Sermon Transcript:

All right, if you have your Bibles turned in First Corinthians six, if not, the whole passage will be up on the screen and another difficult passage from First Corinthians But it's great because it's a word to us. It's a word originally to the church at Corinth in the first century, and it's very much Word to us. So I wanted to read the intro to the series. In case you're sort of catching up or just need to be reminded, we put this in the email every week it says this, the city of Corinth was at the heart of an important trade route in the ancient world. Like many cities that thrive on trade, Corinth had a reputation for sexual immorality, religious diversity and corruption. The church that Paul planted there floundered under all these influences. First Corinthians addresses many practical questions about the church concerning such things as spiritual gifts, marriage, food offered to idols, and the resurrection. The book also calls for unification encourages us to work heartily for the Lord and shares with us how to love. So again, the reason why we're going through this right now is I know of no better book to really kind of help us process what we experience in our own culture today. And so we're going to begin First Corinthians chapter six, beginning in verse one, it says this, when one of you has a dispute with another believer, how dare you file a lawsuit and ask a secular court to decide the matter instead of taking it to other believers? Don't you realize that someday we believers will judge the world? And since you are going to judge the world? Can't you decide even these little things among yourselves? Don't you realize that we will judge angels, so you should surely be able to resolve ordinary disputes in this life? If you have legal disputes about such matters? Why go to an outside judge or outside judges who are not respected by the church? I'm saying this to shame you? Isn't there anyone in all the church who is wise enough to decide these issues, but instead one believer, Susan other right in front of unbelievers, of watching world? Even to have such lawsuits with one another? Is a defeat for you? Why don't I just accept the injustice and leave it at that? Why not let yourselves be cheated. Instead, you yourselves are the ones who do wrong and cheat even your fellow believers. So first point I wants to see today, which is a spiritual principle you maybe haven't thought of before, is suing is bad among your spiritual family. Now, we can even say this, if you want to take out the word spiritual. And the reason why we know this is bad not only because the Scriptures say so. But we know this experientially, I can go around the room or even if you've heard stories, or maybe you've had it in your own family, where there's been some sort of war or faction where maybe someone dies or something like that. And there's some money to be had and the brothers and sisters or the aunts and uncles, they don't get along, or even among business, and you'll have falling outs among family and business. Uh, we know that suing is bad among normal family, our immediate family, our extended family. And he's just using that principle to say, suing is bad among your spiritual family as well. Why? Well, first, it leads to disunity and pain that is so great. I've given some examples thinking about family. But maybe you've experienced this in a church where there starts to be factions. And there starts to be people who war and talk against one another because they're doing things in the courtroom. So the disunity and pain is great and confidently to a split, where everyone takes sides. Second reason why sealing is bad for your spiritual family is because why are we going to unbelievers when God has equipped the church to be wise and to grow in wisdom in matters of dispute? Now we're going to talk about when do we bring in the civil magistrates are when do we bring in a different authorities? Because I think there's reasons for that. And we'll talk about that in a minute. But just on this matter, what, what are we kind of talking about here? Let's just say that, that someone in the church hired someone else to do some plumbing work for them. And it either went bad, and they didn't perform the work they were supposed to, or they ran out on their bill. That's the kind of thing we're talking about here. We're not talking about criminal but so why are we going to unbelievers, when God has equipped the church to be wise and grown wisdom? I hope you saw that in the past is they're talking about the wisdom of believers that God gives us. Third, shame comes from airing our dirty laundry. We know this right? So anytime you have some sort of public spectacle, we have some sort of public unraveling of a family dispute. What does it do? What does it bring upon the family in the community or if they're nationally known in their nation or city at large? It brings shame, doesn't it? What are they doing? Are they fighting among themselves? They couldn't work this out. They couldn't figure out a way to sort of get over this

