The sermon titled 'The Owner of the Temple Returns' by Peter Allison discusses Jesus' authority and ownership of the temple as depicted in Luke 19:45-20. Jesus cleanses the temple, driving out merchants without needing permission, asserting His authority as the divine owner. The temple, once a physical structure, has transitioned into a spiritual temple within believers, both individually and corporately. Allison emphasizes that believers' bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit, which should be used for God's purposes. The parable of the vineyard illustrates how the religious leaders rejected the prophets and ultimately Jesus, leading to their exclusion from God's promises, while believing Gentiles are included. Misconceptions about the promises to ethnic Jews and Gentiles are addressed, highlighting that promises have always been for believers. Jesus' authority extends over all aspects of life, and believers must recognize and submit to His lordship.

Our scripture reading as we come to the message this morning is from Luke chapter 19. We'll begin at verse 45 and read into chapter 20. Hear God's word. Now then he went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it, saying to them, It is written, My house is a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves." And he was teaching daily in the temple, but the chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people sought to destroy him and were unable to do anything for all the people were very attentive to hear Him. Now it happened on one of those days as He taught the people in the temple and preached the gospel that the chief priests and scribes together with the elders confronted Him and spoke to Him saying, tell us by what authority are you doing these things and who is he who gave you this authority?

But he answered and said to them, I also will ask you one thing and answer me. The baptism of John was it from heaven or from men? And they reasoned among themselves saying, If we say from heaven, he will say, Why then did you not believe him? But if we say from men, all the people will stone us, for they are persuaded that John was a prophet. So they answered that they did not know where it was from.

And Jesus said to them, Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. Then he began to tell the people this parable. A certain man planted a vineyard, leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country for a long time. Now at vintage time he sent a servant to the vinedressers that they might give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the vine dressers beat him and sent him away empty handed.

Again he sent another servant and they beat him also, treated him shamefully and sent him away empty handed. And again he sent a third and they wounded him also and cast him out. Then the owner of the vineyard said, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. Probably they will respect him when they see him.

But when the vine dressers saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours. So they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore what will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy the vine dressers and give the vineyard to others." And when they heard it, they said, certainly not.

Then he looked at them and said, What then is this that is written? The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. Whoever falls on that stone will be broken, but on whomever it falls it will grind him to powder. And the chief priests and the scribes at very hour sought to lay hands on him, But they feared the people for they knew he had spoken this parable against them May rivers of water run down from our eyes when men do not keep his law heavenly father I Asked that You would sanctify my sinful lips, that they might proclaim the Gospel of Your grace, and I pray that you would speak to us, that your Holy Spirit would open our ears, that we may hear what your Spirit says to your church. Lord, as we continue to worship, May this word be mixed with faith in us.

In Jesus' name, Amen. The temple was the center of life in Israel. It was the centerpiece. It was a glorious building. A place to which all men were to go at least three times a year to worship.

It was where the sacrifices were made. This was where God's glory dwelt. His glory dwelt in that temple. This is where people had to go in order to offer these sacrifices. These sacrifices that took place at this temple were a sign that God was reconciled.

That God had made peace between His people and Himself. These sacrifices, of course, pointing to Christ. This is where people came to pray. This is where people were instructed. You remember even Jesus in His youth was in the temple, discussing with the chief priests and the elders and the scribes, matters of the law of God.

This is where children of God were welcomed, where the people were blessed. Remember, Zacharias came out of the temple, and it was his duty after he had seen the angel, and it was his duty to bless the people. Of course, he wasn't able to speak. Jesus cleansed this temple on at least two occasions. One of them is recorded in the Gospel of John in the very beginning of his ministry.

This event that we just read about occurred at the very end. It occurred on Monday, the day after his triumphal entry. Jesus identified himself as the temple. He said, you destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it again. The Jews thought he was referring to that building, but He was referring to his own body.

That temple, of course, has been destroyed, never to be rebuilt. It was completely destroyed. Every stone was removed. There wasn't one stone left standing on another one. Because that building has ceased to be the temple where God's glory dwells.

