Jim Cymbala emphasizes that Christianity is fundamentally about Jesus and the eternal life He offers, urging believers to move beyond a welfare mentality of merely receiving from God to actively participating in His work. He highlights the importance of spreading the gospel and discipling others, reminding the congregation that their labor in the Lord is not in vain. Cymbala challenges the church to focus on eternal matters rather than earthly distractions, encouraging a commitment to serve and witness for Christ. He calls for a surrender of personal desires to fulfill the mission of God, emphasizing that true fulfillment comes from living for Him and helping others find salvation.

Caleb and the choir just sang an interesting song, didn't they? I surrender, I surrender. I'd like to ask you this question. Is that biblical? And if so, why? Surrender for what? Are we at war? Is God trying to get us to surrender so that we'll, he can put his foot on our neck and say, I beat you? No, surrender is in the Bible, but probably the greatest crisis in the Christian church in the last four years, I've been traveling a lot around the world and around the country, especially meeting with pastors and with believers, and probably the number one loss to us today is what I'm about to talk to you about. We've lost this truth. Christianity is about Jesus, and it's about John 3.16 to begin with. For God so loved the world that he, what? That whosoever would not but have. So we know that eternal life is a gift from God. Choir members are singing because they love the Lord. He has saved and changed their lives. And then there's a multitude of promises in the Bible and declarations of all that God wants to do for us after we become Christians. He wants to give us peace, not as the world gives, but his peace. He wants to give us joy, unspeakable, glorious joy. Am I correct? He wants to provide for us. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not. So all these passages are all the things that this loving heavenly Father wants to give us, and that on a daily basis. Give us this day our daily bread. Okay, and that is all true. But what has happened, and you can never overemphasize that, what has happened in many of our lives and in the church at large is that a kind of welfare mentality has set in. So all we understand is what God gives us, and there's no thought of our response to him. It's just gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. Very little thought of God and what he's doing on the earth. The missing note in a lot of our lives, and this is why there's so little fulfillment and a lack of that exuberant joy, is that even the best of us have made it a one-way street. When I'm in trouble, oh, I know that verse, Pastor. In the day of trouble, call upon me and I will answer you. And all those verses, am I right, choir? And it's God, thank you that you're there. But in the midst of that, we have lost something very, very precious. I've battled, I don't wanna lose it. I'm preaching to myself today, and I preach this message in the presence of God, and I preach it not looking down on anyone, but as the least of all the brothers and sisters here. To get to this one little verse, we have to kind of go through an argument that the apostle makes in a chapter in 1 Corinthians. And 1 Corinthians 15 is a chapter that pastors and ministers many times quote from when they talk at funerals about the immortality of the soul, the fact that there's life after death, because when you die, your spirit goes to be with the Lord. Am I correct? According to the word of God, the real me, the real you is not this body. Paul is now addressing this. So let's just look at it carefully and slowly, and read it, I'm gonna jump through it. Now brothers, I wanna remind you of the gospel that I preach to you, which you've received and on which you've taken your stand. By this gospel, what does gospel mean? Good news, everybody say good news. By this gospel, you are saved if you hold firmly to the word I preach to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. Okay, so here it is. For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance, this is first importance, not join the church, not sing in the choir, not be a deacon, that Christ died for our what? Sins, according to the scriptures. According to the scriptures means it was foretold in the Old Testament that he was buried to prove he was dead and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures. And that he appeared to Peter, this resurrected Jesus, appeared to a man called Peter, one of his disciples, and then to the 12, the disciples who were left, they had replaced Judas. After that, he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Fallen asleep there means dead. Then he appeared to James, that's his half-brother, then to all the apostles, again, and last of all, he appeared to me also as one abnormally born. Now, later on, the rumor had spread there's no life after death, that when you die, it's all over. There is no resurrection of the dead. So Paul says, now, if Christ has not been raised, if there's no resurrection of the dead, Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, you are still in your sins, then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. In other words, Paul's making the argument, wait a minute, if there's no life after death, then Christ didn't rise from the dead. If Christ didn't rise from the dead, then he's buried in the dirt somewhere, and our faith is in vain, because he was a man who sinned like the rest of us. And if that's so, then the gospel is a