Under the Influence - Ephesians 5:15-21

Several years ago when my daughter's, who are now grown, were kind of heading into the teenage years. I don't know how it happened, but we got kind of hooked on the show Cops for a little while. How many of you have seen the TV show Cops? Yeah. So here's how cops works. It's a pretty formulaic show. The cops pull someone over. That person typically runs from the cops. Once they finally catch them, they realize that person is either drunk or high. And so the life lesson for my kids, that we started kind of ingraining in them as they were turning teenagers, was 2 things. Don't run from cops and don't do drugs because those 2 connected. When the cop would pull the person out of the car, they would then try to test to see if they were under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and they would run them through all of the sobriety checks, walk the straight line, test the finger to your nose, all of those things. And inevitably, they were under the influence. Now, you're here today. Hopefully you're not under the influence of drugs and alcohol. Maybe you are. Christ can set you free from that. But throughout life, we're going to find ourselves under the influence of someone or something. Maybe it's that influencer that you're watching on YouTube or TikTok that's telling you how to live your life, how to dress yourself, how to behave, how to go about your day-to-day. Maybe it's the books you're reading, or the fringe you're hanging out with. Maybe it's that TV show you love so much or that band that you listen to so much. We are all under the influence of something or someone. Paul in Ephesians today is going to tell us that we need to be under the influence of God's spirit, and that when we're under the spirit's influence, it manifests itself in our life in a certain way. And there's actually ways we can look and see, hey, am I under the spirit's influence, Paul's going to show us some things, 4 things really today, that show us if we're under God's influence. One is, are we living a life that seeks God's will? Are we using our time wisely for God? Are we expressing gratitude to God and are we being humble in our relationships with each other? The big idea of this message, these few short verses is this, the spirit-filled person is under God's influence. The spirit filled person is under God's influence. If you've been with us throughout the Ephesians series, you'll notice that in Ephesians chapters one to 3, Paul lays out the way the world is. He says, this is who Jesus is. This is who those who are followers of Jesus are. They've been redeemed, the spirits come into them. They've been made new creatures. We have an inheritance with God. Then in chapter 4, he shifts. And he says, because we are this thing, a follower of Christ, we should behave in a certain way. We should walk a certain way is what Paul says in chapter 4, verse one. He says, walk then in a way that is in accord with, that lines up with our calling in Christ. We see, Paul carries this theme on. In fact, in the show cops, whenever they would take someone out of the car, what would they have them do if they're going to check for sobriety? They would say, I need you to walk a straight line. And you would watch the person either be able to or not. Can they put one foot in the other and just walk a straight line? Paul's going to tell us in verses 15 to 17 of Ephesians chapter 5 that we should walk a straight line? Look what he says. He says, look carefully then how you walk. Not as unwise, but as wise. Making the best use of the time because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Let's look at each of these to see how Paul tells us we should walk a straight line. He starts with, look carefully then how you walk. Go all the way back to chapter 4, verse one, where he says, you should walk. We should walk in a way that lines up with what it means to be a follower of Christ. But here he says, look carefully how you walk. It's not that we aimlessly wander through life and God just kind of says, I'm going to make you into a certain thing. You're gonna behave a certain way. He's telling us to pay attention to our walk. This summer. We went to the Grand Canyon and we were on some trails that were pretty treacherous. Like you're walking, it's narrow, pretty rocky, pretty dangerous to this side, just a pretty straight drop. I was talking with one of our members after the 1st service, and he said, he was on a trail like that one time, and he slept. He was like 12 years old with the Boy Scouts. He went paying attention. He slipped and fell over a 1,200 foot drop, and his dad grabbed his backpack at the last second and kept him from falling. Most of you sat close. You probably wanted to win as mad, am I going to fall off the stage? Like, do we pay attention? How close can we get before we fall off? We're aware of that. We're trying to pay attention as we walk. When I was on this trail, there were beautiful things to look at in the Grand Canyon. But I had to look at my step because if I did a misstep. If I hit a rock that was loose, I could fall off a cliff. Paul says, look carefully how you walk. We need to pay attention to our walk. And again, the walk that Paul talks about is just our daily routine. When Paul says, how are you walking? He's just asking, what's your life like? How do you live? How's your normal life? You're Monday through Sunday. Not just your Sunday at church life, but your Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, like, how