[0:00] You know, the Bible talks so very much about God's love. And I think sometimes we forget the truth of the verse that really contains it all in just three simple words.
[0:12] ! It says God not just understands love, not just shows us love, but it says God is love. That means He is the source of it. That means all love really stems from God.
[0:30] And we get to experience that. And we just sang how deep the Father's love for us. The Bible says we can't even understand and comprehend the breadth and the depth of God's love for us.
[0:44] I mean, we get a taste of that. We understand how much we love our children. We understand how much we love our spouse, how much we love other people around us. Understand that pales in comparison to the way God loves us.
[0:57] That's the kind of love He has for us. And I hope we don't quickly forget that. All right. Romans is where we're at. It's where we've been. It's where we're going to probably be for a little while.
[1:10] And again, as we think about God's Word and just the depth of God's Word that shows His love for us, that's really what the Gospel is all about. And Romans really is confirmation of the Gospel.
[1:21] It talks about how important the Gospel should be in our lives. And this morning we're going to be in Romans chapter 5. But before we go to Romans chapter 5, you know what verse we're going to talk about first?
[1:32] You should be starting to get this a little bit if you've been here the last few Sundays. Romans chapter 1 verse 16.
[1:44] If this hasn't started to soak in a little bit and you've been here, you need to wake up. And you need to pay attention. And I, you know, maybe you're thinking, I'm getting tired of hearing this verse.
[1:56] I wish the pastor should just move on. I feel bad saying tough luck. But we're going to keep looking at it every week.
[2:11] Because the more we look at God's Word, I hope the more we understand that we need to be a reflection of it. That when we look at it, our lives need to start to reflect what God's Word shares.
[2:24] If we're not there now, we need to be heading that direction. And this is one of those verses that I hope we understand and reflect more and more in our lives. So let's share it together. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
[2:40] For it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it. To the Jew first and also to the Greek. Not ashamed of the gospel.
[2:53] It's the power of God to salvation. That is what the gospel is all about. And let's look now in Romans chapter 5 is really where we're going to be this morning. And I'm going to share beginning in verse 1.
[3:03] So I encourage you to find that and follow along. Romans chapter 5, first verse. And if you found that and you're able to stand, I'd encourage you to do that. Because the other thing I hope we understand is just how important God's Word needs to be in our life.
[3:18] You know, I think back to the Old Testament and if you remember when Moses went up in the mountain. And he went up and God spoke to him.
[3:31] And God gave him the Ten Commandments. And what did he do when he got those Ten Commandments? You know the story? What did he do? Kept it to himself and hit him.
[3:43] He went down from the mountain and what did he do? Shared it with the people. Do you think they listened? Well, not always. But when Moses said, this is what God had to say, do you think they paid attention?
[3:57] Not always. Should they have? Yeah. I am no Moses. I will be the first to say that. But what are we looking at this morning? God's Word for us, same thing.
[4:08] And it's the same question. Are we listening to what God has to say? And I pray that we are. So Romans chapter 5, beginning in the first verse, this is what God's Word shares. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
[4:34] And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation works patience and patience experience and experience hope. And hope makes not ashamed.
[4:44] Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
[4:57] For scarcely for a righteous man will one die. Yet perhaps for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commends His love towards us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
[5:12] Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
[5:30] And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.
[5:48] For under the law is sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned, after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of Him that was to come.
[6:04] But not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, has abounded to many.
[6:24] Let's pray together. Lord God, once again, we thank You for this time we have to share together. And Lord, as it's already been shared in praise time, we thank You for this gift of family that we can come together with.
[6:36] And Lord, we thank You for the gift of Your Word that we can read from and look at. And I pray, Lord, that You would give us an understanding this morning. And Lord, I know Your desire is to shape us and change us.
[6:46] And Lord, sometimes we're resistant to that. Lord, sometimes we just want to stay the person we are right now because that's more comfortable. But Lord, I pray that You'd help us to see areas in our lives that need to change.
[6:59] Help us to be willing to open our hearts up to You. Help us to have the desire to just say, Lord, come into my heart, come into my life, and just continue to shape me. So Lord, just speak to us through Your Word this morning.
