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Jesus is in Galilee and wants to avoid Judea where the Jewish leaders are planning to kill Him. It's the Festival of Shelters, a celebration of God's faithfulness. Jesus' brothers, James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas, suggest that He should go to Judea and perform miracles. It's important to note that Mary was not a perpetual virgin, as some believe. Jesus' brothers were not believers at this time, but James and Judas later become believers and write books in the Bible. We're in John chapter 7, beginning in verse 1, and let's just open up with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we just thank You this morning for Your Word. We just thank You for this time that we can gather together and just focus on You, Lord. And Father, we just ask that, as You do, that we would just praise You, and that You would get all the glory, Lord. We thank You for Your Word and how it teaches us, and just pray that You would speak to each heart that's here this morning, Lord. We ask all of this in Jesus' name. Amen. So, where we were last time, and I'm not going to, because we're a little pressed for time, so I'm not going to do a super big review on what we learned in chapter 6. I just want to say, at the very end we saw, in chapter 6, that many left Jesus for what He was teaching. Even many of His own disciples left Him because of what He was saying. And the one thing I want to point out is, He asked Peter, well He really asked a group, but Peter was the spokesman and answered. He said, do you guys want to go too? And Peter said, where would we go? You're the only one with the words that bring eternal life. So no one, there was nowhere to go. And these are questions you might even ask yourself at some point. Where would we go? Only Jesus brings eternal life. Only Jesus can bring that to us. And I want to pick up right there, in chapter 7. Jesus is in Galilee, and in verse 1 it says, and after this Jesus traveled around Galilee. He wanted to stay out of Judea, where the Jewish leaders were plotting His death. So it says, after this, about a 6 month period passed. And we know a 6 month period passed because chapter 6 is the Passover. And now in chapter 7, He's talking about the Feast of Shelters. So we know about a 6 month time has passed, and during that time John doesn't say or record anything. Now you can go to the other gospels and there are some things recorded at that time, but John doesn't say anything. And so since we're going through John, we're just going to stick with what John said. And you can go if you want and look at some of the other gospels. Jesus knew that they were plotting His death. And Jesus wasn't afraid of death. He was just more concerned about His Father's timeline. What His Father, He wanted to do everything in God's timing. And a big part of God's will, I've been learning as I go through John, is God's timing. The Father's timing on everything. We had a week where it seemed like our sons were some backwards set. However, we're trusting God's timeline. That doesn't mean God says I've given up on Him. That means I've got to show Him something right now. So we're patient with that. We've learned over time not to say God has left us. We don't believe that at all. We just know it's all going to happen in God's timing. And it's not about my timing, just what Pastor Merck says. My timing, if I was going to fix it, I'd fix it right away and then there'd be another problem. Now if God's going to fix it, it's going to be fixed. And we're looking forward to that day. So they were plotting against Jesus and He was saying, not yet. So after this, Jesus traveled to Galilee. He wanted to stay out of Judea where the Jewish leaders were plotting His death. But soon it was time for the Jewish festival of shelters. So I'm probably going to use these words interchangeably. The festival of shelters, the festival of booths, and the festival of tabernacles. We're all talking about the same thing. And your translation may use a different word there. The festival that would come in September or early October. And they would celebrate how God had brought them through the wilderness. How God was faithful to them during this time. And there are three, I've mentioned this before, three Pilgrimage festivals. Where everyone went to Jerusalem to celebrate. Shelters, Passover, and Pentecost. So this is one of those three. And now as this is coming up, we're going to see that Jesus' own brothers are going to be opposed to Him a bit here. In verse 3, Jesus' brothers said to Him, leave here and go to Judea where your followers can see your miracles. So Jesus does have brothers. And this is an area where we may disagree a little bit with our Catholic friends. In Matthew 13, it tells us that Jesus' brothers were James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. So we know He at least had four brothers. And a couple of things here. So as Protestants, what we believe in that is that Mary wasn't a perpetual virgin. She wasn't always a virgin. She was a virgin when Jesus was born. But then later on, Jesus had half-brothers. And our Catholic friends would tell us here that they believe that these brothers were from a previous marriage. We're joking. One of two things. It gets better, doesn't it? The second thing they say is, well, maybe they were really cousins. But that is not what the Bible teaches. These are Jesus' brothers. So James, at this time, is not a believer. But he goes on later to become a believer. He writes a book of James. Judas, at this time, was not a believer. He goes on to write the book of Jude. These are Jesus' half-brothers. And, you know, we don't hear the name Judas a lot. And I don't hear a lot of people name themselves Judas. But at this point, we're talking about Jesus' half-brothers. 