WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:09.000 Lillias Trotter is or was a woman who hails from Victorian London. 00:00:09.000 --> 00:00:16.000 ! And as she grew up, it became evident that she was a phenomenally talented artist. 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:26.000 ! And she started to be noticed by the who's who of London society, including the great John Ruskin, who was a great lover of art, a very well-known intellectual leader. 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:35.000 And Ruskin took her under his wing and he at some point realized that she had the kind of talent that meant she could go places. 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:47.000 And so he sat her down and said, Lillias, you have the potential to become one of England's greatest living painters, one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest painter of your generation. 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:55.000 But that's going to require you to commit yourself fully to your art and do it. Get rid of everything else you're doing. 00:00:55.000 --> 00:01:02.000 At the same time, Lillias' talent and notoriety were growing, something else was growing. 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:08.000 It was a sense inside her that the Lord was calling her down a different path. 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:17.000 A path that led to North Africa, to Algeria, to serve as a missionary. 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:22.000 She would go alone, married, and she would spend her life there. 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:27.000 So Lillias was presented with these two paths and ultimately she chose the latter path. 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:33.000 She chose to leave London, to leave proper society. 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:52.000 And she chose, instead of fame and wealth and notoriety, she chose a life lived in heat and disease and, at times, isolation and total obscurity. 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:54.000 And yet, she flourished. 00:01:54.000 --> 00:02:09.000 She created some of her greatest works of art, not to be seen in the great galleries of the London Who's Who, but in the margins of her journals, where she also wrote beautiful reflections about the heart of God. 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:16.000 You know, I've been thinking about Lillias this week as I've reflected on this passage in 2 Corinthians 5 and 6. 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:21.000 In Corinth, if you know what had been going on there, there was a lot of confusion. 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:33.000 False teachers had come in and they were claiming and teaching and spreading this idea that spiritual blessing equated with material blessing. 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:39.000 That if you were blessed by God, it would be evident, it would be visible because your life would be impressive. 00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:46.000 You would be famous, you would be wealthy, you would be healthy, you would be powerful and influential, right? 00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:54.000 And so, you know that people are blessed because, according to these teachers, it's just evident in the way their life looks. 00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:56.000 Health, wealth and power. 00:02:56.000 --> 00:03:01.000 The assumption is that if God is really with you, your life will be impressive. 00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:18.000 However, they said, if you're the kind of person who suffers, if you're the kind of person who struggles, if you're unhealthy or unwell, if you're not successful, if you live in obscurity, then clearly God hasn't blessed you. 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:20.000 Maybe God is even punishing you. 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:23.000 Maybe God doesn't really care about someone like you. 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:31.000 So these ideas spread like wildfire because there's something in us as human beings that tends to think that way. 00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:35.000 These ideas, I would argue, are alive and well today. 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:43.000 Most of us, and I would include myself in this, tend to drift, if we're not careful, into this way of thinking. 00:03:43.000 --> 00:04:03.000 You know, if my prayers aren't seeming to be answered, even though I continue to pray them, or if worship feels dry, if life is hard, when suffering is lingering, maybe that means I've done something to make God angry. 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:06.000 Maybe that means that I've let God down. 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:12.000 Maybe that means God has abandoned me or finally gotten sick of me and given up on me entirely. 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:20.000 On the other hand, if my prayers are being answered, if worship feels rich and I'm connecting with God, if things are going well, then what do we say? 00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:21.000 God is blessing me. 00:04:21.000 --> 00:04:22.000 I'm so blessed. 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:26.000 I'm so encouraged by all the blessings in my life. 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:36.000 So naturally, these false teachers, when they looked at somebody like Paul, they see a man who's poor and unimpressive in appearance and apparently not a very 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:40.000 effective public speaker in a frequently faced suffering. 00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:42.000 And so they easily dismissed Paul. 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:45.000 They said, well, you know, clearly the Lord is not with this man. 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:50.000 I think it's safe to assume they probably would have said the same thing about Lilius. 