Andrew Isbell
March 7, 2021
Note: The transcript below is automatically generated and will contain errors.
Transcript:
It’s good to be with everybody again as first day of the week to see my family here the local church this morning what I prepared to talk to you about. Is this this idea of
As Christians moving through this world and the battles and the hardships and the obstacles that we have to overcome.
And I’ll talk to you about winning those battles. Also want to talk to you about losing those battles.
None of us win all of our battles.
We recognize that we recognize that when we become a Christian that we have lost battles that we have sinned.
We recognize that as we continue to be Christians is that it’s about a we always have to fight and some days we win and sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.
I want to start out by thinking about this thing which is as you think through and we talked a lot of on Wednesday night. We talked about some old Bible stories all the the histories of the Old Testament talked about several men and women of the Old Testament and the impacts that those men and women felt and we talked about the detail that was in a lot of
Of those stories of those men and women and how that detail what that details. You mean does today want to pick up and talk about those men and women of the of the Bible?
Not everybody. We’re not going to cover it all we don’t have time to do that, but we’ll go through and talk about some and and talk about as we think back through what we know of the Servants of God Through The Years from the beginning till now think about which among them had had what we would consider easy lives.
All right, in modern in the modern sense of the term easy lives that were that were without challenge lives that were without pain lives that were at ease, you know in the modern world. It seems to be that that’s the goal to obtain a life without challenge without trouble.
And to live at ease that that if you can accomplish that then then you have a good life.
So I don’t talk about is what God says about having a good life and what the stories and the lives of these men and women tell us about this good life start out right at the beginning start out with Adam and Eve Genesis. 3:16 be our first verse this morning. We do a lot of reading. I’m going to apologize in advance and move fairly quickly through the reading but if you if you miss a verse or you want something afterwards
Let me know I’ll give you a copy. So Genesis 3:16 to the woman. He said I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing and pain you shall bring forth children your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you and then picking up in 317 and to Adam he said because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you you shall not eat of it cursed is the ground because of you. I’m paying you shall eat of it all the days of your life thorns and thistles.
Is it shall bring forth for you? And you shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face? You shall eat bread till you return to the ground. We’re out of it you were taken for you are dust and to dust you shall return.
The man called his wife’s name Eve because she was the mother of all living.
So think about this there’s a thought for you Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden.
Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden.
Adam and Eve lived with with the actual memory of what it was like to live in the garden.
They live their whole lives hundreds of years remembering the whole time what it was like to have lived in the garden.
That’s something that I’ve never had to experience rights. Not a hardship. I carry I have in my mind what I believe heaven will be like I think all of us dudes some degree or another.
But I don’t live with the memory of having lived in the Garden of Eden with the Lord.
That’s a burden to carry. I know that was a burden for a demand. That was a burden for Eve. They had it and they gave it away.
right
Adam and Eve, as you can see in the in the results of their action to rebel against the Lord to choose the thing the Lord told them to stay away from they had all of these additional hardships placed in their lives.
And they lived with those hardships pain is mentioned in both what he said to Adam and what he said to Eve.
That this was something you’re going to have in your life now, right? It’s struggle. You’re going to have
This is what you have now you have struggle in your pain.
And and you chose it.
So that’s that’s where we’ll begin. We’ll begin with Adam and Eve and talk about the fact that their lives were not easy lives and and and one of the things that they dealt with and we go back and look at the stories yourself of Adam and Eve to get a thorough understanding of what I’m talking about. But just one of the things that they dealt with was they had children.
The first two children that are mentioned in the scriptures are Cain and Abel.
So I have children right? I know what that’s like. It’s like having your heart live outside your body. You’re worried about them all the time. You you’re concerned you love them. You you can be injured more by what happens to your children that anything that happens to you.
And what happened with Adam and Eve was first two children was one of them killed the other one.
Now that doesn’t sound easy to me that doesn’t sound like an easy thing to Grapple with as a parent that one of your children kill your other child, but it’s something that him and Eve had to live through.
