This evening I'd like to have you take your Bibles out and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 7. It's easy to remember which chapter in 1 Corinthians deals with marriage because it is chapter 7, and of course that's the great commandment on marriage in the Ten Commandments, so it's a way to remember where this teaching of Paul concerning marriage is found. Before we turn to God's Word, let's ask His blessing on it, shall we, please? Father, we thank you that we can be here tonight. We're grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ contained in this book, The Good News of Salvation, that Jesus Christ came for sinners, that salvation is found through faith in him. And Lord, we come tonight rejoicing in that fact and also coming to have instruction from your word as to how then we ought to live, how we ought to serve you as those who love you. Lord, we ask that you will bless us as we look at this passage of scripture together this evening and may it be applied not only to our minds but to our lives as well. For Jesus' sake, amen. For those of you who are visiting us tonight, we certainly extend a welcome to you. In the evening services, we are dealing with Paul's letter to the Corinthians, and we are up to chapter 7. Now, for the matters you wrote about, says Paul, it is good for a man not to marry. But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband in the same way the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. So do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time. so that you may devote yourself to prayer, then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all men were as I am, but each man has his own gift from God. One has this gift, another that. Now to the unmarried and the widows, I say it is good for them to stay unmarried as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. To the married I give this command, not I, but the Lord. A wife must not separate from her husband, but if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife. To the rest I say this, I, not the Lord, if any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances. God has called us to live in peace. How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband, or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. Was a man already circumcised when he was called, he should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called, He should not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God's commandments is what counts. Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him. Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you. Although if you can gain your freedom, do so. For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord's freed man. Similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ's slave. You were bought at a price. Do not become slaves of men. Brothers, each man is responsible to God, as responsible to God should remain in a situation God called him to. Now about virgins, I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy. Because of the present crisis, I think that it is good for you to remain as you are. Are you married? Do not seek a divorce. Are you unmarried? Do not look for a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned, and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this. What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on, those who have wives should live as if they had none. Those who mourn as if they did not. Those who are happy as if they were not. Those who buy something as if it were not theirs to keep. Those who use the things of the world as if not engrossed in them. This world in its present form is passing away. I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is unconcerned about the Lord's affairs. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs, how he can please the Lord, but a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world, how he can please his wife, and his interests are divided. The unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs. Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world, how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord. If anyone thinks he is acting improperly toward the virgin he is engaged to, and if she is getting along in years and he feels he ought to marry, he should do as he wants. He is not sinning. They should get married. The man who has settled the matter in his own mind, who is under no compulsion, but has control over his own will and who has made up his mind not to marry the Virgin, this man also does the right thing. So then he who marries the Virgin does right, but he who does not marry her does even better. A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord. In my judgment, she is happier if she stays as she is, and I think that I, too, have the Spirit of God. so far, the reading of God's word this morning. I think this evening, I think you should keep your Bibles open because we have a very long passage to deal with this evening. And you will certainly want to check up on some of the things that I'm saying. When you look at tonight's title of the sermon, you'll notice that I've entitled it, Serve Where You Are, or perhaps in the bulletin is Serve Where God Calls. And maybe after I read this, you wonder if I missed the point because the passage certainly seems to be talking more about marriage and and so on than anything else. But I think that as you look at this, at the chapter, and if you keep in mind other passages in 1 Corinthians, that you'll see that the problem is really bigger than marriage that Paul is dealing with here. And incidentally, this is the first time that he's getting at the things that they really wanted to hear. All of the talk prior to chapter seven was things that he wanted to tell them that they hadn't asked for advice about. But they had written him about marriage, you can see that in chapter 7 verse 1. But some of the reasons for their problem in marriage is that they didn't understand what he was talking about in verse 17, that they didn't understand at least the principle that Paul was elucidating there. In verse 17, he says, nevertheless, each one should remain or rather retain the place in life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. And then I just want to call your attention to one other passage, and that is chapter five, verse nine. We look at that passage