Speaker 1: 0:13

Hi, my name is Elsie and I'm in seventh grade, and I'm going to be reading to you Matthew 26, 36 through 39. Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane and he said to them Sit here while I go over there and pray. He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me. Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed my father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me, yet not as I will, but as you will. Thank you. This is the word of the Lord.

Speaker 2: 0:54

Thanks be to God. That was awesome, lord. Thanks be to God, that was awesome. That's my youngest daughter. Good job.

Speaker 2: 1:02

A couple things I don't want to start off with three things. Actually One next week, just so you know, it's the dreaded Sunday of the year spring forward. So next week service is at 10 o'clock, so if you could be here on time, that'd be great. And if you want a warrior with us, no-transcript, right, because they're gonna be like oh wow, I didn't know you went here. So next week that's going on. We actually got something kind of fun On Wednesday.

Speaker 2: 1:32

It is the start of the Lenten season. If any of you guys have ever heard of or participated before an Ash Wednesday, we're gonna do an Ash Wednesday service here for about an hour. I'm gonna teach a little bit on it. We're gonna do some worship. We usually do first Friday. That's a worship night. That's how we kick off the month. So we're just bumping that back for two days month. So we're just bumping that back for two days. So we won't do first Friday. Instead, we're going to do Ash Wednesday service here. Love to invite you. If you have other people that would like to come and check that out. That's a great opportunity just to see the space to worship with us, learn a little bit more about that as we jump into the Lenten season.

Speaker 2: 2:11

And lastly, easter is on April 20th this year and we're doing baptisms. This is one of the two weekends we do baptisms in a year. This one's a particularly fun one. It's Resurrection Sunday. That's why we get baptized. It represents that resurrection that happens in us and through this new life with Jesus. So if you're one of the people who have put a light bulb in or made a first-time decision, or you just haven't done that yet and you're ready to take that opportunity, baptism Sunday on Easter is the right one. It's gonna be awesome. Would love to participate in that with you. You can just write in the connection card baptism and then your information. We will follow up. Megan or team will follow up with you in the next couple of weeks to start getting that scheduled out. So we'd love to celebrate that with you. If you know somebody that's been waiting on that, let's go. Let's make it happen.

Speaker 2: 3:04

So we've been in this series in the Gospel of Matthew for a long time. We're actually only weeks away from wrapping this thing up and we're coming to a text right now. That's pretty essential, pretty central to Christianity, and some texts you know in the Bible are more about us and some texts in the Bible a little bit more about Jesus. And this is kind of a little bit of both, like a little column A, a little column B, and where we get to start to understand God and who he is and what he has done and who we are as a people in light of it. And this is honestly, as you just heard, elsie read this this is a pretty sobering text. It's not a jovial text, it's not something where we're like, oh, I feel so inspired right now, and that's okay, because I think sometimes life just stinks, sometimes it just feels like it's a dumpster fire and it's not always great.

Speaker 2: 3:50

I wanted to tell you some of you guys may not know this we have a staff meeting here at church every Tuesday morning and we spend almost the first hour of our staff meeting just praying over the prayer requests that you guys have put back on these prayer walls every week, that you've submitted online or you've written on those connection cards, whether they're anonymous or have somebody connected to that, and we just spend time praying over them individually. We take turns going over and let me tell you, people are going through it right now. I get it as thick, like people's parents just passed away, their spouses just passed away, people just got a diagnosis. People's lives feel like they're a wreck. Their marriages and relationships are struggling. There's pain, there's finances, there's just it's thick and it is heavy. And sometimes I will tell you that I've noticed the big C church, like we'll call this little C, our faith community church, but the big C church.

Speaker 2: 4:43

What I hear sometimes out there that saying is or that maybe this is something that's happened to you or even hurt you or someone that you care about. You know, what often I've heard is that they're telling you like psychologically, that when, like, just the garbage happens, you're just supposed to kind of like pretend, like you're just supposed to like pretend that everything's fine, like akuna matata, like the joy of the Lord, like it's okay, and I think that's maybe good psychology in this postmodern Western world. But it's not good theology, because Jesus, right in this moment, this scripture we're going to talk about today, is about the sufferer, like he's moving towards suffering, and he in this text doesn't do this theology of pretending Like that everything's all good and it's okay. He doesn't go like, oh man, you know, I'm going to hit the cross and I'm going to get beaten. And here's the thing, I'm just going to pretend. I'm just going to pretend my way through it. Like I'm just going to pretend my way through it, like I'm just going to numb myself to it, just going to act like this isn't actually happening, like I hope everything goes good. And he just he's not. Like, come on disciples, like pretend with me, like that's not what he does. What he does is he goes in and he says here, just listen to what happens.

