MAR 12 2017 | Rooted S1E7 | 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12

Sea Change Church · Rooted S1E7 · "1 Thessalonians 4:1-12" · Adam Stadtmiller · March 12, 2017
1 Thessalonians 4:1-12
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

1 Thessalonians 4, 1 through 12. Thank you. And the title of the message is taken from the heading within New International Version. If you haven't noticed, there are Bibles in front of us along the pews if you want to use those. But living to please God. Finally, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God. As in fact, you are living.

Now we ask you, we urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. It is God's will that you should be sanctified, that you should avoid sexual immorality, that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen who don't know God, and that in this matter no one should wrong their brother or sister or take advantage of them.

The Lord will punish all for such sins. As we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. And therefore, the one who rejects this instruction does not simply reject man, but God who gives you his Holy Spirit. Now about this brotherly love we do not need to write to you. For you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.

And in fact, you do love all the brothers, sisters throughout Macedonia. And yet we urge you to do so more and more. Ambition. Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life. To mind your own business. To work with your hands, just as we told you. So that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders. And so you will not be dependent on anyone. Lord, we thank you for your word.

It's not just a good word. It is yours. It's God's word. And as Pastor Adam opens the book for us, may we find a word for us. A direction for us as Sunday moves into Monday. In the new week, we ask it to your glory. In Christ's name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, my friend. What a great team we have. Seriously, I'm just so inspired by the people who I am surrounded by.

And who get up here and lead you as a church. It's really fun to work here. I gotta say. I mean, it really is. I mean, it might not be that fun to work for me. But I'm having a great time. The people will let you know. This is a great passage. I don't know about you, but that mind your own business passage. I think that's so awesome. Like, it's like a bumper sticker thrown in the middle of the Bible.

You know what I mean? It's like, mind your own business. Figure it out. And you'll be happier. We are in the, I think, episode seven of the Rooted series. And we are talking about purpose. They have taken two of the ten weeks of this discipleship small group curriculum that we are going through. And they have devoted two of the weeks to money. No, they didn't devote it to money.

They devoted it to purpose. And I think the reason is, is because so many of us struggle to want to know, why am I here? What is the purpose of my life? And what am I called to do? How can I find the center of God's will? On and on. And if you want to have a full seminar or a popular book, write a book about how to find your purpose. It doesn't even have to be good.

You can just entitle it that, and you'll sell many copies of it. One of the things that I love about the Rooted series is it's looking at it from a perspective of service. And I actually think that they leaned a little too hard into just serve everybody your whole life, and that's better than having a purpose. I actually disagree a bit with the curriculum.

Can I say that? I like the curriculum. I think it says some great stuff. But I think God has designed us to enjoy what he has called us to do for the most part. Now, we cannot put God in a box and say that some of us, he might call us to do something that we don't enjoy. And is that okay? When we begin to think that every, you know, you're going to be in the center of God's will if you like what you're doing, I think we begin to put God into small, confined, dry and waterless pastures, if that makes sense.

And so, as we just sung in the last song that Chris sung that I really liked, is Jesus more than what for you? Do you know what it said? Enough. Like, is Jesus and a purpose that you really don't like, is Jesus and a difficult relationship enough for you? And like I've said, is Jesus and this mountain that you have to climb enough for you? Is Jesus enough?

With all the things that are going on in the world, to say Jesus is enough. And that's what the Bible, that's what makes the Bible so radical. The Bible says, no matter what is happening, is Jesus enough for you? And is knowing and loving God enough for you? To enjoy God in everything that you do. And this is one thing that I think as believers, we need to disciple this current generation and the next generation of believers to do.

And that is to enjoy God for God's sake. It means going to God and leaning into God, not because he has anything to offer you. Hey, I'm feeling really bad today. I need to go spend some time with God. Or I have a financial issue. Or whatever the issue is. We come to God and we have like this bag. And we're like, God, can you fill the bag? And when it gets filled, I'm going to leave.

