Transcription
Good morning.
Morning.
Man, it is so good to see each and every one of you, whether you're north campus or south campus, part of our online family. Man, it's just a joy. We take next steps together into all that God has for us. So, before I I jump in, I just want to say a special thank you personally. Uh, many of you have been praying for myself, my wife in particular. I told you a few weeks ago that she had been diagnosed with, um, breast cancer. Uh, she had surgery about two and a half weeks ago. The recovery from the surgery has gone far better than we, uh, expected. But the best news in that is all the tests indicate that they caught this early. It was localized and the cancer has not spread in any way, form, or fashion. And so we are incredibly, incredibly grateful to the Lord for that reality. Um, she'll have some follow-up treatment. Um, but man, we're so thankful for the wisdom that God's given humanity and, you know, what the physicians have been able to do. Um, but we're ultimately trusting the Lord in her follow-up. She will have a follow-up surgery as well. And so, your ongoing prayers will be appreciated.
Now, what I want you to do this morning for a few minutes is, I, I want you to ponder something because I'm going to tell you something that you think you're going to know the answer to, and, and you do know the answer, but I'm going to challenge you. Don't know it as well as you think you do. See, a question I want you to consider is this: How far is too far? And I understand the question is relative to what we're asking about. But I just want to let you know, we, we ask that question a lot in our lives. People in the West Texas area, in the Big Country, we like the idea of owning land. So people are often looking for land in the surrounding, uh, areas of Abilene and surrounding communities. And the question begins to be asked, well, if I buy land, how far is too far to drive? How far is too far to go to work? How far is too far to be with kids, etc. It's just a, a question we ask. Um, as a pastor, I've often been asked by couples who are dating. "Hey, pastor, I just want to talk to you for a second. I need, I need an answer to something here. Like, I, I'm a little embarrassed to ask this, but, um, how far is too far?" You know what I'm saying? When it comes to intimacy and dating. By the way, I have an opinion about that, so don't ask if you don't want it, but I'm going to share that at another time. How far is too far is a question that is often being asked. But I'm going to challenge it. It is more part of our faith journey than we think it is. Because whether we're asking it overtly or not, we are pondering the idea, how far is too far for God's grace?
Now, if you've been around the church world at all, you know in your mind what the answer is, that there is nothing that is too far and too much for God's grace. And that is absolutely true. I'm just challenged. We don't believe it as much as we think we believe it. Because when we believe it to the level the scripture declares, it actually can get to the level of offense. I'll prove it to you. Jesus was crucified on a cross. On each side of him were two criminals. One of those criminals was rebellious to the very end. But the second one was one who was repentant and said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And Jesus said these incredible words, "Today you will be with me in paradise." And we go, "That is awesome." But let's be awesome. Let's be honest. It's a little bit easier to embrace that Jesus would say this to that guy because the text tells us he is a thief. Now, being a thief, not, not a great thing at all, but it's not the worst, right? Let's replace the offense for a second. Let's suppose the guy asking Jesus to remember him in these last minutes wasn't a thief, but a serial rapist. Anybody wrestling a little bit now? Feel like that that might be too far? What if it wasn't just a serial rapist? What if it was a kid serial rapist? Feeling the tension? Feeling the struggle? What if it was your kid? Let's suppose it was Adolf Hitler. You know, we, we like to use his name as a personification of evil in the Western world, but let's say he's in that bunker, right before the Allied forces go into Berlin to end World War II in the European front. And right before he commits suicide, he says, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And something in him that was absolutely true. And Jesus said to Hitler, "Today you will be with me in paradise." Does that feel like too much? Do you feel the struggle? Like we've got this thing in our head, but when we challenge it deep within, not experience it. We're just intellectually challenging the idea, we feel the struggle.
