Well, good evening. It’s good to be with you, and it’s good to have our kids in here for family worship. I know it’s going to be a little noisier, so I’m going to talk loud and fast, maybe a little different. But okay, so my big kids, so Darcy, Dawson, Lucas, Liza, Bella, Kellen, and Zeke, and Elijah and Zamira. Zamira always has it together, but Zamira, we’ll throw her in there too. All right, your parents are going to ask you on the way home, what’s something you learned today about Jesus from my sermon? So you better be paying attention, all right? I want you to have one good thing to say you learned about Jesus from the Bible today, okay? And adults, you should have one good thing too to share on the way home, all right? So we’ll engage that way. We’re going to be in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 35 to 49.

And you’re going to have to do it the old-fashioned way and read it out of your Bible.

1 Corinthians 15, 35, Paul writes, But someone will ask, how are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? You foolish person, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body. As He has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is the same. There is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. But the glory of the heavenly is of one kind. The glory of the earthly is of another. There is the glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars. For stars differ from star and glory. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, and what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, the first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the same. It is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust. The second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of dust. And as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have been born the image of dust, the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. Amen.

Byron, it is quite a title. He lived in the Romantic period, kind of the 17th, 18th century. He was a poet, a writer. And he once wrote in a poem, kind of on the theme of loss and aging, I am now ashes where I was once fire. I am now ashes where I am once fire. And that probably means a lot more to us as we get older and we feel that in a number of different ways. I think we just feel that. We just get older, you know, our stuff starts to creak and our hair gets a little thinner and we just don’t wake up the same as we used to do. And you think about everyone from Ponce de Leon to trying to find his fountain of youth to modern research to try to pause or reverse aging as they’re doing or whether it’s expensive skin creams to hide those wrinkles. We’re all dealing with the effects of the fall and we all don’t like it. We’re all trying to get older. We’re all trying to hide it. We’re all trying to deal with it in different ways. But Paul’s writing to the Corinthians about this wonderful thing that he says is possible only with the Christian faith and it’s living forever. And that’s an amazing thought. It’s almost so lofty, it’s hard to really, you know, grab it. The idea of living forever. But Paul writes to the Corinthians and to us to say, hey, in this Jesus, there truly is life forever. How do we live forever?

He says, someone asks, how are the dead raised? Now, if you remember back, the thing that Paul did address was that the resurrection of the body existed at all. Paul had these naysayers who were saying, oh, there’s no such thing as a resurrection. So he dealt with that and said, stop that. There is such a thing as a resurrection. The whole Christian life would be, you know, just this big joke if it wasn’t possible. But now someone else says, and Paul’s addressing this person who would say, okay, well, how?

Explain the resurrection to me.

And we do that with things we don’t understand, don’t we? I want it to make sense to me. I want it to fit into my own imagination.

I don’t want something to be different than what I can be in control of. So the Christian faith, the gospel, all of its doctrines, it’s different from the wisdom of the world, isn’t it? It’s different from man’s rationalizations. It’s different from man’s logic. Man wants to know. Man wants to discover and be on top of life and what it is and how it is. Yet the gospel and the truths of Scripture, I think they grate. They grate man’s soul. Because they say, no, the wisdom of God makes the wisdom of man nothing but foolishness. It’s an offensive thing when the gospel says your highest ideas of wisdom, your highest ideas, your best accomplishments, everything is silly and comparable to this God. And guess what? You cannot understand the mind of this God. You cannot understand the mind of this God. That’s what human pride leads us to do, isn’t it? It leads us to defend ourselves and our sin and what we think. And we attempt, the sinful man does, to offend and be hostile towards the gospel and its truths.

So I want to say to us here at the very beginning, and I want you to really hold on to this and know that it’s true. The only reason why you or I believe gospel truths is because of grace.

You did not study your way into Christianity.

You weren’t born into it by a birthright. You didn’t work so hard and God said you’ve earned it. Friends, every last one of us, if we believe these doctrines, it is because of the sheer grace of God. And how much more a doctrine as wild as being bodily resurrected.

