All right, well, like like Mike said, my name is Jason and I am
the planting pastor with Redemption Bear River.
If you have your Bibles, we're going to continue on in our
Kingdom Living series here, the Sermon on the Mount.
Make sure my click is on. There we go.
All right, so continuing on again, and our King and his
Kingdom, there is our passage. We have Matthew Chapter 7 verses
7:00 to 11:00. So if you would please stand
with me and let's read the word of the Lord together.
And after we read, we say this is the word of the Lord, Amen.
Let's start here in Matthew Chapter 7, starting in verse 7.
Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find knock,
and it will be open to you, for everyone who asks receives, and
the one who seeks fines, and to the one who knocks it will be
give opened. Or which one of you?
If his son ask him for bread, we'll give him a stone, or if he
asks for a fish, we'll give him a serpent.
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your
children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven
give good things to those who asked?
This is the word of the Lord. Amen.
All right, thank you, guys. If you do have your Bibles with
you, go ahead and turn in your Bibles to that passage in
Matthew. We'll be referencing it quite a
bit. And as you're turning there, I
just want to share a quick story with you.
And as I was preparing for this sermon this week, I happened
upon a video of a Marine who had served in the Pacific theater
during World War 2. And he was sharing a story about
how that's him right up there, about how prior to being
deployed, he was in San Diego, CA training.
And he recalled how he needed to get a Colt 45 pistol.
He really wanted to get this Colt 45 pistol before he headed
over to the Pacific, and he had been unable to find one where he
was at. And so he wrote his dear mother
a letter and told her his need and asked if she could somehow
procure this Colt 45 and and send it to him.
And he told of how his mother was a widow raising six
additional children. And so when he asked her to find
this Colt 45 pistol for him, he told about how she already worn
thin, as you can imagine, from taking care of six kids, trying
to scrape out a living for those children.
He told about how she had taken on additional jobs to save up
money to be able to go and buy this Colt 45 pistol.
Now she searched for several weeks and she was unable to find
one until finally she found a local gunsmith who was operating
out of his house. And, and she went to him and she
said, do you have this Colt 45 pistol?
And he said, well, yes, I do. I have one right here.
And she said, how much? And he said, ma'am, it's $200.
And she lowered her head and she said, I, I can't afford that.
I've only got about $75. And so she lowered her head and,
and she walked out and she headed back out to her meager
house. And not long after that, the
gunsmith came running out chasing after her.
And he finally caught up to her. And he says, you know, ma'am,
I'm, I'm curious. Why do you need such a powerful
weapon, being a woman of such small stature?
And the widow says, well, it's it's not for me, It's for my
son. He's being sent over and he's
fighting in the war. And he told me that he needs
this pistol. And so the gunsmith granted, he
said, ma'am, I I think I can do business with you.
And finally, this Marine concludes his story and recalled
how his mother took what little bit of money she had left the
last the last bit of money that she had left.
And she bought a bus ticket and she took a 36 hour bus ride from
East Texas all the way to San Diego, CA to put that Colt 45
pistol in her son's hand. And as this battle hardened
decorated combat marine finishes the story, his eyes are misty as
he's recalling fondly the links to which his mother went to
provide that weapon that would keep him safe.
He reached down and he pulled up that same very Colt 45 that she
had given him. Now, for those of you in here
who are parents, you can certainly relate to that story,
right? You can relate.
There is no height, there is no depth to which a parent would
not go to provide for their children.
And if you're not yet a parent, maybe you can think about your
own parents, maybe grandparents, somebody in your life that has
cared for you in that way. They meet every need that you
have, no matter the sacrifice. But in our passage today, we see
that even that great of a love has limits.
But God in His infinite love and goodness provides not only for
the physical needs of His children, but He is also
provided the greatest need that any of us have, and that is our
spiritual standing before a perfectly holy God.
And so where the love of an earthly parent cannot reach, we
will see how God's boundless love and grace meets the most
urgent need that we have by giving us the greatest gift that
we could ever receive. And that is the title for our
sermon today, is that our good Father gives good gifts.
Now beginning in verse 7, I have to point this clicker.
Is it working? Oh, there we go.
