Immersed into the Godhead

Good morning everyone, I'm grateful for the men who share in this work here at Pure Life Ministries. I appreciate what Pastor Nate opened with, just a reminder of who it is that we are dealing with. Very sobering, very deeply, deeply profound, and I appreciated what Jordan shared as well.

Yeah, early, I don't know, early 80s I was in sin, but thereabouts I was coming to the Lord, learned those songs. The situation here in Matthew 28, this is about the last thing Jesus is going to personally share with his disciples and followers. Probably in about two weeks he is going to unleash on Jerusalem the most powerful spiritually impacting outpouring of the Holy Spirit the world has ever known.

That's going to happen in a couple of weeks. But he's got some business to take care of here. First of all, some final instructions, and as is the case in many of the things that we receive from the disciples in the Gospels that Jesus shared, we're going to see in five little verses what was probably took, you know, 50 minutes.

My sermon will probably be 50 minutes. Those are probably just the points that he gave in his three-point sermon, and you know, so we're just getting the highlights. I mean, they couldn't write everything Jesus shared.

For one thing, they didn't have a tablet or, you know, they didn't even have pens. But anyway, they got down enough. They got down just what the Lord wanted to share with us.

So he knows that when he pours out his Spirit and baptizes those people that day, he knows what's going to come at them from the forces of hell. Because just like the Lord is going to pour out his Spirit, Satan is going to pour out his demonic entities in attacking what God is looking to birth on this earth. And it's always that way.

I was thinking, maybe it was what Jordan shared got me thinking this way. I came to the Lord really originally in 1970 in the Jesus Movement, and the Lord did pour out his Spirit on America in the Jesus Movement. It was really a pretty powerful thing.

It wasn't in one locale. It started in Southern California but spread. And what came in 1973? The birth of the adult entertainment industry.

You know, like the perfect foil or the perfect way to destroy what the Lord was getting established in our nation, which then spread, and the enemy comes in with his assault. And that's the way it goes. God moves and the enemy counters.

So this is the final message in this series that we've been working on for almost three years. This is number 184. That's not 184 sermons, but 184 incidents that we have covered through the life of Christ.

Why? Because every week we want you guys to get a fresh look at Jesus Christ. So what do we do now? Any suggestions? It doesn't matter. We're going to do what we're going to do.

But I can tell you, I'll give you a little teaser. On October 13th, Pastor Nate will be launching a new series. Anyone like to know what it is? Well, you're going to have to show more interest than that.

Drag it out, she says. Yahweh as revealed in Scripture. We're going to start looking at the attributes of God.

So we'll be just focused on the life of Christ during those three and a half years. But we're going to be looking at God and what He's like, what His character is like, what His nature is like. And the message this morning, the title of it is, Immersed into the Godhead.

And what does that mean? And we'll be getting into it a little bit more, but what does that mean? Immersed into His nature, into His character. The names of God represent the character of God, the attributes of God, what He's like. And every believer, true believers, people who have actually been born again into this, into the faith, are immersed.

Immersed, by the way, is what baptizo means. You understand that, right? So baptized into something so mighty and powerful and tremendous and profound and mysterious and mystical, so awesome that it completely transforms the trajectory of people's lives and takes them into a whole new direction. If that hasn't happened for you, you are not part of the kingdom of God.

In the Western world, we have developed a church system that is kind of loosely based, how do I say this, on Scripture. And this great commission that was initiated that day by Jesus Christ, we have our own version of it. And I'm going to talk a little bit about that today, because it will help to explain the condition the church is in today.

Why? It's not the way, how do I say this, we don't have the power at work in the church today that was in that first century church. But we should. The U.S. church was built on American ideals of success.

You know, in other words, bigger is better, quantity, even if it comes at the expense of quality, stuff like that. It's all about size and that sort of thing. Our success is the gauge of value in the church community today.

So evangelists, you know, they want to hold crusades and thousands come forward, maybe in Africa, one of their crusades or something. Never mind that most of those people keep coming and keep coming to the altar and keep getting saved or whatever. Pastors want to have a church of 5,000 people.

Authors want their books to be on the New York Times bestseller list. Radio commentators want hundreds of stations to carry their show. You know, it's all about success, American version.

And what's the upshot of all this? That we have this massive evangelical movement in the United States, millions of people part of it, and yet very, very superficial. Shallow commitments, superficial engagement with God, if any. You know, what Jesus is talking about here today is something different and something deeper and more powerful.

