June 23, 2024 | Ransomed

Transcript:

Children. If you're headed out the door to Children's Church, you're welcome to go out that direction. You're also welcome to stay in here with us. We always love to have you in here as well. We're going to be in First Peter chapter one. We'll be continuing there starting in verse 17.

I'd like to begin by just reading the text from verse 17 through verse 21. This is God's inspired word. And if you call on him as Father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds. Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

He was for known before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times. For the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. If I were to ask you what the most common command in Scripture is.

You might know it. There's arguably some debate, depending on how you lump together similar commands, but at least one of them, if not the most common command in all of Scripture is fear not. Don't be afraid, or some version of that.

If we turned and looked at first John four, we would see the statement that perfect love casts out fear. And yet, in this text, Peter writing to God's people, scattered living who are God's love, children who are also living as exiles in this world. He writes to them and he says, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.

And both of these things are in God's perfect, inspired, inerrant, powerful word.

We need to care about why they're both there. It's easy to look at Scripture and say, well, I like the fear not passages. Those make me feel good. And kind of forget some other ones. Or maybe just to say that's a little bit hard. I'm not sure exactly what that means, so I'm going to try to hide from it.

I'll just think about something else. But God gave us both of these passages for a reason.

He knew that you needed. Don't be afraid. And since it's one of the most common commands he knew you needed to hear, fear not a whole lot more. But he also knew you needed to hear. Conduct yourselves with fear. I hope that raises a lot of questions in your mind. And I hope by the time we finish, there'll be a few of those questions that are answered.

But what we can't do, because we believe this is God's Word, every word of it, from beginning to end, every section, all Scripture is given for you. We can't say, well, that's confusing. So I don't need to worry about it.

God knew you and I needed this. And so, as Peter has already exalted and worshiped, he said, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he's caused us to be born again to a living hope. He's already exalted in that he's already told them, you rejoice in God's salvation even though right now you're grieved sometimes by trials.

But as you're agreed by trials, you see the reality of what God has done within you, and you rejoice in it. You say it's tested, but it's more valuable than gold. He goes on. He says the prophets looked forward to this salvation as we got to verse 13 through 16. He says, be ready. Prepare your minds for action.

Set a full court for that hope on the grace that will come to you. He exhorted them to be holy as their father is holy. And then he gets to verse 17, if you call on him as Father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds. Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. He starts with identity, with who they are.

If you call on him as Father, if he is your father, then here is what that should mean for you. In other words, he's really using that phrase if you call on him as father in a parallel way to what he said earlier in the in the chapter. He says, you, by his grace, by his great mercy, you have been born again to a living hope.

When he says, if you call on him, his father, he's saying, you've been made a child. You've been born again to a living hope. Or we to say, if you are truly a forgiven follower of Jesus, if you have saving faith in him, that's how he starts this. If you really know Jesus and are saved by him, if you call on God as Father, so if you are his, you're loved as his children.

But then the end of that section after conduct yourself with fear, he says, throughout the time of your exile, over and over, Peter is going to juxtapose these two ideas in front of us over and over and over again. You are deeply loved. If you are a believer in Jesus, you are deeply loved. As a child of God and you walk on this earth as an exile.

That's what Peter wants this whole book over and over and over again. How do you live in those two realities? And so this verse connects some of that for us. It starts if you call him his father, if you are his, but you are going to live as an exile on this earth. So throughout the time of your exile, how do you live?

Notice this passage is not about how to become God's children. He doesn't start there. He doesn't say, if you want to be able to call God your father, then conduct yourselves with fear. Throughout the time of your exile. It doesn't start there. He starts with, if you call on him, his father, if he is your father, because you've been born again.

That's the connection throughout this whole really about 13 verses, he points to the fact that you're his children. It's not about how to become a believer in Jesus. It's saying, look, if you claim to be his child, if you've really been born again, then here is how you live. While you were exiled. This morning there's there's a couple lies that our I would say our culture would tell you these lies.

But let's be honest, we can make them up on our own just fine. There's some lies that will short circuit the way. You should understand this text. The first lie is the lie that says I am sovereign over my own identity.

