Today we consider what God is, what God has, and what God does, in view of the remainder of 1 John 4.
After the message, Lee Smith brought our Lord's Supper devotional.
Springfield Baptist Church
July 28th 2024 - Pastor James Tyler - 1 John 4:7-21 - "Love, Wrath, and Fear"
All right, if you have your Bibles, we'll be in 1 John chapter 4. So last week we did make our way through verse 6. I'm going to pick it up in verse 7 this morning. Beloved, let us love one another. For love is from God and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this, we know that we abide in him and he and us because he has given us his spirit. And we have seen and testified that the Father has sent his son to be the savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he and God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment. Whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, whoever loves God, must also love his brother. In my mind, pardon me, I was like, as I was studying this, I just kept thinking this is just a repeat of chapter three. Why is this even here? Like, we didn't get it. We haven't had enough. I mean, come on. So I made a Kyle will appreciate this. I made a, you know, I don't use Excel because I have all Mac and Apple stuff. So it's numbers, right? I made a numbers spreadsheet with first John, verse by verse and the first column of the table and first John three and then first John four verse by verse and second column of the table and then I color coded in each chapter versus that say the same thing. Are we excited? Remember, my goal is always to put you to sleep and then start preaching. So when we talk about love of the brethren in chapter four, I'm not reading from my table. I'm just telling you this is a fact. I'm not. Look, there's no table here. All right, just notes, verses 7, 11, 12, 19, 20, and 21, all addressing love of the brethren. Verses 9, 10, 11, 14, and 19 all describing how we know love, which is Jesus came, right? That's how we know. Do you remember we talked about that in chapter three? Do you remember we talked about love of the brethren in chapter three? Okay. And then in 12, 13, and 16 of chapter four, you have we know that we are saved because we have the indwelling spirit. And if you just peek at the last verse of chapter three, you'll see by this we know he abides in us by the spirit whom he has given us. So it wasn't just my imagination. This is a repeat of what's in chapter three with the exception of I would say four things. Verses 1 through 6, which we covered last week. That was kind of new. That was kind of different. Test the spirits. Don't assume that every spirit is true, right? And then the three things that I want to address this morning. And you might be thinking, James, if God saw fit to repeat a lot of what was in chapter three, what makes you think you're wiser than God and just skip over it? What I'll tell you is we didn't not only do we address it in chapter three, we reviewed it twice in chapter three. And I just don't have the new material. I can't like there's only so much I can say before it just I sound like a robot up here, you know, there's a snake in my boot. So that's just me being honest about my own limitations. So here are the three things that I think are maybe a little more fresh or at least bear repeating. Verse eight. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love and then look at verse 16. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love and whoever abides and love abides and God and God abides in him. I'm sure that I'm not the only one that's heard before from people that I'm pretty sure don't believe in Jesus that God is love. Have you heard that before from people that don't believe in Jesus? Yeah because generally this is the framework, right? This is how it happens. I had a conversation yesterday with a friend from work. We go out for coffee at least once a year and we could not be more diametrically opposed in our view of all things on earth. I mean we are polar opposites but we deeply care for one another and of course my goal of course my goal is to proclaim the gospel to him in hopes that even though he was raised by a Pentecostal pastor maybe the Lord would be pleased to own the gospel to the saving of his soul. Right now he's cast all that off. He's rejected it. He doesn't believe any of it. But here's what happens. I try to address the fact that the Bible talks about the existence and reality of sin, like sin is a thing. Yeah? And I try to talk about it in the framework of real life. So these things specifically are sins. Right. All right. What needs to happen if you're lost and you don't trust Jesus is you need to justify somehow. So usually what the world does is they go to what they know about what you believe and they take that and they use it as a shield against you. Right. So what they know about what I believe is somewhere in there they've heard God is love. Right. And that's true. He is. The way that they use it as a shield is therefore if you tell me that what I'm doing is sinful you're not being loving. And I think God just loves people and he just accepts us the way we are. And then they give you some perverted version of the gospel to defend themselves from your mean onslaught about the fact that sin is actually a thing that actually exists. So what do you think I do being a recovering reform Baptist? I'm not going to pervert the truth. Here's what I do. I think, boy, let's not think that because the Bible says God is love that that's all he is. Right. So as a refresher and I know all of you already know this. You've heard this presented in the most combative like harshest terms possible. So I would just ask you to give me a little bit of grace and assume that I'm going to present this in a little bit different light that might be more helpful and useful to you. All right. So let's look at a couple of other passages. Flip back just one or two pages to 1 John chapter 1 verse 5. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaimed to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. Flip back a few more pages to the gospel of John chapter 4. If this were a class and I asked you now that everybody is in John 4, if I asked you what did that verse we just read say God is? How many of you show of hands? How many of you could tell me what the verse I just read says God is? Yeah. This is why I repeat stuff, right? Because we're all like as soon as the pages start turning we're like did I turn on the roaster or did I put the you know we mind just goes so 1 John 1 5 says listen for this what is God? This is the message we've heard from him and proclaimed to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. John 4 24 God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. So God's light God is spirit and then Hebrews 12 29 says for our God is a consuming fire. Is God love? He's also a consuming fire. Is God love? He's also light and in him is no darkness at all. Is God love? He's also spirit and does not have a body like men. All of these things are true of God that your Bible tells you this about God carries nearly incomprehensible significance because this is not describing something that God does. God is love says it twice in chapter four. God is love. Is that something God does? It's also something that he does but when the Bible tells you that this is what he is that's communicating to you that part of his essence is love. So a statement like God loves could join other statements. God judges. God listens. God creates. God sees. But what it says is he is in and of his essence he is love which means whatever God does he does from all of himself. So the other things that God does God listens. He does it in love. God creates. He creates in love. God judges. He judges in love with love. God convicts, comforts, corrects, speaks, disciplines, commands and rules and reigns and righteousness and he does all those things of his essence. And if his essence is love, light, spirit, consuming fire then all of those things, all those verbs, all those actions that God does he does with all of his essence. And love is never separated from those actions. He is also righteous. He is also holy. Right? So when he creates judges, commands, convicts, comforts, sees, listens, loves as an action when he does those things he does it with righteousness, with holiness. So you can't reach into your repository of vaguely recalled information about what the Bible says God is. Draw out one aspect and hold it up as a defense mechanism. You can't do that. Yeah, he's love. He's also holy. So he's not going to love at the expense of holiness and he's not going to be holy at the expense of love. He's all that all the time. Which is where propitiation comes in. 1 John 4, 10. This is thing number two that we're going to cover this morning. We're making good time. 1 John 4, 10 in this is love. Not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Here's my, what do you call it? Statement of like it's not a hypothesis because it's true. It's not a theory because it's fact. It's known. It is that God is love. It is that God is love which explains and defines his anger. God is not anger. It doesn't say anywhere in Scripture God is anger. Yet he possesses anger. Romans 1, 8. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who, by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth. If you're hoping I'm going to spend 15 minutes railing against the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, I'm not. But the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness. So if you watch that and you're like aghast, what's going on in France? Just know that the wrath of God is also revealed from heaven against your ungodliness. Romans 2, 5. Because of your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. Now I'm ripping these verses out of their context so unceremoniously I might as well be a Pentecostal preacher. But the fact is that's a true statement of all those who refuse to believe in Jesus Christ. You're storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath when God reveals Himself and His righteous judgments. And name 1, verse 2, it says, "The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. The Lord is avenging and wrathful." By the way, we struggle a little bit because we've messed up our definitions and understandings of words. So