Walk In Love - Ephesians 5:1-5

And, uh, they know something's not right with this. So they know the real thing too well to be fooled by anything else. Now, why am I telling you this? Because I think a lot of us have been handed a counterfeit of love at some point in our life. Something that looked right. Something that felt convincing, maybe it was even a form of love that worked for a little bit. But we didn't catch it. Not because we were foolish, but because no one actually showed us what real love is. And so it came across our desk, it came across our life, and it fooled us. And that's exactly what Paul does for us this in Ephesians chapter 5. He wants us to know the difference between the real thing and the counterfeit. The real love and the fake love. So he wants to show us the real thing so we'd recognize it anywhere so that when he holds up the counterfeit right next to it, we would know that thing's fake. And it wouldn't fool us again. So I want us to pray, and then we'll jump into Ephesians chapter 5 together. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this morning. We thank you that you've gathered us here. To read your word, to hear your word, to study it, Lord, I pray that we would meditate upon it, that it wouldn't just be this next 35 minutes together, but that we would take your word with us into our lives, that we would hide it away in our hearts, that it would change us and transform us from the inside out. Lord, we know that you're present with us this morning. We know that you've guided and directed us through your words, so we pray that you would continue to do that. We pray all these things in Christ's name. Amen. So Dalton last walked us through the end of chapter 4, if you remember, chapter 4 verses 25 through 32, and it was about putting off the old self, putting on the new self. And Paul got really specific. He said, hey, put offline, put on truth, put off bitterness, put on kindness, put off anger, and forgive as God forgave you. And then we get to chapter 5, and Paul says this word that he loves therefore. Whenever you read, therefore, you should say, what's the therefore therefore, right? So chapter 5, verse one, that word is a bridge into chapter 5. So it's not a new thought, it's the next step of the same thought. Paul's continuing end of chapter 5. So here's the question worth asking. Why does Paul move from what he said at the end of chapter 4 straight into verse one, be imitators of God? Why does he do that? Well, I think he wants us to see that, the once the old self gets put off, all the bitterness, wrath, the anger, the unforgiveness, the malice, Paul doesn't just want you to be like your neutral default self. He's not getting rid of all the bad stuff just so you can be an empty vessel. He wants to fill that up with what he called the new self. That God has given you this new self, which in verse 24 of chapter four, 2 weeks ago, we talked about this. It was created after the likeness of God, in true righteousness and holiness. He wants something to put back into you after everything else, all the bad stuff has been taken out. So a few weeks back, when we were in chapter 4 verses 17 through 24, we talked about putting off that old self that God has done that, putting on the new. It's like changing clothes. It's like moving to that new address, remember? And so these new clothes actually look like Christ, once we put them on. It looks like imitating Jesus, whose identity, he says we now share. So here's where we're headed this morning. Three things. In verse one, who we are, we've gotten a lot of that in the last 4 chapters. And then Paul is going to show the real thing in verse two. What is love? And then verses 3 through five, what love is not. So that's the progression this morning. Who we are, what love is, and what love is not. So let's take those one at a time. First one, who we are. Look at verse one with me. It says, therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children. Now notice the order of that sentence, it matters more than you think. Paul doesn't say, hey, imitate God so that you can become his children. He says the exact opposite. Like we already are his beloved children. Therefore, imitate him. And he spent the last 4 chapters laying out this argument. So I've got a picture of a few years ago. This was back in, I think 2019. A pastor at New Orleans for a few months. Some of y'all recognize the back door before it got renovated. This is my old itis. He is 8 years old now. He was 2 at the time, and this is him with me at the back of the church on a Sunday morning. I was doing something. I had a clipboard. I think I was recording attendance. I had no idea. Titus was standing right here next to me. You know, he just kind of showed up. He walked up in the middle of the service. I think Russ was preaching, and he just did exactly what I was doing. He grabbed a bulletin, he grabbed a pen, and he just started filling that thing out. Like, he didn't know what I was doing. But he wanted to be just like me. All right? He's mimicking my posture, my hands. Now at no point did I go up to in the morning and say, hey, Titus, you know what? this morning. You need to imitate me because you're going to be a roast us one day, and right now you're not. So, you know, mimic me, imitate me. One day, you