Who's In?

I want to take you back, though, a couple years ago. Some of y’all in the room know that Becca and I used to live overseas. We had the opportunity of serving with the IMB in Southeast Asia. And routinely, we would have to leave our host country for visa reasons or for medical purposes. Where we lived was great, but for the particular visa, the reason that we were in country, we would have to leave.

And this was about March of four years ago. That puts you in March 2020. All right. Now, we had heard about this weird flu thing going on up in China. But we’re like, hey, you know what? That’s a couple hundred miles away from us. We’re not totally concerned with that. All right.

So we get to Thailand, which is on the southern coast of Asia right there. And we are in the city of Bangkok. Enormous. Take about half of the eastern seaboard of America and put it in one city. And you got the right idea there. We land. We kind of walk the streets that night looking for some food. We decide to eat food from a street vendor. We had some incredible fried rice. There’s the smells of diesel engines going by. There’s the sounds of a bunch of motors beeping their horns. You hear the guy stirring up some food for somebody else. You hear this conversation going on all around you in a language you can’t speak. And it’s just kind of nice to be an outsider yet again and for nobody to look at me and want anything from me.

We go back to the hotel that night. We have our appointments lined up for the following week to go take care of some stuff. And then we wake up the next morning. And we say, hey, it’s hungry. Or we’re hungry. It’s breakfast time. Let’s go grab some food. And man, that city of 20-something million was shut down. You see, COVID had already entered Thailand weeks prior. The mayor of Bangkok said, hey, instead of trying to put a hard skid on everything right now, I’m just going to put a date on the calendar. Have your fun until this day. And then whenever this day comes, we’re shutting it down. We got there the day before the day. And we had no idea.

So we end up in Thailand. That’s where we were stranded for a couple weeks, sitting in a hotel room. Long story short or short story long, we come back to America a few months later. The IMB said, hey, just finish your term stateside and just kind of rest up and all that. And we come back to America and a new language had entered the American workforce vocabulary. All of a sudden, every worker was separated into two categories. You had your essential workers and your not essential workers. Anybody lived through that personally? I’m not going to ask who the non-essential workers were. But we, as a country, as a world, were introduced to this idea. Some of y’all we need. Some of y’all we tolerate. And that was the idea of the American workforce for about two years or so. And then we kind of blew all that up.

I bring that up to say, we are in the middle of a series that’s actually winding down that I’ve called blueprint. The whole point of blueprint is we are looking at what the Bible has to say. How would God design a church? What would the blueprints of that house be? If the church is a house, and 1 Timothy says the church is a house, what are the blueprints? We have discussed elders at length. We have discussed deacons. This morning, we’re going to discuss members. We’re going to discuss workers.

So what is a church member? This is what I say. A church member is someone who makes a formal commitment to be part of the local church family for the sake of God’s glory, others benefit, and the community’s transformation. It’s a bit wordy, but there’s three points to it. God is glorified as others are benefited, and the community then is transformed. That is a church member.

So why then is a church member different from a Costco member? Some of us in the room have a membership to Costco or Sam’s Club or a golf club. It really doesn’t matter where it is, but memberships all work the same way. I pay some dues to receive some benefits. It’s ultimately about what you get out of the transaction. Getting a membership is not because you just love the Costco brand. You don’t get a membership to a golf club because You just love the people there. You get a membership so that you can play anytime you want. Church membership is different, though. Church membership is not about getting something, but giving. It’s not about you. It’s about the group. Or, as Craig Tuck said when I was being ordained a couple months ago, church membership is about mission over me. It’s about getting to contribute to something.

So this morning, we’re discussing membership. And here’s my thing. If you only take one thing away from this morning, at least from the sermon, this is it. It’s that every member is essential because the church is a body. Every member is essential because the church is a body. We have no distinctions here. You have some essential personnel and non-essential personnel. We don’t have that category. Everybody is essential. And I think that after I walk through 1 Corinthians 12, you will see it that way, too.

