Reformed Baptist Church in O'Fallon, Missouri
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Life and Death in Christ Part 2

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Philippians 1:19–26

[audio unclear]

…this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again.

(Philippians 1:19–26)

Opening Prayer

[audio unclear] They’ve laid their lives down for the freedom that we enjoy, God. We pray, God, you’d do a work in this country and the hearts of the people, and bring this country and this nation back to you, God. Lord, we rejoice that just this past week Planned Parenthood was defunded federally of a billion dollars in money. So we pray that, God. We pray that as Planned Parenthood fears, that many, many other centers would be closed, God. And Lord, we thank you for even the Supreme Court decision recently that allowed states to individually defund Planned Parenthood from their budgets. So we pray, God, that you would do that and just cause that and all the other abortion clinics to close throughout this nation, that abortion would be outlawed from this land completely and entirely, Lord. Lord, we pray, Lord, that the church down there would be the church, that your gospel would go forth and minister to people that are hurting. Children’s lives have been lost. It’s a tragedy, Lord. So we pray, God, you’d be gracious to that state. Give the leaders there wisdom in how to handle it. We pray for the church and the pastors that they would have wisdom in how to minister to their communities and minister to the Texans down there, Lord. We pray it would be for your glory as well. Lord, let us continue to be a church that is busy about your business, that stands for truth. We thank you not just for the freedom that we have as a nation, but the freedom that we have in Christ. We pray that people would experience that true freedom. Freedom from sin, freedom from bondage to sin, freedom from slavery to sin, Lord, that you would set the captives free. And may you continue to go before us, Lord, pave the way, let us put our hand to the plow and not look back, for your glory. Amen.

Value Life, Because to Live Is Christ

All right, we’re picking it back up in Philippians 1. Last week we talked about knowing really our mortality, and that we have a mortality to us, but we actually have an immortality to us as well. This week we’re going to look at the value of life. And here’s the thing. Do you think Paul had a low value on life? No. I mean, he clearly here wants to go on to the next life and be with Jesus. True? Right? I’m with you today? Okay, grab a little sip of your coffee. I don’t have coffee, I’m just going to get some water though. But grab a little sip of your coffee if you need to wake up a little more. Also, by the way, in the worship, right? I know some of you got a little bit uncomfortable, you know, spinning around and stuff like that. I mean, you get to be like the age of 40 and all it takes is like you may be having like a health issue or something. You got to go to the doctor and they’re doing like some procedure and there’s like six people in the room and you’re like kind of exposed. All right? That kind of helps take away like any sense of pride at that moment because you’re like, wow, this is kind of embarrassing. Anyone under the age of 40, or that maybe hasn’t had some health issues, you really don’t know completely about. But over the age of 40, you get it. So spinning around, I’m like, hey, we can do that all day. That’s really not that big of a deal. So did Paul have a low view on life? No. Did he have a low value of life? Okay, you’re starting to get with me a little bit. Clearly he wants to go to the next life and be with Christ. Again, when I was younger, when I first got saved, I was like, oh, Lord, some things I want to accomplish. There’s some things I really want—to get married. But you get older, and the older you get, part of it’s maturity, part of it’s growing closer to Christ. But the next life starts to look really attractive. True. And being with Jesus, the more you get to know him, the more you want to be with him, fully, completely, without that glass dimly seeing through it, right? But listen, Paul in this passage, this is not some passive take-me-now attitude. It’s not him giving up. What we’re seeing is his longing, like we do in our catechism class. But the whole story, right? I mean, he runs away, swallowed by the fish, goes and finally obeys the Lord, Nineveh repents. But then what happens at the end? What happens? Yeah, he’s mad, right? He’s mad. Jonah is mad. And he’s so mad, what does he say? He’s like, I want to die. I just want to die. That’s like, that’s not what Paul is doing here. Right? Jonah’s like, I’m so upset right now, just kill me, Lord. That is the opposite of Paul here. Paul’s not upset or anything. No, he’s looking joyously forward to being reunited with his Savior. So what we’re seeing is Paul’s heart’s aim. We’re seeing his key desire. We’re seeing his longing in life. What is that? Be with Jesus. So it wasn’t that he had a low view of this life. Actually, he had a very high view of this life, but an even higher view of the next life. How do we know he had a high view of this life? He tells us the well-known verse, verse 21: “For to me to live is Christ.” I mean, how does it get any better? I mean, seriously, brothers and sisters, if you have Jesus, you have everything you need. If you have Jesus, you have the best this life has to offer. You’ve got Jesus, you win. So how does it get any better? It doesn’t. Everything Paul did, you look at his life, everything he did was matched to that sentence. To live is Christ. To live is Christ.

