MK040 Sermons
The Beloved (Audio)
It's great to be with you this morning. This is the first time that I've preached in, well, let's see, about nine months. I spent the last time I preached was in India. They let me speak for as long as I want. In fact, if you don't preach long enough, the pastor will come up and preach another sermon. And so I've had that happen to me before. So it's a privilege, as I said, to be able to be here and to speak to you this morning. Over the past several years, God has given me a message that I have shared in India probably 50 times, a message that I've shared in the United States a number of times as well. It's a message that I believe has changed my life and a message that I believe has changed the lives of people that have heard me speak it as they've taken it and allowed God to work. Now, it's not me, it's God. I really appreciate snuck in last week just to get a feel for your congregation, with who you are. And I really appreciated what Don had to say about listening with our heart. Not just with our head, but with our heart. There are two different places. And when I say heart, it's not emotion, it's not emotion, emotion is in the head. Just like your intellect, your thinking is in the head. Well we think our thinking is in our head, but actually Jesus says it's in the heart also. There's this place called the heart, it's the place of the soul, it's the very depth of our inner being. It's the place from which we live life in Proverbs 4, 23, it says, "Watch over your heart with all diligence for from it flow the springs of life." He says, "Watch over your heart." He doesn't say, "Watch over your head. Watch over what's in there in the intellectual capacity that you have, the knowledge that you have within your brain." He says, "Watch over your heart for from it flow the springs of life, and we as Christians need to learn to watch over our heart." It's an honor to be able to share God's message, God's word. And I pray that you don't hear me this morning, but you hear God. And I don't care if you hear every word that I speak. I want you to hear the one word that God has for you. God has a particular word for every one of us in this room this morning. A transformative word that if we hear it and we respond to it, we obey it, our lives will be different than they were when we walked in here. We may not be able to measure it, but it will be different because God has graced you with His presence and spoken to you this morning. And in that grace being released, there's a transformation that takes place in our lives. And so be ready to hear God. In the midst of all the words that I say, hear the one word that God has for you. And if you hear that word early and you have to leave, go ahead and go, because you don't need to hear the rest of what I have to say if God has spoken to you, really. Let's pray. Lord, we come before you this morning and we're challenged to listen, to be attentive. Lord, we know that it's easy for us to be distracted. Lord, I pray that you not allow me to be a distraction. But, Lord, you would use me as an instrument for bringing your word to your people. Thank you, God, for what you have done in my life. Thank you for what you have done in the lives of each and every one of these people. Thank you that you can speak a particular word in the midst of many words to a great variety of people. You're marvelous, you're wonderful. We worship you, we praise you, in Jesus' name, Amen. About twenty-five years ago, my best friend was flying into Phoenix, Arizona. He was a missionary, a home on furlough. The friend picked him up at the airport. He was driving past the stadium where the Super Bowl was going to be played that year. And as they were traveling just to past that stadium, they were involved in a head-on collision. My best friend nearly died in that accident. He survived. But he lost his short-term memory. To this day, he has no short-term memory. I can sit down and talk with him. And in five minutes he'll forget the very thing that we talked about. He couldn't no longer work. He can no longer perform. He was a brilliant man, very skilled, very gifted, lost at all. And the question that he's had to wrestle with over the years is, who am I? Who am I? My brother-in-law was a boat builder in Sausoleto, California, worked on wooden boats, well-known in his business, highly regarded, came down with a chronic pain that was debilitating, suffered for years under it. And then after a while Parkinson's began to develop, and he had to give up boat building. The question became, who am I? When through a deep, deep darkness of soul I sat with him at times when he would cry out to God and say, "God, where are you?" He said, "God, if I had a son and he was out in the cold and he needed help, I would open up the door and let him in. Where are you?" Praise God, he's come through the dark side, the dark night of the soul. He's found great joy and he will tell you in private I would not give up what I've got through this experience of knowing God. But it took a deep, dark journey to get there. Who are you? Who am I? When I lived in California I was known and I knew. I moved to Pennsylvania, I know my children and my grandchildren and my in-laws. I know few people and I'm unknown by more. Who am I? Who are you? If you have your Bibles this morning, I'd like you to turn with me to Matthew chapter three. In beginning in verse 13 I want to read, you're familiar with the story if you've been in the church very