I remember when it first really hit me. I was a pastor that was about 28 years old in Leach, uh, in the early '90s. Now, I know what you're thinking right now. You're thinking, "Well, whoa, you couldn't have been 28 years old in the early '90s. You look so young." I know. I just have a natural youthful vigor about me that it's just a gift that God's given. Anyway, I received a magazine. It was well before the internet had become a deal, long before iPhones and things like that. And I received a magazine. And on the cover of the magazine, it said that a prison chaplain in Wisconsin had just baptized Jeffrey Dahmer. Now, for you young ones, Dahmer may not mean anything to you unless you've watched the Netflix series that is out before us old dudes. Dahmer and Hitler in the early '90s were just lined up with each other. They were like the epitome of evil. Jeffrey Dahmer had been arrested after a 15-year killing spree where at least 17 young men were not only killed, but they were cannibalized and he engaged in necrophilia with the bodies. It's a hideous thing. And then while he was in this Wisconsin prison, a chaplain had the audacity to go share Jesus with him. And supposedly he responded in faith and he was baptized. And I'm reading that article at my desk. I can remember where I still have the article and tears are flowing down my face. And inside I'm shouting, "Too far. He's gone too far for even the grace of God." You see, I had just become a parent. I had a three-year-old and a one-year-old. And if God calls you to that place of marriage and parenting, he doesn't call everybody to that, but if he calls that you to it, you will find that this protector thing rises up inside of you and you want to protect your kids from everything. I get that.
Now, let me give you a little side note here. I believe we as parents, we have to wrestle in a tension that we want to protect our kids, but we got to prepare our kids for the reality of this world. And maybe I'm just suggesting to you, maybe we swung the pendulum a little too far and maybe we've begun protecting our kids a little bit too much. Like they've got to have, they've got to learn to go through some difficulty and they've got to learn to experience some failure and they've got to learn to have some discomfort in life. You know what I'm saying? I get not wanting that. But the world that they are going to be adults in is sometimes a really hard world. It's a difficult world. We got to train them to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. And sometimes they have to learn by going through something and not being rescued from it all the time. You know what I'm saying?
In two weeks, say two weeks. We're going to have a parenting seminar. My buddy, friend of our church, Toby Slow, is going to come do, um, it's going to be Sunday at our South Campus. All the information's in your park news, but it's all about how do we navigate this tension of wanting to protect our kids, but build resilience, build strength, build fortitude. If you are a parent right now, young kids, elementary age kids, youth, I think it would be a great investment of your time. But even as we talk about navigating that tension, protecting our kids, but making them strong, we are all going to always protect our kids from something physically harmful to them, right? Like we're always, no debate about it. We're going to protect them from something like Jeffrey Dahmer. Everything in me wanted that. I'm reading that article. I'm thinking about my own kids. I'm thinking of the parents of those boys and what they might be thinking. And I contemplated. And after a while, I thought, "No, no, he didn't do it. He's a psychopath and he's just trying to manipulate something out of the prison system," which absolutely might be true, but it might not be. It might have been legit. And it could be that when he was killed two years later in that prison that he was transferred immediately into heaven and Jesus met him. And the thought of that, the thought that he was forgiven and made new entering into the reality of heaven, I, I don't know, something broke inside of me. And all I could think is, if there is ever a person on planet Earth that deserved to suffer eternity in hell, that man does. And as soon as I said it, the voice of the Spirit inside of me just said, "So do you." You feel the struggle? I mean, we can't talk flippantly about the grace of God. So it is so incredible.
See, I knew that my heart wasn't anywhere close to what God's heart is. I knew scriptures like First Peter that says, "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise." Meaning about Jesus coming back, as some people talk about slowness. But the reason he hasn't come back is he is patient with you. Not wanting anyone to perish. But desiring that everyone come to a place of repentance. That is God's heart. And what I discovered is that in my life, there's like, I had this, this line. It wasn't defined. I, I didn't have like clear boundaries on it. I just had this line that when somebody did certain things, they crossed the line of too far. They did too much, even for the grace of God. Since that time, I've lived a lot of life, despite my youthful appearance, and I've dealt with thousands of people on their faith journey, and I've discovered everybody has that line. But most of the time, we don't apply it to other people. We do, but I've discovered most people apply it to themselves. There's people who are sitting in church, some right now, never said yes to follow Jesus because you think you crossed the line too far and just said, "I did too much." Or you think, maybe, maybe, maybe if I go to church often enough and I get some things straightened out, then maybe he, he, he will accept me. A lot of people say, "Well, Jesus is going to let me into heaven, but he can never use me like other people. He can, he can never do with my life because I did these things." And we think we went too far for the grace of God.
