Living Dependently on God

What is the will of God for my life? It's a pressing question that every Christian asks. What is God's will for my life? We want to know. We want to have direction. We want to make sure that we enjoy Him and glorify Him and don't miss God's will. How are we supposed to know what God wants us to do in the direction of our life, in our vocation, in our relationships? Maybe even some ask, what does God want to do with my retirement? With my vacation, my days off? Where does God want me to eat? Does God have a specific will all the way down to you can find direction for every little detail of life? Maybe you ask, what is God's will for the length of a sermon? Most of these are good questions. They're difficult questions. It's difficult oftentimes to discern exactly what God wants us to choose in every situation. Because God doesn't write us individual letters. Laying out every step of our life. Because he wants us to walk by faith. He wants us to walk depending upon him. If we knew how everything was going to play out, there will be less faith. There will be less dependence. God doesn't write us individual letters, but he's written us all his word. And we have to believe that this is sufficient for us to know God's will, to believe him, to trust him and to obey. So when we look at the question, what is God's will for my life? Of course, we're asking, well, we want to know that for our own personal life. But what we're going to answer today is God's universal will for all Christians. Because this is the most important question, this is the question that Paul answers. Well, the answer, we actually have looked at it last week. It's summarize, I think it's a summary of the book of Colossians. This is all we need to know. Christ is all I need. I need to want nothing more. Christ is all I need. I need to want nothing more. You see, there's a great declaration. Christ is all I need. The problem is that I want other things. The solution is to discipline ourselves to want nothing else. God's will for our lives is to love him, to enjoy him, to obey him, to thank him, to worship him. To enjoy him with all of our hearts, with all of our being. This morning, we're going to look at what it means to enjoy God, to love God, to want him. We're going to look at Paul's prayer. in Colossians 1, 9-14. The message this morning is this. God calls us to a life that pleases Him, endures trials, and gives thanks for His redemption. And I'll explain where those three points come from in Paul's prayer in a moment. Let me read our passage in its entirety. And so from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding. So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him. Bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, may you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might. For all endurance and patience. with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints and light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transfer us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. As we look at our text, verse nine, and so obviously this is connecting this prayer with the prayer that Paul has already started in verses 3-8. He's connecting it. And that's important because if we look at verse 3, he begins this with, we always thank God. And then he actually bookends this section thanking the Father who has qualified us. You know how I love bookends in a passage. Paul gives us a beginning with thanks and he ends with thanks. Secondly, from the day we heard it. This corresponds with verse 6. Hearing about the day you heard the gospel. So he's telling them he's giving a time reference for. For when, for why he prays for them. Our primary action in this passage is this. We have not ceased to pray. Everything else in this passage flows out of that. We have not ceased to pray. This is giving to us a prayer from Paul, and there are three parts to this prayer. The first is a request that the church will be filled with the knowledge of the will of God. The second part begins in verse 11, that they would be strengthened. By God, that we strengthen with all power, according to his glorious mind, and the third part is the Thanksgiving, we giving thanks to the father who has qualified us for the inheritance of the saints. So those are the three parts of the prayer. Those are the three points that we will be walking through. Let's first look at this declaration that Paul does not cease to pray for them. He prays without ceasing. This is one of Paul's commands to the Church of Thessalonica. Pray without ceasing. Paul here says, I do not cease praying for you. He's never met most of these Colossians. He's only heard of their faith. He's only heard of their love for the saints. He's only heard of their faith. But He has a love for them because they're His brothers and His sisters. He has a love for them because they have been adopted into the family of God and they have an equal share in the inheritance of Jesus Christ just as He does. And so He prays for them because He loves them. We are a body of Christ. We are the saints who have gathered at Jefferson Park Baptist Church for the purpose of growing in God, proclaiming God, and loving one another. One of the greatest marks of how we can love one another, the greatest cause of loving one another is to pray for one another. I challenge you, Jefferson Park, are you committing to praying for the church? Are you committed to praying for one another? Are you committed to praying for our work and outreach and love for one another? If we love one another, we will pray for one another. Now, there's two ways we could look at this text. One is we could see it as a model