So if you have your Bibles, go ahead and open up 1 Corinthians 12. If you’re not that familiar with the terrain of your Bible, you just open to the middle, turn right. You’ll hit Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. You pass them. Go to Acts, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians. The script will be on the screens, but it is so much better in your hands. All right? 1 Corinthians 12. I’m starting in verse 12. I’m just going to read a couple verses off the top. For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body, so also is Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all given one Spirit to drink. Indeed, the body is not one part. Sorry. It’s not one part, but many.

You see, what I want to walk through this morning is that the body of Christ does four things. The first thing that the body of Christ does is it unites. That’s what we just saw in verses 12 through 14. The body unites. Because of Christ, we unite. We should unite with one another. Notice in verses 12, 13, and 14, the word one is used seven times. Seven times. Which means Paul, if he were here with us this morning, he would say that no difference should divide us. Whether ethnic, economic, educational, or otherwise, we are one in Christ. The same Christ saves us. The same Spirit baptizes us. The same God calls us. And the same gospel unites us.

But the world, the flesh, and the devil want to attack that unity with everything they’ve got. And I see that in two ways in particular. The first is just to blow it all up. The first is for us to only unite or spend time with people that look like us or act like us or have the same hobbies as us. Enter golf memberships or hunt club memberships or whatever it is that you like to do. Whatever it is you like to do, we make memberships according to things that we like with people that look like us. And hey, I’m not bagging on hobbies. I’m not bagging on recreational time. Al, you’re fine. I want you to play all the golf you can play, okay? But the issue in the church is that we say that a difference between us is more important than the unity God has designed for us. The world, the flesh, and the devil would love to introduce division where there should be unity.

But it’s crazy because Christ has a different desire for us. If you have been going to the Monday night women’s ministry meetings for the past eight weeks or so, this will sound incredibly familiar to you what I’m about to read. Jesus, in John chapter 17, says this, May they, all believers, may they be one as You, Father, are in Me and I am in You. May they also be in Us so that the world may believe You sent Me. This world, the flesh, and the devil would love to divide and to break us up. But what Christ prays for us and what He has done for us is that we would experience unity with one another that would look like the unity that God has within Himself. Can you imagine that? Just think about how… How incalculably rich this is. How incredibly sweet it is that Christ would say, God, Father, just like You and I are on the same page, let them be on the same page. Father, just like You and I are one, let them be one. So that nothing would break them up, Nothing would divide them, nothing would distract them. Have to wonder aloud, how enticing would that sort of unity look like to the world? How incredibly rich would that be to others outside of us to see that type of unity within us? Where folks on the outside could say, “Hey, I don’t get it, it doesn’t make sense to me, but those folks love each other, you can’t break them up for nothing. I don’t understand all this about Jesus, I don’t get the cross, I don’t really think that I’m a sinner, I don’t really think that God sent His Son to die for me, but I can say something. Those folks are united.” That’s what the world would say to us.

Christ intends for us to be united. That’s why every member is essential. We are all essential because we are meant to be united. Now we’re also all essential because the body also cherishes one another. That’s the second thing that the body does. First it unites, second it cherishes.

Keep reading with me, starting at verse 15. If the foot should say, “Because I’m not a hand, I don’t belong to the body,” it is not for that reason any less part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I’m not an eye, I don’t belong to the body,” it is not for that reason any less part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God has arranged each one of the parts in the body just as He wanted. And if they were all the same part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts but one body. The eye can’t say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” Or again, the head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.” On the contrary, those parts of the body that are weaker are indispensable.

So Paul takes us through an anatomy lesson. But this is his point, verse 23. Those parts of the body that we consider less honorable, we clothe these with greater honor. And our unrespectable parts are treated with greater respect, which our respectable parts don’t need. Instead, God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the less honorable so that there would be no division in the body. But, but, that the members would have the same concern for each other. So, if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

And check me at verse 27. Now you are the body of Christ and individual members of it. You see the whole point of this. Paul says the body of Christ is like a human body, really. There’s parts of it. There are different attachments to it. There are different areas of it. And it’s all necessary. In fact, it’s all God designed. Because of Christ, we cherish each other.

