That I Might Know Him and the Power of His Resurrection

Sermon for Morning Worship, First Christian Church, Berryville

April 24, 2011

Job 19:23-27; Luke 24:1-12; Philippians 3:7-14

In writing to the Philippians, Paul said, 7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Just a little enrichment of that text: back in verse 10, "may share his sufferings" could also be translated, "may know the sharing in his sufferings," "may know the participation in his sufferings," "may know the fellowship of his sufferings," or "may know the community of his sufferings." The key Greek root word is koinonia, and as Paul uses it, it has to do with what we do in solidarity with our fellow believers.

I have preached on this text several times in the past three years, sometimes emphasizing the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus, sometimes emphasizing the righteousness that comes by faith. Today, I have a different emphasis. Why have I chosen this text again on Easter Sunday? Because it is one thing to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, and it is another thing to experience the power of his resurrection. Paul wants to experience the power of Christ's resurrection. He wants his first readers to experience the power of Christ's resurrection. He wants us to experience the power of Christ's resurrection. Easter people should experience the power of Christ's resurrection. So today we are exploring what the power of Christ's resurrection is and how we might experience it.

Paul wants us to know in personal experience the power of Jesus’ resurrection. I wish to suggest that knowing in our personal experience the power of Jesus’ resurrection is a good goal for us to set for ourselves on Resurrection Sunday 2011.

Paul, having been called by Christ to be his own, is pressing on toward the fulfillment of this calling. He sees it as a two-step process, a dying and a rising.

In writing to the Romans, Paul had said that, when we are baptized, we are baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, dying with Christ to sin and coming alive with Christ to the living God. Now writing to the Philippians, he is talking about how he views the dying and rising in his own life.

Paul has accepted that his journey as a Christ-follower may not have an easy road in this world. Of the New Testament figures you would consider the greatest apostles, which of them would you say had an easy road of it? Peter? Andrew? James the fisherman? John? James the brother of Jesus? Paul? No, not one! In fact, Paul’s goal is to be so like Jesus as to “share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.” This does not mean that Paul was seeking to become a martyr, but that he was seeking to devote himself so fully to Christ that he would not turn back no matter the cost. As he said earlier in his letter to the Philippians, he took the attitude that to live is Christ and to die is gain, and that he was ready to be faithful either way. At that time, he expected that he would live a little longer for the sake of the churches he was leading. A few years later, writing his Second Letter to Timothy, he expected correctly that his time on earth was drawing to a close, but he still sought to live every bit of it for Christ. His goal at the end, was to be able to say, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” He did not expect to stop living until he died, and, because of the power of the resurrection, he did not expect to stop living even then. It is only people who are prepared to experience the cross who experience the power of the resurrection.

Paul is not a masochist who enjoys suffering. He does not glorify suffering for its own sake. He is not seeking to suffer. Suffering is significant only as it comes in the course of sharing and living out Christ’s self-giving love, only as it involves dying to ourselves so that we might live for God. Wherever there is godly dying, we ought to expect to see the glory of the resurrection in some way coming on its heels.

Already in this life, by prioritizing faithfulness to Christ at all costs, Paul has died to his own achievements, and he has come alive to the spiritual journey into Christlikeness. Once Paul meets Christ, the question is no longer what Paul can make of himself, but what Paul will allow Christ through the Holy Spirit to make of him. Paul wants to be conformed to Christ in his dying and in his rising. For Paul, glory is no longer defined by what he has accomplished, but by the transformation he is experiencing through his faith in Jesus. He is moving on from one degree of glory to another as the risen Christ through the Holy Spirit works within him. This is the power of the resurrection at work in Paul. Paul wants the same for us. He wants us to know in personal experience the power of the resurrection.

What does it mean to know the power of Jesus’ resurrection? What is that power? Paul’s word for power is the Greek word dunamis from which comes the English word dynamite. Okay, dunamis does not mean dynamite. Dynamite had not been invented yet. Our subject is the power of the resurrection, the power of salvation, the power of miracles, the power that makes all things possible; the power that means that nothing that accords with the will and character of God will be impossible. The reason that most churches in our day do not have much impact is that they are simply not aware that they have power, dunamis. Too many of us Christians have been sleeping on spiritual dynamite without even knowing we have it. Say it with me: Dynamite! I am not sure that saying dynamite is very enlightening, but it is fun to say, and it keeps us on our toes, so we will keep saying it.

