SPEAKER_00: Before we turn to our scripture passage this morning, I did want to uh not let this morning go by without uh recognizing uh that this Tuesday is the fortieth anniversary of Roe v.
SPEAKER_00: Wade, uh, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion on demand.
SPEAKER_00: Since that time, over fifty million babies have not been allowed to breathe a breath.
SPEAKER_00: It's a staggering number.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to even comprehend that this is the reality in the country that we live in.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to encourage us to continue to be in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: To be in prayer, to continue to stand for life, all of life, from the moment of conception until it's that time when God takes a person home.
SPEAKER_00: God is the author of life, uh, he is the creator of life, he is Lord over life, and we have no right to end a life needlessly and senselessly, as happens so often in this country.
SPEAKER_00: The other reality that I think about when I consider this issue is that in a church our size, undoubtedly, there are some who have made this decision at some point in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: And they carry the weight of the guilt and the burden and the shame of that decision.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to remind each one of us that in Christ there is full forgiveness and restoration for any and every sin that a person commits.
SPEAKER_00: And so that if that is you or somebody that you know, there is no sin that is unforgivable.
SPEAKER_00: There is no sin that is unredeemable, and that all who come to Christ in faith are forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: And so we need to remember that as well, even as we think about this.
SPEAKER_00: If now you would turn with me to the scripture reading found in the Gospel of Luke chapter 13, I will be reading verses 31 through 35.
SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter 13.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're here this morning, you don't happen to have a Bible with you, there should be one located in the pew in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: You can find the passage on page 873.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're here this morning and you don't own a copy of the Bible for yourself, please take that uh pew Bible home with you as our gift to you.
SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter 13, beginning in verse 31.
SPEAKER_00: At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, Go and tell that fox, behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and to morrow, and the third day I finish my course.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.
SPEAKER_00: How often would I have gathered you to your children together as a hen gathers her brood under his her wings, and you would not.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, your house is forsaken, and I tell you, you will not see me until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Twenty years ago, when I was living in Florida, I had a friend of mine come and visit me for the week.
SPEAKER_00: He was a high school friend, and uh he uh doesn't know Christ, has made no profession of faith.
SPEAKER_00: And uh when he came to visit, I hoped that I would have an opportunity to share the gospel with him.
SPEAKER_00: And when he arrived there, and this is something that he's he's said to me often, he says, Well, whatever we talk about, we're not gonna talk about religion.
SPEAKER_00: And he proceeded the entire week to ask me questions about why I believed what I believed.
SPEAKER_00: And the whole week he would ask me all of these different questions.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what about creation?
SPEAKER_00: What about morality?
SPEAKER_00: What about sex?
SPEAKER_00: What about the dinosaurs?
SPEAKER_00: What about homosexuality?
SPEAKER_00: What about Noah's Ark?
SPEAKER_00: What about the exclusivity of the gospel, of the nature of God, about objective truth, arguments for the existence of God?
SPEAKER_00: You name it, we talked about it.
SPEAKER_00: The entire week, that's all we talked about.
SPEAKER_00: And it got to the end of the week, and he was, it was one of the last days he was there, and and he had stopped asking questions.
SPEAKER_00: And so I asked him, I said, Well, do you have any more questions?
SPEAKER_00: He said, No.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, did I did I answer your questions satisfactorily?
SPEAKER_00: Did they make sense?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Yes.
SPEAKER_00: And I got excited.
SPEAKER_00: And so I began to ask him about the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He we talked about the gospel throughout the week, and I and so I said, I said, so would you like to accept Christ?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, No.
SPEAKER_00: And I was shocked, and I said, why not?
SPEAKER_00: Is there something that that doesn't make sense?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, No, everything makes sense.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, why don't you want to accept Christ?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I just don't want to.
SPEAKER_00: And that was the end of the conversation.
SPEAKER_00: And it's 20 years since then, and he has yet to bow his head in his heart before the cross.
SPEAKER_00: It reminds me of that as we look at this passage in Luke 13.
SPEAKER_00: It's an interesting passage in a number of ways, but even how it opens up, it's in some ways very surprising.
SPEAKER_00: It opens up with the Pharisees coming to warn Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And we see here in these first verses of this passage of Jesus' courage to stay the course, it says at that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, Go away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, commentators, as I read through different uh scholars who were looking at this passage, they said, This is a very puzzling thing that's that's happening here.