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:54.000 You know, they would have said, oh, what a shame. 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:55.000 What a waste. 00:04:55.000 --> 00:04:57.000 What a waste of talent. 00:04:57.000 --> 00:05:00.000 What a foolish decision she made. 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:04.000 But Lilius knew something. 00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:11.000 She knew something about the heart of God that these false teachers could never understand. 00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:21.000 And this is something that she actually wrote in her journal years later after living a life in Algeria and reflecting back on that life. 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:23.000 She wrote these words. 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:30.000 Holiness, not safety, is the end of our calling. 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:35.000 Holiness, not safety, is the end of our calling. 00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:44.000 And that truth sits at the very heart of Paul's words in this letter to the Corinthian church and in this particular passage. 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:48.000 First Paul reminds them and us of the nature of his ministry. 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:54.000 He says, we are therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us. 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:59.000 We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. 00:05:59.000 --> 00:06:05.000 The most important decision you will make in your life is that decision. 00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:09.000 Will you be reconciled to God or not? 00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:12.000 It's the only decision we make in this life that has any bearing on the next life. 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:18.000 Will we be reconciled to God while there is time? 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:24.000 And then comes one of the most breathtaking summaries, I would say in my humble opinion. 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:28.000 One of the most breathtaking summaries of the Gospel in all of Scripture. 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:29.000 Listen to what Paul says here. 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:34.000 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us. 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:39.000 So that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:42.000 If you listen to what he's saying, why did Jesus come? 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:46.000 Why did Jesus take on our sin? 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:51.000 Why did Jesus go to the cross and give his life in our place? 00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:55.000 So that we might become righteous. 00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:56.000 And I want to be clear here. 00:06:56.000 --> 00:06:59.000 This doesn't just mean that we would be declared righteous, 00:06:59.000 --> 00:07:03.000 although that is true and it is marvelous and it is beautiful. 00:07:03.000 --> 00:07:07.000 But he actually means that we would not only be declared righteous, 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:09.000 but that we would be transformed. 00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:15.000 That we would be remade, that we would be refashioned into people whose lives actually reformed. 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:20.000 That we would be able to make the heart and the character of Christ. 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:24.000 So God's great project that unfolds throughout Scripture, 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:27.000 Old Testament to New Testament, Genesis to Revelation, 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:32.000 this great unfolding plan is not merely to make forgiven people, 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:35.000 let off the hook people. 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:40.000 It's to make holy people. 00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:44.000 It's to make people who radiate with the glory of Christ. 00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:46.000 This is God's singular aim. 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:54.000 So I want to lay this out as clearly as we can and then contemplate the implications of this. 00:07:54.000 --> 00:08:05.000 God's singular purpose in your life, and in my life, is to make us whole. 00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:10.000 God's singular purpose in your life is to make you whole. 00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:23.000 And God's going to use all means at his disposal to forge us into righteous women and men who radiate the likeness of Jesus Christ. 00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:30.000 And I would say this, I would say if we don't understand this, or if we don't accept it, if we don't believe it, 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:33.000 I would say that our lives are never really going to make sense. 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:40.000 Because all the things that we think should happen, many of those are not going to happen the way we think they should. 00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:44.000 We're going to wonder why people who seem good experience bad things, 00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:47.000 and why some of the worst people we know experience good things. 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:50.000 And none of that seems fair. 00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:55.000 If the false teachers are correct, that's true. 00:08:55.000 --> 00:09:00.000 Unless we understand God's purpose in our life, our lives are never going to make sense. 