He's looking for disciples. But to produce disciples, you have to preach the cross. And so many people, it's just sad to me.

It's sad, but they're making their choices. You made your choices. It's so hard for me to get used to wearing glasses.

All my life, you know, I never did this. So I'm an amateur at it. Nate, show me how to do it.

What am I saying? The church system that we have today is not what Jesus envisioned and what he was talking about that day. Now, let's get into the passage. We're really going to be looking at verses 19 and 20, but let's look at the three verses before it to just kind of just cover them.

Verse 16, Most scholars that I could find saying anything about it believe that when Paul talked about 500 people seeing Jesus after the resurrection, that they believe this is when it happened, here when he's giving the Great Commission. And they have some pretty good reasons why they believe that. And I, yeah, I buy into that.

I just don't want to take the time to get into all those reasons. But so probably he's on a mountain and probably there's 511 people there or something. And verse 17, Let me restate that in a way.

I think this may be someone gave this this explanation. It sounds right to me. It's possible that Jesus appeared at a distance.

And when he did, the ones who recognized him instantly worshipped him. And some of them doubted. Is that Jesus? I can't tell.

But as he came closer, oh, that is Jesus. And then they worshipped him as well. It could be that.

But anyway, for Matthew to say that some doubted. You know, if you were trying to con people with your story that you're putting out there, you wouldn't put things like that in there. You know, it's just one of those tidbits of authenticity that I appreciate that helps me to know that Scripture elsewhere is true.

You know, some of the strong, hard statements that we grapple with. It's things like this that help us to know, you know, this Bible, this book is full of pure truth. It really is.

And I've based my life on it as best as I can. And I have never found anything in Scripture or from God that has made me doubt that he isn't exactly what the Bible says he is. And verse 18, And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

And I appreciate what Nate shared about out of Revelation 1. Just getting a sight, just a reminder of who we're dealing with. Well, his authority has already been established in various ways. In Matthew 7, 29, we see the authority of his teaching.

In 8, 9, we see the authority of his words. In 9, 6, we see the authority to forgive sins. In 13, 41, we see his authority to judge.

And in a number of passages, quite a few, actually, we see his authority over demons and over sickness. He's already established. It's been established.

He's got authority. He is the Messiah. But now, after he has laid his life down and been crucified as the Lamb of God, now the Father gives him absolute, complete authority over everything in heaven and on earth.

This is quite a thing. And you see it in Daniel 7, where Daniel had this vision of this whole thing that would happen a few hundred years later had just happened, you know, maybe a couple weeks before this, had just happened in heaven. Such an awesome thing.

All right, let's look at these verses, 19 and 20, that we're going to look at today. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

So Jesus is sending these 500 people out. He's sending them to go forth and do the will of God. And there's three components of this.

This little talk he gives here, and I believe that it was three points. He had a three-point message that day. But anyway, it's three components of what a new believer's life looks like.

The first is this, that the new believer must be baptized. Now, this is describing what should transpire, but it goes without saying that the person has already repented of his sins and committed himself to God and has put his faith in the Lord. That has transpired already.

So what is the significance of baptism? One thing I can tell you is, if you've had a superficial conversion, your baptism experience, and I understand a good number of you are going to get baptized this week, if your conversion experience has been superficial, then your baptismal experience will also be superficial, and your life from here on out will probably be superficial. You know, that's really what you see in the church today, is people learning and learning and learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Baptism shouldn't just be an outward rite that we do because everyone else does it or because the pastor said we should do it.

It's something very profound because it represents something very profound. At least it should. It really is the initiation ceremony of coming into the great family of God.

That's what baptism is. First century Jews were familiar with baptism because it was part of the ritual a Gentile proselyte went through to become a Jew. You know, so Israel was meant to be the light to the nations, right? And so there were occasions when people, however it happened, I don't know, but every now and then, a Gentile would have enough familiarity with what was going on, either the sacred scriptures or just maybe at the temple, feeling the power of God, something would happen that would compel them, I need to be part of this.

Maybe they had been feeling convicted over their sin, their emptiness of their life, just the ridiculousness of idolatry, whatever the case, they feel compelled to become a part of what's going on in Israel. And so they would go through this process, this initiation process that required them to renounce everything of their past life. Their entire Gentile existence had to be renounced.

