. Christ does that. This phrase, you were washed isn't an active phrase. It's a passive phrase, which means it happened to you. You didn't do it yourself. Paul is not saying, And you washed yourself. What he's saying is, you were washed. Who by Christ? He probably has in mind the moment of baptism. When Paul was baptized in Acts 226, Ananias said to him, Hey, Paul, what are you waiting for? Get up, arise, and be baptized. Wash away your sins, calling on the name of Jesus. Baptism is the place we call on Jesus' name. and say I want to be yours. And in the New Testament, that always happened like the day someone was wanting to follow God. When they want to give their life to Christ. So in Paul's mind, when the first time someone said, you should follow Jesus, they said, you wash away your sins calling on his name. And he was in this water. It's not that the water of baptism saves you. That's not what washes you clean. It's Christ doing that when we call it. He says, You have been washed. You were sanctified. That word means, you have been set apart for God's purpose. So you were washed as a Christian, you had been washed clean. You have been sanctified, much like the picture you saw. You had to clean out the kitchen, and then the kitchen has now been set aside for kitcheny things, cooking, and all those types of things. You weren't doing anything in the first kitchen, except throwing more trash in there. It says, Now you've been sanctified. God has washed you. Christ has washed you. You are now set apart for him, and you were justified. That means you've been declared righteous. That you were cleansed, you were set apart for God's use, and your guilt has now been declared not guilty. How? Because of what Jesus does for us on the cross. His death in our place, his blood that cleanses us from our sins, and that we are empowered by the Spirit. We don't behave righteously in order for Jesus to choose us. The Christian life is not this, like that, the picture of the kitchen that was dirty, and God says, If you'll clean this kitchen up, if you'll replace the countertops, put in a new stove, make everything real nice, then I'll come live there. What God says is your life's a wreck. I'll clean it up, and then we will use that the way I want it to be used. But he's doing the work. We don't earn our way into God's good grace. He gives us his grace, and then asks us by his power to live righteously. That's the before and after picture of a Christian. And Paul does this because he's then going to tell the Corinthians how they should be behaving as Christians. He said, You were this thing, you're no longer that. You're now Christ's, even washed, sanctified, justified. Now, how should you live? 1 Corinthians 12 to 14, he tells them that our bodies are not meant for sexual immorality. Now, as you read this passage, it's unclear a little bit in our English translations, you'll see that around some of the phrases, there's quotation marks. And what they're trying to show you is that more than likely Paul is taking a slogan from the Corinthian church. And he's kind of saying it, they would have recognized that's one of our lines. That's the thing we say, and then he's going to respond to it. So the things in quotation marks would have been Corinthian slogans. So Paul's using their own words, that they were using to justify their actions, and saying, Let me explain your words to you and why they're wrong. And so I'm going to show you a slide that kind of separates them out as you're reading. The Corinthians would have said this. All things are lawful for me. And they may have misunderstood Paul, when he taught them that we're not under law, but under grace, that we don't earn our way to heaven. You don't just keep the law, and then God says, Well, you've kept it, so I'll pick you for my team. Paul says, that is not how it works. that God comes to us. He seeks us, and we respond in faith. But he said, Paul at times said, Look, we're not under law, we're under grace. And the Corinthians may have been saying, well, all things are lawful for me. I can do what I want. I don't have to earn my way to heaven, so I can go do whatever I want. All things are lawful for me, Paul. The Corinthians said, but Paul says, not all things are helpful. Well, all things are lawful, the Corinthians said, but I will not be dominated by anything as how Paul would respond. He says, yes. You say all things are lawful, they're not all helpful. I'm not gonna be dominated by anything. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something, is what Paul's saying. And so he's throwing this back in the Corinthians. That's just the beginning, though, of the argument that he's wanting to make, so that he's going to slide into the next one, which is kind of a little closer, and the Corinthians are going to make an argument about a different issue, but they're going to talk about the food and stomach. So then they go, well, food is meant for the stomach. and the stomach for food. Now, I think that the ESV, the translation we use here at church, puts the quotation mark in the wrong place. And so there's debate over this among people who interpret scripture. I think the quotation mark should move all the way to the end, which says, And God will destroy both one and the other. I think that's the Corinthian slogan. So if you have an ESB Bible, that's not a house Bible. Move your quotation mark, and you can put, Umpstead says it goes here. Here's what they're saying, though. Food is for the stomach. And the stomach for food. What's the purpose of our stomach? Well, it's to take in food and digest food. What's the purpose of food, to go in our stomach? That makes perfect sense. And the Corinthians said, Look, my stomach's made for food, food's made for my stomach. When my stomach gets hungry, what do I do? I put food in it. That's what it's for. And God's going to destroy both anyway. So it really doesn't matter what I do with it. Their belief, and we'll see this in 1 Corinthians 15, was that the body's not going to be resurrected, that we're just a spirit and not a spirit and a body. And they said, God's going to destroy both anyway. Food for stomach, the stomach for food. What they're really talking about, though, isn't my stomach and food. What they really wanted to talk about is a different hunger. The sexual desire that we have. And what they would be saying underneath that is, the sexual desire is made for sex, and sex for the sexual desire. So much like, I just eat food when I'm hungry. I have sex when I want it. That's what they are trying to say underneath this, because here's Paul's response to there, the food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God's going to destroy both anyway. So let's do what we want. Let's just eat whatever we want. He says, The body is not meant for sexual immorality. But for the Lord. And so Paul throws their slogan back at them. He says, You've misunderstood. You can't use the food and stomach, the slogan you're using as justification for what you're wanting to do with your sexual appetite. It's not the same. He says, the body was not made for sexual immorality. Listen to what he says closely, because as Christians, we can get prudish at times. And next week, Matt has a more difficult sermon than me. I'm telling you what not to do today. Matt's gonna tell you what to do next week. God created humanity, male and female. Put Adam and Eve in the garden says, Hey, make more people. We all know how that happens if you don't. That's why we're not going to say the words out loud, because we've got little kids in the room. We know how that happens. Sex is a good thing. Sexual immorality is not a good thing. Paul did not say, The body is not made for sex. God made us that way, to create more image bearers, to bond husband and wife together. He said, We're not made for sexual immorality. which is what he's dealing with the Corinthians at. He says We are made for the Lord. And the Lord for the body. So he takes those slugs as you're misusing this food and stomach analogy to think that your sexual appetite can be fulfilled, any way you want, as if it's healthy, as if it's useful, even the food analogy doesn't work. Because if you're just saying I can put anything I want in my stomach, well, not everything is food. Not everything is good for us. But Paul says, the body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord, bless Jesus Christ, and will also raise us up by his power. The Corinthians that said, look, I can eat what I want, food for stomach, stomach for food. God's going to destroy both my food and my stomach, and Paul says, Nope, the body's not made for sexual immorality, because that's what they're wanting to talk about with stomach and food. And he says, And by the way, your body's not going to be destroyed either. Jesus' resurrection proves that our bodies matter. We can't simply disconnect our body from who we are, and that Jesus has been raised, and his followers will be raised also. In the first century, one of the dominant beliefs was that we were two things, a body and a spirit, and the spirit was good, and the body was bad. And the goal was just to get rid of the body. To get rid of all material. So the whole created world that you see, they would have said, it's a bad thing. We just are pure spirits, and eventually we'll be set free from this prison we're in. God will destroy it all. And Paul saying, No, no, no, no, no, that's not what the world is. God created this world. All of that we see in our bodies included that are good things. And Jesus' resurrection proves that, and that we will have a body in the end. Now, in our day and age, we would probably, if you just went out of Kansas City and started asking, Most people would say, all we are is a body, and when we're dead, we're done. nothing else happens. You just cease to exist. The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out. You just get absorbed back into the Earth, and you're gone. So, Josh, you'd be gone. Josh dies and Josh is no more. That's our culture. And so what they would say is, I do whatever I want. In the meantime, because once I'm dead, I'm done. So, you know, eat, drink, and be merry, because tomorrow we die, and that's the