The One Who Has Ears, Let Him Hear
First B Jackson
2022-05-08

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

----
Y'all, can you hear me now? Hey. Welcome. Happy Mother's Day. I'm glad y'all are here.

Would you stand with me? We're gonna sing a few songs to start off with this morning. I'm just glad to be here. It's nice, springy, green. It feels feels really good.

The norm our normal custom way back when when I was in seminary was the end of the school year would happen the week, the Friday, usually Thursday or Friday before Mother's Day. And we would leave from South Carolina, go to Georgia, hang out with my mom, and hang out with Tanya's mom there. And then we'd come here and do the carpentry or the internships or whatever. And so this time is always kind of a real, don't know, happy, joyous sort of time for us. Oh, worship the king, hymn one zero four.

Victory. It says on my page right here, the victory in there. Oh, the extra syllable. When we all get to heaven. Y'all know this one.

Sing this one like you mean it. Y'all can have a seat. I missed Scott Humphrey on songs like that one. I could sing bass if I had somebody up here that was just kind of carrying that along. We've got a few announcements this morning.

One of em is happy Mother's Day. Glad to be here with y'all. I miss my mama of course but she watches every Sunday anyway. But happy Mother's Day. Glad that that's and I'll mention that again.

Oh, the first be all starts. This is I just made this stuff up. But anyway, Monday Monday nights at first be is happening. 6PM, there's meal, music, and a message, and Carl is gonna be speaking from the book of James, which is funny. You're speaking you're towards the end of chapter four, starting chapter five.

Several years ago on Mother's Day, we were at the very end of the book of James and I sang a song, a Lynyrd Skynyrd song. Simple man because it's a mother's advice. Now, James gives great advice. It's a super practical book and he's getting to some of those places right there. So, anyway, there's a prayer group that meets on Wednesdays in the church office.

I'm going to let Mike have an announcement. I skipped over Awana but Wednesdays, seven: 3zero am, there's a prayer group. We have a French toast fundraiser next week for Kaylee McClinaghan. She's headed towards Senegal We'd like for you if you would fund that. We would appreciate it.

She's already got support going but it's nice. Anything we can do to help her along her way, we want to do. And Awana races. Here we are.

Hi guys. For those of you that don't know my name is Michael Demetrius. I'm youth director here, and I've been helping with Obuana this year. And if you guys remember a couple months ago, we got up here and we said, hey. We're not sure if Obuana is gonna happen this year.

It it will take volunteers to come and do this, and I just wanna say that you never know what's gonna happen in those moments. The reality is we we were probably not gonna have it, but the church stepped up. We had 40 volunteers come through from different times and all the bases have been covered. God has totally provided and it's just I just wanna give God a hand. Can we just Amen.

And I wanna say it's been my first experience with Awana and I'm a believer. I'm a believer. It is incredible to Ray talks about consistent application over time and to consistently pour scripture into these young children's hearts is a beautiful thing over time. So I'm thankful for all the volunteers. I see some of you guys out there.

If if we have any Iwana volunteers in here, could you stand up and we just we just wanna recognize Now ever. Now or Yes. Awesome. Yes. Thank you guys for your service, and and I just wanna say tomorrow night is kind of the culmination of the year.

It's our last night, and this is when the kids will bring their Pinewood Derby cars. We're gonna race them on this track in this room tomorrow night. So if you're around, you wanna come share some pizza and just clap for some kids that have worked so hard all year and especially hard on these cars. Please come and do that. And I said it's my first year, but I just wanna honor and just say so many people have carried the torch and poured scripture into these young minds for so long.

I just I I think I wanna mention just Martin and Becky and Shannon Murphy pouring in for so long. Diane and Gary Geek, Marianne Kadahl, Jane Cranenburg, so many people have done this for so long. And as youth director, I've gotta tell you, I get to see the fruit of students that have just had scripture poured into them year after year after year. It's a powerful ministry. I hope that we always continue, and I just wanna say this year was a very big win.

So Amen. Thank you.

That's cool. Thank you, Mike. So I think that's the last of the announcements that I know anything about. My okay. Sister's That's good.

