And so, Abba, with these truths in mind and many more that come to mind, we praise You and thank You that You have drawn us to your heart and brought us under your care, placed us under your name and given us the full rights of heirs of your household. Thank you that in uniting us to Jesus Christ, all that is true and blessed and holy and lovely in him is true now in us. There's nothing we've done to earn it. We could never earn it. We could never attain to His glory on our own, but you've united us to Him. And in union with Him, we are perfectly accepted. That privilege amazes us and it humbles us. moves us to repent of our sins and to plead for your mercy and for the cleansing of your blood. We are sorrowful this night, Father, that we have taken the sweet name of the Lord Jesus Christ and his reputation, and we have attached it to many things that he died to deliver us from. And we ask that you would forgive us for not living as true Christians ought to live. But thank you for your unchanging love. Thank you for the covenant that you have made with Christ and with us. And we ask that you would bring us greater assurance day by day of all that you are for us in Jesus. As we open the word we do so with anticipation and expectation and I pray spirit of God that you would be our divine instructor this night. That you would speak very clearly and speak authoritatively. Speak in a very personal way to the needs that each of us has. And give us tender hearts, please. We bow ourselves before you and acknowledge that you alone are God and King, and that all that you say we must believe, and all that you command we must do, and all that you promise we must rest in. So let your word be clear. And as you send it, we are confident that you will accomplish everything for which you send it. And we've been reminded of that in recent days, that the rain that falls, the snow that covers the ground is not without effect, but it is part of the means that you have ordained to bring forth life. So let the Word as it goes out in this place tonight bring forth spiritual life. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Open your Bibles please to Ephesians, and tonight, chapter 2. Ephesians 2, that's page 976 if you're using one of the Pew Bibles. While you're turning there, I want to give you a little bit of information. We announced this morning that Art Dresbach had gone home to be with the Lord this morning, and I want to thank those of you who had already called, and several have visited with Mary Lou this afternoon, and you are a great blessing to her. The visitation is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon from 4 until 6 o'clock right here. Then the service will be Thursday afternoon at 3 o'clock right here at Heritage. So we hope that you will keep Mary Lou and her family in your prayers and rejoice that Christ has completed that work of sanctification in art. Ephesians 2. And you are dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of the world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands, remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances, that He might create in Himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And He came and preached peace to you who were far off, and peace to those who were near. For through Him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In Him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit." What an amazing portion. We began this morning to consider who we are as a church family. But as I shared at the outset, who we are is not nearly as important in the grand scheme of things as to who our God is. Now, who we are flows directly out of who our God is and what He is doing. I would not want you to disconnect those two. I would not want you to place one of those truths at one end of a bookshelf, as it were, and one on the other end, as if they don't belong in the same category. but rather I would want you to consider who we are in light of who our God is and who we are in Him. We looked this morning, just surveying the first chapter, part of the second, and part of the third, at all the blessings that are ours through God's work, through His initiative. Seventeen in particular that we identified, but going back to chapter one for just a brief moment of review, Paul says that we are to eulogize God, blessing God who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ, in heavenly places. I said that you can read through the first three chapters and you and I do not appear as the subject of any significant verb of action. It is always God who is acting. It is God who is initiating. It is God who is choosing, predestining, who is blessing, who is forgiving, who is redeeming. God is at work. He is specifically at work blessing us in multiple ways. The 17 points that we looked at this morning are not the comprehensive list of all the blessings that are ours, but rather a strong representation of them. But all of those blessings, as we noticed this morning, are located in Christ. And were there no Christ, there would not be at least the same kind of blessing that we enjoy. There would certainly not be the redemption that we know, the hope of glory that we have in our hearts. So God has blessed us eternally in the heavenly realms. It is all in Christ. I think that as we consider