I get to define myself however I want. If you believe that lie, if Satan can get you or anyone else to think that that I get to just define my own identity, then the logic of this passage just explodes. It doesn't work because what God points you to is he says, since this is your identity. Live this way, not live this way in order to become children of God, but because you are children of God.

Since you have this unlimited identity, since you are God's children live in this way. Our world wants to tell you over and over that you just decide who you are. God looks at his people and says, according to my great mercy, I've saved you. You are not what you once were. So that should change the way that you live.

So he starts with this identity, and he'll mention more of it in just a minute. He has a command that we've said several times. Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. Now, I'm sure that raises questions for some of you, and it probably for some of you, raises the wrong picture. So I want to give you two pictures that are not what he's talking about here.

Perhaps you imagine a child cowering in the corner because their abusive father is angry. We can imagine that some of you don't have to imagine very hard. Some of you lived it. That's not what he's saying here. When he tells you to live in this way. And we'll see you in just a minute. Why? That's not what he's saying.

But if when you here conduct yourselves with fear, if that's the picture, I want you to just recognize. That's not what Peter's saying from the start. Perhaps instead, you imagine a child who feels like they have to always measure up to a perfect standard or something very close to it. They're afraid they'll be kicked out of the house or disowned or something like that.

If they don't. That's also not what this text is saying. And in order to understand what it is saying, we need the next verses because you notice the logic, it starts. It says, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways. So he's about to tell you some things.

He says, here's how you conduct yourself, because you know these things are true. I'm going to give you four statements about our ransom or our redemption would be a word we could put in there. But same idea about the price that God has paid for his people. We'll talk about what we're ransomed from, what we're ransomed with, who we're ransom by, and what we're ransom to.

All of those standards, the foundation for why you conduct yourself in a certain way if you are God's child. First, we're ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers. I think this phrase is probably one of the most hope filled phrases in all of the Bible.

If I were to ask you ahead of time, maybe this isn't the phrase that popped to your mind, but think about this.

There are so many ways that we live that don't accomplish what we want them to accomplish. There are so many things, some of them seem silly, right? You cut the grass and what happens in a week? You cut the grass again. Moms might feel like house chores. Laundry never ends. They ever feel futile. Like, why did I bother cleaning this up?

It's a mess now. Those are silly ways. But another might be if you decided you got to determine the laws of traffic. You know? You know what? I've got this great plan. Kind of like the people who say they get to define their own identity. I'm going to go out on, 640 over here. I'm going to get on the interstate.

And I just think that 120 sounds like a great speed limit. Well, you find out really fast. That's a pretty futile way to live. And you can claim authority to change the speed limit all you want, but you don't have it. So when the policeman comes and pulls you over, he won't care. It's a futile way. There's a law.

An authority above you. You tried to say no, I'm really good. I'm fine. I don't have to follow that law. It's futile. It's pointless. There are so many ways, though, that we have futile ways. The things we do don't protect us from God's judgment. Someone can come. Maybe some of you were here and say. I don't need what Jesus did for me on the cross.

And you think I am just going to live a good life? My good works will outweigh my bad and that will be fine. Those are futile ways that will not protect you from the judgment, because you don't have the authority to change the law. You look for satisfaction in any number of things. So do I. Have you ever thought something was going to satisfy you?

And you got it. And it felt empty.

That's a futile way. You thought if I just get this retirement set up, if I just get this amount of money, if I just get this house or this car, or marry that person, if I just get this degree or this career, if I just get that vacation. How long after that vacation does it take before you realize it didn't satisfy you forever?

Probably while you were on the vacation. Actually. That piece of chocolate cake that you thought I had. That's just. We know better. I'm going to be so satisfied if I eat that dessert now. It's a wonderful thing to enjoy, but it's not going to give you what you're looking for. Not satisfaction, not purpose, not meaning. And in serious ways, we look for purpose in all kinds of things.

We look for purpose or meaning in our spouse or children or some kind of relationship where we look to them. Paul Tripp calls it looking to someone as your functional savior. You're saying, I'm going to get purpose and meaning in life because this person will give that to me.

Whatever relationships you've been in, you know that does not work. It might work seemingly for a while. But it doesn't satisfy. It's a futile way. It's an empty way. In fact, we find that when we look to someone else as our functional savior, this person has to give me all the meaning and purpose in life. They have to give me the satisfaction they have to do that.