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:07.000 On the other hand, once we begin to see this, once we begin to realize that God's aim is to make me holy, 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:13.000 that begins to transform how we measure good things and bad things. 00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:20.000 We begin to realize that we need an entirely different scale to measure and make meaning of our lives. 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:28.000 So for instance, there are many things that the world, and most likely these false teachers in Corinth, 00:09:28.000 --> 00:09:33.000 many things that everybody would assume are no-brainer things to seek after. 00:09:33.000 --> 00:09:34.000 Right? 00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:37.000 Everybody should want things like comfort. 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:39.000 Everybody should want things like success. 00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:44.000 Everybody should want things like affirmation and influence and notoriety. 00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:47.000 Of course these are good things. We should all want them. 00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:54.000 But if God's whole aim is to make us holy, 00:09:54.000 --> 00:10:05.000 the good things in our lives may actually present the greatest spiritual obstacle to that aim. 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:14.000 I would argue, at least in my experience, the enemy rarely tempts mature believers with obvious evil. 00:10:14.000 --> 00:10:21.000 God's good things that slowly begin to displace God. 00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:33.000 That's a much more effective strategy because comfort can anesthetize our dependence on God's provision. 00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:36.000 We just feel it less and less. 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:41.000 We go numb slowly over time through comforts and conveniences. 00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:46.000 Success can dull our desire for the deeper joy of God's presence. 00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:57.000 Affirmation can become a kind of shadow substitute for our reliance on God's love. 00:10:57.000 --> 00:11:04.000 So the tragedy is not that we choose evil, it's that we choose lesser glories. 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:07.000 We choose lesser things. 00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:14.000 We live lives where we trade the living God for manageable substitutes. 00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:21.000 We trade eternal joy for temporary relief. 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:25.000 So on the one hand, if we understand that God's aim is to make us holy, 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:29.000 it begins to change how we think about the good things that we seek after. 00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:31.000 Maybe they are good. 00:11:31.000 --> 00:11:33.000 Maybe we should seek after them. 00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:38.000 But let's never assume that these are always good things. 00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:41.000 For some of us, they may be very, very, very harmful for us. 00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:51.000 On the other hand, we might face hardship as believers that the world would look out with pity and say, 00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:53.000 what a shame, what a pity. 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:56.000 How is that person still functioning? 00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:58.000 How is that person still going? 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:01.000 They've had it so rough. 00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:08.000 But what we come to learn if we understand Lilius' words, Paul's words, 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:14.000 is that those might actually be the places in our lives where God brings out the greatest good. 00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:15.000 Paradoxically. 00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:18.000 So look at Paul's example in verse 4. 00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:22.000 He says, as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way. 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:23.000 Ha! 00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:24.000 What's the resume? 00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:28.000 We're commending ourselves to you as legitimate servants of God, okay? 00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:29.000 What do you got? 00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:30.000 How do you prove it? 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:44.000 Well, in great endurance, in troubles, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, riots, in hard work, sleepless nights, and hunger. 00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:48.000 What kind of CV is that? 00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:52.000 He's a man who faces all kinds of challenges and hardships almost every day of his life. 00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:58.000 Many people would have given up a long time ago, and yet, look how he describes himself. 00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:02.000 He describes himself and his fellow apostles this way. 00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:05.000 Dying, and yet we live on. 00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:08.000 Beaten, and yet not killed. 00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:11.000 Sorrowful, and yet always rejoicing. 00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:15.000 Poor, and yet making many rich. 00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:16.000 Listen to this. 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:19.000 Having nothing, and yet possessing everything. 00:13:19.000 --> 00:13:24.000 This is a man who's not on the brink of quitting. 