Christian Holiness part 4 Holiness, Diversity and Unity

Like I said earlier, I did miss worshiping with you last week and being under the word together, but I have listened to what Brother Keith shared and administered to me. Part of my personal devotion time this week is to go back again and listen, let those messages speak to my heart. I appreciate how he has the ability to just come alongside where we are going together. He does that regularly and I am confident that the Lord used him in your life as well. Well take your Bible, turn this morning to 2 Corinthians 7 verse 1 and then I also want you to turn to Romans chapter 14.

We will start in our familiar passage, 2 Corinthians 7 verse 1 and then Romans 14. It has been my purpose all along to use verse 1 as a launching pad. It is the starting gate of this race that we are calling Christian Holiness. Now we have been exploring the subject of Christian Holiness for several weeks by now. We have had 3 messages on the subject and we have had several weeks to study, to pray and to evaluate our lives. Now question, what do I as the pastor, the teaching pastor, mean by study, pray and evaluate? We should study the notes that we take when we are under the Word of God.

We should go back in our own times and study the Scriptures more and more. If you study on your own these subjects, you will find yourself going in many different places in the Word. We might even need to find ourselves needing to re-listen to one of the messages so that we can capture all that the Lord wants to give us. We should pray over Holiness for our own lives. When we pray, we should humbly open up our hearts to God, desiring His will, not ours, for these areas in our life.

We should evaluate our lives and we must admit that we can have defilement, if I can use that 2 Corinthians 7 verse 1 word, we can have defilement in our lives and we must be willing to repent of any sin that the Lord reveals that is polluting our lives. Now there are 2 things I want you to remember. Remember our goal and also remember our motivation. Our goal comes out of our 2 Corinthians passage. Look at your Scriptures if you would. Now this is the second part of verse 1. Paul says, "Completing our perfecting holiness in the fear," that is the reverence of God. I like the Amplified.

It says, "Living a consecrated life set apart for God's purpose." So what Paul is doing is he is showing them the goal. They are to strive and work hard for holiness in their life, knowing they are set apart for Him. But then what is the motivation? We are redeemed, those of us who are born again. And we learn in chapter 6 that we are the divine dwelling place of God. God lives within us. And so we are motivated because we belong to God and He lives in our life.

This goal and this motivation should thrust us into this work of Christian holiness and this should start a flame within our hearts that should burn all of the days of our lives until we leave this earth. Now as we approach this work of Christian holiness, it is vitally important for us to see that this work is done in two arenas. First it is in the individual life, yours and mine. And then second, it is in the life of the church, this church that God has given us. We are working for individual holiness and corporate holiness. Now a warning here, we all need to heed this warning. We can't minimize either of the two.

Biblically, we cannot divorce one from the other. We mutilate the Word of God if we do. Now I want to help you here. Sometimes we just need all the help we can get. If you are like your pastor, you need plenty of help. Now if the church was like a piece of art, we would be a collage. Webster's dictionary defines a collage, and I'm quoting, "as an artistic composition made of various materials such as paper, cloth or wood, all glued on a surface," continuing with the definition, "are cut pieces of magazines to make a collage." Now as the church, we are called by Christ in salvation, and we are called to His work called the church.

We all have different personalities, talents, likes and dislikes. We all have different childhood experiences, backgrounds and families. We all have different church experiences, theological strengths and weaknesses. We all have different experiences with sin and propensities to certain sin, as well as victory with certain sin. We are like a collage. We are various materials called by Christ into His church and glued on the surface of the spiritual and physical institution called the church.

Our striving for personal holiness is important, and it is beautiful, but it is more important and more beautiful when understood and seen in the context of the local church, and some of us need to be reminded of that reality. Now back in part three, Christian holiness part three, we looked at the fact that the Bible is full of black and white commandments from both Old and New Testament. And then we looked at the fact that there are many areas in life where the Bible gives no clear commandments. These are the gray areas of life. These are the areas of life where some Christians have firm opinions, while some have freedom and liberty.

Now sadly, these are the areas where many argue, many fight. These are the areas where even strong Christians can separate, and these are the areas where even churches split. I think we've all seen fighting and arguing in some of these areas in our experiences. Now this morning, I want to go a little deeper into how to deal with the gray areas, a little more application. And then I want to transition to see that the work of Christian holiness leads us to a very and much needed question. So first, let's just talk about going deeper in the gray areas. Remember these were the thou shalt question marks.