Most of the time you end up hurting them because you're asking them to be something they were never made to be. You're asking them to fill the role that only God can fill. So we either harm them or create unhealthy, codependent kind of relationships. Futile ways.

But he doesn't just say the futile ways that you find on your own. That's why I say there's more hope here than sometimes we might see. You're ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers. Have you ever started doing something that you thought this doesn't satisfy? And you stopped and looked at it and said, I just did exactly the way my parents did it.

Not just your forefathers. So you might look back and say, my parents and their parents and their parents and their parents and their parents all lived this way. And it was pointless and it was empty. And Jesus says, you don't have to live that way.

We've been ransomed from the futile ways inherited from our forefathers. We're not done with hope from that phrase, yet ransomed from the futile ways. He doesn't say, just ransomed from obvious sins. So maybe when I said things your parents did, maybe you thought, well, I know there's people in my family tree who chased after alcohol, were angry, were abusive, and I don't have to be that way.

Maybe that's what you thought, but maybe instead you grew up in a home where your parents were at church doing a lot of religious things. But in your heart, in your life, it felt empty, and you did not have the power of God transforming you through that. Do you realize that coming and sitting in church, expecting for just the mere fact that you're here to satisfy your soul, is just as futile and empty as chasing it in something else?

You don't need religious habits. Those can be just as futile of a way. We need what we were ransom to. So whether the futile ways of your parents forefathers looked like idolatry in their relationship, abusive tendencies, legalistic religious practices, whatever it is, you're ransomed from the futile ways that you would have inherited from your forefathers, and hope in Christ is never going to be futile.

Everything else, you grab it, you try to grab it and it slides just one step further away. I'm going to get satisfied here. Nope. It's one more step. I'm going to be satisfied here. One more, one more. And you can't ever get there. But hope in Christ is not futile. It satisfies. Maybe you look at some of these things and you think that's just the way my parents did it.

I can't break free. That's the example I had.

I can't help it. I would say, yes you can. You are not a hopeless victim of your parents mistakes. I'm really glad for that, because that means my kids aren't a hopeless victim of my mistakes.

But, Pastor Jed, you don't know how deep these concerns and struggles run.

I would say I love you, and I think we all need to know how much deeper and more powerful the blood of Jesus is.

Because he says you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers. This is amazing news. This is the news that we take. It's the news that, if true, has believer in Jesus today. You trust in that news that you are not bound and captive to the sin patterns and the history of your family tree, or your own futile ways from earlier in your life.

You're ransomed from them. That's the message we take when we talk about missions overseas. What are we doing? We're taking that message that if the futile ways of your forefathers looks like materialistic 20th century America, you're ransomed from that. If it looks like Witchdoctors, you're ransomed from that, too, because the blood of Jesus ransoms you from all of the futile ways.

So we're ransomed from futile ways, ransomed with notice as he continues, verse 19 with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot, not something perishable like silver or gold. Those are valuable, but they don't last, not forever. He takes the valuable things. He doesn't say you're not ransomed with dirt and chaff and wheat.

He says. You're not even ransomed with the best of perishable things like silver or gold. You're ransomed with the precious blood of Christ. It's imperishable. So your redemption. I'm going to use redemption and ransom as synonyms throughout this. Your redemption is imperishable so that it will never run out. Think about it. What if you said, I am free from all of the futile ways inherited from my forefathers for 20 years?

And after that, I'm not sure.

That might be wonderful. For 20 years. But I imagine if we really experienced that, some of us would say, I kind of hope I don't live past 20 years.

But it's the imperishable blood of Christ, not like silver or gold. Your redemption will never run out. It's also like that of a lamb that is without blemish or without spot. So there is no better redemption. You can't come along and go well, Jesus ransomed me with this kind of like B-plus redemption. But there's a better one. No, it's the redemption that you have is the highest redemption.

It could be. It's the perfect Lamb of God, like the Passover lamb. You remember the story of the Passover when Israel is in captivity. And God is going to bring judgment. He brings a plague and they're told, kill a lamb, put the blood on the doorposts, stay in your house. They were ransomed by the blood of that lamb.

