How Will You Be Judged

Matthew collected from all the stories in Jesus' life different accounts of Him talking about when He was going to return and the end of the world would come. So we sort of have in one place all these stories. All these stories were given to us so that we would be prepared or ready. That's what Jesus kept emphasizing. He said you're to watch because the time when He comes you won't be able to prepare for it. He said you're to prepare yourselves. And then He tells a story about what preparation means. One of the things that preparation means, about ten girls that were invited to a wedding, they were to provide the lights and some of them had enough oil to do that, some of them didn't, those that didn't tried to get into the banquet and they were shut out like the kingdom of heaven, they couldn't get into it. The story points to one thing. Being prepared means that you do the things that you're supposed to do to be able to get into the kingdom of heaven. Jesus now turns to another story that He wants to tell us to emphasize another part of what it means when He returns and how we can be prepared. And in this story He talks about doing the wrong things, keeping our eyes focused on the wrong things so that we end up not prepared for the Lord's return. From Matthew chapter 25 I want to read and I want to begin reading at verse 14. Again it will be like a man when he says it will be, he's talking about the kingdom of heaven which is what was talked about in the previous story. Again the kingdom of heaven will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who'd received five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also the one with two talents gained two more. But the man who'd received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who'd received five talents brought the other five. Master, he said, you've entrusted me with five talents. See I've gained five more. His master replied, well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share in your master's happiness. The man with two talents also came. Master, he said, you've entrusted me with two talents. See I've gained two more. His master replied, well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share in your master's happiness. Then the man who'd received the one talent came. Master, he said, I knew that you were a hard man, harvesting where you had not sown, gathering where you had not scattered seed. So I was afraid. I went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you. His master replied, you wicked, lazy servant. So you knew that I harvested where I had not sown and gather where I had not scattered seed. Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers so that when I returned, I would have received it back with interest. Take the talent from him. Give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more and he will have abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw the worthless servant outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. In this story, Jesus tells us something really important about the final day of judgment. I've heard people talk about going to court and being before a judge and in a small town where they know everybody like this, they know the judge and they'll talk about this judge is pretty hard or I don't think he's fair or I don't think they do a good job or this person, I'm glad I got them for my case. It really helps whenever you know you're going to be facing a judge to know the kind of judge it is so that you'll know how to act and what to do and how to gain the favor of the judge and what they'll put up with and what they won't. And so Jesus starts his story about the final coming by giving a little bit of information for us about what it's like to face God and his judgment. He lets us know something about what God is like and he uses this parable to describe God and his relationship with us and the world. He starts by talking about a master who owns some servants or some slaves. Now the word is translated here servant but it's also translated in other places as the word for slave. It's more than someone who would wait on your table when you go to a restaurant. More than someone who would wait on you or come to your house to clean it. It is the relationship in which the master actually owns the slave. Now slavery in the day of Jesus was considerably different than what we think of in our own time and maybe our own country's history. People in the day of Jesus when they came to financial trouble didn't have any way to declare bankruptcy. You had to pay all of your debts and if you couldn't pay your debts then you had to go into slavery. Your family would have to go to slavery. Your children would be sold as slaves. Anyone that you were in your family had to be sold in the money given to pay your debts. If there was more to be paid it simply lengthened the time of slavery that you would have. So if you had to pay off your debt and it took you ten years to pay it off with the pay that you got from your owner that's how long it took you. So that you didn't find necessarily that all the slaves were people of little education or of no value. For a man could own a company and for no reason of his own or no cause of his own financial reverses could come. He might make an investment that didn't turn out right and he'd end up losing everything and might have to sell himself into slavery. In this instance the man has three people who are managers for him and his business. We don't know what his business was but they were of the manager type. They were people who could accept responsibility, who knew how to manage things and this man had these managers as slaves of his. He owned them. They worked for him. Now in telling us this story Jesus is talking about the kingdom of God. How is it that God sees the world and his kingdom? The owner of this business thought of himself as owning everything that was in it. Even the people who he owned he thought he was in control of. This is why Jesus chooses this story because God