prayer. I actually prayed from this text in the pastoral prayer to try to model that prayer. The other way is to look at it and see that this is God's will for the church. This is God inspiring a prayer that tells us what God's will is for us. That's how I'm going to approach the text. This is God telling us through Paul's prayer what his will is for us. There's three parts to it. That we make our desires. Fit according to God's desires that we make God's desires, our desires. First, we make God's desires, our desires. Secondly, we trust the power of God in our trials and temptations. And third, we give thanks to the God for his grace. Let's look at our first the first part of the prayer. He clearly marks it off. We have not ceased praying to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God, knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding. so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God." That is a packed passage. It tells us a lot about God's will for our life. Paul desires for us to be filled with the knowledge of God's will. Here, he's referring to the universal will, the will that he has for all Christians at all times and all places. He wants us to desire, to ask for, to be filled with God's will. Now, oftentimes our primary question is about what God's will is for us individually. My fear is that we oftentimes want to do the extraordinary rather than committing to doing the ordinary in a way that exalts God. We want a special calling from God rather than to see that everything we do is a special work from God and that we can glorify him in that. I always remember a is a popular pastor, one of the best Bible teachers in America for years. One of his sermons, he was talking about how we are called to work for the glory of God. And while he was working through seminary, he was a janitor in a warehouse and he hated having to sweep that warehouse. So one day he came across the passage, work is unto the Lord. He realized the bitterness and the the disgust in his heart for his work was sin. He repented of that sin and he said, I am going to treat that floor as if it's God's floor. I'm going to sweep as if I'm sweeping for the king. And he said, the people in the warehouse are saying, watch out, Chuck will sweep you away. Get out of his way. See, we can do the ordinary in a way that glorifies God if we commit to exalt Him and glorify Him with all that we do. See, when we're asking the question, what is God's will for my life? There's really a key question we have to ask behind that. When you have two options and you're wrestling, what is God's will for my life? This is the key question. How will I glorify God the most? Which option will allow me to glorify God the most? Which option will allow me the greatest growth and the greatest opportunity to glorify Him and exalt Him and proclaim Him? Where will I be most effective for the kingdom of God? That is God's universal will, that we would be the most effective for Him, the most glorifying position. We talk about the will of God, we should always look back to Paul and see the universal will is really the primary issue. Every time Paul talks about God's will, it's the universal will for all Christians. At home, you can study these passages, Colossians 412. Romans 12 to. Ephesians 517. First Thessalonians, four, three. And the same book, 518, I've been told I talk fast, so if you had a hard time getting those down, those will be in the evangel. Our newsletter that you can sign up for. What is God's will, what is his universal will? Well, if we look at all scripture, we could say to love him. To obey him, to serve him, to worship him, to make him the most important thing in our lives. to give Him the best of what we have. As we look at this passage, Paul actually lays it out very clearly that we refill the knowledge of God for a particular purpose. There's a result that happens. As we look at this, we have to ask, why doesn't God give us clarity? Because He wants us to walk by faith. See, those of us who have walked for a season, we can look back and we can see God's will, but only retrospect. It takes a season of walking with God by faith that we can look back and we see how God was always moving pieces, how God was always with us, how God was always caring for us. This is why it's very important for us young Christians. To be involved in the lives of the more seasoned Christians. We young Christians, The young folk need to be interacting and talking and gaining wisdom for those who have walked longer in the Lord. We need to be dependent. That's why Paul says older women care for younger women and older men care for younger men. They can give us guidance, they can give us perspective because they have walked with the Lord by faith and they have understood God's ways. To our seasoned saints. Are you walking in the Lord? Are you seeking to contribute to us, the younger generation who make mistakes? Are you being patient with us? Are you caring for us? Are you still striving after godliness and studying the word and analyzing your life according to it so that you can be a blessing to us? We need that. For those who are really wrestling at this time, what does God want me to do? Let me give you some assurance. You can't remove yourself from the will of God. You can't remove yourself from the will of God. God's more powerful and more able than your decision. As long as you are not pursuing sin. Any other option is a free option for you. Love God and do what you want. Even if you make the unwise decision. God is with you. God loves you. God will never remove himself from you. And he's going to be able to guide you and direct you. He's able to glorify himself through