tonight that we are a Christ centered people, it becomes immediately apparent why we would say that. In the book of Ephesians, Christ is central. That title, Christ, appears 46 times. It's not that long. And if you have a copy as I do, it's all of four pages. One, two, three, and not even the full fourth page. At 46 times there, Christ is named. He is central in this book. He is central in the life of the believer. Now, let's go back and take a quick run through some of those things from chapter 1. I didn't read those tonight, but just very briefly because they are tied to the blessings that are ours because of God's grace to us. But in Christ, verse 4, we are chosen. Through Christ, we have been predestined for adoption, verse 5. We have redemption, verse 7 tells us, in Christ. We have forgiveness of sins in Christ. We know the mystery of His will as a result of Christ. All things will one day be united in Christ, verse 10. We have obtained an inheritance in Christ, verse 11, and we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit in Christ, verse 13. Now look with me at chapter 2 and go now to verse 11. Because there's something very specific that the Lord wants to do on earth in the church, capital C, but he does it in local assemblies like this. And I am making a little bit of a distinction there because there is one. We are a church, small c, but we are part of the church, capital C, in the world. As you begin to look at verse 11, you have to be impressed with something extraordinary that is underway. Paul says, therefore, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision. That is not a term that really Gentiles would want to be identified by. Partly because of the way the Jewish people would be using it. In the Jewish mind, the Gentiles are of a different class. And it really goes both ways, doesn't it? Historically, it has. One group has not had natural love for the other, and the other group, by and large, has not had any love for the other. And so, through the history of mankind, there have been great conflicts, wars, political battles, struggles. We see it even in our day and age. But Christ is at work doing something that is extraordinary. So you who are once called even by a derogatory term, the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision. Remember, verse 12 tells us that you are at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world, your situation was dire. But what happened? Well, verse 13, but now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Christ works in an extraordinary way and specifically through his blood that he begins to clear the landscape of all of those obstacles, those barriers and boundary markers that tend to keep people groups divided. The two particular people groups that are mentioned here are Gentiles and Jews. This Christ stands in the midst of all of this turmoil and division and racial hostility and works marvelously. In Paul's particular day as he was writing to the Ephesians, and really in many ways things have not changed, but we don't come up against this on a day-to-day basis as many in Ephesus would have encountered it, but the Jews had wrongly equated spirituality with the physical sign of circumcision. Get the sign, get the relationship with God. Now, the sign was very significant. It was given to them by God. But there are other passages where Paul says very plainly, circumcision is nothing. Because the spirituality of an individual is not based upon any external. It's not based on your external compliance to a set of rules and regulations, but the spirituality that the gospel opens for us, that Christ himself purchased with his blood is a spirituality that begins first in the heart and soul of an individual. The spiritual weight given to the sign by the Jews created a wall of separation, a wall of division that seemed to be impenetrable. A wall that was even described, and Paul alludes to this in his passage, of hostility. Cross the wall and you die. And the temple complex becomes a visible demonstration of the kind of spiritual division that existed. And there were certain partitions in that court and there were warning signs that said to Gentiles in particular, cross this barrier and you will die. But in Christ, the classifications of uncircumcision and the circumcision no longer exist. And Christ actually relocates the far off ones so that now they are near. And he takes the ones who were thinking they were near all the while and weren't actually near at all, but he brings them right into one people. So Paul says you're no longer strangers or aliens and then he uses the term Rather your fellow citizens. How amazing is that? Can you imagine that in Jerusalem tonight? There would actually be a real peace accord struck where where? Israelis and Palestinians who right now are our one group bulldozes the the the land holdings and buildings and businesses of the other and then this group fires rockets back and protests and they can you imagine if they all sat down and said Hey, you know what? Let's live together. Let's build this thing together. Your city is my city. My city is your city. We are one. That's the kind of thing that the Lord is talking about here that happens in Christ. He uses this term as He presses on, you are members of the household of God. No class