The Long Work of Becoming | Theology

Pastor Luke closes the Theology series by tracing what it means to follow Jesus not just for a season, but for a lifetime—looking at Romans 8, Philippians 2, and James 2 to show that salvation isn't the finish line but the starting point of a lifelong formation process. This message challenges the assumption that spiritual growth happens passively, and invites listeners into intentional discipleship as the path to becoming more like Jesus.

Romans 8:28-29 | additional: Philippians 2:12, James 2:14-19

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Luke Miller

Luke is the Associate Pastor at Conduit Ministries

What is Conduit Ministries?

We are all about helping people get closer to Jesus.
Sundays @ 9 AM & 11 AM - 120 Delaware Ave in Jamestown, NY

Let me lead us in some prayer, lead Pastor Luke as this Pastor Luke comes up. Luke's going to deliver the last sermon in the series, "Here I Stand, " which is a series on our doctrinal or our theological statement here at the church. And we're eager to hear it. So let's pray for him as he comes up here. Heavenly Father, Lord, we don't want to be just hearers of the Word. We want to be doers of it. Lord, so as we hear the Word of the Lord this morning, may we be like the one who built his house on solid rock, who heard the Word and then did what it says. And Lord, let us avoid the trap of being like the one who built his house on the sand, that heard the Word but did nothing about it. That foundation, Lord, is liable to be destroyed by the circumstances of life. Or we want to be hearers and doers of your Word. Would you write your Word on our hearts this morning? We pray for our Lord Jesus that you would give him a fresh revelation of insight and wisdom and grace and strength and perseverance

This morning. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you, Pastor Cameron. So yeah, like Cameron said, we are wrapping up our sermon series on our statement of faith, which we still have a number of copies out in front. If you want to look at those, these are our core principles of what we believe as a church, kind of some unchanging Christian doctrines that we decided to cover and talk about. We didn't get to cover all of them because to do so, we would have been here for a very long time. But what we have been doing is we have Pastor Cameron and I have been sitting down in the middle of the week and having some conversations about some of the theological topics we didn't get to talk about. Like we just had a conversation about the Holy Spirit and a conversation about Scripture, things that we didn't get to talk about here on Sunday, but we've made those available to you guys online through the church center app. So if you don't have that app, you could just type in church center and whatever app store you have. And then to connect with us on that app and on the front page, you'll see both our weekly sermons, but also those podcasts

Where we have some extended discussion on these things. And we're not just talking theology because we want to talk theology. We think it's important to cover the basics, to talk about those things that we might have a tendency to take for granted, but have big implications if we do not take them seriously. So we're going to be finishing up here and today we're going to be talking about the topic of discipleship and Christian living. That's called in our doctrinal statement. So before we get started, I'm just going to go ahead and read that for you so we can be on the same page. It'll be up here on the screen. This is what we have in our statement of belief about what it means to be a disciple and to live as a Christian. We believe that discipleship is a lifelong process of growth into Christ likeness. Believers are to pursue holiness in heart and conduct, walking in love towards God and others, serving in humility. Spiritual growth is nurtured through the word of God, prayer, fellowship, worship, and obedience to the Holy Spirit. So that is in short what we believe. Be praying for

Me that I do not cough. My throat is still irritated after having a sickness a couple weeks ago. Alright, that's what we're going to talk about today. Before we cover some of those concepts, I want to tell you a little bit about myself. I'm a person of many interests. I love new hobbies. I love learning new things. My most recent reading, what I've been reading in the evenings, is a rather thick book. It's a comic book. Don't roll your eyes at me. It's a comic book about how to make comic books. It's like the third book in a series. The first book was all about understanding the philosophy behind comic books. It's very interesting. I promise you. Anyway, I was reading this book the other night and I was like, "Wow, that's so interesting about how you have to draw facial expressions with a certain amount of symmetry, but you can use asymmetry inside of facial expressions to communicate things." I was like, "Well, that's really helpful for me to know because I'd never draw anything." I had just realized I was like, "I'm reading this book about how to draw comics and how to make comic books and all this stuff, but I do not regularly