sees the world quite differently than most people in the world see it. God sees the world as a place that he has created. He sees every human being on the face of the earth as someone he has made and by right of creation and by right of making these things in the world he sees this as his world. He owns it. Everybody in it is here because he has chosen to put them here. They owe him a debt of gratitude and responsibility toward him. Everything in this world, the stars in the sky, all the planets, everything that exists, God made that himself. He's the owner of it. There is no other authority greater than God over this world or this universe. Like the man in this story, everything that he owned was his. He had the right to do whatever he wanted with it. This is the way God sees the world. Now the danger that we have in this world is that many people do not see the world this way. They're born into the world, they think, by some kind of act of human nature and human will and that everything in the world is here for their taking or for their ownership or for their use in whatever way they want. So that they come into the world and they have the right to do what they want to do, when they want to do it, the way they want to do it, without any accountability to anybody because the house that they bought is theirs, the land it sits on is theirs, the business they have is theirs, the money it produces is theirs, and they can do anything they want with it. This is a radically different view of the world than God has. That's what this story is trying to present to us. Be aware that the world and the kingdom of God is different than most of you think it is, Jesus would say. For God sees the world like it's His business. Everything in the world is really His because He made it. Every person on the world is here because He allowed them to be born. This world belongs to God and He has absolute total authority over it like a slave owner would have authority over the people who are slaves of His. So in the world that you're living in, God is the ultimate authority. He has shared with the people in this world the things that belong to Him with a measure of accountability. To some people He gave a little bit, to some more, to some less. God has given to each person who lives in the world whatever He chooses to give to them. Now whenever the Bible describes these three people, it describes people that receive three different amounts of gifts from God, assets from God, you might say, or from the owner. There is some difference if you have Bibles that would tell you, I think the NIV says that each talent is worth more than a thousand dollars, but that's based on when that book is printed. You might be aware that inflation does occur, and so whenever you have a Bible that's twenty years old, its numbers are twenty years out of date. But a talent in the Bible times was really not a specific amount of money. The talent was really a weight of something. It was a measure of weight. And what it would do is count the amount of money or the asset and how much it weighed. Like a talent, I've seen in different places, some say it's fifty pounds, some say it's as much as eighty pounds. I've heard more people say it's around seventy-five pounds, but seventy-five pounds of what? Seventy-five pounds of gravel would be worth a lot less than seventy-five pounds of gold. The common money that they might have in their hand available to them was silver. So if you looked at this and tried to calculate today what this would be worth, a talent would be about seventy-five pounds of silver, which on today's market would be right around thirty-four or thirty-five thousand dollars, depending on what day you figured it. We're talking five pounds or five talents of silver, which would be around a hundred and seventy thousand dollars, a pretty good investment amount. I've given you a hundred and seventy-one thousand dollars of what belongs to me for you to use for the purpose that I have in this world. So you look around you and you see people with a lot more of God's assets than other people might have, but God's intention for every person in the world is that they use those assets for the benefit of his work in the world. Now we don't know what business this guy was in. If he was a farmer, he didn't talk about giving him farmland or farming the crops. He didn't talk about owning real estate and then he just talks about money and its use. He gives this guy a hundred and seventy-one thousand dollars for his business purpose. He gives the other fellow about seventy thousand dollars of his own assets for him to use and he gives the final fellow thirty-five thousand for his use. Now let's stop and think about God's business for just a moment. When Jesus uses this story to talk about this man with a business, he's talking about God really and God's business in the world. What business is God in? Well from the very beginning, God wanted to make in the Garden of Eden a place where he could come with people who listened to him and lived in obedience to him. Every day he wanted to come and walk with Adam and Eve in that garden, talk with them, give them guidance and instruction, but they chose to do the opposite of what God told them. Beginning at that very time, God decided on something he was going to do. He would build a nation for himself of people who were devoted to doing exactly what God wanted them to do. He started by finding a man who would do that, Abraham. He started by trying to build a nation of people, the Jewish people, to do that. He started then by bringing Christ into the world and dying for the people that would be in a part of his kingdom and to show them in the life of Jesus exactly how they were to live and how they were to tell people the real purpose that people were in the world for. Jesus came saying, I have come that you might have life, that you might know how to live in this world. If you know how to live in this world, then you'll be able to live well here. If you don't, you'll have constant trouble, constant