Safety Second

A quiet betrothal, a shocking pregnancy, and a dream that changes everything—Joseph steps into a life he didn’t plan and shows us what real courage looks like. We walk through Matthew’s account to explore three hard truths we often avoid: mercy that humbles the ego, obedience that risks reputation, and action that refuses to stall. Along the way, we hold a mirror to a “safety first” reflex that narrows our decisions to comfort and consensus, and we ask better questions: What is right? What is faithful? What is God asking now?

We unpack how Joseph keeps justice and mercy together when every social incentive pushes him to defend his name. We feel the weight of being misunderstood and learn why public acts of obedience—taking Mary as his wife and naming Jesus—invite lifelong whispers. From a modern angle, we use Moneyball to show how standing against the crowd looks foolish until the fruit becomes clear. Then we press into the urgency of timely obedience, exposing the delays we baptize as wisdom: waiting for ideal conditions, complete answers, or the right feelings. Each of these stalls the good we know we should do and compounds the cost we pay later.

All of this resolves at the foot of the cross. Jesus does not choose the safer road; he chooses the obedient one, and his faithfulness becomes our peace. That’s the heart of Advent: Emmanuel—God with us—meeting conflict with courage and bringing light to dark places in us and around us. If you’ve been hesitating to reconcile, to cut off a corrosive habit, to forgive, or to step into a hard but holy call, this conversation is your nudge to move. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a review to help others find these messages of hope and challenge. Where will you put obedience first this week?

Chapters

• 0:00 Advent Reading And Prayer
• 3:28 Safety First And COVID Lessons
• 5:28 Christmas As Conflict
• 6:24 Joseph’s Story And Core Thesis
• 7:36 Merciful Obedience Over Ego
• 12:24 Mercy, Self-Defense, And Restraint
• 16:28 Costly Obedience And Reputation
• 21:04 Misunderstood Faith And Moneyball
• 24:24 Timely Obedience Without Delay
• 28:00 Delays Disguised As Wisdom
• 32:48 Christ’s Obedience And Final Prayer

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:02

Alright. We're the good ones. I'm Bobby, Trippin' Red. We've been coming here off and on since uh the church opened, and we're very excited and feel very special that we get to do the advent today. I'm gonna have my son start off with the scripture, and then I'll do the prayer.

SPEAKER_03: 0:25

And I now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband, Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17

Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. When Joseph woke up, woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus.

SPEAKER_01: 1:45

Father in heaven, as we light this candle, we remember how your peace entered the world in a way no one expected. You sent your son by the power of the Holy Spirit, and you entrusted him to Mary and Joseph. You told Joseph not to fear, but to receive this holy disruption as your saving work. Lord, we confess that we often cling to control. We prefer predictable plans and safe paths. Yet you come to us, just as you came to Joseph, calling us to trust you when obedience is costly. Thank you that Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. Thank you that his presence is our peace, even when circumstances are unsettling. Thank you that he is named Jesus, because he came to save his people from their sins. As we light this candle today, shine your peace into our anxious hearts, quiet our fears, strengthen our faith, and teach us to follow Joseph's example, to listen, to trust, and to obey you, because you are faithful and good. Come, Lord Jesus, disrupt what is broken in us, and bring the peace only you can give. Amen.