Kane then had to live with the fact that he killed his brother.
These don’t sound at the beginning in the first stories of the first people like they began with easy lives.
Next story I want to talk about the next person I want to talk about is Noah and just 26 11 through 13 says now the Earth was corrupt and God’s side and the Earth was filled with violence and God saw the Earth and behold it was corrupt. And for All Flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah I have determined to make an End of All Flesh for the Earth is filled with violence through them and behold I will destroy them with the Earth.
Noah’s life went something like this.
Noah built an ark here’s and years of Labor talked about this a little bit on Wednesday, but years and years of Labor to build this structure because God told him to didn’t make the labor simple or easy.
You ever done any manual labor of any kind you understand what you’re looking at when you’re talking about building something the size of the arc. His access was to himself and his resources and those of his three sons and their wives.
Also living in a time and a place where Noah had this that he was going to be he and his family going to be the sole survivors.
Of an apocalypse like we’ve never seen.
And everyone that they knew everyone around them everyone in all the cities everyone on the face of the planet would be wiped out.
And Noah and his family would have to start over.
from scratch
I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t sound like an easy life to me.
Well, no, it was grateful to the Lord. His attitude was was the right attitude. It’s grateful to the Lord. He loved the Lord. He served the Lord, but it didn’t mean that his service was easy.
It didn’t mean that I didn’t have battles. He didn’t mean you have a years of Labor. It didn’t mean that everyone around him died. Didn’t mean that he didn’t have months tending animals on the ark and feeding animals on the ark and didn’t mean that he didn’t have to start civilization completely over. He had all these battles that he had to fight for the Lord and he had to try to win them all.
The one one that we know of which is that he built the ark the way God told him to build the ark.
That was a that’s not a given. You know, when you’re a child you hear the story you think it’s a given of course. God told me to do he’s going to do it. They’re done. Right? It takes minutes to tell the story. It takes years and decades to do it. Right and all the time your faith is challenged by the work in front of you but he completed it and completed it the way God told him to complete it which is what we kind of talked about on Wednesday is is the detail the God puts into things now God didn’t just tell him to build a boat. He told him exactly
how to do everything expected at all to be followed
The next person I’ll talk about is Abraham.
In Genesis 11 and 29 and Abraham and nahor took wives and the neighbor Abraham’s wife was Sarah Sarai and the name of neighbor’s wife was milk on the daughter of haran the father of milk and I in his Sky now Sarai was Barren and she had no child Terah took Abram his son and lot the son of haran his grandson and Sarah his daughter-in-law his son his son Abrams wife and they went forth together from her of the count of the chaldees to go into the land of Canaan.
When they came to her on they settled there the days of Terror with 205 years and Terah died in haran the call of Abram. Now, the Lord said to Abram go from your country and your Kindred and your father’s house to a land that I will show you and I’ll make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing and I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you I will curse and your all and in you all the families of the Earth shall be blessed. So everyone went as the Lord had told him.
Me and a lot with him. Abram was 75 years old when he departed her on.
All right, so think about this.
He’s in a place where all his family as he knows everyone. That’s a very good place to be back then because you couldn’t rely on others coming to your Aid so was a very independent world you were a it was a sink or swim type of place. It wasn’t a place where you had a lot of public resources to call upon wherever you lived to help you, but he uprooted and he went to this other place because God told him to
That’s not a little thing. That’s a big thing. That’s a big challenge for him to have to overcome. Right? And so there’s a lot of fear involved in that first of all because I’m going to a place I’ve never been and I’m leaving everything I’ve ever known in a world where people die all the time from all kinds of things.
But he went he went away from everything he knew and everything that they had and he went and he Departed the place where he had lived for a long long time.
