Last fall, as I spent time in prayer and planning for what I'd be preaching on after the first of the year, my thoughts were directed to what we're going to be talking about today and the next three Sunday mornings on the idea that we do not belong to ourselves, that we are owned by God. And the whole concept of of living in this material world, we live in the physical realm. This is where we function. This is where our lives are lived out. We live in a material world. But the people of God are supposed to be living in a spiritual way. We have spiritual life. We have spiritual priorities. And so there's a there's a tension there. There's a difficulty there. There are temptations. We can be, I think, under the control of the material world around us. And so we need to be challenged about this. We need to learn what the scriptures say about this. And so that's what we'll be looking at together here for these next few weeks. I think this is one of the greatest challenges of the Christian life. It is natural for us to prioritize the physical, isn't it? Right now, if you go to a fitness center or to the Y, you're going to find it packed out in January because everybody's all of a sudden conscious of and concerned about their physical condition. It's just natural. We prioritize these things. We think about money. We think about about finances. We think about health. We think about relationships, all these things that are part of the physical realm and earthly life. And they are important, but they can they can begin to control us and to dictate how we how we live. So we will be spending time in First Corinthians, Chapter six. I'm going to invite you to join me there this morning, First Corinthians, Chapter six, and we'll spend some time this morning and next Sunday morning here and and then some other passages as well. Let me encourage you to read over these passages yourself. Think about them in relation to this idea of living spiritually in a material world. Jot down some notes of your own journal, some ideas, let God challenge you and your devotion time, pray, respond to God in your own personal way, not just in these few minutes that we spend together on Sunday morning. I want to point out at the end of the passage, first of all, Paul's statement in First Corinthians, chapter six, verse 20, where he says, for you were bought at a price, therefore glorify God. in your body and in your spirit, which are gods. There's the idea. There's the point right there. That's what this is all about. Glorifying God in your body. Glorifying God. In your body, in your physical body and in this physical life and in this material world in which you live, that is a key truth in determining how to live spiritually In a material world, this tells us that you and I are owned by another. We are owned. Now, let me read the passage for us, starting in verse 12. First Corinthians, chapter six, verse 12. Paul says all things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods. But God will destroy both it and them. Now the body. is not for sexual immorality, but here's the positive statement for the Lord, your body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body. And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not. Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her for the two, he says, shall become one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and you are not your own for you were bought at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. As we look at this together, I hope that you will give it serious attention. And let God speak to you about your physical life and this material world in which we all live and how you and I can live spiritually in it. Let me mention this also, as we get to the end of this on the last Sunday in January, I would actually like to have a time for us to to share. how God has challenged us and some of the commitments and and responses that we are making in relation to this. And we may have a time for some testimonies. We'll at least have a time of of dedication, a special prayer on that last Sunday morning on the 27th of of giving ourselves to the Lord, committing ourselves to live spiritually in a material world. So process these things, think about them, let God speak to you in them. How can you and I glorify God with our bodies? How can we draw attention to God? How can we elevate other people's opinion of God? How can we display the greatness and the goodness of God in and with these physical bodies? That is our question. How can we do that? Well, first of all, I would like us to think about and consider what we do with our bodies. What do you do with your body? You walk, you sit, you go places, you have physical strength, you have energy, you have talents, skills. You you devote yourselves to to working and achieving and accomplishing things with your bodies. You do things with your body. You make money. with that physical energy, with those mental skills and that intellectual acumen that you have in a specific area, you make money with your body and you do something with that money. It's all part of this body and what you do in the physical realm and in this material world. You have a mouth. You have a tongue with that tongue, you can either glorify God or you can You can draw attention to yourself or serve yourself with your tongue. You can deceive. You can exaggerate. You can mislead. You can fabricate. You can gossip and slander. You can can communicate your pridefulness and arrogance. You can speak in anger. You can say hurtful words. You can express racial and cultural prejudice and insensitivity. And by the way, you can do all of this