But Hebrews tells us that the blood of the lamb of goats and calves could never truly save. But we needed Christ's own blood, which was an eternal redemption.

Since his blood is imperishable, and since he was a lamb without blemish or spot, that means if Jesus can't free you from the futile ways of your forefathers. Nothing can. That's what Scripture teaches, and that's really what it means to have saving faith in Jesus. It's to know that I need to be freed and nothing but Jesus blood could do that.

There's no other redemption that could save me. There's no psychological trick and playing that can work it all out. There may be benefit in some of those things. There's nothing apart from the blood of Jesus. This is what Scripture teaches that can save you from the futile ways that you will find in this world. But we're ransomed from those ways.

We're ransomed with the blood of Jesus. We're ransomed by. Look at verse 20.

Jesus was for known before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. You might wonder why, when he's talking about all this, does he suddenly pause and say, wait?

Jesus was for known before everything. When part of that is as well known as what? Before the foundation of the world, in God's wisdom, the father looks at the son and knew perfectly. Then the son would be the sacrificial lamb.

Now that's a big theological statement. Why does that matter? Well, because God didn't just start off and say, well, I'm going to make things and then go, oh, wow, they messed up. I better figure out a backup plan. Well, how about the son can go do it? No, this is from the very beginning, before the foundation of the world.

The father knew the son was going to be the sacrificial lamb. Which means no matter how far back you go, looking at futile ways. I highly doubt anybody can do this, but if you could look back and say there are sinful, frustrating patterns that I see in my life that my parents did, my grandparents did, my great grandparents did, my great great grandparents did, my great great great grandparents did.

Keep going back as far as you want to before that. Jesus was the sacrificial lamb.

Before that, salvation was planned by the Triune God, by the father, the son, and the spirit. We have to get rid of. It's an ancient heresy that taught that, like Jesus. Or they might say, the God of the New Testament really loved us. But the God of the Old Testament is kind of angry and distant. No. Before the foundation of the world in love.

God knew Jesus will die for your sins, even though there had been millennia of futile ways.

And it says he did two things. The father raised Jesus from the dead and gave him glory. Now we're going to connect this back in just a minute to the statement where he says he judges impartially. But this is really important. Salvation is not a malpractice of justice. Salvation is perfect justice. Look at those two things. He raised him from the dead and gave him glory.

That is not the father being gracious to Jesus.

Death could not keep Jesus because he did not deserve death. That wasn't grace to Jesus.

Jesus earned glory, perfect glory because he lived a perfect life. That is exactly what Jesus earned. We think about salvation being grace. And it is it's grace to us. The salvation Jesus earned was not grace to him. It's exactly what he earned. That matters because we have a perfect judge.

Think about it. If I were to say to one of my kids, if you do this chore, I'm going to take all the kids for ice cream. They love that. For the record. And then the one kid does the chore. Well, I am perfectly just and right to take them all for ice cream because it depended on one kid earning it.

That's very different. And my kids will tell you, sometimes I might say something. It's like, I don't know, maybe, maybe tomorrow we'll go get ice cream just because I feel like it. They know sometimes that's a parent. Maybe. You know those maybes when you're like, the kids go, I don't think that's actually going to happen.

But if I say if you do this chore, we will go to ice cream. One of them has earned it. And I am not just if we don't go do it. God saves you by grace, but his grace flows to you because of what Jesus earned. He is just. He's not Santa Claus. Flippantly giving out gifts. People would say salvation is free to us.

But it was costly to Jesus. This text, it's not there on accident that as he's going through, he drives you to the justice that stands underneath your salvation. God raised him from the dead and gave him glory because Jesus earned that. Your salvation is built on perfect justice. Your ransom is built on perfect justice. And it's not just the sun doing it.

It is the father who has planned all of it and says, that is how salvation will work. We're ransomed by the father, the son, and the spirit. You're ransom to the last statement so that your faith and hope are in God, so that your total trust and your meaning and purpose in life are found in him and in him alone.

Now that's all foundational, for conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. Knowing all of that is true. Here's how you should live. And you notice if we go back to verse 17, he says, if you call on him, his father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, so he has perfect justice. That's who God is.

