How Real Servants Think

Congratulations on your demotion. That’s the uncomfortable line that opens up a surprisingly hopeful idea from Exodus 21: a servant who is set free can still choose to stay, not out of fear, but out of love. We walk through the bondservant passage and ask what it means to добровuntarily belong to a Master who is truly good, especially when our culture trains us to chase independence, recognition, and constant promotion.

We connect that Old Testament picture to the New Testament language where believers repeatedly call themselves “bondservants of Jesus Christ.” We talk about why that word matters, how it reshapes Christian discipleship, and why Jesus himself models the path downward. His life is marked by humility, surrender, and obedience all the way to the cross, and that becomes the pattern for real faith that meets real life. Along the way, we explore the piercing at the doorpost as a public sign that “my master has my ear,” challenging us to consider what voices we trust and follow day to day.

Then we push the image even further: the doorpost is not just about service, it’s about belonging. In Christ, slaves become sons and daughters, and surrender becomes security in the family of God. If you’re wrestling with control, identity, or the cost of following Jesus, this message offers a clear invitation and a grounded next step. Subscribe, share this sermon with a friend, and leave a review that tells us what part challenged you most.

Transcript

Welcome And Sermon Setup

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Welcome to the Kid Us Off First Podcast, where we're building transformed lives one message at a time. Each week you'll hear Christ-centered sermons from Dr. J. Perry Fowler, rooted in the truth of God's Word. This is where real faith meets real life, because a life built on truth is a life that lasts.

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Good morning,

Exodus 21 Bondservant Passage

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everybody. What a great day this is. Let's turn into our Bibles to the book of Exodus. Book of Exodus, chapter 21. As we look at it, Book of Exodus, chapter 21, we read something that is very, very interesting. When you first look at Exodus 21, what you do is you pause and you look there, and you're like, okay, there's a whole lot of stuff here that's a whole lot of laws. And a lot of times when we look at it, we miss out on something that was not only important in the days of Moses, but also is very, very important to our lives as well. I want to read it to you. Exodus twenty-one. Just follow along with me. Verse five. And verse six. You shall belong to your master. You shall leave him alone. But if I believe finally says I love my master. I love my wife. And I love my children. And I will not leave his free man. Then his master will bring him to God. Notice that. And then he shall bring him to the door post. And the master shall pierce his ear with an awe. And he shall serve him permanently.

The Shocking Call To Demotion

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When we look at that passage, what we are called to do is something that probably we don't really think we want to do. And that is we are called to be a slave. Now, when we think about being a slave, we pause and we say, listen, no, that's a dark point in American history, right? We just don't want to talk about slavery. But I want to remind you that these people that God has brought out of slavery, brought to the Red Sea, brought to the altar of Sinai, now we're standing with an invitation. And that invitation was for demotion. I want you to think about this. What if you go to work tomorrow and you'll work and suddenly what people begin to say to you is, hey, congratulations on your demotion. Now, if that happens tomorrow, what you're going to say is, is it something going on that I don't know what's going on? But what if someone came to you tomorrow and said, Congratulation on your demotion? You say, Well, that's not what I'm looking for. I'm not interested in demotion. I'm interested in, say it with me, promotion, right? And that's what so often we look at when we say, listen, this is what I'm looking for in my life. It seems to be almost the American way. I'm constantly looking for promotion, not demotion. But yet what we find happening here at the altar at the foot of Mount Sinai is God looking at a group of people who had been in slavery for 400 years, and now they're standing ready to traverse on closer to the promised land, and God is saying, I'm offering to you an invitation to become a

Jesus Chooses The Downward Path

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slave. And so what we find is Jesus did that himself. I want you to think about this. Did Jesus, did he embrace promotion when he came to the earth, or did he face demotion when he came to the earth? Bill Heibels mentioned this when he was talking about this idea of promotion versus demotion. And I love what he said. I'm going to quote him, and he says, Once Jesus' life on earth began, Jesus never stopped descending. Think about this. Although he was the owner of all things, he had no home. Although he was the king of kings, he became, here's the word, a bondservant. And although he was the source of truth, he was found guilty of blasphemy. And although he was the creator, he was spit on by the creations that he created. And although he was the giver of life, he was crucified, naked on the cross, bleeding, gasping for air, and although he was the source of life, he experienced death, and in the descent, as it was made complete, from the pinnacle of praise of the universe to the ultimate debasement of torture and death on the cross, here it is. Jesus was endlessly demoted for you and me. The early Christians, when they looked at what they were being offered by God, is they were being offered something that probably would not go across in business, in the business world of America today.