you, no matter what your decision is. So do not let this. Inquiry, do not let this wrestling match pin you down and not make you effective for the kingdom. You cannot remove yourself from the will of God. He will always be with you. Now, notice this entire request is in the passive voice. Be filled with the knowledge of God's will. We're dependent upon God to give us that knowledge. Paul is asking that God fill them with his knowledge. Now, we can seek his knowledge, we can seek it in his word, we can seek it in prayer, but as a spiritual knowledge, one that really comes from above, it has to be empowered by the spirit. We need the illuminating work of the spirit to be effective in our lives. We are dependent upon God to receive the knowledge of his will. Let's look at these two modifiers that Paul gives to this passage, asking that you might be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Now, these two words are are helpful as we think about what the knowledge of the will of God is. Wisdom. is to have the proper goals in life and to know how to best reach them. As Steve taught this past Wednesday, God's wisdom means that he always has the most perfect end and he knows how to employ the perfect means to accomplish that end. If we're going to be wise and we need to have the best end in mind, we need to be able to employ the best means to reach that end. And that end has to be the glory of God. We have to make our goals and our ends match God's goals and God's ends. That's why we must make His desires our desires. And then we must employ His proper means. What is spiritual understanding? Another way to translate this would be discernment. It's properly understanding right and wrong. It's being able to see evil and sin for what it is and be able to understand what is good and what is right. It's thinking God's thoughts after him. What he says is good. What he says is sin is sin. Now, if we want to be active in receiving this filling, there's two things we must do. We must read God's word. We must pray. And we really should do those together. If we really want spiritual wisdom and spiritual understanding, we need to be prayerfully searching His Word. Because one thing we can do is just read this Word and be filled with knowledge and then just be puffed up in pride. But what we need to do is be prayerfully approaching God's Word, be praying through Scripture and from Scripture, and be praying for spiritual illumination, be praying that God would show us our sin and show us His glory. We must be careful not to be puffed up with just knowledge. We need spiritual wisdom and spiritual understanding. Now, Paul lists four results that come about from someone being filled with the knowledge of his will. They walk worthy of the Lord. They please the Lord. They bear fruit and they grow in the knowledge of God. You see that in the text here. Verse 10, so as the result being that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him. Let's look at these two first. What does it mean to walk? worthy of the Lord. Why is Paul saying that we need to walk worthy of the Lord? Let me make sure we're careful here. He is not saying make yourself good enough to be accepted by God. He's not saying fix your own life so that you can then be worthy to be called a saint. We do not qualify ourselves to be saints. We do not qualify ourselves for grace. God gives it freely to sinners who are undeserving. So when he's saying walk worthy of the Lord, this is walking worthy after being saved. We do not walk worthy to be saved. We change our life after being saved, so this is not telling us to make ourselves better so that God will love us. No, rather, it's very much like Ephesians 4.1. Walk worthy of your calling after you've been called out of darkness and into light. Now we change our lives. And we seek to walk worthy of the Lord. It's really interesting how that very similar passages in Ephesians four, because Ephesians one through three is all doctrine. It's all the things we have to believe. And then chapter four, it changes and it starts applying that doctrine. So we see this declaring what God has done and then how we are to live. How can we walk worthy of the Lord? What is he worthy of? Do we have anything that's worthy of the Lord? God calls us to love Him with our entire being. God calls us to make Him the most important thing in our life. All we have to give Him is our lives, and we should give Him our very best. As I was meditating on this passage, the words of certain hymns kept coming to mind. Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing. I don't have enough in me to praise Him enough for what He's done for me. Or the words of Isaac Watts, we're the whole realm of creation mine. That would be a present too small. He is the Creator who has been rebelled against, but yet still shows His love and His grace to us, the rebels. How can we walk worthy of the Lord? by loving Him with all of our hearts, by disciplining ourselves to recognize that we need to want nothing more than Christ. Very similar to this. I believe these are actually parallel. Walking worthy of the Lord is a life that pleases the Lord. We need to set our greatest affections upon Him. We need to seek to please Him. Now, this is the amazing thing about seeking to please the Lord with our lives. When we are living a life that seeks to please God, we'll actually be the most pleased. When we're seeking to live a life that praises God and pleases Him, we'll actually be the happiest. John Piper summarizes this the best. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. When we have loved Him and find rest in Him and find peace in Him. That's when we please Him. When we trust Him and depend upon Him and love Him with everything we have. Let's go to the third result of a life that's full of the knowledge of the will of God. We grow in the knowledge of God. This is in verse 10. We bear fruit and the very good work increasing in the knowledge of God. Have you ever come to the point where you thought, I know enough about God, I've got that figured out, what's life's next challenge? Have you ever come to the point and said, yeah, the gospel, I believed it, I prayed it, what's next? We laugh at that, but is that a reality for many of us? We're saddled in what we know about God not wanting to grow. Do you search the Scriptures? Do you look into the deep mysteries of God? That's what we say in the Roman sexology. The depths. The mysteries of all. We can never reprehend our own God. There's too much of that infinite power and holiness and love for us to ever comprehend. We should dive deep into his word. So the problem is we oftentimes go deep enough to feel comfortable when we should be going so deep that we always feel uncomfortable because we're in the presence of his holiness and we're in the presence of his holiness. Our sin begins to scare us and that takes us to the cross where we find peace. The real concern is that when we stop growing, I don't believe you just remain at that level of if you're in karate, you know, you get to a certain belt and you get to stay there. No, if you're not pursuing God and growing in him. You're going to start descending. You've ascended up the mountain to see him clearer and clearer. If you stop ascending, you'll start descending. If you're not growing towards God, you're going to be growing towards the world. You see, most of us stop growing. At a certain point, when a particular sin is revealed in scripture. Most of us, most of us have a growth stop. When God points out a sin and then we wrestle over that, are we going to deny ourselves? Are we going to deny God? You see, God's word and the Holy Spirit speaking to us as we read his word, it points out our fragile parts. It points out our weaknesses, it points out our sin, and it calls us to repentance. If you stop growing, go back to when you stopped repenting. If you stop growing, go back to that truth that you wrestled with and you decided that you were going to put it off. Really, what you were doing is you were saying, I'm going to deny God and I'm going to continue in that sin. What sins are you afraid of losing? We are afraid that God is going to reveal in his word. What is that next step of commitment and dedication that you're afraid of that keeps you from growing in God's word? As we grow, we need to be growing in the gospel, we need to be growing spiritually. As we look at scripture, we always have to be hoping that God's going to be pointing out sin. And when God points out sin, we need to keep the gospel in mind. As God continues to point out our sin, we need to remember that we have full assurance that Christ has died for every sin. The fourth result, that we would bear fruit according to his will. We'll bear fruit in every good work, Paul tells us in verse 10. How do you know that you're being filled with the knowledge of The will of God, your life will be changed. First, your heart and your mind and then your actions. A good tree bears good fruit, a bad tree bears no fruit or bad fruit. You can you can tell a tree by its fruit. You can tell a Christian life by its fruit. If you are truly being filled and seeking that feeling and obeying that filling of the knowledge of God's will, there will be fruit. There will be evidence. They'll be the fruits of the spirit, faith, hope and love, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. How do we encourage one another? To be more fruitful. Well, one way is to go around and point out all the problems. That's kind of the natural simple tendency when we think we need to be producing more more fruit, let's go around, let's start correcting people. Let's find the sin and let's start leading them to repentance. I would say that will be a second way of doing it. Let's do this first. Encourage one another in your fruits. Are you constantly looking at how you can point out how other believers have evidences of grace in their life? Are you proactively trying to encourage Your brothers and sisters, the Saints. How God is clearly evident in them, how God is working in them, how you can see a life where fruit is being more spiritually. We need to be a church that is seeking to encourage one another, be building one another up. Not by always correcting. But more so by encouraging. This is why we have home groups and establishment groups. I encourage you to be involved in these. This is why we gather together those smaller groups and talk about our lives. We can know each other more. And I hope that is where we start to build one another up by pointing out the fruits of the spirit. Let me go to the second request of Paul. Verse 11. Here, the point is, trust the power of God in our trials and temptations. May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might. For all endurance and patience. With joy, notice again the passive voice. Paul is asking that God would give them strength. It's a foreign power that gives us endurance and patience. It's not from within us. It comes from without. And then it's planted within us. It's the Holy Spirit. The same power that rose Christ from the grave lives within us if we're truly believers. We have power from on high. We have all power. We have power that's able to conquer the grave. Are we seeking to depend upon it? It's a divine power. Being filled with all strength also has results. Being filled with strength or being