Phil Beach Jr. emphasizes the importance of seeing the heavenly vision of Jesus Christ, urging believers to align their lives with God's purpose and to understand that true love is demonstrated through self-sacrifice. He highlights that God's love is redemptive and calls us to lay down our lives for others, just as Christ did for us. The sermon encourages believers to seek a deeper relationship with God, recognizing that our lives should reflect His glory and purpose. Beach challenges the congregation to not be disobedient to the heavenly vision, which is centered on making God known to the world.

Holy Spirit, thank You so much for who You are, for Your love. Thank You so much, Lord, that You are God and that You do not change, and that there is nothing about You that will ever become inconsistent with who You are. Father, please, I'm asking for the Holy Spirit today to be present in our hearts, to open up the eyes of our heart and enable us to see Your heart. Enable us to see the beauty of who You are. Enable us to see, Lord, the purpose of Your heart that You're after, Lord, that You're working toward, that Your goal is, Lord. Help us to see and help us then, Lord, to be able to view what we're going through in life and the struggles that we're in and the unique situations that we're confronting only as an instrument in Your hands to bring us closer to that goal. Help us to trust You and cast all of our burdens upon You today, we pray, Lord. For Jesus' sake, amen and amen. Turn your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 53. We're going to begin there in Isaiah chapter 53. Actually, we're going to begin in Isaiah 52, verse 13. And we're going to read beginning in verse number 13 in Isaiah chapter 52. Isaiah 52, verse 13. Behold, My servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. As many as were astonished at Thee, His visage or His shape, His countenance, was so marred more than any man and His form more than the sons of men. So shall He sprinkle many nations. The kings shall shut their mouths at Him. For that which had not been told them shall they see. And that which they had not heard shall they consider. Who has believed Thy report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. He has no form or beauty. And when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected of men. A man of sorrows and well intimately acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him. He was despised and we did not esteem Him. Or we did not place value upon Him. We did not hold Him in high regard. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. And the punishment of our peace was upon Him. And with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. And we have turned everyone to His own way. And the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted. Yet He opened not His mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep before her shearers is dumb. So He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment. And who shall declare His generation? For He was cut off out of the land of the living. For the transgression of My people was He stricken. And He made His grave with the wicked and with the rich in His death. Because He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him. He hath put Him to grief when you shall make His soul an offering for sin. He shall see His seed. And He shall prolong His days. And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see. Notice the times now in verse 10 and 11. It's saying He shall see. He shall see. He shall see. Alright? Verse 10. He shall see His seed. He shall prolong His days. And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the travail of His soul. And He shall be satisfied. By His knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many. For He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great. And He shall divide the spoil with the strong. Because He hath poured out His soul unto death. And He was numbered with the transgressors. And He bare the sin of many. And made intercession for them. 1 Peter 2. Right after James, 1 Peter 2. Beginning in verse number 18 to get the context. Chapter 2, verse 18. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear. And not only to the good and gentle, but also to the fraud or the crooked. For this is acceptable if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it if when you are buffeted for your faults, you shall take it patiently? But if when you do well and suffer for it, but if when you do well and suffer for it, you take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. Listen here. For even hereunto were you called because Christ also suffered for us. We just read in Isaiah 53. A little window picture into how Christ suffered for us. For even you were called. For even hereunto were you called because Christ also suffered for us. Leaving us an example that you should follow in His steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. Who when He was reviled, reviled not again. But committed Himself to Him that judges righteously. Who His own self bear our sins in His own body on the tree that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness. By whose stripes ye were healed. For you were a sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls. 1 Peter chapter 3 beginning in verse 8 to get the context. Finally, be all of you of one mind having compassion one of another. Love as brethren. Be pitiful, be courteous. Be full of pity. Be full of gentleness and