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And we don't hear the name Judas a lot. And we don't hear the name Judas a lot. And we don't hear the name Judas a lot. And we don't hear the name Judas a lot. And we don't hear the name Judas a lot. And we don't hear the name Judas a lot. And we don't hear the name Judas a lot. And we don't hear the name Judas a lot. And we don't hear the name Judas a lot. And we don't hear the name Judas a lot. And we don't hear the name Judas a lot. And we don't hear the name Judas a lot. And we don't hear the name Judas a lot. And we don't hear the name Judas a lot. And we don't hear the name Judas a lot. And we don't hear the name Judas a lot. And we don't hear the name Judas a lot. Chapter 3 if you remember, Jesus said in verse 19 and 20 and this is the judgment. The judgment is based on the fact that God's light came into the world but people loved the darkness more than the light for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. for fear their sins will be exposed. That's why some people don't want to come to Jesus. For fear that their sins are going to be exposed. They hate the light. And Jesus called the world out on its sins. So they hate it. And it's the same today. You know if you make a stand against anything as a Christian they're going to accuse you of being hateful and they're going to hate you. And it's sad but true. No matter how politely you try to say something or point out something that's not a good idea or try to tell us not to do something because it's really good for us and he wants to hold that back from us. When he tells us not to do something it's bad for us. That's why he says don't do that. And listen, you know I'm just going to go ahead and say it. We are in the world to be light and salt. Jesus told us those things over and over again. We're to be the light of the world we're to be the salt of the earth and when we're not you wind up with men in dresses at the public library reading to your children because we refuse to speak up. I'm not saying be hateful. Love that person. Love them with all your heart. Be genuinely concerned for their soul but that's not a good idea. And we need to be able to say that and to say it politely. Because no matter how you say it they're going to say you're hateful. It just happens. The enemy uses it. I'm amazed, Karen and I watch a lot of videos of people going onto college campuses and they call them post-modern ideas what our college is teaching. So the last college student is murder wrong and they get this glazed look like a deer in the headlights they can't even say it's wrong to kill someone. They say something like, well it would be wrong for me. But they can't bring themselves to say it. And a lot of times people will bring up, well what about Hitler? Was he wrong? Well, I wouldn't do it. He thought he was right. Listen, we've gotten to the point where it's ridiculous. We can't even call out something that is so clearly wrong. Abortion. We can't call out something that is just so clearly wrong. It doesn't mean we hate people. We go to people in love and try to, we want them to come to Christ. But we are supposed to call out wrong when we see it. We don't do it in a hateful way, we do it in a loving way. And it's alright. See, and that's the problem Jesus was saying about his brothers. If you agree with everything this world system does, the world's not going to hate you. Why would it? You're going along with everything they want. You're taking everything they want. In fact, they're not going to hate you. But he says, they hate me. And in a couple weeks we're going to talk about the woman that was caught in adultery. We're going to get to see this beautiful example of Jesus condemning the sin but loving the sinner. And there's a big difference. And that's a distinction we should make as well. We should love the sinner. We want them to come to Christ. So Jesus says in verse 8, you belong. I'm not going to this festival because my time is not yet come. After saying these things, Jesus remains in Galilee. So Jesus stays in Galilee, again being submitted to the Father's will, and part of God's will is His timing. There was a German philosopher, his name was Schopenhauer, and he said, he thought it's about Jesus and the life. Jesus' life. He ended up going to this festival. Instead he wasn't going to go. What Jesus said is, I'm not going to go yet. I'm not going yet to that festival. But then he does end up going. And Jesus is going to teach openly at the festival. In verse 10, but after his brother left the festival, Jesus also went through, though secretly, staying out in public view. So Jesus ends up going to Jerusalem and he goes quietly. And he said, during these times of festivals, we say the pilgrimage festival, huge caravans would go from Galilee to Jerusalem. So I think that's why the father was telling Jesus not to go yet. Remember all the things he just said, after the chapter 6. Some people really loved Jesus, but most of the people at this point really started hating him. It was not the time to go yet. They didn't like what he was saying. So he didn't go with a large