The Body of Christ
by Jeremy Painter
September 19, 2024 · Christian Life Church, Heath, Ohio
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Luke 22:14-20, Hebrews 10:4-7, Philippians 2:7

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/jeremy-painter--the-body-of-christ
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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Thank you, Pastor Anzy. And uh thank you. Thank you so much, church. It's been a wonderful time being with you, and I'm so thankful that I get to do this. And I I have been working on being more concise in ministry. I've really been trying to start uh shortening things and I have been so miserably unsuccessful this week and I'm surprised anyone's here right now um that you didn't just hear that h that last song and then turn around and go back in your car. So, thank you for um your patience and also it's a joy to preach and teach to people who love the word of God. Amen. Would you open your Bibles to Luke the 22nd chapter Luke 20 Luke Luke 22 14- 20 I so deeply admire um Pastor Enzy and his family. uh really have for a long time and I

generally don't take I try not to take too much time with um formalities at the beginning and I try to get right into things. Uh but I just feel it's appropriate on this last evening just to uh say what I think uh you feel as well. Um, man, if I if I were looking for a church with a good pastor, I would come here. This is what I would do.   He's trustworthy and kind and gentle. The scripture, the apostle Paul teaches in scripture that the servant of the Lord must be gentle unto all. uh even to those who oppose themselves. And um there's your man. Amen. Amen. Luke 22. And when the hour was come, he sat down and the twel apostles with him. And Jesus said unto them, with desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I

suffer. For I say unto you, I will not eat anymore thereof until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took the cup and gave thanks, and said, Take this and divide it among yourselves. For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God shall come. And he took bread and gave thanks and break it and gave unto them, saying, "This is my body which is given for you. This do in remembrance of me." Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new testament in my blood which is shed for you." My blood shed for you and this is my body which is given for you. I would like to speak teach tonight on the body of Christ. Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray that you would bless

this time, and that the truth would be spoken here, would be taught. I pray that you would be glorified. I pray that you would be glorified that for which we were made to behold your glory, that we would catch a glimpse of your glory tonight and then teach us how we should then live. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Thank you for standing. You can be seated. This is my body which is given for you. A body is a powerful thing. Um, in the ancient world at various times the human body was regarded as a very lowly thing, insignificant, immaterial. And in fact, in some circles of the ancient world, the body was the enemy. But more than just the enemy, the prison that kept the soul from being free. Even certain heretical Christian groups of the ancient world bought into this kind of idea.

So everything that pertained to the body was insignificant and even not just suspect but deeply evil. And so the goal in these circles was to rid themselves of the needs of the body, the desires of the body and uh be set free as soon as possible from the body. And then once the body had expired, the soul, the spirit was free to fly upward and join the divine uh which the body had been keeping the soul and spirit from. Um this actually led to a couple of different strange and in some ways counterintuitive outcomes. On the one side, you can understand how this would lead to an extreme form of what was called as aceticism. That is a a strict denial of the body. Uh to the point of starving uh to the point of forbidding marriage. Uh procreation was absolutely prohibited in these circles

because you were producing more bodies. Um but on the other side there was the counterintuitive result in some circles where indulgence of the body's needs or wants, desires could be um was completely permissible because uh the body didn't matter. Whatever you did in the body didn't matter. It was just a body, just a lump of clay. That's all it was. It didn't matter at all. So whatever you did in the body was insignificant. So indulge it to your heart's content and then one day you'll expire and your spirit will be free. Uh this kind of idea at least in Christian circles was squashed by about the 4th century. But I feel uh that there is a kind of a revival of that sort of idea coming back that the body the body that you were given is somehow insignificant. It's meaningless. Um the body that

you were born with is not a sign at all from God. It's not according to God's will. God is not at all concerned with what you do in your body. Um it's interesting how that might be coming back. But what I want to say, what I want to teach here is the significance of the body and particularly the body of Christ. Jesus is the incarnation of God. God in his wisdom took a body for a mission to complete a mission. He God in his wisdom and omnipotence could not complete the mission for the redemption of the world without a body. Hebrews 10:4, it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. The author says, "Wherefore, when Jesus cometh into the world, or Christ cometh into the world, he saith, sacrifice and offering, thou wits not, but a body hast

