What an amazing, probably if I had to guess, one of the most
famous hymns of all time, Amazing Grace.
And no matter what tech issues we have, that song resounds in
our hearts and tech is great until it doesn't work.
But that grace will lead us home.
Like I said, this is one of two more sermons we have in the book
of Hebrews.
We have this week and then we have next week because Advent
starts later than normal this year.
It starts in December.
Usually it would be normally next weekend.
But I was told once of a story at this church and I don't
remember the name and I don't want to say it to get it wrong,
but that years and years and years ago there was a child that
was misbehaving in the church.
And as the parent was bringing them to the back of church, they
yelled out for all to hear, pray for me, because they knew that
they were going to be disciplined in some way, shape or form when
they got out of the sanctuary.
Okay?
Now, if that were to ever happen here, that would be amazing
because it's just hilarious of the understanding that a child
really knows when discipline is coming.
And that's another reason why we understand that we as children,
right, though we are called to have faith like a child, which
is unquestioning, right, that is a faith that is assured that mom
and dad love us, that as we though we as we are younger and
we get disciplined, we still want to make sure that mom and
dad are there, that we may have a child that when you go out
maybe on a date night or on a vacation, they want to know when
you're going to be back to the minute or the date of when
you're going to be back and that there's a comfort in our parents
even though they might be disciplinarians.
Now I understand that me saying that not everybody here had that
and that not everybody when they think back about their
relationship with their mom and dad is a positive one.
And so I don't want to continue with that sermon illustration
knowing that for some of you that might bring pain, the
discipline in your life has happened nonetheless.
Though like the child that understands whatever kind of
beating that child was going to get, he wanted the church to
pray for them, there's an understanding of discipline in
the Bible that really starts from the very, very beginning.
If we go all the way back to the Garden of Eden, I would think
that after the fall when Adam and Eve bit the apple and sin
entered the world that God was pretty upset, that God
disciplined and he did that via a curse, right?
That he cursed the ground, all of those things that the fall
happened, sin now had entered the world, that there is
something now in our DNA, there's something in Hudson,
there's something in Addison that wants to always fight
against discipline, that wants to fight against a father or a
mother or a parent who disciplines them.
And even like us, when we were kids, we didn't like to be
disciplined.
I don't know anybody that was like, no, I enjoyed being
disciplined by my parents.
That discipline is hard, but it's a principle and really an
attribute in the Scriptures that we see from the very beginning.
Our confessions even speak about it now, our confessions that
we hold the three forms of unity here in the church, the
Heideberg Catechism, the Belgian Confession, the Canons of
Dorian.
These are historical writings that are there to help us
understand God's Word.
That as a Christian-informed church, we hold to those, that
myself included, none of us are endowed with all wisdom of all
things in the Bible, that there were people before us that had
deep, amazing thoughts of how to make sense of the Scriptures.
And so we look at Article 32 in the Belgian Confession this
morning.
We've been in the Heideberg a lot and the Canons of Dorian,
the sermon series.
But the Belgian Confession, Article 32 says, we also
believe that although it is useful and good for those who
govern the churches to establish and set up a certain
order among themselves for maintaining the body of the
church, they ought always to guard against deviation from
what Christ, our only master, has ordained for us.
Therefore, we reject all human innovations and all laws
imposed on us in our worship of God, which bind and force our
consciousness in any way.
We also accept whatever it is proper to maintain harmony and
unity to keep all in obedience to God.
To that end, excommunication, it involves according to the word
of God, is required.
So you can leave that, that's a really harsh last paragraph.
But when we talk about discipline in the church, it is
there for order, that God is a God of order, right?
That we as a church, we order ourselves in the way of Jesus.
And that if any of us deviate from that without repentance,
that's key, that discipline ought to be enacted.
Just like we are to be disciplined as children by our
parents and even as adults, we break a rule, there are
consequences, right?
There are times that we as adults get disciplined.
Does it look different?
Sure.
Does it feel different?
Sure.
But the same thing is happening.
We are being corrected in life.
The church has the obligation and in some ways the honor,
though that's a weird way of saying it, to discipline those
that deviate from the truth.
Because it's a truth that as a Christ-reformed church and a,
what I would call a church of God, a true church, the Belgian
Confession also talks about that.
That there are three tenets of the true church.
The pure preaching of the gospel, right?
