Folks, great to see you this morning with a finger in Colossians chapter 3.
I want everybody to hold their Bibles up in front of you.
If you need to grab a Bible roundabout, grab a Bible roundabout.
But everybody needs you to do this.
You need to hold your Bible here.
And I'm going to pray in just a second, lead us in prayer.
But I want us to understand what I'm going to pray.
So I want everybody to hold their Bibles above your head.
So we're going to pray together that we would sit under the Word of God.
So this is God's Word.
This is the Word of life that we need to be at work in our lives.
This is the Word of our Creator.
And we want our heart attitude to be that we want to sit under and listen to His Word.
So we're going to pray that we'd sit under the Word.
I want everyone to put their Bibles on the floor.
And metaphorically, don't do this actually.
But picture yourself standing on the Bible, okay?
We're going to pray that we would stand on the Word of God.
That this would be the foundation, the sure foundation for our lives and our times.
And that we would build our lives, base our lives on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God as we find it in the Bible.
And then thirdly, I want you to hold it on your chest.
And we're going to pray that the Word of God would be at work in us.
So this Word, we believe it's alive and it's active that God speaks today.
And we're going to pray that God, by His Spirit, would be molding us and prompting us and challenging us and comforting us and encouraging us and making us more into the likeness of His Son, Jesus Christ, for His glory.
So that's what we're going to pray.
I'm going to pray it now, okay?
Heavenly Father, thank You so much for Your Word.
Father, where would we be without Your life-giving Word?
And so, Father, we pray that You would help our attitude this morning, that You would help us to sit under Your Word, that You would help us to stand on Your Word, and that You would, by Your Spirit, work in us by Your Word.
And Father, we just want this morning to be of glory to You.
And so we pray these things in Jesus' precious name.
Amen.
Well, with Colossians chapter 3 open in front of you, let me ask us a random rhetorical question just to set us off on the right track today.
And here's the question, and it is a bit random, but stick with me.
This is going somewhere okay.
Do you know where your local pizza delivery place is?
Yeah?
Yes.
Know where it is?
Alex and I had a lovely Domino's pizza a couple of weeks ago.
We were getting our oven fixed, and we thought, no, we're not going to cook.
We're going to get a Domino's.
So we went to Domino's.
The reason I know where Domino's pizza is, our local pizza joint is,
it's because so often they send people out onto the street around about us as walking billboards.
I don't know if you've seen people like this.
Yeah?
So the people that they employ to go and stand on the street corner, and they're dressed as a giant Domino's pizza box,
and they've got the words on the front, any pizza, any size, $6.99.
This is normally what they say.
And I always read this, read that every time I see it, and I think to myself,
who is ringing up and ordering a small, right?
Who's ordering a small with that deal?
But this is the image I want us to carry through these verses today,
because Paul is going to ask these Christians on Colossae to think of themselves,
picture themselves as walking billboards.
Now, we saw at the end of last week, Paul encouraged them, and this is verse 17,
if you want to track with me the text, verse 17.
He's encouraging them to think of worship as total.
That's where we left off last week.
Worship is total.
Remember these false teachers?
They're in the background in Colossae.
They're pushing a compartmentalized, experiential, individualized Christianity.
And Paul is saying, don't have any of it.
Because this new identity in Christ, this was verses 1 to 4 of chapter 3,
this new identity, because Jesus Christ, if you're a Christian, has claimed you,
and he's changing you, the fact that that is true, that's an identity in your life,
it shouldn't just affect your Sundays.
It should affect your everyday.
It should affect your Monday, and your Tuesday, and your Wednesday, and your Thursday, and your Friday, and your Saturday, and your back to Sunday.
The whole thing should be affected by this new identity that you have in Christ.
It was Dorothy Sawyers, the author of the last century, who commented and said this,
How could anyone be interested in a religion that is no concern for nine-tenths of their life?
And that is so true, isn't it?
Why would anyone be interested in a religion that is no concern for nine-tenths of your life?
Paul would heartily agree.
It should transform your individual life.
This is what he's already said.
It should transform your corporate life together as a church, as this brought together body.
We saw that last week.
And today we're going to hear him tell them, this is verses 18 to chapter 4, verse 1,
that it should transform your home life.
And so he's speaking to this church.
Remember, this church made up of tons of different kinds of people,
lots of different things going on in their lives.
And he's going to get them to think about their marriages.
And he's going to get them to think about their families.
