 This is Acts chapter 20, I've entitled this message, shepherds and wolves, sheep and goats. Shepherds and wolves, sheep and goats. Look with me at Acts chapter 20, beginning in verse number 17. It says now, from Miletus, he sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him. And when they came to him, he said to them, you yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews or the Jewish leaders. How I did not shrink back from declaring to you anything that was profitable in teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me that in every city, that imprisonment and afflictions await me, but I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now behold, I know that none of you or none who are among you whom I have, or whom I've gone about proclaiming the kingdom, you will see my face again. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. To care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among you and from among yourselves will arise the men speaking twisted things to draw away disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. This is Paul at the end of his third missionary journey. He's circling back and he's revisiting churches that he has established both on his first and second missionary journeys. Ephesus is one of the primary apostolic centers that Paul has established. It at this time becomes the largest church, probably in the world at that time. It's meeting in multiple different locations in the city of Ephesus. It's thriving, it's flourishing, it's filled with the power of the spirit. Miracles are happening, people are getting saved. You can read in the book of Acts about when Paul goes to Ephesus and begins to overturn spiritual darkness, principalities and powers. And there is really a revival that begins to break out in the city of Ephesus. Now, a couple of years later, it's flourishing and it's growing. And Paul is on his way back through knowing that this is probably going to be his last time speaking with these leaders that he's trained and he's led. And so he's traveling by ship in the Mediterranean. He comes to Miletus, he stops there and he calls for the elders of Ephesus to come and meet him. It's 50 miles. These elders, these pastors, these leaders walk 50 miles to come in to meet with Paul. And Paul knows by the Holy Spirit and by discernment, this is going to be his last chance to speak to them, words of encouragement. And Paul is with tears and with passion and mixed emotions, kind of wrapping his spiritual arms around these leaders and he's giving them admonitions, warnings and exhortations. And as we just read, he warns them about a great number of things. And the reason why he's leaving them with this warning is because Paul knows several things. Paul knows that what begins pure can become tainted. Paul knows that what starts powerfully can become weak over time. He knows that what originates in heaven can become hijacked by hell. And he knows that what God builds in partnership with man's obedience can ultimately become corrupted and co-opted because of man's rebellion and selfish ambitions. And so this is why Paul is speaking to them because all of these things, how is it that something pure becomes corrupted? How is it that something that starts motivated by heaven becomes fueled by hell? How is it that something powerful can become weak and powerless? It all boils down to Satan's primary tactic when it comes to the church. And it's one word, it's the word deception. When deception is introduced into the church, when deception is introduced into the people of God, who are the bulwark and the buttresses, as 1 Timothy says, of truth. When the enemy creeps in either from within or from the outside, his tactic is always to bring deception because deception weakens. Deception undermines, deception decays and it corrodes. It takes away the foundations and the footings and this is what Paul is concerned is going to happen now that he's not going to be there. He tells them, he says, I know, I know, I know. And I've been warning you every time I've been around you with tears and you guys are looking at me like I'm crazy. It's like Paul's meeting with the elders around a conference table and he's in tears every time he's with them, telling them, guys, you gotta keep this pure. Guys, we gotta keep Jesus the main thing. We have to listen to the word of God. We have to be a people of prayer. And the elders are probably looking at him like, Paul, why are you so emotional all the time? Paul, look at the stat books, look at the growth, look at the salvation, look at the baptisms, look at what God's doing, look at how new locations are popping up all over the place in Ephesus. We're overturning idols and there's breakthrough. Can't you just celebrate the victory? But in the back of Paul's mind, he knows. He knows that the enemy is not going to leave what God has started uncontested. He knows that now that I'm not going to be here, the enemy's gonna come in and the way he's going to come in is he's going to work his way in through deception. And Paul's talking to and about three groups of people. In this chapter, there's really four groups of people that are mentioned. There's apostle, that's Paul and his apostolic team. But he's addressing three different groups of people. He's addressing number one, shepherds, which we'll talk about here in a moment. Wolves and the flocks of God. Shepherds, wolves and