The pure administration of the sacraments and church
discipline.
That church discipline is being used in a Godly, God-honoring
biblical way.
It's not a three-strike rule and you're out.
It's not you mess up and you're gone.
No, it's an understanding that there is grace, a grace that is
greater than all of our sin.
The church should reflect that as well.
However, the church should also correct.
The church should also maintain unity.
Now, are we all, each and every person, going to agree 100% on
everything in the Bible?
No, we're not.
Hopefully we agree on the, what I would call the essentials of
the faith, faith Christ, Christ crucified and was raised from the
dead.
It's in Christ that we are saved.
That is the most important thing.
But there are other theological things as well that I hope we
have agreement on.
Things that are necessary for the faith.
And when that's not there, that discipline and accountability
have to happen.
This isn't an easy topic.
It's not super comfortable to preach up here on the stage,
especially as a sinner.
And so these are the journeys of discipline that we see in the
book of Hebrews.
And I find it interesting, I actually find it fascinating that
in a book that's telling us Jesus is better than everything,
Jesus is supreme over everything, he is the best,
he is simply irresistible in life,
that following Jesus is the greatest thing you could ever do
in your life, he's ending with discipline.
This is after the faith sections.
So he wants us to have defined what faith is, right?
It is the belief in what we cannot see,
the assurance that God is there, that we have new life in Christ
though we are tempted and attacked day in and day out,
that God is with us.
Then he even goes on last week and says we're surrounded by
those that have gone in the faith.
We can look to Moses, we can look to Elijah,
we can look to David, to all of these people in Scripture,
but our ultimate view should be Jesus,
the author and perfecter, the artist of your faith is Jesus.
And what I love about that is he doesn't paint with the same
brush for all of us.
That I could sit with, I don't know, 250 people here,
you've all come to faith differently.
But I find it fascinating, it's faith in Christ alone.
That if there is another entity, another person,
another belief that you're putting on par with Jesus,
then you can't say that.
You can't say that you have faith in Christ alone if you put
something else, an ideology, a political system,
a other belief, a world religion with that.
Right?
We believe that you can't say that I believe in Jesus but I'm
a Buddhist.
Right?
That doesn't make sense that we understand that in Christ alone
our hope is found, our definition is given.
That there is a difference.
He is the author and the perfecter of our faith.
If you think you are, then you're putting yourself on the
same level as Jesus.
It's a real dangerous place to be.
But we know in time and in life we may be tempted to do that.
For some of you it may be in there right now.
Your love for a certain potential sin is on par with
Jesus.
And pastor, what do you mean by that?
That you engage that sin week in and week out more than you
engage Jesus.
Right?
If all of a sudden, how do I kind of understand that analogy
if my wife Carrie and I, if I went a week without talking to
her, actually you may like that.
So if I go a month without talking to her and she's going
to want to know, well then who are you talking with?
I know you need to talk.
Babe, you talk to the wall.
Like what else have you given this affection for talking to?
That at some point I'm desiring to talk to this or do this or
whatever this is on par with my wife.
And all of us say that's completely messed up.
That is not right.
Yet we do that with faith and we do that with Jesus all too
often.
Our ideology, our sense of identity, ourselves, we can put
on par with Jesus to the point where we may even say, well,
I'm going to actually put that, because I believe this, I'm
going to, Jesus, you have to believe in me like this.
Any stance you're going to have over Jesus is not a stance, not
a Christian stance.
Just like we say a Christian stance is not to have a stance
over anybody else but to come alongside them in life.
To come alongside them in unity, even in discipline.
Now we see there's that statement of excommunication
and that's a scary word.
Friends, that is a process.
Right?
No elder in a church, well, you know what, I'm just going to
speak for our church.
No elder in this church is going to look, A, we don't take
attendance, but if so and so is not at church on a Sunday, they
don't come to me or they don't come to the rest of the elders
who go, it's time to excommunicate.
We don't do that.
That excommunication in Matthew 18, Jesus makes it very clear,
there needs to be a process of offering repentance and
forgiveness to make relationship with an airing way of somebody,
a deviation of the gospel.
And I love how the Belgian Confession uses that word
deviate, that there's a deviation.
A deviation isn't, I accidentally did that or, oh,
man, I just completely messed up and I fell that way.
