Northside Church - Sydney
To The Ends of The Earth Part 2 – Week 1: Explaining PM Message
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. I have been intrigued by a television show that's coming up, a sort of, a stylized-on television. It's called Breakout Kings, and apparently the pricey, the synopsis goes like this, that it's about a bunch of prisoners that are actually freed from prison in order to help the Department of Justice bring in fugitives. Looks really cool, glamorous, heaps better than CSI, something like that. And so, yeah, these bunch of ex-cons criminals, they start working alongside the Department of Justice to bring in these fugitives, and the more fugitives they bring in, then there's a further reduction of their sentence. But then if they try to escape, then their sentence is like doubled. The Breakout Kings. We begin a new, well, a not so new series tonight. It's actually a continuation of a series that we did about this time last year called "To the Ends of the Earth." And what we saw in that is studies in the book of Acts that Luke, one of the disciples of Jesus, gives us an historical account of the way that the church broke out of cultural captivity. Three major breakout points of God's witnesses in Acts chapter 2 through to 6, we saw that the gospel spread throughout Jerusalem, Acts 6, 7 said that the word of the Lord spread, and then in Acts 7 through to 12, chapter 7 through to 12, we saw the gospel breaking through cultural barriers. We saw things like Stephen, how he's killed by the Jews as he broke the good news out of cultural captivity. We saw Philip in the Ethiopian, Dudley Moore and Morgan Friedman sharing a ham sandwich on the back of a chariot. We saw in Acts chapter 10 verse 12 in the conversion of Cornelius that the Jews started getting, "Oh, so even God has granted repentance unto life, to the Gentiles, to the non-Jews." Not those disgusting non-Jews, you see the power of the gospel is this, that it breaks you. It breaks out, it pushes you through the barriers of distinctions through religious barriers and cultural barriers and racial barriers. And so now the words of Jesus in Acts chapter 1 start to ring through it. It seems to be coming to life to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, that can only leave one place left to the ends of the earth, and as John Stott says, "All the time the action has been limited to the Palestinian and Syrian mainland. Nobody has ever yet caught the vision of taking the good news to the nations overseas." And so in classic God style, God takes a gospel fugitive, Paul, Saul, and enlists him in his work to round up others. Acts chapter 8 verse 1 was the last picture we had of him and it said, "And Saul was there giving approval to his death." We see Saul watching over the death of Stephen. And then in Acts chapter 13 verse 9, we won't read it tonight, but we'll hit chapter 13. It says, "In Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elemise and said, 'You were a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right.' And the irony is he could have been talking about himself 13 years earlier. Paul and Barnumus, the breakout kings, on their first missionary journey. Now we go from Antioch of Syria to Antioch in Sidia up near Galatia. And Paul now is breaking the gospel out of this geographical captivity and they've been traveling through all the towns. They begin to preach. And so this Paul has his first sermon. Acts chapter 13, why don't we turn there, have a look in chapters 44 through to 52. On the next Sabbath, almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy, they began to contradict what Paul was saying and heaped abuse on him. And then Paul and Barnum, as answered them boldly, "We had to speak the word of God to you first, and since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles." Well, this is what the Lord has commanded us. I have made you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honoured the word of the Lord and all who were appointed for eternal life believed. The word of the Lord spread throughout the whole region, but the Jewish leaders incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnumus and expelled them from their region. And so they shook the dust off their feet as a warning to them and went to Iconium and the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. In our last series, we've been looking through 2 Timothy, a much more older and battered Paul at the latter stage of his life. Now we get back to Paul, the rookie, his first sermon, and his last charge to Timothy was preached the word. We said that his charge to Timothy is that we're all pro-claimers and a different word that we could use for that. We could interchange it. He could have said, "Timmy, evangelize." And when it comes to us, we'd all immediately be thinking, "Well, if for evangelize I need to enroll in a program to do that. I need to get some tips and techniques. I need to get a little track type thing and a Vanja Cube. If you really snazzy, I've got one on my desk." I need to sign up for a course to evangelize and see, but the thing is the truth that this passage teaches us tonight is that every Christian is to evangelize. When you look at the book of Acts, Acts chapter 8 verse 4 proves that everyone is to evangelize. It says in verse 3, "We're told that Saul began to be the active leader of persecution against the church and