can have a seat at my table. Like, no, that didn't happen. That would be totally weird. He didn't do that. The imitation. Float out of the identity. He copied me because he's already my son, not the other way around. He's not standing there trying to earn his way into my family. He already has his place at my side. And now the most natural thing in the world is to imitate his dad. So this is the difference between religion and what the gospel tells us. Religion says, hey, behave the family so that one day you can be a part of it. That's not the gospel. The gospel says Christ has brought you in to the family. You already belong. So now let's live as the family lives. Let's imitate the Lord who rescued you, who brought you in. So think about the difference I was thinking this week between like an employee and a son. An employee typically dreads yearly reviews, right? It's this formal moment. You've got your annual review coming up. The HR director's gonna be there. Your supervisor's gonna be there, and you're just thinking the question like, I hope I'm worth it to keep around in this place. Like, I hope my performance has been good enough. Maybe you got chewed out like a month or 2 earlier by your boss, and you're like, gosh, I hope they forgot about that. I hope my performance keeps me here. That's an employee. But a son, totally different. They don't have to earn their own last name, they already have it. So as a son, you might mess up. You might at times go, I didn't live up to my dad's expectations, but at no point your dad like, hey, son, annual review's coming up. You know, you gotta earn your way into his family. And you got my last name. But, man, I expect a lot for you to keep that last name. Because at any moment, I'm gonna, I could take it away. Like, no, no dad is doing that. You're in the family, you share the blood. You're in. Nobody's handing a son a performance review to decide if he stays in the family. And that's the same line that Paul draws for us, verse one. You're not on a trial period with God. that hoping that your behavior earns you a permanent spot in his kingdom, at his table, in his family. You already have his name. The behavior that Paul calls for here doesn't get us in naturally comes out of us once we're his, once we're already in his family. And then the word Paul uses for be imitators. It's not a static word. Like that word B in Greek carries this connotation, this idea of becoming. It's like stepping into this lifelong pattern. It's not just checking a box. Hey, be imitators of God? Okay, done, got it. It's this progression that Paul is calling for. It's like stepping into a pattern. And that's important because it means that Paul isn't asking for like flawless performance in the Christian life. Hey, be an imitator, and you gotta get it right. You're in the family now. So I expect perfection all the time. That's not the phrase be imitators. He's describing a slow, steady, becoming. It's a process. It's a progression. The same word in other parts of scripture could be used to describe like a seed being planted and growing into a tree. It's becoming a tree. You don't plant a seed and then instantly it's like this 20, 30 foot tall tree. It's becoming one. It could also be used as like a stranger becoming a friend. It doesn't happen instantaneously. It's a progression, it's a process. You come to know someone. So this verse isn't like pressure to earn love. This is an invitation. to grow in our resemblance of God. to grow in our imitation of him. It's to grow in our in our likeness that's already true of us in Christ. He wants us to grow. We're not performing or earning our way to being children of God. It's not how it works. We already have the name. And now we get to grow into looking more and more like Jesus, the one who gave us that name. Second point this morning. Let's look what love is in verse two, what love is. Paul says, and walk in love. As Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, he says a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. So if we're imitating Jesus, Paul says he tells us exactly which trait to imitate first. It's love. He doesn't say prophecy. He didn't say knowledge here. She doesn't say teach as the Lord taught. All those are great things, not even the willingness to give everything away, just sell all your possessions. Other passages, we'll talk about that. That's not wrong, but man, Paul says it so well in 1st Corinthians 13. We finished a series a few months ago in 1st Corinthians, and some of y'all remember 1st Corinthians 13, the love chapter. It's often preached at weddings. Paul says it this way. He says, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, what am I? I'm a noisy gong. I'm a clinging symbol. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and I have all faith so as to remove mountains. It sounds pretty incredible. But I have not love. I'm nothing. Nothing. Paul is remarkably consistent. across all of his letters with this. So love isn't just like one virtue that sits on a list of virtues, uh, with a dozen others. It's not like Paul is making a list of these things you ought to be, and love is just like one of those things that God wants you to be. It's the trait that makes every other trait actually count for something. It's the trait that if it's not there, it can disqualify everything else. But what is love exactly? Like, how would you even know it's real? Like, you can't see love? You can't smell it? Uh, but we all know it's there, right? And so if I were to say like, hey, maybe you got a little cup of coffee or something and you go, hey, what do you got there? Oh, little cup of love. Like, you can't do that, right? But we seem to know it when it said. So how do we know love exists? Some of you might say, well, Tyler, I asked a college student once that, what is love? How do you know it exists? He said, Tyler. Love is like the wind. Uh, you can't see it, but you can feel the effects of it. And I was like, you know what? You're right. You can't see it? It's internal, it's a motivation. It's a choice. But you can feel the effects of it. And so let me show you 3 effects of love sitting right here in verse three. The 1st thing is that love steps up. As Christ loved us. Love steps up. It reminds me of when I was dating Abby, and we were getting to know each other and we were going on dates, and I felt like I'm growing in my love for this woman. So I stepped up, I initiated. I sent text messages, I sent emails, I sent handwritten letters. I wanted to get her flowers. I wanted to go on dates. I wanted to pay for dates. I couldn't just sit on my couch and be okay playing video games. I had to step up and initiate. I had to do something because the love inside was motivating an effect to come out of me. So I stepped up, I initiated love, steps up. It doesn't wait to be deserved. It doesn't wait to be asked. Christ moved toward us first. While we were sinners, Christ died for us. While we were enemies of God, sent his son for us, love steps up. Love sins. God sent his one and only son, that we might live through him. Love sins. Second, love serves. Look at the very next phrase, and he gave himself up for us. That word gave, it's not passive. It's an action that Jesus took. On our behalf, for our good. He didn't wait around to be served. He hand himself over to us. That's what serving looks like at its highest. It's not waiting to be asked. It's not waiting for just the right job that fits all my preferences and all the gifts that I've been given. It's not waiting to just the right moment for the right person to come along. It steps up. He handed himself over for some of, for all of us, for our benefit before we ever had to ask for it. Third, love sacrifices. Paul finishes the verse with worship language. He says a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. That phrase comes straight out of the Old Testament sacrificial system. The language is this costly gift, this, it's laid on an altar. It's given over completely, with nothing held back. So 3 effects, stepping up, serving, and sacrificing. Those are sitting inside this one verse about Jesus. Paul packs 3 into a single sentence about Christ's love for us. And it's the same rhythm that shows up again and again across all of Paul's letters. He says in Galatians, he tells us, through love, serve one another. And later in that same letter, he makes it personal. He said, Christ loved me and gave himself up for me. Sacrifice. We've actually here at Riverside. We've gotten to see this kind of love happen in our own life groups. I remember hearing stories this past spring, a member of one of our life groups had a real need. It's the kind of need that doesn't just get solved in an email or a text message. The group didn't organize a committee. They didn't wait for someone else to handle it. They stepped up. And they served. And they sacrificed. One of our life groups, all aimed at one goal. We want to help this person in our group, because we're motivated by love. Love is an internal choice, a motivation, and it works itself out in an action. And so nobody in that group was doing like anything flashy. They were just doing what love does. And honestly, I thought about this week. I could list a 100 different ways you guys are loving each other so well. I leave encouraged every single week seeing how you guys step up and serve and sacrifice. I can see the effects of your love for one another. In ordinary ways. It becomes oftentimes it can become so ordinary to us that we even stop noticing it. So I've prayed, Lord, help me to notice it. I don't want to become numb or callous to it. I want to see the church's love for one another. Which, if you're not in a life group yet, we're about to start them in a couple weeks, we're starting them soon. I just encourage you, man. This is where life gets played out in the life of our church. We gather here on Sunday, but we group in life groups. It's a place for us to be known and loved, pointed to Jesus and challenged to grow. So that's just my little plug for life groups. But this is the standard that Paul hands us. He says, like, don't love like the best version of your love. Don't just try to love, like, you've got to access the fullest potential of who you are. You know, within, you've got some alpha male in you, you've got something where you got to access that highest potential. That's not where Paul goes with this. That's not what he says. This isn't about accessing our full potential of some kind of love that's already in you. Like the culture will tell you that sometimes. They'll say like, hey, just