A Life Pleasing to God: Sanctification and Sex

Pastor Fletcher preaches from 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8. Discussion points: Sanctification is about pleasing God; sanctification is slow, progressive but not constant growth; our creator defines what is good about our sexuality; living to please God is more satisfying than living for your desires.

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  Scripture reader: [1 Thessalonians 4:1-8] Finally then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For what you, for you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. That no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you, for God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore, whoever disregards this disregards not man but God, who gives His Holy Spirit to you.

  This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

  Preacher: All right, good morning. It's good, good to see everybody this morning. My name's Fletcher. I'm the lead pastor of the church. last week I was out of town. My, my family took a vacation to Southern California, and, that was a great time and I, the whole time there actually when we first got there, I took a shower in the hotel and immediately start breaking out into the hives, because I guess I was allergic to the soap or something like that so I had to start taking prednisone in the middle. This this trip which was terrible just to combat these horrible hives and I wore long sleeves so I have no sun like the sun didn't touch me in sunny California and then yesterday I coached my son's soccer game and I'm one of those guys who I don't really tan. I just kind of burn and freckle. That's like the pattern of of skin, that I have and, yesterday I was coaching my son's soccer game for an hour in Massachusetts and I got sunburned, so, I'm not tanned from vacation. I'm tanned from just stupidity of standing in the sun for an hour.

  But anyways, here we are in First Thessalonians and I know that's what everybody was asking like, oh, he looks tan, not really it, OK, not really it. for the past several months we've been working our way through a letter in the New Testament written by Paul called First Thessalonians, and what we find in Paul's letters, and this is true in almost all of Paul's letters, is that the first half of the letter includes the truths of the gospel, what we are to believe as Christians, and the. The second half of the letter includes all the practical implications of the truths of the gospel. So we almost always starts with declaration and moves to exhortation. He starts with the indicatives of the gospel and moves to the imperatives of the gospel. That is our pattern for how these books work.

  So today, in 1 Thessalonians, the difference between chapter 3 and chapter 4 is that chapter 3 was still in that encouragement, that, that declaration, that doctrine part of the book, and chapter 4 starts the practical implications. How do you live these things out? And so the, the topic of concern for Paul today is how do you grow as a Christian? How do you take these things that you've heard and apply them to your heart and live them out? How does it actually change who you are and the way that you live?

  The word that he uses is a long Christianese word that some of us might not be super familiar with, but it's sanctification. It literally means to sanctify or to make holy. The process of sanctification in the life of the believer is to grow in your faith, to become a deeper and more familiar with who God is type of believer. We like to think about the process of sanctification like a steady climb, right? Like you become a Christian and then you just become a little bit better of a Christian every day until you eventually make it to heaven, right?

  That's the way we usually think about the process of sanctification, but the process of sanctification looks more like the S&P 500 or the stock market. Which, you know, you, you might become, you might have your, your, your, what is it when you go public, your IP or whatever it is. I don't know what it is, your IPO there we go. Sorry, I've worked in a church my whole life. OK, guys, you might have your IPO we're not doing one of those around here. But you might have your IPO that might be when you become a Christian, and then you like to, even I think companies are deceptive enough to themselves to believe that they're just gonna see growth until then, but then your president puts tariffs on you and your stocks go down and all the different things happen and the stock market.

  If you look at it on a day to day basis, It can look really discouraging, can't it? Like you look at it today, it doesn't look very good. But then, year over year, decade over decade, the market grows. Always, it, it like historically that is what happens for the past 100 years, whatever, that's what happens year over year, decade over decade, the market grows, so you keep investing your money even when it takes a dip, you keep investing your money. That's how the process of sanctification is day to day you're gonna see setbacks day to day you're not gonna be the person you want to be. But the process of sanctification is year over year, decade over decade, you see growth. And Paul knows this. This is why he says, in in chapter 4, what we're looking at here.

  Verse 1. Finally then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. So when he assumes that you're not doing it perfectly, you're doing it, but you can do it more. And more The process of sanctification is this gradual growth that happens to us. So here's how the sermon works today, OK? we're gonna start with this big picture view, zoomed out. Of sanctification and talking about what to be sanctified means because that's what Paul's talking about. But then what Paul does is he takes the camera and he zooms it in and he says let's look at one aspect of your sanctification which is your sexuality and then we're gonna zoom back out and talk about some principles that work for all of life, OK? So I, I got everybody's attention now we're gonna talk about sex, it's coming, OK? But sanctification, sex, sanctification in sex, sanctification again. OK? That's, that's how we're going today.