SPEAKER_00: What's the motive of the Pharisees?
SPEAKER_00: And and they really debated among themselves.
SPEAKER_00: They said, Well, some thought that maybe they were sincere.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe this was a group of Pharisees that that secretly uh believed in Christ and maybe they were sincerely concerned about Jesus' life, and so they were warning him uh to get away so that uh that Jesus wouldn't be killed by Herod.
SPEAKER_00: Others thought, well, maybe they were manipulative and self-serving, that they just wanted Jesus out of their area because uh he was a nuisance to them, and so that uh they were saying this as a way to get uh Jesus out of the area.
SPEAKER_00: Other commentators thought maybe wittingly or unwittingly they were pawns of Herod.
SPEAKER_00: That uh if you remember, Herod had had John the Baptist put to death.
SPEAKER_00: John the Baptist, who was a very popular prophet, uh, and uh and Herod, because of his rash vow, was uh cornered into uh beheading John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_00: And that caused him a lot of grief, and they think, well, maybe Herod wanted Jesus out of the region.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't want to deal with Jesus, and so he leveled this threat, and that the Pharisees were being used by Herod, either knowingly or unknowingly, uh, to get Jesus out of the region so that Herod wouldn't have to deal with him.
SPEAKER_00: But honestly, we don't know the motives of the Pharisees here.
SPEAKER_00: But one thing we do know is that by doing this, they were trying to, either knowingly or unknowingly, detour Jesus from his mission.
SPEAKER_00: They were unwittingly, unknowingly perhaps, or maybe knowingly, trying to distract Jesus from the ministry, from the mission that God had called him to.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus here rejects their warning and expresses contempt for Herod.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what he says in verse 32.
SPEAKER_00: He says to them, Go and tell that fox, behold, I cast out demons and perform curses today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus calls Herod a fox, and uh what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: And it perhaps could mean that he was sly, and it may mean, like we use it today, that somebody is sly as a fox, but but more likely, uh in one author, Leon Morris, he says this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, fox can signify a sly or crafty person, but more often it's used for an insignificant and worthless person.
SPEAKER_00: Morris continues, to call Herod that fox is as much as to say that he is neither a great man nor a straight man.
SPEAKER_00: He has neither majesty or honor.
SPEAKER_00: And then Morris gives this observation about Herod.
SPEAKER_00: He observes later we read that Herod wanted to see Jesus perform a miracle, and that when Jesus stood before him, the master said nothing at all.
SPEAKER_00: And then Morris makes this comment when Jesus has nothing to say to a man, that man's position is hopeless.
SPEAKER_00: And so here is Herod threatening to kill Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Notice Jesus' response here.
SPEAKER_00: In the face of a of a of a threat to be killed, and he says to him, Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Regardless of the motives here, Jesus recognized that that this threat was an attempt to detract or derail him from the mission from God's will for his life.
SPEAKER_00: And we need to understand here that even beyond what we see here in the motives of the Pharisees, and beyond what we see here in the motive of Herod in saying this, we need to understand that we have an active enemy, and Jesus had an active enemy that was pulling out all the stops to try to detour Jesus from the cross.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees and the religious leaders of Jesus' day and the political leaders of Jesus' day, whether they recognized it or not, were part of a larger drama of Satan's attempt to detour Jesus from his goal of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: We saw that even earlier in Luke's gospel in Luke chapter 4, verses 1 through 13.
SPEAKER_00: Satan unleashed an onslaught against Jesus in a vain attempt to cause him to bypass the cross and to derail the plan of salvation that God had ordained from before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: And these Pharisees and these religious leaders wanted to sabotage Jesus' ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Herod was threatened by Jesus' ministry and wanted to redirect him away from his territory.
SPEAKER_00: But behind all of this, we recognize that there is an enemy, that Satan himself was using every means available to stop God's plan and upend Jesus' ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus responds with courage, being undaunted from his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: He was going to be unhindered and undeterred.
SPEAKER_00: He says that he's going to continue to do exactly what God had called him to do.
SPEAKER_00: That he was going to continue in his ministry without being sidetracked, without being redirected.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, I will cast out demons, I will perform cures today and tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: That he was going to continue to do exactly what he had been doing, even though there was a threat on his life.
