SPEAKER_00: Let's take a second and pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we have a simple prayer this morning, and that is so that our eyes would see what we see and that our ears would hear what we hear as your word comes to us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, would we hear your voice speaking to us through your word, changing us, making us into new people.
SPEAKER_00: Grant us the faith that we may do the work of God, which is to believe.
SPEAKER_00: It is to believe that what you say is true, who you are is true, and that we would follow the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And that is your Son, Jesus, who came, saying, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_00: No one comes to the Father but through me.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, you are truth.
SPEAKER_00: We come humbly, knowing that even our ideas of you need to be corrected by an encounter with you.
SPEAKER_00: Because you are a person, you are a superperson, you are God.
SPEAKER_00: And you chose to clothe yourself with flesh and to dwell with us, and your work continues on through the church.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, would you open us now to the work of your spirit, fill us with Him, so that way we may truly know who you are.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in the power of King Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: If you have your Bibles, please turn to Mark chapter 5, or if you want to just listen, that is fine too.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be reading from the NIV, Mark chapter 5, verses 1 through 20.
SPEAKER_00: Mark chapter 5, verses 1 through 20.
SPEAKER_00: They went across the lake to the region of the Garosenes.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him.
SPEAKER_00: This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain.
SPEAKER_00: For he had often been chained hand in foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet.
SPEAKER_00: No one was strong enough to subdue him.
SPEAKER_00: Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.
SPEAKER_00: When he saw Jesus from a distance he ran and fell on his knees in front of him.
SPEAKER_00: He shouted at the top of his voice, What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?
SPEAKER_00: In God's name don't torture me.
SPEAKER_00: For Jesus had said to him, Come out of this man, you impure spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus asked him, What is your name?
SPEAKER_00: My name is Legion, he replied, for we are many.
SPEAKER_00: And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area.
SPEAKER_00: A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside.
SPEAKER_00: The demons begged Jesus, send us among the pigs, allow us to go into them.
SPEAKER_00: He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs.
SPEAKER_00: The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.
SPEAKER_00: Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened.
SPEAKER_00: When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons sitting there, dressed and in his right mind.
SPEAKER_00: And they were afraid.
SPEAKER_00: Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man and told about the pigs as well.
SPEAKER_00: Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.
SPEAKER_00: As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus did not let him, but said, Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.
SPEAKER_00: So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him, and all the people were amazed.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: How we're going to do this for the rest of our time together, because the Lord gave us this teaching in a narrative, we're going to do a narrative.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to tell the story, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to retell it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to tell it in three sections.
SPEAKER_00: So just so you aren't confused, I'm going to assume a persona of somebody in the story each time.
SPEAKER_00: So there'll be a story part for the first five verses.
SPEAKER_00: Then I'll step back out, give an explanation, and then for verses six through thirteen, I'll tell it as a story again, and then step back out into explaining, and then the last part, verses 14, to the end, and then there'll be an explanation and application.
SPEAKER_00: And then we'll be done.
SPEAKER_00: But before we get into that, just a word of introduction.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us have the privilege of taking our small children into the doctor for vaccinations, right?
SPEAKER_00: And now our kids, they think that we're the parents, well, we are the parents, they think we're good protectors.
SPEAKER_00: We're there to protect our children, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so we wouldn't let any harm come to our kids.
SPEAKER_00: And so we take them into the doctor's office, and you know what's coming as a parent, because you know they're gonna get stuck with a needle, right?
SPEAKER_00: But you know that this is for their good, but they're just sitting there loving life, they think that they have the best parents in the world, the protectors of their entire existence, and you hand them over to this doctor, or you're holding them yourself, and then all of a sudden, boom, pain enters into their existence, right?
SPEAKER_00: And these big eyes, they look up at you as a parent and they're just confused, right?
SPEAKER_00: They're like, How could you ever have let this happen to me?
SPEAKER_00: You are my protector.
