Basic Instructions for Life

My name is René, I'm one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church and I want to say hi to everybody joining us via video in venue and on Facebook live and on the internet, everybody here in the auditorium. Great to have you with us. I'm gonna start off the message today a little bit differently. How many of you, quick show of hands, how many of you ever seen Jimmy Fallon on the air? Jimmy Fallon, late night talk show host, very funny. This past week it was Father's Day and so he asked his listeners to tweet or retweet anything that has to do with this. He says tweet out something weird or funny or embarrassing that your dad has said.

And so as a dad I just want to show you, these were very funny, I want to show you my five favorite of the many many hundreds of tweets that he got. For example this person says, "At the airport my dad said put one shoe in each suitcase so if they get stolen they can't wear your shoes." Okay. My dad told me when you get pulled over and a cop asks you to say the alphabet, just say the alphabet. Yeah I hear cops love that. So why don't you try that? This is probably my favorite. My mom's phone died so rather than texting, mom's phone is dead, call me if you need anything. I got mom's dead, call me. Man a few words.

My dad always tells me don't use your turn signal, it's no one else's business where you're going. In my observation there's a lot of people following this advice here in Santa Cruz County. And finally, this is a good one, after an incredible three-hour whale watching tour, dad says, "That was awesome I think I got some great pics." Hands me his phone and this is what was on it. True confessions, how many of you have ever taken an unintentional selfie? Has anybody done this besides me or in this guy? All right what do dad quotes have to do with the part of the Bible we're looking at in today's message?

Well we're in a series called Hope Agent. It's in a book of the Bible that's called First Thessalonians and this week we are looking at fatherly advice from the Apostle Paul. Quick words of wisdom on topics that impact all of us like peer pressure, sex, love, work. Only Paul's dad quotes are inspired by the heavenly father and they're quite good. In fact they have inspired and guided and led people for 2,000 years now and you're gonna love these two. You could call these basic instructions for life. You can grab your message notes from the bulletins that you got when you came in. That'll help you follow along. Also you can turn in your Bibles to First Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 1 through 12.

Now as you're getting those message notes out and turning in your Bible I would just want to say parental advisory, right? Kind of lyric warning here. Some of Paul's advice gets a little PG-13. So if you've got a young child you're concerned about that. You can gauge parents what you want to do with that yourselves but for anybody you know junior high age and above for sure this is not only appropriate but it is needed.

Now before we dig into this quick this fatherly advice nugget from the Apostle Paul I just want to give a quick recap about what the book of First Thessalonians is. Almost 2,000 years ago the Apostle Paul writes the book of First Thessalonians as a letter that he pens to the very first Christians in Europe in a city called Thessalonica on the modern Greek coast. Now Paul spent less than three weeks teaching the Thessalonica because he was driven out by anti-Christian riots and now he is on the run. He went immediately to a village called Berea and then to Athens now he's in Corinth and he just has time to catch his breath and write this baby church that he's hardly spent any time teaching a little brief letter and so that's the setup for the whole book of First Thessalonians.

It's a letter that he's writing to these people that he hardly knows so the question is what brief instruction can he give? He's basically got to condense his teaching into a tweet that he can dash off till he's on the run to the next spot. So what is he gonna say? Well in the first five weeks of the series we saw how he starts out in chapters 1 through 3 with encouraging words. He keeps reminding them you are loved in spite of the persecution that you're facing. That just means you're normal because you're swimming upstream in your society but God loves you, I love you, you guys are great. He layers it on for three chapters and now starting in chapter 4 and going into chapter 5 he kind of shifts gears and he says here's some practical instruction on how to live your life and in the first 12 verses of chapter 4 he lists a five dad quotes, five pieces of fatherly advice right in a row like little words to live by and if you and I kept these five pieces of advice that we're about to see they would take care of basically 90% of the problems that we all face in life.

Now I'm gonna concentrate on the first two and then really just mention the final three of these but these are all equally important and they kind of follow a train of thought as we'll see in just a few moments. So are you ready for these? Very crucial. You and I all, everybody in this room needs to hear these for sure so jot these down. The first ones of foundation for all the rest live for an audience of one. Live for an audience of one and this is about escaping the people-pleasing trap. What am I talking about? I want you to listen to this email that a friend of mine who's also a pastor down in Southern California recently got from a young woman in his church and I really appreciate her honesty.

