The Sacrificial Life
Genesis 22 verse 1 to 18. After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, here I am. He said, take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on the mountains of which I shall tell you. So Abraham rose early in the morning. saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day, Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his son, Sorry, then Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship and come back to you. And again, and Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father, Abraham, my father, and he said, Here I am, my son,' he said, behold, the fire and the wood. But where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Abraham said, God will provide for himself a lamb for a burnt offering, my son. So they went, both of them together. When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son. and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. And he said, here I am. He said, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God. Seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. And Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his thorns. And Abraham went and took the ram and the offering. and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of this place, the Lord will provide, as it is said to this day, on the mountain of the Lord it shall be provided. And the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you. and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gates of his enemies. And in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice. Let us just prepare our hearts in prayer and then we will jump into the word. Father, we just thank you. Lord, that you have given us this time now, I pray. Lord, that you would just give us the strength and stamina to just open ears to behold your word, to be taught by it, Lord, to be formed by it and to be made more to the likeness of your Son through it. So we pray your Spirit would powerfully be at work in us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So now here we are. This isn't the final sermon in Genesis, but for this year we're wrapping up. We'll finish the rest next year, but... We're finishing here because this really, it is at the end virtually of the story of Abraham. The next chapter or two, he passes away. There's not much left of the story there. But here, as we approached close to the end of his life, we approach the climax of his life. Kind of the point to which everything has been working towards. And now, if we know anything about Abraham and the New Testament, we talk about he's a man of faith. If there's any characteristic you want to tie to that man, It is faith. He is one who believed God. Now, isn't that just ironic when we haven't covered all of them as we've been going through because the devotions have done that, but there's been quite a number of times where we wouldn't exactly call him a man of faith. If anything, he was a man of doubt and unbelief. Twice, as he was going through Egypt and Philistine, he said, no, no, no, she's not my wife, she's my sister, which was technically true. but was also just a way for him to protect himself so that he wouldn't be at threat of his own life. He didn't trust God. And the same thing obviously with Hagar and Ishmael, that was his own flawed attempt to bring about the promise in his own way. And so you see, he's a man of faith that was riddled with doubt and many episodes of unbelief in his own life. And so then we draw and we see Abraham, really this is the last image we've... we see of him in this climactic test. For is that not how the very first verse starts? After all these things, everything in Abraham's life, God tested Abraham. He put him to the test. God had done this work in him. All these things continuing to stay by him, continuing to work in him, bring him to this point. Now, how old Isaac is at this point? 14, he could have been even older, he could have been 40, everyone differs on what it could have been. But nonetheless, he was a grown man, all right? At least a boy who could carry the weight of the wood up the mountain. And so now you notice he says to him, in verse two, take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, go to the land of Moria and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. If you wanted to know something, it would eventually become the mountain upon which the temple was built. But you see, there is an irony in all this because did you know Isaac is not Abraham's only son? He had Ishmael. But what do we talk about last week? God told him, cast him out to the wilderness. It's okay, I'll provide for him, but he is no longer to be a part of your household. He will not inherit with the son of the promise. And so he sends him out. And so now in his household, Isaac is the only one left. He is the only one, the only chance Abraham has for the promises to continue, for Abraham's legacy and his name to be famous, all these promises that God made to him in chapter 12. And now God tells him, that one hope you have, take it up the mountain and snuff it out. Let that hope basically kill the only hope you have. Why would God do something like this to him? Why put him through 25 years of waiting for this promised son, raising him up, turning him into the man of God that would hopefully inherit these promises, and then God telling him, now I want you to put him to death. Now beyond just the I don't think any of us could imagine being asked to