[7:12] And we ask and pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. You can be seated this morning. This morning as we look in Romans chapter 5, really what we're talking about is what we should be as Christians.
[7:30] What we should look like as Christians. You know, we often get caught up in how we look, don't we? Does the world try to tell you how you should look?
[7:42] The answer to that is yes, if you're not sure. The world tries to tell us how we should look. Think about it. In all the advertising, how should you look? Beautiful.
[7:56] Yes, you should look beautiful. You should look young. You should look full of energy. And they've got all the ways to get you there, don't they? They've got creams to put on those wrinkles, so you don't have wrinkles anymore, right?
[8:09] They got makeup, ladies. It'll cover it all up, so nobody knows you have any wrinkles, right? And guys, they have stuff you put in your hair, so nobody sees all that gray. Because you're supposed to look young and beautiful.
[8:22] Do we always get there? No. No. I'm going to tell you looking out right now, you look good, but... Young and beautiful.
[8:33] I'm not there anymore. I know that. And sometimes we get to the point where we understand we're not going to get there anymore, right? Yep. So sometimes we just kind of give up on that, don't we?
[8:47] Right? And is that okay? No. Well, eh. But as we look at God's Word, it gives us Scripture like this that tells us what we should look like as a Christian.
[9:01] Are we there yet? No. We're working on it. Is it easy to get there? No. And sometimes it's a daily process.
[9:13] You're right, Jerry. And here's the thing, though. Sometimes because of that, we just say, eh, I'm not going to get there, so I'm just going to quit trying. That is not the heart and attitude that God wants us to have. And this morning, as we look through Romans 5, I want you to think about, are these things that reflect you in your life?
[9:30] Are these things present in your life as a believer, as a Christian? Look in Romans 5 again. Look in the first verse. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have what?
[9:44] Peace. Peace. So the first thing Christians should have, we should be at peace. That's a pretty biggie, isn't it? Isn't that a big one? We should be at peace.
[9:57] What does that really mean, to be at peace? Give me an answer. Content. No stress. No stress. How many of you are there? No stress in your life.
[10:11] Any takers on that one? That's a hard one, isn't it? What else does it mean to be at peace? What's that? Tranquil.
[10:21] To have a tranquility in your life. And I know that circumstances come that make that really difficult. Don't they? They come, and sometimes it's just hard to be at peace.
[10:33] Peace. We have all kinds of situations and circumstances happen in our life, and that peace sometimes can be very elusive. But I want you to look at really the kind of peace that it's talking about, because it just doesn't stop at that word peace.
[10:48] It says, by faith we have peace, what? With God. That is kind of like the foundational level of the peace that we should have in our hearts and our lives.
[10:59] Understanding that as believers, we have the most important peace we can have in our lives. Having that peace doesn't mean that everything's going to be easy in our life, but it means that we know that our relationship with God, that we are at peace with God.
[11:13] Because here's the thing, we are either at peace with God, or you know what the Bible says the other alternative is? We don't often like to hear this. We're either at peace with God, or what?
[11:27] Or we're with the world. And if we're with the world, do you know what the Bible says you are? An enemy of God. That's kind of a harsh thing, isn't it?
[11:42] Look again at verse 1. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
[11:53] Look in verse 10 then. Drop down to verse 10. For if when we were what? Enemies. We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.
[12:06] Much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. It says, when we were enemies with God. That means we were enemies with God, doesn't it?
[12:18] How do you feel about that? How would you feel being an enemy of God? Terrified? Why?
[12:31] Because hell is not a good place to go. You know, we understand that in this world that we live in, there have been a lot of wars, haven't there? And you know, when really fear enters in is when you know how powerful your enemy is.
[12:48] And that is why the thought of having God as your enemy should fill us with fear, because of how powerful God is. He is the one that controls and rules the universe. And He is the one that decides our fate, isn't He?
[13:00] He is the one that judges us. So if we don't want God to be an enemy, and I hope we don't, the only way that we can get away from having God be our enemy is to be at peace with God in verse 1.
[13:14] And it says, through who? Jesus Christ. So if you are a believer, the first thing that you should have present in your life is a peace with God.
