The Veil of the Gospel

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

We have been looking through Mark's gospel. So we talked about this. We talked about how there's four different authors. There's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. All of them are writing about the life, ministry, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Okay. They're all talking about the life of Jesus. And we've been specifically concentrating in the book of Mark. And you don't get very far into Mark's gospel before you come across a very strange incident. And it starts in Mark 1 and then 24 and 25, and then you see it again in Mark 134. I'm going to read that real quick. Jesus is healing people. He's healing somebody who has a demon. And the demon, as he's coming out, screams at Jesus, I know who you are, the Holy One of God." That's in verse 24, and we're still in Mark 1 at this point. And then in 25 it says, "...but Jesus rebuked him, saying, Be silent and come out of

him." Well, then you skip down nine more verses where Jesus is healing all over. I mean, just a ton of people, right? Everybody's coming to him to be healed. And verse 34 it says, "...and he, Jesus would not permit the demons to speak because they knew him. Okay, this is strange. He doesn't want the demons to identify him publicly. And then again, Mark 1, 43 and 44,

Jesus has just healed someone and it says 43, and Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once and said to him, see that you say nothing to anyone." Okay, this is the third time in the first chapter of Mark that Jesus is working very hard and commanding people very specifically to not let anybody know who he really is. And the reason that's critical is because Because we think, wait, wait, isn't that the point? Why not let people know? Why not let this demon identify you? Who's going to argue with the demon? Right? Like it seems to be it would have been better to let the demon speak or to let the guy go and tell everybody what Jesus did for him. Is there a problem that we don't see? Is there something that we're missing? In short, the answer is yes. There is a problem that we don't see. There is something that we are missing, typically. It has a straightforward answer. This reason that Jesus is denying people,

demons, abilities to talk about him, there is a reason for that. And it's very straightforward. However, it is also layered. It is a layered answer. It's not something that you can explain in one sentence. The layer, the reason for this answer, it all forms a major component of the gospel. And like I said before, that's where we've been the last few weeks. We've been in the gospel. We've been discussing major themes, major components of the gospel. And for the last few, we have been serving Jesus' ministry in Mark, chapters 1 through 8. So the last few we've been just kind of surveying what Jesus has done in those chapters, which is the majority of those chapters is his ministry. After you get past eight, some specific things happen that we're going to be talking about later. But we've been looking at Jesus' ministry and what have we found? We found in the message of the gospel,

we have found consistently that Jesus is saying, repent for the kingdom of God is near. It's consistent. He didn't just say it once in Mark 1. He says it all over, every time. It's the gospel of the kingdom. The message of the gospel, repent for the kingdom of God is near. We talked about the method of the gospel, and we looked at Jesus' ministry in Mark 1-8, and consistently what is he doing? He is investing in disciples, primarily, in an overwhelming sense. He spends significant time with his disciples, and very little time with the crowds. very little time actually healing people. He spends way more time investing in these disciples. And last week we looked at the life of the gospel and how consistently throughout Jesus' ministry he is serving, he is suffering, and he is dying on behalf of other people. That is a consistent mark of his ministry. Today, again, we're going to look at another major component of the gospel.

And to do that, we need to look at Jesus's life. We need to see what's going on with him again. So we go back into Mark 1-8 and look for another theme. Scripture is quite clear throughout Mark 1-8 and really throughout the other gospels, Matthew, Luke, John, Jesus wants to keep his identity a secret. The quintessential passage on this is Mark 7:36, where he has just healed a death mute. in front of a lot of other people, and Mark 7, 36, and Jesus charged them, everybody who saw this, to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. Now, this is consistent in Jesus's ministry. This didn't just happen in Mark 7, Mark 1. It happens in Mark 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8. It happens all the time. Just about every time he heals somebody, He tells him not to go tell somebody. Just about every time, so when he heals Peter's mother-in-law in Mark 1,

but he does it away from the crowds. He does it when nobody is looking, and he does that on purpose. He actively, Jesus consistently through his ministry, actively prevents people from identifying him or demons, from identifying him. There are 11, more than 11 probably, but 11 I could find separate incidents where Jesus does this, and eight of them are testified in the first half of Mark. This is not trivial happenstance. This isn't some like fun gospel information nugget. Okay, this is a consistent motive. It points to a major motive, and I'm calling that motive the veil of the gospel. I've titled the sermon today, The Veil of the Gospel. This is not a small thing. This isn't incidental. This isn't trivial. This is a major motive. And that same motive is what caused Jesus, who is the king of glory, to hide himself in human form, to be born in a manger with no fanfare,