  In this very first verse that we just read. We learn a lot about sanctification, at least 3 things. I'm gonna highlight these 3 things that we learned about sanctification in this one verse. There's at least 3 things. There's probably more than that. First, sanctification is not optional. You cannot Simply become a Christian and then coast off of that for your entire life. It is something that you must grow in. It is not optional. When Paul was in Thessalonica, we've talked about this lots of times. Paul only spent like 3 weeks in Thessalonica before an angry mob ran him away to Berea, and then they were so angry with him that he, they chased him to Berea and ran him away across the ocean to to Athens. He got on a boat to go to Athens. Not really an ocean to sea.

  But during his short time in Thessalonica, Paul had to teach the Thessalonians everything they needed to know about Christianity. He arrived at Thessalonica, and yeah, he was teaching at the synagogue, so they had some basic idea of the Old Testament and who God was, but they did not have any, they'd never heard the name Jesus. So Paul is here. He has to teach these people everything there is to know about being a Christian, everything about Jesus, everything about doctrine. And he only has 3 weeks.

  Can you imagine designing a course to teach someone everything they need to know about Christianity in 3 weeks? And it can't be a full-time course. It's your part-time course. It's like after work and on the weekends and that sort of thing, because Paul had a job, the Thessalonians had a job. He taught them everything they needed to know for the most part. That's why he's writing letters to fill in the gaps. But he taught them, he spent time teaching them that they have to follow Jesus. That they have to obey him more and more. He prioritized that. It's not an optional thing. It's not, maybe we'll get to that. It's, that is what it means to be a Christian. To be a Christian means not only that you believe in who Jesus is, but that you follow him as your Lord and Savior, that you obey what he has to say to you.

  Sanctification, the second thing we learned about sanctification is that sanctification is about pleasing God. It's about pleasing God. Look at it. It says. Finally then, brothers, we ask and urge you and the Lord Jesus, that you, that as you receive from us, how you ought to walk and to please God. Pleasing God. We can oftentimes think about the Christian life, not so much as pleasing God, but as appeasing God. We think about God as someone who has a lot of rules. And that we have to obey his rules to appease him, to make him happy with us. But there's a big difference between living to please God and living to appease God. When you appease someone, you don't necessarily do it out of love, but when you live to please someone, it's based off of the love that you have received from them, and the love that you have in return for that person.

  And so what Paul is saying is that sanctification is not just about following the rules, it's about living this life of love with God to please him. You want to bring him pleasure because you love him, because he loves you first. This is the order of sanctification. Third thing that we learned about sanctification is that sanctification is progressive. As we mentioned earlier, it's something that you do more and more. It's slow. Amen. Yeah, frustratingly so sometimes, is it not? Especially in your lives. I'm way more frustrated by this lack of sanctification in another person's life than I am in my own, but it's slow in my life too. I don't mean that. I, it's a joke, OK. It is slow, but it is something that we have to do more and more.

  So if you look at yourself and you're like, I'm not the person I want to be. Welcome to the club. That is, that is who we are here today. A collection of people who are not the person that we want to be. Worshiping next to another person who is not the person that they want to be today. And that is the process of sanctification, that maybe we can become a little bit more like Christ, each and every one of us, more and more, each and every day. So Paul opens up the topic on sanctification, but then what he does is he zooms in on one aspect of our sanctification, and it's an important one. He zooms in on this example of sex.

  And I think it's fitting because you cannot have a conversation with someone, especially in Somerville. About becoming a Christian without talking about the Christian sexual ethic. We stand out like a thumb, do we not? The Christian sexual ethic is unlike the world around us. And friends, it was unlike the world around them 2000 years ago too. It's not like we find ourselves in this place that's finally been sexually freed and has open rules about sexuality, and no one has ever seen this before. The world in Thessalonica was a sexually liberated place much like the world of Somerville might be. And so it's a fitting example because it is something that everybody has to consider when they're becoming a Christian. It is a different way of living. Verse 2. For you know What instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification. That you abstain from sexual immorality.