SPEAKER_00: 3:08

Thank you, Goodwin family. This time I'll go ahead and dismiss kids age two through second grade to be part of Kids Church downstairs. You're also welcome to stay and worship with us if you prefer that. Happy to have you either way. I had the whole skate park to myself. Nobody else was there. It was just, it was a sunny day. It was just me, my skateboard, and an empty bowl, an empty park in front of me. And I was about ten minutes into my warm-up when a police officer rolled up. And I already knew what would happen. He told me to scram. It was spring of 2020, and Governor Mike DeWine had recently issued an executive order that until further notice, all public parks were closed. COVID, we were told, was dangerous and deadly, even to children. And one of the most dangerous things that they could do was to get outside in the sunshine, in the fresh air, and go to a playground, a known hotbed for the virus. I know that many of you sitting here today were rebels during the COVID period, and the way that I know that is because you you braved the snow today. So today you definitely put safety second. So, but we did a lot of strange things during COVID, under the banner of safety first. But we we now know that a lot of the decisions that were made, allegedly for safety reasons, were actually more harmful to people than the virus that we were trying to protect ourselves from. For example, taking kids out of school for a year and putting them in front of a screen has turned out to have done far more harm than the COVID virus could ever do. But when safety is the primary concern, we do strange things, sometimes harmful things. We stop asking the more important questions rather than what is safe and being obsessed with that. We we stop asking what is right or what is faithful or what is God calling me to do or what is what is needed in this situation. Safety first, as good as that sounds, often means obedience second. During Advent this year, we're looking at stories of conflict. Christmas is all about conflict. If you didn't know that already, if you haven't been to any of your extended family gatherings, Christmas is all about conflict. The light of the world entering into the domain of darkness in order to wage war against the darkness. And the text today tells us the story of Joseph, Jesus' adopted father. It's an interesting account because in Matthew's gospel, we never have an account of the angel appearing to Mary and explaining the situation to her. We only have the story of the virgin birth from Joseph's perspective. If you want to get it from Mary's perspective, you have to look at Luke. But this is really a story of conflict, the story of Joseph. And it's a conflict that every one of us feels. It's the conflict between safety and obedience when those two things come into conflict. In this story, God calls Joseph to obey in a way that challenges every instinct that he has or may have had to protect himself. And Joseph, in his decisions and his obedience, teaches us something that we desperately need to recover: that obedience to God is always more important than safety, than our perception of safety. Obedience first, safety second. That's the main point of the sermon today. So we're going to look at Joseph's obedience, and in looking at Joseph's obedience, we learn three things. We learn a merciful obedience, a costly obedience, and a timely obedience. Joseph's obedience is merciful, it's costly, and it's timely. So first, merciful obedience. Obedience to God puts us in conflict with our wounded ego. Merciful obedience. Obedience to God puts us in conflict with our wounded ego. At the beginning of the story, Matthew tells us that Joseph and Mary were betrothed, or as we would say, engaged to be married. But betrothal in that culture was nothing like our modern engagements. Joseph was likely a young man, somewhere perhaps in his late teens. Mary would have been younger, a young girl, probably around 13 or 14. And betrothal was something that was legally binding. It was entered into before witnesses. It required a divorce to dissolve, if in the pro it was about a one-year period. If in that period, one, if suppose that the that the that the man died, the woman would be considered a widow, even though she was just in the betrothal period. So it was it was considered a very legally binding arrangement. It lasted about a year, during which the couple did not live together and did not consummate the marriage, but it was a covenantal promise. During this betrothal period, it says that Mary is found to be with child. And we the readers know from Matthew and from Luke, and just, you know, the early readers of Matthew would have known from the tradition that Mary conceives by the Holy Spirit as a virgin. But to Joseph hearing this story, and to everybody else in their orbit hearing this story, this would have sounded like quite a tale. This would have sounded like an outrageous story. Mary likely told Joseph about the angelic announcement, hey, Gabriel visited me, and this is what he said, and I said, Lord, if that's your will, let it be done. But nothing in this text suggests that he believed her. Everything for him pointed to what would have been the obvious conclusion of infidelity, or perhaps to outsiders looking in, just a lack of chastity between the two. But Matthew tells us two crucial things about Joseph in verse 19. These are two things, not one thing. It says, Joseph