So you all have you all heard of this before? There's something that normally, the ladies will come together and drop off clothes the day before. And then Casey McCooey and several volunteers will set up and turn it into basically a store in the fellowship hall of all of these clothing items and purses and accessories and whatnot. It's down there. They set up a store and come together on Saturday.

Which Saturday is it? Twenty first. Twenty first, thank you very much. So twenty first, this month. And they'll come together and actually they're going to have a luncheon in the midst of it.

So the store will be open in the morning, then they'll have a luncheon, and then they'll go back to store in the afternoon. And anything that is left over after that will be taken to various to shelter here or to the thrift shops here and it will be donated. So that's a good thing, my sister's closet. It is to include ladies and young ladies, girls this year. So if you would, bring your gals, daughters, and mamas, whatnot.

I think that's it though. Anything else? Okay. He'll clear that and make a black screen behind holy holy and we'll stand up. It's holy holy not to be confused with holy holy holy.

And we'll do the optional ending at the end. And it's snowing outside. How about he is lord? Hymn number 34. We'll sing it two or three times.

Whatever comes up on the screen. Right? Okay. Have a seat. And I'm gonna pray.

If you if you would pray with me. Lord, we we want, lord, for this time of offering, this worship that we are doing through giving, Lord, back a portion of what you've given to us. We want to honor you, and we want to reach out to those who do not yet know you. Lord, would you show us how to do your will and your way. Here in this little local church, may we be good stewards of, your people's, offering.

May we do, Lord, exactly what you would have us do, no, less than that. In Jesus' name, we ask that we would be about our father's business here. Would you, Lord, spread your good gospel? Would you sow the seed, the good seed of your word through this little local body? May we be faithful, Lord, because you are faithful.

May we be loving because you are loving. May we be merciful and gracious because you are. Lord, would you show us your will and allow us to do it in your way. Lord. We're thankful.

In Jesus' name, amen. Is it on? Mother's Day twenty twenty two. So each time that Mother's Day rolls around, I am thinking, okay, I need to acknowledge, but I also what do you do? What do I do?

I'm going get to scripture, don't worry. I'm going to get to scripture. We're going to be right in our normal study. But as I'm thinking about it and always considering, songs just pop to mind over and over and over again. So like I said, I did a Leonard Skinner song.

Simple man. It starts off, Mama told me when I was young, sit beside me, my only son. Listen closely to what I say. And I'll if you do this, it'll help you some sunny day. That's good advice from a mama that loves her son, right?

And I think I'm reminded often of, yeah, remember when you sang Mama Tried, the Merle Haggard song for Mother's Day. It's like, you know, Mama Tried to Raise Me Bite. But I refused. You know, I turned 21 in prison doing life without parole. That's because I didn't listen to my mama.

There's another one that comes to mind pretty regularly. Folsom Prison Blues, but I'm not going sing it, all right? Folsom Prison Blues starts off and says, my mama told me, you know, to always be a good boy and don't ever play with guns. But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. It's going against mama's advice.

Does not turn out well for these people. All of those, and I'm thinking about, okay, what can I do this Mother's Day? I thought of a fella in our hometown, my hometown that around the fire on whatever big occasion, we had a lot of people over to shoot fireworks or anything. He eventually would get nostalgic in the evening and he would sing, If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again. Played on the guitar and play.

And there are a lot of words of, I just wish I had listened to her or others too. I won't go into those. But as I was looking at it, I thought of this this week. So the Psalm hey, start with the Psalm. Psalm one:one through nine is what we're going to cover right now.

So this starts off the very first out of a 150 chapters and Sorry, Proverbs one, not Psalm one. Proverbs one says, The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David. So out of 31 chapters. The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel. Now think about that.

Mama was Bathsheba for Solomon. And Solomon starts off in Proverbs with this, to know wisdom and instruction, to discern the sayings of understanding. So there are a lot of little things that our mamas share with us that sometimes we kind of let them just go over ahead until later and we kind of figure out they were right, you know. My mother, one of her favorites was trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge him and he'll direct your paths.

That's good, you know. To discern the sayings of understanding. Seems counterintuitive to let go of everything that I understand, but it's saying let go of what you understand in favor of what God says. Right? To know wisdom and instruction, to discern the sayings of understanding when God asked Solomon what he wanted, that he would give him what he wanted.

