This morning, as we worship our great God together, we have several reasons to celebrate. Our God lives, our God reigns, our God leads with love and mercy. Our God has rescued us through the work of his son, and our God continues to bless us. Here at Orangewood, a rosebud indicates that yet again, God has blessed this family with yet another covenant child. We have Pippa, Elise, Ma'an. Now Steve and Stephanie Ma'am are the Ma'am and Dad. Their fairly new members are from England, and both Ma'am and a daughter, Pippa, are doing well. And if you don't know the Ma'ans, they're a great family. We rejoice in God's blessing to them and to us as well. Turning your Bibles to 1 Peter 2, today in our journey through Peter, we're going to look at verses 13 through 17. Peter is going to tell us, again, who we are in Christ. He's going to paint an incredible picture for us, God's children, but here in this text, he's going to be very explicit about how we are to respond as God's children. Let me ask you a question. And by the way, this is not a rhetorical question. I want you to respond to this question, so clear your throat, you get ready. Do you know anybody who thinks their God's gift to the world? I mean, do you know anybody who thinks their God's gift to the world? You've kind of raised your hand if you know somebody who thinks their God's gift to the world now. All right, now hopefully not all y'all are picturing me, all right? Now, if we are, we got some serious issues before we start. But let me hear from you, if you think of that person, all right, the person that most comes to mind who thinks their God's gift to the world. Give me some descriptions of who that person is and what they're like. I can't hear you. No names, please. No names. What do they like? Prideful, arrogant, self-centered, confident, haughty, annoying, who the rest of us, those are great. You know, interesting, diva, I guess they did have me in mind. So interesting that each one of us, when we talked about someone who came to mind about being God's gift to the earth, pretty much had negative connotation. Every one of us, when we talk about having God's gift to the earth, immediately thought of someone who's arrogant, someone who's haughty, someone who's self-centered, someone who thinks they're all that and then a bagadona. None of us really thought of God's gift to the earth as being someone who's a humble servant, someone who's Christ-like, someone who lives to love and to serve others, isn't that unbelievable? I mean, God's gift to the earth, wouldn't God's gift to the earth be more like Jesus? God's ultimate gift to the earth? And yet in our sin and our depravity, when we feel a position of power, when we feel like we are something, usually something happens with that and our sin and depravity is arrogance. We do believe we're somebody. We do believe that, therefore, if we are in a position of power, if we're in a position of prominence, if we are somebody, we believe that there is entitlement with a title. Give me a fancy title and let me live up to that title. Give me a fancy title, let me have entitlement. Well, Peter is painting a picture for us of who we are in Christ and he is using some gigantic titles. He's saying things like, we as Christians, we are a holy nation. We are a people belonging to God. We are a chosen race. We are a royal priesthood. I mean, these are incredible descriptions that God's word gives to us and they are true descriptions of who we are in Christ. And Peter is writing these things and you can almost feel the chest of those who are reading this and hearing this for the first time and oftentimes with us as well, it's just kind of swell. I'm God's chosen. I am a part of a holy nation. I am a part of a royal priesthood. What entitlements do we have with titles like this? Interesting what God's word has for us. Look with me at first Peter 2, verse 13, being mindful that we are reading God's holy and errant word together. Peter through the inspiration of Holy Spirit says this, after giving them some incredible titles of who they are, he says this, submit yourself for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evil doers and the praise of those who do right, for such is the will of God that by doing right, you may silence the ignorance of foolish men, act as free men and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil but use it as bond slaves, as servants of God, honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king, let us pray together.
