James de Costobadie preaches on the church as the body of Christ, drawing from Romans 12
A sermon by James de Costobadie (Costa), Senior Pastor at Latimer Church, on what it means to belong to the body of Christ.
Summary
James de Costobadie preaches from Romans 12 on the nature of the church as the body of Christ. He argues that belonging to Christ's body gives believers a new identity — one that supersedes personal preferences, social background, and individual temperament. He makes the pointed case that church attendance and participation should be driven by obligation to one another rather than by how one feels on a given day, and that the more one invests in the body, the more one receives from it. He closes with a call to both formal and informal service, urging members to lead teams, pray, and adopt the posture of asking what they can contribute rather than what they can receive.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction: The Healthy Body
Not too long ago, a leaflet dropped through our door at home to promote a company which itself promotes well-being. Fourteen tips on the leaflet. The first few were fairly standard: eat nuts, raw fruit, ripe proportions, good protein, not too much red meat. Chew your food well until it becomes almost liquid. Be religious about your water intake, and avoid a list of foods which I noticed included most of my favourite items.
And then it went on to talk about the importance of the mind when it comes to having a healthy body — we're holistic beings, so it's not only physical, it's the mental as well. It went on: practice deep conscious breathing, take exercise of course, have a 30-minute time of quiet each day, cultivate gratitude, laugh at least three times daily, keep your home in good order, and lastly, keep on good terms with your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, friends, and others who matter to you.
We do put an awful lot of effort into keeping our bodies healthy — effort that we judge is largely well spent. We rarely regret the exercise that we put in, once we can be bothered to actually do it. But this evening we're thinking about another kind of body which we are also a part of. A body into which we have been spiritually joined, and into which we are indivisibly united with other people. The body, of course, we're talking about is Christ's body, made up of his people from around the world and down the ages, united to him through his Spirit.
This is a body so precious that God the Father willingly gave up his Son to die for it. Its value is so great that God the Son willingly sacrificed himself for it. And unlike our own physical bodies, which I'm afraid will degrade after the age of 21, this body will last forever and ever — which should incentivise us to put everything we can into it, to invest in this body more so even than our own physical body.
And so as we're thinking this evening about the church as the body of Christ, I want us to keep that question in the back of our mind: are we more committed to this body even than we are to our own physical body? Our bodies are important, but this body lasts forever. How committed are we? How much of our life is invested into it?
We're going to have a look at Romans chapter 12 to help guide us through, really thinking about the church as the body of Christ under a couple of headings.
A New Identity
The first is a new identity.
The majestic letter to the Romans, written to the church in Rome, speaks of God's plans for this whole world — God's global plans. Chapters one to three: this is a world which is lost in sin, living under the judgment of God. The letter speaks of how God in love has taken action to rescue this world, that God had mercy upon us. It speaks of how he came into the world to save a people — corporate, a people — through the death of his Son on their behalf, that anyone might be rescued through faith in Jesus, chapters three and four.
And for people who believe in Jesus Christ and take him to be their Lord and their Saviour, they are given a new identity. So many people around us are on the search for identity, trying to work out where they fit in this world. One of the many wonderful things about beginning to follow Jesus is that search ends in the best possible place. It ends straight away, because we receive an identity. We're given an identity. We become children of God. We become part of the church of God, God's family.
Let's think about that new identity from a couple of angles.
First of all, it means that we belong to God. We are his forevermore. Here is the wonderful Christian assurance that comes to every follower of Jesus: that God will not let you go. We read in Romans 8 that those he predestined he also called, those he called he also justified, and those he justified he also glorified. It's the golden chain where no one slips down the middle, and everyone who starts makes it to the end, because God will make sure that we make it to the end. Not because we are so strong, but because he is so strong. Not because we're so faithful, but because he is so faithful. He will not let his people go.
Remember how Jesus used different language to talk about the same truth: that no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. Of course not. Imagine the hand of God — think of the muscles behind that — and the Christian who is in there is safe now and forever. Life may take twists and turns. Life may take courses that you and I would never have chosen for ourselves. But God has us now and forever. He will guard us from the devil's plans. He will guard us from ourselves. And when we are weak and have no strength of our own, God will make sure that we endure to the end. He will indeed bring to completion the good work that he has begun in us, and our hope is in him and not in ourselves. Truly it is God who brings the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
So this is a wonderful truth: that we belong to him now and will do so forever, for he will make sure that forever we are his.
