What Was I Made For? (Daniel 1:3-21)

Good morning. My name is Geoff Bradford. I'm senior pastor here. I want to welcome you to Christ the King Presbyterian Church this morning. We're so glad that you're here with us and worship the Lord with us this morning. I'm trying this down on the floor. I like being on the floor with y'all. So I know maybe it's a little hard to see. The lighting in here is a little messy, and we're still getting used to this building. So anyway, patience with us as we try to fine tune this thing. I want to welcome you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And if you would find this pad at the end of the aisle and take a moment to pass that down—these are welcome pads. We just want to, if you are new in particular, capture some of your information and invite you into the life of a church. We know that visiting a church can be an overwhelming and hard to discern experience. And so if you're new to our congregation, we ask you to come six times and get a sense. It's hard to find on one Sunday what any church is like. So come six times, test that out, see how that goes for you.

I also want to highlight—as Paul said—there's a lot of things that are starting this time of year. In particular, one of the things that's really important for us is the return of our college and university students, our graduate and undergrad students. And we're so glad to have you all back. We have a big lunch today after our service for the whole congregation. If you didn't bring anything, that's okay. We ordered a ton of barbecue and mac and cheese and we hope you will stay around and go up and find the cafeteria. Maybe it'll bring back fond memories of high school or middle school for you. There'll be a general kind of cattle drive in that direction after our service lasts for about an hour. Please stay around. We'd love to have time together. In particular, if you are an undergrad student, please don't all sit together. We want to sit with you because we want to know you.

We're going to turn our attention again to God's word. We're in Daniel again this week. We started the book of Daniel last week, and we're reading Daniel 1, verses 3 through 21. It's our custom to read God's word out loud in unison as a congregation. So if you will join me, let's look up to the screen and join our voices together.

The king ordered Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the Israelites from the royal family and from the nobility—young men without any physical defect, good looking, suitable for knowledge, and capable of serving in the king's palace. He was to teach them the Chaldean language and literature. The king assigned them daily provisions from the royal food and from the wine that he drank. They were to be trained for three years and at the end of that time, they were to attend the king.

Among them from the Judeites were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. The chief eunuch gave them new names. He gave the name Belteshazzar to Daniel, Shadrach to Hananiah, Meshach to Mishael, and Abednego to Azariah.

Daniel determined that he would not defile himself with the king's food or with the wine he drank. So he asked permission from the chief eunuch not to defile himself. God had granted Daniel kindness and compassion from the chief eunuch. Yet he said to Daniel, "I fear my lord the king who assigned your food and drink. What if he sees your faces looking thinner than the other men your age? You would endanger my life with the king."

So Daniel said to the guard whom the chief eunuch had assigned to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, "Please test your servants for ten days. Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then examine our appearance and the appearance of the young men who are eating the king's food and deal with your servants based on what you see." He agreed with them about this and tested them for ten days. At the end of ten days, they looked better and healthier than all the young men who were eating the king's food. So the guard continued to remove their food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables.

God gave these four young men knowledge and understanding in every kind of literature and wisdom. Daniel also understood visions and dreams of every kind. At the end of that time, the chief eunuch presented them to Nebuchadnezzar. The king interviewed them and among all of them, no one was found equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. So they began to attend the king. In every matter of wisdom and understanding that the king consulted them about, he found them ten times better than the magicians and mediums in his entire kingdom. Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus.

— Daniel 1:3-21

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

So probably a dangerous opener, but hey, the Barbie movie.

You know, a little controversial, but spicy take from your pastor. I liked it. I thought it was fun and funny and had a terrific soliloquy about pressures on women in our culture that probably every male should listen to. And I also thought that it was great at raising questions and not answering them. Very smart on Greta Gerwig's part, raising questions. In particular, the question I thought the movie asked best actually came from the mouth of Billie Eilish in her song, "What was I made for?" That's an important question. That's a universal question. That's a question that Daniel 1 really helps us get after this morning.