Father God, we thank you for the privilege that we have to come and to worship you and God for who you are and because of what you have done through the work of your son and the power of your spirit, we by your grace truly do delight in who you are. We delight in your word, we delight in your son who was perfect and forever will be perfect and because of his perfection, we can have hope in life. Father, it's your word in which we delight in today that we need to fully understand. So Father, would you come with power and would you be pleased to speak through a broken vessel who desperately needs to hear this message and live this out, who's failing daily. But God, would you come and speak for your glory, God, would you open up our ears to hear from you the true and living God, would you open up our minds so that we can understand your word and wrestle with it today together, would you soften our hearts so that we would embrace us, not just hear it and think about it, but embrace it into our lives and God would you empower our feet and so that when we leave here we will walk in light of your truth for your glory. The God, the things that are said that are merely my opinion or that are wrong, may they quickly fall away and be forgotten. But the things that are true, the things that contain the good news of Jesus Christ, would you use those things to shape us to be more like your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. We pray all these things for His glory and His glory alone, amen. The first thing we're going to see is Christians, given these incredible titles, is that we have to be living like people of privilege. We are people of privilege. Listen, Christian, lean into this. God so loves us. He has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. He has taken those of us who by nature are children of wrath and he has made us join airs with Christ. We are privileged people, all of creation is God's. He owns it all and yet there are a certain group that He has set His love upon. It's a mystery. We understand why He loves any sinners, but He does. But we have to live our lives like privileged people because Christian, that is who we are. We are people of privilege. Can you imagine what the world thinks of that first statement right there? Great, more Christians thinking they're privileged, thinking they're holier than now, thinking they're God's gift to this earth. But I think as we look into this text, we'll realize that God calling us to be people of privilege looks a lot different than what we're demonstrating to the world or what the world thinks. You see, people of position are often people filled with pride. They have huge egos, but it's not supposed to be true with us, my fellow Christians. We are to live lives as privileged, but we are entitled. We have entitlements. You ready for this? You're all that in a bag of donuts, Christian. Now you're entitled to submit. Starts off in verse 13, submit. And let me make it clear, the Holy Spirit can make us clear. You ready? He says this, submit to all authority. All authority. I mean, paint this incredible brush. All of human creation is really how that looks in the Greek. All that God is allowed, all authority that God has established. We are to submit to for the glory of God. What is our entitlement, living like people of privilege, being entitled to submit? That is what God is calling us to do. We may say, why? I mean, why should we submit? I mean, we're Christians. Why in the world should we listen to a pagan ruler? Why should we submit to a pagan society? Why should we live our lives? Really, God's our only king. Let's live for His glory and forget the world. I love the incredible practicality of God's Word to us because He knew. He knew that Christians were going to be living in a pagan world. And He knew that once we heard about this, all this entitlement, who we are in Christ, that we would want to revolt. That we would want to run. Now listen, there's a time that we do revolt. And it's a time that we don't submit when the man's laws are an opposition to God's laws. And there's a great series of sermons there that I'm not preaching today. That's not our emphasis. We'll come back to that some other time I promise. But here's what we need to know. God has called us to honor Him by honoring Him through submitting to all authority. Tell me to Romans chapter 13. I mean, Paul makes this incredibly clear. Romans 13, we're going to read the first five verses or so. It says this, Paul says in Romans 13, every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God. Isn't that amazing? There is no authority except from God. And those which exist are established by God. And there's a mystery here that a holy perfect God, who is sovereign and control of all things, can allow some authority to be established. It certainly isn't proclaiming his kingdom, that certainly isn't advancing his cause. Yet in the free will of man, under the sovereign hand of God, God has established all authority. He's the one who removed kings. He's the one who raises up kings. And he says, listen, it's there. If you got authority in your life, young people, you got authority in your life, it's called parents. They're there designed by God. You may not like it. You may want others. But God has established all authority. Young people again, you may not like your teachers. You may not like your principles. But all authorities established by God. Those of you in the workforce, you may think that your boss is a nutnik, and that you shouldn't be able to respond to him or her. All authority is established by God. You see, there's a chain of command here that God wants us to see where he's on the top. Where he is on the top, and we're not necessarily submitting to the one right in front of us or the one above us, but ultimately, listen, Christian, ultimately, we are submitting to God because God isn't one who's established all authorities. Make it sense? Yawning your