SPEAKER_00: I'm they're disoriented, they can't understand this.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't come into their preconceived notions of how we are their protectors, and we would allow this harm come to them, but we know that they need these vaccinations.
SPEAKER_00: They help protect them.
SPEAKER_00: So, the people of Israel, they had these ingrained expectations of how God Almighty was to act on their behalf.
SPEAKER_00: In the days of Jesus, the people of Israel were under Roman rule.
SPEAKER_00: They had come back from the exile, and in essence, they were still in exile.
SPEAKER_00: God had not brought his kingdom, the Messiah had not yet come to vanquish all of the heathen countries around them, and they were in the yoke of Rome.
SPEAKER_00: Now you see, when the Jews were waiting for the Messiah in God's kingdom, they were waiting for something very concrete.
SPEAKER_00: If Pilate was still ruling Judea, then the kingdom hadn't come.
SPEAKER_00: If the temple hadn't been rebuilt, then the kingdom had yet not come.
SPEAKER_00: If the Messiah hasn't appeared, then the kingdom hasn't come.
SPEAKER_00: And if Torah or the law wasn't being faithfully observed, then the kingdom had not yet come.
SPEAKER_00: And if the pagan nations around Israel were not yet defeated, or they were not flocking to Jerusalem for instruction, then the kingdom had not yet come.
SPEAKER_00: Rome had been ruling the promised land for years, and their yoke was heavy.
SPEAKER_00: In their minds, in the Jewish minds, the current occupation of Rome demandated that Rome was God's people's chief enemy.
SPEAKER_00: That Rome was God's people's chief enemy.
SPEAKER_00: They had occupation of the promised land, and they knew only one nation was to have the promised land.
SPEAKER_00: The sons and daughters of Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: So, like a kid going into the doctor's office for a vaccination, this is how the Jews looked to Yahweh to be their protector.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as we come to the Gospels, we need to be looking for two things.
SPEAKER_00: How are Jesus' words and his deeds redefining the expectations that the Jews had about the kingdom of God?
SPEAKER_00: As his vocation as Messiah, what was his identity and his role as he was redefining what God wanted to do on this earth?
SPEAKER_00: And secondly, so we need to be looking for how his teaching and his deeds don't seem they bring up something different than what the Jewish minds and their hearts were expecting.
SPEAKER_00: But also, we should not only be looking for timeless truths that Jesus says, like nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them, rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful teaching.
SPEAKER_00: Or give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's, turn the other cheek.
SPEAKER_00: These great timeless moral laws that Jesus gives us.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be also looking for of how God sent his chosen one, Jesus, into a specific culture at a particular time, a specific time in history, and of how these reaches across this reaches across to us here today.
SPEAKER_00: Where we live on a different continent, where our daily lives looks quite different than the first century Judea.
SPEAKER_00: In short, in Jesus' words and deeds, we begin to see clearly the very heart of God, of how that was different than what the Jews were waiting for.
SPEAKER_00: And he is definitively revealed in the person and in the work of Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, the anointed one, the King.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so we're looking for all of that to say.
SPEAKER_00: We're looking for ways of how what Jesus was teaching about the kingdom and who he was as a Messiah, of how that was different than what the Jewish mind was.
SPEAKER_00: So we come to chapter 5 in Mark.
SPEAKER_00: Leading up to this, you have Jesus starting to do some incredible miracles.
SPEAKER_00: The one that he just did was he was on the boat on the lake and he calmed the storm.
SPEAKER_00: And then in the beginning of chapter 5, he says, Let's go to the other side.
SPEAKER_00: So now I'm taking the persona of one of the disciples in the boat with Jesus as we go to the beginning part of this story.
SPEAKER_00: As we were with Jesus in the boat, and after he calmed the waves and the storm, all of us were wondering, who is this?
SPEAKER_00: Who is this that even the wind and the waves would obey with him?
SPEAKER_00: And after we got settled down, I was looking amongst my brothers, and Jesus says something very I will never forget it.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go to the other side.
