Isaac's Walk With God

The group discussed the biblical character Isaac, underlining his persistent faith. Though less prominent than his father Abraham and son Jacob, Isaac maintained a close relationship with God and embodied faith by praying for his wife Rebecca's fertility and accepting God's will. Isaac and Rebecca were highlighted as examples of marital fidelity. Isaac, however, reproduced his father's deceit by lying about his relationship with Rebecca due to fear. When he mistakenly blessed Jacob instead of Esau, he accepted it as divine will. The meeting emphasized the importance of persistent spiritual growth, fidelity, and active prayer, drawing lessons from Isaac's life.

Potential Actions

• Understand the importance of family in walking with God, following Isaac and Rebecca's example of faithfulness. [1][2][3]
• Embrace the willingness to sacrifice and surrender personal desires to God's will, as demonstrated by Isaac. [4][5][6]
• Seek guidance from the Holy Spirit to understand and navigate different life situations, as illustrated in Isaac's life. [7][8][9]
• Improve spiritual leadership within homes, using Isaac's model of praying for his wife. [10][11][12]
• Foster an environment of encouragement and inspiration in the Christian community, following the example set by Isaac. [13][14][15]

Topics discussed

Isaac, Bible Study, Faith, Prayer

The group discussed about Isaac from the Bible, emphasizing his actions persevering faith. Isaac was seen as less significant compared to his father Abraham and son Jacob, yet he walked with God despite his 'ordinary' status. He prayed fervently for his wife, Rebecca's fertility and submitted to God's will, showing faith. Notably, Isaac and Rebecca were cited as models of marital faithfulness. However, Isaac also mirrored his father's deceptive actions by lying about his relationship with Rebecca out of fear for his life. When he inadvertently blesses his son, Jacob, instead of Esau, he accepts the outcome as God's will. The group urged for continual spiritual growth, faithfulness, and active prayer life based on Isaac's life.

Transcript

Speaker 1

Hey, David, we miss you. I don't know if we're on yet or not. OK. We do miss you. David, hope you're feeling better and your church family is praying for you. And we're thankful for the opportunity to be here tonight and keep studying about these people that were walking with God and, and hopefully, along the way, we can learn a little bit more about walking with God.

And tonight, we're gonna look at Isaac. last week, we looked at Abraham and tonight we see that Isaac according to the scripture also walked with God. When we look at some of the stories, it's gonna make you wonder, did he really walk with God? But the Bible says that he did. And so hopefully we can work through some of this stuff together and figure out how that affects us.

There's a a good closing point to it, I promise. So, is Isaiah what in the world, Isaac got me to Isaiah Genesis chapter 48 Genesis chapter 48. And if you know much about the book of Genesis, you're like I thought, you said we were talking about Isaac. Genesis chapter 48 is past Isaac. This is Joseph and it's kind of interesting to, to point this out and I think it's a good thing to start with.

You know, last week we saw Abraham several chapters in the book of Genesis about Abraham, several details about his life. Even in Hebrews chapter 11, there was more verses directed toward Abraham than anyone else. Father Abraham, he got, you know, the privilege of paradise being called Abraham's bosom. I mean, he's, he's the father of the Jews.

He's, he's big dog, right? You got Big Daddy Abraham and then Joseph Joseph, of course, a little further down the line, you know, you go Abraham, Isaac Jacob Jacob's name was changed to Israel and he had 12 sons. One of those was Joseph. Joseph had the privilege I guess of being thrown in a hole by his brothers and sold as a slave. Ended up not being raised with the family, ended up being raised as a slave in Potiphar's house.

Eventually Pharaoh's servant and eventually by the grace of God became, you know, the number two ruler in the whole Empire of Egypt by name and really number one ruler by actual duty kept the nation of Egypt and pretty much the rest of the world in that area from all starving to death during a seven year famine. So Abraham was a really important person.

Isaac's dad, Isaac's grandson Joseph, really important person. Isaac's son, Jacob is the one who had the 12 tribes of Israel that we're always talking about all important people. And Isaac in the middle of them is kind of a nobody. You know, there's two really big stories about Isaac. The first one of course is when he was taken by his dad tied down and was fixing to be the sacrifice.