to be raised, to grow up the son of a carpenter. And really, whenever he begins his ministry at age 30, everybody's shocked. Everybody's shocked. Nobody expected this guy to do it. Why? Because Jesus had veiled himself. He didn't come on a throne. He didn't come with major announcements. It's the same motive that is a veil over the gospel. And this motive, this veil, it forms an integral part of the gospel. We should understand this. This isn't something that we can just kind of throw away as a trivial thing. This speaks to a major part of what's going on in the gospel of Mark and really Matthew and Luke and John also. We find this veil laid out or talked about or discussed properly in Mark chapter four. So I'd like for you to turn there. Mark chapter four, we're going to start in verse two. And as you turn there, I want to confess that Mark four is one of my favorite chapters.

Mark four, if you remember, is one of the first sermons I preached here. I don't know if you, you know, have that written down somewhere in your diary or something, go back and fact check me. But Mark 4 was one of the first sermons I preached here. It is one of my favorite chapters. And there are, there are some kind of some easy things to notice about this veil of the gospel. But first, we really just kind of got to get into it. So Jesus in Mark chapter 4, in verse 1, it just says he's, he's, he gets out on a boat And he talks to a bunch of people. So he's addressing the crowds. And here's what he says, verse two and three. And he was teaching them many things in parables. That's important. And in his teaching, he said to them, listen, behold, a sower went out to sow. And so Jesus then begins to tell them the parable of the sower. It's a very famous parable.

It's also known as the parable of the four soils. You might have heard of this. And we can talk all about the parable of the four soils. However, first, I would like to concentrate on the fact that Jesus is specifically using parables to teach. Now, parables, we need to know what they are. A quick definition of parables would be that they are like a riddle, but they describe something that is indescribable, okay? So the word parable in the original language means to throw beside. And so then you throw something that is familiar besides something that is unfamiliar. So as to acquaint, it's a teaching device, as to acquaint the people that are listening with what is unfamiliar. In this case, Jesus is teaching people about the kingdom of God. And so consistently throughout Mark 4, he's throwing things beside the kingdom of God so that people, that people are listening, will understand more about the kingdom of God.

And you see, a couple of verses later, you see why Jesus is specifically using parables to preach, because he does it consistently throughout Mark 4. In verses 10 through 12, this is Mark 4, 10 through 12, and when he was alone, so after he had just finished preaching the parable of the sowers to the crowd, And when he was alone, those around him with the 12 asked him about the parables. So this is kind of his inner circle. Verse 11, and he said to them, to you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything is in parables. So that, and he begins to quote Isaiah 6, 9 through 10 here, so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven. Parables then are like a double-edged sword. For those that are inside the kingdom, a parable enlightens and instructs. You gain familiarity with

the kingdom if you are in the kingdom. If you are outside the kingdom, a parable then works in the opposite direction. It works to shroud. It works to create mystery. It works to hide. Jesus then is using parables in Mark 4 to both uncover and cover, to reveal and to hide. And it can seem very strange or unkind or harsh of Jesus to hide things. However, this is only the first layer. And I said that there were many layers. There's actually five. We're going to be covering five layers today. This is just layer one. So just remember that as we go. Layer one, Jesus veils the gospel on purpose. Jesus veils the gospel on purpose. He preaches and parables, and it veils the gospel, and he does it intentionally. And he hides his identity from people. He keeps demons from saying, on purpose. All this is on purpose, but it still leaves us the question with why? And for more answers, we need to look within the parable themselves.

And so we're going to look at the parable of the sower, which is Mark 4, 3 through 9. And for the sake of time, I'm just going to summarize it. Please, please go back and read the parable of the sower. It is a great parable. What we need to know for the parable of the sower is that there are four soils and they all get seed. All four soils get seed. And the first soil is the path soil. So the path soil is beaten down, it's very, very thin. And when seed is cast upon that, when the gospel seed is cast upon that, the birds come by quickly and they eat it and there's no grain that sprouts. Nothing even takes root, but there's no grain. The second comes the rocky soil. The rocky soil, the seed falls and root begins to happen, But whenever it comes up, the roots aren't deep enough, the sun scorches and withers the grain. And there is no fruit. There's no grain. It doesn't produce anything.

