GENEROUS 2012
GENEROSITY AND FAMILY
DR. JIM DIXON
NOVEMBER 11, 2012
EPHESIANS 5:21-33
Manuel Noriega seized control of the military in Panama in the year 1984. Three years later, 1987, Noriega became president of Panama. He assassinated his political rivals. He established a broad range of drug cartels. He set up a corrupt government and set in place a culture that was morally and socially tragic. And he began to thumb his nose at the United States of America. He did this privately and he did this publicly. Even though he had once been on the payroll of the CIA, he publicly and privately denied the United States of America. So in 1989, President George Bush sent armed forces to Panama to topple the Noriega government. In 1992, Noriega was apprehended, tried, convicted, incarcerated, and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Today, he is still in prison. He served years in prison here in the United States. He served in prison in France, and he is currently in prison in Panama. He’s committed crimes all over the world.
But his story provides a lesson that is often taught in world history. And that lesson is this: it’s not very smart to deny a superpower. I know most of you are probably thinking, well, that’s not going to be a problem for me. I have no plans to thumb my nose at a superpower. But understand, there is a superpower far more powerful than the United States of America. And that superpower is the Lord God Almighty. And you want to be careful that you don’t thumb your nose at Him. If you do, you’ll give an account, if not in this life, in the life to come. I promise you that if you in any way come against the family, which is the foundational unit of society established by God, or do anything to damage the family, you’ll have to give an account to God.
Now, today, we look at generosity in the context of the family. I want us to look at three components of the family. First of all, I want us to look at marriage. Marriage is foundational to the family, which is foundational society. So I want to begin by looking at marriage. In our passage of scripture for today, the Apostle Paul writes, “For this reason, a man leaves his father and mother as joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is a profound one, and I’m saying that it represents the relationship between Christ and His church. So, let a husband love his wife as he loves himself, even as Christ loved the church and died for her.” If you take the words that were spoken earlier by Paul, “and let the wife see that she respects her husband as the church respects Christ,” there’s this teaching on marriage.
I know in this world we have various views of marriage. I personally view marriage as a sacrament. In the Protestant church, there are only two sacraments. And those two sacraments are baptism and communion. But in the Catholic world and in the orthodox world… remember, the Christian world has three parts: Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox. Two thirds of the Christian world believe in seven sacraments. These seven sacraments are baptism and communion (the two that are held by Protestants) but then also marriage, ordination, confirmation, penance, and extreme unction. And Catholics and Protestants argue, but I’m really neither Protestant nor Catholic when it comes to these sacraments. I have a very sacramental view of marriage. You might say, well, what does it take to be classified as a sacrament? How do churches do this? How do denominations do this? How has the church historically done this?
What does it take to be classified as a sacrament? It takes four things. First of all, it has to be an institution that has been established by God and blessed by the Lord Jesus Christ. Secondly, it has to be an institution that manifests the meaning of the New Testament word “mysterion,” from which we get the word mystery. So in order to be a sacrament, theologians have said, through the millennia, through the 20 centuries of the Christian Church, theologians have said to be a sacrament. This ritual must manifest the meaning of mysterion. And marriage does. That’s why Paul writes, “This mystery is a profound one. The mystery of marriage is a profound one.” “This mysterion,” he says. And I take it to symbolize the relationship between Christ and the church. And so marriage illustrates the relationship between Christ and the church, and it’s a mysterious truth revealed.
Thirdly, in order to be classified as a sacrament, it must manifest the meaning of the Latin word “sacramentum,” from which we get the word sacrament. It must contain a sacred oath. And marriage does contain a sacred oath. It’s an oath before God, and it’s a commitment unto death.
Finally, to be classified as a sacrament, there has to be some sense in which through this ritual grace is imparted or learned. I don’t know of any classroom that teaches grace more than the classroom of marriage. So for me, I have no doubt marriage is sacred. It is holy. It is established by God, regulated by His commandments, blessed by the Lord Jesus Christ, and manifests the very relationship between Christ and His church. It involves a sacred oath under God, unto death. And it is the greatest classroom through which grace is learned. A sacrament. Holy.
I know Protestants say there’s two sacraments. Catholics say there’s seven. I believe there are four. I get in trouble everywhere. But all I want to do is be biblical. Just want to be biblical, and I hope that’s true of you as well.
