Speaker 1: 0:14

Good morning Northgate. How are we doing this morning? Everybody doing well. Hi, for those of you that don't know who I am, I'm Sammy. I'm the director of student ministries here at Northgate. Last week we had my friend Ron she read from here. She did a great job. I was actually away with 27 middle school students. Where are my middle schoolers at? They're in here.

Speaker 1: 0:36

We all went to winter camp last week and I got really good news. We had eight kids make a decision for Jesus last week. So real powerful stuff If you're in high school or if you have a student in high school. We are going to winter camp in two weeks. We're going to be going to the Thrive Conference up at Bayside Church. If you're interested in getting information on that, come find me. I have a flyer. I'll tell you all about it. I'm super excited about it. But before we go too long, let me get into the word of the Lord. If you have your Bible, you can open to Matthew 26. I'm going to go ahead and read that for us.

Speaker 1: 1:09

When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples as you know, the Passover is two days away and the Son of man will be handed over to be crucified. Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him. But not during the feast, they said, or there may be a riot among the people. While Jesus was in Bethany, in the home of a man known as Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table.

Speaker 1: 1:50

When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. Why this waste? They said this perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor. Aware of this, jesus said to them why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. I tell you the truth wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her. This is the word of the Lord.

Speaker 2: 2:26

Thanks be to God, Thanks, Sammy. Hey, for you guys who don't know Sammy, we're actually celebrating this. A year ago he came back to be with us. He's cancer free, so so go ahead and have him. And also, if you're in middle school, if you're in here in your middle school, if you want to go to the box, Sammy's going to take our middle school students to the box. Have a good time, guys. Well, hey, my name is Lawrence, one of the pastors here. It's good to be with you.

Speaker 2: 2:49

We have been on a journey, a long journey, through the gospel according to Matthew. We've been taking it verse by verse, literally like little step by step, and the gospel means the good news. This is really a biography of about God, who he is through the person of Jesus and the good news that he brings for us and, as we've discovered, kind of this upside down kingdom, of the way we think of kingdoms and rulership and the way that things are reigned. And we're actually coming to the last moments of the gospel of Matthew, which, for some of you, you're like wait, I'm new here, Like can we keep doing the gospel of Matthew for like longer? And others of you are like wow, like I've grown old and, like I've had grandchildren since we've been in this series. It's been so long. Well, congratulations. We are starting chapter 26. So if you have a Bible or you have your phone or an iPad, your device you can open up your screens into chapter 26. There's 26, 27, 28. That's it. But they're going to move fast because now what we are is we're in the midst of the drama around the trial and the death of Jesus. We're in this section that scholars call the passion narrative 26, 27, and 28. And the word passion is really interesting here.

Speaker 2: 4:01

It might not be what you think of, but in Greek and the Latin term it's actually about the suffering of Jesus. In these chapters they're all about the suffering of Jesus, the trial, the death of Jesus, the resurrection and the lordship of Jesus. I was reading one commentator and they said that those four things the suffering, the death, the resurrection and lordship of Jesus is really what the church is founded on. These are the four most important things to the church. So these chapters are really at the heart of everything that Matthew wants to do.