through your fingers as well. Extensions of your body through email and electronic media and the Internet. These are the things that we do with our bodies, and we're either doing things for ourselves or we are doing them for the glory of God. You can glorify God with what you put on your body. You decorate your body, you dress your body. You put things on your body. You can glorify God or not with what you take into your body visually. And through your ears and into your mind, your eyes and ears are channels for what goes into your brain. It's all part of your body. What goes through those earbuds, what you sit and watch on a screen, you are either glorifying God or not with your body. How you use your body, what you do for pleasure. The motivation that you have for working out, the ambitions that you have for some major athletic event. The way you spend your time, you spend time in this body, you plan what you will do, you squander time or you invest time. It's all with your body. The knowledge that you that you put into your brain, what you read and what you learn and the reasons for doing that and how you use that knowledge are all part of what you do with your body. I think this extends to what we own, what we possess. It's all part of the physical realm, right? What we own and what we possess from the very smallest items to the very largest, from the cheapest to the most expensive and valuable. You glorify God with those possessions, owning them, wanting to own them, using them. They're all part of the physical life. They're all part of the material world. Let me share something with you this morning. There's a Christian brother by the name of Tim Chalice. He is a blog writer and he writes about culture from a Christian perspective. He reads and reviews a lot of books from a Christian perspective. I read an article by him recently, it was published on his blog in October and it's called a fashionable seduction. And when you listen to this, I want to share this with you this morning and take a few minutes and just read this into our hearing, because he he identifies something that I think is very important for us right now as we endeavor to live spiritually in this material world. This is not a judgment. This is not a condemnation against technology or computers or phones or tablets or devices. What this does is pull back the veil a little bit. Of our hearts, all right, we listen, here's what Tim has to say, he's referring to an article that someone else wrote, and he says Tom Chatfield recently wrote an article for the BBC. In which he looked at a subtle change he has seen in the field of technology. A change that impacts each one of us, whether we consider ourselves technophobes, that is, you don't like technology or you have a distaste for it or you're afraid of it, or technophiles, you like it, you love it, you collect it, you're addicted to it, or somewhere in between. In the past couple of weeks, the news in the tech sector has been dominated by new products, by fight-to-the-death competitors Apple and Microsoft. Apple took the wraps off a whole list of new products, including the long-predicted iPad Mini. Microsoft introduced their new tablet, which is meant to out-iPad the iPad. Chatfield looks at all of this, and Chatfield is writing from a secular perspective when he writes this, not Christian, and says that it is one more piece of evidence that, and this is a secular writer now that Chalies is commenting on, That there is a great shift going on right now in the way we perceive our technology and therefore in the way our technology is marketed to us. Listen, where technology was once largely utilitarian with the emphasis on what it did for us. In other words, I'm going to get this device or use this computer because of what it does for me. I can accomplish more with it. It is quickly becoming dominated by look, feel and lifestyle. A shift increasingly championed by all tech firms takes its cues from fashion, positioning tablets, computers and software as cultural beacons, stamps that immediately say who you are or rather who you aspire to be. Chatfield believes that what these phones and tablets and computers can do for us is becoming less important than how they make us feel. And how they make others perceive us, he says, what's on offer, this secular writer says, what's on offer is a kind of technological sublime, promising not only the ultimate lifestyle accessory, but a place where the experience of living itself can be perfected. Again, not a condemnation. Some of you have one of these devices in your hand or on your lap right now. I know that. And they are tools. They are utilitarian. And what brand you have or whatever is not the important thing. The point is. That that the manufacturers and the marketers know how to hook us. and get hold of our appetites, our desires, our sense of what makes us look good and feel good. And even this aura, this this fear, this realm of a lifestyle that revolves around that little device. Remember, we're talking about living spiritually in a material world, you could say in a technological world. Now, Chalice, the Christian goes on to say this. We can pause here and introduce biblical language. We see idolatry here, man's desperate attempt to find meaning in someone or something outside of God. We bear his image, but we long for something more. We are all on a desperate search for meaning and purpose and ultimately joy. All of these things are marketed to us in the form of a little glowing rectangle through which we can live such happy, meaningful, joy filled lives. This is not to say. These devices are inherently sinful, but that