But really that story, even though Isaac is a sinner character in that story, that story is really not about Isaac, it's really about Abraham, right? And then the other story about Isaac, that's the Bible spends a lot of time on is when Abraham told his servant to go and get Isaac a wife and yeah, it was about Isaac. It was for him, it was his wife, but Isaac didn't even go meet the girl, right?

Abraham's servant did it. So Isaac again really didn't contribute much other than when she showed up. He went, hey, you're pretty, let's get married, you know. And yeah, pretty much pretty much what I did. Good point. Yeah, I'm a nobody too. I get it. And so Isaac is someone we can associate with, right? We might not be as important as Abraham.

We might not be as historical as Jacob who's got a whole country named after him. We might not be someone who's changed the world like Joseph, but we can still walk with God and, and Isaac didn't allow his pedigree to keep him from serving God. How easy would it have been for Isaac to go the opposite way? Right? There had to be a lot of pressure on him, it seems like.

But yet we do find that the Bible says he walked with God. Let's look at that verse Genesis 48 and 15. Joseph. So this is Isaac's grandson, Joseph is blessing his Children, Manasseh and Ephraim. This is something Abraham did. Abraham blessed Isaac Isaac blessed his kids. We'll look at that tonight. Jacob blessed all the different sons. He had Joseph's carrying on the family tradition of passing that blessing on to your kids.

And he says in verse 15, he's talking, well, we'll go ahead and back up and read the verse 14 A and Israel stretched out his right hand. So as Joseph's wanting this blessing on his kids, he's having his dad, Jacob or Israel to do to pass the blessing on. Wow. So these are the two of the smallest tribes out of all the 12. These are just half tribes really.

But yet they're getting the greatest blessing. This is the first blessing here from, from Israel. He stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim's head who was the younger and his left hand upon Manassas head, guiding his hands, wittingly, in other words, he, he knew what he was doing right. He was gonna give the greater blessing to the younger one instead of the older one, even though Manasseh was the first born.

But what he says in verse 15 is interesting and he, he blessed Joseph and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk. So the Bible records the fact that Israel Jacob said, my dad, Isaac and my grandpa Abraham both walked with God. So Isaac is given biblical credit here for being someone who walked with God, Joseph went on or Israel went on to say this is the God which fed me all my life long unto this day.

So maybe we don't read in Isaac's life. A verse that says Isaac walked with God like we did enoch and some of these other guys, but we do have this testimony later on from his son. That's pretty awesome to be able to say my dad and my grandpa walked with God. I, I'm glad I could say that right. It's, it's good to be able to come from a family that's been faithful to God and to try to pass that on to your Children and to continue that faith in the Lord.

So Isaac was that kind of person. Genesis chapter 22 is where it talks about that sacrifice. When Abraham took Isaac, he told his servant me and the lad will go a little further. We're gonna go and worship and all along, Abraham knew what he was going to do if he had to his intention. We saw last week when we talked about Abraham was to actually carry it through.

He was believing that God would raise Isaac from the dead. So thinking about it from Isaac's viewpoint, that's a little different. Isaac was sitting there saying he was willing to die believing that God would raise him from the dead. In that aspect, Isaac is definitely a picture of the Lord Jesus. as a young boy here, Isaac had a special birth, right?

He had a special birth. He was the promised son that God had said is going to come and then he came. And now he's saying I'm willing to die. It's all a picture of Jesus, right? The same things that Jesus. Jesus had a special birth. He was a promised son that came and then was willing to die for our sins. So Isaac is someone who is willing to sacrifice very early in his life.

We don't know how old he was, but very early on in his life, he was willing to sacrifice. He was a young man who was walking with God. And that was kind of the first point tonight is walking with God does require some sacrifice if we want people to see Jesus in us because we can see Jesus and Isaac, right? Easy to see Jesus and Isaac if we want people to see Jesus and us.

Then it takes a little sacrifice. I can't just live how I wanna live. I gotta live the way that Jesus wants me to live. But Genesis chapter 22 we, we looked at that last week, so let's move on to the next story in Genesis chapter 24. is the, the other big story about I, again, he, he's not the primary person. This is where they were going to go back to the homeland to get one of Abraham's family members to come and be Isaac's wife.

So yes, again, husband and wife are gonna be related. Not as close as mom and dad were Abraham and Sarah were half brother, half sister. But there is some relation between Isaac and Rebecca. Abraham had a kinsman whose name was Bethel and he had this daughter named Rebecca. So they went back and through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, met her.

