Hi this is Pastor John Kavakas, I want to thank you for joining us. Today we have a special guest speaker, my good friend Pastor Zach Ritz of Veritas Church who meets in our building at 8.30 on Sunday morning. Zach will be speaking from Ephesians 5 verses 1-14. His message is called Walk in Love and Light. He's going to ask us the question, what is love? How is it related to light? We're going to hear that Paul gives us answers to questions we all have to face at some point. I hope you'll stay with us for just a few minutes after the sermon for an important message. Meanwhile, let's join the service. I'm going to welcome to the pulpit Elder Peter Ristow, and he's going to introduce someone very special. Thank you. Well, it's our pleasure this morning to welcome Pastor Zach of Veritas Church to the pulpit. If you haven't met Zach, take a few minutes after the service to get to know him. He and his wife, Carrie, have recently moved into town and have been serving at Veritas Church since September, meeting here at 8.30 in the morning. but it's been a joy getting to know him, and I hope that you will have that pleasure. Zach, come on up here and let me pray for you. Heavenly Father, you have prepared Zach this morning to deliver his word, not just to us, but to Veritas Church. And now, Lord, we pray that as he speaks, that his words would bring glory to you, Lord, and hope to us. We give them the greatest welcome we can as a brother in the Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thanks, Zach. Thank you, brother. Appreciate it. Well, hey, good morning, Warrington Bible Fellowship. So good to be with you here this morning and having the privilege to bring the word to you. Thank you all so much. Again, I cannot thank you all enough. It is from your tithes and your offerings. that the lights stay on or they come on a little early on Sundays. And the heat also, thank you. Thank you for that. You guys are so generous and your hospitality is fantastic. Thank you so much for letting us meet here. It has been such a joy and a privilege to be able to see what God's doing in our midst. And even like, thank you for your generosity, thank you for hospitality, but even greater, thank you for your camaraderie. in the faith, right? I mean, gosh, I'm looking at these faces of guys that just encourage me every single week, outside of Veritas Church, right? Pastor John, the way he mentors me, prays for me, Peter likewise, Jimmy, like, man, we, Scott, we hanging out at the office, Pat Knutes as well, John Sellers, man, I talk to him a lot. He's a counselor, you know? Yeah, huge, huge blessing. I love that we have that camaraderie and shared faith as brothers and sisters in Christ who do not shy away from declaring the truth of God's Word and by His grace and by His Spirit, asking Him, Lord, help us to live it. Right, Lord? Like no matter the circumstance, no matter the season, no matter the shifting culture, right, that changes on a whim, right, Lord, help us to remain steadfast. and faithful as you have been to us, right? In all of our past and our present. He will be in our future, right? And so this morning as we preach the word, I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for your camaraderie. Man, there's really two types of sermons that you can preach. Pastor John, I'm sure has already taught you this, but you can do a topical message, right? Where you pick a topic and you preach on it, okay? Topical message. Well, it could be on love, it could be on light, it could be on both. So it could be on anything. Sanctification, right? There's a lot of different topics in the Bible to talk about. Idolatry, sin, right? Topics. And then there's expository preaching. Now hopefully even when we do topical preaching, we go to the scriptures and we exposit or we expose what is in the scriptures, okay? That's all we're doing when we're talking about expository preaching or expositional preaching. Have you heard that before? You hear it every Sunday, right? Because your pastor preaches faithfully the word of God. And usually you pick a book and you just preach through it. And what am I preaching on next week? Ephesians 5. Verse 15, right? We just keep going. So we just work our way through the book. Now, there are benefits to preaching both ways, okay? Great benefits. Topically, you can address things that might be going on in the church or in the culture. So you might take a break from the book you're preaching through and just pause and address that, okay? And so that's good. How many times in our culture or even you have just thought in the past couple of years, what does God have to say about this thing, this topic, right? So it might be good to pause, take a moment and address that and find where in scripture God speaks to it, okay? So topical messages. We might also break for things like Mother's Day or Christmas, Advent, right? And so might take a break from Ephesians and preach some Advent sermons leading up to Christmas. But there's a great benefit to preaching through books. Do you know what the benefit is? Pastors cannot just pick their favorite topics, right? Just their favorite theological topics or their most comfortable topics to preach on. But instead, if they preach through the Bible and they get to a chapter that's kind of tough, right, or in the culture may not accept it, you still got to get up and declare it, right? And you preach the Word of God faithfully. And so, interesting enough, by the sovereignty of God, this sermon is just the sermon that was