The Order of the Essential and Non-Essential (Mt. 15:1-20)
Let us bless one another, “Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God.” If there are any of you who are confused, just say, “Hi” to one another. The title of today’s message is, “The Order of the Essential and Non-Essential.” In order for us to talk about the physical materials that we have, we need to understand the essential core of it. For example, let’s say we’re talking about a rock. You can’t just say “a rock,” without understanding the nature and the core of what makes up the rock to understand the material. In order for you to also experience and know and really feel God, we need to know the core essence of what God is.
Even with the song we just heard from the choir, you need to understand the meaning and the intention the writer of the song had, in order to understand the meaning of the song. Otherwise, you’ll just hear what you want to hear, you’ll feel what you want to feel. There is something the God we believe in wants to say through His Word. If you know and are able to enjoy the essence of what God really wants to say with His Word, then your walk of faith will be really enjoyable and free. However, if you lose hold of the essence of that Word and you’re bound by the outer, non-essential things, then your walk of faith will be difficult and burdensome.
What we read in Matthew 15, it shows that the Pharisees 2,000 years ago lived their walk of faith like that. However, the disciples who were following Jesus Christ had their walk of faith take place. What’s the difference? The Pharisees and the teachers of the law knew so much knowledge, and they thought, “That’s how you need to live your walk of faith.” However, the disciples were with Jesus Christ, Who is the essence of that knowledge. If we lose hold of the essential things that God wants to give us through faith, then our walk of faith becomes boring, and the fact that that becomes boring means that life becomes boring. I’m not saying we believe in Jesus Christ just for fun, but by believing in the Lord, we must have this true joy, peace, and delight.
1. Pharisees, Teachers of the law
1) Reason for coming from afar (Mt. 15:1)
(1) Disciples didn’t wash hands before eating (Mt. 15:2)
(2) Break the tradition of the elders (Mt. 15:2)
(3) Human rules (Mt. 15:9)
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law traveled for 170 km, spending time, energy, and money, and ultimately, what they say to Jesus Christ seems unessential to us. These people use the words of the Bible and invest them in useless things. The thing they so badly wanted to argue with Jesus Christ about was, “Why don’t you wash your hands before you eat?” To us, it might just seem like very basic common sense, but it was very important to wash your hands in the Middle East, because there’s a lot of dust and debris flying around. Yes, it’s important, but it’s not the main essence. These Pharisees, though, received this as their belief, as their faith. They know God, and for them, they think that washing their hands before they eat is their faith. They found Jesus Christ just to argue this with Him.
2) The non-essence destroys the essence (Mt. 15:3)
(1) Honor your parents (Mt. 15:4, Ex. 20:12)
Jesus Christ knew the real core of their heart, so this is how He responded. “You say to honor your father and mother,” and those were the words given in the Ten Commandments. However, there was a rule or tradition at that time where, “If I devote something to God, I don’t have to give it to my mom or dad,” so it nullifies the Word of God, and that’s what Jesus Christ is using to criticize them. God had originally given them the Ten Commandments, and even the people who don’t go to church have heard about the Ten Commandments.
When we say, “God,” how do we know who God is? When we talk about Joe Biden, do you guys know Joe? You don’t. And if we just talk about Joe, we don’t really know him. If we just talk about God, we don’t really know God, but we know God through the commandments He gives us, and the way we live our lives is shown in the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments also allow us to realize our own limitations. I cannot keep the Ten Commandments by my own strength; it must be by God’s grace.
(2) Anyone who curses their parents is to be put to death (Mt. 15:4)
Among the Ten Commandments, there is, “Honor your father and mother,” which many other religions have, but why do you think God gave us those words? There are some young adults here, and you might know: once somebody has a child, their whole life changes. From that point, a young lady is no longer just a young lady, she’s a mother. Then, they begin to have these thoughts and emotions that are even willing to give their life for their child. Before that point, they might live their life pretending to be very neat and tidy, but this is how they change once they have a child, why is that? Through that love, the parents know God. Through your parents, understand God’s love for us to the point where He was willing to die for us. So, until the child becomes a parent, they cannot know their parents. The moment that child becomes a parent, they will start to change, too. The one who knows that, honors their mother and father, meaning that by honoring your mother and father, know the True God.