Look at verse seven. Here in verse seven, Abraham is telling his servant the Lord God of heaven, which took me from my father's house and from the land of my kindred and which spake unto me and swear unto me, saying unto thy seed will I give this land? He shall send his angel before thee and thou shalt take a wife unto my son. From this. Abraham believed that God had a special person prepared for Isaac.

Now Abraham, we we read earlier in Genesis where Abraham actually knew of Rebecca, he knew that his kin folk had, had a daughter named Rebecca. The Bible doesn't tell us he was sending the servant to go find Rebecca. The servant didn't go into town and say, hey, where's Rebecca? instead what they were doing is they were allowing God to lead.

The servant said to the Lord, he said, and we have to be careful about this. But this is what happened. The servant said to the Lord, I'm gonna come up to this. Well, and when I do, I, I want you to let some young woman come up and ask if my camels need to be watered. And he said, if you'll do that, then I'll know that that woman is the, the one that, that you're wanting to be Isaac's wife.

And it turned out Rebecca did that same thing and we, we have to be careful about that, right? We can't say, OK, God, if, if, if you want me to go buy a lottery ticket tonight, you know, you know, whatever, we can't make deals like that with God. But the point is they were seeking the leadership of God, right? They didn't have the Holy Spirit like we do.

So they had to kind of look for extra things, signs. We don't need signs, we have the guidance of the Holy Spirit. But if we're gonna walk with God, we have to be led by the spirit of God. And Isaac's marriage was something that God put together, even without Isaac's involvement. You know, he had a special person for Isaac and he had this all working out according to his plan.

And so Isaac meets Rebecca and they get married and everything is wonderful. This happened after his mother had passed away. The Bible says he was comforted after Sarah's death. Again, Isaac was close to mom. Now he's met this special woman in his life. Look at Genesis chapter 25 in verse 21. And I wanna see something else that people do that walk with God.

Genesis 25 verse 20 start there tells us that Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebecca to be his wife. Now I did not know this until studying for, for this tonight. But there is a Jewish tradition and belief that Rebecca was actually only three years old when this 40 year old man married her. It's obviously not true because you read the story here and Rebecca was jumping up on a horse and covering herself with a veil and you know, consenting to go and get married to this man.

All things that a three year old would never do when you read this. It's obviously not a three year old. I don't know where they get it from. But if you ever Google search Rebecca's age when they get married and you see, it comes up and says she was three years old. Just, no, that's not true. Obviously, according to the Bible, I didn't realize I was gonna run into that.

But, it's evidently a common Jewish tradition. I just wasn't aware of. but Rebecca had to have been of marrying age, which would have meant, you know, she had to at least be a teenager. Right. those girls did get married earlier than girls do today. But there was probably some age difference, Isaac 40 maybe Rebecca is 1520 25 who knows whatever.

That's not really important. It tells us there. She was the daughter Bethuel verse 21. This is what's important to me. And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife. What does that mean? Right. He, he prayed for her. The word entreated me. Basically, he was interceding. He was praying for her and it goes on to tell us why. because she was baring.

So again, obviously she wasn't three, right? No matter how hard you pray for a three year old, they're, they're not gonna have a baby. I mean, so I don't know where those thoughts come from. She was old enough to have a child. And Isaac is praying for her because she's not been able to conceive. And the Bible says the Lord was entreated of him and Rebecca, his wife conceived and I just thought what a big deal.

That is, that, that's one of those verses you could read and, and pass over and not think about too much. But here we have a man that the Bible says, walked with God. And what do we see? We see him praying for his wife over something that was very important to her. It was important to her to have a child, right? And of course, she knew the story of Abraham and Sarah and how God was able to miraculously provide this childbirth.

And so they were praying in faith, believing and God did answer the prey. So what does this teach us about a person who walks with God? Does this teach us if we walk with God, we'll always get our prayers answered. Is there any way to guarantee we'll get our prayers answered? Ok, let me reword it. Is there any way to get them answered? The way we want them to be answered?

Right? The only way we can be certain that our prayer would be answered is if we were praying, exactly something that God was wanting to do, right? We would have to be in tune with God. You know, the Bible says that when we're in tune with God, he'll give us the desires of our heart. Does that mean? Oh, well, I can just name anything I want and God's going to give it to me, obviously, not because I've tried it and it didn't work, right.

