Leaving The Pit #2

Introduction

Good morning. Welcome. It’s good to be here with you this morning. Ever had one of those weeks where you weren’t sure if you were coming or going? I’m sure a lot of you have those regularly. I’m in the middle of one of those weeks, so as I stand before you today, I’m not sure if I’m coming or going. And I’ll explain that. But in my life, most of my career I’ve spent selling software, and I’ve worked for companies where I’ve had to travel a lot around the U.S. And I don’t travel to the far reaches of the earth like Tom has or Waylon has or Nick. In fact, when I get done telling you my story, Nick’s gonna say, whatever, Dad. I just got done going to and from Kazakhstan in four days.

So it’s all relative, right? But so I got back last night from the third series in this leaving the pit, which I’m actually gonna talk about the second one. But I started on Wednesday, I flew to Los Angeles. I had a business meeting in San Luis Obispo, so I flew to Los Angeles, drove up the coast to San Luis Obispo about five hours. In fact, I drove past Pepperdine University where Matt Finley goes, and I sent Tim a text and I said, Wow, what a campus. It sits up on a hill and it overlooks the Pacific Ocean. I’m like, why would you come home from here? But Tim says he does. So anyway, I have my meeting on Thursday, all day meeting, I drive five hours back to Los Angeles, and I’m I’m looking at my map quest on my phone, and it’s telling me as I’m 14 miles from LA, it’s telling me I have an hour to go, and I’m going, I can’t be you’ve and I’m going along at 65 miles an hour, which is the speed limit.

It keeps telling me 10 miles, you’ve got 45 minutes. I’m how could that be? And then I turn a corner, and here are if you think we have bad traffic here, seven lanes of traffic in each direction.

For an hour. So it was right. I was knew what I knew I was heading into. So and so anyway, I fly I get on a plane Friday morning, I fly into Houston Hobby, I land at 1 30. I have a three o’clock flight out of Intercontinental to go to Indianapolis. So I get back last night, and as soon as I get done this morning, I’m going back to Hobby to fly at 1 o 30 if I make it to back to Indianapolis. So that’s why I don’t tell you I’m and so you I’m sure you can you probably think I’m a horrible travel planner, but it’s just it just happened the way it happened, and I don’t want to bore you with all those details.

So anyway, I’m not sure if I’m coming or going. But so leaving the pit. This is the organization we talked about last month where it’s not it’s not a work of the church, it’s several individual Christians who are professional counselors who have started this organization to address issues that of course are rampant in society, but they’re also affecting the church. And so the elders have committed for me to go to these. There’s 12 of them. Yesterday was the third one. yesterday was on anxiety disorders and panic attacks and post-traumatic stress syndrome and things like that. And so but I’m gonna talk about the one last month. And so you know, the other this is all based upon David’s quote in Psalms about being in a pit and after his sin with Bass Bathsheba and ha having a hard time climbing out of that pit until he came to God.

1. The Definition of Addiction: Enslaved or Bound

So the one in February was on alcohol and drug addiction. And it’s an issue that we face here, that we’re working with people here. so it’s important for us, but it’s also important for you to know about this as you so you know how to deal with people and you need to be aware of some of the pitfalls that can happen to any of us as that as we face addiction. So let’s start with a definition. The definition of addiction is from a Latin term which means to be enslaved by or bound to. And it starts with a long and powerful influence on the brain. So we’re gonna talk a little bit today about the effect that this has on your brain, and it’s pretty scary the stuff that drug and alcohol does to your dru your brain.

But it manifests itself in three different ways. So the first way is a craving for the object of addiction. And so what you need to understand about this is this is an intense physical craving that the body has over the object of the addiction. So that’s why it’s hard to kick, and that’s why you can’t just tell people, well, quit drinking, or quit taking drugs. It’s not that easy, because of the of the intensity of the craving. And it usually it’s a four-step process, usually where it starts with a prolonged use of whatever, whether it’s alcohol or drugs, using it for longer than it was intended to or you meant to, the second phase then progresses to where you lose control of how often you use it, you can’t quit.