The third is the thorny soil. And the thorny soil is a seed that falls down. There's a lot of thorns around and a little root goes down, but then the thorns choke that out So that it doesn't produce grain. So in all of the first three, you have no grain produced. It's the same effect. Whether it's the path soil, the rocky soil or the thorny soil, no grain is produced. It is a failure. It doesn't work. Right? That's the point of the parable. The fourth soil is the good soil. And what does it do? It falls in good soil. It puts roots down and it reproduces itself 30, 60, and 100. be at 100 fold. In other words, for one seed, you get 100 pieces of green. So this last soil is good soil. And when the word of God is sown into it, then you reap a harvest that is much greater than what you put down. There are many things to bring out about this parable. Many. In fact, it could

be its own sermon series. However, today we are just going to focus on one. And that is that the The gospel has false positives. The gospel has false positives. Let me show you this. In all four soils, you have gospel seed going in. All four get seed. In the first three, you have seed that does not produce grain. All three. But in two of those three, in the rocky soil and the thorny soil, you get false positives. You get things that look like grain at first, but that really do not produce anything. So in the first soil, when the past soil, the birds come and eat it, I mean, it doesn't look like anything. But in the rachis soil and the thorny soil, you have a stalk that pops up. You have something that begins to happen, but eventually it reverts to nothing. wilts and dies and doesn't produce anything at all. There are false positives among kingdom work.

And hear me when I talk about these false positives, I'm not talking about, I'm not trying to throw stones, right? But we all know, we've all seen, there are churches that seem extremely prosperous, extremely big, you know, a lot of things going on, but yet, yet the kingdom of God is not advancing in that church. Now, mind you, there are big churches where the kingdom of God is advancing, but there are things, in other words, there are things that we see that look like the kingdom of gospel advancing. They look good. They look spiritual, but in fact, they are not. We see Christian celebrities, Christian authors, Christian speakers, Christian preachers that are famous. We see them and they look to have everything in order. Everything is going their way. It looks like the kingdom of God is advancing through their ministry. However, it is a false positive and sooner or later, that is uncovered.

In the meantime, it can look real. The gospel has a lot of false positives. I mean, Jesus himself. He refers to people at the judgment that will say to him, Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name? Didn't we do all these mighty works? And Jesus will say, no, I didn't know you. I've never met you in my life, actually. I have no idea who you are. I'm sure those people are gonna look like the kingdom of God is advancing in their life. I'm sure the kingdom of God, I'm sure those people are gonna look spiritual. They're gonna seem like they're on another level, But the reality is they are thorny soil or rocky soil where it looks good for a time, but it is a false positive. So layer one is that Jesus veils the gospel on purpose. Layer two is that false positives abound. They're everywhere. Okay. Now don't start looking for them. You'll see them soon enough. But it is to say, you know, even whenever Jesus was ministering,

and one of the guys, I couldn't find where it said it, but it says that Jesus knew what was in the hearts of men. He knew what was in the hearts. He knew that there were some false positives. He knew there were people that were just looking for something that weren't going to really follow him. He knew that. He knew false positives. They looked like they were excited about his ministry, but they just wanted some food. They just wanted to see a miracle. So remember, we are adding layers as we go, so let's keep reading. And let's go back into Mark 4, but we're going to be all the way into 21. And this is, let me just break it down. This is after verses 1 through 9, Jesus has told the crowd about the parable of the sower. In verses 13 through 20, he explains that parable specifically to his disciples. and the immediate followers that are around him. So he takes time to explain it just to them.