He said, want wisdom above all else. So he got it. To receive instruction in wise behavior. Righteousness, justice, and integrity. Oh, have we not been hitting righteousness, justice, and integrity in every message for weeks after weeks now?

It's because in Jesus' ministry, he constantly was pointing out the difference in righteousness, justice, and integrity with hypocrisy. To receive instruction and wise behavior, righteousness, justice, and integrity to give prudence to the naive, to the youth knowledge and discretion. A wise person will hear and will increase in learning. Isn't that a wise person that can learn from the mistakes of others? Right?

A wise person will hear and will increase in learning. And a person of understanding will acquire wise counsel. I want to say right here that a parent or a teacher that says, do as I say, not as I do, is a hypocrite. But someone who says, do as I say, not as I used to do, is a teacher or a good mama, good dad. A wise person will hear an increase in learning and a person of understanding will acquire wise counsel to understand a proverb and a saying.

The words of the wise and their riddles. There are things that are confusing sometimes, but the words of the wise and their riddles. I actually took a picture during the song service. I don't know if you caught that, but Matteo was just laying down in the middle of the aisle like this a few minutes ago. That was his commentary.

That was from the back right there. To understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Reverence for God is where it starts. It has to.

But who's going to train you in that? Who's going to train you in that way? The fear of the Lord or reverence for God is the beginning of knowledge and fools despise wisdom and instruction. If people are insistent on doing things their own way without listening, it usually does not go well for them. That's what Proverbs are for us, to help us on our way.

And verse eight gets down to it. Listen, my child, to your father's instruction and do not ignore your mother's teaching For they are graceful wreath for your head and necklaces for your neck. So I may come back around to this at some point, but I am very, very thankful for my mother and for godly instruction from her. But I recognize not everybody has that. I recognize that some people struggle with mom, and, I'm prayerful that God will allow us to see how good and gracious and godly our mothers were, if they were.

And if they weren't, that he'd give us the grace to be able to forgive and move past. Right? God help us. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Now I'm gonna get to the parables of the kingdom. This is where we left off last week. Continuing with the parables of the kingdom. Last week, I just covered one and it was the one that I think Jesus set it up before all the rest of these. Now in Matthew, he has this one about the four soils and then he has seven continuing parables about the kingdom of God.

But catching the first one is really important. So the parable of four soils without the explanation, just this slide right here is these few verses. He told them many things in parables saying, behold a sower went out to sow. And then he explained it to him afterwards. I think that as we go today, we'll see it again.

Some of the seed fell beside the road. That was hard packed ground. Impenetrable. Could not get into the soil. Birds came and picked it up.

Some fell on the rocky places. And in that case, the pore space and the rocks didn't allow for deep roots. They sprang up immediately, but they didn't have much soil so they were scorched and they withered away. Others fell among thorns and among the thorns. The thorns specifically Jesus says in the explanation that the thorns are the riches and the things of this world.

The things that by sight you might go by. Wealth and security. Earthly security. Others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. But others fell on the good soil.

And on the good soil, that every single message that we hear, we have an option of allowing it to go deep in and bear fruit. Some 60, some 30, some 100 times as much. The one who has ears to hear, let him hear. He leaves off with that. I quoted this last week, and because so many people asked me for it, I put it back up here this week.

If you want some one of the slides from last week, if you can describe it to me, I'll send it to you. The word of God is proclaimed and it causes division among those who hear. God's people receive the word, they understand it, and they obediently fulfill it. But others fail to listen because of a hardened heart or a basic superficiality or a vested interest in riches or possessions. I I think that nails it.

The one who has ears, let him hear. So that's the first of these parables. And then after that, there are several. I'm gonna cover two today. One of them is unique to Mark, and here it is.

This is Mark four twenty six to 29. It's just those four verses. And he was saying, the kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil. But before I get to that no, I'll come back to it. Never mind.

I'll probably forget and you all remind me afterwards. I've through a lot in the past few weeks as we contemplate Mother's Day. We have been through a lot. This week I got to sit bedside for an 87 year old matriarch of the family who is, they say, actively dying. But she's very actively still living right now.