the flocks of God. And these are things that in Paul's warnings, he's communicating them to be on the lookout, to identify, to examine yourself and to know who is a sheep, who is a wolf, who's a shepherd and who's a pastor and who's an apostle. He says, you need to know this for the health of the church and for you to be able to lead the church of Ephesus through challenging waters. You're gonna need to know who these people are. Here's what's interesting. In church history, Ignatius, who's one of the early church fathers, after Paul actually writes in his memoirs that the church of Ephesus went through a season of decline and deception, but actually because they had these words of Paul, prophetically spoken years earlier, the leaders went into a season of prayer and fasting, repented and God renewed the lampstand of first love back to the city of Ephesus. So they adhered, they listened to the admonition of Paul. And I think we need to be careful, even here in the 21st century, because if we're not careful, the tactics of the enemy are the exact same today as they were then. You see, the enemy doesn't have new tricks. Why? Because the old ones work. And his tactics are deception. You know, the devil, when he wants to deceive, never shows up, knocks on the door of the church and says, hello, my name is Satan. I would like to come in and I would like to influence what's going on here and destroy everybody in your church. That's not how it happens. He doesn't do that in a church. He doesn't do that in a denomination. He doesn't do that in a movement and he doesn't do it in a family. He's stealth and he's subtle and he comes camouflaged as something other than he is. So this morning I want to walk us through what are shepherds, what are wolves and what does it mean to be the flock of God? Paul identifies these three groups of people and he calls us to pay special attention to each one of them. Let's talk about shepherds. Who is Paul talking to in Acts chapter 20? Says he gathered the elders together. There are three titles in this chapter that Paul uses three different words that address the same group of people. Number one, it says elders. Those are the spiritual qualifications of the leaders of the church. They're elders, which means they're spiritually mature. The other word that he uses is the word overseers. He addresses them and he says, remember that God has made you overseers of the flock of God. That is from the Greek word that we get Episcopos and it means to be up on a high vantage point, looking down and being able to see things from a higher perspective. It means to be an overseer. And while elders speaks about the spiritual qualifications, an overseer is actually talking about the function of what they do. And then the last title that he uses for this group of people is he calls them shepherds. Why does he call them shepherds? Because the people of God are called the flocks of God, the sheep that God cares for and shepherds are those who lead the sheep and they do it by being in the midst of the people because in many ways, they're sheep too. And see, my job is a senior pastor and those who have the title of being a pastor has very little to do with just being a communicator or being a leader from the world's perspective. It is actually a calling from the Holy Spirit. And that's what Paul says. Remember it was the Holy Spirit who called you to be overseers. You don't appoint yourself to be a pastor. You don't appoint yourself to be an elder. You don't appoint yourself to be a spiritual overseer. It's the work of the Holy Spirit. And here's the definition of a shepherd. It's those who have been called by Jesus to lead his church. And I'm grateful for pastors and shepherds. I'm grateful for those who've pastored me in my life. I'm grateful that we have, Jane and I even to this day still have pastors in our lives that when we're navigating through a difficult season like we have been with our family over the last several months, almost on a weekly basis, those who we've submitted our life to are calling us or have been around us, praying for us and encouraging and checking up on us and checking up on our health. The other day during our vacation, I met up at Gull Lake Bible Conference Grounds with another pastor who's been a pastor in Grand Rapids for 39 years of the same church. I've been here 26 years. I'm a rookie compared to him. And every year he comes down here and we'll meet up and we'll go for a walk, a walk and talk. And so we walked that day four miles and he just said, hey, how are things going? I listed off a couple of things that were going on and just kind of random, we sat down and he said, Lee, are you familiar with the game Jenga? I'm like, oh yeah, I don't know. I played that game with our family. He goes, I feel like as you've been talking, it's been like Jenga, like you went through this and then you went through that and then you went through this. Are you taking care of yourself? And it hit me, it struck me when he said that, that this man is a pastor to pastors and how he was caring for my soul, even though I'm a pastor. You know, pastors need pastors and sheep need pastors. Sheep need shepherds. It's those who are not appointed by men, but they're appointed by the Holy Spirit, have been called by Jesus to lead his church. And here's what Jesus or here's what Paul speaks to shepherds. He says, take heed to yourself. That's the new