Okay, let's go ahead and let's pray and then we'll spend some time in the word together. Father, we thank you so very much for your son, Jesus Christ, who's come and died on the cross for our sins. Once again, just ask as we open up your word that your spirit would be moving, that we would see the things that we need to see, that you would teach us, that you would lead us to a point where we would desire to want to be more like Christ, that we would repent of our sins, that we would seek to be a good testimony to those around us, And Father, we're just so very thankful for everything that you've blessed us with and everything that you've given us in your Son, Christ. We thank you and love you in your Son's name. Amen. Imagine for a moment that you were going on a hike, and The things that you need are what? Water, backpack, probably a good pair of shoes, and a compass. Now imagine for a moment that you had a compass that didn't have a needle in it. Now, where would you end up? I don't know. Would you find true north? Maybe, by accident, right? It wouldn't be because of the instrument that you had, because the instrument that you had is broken, right? Now, how foolish would it be if somebody came up to you and showed you a broken navigational system like that and said, this will always lead us to the place we're going. It will always lead us true north. And you look at it and go, No, it won't. It won't. And the more they try to convince you of the validity and the veracity of this particular thing, you would say, no, we won't go in the right direction. I mean, we'll go in a direction, you might know the path, but we're not necessarily gonna be following the right course, right? Like we couldn't find true north, we couldn't go east, we couldn't go south on purpose, right? This wouldn't be helpful. And we would think of that person as being incredibly self-deluded and incredibly independent, right? We would think of that person as being incredibly arrogant. I know what to do and don't tell me how I do things in the woods. This will work. And you'll walk away going, no, no. I find that in the Christian life there are many who go through sanctification like that person going on a hike with a broken compass. They are so self-sufficient, so independent, so self-righteous, so arrogant, so self-absorbed that they, who knows where they go, but they'll end up there. They'll end up there. We don't know where they're going, but they'll end up there. And what's amazing is how many times God lays out for us where we're supposed to go, how we're supposed to live. He outlines for us the path of holiness, the path of righteousness. And this is the right way, but there are people who are so self-sufficient and self-righteous that they follow their own way. This morning, as we look at Proverbs 30, verses 7 through 17, That's exactly what we're going to see. We're going to see this idea that God sanctifies us, God makes us holy. For us as believers, God makes us like Christ. independent or despite of our independence. And so the goal for us is to be dependent upon the things that God gives, right? That's how you overcome independence is dependence upon God and this real sense of I am not self-sufficient. No. No, no, no, no. I am not an independent, autonomous Christian. I must absolutely depend on God. Depend on God for a lot. For a lot. And that's what we're going to see. And there's going to be three things we're going to see in this text this morning. In verses 7 through 9, we're going to see the sanctification which comes from God. the sanctification from God, we're going to see this desire by Agor to please the Lord, and he's gonna talk about the problem of pleasing the Lord with this idea of independence, of self-sufficiency. Then, in verses 10 through 16, he's then going to demonstrate what it looks like, the bad behavior that comes from this independence. Right, so from 10 to 16, we're gonna see this bad behavior of independence. And then in verse 17, we're gonna see this absolutely gruesome consequence of independence. Where does that lead? What does that lead to, this independence? And we're gonna see that. So as we've been last week we started Proverbs chapter 30 and as I shared it kind of follows a form and we're going to see this form again. Now it's going to be a little bit out of order from how we saw it last week but it definitely follows this order. It's going to one. declare a problem, and this problem is definitely common to man. It is a problem of man's life apart from God's help, God's intervention, apart from God's illumination, right? So here is this untamed, unkept depravity, right? And this is what it's going to look like. He's then going to offer a solution to that problem. Last week, remember, the problem was the ignorance of man. Man doesn't know a thing. He doesn't know a thing. He just doesn't know. He's so ignorant, so arrogant, so silly. But God, in his graciousness, will offer salvation and reveals that through his word. So you want to know anything, you have to go to Jesus. You have to go to his word, right? Here we're going to see man's stubborn independence and we're going to see the solution. And then