Or, to change the image, we become part of Christ's body. We're joined forever to him through a spiritual union. That is, when a person puts their faith in Jesus — even if they didn't realise this is what's happening — the Spirit is linking them to Jesus so that now they are one with him. 1 Corinthians 12:27 puts it in straightforward terms: "Now," says Paul to the church in Corinth, "you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it." No ifs, no buts. And what an amazing thought — that when we put our faith in Christ, we become so close to him, united by his Spirit, that we actually are considered part of his body. You actually can't get more intimate than that. You can't get closer to someone than that.
He is the head, the governing part, and we have the privilege of living under his direction. All of us parts of the body — and whether you're an arm, a leg, or a toenail, it doesn't matter. It's the privilege of being linked to Christ as our head. And so what is his becomes ours. His wisdom, his strength, his energy becomes ours in Christ.
Diversity and Unity in the Body
And for all God's people to be part of this one same body together implies both diversity and unity. That really comes out in this passage here in chapter 12 of the book of Romans. I just encourage you to look down to verse 5: "So in Christ, we, though many, form one body." Though many — we're many. Paul, in the letter, has been speaking about Jew and Gentile. You couldn't have more opposites. And he's saying, you have come from different backgrounds. And that's a truth that is true about all of God's people across the world. We do come from different backgrounds. We come from different racial groupings, from different countries, different ethnic groupings, speaking different languages.
Billy Graham said when visiting South Africa in 1973, "Christianity is not a white man's religion, and don't let anyone tell you it's white or black. Christ belongs to all people." Which is true. Christ belongs to all people. He offers a place in the kingdom to all people. And if you're here tonight and you're not yet a follower of Jesus, you need to know that Jesus is offering you an invitation to be part of his kingdom, because he offers it to everyone. And if it's true for everyone, that must be true for you and for me as well.
And so the church is made up of people from different ethnic backgrounds, different social backgrounds, different church backgrounds, different personalities. And it's really important to understand this. The reason it's important is so that we find our unity in the right place. Our unity doesn't come from being the same in that regard. In fact, we're actually to rejoice in our differences. And we're to rejoice in our differences because they remind us that what we have in common is not our ethnicity. It's not our preferences. It's not just things that we happen to have in common. It's not our social background. The one thing we have in common is Jesus. And so we rejoice in how different we are, because that itself speaks of the glory of Christ in bringing us together.
Now I just want to spend a moment on that. We need to rejoice at the differences within the body of Christ, the different backgrounds we've come from. The church is made up of arty people, sporty people, people who love music of all types from A to Z, people who have different preferences. Even this evening before the service I heard of a young man here under the age of 25 who enjoys knitting his socks. Well done, George Bates — sorry, sorry, I shouldn't have said that. We all have different preferences, that's the point. We have different interests in life. We have different personality types.
Some Christians are expressive — they love coming together with others because they love a crowd. In fact, the bigger the crowd, the more they rejoice in it. They love sharing their feelings and their failures, and they love expressing themselves while singing. Absolutely fantastic. As they sing, they get into it and they express themselves. Now, someone said recently, "Oh, Costa, I hear that you don't like it when people raise their hands in the air." Nonsense. I never said that. I've never believed that. I love it when people are absolutely expressive when they sing, and you should feel free to express yourself as you want to. Now, I won't be doing that because I'm English, and so I'm very much at the other end of the scale — and that's all right as well. If you're an introvert, or you have your hands behind your back or something, that's fine as well. It's completely fine to be anywhere on the scale, and we should rejoice that people are different.
When we go to the new building, which will be a bigger building, some people absolutely thrive in a bigger crowd. To other people, not so much. But the great thing is that there's something there for everyone. Even if you don't like a big crowd, it's fine. You can be anonymous in a crowd. That's the beauty of it. You don't have to talk to everyone there. You don't have to get to know everyone's name. Just talk to the person next to you — that's enough to make it a friendly church. So we don't all have to be the same, and we should rejoice in our differences.
