SPEAKER_00: So hopefully we've got in front of us uh Mark's Gospel, uh chapter seven and verse uh twenty-four.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray as we come to the reading and preaching of the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Almighty God, your voice is powerful.
SPEAKER_00: The voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that your word comes from the lips of your Son, the Lord Jesus, in the power of your Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It comes with power.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you too that it comes with kindness and grace.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that you would shepherd us by and through your word right now.
SPEAKER_00: Save us from hardening our hearts against your word.
SPEAKER_00: Enable us to receive it and to take it in, to feel its sweetness.
SPEAKER_00: We ask that it would do in our hearts what you wish it to.
SPEAKER_00: For Jesus' name's sake.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So let's listen to the words of Almighty God.
SPEAKER_00: So Mark chapter 7, I'm going to read from verse 24 down to chapter 8 and verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: And from there Jesus arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
SPEAKER_00: And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden.
SPEAKER_00: But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet.
SPEAKER_00: Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to her, Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.
SPEAKER_00: But she answered him, Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to her, For this statement you may go your way, the demon has left your daughter.
SPEAKER_00: And she went home and found the child lying in bed, and the demon gone.
SPEAKER_00: Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the region of the Decapolis.
SPEAKER_00: And they brought to him a man who was deaf, and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him.
SPEAKER_00: And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting, touched his tongue, and looking up to heaven he sighed and said to him, Ephhaw, that is, be opened.
SPEAKER_00: And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus charged them to tell no one.
SPEAKER_00: But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.
SPEAKER_00: And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, He has done all things well.
SPEAKER_00: He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.
SPEAKER_00: In those days, when again a great crowd had gathered and they had nothing to eat, he called his disciples to him and said to them, I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat.
SPEAKER_00: And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way, and some of them have come from far away.
SPEAKER_00: And his disciples answered him, How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?
SPEAKER_00: And he asked them, How many loaves do you have?
SPEAKER_00: They said, Seven.
SPEAKER_00: And he directed the crowd to sit down on the ground, and he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people, and they set them before the crowd, and they had a few small fish.
SPEAKER_00: And having blessed them, he said that they also should be set before them.
SPEAKER_00: And they ate and were satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: And they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.
SPEAKER_00: And there were about four thousand people.
SPEAKER_00: And he sent them away, and immediately he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the district of Dalmanutha.
SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks be to God for his word to us today.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes Jesus says things that we wish he had not said.
SPEAKER_00: Awkward things, sharp things.
SPEAKER_00: Like in verse 27.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine that Jesus was at a meal in your house, and he speaks to one of your family members, maybe a mother or a wife or a daughter, and he calls her a dog.
SPEAKER_00: And that is what Jesus says in verse 27.
SPEAKER_00: It's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knows exactly what he's doing and what he is saying.
SPEAKER_00: It feels like a deeply offensive thing to say.
SPEAKER_00: And nowadays in our culture, that would be a horrendous thing for a man to say to a woman, wouldn't it?
SPEAKER_00: It's deeply sinful.
SPEAKER_00: No man should say something like that about or even let alone to a woman.
SPEAKER_00: Now back then it was offensive also, but in a different way.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' time in the first century, Jewish people commonly called all Gentile people, that is non-Jews, whether they were male or female, they called them dogs.
SPEAKER_00: Behind that term was a sense of we are special to God, and you, you are out there.
SPEAKER_00: You are unclean, you are far from God, and you're you're untouchable by us.
SPEAKER_00: We do not relate to you as being like us.
SPEAKER_00: Now Jesus does not make mistakes, uh, Jesus does not sin.
SPEAKER_00: So why does he say what he says?
SPEAKER_00: Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.
SPEAKER_00: And unmistakably, he is talking about this lady and those who are like her.
SPEAKER_00: He was not being offensive or gratuitous.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, Jesus loved and cared for women in a time when they were often mistreated.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember back in chapter 5 when he met that outcast woman?
SPEAKER_00: He healed her, cleansed her, and called her his daughter.
SPEAKER_00: So these are not unkind words, for the Lord Jesus never uttered any unkind words.
SPEAKER_00: They're not careless words, like the words that slip out of our mouths so very often.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, this is right at the heart of what God is saying to us today.