crowd. He went there by translation, said secretly, some say quietly. Because Jesus knew they were plotting his death. And there was a time for him to go to the cross. There was an appointed time by the father. He was waiting for that. And we do need to be more attuned to God's timing. Verse 11 says that the Jewish leaders tried to find him at the festival and kept asking if anyone had seen him. There was a lot of grumbling about him among the crowd. Some argued he's a good man, but others said he's nothing but a fraud who deceives the people. They're split on Jesus. Some of them said he's a good man, and some said he's nothing but a fraud. So the people at this point are split. And I think the Jewish leaders at first, they were surprised he wasn't there. They thought he was going to be there. And the crowd grumbling about Jesus. One thing about Jesus, everybody there is talking about. Yeah, they're either saying he's the Messiah or he's a magic. One or the other. But everybody was talking about it. See, you really can't land on I have some friends that were part of the Baha'i faith. In the Baha'i faith they believe Jesus is a prophet. And he'd always tell me, Oh, I believe in Jesus just like you do. No, you don't. I don't believe Jesus is just some prophet. See, that's where we differ. In the Baha'i faith, one week the sermon's on Jesus, the next week it's something Muhammad taught. I mean, they take all these kinds of prophets and you can't really study Jesus. That's why we're going through the book of John for two reasons. Because if we go through the book of John, you're going to know who Jesus is. You're going to be ready to talk to anyone who wants to tell you something differently about who Jesus is. We're learning that in the book of John. So we're going through it for that reason, and we're also going through it because now when we evangelize and hand somebody a book of John, and of course this week, the week I'm going to say, I'll have him here every week. But starting next week, I'll have him here every week, and you can pass him off as somebody. I mean, if they have a question, not only are you going to be able to say, Well, we went through that, so I can explain that to you. Or you're going to be able to point it just as a sermon. Because I'm going to go back and say, We'll just go in a room and we'll start from the first seven chapters, so then the whole book of John will have it all recorded. So if people have questions, they can go on and look up that chapter and get their question answered. So it's really hard to land on Jesus was a good teacher. How can you say he's a good teacher if he says, I just came from the Father, and I have to believe that or not? He is, of course, a good teacher, but he's not just a good teacher. So they were faced with a choice of what they needed to do about Jesus, and so are we, by the way. And so is everyone. You're faced with a choice of what you're going to do with Jesus. Verse 13 says, But no one had the courage to speak favorably about him in public, for they were afraid of getting in trouble with the Jewish leaders. See, people were afraid to say publicly positive things about Jesus. They feared the Jewish leaders. They could put them out of the temple or not, so they wouldn't have a place to worship. Proverbs 29 25 says, Fearing people is a dangerous trap, but trusting the Lord means safety. Even though sometimes it feels like a trap for us. People ask me sometimes, Aren't you afraid to get up there and say Jesus is the only way to get up there? I'm not afraid to say that. I'm afraid not to say that and stand before God some day and say Why did you water my message here? I'm not going to do it. So we shouldn't always be quiet. We should always be loving. And we should always be loving. We don't come at people harshly. We're concerned for their souls. We want to see them get out. I want to say something this morning. I heard somebody else say this. It wasn't mine, but when we see things like this, it would be like if an anorexic came to us and said I think I need to go get liposuction, and he said that's a great idea. You should do that. If we see a man so confused he doesn't know who he is, we're not going to agree with him because we might hurt his feelings. We're going to love him. We will tell him the truth. We'll love him enough to tell him the truth, bring him to Christ. I'd love for him to come in here and sit down with me and listen to a couple of sermons. Absolutely. Absolutely. But we're going to tell you the truth. We're going to tell you the truth. Then, midway through the festival, Jesus went up to the temple and began to teach. Verse 14. Halfway through the festival, Jesus starts teaching in the temple, probably waited because of all the excitement and talk about what was going on. Prominent rabbis would do something similar to what we're doing. They would open the Old Testament scriptures and then they would expound on what the scriptures said. So that's what Jesus was doing. In verse 15, the people were surprised when they heard him. How did he know so much when he had to stay trained day out? The Jewish leaders were surprised. And their objection to Jesus was, what about his education? I mean, he hasn't been trained. He didn't go to a seminary or Bible college. And here he is, teaching these things. The Apostle Paul was taught by one of the leading rabbis of the day. Jesus wasn't. But you know something? He wrote the book. And not to say a few weeks back, Pastor