But I think what it's saying is when we're walking with God and our hearts in tune with God, what kind of things do we want? We want the kind of things that God wants, don't we? You know, if I'm praying for someone to be saved, that's something God wants. And so I can pray and believe that that prayer is gonna be answered. You know, there's, there's a difference in praying selfishly and praying according to God's will.

Here, Isaac knows that God gave Abraham a promise, right? God promised Abraham. He was gonna have many descendants and they were gonna go through Isaac. Well, the only way that can happen is if Isaac's wife has a kid, so Isaac is praying for God's promises to be fulfilled. That's what He's praying for. And God answered the prayer. This wasn't a selfish prayer.

This was a prayer for God's will to be done for God's word, to be true and for God to accomplish what God was doing. And when we're walking with God, that's gonna be our desires. You know, our desires is gonna be God's desires. So Isaac, what's doing there? He was believing and trusting that God was gonna keep his word and God did, sounds like Isaac was a really good guy, doesn't it?

So let's go to the next chapter then Genesis chapter 26. Rebecca did conceive, she ended up having twins and these two boys were so bad that they were fighting before they were ever born and they're still fighting today. Their descendants, Esau and Jacob, we get to chapter 26. So now you got Isaac, his wife a couple of boys. But it says there's a famine in the land in verse one.

And so is went down to the Philistine. Now, why would he do that? I don't think so actually, but maybe verse two, God did tell him, you've gone far enough. Don't go all the way down to Egypt. He said in verse two, go not down into Egypt, dwell in the land which I shall tell thee, God is again still trying to get God was trying to get Abraham to the promised land, right?

He never got him there. He's trying to get Isaac to the promised land. So God's still directing again behind the scenes, Isaac doesn't really know what all is going on, but he is trying to walk with God. And so God's directing him the right way, but he says, don't go that way, don't go to Egypt. So he does tell him in verse three sojourn in this land.

And here's the promise again, I will be with thee and will bless thee for unto thy seed. I will give all these countries and will perform the oath which I swear unto Abraham. Thy father. I will make thy seed to multiply the stars of heaven. I haven't forgotten the promise I made to dad we're still gonna see this through. So verse six says Isaac did dwell there in Jar.

But verse seven, see if this sounds familiar. The men of the place asked him about his wife. Who's that pretty chick? You're hanging out with Isaac? And what did he say? That's my sister. Now, where have we heard that before? That's what his dad did. It's the very same thing that Abraham did. Now, Abraham did it twice, both times before Isaac was ever born.

I don't know that this is family dinner talk, right? I don't know that Abraham's going, hey, you know what I did to your mom's one time. Well, actually twice. So I don't know that Isaac knew the story. Maybe he did, maybe somebody else told him. I don't know, but he still did the exact same thing his dad did. Our Children follow our example, don't they?

Now, if you're trying to do, right? That's a good thing. And if we're not, we gotta be careful. Our, our kids do follow our example. He, he said she's my sister. And again, the reason it says for he feared to say she is my wife. He was afraid the men of the place would kill him for Rebecca because she was fair to look upon. She was a good looking woman.

So Isaac obviously did something very wrong here. Isaac subjected his own wife, his God given wife to potential danger. Right. She, she could have been raped, she could have been forced to go and marry someone else. Even though she was married to Isaac, there's all kinds of dangerous things that could have happened to her here. They're not at home.

They're in a strange land around strange people. They don't know. And he just said, oh, she's my wife if you want to date her. Go ahead. I mean, this was really a bad thing. Isaac's not honoring the sanctity of God's marriage. Yeah. Keep reading. verse eight tells us, Abimelech, the king of the Philistines looked out a window and saw and behold, he saw Isaac and you gotta love the King James version.

Sometimes it says Isaac was sporting with Rebecca, his wife. Some other versions basically says they were hugging and kissing. So depending on the version you have and read from, it might say something different. You know, it, it gives us the idea of some type of marital relationship stuff going on, right? And so when a Belek sees this, he goes that that's not his sister, right?

I mean, brothers and sisters don't act like that. That's the point. So Belek calls him verse nine, Belek says behold of a surety. She is thy wife. That that's got to be your wife. That's not your sister. Why did you tell me that's your sister? Isaac says I was afraid I would die. And so a belek then goes on and tells everybody if anybody hurts this man or his wife, you know, you're going to be put to death.