thou prepared me." But a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, "Lo, I come to do thy will, oh God." Focus on the words, "A body hast thou prepared me," from this passage of scripture. The author of Hebrews is citing the words of David from Psalm 40. But the author here interprets this passage from Psalms as a prophecy of Christ. And more specifically and strangely, these are said to be the words of Christ the son of David when he cometh into the world. That is as he's being born. In other words, these are the words expressed in the incarnation itself. The sacrifice of animals in the Old Testament was insufficient. They couldn't solve the problem of sin. They couldn't save the human being from the effects of sin. They couldn't solve this

problem. So, a body was made. A body that God himself could assume. But what is this body for? The spirit of God is omnipotent. He can do anything by mere decree. Just speak the word and it appears. This is the testimony of scripture. And this is just the problem though. To have a body is to have limitations. A body can unlike a spirit be a sacrifice. As Philippians chapter 2 and verse 7 shows, though Christ was equal with God in taking a body, he emptied himself of God's rights, prerogatives, and powers. He would have a body. Now, God would have a body whose sole purpose was weakness, limitation. He would have a body that would have to depend upon, imagine, a human mother. A body now susceptible to microbes. A body that could sweat through a fever, nourished by mere water. A body that could

shiver in the cold, warmed by a blanket. A body that could misjudge a step and fall down the stairs. A body that could forget the name of someone that he met last week. A body that could be crippled by grief. A body that could lose its freedoms to the men he made. A body that could be fastened to a tree with nails. In the incarnation, God was saying sin is not a problem that can be dealt with by any lesser means. So here is a body, my body that I can lay down for a sacrifice. And when the incarnate God encountered physical blindness, a simple touch could heal and restore like the spirit of God could speak and it was so. When a child was on the brink of death, Jesus, God incarnate, could simply say a word and the child would rise. When a

dead man lay in a tomb for 4 days, Jesus could call him by name and he would come forth from the tomb. But when it came to healing men and women of their sins, Jesus couldn't just speak our sins away, he couldn't just touch like he did the eyes of the blind man. No, this would require a body. So, a body hast thou prepared me? And he took this body and threw it into the awful machinery of sin and frustrated the work of the enemy. This is my body, Jesus told his disciples at the last supper, which is given for you. It's an ancient Christian teaching, an ancient Christian doctrine, an ancient Christian truism that whatever God did not assume of the human experience in the incarnation could not then be redeemed. In other words, the only part of the or the only way he

could redeem any aspect of the human experience was by assuming by taking on that experience. So if God only took a body but didn't have a human soul and spirit, he couldn't only redeem the body but not the human soul and spirit. If God only redeem or only took upon himself a human spirit but it wasn't really God's own body, then the body, the human body could not be redeemed. Whatever was to be redeemed had to be assumed by God in the incarnation. So imagine a human heavenly blueprint for this body before it was formed in Mary's womb. How tempting it would be to construct a body that only has the appearance of humanity, but a body that in reality doesn't feel pain. a body that might not feel the pangs of hunger, the pressure of an intense headache. Make a forehead, because we know

what comes at the end of the story. Make a forehead that doesn't feel thorns in the brow. A back that doesn't feel the soldier's whip. Make hands and wrists without nerves to shriek at the iron nails penetrating them. Make a tongue that doesn't swell and parch and need to beg for water. There are many depictions in art of the crucifixion of Christ, but most of the time the depiction is of Jesus in a kind of silent repose with his head leaning to one side, his lips are closed. He almost looks as if he's at peace, almost asleep. But I imagine if you had stood there maybe hundreds and hundreds of yards away even and beheld this image upon the cross, you would have heard coming from his lips primal screams of agony probably filled the entire three hours in which he hung there. It wasn't

the will of God for him not to feel the pain. For we have not a high priest who's not touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. He entirely entered in to the human experience. He has already gone there for you. Wherever you could possibly go, Jesus has already been there. Your God has already been there. God incarnate assumed a body just like ours. Yes, he did. I remember a conversation I once had with a man who had lost his right arm. He rolled up his armless shirt sleeve and showed me the gnarled remnant of this arm that he had lost. Uh there were only 4 in left of mangled skin and cartilage below the shoulders. was a really uh uh gruesome scene for me and I felt a little bit embarrassed. But um

