Our Great Transformation - Ephesians 2:11-22

I'm going to guess if you were to scroll social media this afternoon, scroll your news feed on Facebook, you're going to see before and after pictures of something. You may have a friend who sells some kind of weight loss program or weight loss system and they're going to have a picture of their clients. Here's this person before. And they went on my system. And this is what they look like today. And maybe I get, I'm 53, almost 54. I get a lot of ads for military workouts. I don't know how that got on my feed, that for men in their 50s, and there'll be some overweight 50-something-year-old guy, and then there'll be some jacked dude, and they'll say, just 15 minutes a day of this app, and you will look like this guy. They'll put those before and after pictures up. Maybe it's hair loss. Some of you might be interested in those ads. They, I won't name names, but you, you, here's a picture of my thinning hair, and I use this product, and now look at this lush head of hair that I have now. Maybe it's a skincare product. Here's the close-up of my crow's feet, and I put this ointment on, and now look, the wrinkles are gone, before and after, the dramatic transformation. We're gonna look at Ephesians chapter two, the 2nd half of that chapter as we continue, our study through the book of Ephesians. What Ephesians chapter two, really the whole chapter is a before and after picture. Here's what your life looked like before Jesus. And here's how Jesus has changed your life or how Jesus can change your life. Same thing we saw last week of the 1st 10 verses. We saw how Jesus changed our lives spiritually. The 2nd half, he kind of repeats that same theme again, last week, verses one through three. Paul, the author said, before Jesus, you were dead in your sins, you walked according to the course of this world, you were led by a spirit of disobedience, and you carried out the desires of your flesh. And then in verse four, he says the phrase, but God. But God. Here's what your life was like. But now look what God has done. He says, God's made you alive in Christ. He saved you by his grace alone, and he's called you to live a life of good works prepared for you. So before God changed your life in Jesus, you were dead, now he's made you alive. Before you carried out the desires of your flesh. Now he's set before you the good works, he's prepared for you. He has changed, dramatically changed, the before and after picture of your life. We're going to see the same thing in verses 11 through 2, with a little added twist. Verses one through 10, primarily really exclusively focused on the difference between my relationship with God and how he changed me. In the 2nd half, you're still going to talk about how our our life is transformed in our relationship with God, but he's going to talk also about how it impacts our relationships with other people. It's not just about vertical transformation or reconciliation, but horizontal transformation or horizontal reconciliation in our relationships. His intent, Paul, the author in the 1st century, writing to the followers of Jesus and the city of Ephesus, his intent was to show those believers the advantages they had, those specifically those Gentile believers. The advantages they had as now followers of Jesus, and how them following Jesus has transformed the relationship between Jews and Gentiles. Today, it's a reminder for us today of the blessings we have, as followers of Jesus, and a reminder of the unity he's called us to. So we'll note as we move through here, the original kind of cultural context of this chapter, and then kind of we'll bridge the gap over to Kansas City and see how it affects our lives today. My hope today, this week as I prepare, my hope is twofold. Number one, if you're not a follower of Jesus, if you're here today and you would say, I'm not trusting and following Jesus, I hope today, you'll see in God's word, the transformation available for you, how God wants to change your life, how it wants to dramatically transform you into a new person. If you are a follower of Jesus, I hope what we'll see today as a reminder of what we have in Jesus, I think so often we go through life, not really thinking daily about the incredible blessings we have as followers of Jesus. I want to be reminded of those today, that God would store our hearts to gratitude, and he would challenge us to live out this new life we have in Christ. Let's jump in. What did our life look like before Jesus? Ephesians chapter 2, verse 11. Therefore, remember that at one time, you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands, remember that you were, at that time, separated from Christ. So he said the 1st thing about your life before Jesus is that you were separated from God, because you hadn't begun to follow Jesus. He begins to speak to the Gentiles very directly. Now, the church in that day would have been made up of Jewish followers of Jesus and Gentile followers of Jesus. Now, what is a Jew? What is a Gentile? Gentiles simply is anyone who's not Jewish? So Jewish people, and then wherever you're from, whatever your country of origin, if you're not Jewish, you're Gentile. And so you had the early followers of Jesus were Jewish. Jesus was Jewish, the early disciples were Jewish, the earlier followers of Jesus, in the beginning