Christian Holiness part 2 Holiness is Expected

I appreciate that. Worship, always singing truth, many times singing songs that can be prayers out of our hearts, especially in this quest for personal holiness. You would go ahead and take your Bible and turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 7, or excuse me 2 Corinthians chapter 7. Last week we were in chapter 6. We did touch on verse 1 of chapter 7 and this morning verse 1 will be our primary passage and I will mention other scriptures, read other passages and I invite you to write those down. I never want you to turn here, there and everywhere and lose your place in the message. And of course we do encourage you to take notes.

It's our policy here to encourage you to do that. It's our desire that you would study those notes and study the message so that it would find its way into our mind and hearts and into our thinking. Of course this is part of our message series, messages from the pastors heart. We spent 3 messages in prayer and this is our second message on personal holiness. Now last week we started exploring this subject of Christian personal holiness and I was honest with you because I expressed my great frustration in preaching this subject. Truthfully this is a daunting task.

I feel like I have a kindergartner's watercolor set and I'm trying to paint the Mona Lisa. I feel terribly inadequate to cover the subject and the work of Christian holiness in your life and in mine. But I'm preaching out of my own personal study. I will preach and teach out of what the Lord's been showing me for the past few weeks. So just like last week I'll say this week if I'm not covering all the bases we're doing our best because there have been many great preachers who have preached great messages on this subject of Christian holiness. Now like I said earlier last week we covered chapter 6.

Now the title of the message was simple, easy for you to understand it was called Christian holiness. Now I want to do something that I rarely do if ever. I want to add to that title in my personal study this week and reflecting back on last week's message. I want to add without a title. I want to call it Christian holiness. This is examined because that's what Paul was doing. He was calling these Corinthians to examine Christian holiness. He described to them Christian holiness out of verses 1 and 10 or 1 through 10. He started with conversion.

No one can ever be holy unless they're converted and then he puts before them his life and out of his life he is saying holiness is bound up in life's purpose of living for Christ and for kingdom work and the church. And then he moved on and we saw holiness is expected because Paul transitioned. He spoke out of his heart and out of his great love for them in verses 11 through 13 and then he appeals to them to separate and engage in this task of personal holiness. And he is calling them to examine themselves and calling them to examine the holiness that he has put before them.

Now I challenge you to make sure you have what I gave you at the conclusion of the message. I gave you some statements to ponder. They could be called consequences. Consequences to the lack of holiness in our lives and in the lives of Christians and therefore in the life of the church. And you need to have those firmly fixed in your mind because we will revisit those. Now I said that chapter 6 was really an introduction. If you remember I really got towards the end of the message and I said that chapter 6 was the introduction because I believe that Paul really wanted to get to verse 1 of chapter 7. Verse 1 is the so what.

Verse 1 is the part of Paul's message where he allows them to say so what do I do. From Paul he is saying so this is what I want to do. This is the message in action starting in verse 1 and that's right where we are starting this morning with verse 1. Now I'll go ahead and give you the title of the message. Christian holiness part 2. Holiness is expected. Holiness is expected and we will divide this one verse and you see how we will divide it. There's a lot of meat on the bone out of just this one verse. We see a personal cleansing. We will look at a personal defilement and then we will examine a personal process of holiness.

Very easy for you to write down all out of this one verse. So I'm going to read to you or with you this one verse out of the new American standard. Notice what it says. Therefore there's a transition there with that word. Having these promises beloved let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Now I'm going to read this verse from another translation. Really it is a paraphrase.

The amplified is a paraphrase and there is a difference in a paraphrase in the translation and many times in my study I'll read the amplified and just notice how there are a few more words added in here that help bring out the meaning. Therefore verse one since we have these and in brackets great and wonderful promises. Isn't that what we learn. These were wonderful and great promises from the Lord beloved. Let us cleanse ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit. The new American uses the word defilement.

The amplified says contaminates body and spirit completing holiness and then in brackets living a consecrated life a life set apart for God's purposes. Isn't that what Paul was saying and using himself as an example. Look at my life's purposes. In the end of the verse and the amplified in the fear of God. Now that is our launching off part. This is where we will start in the message. So let's look at our first major truth a personal cleansing. Go back to the verse. Therefore having these promises beloved let us cleanse ourselves.