lie, Jesus is a lie, and he says, of all the people in the world, we're to be pitied the most, because here we're denying ourselves, trying to walk in the narrow pathway, for what? For what? For what? What are we doing it for? If when it's over, it's over, so you get the argument. Then goes on later, and as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? He was risking himself to preach the gospel. I die every day, I mean that brothers, just as surely as I glory over you, probably means risking my life, as I glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord. If I fought with wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, that was the opposition that almost tried to kill him. What have I gained? If the dead are not raised, here it is, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. If there's no life after death, why are we wasting our time in here? Let's go out and party. What are we studying about? We're gonna die, you're gonna die. You're gonna end up Hitler, Mother Teresa, Socrates, Abraham Lincoln, you, me, Billy Graham, it's all for nothing. We're gonna die, we're gonna die. It's over. So then why do anything about the world to come? Because there is no world to come. Then finally, he gives this verse. Therefore, therefore means because of all I laid out to you, my dear brother, stand firm, let nothing move you, always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Let's read that. Therefore, my dear brothers, come on, stand firm, let nothing move you, always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. You know, when you're a parent, you see your kids grow up fast. And once they're little babies, and the next thing you know, they're grown up. They're teenagers, then they're grown up. I can't believe my oldest grandchild, Susie Joy, who my wife and I helped raise because of the circumstances of her birth, I can't believe that yesterday was her birthday, and she's 22 or 23 years old. I better find out which year that is. I think it's 23. How could that be? She was just this little infant. Just this little baby. I used to lay her in bed when she was eight months, 10 months, and lay her in my bed, and then kneel at the side of the bed, and just look at her beautiful little face and pray over her, and now she's married? But how about this? Where is Susie Joy gonna be a million years from now? Who's your best friend? Who's your family members? Who do you care about? They're all gonna be somewhere. If Paul's argument is correct, if Jesus is saying the truth, then the most important fact of life is the one that escapes us the most easily, which is it's not about here. It's about there. But the problem is is that the things here are so real to our senses that unless we're spiritually minded, unless the Holy Spirit is making this word real, unless the Holy Spirit is giving us a vision of another world and another life, it all becomes about here. And our best friend could be going to hell in a handbasket. That doesn't bother us, but someone back-ended our car, and it's the end of the world. That's the argument Paul is making, and Paul says it flat out. If it's all about here, education, making money, going to Puerto Rico on a vacation, if that's all it's about, then let's eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Do not sing in the choir. Why would you give up time to practice? It makes no sense. Why are you wasting your time? You're gonna die. Get all your living in now. You only go around one time. That's the argument that Jesus made. Remember what he said? What would it profit a man if he gained what? Are you into houses? What if you owned every house? You're into women? You have every woman. You're into clothes? You have unlimited wardrobe. For what? Then when you die, now what's gonna happen as the eons roll on? Millions and millions of years. Brothers and sisters, the teaching so prevalent in so much of the Christian media is so much about their mind is on earthly things that people have lost the hope of heaven. How many here are planning to go to heaven with me? Come on. Jesus said, I go to prepare a place for you that where I am, you may be also. In this world, you will have trouble and tribulation, but don't worry about it. I've overcome the world. This is just a little blip on the screen, and then it's gonna open up into eternity. The reward for being a Christian is not here on this earth, but see, that's my problem right here. That takes such revelation. Come Holy Spirit and help us understand it. Paul's argument is I'm stretching, I'm preaching, I'm risking my life. Why? Because when I die, it's all over? No, I'm doing all of that because one day I'm gonna see Christ, and I wanna win others to this same gift of eternal life. I wanna persuade others, put your faith in Jesus, please, put your faith in Jesus. Please, come and put your faith in Jesus. Turn away from the way you're living, please. I don't wanna hear about it. Please, listen, let me tell you what he did in my life. If they get abusive, Paul would turn away. You don't fight with people and argue with people, but he would just go to the next person, keep spreading the word. Why? Because there's life after death, there's eternity. And most Christians, it seems, have their minds focused on the here and the now. And because of that, they heap teachers and preachers who will just form a religion about here and now. I wanna tell you that Christianity is not about here and now it is about here and now, but it's especially about we will live forever with Christ. We're gonna reign with Christ. There's gonna be a new heaven and a