King James or pay careful attention to yourselves and to the flock of God. A shepherd's number one responsibility is to take care of himself. It's to examine himself. It's to make sure that he's in a faith. So for my example, I can't get up here and preach to you something that Jesus hasn't worked out in me. I can give you information, but I can't give you impartation. I can give you information you can take home and file away in your notebooks, but the things that are gonna be planted in your heart that will bring transformation and change in your life have to be something that I first have examined, submitted and allowed God to do in my own heart. My first responsibility is to be pastored before I can ever pastor. And every true shepherd has to have pastors in their life, but I believe every sheep has to have a shepherd in their life where they recognize, no, these are spiritual leaders that God has appointed in my life. And the responsibility of shepherds is to feed and to lead the flock of God. It's to amplify the voice of Jesus who is the great shepherd. How many are grateful that Jesus is our great shepherd? And he's a wonderful shepherd. He's a beautiful leader. We sang about him this morning, sang to him this morning. He's a powerful leader. He's God, he's good, he's merciful. He knows exactly what we need. Psalm 23 is such a beautiful example that he leads us besides still waters into green pastures. And you know the beautiful thing about Jesus? As our shepherd, it says, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me. You know, Jesus is your shepherd, not just on the mountain tops, but he's your shepherd even in the valleys. When you go through dark times, difficult times that just seem hopeless, I want you to know Jesus is with you leading you. He's a good shepherd. But the job of a shepherd in a church, a pastor, a leader in a church is not to have our own voice, but it's to amplify the voice of the good shepherd, Jesus. And ultimately, it's to defend the flocks of God with our whole lives. It's to pay careful attention to the flocks of God. It's to pay careful attention to what's going on and to defend them from wolves. Jesus said in John 10, verse 11, I am the good shepherd, this is Jesus. He said, the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not a shepherd and he does not own the sheep. So when he sees a wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and he runs away. Why? Because he's preserving themself. The wolf attacks the flock and scatters it, but the man runs away because he's a hired hand and he cares nothing for the sheep. You tell who really is a shepherd and who's a hired hand by when difficult times and pressure come, the shepherd will defend the sheep, the hired hand will run. And Paul is communicating to these leaders, this is your primary responsibility. Number one, take care of yourself and then take care of the flocks of God. Defend them, protect them, nurture them, feed them, lead them and defend them against wolves. Which leads us to the second thing that Paul, the second group of people that Paul identifies, which are wolves. Every time I read this and I think about wolves, I think of, it's not actually a wolf, but I think of the old cartoons I grew up on. Wiley the coyote, anybody remember that? The road runner and Wiley the coyote who is always trying to, he's always trying to get the road runner. He's just Wiley, he's scheming, he's strategic. This is what Paul describes as a wolf. A wolf is a predator. And in this particular case, when Paul's talking about, I know this, that as soon as I leave, as soon as the apostolic leader of this church is no longer there to protect and to pray and to give you a perspective that maybe you guys don't have, I know that the enemy's gonna send in wolves. Fierce, ravenous wolves because that's what wolves do. Wolves are predators. And in this case, wolves are false teachers or voices of influence who present themselves as either sheep or shepherds but have a secret motive or ambition besides bringing the flocks of God to maturity in Christ. They're false teachers. They're false influences that try to come in from the outside or rise up from the inside. Jesus spoke of these false prophets, these false leaders. In Matthew seven, he told his disciples, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Grape's gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles. So every healthy tree bears good fruit but the diseased trees bear bad fruit. Jesus said, you're gonna know the difference by the fruit of their lives. But he said, beware of wolves. Beware of wolves. And I want you to know today that there are wolves in our world and in our culture who are inspired and fueled by hell whose appetite is their own stomach and you are their prey. And you know what's interesting is a lot of us, a lot of Christianity kind of lives like there is no devil. It's like we believe in God and obviously we believe in one another and we love Jesus and we love the Bible but there's a lot of Christians out there who kind of act as if there's no devil and if there's a devil like he lives in Papua New Guinea someplace and he can't get a ticket out of there to come to America. He only lives among those people that it's not really in America. There's no devil, there's no demonic, there's no satanic, there's no spiritual influences. It's just kind of he's way over there or maybe he was back