long at all. Very simple story. Those are being handed out there, we'll give you a chance to get them. Matthew chapter three, beginning in verse 13, Jesus is baptized here in this passage. When Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan coming to John to be baptized by him, but John tried to prevent him saying, "I have need to be baptized by you and do you come to me?" But Jesus answering said to him, "Permit it at this time for it is for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he permitted him. And after being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water and behold, the heavens were open and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on him. And behold, a voice out of heaven said, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well-polished." You're familiar with this passage, if you've been in the church as I said, Jesus comes to John to be baptized, he is just about ready to launch into his ministry. John says, "No, no, no, if anybody needs to be baptized, I need to be baptized by you." And Jesus says, "No, you need to baptize me to fulfill all righteousness." And so John concedes and says, "Yes, okay, I will baptize you," and Jesus is baptized by John. Because he comes out of the water, God the Father speaks, the Holy Spirit descends and Jesus is coming up out of the water. We have all three persons of the Trinity in one place. This is one of the very few places that we have this in all the Scripture. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and the Father speaks. And the words that he speaks here are significant words. He says, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well-polished." He's saying, "This is my boy. This is my Son, my beloved Son in whom I am well-polished." This is before Jesus has done any ministry, before Jesus has preached any sermons, before Jesus has performed any miracles. As he is, the Father says, "This you are my beloved Son in whom I am well-polished." You know, every Son needs to hear that. If you're a dad, tell your son, "You are my beloved Son, you are my beloved Son, and I am well-polished with you." There are a lot of men wondering in their lives, in my age, still wondering, "What does my dad really think of me?" The Father knew what Jesus needed. The Father knew what Jesus needed before he began his ministry. The Father knew that he needed to know who he was in order that he could do the ministry that the Father had for him to do. See, Jesus didn't do ministry to become who he was. He did ministry out of who he is. Most of us do things in order to create an identity. I'm a CrossFit athlete, whoo, look at me. I'm a preacher, I'm a banker, but we ask men when we first meet them, "Hi, how are you? What do you do?" Why? We're measuring each other. We're getting a sense of identity through what you do. That's not how we're to live. We're to live out of the identity that God has given us, and that identity is you are the beloved sons. You are the beloved daughters, the one whom God is well-pleased with. See God is well-pleased with you. God loves you. You are his beloved son. You are his beloved daughter. How you've heard that before, haven't you? I've heard that. I've heard that all my life. I've been Sunday school. God loves me. I've heard it a million times. God loves me. Let me ask you this question. Does your heart ever question it? We got it in our head, but does your heart ever question it? How can God really love me? You ever wonder? You are the beloved of the Lord. I want you to do something right now. I want you to turn to your neighbor, and I want you to tell them you are the beloved of the Lord. Now every time I do this, something happens in the room. All of a sudden, people start to smile. All of a sudden, there's a new energy in the room. Why is that? Because that's the most foundational truth, the most foundational reality of life. You are the beloved sons and daughters of God. And as someone turned and said to that, as you declared it, as you received it, it was an experience of something going on in your heart, and God was affirming it. God was saying yes to it, and there broke forth a sense of joy in your life. And it wasn't emotion. It was God confirming what was being spoken to you in that very moment. And the devil doesn't want you to believe that. You see, the devil doesn't want you to grasp the reality that you are the beloved sons and daughters of the living God, and then living your life out of this reality rather than trying to create an identity through what you do. He wants you to create an identity through what you do, rather than live in the reality, that you are the beloved sons and daughters of God. Now we hear it in our head, but our heart questions it. Why? Why does our heart question it? Because everything in our world, everything in our world tells us that love is earned. Tells us that love is something that you receive because you do something right. Let me explain it to you. Let me show you how this works. You're a child, and you behave well. And mom and dad and all the other folks around you go, "Oh, you're so wonderful. You are so good." And what does that feel like? That feels like love. You feel secure. You feel appreciated. You feel like things are things are in proper balance and proper control in the world. And so you feel like that's love that someone has told me I behaved well. And then you misbehave. And mom and dad go, "Don't do that." Or they may discipline you. They may take it even further