Living Under Christ’s Order
Colossians chapter 3 verses 18 through to chapter 4 verse 1. There's a parallel passage in Ephesians in chapters 5 and 6 if you want, it expands it out a little bit more, but I'll read this one from Colossians. Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not embitter your children or they will become discouraged. Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything and do it not only when their eye is on you, and to curry their favour but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters. Since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward, it is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs and there is no favoritism. Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair because you know that you also have a master in heaven. Good morning, everyone. One out of ten how you feeling? Dead, did someone say dead? Ah, 10, ah, 10. Okay, cool, that's good, that's good, glad for that. Cool, now, naturally, when we read a passage like we just had before, every wife goes, but have you met my husband? Every child goes, but have you met my parents? This is one of those ones that I think we'd be quite happy to skip over. Fair enough, probably as a husband I'm probably bit like, ah, you know, we need to read this one, but no. We don't. We do, sorry, we do. But anyway, there are important things here for us nonetheless. And the thing that can help us understand why it's here is part understanding all the stuff that we've talked about in the last couple weeks. Because all we've been talking about, Paul is just concerned with this big thing, which is, I want you guys to be united, to be together, to be a family, right? And so, know, he talked about, here's all these old parts of you, this old self, which just loves you and hates other people, so just put that to death, says. Now he says, here's what you do instead. You're meant to be compassionate. You're meant to love one another. You're meant to serve one another. Better yet, you should count the other person more significant than yourself. And then we talked the week after that about all the things that we're meant to do together, you know? That we're meant to share with one another, meant to forgive one another, we're meant to sing with one another. All these things that bring us together. And now Paul comes to another part, which is also important in understanding how we get along together as a family. Submission. Now, not everyone's favorite subject, but the reality is... Submission isn't simply someone up here telling you what to do and you have to follow it. Yes, that is part of it, nonetheless. But there is a part in which we submit to one another. We need to acknowledge the fact there are people in here with other needs than ours. So I don't go first. I actually submit to that other person's need. Submission, if we don't have it, the family doesn't work. It just falls apart. So before we jump into the details, let's begin in prayer. Father. We know, Lord, that you... call us to submission for good reason. Father, there is a requirement of obedience, but it's not just for obedience sake, but for a good purpose. And so Lord, would you teach us that now? Better yet, Lord, would you teach us to bear and to learn how we are to find contentment under bad authority, Father, which we know pervades this world. So help us teach us, we pray now. Open our hearts to receive your word in Jesus' name, amen. So, naturally, where do we start with something like submission? Now, look, in our passage here, we're gonna break it up four different points, basically. So first is wives and slaves. There should be, will it come up or no? On the laptop there, it should. Anyway, maybe I didn't put it in there, that's all right. So four points that we've got here. So, first, wives and slaves, not the same thing, just so you know. We're addressing two different topics, wives and slaves. So that's just gonna be a quick preface. We're going to address some things about why they're sometimes controversial. Then we're gonna talk, I've these down into two categories, those in authority and those under authority. And then we'll talk about what God does with those who misuse authority. Because obviously that's an important question to tackle. So here we begin. Why is Paul talking about this in the first place though? Okay, yes we need, but you gotta understand, think back in Paul's time. We've gotten to a point now where we've become so individualistic and we don't really think it's about submission because all we see is the people in power acting like, well, as someone wisely put it at our Bible study yesterday, stupidly. They're acting like idiots, basically. So why would we ever want to submit to something like that? It just seems stupid. But Paul, in that particular time, he was speaking, you know, the fact that every single person in that church was a part of a household. And households were so incredibly important back in that day. You had wives, you had children, you had slaves, you had servants, possibly even you had extended family in there. But you see, it didn't work unless there was one who sat at the head. And that person was naturally the father at that time. And he had full legal power over all his wives, all his wives, sorry, one wife, hopefully, children and his servants. But now this new thing has come into the Christian church. There is now therefore no distinction, Jew and Greek, all of us are the same, male and female. We are all equal before God. So therefore does that mean that we are to get rid of every distinction to say there is no need for anyone to submit to anyone at any time? No, because then what do you get? Anarchy, disorder, it all falls apart. And so Paul, though he is trying to make people see that there are to be no distinctions in terms of those who receive salvation. He is not calling for complete anarchy in the world. He's still