Now from what we have studied about these Corinthians we do know that they did have a problem of worldliness and unholyness in their church and in their personal lives. We know this from all that Paul taught them in Chapter 6 and from other teaching out of the first and second Corinthians. Paul did not give them all of this instruction for nothing. These teachings out of Chapter 6 were not just there. It was because there were major problems in the church. Now we're just continuing to move through Paul's teaching here and there are two ways I want to break down just this portion of the verse. First I want us to see the motive.

I want us to see the motive. Look at the very beginning of verse 1. Therefore having these promises notice what Paul is saying. He is reminding them of the promises that he had given them earlier. Now what were the promises? These are the promises spoken of starting in verse 16 all the way down to verse 18. He does not remind them of the commands that are there. He reminds them of the promises. He is reminding them of their relationship to God. He is their dwelling place. He is their God. He will welcome them and they shall be his sons and his daughters. Go back to the verses. Starting in verse 16 and God said, "I will dwell in them.

I will walk among them. I will be their God." On down to verse 18. "And I will welcome you and I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me." So he is speaking to their heart's affections. He is speaking about their relationship that they have to God. And love is motivating God here. Love is motivating Paul here. And love should motivate these Corinthians as well. Paul is speaking to the reason why they should listen and heed these instructions. You see the motivation? Second notice the command here. Having these promises beloved, let us cleanse ourselves. Here we have an expectation. Here we have a command.

This is what is communicated here in this phrase, "Let us cleanse ourselves." Now if you study the original language, the verb here indicates that this is something that the believer is responsible for. Something that he or she is expected to do. And we see this same responsibility in many places throughout the scriptures and even in the New Testament. I'll read you a few. Jot these verses down for your own study. 1 John 1.9.

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." We see that Christians are responsible to confess their sins, to bring their sins before God in repentance. And it is God who promises to forgive and cleanse them of those sins. See the responsibility there? 1 John 2, or excuse me, 3. Verses 2 and 3. "Beloved, we are God's children now." In other words, we're converted. "And what we will be has not yet been appeared, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is." Verse 3.

"And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure." Again we see the Christian working, putting their fingers in this work of purifying their life. And then James 4, verse 8. "Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts." Again, this is the same thing that is taught here in James. "James commanded them to cleanse themselves." And in this verse, verse 1 of chapter 7, in these three verses we see the command, the expectation for the Christian to cleanse themselves. So what do we see here? Just in this small portion of verse 1, Paul knows these individuals.

He loves them. He has labored in their life. He knows the sins that have crept into their lives and into their church. And he is pulling on those heartstrings. He is motivating them through God's love and God's promises to their responsibility. They were expected to take action from Paul's instructions. They were expected to cleanse themselves. Well, an application that leads me to a question. What is our motive? What motivates us? Do we do these things out of duty? Do we do these things just because they are what we should do? Do we do these things because they are expected?

See, when you boil it all down, our motive should be we love God, we know God, and we want to obey God's word because we love God. We talked about that in Bible study on Wednesday night. The fact that we know God and we love God and that motivates us. Maybe we need to be reminded of our motive. Maybe we've eased away from that love and being reminded of that love. I have a fresh reminder of that love coming up this week for me. My spiritual birthday is this week. I was converted on February the 9th of 1989. So this week I will reminisce and praise and worship the Lord and I'll be reminded of the great work that God did in me.

And I am motivated by love. But we must also see our great responsibility. We are responsible to purify our lives, to work hard in our lives for cleanliness and holiness. And look, what we see here is a great tension. A great tension between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. The fact that Paul is commanding them to take action, but yet they cannot do this on their own. There are several commentators and resources that I use and from time to time something that a commentator says, it just grips me and I think I wish I could say it that way. That's why I quote them sometimes.

Listen to what Albert Barnes says, an old Presbyterian commentator, very solid. Notice what he says. And I quote, "While it is true that all purifying influence and all holiness proceeds from God," notice God's sovereignty there? "It proceeds from God. It is also true that the effect of all the influences of the Holy Spirit," there's God working, God's sovereignty, "is to excite us to diligence to purify our own hearts." There's our action. "And to urge us to make strenuous efforts to overcome our own sins." You see God working his sovereign work and our responsibility, that's what Paul is doing.