Merv had Mark remember too, what a blessing it was to read somebody's book and have them write in front of you and say, you know, I have a question about something you said. You've got the author right there. The author is in the synagogue teaching the book. He was right there. And the disciples had yelled in the train. Acts 4.13 says, the members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John. For they did see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures, but they also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus. What a compliment for somebody to say to you. I recognize that this man has been with Jesus. Wow, what a compliment. And that's the ultimate training. Spending time with the author of the book. Spending time with his book. Listen, if I could enter a time machine and you don't need to come tell me time machines don't exist. I know. Time travel doesn't exist. But if I could go back in time wouldn't you love to hear Jesus teach? That must have been amazing to hear the author of this book talking about these Scriptures. That must have been incredible. That's what I'd do if I could go back in history. But in verse 15 he says, so Jesus told them my new message is not my own it comes from God who sent me. Jesus said what he was teaching comes straight from God. And this is why Jesus spoke with such authority. He was God and when his message came from the Father he did speak with authority. Some things I can't say with authority but some things how can you say God Jesus is the only way to heaven. I can say it because Jesus said it. So I can say it to you with authority. I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me. That settles the issue. That's it. So we can say that with a great deal of authority. Verse 17 Anyone who wants to use the will of God will know whether my teaching is from God or merely my own. 2 Corinthians 2 17 says You see we are not like the many hucksters who preach their personal prophet. We preach the word of God with sincerity and with Christ's authority knowing that God is watching us. That's how that's how we can speak with authority. Jesus was teaching based on the Old Testament. Do you know there is 1800 verses in the four Gospels where Jesus speaks. 1800 verses. 180 of them fully 10% are direct quotes from the Old Testament. Jesus was teaching the Old Testament. That's what most of his words were. Verse 18 Those who speak for themselves want glory only for themselves. But a person who seeks to honor the one who sent him speaks truth not lie. That's spoken like a true ambassador. Jesus was an ambassador, a representation of God the Father here on earth. Did you know you were an ambassador? That was the Bible says 2 Corinthians 5 20 So we are Christ's ambassadors. God is making his appeal through love. That's the way the world is giving God's appeal. Through love. We're Christ's ambassadors. We speak for Christ when we please come back to God. When we tell someone to repent and come back to God, we're Christ's ambassadors speaking on his behalf. An official representative. So Jesus talks about two different types of teachers. The first teacher speaks for himself. Man's message. We talked about this, I don't know who it was last week or the week before. If somebody starts telling you stuff like God wants you to be a champion, God wants you to be great, God wants you to drive a Cadillac, know something. He is not speaking to you God's word. Definitely say that in the Bible. So there's that type of teacher. Pastor Merk says they're trying to single our ears with their message. So we'll drop a lot of money in the play. And then there's the other type of teacher who teaches God's truth. Whether people want to hear it or not. Listen, I don't like everything I read in the Bible. Sometimes when I read something, I go, wow, that convinced me. How wrong am I about that? I need to go down and ask God, I need to repent. I need to get my, see that's the thing we're not understanding. We're off. It's not God that we expect. We need to change, and we need to follow after His will. That's how we should look at it. Jesus says, verse 19, Moses gave you the law, but none of you obeyed it. In fact, you're trying to kill me. Jesus was keeping the law perfectly. He was sinless. And they're accusing Him of breaking the law with Moses. Jesus was keeping it perfectly, and in fact, they're trying to kill Him. What does Matthew 20, 13 say? Thou shalt not kill. You're accusing Jesus of breaking the law, and you're trying to kill Him. In verse 20 of Proverbs 5, you're dealing with them. Who's trying to kill you? Listen, Jesus and His brothers were saying He was crazy. The crowd was saying He's demon possessed. This isn't the only place He said that. John chapter 8, verse 48 and 52, John 10, 19 and 20, Matthew 12, 24. Jesus is not only following the law, but He's pointing out that they're not following Him by A, wanting to kill Him, and B, lying about it. Who's trying to kill you? We just read in chapter 5, verse 18 that the crowd was trying to kill Him. Now they're like, your demon's possessed, who's trying to kill you? The same crowd. Verse 21, Jesus replies, I did one miracle on the Sabbath, and you were amazed. But you work on the Sabbath too, when you obey Moses' law of circumcision. Actually, this tradition of circumcision began with the patriarchs long before the law of Moses. For if the correct time of circumcision for your son falls on the Sabbath, you go ahead and do it, as not to break