But rather, it is us, it is God's people that are the temple, both corporately and individually. Corporately as a church and individually as those in Christ. In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul told the Corinthian church in verse 19 to flee sexual immorality. He said, the reason is, do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you were not your own. For you were bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

And then also corporately, we are the temple. Paul told the Ephesians in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 19, that, And verse 19, that now therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for the dwelling place of God in the Spirit." He's speaking collectively to His church and saying, You collectively, You Ephesian body, You here in Conroe are the temple of the Holy Spirit. You're being fit together as a building that is being built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And so if you want to worship, just like in the Old Testament, if you wanted to worship, to offer sacrifices, you had to go to the temple. If you want to worship God, you have to come to His church, because that's His temple, His people.

And in this passage, Jesus exercises His authority as the owner of the temple. He exercises his authority as the owner of the temple. He exercises his authority as the owner of the temple. He went into the temple and he drove out the merchants. He didn't have a court order.

He didn't have anybody's permission. He didn't ask the chief priests and say, look, they're just creating the temple. Can I go in there and get rid of them? He just, in one case, took a cord and made a scourge, a whip. Probably had little bones and things in it that tore flesh.

He went in and he cleansed the temple And He drove these people out. And He did it on His own authority, because He was the owner. See, in His human nature, Jesus always submitted to lawful authority. He submitted Himself to His parents. Remember, they weren't perfect parents.

They were sinners too. Mary was a sinner. I know that's not news to any of you. But he submitted himself to them. He even submitted it.

When it would, he even submitted to human authority when it would not have been required simply in order to avoid giving offense such as when He paid the temple tax. Jesus never engaged in lawlessness, He never engaged in revolt, He never engaged in revolution or rebellion. Revolution or rebellion. And see, he's not engaging here in some sort of justified disobedience. Disobedience actually is never justified.

Never justified. Revolution, revolt, rebellion, never justified. The Bible says that those are the sins equivalent to witchcraft. Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. Jesus is not engaging in some form of rebellion against the scribes and the Pharisees and the church of this day.

Jesus is the owner of the temple. And He's merely exercising His authority as the owner of the temple. And we see that, first of all, because he simply went in without asking anyone else's permission. Secondly we see it because he called it my house. My house.

He claimed ownership of this building by saying it belonged to Him. He said, My house is a house of prayer, But you have made it a den of thieves." Jesus addresses the Father as my Father. He always says, my Father. He never says, our Father. He says that when He taught us how to pray.

But that was Him teaching us how to pray. That wasn't how He prayed. He prayed my Father. He never prayed our Father. Because, yes, God is our Father, but in a different way than Jesus.

We are adopted children. Jesus is not. He is the only begotten Son. And when he wants to speak collectively, he said, My Father and your Father, not our Father. Jesus here is claiming ownership of this house.

It's His house. Because He and the Father are one. This is really just a fulfillment of Malachi, the prophecy in Malachi 3. Behold I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me. I send my messenger, speaking of John the Baptist, and he will prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come into his temple, even the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight.

And behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of His coming? Who can stand when He appears? He is like a refiner's fire and like launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and purify your of silver.

He will purify the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver that they may offer to the Lord in offering and righteousness." This is Jehovah speaking, the Lord of hosts. And he says, I will send my messenger who will go before me. Notice the identification of the Lord of hosts and Going this messenger who would go before me who would go before Christ But who is also going before the Lord of hosts? Because Jesus is God Jesus here is here asserting he is God. He is the owner of the temple.

And who could stand before him? Nobody in the temple could stand before him. None of them. With all their wealth and all their authority and all their ability to manipulate the Roman Empire and their massive cartel and ability to do a lot of wicked things, none of them could stand before Him when He went into His temple and He drove out those who were making an adenaphethes. Isaiah 56, this is also another prophecy that is fulfilled here.