Speaker 2: 4:33

It's this deep theology of suffering that the point of it is that when it happens in your life and in my life that it's actually causing us to be conformed to the image of Christ, to Jesus who's going to go on trial and suffer himself, that the point of Christianity is not that you're not going to die, it's that you are safe dying, Because all of us are going to die. All of us have tragedy in our life, All of us suffer at some point, and the point of the New Testament is like giving you a little bit of steel in your spine to say that when it happens, you're not supposed to question whether God exists or not. You're supposed to understand that if anybody's life models something for you, that Jesus actually goes and he suffers, what is in that is actually that God is in that, that he's not out of control in our moments of suffering, which is actually what we tend to think. Right, we tend to think I go through difficulty, I go through trial, and one of the greatest points that we're supposed to understand of the gospel narratives is the suffering of Jesus in the midst of that suffering actually shows us that God is in control. Where we go, he goes, and things are not necessarily out of whack when you feel like they are, when you lose your job or your kid gets diagnosed with autism, or your neighbor wants to sue you, or it feels like your marriage has fallen apart, just feels like it's tragedy happening around you or you get that diagnosis or whatever's going on. Friends, God is not out of control at that moment, and the whole point of the cross is actually to give us an image of where God is using all of these things for his ultimate good. That we might not understand in that moment, but he's going to do something in the midst of it, and so this is where Jesus' life starts to actually teach us that the suffering, the death, the resurrection, the lordship of Jesus is actually then telling us to go out on mission. That's what the next three chapters point us to, and it all starts in chapter 26, verse 1. So let's hop in. When Jesus had finished all these sayings, then he said to his disciples so just pause for a second. Just right here. And some of you are going. This is why we spent almost four years in Matthew, because he says one sentence and we have to talk about it. You're right. So remember, Jesus has been talking for like chapters straight here. It's all red letters, Like if you look at that, the red letters anywhere you see in the Bible is actually where Jesus speaks. Now some of you just went whoa, it makes sense, right? So he had five major discourses of teaching in the gospel according to Matthew, and what we've done is we just finished the last one in the entire book, Congratulations and scholars, as they look at Jesus in the gospel of Matthew, it's as if Matthew specifically is presenting Jesus as a new Moses and he's the one who gave us the law back in the Old Testament, the beginning.

Speaker 2: 7:31

And there are many, I'm not even going to go through them all. There are many, many parallels which we've actually highlighted over the years throughout this book as we've journeyed. But here, interesting enough again, the imagery that happens and just kind of this whole little puzzle coming together. The number five, these five discourses. There's five books of Moses Genesis, through Deuteronomy You've heard it even called maybe the Pentateuch. You have five major blocks of teaching, from the Sermon on the Mount and so on and so forth.

Speaker 2: 8:01

So Jesus did his five major teaching or books, and so he's just had two or three chapters straight where he's taught as the new Moses, leading Israel into this new promised land and through this new Exodus moment, not out of slavery of Egypt, but out of the slavery of sin and death, and through the waters, not through the waters of the Red Sea, but through the waters of baptism. And so, Jesus, as this new Moses leading the people, he's just finished his final Moses speech, if you will, and so his sayings are over. And now he says to his disciples as you know, the Passover is in two days, it's two days away, and the Son of man will be handed over to be crucified. Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they schemed to arrest Jesus, and secretly they did this to kill him, but not during the festival, they said, where there may be a riot among the people. So first of all, let's look at what kinds of people want him dead.

Speaker 2: 9:11

Well, it tells us right there that the chief priests and the elders of the people. Who are they? These are the religious people. They don't like Jesus pushing back on them, challenging their authority. They don't really want Jesus to be the ruler and the dictator of their life, and some of that happens here. Frankly, you know like I just want Jesus for some fire insurance or that prosperity stuff that I hear about, if I pray hard enough because he's a good, good father. But when it comes to like, when it's like we're supposed to push all the chips in and give everything to Jesus, we're like nope, that's a little too much. Like that's a little too much power, I'm going to need to kill that off. Like, you can't have it all. But then there's a group of people who actually don't want him dead and my hope, I'm like Lord, please let this be me, Please let this be us, Please let this be the church.

Speaker 2: 10:03

If you look at verse five, it says but not during the festival. They said or there may be a riot among the people. A riot among what? The people? The people don't want Jesus dead. The people, that's the group that you want to be a part of. So would you ask this question of yourself which group am I a part of? Like, honestly, the first group or the people, Meaning the people that I've met at Northgate, who used to be this and then they've come to know Jesus and they're like I need Jesus to be alive in my life.

Speaker 2: 10:38

They want him to like, actually be alive enough to begin to change their marriage, change their life, change the way that they do sexuality, change the way that they view and do money. They used to be Muslim or Buddhist or Mormon or atheist or agnostic or just lost. And they're saying I want Jesus alive. The people want him alive and the invitation is that you and I become part of the people, the people who say like I've got no life without Jesus and the last thing I want is Jesus to be dead. I need him alive so he can guide me, to teach me. I need him alive to give me a new life and hope and power.