as people often do who are in this circumstance, they don't feel that embarrassment at all. But he he held up the stub of his arm and he asked he said, "A lot of people feel sorry for me. I can see that you're a little embarrassed and uncomfortable right now." Yeah. Um, they try to look away, make sure I don't see them looking at me funny. Do you feel sorry for me? I said, "No, I I don't feel sorry for you." He said, "Good. You shouldn't feel sorry for me. Now, let me tell you a little story." He said, "Why God gave me the arm that I lost. I wasn't born like this." I said, ' Okay.' He said, ' Because God knew that I'd be in a car accident one day and my son would be sitting next to me. And just as a shaft

of metal was headed for his face, I'd have that right arm to instinctively shield his face and take the blow. And I lost my arm. Shards of metal went straight through bone. It was unreoverable. But that arm saved my son. That's why God gave me my right arm. That was its main purpose. He gave it to me so that I could give it away to save the boy. No, don't feel sorry for me. He said, no man's right arm has ever served a better purpose. A son for a right arm. I'd make that trade every single day. And when I wake up in the morning and feel the arm I've lost, I give glory to God for the son it gained. Preach, preacher. This is my body which is given for you. I want to mention a few notable examples of sacrifice. Um for God

has given through the incarnation in the gospel this gift to us. For we too have been given bodies. And what can we do with ours? What is its main purpose? God in his infinite wisdom for reasons we don't always understand chose to save the world through his suffering. It seems to be that suffering is somehow redemptive. It saves. And it's still true today that God's people have been called also to a life of sacrifice. And through this sacrifice, through the self-denial, through taking up the cross, we too are continuing that act of redemption. You have been given a body. Now ask why. I want to introduce you to a few great American heroes. The first one, when I say his name, you'll say, "I never heard of him." But before we're done, I hope I hope maybe you tell somebody about him. His name was

Charles Jackson French, an African-American man from Arkansas. Just before World War II, he enlisted in the Navy. And during the war, Seaman French was posted as a cook on the USS Gregory, which was a high-speed transport that patrolled the South Pacific. And while on patrol near the Solomon Islands on the night of September 4th, 1942, enemy submarines surprised the Gregory and opened fire. And before the night uh was over, the Gregory was sunk and there were only 15 survivors. One of them was Seaman French. And they all together floated helplessly on the dark waters in an inflatable raft. But things were even worse for them than this. Distant ships began to open fire against all codes of conduct and codes of war began to open fire on the inflatable life raft. So Charles Jackson French saw that there was nothing for it. And so he

tied the raft's rope around his waist and he jumped into the dark waters and his feet brushed all night up against fins of teeming sharks. Seaman Charles Jackson French then swam for eight hours in the deep, towing the raft alone against the tide to make sure it never came within range of the distant gunfire. The ship's cooked that night saved 14 lives. And if Jesus Christ was anywhere on this earth on that night, he was surely in those waters of the South Pacific. What a powerful use of a body. This is my body which is given for you. There's nothing that sac that expresses love like sacrifice. There's nothing that reveals the image of God in man like sacrifice. I want you to imagine that picture of D-Day. It's so famous. It's that picture of the men in this landing craft on the Norman beach

and they're jumping out into the waters of the Atlantic, chest high in water, and they're carrying the guns up high. When I see this picture of D-Day, I can't help anymore but see divinity. My grandfather was part of this operation. You strip away the familiarity of the picture, the lines of the land and the sea, the form of common man. Next time you see it, look at the picture closely. But this time, look at it as a cosmic war of flesh and blood laying siege to principalities and powers. And earth is the battlefield. And here is man, not man as he is often understood to be, flawed, wicked, unfaithful, disloyal, and weak. No, look at the picture. Here is man. Man as he was meant to be. The dread of devils, the friend of angels, man made in the image of God, stepping into hell

and an almost certain death. 100,000 rounds of fleshpiercing bullets flying at the speed of sound, crisscrossing in every direction. Explosive minds haunting every step. Nothing willing the men forward but their love of their American family back home. When I see this, these men who were just boys days before, saying goodbye to their mothers, walking into an iron shredder that would by the day's end turn more than 10,000 of them into dust and ashes. I understand with the greatest clarity the words of the ancient psalmist. For thou hast made him just a little lower than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor. Look how close sacrifice brings you to the heart and nature of God. You may remember the story that unfolded not too far from here. I believe it was Somerset, Pennsylvania, wasn't it? That airplane that was hijacked on September 11th. There