Of course it’s hard now, living in this culture and in this time. The world’s always living in changing times. There’s many today who would like to redefine marriage and change the institution of marriage. I know this has been a very active issue even in this last election. I hope you understand I have no desire to hurt gay people. I have no desire to hurt gays and lesbians or homosexuals. I hope you understand that. I think on the issue of gay marriage and the redefinition of marriage that our country’s kind of divided right now, but I know the direction the tide is moving. I know the direction the country is moving.
Right now in the state of Colorado, one third of the population, about 33%, believe in gay marriage, and they want to change the laws. Another additional third in the state of Colorado do not believe in gay marriage. They don’t want to change the definition of marriage, but they do believe in civil unions for gays so that gays can have some protection and provision under the law in their relationships. And then there’s another third in the state of Colorado that wouldn’t want to grant gay marriage or civil unions. So it’s one third, one third, one third. And I think Colorado is a pretty typical state in America right now—maybe not on the subject of pot, but on most other subjects.
So I think that in this country there’s probably two thirds of the people of America that really don’t want to redefine marriage. They really would prefer civil unions to gay marriage. But I know the tide is changing. I know that four states, in effect, voted for gay marriage just in this last election. I know the direction our country is moving. It’s very hard for me because I believe in the sacrament of marriage as defined in the Bible and as instituted by God. I believe it’s foundational to family and the society. I feel like I’m walking down a path our country no longer wants to walk. I just want to, at the end of the day, be able to stand before Christ and be called faithful, because it’s only Christ that matters.
The church of Jesus Christ in every generation has walked a strange path in the eyes of the world. That may become true again, but I just want to be faithful to holy scripture. Do you understand? So we have this issue. I will say that the institution of marriage is being damaged in our culture, but it’s not being damaged by homosexuals. The institution of marriage is being damaged in our culture by heterosexuals, as heterosexuals are destroying the holiness of marriage. And we’re destroying it by our lack of commitment to the marriage union, by our promiscuity and our sin, by our unwillingness to repent, our unwillingness to forgive, our unwillingness to extend mercy and grace, our unwillingness to work, our unwillingness to go to counseling, our tendency to just bail out, the tendency towards rampant divorce.
There was a time in this country where less than 5% of marriages ended in divorce. Today, 50% of marriages end in divorce. It’s sad. God has established this institution of marriage as foundational to family and the society. So we’ve looked at Matthew five, we looked at Matthew 19, and we looked at Luke 16. We’ve seen the words of Jesus about divorce. Jesus hates divorce. God hates divorce. But we’ve seen the compassion of Jesus. We looked at the context in which Jesus said what he said. We looked at the Hillel and Shammai schools in Israel. We looked at the meaning of “moicheia” and the meaning of “porneia,” the Greek words that Jesus used in conjunction with divorce. We really believe Jesus has compassion on divorced people. We believe He has compassion. We believe in repentance. We believe in forgiveness, and we believe in grace and mercy. But having said that, divorce is sin. It grieves God that we live in a society where the commitment is so weak and the institution of marriage is so soon broken, and it damages generation after generation.
Well, marriage is worth the effort. What a classroom to learn grace. The word grace in the Bible, “charis,” has the same root as the word “to give.” Grace really means an unmerited gift. To learn grace is to learn to give, in a sense. Where do we learn generosity more than in a marriage? You learn to give in the context of marriage. You give your time, talents, and money. You give it all. You give your very heart. Marriage is an act of giving, and it’s over a lifetime. There’s nowhere we learn generosity more than in the context of marriage and what it means to give yourself up for another person.
This is the what the Bible teaches. We learn tolerance and forbearance. We’re all messed up. We all have eccentricities, right? Little things that could nag and irritate if we’re not filled with grace. How many of you snore? My guess is you don’t know how many of you snore. Many of you might snore without knowing it. Now, Barb snores, but it’s a soft snore, and it’s kind of a beautiful snore. It’s like music to my ears when Barb’s snoring. Now, my snoring is not like that. When I snore, I think it’s a bad event. I have sleep apnea, which is actually snoring you need to take care of because it can do some damage if you don’t take care of it. So I use a CPAP machine at night to clear my passages.