last week, Sunday evening. Or at least I read that part of the scripture last week, Sunday evening, where Paul writes this, I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral or the greedy or swindlers or idolaters. In that case, you would have to leave this world. And with that in mind, and keeping in mind that 17th verse of chapter 7 that I just read prior to this, I think we begin to understand the larger problem that they face, a problem not unlike the problem that we face often today. When someone becomes a Christian, it seems like they right away feel like God calls them to be missionaries. And some of them are willing to go to Bible college or even lower themselves to a place like Westminster Seminary, but they want to get out right away and become evangelists. And whether they are called by a church or not, and whether they are prepared or not, out they go, supported by friends perhaps who admire their zeal. And what happens to so many of these people is that they become spokesmen and leaders of the Christian faith, or at least people look to them as that, but they really don't have a grasp of what the scriptures talk about, or at least the full-orb teaching of the scripture. Nor do they have any concept of what the church has gone through, through all the centuries, and how the church has wrestled with certain problems. And so very often they lead people astray in their immaturity. And that is, of course, why the Bible warns us in 1 Timothy that elders not be novices in the faith, but that they be mature. Well, that's what the Corinthians had to remember too, I believe, that to be born again didn't mean that they had to pack their bags and change their way of life, or at least change their calling. That if they were bricklayers before God called them, they should remain bricklayers. And if they were slaves, they should remain slaves. Although you notice in verse 21 that Paul says, if you have an opportunity to get free, Because slavery is not a creation ordinance. Paul deals with slavery in a different way than he deals with marriage, for example, or offices in the church. But when it comes to slavery, if you have an opportunity, he says in verse 21, then of course you may become free. But that's something, too, that we have to remember today, that being born again doesn't mean that we necessarily have to go to seminary. Or that if we are born again, somehow or other, our whole personality changes. That we become different people. Well, in a sense, of course, we become different people. But before I was a Christian, I couldn't play the French horn. And after I became a Christian, I couldn't either. And if you become a Christian and before that you can't carry a tomb, don't expect to carry one after you become a Christian. In that sense, you know, conversion doesn't change our, the talents, our gifts, our personalities that the Lord has given to us. So that's really the larger picture that Paul is dealing with here, the idea that we are to to serve God exactly where He has placed us, in a different way than before we were born again, but in the place that God has placed us. But specifically, of course, the Corinthians are dealing with the problem of marriage, and now we can begin to understand where that problem comes up, because there were many mixed marriages in this mission church. As in many mission churches, there are husbands who are converted and wives who are not, and vice versa. And so that presented a real problem to these new Christians, and probably if you think about it, you can imagine why particularly in Corinth that would present a problem, because that was a church that was filled with divisions, and one boasted about being of Paul, another boasted of being of Apollos, and so I suppose if you had an unbelieving spouse, you probably were kind of looked down on. After all, you have an unbelieving spouse, but we are together in the Lord. And so they began to feel perhaps that there was something ungodly about their relationship with their unbelieving husband or wife. And then you can begin to understand how that would be because there's nothing so intimate as marriage. There is nothing so intimate in all the world as marriage where two become one. The closeness, the intimacy is not duplicated anywhere else in all of our relationships. And so perhaps some of those Christians began to contemplate divorce because they felt contaminated by their unbelieving spouse in that intimate relationship. And perhaps it was even more severe than that. Perhaps it was a question about the holiness of marriage itself. Maybe some began, as some did in those days, to begin to think, well, there is a more spiritual state than marriage, and we follow Paul, who was unmarried, and we follow Jesus, who was unmarried, and we're not, you know, involved in these physical affairs of men and women. And so they began to boast about that and look down, perhaps, on others who were married, even married together in the Lord. At any rate, there were a number of questions regarding marriage and divorce, as you can see in this chapter that Paul is responding to. And so then he begins to give instructions, and the first instruction he gives regards single life. And in chapter 7, verse 1, he says, it's good for a person, it's good for a man not to marry. Now you look at that and you say, well, I'm glad that Paul says it's good that he not marry. I'm glad he doesn't say it's better. You know, because that kind of leaves me off the hook a little bit. If he would have said it's better not to marry, then I'd feel a little bit ill at ease here. But the problem with that approach is that if you turn to verse 38, there Paul talks about it being better to remain single. And being better does not necessarily refer to morally better, but wiser, perhaps, in that regard, or more advantageous. Now you say, why in the world would it be better not to marry? I mean, after all, God ordained marriage because it was not good to be alone. Now why does Paul say it's better not to marry? And I think as you read this passage, it becomes very clear why Paul speaks about that in this case. You look at verse 26, I'm going to give you three reasons why Paul speaks about marriage or single life as being a better than married life. I'm going to give you three reasons. I don't give you the space in the outline to write those all down, but you'll have to squeeze them