the third aspect to this section, as we're going to see, is if you don't man, there's a consequence. There's a consequence to this, right? So there's the problem, there's the solution, and then there's a warning, if you don't follow, here's what's going to happen. So, in this section, it's kind of interesting because he starts it with the solution. He starts it with, here's the solution, and then he goes on to describe the bad behavior. That's kind of interesting in this section. So notice what he does, Verse seven through nine, and notice what he says. Two things I ask of you. Now I take this, that this is Agor speaking, and that I think he's speaking to God. I think this is prayer. So the very first thing that we see here is that he's praying to God, he's talking to God. Prayer. is such an important aspect to us as believers. Prayer, just by the act of it, is an act of dependence upon God. A prayerless life is an arrogant life because it's assuming I can do this apart from God's help. Right? I can do this without God's intervention. I don't need to consult God. I don't need to consult him. I don't need to ask for his help. I don't need to ask for his illumination. I could just do this without him. And so prayer is that act, just the act of praying is an act of humility, of saying, yep, I need you. I absolutely need you. Right? I need you to help here. I need you to help here. I need you to help with this. Prayer is so important, so very important. And so here the solution is this prayer. He's praying. So how do we combat greed? How do we combat self-righteousness? We do this by true prayer. Now let us be careful here because there are people that do things when all of our eyes are closed that may sound like prayer but may not really be prayer. We don't know who they're talking to, but they might not be talking to God. Now, on the one hand, some of those things can be quite obvious. Sometimes that's not as obvious. The Lord knows, but for us in our hearts when we pray, we need to make sure that we're not saying things in a way to get people to amen us because we said something really profound in our prayer, right? We need to remember that a prayer isn't good because it's long, right? This isn't Joanne's fabric. The longer it goes, the better it is. That's not necessarily the case. I think prayers should be measured by our heart, by our submissiveness of our heart, should be measured by its weight, right? The things that we're saying are true and they have the right perspective. They're asking God for the right things. And in a sense, it's a conversation to God. And if you get to listen to my conversation with God, amen. If not, who cares? I'm talking to God. I'm talking to the creator of the universe. So it starts here. It starts with this, God's the one that can help me. Clearly, here's this wise man who's a prophet. He realizes, I can't stop this problem. There's these two major things. And it's only God that can stop me from these things. Because notice what he says. He says, two things I ask. Deny them not to me before I die. remove far from me falsehood and lying, and give me neither poverty nor riches." That's his two prayer requests. Have you ever prayed those two prayer requests, by the way? I mean, has that been on the top of your list? What's the two things? Keep me from falling to deception, and don't give me too much, and don't give me too little. I'm going to be honest here. I don't think I've prayed these specifically, and I don't think I've ever been in a prayer meeting where we asked for these things specifically, right? A lot of our times when we go together and we pray together, it's always, there's this need, there's this need, there's this need, there's this need, there's this need, and that's important. to pray about needs and problems. I'm not saying that that's a small thing. That's something that we should do, and God asks us to do. But I'm often, even in my own prayer life, I realize that I don't thank God as much, and I'm not as dependent upon God as I should. There's a lot of times where I say things and I tell God, here's the solution, and if you could make my solution work out, that's great. Here is this man who's humble enough that says, look, one, I am ignorant, and I am helpless, and I absolutely need your help. And the things that he asks for, on the surface, you go, well, that's kind of an interesting prayer. It's an interesting prayer. Why are those the two things that he prays for? Why are those the big issues on his mind? Well, we're going to see why they're such big issues later on, but let's just look at what he's asking. First, he says, remove far from me falsehood. This idea for falsehood, by the way, is not falsehood in his own thinking. per se, this is falsehood from outside that perverts the way he thinks. So the idea is protection from lies, right? I need your help to protect me from lies. Now, I've mentioned this before, we often think of ourselves as really good judges of character and that we can always spot a lie. I'm a lie detector and so are you. That's not necessarily the case, friends. That is not the case. You know why we believe the truth? It's not because of your