Now in our last message, I presented to us a very incomplete list of gray areas. I know some of you added to that list, in your mind at least. Some of you had thought about some of the things I shared, while some of you might not have thought about some of the issues that I brought up. Now I gave lots of direction in how to deal with the gray areas, but here I will give a little more direction because I want to equip you properly so that you can work through these areas in your life. Number one, we must evaluate how we present our lives, how we present ourselves in our life. Remember those Corinthians were going into Corinth?

Now we go out in our life, in everything that we do, and we must evaluate how we present our lives to every man, woman, boy and girl and the culture. Now I mentioned clothing styles and choices last week. And we must ask ourselves if we present in our dress, if we present ourselves worthy of Christ and considered holy. Now let me get a little specific. This always leads to the dress of our ladies. Now you know, and I don't have to tell you, we live in a sexually saturated culture. And it is very important how you ladies present yourselves. Now I want to be honest with you.

You might need to go and evaluate what's hanging in your closet and what you might put on. We do not need to see our ladies having clothes on that are revealing and that accentuate the body. Now men, you need to be responsible here. Sometimes you might need to look at your wife or your daughter and say you really don't need to do that. Moms, you need to be responsible. Dads need to be responsible. We are responsible for how we present our bodies. And if God holds a man accountable for lust, He definitely holds a woman accountable for provoking that. So ladies, let's get serious and evaluate how we present or you present your bodies.

Now one thing I did mention last week is how we talk, how we speak. This falls into that category, how we present our lives. And men, I want to ask you, how do you talk at work? I mean if you profess to be a Christian but yet your talk is a little salty, what do the laws see in here? How do we talk when we're at the deer camp or the fist camp with our buddies? How do we talk when no one is around? You know one of my pet peeves is I call them secondhand cuss words. Oh, we don't want to say that really bad word but we'll have one that's real close. Is that clean? Is it pure? Is it something that a Christian should say? So what am I saying?

We must evaluate how we present our lives, how we present our lives to our children and our neighbors and our coworkers when we go out into our Corinth. Now second, or number two, we need to evaluate what comes into our lives. We evaluate what goes out, now we evaluate what comes in. Now last week I mentioned TV, I mentioned movies, I mentioned music, I mentioned the Internet. This is easy to see. But what about all the influences on us that come into our lives? What about the influences of our families? What about the influences of our friends? Some of us, we might need to evaluate these influences.

Some of you need to examine the television shows that you watch, the music that you might listen to, the movies that you might watch. And I told you last week, some of this so-called Christian music is just as dangerous. Chock full of bad theology. Some of you need to examine your Internet usage and social media. Is it godly? Is it holy? And is it something that needs to be coming into our family and into our children's lives? Some of you, I'm sad to say, have terribly unchristian family and they influence you.

Television might not influence you, but you have parents and grandparents that are very ungodly and they can influence you and they can make a terrible impact on your children. And then number three, what about our habits? You know, anytime the preacher preaches like this, these habits come up. Now I know I mentioned alcohol and tobacco use, but this needs to be dealt with because these are a part of our culture. Inevitably, it comes up, is it a sin to drink? Now there was a day I would have fought you tooth and nail and I would have promised you the Bible says it is a sin to take one drop. But you know the Bible doesn't say that.

But you know, a question that comes to my mind is what is its purpose? I heard a preacher this week and he was exploring the question, is it a sin to smoke marijuana? And the pastor handled it skillfully. He said, yes, it's a sin because it alters the mind and the Bible says that drunkenness is a sin. And I venture to say that most people, their purpose in drinking is to get as close to drunkenness as they can. You know, I thought about it like this. If I went to a restaurant and I had one social drink, maybe two social drinks, and I got in my car and drove down the road and I was pulled over.

Or if I had an automobile accident and killed someone, see, what is its purpose? We have plenty of good beverages today. I mean, you can walk down the aisles of Walmart and they're more soda pops and you can shake a stick out. What is its purpose? And I can't say that it is a sin to drink, but we need to evaluate that. In every event I've ever been where people have the liberty to drink socially, it always seemed to cross the line. I always found myself wanting to either drive out way ahead of them or way behind them. But inevitably we have to ask this question, is it a sin to smoke? Is it a sin to use tobacco?

