Faithful Gospel Ministry

All right, good morning, church. Glad that you are joining us to open God's word this morning. We're gonna be looking at Colossians 1:24-2:20, or 2:5 today, Colossians 1:24-2:5 as we continue in our "Ripple Effect" sermon series, and we're talking about how the gospel changes everything. And we're walking through the Book of Colossians and seeing how Jesus is the message that we preach. Jesus is the gospel, the person and work of Jesus Christ is the gospel and He changes everything in our lives. And this passage that we are looking at today gets at something that the Apostle Paul included in many of his letters. The Apostle Paul is writing this Book of Colossians. It's a letter that he's writing to believers in the city of Colossae, and he includes something like this passage in many of his letters. It's a passage explaining his own ministry to the church, explaining what God has called him to do. And it can be easy to come across these passages in some of the different books of the Bible, and kinda look at them and say, "Okay, you know, that's really great for you, Paul, but I don't really know what I'm supposed to do with this. It's really great to hear about your life and everything, but you died 2,000 years ago and I'm not really sure what relevance this has for me exactly." And I hope that as we read the passage today and we walk through it, I can show you the extreme relevance that it has to our lives today. So let's go ahead and look at the passage, Colossians 1:24-2:5 says this. Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the sake of His body, which is the church. I have become a servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness. The mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord's people. To them, God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end, I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me. I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not met me personally. My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments, for though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith is in Christ. God had called Paul to a very particular task and it was an important task. Do you remember being a kid and your mom or your dad or maybe a teacher at school or somebody would come to you and say, "Hey," and they kind of get down to your level and say, "I've got a really important job for you to do." If anybody have an experience like that when you're a kid, or maybe you do it with your kids or some kids that you work with or something like that? We say, "Hey, I've got this really important job for you to do." See, as kids and as adults too, like, we don't like to do chores, right? We don't necessarily like to do a job that needs to be done, but we do like important jobs, especially as a kid. You tell a kid, "I have an important job for you to do," and they all of a sudden go special forces mode, right? And they're like, they're ready to jump to it and do whatever it is that this important job is, at least until they get to the age where they figure out you're actually just asking me to get away from you, right? Like, there comes a point where you get old enough and you realize the important job is like do something over there, right? But we get excited about that as little kids because when you think about it, a person giving you an important job, they're not just saying that it's important that this job gets done. They're saying it's important to me that this job gets done and I'm entrusting it to you. I'm entrusting it to you. What I'm getting at is that as we look at Paul in the ministry that God gave him to the church, we get a glimpse of what is important to God. We get a glimpse of what God cares about, what God wants for His people and what God wants from His people. And so today as we look at this passage, we're gonna look at it kind of in two parts. First, we're gonna see what God wants for His people, and then we're gonna see what God wants from His people. Now as we dive in, I'm gonna go just a little bit out of order. I'm just gonna give you a little warning there. Paul starts with somewhat of a startling statement in verse 24. You probably caught it as I read it earlier. I'm not skipping that verse, but I am coming back to it a little bit later. But the first thing I want us to see is what God wants for His people. What does God want for His people? The first thing is this, He wants His people to know Christ. What does God want for His people? He wants His people to know Jesus Christ. You know, God's number one desire for people is that we know His son, Jesus. That's God's number one desire for His people, that we know Jesus and not just know about Him, but that we know Him intimately. In fact, it's what the church was created for. The church was created to be His, to belong to Jesus. We are called His body. We saw that in verse 24, that we are His body and we see it all throughout scripture. We also see all throughout scripture that He calls us the bride of Jesus Christ. The church is the bride of Jesus Christ. And in Titus 2:14 it says that Jesus gave Himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for Himself a people that are His very own. The church was created to belong to Him. You, my friend, were created to belong to Christ, to know Him and to know Him intimately, to belong to Him. Sometimes we get this a little bit mixed up, right? We get it a