In verse 21 though, Jesus is turning back to the crowds. So one through nine, he's preaching to the crowds. Pretty much 10 through 20, he's just with his huddle. He's just with his guys and girls and explaining it to them. And then in 21, he's back to the crowds. And this is what he says in 21 through 23 of Mark chapter 4. And he said to them, Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket or under a bed and not on a stand? For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest, nor is anything secret except to come to light. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear." Jesus is trying to help them understand that things are being hidden on purpose, but that God is hiding those things so that they will be found. Because look at what he says in 22, nothing is hidden except to be made manifest. Well, who's hiding? Jesus. I'm sorry. Yes, Jesus is hiding things, but he's hiding things so they can be revealed, so they can

be made manifest. It says, in other words, anything secret except to come to light. God is hiding things so that those things will be found. In other words, Jesus here is encouraging them to seek. Jesus is saying, there's things that are hidden out there. They're gonna be revealed, but you need to go look for it. And that's why he continues in the next two verses, Mark 4, 24 through 25. And he said to them, pay attention to what you hear with the measure you use. It will be measured to you and still more will be added to you. For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has, sorry, and from the one who has not, even what he has, will be taken away." So Jesus is helping them understand, now is the time to seek. There's things that are hidden, go find them. And when you find them, you're going to continue to seek, and you're going to continue to find more.

Jesus, in other words, is not misleading people who want to find the gospel. We don't look in Mark 1 and in Mark 7 like we were reading about how Jesus is shrouding. He's saying, no, no, no, don't tell people. What he's not trying to do, he's not trying to mislead people who actually want to find him. Rather, rather, the gospel is hidden in all of that, like an Easter egg. It's hidden in plain sight. The point of an Easter egg is to be found. That's why you put Easter eggs in your yard. If you put Easter eggs in your yard and you bury a 10-foot hole and put them all in there and then cover them up, you've missed the point. That's not what Easter eggs are for. They're to be found. And it is the exact same. I mean, there's no wonder we do that at Easter, right? Like, let's make the connection here. We do that at Easter because in the gospel, there are things that are hidden

that are meant to be found. We are meant to understand that Jesus who came in a manger with no fanfare, with the ruler of the world, this is part and parcel of what it is to be a Christian, what it is to follow Jesus. Is that Jesus is not misleading us like he doesn't want us to find the gospel, he's saying it's hidden and if you seek, you will find. And this shows us layer three. Layer three is that Jesus wants seekers to discover the gospel. He's not interested in wowing people into the kingdom. It's not his style. He's not going to blow people away. He's not going to, you know, perform parlor tricks and do a jig and be like, well, you want to be a Christian now? That's just not how Jesus works. It works kind of the opposite way. He says, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you. That's Matthew 7. Jesus is saying that.

And what he's saying is, look, I'm not, hey, I'm not going to wow you to death here. I'm not going to try to like perform well enough for you to want to be a Christian. Jesus is saying, these things are hidden at plain sight. I'm giving you the biggest banner in the world to tell you they're here, but if you ask, it will be given to you. If you seek, you will find it. If you knock, the door will be open, but you need to ask, seek, and knock. So let's put it together. Jesus in Mark's gospel, not interested in people looking to be amazed, not people looking to make money or to have their ears tickled because he knows false positives abound. He knows that if he would just perform all these, you know, miracles, he would have loads of people, just, I mean, just loads of people following after him. But many of those would be false positives. Jesus wants, instead he wants true seekers of the kingdom to discover the gospel.

So he veils it. He hides it in plain sight. Listen, if you are seeking the kingdom today, if you're seeking the kingdom, I would encourage you don't be put off by false positives. It is so easy for somebody who is exploring the gospel, somebody who is interested, maybe they want to commit, maybe they don't, maybe they're not sure, maybe they're in that place of indecision, and then they turn on the TV and see a televangelist who says, just Just give me money and God's going to give you whatever you want. Well, let me be as clear as possible. That's not the gospel. That's not Jesus. That's not the God we worship. That's not the church we are. That's a false thing. That is something that you should not follow after. Just because somebody says they're a Christian and then they start talking. Listen, this is the Word of God. I can say whatever I want and be as eloquent as possible,

but if I'm not preaching this, then you need to remove me. I need to get out. I have no business preaching if I'm not preaching the word of God. And I do not consider it a front, an affront to my integrity for you to say, hey, pastor, I didn't agree with what you said, show me where you found it. I'd be happy to do. I mean, you would make my day, truly, Because I'm not making this stuff up. I'm not inventing a veil for the gospel. It's there in Mark 4. In fact, it's there all over the gospels. Don't be put off by imitations. And if you're looking for the gospel, just know, the gospel is not this huge production that is based on manipulation and pressure and coercion. That's not the gospel. In fact, if you're in a situation and somebody says, Like, here's the gospel and it's your only chance and you have to make a decision right now. Run. Run. The gospel is a simple invitation.