although all the leaders of the church stayed in Jerusalem, the laity of the church, the congregants went out, they spread out, they were scattered, they were fleeing for their lives. But the persecution's effect was actually to strengthen the church and to spread the gospel because in verse 4 it says, "Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went." When we hear that word preach, you think, "Well, that's just your job, Sam." But it's not talking just about me up here tonight. The word is evangelized, they were told everybody evangelized. And so here's what happened. The church in Jerusalem, there was great preaching, there was hot preaching, and everyone bought their friends along the church and growth happened. But then persecution happened and it pushed everyone out. And then we're told that they took what they learned from their teachers and their preachers and they began to take the gospel and to share the gospel and gossip the gospel. They were friends and neighbors and family they began to evangelize. You see, the church is not meant to be a place, an institution where there's just a small amount of evangelistic suppliers. And we're just customers and we just come in and you say, "Well, it's up to the pastors to do that. Have a chat to my pastor." So you see what he says about this issue of the Bible, "No, it says everyone's still evangelized." And God used the persecution in the church in the early days to turn the church into an entire community of supplies. Everyone was in ministry. I said, back then when we talked about it, it was a Vanessa Amorosse principle. Absolutely everybody, everybody, everybody, absolutely everybody. Everybody was evangelizing, living the gospel, sharing the gospel, gossiping the gospel. And the only difference here tonight is that we go from the persecuted to the preacher, from Saul to Paul. And the church is no longer under persecution, but it's prompted by the Spirit of God and it sends out two of its best boys to go and explain the gospel to the ends of the earth. And Paul's first major recorded speech in the synagogue in city in Antioch, in the area of Galatia to the people that he would maybe weeks or months later write a letter to, the letter to the Galatians, what can we draw out of his speech? How can we answer the question tonight? How am I to share my faith in such a pluralistic and multicultural world that we live in today? John Stott recognizes that Paul's speech was not the only speech in Acts. Paul's explaining was not the only explanation by an apostle in the book of Acts. And so instead of looking at the practices, Stott looks at the principles and we see that there are three key elements in Paul's speech. He has a case for Christianity. He demonstrates the content of Christianity. Then he also demonstrates the choice of Christianity. You see, it effectively answers the unspoken question of every friend that we've got that's an unbeliever. Why should I believe? What am I to believe? How do I believe? We're going to have a look at that tonight. The case for Christianity, when we're trying to seek to answer why should I believe this stuff in the first place, we're going to put forward together a case for Christianity. That's what Paul was doing in verse 16. He says this, here in my case for Christianity, he says standing up, verse 16, Paul mentioned with his hand and said, "Men of Israel and you, Gentiles who worship God, listen to me." And what's he doing here? Simply infomercial. I don't know about you. You might stay up late at night. It's three o'clock in the morning, you've been woken up, flicked the television on. You were graced with some of the best and most entertaining television you ever going to see in your life, infomercials. And I don't know about you, but I was caught one night when I was up late like that. And infomercials seem to have a certain pattern to them. The pattern is you really, really need this, and it really, really works. And it's things like abcircle pro, for example. I am a sucker for the abcircle pro because there's sort of all sorts of shots of guys like me and they're there and sort of, and I'm looking at that thinking, I can relate to that. I can't relate to those rock solid abs, but in the middle, if I need this, and then of course there's the testimonials, isn't it? The guy who's had the massive gut and then now he's all oiled up and the rock solid abs and it really, really works. You see, the case for Christianity is exactly the same. It's not the abcircle pro, but the case for Christianity, first and foremost, Paul's saying is you need this. You need this. In sharing our faith, our aim is to convince people that this is what they actually need. An article in the City Morning Herald on the 8th of August titled, "What would make you happy?" Said this, "What would make you happy?" Wealth, fame, power, perhaps. But according to one of Australia's leading demographers, KPMG, the key to happiness is something far less sexy. What makes people happier later in life is the ability to make the right choices in cultivating strong relationships and having the ability to manage debt, to build strong friendships, to maintain a balanced approach, to exercise and weight control without the abcircle pro. Mr Salt says, "Here's my question. What part of that conclusion of a study that costs thousands of dollars, what part of that conclusion does Christianity not address? Making