And Isaac was allowed to keep living there and everybody now knows they're married. Verse 12 says, Isaac began to farm in the land. And the first year he received 100 fold and look at the end of verse 12 and the Lord blessed him. Verse 13 says, as the years kept going, he waxed great and went forward and grew until he became very great. Had a possession of several flocks, several herds. He had all these Philistines, I mean all these servants.

And at the end of verse 14, it says he was so rich now that the Philistines envied him, he made everybody jealous. So here's my question. This guy came into the land and the first thing he did was terribly wrong. And yet the bible says, God blessed him. Why did God bless the man for doing wrong? Don't sit there and wait for me to give you the answer. So I'm not sure I've got it either. Do

...

Speaker 1

feel like

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Speaker 1

56 got God, doesn't. That's for sure.

Speaker 1, Speaker 2

Verse three said, I would say this name,

Speaker 1

God was gonna be with Him no matter what he did. Aren't we so thankful that God's with us? Even when we maybe walk off the path when we're trying to walk with God. Even e even people that walked with God in the Bible still made mistakes. Right. They didn't always stay on the straight and narrow, but God never left him and God doesn't leave us either.

here, here's another thought too. Isaac did do something wrong. But that wasn't the root of the problem. The root of the problem was he was afraid. Right. He didn't have enough faith that God was going to protect him and Rebecca. And so he was trying to help God out, right? Because he was afraid of what other people might do instead of just trusting God.

So instead of God condemning him for this sin, God tried to deal with the root of the sin and tried to build his faith. And once his faith was built, then Isaac never committed this sin again. You know, sometimes we get petty over these little sins and I'm not saying that sin is not a big deal. I'm not saying that, but sometimes we get focused on little things and that aren't near as important as the big thing, which is having faith in God.

I don't need to worry about all the wrongs that my neighbor is doing if they don't know Jesus, that's what I need to worry about most, right? So I think Isaac maybe shows us that a little bit as well, but Isaac definitely wasn't a perfect person. Later on Isaac's getting close to dying. He thinks and, and he he can't see very well. He's gotten older and he can't see very well and he's ready to pass the blessing on to his boys.

Well, Isaac and Rebecca, we're not the best of parents. They had their favorites. Isaac loved Esau because Esau was a manly man. He liked to hunt and fish and fix the car and all that stuff. Isaac was that kind of man. Esau was that kind of boy. So that was daddy's favorite. Jacob. On the other hand, Jacob, you know, he was, he liked to be in the kitchen, he liked to cook, you know, he, he wasn't the manliest man.

he was mama's boy. He was a mama's boy and that was mama's favorite and they made it very clear who their favorites was. So when Isaac decides he's gonna bless the two boys, guess which one he's gonna bless, he's gonna blast Esau, right? And Esau was the one that was actually born first, even if it was just by minutes. So Isaac's gonna bless Esau.

So Rebecca sees what's happening and she says to Esau, hey, you ought to go kill your dad. A nice deer sends him out and while he's gone, she takes Jacob and she starts wrapping stuff on him to make it seem like he's Harry and Jacob, you know, probably didn't go through puberty quite like Esau did and, and she tries to imitate Jacob so that he seems like he's Esau and he has Jacob fix his dad this food and he takes it in and, and Isaac's like you, you know, you're already back.

He, he's, he's thrown a little bit. So he's like, come over here he can't see, he's nearly blind. So he says, let me feel love you because he knows the two boys don't feel the same. Rebecca was smart. She prepared for that. He feels and he's like, hm, well, you do feel like he saw, you don't sound like him, but you feel like him. And so anyway, long story short, Isaac ends up blessing.

Jake Jacob leaves. Esau comes in the room a little later, Esau comes in and says, ok, dad, I've got your venison. I'm here. I'm ready for my blessing. And Isaac goes, oops, what have I done? And the interesting thing about this is when Isaac realizes what he done, he didn't change it. He says to Esau it's done. I've already blessed him with everything he literally says, Desa, what can I give you?

Because I've already given your brother everything now, Isaac didn't intend to do that. Isaac was tricked, he messed up in his mind. But look in Hebrews chapter 11 again, the things with Isaac confuses us a little bit, but this is gonna bring us to that good point at the end. I was talking about Hebrews chapter 11 verse 20. You remember how last week Abraham got several verses?