do that. Offer up your only son, your only child, let alone just offering up one of our children. So why did God ask Abraham to do this? Because he wanted to see after in his life so many times where Abraham had run off into unbelief and tried it his own way, he wanted to test the genuineness of his faith. Says this in 1 Peter 1, 7, right? So that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. You see, we call ourselves people of faith. We're people who believe in God, but there is something we need to understand. Not all faith is true faith. All right? Just because one believes in something or they say they do, does not inherently mean one truly believes that. That is why he says it must be tried and tested so that it will result in praise and honor and glory to God. It will be shown to be true. We know not all faith is true because this is what Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mountain, Matthew 7. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will. On that day, many will say, Lord, Lord, then we prophesy, we cast out demons, we did many mighty works in your name. He says, then I will declare to them, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness, I never knew you. there will be people who will say, they will walk up in faith and say, I believed in you, I did things in your name. And he will say, I never knew you, depart from me. And so you see, because the reality is the works alone are not enough. Because you see so many of these people are like, if you remember the parable of the sower, we talked about the seed thrown on the rocky ground, right? It's shallow. You know, it's funny. Me and Michelle planted some broccoli in this really shallow bed, garden bed we've got in the back made of plastic. And man, that bush just went off and we barely got anything off of it. Because it just shot up. It was saying, I need to find something. I need to find something. to nourish me because there's nothing in this soil, it isn't deep enough, it was only about yay deep. And so it desperately sprouted up trying, it looked like it was gonna be fruitful, we were thinking this thing's gonna have a massive bit of broccoli on it. And it exhibited basically nothing. We did get a little bit off it, I will give it that, but pretty much nothing. so you see the parable in the sower, what happens, it sprouts up, it's looking for something to sustain it. But then. the heat of the midday sun comes along. It withers and it dies because its roots are not deep in the soil. And so you see, what does that mean for us? There will be some who will show incredible growth. They will seem on fire. They're committed to the Lord. But yet in time, when trials come, the sun comes and shows them for what they truly are. They wither and die. This is what we call the of the midday sun. We know them as trials. Things and tests we must walk through that test our faith. Is it really true? Now is this basically saying that God is sowing seeds and then letting people's faith die? Isn't that what He's doing? There are people that will come into our church that will see Him on fire for God and yet they will fall away because the heat of the midday sun kills them. The persecution, the trials, the tests wither them. No, this is not God killing off something that He's done. All He is simply doing, all the sun does is show the truth. It feels that faith for what it truly is. Just as you can see any plant out here, it might look fruitful when we have a drought. You will see that tree for what it truly is, if its roots are truly deep enough. And so you see, what it does is it reveals whether our faith is truly a work of the Holy Spirit, or simply just a delusion of the devil. something that we have been tricked into. And you see, but regardless of how it comes, this is a gracious thing from God. For those of us with true faith who endure, who make it through and have our faith tested and find it is a work of the Holy Spirit, what an encouragement. The Holy Spirit is working in you. For those who find themselves to wither and died, God in His grace has not left them under the delusion of the devil, but has shown them the truth. And so hopefully now a new work can begin in them that is true. And so you have that one thing. So we see there is a false faith that comes and true faith is evidenced in this. Not in a one-time commitment. Because you see Abraham had always been a man of faith. But yet you see he walked through many trials, many times where he offered his own wife up, where he tried to make the promise come to pass himself. And for 20 or 40 years, God has been working on this man. You see only two chapters before, was faced with the king of Philistine. And he said, I feared for my life because there was no fear of God in this place, but yet then the Philistine king, because of a dream he had, said, well, I cannot take this woman. I cannot take Sarah to be my wife because I fear the Lord. So you see, there was more fear of God in a pagan Philistine than there was in our forefather, in Abraham himself, this supposed man of faith. But you see, we come to him two chapters later. and we see a work of God in him, a true work of God as he goes through this test of faith. And so you see, this is the reality. Faith is not a one-time thing. Faith isn't something that you just make a commitment when you're 18. It's not just getting baptized once. It's not whatever you might want to take as evidence of it. True evidence of saving faith