The third phase then is it’s you’re preoccupied with it, you’re always thinking about it. And the fourth phase then is the actual craving, where you’ve gotta you’ve you’ve got absolut you’ve absolutely gotta have it. And I apologize for this analogy, but they the analogy they made was if you have diarrhea and you have gotta find, you have got to find a bathroom now. That’s the same feeling this is. You’ve got to you’ve gotta have this to you know resolve the resolve the crave craving. So loss of control over its use and then again continuing involvement with it despite adverse circ consequences. So sometimes we’ve we’ve we can’t figure out why alcoholics or drug addicts keep doing these things to themselves when it because of what it does to them, but they it’s just it’s part of the it’s part of the sickness and the addiction.

So we started off with a policeman who’s a member of the church and deal from Indianapolis, he deals with this on a regular basis, and so he went through all the list of all these different kinds of drugs and showed us pictures of what they look like and things like that. And we’re not gonna go through that, but some of these might be a surprise to you that you may not realize were things you can get addicted to, like Valium, Ritalin, Vicodin, codeine, you know, these are all things that people, just regular people, not that drug addicts aren’t regular people, can get addicted to. and so you know, th there’s lots of different chemicals that can affect us.

2. How Do People Get Involved?

So and so it has a severe impact on the brain. It changes both the structure and the function of your brain. And so just kind of like cardiovascular disease damages the heart, and diabetes impairs the pancreas, addiction hijacks, literally hijacks the brain, and it the end result of that is this drive toward compulsive behaviors. So the brain goes through a series of changes and begins with an abnormal recognition of pleasure, and then it ends with this drive toward compulsive behavior. So, how do people get involved? There’s lots of different ways. A lot of people that and we had a panel. One of the most powerful things of these day-long seminars is each one of them, including yesterday, has a panel of members of the church who have suffered and are suffering from whatever the issue is that we’re there to meet about, and they share their stories.

And so some of them said they got started because they started smoking cigarettes. Well, that’s nicotine, you can get addicted to nicotine. That’s why people can’t quit smoking cigarettes. And then that would progress typically to, or they chewed tobacco. and that would progress typically to marijuana because that’s also smoking. but there’s other risk factors. So it could be peers. So, you know, the Bible verse, evil companionship corrupts good morals. That’s what happens. You know, you hang around with people who are smoking or drinking, and the chances are that it’s going to happen to you as well. Also, family conflict or stress within the family can be a risk factor that can lead people to you know start drinking or taking drugs. poor parent-child relationships.

So this relates to a couple of things. A lack of proper monitoring or supervision is one way, and also inconsistent or excessive discipline. So, you know, as members of the church, as people that are Bible students, we know, you know, we follow Ephesians chapter six, Colossians chapter three, and other similar verses about parenting. Those are parenting verses, those are not companionship verses. You cannot be your child’s best friend, right? You have to be a parent. And so, but sometimes these issues occur when people discipline to extremes. But then the other thing they brought up was, and I’m I’m sure some of this is stuff you already know, but you can’t treat your children the same. And I don’t mean that in terms of playing favorites, but different types of discipline may be required for different children.

Sometimes you hear people say, Well, I don’t know what happened to him because I treated them all the same. You know, that doesn’t necessarily work because you may also hear people say, Yeah, all I have to do is look at her and she falls apart. You know, so different types of discipline may be required for different children. and then also school is a risk factor from the standpoint of not being little commitment to academic success is one thing that will be a risk factor for alcohol and drug abuse, and also a lack of involvement in school activities. So those two things were things that led people oftentimes to get involved with drugs and alcohol. and then also, of course, TV movies and ads, you know, you turn on the TV or watch a commercial and drink and beer drinking beer is cool, all right?

It’s portrayed as the cool thing. Cool people do this, and so that’s the message that our children are getting and our society is getting. And if they’re getting bombarded with an excessive amount of television and movies versus Bible study and time they spend here, guess where their thinking is going to gravitate towards. So those are all different risk factors involved in becoming you know alcoholic or a drug addict. So, how long does it take? some people ask, is this a question of willpower or is this a disease? And the answer is yes. Depends. It depends on some of it’s genetics. That’s why sometimes you see ad addictions run in families. So some of it is genetics, but also some of it is just you know circumstantial.

And how long does it take? Some addicts said it they knew immediately. The very first time they knew that they were hooked and they couldn’t and it was gonna be a hard time. Others said it was a process that they got emotionally attached before they got physically attached. but our brains want us to repeat things that we enjoy, which is why you know you have particular types of food that you eat over and over. We used to, until we got to the point where it was hard fitting into our clothes. We used to eat ice cream every night. Jackie and I. We used to you could come to our house, we’d have six or eight flavors of bluebell. Not anymore.