And then further in Genesis, 21 says in a give another thing that Abraham went through just as 21 8 through 13 and the child the child grew and was weaned and Abraham made a great feast on the day of ice that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian whom she had borne to Abraham laughing. So she said to Abraham cast out this slave woman with her son for the son of the slave woman shall not be Heir with my son Isaac and
the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham be not displeased because of that boy because of the boy and because of your slave woman, whatever Sarah says to you do as she tells you or through Isaac shall your Offspring be named and I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also because he is your offspring.
We talked a lot about Abraham giving up Isaac his willingness to sacrifice Isaac.
That’s a story that everybody remembers from Bible class takes Isaac out he’s willing to do what has to be done what God tells him to do talk a lot about that story the end of that story is that he brings his son back home, right the end of this story. Is that his firstborn son.
It’s left in the desert with his mother.
And it tells you how everyone felt about it.
This was his first son, right?
Now wasn’t with Sara right which is why Sarah was jealous of the child and the mother.
But it was his first son and Abraham had to go through leaving them. Now he had in in his in his heart something that helped him which was God’s word that he would take care of this son that this son will have a nation just like Isaac would have a nation and that he would not perish but nonetheless you had to go through doing that. I can’t imagine doing that the difficulty involved in doing that.
Mm. Oh that’s a battle that Abraham had to win. It’s not something that’s made a big deal of but it’s a battle that Abraham had to win to do what God wanted to do.
So Abraham’s life looks you know has includes the following that he had to move away from all of his family and everything. He ever had he had to travel through unfriendly lands. He had to make a lot of decisions. He fought battles. He abandoned his first son.
He on a couple of occasions was in fear of his life and because he was in fear of his life.
Said he didn’t know kind of disowned his wife.
22 times he did that that was a battle. He had to fight he was worried. He lost that battle twice and had to be strongly encouraged to overcome it by the Lord.
Not all these stories like just like Adam and and certainly like Abraham. Did they win every time that they were faced with a challenge. I lost some and they won some and both are recorded.
Another one is Jacob Jacob struggle with his brother.
He worked to build his family. He lost his son for a long period of time. Jacob’s life was not a simple one either and he had a lot of challenges and I encourage you to go back and I’m not going to go through every one of these people. I’m going to mention several. So Jacob was one think about his story from the beginning to the end of what Jacob lived through. It’s not that simple. It was not always easy. Everything didn’t always go his way A lot of
of things that we would consider terrible things happen to him during his life and a lot of his story is about him overcoming those things Joseph very similarly did not have the easiest of lives. He was as we all know kidnapped by his brothers sold into slavery imprisoned. He lost his family for a large piece of his life. He had to survive on his own on his own I say on his own with
God he survived but he had all these challenges to overcome right? I mean when you when you don’t think any of us want Joseph story The Facts of Joseph story to be the facts of our lives, right? I don’t have any desire to follow this pattern of that. I’m going to walk out of here. Some is going to kidnap me. Somebody’s going to sell me into slavery. I’m going to go somewhere else and serve as a slave and then get imprisoned and all I don’t want that path. That’s not a path. I would consider desirable.
Sort of path. I would consider easy.
Right, but it was the path of his life and it was used by the Lord and by Joseph to serve the Lord’s purposes.
And then we come to Moses.
Moses had to be given away as a child.
He was forced to leave his people.
Left everything he knew and everything. He had been through after killing the Egyptian let Israel. Then he had a lead Israel out of Egypt and Leadership is not necessarily an easy thing leadership is not
it’s not a
Something that is lifts us up. It is it is a burden to be carried leadership comes with a lot of responsibility comes with a lot of work. It comes with a lot of challenges and it certainly comes a lot of battles that you have to fight as a leader to try to overcome. So one of the reasons why as the charge for challenge to Heart about having qualified leaders
Then after doing that after leading Israel out of Egypt and all this then he ended up wandering in the wilderness as the leader.
He wandered in the wilderness for years and years and years and then in the end never entered Kanan right the place that you wanted to go the place that he had struggled to go right because of actions of his own because he lost some of his battles, right?
Then we come to David.