father and mother. You're submitting to God. When you obey the laws of the land, you are honoring God. Therefore, whoever resists authority, verse two, has opposed the ordinance of God, and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil, kind of what Peter says as well. That's what the government should do. Punish evil, reward, that's what's good. I know they don't often do that, but he tells us, do what is good, and you will have praise from this same. Verse five, therefore, it is necessary to be in subjection. Verse six, even paying taxes. You see, all authority, God is established. He said, this, you're privileged. You are so privileged. Living a life of privilege means this, submit. Live your life in submission. Not just to sum, but to all authorities. You know how we want to live our lives? We want to cherry pick the rules, don't we? I mean, just be honest with one another. We want to cherry pick the rules. We want to look to see what rules we think are fair and just. What rules really want to offend us a whole lot? What rules won't really clamp down on our lifestyle a whole lot? And we'll pick those that we can align ourselves and our lifestyles with. And those that we don't like, we have a tendency to cherry pick and say, no, we don't want those. You know, that doesn't really apply to me. I mean, I see it in my own life. And to be honest, I see it in all of our lives. I mean, even things like carpool. You know, certain places are supposed to drive. Certain places you're not. Certain places you're supposed to pick up. Certain places you're not. And sometimes you go, that doesn't apply to me. I'm entitled to something else. And I'm in a park where I want to park. I'm going to go where I want to go. I'm going to drive the way I want to drive. It doesn't really apply to me. I'm going to cherry pick the rules. You know what we're doing? We're setting ourselves up as judge and jury, aren't we? We're basically saying in the arrogance of my own heart, I think I should be able to deem which I obey and which I don't. And God in His infinite wisdom says, listen, you can't cherry pick them. They're there for you. And you are going to honor me if a law seems stupid. If it seems trivial. If it seems to be a nuisance, it doesn't matter. Honor God. Is that a hard one or not? That seems to me to be a pretty difficult one. Because you know, we live in a time and a society where we do believe that sometimes it's about us. And you know, let's be honest, look around. We're pretty much people of privilege. Now let's set aside the Christianity stuff just for a moment and say, look at us. I mean, we live in America. I mean, look at us. We're pretty much a pretty well-to-do people. Look at us. We have stuff. We have titles. Look at us. We have life. We have more than we can sometimes even manage to look at us. Look at how good we are. Look at all we've done. You know, we think, therefore we are entitled.
All these blessings are to be used for God's glory. And they are used for God's glory by submitting. Submitting ourselves to all of the rulers. I got to tell you, man, it stinks preaching sometimes. Because you know what happens? You got to practice what you preach. We got to at least try to practice what you preach. Let me preach. Let me tell you right now, I fail miserably. And you guys know that. I try. And I run to Christ when I fail. And he reminds me that I'm his. And I'm okay in Christ. And we go keep going. But just yesterday. Just yesterday, I had a long day. Katie's out of town this weekend. Mr. Mom, so if I don't match this, give me a break. And I had a pick up. I had the privilege of picking up Jesse. She came in with the Youth Ministry team from Acapulco. They got in about 10 minutes to 11 after a long day. And I went there to pick her up. And now the parents that really love their kids. They parked and they went in and greeted them. And they loved them. You know, now, but for those of us who had a big day to day, I'm not going to do that. You know, I love you, Jesse. But I'm going in. I'm going to pick her up and believe. They had a guy there with all his vest on. Traffic security.
He was all out of patience. And I drove up and he quickly told me that I had a move. You know, somebody gave that guy a whistle. I mean, who gave who? What brilliant guy decided that guy should have a whistle? And he used it. You know, hey, you got to keep going. You got to keep going. My daughter's coming. Yeah, I don't care. I'm getting a tow truck. You got to keep going. I mean, I was so aggravated with this guy. I tell you, I showed him the love of Christ. I say, you know, let me just tell you, we're going to be talking about this tomorrow. You come to Orangewood because I would love to tell you you more. No, I didn't say more. All right. But my daughter asked me, my youngest asked me out. She says, what does it mean, Dad, when you said you're a whale of a guy to that guy? I said, well, it means your dad needs to confess his sins. And I know it's hard. And I just felt like I had the right. And this guy was bugging me. And I don't want to follow the rules. I mean, I could see you right there. Let me just stop here, OK? You know, Jesus was perfect. He submitted. He submitted to the rulers. Can you imagine the son of God, the creator of all things, having to listen to knuckleheads like us and submitting? And the humility of that? And not fighting back, not lashing out, being entitled to submit. And why? I love this why. Why do we have to submit? It says this, for the Lord's sake, for the Lord's sake. Not for your boss. It's not for your parents, ultimately. It's not for those who are above you. It's for God, the one who has established all authority. It's for his sake. It says, God, I want to live my life for you. I want you to have the glory in my life. And therefore, I want to live my life where others will sing your praises. It's for the glory of God, for the Lord's sake. Submit. Includes our bosses, our