Scripture Reading Mark 10:1-16

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Hi, my name is Mercy Lopez, and I'm a junior at American Canyon High School, and I'm gonna read Mark 10:1 through 16. And he left there and went into the region of Judea beyond the Jordan, and the crowds gathered to him again, and again, as was his custom, he taught them. And the Pharisees came up, and in order to test him, asked, Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? He answered them, What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away. And Jesus said to them, Because of the hardness of your heart, he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate. And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter, and they said to him, Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, Let the little children come to me. Do not hinder them, for such for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. And he blessed them in his arms, laying his hands on them. This is the word of the Lord.

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Thanks

Welcome And Church Announcements

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be to God. Thanks, friend. All right, you guys can have a seat. I think uh something about today knew you needed an extra hour of sleep before this conversation. The Lord knew I needed it. Hey, my name is Lawrence. Welcome. I'm one of the pastors here. We teach the Bible here verse by verse. We've been in the Gospel of Mark. Um, that's also we teach it verse by verse, which is why we're talking about this today, because it's just where we landed. We're starting chapter 10. Um, and uh and we're only gonna spend three weeks on chapter 10, so we're gonna crank through this. Um yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on. I just wanted to really quickly tell you there's a lot of other stuff going on right now. Welcome to November, I mean Christmas, whatever you want to call it. It feels like we're there. Oh wow. Wow. All right, you did get this sleep. Um, we have in a couple weeks baptisms. Uh so if you're I'm not even gonna talk. I can't wait until you hear my message. All of a sudden, like, why aren't we clapping now? Right. Um, so we have baptism. If that's something you've ever been interested in doing, this little spot goes away, we're gonna have a tub. You can make that public uh thing. If you want to know about it or you have some questions about it, it's in a couple weeks. We have a little spot up there, it's got some balloons and stuff like that. You can go out there, ask those questions. And then um I also just November. I ran into some of my friends this morning uh that were coming in, and you know, for them, this isn't the most wonderful time of the year. Um, and so we have resources for that. So just as a heads up, I'll talk about the end of the message. But um, we have a little thing called surviving the holidays. It's like uh just because some of you, you're like, that's all you're trying to do is survive um right now, and we have a bunch of other stuff. So just know. And if you know someone, um, this is sometimes where I see less of certain faces because I just feel like it's hard to be around people. We're just we're for you. And um we want to make a safe place um where you get to just be you and and uh walk through it. So, anyways, again, here we go.

Why Divorce Tenses A Room

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Uh chapter 10, verse one. I I think this is actually there's there's certain topics that you can bring up in a room and like immediately feel everyone tense up, like politics, you know, Tuesday coming up, Monday, uh like who gets the armrest on the airplane. And apparently, marriage and divorce is one of those. Um, because the moment that you say the word divorce, everybody hears it differently. Some of you, you grew up watching your parents' marriage fall apart, some of you are divorced, some of you are children of divorce, some of you are are married and you're struggling right now, and some of you are single, wondering if marriage is even worth it. I think there's even some of you want to be married so badly that every wedding invitation feels like slightly personal. And then some of you are like 20-something, dating somebody for six months, and your grandmother is already asked when they're getting great grandchildren. You're like, chill out, what the heck? We haven't even shared Netflix passwords yet. Like, slow your roll, right? But underneath like the humor of this stuff is something that is deeply human. Because relationships matter, like love matters, commitment matters, and when those things break, people hurt. So before we get into this passage, I just want to say something clearly. Um, if divorce is part of your story, I don't want you sitting here for the next 30 minutes waiting for Jesus to throw a rock at you. That that isn't what this passage is. Jesus is is is is not speaking to wounded people looking for mercy right here. He is responding to religious leaders looking for a loophole. And that distinction uh changes everything.