Can’t handle that anymore. Or things like one of the things I like to do with Jonah and Lily when they’re at our house is I’ll and this is totally safe, I’ll hold them up over my head, drop them on the couch, and they’ll say, Do it again, papa, do it again, papa. So and they just want me to repeat that over and over, and that’s what our brains want, right? They want us to repeat things that we enjoy. And so the drugs act on what’s called a brain reward pathway. So the wow factor is a big reason why people take drugs, but there are other reasons. So for females, you typically get started by they want to impress a male or another female, and they get hooked quicker than males, usually.

And statistics prove that 93% of alcoholics or drug addicts that are females were sexually abused at some point in their life. Males, on the other hand, also have that issue, but they’re more taking it so they can be a man or be one of the guys or prove that they’re not being a chicken. But there’s other things that cause the onset of drug abuse. Some of it is just trauma in the family life. It could be a bad car accident, it could be the loss of a loved one, things like that. And so when we have trauma in our life, we have to turn to God. We have to help let God and our brethren here deal with that. We have to learn how to deal with trauma because if we don’t, this is where people turn when they don’t when they don’t have those avenues.

3. Prescription Drugs: A Big Problem

So the second most biggest abuse of drugs is prescription drugs, and it’s growing significantly in the age group that I’m in, 50 and older. So between 1992 and 2008, the a number of people addricted addicted to prescription drugs doubled in this age group. But it’s it’s a it’s a big problem. In fact, I just this week I ripped out, literally ripped out, not very effectively, a an article an article from the USA Today. and it says the nation’s top federal health agency urged doctors to avoid prescribing powerful opiate painkillers for patients with chronic pain, saying the risks from such drugs far outweigh the benefits for most people. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its first guidelines for dispensing morphine-like addictive drugs, such as bicodin and oxycottin, sure some of you are familiar with those, said it took the action Tuesday to combat the nation’s deadly prescription painkiller epidemic.

About 40 Americans die each day from overdosing of prescription painkillers.

He says we know of no other medication routinely used for a non-fatal condition that kills patients so frequently. So this is a problem, this is an issue. So, what are some appropriate uses for prescription drugs or medications? So obviously, you know, if you’ve got a prescription and it’s you’ve got you can use it as it’s prescribed, you use it for the condition that it’s intended for, and you use it for the duration of period that you’re prescribed to take it for. When it becomes inappropriate, is when you re use it for some reason other than what’s prescribed. And then unintentional use due to one of these factors. You may just, it may just be you’re you’re not you’re not knowledgeable enough about it before you take it.

4. Why Is It So Hard to Quit?

You may be, particularly an elderly people, they get confused about what they’re taking. Maybe you just read the bottle wrong or that sort of thing. there’s also poor judgment and then chemical coping, and chemical coping is defined as using medication prescribed for one indication to treat other emotional or situational issues such as insomnia, depression, stress, lack of energy. So people take other medication that work for one thing and think, well, it’ll probably work for this too, and they take it. So that’s not an appropriate use for medication. So why is it so hard to quit? They shared with us this is a gelinic curve is a U curve that drug counselors use to help drug addicts and alcoholics try to make improvement one step at a time.

So they have along the along the down side of that you they have all the steps that people typically go through till they hit bottom. because it’s a it’s an erosion, addiction is like an erosion, it’s like those multimillion dollar homes in California where you see the you know the land is gradually falling off and the house is on the precipice. That’s what this is like. It’s a slow and the path back up is equally slow if not slower. And so they use this curve to help addicts just take one little step at a time as they’re trying to recover and show it. Just take this one step and then just take this next step. And it’s it’s very there’s a lot of again, like I said last time, I’m I’m I’m trying to condense eight hours of information into 30 minutes.

So that would be a fascinating thing to look at, but we don’t have time. It’s so hard to quit because you know they see this as their best friend. This is where they find comfort and escape. so you know, oftentimes you hear people won’t get out of this until they hit bottom. And what a lot of alcoholics and addicts say, they’ll just find a new bottom. You know, when they when you think they’ve hit bottom, they’ll find a new bottom. And that makes it difficult so really the bottom line is and then they’ll get stuck at the bottom which is what this gelinic curve tries to help them see is you know just let’s just get out of this a little step at a time but the bottom line is that it and until they admit they need help in fact we’re dealing with a young man right now who was baptized here three or four months ago and he’s convinced he can lick this on his own and you haven’t seen him here in three or four months because he continually falls off the wagon then he’s sober for a while and then he falls off again and he keeps saying I can deal with this myself and that’s part of the issue Blake Walker has you know he checks himself into a facility and checks himself right back out and thinks he can handle this on his own and that’s very typical.