But what if we just teach people to enjoy God because he's worthy to be enjoyed? Like, praise God because why? He's worthy to be praised. And I get nothing out of it. Just to show up and be with God for God's sake. And what does it look like when we look at that as our purpose? In the same way that we say, when I live my life, no matter what God has called me to do, God, I'm going to co-labor with you in this.

And if you're in it with me, then I can be anywhere. Like the Holy Spirit said to my mom when I was living in PB doing drugs and she was freaking out, God came to her one day and says, wherever Adam is, I am there. You can quit worrying about it. And I think the same thing that was true. And she was released from fear at that point for the rest of my drug usage until I got sober.

That in the same thing, God, wherever you have me, even if I don't understand it, it's enough for me because you are more than enough. We are living in a world right now, and especially, unfortunately, I believe a Christian culture. We're not everyone's doing this, but you're being encouraged to build your, does anybody know what the word would start?

It starts with a P. Build your what? Platform. You guys heard that term? Especially if you're a speaker, if you're a writer, if you're a photography person, if you're some kind of creative artist. We're being told, build your platform. I don't know if you've heard this. And it's this understanding that you have to build or create something to give yourself enough volume, or excuse me, enough value so that you can have followers.

You know what's so interesting is I never felt like Jesus was that interested in building his platform. He was really interested in building something else, the kingdom. But in building the kingdom, he ended up with a huge platform, but he was not interested in keeping that platform. Have you ever seen that? You know, by today's standards, Jesus was really bad at creating a movement.

He would be somewhere. There would be miracles happening. All of his handlers, James, John, Peter, Judas, all of his handlers would be, hey, things are going really well. You know, if we just do a few more miracles, we're going to be the most popular Pharisees. And his little posse that surrounds him around. All right, go get Jesus. This person, this leper needs to be healed.

Look around. Where's Jesus? Jesus would be gone because he would have to steal away for what mattered to him most. And what mattered to him most had nothing to do with purpose. It had to do with presence. You see, I want to ask the person, are you a person of purpose? Are you a person that cares more about presence? Because, you know what, if you have the presence, it doesn't matter what your purpose is.

Let me say that again. If you have the presence, the presence of God, if you experience the collaboration of God in whatever you do, then it doesn't matter what you do. And so what I want to continue to do in a culture, and especially a Christian culture, that binds believers within finding the perfect purpose, then if you find that, and we'll call it the imaginary center of God's will, then you're going to be happy.

I don't know if you've read that. I've read that, and I searched for so long to find that perfect place. And when things are going well, I must be in the center of God's will. You know what? I want to be a person of presence. No matter where I am, if I'm in the gutters of Calcutta, healing the wounds of the poor and the sick, or God calls me to poverty, or he calls me, whatever he calls me, or maybe he calls me to, you know, joy and peace.

Who knows what he's calling, I think he's always calling us to joy and peace, but a life that has, you know, pleasant boundaries, and I enjoy what I'm doing. Do I have presence? I think there's a lot of people that are smack dab in the middle of their purpose, and they have no presence. I've seen so many, and I'm in the non-profit world, I've seen so many non-profits, I've seen so many churches, and I want to make sure that we don't do this, that are just crushing it when it comes to their purpose.

Just crushing it. Numbers are great. They're building wells in Africa, whatever they're doing, but behind the scenes, I know the staff members, and the staff is being crushed because there's a lack of presence. There's a huge thing on purpose, but a lack of presence. And so, as we look, as we unpack this, as we dissect this scripture, I just want to ask, how good are you at presence?

And is presence more important to you than purpose? As a matter of fact, if you were to say today, you could experience God's presence, but he will never show you your purpose. You'll always seek to know what your purpose is, but you'll have his presence. Or, he will give you your purpose, you'll be ultimately fulfilled in your purpose, but you won't experience that same level of presence.