The Trap Question And Herod’s Shadow

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So here he goes. He begins, verse one. And he left there and went to a region of Judea and beyond the Jordan. And the crowds gathered to him, and again, as was his custom, uh he taught them. So Mark gives us geography again. And by now, many of you guys have learned uh that we know that geography in Mark isn't just like rarely geography. It's it's telling a story. And here's the story is he's moving south, he's moving towards Judea. Jesus is now moving, he's turned his attention towards his mission, toward the cross, and everything from here uh forward uh has gravity. Jesus knows where this road will end. This is why he's here, right? And notice where he does this, he does this beyond the Jordan. And so, what's important about that? This region was connected with the territory of Herod Antipas. And so, if that name real quickly sounds familiar, it should. Um, Herod is the ruler uh who actually had John the Baptist arrested and eventually beheaded. And if you don't recall what got John in trouble in the first place, it was marriage. John publicly confronted Herod for taking Herodias, his brother's wife. So here's the deal. So now Jesus is literally standing in territory connected to a ruler who killed the last prophet to publicly challenge his marriage. And then Mark says, and Pharisees came up in order to test him. Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? Now that's not like some innocent Bible study question. Like Mark, Mark tells us their motive to test them. So this is a trap, right? They aren't sitting around saying, like, Jesus, we really want healthy marriages. Like, could you help us understand God's heart behind this? No, no, no. They're literally trying to get him in trouble. Because here's the deal if Jesus condemns divorce too hard or too strongly, uh, maybe they can make him sound like John the Baptist. And everybody knows what happened to John. And if he allows divorce, you know, too easily, then they can accuse him of just undermining scripture. So, either way, right here, they think they have him. And there's actually another thing that a layer culturally that's happening here, first century Judaism, there was a significant debate over Deuteronomy. This is a book in the old, Old Testament, way back towards the beginning, in chapter 24, um, and specifically on grounds for divorce. And there's these two different kinds of rabbinic schools that are associated, one with the Shemaii, uh, and they interpreted divorce more like narrowly. Largely, it it was around like serious sexual misconduct. And then another associated with a guy, Halil, uh, and interpreted the grounds to be much more like broadly. And when I say like broadly, I mean like really broadly. Like some interpretations allowed a man to divorce his wife for things today that would sound like unbelievably trivial, right? Like burning dinner or like embarrassing him or finding another woman attractive. Like just imagine getting served divorce papers because the chicken was dry, right? And some of you look like you're gonna look at your spouse and be like, you would have been gone years ago. Right. But here, and hold on, notice the deeper issue. In that culture, men held enormous legal and economic power. Like a divorced woman could, they could become incredibly vulnerable and like financially vulnerable and socially. And so this debate was not nearly just about like theology and theological, right? Real people could get crushed by the loopholes powerful people created. And if you don't remember, Jesus spent the entire last chapter talking

Permission Vs Command And Hard Hearts

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about how we treat people without power. He talked about children and little ones and the vulnerable and people that we overlook, and that conversation has not ended. And so he responds, he answered them and says, What did Moses command you? I love this. They asked Jesus for his opinion, and Jesus talks about scripture. He says, Well, what did Moses command you? So they answered. He said, Uh, Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her her way. Now notice the word they use here, allowed, right? Jesus asked what Moses commanded, and they answer with what Moses permitted. That difference is really enormous, right? Because sometimes we confuse with like what God permits in a broken world with what God desires for human flourishing. And Jesus immediately exposes that. Um, he said to him, Because of the hardness of your heart, he wrote you this command. Like there it is, hardness of heart. That's the thing. The problem is actually underneath the problem. Uh, the the Greek idea, word, verbiage, and how as this is originally written carries this idea, a sense of like a stubbornness, like a spiritual uh resistance, this unwillingness to be shaped by God. And so Jesus says Moses's provision for divorce was not evidence that divorce represented God's ideal, it was mercy operating inside of human brokenness. So Deuteronomy chapter 24 placed literally protections around something that people were already doing. So God was just restraining damage in the fallen world. And that distinction matters as well. You know, the that there are laws regulating slavery in the Old Testament. That doesn't mean slavery represents God's creational ideal. There are laws regulating warfare. That doesn't mean war represents Eden. There are laws regulating divorce. That doesn't mean divorce represents God's original version for Mary. So Jesus says if you want to understand marriage, don't begin with the loophole, right? Go back before the fracture, go back before the hardness that he's talking about. Go back before human beings like learned how to just use one another. And that's exactly where he goes,