the right choices, as far as strong relationships are concerned, what if I could show you tonight, those that are seeking, those that are sitting on the edges, a friendship that's based on a two-way self-sacrificing love, instead of a friendship that's based on superficialities and a friendship that's based on what I can simply get out of view? As far as the ability to manage debt is concerned, what if I could show you a way of life where the confessions of a shopaholic are really the confessions of an approvalaholic and that the pain be part of the reason why your debt is not being managed is because you're buying that many clothes to build an identity on something that the world is trying to show you how it is. As far as strong friendships are concerned, look, what if I could show you a community where you wouldn't not only have strong friendships, but you would have friendships with people in the natural world that would be your enemies? What part of that study does Christianity not address? The gospel relates to every part of life and the gospel relates to the rest of life, not as the first step relates to a staircase, but it relates to all of life as the heart relates to the circulatory system. In other words, what I'm trying to say is that all of the Christian life is simply an unfolding of the gospel, working out its implications intellectually and behaviorally and spiritually, and if I were in an infomercial tonight, I would be saying you need this. It's part of the solution to the deepest problems. You're Paul saying that when you realize that not every problem in your life is stemming from verses 38 and 39, the two key issues that he offers as the benefits of the gospel forgiveness and acceptance. If you had those two things bettered right down the very center of view, look, would the debt still be running out of control, would your weight control be gone crazy, would the relationships be pithy in a surface level? Look, our job as evangelist is to show people you need this. You need the gospel at the center of your life. That's what all the infomercials will do, and you know what I'll say, do they do the testimonials? A proactive, for example, you know, if you would have seen that, trust me, it doesn't work. We bought some of the stuff. My skin has never been fantastic, and all it does is really bleach the towels. The stuff is pretty heavy stuff. I'm thinking if that bleaches the towel, I'm putting that on my face. You see, you know what they're like. It's all the testimonials. You see, the case for Christianity is not only you need this, but it works. He says that in verse 30, "Testimonials, when they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb, but God raised him from the dead, and for many days he was seen by those who had travelled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, and they are now his witnesses to our people." It works. Jews and the God-fearing non-Jews, that's who he was talking to. God-fearing non-Jews, you know who they were? Seekers, biblical examples of the case for having seeker-friendly church services. The Gentiles were seekers, and seekers are always, look, seekers are trying to try on Christianity like a high school girl tries on a dress. I mean, does it look good? Is it going to suit me? Everyone, am I going to be popular in this? Is it in vogue? Is it in fashion? You see, it's important to understand that the apostles didn't argue to believe just because I told you or because Christianity is in fashion or Jesus is the new black. They argued the case, they said, "Look, Christianity is not true just because it works for you. Christianity works because it's true." And so the question, we've talked about this before, you need to be asking him, "Am I believing Christianity because it's working for me at the time? Look around you, see his church, seen in the lives of people, Christianity works where the testimonials, and therefore the role, and the very heart of why we do church here, guys, the very role of why we gather here on a Sunday is to show people that are seeking it on the fringes that this stuff really works. That we witness transformed lives day in, day out, week in, week out in this place. It works. You not only need it, but it works. And so that means the fastest way to shortcut the case for Christianity is not with mucked up words but malaligned actions. In other words, you are the greatest case for Christianity. So life is the greatest argument for Christianity. So the case for it. Now secondly, we also see if we want to answer the question, what am I to believe, then we need to talk about the content of Christianity. We learn in the last series too that Timothy is exhorted by Paul to do the work of an evangelist, and the work of evangelist is simply to make known the facts of the gospel. And the facts of the gospel are the acts of God in that sense. It's just what God is doing. Let's look at this verses 32 and 33 of chapter 13. We tell you the good news, Paul says, what God promised our fathers, he has fulfilled for us their children by raising up Jesus. In other words, it's just what God has done. The facts of the gospel are this. These two key elements, sin and self-salvation, in other words, who we are. And then grace and Jesus of salvation, in other words, so that the key aspects of the gospel are who we are and who God is and what he has done. It's pretty simple sort of