(3) Dishonor parents using God as a reason (Mt. 15:5)
However, these people, instead of looking at the essence of why God gave them those commandments, they created hundreds of thousands of additional laws to put these commandments into practice in their daily lives. One of them is this tradition that nullifies God’s Word. They made this law, “If the greatest of my flock, I will devote to God, nobody can touch that animal that is perfect,” they may have had a good intention, but they started to use that law in an evil way. If their mother and father wanted to eat that perfect animal, they would say, “I devoted it to God, so you can’t eat it,” and by doing that, they don’t give this animal to their parents, and the Lord is rebuking that today.
3) Prioritize human rules
(1) The hypocrites (Mt. 15:7, 2Tim. 3:5)
He is saying, “You guys are hypocrites, you guys are pretending to worship and honor God, but really, you are just trying to abandon your parents.” It’s the same thing as using the excuse of God to not do what you should do.
(2) Their hearts are far from God (Mt. 15:8)
(3) Worship God in vain (Mt. 15:9)
Then He says, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied to you, about ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.’” And there was the essence of God’s Word, but you have left that essence and have created something for yourself. Through this situation of these Pharisees and the teachers of the law, Jesus has a message to give to His disciples. No matter what situation or problem you’re facing, through Jesus Christ, He will give you His Word. If the teachers of the law hadn’t asked this question to Jesus, He wouldn’t have been able to give this message to His disciples. All the mistakes of your past, whatever circumstances you’re in right now, if you’re within the Lord, He will give you His Word.
2. The state of the heart defines the person
1) What comes out of the mouth (Mt. 15:11)
Because they are talking about the disciples eating without washing their hands, Jesus Christ says, “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”
(1) Come from the heart (Mt. 15:18)
What goes into your mouth can just come out the back, but whatever comes out of your mouth, that comes from your inner state. If you’re always critical and negative, that’s the inner state you’re always in. If you’re always saying words that kill other people, you have that aggression inside of you. It doesn’t matter how clean of an outer life you want to live, your inner state determines your whole life.
(2) Defiles the person (Mt. 15:18)
(3) Deceitful above all things and beyond cure – Heart (Jer. 17:9)
Jeremiah 17:9 says the heart is more deceitful and more corrupt than anything else. The Pharisees and teachers of the law do not have the words of Jesus Christ in their hearts; they have whatever they already had, and that’s what they’re speaking from. When you listen to the words people say, you can know the state of their heart, and that’s why what you confess is so important, because the words you say cannot deceive you. If you say something, then it influences other people. It doesn’t matter how much you try to control your words, because the state of your heart comes out through your words.
2) The internal state of the heart
If somebody says the words, “I want to die,” it comes from their inner state. On the outside, that person may be very nice, very good, but whatever they are presenting on the outside does not determine this person’s life, whatever they have in their inside state, that is what determines their life.
(1) The Word planted by God (Mt. 15:13)
However, if the Word of God is planted deep within our inner state, then that person’s life will be decided and led by the Word of God. The teachers of the law were next to Jesus, but they did not try to believe in Him. They prioritized the commandments God had given them and all the additional laws they had placed on top of that, not Jesus Christ Himself. What happened 2,000 years ago is the same thing that is happening inside the churches today. If there are any new believers, you should listen very well.
What is faith? You are not believing to get what you want. Living the way the world wants is not faith. For example, the world tells you to live a good life, but somebody will be under a misconception that “If I believe in Jesus Christ, I need to live a good life.” People think that believing in Jesus Christ means you have to live a morally and ethically upright life. Or, they’re under the misconception that “Believing in God means that I have to make a lot of money and become very successful and powerful in the world.” Or, thye create their own theory, “Believing in God means I can never lie.”
This is just their own faith that they created by themselves. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law in today’s scripture created their own faith and they’re blabbering around saying, “This is faith.” People say, “Believing in Jesus Christ equals serving the church,” but that’s not true. What is believing in Jesus? For any new believers today, you have to have this correct faith to begin with, for your walk of faith to take place.
After I first accepted Jesus Christ, I went to church. The pastor there said, “If you go to our church, you have to serve the church at least two different ways.” I have a pretty aggressive or confrontational personality, so I said, “I have to stop going to this church.” I said, “I came to church because I don’t like people, but at the church, they’re making me do these other things, so I’m going to stop coming here. I came to church because I was so exhausted from the world, but the church is making me do things,” and later on, the pastor had their own intention, but how would I know that as a new believer?