But it was nice to sit with the family, all of the kids, and see the love that was shared and the sacrifice that that mother shared for those kids and for their families. It's great to be there. I've also been through a process of someone who's trying desperately to have custody of her kids, and that's a very difficult process. I see the way that moms are pouring in to their families and pouring themselves out. I just want to acknowledge that.

And can we pray? God, would you help us, as we endeavor to be good parents? Would you give us the wisdom that is from above? Would you allow us, Lord, to trust in your way and that you would lead us forward in faith, that you would raise our kids up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. In Jesus' name, Lord, we ask and we leave that with you.

We do not know how you do what you do, but but as you'll show us day by day, we pray that we'd be faithful just as you're faithful. Amen. Amen. I didn't want to forget. Sorry.

The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil. Now this starts off a whole lot like, behold a sower went out to sow. Right? He just said that in Mark. He just said it in Luke.

He just said it in Matthew. And in Mark, this is what he follows it up with. After the explanation of that first one, kingdom of God is like this. A man who casts seed upon the soil and he goes to bed at night and he gets up daily and the seed sprouts and it grows. Why?

Because that's what it does. I'm not a horticulturalist and I'm not an agriculturalist. The chore that I hate more than anything is cutting the grass and taking care of plants. I'll fix your lawnmower, but I don't want to have anything to do with cutting your grass. How?

This says, he himself does not know. That's interesting. That is really interesting right there. That the kingdom of God is like this. It's like a man who casts seed out upon the soil and he goes to bed at night and he gets up daily.

He's faithful, but he doesn't know how it works. It just works. That's what happens. Seed. Now the first parable said finds good soil.

Second one says, seed sprouts and grows. How? He doesn't concern himself with that. That is God's domain. The soil produces crops by itself, it says.

Self propagating in some ways. It just does. The soil produces crops by itself. First, the stalk, then the head, and then the mature grain in the head. And then when the crop permits, there is a time of harvest coming.

We all can kind of recognize. I was joking this morning that when we see that the snow's not as deep anymore, we know springtime is on its way. Then it's no between services. It is. The grass is starting to green up and we start to see that.

We know that when we see green grass that tourists will be here soon. We know that, right? When the crop permits, this says, the same guy, the farmer, the sower, immediately puts in the sickle and because the harvest has come, it's time to harvest the crop. And so that is the end of it. And it's not explained in Mark.

So that's it. What do we get? Out of that, I I like this. I like that he himself he does not know. Now he is the one in that first parable and in the next parable in Matthew, he is the one who sows the good seed.

The son of man does that himself. And you know when Jesus is asked about the end times and he says, listen, I don't even know the day or the hour. The father knows. I I don't know. I just am doing what he told me to do.

And that's what he expects from us, that we would be his witnesses. He says, if you'll be my witnesses, or actually he says, just be my witnesses. And that he will grow his church through that, and it's not up to us to know how to do that. Just tell your story of what God has done for you. It's not up to you how God increases that, but be humble and faithful before him.

The next one is unique to Matthew. In Matthew this one's a hard one. It's a hard one now. I have said a couple times that first parable could be about the good soil is the dedicated Christian believer, and then those others are not saved. And we wanna say, are they saved or not saved?

Is it are they in or are they out? But I think that his since it was leading up to the parables of the kingdom and God often does things like we don't expect, the message needs to find deep root. His gospel message needs to find deep root in our lives. And we can then be obedient to it, and then we are part of that field that is growing up. Right?

That God has planted. So this one's unique to Matthew. It starts off like this. Jesus presented another parable to them and saying this, the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. Okay?

But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then left. Now, like I said, not a farmer. I know what it's like to weed a garden. I mean, I used to do that a lot. That's why I hate it so much now.

But generally, you can look and you can kind of tell what's weed and what's not. But this word right here for weeds is sisania. That's the plural of weed, sisania. Cesania is a kind of darnel, which resembles wheat. It looks like wheat.

It looks like it when it starts coming up. It looks like it when it continues to grow. And then when it gets to be harvest time, it still looks a whole lot like wheat up until the very harvest. So spurious wheat darnel. It's a plant that grows in Palestine which resembles wheat in very many ways, yet it is worthless.