So I’m probably just going to make two main points. There’s probably going to be some smaller points along the way, but my first main point is this: value life. Why? Because to live is Christ. This needs to be our mindset, that we have a value for life. And we need to pause for a moment and make sure we have high regard for it. Babies in the womb are valuable, right? Their lives matter. You know Planned Parenthood just got defunded a billion dollars for a year. That’s amazing. All right, Congress has made, different members of Congress have made that promise for many, many, many years, and have failed—until just this past week. So we’re going to rejoice in that. That’s a good thing. Amen. We need to be praying. We need to be praying all those clinics close. That’s what their fear is. That’s what they’ve been on social media playing here this whole week, freaking out, and they should be. So let’s pray it’s all taken away. But you know what, them being defunded, it’s awesome. True, it’s awesome. It’s amazing. Don’t buy the poor sob stories about women not getting access to health care for their baby. First, for those of you unaware, you know, murdering your baby, that’s not health care, okay? But second, if they truly need health care, we have this excellent pro-life organization called REACH, right, and there’s many other organizations, pro-life organizations in other states that are available as well. They would be delighted to help them.

Intrinsic Value and the Image of God

Brothers and sisters, we have a culture that devalues life. It devalues life. We have to push back against this. We have to push back. There’s floods in Texas, people are dead, children are dead. Listen, those lives mattered. They mattered. They mattered to other people, but they mattered to God. And they were valuable. You know, to be put to death, like physician-assisted suicide is what we call it here. It is pretty easy if you live in Canada, you just need two doctors to agree and then you can be put to death. And now what’s happened, and people called it, and they were saying slippery, slippery slope, you know those slippery slopes, they just become less slippery as the years go by to me, because where they say, oh we’re going to end up way down here, oh that’ll never happen, that’s a slippery slope. Well, guess what? We end up way down here the vast majority of the time. So what has happened in Canada? There’s been a major devaluing of life. So if you have any type of somewhat serious illness or sickness, like the hospitals, the doctors, will—it’s not just an option you can choose. They’ll present it to you as something that you should consider. Even now, people that have injuries from the COVID vaccine, they’re considering that as a reason to end your life. A devaluing of life. Listen, humans have intrinsic value. But where does that come from? Where does it come from? From God, right? So intrinsic value means it belongs naturally. It has value simply because of what it is. Listen, the atheists can’t argue that, can they? I mean, can they? Not and be consistent. There’s no intrinsic value because everything is here because of random chance. The human is no more valuable than the dolphin or the dog or the rat. And I’m sure you know this, but you know atheism is bankrupt on a number of fronts. This one included. You have to believe some pretty tough things if you want to be an atheist. You have to believe that something came from nothing. That there was order from chaos. Life from non-life. The personal from the non-personal. Reason from non-reason, morality from matter. I mean, you have to believe a whole lot of things that just don’t make sense. And they don’t even have an explanation for them.

Justin Brierley, maybe you’ve heard of him. He’s an apologist in the UK. He does a podcast where he kind of sets up two kind of opposing views and lets people kind of duke it out. He once had a conversation with Richard Dawkins. You all know who Richard Dawkins is? He’s a well-known atheist. He says this, this is Justin: “If we evolved into a society where rape was considered fine, would that mean that rape is fine?” Richard: “I don’t want to answer that question. It’s enough for me to say that we live in a society where it’s not considered fine. We live in a society where selfishness, failure to pay your debts, failure to reciprocate favors is regarded as wrong. That is the society in which we live. I’m very glad.” “That’s a value judgment.” “I’m very glad that I live in such a society.” Justin: “But when you make a value judgment, don’t you yourself immediately step outside this evolutionary process and say that the reason this is good is that it’s good? It’s good because it’s good. And you don’t have any way to stand on that statement.” Richard: “My value judgment itself could come from my evolutionary past.” “Yeah, of course it does, if that’s your position.” Justin: “So therefore it’s just as random, in a sense, as any product of evolution.” Richard: “You could say that. In any case, nothing about it makes it more probable that there is anything supernatural.” Justin: “Okay, but ultimately your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we’ve evolved five fingers rather than six.” Richard: “You could say that, yes.” Listen, if you’re a thoroughgoing materialist, you could not only say that, but you should say that. It would be perfectly consistent with your worldview. Here’s how Justin concludes as he’s wrapping up his thoughts on the conversation: “Why does the atheist position feel so wrong? Why do we recoil at the idea that our belief that rape is wrong is just the happenstance of the hand the forces of social, cultural evolution have dealt us? Deep down we know that’s not how humans should treat one another. Biology alone isn’t enough. I believe the only way to ground the belief that rape really is wrong, that there are better and worse ways to treat each other, that morality is objective, is that there is a moral lawgiver beyond nature.”