And he's going to get them to think about their work.
And in those areas of their lives, he wants them to think of themselves as walking billboards.
And the question then is displaying what, saying what?
Any pizza, any size, no, no, no.
He wants them to say, with your life, display the message that Jesus is my Lord.
Come with me to the text.
Here's the key little phrase to this little section.
Paul uses that word, Lord.
Do you see it?
We saw it kind of creep in at the end of last week.
Lord or master, that's the word.
He uses it six times in these nine verses.
Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord.
The whole of their lives has to be lived in the sphere of the Lord.
So when it comes to these three years of their lives, the message is, Jesus is my master.
He's my Lord.
So people from the world should be able to look into your lives, dear Colossian Christians.
And the same for us today is true.
and he should in one way or another be able to conclude that Jesus is your master.
He's your Lord.
Jesus is the master that you live for.
He's the one that you seek to give glory to.
He is the one that you seek to present to the world.
And I think it's fair comment to say, and we'll just acknowledge this up the top,
that what Paul is urging here couldn't be any more counter-cultural.
In our day, I mean, this stuff about husbands and wives and families and work,
it runs so deeply against the grain of how our society tells us to think.
But the truth is, and we need to hear this before we immediately jump to us,
it was just as counter-cultural in the day that Paul wrote it,
except that the cultural pendulum is on the other side.
In the first century, who were the individuals deemed to be lower down the social ladder?
Women, children, and slaves.
But when it comes to their marriages and their families and their work,
who does Paul address first in each instance?
Wives, children, and slaves.
You see what he's doing?
You see how he's bestowing on them a real counter-cultural dignity and worth,
and he's massaging home that truth that he stressed at verse 11?
That in Christ, God has made them one.
In other words, though the God-designed differences in creation, they remain.
There's no second-class citizens in God's kingdom,
because this new family that God has birthed, you're all one in Christ.
This is what he's been saying all the way through this letter.
So we need to understand that these words were just as counter-cultural then as they are today.
Paul says,
Be walking billboards that say to the world as you live your life,
Jesus is my master.
He's my master.
He's the Lord.
And do that in your marriage.
Do you see it?
Verses 18 and 19.
Do it in your marriage.
Now here's what we need to understand.
As Paul speaks to husbands and wives, he's got the ultimate marriage in mind.
The ultimate marriage in mind.
The one that our marriages on earth are supposed to be based upon and point to and reflect.
And that's the marriage that will happen on the last day when Jesus Christ our Lord returns between him and his bride, the church.
That's the ultimate marriage.
And Paul's got that in mind as he turns to address husbands and wives here in Colossae.
Because their relationship together, the way that they relate to one another, the way that they love one another,
is meant to project and point to that ultimate marriage.
So to the married woman in this church, she says,
In the same way that we've just sung, that the church submits to Christ,
I urge you to reflect that by submitting to your husbands.
And let me just deal with that word, submit, because it's a word that doesn't land softly to our 21st century ears.
I guess because we've heard of people who have horribly abused that word.
And because we live in a culture that is so deeply anti-authority.
But let me just tell you, and this is the best quote on this I read this week.
Let me just give this to you.
This is how one commentator defines submission.
Submission is a voluntary willingness.
And it's so key, isn't it, that word voluntary.
Voluntary willingness, a choice to recognize and put oneself under the loving leadership of another.
So submission here has nothing to do with a wife's inferiority.
Absolutely nothing to do with that.
And that's clear as you trace the use of this word through the Bible.
Because think what we've just sung.
Jesus himself, the one who is fully and equal God.
We see in John's gospel, we just sang it, he submitted himself to the will of the Father.
If you trace it through in the Old Testament, we see God describe himself as being a helper to humanity.
In creation, we see in creation.
In creation, we see in the same way Eve in the creation account, she's described as being a helper to Adam.
It's nothing to do with inferiority.
And if it's nothing to do with that, equally it's nothing to do with the husband's superiority.
Thinking he has carte blanche to rule the roost, that he's got license to take advantage.
And Paul will make that so clear by what he goes on to say next to the husbands as they pursue the Lord.
But Paul says, wives, bring all your gifts and your talents the way that God has wired you.
And bring it to your marriage.
And in the same way that the church submits to Christ out of love, I want you to reflect that as you affirm and you support and you encourage and you look to the loving and sacrificial Christ-like leadership of your husbands.
It was Elizabeth Elliot, who was the late wife of Jim Elliot, who was the missionary to Ecuador.