For those of you just tuning in this morning, weren't here last Sunday, we started the book of Daniel, and I want to give you some context for what you've heard. The events in this passage take place about twenty-six hundred years ago, around June, in an area far away from the promised land—an area of Babylon. At the time, the Assyrian Empire was on the decline. The Assyrian Empire had wiped out the northern ten tribes of Israel. And in a series of battles beginning in June, the new superpower on the rise, Babylon, under King Nebuchadnezzar the Second—Nebuchadnezzar the Great—began this military operation that took over the entire known world.

Nebuchadnezzar is famous in history books, not only for all of his incredible building campaigns—the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. You can see the Ishtar Gate in Berlin to this day. But he was also a brutal dictator and a brilliant military strategist. In a series of three campaigns in June, he went through and systematically destroyed the country in a very strategic way. First came the military victory, and then he siphoned off all the riches of the country, and then he took all the religious symbols—he cleared out the temple. And finally, he took the best and brightest. This is what's fascinating. He took the best and brightest of the next generation. He took all the young leaders from the country. This is the context for the story of Daniel, Azariah, Mishael, and Hananiah. These are the Hebrew all-stars. These were young men, probably about 15 years old—as Paul was talking about teenagers this morning. They were taken into captivity in Babylon. There were probably somewhere between ten and fifteen thousand of these young Hebrew all-stars that were taken 800 miles away from home, and everything about their lives was changed.

Today, we're going to read about this reprogramming campaign. You can think of it as Babylonian high school curriculum, but it's a reprogramming campaign that was enforced upon these young exiles. This reeducation program was designed to take the best and brightest out of Israel and make them into the best and brightest of the Babylonian empire. To take their talents and reposition them for the use of Babylon. And there are three parts of this high school curriculum, this reprogramming strategy, or brainwashing, whatever call it.

The Reprogramming Campaign

First, new names. They're given new names. Hebrew names were changed to Babylonian names. This may not mean much to you, but this was extremely important to these young men. These are not just nicknames. Their Hebrew names said something about who they are in relationship to their God. It was very foundational to who they are. And their names are all about their gods, and their names are changed to be all about other gods.

Daniel's name means "my god is the judge." His name is changed to Belteshazzar, which means "may Bel, who's a Babylonian deity, may Bel protect his life." Hananiah's name means "Yahweh is gracious." His name was changed to Shadrach, "the command of Aku," an Akkadian moon god. Mishael—"who is what God is?" That's what his name means. "Who is what Yahweh is?" His name is changed to Meshach: "who is what Aku is?" And finally, Azariah, "Yahweh has been my helper," is changed to Abednego, "servant of Nebo."

Changing names was a really common practice, but it was getting at something much more fundamental—changing their identity, erasing who they were and who they had been before. In other words, your god, your army lost. Our gods won. And now you're going to be named after our gods.

The second part of this reprogramming was the studies and homework that they received. We read here that these men were tasked with studying the language and culture of the Babylonians. Doesn't sound too bad, right? I mean, whatever the Shakespeare is of Babylon, that's what they were studying, right? No. What they were studying—that word, Chaldeans—it's another name for Babylonians, but it's a code word. It's sort of a symbolic phrase that refers to the spiritual side of the Babylonian empire.

It's a euphemism for wizardry, sorcery, divination, the occult, black magic. They were doing things like studying a sheep's intestines to determine the outcome of battle, studying the flight patterns of birds, reading the stars, and all in order to predict the future. This was their homework assignment. You know, if you were a good Jew listening to this passage read aloud, you would gasp at that phrase. Because what they're being taught is not just literature. It's a whole other belief system that is antagonistic to your belief system. And they're supposed to make A's in this if they want to survive and to thrive.

Sexual Reprogramming

Finally, sexual reprogramming. The most literal translation of verse three reads that these men were under the oversight of Ashpenaz, chief of the eunuchs. Most commentators agree that what's implied here is that these four men were made eunuchs. They were castrated. If you were a kid this morning, you can talk to your parents about what that means on the way home in the car. She makes some great car ride conversations today.

But think about this though—someone is choosing for you the sexuality of your life. Someone is choosing for you one of the main things about your life, one of the ways you think about yourself. I mean, when we try to put ourselves in their shoes, in this huge reprogramming campaign, the whole purpose is to make good Israelites into good Babylonians and erase who they were, erase their identity. I mean, see how all of this is being wrapped around their lives. You don't exist as you were. You are somebody else.