SPEAKER_00: He would have us know this.
SPEAKER_00: You are not entitled, but by God's grace you can be included.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the big thing that God has for us in his word today.
SPEAKER_00: He would have us know this.
SPEAKER_00: You are not entitled, but by God's grace you can be included.
SPEAKER_00: Entitlement, it's the sense within us that I have a right to this thing.
SPEAKER_00: I deserve it.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, it is mine.
SPEAKER_00: And here we are talking about being in the family of God, being at the table of God, being embraced as a child of God.
SPEAKER_00: And through this scripture, God would have us destroy any sense of entitlement that is left in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And he wants to leave us all thinking, I am a dog.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: That we would know that there is only one way into the family of God.
SPEAKER_00: Here is the only way to find a seat at the banquet of God, and it is a way of grace.
SPEAKER_00: It is inclusion by grace, it is never by entitlement or merit.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we are a Christian man or woman, a Christian boy or girl, we should never tire of the grace of God, and we do need to be alert to seeds of entitlement that grow up in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: We need to kill them with the help of the word and the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Others of us are just looking into the things of Christ, you know you're not yet a Christian, and my prayer is that you would hear Jesus' voice here too.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps, yes, be shocked by him as we understand these words, and you rightly hear him say to you, you are a dog.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to understand what that actually means.
SPEAKER_00: But also be loved by him.
SPEAKER_00: Come to him and be loved by him, because there is bread for you.
SPEAKER_00: There is a seat at the table for you, so come to him.
SPEAKER_00: So this lady, uh, in her interaction with Jesus, it's hugely significant.
SPEAKER_00: Uh those words uh they seem so jarring, don't they?
SPEAKER_00: What Jesus says to her, verse 27, then verse 28, what she says to him.
SPEAKER_00: Have a look again, verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Lord, yeah, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.
SPEAKER_00: They're actually a model response to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Um I am a dog, Jesus, but there is food for me to eat.
SPEAKER_00: So this lady, in her interaction with Jesus, she helps us understand all three of these passages that are before us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: They belong together, this trio of passages.
SPEAKER_00: So a girl with an unclean spirit, a deaf mute man who is healed, the 4,000 who are healed.
SPEAKER_00: These are not three separate stories, these are not three random stories from the life of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord made these things happen in a particular way, in a particular place.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to see that in a moment.
SPEAKER_00: He caused Mark, the gospel writer, to write about it, to record it in a particular way, to teach us this one big point.
SPEAKER_00: You are not entitled, but by God's grace you can be included.
SPEAKER_00: And this lady, she is the key to it all.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been with us all the way through these first chapters of Mark's gospel, you'll know that we have already been told about Jesus cleaning people with unclean spirits, sick people being healed, hungry people being miraculously fed.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it could be that the Lord simply is repeating it all over again.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but why would he do that?
SPEAKER_00: Particularly, we might think the miraculous feeling, feeding.
SPEAKER_00: We saw the feeding of the 5,000 back in chapter 6.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here in chapter 8, why feed 4,000 people?
SPEAKER_00: What is the special thing that the Lord wants to show us?
SPEAKER_00: Or the clues that are built into this passage, they are to show us this.
SPEAKER_00: You are not entitled, but by God's grace you can be included.
SPEAKER_00: So, heading number one.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone is an outsider.
SPEAKER_00: So we come to this uh this passage, this uh series of events, and everyone that uh Jesus and his disciples uh engage with here, they are outsiders.
SPEAKER_00: In ethnic terms, they are Gentiles, they are not Jews.
SPEAKER_00: So, verse 24, the start of our reading.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Tyre and Sidon, that's where we are.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the Jewish uh historian Josephus, he said of Tyre, they are notoriously our bitterest enemies.
SPEAKER_00: The great temple in Sidon, it was to the pagan god Eshmon.
SPEAKER_00: This woman in verse 26, she is a Gentile from Syrian Phoenicia.
SPEAKER_00: She was, in the parlance of the day, she was a dog.
SPEAKER_00: Then in the next story, we meet this uh deaf mute man.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we're now verse 31 in the region of the decapolis.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has been there uh once before in the gospel, back in chapter 5, with the pig farmers.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember them?