I don't have to convince you that you have not been perfect. We use that phrase all the time. Nobody's perfect. We all know it. God is a perfectly just judge. But also your father. How does that work? How can that be? Because of what we just saw from ransom. He looks at Jesus, who did perfectly earn glory and honor.

God's justice is upheld through Jesus, and his grace flows to us through Jesus. I've used the word ransom a lot, or redemption. One thing that we might not think about with that word, because ransom might sound to us like a kidnaper. Which we could use it that way. But that's not the way it's normally used, certainly not the way redemption is normally used.

The idea would be someone is justly under a sentence. And that day, often if you owed money, that you could be sentenced to work off your debt. So there's a just sentence. Someone is enslaved and the ransom means you're bought from that. Or redemption means you're bought from that. So the structure of this flows if you know the judge is your father.

That means, you know he judges impartially according to each one's deeds. I deserve his judgment. But live in a certain way. Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. Because you know the same judge loves you so much that he ransomed you from all those things. He ransomed you with the precious blood. He's the one who did the ransom.

He paid it. So its foundation is in eternity. And he ransomed you to faith and hope in him. Because of all of that. Since you know your identity. I'm God's child. Since you know what he has done as a perfect judge, he has provided a ransom. Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. Now, when he says fear, he doesn't say an object.

For this fear. That's on purpose, because there are there are tinges of fear. There are things that might sound like fear in one aspect that we need to fear, and there's different ones. There's different facets of what fear can be. I just want to go through some of them, and I'd encourage you to think through these things. Let God's Spirit guide you to say, I need to think more about that particular piece.

I need to live differently in this area. One we should fear living in futile ways. Empty, unsatisfying ways are still empty and unsatisfying for a believer.

When we look around and see people who look for satisfaction. In the things they can get, it is a right response for us as believers to say, I don't want to do that. That's empty. And that thought, I don't want to do that. That's a little element of fear. It's not fear of the child cowering in the corner.

But it is saying, I don't want to live that way. It's empty. It's pointless. It's worthless. Fear that. Fear. Unbelief. We don't use those two things together very often, but we should. If God saves me through faith, I think I don't want to be trusting in anything else. There's a beautiful picture. A couple of pictures, actually. If you think back to the Gospels, Jesus walking on the water while his disciples sit in the boat.

Peter says, Lord, if it's you, let me come to you. Peter, the guy who wrote this, by the way, if you let me come to you, he gets out. He walks on water. He gets a little ways. He starts looking around at the waves. He's afraid. He starts to sink. Jesus says, help him, O you of little faith.

Why did you doubt? See, in that example, Peter's fear and his faith were against each other. But not in every example. In Mark four again the disciples in a boat. Storm comes. Jesus is sleeping. They're afraid. Makes sense. Right? They come. Say, don't you care that we're going to die? The text is they were afraid. Interestingly, it doesn't use the same word for fear they're related to dread.

They're coming. They're questioning Jesus's character. Don't you care? That's not the kind of fear we're supposed to have. You're not supposed to conduct yourselves with fear, thinking Jesus probably doesn't care about me. But the text goes on. Peace be still. The storm comes. And then afterwards, what happens? Jesus says, why are you afraid? Have you no faith? And immediately after that, it says, they were filled with great fear.

That is not the same fear that happened before. Don't you care that we're perishing? That's one kind of fear. That kind of fear is cast out with love.

This fear, after Jesus has said peace be still, says, who is this man? It's all and wonder that says, I want to trust in him. Because if he can calm the storm, he can stop anything he needs to to protect me. That faith is not against, or that fear is not against faith. In fact, that fear fits very well with faith.

The opposite of fear is not faith, not of this kind of fear. The opposite of fear in this text, in Peter, is carelessness.

Peter looks at them and says, if you know the God of the universe who judges perfectly under whose judgment you belong, has ransomed you with something so precious for something so wonderful from eternity past. If you know that, live in a serious, careful way to show love to him.

Fear treating the blood of Christ like it was worthless. Every time we minimize our sin. That was just a little sin. That little sin put Jesus on the cross. Every time we make all these excuses about, well, I was just having a bad day or whatever it is, I was just stressed. Whatever you put there, we say I don't have to really fight sin because it's just hard.

We're not treating Christ's blood like it is valuable, like we should. If I were to give an example.