Well, Isaac gets one verse verse 20 and this is all it says by faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. The Bible says by faith, he blessed her. The old Testament tells us he got tricked. Jacob's name actually means deceiver. Tricker. Rebecca moved in scheme. The plan got Jacob to do something different than Jacob. I'm I'm saying Jacob Isaac to do something different than Isaac wanted to do.

Isaac blesses Esau. I mean he blesses Jacob first, I'm making this more confusing than it's supposed to be. I'm getting their names confused. Isaac blesses Jacob first. He's upset about it. You know, all of that wasn't supposed to happen in his mind. But yet Hebrews chapter 11 verse 20 says by faith, Isaac blessed Jacob. And Isa does that make any sense to you?

Because it sure didn't to me at first because it doesn't sound like he done it by faith. But the key thing is this, when Isaac realized what happened, Isaac didn't try to change it. Isaac realized God had worked out what God wanted even if it wasn't, what Isaac wanted. The faith here is in the fact that Isaac submitted to God's will instead of his own will.

Isaac wanted Esau to be top dog, but God wanted it to be the younger, just like we read earlier about Joseph's boys. God always deals with the, the younger. There's a reason for that. Oh, here when Isaac realizes this didn't happen the way I wanted it to. He didn't go that darn wife look what she did, but he didn't do that. He didn't say, you know, you boys messed this all up.

He didn't say well, if I wasn't half blind, you know, and blame himself in his situation instead, he said this was God's will. And so this is how it needs to happen and he surrendered to God's will. And so because of that, the Bible says by faith, he blessed Jacob and Esau concerning the things to come. So I think Isaac teaches us a very important lesson.

No matter how bad we mess things up, we can't mess up God's plan, right? God has a perfect plan that He's gonna work out through our life one way or another. God accomplishes things and sometimes it's not what we want. Sometimes it's, it doesn't come around the way we want it to happen. But what do we have to do? We have to say, Lord, not my will but thine be done. Isn't that how Jesus taught us to pray?

Isaac was able to do that because he walked with God. We see someone here who walked with God and was willing to sacrifice. and he was willing to surrender his will to God's will. If we're gonna walk with God, those are two very important things that we have to do that we can learn from, from Isaac. Anyone else have a, a comment.

Speaker 2

I'm just gonna say you talk about this. Got, oh I see. C 25. Keep people more. Yeah. When people be stronger and the older will serve,

Speaker 1

she knew, yeah, she wasn't being deceitful. She was trying to accomplish God's plan. She probably knew what he, he ain't gonna listen to me. But you know, instead of being the, the bad wife who was messing this up, she was actually the wife who was keeping him from making a mistake. And so quick clearing your throat, Katie and Amy and all you other women, we know y'all, we wouldn't be what we are without you.

Isaac wouldn't have been what he was without Rebecca, but together they were faithful and, and that's another thing we see Abraham, he had other wives, he had other concubines, right? Jacob did as well. Isaac had the one wife and he was faithful to her. She was faithful to him and God bless them for their faithfulness to each other. I, I heard a very sad thing that I think it was today.

It might have been yesterday. A student in my class literally said I'm just gonna cheat on my boyfriend because everybody cheats anyway. And I said, well, I can tell you one that don't, actually, I can tell you two that don't, yeah. Everybody don't cheat. We don't cheat, right? People that are faithful to their spouse. God blesses that So Isaac and Rebecca, they teach us that they teach us to walk with God, not just as a person, but as a family, pray for your family.

Isaac. Did he prayed for his wife? Be a spiritual leader in your home, husband or wife? You make your husband better, you make your wife better by praying for each other, right? Isaac teaches us some great things about walking with God. Let's pray, father, thank you again for, for your word. And all the stuff that we can learn from, from these examples that you've left for us to study.

Ah Lord, thank you for directing us by your Holy Spirit. to see and understand some of these things. God help us to be encouraged and inspired by your word. to walk with you, to be willing to sacrifice, to surrender our will to yours to be more spiritual in our homes and to pray for our, our spouse and our kids and our grandkids. And I just thank you that we're a part of a Christian family right here at this church and just help us to be able to inspire and encourage others so that we can all

have this testimony of people who walk with you. Lord, we love you. We want your will to be done through us. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for his willingness to be that sacrifice for our sins. It's in jesus' name, we pray amen.