little bit mixed up and we think that Jesus was made for us rather than us being made for Jesus. We might not say it in those words, right? We might subconsciously think it or we might just act like it. Sometimes we treat Him like our magic genie that God kind of gave us to make our lives a little bit better, maybe to make our lives a little bit more comfortable. Maybe just somebody that we can turn to in a time of need. That's what He's there for. That's what we think sometimes. But let me remind you of this. Jesus was not created. God, the Son was not created. He has existed with the Father for eternity past. He has existed as God for eternity past. You and me, we were created. And that right there, that alone should remind us of what everything centers around. And it's not us. It's not me. And as we saw last week, not only were we created, but we were created by Him, the Son, by the Son, through the Son, and we were created for the Son. And whereas we often try to find life by making ourselves the center of the universe, we think if we keep ourselves at the center, that's how life is going to be lived best. Whereas we oftentimes think that, we actually find that when we remove ourselves from the center of the universe and put Him in His rightful place, that that's where we find true life. I know that was my experience. It took me a long time to finally realize that I am actually not at the center of all of this. It's God who is at the center of all of this. And there were times in my life where I knew that cognitively, but I didn't really live like it or I just kind of lived like I was the center and it changed everything. When I finally came to realize, no, this life is not about me and my life is not my own, but I've been bought with a price, the price of the blood of Jesus Christ. And I'll even say it took me a while to walk out all the way what exactly that means and what exactly that looks like. I remember it was after I decided to give my life to vocational ministry. I was in seminary. It was my first semester of seminary and I had to read the book, "Let the Nations Be Glad!" by John Piper. And it completely reoriented my world to see that even in ministry, it's not about me. It's not even first and foremost about other people, but it's about God and it's about Him and His glory and making Him known and bringing Him the glory and the fame and the honor and magnifying Him in the way that He deserves. And it was there that I found life, where I didn't any longer have to hold on to everything for myself, but I could give myself completely to Him and know that He is the one who gives life and is worthy of my life. God wants us to know His Son, Jesus. He wants us to know Jesus Christ intimately and He wants us to belong to Him. And the fact that God wants us to know His son is made clear in this passage. Look at what Paul says in verse 25 again. I have become its servant. That's talking about the church. I have become the church's servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness. The word of God in its fullness. He's talking about the gospel. He's talking about the gospel. Up to this point, they had the Old Testament. They had everything that God had done up to Jesus, which is good and it's God's word and it still is today, and it's still just as relevant today as it was when it was first written, but it wasn't yet complete. The New Testament is the fulfillment of all of the Old Testament and we see that in verses 26 and 27. Look at what he says. The mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord's people. That word mystery, it simply means something that has not yet been disclosed. It's something that is undisclosed. There was something that God had not yet revealed in the Old Testament. He pointed to it all over the Old Testament. It all points to it. Everything in the Old Testament looks forward to it, but it hadn't yet been revealed. What was it? It was Jesus. It was God the Son coming in the flesh in order to make the word of God fully known, in order to take on humanity and to save people from their sin by taking our sin on Himself and taking it to the cross, dying for our sin and rising from the dead. That is the mystery that Paul is talking about here. The mystery that had been undisclosed, but now God has made known and God's desire is that we now know this mystery, that we now know the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, that we know Jesus Himself. The good news is not just what Christ has done, but it's why He did it as well. It's so that we can know Him. It's so that we can have a relationship with Him. It's so that we can find life in Him. That's God's desire. Look at closely at what Paul says in verse 27. It says to them, God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. The mystery is that you can know Christ, that His spirit will live inside of you when you put your faith in Him. That's what God desires for us. That's what God desires for us. And look at how he says, it's to them God has chosen to make it known. God was not forced to do anything. He was not coerced to do anything. It was His desire. His desire is for you to know Him. And I know that I keep repeating that. And guess what? I'm gonna keep repeating it for the rest of the day today too, because that is what God wants for His people. Not only that people will know Him or not only that people in some places will know Him, and not only that