Calvin would say there’s nothing that is more at variance with human reason than this article of faith. For who but God alone could persuade us that bodies that are now liable to corruption will, after having rotted away or after having been consumed by fire or torn in pieces by water, by wild beasts, will not merely be restored, but be in a greatly better condition. Do not all our apprehensions of things straight away reject this as fabulous? Nay, most absurd. So the gospel, I think we could say, is absurd, if not for the grace of faith to believe it. So here’s what Paul does. He describes the spiritual reality. He doesn’t explain it. He describes it as good as you and our limitations can understand it. But there’s no way we can fully understand it. What does the prophet Isaiah say? He says, speaking through Isaiah, God says my ways are higher than your ways. My thoughts are higher than your thoughts. As high as the heavens are higher. So can we be at peace with saying, God, you’ve said this is so, despite if I can fully grasp it and understand it. And that’s true a lot. So Paul in verse 36 says, you foolish person. You foolish person. And you think, well, gosh, Paul, aren’t you being harsh? I mean, we can’t understand it. Well, Paul’s not being harsh. Paul’s meeting obnoxiousness with a proper response. It’s a foolish thing to say, God better fit in my head. God better make sense to me. He says, no, you foolish person.

In describing our faith, the object of our faith, we’re challenged. We’re really challenged. Do I believe this stuff? Do I really believe this stuff?

It’s wild. It’s a wild thing to believe that you’re going to be bodily resurrected. But if you’re going to believe it, you should let your whole life be shaped by it. Even if others say, no, don’t believe that. Even if, even if others say, that’s wild. In its incredible nature, friends, if we want to live forever, the first thing we’ve got to do, the first thing we’ve got to do is die well. We’ve got to die well.

In verse 36, Paul goes on to use agrarian language. And this is something they’re familiar with. If you think Paul’s being lofty here, he’s talking about moons and the different kinds of glories and the seed and all this. This is not like fantastic, amazing, amazing, poetical language. Take Paul to be saying, this is a square, and the square goes in the square hole. And this is a round circle, and it goes in the circle hole. And this is where Paul is speaking so plain to them because they’re trying to challenge what can’t be challenged. So he speaks in plain language. And so he kind of gives his metaphor. He says, imagine, this is the Chad version of what Paul’s saying. Imagine if there was this farmer and he labored over, let’s say, a thousand acres. And in these thousand acres, he planted. He planted faithfully all these seeds. He planted them and he watered them. And he just broke his back 12-hour days at least every day and he guarded it from wild animals. And then come harvest time, you know what he did? He went out there and he rejoiced because he found the exact same seed he planted. The bear kernel was still there in its same form and he’s thrilled about it and he fills his baskets up with all these bear kernels that he already had. You see how ridiculous it is? We all know, we all know what a strawberry tastes like. We all know what corn on the cob, grilled, dipped in butter with salt and pepper tastes like. It is infinitely better than the seed. It’s of a quality and a type that far supersedes the thing that it was. And if we cannot part with the seed, with the bear kernel, we will never have the fruit and the harvest of the thing that’s of a quality and of a type that’s far better. You see where he’s getting with what we are and what we will be? He goes on and he makes another kind of metaphor. He says, imagine in this universe that you and I live, we are flesh and animals are flesh and birds have flesh and fish have flesh, but it’s different. You and I are different from posable thumbs to just our capabilities to reason and talk and communicate and birds can fly. That’s cool. Fish can swim really good and that’s cool. And then there’s like all these stars and planets and galaxies and some of them are like beautiful and there’s like the radiant colors and some of them are distant. You can’t see. So there’s this different glory even in the sky. And I look at a mountain and a mountain’s beautiful, not in the way a star is beautiful, just different. This is not amazingly intellectual stuff. Paul’s just saying stuff’s different. It’s different in different degrees. So here’s what Paul’s point is. If it’s possible that in this universe, it’s plain to our eyes that God can give things different level of glory if things have different degrees, is it not possible that that same God can take what we are now in our lowly state and make us something far more better and beautiful in the state that’s to come? Is that not possible? And is it possible if I’m so gripped on, I’m so fixed on this life and I love what I am and who I am so much, it just might be I’ll end up with this bare kernel of what I am and who I am so much. But I am and I will never have the better thing of what God intends me to be.