in the Bible times. No, listen to me say it's there is a real devil and there are real demons and they have real strategies and they are really inspiring people who are inspired and recruited by hell to destroy you and to steal your inheritance. And they're out there and can I tell you they don't dress up like wolves when they show up. A lot of times according to Jesus they are wolves in sheep's clothing putting on their little Baba black sheep outfit. They come in nice because nobody's threatened by a sheep. Nobody goes to the petting zing goes whoa, a sheep. Stay away, that thing's fierce. No, kids just run up and pet a sheep. They just look soft and fuzzy. They got little black hoods coming up meh, meh, meh. Eating a little straw, eating a little grass or skittish little animals. But a wolf is a predator and a wolf is looking for an opportunity. A wolf when it comes from the outside of a flock will circle it and he'll howl to intimidate the flock and then he'll attack from the outside. But according to Jesus sometimes wolves that are deceivers in the church will actually dress up to look like sheep. Why? So they can get into the flock. It's all about access. And sometimes in our day the wolves are dressing up as a YouTube channel, as an Instagram account, as a Facebook post, as a newspaper article, as a book that's been written, as a friend who invites you to come and check out this person who's got deep revelation. That's how he dresses up in sheep's clothing and what they're trying to do is they're trying to get access to your life. They're trying to get access to your soul, why? So that they can consume you for their own benefit, for their own pleasure. How do you know the difference between shepherds and wolves? Well, here's the difference. True shepherds lay down their lives for the flock. Wolves have their own agenda for their own life. Shepherds will not shrink back from the whole counsel of God. That's what Paul says here. He said, the whole time I was with you, I did not shrink back from proclaiming to you the whole counsel of God. You know, one of the reasons why the church, I believe in this cultural hour, is in the position that it's in, is because over the last 20, 25 years, there are pastors in churches who refuse to preach things that are in the Bible because they did not want to irritate or offend and lose people. And so we've compounded that by 20 years. We just preached the nice, happy stuff. Your life's awesome. God wants you to be blessed. Get rich, prosper, succeed, and achieve. And we want to tell everybody what they want to hear, but not everything in the Bible is rosy and gold and not everything in the Bible. Jesus said, my words are an offense. He intentionally does that. So if we go through the Bible and we cut out all the passages that people don't want to preach, it would account for the malnutrition of the body of Christ over the last two decades. Paul said, no, I'm a shepherd and I'm an apostle. Why? Because I preached to you the whole counsel of God. Oh, do you know how big your church could be if you just don't talk about that issue? Don't go there. Don't say this. Yeah, it doesn't matter. You can have a church full of people who never walk in their inheritance. I'd rather have a room full of people who love Jesus, being fully formed by the Holy Spirit of God, standing on the word of God, changing the world, raising godly families and have an inheritance than an arena full of people on their way to hell. See, shepherds are appointed by God and recognized by men. Wolves appoint themselves. Shepherds point and lead to Jesus. Wolves will draw you to themselves away from Jesus. If you're being influenced by a voice that once upon a time you were passionate about the presence of God, you loved the place of prayer, the Bible came alive on the inside of you, you were in awe and worship and now you've grown cold and you become more sophisticated and you're reading more broadly or you're listening to other voices or there's other things that are passionate and it's because of somebody's influence in your life, run because it's a wolf. How do you know if it's a shepherd because they're drawing you towards Jesus? They're echoing the voice of Jesus. Here's a question you've got to ask. Is do they echo the voice of Jesus or are they eclipsing it? Does their life align with the life of Jesus or contradict it? Are they coming to feed you or to feed on you? Is the fruit of their life holiness or licentiousness? That's the difference between sheep and wolves or shepherds and wolves. And today here's some of the deceptions that are facing the flock of God. These are so key. These are the tools that hell and wolves are using right now to try to destroy the underpinnings of the church in Western civilization because he knows that the only answer for turning around this mess that's in our world is a church that is devoted to Jesus. Here are the five weapons that the enemy is using. The deception and what Paul calls in Galatians one, a different gospel. It's a gospel, but it's a different gospel. Number one is syncretism, which is the mixing of spiritual influences with the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I can have a little Buddhism and a little bit of Jesus. I can have a little bit of, you know, seance and a little bit of Jesus, a little bit of Ouija board and a little bit of Jesus. I can dabble in witchcraft. Do you know that