She writes, "I am living with a massive fear, the fear of disapproval." She said, "It dominates me for all my life I've worried about what other people think about me." She says, "It affects what I wear, what I listen to, and even what I eat. I want so badly to be liked and accepted that I've done all kinds of stuff that I feel like others have kind of forced me to do. I feel like I am controlled by the opinions of others. I say yes to people just because I am afraid to say no and I'm getting so tired of being manipulated and used. It's to the point where I don't even know who I really am anymore." Listen to this. "I feel like I am just a collection of other people's expectations." Wow. She is talking in this email about one of the major addictions of our day. You could call it approval addiction. Being addicted to the approval of other people.

Now there is nothing wrong with wanting to please your loved ones. There's nothing wrong with wanting to delight your parents or wanting to please your spouse. There's nothing wrong with that. You just don't need the approval of others to become the dominating force in your life, right? Many, many people become addicted to the approval of others. And listen, if you don't deal with that addiction, it will destroy your life. And that's why Paul starts off this advice section by laying this groundwork. He says in 1 Thessalonians 4:1, "As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please who? Please God, as in fact you are living." That phrase "please God" as we'll see is a phrase Paul uses a lot if you start looking for it in his epistles. And now we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. To do what? Circle "please God" instead of men, instead of humans. This is a foundational life principle for Paul.

I want you to watch how deep this goes. Earlier in chapter 2 verse 4 he says this, in fact let's read this out loud together. Ready? Here we go. "Our purpose is to please God, not people. He is the one who examines the motives of our hearts." Now watch this. Think of who is writing these words. Paul is known as one of the greatest followers of Jesus of all time. He wrote about half of the books in the New Testament of our Bible. He was an amazing missionary and he's even sporting kind of a hipster beard there so he looks sharp too. But when we first meet Paul in the book of Acts he is condoning the mob execution of a Christian named Stephen. Paul watches this, he approves of this, and then he makes it his personal mission to arrest or kill as many Christians as he could. As he says in a later epistle he loved the approval of the power brokers in his culture. He lived for it, he loved it until the day he sees the risen Jesus in a vision and he gives his life to Christ.

And from that moment on Paul ticked off all those power brokers that he had the approval of just a few days before. From that moment on he made people mad, he got death threats, he was arrested, he was tortured, and eventually he was even killed for his faith. How did he handle that kind of peer pressure? Well check out what he says in Galatians 1:10. This is so revealing. He says obviously I'm not trying to be a people pleaser. No I'm trying to please God. Now watch this. If I were what? Still trying to please people. I wouldn't be Christ's servant. Notice he says if I were still trying to please people. In other words Paul was a recovering approval addict and this shift was foundational for his life to change and it may be foundational for you too.

Listen to this Proverbs says it is a dangerous trap. Circle the word trap to be concerned with what others think of you but if you trust the Lord you'll be safe. Why is people pleasing such a trap? Listen if people sniff out that you long for their approval, you're just waiting for the thumbs up for them, you're waiting for you know their Facebook like, you're waiting for them to say yes I give you a heart, then what will happen is either people will go oh here's somebody I can manipulate and control and dominate or a lot of other people will be repelled by your need to be loved and your insecurity and they'll run the other direction so whether people are repelled by you or drawn to you in order to control you it's a bad result.

And let me just say I think the worst result of all is that for some people this is what keeps them from declaring their faith in Jesus Christ because they're afraid of what other people will think. So how do I escape the people pleasing trap? I want to give you a couple of truths. These are so important. Chop them down in the margins or something and burn these into your mind because these are going to set you free if this is an issue in your life. First even God can't please everyone right? You ever think about this? A couple of weeks ago there were millions of people who were Warriors fans were praying for the Warriors to win the championship and when it got to three and one they thought not again oh Lord please and there were millions of Cavs fans who were praying for the Cavs to win. Clearly not in the will of God but they were praying for that. Now God was gonna disappoint somebody no matter how he quote-unquote answered that prayer right?