differentiation. You're all one. You start thinking of the things that divide you from other people in life, and sometimes it's just a matter of where you live, where you work, what you're interested in. It's not that you set out to say, I don't like those people over there and I'm not going to be with them. You just have particular interests that draw you to, consequently, a particular group of people. And then there are those people, though, who because they like or love or pursue particular things, you say, I could never be with them. You see this polarizing even good church members, one from another, in the realm of sports. I had a couple of you talking to me today about some of the playoffs that are underway. You like the so-and-sos and such-and-such? Yeah? Does that mean that you and I can't talk to each other now? But then if you kick it into the realm of religious beliefs, you can understand what kind of hostility would spring up between people who are persuaded that their particular point of view is absolutely correct. And when it conflicts with someone else who is just as persuaded that their opinion is correct, those two groups aren't getting along. Go to verse 19 with me. You are no longer strangers and aliens. You are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God." Now look at this, verse 20, "...built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone." Christ has first eliminated the divisions that keep us apart and gathered His people as one. But now, I'll give you another G word, He's going to ground us in Him. Cornerstones aren't as big a deal today in construction as they once were. You can still find them. And when they are laid these days, it is mostly for symbolic purposes. But there was an extremely important function that cornerstones served in the building programs of Paul's day. It is the primary, the foundation stone that is laid so that the angles of the structure by which all the other architectural pieces and additions would be formed, built, constructed. And so from that cornerstone, the construction team, the construction crew took all of their bearings. All things ultimately were measured by or in proportion to or in relationship to the cornerstone. So it's not merely a symbolic piece we put in place and stamp the date of construction on there, you know, built in 1922. Ah, the cornerstone tells us when the building was built. Christ is not that kind of cornerstone. Christ is the primary piece of the structure by whom every other measurement, every other angle, every other piece of work is set. Apart from him, not even the foundation of the apostles can be laid properly. Some of you remember, it was not that long ago, but how much care, how long, how many weeks it took to get the ground prepared out back and we had some rain delays and things through there, and then to actually pour the foundation and let that be set. Getting the foundation right is essential to the rest of the building itself. And you know what's interesting to me? That as important as every building material is, some building materials make lousy foundations and would make lousy points of reference like a cornerstone. Say, what do you mean? You know, they poured cement out back and it became the foundation. There was some block work that had to be done, you know, retaining walls and things here and there. But they didn't use any electrical wiring material for the foundation. They didn't even use steel girders. didn't use roofing material, they didn't use any PVC pipe. All that stuff is great and it's very important. It's vital to the building functioning as it was designed to function, but it makes lousy foundation material. Christ is the cornerstone by which we order the life of the church. And only in Him does the whole structure grow and develop into a holy temple to the Lord. Without him the church cannot keep the structure aligned and supported. I don't care how fine the other building materials are without Christ as cornerstone and then the proper foundation in this case the apostles and prophets laid around him. It's going to come down. Let me illustrate it very specifically. Although we are committed to strong, biblical, expository preaching, our church is not founded on strong preaching. The strength of the preaching only lies in the strength of the content, and the strength of the content must always be Christ. Unless Christ is the substance and content of what is preached and proclaimed, of what is taught and discussed, whether in this assembly, whether in a small Sunday school class, a shepherd group, or even a personal Bible study that's not church-initiated, unless Christ is central, it is destined to fail. A man with the knowledge of persuasive speech can move a crowd any size, every time it gathers, but we're not called of God to simply move people with the powers of persuasion. I want to preach persuasively, but I also recognize that it is not a matter of honing my public speaking ability, of drawing upon the classes that I had or the experiences that I've had through the year, but rather being in the Word, seeing Christ, hearing Christ, experiencing Christ, praying for His power to be poured out in this place. And, you know, the difference between preaching that is full of Christ and centered in Christ and preaching that is