You see, we are made differently. Earlier, I spoke against disunity and division. But here’s the difference, that there are some differences. We are made differently. We have different roles, different gifts, different backgrounds, different passions, different sensibilities. And we all add value because of those differences. God’s design is not that we would all look exactly the same with the same dispositions and the same characteristics and the same desires and the same passions and the same strengths and the same weaknesses. That’s not what He wants. If that’s what He wanted, then why would we all look so different? But God’s desire is that within our differences, we would find cause to cherish one another.

COVID taught us that some are essential and some are non-essential. That’s what COVID said. But Christ says that because His blood is in all of our veins, we are all essential. A body that’s only big toes, it might be able to walk, but it can’t do anything. A body that’s only eyes may be able to see, but it can’t go anywhere. A body that’s only hands might be able to do some stuff, but where’s it going to go? What’s it going to see? The body needs the entire body.

This is Christ’s backwards logic. Some of us seem weaker and less honorable. And to God, they’re actually indispensable and more honored. The world discards the dispensable and dishonors all, but that’s not the way with Christ. God loves the dispensable. He moves toward the despised. His heart is broken for the dishonored. And we are like Him when we move toward others in love that are naturally cast out. You see, Think about it this way. Exists as Trinity. We talked about this on Wednesday night last month. We spent a couple weeks on it because it’s just so brain-bursting. God has always existed as a community within Himself. Father, Son, and Spirit. Different yet united. Three persons yet one. That’s how God exists. Those differences between the heads of the Trinity were meant to be cherished. And they add something unique to the whole. They deepen it. And that’s what God is saying that we as a community ought to function like. Different, unique, yet united. One, cherishing one another. It’s why Paul says, verse 26, if one member suffers, all the members suffer. If one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

You don’t need me to logic this one from the Trinity to the church to understand that what happens to one of us happens to all of us. God has designed this body just like your human body. You ever stub your toe at night? I’m in the season where I’m stepping on Legos left and right, man. I can’t avoid those things. It feels like traps that my beautiful children lay out for me. This morning, it was the stool in the bathroom. And I’m trying to be quiet, all right? Everybody else is asleep. And I’m just, I’m like, oh. And I kick that thing. And I kick this harder than I intended. I apologize for that. I kick that thing and I make this big old ruckus in the bathroom. And I’m like, uh-oh, who’s awake now? You know what I mean? And you’re tiptoeing through the thing. I only struck it with my big toe. But you better believe the rest of my body felt it. And God says that our body as a church is the same way. You strike your big toe, the whole thing feels it. God has designed this so that we would be united. We would cherish one another because we are like hardwired into each other. We’re all essential to this thing. That’s the nature of church membership. And because of Christ, we can cherish how God has made us. We can cherish how God has made others.

But the body of Christ, okay, I’ve said it unites, it cherishes. This is the third thing that Paul would say the body does. The body also exercises. Anybody get a little nervous about the word exercise? Okay, some nervous laughter from the folks that are truthful and some silence from everybody else. Okay, the body exercises. Look at me, verse 27 again. Now you are the body of Christ and individual members of it. God has appointed these in the church. First, apostles. Second, prophets. Third, teachers. Next, miracles. Then, gifts of healing, helping, leading, various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles, are all prophets, are all teachers, do all do miracles, do all have gifts of healing, do all speak in tongues, do all interpret, but desire the greater gifts. And I will show you an even better way. See, because of Christ, the body of Christ. Christ exercises.