The gospel comes to us in a way that is unexpected. And then it says you can enter the kingdom by faith. To believe, not to perform, not to recite something. To believe to have faith is to enter the kingdom. The gospel is a simple invitation. If you are in a place where you've seen churches that are just pulling all these levers, trying to make all these people feel all these things, run. Just go. Get out of there. Because I think it will be harder to find the gospel there than you think. If you're seeking the kingdom of God, let me encourage you. is also more to be found. If you are, if you have been seeking the kingdom of God, I would encourage you to keep on going because there's still more to be found. Every once in a while in our lives, we feel like all the Easter eggs are gone. Nothing else to discover. Okay. But they're not, they're there. You just got to find them in a different way. The Lord is calling you

to make a left or right turn. The Lord is calling you to adjust your approach. He's calling you to, He said, look, you can't seek me and find me just with all these same things you've been doing before. It's a new direction now. We gotta go, you gotta keep following me, Jesus says. You don't follow a pattern, you follow me. Quickly, I wanna look at two more parables in Mark four, because I think it's gonna give us our final two layers, and we'll kind of begin to be able to put it together. We're going to find another parable in Mark 4, 26 through 29. This is the parable of the seed, the growing seed, 26. And Jesus said to them, The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. So stop right there. That's a parable. He's saying the kingdom of God, one side, is like a man scattering seed on the ground, other side. So he's comparing these things and he's saying they're similar, 27.

He, the farmer, sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows. He knows not how. Amen. 28, the earth produces by itself first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come. The kingdom of God, Jesus is saying very politely there, It grows without your permission. It grows without you knowing. It grows without your cooperation. It just grows. The kingdom of God grows. A man is scattering seed and that seed is going out and it is going into people's hearts and it's going on all kinds of soil and it's going to grow where the soil is good and it's not where the soil is bad. The kingdom of God grows without you knowing. And so if you are going to then cooperate with Jesus in making disciples, so at our church, we talk a lot about making disciples. This is what Jesus has asked us to do, making disciples.

What does this look like? If we're going to cooperate with Jesus in making disciples, then we need to understand that it is indirect. It is indirect. So let me say it to the negative. As soon as you try to force somebody or coerce somebody into following Jesus into being a You will choke that out. Okay, you will crush it. You will ruin it. That is not what Jesus is asking us to do. He's asking us instead to cooperate with him. So whatever Jesus is talking about his disciples in John chapter 15, he gives them this extended analogy and he says, I am the vine. You are the branches. Okay, so Jesus is divine. He's thick. The life is going through him. And we are these thin little branches that come off of the vine. Okay. And then he says, if you abide in me, you will bear much fruit. Well, part of our problem is that we're a branch. And we look at that, we look at other branches that have fruit on them and we say, well, I want fruit.

So I'm going to strain really hard to grow fruit. I'm going to abide in fruit. fruit. Okay. The problem is that's not how it works. You abide in Jesus and fruit happens. You don't abide in fruit. You try to abide in fruit, well, you're not going to produce any darn thing. That's not going to work. It's going to be extremely frustrating for you. Jesus says, abide in me. Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. My yoke is easy. My burden is light. Jesus says, come to me. And when you come to me, fruit will happen. Fruit will grow. The nature of working with Jesus is indirect. So if you want to see disciples made, then what must you do? You must pray like a spiritual gardener. You must pray like a spiritual gardener. What do gardeners do? Think about this. Gardeners don't make anything grow, do they? They tend to the soil, they create an environment that encourages growth,

but the growth happens all on its own. You can have a perfect environment, no growth. You can have a sort of a junky environment, things just grow in the wild, for crying out loud. But our part in that is to pray like a spiritual gardener. That we go to the Lord and we say, no growth will happen outside of your spirit working. Listen, we pray, and if you ever want to, you're more than welcome to come. We pray about 30 minutes before, so 8.30, 8.45. We pray every Sunday morning. When we do something that really the Lord has impressed upon me, that I try to impress upon everybody there, we have prepared all week. So, I mean, I spend lots of time on a sermon, okay? Hours. I could double that. I could spend way more time on a sermon. I could let the sermon dominate my thinking for the entire week. I could do nothing else but plan a great sermon. But you know what?