difficulties. Things will go wrong. You won't be able to get things to work like you want them to work. Jesus came to say, this is the way it works right. We sang a song earlier, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all the things that you need will be provided for you. Not only the provision of food and clothes and shelter, but the guidance that you need will be given to you. The protection, God, that you need will be given to you. And you'll find life as you lived it after you've overlooked back and say it was just exactly right for me. Jesus came to show us how to do that. He lived himself in obedience to the Father like God intended Adam and Eve to live, like he intended all the Jewish people to live, like he intended every human being who's ever been born in the world to live, to show us what life should be like. This was the kingdom of God. God is in the business of building his kingdom, that is a group of people who say to him, we accept you as the final ultimate authority in our lives. We believe that you alone have the truth and we want to live the way you tell us we should live because we believe that's the only right way. These people will accept from God what he's given them and say, we want to work to build your kingdom in this world. We want more and more people to come to know you as God, to come to understand you as their ruler, to submit their lives to your authority, to make choices and decisions based on what you say is right. So we want to reach out to those people to bring them into the kingdom of heaven. Jesus came, when he came, said, I've come to seek and to save those who were lost, that is, who are wandering around in the world trying to figure out what it's all about and come and tell them this is what the world is about. God is in charge. He made it all. He owns it. He wants you to live as he directs you. That was his message. He lived this message and he told this message. And those people who listened to him and said, we believe what you're telling us, then were brought into the kingdom of God. They were willing to say, we want to obey you regardless of how difficult or hard this is. That is God's business. This man's business, you see, was quite different. It was about money. And so when he uses this example, he's talking about people in this world in some financial enterprises that are comparable to what God is doing. So I have a business and I give a man $170,000 and I say, you know what business I'm in? I'm making the business of making money. So I want you to take this and make money for me. And we don't know, he didn't exactly say to them that they had to invest it to make money, but they knew what he was like. All three of them knew what he was like. He is a hard man. He demands results. He will not be satisfied with less than what he demands. So the two immediately went out and began to do exactly what they were supposed to do. And one did not. Now, what the Bible is talking to us about is that God expects us to do the very same thing. He expects us when we come into the kingdom of God to focus our attention on the work of the kingdom of God. You notice in this story that it's not about salvation. It's not about a person saying, I want to go to heaven. So I'm going to pray this prayer and I'm going to be baptized and I'm going to go to heaven. It's not about that. It's not about a person who simply had their sins forgiven. It's not about that. It is about the fact that this man gathers around him people who belong to him and who are interested in his work. What Jesus asked his followers to do, he said to them, I want you to come and help me in the things that the Father has sent me to do. To do this, it's going to be difficult for you. You will have to say no to some things in your life that you enjoy and have been doing. You will have to sometimes pay a great price to do the things I'm asking you to do. But in the end, you will please the Father. Jesus said it this way, if you want to follow me, live the kind of life I'm living, you must deny yourself, take up your cross, and obey God the way I am. That's what the work of the kingdom was really all about. In this story, Jesus uses a story of a man who's investing money. What he really is talking about is the kingdom of God where there is one person who has been given the responsibility to rule the world. That's God. And every person in the world are accountable to that one who owns it. He tells them what to do. He holds them accountable for what they do. And in the end, will come in judgment to make sure that they've done it. Now for us, there's a great picture here of what it means to be a follower of God. He gave three different levels of money to these three guys. The scripture says he gave this money in accordance with their own ability. What God lets us know is that our place in his kingdom and in the world he's given us to live in, he's placed us with no responsibilities that are above and beyond what we can do. Now it may seem to us sometimes as if that's true. If you were to go to a small baby and you say to that baby that is three weeks old, now I want you to get up and run, that baby can't do that. But one day, that baby can do that. What God never does is ask us to do things that are above and beyond our capacity. He gave to each according to his ability. Some people in this world will have more money than others. Some will have more skill at singing than others. Some will have more skill at running than others. Some will have more skill at carpentry than others. There are all kinds of different gifts that God gives to us, assets, things that God can give to us that are of value. Each of those are to provide for ourselves and also to allow us to do the work of the kingdom of God. The work of the kingdom of God is to live a life in this world, like Jesus did, of holiness. You are to be holy as I am holy. That's the first principle of the kingdom of God. If I am going to be your ruler and Lord, you must learn to live like I live, to be holy as I am holy. So we are examples to