Why The New Testament Says Bondservant

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They were being offered the opportunity for demotion instead of promotion, just like Jesus Christ. And they understood that, so they came back to Exodus chapter 21. Follow me now. And they saw this call of a bondservant, and the result of that was as most of the New Testament writings, matter of fact, 21 times there are believers that consistently talk about demotion, becoming a slave, becoming a bondservant, as they said, Listen, I am a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Paul did it in Philippians 1, Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, James, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, James 1, verse 1. Jude said, I'm a bondservant of Jesus Christ in Jude 1. Peter said, I'm the bondservant of Jesus Christ in 2 Peter chapter 2, verse 1. So this is where we find that term in its original form. We find it in Exodus 21. And when they looked, the New Testament believers looked back at Exodus 21 and they saw the very source and the fabric of what it means to become a bondservant. They gladly were demoted and said, I want to be a bondservant of Jesus Christ. And today I'm extending that invitation to you. Would you be willing to be demoted instead of promoted? If so, you can be a follower of Jesus. This morning, are you willing to say, today, I want to be like Paul, I want to be like Timothy, I want to be like Jude, I want to be like Peter. I want to develop the mindset of the New Testament believer, especially when we read through the books of the New Testament, and consistently these people said, I am a bondservant of Jesus Christ, I'm a bondservant of Jesus Christ, I'm a bondservant of Jesus Christ.