next, okay? So Pastor John and I said, hey, if ever we need to do pulpit supply for one another, brother, like just whatever you had prepared that Sunday, just come early and preach it to Veritas. He says, yeah, vice versa. So the first one, by the sovereignty of God, because, fellas, tomorrow's Valentine's Day. Okay, that was free. Valentine's Day tomorrow. is a passage in Ephesians 5, which just so happens to be our next one, walk in love and light. Walk in love and walk in light. Now, if we're to walk in love, we probably need to know what that is, right? We need to ask the question, what is love? Baby, don't hurt me, don't hurt me no more. You know, ah, I see your head nodding. Okay, all right. Yeah, you got it. Walk in love. Well, what is love? Well, God. God is love. God is love and the God of love created all things, created you and I and tells us and even shows us models for us what it looks like to love one another, to love Him. We're also called to love our neighbor as ourself. So again, we need to know. There's a lot of places in the Bible where you're called to love. And in Ephesians 5, walk in love. Well, then we need to know, what is love? What does it look like? Not only what is it, but what is it not? And Paul addresses that as well. So our text is Ephesians 5. If you haven't done so already, go ahead and turn there. Ephesians 5, 1 through 14. Here, Paul calls us to not only walk in love, but also in light. To lovingly shine forth into the darkness and call people out of darkness and into the love and light of Christ. But first, what does it mean and what does it look like to walk in love? And that'll be the first thing we'll look at. Walk in love. Ephesians 5. one through two. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, which is a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Walk in love. You want to know what it looks like to walk in love? walk or live life in love, looks like what Jesus did. He says, therefore, be imitators of God. Some of you are like, hey, there was a therefore, and you started with a therefore, but if there's a therefore, you gotta tell me, what's the therefore therefore? Okay, see? Right. See, Pastor John, man, he's really equipped you well. This is good. That therefore is there because right before it, he gave the command to also make sure that we forgive one another, as God in Christ forgave us. Therefore, be imitators of God as his beloved and forgiven children and walk in love. So how do I imitate God and walk in love? He answers it, it's just the next part. Just as Christ. If you want to see what it looks like to walk in love and imitate God, look at Christ, the perfect God man. God himself who took on flesh. showed us what it looks like to walk in love. And what did he say? What did Christ do as Christ loved us? How does he love us? What does it look like to love? Gave himself up. Wow. That's what love looks like. Mothers with young children, or you've been there, you know what it looks like the day in and day out. Give yourself up. to love, nurture, care for your children. Fathers, likewise, to provide for and to give yourself up day in and day out, to wake up no matter what, no matter how difficult it gets, right? Give yourself up. What does it look like to love? Some of you served in the military and you gave yourself up. Yeah, Christ gave himself up. There's temptation all around Christ, right? He was tempted in every way, but without sin. Many times, right, to turn from a life of walking and pleasing to God the Father, but what? He continued not to give in to sin, but to give his life up as a ransom for sin. Man, powerful. And that was a fragrant offering. How many people read Leviticus? All right, don't give up on it. If you're doing a year through the Bible in a year, all right, read it, at least so you got some stuff in there. That way, when you get to this passage, you're like, oh yeah, the fragrant offering to the Lord. A sweet smelling and fragrant offering to the Lord. When Christ, who is both the high priest, all right, this is good, right? And also the sacrifice. Jesus is the high priest. He offers the sacrifice for us, for our sins, and he is the sacrifice, once and for all perfect for us, a fragrant offering and perfect sacrifice to God. That's what it looks like to walk in love. That's what it looks like to imitate God, is to imitate Christ, who loved us so much that he gave himself up He never gave in to sin, no, He gave Himself up on our behalf as a ransom for sin. Perfect, spotless, blameless Lamb of God. He was tempted in every way, yes, but just like us, but unlike us, He never gave in. So to walk in love means to, and this is how we define love, second point, is to walk sacrificially. Not indulgently. And I might have made up a word there, okay? I don't know. If there's any grammar police out there, maybe Google it later. But to walk sacrificially and not to walk indulgently. Right? To give up self out of love for another. Not to love self and desire so much that we just indulge in self. and the desires of our flesh. That's where Paul goes next. This is what it looks like to imitate God, to walk in love, is to walk sacrificially, not indulgently, to deny ourself, to take up our cross and to follow him. And for us, likewise, not to give into temptation and indulge in it, especially all those temptations which wage war against our soul in our flesh. Paul says the greatest threat to our walk with Jesus, it's coming in the next verse, is sexual immorality. And to sexually covet