be the fullest version of yourself. Like access it within, meditate. The answer's already in you. You just have to find it and unlock it. Bible says it's not true. You don't have it within you. about reaching down into yourself to find that love. It's about reaching up to him who offers it. He's the example of that love And he reached down to us to give it to us. So we reach up to him to accept it. And that's a high bar. That's a heavenly bar. It's not a bar that we're reaching up toward on our own strength. It's a bar that's already been given to us. It's been met for us. And so now we get to walk in love towards Jesus as the spirit works within us. Because once we know what love actually looks like. We can begin to spot the counterfeit. Which is where Paul goes next. Look at verse or look at verse 3 through 5 as we look at what love is not. But sexual immorality and all impurity, or covetousness, must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness or foolish talk. Nor crude joking, which are out of place. But instead, let there be Thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Now notice something about how Paul makes this turn. He just spent one verse telling us what love is, and now immediately, he tells us, tells of isn't. And he says, but sexual immorality, or and all impurity, or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among Satans. That word is appropriate, as is appropriate among you. Now, at 1st glance, I was like, sexual morality and covetousness don't seem to belong, like, in the same sentence. One's about the body. The other's about like money and stuff. But Paul puts them side by side on purpose. Uh, because they're 2 counterfeits, one craving. There are 2 counterfeits, but one craving. Remember those two bills, you know, I should, beginning, at the start, 2 different bills. They're the same problem. Neither of them are real. Love says, hey, I give myself for your good. Both of these say, I'll take what I want, for my own good. I'm the highest priority here. One takes a body that isn't ours to take. The other takes anything else, it can get its hands on. Time, money, attention, comfort, status, fame. Because at the bottom of both of these is the same thing. Let's not worship of God. It's worship of self. Which is exactly why Paul calls the 2nd one idolatry. And Paul doesn't just stop with the act of immorality or impurity. He doesn't just stop there at verse 3. Look at verse four. He extends it to even the jokes. The talks, the talk, the way that we allow it to get like normalized in conversation. Is what we do. We're just like this. And then Paul says something that should really stop us in our tracks. This has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. That's heavy. And we shouldn't push past it. We shouldn't rush past it, but we also sh off in it either. So before we go any further, let's remember where we are in this letter. Three months of Sundays that we shouldn't forget just because verse 5 sounds heavy. We've been going through Ephesians one Sunday at a time, which means it's really easy, especially on a verse this heavy, to hear, no inheritance, and forget everything that Paul has already told us about who we are. You're in chapter 5. You're not in chapter one. In fact, the same word isn't new. The word inheritance. It's not new to this letter. Paul used the word inheritance 3 times in chapter one. And all 3 times it was as a promise, not as a warning. Paul uses it now for the 4th time in chapter 5. He hasn't used it since chapter one, 3 times as a promise, now is a warning. In chapter one, he says, in Christ, we have obtained an inheritance. He said that in verse 11. In Christ, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, believed in him, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of your inheritance. That was verses 13 and 14. And then verse 18. He prayed that we'd know what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints. So then in chapter 5, verse 5, when he warns us, hey, there's no inheritance for this, it isn't written to erase everything that Paul has said over the last 4 chapters. It's in context, we have to understand what he's saying here. It's written to a people who are already chosen, already adopted, already in the family of God, already loved with a love that he said surpasses knowledge. So it's a warning against ever treating that love carelessly. Because if we're not careful, we might think that any believer who just commits one of these sins, I guess you've just lost your place in the family of God. You've just lost your inheritance in the kingdom. Sorry, you committed one of these sins. And that's not what Paul teaches anywhere else. But I think we have to be honest, a lot of us in this room fight with one of these sins weekly, if not daily. I've been in pastoral ministry for about 16 years now. And I know it's true. We battle with sins like these, ones just like it. And I was reminded this week that even those of us that may not struggle with it on a regular basis, Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that looking with lust is already adultery in your heart. That anger already breaks the 6th commandment. Which means by Jesus' definition, every one of us is caught up in some version of this struggle, this side of heaven. We