She's written some wonderful stuff on all of this if you want to go and check it out.
Elizabeth Elliot said this, and I think this is very good, otherwise I wouldn't have put it in, okay.
But she said, the fact that I'm a woman doesn't make me a different kind of Christian.
But the fact that I am a Christian makes me a different kind of woman.
And you see, as much as Paul's calling Christian wives to be so counter-culturally and attractively different, he's calling Christian husbands to be just as radical.
And so to husbands, he urges them in the same way, in the same way that Christ has sacrificially laid down his life out of love for his bride, the church.
That's how I want you to love your wives.
Now feel the sting of that one of your husband here this morning.
Remember, he's just teased out in this letter what love looks like, verse 12.
Do you remember it last week?
Love expresses itself in compassion, in humility, in meekness, in patience.
And in verse 13, it expresses itself in forgiveness and long-suffering.
So the kind of love that Paul is calling husbands to here is a love that always dies to self and puts somebody else first.
And of course, it's the love that Jesus so wonderfully exemplified and showed, isn't it, on the cross?
The one who had all authority in heaven humbled himself by coming down from heaven to earth to seek out and to die for and to give his life for,
to shed his blood to redeem and to purify and win his bride, the church.
He sets that bar.
Then do you want to get them?
He sets that bar.
Do you see how that is what biblical, true, sacrificial, following after Christ with all your heart, love looks like for a husband?
How counter-cultural then and how counter-cultural today?
Husbands, let me ask you here this morning.
If you are blessed to be a husband, do you love your wife like that?
Do you love your wife like that?
So do you see what he's saying to those who are married in this congregation in Colossae?
He's saying in your marriages, it's together you pursue the Lord.
Together you pursue the Lord.
And the way that you love one another, and the way that you relate to one another,
and the way that you sacrificially love one another,
you are to be walking billboards that say, Jesus is my master.
And you are to display that ultimate marriage for the world to see.
And that means, friends, that if we are married here today,
people should be able to look into our marriage and say,
I've got no understanding of what that is about,
except that that reflects something of what Jesus did for his church.
That's the ultimate marriage.
That is the ultimate marriage.
It's not this one, it's that one.
And it's so important that we have that in mind.
Because if we look for completion,
if we look for something kind of satisfying fulfillment,
and our marriage is down here,
and let me tell you, it will set us up massively for a fall.
Massively for a fall.
Some of you might remember the film,
and this is me being a 90s child, okay,
the film Jerry Maguire when it came out in 1996.
Jerry Maguire, this film about a lovestruck sports agent.
It was the reason I went into law.
No, it wasn't.
It wasn't.
But Jerry Maguire was one of the most iconic and most quoted films of the 90s,
if you remember it.
And two of the most famous quotes from that film were,
number one, the one that his sports,
American football playing client said to him,
and you'll remember this one,
Jerry, show me the money.
That's what he said.
Jerry, show me the money.
That was one quote from that film that everybody loves to quote.
The second one from that film comes
when Jerry speaks to the woman that he loves,
and he says to her those three words.
He says, you complete me.
And it's so cute.
And Hollywood loved it.
And it sold millions upon millions upon millions of tickets.
But let me let you into a little secret this morning, this afternoon.
It's nonsense.
It's absolute nonsense.
To think that another human being could complete you,
it's nonsense.
Because, now don't hear me wrong,
I love being married to Alex.
She's not in here today.
She's behind the back.
I can't say this again.
She's my best friend.
If I had an evening off,
she's the person I wanted to spend it with.
I absolutely love her.
But she knows,
and I tell her this on a regular basis,
that she does not complete me.
And I can tell you from my own experience,
I can tell you this categorically,
that I certainly do not complete her.
Okay?
I'm an idiot.
I do not complete her.
Friends,
if we look for completion,
for satisfaction in anyone else but Jesus Christ,
we will set ourselves up for a fall.
And it was C.T. Studd,
the famous English cricketer,
turned missionary to China,
who encouraged his wife to say a little poem to himself every day,
that went,
Dear Lord Jesus,
as you are to me,
dearer than Charlie ever could be.
That's exactly what Paul is saying,
isn't it?
That's exactly what Paul is saying.
The ultimate marriage.
Keep that in mind.
Because I realize that the truth for many of us here today
is that your experience of marriage has been anything but what you see here.
So painfully true.
It's been anything but what you see here.