And so it shows shame. That's why he Paul's saying I say this to your shame that you're bringing each other to court about matters of money and suing. Number four, it shows where our hearts are, it shows where our hearts are, and that we want to sue either to get back or create vengeance or vindictiveness or just want the, the money. And we're doing this to what, in this context to a brother or sister in Christ, someone in your own community. So again, this is my first point saying is bad among your spiritual family. Now, I want to be real clear, we're not talking about criminal cases. Again, I'm sure you look at headlines from time to time that show different churches, whether they're evangelical churches, or Catholic churches who have tried to hide or cover up sin of maybe sexual abuse or some other form of abuse. That's not what we're talking about here. And when those things arise, yes, we're to call the proper authorities. We're talking about things because it's very obvious when you read the whole passage where we can, we can take that insult, we can take that loss. It's like Jesus, when He said, turn the other cheek, if somebody wants to insult you, and slap you turn the other cheek, if someone in the church wants to do a bad plumbing job or a bad electrical job, and, and kind of, you know, maybe skip out on the bill. That's something you can take in, in fact, he's encouraging us to go in and take that hit, because of the unity of the faith, the body handle it internally, just like we would as a family. Nobody wants to see uncles and nephews and cousins fist fighting out in the front yard. And we don't want to see this either with the church. Let's keep going. Verse nine, it says this right here. Don't you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the kingdom of God? So he's given you some assurance that if you find yourselves among the different kind of people, you're going to talk about here swindlers and, and people who are doing things wrong, don't you realize that, hey, if you continue in that wrongness, they're not going to hurt the kingdom of God, which is what we're about. That's why he says, ultimately, you and I are going to judge each other and angels, because that's going to be in the coming Kingdom. Next sentence, don't fool yourself, for those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or male prostitutes or practice homosexuality, or are thieves or are greedy people or are drunkards or are abusive, or cheat people. None of these will inherit the kingdom of God. Key word here. Some of you were once like that, but you are cleanse, you are made holy, you are made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, by the Spirit of our God. So number two, second point I wanted to see this morning is you used to be screwed up. Okay, we talked about all this pulling it back at us. Yeah, we used to be screwed up, we're meant to leave that behind. So he's calling out the Corinth church, we are to see ourselves in these verses that I think guilty of some or many of those things. And you're meant to say I am meant to bring or to leave that behind. Because I'm no longer a part of that. I don't want to be that any more. Now, since you see this. You might think Man, I don't like Paul's list. It's either too long, it's too short and include something you didn't want it to include or exclude something you didn't want to to exclude. But I just want to say here from the get go, that there's no inconsistencies in the moral ethic of what's going on here in the scriptures. It's been very consistent in the Old Testament, you can go back to the Levitical law, how Jewish and Israelites saw themselves. Religions for 1000s of years have been against these kinds of things. And so so we like to cherry pick our favorite sins. And what I mean by that is sometimes you're like, Yeah, this is mine. I'm sort of guilty of this little thing. Here's my little, here's my little vise, but no, but I don't do all those other things. So I'm, you know, I've got I've got the scales sort of tipped in my favor, or we do that with other people like, hey, really what they do, yeah, I get what I do is bad. But what they do, it's kind of worse than what I do. So he's just saying no, let's just knock all that down and say a couple of things about if you are a part of these kinds of things. You're not going to hear it the kingdom of God. I realized some of you were like that you've been called out of that. You've been cleanse, your feets been put on a rock, you've now received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, leave that kind of stuff behind. What kind of stuff? Are we talking about sexual immorality. We don't have to define that we know what that is. That is any sort of form that is outside of God's design for sexual intimacy, which is one man and one woman in the context of marriage. And so any of that outside of that we understand he's saying, Don't do that. Leave that behind. Other things about worship of idols. This shouldn't be a shocker. I told you, it's consistent. This is the second commandment. Remember the first commandment worship Lord your God. Alone is one. The second one is do not worship any idols any graven images, adultery, you'll be hard pressed to find a culture and a people who are going to highlight and magnify adultery for 1000s