[13:24] And having that peace with God, when we really understand how important that is, it makes peace in all those other areas of our life a little bit easier. Because we know we have the most important thing taken care of.
[13:37] All the other things, guess what? They come and go, don't they? They can be hard for a while, but you know the saying, this too shall pass, there is truth in that. But having peace with God, that must come first.
[13:49] So, if we're to reflect God's Word, do you have that peace with God? Let's go on down to verse 2, what we should be like as Christians. By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
[14:09] We as Christians should be rejoicing and hopeful. Isn't that what it says? We stand and we do what? Rejoice.
[14:20] What does it mean to rejoice? To praise Him? To be happy? What else? What does it mean to rejoice? Think in your life.
[14:31] What are things you rejoice about? God's goodness. It's when we celebrate, that's what it means to rejoice. What things do you celebrate in your life? None of you celebrate anything?
[14:44] Family. Grandbabies. Every day of life. I mean, to rejoice is to recognize something good, isn't it?
[14:55] Isn't that the root of what it really means to rejoice? We recognize that we have something good in our lives. Somebody said grandchildren. We recognize what a blessing they are. Children, most of the time, we recognize what a blessing they are.
[15:08] You notice I slipped that most of the time. They are a blessing. When we recognize that, we're rejoicing in it. Understanding there is something good. We celebrate a lot of other things when people graduate.
[15:21] Weddings. Those are times that we rejoice because there is something good there. Right? That is the central thing about rejoicing. Understanding that there is something good there.
[15:33] And here it says that we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Hope is future-oriented, isn't it?
[15:43] We hope for things that are coming. Folks, do we have something to rejoice in that's coming? What is it? Absolutely. What is it? The return of the Lord.
[15:57] The return of the Lord. All right? And what's the other thing somebody said? Eternal life. Eternal life. Eternal life. We have something in the future to rejoice in that nobody can change in our lives, that nobody can take away from us when we have it.
[16:15] That is, in the future, what we have to rejoice in. And folks, we should remember that every day of our lives and not take it for granted. We know what our future holds. And sometimes the getting from here to there we worry about.
[16:28] Death. I mean, that's one way to get from here to there, isn't it? And it's tough. We don't like to think about that. But think what we have on the other side of that. That's why we rejoice.
[16:39] Or, I mean, those are only two options. We're either going to die or what? There's only one other thing that can happen. Or the Lord can come back. Either way, as believers, we have a reason to rejoice, don't we?
[16:53] Don't we? We should have eaten all those apple dumplings and Krispy Kreme donuts back there before the service. Get you sugared up and awake.
[17:06] We have a reason to rejoice because of the future. We have a hope for the future that, let's be honest, the world does not have. For most of the world, what happens when they die?
[17:23] What happens? You're believers, you know it. You know God's Word. What does it say? If you die apart from Christ, what is your future? Hell. It is hell. That is not something to hope for.
[17:34] That is not something to rejoice about. They do not have that. Most of the world, even their thought, if they don't believe in God, they think they're going to die and that's just going to all be over.
[17:45] Well, even if that's the case, do you rejoice in that? It's just over? Remember, we have something the world doesn't have, we should rejoice in that. There should be a vast difference between us and the rest of the world when it comes to rejoicing because we do have a reason to rejoice for the future.
[18:09] Are you rejoicing? Yes. Go get your sugar. I don't know. You know, and I...
[18:22] I'm trying to think how to say this. It doesn't mean we're always going to walk around with a huge smile on our face, but there should be a difference between us and the rest of the world.
[18:36] We have something every day to rejoice about. And I know we can grumble. We can do that, can't we? Do you do it sometimes? I do, once in a while. Dear, do I ever grumble? A few times.
[18:48] A few times. I grumble once in a while. Does that change the fact that I have something to rejoice about? No. And that's what I always need or should be pulled back to. That reminder that I have something to rejoice about.
[19:02] Maybe this isn't going like I want it to go. I still have something to rejoice about. There should be a difference between us and the rest of the world, folks. Plain and simple. We should be rejoicing and hopeful.
[19:14] Now, this brings us to the next one, which is hard. If you didn't have the first two in your life, this next one's going to be really hard to have. And it goes along with what Travis was praising God for.