just powerful rhetorically. There have been too many conversations that I've had through the years where folks would say we spent years in a good Bible believing church, but we're starving. I always have to ask myself, how did that happen? And you know, if you did some investigation, it is not because the doctrinal statement of the church was filled with heresy or aberrant teaching. It's not because the preacher mumbled and failed to communicate effectively. It's not because the classes had wolves and false teachers who were just confusing and bringing turmoil. If you listen to people, it will often be that the Word of God was not unpacked each week with a view of finding Christ. And you know this. Many of you know from your own experience that the only Word that truly satisfies and truly nourishes and builds you up in the faith is the word that is centered in Christ. So are we committed to biblical exposition? Absolutely. But even that technique must also ultimately lead us to Christ. Another important building material would be the personal application, the biblical principles, even the standards of our ethics and behavior that we would draw out of the scriptures, but those are not the foundation. They are built on the foundation. They are built on the cornerstone, to put it in the specific context of this. So we will teach and we will model biblical principles and standards for living, but they are founded on Christ and flow out of Him and our knowledge of Him, the cornerstone of this church, the cornerstone of any church. What our church is built upon is Jesus Christ, the eternally living, sovereignly ruling, blood-shedding, sin-forgiving, grace-bestowing, and successfully church-building Savior and King. Now, with Christ as cornerstone, strong and beautiful materials begin to rise around Him and in relationship to Him. Let me show you what I mean, and Paul will get to this. Go to chapter 4 and let me show you how practical a Christ-centered structure, Christ-centered living becomes. Look at Ephesians 4.25. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another." So he's continued to develop this theme that we're one in Christ, we've been brought into his household, we are citizens of his kingdom, family members of this Heavenly Father. Christ is the cornerstone that has very practical implications for us. Here's one of them. Tell the truth. Verse 28, just to summarize that very belief, we work in order to share with one another. Why? Because Christ is the cornerstone. Verse 29, we speak in order to build up and give grace to one another. Why? Because we're recipients of grace. Christ is the cornerstone. Verse 32, we forgive one another even the most grievous offenses because God for Christ's sake has forgiven us everything. Christ is the cornerstone of right relationships. He's the cornerstone of your forgiveness. He's the cornerstone of your faith that you've been forgiven. And he's the cornerstone of your faith to step out and forgive someone else who's offended you so grievously. You having a hard time forgiving someone right now because of what you've suffered? and sin creates real suffering in our hearts, go back to your cornerstone. Ephesians 5, verse 2, "...walk in love as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." So we are oriented to our lives. We're taking an ethical measurement, as it were, saying, okay, here's the standard by which we will walk. We're going to walk in love. Why? As Christ loved us. We just took a bearing. off the cornerstone. Just set a life heading off of this cornerstone that's firmly planted here. That's a radical ethic. You live like that, you are very different from the world that does not have Christ as its cornerstone. But again, can I tell you, if you pull Christ right out of the middle of that, what does it sound like? It's nothing more than a book of virtues. which I, memory serves me correct, a guy named Bennett wrote a book of virtues and then was caught in some just horrible scandal later. What happened? Maybe part of the explanation is that the foundation of even of that book of virtues, the cornerstone was not Christ. So yes, ethical standards will begin to be seen, and those would be like the steel girders of a church. But personal standards, high personal standards, become like these beautifully crafted aesthetic features. Let's go on in chapter 5. Look at verse 3 with me. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among saints, holy ones. Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving." Hey, is your Facebook page characterized by that? How much praise and thanksgiving is posted there? Is there crude joking and jesting? whining that's not an expression of Thanksgiving. When Christ is your cornerstone, you can even take a bearing for how you're going to construct your Facebook account. Let's read on. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ in God. Let no one deceive you with empty words for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not associate with them. For at one time you were darkness but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light for the fruit of the light for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them, for it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. Look carefully, then, how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise. And he continues. Hey, we are taking We're shooting some lines. What's the proper terminology? Transit? It's like a divine transit. And you place that thing right on the cornerstone, which is Christ, and then you begin to say, so how should I talk to the people around me? How should I think? How should I act? How should I joke? Wow, Christ even gives me a heading for how I should joke. Not crude, not vulgar. We're just taking all kinds of bearings to make sure that the structure of our lives, and ultimately the structure of a church like this, is built the way it should be built. How about your family relationships? Well, that's exactly where he goes next. This all runs off of the cornerstone, which is Christ. Verse 22, "...wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, You get your submission lined out with the Lord, you're not going to have a problem submitting to your husband. You having problems submitting to your husband? You need to go back and make sure that you are lined up correctly with the cornerstone, Christ. Ah, but my husband is a knucklehead. You know, he's not the only one. I'm going to tell you right now, I'm in that category myself, but don't go ask Kristen for personal examples. I know it's hard for Kristen to submit to me sometimes, especially when I'm wrong, especially when she is smarter or wiser or more creative in her ideas or suggestions. Sometimes I'm just too stubborn and I'm like, no, I want it my way. How does she handle that? Well, she's first got to submit herself to the Lord and align her life to the cornerstone, Christ. Husbands, you're not off the hook. He had to take a lot more time with us. I think it's because our skulls are thicker. Look at verse 25. Love your wives as Christ loved the church. See, that gives us help and hope because we're not married to perfect wives. Mine's as perfect as they come in one sense, but she's not perfect, still growing. Hard to figure out. Hard to understand her. Hard to get along with her sometimes. My sin, her sin. It all gets jumbled up there. But what do I have to do? I don't love her according to how I feel at the moment or how she's acting or treating me, but I love her as Christ loves the church. I go back to the cornerstone. Take my heading. Get that squared. Alright. Now I'm going to shoot the line of love for her off of that setting. Chapter 6, verse 1, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Children, you've got to go back to your cornerstone. It's Jesus. Passages like Luke 2.52 are very helpful. We don't see or hear a lot about Christ and His infancy, but we do see some things. How about verse 4? Fathers, don't provoke your children to anger. Don't exasperate them, but what? Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. You want to take them back to the cornerstone. And you know what's neat? When you're trying to get your kids back to the cornerstone, you have to go with them, don't you? How many times, dads, have you done discipline in your home and you've been convicted of your own sin, and while you're confronting your child's sin, you're also repenting of yours, going, you know what, Lord? I've got a lot of repenting to do, don't I? So the whole household is going to the cornerstone. What about a work relationship? Look at verse 5. Servants, slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ. There's your cornerstone. Not by way of eye service as people pleasers. Nobody likes a people pleaser. As a matter of fact, we have some very derogatory terms we use with reference to those kinds, don't we? But as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man. Masters, do the same to them. Verse nine says, Stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven. Hey, bosses, you need to you need to think about the cornerstone. Treat your employees. In a way that, you know, is consistent with how your master, your heavenly master treats you. Now, what happens when a church begins to live like that? Go back to chapter three. And you see, we are a Christ centered people, but we begin to orient our lives to Christ, who is this cornerstone and by him and through him and on him, we take all of our headings and bearings and settings, all of that. When we're individually and then corporately living as we ought to, here is what the God who initiated this work of grace intends to do. Let's go to... Boy, I just like to read the whole thing. Well, let's go to verse 8. Chapter 3, verse 8. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things. Here we go. So that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. In our newcomers class this morning, Dan Olinger taught and he was working through this very passage. And he posed a question that I thought was just outstanding. He said, what does it take to impress angels? You live and work and serve in that environment. What is it going to take to impress you, to make you stop in your tracks and go, wow. Now there's something to look at. I hadn't thought of this in that particular way before, but whatever these rulers and authorities in the heavenly places are probably includes the angelic beings and may even go beyond that. We don't know. But God intends to build something with people like us where Jesus Christ is the cornerstone. And because the people in that