He is trying to motivate them through love and the promises of God and ultimately God is moving them on towards taking action. Now I want to warn you of two errors here. There are two traps. I've seen people fall in both of these. The first trap or the first error is this, is to take no responsibility for one's own personal holiness and they just say it like this, "Well this is something that I can't do. It's a work of God and I'm waiting on God." They'll use language about God's sovereignty a lot in this and they're waiting on God. They parked it and they're waiting on God. They're expecting God to do something that God's called them to do.

Now what are the results? Nothing ever happens. They're waiting on God to work and God's already commanded them. And when you have an individual like that, they will use church words and they will use phrases and they will quote scripture but what you do is you boil it down and you see that they are not taking responsibility for their own purification and nothing ever happens. Well what's the other trap? The other one is for one to think that they can cleanse themselves without the leading of God in their life. Now what does that look like?

A picture of that is when you have an individual and they get two, three, four, five steps ahead of God and they're not being moved of God. God is not working in their life. They're doing it in their flesh. A lot of times what comes out of that is pride. A lot of times is what comes out of that is ego. A lot of times what comes out of that is just religion. It's externals. And there's not this working of God in their life. Neither of the two work. We must remember this is relational. This is personal. Paul is talking to these Corinthians who have been born from God.

God dwells within their heart and their life and the Spirit of God through Paul is wooing them and energizing them toward a personal holiness and he is saying put your hands to the plow in this work. Get busy. Now the second major truth is a personal defilement. A personal defilement. Therefore having these promises beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement. Now we have seen that Paul expected these Corinthian Christians to take their responsibility seriously. He was calling them the action. Specifically he was calling them to cleanse themselves. Next he shows them the objective of this cleansing.

Now he does not get as specific as some of us might think he should but he gives them direction and this is very important. Three ways I want to break this down. First I want you to see that they were defiled. Isn't that what the new American says? From all defilement. This word defilement is translated filthiness in the King James. Now this is a very unique Bible word. The noun form of this word is found only here in this verse. Now if you're familiar with what's called the Septuagint or the Greek Old Testament, it uses this word three times always referring to religious defilement or religious corruption.

Now the verb form of this word is found in other places in the New Testament. 1 Corinthians 8,7 uses this word in the verb form. Revelation 3,4. Revelation 14,4. And all three examples mean defilement, corruption and pollution. And it speaks of corrupting one's desires and appetites. So what am I showing you? Whether the noun form or the verb form, it's always about defilement and filthiness and pollution in one's life. But Paul gets a little more specific now. Notice second, that their body was defiled. It calls them to cleanse themselves from all defilement of flesh.

The new American, the King James, reads flesh while other translations read body. It could be either one. Here Paul is getting more specific. He is stating that this defilement, it has corrupted their physical appetites, their physical passions, therefore affecting their physical bodies. These defilements were affecting their physical bodies. And then third, their spirit was defiled. What does he say? Let us cleanse ourselves from the defilement of flesh and spirit. Here it seems that Paul is speaking about their thinking, which ultimately affects the spirit of a man.

Whereas defilements of the flesh start with physical appetites and passions, spiritual defilements seem to speak of corruption of the mind and of the soul. Barnes lists examples such as pride and revenge and selfish ambition those things which would affect the mind and the soul. And these defilements were affecting their minds and their spirits. So what do we see here? Paul calls them to cleanse themselves from corruption of the flesh. Corruption and pollution from the body and in the mind and in the spirit. He is calling them to their responsibility and the objects of their responsibility.

Their bodies and their spirits were corrupt, defiled, filthy. He is not naming sins and consequences but he is giving them specific direction here. Now how might we apply this to our lives here in this day? We need to first see that sin corrupts, sin pollutes, and sin defiles. I thought of a good example. I remember when I was in India, if you weren't careful you would drink polluted water. I remember being at one of the orphanages they had a nice looking water well there. If it was a well in any of our backyards we probably would have thought it was good drinking water.