one nation will know Him, but that he would be known among the Gentiles or among the nations. It's God's desire to see people from every tribe, tongue and nation come to know Jesus Christ. That's what God wants in the world. He wants people from everywhere to come to know Him. God wants people to know Christ, but He also wants His people to grow in Christ. God wants His people to know Christ, but He also wants people to grow in Christ. You see, the mission is not just that we will let people hear about Jesus. It's not only for people to hear about Jesus. It's not just to have people put some initial faith in Him and then just kind of walk away and forget about it. It's to help them walk in Christ in all of life. It's discipleship. It's walking with Christ and growing into maturity in Christ, looking more and more like Christ. And how do we do that? How do we help others come to grow in Christ? And how do we grow in Christ ourselves? It's by looking to Him. It's Him we proclaim, he says in verse 28. Last week, the passage that we looked at that's right before this, we saw that Jesus is the message. And guess what? This week, Jesus is still the message. And next week, Jesus will still be the message. We proclaim Him. We never go beyond the message of the person and work of Jesus Christ. We can dive deeper in and we can see how what He has done, who He is and what He has done affects every area of our life. But we never go beyond Christ. We only dive deeper in. Why? Why? Because what is our goal? It's to see people know Jesus and grow in Him, it's to see Christ formed in people. Our goal is not just to have better marriages. We want to see that, we long to see that. We desire to see that, but that's not the goal. That's an outcome of the goal. Our goal is to see Christ formed in people. When we do marriage counseling here at The Chapel, we point people to Christ and we help people see Christ formed in them so that it plays out in their marriages. Our goal is not for you to be a more moral person. Of course, we want to see that and we want to see you walking in all that Jesus calls us to. But we have to point you to Jesus in order for that to be an outcome. The goal is Jesus. The goal is to see Jesus formed in Him. That is our desire. Our desire isn't to have a church full of nice-looking and nice-acting people. It's to have a church full of people who have been formed in Christ. That's our desire. That's, and that should be the desire of every Christian heart, is to grow in Christ and see others growing in Christ, coming into maturity in Him. As I looked at this passage this week, I couldn't help but think about Pastor Dion and Pastor Dion and the way that this was what his life was all about. And as I was studying the passage, I texted Jonathan this week and I just said, "Hey, man, I just can't help but think about your dad while I look at this passage." And it's not something I'm saying just to be nice because you say nice things about people when they're gone. I, this is something that defined Pastor Dion's life. You ask me what I know about Pastor Dion. That's what it was, was that he wanted to see Christ formed in people. You ask me who Pastor Dion is? I say, well, he is this pastor who retired from the church, but he's always around still because he just can't help himself but see Christ formed in people and pour into people. And I always love that about him and will always remember that about him. But I also want people to say it about me as well. That's what I want my life to be about. And that's what I want your life to be about as well, is seeing Christ made known and formed in people. And maybe you say, well, I don't know how to do that. What do I do? How do I help Christ be formed in people? Well, I can tell you, you can read the Bible with people. The power of God is found in His word. It changes people. And as you sit down and you read it with people and you talk it over with people and you say, "Okay, how are we going to let this sink in?" Then people are changed and you are changed as well. We point Jesus or we point people to Jesus in all things. There's a book that we sell in Stir called "Gospel Fluency". I'd really encourage you to check it out if that's you saying, "Hey, I don't know how to do this," check out that book, "Gospel Fluency". It helps you to learn how to point to Jesus in all things. But this is what I tell people all the time. If you let the gospel change every aspect of your life, your marriage, the way you go to work, the way you parent your kids, the way you deal with your money, the way you interact with people, the way you serve, if you let the gospel change every aspect of your life, then every aspect of your life becomes an opportunity to point people to Jesus. Every aspect about life becomes an opportunity to point people to Jesus. People ask you something about your marriage, you can answer it and you can point to Jesus because that's what it's centered around. People ask you about the way that you raise your kids, you can say, "Oh, well we do it this way and here's why. It's because of Jesus." And it's a way to point people to Jesus in everything. When He affects every aspect of your life, every aspect of your life becomes an opportunity to point people to Jesus. So we see that what God wants from His people is to know Christ and to have Christ formed in them. But God has a chosen instrument in the world that He wants to use