There is something shouted from the beginning of scripture to the end. This summer, we have been doing this 30,000-foot view over scripture and themes that are in the scripture. And one of the things that is shattered from beginning to end is the grace of God, which is beyond what we can fathom. The scripture shouts that nowhere, somebody say nowhere. Nowhere is too far. Nothing, somebody say nothing. Nothing is too much for God's grace. And I would challenge, we have that, many of us in our head, but in our gut, we don't believe it. And if we can get this deep within us to the level that is going to cause us to struggle, it changes everything. The place that we see the grace of God most clearly is in Jesus. The magnitude of God's grace, the depths of which are so grand they cause us to struggle, are seen most clearly in the coming of Jesus. Scripture says, "For from Jesus' fullness, we have all received grace upon grace." By the way, you can take that scripture and say, "Grace upon grace upon grace upon grace. It never ends." For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
This week we're talking about grace. Next week we're going to talk about truth and the tension of the two. We wrestle with the depths of that, but we're not alone in that. The early church wrestled just as much as we, we wrestle with that. And they wrestled because of the life of a man by the name of Saul. It's a Hebrew name. English, we would say Saul. After Jesus was resurrected, 50 days later, on the feast of Shavuot, it's also called Pentecost. God poured out his Spirit in a big way upon the believers. This fall, we are going to go on a journey of talking about the outpouring of the Spirit and what that means to our life. It's a journey you're going to want to bring people to. You're going to be a part of. We'll tell you more about it. It'll happen after September. But one of the things God does when he pours out his Spirit is he sends people out to share the good news. Well, these early followers of Jesus were Jewish, and they were sharing with other Jewish people the reality that they believe that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the world. They are trying to bring as many people in as they can. Well, as always happens when you share the good news of Jesus, there is opposition. Remember, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers. So, there's an enemy unseen that's going to come against the gospel of Jesus Christ anytime that it goes out. And he's going to do that through other human beings. That happened to the early followers of Jesus. The Jewish establishment that did not believe Jesus was the Messiah started coming against the Jewish followers of Jesus. And the leader of this persecution of the church was a guy from Tarsus by the name of Saul. And the scripture says, "And Saul approved of Stephen's execution." That word approved means he's the authority that encouraged them to do that. And from Stephen's persecution, the first to give his life as a martyr of Jesus Christ, there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. Samaria, except the apostles. And Saul was ravaging the church. Entering house after house. He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.
Now, what we don't know is, we don't know how long this lasted. You see, because we can read the Bible so fast, we can lose a sense of time. You know, you can read a few chapters in like seven minutes and you can forget that this could be months, might even been more than a year. See, what we do know is that Saul had a reputation among the followers of Jesus. They all knew, not just the people in Jerusalem, all the surrounding area, they knew of Saul. They knew who he was and what he was doing. Remember, no cell phones, no text messaging, no direct messaging, no Snapchats, no WhatsApp. There weren't video cameras everywhere capturing you at a concert when you didn't want to be captured. By the way, I got a word about that for next week. You're going to want to come next week and hear it. Word in the first century traveled mouth to mouth. So for Saul to develop a reputation means this went on for a while. Many Jesus followers were put in prison. Many Jesus followers were physically hurt. Some of them might have been put to death for no other reason that they believed in Jesus. All because of Saul.
Acts chapter nine. Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest in Jerusalem and asked him for letters of authority to the synagogue of Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, meaning followers of Jesus, men or women, he might bring them back bound to Jerusalem. Now, as he went on his way, Saul approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" And Saul responded, "Who, who are you, Lord?" And the voice said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and I'll tell you what you need to do when you get in there." The men who were traveling with Saul stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one. So Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were open, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand, and they brought him to Damascus. And for three days he was without sight and neither ate nor drank. So for three days, like he was in a grave. Anyone seeing a parallel?