back, send you to your room because you misbehave. And what do you all of a sudden feel? You feel very insecure all of a sudden. You feel like you're not appreciated. You feel like you don't belong. And all of a sudden that says, "I'm not loved this much." And so at a very early age, we begin to learn in our heart. And where we rarely learn things in our heart is through experience. And so through this experience, our heart is being trained that love is earned, that love is something I perform for. And then we go to school, and you get good grades, and you come home and you tell your mom and dad, and they go good, and they may even give you reward, a special dinner or something. And you feel loved. You feel secure. You feel appreciated. You feel value. You feel like the world is in control and balance and all is well. And then you get a bad grade. I had a few of those. I remember getting a C minus in handwriting in second grade. It didn't feel too good. You need to do better. You need to work on that. You need to study harder, no television, and all of a sudden you begin to feel rejected and the insecurity begins to creep into your life. And you begin to feel like you're not appreciated. And you begin to learn that if I perform well, I am loved. And if I don't perform well, I'm not loved as much. And then you go out on the athletic field as a guy. And you perform on the athletic field, and you do well. You're up to bat, and your team is down, and you hit in the winning run, and everybody jumps on you and says, "Hey, wonderful job, woo-hoo, great, awesome." And you feel loved. You feel appreciated. You feel part of the team, and everything's going well for you, and your world is in control. Or if you're a woman, a young girl, maybe you're going to make dinner at home. You make a great dinner, and all the guys go, "Oh, yeah, that was great, awesome dinner." You know, wonderful. You feel like you accomplished something. You feel like a part of the family. You feel just so secure and comfortable, and it feels like love. And then you're up to bat, and you have the opportunity to drive in the winning run, and you strike out. And everybody goes, "Boom!" At least they did in my day, I don't think you're allowed to do that anymore. You feel alone, you feel isolated, you feel empty inside, you feel like you don't belong. Your heart is being trained all this time, and if I perform well, I'm loved, and if I don't perform well, I'm not loved. You following me in this? You see what happens? Now, it's parents we don't intend to do this, do we? It's not, you know, all of us just experience it's the way the world is. And then we come to the world, and you know, if you do well at work, you know, you're loved and you're recognized. And if you don't do well, well, we boot you out and we leave you alone. And then we come to church, and we hear you're loved. We think, "Awesome! I found a place where I'm loved." And then we misbehave. And all of a sudden we feel rejected and isolated and alone. Even in the church, pastors, we don't intend that as Christians, we don't intend that, but that's what we experience. Why? Because we live in a broken, fallen world. But that's the experience. That's why the heart is trained us through that experience, and so our head and our heart have a hard time being reconciled to one another. And so all of our lives we're seeking to perform in order that we can experience love. And so we start to manipulate people so that we can get that love. We start to act selfishly, but trying to do it in such a way that it looks like love. Our marriages are hurt because we're trying to perform in order to receive love rather than living out the reality that we are the beloved so that we can really authentically love our spouses, our children, our moms, our dads, our employees, our poiers at work. You see, when the father spoke to Jesus, these words, "You are my beloved son and with whom I am well pleased," he was establishing the foundation for Jesus' ministry that Jesus, I want you to be able to minister out of this place rather than seeking to be loved. You wonder why Jesus could do the things that he did do. How could he go to the cross? How could he be rejected? How could he experience the things that he experiences because he lived out of one central place I am the beloved son of the living God. And you are the beloved sons and daughters of the living God. And God wants you to live your life out of that place rather than seeking to establish your identity through what you do. I want you to turn to your neighbor again, I want you to say this time, "I am the beloved son." I am the beloved daughter of the living God. Now, how many of you found that harder to say? Any of you find that harder to say it was easier to say, "You are than I am," because it sounds almost arrogant, doesn't it? That's who you are. You are the beloved sons and daughters of the living God. And it's out of that place that we are to live our lives. And when we live there, our lives become radically different than the way that we live them today. Excuse me. Now, we oftentimes quit reading when we come to the end of the chapter. We say, "Okay. We finished. Matthew chapter three will preach the next portion of Scripture next week, or we'll close it up. We had our Bible reading. Close it up and say, "I'll read the next day or next day or next week or whenever I'm reading again." But that isn't how this works here in this John chapter 3, chapter 4. Let's go on and read