assembly, both Gentile and Jew who've been brought near, broken down this middle wall of partition, the dividing walls of hostility, he's made of two very diverse groups who could never come to grips with any kind of political peace accord. But now he's brought those two into one group. He's building them on this cornerstone and they now function in a way where they don't talk about their ethnic upbringings or their racial preferences or their cultural distinctions, but they continue to center their lives on Christ. And every ethical bearing is shot off the cornerstone. and everything they build about their corporate setting is oriented to Christ. They begin to live with one another and relate to one another and love and forgive and care for one another in such an extraordinary way that not only is planet Earth amazed, but more importantly, at least at this point and in this context, those heavenly rulers and authorities stop in their tracks and say, behold, the many-sided wisdom of God. And they must explode in that minute in some kind of exaltation. Eulogizing, blessing, glorifying the God who in his infinite and perfect wisdom decided to do this. So who are we? A God blessed people. was all His plan from before the foundation of the world. Who are we in the second place? We are a Christ-centered people. So is your life aligning itself in every avenue, every relationship in the family, in the household, every relationship in the work context, in consideration of worship and service even here? Are you aligning yourself off the cornerstone, continually saying, Who is Jesus? What has He done? What has He said? What does He desire from me? You get that cornerstone in place, marvelous things happen. And our purpose, as Paul continues, go to verse 20 with me now. Even as Paul considers these things, breaks out in one of his prayers, and that's a great study. Can you take some time in your devotions this week just to read through Ephesians and find the prayers where Paul says, I pray for you, and then he tells how they're praying. And one of them is right here, verse 14. But I'm not going to go over that tonight. Those prayers are very instructive. These are the things that are most important to him as he prays over the church at Ephesus. But now look at verse 20, he moves out of that extraordinary explanation of the mystery of the gospel, stewardship of grace that's been given to him, his prayer for the church. And now he says, now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. That's it, beloved. That's our purpose. We say this often, but we need to remind ourselves, it is not about us. It's not about heritage. It's not about our church planting program. It's not about our missionary endeavor. It's not about paying off the mortgage. It's not about any of that stuff, although that has a place. It's part of the building material. It is about Christ. Has been, is now, and forever will be. Father in heaven, we know that we have not been careful to build at every point of our lives, of our service, even in ministry, with reference to the cornerstone. But tonight we come again and see the absolute necessity of it. And so I pray that at this moment you would give us the wisdom and humility and even the skill to evaluate our relationships one to another, our ministry plans and ambitions, the entrepreneurial plans we are making, All of that with reference to the cornerstone. And while we care deeply about our church, we know that ultimately we are not called to give ourselves to heritage. We give ourselves to Christ. And He has given Himself to us. So grow us, change us. You have blessed us eternally in heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. All spiritual blessings are ours. Help us to live in the joy and confidence of that and help us to live in the humility and repentance that that would work in us. help us to live like those who truly are united to Christ, centered in him. There's a pile of work waiting for us this week and some have to work in the context of a classroom, a research project, a reading assignment, math problems, Some have to make a call tomorrow to a client who is not happy with the product and wants to nullify the contract. Some will be returning to a hospital room tomorrow to care for a loved one or a friend. Some, like Mary Lou, will continue the grieving process and waiting through the paperwork personal accounts and settlements that have to be done. And oh Lord God, in every one of these settings, we need You. And how we praise You that You have given us Christ, the cornerstone. So Lord Jesus, You're perfect, perfectly placed. And every heading that we would take from you, according to you, will be right. So build your church. Build us. And oh Lord God, our prayer tonight is that as you open a window of heaven and call the rulers and authorities that are there to gaze upon this local assembly, just one portion of the church that you are building in the world, That they would explode. In a symphony. Of praise and adoration. Extolling and blessing your name. For your many sided wisdom. Use us to that end we pray. In Jesus name. Amen. We stand with me please. Grace be with you all. Grace be with you all as you love our Lord and as He loves you perfectly, fully in Jesus Christ with a love that is incorruptible. Good night.