in there. And this is the longest of the point. So don't get nervous about that. He gives three reasons why celibacy is better. First of all, in verse 26, because of the present crisis. Now, we don't know what that crisis was, but Paul is talking here in terms of the present crisis, and probably it was a crisis of persecution. So in that situation, the apostle Paul said it's better to be single. And obviously that's true because your, you know, the governing authorities couldn't grab your wife or your kids and threaten to, you know, to mutilate them in front of your eyes if you didn't disobey the Lord Jesus Christ or dishonor him. And as a single person, if it was a time of persecution, certainly that person could up and go any time that it was convenient. You think about how Priscilla and Aquila left Rome and went to Corinth and here and there, they could move and probably they had no children involved, so they were free to do that. So in the present situation, he says, it's better not to marry. The second reason is found in verse 29. He says, because the time is short. As a matter of fact, that whole little paragraph there really talks about that idea. He ends at verse 31, and he says, for this world in its present form is passing away. Once again, it's a little difficult to know exactly what Paul has reference to. Maybe he, once again, has reference to this present crisis that he's talking about. He's saying, look, hang in there. Don't be, you know, real eager to get married because it's going to pass over. So be patient. I don't think that, you know, that your chances are forever lost, but just hang in there because things are going to change. That could be what Paul is talking about. But of course, Paul could also be talking about the end of the world. He lived in that anticipation of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so this suffering that they are undergoing, this present crisis, reminds him of those things that Jesus talked about, how it will be before the Lord comes, and how, you know, there will be all kinds of suffering. And so Paul now speaks or now thinks about the fact, hey, don't make so much about this marriage thing, because it appears that the Lord Jesus Christ, that the world is passing. But of course that's the way that Paul lived, wasn't it? I mean to say he always lived in conformity with Jesus' command, you know, lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, but lay them up in heaven. And what does it profit a man if he gained the whole world but lose his own soul? The Apostle Paul always was working, serving God in all that he did, always ready to go to be with the Lord. He said in Philippians that to be with Christ is far better. And so that was his whole frame of reference. He didn't dig his roots very deep in this world. And in verse 31, Paul uses a word here that makes us think about maybe a stage play that, you know, that we put on. And he talks about the scene of this world passing away. And then you think about what Paul has in mind, you think about a stage play that we have, we draw the curtain and a bunch of kids go in the back and they change the props and all of a sudden you're in a different place and a different time. And he says that's the way it is with life. He says it's passing away so quickly. So don't dig your roots in too deeply. Why make marriage such an important thing? Why make divorce such an important thing? Because the world is passing away quickly. And we could add to that, I suppose, in fact, you could go on to say, why make anything so important in this world? We have to put it in perspective. The world is changing. It goes by rapidly. It's like the scene in a play. The curtain closes. They quickly change the props, and in a moment, the whole thing is different. Well, that's what we have to put in perspective, it seems to me. We live sometimes as if we think this world is going to stay forever. I see people at the YMCA pumping iron. I watch people running, you know, jogging, working up a sweat. deathly afraid of caffeine or cholesterol or whatever it might be. You'd look at them and you'd think they're going to live forever. Paul says, hey, you put far too much emphasis on that. The things of this world are passing, are passing. They're like leaves on the tree, here today, off tomorrow. It's good advice for us. We take life too seriously. I mean the things of life too seriously. I mean those things that the devil always puts in front of us, always making us long for it. And we get them, you know, when you're 15, you think about, if only I could have that car, or if only I could get that motorcycle. And that's the thing that you live for and you die for almost. And when you get it, then you find out, well, that's not all it's cracked up to be. Then the devil puts something else in front of you, and you live for that. They don't make so much of that. This world is passing by. It's passing very quickly. Our lives sometimes remind me of, you know, some of our students who are basketball players. And I don't want to particularly knock the basketball players, but you can make it soccer players or anything else. But, you know, they give up so much for that game. I mean, they go after turnouts, one turnout after another. Instead of studying their history lessons, they're shooting baskets in the backyard. Some of them even neglect catechism to do that. They neglect their studies. They neglect everything for the sake of that basketball. And then when they're 19 and 20, they have a whole drawer full or a album full of clippings about how many points they scored and how many games they won, and maybe they got a few trophies on the shelf, and that's all. That's all they have left. They have not prepared for the future. They've given up their really studying in high school and everything else. They have not prepared. That's the way it is so often with Christians. They put the emphasis in the wrong place. They go after the wrong things. They let the things of the Lord slip by, the Bible study, the seasons of prayer, the service to God, help in the church. All of that is neglected. We fight and we claw after all of those things that pass away. In a few years, we die and everything runs through our fingers like water. No trailers behind hearses, you know. We die empty, naked. All of our life, we've been striving for this, we've been fighting for that, we've been