Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: 1 Corinthians 6 | Date: June 13, 2010 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

He knew a pastor who attempted to lead his congregation in a decision. I forget the specifics. All I remember is that it was a case in the church of gross sin, and he tried to lead the congregation into a decision of church discipline. The church refused and didn’t go along with him in his leading in that. During the week, he came back into the church building, draped all of the inside of the building in black, and the next Sunday preached from Ezekiel: Ichabod, the glory of the Lord has departed. He was not shy.

I walked in this morning, and it’s the first thing I thought: the glory has departed. What in the world is going on? And then I started hearing more details about the decorations for VBS. And I got to thinking, what about the visitors who come next week? What are they going to think? And then I thought, if 1 Corinthians 14 is right, they’ll think you’re mad. And then I’ll be preaching from a spaceship next Sunday. I’ve got to come up with an appropriate text of some kind. I’ll work on that this week.

I’m glad we finally have our bulletins today. A couple of us were looking for them earlier. How in the world can you worship without a bulletin? It’s funny how it’s changed over the history of the church. At the beginning, people didn’t even bring their Bibles. They didn’t have one. It was read publicly. And then as time went on, we had additions to the canon that were read publicly—the New Testament as well as the Old. Finally, people started bringing that. Now we can’t worship without a bulletin.

1 Corinthians chapter 6. 1 Corinthians chapter 6. We’ve read this passage already. Let’s begin with just reminding ourselves of verses 9 through 11:

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God.

Let’s look to the Lord in prayer. Our Father, we’re grateful for Your word. And again, we’re thankful today as we have been thinking through this series in First Corinthians for the moral and ethical instruction that You give us to reclaim our lives for Yourself. Father, the sins that are discussed in this passage are awful, and we pray that they will never be named among us. And we ask that You will use this portion of Your word to remind us of who we are in Christ and to live accordingly. We pray in His name. Amen.

The Gospel-Centered Nature Of The Solution

One of the great lessons that we have learned already from the Apostle Paul is the gospel-centered nature of every problem—or the gospel-centered nature of the solution to every problem as well. We saw that somewhat introduced in a plain way in chapter 2 and verse 2, where the apostle summarizes his whole ministry in just those terms: “I determine not to know anything among you but Jesus Christ and him crucified.” And there he claims that everything he has to say in his entire ministry is an outworking of that: Jesus Christ and him crucified.

We saw that somewhat in chapters 1 through 4, where the Apostle Paul deals with the problem of division in the Church of Corinth. And he saw how that worked out from a misunderstanding of the Gospel in terms of its ministry. Also, the divisions in the church were a rejection of what they professed in the Gospel and the unity in Christ. We saw it in chapter 5 last time, you remember: gross sexual immorality on the part of a member of the church, and the church had refused to deal with it. And Paul says, put him out. And the reason we are to put him out, he says, is because Christ, our Passover, has been slain for us. Put out the old leaven and live out in your own lives now the holiness that is becoming to one who is in Christ. And that has to be true, not only on the individual level, but also on the corporate level as well. So put out that immoral person.

Well, here in chapter 6, the problem is immorality in general—not the church’s response to it, but immorality itself. And he begins with the same kind of exhortation in verses 9 through 11. And here he speaks in terms of the kingdom, obviously, in its future aspect and its consummation. And he simply warns that no immoral person or homosexual or slanderer or drunkard, et cetera, et cetera, will inherit the kingdom of God. And here he simply lays down a familiar axiom that we find all through the scriptures, and that is: there is no room in the kingdom of God for immoral people. Only formerly immoral people. “Such were some of you,” he says. This is what some of you were. But you’ve been washed. You’ve been sanctified. You’ve been justified in Christ. And so there is no room in this kingdom for immoral people.

And here he then highlights the powerful cleansing virtues of the gospel. Not to be misunderstood, the gospel is good news for immoral people. No matter what your past, no matter what it is you’ve done, no matter what that dark secret in your past, the Gospel is able to answer it. We have a Savior who can stand for all of our sins and answer for them all and bring us to a right standing with God so that we stand in the perfect righteousness of His Son.

