From John 18-19, Traditions (3)
First B Jackson
2013-03-24

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Amen. You know, tell the choir about a good time. We're enjoying enjoying that time singing praises to the Lord. Today, as I was considering this week and lover, what we're up against, we're we're trying to get to the cross by Easter. I've been telling y'all this since October.

And we have chapter eighteen and nineteen left. So, you know, I've been preaching a chapter a week and two chapters a day. It sounds like a little much. So instead of just doing two chapters a day, I decided to add the rest of the Bible in with them. I think I'm joking.

And a few top top 40 songs from our own era. Actually what I've been thinking about this week, last week it's a cubist pain and this week it is, songs. There are several songs in the Bible that become very very pertinent at this time of year and at this place in John. So we're in John 18 And 19 and I'm trying to get to a specific place by next week because I do want it to be all about the resurrection and the hope available next week. So I'm gonna start off with what we're totally great.

When I was looking outside this week, it was crisp and blue and a little bit chill in the air, and I saw something burning reminded me of black smoke kinda reminded me of a song. It was written less than two months after nine eleven. It was written on a Sunday morning in October 2001, and it crystallized for me and for a lot of people the thoughts and emotions of that time. Was right after 09/11/2011. Alan Jackson got up in a hurry that morning.

He said he woke up and he had the melody in his head and he felt like he was being booed to write his song and he got up in his underwear he says and got out of bed and started furiously writing down the lyrics to the song. He had the melody and he had the chorus altogether and he worked it out while his wife and daughters went to Sunday school, Worked out the rest of the song. And then country music war, I'm from Georgia, you know. Alan Jackson is actually from about 30 miles, 35 miles from where I'm from. His accent is exactly like my when he sings where I come from, that's actually where I come from.

But when he sang, where were you in the world? Stop turning. That's it. Remember, baby? Every single one of us that was alive then and cognizant knows exactly where we were.

And the song is about that. It starts off with out in the yard with your wife and children who are working on some stage and delayed. Did you stand there and shock at the side of that black smoke rising against that blue sky? Did you shout out in anger and fear for your neighbor or did you just sit down and cry? Did you weep for the children who lost their dear loved ones?

And pray for the ones who don't know. Did you rejoice for the people who walked from the road and sob for the ones left alone? Did you burst out in pride for the red, white, and blue? And heroes who died just doing what they do. Did you look up to heaven for some kind of answers?

Look at yourself for what really matters. He claims to just be a singer of simple songs, but does that hit you? It caught me, arrested me because it's so true and so pure. Asked later about it, he said it was like Hank Williams actually said this and he was quoting Hank Williams. He said, it's like God was writing the songs and I just happened to be holding the pen that day.

There are tons of songs in the Bible. Throughout the Old and New Testament, there are tons of songs and we know hundreds of em as Psalms which means Psalms and I'm going read one of those today. In Isaiah, there are multiple Psalms, the Psalm of the suffering servant, the Psalm of the vineyard. I did that a few weeks ago but there are lots of Psalms in Philippians, one of the earliest world. Look at several songs today.

Some of them that we sing in church, some of them that we don't sing and everyone of ones we've sung so far this morning goes along with this theme. Pascal is studying in school right now. She has a history timeline, starts with creation and the last event on the timeline as she's studying is 09/11/2001. So she'll have to catch up with more modern history with that last thing was those towers falling and so yesterday I was trying to tell her she knew what the card said, she knows who did it and why more or less. And she was flipping over the card and looking at it, and I said, if you wanna know about that day, this is what you need to look at.

Where were you when the world stopped turning? That system we were doing. We're teaching a class full of innocent children, driving down some cold interstate. Did you feel guilty because you're a survivor in a crowded room as you feel alone? Did you call up your mother and tell her you loved her?

Did you dust off that Bible at home? Did you open your eyes and hope it never happened? Close your eyes and not go to sleep. Did you notice the sunset for the first time in ages or speak to some stranger on the street? Did you lay down at night and think of tomorrow, or did you go out and buy you a gun?

Did you turn off the old bottle of food you're watching? Turn on out of the Lucy of your guns. Did you go to church and hold hands with some strangers? Did you stand in line and give your own blood? Did you just stay home and clean tight to your family and thank God you had somebody to love?

I'm just a singer of a simple song. No. Real political man. I watched CNN, but I'm not sure I can tell you the difference between Iraq and Iran. And this is the part that arrests me still because I did grow up pretty much the same way he did.