Speaker 2: 5:48

We hop in in Matthew, chapter 6, verse 36. He went with them this is a couple of his disciples to a place called Gethsemane. Now I'll pause right there. Gethsemane is a garden and it's fascinating to me. Here's Jesus. He's going to go into a garden and he's going to be tempted to not go the way of suffering, to avoid it. Because of course he says he says, father, if you'll take this cup from me he's going to say this in just a second, we heard Elsie read it but if you'll take this cup from me, but not my, will, yours. And so he's being tempted. And he's been tempted, frankly, all throughout the gospel, according to Matthew, by Satan, to not go the hard route. Like, hey, there's an easy route, there's an easy way out of this.

Speaker 2: 6:31

And I noticed here's now a man in Jesus in a garden being tempted to take out the easy route and what he's going to do. He's about to undo what originally was a man in a garden being tempted to take the easy route Should go all the way back to the beginning. Is Adam? Adam in the garden. And Jesus is now in a garden wrestling to take the easy route. And he's going to undo what the first man in the garden did, which was to take the easy route. And he's going to go to the distance, actually do what Adam didn't do, undo what Adam did. And that's actually the whole point of this kind of garden moment and scene like he's back in the garden undoing what happened in the garden.

Speaker 2: 7:14

Isn't the Bible so full of symbolism? Isn't that fascinating? Like we get all these little Easter eggs and we're like, oh, we're literally redeeming and turning everything upside down. It's beautiful how it all connects and comes together. And so he goes to Gethsemane and he's been there. He's there in this moment. I've actually gotten to go there a couple of years back. It's a beautiful place, it's full of olive trees, it overlooks Jerusalem and it's this little garden area. And he says to them sit here while I go over there and pray. He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Can you imagine your friend saying this to you? Stay here and keep watch with me, remain here and just pretend everything is okay. That's not what he said. Going a little further than, he fell with his face to the ground and he prayed, prayer.

Speaker 2: 8:23

Prayer is a fascinating response to life. When you and I look at prayer, sometimes or maybe you've experienced this you can feel like it's, you know, like a boring thing where you just kind of fall asleep. Right, I'm going to pray and it's like oh, sleepy time for some reason. Or you feel like you know God just doesn't respond. For some of you, prayer is like talking to the void, like to this empty space, not really knowing what to do. It feels like it's, you know, not intriguing. It's like talking to the sky, and some of you, that's where it's at. For you, you're like I don't really understand this thing or what it's supposed to look like. But if you actually know the God of the universe, the way that Jesus Christ knew his father prayer, what it does is, it becomes this like natural rhythm of life. It's how you just have conversations on a regular basis.

Speaker 2: 9:14

In Revelation 8, it paints this picture, this powerful picture of prayer, where the prayers of the saints go up into heaven like bowls of incense and then angels turn them over and they shoot them back down like thunder in the sky, lightning back into the earth. And so, as one poet calls this reverse thunder, this idea that our prayers go up but they actually come down and they begin to affect things. And I will tell you, it changes. It changes things when you start seeing some of the effects around you, when you pray for people around you, and the impact of that. So for me this started is actually where I started to understand that there was power there, that there was something going on there, that there was something that you can actually tap into, not like a genie in a bottle, but like to understand.

Speaker 2: 10:08

In the Bible there are no little prayers, you know, often like we can think there's little prayers like Jesus is just like saying grace, like it's just this quick little thing. There's no little prayers. We have to understand, as Eugene Peterson said, there are no little prayers. Prayer enters the lion's den, brings us before the holy where it is uncertain whether we will come back alive or sane, for it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. Prayer can be this thing where we get to like plug into a socket and now the socket's going to shoot out power into the world.