The power of Jesus’ resurrection is tied to the power that the risen and exalted Jesus exercises from his position of authority at the right hand of God. In his Letter to the Ephesians, written sometime near the time he wrote to the Philippians, Paul prayed that his readers might have the eyes of their hearts enlightened to know, among other things: … what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

That’s quite a mouthful, and it is only part of Paul’s long sentence. Let’s break it down: The power that is available in our experience is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, the same power that exalted Jesus above all spiritual powers, and that means above all the forces of evil at work in our world. The power that raised Jesus from the dead put all things under his feet including the last enemy death. The same power made Jesus head over the ongoing mission and fellowship of the people of God, the church. Putting that another way, the power of the resurrection has given believers in Christ a friend in the very highest of places, and he will share his power and authority with his earthly body, the church. If we will let him, he will break the power of evil over us and free us to be filled with his power for good. Say it with me: Dynamite!

That’s extraordinary! To the degree that we are in Christ, we wield a mighty power for good in this world. A little later in his letter, Paul assures us that God is able to do far more abundantly than all that we have yet dared ask or think or imagine, through the same power that is already at work within us, the power of the resurrection. Wow! Far more abundantly than we have dared dream! Say it with me: Dynamite!

How does the Lord fill us with this power? A few years earlier in his ministry, Paul had written to the Romans, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” God the Father, who by God the Holy Spirit raised God the Son from the dead, by that same Holy Spirit gives us our new birth as children of God. Paul continues, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” The power of the resurrection is the power of the Holy Spirit, which in turn is the power that transforms us into children of God in God’s image. Say it with me: Dynamite!

In the end of all history, God will bring about a new heaven and new earth, a perfected new creation where God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-- will reign fully and perfectly and where believers will reign with him. But already, now, God’s reign is breaking into this world with signs and wonders, transformations, and new possibilities of godly living. Over time, even through intense difficulties, faithful people learn to see that God reigns even now. Nothing that happens can separate us from his love and promises. No illness, no natural disaster, no world war, no financial collapse, no spiritually and morally wayward cultural climate, no family breakdown, no illness or affliction can separate those who persevere in faith from God’s perfect plans for us. Even in human upheaval, God reigns through and for his faithful children. Say it with me: Dynamite!

And since God reigns, death does not have the final word, nor does evil. The power of death and evil was broken when Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the tomb. However history appears, its true meaning since that first Resurrection Sunday, has been the conducting of a mopping up operation. The outcome is already decided. Only the details are still being worked out.

Long after World War 2 was over, an occasional story would appear about a Japanese soldier being found in an island jungle who did not yet know that the war was over. The majority of our world’s population is still in that unenviable position of not knowing that Jesus has already won the war by means of the power of the resurrection. They do not know it because the church has been sleeping on its dynamite, the power of the resurrection. It is high time for us to know the power of the resurrection, to know it in real life experience, and to get it out in the open where it can do some good. Let us study and pray and take actions toward that end. Say it with me: Dynamite!

The Meaning of All History Rests on This

Sermon for the Berryville Alliance of Churches Sunrise Service

8:00 A.M., April 24, 2011

Isaiah 52:7-10; Psalm 118:1, 10-29;

John 20:1-18; 1 Corinthians 15:1-19

I am going to tell you about Abram Jones. If you happen to know an Abram Jones, this is not the same one. The reason I know that he is not the same one is that this Abram exists only in my own mind. Abram had gone to Sunday school as a child, but along the way through adolescence and young adulthood he had gradually assembled a case from the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, the leading news magazines, some Internet surfing, plus a New Testament survey course in college that was taught by an atheist, that the death and resurrection of Jesus was simply a variant on common ancient myth about spring rebirth with no connection to historical reality. Based on this rather flimsy and easily discredited theory, Abram announced that he was no longer a Christian, but an existentialist. Now for some people the existentialist philosophy has specific content, but for Abram, it was just his way of saying that he would make up whatever meanings he wanted for his life as he went along, and it would save him a lot of time and trouble and money on church activities, and a lot of fretting about whether he was sinning or not.

But here are some well-supported historical facts that Abram did not consider:

1. Jesus was unmistakably dead when he was taken down from the cross on Friday afternoon. Abram could have read a pretty convincing case for that, in full medical detail, in an old Journal of the American Medical Association article posted all over the Internet. Jesus really died on the cross.