compassion. Be empathetic. Don't be quick to judge. Pray, God, give me an empathetic heart. Sometimes, listen closely, sometimes God will let us suffer because we're overcritical. And when we suffer, we soften. Have you ever seen that in your life? You're quite critical, but when you suffer, you soften. And you're less critical and you're more prone to be gentle and kinder in your assessment of others. And so, if you're too critical, God's going to pull the carpet out from under you for a while to teach you compassion. Don't criticize others when you see their faults. Remember what love does? Remember how a few weeks ago we learned about love but only touched the surface? We're going to get back there eventually? What does love do when it sees faults? Where do we learn about love? What's the ultimate source? God is love, right? So, anytime we talk about love, we're going to go back to this scripture, but just hold on for a second. Anytime we talk about love, the frame of reference must be God Himself. If we try and define love by taking the frame of reference from the ultimate expression of love, who is God Himself, and reduce it down to a definition that culture has given us, or religion has given us, or even another human being, as nice as it may be. We have lowered the true meaning of love. So whenever we talk about love, we must study God. God is love. God doesn't teach us what love is. God is love. God is love. 1 John 4, 7 and 8 Beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God, and he that loveth is born of God. He that loveth not knoweth not God. For God is love. So if God is love, what's 1 John 3, 16? We're going to go back to 1 Peter. 1 John 3, 16. What does that say? 1 John 3, 16. Hereby perceive we the love of God. Or another way of reading it is this. This is how we see and understand and recognize what love is. This is what the Bible says. You want to know what love is? Listen, young people especially. Everyone here that's 50 and under. That's a young person. 60? 60 and under. Alright. Listen carefully. Listen, every young person here. Don't you for a second, listen to me. Don't you for a second believe what the culture tells you love is. Don't you believe it for a second because it is a lie. It is not true. It is not true. Let's name some ways the culture defines love. How does the culture define love? How? Very good. That's exactly what I was going to say. The culture defines love as simply a feeling. Now the logical conclusion to that is what? If I have a feeling then I love. But if the feeling disappears what happens? Then I don't love. That gets you into a lot of trouble, young people. Love is not a feeling. Now love may give you feelings but those feelings do not make up the substance of love. And if we try to identify love with a feeling then we're going to get confused and we're going to miss it. How else does the culture define love? It defines it as a feeling. It defines it as a physical act. That is not love. A physical act within marriage may be an expression of love but that does not define love. God is love. God is love. What's another way that the culture defines love? Anyone. How does the culture define love? A common interest. In other words, the culture says that if you have a common interest in someone or something then you love it. That's simply not true either because common interests can differ and therefore if I base my love on someone with a common interest and then their interest differs from mine, what happens? I no longer have a common interest and then that means I no longer love them. So we have to be careful that we do not allow the culture to teach us what love is. 1 John chapter 3 verse number 16. Herein perceive we the love of God. It is in this way alone that we understand what the love of God is. Because He laid down His life for us. And so when we look at God who defines for us what love is, we don't see this. What culture tells us as the way to define what love is, what we see when we see God is love is we see Him laying His life down. Did we not just read Isaiah chapter 53? What was Isaiah chapter 53 all about? It was all about the Lamb of God, the Son of God laying His life down to the point where He became an offering for sin. His soul became an offering for sin. And so the true nature of love as we learned a couple weeks ago is that it is demonstrated in God. God teaches us what the true nature of love is. And He doesn't call us to try and pretend that we can do it. We can't do it. We can't do it. We have to admit we don't have this in ourselves. We have to get it from God. We have to get it from the Holy Spirit. Every husband here can't love his wife the way God wants you to love her. Neither can a wife love her husband the way God wants her to. Neither can we love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ the way God wants us to. We can't do it. We start by acknowledging our need. We start by acknowledging our depravity. We start by acknowledging our bankruptcy. We can't do it in ourselves by our own power. We can't do it by drawing resources out of ourselves. And God has got to bring us to the place where we stop trying to look in our own resources. We can't muster up the strength to do it. We just have to come to God and one another and say, I can't do it in myself. But that's not the end of the story as, uh, what's his name? Paul Harvey. But now here's the rest of the story. We can't do it in ourselves, but through God, through Christ, Paul says, I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me. So