Draw." I was like, "Oh, what am I doing this for?" It's all good and fun to learn a new thing, but if I don't actually do anything with what I'm learning, what good is that? If I actually want to read this book and not just know all of this, I'm going to have to be intentional. I'm going to have to get a pen and paper. I'm going to have to sit down and start trying to draw some squiggles that resemble something at some point. Otherwise, this is just an exercise in learning, but not actually growing into anything. Without any intentionality, we don't actually grow. We can fall into this trap online now because we just live in an information age. You can get on any of your favorite social medias. You can go on blogs. You can listen to podcasts. You can learn a hundred new things, but unless you implement those new things, what good is it? I can't tell you how many videos and things where I've heard of like, "Oh, this CEO's and this awesome guy's morning routine and how that fixed his brain and da-da-da-da-da." I've never tried any of them. I know all these things about how to have the perfect morning routine, but I've done very little to actually

Implement that. Without intentionality, we don't grow. This is a concept that is also found in scripture. Paul communicates this to the believers in Philippians, in Philippi, in Philippians chapter 2. Paul planted most of the churches that he wrote to, and so in Philippians, in Philippi, he is writing to them in the book of Philippians, telling them. He's giving them instructions because he's not with them anymore. He's like, "I'm away and I want to tell you to do this." So in Philippians chapter 2, verse 12 through 13, he's giving some like exhortation to a church that he helped start, and he's not there anymore. He's like, "This is what I want you to do." Verse 12, he says, "Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, you to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose." Now, this passage is kind of an interesting one because it has some language in it that we don't necessarily use

All of the time in particular, working out your salvation with fear and trembling. That's kind of different. Paul's saying, he's like, "You have to have some intentionality. You're saved, but like how's that going to play out in your life?" And you have to exert some level of work in that. You're going to have to exert some intentionality, and then you're going to have to do it not just when I'm in town, but when I'm gone too. And in working this out is doing something. Paul, it's not just that the work, that the believers are doing something. It says, "For God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose." So God's trying to accomplish something too. And so there's this question is how do we avoid being Christians only in name and not also in practice? How do we actually work out our salvation? Paul's telling us, "You've got to do something. You've got to bring some level of intentionality. It's not enough to simply read this book like another book I'm reading." Or it's not enough to simply go to church. There is some level of you need

To work it out. You need to be intentional. You need to bring some sort of implementation to what you're doing. How do we avoid being a Christian who says that on a survey versus a Christian who lives it out in their life? And so let's dig into that. And as I'm kind of saying that, you might say, "Well, Luke, like a couple weeks ago, you were talking about like, we don't do anything in our salvation, right? I was up here and I talked about salvation a couple weeks ago. And I said over and over again, you contribute nothing to your salvation except for the sin that makes it necessary, right? And that's the belief that you are stuck in sin and you cannot save yourself, that you do not earn God's love, that God is not waiting for you to fix your life and get it all together so that he can love you. He loves you as you are. He loves you in the mess. He loves you where you find yourself. For while we were still sinners, Christ died for us so that we might be redeemed and put into relationship with Him." So what does that mean then when Paul's saying, "Work

Out your salvation, " because he certainly can't mean, "earn your salvation." Let's turn and let's look at what I think is a really important passage, James chapter 2, towards the end of your Bible before you get to first and second Peter. James chapter 2, James was written by James, Jesus' half-brother. And James is a sort of kind of known for this theme of salvation, but then what does salvation do? So chapter 2 of the book of James verses 14 through 19. James starts out with a question not too dissimilar to what I was asking myself the other day. What good is it? What good is it if I read this and I don't do anything about it? What good is it my brothers and sisters if someone claims to have faith, says they believe in Jesus, but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food? If one of you says to them, "Go in peace, keep warm and well-fed, " but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it in the same way faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead? But someone will say, "You

Have faith and I have deeds, but show me your faith without deeds and I will show you my faith by your deeds. You believe in that there is one God good." Even the demons believe that and shudder. That last sentence James is saying, having right belief about God is great. Satan thinks the same thing. Satan's probably got better theology than you. Doesn't mean that he's in good relationship with Jesus. James here is saying, "What happens because of faith?" Faith does something in our life. It changes our identity and that ought to play out in works. It ought to play out how we live our life. It's changed who we are. In a couple weeks ago we were talking about that Paul passage. Paul talks about we were slaves to sin and now we are slaves to righteousness. What we were doing was playing out in one way and now we are playing out in a different way because we're now serving someone else. We are not just saved from something, we are also saved to something. Your faith, no, you do not earn your salvation. But when you're saved it does change the way you live your