Now, what this means is that there are gifts given to individuals here in this room. And God’s desire is that those folks that are gifted will be able to exercise those gifts. And because every member of the church is essential, that means when we discover a gift in somebody, we need to create space for them to exercise that gift. All giftings come from God. He’s the one that appointed those apostles, those prophets, teachers, miracle workers, healers, leaders, even tongue speakers. And regardless of what we may believe about how those gifts are exercised in the church today, the same principle and truth holds that all spiritual gifts are appointed by God. If you don’t believe me, then just turn to Ephesians chapter four. This will be on the screen too. This is also Paul, but writing to a different church. And he says it this way. And He Himself, Christ, gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. Why? Christ gave those to the church so that or to equip the saints for the work of ministry to build up what? The body of Christ until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness. You see, you are here because Christ is giving you as a gift and as a member to Sauldam Baptist Church to exercise your gift so that the fullness of this body can grow into maturity. Isn’t that wild? God has wired you uniquely to give a unique contribution to a local church at a appointed Time so that that church can be all that God wants it to be. I find that incredible. I find it incredible that before you were born, you were knit together in your mother’s womb with your passions, with your strengths, your weaknesses even, so that God could say, “Hey, here’s Al and Beth, and they’re going to help that church grow for a season. Hey, here’s the Luden family.” And God is saying, “Hey, just take them and let them do their thing, and you’re all going to be better for it. Hey, here’s Billy. He’s got some gifts. Hey, here’s Arthur Jr. He’s got something to contribute.”

That’s what God has done in the local church, which means my job is to find and release gifting so that we may all grow into maturity. It’s not for me to do everything there is to do. That’s why I have others help do the call to worship. That’s why I have others help do the welcome. Others will continue to step into positions of leadership and influence because the Bible says we cannot be all we need to be if it’s only me.

Sauldam Baptist Church is not the Jeremy show. To be cliché, this is the Jesus show, and He wants as much exercise here as possible. So here’s my offer to you. If you have a passion for something, if you have a gift for something, if people are affirming something in you, then I want to help find a way for you to use that so that we can be who we’re supposed to be. Truly, I mean that. We don’t just want busy members. I don’t just want well-run programs. We need folks operating in their gifts or else we won’t be as healthy as we’re supposed to be.

If we truly see each other as essential, then we will make space for one another to exercise what makes them unique so that all of us can be built up into the image and the fullness of Christ.

I would encourage you, if you’re a note-taker, write two passages down. Romans 12:3 through 8. Just write that down. And you know what? If you have a bulletin under the Digging Deeper section, I’ve already written it down for you. Under the Digging Deeper section, number two, it says 1 Corinthians 12:1 through 11, and Romans 12:3 through 8. I would love for you to prayerfully read those passages later and to say, “Lord, will You show me how have You wired me and gifted me so that I can help this church?” That is a prayer God will answer. He will show you those things.

I think about Diane and Buck, how they display hospitality everywhere they go. They came to my house for dinner once and I felt like I was a guest in their house. That’s just how they carried themselves. I think about how Wes Green anticipates and meets needs with the best of them. Truly, I think about Al and the way he exhorts and encourages. I could go on and on. We could spend all day till we were singing Kumbaya in the back, just talking about how much we love each other and the gifts God has given each other.

Here’s the thing. I believe that God has assignments for people and for churches. We will not fulfill our assignment unless everybody’s exercising. That’s my desire. So a body, it unites, it cherishes, it exercises, and finally, a body loves.

Look at chapter 13 with me. I did say chapter 13. Paul says, “If I speak in human or angelic tongues, but don’t have love, I’m just a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains, but don’t have love, I’m nothing. If I give away all my possessions, if I give over my body in order to boast, but don’t have love, I gain nothing.”

You see, love, oh, love is patient. Say it with me. Love. Love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. No, love finds no joy in unrighteousness, but it rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

But as for prophecies, they’ll come to an end. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it’ll come to an end. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial, yeah, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child. When I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, though, I put aside childish things. For now, we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then, then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully as I am fully known. Now these three remain, faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.

You may have heard that chapter preached at a wedding before. I mean, it’s an appropriate subject, love, you’re at a wedding and all that. That chapter may have been preached at your wedding. But what Paul has done here is he has been talking about the nature of the church as the body of Christ. Then if you fast forward into chapter 14, you see that he returns to this idea of spiritual gifts, and sandwiched in the middle is this chapter on love. Paul’s making this point. The body of Christ loves, and that’s more important than gifts.