the world as Jesus was. You look at his life and you learn from the way he lived how you are to live. The people around us are to look at our lives to learn how God expects them to live and for what they will be accountable if they refuse to do it. We declare to the world what is right and true, not only by our words but by our life, so that everyone will know what they will be accountable to do. You might come to church because you enjoy it. One of the things that you might need to be conscious of is that coming to the place where you worship God says to everyone around you, the Lord requires my worship. Even if you don't feel like it one day. Even if it's not enjoyable to you. Even if it's not the way you would do it. He requires your worship. You see, everything we do is a declaration to the world about what God requires of them. Why should you live a holy life in your home, in your family, with your neighbors or at work? Because you are showing to them what the Lord, the owner of their life, requires of them. God is not just the owner of those who are followers of his. He is the owner of every single life in the world. And every single person born in the world is accountable to God for how they live. Number one, many of the people in this world don't understand that. They think that if you come in the world, you can live the way you want to, you can do what you want to do, when you do it the way you want to do it, and when you die you will go to a better place than you have here. Have you ever heard anyone talking about a friend or family member who died who didn't say, well, they're in a better place? It isn't true. But the Bible makes very clear that most of the people in this world will end up in a worse place than they're in here. If you don't believe that, you're not going to be able to do very much work in the kingdom of God. In this story, if the three people that the master had given the money to said, well, you can go out and do whatever you want with the money and it will always grow. You don't have to worry about that. Probably some of you have learned that's not true. It doesn't always grow. Sometimes it goes the other way. There are a lot of truths, you see, in the financial world that people don't understand. And there are certainly truths in the spiritual world that most of the people you know really don't understand. They believe they're born into this world and all they have to do is do the best they know how. All they have to do is to do what they think is right. All they have to do is to try to be nice and better than other people around them. They don't realize that they're accountable for living in obedience to what God says is correct and right. They're responsible for placing Him as the ruler of their lives. That's the key ingredient. I recognize that you made me and you own me and my life is accountable to you. That's the key to entering the kingdom of heaven. And most of the people around you don't know that. Jesus came to say, I have come to seek and to save those who do not understand what it means to live in this world. And their lives are in desperate condition and they're headed for disaster. And I want to tell them the truth and turn them back so they'll be saved from eternal disaster. That's why He came. And in His last moments, when He prayed for His disciples, He said to the Father, I've done everything you've told me to do. Here are my people. I pray for them that you will lead them and guide them so that they will complete the work that I've started. And then He left. Now when you enter the kingdom of heaven, you come in to say, I recognize God that you're the ruler of all things in the world. And everything you want me to do, I pledge and promise as best I can to do. Every one of us have different abilities, different responsibilities, but we all have one requirement from God. That is that we as holy people are to be seeking people who are outside of God's kingdom. We are responsible for making followers of Jesus. Now this is not our job to do alone. What the owner of this business did was required. You couldn't bring in a person and say, I want you to make me $171,000 profit and I'm not going to give you any money to invest. You can't do that. You have to have some asset to be able to invest it to get a return. God's as smart as any businessman in the world. He does not bring you into the kingdom of God and ask you to do something you can't do. He gives you an assignment that fits your personality and character and nature, and then he gives you the assets that allow you to do that job. The assets that he gives to us are the spiritual gifts of the scripture. Here are the tools that I give you to allow you to do this job. So you're placed in the place you are. Every one of you have different jobs. You live in different neighborhoods. You have someone that lives by you that you know that I would never meet. You know them. You may just know their name and you may not even know all the names of the people in the family, but you know who they are. You go to work and you work with people that you meet every day and you know who those people are. You go to where there are people that are customers or clients in the places you go and you know who those people are. Those are the people for whom you are responsible. This is the job that God has left to you. I can't do it for you. Your neighbor can't do it for you. No one else can. You have to do it. And God's intention in that situation is for you to live a holy life so that they will see the difference between your life and their life. So you have to begin with yourself to say, OK, if I'm going to be an investor in God's business, I have to do the things that are required. I have to begin to say every day, God, as I go out into this community, into my work, I want you to guide my life so I will reflect who you are by the choices I make, the things that I say, and the attitude of my life. Then I want you to open my eyes to the people around me who are not in your kingdom. For I have been sent into this