He fought in a war as a child.
I mean you want to talk about something not easy. He walked up with an army that was in fear and no soldier in the Army would fight.
There was no support in this group. This is everybody in all God’s people that sort of abandoned him and I’ll walks this child and says, I’m not going to abandon him rush you guys have abandoned him if I have to stand all by myself. I’m not going to abandon him, right? That’s a reoccurring theme throughout all these stories to is there being one man or one person or one small group that says although everybody else has abandoned the Lord We’re not gonna we’re gonna win this fight. Even if it’s me by myself. I’m going to win this fight.
That was David’s attitude. If I have to go out here all alone as a child and win this fight. That’s what I’m going to do.
I don’t I don’t have to have everybody else behind me.
David fought a war is a child. He fought many battles as a king.
Think we’re all familiar with the tragedy of David’s life some of the battles that David lost and how they led to the death of his son.
How they led him to murder a man.
Although I’d David to lose battles that he suffered for and suffered with for the rest of his life.
We can also talk about Stephen coming forward to the New Testament or read a little section here acts 7 verse 1.
And the high priest said are these things so in Steven said brothers and fathers hear me the god of Glory appeared to Our Father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he lived in her on and said to him go out from your land and from your Kindred and go into the land that I will show you and then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in her on and after his father died. God removed him from there into his land in which you are now living and he gave him no inheritance in it. Not even a
It’s length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him though. He had no child and God spoke to this effect that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others who would enslave them and afflict them 400 years, but I will judge the nation that they serves at John said God and after that they they shall come out and worship me in this place and he gave him the Covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of
Isaac and circumcised on the eighth day and Isaac became the father of Jacob and Jacob of The Twelve Patriarchs and the Patriarchs jealous of Joseph sold him into Egypt, but God was with him and rescued him out of this afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh king of Egypt who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household when there came a famine through all of Egypt and Canaan and in great Affliction and our fathers could find no food, but when Jacob heard that there was grain Egypt he sent out our fathers on their first visit.
And on the second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers and Joseph a king and Joseph’s family became known to pharaoh and Joseph sent in some and Jacob his father and all his Kindred 75 persons and all and Jacob went down into Egypt and he died he and our fathers and they are carried back to shechem and laid in the Tomb of Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of hamor and shechem. But as the time of the promised Drew near which God had granted to Abraham the people increased and multiplied in Egypt until there arose.
Over Egypt another king who did not know Joseph he dealt shrewdly with our race and forced our fathers to expose their infants so that they would not be kept alive at this time Moses was born and he was beautiful in God’s sight. He was brought up for three months in his father’s house. And when he was exposed Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him and brought him up as her own son and Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and he was mighty in his words and deeds.
When he was 40 years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers the children of Israel and seeing one of them being wrong. He defended the oppressed man and Avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. He supposed that his brother would understand what God had was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand and on the following day. He appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them saying men you are brothers. Why do you wrong each other but the man who was wrong his neighbor thrust him aside saying who made you a ruler and judge over us, do you?
Want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday at this retort Moses fled and became an x on the land of Midian where he became the father of two sons now in 40 years had passed an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai in a flame of fire in a bush. When Moses saw it. He was amazed at the sight and he drew near to look and there came the voice of the Lord and the god of your father’s the god of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob and Moses trembled and did not dare to look then the Lord said to him take off the sandals from your feet for the place where you were standing.
Holy Ground and I have surely seen the Affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them and now come I will send you to Egypt this Moses whom they rejected saying who made you a ruler and judge this man God sent his both ruler and Redeemer by the hand of the Angel appeared to him in the bush this man LED them out performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea and the Wilderness of the 40 years. This is the Moses who said to the Israelites God will raise up you like a profit.
Like me from your brother’s this is the one who was in the congregation of wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai and with our fathers. He received living oracle’s to give to us our fathers refuse to obey him but thrust him aside and in their hearts, they turn to Egypt saying to Aaron make for us Gods who will go before us as for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt. We do not know what has become of him and they made a calf in those days and offered it as a sacrifice to the idol and rejoicing in the works of their hands.