In fact,
it's been the polar opposite.
And I realize there'll be some of us here today,
and either you're struggling in your married life,
or you're thinking to yourself,
will I ever be married?
Will that ever happen to me?
Or whoever you are here today,
let me encourage you to fix your eyes on that ultimate marriage.
That if you're a Christian here today,
if you're faithless in Jesus Christ,
that you will be part of that bride.
To fix your eyes on the perfect husband,
in Jesus Christ,
what he's done for you,
shedding his blood for you,
to buy you,
ransom you to himself on the cross,
and to fix your eyes on that marriage.
And if you're married,
to fix your eyes on that marriage.
And as you fix your eyes on Jesus Christ,
as the spirit of God,
transform you more into his likeness,
display his glory in your marriage.
So in your marriages,
Paul says,
be walking billboards that display the message,
Jesus is my master.
And do the same in your family.
Verse 20,
we'll move on.
So there's Paul's plea to the family.
Again,
let's just pick out the verbs.
Children.
And I think he's thinking about children,
who are living with their parents,
and they're old enough to understand,
and make their own decisions,
and respond.
He says to them,
obey.
Obey your parents.
This is what he says.
And of course,
he's rooting that instruction
in the fifth commandment.
That God had given Israel
as a way of living
that pleased the Lord.
It's a wonderfully,
is it not,
dignifying thought in this day
that Paul writes to children
and says that in your lives,
in the simple fact
that you obey your parents,
you can glorify the Lord.
As their parents help you understand,
that the family unit
is something that the God,
in his grace and in his mercy,
has put in place.
Not for your detriment,
but for your good,
for your protection,
for your nurturing,
and for your enjoyment.
Obey your parents.
This is what he says to the children.
And so quickly off the back of that,
he says to fathers,
okay,
I got a sting from the first one there.
I've got the sting from the second one as well.
Fathers.
What does he say?
Speaking to them,
I take it first and foremost
as the ones he wants to take
the spiritual,
sacrificial,
and loving lead in the home.
Because if you read around on this one,
men in the Roman first century context
have got a real reputation
for being domineering in the home.
So he's writing to them
and says,
Christian fathers,
do not provoke your children
by being harsh with them.
Or discourage them
because you lay upon them
heavy expectations
of what you want them to become.
Which I take it
is his way of saying,
don't treat your children
like you own them.
Or that they're a burden to you.
Rather encourage
and love
and nurture
and instruct
and pray for
and take an interest in
and care about
and get to know
and love
your children.
This is what he's saying.
Because they are a gift from the Lord,
they're a precious heritage from him,
and your heavenly father
loves these children
way more than you do
in his gracious and perfect way.
Parents here today,
let me ask you,
do you love your children like this?
Do you love your children like this?
Let me ask you,
come at it from a different angle.
What do you long to be true for them
as they grow up?
I was thinking on it this week
for my two little girls.
What do you long to be true for them
as they grow up?
And our ultimate longing for them
shouldn't be
that they'd come top of the class,
that they'd win the egg and spoon race
on sports day,
that they'd get into that school,
that they'd get that job,
that they'd get their grade 8
on the clarinet.
Our ultimate longing
for our children
is that they should come
to know the Lord Jesus
as their saviour
and their king
and know it for themselves.
It should be our ultimate longing
for them.
Because that is
the source of their
greatest joy.
You know,
I long that Chloe and Grace
would grow up
and they would have
the most boring testimonies ever.
Honestly,
the most boring testimonies ever.
Because I remember
when I was at a minister's lunch
after Chloe was just born
and I was sharing something
that my fellow brothers
and sisters could pray for me
and I said,
would you pray for my little girl?
Just being handed
this bundle of responsibility
straight out of the womb,
I don't know what to do.
And they simply prayed for me
and they prayed for her
and they said,
Lord Jesus,
would it be true for her
that there would never be a day
where she wasn't conscious
of you as her Lord
and her Saviour
and her King.
And do you know what?
Those words almost four years ago
have stuck with me ever since.
And that's what I pray for my girls.
Now how is that going to happen?
What's my job as a parent?
Well, my job,
I can't make them Christians,
can I?
It's your theology of salvation.
You can't make them Christians.
But my job as a parent
is to put all the Jesus-shaped kindling
that I possibly can
around their lives
as Alex and I,
we live out in front of them
a vibrant love for
and a need for
the Lord Jesus Christ
and pray that the Holy Spirit
would take that kindling,
spark it and ignite it.