is Matthew 24, 13. The one who endures to the end will be saved. You see, because our endurance is an assurance, not that we're strong, but that the Holy Spirit is working in us. You see, this is the great hope. The whole point of trials is not to make you think we're strong. There's no point in that. The hope it should give you when you go through it is not, wow, I am so good, but wow, I made it through that. I know that the Holy Spirit is the one holding me. Was that not the song we just sung? Jesus, hold me fast. Sometimes my heart is cold and weak, but you hold me fast. Your promises are there. And so then we have this promise then in Philippians 1, 6. If the Holy Spirit who began the good work in you and we see him doing that work in us. as we go through trials, He will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Our desperate desire as Christians is not that we might see our own effort be rewarded, but that we might know that the Holy Spirit is working in us. That is what gives us hope, and enduring hope is one of those signs. And what is that great hope, what is that great work that the Holy Spirit is doing in us? He's making us more like the greatest man of faith that ever lived. He's making us more like Jesus. Better yet, most importantly, He is making us like Him in His faith. Because you see, he was a man, as he fated the greatest test of faith that anyone could go through, as he sat there in the garden, on his knees, not believing he had it in and of himself to make it through this, he still said, Lord, not my will, but your will be done. He continued to have faith in his father and despite in the greatest test he had to face. And hopefully that is the same faith that is being worked in us. Not a faith That just makes us on fire. Not a faith that just commits, but a faith that stays. That says your will be done no matter what lies ahead. And so, sorry, I should have said the part. There are three points in this. We're moving on to the second point. Now, the first one was that God tests us. You couldn't tell. Point two is that He will grant all that we need. Right, so I already prefaced the fact, right, that the point of a test is not to prove you're strong. It is not about your strength. If you think that's, if you've gone through a trial and you end up with a point of saying, man, check these guns out. They got me through this, right? Look at me, look at my willpower, what I did, I made it through. That is not the point of the test. If you came out, you probably weren't actually being tested, right? Because if you were truly being tested, you were being brought to the end of yourself. You see, there was a fellow in the early church. He went by the name of St. Augustine. He was a bishop about 400 years after Jesus. And he wrote this autobiography called Confessions, which is basically a collection of prayers that he wrote detailing all his life and his relationship with God. And one line became a point of very quite intense contention in the early church where he said this, Command what you will and grant what you command. whatever it is. In simple English, Father, command whatever you wish me to do and then equip me with everything I need to fulfill that command. You see, the whole point is that God is not just the commander. He's not just the one saying to Abraham, go and sacrifice your son. He's not the one just telling you, go and walk through this trial and do it in your own strength. He's saying, no, I will equip you with everything that you need. And we must remember, He's not just our commander, but our supplier. If we forget that, that is the reason we think we get through it on our own strength. You need to know that we will put through trials where you'll be brought to the end of yourself, where you will have nothing left to rely on except God Himself. And so you see, that is the reality because think about it as Abraham was heading to Mount Moriah. Three days he had to journey, right? Can you imagine the torment in his mind as he walked with his son, not revealing him to the truth of what was going to happen on that mountain? Thinking, God, how are you going to get out of this? Probably trying to find some way around thinking, but he just kept on going. He did not run away. He didn't go in the opposite direction like Jonah did. No, he continued on. And what do you think he was doing? Was he putting his earplugs in, putting on his favorite music so he could pump himself up till he could do it? No. He would have just been at the end of himself. He would have been hopeless. That's what those kind of situations do. When you have no control and no hope, we tend to give up. And so what's the thing that kept him going? Hebrews 11 gives us an insight. By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. He who had... He who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son. and he considered that God was even able to raise him from the dead, from which figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. Sorry, that's going to be verse 19. So you see, Abraham went to that mountain, believing what? I need to get up the gumption so I'm able to do this. I need to have enough willpower in myself. He said, no, no, I have no idea what is going to happen on the top of this mountain. But he said, he has given me this promise. that in Isaac shall my offspring be named. So even if I kill my son, he will raise him from the dead that this promise might be fulfilled. His hope was in the