So we have to combat some of these lies that the culture throws at us. Even the lie of atheism. We have to combat those lies. You hear things, people try to put up arguments. Don’t like gay marriage? Don’t marry the same sex. Don’t like abortion? Don’t get one. Don’t like gender ideology? Then don’t transition. Listen, this is a lazy, morally bankrupt argument. Okay, because we too can play that game. Don’t like child abuse? Don’t abuse your child. Don’t like slavery? Don’t own a slave. Don’t like racism? Don’t be a racist. I mean, you can see how the argument quickly falls apart, right? We understand that some things are wrong. Not just for me or not just for you, but for everyone. Why? Quoting from someone, he says, because they hurt people, they corrupt innocence, they distort reality, and they destroy the moral foundation we all depend on to live in a functioning society. The idea that all moral issues are private choices is a lie. These things don’t stay in your bedroom, or your clinic, or your brain. They bleed into schools, media, law, culture, and to the next generation. Everyone pays a price for the lies we choose to accept. So no, it’s not your choice. It never was. Listen, every single person, every single person is an image bearer. Every single person, believer, unbeliever. Every single person ever created is an image bearer. That impacts the way we think about them. It impacts the way we handle different situations involving people. Mentally handicapped, still an image bearer, right? Physically disabled, image bearer. At the end of their life, very old. Dementia, don’t even know who they are. Are they still an image bearer? How do we treat them? We treat them with dignity, with respect, as image bearers. What about a baby still in the womb? Image bearer. We treat image bearers differently. They have a mark. We have a mark from God that sets us apart unlike anything else. If a building’s on fire and you’re going, and down the hallway to the right is your favorite pet, and to the left is some random stranger you don’t even know, it’s a very easy decision which one you’re going to save. It’s very easy which way you’re going to go down the hall. Okay, I don’t care how much you love your pet. That person’s life, infinitely more valuable. So we treat image bearers differently. What do we do to image bearers? Here’s what James says. He’s talking about the tongue:

For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

(James 3:7–10)

What’s James’s point for us? We need to be consistent. If we’re going to say someone’s an image bearer, we better treat them like an image bearer. And he’s saying, hey, we can be here and be all worshiping the Lord. Right? I mean, that’s what he says. “With it we bless our Lord and Father.” That’s what we were just doing. And then we can walk out there and get in an argument and be rude to our spouse or our kids or our brother or sister in Christ or our neighbor across the street. What’s he saying? These things ought not to be so. It’s not consistent with what we proclaim right here right now. So we need to push back against the culture. It starts with us, a reformation in the soul. How are we even just speaking to other image bearers and treating them? It’s easy for us to be like, oh, yeah, yeah, you know, we’re pro-life. We’re against abortion. And then we can’t even treat the people around us with a little respect. So we need to value life, and we need to start by showing the value in the way we interact with others. All life is precious to God. Brothers and sisters, if you believe this, this impacts how you treat your elderly parents someday. True? I mean, it does. If you really believe this, if you value life, it’s going to impact how you treat and interact and deal with your elderly parents. And then likely one of them is going to die before the other. And likely you’re going to have to somehow help that last one as they’re coming to the end of their life. If you have a value for life that will greatly impact how you minister and deal with them. You’re not just going to ship them off to some nursing home 300 miles away and visit once a year. You’re not going to do that because you value life. This also impacts how you interact with your troublesome neighbors. Any of you have troublesome neighbors? They’re image bearers, right? They’re image bearers. They might be a pain, but they’re still image bearers. It also impacts people in everyday life. Whatever store you shop at, Walmart or Schnucks or Dierbergs or whatever, you’re interacting with image bearers, people that Jesus laid his life down for.