[19:26] Look in verse 3. Here's where it gets hard. You know, this isn't the sermon, but sometimes we can read through parts of the Bible, and they're encouraging, right?
[19:39] And they give us a good feeling, a warm, fuzzy feeling, and we like that. And then we get to other parts of the Bible, and we can read it, and it's like, oh, that's hard. Is that just me?
[19:52] All right. Well, this is one of those verses, let's face it, it's not always easy. And not only so, so not only should we be at peace and rejoicing and hopeful, but we, who does he mean when he says we?
[20:15] Us. It means believers. If you're a Christian, this is something you should have in your life, you should look like. We glory in tribulations also. What's tribulation?
[20:33] Trouble. Hardships. Hurts. Things that are difficult. The world.
[20:44] Things we struggle with, that's tribulation. And most of us, let's be honest, we spend a lot of time trying to avoid tribulations in our life. Here's the reality, they happen anyway, don't they?
[20:58] Tribulations come. We don't know when, always. We don't know how. We don't know what form they're going to take. But guess what? They're going to happen.
[21:11] Life has a way sometimes of bringing the unexpected, and it's hard. That hasn't changed since God's word was written, folks. And it says here that as believers that we can glory in tribulations.
[21:27] Not can, that we should glory in tribulations. That should be part of what you are as a believer. How do we get to that point?
[21:39] Where we can glory in the tribulations that come our way. What does it mean to glory in something? Maybe we should talk about that first. What does it mean to glory in something? What's that?
[21:53] Find something to be positive in. You know, if you look up to glory in, it means to take pleasure in. Wow, that makes this verse even harder, doesn't it? To take pleasure in tribulation.
[22:05] How? Talk to God about it. Talk to God about it? No easy answers for that one, are there? Got pretty quiet in here, didn't it?
[22:18] How do we take pleasure in tribulation? Because we don't want it. We just want it to go away. How do we take pleasure in it? The word Scott used, knowing.
[22:35] It begins up here. It begins with an understanding that we should have as Christians and believers. We should view tribulations, again, differently than the rest of the world.
[22:46] Because even in tribulations, we as believers should see purpose in tribulation. You know, the world can have difficulties happen.
[22:57] They don't understand why, and there's anger there, and they don't see a purpose in it. We may wonder why about those things and not have an answer.
[23:08] But as believers, we should see purpose in the difficulties we go through. Because we know that God is going to use those. And that's exactly what it says.
[23:20] Look what he says. We glory in tribulation, knowing. Again, it's what we know in our heads. A different understanding than the world. Knowing that tribulation works patience.
[23:31] What does that mean, works patience? It teaches us something. It makes patience grow within our lives. Do you think God has a desire to teach us?
[23:44] Yes. Do you think God sometimes knows that difficult things can help us to learn? Yes. I mean, we understand it in other areas.
[23:54] You play sports. You do anything. You have to train for it, right? I ran cross country one year in high school, and I only did it because there was a redhead that I kind of liked at the time.
[24:07] It's the only reason. In one year, and we were dating then, and forget cross country, I was done with it. But you know what happens with cross country? You're training just to run. So how do you prepare for that?
[24:20] By running. Is it fun? No, it was not. Is it painful at times? Yes, it is.
[24:31] Does it hurt sometimes? Yes. When you're in the middle of it, do you think, why am I doing this? I don't like this. Redhead. Yes. Redhead. Redhead. But remember that example.
[24:49] Because you do it and you go through the difficulty, because you know that difficulty is serving a purpose. It is going to cause something to happen in your life that you want to happen.
[25:02] When we go through tribulation, that is the difference, or should be the difference between us and the rest of the world. We know God has a purpose in it. And that purpose is to help us grow and to teach us.
[25:12] And one of the things it teaches us is, what does it say? Patience. To teach us patience. And after that, experience. We see, oh yes, God got me through that.
[25:25] God was faithful in this. So when this next thing comes, guess what? I have experience. I know that God is going to be faithful in this too. I've been here. I've been through a difficulty. So that patience then leads to experience.