understanding that there are to be, if you want to use the word, hierarchies. But here is the difference. The Roman one, the one of that time was built on what? That person's perceived value. Children, look, they're nice to have run around, but if they're making any noise, then we shut them up. They're not really worth that much. I'm not saying that now, I'm saying that back then. Wives, they got a little bit of something, but still they're not quite important as men. I'm not saying this me, this is back then. And that was wrong. Because people were seen as worth more simply because of something they could never actually change about themselves. We know in the gospel that all people are on the same level. So now, Paul calls us to a hierarchy not built on someone's better than the other person, but instead upon the fact of working together and uniting together, we need to have people that are up here and some down here. But it is based on mutual submission and an acknowledgement that God has ordered it a certain way rather than simply that person being worth more. So, a lot of the practices in here that we just read about, A lot of them are cultural, but beneath them are principles we can learn. Because obviously, does anyone have a slave? Children, same thing, no, okay, anyway, NATO. Because you see, naturally these words like authority and submission are great against our ears because we've just gotten to a point in our day and age where we just don't like it because we've seen it abused so many times. But we have to look to the example of Jesus. The reality is when he came to this earth, did he finally say, you can get rid of all authority, all submission, don't even worry about it. You know, I have a dad in heaven, but I don't even like him, so I don't listen to him. No, he said, I obey my father in everything. He says, I'm completely obedient to his will. And better yet then, he also exhorted us to submit to those who are in authority over us. And each and every person in this room is in authority or under authority in some way, right? Some of you are parents, some of you are teachers, in your job, anything like that. Even Caleb is probably in authority over someone, I don't know. You you got a dog or something? You have some animal you're in charge of, I'm sure. There you go, they've got a dog, see? Everyone has authority over something, right? And we're all under authority, under the government, under God. And so we have to understand and see that there is a purpose for that happening. That those people were placed in authority to bring order to chaos. You see, because when everyone is their own authority, it all goes crazy. And so we actually have a responsibility as Christians to submit to that which we are called to submit to. Because we're not called to be the rascals or the scumbags in society who don't submit to anything. In some ways, we are actually called to be the best citizens in this place. Why? Because then when people come against us and come and persecute us, they actually don't have a good reason for doing it. They should be able to come over here and say, well, we're going to persecute the Christians and they're going to say, well, why? Because they steal a bunch of stuff? Well, no, actually, they're the people you don't have to worry about stealing stuff. Or is it because they're causing a bunch of issues? Well, no, they just believe in this guy Jesus who really loves people and they serve people all the time. We're meant to make them come against us for that, not because we're actually acting in disobedience. And so we should actually be respected and law abiding people. Anyway, so we go on now. So I wanna address first the two things that naturally get at us. So wives and slaves. So the first verse, verse 18. Wives submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. And now naturally, what's the first thing that pops into your head? No, for starters. And then the second thing is you think of every wife who's ever been abused by her husband. You think of every marriage who's dysfunctional and a man who simply uses, possibly even uses this command as something to wield over his wife. Horrible things. But here is the problem. When we hear the word submission, instantly our experience interprets that word for us. But there is actually a biblical definition of the word which we should hopefully be happy with. And so, you know, we're going to explore it a little bit. If you want more detail on particularly how the whole Bible explains how husbands and wives just submit to one another, or wives submit to husbands, I'm not going to cover it all here. If you want a Bible study about it, come talk to me. But unfortunately, we've got to cover a lot of ground, so I can't specifically do husbands and wives today. But I do think it is important. But anyway, so you've got that. Understand that there is a submission there that when we read the Word, it's not quite correlating to what it truly is. because there is actually a goldly form of submission that we should be happy with. And now we come down to the other thing. So you read it in verse 22. He says, bond servants or slaves obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye services people pleases, but with sincerity of heart fearing the law. Now, this is an important thing, because naturally we're like, what does that have to do with us? Because as we've acknowledged, none of us have slaves. None of us have servants in our household. And better yet, why is Paul telling them to treat them nicely? He should be telling the slaves to run away, because it's slavery. One thing, when we think slavery, we think 18th century slavery. That's not quite the same thing that they had back then. They did have some of that. But you see, when we think slavery, we think... White people don't like black people and so therefore they enslave them and make them do stuff they don't want to do. But