chapter 4 of the first 11 verses. Then Jesus was led up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, he then became hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." But he answered and said, "It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." Then the devil took him up into the holy city and had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down for it is written. He will command his angels concerning you and their hands shall bear you up so that you will not strike your foot against the stone." And Jesus said to him, "On the other hand it is written, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God to the test.'" And again, the devil took him to the very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, "All these things I will give you if you fall down and worship me." Then Jesus said to him, "Satan, go. For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only.'" Then the devil left him and behold, the angels came and began to minister to him. So did you see the connection here between chapter three and chapter four? The Father makes the declaration, "You are my beloved Son." And then Satan immediately says, "If you are, if you are the Son of God." You see, the devil doesn't want you to live out of the reality that you are the beloved Son and daughter of the living God. He wants you to believe, to try to get your identity some other way than through the reality of what God has declared. God declared it when he made you. He declared that you are my beloved Son, my beloved daughter. He declared it when Jesus went to the cross. You are my beloved Son and my beloved daughter. He's declared it all over our lives. Look at the cross if you ever question that. So Jesus goes out into the desert and he's there 40 days and 40 nights. He becomes hungry and it's then that the devil comes. He always comes to you at your weakest moment. And he says, "If you are the Son of God, then turn these stones into bread." Now I want to put some of the extra words in here. This is my kind of spiritual imagination. Satan comes to Jesus and says, "So you have been out here 40 days, huh?" Kind of hungry, aren't you? Where's your father? Where's your father? No father would leave his son out here like this 40 days with nothing to eat. Where's your daddy? He doesn't care about you. Listen, you better take things into your own control. You better secure your own food here. Your father's not taking care of you. And the first temptation that Satan brings to Jesus is that of one of security and comfort. That you better grasp your own security and comfort because God's not going to take care of it for you. You've been out here 40 days and he seems not to care about you so you better grab control and take care of your own security and take care of your own comfort. And we're tempted in the same way. My brother-in-law was tempted in the same way as he laid in pain day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year saying, "God, where are you?" This is not comfortable. This is not very secure, my world is falling apart. You get cancer. God, where are you? Your marriage is falling apart. God, where are you? God you don't seem to be taking good care of me. I better take control of my own life. I'm tempted right now to take care of my own life. My wife and I don't have any income coming in. God keeps saying, "Wait, waiting is not comfortable. Waiting doesn't pay the bills. Where are you, God?" I better take control. I better create my own identity. I'm going to forget about this father-love thing because it is going like it's supposed to according to my understanding of the Scripture. It's about comfort, not about pain. Right? No, sometimes there's pain. Sometimes there's pain in the Christian life. Oh, that's not a good news gospel is that yes, it is when you understand what the gospel really is, which is a transformation of your life into the image of Jesus Christ. Well, He suffered a little bit. And Jesus says this, Jesus says, "Whoa, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." He says, "I'm not going to listen to your voice because there's another voice. There's the voice of the Father who loves me." And I will listen to His voice. I'll listen to His voice even in the pain, even when it doesn't seem very secure in my world, even when it seems very uncomfortable in my world, I am going to listen to the Father. It's not easy. It's not easy. I know. There's hundreds of people walk through the uneasiness, the brokenness, the pain of life. But will I listen to God? But my marriage that God says, but my health that God says, but my job that God says, but my children that God says, what does God say? See, we need to learn to listen to God. And I believe that our God is still a communicating God today. He didn't close his mouth when the Bible was finished. He's a God who speaks today. In fact, the beauty of this scripture is that God can speak to it right now to your personal experiences right now. When I read my quiet time, I'm not reading a historical context for what the Bible has to say. I'm saying, "God, what are you saying to me today?" I'm always in trouble with these things. What are you saying to me today, God? What are you saying about my life? Not about Jeremiah's life. Yes, Jeremiah's life is a wonderful life. But I'm living my life. God, and I believe you have a word for me today. Like he's got a word for us in this room today. What are we going to do with the word that he says to us today? It's going to