want more. We want something that's not ours. We wanna take, we don't want to give. But what Paul is describing in verse 5 isn't necessarily the presence of a struggle. It's a settled, unbothered pattern, with no fight left in it at all. It's a life that's settled into sin, and I'm just unbothered by it. Don't call me out on it. I'm okay with it. That's the life that Paul's describing. And he says, hey, be careful. Be careful with that. Remember in chapter four, don't be callous. Don't let your sin numb you. Repent. Be broken. Grieve your sin, hate your sin, be disgusted by it. Turn for a 2nd to Paul's own words in Romans 7. He says, this is the same man that has the same man that wrote Ephesians chapter 5. He writes this in Romans 7. Under the same inspired pen, describing his ongoing war with sin. He says, I don't do the good that I want to do. But the evil I do not want is what I keep doing. He said, wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death? That's the apostle Paul. And he doesn't sound like a ate peace with sin. He's bothered by it. He hates it. He sounds like a man who hates it, who wants it gone, who's exhausted by the fight, but he hasn't stopped fighting it. And here's the difference between Romans 7 and what verse 5 in our passage describing, a child of God is bothered by their sin. Paul was bothered by his. We wish it were gone. We wish it wasn't in our hearts. We hate that it's still here. Even on the days that we might lose the fight. We wanted to win it. We wanted him. And that's the mark of a believer. You want him. Here's the difference. You want him. You don't want the sin, you want Jesus. And that ache, that grief over sin, that desire that we can't fully kill on our own. It's not evidence that we're outside the family. Because right after Romans 7, Paul writes in Romans 8, verse one, he says, there is therefore, therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So there's 2 things I want us to know this morning, the comfort and the weight. The comfort and the wit are right next to each other. The weight is like, let's not get comfortable calling sin not a big deal. Just because grace is real just because we have forgiveness in Jesus, our sin is a big deal. It breaks the heart of God. It destroys our own life. So the weight is that it is a big deal, but here's the comfort. If this verse stings. Verse five, if your gut just tightened because you know exactly where you've let your eyes go, you know exactly what you desire, what you're coveting. You know exactly what idols are building in your heart. That sting could be one of 2 things. Either condemnation or conviction. So here's a question worth asking, which am I hearing? Let's go to the next one. Which am I hearing? Am I hearing condemnation? Or am I hearing conviction? Condemnation says, you don't belong here. Just give up. You never belong to God. It's the voice of the enemy. It's shame. It actually causes you to run away from God. It's the fear that causes you to turn away from him. But the Bible describes a fear that actually draws you closer to him. the fear of God. That's conviction. Conviction says you belong to him. But this sin doesn't belong to you. Christ came, he died, to take the power and the penalty of sin away, but this life, we still have the presence of sin. And so it has no interest in us actually changing, condemnation, has no interest in us actually changing, only in us feeling crushed. But conviction actually leads somewhere. It moves us towards confession, towards Jesus, towards the spirit. So is the voice pushing me away from God, or is it drawing me towards him? That's a good question to ask. Is it drawing me near him or pushing me away? Is it leaving me in shame? Or is it leading me to repentance? And one of those voices is the enemy. One of those voices is the spirit. So as you read verse five, there's no inheritance for those who are practicing these sins, don't think about the presence of the sin. Think about the heart's response to it. Do I hate this sin? Is my mind telling me that I'm condemned? It's the voice of the enemy, or is it the spirit at work in my life, saying, I need to kill this sin with the power of the spirit, with his presence, as I turn toward him, as I repent, as I live my life in community in the church. Am I growing in Christlikeness? Let me also add 4 application questions to sit with, not to answer out loud, just to bring before the Lord. Which more difficult for me. As it relates to love. verse two. Is it stepping up? Is it certain? Is it sacrificing? I think in different stages of life, we can kind of struggle with any one of these. So for you, which is it? What's more difficult? Second question, where have I been waiting to be asked instead of stepping up first? Oftentimes? That's what we do. We want to be asked. We want to be pursued. We want to wait for the perfect scenario, the perfect circumstance, just the right fit for us. Where am I waiting instead of actually loving and stepping up first? Is there anyone that I've turned into something to use instead of a person to love? Don't just think that that person is a embodied person in front of you. It could be a person on a screen. It could be a fictional person in a book, I'm just always turning to that character and living their life. I'm using