SPEAKER_00: In essence, he was saying that nothing would stop him.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' ministry involved both the declaration of the good news and the demonstration of the good news through his performing miracles.
SPEAKER_00: And all of the miracles testify to the reality that he was the Messiah that had come to seek and to save the lost and to secure salvation for all who believe in him.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus sees this threat and he's unmoved.
SPEAKER_00: And notice what he says here at the end of this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Today and tomorrow and the third day I finish my course.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Jesus is not saying that the entire course of his ministry is going to end in 24 hours, in just over 48 hours.
SPEAKER_00: That isn't what he's saying here.
SPEAKER_00: He was saying an expression that meant in a short amount of time that there is a definite period of time, and that time is short for me to finish my course.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus understood what God's will was for his life.
SPEAKER_00: And as one author said, God, not Herod, would determine when Jesus was going to die.
SPEAKER_00: So Herod could lay his threats and he could rally against Jesus, but Jesus continued to move forward because he knew that his life and his days and his ministry was in God's hands.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wouldn't cut and run in the face of danger and the threat of death.
SPEAKER_00: Why could Jesus do this?
SPEAKER_00: And what does this tell us?
SPEAKER_00: How could Jesus stay the Course in the face of danger?
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, what we see here is Jesus' confidence in the person of the Father, his confidence in God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus here, as he expresses this, he is expressing his complete trust in and dependence upon God the Father in his life.
SPEAKER_00: He knows that God is sovereign and that God has a plan for his life and that his plan is not to die in the hands of Herod outside of the city of Jerusalem while he is on his way during the course of his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus knew that he had a mission to accomplish and that God would not allow for that mission to be thwarted.
SPEAKER_00: And in some ways, this is a reminder to us as well, because even though, unlike Jesus, that has a knowledge of God's will and God's plan that we don't share, we don't know God's will for our lives in the future.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know what it is in detail that God wants us to do, but we do know from the pages of God's word what his will is for our lives, of how we ought to live, of our character, of telling people of the good news of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so often fear hinders us from doing what we know God calls us to do.
SPEAKER_00: And this is something when we look at Jesus here, it would have been very easy for many in this circumstance to have said, Well, I know the threat that's here, and so I'm going to move on, I'm going to be diverted from what it is.
SPEAKER_00: But but fear of man can hinder us from doing the will of God.
SPEAKER_00: That we can become so concerned about what other people think, about how we might be treated, about how people might respond, that we're sidetracked and derailed from doing what God has called us to do.
SPEAKER_00: And it can be in home, it can be at school, it can be at work, it can be in the neighborhood.
SPEAKER_00: And so often we tell ourselves and we rationalize away our fear in so many different ways.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible tells us that we need to declare the good news of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We need to tell people the only message that will provide hope and salvation through Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so often we tell ourselves, well, I'm going to witness through my life, and if I witness through my life, I don't have to speak.
SPEAKER_00: But what we fail to recognize when we do that is, first of all, that until we put words to our actions, people will not understand why it is we do what we do.
SPEAKER_00: And especially in the culture that we live in, where there are by uh just our culture here of people being uh North Dakota and Minnesota nice, that people can confuse uh the true motivation of our heart for the gospel and say, well, he's just a nice guy or she's just uh a nice lady, and that's why he or she is doing uh what they're doing.
SPEAKER_00: And until we speak and put on flesh and explain what motivates us, people will not understand what it is that is behind our actions.
SPEAKER_00: And so often we hold back from speaking out of fear.
SPEAKER_00: Fear of others and fear of what that might do to the relationship or how they might perceive us or how uh we might be treated if they reject what we have to say.
SPEAKER_00: And fear can motivate us in so many different ways to uh to compromise our convictions, whether it's a student among his friends and his friends are asking him to go someplace or do something or watch something that he knows he shouldn't, and and he knows what God's word has said, but as he's in the heat of that moment, he realizes that to take that stand is going to be difficult, and he might be ostracized, he might be ridiculed, and so he caves and he gives in and he tells himself it's not that big of a deal, and and he can make up for it some other time.
SPEAKER_00: But all of these realities point to an underlying fear of man.
SPEAKER_00: And we see here in Jesus' response that in the face of the threat of death, he continues to move forward unhindered and undaunted.