come right into our heart. He's going to speak that word. Jesus says, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." I'm going to listen for God. I'm not going to listen to Satan. I'm not going to listen to the world. When I stepped down as lead pastor of my congregation, I was 58 years old, I think, 55 years, 56 years old. One pastor came to me and said, "Are you going through a midlife crisis?" I said, "No." I said, "God said to do this." Heck, I was making more money than I'd ever made as a pastor. My kids were all grown. I could have been piling that money into my retirement account. I would have been secure from a rational, Marin County, California, United States culture. That's what I should have done. God said, "Bill, I want you to do this." My wife swallowed hard, really hard, but was willing to join me in the journey. Jesus is taken by the devil for the second time, up into the temple, up to the pinnacle of the temple, the very height of the temple, and they're up there on the top of the temple, and there would be in the courtyard people gathered there, worshipers, hundreds, thousands of them possibly, in that temple square, and Satan says, "Hey, jump." God's going to catch up. If he's really God, if he really is your father, he will catch you. And just think, Jesus, what'll happen when you soar down and angels come and gather you up? What will the people think? I mean, imagine, here he comes down like Superman, and all of a sudden angels come and the crowd look up and see him go, "Whoa, look at Jesus." Whoa, he's worthy of following. He sores through the skies and angels gather him up and take care of him. And Jesus would have gotten all the approval of the people, and they would have followed him as one who was great and awesome, and Jesus says, "No." Jesus says, "No." He says, "You shall not tempt the Lord your God. You shall not do that. You shall not put the Lord your God to the test." And so we're tempted to gain our identity, we're tempted to gain our sense of security through the accumulation of things and so forth, but here's the second temptation that Jesus faces, and this is the temptation we face as well, and that is the temptation for approval and doing something spectacular so that people will applaud us. And we get our identity out of that sometimes. Just like we get our identity out of security, we get our identity out of success, out of people applauding us. I fall into this temptation a lot. I'll just be honest with you. I'm a broken man. I want to know if you like what I'm doing. I want your approval. I remember preaching this sermon one time and wondering, "I wonder what the people think. I mean, how sick is that? How sick is that?" And yet that's the brokenness of my humanity, humanity, that I want people's approval and God says, "No, that's not what it's about, Bill, because you don't need their approval to be loved because you're my beloved son. Can you live out of that?" Because when I do it to be loved, to be acknowledged, to be appreciated, to be approved, I'm going to manipulate you. And because I've been raised in a Christian home, I know how to manipulate you without it looking like manipulation. I know how to look good and get what I want. Oh, God, forgive me. But the only way I can do that, the only way that that can be broken in me, is by living out of the reality that I am the beloved son of the living God. Because the greatest need within our human nature is to know that we're loved, to know that we're loved, and if we don't know it from the place of God, then we'll seek it from people or in things. I was with a friend of mine, let me show you how this works. I was with a friend of mine in Dallas, Texas. We were going out to West Texas. We landed at the airport, got in the car, rented it. He drove out a while. He said, "Bill, when we get out of town here, a little ways, I'll let you drive, and you can drive 85 miles an hour. He was tired. He wanted to get there. Now the speed limit was 70. So we get in the car, and we get out there. I want to please my friend. He's one of my mentors. I want to get him there so he can say, "Wow, you got us here really quick. You know, and you did a really good job," and all that stuff. See, this is how sick this is. So as soon as he says, "I can drive 85 miles an hour there in the airport parking lot," the Holy Spirit says to me, "You don't need another ticket." The Word of God was spoken. What did I do when I got in the car? I drove 85 miles an hour. We're going through a small town. I think the speed limit may have dropped down to 65 by then. Guess what? All of a sudden, I look up in my rear view mirror and there is these blue and white and lights and red and flashing, and I go, "Oh, Lord, I'm sorry." I mean, he like, he brought it like home. He brought it home for me. In a clearer reality of what I was exactly doing, you were trying to please Tom rather than me, guilty, guilty because I wanted Tom's love more than I wanted or lived in the reality of the Father's love. We attempted to do it, folks, in work, in our homes, school, with our friends. I put the Lord God to the test and he said, "Okay, we'll show you this time very clearly when it happens when you put me to the test. I'm grateful that he hasn't put me to the test." Brought about the true gray that I deserved for the test many more times. Then Satan takes Jesus up on to the mountain, a high, very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, "All these things I will give to you if you will