ability to see it. It's because God helps you see it. He gives you the ability to see it. You want to know why you don't go off into falsehood? because of the Lord, not because of your ability and strong will. No, it is the Lord's help. And so he immediately realizes that any perspective he has that's true and correct has to be protected by God himself, and that it's God who's actively protecting him from falsehood, and that he's dependent upon God for that protection. Now, then there's the second part, which is lying. So protect me from false things that come from the outside, but then also protect me from myself spouting lies. Telling the truth. Help me tell the truth. Help me love truth. So the love for truth, the love for hearing truth, and the love of not spouting out lies, and the love for sharing the truth, this is something that is given to us by God and is protected by God. And our prayer should be this constantly. I'm ignorant, right? Last week, that's what we saw. I'm ignorant. I'm a little kid. I don't know what's going on. If I don't know what's going on, and you're the only one that does know what's going on, then I desperately need you to help me navigate. It's absolutely necessary. And I don't think that he's saying this in such a way that's just a blase like, yeah, help me. The way that he says this, deny me not this before I die, implies screaming, crying out, a real heart, right? Then notice the next thing, he says, neither give me poverty nor riches. In fact, then he goes on and he says, feed me with the food that is needful for me. So it's give me the right amount. The right amount of food. What's the right amount of food? The Lord knows that. So give me the right amount of food. Now, if you're looking at this, you go, well, this sounds a lot like the Lord in Matthew chapter 6, when he says, lead us not into temptation, but delivers from temptation, and also give us this day our daily bread. Yep. Yeah, no, that's exactly his prayer. His prayer goes along, and the Lord recognizes this is the way that we should be praying, right? This is the way that needs to happen, that our protection from temptation is the Lord, and the one who gives us our daily bread is the Lord. Now, what happens, what happens, and he specifically focuses on this idea of giving me neither poverty nor riches. Notice what happens here. He says, lest I be fool and deny you and say, who's the Lord? It's possible, and the Lord warns about this in Deuteronomy several times of the nation of Israel, it's possible, this is even warned in the New Testament, that we can have so much and that we think the reason I have is because I did it. The reason I have a house is because I was good at financial planning. The reason I have this is because I was really good at my job. The reason I got a promotion was because I was really good. I'm really good at this. And I'm really good at keeping my money. And I'm really good at looking at the market and determining what's going to happen. So this is all me, man. Look at me. Look at me. I did this. And so the fear is, if I have too much, the temptation for me is that I will become self-sufficient and thus deny the Lord's provision in my life. and assuming it was me, I'm self-sufficient, to even go as far as to say, who is the Lord? To go into atheism. It's possible to go into, who is the Lord to me? I am my own master. I'm the one that made all this happen. That's dangerous. I can't help but think, in our own culture, the Lord has really blessed our country, hasn't he? We've become very full. We have a lot. We have more than what we need. And isn't it interesting that there's a growing atheism? I wonder why that is. Oh, maybe it was because we got so full that we forgot about the Lord. And we thought, look how good I am. And maybe the church kind of bought into this. Look how good we are. We live here. Obviously, everything we have is because I'm American. He sees the danger of this. He sees the danger of this. And then notice, he then says, well, what happens if I have too little? He says, or lest be poor and steel and profane the name of God. So here, with poverty is this, Attempt to steal, right? I don't have enough food to feed my family. How am I gonna feed my family? I gotta feed my family. I gotta do the thing, right, to feed my family. So I'm gonna do something that's a little sneaky. And guess what happens when that happens? People look at that and say, who is the Lord? Oh, is that what a believer looks like? I'm not. So his prayer is, Just give me enough and help me be content. You see, that's the real heart of his prayer. Help me be content. Help me be joyful with what you've given me and content with what you've given me and to realize that you are enough and what you provide for me is enough. So you have these two prayers, right? Keep me from falsehood because I'm gonna fall into it and keep me from from this position of greed and self-sufficiency. Help me be content, right? That's the prayer. That's his prayers. Now he's going to describe what happens when you have somebody who's self-sufficient, and he's going to give all of these behaviors. It's kind of interesting. So notice verse 