being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame. Being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, Joseph is both just and merciful, as it tells us. And just means that he takes God's law or took God's law seriously, tried his best to obey the law of God. At that time, under Jewish law, under Greek law, and under Roman law, adultery required divorce. It wasn't just something that you could pursue, it was something you were expected to pursue. Under the Old Testament law, the penalty for adultery was death, but under Roman rule, the Jews were not allowed to carry out executions. So divorce is the recourse that they turned to. So Joseph concludes that in order to be obedient to the law of God, he must dissolve the betrothal. He believes Mary has been unfaithful. His world has collapsed. He must have been heartbroken and grief-stricken. And on top of that, he has every legal right to expose her publicly, and he has every social incentive to vindicate himself and clear his own name. His wounded ego might even have found some relief in putting Mary on blast and you know and exposing her to the whole world of what he believes that she's done. But Matthew tells us that he was unwilling. He was unwilling to put her to shame. So what he resolves to do is to divorce her quietly, to obey what he understands to be the law of God, but to do it in such a way that he's doing the best that he can to protect her from public disgrace, even though he believes that she's betrayed him. Joseph obeys God's law, and Joseph shows mercy to Mary or does his best to be merciful toward her. So Joseph teaches us something important: that when we are wounded, our ego often demands vindication and it cries out for self-protection. It wants the person that hurt us to be exposed and shamed and held accountable. We want to call people to account that they can't do this again in a way that makes us feel better. But Joseph shows us something different: a way where justice and doing the right thing is tempered by mercy, where obedience to God is more important than defending ourselves and vindicating ourselves, and where the desire for safety and for guarding our ego and protecting ourselves is actually placed second. Joseph's obedience is merciful, and mercy is never safe for the ego. Extending mercy to others is never safe for our own ego. I was recently talking with a friend about Christians and self-defense. This is a guy that came from a Christian home. He lives in LA now, and his his views have evolved over time. It seems obvious to him that Christians should be pacifists, that we should not own weapons, that we should not defend ourselves in any sense. Isn't this what Jesus meant when he said that we're to be peacemakers, that we are to be meek, that we're to turn the other cheek, excuse me, when we're struck. This immediately, as we were talking about this, this brought me back to my martial arts training. Having trained for about three years now, I know that if someone were to attack me, I can't it is possible to defend yourself while at the same time being careful not to hurt the attacker. Any trained martial artist or uh warrior knows how to defend themselves, defend themselves without dealing unnecessary damage to the assailant. That's that's like self-defense 101. And this is something that Christians have every right to do. If someone attacked me, could I hurt them? Probably. Could I, you know, uh could I could I put them in the hospital? Maybe. Um, but do I need to do that? Should I do that? Should we do that? Probably not. We can learn to defend ourselves in a way that is merciful toward our attacker, that shows restraint, even though we could exert more force we choose not to. This isn't about whether this isn't about Christians in self-defense. I'm just trying to illustrate a principle that when you are mistreated, you likely have one of two safety responses. You either try to protect yourself by hitting back as hard as you can, by making a point, by by sh and I'm not even talking about physically, I'm talking about if someone mistreats you emotionally or verbally or whatever, uh, we try to hit back as hard as we can, or we try to protect ourselves by ignoring the harm and just pretending that it didn't happen and just letting our guard down and just pretending that nothing happened. But obedience to God requires that we put safety second. We don't need to hit back. We can do as Joseph was intending to do and release them to the Lord, trusting that God will deal with them in a better way than we ever could. But at the same time, we shouldn't roll over and just let our guard down and pretend that nothing's happening or that no harm was done. We do need to deal with harm that is done and to pursue justice, not allowing it to continue, not allowing it to continue in our own lives or in our sphere of influence. But search your heart and ask, which safety response are you inclined toward? And when someone mistreats you, so which is it? Are you inclined to roll over and do nothing, or are you inclined to just strike back as hard as you can? And when someone mistreats you, come back to Joseph's merciful justice. Again, he he was not actually uh betrayed, he just believed that he was that he was and had every all indications pointed to that. But his response was to pursue justice in the most merciful way possible. And we have to wrestle with what it means to follow in that example. So it's a merciful obedience that God calls us to