You see, love is described 17 ways in chapter 13. I encourage you later today, tomorrow, when you’re doing your quiet time with your coffee, just go back through chapter 13. Write down all the ways Paul describes love. Just write them down. I find three overarching ways he describes love. He says, love is greater than any spiritual gift or any experience. In verses one through three, he said, I could have prophecy. I could know all knowledge. I could have faith to move mountains, but if I don’t love, I’m nothing. He says, even if I give my life for the cause of the gospel, if I give myself over, but I don’t have love, I’ve got Jack. Love is greater than anything.

Love defaults to other-centeredness. That’s where he gets love is patient. It’s kind. It finds no joy in unrighteousness. It bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things. Love defaults to other-centeredness. And that’s the way it is best in the church. And he also says that love is never ending for the Christian. There is a day where you and I will stand arm in arm, rejoicing around the throne of Christ. And we’ll be free of these physical issues. We’ll be free of the darkness and the sadness that lives in our hearts. We’ll be free of the muck and the mire in the world and in ourselves. And we will love Christ and we will love one another in totality and purity. We will not be prophesying. We will not be preaching. We will not be having to know anything about the Bible because we will be fully united with the one who is the word itself. Love for Christ and love for each other, that goes on into eternity. But how we exercise for Him now one day will come to a stop. This undergirding power to unite, to cherish, and to exercise is love.

You see, love for one another transforms how we view them. Love transforms viewing somebody from being a non-essential part of the story I’m writing to an essential part of the story that God is writing. Love is essential. Love helps us see that everybody is essential. Love is the foundation. But here’s the deal. We can only love one another. Why? You know it because we have been loved by Christ. 1 John 4:19 says it this way. We love because He first loved us.

You see, the good news of God’s grace is not just destinational. What I mean is we talk about God’s grace and the gospel as the way we get to go to a destination. And that’s true. We talk about that destination. It’s called heaven. If you don’t accept the gospel, then you go to a different destination. That’s called hell. And we want to make sure you don’t go there. So we’re going to talk about only going here. So we make the gospel, the good news of God’s grace, purely about avoiding a bad place and getting into a good place. That’s destinational. But Jesus is also saying the gospel, God’s grace, it’s relational. It’s not just that you get to go to a certain place, but it’s that you get to have a relationship of peace with the one that has made you.

And here’s where I want to pull out of a sermon on church membership, and I want to zero in on just you. You have a relationship with God. Don’t doubt everybody in here wants to go to a certain destination with God. You wouldn’t be here not playing golf, not having brunch, not at the beach. You wouldn’t be here if You didn’t believe there’s a destination to go to. But do you have a relationship with God where you’re able to call Him Dad? Where you are able to call Christ your older brother? Where you are able to talk with Jesus and to say, “I just love You. I just want to be with You. I just want to know You more deeply.” Do you have that? If you’re not so certain, then this is your moment. Where you get to say, “God, I’ll trust You. Take me to the right place. Just bring me close to You right now.”

If you will, if you’re not so certain that you know Jesus on a heart-to-heart level because you’ve actually embraced Him. Where you’ve actually said, “Jesus, I have hurt Your heart because of my sin. I have not just broken some arbitrary rules in an ancient book. No, but I have actually damaged our relationship by how I’ve thought about, treated others.” And you tell Him, “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Please forgive me for all the stuff I do. And bring me into a relationship with You.”

If that’s where you’re at, I really want to talk. I would love nothing more than just to be a relational bridge between you and the One that’s made you.

I think oftentimes in the church, we only talk about salvation as being a place to go. But if you don’t love the God of heaven, then whenever you get to heaven with God, they could be bored. Do you love the God that’s drawing you? Or do you just want the benefits of being in a membership with Him?

I had to face that at 15. You see, I grew up in a church kind of like this. And I was baptized as a 9, a 10-year-old because I didn’t want to go to a destination. All right? I was deathly afraid of the idea of hell. Okay? I didn’t want to go to a place where I was going to suffer forever. Nobody wants eternal damnation. Nobody wants forever detention. Nobody wants that. All right? So I just said, “Hey, whatever it takes to not go to hell, I’ll do that.” And in my 9-year-old thinking, that meant I’m going to get baptized.