that which has not been given to us. Ephesians 5 verse 3 through 6. But, or in contrast to, right? But, sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who it is covetous that is an idolater has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience." Again, probably not the passage somebody would topically pick to preach on in our culture today, or to guest preach on. Sorry, it was just the next one in the book, right? As I was telling John before the service, look, I don't write the mail. I just deliver it. Bodhi Bacchum says that. I love it. Whew, okay, so let's go back through that and try to understand what all and how all of that is connected, okay? That was a lot there and ended with some very serious stern warnings, okay? So let's work back through in verse three. We see three things listed. Sexual immorality, impurity, all impurity, and covetousness, okay? Let's first look at those three and how they're grouped together and how they're working together. even in the next verse that comes up. First, sexual immorality. The Greek word for this is porneia, okay? Where we get our word pornography, okay? Porneia. Porneia could be anything, anything outside of, and what we'd have to say today is one biological man and one biological woman in the covenant of marriage, okay? If it's outside the covenant of marriage, And it's not between those two. Man and woman in the marriage, that would be considered porneia. Also, says all impurity. Again, this list is not specific on one thing. This is covering the whole broad spectrum. All impurity. The word impurity there is also like uncleanliness. You may even have a translation that says uncleanliness. to hear unclean, the word unclean, you would go to what book in the Old Testament? Leviticus. And you remember all those cleanliness laws of ceremonial uncleanliness. And you would start thinking about, okay, and we'll think about how does it work in this verse, but first we have to know even what is unclean versus clean. That's a really hard one, right? I mean, you've got, when it comes to clean and unclean, you're not allowed to eat lobster. I love lobster. I do. I love lobster. And you can't eat pork. I love pork, bacon, and lobster. Matter of fact, you could wrap that lobster in bacon, okay? Like that's how much I love these two things. Why would God not want them to eat lobster or pork? Well, you'd have to read and you'd have to think about this, and I mean, I've got a great book, by the way. Actually, so do you. It's on your shelf right through there. Christ, The Shadows of Christ and the Law of Moses by Verne Poythress. It's fantastic. It's on the shelf. I think there's only like one copy, so. If anyone gets up to go to the bathroom, I bet you they're just gonna try to take it. Okay, so you see someone get up. I understand if you wanna go beat them to it. All right, but hey, when you think about the cleanliness laws, why can't you eat a lobster? Because all of Leviticus is summed up in this. The Lord God said, be holy for what? I am holy. Be holy for I am holy. That is holy. Be set apart for I am set apart. Right? And if you want to be set apart, you must be like me. You want to be with me, you need to be like me. Be set apart. It's for teachings of being holy. Nothing wrong with the lobster. But the lobster crawls on the ground like a land animal but it's in the sea. Fish, that you're supposed to, if you're in the sea, live in the sea, you're supposed to swim. Crawls on the ground, unclean, can't eat it. What about the pig? Well, there's the thing, I don't know, can anyone do that? Like the Spock things, right? Right, yeah, okay. We'll hold our hands up for all of you so that you can see the illustration. So there's something to do with like a split, split hooved, right? Those with split hooves are supposed to chew the cud. But if they have a split hoof, and they don't chew the cud, unclean. Or if they chew the cud, but they don't have a split hoof, also unclean. So again, can't eat it. Again, all of this is for what? Even the fabrics. Remember the fabrics? You can't have two fabrics that come together, right? Why? Because that's mixing patterns. Sorry ladies, no pattern mixing in the Old Covenant. Why? Because beholy, set apart. One outfit with that pattern, one outfit with this pattern. No mixing. No lobsters in the sea. They crawl. Right? No eating the things that have this and don't chew. Okay. In relationship to this. Unclean. It's out of place. Right? Supposed to be between one man and one woman in the covenant of marriage. Anything outside of that is unclean, impure. Make sense? Unholy. And God says be holy. For I am holy. You will have to love me and want to be with me more than you love your sin. You can't have both. Can't have both. Ah, but I love the world. Okay, do you love me? Can't have both. Covetousness, okay. How is that working together with the other two? That's coveting something, okay, someone or something outside of marriage. A woman that is not yours, a man that is not yours. God has not given them to you, right? God has given you, if you have a spouse, God has given you your spouse. Do not covet what God has not given to you. That's how those three are working together. As is proper among the saints. You know what the word saints is? Hagiois, holy ones. Those who have been set apart from the world. God says, God's Word says, I have set you apart from your sin. I've set you apart from the world. Matter of fact, that's also a great illustration right now. We are set apart right now from the world, are we not? Some of you are thinking, I wish I was at Denim and Pearls eating the brunch, and because I'm talking about food. But you've been set apart right now from the world, have you not? Set apart to gather together as the church, set apart. But even greater, you've been set apart from the world from your sin. And to be what? To be joined together with who? God in Christ. You've been made holy. For Christ is holy. And now you are his saints, his holy ones. Therefore again, what are we going to love more? Him and his presence or our sin? The next triad in the next verse is filthiness. Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking. Now, this seems out of place. It almost seems like it's like, OK, no adult humor ever, right? It seems like that. I would argue that it's not that, right? that there's some adult humor that, again, you don't let your kids watch those shows, right? But we watch TV shows, movies, I go to comedy shows sometimes, and there's adult humor, and I laugh hysterically, and I tell the jokes, okay? Some of you that are actually smiling right now know what I'm talking about, okay? But there are other jokes that are not funny, Paul says. That is joking about Wanting and desiring someone or something outside of the covenant of marriage. Again, that's the context and we have to allow always the context to interpret what's going on in Paul's thinking. This triad is being defined and understood by the former triad. Which is why he would say, let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking which are out of place. Again, back to that holiness idea. But instead, let there be what? It's in yellow. Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. Be thankful for what God has given you. If you have a spouse, be thankful. No joking. It's not funny about desiring those outside of marriage. It's not funny. says Paul, says God. But instead have thanksgiving for what God has given you. And if you don't have a spouse, you have Christ. You have Christ, in whom every longing of our heart is most ultimately satisfied. Even if you do have a spouse, that's also true of you. Amen? So instead, let there be thanksgiving. Perhaps the next two verses are also why it's not funny. Verse five and six, for you may be sure of this. Paul says, you may be sure of this. Be sure, don't doubt this, no matter what the culture says, no matter what you hear. He says, be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, back to the first list, or who is covetous, that is an idolater, An idolater, we just learned idolatry, to actually elevate that desire above our desire for Christ. To say, I want to fulfill this desire of my heart and my flesh more than what I want to be with Christ. Or I need this thing more than what I need Christ. It's idolatry. And therefore, they would have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. And the reason why to say both is no inheritance now and no inheritance ever. Let no one, verse six, let no one deceive you with empty words. They don't hold the weight of authority of God. For because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Which is why the most loving thing we could do would be not to affirm, but to shine light, and do so lovingly, but to share truth. For me to preach it this morning, and for you to take it, believe it, be ministered to by the word this morning, and also to share it with others. That would take a lot of sacrificial living to actually love someone enough to shine light into their life. This should also, this warning here, it's not only that it's not funny, this should actually be terrifying to anyone who is currently living in unrepented sexual immorality. That is, anyone openly living contrary to the one biological man, one biological woman in the covenant of marriage. And also for those who are secretly sneaking around, watching or engaging in porneia. This should be terrifying. But even what comes next, God calls us. out of death and out of darkness and into his marvelous light. And therefore we can repent of our sin and come and have light and life because of what Christ has done for us. Which is why we are called to walk in love, which means to walk sacrificially, not indulgently. And then Paul says, walk in light. Walk in light. Ephesians 5, 7 through 10, walk in light. Therefore, do not become partners with those who are dwelling in darkness and in sin, for at one time you were darkness. That's amazing. Didn't just say you were in darkness, it says you were darkness. You think you were far gone before you came to Christ? Oh, you were much more further gone than you thought or that you ever could have imagined. But now you are light in the Lord. Therefore, beloved children, beloved children, walk as children of light. Remember in John, what does Jesus say? People are scared to come into the light because it might expose their deeds. Paul says, as Jesus says, come into the light. Let your deeds be exposed so that you can be forgiven Let your deeds be exposed so that they can be forgiven. And you can no longer walk in darkness, but walk in light. For the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true. And try Try now, O holy ones, saints who are set apart from the world and from sin, to be in Christ. Try now in the light to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Man, isn't that our prayer? For those of us who've gone from darkness to light, is that not your prayer? O Lord, may my life, may the meditations of my heart and my mind Be