In the summertime there's a bunch of people who pray for cooler weather wherever they are and there's a bunch of people who pray for warmer weather because they're cold-blooded that's me cooler weather that's my wife and so you know that God has to answer one of those prayers. Even God can't please everyone now jot this down because here's the corollary only a fool would try to do what God cannot do. Even God can't please everybody so only a fool would try to do what God can't do. Now here's the second truth you know you don't need everybody's approval to be happy. This can just liberate some of you right now because if you think I can only be happy if they like me or if they like me you are never going to be happy not for long because the truth is you don't have to please everybody you can't please everybody. God doesn't expect you to please everybody some of you are waiting for the perfect moment when you feel like everybody's happy and I'm not letting anybody down and nobody disapproves of me that does not happen at least not for long and some of you have spent most of your life trying to please an unpleasable person probably a parent and you've tried and tried to win that person's approval and I'm sorry I'm sorry for the pain that you've gone through because that is pain but guess what if you haven't gotten their approval by now you are not going to get it and it's probably not about you it's about them they're just unpleasable as personalities that's their problem that God can deal with you know with them that's not your problem but the tragedy is in my observation some of you are 50 60 years old and you're still trying to get mom or dad's approval guess what you don't need it what you need is the attitude of Jesus look at this John 5:41 Jesus said to the people criticizing him your approval or disapproval means nothing to me how could he say that because he was focused on an audience of one on pleasing his heavenly father and when you say to Jesus you are my Lord that is such a great word Lord because you're saying your voice is the one voice I will listen to.

Now listen look up here for a second let me be very clear here living for an audience of one does not mean you perform for God and if he likes your act then you get his thumbs up you already have God's unconditional love in Christ and when you receive God's offer of mercy through Jesus the merits of Christ are applied to you so being a God pleaser doesn't mean you work for God's approval what it means is you live with God's values and you listen to his voice instead of the voices of the world all around you it means you don't worry if people disapprove of something that you choose to do because you're following God and this first point is foundational to everything that follows today including the second thing that Paul says which is control your own body control your body control yourself.

Now obviously this is a general principle that applies in so many ways to the Thessalonians Paul applies this specifically to sex and here comes the PG-13 part now I want to start by putting this in historical context this is so important because listen we're going to talk about sexual morality and in in our Western culture it is common for people to imagine that Christians who believe in sexual morality are like Victorian prudes and you imagine somebody who's so straight lace that they never smile and nobody would ever want to be like them and they're sour and they're repressed but that cannot be what these early Christians were like because think about this the Roman culture of the day was if anything even more promiscuous than our culture and it was completely accepted there was very little that was taboo for Roman men to at least to do sexually so it was just a wanton culture and yet the Christian attitude towards sex toward the end after three centuries the Christian way swept through the Roman Empire right so there must have been something appealing there must have been something joyous there must have been something attractive about the Christian attitude toward sex they could not have been seen as just joyless prudes there was something contagious something winsome something awesome about their attitude towards sex.

Why was the Christian attitude so captivating? I think part of it was because the Roman attitude towards sex was all male centered very chauvinistic and I want to show you a couple of quotes Demosthenes a Greek writer at the time said yeah we Roman men we keep prostitutes for pleasure mistresses for our daily needs and wives for bearing children there was no sense of commitment to a woman women were just objects to be used and you can't exaggerate this there's a scholar of the first century Greco Roman world named Eva coils and she said if modern Americans could time travel to the ancient Greco Roman world I want you to look at this quote she says you would find yourself in quote a society dominated by men who sequester their wives and daughters denigrate the female role in reproduction sponsor public whorehouses create a mythology of rape and engage in rampant saber rattling so this was not you know a feminist paradise specifically in the city of Thessalonica watch this in 1997 archaeologists there unearthed a massive house of prostitution next to the ancient market now the public rooms in this brothel were very lavishly appointed banquet rooms and so on but the upstairs rooms where the hundreds of prostitutes lived looked like tiny jail cells with locks on the doors and the chief archaeologists said today we would have called these people sex slaves and yet this was absolutely okay in this society yeah just go ahead and go to this place where the sex slaves are and abuse these people and for a Thessalonian male that was no problem that was all accepted and this context is very important because here in these verses we're gonna look at Paul is telling the men to do something subversive to the power that they had in that male-dominated culture and of course this is one of the reasons that women were so attracted to Christianity in Paul's day specifically in the book of Acts Luke says in Thessalonica do you remember what he says he says many wealthy and powerful Greek women of means became members of the early church in Thessalonica because that the teach the Christian teaching was empowering women it was speaking truth to male power and so you really have to try to strip away your 21st century ideas and see these verses in that context what Paul is teaching here was subversive to the dominant culture starting in verse 3 it is God's will that you should be sanctified that means the process of becoming like Jesus that you should avoid sexual immorality that each of you should learn to control your own body now I want you to circle that phrase control your own body and notice in that kind of a culture that I just described he's not saying it is God's will that you should go out there and judge those other pagans he doesn't say it is God's will that you should go bomb that pagan temple where there's temple prostitutes he said it's God's will that you should avoid sexual immorality and control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable not in passionate lust like the pagans who do not know God.