sacrificing for this business and that home and the next thing. Paul says, this world is passing. Put it in perspective. The third reason for single life being better, the first, you know, is a present crisis. The second is that the time is short. The third is that celibacy frees a person from concern. You see that in verse 32. Marriage adds responsibility, and responsibility adds concern. You all know that. The meals, the diapers, the pediatricians, the turnouts, you know, when the kids come in late, what they're going to do with the car, the house payments, it just adds on and on and on and on to the concern. So Paul says stay single and you can have it all. I mean, you can have your toys, you can go where you want, you can be what you want, stay single. But that's not quite what he says. He is not talking about being free from those kind of concerns. He's really talking about being free for God. He says if you're single, you don't have to concern yourself about the needs of your spouse. And you can pick up at a moment's notice where the Lord calls you, you could serve him. There's nothing that holds you down. That's why he recommends being single in the present circumstances, because you don't have that concern for your spouse. You can just go and do what God calls you to do. There have been people that have had the gift of celibacy, of singleness, and they have been used mightily by the Lord on mission fields, but also in education. I remember a godly teacher that I had. who had determined as a young person that she was going to dedicate her life to teaching. There was a case where the baron had more children than the married because she had flocks of children. She was a tremendous asset and a tremendous influence on our lives. Some of those who are single carry double and triple loads in the church of Jesus Christ and in the kingdom. What a blessing. Paul says it's better in that sense to remain single. But if God doesn't give you that gift, then he deals with marriage also in this passage. If God hasn't given you the gift of celibacy, then according to verse 38, the marriage is good too. Nothing wrong with it. The intimate relationship of marriage shouldn't be avoided, says Paul. There's nothing less sacred about it. There's nothing less moral about it. Not even if you're married to an unbeliever. Turn about to verse 14 there, and he says, you don't have to worry about your being contaminated by that unbeliever. He says, as a matter of fact, it's the opposite that happens. You sanctify that unbeliever. If you're an unbeliever, if you're a believer. You mustn't think somehow that that unbeliever contaminates you, but you have a positive effect on that unbeliever. Now that doesn't mean when he talks there about sanctifying the unbeliever that he means that you saved them, but in the sense that I suppose gold and animals were sanctified for their use in the temple and they didn't contaminate the temple so that unbeliever, sanctified by the believing spouse. As a matter of fact he uses a very an argument that we ought to be very familiar with. He says it ought to be obvious that that's the case otherwise of course your children would be unholy. Verse 14. He says you know we don't We don't treat children as unholy. I mean to say that's really the strength of that argument. The Apostle Paul says, otherwise your children would be unholy. But as it is, they are holy. He says, you know that. You know how we treat our covenant children. It doesn't make any difference if one of the spouses is a believer, if only one of the spouses is a believer, or if both are a believer. You know how we treat our children. We treat them as holy. We don't treat them like little pagans. They are part of the covenant community. It doesn't mean that they are saved. It doesn't mean that they are elect. But they are part of the covenant community. And so it's obvious then that if you have an unbelieving spouse, that that unbelieving spouse doesn't contaminate that little child. You think about Timothy, you think about how natural that was for Paul to say that, for the church to practice the holiness, the inclusion in the covenant of little children born of mixed marriages, because Timothy, of course, had a Greek father and a Jewish mother, but he was circumcised, he was part of the covenant community. And this is the text, of course, that's quoted in our baptismal form. We talk about why we baptize children. because they are holy, because they are part of the covenant community. Once again, remember, that doesn't mean that they are elect. It doesn't mean you don't have to call them to trust in Jesus as their Savior. But they are part of God's covenant community. So if your spouse is an unbeliever, still live to the fullest with that spouse, says the apostle. Don't think that that spouse will contaminate you. And don't hold yourself. Don't withdraw your physical relationships from one another. He says you may do that for a little time if it's going to add to your fasting and prayer, but he says don't overdo it because that's a very dangerous thing. And in verse 16, he encourages the spouses of unbelievers to be very good spouses, to be the very best spouses, because who knows whether or not through their life that they will be the way that the Lord saves their husband or their wife. What about those then that say, well, but you know, my marriage is different. I mean, my marriage is awful. I'm married to a Frisian or whatever, you know. We just can't get along. It's fight and fight here. It would be better for me if I were divorced, then I could serve the Lord singly. Well, the Apostle speaks about that, too. You'll find that in verses 10 and 11. He says, when it comes to Christians and marriage, he says, you really don't have to ask me about that. To the married, I give this command, not I, but the Lord. In other words, these are things that you know that Jesus has talked about. He's talked about them in Matthew. He's talked about them In Matthew 19, he talked about him in Matthew 5 and other places. He says, you really don't have to ask that question about divorce. It is not permitted. It's just as simple as that. Marriage can only be broken by adultery, according to the Bible. And neither a husband or a wife has the right to break what God unites. If God has joined you together, no one has the right to break that. He says, you don't have to ask me that question. It's