It's not any good. It goes further than that. It's not just worthless. I'll get to it in a minute. I usually use two or three dictionaries when I put the slide up like this for the Greek word.

A tear, a darnel. Figuratively, it's a pseudo believer. One that looks like from outward trappings, a Christian but is a false Christian. A fruitless person living without faith from God, and therefore they're all show and no go. Okay?

This is the difference between wheat and darnel. That's pretty close. So is this one wheat or is this one wheat? Well, the going forward, wheat and darnel, that's what they look like. And they look a whole lot like each other.

So this saying that this is worthless is one thing. It goes beyond that though. Just before harvest time, darnel will turn black. And it is easily distinguished at the very end, but not until then. What's that?

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. So the darnel itself is just a different plant. So wheat's good for making bread, and it's good for holding back for grain for planting more wheat for the next year. But darnel itself is poisonous.

And so it also gets in with the grain for next year and plants more darnel. So it's hard. Spurious wheat, darnel plant that grows in Palestine. It's worthless, and it's poisonous. If you prepare darnel in the same way that you would prepare wheat, it would be something that would be an intoxicating thing that would make someone delusional unto the point of eventually death.

Isn't that awful? So Jesus using this word, using these, he says, an enemy comes and sowed the weeds, the darnel among wheat. And when the wheat sprouted and produced grain, then the weeds also became evident. And the slaves of the landowner came and said to him, Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? We know you.

We know that you're good, and we know that you check stuff out like that. Didn't you sow good seed in your field? How then does it have these noxious weeds? And he said to them, well, an enemy has done this. Actually, the punctuation's added, right?

They don't have punctuation in Greek, but I I think exclamation point is warranted here. An enemy did this. It's infuriating. And the slave said to him, do you want us then to go and gather up this darnel? But he said, no.

Because while you're gathering up the weeds, you may also uproot the wheat with them. The roots become intermingled, and it's hard to pull up the one without destroying the other. Allow both of them to grow on up together until the harvest. And at the time of the harvest, I'll say to the reapers, first, gather up the weeds and bind them into bundles and burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn. Boy, that's a hard message.

I mean, I'm I'm just in the parable, not in the explanation yet. He's going to explain it, but he's gonna explain it to the disciples when they ask. First, gather up the weeds and bind them in bundles, burn them, and gather the wheat into my barn. And the explanation is like this. Jesus says, then he left the crowds.

He'd been teaching before a whole bunch of people in Sower's Cove, right, sitting out there on the boat to who knows how many, five, maybe 7,000 people. He left the crowds. He went into the house, and he his disciples came into him and said, now explain to us that parable about the weeds. I don't like that. I'm confused by it.

And I don't I want to make sure I understand. So explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field. And he said, Well, the one who sows the good seed is the son of man. That's what he had said in the first one, right? The one who sows the good seed is the son of man, and there are these four types of soil.

Well, one is talking about a soil that receives seed and it grows up to fruition. But the enemy also sows seed in the same field. The son of man is the one who sows the good seed, and the field is this world. And as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom. And the weeds that Darnell, they are representative of the sons of the evil one.

Wow. An enemy who sowed them is the devil. There is an enemy. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled off is convincing the world that he doesn't exist. Right?

The enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Now angel means messenger. It always means messenger. That's the word. Means messenger.

But the message is, the messengers are the reapers in this case. So just as the weeds are gathered up and they're burned with fire, so then shall it be at the end of the age. Now, in our day, universalism is the most popular, convenient to heresy. That in the end, God's love will win. Actually, Rob Bell wrote a book a few years back.

It was really popular called Love Wins. Love Wins. It's that eventually God's redeeming love would reach absolutely every single soul, including the devil himself. The only problem with that book or with universalism, and it's not a new heresy, it's been around forever. Only problem with it is it just disagrees with the New Testament and Old Testament.

I mean, they on every turn do. And as hard as it is for me to be the messenger that carries forth this message of the bad news and the good news with it, There is good news. Right? Just as the weeds are gathered up and burned with the fire, so shall it be at the end of age. The son of man will send forth his angels, messengers, and they will gather out of his kingdom all of the stumbling blocks and all of those who commit lawlessness.