SPEAKER_00: The other side.
SPEAKER_00: The other side of this lake?
SPEAKER_00: You mean the Decopolis area?
SPEAKER_00: The area where no Jews would ever go to?
SPEAKER_00: The area where only Gentiles lived?
SPEAKER_00: That side of the lake?
SPEAKER_00: Who is this guy?
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Wait, if he really is the Messiah and he wants to go to enemy territory, is this the time?
SPEAKER_00: Is he going to unleash the heavenly armies and finally bring the yoke of Rome off of us?
SPEAKER_00: Because this is where he's going.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to the other side of the lake where no Jews are living, but only the heathen nations are.
SPEAKER_00: So we get over to the other side and we see this big hill.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a small little town, but we kind of pull up to this little spot and we get off the boat, and we have no idea what this man, Jesus, the one we're following, is going to do.
SPEAKER_00: So we just follow him, and all of a sudden, a man, we could see this was not any ordinary man, comes up to him, comes approaching him, and Jesus is out in front of us.
SPEAKER_00: And this man is screaming, he's shrieking.
SPEAKER_00: We see him.
SPEAKER_00: He's crazed.
SPEAKER_00: He has crazy eyes.
SPEAKER_00: He has shackles on his hands with parts of chains coming down on his feet, on his ankles.
SPEAKER_00: We have shackles with chains, and he's dragging them, and it's creating quite a noise.
SPEAKER_00: And he has no clothes on.
SPEAKER_00: And he looks crazy.
SPEAKER_00: He's shrieking.
SPEAKER_00: He's yelling.
SPEAKER_00: The chains are rattling.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't even have to get that close to him, and we can smell.
SPEAKER_00: And we look at where he's coming out of.
SPEAKER_00: He's coming out of tombs.
SPEAKER_00: Who lives in tombs?
SPEAKER_00: There's just death all around this man.
SPEAKER_00: And we find out from some local pig herders that are near us as we're walking up to this man that there is they have tried to bind this man many, many times.
SPEAKER_00: He terrorizes the local villages, and no one is able to subdue him.
SPEAKER_00: So this is a possible spot of where Jesus was.
SPEAKER_00: You see the hills.
SPEAKER_00: These are the possible tombs out of which the demon-possessed man maybe was around.
SPEAKER_00: And we have something going on here.
SPEAKER_00: We have a battle scene that's being set.
SPEAKER_00: We have Jesus the Messiah going into the most non-Jewish place you could find in that area.
SPEAKER_00: The location that he's at.
SPEAKER_00: He's in the center of and surrounded by the enemies of the people of God, the Gentiles, the heathen.
SPEAKER_00: And what we see here is one coming out who has been terrorized by Satan.
SPEAKER_00: So what is the role that they're thinking that the Messiah should be taking right now?
SPEAKER_00: It is to destroy this nation.
SPEAKER_00: It is to bring relief and vindication back to Israel, God's people.
SPEAKER_00: This is the battle scene that we have.
SPEAKER_00: And what is the vocation of the Messiah?
SPEAKER_00: Man, I thought that would be a little bit bigger so I could read it off that screen.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read it for you.
SPEAKER_00: You probably can't see it as well either.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this in Psalm 110 that talks about the role of the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, saying, Rule in the midst of your enemies.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verses 5 and 6, the Lord is at your right hand, he will crush kings on the day of his wrath, he will judge the nations, heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth.
SPEAKER_00: So what is gonna happen?
SPEAKER_00: If some were thinking that Jesus truly was the Messiah, what possible reason would he have for being amongst the nations?
SPEAKER_00: What were they waiting for him to do?
SPEAKER_00: This is the battle scene, the Messiah coming in to the heathen nations, and what's he gonna do?
SPEAKER_00: This is the second part.
SPEAKER_00: So now I'm taking on the persona of one of the pig herders, okay, that sees Jesus come up to this demon-possessed man.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we saw these 13 guys get off this little boat.