There's our title slide. It's beginning in Matthew
Chapter 7, verse 7 and 8. We see here that Jesus is giving
3 imperatives. He gives 3 calls to action here
which are followed by three promises.
Ask, seek, and knock are the imperatives.
And So what does He promise to those who ask, to those who
seek, and to those who knock? Well, he says that for those who
ask, it will be given to you. Seek and you will find, and
finally knock, and it will be opened to you.
And again in verse 8, he reinforces those promises.
He says that everyone who asks receives.
The one who seeks finds, and the one who knocks, it will be
opened. So we see Jesus here calling to
everybody who hears this teaching to hears this sermon,
to act. This is a call to action.
And then we see how God responds to those actions.
Now, if you remember back to the end of chapter 6 that we just
went over a few weeks ago, where Jesus says not to be anxious or
to worry about what you'll eat, what you'll drink, what you'll
wear there in that passage, He is certainly addressing and
describing God's ability to abundantly meet the physical
needs of his children, and God certainly does that.
But the application, I think for that passage and especially for
our passage today, is that our prayer life should be reflective
of this kind of petitioning, right?
But there's a danger here that I think we have to avoid in
studying this passage. And it's one that a lot of false
teachers will use to portray God as just some kind of spiritual
genie, right? Just like Aladdin up there.
You ain't never had a friend like me.
We take this passage and we look at it that way.
That's what happens, right? That's how we perceive God that
that just some spiritual cosmic genie that we use to manifest
health and wealth and prosperity in our lives.
The misappropriating miss applying this passage in that
way, It not only distorts what the spirit is actually speaking
in the text, but what it does is it shifts the power dynamic,
especially in terms of how we think about that relationship
between US and God. See, it shifts the power from
God to us because we think that somehow God is like our personal
Butler and that he's at our beckon call and and whatever we
ask, he's just supposed to give us, right?
And So what that does is it changes it changes our view of
God and it changes the attitude with which we ask him.
And so I think for us to understand not only this
imperative, the first one here, but this whole passage, the
question should be is how should we ask?
How should we ask? And I think the past of the the
answer there can be found in Matthew chapter 18 verses one
through 4. Now the passage here says that
at that time Jesus of the disciples came to Jesus saying,
Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?
And calling to him a child. He put him in the midst of him
and said, truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like
children, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven.
Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in
the Kingdom of heaven. So this passage here gives us a
clue of how we are to come to God with our request.
I want you to think back again about that parent child
relationship. That's a that's a theme that we
see played out over and over here in this passage.
But think about that parent child relationship.
See, a child is completely dependent on their parents.
A child has no means to provide for all the things that that are
needed to sustain their life. And knowing that a child goes to
their parent and they trust that in asking their parents for what
they need, that the parents will meet those needs, fulfill those
needs, that's what that parent child relationship is, at least
in its ideal form. But how many of us, when we feel
the pressures of life that fill us with anxiety, how often do we
say, you know what, I'll figure it out.
I'll make something happen, I'll make it work, I will, I will, I
will, I can, I can, I can see. We neglect to go humbly to God
and trust Him, and instead we take it on ourselves to act on
our own behalf. And how does that usually end
up? It usually makes things worse,
right? First, Peter chapter 5, verse 7
again. Humble yourselves, therefore,
under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time He may
exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him, because He
cares for you. So how should we ask?
We should ask with humility and complete trust.
We should ask with humility and in complete trust because in
asking that way, we are trusting that God will supply exactly
what we need, exactly when we need it.
And you know, just like Mike mentioned, we're we're getting
ready to plant a church in Tremont.
And I think back over my life over the last 3-4 years since
moving to Utah from South Carolina, how difficult that was
and all the trials and difficulties that came along
with that uncertainty, not knowing what the future would
be, but it but, but learning how to trust God through that
process. And now as we've moved up to
Tremont and we're assembling our core team together, we're, we're
looking at budgets for 20/26/27 and we're thinking, where's this
money going to come from? How are we going to get this?
What we're looking for a building where, where we're
going to end up all these questions that we don't
necessarily know the answers to all the time, but in humility
what we do is we say, you know what?
I have seen God a hundreds of time, time after time provide
exactly what we need exactly when we need it.
But it's in how we ask him those things.
Do we go to him humbly? Do we go to him prayerfully?