promise. Was that not exactly what he told to Isaac in Genesis 22, eight? God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering my son. His hope was never in himself. He said, there's nothing I can do. God will do it though. God will be the one to do it. He did not run away, he just trusted God. And so you see, this is the reality. If you want God to test your strength, He will put you in a trial where you'll get to the point where you feel so puny and helpless, you can do nothing. You want Him to test your wisdom, He'll bring you to the point where you can make sense of nothing and you are just scatterbrained that you are hopeless. because he wants you to stop relying on yourself and to rely on him. The point of tests is not to test the fact that you're so great. It's not to test what's in you, but rather is to test the work of the Holy Spirit in you that will you simply rely on him. The purpose of the trials isn't just surviving them. If it was just about our willpower and if we could make it through it, then that's the point of the trial would be. But the point of the trial is that you're come out on the other side, believing and trusting and singing the praises of God. We walk through the hardest moments of your life still saying, God is good. That is the great test that we must face. And so you see, what can truly give us hope? What should be the thing that we cling to? Romans 8 32. He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? So you see, we have that cross up there to remind us of the fact that God gave us His Son. And then Paul extrapolates on that and says, surely he will give you anything you need. For is not the point of the test that we walk through them and we say, I'm at the end of myself, is God, the farm's about to go, is he going to provide for us? My child is about to leave the faith, has been walking away for 10 years, 20, 30 years, is he going to do something? Can he do something? We will walk through tests that try our faith, that make us think that there is no God. he can't provide. But yet we must focus upon this fact. He gave us his Son. He will give everything to you. You really think he's holding back things from you? He holds back nothing from us. Though we must understand that just as people in the Old Testament held out hope, as they continued to believe in God, as God did not withhold anything from them, but He did deliver it at the right time. He brought Jesus, He made them wait for the right timing. So you see, Jesus will grant everything we need to walk through these trials. But you must understand, just as Jesus came at the right time, so He will grant us the things we need in the right time. you see right, Abraham's hope was focused on the promise. And so our only hope in the test and the trials we face is to keep our eyes focused not just on the promise, but on He who has made the promises certain. Corinthians says that every promise has its yes and amen in Jesus. So we have to look to Him because He is the reminder, you're a child of God. You are the one who deserves and is worthy and these promises are yours. And so, as Abraham said, focused upon the promise, so do we. And know that in Scripture there is a word and a promise and there is something for every situation that we walk through. We know this for 2 Timothy tells us that all Scriptures are breathed out by God, profitable teaching for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. He's simply saying that everything you need is in the Bible. You are never going to walk through a time in your life where you say, I've read this thing. and I can't find what I need to help me. The only fact is we haven't searched hard enough and we haven't really been listening. Everything we need from God is in His Word. And so you see, the great test will be when we continue to look to Him as we may suffer the loss of all things just as He did, even losing the love that He had with the Father as the sin of the world was placed upon Him. as he was forsaken by God, yet he still said, not my will, but your will be done. Are we going to do that? Or will we walk in disobedience and unbelief? And so that comes to the final point. As we draw to a close, I'm sorry, I know this has been, we've had a lot packed in the service and I know I'm not known for short sermons and I'm sorry for that. But we are drawing to our final point. And really the whole climax, the purpose of everything God was doing in Abraham's life. that he might fear and worship him. Because is that not what we read, that as he went and lifted the knife, as we get to the climax where he is about to murder the only hope he has? The angel says, don't, stop Abraham. And he says, Sorry, I need to get my verses right. Sorry about that, got a bit lost. Sorry, in verse 11, he cries out, Abraham, Abraham, and then in verse 12, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing though you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. Abraham's life is filled with episodes of him trying to do it his own way. And here he is so focused upon the command of God that he didn't even notice the ram in the thicket. right near Him because He was so focused upon obedience to His God. And we see the great revelation. He has gone and the genuineness of His faith has been shown as the angel announces, I now know that you fear God. Now we talk about this fact all the time, you know, not all the time maybe, but we've all heard of it, the fear of the Lord. But what is