Value Your Own Life

So value life, but I want to go a little bit further and say something. You need to value, this is just, listen to me for a second, you need to value your own life. You are valuable. You have intrinsic value. What does Jesus say in the Sermon on the Mount? Matthew 6: look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Listen, you only get one life here right now. And that’s the one you’re living. That’s it. And God tells us our life is not our own. Your life is not your own. So if you don’t value your life, you’re actually saying you know better than God. You’re actually insulting the very image that he has made you in. You have to trust God’s valuation of your life. How valuable? His Son died for you. That’s very valuable. The blood of Jesus was shed for you and not a drop was wasted. Listen, if Paul were living for himself, I mean, he would have been glad to simply be put to death by the emperor, but he’s not here for himself. He realized that. He’s not here for his own pleasures. He’s not here for his own pursuits. What’s his approach? Christ first. Primus Christus. What’s his approach? Christ alone. Solus Christus. Okay, so part of this is living for others, not in the way to get their approval, but in ministry and service to them. What does Paul say? Look at verse 24. “To remain in the flesh is more necessary”—this is important—“on your account.” On your account. I mean, it’s really just putting into practice. Really the first chapter is just putting into practice what he exhorts us to do in the second chapter. Verse 3 of chapter 2: “in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” That’s exactly what he’s saying there. It’s necessary to remain in the flesh for you all, for you all. What does that say? [audio unclear]

…you are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

(1 Corinthians 6:19–20)

I do some, you know, I think y’all know I do some power washing on the side. I was talking to a customer, it was about a year ago, and he was telling me that he hit a very low spot, like to the point where, I mean, he was close to committing suicide, and he didn’t. And I was just encouraging him, like, hey, there’s people in your life that look up to you, that depend on you, that care about you. Suicide is very selfish. And suicide takes a temporary problem and brings a permanent solution to it. That’s what suicide is, dealing with a temporary problem permanently. So I encouraged him, like, hey, you have different roles in your life that you’re playing, that God has for you as a father, as a husband, as a grandpa. That’s not the way to deal with it. So one of the things you can do to help, if you just, some people just deal with negative thoughts a lot, I think all at some point we probably deal with negative thoughts, and probably most people’s worst critic is themselves. But here’s what’s interesting, Abigail Shrier here wrote a really good book that kind of exposes and shows just some of the trash in the therapy that’s going on these days. All right, she’s got two words: stop ruminating. Stop ruminating. Ruminating is like think deeply about something. Stop ruminating on your problems. Listen to this, she says, the number one symptom of depression is rumination. Pathologically obsessing over your pain. Getting out of your house and accomplishing anything is good for you. Sitting around, talking, and thinking about your problems is a bad habit. A lot of therapists indulge this approach, like a whole lot. Let’s talk about it. [audio unclear] You can deal with it, address it. But a lot of therapists indulge. The great ones don’t, but a lot of therapists indulge. So regularly ruminating—you know, the person, they do great at work, they’re working hard throughout the day, and then they come home, and they crash, right? They crash, and they reach for the bottle, or they reach for the porn, or whatever. Why? Because it’s like everything, finally the world stops for a little bit, and they can hear those negative voices, their own, speaking to them. God has way more for you than that. If you’re dealing with that, like, come talk to me, all right? We can get you some counseling. We can meet, we can talk, but not to keep you there, to get you out of it. Because God has more for you than that. And some people, yeah, more people than should, have a very low view of themselves. You have a very low view of themselves. I’m not big on the like self-esteem. I mean, some of that is overblown on the other side. But listen, God doesn’t want you to have a negative view of yourself. Even the Puritan, you read the prayer and you’re like, I’m a worm, I’m a dog. But it was still a proper view actually, because you’re like in contrast to what I’ve done, my sin, and what I deserve. But then they would flip around and talk about like how good God was to send Jesus to save them, and how they’re the diamond in the rough, and how he’s blessed them to live. Well, that’s us. God has something for us. If you’re living and breathing right now, God has you here for a reason.