But marriage, you understand, from the bedroom to every room of the house, is a test. It’s a test of love. It’s a test of grace. It’s a test of forgiveness and mercy. So we learn generosity in marriage. We need generosity in marriage. And it’s foundational to the world, foundational to families, foundational to society.
Well, I want to take a look at a bigger issue and second teaching. The bigger issue is to children. I say it’s a bigger issue because marriage is foundational, but children are the future. So this is a really, really huge issue. And as in marriage we have children we really fulfill the commands of holy scripture. In Genesis 1-2, we are commanded by God to multiply—replenish, fill, and subdue the earth. So this is the command of God, that we multiply, replenish, fill, and subdue the earth. We do this through marriage and through children, through procreation. And the dominion that God has given to man is to be a rightful dominion, properly exercise as parents teach their children and their children teach their children and their children teach their children. But there’s been a failure generationally to provide this teaching in this world. Even the imago Dei, even the image of God and the very soul itself, the “nephesh,” the “ruah,” the very heart of human life, is tied to the institution of marriage and to the bearing of children because the image of God is broken in this world.
The Bible says it’s broken and tainted in each and every one of us. So when we raise our kids, we seek to offer a corrective. We seek to diminish the taint of sin. We seek to augment the image of God and the divine nature. We seek to preserve and protect in some way the image of God itself, through the family and through parenting our children properly.
Of course the Jewish people understood this. The commandments in scripture in Ephesians 6, Colossians 3, and Deuteronomy 6 relate to bringing up our children in the nurture of the Lord and bringing up our children properly. In Deuteronomy 6 you have the Shema, and the Shema simply is a Hebrew word meaning, “hear.” I think most of you know that I’ve mentioned it before. The Shema is, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind. The words which I tell you this day shall be up upon your heart, and you shall teach them diligently to your children.”
As you wake in the morning, as you walk along the way, as you go to bed at night, at all times, you teach God to your children and the things of God to your children. The Jewish people understood this, so they bound the Shema on their heart. They wrapped those verses in a phylactery around their arm next to their heart. They bound them to their foreheads in a phylactery so the Word of God was on their mind. They put them on the lintel of the doorpost in their home. Then they recited them twice a day. They said the Shema twice a day, and they sung the Shema that they might always be mindful of this will of God, that we speak the word of God to our children. Wouldn’t it impact your life if you sang that twice a day? Wouldn’t that be a reminder if you had it on your person in some way, if you had it on your front door in some way? Wouldn’t that be a reminder of what God has charged the world with generationally, with regard to teaching and instructing our children, bringing them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord?
The charge is given not just to the parents, but to the kids. That’s why you have the fifth commandment of the Decalogue in Deuteronomy 5 and Exodus 20. “Children obey your parents,” or, “honor your mother and father.” It’s the first commandment with a promise, that it might go well for you and you might live long on the earth. Family is important to God. Parents and children, the relationship they share is so important. It’s important in our church. It’s not enough to just seek to be generous yourself. You have to teach your kids to be generous. You ever notice that kids don’t just come out of the womb generous? You ever notice that it’s really work to teach your children to share? You ever notice that it’s really work to teach your grandchildren to give? It takes months; it takes years. It because of the sin nature. It’s not entirely natural. Here’s probably reasons even relating to the necessity of self-focus in those early years. It just isn’t natural. So you have to teach this generosity and this Christlikeness to our kids.
This responsibility is part of nurturing them in the Lord, that we teach them what it means to give, and to give first to God and to give a minimum of a tithe as a standard of giving, to give with the kingdom of God first and foremost in your mind, seeking first and foremost the things of Christ.
Watch this video of a family in our church, John and Natalie, the same family from our church that you saw last week. This one focuses a little more on their kids, Blake, Elena, and Alec. And we thank them for opening their lives up to us. Let’s take a look at this video.
“I’ve wrote three “t’s” for time, treasure, and talent. Then I drew what treasure is (our money) and I drew a clock for time. And then talent, I just drew someone pole vaulting. It’s another way to show tithing because you can show it all through these different ways.”
“My name is Natalie. I am married to John, and we have two children living in the home. Elena is 13, Alec is 12. Then we have one that just flew the nest and landed in Waco, Texas. Blake is a freshman at Baylor.