And Paul preaches that Gospel of freeness of salvation in Christ so freely that it even leaves himself open at times for the charge that he’s antinomian—that sin doesn’t matter. And here he is answering that kind of a problem and saying, no, sin does matter quite a bit. Because justification is not all there is to salvation. There is also sanctification. Just as we are brought in Christ to a new standing before God, so also in Christ—having come to Christ, having been joined in union with Christ—it entails a great moral transformation. We’ve been washed. We’ve been sanctified. That is to say, in Christ we undergo a great change.

And the New Testament describes that great change in many different kinds of terminology and metaphors. There’s a putting on of a new man, putting on of a new set of clothes. It speaks of renewal. It speaks of repentance. And all this kind of language is used through the New Testament to emphasize that we in Christ have undergone a great change, a moral transformation that is deep, and it works its way out from who we are to how we behave. And Paul is simply insisting on that. There is no room in the kingdom of God for immoral people, only formerly immoral people.

Paul deals with this, you remember, at length in Romans chapter 6, probably the place where he deals with it at the most extent. There the question had come up: well, if the grace of God is such that where sin abounds, grace abounds more, oh, we should sin more so we can have more grace. Just the way a twisted mind would reason, isn’t it? And Paul answers in so many words as to say: no, you’ve misunderstood altogether because that would be a living contradiction. Those who are in Christ are not only justified, but they have undergone a moral transformation. The old man has died. They’ve risen to a new life in Christ. And what they are in Christ is very different from what they were before they came to Christ.

And what all of that implies then in our passage here is that no man who has a life that is characterized by sin has a right to claim that he’s part of the kingdom. Our rescue has been such that Christ has taken us out of our slavery to sin, out of the kingdom of Satan, and has placed us into the kingdom of His Son, and so we are free in Him. But we are not free to sin. We are free from sin. In Christ, a man is really saved. He’s saved from sin. And there has been entailed in that salvation a thoroughgoing life transformation.

The Context Of Corinthian Culture

Well, that’s where the Apostle Paul begins. This is his starting point. But evidently, some of the church at Corinth had missed all of that. They were so affected by the society around them which was corrupt—as our society is corrupt—particularly in this matter of sexual promiscuity. And they had begun to drag something of the society into the church.

Now, they might have had an added dimension to it that isn’t quite the same way that we think today. In Greek philosophical thought, there was a kind of dualism which in one of its aspects worked out that the body is not important; it’s the soul or the spirit that’s important. In fact, the body—matter—is evil. The spirit is good. Now, that kind of a basic thing can work out in a couple of different directions. One of them was: if the body is evil, it should be an extreme form of asceticism, abuse of the body, neglect of the body, that kind of thing. But another way it can work out is: the body doesn’t matter. It’s the soul that matters, and it doesn’t matter what you do with your body.

Drag that into a Christian context, and what you have is an extreme kind of libertinism. The body is not important. It’s the soul that’s important. Nothing that we do with the body affects the soul. It is the soul that God is after, not the body. Well, we can behave externally as we like, and it really doesn’t matter. There might be something of that reflected in verse 13. God’s going to destroy the body anyway. It’s over then. It’s not the body that counts; it’s the soul. After all, didn’t the Apostle Paul say the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Ghost? It’s these internal matters that are important. It’s not externalism. What are you, some kind of legalist?

Well, we’re not affected with the Greek philosophical dualism, but you have to be in the pastoral ministry more than five minutes before you see this kind of thinking. I was 24, my first pastorate, and I don’t think I’d been at the church more than five minutes and I was being told by a lady in the church that she has needs that her husband cannot fulfill, and God wants her happy, et cetera, et cetera.

Add to this the fact that the society of the Greek world, and of Corinth in particular, was a society of just unrestrained immorality, much like our society is becoming. Theirs in a unique kind of way, as I mentioned last week: there was the Temple of Aphrodite there in Corinth, the goddess of love. And part of the ritual in the temple was ritual prostitution. About a thousand priestesses were employed by the temple to aid the men in their worship. I mentioned, I think, last week that the term “a Corinthian girl” was a euphemism for a prostitute. The Greeks had even coined a term with the word Corinth. They made it a verb: “to Corinth,” or to behave like a Corinthian—to commit sexual immorality. This is the world they lived in. It would be something like “to behave like you live in Hollywood,” something like that in our society, where sexual immorality is rampant and expected and even glorified.