Genesis And The Weight Of One Flesh

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right? He says, but from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. So he reaches all the way back to Genesis, the very beginning, before Israel, before Moses, before you know religious arguments or cultural customs, like before anybody had a podcast explaining relationships and how they work, right? God created human beings for relationship. And if you're like the Muslim trying to figure this out in the room, there's something here that you may immediately recognize that Jesus is grounding human relationships in the intention of the creator. Or, or if you've you know experienced with or you come from a Buddhist background, you may hear Jesus confronting the way human desire can turn another person into something that we possess for our own satisfaction, right? This is where you hear that. And if you're an atheist or agnostic, you're just skeptical trying to figure this out, you may not even accept that Genesis is like this divine revelation, but stay with Jesus for a moment here because he's asking a question every worldview has to answer. What is another human being worth when they stop making you happy? That's not merely a religious question. That's like a human question, because every relationship eventually reaches the moment when the other person becomes inconvenient, right? Friendships do, marriages do, families do, community does eventually love, it costs you something. And our culture is very good at teaching us like how to choose. Why? Because we swipe, we compare, we upgrade, we unfollow, we unsubscribe, we return things with free shipping, right? If somebody stops meeting our expectations, we just replace it. If something stops meeting our expectations, we just replace it. And it may work wonderfully with headphones, but it becomes devastating when we start treating human beings the same way. Jesus continues, therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife. Hold fast. That language, what this is, is this is covenant language right here, which means to cling, like bind yourself, to stay attached. This is uh more than just romantic chemistry. Like chemistry is wonderful, but it's also unreliable. But like here's it nobody stays married for 50 years because you get up every morning, wake up, look across a pill, and like hear a Disney soundtrack. A whole new world. You're like, what? No, some mornings you wake up and you think, you breathe incredibly loud, right? Biblical marriage is deeper than sustained attraction. It's covenants, right? It's choosing faithfulness when when feelings like fluctuate. And so then he says, and um, the two shall become one flesh, so they are no longer two, but one flesh. One flesh, not two people sharing an apartment, not two independent brands entertaining strategic partnership, no, one flesh. Genesis actually describes marriage as this like mysterious joining of two lives and bodies and stories and families and futures and vulnerability and finances and dreams and pain, right? Everything starts becoming literally intertwined, which which is why divorce hurts so deeply. I mean, come on, if marriage were just simply a contract, ending it would just simply be paperwork. But Jesus says something like deeper happiness here, like two become one. And when that union tears, people bleed. Jesus isn't saying that every divorce person failed because they didn't try hard enough. Some of you fought for your marriages, that the other person abandoned, some of you experienced betrayal, some of you lived through abuse, some of you begged someone to get help, some of you know what it's like to literally watch a covenant break while you are desperately just trying to hold on to it. Jesus is not giving ammunition to an abuser and saying, see, you have to stay. Because remember that Jesus we've been meeting all throughout Mark. What does he do? He protects vulnerable people, he confronts people who use power to harm others. He warns that causing little ones to stumble is horrifyingly serious. The point here, friends, is not shame. The point is sacredness. Jesus is saying human beings are not disposable, marriage is not disposable, covenant is not disposable. And then he gives us a line that almost everyone knows if you've been to a wedding, what therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. Notice who Jesus is saying is doing the joining. God. That actually elevates marriage beyond a private arrangement between two people. Jesus sees marriage as something that God participates in, which means the Pharisees came asking, Hey, when can we get out? And then Jesus completely reframes the whole conversation. They want to know the minimum requirement. Jesus wants them to recover the original version. Essentially, they ask, What am I allowed to do? And Jesus asks, What did God create this to be? And that question reaches far beyond marriage, friends. Because actually, I think some of us approach our entire relationship with God that way. Like, how far is too far? How much do I have to forgive? How much money do I actually have to give? Right? How often do I really need to pray? What technically counts as sex? Like, how drunk is too drunk? How close can I get to the line without crossing it? Like we want the boundary. And Jesus keeps talking about the heart. And maybe that is the translation, the transition that we need before we actually deep dig deeper into this passage. Because again, the the Pharisees think they're asking Jesus about divorce, and Jesus thinks that they are revealing something about the human heart. And then what happens next