was a man by the name of Todd Beamer. And as I recall the story, his wife had called him the night before the flight, that faithful flight. He called him. She called him the night before and said, "Um, we're going to have a birthday party for our daughter. Um, do you think you could change flights so you can get here a little earlier?" And so he changed flights and he got on that fateful flight. Why? You could ask why. I'm sure his wife Lisa asked many times. Why? Why was I compelled to pick up the phone and ask him to change flights and sentence him to death? But here was a body. A body hast thou prepared me? There was a mission. A mission that morning to save many, many lives. We have a transcript of the phone call that he made to a dispatch

when the plane was flying low enough. He talked to the dispatch. Her name was Lisa. And here's a record of that transcript I want you to overhear. A man on a mission. Lisa asks, "Has anyone been injured, Todd?" Todd says, "Yes, they killed one passenger sitting in first class. There's been a lot of shouting. We don't know if the pilots are dead or alive." He said, "A flight attendant told me that the pilot and co-pilot have been forced from the cockpit." "Where's the third hijacker now, Todd?" Todd says, "He's near the back of the plane. They forced most of the passengers into first class. There are 14 of us back here. Five are flight attendants. He hasn't noticed that I slipped into this pantry to get the phone." The guy with the bomb ordered us to sit on the floor in the rear of the

plane. And then there's a all kinds of commotion in the background. And then you hear Todd yell out, "Oh Jesus, help." And Lisa panicky voice, "Todd, Todd, tell me what's happening." And then about 30 seconds later of chaos, Todd says, "Hello. Hello. We're going down. I think we're going to crash. And then another 15 seconds pass and he says, "Wait, wait a minute. We're leveling off. I think we're okay. We're turning around. We've changed directions. Do you hear me? We're flying east again." And Lisa says, "Okay, Todd, tell me about the other passengers." Todd says, "A few passengers with cell phones have made calls to their relatives. A guy named Jeremy was talking to his wife just before the hijacking started. She told him that hijackers had crashed two planes into the World Trade Center. Lisa, is that true? And then there's a pause on

this end of the line now. And Lisa says, Todd, I have to tell you the truth. Brace yourself. It's very bad. The World Trade Center, both towers have been attacked. And Todd, you can hear him groan. Oh God, help us. And Lisa says, "A third plane was taken over by terrorists and it's crashed into the Pentagon. Our country is under attack and I'm afraid that your plane is part of that plan." And Todd says, "Oh, dear God, dear God, Lisa, will you do something for me?" This is the moment that he knows he will not die of old age. Lisa, will you do something for me? I want you to call my wife and my kids. Promise me you'll call. Tell them what's happened. He said, "You have the same name as my wife, Lisa. We've been married for 10 years. She's pregnant with our

third child. tell her that I love her. He cries for a few moments and and then and then he steps off the phone and comes back a minute later and says, "Lisa, we have a plan. Four of us are going to rush the hijacker with the bomb. After we take him out, we'll break into the cockpit." A stewardist is getting some boiling water to throw on the hijackers at the control. We'll get them. We'll take them out. But please, Lisa, do one last thing with me. And Lisa says, "Yes." Would you pray? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And then they pray, "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no

evil. for thou art with me. And then he puts down the phone and you can hear him say his last words to the other men and the women who are with him. Let's roll. What you can do with a body. There's an old story written by Charles Dickens. You're all familiar with it. The Christmas Carol. And you may remember Ebenezer Scrooge has one last night to reform. And so he goes up into his room, but he hears the sound of chains being drugged up the stairs and a ghost follows him in. And the ghost, his former partner in life, seeing how he squandered his life, is trying to warn his partner. While you still live, you can still make something of your life. And after he tells him, you're going to be visited by spirits tonight, and we want you to repent and be a