when the Bible says, "The Lord your God is a jealous God." We're like, "Is it jealousy as sin?" No, jealousy is not. Envy is. Envy is, "I want something that you have. I think I deserve it more or coveting." Right? Jealousy is, this is something that I have. You don't get to take it. I'm jealous for it. I am jealous for my wife. She's mine and I'm hers and I don't need anybody else intruding into that relationship. That's not sinful. God gave her to me and me to her. So when the Bible says, "God is jealous," what do you think, what do you think he's describing himself as being possessive of? "The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. The Lord is a avenging and wrathful. The Lord takes vengeance on His adversaries and keeps wrath for His enemies." Well, he's jealous of his people. He's jealous of his creation. He's jealous of all those whom he's called out of darkness into light. So he has anger. Why? Because we stray. All of us like sheep, right? Revelation 6, 16. There's going to be people calling to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of their wrath has come, who can stand? That's a terrifying picture, right? And it could have happened easily on Friday night in my mind. Might have been fitting for the display that I saw. I didn't see it. I didn't watch it live, but it made its way into my Twitter feed. The display that unfolded in France, I was like, "This would be a good time for the mountains to start." Well, for people to be so afraid that they cry out that the mountains would fall on them, but then I had to remember it. Wait a minute. But by the grace of God, James, you would be crying out for the mountains to fall on you and hide you from the wrath of the Lamb. I'm not better than those people who are up. I'm not. Remember, I said this is going to be a little bit different than what you're used to hearing. Ephesians 5-6, I did not mean that to be nearly as caddy as it came out. I'm sorry. The timing was not good. Ephesians 5-6, "Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience." Colossians 3-5, "Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you?" Okay, here we go. The Bible has lists. These are not my preferred sins that you avoid. This is the Bible, right? Because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience, and then Colossians 3-5, "Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you?" Sexual immorality. Empurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these things, the wrath of God is coming. How are we doing? You're putting that to death, all that? You're squared away? No problem, right? Never had a sexual desire that wasn't God honoring personally, so I have nothing to worry about. Zephaniah 1. Some of you didn't even know this is a book in the Bible. Zephaniah 1-14, "The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast. The sound of the day of the Lord is bitter. The mighty man cries aloud there. A day of wrath is that day. A day of distress and anguish. A day of ruin and devastation. A day of darkness and gloom. A day of clouds and thick darkness." Psalm 7-11, "God is a righteous judge and a God who feels indignation every day." Well, that's not the picture of God we like. God is a righteous judge and a God who feels indignation every day. I didn't write that. That's in your Bible. John 3-36, we all know John 3-16, it's a wonderful verse. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever should believe in Him will not perish but have eternal life." Jump forward 20 verses and you have, "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on Him." Revelation 19-15, "From His mouth comes a sharp sword." This is the last one in case you want to tune back in. "From His mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations." Praise Jesus. "From His mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations and He will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty." Now that's not a very comforting picture of God. We don't like that picture of God, that's not very K love of us. We don't want to talk about the wrath of God. On the other hand, some of us have heard almost nothing but the wrath and judgment of God and that's the reason we'd rather not talk about it, but we've got to find some kind of realistic biblical balance here. So here's the deal. God is love. Amen? He is also holy. He is also righteous. And there's no taking only His love from Him and worshiping that. You have to worship His holiness and His righteousness and His consuming fireness as well. If God were not love, sin would not be as heinous as it is. If you were just holy and just righteous, sin would not be as heinous as it is. When you sin, you do not only sin against the judge. When you sin, you do not only sin against the one who created you, against the commandment giver, against the alpha and the omega. You sin against the one whose essence is love, whom gifts you with life in love, who gifts you with breath and knowledge, gifts you with like freedom. And for most of us, the strength to stand and move around, to eat, to sleep, to talk. He gifts you with a creative imagination and the ability to put things that aren't in existence into