new earth. How many are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth? Come on, a new heaven, a new earth, where we're all gonna be together. You think we're happy high-fiving now? What are we gonna do when we get to heaven? Talk about joy. Maybe for the first 10,000 years, we'll just be jumping. Excited, happy. No, no, I'm not making that up. I'm talking about what the Bible talks about. Of course, time will cease, so it won't be measured in years. We're gonna slip into God's mode of eternity. No beginning, no end, no end. There'll never be a day you'll lay down and say, ha ha, no, on and on and on. That's the life of the soul, either with Christ or away from Christ. This is Paul's whole argument. No one ceases to be when they die. They're still there somewhere. When I got to the hospital just 10 minutes too late in California, when Pastor Bogstaff was so ill, and he went away to be with the Lord 10 minutes before I walked in, I had been with him the night before. The moment I walked in and looked at him in the bed, I knew that wasn't him, he's gone. His body was the same, but it wasn't the same. Life was gone, his spirit was gone. A body is a body, a corpse is a corpse. But Jesus said, the person who believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. Now, this is what Christianity is about. Paul says, this is the first thing we want you to know. Christ died for our sins, as prophesied. He was buried in a tomb. He then rose again from the dead as proof of the fact that he's gonna grant that same eternal life to us. The grave will not have victory over us. We will have victory over the grave through Jesus Christ. And we will live forever to be with the Lord. He said, that's the gospel, that's the good news. Therefore, now he doesn't write this one sentence to the pastor of the church, that's our thinking. Listen closely now, Lord help us. He doesn't write to the pastor or the elders of the church, he's writing to the whole church in Corinth. And he says, therefore, brothers and sisters, stand firm, don't quit, don't give up, don't back up. This is not in resisting the devil, like in Ephesians 6, stand firm there, put on the whole armor of God. No, this is a different stand firm. Stand firm, be resolute, always abounding in the work of the Lord, not what he has done for you. Now it's time to answer, what will you do for him? And he's telling you what he wants you to do. Always be abounding, whole church. This verse has totally probably the most lost verse, one of the most lost verses to us in the New Testament. Always abounding in the work of the Lord, not come to church on Sunday, try to make it on Tuesday. He's not talking about that at all. Those are givens to him. He's saying, always be abounding. If Christ has saved you, if he means anything to you, if he has given you a new beginning in life, if you have a hope and a joy now, if you've not lost your praise, could you please, for just a moment, turn around and think about what he wants you to do for him? Already I know what he has done for us. But now the question is, will you respond and live for him? Will you sing, I surrender, with this intelligence in mind? I surrender so that I can do the work of the Lord on the earth that he's left me to inhabit. What is the work of the Lord? It's not going to church. That is a blessing for us. The work of the Lord in the Bible is basically two things. It's spreading the gospel to people who don't know it. In New Guinea, in Bed-Stuy, in the Philippines, in the Bronx, in Red Hook, wherever there are people, part of the work of the Lord is get them the gospel. Now, it's harder for us today, easier in some ways because of communication, New Testaments, media, and all of that. But it's harder for us than the early apostles because nobody in the day when they were spreading the gospel to a world that didn't know who Jesus was, basically, nobody was doing a drug deal, selling some weed, and saying, for Christ's sake, would you give me the money, man? Nobody was using Christ's name in vain. Jesus said they would one day use his name in vain. They're doing it now. But Christ wasn't in the vocabulary of the people. Now, we have people who live against God who use Jesus almost every other sentence. This is a challenge. When Paul went out and preached and he mentioned Jesus, they said, Jesus who? Who's Jesus of Nazareth? And he explained. Now, everyone thinks they know. And you have people living, your family members, my family members, Bible's in their house but not living for God. They're lost. If they die today, I dread to think what will happen. They have an eternal soul. They have a Bible. They know, but they have not, it seems, committed their life to Christ to serve him for whatever reason. And their what's at stake, their soul is at stake. More important than Wall Street, more important than sports, more important than American Idol, more important than politics, more important than who wins the next election. Those are secondary matters. That's nothing. Presidents come, presidents go. Nobody remembers who was president 100 years ago, and if the world exists for another 100 years, nobody will remember Bush or Obama. But the really important things are who found Jesus Christ as their savior? Who got converted? Who said, Lord, I confess my sins. Oh God, please save me. Who said that? The angels rejoice over that. Can we say amen to that? The angels rejoice over that. So part of the work of the Lord is to get the word through crusades with evangelists that are famous like Billy Graham and others who are not so famous. It's through social