1000s of years among all cultures, and among all people adultery has been wrong. It's seen as a negative. It's seen as something that unravels the family and society. Prostitution, again, another one of those things, that it's hard to find cultures and peoples and religious groups that are going to be pro prostitution. Although there were in terms of the ancient world where you had prostitution temples, although there were in the Roman world where you had prostitution tents outside the Colosseum games, homosexuality, for most of world history has been seen as a perversion, I get that that may be controversial, it's gets into political things, but but it's very clear here that that you and I can be freed from that we can turn back from that and to leave that behind. And I'll talk about maybe that one, if that's the one that is a stumbling block for you. Stealing most people are against stealing. And I think that's very clear. Even when we're getting confused in our day and age of what to do with people with different backgrounds who find themselves stealing, we understand that there ought to be repercussions, and consequences for stealing greediness. I've never, I've never met a club. That's the pro greediness club. So we understand that that is a vise, drunkard or alcoholics again, our culture and religion across the world would say yes, alcoholism or drunkenness is a problem, abuse, slander, or revisers. That's what that word error means abuse. And some of your translations may say slander errs, or some of them may say revisers. What are we talking about here? It's using words for harm. How many people want that done to them? How many people want somebody throwing out words that are meant to harm you and me, I don't, you don't either. So he's saying that's wrong, or cheaters, whether you're not just cheating at cards, but any sort of theft, or any sort of cheating people out of what is rightfully theirs. Now, if you say I don't like the list, because I cherry pick, even though you tell me I don't cherry pick, I end up cherry picking or, you know, I just don't like Paul's list because it's too long or too short. What you and I will sometimes do if we find ourselves in that situation where we want to sort of go outside of Scripture to sort of find our moral ethic is we'll sort of figure out what's right and wrong from the gut test, right? You may have friends and relatives like this, you may find yourself and this from time to time, it's like, man, that doesn't pass the gut test. Or you'll say, okay, that just doesn't smell right. And the problem with that is it depends on what you're putting in your gut. And it depends on what you're smelling. And the other thing is, is so goes the environment that you're around, you've got to decide, can you still stomach that? Or can you still smell that? Case in point the last several years when you've had teachers who have to call children by certain avatars, when they're in the classroom about certain pronouns as they change day to day, many of you on the room say, Man, I can't stomach that. I can't, that doesn't pass the smell test. It's like well, little bit if that's all you're going off of, you have to realize that then it can go, you're an eyes moral ethic, can swing the pendulum, with and along culture. So if you don't like Paul, or the biblical Judeo Christian values, ethics in terms of figuring out what you believe about human sexuality and other things, what are you going to be left with your gut tests or your smell tests? The reason why people were envious of the people of Israel in the Old Testament, I've already told you that, that God was calling the people of God out of just horrific circumstances around major paganism and idol worship, and in temple prostitutes and all that was going on in ancient world. But the reason why they were envious of Israel is because God spoke to them. He gave them the 10 commandments, that was actually seen as something as oh my gosh, you have a God who speaks to you from heaven, and he gives you on tablets of stone, a moral ethic in which you can live in and if you live in the that you will prosper. Boy, that was that was a big deal in the ancient world, and even big deal for us today to be able to say, man, what do you Christians do over there? And that church, what are you able to stand on, you're able to stand on the rock, you're able to stand on truth, you're able to understand, even with grace and love, where you land on certain issues, because God Himself revealed these things to you. That's cool. And that, again, creates some sort of in Venus from those around us, because what are they using to understand right and wrong, some form of gut check, or smell test?

So what if you still don't like the stance that Paul has on sin? What alternatives are you going to end up using? Because everybody in every culture has lines and standards I sort of got into this last week when I was talking about when we are to remove someone from our midst it because they're caught up in sin and will repent of it. Everybody in every culture has lines and standards and we don't get a pass. If we find ourselves with a propensity towards certain sins over others what I mean by this, so you may be looking across at these sins, and you may say, Listen, I mean, I've got a cousin or I've got a friend or I've got family members that they really do struggle with this sexual issue. How

I only want to process that and think through that. Now, I want to tell you that it's not much different than what you may be hearing, which is everybody has a combination of nature and nurture, a combination of how they are wired, how they come out of the womb, and what their experiences are. So this shouldn't be a shocker that sin can be pervasive. And it shouldn't be a shocker that some of us struggle with certain sins more than others that says, You don't have to be in this world very long to look at yourself and look at those around you and be like, Why in the world? Do they struggle with alcoholism? That's so stupid, I take one sip of it, and I'm kind of done for the night and, and then you look at other people's like, why do they keep running around on him or her? Why do they, you know, so I, you know, I'm good with just kind of one, one partner, and you know, you look up he was like, why do they why do they steal? I mean, they have money, they have a job, why are they taking things when it's an opportunity to do so. And so what we're doing when she does, we're starting to see that men we look around us and in their sin and me and their sin and others, and we get like, what, oh, man, what am I supposed to do? And I'm telling you, biblically, we're all called to a high standard, a high moral ethic, a high virtue, even if you and I find ourselves saying, man, but but they really do struggle with this sin more than I do. So yes, of course, they might. You know why? Because sin is pervasive. And we all have different struggles, and different things, that we may have a more easy tendency to, because of what because of maybe how we were brought up, or because of the very nature of how we're wired,