Now the word translated passionate lust is one word in the original Greek epitome it literally means over desire being controlled by your desires if that's a great word isn't it because not just in the realm of sex but in the realm of so many other addictions you can have a life controlling desire that ruins your life now I want to say something here if this is bringing up memories of something in your past something you've confessed to the Lord years ago these verses are not meant to make you feel any shame or any guilt that kind of guilt is pointless Jesus has forgiven you for that your past is past I gotta tell you earlier when we were singing during worship I found myself unexpectedly which is tears streaming down my face because I knew what I was going to talk about and I was thinking of all the things of which I have been forgiven I was thinking of all the ways that when I was young and stupid I did young and stupid stuff and it's things that still when I think about them today I still find myself just cringing do you ever do that do you ever and your memory go oh I cannot believe that I did that I cannot believe I treated that person that way and I found tears rolling down my face as I thought you know I'm not blameless in this area thank God for his forgiveness thank God that in Christ we have a clean slate amen does any can anybody else resonate with this so this is not meant to bring up past guilt if anything rejoice that God has has set you free from that but listen if this is bringing up a current issue that you are struggling with that's why we have recovery groups here at TLC they meet on Mondays and Thursdays they're anonymous and they're designed to help you overcome life controlling addictions including sex addictions those over desires.

Now I want you to see something that's really going to open this up and make this very practical look at the word again that he uses for sexual immorality the word there is in Greek porn a that's the word we get our English word porn or pornography from it means sex outside the sacred covenant of marriage but the specific root meaning of this word in Greek originally referred to prostitution and the whole listen the whole business of buying and selling sex that's what this word means in its most precise definition the word that Paul uses here as we've seen that was a huge problem in Thessalonica the buying and selling of sex like it was just an item in the marketplace do you think that's a huge problem today huge the buying and selling of sex human trafficking prostitution and this may be controversial for some people but pornography what is pornography but the buying and selling of sex the commercialization of sex and yet it's pervasive in our culture and I think this specific word Paul uses is very relevant to you and me today because Paul says Christians are not called to that that that scene is not a scene that we Christians are a part of why because it hurts people Paul says in the next verse in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister he means using sex to make money off of people to exploit people to enslave people to abuse people to debase people he says the Lord will punish all who commit such sins he's meaning that the human traffickers the exploiters of men and women and children the abusers they're going to be held accountable by God and in a wider sense he's reminding all of us here that there are consequences to being out of control sexually there are emotional consequences there are social consequences there are physical consequences and God wants you to be free of that because God wants you to thrive and that's why as Paul says for God did not call us to be impure but to live a holy life and therefore he says anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit in other words Paul is saying I am NOT telling you this because I think I'm any better than you or have any authority to speak on this and I René am NOT preaching this because I think I am any better than anybody in this room I have every human frailty that anybody in this room has the authority to talk about this comes from God and it comes from God's Word for all of us this is very very important for us to understand.

Now after a passage like that I feel it's super important to say this listen carefully there has been a lot of miscommunication in the Christian Church about sex sometimes there's this message sex is bad you know talk about mixed messages you hear sometimes sex is evil sex is bad so save it for marriage it's no wonder people are confused right what that's not the message of the Bible the message of the Bible is God created sex it's great it's positive he wants you to enjoy it the problem is not sex that's not the problem the problem is the misuse of sex it's like this God gave us the gift of fire and fire in a fireplace can warm a home but fire out of the fireplace can destroy home it's exactly like that with sex it can warm a home give it a romantic atmosphere like fire in a fireplace or out of place it can destroy home so Paul is saying to every single one of us here you know don't point fingers at somebody else don't judge somebody but you control your own body.