  Now a lot of people have proposed that Christians should loosen up about our views of sexuality and that we might be able to gain more adherence to the faith. But it seems to me that the churches that have loosened up about the sexuality rules are the ones that are not gaining adherence to the faith. Those are the ones that tend to be dying. Because when you look at the message of Christianity, it's not simply that we believe Jesus, but we have to follow him. And so you have to follow the teachings of Christianity, and it is baked in there, the Christian sexual ethic, there's no way around it. There's no way around it.

  Sam Allbery, who is a well known speaker and author, he wrote a book, Why does God care who I sleep with. And I'll kind of borrow a little bit in this section from his book. But one of the things that he says in that book, which is great, you can pick it up, is this this one verse actually sums up the biblical view of sex. Paul does not say avoid sexual behavior as though sex itself was a problem, and Christians should avoid it. The reality is that Christians, we're not anti-sex. Christians are pro-sex. We believe that God designed sex. We are anti-sexual immorality. So why are Christians so worried about sexual immorality? Why is it that we think that, that we teach and that we talk about sexual immorality and that God does care who you sleep with?

  And it's because we believe that God is the creator of the universe, which means that he is our designer as human beings and the designer gets to write the operation manual for humans. I have a friend who used to be a member of our church several years ago. His name's Todd. he is an, a pilot for the US Air Force. He flies F-22s. It's a, oh, that's a, it's a pretty awesome airplane, and that's like the one you see in all the movies and everything, OK? It's like a just a pure fighter jet. So they teach you how to be a pilot first before they ever throw you in one of those things, OK? And he was telling me one day that every airplane you get into as an as a pilot, you have to read the manual first because you, you gotta figure out how you're supposed to fly the airplane and what the airplane is designed to do and what it can't do and what it can do and he was telling me that you know he's done this dozens of times and then they finally let him look at the manual for the F-22 and it says this plane is designed to be flown with reckless abandon, have fun. Just like do whatever you want to do, we got it. That's what this plan is designed for. But if you got into a commercial airline jet and tried to fly it like an F-22. It would not last very long. That plane would go down.

  And so God, as the designer of human beings gets to say, this is the way that your body is meant to live. This is the way that your soul is meant to live. This is how you are designed to function and to flourish. This is the best way for you. And so God gets to set the definitions of what it means to live a sexually right or wrong kind of way. Sam Albury in his book, he puts it like this, and I love this quote, he says, God cares about who we sleep with because he cares deeply about the people who are doing the sleeping. He cares because sex was his idea, not ours. He cares because misusing sex can cause profound hurt and damage. He cares because he regards us as worthy of his care.

  And in fact, that care is not only seen in telling us how we should use sex, but also in how he makes forgiveness and healing available to us when we mess this up. And we all inevitably will. That's why Paul tells us, just as you have, learn from us on how to obey, do this more and more. It is somewhere we have to grow in. Sometimes you hear people use the argument we're just we're just all animals, we have appetites. Let's just do as the animals do or if you are a middle school boy around the same time as I was, you might know the, the blood, well the bloodhound gang song, you know, it says you and me, baby, you aren't nothing but mammals ain't I think it was ain't. You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals, so why don't we do it like we do on the Discovery Channel. And that was like a middle school boy's dream song, OK? That's like what you're gonna talk about MTV at the, at its finest.

  This argument basically says that we shouldn't have any restrictions on sex, that we should just be able to be the animals that we were designed to be. That we should not restrain our appetites, but we should treat it like any other appetite. But the reality is we all put restrictions on sex. Christians aren't unique in this. We might put it in a different place, but everybody thinks that there should be restrictions. For example, we all believe, I hope. That consent is required for sexual relations. Thank you. Amen. We, we also all believe that even if a minor were to give consent. That that is not appropriate still to have relations with a minor. Restrictions in sex. It's not saying we have no restrictions we certainly have restrictions. We are not just like the animals, you know, when I go to the dog park, I don't see any dogs asking like, hey, how old are you before I go after this one? OK, they're not asking consent, right?

  We are not just animals and and here's the thing. We are certainly not just animals. And sex is certainly more than just sex. God's intended design for sex is for two people to be to be united. It is the most intense. Part of the marriage that is meant to reflect the gospel. You have a relationship with another human being in the confines of marriage. It's meant to reflect the way that God loves His people, and sex is this point in that. Where you get to have the most deep intimacy imaginable. And it's all meant to reflect something bigger than what we experienced.

  The word for sexual immorality here in First Thessalonians is the Greek word pornea. And it's a catch-all term for any pre-marital sex, any extramarital sex, prostitution, incest, sexual sexual impropriety. It's the word that we get our word pornography from. And sometimes it's, it's used, you hear people say that Jesus never talked about sex the same way that Paul does. You know, this is why I have a problem with Paul as I read 1 Thessalonians. You know, that's just Paul. What about Jesus? Jesus uses the same word. Mark chapter 7. And this is what Jesus says. He says, what comes out of a person is what defiles him, but for from within, out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, sexual immorality, that's Pornea, theft, murder, adultery.

  So he's even, he's like, not just Pornea, like this blanket term for all of it, but he gives you some specific parts of it, adultery, covenantness, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness, all these evil things come from within, and they defile a person. In ancient Greece, The culture was very sexually open. As he says in verse 5, he, he says, not that we're supposed to handle ourselves with self-control, not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God. It was normal for sexual immorality to happen in Greece. Men oftentimes had mistresses, or, and this is evil, of course I'm not condoning this at all, whatever they, they would use their slaves for their sexual purposes. And this is included as a restriction with the word pornea that this is sexual immorality. Ritual sex and cults was common.

  In many ways, ancient Thessalonica was not, I mean, hopefully no one's having ritual sex and cults in Somerville, but it was not all that much unlike Somerville, sex was free and open. And so the reason why I pointed all this out is the Christian sexual ethic. Is something that will make you stand out. You will look weird And it always has been. I have no way. Of telling you how you can be a Christian without standing out. It's just reality. It's part of what it means to follow Christ. And It's this idea that sex is powerful. I want to convince you a little bit more of why we believe this because sex is powerful, it's designed by God to unite two people. And so every time you have sex, it's like a covenant renewal ceremony.

  We believe that marriage is meant to reflect the relationship that God has with his people, and you have intimacies in marriage. And so when you have sex, it's you saying to the other person, I belong completely, totally to you, your pleasure is my pleasure. And because marriage is meant to reflect our relationship with God, sex is meant to be a concentrated time of the deepest intimacy that two people can enjoy. And so it is sacred. We believe it is a sacred gift from God, and you cannot treat it flippantly.

  All that to be said. The reality is that we're all a bit of a mess on this topic. Because all of us, every person in this room is sexually broken. No one here has all this stuff figured out. No one. And that is why Paul is addressing it. He wouldn't address an issue that wasn't practical, but it's also why he's teaching us to obey Jesus more and more, to grow in this, to take steps of obedience, and it's also why it's in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and not in chapter 1. Because he spent so much time teaching you, you are a new creation in Christ, that Christ is perfect on your behalf, that if you were a mess. That it, God, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, that he loves you as Christ is loved by the Father.

  And so we can, I do, I, I do not want to talk about sex without emphasizing the gospel, because it is so important to us as we grow in this. If you want to grow closer to Jesus, you are going to have to avoid sexual immorality. In all of its forms. And if you are going to avoid, if you want to avoid sexual immorality, you're going to have to learn how to be self-controlled in all of life. So if you want to grow closer to Jesus, you have to avoid sexual immorality. And if you want to avoid sexual immorality, you have to learn how to be controlled in all of life. The only way to fight against the gravity of sexual immorality, and there is a real gravity to it. It is a constant draw for everyone, because we are broken in this way.

  But the only way to fight against it is to be disciplined in all of life. Verse 4. That each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor. So this is the part of the sermon where we, you know, we started zoomed in, we started zoomed out, we zoomed in. I'm gonna zoom back out. Because I don't think that you can handle sexual immorality in isolation. But I think that if you are Grow, I think you have to grow in all of your Christian life to grow in this area. That you have to grow in all of your Christian life, cause you can't be completely undisciplined. Out of control. In all these other areas of life, and then in control in this one area of life, discipline.