follow in. Point two, a costly obedience. Obedience to God puts us in conflict with the opinion of man. As Joseph is wrestling with what to do, God interrupts his fear and brings clarity into the situation in verses 20 and 21. He says, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. And this is the angel Gabriel. And he confirms everything that Mary has said. He confirms that the child is holy, that it's from the Holy, he's from the Holy Spirit. The conception is miraculous, that Mary has been faithful, that she's telling the truth. And Joseph is commanded to take two decisive steps. To take Mary as his wife, which he does as soon as he wakes from the dream, he takes her as his wife. And then to name the child Jesus, which means to adopt him as his own son. For the man to bestow the name means that he is taking him as his own child. So take Mary as your wife, name the child Jesus, adopting him as his own son. Both of these are public acts. Everyone would see them, and everyone would draw conclusions as to what really happened in the situation. The command, do not fear, is not about the angel's appearance, as Zechariah's was. It's about the cost that Joseph will pay for obedience. What is Joseph not to fear? He's not to fear the accusation of infidelity. He's not to fear the suspicion of immoral behavior between he and Mary, because this looks pretty bad to those who haven't been visited by an angel. He's not to fear the whispers about Mary's character. He's not to fear the shame culture of first century Judaism or the lifelong stain of scandal on his family's reputation. Joseph and Mary know the truth. They know that no matter how crazy it looks, that this child is holy, but no one else is going to believe that story. God is calling Joseph into a life of being misunderstood for the rest of his life. A life where obedience is going to put him on the wrong side of public opinion. There's an interesting moment in John 8. Jesus is disputing with the Pharisees, and he tells the Pharisees, it's getting pretty heated, and he tells the Pharisees that their unbelief shows that they are not sons of Abraham. They're not true children of Abraham. And they respond, We were not born of sexual immorality. It's one of the things that they say to him in John 8. Many scholars note that this may be a veiled jab, a way of implying that Jesus was born under questionable circumstances. And who is he to say whose son they are? Who's your father, Jesus? We can't be certain about that, but it does show something important. That this suspicion followed this family. Whether it was whispered behind their backs or spoken in directly, the shadow of scandal never fully went away until perhaps after the resurrection, and then people began to rethink everything, and they're like, well, maybe he was born of a virgin. That's kind of crazy. Joseph knows what taking Mary will mean. He knows that to obey God is to embrace misunderstanding. He knows that his net his reputation will never fully recover. So God tells Joseph, do not fear the opinion of man. We feel safe when people like us, when people are pleased with us, when they approve of our choices, when our reputation is intact. But Joseph shows us that with God, safety is second. Obedience comes first, even when no one understands it, even when it makes us look foolish, or even when it costs us reputation or a good name. It reminds me of that line that's often attributed to Nietzsche, though the providence is unknown, where someone said, And those who were seen dancing were thought insane by those who could not hear the music. Joseph is called to dance to a music that no one else can hear. He has information that nobody else has. And the same is true for us. Billy Bean changed baseball forever. But before he changed it, everybody thought that he was crazy, until he wasn't. In the early 2000s, he was the general manager of the Oakland A's. And at that time, the scouts, when scouts evaluated talent, they relied mostly entirely on the eye test, on how things appeared. They asked things like, does this, does he look athletic? Does he have the right body type? How hard can he throw? How hard can he hit? How fast can he run? It was just sort of like a gut, sort of a gut sense evaluation. It was all intuition and gut feeling. Bean realized something no one else was paying attention to, that the very best, statistically speaking, the best predictor of scoring runs, which is how you win games. How do you win games in baseball? Scoring runs, right? The best number one predictor of scoring runs is getting on base. Wouldn't you know it? So instead of chasing superstar athletes, he recruited the overlooked, the underrated, unflashy players who consistently reached base. He says, I just care about the guys who are getting on base, and I'm going to recruit a team of them. And everyone thought it was going to be a disaster. People in baseball mocked him, his own staff doubted him, fans were confused. But that team went on to shock the world with an unprecedented 20-game winning streak breaking American league records. His approach to baseball became known as Sabermetrics, and it's now the industry standard in Major League Baseball recruiting. He was right and he knew it, but he had to stand alone before anyone else could see it. He had the courage to put safety second, and in doing so, he changed baseball forever. We put a tremendous amount of weight on what other people think of us. But should we? Does