Now this idea of self-control is mocked in some circles today but have you ever thought how in every other area of life self-control is seen as a good thing? I was reading the biography of Jerry Rice the famous San Francisco 49er he talked about how his high school football coach used to make the players sprint up and down a 40-foot high hill 20 times in a row at sprinters pace and one day Jerry Rice in high school was ready to quit after 11 reps he sneaks off to the locker room and then suddenly he realizes something this is from a Jerry Rice book that I picked up at the world's biggest garage sale that I've been reading but look at this Jerry Rice quote he says I realized once you get into that mode watch this now you get used to doing whatever your body tells you to do and we must tell our bodies what to do not the other way around well that is exactly what Paul is saying here.

Okay so the big question is okay control your own body how do I do that you know because you can't just have a vacuum of something you're trying not to do you know don't think of pink elephants don't think of pink elephants don't think of pink elephants pretty soon that's all you can think about is pink elements and this was the problem with pretty much every sermon or youth speech I ever heard on sexual immorality when I was growing up at Calvary Baptist Church over in Lescatas great church but the preachers would go on in such salacious detail about all the things we are to avoid that after the sermon every time I was like I want to try some of that stuff he gave me some ideas that sounds fun right this is why Paul does not go into detail he says next substitute something make love your ambition make love your ambition starting in verse 9 now about your love for one another we don't need to write to you for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other and in fact you do love all of God's family throughout Macedonia yet we urge you brothers and sisters to do so more and more like he says in 1 Corinthians 14:1 make love your highest goal don't make it like one of your top ten make it your highest goal what he's saying is let this be your hobby your ambition your goal in life to become better at loving the people in your life you know keep looking at your spouse and trying to figure out what's their language of love how can I love them better look at your children ask the same questions look at the friends you have in your life ask the same question how can I be a better person of love in that relationship so live for an audience of one don't give into peer pressure control your own body for the Thessalonians he makes the direct application to the buying and selling of sex but that principle applies in a lot of ways make love your life's ambition and number four mind your own business can I hear an amen on this did you know this is in the Bible mind your own business verse 11 and make it your ambition to lead a quiet life you should mind your own business and work with your hands just as we told you this literally just means whatever your business is become an expert at it maybe you're a cook maybe you're a stay-at-home mom maybe you're a single mom who works your single dad who works maybe you work over in the Silicon Valley maybe you take care of an elderly parent or loved one whatever it is that is your occupation right now well you become an expert at it.

I found a sermon that Martin Luther King jr. preached on this and he had this great conclusion he said whatever your life's work is do it well set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it if a man is called to be a street sweeper he should sweep streets as a Michelangelo painted or a Beethoven composed music or a Shakespeare wrote poetry he should sweep streets so well that although hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well I love that right no matter what it is be the best but why so that people can see your testimony and that leads right into the final point Paul says win the respect of outsiders win the respect of outsiders verse 12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody would you notice for a second look up here did you notice what it does not say that we think sometimes it says it does not say demand the respect win the respect and it does not say win the argument it's as when the respect let them see your life and think to themselves you know what that Christian over there I may not agree with everything that she says or he says they believe I sure would like to be that kind of a person you win their respect honestly this is one of the aims of our church through things like the world's biggest garage sale or the food drive this should be your aim too when you're meeting people in restaurants when you're meeting people you know in traffic jams when you're dropping off your kids somewhere you're you're aware that that you're constantly winning the respect of outsiders as Paul put it.

Why? Because then once you've won their respect you can have actual conversations with them about faith and life and love and all kinds of things you know later this summer we're hosting San Francisco Giants a legendary pitcher Dave Dravecki and through his own battles with cancer he is one the respective outsiders I was listening to KMB are the sports talk radio station heard a host talking about Dave and he was saying you know I'm not religious and I hate it when Christians talk about God every time they have a victory and God this and God that but he said I could listen to Dave Dravecki talk about his faith for three hours because I've watched him walk through this and he's the real deal he's one respect from a very tough crowd.