The point is that God's goal for us is not that we all end up looking and sounding and being the same, but rather that we find our unity despite our differences. That's the glory of it. Now, I know this is a different stage of life, but when it comes to parenting, people have such strong views on parenting and on schooling. In a church, it's fantastic to have different views. You don't have to have the same view. People have different views. You do it your way and you're free to choose a different way if you want. But that's the beauty of the thing. And Christians should never fall out over those kinds of things. Jesus brings us together, and nothing else. Diversity in unity.
We Belong to Each Other
We belong to God. But as well as belonging to God, we belong also to each other. And maybe that's the sharp end of this. Have a look down again at verse 4: "For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others."
Now, of course, that is true of a physical body. The parts of your body all belong to you. They don't just free-float into the ether. They don't belong to anyone else. Your body is your body. The parts of the body all belong together. The parts of the body all function together. You know that because when you trap your finger in a door, the only part of your body that matters to your whole body is the finger. The ankle doesn't start complaining, saying, "Hang on, it's not fair, I'm not getting any attention." All of the energy goes into the finger, because you're one person all together. That's where it's focused.
And so in Christ's body, we actually belong to each other. Now, we need to think about this, because in our individualistic culture in the West in the 21st century, this is a massive change in mindset. In verse 2, have a look down — Paul says, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." And in this regard, our minds need to be renewed. Maybe we need to think about the church differently to how we have thought about church. For our minds to be renewed, we need to see — verse 5 — that we actually belong to each other.
There's a reason for that. In the book of Romans, the apostle Paul makes clear that God has chosen his people. We didn't choose him — or rather, if we did choose him, we only chose him because he first chose us. It's God who does the primary choosing. He decides who's in the body. And so when you find that you're part of the body because you believe in Jesus, you now have an obligation to the other parts of the body, because God has chosen those. It wasn't up to us to decide who was in his family. It wasn't up to us to decide who is in the body of Christ. God does the choosing. And so to serve others is not a choice. It's now an obligation for us. And now we're to work that out in the local church.
Commitment to Meeting Together
Now let me say a few things on that — and I'm largely preaching to the converted, because you're the ones who are here tonight. Let's talk about meeting up on a Sunday, the Sunday gathering.
To decide whether to go to church on a Sunday should have precious little to do with whether we feel like going to church on a Sunday. That's how we tend to think about it. Do I feel like going tonight? It's a Saturday — do I feel like going to church tomorrow? Sunday afternoon, I'm feeling a bit tired — do I feel like going to church tonight? It shouldn't be that way. Rather, once we understand that we're all part of Christ's body and that we belong to each other, we have an obligation to each other — an obligation to love each other — which begins with meeting up together.
Now, every time you decide to meet with the people of God on a Sunday, and in a growth group, and at any other time, you are making a statement. And the statement you're making is a statement to yourself, to God, to the invisible world of angels and demons, to anyone else who is looking on, and to your brothers and sisters in Christ. And the statement is that you mean more to me than my preferences. Because at any given moment, you always have competing things that you could have done. Instead of coming to church, you could have been out cycling. You could have been having tea with someone. You could have gone to bed early. You could have been taking a rest. You could have been doing something else. But when you say, "No, I'm not going to do that — you'll find me in church with my brothers and sisters," you're making a statement. And the statement is that God's plans are more important than my plans.
Now, let's talk about tiredness for a second. Do you get tired? Of course you get tired. We get tired. We're supposed to get tired. We're created people. Tiredness is not a weakness — but it's a weakness we're designed to have. We should glory in it. However, what do you decide to do with your tiredness when it coincides with your growth group night? To say, "I'm really sorry, I can't come tonight, I'm tired," is to say that tiredness is more important to me than meeting up with my brothers and sisters. Why not go the other way, and make a principled decision at the beginning of the year? Say, "Well, growth group is on a Tuesday night or Wednesday night or whatever it is — that's where you'll find me on a Tuesday night or a Wednesday night, barring war or pestilence, or I do shift work and so I can't do it, or I'm away on holiday, whatever. That's where you'll find me. Sunday night — that's my service. That's where you'll find me. Okay, there might be three Sundays of the year I'm doing something else or I'm away. But that's where you'll find me."
In other words, don't make 52 decisions a year — a decision every week of the year about how am I feeling tonight, how tired am I, how much energy have I got. Rather, that's where you'll find me. Now, there are exceptions to every rule. It may be that you suffer from ill health and have to manage yourself — that's totally understandable. I'm not talking about the exceptions. I'm talking about the general principle for the rest of us. And I think we need to sort ourselves out a little bit on this score and say it's a case of saying that God's plans are more important than my plans.