Mostly for the way this makes us feel when we hear the story. If you imagine an 18 year old girl is kidnaped, dad gets a ransom note. Bring $3 million to the park. Leave it in a briefcase on this bench.

Dad says I can't risk anything happening to my daughter. He's not a wealthy man. He goes, takes out another mortgage on his house, takes out another loan, sells everything he can. Scrapes together the money, sets it down at the agreed upon bench. Steps back to the side of the field.

He sees his daughter coming out of the field on the other side. His heart leaps with joy. She's safe. She's fine.

His daughter walks up to the bench. Takes the briefcase. Yell. See a sucker, and runs off with the kidnaper that she fell in love with.

That feeling. That angst that says that's wrong. She ought to know better.

Sometimes we come to God the same way. Give me the precious blood of Jesus. Give me heaven. Give me eternity. I'm not changing a thing about my life. I'm not going to be careful about it either.

We should fear treating Christ's blood like that. Say, well, why is that? Should we fear? Because, like, he'll kick me out of the family. Will that just misses the point. We all know that's absolutely wrong. We know that she should not act like that. But it's easy for me to make excuses and act like that.

Or think of a husband who adores his wife. His hope, his joy in a good way is found in her. He puts his effort into caring for her. He serves her. He's faithful to her. Does he do those things because he's afraid his wife will hurt him? Probably not. It's not that kind of fear in the best moments that husband knows.

This is who I am. And this is my relationship to my wife. I don't want to treat her lightly. I could never do that to her. Do you ever feel like that? Someone you really love. You like I couldn't. I could not treat them like that. That impulse that says, here's a wrong action towards him. I could never do that.

That's fear. And we don't use that word that way very often. But that's the kind of fear we could have. I can never treat my Savior like that. He did all this for me. That means I'm going to live carefully and seriously. That means when it's a husband talking to their wife, they learn. If I say this, that's going to be a problem.

And because they're careful, I can never treat her like that. I can never treat her lightly. They act in a certain way. Live your life like that. Real love creates that kind of fear. And real love for God is supposed to create in us that kind of fear that says, never treat my Savior like that. That says, when I fall in, when I do sin that way, I come to say, Jesus, I didn't want to treat your blood like that.

Forgive me, and comes back to trust in his blood, in the ransom that he's given. Real love creates this kind of fear. So the text overall is telling you if this is who you are, you're God's children because this ransom has happened. Live in this way with careful, life changing worship.

That demands a lot from us. You might need to change some patterns in your life. That's going to be hard. Yes. But Jesus ransomed you from all of the futile ways. You might need to change the way you spend your time. You might need to change your patterns of spending time with God, of spiritual formation, of growth. You might need to change all kinds of things.

You might need to change the way you evaluate your actions instead of just saying, well, what's wrong with this? I don't think anything. I'm just going to go ahead and do it. I love my Savior and he ransomed me from all these futile ways. Jesus, does this actually help me? Does this help me love you more? Does this show your blood?

Is valuable?

It is right for us to live carefully as God's children, to say, I don't want to do anything that would dishonor my Lord. I don't want to do anything that would treat his blood like it wasn't imperishable and extraordinarily valuable.

That's what Peter drives you to when he says, if you know the perfect judge is your father, then you know he's ransomed. You. So live carefully. Live with that kind of fear. Fear. Unbelief. Fear treating Christ's blood like it's not valuable. Fear going back to futile ways because they're still futile. And harmful. And rest in and love the God who gave his life to free you from all of that.

Let's take a moment and respond to God in prayer. I invite you just to pray silently for a minute. Then I'll close in prayer.

Father, would you forgive us for times that we. Carelessly. Treat your grace as if it is something that is light.

Would you forgive us for the times that we treat obedience to you as something that is just optional? And we can pick it up, lay it down whenever we want?

Would you fill us with love for your great mercy? And we praise you that we have been ransomed from futile, empty, frustrating ways. We don't have to live that way because the blood of Jesus is sufficient.

We come to you resting only in that if Jesus blood cannot save us, then nothing can. So we rest all of our hope. We set our hope fully on the grace that is brought to us through Jesus Christ. And we say, come quickly.

In his name we pray. Amen. We'll sing with just the voices. I invite you to sing a couple verses of Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.