But God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of Heaven as it is written in the book of the prophets. Do you bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices during the 40 years in the wilderness o House of Israel, you took up the tent of moloch and the star of God reffing.
The images that you made to worship and I will send you to Exile Beyond Babylon. Our fathers had the tent a witness in the wilderness just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern that he had seen our fathers in turn brought it with with Joshua when they’ve dispossessed the nations of God and drove out before our fathers. So it was until the days of David who found favor in the sight of God and asked to find a dwelling place for the god of Jacob, but it was Solomon who built a house for him yet the most
How high does not dwell on the houses made by hands as the prophet says Heaven is my throne and the Earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me says the Lord what place of my rest did not my hand make all things you stiff-necked people and circumcised and hearts and years. You always resist the Holy Spirit as your father’s did so you do which of the prophets did your father’s not persecute and they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the righteous one whom you have now betrayed and murdered.
You who received the law as delivered by the angels and did not keep it.
Here he recounts everything we’re talking about.
He recounts the challenges. He recounts the hardships. He recounts the failures. He recounts the successes.
He gives the history of God’s people in the probably the most succinct way than his given anywhere else where he bundles all these things together.
To tell them what they’ve done.
To tell them that they delivered the righteous one and betrayed him and murdered him.
And then as we proceed the same selection of versus
now when they heard these things they were enraged and the ground their teeth at him, but he for the Holy Spirit gaze into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he said behold. I see the heavens opened and the son of man standing at the right hand of God, but they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him and then they cast him out of the city and they stoned him and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
All and as they were stoning Stephen he called out Lord Jesus receive my spirit and falling to his knees. He cried out with a loud voice Lord do not hold this sin against him and when he had said this he fell asleep.
And Saul approved to this execution and there arose in that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria except the apostles devout men buried Stephen and make great lamentation over him, but saw was ravaging the church and entering house after house. He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.
Stephen died right after recounting
the the struggle and the journey and all the things that happened to lead them to this point to bring these men to open their eyes to open their ears to the truth.
And for all that they killed him.
I don’t consider this an easy life.
I don’t consider this an easy death.
You ever thought about being rocked to death? It’s not a short process.
Nor would anybody intend for it to be a short process?
It was intended to be as painful as it possibly could be.
Good laid their coats down and took turns there’s a pile of coats.
One guy hitting him with a rock.
at the feet of no less than Saul
Who then at one point later became one of the greatest champions of Christianity of the New Testament?
James the apostle
About the time James. I mean acts 12 and one about that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belong to the church. He killed James the brother of John with the sword and when he saw that it pleased the Jews he proceeded to arrest Peter. Also this was during the days of unleavened bread. James didn’t have an easy death either and have a long and easy life.
Mary the mother of Christ the mother of Jesus
had to watch her son die.
crucified
lacrosse
the most horrible death that anybody could come up with at the time.
Something that was used for the worst of the worst.
John 19 25 to 27 but standing by the cross of Jesus or his mother and his mother’s Sister Mary the wife of clopas and Mary Magdalene when Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby. He said to his mother woman behold your son and then he said to the disciple behold your mother and from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
While Jesus was hanging on the cross and his mother was watching him die. He wanted to make sure his mother was taken care of.
Mary
Had to live with that as part of her life. That’s not an easy thing to go through. That’s not an easy life.
John the Baptist
We remember what happened to John the Baptist also executed.
Paul people God remember Paul also if you go back and look although the Bible only recounts the deaths of a couple of the Apostles.
History recounts a lot of the deaths in the old old ancient histories, but I want to weigh in on whether they have it perfectly right or not perfectly. Right? But if you go back and you look at the old first century second century histories of what happened to the apostles what people think happened to the apostles what was recorded as happening to them at some point?