00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:26.000 He's not a man on the brink of giving up. 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:32.000 This is a man who seems to be, by everything he says, flourishing. 00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:40.000 And it raises this question, what makes it possible for a man who has faced all of this suffering to be able to say this? 00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:45.000 Even though I'm sorrowful, I'm always rejoicing at the same time. 00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:49.000 Even though I have nothing, I feel like I possess everything. 00:13:49.000 --> 00:13:52.000 How could you say such a thing? 00:13:52.000 --> 00:14:01.000 And the answer is because unlike the false teachers who believe that suffering means God has abandoned you, or that he's punishing you, 00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:16.000 Paul knew from his own experience that times of suffering, hardship, waiting, longing, silence, those are the times when Christ is most likely to draw near. 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:23.000 Those are the times we discover when Jesus is closer than we maybe ever have experienced him being before. 00:14:23.000 --> 00:14:28.000 The times when we can most powerfully experience his presence. 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:36.000 And these are often the times when God is most powerfully at work. 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:44.000 And I think Paul realized through his own experience that there's no such thing as meaningless suffering. 00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:47.000 That nothing is wasted. 00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:51.000 That God can and does use all of it. 00:14:51.000 --> 00:14:54.000 He uses everything. 00:14:54.000 --> 00:14:56.000 He uses the good. 00:14:56.000 --> 00:14:58.000 He uses the bad. 00:14:58.000 --> 00:14:59.000 He uses the ugly. 00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:03.000 He uses the stuff that we would just as soon forget ever happened. 00:15:03.000 --> 00:15:13.000 Paul sees this as all being a part of God's unfolding purpose in his life. 00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:15.000 To make him holy. 00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:17.000 To make him like Christ. 00:15:17.000 --> 00:15:25.000 To join him and bond him so that he shares in the life of Christ. 00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:27.000 By sharing in the sufferings of Christ. 00:15:27.000 --> 00:15:42.000 And I would say, I believe that there are degrees of emotional maturity and degrees of spiritual maturity which you find go together. 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:50.000 There are degrees of emotional and spiritual maturity that can only be found on the far side of intense suffering. 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:55.000 Until that happens, we will plateau. 00:15:55.000 --> 00:16:01.000 There are qualities in you. 00:16:01.000 --> 00:16:03.000 There are characteristics in you. 00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:07.000 There are aspects of who God has created you to be. 00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:11.000 Maybe some of the greatest treasures you have to offer. 00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:16.000 That can only be called out of you through suffering. 00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:18.000 Now that is a great mystery. 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:21.000 And most of the time, I wish it wasn't that way. 00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:27.000 If I had a magic wand, I may make a world where that wasn't necessary. 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:39.000 But somehow in the mystery of God, in the mystery of the brokenness and sinfulness of our world, in the mystery of the way that redemption works, somehow that is true. 00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:49.000 And I know that there are some of you maybe, particularly if you are younger and you are hearing this and you think this sounds absurd or ridiculous, and that is completely fine. 00:16:49.000 --> 00:16:51.000 That is completely fine. 00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:57.000 I also know there are some people in this room who know exactly what I am talking about. 00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:00.000 You know exactly what I am talking about. 00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:07.000 So as we enter the season of Lent, all of this begins to become deeply practical. 00:17:07.000 --> 00:17:16.000 Because Lent, uniquely, is a time in the church calendar where we ask, where is God at work in my life? 00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:20.000 Where is God seeking to make me holy? 00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:26.000 And it may very well be in that place of greatest struggle right now. 00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:31.000 Whatever that is in your life, and maybe you can call it to mind right now. 00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:33.000 Maybe you are in it. 00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:39.000 But it may very well be that that is the place where God is most powerfully at work in your life right now. 00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:42.000 That doesn't mean that I am not praying that it goes away for you. 00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:45.000 It doesn't mean that anybody wants you to suffer. 00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:50.000 But it also doesn't mean that it is meaningless or that God has abandoned you. 00:17:50.000 --> 00:18:05.000 That somehow in the mystery of a sovereign God who loves you and is for you, the worst things that are happening to you may very well be the places of the greatest life and the greatest beauty and the greatest growth. 