But in Corinth, as in the 21st century United States, some had brought that spirit of the age into the church. Some of the lives in the church had begun to reflect more of what their former lives had been, more than what they supposedly had become in Christ. And so in chapter 5, as we saw last week, the Apostle Paul tells us what to do with such a person. It should be an occasion of mourning and grief on the part of the church, and he needs to be put out of the fellowship of the church. But now in chapter 6, he tells us why we should react like that. What is so wrong with such a person? And for the Apostle Paul, the Gospel itself is at stake in all of this.

Rationalization And Excuses For Sin

Now, as we might expect, these offenders here who are in sexual immorality that the Apostle is going to deal with here, they had their reasons. They had their excuses. And one of their reasons seems—it seems, we can’t be certain of this, but most are pretty much agreed—it seems that one of their reasons was borrowed from the Apostle Paul himself. And that’s in verse 12: “Everything is permissible for me.” Or as the old translation, “All things are lawful for me.” It seems to be some kind of slogan they were bandying about. And it seems as though it’s a slogan that was borrowed from the Apostle Paul. And it does sound in some sense like something the Apostle Paul could have said. For instance, in the context of his famous teaching on the adiaphora, the things that are indifferent—meat and holy days and things like that. Do what you like. All things are lawful. You’re free in Christ. This is the apostle’s teaching that we’ll see in chapters 8 through 10.

In another respect, it’s not too far from what Augustine had said as well. He said, “Love God and do as you please.” Oh, on one level, that’s wonderful counsel. But in the hands of a twisted sinner, you know what we could do with that. Oh, I love God. I love God. Oh, yeah. That’s not a problem. And so also this slogan, “All things are lawful.” In Paul’s case, it would have been spoken from the perspective of a man in Christ and in reference to things that are indifferent. It means holy days. Do as you like. All things are lawful. But it seems here that some had twisted the slogan regarding their freedom in Christ and they have, as Jude says, turned the grace of God into lasciviousness and turned their freedom in Christ into an excuse for sin. Don’t you remember the Apostle Paul has taught us himself that it’s the inner man that is important? It’s the soul that’s important. What is important is the soul’s communion with God. It’s really not important on the external. It’s the internal. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink and external things like that; it’s inward qualities of righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit.

And Paul responds to that, first of all, by putting that little slogan up against another one: “Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.” First of all, everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial. That is, you lay these two side by side and then weigh the decision. Yes, you have freedom in Christ, but how can a thing be right if it is not beneficial or if it is harmful?

And then in this next slogan, “Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be mastered by anything,” I will not be brought under the authority of anything. Now this is just a difficult phrase to interpret, and very honestly, I am not certain exactly the reference that Paul is making here. It might be—and one of the most common interpretations is—that Paul is simply saying that this particular indulgence which you are attempting to justify, your sexual immorality, is not a question of freedom. It is a matter of slavery. You’re enslaved to your sins. You’re enslaved to your passions, and your touting of freedom is simply a mask for your indulging in your slavery. It’s just like we would think, isn’t it? We have sexual passions. We’re giving ourselves to them unrestrained. We’re enslaved to our passions, enslaved to our lusts, and then we come up with, “Well, it’s our freedom.” It’s not freedom at all. You’ve been brought under the authority of someone else. That might be the reference here. It might be that—well, the only other occurrence of this expression, “I will not be brought under the authority of anything,” in 1 Corinthians is in chapter 7 and verse 4, where Paul speaks of the wife having the authority over her husband’s body and the husband having authority over his wife’s body. And it might be then that he is saying here something like, he’s simply saying, “I will not be brought under the authority of a prostitute.” In either case, whatever the exact reference here, Paul’s point is: this is not a question of freedom. This is a simple question of obedience. This is a question of holiness.