Jesus says in John chapter 12, truly, truly, I say to you, and he uses the same illustration Paul does, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life, loses it. And whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. You see, Jesus is saying the same. He’s saying the same thing to us that Paul’s saying here so plainly. The Lord Jesus Christ did not come from heaven to take your life as it is and make it a little better. He didn’t come to take your life and improve it. He didn’t come to make the quality of life on planet earth a little bit better. Jesus came to call each one of us to die.

Die.

There’s no kind of dead. Dead is dead is dead is dead. There’s no heartbeat. Dead.

And I think the implications are physical.

I think because of this truth that what we are will be something far better, I don’t have to overly grieve. Now, I’m still grieving because grief is a real part of living in a sinful world. God expects me to grieve and Jesus grieved. But I don’t have to overly grieve when I see death at work. I don’t have to overly grieve when I see my life at work. I don’t have to overly grieve for someone I love aging and the grave is getting closer to taking them. I don’t have to overly grieve when I see sickness. Whether it’s temporary or chronic or what it may be. Because I know, yes, it’s unpleasant, but it’s not what God has in store for me. It’s not what’s to come. There’s going to be a body that’s going to be of a kind, quality, and type that far supersedes what I am now because Jesus and His resurrection body far supersedes even what He was before He was resurrected.

That’s crazy. Do you believe it?

The flip side of it’s true too.

There’s no need to be vain in this life. Now, I don’t know who does. Alright? A lot of women dye their hair. A lot of women do put those creams on to hide those wrinkles. And a lot of, you know, you know, pummel yourself to be a certain, you know, size around the waist. And guys aren’t exempt from this. They do the same thing to hide their age. Look, people spend exorbitant amounts of money to buy just the right clothes. We’re all in our different ways in vanity trying to hide the fact that we’re not supposed to last.

And I think if we took Jesus really serious, it doesn’t mean I’m just showing up wherever I am like, I don’t care, I didn’t take a shower this morning, I’m going to die someday. I mean, it doesn’t give itself like that kind of depression. But I wouldn’t hold on to it so tight. I would have a sort of joy in letting loose and letting things go. It speaks into, at the same time, material and place. I’ve got that ideal home. I’ve got that ideal ranch. And there’s those acres and there’s a pond out front. If I can get that house with that square footage, if I can get this much money in the bank, I’m going to scratch and claw to kind of a ten-year-old. I’m going to scratch and claw to kind of a ten-year-old. to such a status in this life. And what’s the Ecclesiastes writer tell us? All the way back in the Old Testament, he says, why would you do that? It’s going to go to somebody else someday. And that person’s probably not even going to enjoy it as much as you enjoy it. Everything you labor for, it’s vanity under the sun, the Ecclesiastes writer says. He says it’s a great vanity.

Paul says in Philippians, but our citizenship is in heaven. That’s my place. That’s the place I’m from. And from it, we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body. And that’s amazing because he didn’t say, well, it’s Jesus, so we can’t be just like His body. Like, you’ll be a little bit better, but everybody will be like, whoa, His body is better than your body. He says your body is going to be just like Jesus’ glorified body. By the power, by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself.

So, I want to say to you, all that you could wish to have in this life, every regret you have, what if I had made that decision back then? What if I had done that? What if I had met that person? What if I chose… In all these ways, I think you can beat yourself up with even a different life you wish you’d led or did I do this right? Friends, the grace of God is so wonderful because it says everything that’s happening in this life, it’s not culminating to the result of what you get in the sense of you better come up with something good because that’s all you’ve got.

Jesus is saying, friends, everything in this life, it’s fading to nothing and if you die to it and you let go of it, Jesus will make you something brand new. Jesus will make you something brand new. So don’t just die. You’re going to have to die. We’re all going to have to die. But I believe Paul would say, die well. Die well.

Mourn the loss of things but don’t let grief overwhelm you because Jesus promises to come back and make you brand new and to make all things brand new. Hold on to that faith. It’s a spiritual reality that only faith can hold on to.