typically what a servant was back in that day was someone who had accrued a debt and they had to therefore work off that debt but they didn't have any money to pay it. So they would go and work for that person. That person would supply them food and rent or board or whatever and then they would have to work off their debt in the meantime. That was typically what it was. Yes, people exploited that. Yes, people misused it. But so why would Paul not be saying, out of that, get rid of that? Now here's an important thing to understand. The gospel is not actually about bringing an end to slavery. That was not actually why Jesus came, for the foremost thing. That was not the most important thing. What was he really here to do? To bring salvation to people, right? And then, then to deal with the social stuff after that. So you see, Paul acknowledged that in this moment in time, there were slaves and there were masters. And he knew that was a cultural practice of the time. And so his concern is more that the conduct in those relationships is godly. That the masters are actually treating their slaves as people, not as people of no worth. And later on, the Bible would be the very thing that actually brought an end to slavery. It would just take them about 1800 years to get there. And so you understand that Paul here is not trying to attack the cultural practices. What he is trying to do is to help the Christians to understand that their culture needs to be informed by the Bible. But understand it would take time for that to happen. Now, that's kind of a very long preface. Let's get down to the actual things. So our second point is for those in authority, who you'll first address. So now the reason I'm not reading out from the actual passage is because I've categorized these. But anyway, three things for those under authority. Now, cause you see what we're aiming for here is that for those in authority that they would act rightly. And then those under authority would also act rightly. And then what we have is unity. That is what we're looking for. And so the first thing for those in authority, number one, is that you are to love those under your authority. What does authority give someone? It gives them power, right? Suddenly someone's up here, not because of worth, but they have ability to be able to tell people what to do. Hopefully not for no good reason. But you see, because the reality is power isn't scary in and of itself. Power without love is the terrifying thing because that person only cares for themself. But it is power with love that is actually comforting and reassuring. Here, I'll read one passage for you from Matthew 6. God has authority, authority to control everything and Betty, He's authority over your life. And what does He do with that authority? He says, don't worry about anything, I will provide it for you. It's a very good thing that God is in authority, right? And it's a perfect thing to submit to that because then everything will be provided for. It's our rebellion against that that just seems like stupidity. And so you see, this authority is given to others to be used as a gift for the benefit of others. It is to mirror Christ's love on the cross. Because those who are given authority are not to say, finally I've got the power, now I can tell people, go get me a coffee please. But instead now I can say, all this authority that I've been given, all this power is to be used for your benefit. It is to be used for your sake. And so the most important thing, so for all of us in authority, you guys have kids, you have grandkids, some of you are in authority in this church. One of the most important things is that we must avoid bitterness to our kids, to those in this church, even towards the government. And we must avoid refusing to forgive because those are the things which lead to a misuse of power. Those are the things that Naturally, when you get frustrated with your kids and you say, I am just so done with you, that you tend to do things you probably shouldn't have done in the first place. It is those things when we hold onto a lack of forgiveness, that is when we use our power for bad reasons. But we must see people as God sees them, as children of God. They are of equal worth. You have a master in heaven, so you must keep that in mind. So you must constantly be loving them, seeking that. Remember, they are your family. And so you must love them at all times. If you allow anger and frustration to come in, you will misuse your power. So second thing, you are not to discourage those under your authority. Now this comes from the interesting one in verse 20, sorry, verse, yeah, verse 20, sorry, 21. Fathers do not provoke your children unless they become discouraged. But this applies to all those who are in authority here. Children naturally want to please their parents. I know some parents probably don't think that But the reality is there's typically something where they because have you ever met a child when they're doing something particularly young ones They say can you watch me? Can you watch me? Can you watch me and you're like, no, I don't want to watch you do a drawing I'm sorry. I've seen your drawings. They're really not that impressive, right? But the reality is they want because they want to show they want you to be proud of them They want you to see something in them. They're constantly trying to please them But the reality is, if we constantly refuse them, if we're constantly provoking them, telling them they're not doing good enough, if we're constantly just disciplining them without any kind of encouragement, what happens? They give up trying. Right? And so you see, the natural thing with authority is we want to discipline, we want to correct, we want to use it to force people to go our way, to make our children go the way we want them to. But when that is used and abused, they don't go the way you want them to. No. And