Life. It changes your heart. It changes who you are and it does play out in your life. And there is something that we're saved to. There is this goal. In Philippians passage at the beginning, Paul was saying, "God is trying to accomplish a purpose." And we have to ask ourselves, "What is that purpose?" I want to show us what that purpose is in Romans chapter 8. This is a pretty famous passage in the Bible for good reason. Romans 8-28. Paul here is in the middle of kind of walking through these theological and large applications of the gospel and what it does in our lives. Romans 8-28, Paul says this, he says, "And we know that in all things God works to the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." There's that word again, God's purpose. "For those God foreknew He also predestined to, " what? "Be conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters." So what's this passage saying? Right up front it says, "God is working all things." It means bad things, good things.

He's working all things together for good. It doesn't mean that those bad things are good things. It just means that they're going to be purposed or used in a way that's going to bring about good. Well, what's this good? What's the good that God's working towards? It's His purpose. It's the purpose that He's trying to bring about. He is called people according to a purpose. What is that purpose? Well, the next verse goes and tells us what that purpose is. "For God foreknew and He also predestined, " what? What did He save you for? "To be conformed to the image of His Son that He might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters." God saved you for the purpose so that you might become like Christ. That you might become an image, a reflection of Jesus. That's what the word Christian means, little Christ. We are meant to become images, reflections of who Jesus is. Both God's greatest purpose and our greatest good is to be formed into the image of Jesus. This is God's purpose. The best thing for you in all of your life is for you to become more like Jesus. And when you do that, that's going to result in the best thing for you,

But it's also going to result in the purpose that God has for you. It's glorifying and pointing up to God, but it's also resulting in flourishing of life for yourself. It is the purpose that God has called you for. That's what we're aiming for. And that doesn't happen by accident. It's not going to happen just automatically. It just won't. That's why Paul is saying, he's saying you have to work it out. So what do we mean when we say, okay, it's a great purpose. That's a great goal. Be like Jesus. Does that just mean I need to go get a WWJD bracelet? Like what does that mean? Like how, what is it? What is it? What's the actual goal? Like that sounds nice. Do I need to like grow out my beard like an ancient middle Eastern man would like get long hair and dress in like a robe? Like which, which Jesus am I supposed to look like? So what's the goal? The goal first is I want to say, here's like some false goals, like some things that we kind of substitute. We

Kind of slightly think, Oh, this is what it means to be a Christian. Or this is what I'm trying to kind of accomplish in my Christianity that, that we sometimes do that subtly. We kind of lose sight of what it means to actually be like Christ. The first one is kind of a I'm trying to hard, having a hard time explaining this goal, but I think I can get it across this way is the false goal is to not, is not being like blank. I think sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking, well, I'm being a Christian. And that means I'm doing the right thing. And at least I'm not like blank. I'm not like those people. We decide to define ourselves as Christians as the people who have figured out it out. The people who do the right thing are on the right side of history. We're the ones who know what reality is. And we've got it all figured out. And you can swing that any way you want. You can swing that conservatively. You can swing that in a more liberal direction. You can serve swing

That socially. You can, oh, you know what? I don't send my kids to, to, to public school because I know that I send them to homeschool. And that's the only way for me to do that. We can fall into a trap. We can make any little niche thing that's good or bad, right? I'm not trying to diss anyone's parenting decisions. I'm just saying that's not what it means to be a Christian. Being a Christian isn't that I make some sort of particular decision. And then I make that, well, I'm better than those who don't make that same decision as myself. We can sometimes suddenly confuse those things. Another thing that is not being like Christ, another thing that is not the goal that we sometimes fall into is knowing it all. This is, this is the one that I'm tempted towards, to be honest with you. Like I love learning. I love knowing things, but guess what? Knowing a bunch of things doesn't actually make me like Christ. It doesn't matter if I have right theology, Satan has right theology. I actually have to be transformed somehow. Being and knowing it all and having the right answers

Is not a substitute for being like Christ. And then the last thing is praise for appearance. Getting a praise for having our life look a certain way and doing the right thing and people say, Oh, they are just such nice people. That's not the point either. All of these things can kind of subtly sneak in and they become kind of the goal or the thing that we're striving after when we're really supposed to becoming more like Christ. And so we say that here at Conduit, the way we talk about being like Christ is we say we want to live like Jesus. We want to love like Jesus and we want to serve like Jesus. And we mean that. That's the way we talk about it. We put it on our shirts. We say it all the time. We want to live like Jesus. We want to love like Jesus. We want to serve like Jesus. And here's what we mean by that. When we say live like Jesus, we mean we want to live a life following the practices and teachings of Jesus. It means we don't want to just learn about what Jesus said. It means we want to actually do it. If Jesus told us to pray, we want to actually