10 of the bad behaviors that come from independence. It's kind of interesting how he starts off with this first one. It says, do not slander a servant or a slave to his master. That means don't go up and say something that's legally liable. The idea is make something up. So don't make something up about a slave to his master. The sense is, He won't have any legal recourse to fight it, right, because one, he was only acting on behalf of his master, so it's not like he has his own volition. Two, in a lot of societies, if you're a slave, you don't have the rights to go to court. So here you are bringing a charge against a guy who can't defend himself. And notice what happens here, and this kind of demonstrates this whole self-sufficiency apart from God's word, apart from God's law, apart from God's justice. Notice what happens, lest he curse you, and you be held guilty. The idea is, man, this guy. He only has one recourse, talk bad about you. And when he starts talking about you, guess what happens? It's possible you get in trouble, right? So here's this whole idea of instead of following God's law, God's justice, God's plan of loving one another, what ends up happening? Everybody's self-seeking and everybody's getting in trouble, right? Now, notice the next couple of verses from 11 to 16. In the ESV, they all start off with this phrase, there are those who. Your translation might say there's a generation, there's a people. So here he's describing, and even in verse 10, it kind of alludes to this, of a whole generation of people. This is what people are. It's kind of describing mankind, mankind without God's help, mankind without God's, restraint without God's word, that this is what it looks like, right? This is what it looks like. And I want you just to see, I want you to see the independence of each of these people. That this whole, I'm my own captain of my own ship. That this whole, I don't need anyone else. I don't need the Lord. I don't need any other person. I am autonomous and self-sufficient and independent. And this is what happens when we leave God's word. We become so arrogant and self-deluded. So notice, verse 11. There are those, there is a generation, who do what? Who curse their fathers, same word as before, curse, says bad stuff, says bad stuff about his dad, and does not bless their mothers. So they say really bad things about dad, utter curses against dad, and then when it comes time for Mother's Day to bless their mother on Mother's Day and every other day around the year, they go, nah, Nah. That's what happens when you get to be independent. Now, before you would go, well, of course, all those people outside of church would not honor their father and mother, but all of us inside of the church, of course we love mom and dad. We've been taught that from wee little kids, knee high to a grasshopper, that we need to be honoring to our father and mother. I want you to remember it was the Pharisees, the religious people who took God's word pretty serious that had created an entire system to buy something expensive for mom and dad and then as they were getting ready to give it go, oh actually I'm going to need this for the Lord. This is dedicated to the Lord and so I need to keep it. But you get a look at it, and isn't that a great thing, that I bought you something you need, and now you know that it's in the service of the Lord in my house. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord, right? Amen. Can't we all praise the Lord together? And the parents walking away going, what are you doing? Are you kidding me? Is this what I get? Be mindful, friends, even today, there's a large movement of people who are divorcing their families. This is becoming a thing. This is becoming a huge thing, becoming independent of one's family. I don't need family. I get to pick my own family with my own friends. I don't need to honor mom and dad. That's what happens. That's what happens with independence. leaving God's Word. Just think about how self-centered this person has to be to look at the person who raised them and then utter a curse and say, I ain't blessing you. I ain't saying thank you to you. I'm not grateful for what you've done. Notice the next thing, verse 12. There are those who, all right, so here's the second qualification, right? There are those who. who are clean in their own eyes, but are not washed of their filth. Okay, so this is a really interesting phrase. Notice the contrast here between the cleanliness of their own eyes, but the actual filth that's on their body. So they think of themselves as being incredibly pure, but they don't realize how dirty and filthy they are. Once again, we're gonna have to use our Lord's example when he talks about the Pharisees. What did he call the Pharisees? He said, you're like a clean cup on the outside and dirty on the inside. You're like a tomb, whitewashed on the outside, looks real pretty, but on the inside, there's just a whole bunch of rotting flesh. This verse speaks of self-righteousness. It speaks of, I am right with God, even though the person is not right with God. Because notice, they're not clean on the basis of what God says. As a believer, they're