SPEAKER_00: You could tell it was been quite a ride.
SPEAKER_00: They got off, and this these 13 men, there was one that seemed to be walking in a different way than the others.
SPEAKER_00: He walked with a confidence, with an assuredness of who he was and what his purpose was in life.
SPEAKER_00: And we were really interested because we knew that the direction that he was going was going to meet him up with Crazy Eddie.
SPEAKER_00: Now I don't know if that's his name, but in their minds it was Crazy Eddie.
SPEAKER_00: And they knew he was not a joke, though.
SPEAKER_00: They knew how he had been terrorizing that village for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: Multiple times we had sent out men to bind this man.
SPEAKER_00: We put shackles on his arms, on his legs, and he continually broke them.
SPEAKER_00: Any time a man would come into his presence, he was the one in control.
SPEAKER_00: He nobody could bind him.
SPEAKER_00: No one was able to subdue him.
SPEAKER_00: And we see, we're sitting back watching this, we see this man walk into his area, and what do we see?
SPEAKER_00: We see Crazy Eddie fall on his knees, shouting and screaming and shrieking, recognizing the authority, whatever authority it was we don't know in this man.
SPEAKER_00: And he was talking to him, and he was telling him, Come out of this man, you impure spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And then the spirit would convulse this man, and then this man would say, the man with the other twelve people, he would say, What is your name?
SPEAKER_00: And Crazy Eddie would respond, Legion, for we are many.
SPEAKER_00: And they would beg him, Do not send us out of this area.
SPEAKER_00: See those pigs?
SPEAKER_00: And we're like, no, no, no, don't send them to the pigs.
SPEAKER_00: Don't send them to the pigs.
SPEAKER_00: You see those pigs, send us into them.
SPEAKER_00: And with a word, this man says, Go! And all of a sudden we see our two thousand herd of pigs.
SPEAKER_00: That is not only my livelihood, but it's all of our livelihoods as we raise pigs.
SPEAKER_00: These were Jews.
SPEAKER_00: Of course they would never be around pigs.
SPEAKER_00: They sent them to these pigs.
SPEAKER_00: They run down the hill and into the sea and are destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: We look at each other and we say, something has to be done about this man.
SPEAKER_00: He just killed our economic engine.
SPEAKER_00: And he took off.
SPEAKER_00: They took off for the town.
SPEAKER_00: They had to tell people about this.
SPEAKER_00: So we have the showdown.
SPEAKER_00: We have the showdown of the Messiah coming in to the area of the heathen nations.
SPEAKER_00: And who does he take on?
SPEAKER_00: You see, Rome is not the authority.
SPEAKER_00: Rome is not the enemy here.
SPEAKER_00: There is one enemy to the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: And that is Satan himself and his dominion and his minions.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus walks into this place and he sees this man and he takes on the true enemy.
SPEAKER_00: It's not Rome, and he can only battle Satan by himself.
SPEAKER_00: And with a word, he does something that no man was able to do, and that is to bring life, to bring freedom to this man who is being tormented by this evil spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So now, if Jesus says, But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
SPEAKER_00: Through this battle with the real enemy, the new order of things, the kingdom planned by the Creator, is beginning its break-in into the old order of things.
SPEAKER_00: The whole created order was in the beginnings of being restored.
SPEAKER_00: The Jews thought it would come and then it would end just like that, and everything would be made new.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus had and God had different plans.
SPEAKER_00: This was going to be in stages.
SPEAKER_00: But the first stage was something completely different than what they thought.
SPEAKER_00: If some were thinking that Jesus was the Messiah, what is the significance of this initial bringing in the kingdom to a Gentile mean?
SPEAKER_00: This is not how it was supposed to work.
SPEAKER_00: He was supposed to vanquish all of the Gentile nations.
SPEAKER_00: And here he is, he comes into this land, and he's actually setting them free from the real enemy.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of gets me to think about what Paul later wrote in Galatians.
SPEAKER_00: Is God's mercy really more than just for Israel?