already in the Bible or in the teachings of Jesus. But if one should leave, verse 11, maybe there's a situation where it is an unbearable one. I mean to say where there is violence, let's say. I don't know what Paul has in mind there, but he says, One should have to separate because of some kind of necessity. There are only two choices. One is to remain forever single, and the other is to work for reconciliation. But those are the choices for Christians. And then beginning in verse 12, he gets into perhaps what might be an exception to that rule when it comes to mixed marriages, to someone who is married to an unbelieving. What happens then when an unbeliever, if you have an unbelieving wife or spouse, who deserts you? What happens in that case? Well, I understand Paul to say in verse 15, that in such a case, that marriage then is dissolved. It is as if that person had died, it is as if that person had been an adulterer. That marriage is done for. Once again, if you look at verse 15, but if the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances. God has called us to live in peace. And in Romans 7, it has that, I think verse 2, It uses that same kind of talk about binding and loosing in terms of death in a marriage. You're bound until death. I should tell you this evening that the traditional Reformed view of this text does not see this as a release from the obligations of marriage. Those who disagree with this, with my position tonight, believe that Paul's emphasis is on staying together and therefore he is not really suggesting a second way of breaking up of a marriage. But I tend to believe that Paul allows divorce for desertion of an unbelieving spouse. And as I began, Paul doesn't stop here. with just a matter about marriage and divorce. It's just not a matter of that marriage that after God calls you as Christians that you must remain married, but he is saying that all of us should remain where God has called us, that we may serve him there. God doesn't necessarily mean because I was a plumber before I was born again that now I become a preacher, or if I was a mason that now I become a missionary. It's not where you serve that changes, but it's how you serve that changes after your conversion. And Paul mentions that three times here. It's not your place in life that changes, but it's your way of life. You look at verse 17. Each one of you should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned him and to which God has called him. Verse 20, each one of you should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him. Verse 24, another example of that, brothers, each man as responsible to God should remain in the situation God called him to. We need to be reminded of that today, I think. I think the Reformers understood that very well. But today we tend to forget that. You know, I think every one of us knows people who have been converted later on in life and then they become, you know, very evangelistic and they get out and get going and they're paraded on TV and on radio shows as if somehow that is the epitome of service to the Lord. Here is someone who is born again and he goes out and becomes a missionary and that's what you ought to do. That's what you ought to do. You ought to get up and get out like this person. But listen to Paul, verse 18. Were you a Jew when you were converted? Don't try to change that. Were you a Gentile? Don't pretend to be a Jew. Were you a slave? Don't rebel on the basis of your new freedom in the Lord Jesus Christ. Where God calls you, continue to serve. I don't know whether we whether we appreciate half enough the importance of that. I submit to you that a Christian plumber can be a far greater witness than a Christian preacher because I am paid to be godly, he's not, okay? I am expected to be kind of a religious nut, but he is not. And when he is a religious nut, when he is honest and when he is forthright and when he is a loving person and generous and all of these other attributes, then people begin to sit up and take notice. People don't take notice that I am unusual, but they take notice that you are unusual. That's what God calls us to be. God calls us to be obedient. God calls us to live holy lives. That's the calling of the child of God, first and foremost. All of us, you know, know the passage of of Matthew 28 verse 19 where Jesus says to the disciples, go out into all the world and make disciples of all nations. But it's interesting that that is never again quoted in the epistles. And the epistles are letters of instructions for the church. But the epistles are full of instruction. to live godly lives, to live sanctified lives, to live holy lives, to keep the commandments. In fact, I'll say it stronger. I will say, first of all, that the priority of the child of God is not soul winning, but it is holy living. That's the priority, holy living. That's what Jesus emphasized in Matthew 5. Who is that person who is on a hill like a light? Who is the salt of the earth? It is the meek. It is the peacemaker. It is the humble. Those are the ones that are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. The great historian Gibbon said that it was the unblameable lives of the early Christians that caused their message to spread. The apostle Paul said of the early church, they were epistles read by all men. It was their holy living. that made people turn around and look twice and then listen to what they had to say. How beautifully Acts 9 verse 31 puts it, then the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened and encouraged by the Holy Spirit. grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord. Having been to the communion table, are you serving God where he placed you? Shall we pray? Father, we thank you this evening. that you have reminded us once again that our primary call as Christians is to be obedient, to be God-honoring in our lives, to keep the commandments, to love you above all and our neighbor as ourselves. We are called to grow in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ and in obedient living. Lord, where we do that, we know that your name will be honored and that we will be asked about the hope that is in us. And men and women will see the power of God and the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ as is at work in our lives. Lord, may we serve you in holy living where you have placed us. For Jesus' sake, amen.