stuff. Now, chatting to many of you, let's be real. Why do we struggle? Why do we struggle to share our faith? I think it's because we come up against two main challenges in the society around us at the moment. First of all, we confuse the language of the gospel. And secondly, we no longer are speaking the same language as the society around us. We confuse the language first and foremost of the gospel. What do I mean? We beauty queen the gospel. I don't know if you ever saw the YouTube clip of Miss Teen USA Pageant in 2007, Caitlin Upton. She was asked by the questioner, Friday night lights, actress Amy T. Garden. Amy said, "Recent polls have shown that fifth of Americans can't locate on the US a world map. Why do you think this is?" Caitlin responded. Well, I personally believe that US-Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have maps. And I believe that our education like as such as in South Africa and the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should our education over here in the US should help the US or should help the South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian country. So we will be able to build up our future for our children. We beauty queen the gospel. We confuse the like, "Look, are you giving US beauty queen responses to this question as to why are you a Christian?" I believe in Jesus because like such as the Bible resurrected sort of like Umm and Iraq. You know why we get all confused? I think because we think we've got to jazz it up. We think we've got to jazz it up. We think that because we deep down sometimes think the gospel just sounds stupid. We think the gospel, it just sounds too simplistic in one way and one way it's just foolish. And yet the word of God says in God was pleased with the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believed on the surface of it. You know, it sounds like a silly message. But Paul says in Romans 1 16, "I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes." You see the gospel just doesn't result in a power. The gospel just doesn't produce a power. The gospel doesn't lead to a power. The gospel doesn't sound like a power. The gospel is the power and is foolish and silly and is simplistic as it sounds, armed without confidence. The work of an evangelist is just to present the facts of the gospel verses 30 to 31. God broke into the world in the person of Jesus. Jesus died, God raised him to life. We're witnessing the results. For guys, don't beauty queen the gospel. Just present the facts. Now more than ever we need to be prepared to give an answer for the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. In simple language, we confuse the language. You see, if we manage to get over confusing the language, the next issue is that we're no longer speaking the same language of the world. One of the realities of our society today is that these old widespread evangelism techniques are not working. Why? Because there was an assumption that everyone knew what we were talking about. There was an assumption that everyone had been born and grown up in church. There was an assumption that everyone is from a predominantly Judeo-Christian Anglo-Saxon background. There was an assumption that people understood what words like sin and grace and gospel meant. I don't know about you, but I just read two articles in the Sydney Morning Herald over the past week that says, first of all, that the Chinese now have eclipsed the British as the largest number of immigrants that have come into this country. And then I read another article in the Herald that said that the rise of Hinduism out in Greater Western Sydney is just exploding with a level of Indian immigration into the plates. We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto. We can't make those assumptions. Are you hearing me? We can no longer assume that our co-worker or our teammate at work or the friend on the soccer team is going to understand anything about the sort of Christian ease that we use. The language is not the same anymore. And it should be an encouragement at least that we don't have to go to the ends of the earth because the ends of the earth are coming to us. But the encouragement is, here's the thing that I got out of the passage tonight. There was as much as a religious language barrier between the Jew and the Gentile, between Paul and the Gentile as there was between us and a Hindu and a Muslim and an atheist in this country today. There's no difference. And so the question is, how did the message work? It worked. You see, because Paul's message was God dependent. It was not definitionally dependent. And Paul just preached the big chunks of God's story. Don Carson talks about his message in Acts 17 and says that Paul spends nearly the whole time on God and his sovereignty and a God-centered philosophy of history and other basic planks. You know what he says? But once in his speech and you can read through Heder, he doesn't get up and say, "You filthy rotten sinners. You're all going to hell." He doesn't say that. He says, "Look at what God is doing throughout history. Do you want to be a part of it?" It was God-dependent. And so in other words, Paul developed God-filled soundbites of simplicity around God's actions throughout history. And what that means for us tonight, guys, is that we need to be constantly finding new and creative ways of connecting the gospel story to the stories of our