Now listen, we need to evaluate these things because these things are a matter of habit and enslavement. And some people are in bondage to these things. And these things are detrimental to our health. Listen, in many ways you can describe this as slow suicide because we have modern science and modern medicine and we need to evaluate that. I'll be honest with you, if you abstain from these things and you get down to the end of your life, I don't believe you'll regret it. But if you partake in these things and you get down to the end of your life and you're suffering the ramifications, I believe you will regret it.

And lost people view these things. They see these things. What about our habits? We should evaluate these things. And we saw that the Corinthian church, they needed the biblical pattern, did they not? Now chapter 6, Paul was doing all kinds of good teaching. But starting in verse 4, Paul was giving his life as a pattern and he was giving them the Word of God. And this was part of the four points of application that I gave. And I want to emphasize that the Corinthians needed the Word. And I want to emphasize to you in application.

We need to dive head first into the Word of God and we need to sift through all of these areas, all of these gray areas, all of these questions according to the Word of God. You know I had an image come to my mind this week studying. Maybe this will help you. I remember as a kid growing up, we lived in two different houses. But the first house we lived in was in the south part of Laurel. It was a working class part of Laurel that just boomed in the 1950s and we didn't live on a cul-de-sac. We lived on a circle. But there in my home growing up on 19 Gladiola Circle, I can remember as a kid being in the kitchen when my mom would cook.

And she would take that flower, maybe it was of poor quality and she would sift it. And she had a sifter and it had to be her grandmother's because it sure looked like it had been down through the ages. And she would take that flower and put in that sifter and she would shake it just so over the bowl to make sure that any impurities were taken out. Some of us need to take some of these issues that we're facing and even issues that I've never mentioned and sift them through the Word of God. Now you must be a student of the Word and if the Word sifts it out as unchristian and unholy and even questionable, is it worth it?

Now I want to add to that. This must be done through prayer. In prayer we open up our lives humbly to the Lord and we're saying, "Lord, is this a sin? Is this healthy? Is this good?" And we're sifting it by the Word and then God uses that God-given tool. It is called the conscience. See when we have proper knowledge and when we submit to the Spirit of God, it is the conscience that will be violated. Now if you don't have good knowledge, your conscience might not act accurately.

I like what Warren Wiersby says, "Conscience is strengthened by knowledge so when we put the Word of God in our minds and in our hearts, the knife of the conscience is sharpened." And then remember we talked about discernment and all of this comes into play. So I'm going deeper in the gray areas because I'm pushing you, I'm leading you, I'm encouraging you to pray and to be in the Word and listen to the voice of God as He uses your conscience and look for that discernment that comes with more maturity because we need to evaluate these areas. Now this brings me to the question.

What do we do when we disagree with fellow Christians in the gray areas? Inevitably we will not all land on the same side of the coin. What do we do when we disagree with fellow Christians in the gray areas of life? Now with the black and white, thou shalt commandments, we should always agree. All Christians everywhere should always agree that stealing is wrong, adultery is wrong and much more. Warren Wiersby says, and I quote, "There are certain truths that all Christians must accept because they are the foundation of the faith." I like that part, the foundation of the faith.

But what do we do when we find ourselves disagreeing in these gray areas where there is not clear teaching? I'll give you a couple of examples ahead of time before we dive off into Romans 14. Two stories. That's the story of Jim Elliot, Nate St., Ed McCully, Pete Fleming and Roger Udarian. Many of you know who these men were. They were five American missionaries who were killed in 1956 trying to reach an unreached Ecuadorian Indian tribe with the gospel. They are considered by the church as modern day martyrs for their actions. And I agree with that statement. Now Jim Elliot was born in 1927 and Roger Udarian in 1924.

Now if you do the math, you will see that these young men came of age during World War II. Roger Udarian was in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1946. He was a paratrooper and as a matter of fact, he participated in the Battle of the Bulge, a very important battle in Europe. Now interestingly, Jim Elliot was a staunch pacifist. That means he was opposed to violence and he was opposed to war. And if you read his journals, which I have, you will see that he openly spoke out against war all through his high school years. Now a question. How did these two men deal with such differences?