I'll give you a positive example. Some years ago there was a lady in church who suffered from a bad cancer, a terminal cancer. As far as I could see, the doctors were never able to get on top of the pain. And in the six years that she suffered with this cancer before she went to be with the Lord, she hardly missed a Sunday in church. She used to walk in and take her seat — at that point we were in a school hall, it was a bit cold — she was there every season of the year, and you could see her holding her seat, I assume because she was in pain. And it sent an unmistakable message. And the message was: in my darkest days, I am here for you. That's what it was. I'm here for the rest of you.
And for the rest of us who don't suffer that kind of pain, it was a great encouragement that for her, God's plans were more important than her plans. Which was confirmed when I then interviewed her on one occasion. I said, "What can we pray for you?" And she said, "When you've got cancer, it's very easy to feel sorry for yourself. So please pray that in my cancer I don't sin against God." Now there was someone who operated out of conviction. It's a whole different way of thinking about church — not seeing church just as an event, certainly not seeing it as a preference, and definitely not seeing it as a consumer.
But the funny thing is, as we commit ourselves to others, we actually grow in love for others and find that we get more out of it at the same time. If you're a member of a growth group, there's a fair chance that at the beginning of the year, or partway through the year, you'll sort of feel, "I don't think I'm getting a lot out of this." Now, if you ever feel that, that's entirely normal. That has been happening since Noah was in a growth group in the ark. But if you commit yourself, push through it, and actually give more to it, you'll find that you appreciate the growth group. The more you commit yourself to the body of Christ, the more you appreciate the body of Christ.
If you forever dip in and out — as if you're sort of part of the body and sort of not part of the body — then you never really appreciate the body. It's more blessed to give than to receive, because in giving you actually receive at the same time. And I challenge you: when you next get that feeling, actually throw yourself in more, commit more, and you'll find the truth of it — that you actually get more out at the same time.
It's a transformation of the way that we view church — that we view church as people, Christ's body, that we belong to one another. It's actually the same when you have a complaint about church. It's easy, when there's something in church you're unhappy with, to think of church as something that exists out there and you're sort of out here, so you look at it and think, "Well, I'm unhappy with what's happening." The problem comes when you realise, "Hang on a second — I'm actually part of the church. As I complain, I'm complaining about myself, because I'm part of the problem. I'm part of the body, and I'm also part of the solution." And it's a fantastic thing — we've got all of us here to find solutions when we have issues within church life. Instead of thinking, "This is the problem," think, "Actually, I'm part of the problem, and I can be part of the solution. What can we do to work together?" It comes from seeing church in a different way, which is a change of identity — how we see ourselves and how we see each other.
A new identity. We belong to God. We belong to each other.
A New Life
Which then leads to the second half, which is a new life. Once we've understood the new identity we have in Christ, we are to live out that new identity. And in Romans 12, as we've seen, there is the transforming of the mind. But then as you go on through Romans 12, there is the practical outworking of that transformation. And it comes out in ten thousand different areas in church life, but I'll try and summarise some of the practicals from Romans 12 under two areas.
Be Humble
First of all, be humble. When you understand what church is — as in, we belong to God, we belong to each other — then Paul says, think of yourself in the right way and be a humble person.
Verse 3, have a look down: "For by the grace given me, I say to every one of you, don't think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith that God has distributed to each of you."
So now we're to think of ourselves in the right way. Don't think of yourself more highly than you ought. Remember, in other words, that we're all sinners — sinners who've been saved by the same grace, and we stand on the same level before God. In the letter to the Romans, Paul makes a massive theme through the letter that Jew and Gentile now have the same standing before God. It doesn't matter that one had the privileges originally. They're now on the same footing before God, and they sing united praises to God. And so we shouldn't think of ourselves as higher than others. But we also shouldn't think of ourselves too lowly. We should realise that if your faith is in Jesus, you are a first-class citizen of the kingdom — and so is everyone else. You don't have different Christians on different levels, first class, second class, third class. We're all on the same level. Whether you've been a Christian for five minutes or 50 years, all on the same level.