acceptable to you. May everything I do, Lord, I want to please you. Gosh, I want to see Jesus on that last day and hear, well done, good and faithful servant. Zachary, a man after God's own heart. That's what I want to hear. I want to try every day to discern, Lord, what is pleasing to you? Live far too much of my life not pleasing to you. Just as darkness, darkness cannot partner with light, light cannot partner with darkness. The two don't go together. No, unclean. Those two don't go together. Darkness and light, no. Walk as children of light in what is good, right, and true. And may this, and this has to be our greatest prayer. If it's not, then when temptation comes our way, we will give in to it. In the moment of temptation, If verse 10 is not our greatest desire, then we will give in to our sin every time and time again, repeatedly, until that's true. Oh, Lord, make it true. Ephesians 5, 11 through 14 says, take no part in unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret, which is why I've not been, I've just used the language that's being used here, and I think it's important for pastors to do that, because in chapter six, in chapter six, he addresses children. The book of Ephesians is meant to be read to the whole church. He doesn't say, parents, tell your kids to obey you. He says, children. He speaks to the kids, okay? That's why it's good to have children in worship. Shameful to even talk about what they do in secret or even some of us do in secret But when anything is exposed by the light it becomes visible for if anything that becomes visible It becomes light anything that becomes visible is light and therefore it says Awake Oh sleeper and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. Did you know that that right there is likely, a lot of scholars agree, awake, oh sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you, is likely a hymn that they sang at baptisms, taken mostly from Isaiah, I think 60, verse one and two, and then applied to Christ. Awake, oh sleeper, and arise from the dead, dead to sin and rise to new life in Christ. And Christ will shine upon you. Don't live and don't dwell in darkness and in sin. Come to the light. Come to Christ. Oh man, let the dead come to life. And those who are in darkness, they see Christ. But that's part of our job too, right? We got to shine light. We got to preach Christ. We got to share the gospel and say, hey, look, your sins can be forgiven. If we turn from sin and turn towards Christ, the light of Christ will shine upon you. These two things before I close. Actually, let me sing a song and then two. OK. Mark Fremantle sent me. a little thing he wrote for this song. Have you guys heard it before? No? He's got all that in secret? Mark, are you on there? Where's the camera? At least PM heard it. Okay, so he writes it like this. Again, this may not be how it went back then, but hey, he put a little thing to it. Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine upon you. Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine upon you. That's good. You guys want to sing now too, don't you? All right, ready? You got your hymnals right there, ready? Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine upon you. Awake, O sleeper, arise from the dead, and Christ will shine upon you. See, now you got that stuck in your mind throughout this week and be reminded. Preach the gospel. Call out into those tombs. Those tombs of sin and darkness, Lazarus, come out and be amazed as the power of the gospel transforms the lives of your loved ones, your co-workers, your neighbors. That's lunchtime. Two illustrations and then we'll go eat. First is this. And I got to address these two. First is the question. Can you really be a Christian and fall into such temptations as this? Engage in porneia and even be unfaithful to a spouse? Is that possible to be a Christian and have this happen? Yes. Yes. And for those who have, they would come up here and declare to all of us, yes, it's possible. And so be on guard. Think about it like this. David. David. The litmus test is actually what comes after. David was a man after what? That's what the Bible says about him. God himself says. God himself says, meet David. A man after my own heart. King David, who wrote all the Psalms, most of them. Man after my own heart. Yeah, but David, remember that one time? On the rooftop, a guy named Bathsheba, ring any bells? And then after that, realized she was pregnant, and then he put her husband on the front lines and then commanded all the rest of them. He didn't even know. He was betrayed. Remove yourself from him so that he dies in battle. Cover up all this being done in secret. He's the king. Whatever he says goes. So he's an adulterer and he's a murderer. Here's the litmus test. Nathan, a prophet comes. and shines light into David's darkness. Remember the story? It tells a story, but really the whole story was about David and Bathsheba and what he did and Uriah. It tells David this story. David says, whoever that man is, he deserves to die, right? He deserves to die, whoever that man is. And what does Nathan say? Thou art the man. And then what comes next? Does he say, well, Nathan, won't you mind your business? Right? Or I'm the king of my own life, and I'll do whatever I want to do. I'm the king. You don't tell me how to live my life. I'll love who I want to love. I'll kill who I want to kill. I'll do what I want to do. No. Well, actually one of the most beautiful Psalms ever written of repentance. What does he