marketers can sell us more of them if they appeal to our sin natures, taking advantage of those deeply held desires for significance. And this is exactly what they do. I'll jump to the end of what Charlie's writes, he says, we apply the biblical lens to this other writer's story. We see that these all these gizmos and gadgets are a matter of the heart. a matter of our relationship with the God who created us. Really? I mean, really? So whether it's whether it's a device or whether it's your car or your house or how you decorate your home or the clothes that you wear or your physical condition. All of these things, the knowledge that you have, where you go to school, the degree you have, the career you pursue, The girlfriend you have, the boyfriend you have, your ambitions for life and all that it holds. It's all part of this material realm in which we live. And there is a connection, isn't there, between our relationship with God? Anything that is part of this material world now. Paul's application in this passage has to do with sexual purity. He's taking this big truth, this this general principle, glorify God with your body. You are not your own. You're bought with a price. So glorify God with your body. And he brings it down to to this specific issue that the people, the Church of Corinth, were having a problem with. There was immorality there. If you know what Corinth was like, you know, it was a very immoral society. It was an immoral culture. There was immoral religion. Corinth was where the temple to the goddess Aphrodite, the goddess of love, not nice, warm, fuzzy love either, but but sexual love. The goddess of love was worshipped, and there were actually individuals in that temple who were women devoted to that goddess who made themselves available for sexual relationships as a form of worship to that goddess. How bad does it get? It's immorality, but it's in the package of worship. It's justified. It's OK. It's permissible in their society. It was part of their thinking. It was part of their culture. It was normal. Which is just about where it's getting in the United States of America, isn't it? That's where we're headed if we are not already there. There are and I want to I want to bring this to to this specific application for a few minutes here for us, because this is what Paul was dealing with and this is something we need to to talk about as well. But the Greek word behind sexual immorality that you see, for example, in verse 13, as well as all through this is, as you may know. The verb porn, you owe. The noun pornos and you hear the word porn in there, we use the word pornography. It's talking about sexual immorality in general terms, primarily getting physically, sexually involved with someone outside of God's will. That would be a guy and a girl who are together physically, intimately, and they're not married to each other. That would be a man and a woman who are living together and they're not married. That would be a man or a woman who is married, but is in a physical relationship with someone that they're not married to. It would include homosexuality, includes all the things that we know of as being outside of the boundaries that God has given to us in his word. So that's the main application there. He's saying your body doesn't belong to you, even though it may be normal, which again, in our culture, it's becoming more and more normal for these things to be accepted and done. It's not normal for you. And all of those that I just listed are Becoming more and more the norm, the standard right. In our society and in our culture, the things that didn't used to be normal are now normal. And so this is spreading and this is this is you hear this and regardless of whether you you know the difference between right and wrong, it affects how you think. And we we become in our thinking almost without knowing it. used to it and aligned with it and accepting of it was just part of life. OK, it is. But a Christian is different and says you have to you have to make that distinction, he's telling us here as you live as a spiritual person in this material world. But this idea of sexual immorality also extends to what we do in our minds. As Jesus pointed out, if a man looks with lust at a woman, he's committing adultery in his heart. It extends to our minds. It certainly does include the whole realm of pornography. And this is saturating our society. Folks, America has become a pornographic place. It's just there. It's everywhere. It's accessible. It's here. I want to share with you a very sobering story. I was talking with a father several weeks ago who, along with his family, used to attend Calvary. And he shared with me that he and his wife discovered on one of their computers something unusual, and they started checking it out and realized that someone had been doing searches And on the computer, it became clear that whoever had done these searches had visited explicit pornographic sites. As they checked into it and talked with their children, they realized that their daughter had probably innocently done a search for something related to Barbies, dolls. In doing so, links to sites were pulled up that led to pornography. Being curious, she was by herself. She clicked on those, went to those sites. Curiosity and exposure led to appetite. And she began searching intentionally for these sites. And as they began to look at everything else in their home, the desktop computer, the laptop computer, and the mother's and the father's phones, they realized that she had been intentionally searching for pornography. She was six. She was six years old. One of our little dear ones, one of our