Almost all of them. Had a very horrible end.
None of them lived easy lives if we look at what we know about them and they’re in their travels and their trips in order to spread the gospel. Those are on evilly easy travels and trips, right and we look at what we know they did. Sometimes they overcame sometimes they didn’t even as Christ was was being led to the crucifixion. We have Apostles that failed him, right they had to live with that right that they had done that in their lives, right? They had to overcome those and try to win those battles and they didn’t win them all.
all
the people God remembers in the scriptures
all suffered
all had hardship in their lives.
All put his will first.
Almost every person that God mentioned in scripture in a positive light is mentioned in relation to the trials that they faced.
Sometimes these people face their trials and overcame. Sometimes they lost battles and made the wrong decisions. They didn’t choose God. Sometimes they repented and serve God and sometimes they didn’t
Which brings me to this?
We have examples of these people winning battles for God.
But God also gives us many examples of these people losing their battles.
And overcoming those losses.
In Romans 3 and 23 read for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. What is that saying that saying guess what guys are going to lose battles? You’ve all lost battles. You’re all going to lose a battle.
Losing a battle does it mean you stop fighting?
Does it mean you go back and say I messed up?
I don’t want to do that again.
We don’t cover our losses by pretending we didn’t have those fights either.
Right little pretend that it never occurred.
That’s not the pattern that God gives.
So we have this Adam ate of the fruit.
Noah got drunk Jacob deceived his father Abraham gave his wife away twice Moses. Disobey God’s command concerning the bringing forth the water Peter denied Christ, etc, etc, etc.
What I want us to consider this morning is this that we know because of what God has taught us what God has shown us what God has made sure got recorded that we should expect trials and we should not be caught by surprise when they come and God’s servants have always had trials and these trials give us the opportunity to win battles without a trial without an opponent without something to fight against we can’t win any battles without winning any battles. We can’t make God proud of us. We can’t show
o God our love
you can’t love God by sitting on the sidelines. There’s no sideline. We can also know that we will not have not won every battle.
So that we can’t be discouraged by losses that we have to when we lose do like the heroes of old did don’t let your defeats to find you but draw it to you the repentance.
And change and increase your strength when we lose let us change so that we don’t lose again in First Peter 1639 first Peter 169. It says in this you rejoice though now for a little while if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials 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.
Christ though. You have not seen him you love him though. You do not see see now see him you believed in him Rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with Glory obtaining the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls and in James 1 2 3 count it all joy my brothers when you meet Trials of various kinds for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
The testing of your faith can produce steadfastness.
Whether you win that test or lose that test depending on how you react to the outcome of the battle.
You may have your faith tested and lose.
And the repentance from that loss because you love God may drive you to be stronger may drive you to produce more steadfastness. You may be tried. And when right in the fact that you won that battle will drive you to produce steadfastness.
But if you turn away from God it will just drive you those losses if you allow those losses to turn you away from God.
To be like a child who makes a mistake and then throws the whole page away because a mistake got made right? You don’t recognize the fact that God offers you Grace and forgiveness for your mistakes and you all those events to turn you away instead of producing steadfastness.
So this the people of God have always fought.
If you look back at the Bible, we know nothing or should we expect anything else?
Let us not be like the world that is caught by surprise each time. There’s an adversity and is shocked when there’s a trial and is and it has their mind blown when there’s a Temptation. Let us expect a fight. Let us all go out and fight our battles this week and let us pray and encourage and assist our brothers and sisters to win those battles and the name of our father.
The lesson is yours. I appreciate your attention this morning. Although we haven’t talked about it in great detail. The word of God should guide us our love for God should guide us toward recognizing that we have sinned recognizing that we need forgiveness of those sins.
repenting
confessing being baptized for the remission of sins being added to the Lord’s church so that we can love him and serve him with all of our might for the rest of our lives. We invite anyone who wants to receive that invitation to come forward as we sing the song or if you need the prayers of the church to let us know.