And they'll throw them into the furnace of fire. In that place where there'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth, that is one of the ugliest images that I can think of. Conscious torment. But yet, it's Jesus who's saying it. And he's saying it as a solemn warning.

He's saying it to the people who are interested in knowing the truth of this figure of speech. A parable, something that's thrown down beside. Parable, that's what it means. To throw something down beside. He's saying the kingdom of heaven is like this.

This sower that goes forth and this enemy that goes forth. They're going to grow up intermingled, and then there will be a dividing, and there will be one that will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and then the righteous will shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of their father. That's actually a quote from Daniel. Daniel 12. I thought of several different places in the old testament.

Ezekiel says, and with it coming on Mother's Day, Ezekiel says that if you will warn them. If you will warn them and they heed your warning, then you will save their life and your own. But if you will warn them and they reject it, mama tried, right? If you will warn them and they reject it, then you didn't save their life, but you gave them the chance, and you will save yours by being faithful to the message. As much as I hate to deliver bad news, I still have to be faithful to it.

It says, those who have insight will shine like the glow of the expanse of heaven, and those who lead the many to righteousness. Justice, righteous integrity from Proverbs one. They will shine like stars forever and ever. And then Jesus closes off this little parable again with, the one who has ears, let him hear. It's a solemn warning.

Now, he also will follow this up, and I'll follow it up next week with more parables. The parable of the kingdom, the pearl. Once you've seen that that you've got this treasure, everything else you would shed to be able to have this thing, the kingdom of heaven. And so to look towards God, leaning not on your own understanding, trusting in him, acknowledging him, and he'll direct your path. It's worth it to go for it.

Are you with me? Are you with me? The one who has ears, let him hear. God Almighty, would you plant this seed deep in our hearts so that we may humbly accept it? As hard as it is, and in our society, as unpopular as it is.

I pray, Lord, that you would plant your seeds so deep in us that it changes the way we live our life. That it changes the way we individually live our life. We're not listening to this message and then thinking, I wish so and so heard it. Lord, would you allow us to cultivate our own field, to have it ready, humble, fertilized, that you would grow up the good seed, that it would allow in our own lives the fruit of obedience, that we'd be born forth, and that we would bear fruit. In Jesus' name, Lord, we ask that you would do what it is that you do.

I love how it says the sower went out to sow. By night, he slept, and by day, he worked, and he did not know how you brought the increase. Lord, may we leave behind a legacy of faithfulness. May we be faithful because you are faithful. May we be loving and merciful because you are loving and merciful.

May we be ready, Lord. May we be ready in season and out of season to give a reason, a defense for the hope that's in us. Not just our pure theology, Lord, but actual righteousness, actual justice, and may we live our lives in actual integrity by your spirit. Lord, we turn to you asking that you would cleanse us from any kind of sin. When I started off with Solomon and David and Bathsheba, this song that we're about to sing, Lord, is about that.

Cleanse me. See if there's any wicked way in me, Lord. Cleanse me. You have the power to transform and change. In Jesus' name, may we be looking with anticipation towards you and the harvest.

Amen. Would you stand with me? Judy, will you come forward? We're going to sing Cleanse Me. This is a four verse song and it's a progression.

Search me first and know my heart. Try me. Know my thoughts. See if there's any wicked way in me and cleanse me from all of that Lord. Now John, first John one nine says that if we are homo logao, saying the same thing as God about our sin, that he's faithful and just to forgive it.

He's faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, which leads to praise, which leads to service. And that's the way we're gonna go this this song, Cleanse Me.

Me, and know my heart today. Try me, oh savior. Know my thoughts, I praise you, Lord, for cleansing me from sin. Fulfill thy

Humbly pleading with God. Humbly pleading with God is the way that he does his work. When we stand up in pride and we say that we know the way and we don't have anything to do with him or his instruction, we only do damage and poison. I'm gonna go for the last verse here of the day. It's James one five.

It says, if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God. You might you might ask your mama too, by the way. But if any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. Lord, would you do your will among us this morning, Lord? Would you humble us in a way that is profound and productive?

In Jesus' name, amen.