2. According to the Scriptures, when the reign of God broke through early on Sunday morning, with a great earthquake and shining angels, an angel of the Lord rolled back the stone that had been sealed over the entrance to the tomb and then sat upon the stone. The guards who had been assigned to guard the tomb trembled and became as dead men, presumably passing out from fear. The women, a considerable collection of them who had followed Jesus from Galilee and of whom only a few are named, came to the tomb to complete the anointing of the body of Jesus, an anointing that had been begun by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus before the arrival of the Sabbath at sundown Friday. The women as they arrived at the tomb found an extraordinary scene and a message from the leading angel which first terrified them into silence, but then, apparently gathering their courage, they carried the message to the inner core of eleven disciples who did not believe them. Peter and John ran to the tomb and found it as the women had said. This caused them to believe something, although we are not told what they believed at that point, perhaps only that the tomb was empty. But that is a significant piece of evidence in itself. The account does not appear to be contrived because a contrived story in that culture would not have started with women witnesses and scared and skeptical disciples.

3. The Scriptures give more attention to the appearances of the risen Jesus: first to Mary Magdalene, then to Cleopas and another unnamed follower, then to the eleven, repeated times, both in Jerusalem and back in Galilee, then to more than 500 at one time, most of whom were still alive 20—25 years later when Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, then to Jesus’ brother James and presumably to his other brothers who had not been believers during Jesus’ earthly ministry, and finally in a different manner, years after his ascension, to Paul on the Damascus Road. The resurrection appearances taken together affirm that Jesus’ resurrection body is at once physical and yet not limited by the laws of physics. It is a new kind of body. He can walk, talk, eat, even cook breakfast, allow himself to be touched in his wounds from the cross, but he can also walk through walls and appear and disappear at will. This is a new kind of existence.

4. If that is not yet enough evidence, then consider this: these formerly fearful disciples who ran away when Jesus was arrested, who were still hiding behind locked doors at the time of his first resurrection appearances, began, within 50 days of the resurrection, to publicly proclaim that Jesus who had been crucified, was now the risen and exalted Christ, the Son of God, the Savior and Lord for all the world. These disciples, empowered by the Holy Spirit, who came to those who believed, carried the gospel to the entire Mediterranean world and beyond, many becoming martyrs of the faith in the process. Tradition says that all the original eleven were martyred, with John being the last to die in exile on Patmos, perhaps the only one to die in old age. The message of the risen Jesus was not for them the path to political power or worldly wealth. There was no earthly reason for them to risk their lives repeatedly over the years unless they were utterly convinced that Jesus was risen from the dead.

It has been claimed with some justification that we have better evidence for the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ than for any other ancient event. That is as it must be, for no other event in history so challenges ordinary human reasoning. What would be different for Abram Jones if he knew evidence for the resurrection?

If Abram was convinced by the evidence that Jesus was indeed crucified to death and then raised from the dead in a new kind of physical body, then the following things are also true:

1. God is absolute sovereign of the universe, reigning even over death. Abram would acknowledge God’s rule over his life.

2. God has placed the divine stamp of certification on Jesus as the one-of-a-kind Son of God, Messiah, Lord, and Savior. Abram would deal with the utter uniqueness of Jesus Christ by becoming his disciple.

3. God has planned a future new heaven and new earth where those whom Jesus recognizes as living in him will share resurrection bodies like his and share his reign over a perfected creation in which death and grief and strife will be no more. Abram would know that death is not the last word on our lives, that there is solid reason to hope for more and better.

4. Our goal for life beyond death is not to slip away from the material realm into an ethereal realm where we float on the clouds and play harps, but to be transformed for a realm that is at once material and spiritual, that is as material and spiritual as God planned life to be before there were sin and death, purified and durable material existence infused with the life of God. Abram would have a solid goal for his life both now and beyond death.

5. The meaning of our present lives is to live even now as reborn children of God in God’s inbreaking kingdom. Our lives are given over to proclaiming, demonstrating, and celebrating the reign of God as we represent his mercy, grace, compassion, longsuffering, and his abundant steadfast love and faithfulness, cooperating with the Holy Spirit as the Spirit produces in ever greater degrees the fruitof Christ-like living in us. In this way, our character and preferences are being pre-shaped for the future new heaven and new earth, and they are helping others believe our message about our good and sovereign Creator, our loving Lord and Savior. Abram would have guidelines that would help him live now in a way that is fitting to the future that has been promised.