do you normally walk? He says, we should be walking in a way that's pleasing to Christ. He says, here, look carefully then how you walk. And he says, not as an unwise person, but as a wise person. Wisdom is not intelligence. You can be highly intelligent and very unwise. Wisdom is doing the things that God has called us to do. It's doing the right things. The book of Proverbs is filled with wisdom. Paul, who wrote this letter, probably had proverbs memorized as a rabbi. They didn't have Bibles ready to hand. They would have scrolls that would stay in the synagogue in the church, and he would have to go study that. So he would memorize it. Here's a list on the screen. You can take a picture with your phone if you want, of some descriptions in the book of Proverbs of a wise person. The wise person seeks God's wisdom. Thinks before he acts, chooses his companions carefully, controls his word, controls his emotions, plans and uses his time well, receives correction, flees temptation, works diligently, walks in integrity, gives generously, treats others humbly and graciously. Now, if you changed all of those and says the unwise person doesn't seek God's wisdom, doesn't think before he acts. Paul says, we need to walk in such a way that we are walking as wise people, not as unwise people. And then he says, we do this as we walk, we need to make the best use of the time. I imagine if you're like me, you've probably wasted time before. I was reminded as I was reading this of a time in college, in our dorm, our floor had a Nintendo baseball tournament going on. Round robin kind of play that, you know, usually stretched into 2 a.m., 3 a.m. And one of my best friends, Canon Mackenville, was hosting the tournament. I would finish my studies and then, you know, go play my round. Canon, spend a lot of time playing baseball this semester. So much time that he ended up not coming back the next semester, because he didn't make the best use of his time. I should have been a better friend and said, hey, you may want to lose this round and go study. But we've all been there, right? You've picked your phone up before, I'm sure. And what you found yourself doing was, oh, I'm just checking some social media. And the next thing you know, it's an hour later, and you've just been brain rotting. Doom scrolling through your phone. Or you turn on a TV show and you're like, I've just watched like 8 hours straight of this show. That happens on occasion. Probably nothing wrong on occasion of going, you know what, I just turned my mind off for a little bit and relaxed. But if our life is filled with just, I'm wasting time. I'm not making the best use of my time, for what I need to be doing, Paul says, we need to make the best use of our time. Why? He says, not so you can go get the best job, so you can get that career that you want. He says, because the days are evil. Paul understands that the world is in a conflict between God and the spiritual forces of darkness and Ephesians 6. He's going to tell us our battle is not against each other as humans. As much as our culture wants to pit, people against people. You know, political parties against political parties, conservative against liberal, Paul says the real battle is against the forces of darkness. The spiritual beings that have rebelled against God, that we as humans have joined sides with. Christ has redeemed people and said, now go out and bring more in. He says the days are evil. During World War 2 in England, they had restrictions at night where you had to have all of your lights blacked out. So you had to pull your curtains tight. There could be no light coming out of your house at night. And they would send patrols around to make sure no one's lights were on. And we think, what in the world? This is ridiculous. The reason they did that was because they understood that at night, the Germans would fly their planes over. It's harder to shoot down the planes, so they're flying at night, and they're just looking. If one house has one window open and there's one light coming out, they know drop bombs there. And so, the rule was, every window has to be closed. Everybody has to pay attention to what's going on because they understood the situation they were in. Paul says, we need to understand the situation we're in. The days we live in are evil. That's the rhythm of the world we live in. Now Christ has redeemed the world from that. He's going to come back one day and fully restore it, but until then, he says, guys, you're living in enemy occupied territory. That enemy is Satan and his fallen angels, working to pull humans away from God. He says, your job, be diligent. Use your time wisely to move into that territory and reclaim people back to God, to tell them of God's love for them. God's care for them, that God created them for himself, and for them to come home. He says, walk in such a way that we're making the best use of our time because the days are evil. And he says, therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. We hear this word foolish, and we can mistakenly think it just means someone who's kind of goofing off a lot, not, you know, taking things seriously, but this word in its original language had to do with someone who knows the right thing to do but isn't doing it, someone who's not paying attention to what God has to say, someone who's being reckless and how they're living are acting irrationally. He says, don't be foolish, but the contrast of that behavior is to understand God's will. Matt talked about this