the witchcraft is on the rise during the pandemic in 2020? The number one best-selling book among girls 20 years and younger was about wicked witchcraft. It's somebody said, our culture is really becoming secular. Yes, our culture is becoming secular, but it's on its way to becoming pagan. And it's happening even in a church where we're embracing things and we're just kind of mixing it all together. I can have this and that. No, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, period. Number two is postmodernism. Postmodernism is really more of a philosophy, but it's infecting even the gospel in the church. And here's what it says. Truth is plastic and it's relative. And therefore we have to reshape the gospel to fit our culture. Listen, we build our faith, not on the culture stone, but on the cornerstone who is Jesus. And the word of God remains forever. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of God remains forever. Jesus isn't up in heaven going, I gotta put out the fifth edition of the Bible where we go through and edit some things and shift some things to fit American culture. No, Jesus is in heaven and he has sat down because his work is finished. It is done. He alone is the alpha in the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Postmodernism says, oh, we gotta tweak and we gotta change, remove some things, form some things, modernize some things. No, we need to go back to the cornerstone of the gospel. Third deception that is in the church is libertarianism. I'm not talking about the political branch, so don't write me emails. Libertarianism, liberty comes from the word freedom and libertarianism, theologically, it's all about grace. It's cheap, greasy, easy, permissiveness that says, go ahead and walk in the flesh. You don't have to walk in the spirit. Do whatever you want. Jesus will forgive you and you're saved. You said a prayer when you were in fifth grade, you're on your way to heaven, that's good enough. That's libertarianism and it contradicts everything that's in the gospel. Universalism is number four that says everyone will ultimately be saved and go to heaven. No judgment, no wrath of God, no hell. Again, you gotta go through the Bible and you gotta tear a bunch of pages out to get there. It sounds like a great message. Oh, all good dogs go to heaven, it's wonderful. Everybody goes to heaven except Chicago Bears fans. But everybody else goes to heaven except, and then you pick out your group of people that you think shouldn't go to heaven but everybody else goes to heaven. That's universalism. But Jesus said, narrow is the way that leads to life. Wide is the path that leads to destruction. The last deception that is facing the flock of God is legalism and legalism says you can save yourself by working, doing more, working harder, being better, striving, keeping the law. If you just perform better and sometimes it's a religious legalism, many times it takes the form of self-helpism. That I can just fix myself. I can improve my life. I can live my best life now. But really all that is is foolish pride and our arrogance because if we could fix ourselves then Jesus had no need to come and die on the cross for us. But Jesus gave it all. He shed his precious blood. Why? Because his blood alone can save. And his Holy Spirit alone can transform and change. These five are the deceptions that are facing the flock of God. And you need to watch out for them, beloved. You need to watch out for these as they come across and there might even be some people look like, oh, he's a preacher. Oh, he's got a church or he wrote a book or this person seems like a great person or I follow them on Instagram or I see this post on Facebook. Beware if it's any of these things because those are wolves and sheep's clothing. I wrote this this week, beware of anyone teaching you a doctrine or new perspective of the Bible that has been formed on the anvil of culture and not forged in the fires of the Holy Spirit and attested to by those who paid in martyr's blood. Haven't preached in a while, so my voice. And that has not been paid in martyr's blood throughout the ages of church history. Ours is a faith to be received, theirs is a lie to be deceived. These are the deceptions that we need to be careful for. The third and the final group is the flock. It's the flock of God made up of both sheep and goats. See when you read the Bible and it talks about flocks, there will always be two groups of people or two groups of animals. There's sheep and there's goats. We have a picture here. The other day, Jane and I took our grandson, Owen, to the John Ball Zoo and they have a pitting zoo. So here he is, pitting a sheep. Bah, nice little guy. But then there's this other one, if they'll put the next picture up. That, is that, no, do one more. That is a goat. And while we were standing there, the guy who was taking care of it all came up to Jane and he says, you need to take that thing out of your pocket. She had like a little card in her pocket. You need to take that out because that goat will come up behind you and it will take it right out of your pocket and chew on you. He didn't say that about the sheep. Said it about the goat. And if you go back and you're reading your Old Testament, any story about shepherds, you'll always see sheep and goats. Jesus said in Matthew 25, at the end of the age, at the judgment, he's gonna separate the sheep from the goats. And