That's how we should ask. And that's what we've seen in
our lives over the last several years.
Like I said, as as God has continued to grow us in this
process of planting redemption Bear River, stretching our faith
and growing our faith in ways that I, I quite honestly, I
could never have imagined apart from this process.
It's been beautiful to see how God has not only used the people
around us, but even people back in South Carolina and, and in
the East Coast and all those folks to be part of this church
plan. And we're blessed to be part of
it, but we're trusting God. We're trusting God for all of
it. But you know, there are so many
people who feel overwhelmed by those anxieties of life that we
talked about, people who are just kind of trying to figure
out what life is about, people who are searching for answers,
but they're looking in the wrong places.
Think about how much of our life inning and purpose, but that
search ultimately comes up empty if it does not result in seeking
God's will for their life. And that second imperative that
we see here, we see that Jesus is saying that as as Christians,
we should be actively searching to know what the will of God is.
It's like when we played this game when we were little, played
hide and seek. Now we would count, you know,
just like this young boy against the tree. 78910 And then we say,
have y'all ever played hide and seek before?
Is there? Let me check for a gas leak in
here 78910, Ready or not, here I come.
Now when you say ready or not, here I come.
Are you just kind of leaning on that tree, looking out here,
scanning maybe I see one over there.
No. What are you doing?
You take off running, right? You are looking under every
Bush, You're looking behind every tree.
You are actively searching for those that have gone and hid.
And that's what we should do as Christians as we're seeking God
more and becoming more like Jesus.
And you know, this is this time of year, the new year.
We're already kind of thinking in those terms, right?
Making some changes for the upcoming year.
Well, let me tell you, just like this morning, we started a new
series about spiritual disciplines.
We've got a reading series, a Bible reading series in EU
Version app that a lot of folks here participating in.
Those are ways that you can commit to a more disciplined
spiritual life as you are actively seeking to know more
about who God is and His will for your life.
In First Timothy chapter 4 verse 7, it says have nothing to do
with irreverent silly myths. Rather, train yourself for
godliness. For while bodily training is of
some value, godliness is of value in every way as it holds
promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
So there is value in a more disciplined spiritual life, not
just eternally and how it affects us and our relationship
with God eternally, but even in the right now, even in how we
live. Because a more disciplined
spiritual life means that we prioritize prayer, We prioritize
the study of God's Word, and there's a much more intentional
and focused approach to that. See, the more that we read
Scripture, the more that the Holy Spirit reveals to us about
the nature, the character, the attributes of God.
We learn more about how we are to live in light of our faith
and how that faith has to be acted out.
And then in conjunction with that, when we're actively
seeking the guidance of in the conviction of the Holy Spirit,
what we do is we find that that our will begins to take a back
seat to what God's will is for our life.
As we become more disciplined in seeking God and his will, we see
our desires fade and we find that we're much less likely to
act according to our will, but instead we want to act according
to the will of God that's been revealed to us by the Spirit
through the practice and through the application of spiritual
disciplines. So in actively seeking, we
should be actively seeking God through a disciplined spiritual
life. We should be actively seeking
God through a disciplined spiritual life.
And what happens is that leads us to a much higher view of who
God is, right? The more time that we spend in
prayer, the more time that we spend in His Word, we have a
higher view of who God is. And we begin to submit our will
for His will. Because things don't always end
up how we want them to end up, right?
They don't always happen how we want things to happen.
But if our selfish desire and will and want is what motivates
us, if that's how we're going to God and asking, then guess what?
The likelihood that you're going to end up disappointed is going
to happen a lot. Because until our will, what we
want matters less than what God wants.
How we perceive God in answering those prayers is radically
different, dramatically different.
But see, when we exchange our will for his through a
disciplined spiritual life, we begin to see the chipping away,
the eroding away of our own will in our life, and we begin to see
God's will more and more. What happens is that we have
less disappointment. We're not disappointed.
Instead, we have more affirmation, more acceptance of
the sovereignty of God because we understand that in his
infinite wisdom, He always knows that what we want is not
necessarily what we need, but the more intent that we're
actively seeking how to follow His will, the more that we begin
to see that right? And that's important.
That's important because we see Jesus doing that very thing just
hours before he would be nailed to the cross and while He was
fully God and fully man in His human nature.