last week. That when we think about what God's will is, if we're following Christ, that's a huge thing for us. like, I want to know what God wants me to do. God created us for himself. He created you for himself. And that means we want to behave and live in such a way that we please him. In chapter 5, verse 10, it says we should be seeking to please the Lord, doing the things that he wants. I was in college, in college is a massive time for decisions, right? You've decided which college to go to, now you're trying to figure out what to do in life. What am I going to do after college? And a lot is up in the air. Like I'm not sure, nothing's settled. And we start worrying about, what's God's will for me? Now that can happen at different stages of life, but we ask, what's his will? And when we ask that question, we're really asking, I want to get some answers to questions, like, what job am I going to get? Who am I going to marry? I was at this retreat, a college retreat when I was in college? And the campus minister there? Said, kind of an arbitrary number. He said, look, guys, about 90% of God's will is in the Bible. Matt talked about this last week. He says 90% of what God wants us to do, how he wants us to be is in here. This is by 10% of your life that's not in here. That 10% would be if you were saying, God, who am I going to marry? Let me open up to the book of Ezekiel and see if I can find that answer. You're not going to find it in there. The person, if you're single, who you're going to marry. If you're saying, God, which job should I take? I have 3 options. Let me just open maybe to the book of 1st Chronicles, and I'll find the answer of which you're not going to find that there. What you will find there, though, is once you get married, how you should treat your husband or your wife, if you're single, how you should treat the people you date, if you're taking a job, how you should behave as an employee, if you're hiring someone, how you should behave as an employer. That the things God wants us to do, he's spelled out for us. He said, this is how we live. I think there's points in life where God's going to say, here's 3 options. Enjoy, pick one. Go. And when you get there, do the things I've called you to do. Then maybe a time in life where God specifically says, I need you at this place, at this location. But you could go to that place in that location. And if you don't do what he wants you to do, you're not doing his will. Paul says, we should be seeking to understand what the will of the Lord. That means we have to work at it. We have to apply ourselves to understand what he would have us do so that we're not being foolish. Paul starts with saying we should walk a straight line. But then he says in verse 18, we should be under the spirit's influence, and he makes this contrast with getting drunk. Look what he says. And do not get drunk with wine. for that is debauchery, but be filled with the spirit. Drunkenness was a pretty common experience in the 1st century in Ephesus and in the Roman Empire. It's pretty normal, just like it is today. He says, do not get drunk with wine. We know when people drink, alcohol changes our brain chemicals, it represses certain parts of the brain, enhances other parts, basically slows us completely down, and then removes inhibitions, and people begin to behave and act differently. certain inhibitions go away. Certain motor skills get compromised. That's why we can have sobriety tests. And Paul would recognize in the Ephesian church, much like the church of Corinth, there would have been people who would have come out of the Roman culture when they had social gatherings, a lot of drinking would have happened. This is common in our day were no different than the 1st century. If you found yourself at the Chiefs preseason game out in the parking lot, You notice this. There's a lot of drinking happening in the parking lot, in the stadium, in the parking lot after the game, on the way home, everywhere you go. This is there. Paul says, do not be drunk. Now, this is easy, just as a command. If you want to know what's God's command about drinking? He says, don't be drunk. That's not complicated. That's not some esoteric wisdom from Revelation. It's just basic living. dont be drunk. because it changes who we are. We're being influenced by something that's not godly. He says, because it leads. It is debauchery. This idea of debauchery. When we hear that word, we tend to think of behavior that's like explicitly rude or degradating. But the word in its original language has this idea of a life that is leading to dissolution. that is not going anywhere. It would be the idea of someone who's a prodigal. So when you read the story, the prodigal son, he took all of his father's inheritance and he went into a far country and he squandered it on the language of debauchery, this reckless life that's leading to ruin. He says, do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but instead be filled with the spirit. Paul makes this contrast because we all see it, someone who is filled with drugs or alcohol is going to behave a certain way. And we can test for it. We can see it when it's happening. And he's saying, be filled instead with the Spirit. Don't be influenced. By these things, be influenced by God, and his spirit filling. You know, when you hear this idea being filled with the spirit, there's 2 things you need to be aware of, there is a work the spirit does in a person when they accept Christ. So when someone says, I'm giving