Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:06] If I haven't met you, my name is Eric Bolling. I'm part of the preaching team. And I just want to say again, happy Father's Day. I've noticed something strange today. I've been saying that to just everybody, just, happy Father's Day. And I was kind of like, why am I doing that? And I thought, well, we all have a heavenly Father at least, so there we go.
[00:00:27] But Father's Day, you know, it's. It's. I was also thinking about how we celebrate Father's Day versus Mother's Day, right? Mother's Day, everybody's dressed up. It's nice, look good. Dads, we like to, you know, old school. We bring in a tank or like a motorcycle or some grilled meats or whatever. And I couldn't get a tank here. I tried. I just don't have connections like that. Just thought it'd be interesting, at least maybe a little over the top. So, happy Father's Day.
[00:00:55] So when Michael, Pastor Michael, asked me, he said, would you want to preach? Preach Father's Day? I said, sure. He said, what do you want to talk about? And I said, well, let me talk about something. I know a lot about manhood.
[00:01:06] I've been a man for 53 years.
[00:01:09] And so I said, I think I know a few things about it. But thankfully, we have God's word that's going to tell us a lot about it. So if you want to go ahead and turn to First Corinthians 16:13 to 14, we're pretty much going to be there in that main verse today. And it's a short verse, but it puts a lot in. Into it, and it's one of those things. This is why I love studying Scripture. You keep digging and keep going. You keep finding new, even in short verses.
[00:01:37] So let's read this together first. Corinthians 16:13 to 14. Be watchful, stand firm in the faith. Act like men, be strong.
[00:01:50] Let all that you do be done in love.
[00:01:56] That phrase act like men really jumped out to me. And as we go through this morning, we're going to see that act like men is. Is sort of the centerpiece and these other things. Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, be strong. Let all that you do be do in love is going to kind of surround that. So started thinking about what does it mean to act like men?
[00:02:21] And I started reflecting back on just my own kind of journey to understanding manhood.
[00:02:28] And again, for. For me, it really hit home when I have my own children now. I got Married when I was all of 21 years old.
[00:02:38] I have my first child at 24.
[00:02:42] I had no clue about either of those two things when they happened.
[00:02:47] But I remember our first two children were boys.
[00:02:50] And my wife, who grew up with all sisters, was just overwhelmed by this world of boys.
[00:02:57] And I thought, this is pretty awesome, right? But I remember feeling God impressing upon me at some point, hey, you've got to teach these guys how to be men.
[00:03:08] Like, that's part of your duty and your job. And then we had our third, our baby, our daughter.
[00:03:14] And God impressed again. Hey, you need to show her what biblical manhood looks like. And I felt that I was like, man, I got to get this figured out. I got to get an understanding of what this looks like.
[00:03:28] Also, at kind of around the same time, I started coaching high school football.
[00:03:33] And it's the closest thing we have to a man maker activity in our culture. Maybe wrestling, I don't know.
[00:03:40] But I remember I'd have all these boys and I'd think, man, I have a responsibility to help them the best I can become men.
[00:03:50] I felt that.
[00:03:52] And even I think about just my own masculinity. I think, okay, what does it mean if I act like a man? And I started laying out this. Here's a couple of things I found.
[00:04:03] You know what? I do some manly things. Like, you know this already. I love football.
[00:04:09] Watch it. Maybe too much, some would say. I love basketball. I love golf.
[00:04:14] I love fishing.
[00:04:16] I wear flannel.
[00:04:19] I eat chicken wings.
[00:04:21] I.
[00:04:22] What else do I do?
[00:04:24] That's maybe it, right? But then I have this other side of me where not a lot of people may know this, but I love to read. I love to read. Like, if you give me like a good book in an afternoon and like chamomile tea, I'm happy with that.
[00:04:40] Especially when I'm wearing that flannel. Just picture that.
[00:04:44] I like reading and writing poetry. I appreciate that. Like, I enjoy that. I'm an active crier.
[00:04:52] My children tease me. They're like, dad, you're probably going to cry at this. And I'm like, absolutely, I am.
[00:04:57] Every year I cry at the end of It's a Wonderful Life. And I'm not talking about, like, single. I'm talking weeping.
[00:05:05] When he says to my big brother George, the richest man in Bedford Falls, he did it.