I know Jesus and I talked to God. And I remember this from when I was young. Faithful does some good things he gave us, and the greatest is love. You a lot of volunteers are putting word into people's hearts every Monday night. That's what's sticking in there.

He probably haven't been around that in a while. You said you're Leon Rambo. But that's tough. Any paraphrase is called there. Faith, husband, love are some good things he gave us with the various love.

All of that's background. That shows you the depth and the power that songs can have. But I'm gonna go back way way far back and way way far into the future. I'll start with Revelation. Revelation says that the evil one will be overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony.

The blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. That's how evil will be overcome. Last week, I I spoke a lot of choice, a free will of man and what I was talking about was in Jesus's prayer in chapter 17 of John, he said, he prays all these things so that we might, so that we might have unity, so that we might have joy, so that we might do all these things and it was our choice as to whether we walked in that or not. He could have had a vengeful song right there but he said, faith, hope, and love are the good things you give but the grace is love. An answer to that kind of horrible evil is love.

That's the right answer. So, last week, if it didn't crystallize for you last week, the main thing I thought of this week and I thought it was a seminary message I heard, if we know the Bible, Jesus prayed, sanctify them by your truth, your word is truth. If we know the Bible, that's how God's going to sanctify us. That's how he's going to work on us and in us and through us. So, if we know and can defend and articulate our faith, that is competence.

We have competence and Jesus was praying for that and we have a choice as to how we pursue that. You have to pursue it. You have to pursue the Bible to get it into your heart. So, competence is one thing. If you live it out, then that gives you credibility.

What's the number one complaint of people about church or organized religion? They always say it. Hypocrites. Plenty of hypocrites. They don't believe what it is that they believe because they don't live it out.

So competence and credibility I mean, competence I'm sorry. Competence and character, I should say, not credibility. Competence and character is living out that which you believe. The just shall live by faith. Competence and character.

And if you have those two, competence and character and you live them out, every single week, we come back at some point to let your light shine before men we're that. Able to We're credibility, but there's one more thing that was not included. We're Last week was really heavy about choice and the free will of us as God's children to be able to pursue things. There's one that I didn't include. I did say that it's under God's sovereignty that he gives us free will.

This week, I wanna say that under God's sovereignty, he does things sometimes which we don't understand. The evil one will be overcome by the blood of the lamb, the word of our testimony. Competence plus character equals credit credibility. Competence plus character plus suffering equals great credibility. If you've been through it, you've been through the ringer like all the disciples were, they were all murdered for their faith and yet the church grows.

You can't stamp it out. There's a song. It's a contemporary Christian song, but it's a very, very old song too. It says, blessed be your name. In the land that is plentiful where your streams of abundance flow, blessed be your name.

Blessed be your name. When I'm found in the desert place, though I walk through the wilderness, blessed be your name. Every blessing you pour out of, Lord, blessed be your name. Where is that from? What book is that from?

Job. Job. Job. It's enough being cheerful happy song, but it's from the book of Job. Job in the first so I said I was gonna use the whole Bible and I was not joking.

This is the oldest this is the oldest book that we know of in the Bible. It's older than Genesis. Moses wrote Genesis. No one that's true. No doubt about it, but he wrote it after Job was written.

This was before the covenants. This was before Abraham. It's before anything else. This is pure pure relationship with God right here. Job, it says, there was a man in the land of us whose name was Job.

Job one one and that man was blameless and upright and one who feared God and shun evil and you know about Job, the divine conversation that God had with Satan and he said, well, it's just because you blessed Job. It's just because of the good things. Job cursed you if he didn't do that and so, in God's infinite understanding and for Job's eventual and ultimate good and for our education. He puts this down. In the first 20 verses, basically, everything is taken from Job.

And in verse 20, it says, Job arose. So he lost his family, lost his livestock, he lost his servants, he lost all kinds of stuff. In verse 20, it says, then Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head. He felt the bad situation. He felt it.

And he fell to the ground and he worshiped. Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. You give and take away. I have a concept on the giving part.

I have to admit, I had never thought about that song being from Job. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And then verse 22 says, in all this, Job did not sin nor charge God with the wrong. Job, Job had a job.