my life to Jesus. I'm committing my life to Jesus, the spirit regenerates us. That's a fancy word to say, he makes us brand new. We're born again. We go from being dead in sin to alive in Christ. The spirit does that. But the Bible speaks of the Spirit continually filling us, empowering us to serve him. So in the book of Acts, the apostles who were already followers of Christ would pray and say, God, give us boldness to share your word. And there are places where it said the Spirit would come, and they were filled with the Spirit, and then they went out boldly and proclaim the gospel. Paul saying here that the influence we should be under is the spirit. Alcohol makes people act foolish. and unwise. The spirit gives us wisdom and lets us live out the truth that we're seeing in God's word. This idea of the word connected to the spirit. Paul himself makes this connection. In the book of Colossians, chapter 3, verse 16. Paul wrote Ephesians and Colossians at roughly the same time. He was in prison, and Colossians says a lot of the same things as Ephesians. Here's what Paul says in Colossians 3.16. He says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. That's exactly what he says in this passage in Ephesians that we're looking at, except he replaces, be filled with the spirit with, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. The Bible's really clear that God is a triune God, father, son, spirit. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. The son, the word of God, becomes human. When he dies and resurrects and goes back to the Father, the Father and Son send the Spirit to dwell to fill his followers. So when Paul says, be filled with the spirit. He's talking about having the word of Christ, Christ himself dwelling in us through the Spirit, and understanding who he is. Now when Paul speaks of, let the word of Christ, he's going to have connections to scripture. It's why here at Northland, we constantly repeatedly say, you should be reading your Bible. We give you a bookmark for that. Hopefully if you stay here long enough. If nothing else, you'll leave going. Well, I know certain things about the church, but one thing I know about North is they told me to read my Bible. We read this to understand God's will, to know what it would have us do, to strengthen us. that the spirit works in your life, in my life, through opening God's word, and reading it, and absorbing it, and understanding it, and meditating your audience, saying, God, this is your letter to me. This is how you would have me live. Paul says here, be filled with the spirit. And we see this idea being filled with the spirit, has outward manifestations. Paul, in the letter to the Galatians. Again, written roughly the same time while he was in prison, in chapter 5, verse 22 says this, but the fruit of the spirit is love. And joy, and peace, and kindness, and goodness, and faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. These are the things that manifest themselves for those who are filled with the Spirit, who are under the Spirit's influence. Just like someone under the influence of drugs or alcohol is going to behave a certain way. Certain actions will be manifested in their life, someone who is under the influence of the spirit, certain behaviors and actions will be manifested in our life. It's a spirit working in us to produce these. We're agreeing with the spirit. We're following along and doing the things he's asked us to do, but he's working to empower us to do these things. We should be under the Spirit's influence. And then in verses 19 to 21, we see that Paul gives us a sort of spirit-filled test. Again, we watch cops. Every time they pull someone out of the car, they would grab them and they would run them through the sobriety test, right? And you would just know, okay, I got to practice touching my nose, with my eyes closed, and I got to stand on one foot for 30 seconds. I can't do that when I would be in jail after that. Got to walk the straight line. Can you just one toe, and then count? So you do all these things that they know if you're under the influence of drugs or alcohol, you can't do well. Paul gives us sort of a test to say, hey, hey, let's check and see, are we being filled with the spirit? If we are, certain things will begin to manifest themselves in our life. Look what he says. He says, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord, with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything, to God the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another, out of reverence for Christ. Three things, I think he shows us. One is, what's our worship like? What's our gratitude like? And how is our relationship with us? So let's look at each of these. He said we should be addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Psalms probably refers to the Old Testament book of Psalms, which was a song book. They would have sung these songs. Hymns is a Greek word that just meant a song to a deity or a hero. And so the Ephesians would have sung hymns to Artemis, the goddess, the goddess they had been worshiping. And now Paul saying, we need to be singing Psalms, the Old Testament book, hymns, these, the kind of a genre they would have recognized as Romans, songs written to gods, and then spiritual songs, the word songs there, and the original language is owed. You may have heard the word ode, kind of a song that was sung. This would have been the generic term for just songs that people were singing. So you could go down to the local