Saul was in this state. While Saul's in this state, God goes to a Jesus follower in Damascus by the name of Ananias. We don't know anything about Ananias except for chapter nine. And God says to Ananias, "Hey, I need you to go to Saul." And Ananias goes, "Ho ho, have you heard about Saul?" God. As if God's going to go, "No, I haven't heard, man. Tell me something I don't already know." So, Ananias went. I challenge he was afraid, but Ananias obeyed afraid, which might be the essence of what courage really is. I think we think courage is this thing when I don't feel afraid. But maybe courage is obeying afraid, but trusting God enough in the midst of what we are afraid of. Ananias departed, entered the house where Saul was, and laying his hands on Saul, he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you came, has sent me so that you may regain your sight, and notice this, and be filled with the Holy Spirit."
Now, I need you to stop right here for a minute. Notice Saul has done nothing to turn his life towards Jesus. He ain't gone to church. He hadn't apologized to anybody. He hasn't tried to undo anything he has done. He's done no works of service in the name of Jesus. Saul has done nada. And God says to him through a servant, Ananias, "I am willing to restore you. Not just your sight, but I'm willing to restore the reality of who you are. I'm willing to forgive you and make you new. But not only that, I will make you so new that I will give you me. And I will empower you for your life to be used in a way that you cannot fathom. All you have to do is say yes and keep saying yes to me." And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes. He regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized. Nowhere is too far. Nothing is too much for the grace of God.
But when the early church heard the report, they wrestled just as much, if not more, as I did when I heard about Dahmer. You see, Saul almost immediately after this happened goes to the synagogue of Damascus. But instead of trying to find people to persecute, he begins to say in the synagogue that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah of Israel. And he begins to prove it from the scripture, which we call the Old Testament. Those Jewish leaders that were behind him who didn't believe in Jesus now turn on Saul. You can read it in Acts chapter 9. It's cool because there's like a Mission Impossible scene that happens, like he has to escape. And so the handful of believers in Damascus, they find Saul and they take him to the city walls, which I'm just telling you, they're tall walls. And they lower that fool in a basket and a rope down the walls and he has to get away. And so where does he go? Well, you imagine he goes to Jerusalem. And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. Why? He had crossed the line. Yeah, maybe they thought it was a ploy. You know, he was trying to like worm his way in because all the leaders of the early church had gone to ground to hide. But I bet it was more the thought was, men and women who do things like Saul, they've gone too far. They've done too much. And the early church had to wrestle with the depths of God's grace, just like us. Depths that sound great when you say, "Nowhere is too far and nothing is too much." But when it's your family that's in prison because of Saul, when it's your kids, when it's your friends, you hearing it, nowhere, nothing shouted to us throughout the scripture. But ultimately, in a life of a man from Tarsus by the name of Saul, God called this Pharisee, this highly trained Jewish leader, into the most unlikely of ministries. He actually sent him to the Gentile world to proclaim the message of Jesus as the Savior of the Gentiles as well. And because he was going to the Gentile world, Paul used his other name. Among Jewish people, he was known as Shaul, Saul. But to the Gentiles, the non-Jews, he was known as Paul. And it's likely that God used no other human anymore than the Apostle Paul to lay the foundation of our faith. I mean, outside of Jesus, Saul, Paul, who most in the early church thought had gone too far and had done too much, God used him to lay the foundation of the faith that gives us hope. Why did he do Paul? Well, Paul, 30 years later from the road of Damascus, in one of his last letters to a disciple, St. Timothy, said, "Hey, here's a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of any sinner of whom I am the worst." It's interesting. 30 years after his conversion, he doesn't say I was the worst. He says I am the worst. We can unpack that later. But for that very reason, I was shown mercy, so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his, and look at the word, unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. And then he just bust out in praise. "Now to the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen."