strengthened for all endurance and patience with joy. Now, endurance is probably one of my favorite Greek words. We're going to get a little nerdy here. The Greek word is hupomone or hupomenane. Hupomenane. I apologize. Hupomenane. It's a compound word. Using the preposition under and the verb to remain. So that works, it's a beautiful picture to endure is to remain under. That's what the word means. And everyone who's going through trials is nodding. Yes, that is exactly what that feels like. When you are in a trial, when you're in the midst of a temptation, you feel under the pressure. You feel under the pain, you feel it weighing down upon you. One of the greatest illustrations of this, I remember reading C.S. Lewis, I think I've used it here before. Someone questioned, well, Christ, he really never was tempted in the same way we are because he never sinned. No, it's actually exactly the opposite. See, Christ never gave in to the weight, he constantly remained under the temptation of sin. It's like a weightlifter. When He puts the bar over His head, most of them with a heavy weight, they pop it up and they drop it. They only felt that weight for a brief moment. That's like us when we resist for a short while and then we drop the weight. We give in. Christ never gave in. Christ never dropped the weight. He remained under the constant temptation. See, my concern is that we're too quick to look for relief. while we're in temptation and trials. We're too quick to say, God, how are you going to deliver me? Rather than asking God, how can you bless me in the midst of this trial? I can't stand the prosperity gospel. It disgusts me because it perverts the glorious truth of God's love for us, the true gospel. And it's even more disgusting to me because a little bit of prosperity gospel lives in my heart. We all want prosperity. We all want God to do what we want Him to do. We want relief. We want quick, sudden relief. We must repent of this. We must recognize that God allows trials. He sends trials. He allows temptation for the purpose of our betterment. We must learn to depend upon Him to endure. The second result is that we would have patience. No matter how long a trial lasts, it feels like forever. And the longer that trial goes on, the longer we don't know the result, or the longer we don't have relief, the heavier and heavier that trial becomes. That's why we need to be strengthened for patience. We need to remain under that. Even though it gets heavier and heavier, we must remain under. We must ask God to give us strength to be patient. Maybe you feel in the dark because you do not have the answers you want. Maybe you're waiting for a result from a health test. That weightiness is hindering you. The weight of that question concerns you. Maybe you feel the weight of remaining faithful under personal attacks to your character. Maybe you feel the weight of a spouse who you always wonder, when are they ever going to get it? When are they going to start loving me? When are they going to start taking notice of me? When are they going to start caring for me? Maybe you're under the weight of your child rebelling against you, resisting the gospel. Friends, maybe your trials are actual temptations. Maybe you're so easily entangled with sin You feel the weight of pornography. You feel the weight of a of a life that's been made up of lies. You feel the weight of greed and a desire to be recognized. You see that they're wicked, but you you can't get relief. You're constantly tempted and entangled in these sins. This is why we must rely upon the strength of God. It's not pull yourself up by your bootstraps and keep going. No, it's a power that we must be filled with. From outside of us, the beauty of is for believers, the spirit is inside of us providing that power. We must submit ourselves to him. And thank him in the midst of every trial. Now, I don't say that flippantly, I say that with a heavy heart. But I must say it because I must preach the will of God. And Paul says that we would endure and be patient with joy. I've had to counsel people, even this past week, that in the midst of your trial, you have to remain joyful. And I was afraid of saying it because I don't want to crush their spirit because they're obviously lacking joy because they're in the midst of a great trial, in the midst of a great temptation. But it's the will of God. As he has revealed here. These are heavy words. But we're called to endure and be patient with joy. How can we endure trials and temptations with joy? Well, the first way what Paul tells us and Peter as well. We can have joy in our suffering because that suffering allows us to participate in Christ suffering. It allows us to relate to and participating the suffering of the cross. Secondly, when we have a proper perspective, we know that every trial and every temptation is used by God for the refinement of his children. He disciplines those he loves. So we know that God is going to use whatever that trial or temptation is to refine us. And finally, We can have joy because we know that God will carry us through it. He will give us the strength to endure it and he will deliver us. Maybe not in this life. Maybe we will not be many of our trials. We will not be delivered from until we die. But we will have a deliverance. So the temptation is to be cynical and pessimistic. The gospel is supposed to be making us optimistic. The gospel is supposed to make us happy. The gospel is supposed to always give us Hope. But we live in a fallen world and we're always being attacked by trials and temptations. The natural simple response is to be cynical and pessimistic. That's what we need to ask God for the strength to be joyful. To