Martin Luther, he talks about the bent of the soul. He called it incurvatus in se. It just means being turned in on yourself, basically like a narcissism or a selfishness. St. Augustine said that there’s two ultimate loves, love of God and love of self. And he went on, he says, we can only love ourselves in the proper biblical sense when we see ourselves as created by God as his image bearers. And we live as his likeness and for his glory. When we turn away from that in our sin, we fall short of his glory. Something becomes distorted. We focus on ourselves and everything we do, either obviously or subtly, becomes part of a new liturgy of self-centeredness. This incurvatus in se, like a turning inward. No, we have to turn outward. We have to look outward. We have to look for the cross of what God has for us in Jesus. Part of this turning in is us wanting the easy life, the pleasurable life, the enjoyable life. Suffering doesn’t elude God’s people. [audio unclear] the life to come. God does have… we were singing about it, right, when he comes. What’s going to happen? We’re meeting him up in the air. It’s going to be a great day. Trumpets and angels and all sorts of stuff. So we go. But [audio unclear] God has done with you. Now you… God promises and says, he’s talking to Moses, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” I will give you rest. And then what happens? God sends his Son Jesus, and what does Jesus tell the people? What does he say in Matthew 11? “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” It’s actually very similar phrasing in the Greek Old Testament, very similar. I mean, again, there’s these allusions to the deity throughout the New Testament, it just blows your mind. Is God saying, I’ll give you rest? And Jesus is like, I’ll give you rest too. Why? Because I’m God. So yes, he’s with us every single step of the way to help us out. You’re dealing with depression, Jesus can help you. He can help you. He can walk you through that. Guess what he’s done? He’s given brothers and sisters to also aid us in that fight. They can come alongside and hold your hands. Think about Moses, right? Literally, they’re fighting that battle. Moses has his hands raised. What happens? What happens? They’re winning, right? So what’d they have to do? They had to hold them up. They had to hold them up. Listen, we got to have brothers and sisters come alongside us. We got to be willing to let them hold us up, to love, to encourage, to challenge even, correct if necessary, even rebuke, but to be there in support.

If you ask, this is J. I. Packer, he says, if you ask, why is this happening? No light may come. But if you ask, how am I to glorify God now? There will always be an answer.

Faithfulness in the Long Life

You know the real sacrifice for Jesus? Dying? No. It’s living. It’s living. Dying is the easier part. I mean, it just happens, right? It’s a one-time thing. Living, go through 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 years that the Lord blesses you, maybe even 90. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, being faithful to the end, that can be pretty challenging. It’s possible by the Spirit of God, but that’s not an easy path. It’s the one we’re called to, but it’s not easy. Living, way more difficult. We always think we’re ready to do some huge thing for the Lord. And then when our spouse is like at 2 a.m., “Oh, would you go get me a glass of water?” Like we lose our minds. This little thing, you know, little glass of water. Hey, if we’re faithful in the small things, it’s going to show that we’re going to be faithful in the big thing. We got to start by being faithful in the small things. We’re willing to do great things for the Lord, and yet we won’t serve in the minuscule, in our opinion, not his opinion, but our opinion, minuscule ways. You think about Paul’s life. Was there opulence, riches, treasure? No. What about Peter’s life? Luxury, relaxation? John, easy, no problems? No. It was pretty challenging.

I had a friend at college. He’s like, I want to get back to the early church. I want to get back to the early church. It sounds genuine, it sounds like super spiritual. It sounds like you know what you’re talking about. But I started to think about it. I’m like, what does that imply? Well, it kind of implies everyone’s doing it wrong right now, right? But it kind of was like, what in the early church do you want to get back to? You want to be like hiding out in the catacombs because they’re looking to martyr you? Is that what you want to get back to? You want to get back to the Gnosticism that crept in, the sexual immorality that crept in, the laziness that was present? Like that was there in the church. I made a list one time of all the things present in the modern-day church, and all the things present in the early church. And they’re the same. Okay, so you get back to it, and you have the same problems, same issues, same challenges. Why? Because of what Martin Luther was talking about, the incurvatus in se, the inward bent that many of us have to push against and fight against and not let creep in. God has given us this life right now, the one we have. Listen, if he wanted you to be someone else, guess what? You’d be someone else. Some people don’t like who they are. God likes who you are. [audio unclear]

In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

(John 14:2–3)