And the people of God said, "Nowhere is too far. Nothing is too much for the grace of God." And part of our faith journey is this is going to be challenged in us. And we're going to have this thing that we maybe know in our head start pushing deep within us. What would happen to the church if we believed in grace this much? If we believed in the depths, how would we view people? Like no one out there is outside God's possibilities. And all of us have that person or persons out there that we think, ah, probably deep down, they crossed the line. They're never coming back. No, no, no, no. God wants everyone to come to repentance. No one is outside of possibility. And so we contend for the possibility that's with everyone. No one sitting among us right now. No one listening later online. It doesn't matter. No one. I don't care your story. I, I, I just don't care. I believe so much in this that your story is not greater than his story. Your failure is not greater than his victory. Nothing is too much. Nowhere is too far for the grace of God.
So, there's some of us in here who have never said yes to follow Jesus because we thought, man, I crossed the line. I'm here with my spouse. I'm here with my girlfriend, my boyfriend, a friend, whoever. I just came to church and I'd love to believe it because I think I've done too much. If you know my story, sinned too badly even for Jesus. Listen, it is a core lie from the pit of hell. And all it's trying to do is, hell is trying to keep you from your heavenly Father who paid the ultimate price to restore you to him. See, what we don't do is we don't try to come to church often enough. Church will not get you in relationship with God. Jesus, who we proclaim, will get you to him. We don't try to do good things. We do what Saul did. Saul had done nothing. All he did was say yes. And he kept saying yes. If you say yes to Jesus, like, "I give my life to you. I will follow you." And I will keep saying yes, doing what you want me to do. What he does is he restores. That's what grace is. He forgives. He makes new. He restores. And he uses those that no one thinks can be used. And he makes your life have eternal purpose. That is grace. It's why Paul would say, "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith." You didn't do it. That's my translation there. It is the gift of God, not by works, so no one has reason to boast. And what you do after you say yes to Jesus, you do what Saul did. Saul rose and immediately he was baptized. He told people. That's what baptism. Baptism is that place where I tell people I'm a follower of Jesus. And so if you're saying yes, like some of you are saying yes right now, I believe it. The next thing you need to do is be baptized. There's a QR code in your park news. There's one on the chair backs, physical, online campus, you'll have a QR code there. You just fill out the new, say, "I need to be baptized." And then what we're going to do is have a class coming up. This one's August 14 and 17. We just unpack the beauties and wonders of baptism. You take that step. You say, "Well, maybe I accepted Jesus a long time ago, but I've never been baptized." And you need to be baptized. Some of you are saying, "Well, I was baptized when I was a baby." That is awesome. Your parents did a wonderful thing for you, but that's not your baptism. That's your parents dedicating you to the Lord. You need to be baptized as a follower of Jesus. If you fall into any of those categories, you need to take that step just like the Apostle Paul did in his life.
But what I need you to know is this. Grace doesn't stop with you being restored back to relationship with God. Some of you need to hear this. Grace means I can do anything God tells me to do. No more excuses. See, I've done this a long time and I've listened to a lot of people and I've had people use the words, "I can't." And then it's followed by something they feel like God might be stirring them to do, but, "I can't host one of those small groups in the spiritual growth campaign. I can't go on a mission trip. I can't serve with our kids or our youth. I can't." Well, why can't you? Well, I did this. And in our mind, we crossed the line. There is no line in the kingdom of God. Jesus took care of that. So, there is no longer any excuse whatsoever. Grace means I can do anything that God tells me to do. And God is able to make all grace abound to you. Say, all grace. All grace. So that in all things, at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. That promise is for you. That promise is for anyone who has said yes to Jesus. That he has enough grace so that whenever he says to do anything, so if he says you need to go to the Gentiles and proclaim the gospel to them, Paul can go. And he had enough grace for that. That may not be your call, but he has a call on your life. It may be right in line with your training. It may be completely outside of your training. It doesn't matter. Whatever he tells you to do, whatever he calls you to do to serve and to love people, you have enough grace to do that because he will make all grace abound to you.