say? God against you and you only have I sinned. He's terrified of what? Of losing God. All of a sudden everything is just like, I don't care about anything anymore. I don't care about the kingdom. I don't care about anything. I just care about you, God. God, cleanse me. God, my sin is ever before me. God, please save me, God. Help me, God. And what? Let not your Holy Spirit depart from me like I saw it depart from Saul. Don't take your presence away from me, O God. Why? Because David was a man after God's own heart. And so, man, may this sermon for you, and when you go preach it to somebody else, what a grace, what love for Nathan to share that with David. If thou art the man or the woman here this morning, repent and turn to the Lord Jesus, and you will be forgiven. and his light will shine upon you, and you'll be set free. But here's the other story, too. And I might get this wrong. I don't know if I stole this from someone or where I've heard it. So if it's out there, then maybe you guys can talk later about how much I messed it up. But do you remember the gluttonous man who was placed in prison? Well, actually, he had a prison that was built around him. And it had a doorway. but no actual door on it. It was open. The gluttonous man could leave at any time. But the door was a bit too small for the gluttonous man to fit out of. He must have been eating too much lobster and bacon. Hey. And what happened? They kept bringing him every day. cakes and donuts and food, right? Over and over. He ate his fill. The gluttonous man couldn't stop eating. And once he would eat that, they'd bring him more. There was never a time where there wasn't food available for the gluttonous man to eat. But the gluttonous man, all he had to do was to lose some weight, get out the door, and go free at any time. The gluttonous man was really enslaved to himself. It was his own desires himself that was keeping him in that prison. His desire for freedom did not outmatch his desire for food. He was imprisoned by his own flesh. And for those living, in open rebellion, in a relationship outside of one biological man, one biological woman, in the covenant of marriage. Brothers and sisters, pray for their souls. That they would come to know the love of the Lord Jesus. The only one who could free them from the slavery of their sin. To truly set them free. If they know the love of Jesus. And if we know the love of Jesus who gave himself up for us, who denied himself and gave his flesh up for us, then we too can be given the power to love like him, to deny ourselves, to turn away from any impulse, to indulge in the things which displease him. But your desire, brothers and sisters, for freedom must be greater. than your desire of sin. And your desire and your love of Christ must be outmatched by nothing. Now more than ever, brothers and sisters, as His beloved children, we must walk in love and in light. Let's pray. Father God, only you know where all of us are at. God, you are well acquainted with all of our ways. You know our rising up. You know our sitting down. You know our thoughts from afar. You know every word that we're about to speak before they're yet even on our lips. And so Lord God, you know where people are at. You know if they're dwelling in darkness. God, you know if they feel like they're imprisoned in their flesh. But Lord Jesus, I pray that You would call into the darkness like You called into that tomb. Lord, that they would awake, and arise from the dead, and out from the darkness, and come to You, so that Your light might shine upon them. That they might be forgiven, made holy, made clean, made righteous, made one with You. And Lord God, may our hearts be forever clung, clinging to you, Lord. Our hearts are prone to wander. Lord, we feel it. Prone to leave the God that we love. And so Lord, take now even our hearts, seal them, keep them tethered to you. Both now and for all eternity. In Jesus' name, amen. Hey, thank you all for having me. I know that was like a tough sermon to preach, especially as a guest, but I pray that it would bring great blessing to you and also to all those who joined us online today as well. As you go forth from here, I'll give you this benediction from 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 23 and 24. Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, and He will surely do it. Amen? Amen. You are sent. Pastor John back again. I want to thank you one more time for joining us. If you were blessed by the service, let me ask you to do us a favor. If you're watching on YouTube, click on the like button below, that little thumbs up at the bottom of the video. If you're listening on Sermon Audio, perhaps you can comment on the sermon or even share the sermon with someone else. Either way, we'd love to have you as subscribers on either site. We'd love to hear from you as well. We're on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter. Just search for WBFVA. And we're on the World Wide Web at WBFVA.org. Let us know if you would like us to pray for you and what you'd like us to pray for. Let us know if you have any comments. If you'd like to support us financially, you can make donations through our website at wbfva.org. Just click on giving. You'll receive a tax deductible receipt at the end of the year. Either way, we'd love to hear from you or even have you visit us in person one Sunday. We meet at 46 Winchester street in downtown Warrington at 11 o'clock every Sunday morning. And now may God bless you richly until we gather again.