What would most people choose today? Anyway, that's the question. Are you fulfilled? Do you feel like having Jesus, the spirit of Jesus on you, the presence, is that enough for you? And I have to say for myself, too often it's not. I want presence and a book deal. I want presence and a big church. I want presence and whatever your thing is. I want presence and a new car.

I want presence and whatever. And is presence enough for you? And so we want to be a church that inspires you, that triggers you into presence. After the worship today, when I finished, what did we do? We took a moment to say, hey, we're not just going to sing songs. Let's dive into the presence. You see, I don't want to just come to church and not have the presence.

I can go to a concert. I can go to Coachella and get that. But to have the presence is what we're looking for. Looking in this scripture now, we're going to take apart this scripture. And the key is living to please God. And that's where I wanted to focus because I love the title of this scripture. As we looked in, it's the NIV 1984. One of my favorite versions is NIV 1984 version, translation.

It's set at the very header as I was looking for this cool little scripture title. I just, pastors love their little scripture titles, right? And it said living to please God. And I couldn't find anything better. I tried to find like a really cool like hipster, you know, What were the millennials like? That's what I want to know. What were the millennials like?

And I couldn't find anything, so I just left it. The millennials are just looking at me. Don't talk to me. I just left it living to please God. Here's another question for you. What is more important, your purpose or living to please God? That's a great question. And how often do you ask yourself the question, am I pleasing God? Now, we're kind of our soul because we live in a fallen nature is to think God's mad at me.

Like God's constantly mad at you. Let me tell you, if under the cross Jesus took the entire wrath of God. And so there's no more extra wrath around for you once you are in Christ. God's not mad at you anymore. Jesus has shielded it. We live, so many believers live thinking God is mad at you. What I want to encourage you to say is to live in freedom, seeking after God and asking yourself this.

Now, God's not mad at me. Am I pleasing him? And if you displease God, he can still realize that I don't appreciate this. I don't like this. This isn't what I want for your life. But you're covered under the blood of Jesus. You can do wrong things and God's still not mad at you if you're in Christ and moving towards him. This is why our sin is covered.

Now, the question is, how much do you care about pleasing God? And do you get up in the morning, do you think, what will please God the most today? So let's look at this. We're going to look at three things, these questions, three things quickly. Look about living a life that pleases God. And do you want to please God? And is pleasing God even on your radar?

Like, is it on your radar more than doing what you think God wants you to do? Because we have been trained to think if you're doing what God wants you to do, you'll be happy. But are we making God pleased? Does God smile? Now, he looks at us anyway with his internal worth on us. He loves us. But can we live in a way that displeases him? I think so.

And can we live in a way that pleases him? This scripture nails three things that you can put into your life right away. What we want to do is give you tools that you walk out the door and you can immediately access this. We're like the Home Depot, okay? You can do it. We can help. We can do it. If you go to church and they don't give you tools where you can change your life like in the moment.

Jesus was so good like, hey, now. You know, fill up with the Ethiopian eunuch. We can get baptized right now. Let's do this thing, you know? Let's help you. First is this. Focus on how you're living, not on what you're doing. Circle that, underline it. Two. Live a consecrated life. Consecrated means holy life. Set apart. Take your life and set it apart.

Here's sin. Here's the wickedness of the world. Here's all this stuff. I want to live separate from it. And three. Live quietly. Well, my favorite bumper sticker in the Bible. Mind your own business. We'll get to that in a second. Here's the first one. Focus on how you're living more than what you're doing. Verse one. Let's look at verse one. It's very simple.

It says, As for other matters, brothers and sisters. We're speaking to the whole body now. We're not just speaking to men. We're not just speaking to women. We're speaking to mankind. We instructed you how to live. So they gave some instructions. That immediately says that there are ways. There are ways that are easily attainable, easily accessible, readily available.

That if you implement these things into your life, and you can implement them immediately. Some will take a long time to grow roots, but you can implement them immediately. That if you do these things, you will live, as it says, as I read the finished part of this passage, a life that pleases God. Isn't that what you want? Just to be with God?