Isaiah 56, 3, Do not let the son of the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord speak, saying, the Lord has utterly separated me from His people. Do not let the son of the foreigner, not Jew, but the foreigner, who has joined himself to the Lord speak saying, the Lord has separated me from His people." This is a prophecy concerning the Gentiles, that they too would be grafted in to the Church, to these branches. Nor let the eunuch say, Here I am a dry tree. For thus says the Lord to the eunuch who keep my Sabbaths and choose what pleases me and hold fast my covenant even to them. I will give in my house and within my walls a place and a name better than that of sons and daughters.

I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off." That's a very powerful and precious promise to a eunuch who could not have any children. And also the sons of the foreigner who joined themselves to the Lord to serve Him and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants, everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath. In other words, who recognizes His Lordship, His authority over their time, and holds fast My covenant. Even them I will bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations." Now, Luke doesn't record that for all nations, but Mark does.

When Mark records one of the times that Jesus drove these people out of the temple and cleansed the temple. He says, my house shall be a house of prayer for all nations. Because as we will see, as we will look at in a little more detail in a minute, these promises are not just to ethnic Jews, not just to the physical descendants of Abraham, but they are to all who believe. God's house is a house of prayer for all the nations, to all who believe, to all who recognize His authority and His Lordship in their lives, who keep His covenant and who keep His statutes. Now, fourthly, we see that Jesus exercises His ownership of this temple, of His temple, because He defined the proper use of it.

You see, one of the privileges of ownership is the right to define the purpose for which something will be used. If you own furniture, you get to decide exactly how it will be used, whether this piece of furniture will be used in your dining room or used in your garage. You get to decide whether this piece of furniture, this dish is for formal dining or for holding oil in your garage. If you own that dish, you get to decide. See, Jesus defined how His house would be used.

He said it was to be a house of prayer. See, that's why we can't do whatever we want with our bodies. Because they are not ours. We don't own them, just as Paul told the Corinthians. Our bodies are not ours.

We are not the owner of that temple. God Christ is. It belongs to Jesus. Your body belongs to Jesus. And as the owner of your body, He decides how you will use it.

He decides What we do with our time. What we do with our resources. You see, it's the wicked, the Psalms say. It's the wicked who say with our tongues we will prevail. Our lips are ours, whose Lord over us.

It's the wicked who say, our body, our choice. It's the wicked who claim ownership of God's temple and who misuse it and make what should be a house of prayer into a den of thieves. You see, we really know different from all those people selling in the temple When we think that we own our bodies, and we can do with them what we want. And we can spend that our time is ours and we can do with it what we want. And our money is ours and we can do with it what we want.

Now those who are the Lords recognize that even this body is the Lord's. It's His and as the owner he defines how we use it. You see, and that's one reason why tattoos are wrong. Because God has said, don't write on my body. Don't write on my property.

Don't write permanently on my property. That's not what it's for. They're very popular today. And I know even many Christians would say, well, there's really nothing wrong with them. But they are forbidden in the Scriptures.

And If we recognize the Lord's ownership of our body, then we recognize His right to how we use our body, even in something like that. He demonstrates his ownership of the temple in that he routinely taught there. He made it his place of work. Every day he went to the temple this week, in this particular week as he did in other times. But every day, he went to the temple and taught.

And at night, he went to the Mount of Olives. And in the morning, he would come back to the temple, and all the people would come to him, and he taught. The chief priests and the scribes were trying to kill him. But Jesus continued to teach in his house. He continued to use his temple for its rightful purpose.

And all of their angst and machinations and efforts to remove him were completely unsuccessful. And that's another reason we know, or we see His Lordship, His Ownership of the temple, is that no one could remove Him from it. He was the rightful owner of it. These scribes and chief priests were the officers of the Old Testament church. They were the ones who were entrusted with the care of the flock, of the care of the temple, with the temple sacrifices and the law.

They were the ones who were to be teaching. And here they've lost control of their temple. They have this guy in there who's teaching contrary to what they believe, who's teaching the people the truth, contrary to the things that they've been teaching. Remember Jesus was always saying, you've heard it was said, but I say to you, He's referring to the oral traditions of the scribes. Things that were later written down and became the Babylonian Talmud, a demonic document filled with demonic writings.