Another excuse they give in verse 13 is a little bit more common: “Food for the stomach. Stomach for food.” That is, it’s perfectly natural. Look, who is it that gave us these sexual appetites? Isn’t it God? Well, didn’t He intend for us to use them? They are God-given. It’s as natural as eating. God will destroy the body, destroy them both, the food and the body. This is not a big deal. This is not what’s important.

Well, Paul responds here in verses 13 and 14 and simply says it’s not that simple. That is—well, let’s look at it, verses 13 and 14 again. “The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. By his power, God raised the Lord from the dead and he will raise us up also.” That is to say, it’s just not as simple as you’re making it. This is a natural appetite? It’s not that simple. To refer to this as simply a natural appetite masks the fact that you belong to God and that it is God who not only created that appetite, but it is God who created you, who defines the context in which that appetite is to be fulfilled. You belong to Him. And in fact, in verse 14, he says your body’s relationship to God is not as temporary and incidental as you assume. God will raise this up. The body is not as insignificant as you make it out to be. Oh, God will destroy the body? That’s it? He will raise you up. And Christian doctrine, Christian theology, has always had this great emphasis on the whole man: body, soul, and spirit. And God’s saving work for us is not complete until the resurrection.

Paul says, first of all, then, it is not for you to decide the context in which to fulfill any appetite. Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 4, for example: “marriage is honorable and the bed undefiled.” This is a good thing. This is God-given. But “adulterers and fornicators God will judge.” God defines the context in which the appetites are fulfilled.

Now, it’s interesting, I think, that in all of this, these people who were offending had good sound reasons for what they were doing—or at least reasons that sound good, right? We’re free. It’s only natural. It’s the soul that’s important. It’s always what we do. We always come to some kind of reason. We dream up some kind of explanation, some excuse, convince ourselves of it, believe it, and our conscience is salved and we’re okay. We’ll even rewrite the Bible. Freedom in Christ means I can do this. My freedom in Christ means I can do what I like. Oh, these are appetites that God gave me—and we rewrite the scriptures to allow for the very thing that God forbids. And what is so blasphemous in all of that is that not only have we violated God’s law, but we have pretended as though we had His permission to do so. We’ve turned the scriptures on their head.

But that’s just how deceitful the heart is. We can rewrite the scriptures, call it inspired, believe it, behave accordingly, and our conscience is just fine. And we do it all the time. “I have needs. I have legitimate needs. God-given needs. And they’re not being fulfilled in this context. I have to find another context. God loves me. He wouldn’t want me to be unhappy.” One woman told me, excusing her extramarital affair, “I talked to a Christian counselor and he understood. God wants me happy. God wants me to have companionship. I’m not having it in this relationship. I’ll have to find another.” Or it might be, “Nobody’s perfect. And look at so-and-so, he’s much worse.” And we have our excuses and we rationalize away the scriptures. Surely any reasonable man will understand. And if he doesn’t, he’s probably a legalist.

And it’s just at that point some annoying apostle or pastor comes along and says, “When did God write in an exception clause for you? This is still forbidden. And no immoral person has any part in this kingdom.” And one thing we need to remember then when we make that kind of rationalization is that, as Paul says in Romans chapter 2, in the last day the judgment will not be according to excuses. The judgment will be according to truth.

Union With Christ And The Temple Of The Spirit

But there’s more. I said for the Apostle Paul that this is a gospel issue, the gospel at stake, and there’s more in that direction in verses 15 through 17:

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never. Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said that two will become one flesh. But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

The great truth that the Apostle Paul emphasized throughout his ministry—you’ve heard me say it before, this is something of his signature, his trademark—is this matter of our union with Christ. That’s why the repeated prepositional phrase we find so often in Paul: we are in Christ, in Christ, in Christ, with Christ, through Christ, by Christ, in Christ. We find Paul emphasizing it over again. And his whole point is that all that we have in salvation, we have only because we are in union, joined to Christ. We have been pronounced righteous before God. How can that happen? You’re not righteous. We are pronounced righteous before God because we are in union with His Son, who is righteous, and He is our righteousness. We have forgiveness because we are in Christ. And the hub of all of Paul’s teaching of salvation is exactly this: that we are in Christ, and being joined to Christ, we have everything that God requires of us. And Paul preaches this gospel of freedom in Christ, in Christ, as I say, so openly that he’s even accused at times of antinomianism.