SPEAKER_00: Now, notice this stinging indictment of the people here and of particularly the religious leaders.
SPEAKER_00: He says in verse 33, he says, Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus here says it that, nevertheless, I must go on.
SPEAKER_00: And the word here translates a word that means it is necessary, that this is it's a it's a it's a word with a strong sense of a divine imperative, that it's necessary, that he resolutely has set his face towards Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: But there's also a note of irony here.
SPEAKER_00: If you notice what he says about Jerusalem, he says, uh, O Jerusalem, the city that that stones that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.
SPEAKER_00: That he says that a prophet should not perish away from Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem was the city of peace.
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem was the site of the temple.
SPEAKER_00: It was the place of worship in all of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem was the city of David, and the Messiah was to sit on the throne of David.
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem was to represent the special place of God's abode among his people.
SPEAKER_00: And it's here in this city that ought to represent peace and worship and honor of God.
SPEAKER_00: It's this city that is known for killing the prophets, of putting to death those who have been sent by God, that so many, what Jesus says saying here, that so many of God's prophets have been rejected, so many have been put to death here, ultimately, where he himself was to die.
SPEAKER_00: This city that was to represent God to the entire world, that was to be a lighthouse that all people were to come to to worship, that they were to be a testimony not just to the Jews, but to all of the Gentiles as well.
SPEAKER_00: And this city that was supposed to represent light was dark.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when we get to this point, if we were to stop here and imagine, if we didn't read the rest of this passage and think, what would come next?
SPEAKER_00: What would we expect to find next in talking about this city that was the place that was to honor God most centrally was the place that put to death the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: They rejected the prophets, and in rejecting the prophets, they reject God's message, and ultimately they rejected God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we didn't read on and we didn't know what the context of this passage was, we would assume that next would come judgment.
SPEAKER_00: We would assume that what we would find next would be the undiluted wrath of God being expressed here upon the rebellious people that had spurned God and rejected his message.
SPEAKER_00: And what's shocking here is even as we see how Jesus responds next, we find judgment, but we find it by first hearing the heart of God towards his covenant people.
SPEAKER_00: We see the sorrow of going off course.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what Jesus says here in verse 34.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.
SPEAKER_00: How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus expresses a lament over the rebellion of the people.
SPEAKER_00: One commentator, Daryl Bach, says this it's its life story, Jerusalem's life story has been to kill and stone the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: It has made a pastime of rejecting God's will.
SPEAKER_00: And what's amazing here is that God doesn't reject Jerusalem out of hand.
SPEAKER_00: What's amazing here is the heart of God in the midst of the rebellion of God's people.
SPEAKER_00: They rejected God's messengers.
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, they rejected God.
SPEAKER_00: And we see here Jesus' compassion, as one author points out, his great compassion towards sinners.
SPEAKER_00: God tells us that he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
SPEAKER_00: In Ezekiel chapter 33, verse 11, it says this Say to them, as I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way in life.
SPEAKER_00: Turn back, turn back from your evil ways.
SPEAKER_00: For why will you die, O house of Israel?
SPEAKER_00: We see here God's will of desire.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what Jesus says here.
SPEAKER_00: How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood?
SPEAKER_00: The word here expresses a will or a desire.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same word that's later used of their rejection that you would not.
SPEAKER_00: And so we see here God's will of desire, his desire to have gathered them together as a hen gathers her brood under her wing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it's in Luke's gospel we have this as an earlier account.
SPEAKER_00: In uh the other, in Matthew and Mark, uh this is placed in chronological order during the Passion Week.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but we see here that we're reminded that Jesus visited Jerusalem many times, more times that are recorded in the Gospels themselves, that he had traveled to the city.
SPEAKER_00: And he expresses this longing of his heart that he would wish to have gathered them together.
SPEAKER_00: And it's an imagery of a tender, motherly expression in Jesus' words.
SPEAKER_00: And it's used many places elsewhere in the Bible, in particular in the Psalms, and let me share a few of the verses with you.
SPEAKER_00: In Psalm 17, 8 it says, Keep me as the apple of your eye, hide me in the shadow of your wings.
SPEAKER_00: In Psalm 36, 7 it says, How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 57, 1 says, Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge.