I think we need to hold on to that for our own joy and perseverance but we need to hold on to it because people are watching. People watch how you grieve. People watch how you spend your money. People watch the things that are important for you. Namely, your children. You know? Your children watch what you think is valuable. We’ve started watching Little House on the Prairie in our home. And oh, that mean girl,

Nellie, thank you. I said to Jessica, I said, she’s the leader of all villains. She’s the worst villain to me of all villains in TV land. She is so mean. But she, you know, they were all supposed to write a poem about what’s important to them and they get up, you know, and all their parents are there listening and Nellie gets up and she starts talking about how wealthy her family is and her drapes are made of this and she has a doll with real, you know, real silk clothing and all this and everyone out there is like, oh my gosh, this is so awful. But children become their parents, you know, so you’re discipling, you’re teaching your children how to die even at a young age. And so it goes for, everyone else in your life. Will they see joy in suffering? Will they see a longing for a better place that you believe in? What will they see as you make your pathway to heaven?

And I guess a footnote on that as well. It doesn’t mean that nothing in this life is good. Everything’s gray. I’m just waiting to get home. There still is, even in our fallen, sin-tainted world, there is beauty when I look at that mountain scene. There is joy in my marriage relationship. There is joy in a newborn baby or 24 at this church. There’s still these little things in life that help me. It’s like a little, you know, just like a little, you know, kaleidoscope in which I can look and I kind of get this imagery and picture of what’s coming. You know, Paul says, it’s like a shadow. It’s a mirror, but it’s cloudy now, but I’ll see it all clear there. So, take God up on His good offer to show Himself to you in the kind of way that He does. The kindnesses of this life, but it’s all pointing to something much better. Much better.

The second thing I think Paul would say to us if we really want to live forever is in our dying well, we must understand what it means to live well. Am I living well? Verse 42,

he says, so it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable. What is raised is imperishable. It’s sown in dishonor. It’s raised in glory. It’s sown in weakness.

It’s raised in power.

So he builds on his metaphor here and he says this thing that’s really amazing. It’s not just that when you and I have new bodies when Jesus comes back, that they’re going to be of a better quality, like a better state. It’s going to be a better thing. He says that they’re imperishable. In other words, they’re not going to break down. So like a reset button would be cool. Like, hey, you get to have 80 more years of life. You’re going to get your youth back, but you know, it’s going to end again. You know, it’s as amazing. Paul says in the resurrection, you and I won’t be liable to falling off a ladder and breaking our back. You and I won’t be liable to sickness. You and I won’t be liable to aging.

He says you and I will be imperishable. Imperishable. There’s nothing in life that I associate with imperishable or perishable more than a gallon of milk. Because we all know the dread of drinking sour milk. You’ve got to take that label on the side of milk serious because you don’t want to see those clumps come out of the milk jug. You don’t want to smell that sour smell. You don’t want to taste that sour smell because it’s nasty.

Friends, Jesus says to us, now we’re in a perishable state. And we’re on our way to decay. But He says the new body, just like His, will be imperishable. Now we’re in a state of dishonor and weakness. And you think, well, why did God make us in a state of dishonor? Why am I in a dishonorable body? Here’s the thing about that. You and I are in a dishonorable state that was self-induced, was it not? God didn’t make us this way.

Adam, Eve, they dishonored the blessing and the privilege of eternal life. They dishonored what it meant to be gifted, given bodies, life to steward. They said, no, my body is my own. My choices are my own. Adam and Eve did their own thing and in doing that, they brought themselves into an inferior,

dishonorable state.

Friends, what we, we are, is not what we will be. But I want to say to you, what we will be is still even better yet than what Adam and Eve were. I want you to see this. Adam and Eve, and he talks about Adam here in a minute, we’ll get to it. Adam and Eve were perfect in the sense that they were without sin. Okay? Yet, Adam and Eve were susceptible to sin. They were susceptible to the fall and so they did fall. So, yes, they were with God, but they’re not with God the way that you and I will be in the resurrection, even as we are now.

Adam and Eve fell. Jesus Christ, though, this is the amazing thing, Jesus,

sin came at Him just the same, but did Jesus ever give in to it? No.

Jesus was the Adam Adam couldn’t be. It’s why, why Paul describes Him as the last Adam. So if you and I are in Christ, you know what that means when we’re resurrected? It means that we will not have to try our best not to fall again. It means that we can’t fall because we’re in Christ and Christ is impenetrable. He already carried sin and death in His body and He died to it. He fulfilled the law of God that there must be blood for blood where there is sin. Jesus fulfilled the law. So when Jesus was resurrected, every sin was under His foot. The enemy was under His foot. So that means, friends, if you place faith in Jesus Christ, though you labor now, though we war now, in the resurrection, you will be impenetrable to sin. Paul calls it in the book of Romans the indestructible life. He says Jesus has an indestructible life.