in order to bring these things about in the world. He has a chosen instrument to bring that about in the world. And do you know what it is? It's the church. It's the church. By the church, I don't just mean the pastors. I don't just mean a building. I mean you, the church, the people of God. You are God's chosen instrument to see Christ known in the world and to see Christ formed in others in the world as well. Not only do we see in this passage what God wants for His people, but we also find in this passage what God wants from His people. And what does God want from His people? Well, not every individual Christian has the same ministry that Paul had. So when we read this passage, not all of us are apostles of Jesus, right? It was a very unique position. But the church as a whole is still given the ministry of being ambassadors for Christ. The whole church is given the ministry of being ambassadors for Christ, the ministry of seeing Christ known and seeing Him formed in His people. The whole church has been given the ministry of discipleship, of making disciples. Remember Jesus' last words before He ascended back to the Father, Matthew 28:19. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations. That's the charge given to the church. But in order to do that, we find that God calls us to a few things. First of all, what does God want from His church? It's this, to embrace suffering for Christ, to embrace suffering for Christ. Paul makes this kind of weird statement in verse 24 at the beginning of this passage. You remember it says this, now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the sake of His body, which is the church. What does he mean by filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions? The passage right before this, we spent all last week talking about how Jesus is sufficient for salvation, that His work is finished, that it is all we need, that there is nothing left, that He has done it once and for all. So how can Paul right after that say that it is lacking in any way? Well, to fill up what is lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, it doesn't mean that the cross is in any way lacking in power for salvation. That's not what Paul is talking about here. It means that there is still more suffering that needs to be done in order for people to hear and see the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's not what Paul is talking about here. It means that there is still more suffering that needs to be done in order for people to hear and see the gospel of Jesus Christ, that there is suffering that is to come, that there is hardship that is to come in order for people to hear and see of what Christ has done in His suffering on the cross. Christ has finished the suffering for the sins of people once and for all. He set it on the cross. It is finished, but He sends His disciples, He sends His church out into the world so that people may hear of the suffering of Jesus, so that people may hear of the sufficient salvation that we find in Jesus. But when you go into a world of darkness with the light of Jesus, there is hardship that comes from that. There is suffering that comes from that. There are persecutions that come from that, and there are things that we just have to sacrifice in order to see that happen. Here at The Chapel, we say that we are on God's mission to ensure that every man, every woman, every child has repeated opportunities to hear and see the gospel of Jesus Christ. It sounds nice in the announcements, right? And it looks nice painted on the wall and on the graphic, on the screen. But the truth is that it takes sacrifice in order to see that happen. It takes sacrifice in order to see that happen, for people to come to hear and know the gospel takes sacrifice. Some people, God calls to move across the world, to leave friends and family behind, to leave comforts behind, move across the world to some other place in order to make the gospel known among a people who don't have an opportunity to hear the gospel otherwise. We just sent some of our church members out a few months ago, Joel and Katie Gerbrig to go to Tanzania, to take part of that work. Some are called to go to the dangerous places in our city to sacrifice themselves, to put themselves in danger in order to make Christ known. Some are called to stand up against what's wrong that's happening in front of them even when they know there's gonna be consequences, to stand up against injustice and make Christ known in the face of it. Some are called to stand in the face of persecution. Some are called to foster or adopt children. Some are called to take in a family member when it's hard to care for them as they are suffering. People are called to all sorts of things in Christ. But here's the thing is that He calls us to do that and to follow Him as he has done it for us. When Christ calls us into suffering, when Christ calls us into sacrifice, He is calling us to walk in the pattern of the cross. He is calling us to walk the road of the cross alongside Him. And I know that sometimes it's really, really hard and I know that sometimes you sit there and you have days where you say, "This, Lord, this is what You called me into? This is what You have for me?" But look at what Paul says. He says, "I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, for others." It sounds stupid, I know. I rejoice in suffering. It sounds stupid. I get it. How are