That it says, you know, as you look in the book of Revelations, it talks about different churches, if you've read about it. And I'm very aware of this, because it mentions certain churches by name. And I think it's interesting that God is looking at our church and the people in it, because we make up a body. And he has an opinion to how we're doing.

Okay? Everyone, I read these articles, the church, the church. Those always bother me. You ever read it? The church this, the church this. It's like, what church? Like, the churches are, there's so many different types of churches. And it's really hard to throw them all into a box just to get a great tag on an article to get clicks. But I do know that he looks at our church, and he says, how are you living as a church?

I've got to say, I pray about that regularly. I think about our church, and I think, God, what do you have to say about our church? About the mood of our church, the spirit of our church, the forgiveness of our church. Like, everything that we are doing as a people, because we are a body. We're all individuals, but this church is a body. And in the end, like it says the church of Laodicea, and it says this about them, and it speaks about another church.

God says something about La Jolla Christian Fellowship. He's aware. I think we're on the map. And he's thinking about us. And what we want to do as a leadership staff, I'm climbing the pulpit again, sorry. What we want to do as a leadership staff is to create a church that pleases God. And then at the end, God says, yeah, I know you. You're pretty awesome.

And there's a church in that passage of the seven churches, and one's like, you're pretty awesome. I forgot the name of the one, but it's like, you're just, you're crushing it. You know, you've held up. And so it says in this one, what are these things that we can do in the end of verse one? Let me finish it now. As in fact, it says, we instructed you on how to live in order to what?

Please God. If you live this way, you will please God. You know what pleasing God brings to your life? Blessing. You're under grace anyways. If you're under grace and you're in Jesus and you've asked him and you have the Holy Spirit in your life and over your life and in your life, you're going to have blessing. You're going to have some blessing.

But to have exponential blessing. To harvest a deeper, I mean, how much blessing do you want? You know, do you want that little donut hole like I talked about a few weeks ago? Or do you want the whole cake shop? You want it all. How much blessing do you want? And not living in minutia. Did I please God? Did I not please God? Did I not please God? Then you just become some neurotic, pleasing God life.

No. It's just doing some things in your best, living according to the values of Scripture. It says in order to please God, as in fact, you are living. It's awesome. He says to them, keep doing what you're doing. I want to say to you as a church, keep doing what you're doing. Seriously, the love of this congregation for each other, and while, look, we're human beings.

You know, Jim always says, I have short toes. And being in church work, I need to have short toes. Your toes are going to get stepped on. That's the nature of church. Church would be awesome if it wasn't for the people, right? You ever heard that? If it wasn't for the people, church would just be awesome. But at the same time, let me say to you as a congregation that you really love each other.

When someone falls down, many people try to pick them up here. I continue to see that. Your generosity is overwhelming. You have been so generous in so many different ways, and I know that God loves that. Your forgiveness, your ability for reconciliation. I see people that have had broken relationships that are reaching out to have reconciliation in the relationship.

Your warmth, your hospitality, your desire for holiness. I have people coming into my office regularly that have major things that they've dealt with for years in regard to sin issues in their life, and they're saying, this needs to stop. I don't want to be this person anymore. This needs to stop. And we have multiple people that are saying, I no longer want, that are turning from those things in their life and running to Jesus.

So let me say as a church, we, or you, are doing amazing in those things. Keep doing what you're doing. Verse 1, keep doing what you're doing. Let's look at the first one. Let's break it apart a little bit. In verse 1, we see a focus on how to live. Often today, what you do seems to get more attention than how you're doing it. Often today, what you do gets more attention than how you're doing it.

If a person gets that new job, if a person gets that book deal or that promotion or that relationship that they've all, whatever the thing is, there's a whole bunch of things in our society that we're going after. They have these things, and everyone sees them on Facebook, and they're like, oh, awesome. Like, you won Facebook today. That was an awesome post.