Private Clarity And Protecting The Vulnerable

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when the disciples get Jesus alone makes that even clearer. Because apparently the disciples they heard everything Jesus just said. They just still had questions. And so Mark changes the setting here. Says, and in the house, the disciples asked him again about this matter. So that phrase in the house matters in Mark. This scene is shifted. We've seen this before. Jesus will teach publicly. Um, but then the disciples get to him privately and say essentially, like, okay, can you now explain what you said to everybody else? Right? Because apparently the disciples are like the rest of us. Like they nod during the sermon, like, yeah, I completely understand. Like, absolutely, Jesus, one flesh, yeah, covenant. Come on, right? Creation. Oh, that's very good. Hardness, heart, I'm totally tracking. And then they get in the car afterwards and they're like, What did he what did he mean by that? Now, notice also, this is really important. The Pharisees are gone, right? So the trap is over. That's important. This is no longer now Jesus trying to avoid like this political landmine. These are his disciples essentially and literally asking him, like, what tell us more about this kingdom life and what it actually looks like. And so he answers them. He said to them, Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her. And then uh, if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery. So those are difficult words. And we shouldn't just soften them just because they make us feel uncomfortable. But we also shouldn't weaponize them in ways that Jesus never intended. Jesus is right here, he's confronting a culture in which a man could treat a marriage covenant like a contract that he could terminate when the arrangement just stopped working for him. And Jesus says, no, no, no, no, no, no. You cannot reduce another human being to whether they continue meeting your needs. Marriage is not ownership. Marriage is a covenant. And there is something revolutionary hidden in Jesus' language that we can easily miss. He says the man who does this commits adultery against her. So hear that against her. This is in a culture where women were often treated legally and socially, uh, and socially as extensions of the man or the men in their lives. And so Jesus recognizes that the wife is actually the person who has been sinned against. She is not property that has been improperly transferred. She is a person. She has dignity. She bears the image of God, the image of Dei, right? Her betrayal actually matters. And then he turns this statement around and says, if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, the same standard applies here. And so the second statement would have been especially recognizable in the wider Greco-Roman world at this time, where women could actually initiate divorce much more readily than in traditional Jewish practice. And so what he's doing here is he's applying covenant faithfulness in both directions. Nobody gets a loophole because of gender or money or power or status or social position. And before somebody hears this and thinks, like, okay, so Jesus is saying every divorce and every marriage and every circumstance is exactly the same. I think we have to make sure we allow the rest of Scripture to speak as well. Mark gives us Jesus' teaching in the sharpest form because Mark wants us to feel the weight, I think, of covenant. Matthew records Jesus in the book of Matthew Gospel of Matthew, records. Jesus addressing sexual immorality. Paul, the Apostle Paul, later addresses abandonment by an unbelieving spouse. So scripture recognizes that human sin and woundedness can actually destroy what God intended to be whole. And let me just say something especially important, I think. Jesus' words should never, ever be handed to an abusive spouse as a weapon to keep someone trapped in danger. If you know, you know. That would completely contradict what we have watched Jesus do all throughout the Gospels. Jesus, he's repeatedly moved towards vulnerable, defended, overlooked, confronted people who use power again to hurt others. I mean, like literally just a week ago or one chapter ago, you know, he he warned that causing one of these little ones to stumble was so serious that a millstone around your neck like sounded preferable, right? So please don't take Jesus's defense of covenant and turn it into a defense of abuse. Those are not the same thing. Some of you guys have divorced in your story. And in and you know it wasn't something that you casually chose because you just got bored. Some of you fought. You prayed. You went to counseling. You forgave things nobody else knew about. You kept hoping that the other person would get help and eventually something broke that you could not repair by yourself. I mean other you others of you I think maybe you look back and you realize like I contributed to the breaking. Maybe you were selfish. Maybe you cheated maybe you disappeared emotionally. Maybe you were so determined to win every argument that eventually you won all the arguments and lost the relationship. Jesus isn't pretending that any of that doesn't matter but neither is divorce the one sin or wound Jesus forgot to take to the cross. There is grace there too. And Jesus is heading towards Jerusalem for covenant breakers, for adulters, for liars, for selfish people, for religious people, for people who stayed married but stopped loving each other years ago for people who broke promises and people who had promises broken against them. Yes, I have talked about every single one of you in this room right now. The point of Jesus's teaching is not here is a category of people God can never redeem.