If the Lord is not in it, it just doesn't matter. It's just words. It's just talk. It's not encouragement. It doesn't build up. It's nothing. We can plan. You can plan to teach grade schoolers. You can plan to hang around with babies. You can plan to teach students. You know, you could plan to do all these things, plan a double Bible study, plan the gospel course. You can plan it all, but if the spirit's not in it, it doesn't matter. All that planning is for not. So what do you do? Well, you still plan, but you also pray. You prepare and you pray. And you hold those plans loosely. You pray like a spiritual gardener. You say, Lord, bring the growth. Layer four, gospel growth comes with indirect cooperation. Gospel growth comes with indirect cooperation. And so let's begin to put these together. We want to make disciples like Jesus. We want to follow Jesus. Let me help you.

Because the gospel is veiled, we need to stay away from trying to amaze people, trying to coerce people, trying to be so cool that they want to be Christians too. That's not good. I mean, I'm already starting in a deficit with trying to be cool. My kids remind me of that every day, every day. It hurts. We need to stay away from trying to be cool, stay away from trying to amaze people, stay away from that. And we also, we need to stay wary, be aware of the false positives. Listen, ministry is messy. I believe I've said this before, ministry is so messy. You can invest in people and nothing, or you can invest in people and it looks like the gospel is growing, like something's happening and then nothing. They ghost you. They don't respond. They assume ill motives. Something happens and it's just gone. Be aware, ministry is messy. false positives abound, it happens. And let that be an encouragement. Look for

the true seekers of the kingdom. Look for people who truly want to discover the gospel and encourage them, encourage them that Jesus wants you to seek, and he asks for everything. He asks for everything that you have, every allegiance he wants it to himself, and that it is 100% worth it. That Jesus asks for everything that we have, but in Him and only in Him, we find true life. Look for the true seekers and encourage them to seek truly. Look for the true seekers and say, the only way home, the only way there, is to give up everything. And as you do, as you encourage, as you pray, pray specifically for Jesus to unveil the gospel for them

so that they will see, put Jesus's words in front of them, intercede for them like crazy, help them understand what Jesus is saying, what He's calling them to do. Don't be afraid to just say, here's what Jesus says. No apologies, no caveats, no, Well, I think he might've meant just, there it is, Jesus's words. When we work to make disciples, we do it indirectly, one last layer, and we find it in the last parable. Mark chapter four, verses 30 through 32, quickly. And he said, with what can we compare the kingdom of God or what parable shall we use for it is like a grain of mustard seed, which when sown on the ground is the smallest of all the seeds of the earth. Yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade. Gospel growth in the beginning does not look like much.

It looks really small. It looks insignificant. The kingdom of God advancing doesn't, it doesn't come with a big parade, a big fireworks show. It's very small. It's very humble. It's very insignificant, yet in the end, it wins. It wins out. Layer five is that gospel growth takes faith. It takes faith. It takes faith because it looks like nothing in the beginning. It looks so small and insignificant in the beginning, but in the end, it wins out. In the end, it breaks through. Listen, we believe that Jesus can start four churches with our church. That takes faith. It takes faith. It's going to continue to take faith. We believe that Jesus can restore a broken heart, a broken life, a broken marriage, a broken family. We believe that Jesus can heal all those things. We also believe He doesn't do it overnight. It takes time. It takes faith. We believe all these things are true.

believe Jesus will keep his promises even when they seem far off, even when they seem a little difficult to believe. Today, I want to encourage you, we're going to enter into our time of invitation, and I want to encourage you, for some of you, you've just heard what I've said and you're thinking, okay, but what's that next step look like? I want to do something about this, but I don't know quite what to do. What I just want to encourage you to do, I'm going to be standing right over here during our time of singing. And Dan's going to lead us in our last song that we're just going to sing it again a little bit. And as we do, if you're just trying to figure out what that next step is, maybe that's church membership, maybe that's baptism, maybe that's just saying, I don't know, and I want to follow the Lord. I want to do it in a way that's different than I'm doing it right now. Well then just come forward you can just you know scoot out

you can go center on you can go around I'll be right here and just come in and pray with me and and we'll pray and my mic will be off my mask will be on so it's all safe but I want to encourage you to do that. Let me pray. Jesus we ask for you to we ask for you to bring healing we ask for you to help us take that next step Help us do it now as we sing. And it's your name that we pray.