  And one part of life leads to discipline in all of life. For example, you can't be, if you want to grow in sexual in like controlling your body. I think that just learning how to control your body through something like controlling your diet. It is important. I think that that's why there's a spiritual rhythm of fasting that we find in scripture for you to learn how to control your desires. It's an important practice for Christians. But I also think that just control everywhere in life is, is needed. That if we live out of control, we become subject to our own desires, and we forget to live for the pleasure of God. So just a few examples, control over the substances you put in your body. I'm talking about alcohol or weed or whatever it is. You don't let those run rampant. In your life, you control in your physical fitness, the things you say about other people, some people have a tongue that is out of control. Some people have criticism and critical thoughts that are out of control. You might be sitting there thinking, why is that guy so red up there? That's just your critical thoughts, out of control. The things you watch on TV, the reels you scroll through.

  Living a life to please God. It's so, so much better and more satisfying than the temporary pleasure of any of these things. Living a life to please God is better than any sexual experience that you might have. It might not feel so feel like it in the moment, but it is in the long run.

  Now look, I recognize that by nature I am a more disciplined human being than a lot and that's just kind of how God made me I was I was like an only child. I, have all that first child energy with the third child attention, OK? I, I watch what I eat, I work out, I am a disciplined human. I had no problem studying when I was in college, we'll put it like that. But this is hard for me, OK? Because look, Easter was 1 week and a half ago, or 2 weeks, 1 week and a half hours that Easter was, Easter was, was 2 weeks ago. And the season of Lent ended with Easter, so Lent is like a time where we go into extra control of our body, right? Where we're like, I'm going to fast from some stuff.

  So I was like being really intentional and then Easter happened, which is like you work up to it and then I immediately went on vacation. And that's like the double whammy, you know, it's like forget every bit of discipline I've had over the past 2, over the past 40 days. I'm just gonna, whatever, you know, I'm just gonna scroll on my phone, eat whatever I want. We're we're just gonna do this thing. And so since then. I have seen myself this week. Being so lazy in the mornings. I just lay in the bed and it's like I'm just given to comfort. My, my sweet wife gets our kids ready for school, as I'm just lazy this week. Praise her. That's amen. And the Lord. I'm just scrolling through my phone, just like undisciplined. In the evenings I find myself revisiting the candy drawer in our kitchen over and over again. It's like the kids are yelling about something. I'm like, shut up. I'm just gonna have some candy over here.

  I, I have just lost some of that disci, and here's the thing, when you kind of get out of it. It It's hard to get back into it. And the farther you get out of it, the harder it is to get back into it. And so here I am, I'm just confessing to you guys, like this ferocious cycle of lack of discipline, I'm experiencing it in my life at the moment and I need to sit down. And say Enough's enough. I'm in control of my own self. I'm not subject to my own desires. I can do this.

  Now I'm not saying. Hear me right, that this sermon, I've wrestled with this sermon, because this sermon is so much like you can do it. I hate that, OK? That is not Christianity. Now there is some of Christianity that's like, follow Jesus, obey Him, be self-disciplined. I think that that is right, and you need to make the right decision there, but again, 1 Thessalonians 4 comes after 1 through 3. And I'm not just telling you, hey, be a better person because that is not gonna work. This is not self help.

  I'm here not to condemn you and in fact a sermon on sex, like everybody in the room is feeling some level of guilt and shame when we talk about a sermon on sex. It's just it's just the reality. And I'm not here to condemn you. The arms of Jesus are wide. And he loves broken people like you and me. And the only way that you can. Experience his love. It's to just go to him, broken as you are, lay it before him, and allow yourself to experience again and experience the love that he has for you, so that you might want to live a life for his pleasure. Because I You have to want it. You're gonna do the things you want to do.

  If you decide that you enjoy living for your own pleasure more than God, that's what you're gonna do, no matter how disciplined you are. There, there's lots of people who aren't Christians who are disciplined in certain ways. But I'm telling you. That as a Christian, You have to go back to God and be reminded that living a life to please God is so much better and more satisfying than the temporary pleasure that you might get from any sort of sexual experience or anything else. I'm also here to remind you that sanctification is a process, and that this doctrine of justification. Comes in an instant. Sanctification is a process, justification, which is this idea of what it means to be saved by God, that Jesus died for me, that he bore my sins on the cross, and that he was buried and rose again to new life. And because of my faith in Jesus, I have new life with God. I know God, I am loved by God.

