SPEAKER_00: Well, sermon scripture reading.
SPEAKER_00: We continue in the Gospel of Mark this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Mark 12.
SPEAKER_00: We have a few more questions that Jesus has presented to him, following on from last week.
SPEAKER_00: And so hear now the reading of God's holy word.
SPEAKER_00: And Sadducees came to him who say that there is no resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And they asked him a question, saying, Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife, but leaves no child, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.
SPEAKER_00: There were seven brothers, the first took a wife, and when he died left no offspring.
SPEAKER_00: And the second took her and died, leaving no offspring.
SPEAKER_00: And the third likewise.
SPEAKER_00: And the seven left no offspring.
SPEAKER_00: Last of all the woman also died.
SPEAKER_00: In the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be?
SPEAKER_00: For the seven had her as a wife.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to them, Is it not the reason you are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God?
SPEAKER_00: For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses and the passage about the bush?
SPEAKER_00: How God spoke to him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
SPEAKER_00: He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
SPEAKER_00: You are quite wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, Which commandment is the most important of all?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered, The most important is hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
SPEAKER_00: And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.
SPEAKER_00: The second is this you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: There is no other commandment greater than these.
SPEAKER_00: And the scribe said to him, You're right, teacher.
SPEAKER_00: You have truly said that he is one, and that there is no other besides him.
SPEAKER_00: And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding, with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, You are not far from the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, we thank you for revealing yourself to us that we might look upon you, that we might even enter into a greater understanding of who you are, to see you, to behold you.
SPEAKER_00: And even now, Lord, through your spirit to know you more intimately and deeply.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, would you give us that?
SPEAKER_00: Would you give us to know you more deeply and intimately?
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So as I mentioned earlier, we have a series of questions that we've been going through over the last uh, well, last week and then a few weeks prior to that, since we had a little bit of an intermission.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus here is continuing to answer some questions.
SPEAKER_00: He's in the temple at this point, not long before he goes to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And he's he's surrounded by the chief priest and the and the Sanhedrin, those who made up the Sanhedrin.
SPEAKER_00: And he's publicly refuting their arguments in the temple.
SPEAKER_00: The questions so far have been questions related to authority.
SPEAKER_00: That was the first question.
SPEAKER_00: And then the second question, as we looked at last week, was regarding uh taxes.
SPEAKER_00: Uh at this point, now though, as we enter into this passage, it's the Sadducees who take the turn to ask Jesus a question.
SPEAKER_00: And so we don't know a lot about the Sadducees.
SPEAKER_00: We know more about the Pharisees and scribes and others in regard to history, historians like Josephus.
SPEAKER_00: But we do know that one of the big distinctions between them and other rulers, like the Pharisees, lay with the fact that they didn't believe in the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: The old saying is that's why they were sad, you see.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and so we we we read in Acts that they rejected belief in angels as well, and they denied that we possess an immaterial spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in that sense, they were materialists, uh focused on what could be seen and empirically proven.
SPEAKER_00: The scriptures, as they regarded them, was a moral code to follow, holding only to the first five books.
SPEAKER_00: And so they come to Jesus with this question that shows how disingenuous the question is, because it's about the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we just zoom out for a second, just to again understand why Jesus is here in the first place, he's in this situation because he has revealed that he is the Christ, that he is the Messiah, that he is God in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, these men do not believe him.
SPEAKER_00: And so they want his life because of it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the claim that even today many people say I'm willing to listen to some of the things in the scriptures, but but that's going too far.
SPEAKER_00: People still take offense at it today.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus is God in the flesh and that he alone is the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_00: That's the pill they couldn't swallow.
SPEAKER_00: And so, as was mentioned last week, those these questions that are posed to Jesus are meant to trap him.
SPEAKER_00: Uh like a snare that's laid down on the ground.
SPEAKER_00: You know what a snare is perhaps like, where you lay it down and then you try to disguise it with perhaps some things uh around it in order to make it blend into its surroundings so that whatever it is, an animal or something else, whatever wanders around, wanders into it unexpectedly.
SPEAKER_00: There's premeditation involved here in these questions.
SPEAKER_00: These are thorny questions that are being used against him.
SPEAKER_00: And so again, this question relates to the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: To the Sadducees, this question is a moral conundrum.
SPEAKER_00: In the resurrection, whose wife will this woman be?
SPEAKER_00: Given that she had many husbands in her life, and given that Moses' instructions were followed, Jesus, who are you gonna pick?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Trap laid.
SPEAKER_00: Now let's wait.
SPEAKER_00: Who is Jesus gonna pick?
SPEAKER_00: Is it gonna be number one?
SPEAKER_00: Is it gonna be number two?
SPEAKER_00: Is it gonna be number three?
SPEAKER_00: So on.
SPEAKER_00: A thorny issue to respond to.
SPEAKER_00: I suspect it was it was probably a proof text that fueled their unbelief in the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: This encounter reminds us, I think, how much unfairness can take place when it comes to moral questions, spiritual conversations.
SPEAKER_00: Hearts looking for reasons to add fuel to their unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: We can probably think of the many times when we have entered into conversation with others over the course of a day or a week or even a lifetime.
SPEAKER_00: Where we've had conversations about spiritual or moral issues.
SPEAKER_00: Some we might categorize as having been genuine, humble dialogues.
SPEAKER_00: Others, perhaps, people have wanted to stir up debate, and yet others perhaps have been premeditated, they've wanted to present a question meant to try to embarrass and discredit.
SPEAKER_00: And it may cause us to wonder sometimes how would I respond to this kind of trap, knowing how high the stakes are?
SPEAKER_00: What would I do or say?
SPEAKER_00: I think we can sometimes fear those kind of thoughts, those questions, those scenarios, these conversations that may await us.
SPEAKER_00: What if I don't speak with truth and clarity?
SPEAKER_00: What will that look like?
SPEAKER_00: What would I say?
SPEAKER_00: I think it reminds us of the promise that Jesus gave us that the Spirit will help us in such times, and that we need not be anxious or worry about what we might say.
SPEAKER_00: To illustrate this in his book, Against the Flow, Oxford professor John Lennox.
SPEAKER_00: He tells a story about an encounter with a Russian follower of Jesus who spent years in a Siberian labor camp for the crime of teaching his children about the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: He shared with Lennox of his experience.
SPEAKER_00: Lennox writes of this man.
SPEAKER_00: He says, He described to me that he had seen things that no man should ever have to see.
SPEAKER_00: I listened, thinking how little I really knew about life, and wondering how I would have feared under his circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: As if he had read my thoughts, he suddenly said, You couldn't cope with that, could you?
SPEAKER_00: Embarrassed, I stumbled out something like, No, I'm sure you're right.
SPEAKER_00: He then grinned and said, Nor could I.
SPEAKER_00: I was a man who fainted at the sight of his own blood, let alone that of others.
SPEAKER_00: But what I discovered in the camp was this: God does not help us face theoretical situations, but real ones.
SPEAKER_00: Like you, I couldn't imagine how one could cope in the gulag.
SPEAKER_00: But once there I found that God met me exactly as Jesus had promised his disciples when he was preparing them for victimization and persecution.
SPEAKER_00: And that gives me confidence.
SPEAKER_00: So that whatever comes our way, whenever it comes our way, and not necessarily a moment before, he will give us what we need.
SPEAKER_00: So take heart the Spirit's willingness to give you what you need in such hours.
SPEAKER_00: And we see that here with Jesus and conversing with these men.
SPEAKER_00: It's quite remarkable that Jesus even converses with them in many respects.
SPEAKER_00: But we see Jesus here enter into this hard conversation of uh facing opposition.
SPEAKER_00: And we see him express some beautiful graces here, right?
SPEAKER_00: Knowing their schemes, knowing their intentions, knowing their plots, knowing the bee's nest that he's walking into that's stirring, we see the graces of his steadfast love that is even willing to speak and acknowledge and answer them and responding to them all to them at all.
SPEAKER_00: But also we see his courage, patient endurance, along with profound wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: And those are the graces that when present, even in situations where unbelief and impure motives are present, it reminds us that we all have a conscience.
SPEAKER_00: And where there's a conscience, there's always hope.
SPEAKER_00: There are some conversations that I've had that have not led to visible change in the moment from anyone that I've been engaged with.
SPEAKER_00: I've tried to be gracious, but I haven't seen any change.
SPEAKER_00: We can't determine that.
SPEAKER_00: But on other occasions there has been.
SPEAKER_00: There has been a seed, I would say, a seed that has invited and led to deeper inquiry.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps in the form of another question, a deeper curiosity, something that might have been lodged in that conversation that's been taken home and been brought up later.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, we see an example of this in verse 28 here.
SPEAKER_00: Notice after Jesus responds to the Sadducees, a scribe comes to Jesus with a question of his own.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because of the manner and the good answer that Jesus gave.
SPEAKER_00: Yet another question of his own for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: If violence or if hotheadedness had run the show, I don't think he would have come and that question been presented.
SPEAKER_00: And it ought to encourage us once again to entrust ourselves to the Lord whenever we face such conversations.
SPEAKER_00: God's power, God's ability to bring good out of evil.
SPEAKER_00: Out of the eater is brought something to eat, something sweet.
SPEAKER_00: God can do that.
SPEAKER_00: He can bring out of the eater of hard conversation something to eat.
SPEAKER_00: And even something sweet.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus, in response, he says, There's no giving in marriage in the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: In that sense, we'll be like angels, uh communion with God being central.
SPEAKER_00: And then it gets to the root of the issue, the flaw and their whole outlook.
SPEAKER_00: He says, your problem is you neither know the scriptures nor the power of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's quite a rebuttal, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: How many?
SPEAKER_00: It reminds us a little bit about the nature of error.
SPEAKER_00: How many errors come from a faulty root system?
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: How many conversations are poisoned because they come from an impure, unbelieving heart?
SPEAKER_00: How many, how often are moral issues able to be traced back to greed?
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Or sexual morality traced back to a covetous heart?
SPEAKER_00: If a harsh word were to be examined under a microscope, how often would it reveal ill will or selfish gain?
SPEAKER_00: How often error comes from a faulty root system?
SPEAKER_00: This is the problem.
SPEAKER_00: This is the root, Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: You know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in a sense, they did know the scriptures, right?
SPEAKER_00: They just quoted one.
SPEAKER_00: And it explains Jesus' reference then to Moses in the burning bush in Exodus.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they held to those books.
SPEAKER_00: What's the point?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is making it clear that God manifested himself to Moses not as the I will be or the I was, but as the I am.
SPEAKER_00: The living God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is saying to the Sadducees, he's saying, You know nothing of this present power.
SPEAKER_00: You know nothing of this present reality.
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom of God here is in your midst.
SPEAKER_00: The king is standing before you.
SPEAKER_00: And you have no idea.
SPEAKER_00: You know nothing of this present power of the I am.
SPEAKER_00: And so it leads us to ask, well, how is it then that someone can know the scriptures and its power and and yet not another person?
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: What's the answer?
SPEAKER_00: Is it that scripture is powerful on some occasions and not on others?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: The answer is no.
SPEAKER_00: All scripture is God breathed, right?
SPEAKER_00: The issue lies in the heart.
SPEAKER_00: God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.
SPEAKER_00: The scriptures are not just some ancient textbook passed down over long periods of time.
SPEAKER_00: Just a just a dead letter, a moral rule book.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's just that's that's many have that impression today.
SPEAKER_00: They consider the Bible and they characterize Christians by this that there are people who follow certain rules.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I've been part of many conversations where where that's been the impression you have your rules.
SPEAKER_00: And it might come from your book.
SPEAKER_00: You have your morality, but that's not for me.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's old-fashioned, out of date.
SPEAKER_00: And all they're giving evidence to when they say that is the fact that they're strangers to its present power to be at work in their own lives.
SPEAKER_00: How about you?
SPEAKER_00: Are you acquainted with a power that's at work through the scriptures?
SPEAKER_00: Do you find cries arising on your heart as you hear the word preached?
SPEAKER_00: As the Bible is read?
SPEAKER_00: Do you find yourself expressing that need to Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of power that's howled out in the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: And so if we sense a stirring in our hearts, showing us, revealing to us a sense of need, that's his mercy to you and I.
SPEAKER_00: If you are familiar with his power, then you know that the scriptures show us our need on every page, and that every page also whispers his name.
SPEAKER_00: He's not the God of the dead, he's the God of the living.
SPEAKER_00: Present to meet and transform the humble and needy heart.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone else who thinks otherwise, as Jesus says, is quite wrong.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the first question.
SPEAKER_00: And so the answer from Jesus here sends the Sadducees into a little bit of debate of their own, and they huddle together and and frenzy and deliberate.
SPEAKER_00: And while they're debating this response, how to handle this response from Jesus, another man comes up, a scribe, to ask a question of his own.
SPEAKER_00: One of the scribes who is even more familiar with the scriptures takes his opportunity and and and he's seen that Jesus knows a thing or two.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: He he finds agreement with Jesus, even.
SPEAKER_00: But he wants to test Jesus with a question of his own.
SPEAKER_00: And it gives us a little bit of a hint in Matthew's gospel that the question is coming from a place to test Jesus, and so it's it's more.
SPEAKER_00: More of him saying, I'm pretty confident in what I know.
SPEAKER_00: And I think I'm the superior teacher here.
SPEAKER_00: And he's confident that he knows the stuff.
SPEAKER_00: But he wants to test Jesus to see what he will say.
SPEAKER_00: And the substance of his question is one of importance.
SPEAKER_00: What is the greatest commandment, teacher?
SPEAKER_00: What would you say?
SPEAKER_00: The thing most important.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus answers him from the Shema, Deuteronomy 6, 4, 5.
SPEAKER_00: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
SPEAKER_00: You shall love the Lord with all your heart, all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.
SPEAKER_00: The second is this you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: There is no other commandment greater than these.
SPEAKER_00: And the man he agrees with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, you're right, teacher.
SPEAKER_00: Very good.
SPEAKER_00: That's correct.
SPEAKER_00: You're right.
SPEAKER_00: But then he adds his own commentary.
SPEAKER_00: He says, What you've said is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: And that's instructive for us because remember, there were many at the time going and presenting offerings and sacrifices in the temple themselves.
SPEAKER_00: There's wisdom associated with what he said.
SPEAKER_00: Passages like 1 Samuel 15, 22, Hosea 6, 6, the prophet Micah all speak to this.
SPEAKER_00: But what Jesus says next is an amazing response.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You are not far from the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: Mic drop moment.
SPEAKER_00: That's an amazing statement.
SPEAKER_00: You're close.
SPEAKER_00: You're orthodox.
SPEAKER_00: You agree with the scripture and with me.
SPEAKER_00: You interpret it correctly.
SPEAKER_00: You're close.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is saying, though you give an intellectual assent to the truth, that's not enough to enter the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Now that might head a little close to home because it is close to the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: But I think it serves as a warning against right notions of the truth without the fruit that comes from a right relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: J.I.
SPEAKER_00: Packer characterizes the orthodox intellectual in this way.
SPEAKER_00: He says constantly they present themselves as rigid, argumentative, critical, champions of God's truth, for whom orthodoxy is all, upholding and defending their own view of the truth, with a Calvinist, Arminian, dispensational, or Pentecostal, National Church, Reformist or Free Church, separatist, or whatever it might be, is their leading interest, and they invest themselves unstintingly in this task.
SPEAKER_00: There is little warmth about them.
SPEAKER_00: Relationally, they are remote.
SPEAKER_00: Experiences do not mean much to them.
SPEAKER_00: Winning the battle for mental correctness is their one great purpose.
SPEAKER_00: They see, truly enough, that in our anti-rational, feeling-oriented, instant gratification culture, conceptual knowledge of divine things is undervalued.
SPEAKER_00: And they seek with passion to write the balance at this point.
SPEAKER_00: What is his point?
SPEAKER_00: His point is this conceptual knowledge kills if one does not move on from knowing notions to knowing the realities to which they refer.
SPEAKER_00: In this case, from knowing about God to a relational acquaintance with God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: And as I've read that this week, I've been led to ask the Lord this week, Lord, save me from settling for a conceptual knowledge about you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm convicted by this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm humbled by this in new ways.
SPEAKER_00: My cry is, Lord, shape me, shape me deeply to have this understanding, this relationship that is not just conceptual, but that knows the reality of your presence with me.
SPEAKER_00: To know more of your heart, to know more of your mind, that leads to know more of your will.
SPEAKER_00: Grant me to walk humbly with you in a way that is humble, that when I sin says, I'm sorry, not because I know better, but because it offends a personal God who I love and who loves me.
SPEAKER_00: Guard me against a cold intellectualism that doesn't result in being more acquainted with the warmth of your love.
SPEAKER_00: That bears all the pleasing fruits that he so graciously and gloriously displays.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, how important this is.
SPEAKER_00: When I married Stacy, I I thought my ability at that time to love was somewhat mature.
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in a Christian family.
SPEAKER_00: I was in seminary at the time, studying the original languages and systematics and the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: I sacrificed things to move to the states.
SPEAKER_00: But I soon found that I needed to grow in my apprehension and experience of the heights and the depths and the breadths and the lengths of love.
SPEAKER_00: Where love really has to be displayed.
SPEAKER_00: And it reminded me of how needy I really was for the love of Christ to fill my heart.
SPEAKER_00: Day to day.
SPEAKER_00: If I have prophetic powers, he says, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
SPEAKER_00: If I give away all that I have and I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: It's a familiar passage to many of us.
SPEAKER_00: But are we aligned with these words as greatest importance and the reality to which they bear?
SPEAKER_00: Because the humbling refrain of this commandment as I read it again is the all, all, all, all.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a little bit of, well, put it this way, a little bit of moral reform is not enough.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: A little bit of change here and there doesn't accomplish all.
SPEAKER_00: The commandment has no room to budge.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't allow for close enough or mostly done or thereabouts.
SPEAKER_00: To accomplish the whole law and even break it, as James tells us in one point is to break the whole entire law.
SPEAKER_00: And if we're still under the law, we will be judged by it.
SPEAKER_00: Close enough is not good enough.
SPEAKER_00: All means all.
SPEAKER_00: All my heart, all my soul, all my strength, all my will.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's a high bar.
SPEAKER_00: And the truth is that you and I can't love like that.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We can't live up to that standard.
SPEAKER_00: Which is why Jesus not only needed to speak, but to die.
SPEAKER_00: All right, that's where the gospel comes in.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel that says there is someone who has come, one who has done it, who has lived the all, who has kept the law in its absolute perfection, who has fulfilled all the necessary requirements in their totality.
SPEAKER_00: And not only that, but who's paid the penalty necessary for not having kept all that was required of us.
SPEAKER_00: And not only that, but who was willing to impute all of his perfect record to us.
SPEAKER_00: So that those who repent and receive him can be counted as those who in his eyes are seen to have done it all.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has done it all.
SPEAKER_00: The question is, is he all we need?
SPEAKER_00: Are you and I covered by his blood?
SPEAKER_00: Is his love being received and growing inside of us, knowing that in him we have done it all?
SPEAKER_00: Because you see, the one who has affected this on our behalf is none other than the king.
SPEAKER_00: The king who says to us, abandon all of your efforts to rule your own life.
SPEAKER_00: Abandon all of your attempts to produce a kingdom of your own and enter my kingdom as a recipient of my love.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, you see, enters into our barrenness in order to birth and impart new life.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he came.
SPEAKER_00: And his intention is not to make us wallow in guilt.
SPEAKER_00: His intention is that by this love coming not just something abstract out there, but coming into our hearts and being filling our hearts is something that then causes us to carry Jesus around with us in our hearts, in our thoughts, cherished, loved, served, and obeyed.
SPEAKER_00: As faith makes him consciously real and personal to us.
SPEAKER_00: And so I wonder, I wonder sometimes what happened to this man.
SPEAKER_00: Did he enter the kingdom of God?
SPEAKER_00: Or did he only get close?
SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But what we do know is, and I would say this don't let close be your stirring your destiny.
SPEAKER_00: Close doesn't have to be trivia.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let his love pass you by.
SPEAKER_00: The door is open to a humble heart who comes to him with an unwavering trust.
SPEAKER_00: That he has done it all and would give you all if you would receive him.
SPEAKER_00: The I am is here to win you.
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps that's true of you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: As we respond this morning at a moment, we've chosen a song that acknowledges a clear sense of our need, right?
SPEAKER_00: And the the invitation to a repentant, needy heart that Jesus so graciously responds to.
SPEAKER_00: Come ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we have to offer.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is ready, stands to save you.
SPEAKER_00: Full of pity, love, and power.
SPEAKER_00: We're not able, but he is able.
SPEAKER_00: He is able, he is willing.
SPEAKER_00: Doubt no more.
SPEAKER_00: May this be a song that finds acceptance in your heart and an unwavering trust.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray first.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, we praise you and we thank you for the depths that we've comprehended once again of your love.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we confess that it is a high bar, but Lord, it only serves to remind us once again of the heights and depths and breadths and lengths that you were willing to go to in order to save us and to win us and to receive us.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we pray that you would make us those who are acquainted with those who are being filled and fueled as we walk and journey through life with this same love.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we pray that it would come to expression in day-to-day conversations, engagements, life.
SPEAKER_00: And Father, we ask and pray that we would glorify you and them all.
SPEAKER_00: And so we pray and ask these things in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.