That's my job.
And I tell you what,
it's just personally,
it's wonderful to think
we do that in a church family context,
isn't it?
Because they have got
tons of spiritual sisters and brothers
and tons of spiritual grandmothers
and grandfathers.
And it means so much to us
that you are praying for those girls
and it means so much
I know to the other parents in here
to know that you're
dedicating yourselves
to praying for them as well.
That's our job.
It says fathers,
be the father that
your children need them to be.
And I hope this encourages you.
This was John Wesley.
I was reading this week,
John Wesley,
the guy who was the
the former slave ship
master
turned
Anglican minister
who wrote the famous song
Amazing Grace.
He wrote this
and I hope this encourages parents here.
He said,
I learned more about Christianity
from my mother
than I did from all the theologians
in England.
I learned more
about Christianity
from my mother
than I did from all the theologians
in England.
Keep going, parents.
Keep going.
What a countercultural vision
for the Christian family
he lays out here.
In your families,
be walking billboards
that say
Jesus is
my
master.
And thirdly,
make him known in your work.
Make him known in your work.
Verse 22,
Paul speaks to slaves.
Now,
I don't think that's
slaves
like our minds
would immediately think
like 20 years a slave,
the film,
or Selma.
Paul's speaking into
a first century culture
where slavery
is a very different thing.
It's why
if you've got an ESV there,
the translators
are so keen
to footnote
the use of that word
all the time
with the word
bondservant.
You might notice that
if you've got an ESV there.
Because slave
is a broad term
that can just describe
anybody
who's under the authority
of another.
Slaves in this day
are often
well-educated professionals.
Bankers are slaves.
Doctors were slaves.
In fact,
I was reading this week
that up to two-thirds
of the Roman Empire
at this point
are deemed slaves.
Whole economy
based on slaves.
And so,
although it's not
identical to it,
it is actually
a lot closer
to our modern-day
employee-employer
relationship
that he's got in mind
here as he writes.
And look what he says
to them.
He says,
obey.
He says,
work well.
Be known
for your reliability
and diligence
and gain
a good reputation
in the eyes
of your master.
And you see
how he says,
do it
not just when
the master
is watching,
do it
all the time.
Why?
Well,
because the eyes
of your true master
are on you
all the time.
And it's a heart thing,
isn't it,
what he's saying here?
Work for the Lord
from your heart.
And when he returns,
your master,
you will receive
your inheritance.
And so into a culture
today
that thinks little
of having an extra
five minutes
on your lunch break
or being five minutes
late in the morning
or slagging off
a colleague or client
behind their back
or surfing the internet
until the boss
walks in the room
and then changing the thing
to pretend that
you are working.
Paul says,
work for the Lord.
I don't know if you
remember that as well
that the
Bed and the Apprentice
the last series
when we're talking
about dishonesty
where the guy
was asked to interview
about some
false claims
that were made
on his website
and the person
interviewed and asked him
did you write them
and he said,
no,
I don't know how
they came onto
my website.
And he said,
did you write them?
And he said,
well,
I could have written them.
He said,
did you write them?
Oh,
there's a good chance
I could have written them.
Did you write them?
Yes,
I wrote them.
To a world that thinks
nothing of lying
and of deceit,
Paul says,
be different,
work for the Lord.
Work for the Lord.
Show them in the way
that you work.
Show them that Jesus
is your master.
Show them how Jesus
has claimed you
and changed you
and do it all the time.
I remember the job
I was in before this one
down south.
Some of my colleagues
would get together
and they would jokingly
have their own
little award ceremony.
And one of these
little awards
that they used to
kind of hand out
every year
was the Dolly Parton Award.
The Dolly Parton Award
wasn't for somebody
who was good at singing.
The Dolly Parton Award
went to the person
who was seen to be
simply working
nine to five.
Right?
It was a corporate law firm,
very different world,
simply working nine to five.
But the subtext
of that award
was that this person
we saw
did the bare minimum.
This person we saw
was not interested
in going the extra mile.
They were quite happy
to clock in and clock out.
This person we saw
had no interest
in the business
and he had no interest
in the people
that worked there.
They got the Dolly Parton Award.
Now don't hear what I'm not saying.
I'm not saying
sell yourself to your work.
Don't do that.
But the Christians
should never be up
for the Dolly Parton Award.
We should never be up for that.