rejoice, no matter what our circumstances are. Finally, friends. We are to give thanks to God for his redemption. I think possibly my favorite summary of the end of the gospel. We are to give thanks Paul says starting in verse 12 giving thanks to the father. who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He's thanking the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the Son. Again, we do not make ourselves qualified. We do not make ourselves good enough or right enough. or pretty enough to be qualified to share in the inheritance of the sun. It's something we receive by grace. It's something we receive despite how gross our sin is, how offensive our sin is. You see, we all go our own way, we reject the creator, we do not acknowledge him, we do not thank him, we do not love him. And yet still, he loves us. He still pursues us and qualifies us to enjoy an inheritance that is above and beyond anything we could ever deserve. He qualifies us. Notice there, it's all the saints qualified for the same inheritance. This is one of the great truths that we're going to look at more as we get later into the book of Colossians. But it doesn't matter our social status. It doesn't matter our class, our race, our background, our gender. We all share the same inheritance. We're all called to an equal portion of God's inheritance by grace as we are all under his one headship and kingship. Let's look at verse 13. This is a was a beautiful transfer. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and into the kingdom of his beloved son. He's delivered us from the domain of darkness out here, darkness is a metaphor for for sin and rebellion and death. We were all living in darkness. We all, by nature, are citizens of the domain of darkness. And as citizens of the domain of darkness, as sinners, sin and death have authority over us. They have power over us. When we live in their domain, they have dominion over us. Sin is our master while we are living in darkness. We were in darkness apart from God, rebelling against God, resisting God, and worthy of God's wrath. Deserving of God's wrath. You see, apart from Christ, we have darkened hearts that no longer acknowledge God. We have darkened desires and no longer love God as we were created to, but we love this world. We have darkened minds that can no longer discern good and evil. We all were without hope. Until the sun came. And he delivered us into the kingdom that belongs to him. Now, this is what's really amazing with this passage. We get to share in the inheritance of the kingdom of the sun. Because the sun died for us. That's the beauty of the gospel. We get to share in the sun's kingdom because the sun died for us, he entered into our domain of darkness as a shining light. He came as the light of the world to expose our sin. He came to expose our darkness. We wouldn't realize we're in the darkness unless his light had come and shone in it. And as he walked and talked, he exposed the darkness. And those who live in that darkness didn't like it. They hated the Creator who is coming to shine light in the darkness. And so they thought they planned to quench that light. They killed him. The most amazing thing was that was his plan all along. The light came down in the darkness to die in that darkness to free us from that darkness. Jesus Christ, the son of God, he came, took upon himself a perfect nature, human nature, but without sin, without darkness, being perfect light. And He died for all of us who believe in Him, who were in the darkness. That's the beauty of the Gospel. You see, our darkness was enslaving us. Our darkness was going to end with our death and our destruction, unless someone took our place. In the light of the world, He came to be just like us, except for sin. And he took our place. He took our place under the wrath of God so that we can have forgiveness of sins. He took our place, as if darkness, to free us from our enslavement. And now, as the passage says, we have forgiveness of sins and we have redemption. This is a loaded term if you're a Hebrew. Redemption points back to the exodus of Israel. When they were freed from the enslavement of Egypt and brought into the promised land. Our redemption, our exodus is so much better because we are taken out of slavery to sin and into the freedom of Christ. We're taken out of death and given life. We are taken out of a life that was bound to sin and we're given godliness. We're taken out of cynicism. We're given joy. We are out from under the rule of sin that would destroy us. We are put under the kingship of Christ who loves us and gives us life. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Our great God, we look to you and we praise you because your will is good. You have willed that sinners such as us could share in your sons inheritance. You have willed that we would no longer have to be doomed and destined to death and destruction that we deserve. You've willed that we would have life, eternal life, and we would have love, infinite love. Your will is good. We thank you that you have made your will so clear in Scripture. I pray that we would be filled with the knowledge of your will so that we would love you in a way that you are worthy of being loved. That we would please you. Well, I pray that we will be strengthened. To stand the test of trials and temptations. Help us, Lord, to endure, knowing that You are the way, and You have set forth a way of living, and You've given us the power to endure, and that we will remain faithful to that path, no matter how narrow, no matter how difficult. Father, I pray that You would help us to be thankful for what You have done for us. In Your holy name we pray. Amen.