Speaker 2: 10:39

And this is what Jesus is doing here. He's praying and for some of you you know, you don't even know where to start. You're like, ah, what do I even do with this? Like the thought of it is overwhelming. There's not any power there. You're not experienced. And so for some of you who is new to Christianity, this idea, if you've got a Bible, I can give a suggestion to you. You can just go to Psalms 4. You can just start praying the Psalms. In general, the book of Psalms is just a book of prayer and don't just start with a blank slate. You can hop in there and just start praying some of those things.

Speaker 2: 11:11

People throughout history in the Christian church have prayed the Psalms. Jesus, in fact we saw just a couple weeks ago was praying the Psalms, like even when he was doing the Passover meal. They were praying and singing some of the songs. Let me just read to you Psalm 4. Answer me when I call God of my righteousness. You have relieved me in my distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer.

Speaker 2: 11:35

And he talks about what's going on. You sons of man, how long will my honor be treated as an insult? How long will you love what is worthless and strive for a lie, but know that the Lord has set apart the godly person for himself? And the Lord hears when I call him. Tremble and do not sin. Meditate in your heart upon your bed and be still. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness and trust in the Lord. Many are saying who will show us anything good? Lift up the light of your face upon us, lord. You have put joy in my heart more than when their grain and new wine are abundant. In peace, I will both lie down and sleep for you alone, lord. Have me dwell in safety. That's a prayer you're supposed to pray before you go to bed, and some of that's really good. I mean just that last line. In peace. I will both lie down and sleep Like God. Will you let me lie down and sleep in peace tonight?

Speaker 2: 12:34

If you've got nothing to pray, this is a great place to start. You're sitting just trying to come up with things. You can pray Psalm 4 and just out loud and do that Psalm 5 for the morning prayer. Now notice that Jesus, when he's in the garden and he's praying like he's being real right now, like he's groaning, he's saying like consider my groaning, give attention to the sound of my cry. And this isn't, you know, a theology of rainbows and butterflies. This is a theology of groaning, of pain and being real and bringing God into your pain, which is fascinating that this text is even in the Bible. I mean, this alone should make some of you guys believe that this stuff is true, like you wouldn't want to write those things in there.

Speaker 2: 13:17

Like a God, like a God actually talking about that, as God is suffering, like he feels these things, like he's got groaning going on and sorrow even unto death. And so this prayer is like talking to him. He's teaching us. This is how we talk to him. This is it's okay to feel these specific ways, like you want to bring them the way that you're feeling to God and allow him to experience that with them and you don't just talk to him and approach him in this formal way.

Speaker 2: 13:45

Think of it like you're talking to your spouse and think about the way you talk to your spouse. Have you ever talked to your spouse like the way you talk to God? Sometimes It'd be, frankly, kind of weird, right. Think about our prayers, like when we do it, we're like, dear God, like gracious thou, art so good and there's pebbles and ducks and they swim on water and it's make my life peaceful, like like weird stuff. Right, I'm making up stuff, obviously, but think about how fancy some prayers are. Like.

Speaker 2: 14:12

And you've heard people pray fancy prayers and you're like I don't want to pray. Like I heard that person that sounded like really neat and elegant, right, but here's what Jesus teaches us. If you actually remember, you go back to the Sermon on the Mount. We did this like two years ago in the gospel according to Matthew, when he was teaching on prayer. He said this is what you do. He said I want you to just go into your room and just pray to God, the Father, from your heart. Like, just talk to him like a real person. He said I don't want you to use big fancy words, thinking that by your big fancy words you're going to impress God. And be more righteous, remember what he said. He said just pray from it. Just talk from your heart and be real. Just be yourself, like when it's gone sideways. Just come in front of God and just groan and say like I don't want this to happen in my life or this is happening to someone I care about and I really am praying. I'm really hoping you can do something to turn it around or you can make your presence felt in the midst of it. This is just me trying to talk to you. Who is this good father? And that's where there's power in this, and whether you do something or not about it, I will still figure out how to praise you with this, but please will you just show your presence in this space and when you're really in the throes of it.