Jesus is teaching contrary to what they taught. He's correcting them publicly, refuting their errors, and they're powerless to stop him. They recognize that they're losing their control, their grip over the people. And they being false shepherds, they're all more concerned about their control and their authority and their having their way than they are about the truth and about the souls of the people that are entrusted to them. But they are helpless here.

Here's Jesus teaching, teaching against them right on their own property what they thought was their own property. And they are completely powerless. So the Jews try to challenge Jesus' authority. And in chapter 20, we have a record of three attempts that they make to challenge His authority, to undermine His authority. Jesus has undermined their authority in a very public and a very pointed or obvious way.

And the pride of the chief priests and the scribes is hurt. They feel diminished in the eyes of the people. Their kingdom is being attacked. Their grip on the crowds and their ability to get what they want through fear and intimidation is at risk here. And so they fight back and challenge the authority of Christ.

But like Paul learned later, no one can resist the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Anywhere. No one can resist Him anywhere throughout His creation, much less in His own temple. But they try. They try.

They make three attempts. This first one is to ask them, by what authority do you do these things? And they then ask the question about whether it's lawful to pay taxes to Caesar. And then lastly they ask about the resurrection, the Levirate law in the case of the resurrection. And of course, after that, Jesus silences them after three times and they give up.

And they don't ask anything of him anymore. But here they ask Jesus this question, by what authority do you do these things? Now this is a sinfully manipulative question. It's manipulative because they are not asking for information. They know by what authority He does these things.

He has told them He is the Son of God, meaning He is God. He is God's anointed, the Messiah. They recognize the authority of the Messiah. He is Lord of the Sabbath. He is Lord of creation.

He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He is the Lamb of God to which all their sacrifices pointed. He is the temple. They know that. But they want to ask a question here in an attempt to undermine Him, in an attempt to embarrass Him.

When properly asked, it is a legitimate question. But Jesus resists their attempts to manipulate. He avoids answering their question. By simply avoiding answering their question, he is communicating, you have no authority to ask this question. It's up to me whether I want to answer it or not.

You know, suppose a father asks his son, Son, why are you removing all the books out of the library? And the son replies, Well, if you tell me why you bought them, then I'll tell you why. I'm removing your books from the library. See, we would immediately recognize that as disrespectful, as a challenge to the authority of the Father. The Father owns the books and He has a right to ask about them.

And so Jesus resists this manipulation. He refuses, he doesn't answer their question. He asks another question of them. A question that they can't answer and He says to them, Okay, okay, you ask me why, by what authority I do these things. I'm going to ask you a question.

The baptism of John, was it from heaven or from men? And they couldn't answer him. Because if they said it's from heaven, then he would say, well, why didn't you listen to him? And if they say it's from men, then they feared the people would become angry with them. And they would lose the people.

You see, they aren't faithful shepherds who teach the truth, otherwise they would speak the truth regardless of what the people thought. But they're hirelings. They need and they exist for the pleasure or the approval of the people. Without the approval of the people, they don't have any authority. And so they're stuck.

They can't answer. Either answer will get them in trouble. See, a faithful shepherd can always answer a question because the answer doesn't depend on whether the people will approve or not. But they're stuck. And so they say, we don't know.

We don't know. And Jesus then says, well neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things. Jesus was wise. And we can learn from his wisdom here how to handle manipulative questions, questions that lack authority. But don't use this on your father, children, if he asks you this question because he has a right to ask that question.

That's not manipulative. It is a right question to ask. We should ask it ourselves. By what authority do we do things, provided we are asking it for the right reason, to learn, to know. It's a question we should ask of ourselves.

It's a question that's appropriate to ask the church elders, by what authority are you doing this? Because we have no authority to do anything except where God has given us authority. It's a question to rightly ask the civil magistrate, by what authority are you doing that? Because he has no authority except what God has given him. And the authority that he has, you know, is given, this authority is given by earthly means.

What authority do we have to do anything that we do in the worship service. It needs to come from the Scriptures. Everything we do, we need to have authority to do. Because Jesus said, all authority in heaven and earth is given to me. And none of us have any authority to do anything, except God has given it to us.