We should deeply care
about what we do
because we are serving
the Lord.
Friends,
we want to be
the best kind of employees,
do we not?
The best kind of employees.
The best to hire,
the best to work with.
Think about your place of work.
Is that how you're known?
If you were ever
to move on
from your place of work,
would people be deeply saddened
that you've moved on?
Or would they be
delighted to see
the back of you?
Do people at work
know that you work
for the higher master?
Think about how
that might work out
in your office
tomorrow morning
as you speak
about your weekend.
Do they know what you do?
Do they know
who the master is?
And to masters,
that is to bosses,
Paul says,
verse 1 of chapter 4,
remember Christ
is your master too.
Therefore,
treat your slaves justly,
treat them fairly,
treat them considerately.
And particularly
in the immediate context
that he's picturing,
if your slave
is a fellow believer,
I think that's right
at the heart
of the little letter
of Philemon,
if you want to go home
and read that,
which is written
at the same time,
written to a member
of this Colossian family
who was a slave
and a master,
talking about how
the gospel has totally
transformed that relationship.
But Paul says,
in your work,
be walking billboards,
whatever you do,
be walking billboards
that say,
Jesus is my master.
He's my master.
So let me just ask you
once again as you close,
do you know where
your local pizza
delivery shop is?
Do you know where it is?
Paul argues these believers
to live in such a way
that when people
look at you
and they look
into your home,
they see walking billboards
that are displaying
the message,
Jesus is our master.
He's my master.
Now here's where
I want to end today.
Now you probably know
that I love to quote songs.
Here's another song
for you.
It's one that my dad
used to play in the car
when I was growing up
by Scotland's favorite son
called Rod Stewart.
And it went like this.
I wish that I knew
what I know now
when I was younger.
Remember that one?
Some of us?
No?
Some of us remember it.
I wish that I knew now,
I wish that I knew
what I know now
when I was younger.
Now here is what I know now.
Okay?
I've been doing this marriage thing
for almost eight years.
I've been doing this parenting thing
for almost four years.
I've been doing the work thing
between a mixture of part-time
and full-time
since I left school
almost 16 years ago.
And nothing has taught me more
but the depths of the sin
in my own heart
and the realities of living
in a broken and a fallen world
and my need for help
and my need for my brothers
and sisters
and for my absolute need
for the grace of God
and for a savior in my life.
I don't quite like marriage,
being a husband,
being a father,
and being an employee.
Because if we leave these verses
this morning
and the message is internal,
let's try harder,
let's be better.
Let me just tell you
from the little experience
that I've got
that we've totally missed the point.
This passage
should throw us to our knees
saying,
Lord Jesus,
we need you.
And it should send us
running to the Christ
that's right at the heart
of this letter to Colossians.
Remember the Christ
who has claimed us,
that our identity
is not in these things,
our identity is in him.
The Christ who's claimed us,
the Christ who's changing us
by his spirit,
and the Christ who loves
to show grace
to those who would
humble themselves
before him
and say,
Lord,
I need you.
Now I realize
we'll have hit
a lot of painful things
this morning.
And I hope a lot of challenges
and a lot of encouragements
at the same time as well.
But just as we close,
let's not rush on
from this today.
And just before I pray,
and I'm going to pray
for the different people
that come out of this one,
I just want you to have
a moment of silence.
And wherever this passage
finds you this morning,
I want you just to
bear your soul to the Lord.
God,
because he knows
and he cares
and he calls us,
doesn't he,
to cast our burdens
on him
because he cares for us.
And then I'll pray
and we'll be done.
And so, Father,
we thank you so much
for the Lord Jesus,
the image of the invisible God,
the creator
and the sustainer
and the redeemer
of all things.
And we thank you
that you are the God
of all grace
and for the gifts
that you give us
so unmerited,
particularly the gift
of marriage
and the gift of family
and the gift of work.
And so, Lord,
we ask that as we respond
to this passage this morning,
I ask, Father,
for those who
are deeply hurting,
Father,
that you would bring healing.
Father,
for those who are
dwelling on mistakes,
I pray that you would bring
forgiveness
and knowledge of that.
For those who are struggling,
I pray that you would bring
strength
and endurance
and patience.
and for all of us,
lords,
I pray that you would help us
to fix our eyes
on Jesus Christ,
our perfect
and all-sufficient
Savior.
So, Father,
help us to look to him
this week,
we ask,
in Jesus'
precious
and worthy name.
Amen.