babies. One of our children. Exposed. Leads to an appetite. Leads to so much more. It's here. It's our kids. It's good families. It there's no there's no stopping it. And by that, I mean it's going to happen. You're going to we can be as careful and as safe and have guards and accountability and all of it, but but something is going to get in. And you and I know that right now it's just at the end of our hands, it's in our pockets, it's at our fingertips, it's there. And I know I know from from the youngest to the oldest of us, we are vulnerable, we are susceptible. And so we, of all people, have to make up our minds that regardless of what has happened, regardless of how far you've gone, how deep you're in, how how ashamed you feel, how scared you are of what's going to happen, that you've got to step back and say, all right, you know what? Those people in Corinth as Christians had struggles, too. They were exposed to immoral sexuality day after day. It was all around them. It was normal for their in their culture. And Paul challenged them. All right, step away from that. You don't belong to yourself, glorify God with your body, flee sexual immorality. And so you know what? I need to do that, too. And for some of us, we need to make up our minds today that this is the beginning of glorifying God with your body. You see, there's so many things that we do in and with our bodies and we are pulled and we are drawn and we are seduced and we are tempted and it becomes normal. It's just there and we give up and we say, well, that's just how it is. But Paul is God's word is calling us. Paul is challenging us. God is calling us to change that. And if he's calling us to change that, then we know we can. Right. We know we can, by the grace of God. Through the power of Jesus Christ. Based on what God does in our lives and the work of his spirit, glorify God with your body. Now, we've talked about some things we do in and with our bodies, and these are just examples and there are many more. There are very important positive truths in this passage. Next Sunday, we will deal with some of these positive truths, these these foundational motivations and reasons and steps to take in living spiritually in a material world. But I do want to to draw out some some things that Paul confronts here, because that's how he's communicating. He's he's addressing statements and arguments and excuses and questions that have come from either the believers in Corinth or the people who are influencing them. And he's confronting those wrong ideas, and that's what I want to do, and that's what I think we all need to do. And so let me just point at a few at a few of them, how Paul addresses them in in this passage, you'll notice at the beginning of verse 12, he says, all things are lawful for me. So the excuse or the justification is, well, you know, I can do whatever I want. And, you know, that's true, you know, that's true. Now, what did Paul mean by that? The word lawful doesn't just mean it's permitted by law, not against the law, like we would think of it. The idea of the word is permissible. In other words, it's OK, it's possible, I can justify it. Maybe it's not against the law of the land. And that's how it was in Corinth, right? Especially with sexual morality, they could do whatever they wanted. So that's the idea. That's the excuse that people would give. That's the the edge of the culture. Well, I can do whatever I want now for a Christian. We are not under law. We are under what grace. Right. And so we say, well, there are things that maybe were forbidden, but are not now. And that's true. Or. You can commit a sin, but God will do what? Tell me he will forgive you. Absolutely. So the grace of God. Covers our sin, and that's true. But what Paul is saying here is, you know, really, I can do whatever I want. Either it's not forbidden or if it is, it's covered by grace. He may be saying that or he may be taking the words from the mouths of the people in Corinth who said, you know, I can do whatever I want. So either way, that's the excuse. And the truth is, you can. You can do whatever you want. You're old enough, you're smart enough, you have enough money, you have figured out ways to maneuver and manipulate finances or whatever and basically do what you want. You might have the attitude, well, I'm 18, I can do what I want. I'm 21, I'm legal, I can do what I want. Man, I'm an adult. Come on. I'm 50 years old. All these little rules and requirements and expectations of what people think. Leave me alone. I can do what I want. You know, I'm 75 years old, I've earned the right. Shouldn't I just be able to do what I want with my money, with my time, with what I watch on TV? And of course, the answer is yes, you can. Legitimately, legally do what you want, but does that mean you should? And Paul says, no. He says, yeah, I can say that I can say I can do whatever I want, but that's not what guides my life. That's not what dictates my choices. Can something be permissible? And yet not glorifying to God How would you answer the question in your physical body, in this in this earthly realm, in your in this material world, in the life that you live? Could you say, you know what? I can do that. I'm free to do it. I'm able to do it. But it doesn't glorify God. Yeah, there are aspects of life like that, aren't there? So that's one of the wrong ideas that we have and must confront. Another one is what I do is my business. Hey, it's in my house, it's in my room. Not bothering anybody, not hurting anybody will look at what Paul says, he says, all things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. And let me tell you