that? What does it mean to fear God? Is it just to be scared of Him? It's not. It is not just that. To have a fear of God is not just found because it says, those who fear the Lord shall be saved. But there are plenty of people who scared of punishment. That doesn't mean they shall be saved. But what the fear of the Lord is, is to see Him as He truly is. To understand that just as He is the God who comes and speaks to us in the whisper, He is the God who controls the whole universe, who upholds all things. To put it in an illustration that might help kind of understand the idea a bit more. Imagine, I don't know, you're out on Daryl's farm, and you're in the middle of a paddock. One of his real sparse ones, there's barely any trees around. Couple hundred meters, and there's not a tree inside. And you have no car, you probably don't even have any shoes, you're just standing out in the middle of the paddock. And suddenly, just like can definitely happen out here in Chinchilla, a storm just forms. Thunderstorm right over your head. What is any sensible person who knows anything about storms gonna do, especially thunderstorms in that moment? They're gonna be filled with petrified fear for losing their life and they're gonna gap it for the trees, right? They're not gonna care about the goat heads that are getting stuck in their feet. They are just gonna run for it because they are so filled with the fear of being struck by lightning. It is just an overwhelming fear of being, well, not necessarily punished, but just being exposed. But you see, this does not fully encapsulate what the fear of the Lord is. It encapsulates the fear that shall face unbelievers on judgment day. But it does not fully help us to understand what our fear is like. But more, if you come to our house and you see a storm rolling in, we have a very nice back patio that often you can watch the storms roll in. It is one of my favorite things to do. We've got a couch out the back and you can sit there. In a storm, I am not going to walk out into my backyard unless I absolutely need to. But I will happily sit in the refuge of my patio and watch the storm roll in. Why do we love it so much? Because it is just to see the power and the magnitude of this thing. There's just something awesome about watching a storm. When you're in safety, when you're in something in a refuge, it is amazing to watch. And so you see It is having a respect for the storm, but being in a safe place from it. And so you see, this is what the fear of the Lord is. It is not fear of simply being punished by His wrath. Though that is part of respecting who He is, but rather it is just beholding the awesomeness of who He is and honoring that accordingly. You see, Abraham knew better than to run away from God like Jonah did. He knew, must fear the Lord, so I will obey him. It was not just out of punishment, but out of a respect for who God was. And so you see, something that might help us in this. Notice Abraham says in verse 7, he says, I'm going to worship, we're going up to worship on the mountain. But yet you see his faith because he says, Me and Isaac will go up, me and Isaac will worship, and me and Isaac will come back. But you see, what does it mean to worship? Were they going up that hill listening to the latest Hillsong album or something like that? Is that what they were singing? Is that what they were doing? No. They were going up to offer something upon an altar, a lamb, a cow, something of value. And so you see, that is what worship is. Worship is not just singing the songs that we do here in church. We worship our entire lives because worship is any action that demonstrates value, right? If you really, if you put all your time and effort into your children to make sure they have every possibility, every opportunity, everything, if there's an opportunity for them, you'll throw everything to the side that they might have it. We're worshipping our children. If work is always the first thing on the call, if it's the call we'll always pick up, we are always there for the needs of our work. We're worshipping our work, our career. And so you see, to worship something is to ascribe value to it, for it to be a priority in our lives. And so you see, Abraham was showing that which he truly valued above all things. Because you see, naturally, you'll see the true priorities in our life. When things conflict, when suddenly there's something on Sunday morning, you know, that might be very important for us, well, church can go to the side. Or whatever. obedience God might call us to that thing, we'd say, God, I've to walk in disobedience here because this thing is really important to me. And so you see, most naturally, our hearts will be pushing us to push God to the side, to put Him out of the way. But you see the truth in Abraham, the truth of what all Christians should aspire to. He for so long had worshiped his own legacy. He had worshiped his children. He even worshiped himself and his own preservation. But now he offers up his only son. That thing which would have mattered more to him than anything else in the world, he gives. Why? Because he said, God, I would rather offer up my only son. then break my relationship with you, then walk in disobedience to you, no way, I would offer up that which matters most in the world to me. And so you see, that is what worship is. It is inevitably what God calls us to. What's the first commandment? You shall have no other gods before me. And he's not saying before me as in, oh yeah, well we've got God here and then family and then, oh you know, the kids and I don't know, know. my favourite NRL team or something like that. He is saying, before me as in my presence, there is to be nothing that you worship apart from me. Everything in our lives is meant to focus upon worship to Him. Everything, even the most important things in our lives that will be sacrificed up to Him for Him to do as He sees fit. This is exactly what Paul tells us. Romans 12, 1. This is the final point now as we drone to the end. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable God, which is your spiritual worship. So you're saying present yourselves as a living sacrifice. You're not a dead cow, all right? Your throat's not being slit, you're not being offered up as that kind of sacrifice, but you're a living sacrifice, a sacrifice that continues to move and breathe and walk. And so what that means is when your body is presented your whole life, everything you are, there is nothing that is outside of the realm of worship to God, everything. And so we offer up all of it, saying, God, do with it as you see fit. But you see, as we'll read on Romans 12 in a second, verse two, this is not simply a let go and a let God kind of thing. We're not just saying, God, do what as you see fit. I surrender to your will. Just let whatever happens assail me. This is a very active thing that we do in our worship. Romans 12, this is what our worship is. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. This is our mind being constantly filled with the word of God as it is made more like Him and that by testing, He may discern what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable and right. He is calling us to live according to His will. When He talks about discerning His will, He's not talking about His hidden will, which is that what car should I buy? What house should I buy? How many kids should I have? It is not those things. He has hidden those things from us for a reason. He doesn't reveal them most of the time. because they are not the things that matter. But He has called us to have an obsession, not with that will which we do not know, but that will which has revealed to us where? In His Word. This is what our lives are called to, to live in accordance to this. It's not just empty words on a page. God has spoken to you and they've been recorded down for us. And so you see, it is our desperate desire that in all aspects of our life, that we might worship Him. by making them live in accordance with his word. because you see it is His revealed will which shows what is truly good and acceptable and perfect, that which is truly worshiped to Him. So you see, as we're drawing to a close, the whole point of testing is that you would leave the things of this world behind, that you would sacrifice that which matters most to you and saying, God, I don't want to do it my way, I want to do it Your way. Do with it as you see fit. and it is that that thing would be offered up that we might worship Him. That we would reflect the life of Jesus who lived in opposition to the world. Did He ever love a thing in this world? No, He didn't because He was happy to offer up Himself in the prime of His life. He had at least another good 50 years, reality was, He had eternal life, so He had all eternity to enjoy, yet He offered Himself up at the age of 33. saying, Lord, not my will, but your will be done. He was on his knees at the end of himself. He didn't think he was sufficient for what lay ahead. That's why he was saying, Father, please let this cup pass from me. Don't let me, if there's any other way, he said, not my will, not your, but your will be done. And so you see, this is the reality before us. We were spared from the great punishment that was before us. You see, God in His gracious provision provided on the Mount of the Lord. He provided a ram so that Isaac was spared. Jesus wasn't spared. Jesus died, He was sacrificed and we might be spared. What a ridiculous assumption that we will not offer up everything in praise to His name. We are not seeking to pay Him back, we never could. But we are doing what any rightful person would do. God, do with my life as you would see fit. And so this is my final thing. If you're walking through that test at the moment, continue to look at Jesus. Continue to look at Him. Trust in Him. His promises are the only thing that will keep you going. You do not have enough strength. And when you are pushed to sacrifice that which you love most, just keep leaning on the promises of God. So we'll wrap up in prayer now and then I'll invite the worship team up and sorry, this has definitely been a longer service than usual. um But yes, I'll invite the worship team in a second. Dear Father, we know that You have called us to faith, to believe in You. And Father, we know that it is the true work of Your Spirit when that faith endures. And so we pray that you would call us to endure, to continue to lean upon your promises. And we pray that our faith may result in praise and honor and glory to your name on that final day. So Father, we pray that you may bring this reality upon our hearts, that you may engrave it upon them, that we may learn and be taught and be transformed by the renewal of our minds. Father, if you learn more of your Word, and as our lives may just live in deeper obedience to your Word, we pray that you would be with us as we go out into our weeks. In Jesus' name, amen.