so you see, we must be so careful. Because if we over-wield discipline, then naturally it turns the people away. It doesn't actually encourage them to go the way. And so you see, how can you actually see the difference? It's the difference between discipline and anger, or correction and anger. What is discipline for? If you discipline your kids, if you correct a friend or something like that, you're doing it for their good. You want them to see that there's actually a truth that they need to be adhering to, that there's something they need to obey. What's anger though? Anger comes when that person doesn't obey you. And suddenly you've got to feel, well, my goodness, how dare they not do that? Anger wells up. You need to feel justified now. You need to make yourself feel better. So then you act out. You'd use your power over them to abuse. And so you see, it simply about making yourself feel better in that incident. The person is no, it's no longer about the person. It is about making yourself feel better. Correction always comes from a place of love and concern, not frustration. And so then a third thing, all of those who are in authority are to remember that they have a master in heaven. That is the most important thing. That is why we struggle with those who are so often in authority over us and the government, things like that. because they have no recognition of a God over them, because they seem to act with impunity. And so we are not to be an example of that in our church. We should always remember that there is one whom we all serve, and that is God. Because the reality is we receive power, we will naturally have a sinful incarnation to serve ourselves. That will always be the thing. Suddenly, I've got a bit more power to push things my way, to do things this way. But that is not why you were given power, why you were given authority. The aim and the goal is what? That you would please the people? Actually, no. You were not given authority necessarily to please your children. You're not given the authority to please the people in the church necessarily. You were given it in order to please God. God gave you authority and He says, now walk in obedience to my commands. Why is that? Because understand that when you've been given authority, if you just do what the people want, what happens? You just do whatever the people want and that's not necessarily what they actually need. Sometimes those in authority, like you do with your own children, will be called to do things. that will actually hurt in the short term. You won't actually necessarily like it, but there is a good long-term goal that they are working to. Leaders must sometimes do unpopular things for the long-term good of those they lead. And so those are the three things that ideally those who are in authority, all parents, all leaders, anyone, it is always coming from love. It is always coming from a place of discipline, not anger. And that they are doing it knowing they are serving someone in heaven who will keep them accountable. So now we go on to the next point, those under authority. So, number one. What does it say for the wives? In verse 18, why does it submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord? Now, what does that mean for us? It's simple. Just because someone is in authority over you does not mean you must obey them in every single thing. When do you not obey them? When they cause you to walk in disobedience to God, okay? They cannot do that. No one has the right to tell you to do something that God tells you not to. So the reality is, uh your husband comes up to you and says, you know, there's a few people in church and my goodness, have you heard what Mark's been talking about? Out of garbage, goodness. You know what we're gonna do? We're gonna go around and a few rumors about him. You have every right in that moment to tell him, way, we're not doing that. You have the responsibility better yet to tell him that. Better yet, say, wife comes up to a child and says, hey, I want you to lie to your dad for me. What does the child say? Yes, mom, I should definitely do that. Nope. In every way, they should be saying, well, no, I can't do that, because you're the one that told me not to lie. So now I can't very well go and do that which you've told me not to do. And so you see, it's the exact same thing for me. For the elders, we have an authority over the congregation here. And what is that authority? As far as the words in this book extend. I can tell you guys what to do, but only if it says it in here. And so you see, we all have a limitation. All of us have a limit on our authority. There are certain people that you have authority over, there are certain things you command them and certain things you cannot. And those people have a right to act even in disunity if you are calling them to that thing. So then, number two, what are we to do? We are to submit sincerely. Sincerely, that's the word. So we are to serve with sincerity. So this comes from our verse 22 again. bond servants obey in everything those who your earthly mothers masters not by way of eye service as people pleases but with sincerity of heart fearing the law. So what is he saying there? See, these guys have masters over them. They may even be Christian masters. And he's saying, now, don't just simply make it look like you're doing your job when the boss comes around. Now, for all of you guys who have jobs where naturally you have a boss, do you guys tend to work a bit harder when the boss walks past? Yes? Cool, there you go, one of the kids says yes, so that's nice. Naturally, that's what happens because we know, oh, I actually have to be working now. But you see, often that can come from an eye service. want them to see that I'm working. But the reality is, when they're actually gone, I could care less for their authority or for anything that they have over my life. But God says, do not want