  That in an instant, the second you trust in Christ, you have that and have it into the full. And so whether you are the most messy sinner in the room, or if you're hearing the sermon and you're feeling really good about yourself, do not raise your hand. We don't wanna see you. In Christ, you are equals. That's what justification says. That Your works do not get you to heaven. It doesn't get you, it doesn't get you closer to God, cause here's the thing, you, you have your IPO, you hit the stock market. But when you die or when Jesus returns, you. You're, you're, you're up there. There's no, there's no up or down. We're all in the same place. And yeah, you can grow closer to communion with God, communion with God ebbs and flows and you get closer, but union with God is there, the second you're justified.

  And so I don't want you leaving this place feeling condemned. But I want you leaving this place feeling motivated to live in a deeper communion with God. Are we clear? I, I don't want you to get works righteousness out of me. OK? That's, that's why I've wrestled with this, cause like, I'm a gospel guy. I like wanna tell you the good news about Jesus. I don't wanna tell you that it's up to you. But at the same time, I wanna tell you what Paul tells you, which is. We ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that as you receive from us, how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you were doing, that you do it more and more.

  So that is what I have for you, friends. Just as you are doing, if you are a Christian in the room, do it more. And more. And this is extra biblical, but and more. In just a moment we're going to have an opportunity to meditate on these things. And each week we practice a sacred meal here at the church, and it's something that reminds us of what Christ has done for us. It's a gospel message and a meal. And so we call it communion, Eucharist, Lord's supper, whatever you wanna call it. And on the night that Jesus was betrayed, he took a loaf of bread and he broke it, and he instituted this meal for us, and he said, do this in remembrance of me. And so what we do is we tear off a piece of the bread and it represents the body of Christ broken for us. And then we dip it in the juice of the wine, whichever your conscious permits, the wine is marked with a piece of twine or string along the bottom.

  And we're reminded that his blood was shed for us, his body was broken for us. It's not our own obedience that gets us to God, but his obedience on our behalf. And so, if you are a believer here today, if you're calling on Christ and following him, we would encourage you to come and receive. And to enjoy this meal and be reminded in a fresh kind of way, experiencing the presence of Christ in a special kind of way, that's mysterious. But if you are not a believer, instead, we encourage you. Today is the day to trust in Christ.

  And in fact, if you are here today feeling, you know, that guilt and shame that I mentioned just a moment ago, most of us are, but today is a day that you can confess your sins to the Lord, especially sins of sexual immorality, and run to him. And let me just tell you what he gives is better. And so we're going to have some prayer counselors for you in the back over in that corner. And if you would like to pray with someone during the communion meal, we would invite you to pray with someone.

  And another thing that you can meditate on as we prepare our hearts to take this meal and to, to continue in worship, is you can meditate upon. Where you lack discipline and what changes you need to make in your life this week. I'm gonna, OK, I'm gonna hit both both sides of the spectrum. If you're type A like me. Choose one thing. OK. I'm kind of like, I'm gonna be more disciplined. And so I'm like intermittent fasting and lifting weights 5 days a week and like threw my phone out the car window on the way home like that choose one thing, OK. Baby steps. And if you're on the other side of the spectrum. Choose one thing. OK. Find something that you can be more disciplined in this week. Your sanctification depends upon it, that we have to learn to control our bodies, for his glory. So if you would stand with me.

  Father, we thank you this morning for your opportunity. For this opportunity to bring you pleasure. We know that you're pleased by our praises, and God I pray for anyone who feels like a mess this morning that they would trust in the justification that we have received in Christ, they would look to Jesus and feel free of their sin and forgiven, but God also pray for anyone who just needs to do it more, who just needs to take obedient steps towards you, and to be in control of their own bodies, and to glorify you more and more. And God, we, we pray that you would be moving in this time, that your Holy Spirit would be active, that we would feel the love of Christ in a fresh and new kind of way. Despite our own brokenness, and we ask these things in Christ's name this morning, Amen.