This could have been very divisive in their lives and it could have impeded their ministries together, but it seems like it never was an issue. How in the world did they deal with these two differences? Second story is the story of Richard Wombourand. Richard Wombourand was a Romanian Lutheran pastor who was imprisoned by the Romanian Communists in 1948. That was when communism took control of Eastern Europe. He endured 14 years of imprisonment as well as brutal torture. After his release and having been examined by doctors, they said he should have never lived through his torture and injuries.

Now interestingly, when you look at pictures of Wombourand in his pulpit, before his arrest, you will see in the background a picture of Jesus. There are many Christians that see this as a direct violation of the second commandment of the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20 verse 4 reads, "You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven." Some see this as a violation because they see this as representative, meaning the image represents God, a violation of the text. There are others who see a picture like this as symbolic, meaning the image merely points to God. Now obviously Wombourand saw this as symbolic.

Now a question, how do you deal with such differences? Clearly Richard Wombourand was a great man of God and he was used greatly for God. After his release, he went on to have a great ministry founding what is called today Voices of the Martyrs. Yet there are others just as godly and just as useful who see the image as a great sin. So let's continue, but I want to narrow this question down even more. What do we do when we disagree with each other in the gray areas? Even these areas that are very hard to sort out. Now for the answers to this question, we must go to Romans 14.

Now as you're turning to that chapter, I want to give you just a little context. It needs to be brought to your attention. Paul, at this point, had not visited the Roman church and he was writing to the church there in Rome, a very large city, the capital city of its day. And he was unknown to the church as an apostle and he was writing them to teach them of the great truths of the grace of God. Now to understand chapter 14, you must understand who is in the church. The church consisted of both Jew and Gentile. Within the church there were mature and immature believers, both Jew and Gentile.

Within the church there were many Jewish Christians who would not observe Jewish feast days or Jewish dietary laws, which would be offensive to the immature Jewish Christians who still held onto these practices. Also in the church, many mature Gentile Christians would see no problems eating meats that had been sacrificed to idols. But this was very offensive to young Gentile Christians who were recently converted from paganism. Some were bound by strong opinions or convictions while others exercised great freedoms. So out of this chapter, we will find our direction and our instruction.

Now for the sake of time, I will not read the entire chapter. That's your assignment to go study it on your own this week. But I want to make us some observations, six, or excuse me, five, and then application out of these observations. So first, notice that we must accept one another. We must accept one another. Look at verse 1. Now accept the one who has weakened the faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. Now the new American that I read from uses the word accept. The King James uses the word receive. The English standard says welcome him. All of these words say the same thing.

Now this word in the original means personally and willingly accept one another. But notice who is being accepted, the weak. So Paul is commanding the mature to accept the immature, the strong to accept the weak. The strong Jewish believers who had freedom from Jewish regulations had to welcome those weaker Jewish believers who still held to those regulations. The strong Gentile believers who had freedoms had to welcome those weaker Gentile believers who had strong opinions concerning the meat sacrificed to idols. So what do we see here? Paul is showing us that liberty and conviction must walk hand in hand. That's what he's saying.

You over here, you have liberty and freedom. You over here, you have strong conviction and opinion. You must walk down the center aisle of the church and hand in hand. What does he say? Welcome them, receive them, accept them, purposely, personally and willingly. And for you and for me, when we find ourselves and we're not on the same page here with some of these gray areas, we must walk hand in hand accepting one another as blood-bought children of God brought into his church. Second, we must not despise or judge one another.

Go back to verse 1, "But not for the purpose of passing judgment." Then we see on down to verse 3, "Let not him who eats regard with contempt him who does not eat, and lot not him who does not eat judge him who eats." We see this same language in verse 4, and then we see it in verse 10. If you go back through in your own time and you look at the word contempt or despise and judge, you will see it pop up all the way through. So here in these verses, we see some very strong language again. Verse 3 in the English Standard Version reads, "Despise the New American contempt." And this word means to consider someone worthless. So what is he saying?