In short, Abram would have resources of hope, faith, love, purpose, courage, and deep joy that he has not even imagined as possible.

Although Abram Jones had never given the matter much thought, he bears the name of a major Bible character. The biblical Abram was, late in life, called by God to a journey of faith. As he neared the fulfillment of his journey and was about to pass the milestone that would bring all the promises of God for him into place, God changed his name to Abraham, meaning “father of multitudes,” starting from one embryonic Isaac. Eventually from one man, and him as good as dead, came not only all the physical offspring of Isaac and his son Jacob/Israel, but also the spiritual offspring who came through the much later offspring Jesus. As Paul writes, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”

If Abram jones believes that Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the dead, he might need to change his name and become Abraham Jones to point to the bigger destiny of which he is now a part. For the promises to the original Abram/Abraham lives on. In Christ believers may have many spiritual offspring. May it be so.

All that, the meaning of all history and of your life and mine, rests on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Don’t let anyone take the bigness of that meaning away from you.

The Righteousness That Comes by Faith: The Faith of Enoch and Noah

John 3:16-21; Hebrews 11:5-7;

Genesis 5:21-24; 6:5-9, 9:8-17

Make what you will of the long lives reported for the pre-flood line from Adam and Eve down to Noah and his wife. Of the ten names in that list, all the reported ages are far beyond our experience and expectation for human life. The Bible does not explain why this is so, and we have no other data, so all our attempts to use human reason either to defend or to explain away these reports are simply speculative. Enoch lived on earth about five times the average modern life span, but when compared to his immediate family line only 47% of the next shortest lifespan in this list and only 37% of the longest, his son Methuselah. Why did Enoch get the short end of the lifespan stick? Had he done something very bad? Not so. Beyond the fact that Enoch fathered Methuselah and other sons and daughters, we know one other thing about him. The text says, “Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him.” It wasn’t punishment; it was blessing. Presumably, it was something similar to what later happened to Elijah when he was escorted alive out of this life by chariots of holy fire.

Enoch was transferred from the realm that is visible to us into what is from our perspective the invisible realm of God…without first dying. This is not the sort of thing that God does for everyone who pleases him. Usually it is preferable that we live out our calling on earth and demonstrate how to live, to suffer, and to die with obedient, vulnerable, vibrant, creation-affirming faith before we enter eternal glory. Enoch’s transfer is a sign and an assurance to us of what pleases God, and what pleases God is a life spent walking with God. The Letter to the Hebrews gives the best explanation of the purpose of this sign: 11:5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

What the text says is that, if we would draw near to walk in close fellowship with God, we must have faith, believing and trusting that God exists and that, in some extraordinarily valuable way, God rewards those who seek him. Sometimes the reward is in this life, sometimes in the next life, sometimes the reward is a part of ordinary experience. Sometimes it can only be called miraculous, but what is important, either way, is that it comes from the hand of the sovereign God. To be sure, God may work to refine our understanding of what it means to be rewarded, blessed, and favored by God. Early in our walk of faith we may understand blessing too much in terms of the rewards that this world encourages us to seek: health, wealth, education, influence, pleasure, surface happiness, and we may be sometimes pleased to get what we want, but often disappointed when what we are expecting simply does not happen. The lack of the reward we had in mind does not mean that a reward is not coming, or even that it has not already come unnoticed by us. As we mature in faith, we are more likely to see blessing in the deep satisfactions of knowing that we know that we know that we serve a God who is holy, gracious, faithful, and eternally sovereign. The sooner we learn this, the sooner our satisfactions grow rich and deep. Jesus said, and I liberally paraphrase, “Seek first the prevailing of God’s will and righteousness, and all the rest of the stuff will fall satisfactorily into its proper place.”

What Jesus is saying is that we must by faith prioritize seeking God and his righteous will. This means that our number one goal in life must become to know who God is, what God wants, and what God is doing around us right now. If knowing God is really our number one goal, that means that we will spend time reading God’s word in search of deeper understanding of what God has revealed of his nature and purposes. If knowing God is really our number one goal, then we will frequently spend time in prayer listening for what God would speak to our hearts and minds through the Holy Spirit. If knowing God is really our number one goal, then we will find time to join in what God is doing around us so that we can know him better through serving him, experiencing God in action. Indeed, if we want to know God, we will practice the spiritual disciplines in which God shows up; our way of describing those is the 9 Ways.