end. Paul saying, Oh, no, no, no, no. We're gonna be raised, that we're not separated like that. There is life beyond death. And he's telling them that our bodies are not meant for sexual immorality. What he says, though, in verses 15 to 20 is that our bodies are meant for God's glory. This is why God has given us a body. Look what he says, do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Again, do you not know? Isn't that word members? In English, members can sound like, well, I'm a member of this club, I'm a member of the AMC Stubbs club, so I can go see movies whenever I want. I'm a member of a team. The language Paul uses here in the Greek member would be more like limb. Think body part. So he's using this analogy that don't you know that your bodies are body parts of Christ? And they said, Oh, yeah, we know that. In chapter 12, Paul's going to use that as this analogy about how the church should always work together. We're all kind of the body parts of Christ. He uses us together as a church, some are eyeballs, some are ears, some are thumbs, some are knees, but were body parts. Don't you know that your bodies are body parts of Christ, and we would all say yes? And then Paul punches us. And he says, Shall I then take the body parts, the members of Christ, and make them the body part, or the member of a prostitute? And he answers immediately, never. And the Corinthians are going, well, I like the first part where parts of the body of Christ, I'm a part of Christ, but then I don't like this next part, but shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never. And then he explains what he's saying, says, Or do you not know? They do know, that he who is joined to a prostitute, becomes one body with her. For as it is written, the two will become one flesh, but he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. So back in January, we started reading through the whole Bible. So if you can remember all the way back to, basically, public day one of reading through scripture. You ran into Genesis 2, Adam and Eve, the first male and female, God put together as husband and wife, and he says, Then the 2 shall become one. Paul's using that same language, and he's talking in this case about prostitutes, probably because the Corinthians were wrestling with this issue. Could they go to prostitutes? It was a pretty normal practice in the Corinthian culture. It would expand, though, not just the prostitutes, but to any sexual immorality. And Paul saying, just know this, that when you do that, you are not alone. And it creates a bond between two people that's not casual. Paul, in this verse, shatters our hook up culture in the 21st century, which simply talks about sex like it's a recreational activity. We even have the phrase, that's not as popular now, but Netflix and chill. The idea that having sex is no different than watching a show on Netflix. It's just another activity you do to entertain yourself. That's the culture's view of sex. It's just this casual thing that doesn't matter. It's not true. And we see that in statistic, after statistic, after statistic. Our culture can lie in the shows that it creates, where people can hook up all they want, and no one's affected, no one's hurt, no one cares. Everything's wonderful. That's not just real life. Paul says that you are bound to you. connected to this person. He says, Would you take the members of Christ and join them to this person? And then he says, Flee from sexual immorality. I watch one of the things I do, because I have ADD. I don't like watching long shows, so I'm just hooked on YouTube videos. Daily dose of Internet is one of my favorite things. It's like eight minutes of short clips. There was one I was watching a while back, and this guy was jogging down a trail, and this mountain lion came out, and was coming after him. And he's trying to walk backwards, and this mountain lion just keeps coming at him. And there's, like, watching it, you're like, Oh, my gosh. I'm assuming he doesn't die because I have the video of it. So I'm not too nervous. But you can feel the sense of nervousness, like, this thing is coming for you, and he's just trying to get away. He is trying to flee. Paul doesn't say this about sexual immorality. Hey, it's kind of bad. There is a guardrail. Go hang out next to it. Look over the edge. See what it's like. He says, flee from it. It's an active thing he's telling the Corinthians to do in us. Flee from sexual immorality. And then, I think, here is another quote from the Corinthians that the ESV doesn't think is, but I think it is, that they would have said, every sin a person commits is outside the body. That would have been what they said. Hey, everything we do, it's outside our body. It really doesn't affect us. And then Paul says, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body, saying, no, you're wrong about your statement, that sex isn't casual. That it's deeply meaningful, and it bonds people in ways. And he says, Don't do this. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own. For you are bought with a price, so glorify God, in your body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? There's this language of temple language. And he's trying to convince the Corinthians how we behave matters. And we all know this kind of at a gut level. If we're going to go do something wrong, We tend to find an out of the way place. It's dark, it's secret, and we do it there. I imagine, most of you wouldn't decide to have sexual immoral relations in the sanctuary of a church. You go, well, that's just wrong. Here's what Paul says. You, the church, are the dwelling of the Holy Spirit. The temple in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament that Jesus went into, was there where God dwelt. The church is where God dwells. And wherever you go is where God's dwelling. This room is special. Yes, we gather here to worship every week. But when you leave, the spirit leaves with you. This is an empty room. This sanctuary. Paul is saying, Don't you know that the spirit dwells with you, and you are not your own? That's the main point of this message. We belong to God. if you're a follower of Christ. And our bodies exist to glorify Him. So what do we do? 2,000 years ago, Paul gave this. What do we do today? Three things I think we can do with this message. And it's pretty obvious. Hopefully you can see them already. One is acknowledge whose and who you are. If you're a follower of Christ, acknowledge whose you are, you're a member of Christ, and the temple of the Spirit. God dwells with us. You recognize that. You can remember who you were. What you were like that before picture, but you've been watched. You've been sanctified. You've been set apart for his service. You've been justified. Paul says, in other places, that we will be glorified one day, and there he's talking about, when Christ returns, we will get our resurrected bodies. These glorified bodies. Until then, he says, live like it's already happened. know whose you are, and know who you are. That God has a purpose for us. He has a use for us. Our minds, our spirits, and our bodies. We need to acknowledge that. If you're here and you're not a follower of Christ. You don't have to earn your way into his good graces. You don't have to get good enough, that he's gonna give you an NIL deal. He's going to pick you on his team. He's going to draft you because you're good enough. If that's your thought, you'll never be good enough. But Christ is good enough. And when we say, I trust you, God says, because you are in my son, you're already on my team. I've chosen you. That's who you are and whose you are. That should lead us from this passage to flee from sexual immorality. Be very proactive in this. What are your eyes seeing? Christian, what are your eyes looking at? And just know what they're looking at? The eyes of Jesus are looking at also. So when you open your computer, and it used to be just kind of a guy problem, and now it's a guy in girl problem, because our culture is warped. And you start looking at pornography, if you're a follower of Christ, just know, your eyes aren't alone, Jesus. is seeing the same thing. And you know that's true, because you wouldn't look at pornography in this room. You wouldn't. We get a loan and act like Jesus isn't there, but Paul's very clear. You need to know the truth. He's with us all the time. He indwells us through His spirit. What are your eyes looking at? What are your thoughts, thinking? Your thoughts are not your own. The spirit is indwelling you. The Spirit is there with you. What are your bodies doing? It says, flee? from sexual immorality. In our culture, we have very few rules, and when I think culture think outside the church, We have very few rules about sex. The church is really strict. Christ is really strict. In marriage, one man, one woman. That's the proper place. Our culture's view is this. As long as you have informed consent, anything's okay, really. As long as two adults agree, no one's being coerced, no one's being forced, no one's having anything done against their will, that they don't want to do, it's fine. Do what you want. And our coach, they live and let live, kind of leave people alone. Just have informed consent. As a Christian, listen, there's not just you and another person, or you and the thing you're looking at, there's you, the thing you're doing, and Jesus, and he is not giving his informed consent to your sin, to my sin. He simply will not. Because it is immoral. It hurts us. It damages us. So flee from it. But know this, as you begin to flee from it, there is forgiveness and restoration in Christ. that if you're here and you're going, man, I've been looking at things I shouldn't look at, I've been doing things I shouldn't do, there is forgiveness and restoration in Christ. Christ understands the before picture, he understands the after picture, and he understands that if I've been set free, and I'm still not doing things I should. Paul's writing to believers that I can be forgiven. Forgiveness though, takes confession. We have to confess our sins. And the Bible says one to another. And then we have to repent from those sins. And repentance is not simply, okay, God, I repent, I'm going to do it again later, but I'm sorry that I'm going to do it again later. That's not repentance. Repentance is getting rid of the thing. And that's where the fleeing comes in. How do I get rid of this thing in my life, that isn't in accord with what God would have me do, that Jesus doesn't want me doing, that he's not giving his consent to, How do I get rid of that thing? And if you're not ready to go, I'm going to repent and get rid of it, then you need to say, Am I really following Christ? Do I really put him first? Do I really trust him, that he can overcome this? Do I trust him that his way is better than my way? And repentance is hard. It's easy to say, well, I've repented. It's hard to actually do it. If you're looking at things you shouldn't look at, You need to go, I need to get rid of the thing that I use to look at things I shouldn't look at. But I have to have a smartphone. How can you live without a smartphone? No one, in the history of the world, could ever live without a smartphone. An immediate access to pornography. How can we do that? I have to have 18 streaming services. I have to. No one can live without. It's like oxygen to us. No, it's not. You have to decide, which one do you want more? God? Are your sin? You have to decide that. But there's restoration and forgiveness. Repent from your sin. That means take the steps necessary to get away from it, and that's going to, oftentimes, demand that other people in your life, that you trust, other believers can help you do that. They can help walk down that path and say, Here's what it's going to look like. Is it easy? Not at all. It's not. Obedience to Christ is hard. Paul found himself beaten on many occasions. Peter found himself crucified upside down for following Jesus. Jesus isn't here to make your life easy, to make it simple. He's here to make it holy. And then we trust him and say, I trust you God with what you're doing. I trust you with how you're going to work in this. And so if you're here, and you're going to heard this sermon, and I don't want to do those things. That's the first thing. I don't want to be that way. I need to flee. I need to keep things out of my life that are bad. But if you're here and you're hearing and going, oh, I know the thing that I'm doing that I shouldn't be doing. I encourage you to reach out. and ask for help. We have pastors here that are willing to help you and walk with you, that understand your struggle. I, myself, struggle with pornography, so you're not alone. You're not alone in this. But it's hard. It's difficult to change, but Paul tells us who we are in Christ, and how we can fill our minds with the things of God, and the thoughts of God, and the actions of God, and replace the things that are damaging and hurtful to us and others with things that bring life. Like we said 2 weeks ago, are you going to bring leaven into your life, the sin that damages you, are you going to let life rule your life, Christ himself. So if you're hearing something, I need help. Fill out a connect card. Come see me after. You don't have to write on the connect card, your problem, just say, hey, I'd like to talk. Can you call me? Give me a phone number. I'll reach out this week. And we'll set up a time and start talking about what it looks like to embrace the forgiveness and restoration that Christ gives. And if you're here and you're not a follower of Christ, but you recognize your life as a wreck, that your life is filled with trash, that you think it's yours to run, but you want to be set free, write that down, love to talk, find me after the service, find Matt after the service, and say, I'd love to talk to someone. Find one of our first impression team members, hey, can find me someone I can talk to about what it means to give my life to Christ so that I recognize that we belong to Christ? in our bodies, your bodies, my bodies are meant to glorify him. Will you join me in prayer? As we pray I would ask you. to pray, and say, God, if you're his follower, just to strengthen you. If there's things in your life that you're doing that you shouldn't be doing, And ask for strength and courage to fill out a card or talk to someone today before you head to lunch and forget all about this message. And if you're hearing you're not a follower of Christ, but you feel him pulling, and the conviction of his word, through his spirit, that you would respond. Father, I pray that you would strengthen us as a church, to know the joy that we belong to you, that we are not our own, that we are not responsible for figuring out how to live our life in a way that's pleasing or beneficial, that you have already told us that, that you care for us more than we care for ourselves. You are a good Father. And Father, I pray that you would give us courage to follow you. in faith and trust. And to put away the trash that is in our lives that keeps us from experiencing you fully, keeps us from being used by you the way you want and keeps us from experiencing the joy that you have for us. Father, glorify yourselves in our lives and in our bodies. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.