media. It's through my sister sharing on the job, my sister calling, prompted by the Holy Spirit, calling a relative and saying, you've been on my heart. I gotta tell you something. This is what Christ has done in my life, and I haven't really told you like I should have told you. Jesus loves you. He wants to change your life. It involves praying. It involves giving. It involves putting the New Testament in languages. It involves labor. It involves sacrifice. It involves all kinds of things because this is not gonna be done just by hanging out. It has to be intentional. Last thing Jesus said to us was go into all the world and preach the what? The gospel, the good news, and make disciples. Now that's the other part of the work of the Lord. The first part is to spread the word. So people could get saved and be born again. Now what happens when they are born again? They've got baggage. They need to be taught. They need to be prayed with. They have no mother and dad, some of them. They don't know what love is. I met a girl the other day, months ago, who I was talking to, and she basically asked me, what's a father? She has no concept of father, so don't tell her about our father which art in heaven. She doesn't even know what father means. They need jobs. They need help. Some are well-to-do. Some are dirt poor, but they have to be discipled so that they can begin to spread the gospel. That's the work of the Lord. Spread it and then help it grow. Spread it and then take time with people and help it grow, and that's the most important thing anyone can do on planet Earth. Other people who make 10 million a year as movie stars or 10 million a picture, that's nothing. Those are things not even to be mentioned. That's just leftover dust. What's that gonna matter in eternity? Oh, I made a movie. Oh, I got a PhD. Oh, I got famous in my line of work. What was that, what's that gonna mean? What's that gonna mean 10 billion years from now when people will be separated into a place of light with Christ or separated into a place of total darkness? Total darkness. We don't know much about that place of punishment, but we know one thing, it is a place of total darkness. No light. It's a place of anguish and a place, it seems, of aloneness. There's no community. In rejecting God, God has said, this is what happens for people who choose not to be with me. Are there mysteries about it? Are there questions that we all have? Yes, but let's go by what we know. Go into all the world and tell people about Jesus. And why are you here today? Father, help me as I speak. Why are you here today? Didn't someone tell you? Didn't someone do the work of the Lord? Look, I'm here a little bit differently. My mother brought me to church along with my dad, but my mother only brought me to church because her mother became a Christian. How did her mother, a little Polish lady in Pennsylvania, how did she become a Christian? Because some minister from New York City went to the boondocks of Pennsylvania and told them about Jesus. They were lost in superstition and religion, didn't know what it was to be born again, didn't know what it was to be a Christian, and the gospel came, and my grandmother and my grandfather, my Polish grandmother and grandfather, they got converted. And then they had 10 children, and those 10 children then received Christ. And one of those 10 children was my mother. And then my mother passed it on to me and Bob and Pat, and now we've passed it on to our children. And now my grandchildren are serving the Lord because a man, some poor, very uneducated man came and prayed for someone who was sick, and they got healed. And when they got healed and they prayed in Jesus' name, it converted my grandmother and my grandfather. They said, Jesus must be real. Why are we still with superstition and religion? Jesus is alive. Jesus is real. And that's why I'm here today. Come on, let's put our hands together for the work of the Lord. And don't you have your story? Don't you have your story? Some of you, you're the first ones in the generations of your family to be Christian. Others of you are because someone else went, but all of us, how can they believe unless they hear? How can they hear unless someone tells them? So this is the work of the Lord, to talk, to pray, to cry, to encourage. And don't believers sometimes, new believers especially, get down and discourage? Well, who's gonna put their arms around them? You think pastors can do that? Pastors should do that. But notice what Paul says here. Therefore to the church, always be abounding. Notice, always be abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. There's time for everything under the sun, but don't tell me there's any other priority more important than doing the work of the Lord. The Bible lets it be clear. Do you have a good family? Thank God for your family. Thank God for my children and my grandchildren, but always be abounding in the work of the Lord. The saddest thing is when I see couples who are on fire for God, involved in the work of the Lord, they get married, and their marriage becomes an idol. I say that respectfully. I battled it myself. I was a layman when I got married. Then you wonder why there's no joy and sense of fulfillment is because you weren't created to get married. Marriage is just a blessing. You were created to serve God and worship Him and spread the good news of Jesus Christ. That's why we were created. To the church, not to the leaders, our American concept is, look, you all sit there. We do the work. Somebody performs on the platform. You sit here. You go back to your