Holding On to Identity

Now here's what's fascinating. Out of somewhere between ten and fifteen thousand young adults taken into captivity, taken 800 miles from home, why is it that we know the names of only four? I think that's very significant. This was a very successful reprogramming strategy. And yet, somehow, these four young men held on to some part of their identity. They held on to who they were. And I can show you why and how in this passage.

We know they did so because of two comments we just read. First, now I know it's fun to call them Abshak and Meshach and Abednego. That's if you grew up in Sunday school, that's what you call them. Or Rack, Shack, and Benny, if you watch VeggieTales. But notice in the passage, their names don't change at the end of the passage. Even after graduation, even after all they've been through, it says in verse 19, they're still calling themselves Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. They were able on some level to say, "No, I still am who I am."

And finally, too, we see in the last verse there:

Daniel remained there in the court until the first year of King Cyrus. — Daniel 1:21

Now, Cyrus was the emperor of the Persian Empire which came and defeated Babylon and took over afterward seventy years later. That means that Daniel lasted. Daniel was able to endure in this kingdom. Daniel was able to remain even when Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar the second were a distant memory. Something about what happens here in this passage tells us about somebody whose identity is so solid that even in the midst of lies and even in the midst of a massive program to reprogram them, they were able to say, "This is who I really am. I know who I am."

Now, are you a little bit curious? How did they do this?

Identity: Self and Worth

And again, we want to go back to Billie Eilish's song, "What Was I Made For?" You know, all people are asking this question, and it's not just a modern today question. This is like, "Who am I really?" This really matters to us. Psychologists tell us that there are at least two facets to your sense of identity. One is your sense of self, and the other is your sense of worth.

Your sense of self is how you know who you are. There are lots of yous in your life. There is the public you and the private you. There is who you are with your family, who you are with your friends, who you are online, who you are in person, who you are at work, and who you are—the self—is really underneath all those. It's the real you under all of those. Who is the real you? That's your sense of self.

How do you know who that person is? And the second part is your sense of worth, which is, does this particular self matter? Do you like this one? Do you know who that is? Do you appreciate who you are? So sense of self plus sense of worth is your identity.

So again, who are you? Who am I? What are we made for? And this question can be answered in lots of different ways, and I just want to give you three different ways of thinking about this, and they go this way: Look out, look in, look up.

So a traditional identity is one where you look out. You look out. Traditional cultures—this is how people know who they are. This is your sense of self.

You can define yourself by all the roles that you play. So you're a daughter, or you're a son, you're a husband or wife, you're an apprentice, you're a head of family, you're a business owner. These are all the different roles that you play. And hundreds of years ago, nobody had to ask, what am I going to be when I grow up? They would look at mom and dad and say, that's what I'm going to be when I grow up. I'm either going be her or him. That's the business we're going to do. Right? There's no question of what's my identity. You looked outward, and it told you what your identity was. That was your sense of self. And then your worth was simply, how are you doing fulfilling all those roles? How are you doing as a son, an apprentice, and a daughter, and a wife, and all those things? That's your traditional identity.

Just about every Disney movie is somebody rejecting a traditional identity. Like, I'm tired of looking out here to determine who I am. This is Moana. This is Frozen. Like, you go down the list. Right? All of them are like, I'm rejecting this. I want the contemporary identity, is not look out, but look inside. I call this fortune cookie identity because you're trying to look inside of you and find the secret message that tells you who you are. Crack open like a fortune cookie. There's got to be a little something inside me that tells me who I really am.

There was a popular billboard several years ago for Zico Coconut Water featuring Jessica Alba, and the writing on the billboard went like this. All that is within you is all that you need. Hashtag inside is everything. Man, that is a great summary of contemporary identity. Inside is everything. You look inside of you to find out who you are. And your sense of worth, if that's your sense of self, look inside. Sense of worth is, are my desires being met? Am I happy?

Now, there's problems, I want to warn you, with the way the contemporary identity is being worked out with our children. It sounds really freeing to tell a child, you can be anything you want to be, but that's actually incredibly pressuring. That actually leads to all kinds of anxieties and psychosis in our children. This like, look inside, find the little inner fortune cookie you, that's really hard. And side note, this is one of the reasons I like the Barbie movie. For once, Ken and Barbie didn't say, just listen to your heart. Right? Just follow your heart, follow you on the inside. Just kind of glad to have a break from that.