5. How Do We Deal With This?

So how do we deal with this? What do we what are some things that we can say to people to help them first of all if we excuse their sin we share in their guilt. So you probably are familiar with the term of an a of enabling people you know if you many people are enablers because you love this person. Maybe it’s somebody in your own family and you’re trying to help them and so you say things that you think are helpful and you’re actually enabling them. This is where tough love comes into tough love comes into play. So things like you can say things like I will help you get better I will not help you stay sick or I will help you but I will not help you kill yourself.

So these are lines in the sand that you’re drawing with this person, and you’re essentially saying, You are welcome here, your addiction is not. some other mantras that they shared with us. Your recovery is your recovery. So it’s up to you to do this. And people that say, I can fix this myself, this is a response that they say is an appropriate response. Your best thinking got you here, your best thinking is going to keep you here. You need to accept help. And so, and then let go and let God and let him do it in his time and his way, and don’t dictate to God when he’s gonna fix you and when he’s gonna help you. A few other things. I know I’m going through this pretty fast, but help begins with acceptance and acknowledgement of being powerless.

So you I’m sure you’ve seen or heard, you know, when people go to alcoholics anonymous meetings, they introduce themselves and they say, I’m an alcoholic. That’s what they have to do. They have to admit that they’re an addict or an alcoholic and accept that’s their situation before they will get help. Accept that their power lifeless, that their life is unmanageable, but until the pain of the addiction is greater than the pleasure of the addiction, they won’t change. Okay, so how does this affect families? A lot of times this you know, this unwelcome visitor in into the family creates tremendous stress in families. So some families this is a group of phrases that a family will use internally to protect themselves from the outside world.

Don’t tell anybody, don’t trust anybody, this is just our problem, and you know, we’re not gonna share it with anybody else. We’re gonna deal with this on our own. And so what happens is they’re just trying to survive. And survival becomes more important than feelings within the family. So feelings begin to shut down and denial moves in. And then actually, this last term is supposed to be dysfunctional relationships, not developing relationships. So, due to avoidance, family members may not feel open to expressing their authentic feelings with one another because they fear it’s going to just trigger another disaster, you know, another confrontation within the family. So they may hide their genuine feelings just to keep an even keel, just to keep things safe. And because they avoid sharing subjects that might tend to cause more pain, they wind up actually avoiding genuine connection with one another.

Okay, so let me tell you a little bit about the panel. so there were four people that went to the front of the room. These people showed a lot of courage, and members of the church, all of them grew up in the church, and all of them had are our recovering alcoholics per drug addicts. First one was a young man named Adam. He started drinking in the eighth grade. His parents left town for a weekend, he was left in charge of his older brothers, and his older brothers had a party which involved alcohol at their house. These are Christians, and he see that’s when he started, and he liked what how he felt, and so he kept doing it.

He when his parents confronted them, they had some suspicions, they would lay the guilt trip on them. How could you even think that I would do that? You know, that kind of thing. And so the parents back off. so he quit for about three years, and then he broke his thumb and he was prescribed some really strong pain medication, and this is what can happen to any of us. And he liked the feeling from the pain medication. And because he was an athlete, he kept breaking things and he kept getting prescribed pain medication. So he was pretty much on some sort of pain medication all through high school. He went to college at University of South Florida and amped up the types of drugs he because he had access now that he was wasn’t living at home, he had access to other kinds of drugs.

He eventually got thrown in jail, got a DUI, was in jail, got out, and stayed sober for a while, but eventually went back to doing it, got in a second DUI, and this time when he called home, speaking of tough love, his parents said, I’m sorry, you know, we’ve been trying to help you for years, and you know, we won’t help you. So good luck. And that may sound harsh, but that’s what you have to do. His brother bailed him out, and that’s when he realized that he had hit bottom, he had really hit the bottom. So one of the things he said during this that he shared with the group for all everybody to be aware of was he said there were signs that people should have noticed in my life, and he said, in fact, I had people later on say, I thought something was wrong, but I didn’t think I should say anything.