So, I went to one of the missionaries and asked him, “My pastor is telling me that as long as I go to this church, I have to serve the church in two different ways, what should I do?” and what he said to me in response is very important. The missionary told me this, “Try praying to God, and if God gives you the heart, then do that.” From my new believer perspective, it felt like that’s what it meant to believe in Jesus, because the content of what he said is the gospel. Because inside of that situation, what the missionary was telling me is, “The Lord is with you, so do what the Lord says.” But if the churches are telling new believers to start doing something, it’s very stressful. People who have a lot of faith in Jesus Christ may understand the pastor, but for new believers like me, it’s very hard.
(2) Jesus Christ – It is finished (Jn. 19:30)
You need to relay to people what it means to believe in Jesus Christ. Going through a checklist of everything I have to do is not what it means to believe in Jesus Christ, but believing that Jesus Christ already finished all of my problems on the cross and is living within me as life, that is how you believe in Jesus. Jesus Christ has finished all of the law, and He has finished the law. The Jewish people are upholding the law so that other nonbelievers cannot come in. But the reason why God gave us the laws of the Old Testament was as a shadow until Jesus Christ Himself came.
The reason they talked about the laws of the Sabbath was because the Lord of the Sabbath is Jesus Christ. All the different laws regarding the three feasts and the seven feasts and all of these other traditions were to represent Jesus Christ Who was to come, but now that He has come, you don’t need to do those things anymore. Even though Jesus Christ was right in front of them, the teachers of the law were not even holding onto the shadow of the Old Testament, they were creating their own thing and arguing with it. Then, if I believe in Jesus Christ, does that mean I don’t do anything? The Lord inside of you guides you. And the Lord doesn’t completely neglect the laws; Jesus Christ Himself fulfilled the laws and guides us in that direction. But the main center is not me, it is Jesus Christ within me.
(3) Guidance of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:18-19)
That is why Gal. 5:18-19 says, “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” It’s not that you’re trying really hard to keep all the law and be good, but Jesus Christ Himself made the law and fulfilled the law, and by being with Jesus Christ, naturally, the laws are fulfilled. If a kid has scars against their parents and they go to church, and the church tells them, “Hey, you have to honor your father and mother, that’s the law,” that’s not going to work. “Hey, the law tells you that you have to love your enemies and love your neighbors, and that’s what you have to do to believe in Jesus,” that’s not going to work. That love should naturally come from being with the One Who is fundamentally love. I cannot love with my own strength, but we keep being told to love, that is why we feel so oppressed. If you are simply with the One Who has the power to love, then you will naturally be able to love. That’s what our life is like. If you create your own goal in life and you’re forcing God to do it, and you’re praying to God begging for that, that’s not faith, that’s just what you want. “If you go to church, you need to do this, you need to do that,” no, if you go to church, you need to believe in Jesus Christ. “Believing in Jesus Christ means this and that,” no, you believe Jesus Christ is with you, that’s what it means. “Do I need to study like this or study like that?” Study like the One Who is fundamentally knowledge. “I don’t know my future, what do I do?” If you are with the One Who knows your future, then you will know what to do in the future.
We take the gospel that the Lord has given to us and we keep adding our own rules to it, that’s why people don’t like the church. Especially the kids who are born in America, they do whatever they want to do because it’s all about individualism, and if somebody tells them to go to church, they say, “Why do I have to go to church?” These words just don’t fit with them. “I live my own life; who are you to tell me to go to church or not? Who are you?” So instead of telling them to do this or do that, tell them about the Jesus Christ Who is inside of them. Believe in the Jesus Christ Who has finished all problems on the cross. You are suffering from mental problems right now, and Jesus Christ is the solution to that fundamental problem. Jesus Christ is the solution and answer to all of creation. That is believing in Jesus. No matter what situation you’re in, Jesus Christ is the solution.
“I’m in pain,” the only solution to pain is being with Jesus Christ. “I don’t know myself,” if you remain within Jesus Christ Who created you, then you will begin to know yourself. “I have such a difficult time having relationships with other people,” but Jesus Christ created all people, so if you are with the Lord, then your relationships will work out. The disciples don’t talk about the law; they were always just attached to Jesus Christ and followed Him, that’s their faith. Later on, they betrayed Jesus out of their weakness. Even then, Jesus Christ didn’t accuse them saying, “You did this,” but they were just with the Lord again.