Gospel Identity

So the last one you're going to guess, no surprise here, look up a gospel identity. This is another kind of identity, that's not looking out or looking in. But I have to warn you about this because before you tune out this part of the sermon, I want you to understand that a gospel identity is not automatic and it's not easy and just because you're Christian doesn't mean you have one. In fact, most Christians function with a traditional identity with a little thin veneer of Jesus on the top or a contemporary identity with a little Jesus on the top. Most of us, we really actually don't function out of a gospel identity.

And here's why do I say that? Because salvation is free. We preach this all and we sang all these great songs about Christ alone, Cornerstone. Yes. Amen. Right? We say all that all the time in our church. Trust in the completed work of Jesus. Amen. That's what makes you a Christian. And yet identity, sense of self, sense of worth, these things are a lot more changeable, a lot more malleable, they come and go.

And this is what happens often when young Christians growing up in the church walk out into the world. We come out in the world, we have our Christian identity and beliefs. I'm a believer in my left hand, and I have whatever version of identity I'm taking in my right hand. And there is a tug of war all the time. And it's either like who your parents say you are, traditional identity, you need to do really well by them. You need to find out who you are really on the inside and follow your heart. We put a little Jesus on the outside of it. And this is why there's a lot of hard in the Christian community around, is Jesus really real? Does this really thing really matter? Does this really last? What is going on with my faith?

To call to Christian maturity is to grow into a new identity you have in Christ. This is why Paul writes in Ephesians and Colossians, put on the new self. He's talking there to Christians. It's a call to recognize that you're being pulled into identities, just like these young men are being pulled into identities, that the culture gives you. You look out. Or that you would make up for yourself. Look in. And to become more and more like Christ will require you to look up and embrace the gospel and to actually become who you really are, the new self, the true self.

Christianity gives lots of resources for this, but this is not automatic, and this is hard. We're going to see how Daniel makes some choices about this gospel identity in this chapter.

The Diet Issue

Did you notice the diet conundrum in this passage? These young men are fed food from the table of the king. I am sure that they had never had anything like this to eat before. Meat was an extremely rare treat for people in 600 BC. This is not a normal part of the diet. The regular meat from the king's table—the best of Babylon—is remarkable. Yet this is the area in which Daniel and his friends actually put some resistance up to the whole reprogramming campaign.

Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself in that way. — Daniel 1:8

Other translations say Daniel purposed in his heart. He made a decision. He consecrated himself to God. He purposed to live differently.

Now, this food issue is hard to understand. Let me knock out a couple of wrong answers to this. It's not that they were vegetarians or that the Bible says you gotta be a vegetarian. Daniel later in chapter 10 eats food from the king's table. And it's not that teetotalers win. It's not that wine is bad. Jesus drank wine. There's a lot of wine in the Bible. It's really a rich symbol. And wine—again, we see Daniel in chapter 10 drinking wine.

It's not that the food had been sacrificed to idols, because if that had been the case, it would have been the case for the vegetables as well. And it's not simply that the food laws here were about being kosher according to Jewish dietary laws. A kosher diet doesn't prevent you from eating meat or drinking wine. There's something else going on here.

One commentator says this: notice how discerning Daniel is in his recognition that this was the moment of crisis. It didn't have the word "crisis" written on it like the fiery furnace or the den of lions—those sounded like crisis. Yet Daniel here notices circumstances far less electric, far more subtle, but really matter.

This is what he does. He looks up to know how to live down here, exercising a level of faithful dependence upon God and choosing not to take into themselves the stuff of Babylon. This food is a very literal metaphor. Think how comforting that food would have been in a world where everything else has been taken away from you—your name, your language, the things you even know how to read, your sexuality. A glass of wine. You think you've had a bad day this week? Think how easy it would be to just be like, "It's not that big a deal." And this is where they choose to draw the line.