00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:13.000 And I hope and pray that one day when we look back on those times, it will make sense and we will see how it all played out. 00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:14.000 I think that we will. 00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:17.000 I talk a lot about my Jesus list. 00:18:17.000 --> 00:18:21.000 List of questions that I am going to ask Jesus when I see him. 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:23.000 It gets longer and longer. 00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:25.000 The older you get, the list gets really long. 00:18:25.000 --> 00:18:28.000 This is one of those questions. 00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:36.000 But it may very well be that this Lent is a time when you begin to see how God is at work in those places. 00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:39.000 Where is God sanding down your pride? 00:18:39.000 --> 00:18:47.000 Where is God exposing idols, those poor substitutes, those lesser glories? 00:18:47.000 --> 00:18:51.000 Where is God inviting you into deeper surrender? 00:18:51.000 --> 00:19:01.000 The practices that we take on during Lent give us ways to cooperate with God's work in us as he seeks to make us holy. 00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:08.000 Not as Jesus says in the Gospel reading to be done for outward praise or admiration or recognition. 00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:10.000 Oh, what a spiritual person. 00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:11.000 Look at how amazing you are. 00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:13.000 Absolutely not about that. 00:19:13.000 --> 00:19:14.000 Right? 00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:19.000 This is a time for the hidden work, the secret work to happen. 00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:23.000 It's between you and the Lord and you and the Lord alone. 00:19:23.000 --> 00:19:32.000 So when we pray, which during this Lent I would encourage you to commit to regular daily prayer. 00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:33.000 When we pray, what are we doing? 00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:38.000 We are aligning our will with God's holiness project in us. 00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:40.000 We are aligning ourselves. 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.000 God, I am aligning my will with you and whatever you want to do with me. 00:19:44.000 --> 00:19:45.000 Right? 00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:50.000 Thy will be done in my life and on this earth as it is in heaven. 00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.000 So during Lent I encourage you to commit to daily prayer. 00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:58.000 Ask God to help you see his work in your life. 00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:03.000 Not only in the good things, but pray specifically about the hard things. 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:07.000 Ask God to help you see his hand there as well. 00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:10.000 When we fast. 00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:11.000 When we fast. 00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:16.000 When we take something and we give it up for the season of Lent. 00:20:16.000 --> 00:20:22.000 We are loosening our grip on things that compete with God's holiness project. 00:20:22.000 --> 00:20:26.000 Things that distract from God's holiness project. 00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:30.000 So whatever that is, let it go. 00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:32.000 And when we give. 00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:33.000 When we practice generosity. 00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:35.000 When we give to the poor and the needy. 00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:38.000 Which is another Lenten discipline. 00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:43.000 We are resisting that lie that security comes from anything other than God. 00:20:43.000 --> 00:20:47.000 And we are reminded when we give. 00:20:47.000 --> 00:20:49.000 The glory of our own spiritual poverty. 00:20:49.000 --> 00:20:54.000 And the lavish generosity that God has shown us through the grace of Jesus Christ on the cross. 00:20:54.000 --> 00:21:00.000 Jesus who by his death and resurrection. 00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.000 Has opened the way into God's very presence. 00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:06.000 To share in his life. 00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:08.000 To become more fully human. 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:10.000 To become more fully human. 00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:12.000 But only if we remember. 00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:13.000 That holiness. 00:21:13.000 --> 00:21:15.000 Not safety. 00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:17.000 Is the end of our calling. 00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:18.000 Let's pray. 00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:23.000 Our Father may it be so. 00:21:23.000 --> 00:21:29.000 May those of us in the heights of joy. 00:21:29.000 --> 00:21:32.000 Those of us in the throes of despair. 00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:34.000 And everyone in between. 00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:43.460 you. May we meet you and encounter you this night and in this season. May we see your 00:21:43.460 --> 00:21:50.859 hand at work in our lives, in the good and the bad. May we learn to measure our lives 00:21:50.859 --> 00:21:57.200 by your standard rather than the standard of the false teachers in the world. And Lord, 00:21:57.200 --> 00:22:08.279 may we hunger and thirst for righteousness. May we long for holiness. May we participate 00:22:08.279 --> 00:22:14.960 joyfully in your work to make us in the image of your son. And it's in his name that we pray. Amen.