A deviation is a premeditated thing that we are going to go
away from the truth.
That if there's someone in the church that is trying to bring
people away from the truth of God, that that is a deviation.
And it doesn't mean, and you're done.
No.
That there is a process of walking alongside them, of
correcting them.
And yes, I understand that that puts the elders and myself in a
very high position, but that is our governance structure.
There's sinners just like I am, just like you are, but that we
are called to hold each other accountable for when we deviate
because it says in the book of Hebrews, chapter 12, if you're
new, we read from the ESV, but you have whatever translation of
the Bible you might have on your phone or with you.
Starting with verse 12, we're going to go 12 through 14.
Again, this is after he is saying, do not despise the Lord's
discipline because the Lord chides or disciplines those that
he loves.
I use the example of my boys.
I discipline them because I love them.
Now, they may not feel that way, right?
Do you guys feel that way all the time?
No.
And I'm sure if you asked your kids, they would say the same
thing, but we discipline because we love.
We see an error or a deviation in some way, right?
Like we learned this past week, you don't throw a poop bag on
the roof and then tell nobody that it's up there.
Now, you don't even know my kids, but you're looking right
at them, and I appreciate that.
I do, yeah.
Went up on the roof today, found a poop bag.
How did that get there, right?
I had one of my sons say, I tried to throw it over the
house.
That's not a thing, right?
How many people is that a thing in your house?
Like we're going to try to throw poop bags over the house
and see what sticks.
No, that's disgusting, right?
So we learn, we correct.
That one's fairly easy.
Hey, don't do that, right?
Not okay.
But whatever that is, whatever the deviation from what your and
your spouse or your family agrees upon that is right in the
society, right?
You want to correct that.
You can go to like law and justice and all of that.
Now, again, I understand that we all may feel different things
about different laws being put in place, but the laws are there
to help correct, right?
You're doing 80 in a school zone and you get a pretty hefty
ticket.
Please don't come to me and go, this is not right.
You're doing 80 in a school zone.
At least do it on ridge, not a school zone.
You know, you will find no compassion from me if you get
pulled over doing 80 in a school zone.
But the police officer has every right to correct you and say,
don't do that.
That correction and discipline in life is what the writer of
Hebrews brings up in the beginning of chapter 12.
He continues with verse 12.
Therefore, lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak
knees and make straight paths for your feet so that what is
lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.
Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without
which no one will see the Lord.
So he's continuing, this writer is continuing with this
understanding that discipline is put in place as a mature
believer to make things right.
But what this says is that discipline should strengthen
you.
Though in the moment you may feel weak, right, on my mom's
side of the family, my papa didn't slap with his hand.
He hit with his belt, right.
And I was a frequent recipient of that form of discipline.
Now, you get hit once with a belt and you're thinking, why
would I ever do that again?
Like nothing about that felt good.
And I would love to be able to give testimony that papa only
had to do it once.
But that's not true.
Or, and you all, and maybe you remember my grandma, right,
Grandma Bonnie Wells, my mom's mom, right, who I get my
glorious height from as she died at 4'8", 5'7 tall to 4'8",
Rick, don't look at me like that.
She was a ninja when it came to discipline, right.
The two times that I remember vividly being disciplined is
when we were at the table and my elbows were on the table and
then out of nowhere what seemed like a samurai sword, it was
only her fork, was jabbed into my elbow.
Grandma, what in the world?
No elbows on the table.
Grandma, words work, right, but she understood me and understood
that maybe a little poke in the elbow would get the point
across and then I will remember, and a lot of you will remember
this as well.
I remember in junior high, I would say that in junior high
the verbal disrespect in my mouth was probably somewhat at
an all-time high and I remember I said something sarcastic to my
grandma as I'm standing over her at 5'7", because I haven't
grown since junior high, at least vertically, all of a
sudden my mouth's hurting.
That without me even seeing it, she whacked this part of my
mouth, this upper lip, and so fast that I really didn't even
see it coming.
And I looked at her and I said, grandma, what did you do that
for?
And she looked at me dead up and said, because it won't leave
a mark.
You say that in 2023, where's grandma going?
To jail.
But that was her form of discipline and she's doing it to
correct that you don't sass your grandma.
Now, again, grandma, words work, but she chose that form of
discipline.
It strengthened me.
Right?