They were going to be something completely different than what they used to be, and they were going to join themselves to the Jewish community. And just in case they had any thoughts of doing this casually, part of it was to be circumcised. So you know they meant business, right? That's not something someone's going to go through lightly.

And it also required a baptism, and that baptism signified something powerful. It signified the washing away of their idolatry and their sin, and their coming into this new faith. That's what baptism was all about, and the first century Jews understood all this.

Just like so many things you and I understand, just, you know, we've picked it up during our years in the church and so on. We just know things are a certain way. It was that way for them.

They understood what baptism represented. We can't see the salvation experience. Like, I know a good number of you are saved.

I've had some interactions with some of you. I can just tell, usually or often, when a person has truly come into the kingdom. But we can't see it happen.

It's like Jesus said in John 3, you know, the wind blows where it wishes, and we can't see it. We don't know where it comes from or where it's going. It's a mysterious spiritual experience that occurs deep within a person's heart.

We can't see that. But what we can see is that person being baptized, going under the water, that is representing what has happened inside them already. So John the Baptist and Jesus both picked up this Jewish ceremony as a way for new converts to proclaim to the Jewish world, I am making myself part of what's going on here.

What I'm hearing from John or what I'm hearing from Jesus, I'm all in. And that came at a cost, being put out of the local... What? Sanctuary? And I had a few other things popping in. Being 70 is not for the faint of heart, I can just tell you.

Jesus said, Him that confesses me before men, him will I confess before my Father who is in heaven. So baptism was part of making that public confession. It's no big deal in America, but I'll tell you what, you do it over in Pakistan, you do it in some parts of India, or China, and that is a big deal.

Because you are publicly setting yourself against the public, you know, yeah, the way things are. Another thing about baptism came out as I was studying this, a disagreement between scholars about one tiny little Greek word. Let me explain it.

The Greek text of the phrase is Aistoanoma, which most Bible translations interpret as baptizing in the name of. Excuse me. But every scholar I read, which included Matthew Henry, the Vincent Word Study, John MacArthur, the Bynes Word Study, and the Greek Lexicon, just to name a few of them, they all translate it baptizing into the name of.

Now that may not sound like, what's the big deal? In or into, what's the big deal? Let me explain, since you asked. Translating it, baptizing them in the name of, which is what most translations do, that's how they put it, it gives the sense of, we're doing this before God, with God's authority, and by His name, and all that kind of a feeling. That's, I guess, what's behind that.

And there's certainly nothing wrong with that. That is part of the deal. The only problem is, that's not what Jesus was saying.

Because the word eis, is not in, it's into. It's going into something. And you know, in this case, entering into the Godhead.

Let me read what one scholar wrote. In the classical style of the first century language, the phrase eis to enoma, into the name of, was often used as a legal term. This expression is found among ancient legal documents that record the transfer of property.

If someone purchased a section of land or a dwelling, for example, a title transfer would be drawn up to show that this property was now, eis to enoma, transferred into the name of the new owner. So you see, it's a very profound thing. And that brings me to the other half of this equation.

Just like the proselyte had to renounce his past life, he's done with being a Gentile, he's now going to be a Jew, this same kind of transference is happening now. That's what baptism is supposed to represent. Something you rarely see in the American church.

And it's not just going out of the Gentile past, but it's coming into something, right? And it's coming into the name of the Godhead. Name meaning just simply representing, like I said before, the attributes of God, His character, His nature. Christians are the objects of a property transfer out of the kingdom of darkness and into His marvelous light.

It also coincides with the phrase we see often in the New Testament. In Christ, or in God. So someone who's come into the Godhead is now in Christ or now in God.

So Jesus says in John 15, I'm the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he bears much fruit. And Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creature, the old things are passed away, behold, new things have come.

That's what it should be. And it's also what Peter meant when he said believers become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. You see the same thing everywhere you look, throughout Scripture.

It's a complete changeover. And that's what the baptism experience should reflect. A mystical union with the Godhead.

And this isn't just a one-off experience either, you know. If you have truly come into the kingdom, you should be going deeper and deeper into God as you continue on. Not just learning more and more, which there's plenty of that in the church, but actually coming deeper into God.

So I'm hoping that that will help explain that a little better for you. And this is going to, the second part is going to explain a little bit more why this does not typically happen in the church. So number two, the believer must be taught and discipled.