not clean on the basis of Jesus Christ. They're clean on the basis of what? How I see myself. I see myself as being clean. Therefore, I must be clean. It's the idea that what I feel is true is reality. No. No. Because what does it say in the next part? But they have been washed of their filth. Now, this word for filth is all the really disgusting stuff that you don't want ever near you. I'll leave it at that. If you're really curious about what that filth is, Ask Rindy. No, I'm joking. You know what we're talking about. We're talking about that disgusting stuff that you want away from you. So think of this person who goes, look how clean my clothes are, and you're looking at them going, no, no, you're not clean. You're dirty. You got dirty clothes on. This is a conversation that I have with my kids and my wife has with our kids. Pretty on a weekly basis, right? Put some clean clothes on. I do have clean clothes on. No, you don't. It's not clean clothes. Here's the sense. Imagine this morally, somebody thinking of themselves as being righteous, but they're not. And then notice, he even bears down even more. He says, there are those, how lofty are their eyes, and how high are their eyelids. Well, man, these people think of themselves as being the best of the best. They're the top tier. Not only are they pure, but they're way better than you. On basis on what? The way they think of themselves, of arrogance, self-righteousness. They think of themselves as being kings, and they're not kings. Now notice the next part. So you kind of see how all of this is self-sufficient, right? They're all self-sufficient, all independent. Notice what else happens with independent people. It says, there are those whose teeth are swords. What an image, what an image. Imagine somebody showing you their pearly whites and finding out they're actually swords coming out of their mouth. We know what that means, right? They're going to eat people, right? pure predators, right, and whose fangs are knives, right? So you got this whole image of somebody, their whole mouth is full of knives and swords. Well, why would you have to have knives and swords inside your mouth? Well, because you're going to eat people and you're going to devour people. Well, what kind of people are you going to eat and devour? Those who also have swords and knives in their mouth? Nope, knows what it is. To devour the poor from off the earth. Well, that's interesting. Devour the people that can't protect themselves. Huh. Why would one do such a thing? Because they're pure in their own eyes. It doesn't matter. They don't care about the other guy. They don't care that that other person has nothing. It's all about me. All about what I can get. All about what I can consume. By the way, notice just the contrast, or the interesting thing of Agar at his prayer, you know, help me so that I have just enough to eat. And here then you have this picture of these independent people, and what are they? I'll eat anything and everything, and if they can't defend themselves, that's even better. Let's talk about a predator, right? Let's talk about somebody who's willing to take from people and the needy from among mankind. It doesn't matter. They'll go to other countries. They will go to other countries. They will search the whole world to devour people and they don't care. It's all about me, all about what I can get. You see the independence? You see the independence? Now, we would look at these people and we would look at these things and we would realize, of course, of course what Agar prays at the beginning, of course the solution is praying to God and praying to God, help me. with falsehood. And what would be that great falsehood? That I don't think of myself as being as clean and pure on the basis of what I do. That's a big falsehood, right? Help me from telling lies, right? God, you got to help me from these things. And then help me be content. Look at this verse 10 through 14, how These people are just about devouring and themselves. So obviously his prayer at the beginning of help me against these things is obvious, that it's only God that does this. The author is not strong enough by himself to stop him from doing these things. And I dare say that we are not strong enough in among ourselves to stop ourselves from these things. We can't stop it. We have no power. But that's why God sent Jesus, right? That's why we have the indwelling Holy Spirit. It's because of his power and his working in our life that we then can stop these things, not based off of my strength, but based off of what he's doing in my life. Now there's more. Notice what he says next in verse 15. He says, the leech has two daughters. This type of leech is kind of an interesting leech. It's known as a horse leech. that particularly attacks horses, thus the name horse leech. And what would happen is when they would go down to drink, these leeches would live in the water and they would get sucked up into the nostrils. And then they would attach themselves to the nostril wall. And guess what they do? just suck and suck and suck blood. That is how they survive. And then when they have babies, guess what happens? The next