new man tomorrow. He begins to float back towards the window. He's going to float outside. And just before he ties that band that's going to hold up his chin, he says, "Look over at this window. What's passed between us?" And the window opens by some unknown operation. And he floats outside. the spirit does out into a spirit world full of spirits. And Ebenezer Scrooge follows him over to the window and he looks down and he can see the spirit world full of the ghosts of people who squandered their lives. But he sees some living, the very people that he had passed on the street on his way up into his own house. He sees a woman out there begging. She has a couple of children. She He sees a couple of orphans over on the other street corner, destitute and cold and shivering. And he

also sees these spirits who are like Jacob Marley. They died unrepentant and they squandered their lives. They squandered their body. And so they are doomed for the rest of their eternity to have only spirits with no body. They have the compassion that they should have had in life, but they don't have the body. And so they hover over these orphans and over this beggar woman and they cry and they weep their ghostly tears, wishing that they could do something tangible for these who are living, but they can't. What a powerful thing a body is. Ask why have I been given a body? And then consider that maybe this body wasn't given to me for just me. My body is not my own. And if you could say also, this is my body which is given for you. It's not uncommon for us to ask someone

what would they would do with their last day if they knew they had just one day left to live. Have you ever asked a question like that? Some would say they'd go to a place where they've dreamed of going their whole life or they'd see something they always wanted to see. Others say they'd eat their favorite meals, talk to their favorite people. With only one day left to do, they would do whatever they wanted to do. No inhibitions. But suppose Jesus were out in the crowd and you asked everybody, "Raise your hand and tell me what you would do with your last day." Fortunately, there are four hands in the crowd that go up and they speak for Jesus. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And we have a very detailed record of exactly what he did when he knew he had one day left with

this body. With his last day, he washed his disciples feet. He didn't go on a cruise. He didn't go to his favorite place to see. He didn't eat his favorite meal. He prayed all night for his disciples. And then he healed the ear of the man who came to arrest him. And then he carried our cross to Calvary. And he pardoned a thief while both hands and feet were nailed to wood and brought him to paradise. And when among his last breaths he had compassion on his mother and the disciple that was with her. And then he forgave every last one of his murderers. And so the one who was born of a virgin womb, the one who commanded tens of thousands of listeners, the one who spoke once to the sea and said, "Sit down." and it did. The one who called to the

fish and they came. The one who summoned Moses and Elijah from glory to stand with him on the mountain. The one who commanded a host of heaven's armies ready at his signal. The one who once stood in front of the tomb of a rotting corpse and with a simple command pride a man loose from the grip of death. This man in the last day of his earthly life suddenly seems to have turned off all of his powers. He's no longer in command. He goes from hand to hand, a prisoner, starting with his weakest and lowliest disciple Judas, and then on to the scheming priest Caiaphas. Then on to the Roman prefect Pilate. Then on to King Herod. Then he's handed over to the mob. And then the one who has jewels in his crown named Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is made to wear a crown

from the brambles of the earth. The one who holds heaven's scepter of righteousness is made in mockery to hold a couple of sticks fastened together into a child's pretend scepter. And the one before whom legions of trembling devils lower their heads in unwilling reverence is handed over to childish pagan soldiers who bow their knees and taunt him and feel the quality of his garment they will soon divide. The rock of ages is now so weak another man a foreigner from other parts has to help him up the hill. And at last, the one who made that hill with his words somewhere back in the distant shores of time handed over. He's handed over to a cross. And now brute nature consumes ignorantly the prized possession of creation. Jesus, the son of God, the crown jewel of the universe, for whose advent all of creation was

made. A couple of days earlier, the disciples were walking with Jesus towards Jerusalem and all of them knew that whatever was about to happen in Jerusalem was momentous. and two brothers, James and John, they sidled up next to Jesus and asked him, probably in hushed voices, "Grant that one of us may sit at your right hand and one at your left hand in your glory." But Jesus informed them that they didn't really know what they were asking. He was on his way not to the kind of glory they were thinking of, ruling, reigning, holding high rank in the capital city. Jesus was on his way to suffering and sacrifice and the rest of the disciples hearing what James and John had requested were disgusted by their fellow disciples naked ambition. But Jesus used the moment to teach that authority in the kingdom of God doesn't