fall down and worship me." The first temptation is one towards security and comfort, possession of things, the second temptation is one towards affirmation, towards approval, getting your identity through that way. The third one here is for power and control. Satan says, "I'll give you power, I'll give you control if you'll fall down and worship me." Some of you in the room this morning get your identity through being in a place of power, through being in a position of control. You feel secure, you feel loved, you feel affirmed when you have power and control. Things get out of control, you try to put them in control because that's where you find your place of identity is that I can control things. And you'll do that unless you believe that you're the beloved son or daughter of the living God who is all powerful and truly controls all things. You see Jesus says to Satan, "Go Satan, for it is written you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only." Some of us desire to be worshiped, but there's only one to be worshiped and he hasn't gotten off the throne yet and nothing knocks him off the throne. And your job is not to be in control, your responsibility is to worship him, to fall down before him and to honor him and to serve him. You are not to be served, you are to serve and the temptation is to want to be served. The temptation is to want to be in that place of control, that place of power because in that you get your identity. Every sin that you commit, every sin that I commit can be traced back to one of these three temptations. Think about it. Every one of them can be traced back to one of these three temptations. If I sat down with you and said, "Well I did this, I would ask you the question why and you'd give me a reason and I'd say why and you'd give me a reason and I'd say why." And ultimately we get back to one of these temptations. And why we fall into these temptations is because we fail to remember, we fail to remember that we are the beloved sons and the beloved daughters of the living God. And he is well-pleased with you, he is well-pleased with you, he says, "Well how can he be well-pleased with me because he made you, because he sent his son for you." He is well-pleased with you, he's not pleased with you, he is not well-pleased because you behave well because I don't and neither do you. I mean I was reading about David one time and David you know and it says in the New Testament he was a man after God's own heart and I used to scratch the hair that was on the top of my head but I no longer have any and say how can David be the man after God's own heart? Look what he did God. Look what he did, he committed adultery, he had the man murdered, how could he be a man after God's own heart? If it was about his behavior he failed miserably but it wasn't about his behavior. He was a man after God's own heart because David believed that he was loved by God and he could humbly come before God and say, "This is who I am, I am a man, I am a man broken, I am a man unworthy." He was able to be honest and what God wants more than anything else is our honesty, our honesty because when we're honest he can deal with us, he can work with us. That's when we hide, that he can't work with us. Folks this journey into living your life out of the place of beloved is not an easy journey because everything in the world tells you that that's not the way it works. The world tells you you perform in order to be loved but God is constantly wanting you to remember, constantly wanting you to live out of this place that you are the beloved son and you are the beloved daughter of the living God of the universe. You are. Do you believe it? I know you've got it in your head, you've heard it many, many times but are you letting it settle deep within your heart because that's the place from which you live your life out of the heart, out of the heart. When I sit down to have my quiet times in the morning, when I sit down to pray, I come to experience my belovedness of the Lord not as an intellectual exercise but as an experience of a relationship, a divine relationship, a relationship with the Father, with the Son and with the Holy Spirit, an encounter, an encounter with the living God of the universe. We have that awesome privilege. Go forth this week and when you get up in the morning and look in that mirror and say I am, I am the beloved son, I am, I am the beloved daughter, in fact I believe we need to do Christian greeting. I don't think we need to, hello how are you? I think we need to turn to one another and say you are the beloved sons, you are the beloved daughter of God because we need to be reminded of that every day of our lives and the world is telling us we're not, but you are. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you so much that you have called us to be sons and daughters of yours. The God you created us to be sons and daughters and God through your son Jesus Christ you made the way for us to renew that relationship in a deep and mysterious and awesome way. And I pray O God that you would take whatever word you have given to each of these people, each person, God you would now secure that and sanctify that into their heart. And God whatever transformative work you want to do today out of the hearing of your word, I pray that you would do it by your Holy Spirit. We humbly come before you Lord, saying thank you. Thank you for giving us our true identity in Jesus name, amen. Thank you Bill for that challenge and for...