teachers, our parents. Being entitled, not only to submit, but we're also listening, being entitled to serve. It hurts us all, I know. We all want to well, I'll cry out. A title that God gives us, He gives us a title to serve. He gives us this title. He tells us that you're the apple of my eye. You're my chosen. I love you. I've said an eternal love on you. I'll never change my mind about you. I love you so much. My son is come to wash away your sins by giving his precious blood to you and his life to you. I love you so much. I'm going to send the Holy Spirit. He's going to come for you. He's going to lead you. He's going to guide you. I love you so much. I'm going to make a home for you. And we're going to spend eternity together. I love you so much. Therefore, serve. That's an incredible title. But again, we look into the face of Jesus who had the title of all titles, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the one and only son of God. And what did he do? He came to serve and not be served. And to give his life is a ransom to many. Serving like people of freedom is what we find in verses 15 and 16. The gospel is such good news. It's what it means, good news. The gospel is the proclamation of liberty. Listen, the gospel is the proclamation of liberty. Have you heard it? Have you heard that your sins, the power of your sins has been paid for, has been broken on the cross? The penalty of your sins have been paid for on the cross? Have you heard that you can find freedom in Christ? Freedom to truly live? Have you heard the good news that in Christ, we can live and live a life abundantly in him? What an incredible good news. We don't have to be slaves to sin. We could be set free. The gospel is the proclamation of freedom. But the gospel is also the initiation and the slavery. It's the initiation and the slavery. But the greatest kind of slavery you can ever find. Not indentured slavery like we know. And we even have an ignoble pass up here in this country. No slavery to God. Listen, here's the beauty. As we serve God, as God is intended. If we live for his glory, we find life and life abundantly. We are set free by doing that, which God has created us to do. And that's serve him. It is not losing life. It is not taking away life. It's finding it. And now through the gospel, we no longer have to serve ourselves to such great news. We no longer have to try to beat up our neighbors to get up on top of them. Now we have, through the gospel, the ability to serve our living and true God. We have that through the gospel, serving like people of freedom. Freedom as God has intended us to serve and to serve him and others. You know, when we become Christians, it says we're recreated. We are reborn. There's a new birth that takes place. And this recreation is making us like God has intended us to be even better. And how do you make us intended us to be? Well, he created us to work and to serve. He created us to serve him in a garden. He created us to have a relationship with him without sin. And in Christ now, we are able to do that, which God is intended for us to do. And this is it to know him, and to love him, and to serve him with our very lives, and to serve him by the way we serve one another and finding his pleasure in doing so. We're no longer free to serve ourselves, Christian. We're no longer to harm our neighbors for our better good, but we are free to love and to serve our God and love and serve our fellow man. You know what a great church motto would be? And we've got a pretty good one. What's our church's motto? Very good. Not about us for Christ's Kings, not about us. But you know what? Here's a really good one. I'm not going to say we're going to change this, but here's one. I really like. Love all, serve all. But another organization has already taken it. Do you know that another organization are taking it out now? Let's have a little game here. What organization has the motto? Love all, serve all. I mean, could it be the Billy Graham Association? I mean, can you imagine what a great model that would for Billy Graham? Love all and serve all. Well, it's not them. Could it be E-Harmony? I mean, love all, serve all, and E-Harmony. Do you know that there's somebody here that recently got married that met on the internet, like one of those things? I'm not going to say who? They just don't look around. But it's not them either. Campus Crusade for Christ. Can you imagine? Love all, serve all. Wouldn't that be a great lingo for Campus Crusade of Christ? Who was that? Anybody know who that last one is up there? Hard Rock Cafe. That's their motto. Love all, serve all. In 1971, two Chaps, Isaac Tigret and Peter Norton started Hard Rock Cafe. Tigret's Guru, a guy by the name of something like Scythia Sai Baba, had the motto, love all, serve all. Is that not a great model for the church? You see, Christians is our call. This is our call in Christ Jesus. And someone so much greater than a guru named Baba has commanded us to do it. You see, serving like people of freedom, serving in God's name in verse 15 says this, its silences are critics, the ignorant. It actually stops up their mouth. It literally muzzles their mouth. All those people want to say those Christians are nothing but hypocrites. Those Christians, they think they're holier than now. Those Christians, they think that their gods give to the earth. Those Christians, I see their life. God says this is what I want you to do. I want you to live for my glory. Love me and serve all, serve all in my name. And therefore, you know what I'm going to do? You're going to plug up the mouth of those who say those Christians. And they'll say, I have nothing to say. And let's see by God's grace our good works and glorify our Father in heaven. You know what it is by stopping up their mouth? You know when we submit to authority, when we love all and serve all, you know what we're doing? We're really proclaiming the reality that Christianity is true. It's