Speaker 2: 15:24

Paul talks about in Romans, chapter 8, 26,. He says the spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans, and sometimes that's all we have Wordless groans, myself included. I mean, I get to hear from some of you of the things that you're going through and frankly, I think you guys think I have this special like red phone that like picks up and I have like they're like well, if you pray for this, like you really have a one-liner to that guy, and I'm like that's not how it works. And there is times that literally, like it's just groans, Like I don't get it, I don't understand and I am just upside down about this too. And it's the Holy Spirit that intercedes through wordless groans of like why this doesn't make sense to me and I don't have words and I don't have like appropriate thoughts about this.

Speaker 2: 16:14

And so here's what happens is Jesus, he suffers, he's praying, he's crying out to God and he says sit here while I go over there and pray. And he took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them guys, my soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Just stay here and keep watch with me. And so, going further, he fell on his face to the ground and prayed my father, if it is at all possible, may this cup be taken away from me.

Speaker 2: 16:47

Yet not as I will, but as you, and I think, to a degree, right, there is just the theology of life that we fight to have a will happen, this fight for wills. He's sorrowful, he's grieved, he knows pain and agony is coming his way, but he's able to put this perspective on it and he says I don't really want it to happen. But God, if it's your will, then I want it to happen. But God, if it's your will, then I want it to happen, because he's coming at it and he's trying to recognize that things are not as they seem. What I mean by that is here's Jesus. What Jesus is doing. He's trusting not what he sees, not what he's about to feel, sees not what he's about to feel, not what he's about to experience, but what he knows, what he knows.

Speaker 2: 17:45

And that could be a massive shift in your life and if you could be the kind of person who doesn't go on what you just see circumstantially or feel in a moment. My wife Michelle and I we lost our first child. I will never forget where I was, where I was standing, how she sounded on the phone, how confused I was, how lost I felt. It has been 6,799 days since that happened. How did I deal with that? I think I had a little bit of perspective that God and I understand that it's been 6,799 days since that child was lost. But I also, when I read the Bible, I understand that heaven is a real place and that Jesus came and he died for my sin and rose again and has our little baby in that place and a house that he made. And I'm not only 6,799 days away from that time. I'm now 6,799 days closer to being there too, and things are not as they seem that there is a God behind the veil who has a plan.

Speaker 2: 19:00

And if you're someone who is able to flip your perspective and not base your life on what you feel just what you feel, but what you know Now, I will tell you. I will tell you 100%. I did not feel in that moment anything for God. I felt anger. My soul is very sorrowful, I'm troubled, I felt despair, I felt discouragement. I knew that. I knew from what I knew about scriptures in my life, which was that a sparrow doesn't die without going through the father's hand. This is what I know, but I'm telling you right now I get it. Friends, that is not what I felt, and if you live your life based on how you feel, you're going to run from every garden you face, even if it's for the good and the redemption of people.

Speaker 2: 19:53

You understand that Jesus was in a garden and he's walking towards despair, towards suffering, which doesn't make any sense to us, because he's not trusting what he's feeling. What he's feeling is awful. What he's feeling is fear. He's scared. He tells us he's troubled. I don't even want this in my life. Things are not as they seem, but what it looks like on the surface, like suffering and isolation and awfulness and despair, is what we know. This. It ends up being the redemption of the world.

Speaker 2: 20:28

Look in verse 37. He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him. So who are the two sons of Zebedee? This is James and John. So there's three people who went Peter, james and John. These are the three who also went to the Mount of Transfiguration just a few chapters earlier. Jesus takes them and they have like the greatest experience they've ever had in their life. And Jesus shines whiter, a whiter white than has ever been made by mankind. They feel the glory of God, they see the glory of God, they experience it all around them. And what's Peter's response? Peter's response is let's just build a tent and stay here forever, like this is the best. And it's funny because once you read the rest of the gospel, you realize that Peter's actually married, like Peter has a wife, he has a mother-in-law, and so he's, like you know, hanging out with my mother-in-law. Or Jesus, let's build a tent, right, let's just stay here.

Speaker 2: 21:20

So Peter's, he's up on this Mount of Transfiguration and these guys just experienced the greatest glory they've ever felt in their life, the greatest feelings, and they've ever felt in their life the greatest feelings, and they don't want to come down. Now, those same three guys, the only three that experienced this, he brings into the garden with him because he wants to say to them hey guys, this is the rhythm of life. There are moments of great glory and awesomeness and then there's garbage, there's tragedy, there's sorrow and pain and fear and stuff you don't want to do. And Peter, james and John live your life in these rhythms. And the only way you can deal with this is because you've felt the mount of transfiguration. You have felt this. You know glory is coming. You have had peace, you've had just a little taste of it.