operate the way it does in the world. In God's kingdom, servantthood isn't the entrylevel position. Servantthood is the supreme promotion. The greatest human being in the kingdom of God must be the servant of all. And Jesus said that even the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. If you consider this passage of scripture carefully, you'll notice that in Mark's gospel, James and John's questions don't go entirely unanswered. They wanted to know if they could sit in the seats of power at Christ's right and left hand. But the next time we see somebody at Jesus right and left hand in the Gospel of Mark is at Calvary. When Jesus is crucified, there is one man being crucified on his right and another on his left. And that is Jesus's answer to James

and John. If you're to sit at the seats of authority in the kingdom of God next to Christ, those seats are rather uncomfortable. In fact, to sit there, you will have to lay down your life. To sit at the seats of authority in this kingdom, you'll have to be crucified with Christ. We have been called to a life of sacrifice. Paul said,"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." What are our bodies made for? There are just some problems in the world that cannot be solved with wishing them to be solved. There are some problems that you're not going to be able to solve with a prayer meeting. There are some problems that are going to require you to personally put skin in the game.

They're in fact going to cause you discomfort and inconvenience. They will require you to lay down that comfort, inconvenience, maybe even your security and safety, maybe even your health and your wealth. Some problems are just going to require your whole body. And I would encourage you never to say no to Jesus. The world might ask the church, "Why do you preach the things you do? Surrender the things you surrender? Live lives of self-denial." And the church's answer is we were saved by the cross of Christ. So a body hast thou prepared me? We go forth and we give of ourselves. And God will bless your sacrifice. You might not feel like you have much to offer, but God gave you a body. God gave you a body. God gave you a body. what you could do with that voice, what you could do with those

eyes, what you could do with those hands, what you could do with those feet, what you could heal, what you could help save, what you could help redeem, what your life could look like, what the people's lives around you could look like, what Heath could look like, what New York could look like, what Ohio could look like if just a few people would lay their bodies down and not dedicate themselves to their own comfort. not spend their entire lives looking towards their retirement and building everything up for THE FUTURE, BUT LAYING IT ALL ON THE LINE NOW. AMEN. What could happen? Maybe I'm not talking to everybody, but there are a couple of you God is calling you radically and you have been you've been you've been thinking about this. I'm here to tell you tonight, lay it down. Lay it down. Your life is

bigger. It's bigger. It's bigger than anything you could imagine. It's bigger. It's worth and capable of so much more. Your job in this world, the body that you were given, was not to be a pleasure receptor. It was not to be safe and convenient all the time AND COMFORTABLE. THAT'S NOT THE POINT OF LIFE. LOOK AT CALVARY. LOOK AT CALVARY. LOOK WHAT YOU'RE WORTH. What your life is worth. what your body could do if you gave it holy to Jesus Christ. And so, and so could Jesus look down upon this congregation and say to the world today, "This is my body which is given for you." This is his body. This is his body. You are his body. You are his body. For Christ's love compels us because we are convinced that one died for all and therefore all died. And he died for all

that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a merely worldly point of view. If your marriage has been getting selfish, tell your spouse, "This is my body. It's given for you." Tell your children, "This is my body. It's given for you." And tell them, not just with words, but with actions, your friendships. This is my body which is given for you. God might bring somebody into your life that's going to be awfully con inconvenient. Open your arms to them. God doesn't bring anybody into your life by accident. He puts you in the way of their destiny so that you could help. What a body could do. Would you stand with me? Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. Glory to God. God, give me

strength to do what I know I need to do. I've been pushing it out of my mind for a long time and hoping that burden would just go away. Give me the courage and the strength to take up the cross and follow you, God. That this church would be a sacrificial church and that the members would give itself to the city. Jesus name. Jesus name. In Jesus name. If in any way the Lord has called you in the teaching of his word on the body, would you come forward? And the Lord is going to he's going to speak to you down here at the altar. He's going to give you the strength and the courage to do what he's called you to do. He's going to give you the compassion to do what he's called you to do. In Jesus name in Jesus name. In

Jesus name. Jesus name. God bless the ministry of this church. God give them strength and help. Jesus. Lord Jesus. Bless the leadership of the church. Give them strength. Give them strength. Jesus. Bless your people, Lord. Enlarge their hearts. enlarge their soul. Jesus, let there be compassion again. Compassion again, Lord Jesus. Compassion for the lost. Compassion for the hurting. Compassion for the wounded. Jesus name. Compassion Jesus Jesus Jesus name give me compassion Lord for the lost Jesus name Jesus