You won. You're, you know, drop the mouse. You know, you won. I'm going to use them. I like that one. I've been wanting to use it all week. You got this life that looks awesome, but you're a jerk. You know? Like, it looks, you're winning. Hashtag winning. You are, you're doing it. You're the best at what you do. Everyone, you know, you got it. You got the house.

You got the deal. But you just don't have love. God just doesn't care. Like, he's just, he's not, he's not interested in what you, he doesn't need you to do anything. He doesn't need, he doesn't need your purpose. Do you get that? God doesn't need your purpose. He doesn't need me to be the pastor of this church. He doesn't need Billy Graham to be the evangelist he is.

He didn't need Mother Teresa. He doesn't need you. He doesn't need you. But he loves you, and he wants to collaborate with you, and he wants you to have the values of his son and the leading of the Holy Spirit in everything that you do. I remember Pastor Mark Foreman, who was my former pastor, said to me, and I did some leadership training this week on this, as we get to experience it, he says, you will know the character of a person, and he goes, I rarely give someone a raise in authority or position at our church until they've gone through me telling them no about something that they think that they should do.

He goes, you will know the character of a person when you tell them no, and you see what happens. And he goes, on occasion, just in order to test things, there's been people that have come in to my office, that they have said something, I thought it's a good idea, but I don't know that person. And so I've just said, wait. It's a no. Wait is a no. And I've just watched to see what would happen.

Would they become this Tasmanian devil that spins out? Do you have those people in your life that if you tell them no, they can't handle it? It's like, ah! No! You know, freak out. I've got to say no, or when something doesn't go your way, the way you handle it creates trust in relationships. My next-door neighbor got a hold of me. I have a motorhome.

I love my motorhome. It fits nicely in my driveway, and legally I can keep it in my driveway. Let's just say that. And I got, after six months, I got an email, RV in your, and granted, it's too big to be in the driveway. I totally agree with them. Okay. But I get the email, RV isn't that it's blocking the sun into my kitchen. We don't have anything more important than the sun into your, okay, nonetheless.

I get the email. Out of the heart, the mouth speaks. Get the email. My RV, got to move it. Now I got to go pay somewhere to store it. When I cannot get it for free. So I wrote back. I totally understand. I'll look for a place. I'll have it out in 30 days. Oh! And I hit send, and I was like, no! I felt like Gollum when he didn't have the ring, you know.

I was like, ah! Went and found it. Cost me extra money. And the Lord, I felt like I prayed about it. The Lord said, go to this place, and there'll be one spot left. I literally felt like the Lord said that. So I only drove to one spot. And I said, yeah. They said, no, we just had one spot open. I'm like, cool. All right. I guess I'm a prophet. So I went down there, pulled my motor in there, wrote them a check.

For the sake of the neighborhood. And so I wrote back. He's all, I didn't, it got done the next day. And he wrote back, and he goes, I didn't expect you to do it so quick. And I put, I am a team player. No problem. Send. Ah! He did use the term eyesore in the, and I'm like, eyesore? Really? That's not diplomatic. Should have parked in his driveway. No.

Have you had that situation? Yeah, right? Everyone had, maybe not that exact situation. How do you, you know, I've actually tried to make it a value of mine to deal with setbacks and know, after Mark said that, to really, like, people will know you by the way that you deal with setbacks, no matter what they are. That's character. What's more important?

Your purpose or how you do things? Jesus was so good at backing it down when he needed to, at stepping out in faith when he needed to. He just had a culture where people are attractive. You know, somebody came up to me the next Sunday and said, I'm going to do a potluck for my neighborhood. That's going to be what I'm going to do in my corner. And I thought, I just felt like the Holy Spirit, and I hate to say this if you don't process the Holy Spirit this way, but I feel like God gives me thoughts.

And I got a thought, do a potluck for your neighborhood. And I thought, the next day, you know what, I can invite my neighbor now, and he's going to come, because I moved the motorhome. It was that simple. The eye, excuse me, it's not a motorhome, it's an eyesore. Nonetheless, that's an example from my life. Number two. Number two is this. Live the consecrated life.