Speaker 2: 11:22

I remember, young in my faith, I was shook by a book that kind of changed everything for me. It was written by CS Lewis and here's how he finished the book Mere Christianity. This is literally the last paragraph of that book. He says give up yourself. Literally the last paragraph of that book. He says give up yourself and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death death of your ambitions, your favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body and in the end, submit every fiber of your being and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will really be yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, which is what culture tells us to do, and you will find, in the long run, only hatred, loneliness.

Speaker 2: 12:14

So the question for us, I think, today, this morning, this Sunday, this year, no-transcript or are you the people, the people who believe in Jesus, the ones who have nothing to lose? And the problem, frankly, with our hearts is that our minds struggle with this. We feel like we have everything to lose, and so it's so very hard for us to fully to be all in and follow Jesus, which is the whole point. Okay. So next point, let's go back to verse one.

Speaker 2: 13:04

When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples disciples. Right there, just double click that or underline it in your Bible. Right here, this word disciples is Matthias. This is where we get the word math. It means learner. This is what Jesus says at the end of his gospel, according to Matthew, that we're actually supposed to go out into the world and do make disciples learners. And here's the thing we have to continually recognize that every one of us is a disciple of something.

Speaker 2: 13:34

The question is whether or not you're a disciple. The question is who is discipling you? What is the thing that is discipling you? This is what the New Testament is all about. It's about discipleship. We know this because 269 times the word disciple is actually used in the New Testament. How many times is the word Christian used? Three times in the entirety of the New Testament?

Speaker 2: 13:57

Christianity in that sense of the word is not the main paradigm for what Jesus came to do. He didn't come to like set up religion. He came to call people to become apprentices. That's the word that Dallas Willard calls it, because he tries to use a word that doesn't feel too loaded. He says are you a student of Jesus? We can either ask ourselves are we an apprentice, Are we a disciple of Jesus? See, we're all disciples of somebody. You know, maybe, whether you're a disciple of secularism or a disciple of Buddhism or humanitarianism, or a disciple of Kanye West or CNN or Fox News, like, pick your thing right.

Speaker 2: 14:34

Every single one of us, at some level, is being discipled by something. And so Jesus says I want you, like in the midst of your discipleship of life, to actually be my disciple. That's the offer. So are you the people, or are you the elders and chief priests and to a degree, it's almost like present day Christianity focuses on some of the wrong things. If, frankly, friends, if all of your gospel is Jesus is going to forgive me of my sins so I can go to heaven when I die, If that's the summation of your gospel, you've missed what he's been talking about this entire time. He doesn't say say a special sinner's prayer, walk forward, invite Jesus into your heart and then you're going to go to heaven. That verse actually doesn't exist in the Bible. It's not his vision. It's actually much grander than that. It's not about going to heaven when you die. It's about being a disciple, a learner, an apprentice in the now, in the kingdom. That is actually now that you begin to look different, you begin to taste different, that you are a light on the hill, that you bring an aroma that is so different from everyone else and how they experience the world around them. So then, what does it look like for you to follow Jesus in everything that you are? Not just learning about it, friends, but living it out, Okay. So then it says this verse 2.

Speaker 2: 16:02

As you know, the Passover is two days away, so just pause for a second. What's the Passover? The Passover is this Jewish celebration. You go back and read Exodus 12. You can mark that down. We don't have time to go through all of that today, but the Passover is this festival that would happen annually and they would celebrate the Exodus where God came and God's the death came over any home. That where there was a slaughtered lamb and took the blood of the lamb and put it on the doorpost and then death would pass over. This was the Passover. And so here's the beautiful thing Jesus and God, in his foreknowledge, actually uses this time that we're coming into right now, the passion of Christ, the Passover as this time that he actually wants to kill the ultimate lamb who's going to shed his blood for the sins of the world, that anybody who comes underneath the blood of Jesus' death passes over them. They would slaughter, according to Josephus, during the Passover time. This is a crazy stat over 256,000 lambs in the greater Middle Eastern area. There's more on that to come in the weeks to come.

Speaker 2: 17:10

Passover included a feast. It included a meal, and that's what Jesus is actually about to go and do we're going to talk about in two weeks. It's so beautiful. It's called the Last Supper. You know like where the first communion takes place. It wasn't like Jesus just came up with this meal, this special meal, out of nowhere.