Speaker 2: 22:11

Have you ever had just a little bit of taste of something really good? How about this? You did this, maybe as a kid. Maybe you got kids who've done it. Maybe you do this as an adult, but, like when it's like a birthday day and someone's making a cake, right, why are you hanging around the kitchen? We all know what you want. You want to lick the spoon, right, you're waiting for them to be like oh yeah, you just whipped that thing up. Who's taking that? You're going to wash that off, are you right? And why do you do that? Ooh, you just want a little taste, like you know the thing's coming, like the goods are coming, but you're just like oh, I need to get like a little taste of that, a little taste of the glory, right, and that's what happens. We got to remember the little taste that we had and the hint of it, even when it goes all sideways. And, yes, you're going to go through pain and tragedy, but here's what it's doing.

Speaker 2: 22:58

Things are not as they seem. Let me give you a quick example of what I mean by that. There's a guy I read a story about a guy in Florida, this old man. Every Friday this old guy would go walk down this pier in Florida and he would get a bucket. He would go buy a bucket of shrimp, but he wouldn't go buy like the bait shrimp. He would buy like the you're going to eat it at a fancy meal shrimp, like the top dollar shrimp, and he would get this whole bucket of shrimp every Friday. He walked down the here and he'd just throw one at a time up to the seagulls, the seagulls, he'd feed the seagulls and people called him crazy. His name was Eddie, called him crazy Eddie. They didn't know it. They're like what is this guy? I mean he's feeding this really expensive shrimp, just throwing it up there to the shrimp. And then they started to hear him. They hear that he talked and he would just do this, thank you. And I'm like crazy Eddie. Things were not as they seemed, because what many people didn't know is this was Eddie Rickenbacker. And Eddie Rickenbacker's story was that he was actually one of the most decorated World One vets. He had over 26 kills as a pilot. He desperately wanted to be a part of World War II, but he was too old to do that, and so they gave him a role of traveling around the Pacific and encouraging the men who were fighting at that time, and on one of his trips to the Pacific they actually asked him to give an important message to one of the generals and their navigation system went sideways and they found themselves hundreds of miles off course and eventually ran out of gas. And there was eight of them that had to ditch the plane in the Pacific Ocean and found themselves floating in life rafts or life rafts. All of them had survived the plane ditch and after three days they ran out of water and food and a few days later one of the men ended up drinking some seawater and he lost his life. And they're finding themselves in this desolate situation while they're floating now. It ultimately ended up being a 24-day experience, but on around, they think, day eight. In the middle of the day, he's got his head down and his hat down, he's trying to catch a little sleep, just in this horrible situation, and suddenly he feels this thing come and land on top of his head. He like opens up his eyes and he sees all the other men, just like, staring at him and he slowly reaches up and he snatches the feet of the seagull and then they eat it, and then they use its intestines to use it as fishing bait. They found some rainwater and ultimately they end up surviving this after, like I said, 24 days. And then, after that moment, what he did was he would go buy a bucket of shrimp the nicest shrimp on Fridays and he would go and throw it out to these seagulls and say thank you, thank you these seagulls, and say thank you, thank you, thanking them for the sacrifice the seagull made that gave him life and his friend's life. Things were not as they seemed. There was a story behind Crazy Eddie Rickenbacker.

Speaker 2: 26:08

And when I look at Jesus in this moment, where he's like, my soul is very sorrowful, even to the point of death. Remain here and watch with me. My father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me, yet not as I will, but as you will. He's saying. I feel something Like I'm looking at something, but I'm not going to trust what I feel at this moment, because I know that the Father has much bigger plans going on and I'm going to trust that, even though it doesn't look like that. And if you could take this cup from me. I'm sorrowful, I'm messed up, I'm grieving, I'm scared. Maybe somebody else can do this.