So close is this union with Christ that we have that Paul says our marriage relationship is really just a pattern of it. Just as in marriage, man and woman, the two become one, he says this is just a picture of the church’s union with the Lord Jesus Christ. The two have become one. Jesus speaks in the same kind of way on several occasions. In Luke chapter 9, he says, “whoever receives one of these little ones of mine receives me.” He says in Matthew chapter 25—when I was hungry, you remember the passage, the judgment scene?—”When I was hungry you gave me to drink.” Or to the others, “When I was hungry, you didn’t give me any food. When I was thirsty, you didn’t give me any drink. When I was naked and had no clothing, you didn’t give me anything. When I was in prison, you didn’t come visit me.” And why did we not do this for You? “You didn’t do it for one of these who belong to me. You did it to me.”

Remember, the Apostle Paul ran into this on the Damascus Road. He’s carrying out his threats and persecutions against the church. And the risen Christ stops him on the Damascus Road. And he asked him that question, “Why are you persecuting me?” The church is so united to Christ that to touch the church is to touch the Savior. It’s a wonderful truth, but the flip side of that is just as you cannot touch the church without touching Christ, so we cannot do anything without taking Him with us. You can’t say, “Well, now Jesus, you stay here at home. I’m going to go out and do something and you probably wouldn’t want to be a part of this.” Relationship is much deeper. It’s much stronger than all of that. We are united as one.

And so Paul simply asks the question here: would you take the members of Christ, would you take the limbs of Christ, as it were, and join it to a prostitute? He’s repulsed at the thought. And he gives us his answer: “May it never be. God forbid.” It’s just unthinkable that you… What are you thinking then, Christian? You profess to be a Christian and you’re behaving like… Would you really drag Christ into a context like that? You see, as bad as this behavior is on its own in terms of disobedience and rebellion, violation of God’s law and all of it—as awful as it is on that level—it has more blasphemous implications. You have dragged the Lord Jesus into this with you. And this is exactly, the Apostle says, in effect, what we must remember when we are tempted to sin. Am I really willing to take the Lord Jesus into this with me? Now that puts a real hedge around our behavior, doesn’t it? Isn’t that a consideration that shapes behavior? That what we do, we necessarily—because of our profession of faith, because we belong to Christ—we necessarily involve the Lord Jesus himself.

And then before going to his next step, he says in verse 18: “Flee sexual immorality.” Here he finally just comes out with the command. Flee sexual immorality. This is your responsibility in regard to sexual sin. Real easy. Run. That’s it. And after all the excuses, this is still the command. Run. Run away. Like Joseph who was caught in temptation and left his coat behind and ran—that is the command. Now, it would seem obvious to me that if we take this command in verse 18 with any seriousness at all, it just has massive implications. This does not refer to us only in the heat of the moment. This is not only when Potiphar’s wife tries to drag you into bed. This has implications for the rest of life too, doesn’t it? What this means is you don’t toy with this sin. This puts a guard on what you think on. This puts a guard on what you look at. This must put a guard on what we watch. Don’t chase it. Don’t fantasize. Run. Flee sexual immorality.

Still, there’s more. The rest of verse 18 and verse 19: “All other sins a man commits are outside the body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.” That is to say, this sin is unique in the sense—it’s particularly unique in that it’s a sin against the body. Then verse 19: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God?” A thought in verse 19 that is very much like what we had in verse 15, that we belong to Christ. But here a new dimension is added. Because of the Spirit of God indwelling us, we have become a temple of God. This is true corporately. This is true individually. It’s a great temple theme, the indwelling of God theme of the Old Testament drawn into the new. Now here’s where it has come. God indwells us. We have become the temple of God. And He indwells us. Now Paul’s simply building on that idea there. And if we are His, and if He has come to indwell us, and in Him we have become a temple of God, this is then a holy temple that ought to be reflected in the way that we live. And this is simply another one of Paul’s “be what you are” exhortations. You’re a holy temple. Did you know that? The holy God himself dwells within you. You’re a holy temple. And Paul’s simply saying, live like it. And that ought to be reflected in how we behave, how we talk, what we do, and how we think. Your body is the house of God. Be then what you are.