He said, You’ve got to. You’ve got to say things when you suspect somebody. He said, People should have been able to tell by my Facebook posts that I was having issues in my life, but they didn’t. Plus he said it was the people he was hanging around with. So it was after his second DUI that he cut off all of his friends and started just hanging around with people from church. And he also said that during this whole time he was teaching Bible classes, he was preaching, he was never missed a service. So, you know, you just never know. You never know what who might be experiencing the same thing in our midst. The second guy was a father of three boys, all of them dealing with drugs.

He was not raised in the church, and so when he was converted, he had no idea he said how to raise Christian children. And so all three of his kids are struggling, where some of them are in jail, some of them out. He and his wife, who are my age, are raising their grandkids themselves because of the impact that drugs has had on their family. The third man was a deacon, a deacon in the church, and had been a Christian his whole life, taught Bible classes, preached, and tore his Achilles attendant and was prescribed oxycotton and percocet. Couldn’t believe how good how good he felt. And so he developed his own little internal network of providers of percocent, percocet and ax oxycoton, so when his prescription ran out, he could keep taking them.

And he justified that to himself by saying, Hey, the doctor prescribed this for me anyway, and at least I’m not using heroin. That was how he said he justified the use of this to himself. Eventually that ran out, he turned to alcohol, and it’s a long story, but you know, part of the reason he was there was he finally realized that he needed help, accepted that he needed help, and got the help that he needed. But when he made a statement that was pretty interesting where he, you know, he would go to alcoholic anonymous meetings and he said, he’s made this statement. If the church reached out to its members, the way these support groups reach out to those recovering in the group, the church would triple in size.

So you know, it how we deal with people that we run into is key to helping them. So they offered us some solutions. So, you know, we’ve talked about the problem. What are the solutions? So one of the solutions is these people said was engage with the young people better. And I think we do a good job of that here. And if you have a child that’s in junior high or high school and they’re not participating in the young people’s meetings, you’re making a serious mistake. Those are the people that they need to be hanging around with. And I’m not saying just because they hang around with kids from church that everything’s automatically going to be okay, right? You still have to be a parent, you still have to monitor, but chances are better.

Be involved with one another’s lives. That means, and I think we do a good job of that here. I know there’s a lot of people here that get together outside of services. and so we each one of us, that’s a that’s a responsibility for each one of us to take, not to wait to be invited, but to invite people and get to know people. Your kids’ friends should be church friends. This is something we could probably work on. One of the things they said in some of these churches, the older men in the church have do radical mentoring with younger men where they talk about, they hold them accountable, you know, especially in some of these cases, high school and junior high kids, where they hold them accountable for purity for alcohol, you know, staying free of alcohol and drugs and things like that.

And so that may be something to consider. And then, you know, they said, you know, when you’re when we’re together at church, you know, a hundred percent of us are fine. Right? How are you today? Fine. I say the same thing, you know. You know? So his their point was, let’s get into some real conversations. Let’s let’s ask people how is your relationship with God doing? How are you are there things you’re struggling with? You know, we need to get to know each other on that level. So the road to recovery, and I’m not going to go through they went through each one of these in detail. These are character defects that inhibit recovery that addicts typically deal with loneliness, despair, you know, self-hate, denial, all these different things.

Depends on the person. Some people have multiple ones. So as we’re working with people, we need to replace those character inhibitors with you know, things that are going to help them. We have to replace fear with faith, and we have to replace hate with love. So, you know, in the first year, what they said, the first year of restoration, when someone is getting help and they’re and they’re trying to recover, the first year trust is off the table. Right? It’s like they somebody made the analogy of you’re living in Missouri, right? The show me state. Unless you show me, I don’t believe it. And that’s the way it’s got to be. And so you have to replace jealousy with trust.

6. Church Do's and Don'ts

You have to you have to show them that as opposed to anxiety and worry, God gives us lots of options and these kind of things. So we could spend a lot of time in those kind of things, but those are the things that we have to work on to help people that are having this issue. So, what are some church do’s and don’ts? So, three things the church should never do. And these again, I’m d we’re talking with people that are professional counselors that are sharing this information with us. Don’t ever stereotype an a addict or alcoholic, you know, saying things like, I’m just like his father or all out all alcoholics are liars. You know you can’t make those stereotype. That’s not true.