of the story of the book of Acts were Jewish followers of Jesus. And then the gospel began to spread to non-Jewish people. And that was a problem for the church. What do we do? We were followers of Jewish people. We knew the promises of God and his word, the prophets, we followed the law, we worshiped, we sacrificed at the temple. We see Jesus as the fulfillment of all of that. We see Jesus as the Messiah, that God had promised the sin. The Jewish people, and now these Gentiles are following Jesus. And it caused discomfort in the church of how do we come together as Jews and Gentiles. And so he's saying, at one time, Gentiles. The church was in Ephesus, would have been primarily Gentiles, although there would have been Jewish believers likely in the church as well, but predominantly probably Gentile. And he's saying to those Gentiles, you were at one time looked down upon by the Jewish people. He says here, you were called the uncircumcision. And in my translation of the Bible and ESV, they put that in quotes, that was a derogatory term that they would have used, kind of a term to insult, the Gentile people, by calling them the uncircumcised. He said, you guys were on the outside here. There was deep animosity between the Jews and the Gentiles. The Jews saw the Gentiles as unclean people. They saw their Roman Gentiles as oppressors, and they did everything they could to separate themselves from the Gentiles, and now they're part of the church. There's Jewish believers and Gentile believers. They've come together. And so he's addressing this group. And he's pointing out, here was your situation before you began to follow Jesus. Not only were you an outsider, in the eyes of the Jewish people, you were the outsider, in the eyes of God. You were separated from God before you came to Christ. Imagine, it would have been tough to be a Gentile Christian in the city of Ephesus in the 1st century. Number one, you have turned your back on the paganism of the culture in that day. You'd walked out of pagan temples to follow Jesus. And so now you no longer fit with your pagan friends. And now you've come into the church, and you don't fit super well with your Jewish brothers and sisters in the church, and you kind of felt like you didn't have a place there. And he said on top of all that, you were separated from God because you didn't know Christ. You were separated from Christ, verse 12 tells us. Now, what is the word Christ? You know, when I was younger, I just thought that was Jesus' middle name. Jesus Christ as a student. Christ is not a name, it's a title. His name is Jesus, his title is Christ. And this term Christ. It comes from a Greek word that means the anointed one, which is the translation of a Hebrew word that deliverer or Messiah. What I'm saying is he was Jesus the deliverer. Jesus the rescuer, Jesus the Messiah. This is the one they had hoped for. If you're a Gentile, you didn't have the hope of a deliverer. The Jews had a hope that one day God would send us a deliverer. And he said, you didn't have that hope. You didn't know that, but you were an outsider in every way. You were an outsider longing to be rescued. That may describe you today. You may feel spiritually like an outsider. On the outside looking in to what God is doing. You want to be rescued. You want to be delivered and you're longing for that. We're going to see that Jesus came to be our rescuer, our deliverer, to bring us into the family. Which brings us to our 2nd point. He says, you were not only separated from God, but you were cut off from God's people. Look at verse 12. You were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel. It might be, you could also see this translated, you were excluded from the citizenship of Israel. Now, a lot of things in the Bible that don't hit us the way they would have hit a 1st century reader. We don't think a lot, probably, in our culture, about the rights and privileges and benefits of citizenship like maybe they would have in their day. And many who lived within the boundaries of the Roman Empire were not citizens of Rome. And so they would live among Romans, but not enjoy the benefits of being Roman. They lived among Romans, but they didn't enjoy the privileges of being Roman. And so they were alienated because they were not citizens. What he's saying here, you were alienated because you're not a citizen of the kingdom. There are certain rights and privileges and benefits that come with being a citizen of God's kingdom, and you were aliens. You weren't citizens of that kingdom, and you were alienated from God cut off from those benefits. He says, third, you were blinded to God's promises. You were separated from Christ, from God. You were cut off from God's people, and you were on the outside looking in, and you were blind. Verse 12 says you were strangers to the covenants of promise. You were strange. You didn't know the promises that God had made to his people. God made a covenant with Abraham. I'm going to make you a great nation. There's gonna be many descendants of it can come from you. I'm going to give you a promised land and I'm going to bless the whole world through you. You would have been ignorant of that promise. God gave the law, and you would have been ignorant of the law, and you would have been ignorant of the prophets who would come, and the promises that