Now, Job got a lot of bad advice from previous friends. He got some decent advice by one guy at the end but when he comes down, oh, he got terrible advice from his life. Curse God and die, Joe. I'm glad I don't have a wife like that. Yeah.

He he did not charge God with the the error there. He did question him eventually but God said, where were you gonna come the stars in place? We sing another song, indescribable, uncontainable. He placed the stars in the sky and you know them by name. You're an amazing God.

Awestruck, we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim, you are amazing God. Who has told every lightning bolt where it should go or seen heavenly storehouses laden with snow? You are amazing God. I'm going to get to the Psalms that I was talking about. The biblical songs that I'm talking about, those both were from Job and that's the oldest book that we have but if we'll come forward couple thousand years, we get to Psalm 22 as we're considering John eighteen and nineteen as our text this week, we're looking at the change.

That's Palm Sunday. Y'all see the palm branches around and I mentioned a few weeks ago that on Palm Sunday, Jesus rides into Jerusalem and people are going, woo hoo. It's almost like a hilltop. Woo hoo. Waving all glory like Alan Jackson's line in there.

Did you burst out in pride for the red, white, and blue when you saw that flag flying? I'm sorry, buddy. You can't help. As an American, you just get attached. Well, when they're waving their palm fronds, they were singing a song.

What was the song they're singing? Hosanna. Hosanna. I'm gonna read it. New King James version translate the word hosanna.

It translates it to save us now, I pray. That's what hosanna means. Hosanna is save us now, I pray. So Psalm one eighteen twenty five, written a thousand years before that triumph only to the people recognize it, and they sang out, hosanna. The king of Israel is what they said to Jesus.

They recognize him and if y'all pardon this expression, what they were looking for, it always just bothered me that one week, seriously, on one Sunday, they're waving pomp rations and saying, blessed be the name of the Lord. Go down. And then the next week, literally, less than a week later, they're saved. Crucify. Give us for evidence.

What were they looking for? What were they looking for in Psalm one eighteen and recognizing that, singing them out. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Yes, but it says, save us now, I pray. Oh Lord, oh Lord, I pray.

Send now prosperity. What the people in Jesus' time on that triumphal entry called Sunday looking for, excuse the depression with hope and change. That's what they want. They saw themselves under an oppressive regime and they were looking for some hope and they were looking for some change and the best candidate they thought they could do that was Jesus. He could overthrow the Roman government.

He had the best chance of anybody right then and so that's what they were shooting for. But if you'll go back a thousand years back to King David's time in the Psalm, somewhere between 900 and a thousand BC, we see a Psalm Psalm 22. And then the King James version's got a little heavy and a thunder. It says, the suffering, praise, and the posterity of the Messiah. I wish I knew the tune.

I'd sing a little of this one, but I don't know the deer of the dawn. I just don't know what that tune is. So if you will imagine and the reason I sang some of those first ones is think about the power that music has to get something instilled within your heart and evoke emotions. David felt this way when he wrote it down, but it was poetic hyperbole. He wrote it, he was going over the top.

Oh, I'm a worm and not a man. It didn't mean it's literally a worm. It was poetic hyperbole. But he meant it because he felt it, and then a thousand years later, in his bloodline, Jesus experiences these things to a much greater reality than they've ever did. So, Psalm 22 and I'm just gonna read through this Psalm.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far off from helping me? Why are you so far from the words of my groaning? Oh my God. I cry in the daytime that you do not hear.

And in the night season, I'm not silent. Not only does he feel like from helping me from the words of my girlfriend? Oh my God. I'm proud of the daytime. You're not here in the night, sitting on the outside, but you are holy.

He knows this because of I was taught this when I was young. I remember this from when I was young. You are holy and thrown in the praises of your people, Israel. Our fathers trusted in you. They trusted in you, delivered them.

They cried to you and were delivered. They trusted in you and were not ashamed. But I'm a worm and no man. A reproach of men are despised by the people. All those who see me ridicule me, they shoot out their lip.

They shoot out their lip. They make mouths at me. Tony, I lived in Costa Rica for a year, and they kinda inflated to insult somebody there. They also point with their lips and their tongues. I don't understand that.

He trusts in the Lord. Let him rescue him. Let him deliver him since he delights in him. But you, you are he, capital h, who took me, capital m, out of the womb, you made me trust while on my mother's breast. I was cast upon you from birth.