Speaker 2: 17:26

What he does is he takes something that already existed. The Jews were already doing, they were having this feast already and what he does is he begins to restructure it around himself and says I am the true Passover lamb, Not to set you free from Egypt, but sin and death. And this is what I want to do. This is my body that's going to be broken and this is my blood that's going to be shed for you, if you believe in me, so you'll be saved. Now, what happens next? So Jesus says hey, I'm going to die this awful death, I'm going to suffer. The people start getting riled up and the chief priests start getting riled up, and then there's this crazy story. It's a beautiful story.

Speaker 2: 18:07

Hop in at verse six. Then suddenly it shifts. Well, Jesus was in Bethany, in a home of Simon the leper, just right there. Who's Jesus hanging out with? You notice that he's not just hanging out with the elite, he's hanging out with those who people don't hang out with. That's what he cares about. A woman came to him with an alabaster jar very expensive perfume, and so then she poured it on his head as he was reclining at the table.

Speaker 2: 18:36

When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. Why this waste? They asked. This perfume could have been sold at a high price, and then that money given to the poor. Aware of this, Jesus said to them why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor will always be with you, but you will not always have me. When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial and truly, I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her. Now here's the beautiful thing.

Speaker 2: 19:12

First thing you got to understand about this story right here is it's a flashback. It didn't actually happen chronologically like this. Matthew tells us that it was happening in Bethany, and we know it happened about a week before this because the gospel writers other ones also tell this story. So it was in a week that happened, before this event that Matthew just introduced. But why does Matthew do this? He sticks this right in the middle because he's trying to make a very specific point.

Speaker 2: 19:37

So there's this dinner and we learn that there's Mary and Martha's there. This is what the writer, Mark and John tell us and that there's Lazarus. You know if you've ever heard of him. He's this guy that Jesus raised from the dead and they're all sitting at dinner. They're all reclining and chilling out. They're having a nice meal and this lady comes in and she covers him with cologne or perfume that was very expensive. The gospel writer says it was probably worth about 300 denarii, which means that it was one year of someone's salary. So for you and I think about how much you make in one year. Put that number in your head.

Speaker 2: 20:14

Now picture a bottle of cologne or a bottle of perfume and you bring it to Jesus and you dump the whole thing on him and then it's gone. And what happens here is his disciples freak out Like we could have used it. Like we could have. If you were going to give that to Jesus, we could have actually taken it, sold it and used that for, like, some really serious stuff. And Jesus is just like can we just celebrate me for a second? Like, hold up, Can you just notice that you need to give your best to Jesus? I'm going to pause and we're going to have some real talk. This is talk that I've had to have with myself this week, as I'm like unpacking this, trying to figure it out right? So, real talk, Some of us sometimes me too, sometimes me too we just bring Jesus our junk like the leftovers, like the worst perfume and cologne ever created and you're like here you go, you can have this, Do your thing with it, right?

Speaker 2: 21:18

I mean, here's just a silly example. I love that people come and they're generous by giving food to our food pantry, but we get leftovers Like we get expired food every week, that then we have a special box for expired food, Like we actually have a box for that. Or we're like Lord, you want my finances? Well, you can have what's left over. After I paid for Netflix and I got a new car and I redo my kitchen, you can have a little bit. I'm not going to give you my best, Jesus, because you don't deserve my best. You deserve the leftovers.

Speaker 2: 21:55

Now, hold on. You would never say that. Of course, you would never say those words, because why would you say those out loud? But it's how some of us live. Maybe, what say you?

Speaker 2: 22:05

Maybe what say you? Are you the people, or are you the elders and the chief priests? You know, when it comes to partnering and being a part of something all the way. You know some of you, if we're doing real talk, some of you don't give a dime, but then suddenly you want to give a damn about what's going on and what you actually get from this place or what you get from Jesus, or we don't use our gifts and talents and partnership with the kingdom. Remember what we said last week as a reminder a faith that saves is a faith that works. And we often say that I'm doing this on purpose. We I'm saying purposely, we, because this is me a lot as well, and I'm challenged by this regular we say like hey, Jesus, you can have a little bit of my blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like fill in the blank and you can have a little bit of it, but I like worked really hard for that, or I really wanted that.