A Voluntary Yes Marked At Door

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Are you willing today to be a bondservant? Now let's, as we look at this whole meaning of this, as we look at it as an original place where it comes out of Scripture in Exodus 21, I want us to see what the invitation is. And what we see first is it is an invitation that is voluntary. No one is forced to be a follower of Jesus Christ. As much as we would, I would love to force you, as much as every believer that knows about Christ would love in every way to try to get you to follow Jesus Christ, to be a bondservant of Jesus Christ. God says, no, I want you to understand, no one is forced to become a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Because God Himself is making that invitation to us today, saying, Will you be a bondservant? Will you be like Paul? Will you be like Timothy? Will you be like Jude? Will you be like Peter? Will you develop the mindset of the New Testament believer in the mindset that we're truly to have? Will you be a bondservant of Jesus Christ? And in this passage, when we see it, and we see it where it comes from in the Old Testament, here we read, look at verse 4. It says, if, if, if the master gives him a wife, and she bears him sons and daughters, and the wife and her children still belong to her master, and he shall leave alone. In other words, he's set free. It says, but it he will be set free. But if, notice this, the slave plainly says, I love my master, I love my wife, I love my children, I will not leave as a free man. Listen, the moment that we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, what we say is that we say, Listen, I have been free, but now I'm becoming a slave, a bondservant of Jesus Christ. I don't know if you understand the depth of the New Testament understanding of what it really means to be a Christ follower. But in that we are saying, listen, I am willing, I am saying that I have a master. His name is Jesus, and I am willingly, I am volunteering, I have dealt with this word if, and the if in my life is a yes, I'm going to follow Jesus. Now here's the question. Have you made that decision in your life? If you make that decision, what does it mean? It means that you volunteered. And in those days, in the Old Testament days, if there was a bondservant that would say, Listen, the master has set me free, and now I'm willing, I want to, I desire to be a bondservant, what he would do is he would go to the doorpost of the master's home. And they would take a sharp instrument and he would put his earlobe against the doorpost, and they would drive that instrument into his ear, creating a permanent scar. And when that happened, they would replace inside that hole, they would wear a ring, an earring. And when they wore that earring, they would go out in public, and everybody would know this is no ordinary slave, this is a bond slave. This is someone who was set free, but now they've said, My master is so good, my master is so great, my master is so wonderful that I had rather be his slave than to be set free. And so what I have done is if I've gone to the master's doorpost, I have had the instrument make a hole, a permanent hole and scar upon my ear, and I am saying to the world by wearing this ring, I am a bond servant of my master. Now, in that when he did that, he would do that because of the fact that he loved his master so much. It was a reflection of his love. And he voluntarily demoted himself and said, While I can be set free, I'd much rather be a slave. And what he would do is he would go and he would say, I'm gonna wear this earring, and the world would say, Oh no. They would never say, oh, what a great slave that must be. They would say, Oh, what a wonderful master that slave must have. And in your life, when you become a bondservant, yes, there will be times, there will be a way, it will be noticeable that you have chosen in your life to become a slave of Jesus Christ. You have chosen to become a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and you have volunteered this, you have made this choice on your own. And making that choice is the greatest decision you'll ever make in your life. Because listen, when you become a slave, you also become a son. Now we're gonna look at that in just a minute, but let me just tell you, there have been many people through history who have made this choice. Among them in the 1900s, there was a man, his uh last name was Borden. Have any of you either ever eaten board and ice cream? Anybody here? I've eaten board and ice cream, I've drank board and milk. Well, this man, his name was William Borden, and what we know is that he was one of the richest men in the world. He was an heir of the board and dairy industry. He graduated from Princeton, and what he decided to do is he decided to go travel the world. While he was traveling the world as a Christian, he saw the needs of the world to know Jesus Christ, and he said, I want to do nothing more in my life than to truly follow Christ. He felt the calling of Jesus to go to Egypt and to share the gospel with Muslims. And when he did it, everybody was they just couldn't believe it. Like, how in the world could you give up the boring dairy industry? How could you give up this that's going to be laid in your lap? By the way, Borden last year, they they uh made $1.2 billion. So if you put that in perspective, you'll see this guy was giving up everything. As a matter of fact, in the front of his Bible, he wrote several words. The first was he wrote no reserves. The second thing he wrote is no retreats. But when he went to Egypt as a missionary and he began to work among the Muslims there, and he began to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and the good news of Jesus, what happened was he contracted a very terrible disease. It was meningitis, it was cerebral meningitis. He became very ill. The mission board sent back and said, Listen, your son is dying, and uh we're going to return his body to you because he will not leave Egypt alive. And they shipped his body back, but among the other things of his personal effects was his Bible. And when they when they when his mom and dad, their name was William as well, and Mary Borden saw the Bible, they opened it up in the front of it, they saw what he had written before he left on the mission field, and that was simply those words: no reserves, no retreats. But now their son had added one more statement, and it was this no regrets. No regrets. And I want to tell you today, if you choose to be a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and while you listen and you understand, okay, I have a choice. Am I going to be free to do whatever I want to do, to live however I want to live, to do whatever I wish to do, which God will allow you to do? If you choose to do that, you can choose to do that. But there is another choice that is the choice that you'll never regret. And that is the choice to become a follower of Jesus. And Paul spoke of this. Paul himself had stepped into this role of bondservant, and he says, for the grief that God wills brings repentance. In other words, God's Holy Spirit will bring upon your heart a sense of grief, a sense of sorrow for your sins, a sense of understanding and accountability for your sin. And the Bible says, and it will bring you to repentance. It'll say, you're gonna take a different course, you're gonna turn around in your life, you're gonna go a different direction. And he says, and that leads to salvation. But then Paul says, leaving no regret, but the world's grief brings death. And that's what we know about being a bondservant. We all have a choice. You can choose today whether or not you're a bondservant of Jesus Christ, or you go free and you do your own thing and you think what you want to think, and you live how you want to live, and you turn your life into what you want to turn it into, instead of saying, Lord, I'm coming, you're my master, I am a slave. I am a bond slave of Jesus Christ, and I'm gonna follow you, Jesus. I'm gonna follow you. So the first thing that we know about a bond servant is that it is a voluntary role. So you have a choice.