Pray. If he told us to fast, we want to actually fast. We want to do the things that Christ has told us to do. We want to live a life like Jesus. We want to love like Jesus. I can't overstate the importance of this one. We want to cultivate a love for God and a love for people by being with God and in community. Christ was teaching and someone, a teacher of the law came out and tried to trick Jesus and said, "Jesus, what's the most important commandment?" And what did Jesus say? Jesus said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength and love your neighbors yourself." He summarized the whole law, all of everything. When Jesus was teaching and he said, "You know what? They will know that you are my disciples. They will know that you are followers of me." What did he say? By your knowledge? By being right? By being arrogant? Or by your love? Jesus says, "You will be known." The reason that people will look at you and say, "They must be a Christian, " is because of how you love them. So we want to love like Jesus. We want to love God with

All our heart, mind and strength and we want to love others around us like our neighbors as we would love ourselves. And then the very final thing is, how do we serve like Jesus? Serving like Jesus means we are to be the love of God by generously stewarding our gifts, resources, time and attention. Jesus served. He gave of himself. He washed his disciples' feet. He gave his life. He was sacrificial. We're called to do the same. We're meant to sacrificially love and serve those around us. Seek not to be served, but to serve. These is the goal. This is, this is, this is the goal. This is what we're supposed to becoming more like when we're working out our salvation. The purpose of God's life is to make us more like Jesus. That's the goal. But how do we do that? Because it's not going to happen by accident. I do not become nicer by default. I do not become nicer by accident. I, I don't suddenly wake up and say, you know what? Today's the day that I'm going to be nice to everybody.

Like no, I'm more apt to wake up and say today's the day that like people are going to get it from me. Which if you know me, do you know that's a lie? Anyways, but you get what I say. I don't, I don't drift towards holiness. Now, if you've been in church for a long time, you might be like, okay, Luke, like this is the term. I think I've heard this sanctification, or maybe you've heard the term discipleship, or maybe you've heard us talk about spiritual formation. All three of those words, sanctification, becoming sanctified discipleship, being a disciple of Jesus formation, forming ourselves more into the image of Christ. All of those things are talking about the same thing. Different words that describe the same process. I tend to use the words or the language of spiritual formation more often because it's, it's more, I think it's a little bit more helpful. And that's the direction I'm going to go here. But I wanted you to kind of know that as I'm talking about all of this, that's all being woven here. That's the ideas that are all very similar. I'm talking about the same thing. So we have to ask the question, how does it

Happen? If it doesn't happen on accident, how do we do this intentionally? How does this happen intentionally? We're gonna flip a few chapters forward into Romans chapter 12. This passage I think is key. It's probably a passage we've talked about already a lot. And we're going to continue to talk about it, because I really want us to get this concept clear in our minds. Romans chapter 12, verses one through two. Paul here, he says, therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing. This is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. What's Paul saying here? I want to draw your attention specifically to that part in chapter, in verse two. He says, do not conform, but be transformed. So by default, we're being conformed into something. And Jesus in Christ and God is calling us to be transformed. What

I want you to see is that people are not stagnant. You are not the same person you were a year ago. If you were to go back five, 10 years ago, you would be a different person. And if you were to go forward in the future, you would be an even more different person. You do not stay stagnant. You are constantly changing your ideas, your opinions, your tastes, your looks, your appearance. We do not simply stay one way. We are always being formed. We're being molded like a piece of clay in some way. And so what I want us to see here and understand is that we are all being formed into someone. The question is who and if it's intentional. You're being formed into someone. You're either being conformed into the pattern of the world, or you're being transformed into the image of Christ. Which one is it? And are we being intentional about it? Is it happening by accident? Or is it happening on purpose? These are the things that, because we don't just, sorry, I lost my train of thought. If you're not doing anything, if we're not being intentional about it, you're still becoming someone. You're