[00:05:12] He's loved, right?
[00:05:15] And so I think about, none of those things make me a man.
[00:05:20] They might make me fun to hang out with, but they don't make me a man.
[00:05:24] And I started thinking, okay, what is it that makes a man? This is what we're gonna look at in our passage today.
[00:05:30] One of the challenges of talking about manhood is in our current culture, we find ourselves is we really lack a clear definition, right? And I'm talking culturally. There. There's debate on what is a man. There's a debate on what is manly, what is masculine.
[00:05:50] Even within the church, some, sometimes we try to settle this. We go, well, men and women are essentially the same.
[00:05:56] They maybe have a little different biology, but they're the same.
[00:05:59] Or we go the other way. We go, well, men and women are different, but men are better.
[00:06:06] Both of those are not true.
[00:06:09] We also lack culturally this. This defined transition where you say, hey, you're a boy and now you're a man. We don't have many rites of passage, and we're lacking that where, where manhood is like, bestowed. Someone says, you've now made it. You're here. We don't have that.
[00:06:29] So what that does is it creates really this insecurity for a lot of men. Am I there?
[00:06:36] Did I make it?
[00:06:38] Am I? Am I? Do I have what it takes? It also creates ungroundedness in men.
[00:06:45] What do I attach to what is? What is? What defines my manhood? What defines my masculinity? What defines that? What that creates is it creates insecure and ungrounded men who are a danger to themselves and others.
[00:06:58] And really, if we think about this on two kind of polar opposites. On one side, you can have men that are very, very passive.
[00:07:07] They just don't engage.
[00:07:10] They step back. They may even be absent. They just refuse to exercise their masculinity and their passive. The flip side of that is you have some men that are very aggressive.
[00:07:24] Both of those are wrong.
[00:07:26] And if you look culturally, you will see there's a whole group of men, especially influencers, who are out there trying to help younger men figure out how to deal with this insecurity and ungroundedness.
[00:07:44] They're on Instagram and TikTok and all the social medias. And if you listen to what they're saying, and it's usually some version of an aggression, self sufficiency, you can do this. And my guess is if we went back to each of these men, we would find at some point in their past, either a man had abandoned them or a man had hurt them.
[00:08:11] And so they're trying to figure out how to disciple it. Thankfully for us, God and his Word has given us all the discipling on manhood. We need. And it's this biblical manhood is about surrender.
[00:08:26] It's not about self sufficiency, it's about surrender.
[00:08:30] I would say it this way. A real man then is rooted in Christ, driven by the love of Christ, and committed to the mission of Christ.
[00:08:40] Now, as we jump into this text, I just want to say a word to the women that are here.
[00:08:45] I believe that you have a massive stake in biblical masculinity.
[00:08:51] If you are a wife or you're a mother, for sure, if you're a single sister in Christ, absolutely. Like, men need sisters in Christ to be strengthened, to be backed by prayer, to have examples of faith, to be encouraged.
[00:09:11] And so if you're sitting here today and you're saying, like, well, how does this apply to me? How does this fit? Listen, it's the body of Christ.
[00:09:20] And I can tell you that men who have godly women around them, praying for them, encouraging them, everything just goes better. And so even though we're talking manhood today, we're really talking about the body of Christ.
[00:09:39] Get into the text. Let's go back to 1st Corinthians 16, particularly verse 13.
[00:09:46] Paul starts off and he says this, Be watchful.
[00:09:50] What Paul's going to do is he's going to use a couple of really strong military terms as we work through this passage. And be watchful is a military imperative. It's a century on night watch.
[00:10:02] It's a guard who cannot afford to be distracted or fall asleep. Why? Because the lives depend on his alertness. So the idea is a watchman standing on this wall, looking out, looking into the darkness, watching out for threats, paying attention, being vigilant, knowing what's out there.
[00:10:23] Paul says, be watchful. Why do we need to be watchful? Because here's the reality.
[00:10:30] We have a spiritual enemy and there is a war against us.
[00:10:38] Some of you know that. You feel it, you live it. If you aren't experiencing that, you may want to ask yourself why.
[00:10:46] But we have an enemy and he is at war. Let's look at two verses. Ephesians 6:12 says, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Like there's a very real battle happening.