Your Master Has Your Ear

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The second thing we know about a bond servant, if we really want to be one, is we're not only taking on something that we volunteer for, but we're committing ourselves to be a listener. You'd say, well, why would they take somebody to the door post and why would they choose to pierce their ear? The reason why they would choose to pierce their ear is because this was a public statement. By wearing this earring, they were making a public statement that my master now has my ear. My master now has my ear. I am going to be listening to him. His voice is the voice that I'm going to choose to listen to and follow. And Jesus agrees with this. Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice. They know me and they follow me. And what the question is, is am I willing to do that today? See, we can only be a bond servant if we come voluntarily and we say, I am going to listen for your voice. It's your voice, Jesus, that I'm going to follow. It's your voice that I'm going to listen to. I'm not listening to the world. I'm not listening to whatever's out on the internet. I'm not going to Google this. I'm going to go to the word of God, and God's word is what I'm going to listen to. And I'm going to hear it and I'm going to obey it because I have a master, and his name is Jesus. Now, with that, what we find is we find this word is very, very interesting. When this word a bondservant is there, and we hear that his master is going to pierce the ear, uh, the word there that is used to describe what it's like to have this all go through your ear is a word that's a Hebrew word that's uh, and it we get our word matzah from it, interesting enough, which means the bread of affliction. So when when you look at this passage and you hear that this bondservant is going to have his ear pierced, the picture is this is going to be afflicting. This is not going to be easy. So many people say, well, Christians, they just need a crutch, and that's why they're coming to Jesus. No, it's ground to walk on. When we follow Jesus, we are making one of the most boldest, one of the most uh gutsy, if you want to put it that way. It's really not that. It's really deeper than that. It's in the soul and it's in the spirit. It's saying, I am making a choice that I am becoming a slave of Jesus Christ, and I'm gonna follow him. And yes, there may be some affliction. It may not be easy. Getting the ear pierced of the slave was afflicting. But I want to remind you too, it was very uh very afflicting when our Savior became like a bondservant, and he himself, he had nothing more, nothing less to say about the way he was living his life more than I am listening to the voice of the Father. And he even went to the points of affliction where he said, God, if there be any other way, let this cup pass from me. Listen, it was afflicting to go through what Jesus went through. If you think Jesus had zero emotions, let me ask you, why in the world did he weep at Lazarus' tomb when he knew he was about to resurrect Lazarus from the dead? Why was it that he knew that he would rise again from the dead? Why was it that he swept drops of blood in Gethsemane? I'll tell you why. Because being a bond servant is never really ever easy. But I want to tell you, you'll have no regret if you'll do it today. It's the joy of your life, it's the blessing of your life. And I'll show you why. As we see this, we see that Paul himself would have scars. When we think of slaves, we often think of scars that they have. Matter of fact, Paul experienced the brutality of physical stars when evil people rejected Jesus. Often he was beaten. At one point, he was beaten to the point, and they drug him outside the city and thought he was dead. But Paul redefined those as he redefined them and he says, I bear on my body the scars of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's as he's looking at his life, he's giving a picture back of this bread of affliction that he had taken on. And by the way, when Paul spoke of scars, he used this word which means to stick or to pierce. And that particular, that is the particular way that he looked at his life. I've been stuck, I've been pierced just like my Savior. When you think about Jesus, his hands and his feet were pierced, his side was thrust through with a spear. He knew what it was like to be pierced, and our Savior, praise God, did it for us. But Paul himself said, Listen, I want you to know, I'm bearing on my body the scars of the Lord Jesus Christ. I've been pierced, I've been stuck, I've been hit, I've been struggled, been through the struggle, and I can tell you, I bear on my body. He redefined these physical scars, and he says, These are scars that are trophies in my life. He was willing to do this. Maybe some of you watched during uh the Winter Olympics, Jack Hughes. I love this guy. Jack Hughes, of course, scored the winning goal for the Olympic gold medal for 46 years. Americans have been trying to win the gold medal in hockey. And what happened with Hughes was this Hughes was hit with a hockey stick to the point where he got a stick to the face, resulting in several of his teeth being knocked out, and then it required 10 stitches in his tongue, and he has facial scars. And when everybody looked at that, they said, What in the world are you gonna do? You are beat up. You're scarred up. And he says, These scars are my trophies. That was how much he felt about hockey. But I want to tell you, Paul looked at his scars and he says, These I bear on my body, the scars of the Lord Jesus Christ. He had something greater to celebrate the trophies of his pain and his struggle. And so Paul here recognizes that. And he says, Listen, I've struggled because I listened to God. I struggled because, see, he knew that the sacrifice that God wanted from him was not his money, not his talent, not his time, but God wanted his ear and he wants your ear today as well. He wants today to say, listen, will you be a bondservant of the Lord Jesus Christ? No matter what the world says, no matter what the psychologists say, no matter what someone else might tell you that you should believe in this culture that we live in where it's ever-changing. Listen, God is saying, listen, do I have your ear? Do I have your ear? If he has your ear and he is your master, you hear his voice, you obey him, and Jesus says, You're gonna follow me. That's the beauty of this call to be a bondservant. So, yes, it's voluntary today. You have a choice. Are you gonna be a bondservant of Jesus Christ? If so, what you're saying is, is I am going to listen to him. My ear, Jesus Christ, has my ear. I'm going to listen to his voice. I'm going to follow him. And the Bible so clearly says that is the beauty of what it means to be a Christ follower. But