we supposed to rejoice in suffering? It's because we know that our suffering, our sacrifice, it is an investment toward the goal of seeing Christ formed in people. And we don't always get to see the fruit that we hope to see from it. We don't always get to see the outcome that we hoped was going to come from that. But what we do get to see is Christ glorified, is Christ be made known. And sometimes, even though we don't get to see the fruit, the Lord is doing things in the lives of people. It might not even be the people we thought it was going to be, but He is at work and He is moving and He is making Himself known. The goal is seeing people know Christ and be like Christ. The goal is seeing people conform to the image of Christ all over the world. And that's why Paul comes back around at the end of the passage in chapter two, verse five. He says this, for though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith is in Christ. That word delight's translated from the Greek word chairo. It's the same exact word that Paul uses for rejoice in chapter 24 when he talks about rejoicing in his suffering. He rejoices in his suffering because he can rejoice in seeing Christ formed in people. It's a joy to see people walking with the Lord. It's a joy to see Christ being formed in people. But here's the thing is that it's not just Christ being formed in other people as we sacrifice. Christ is also being formed in us. Just as God wants us to know Jesus and to know Him intimately as we walk the road of suffering alongside Him, as we walk the road of sacrifice alongside Him, we come to know Him all the more. Doesn't always look like what we thought it would look like, but it is knowing Christ and becoming more like Him all the more. And when we love Him, our goal is to know Him. And our goal is to be like Him. We become like Him when we share in His suffering. Look at what Paul said in Philippians 3:10-11. He says, I want to know Christ. This is the heart of a man who loves Jesus. I want to know Christ, yes, to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death and so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Jesus calls us to pick up our cross and to follow Him. And even though it's hard and it's sacrifice, the good news is that as we walk in that road of sacrifice, we get to walk alongside Him on the road of sacrifice. Think of it like a young man who is maybe he's out at his lunch break one day and he's stopping for a coffee before he goes to this really important business meeting. And he's dressed in his nice suit and he's got his good dress shoes on. You know, they're never the most comfortable. I don't know why we can't just make comfortable dress shoes, y'all. I just, I don't get it. But they're never comfortable. And he's got his nice clothes on and his uncomfortable shoes on. And just a little bit away, he sees the girl that he's been thinking about, the girl that he's been trying to get to know a little bit, the girl that he's been trying to find a way to talk to her, but he just doesn't know how. And she's carrying a big load, maybe she's on her way to gardening and she's got a big load of soil and she's struggling and he's looking at his watch and he's going, "I gotta be at the business meeting in 10 minutes." And he's looking at his clothes and he says, "I'm in my nice clothes." And he's looking at his shoes and he is like, "My feet are gonna hurt if I carry it. But if I go and carry it for her, I get to walk alongside her. I can get a little dirty. I can be a little bit uncomfortable. I can be really uncomfortable. I can strain and I can make my feet hurt and I can go through," I mean, carrying soil. I know it's not that hard. I couldn't come up with anything better, but he's. Sorry. I'm working on the fly sometimes, you know? But he says, "But I'll do it because I get to walk alongside her." Friends, it's the same thing as we walk the road of sacrifice with Jesus. We get to walk alongside Him. We're gonna get a little dirty in the process. It's gonna make our feet hurt, might make our arms shake from carrying a heavy load. But we're gonna get to know Jesus in the meantime. We're gonna get to know Him in a way that we could have never known Him outside of it. And with Jesus, as we walk with Him on the road of suffering, we get to know Him more and we become like Him more. Our desire is to know Christ and to see others know Him and become like Him as well. People from all over our city, people from all over the world. And I have news for you, to see every man, woman and child have repeated opportunities to hear and see the gospel of Jesus Christ, it takes sacrifice on the part of His people. And that means we have to embrace the suffering. I know it's hard. I know it's difficult. It's even more difficult to do it when it comes if you haven't already embraced it. But when we embrace that the Lord has called us to walk on the road of sacrifice, the road of suffering with Him, when we embrace that now, then we can say yes when He calls without hesitation. To see it come to fruition, to see the mission take place, it will take God's people sacrificing of themselves. Time, money, energy, yeah. But it takes sacrificing our very lives, giving ourselves up to see people come to know Him and be formed in Him. That's discipleship, y'all. That's discipleship. That's what I want us to see today. Discipleship is sacrificing to know or to grow in Christ and