SPEAKER_00: These unclean people, outsiders, dogs, uh, this man that the man that Jesus heals, the crowd around him that are up in praise and astonishment, they were outsiders.
SPEAKER_00: So too, that great crowd, the 4,000 that Jesus feeds, we're in the same place, we're in the same region.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't leave and go elsewhere until the end of the story.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, we've got now got a great crowd, 4,000, who you could say were dogs.
SPEAKER_00: So all of these different people, that their spiritual state, to use the language of the Apostle Paul, Ephesians 2, verse 12, they were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, they were strangers to the covenants of promise, they had no hope, and they had no God in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Outsiders.
SPEAKER_00: But here is the thing: it was not their ethnicity that cut them off from God.
SPEAKER_00: Here we need to sort of step back into the Old Testament for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament law, the law of Moses, in it, God gave us categories of clean, unclean, insider, outsider, chosen nation, other nations.
SPEAKER_00: Now, those divisions and those exclusions, they come from the law of God.
SPEAKER_00: They're included in what is often called the ceremonial law.
SPEAKER_00: They were given by God only for a time.
SPEAKER_00: They had an inbuilt expiry date, and they were meant as a teaching tool, a temporary one, to show how critical it was to be clean before God, and how hard it was to stay clean before a holy God, and to show most of all the way of being made clean through the Savior.
SPEAKER_00: And so then the Savior comes.
SPEAKER_00: And in the previous chapter, do you remember in Mark uh Mark chapter seven, where the Lord Jesus was talking to, well, people who thought they were insiders, Jews.
SPEAKER_00: But he was speaking to a bunch of people who were deeply entitled, who felt proud, and they were self-deceived.
SPEAKER_00: And he talked with them about what really makes a person clean and what really makes a person dirty before God.
SPEAKER_00: And he says a couple of incredibly significant things.
SPEAKER_00: I want to just show you them before we come back to our passage.
SPEAKER_00: Have a look, chapter 7 and verse uh 19.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the verse, look at the bits that the Bible translators have put in brackets.
SPEAKER_00: Thus he declares all food unclean.
SPEAKER_00: Now that shouldn't really be in brackets.
SPEAKER_00: You might think that's a rather it's a rather strange comment that just Jesus that Mark makes uh in passing.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus was doing much more than putting bacon sandwiches back on the menu.
SPEAKER_00: He was actually saying that those those external divisions, those temporary divisions between Jew and Gentile, they are ended.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus does not say that the difference between clean and unclean is ended.
SPEAKER_00: God is still holy.
SPEAKER_00: It is critical that before a holy God we become clean.
SPEAKER_00: Look at chapter 7 and verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: All of these evil things, and he's talking about all of those things he's just listed in the previous verse.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, evil thoughts, sexual immorality, uh, theft, murder, adultery, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.
SPEAKER_00: The things that we know are part of our lived experience.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 23 All these evil things come from within.
SPEAKER_00: They come from our hearts, and they defile, that is, they make us unclean.
SPEAKER_00: So there is a deep dirtiness of soul which you cannot erase, which I cannot erase.
SPEAKER_00: So if our heart is like this and Jesus says it is, then we find ourselves unclean and outside and excluded from God.
SPEAKER_00: So then Jesus leaves those people behind, people who thought they were on the inside, he goes to these outsiders, these people who could be thought of as dogs.
SPEAKER_00: But here is the thing.
SPEAKER_00: If we all have hearts like that, then wherever we are, whatever we think of ourselves, then we are all dogs.
SPEAKER_00: We are all excluded, we are outside, outside of the family, not at the table, until and unless Jesus brings us in.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, no entitlements, no entitlements, no right to come in until Jesus brings you in.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the precious thing that Jesus holds out to us here.
SPEAKER_00: And this is our second heading.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus offers his blessings to outsiders.
SPEAKER_00: So these three stories before us here, they are not just an exorcism, a healing, and hungry tummies being filled.
SPEAKER_00: What this passage says to us here, what it shows to us, here is Jesus offering bread from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Here is Jesus offering himself.
SPEAKER_00: Here is Jesus coming with all of his blessings as the Messiah, yet offering them to outsiders, to those who are far, far away.
SPEAKER_00: So let's have a look at that.