world to make a profit for your business, to advance the kingdom of God. And you are to begin to pray for those people that you see around you who may not know who God is, that is, as the Lord. You are to treat them with love and kindness, exactly as Jesus treated the people he met. If there was a need, he tried to meet it. If they were in trouble, he tried to help them. He passed on to them the information he had about God. That's what you're to do. Only what you know you have to do. That's all you have to do is what you know. Then when they talk about the problems that come up in their life and you look at your own life and realize, I have some of the same problems they have, tell them how God has helped you with that. And that trusting him as the ruler and Lord of your life has changed you and made your life different. And they could do the same thing. That's all he wants of you. He hasn't left us in this world to sit down on a chair and say, well, I'm saved. Now I can just wait until the end of time and go to heaven. The picture here he shows of someone who is daily, actively engaged in the business of the owner, God. And that each one of us will be accountable for whether or not we have done that. Of the three, one of them didn't do anything to help the business of the owner. He went to hell. I can't soften that for you. The judge said, if you're not going to do what my business is about, I have nothing more to do with you. There's not a one of us here who cannot pray for others. There's not a one of us here who don't have neighbors, don't have people we associate with for whom we should be praying. The one who's busy at the business of God belongs to God. You see, what Jesus tells us in this story is, the owner of the slave told his slave what they were to do. Two of the slaves did what the owner told them to do. One of them did what he wanted to do. He no longer was a slave of the owner. See, that's the secret. And whenever you claim to be a part of the kingdom of God, because sometime you went to the front of a church, or you were baptized in a baptistry, or you prayed a prayer, that's a little consequence to God, unless you are a worker in his kingdom. Why? Because if you said, Jesus Christ is my boss, then he tells you what to do, and you don't do it. He really isn't your boss. If you say, Jesus Christ is my Lord, but when he tells you what he wants you to do, you say, no, I'm not going to do that. He is really not your Lord. That's what you have to get. There are a lot of people in this world who think because they believe that God exists, or they believe the stories in the Bible are true, or they've joined a church sometime, who think that at the moment of their death, they're going to be ushered into this great world that God has prepared for his people. But what this parable tells us is that only those who acknowledge the authority of God to control and direct their lives, that they would do the work of the kingdom of God, are really his followers. Is it doing the work of the kingdom that earns you the right to heaven? No, not at all. It is recognizing the supreme authority of the owner. I acknowledge that God made me and owns me and directs my life. What happened to this man who was disobedient was he failed to acknowledge who God was and who he ought to be. And so the story ends in disaster for that one man. But what about me? I am here in this world, and I should say I give my life to God. I want to live in obedience to him, and I pledge myself to do his work, to try to reflect to the people around me what it's like to live in obedience to God, and to try to show God's love to those people, and to tell them what I have done to allow God to control my life. That's my job. And if I do it right, someday he will say, well done, my good and faithful servant. Would you bow your heads for a moment? The owner of the world, the creator of everything is here today by means of his Holy Spirit. And he would like to tell each of us exactly where we stand right now with him. So all you have to do is to say, God, do I really think of you every day as the owner of my life? Do I really think that doing the work of your kingdom is more important than anything else in my life, even my own family or my own job? If you have to say no to those questions, you are this foolish man. But God has brought you here. He's directed me to say these things to help you, to say to you, all of this can change. All you have to do is to say, I do believe that you are the ruler and owner of this world. I do want to pledge my life to live in obedience to you. If you'll teach me what to do, I will try my best to do it. I do want to be one of those people who are taking others and bringing them in to follow you. And today, I promise you, from now on, from this moment on in my life, you will be my Lord, my ruler, and my boss. And when you say that to God, he brings you into his kingdom, adopts you as his child, and gives you the assets you need to begin to do the life and work that he has planned for you from the day of your birth. It is not too late for you. And if God is directing your life, he's telling you things you should do. If you don't have a list of three or four people that you're praying for that you're concerned about, you should promise God to do that today. Do his work, even if you have to neglect your own. If he's been talking to you about some job in church, you know, that you've been asked to do, and you've been saying no to him, just ask yourself, is this an assignment from my boss, and is God really my boss? God wants you to be a part of the family of this church, and he made that clear to you. And you need to come and say, God has told me this is the church I need to be a part of. In a moment, we're going to sing a hymn to invite you to do what God wants you to do. Right now, I'd like you to pray with me. I'll be here at the front. Debbie will be here, too. If you have a promise you want to make to God, and you feel like that's what you need to do this morning, we will help you know how to do that. And so, Father, I ask, as the ruler of this universe, that you would speak to each of us, and that when we hear you, we would say, whatever it takes, you're the Lord. In the name of Jesus, I ask this, amen. Would you stand, please, while we sing this invitation hymn, and if God has spoken to you, and you already know what he wants you to do, be bold enough to just do today what he wants. Let him have his way in your life. Without him I could do nothing. Without him I'd surely fail. Without him I would be drifting like a ship without a sail. Jesus, oh Jesus, do you know him today? You can't turn him away. Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, without him how lost I would be. Without him I would be dying. Without him I'd be enslaved. Without him life would be hopeless. But with Jesus, thank God, I'm saved. Jesus, oh Jesus, do you know him today? You can't turn him away. Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, without him how lost I would be. Without him I could do nothing. Without him I'd surely fail. Without him I would be drifting like a ship without a sail. Jesus, oh Jesus, do you know him today? You can't turn him away. Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, without him how lost I would be. Would you be seated just a minute, please? You came to talk to me. Go ahead and just give me this and we'll proceed here for a moment. You came, Theresa came to talk to me and she mentioned Mike as being a friend of hers, knowing her. And he even came over and installed a mailbox at her house. And I think that's the contact that she said, this is doing the work of the kingdom. Making friends, loving people, caring for them. Theresa, would you come and stand up here with us, please? So you came saying that years ago you came and acknowledged that you believed Jesus Christ was the one sent by God and that he was the owner, that God was the owner of the world and you surrendered your life to live in obedience to him. Yes, I did. You lived in obedience and service to God for years of your life. Yes, I did. You've moved to different places around the country and sometimes it's easier to move your furniture than it is your church responsibilities and they kind of get pushed aside. Coming today, you said you wanted to recommit yourself to recognizing God as the ruler of your life. That's right. You wanted to recommit yourself to reading the Bible regularly and you want to recommit yourself to prayer and recommit yourself to being part of the family of the church. Yes. And that you felt that God wanted you to become part of this church family. That's true. Now, Mike, whenever she came and she asked me to visit with her the first day she came she indicated she wanted to talk to me and what she said was she wanted to be a part of this church family. Now, she didn't know anything about this church but you and this is what I've been talking about today. The life of a person who says to another this is a place where you will find the presence of Christ. So, I want to thank you for the witness you've had and for the encouragement you've been to Teresa in her life. Would you stand please for a moment of prayer and somebody can get their phone their car rescued in just a minute. I want to say something. Would you want to say something? You're welcome to do so. Well, first off I'm excited to be up here with you, Teresa. I don't mean to embarrass you but for the rest of you Teresa and I work a lot of hours together at a demanding job and I've prayed for Teresa and for Reggie. Reggie's her husband. They've both had significant health challenges. God has given me the opportunity to be in Teresa's life and be a friend to her. I want to tell you she's seen Mike at his worst too. I mean, you know, in stressful situations. So, I didn't even know Teresa was looking for a church home. I mean, I was just her friend. We have prayed together. I knew she was a believer but I want to encourage the rest of you. God uses cracked vessels because I'm as cracked as they come and any work that's done in Teresa's heart was done by God and the Holy Spirit but don't give up on yourselves in terms of your relationship with God. God can use you even though you're less than perfect. And like I said, Teresa knows that I'm a long ways from being perfect so somehow in her mind she saw something spiritually valuable even though maybe I don't see it in my own life. So, continue to be that friend. Continue to be that witness. Continue to pray to God that he'll guide your tongue and your actions that what you do would be pleasing to him and maybe be a little easier on yourself. God is great. I couldn't do this but with God all things are possible. But you are, Mike, trying day by day to live in obedience to God. I'm trying. There you go. See, that's the secret to this whole thing. And I guess a cracked vessel, is that like a cracked pot? Yeah, a cracked pot. If a cracked pot can do it, you can do it. Good segue. And so, Lord, we give praise to you. You do guide us and sometimes even when we stray away you stay with us. You bring us back to yourself. You remind us of the things that are really important. And even though we don't do things perfectly you take what little we give you and you make it great and useful and valuable. And so I and I hope all the people here who belong to you pledge to you we will live in obedience to you as best we can. In Jesus' name we give praise to you for this day and for the promise you've made to us. Amen. Would you come and stand with her? There's no choir practice tonight. I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever I will sing I will sing I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever I will sing of the mercies of the Lord With my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness thy faithfulness With my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations The singing of the mercies of the Lord forever I will sing I will sing I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever I will sing of the mercies of the Lord