It says in verse three, okay, so the first one is focus more on how you're living than on what you're doing. No matter what you're doing, bring in presence, not purpose. Number two is live the consecrated life. It is God's will that you should be what? Sanctified. The word sanctified means to be set apart. To be set apart. To be set apart. That there is a cesspool of the world's stuff that we let be so big.

You know, whether it be the political thing that's going on. You know how big that is in God's kingdom? It's about like, you can't even see it. Eternity versus that, you can't even see it. But there's this thing, and it causes us, whatever's going on in our lives, to, we can get locked into that. And all of a sudden, we start moving away from holiness.

We start creating little altars in our lives. We start creating little things that we worship. It can be anything that becomes more important than God. And so the scripture says, and like it says in our building next door, holy, holy, holy, which we had put back up, because if you've been in the fellowship hall, it says that. When I looked up one day, I saw that somebody had taken it down, and they had probably painted it and not put it back up.

But there was a little, you know, where the sun had made the wood a little bit different color. And it said, holy, holy, holy. And I got a hold of Dave Peterson. I said, can you make those and put that back again? He went, I think he made them by hand, and put holy, holy, holy. Why? Because we want a church that's holy. We want a church that's not filled of lust and pornography and hate and all this other stuff.

We want a church that is holy, because God's presence is manifested within holiness. And the cool thing is that the blood of Jesus gives us the ability to be holy. When Adam and Eve fell, he clothed them in, do you know what God clothed people in? Skins. But after Jesus, it says he clothes us in what? Righteousness. Righteousness. Have you ever seen that?

That you're clothed with skins in order to keep your shame hidden, but now we only need to be clothed in righteousness. I got to say, if you have a dark little corner of your life, I got to say, put a light on it. Light will shine in the darkness. I told my daughter Lucy, it was really dark in her room, and I said, if we'd like the smallest light, what's going to happen in this room?

She goes, it'll win. I said, you're right. I said, what if it was really dark? What if we were in the depths of space, as dark as you could get, the darkest darkness? And I had a little match. She says, it would light up. I said, that's right. Bring the light into your darkness. And one of my favorite prayers is, even if you don't want to stop doing the sin that you think's amazing right now, or you're trying to get out of, go to God and say, God, I love this sin.

I want you to know I love it. I covet it. I love this. Maybe you're in a relationship you shouldn't be. I just love this relationship. I can't get out of it. Will you please get me at least to the place where I want to pray to be out of it? Start there. God already knows you love it. And he's not mad at you. He wants the best for you. There's a car coming in the street.

You're running out. You're playing dodgeball in the middle of the street. And he's like, get out of the street. You can't see what's coming. Get out of the street. I'm calling out to you. I love you so much. Get out of the street. If you've got something that is unconcentrated in your life, do whatever it takes. All costs to consecrate it. Get holy.

Holiness is a bad word this day, these days. One of the only sins in popular culture these days is to tell somebody that something is sin. There is sin. We will speak about sin. But sin is not my favorite topic. Grace is my favorite topic. And that Jesus has come to wipe your sin away and that you can experience his presence. You want to live to please God?

Do your best to get holy. He understands when there's mistakes. And the final one. We are now circling the tower. They have told me I can land. We are coming in. I will do a maverick. I will buzz the tower. Three. My favorite one. Live quietly while minding your own business. Verse 11. And to make it your ambition. Listen to this. Your ambition. The Bible doesn't talk a lot about ambition.

But when it does here, it says make it your ambition. Can you imagine that? Like what does that mean? Make it your ambition. Be ambitious. We're not supposed to. Christians aren't supposed to be ambitious. No. Make it your ambition, it says. To lead what kind of life? Quiet. Quiet. I got to say, I for so long couldn't have peace unless I had chaos. You know any of those people?