Slaves Become Sons In God’s Family

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then the third thing it means, which is even just the most awesome part of it, is it also means that I am a family member. Yeah, I volunteered. Yeah, I became a slave of Christ. Yeah, he has my ear. But today, guess what? I'm a member of the family of God. And so when we see the bondservant, the bondservant would always go to the doorpost, get this, the doorpost of the master's house. And you'd say, well, why to the doorpost of the master's house? Why would it be that he would go there to get his ear pierced, which would symbolize that the master has his ear? Why in the world would he do that? Well, he would do it because once he came and he became a bondservant, he became a family member. In that way you can see, while this involved demotion, it also involved promotion. I want to tell you there's nothing greater to celebrate today than if your name is written in heaven. If your name is written in God's family album, and if today God is saying it even to call you home and you stand before Christ, and they open up the books, and there's your name. Listen, nothing's greater than having your name in the book of life. And what a great gift that is. But you say, Well, listen, I want to live to myself. I want to do what I want to do. I want to hear what I want to hear. I want to believe what I want to believe. Listen, you're not a bondservant of Jesus Christ if that is the case. You voluntarily must decide today who's going to be my master. You voluntarily have to decide today, will I hear his voice and will I follow him as my master? And if so, the beauty of this wonderful relationship is slaves become sons. And that's what we see in this very imagery of this. And so the doorpost. Yeah, it would represent everybody in the household. Matter of fact, it wouldn't not just represent the relationship that you had with the master, but his whole family. And that's why I believe in the church. That's why I believe so much in the church, in being a part of a church while we can participate in worship. And people have told me for years, listen, I can worship God anywhere. You can worship God anywhere. But I want to tell you, God wants you to be a part of a family. Three families He wants you to be a part of. He wants you to have three homes. He wants you to have an earthly home. He wants you to have a church home, and he wants you to have a heavenly home. And in those three things, I want to ask you, do you understand that when you go to the doorpost and you have your ear pierced, what you're saying is, is I have a relationship with the family. I have a new family. I'm not a slave anymore. Yeah, I chose to be a slave of Jesus Christ, but in that I became a son of God. And as I become a son of God, I willingly serve as a slave because my God is my father. What an incredible, incredible picture. And so they would go to the doorpost, there's a picture of the family home, and it represented that now he was going to become of that whole family. He was going to be a son. And they would pierce his ear and then they would put an earring in it. And have you ever stopped and thought about that? We even use that same imagery today when we get married. And he'll pull out a ring and he'll put it on her hand. And I've done it so many times I can quote it to you. And it's more than a with this ring I de wed. It's a big long thing, and I will spare you at the moment. But what I'm going to tell you is when you wear the ring, you're saying, I'm part of the family. I'm not just a son, I'm a bride. I'm a part of a deeper relationship. In the ancient world, slaves and soldiers, by the way, were branded and scarred in their bodies to indicate that they belong to a certain master or general. This was in the Roman army. But yet today we bear on our body the tokens of our living God, which is we stand and we say, as he says, uh, we have come to the doorpost. And what what what's so obvious in our body is we glorify God in our body. It's so obvious that we voluntarily follow Him. It's so obvious that we listen to Him. And it's so obvious that we know our new identity. We are part of the family of God. There is a confidence, there's an assurance, there's a security now. Because this is more than just simply a religious ceremony. This is a statement of faith, and this is a moment where we come down the aisle, if you will, and where we get the ring of assurance that we become a part of the family of God. And Jesus said, Listen, I am the door. Have you ever thought about this? They would take the slave that wanted to become a bondservant to the door. And they would go to the door. And it would be at the door that this would take place. And Jesus, by the way, said, I am the door, then if anybody enters into me, he will be saved and will go in and out. 39 times in the New Testament, the word door appears and it's talking about entrance. And for the Israelite, think about the imagery of what they're hearing here and seeing here, because think about the blessing that they received at Passover when the blood was put on the doorpost. The blood was put on the doorpost, and the death angel would pass over because the blood was on the doorpost and they were secured and they were saved. The bondservant, he went to the doorpost because it was a permanent location where they now knew they had residency for the rest of their life. But I want to tell you, if you go to the door of Jesus, there you will go. And as you go, yes, you'll see the piercings. You'll understand the piercings, but it won't be your own. It'll be the piercing of Jesus Christ. I want you to know, they said, listen, Jesus had all these piercings in his body. They said, listen, Jesus himself had five primary wounds. But those who have looked at the shroud of Turin that believe that this happens to be, of course, the brave clothes of Jesus, they've counted the number of wounds on the body of Jesus, if that happens to be his body, which I believe it is. And what they discovered is there were 5,480 scars on his body. And I want to tell you, when we stand before God, there will be one thing that we will see that is man-made, and it will be those 5,480 scars. And when we look upon him who is pierced, I want you to know, we are going to celebrate the great love that he had for his father and the great love he had for us, that he obediently, voluntarily came, heard the voice of God, responded to the need that we had, went up Calvary, took the piercing, and provided for us a way of salvation. Listen, that is what we're going to see someday when we see Jesus. The Bible tells us that we will look upon him in whom we have pierced. The Bible says in the book of Revelation, I saw the Lamb looking as if he had been slain, standing, here it is, in the center of the throne. And one of these days when we stand with Jesus Christ, we will stand based upon the blood of the Lamb, upon the scars. And for all eternity, we'll see the obedience of he who has the nail-scarred hands. This morning, and I want you to think about that.