But right next to the water well which they said was shallow was a septic system. They said when you bathe in that water you better close your eyes and close your mouth. It's polluted. I even saw water when I looked at it, it looked mighty polluted and we wouldn't dare drink it. Why? Because of sickness. Now that's a good physical example and we must see that sin pollutes, sin defiles, sin defiles our body and sin defiles our spirit. I'll give you a good example too. When one sins sexually they are sinning against their body.

Now ultimately spiritually they are affected but when one sins sexually the scriptures say they are engaging in sinful behavior with their body and they are sinning against their body. But yet if we turn it around bad theology and bad doctrine corrupts the mind and corrupts the spirit. That's what was going on in the Corinthian church. Later bad doctrine had come in and it affected them spiritually. So we must see that Paul is giving some specific direction. He's saying you are defiled, your bodies are defiled because of certain sins and your souls, your mind, your spirits are defiled because of other sins.

Now Paul is doing something key here. He is trusting the spirit that resides within them to make specific application in their life. We talked about that Wednesday night when we discussed discernment. Now let's move on. Our third major truth I want us to see a personal process of holiness. Therefore having these promises beloved let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear that really would mean reverence for God. Here we see Paul revealing to the Christians that this work it takes time. It is a process. The English standard reads bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

Now what is communicated here is that holiness is carried out to its completion. Paul is calling them to begin this work in their hearts, in their minds and also in their bodies. Now this does not communicate that they can come to complete imperfect holiness in this life. No that's not the case. But they are responsible to make every effort to be holy and to strive for perfection in holiness. This is what we call sanctification. It is a process of being made more holy and more Christ like and more obedient. There are lots of scriptures that communicate this process. I'll read you one scripture and then give you a biblical example.

The entire book of Romans or excuse me chapter six of Romans is all about personal sanctification. It's all about personal holiness being worked out in one's life. Let me read you one verse. Verse 19. I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and the lawlessness leading to more lawlessness. So now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. That's that process of walking with God, walking in obedience and being made more Christ like and more holy day in and day out. I'll give you a great example.

The Old Testament character of Abraham. You study his life. What do we see? We see a journey of sanctification. God calls him out of his pagan lifestyle in Genesis 12. We see him be obedient. We see him be disobedient. We see him struggle with faith. We see him be a great man of faith and although his journey goes up and although his journey goes down he is on a continuous course of sanctification and gradually over time he begins to have victory over sins that had haunted him in his day. Sanctification. Progressive holiness being carried out in his life.

And so for us, for you, for me, we must see that as we walk with the Lord in walking obedience there is a process of being made more like Christ. Now look, you cannot have this unless you know God, unless you walk with God. It is relational. You can't do it by coming to church. You can't do it with just your name on the roll. You cannot do it by just being a good Baptist. You must be connected to Christ and you can't do this without prayer that is communion with God and the Word. Those two are key because when we pray we are fellowshipping with God and it's the Word that is the pattern by which we live by. So we are connected to Christ.

We are walking in the Word and we are walking with God in prayer and not only does it take the Word in prayer, it takes a life plug into the church. We can't do this alone. We need each other. We need the body of Christ. That's why so many Christians suffer because they are in sick, defiled churches. I can name names. That's why so many Christians suffer. It's because they don't have brothers and sisters in a church to come alongside them. And not only does it take prayer, not only does it take the Word, not only does it take brothers and sisters in the church, this takes successes and failures.

Now I'm not saying God ordains your failures, but we are sinners saved by grace. And in our walk of sanctification and being made more like God, there will be failures in our life. And when we bring those failures and sins to the Lord, it's God who works through us in spite of those and we grow through those. Isn't that what we see in Abraham? Isn't that what we're seeing here in these Corinthians? Now I want to move away from this verse and all the other verses and I want to examine the Corinthian situation. I've been really careful all week not to make a mistake. I was sharing this with Brother Keith last night.

I do not want to jerk chapter 6 and verse 1 of chapter 7 out of the context. A lot of people make that mistake. I want to stay true to this original audience and Paul's original intention. Paul was writing to a particular people. He was writing to people he knew. He was writing to a particular church and he was dealing with certain sins that were in the lives of these people and in the life of this church. And I want to examine their situation and use this examination in our journey. This will help us as we proceed and it's very, very necessary. What about the city of Corinth? It's important for us to understand what this city was like.