the remedy in our heart and mind, for sexual perversion, and all the other ones that we've talked about, it is theological, not merely external, right, so you're not going to hear from me up on this stage that, okay, if you struggle with any of these things, just sort of grit your teeth and grip your hands and say, don't do that anymore. Don't do that anymore. I don't want to do that anymore. I don't know, you're gonna see that God is gonna give you an eye a beautiful picture about how we are to walk in Him and walk in freedom because of what he's done in us. But don't let's not forget the second point that we used to be screwed up. He says that all this list of sins as such, some of you were, but God has redeemed us, God has saved us. And he's calling us to leave that behind. So let's pick up in verse 12. The third and final section we'll look at this morning, you say, and he's just saying this, now that he's talking to the Corinthian church, this must be a phrase that was either said, among the church or among the culture, I'm allowed to do anything sound familiar in our culture as well. Not everything is good for you, though. So he's saying, I've heard you say these kinds of things, I'm allowed to do whatever I want. But not everything is good for you. And even though I'm allowed to do anything, he's quoting this, whether it was a proverb of the day or something, they said in the church. He's telling them, I must not be become a slave to anything. You say, food was made for the stomach and the stomach for food. This is true. The Sunday God will do away with both of them, right? So one day, we don't have any more need for food and our own bodies. But you can't say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. So we all have ways that we want. We all have gymnastics and little tricks that we play, to try to justify whatever sin we want to be a part of, or we want to get someone else out of jail free in terms of a moral, oftentimes sexual ethic that our bodies were made for sexual immorality, you can't you can't play those kinds of games. They meaning the bodies were made for the Lord, and Lord cares about our bodies, and God will raise us from the dead by His power just as he raised our Lord from the dead. Don't you realize that your bodies are actual parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ and join it to a prostitute? Never. And don't you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her, for the Scriptures say the two were united into one. I don't take that to mean that you get married every time you have sex with a prostitute. But what he's saying here is, don't you understand that that's a picture of the one flesh union the sexual union is a picture of the one flesh union that God intended for marriage.

But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him run or Flee from sexual sin. It's the same word used by Joseph leaving part of his wife flee from it, Ron, get out. No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself for God bought you with a high price, so you must honor God with your body. All right, so maybe that even gives some more color or fruit to a more complete sexual ethic. That's theologically what I think Paul's trying to do here. So third point I wants to see there is in your literal being he says body but I wanted to say being because it's holistically we often think of the body just as our flesh that you know, I