Metateo is the Greek word for discipled. It means to be a follower and a learner. It's not just one and it's not just the other.

It's one of those Greek terms that is, you know, a combination of thought that we have separated out with English words. To be a disciple means that you are following this person. You are his devoted student.

Yes, you want to learn what he's got to say and what he can teach you, but it's more than that. It's to actually become an imitator of his life. It's not just sitting back learning a bunch of information and then just going home.

Oh, that was nice and forgetting all about it when you get home. This is another example of the glossing over of important spiritual things that has taken place in the modern church. For instance, in the book of 2nd Timothy, which is one of the pastoral epistles that Paul wrote, for the purpose of what? Teaching these guys how to pastor a church.

Part of that, he said, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching. That's it. Right? Well, I mean, that's what we get in church.

How many pastors do we see that actually are involved personally at a deep enough level with their people that they reprove them when they are going astray? Or correcting faulty thinking and actually rolling up their sleeves and training them in righteousness. That's not how the American church is set up. It's set up for big success.

Numbers. You can't have a church of 5,000 and get involved with your people on that level. Now I have heard of pastors like, I can't think of who it was, but I remember one pastor telling me that he got his elders together and he spent a year building into their lives individually.

And then after he did that then they in turn did that with the people. That's how it should be run. That's how a church should be run.

You know, to reprove a person means that they are presumably going down the narrow path and you know, as things happen in this world, they start to get off track. They start veering off or they're tempted into sin and to reprove that person means you get right in front of that person and you say, no, you can't go any further this way. You're going to destroy your life.

You can't do that from the pulpit. You have to be involved in the person's life to do that. And correcting, you know, if you're involved you'll see how sin has affected and corrupted their thinking and especially in spiritual matters and, you know, what the Christian life should be.

The entire church needs a major correction in the way it's done. But you have to be involved to do that and to use Scripture as a basis of training the person. The word training in the Greek, I can't remember what the word is, but I know this.

Almost every other time it's used in the New Testament, it's translated as discipline. So like in Hebrews 12 where it's talking about God disciplines those he loves. That's that word.

Discipline for righteousness. And that's exactly what's talked about in Hebrews 12. That should be that kind of involvement in people's lives.

But it's not. And that's one of the primary reasons why Christians don't have the spiritual wherewithal to resist temptation. Why Christians are so worldly minded.

Why Christians don't feel a need to have a devotional life. Because they're not being held to live what they're being taught on Sunday. The model that Jesus laid out here was intrusive and intentional.

And you know, what happens, you start getting involved in people's lives and telling them you really need to have a devotional life. You start losing people. You start losing people.

You know, sometimes we get a student here who just won't spend time with the Lord in the morning. Doesn't feel a need to or desire to or it's too much trouble or whatever. Doesn't really want to do his homework.

And you know, we'll be patient up to a point. We understand he's coming into a whole new style of life. We understand that.

But at some point we're going to have to say to this person, you know what, we can't help you. We are giving you the tools that you need to implement into your life. We can't do it for you and I don't have a magic wand.

I can show you what God has laid out for you to give you the tools to overcome and to live in victory and to walk with God. I can show you those things but you have to do it. And if you won't do it, we can't help you so there's no point in you being here.

It's not like we want to drive people out of here. After all, you know, American idea of success is more numbers, right? No, we don't care about that around here. Thank God I don't have a board I don't have to pay attention to either.

I do have a board but they've all been through the program. So a great bunch of guys. They know the deal.

Yeah, you know, I can tell you this. Man, I'm tired of wearing those things. Did you ever get used to Oh, you're tired of it too.

Let's all throw our glasses away today. I know this because I've spoken in enough Bible colleges, talked to enough people and so on. What they emphasize in Bible colleges How many of you have been to Bible college? Or seminary? A good number of you.

I was going to say you'll refute what I say. No, don't do that. They emphasize church growth.

They don't emphasize what we're talking about here. Is that true? I mean who do they bring in as the special speakers? Guys with the biggest churches. Most successful, big names.

That's who you're supposed to emulate. And so we have this whole church growth movement that is all about supposedly bringing in sinners so they don't have to feel offended or don't have to feel uncomfortable that we never preach the cross because that would make them feel uncomfortable. The idea of it, there is a certain logic to it that seems like it would make sense.