Speaker 2: 23:05

You know it's blessings from you, right? So it's mine and some of you. You know maybe some of you don't know this, some of you do know this, some of you know that, even you know. Here you have to make decisions. We've had to downsize some of our staff and it's painful. It's a reality that everyone here must do, like to live within their means. It makes sense to so many of us. We've had to do the same thing here. We have to live within our means so we can continue investing into communities and building kingdom.

Speaker 2: 23:35

And then some people can get really frustrated and get upset because someone we love or we're connected to doesn't work here, is no longer getting paid to do ministry. And then we reflect and say, like why am I so upset about this? Am I giving or am I giving my best to Jesus? Does my story tell that? And then what happens is is we want someone else to fix it? We want somebody else to give their best, but not me. But imagine what would it actually look like for you to give your best. This isn't about money, by the way, but like what would it look like to give your best when it comes to your giftings and your talents that God has given you, for the sake of the people who are around you and building the kingdom in the church. If you can make money, even, don't just be an usher Love having you be an usher or using your gifting somewhere else, but also use that. We want to use that to build for the kingdom. You see this all the way from the beginning, why Jesus says hey, this is a communal thing, this investment into the kingdom. I'm not bringing Jesus' leftovers in my life. I'm bringing in my best because he deserves our best. Jesus deserves everything that we have, and so Jesus is like guys, listen, can we just stop being like a pragmatist for a second? Like, let's be extravagant. Like let's pour cologne all over someone. Have you ever done that? When was the last time that you did that? Not actually's pour cologne all over someone. Have you ever done that? When was the last time that you did that? Not actually physically pouring cologne on someone, but like theoretically, where you just saw something or someone and you just were extravagant?

Speaker 2: 25:17

We had a part of our vision statement years ago was to unleash compassion. When was the last time you unleashed compassion on someone Just ridiculous over the top, because you could and maybe you should or to ask myself are you like, do you do anything that God asked you to do? In that moment? I mean, this woman responded from some sort of prompting to go and make this type of decision. It was some sort of response that, like, was way out of the ordinary.

Speaker 2: 25:46

It's shocking, right, what happens to you when God tells you to go up to somebody in a coffee shop and talk about Jesus, because you've overheard some of their life circumstances and you're like I know where they can find some hope and help with that, and then, suddenly, you're like I can't do that because I don't know them. I need to have a lifelong relationship with them before I can enter in and suggest the idea of Jesus to them, right? I think, though, that God actually invites us in and tells us, oftentimes, to do weird things, because he's not a pragmatist. Like he's like I'm going to break things out of the box. Like I want you to do the crazy stuff that you would never do because for the sake of someone else, like they need it and you know where the fix is you actually have the rope to like feed down to that ditch that they're sitting in right now. And then he says in verse 13, truly, I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her. Well, we know that that happened. We're talking about it right now and here's the beautiful part of it. I love how it highlights the strength of a woman. Jesus celebrates a woman.

Speaker 2: 26:52

How many of you were the backbone of how many of you? How many women in your life were the backbone of our faith? Mothers, grandmothers in this room, raise your hand. If it was a strong woman that handed faith down to you at some point in your life, yeah, there's many of you. I'm one of those people. It was my grandma, it was my grams.

Speaker 2: 27:11

I can't even tell you the countless hours I spent with her unloading semi-trucks for, like food, pantry food to make boxes to feed hungry people. The hours spent of her talking to people in grocery stores about what was going on in their life and then watching someone in front of us count change to figure out what they can keep and what they can't keep, with a kid in the basket and then her paying for the rest of it, or the hours and hours I spent in fabric shops, which was not fun as a young man to spend time there. But I'm telling you right now I can look up a pattern and find your situation quickly. I know the codes, but then fabric that she would purchase and then she would go spend hours sewing and literally making people clothes, including me. That was also awful, but anyways, middle school kid, last thing I want is my grandma's made my clothes, but making clothes for other people. And then nice stuff like dresses and like dress clothes to give people dignity, like learning about that.