life. You come back maybe Tuesday. Do join with me on Tuesday. You know who I'm praying for? My daughter, Chrissy, my oldest, who's the daughter of baby Sue, Suzy Joy, who's just turned 22 or 23. She was away from the Lord for two and a half years, and I learned a lot about praying then, about how to battle and not quit and not give up. We got people whose husbands are away from the Lord right now. We got people, we got kids who we love, they're away from the Lord right now. What are we gonna do, watch the Yankee game? What are we gonna do? Always abounding in the work of the Lord. If we're not gonna pray for them, they're not praying for themselves. I can assure you Chrissy was not praying for herself when our mother and I were anguishing and laboring in prayer, but God answers prayer. Don't you have somebody you love that's in trouble? Everyone who has someone they love that you know spiritually, they're not in a good spot. Just lift your hand. So let's come for an hour. Let's come and pray. Oh, I'm busy. What could you be doing? What could I be doing that's more important than the work of the Lord? What else has eternity stamped on it? Tell me what you do that has eternity stamped on it. Just tell me, what do you do? Thank God for a job, thank God for a career, but remember, it's only money to keep your body and soul together so you can do the work of the Lord. Not the ministry, the believers, the body of Christ. Always be abounding in the work of the Lord. If you study that phrase in the New Testament, work of the Lord, you'll find out Paul says this. Always respect those and hold them in high esteem who work hard in the work of the Lord. Always hold them in esteem. Not because they have a turnaround collar or a position called pastor. Do they work hard at the work of the Lord? Esteem those. Paul says in the next chapter, he says, I'm gonna stay at Ephesus. You know why? God has opened a door of work for me, of service, but there are many adversaries. That's another thing you learn. When you give yourself to the work of the Lord, all hell comes against you. When you start trying to win souls and disciple people and pick people up and invite them to church, imagine if all of us just in the month of June just brought one person to church. And they heard the gospel and got converted. Imagine how the angels would be rejoicing. And many times, what are religious people doing? They're arguing about things in the Bible. What do you mean the mark of the beast is? No, I don't believe that. No, this is the Antichrist. That's what we're arguing about. And people are sliding off into eternity. Think what we're talking about. Think what we're arguing about. Think what people decide to debate about. Foolish things. And that's why Jesus said, you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses. You're gonna tell people about me. And you know, you might say, Pastor, I don't know a lot of Bible verses yet. I'm not a good communicator. I wanna tell you something came to my mind that Jesus said to the demon-possessed man and to the Gadarean man. When he set the man free and the man had been naked and biting himself and cutting himself and groaning and screaming and living in tombstone in the cemetery, and Jesus spoke and he was delivered. And the man said, let me follow you. And Jesus said, no, listen, go back to your family and tell them the great things that God has done for you. Can't we all do that? Can't you tell somebody, as God gives us opportunity, this is what Christ has done for my soul. Is there anything more important than this? Just tell me what you're into that's more important. No, it's that the things of this world so attract the eyes and the five senses that we get caught up with nothing and we miss everything. We major in minors and we minor in the majors. Now, I've had many battles with this, but I know that when a pastor and a church loses its passion for doing the work of the Lord, you can ride Ichabod over that church, the church is dead, and the church should die. Anybody doesn't wanna do the work of the Lord, why would God give you his Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit was sent to glorify Christ, and if you don't wanna spread him, if you don't wanna pray over people and weep over people, and if you don't wanna labor, and I'd just like to ask this question here. Do any of us know what it is to labor? Knowing that you're a laborer in the Lord, that reminds me of that verse. Open your eyes, the fields are ripe to what? To harvest, but the what are few? Look, these folks wanna go to church. I don't say this condescendingly. Folks just wanna go to church. Now, see what these people do? They're not paid, and they practice, and they pray, and they sing, so they're involved in the work of the Lord because they are encouraging us. Did they encourage us today? Come on, did they encourage us today? Did they encourage us today in the Lord? See, that's doing the work of the Lord, or cleaning the building, or giving, or being on a missions team, or witnessing. We all should do that, but it can't stop with the choir just saying, I'm in the choir. No, no, no, no, no. They gotta be in the prayer meeting. They gotta be talking to people. In other words, we gotta be talking, talking, talking. Think of everybody talking and texting right now, and how few are talking and texting about the only thing that really matters. Jesus is the son of the living God. He died for your sins, and if you just turn to him and receive him, you say, pastor, they don't want to hear about it. Say it anyway, someone might want to hear about