the reason for that is today, our animals have been domesticated, but in ancient times, sheep and goats were indistinguishable. They looked like one another. You could only tell the difference by their behavior. That was the only way you could tell the difference between sheep and goats was by their behavior. And what that requires for the shepherd is examination. That's why in Psalm Proverbs 27, the writer tells us, he says, to examine your flocks and know the conditions of your flocks. But it also, for all of us, means we need to examine our own hearts. Am I a sheep or am I a goat? Well, here's the difference. Let me lay it out for you. Number one, here's sheep. Sheep know the voices that are shepherd. They spend time with him and they obey his voice. So whether that's talking about Jesus as the great shepherd ultimately, we spend time with Jesus and we know his voice. And when he speaks, we listen and we obey. That's, we know we're a sheep. When Jesus speaks, that's the authority. We follow him and it's because we've spent time with him just like a sheep or a you who's born. The first voice that they hear is the voice of the shepherd and it bonds them to the shepherd. And that's what happens when we're born again. We get bonded to Jesus. But also, it's also true of spiritual leaders in our life as well. That when we get counsel or advice from spiritual leaders in our life, not in a controlling, dominant way, but we actually are looking for that advice. We're looking for that counsel. Why? Because we know that they care for us. A sheep knows the voice of the shepherd. Here's the second indicator of a sheep. Sheep stick together. They're flock animals. They stick together. In fact, if one sheep goes running off a cliff, the rest of the sheep will follow. They'll just go with them because they stick together. Sheep follow the shepherd wherever he leads them. And sheep are cautious. They don't make quick changes or movements. They need to be protected. And it's the last time you heard of somebody dying from a sheep bite. Doesn't happen. But goats, they're a whole different story. Goats ignore the voice of the shepherd. It's been said in the agricultural world that shepherds lead sheep, but they have to chase goats. Goats are driven by curiosity and their own personal appetites. Goats are independent. They roam, they're stubborn, they're self-willed. Goats will ram the shepherd or other individuals from behind when they're not looking. And goats are reckless and will eat anything, including garbage. I think when Paul is talking to the shepherds and the leaders, he tells them to examine themselves. And there have been many occasions where I've sat in the presence of Jesus and said, Lord, am I being a good sheep or do I have goat tendencies in my heart? Or it's like, thanks for the suggestion, Lord, but I'm gonna go do my thing. Or I've got my own desires and I'm gonna pursue it. Have I bucked at leaders or people that have cared for me from behind when they weren't looking? Have I been stubborn and self-willed? And have I been feeding on garbage? Or Lord, am I being a sheep, which means I'm growing, I'm listening to your voice, I'm following where you're leading, I'm eating and I'm feeding on green pastures because that's where you're taking me and I'm being cautious and taking heed to my own heart. I can't answer that question for you in relationship with your sheep or a goat. I know that you're a child of God, if Jesus is Lord of your life, you're a child of God, but we also have to examine our own hearts. Just like Paul told those pastors, take heed and pay careful attention to yourself and, I want you to stand with me if you would this morning, shepherds, wolves, sheeps and goats, take heed. Paul gathered with the elders of Ephesus with tears in his eyes because he knew the significance and the power of the moment that he was living in and he wanted them to thrive. Verse 32 says, I want you to inherit, I want you to attain the full inheritance that God has for you. And today, that's my desire as a pastor. It's for all of us that we would not just make it to heaven but we would actually walk in the full inheritance that Jesus has for us here and that we would walk free from deception. God's looking for a people that will lean into him, know his voice and be used to demonstrate his glory on the earth. I want to pray over us before we dismiss this morning. Would you just buy your heads with me? Lord Jesus, first and foremost, we recognize you as the head of the church, the cornerstone of all that God is building and the shepherd of our soul. Jesus and we say we love you and we need you. Today, Lord, I'm asking that you would give us eyes of discernment, that you would give us hearts that are soft and pliable. And in the places in our life, maybe we're offense, hurt, bitterness, pride, arrogance, selfish ambition where it's crept in and causes us to miss you or to resist you. Lord, today would you give us pure, clean, unadulterated soft hearts to you that we might follow you and those of us who've been given the task of leading others and every parent, every mom, every dad who's been given the responsibility to lead their families. Lord, that we would lead others as we are led by you with grace, mercy and truth. Creating us a clean heart, oh God. Help us to walk in truth. Help us to walk in power and help us to be victorious overcomers in the day that we live in.