Corinth was a horribly wicked and immoral city. It was a major trade city so it had lots of outside influences but mostly it was a Greek culture with very little if any Jewish influence. Now I want to pause there. When you have a city who has heavily, who is influenced heavily by Judaism, they have the knowledge of the one true God and a lot of times there would be a fabric of morality in the city, not Corinth. It was all Greek, it was all immoral, it was all wicked. Now this was a very progressive city. They had what was called the Istmian games which rival the Olympic games in that day.

But Corinth was mostly known for its immorality and debauchery. Even the pagans of the day noted this and the name Corinth became synonymous with immorality, moral depravity and debauched living. It is important to note what fueled this debauchery and this immorality. Where did all of this emanate from? The city of Corinth housed the temple of Aphrodite which was the Greek goddess of love. And in Paul's day there would have been over a thousand temple priestesses which were really prostitutes. And in worshipping this Greek goddess of love you know what took place, gross immorality.

One source that I read this week said that the temple prostitutes would go out into the city every evening to seduce the men of the city and seduce travelers and tradesmen who came into Corinth. And let me tell you this Greek goddess of love corrupted the city from the inside out. But remember what God did we studied Acts chapter 18. There was a church born out of this city, out of this wicked culture and these Corinthians had come out of this church. If I can use this language when they're assembled and they're in their pews they could look around and they knew the lifestyle those people had previously led.

It wasn't that Paul bust in some good clean Jews, no these were pagans that God had worked in their life. It is important for us to see what is taking place in this church. There are three major problems here. Now all week I have worked real hard to get my mind around this Corinthian situation and you can boil it all down to three major problems in the church. It might seem like an oversimplification but it's not. And you can take every sin that was in the Corinthian church and place them in one or more of these three problem areas. I'll put them on the screen for you.

I'm going to talk through them and I'm going to make a little application and I think you'll see where we're going first. The people in the church they were going back into Corinth. First major problem. These Christians and these people in the church because some were not converted they were unable to break from the culture and break from the sin within the society. They were going back to immorality. They were going back to the city's pagan ways. You can say it like this. Someone would be converted and they would say well my mom and my dad they're still pagan and you know I might not do like they do but I still go to church with them.

They could not break from the city's pagan ways and the people had not broken from Corinth. They had not broken from the sin of the city. So what we see is the church is still in the world. The church is still in Corinth. First major problem. See we need to see that that is a major problem today. Is that a problem for you? Do you have one foot in the church and one foot in the world? I don't know everything that goes on in your life. Do you have one foot in the church and then one foot in the world? Do you have a secret life at work and a secret life with your friends and a secret life at home? Are you going back into the city?

Are you coming to church on Sunday but yet the rest of the week you go back into Corinth? The second major problem. The people in the church were bringing Corinth into the church. We see this in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. There was gross immorality in the life of the church. This was incestuous immorality. It was so bad that even the pagans condemned it. Now where did it come from? Remember Corinth was horribly immoral. All types and stripes of immorality went on. So what do we see? Some of this immorality just pranced right down the aisle and plopped into the pew. We see it in 1 Corinthians 11. Remember that issue with the Lord's Supper there?

The Lord's Supper was being affected by worldliness. They had made the Lord's Supper one big fat Corinthian feast and drunk fest. That's what they did. What did they do? They brought the Corinthian barbecue into the Lord's Supper. They were bringing Corinthian sinfulness in the church. We see this going more than we know around us. Now I'm going to be honest with you. I don't think we have this problem here. We don't do lots of the things that certain people do but I'm telling you a lot of people do this. Let me explain. Now with the Lord's Supper they were bringing in a feast, drunkenness, just one big party.

But isn't that what some churches do when they bring in all these worldly entertainments? I've been there people. I've seen people raise their hands and shout and scream hallelujah and get all in an emotional fit and yet their personal life is not affected. It's just one big party. Now I'm going to use my Holy Spirit imagination here. I have to imagine in Corinth when the abuse of the Lord's Supper was going on. There were people who loved the Lord and they came and they wanted to remember the broken body of Christ. They wanted to remember that spilled blood.