it. Jesus didn't convert everyone. Paul didn't convert everyone. Otherwise, he wouldn't end up in prison, but there are people out there wanting to hear, longing to hear, longing to be shown love, and I want to rededicate myself to the strength of whatever strength I have left. I just computed the other day that I've been speaking or directing since I went in the ministry because of our heavy schedule here and then travel. Somewhere I've been preaching at or conducting 9,000 to 10,000 services in my life, and I get tired, and then the Lord speaks to me and says, what are you doing? You can't retire. You can't plan with Jesus. There's no AARP. There's nothing. There's be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. When I first started getting serious about the Lord in college, I started getting involved immediately with the work of the Lord. I would help anyone at the church. I would help move a piano for the church. I would help drive a widow, a woman, whose husband was a gambler, and her children to church on Sundays. I'd invite people to church. Brothers and sisters, we can't let that fire go out because you have the ability to reach people Billy Graham would have never gotten to. We all have our assignment here on earth, and there might be adversaries, but the Lord tells us, be sure of this. Your labor will not be in vain. Imagine when we're in heaven, and we hear him look at us. You think he's gonna talk about like those, Kenesha, those shoes you wore that day on the Sunday, those shoes, those shoes were happening. You think he's gonna talk about these things? What's he gonna talk about? I saw the day you pushed yourself to a practice, and you got up, and you weren't feeling right, and you got up and sang, and you touched somebody up in the balcony. Well done, my good and faithful servant. That's all that matters in life. Are you with me on this? Is this what the Bible teaches us? Always abounding, so you gotta ask yourself, am I abounding in the work of the Lord? Am I talking, inviting, witnessing, sharing? You gotta be intentional. And how does it begin? I surrender. I surrender, I give you my mouth, I give you my eyes, I give you my mind. I'm all for the gifts of the Spirit, I'm all for all the things in the Bible, but if nobody gets saved, what are we doing this for? I surrender, come Holy Spirit, and fill me with the boldness that I need, because the linguae lack most of us is boldness and focus. So when the church was first persecuted in the book of Acts chapter four, Peter and John were brought before the Sanhedrin, tossed into the slammer overnight, and when they were released the next day, they went back to a prayer meeting, and they prayed, Lord, now stretch out your hand as we speak your word. And the place where they prayed was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and spoke the word of God with boldness. And then brothers and sisters, you gotta start adopting people in the church that you might be a little older with in the faith. We can't organize it, you gotta just do it, and start loving them and discipling them, because you're doing the work of the Lord, and your labor will not be in vain. Your labor will not be in vain. Let's close our eyes. Let's lift our hands together and praise him. Just lift your hands up and thank God that he wants to use us. Choir, stand behind me. Just lift your hands up and open your mouth and say, God, thank you for saving me. Thank you for sending someone who was doing the work of the Lord to my family or to me, Lord. Jesus, we thank you today that you suffered on the cross for us, and now we hear your spirit calling, what will you do for me? The work of salvation is done, you paid the price. But now you've given us the privilege of being invited to co-labor with you, so the message can be spread. People can be loved, prayers can be prayed, offerings can be given. Sacrifice is made, and after you gave yourself, can we not sacrifice something for you, Lord? Can I not sacrifice something for you, Lord? We are the light of the world. We are the salt of the earth, Lord. You told us that. Don't let us lose our savor, don't let the light go out, Lord. Lord, we thank you for your word today. We surrender our lips, our minds, our hearts, our bodies, our feet, our hands. We surrender it to you so that we might accomplish the work of the Lord. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us boldness where we've been shy. Save us from materialism, selfishness, greed, for living for the baubles and fake glitter of this world, rather than focusing on things that have eternity stamped on them. Make us different than the world, for we're not of this world. We're in it, but we're not of it. For our home is in heaven. Help us to remember where our home is and where we're going one day, and help us to bring as a church as many people with us as we can. Let every choir member behind me, every usher, security person, sound person, balcony, downstairs, let everyone now, Lord, receive marching orders from you today, Lord, in a fresh way, to talk, to pray, to dedicate, to consecrate, to sacrifice, to give, to do whatever it takes, Lord. And Lord, even this day and tomorrow, should you give it to us, we pray that you'll give us opportunities to talk, to invite, to speak, to bother, to call, to just stay at it, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that our labor in the Lord and for the Lord is not in vain. Thank you for the body of Christ. Thank you for brothers and sisters. Strengthen us all now, Lord, and give us a good day. We pray this in Christ's name, and everyone said.