Bring them in and maybe they'll fall in love with Jesus. And maybe it has happened on occasion. But for the most part what has happened it has watered down the real gospel and replaced it with this whatever it is.

I can't think of a nice way of saying it. A bunch of garbage I'll say it that way. You know God isn't impressed with the size of our churches.

The thing he's concerned about is how many true disciples are in that building. Because they're his people. That's what he's concerned about.

Alright so the third thing that Jesus mentions here is that the believer must go. From the earliest days, meaning in the garden, when Adam and Eve bit into that fruit God established a plan of redemption. Praise God for that.

I want to read a little thing a friend of mine wrote. He wrote a commentary on the book of Proverbs which I have been enjoying. He said, What distinguishes the God of the Bible from all other gods is his steady calling and seeking of the lost.

All other religions vainly search for a transcendent or remote or mysterious deity who makes himself difficult to find. But the one true God never stops seeking, calling, searching, agonizing over his lost children. In mercy our God calls.

He stretches out his hands in invitation. Even when we stop up our ears and shrug off his embrace, he ever calls. He ever reaches.

That is God. That is his heart. And you see it in Jesus.

In Luke 19 he said the son of man came to seek and to save the lost. That was his mission. And 27 times in the book of John alone it says God sent Jesus.

God sent his son. And so on. But then it also says, Jesus also said that he then in turn sent his followers.

Like in John 17 he said to the father, as you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And in Matthew 10 he told the disciples, behold I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves. This command is extended to every believer.

Not just those disciples or those 500 there that day. It's every single believer. Has that same call on his life.

And the way Jesus set up this system, it's a cyclical system. So these 500 went out and each one of them begins to share the Lord with other people in their community. Maybe people they work with or live by or whatever.

Family members. And some of them are going to get saved and become disciples. And then they in turn go out and do the same.

And that's how the church grew in the early in the first century. And with all of our masses of Christians so called in America today actually the church is getting smaller. People are leaving the church in masses.

And according to statisticians rather than being a powerful force in our nation the church has become largely compromised because of yeah worldliness and a lack of prayer and that has made it possible for pornography to sweep through the American church you know I mean it seems as though the majority of so called Christian men are regularly involved in pornography. How can you possibly have a holy sanctuary, a holy meeting when most of the men in that congregation have been looking at pornographic videos the night before. Demonic vile stuff.

It's not possible. That's why the church has no power. I mean that's part of it but it's a lack of prayer, the worldliness the giving over, the selfishness the indulgence.

You guys have the opportunity to make a difference in this world. You really do because you are in what? A discipleship program. You are being discipled here.

That's exactly what's going on here at Pure Life Ministries. Well maybe you'll say I've lost everything. I don't have anything to offer to the Lord.

You know what? Praise the Lord. You are a perfect candidate for God to use to turn the world upside down. Because that describes most of the great men of God down through the centuries.

People who lost everything or gave everything up and then God when they were at the end of their hoard of resources as the Psalm says then God was able to empower them to go out and affect their cultures. And you guys could do that and should do that. And we have many out there.

Pure Life grads who are now being used by God in different communities, different nations and so on. And I hope I hear from many of you one day that God called you into His work. Now think about how those disciples felt that day.

Jesus is calling them and He's telling them you need to go out. Well their leader has just died a horrible death on a Roman cross. His followers have been scattered for fear of their lives.

The Jewish religious system is threatening to hunt them down. How could they be used? Well I'll tell you what happened. 120 of them gathered in Jerusalem.

And for 10 days they had a non-stop prayer meeting. Crying out to God. Pleading with Him for His Spirit.

Pour out Your Holy Spirit upon us Lord. We need You. We need You.

Just a constant cry to God. And we all know what happened next, don't we? Just a powerful, powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That was then.

And now is now. But you know what? It's the same basic thing. Nothing really has changed.

God has brought you here to bring you into true repentance. To bring you into true fellowship with Himself. To set you free.

To build up and strengthen your spiritual life. Then to send you out to affect the lives of others. You all have that call on your life.

I know, maybe you feel completely inadequate. But you know the Lord doesn't need people who are full of self confidence. There's plenty of those in the church.

What He needs is people who see their need for the Lord. Well how did He end this commission? He said, and behold I am with you always to the end of the age. Let me just finish up by reading a couple of quotes.