Gospel Identity vs. Other Identities

I want to ask why and how. A gospel identity doesn't just happen because you're saved in a church. We as a culture have tried to reject traditional identity. I think a lot of Christians have what really is a traditional identity with a little Jesus over the top, and it's not working out for you.

If you find that your life is filled with lots of shoulds and oughts, and you think those are all about what faith is, if you lack any deep sense of joy related to what we sing about—a cross, an empty tomb, the Holy Spirit, a new kingdom—chances are you have a traditional identity with Jesus kind of put over the top of it. But it doesn't work. Your sense of worth and self are not going to work that way. And surprisingly, we end up with a lot of lives of Christians that blow up or burn out because of that.

On the other end, there's a lot of Christians who have a thin veneer of Jesus over a contemporary identity. Looking within—"I've got to follow my heart. I've got to really be the real me. I've got to find out who that is." And we're always trying to make Jesus make us happy, and he just doesn't. "Come on, Jesus! Don't you know what you're supposed to be doing in my life?" Jesus isn't here for making us happy. He brings us deep satisfaction if you really know him and your identity is rooted in him, but he's not here to make all your dreams come true. A lot of people end up leaving Christianity because they find it's not satisfying. What they've got is a contemporary identity with little Jesus on the top.

A gospel identity is much deeper. It's actually harder. Yet it's more durable. It lasts. So this is really an important passage for us.

Remember, I said last week, if you weren't here, this book is so helpful for us because it defines this life as living in exile. And that's actually a great place for Christians to finally get our heads around. This isn't it. We're still in exile, and there the king is gonna take us home. That is for sure. And things will be put right, but we're living in exile. And how do we define ourselves in this place?

Two things. First, you go to the one who came down and then went back up. If you're not a Christian, let me explain. Christians are not good people and Christians are not nice people and Christians aren't moral people. A Christian is a person who looks to God, who looks up to God, specifically the Lord Jesus Christ and Jesus is the one who came down. Jesus is the Daniel. He left heaven, he came down to a foreign place, this earth, he came down, took on human flesh, lived a perfect life in exile. He's the greater Daniel. He didn't just come in his riches, he received not just humiliation, but was made poor. He was not just castrated, Jesus was murdered. He's the greater Daniel. He's one who took on a new name, willingly. That name is Christ, which means the anointed one. Anointed by God for the work of salvation, given the Holy Spirit to complete our salvation, dying on a cross, nailed and bled, dying of exposure and asphyxiation for everybody who looks on him for faith. And three days later, the one who came down went back up. He came up out of the grave. Another fifty days later, he ascends into heaven. The one who came down has gone back up.

A Christian is not a Hebrew all star. Christians are not all stars. A Christian is one who looks to Jesus, who says, I can't fix my own life. I'm not sufficient to run my own life. I look up to you. You've got to take over here. You have to be the center fact and the center reality of my life. That's what it means to look up in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who came down and went back up.

And I want to invite you today. If you've not ever placed your faith in Christ, if you have thought the Christian life was about being an all star, you've missed it. And yet, I want to invite you to the best news I can give you. There is one who already came down and did everything required for salvation for you and loves you more than you can imagine, and wants to give you not just a new identity, but a purpose and a home. I want to invite you to come to him this morning. If you haven't trusted him for salvation, come to him this morning.

Feeding at the Right Table

But if you're a Christian here this morning, I want to remind you that living with a Christian identity, trying to find Christianity in this world with all the lies wrapped around our lives, means following what Daniel does here and refusing to eat at a lesser king's tables and feed at the real king's table. King Nebuchadnezzar provided a rich feast for the best of Babylon every day, and Daniel and his buddies decided not to eat that diet, not to feed on it, not to take that into themselves, but rather to look to the greater king and to trust in him, depend on him for substance, for subsistence.

I want you to think about how often you have to eat. Eating is not just something we do once a day, and it's not optional. You might not feel like it for a meal or two, but you can't go a week without feeling like it. We do this all the time, multiple times a day, regularly feeding ourselves. And this picture for us is stark in how this is defined.

Jesus said some startling things about this. He said in John 6:

Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, I will raise them up at the last day. My flesh is real food, my body is real, my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in them.