And that should be very encouraging for us, because it should help us to know that if you're the kind of person who feels a bit inferior — maybe you've become a Christian and you don't really know anything — well, we're not supposed to know anything when we start. God doesn't download it into us. You grow in the Christian life. We start with no knowledge. You've got to start somewhere, and then we grow. So if we're in a growth group and we feel that other people know more than we do, we don't need to worry about that. Because when we see ourselves as God sees us, we're all on the same level.
It's easy to feel inferior in church life — perhaps because other people seem more talented than us, or perhaps we think all the bases are covered in church life and there's nothing we can really contribute, and we can easily feel on the outer. But we should see ourselves rather through the eye of faith. As Paul says here, see yourself in accordance with the faith that God has distributed to each of us. In other words, we should see ourselves as full members of the body of Christ.
And on the other hand, it's easy to feel superior — maybe for reasons of our social status and our earnings, or because we happen to be gifted in the thing that our church values, maybe in our case Bible teaching or something. Easy to feel a bit superior. But we shouldn't think in that way either, verse 3: don't think of yourself more highly than you ought. We're all on the same level.
Or verse 10 actually goes further. Be devoted to one another in love. Honour one another above yourselves. So this actually goes further. Yes, we're all of the same status, but now we are to think of others as being more important than ourselves.
Maybe that begins with where we were looking at before — the turning up. Because when you turn up and you meet with others, you're saying that you're more important than my personal preferences. There are other things I could have been doing tonight, but I'll put you first and I've decided to meet with you. That honours others above ourselves.
And then, having met with others, to take an interest in others — that's a way by which we honour others above ourselves. To be interested in others, maybe to ask questions of others. There are some people in church life who are fantastic at making you feel that they honour you, because they're interested in you as a person. I think people are dreadful at asking questions generally, and we're dreadful at asking questions generally in society. But within the church we should be better than that — taking an interest in one another, and then maybe remembering what was said. That is, listening to the answers and asking them a week's time, or when we next see them, how such and such was, or how their life was. It's honouring each other. It's being interested in each other's lives. Putting ourselves into other people's shoes — I wonder how this is going for you, or how that's going for you. Some people are absolutely wonderful at doing that.
The opposite of that is that kind of stream of verbal diarrhoea which some people are gifted in, that doesn't so much talk past people as completely disregards them — a classic symptom of self-obsession. Well, Christians should do better than that and be interested in others.
Or another example of humility, verse 16: "Live in harmony with one another. Don't be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position." Christ's body within the church — it's one of the only places where you will find people in a voluntary capacity meeting with one another from across the full social spectrum. You can have people who are illiterate together with people who are extremely well-educated and well-off, all meeting together, and happily so, as part of a church. And it's such a wonderful aspect of Christ's body to have people from across the social spectrum being part of the church together.
And the onus here is on those who are better educated or of a higher social position to take the initiative. Don't be proud, but be willing to associate with others on the basis that Christ lives within them. And so they are incredibly important to Christ. And if they're important to him, they should be important to me. We're all part of the same body.
I think of someone I have known for many years — an extremely wealthy person from overseas who has been very generous in giving to our building project here. And I remember asking him once what he was enjoying at the moment. Now he could have said anything; there are a lot of things in life he could enjoy. He said, "Oh, the thing I'm enjoying most at the moment is my home group that I'm a part of. It's a real mix of people and it's a privilege to be part of." Now, he is someone of a different order on the social spectrum, but that's how he views it. And I wonder if we would see it the same way.
In other words, on that particular note, it's fine to be a rich Christian if God blesses you in that direction. What you can't be is a rich Christian who keeps your distance from other Christians, from poorer Christians. Rather, those who are higher in a social sense should associate with those who are different, says Paul. And verse 13: share with God's people who are in need. And it's such a beautiful thing when people do that — not because they have to, but because they want to, because Christ's body is precious to them.
So be humble.
Be Active
And then, as we finish off, be active.
Have a look at verse 6: "We have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith. And if it's serving, then serve. And if it's teaching, then teach." In other words, don't be lazy, don't be reticent, but serve the body. Use the gifts that you have been given to serve Christ's body. And so the question is: what can I do, as the person that God has made me, to serve the people that he has put me amongst?