There is a corollary to prioritizing knowing God, and that is that we must want God to know us as we really are so that God can work within us to make us more what he has planned for us to become. Of course, God already does know everything about us, but we must want that to be so. We must stop fooling ourselves into thinking that we can hide anything about ourselves from God. At most, we can fool ourselves into thinking we have hidden it from God. Really seeking God means letting go of foolish games of spiritual hide and seek, and letting ourselves (as we actually are) be found by God (as God actually is). God rewards that choice in deep and rich ways. Remember, whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Besides Enoch, we get especially favorable comment on one other of the listed ten. In Genesis 6:8-9, it says, “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord….Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.” Noah found favor with the Lord and stood out in his generation as righteous and blameless, because, like Enoch, he walked with God. But he did not get transferred out of this life. Instead, he was assigned to oversee the repopulation of the earth after God’s sweeping judgment on its sin.

Genesis 6:5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. 9 … Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. You know the story. God commanded Noah to build an ark. Noah followed God’s specifications and built the ark, supplying it and filling it as instructed, so that male and female of each kind of living creature of land and air, along with Noah and his family, were all preserved. The rains came, the waters rose, the world was flooded until there was no land life outside the ark, the rains stopped, the floods receded, and at last life was sustainable again outside the ark, and so the Lord sent the occupants of the ark out to repopulate the earth. There is, of course, more to the story than that, and every part has its importance, but today I want to skip to the ending.

Genesis 9:12 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: 13 I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

By binding himself to this covenant, God guaranteed that there would never again be a destructive judgment as encompassing as in the time of Noah. Despite this covenant, God remained holy, not giving up one piece of his plans of perfection for his human children, and yet at the same time knew that his human children would slide back into sin. The rainbow covenant was extremely costly for God. It meant that he would have to take upon himself the cost of redeeming sinful humanity. In the fullness of time, the rainbow would require the cross of his perfect Son Jesus Christ through which God would offer to his wayward children not just forgiveness, but covering with righteousness and gradual transformation into actual righteousness, all that without yielding one iota of his holiness. When you see a rainbow, imagine not the pot of gold at its end, but envision the infinitely more costly and glorious cross of Christ, emblazoned in glory at the peak of that rainbow.

As the first recipient of the rainbow promise, Noah had an important part to play in the drama. Hebrews 11 sees it this way. Hebrews 11: 7 By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

By obeying God’s instructions for preserving life and faith in the face of righteous judgment, Noah demonstrated a faith that was in marked contrast to that of the perishing world. In this way, he condemned the world for its lack of faith and was himself counted righteous by means of Christ’s much later death on the cross.

When it says that Noah condemned the world, I am not saying that he went around giving angry denouncement speeches. I am saying that the positive counterexample of his faith showed the kind of faith that was open to everyone.

Noah was not a perfect person. You don’t have to be yet perfected to be by God’s grace through your faith on the path to perfection. Grace and faith will get you to the goal if you will hold on, keep getting up, dusting yourself off, and listening to and obeying God yet again. If you are living your life in Jesus Christ, that kind of faith turns to righteousness and eternal life.

Our texts emphasize walking with God, faith, righteousness, and obedience. Perhaps it is time for me to emphasize also that these are possible only by the grace of God. We enter and persevere in the journey to salvation only by the grace of God.

How does God’s grace make this possible? First of all, salvation is only through Jesus Christ, even for Enoch and Noah and the other saints of the Old Testament. They did not know Jesus, but he provided the way for imperfect people of faith to be counted in. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one-of-a-kind Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus with his costly perfect righteousness agrees to stand in for us, to set the balances right, so that our faith can be counted as righteousness, and so that we can enter eternity without wrecking the perfect plans of God. Without Jesus, that cannot happen and so salvation would never get started.

Second of all, God sends his Holy Spirit to those who believe in Jesus, and the Holy Spirit gives us new birth and gradual metamorphosis, changing us degree by degree toward the goal. It is only those who are on this journey who will persevere in their faith. And this journey would not be possible without the Spirit of God graciously living within us.

So, from beginning to end, our salvation is the gracious work of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but to receive God’s gracious saving work, we must gratefully walk with God in faith and obedience. When we read them carefully, the New Testament writers from Paul to James are in total agreement on this. It is time for us understand that the gracious signs of the rainbow and the cross call for us, like Enoch and Noah, to walk daily with God. One more time, remember, whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. So seek him, today and every day. Walk with God.