Here Matthew 2639, it says he fell to his face to pray.
He's deeply troubled, crying out to the Father.
My Father, ABBA, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass
from me nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.
Now, this is certainly not Jesus in his divine nature disagreeing
with the will of the Father. There's no disagreement, there's
no disunity, right? This is Jesus as a man in his
human nature, thinking how unbearable this horrible
distribution of God's wrath would be, but knowing that for
God's plan of redemption to be carried out, he must submit to
the will of the Father. And Jesus here, in his human
nature, as an example to us, submits to the will of the
Father, despite the unimaginable agony and suffering that He knew
He had to endure. I want you to think about that
for a minute and let's kind of take a little bit of a mental
break. This seems like a good place to
take a little bit of a mental break.
So I want you to take a second and I want you to let your mind
go to Galilee in the 1st century.
Imagine you're there. Now imagine you're walking down
a dusty road and and you come upon a house.
Can you kind of visualize what a house in 1st century Galilee
would look like? Probably nothing too fancy,
right? Probably made out of mud brick.
Well, here's a rendering here to help you based on archaeology
science of what a house from around the same period, from
around the same region that Jesus gave his Sermon on the
Mount would have looked like. So you see, pretty standard
house here in 1st century Galilee.
Now, if you look up here, you see there's a wall kind of going
all the way around this part of the house right here.
Now this is where, you know, you would have lived and slept and
done all those things. And if you look right here,
right where this enormous ox is standing, you see that that
would have been a gate right there.
And that would have been a big wide gate, probably made out of
pretty heavy wood. And if you can imagine that
you're walking up that dusty road and you come upon this
house, maybe your friend lives here, and you go to that big
heavy gate that's outside of where the the people are
actually living in the house. You walk up to that gate and you
knock on the gate and you go. You think anybody's going to
come out of that door and come let you in if you go up and you
knock like this? No.
But what if you knock like this? You knock more intently, and
then you knock like this and you start pounding and you're
knocking and you keep knocking and you persist.
You knock intently and you persist in your knocking.
And then this third imperative here, Jesus wants his followers
to knock and to keep knocking, persisting in prayer, persisting
in a disciplined spiritual life, enduring in their faith as they
are, continuing to be conformed to the will of God, being molded
through a discipline life which produces a life that looks more
like that of Jesus. That's the result, right?
Mike talked about the goal. The result.
Goal's not to do it. The end goal is what it produces
in US. And so this last imperative here
of this, this fervent, persistent prayer, right.
Imagine, imagine if you will, that if you're, if you're in
your prayer life, not always is God quick to answer, at least by
our standards when we pray, right?
We think sometimes it takes too long.
Now you can have confidence that he will answer, always trust and
believe that, but that doesn't necessarily always align with
with our timing, right? But what if we change the way
that we view our prayer life? What if we took a different
approach? And what if we didn't just utter
the same prayers couple days a week, you know, right before we
go to bed? Here's a challenge for all of
us. Everybody in this room, I would
guess, has one of these probably in their pockets, right?
What if instead of mindlessly scrolling on these, we spent
that same amount of time in prayer or in the Word of God?
What would our relationship with God look like then, if we prayed
that way? Fervent, persistent, intent
prayers. Just like we're standing at that
gate pounding, knocking intently, persistently resolve
that we're not going to walk away until somebody comes to let
us in. And so this last imperative here
can be summed up like this. God says we should pray, we
should pray intently and we should pray often.
And as we pray this way, what what happens is that we we see
our faith increase so that what we're asking of God is not so
much for things anymore, right? We kind of lose our our focus
shifts away from things like he said, we shouldn't worry about
those things like what will we wear or what will we eat or what
will we drink? We shouldn't worry about those
things. But what we start to ask for and
seek for is his presence, right? We want to commune with him.
We want to spend time with him like you would when you go and
visit your friend and you knock on their door and they let you
in. You're there to commune.