tavern and they would be singing odes, just songs about all sorts of things. Turn on your radio to the regular music channels, and that's what he's talking about. But he's saying spiritual songs. So it's songs now that aren't just about the random things of life. but spiritual songs, songs about God. And he tells us we should be addressing one another in these things. When we gather to worship on Sunday morning here, we sing songs because the word of God tells us to, but we're singing to each other. We're singing congregationally. And we're addressing each other, even as we sing. We're saying, we agree with this as we sing these songs, as we sing these words, we come together to celebrate that. It's a congregation, a communal activity. Absolutely, there's a place to end your car by yourself, turn on worship songs and sing away. But we need to gather with the body of Christ and sing. And if you're like me and you go, my voice isn't that great. Luckily, Paul said, you know, we are to make melody to the Lord with your heart. So he doesn't, you know, say my vocal cords have to be doing this. They do. That's why I sit on the front. Pro tip, if you can't sing well, move closer, the speakers drowns you out a little bit. If the good thing is moved to the back, you're going to hear you more. So if you go, I don't like my voice. Come up to the front row, you can join me. We'll sing loud and no one will hear us. But he says, with your heart, the issue isn't just singing the song. It's making melody in your heart, that you're committed to singing it. You mean what you're saying. And you're coming together. We come together to worship this way. Second, Paul says, we should be giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We should have gratitude. We should be a people who are thankful to God. Does that mean we don't acknowledge that things are difficult in our life? No. Jesus himself wept at the tomb of Lazarus. Paul himself in his letter says, I was so stressed out. I was at the point of death almost, but thanks be to God. There's always a place for giving thanks for gratitude. As we gather in our life groups this week. We know we're going to say, hey, we any prayer requests. And absolutely, 100% we should be saying, you know, my mom has this issue. We're having this struggle in our family. Someone is sick that I know. Let's pray for that. Absolutely. The Bible tells us to bring all of our cares and concerns to God. There's also a place to say, though. Let me give thanks to God for the things he's doing. Let me have this gratitude that's welling up because the spirit inside of us. It's changing us and working in us, to be aware of that. And we share it with each other. And you begin to hear of what someone else is thankful for. And then you go, I'm thankful for something too. Here's what God's done great in my life. And we're giving thanks to God. through Jesus. It's not just we're thankful in general. It's like God, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for what you've done in my life. We acknowledge what he's done. How is your gratitude? And then finally, he says this, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Because we revere Christ. We honor him so much. Paul says, submit to one another. Now, over the next 3 weeks, we're going to unpack what in the 1st century was called the household codes, which is just codes of conduct for households. And we're going to look at husbands and wives and parents and children. And in Paul's context, it would have been kind of the slaves and the masters, in our context, it may be like bosses and employees. But it was that most intimate place, the home, Paul says, we should be submitting to one another. In Philippians, another letter written in the same time as Galatians and Ephesians and Colossians. Paul says this about Jesus. Do nothing from selfish ambition. Or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equally with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death, on a cross. In humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Paul says that in Ephesians this way, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Because of who he is, we look at the relationships in our lives, and we say, how can I serve people in the relationship than I'm in? As a father, how can I serve my kids as a father, as a son, how can I serve my parents as a son, as a brother? How can I serve my brother as his brother? As a teacher? How can I serve my students? As a pastor. How can I serve the church? Each of you should be asking, how can I, in humility, count others as more significant? That's a sign, a test, that Paul gives us. is a spirit working in my life. If I'm self-centered and conceited and only worried about me, There's a chance to go, hey, is a spirit working? I letting him work in this area? That Paul gives us the spirit filled test. The main idea of this passage, again, was a spirit-filled person is under God's influence. Let me ask a simple question of us, myself and you. If someone watched our life this week. Someone said, hey, I'm going to track you. I want to stalk you. I'm going to watch your life the whole week. What would they conclude as influencing you? What would be the thing that they would say, that's what's influencing you? from our behaviors, from our words, from our actions. What's influencing us? First question I have for us is, are you under the spirit's influence? As a follower of Christ. You've been born again if you're his follower. But if you're here, I've never given