Do not despise them, do not consider them worthless. This word judge, it means to strongly condemn. Here the strong held the weak in contempt as legalistic and self-righteous, while the weak judged the strong as reckless and sinful. You see the great contention there? I mean, it was almost, I've got to believe, down to a bare knuckles fight in the life of the church. What is he saying? Don't despise and don't condemn and don't judge and don't value that one as worthless. I believe I can help us here.

We must never walk up to a seeming brother and sister in Christ and stand on our tiptoes and look down our nose and say, "Why do you do this?" Could it be more beneficial? If we humbly walked up to a brother and sister and we said, "Would you please tell me how this works out in your Christian life? Tell me what God has done in your life in this area and how you see this in the Word of God. Would it be more beneficial to you and to me and the body of Christ if we don't walk up on our tiptoes and make sure we come humbly?" And we say, "How? Tell me how this works in your life." Isn't that what he's saying here? Quit despising.

Quit looking down. Stop judging. Then third, we must not violate our conscience. Look at verse 5, verse 6. One man regards one day above another. See that's the Jewish days, feast days. Another regards every day alike. Let each man be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day observes it for the Lord. And he who eats does it so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God and he who eats not for the Lord, he does not eat and gives thanks to God. What is Paul saying? Here Paul deals with these issues as a matter of conscience.

He is telling them that they must follow the leadings of their conscience in these matters that are not clearly spelled out by the Scriptures. The great quotation by John MacArthur that helped us here, and I quote, "Each Christian must follow the dictates of his own conscience in matters not specifically commanded or prohibited in Scripture. Since conscience is a God-given mechanism to warn and responds to the highest standard of moral law in the mind, it is not sensible to train yourself to ignore it.

Rather respond to its violations and as you mature by learning more, your mind will not alert it to those things which are not essential." You see that progression of sanctification there? The more you grow, the more we're in the Word, the more we walk together, we're more equipped, we have Bible knowledge, and our conscience works better and better and better. We must not violate our conscience. Then fourth, we must not destroy others with our freedoms. We'll give verse 14, "I know and I am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself." What is Paul saying?

That meat sacrificed to an idol is not unclean, that idol doesn't exist, it's a fairy tale. "But to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean." Verse 15, "For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer working in accordance to love. Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died." Verse 16, "Therefore do not let what is for good for you a good thing to be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and the joy in the Holy Spirit." Here Paul uses another strong word in verse 15. This word destroy, it means to bring about complete devastation.

It's used many times in the New Testament and it is used to speak of eternal destruction. But Paul here commands those who have freedoms not to destroy the weaker Christians who do not have freedoms. Now I've said before the reason I use quotations is sometimes another man just says it in a way that I can't. Now I ran across something this week that Warren Wiersby said that I disagreed with. But as of last night when I finished working through these chapters, these verses in Romans think he's right. Wiersby says, "Areas of honest disagreement must not be made a test of fellowship." Now I agree with that.

These gray areas cannot be a test of fellowship. Let me continue. "If you have a sincere conviction from God about a manner," and this is where I had a problem. He says, "Keep it to yourself." And then he goes on to say, "And do not try to force everybody else to accept it." Now what do I think Wiersby's trying to say? We be careful with our freedoms because we don't want to harm each other. Be careful with our freedoms because some might not be able to interpret that properly, especially a new Christian, especially a vulnerable Christian. So what's the point here? We don't want to destroy each other.

And I don't know if you've seen that, but I have seen other Christians damage other Christians by their supposed freedoms. And then fifth, we must not tear down but build up. Starting in verse 19, it's all about building and building. So then let us pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another. Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are clean, but they are evil for the man who eats and gives offense. And he goes on down to show, to build up. And here it is clear Paul is moving these believers to peace in the church, to unity in the church, and love in the church.

You see destroying personal holiness in this? Is he just preaching compromise to these Roman Christians? No. He is preserving it in the midst of Christians who do not agree in the matters of conscience. Now I want to speak of an issue in the life of our church, and I think this will help us. Now this is an issue that can be very divisive in churches. I do not believe that this is divisive, but it could be. So in no way am I issuing a strong correction here, but I want you to see that this can be an issue. The area of education. Some of us are homeschoolers in our church. Some of us are public schoolers here in our church.