“The biggest thing that that changed in my heart was I got away from thinking it was my money and realized that God gave me the talent. God gave me the mind that I have to earn a living. God gave me the work ethic. God gave me everything. My hope for my children is that they love the Lord. They see God’s grace and they see Him working.”
“Well, I think tithing is a difficult subject to sort of explain to anyone, but specifically our kids. You can thumb through the Bible and find verse after verse, but again, it’s just some words on a page. There’s this idea of lap books. They’re really just manila folders with some shapes of paper that the kids created, just literally using glue and scissors. I think it’s something that really, at any age, you can take a very abstract idea and put a hands-on activity to it, and it becomes applicable in your own life. We just took the Bible verses, asked a specific question around those Bible verses, such as maybe how could I apply that particular idea to my life? Where could I interject that and really use that? And then we just put those verses on those manila folders, and it’s kind of a visual aid, if you will.”
“What does God promise if we give our first fruits to Him? And he says, ‘Our barns will be overfilled and vats will be will brimming over. We’ll have more than enough room for what He gives us if we give ourselves to Him.’”
“I remember it coming up in youth group, just how do you tithe when you’re not actually making any money? From what I gained from that and just what I believe, I think that it’s just having a relationship is how we tithe in this area in life. While I don’t have a staple income right now, what I can do is just give my time, give 10% of my time, which would be the same thing as offering any money that I would take in.”
“Because God is holy, and He was the one that gave us that the command tithe 10%. And when you think of tithe, you think of God as holy, and then He makes the money holy, or He makes the time, treasure, or talent holy.”
We do thank the Lewis family for shooting these videos for us and just opening their family and their lives up to us. I think they represent so many families in our church. Hopefully you share with them this desire to nurture your children and grandchildren in Christ and in the things of Christ.
So we’ve looked at family and generosity in the context of marriage and in the context of children. I’d like us to close by taking a look at family and generosity in the context of the supreme importance of the kingdom of God—really, the cost of the kingdom of God. Jesus said, “He who would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. Do not make that decision to follow Me and to join Me and to believe in Me unless you first count the cost. No one should go to war without counting the cost. No one should build a building without counting the cost. Don’t follow Me without counting the cost.”
So I want us to, as parents, understand the cost. I want us to teach our kids the cost of the kingdom of God. This is, I think, most important of all. Now, I know some of you have some familiarity with the history of China. You probably have heard of the Boxer Rebellion, which took place in China in the year 1900. The Boxers called themselves, when translated from the Chinese, members of the Righteous and Harmonious Order of the Fists. These were the Boxers. The Boxers is kind of a western terminology applied to these people in China. They were given that label because they were acrobatic, skilled in gymnastics, and many of them in the martial arts. So this label was put on this segment of the Chinese society.
What you need to understand about the Boxers and the rebellion is it was a rebellion against the West. The Boxers were the segment of Chinese society that really hated the Western world and the intrusion of the Western world into the Chinese culture, and really into the geographical land space of the Chinese people. They wanted the western world out. They wanted Western influence economically out. They wanted Western influence academically out. They wanted Western influence in terms of media and culture out, and they wanted western religion out.
They hated Christianity, and they hated the fact that Christian missionaries were in China. So the Boxers rose up, taking the sword. They rose up in violence, and many Christians were killed. Many missionaries were killed. Ultimately, eight nations intervened, sending military forces into China to stop the Boxers. Now, there’s a story that came out of Beijing regarding a mission school. This mission school was just outside of Beijing, and it had 100 high school students in the school. They all had committed their lives to Christ. The boxers came into the mission school and they closed it off. They closed the gates, they sealed the school off, and they took the hundred students and had them line up. The boxers told these hundred students that they would all die unless they did one thing. They were told that the one thing they had to do was stomp on a cross. They had taken and created out of wood an eight-foot cross. They had put it on the ground. They had told these students that they had to come up one at a time, stomp on the cross, and then deny Jesus Christ. If they did that, they were told they would live. If they refused to do that, they would be executed.
So you can imagine these hundred students in the mission school outside of Beijing. I mean, their hearts were pounding. They were all so nervous and didn’t know what to do. And you can just imagine. So the first seven students came, one after the other, and they stomped on the cross. They denied Christ, I’m sure in their hearts hoping that somehow Christ would have mercy and that Christ would understand they did not want to die. I think all of us can understand why those seven kids would do that.