bring others along with you as you do. True discipleship always involves sacrifice. Whether it's discipling other people in the church, whether it's discipling your kids, your neighbors, whether it's moving across the world or staying right at home, discipleship always takes sacrifice. It takes a giving of yourself in order to see others grow or in order to grow in Christ and to bring others along with you as you do. This is the way that Jesus has given for us to make Him known. And so God wants us to embrace suffering for Christ. But in that, the last thing that God wants from us, the last thing that God wants from us is to contend for the people of Christ, to contend for the people of Christ. Now, a lot of us spend a lot of time contending for our own faith, right? A lot of us are willing to do that. We read the Bible, we come to church, we fill up, we join a community group, we serve, we do all the things. But how many of us are contending for the faith of others as well? For instance, when you came to church this morning, did you have anyone else in mind beside yourself? Did you come just to fill up? Now I know that there's days where like that happens, okay? You know, you have had a week and you are running on empty. And I totally understand that. And for a lot of you, it's because of the way that you have cared for other people and things like that. But on a regular basis, do you just show up for you or do you ever have anyone else in mind, and how you can be encouraging them in the Lord and how you can be discipling them? Or when you go to your community group meetings or your Bible study, is it only so that you can take in or is it so that you can pour out as well? What God wants from His people is that we contend for the people of Christ, that we contend for the faith of others as well. And all throughout this passage, we see Paul turning his concern away from himself and directing his concern toward the church. But here's the thing, Paul didn't make up this idea. Paul did not get that from himself. He learned it from someone else. He learned it from the one who is the head of the church. He learned it from Jesus Christ. You see, the only reason that you and I have come into faith, the only reason that you and I have become children of God, the only reason that you and I can experience life in salvation is because we have a savior who has come, who has walked the road of suffering, who has walked the road of sacrifice, who has taken our sin on Himself and has paid for that sin in full on the cross. And He rose from the dead in order to give us new life. Friends, turning concern away from ourself to others is not new to Paul. It's not new to us. We see it in Jesus Christ. And it's how you and I have come to know Him. It's because of what He has done as well. He has done it in order that we can come to know Him. And then He sends us out on the same mission, on the same mission to give of ourselves in order to make Him known. And friends, let me tell you something, it's because of what we have in Jesus. It's because we know that we have eternal life with Him. It's because we know that we have eternity removed from the presence of sin, removed from suffering, removed from all hardships. We have an eternity of that with Christ. Because we know that, we know that we can take on suffering and sacrifice for the few decades that we have here in this life in order that others can come to know Christ as well. And more than that, in order that Christ can be magnified in all the Earth, so that He can get the glory that He deserves. I'm gonna ask the band to come on back up and we're gonna end today with a song and it's a song of reflection for today. As they come up, I wanna remind you that the Lord has called you into His kingdom of light. But not only has He called you into the kingdom of light, He has called you to shine that light in a dark world. And in order to do that, it takes sacrifice. It doesn't come easy. The sacrifice to make Christ known is great sometimes. Sometimes it's less for some people, sometimes it's more. But He has called us into it. But the sacrifice, it comes with great reward. I know it can be hard to see in the midst of the suffering, in the midst of the sacrifice, but it comes with great reward. And as surely as Jesus rose from the dead, that reward is coming for all of His people. That reward is coming when we go to be home with Him as well. But until then, we have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer us who lives, but Christ lives in us and we can contend with all of His energy that He so powerfully works in us. And so as the band plays, we're gonna, they're gonna play a song called "Yet Not I, But Christ in Me." And I want you to take some time to reflect on the words of that song and to reflect on what the Lord has called us into to be a people who know Him and make Him known and help others be formed in Him today. What is He calling you into today? Let's pray and then we'll sing. Lord God, we thank You that You are the God who gives. You are the God who gives life. And you give it at a cost. You give it at the cost of Your one and only Son. I pray, Lord, that You would teach us to live lives of sacrifice, Lord, to see all that You are calling us into and say yes, yes, in order that we can know You more and we can make you known, we will say yes. We love You, Lord. It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen.