Seven Sevens and More Sevens

Four books tell the story of Jesus, but John comes at you from a different angle. We talk through why Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the Synoptic Gospels and how John steps away from the usual timeline to answer a sharper question: who is Jesus, really? Along the way, we unpack the classic Gospel symbols lion, ox, man, and eagle, and why the eagle is such a fitting picture for John’s claim that Jesus comes from heaven and reveals God.

Then we zoom in on John’s obsession with sevens. Seven sign miracles. Seven “I Am” statements. Seven titles and themes introduced right out of the gate. We connect those patterns to the Bible’s bigger story of the number seven as completion, sufficiency, rest, and freedom, from creation and Sabbath rhythms to the sevens that fill Revelation. This is not trivia for Bible nerds; it is a repeated spotlight on one message: Jesus is enough.

We also camp on John 20:31 and the purpose behind everything John writes: belief that leads to life. That pushes us into a practical tension we all feel, whether we admit it or not, faith in Jesus and his finished work versus faith in ourselves, our effort, and our religious performance. We close with a simple invitation to surrender, receive life, and let that trust turn into an active love for others.

If you’re starting the Gospel of John or coming back with fresh questions, hit play, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find it. What part of John do you most want to understand: the signs, the “I Am” statements, or the meaning of “life”?

Transcript

Welcome And Gospel Map

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Again, this is the Gospel of John overview seven sevens and four sevens. So at the beginning of the New Testament, we got Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Okay? They're called the four gospels. Now the first three Gospels are called the Synoptic Gospels. Everyone says Synoptic Gospels. All right, good. You just spoke something in Greek or Latin, I don't know what language, but it's synoptic means see together. And so Matthew, Mark, and Luke are the Synoptic Gospels, which means they tell the story of Jesus in a similar way. They're someone's eyewitness testimony of Jesus. Okay. And so it follows pretty much the same format. They teach what Jesus taught and did.

unknown 1:15

Right?

Four Gospel Portraits

Ezekiel And Revelation Connections

John’s Purpose And Seven Patterns

SPEAKER_00 1:16

They're like, well, first he did this, and he was born, and he went here and he said this and he did this. And they kind of follow the same tracks, but from three different perspectives. While John, what we're going to study, it takes a completely different track. Okay. It's a gospel that talks about who Jesus is. Not necessarily all that he said and did, but who he is. And it's really different as we're going to see. Okay. So thinking about these four gospels, I'm going to share something really crazy that I just love. And it's that each one of them talks about, they they present Jesus in a different way. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And they they they emphasize a different place that he was from. Okay, so Matthew talks about Jesus as being from the nation of Israel and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And it demonstrates that he was the Messiah that was promised to the nation of Israel. So Matthew's always quoting the Bible, the Old Testament. And so it was written this, and that's why Jesus did this. And it was written this and that's why Jesus did this. And so that's what Matthew, he was written to the Jews saying, This is your king, guys. And so that was Matthew. And it shows Jesus as a lion. A lion. Because the lion is the king of the jungle. So Matthew has like an image, an animal that goes with it, and it's a lion. Okay, then Mark comes along. Mark was probably actually the first one written, uh, written from the perspective of Peter, who probably told his message to Mark, who wrote it down, John Mark. And um that one shows Jesus as a man. Oh no, sorry, not a man. Mess that up. A servant. A servant, the perfect servant. And uh that that one represents Jesus as uh if you as an animal, as a calf or an ox. You could look at it as a bull, kind of is a burden of beast, right? Is the animal that the book of Mark is. So when I taught the book of Mark, I had this really cool, like, well, kind of like that eagle there, but it was like a bull, and he was like, and had cool horns. I liked it. I designed it. Um I thought it was cool. Okay, so Mark shows him as a servant. Jesus was the perfect servant. In other words, he did the job that God asked him to do. He did the job. So in Mark, it talks a lot about the anointed calling of the Messiah. So it's like this is this is what the job description was, and Jesus said, I'll do the job description, I'll do it. And he did it perfectly, and that's what the book of Mark says. Then you have the book of Luke comes and it shows Jesus was a perfect man, okay? And Luke was a doctor, and so he was always talking about the physical things that Jesus like he talked about the medical stuff that, like when he healed somebody, or even when he was being crucified, all the different medical stuff. And he talks about how Jesus was a perfect man. And when he does his genealogy, he doesn't go back just to Abraham, he goes all the way back to Adam, showing that that Jesus was the perfect descendant. Like Adam started it all, Jesus completed it all. He's the perfect man that ever lived. And he's the the the image that represents Luke is a man and sometimes an angel, but angels are in the form of a man, so still a man, okay? And you're like, why are you telling us these weird images? You'll I'll I'll get there in one second, okay? John, what we're talking about, shows Jesus was from heaven, and it demonstrates that Jesus was God. Okay, so in the book of John, Jesus is seen as God, and there's an animal for that, and that's an eagle. Why is it an eagle? Because eagles soar in the heavens above us in a place we can't get to, right? Well, except planes, but those don't always work. By the way, I'm leaving Wednesday on a big plane with Tom. Hi, Tom, and Simon, hi Simon, and we're flying to Nepal. And we have four flights. We'll be traveling like 30 some hours to get there. So pray for us, please. Okay. Please pray for us because my back is not gonna handle this flight. I can already tell you. I'm already in trouble. So pray for us. We're leaving on a big plane, flying like an eagle, because eagles represent God. Okay. Why do I mention all this? Okay, well, there's this really cool verse in the book of Ezekiel, chapter one. So the book, the prophet Ezekiel was like this crazy prophet that always got these glimpses of heaven, and he gets this glimpse of heaven, and up in heaven it says there was these angels, these four angels around the throne of God. So when we think of a throne uh and a chariot that a king would ride on, it's got four wheels. Well, in Ezekiel's vision, God has a chariot, a throne that he rides on, but it's four angels that are made as the wheels that carry God wherever he goes. But their wheels are not just normal wheels, but they're wheels inside of wheels, and it gets real trippy. He's trying to describe something, it's weird. But the cool thing is that the four angels, it says, and for their likeness of their faces, each had the face of a man, the face of a lion on the right side, the face of an ox on the left side, and the face of an eagle. Now, this was written like hundreds of years before Jesus was born. Or we had the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the Gospels. But I firmly believe that these angels represent the four ways that Jesus is represented to us. The way Matthew shows him as a king, Mark shows him as a servant, an ox or a calf. Luke shows him as a man, and John shows him as an eagle. Isn't that cool? Well, guess what? It's not the only place that that's mentioned. Go to the book of Revelation. Now it's double cool. Look at this. Revelation chapter 4, verse 7. John, who wrote the book of John, gets to see a glimpse into heaven, a vision of heaven, and is say, he sees four living creatures. He says the first living creature was like a lion. Imagine that. The second creature like a calf, even the same order. How crazy is this? The third is like a face of a man, and the fourth is like a flying eagle. So if you ever need to know what's the order of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, remember the faces of the ants. I mean, this is so deep, it's so beautiful, it's so supernatural, it's crazy that we see these things. Okay. So that's why in our in our uh poster image that we're gonna show all the time, that's why there's an eagle on our little design for this. Okay? I thought it was cool. Eagle. So now you know that's why there's an eagle. Everyone got it? Four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. John's the best. Just kidding. They're all good. But I like John. All right, so let's talk a little bit about the book of John. John is gonna show us who Jesus is by he's gonna show us seven miracles that Jesus does. Um, and guess what? Six of those miracles are not even mentioned in the other three Gospels. So it's like brand new information. And John was probably the latest of the Gospels to be written. So he's like, he's like, yeah, you guys did a good job with your three Gospels, but I have a different perspective that I'm gonna share, and I'm gonna I remember some different things. So that's why we got these, uh, the book of John the way it is. And John seems to love the number seven. I mean, he is obsessed with it. If you ever read the book of Revelation, which John also wrote, it's like seven of this, seven of that, seven, seven, seven, seven, seven, seven.

unknown 9:11

Okay.

Faith That Leads To Life

Seven Titles And Seven Themes

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Well, the book of John is even like more sevens. Okay, that's why the title of today's sermon is seven, sevens, and some more sevens. Okay. He shows us who Jesus is by the miracles that he does, and then he shows us by these seven dramatic I am statements that he's gonna give. And all of those statements, the I ams that we're gonna read about, which in our poster, they were the the little uh icons that were at the bottom, represent the seven I am statements that Jesus gives. None of those are in the other three gospels. So again, it's a brand new perspective, pretty cool. So, why did John write this? Just to show us that he was really smart and liked the number seven? He actually wrote it for really specific purpose, and he tells us what it is at the end of the book. He's like, he gives us a just a clear as day, it's faith. Okay, John wants you to have faith. He's writing this book so you can believe. And so the key verse for understanding all the book of John is John 20, verse 31. And it says this in John 20, 31. But these are written, all these words he wrote, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, that's the Messiah, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. Life through Jesus, through believing in Jesus. Like we claim that Jesus is life, right? We're we're not following a religion, we're not trying to work ourselves to improvements or getting better. We are discovering life, and life is found in one thing, and that's through faith in a relationship with Jesus that's based on faith, not a relationship that's based on religion or your works, but a relationship with God that's based on faith. Because you're either gonna have faith in Jesus and his works, or you're gonna have faith in yourself and your religious works, or some other philosophy. Okay, so that's the purpose of everything in this book is that we may have a relationship with Jesus based on faith where we get something called life. Oh my gosh, life is what we're all thirsty for, we're all hungry for it, we all want it, and the world is the same. Everybody wants life, and everybody's searching for life in sometimes the wrong places. We think life is found in all the different offerings that the world gives us or the devil gives us, or we even think maybe it's in the church. But John says, listen, there's one source of life, he is life itself, and it is Jesus, and it is the only thing that matters in life, and that life is transferable into you. That's what's so crazy about the gospel of Jesus Christ, about what everything we study about, about his grace and everything. That life that he lived, everyone's like, yeah, Jesus was awesome. Even even atheists are like, Jesus was a pretty good guy. I mean, you can't really blame him for anything. He everybody thinks Jesus was red. Okay. But not everybody knows that his life can be my life. That I can surrender control and I can surrender everything in the way that he will be my life. Jesus is life, right? And that is a mind-blowing, perspective-altering truth that John is gonna wreck your world with. Okay? Jesus is life. So we're gonna we're gonna begin in chapter one, and even just in chapter one, it's crazy. There are seven titles given to Jesus just in chapter one. All right, so you're gonna see him called the Lamb of God, the Son of God, Rabbi, Messiah, King of Israel, Jesus of Nazareth, and the Son of Man. Okay, and that's all just in chapter one. And as we go through, we're gonna unpack each one of those and what it means. And you're asking, well, why is there always seven of these things? I'm not gonna tell you yet, I'll tell you at the end. I promise. Okay, but I gotta bait you so you pay attention to the rest of the sermon. And then we have these seven themes. You can do the next slide here. The seven themes, that was the seven titles. All right, so you know I wasn't lying. Now we're on the seven themes, okay? And these themes are introduced, just in chapter one. All these themes are introduced, and then they're dealt with in depth all throughout the rest of the book. These are the seven themes of the book. The identity of the word. Who is the word? We're gonna find out. Life, that's a big theme. What is life? Light, another big theme. Regeneration, what is that? Grace, we've talked about that before. We're gonna get deep into that. Truth, and the revelation of God the Father in Jesus the Son. So, how we can know who God the Father is by knowing Jesus. That's a big theme in this. So, how many sevens are in John? Well, that's a great question. Again, John loves purposeful patterns. He loves the number seven, and then and the words uh the sevens show up a lot. I don't even know if we can count how many times you can see seven things, and they all spotlight, it's like a spotlight, like when you go to a play and they spot one side of the stage and and it's over here. They all spotlight Jesus as the all-sufficient savior. Okay, because the number seven in the Bible represents completion or sufficiency. Okay, so when something's complete, you guys remember the first chapter, God's you know, he creates the world in how many days?

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Six. And then he rested for a day. Who said six? Nobody, ten Jesus points for whoever.

Seven Groups That Reveal Jesus

SPEAKER_00 16:06

There you go. Good job. I tricked you. It was mean, I know. I shouldn't do that. It speaks of completion. So the week was finished in seven, and it and that that gives us the foundation. Okay, what does seven mean? Seven means it's complete, it's sufficient. And so we're gonna look at seven groups of seven things that I'm gonna tell you about that the book of John has that should all point to Jesus being the complete solution, the complete, sufficient savior for you in your life. And that's what's so powerful about the book of John. It is about you believing that Jesus is everything, that Jesus is complete. Do you believe it? Well, you will if you stick with us through the next, you know, three years that we're in this book. You think I'm joking. Next week we'll look at verse one. Okay. Actually, next week I'm gonna be gone. You have a really big treat next week. Just pause the yeah. Uh I'm not gonna tell you what it is because you need to come and find out, but you're gonna hear an amazing testimony next week and the week after. Really powerful stuff. So I'm really definitely show up the next two weeks or watch online. You guys online. We'll see you there. Okay, so here's the first of the seven big thing, big uh big sevens. Okay, so we got the seven I am statements, the seven I am declarations that Jesus says. Okay. He says, I am the bread of life, I am the light of the world, I am the door of the sheep. What does that mean? Well, it's pretty big deal. I am the good shepherd, I am the resurrection and the life, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and I am the true vine. So again, what's what are we learning in the book of John? Who Jesus is. Well, guess what? Jesus tells you who he is. I am this, I am this, I am this. When you have a conversation with somebody and you're getting to know somebody, you say, tell me about yourself. And they say, hmm, oh nothing. I'm pretty boring. You're like, this is a lame date, I'm out of here.

unknown 18:26

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

How long has it been since you've been on a date? Well, that was a bad example for this crowd. Okay. Um, we get to know people when they tell us what's in their mind, what's in their heart, who they are, what's important to them. Jesus is explaining to us and telling us directly who he is. And guess what? When he tells us who he is, we're also learning who the father is. Because Jesus is gonna come along seeing and he's gonna say, by the way, if you've seen me, you've seen the father. Everything about me, everything about the way I think, the way I feel, the way I am, is exactly the same as who God is. Because though I'm not the Father, I'm the Son, I am God with him. We are one. And that's part of the Trinity that we're gonna learn about. That will just blow your mind if you try to figure it out. But all right, the second big seven group is the seven sign miracles, not including the cross, okay? So that's that's got it owned its own things. But there's seven major things. So he turns water into wine, he heals the royal official's son, okay? He heals the lame man in Bethesda. Um, he turned him cool.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

That was a good joke. Do you like that? Instead of being lame, he was cool. It's a miracle.

Evidence That Builds Smart Faith

Invitation To Shared Life

What Seven Means In Scripture

SPEAKER_00 19:57

Feeding that was really cheesy, I know, but I'm in that mood today. Okay. Feeding the 5,000, walking on water, healing the man born blind, raising Lazarus, all of these things uh are big miracles. Some of them talked about in other books, but actually six of them are not in the other gospels. All right, the third seven things is seven key witnesses who confess Jesus' identity. Identity. There's seven people that talk about who Jesus is. John the Baptist says, This is the Son of God. Nathanael says, You are the Son of God, the King of Israel. Peter says, You have the words of eternal life. You are the holy one of God. Martha says, You are the Christ, the Son of God. Thomas says, You're my Lord and my God. The healed blind man says, Lord, I believe. And then John himself, the author, says, Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. So we're gonna see all those things. Okay. Next we have seven times Jesus simply says, I am. Okay, now when somebody says that, that is a big, big, big deal. Why? Because that's the name of God. When they asked, when Moses was talking to the burning bush in the desert, and God appeared to him as a fire in the bush, and Moses is like, Who do I say sent me? What's your name? And God's like, I am. That's my name. What does that mean? Because that's a weird name to our logical brains in America. It means I am who I am. That's all you get for now, Moses. I am the becoming one. I am whatever you need. I am that. But you have to wait till chapter two before you get a real illustration of who I am, a real representation of who I am, which we get in Jesus. So you want to know who God is? You want to know what God is like? He's giving you the biggest clues in the world. All these different verses, Jesus simply says, with no other context, I am, whether by answering a question. One time he literally says, I am, and all the people that were coming to arrest him fall down backwards, showing his Authority even over them. He could have just killed them, but he just knocked them over saying, Come on, guys. It's funny, right? Okay. The fifth thing we have is there's seven major discussions or discourses or speeches that Jesus has. He has the discussion about the new birth with Nicodemus. He has talks about the living water in chapter four with the Samaritan woman. He talks about the son's authority and life. He talks about being the bread of life. He talks about being the light of the world and what true freedom is. He talks about being the good shepherd, and then the last three, four chapters of the book are all in the upper room on the last night. So the book of John is divided in half. You have the first half, which is uh a series of miracles Jesus does. I'm not talking to you Siri, I said Ceres. Sorry, Siri started talking to me. Um the first half of the book is like these seven different miracles, and then the last half of the book is Jesus talking to his disciples in the upper room on the night before. So he divides it completely different than the other than the other ones do. All right, the sixth seven is there's these witnesses. So John wants to build a legal case that Jesus is God and is who he says he is. So he says, I'm gonna give you seven witnesses uh in a legal framework that would have worked in a court of law back then. So you have the Father's witness, you have the works of the Son, what he actually does, you have the scriptures, you have John the Baptist, you have the Holy Spirit of truth bearing witness, you have the disciples and the apostles bearing witness, and then you have the author's own eyewitness testimony. All these things are things that would work in a court of law. So what why is John doing that? He wants you to have the ability to believe. Because when John says, I want you to believe that Jesus is God, the Son of God, and life, he's he does not want you to have blind faith. That makes me so irritated when people are like, You Christians, you just want me to have blind faith. No, I want you to have a smart faith. I want you to understand history and evidence and look at the evidence because if you look at the evidence, you will determine Jesus is definitely God and Jesus definitely lived 2,000 years ago, Jesus definitely rose from the dead, and it can be verifiable by as much evidence as you could possibly have to an event that happened 2,000 years ago. We are literally more sure that Jesus rose from the dead than anything else that happened 2,000 years ago. We have more evidence for that event than anything else. It's true, and it bothers me when people are like, I just have to have blind faith in God. Faith does need to be full. You need to put your full faith in God, but it doesn't even need to be blind. Jesus reveals all that we need to know about him. He says, I am trustworthy. And John literally builds a legal argument that we can understand. And we'll we'll break that down as we go through it. All right, the last seven is there's seven hours. Jesus has this phrase that he utters, My hour has not yet come, my hour has not yet come, my hour has not yet come. But then he starts to say, My hour is now arriving. And then he says, he says that again, my hour is now arriving. And then at the end of the book, he's saying, My hour has come. So these seven different times he talks about his hour. What is that hour? It's a really interesting thing. We'll get into it later. Why does all this matter? Again, John's sevens, all of the sevens, are like big street signs that say Jesus is the way. Or big billboards that say Jesus is enough. All of these sevens. Jesus is your life. He is. And this book is gonna prove it to you. Whether you live or die, whether you're healthy or sick, whether you're rich or poor, Jesus wants to live your life for you, through you, as you. He wants your union with him to be like one shared life. That's how close he's calling you to live with him. He loves you, he's already invited it, he's already done the work to purify you and make this possible, but he still gives you an invitation because there has to be a response from us saying, Okay, Jesus, I want to live with you. I want to receive your life into me and allow you to live that life, my life, through you, through faith. So there's this relational invitation to each one of us. And each of these sevens is a sign saying, Jesus is the way, Jesus is enough, he's your shepherd, he's the light to your path, he's your access, your door, he's your resurrection, he's your way, he's your source, he is literally all of it. And through the cross and the resurrection and his finished work that he does at the end of this book, Jesus took away all your sins once for all. You are literally forgiven, made brand new, completely holy, and he gives eternal life to all who believe. That's what this is all about. And so our our response is we can rest in him. Instead of resting in our performance or our law keeping or our religiosity or our own path of living, we can rest in him. What am I supposed to do with my life? I don't know, but I'm gonna keep my eyes on Jesus and I'm sure he'll take care of it. That's the most restful type of existence. You don't have to stress about all the stuff. You can just say, Jesus, I'm glad. I'm so at peace that you are gonna do all my life stuff for me, through me. My job is to surrender and to allow you to live through me. Does that mean it's passive? No, it's actually incredibly active. You're you're always looking, Jesus, what are you gonna do through me today? Who can I love? Who can I bless? Who can I serve? Because that's how Jesus lives. It's how he lives. He doesn't live self-focused, he lives others focused. And so we're not promoting a lazy gospel life. We're promoting the most active life where you're literally laying down your life for your friends and serving their needs and your spouse and your kids and all your relationships. You're you're doing it for them, you're living for them and not yourself, because that's how Jesus lives through you. Amen. All right. So these the number seven represents completeness, fullness, or finished work. It's like job well done, is what the number seven says. Everywhere we see the number seven, it's like God's purposes are whole and complete. He doesn't do things part way and he doesn't do things in it with a tentative, he's all in and he completes all of it. So again, we had creation week. There's a big seven, right? And from there on, when he works six days and he rests on the seventh, that gives us this understanding that the number seven speaks of something being finished and at rest. Okay, does that sound like something Jesus does? Yeah, when he's on the cross and he's like, it is finished, and he gave up his spirit. Okay? Finished and then rest is what follows. Then you all throughout the Old Testament, you had these covenant rhythms that uh we see. We see Sabbath day, we see uh Sabbath years, like the year of Jubilee, and then every seventh year all your debt was forgiven. And you see all these different sevens in the book of Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy and all the laws that God gave, because he always wanted people to be thinking about completion and freedom. So we had completion and rest in creation. Now we have completion and freedom with all the traditions and rhythms that God established for the nation of Israel. He wanted them to understand your debt was free after seven years. If you became a slave, you were automatically set free after seven years. Like every different seven that we see always was you get freedom after the seven years. Then he built the tabernacle and the temple with worship, and he taught them how to worship him. And guess what? All kinds of sevens were in there. Um, you had the you had seven lamps on the lampstand, right? Seven can like candlesticks on the lampstand. You had sprinkling blood seven times, you had seven priests with seven trumpets, and all of these worship things signal we fully trust in the Lord, and he fully completes and does what is needed for us. He's worthy to be worshipped, and when we worship him, we're literally trusting him with our life. Then you have the book of Proverbs and the wisdom books like Job and stuff like that. And you see in the Psalms, you see the word of the Lord is pure, refined seven times. And that means it's building the idea more of seven, meaning it's perfectly pure. The word of God, perfectly pure. You guys know the Bible is perfectly pure, it is a hundred percent pure medicine for you, truth for you. It's God's work for you given to you. And then Jesus comes along and he says, My name is literally the word, because he, everything he says, is the pure message of God for us. And then we get to the end of the book. You got the book of Daniel, and then you get to the book of Revelation, and you see all these sevens. You got seven seals, you got seven trumpets, you got seven bowls, you got seven churches, seven spirits, seven stars. And in all this apocalyptic literature, it's showing that God has complete oversight over the entire history of the world and everything that's coming. He's in complete control of not only the cosmos and all the angels and spiritual realities, but all the governments and all the wars and all the famines and all the way down to your little life. He is in complete control. And that's what the number seven teaches us in those things. So, why does all this matter, guys? Because in the the new covenant of grace that we live in, this the number seven is always pointing to what Jesus finished and accomplished for us. He is the true Sabbath rest for us. He is the He when He died on the cross, he said, It is finished, and that is the ultimate seven moment when He said, It is finished. Because He did that for us, we are totally completed seven times over. We are totally cleansed like you wash something seven times in the in the um you know wash machine. We are made complete, not just once, but like seven times over. That's what he's trying to get across. He's like, you are so complete, just multiply it times seven, and to get an idea of what God has already done for you. You're not inching your way towards acceptance with God. Oh, I hope I I need to keep doing this, I need to keep doing that, and it all depends on me. What the what the seven means, and all these sevens, the message of seven is that it is truly done, and all God is asking from you is faith. And so what do we grow in? We grow in faith, which means we grow in trusting what Jesus has already accomplished. That's what we're growing in. We're growing in believing that what Jesus says is already true about us. And that is what the book of John is all about.

Quiet Prayer And Surrender

SPEAKER_01 35:58

Amen. Amen. Look at that. Ten minutes early. There you go. Let's all stand. Oh, I should have said seven minutes early. Oh that would have bad. Oh, that's great. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

I don't want us to just get in the tradition mode uh that we can just come to church and not personally connect with God. Okay. So I want us to everyone close your eyes and just take a moment and in silence just have a conversation with the Lord. This world offers so many things that don't complete us, don't meet our needs. And Jesus, we hear from you this morning that you do complete us. You are everything for us, and you have done all that is necessary. And so, Father, we throw ourselves completely on you. We put our hope and trust in you, and we surrender all to you, Jesus. In your name we pray. Amen.