Let The Children Come And Receive

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The point is stop treating people as disposable. And then something happens that feels kind of like Mark just suddenly changed changes this awkward subject right he didn't it says and they were bringing children to him that he might touch them and his disciples rebuked them. So parents literally begin bringing their children to Jesus. They want Jesus to touch them and to bless them and to pray over him and then the disciples start turning him away like get out of here which is amazing because Jesus literally used a child as an object lesson one chapter ago and apparently nobody was taking notes. He had literally put a child in the middle of the disciples and said that receiving someone like this was literally connected to receiving me. And one chapter later they're like sorry kids Jesus is busy right now we're doing important kingdom work, right? This is one of the great comforts I think of reading scripture in the Bible. If you have ever needed to learn the same spiritual lesson more than once congratulations you qualify to be an apostle like but also culturally we need to understand what's happening right here. We tend I think to at times romanticize children you know we have children museums and children's menus and children's ministry and birthday parties that somehow require a second mortgage these days. Like it's wild. But children in the ancient world were loved like of course right but they did not pose the social status children often have in modern Western culture. Like they had no resume they had no YouTube channel where they get views they had no influence no economic power no no no social leverage they couldn't advance their career they couldn't improve their standing they were what? They were dependent right so the disciples look at these children and apparently think Jesus has important kingdom business to do and Jesus's reaction here is actually really strong he says but um when he saw it he was indignant what a word and he said to him let the children come to me do not hinder them for such belongs to the kingdom of God. Indignant let's bring that word back right Jesus is angry and there are things that make Jesus angry and apparently we are learning that one of them is when religious people make it harder for someone to get to him. Come on let me say this one more time this might be something the church needs to sit with for a minute because some of you are skeptical about Christianity not necessarily because you have rejected Jesus but because Christians got in between you and Jesus hold on maybe somebody told you that your greatest questions were dangerous. Maybe you were judged before anybody actually knew your story. Maybe a church made you feel like you needed to clean yourself up or look a certain way or act a certain way before God would want you. Maybe you watch Christians talk about grace on Sunday and then treat people like trash on Monday. And if that's you don't miss this don't miss this Jesus is not angry at people trying to get to him who's he angry at people the people blocking the way so skeptic bring your questions agnostic you can bring your uncertainty atheist you can sit here and say I'm not even convinced like God exists right you don't have to fake certainty if you're Muslim or you have a Muslim friend you you they already understand or you may already understand deeply the idea of surrendering yourself to God. But Jesus is actually going to push the conversation towards something even more personal like what if the kingdom is not merely something you submit yourself to but a gift you receive through the king himself. If you come from like a Buddhist background the language of releasing your grip on control it will it sounds definitely familiar but Jesus isn't asking us to dissolve ourselves into detachment. He's actually inviting us to entrust ourselves to someone and for those of us who have been Christians forever Jesus may have the hardest word of all do not hinder them don't hinder them okay don't make people climb over your politics to get to Jesus don't make them learn Christian vocabulary or vernacular first. Don't make them pretend that their life has to be all cleaned up or again they got to look a certain way let them come because oh we're back to the beginning this is great. I told you just like okay he says this is what he says truly this is him now saying truly I say to you whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. So notice the verb I highlighted it for you receive not achieve not accomplish not earn not prove receive Jesus isn't saying children are always innocent by the way sweet trusting little angels I have I have four I've experienced this anyone who has ever tried to put shoes on a three year old knows that theology falls apart quickly right children can turn putting pants on into a hostage negotiation or a 10 year old to take a shower. Now I am preaching I mean come on take a shower right Jesus's point isn't that children are morally perfect. His point is that children come without leverage they can't walk up to and be like look at all the things that I've done and how I've got myself together right I believe that you're going to find the qualifications for the kingdom impressive sir. No how do kids come right let's just be a child for a second with nothing empty hands. They got nothing or like nowadays maybe they got a toy right or like back then they're like I got a stick you want to play and you're like that's legit right and I think that confronts every kind of person in the room like this. Because some of us you know like we want a kingdom uh we can conquer like tell me what to do give me the goal give me the steps I'll make it happen Jesus says receive receive some of us want a kingdom that we can understand completely before committing right give me the evidence explain every contradiction answer every question and then I'll decide I'm telling you right now friends he's not threatened by your question but eventually trust requires something more than information some of us want a kingdom that just feels good like we want belonging and connection and experience and and people who understand us and the goosebumps right Jesus offers belonging but he refuses to make our emotions the definition of truth other of us want we want a kingdom that that won't disrupt anything like we just really want stability and predictability and like peace and Jesus offers peace but sometimes following him means releasing things that we have been gripping because they make us feel secure. And every one of us eventually comes to Jesus with empty hands you ain't taking nothing with you which suddenly connects this entire passage. The Pharisees came asking like what can I get away with to trap him to test him the children come with nothing to hide. The Pharisees come testing him the children come receiving from him the adults want rules that they can control and the children simply want Jesus and Mark gives us one final picture of this says and he took them in his arms blessed them laying his hands on them. I love that Mark includes that that Jesus doesn't just merely say like fine let the kids through right no it says like he takes them in his arms he touches them he blesses them the people who brought absolutely nothing to impress Jesus get the embrace of Jesus. And maybe that's where this whole passage has actually been heading because whether your story includes a beautiful marriage a broken marriage divorce you never wanted a divorce you caused a relationship you're trying to desperately save or you're 24 years old and thinking like I can't even get somebody to text me back, right? This sermon got so intense the invitation is ultimately the same come to Jesus without pretending without your resume of what you've done and who you've already become with without your defense without your loopholes come without trying to prove that you're better than the person who's sitting right next to you and then receive the kingdom. Because remember Jesus is walking towards Jerusalem and the arms that Mark shows us wrapped around children will soon be stretched out on a cross. And on that cross Jesus will not die for people who successfully kept covenant. He will die for covenant breakers people like us with hard hearts people who have hurt others people who have been hurt by others people who have made a mess of things and people who cannot save themselves the religious leaders keep asking what am I allowed to do and the children don't ask squat they just let Jesus hold them maybe that's why Jesus says the kingdom belongs to people like these because eventually faith isn't about you proving that you deserve to be in his arms it's discovering that Jesus has opened his arms to you and receiving what none of us could earn he's open to you.