[25:37] And that experience leads to what? It's back to hope. That in that tribulation, we still have hope. We're not hopeless. That is why we can take pleasure in that tribulation.
[25:49] We have an understanding up here that God is going to work in this. That is the difference between us and the rest of the world. Now, we may look at it and say, how is God going to work in this?
[26:02] Why is God using this particular thing? That you know what? When there's a coach that's telling his athletes what to do, does he always have to explain himself?
[26:15] No. He doesn't. I remember asking, why do we have to run that far? We're only running three miles in the event. What do we got to run four miles for? You know what the coach told me?
[26:29] And I remember. Mr. Top. He was our cross-country coach. Larry Top. You know what he told me? Just go run. I think I was stalling anyway, but just go run.
[26:43] He didn't have to explain himself to me. Because he knew better than I did. Guess what? God knows better than we do. We can wonder why.
[26:55] That's all right. God understands that. But we have to know that God has a purpose. And that that purpose is for good. Often in ways we can't begin to understand or see.
[27:08] So that needs to be part of our life, that we can glory in tribulation. Look on down in verse 5. And this hope that this all leads to, this hope makes not what?
[27:23] Ashamed. Now we've been talking about that word ashamed a lot because of Romans chapter 1. I am not ashamed of the gospel. Here it says this hope that we have makes it so we are not ashamed.
[27:34] Again, if we're not ashamed, that's a negative. If we're not ashamed, what are we? What is the opposite of being ashamed of something? We talked about this a little bit before. If you're not ashamed, I'm not ashamed of my grandkids, so what am I of them?
[27:47] I'm proud. That's the opposite of being ashamed. And sometimes we think of proud as, we immediately think, oh, that's a bad thing. We shouldn't be proud. We should be. It's just what we should be proud about.
[28:00] We shouldn't have pride in our own self and our own sense of accomplishments. But do you know what we can be proud about or proud in? The God that we serve.
[28:12] Because guess what? He deserves it. He's everything, isn't He? We should be proud of this God that we served and not ashamed. We should be willing to preach and proclaim about our God.
[28:24] You should be willing and I should be willing to preach and proclaim. And I know you're thinking, I'm not going to preach. It's your job, right? What does it mean to preach? Say it again.
[28:36] What does it mean to preach? To share, to spread God's word, to declare something to people. That's what preaching is, right? Right? So guess what?
[28:47] Every one of us in here should be a preacher. I didn't say everyone in here should be a pastor. Those are two different things. Pastor's a shepherd, the shepherd's a flock.
[28:59] That's what the Bible shares. A preacher is someone that proclaims something. In this case, the gospel. Folks, every one of us should be a preacher. If you are a Christian, you should be a preacher.
[29:12] All right, say that. I'm a preacher. Oh, you're not comfortable doing that, are you? I'm a preacher. All right, do it again. Say, I'm a preacher. I'm a preacher. Now look at the person next to you and say, you should be a preacher.
[29:23] I'm a preacher. All right, which one of you are going to share next Sunday? I saw a few hands go up. That's good.
[29:35] Preacher doesn't mean you have to be up in front on a Sunday morning and share. It just means you're going to proclaim about your God wherever you're at. At your job, at your work, in your family, wherever you are, you're going to proclaim and preach about your God because you are proud of the God that you serve, because you recognize that He is everything.
[29:52] He is the creator. He is the sustainer. He is the provider. He is all those things. Be proud of that. The God that we serve is a good and loving God. Amen? Yes.
[30:04] Let people know. All right. Finally, in verse 5. This hope makes not ashamed because, and this is all circling back around even to the song that we sang.
[30:17] Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us. So God gives us a Holy Spirit to work in our hearts and in our lives.
[30:30] And what does it say that the Holy Spirit does here? The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is shedding the love of God abroad in our hearts.
[30:41] Do you get a picture when you hear that shedding abroad in our hearts? When you hear that word shed, what comes to mind? I'll be honest. If something comes to my mind, I know my mind works different than everybody else's.
[30:52] How many of you have a cat? Or a dog that sheds? Okay. You got a daughter that sheds? I had my wife and two daughters in the house.