get hurt or cut on my body, I gotta go see the doctor. But biblically, the body is holistically. It's, it's who I am as a person, there is Brent and Brent, when he gets cut, he cries, he not only bleeds from his flesh, but he cries because he's actually hurt inside. But what he's saying is you're and I's literal being is where God dwells, that's huge. That's why sexual immorality doesn't make any sense. And it brings great harm to us in the short term and long term. And because there's something going on once you become a believer, and that is old school, easy to say that you ask Jesus into your heart, that God lives in your heart. But it's just that whole idea biblically that the Spirit of God lives in the heart in the mind of believers. And that spirit of God is pervasive. So it's a theological vision for our problems, not simply stop this and start that. Oftentimes, people think about church as some sort of rules of stop this and start this. And that's not what's going on here. It's a transformation from the inside out. So if you really realize who you are in Christ, and that's what he wants for us, He wants us to realize that you and I will wash you and I will redeemed, your nice feet are now set on a rock, you and I are now connected to the one who was raised from the dead, you and I went for baptized and we come out of that water, we are now raised to walk in newness of life. He's saying that's a theological vision for your life. And mine, I can get behind that you can get behind that what you and I can't get behind is some sort of gritting our teeth, pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps to say, Oh, I don't want to do that anymore. Oh, I want to stop that. Oh, I want to start this. That's not what Paul's saying. He say, Man, I need you to rest in the freedom that you have in Christ. But what that'll mean, is not permission to do whatever you want, is to know who you are and who's you're. So in Corinth, just like the west today, they had sort of what we would call a too high view of sex and a too low view of sex. What I mean by that, well, they either viewed sex is like everything, like we often do, sometimes you'll hear this in our culture, in our, in our news streams, and in our, in our entertainment at large. Of how can you live a full life without doing it all the time? Right. So that's sort of Highview to hive of you have sex as if sex is everything as if we're nothing more than just bodies and beings that have to sort of do this all the time. So that's, that's too high, or too low of a view of sex, sex has absolutely nothing. Why does it matter who I have sex with, it's just an act, just a physical thing. That's why we can get on all these apps and switch all these partners all the time, because it's just nothing. And the Bible was trying to call carve a way for us to have a vision, a good sexual ethic that's rooted in him to understand that there's more going on here than just merely that physical act. And that's why if somebody talked to you about sex outside marriage, and all they ever did was simply point to practical matters, like, well, I don't want you to get, you know, unwanted pregnancies, or I don't want you to get an STD. Or if you wait, and just have one partner for life and somehow be better, those things may be true, maybe I'll avoid and enjoy some of those things. But those are sort of secondary practical issues. Paul's not addressing it in that way. He's going far above that to say it is because our bodies are members of Christ. That's a huge deal here. And because that's true, and because we have resurrection power, then holistically, we would want to honor God with everything he's entrusted us with, because he's changed our heart from the inside out. That's so important, right? Transformation is what's going to have to occur because if you and I are just told these outward things that we got to keep up with rules, whether you do that to someone else, whether it's the children or people in your care, or you feel like that's all God's trying to tell you Israel, we're not going to keep those even if we do keep those rules. We'll do it in a way that's that's prideful, and we'll pump ourselves up. But if we see men because God of who you are, because you have made me and because you desire for me good things, I want to walk in that I want the fruitful life, I want the blessed life, okay, that's the way to get it. Okay, I submit to that God, because I realized that if I just do things your way, that I will really achieve all those things in a healthy godly way that I say, I want and I'll be what I call our true self. When we work on ourselves holistically, our lives, they just get better. Right? Because we'll have this resurrection power and the physical effects. I would just want to make this so clear, because often times, especially in you know, generations gone past we would sort of talk about God and spirituality and Jesus as something that was just spiritual as if it was kind of floating out there. And maybe you can sort of tap into that and get it on the inside. And who cares about our bodies you can be you can be fat, you can be whatever and it didn't matter. It's like no, no God, He cares about who you are. And he recognizes that if you're

Mental health as well, then your physical health to be well your physical health, your mental health, and your spiritual health. They're all sort of working together there to make you you and to make me me. And so therefore, if we want our lives to get better, God is calling us to work on ourselves holistically, physically working out diet, sleep, good hygiene, these are, these are important things to help us feel better about ourselves physically. And again, just like the other sins we talked about, is there going to be some people where this is easier for them than others? Absolutely. But that doesn't get anyone off the hook. Right? I mean, that's, that's why you would come to church because you don't want to just be told the same thing that anyone else would tell you in the world, you want to be called up. And Paul is calling us up. And I as a conduit of Paul's words, which are really God's word is calling all of us up to say, we can do better, we can live better, yes, we will. We will stumble, but we will stumble forward church, we're not going back. I don't want to go back. You don't want to go back. You've seen the list, you understand what's going on here in Corinthians, you understand that? Who wants to go back to, to greediness and, and sloth and stealing and talking bad about one another in sexually doing whatever I want? No, I want to move and fall forward to physically I think that's important spiritually. That's why you're here in public worship. And we try to greet one another and we try to have opportunities to gather. And, you know, I know it's bittersweet to send Chris off. But it's another opportunity for us to sort of gather after the service. So we have public practice of spiritual encouragement, we also have private practice. And we understand that if we don't have any sort of private spiritual life that has any sort of vitality or life to it whatsoever, that we will struggle in our public spiritual life, because the two are intertwined. We can't separate them any more than the physical. What about friendships? Oh, my gosh, how hard has it been post COVID world to really foster good friendships. And because there aren't natural ways that we run into each other as often anymore. So we have to work towards that, because that's part of being a holistic believer is that we care and love one another. Marriage, if you have one, it takes work, anybody who's married and has any sort of decent marriage, nobody will tell you, you can just canoe or coast into a good marriage, you've got to fight for that you've got to work on that it's takes a lot.