the focus of our heart, the focus of our attention, has to be taken off of ourselves, onto Christ. And so the true nature of love, as God demonstrates it to us, is laying down his life. 1 John chapter 3, verse 16. Herein perceive we the love of God, because he laid his life down for us, that we ought to lay our lives down for the brethren. And so God is saying that in the same way that he laid his life down for us, in that same way ought we to demonstrate love one to another. Now this is connected to the thought I was speaking about a few minutes ago. Why did we even talk about love? What do you do when you see people's faults? What did God do when he saw our sin? When he felt the pain of our sin? What did God do? He got dirty. He got dirty. He didn't sit on his throne and make an executive order to somehow fix the problem. He got dirty. He walked among us and he bore our sins. He bore our sicknesses. He bore our diseases. He bore our struggles. He wept with us. He showed us the way. He remained free from sin. He didn't corrupt himself with our sin. He knew no sin. He didn't partake in our sin in order to heal us from our sin. But he didn't keep a distance from us because of our sin. That's Isaiah chapter 53. That's 1 Peter chapter 2. And that's 1 Peter chapter 3 that we read. And so what do we do when we see faults and struggles in people's lives? We're to lay our life down for them. Just like God did for us. You see, Peter, James, and John, when they were walking with Jesus and found out that a certain village didn't want Jesus to come, what did they say? What did they ask the Lord to do? They said, Lord, should we call fire down from heaven like Elijah did and destroy your enemies? And what was the first thing that Jesus said to them? You know not what spirit you're of. And then what did he say? For the Son of Man did not come to destroy lives but to save lives. So when the love of God is in action, it has a redemptive quality. It's always redemptive in nature. God's love is always redemptive in nature. In other words, when God's love is working through us, it never has in view destruction. It has in view redemption. It has in view healing. It has in view life. The Son of Man did not come to destroy lives but to lay his life down as a ransom for many. Oh that we might know something of this love. Brothers and sisters, do you know what the root cause of marriage problems are today and the root cause of domestic problems within families, children and parents, children versus children and you know the root cause in churches today where so many splits and divisions and people will sit in one seat here and they won't even look at the person sitting over here because their hearts are full of all kinds of feelings and aught and jealousy and anger and murder. What is the problem? What is the problem? We don't know. We don't know this love of God that lays its life down for the brethren because we know very little of God. We're full of religion. We're full of good doctrines. We're full of Bible teaching. We're full of the outward form of Christianity and we're carried away in the momentum of the whole religious system. But do we know God? Has our heart had an encounter with the living God through Jesus Christ? Does that encounter occur daily, day by day as we wait upon Him and the eyes of our hearts see Jesus? Oh my goodness. When we see the love of God, we lay our lives down for the brethren. We lay our lives down. Husbands lay their lives down for their families. Wives lay their lives down for their families. Parents lay their lives down for their children. Brothers and sisters learn to lay their lives down for one another. This is what happens when the love of God explodes in our heart. And so, 1 John chapter 3, have compassion, love as brethren, not rendering evil for evil, for railing for railing. 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 9, but contrarywise blessing. So we are to bless those that curse us. Who did that first? Jesus. He set the example. You are called that you should inherit a blessing for He that would love life and see good days. Let Him refrain His tongue from evil and His lips that may speak no guile. Let Him shun evil and do good. Let Him seek peace and ensue it. For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, but ears are open unto their prayers. But the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. And who is He that will harm you, if you be followers of that which is good? But, and if you suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are you, and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled. But set God apart in your heart, and be ready always to give an account, a reason for every man. A reason. Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you of the reason of the hope that is in you. With fear and meekness. Having a good conscience that whereby they speak evil of you as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good way of life. For it is better if the will of God be so that you suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing. Here it is. For Christ also has suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. Having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit of God. And so there you go, beloved. God is love. And God is teaching us to lay our life down through the power of the Holy Spirit. Not connect love to feeling or a physical act or calming interest, but to lay our life down in a redemptive way, always having in view not to destroy, but to save. Not to kill, but to give life. We lay our lives down. Love believes all things, hopes all things, prays, continues to pray and believe God for the best. And this is what happens. So, this is the heavenly vision that Paul had received. In Acts, you turn your Bibles to Acts, you remember that Paul was defending himself before King Agrippa in Acts chapter 26. In Acts chapter 26. And early, early, early in the morning, this morning, the Lord spoke this Scripture to my heart. He rang it into my heart as clear as if I was hearing my own wife speak to me. And it was a reminder from the Lord to my own heart, but it's a reminder also from the Lord to everyone's heart here. And this Scripture that we're going to read is connected to this introductory thought that we just gave. It's connected to keeping before our eyes what God has done through His Son and God's goal. Remember, He shall see His seed. He shall see the travail of His soul and be satisfied. Christ did not die in vain. He has a goal in view. He has something from all eternity past that He wanted. And through Christ becoming a sin offering and dying, being raised from the dead, God secured for Himself that which He wanted from eternity past. And we have got to pray the Holy Spirit and the Word of God will align our hearts and our interests and our thoughts and our very life. We must be aligned to what God is after so that we're in sync with Him. We can't ask God to bless our plans. We have to pray, God, take our plans and dismiss them and get our plans and our likes and our interests in line with what You're doing. This is what God wants. He wants a people who are sharing in His interests. But today's Christianity is we're praying, God, bless my plans. Bless what I want. We're using God as a genie in the sky. It's all man-centered and human-centered and self-centered. God is in heaven and He lives to give me what I want. This is the idea of today's gospel and it's a perverted gospel. We must stay away from it, brothers and sisters. We can't have anything to do with it. We must pray that God will open our eyes to the gospel that Paul preached, the gospel that Peter preached, the gospel that John preached, the gospel that Jesus came to show us. It's not a gospel about man and man getting what he wants, but it's the good news that God has a plan, a purpose from all eternity and that through His Son, He has provided a means for that purpose to be realized and now we must understand what that purpose is so we can align ourselves with God's interests. Acts chapter 26, Paul is defending himself before Agrippa and he speaks about how he was unjustly accused and then he's brought to verse number 12. Listen. Wherefore I went to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests. At midday, O King, I saw in the way a light from heaven above the brightness of the sun shining round about me and them which journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the pricks or against the thorns. Listen. And I said, who are you, Lord? Who are you, Lord? In other words, Paul was saying, who are you, Lord? Master, who are you? And listen to the response. Brothers and sisters, everything that God has done, everything that God is doing, and everything that God shall ever do revolves around His Son, Jesus. Everything revolves around His Son, Jesus. From eternity past, when there was nothing but God Himself. It was an eternal fellowship between Father and Son and Spirit. It was always about the Son. It wasn't man-centered. It was centered around God Himself. And listen, everything that God is doing is chiefly for Himself. We are benefactors, but it's for Himself. It's for His glory. It's for His honor. It's all about His glory. It's all about His glory. It's all about His honor. It's all about His name. It's all about seeing Him. He's the eternal God. He's the perfect one. He's the one worthy of everyone's praise and honor. He's the one. He is God. He's perfect. He's infinitely lovely. He's infinitely beautiful. It was Polycarp who said, before he was killed, they said, curse this man. Deny him and we'll set you free. And Polycarp said, I've served Him for so many years and He never did me any harm. Shall I now curse Him? God has never did any human being any harm. God has never done anyone harm. Don't you believe the lie of the devil when the devil comes and says God has done anything wrong. God is infinitely loved. He's infinitely gentle. He's infinitely beautiful. He's never thought a thought to her to harm anyone. God is God. He's perfect. And He became visible through revealing Himself as the Son of God. And so when Paul heard this voice and this voice identified himself by saying, why are you persecuting me? And Paul said, who are you Lord? This is what he says, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. I am Jesus. But rise and stand upon your feet for I have appeared unto you for this purpose, to make you a minister. Brothers and sisters, listen carefully. Listen carefully. This is a specific word that God spoke through His Son to Saul. He became Paul and it changed His life. But this is the word that God is speaking to you and I this morning. It is the same word. It is the same revelation. It is the same calling. The same calling that Paul had to fellowship with the Son of God is the same calling that you and I have. We're not all called to be apostles. That's not what he's talking about here. This is not so much the call to apostleship as it is