Just got to have an issue. Got to wake up every morning with an issue. Got to be in everyone's issues. Got to be in everyone's problems. Ah! One of the things we strive, and I will use the word strive, here at this church to do, is to have a non-chaotic environment. Where when you come here and hang out, you can actually feel the presence of God.

God. You're not going to get run over by a 10,000 events we're doing. That this can be a holy place that allows you to refill your tanks, to go back to your corner. Because it's hard enough to live in the world, the chaos of the world, without coming and experience a bunch of spiritual clutter and chaos. And then, you know, calling it, you know, feeling that we have value.

And I say, as a church, for so long I would think, I'm not doing enough. We need to have some more ministries. We need to have some more programs. Because you know what? The more I felt like I had purpose, the more I did. Couldn't ever just rest in the presence. It says here, make it your ambition to live a quiet life. You know, you're not going to a church conference, you are never going to hear.

Make it your ambition to have a quiet church. Never. Never. Let me tell you how many times you're going to hear it. Never. I had two articles today. How to grow, you know, grow your church. How to make sure your services are packed on Easter. Five ways to make sure that your church grows. I saw them this week. It's just all stuff. Never have I ever seen.

Preach to this side. Never have I ever seen. You guys look like you're really intent today. Hey, do your best to make your church a place of peace and rest. Because if you do that, no one will come, I think is what they think. We've done that. We're getting ready at some point in the next year, probably, to have to put another pew in the back again.

I'll just leave it at that. But, you know, God's on the move. And it seems that people enjoy rest and peace. Make it your ambitions. Make your life quieter. Do less. Do less. You hear that at church? You should not, right? Right, Chris? You should not, you should, look at this. You should mind your own business. And do what? Work with your hands, just as we told you.

So that what? Your daily life might win the respect of outsiders. And so that you will not be dependent on what? That's solid. That is good advice. I read an article about Chip and Joanna Gaines. You saw them. They do that Fixer Upper show. They're Christians. They just live a really beautiful representation of what a married couple under God's grace looks like.

They're not perfect. But they live with a lot of joy. If you haven't seen it, go to YouTube or something. Look up Fixer Upper is what it's called. And they're getting attacked from a lot of different sides because they're believers. And they got on MSNBC or something, one of the morning shows the other day. And they ask them, you know, well, what's your secret?

They said, well, basically, it's a paraphrase, we follow Jesus. But we haven't made it our life to go shout that everywhere. We've just tried to be an example, doing what we feel like we're supposed to do in a way that Christ would do it. I'm paraphrasing. And God has just said yes to that. And he has just blown their deal up. And they've never tried to build their platform.

They've just tried to love each other as a couple. And it's really fun to watch them on TV and love each other as a couple. And it is so antithetical to what you see relationships are, what married relationships should look like. I rarely have seen a good example on regular mainstream television or in movies of what a good marriage looks like.

Why do they never have sex scenes in movies between married people? You ever realize that? It's never. Like you never have that. It's boring. You know what I mean? Like always got to have a little something wrong, you know? You just don't see it. I already turned this off. So the sermon finished, but I'm still going. That was just a little extra point.

Chris, get on up there. We're going to sing a final song. Stand up. Let's get some joy. Let's please God. You know what God is pleased with? When your life stinks and you sing praise to him. Let's stand up and do that. Or when your life is good and we sing praise to him. We're going to sing and then I'm going to bless you. So we'll bless you after this.

What do you got for us? Are we? I love old school. This little light of mine? No. Okay. Oh, okay. Now, I'm going to go to the end of the book. Oh, okay. I'm going to go to the end of the book. I'm going to go to the end of the book. I'm going to go to the end of the book. I'm going to go to the end of the book. I'm going to go to the end of the book. I'm going to go to the end of the book.

I'm going to go to the end of the book. I'm going to go to the end of the book. I'm going to go to the end of the book. I'm going to go to the end of the book. I'm going to go to the end of the book. I'm going to go to the end of the book. Jendol B.