That’s an amazing truth if you really dwell on that. Friends, that we will be as Christ is now.

Paul says in verse 44, right now we’re natural, but we will be spiritual. We are natural, but we’ll be spiritual. In Genesis, it says in chapter 2, verse 7, that God breathed life into Adam’s nostrils. And it says, and so he was a living creature. And so we all are that. You and I, we’re alive and we have souls. The question is, what really animates you now to life? What really controls your whims and your desires? Well, Paul’s pretty clear. The New Testament’s pretty clear. The Bible’s pretty clear. We’re governed by our sin nature. We’re governed by those things that we naturally love. That’s what animates us. But Jesus Christ, it says, if we come to Him, He’s not just a living, natural being, as Paul says. Jesus, Paul says here, is a life-giving Spirit. Jesus, when I receive Him and He comes into me, that means that I’m animated. I’m governed by something completely different. Jesus becomes the thing that gives me brand new life. And He lives through me so that I don’t desire to sin. So you see how Jesus doesn’t just give us a new body. Jesus gives us a new will. And He gives us a new heart. And He gives us a new soul. And He gives us new desires. Jesus remakes. Jesus resurrects. Jesus purifies. Jesus glorifies. Jesus brings you and I into the same, honorable state that He’s in by the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. I hope you see. I hope you see. Religion will do nothing for you. I hope you see trying to obey rules will do nothing for you.

It is Jesus that you need. It is Jesus that you need. Jesus alone will give you a new body. Jesus alone will give you a new body. Jesus alone will give you a new heart. Because He’s the only one that has a glorified, imperishable, unfading, uncorrupt body. He’s the one alone that is the life-giving Spirit. Friends, we’re all born natural. But Christ has come to make us spiritual. He’s come to make us new. Do you live, and I read this in a book, and it was simple. It’s not like, oh, that’s an amazing thing. But it’s so good in its simplicity. What each of us needs to do is is to live in a daily apprenticeship with Jesus. That’s what we need. I need to wake up and realize life is but an apprenticeship in which Jesus, by His Spirit, is shaping and forming me, readying and preparing me for glory.

Do you live with a desperation for Jesus? Do you live with a desperation for Jesus? Not some of Jesus. Some of Jesus. Yeah, some Jesus. But sometimes not Jesus. No. Jesus is life.

And Paul says, the harvest can’t come unless the seed dies.

Have you died? Have you died so that in your place, the life of Jesus can flourish? Flourish.

Paul says in Ephesians 4, each of us must be putting off the old man and putting on the new man. Putting off the old man with his desires and putting on the new man. So now physically,

we’re out of luck in this life. There’s no… The more you follow Jesus, your hair goes back to blonde. The more you follow Jesus, your body starts to renew. So that doesn’t happen. But the Scripture says the opposite in terms of spirituality.

The Bible tells us that in fact, if we truly believe we will be resurrected in body and soul to be brand new, we should be growing up now into Jesus. Christ is through that daily apprenticeship turning us from sinful desire, turning us from self, and remaking us into His image daily. So I can’t… I can’t twiddle my thumbs and say, oh man, eternity is going to be great. I can’t wait until that trumpet blows and I get up out and I desire the right things and I am beautiful. Oh, I’m going to be so beautiful. And it’s going to be great, but right now I’m just doing whatever. That’s not the case.