[00:11:13] The second thing we're told is John 10:10, the thief, the devil comes only to do three things. To steal, to kill and destroy.
[00:11:28] That's what we are paying attention to. That's what we are watching for.
[00:11:32] That's what we're told to be vigilant about why. Because if you can take the watchman out, then by default, everybody behind him is now more vulnerable.
[00:11:44] Everybody behind him doesn't have that watchful perseverance, paying attention and watching out.
[00:11:53] So how then can men be taken out again? The scripture tells us this in 1st John 2:16.
[00:12:01] For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world.
[00:12:14] I think there's really three main ways that men can be taken out or taken off the wall.
[00:12:21] All of these really fit together. They're not really in isolation. They all feel three go together. And they're here in this verse. The first thing we see is the desires of the flesh. And I would say this is the trap of immediate gratification.
[00:12:37] It's like physical needs.
[00:12:39] You eat too much, you drink too much, you seek comfort too much. You take what God has given to be good and you overdo it.
[00:12:50] You go too far. It's what scripture sometimes talks about. Their God is their stomach, so to speak. And you just put your whole life into finding this physical gratification to go with that. The desires of the eyes. This is the trap of materialism, greed, constant comparison.
[00:13:12] Kind of this state of perpetual discontentment. And it's easy to do, right?
[00:13:17] You drive around, somebody's got a bigger, nicer house. Man, I wish that was my house.
[00:13:24] Somebody's got a better car than you. Back in the day, we called that what keeping up with the Joneses.
[00:13:31] They got this. I should have this.
[00:13:35] I want this. I need to be looking around. And you're just never satisfied or content with what you do have.
[00:13:43] And so the desire of the eyes, the third one is the pride of life.
[00:13:47] It's the trap of self sufficiency, the need to be right. You are the sole author of your own success.
[00:13:56] You don't need advice, accountability, or anybody else. I think the one of the most dangerous things that men can say is, I got this, I got this.
[00:14:08] And it's simply just not true.
[00:14:11] And so if you look at these three traps and you go, where do these come from? For all that is in the world.
[00:14:18] See, the world will try to, we'll use the term, disciple you into being a man and to having manhood. It is to have all the physical stuff that you need, have all the comfort you need. You deserve this. You should have this. It'll also tell you that you need more, bigger, better, more. Fill in the blank. Whatever that is. And it'll also tell you if it is to be. It is up to me. It's up to you.
[00:14:50] You are the author of your own life story. And if we're not careful, again, these are traps because we can fall into them.
[00:14:58] And I suspect that as we went through each of these, all of us were probably going, man, that's me.
[00:15:05] Yeah, I fall into that man. I've succumbed to that man. That one gets me. That's why Paul says, be watchful. Remember, we have an enemy, we have a war, who comes to steal, kill and destroy. Be watchful.
[00:15:21] He goes on in verse 13, and he says this, stand firm in the faith.
[00:15:28] Again, this goes with being watchful. This means to hold a defensive line against an advancing enemy. So it's the idea of, I'm watchful, I'm looking, I'm. I see the enemy, the enemy is coming.
[00:15:41] I don't know about you, but if an enemy's coming at me, I may be tempted to what? Run away?
[00:15:47] And Paul's saying, no, no, no. Stand firm. Hold the line.
[00:15:53] Hold in the faith the unchanging truth of the gospel. See, the enemy rarely takes a man out with a direct frontal assault.
[00:16:03] Again, it's. It can happen for sure, but I can tell you that most often it happens subtly.
[00:16:11] A man loses his footing through this. Let's look at first, Peter 5:8 says this. Be sober minded, be watchful.
[00:16:21] Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.
[00:16:30] Now it's interesting that he uses a lion here because if you know much about the way lions hunt is lions, when they go to hunt, I mean, antelope, wildebeest, whatever it is, they don't attack the herd.
[00:16:46] Why? Because there's more of them than there is of the lion.
[00:16:49] He's likely to get hurt, maybe even killed himself. So what does he do? The lion looks for the straggler, the isolated one, the one that isn't in the herd. And it's a very interesting metaphor he's using to say your enemy is like that.
[00:17:08] He's prowling around looking for someone. Again, the enemy rarely takes a man out with a sudden frontal assault. It's compromise that starts the problem. Let's look at this.
[00:17:20] When, when a man or someone begins to compromise, it usually starts by lying to yourself.