You're there to spend time. You're there to cultivate a
deeper and more meaningful relationship so that no matter
what God chooses to bring into our lives, we rejoice in it
because, as Romans 828 says, He is working all things for the
good of those who love Him and who are called according to His
purpose. Now, sometimes our definition of
what's good doesn't necessarily match up with what God's
definition is. Sometimes we have to be taught
what that means, right? But as we're asking, as we're
actively seeking, intently praying and knocking for that
deeper relationship, that is what God is revealing to us
through that process. But what is that purpose that it
talks about there in Romans 828 for those that are called
according to his purpose? What is that purpose?
Well, if we think back again to the end of that passage in
Matthew chapter 6, if you have your Bible, you can turn there.
It's in verse 33 right after where Jesus says don't be
anxious about what you will eat or drink or where.
If we keep reading verse 33, Jesus says those things
shouldn't be our focus because we are to what?
Seek first the Kingdom of heaven or Kingdom of God, and all these
things will be added to you. You see, God knows that our
greatest need is not physical, it is spiritual.
And as we've worked through this first section, I hope you're
starting to see that this is not just talking about God providing
physically. This is about something deeper,
something more meaningful. Because see, the temporary needs
of this life, they are far, far outweighed by the eternity.
Listen, the eternity that we will spend either in the
presence of God and his glory for those who have trusted Jesus
as Savior, or an eternity in the fiery torment and torture of
hell for those who reject Jesus. And that's just how it is, one
or the other. But the more intently that we
ask, the more humbly that we ask God and His Spirit to show us
how to enter into that deeper relationship.
He is faithful to do just that, right?
If we act, if we ask humbly, if we seek intently, if we pray
fervently, what does He promise to do here?
He promises to give. He promises that we'll find.
And He promises that when we knock, it will be opened to us.
And see, the more seriously that we take our faith, the deeper
our appreciation of the links to which God is willing to go to
redeem sinful man begins to shift our focus, turn us from
those things that that don't really last, that don't matter,
that aren't eternal. And it turns our focus toward
Jesus's promise of eternal life for all those who place their
trust in Him as Lord. And verses 7 or verses 9 through
11. Here we see the contrast of that
goodness of God, just how good he is here versus an imperfect
earthly father where Jesus asked for which one of you, if his Son
asked for bread, will give him a stone.
Now you might know this has been seen this a lot lately, but you
might know that the bread that we eat now is way different than
the bread that they would have eaten here back in this ancient
time, right in the 1st century. Quite different.
See, the bread that we have now, it's got all the chemicals and
genetic modifiers and all these things that have been done to
the seed that have somehow changed the nutritional value of
the grain versus how they used to make ancient bread.
But did you know that in the 1st century, around this time, 70 to
80% of a person's daily diet was made-up of bread?
70 to 80%. Some of y'all don't even like
looking at bread. I can't have the carbs.
Can you imagine 8 out of every 10 things you eat in a day or
bread? But that's because it was
essential sustenance, right? Agriculture and livestock and,
and all those things weren't the greatest during that time.
So what they could do is they could grow grain and they could
make bread and they could eat a lot of it and it was essential.
It was essential to be sustained.
Now, so, so obviously no reasonable loving father or
mother who loves their child would deny necessary sustenance
and instead give something like a stone that could in no way
meet any of those needs, right? No reasonable parent would do
that. Obviously the answer is no.
Continuing in verse 10, Jesus says, or if he asked for a fish,
would give him a serpent. Now again, obviously the answer
here is no. No reasonable or loving parent
would give their child something like a serpent that could harm
or cause grave injury. Now, certainly we look forward
to the day that our children can play over the whole of the
cobra. Remember, back to Isaiah, that's
not today, not quite here yet. So don't give your kids the
serpent instead of a fish. And obviously, if you love your
kids, you wouldn't do that, right?
These are rhetorical questions. Jesus knows the answer and they
know the answer. Of course not.
Of course we wouldn't do these things, but Jesus here in verse
11, he concludes with what I think is the most powerful truth
of this entire passage in verse 11.
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your
children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven
give good things to those who ask him?
Jesus is saying here that earthly fathers, human fathers,
limited even those who might have experienced a saving faith.
They still carry this remnant of evil and wickedness and sin, but
Even so, they still have the capability.
They still have the ability to give good things to meet the
needs of their children, wicked, sinful fathers, and still do
that. But how much greater?
How much greater is our Father in heaven, the Almighty, who
dwells in a place where human love could never reach?