If you really believe in the resurrection, the Spirit of God is working, regenerating, remaking you now. So you can’t just say, oh, it’s going to be great then. No, it’s great now. And see, this is the beauty and the power of the gospel is it’s at work in you now. It’s doing a thing in you now. In real time, Christ is living in you. You don’t have to wait for it. And this is how you tell the difference between somebody that wants to just play the game of Christianity and religion and somebody that really wants Christ. The person that really wants Christ says, amen, let me suffer now. Let me grow now. Let me learn now. Let me obey now. Let me pray now. Let me evangelize now. Let me sacrifice now. The other person says, ah, I’m good. I believe in that stuff and it’ll come when it comes. No, the proof of what you will be is found in what you are now and who you are becoming now. Don’t be fooled by that. A lot of church people are fooling themselves right into hell because they think they’ve prayed a prayer and they think they’ve done whatever silly dance they’re supposed to do to be right with Christ. But this is a question of love. It gets down to love. It gets down to what is animating your being. Is it still the sinful flesh? Is it the enemy? Is it the world? Or is the life-giving Spirit, Jesus, in you now, working, growing, renewing, purifying you? It reminds me of Jesus’ parable in the Gospel of Matthew.

And in that parable, you’ll remember it, the servant,

his master’s away, and he says, ah, my master’s coming back whenever, so he gets drunk and he beats his servants. But the master comes back on a day when he does not expect. And what does Jesus say happens to him? It says the master of that servant comes on a day when he doesn’t expect him and at an hour he doesn’t know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. And in that place there will be weeping and weeping, and gnashing of teeth. Because Jesus is a hard master?

No, because you and I didn’t willingly by faith receive Christ now and we chose Him for a hard master. Don’t be fooled. It isn’t Jesus’ desire to judge the wicked, even the Scriptures say. It isn’t in Jesus’ heart to firstly bring wrath and judgment. It’s in His heart to give mercy. And it’s in His heart to show you mercy. It’s in His heart to spend eternity with you. But friends, you and I now, what is Paul saying? Philippians, need to be working out our own salvation with what? Fear and trembling. This is serious stuff, life and death. Jesus Christ come from heaven. Jesus Christ crucified. Jesus Christ resurrected. Oh, He is life and in Him is life alone. So I want to encourage you with that, friends. Let’s live well for Christ now in our obedience. And conforming to Him. And growing in knowledge of Him. And loving Him. Serving Him. Because I have died and Christ Jesus is alive in me.

Verse 47, Paul just kind of uses different language to say some of the same things. He says, The first man was from the earth, a man of dust. The second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust. And as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have been born in the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. Wow! I’m going to bear the image of Christ. And though the image of God was marred on me because of the fall of man, Jesus isn’t going to bring me back to that Edenic state. He’s going to bring me into a far more glorious, permanent, incorruptible state in Him and eternity. Friends, Jesus is better. Jesus is life. So you can die well and give up this old world and you can live well for eternity because in Christ alone is eternal life. Jesus is better. Jesus is better. Amen. Amen. Alright, let’s pray together.

Lord, we pray that these words wouldn’t fall to the ground idle.

We pray that Your Word would be the good seed that it is to give us. Amen. Amen. We plant it in the soil of our hearts, Lord, to take deep roots in us, God.

And that Jesus would be the very life within us. That the Spirit of God would be the thing that moves us. That our hearts would be new. That our minds would be new.

So Lord, we just plead grace and we know that God, we we do not see You seek always to die to self. Lord, we are we are so drawn back to the old name. We’re so drawn back to live for little trinkets we find and live for ourselves and live for this world. But God, would You convict us where we need the conviction? Would You awaken us to eternal realities? Would You would You wake us up?

Lord, to what true spirituality is in Jesus. All the things that we will be. All the things that You’re doing in us now, Lord, let us not resist You on one thing. God, have Your way in us. Have Your way in us. Break down

spiritual strongholds. Lord, there’s there’s a place in a life where Satan has a stronghold. I don’t know what that is. I don’t know who that is in this room, God. But there’s a spiritual stronghold. Lord, would You break it down by Your power and Your Word? Lord, would You give someone victory over sin? Would You give someone encouragement and humility to live for You and not for self? Lord, would You give each of us love for our neighbor?

Would You give us passion for the cross of Christ? And to take up our own cross and to die? God, that’s our plea. That’s our plea. And as weighty as those things are and far more glorious and wonderful than us they are, God, it can be so because, Jesus, Jesus, You’ve already defeated the grave and You promised to never leave and forsake and You’re with us to the end, Lord. So, let us take up our crosses, Jesus. Let us die in You that we may live in You. That’s our prayer. That’s our hope. Oh, Lord Jesus, hear our words. Hear our prayers.

God, hear our hearts.

Hear our prayers.