that character. I'm using their romance in the book that I'm reading. I'm using that relationship of that person. Fourth one. Am I comparing what I have to what someone else has? Am I coveted? We often think that this is maybe looking up to someone that has more. I've coveting something that someone has that I don't have. Coveting could be looking down. Coveting can be looking down on someone that has less. That's a form of covetousness as well. that we think we're better than someone because we have more. Am I comparing what I have to what someone else has? And I want us to back up for a second after we think through these 4 questions and look at just the whole shape of these 5 verses. It's a short passage this morning. But Paul doesn't hand us a to-do list 1st and then a family, a place of the table second. He said, hey, you're a beloved child first. Then imitate Jesus, which means everything that Paul has asked of us this morning, it's never a way to earn a seat at the table. It's a way of finally looking like your family that you belong to. It's a way of saying, I'm in the family. Now, how does the family act? What pleases the Father? But here's the problem underneath this whole passage. The one that none of us can fix on our own. The problem with all of us is that we don't naturally imitate a self-giving father. We imitate our own appetites. Myself included. We don't naturally walk in love that serves and sacrifices left to ourselves. We walk in a false version of love that actually takes, and it tears down. We don't build up. Our default status is the tear down and the take. And the reality is God made us to know him, to love him, to obey him, And none of us were born into the family of God. We were born loving ourselves more than we loved him. We took what wasn't ours to take. We worshiped our own wants instead of worshiping God. The Bible says we weren't children of God by nature. We were children of wrath by nature. But it says in chapter 2, but God, who is rich in mercy. Did not leave us outside of the family. But he sent his son, Jesus, to do what none of us could do, to step up, to serve, to sacrifice, to be a fragrant offering, and a sacrifice to God, for people who had never once loved that way. And Jesus lived the self-giving life that we could not live. He died the self-giving death that we deserve to die. And then on the cross, Jesus took the full weight of every counterfeit that we would have in our lives that we would bind to our hearts. He took the weight of that sin. And it crushed him. It buried him in that tomb. And it didn't stop there. Three days later he rose from the grave, showing he has power over sin, power over Satan, power over all the counterfeits that we pursue in our lives. The immorality, the impurity, the covetousness, the years of worshiping ourselves instead of him. And now the offer goes out to every person in this world. We turn away from our sin, and we turn towards Jesus. It's not a checkbox. It's a progression. It's a becoming. It's a process. And the moment that we trust in him. We're not just forgiven. We get adopted. We get a new name, we're sealed, we're given an inheritance. So the next time you're handed a counterfeit. Something that just doesn't look like love. Something that you know it's not the real thing. Maybe it acts like love a little bit. Maybe it'll work for a little while. You'll know up close. By knowing his word. You'll know his heart. You'll know the real thing. And so we pursue it. We study it, we memorize it, we meditate it, we apply it into our lives. We'll know it up close because we belong to the one who lived it for us. Let's pray together. Lord we thank you. We thank you that you loved us, that you stepped up. You served. You sacrificed. Not because we earned it, not because we asked for it, not because we earned enough credentials or enough knowledge or enough power or enough faith to deserve it. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And because that's true, Lord, I pray that we would take our sin seriously. There are real costs. to our own sins. The destruction of our lives, the warping of our hearts, the callousness and numbness that comes with it. You were deadly serious about our sins. to the point that you gave your own life for us. And so I pray that we would be deadly serious about them too. But that we would rest in the truth that you came. You live the perfect life that we couldn't live. You died the death that we deserve, and that you conquered it for us. And now as children of God, brought into the family, we live in light of who you are. We imitate Jesus. We walk with the Spirit and we walk in love. And so, Lord, help us to do that. When we fail, when we turn to our sin, rather than turn to you, we thank you for your forgiveness. We thank you for your grace. And may we never become callous. May we never just accept that our sin is okay. I pray that we'd hate it, that we grieve over it, that we'd be disgusted by it, that we'd ask for help, that we would repent. That we would ask others to hold us accountable, that we'd join a life group. We'd get involved in community. We'd live life with one another. And Lord, I pray that we'd look to you. In all that we say, and all that we do, and all that we think, and we pray all these things in Christ's name. Amen.