the law of Moses. So why should you be angry with me for healing a man on the Sabbath? So Jesus tried to use logic with them here. On the eighth day after your male child was born, he was circumcised, according to Jewish law. And in order even if that day fell on a Sabbath day, you have the Sabbath day you should rest, and you have that law, you go ahead and circumcise him as to not break the original law, and Jesus would think, by that same logic, why then are you criticizing me for healing this man and making him whole on the Sabbath? Am I not permitted to do that? Be consistent. Be consistent in what you're saying. And then in verse 24, we're going to close with this. Jesus said, look beneath the surface so you can judge correctly. So, Jesus says, look beneath the surface of the issue. Why? So you can judge correctly. We make judgments all the time. We use our moral discernment, and we should. But we don't judge based on an appearance. See, if you look at the appearance on a certain level, some of them looked at Jesus and said, he's the sinner. And the religious leaders were righteous. You can look just on the surface, Jesus is saying, dig into this here and think about it before you make your judgment on it. You know, Lady Justice, when you see the pictures of Lady Justice, she has a blindfold. Justice is supposed to be unbiased. We don't judge based on an opinion. So I want to read you another scripture. We've been closing our messages and last week we talked about having the right Jesus. If you have the Jesus of the Jehovah's Witnesses, you don't have the right Jesus. That's the only reason why we were pointing this out. The week before we talked about believing. What does it mean to believe? It means to adhere to, to cling to. These are a lot of things that some churches get wrong, so we're going over them. The week before that we talked about repentance, what it means to turn and give your life to Christ. And before that we talked about denying yourself, taking up your cross and following Jesus. I want to talk about judgment today, because it's something a lot of us get wrong. The world completely gets it wrong, but unfortunately a lot of people in the church get it wrong too. Here's what Jesus said. In verse 24 he said, look beneath the surface, so you can judge correctly. In Matthew 7, Jesus said, do you not judge others, and you will not be judged. For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged. And why worry about the speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying to your friend, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye, when you can't see past that log in your own eye? Difficult. First get rid of the log in your own eye, then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye. So, a lot of us stop at the very first of this verse, don't judge, and don't go to the end, because what Jesus is saying is the exact opposite of that. He's saying don't walk around with a log in your eye, take that log out of your own eye so you can lovingly go to your friend and help them get that speck out of there. You should make judgment. But just don't be a hypocrite about it. Don't judge by appearance, don't make assumptions. We can never know what's in someone's heart, so we never judge in that way. We never say it. So-and-so did this and the reason they did that, you have no idea what the reason is, so we don't go there. That's not the kind of judgment we do. And one thing to keep in mind when you are making a judgment is always to be respectful. Be respectful of other people. Always think about that. But non-believers and lukewarm Christians love to use those verses against you. So you can't even have an opinion about anything. Ah, there he goes being judgemental, don't judge me! So, they use it as a weapon to tell you you can't have an opinion on anything, you're not allowed to disagree. Society gets that all the time, especially when it comes to issues of morality. And you should have opinions on issues of morality. It's sad when the world does this, it's even sadder when some Christians do this. And at some point I'd like, you know, we've got a lot of time to get through, I'd love to go through Matthew chapter 5, 6, and 7, the Sermon on the Mount, because we're going to see that Jesus was constantly calling on us to make judgments. He taught about true religion and false religion, spiritual truth and spiritual hypocrisy. We're always making judgments about these type of things. The Sermon on the Mount taught us to be discerning, to be discerning, not to judge faith just on appearance. The word judge means to separate, to choose, to select, to discern. I had a friend who was sitting in a Bible study, and I had a friend, sometimes there's something that gives something a social issue, and my friend, I love him, he's a very liberal man, and he said, don't forget God, it's like the King of Man would say, thou shalt not judge. And everyone in the room was kind of like, okay, let's talk. He does not say that. That's what started it. There's no way there, and I love this guy, his heart's in the right place. His politics are a bit off. But thou shalt not judge is not at all what Jesus taught us. And we don't want to fall into this trap. That's why Karen and I took a hiatus from the church, got saved when I was in my early 20s, and then we wandered in the wilderness at one point for 25 minutes after serving the Lord. The biggest shock to me for me coming back into the church is how watered down