you to do that. But why? Does God really want them to be serving their masters who are just using and abusing them? But he wants it particularly in the church for this reason, because what happens when we begrudgingly obey? You despise the person in your mind. You don't actually like them. Instead, you are anger. You're angry at them. You're frustrated at them. You hate them even. This creates disunity. This creates resentment. This is exactly what we're called to. You see it in these two passages I'm talking about here from 1 Peter 5. Peter says to the elders of the church, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. So you see, says, those in authority, you're not meant to use your power and use it against the people. You're not meant to make them hate you because you're using it. And then Hebrews 13. says, obey your leaders and submit to them for they're keeping watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be of no advantage to you. Like already said before, when we submit, and it's annoying because he says, for those who are elders, for those who are in leadership, do it joyfully. Don't just do it because it's filling a space. And for those there who are under authority, says, don't just sit there and be like, well, I have to. Actually find a reason to make it joyful. Actually do it eagerly, knowing that it is what God calls you to. Because you see, when these two people do it begrudgingly, what happens? They begin to hate each other. This unity fosters... then eventually division will happen because it just happens. Like you said, eventually the children sit there and they're like, okay, I'll obey, okay, I'll obey, and then what happens? They hit the rebellious stage because they're sick of it. I'm not going to put up with it anymore. But you see, as a church and as a family, as families, hopefully we have a united aim. That's the goal that we're aiming for. We're looking towards something together. And so we should each be playing our part in that and seeking to go ahead together. And so then the third part, you need to work for the Lord and not for man. Now this becomes the hardest part because now we naturally have to deal with those who are in authority over us who don't use it well. That is why God grounds the obedience, not in what the other person does, but instead in the love that He has shown you. He says to work for him. Because the reality is, are you ever gonna submit to someone first? No. You're never going to eagerly do that out of the service of your own heart. You must be called to that. And especially the reality is when we face those who misuse their authority, if we continue to act in resentment and despise them and rebel against them, do you think they're ever gonna want to actually caring, caringly lead you? No, they're never gonna wanna do that. They're going to use their authority to enforce you. But you see, when those who abuse their power and mistreat us, when they do that, but when we respond with grace and forgiveness, that actually allows unity to happen, that allows that person to actually respond better. This is the example that Peter gave to the wives who had unbelieving husbands. He said from Peter three, likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands so that even if some of them do not obey the word, there may be one without a word by the conduct of their wives. when they see their respectful and pure conduct. And so here, he says, it's not actually your disobedience that's going to win your husband into the kingdom, but what is it? The fact that even though he may be a complete nut a pig, the reality is you continue to love him, to care for him and to submit to him despite the fact. That may actually change him. But rebelling against him because he sucks will not change a thing. So unity comes not from returning evil for evil, but rather suffering and showing grace. It actually gives the opportunity for true unity to happen. But naturally we know, here comes the point. This is the fourth point now, dealing with those who misuse authority. We may show grace to people, but some people just don't seem to change. So three things we can find. This is why Paul says chapter three, verse 25 for us. So we'll read from there now. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done. And there is no partiality. So he gives that hope. He says, remember this, you will suffer under people. But our instant reaction is to think, well, therefore I need to show that person that they're not acting rightly. We think I need to return evil for evil, but he actually says, no, wait. He says, actually, to be like Christ who was led before the people who were accusing him of wrong when he had done nothing wrong, he stood there silently. He did not rebuke back. He did not revile against them. Instead, he stood there. He submitted to what he was facing and in the midst of it, he trusted God that he would avenge him. And so we are to know, injustice in this life is temporary. We will suffer things. Now I say that as we live in the midst of life at this very moment. Some of you are like, suffering under authority at this very moment. I am suffering under authority and it sucks. I hate it. But you are to keep holding on to know that it is temporary. It will cease one day and God will come and there will be no partiality. People who are up here will not have an excuse before God. He will judge them. But here comes the hard part. Has any of you ever been mistreated or abused by anyone in the church? Probably a universal show of hands would go up just about, I imagine. What are we to do about that? Because the reality is, aren't they Christian? And therefore they're gonna be forgiven anyway? I want them to suffer. I want them to cop it. Because they've mistreated me. Well, one thing, a couple of things really, you may have been mistreated by people in the church, by Christian family. One thing, we often