From my mother's womb, you have been my God. You know, in every other Psalm of David where he feels destitute and upset and where he feels like a worm or he's forsaken by God, every single other one, he names a sin. And in my sin, I know this. And he feels the conviction of his own sin and he expresses that. And usually, right after he confesses the sin, it starts to get more hopeful and cheerful.

David comes out of the font because he finally gets around to agreeing with God about sin. In Psalm 22, he never does that. Prophetically, I believe, because why? Because this is exemplary of Christ and he had no sin. Psalm 22.

We are at verse 11. Another thing is it mentions the Messiah, mentions his mother a couple different times here and multiple times throughout the Old Testament but never mentions the Messiah's earthly father. Nobody ever picked up on that until after Christ. The virgin birth right there. I was cast upon you from birth, my mother's womb, you have been my God.

Be not far from me for trouble is near and there is none to help. Many bulls have surrounded me. Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me. Bashan is the Golden Heights region of Israel and it is the place that's the most fertile in Israel. It has the biggest treaties, the strongest livestock.

They gave me with their mouths like a raging and roaring lion. I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. You know, crucifixion like this has a tendency to snap your shoulders out of joint. It's one the most painful parts of being there. But to put your feet on the cross of you, lift up just far enough to get your shoulders back and join.

For when you love, we're gonna pop out again. My bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It's melted within me. My strength is dried up like a pot shirt.

It's a broken piece of pottery. My tongue clings to my jaws. What did Christ say from the cross? I thirst. It is melted within me.

My for dogs have surrounded me. Gentiles, dogs have surrounded me. The congregation of the wicked, which Israel would never have recognized as themselves. Congregation of the wicked has enclosed me. They pierce my hands and my feet.

Hey, brothers. Thousand years before. I can count all my bones. They look and stare at me. They divide my garments among them.

And for my clothing, they cast lots. But you, oh Lord, do not be far from me. Oh, my strength, hasten to help me. Deliver me from the sword of my precious life from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth and from the horns of the wild ox.

Now he was calling out in hopes that he would answer it. And then it goes on and there is something that I hope to get back to at the end. If I don't, sorry. We'll catch it next time we come around. But there's something that goes it's hopeful from there forward.

But these three sections of Psalm 22 don't make any sense for the same person to be, why have you forsaken me feeling so completely destitute? And then knowing all the dangers and then having a hopeful ending, it only makes sense with John eighteen nineteen or the the passion narratives of the other gospels. I wanna come forward about two hundred to two hundred and fifty years now, and I'm gonna sing a song for you. I don't know the tune. I'll read it.

Of Isaiah 53. Bob has done work for the last few months on this Isaiah 53 and I'm gonna go through it in a hurry, Bob, but it's worth looking into you. All the different verses, all the different things, but I wanna sing this or read this to you. Who hath believed our report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground.

A root out of dry ground. How long have it been since God has spoken to Israel at the time of Christ? Four hundred, four hundred and fifty years. And these are testamental silence of God. That's pretty dry ground.

Pretty dry ground. He has no form or covenants, and when we see him, there's no beauty that we should desire him. There was nothing remarkable about him. He was a man. He was also God.

He was man. This is Isaiah writing 750 or so before Christ. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised, and we did not esteem him. Surely, he has borne our griefs and carry our sorrows.

Yet we esteemed him as stricken, smitten by God, afflicted. That means cursed by God. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes, we're healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his we've turned everyone to his I'm so sorry. So lost my place. Six. Yeah.

My page is gone. Bob probably could quote this from memory. He's been studying with those. Remember. I remember my pages.

Each one is going to their own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of assault. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgement, and who will declare his generation, for he was cut off from the land of the living for the transgression of my people he was shaken and they made his grave with the wicked but with the rich at his death. With the rich at his death, remember Joseph Barron, the other rich man asked for the body of Jesus.

Some hundred and fifty years before Isaiah's writing it. That making sense to be to be cut off from the land of the living and making this grave or being killed with the wicked but with the rich of his death because he had done no violence nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. It pleased the Lord to bruise. It pleased in a sovereign God's hand to cause tremendous suffering.

He has put him to grief. When you make his soul an offering for sin, you shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant shall justify many.

He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the grave and he shall divide spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul unto death and he was numbered with the transgressors. And he bore the sin of me and made intercession for the transgressors. Where is Jesus right now? He's seated at the right hand of the father.

What is he doing? Making intercessions. Amen. For us. How are we gonna overcome?