the call to come to know who I am and to make me known. The call to know who I am and to make me known. Listen, everyone. You are called this morning with a divine urgency. You are called to know who God is through Jesus Christ and to make Him known. That is why you exist. That is why God created us. God created us not so we can have self expression. God created us so we can express who He is. Oh, we do have individuality. Yes, we are individual beings. We have feelings, but that's not primary. It's secondary. That is so that we can enjoy to the maximum extent who God is. God made us like this so we can discover Him and know Him and love Him and make Him known to this world. There is, listen, there is nothing worth making known but God. Nothing. There's nothing worth making known. It is of absolute nonsense to try and make ourselves known. It is of absolute nonsense to try and make our wishes known. It is of absolute nonsense to try and build great kingdoms and put our name on them. It is nonsense. There's only one being. One perfect, holy, lovely, adorable, infinitely radiant in all of His character person that's worthy of being made known and that is God our Father. So God says, Paul, I've called you, I've made you a minister and a witness both of these things which you have seen and of those things in the which I will yet appear to thee. Delivering you from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom now I will send you. And that is a promise to us. God will deliver us from all those enemies that rise up against us. God will deliver us in Christ from anything and everything that seeks to annul and destroy and set at naught the calling that we have on our life to know God and to make Him known. I don't care what comes up against us. I don't care what kind of enemy comes. I don't care what kind of hell comes. What kind of discouragement. What kind of circumstances. God said delivering you from the people. God will deliver us if we will look to Him and trust Him. God will deliver us. Why? Not for our sake but for His sake. He'll deliver us for His own sake. Because He is wanting to see His seed and the travail of His soul. And the travail of His soul that is the fruit of His labor, Christ, and what Christ did, the fruit of that labor, the purpose of that is so that God could deliver us from that captivity of sin which blinds our eyes from Him and that we can become reunited to Him in Christ so that we can properly live by representing the glory of who He is. God has saved us so that we can be the depository into which He can come and live and reveal His glory to the universe. That's why He has done it. For His sake. Oh yes, we benefit because we experience the incredible joy and peace. But it's not about that. It's about what God's getting. What is God getting out of it? God is getting a testimony of the matchless beauty of who He is through those that He has created in Christ Jesus. Delivering us from the people and the Gentiles unto whom now I send thee. Listen to this. To open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance. The inheritance. The inheritance. What's the inheritance? Brothers and sisters, we are to be instruments, vessels that are enabling people to see the truth of God through Jesus Christ so that they can be what? So they can have their eyes opened, they can be turned from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to the power of God that they might receive forgiveness of sins and the inheritance. Brothers and sisters, the inheritance is not something. It's someone. God is our inheritance. God is our inheritance. We are called to inherit God. That God might become our dwelling place. God might become our eternal home. The heart of God might become the place where we find rest to lay our weary bosoms upon and there hear His heart. Hear and see Him and just absolutely with a speechless heart behold Him. This is the battle of the ages brothers and sisters. This is what it's all about. God wants to reveal Himself and the devil through sin wants to reveal Himself. And here we are in the middle. Who shall we reveal? That they might receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith in Me. And these are the words that God spoke to me 2.30 this morning as if Colette was speaking to me. And this is the message I received from the Word of God and I share with you this morning and this is what God is saying to us must be the affirmation of our faith this morning. Like Paul said, Wherefore O King Agrippa I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision. I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. What is Paul talking about? The heavenly vision of what? The heavenly vision of the man in glory Jesus Christ. I was not disobedient to that vision. Though following that vision cost me everything. Paul said that I lost my religion when I followed that vision. I lost my own righteousness. I lost my friends. I lost everything that I counted dear to me. Philippians chapter 3. Philippians chapter 2. Paul said I suffered the loss of all things because I followed that heavenly vision. He said, but I don't care because I don't consider those things to be of value to me. He said I consider knowing Christ, knowing God, knowing the heart of God, revealing God, making Him known to be of more value while I live in this world than anything that any human being can give to me. Wherefore O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to that heavenly vision. I was not disobedient. God is asking us