Speaker 2: 28:09

Or the hours that she spent in like nursing homes and specialty homes where people had lost loved ones, and going around and just connecting with them. And then she started doing this thing that I'm gonna call a ministry. It was just what she did. It was her life, using her gifts and her talents and her time and her finances. But she would go around and say, using her gifts and her talents and her time and her finances. But she would go around and say someone who just lost someone, she'd say what was the thing that they always wore that reminded you of them? And she would take that fabric and then she'd make a memory bear, a little teddy bear my mom actually has continued that legacy now and people who pass away. They'll send stuff and someone gets that piece of clothing. But then she would go back. We would literally put dozens of bears in the car. She thought there were people we had to buckle them in. It was weird, but we did it. I followed along, and then she would just go around and love on people.

Speaker 2: 28:55

I'm telling you, friends, right there, that, for me, is where I experienced the hands and feet of Jesus. That made me passionately fall in love with him through her. It wasn't somebody standing up here like this is a teaching of this and this is how this word works here. It was just tangibly experiencing it because she had given everything. She wasn't bringing leftovers to the plate. I was experiencing the richness of the meal constantly through her, and it wasn't being followed up with like now. Here's where I learned to do this and you need to blah, blah, blah. Right, it was just man. You are light on the hill, man. Your aroma is different than everything else I'm experiencing and frankly, I'm telling you too, as a young man I probably took advantage of that. It's not until I'm older, I look back and be like that's not normal, but that's also why I made a world of difference in the kingdom in that time.

Speaker 2: 29:55

I'll end with this. He says truly I say to you, wherever the gospel the gospel meaning the message of the life and the death and resurrection of Jesus wherever that gospel is told, proclaimed in this world proclaimed, by the way, just aside proclaimed is your job, not mine, like it's your job to be a Grams on the soccer field. It's your job at work or at the office. It's your job at your family dinners. It's not my job to proclaim, it's your job to proclaim it with your life. And I'm telling you right now where you're going to see the growth of people and people coming to know Jesus.

Speaker 2: 30:33

The real Jesus is on a Tuesday night in your house. It's not necessarily in a Sunday morning sitting in one of these chairs. That's when the church has exponential power in the world, when you understand that it's your call to be a proclaimer with the way that you live, with the way that you act, with the things that you actually do, the way you bring the fullness of a meal and not just the leftovers. It doesn't necessarily mean stand up on a table and yell at people. It means your ability to articulate the gospel and what the gospel is about and the person and the work of Jesus that actually has happened within you, not just about God in general, but like how your life looks and feels and tastes different. And so he says wherever that message is proclaimed as you and I are the proclaimers this woman's story is also going to be proclaimed because of what has been told and what she has done in the memory of her. You know why? That's why Matthew put it here, not just because it was about perfume, or not just with women. It has to do with the death of Jesus. Why did he pour this cologne all over me? He says because she was getting me ready for my burial. Now talk about a killjoy during that dinner and we'll pick that up next week.

Speaker 2: 31:53

But let me just tell you what's coming. Let me just tell you about the cross. Let me just tell you how it affects everything in your life the shame, the guilt, your past, your history, the stuff that I had to deal with. He took it all. I don't have to earn anything in front of God, so stop, friends, trying to earn it. I see so many of you burdened down. I see guilt, I see the shame in your life. There's stuff that you are hiding and you don't need to hide it any longer. You can actually be set free because he took it all, and it's not about your performance, it's about his.

Speaker 2: 32:37

And then you need to tell them, whoever the them is in your life that you rub up against. You need to tell them about him and tell them how it's actually affected you. It's simple. That's how you proclaim. Don't overthink it. The simplicity of the gospel is how it's affected your life, and that's the power. Are you the people or are you the chief priests and the elders?

Speaker 2: 33:11

Let me pray over you, father. We submit to you and your word and what it says. God, even as I reflect, I'm so grateful for the sacrifice you made on my behalf so long ago. And, father, may we continue to be challenged by giving our best and as we tear apart ourselves, would you fill those voids, the things that we're afraid to let go of, the little voices in our head that talks to us about the leftovers. May they be a conviction, but also a celebration, as we put ourselves fully to you, committed, completely and wholly, and ask for your gentleness and kindness in response, especially for those of us who are afraid, who have a scarcity mindset. Would you give us exactly what's needed in those moments. We love you and we praise you for the work you continue to do in us and through us. In your name, we pray amen. Would you stand as we respond in worship.