time the horse goes to drink, they drop the babies in the water, the next horse comes in, right up in, and the vicious cycle happens over and over again, right? That's what a leech does. It attaches to somebody and just takes, takes, takes, takes, takes, takes. So notice what it says. It says the leech has two daughters. Might be a, there's a debate on whether this should be two daughters or two mouths or, okay, we can have that debate maybe later. Just get the point. Has two daughters, give and give. What's the leech concerned about? I want more. Give me more. Give me more. Give me more. Well, what happens if you kill the horse? I don't care. Give me more. Give me more. I want more. I want more. It attaches itself solely for the purpose of drinking the life out of something else. It's a vampire. And then notice what he says next. He says, three things are never set aside, four never say enough. Now these are all metaphors of selfish, self-sufficient people who are like the people that we just talked about. I want more, I want more, I want more, I want more. And it's this drive that Agor realizes this is a dangerous thing and I need God's help to counteract this ongoing problem of greed, more, more, more, give me more. So he gives four images to help us understand the nature of what we're talking about. Sheol, the grave, death. How many times has death gone, I don't want anybody today? Just imagine if death was a person, if there was such a thing as a grim reaper. Does he take a day off? Nope. Does it matter to him how many people die in a day? Nope. Death just keeps on wanting more, more, more. Notice the next thing. The barren woman. So this is kind of a cultural thing. I think we kind of understand it. But culturally, in the ancient world, if you didn't have a kid, you were seen as being cursed by God. And so women that didn't have children were striving hard, hard, hard to have kids, to be blessed. And they would do crazy things just to have kids. Now, let me say this. Somebody's ability to have kids, we know, scripturally, is not a basis of one's morality, right? Very rarely are these things issues of morality. And I would hardly say that a person who doesn't have a kid is not godly. That's not the case. Now, there might be circumstances, but let's just say this. Somebody that medically cannot have a kid, that is not a fault on that person. That is something that the sovereign God has put in their life that they have to work through. And I will say this, that there are ways to get kids, even if you can't have kids, through adoption. We do have that. But what this is talking about is not the evilness of that. It's speaking of that cultural idea that a barren woman has to have a kid and that strong desire that she does all the time to get a kid. It's never satisfied, never satisfied, willing to go to great lengths. Notice the next thing. The land that's never satisfied with water. That's true. Yeah, even out here in the land of rain, The land's always wanting more water, right? It'll suck up all the water. You can put the whole ocean in the land and it goes, that's not enough. And then what's the next thing? And the fire that never says enough. That's true too. You think a fire just stops halfway going, I'm good. I don't need to consume the rest of this log. I'll just go out. No, that's the whole point of a fire, right? If I put in a log, what's it gonna do? It's gonna eat the whole log. If I put in anything into a fire, it's gonna be burned up in a fire. They're never satisfied. And this is man's depravity apart from God's help. I want more, I want more, I'm self-sufficient. It's all me, all about me. Give, give, give, give, give, give, give. I'm self-sufficient, self-righteous. What's the solution? We already saw that. Asking for God's help, realizing Man, we're in a bad spot, and God helps us, right? He who began a good work is faithful to complete it in Christ Jesus, right? Now, what happens if you don't? Now, this is pretty gruesome, so I didn't write this, and if you have a problem with this imagery, take it up with God. I didn't give this image, but this is a pretty graphic image, right? Notice what it says. It says, the eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother. So it looks at suspicion at mom and dad and says, I'm not going to obey. I'm going to be self-sufficient. I don't need authority. I'm not going to submit to authority. Notice the end that will happen. We'll be picked out. So the eyes will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by the vultures. That's pretty gruesome, right? I mean, that's pretty graphic. We're not talking like, oh, you'll just, you'll be punished. We're talking about a severe punishment, right? You'll die in a valley and birds will come and pick you apart. Serious consequence, right? It's a serious consequence. And that's what we would say. We would say this, when you let the flesh go, It always ends in serious consequences. Always. There's always a consequence to sin. Could it lead to physical death? Of course it could lead to physical death. But don't play around with this. Don't give your flesh an inch because it will want more and more and more