existence. God gives you that. And then you turn those gifts to tools for sin. Those gifts don't come just from His holiness. Those gifts don't come just from His righteousness. Those gifts don't come just from the fact that in His essence, He's creative. Those gifts come from in His essence, He loves you. And you take those gifts and you pervert them. That makes sin more heinous. He gave it to you in love and you turned it around and used it to try to injure Him. If somebody did that to you, you would never get over it. Ever. You know how I know? Because people have done it to you and you can't get over it. People have done it to me and I can't let it go. I loved you as best I could and this is what I get for it. It is that God is love which explains His wrath. So let's talk about anger. Hours versus gods. Some of this should seem familiar to you because we covered it a couple of chapters ago in 1 John. How do you deal with your own anger? And you'll remember I asked this question and I'm going to do it again because I just don't know how better to illustrate this. Can you call up in your mind right now something that did not happen right now that makes you angry? Yes or no? Because you don't know how to deal with your anger. Right? It happened back then and all you got to do is think about it and you're like right back there. He's just in the moment remembering it perfectly. No color of your imagination has been placed on the event. You were sitting on your cloud playing your harp and somebody came along and did you an incomprehensible disservice. And so you can get back in that emotional state of all that anger and all that frustration again. Now the question is how does God deal with his anger so that he is able to forgive to cast your sin as far as East is from West and I quote remember it no longer. How does he do that? Perpetuation and expiation. Expiation has to do with the action involved in removing our sin taking away the guilt of it through the offering of atonement and I'll try not to belabor the point but in Christ, pardon me, in Christ our expiation God placed our guilt so that we would bear it no longer. He imputed our guilt to Christ's account and then he fastened Jesus to the cross and killed him. That's how our sin got dealt with Isaiah 53, 5. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his wounds or by his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53, 10. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief when his soul makes an offering for guilt. He shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul, God will see it and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one my servant make many to be accounted righteous. He shall bear their iniquities. This is expiation. God takes your sin puts it on Christ's account and then punishes in his son your evil. Propitiation has to do with God's heart towards the sinner. Propitiation is how we describe the wrath of God being satisfied. In Christ our propitiation, God's store of anger, however big or small it is on your account, God's store of anger about sin is emptied out. Jesus' suffering satisfies the wrath of God. Now the only way that we can try to imagine this would be for you to get that event in your mind where you got injured, where you can still get mad about it today. Listen, you're not alone. All of us, and this is not a healthy exercise, this isn't maybe only you should do this regularly, but it illustrates the point. What you're experiencing is normal. Let me say that. That's a normal part of the human experience. It may be even somebody that you claim to have forgiven and are trying to still be nice to right now today, but if you think about that event, you're like, I would like to grab them by the throat, carry them over to the gates of hell, and throw them in, right? Here's the deal. If you could chain them up and drag them to the precipice and you glanced into hell, whatever that looks like, you would not be able to throw them in because you would immediately recognize that is not somewhere that you would want any human soul to end up. But it might take seeing it for you to get to that place, and you probably won't see it unless it's as you're entering it. So God in mercy punished in Jesus what you did that put wrath in his heart for you. He drove Jesus to death and threw him in for you, and so his wrath is satisfied. Romans 3, 23 says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith." This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over sins previously committed. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. So both expiation and propitiation have something to do with our standing before God. Let me say it again, both expiation, which is the dealing with the guilt of your sin and propitiation, which is dealing with the wrath of God, have something to do with your standing before him. In love, Christ satisfies the wrath of God. In love, Christ satisfies the wrath of God. In love, Christ deals with the guilt of your sin, both, right? They both get dealt with, but don't miss the fact that God the Father initiated the propitiation. You sinned against him and his love, the essence of who he is, his spirit, his wisdom, his judgment, his creativeness, his generosity, his love. You sinned against it. And then he dealt with that sin because he loves you. In this is love, 1 John 4, 10, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Now look at verse 18. Almost done. 1 John 4, 18, there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear for fear has to do with punishment. And whoever fears has not been perfected in love, we love because he first loved us. So there's a variation on the word for fearing God elsewhere in the New Testament, but any variation in interpretation kind of depends on taking some liberties. So what I'm telling you, maybe this is something very important to remember. What I'm telling you is that if a preacher ever has the colossal gall, because he read a bad commentary and didn't do his homework, to stand up in front of you and tell you there are different words in the New Testament for fearing God, and some mean like fear like you're terrified, and some mean fear like reverence, they're lying to you. That's not true. It's phobos or phobia. Same reward. And the interpretation is the same. It's contextually a little bit different, but overall it's like terror. It's also awe and reverence. It's both. It's all three. It's all the above. But you can't wrangle out of some other verse in the New Testament, something that would convince me that we're not supposed to be afraid of God. Mostly to back that up, I will now read you verses from the Old Testament. Proverbs 9 and 10, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the holy one is insight." Proverbs 1, 7, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction." Anybody got kids? Like little kids, not teenagers. They're dumb. They're little. They don't know most of the English language, right? My dog despises wisdom. My kids were the same when they were real little. Like they just despise discipline. They hate it. They don't want to know. Cleesey asked these 12, 13. My favorite book in the entire Bible, because the author spends almost the entire book saying nothing matters, and then in the last chapter goes also everything matters, right? Cleesey asked these 12, 13, "The end of the matter all has been heard. Fear God, keep his commandments. This is the whole duty of man." Psalm 1, 11, 10, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom, all who practice it, have a good understanding, his praise and doers forever." There's a giant hole in every philosophy that I've heard from every brilliant, wise philosopher who doesn't believe in Jesus Christ. There's a giant hole in every philosophy that I've ever heard from one of those people. And this is it. All right. Listen. When you're listening to the brilliant philosopher, keep asking the question, why, why, why, why, why? Why? Well, because this. Why? Well, because that. Why? That's the place where you go. What is the point of our existence? Well, we're just stardust crashing into each other as we fly through the universe for no particular reason. You see the hole? Your heart knows that there's more to your existence than that. You feel it in your soul when you think about the futility of life and the fact that you're going to die. You know that is not a suitable answer for why I am here. Just because you crawled out of the primordial ooze six billion years ago. Why? Because we are supposed to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. That's why. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. You can have some wisdom without it, but you're missing the beginning. You're missing the start, Deuteronomy 10, 12, and now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? But to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul. Psalm 33, 8, let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. Psalm 34, 9, oh, fear the Lord you, his saints, for those who fear Him have no lack. Lack of what? Fear the Lord, oh, you, his saints, for those who fear Him have no lack of what? We'll get to it if you don't know. Proverbs 14, 27, the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life that one may turn away from the snares of death. Isaiah 8, 13, the Lord of hosts whom you shall honor as holy, let Him be your fear. Let Him be your dread. Does that sound like awe and reverence? Because it doesn't to me, and I want so badly, I want the Bible to just me, and he's just awesome, and you just need to be in awe of Him because He's so awesome. Of course, I want that, because I'm a sinful man. That's not what the Bible says, dread, terror, let the Lord be your fear. Let Him be your dread, and then Luke 1, 50, the only other New Testament spot that I know of that uses the alternative word, his mercy is for those who fear Him from generation to generation, Luke 1, 50. So what does John mean, perfect love casts out fear? Because that's what it said in the end of chapter 4, perfect love casts out fear. Are we supposed to fear God or not? Altogether, 1, 2, 3, even if you don't agree, I'm making you say that you do. Hebrews 9, 27 says, just as it is appointed to man to die once and after that comes judgment. Luke right at me, you're going to die one time. And after that, and