Some of us are private schoolers in our church. Now a question. Do the scriptures clearly state how we should educate our children? No, they do not. This is a matter of conscience. This is a matter of Christian opinion. This is a matter of conviction. Now you notice I use the word "us" all the way through? I did that on purpose. We're all bound together by Christ as brothers and sisters, and so what you do affects me and what I do affects you. And this is a matter of conscience. It's a matter of conviction and opinion. And some of us have strong convictions that differ from others of us who have different convictions and equally as strong.

Now what do we do? Romans 14 tells us. Listen church, there was no issue more divisive than the issues with the Jews and foods and days that they would have kept. I'm telling you, it would have been a fight in the eye. A little more application here. First we must welcome one another. You might say, "Pastor, you've already said that." Listen, do you know there are churches that basically they teach that if you don't homeschool, you're not welcome? Did you know there are churches that teach that if you don't hold firmly to their theological position you're not welcome? Now what am I showing you? We must welcome others.

Now we're not throwing out the fundamentals of the faith. No, that's not the issue. We must welcome others. That's what Paul said. Second, we must not judge one another. Have you ever been judged? Has someone ever come to you and stood on their tiptoes and looked down their nose and judged you? If it happens, you'll know it. I had some people come to my house one time and they began to lambast me and blast me and beat me over the head with the word of God and tried to tell me over and over and over why I was the most wicked person in the world because I didn't homeschool my children.

Now we don't homeschool our children because we're doing what God led us to do. I wasn't mad at those people. They were just wrong. Ultimately they ended up despising me. I wasn't rude, but they were wrong according to what Paul teaches. And third, we must be very, very careful how we influence each other. Listen, all of these matters, we must be led of God and we need to be careful in all of these areas how we influence. Now we can go up to a brother and a sister and say, "Tell me how this is working out. I love you. What's going on here?

Is this something that needs to be in your life?" But some of these things we need to be careful how we influence. Remember, if I get you to live just how I live, you'll be a clone of me. We don't need clones. If I get you to say all that I say, you'll be a parrot. But if you want with God and the word of God and you're led of God, then you'll mature and grow and you'll be the sanctified born-again Christian that God wants you to be. We need to be careful how we influence others. And then fourth, we need to see that we all need each other. God puts who He wants in His church. You might not know this.

Some of you who are homeschoolers, you've been a very good influence on me. I might not have ever told you that. But did you know that some of you homeschoolers, did you know that you might get blessed some of those mothers who never can homeschool? All of us, as we walk with God in our life and we're different, God uses us in each other's lives and we need each other. I need you and you need me. Now why do I use this issue of education? Because it's prevalent in our church. Again, this is not a firm correction. It's right here in front of us. And this shows us how we deal with the gray areas.

Now in conclusion, I want to ask you to remember something I said earlier. If we as a church were a piece of art, we would be a collage. Various materials, cut pieces, called by Christ in salvation and called to His work the church. We are glued on the surface of the spiritual and physical institution called the church. Now let me ask you a question. What happens if we take one piece off the collage? First of all, that piece looks insignificant. Remember it's just a piece of nothing. Isn't that what we are? But where is its place? It's in the collage. So when we take a piece off the collage, it looks insignificant.

It looks meaningless and it's out of place. But yet when it's a part of the collage, what? When we bring it back to its proper place, the collage is a work of art. It is a thing of beauty and it is a thing of beauty to the artist which is Christ Jesus. And it is a thing of beauty to those of us who are born of God. Now you know what it is to the world? Foolishness. The world looks at it and says, "That's just a bunch of cut up pieces of paper glued together. A child can do that." No, no, no. Now I have purposely not given you the title of the message. It's real simple. The title of the message is a part 4.

Christian holiness, Christian diversity, and Christian unity. We are striving for Christian holiness individually and corporately. I've said all along this is a lifelong work. Roll up our sleeves. I mean we're always in the Word. We're striving to be like Jesus. We do it together. We do it individually. And I need you and you need me. And then second, we're just this diverse group and it's okay and it's good. That's what makes the collage of the church so beautiful and it works so well. And then third, if we do this work well, then this work produces true Christian unity. I'll be honest with you.

When I look at Romans 14, I don't see a lot of unity. But I believe the Spirit of God is the Word of God and the people of God and it works. May the Lord help us in this work. Let us pray and then we'll sing and be dismissed. Lord Jesus, I thank you for your service.