[00:17:30] And we are very, very good at self deception. We're very good at rationalization, and we lie to ourselves.
[00:17:39] Most compromise begins in total secrecy. No one may ever know.
[00:17:44] And we tell ourselves no one's going to know. No one's going to find out.
[00:17:49] It's not that big a deal.
[00:17:51] It's not that important.
[00:17:54] When in reality what's happening is we are justifying sin.
[00:18:01] Quite frankly, that's what we're doing. We're saying, I deserve this, I need this, I should have this, and we justify it.
[00:18:09] On the outside, we may look like a man of faith, but if we're compromising and refusing to call it sin, we're just sabotaging ourselves.
[00:18:18] It's what it comes down to.
[00:18:20] So the first thing we have is self deception. The second thing that happens is isolation.
[00:18:26] And I think isolation is one of the hardest things for men to overcome. We lie to other people.
[00:18:35] Remember, the enemy prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone.
[00:18:40] When you are isolated, you intentionally are cutting off authentic relationships and accountability. Why? Because you don't to be found out.
[00:18:52] You don't want people to know. And so you distance yourself and you become isolated.
[00:18:58] You become what I would call a keeper of secrets. You trade authenticity for this carefully curated public Persona.
[00:19:06] And so you have this idea and people look and they'd be like, oh, that's that. He's got it together, he's had. But inside everything's falling apart. It just hasn't been demonstrated yet. The last thing is exhaustion. Notice the enemy wants to devour.
[00:19:23] No one can indefinitely manage a secret life against your conscience and especially against the Holy Spirit.
[00:19:31] At some point, the friction of that, the tension of that, you're going to be faced with a choice. Either repent or you burn out and fade away. Meaning you just step back.
[00:19:44] And my guess is if we were to go around and talk about people we know who used to be in ministry or leadership or standing in whatever, we would all have stories of people that just suddenly flamed out, they burned out. They had this catastrophic collapse. And we're all going, what happened?
[00:20:05] Well, I can tell you it didn't happen. By them waking up that morning and going, you know what I'm going to do today? I'm going to throw it all away.
[00:20:15] I am.
[00:20:16] I cleared my schedule. This is what I'm going to do.
[00:20:20] No, it starts with subtle things, internal things, hidden things, secret things.
[00:20:28] And eventually what do we see? Like we said, catastrophic collapse, a seared conscience, spiritual deadness, disqualification, maybe disillusionment. Like those are all results of what's been happening internally.
[00:20:44] And that's a problem.
[00:20:48] Paul goes on to say this.
[00:20:50] Be strong, be strong.
[00:20:56] The word he uses here isn't like physical strength. He's not. And I've seen people misuse this.
[00:21:04] Well, you should lift because says be strong. Maybe it's probably good for you, right? Let's be honest.
[00:21:09] But that's not what he's talking about. He's not talking about be physically strong. He's talking about be able to withstand great force or pressure. Remember, he's using military language. Be watchful, stand firm in the faith.
[00:21:23] Be strong, withstand this attack.
[00:21:27] Again, the enemy's strategy is self deception, isolation, exhaustion. His goal is to steal, to kill, destroy.
[00:21:37] We are commanded to be strong.
[00:21:41] Well, how do we do that?
[00:21:42] Well, the word that he uses there for strong literally means to be infused with power from an external source.
[00:21:53] Like to be infused with a power that is not your own, to have someone else's power transferred to you so you can stand in it. Where does this come from? Let's look at Ephesians 6:10-11 says this. Be strong in who the Lord and in what the strength of his might.
[00:22:18] Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
[00:22:23] So the idea is, if we're to be infused with power, if we're to be strong to withstand great force and pressure that comes from the Lord and his strength and his might.
[00:22:37] Verse 13 doubles down on this, says, therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day. And having to don all to stand, to stand firm.
[00:22:53] One of the things I would encourage all of us, but as men especially, is memorize Ephesians 6:10 to 18, at least read it and pray it over your life. Why? Because that's how you stand strong.
[00:23:11] That's the antidote to fighting the enemy.
[00:23:15] That's the key to victory.
[00:23:20] Put it all together. We're told to be watchful, hold the line, stand firm. How do we do that? The same resurrection power that raised Jesus from the dead. It's available to us via salvation and the Holy Spirit. Stand in that.