the experience for you of linear time, the next thing that happens is you stand before the judgment seat of the one who created you. Imagine the judgment seat of God, who sits there in your mind's eye? What does He look like, Santa Claus? Or something fearful and terrifying? Regardless of what you profess, whether you claim to be a Christian or not, the one who sits in judgment is the one you have sinned against. I don't care if you believe that. I don't care if you think that's the dumbest thing you've ever heard. I'm telling you, this is reality. You are going to be judged by the one you've sinned against. That's how it goes in the end. You die, you stand before Him, He judges you. Who sits there? Who's rendering the verdict in your mind? Who is that that has your future or lack thereof in His hands? Because if we get what we deserve left to ourselves, we are doomed, all of us. You can tell me, "I'm not that bad." I'm sure compared to me, you're probably not. Unfortunately, I'm not the standard. His law is, and the life that Jesus Christ lived is. Who sits in the seat? I know it's God. I know. But is it only God the judge that sits in the seat of judgment? Or is it also the God who is love, who is holy, who is righteous, but has mercy and compassion on thousands? Hate love casts out fear. Remember when we were in Galatians, I set it up, it's a courtroom. And the judge sits behind the bench, and all of the evidence is laid out. You are described in exact, perfect detail. Everything that you've ever done is laid out for everybody to see. And then as you're standing there contemplating, "How bad is hell going to be for me?" The judge bangs the gavel and says, "You are just, not guilty, cleared of all charges." You're free to go. And so you kind of stand there baffled for a minute, "I don't understand. I'm not not guilty." But you start to walk out because you said you're free to go, so you start to walk out, and then the judge says, "Wait, wait, just a second," and you go, "Okay, I knew it." Okay, this makes more sense. And then the judge says, "Not only are you not guilty, I'm adopting you. You're my child. I'm going to give you a new name." This is the gospel. Clear God and keep His commandments but don't only fear Him. Also know that He loves you and He's adopted you and He's declared you righteous because He dealt with your sin and His wrath over your sin in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment and perfect love casts out fear perfectly. That's what we're not yet, perfect. We're not perfect yet. So as long as we're toiling away on this earth, still dealing with the remnants of sin, there's going to be some fear in your heart, and there should be. He's the thrice holy God. But there will come a moment when you'll see Him and you'll be just like Him, and that'll be the end of fear. And now you'll be in perfect relationship with your Father. In the meantime, let us remember Christ the way He commanded us, Lee. I've got the fancy mic now. Okay I'll keep this kind of short, I don't like to waste words. But as we prepare for the Lord's Supper, and I just do this because this is what I need, so I'd like to slow down and let's think about some things. Why are we having the Lord's Supper? It's in remembrance, right? So on Sunday morning, sometimes we come in here, we're thinking about who we're going to talk to, we're thinking about how this sermon is going to be, we're thinking about do we have enough grape juice for the Lord's Supper, coffee made, all that stuff. I want us to slow down and put that out of our minds, and think about the awesomeness of God. We never think about the awesomeness of God when we come in our Sunday mornings. I shouldn't say never, probably most of you are, and I'm not. But think about it, the blue sky outside the trees, the friends that we have, the situation that God has put us in. Some of you come from other states, other places and somehow have landed in Springfield, Nebraska. I mean some of you had had long journeys to get here, some of you have had bad things happen to you, but he's put you in a situation to serve God. So these are the things that God has, the plan that he has is just blows your mind. Think about the awesomeness of God. But the most awesome thing, if you've gone a week without sinning, you haven't. If you've gone a day without sinning, you haven't. If you've gone the time you've been in this building without sinning, you probably haven't. But the biggest thing for us to remember and the biggest blessing he's given us is in Romans 5, 8. But God demonstrates his own love for us that while we're still sinners, Christ died for us. It doesn't get more awesome than that. I mean we, everything that we do every day pretty much spits in God's face, but his love is still with us. While we're still sinners, he died for us. It doesn't get any more awesome. Let's pray. Dear Lord, I pray for us this morning as we observe the Lord's Supper Lord, helps to really contemplate and try to grasp your offs in this Lord, and your love that you've given us Lord. I just pray for all of this this morning, I just pray that your will be done here. In your name I pray, amen. (audience laughs)