By the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. Zechariah nine nine said that that he would come in riding on the the pole of a donkey, and that's where we get all the Palm Sunday. Hosanna, hosanna, triumphal entry talk. But what did Jesus say? Luke nine and Luke nine twenty one.

This is not a simple three point sermon. It's on those stuff. Luke nine twenty one. Let's look back to Luke nine twenty. It's when Jesus had asked his disciples, this is pretty good while back.

It's before he set his face toward Jerusalem and Luke. And he said to them, who do people say that I am? Some said Elijah and some said this. He said, who do you say that I am? Peter speaking up, leader of the group said, you are the Christ of God.

And he strictly warned and commanded them to tell this to no one at that time, saying, the son of man must suffer many things and be rejected. He must be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised the third day. He must. So you can look at that and say, well, glad he did that. I don't I don't have to suffer.

Just I listen to those people on television. And if I just pray to the next. Let's go see where he went from 21 when he said that the son of man must suffer as his favorite designation for himself, many things, and be rejected by the elder chief priests and scribes and be killed and raised the third day. Then he said to them all, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. Whoever desires to save his life will lose it.

Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. So that's what he says in Luke. He understood and knew that that was what it was gonna take. There is tremendous, tremendous credibility that is gained through tremendous suffering for us. The word of the disciples had they all recanted would not have continued.

Right? Even if Jesus loved everything he said, the disciples had given up and recanted, even the early martyrs, if they had given up and recanted when they're being burned at the stake and all those things. Suffering is a part of life. God uses We look at God and we know from the scriptures that he is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent. He is all knowing, all powerful, and all good.

That's tough. When you're going through the ringer, it's really, really tough to believe that God is all knowing, all powerful, and all good. You can believe two of those things very easily. When you're going through a significant trial in your life, you can think either God knows it and he's good, but he's not powerful enough to change it. Or he's powerful enough to change it and he knows what's going on, but he's not good.

But he is. You're leaving out the possibility that there is redemption through Christ's suffering, and there is great credibility for the message and eventual reward. We know from Romans eight twenty eight, he's working all things together for good. If you don't believe that that this is true, look at anybody in scripture. Joseph, the great Christ type from the Old Testament.

Roman pit, sold into slavery, wrongly accused of sexual assault, spent nineteen years in prison with multiple people forgetting about him when they said they were gonna tell the folks so that he could get out of those dreams, all that. When he gets out and he gets to the second command in Egypt and his brothers come back to him, what does he go for? Revenge? No. Alan Jackson said he didn't wanna write a revengeful song.

Wanted it to be about love. And he recognized, Joseph recognized and he said to his brothers that what you meant for evil, God meant it, evil. He meant it. That evil that you have done to me. God meant that evil for good.

God is working together all things for good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose. Wanted to go also to John 16. Carl preached in John 16 a couple weeks ago and he's talking about the role of the Holy Spirit but I wanna go to one specific place. John 16 about 31, 32, 33 right in there. I want you to know this morning that Christ has proved provided for you with redemption.

It was forecast a long time ahead. The suffering was necessary. He prayed in the garden that, God, if it be possible that this cup pass from me, please allow that, but not my will, not my human will, but your will be done. He recognized that the suffering, if it was necessary, then that's what was gonna happen and it was necessary. That's the way that God has provided redemption for us.

The sixteen thirty three, Jesus says, these things I've spoken to you that in me, you may have peace. In this world, you will have tribulation. He's saying you can have both. You can have tribulation but have peace. Be of good cheer.

I have overcome the world. How are we going to conquer people? By the blood of the lamb, because no other lamb, and the word of our testimony. I want to say one more song. Just keep going with that.

Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians. In Philippians two, one of the earliest hymns that we know anything about, you know, Paul says, we should instruct one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. In verses five through eight, generally, I agree that this is one of the church's earliest creeds or creed with hymns and it says, I'll start at verse three. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others as better than himself. Let each of you look at out not only for his own interest but also for the interest of others.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Who? Being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation. Taking on the form of a bond servant and coming in the likeness of men being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself and became obedient even to the point of death, even the death of the cross. That is what we're talking about this week.

I could have gone through John 18, but it really is just a narrative story of what happened. It's the actual betrayal, arrest, trial, and crucifixion. I'd love for y'all to read that when you get home. I'm over. So, I'm over the time.