are not accurate surveyors of who is actually a Christian and who isn't. We need to be careful that there may be people in the church and there may be people in leadership. I'm not saying here, just generally, not everyone who is in a church is automatically a Christian. They're not automatically all born again. Now, does that mean You sit there and say, well, obviously those people who are mistreating me just aren't saved then. Problem solved, they will be punished. No. Because that is a devilish kind of piece where suddenly you've made yourself God and saying, well, they abuse me so they don't get to be saved. I like these people so they get to be saved. No. Instead, we are to respond. by showing them grace, always and every time. You see, we often feel so justified in saying people should be condemned because of how they've mistreated us. But the reality is, each and every one of you have mistreated people as well. If you can't think of anyone, just look at Jesus. He's literally stuck, he was stuck up on a cross because of the fact that you guys abused God, that you guys rebelled against him. And so since God has forgiven us, we have to show that forgiveness to those other people. But is there any hope for us in the meantime? In the meantime, as we hold on, is there anything that might give us assurance of those authorities that continue to sit over us, that continue to mistreat us and abuse us? Romans 13, one. Understand this, every single authority down to the parent over the children, down to the prime minister over the country, instituted by God, appointed by Him. Now, we naturally think God could have probably picked a bit better there. I bet there's some children that probably think God probably could have picked a bit better there too. But how does this help us? Because understand if they've been appointed by God, that means they are there because they are a part of God's plan. This can actually help us because we understand that means that everything is going according to God's plan. That doesn't mean you understand how God is using that person in every way. But why did God choose to let the Pharisees be the ruling leaders of the time? Why did he allow Pontius Pilate to be there at that very moment? If he had have got rid of them, if he had to put better people in leadership, he never would have been crucified. But that's exactly the point. If he had to never let those evil authorities be there in that place, he never would have died. He never would have been sacrificed. They had a purpose. We just couldn't see it at the time. And so now we see it. But understand, there will be people who are evil. There will people who have authority and power and abuse it. But understand, don't think they act with impunity. God is using their abuses and He will use it for a good reason. So that is actually to be our hope that we will hold onto that God will turn everything for good. But now we have to do the hardest part, which is trusting God. Naturally, the easiest person to submit to is yourself, because you can trust yourself pretty easily. But we are being called to trust people other than ourselves, to trust that they have our best interests in heart. And even when we see they don't, it's hard, but he's still calling us to submit anyway, to know that he still has a good plan, that he is the one and ultimate authority. that will work everything for our best interests. So just get this, we'll wrap it all up. As a conclusion, Jesus died for the purpose that you might be reconciled to God, that you might be unified with Him. He also died that that same peace and that same unity might be a part of this family. That might be a part of our families, our biological families. And that cannot happen without there being people in authority and those under authority. And so we are called that our leaders are to be loving. and caring and counting themselves as less significant than the people they serve. And those who are under authority are to trust those in authority. And even when they can't trust them, you would have trust that nonetheless God still has a good plan for them beings. And hopefully then therefore in this unity, we will get this John 13. He says, new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you. You also to love one another. And by this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. We cannot have unity without submission and without authority. It has to be there. To be united around this common cause together, we must even submit to one another. If we are constantly at odds and constantly divided, refusing to acknowledge that someone actually has our best interest in heart, then the world will not see the light of Christ. They will not see the gospel because they will come into a church where we say, love one another and yet we are constantly at odds with one another. We must submit our needs to another and trust people in that. So, we'll finish up now ah in prayer. Father, We know that you have called us to unity, that you have called us to the fact that we must surrender our needs and our desires, that we must even deny ourselves for the sake of others, that Lord, we must humble ourselves and count all people as more significant than ourselves. It is a mighty task that you call us to, Father. And yet, Lord, we absolutely need your help in this task. So please, Father, would you help us? Please, Father, better yet, would our unity together by the power of your Spirit Go out, shine into this community Father so people would know that there is a God of love in the midst of this place. Of people that all love one another because of the love that they have been shown in Jesus coming down and dying in their place upon a cross that they may be forgiven. Father we thank you for this and we ask that you may just fill our hearts with joy now Father as we worship your name Father and as we go out into this week in Jesus name, Amen.