true. And what we believe, we really live out. It's genuine. And it's the genuine article being demonstrated that our God lives and reigns. Verse 17 says this and it's for real quick and fatic. This is what it's like. Listen, loving like children of God, we are people of privilege. Therefore, we got to live like the people of privilege. We need to submit. We need to serve like people of freedom. And therefore, we need to love all and serve all. And lastly, we need to love like children of God. Look at verse 17. Honor all people. Frequent expression I hear from us is, I don't know anybody anything. I don't owe you anything. You know, what do you want from me? I don't owe you anything. According to God's word, listen, listen to this. Honor all people. Honor them. You know what that means? You go ahead. You know what that means? Let me show you respect and dignity. I don't care about your color. I don't care about your class. I don't care about your nationality. I am called to honor you. Why? Because we're honoring him. They're made in his image. And we're showing that we get it. We're showing that we love God's creation. We love God's image that he's come to redeem. And we need to honor all people above ourselves. And quit thinking that we're all that in the bag of doughnuts. And somehow the world owes us something. And somehow there's a reason this is pecking order of class. Christian, there is a pecking order of class. And God's eyes were the apple. That means that we're on the bottom of the totem pole lifting everybody up. And we're loving them. And we're loving them like crazy. And people say, why are you loving that person? Because they don't look like you. And they don't smell like you. And they don't make what kind of money you make. And they don't have your kind of titles. Because I am honoring all people. Because I love my God. And that person is made in his image. Love the brotherhood. Yes, honor all people. But there's a special love that God has for us for one another. Scripture says in Galatians 6 verse 10, that we are to do good to all people. But especially to the household of faith, there is a fraternity here. There is a fraternity in Christ that there should be something different. Yes, we're to honor all those out there when we come here with love. There's a Goppe love. We're to selfishly love one another. In a way that's unique. In a way that says, man, I can tell that Jesus is disciples by the way they love one another. Sadly, sometimes the church becomes by the way we pick at one another. We lead with love and mercy as our father has. Fear God. That's ultimate. Fear God. In a way, a fear God showing him respect, showing him honor. Jesus himself said in Matthew 10 verse 28, why do you fear the authority of men that all they could do is kill the body? Fear the one who could destroy the soul and send it into hell. Fear God. He is God, creator of heaven and earth. Live your life out of respect for him. So everybody can see God in what you say and what you do. And lastly, honor the king. Honor those authorities again. He makes a complete loop, especially King Jesus. Orangewood. I've been so proud. I've been so proud the way that you have shown the love of Christ to others in word indeed. God's spirit is moving. We can't stop here. We need to do more and more. Why for the sake of Christ? There's no higher calling to silence the ignorant so they cannot call us hypocrites. And more and more will come. Take a look at this clip and we celebrate what God has done through us at Orangewood.
My mother followed by this house. When they bought it, it was a piece of a mess that was. They do what they could for it. Then my husband and I took it over and we did a little little little but he passed on. It's nothing I could do. I couldn't afford to get it this.
You have to have seen the house before and have seen her in the house before to really understand how when anyone went in then they couldn't leave not being disturbed.
When you do see people down the street from your church, around the corner from your church, when you see people rather than your own neighborhood who are suffering, who are impoverished, who are living in less than ideal circumstances, how can you simply turn away from them? It's easy to send money over to communities overseas and it's nothing wrong with that. And that's very good. But a lot of times you have the people that have a need as I said right next door. Your neighbor next door. We wanted to see if we could pull the community together so that we could do a project as brothers and sisters in Christ, locked arm and arm doing something that could otherwise not be accomplished. The house situation is quite severe and urgent. We went to the pastors of the community and we were able to pull together a coalition of nine churches that were going to come together and find some great need in the community where we could band together and as brothers fill that and satisfy that need. It's living conditions that no human being should live in. Ms. Harmon, among all of us there, once we saw the condition of her home, once we saw her health situation, we realized that she had the greatest need. And everybody's heart was moved with compassion. It's not about the color. It's about the love. It's about letting the world know who we represent. We represent Christ who will not represent racism. And I think this is one of the greatest things that had ever happened to Edenville. I've been praying about this, been preaching about this. And the Lord just blessed us to be a part of this. As we look at a project, a look at a situation, a look at circumstances of life, we often try to analyze and determine what we can and can't do. And I'm learning from this experience that we put it in God's hand. There isn't anything too hard for it. We've heard a lot of talk of God and one of the greatest ways to build bridges to our communities and reach people is to go out and demonstrate that love indeed.