It's the people we know in life that when they get disciplined,
they just flop on the floor.
They think it's the worst thing ever.
Right?
I don't know if you guys ever saw the video or the meme of
there's a dog chewing, I think it's a bone on a couch and it
falls off.
And so funny, the dog looks at the bone and just falls
backwards.
Super dramatic, like I cannot believe this bone fell on the
floor.
That's not what discipline is supposed to be.
We're not supposed to wallow in discipline and go, whoa, it's
me.
The writer of Hebrews is saying, no, it strengthens your legs.
It strengthens your arms.
It strengthens your person.
Because regardless of your discipline, you have a job to
do.
Right?
You may always joke that if you get in early on a Monday morning
to work and something bad happens, you're like, I just
want to quit today.
No, grow up.
That sometimes things happen.
We get disciplined and we are to continue moving on.
We don't, oh, we're disciplined, so that's it.
I'm going back to bed.
No, it's there to strengthen us because we still have a job to
do.
I think of the manufacturer, right, who's on the line in a
factory.
They do something wrong and they get disciplined for it.
Maybe they get written up, verbal warning or whatever, and
they go, that's it, I'm out.
No, the cars still have to get made.
There's still a job to do.
Discipline does not destroy your life.
Discipline strengthens your life.
Now, maybe you've had this moment where as you got older,
you've reflected on your relationship with your mom or
your dad or whoever was kind of the disciplinarian in your
family, and one day you went to them and just said, thank you.
I know I was a handful.
Hopefully you don't wait until that person's gone, but you
have that connection moment that you recognize that the
discipline you had in your life worked, at least in some way,
because you stopped doing that thing.
You stopped making that mistake.
You grew up and you grew out of it.
That is part of this discipline process of faith.
That, believe me, the Lord is everlasting and everlasting, and
the Lord plays the long game with you as he does with me.
He is willing to discipline you about the same thing over and
over and over again, but I guess the question I would ask then is
you're the common denominator.
What are you going to do differently?
As a dog returns to his vomit, so we return to our sin.
And if we're being corrected about something, we should
really be mature enough to look inward and go, oh, maybe I
shouldn't do that.
Yet for some of us that's hard, because the other thing that
discipline does, discipline exposes.
That when we are disciplined, when we're called out, when
we're held accountable, when we didn't make the right choice or
we hurt somebody or whatever, discipline can expose the sin
in our life.
It strengthens us, but it also exposes.
Verse 15.
Starts with, see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of
God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble,
and by it many become defiled, that no one is sexually immoral
or unholy like Esau who sold his birthright for a single meal.
For you know that afterward when he desired to inherit the
blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent,
though he sought it with tears.
You go back to Jacob and Esau, that there is, you know, there
are problems on both sides.
Jacob, he tricks his mom, right?
He tricks the understanding of his parents and he steals Esau's
blessing, that Esau for a mere thing of soup gives his
birthright and his blessing away.
Talk about a giant wah-wah in Esau's life.
I guarantee he probably would have wanted that back, and maybe
you have been there in life.
Maybe you have given away a part of yourself.
Maybe you have made decisions that has completely changed your
course of life in your mind.
And maybe you are sitting here weeks, days, weeks, months,
years later, and you go, oh, I wish I wouldn't have done that.
You guys all know the saying, woulda, woulda, coulda, shoulda.
We look back and we go, man, I shoulda done that.
I coulda done something different.
And this is different than thinking you could make it in
baseball or whatever it was.
These are decisions that change the course of your life because
of maybe a mistake you made or something you chose to do.
And you go back and you go, ugh.
But the mature believer doesn't go back and go, ugh.
The mature believer goes back and goes, man, but God still
found me.
God's still there.
God did not give up on me.
God did not say, and you are out.
That God still not only desires a relationship with you, but he
wants to guide your life.
God is the number one person in the world that could say to each
and every one of us, told you so, but he doesn't.
That's grace.
He doesn't give us what we do deserve, wrath, death, but he
gives us grace when we don't deserve it.
None of us have earned it.
None of us has gone to church as much to earn his grace.
All of you that are gonna sign up for nursery and actually do
it, you're not gonna earn the grace of God.
He gives it to you so you can say, oh, I did sign up a year
ago.
I forgot that I did.
Or whatever it is.
That he's correcting that in your life.
Do not despise the Lord's discipline.