SPEAKER_00: Take the first miracle.
SPEAKER_00: This woman, she comes to Jesus, and in verse 26, she begs Jesus to cast the demon out of her daughter.
SPEAKER_00: We've met people uh in this condition before in Mark's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: So, in an extraordinary way, uh, Satan has controlled her.
SPEAKER_00: So obviously, this lady wants this demon cast out of her.
SPEAKER_00: But what does Jesus do?
SPEAKER_00: He starts talking straight away about bread.
SPEAKER_00: It seems like a complete non sequitur.
SPEAKER_00: Who's interested in bread, Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: This woman, she wants her daughter healed.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus comes to her, this outsider whose daughter is deeply in the grip of evil, and it is about bread that Jesus wants to speak.
SPEAKER_00: Now he could have just healed her daughter and moved on, but he engages her in this conversation about bread and who should be fed and who deserves to be fed.
SPEAKER_00: And he says to her, the children, that is, the Jews, they are to be fed first.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, here is the story of the whole Bible, in a sense, in one sentence.
SPEAKER_00: Salvation was first for the Jews and then for the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: So verse 27, let the children be fed first.
SPEAKER_00: Literally, let them be satisfied, let them be filled up.
SPEAKER_00: So the Messiah, uh, this one promised by the Lord to feed and lead his people, to shepherd them, provide for them, for their bodies and for their souls.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is really talking about here.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, this whole passage that's what Jesus is talking about.
SPEAKER_00: There is a true bread which Jesus offers.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is bread that we all want, this is bread that we need.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us this morning will be aching for that bread.
SPEAKER_00: And then we go on to this second miracle.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this man who cannot hear and who cannot speak.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a strange healing, isn't it, that Jesus does.
SPEAKER_00: You know, chapter 7, verse 33, 34.
SPEAKER_00: Uh he puts his fingers in his ears, he spits, he touches his tongue.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's actually just Jesus' kindness to him.
SPEAKER_00: This is sign language for a man who cannot hear.
SPEAKER_00: And wondrously his ears and his tongue are healed.
SPEAKER_00: But actually, the focus is on the crowd around him who brought this guy to Jesus, and they won't shut up about what Jesus has done.
SPEAKER_00: They are joyfully astonished.
SPEAKER_00: And what they say in verse 37 is amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we if we know our Old Testaments and do we know who these people are, it is amazing.
SPEAKER_00: They spoke better than they knew.
SPEAKER_00: What they say in verse 37, he has done all things well, he even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.
SPEAKER_00: Somehow or other, they are quoting from the prophet Isaiah, the Jewish prophet Isaiah, chapter 35.
SPEAKER_00: The Messiah will come, he will shepherd Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And how do we know when he's come?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he'll heal the blind, the deaf, the lame, the mute.
SPEAKER_00: They make this amazing statement of faith, but they make this amazing statement of faith.
SPEAKER_00: These outsiders, these dogs, Jesus does all things well.
SPEAKER_00: He's come to us of all people.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, they were right, weren't they?
SPEAKER_00: You know, the blessings of the Messiah, you know, this true feeding and leading and shepherding is for anyone who comes to him.
SPEAKER_00: And then we come to the passage's actual feeding miracle.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Jesus has compassion on this great crowd, 4,000 people, they've been with him for three days.
SPEAKER_00: These are hungry people.
SPEAKER_00: But notice they sense how much they need to be with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: With Jesus for days.
SPEAKER_00: They want to receive from him, they want to be fed by him in every sense.
SPEAKER_00: They have needs.
SPEAKER_00: He takes the loaves and the fish and he feeds them.
SPEAKER_00: And we read in verse 7, verse 8, uh, they ate and were satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: Just like back in chapter 6, the Jewish crowd was fed and satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: Just what Jesus was talking about with the woman in verse 27, let the children be satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: They ate and they were satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: And this is far more than just a large and filling dinner.
SPEAKER_00: This is a picture of salvation, but it's a picture of salvation for outsiders.
SPEAKER_00: This great Gentile crowd, a crowd of dogs.
SPEAKER_00: The Messiah has come to cleanse and to welcome and bring into his family and to bring satisfaction and joy.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus brings, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 23 says, You have prepared a table for me.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' table, he has to give himself to bring people to his table, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're in we're in Easter week.