I've got to believe there were people came and they wanted to worship through the Lord's Supper and they could not. Why? Because it was nothing more than a big Corinthian feast and festival and drunkenness right there. I've gone to church before and I wanted to worship and I wanted to hear the Lord and I could not because the church was full of nothing but entertainments. I couldn't hear the word. It's too noisy. I couldn't hear a message of holiness. The people on the stage were too busy saying all of you love the Lord just because you're jumping around. It's the same thing.

But what about this incestuous relationship in the life of the church? I've never seen anything that gross but I tell you what, I've seen men leave their wives and shack up with somebody else and just over a time they ease on back in the church and the next thing you know they're in leadership. They might not be a deacon anymore but they're still taking up their offering. And I have heard pagans outside the church scoff. See what I mean? Now the third problem is the people in the church were allowing legalistic religion in the church. We see this more in the second letter rather than the first letter.

See if you look at the letters together you will see this. The Judaizers had come and they began to denounce Paul as a false apostle. They promoted their mixture of grace and keeping the law of Moses. It was a grace plus works which was not what Paul taught. The people who knew Paul were distancing themselves from Paul and his doctrine for what? For the Judaizers and their works. And listen this was a works based grace. It was fueled by pride and it was a demonic doctrine because it wouldn't save anyone and they were involving themselves in this legalistic worldly religion. Let me show you something here.

A lot of people will say well pastor if you preach on theology and doctrine you'll bore people and kill the church. No that's the lifeblood of the church. If I do not teach you proper doctrine in theology then you will be susceptible to what? Bad doctrine. Those men and those women who knew Paul when the Judaizers came along they should have stuck up and said that isn't what Paul taught us. That's not how Paul acted. That contradicts what Paul said and they should have run them out of the church. They didn't do it. They have failed to pray to bad doctrine and that's why the pulpit is important.

That's why sound doctrine and sound theology is important because when I'm taking you by the hand and I'm walking you through these difficult things, these difficult theologies, these things that are hard for you to understand I am protecting you for tomorrow. I'm preparing you for what might come around the corner two, three, four, five years from now. I am helping you for when one day you've moved away and you're in another church. Now a couple of questions. Could it be that some are defiled like they were? Could it be that some of you are going back into Corinth? Could it be that some of you want to bring Corinth into the church?

Could it be that some of you have been affected by a legalistic bad doctrine? None of us have perfect doctrine. Let me give you an example about doctrine and theology. I don't know if you're familiar with how a compass works but when you take a compass and you chart that course north it is on what's called zero degrees. If you turn that compass to the east just a little it won't be zero anymore. It'll be two, three, four, five degrees and listen if you stay off that course you know where you end up you're not going north.

Oh but if you turn that thing to the west the first thing you'll see is 360 degrees and then what you will not be going north. What am I showing you? We are all struggling to keep the compass of sound doctrine pointed towards the north and it takes due diligence. That's why the pulpit is so important. Could it be that some of you are more defiled than you know? Could it be that some of you need more cleansing? Now I go back and say this I do not think we're bringing Corinth into church. I don't think we have theological issues. Now all of us come with different theological issues. I've had to deal with my fair share.

Now just like last week's message in chapter six remember chapter six really set up chapter seven verse one. Remember I got all the way through chapter six and I told you it was just the introduction. Introduction. Well to be honest with you this is really the introduction. This is the introduction of where we're going next week. Now next week we will have our third and our final message on Christian holiness. Now let me go ahead and give you the title. It's simple but it's odd. Thou shalt not question mark. We're going to deal with some of those thou shalt question mark. The scripture has a lot of thou shalt. You shall do this.

You shall not do this. You can do this. You can't do this. A lot of things are black and white but there are a lot of things that are just not so black and white. A lot of things are what we might call gray and we're going to take what we've learned in chapter six and hear in verse one and we're going to venture into that land and look we're going to use this Corinthian problem. We're going to look at these three major sin areas and we're going to learn. We're going to take all that and we're going to step over into thou shalt not question mark. I believe this will challenge some of you. I believe this will correct some of you.

I believe this will help some of you be on a better path. I believe there's a whole world of good that God would do through this. Not just today. Not just next week but in the days and weeks and years to come. Let's pray and then we'll sing a closing verse and then we will dismiss.