God had delivered to his people. You didn't know all of that. You were cut off, many today, blinded to the truth of God's word and the promises that are within it. And you add to all that, worst of all, you were without hope. You had no hope. Verse 12 says having no hope, and without God, in the world. You were separated, you were cut off, you were blinded, you were hopeless. Surrounded by temples. I don't know if you've ever been to Ephesus, my wife and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary this, uh, last year, and we did a cruise, uh, Mediterranean cruise, and one of the stops was in Turkey, and you get off the ship in Turkey, you can, you can get someone to take you to the city of Ephesus, the ancient city of Ephesus, and you can walk the streets of Ephesus, where Paul would have walked. There's temples everywhere. There's gods, little G gods everywhere. The temple of Artemis is there. one of the 7th wonders of the world in the ancient world. And they were surrounded by gods, but had no hope. Surrounded by gods, but had no hope. Isn't that described today? People are looking for the real thing and they see of counterfeits and imitations. And for that reason they have no hope. Do you ever wonder, do you ever go through something difficult in life? as a Christian and think, how does a lost person do this? Ever hit you? We're going to do so many things. This is hard enough with Jesus. I can't imagine it without Jesus. And that's who they were before Jesus. They had no hope. How in the world can I get through? The promises we sang about in these songs that we were able to put our confidence in? They don't have that. There's no hope. cut off in every way. But let's look at verse 13. Oh, how good are these 2 words? But now. But now, it reminds me, Russell, last week in your sermon, but God, you brought that out. We got a butt god at the 1st half of the chapter and a butt now in the 2nd half of the chapter. These are probably the foremost important words in this chapter. What he's saying is, you were like this, but God changed everything. He's saying today, you were like this, but now everything has changed. Verse one, you were dead in your sin, verse four, but God made you alive. Verse 12, you were cut off, verse 13, but God brought you near. Those ones separated from God have now been brought near to God. You're brought near to God. Verse 19. So then those who are, so then you are no longer strategies and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints. You were cut off, but now we're citizens of the same kingdom. You're no longer an alien or stranger. You enjoy the full rights and privileges of a citizen. Have you ever had a friend go through the process of becoming a United States citizen? Probably had some friends who've immigrated here, they went through that very lengthy process, to officially become a citizen. I've had that with some friends, and they've invited me on some occasions, on 2 or 3 occasions, I've been able to go with them to their swearing in. As you know, we've been to one of those with a friend where they were sworn in. It's a powerful thing, isn't it? You're in this room, courtroom filled with people from all over the world. And they've been longing for so long to become an official citizen of the U.S. And they've gone through a very lengthy process of paperworks and filings, and now the day has come. It is a powerful moment. And I remember one time leaving out of the courtroom, and in the hallway, there were two tables. One was to register to vote, and the other was to apply for a U.S. passport. I thought, what a cool thing that must be. I'm, like, a real citizen now. I'm gonna register to vote. I'm gonna do something that citizens get to do. And I'm gonna get a passport. I'm gonna carry my pocket, United States Passport. I'm gonna be able to leave and come back anytime I want because I'm a citizen now. He says, you're now a citizen of heaven. You have all the rights, all the privileges, all the benefits. Because your citizenship is now in heaven. You're no longer an outsider. Your part of the family. Then he says, you're also united in peace. You're united in peace. Verse 14. He himself is our peace. who has made the both, who has made us both one, and has broken down in his flesh, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the 2, so making peace. Notice 1st thing, I think it's important we catch. verse 14. He is our piece. He is our, it doesn't say he taught us about peace or he modeled peace. He is our peace. There's a distinction there. Now, did Jesus teach us about peace. Of course he did. Did Jesus model a life of peace that we could follow? Sure he did. But it's bigger than that. See, most people in our culture see Jesus as a man who taught the world about peace. Jesus didn't teach the world about peace. Jesus puts the world at peace. Jesus puts you at peace with God. He's not just the one who taught the way he was the way. He didn't just teach truth. He was the truth. He is our peace. And because of Jesus, we have peace in 2 ways. We can have peace with God, vertically, and we can have peace with one another horizontally. Through Jesus, Jews, and Gentiles, who were people with great animosity toward one another, have been brought together in one body because of Jesus, the wall of hostility has been broken down. What is the wall of hostility? There's 2 kind of options that are put forward by scholars here. One is that it was the wall in the temple complex that the Gentiles couldn't go past. You could go into the temple area, you could only go, so far, there was a wall, and there was a sign on that wall, or all the way around that said, if you're not Jewish, don't cross this wall. In fact, it said, if you cross this wall, you could be killed. Cross this point, you might die. because you're not Jewish. And now, so that wall's gone. There's a wall that separates you from the presence of God, the people of God. Some see it as the law itself. There was these laws that I wasn't following as a Gentile and he says, that's gone now. It's not gone because God just wiped out the law. Jesus fulfilled the law. So everything that was in the law was pointing to something. pointing to Jesus, was a shadow of things to come. The author of Hebrews tells us. It was pointed to Jesus, and now we, it's gone. There's no wall between us. These 2 rival races have now been united into one new race in the family of God, Jew and Gentile now bear the word, the label Christian. One scholar wrote, it's as if you melted down a statue of silver and a statue of lead and out popped a statue of gold. These 2 things are gone and something new and more beautiful is here now because of what Jesus has done among his people. Colosses 311 says there's not Greek or Jews, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and in all. Galatians 328. there's neither June nor Greek. Slave nor free, male nor female. You're all one in Christ Jesus. And catch this, Romans 10, 12, there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. In verse 13, a lot may have this verse memorized, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. That's a short little verse, maybe somewhere you memorize the scripture, you memorize that verse. All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. The verse right before it says, all is all. Jew, Gentile, slave, free, rich, poor, male, female, oh, what does it say? Everyone gets in on this. And so if Jesus is broken down every wall, then every wall is gone here. We're all at peace. Verse 17, he came and preached peace to those who are far off, peace to those who are near. All the barriers are obliterated by the cross. Divisions that were once like oil and water have been emulsified by the blood of Jesus. What is an emulsifier? I remember what an emulsifier is. It's a thing that breaks down 2 chemicals that couldn't mix or 2 liquids, substances that wouldn't mix before. You add to this to it and they can mix. What's the best example of that in our common everyday life? It's dishwashing soap. Okay, you go home today, you fry hamburger, you fry some bacon, you fry some, it's got grease on the skillet, and you want to clean that skillet, you know, men, I don't know if you know this, you can't just rinse it in the sink and put it back in the thing. The water won't take grease away. What do it to do? You gotta add some dishwashing liquid to it. You add that liquid, it's an emulsifier. It allows water and grease to mix with one another, and it gets it off your thing. That's what the blood of Jesus does. So next time you do some dishes. Guys go and do some dishes today, do a little sermon application. You put that dishwashing liquid on that skillet, it's gonna break down the barrier between grease and water. That's what the blood of Jesus does. Every time you do dishes, from now on, I want you to think, the barriers are gone. There's not a race, there's not a class, there's not a people, there's not a color that doesn't mix by the blood of Jesus. It emulsifies it. It breaks it down. And we're now one body because of Jesus. Once separated. We're now fellow citizens. Once separated, the wall is gone. We're at peace with God, because of Jesus, and we're with peace with one another. Because of Jesus. Third, we're reconciled to God and his people. That he might reconcile us both to God, verse 16. He might reconcile both to God and in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. The hostility is put to death. The separation is put to death. Verse 19. Catch this catch up with that or pick up in the 2nd half of that. We are members of the household of God. The building of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God, by the Spirit. We are stones of the same building that he's building. Now, we know, we say all the time a church is not a building. We know that. We know that at Northland. We have a campus that meets in a middle school, Walden Middle School, right down the road. going to go there after this to preach there because Tyler's out of town for a few weeks, going to go help Dalton out by covering one of those. And so we're going to gather in this building with Northland Church, and I'm going to go to Riverside, and the middle school with Northland, sure, is not a building. Except here it is a building. Metaphorically we are a building. So, when someone says church notability, actually, it is a building, according to Ephesians chapter 2. It's not a building the way you think it's a building. The stones are not bricks. The stones are the people. We are the dwelling place of his spirit. We are the building he's building. And you've known this since your earliest days. You were doing... You go to a seminary, you can take a class on ecclesiology, and they'll teach you the nature of the church. You learn the nature of the church when you were 3 years old when your mom did this. Here's the church, ready? Let's do it together. Here's the church, here's the steeple, open the door, and see all the people. That was ecclesiology. What was your mom teaching you? The church is made by the people. How did you make a church? All the people got together, and they made the church, and you opened the doors, and there are the people. And so that's deep spiritual truth right there. The church are the people of God coming together to be the building of God. And he says here in verse 22, where the Spirit of God would dwell. This is the church, with Christ as its cornerstone, the most important architectural piece, intersecting the two walls. Everything was going to be in line with that cornerstone. The church comes together on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. That just means the Word of God, on the foundation of the Word of God, with Jesus as our cornerstone. We all line up with Jesus. Jesus lines us up, binds us together. He is our standard, and there God builds the dwelling for his spirit as his spirit dwells in us. You don't have to go to a building of brick and mortar to meet with God. One night I was leaving here on Sunday evening, locking up the building. This lady pulled in. She said, hey, hey, wait, wait, wait. I was locked the door. And she said, are you guys closed? I said, we closed. Yeah, I mean, our thing just ended. She goes, oh man, she goes, I've been driving all over the city. looking for a place to pray. Can I come in and pray real quick before you leave? I said, sure, I think it was the time for a deep ecclesiology lesson. I just said, go pray. I waited out there and she prayed and she came out and I tried to talk to her. She wasn't injured. What was she doing? She had to talk to God, and if you want to talk to God, you got to find ability that's still open on Sunday night. See her think he was off. You don't have to find a building this week to pray in. We are the dwelling of God in us and we come together. This got taken out by last night's tornado. We'd be in the parking lot of Hy-V. We'd be the dwelling of God where his spirit dwelled. That's what Jesus has done, putting together. His house. Fourth. We're granted access to his presence. We were granted access to his presence. Verse 18. For through him, through Jesus, we have both access in one spirit to the Father. Both groups have equal access to God because of what Jesus has done in their life. The curtain has come down, the walls come down. Think about that this summer, maybe you're traveling, and just things that might remind you that you have access. You fly on a plane, and you get up in the air and they pull that little curtain shut, and you can't get past that curtain to the 1st class restroom. Those are fancy people up there. I'm not gonna use your toilet. Let me go to the back of the plane. You're not cut off. You go to the airport. I'm at the Chick-fil-A with the commoners, while the important people are in the lounges, right? I go to the hotel, there's buttons that won't work because I don't have the card to scan to get me to the floor where the executive suites are. You go to the concert, you're back with me on the lawn seats, with the VIPs with their wristbands, have the good seats down in front. Let those remind you, there are places you might not have access to in this world, but you have access to the creator and sustainer of the universe because of Jesus. We're not cut off. We can walk right into his presence because of Jesus. Now what? What do we do with this? Let me give you 4 action steps you can take. Number one, if you've not yet, trust Christ alone for your salvation, salvation's finding Jesus alone. Verse 13 said we were brought near by the blood of Christ. Verse 14, Christ is our peace. Verse 20 Christ is the cornerstone of the building. Any, any group, Any religion, any philosophy, that points you to some truth outside of Christ is a false teaching, everything that God is doing aligns with the cornerstone of his son, Jesus. Do not put your faith in him, put your faith in him. It's the only way to be right with God. I have a little hobby that I do every once in a while, I drive for Uber. It's kind of a fun way to meet people and I've had some great gospel conversations doing that. And Friday, I finished my last meeting of the day about 430 and I thought, I'm going to turn the app on and go drive and I called my wife and said, hey, what are you doing right now? She goes, I'm going to get my nails done. I said, okay, cool. I was thinking about Ubering. She said, how are you gonna Uber? I said, how much does it cost to get your nails done? And she gave me a number and I said, I'll be home when I hit that number. At least. What I was saying. You're gonna run up a debt. I'm gonna go work it off. You see, it doesn't work like that spiritually. You don't get to go on sin this much and then do this many good things. There's not some app that can balance out. Like how much sin did I do today? How much good stuff do I need to do today? The whole price was paid by Jesus. And our only hope is Jesus. Our only hope is to put our faith in Jesus Christ and what he did for us on the cross. Second live a life of gratitude. Live a life of. How often do you think about daily these spiritual blessings of your life? I, I, I fail to do that. I go through life, uh, often many days losing sight of all that Jesus has done for me. I was illustrating this. I think about like when I fly on a plane. I'll always pray when we're taxing down the runway and it take off. I pray for the pilot. I pray for the mechanics, I pray against terrorists. I pray every kind of way that I get where I'm going. When those wheels touch down, I don't pray. I gather my belongings, and I jump out to block the people trying to get by me behind me, and I get my thing, and I go about my day, and I say, doesn't that illustrate how we treat life a lot of times? We pray on the front end that God will help us. We don't always prey on the back end and thank him for how he's helped us. Let me challenge you this week to live with gratitude, to take time every day to say, Jesus, thank you that your blood was shed. Thank you, that I have access. Thank you that I'm not on the outside looking in. Thank you that I'm not a stranger or an alien. I'm a member of the kingdom. I'm a citizen of the kingdom. Then 3rd strive. For unity. As we love and accept one another. He died for all. Every person in your life that you have some kind of beef with or animosity toward or tension with, is the person Jesus Christ, shed his blood for. If Christ brought down the wall, who are we to build another? If Christ has made us one, how could we not come together, if Christ died to reconcile, how could we not forgive? Search your heart, ask the Lord to search your heart. Is there animosity or division that needs to be torn down? By the blood of Jesus. And then finally, share Jesus with those who are far from him today. With many still, so far off, how can we sit idle? I read many years ago, someone said that sharing the good news of Jesus is like one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. You're just a beggar who's found the bread. And we have an obligation to tell the other beggars where the bread is. We found it. Will we carry out this ministry of reconciliation entrusted us? I was thinking about this last night. The sirens went off. I flipped the TV on. Where is the tornado? And then I began texting people that I knew were kind of in the path. texted my kids, hey, it's past us. were good. Texted my mom, hey, mom's headed your way. I texted Craig Knisley, lives in Liberty. Hey, Craig, you got the news on? You watch it. Were you watching the news, Rebecca? I was up in your neighborhood, right? I want to make sure my friends new. It's then coming your way. And then I saw these meteorologists. Man, they love tornadoes, don't they? It's like the Super Bowl for them. And I literally, this is kind of funny. I prayed this prayer last night because I was finishing up the slides and I was watching this and I said, Lord, would you make me as passionate about the gospel as a meteorologist is about tornadoes? Would you give me the kind of passion that Brian Busby has for the rotation on the radar that I ought to have for the good news of Jesus in a world where people are still separated and far off? Would you pray that today? We're going to wrap up our time. The band's gonna come. You have time to pray right where you're arguing about the prayer corner. Pastor Blake's back in the prayer corner if you want someone to pray with you. What kind of prayer might you pray today? It might be a prayer for salvation. Jesus, I am on the outside looking in, and I know my only hope is you. Maybe your prayer is Jesus. I'm turning from my sin to trust and follow you. Maybe your prayer is a prayer of gratitude. Jesus, thank you. I've gone a while without saying Jesus, thank you for your bloodshed for me, for drawing me into the family, for opening my eyes to the truth I was once blinded to. Maybe it's a prayer for unity or reconciliation. There's a group of people or a class of people or a race of people or an individual person at work, whatever it might be. that you have a division with, and Jesus, you tore down all divisions, would you tear down this one in my life? Maybe it's a prayer for boldness. Jesus, I'm on the inside now, but a lot of people are still on the outside looking in. Give me the boldness to take the gospel. To those who have not found, the access that I found, the truth that you've revealed to me, the privileges of citizenship I enjoy. Let's pray together. Jesus. I pray that if anyone here who doesn't know you that today would be the day, they would turn to you. They put their faith in you as their lord and savior. They'd see their only hope is what you did for them on the cross. Would you fill our hearts with gratitude as your followers? All those times we come to you asking for stuff and not enough time, rejoicing and celebrating the access and the privileges, and the forgiveness that you've made possible. Would you reveal if there's sin in our heart, animosity, prejudice, judgment, that should be eradicated by the cross? Would you reveal it and remove it? And then would you give us boldness? We would be such a terrible thing to find the bread and not tell the other beggars. Would you open our eyes to the loss that surround us and give us boldness to take the good news of Jesus to them? We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.