SPEAKER_00: Um the Lord Jesus offered himself in his dying and his rising to clean up those filthy hearts, to give to us forgiveness, to save us from the power of sin.
SPEAKER_00: It took him to the cross that this bread could be available.
SPEAKER_00: And so it is a gift of grace, it is a free gift given in infinite kindness.
SPEAKER_00: You are not entitled, but by God's grace you can be included, and it is wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: So, what we're invited to do as we look at this scripture, we're invited to copy this Gentile woman in her humility, and that's our third heading.
SPEAKER_00: Copy the humility of this Gentile woman.
SPEAKER_00: She is a glorious example of saving faith.
SPEAKER_00: So here is someone whose ears were unstopped by the Spirit, whose mouth was released, actually, such that she could make this good confession.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Lord, you know, yes, Lord, I am a dog, yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.
SPEAKER_00: So she knew, didn't she?
SPEAKER_00: I am not entitled, but by God's grace, Jesus, I can be included.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus comes to her and he says to her, those very shocking words.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm not gonna throw the children's bread to the dogs.
SPEAKER_00: And notice how the woman responds and how she doesn't respond.
SPEAKER_00: Some people find it very hard, don't they, when Jesus speaks to them about what they're like.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've uh experienced that.
SPEAKER_00: You've been reading the Bible, you've got to Mark chapter 7, and you've read what Jesus says about the state of the human heart, and not just the human heart, but your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And you actually find that a very bitter and a very hard thing to say.
SPEAKER_00: Is that really true?
SPEAKER_00: Am I not a better person than that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, this woman here, she didn't get on a high horse, she didn't try and stand on her rights or defend herself.
SPEAKER_00: She knew that she was an outsider.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, she was a non-Jew in the end of the old covenant era.
SPEAKER_00: She had no birthright in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Yet when Jesus gives that little hint to her, as he does, you know, feed the children first.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, there's going to be food for other people.
SPEAKER_00: She's just happy to be a dog under the table eating the scraps.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus was not trying to humiliate her in this conversation, he was to trying to draw out of her this response of faith, both for her sake, but actually for ours too.
SPEAKER_00: She shows us so beautifully that humility is the way to find bread from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Um, humility, it is the way to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Um, if you find it offensive, uh, the thought that you are a dog, um, can I warn you?
SPEAKER_00: Actually, you are in a spiritually very, very dangerous place.
SPEAKER_00: Um, do we imagine that the holy God of the universe, who made us and against whom we have offended, that somehow we are entitled to the blessings that Jesus brings, or that we are naturally or easily brought into the family of God.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the Savior had to die the first Good Friday to give a righteousness whereby people like us we can come close to God.
SPEAKER_00: So this woman, this pagan woman from Cyrophoenicia, uh, she is one of the Bible's loveliest examples of coming to Jesus with just empty hands.
SPEAKER_00: In just a moment, we're going to sing these words in our final hymn.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to sing, uh, nothing in my hand I bring.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, simply to thy cross I cling.
SPEAKER_00: Naked come to thee for dress, helpless look to thee for grace.
SPEAKER_00: Foul I to the fountain fly.
SPEAKER_00: Wash me, Saviour, or I die.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the confession of a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Um from day one of the Christian life all the way through to our deathbed.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't deserve to be fed.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, there is no obligation on the Lord to feed me and shepherd me and care for me and lead me.
SPEAKER_00: But the grace of God in Christ, it is so very, very great.
SPEAKER_00: And it's because of that grace that even people like you and me that we find a place at our father's table.
SPEAKER_00: Let's bow our heads.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm gonna pray.
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father We thank you for the kindness with which you have loved us.
SPEAKER_00: Please would you save us from our sins and the deceitfulness of our sins that makes us believe Satan's lies about our hearts?
SPEAKER_00: Would you convict us of our true natures?
SPEAKER_00: Would you quickly lead us uh humbly uh to your Son, um the Lord Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that there is more grace in him than sin in us.
SPEAKER_00: And we do ask that no one would want to walk away from the Lord Jesus because of the attractions of sin or the world or the devil.
SPEAKER_00: So do this word in us, we pray for our eternal good and for our joy in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: In whose name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.