And again, the good news is not that God is faithful to those who are really faithful to him. Go be a Daniel. It's that a savior has come to deliver faithless people like me and you, compromise people like us, and to feed us every day from his own table. To feed us every day if we will put our trust in him, number one, and second, if we will feed on him regularly. If we'll learn to be people who look up and find our identity and our self and our sense of worth and we look to him, we're feeding on him, we're rejoicing in him, our identity is set with him.

You know, Daniel and company weren't special. They weren't special because they were smart and moral and good looking, wise. They're special because they looked up to the one who came down. They looked up and allowed them to live down here with poise and determination and difference. Again, the heart of this story is not Daniel. It's not about the strength of Daniel and his friends, it's about the strength of the gospel that they trusted in.

Notice how Daniel and his friends appeared after the testing period. They said, "Give us ten days. We'll see how this goes. If we look pale and thin after eating vegetables, you can put us back on the right diet." And here's the gospel identity: the gospel identity is the only one that feeding on it regularly actually allows you not just to survive, but to thrive in exile. It's more powerful than the traditional or contemporary identities. It has the power to help you thrive.

The only way that you can live in all the roles that you are called to play in your life—and I know I listed a bunch of roles, and you're like, "Oh, Bradford, I got so many more than that"—but the only way you can thrive in all those roles is if those roles don't define who you are. If you're living for your parents, if you're living for your career, if you're living to make somebody fall in love with you, if you're living for your kids, the funny thing about this is that you will be miserable. If you locate your identity in those things, you can't do it. Some of you are exhausted because you know this.

The only way to really love and serve other people around you and be a good friend and be a good daughter and be a good husband is when you locate yourself in a gospel identity in Christ and you're free there to love and even fail the people that you're in relationship with. You're free to love them and care for them with a sense of, "I don't got to squeeze something out of you."

And the only way to find yourself in a culture that's like, "Hey, look inside fortune cookies, find who the real you is"—the only way you can find yourself is to give up this infinite quest to keep looking for yourself. Guess what? You're never going to be enough, and that's okay because Jesus is. You will never be enough. You weren't made to be a fortune cookie. There's no secret message inside. Stop that.

What Were You Made For?

Let's go back to Billy Iwish and Barbie. What was I made for? What were you made for?

First, you are made for God and not just for you. When you locate your true self in Jesus, if you ask him today, "Jesus, I need you to be my identity. I need you to be my worth. I need you to hold my sense of self. I can't keep holding on to this. It's exhausting." Guess what? You're not going to lose yourself. You're not going to disappear somehow into the abyss and just fade away. You'll find your true self—the real you that God created that has his fingerprints on your very soul. You'll find that person. He promises that.

Second, you are made to be a part of what God's doing in this world. He is a true and better King. He has a true and better kingdom. That's where we're going in this book. Jesus doesn't just whisk us up to heaven when we get saved. We come, we locate our identity in him, and we find that we actually become the best citizens of this place—more effective in our jobs, in our relationships. God has made us to be his own, serving in a foreign world, yes, until the fullness of the true kingdom has been revealed.

Third, like Adam and Eve back in the garden before human sin even came, humans are made for working and keeping the garden, tending it, worshiping God, living out our calling as his people here. When we do, we find ourselves loving well, living well even in exile.

A Call to Come to Jesus

Brothers and sisters, this morning I have the great privilege of inviting you to come to Jesus. Come collapse on him. Man, aren't you tired? Aren't you exhausted? You can't do it. And Jesus is more than sufficient. Would you give yourself, your heart, your striving, your worth, your identity, yourself to him for the first time, for the one millionth time. He is more than sufficient, more than sufficient.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we thank you for your word. There's nothing like your word. Thank you that these are not simple stories about the past that are cute for the kids' classes, but they strike at the deepest parts of who we are and our greatest needs, our hungers, our weariness. Father, we thank you that you did not leave us here as orphans. You have come to us. You came down.

Father, we pray, teach us—everybody here this morning. Lord, would you raise our heads? We are people who are discouraged and tired and beaten down and weary. Lord, we need just a glimpse of you this morning. We need to taste again the sweetness of the gospel. Fill our hearts, Lord. Change us. Make us, Lord, more and more free in who we are in Christ. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.