culture. And come on, I mean secretly doing it to you for years. You know me. It's a gospel according to Back to the Future II, the Biff self-interest plunged the entire world into a falling corrupt future and that the world needs somehow to get someone to help it get back to the original 1985. That's the gospel. The gospel is Star Wars that even the most evil can be redeemed from the dark side of the force. The gospel is Lady Gaga, but we're really not born this way as a little monster. But we're born this way glorious and from above. The gospel is the Chilean miners that light is broken into the darkness from above and will rescue us from a certain death. The gospel is a Titanic that our efforts of self-saving is as futile as throwing life rafts onto its deck pool, the deck pool of a sinking ship. The gospel is Bondi Rescue that you are caught in a rip tonight, and unless you grab the hand of the ultimate lifesaver, you're going to drown. The gospel is Fleetwood Mac. You can go your own way, but you're going to have to call it another lonely day. Guys, you see what I'm saying. I'm sorry that my soundbites reside between about 1980 and 1989, but what I want to charge you with tonight is to develop your own soundbites, if you're sick of hearing mine. We need to develop soundbites for the gospel that tell the ultimate story that has ever been told. The ultimate story that God has broken into humanity and whatever interests you or stirs you reshape it. This pool didn't only just have a case of Christianity, hearing the apostles were clear on its content, and if you're feeling uncertain about explaining Christianity, it's probably because if you like me, you haven't been grounded in these two questions. Have you got your facts straight? Remember, Galatians 1-8, a different gospel is no gospel at all. Have you got your facts straight? And to what extent have you created your mini soundbites of simplicity for the gospel? Titanic, Gaga, back to the future. Guys, finally, it's not just about having an argument, a case for it, the content for it, but it's about calling people to a choice for Christianity. If we want to answer the question that some people right now might be asking, I pray might be asking how do I believe, then we need to be saying you need to make a choice for Christianity. Acts chapter 13, verse 46 to 48 said, "Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly. We had to speak the word of God, do you first, since you rejected it, and you do not consider it worthy of eternal life, we will now turn to the Gentiles." And then in verse 48, when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored, the word of the Lord, and all who were appointed for eternal life believed. You know, what this section of the Scripture tonight says is that the gospel is a summons always to make a choice. Whether you're in a cafe talking to someone about it, whether you were preaching it from the platform here, it's not the gospel if there is not a call to make a choice. In other words, faith is not a feeling, faith is an act, and we see two simple decisions here, a choice to either reject or to accept the gospel. And so in other words, the choice for Christianity is a choice to turn from your way of controlling your own life and to trust in Jesus' way of running your life. Now you see how the same message was applicable to both Jews and Gentiles who had either ends of the religious spectrum. It was applicable to the religious and the unreligious, to the churchgoer and the church seeker, the religious insider and the outsider. How? Why was it applicable? Because the call to Christianity, the call to the gospel is not a call to another religion. We're not trying to tout here a superior religion here. What we're trying to do here is say that Christianity offers something radically different from every other religion in the world. In that Christianity doesn't leave you with a teaching to save yourselves, but it provides a teacher who is your Savior. And Paul's ultimate aim was to convert his, his here is to trusting God and the funny thing is the Greek word for convert meant to turn. Paul wanted to turn his here is, and whenever you look at the way that verb was used in the Bible, the object of that word was not the here of themselves. It was the preacher. In other words, it was the preacher's passion to turn these people back towards God, and that should be our passion. It should be why we want to go and share in a cafe or at a church or at the workplace or over the watercolor. You know, and the thing that pains many of us here tonight, guys, and the great mystery is why don't people turn because we're all trusting in something to give us our sense of security and acceptance. We're all doing that. And how do you know? It's the way you react, verse 45, "When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and talked abusively against what Paul was saying." These are the Jews that invited him back to come and preach a week later. They were loving him a week ago. He was so hot back then, but now they're jealous. Why did the Jews react the way they did? Because even after hearing that message, they were still trusting in their privileged position, they were still trusting in their sense of religiosity, they were still trusting in the exclusivity that was the Jewish faith. And when they see people from outside of that little circle coming in on it, they were jealous. They