SPEAKER_00: Paul writes in Galatians three, so in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.
SPEAKER_00: For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
SPEAKER_00: Last part.
SPEAKER_00: Take the persona of the demoniac who has just been delivered from legion.
SPEAKER_00: Mercy, mercy, mercy.
SPEAKER_00: That is the only thing that I'm experiencing right now.
SPEAKER_00: As this man walked into my domain and he cast out that which was been tormenting me for years, that I invited into my life.
SPEAKER_00: But yet he came and had mercy on me, this Jew who we all know that they believed that they were the only ones that God was for.
SPEAKER_00: And here he comes with authority and with a word, has brought freedom and forgiveness and wholeness to me, mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Who is this?
SPEAKER_00: And I know those crazy pig herders they took off, and I see them coming back now with all the people from the village, and they want to know what's going on, and I can see it in their eyes.
SPEAKER_00: They are still afraid.
SPEAKER_00: They've been afraid of me for years, but they don't know what to do with me now because I've got clothes on.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sitting here in my right mind as I've been conversing with this man named Jesus, and his followers for the past few hours have been waiting, waiting for these people to come, but I can see it in their eyes.
SPEAKER_00: I know they are still afraid.
SPEAKER_00: And they say to this one who just brought freedom to me, they said, Go, get out of here.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know what you're gonna do in the future.
SPEAKER_00: You came in here and you overcame this incredible evil power.
SPEAKER_00: Who are you?
SPEAKER_00: Get away from us.
SPEAKER_00: We want to have nothing to do with you.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus heard those words and turned in sadness and went back to his boat.
SPEAKER_00: And it, wait, wait, you can't leave.
SPEAKER_00: And I ran over to him and I was begging him, please, please let me go with you.
SPEAKER_00: You're the only one who has words of hope for me.
SPEAKER_00: You had mercy on me.
SPEAKER_00: And he turned to me, and he said, Go home and tell all of your people how much God has done for you and how much mercy He has spent on you.
SPEAKER_00: And I did.
SPEAKER_00: And I went home, and he went off in his boat, and I told everybody about him that I knew.
SPEAKER_00: And many, many people were amazed because they knew who I was, and they now see me as one who has been delivered from the real enemy.
SPEAKER_00: So, the villagers, what did they say?
SPEAKER_00: They said, be gone.
SPEAKER_00: This reminds me of a text in Acts 8:1, of where later on the believers in Jerusalem would be scattered throughout all of the Roman world because of the persecution from the Roman emperors.
SPEAKER_00: Now the Jews do not show up in this verse, but we know later on in Mark that they didn't want Jesus around.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, they wanted him dead.
SPEAKER_00: Be dead.
SPEAKER_00: Later on in Mark, they plot to execute Jesus, and we know they hand him over to Pilate.
SPEAKER_00: Pilate sends him to crucifixion.
SPEAKER_00: But then we have the demoniac.
SPEAKER_00: And what does he say?
SPEAKER_00: Be my king.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one.
SPEAKER_00: In the line of the Jewish kings of old.
SPEAKER_00: He is king.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Messiah means, anointed one.
SPEAKER_00: He is king of a kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what all of his teachings and deeds are pointing to.
SPEAKER_00: He is the long-awaited king through whom God would bring in the new order, but not as how many people thought.
SPEAKER_00: He would be a king who ultimately shows us that his the way is the way of serving and suffering.
SPEAKER_00: The scope of his kingdom would not just be for Jews, but would be for the unclean Gentiles as well, for you, for me.
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom would be characterized by mercy, forgiveness, turning the other cheek, hospitality to those who are unfit or are marginal.
SPEAKER_00: He alone is fighting in this battle against Satan, the real enemy, who has been working since the garden to attack the image of God in humanity, who only wants to kill, steal, and destroy.
SPEAKER_00: But here our hero is, fighting all alone, with total authority, driving out the real enemy, not Rome, but Satan with a word.