[00:23:37] Stand in that.
[00:23:43] Paul, let's go back to what he says about act like men. Where we started in Greek, that word is actually translated, play the man or conduct oneself courageously. Remember verse 13. He's using all this military terminology.
[00:24:03] He's saying, be watchful, stand firm in the faith. Act like men, be strong. What would happen in the ancient world is when there was a battle coming, and again you see the enemy, they're coming, at some point they're going to be close to you. Hand to hand combat, they would encourage each other with play the man act like men, be strong, conduct yourself courageously. And so I think Paul's saying this as an encouragement. He's saying, look, act like men knowing that the enemy is coming, there is an attack, there is war, so be courageous. How do we do that? In the strength of the lord.
[00:24:46] But in First Corinthians 16, 14, Paul is going to make a really interesting shift. Again, he's using very good military terminology. And then in 14 he says this, let all that you do be done in love.
[00:25:02] You're like, man, where's he going? Like all of a sudden it's like this switch. Well, he's saying this, he's saying it's not an option to either be strong or be loving.
[00:25:16] It's not an if.
[00:25:18] He's saying love is the manner in which a man carries out his strength.
[00:25:23] And that word love is translated as agape.
[00:25:27] And agape, love is a deliberate choice of the will to a fierce, costly, self sacrificial commitment to the highest good of others, regardless of what it costs you.
[00:25:44] Now we need to feel the weight of that a little bit, don't we? That's a high calling. It's saying, look, let all that you do be done in a way that is self sacrificial to the highest good of others, regardless of the cost to you.
[00:26:01] There's the only way we can do that is through the supernatural strength of the Holy Spirit.
[00:26:07] I will only choose that, no matter the price I have to pay through the Holy Spirit.
[00:26:13] And so Paul's point is, he's saying, look, you can't just have 13 because if we had that, it'd just be like, well, man up. Hey, be watchful men, be strong, stand firm. He's saying, no, no, no. The whole thing is about love.
[00:26:30] Your strength is only as good as the love that drives it. Paul says this, let all you do be done in love. He closes every loophole. Doesn't matter, everything needs to be done. No exceptions, no exemptions.
[00:26:46] I think ultimately what Paul is getting at here is he's saying, look, act like men by looking to the cross and imitate the ultimate man, who is Jesus.
[00:26:58] If I could just digress from the text a little bit here, I would say this, I would say act like the man as an encouragement to us.
[00:27:09] Manhood begins and ends when you die to yourself and surrender to Jesus full stop. That's it.
[00:27:17] Everything else doesn't matter. But when you die to yourself and you surrender to Jesus, that is where manhood begins and ends. See, every man is asking a question. Do I have what it takes.
[00:27:31] Do I have what it takes? And the answer honestly is, no, you don't.
[00:27:37] I don't.
[00:27:39] We do not have what it takes. There's only one man who did, and it's Jesus.
[00:27:46] And thankfully, what he's offered us is the ability to follow him, surrender to him, and we can demonstrate the same things he did. See, if we try to execute the commands to be watchful, stand firm and be strong, we're going to go one of two ways. One is we will just cosplay as some superhero fraud. We'll walk around like we are just strong in ourselves, but internally we'll be hollow. We'll be like what C.S. lewis called men without chests.
[00:28:18] We won't have this internal kind of strength that we need or we completely abdicate our responsibilities. We just walk away. Very similar to like Adam in the Garden of Eden, where Adam just was silent.
[00:28:34] And we tend to go one of two ways with that. Men, especially when faced, like we talked about, with pressure. When things get hard, a lot of them will just step away and step out. Can't do it, can't deal with it, can't handle it.
[00:28:49] But I think what Paul is encouraging us here is to say, look, the only way we can fulfill our calling to act like men is through submission and obedience to Jesus.
[00:29:00] It's having the courage to drop to a knee and confess, Jesus, I cannot do this on my own.
[00:29:07] Help me.
[00:29:08] Help me again. Be watchful, stand firm, be strong, do it. All in love.
[00:29:16] 2 so what's so what? Number one, we'll say stop drifting with the culture and start guarding your soul.