John eighteen and nineteen is actually just narrative. You don't have to pull it apart and preach every little phrase. You can, but you can look at it and just see this is actually what happened. It turned from blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord to the whole crowd crying, crucify. Crucify.

Give us that thief and insurrection as the wrath. We'd rather have him. Maybe he's our God. You crucified Jesus. Take him outside the city wall and dump it.

We don't do a Maundy Thursday service. We don't do a Good Friday service. So y'all got a week to contemplate the cross this week. Next week will be a hopeful hopeful Psalm of resurrection. But this week, consider that suffering is a part of God's sovereign, redemptive plan, not just for you, but for those others that don't yet know it.

If you're going through it, sometimes that's the way God reaches. If you've been just as an example. If you've been homeless before, you have much more credibility with God if you're homeless right now. Is that not true? If you have been an alcoholic or a drug addict, you have much more credibility with those who are now struggling with that.

If you have, in the past, ever experienced firsthand an abortion, the turning point. That's the place. God will not waste anything. He will not waste any sin. He will not waste any pain that you've been through.

He'll use it. And he'll use it for his good purpose and his glory and his good pleasure. So, I think that the choir is gonna sing a blessing at the end but I have one more. One more. This is a poem.

It's not a song, but I'm gonna read it. And the first service, I read just half of it. Diane said that she would throw something if I stop after half of it, so I'm gonna read the whole thing. Blame her. Alright?

This is a poem. It's it's by an anonymous writer. When God wants to drill a man and thrill a man and skill a man, when God wants to mold a man to play noble his part, when he yearns with all his heart to create so great and bold a man that all the world shall praise. Watch his methods. Watch his ways.

How he ruthlessly perfects whom he royally elects. How he hammers him and hurts him and with mighty blows converts him into frail shapes of clay that only God understands. How his tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands, How he bends but never breaks. When his good, he undertakes. How he uses whom he chooses with every purpose, uses him.

By every heart induces him to trap his splendor battle. God knows what he's about. This is the sovereign God we're we serve. When God wants to take a man and shake a man and wake a man, when God wants to make a man to do the future's will, he tries with all his skill. When he yearns with all his soul to create him large and whole, with that cunning, he prepares them, how he goes and never spares him, how he wets him, and he frets him, and in poverty begets him.

How often he disappoints whom he sacredly anoints. With what wisdom he will hide him, never minding what he tied him. Though his genius saw with sliding and his pride may not forget, bids him struggle harder yet. Makes him lonely so that only God's high messages shall reach him so that he may purely teach him what the hierarchy plan. And though he may not understand, gives him passions to command.

How remorselessly he spurs him. With terrific ardor stirs him. When he poignantly prefers him. When God wants to name a man, fame a man, and tame a man, when God wants to shame a man, to do his heavenly best, when he tries the highest test that is reckoning they bring when he wants a god or a king. How he reigns him and restrains him so his body scarce contains him.

He fires him and inspires him, keeps him yearning, ever burning for that tantalizing goal, lures and lacerates his soul, sets the challenge for his spirit, draws it highest, then he's near it, makes a jungle that he clear it, makes a desert that he heareth and subdue it. If he can, so doth God make a man. To test, then to test his spirit's wrath, throw a mountain in his path, put a bitter choice before him, and relentlessly stand over him. Climb or perish, so he says, but watch his purpose, watch his ways. God's plan is wondrous kind.

Could we understand his mind? Who are they? We call his blind. When his feet are torn and bleeding, yet his spirits mount unheeding, blazing newer paths and finds when the force that is divine leads to challenge every failure and his ardor still is sweet and a lot of hope are burning in the presence of defeat. Load the crisis.

Load the shouts that would call the leader out when the people need salvation that he rise to lead the nation. Then that God show his plan and the world has found a man. So the altar is open. If you'd like to come forth and pray today, the altar is open. We're gonna sing the last closing of the closing hymn before the choir sings the the day.

So, Scott, if you're around, we're gonna sing Jesus paid it all. Thank you for knowing better than we do. Thank you for being stronger than we are and thank you lord that you are good all the time. Amen. Lord, it is with great thankfulness that we come to you not understanding your ways.

Lord, we're recognizing that they're not our ways. God, would you strengthen each one of us and bless us as we go this week, lord. That there may be pain in the offering, lord. Enjoying the morning. Let us go with this blessing.