And I think it's important that we recognize this every day. As parents, that we recognize that the authority we have to command our children comes from the Lord. And we need to teach our children that our authority comes from the Lord. It's not ours because we're bigger than them. Because what happens when they grow up and get bigger than you?

We have to teach them that this authority comes from the Lord and that it is a stewardship, this authority, that it's meant to use for the good of those over whom it is exercised. And you as the church people need to ask that of your elders. By what authority when you don't know, or you don't see it in the Scriptures, you need to ask, by what authority do you do these things? And you should expect to get an answer from the Scriptures. By what authority we do these things?

You should ask that of your civil magistrates. By what authority do you do this? And it's not just the authority that God has given, but the people of a nation make compacts. Governors rule by the consent of the governed. And authority is established by the consent of those who are governed.

And so there are governing compacts that give authority to civil magistrates. And when they act outside those contracts, they are acting outside the authority that God has given them. I think in the civil government and in the church government, there is no... What is not commanded is forbidden. Now when it comes to the family governments, it's a little different.

What's not forbidden is allowed. And so as parents, what's not forbidden is allowed. But that doesn't apply to church elders and to civil magistrates. What's not commanded is forbidden. God has given no authority beyond what He's commanded in those institutions.

So then Jesus tells a story. He tells a story to sort of put this whole situation in its proper perspective, and to give us a bird's eye view of what's going on here. So this story very, very clearly explains this situation. Christ tells the story of this vineyard. A man plants a vineyard, gives it to some vine dressers, and goes into a far country for a long time.

He sends representatives back to receive the fruits of his vineyard and they treat them shamefully, they despise them. And last of all, he sends his son, the heir, thinking, well, they will respect Him, but they kill Him. What's the owner of the vineyard going to do when He comes back? Well Christ is the owner of the vineyard and He entrusts it to caretakers while He is away. The vine dressers in this case are the priests and the scribes, the leaders of His church.

And God sent His prophets to these people and they killed them and shamefully treated them. Lastly, He sent His beloved Son. You see, these vine dressers reason irrationally. They think that if they kill the son who is the heir of the vineyard, then the vineyard will be theirs. It's really absurd.

How could people be so foolish? How could they be so irrational? But remember, the wicked think irrationally. And all too often, so do we, when we lose sight of the big picture, when we lose sight of Jesus Christ. Of course, the wicked vine dressers are cast out and destroyed, and the vineyard is given to others who acknowledge Christ's authority.

Notice He doesn't destroy the vineyard. He doesn't say, oh, that vineyard's lost, and destroy the vineyard. See, the apostate Jews are cast out, and believing Gentiles are grafted in. And this is what Isaiah, the prophecy in Isaiah 56, talked about. This is what Mark says in his account of this, that the temple will be a house of prayer for the nations.

You see, in the New Testament, this distinction between Jews and Gentiles is removed. The church doesn't replace the Jews. Rather, the wall of separation between the Gentiles and Jews is broken down and Gentiles are grafted in to the church that was formerly only Jews. See, in the Old Testament, if you wanted to be in the church, you had to become a Jew. And that was the great debate in the New Testament church.

Do these Gentile Christians have to become Jews in order to be in the church? And the answer is no. They don't have to become Jews to be in the church. Gentiles are now grafted into the church. The house of prayer is the house of prayer for the nations.

Now there's a misconception. There's a couple misconceptions that I would like to address though. And one of them is that the Old Testament promise was to ethnic Jews, whether they believe or not. And that the New Testament promises only to those who believe, Jew or Gentile. But that is not the case.

The Scriptures never promised the land of Israel to apostate Jews, even if they were the ethnic descendants of Abraham. The land of Israel and the rest of the earth is promised to believers and always has been. It has never been promised to apostate Jews who were physically descended from Abraham. It is those who are of faith, those who believe, those that are in Christ. And it is believers in Christ that are heirs of the promise to Abraham.

It is believers in Christ that are the church and always have been the church. The seed of Abraham has always been believers. And these promises have always only belonged to believers, even in the Old Testament. Think of Romans chapter 2. For it is not a Jew who is one outwardly nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart and the Spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men, but from God." Who is a Jew?