what other people think of us really matter? Does it really amount to that much? Is the opinion of man really worth the fear and the attention that we give to it? Proverbs teaches us that a good name is valuable, but it also teaches that the fear of man lays a snare. A good reputation matters. It's good. It's more valuable than financial wealth. But it cannot become an idol. We cannot allow it to become an idol. Because often obedience to God requires that we disregard the opinion of man. To obey God, we may have to disappoint people. In order to obey God, we may have to violate expectations or to fail to meet expectations that God does not have of us. Maybe we have to say things that others don't understand, or maybe we must do things that people find offensive or foolish in order to obey God. Scripture tells us, as far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. So, yes, Christians should seek to maintain a good reputation where possible, and we don't seek to be obnoxious on purpose. But at the same time, safety second. If forced to choose, we must obey God rather than men. We must follow the voice of God even when others cannot hear the music that we're dancing to. It's a costly obedience. And the third thing that we see is that it is a timely obedience. Obedience to God puts us in conflict with our desire to delay. Matthew is careful to highlight not only Joseph's obedience, but the speed of Joseph's obedience. God tells Joseph to take Mary as his wife and to take Jesus as his son. And then Matthew writes in 24 and 25, when Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. I just want to read that again. When Joseph woke from sleep, I mean that's pretty immediate. When he woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. There's no hesitation, there's no gap in time, he does not sleep on it again, he does not consult anyone else. He wakes and he obeys. And Joseph, so Joseph understood what God said, and that was enough for him. Unlike Zechariah, we saw last week. Zechariah understands, understood what the angel was saying to him, but he's like, I don't know. I'm not, how do I know this is so? Can I have some more certainty? That's not what we see with Joseph. As soon as God's will was clear to him, he acted on it. And Matthew wants the church to see that part of Joseph's righteousness and part of his worthiness of being an example to us is his timely obedience. And this is where our hearts can get exposed, because under the guise of wisdom or prudence or safety, most of us, myself included, are experts at delaying obedience. Experts at putting off the right thing to do, even though we know it's the right thing. We know exactly what God is calling us to do. We know what we're supposed to do, but we're very good at stalling, at waiting for the right moment. We gather more opinions, we get more information, we deliberate more, we we watch more videos, we read more books, we convince ourselves that delay is the safer choice. I need to understand this better to gather more information. But for most of us, I think delay is almost always disobedience in slow motion. Joseph shows us a better way, that when God made his will clear, Joseph acted, and so should we. That we should just obey, just do what God says. Three years ago in our extended family, an incident happened. There were some sharp words exchanged and some misunderstanding between my wife and my brother-in-law. It was at a family gathering. It wasn't Christmas, but I guess there's always always an occasion for conflict when extended families involved. But there was so there was this event, and within a few days, Julie told me, she said, Billy, you need to call your brother-in-law and you need to clear this up. And she was absolute, absolutely right about that. I'm conflict avoidant, and I convinced myself that if I delayed, if I didn't call, if I just waited and just, you know, see, like it'll blow over. It's like maybe it would probably make it a bigger deal if I did call. I probably shouldn't do that. So I just waited, assuming everything would blow over. Well, it didn't. Um three years later, things still felt strained. It got super weird between my sister and I, awkward conversations with my mom and my sister, and everything, it just like wasn't going away. And then just a few weeks ago, Julie's like, why don't you just call call your brother-in-law? Just call him. I finally picked up the phone and called him, and you know what? It took like 10 minutes to resolve. Almost immediately resolved. It was within the first few words of our conversation. Unbeknownst to us, to our family, he'd gotten over the whole thing within a week of the actual event, three years ago. Three years of tension because I delayed. Because I delayed doing what I should have done, the right thing. Totally unnecessary burden created by my hesitancy. When we put off what we know that God is calling us to do, life becomes more complicated than it ever needed to be. Delayed obedience always feels safer in the moment, but it always costs us more in the end. With God, it's safety second, obedience first, a timely obedience. So what does it look like? What does it look like to delay obedience? How are ways that we do that? Here's just a few ways, and maybe one of these will you will will resonate with you. We wait for ideal circumstances. My girlfriend and I will get married when we can afford to buy a house. Or we'll have kids when we can afford them. Ha!