3) What went inside before the Gospel – Disturb
(1) My experience, knowledge (Phil. 3:8)
The Lord Who is with me is the Creator God, He is the God Who guides me through any problem. But if you shake in front of your problems, it’s because you don’t believe in Jesus. Because you’ve already determined, “If I believe in Jesus, it means I have to succeed,” but that’s not what the Bible says. So, you just have your own rules and your own desires and you’re just shoving Jesus Christ into that. “Oh, if I believe in Jesus Christ, it means I have to act good,” but if you’re really with Jesus Christ, your actions will naturally change to be good.
All of your depression, panic attacks, addictions, obsessions, division of mind, you cannot heal those yourself. Instead of being obsessed with your mental suffering, concentrate on the Lord Who is with you. Whether you have a Benz or a Toyota, where do you have to go when it’s broken? There are some things that a mechanic cannot fix, but if you go to the manufacturer’s site, then they can fix the car. Where do you need to go for your problems in your life? Do we look for methods? Do we look for people? You have to go to the One Who created you.
(2) Traditions of the land, family
For our future generations, a lot of you don’t know what to do in the future; that’s normal, if you did, you would be God, but some people may say, “You still don’t know what you need to do in the future? Are you sure you believe in Jesus?” Knowing the future doesn’t mean you believe in Jesus. It’s talking about believing in the One Who has a plan for my whole life and just being with Him. In California, there are a lot of surfers, so on Saturdays and Sundays, these kids surf on the beach and then go to church, and they’d track sand all over the church, and the church officers were saying, “Oh, these kids can’t come to church.” They say these kids can’t come to church because they bring sand in.
(3) Traditions, customs of the church
For those church officers, they were prioritizing that above believing in Jesus. Because the members of the church were making such a great fuss about that, the pastor changed all of the carpet in the church to hardwood so it’s okay if the sand comes in. Then, when the surfers would come in with their surfboards, they were receiving grace during worship, so even the way they came to church began to change. Whatever you think is right, whatever you think is correct, it may actually stand against what God desires. Whether you come to church in slippers or come to church tracking sand after you surf, the main essence is worshiping God, and the church has to adjust to help those people come in.
But if the church holds onto their long standing traditions, and say, “These people can’t come into church,” these people are like the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. The Bible never says, “Only people who look male or female can come to church.” The Bible never says that, that is not the essence. Anybody can come here to worship. Thieves, prostitutes, anybody should be able to come to worship. That’s how they received the grace, the power, and the love of Jesus Christ, and that’s how people change. There are a lot of people who had a really long walk of faith, and they come from another church and sometimes it’s exhausting to talk to them. They say, “Pastor, you should be sitting up there, 15 minutes before, praying, because that’s what my old pastor did,” and I don’t want them to leave, so I say, “Okay, I’ll come.” “At my last church, the pastor would go and take all of the choir members out to eat.” “Okay, I’ll give them money to eat,” but they take all these unnecessary things and they make them into issues, but they can’t really talk about what it means to believe in Jesus Christ because they don’t, and in order to help them believe in Jesus Christ, you have to accept them. Then, I felt that maybe they might change, but they did not. But the real blessing doesn’t go to them; it comes to me, so it doesn’t matter because God has to take care of that.
But there are many people who know and believe in Jesus Christ incorrectly, and they just assert their own opinion. They take the traditions and the rules that people have created by themselves, and they tell the kids, “This is what it means to believe.” The church is a place where anybody can come and worship God. Then, the church has to adjust to allow anybody to come in. It’s not about, “This is what we’re like, so only these people can come to church.” We adjust our church so that anybody can come. So we change the way the church is structured so that anybody from the 237 nations of the world can come. That’s the reason why we devote and give offering to the Temple Construction. That is what we do for the Lord.
There are some people who say, “I’m so burdened by Temple Construction,” but there’s no reason for you to be burdened. If you simply pray to God, God will give you the heart, but you’ve just created your own rules for yourself, and you say, “That’s what it means to believe.” Instead, you have to believe in the Jesus Who is with you. If you pray to the One Who is your Lord, He will give you the heart. If He gives you the heart, then you just do it in faith. But if you don’t have that faith, you get so burdened, and we say, “We’re going to leave this church because we don’t like these people.” We have nothing to begin with; that’s why we need to believe in the Lord Who is with us and guiding us forward, and follow Him, but you say, “I can’t do this,” so you leave? It’s because you don’t have faith.