something, he's not just talking about what is helpful to you. He's talking about what is helpful to other people as well. In fact, flip over to chapter 10. He says the very same thing in chapter 10, verse 23. Chapter 10, verse 23, all things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful, all things are lawful for me, but not all things edify that is build up and then look at what he says, but no one seek his own. But each one, the others well-being and in the context of talking about things that are permissible for Christians, but are not always the best thing to do, at least in a given situation. So it's a wrong idea. We should consider how what we do affects other people. We should consider how what we do with our bodies in this material world affects the people around us, the Christian community. Yes, your little brother and sister. Yes, your wife, your husband, your friends. Yes, you should consider that. Another wrong idea is this, I can control it. Well, Paul is admitting that there may be things that he cannot control and that he could potentially be brought under the control of. Because he says at the end of verse 12, I will not be brought under the power of any. So he is resolving he's making a choice, he's made a decision, he's saying, you know, there's some of these things I could do if I wanted to. But I know that if I choose to do them, I could potentially. Become under the control of them, and I don't want that. So I will not be controlled by them, you know, we say I can control it. I can control. How much wine I drink, how much beer I drink. I can control my ambition to make money. I can control this passion I have to decorate my house. I can control this little device I hold in my hand, maybe. Or maybe not. In fact, when Paul says any at the end of verse 12, it's kind of a contrast, he draws a big circle, all things. But then he says, I'll not be brought under the power of any. And that's the idea of. One thing. He says, I am not going to allow even one little thing to control me. How about you? Is there one thing that controls you? Is there one thing that is a struggle for you? It's a habit. It's an addiction that dominates your life. It consumes your thoughts. You've tried to stop, but you can't. You've justified it. You've excused it. You've covered it. Is there one thing? God's word is calling you to say, all right, I want to glorify God with my body. I'm not even going to let that one thing be in control of my life. Another wrong idea is what I do with my physical body does not affect my spiritual life. We kind of compartmentalize life, don't we? Well, I have my spiritual life. I read a Bible. Sometimes I pray before meals. I go to services at church and I do some more things. And this is my spiritual life. Then I just have the rest of my life. I just live. I go. I do. I work. I play. I do whatever. And one doesn't affect the other. Paul says, no, that's not true. In fact, he says in verse 18 that he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body, the Greek word behind against is the word ace, it means in. In other words, your your body becomes an instrument of your choice, so you can choose to glorify God in your body, as he talks about in verse 20, or you can choose to sin in your body. And use your body as an instrument or a device to sin. So there is a connection between what you do in your physical body and in your spiritual life. There's another one that I see in verse 18, another justification, another excuse, another argument that Paul confronts. You might say I can fool around without really messing up. What does Paul say at the beginning of verse 18, say those three words out loud with me, would you please flee sexual immorality? And if you think you can fool around without messing up, it's not true, because once you start, you don't stop. Once you've crossed the line, you're there. Once you develop the appetite. Then it takes a major work of God in your life to go in the other direction. And that's what he's telling you to do. Turn around and go the other direction. Don't flirt with sexual immorality. Don't fool with sexual immorality. But do what? Tell me out loud. Flee sexual immorality. This is an imperative, which means it's command. He's telling you to do this. Make a choice. Make a choice now. I'm not going there. If I'm headed there, I'm turning around today. This is the end. Today is the end. I'm going to talk to my boyfriend, talk to my girlfriend, talk to this person. This is it. If it is virtual immorality, if it is pornography, this is it. It stops. I'm going to turn around and go the other way. Flee is also in the present tense. It means to keep on doing it. So you don't do it once. You do it every day, every day. You and I are faced with temptations, opportunities. It's always there. It's all around us. It's like a force field. It's always there. We have to choose every day. I'm going to turn the other direction from impurity. From looking at it, lusting after it. Or getting involved in it. Get away from it now, keep resisting, keep running. And then another wrong idea is it's my body. I can do what I want with it. Is that true? What does he say? You are not your own. You were bought with a price. God owns you. That's the point of this series. God owns you. He owns you, regardless of whether you recognize Jesus as Savior and Lord or not, because he made you. I won't have you turn there, but will you just listen for a minute to what the beginning of the Bible says about this? Genesis one, verse 26, then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, God made man, he created mankind. You are the product of the mind and the creative power of God. If you make it, you own it. God made you. But then he goes on to say this, let them have dominion. You see, listen, God gave you what you have. When he made Adam and Eve, he gave them this earth, he gave them that garden, he put them over those animals and God gave you what you have. He gave you physical life, but he also gave you your your home, your career, your education. Just life, all the things you enjoy day by day. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the. This is another problem with trying to write with this hand, my handwriting is really bad. What is it? The air, right? Thank you over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air and over the cattle. Look over all the earth. He gave them dominion. He placed in there, he's given you a place, he's given you a sphere of life and something to to oversee and work to do. He placed you there. He entrusted that to you, made you a manager of that. So that's not your own either. Do turn with me to First Peter, chapter one, first Peter, chapter one. It's page one thousand seventy six. If you're using the Bibles in the pews. You see, you are owned by God because he made you. But if you are a Christian, you are owned by God because he has redeemed. You. You were a slave to sin. And Jesus, the son of God, purchased you and made you his own. And look at how this relates to our lives, look at first Peter, chapter one, starting in verse 13, first Peter 113. Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Start right there. He's talking about your mind, your brain, what you think about. As obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, not just doing what your physical appetites want to do. As in your ignorance, but as he who called you as holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, how you live. In this material world. Because it is written, Be holy, for I am holy, and if you call on the father who without partiality judges according to each one's work. Conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear. He's talking about living in this material world. He says, let me tell you how to live. In fear, that's in all of God. Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but you were redeemed, you were purchased, you were bought with the precious, the infinitely valuable. A lot of Christ. As of a lamb that is a sacrificial lamb who died in your place without blemish and without spot. So there it is. This is how you and I are to live in awe of not only the God who made us, but of the Savior who redeemed us because he poured out his life's blood drop by drop to save you and purchase you and set you free from sin. If you're a Christian. You like that. You appreciate that. And you say, you know what, if he did that for me, I just got to live for him. And this body is included in what he has purchased and owns, and I want to glorify him. With this body, it's what I want to do now, as I said, we're going to talk a lot about this over the next few weeks and we'll come back to first Corinthians six. Let me just quickly talk about some first steps that I think you and I can take. First of all, this morning, you may need to say, you know, You're right, I have had some false, wrong ideas about this. I've allowed the culture, I've allowed my friends, I've allowed the media. I've allowed godlessness to affect how I think, and I've started to think this way. It comes from inside of us, doesn't have to come from the world, it comes from inside of us. We have a sinful heart and we naturally think in these wrong ways. And so this morning, you might need to take the step of just admitting before God, I already see that I have some wrong ideas and my thinking about my body. About my mind, about my possessions, about my priorities, about how I live in this material world needs to change. And then. We can probably all say, Lord, Will you teach me? Teach me about glorifying you with my body. Teach me about living spiritually in this material world. I want to know. I want to learn. I want to grow and help me. I'm going to help with this. I can't do this myself, but I'm willing. Lead me. Give me direction. Help me along the way. Empower me. I need your strength to do this or I am caught in something. I'm entrapped by something. I love something and I need you to set me free. I need you to help me overcome this. I'm praying for this. Lord, I want to glorify you in my body, so help me. And then. I recognize you own me. Body and soul. And I recognize it and I respond to it by consciously Yielding and presenting my whole self to. Let's pray together about this, would you please pray with me or thank you for the clear, direct, powerful standard and challenge to glorify you in our bodies. Lord, I believe many of us this morning right now are saying, yes, Lord, that's what I want. Or do you know how weak we are? But this is where we live, live in this physical world. So it's what we see. It's what's important to us. It's what feels good. We love it. I pray that you would blast into our minds and hearts truth, that you would shine light in, that we would see the wonder and the glory of our Savior and think, how could we love, how could we live for anything else but you? Lord, where there are tightly held possessions, cherished lifestyles. Prideful arrogance in relationships, dependence on devices, on technology, not only for functionality, but for happiness and joy. Lord, where we lust and indulge that lust. Oh God, forgive, pour out grace. We claim the blood of Jesus Christ that washes us and we acknowledge the blood of Jesus Christ that has purchased us and we are yours. In Jesus name, Amen.