[00:29:26] We might have men here today who are backsliding, old word or passive, fallen into just a loop of drift, compromise, secrecy. And that's not meant to be a judgment. It happens. That's why they're called traps. That's why you can get caught up in it.
[00:29:44] If that's you.
[00:29:45] If you just have chosen a carefully curated Persona, if you're hiding what you're struggling with, if there are things you're struggling with that you know you need to get rid of, my encouragement to you would be to aggressively cut that off.
[00:30:03] Get rid of it.
[00:30:05] Now, I don't know what that is for you, but your phone or your favorite news channel or. I mean, it could be anything. Get rid of it. It's hard to do.
[00:30:16] I know there are things in my own life where I have. I know that if I engage with it, it is not good for me. And I fight it because I'm like Well, why can't I? They can have it.
[00:30:28] They can do it. It's okay for them. No, no, no, not for you. You cut it off.
[00:30:34] And I found when I've been willing to, to take that step and to cut off those influences in the long term, it's always better. I've never regretted that.
[00:30:46] See, here's the thing. There is no version of you that can shock God or make him turn away from you. Amen.
[00:30:53] Nothing.
[00:30:54] Nothing. God's grace means you're already fully known and completely loved.
[00:31:02] Jesus through his death and resurrection has already covered your compromises and there is no condemnation. Amen again.
[00:31:11] Second thing I would say is stand with uncompromising courage and walk with unconditional love.
[00:31:17] You might be here and you're straining and you're exhausted. You're trying to do everything on your own.
[00:31:23] Your will, your pride, your performance, whatever that is.
[00:31:28] And I would say to you, you're not supposed to be self sufficient. See, God never asked you to be the hero of your story.
[00:31:36] It's not the point.
[00:31:38] But if we're honest, we're really good at making ourselves the hero. Here's a quick test for you. When you read a story and somebody in the Bible and somebody does the wrong thing, who do you identify with?
[00:31:51] For years, that was like the prodigal son for me. I was like, oh, clearly I'm, I'm the dad, right?
[00:31:57] Nope, that's God.
[00:31:59] I was like, well, I'm definitely not like the, the younger son. Like, I'm not doing that. Well, guess what? There's an older son.
[00:32:06] That was me.
[00:32:07] That was humbling. But we're not the hero of the story and that's very freeing. When we get there, I would say this. Let others help you carry the weight. I use the term kind of mat men.
[00:32:18] M A t mat men. I didn't come up with this. This is the idea of friends that are going to help you carry the mat when you can't carry yourself.
[00:32:28] I think for a lot of men, though, they struggle to find those guys. Where are they? Well, I can tell you we have very good, active, biblically based men's ministry opportunities for you here. There are men in this church who are ready to help you carry your mat.
[00:32:46] And it's a good thing and it's how it should be. I have several people that I know that are mat carriers for me and I can text them and I can say, man, I'm struggling.
[00:32:58] I am. My life is falling apart.
[00:33:02] Pray for me. I need to talk to you. And I will tell you every time before I send that I get the whisper of the enemy, don't send it.
[00:33:11] They're going to judge you.
[00:33:14] They're going to think you're not a good Christian.
[00:33:17] They're going to fill in the lie, right?
[00:33:19] But every single time I've sent it, I have never regretted that. Because what I get back is, man, we love you.
[00:33:27] We're going to pray for you.
[00:33:28] Whatever you need, we got you.
[00:33:31] And I appreciate that so much. Again, if you're looking for that, you can talk to Pastor Dean, talk to anybody. We will help you find those map men again. God's grace is sufficient. His power is made perfect in our weaknesses. Jesus has done what we could never do. He willingly took the shame to compromise sin to the cross.
[00:33:55] He paid our debt in full through his death and resurrection. Here's my last encouragement for you.
[00:34:03] I would encourage you to get out of the drift, to bow your knee in surrender, and to walk out of here today anchored in the finished work of Christ. Let's pray together.
[00:34:16] Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for just your word.
[00:34:21] We thank you so much for Jesus, honestly, your example that you gave us and the fact that we do not have to do this alone, that we can be strong in you and in your might. Lord, I just pray for our church.
[00:34:38] I pray that each of us will be strengthened, that each of us will be following you.
[00:34:46] Lord, again, we just thank you for all that you've given us, all that you've provided for us. Thank you for your word. And I pray this in your name. Amen.