my life to Jesus. Just know this. God loves you. God loves you so much that he says he sent his son, God the son, to become human, to die on a cross. Jesus, when he was on the earth, said, I came to serve and not be served and give my life as a ransom for many. God loves you. And he created you for himself. And we've rebelled and turned on him. And he says, come home, come home. The person cheated on is the one chasing the one who cheated on him. That's the biblical story. And if you're going, man, I want to talk about what it means to follow Christ. Willie and Kathy Hunter in the back in this back corner right over here. When we start our next song, you can just slide back there and talk with them about what it means to be a follower of Christ and come under the influence of the Holy Spirit. If you're a follower of Christ. What are you watching? What are we listening to? What are we letting influence us and shape how we live our lives? Are you under the spirit's influence? A way to ask that is to take a spirit-filled test of your life? Are you seeking God's will? How do you do that? First, read the Bible. Listen to the Bible. Gather with friends and talk about what you're reading and hearing. It's like I'm studying this. I want to know more. I've surrounded myself with people that trust God. I got a decision to make, and I need to know what God wants me to do, and I'm asking friends and trusted people. Hey, is God cool with this? Some things are easy. Don't get drunk. If you're saying, hey, God, should I get drunk tonight? The answer is no, don't. He already said that. It's just right there. But there are other decisions in life. God's saying, hey, there's a lot of factors involved. And you surround yourself with people and say, God, I want to do what's pleasing to you. I want to seek your will. I want to dig into your word. I want to ask others how to do that. So I can be faithful in what I'm doing, at least to the 2nd test. Are you using your time wisely? Are you serving God with your gifts? We all can look at our calendar and our day-to-day, and there's definitely a place. All of us should have rest in our life where we go, hey, I'm slowing down. God built it into the rhythm of the week. He said that we, as humans need rest, if you're just going 247 nonstop, that's not healthy. That's not good. There is a place to rest. And then there's a place where we're just wasting time. where we're not doing the things God's called us to do. And all of you have different kind of time constraints on you. God's called you to different parts of your life. When I had young children. I spent way more time with them. That was God's calling at that time and said, hey, this is what I want you to do. You need to raise your kids. And that takes a ton of time. Now they're older. They moved out of the house. God said, hey, you have some more time for other things. Go do those things now. But you need to ask yourself, if the things I'm doing, Are they a wise use of my time? Am I using the gifts God's given me to serve him? Third, are you expressing gratitude? If the people around you would say, man, he's a thankful person. She's a thankful person, she's thankful for what God has done. Are you thanking God for what he's done? I would encourage you this week to say, God, I want to start with thanking you before I start asking you things. Just saying, thank you so much for what you've done. Thanking others for what God's done through them. Are you expressing gratitude? And finally, are you humble in your relationships? Again, for the next 3 weeks, we're going to unpack what this looks like in the most intimate relationships in our life, which is at home. at home probably exposes the best of us, and probably exposes the worst of us also, because we feel comfortable to be like, I can be genuine near you. We all put on a face at church and that's okay. We all do it. no getting around it. Um, But we go home. Our kids and our wife and our husbands see the best of us and the worst of us. And we go, am I putting them first? Am I submitting myself to say, I want to care for them and humble myself in my relationship, starting at home and working its way out into all the relationships in my life, just saying, God, am I humble in these relationships? Am I seeking the good of the other person in those relationships? I would encourage us this week in our life groups to take that test, to ask ourselves as followers of Christ. Are we spirit filled and under God's influence? Will you join me in prayer? Father, I thank you for the chance to gather here and sing songs to you and worship to you. Father, give you thanks for all that you do in our lives. Father, we know that you are there for us in the difficult times in times of grief and loss and sorrow. Father, even in the midst of those, help us to be thankful that you are with us, even in that. that you don't abandon us. Father, help us in our relationships with others to be humble. And to put them 1st as your son showed us when he was on this earth, that he humbled himself to the point of death on a cross. And Phil, I pray if someone here doesn't know him, hasn't given their life to Christ that they would do that today. And they would find the joy and the life that you give. Father, send us out this week to live as those who are wise, help us to watch the way we walk. Father, fill us with your spirit. Strengthen us. so that we reflect you into the world and that we're pleasing to you. So in the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.