Matthew Henry says I am with you to bear you up to plead your cause with you and all your services and all your sufferings to bring you through them with comfort and honor. When you go through the fire or water I will be with you. In the pulpit, in the prison, lo, I am with you.

The pulpit commentator said, I am with you in all your prayers, public and private. Baptisms, communions, exhortations, doctrine, discipline and this, not now and then, not at certain times only, but all the days of your pilgrimage. All the dark days of trial and persecution and affliction.

My presence shall never be withdrawn for a single moment. And I can say testimony, Kathy and I both can say our 38 plus years since we started Pure Life just left Sacramento in a broken down RV. What a heap.

And somehow we made it across the nation. I'm not even sure how. The shower quit working, the heater quit working, everything quit working practically except the engine.

It got us here. We lived in Kmart parking lots. There was no Walmart back in those days.

It was Kmart. And we used gas station bathrooms every day. And we just made just enough to get us through that week to the next week.

And it's the same way. Every time God calls someone into the ministry, it's hard at first. It was really hard coming out here, getting something established, buying a place we had no money, buying the first place we bought, completely stepping out in faith.

Buying this place was a tremendous miracle. Took a lot of prayer and fasting to buy this property. But what an exciting adventure.

Man, what an exciting adventure. Right? Right. I did most of it without glasses too.

But I'm telling you guys, he's got his call on each of your lives. To somehow, he's got a role for you to fill to help fulfill the Great Commission. And I was thinking about this, you've got Jonathan here who is a graphic artist and he works at Pure Life Ministries.

There's 45 of us that work here. He's part of the team. He does all the graphic art stuff.

It's a tremendous blessing what he does. You've got John. Where's John? I saw John.

Back there. John is an audio guy. Well, you know, John's not going to be an evangelist.

He's not going to stand out on the street corners and preach. That's not him. But what he does have, he has a real talent for making audio stuff work for our videos and all our podcasts and all the stuff we do.

I could say it for all these different guys. They're helping fulfill the Great Commission because people are getting saved in this place on a regular basis. It's an awesome thing.

But there's something, each one of you have a particular gift and call. I don't know exactly what it is, but I know this. He's got a call on your life.

And he wants to use you. So, you know, I think I will have an altar call in a sort of way. Come on up, Josh.

Not repentance type altar call. Not even a call to commit, but maybe that's not true. I just want you all to stand up.

Josh will lead us in a song. Okay, and I want to ask you, invite you guys, any who feel like the Lord has been talking to you, speaking to you, nudging you, calling you into service when you leave here. He's been talking to you about that.

If that describes you, I want you to slip out and come down here and make that a public proclamation. Just come on down right now. If he has been dealing with you about this, come down here and I'm going to pray over you.

Because it's a tremendous thing for God to call you into his work. Wow. What an awesome thing it is.

Just spread out, guys, and maybe you guys can I should have sent you out before. If God's got his hand on your life and he's been speaking to you, this is an opportunity to consecrate it publicly. Go ahead and lead us now, Josh.

Lord, you see the men here bowing down at this altar giving themselves to you, Lord. I suspect for many of them there's been a call on their lives for many years and they got completely sidetracked. The enemy lured them off the path, sank them deeply into darkness to where they couldn't be used by you.

But here they are, Lord. They're getting their lives together, getting their lives back into a place where they could be useful instruments in your hand. Lord, I pray that you will put your mighty touch on them, each of them, their lives, their minds, their thinking, everything, Lord.

Speak to them, God. Speak to them. Help them to know your will for their lives.

Make it very clear, Lord. You know how to do that, God. Put it into their hearts to seek you, to seek and seek and keep on seeking until they have heard the voice of God and they can go forth in confidence knowing they've heard from the Lord.

They know what God is calling them to do. I pray that you will empower them, empower them by your Holy Spirit. Cover them in your grace.

Carry them forth by your power. Put to death in them anything that would hinder you being able to use them to affect other lives, God. Other people out there who are headed for destruction, who need someone to step in their path, show a little bit of love, show some concern, to speak with them, to help them, to get involved in their lives, and then to disciple them.

We pray, Lord, that this would be a special day for them, that they would always be able to look back and know this is the day you confirmed to them, or reconfirmed a call on their lives. Use them mightily in the days ahead, we pray, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

God bless you all. You're dismissed.