In order to fulfill the mission that Jesus commanded us to do, we have to come together as one in unity so that we can make these kind of impacts. We need to get the message out that Jesus is still the Lord, that God is still in control. That the Holy Spirit is very real and active. And by doing these kinds of projects, that's what we achieve. I see people really see it with crisis all about it. For a long time ago, they just really thought it was just a formality. But now they see the reality of Christ. And I thank God for this. God's kingdom is about love, not hate, death, and darkness. But love, light, and life. And I think if we show and express and demonstrate that love here on earth, then we can attract a lot of people who are just falling in love with God. And that's his intent from the beginning. And want to follow us with him to heaven. When we say we love one another, we've got to love the individual. We've got to look beyond the challenge and see the God in the people. In the people. And I think this project is opening up on a lot of our understanding. It has been said that 11 o'clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America. And when I first heard that, I thought it was talking about the races. But then as you look at it, we're talking about just us people in the community. We have churches in the same community that we know not all. Our goal is not just to build the house, but to transform a community. And in order to do that, you have to have partners. And so we banded together with the churches of this community to do a good work in the name of Jesus Christ. This thing can spray it throughout the community. I'm not only here in the local area of Edenville, but to make land there, to Orlando, to wherever God says, say, go, there's a need. So that's what we thought about. We got to be together. You know, and this is what actually a great unity coming together. A great bond, a brother-in-law coming together like never before. And this is going to be a wake-up, not only to the community, but to the county, the state, and not only this, but I know this spirit and other places also. That spirit of unity and fellowship grew stronger and stronger as we built trust with one another, with sincerely looking simply to show the love of God in a community that needed that love. They talked about the Berlin Wall, but now we're tearing down the America Walls, you know, where people can really see what the love of God is all about. And I think this is a great sermon here, all within itself. It has helped us to bridge and to reach across denominational and racial lines. It's helped us to really understand that the body of Christ is not made up of us individually, but that the body of Christ are believers from all over the world. As everyone set their heart on the things of God, everything fell into place and God just gave us a great success together. And this was the first project that we've worked on, where there were more people from other churches than people from our own church, even though we had undervolunteers come back. I can see it all through that God. And then this house itself shows it. And when all of us get together, let's show you what they can do through that God.
Lord, surround this house with your name, that merciful name, that gracious name, that devil would love to destroy and tear down this house. Lord, you keep it by your power. Keep it by your authority. Let this house be a lighthouse in this community. To make your name known to everybody in this community. Lord, when people pass by, let them feel the glory, let them feel the presence radiating out from this house. Don't let this community be the same. We have great time to make your name. Yes, Lord. In his great name, we pray. Let all the born again, Christen, shout amen. This is something better. Let all the born again, Christen, shout amen. It wasn't bad, pretty good. What an incredible video. And by the way, Robert, not better looking on video than you've ever seen. I mean, the guy's got a career. Hey, if you go to our website, hornswood.org, click on bridge building. You'll see that in all of our videos there. If you want to share them with the community, show what God is doing here. Let me encourage you to do that. But one of the ways we have to love all and to serve all is to continue to be reminded of who we are. And the giving of our ties and offerings is a proclamation that we trust God with our resources. And we want to worship them in their very lives. So as the ushers come forward, let me pray for today's giving of the ties and offerings. Mindful of this, we've got to give our very lives. Let's pray together. And, Father God, we thank you for who we are in Christ, the titles that you give us as joint heirs with our Savior, as a chosen people, a holy nation, a royal priesthood. And yet, God, this entitles us to serve others, and to submit our lives to the governing authorities for the advancement of Christ's kingdom, for the sake of Christ and for the silencing of our critics. And, Father, as we worship you now, the giving of our ties and offerings, would you bless the cheerful giver, would you bless the gift, and Father, would you advance your kingdom, and would you truly align our lives to submit to your rule and reign. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.