Each of your children have a talent God has given to them. But instead of looking at the talent God Has given to them, if the parents say, “You have to be like this, you have to be like that. That’s what it means to believe in Jesus,” you’re killing your kids. The parents need to guide their kids into worship, to the Word of God, and to prayer so they can discover the talent God has given to them. The Lord Who is our Lord will reveal it to their kids, and the kids will realize, “This is what it means to believe in Jesus,” but whatever the parents believe is faith in Jesus gets relayed to the kids, even if it’s wrong. If the parents just take whatever their greed is and put Jesus’ name on top of that, “If you believe in Jesus, you have to do what I want,” will they come to life? If your kids are bad at school and they don’t have the ability, you can’t say, “You’re a Christian, how could you be like that?” That’s irrelevant. Not everybody can be first place; somebody has to be last place, and believing in Jesus Christ is irrelevant to that. You need to help them to believe in Jesus.
3. Jesus Christ – Concentrate
1) Complete, sufficient, everything
Even if you are in last place, the Lord is with you. They might be in last place right now, that’s not essential. The Lord is with you. “My life is too broken,” the One Who can change you to be new is with you. “Isn’t it too late for me?” That’s just your thought. If the Creator God is with you, then He can do 100 years worth of work in 1 hour. So, do not concentrate on all the rules people have created, just concentrate on Jesus Christ Himself.
King Solomon married thousands of wives, he had the greatest knowledge and the most money, but he said, “It is all in vain,” he said, “All of those things are not essential. The only true thing is God alone.” It means he had all of these things, but none of those could change him. You need to believe in and concentrate on the essence of Jesus Christ. If a problem comes, do not concentrate on the problem, but concentrate on Jesus Christ Who is with you. If the nation is such a mess and it’s suffering because of the pandemic, don’t concentrate on that problem, but ask the Lord Who is with you, “What do you want me to do in this kind of a situation?”
(1) Will not lack (Ps. 23:1)
David did that and he confessed, “The LORD is my Shepherd; I lack nothing.” In reality, he was lacking a lot at that time, but what he felt is, because the LORD is my Shepherd, I lack nothing, because our Lord is the creator God. Whatever you’re lacking is not the issue, but concentrating on the LORD Who is with you, that’s what’s important. There may be times when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death and you’re afraid. If you believe in Jesus Christ, if you go to church, it doesn’t mean you won’t go into situations like that, you might face more times like that. But the reason those things don’t matter to you is because the Lord is with you and He guides you down a safe path even in the midst of the valley of the shadow of death.
(2) Life (Jn. 1:4)
He is with me as life; you believe in this and enjoy this through your life. If you limit Jesus with your own thoughts, that’s not faith, that’s your disbelief. “That person’s never going to work out,” that’s not faith; that’s just your own experience. The Christ Who is within that person can change that person, so you need to say these words of faith in Jesus. If somebody doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ, but they receive a lot of evangelism training, they might be able to say the Word of God mechanically, but they don’t believe. They read the Bible so much and they know so much theology because they studied it.
(3) Within me (Gal. 2:20)
The more you do those things, the more you should have faith that the Lord is with me, but instead, you’re just piling on more knowledge and no faith. Then, when a nonbeliever looks at that person, they say, “I have to study for decades to be like this person,” they’re relaying the wrong thing. Through all of those different things, the message that has to be relayed to the new believer is, “Wow, Christ is with us.” When you go to churches, a lot of pastors speak about theologies and doctrines, but that has nothing to do with a new believer, and even ideologies change over time. The essence is that the Lord is with me as life and power, so stop talking about the problem; but instead, talk about the Jesus Christ, the gospel that is within me as life.
When people die, it’s so sad, and yes that may be true, but if you just keep on staying in sadness, that’s a mental illness. If somebody believes in Jesus Christ, you need to help them concentrate on the Jesus Christ Who has the power of life and death and allowed that death, but instead, they stay in that scar or they sing songs about death, that’s not right.
2) Authority, power
(1) One who has all authority in heaven and earth (Mt. 28:18)
This Jesus Christ is with me and with all of us with all authority in heaven and on earth. You don’t have to keep focusing to gain authority. You just need to focus on being with the One Who has authority.