So there I was as a 9-year-old. I’ll walk a church aisle. I indicate desire to be baptized. I go through the little class to make sure that I knew what I was talking about. I didn’t. I was just regurgitating answers that the nice children’s minister was giving me to say. And I got baptized. Because I thought being saved meant I got to go to a place. But nothing had actually changed in my heart because I didn’t actually love Jesus. Because I didn’t want a relationship with God. I just wanted benefits from God. Honestly, I wanted safety from God.

In steps of friends when I’m 15. You see, I’m very involved in church at this point. Because I’m very committed to the idea of check, check, check, check, check, check, check. Means I get to go there. I’m very committed to the idea that if I do things for God, if I maintain my dues, then I’ll keep getting the benefits of that membership with God. So I’m very committed to those things. Read my Bible every day. I pray every day. I go to church every time I can go to church. I even give financially sometimes as a 15-year-old. That was weird. Who does that? A kid trying to earn his way to heaven. That’s who does that.

And this buddy, his name is Luke. He would drive me home from youth group sometimes. He was a year older than me. We get home. He turns his little Nissan or his little Toyota off, whatever it was. He says, “Jeremy, man, I love you. You don’t love Jesus.” And he proceeded to tell me the story of why God so loved Jeremy. That He would send His only begotten Son to rescue Jeremy. So that God could have a relationship with Jeremy.

And that was the night that it stopped being about a destination and it started being about a relationship. And I’ll tell you, not everything settled. It took some time for all the dust to clear and for stuff to start clicking. And I’ll be honest, 16 years after that, I’m still putting some things together. In fact, that’s why I’m up here right now. It’s just because I want to help people experience what I had experienced. And I don’t know any other better path to do that.

So God invited me into a relationship with Himself that night. And I wonder if there’s somebody here that He’s inviting into a relationship right now. God would love nothing more than just to have you to Himself. Not because He demands things from you, but because He has life for you. God would love for you. You see, that’s the nature of how it is in the church. We enter into a relationship with God because He loves us. Which means then that we can be in a relationship of love with one another. In fact, in John chapter 13, Jesus put it this way. He said, I found my note here. He said, by this, everyone will know that you’re my disciple. If you know your Bible, Donna, is it know your Bible? By this, everyone will know that you’re my disciple. If you tithe, tithe by this everyone will know that you’re my disciple if you love one another the proof of your love for God is your love for others that’s the nature of how this works loving one another is the sign that we love Christ you see purpose driven church membership is not new to Sauldam yeah I’ve got a picture actually want to show you guys I think this is stinking awesome it might be a little blurry for you but you could see it up close and personal in the back history room if you want that is our original it’s not the original piece of paper but that’s the original church covenant when Sauldam Baptist Church was chartered in 1842 the yeah it was 1841 the paper says 1842 so that I guess they waited a little bit for some things to settle on what exactly they were gonna do and in that covenant they said in the power of the Trinity we will love one another and we’re gonna commit to this body of believers so that the world would know who Christ is you see I’m not introducing anything new by talking about membership that’s what we’ve been about for a long time what I’m just doing is reminding us of God’s blueprint for the local church you see it’s not just plural elders it’s not just service-minded deacons but it’s mutually accountable mutually devoted and mutually loving members you see this is how we’re made so for our a long time and our new members I just want to say thank you thank you for being a part of this thank you for exercising uniting cherishing and loving thank you truly and for those considering membership I’ve got a question why not begin a conversation today I’ll be down front here in a moment and we just talk about it no commitments ultimate timeshare opportunity okay I put the press on you but now it’s the time for you to come down front and let’s just talk about it for a moment I’m pray for us Lord I hope that what I’ve said has honored you God I believe that you took this in a different direction for a moment there than I anticipated but I want to submit to you and your plan for me Lord I pray for our church God that we would be uniting and mutually cherishing we would be exercising we’d be loving ultimately father that you would be glorified that we would be built up into maturity and that this community the low country would be transformed through it father for the believer in the room the one that already has a relationship with you I pray you would just bring them deeper into that but father for those that don’t know you yet I ask you get a hold of them and that they would join your body through salvation please God we love you and it’s in your name we pray amen