Being conformed into the image of Christ. And so I want to talk about this idea. We're constantly being formed and it's either intentional or unintentional. I want to show you what unintentional formation looks like. This is the default. This is what it has happening to us if we're not doing anything. When we're being unintentionally formed, we're in an environment, a space, a place like Jamestown, Chautauqua County. Being here forms you hopefully into someone who can tolerate snow. But like this place impacts you. It does. And people here, like I just, I see it and I hear it now all the time of like, nothing good happens here. This is just, this is an awful place. I just hear so much negativity about the area that we live in from people who live here. Right? That's an environment that we live in. How is that forming us? The habits that we keep, right? The things that we do, the things that we do automatically. What's the first thing I do in the morning? What's the last thing I do at night? How much time am I spending on my phone? What's my free time like? These habits impact you. They change the way you think. They change the way that you act. Your

Stories, the stories that you tell yourself. Oh, I'm all, bad things always happen to me. Oh, I can never get control of this. Oh, I'm just an awful person. Or this is just a terrible place. We tell ourselves stories about ourselves, other people and the world around us. And that begins to shape the way that we see everything. That forms you. And then we have our relationships. It's kind of leadership like quotes 101 of like, you're the average of the five closest relationships that you have. Like the people who you spend time with are going to impact who you are. And then there's experiences. Like you want to know some of the most impactful things that have happened to you are things that you didn't have control over. Talk about like your childhood, the family you were born into, the neighborhood you grew up into, things that happened to you that you could not change or control that happened to you. And they changed the way that you are and that you see the world. All of that has formed you without you really trying. It's made some sort of impact on you into who you are. That's the unintentional. That's the conforming of the world. And God is calling us to be intentional.

And so here's what intentional formation looks like. Inside of intentional formation, rather than just a random environment that we find ourselves in, we're invited to see the Holy Spirit everywhere. Holy Spirit working in our relationships, working around us, seeing things as an opportunity for God to do something, as an invitation for us to meet and to know God in the middle of all of that. And then we have, rather than the stories that we believe, we have the teachings of Jesus. We have the teachings of scripture. A much better story of redemption and new life. A way of thinking and seeing the world that is transforming our mind. That's what Paul's talking about in Romans 12. He says transform your, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. We need our minds renewed with new stories of God. And in the practices, rather than just random habits, what do we do? We do the things that Jesus told us to do. We practice. We do things. We pray. We fast. We are generous. We spend time in community. We seek to do the things that Christ has called us to do so that they might cultivate in us a heart of love. And then we're in community, not just random relationships

And associations. We're in a community here and community is kind of messy. We're not just a club. Pastor Cameron talked about this last week. Who are we? Right? We're not just Planet Fitness. We're a family of God. And that changes something. That changes who we are. That changes something about us. So, so this is the community. And then finally, you might be saying, Luke, I'm okay with all of those things of like intentional formation, but I really don't want that last one suffering. Like, like, could we just erase that one? Like, because I don't want to be formed by suffering. And one of the unfortunate truths is that suffering will happen to you. This life is not like we cannot, you cannot live a life that escapes all pain. You simply cannot. Nobody's done it. Bad things happen to good people all of the time. That's what the book of Job is all about. Following God is not a guarantee that like everything is going to be fine, that you're just going to skip down the yellow brick road and it's all going to work out. Suffering happens. But the question is, is what is suffering

Going to form in you? Is it going to form bitterness? Or is it going to form Christ likeness? Is it going to cultivate something inside of you that is new, that is rich, that is beautiful? Or is it going to harden you and make you angry and make you stuck? And the thing is, is that suffering can be redemptive inside of Christ. You're going to get received suffering somehow. Question is, is what are you going to do with it? Are you going to allow God to do something with it or not? And so all of these things, when we're intentional about them, begin to form in us the picture of Christ. Now you're like, wow, Luke, that was a lot. And I know we're going to talk about this over the next couple of weeks. We're going to be starting a new sermon series this next month, and it's called formed. And we're just going to be talking about the different things that form us, the different things that help us become more like the image of Christ. I want to end our time together by talking about this one kind of picture of formation, this picture of becoming more like

Christ that has been the most helpful for me. It's been the kind of my life verse. It's been the verse that I've gone back to. It's been a prayer for myself. It's from Psalm 84, Psalm 84 verse five. This is, this is painting a picture for us, picture of a heart of a believer. Says this, blessed are those whose strength is in you and whose hearts are the highways to Zion. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs. The autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength till each appears before God in Zion. Hear my prayer, Lord God Almighty, listen to me, God of Jacob. What I really want to focus on is verse five there. And the reason I like it in the ESV, I like it in the ESV rather than the NIV because I think the ESV pulls out the literalness of it is this idea of blessed are those whose strength is in you and in whose heart are the highways to Zion, roads, highways that lead to Zion. And you might be like, okay,