Bought With A Price

And then finally, Paul speaks in terms of the doctrine of redemption. Verses 19 and 20. At the end of verse 19: “You are not your own. You were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God”—or honor God—”with your body.” The idea involved here is clear. In dying for us, Christ bought us and we now belong to him. This is the doctrine of redemption. He has rescued us out of the marketplace of sin. He’s rescued us out of the kingdom of Satan. The cost of that rescue was His blood. He bought us out and has placed us into the freedom of God’s Son. Now Paul is simply building on that idea again here. If we are Christ’s and if we belong to Him, how then can we behave as though we don’t belong to Him? How then can we behave as though this life—or specifically now, this body—belongs to us? It does not belong to us. It belongs to Him.

This is what we sing about all the time, isn’t it? “Rejoice in Jesus, thou hast bought us, not with gold or gem, but with thine own lifeblood for thy diadem.” He’s bought us. This is the glory of being a believer. We belong to Christ. And Paul is simply saying: do you realize the implications of that then? You belong to Him. He then determines how you live and how you use that body of yours. This is the basis of the New Testament slavery to Christ theme. We belong to Him and we must then live for Him. Paul is simply saying, don’t we know this? Isn’t this what we glory in for ourselves, that we belong to Christ? Wasn’t this our very profession of faith? Isn’t this what we professed in our baptism? The old life is gone. I’ve been raised to a new life in Christ, and it belongs to Him. Didn’t we, in coming to Christ in the first place, lay down all of our opposition and surrender to Him? Isn’t that what conversion is? And Paul is simply saying, what happened to all that? Don’t you remember? You belong to Him. Live accordingly.

Honor God With Your Body

All of that is to say very simply what we knew before we began. And that is: there’s never, never an excuse. There is never a right for violating the commands of God. It is rebellion, and it is nothing less, although it is much more than just rebellion. It has blasphemous implications.

And so we come then to the end. Verse 20: you’ve been bought with a price. Conclusion, therefore: honor God with your body. How should we live? If we have been so united to Christ that all we do involves Him; or, the next figure that he uses, if the Holy Spirit so indwells us that it renders our body a holy temple; or, to use the next illustration, if Christ has bought us such that we now belong to Him and He has rights over us—how then should we live? Answer: glorify God with your body. That’s it. Honor God in the way that you behave, in the way that you live.

You may pretend with excuses of, “Oh, it’s the inner man that’s what’s important, not the outer man.” Fact is, if God doesn’t have your body, He doesn’t have much, does he? And that’s why the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans will exhort: present your bodies a living sacrifice to God. Or in Romans chapter 6: yield your members—your limbs, your body parts—not as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but yield them as instruments of righteousness to God. If God doesn’t have our body, He doesn’t have much. Paul is simply saying this is the way it has to work out in all of our lives, that our profession must be matched with the life that we live. If we belong to Christ simply, we must then learn to live for Christ. And here then is the guiding principle: Christ indwells. I’m united to Christ. Christ owns me. I, therefore, will live for Him. Amen.

Let’s bow for prayer. Our Father, we need these reminders. You know that we need them. Our hearts are such that they would still tear us away from You. We know Your commands, and yet we still—though on the one hand love holiness, love righteousness, and our heart is to serve You and to love You—on the other hand, our heart still is deceitful, and it takes us away. Lord, keep us from sin. Give us a sense of who we are. We pray that You will remind us daily of the glory that is ours being joined to the Lord Jesus Christ. Remind us daily of the glory that is ours to be indwelt by Christ through His Spirit, that we are the temple of God. Remind us daily that we belong to Him, that He has redemptive rights over us, that we are His and that it is our privilege to live for Him. Help us, Lord, to honor You with our bodies. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.