Never question their sincerity. When they when they are trying to get better, don’t question their sincerity. However, they said do question their ability to follow through. You know that’s why you’ve got to help them hold their feet to the fire. Are they going to meetings? Are they going to support groups? You know that doesn’t mean they’re not sincere but relapses are very common you know with alcoholics and drug addicts and that’s because of this intense craving. You know and they said it takes up to two years to get rid of that those feelings from your from your body so and the other thing they said is don’t ever give up on them. So sooner or later if they live they will get sick and tired of being sick and tired.

But the r the verse from Romans 715 is a very appropriate verse that these people say that they can definitely relate to where Paul says for what I for what I am doing I do not understand. For what I will to do that I do not practice. But what I hate that I do. That’s the life of an alcoholic and a and an addict. They don’t like the things that they’re doing. So what are some things the church should do? We have to remember that they won’t be truly successful without Christ and the church. So it takes us to help them as well. we have to have a welcoming atmosphere here where love where we show love for people and this is a safe place that they can go to.

You know, most congregations don’t have a problem with dealing with God’s method of answering prayers for physical illnesses. But what’s interesting is some congregations have an issue when it comes to this and dealing with alcoholics and dry addicts. I when I was at another church, a man went forward years ago and said he was struggling with alcohol, and I ran and I ran into him years later after he had left that congregation, and he said, Mike, that was the biggest mistake I ever made. I was never treated the same. We can’t have that here. And I don’t think we have that here. I think we have a loving group, an accepting group that would that is willing to help people. But the thing you have to understand is that what they need the most, they fear the most.

What they need is intimacy, and most people that are recovering, alcoholics and addicts, are shy, and they don’t want they feel really out of place, and they feel really not like they don’t belong, like they’re not as good. You know, so we have to we have to help them with those feelings. And they said it takes a community, it takes you know, when someone comes forward to the front and they’re asking for help, not just about this but about anything, you know, a lot of times we’ll say, Let me know what I what I can do. Let me know what I can do to help. And the advice we got was don’t say that, just go do something. Right? You can say that, but then just go do something.

Take it take the initiative upon yourself to just do something to help them on your own. And they said programs don’t work, it’s people investing in people that work. and so two things that make the ch the church a safe place. One is grace, so grace referring to this is a safe place where people can share their secrets and struggles because they won’t be judged, they won’t be condemned. And grace also is when people see our hearts rather than our behaviors, and they offer up a helping hand. And then competency as it relates to it’s a safe place to reveal our problems because we will we are confident we can get help. And so that’s part of the reason I think as I explained the first time, and I’m just about done, that the elders decided to do this.

Okay, so that then there’s this phrase from Luke 14 23. there’s a there’s a lot of people out there that we can go and help and bring into the church, and a lot of the people are people that are struggling with things like this because they really need God. In fact, Alcoholics Anonymous, the one of the one of the cornerstones of recovery is telling people they need to seek a higher power. And so they’re very much recipients or welcome recipients to a message that we would preach to them. And we just have to realize that when we bring those people in, that we have to deal, we have to deal with the issues that they bring. and so like we said, we’re we’ve committed to me going to these, there’s 12 of them, one a month.

Now, when I at the end of 12 months, I’m not gonna be a licensed counselor, right? You need a degree to do that, you need months and years of clinical practice, but we will be better equipped, we will have a lot more information as elders, and we will know places to go to get help. And so this leavingThePit.com, this website, they’re continually every month enhancing it. So now we have access as elders, because I’m an attendee to forums in there too. We can have access to licensed counselors where if someone brings us a problem, we have someone we can contact and get help. So that’s why we’re trying to do this, so we can help anybody that needs help. So what can you expect from the elders if you come to us?

Conclusion

You can expect our support, you can expect our confidentiality. We’ll pray for you and we will help get help. help you get help. So as I said last month when we were talking about pornography and sexual addiction, remember our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and we have to treat it as such. So this verse is still, as it relates to this, very appropriate and one that we should all remember on our on a regular basis. I be beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that present you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Thank you for your attention. If there’s anybody here this morning who has realized that they’re lost and that they need Jesus and that they need to be saved, we can help you with that this morning. You can come to the front, you can acknowledge Christ as your Savior and be buried in the waters of baptism and wash away your sins. If there’s other issues that you would like the prayers of the church on, we’d be happy to help you with that too. In either case, if you’re subject to the invitation, please come to the front.