Not somebody who is outwardly circumcised, but somebody who is a Jew inwardly. And in Jude, verse 5, "'But I want to remind you, ' Jude writes, the brother of Christ, the half brother, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt afterwards, destroyed those who did not believe. Those people who did not believe that were delivered out of Egypt did not receive the promised land. Only those who believed, which was Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and Caleb, yes. And even Moses and Aaron didn't get to go into the land.

They only got to see it. In Hebrews chapter 3, For those who having heard rebelled, for who having heard rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt led by Moses? Now with whom was he angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned whose corpses fell in the wilderness?

And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who did not obey. So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief." Or in Jude, Joshua chapter 5, None of those people who died in the wilderness of unbelief were able to circumcise their children because they didn't believe. And the promises are not to those who didn't believe. The promises were those who believed. And So none of those unbelieving Jews were able to circumcise their children.

Read Joshua 5, where the whole nation has to be re-circumcised before they enter into the land, because none of their fathers, Moses, didn't allow them to circumcise their children. See, today there's the idea that somehow our destiny, our heritage is connected with the people in Israel. And nothing could be farther from the truth. That's an apostate nation. Those are not believers.

The status of the nation of Israel has absolutely nothing to do with America or the Church of Jesus Christ. Other than that, they need to be converted. They need to hear the Gospel, just like every other unbelieving nation. Those apostates over there are not God's people. What they are are Zionists.

And actually, most Jews are not Zionists. It's a civil movement, satanically motivated, but it has nothing to do directly with being God's people or being important to America because they're God's people. We don't need to give money to Israel because they are God's people. They are not God's people. Unbelievers never were God's people, ever.

And we get that wrong as a nation to our detriment today. Those Jews over there, those Zionists, they're really not directly Jews. Many of the Orthodox Jews are strongly opposed to the Zionists over there. They will march on the Lord's Day, on their Sabbath. They have their ways of getting around the distances to oppose the Zionists and the Zionist movement.

Sadly, much of the church is promoting these apostate Jews. These apostates, they're not even Jews, many of them. There is... Jesus said that this stone which the builders rejected is the chief cornerstone, and whoever falls on that stone will be broken, but on whomever it falls it will grind him to powder." Jesus is declaring His authority to damn or to save those whom He will. He is that chief cornerstone.

And whoever falls on that stone will be broken, but on whomever it falls will grind him to powder. Jesus Christ is our Lord, and He has all authority over us. And we recognize His authority when we recognize that He is Lord of the Sabbath. We recognize His authority over our time when we use our time as He has directed us. When we give Him this day and set it aside for His worship, we are recognizing His authority over our life.

When we go to work, there are other six days. We're recognizing His authority over our time. When we tithe, we're recognizing His authority over the money that He's given to us. And recognizing that he owns all of it. He doesn't own just 10% of it, he owns all of it.

We recognize his ownership of all of it when we give him 10% of it. It's easy to look at the Pharisees here and their failure to recognize Jesus' authority and their stupid irrationality in thinking that they could resist Him. But just remember, we're no different when we resist His authority over our lives in all the things that He calls us to do. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we come as your children, grateful that you have provided a way that we can come to Your throne of grace, by recognizing that it is not our inherent right to do so, but only in that You have given us authority and granted us this privilege. Father, we ask that you would enable us to recognize and to heed your authority in every area of our life, especially over our bodies, which are your temple, which are yours and not ours, and over our time, and over our talents, and over our treasure, and over, Lord, our relationships and our families, Lord, which belong to You, and our children that You have entrusted temporarily to us, that we may teach them that you are the Lord of creation. That we may teach them that you are the lawgiver. And there is no other lawgiver but you. Lord, we ask that You would receive us as we offer ourselves as living sacrifices to You, holy and acceptable, which is but our reasonable service.

We ask that you would show us any area of our life, Lord, where we are resisting your authority to direct us, to direct our lips, to direct our steps, to direct our homes and our resources, to direct our relationships. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.