[31:05] I'd get in the car. There's hair all over it. All right. So when you have something that sheds, a cat, a dog, where does that hair... We had a dog named Carmen. She's been gone. But she was a long...
[31:15] She was part Great Pyrenees. Long white hair. She was like an outside dog. But we would come in the garage sometimes. You know what we would find? Just all over the place. Clumps of hair.
[31:28] It'd be floating around in the air. It would be everywhere you looked would be this hair floating around. Very annoying. This is different than that, though. It's not annoying. But it says the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts.
[31:41] So what does that mean? It's everywhere. This love of God should be everywhere in our lives. We should be understanding how deeply God loves us.
[31:55] The love of God shed abroad in our hearts. And that fills our hearts with God's love. And when you have a heart that is filled with God's love, what happens after that?
[32:08] It flows over. It spills over onto everything else around it. Because God's love, guess what? It is a source of unending love.
[32:18] And it continues to pour out on us even when we don't deserve it. And as we let that love in our hearts, it should be overflowing and spilling out onto every other area of our life and every other person in our life.
[32:32] Is that what your life looks like? Are you at peace and recognize the peace you have with God? Are you rejoicing and hopeful? Are you glorying in tribulation?
[32:45] Are you proud of your God and proclaiming Him? And are you full of His love? There's the question. Now, for most of us, we can look at that and say, Well, maybe I'm doing good in this area, this one.
[32:59] Eh. That means, guess what? We need to work on some things. We're a work in progress. And we need to be praying and say, God, I struggle with this.
[33:11] Work on my heart in this area. And here's where you have the choice. You can be stubborn and say, I don't want to change. That's your prerogative. Do you think God's pleased with that? It'd be like that kid saying, I'm not going to run today because I don't want to.
[33:28] You know what I think? If I was a coach, I would tell that runner, Well, you can just go home. You're off the team. Coach wouldn't be pleased. And God is not pleased when we say there's an area that we don't want to work on because we're stubborn.
[33:41] God wants soft hearts that He can work with. Think about these areas in your life. What areas does God want to work on you? And folks, these are areas that when you have these areas in your life, I'm not telling you your life is going to be perfect, but I am telling you life is going to be good.
[34:00] And those are two very different things. Let's pray. Lord God, I just thank you for this morning that you've given us. And Lord, I know you have a desire to work on our hearts and lives.
[34:11] And Lord, this morning, I just pray that we would open up our hearts to you, that we would be willing to say, Lord, just work in my heart and life. Lord, some of these are very difficult for us, and you know that. Taking pleasure in difficulties in our life, that's hard.
[34:24] That is hard. But Lord, help us to grow in these areas. Help us to more and more reflect your word. I pray that your Holy Spirit would just work in our hearts and lives. I pray, Lord, that if there's anyone here that doesn't know Jesus Christ, that lacks all of these things, you would just help them, Lord, this morning to make the decision to accept Jesus.
[34:43] For those that have accepted Jesus many years ago, help us to recognize we're still not there yet. We have areas that we need to grow, and help us to look at that and to be willing, Lord, to allow you to come into our hearts and continue to work with us.
[34:57] So, Lord, just speak to our hearts. And it's in the name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen. This morning, the altar is open as we close. It always is. It's a place for you to come and talk with God.
[35:10] If you want me to pray with you, I would love to. If you just want to talk to God, that's okay. The altar is open this morning as we sing. I encourage you as you leave this morning to go out there and be different than the rest of this world.
[35:24] And I know sometimes somebody may tell you, well, you're different. That's all right. Be different for God and in the ways God wants us to be. Let's close with a prayer. Lord God, thank you again for your spirit in this place.
[35:35] And Lord, I just pray that you continue to, as we leave here, go with us. Let us fill your presence in our lives. Continue to mold us and make us into what you want us to be. And help us, Lord, to never be ashamed but to preach and proclaim your gospel about our God that has an unending love that wants people to come to him through Jesus Christ.
[35:53] Help us to share that gospel with the world around us. Thank you again for this morning, Lord, and just for the God that you are. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen. God bless you.
[36:04] Have a great week. Don't forget to pick up your apple dumplings and your Krispy Kremes because if you leave them, I'm eating them. Amen. Amen. Amen.