And there he makes it actually very specific.
He knows that in our society, sexual sin and sexual immorality
is going to run rampant.
I think he's right.
We look at 2023 and it is all over the place.
That God understands that that is going to be something that
his followers and his people fall in time and time again in
a myriad of sins, right?
And understanding that he's saying stop.
Come back to me.
This is what my desire is for you.
And understanding that forgiveness.
But it's one thing to understand the forgiveness.
It's another thing to correct the behavior.
God, I get it, but I still want to do it.
Oh, but I know that the hundredth time I do it, you'll
forgive me that too.
Dieter Bonhoeffer calls that cheap grace.
We talked about that weeks ago.
That's probably an ideology that's going to sting of a false
conversion.
That if you think God is just this immoral or moral ATM
machine that I'm going to step in the sin but I'm going to get
grace so I keep stepping in the sin so I'm going to get grace,
that is a very ugly understanding of Jesus.
Of the grace he actually affords you.
That he went to the cross to die and then perfect it in you.
That's not a perfected faith.
That's taking advantage of faith.
And so we understand, see it was a good idea.
We understand that not only does this strengthen us when we get
discipline, it exposes our need for discipline, especially for
all those that think we can hide our sin from God.
Spoiler alert, you can't.
And the understanding that he's with you every step of the way.
I remember growing up in youth group when youth group people
would date and all of that because that happens in the youth
group.
Our youth leaders, our youth pastor would always say, hey,
leave room for Jesus.
Super awkward.
And I may or may not have responded but I have him in my
heart so this is okay as my way of saying no, I want to do these
things.
We can't justify it out.
God is not going to, he understands.
Jesus doesn't go, God doesn't go, oh, I didn't know Jim was
going to say that.
And I know there are a lot of parts of my testimony, my life
where all, I think what Jesus is doing is the hand and face emoji.
I get it.
But he's shown me that and says, hey, grow from this.
He puts people in by life.
I remember when internet filters became a thing and I was a
sophomore in high school and part of my journey was to find
areas of the internet I probably shouldn't be and I would get
access denied, right?
Because that was the, or like, and it was like, okay, I'm going
to try to fly past this one.
I remember one night after youth group, and this, guys, a lot of
you have met my dad.
He didn't come in to parent, he came in to disciple because I
was about ready to start high school and my sister was already
in high school.
No one was home and it was very strange because I was like, this
is Sunday night, why isn't anybody home?
My little brother has to go to bed.
And he's down by my room in the basement.
And every time the computer went, eh, access denied, he made
a copy of it and he printed it out.
And there was this little mini phone book of access denied.
And all he said to me was, you've been in places you
shouldn't be.
You got to talk about this.
Oh, believe me, I was grounded.
Yeah, there's a definitely grounding part of that story.
I don't think I was able to touch a computer for six months.
But it was understanding that we have to correct this behavior.
Because if you go off now as a sophomore in high school and you
go, let's say, five years, you're going to be here.
And his worry is that that place on the internet was going to
become second nature to me.
And he knew that can't be the case.
And maybe that's your story.
Whatever your internet filter is, maybe God is trying to get
you to understand that you keep going and trying to do that
thing.
God is going to give you those messages, those, eh, access
denied.
And a mature believer takes that and says, all right, I'll stop.
But the immature believer says, nope, I'm going to try to go
right around it.
Maybe if I spell it this way, we're going to try to justify
sin.
And that is a foolishness.
That's not a maturity in Christ.
So God's discipline not only does it strengthen, it exposes
and that hurts.
When our sin is exposed, right, when that wound of sin is
exposed, it doesn't feel good.
We want to get rid of it.
So we need to accept the Lord's discipline.
We need to correct that error in our life.
We need to be held accountable for those things.
Because the final thing that discipline, the end game, I
believe of discipline is that discipline emboldens.
I had a different word for that.
You can put the slide up.
And Mike helped me and found a way better word for this.
That discipline emboldens.
Verse 18.
For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire
and a darkness and a gloom and a tempest and the sound of a
trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no
further messages be spoken to them.
For they could not endure the order that was given.
If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.
Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I
tremble with fear that you have come to Mount Zion and to the
city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem and the
innumerable angels in festal gathering and to the assembly
of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to God,
the judge of all and to the spirits of the righteous made
perfect and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant and
to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the
blood of Abel.