Speaker 2: 26:50

Listen to what the apostle Paul says in Philippians, chapter 2, verse 5 through 11. He says hey, this is what we are to have. You guys me, you have the same mindset as Christ Jesus who, being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing. Taking on the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. He doesn't see equality with God as something to be grasped, but he emptied himself. Isn't that beautiful? Have you ever had anyone empty themselves for you? And he did that for you and for I. So he would suffer. He would actually face hunger, he would face fear, he would face moments where he didn't want to. He would enter into sorrow, into grief, which is really important, because sorrow and grief are things that you have to actually allow come into your life to feel it, to understand it. We have to understand how important dealing with that it can be. And our culture you know this, our culture goes after happiness all the time, right, but sorrow and grief, no, thank you. But we need to understand how important this is.

Speaker 2: 28:11

If you, maybe you've ever seen the movie Inside Out, it's a Pixar movie. It's a really great movie. They actually made one recently about teenager life. Right, it was really great. But it's this beautiful picture of good psychology because there's this sadness, there's this character, sadness and then there's anger, and then there's joy and they're all controlling this little girl's mind the whole time. And the whole point of the movie, the whole plot of it, was that we want joy to control our mind and sometimes anger will take control of the mind. But we don't want sadness, no, sadness, you're not allowed in, like who's personified in this little character, and we don't want sadness to control this little girl, because that's just going to lead us down bad ways. So never let sadness in. And then in the end, of course, by the end of the movie, you realize sadness is important. Like letting sadness take control actually is very healthy for you at times, because you then face the realities of life and let you then experience the grandeur of life.

Speaker 2: 29:13

This has been something that's been really helpful for me as I process my own emotions and feelings. And this is kind of how emotions work good or bad emotions. Think of it like a bell curve, and so you know when you have moments of like joy and happiness, you know it comes up and it kind of peaks out and then it kind of goes down and goes away and you know we move on to the next thing. Or you know we're proud of something or some, a good emotion. The same thing happens for difficult emotions, sadness and grief and sorrow and depression and anxiety, all those things. But the difference is is what happens is is we're willing to ride out the good ones, but when it comes to like a difficult emotion, that is very uncomfortable for us and our brain doesn't like it either.

Speaker 2: 29:59

So what happens is we start to ride this up and when we get here before it peaks out, we go nope, right, we bail out, we're like I'm out of this joint, like I'm not sitting around this space, and then what happens is is we go to all of our little risk factors. Think about what those were. What do we run to? You know, for some of us, you know it's eating, or it's drinking, or spending money, or it's video games, whatever your numb thing is like. Ah, this is what's going to make my emotion that I don't like feeling, feel better, right, and so we sit in that space. Well, what happens is is then it comes and starts right back over, and so we start riding that up and then we're like nope, and we start doing this over and over and over again. Think of it like a spiral, right, it's uncomfortable and it's important that we learn. And it's scary, and I can say this from my own personal experience it's scary and it's uncomfortable that what we need to do is invite that in and we've got to ride it all the way out to the top and then know it'll go down, it'll go away, and that's the uncomfortable part.

Speaker 2: 30:58

I think Jesus even shows an example of that of like hey, these emotions, they're hard, but they're part of life and the rhythms of life. There's going to be good ones and there's going to be difficult ones, and this little spiral is where we can get really, really unhealthy. And so, as difficult as it is, know that we'll be able to ride that out and find some other space before it shows back up again, and so you'll be able to then suddenly find yourself identifying with Jesus Christ, who became sad for you. He emptied himself. He took the form, form again of a servant being born in the likeness of men, being found in human form. He humbled himself to becoming obedient, to the point of death, even death on a cross, finishing those verses from Philippians. Therefore, then, because of that, god exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name above every name, that the name of Jesus. Every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father.

Speaker 2: 32:09

Remember what he said in verse 5? He said have this mindset among yourselves. Know what he did. He gave you and I a model in the person of Jesus and said if we, if he went and he suffered, if he went and he suffered and he gave up all of these things, and yet God glorified him. Know that, in the midst of your pain and stuff and prayers and agony and trials, what's coming? Because he took it and he grasped it and he emptied himself and he ended up glorified in the end, so glorified that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. But he's not just telling us something about Jesus, he's winding it all the way back and saying now, this is how you and I should actually live in the midst of this. So, friends, hold on to hope, because we, through Jesus, are hopeful people. Will you stand and respond in worship with me?

Speaker 1: 33:26

Yeah, come on, give God a hand clap of praise for that message today.