SPEAKER_00: This line of action will eventually lead him to the cross, where he is nailed there for you and for me, showing us the way God will be reconciling a fallen world to himself, a God who comes and gives of himself so that we might have life.
SPEAKER_00: This is the God we worship and serve.
SPEAKER_00: This is the way of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Mercy, grace, forgiveness, seeking out the marginals, turning the other cheek, hospitality, calling out self-righteousness, the way of mercy, because he himself is the merciful king.
SPEAKER_00: Really quickly, Jesus has defeated the real enemy, Satan.
SPEAKER_00: This means that evil will never have the last word in any event, circumstance, or instance in our lives as followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Evil will not have the last word.
SPEAKER_00: This word is for Jesus alone.
SPEAKER_00: He will have the last word.
SPEAKER_00: The welcome of the kingdom is for everyone.
SPEAKER_00: The real enemy is not people and their ideologies, which differ from ours.
SPEAKER_00: The real enemy is Satan who has deceived the world.
SPEAKER_00: We've had the privilege of living in America for the past year almost, and it's been a long time since we've had this time.
SPEAKER_00: And you have a hard job of following Jesus in this present-day culture in America.
SPEAKER_00: There are so many distractions, so many things going after our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: He has not left you.
SPEAKER_00: And I ask that you would again tune your hearts to his voice and his voice alone.
SPEAKER_00: He will empower you to not be retreating in this culture, but to step into the mess of it, the hard things, and love those who it's very, very, very hard to love.
SPEAKER_00: So, where is our mercy for the nations, for the outcasts?
SPEAKER_00: This is an integral part of God's kingdom that he brought in the beginning stages into the world.
SPEAKER_00: The nations are here, folks, in Grand Forks.
SPEAKER_00: I know you know it.
SPEAKER_00: That Somali restaurant is awesome.
SPEAKER_00: They have great food.
SPEAKER_00: They have great food and they are great people, and they desperately need Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And they're not the only ones.
SPEAKER_00: Take a chance.
SPEAKER_00: The way of Jesus is joyful obedience to his voice, his word.
SPEAKER_00: This man, this demon-possessed man, he wanted one thing.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted to be with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_00: Truth is primarily a person.
SPEAKER_00: It's not an idea.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the right ideas.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he is a person, and right ideas flow out of who he is, but he's a person.
SPEAKER_00: Be with King Jesus as he is here among you.
SPEAKER_00: Come to know him as a person who does this for a demoniac, who does many, many things for all of us each and every day.
SPEAKER_00: Every day we wake up in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: Do you realize that our greatest need has already been taken care of?
SPEAKER_00: We wake up in the morning and we are not estranged to God.
SPEAKER_00: That is the great thing that we have going for us as we follow Him.
SPEAKER_00: He is with us.
SPEAKER_00: He has made it right for us to be able to be with God.
SPEAKER_00: He has restored a right relationship with Him.
SPEAKER_00: And we no longer have to try to earn it.
SPEAKER_00: We never could to begin with.
SPEAKER_00: So step in.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see it?
SPEAKER_00: Do you step into what Jesus has done for us?
SPEAKER_00: I ask you, He can be trusted.
SPEAKER_00: Evil will not have the last word on your day.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus will.
SPEAKER_00: In this culture that you have put us in that has so many distractions, it has so many things in it, Lord, that are an offense and an abomination to you.
SPEAKER_00: And you send us out as your representatives, your ambassadors of the new order, which is mercy, grace, love, truth, hospitality.
SPEAKER_00: Equip us, Lord, to do things that we just cannot do.
SPEAKER_00: Give us courage to take chances that we would never take in and of ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And give us a love for those who are different from us, who have different views on things, and that we will love them by telling them that there is a problem, and it is sin, and we are in desperate need of one who will do something about that sin in our lives, and that is you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Make us into people who are joyfully obedient to your voice for your glory.
SPEAKER_00: May your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: In the power of King Jesus we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.