unknown: 29:40

Ha ha!

SPEAKER_00: 29:41

To that I laugh. I'll pursue this degree once the economy settles down, or I'll plant this church once there's more support for it, or I'll start this ministry when the right people come along, when there's, you know, when there's people that can help me, then I'll then I'll start doing this thing. Or I'll start getting in shape and I'll start eating better once things calm down at work, or once January 1st hits, that's when I'll start. Because that's, you know, it's a good place to start, right? Uh it could be anything, but the reality is that the the reality is that the circumstances will never be ideal. You can never wait for ideal circumstances. All of these excuses sound like prudence and wisdom, but they're just disobedience and slow motion. They're just unnecessary delays. We we must start now. We must obey now, and then the circumstances will catch up. They'll never be ideal. Here's another way that we delay obedience. We wait until it makes sense. I will become a Christian and submit my life to Jesus once I have all the answers to all my questions. None of us here got all the answers to all of our questions before we decided to follow Jesus. We still have questions and unanswered questions. I will turn from this sin when I'm ready to. I'm gonna actually wait until my life is miserable and I've hit rock bottom, and then I will change. Then I will turn from this sin. Or I will trust God when I have exhausted every other option. When these other things don't work out, when this relationship falls apart, or when this career situation falls apart. Only when I have no other option, then I will trust the Lord. This is just playing with fire when we do this. Um, it's more dangerous than we know. We risk getting burned far more than we need to. It is so much better to obey now and to trust the Lord now. And it will make sense once you're on that path. It will make more sense. Here's a third way. We wait until it feels right. We wait until our feelings are in the right place. I will forgive them when I feel like forgiving them because otherwise it's not genuine, right? Um, I'll I'll have the hard conversation when my anxiety calms down, when I'm feeling better about it, then I will have this hard conversation. I will repent once I have the willpower, otherwise, it's I'm just gonna go back and forth. Um I will start, I will start giving, or I'll start giving more when I feel more generous because God loves a cheerful giver, right? I don't want to give in a begrudging way. I'll open my Bible when I'm spiritually motivated, because I don't want to be legalistic about it, because that's the worst thing that you could possibly do, is to do something that you don't want to do. We obey our emotions instead of obeying God, and we wait for obedience to feel easy. But if you tarry till you're better, as the hymn says, you will never come at all. Better to obey, even when you don't feel it, and your feelings will catch up. Jesus did not delay in his obedience. In John 12, 27, Jesus is nearing the hour of his death. He's approaching Jerusalem, he's approaching the final week of his life, and he's feeling the terror of the cross. And this is what he says. He says, Now is my soul troubled. He'd never said that before. He said, Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose I have come to this hour. Submitting to the will of the Father, submitting to the cross. It was not the safe or the prudent decision from an earthly perspective, but it was the obedient decision. And salvation now is possible for us because of the obedience of the Son. Praise God that Jesus Christ put safety second. And he did that for you. And now you can do that too by the power of his spirit which dwells within you. Put safety second when it comes to your ego. Be obedient and be merciful. Be merciful to those who've hurt you. Put safety second when it comes to the opinion of man. Be obedient and be misunderstood. Disregard the opinion of man, as difficult as that is. And put safety second when it comes to timeliness. Be obedient now and not later. When you understand what it is that God wants you to do, be obedient now. Let us do this looking to Jesus, who is the author and the perfecter of our salvation, and to these ends, let us pray. Our Father, we do thank you for this day of worship and rest. And we thank you for the people that have braved the weather who are here. And we also worship in spirit with those who are part of our congregation who are at home due to sickness or due to inclement weather. Father, we we pray that as a congregation that you would help us to put obedience first. It's not that safety is unimportant, but it is never the most important thing. The most important thing is that we trust you and that we obey you. Help us, God, to be like Joseph. Help us to be both just and merciful. Help us to be timely in our obedience. And Lord, every parent knows that we want our children not only to obey, but to obey when now, when we say, when we when we expect them to. Help us to be like that. Help us to be responsive and quick to obey, Lord. And we pray also that you would help us to count the cost of obedience to you and to trust you with that, knowing that the rewards that we have in Christ are far greater than anything that we risk or think that we risk by aligning ourselves with Him. We thank you for our Savior who has done these things for us. We pray that you would fill us with His Spirit and help us to imitate Him. We ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Stay with us.