I can remember years and years ago a couple walking into a church, and they were obviously new. I spoke to them and they said, "Oh yes, we're quite new Christians. We've come from a different part of the country but we thought we'd come along to this church. We were just wondering, is there anything that we can do? Do you have any needs here?" And I was able to help them. What a wonderful attitude to bring into church life — I'm here to serve, what can I do to help? And when we express that sentiment, we're giving expression to the fact that we are part of the body of Christ within church life.
I'll say something on this. You tend to get formal and informal roles. Formal roles — we have loads of teams at church where people serve, and many of you will be on those. We have a music team, as you can see tonight. We have a Bible reading team. We have an administration team that's printed the service sheets for tonight. We have a welcoming team. We have a hospitality team. We also have a youth group team. We have kids workers teams, AV and sound teams. We have a maintenance team for the building — we're now going to need a double maintenance team for the building. We have teams in loads of different areas. A visiting team to visit older people, and so on and so forth. And we always have gaps, always have gaps, and we love people to come forward and serve on those teams.
One area I highlight for you is a particular need, and it's interesting because it just happens to come into this list here. The list here is not exhaustive — it's just illustrative of gifts. But if you have a look at verse 8, you see it says, "If it's to encourage, then give encouragement. If it's to give, then give generously. If it is to lead, then do it diligently." One way of serving others is to lead within church life. I don't necessarily mean standing at the front, but all of those teams I mentioned before — we actually need people to lead them. And often it's the case that people who are part of the body and are active in their life outside of church, as in during their working life — we have many capable people at Latimer who are doing loads of things with responsibility at work — but then when it comes to church, can sort of set that responsibility aside. Maybe that's our fault for not helping you see the need. But every team that we have, we need someone to lead them, and there's a real need for people to say, "Leave it with me, I can do it. I'll take care of it." We can give you a bit of training and all of that. We would love to see more people. It's not boasting. It's not sort of pushing ourselves forward. It's just saying, "I'll take responsibility, leave it with me, I'm happy to do it." And if you're the kind of person who's up for that, we would love to have you and love to help you into that. Often it doesn't mean tons of hours, but it's the willingness to put your hand up and say, "Give it to me, leave it with me, I can do it."
So there are formal roles. But just as I finish, I just want to speak for a moment on informal service. Let's say 50% of what we do in serving is the formal, but 50% is the informal — that is, you don't need a badge, you don't need a role, you don't need a roster to be able to love the people around us. And that's what informal service is. Can I do something that needs doing? Do you see a hole that needs filling? There's a wonderful guy at Latimer called Phil, and I was talking to him last week. I said, "Would you mind helping in this area?" He said, "You know my slogan: see a need, fill a need." You like it? See a need, fill a need. That's his attitude in life. So where you see a need, fill a need. Be that person.
It may be loving the person next to you on a Sunday. It might be praying for someone. It might be praying for a couple of people in the growth group — make yourself the person who will pray for them, who will ask them how life is going. We have people at Latimer who have been wonderful examples of what it is to follow the Lord, who are coming to a different stage of life. And what I like to say to them is, "Look, you are entering potentially the most fruitful stage of your Christian life." And they're a bit, "What? I don't feel I can do much anymore." Yes, okay, but there is something you can do, which is pray at home. Because God knows the truth of this, and we know the truth of this, that God can do in five seconds what we can't do in 50,000 years. And so someone in their armchair at home praying may do more for the church than that person was able to do in all of the years they had full energy and full health.
Well, if you're of a younger age, why not try both at the same time? That is, be active in serving and say a prayer at home. It's not either/or. You can have a person who does both. Why don't you be the person who does both? I can serve in this area, but let me be active in praying for the church at the same time.
Closing
In all of this, this is how to have a healthy body. This is our aim for the church. What can I do? What can we do to make this body become more healthy and grow to maturity? It begins with a transformed view — a new identity — then flowing out into a new life.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we're full of thanksgiving tonight that you would include us in your plans and include us to be part of the body of Christ. I thank you for those who serve really hard and relentlessly. But for others of us, Lord, who are perhaps just finding our way in this regard, I pray that you would give us the motivation, the desire to want to serve your people, and to take a great joy and delight in doing so. And I ask, Lord, that you would help us together as a church to work in good unity to the honour and glory of your name as we move to the new building. In Jesus' name, amen.