But God, God's grace, we can do it. It's from the inside out. It's not sort of some sort of outward performance. Nice thing is money, stewardship to all this stuff, our physical bodies, our spiritual lives, our friendship, life, our marriage life, which includes children or, and also our financial life. It's all God's calling us. Obviously, this is not your own, I've given this to you, I've redeemed all of this. So now walk in love in these areas, walk in truth, walk in wisdom in these areas, and your life will get better, my life will be better, because it's all stewardship of what God has entrusted us with for this season. Because God is with us this last and final point I'll kind of make, because God is with us. Where we go, God goes, I don't know if you ever thought about this before. I've mentioned this before that we don't need air conditioning and lights and you know, screens to do church, we just need a person of God with the Word of God to be able to speak to the people of God. And we could do church under a shade tree or whatever. Because why we saw very clearly here that the Spirit of God lives inside of you and me if we are Christ's followers, and I want you to know that you have to take that to its full understanding that when you and I go out, because we're all gonna go out into the marketplace this week or school, you're gonna go the marketplace or school, even if you have a zoom or stay at home job or remote job, you're going to be interacting with other people, even if it's through writing or technology. But most of us are going to go into the workplace, the marketplace or school, some version of it. And you and I have to think because this is what Paul wants us to understand. When you and I walk into a room and walk into a setting only have that meeting on the phone or have that meeting on Zoom, that God is with us and that we are representing God right in that moment. How can I say that? Because he's in you and me. And so therefore, when we do that, we have to ask ourselves God, why do you have me in this room?

So I know we have in this room because I've got to get this, you know, report done, or I've got to ask them about this. No, no, no. That's secondary. Yes. You've got to get your job done. Oh, no, I've got to get on the framing side. I've got to get the cabinet's in. Yeah, no, I get all that. But you are now interacting with another person who is creating the image of God. You have to be asking yourself and your representative God and chances are if you're here in El Paso that they don't go to a church regularly and they don't worship the true God regularly and so now your God or Jesus to them because God lives in you and you have to ask yourself, Okay, God, if you're in me, why do you have me here? What What kind of word you want me to give to this person in this moment? How do you want me to interact with them to show you to be great to show you to be amazing?

This sort of thing will only occur you and I will only have the mindset in that moment and the strength in that moment to view our life in that way if Guess what? If we've taken care of ourselves physically, we've gotten enough sleep, we're not worried about what we're gonna eat next. We're not worried about our own little problems. We're not worried about who all this and that because why? Because you've probably met with God, you're okay, because you went to church at least once this week, and you got spiritually refreshed, and you got marching orders on what you're supposed to do this week, you can see how this makes a huge difference. If we will just lean into this concept of if God is in you and me. Let's ask ourselves, when we go into any given situation that we're going to go into this week, God, I have open hands right now. What do you want me to do? How do you want me to respond? How do you want me to lead out? And as you lead God, I'll follow. Because I can't go backwards. I know what that life led to. I know how empty those sins were. Yeah, they felt good for a moment, right? That's how sin works. It's fleeting pleasures. It's, it's good for a moment. But then it tastes like sand in our mouth pretty quickly. And so he said, I can't go back there. You and I can't go back there. And so as we stumble forward, and that's literally what I mean by that as we move forward, knowing that we're going to still be tripped up by our old sinful habits, Lord, but because you live in me, what do you have for me today? That's the prayer. That's the ask. Let's pray.

Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank you how you do care for us. I pray for those in the room who are hurting right now who are even thinking about friends and relatives who struggle with sexual immorality or struggle with theft or alcoholism, or whatever it is, I just pray that You would give much grace and wisdom in these days, and how we interact with Father more than anything. I pray for ourselves. Because we see ourselves in that list we see.

Yeah, I was real screwed up. I acted in really, really, really destructive, unhealthy, sinful ways. Oh, Lord, helped me to leave that in the past because that's not who I am anymore.

You have recreated me you tell me that I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. You tell me. I'm enough. You tell me I am loved. You tell me that I can do this. I can get up one more day that Satan that one, because there's still breath in my lungs. So Father, I pray for us, individually, that you help us corporately as a body. Be the church you called us to be this week, and all the days of our life that says In Christ's name, Amen.