But it was the eighth child, 17 years old, really a young woman, who would not stomp on the cross. She stood about five feet from the cross, got down on her knees and started to pray. Then she stood up and said, “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.” They shot her to death on the spot. But the next 92 all followed her example, and they all died.
You hear stories like that from history, and you would that they were rare. The people of Jesus Christ over the centuries, all over the world, have paid a price. There’s been a cost to believing. It’s not been popular. It’s been hated in many parts, and it’s hated today in many parts of the world.
If you choose to believe in Jesus Christ and place your faith in Him, you can put your very life in danger, but understand the cost of following Christ. I think that it would be so hard to know you’re going to die if you don’t deny Christ. I think in a way it’s harder still to do what we have to do. I think in a way it’s harder still to be faithful to Christ day after day after day, month after month, year after year, in a culture that is literally abandoning and denying Judeo-Christian values. I think it’s harder and harder to stand for Christ and to walk His path. It’s so hard. But there’s a cost that we’re called to. We need to embrace the cost as parents, and teach the cost to our kids. It’s a commitment of our time, our talent, and our treasure, but it’s also a commitment of our very lives.
I want to conclude with a little story about a guy whose nickname was the Flea. He was born in 1747 in Wales. He wasn’t called the Flea when he was born in 1747. That was a nickname given him in college. And they gave him that nickname because he was not very tall. Fully grown the Flea, whose real name was Thomas Coke, stood five foot, one inch. And so, at Oxford University, they begin to call him the Flea. And they said it lovingly. They said it jokingly. It kind of caught on, and they called him the Flea for the rest of his life. People said, oh, here comes the Flea.
Now, Thomas Coke was born into great wealth and one of three kids, but the other two died. So all of the estate came to him. At Oxford University, he graduated in 1768 at the age of 21. He graduated at the top of his class. This guy was brilliant. He went on to get a Master’s at Oxford and get his doctorate at Oxford. That same year, 1768, he accepted Christ and asked Jesus to come into his heart and be his Lord and Savior. And his longing was to serve Christ vocationally, so he entered ecclesiastical preparation and became an Anglican priest. So Thomas Coke, the Flea, was an Anglican priest.
But before the age of 30, he was fired for conduct unbecoming the gospel. You might think, well, he must have done something wrong financially or sexually. Or maybe he did something wrong doctrinally or theologically. Maybe he kind of drifted into apostasy. No, he didn’t do any of those things. He was fiscally faithful, sexually faithful, and theologically orthodox. So no, he didn’t do any of those things. He was removed from his Anglican priesthood because of his preaching. It wasn’t the content of his preaching, it was the manner of his preaching. They said that he was too passionate, that he had too much ardor. He just was too impassioned, too much aflame, when he preached. They said that in England a priest should be more distinguished than that. So they removed him from his church and from his priesthood. He actually was a regional cleric. So they removed him from all of his authority.
Well, at the age of 30, in the year 1777, he met John Wesley. I think almost all of you have heard of John Wesley, the founder of the Wesleyan movement, and ultimately the founder of the Methodist Church, which is now a universal church. John Wesley became the best friend of the Flea. It was like Christ bound their hearts, and they had a common vision. So John Wesley appointed Thomas Coke to be the president of the Methodist movement in Ireland, and at the same time to be the bishop of the Methodist movement in North America, which included the region of the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
So all of that was under his bishopric. So this was given by John Wesley to Thomas Coke the Flea. That involved him in transatlantic crossings, and he crossed the Atlantic nine times. Each transatlantic crossing took six weeks, because these were sail sailing vessels. So six week journeys done nine times is 54 weeks at sea, but it was for the cause of Christ. So here in America, he ministered and Methodist churches just boomed and burst up everywhere under Thomas Coke. Ultimately, he appointed Asbury to be the bishop of North America. And you’ve heard of Asbury Theological Seminary, but Asbury was appointed and ordained by Thomas Coke, the Flea.
Now, when Thomas Coke was 38, on one of those transatlantic voyages there was a huge storm and they thought the ship was going to go down. It didn’t, but it went way offline and way adrift. Early on Christmas morning, their vessel came into St. John’s Harbor in Antigua. They were all sick because of the storm, and they were just so happy to find land.