Prayer Help And The Final Blessing

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Hmm what a weird passage I promise next week is not as intense. I mean it's intense for a different reason but it's not as intense I think there's plenty for us to get from this today all of us and whatever our past is our future is um and so I just want to encourage let it sit with you um and uh let it do something to you like in a good way uh allow that to happen give it permission um to do that myself included um we uh we would love to pray for you if you came here and you're just like man I just need somebody pray for you for me I got stuff going on or or maybe honestly like I know I see a ton of prayer requests I'm just kind of out the room like marriage and relationships are difficult for sure. We would love one to pray for you but we have tangible help too we have a great uh free counseling um the marriage ministry um that we would love to help you in what's just a really hard uh place to be because people are are hard right um so but if you need prayer requests uh we have walls in the back of the room you can uh write your stuff down there you can drop them in the box you can text us uh and if you came here today and something in this has stirred something in you and you actually want to respond to the invitation of receive receive and you're ready to receive him we would love to talk about that participate and just the beginning of that journey if maybe today you've been here a hundred times and you never actually received him today might be the day um we have a little nook out there that's got a huge cross uh that's a sideways cross with a bunch of little bulbs in them those are people this year that received um maybe this is your day or maybe it's just your day to go over there and ask some questions and say like hey I would love the we have a resource uh that I wrote a little journal that just talks about like now what or what does this actually look like? We'd love to give that to you. And then lastly um I want to send you off with a blessing uh as we leave this place. And you know as always the invitation come on back next week it's gonna be good. But we have this posture of giving up and receiving as you're sitting there may you may you feel the love of Christ this week and be reminded therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ would you receive the gift of love and the tearing away of shame and condemnation man may you be blessed with that my friends I love you guys. I'll see you next week