this morning. Are we prepared to come to Him and say Lord give me an ever increasing vision of the glory of the Son of God and enable me to say like Paul I have not been disobedient to that heavenly vision. I've not been disobedient to it. My life exists for the purpose of bringing glory to God through yielding my life to Jesus Christ. My plans exist for that. Is that what your life is all about? Is that what your passion is all about brothers and sisters? Is this what you go to bed for at night and wake up for in the morning? Or have you lost sight? Have the things in this world dulled your heart? Remember last week? We have to encourage one another? So what? So this deceitfulness of sin doesn't harden our hearts and take our hearts from the vision. What vision? The vision of why we're here, why we're called as Christians to reveal the glory of Jesus Christ. My God wherefore O King Agrippa I was not disobedient but showed first unto them of Damascus and at Jerusalem and throughout all the coasts of Judea and them to the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God and do works acceptable for repentance for these causes the Jews caught me in the temple and went about to kill me. Having therefore obtained help of God I continue to this day witnessing both to small and great saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say that Christ should suffer. Isaiah 53 that's the vision we just read it that's the heavenly vision that Christ should suffer and should that he should suffer and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead and people show light unto and should show light unto the people and to the Gentiles and we're closing and as he thus spoke for himself Festus said with a loud voice Paul you are beside yourself much learning has made you mad and Paul's response I am not mad most mobile Festus but speak forth the words of truth with soberness brothers and sisters this morning God has laid before us the heavenly vision and the question that we must ask ourselves is this have we seen the heavenly vision have we seen the man in glory have we not a literal vision I'm not talking about seeing a vision has God revealed to you the excellent glory of his son Jesus Christ and have you truly truly like Paul been transformed and changed and have heard the call that you are now called to make known this glorious message of the gospel of Jesus Christ to all men starting where in your home we're emphasizing that starting in your home among those that know you the best and then spreading out into your church family and into the world that you live in has this vision captured your hearts this morning brothers and sisters may God help us to see this vision and may God give us this vision and may this vision capture our hearts so much that everything we do everything we plan everything we're involved in is springing out of a knowledge that it's going to further in some way it's going to further in some way God's interest in revealing his son the only thing God wants to do is reveal the man in glory to our hearts into a lost and God has no other interest God has no other interest and all of our lives must be intimately connected to that purpose and all of our plans and all that we do must spring out of a knowledge that God is in it because through it there's going to be a furtherance of his interest if it's only our interest and it's only our plans and it's only what we want and it's only something that we're getting then those plans will lead us down the road like we had last week on the board a hard heart, we will be beguiled by sin and our testimony for the Lord will be put out we may retain an outward form of religion we may continue to appear to be very religious but the heartbeat of our heart will be dulled and the presence, the vibrant presence of Jesus Christ will not be in our lives and God will set us aside and find another people whose hearts are available to him to reveal the beauty of Jesus Christ. Let's bow our hearts this morning and ask God to confirm his word to us. Father thank you so much for your grace and your mercy and thank you so much for your word Lord. We all come to you Father and we acknowledge that you are a loving God and you have so wonderfully and so marvelously provided us through your Son with a way back to you we acknowledge Lord that we are deserving of punishment we are deserving of hell we are deserving of eternal separation but because Christ was willing to lay his life down and become an offering of sin for us we can be forgiven and restored back into fellowship with you so that your original intention could be realized that we would be human beings redeemed by the blood and revealing in and through all that we do the glory and beauty and moral excellence of our God and Father through Jesus Christ his Son I pray God that you will give this heavenly vision to the young people that are here and renew it and restore it and ever ever increase it in the hearts of those who are older so that together our lives are simply about that heavenly vision that Paul said he was not disobedient to search our hearts now Lord and if there is any area in our life where your interests are not really the primary goal or the primary motivation then I pray God that you will give us the grace to turn from it, to let go of it to destroy it that nothing is in our lives except that which will further the interests that you have in revealing your Son Jesus Christ we believe you to do this Lord for the sake of your Son Amen