Luke, Zion is one of those Bible words that I like hear all the time, but I don't know what it means. Zion is a reference to the mountain where the temple of God was built in Jerusalem. And so by saying hearts are set with roads that lead to the temple, that lead to where God is. I love that picture of having a highway in your heart, a road that gets traveled over and over. You know how like early roads get started? You know, to start out with footpaths, right? You just kind of walk along them and then like you just kind of wear them down over time, over and over again. You walk along a trail and you're like I was just telling someone this morning, my dog, one of my dogs, when I let it out of my house, it bolts to this one part in the yard and it has to make this sharp, right turn at full speed. And so right now is everything's becoming just a mudfest back there. You can see this like kind of like muddy ramp where my dog has to make that sharp,

Right turn. She's made a path. And if she continues to make it, it'll turn into a whole highway, right? She's slowly wearing it down over and over again by repetition, by going that same way over and over and over. And in our hearts we build highways the same way. We build roads over and over by treading the same thing again and again. When I get anxious, I do this. When I get fearful, I do this. When I get threatened, I do this. And the question I have to ask you is where is that going? Where does the road in your heart go? Does it go towards Zion? Does it go to where God is found? Or does it go somewhere else? Because without any intentionality, we're going to start paving roads. Might start out as a little path, but eventually it's become a highway. It's going to get multiple lanes and it's going to be easy travel. We can know how easy and fast to go down that highway. What if God wants to close down some highways? What if God wants to shut down this road that's leading you to a place that's conforming you unintentionally into something that you're

Not supposed to be? It's hard when road gets closed down. It's frustrating, right? We all know what road closures do. We live here. It's hard to construct a new one. It takes a lot of intentionality. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of construction. It's a lot of moving dirt around. Question is, does God want to close some roads down in your heart and does you want to construct some new ones? I think He does. I think He's calling us to be intentional about the roads and the highways in our hearts, to begin to ask some questions. Where is this leading me and where does God want to lead me? How do I stop running to a place where I lead to sin or I lead to myself or I lead to pride or I lead to isolation? And how do I start to go towards a place of Christ, a place of community, of grace, of freedom? So I want to leave you with these two questions. First question is, where do the roads in our hearts lead? Right now, just take stock of the highways in your heart. Where are the

Off-ramps? Where are they on-ramps? Where are they going? What's the roads that you travel down the most often? Are you traveling down roads that lead to anger? Traveling down roads that lead to bitterness, disconnection? What are the roads that you're traveling down? And then the second question is, what new roads does God want to form in our hearts? Where does God want to lead you, take you? So these are the questions that I want us to be asking ourselves. And we'll be wrestling with them over the next couple of weeks as we go into our sermon series on being formed into the image of Christ. We're going to move and transition into a time of communion, as is our practice on the first week of the month. Christ our Lord invites to His table all who love Him, who earnestly repent of their sin, and who seek to live in peace with one another. Therefore, let us take a few moments to confess our sin before God as we reach out to Him in prayer. Heavenly Father, we confess that we have not loved You, Lord, with our whole hearts. We have sought after things that are

Not of You. We have loved things more than we have loved You. We have abandoned, Lord, a desire to even follow Your Word. And so Lord, we come to You this morning recognizing and confessing our own sin, recognizing, Lord, the condition of our hearts, and asking Heavenly Father for Your mercy and Your forgiveness. On the night that Jesus was betrayed, He met with His followers in an upper room. And at the meal, He took a loaf of bread and He gave that loaf to His disciples saying, "Take and eat of this, all of you. This is my body given for you." Likewise, Jesus took a cup and after giving thanks for the cup, He shared it with His disciples saying, "This is my blood poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins." So we ask Heavenly Father that You would pour out Your Holy Spirit on us gathered here and on these gifts of bread and cup, Lord, that You would make them be for us the body and blood of Jesus Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ redeemed by His blood. Heavenly Father, make us one with Christ, one with one another, and one

In ministry to all the world until Christ returns in final victory and we feast at His heavenly banquet. Won't You pray the Lord's Prayer with me, please? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.