everything had gotten. I was so surprised by that. What's the point of it 25 years ago? Everyone's trying to make a message that will be palatable to sinners when Jesus did just the opposite thing. How are you going to know you're sinning unless someone just plainly tells you? And stop fooling around with it. Jesus forbids self-righteous, unmerciful, prejudiced judgments based on human understanding. But he tells us to make judgments all the time. Did you know as a person you're going to be a judge? In God's millennial kingdom, according to 1 Corinthians 6-2, don't you realize that some days we believers will judge the world? And since you're going to judge the world, can't you decide you can be little things amongst yourselves? You need to be able to make judgments. If you see a teacher that's teaching a false doctrine, including me, come to me because you love me and tell me where I'm wrong. And I will receive that with open arms and love you for loving me enough to tell me that. We don't condemn people. We don't look at their hearts and say anything about them. That's not our job. We're here to tell the truth, to make the cycle. So I'm going to ask you to make a judgment today. I'm going to ask you to make a judgment on Jesus Christ today. Make a judgment in your heart on who he is. Matthew chapter 28, verse 19 and 20, this is the last thing Jesus said to us before he died. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure that I am with you always, even to the end of the age. So for us as Christians, we have our marching orders. There they are. What are we supposed to be doing? I think I said this before. I don't think that I see the Apostle Paul as probably organizing a lot of softball games. I'll just be honest with you. I'm not going to softball. If we want to go play softball someday, I'll join in. I'd love to do that. That's not our focus. What our focus is, is making disciples. So what does that mean to make disciples? Two things. First off, you have to have the disciples, tell them about Jesus, that they need to repent and come to Christ. That's the start of making the disciples. And then, what we're doing here Sunday morning, and hopefully we'll start doing in other avenues as well, teach new disciples to obey what Jesus taught. And you know what the best news about those marching orders is? I'll be with you always. It won't be you doing it. I'll be doing it through you. Just be the vessel I'm doing it through. Because I'll get all tongue-tied. I won't know the right thing to say. But if God's doing it through me, it's going to come easy. It's going to come easy. Talking to somebody about Jesus can be such an easy thing. Just let the Spirit flow through you. I'm going to have to stop talking here because I'm just going to keep going. But I love seeing the Holy Spirit working in you guys. I love to see when we're upset and everyone comes up here and lays their hands and prays on prayer. I love that. I can see the Holy Spirit of Jesus alive in you. That's wonderful. So I want to just close with that thought today. Jesus is giving us our marching orders. Go and make the cycle. We can use technology to do that. There's all kinds of ways we can do that. Wake up every morning and ask God, how are you going to use me today? How am I going to reach someone for you today? How am I going to reach someone who already knows you by reaching out and praying for them? In the crushing, in the crushing, you are making me one. In the toil I have now surrendered, you are raising me again. But you deal with me with gentle hands. When I trust you, I don't need you. Make me a vessel, make me an offering. Make me whatever you want me to be. I can't give you nothing, but all you have given me, even when you want to have me. In the crushing, in the crushing, you are making me one. In the toil I have now surrendered, you are raising me again. You are breaking me again. Make me a vessel, make me an offering. Make me whatever you want me to be. I can't give you nothing, but all you have given me. Jesus, bring new wine out of me. Jesus, bring new wine out of me. Jesus, bring new wine out of me. There is new life, there is a path to go, there is a freedom, have a kingdom of peace. I lay down my life to carry you by my hand. There is new life, there is a path to go, there is a freedom, have a kingdom of peace. I lay down my life to carry you by my hand. Make me a vessel, make me an offering. Make me whatever you want me to be. I can't give you nothing, but all you have given me. Jesus, bring new wine out of me. Jesus, bring new wine out of me. Jesus, bring new wine out of me. We wouldn't have any testimony to brag and boast about you, to say that you are the same, yesterday, today, forever. Your strength is made perfect in our weakness. And we can't do it. You can do it. And you long to do it, Father. So we just thank you for the reality of your presence. We thank you, Father, for this name, wrapped it in, Father. And we thank you for the reality of that, Father. And you said your word that you shall know them by their fruit. And we can't have fruit unless we're wrapped in it. So we just thank you for the great grace upon us to say, God, that the blood of Jesus has an enormous amount of power to help us in everything we encounter. So we thank you, Father, for giving us a hunger and a thirst that we might appropriate all the exceedingly great and precious promises that you've made available through your Son and through his beloved Jesus' name. Amen.