All right, Jesus has each one of us here for a specific reason, specific task, specific goal. Ultimately glorify the Lord. But along the way, he’s got different tasks, and he has tasks for you that he doesn’t have for you, that he doesn’t have for you, but you’ve got tasks that these two people, these two people, these don’t. He’s got tasks and goals. And someday we’re going to be in heaven and we’re going to hear about people that we never heard of on this earth, but they were faithful saints. And for many years, what did they do? They did the tasks that the Lord wanted them to. And many of these, now that they’re believers, like God’s using them and doing great things, but some of them in heaven will pale in comparison to some of those people we never even heard of. “Well done, good and faithful servant.” No, he doesn’t. We can’t produce the fruit in others. We can’t do that. Even the fruit in ourselves is from him. But it’s “Well done, good and faithful servant.” What he’s looking for is faithfulness. Yes, in the mundane, every ordinary thing of being a student, of being a worker, of being a mom or a dad or a husband or a wife, a parent, faithfulness, faithfulness. We’re looking for something that only God can do here. Only God can do that, to have us remain faithful. And we want to have a church that is displaying that. All right. From the youngest to the oldest. I’m the youngest to the oldest. But the older, older saints are modeling it for the younger ones. Right? You think, oh, I’m kind of getting up there. Yeah. And those of us, those that are starting to realize more and more our feebleness and our mortality more, are looking to you to see how are they running and how are they doing and how will they finish, because that’s going to encourage us one way or the other to finish well or not. So finish well. And those younger ones, I mean, we should look, we should look at, and you know they’ve got some energy, they got a lot of energy, so let’s make sure there’s a place for them to use that energy in a God-glorifying way. [audio unclear] True. Fight against that. Strike down that notion. So much wisdom in people older than you. You want a mark of wisdom? When you realize that people that are older than you know a lot more than you and have a lot more wisdom. And then you want a mark of humility? You’re humble enough to go talk to them and ask them for help and get their advice and input. It’s true. It’s true. Don’t reinvent the wheel. They’ve already been down that road, already done that stuff, already been through it. Learn from them. They can steer and guide you and help you from making a lot of bad choices. Why? Because they made them. They included. All right, they can help you avoid some of that. They can help you steer. Kids, that’s what your parents are trying to help you do. And you think it’s like a heavy hand. You’re seeing Rehoboam, Solomon’s son. It’s not a heavy hand, though. It’s not a heavy hand. It’s a hand of love. They’re trying to nurture, correct, guide. You have to be willing to receive that. Whoever your parents are, God appointed them for you. And you know what? Someday they’re going to be gone. Raise your hand if you have at least one parent of yours that has passed away. All right, like half the room here, half the room. And someday, your parents are going to be gone. And most people that have both their parents, for sure, they’d be like, I would give just about anything to have one more day with my dad or one more day with my mom. I mean, so you say you care about them, but do something about it now and take advantage of the time. Your friends that are your age, they’re going to be around for another 50, 60 years. Your parents, not so much. Your grandparents, definitely not. So make sure you’re spending time with them and loving them and receiving from them. Someday you can’t, you won’t. It’ll be gone, it’ll be done. So make the most of the opportunity now. Value their life and you’ll realize that you get blessed for that. So God’s given us this life now. He wants us to make the most of it. So God has been gracious to give us this life. He didn’t have to do that. God’s been gracious to do that. So we want to value life, value your own life. Also the next life, all for his glory. Amen.

Closing Prayer

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the life that we have. We thank you for the life that we have in your Son Jesus, the life in Christ. Some people don’t have that. I pray for anyone here who does not have it, that today they would trust in you. They would trust in the work of your Son, that what your Son Jesus did on the cross was enough for them, that the sin was paid. They’d turn to you, repent of their sins, and trust. We thank you, Lord, that we have a life in you. It’s an abundant life. Even if we don’t feel like it, you say it. So help us trust. It’s an abundant life. An abundant life in you. So continue to increase the abundance, not of the physical things, Lord, but of the riches and glory that come from you. The spiritual riches, the goodness, the mercy, the grace, Lord. Continue to pour those things out on us. Continue to produce in us the fruit of the Spirit in abundance. Lord, I pray for anyone struggling with any negativity or depression, dealing with lack of self-worth. Lord, we pray you just drive that away in the name of Jesus. Completely remove it. Remove it, God. Completely we ask. Pray you touch them. Pour out your mercy and grace upon them. Help them to see themselves as you see them. Let them see themselves as you see them. Even now, Father, give them a clear picture of that. And we thank you, Lord, that we were bought with a price, with the precious blood of your Son, Jesus. May we walk in that newness of life. Do your work in us, Lord. Continue to work in us. Continue to mold us. Continue to shape us for your glory. Amen.