weren't trusting in the gospel at all, and that's still the sticking point for people today because one of the ironies of the gospel is to be fit for the gospel. You have to admit that you're unfit to do it. Remember, Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for yours is the kingdom of heaven." Even the Jews, there was still aspects of their own self alliance that they were trusting in. So how do you know whether or not you're not trusting in the gospel? First of all, you think you don't need it, and most of all, when you see their reaction, if you're not trusting in the gospel, you think that grace is unfair. Grace is unfair. Why should they be coming in? That's what I love in those later verses, then, in 49 to 51, let's have a quick squeeze here. This is 49 through to 51 of chapter 13. It says, "The Word of the Lord spread throughout the entire region, and but the Jewish leaders incited the God, fearing women of high standing, and the leading men of the city, and they stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnumus, and the Word still spread. In spite of the rejection, and what would have looked like a gospel fail, the Word still spread." And that is great encouragement to us tonight, because you know what it says? It's you who is fearing whether or not you share your faith or not. It means that you were not responsible for the outcome of your evangelism. That means God's in control. Now, put it to you, if you feel responsible, then you're not doing evangelism for the right reasons anyway. It could just be a self-salvation project. You know, John 16 around there, it says, "The Holy Spirit will convict the world of their sin." It's not up to us to go and psychologically and emotionally twist people's arms behind their back into the kingdom. Instead it's God's work. And in that sense, that's why Geno Packer says evangelism is a person's work, but the giving of faith is God's work. And the result of evangelism depends not on the wishes of people, but the wishes of God almighty. We want to, we want to turn people back to God. That's what drives us here, but it's your job just to put it out there, just to be the mailman, deliver the message and realize that the joy comes not in the decisions that are made but in the process of the declaration. The case, the content, the choice, that's how we begin to learn how to share our faith that says core elements of what we've got to work on today, this passage teaches us, it calls us to explain the gospel. And some of you might be thinking, "Well, why should I?" Some of you might be thinking, "Well, I'll go out this week, I'll go and do it because you said so." Or I'm feeling guilty because I haven't shared my faith in a couple of weeks or a couple of months or a couple of years and it's on that Christian to-do list, I know I should be doing that. The gospel is this, anyone who calls themselves a Christian knows that they are a breakout king or queen. Romans 5 verse 8 says that whilst we were still in rebellion, Christ died for us. In other words, whilst we were fugitives, whilst we were fugitives, the one who could dish out universal justice came in and he took the justice for us. Let me ask you tonight, are you a fugitive of the gospel tonight? Are you running away from God? Just hear me now, you need it. And it works. Take a look around you. It's why his church exists tonight. It's why you're sitting here in the first place on my question to yourself, is why you're still running? Why are you still running? Turn yourself in early and avoid the rush. And you can do so by asking Jesus Christ to set you free this evening, it's about making a choice to accept or reject the gospel. And to my fellow breakout kings and queens, what is stopping you from sharing the gospel this week with a friend or a family member or a co-worker? If you're anything like me, it was going to be because you haven't worked on your case for the gospel. If you're anything like me, it's because you still need to work on the content of the gospel. It could be beauty-queening it. Not sure about the facts. First of all, we're missing the opportunities to call people to make a choice for Jesus Christ, whether with them for years or whether it's just someone on the street. Might encourage you to continue to break this gospel out of cultural captivity out of geographical captivity and recognize your true identity as a breakout king and a breakout queen for the gospel of God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are more excited about what you're going to do in this place. Over the next six weeks, throughout our groups, Father, as we've heard tonight, we recognize that we are not responsible for the response to your word and what is preached and spoken. Father God, help us be true to that, help us be faithful to that. And help us be just overwhelmingly excited about the bigger story that we're caught up in. Father, for the inner work that we need to do as your servants, as your ex-fugitives, Heavenly Father, will you help us to prepare ourselves and our reasons and our cases and do everything we can so we can be ready to bring those that are running away from you in, into your fold, into your love, into your mercy, into your justice, which we see played out on the cross in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We pray these things in His name. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]