(2) Filling of the Holy Spirit – Authority (Ac. 1:8)
(3) Joseph (Gen. 41:38), David (1 Sam. 16:13), 120 people (Ac. 1:14)
Joseph and David never prayed to be the Prime Minister or the governor. They were simply concentrating on the God Who was with them, and they naturally became Prime Minister and proconsul.
3) Evidence
(1) Doors of evangelism in 15 nations (Ac. 2:9-11)
The members of the Early Church were a gathering of poor freshmen who had no education, but what did they have that was different? “All I need is to be with Jesus Christ. When His power comes upon us, then we receive power.” As they’re holding onto that, the Holy Spirit works upon that, and they’re able to do the things that Rome and the powers of the world could not do. The Early Church was a group of 120 people who said, “This is the only thing we have to do,” and they changed the world.
(2) Missions (Ac. 13:1-4)
For the young adults, if you have a job, you need to be good at your job, too, but that’s not the essence. What is essential is concentrating on what Jesus Christ is doing with your job because He is with you there. So, our walk of faith is not just about going to church, but in your actual life, at home, at your job, believing in Jesus there. Even if you’re in last place in your studies, you need to believe in Jesus, because in the midst of your last place, the Lord is with you. From my experience, as long as you’re concentrating on God, you at least won’t be last place. If anything, God changes you to be first, or the head. If you concentrate on your failing business, that’s not faith. Concentrate on faith on the Lord of your business, the Lord of you who is with you, and that’s how the Lord begins to work, because God reacts to my faith.
(3) Temple construction (237, Healing, Summit) (Ac. 28:18, Mk. 16:15-18, Ac. 1:8)
Today, I hope you will be set free from the nonessential things. If you remain within Jesus Christ Who is the essence Himself, then all the nonessential things naturally take place. So, we’re doing the temple construction now, but you don’t have to be burdened by it, just pray about it comfortably, because we do what the Lord tells us to do. Even gangsters do whatever their upper commander tells them to do, and for them, they don’t have their own reason, they just do whatever their higher-ups tell them to do, and the soldiers only move according to what their higher commander tells them, but if you try to become the head and you try to move everything, that’s why you’re getting a headache. All we have to do in our lives is be what the Lord tells us to be because He’s the head of our life. Because instead of concentrating on the Lord, you only concentrate on your own limitations, then you say, “I can do this,” or, “I cannot do that.” If the Lord gives you something, then you will react out of Joy and Thanksgiving. The reality of that faith you have about believing in Jesus getting relayed to other people is a natural evangelism.
If you get married, you’ll naturally have kids. You don’t study abroad to learn how to have kids. If you believe in the Jesus Christ Who is with you, then naturally, that life should spread to the people around you. That’s normal, but if it’s only just you, that’s an issue. If there is a married couple but they’re not having children, there is some issue there. If you naturally enjoy life, then it’s going to naturally come out of your mouth, and other people will hear your words and start to come to life, so the life movement takes place automatically and naturally. The reason why we have training is so we can properly know and enjoy the life. Then, no matter where you go, you will enjoy the life of Jesus Christ, and even if you try not to talk about the power of Jesus, it’s just going to naturally come out of your mouth, that’s what it means to believe in Jesus. For many new believers, if anybody tells you otherwise, just know, that’s their own thoughts. Inside, we can realize, that person does not have the answer. May you have victory.
Conclusion
1. Only Christ
2. Only filling of the Holy Spirit
3. Only Witness
Message Prayer
Let us pray together holding onto the Word God has given us.
Offering Prayer and Newcomer Prayer
God, we thank You. We believe You will guide us with the blessing of God that leaves us no choice but to enjoy, believe in, and testify of the gospel of life. We have returned Your materials as offering. We pray that everywhere this offering is used, lives will be saved. We pray that You will bless these materials so that they may do Temple Construction that can do world evangelization and save the future generations of the church. We believe You will work upon the offering with the economy of light. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray, amen.
God, we thank You. We pray that You will bless all the newcomers so they will live a life that correctly believes in Jesus Christ and is led by Your Word. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray, amen.
Benediction
Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the unending love of God, and the indwelling, working, guidance, and communion of the Holy Spirit, be upon all the heads of all the people of God, the people of all nations, and the remnants who believe in and enjoy Jesus Christ Who is life and the solution to all problems, be with us from now until forevermore always, amen.