and it will lead to really bad consequences. Really bad consequences. So this is the bad consequences of independence. Severe, severe consequences. So we've seen the solution, right? We've seen that sanctification is from God, and that we need to pray and ask God for his help, for his guidance, for his strength. We need to yield to the spirit, yield to yield to the things that we find in God's word. We need to think about ourselves in light of who we are in Christ, right? Realizing that the victory is won because we've placed our faith in Christ, right? Salvation is found in Christ, and Christ is working on us day by day. I think we need to understand as well the deceptive nature of our own flesh. Man, you and I will lie to each other. We'll lie to ourselves, we'll think of ourselves as being super clean, super dependent upon God when we're not. That's dangerous, that is dangerous. And we need to realize that this is widespread and that this is something that we can easily walk into. And it's something that we don't necessarily see about ourself. That's what makes us so dangerous, is because I think of myself as being clean when I'm not. And I need to remember that there are some serious consequences to this. But I don't want to leave you with that. I want to leave you with hope. This past week I was reading about this. that some Asian cultures, what happens when they make these pots is through use, it'll miss pieces of clay out of the pots. And they do something very interesting. For me, I would get glue and try to glue that piece back in, right, and try to hide it the best I could. These societies, they go, nope. And they just put in gold in place of that thing that's missing. They don't even hide the fact that something's broken. They just put something better in its place. I was thinking of that in light of this text, in light of thinking of the pound of flesh that Agor took from us, of our own ego and of our own flesh, and realized, what's God doing? He's not making a better Caleb. He's making me into Christ. Right? That's what's happening. I'm becoming more like Christ. It's not that he's trying to take all those bad things and polish up the bad things and try to stick them back in to make it look great. No, he's making me, renewing me into the image of him who created me. So when I think about this idea of sanctification, which is from God, in spite of my independence, I need to remember He who began a good work is faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. And it's absolutely necessary for me to see something like this, to see those areas where there's great danger, and for me to repent of these things and to cry out to God, I need your help, because guess what'll happen? Slowly, I'll be taken from this worthless piece of clay to something that's golden. I'll be like Jesus, and that's what he's doing, and that's the process, and the process is to become more, more dependent upon him, more faithful to him, more like Christ. But it starts, as Agor tells us, it starts with our prayer life. It starts with our relationship with the Lord. It starts with this desire of, I need you so much. I need you in everything. Help me not trust myself, but help me trust you. May the Lord give us both the will and the ability to do all that we heard today. Let's go ahead and let's pray. Father, we are so very thankful for your word. We're so very thankful for the things that you've given us. So very thankful for this country that you blessed us with, that we don't have to worry about that second part of that prayer of don't let me be poor. But Father, we desperately need you. We desperately need your help. We need the help of your son. We need the help of your spirit. Help us become dependent upon you. Help us become submissive to you. Help us to realize that our victory is found in you and not in our own abilities. Father, I'm just so very thankful for everyone who's here. I'm very thankful for the work that you're doing in their life as you're making them more like Jesus. We're very thankful for some of those people who've been away for a little bit and you've brought back. We're so very thankful you've brought them back to us. And Father, we're also so very thankful for little baby Christian who's here with us. And we thank you for the answer of prayer that we've had over this past month or so. and we're just so very thankful that he's here. We also pray for the Davis family, and as Maya goes off to Bible school, we pray for the family, that they'll be comforted. We pray for Maya as she goes, that one, you would use your word in a mighty way in her life, that you would mold her and shape her into the image of your son. And then as she's there in class, that you would lead her and guide her to what you want for her and give her guidance, help her with her studies, realizing that her studies are not trivial things, but that she's dealing with the weighty things, the things of you, the things of your son. We just ask for your blessing for the rest of the day. We ask for your safety and help us come back tonight as we continue on learning and learning from your word. We thank you and love you. In your son's name, amen.