What Will You Do Now

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And all this brings us to ask ourselves a question. What am I gonna do with this invitation? See, God had brought them, the children of Israel, out of slavery. He had brought them to the altar of Sinai. And now He introduced, the first thing He introduces to them is this imagery that ultimately Paul would draw from, ultimately Peter would draw from, ultimately Jude would draw from, ultimately Timothy would draw from, and ultimately what you and I would draw from to understand what it means to be a servant of God. It means to be a bond servant of Jesus Christ. So

Prayer For Surrender And Renewal

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Lord, I praise you and thank you for your goodness, for your grace, for your love. For us, thank you for taking on the form of a bond servant, laying down your life, so that in turn we would be given an invitation today, and in this moment we hear your voice calling. He looked at his family and he said these words as for me and my house we will serve the Lord. Lord, across this room. There are couples, there's families online. There are people making decisions of whether or not this will just be another sermon to hear and to move on from. Or today, if this will be a life-changing moment for their life. God, I pray that you would send your Holy Spirit deeply to penetrate our hearts. So Lord, I pray for those that need to make that decision. I pray right now your Holy Spirit would draw them. I can't come to you unless you draw them, so please draw them. Draw us all. Help us right now. In this moment, to take that step. For your glory, we pray it. In Jesus' name. Amen and amen.

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We're

Closing And Next Steps

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glad you joined us for today's segment. We believe a life built on truth is a life that transforms everything. To stay connected, share this message, subscribe, or visit us online at Kinnisaw First.church. We'll see you next time. Keep building your life on truth.