So what normally happens is this. God calls us, we obey afraid, which is courage, and he meets us with grace. And he enables us to do what we couldn't do on our own. And he grows us. And then we take another step where we obey afraid. He meets us with grace. But you know what? He didn't give you the grace beforehand. He gives you the grace when you take the step of faith. It's time for us to believe that the same God that can make us right with the Father through Jesus can make all grace abound to us so that we can live the life he's called us to live. And that our lives in little old Abilene, Texas, can make an eternal difference beyond what we can fathom. One step at a time, saying yes to Jesus. And we can say no to fear and living in fear about the future. Whatever we may face in the days ahead. Are you hearing me? I don't know what tomorrow holds. I know there's going to be some wonderful things in the days ahead, and I know there's going to be some difficulties. I don't know how difficult they're going to be. But here's what I do know. There's enough grace for that. Whatever it might hold. And you may be saying, "David, I, I don't have enough grace for this or this or this." No, you don't. But if you face that, guess what? There will be grace in that moment. If I face that situation, if I face that situation, what do we do? We approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we might receive mercy and we might obtain grace to help us in our time of need. So, we go into a situation, and this happens in the world, this happens in my life, this difficulty arises, and we go to a God who has plenty of grace. And guess what he does? He gives us enough grace to handle that situation just like we need to. So we don't have to live in fear. What I don't have today, if I need it tomorrow, he'll give it to me. What do I do today? I say, "My Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give me today my daily bread. Give me the grace I need to be and do everything you've called me to be and do today." And when tomorrow comes, there will be enough grace to be and do what he's called you to do then. Amen.
Nothing is too far. Nowhere is too much. I said those backwards. I know. Nowhere is too far. Nothing is too much for the grace of God. Nowhere. Say nowhere. Nowhere. Where have you been? It, it's valuable to share our stories at times because we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. And it's valuable to tell our stories. But it doesn't matter what your story is. Nowhere. It's too far. It's an impossibility. Nothing. Say nothing. What have you done? What have you thought? What have you looked at? I get it. I get it. There's an enemy. It's like he's got you by the throat and he's got you convinced that because of this, because of that, because of whatever, you can't. And I stand up here today and I say in Jesus' name, he no longer gets to have a grip on your throat. You can be right with God. You can live out the fullness of your destiny. And you can do so without fear. All because of the wondrous grace of God. That is the amazing declaration of the Christian faith. And I pray that God would give us an ability to believe more than we've ever believed. Even when we have to struggle with it. May we believe it. May we believe it for ourselves. And may we believe it for every person that exists out there.
I had a, I have a friend who told me that God told him to pray every day for Yasser Arafat, the leader of the PLO. And he ended up having an opportunity to share the gospel with Yasser Arafat. And I wonder, when I get to heaven, I wonder in heaven who we're going to see that we're going to go, "Wow, dude, I just never thought you were going to make it." And then we're probably going to look in a mirror and everybody goes, "You, too." Right? It's how great the grace of God is. So, do this. I know I'm, I'm running a little long, but why don't we bow our heads? Can we say thank you for his grace? And we could unpack this for a long time, but you get the heart of it. Would you ask him for the ability to believe it more than you ever have for yourself and for others? Man, just thank him for it. If you have not said yes to Jesus right now, you say yes to him. You just, right there where you are, you can say, "Yes, Jesus. I surrender my life to you. I become your follower right now." You, you say yes, and then he changes you by his grace. Paul would say in another place, "I am what I am by the grace of God, and his grace to me was not without vain, was not in vain." It's grace that changed. You don't change yourself. You say yes to him and he changes you. You say yes to him right now. You take that step before you leave. Before you leave, you use that QR code and say, "I need to be baptized." You make it solid. You step into it. We'll journey with you. And many of us in here, man, we've, we've said yes, but we've limited what we think God can do in our life. Sometimes, honestly, it's just a little bit of an excuse. Sometimes it's deeper than that. But we really do think we've kind of been disqualified. We renounce that lie in Jesus' name. And would you have just enough courage to tell God right now, "I want to do everything that you call me to do. Make it clear and let me take that step." And as we look to the future, we also say, "God, your grace is sufficient. In my weakness, you will show yourself strong in the days ahead." Father, we love you. I am just overwhelmed at how much you love us. That you would, you would not just accept me, but you would want me. Thank you. Thank you. We don't understand it, but we want you to help us to believe to depths we've never believed. And we just want to spend our life getting honor to one who is so gracious. And we say together now, to the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only true God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.