When asked rightly, how much more freely and abundantly does
He give to His children? How much greater is the love of
God when we seek Him? Does He demonstrate His might
and His power that would make even the strongest of earthly
fathers look weak? No human father could touch the
strength of God. How much more is God willing to
invite those who need the renewal and the peace found only
in a right relationship with Him?
How much more is He willing to invite them into His loving
embrace? See, God is infinitely greater a
Father, and even the most loving and caring and devoted Father
that any of us have ever known or ever could know, even to the
point of sending His only begotten Son to the cross to die
in our place, that we might live eternally in the presence of our
Heavenly Father. And that is our main point for
today. Earthly parents sacrifice to
provide and preserve the physical lives of their
children, but our good Father sacrificed his own Son so that
we might have eternal life through his free gift of grace.
Imagine that. Imagine that He loves us so
much, He cares for us so deeply, to give up his own Son, his only
Son, that we might have eternal life with him through this free
gift of grace. And Christian, that should fill
you with encouragement and hope. If you have trusted Jesus as
your Savior, that should fill you with hope and encouragement
in the face of such a dark and a such an uncertain world.
But you might be here today, or watching online and and maybe
you've never felt the love of an earthly father.
And so maybe when we talk about fond memories and, and loving
provision of an earthly father, maybe all you can remember is
bitterness and, and distance and hurt and maybe the kind of love
that Jesus is talking about here, maybe even that kind of
love is something you can't quite understand.
But friend, I'm here to tell you, it's available for you
today. It's available for you today.
You see, God created us to be relational in relationship with
Him. And the first man and the first
woman, they had a perfect relationship with God until man
broke that covenant when he chose his own desire, when he
chose his own will instead of choosing to be obedient to God.
And it is that brokenness that has blinded our eyes in thinking
that we should have to ask God for anything.
It's the unrepentants that makes us look for purpose in our own
wants, in our own desires. And it is sin that bars the gate
that keeps us from entering into that loving and meaningful
relationship with our Creator. And that's the bad news.
But the good news, the good news is that our loving Father God
has sent us the greatest gift that anyone could ever receive.
In an unimaginable display of grace, He sent his Son Jesus to
be born to live as a man. And having lived that sinless
life, Jesus met God's perfect standard that we could never
live up to, of perfect obedience.
And Jesus gave himself up. Like we saw in that passage.
He said not my will, but your will be done.
Let it be so that He would go to the cross to die in our place,
to satisfy the penalty of sin, which is death.
And though He died for the sins of many, after three days He was
raised. Amen.
He now sits at the right hand of the Father until the day that he
returns to rule his Kingdom and the new heaven and the new
earth. And Jesus promised eternal life
in that Kingdom to all those who would place their trust in Him
and repent of their sin. Romans 623 says For the wages of
sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ
Jesus our Lord. Jesus said that whoever asks
receives the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks
it will be opened. So will you ask Him today to
forgive you of your sin and humbly submit to Him as Lord of
your life? Will you seek to turn from your
sin in repentance and will you knock on that narrow gate that
few enter that leads to eternal life in the Kingdom of heaven?
Let's pray together. Lord, I thank you for this
passage of Scripture. God, we can have such confidence
and boldness to come before your throne and ask because of the
work and person of Jesus. And so God, help us never take
that for granted. Lord, help us to to always be
humble in the face of your glory.
Help us always, Lord, to seek you intently and intentionally,
to prioritize the things, Lord, that will bring us closer to
deeper relationship with you, God, and help us to do that
persistently so that we might begin to see our will fade, to
grow, and to be more like your son Jesus, to do the will of the
Father as Jesus did. And so, God, I pray that if
there be anyone here today that has not received this free gift
of grace, they have not asked you for forgiveness to be Lord
of their life. They have not sought you out.
Lord, I pray that you would continue to stir their heart,
that you would continue to draw them to yourself that they might
know they need to ask that they not, that they might know that
they should be looking elsewhere than what this world has to
offer. And you are the greatest
treasure, Lord, that we could ever have.
And so I pray that today, God, as we continue to worship here
in song and in this benediction, Lord, speak to the hearts of
those, not only to the ones that know you and love you God, but
to the ones that are far from you here today.
And I pray that in Jesus name.