So they came to St. John’s Harbor in Antigua, and there was a large population there. And Thomas Coke knew that John Baxter was the Methodist pastor of the church there in St. John’s. So he thought, well, this is Christmas morning, I’m going to go to church, and I’m going hear. It was Christmas Sunday, as it turned out. He said, I’m going to go to church and I’m going to hear John Baxter preach. But the word spread that Thomas Coke had arrived on the island. He was famous because he was the bishop of North America. Ultimately, he would become the president of the Methodist Church after the death of John Wesley. This guy was famous.
So when he went up to John Baxter and said, hey, I’m so happy that God has somehow brought us here on Christmas morning. I’m going to worship with you. I want to hear your sermon. John Baxter says, I can’t preach with you here. Everybody knows you’re here. Everybody wants to hear you. I want to hear you. He said, I’m so amazed that you’re here in Antigua. Would you please preach in the church this morning, please? So Thomas Coke thought about that, and he said okay. He said he prayed about it and he felt led to, so he said, I’ll preach.
So he preached that first sermon. The place was packed. People were standing outside. They had another service, then another service, then another service, then another service. And the services went all day long. The people kept coming. It entered into a week’s revival, and 14,000 people accepted Christ.
Do you ever wonder about the sovereignty of God and why there was that storm at sea and why that ship came into St. John’s Harbor on Antigua? God is large and He is in charge. And so here came the Flea that God had brought to Antigua and he did his ministry. I know John Baxter had to just be stunned. I mean, he had to think, wow, church never went like this before. Maybe he thought, “Things go better with Coke.” Maybe he did. But in any event, this was an amazing man.
He wound up, as I said, after the death of John Wesley becoming the president of the Methodist Church worldwide. He wound up taking the gospel to Africa and taking the gospel to Asia. So North America, Britain, Africa, and Asia. In the French Revolution, he was the one that went to France because he spoke French as fluently as he did English. So this was an amazing guy born into great wealth. He gave his entire estate to the cause of Christ. He liquidated his entire state. His wife, Penelope Smith, who was an aristocrat born into a comprehensible wealth, gave her entire estate to the cause of Christ so the gospel might go forth in the world with power.
They taught Christians everywhere to give and to give sacrificially. Thomas Coke once said he thought fundraising was a vile drudgery, but he said the ministry it produces is the highest joy. I feel that way. I think fundraising is a vile drudgery. I feel like asking folks for money is a vile drudgery. But it’s in the Bible, and the joy of seeing ministry impact the earth and the realization that so much is being lost today is worth it. And it’s worth it because the church of Jesus Christ is impotent in many parts of the world, including the West, because we’re not givers and we’re not faithful, and we don’t have this passion for the cause of Christ, and we won’t count the cost and we’re not willing to pay the price.
This whole series on Generous is so that we would be generous towards God first, and then teach our children the same and then extend that generosity to a world that is in darkness and is so in need of the light. Death is always getting closer. I think you understand that, each and every one of us, no matter how young you are. I can look out the window of my office and I can see our memorial garden and all the niches. The thought has occurred to me, wow, if my time is short, I might go straight from the office to the niche. It’s possible. But in a few more years, I hope to be able to retire and have some years in retirement. But I’ll never cease to serve Christ. I want to continue to teach and do some emeritus stuff around here. I want to continue to serve Jesus Christ. Barb and I want to just continue to give our time, our talent, to give our treasure, to continue to try to go beyond tithing and supporting the cause of Christ. We want to give, not just in life, we want to give in death.
Barb and I have crafted a will, because we want whatever we have to, again, serve the cause of Christ. I’ve read recently, and all studies seem to show that 70% of the adults in the United States of America do not have a will. 70%. That’s incredible, because the death rate is a hundred percent. So 70% do not have a will. See, in your will you can be generous again towards the needs of the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God. So we’re leaving part of our estate to this church, because I believe in this church and the future generations of leadership in this church and the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon this church. We’re also leaving some of our will to other Christian causes. I just want to encourage you to consider doing the same, that you might be generous in life and in death. Because we seek first the kingdom of God. Let’s close with a word of prayer.