That we are emboldened.
That when we are disciplined, not only are we strengthened by
the Lord's discipline because it's exposed what is going on
in our life and saying if you keep following this, not only
are you a fool, but you're not going to get anything from it.
You're not going to add this to your life.
This is going to bring you spiritual death.
The word I had was reverent fearlessness.
But I think emboldened makes it so much better that we know
and we are emboldened that we come to the Mount of Zion.
We come to the city of Jerusalem which is now Christ
and we lay down our sins.
A beginning person of faith, a new believer's faith isn't
tied up with if we confess our sin, he is faithful and just.
They don't realize that yet.
But it's the seasoned person of faith, the mature believer as
Hebrews says understands and recognizes that when we confess
our faith, he is faithful and just.
The new believer may think if I confess my faith, not only
are you going to be disciplined, God is going to be done with me.
I likened that to maybe when you were dating, right, and you
didn't want to bring out your inner crazy or whatever it was
because you wanted that person to like you for the version of
the person you wanted to give them.
But the relationship takes a whole new turn when you feel
like you can be yourself.
When you don't feel like the date mask has to be put on.
When they see you, really see you in the good, the bad,
and the ugly.
How do I know?
Not that I've ever been on a dating site because those weren't
a thing when Carrie and I got engaged and got married but I
hear stories of people on dating sites and there's a myriad of
them, I'm not going to say them because I'll probably say the
wrong one and you're all thinking of me very differently.
But what do people put on?
Do they put all of their failures on there?
Come date me because I keep trying to find those places on
the internet, I keep traveling 80 down school zones, I keep
doing all of these things, please date me.
No.
And what person is going to be like, oh, yeah, give me some of
that?
No.
And the boss, they're like, oh, they're a project, I'm going to
fix them.
Danger, do not go, do not collect $200.
Don't do that.
People put what they think those people want to see.
Right?
If you're on some kind of fitness dating app, you're not
going to, first thing you're going to say is I'm a couch
potato.
I love chili and I hate working out.
Oh, pastor, why do you have to throw chili under the bus?
I don't know why that came into my, are we having chili
today?
I don't know why.
I have chili in my head.
But to me couch potatoes eat chili.
You're welcome.
But understand, like, we're going to try to put our best
foot forward in those dating apps, I assume.
Yeah, I went, I tried out for a triathlon.
Didn't finish but I did it.
Right?
I go to the gym all the time.
I go to the snack bar but I go to the gym all the time.
We try to put our best foot forward.
The immature person tries to do that with God.
That's what the writer of Hebrews is saying.
Don't be a failure in your faith.
Don't try to be what you think people want you to be.
Be you.
And if you are encouraged, if you are emboldened, if you are
exposed and you've learned and now strengthened in the follies
of your life, lead with that because that's the power of your
testimony.
That's what a mature believer does.
That's why Jesus is the greatest because Jesus says, no, no, no,
no, no, I'm going to use your good and your bad and your
ugly to help bring my word of the gospel to the world.
So you may be coming here this morning and go, God can't use
me because I do this.
Oh, no, he can because guess what?
He already knows you do it.
So as we turn and we finish this book of Hebrews with chapter 13,
he's going to tie it up in a nice bow, but I think the ending
is really here.
And if Jesus is the greatest thing in your life, live that
out.
Because so often we're tempted to live another version of that.
We're tempted to say, oh, no, I get that.
Me and Jesus, yeah, we're tight.
We're BFFs.
But in the world, I don't want to be seen like this.
I want people to see the way I want them to see me.
But the real believer says this is me.
This is the good, the bad, and the ugly, and Christ died for me.
I think that makes a lot more sense in a fallen world because
people are going to, wait, if Jesus can love a Jim Holland
owner, I'm not nearly as bad as him.
He can love me or it could be if Jesus can save a Jim, he can
save a me.
I'm so sorry that sounded like Mario.
I am so sorry for that.
But it's the same holds true.
That he can save you and he wants to save you and if he has
saved you, walk that out.
Not your own version of it.
Walk out the fact that you are saved by Jesus in your muck, in
your mire.
You are saved by Jesus.
Your sin has been exposed.
You've been strengthened and you've been emboldened to walk
that out.
And he has one more encouragement for us next week.
Let's pray.