Now do you see how all of this is following a train of thought live for an audience of one don't give into peer pressure in any area but for the Thessalonians and maybe for you specifically sexual morality but having said that yes Christians are called to holiness but the temptation is to judge others he says no love others and the temptation is to foist our morality on others in an offensive way and Paul says no no no nagging never works mind your own business and win their respect don't bludgeon them let your healthy home and your peaceful spirit be a beacon that draws people to Christ that's all following a train of thought and if more believers took Paul's fatherly words of wisdom here we would have people walking into church saying I want to have that kind of hope too and I know that would happen because that's how the early church grew.

Now in conclusion some of you are going alright what does this look like in real life in Santa Cruz in 2017 to live like this well check this out NBC Bay Area the other day did a TV report on an Apple computer engineer who also attends Twin Lakes Church watch this Ron Powers is a mechanical engineer by profession yes which explains the question of how he was able to pull off such an out-of-the-box idea so what it is I got a van did everything on Craigslist turning a used van into a mobile laundromat complete with two washers and dryers hookups for power and water when it's available a generator and storage when it's not so I put a TV on a garage door track Ron even fashioned an outside of the van entertainment system for the clientele of this free service the homeless of Santa Cruz I saw a need there what I wanted to do is I wanted to restore dignity to people I wonder improve health you have stuff okay awesome but the question of why Ron who has a day job at Apple is spending a few days and nights a week driving around the city offering his clothes cleaning services well that question Ron says is just as simple to answer you know it's one thing to wash someone's clothes even to feed them and help them but it's another to feed the soul.

What was your name again Ron says he's someone who his whole life has spent a lot of time studying his faith but a few years ago realized he wasn't putting it into action bother I thank you for manos what it really did is it just changed me I realized I must have missed a turn somewhere early on yeah if you get that I'll put you in for a load right now so when Ron came up with the idea of loads of love his mobile machine-washing ministry it was a perfect fit not just providing a needed service Lord we know that you love Roger but one with some built-in downtime you have something like their clothes you've got them for an hour or two hours and so what happens is is I'm here already I'm not going anyplace we might as well have a conversation whether that conversation leads to any kind of conversion Ron isn't so concerned either way he knows by the end of the night a load of good will have been done isn't that awesome I love that this man is doing this amazing ministry fantastic as I said he attends here at TLC if you're interested in helping him out with that ministry I put his contact info at the end of the message notes but did you notice that was NBC Bay Area not like the praise the Lord television network or something right but they show him praying they show him ministering they have him talking about his faith why he has won their respect and he's working diligently and he's figuring out ways to love other people and he's about pleasing God not pleasing others.

Paul is saying here be like that be different enough to be attractive so that others are drawn to Christ through you and you draw people into a life-giving relationship with Jesus Christ that is how to be a hope agent. Now we're gonna close a little bit differently today because this is a sermon that calls for a response right so I just want to invite everybody here to get on your feet and then we're going to do something we're actually going to pray as we conclude our service because we've already taken the offering so we don't have to do that but this is still an offering this is about offering ourselves to God that's probably the most important offering of all isn't it?

We're going to sing an old hymn called take my life and if the words of this hymn reflect the intention of your heart then I want to invite you to sing this out loud with all your heart and say yes God take my life but I don't want to force you into this you know if you're going well I don't know if this reflects the attitude just stand and go nobody's gonna notice because people are gonna be thinking about themselves but I just want to invite you right now to make this song your prayer heavenly Father thank you so much for what you've given us now we say to you take my life maybe some for the first time take my life God I commit myself to you Jesus Christ as my Lord as the one voice that I choose to listen to and so Lord this is my plea and my prayer and I won't say in Jesus name amen because we're just going to segue into this song as our closing prayer take my life and let it be consecrated to thee take my moments and my days let them flow in Jesus' praise with him holy Jesus' praise take my hands and let them move at the impulse of thy love take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for thee.

Take thy will and make it thine it shall be no longer mine take my heart, it is thine own it shall be thy royal throne it shall be thy royal throne and take my love, my Lord, my you at thy feet it's treasure stone take thyself and I will be ever only, all for thee ever only, all for thee.