SPEAKER_00: In the shadow of your wings I will take refuge till the storms of destruction pass by.
SPEAKER_00: In Psalm 61, 4 it says, Let me dwell in your tent forever, let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings.
SPEAKER_00: In Psalm 63, 7 it says, For you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.
SPEAKER_00: It says, He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge.
SPEAKER_00: His faithfulness is a shield and a buckler.
SPEAKER_00: There is a desire to provide protection and provision and refuge that is that are in these words that Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps as we as we see here, the the uh the saddest words in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And you would not.
SPEAKER_00: There's a profound mystery expressed here in this phrase, for salvation is all of God from beginning to end, and God is sovereignly and effectively calling people to Himself, and yet all those who do not come to Christ bear the full responsibility for their rejection and unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: And this is a mystery of divine sovereignty and human responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: If we are saved, we are saved by God's grace alone.
SPEAKER_00: It's not because we're better or smarter or more worthy, but it is God by his mercy and grace that we receive forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible equally reminds us that if we are lost, it is because of our willful rejection of a genuine offer of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel call goes out to all in the preaching of the cross, and the choice of rejecting the good news lies solely and completely with us.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot absolve ourselves of responsibility for our decision to willfully reject the gospel, and all punishment is fully and rightly deserved.
SPEAKER_00: Acts 17, 30 and 31 state, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: They would not.
SPEAKER_00: They had resolutely set their heart against Christ and against his ministry and his message, even though they had seen him in their midst day in and day out.
SPEAKER_00: But their heart was darkened, and they hardened their own hearts in rebellion and rejection of Jesus and his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And we find here the consequences of it in verse 35.
SPEAKER_00: It says, Behold, your house is forsaken, and I tell you, you will not see me until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The consequences of the rejection of these people is expressed here, and he says, Your house is forsaken.
SPEAKER_00: And we find this historically in 70 AD, that ethnic Israel experienced the judgment of God, and Jerusalem itself was ransacked and ultimately overrun.
SPEAKER_00: And there was this judgment that occurred in their rejection.
SPEAKER_00: He says that their house is forsaken, that God's glory, in a sense, is removed from them.
SPEAKER_00: But even in this judgment, there is hope.
SPEAKER_00: There is hope and a future for ethnic Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Now keep in mind, I mentioned that this passage in the in the other gospels is placed in its chronological order during the Passion Week.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody reading this might say, well, he says that you will not see me again until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And if you remember during the triumphal entry as Jesus enters Jerusalem, that the pilgrims there say that to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But I don't believe that this is what is in view in what Jesus is saying here.
SPEAKER_00: Because in the chronological order, Jesus says this after that event takes place.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus is looking to a yet future reality that has not yet occurred.
SPEAKER_00: And so even with this pronouncement of judgment, there is hope for Israel and a future.
SPEAKER_00: In Romans 11, Paul tells us that Israel was cut off in part, that this was done so that salvation can come to the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: In Romans 11, 17, Paul says, But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, the Gentiles, those you were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree.
SPEAKER_00: And then he goes on to explain this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, and even they, verse 23, if they do not continue in their unbelief, talking about ethnic Israel, they will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.
SPEAKER_00: For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree?
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul concludes this section and says, Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers.
SPEAKER_00: A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: That when Jesus pronounces here that judgment has come and that their house is forsaken, even in that he gives a hope and a future.
SPEAKER_00: That one day they will see Jesus, the one whom they have pierced.
SPEAKER_00: They will see him when he returns.
SPEAKER_00: And then they will believe.
SPEAKER_00: Would you join me now as I lead us in prayer and we sing a concluding song?
SPEAKER_00: Father, as we wrestle with a difficult passage of Scripture and yet to find that point of connection with each one of us, both in wrestling with the depth of truth here, but also the call for us to live our lives unafraid of others, because of our reverence and respect for you, and knowing that you will judge those who don't know you.
SPEAKER_00: And the call to proclaim the gospel far and wide.
SPEAKER_00: And for each one who's here, the call to hear the gospel and to turn and respond in faith.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, we pray for each one of us that your word would land in the spot in that place where we most need to hear it, and that you will do your work through your Holy Spirit in each one of our lives, and that we will come to you and live for you fearlessly and courageously.
SPEAKER_00: We pray in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.