The Village Church
Justified - Audio
It is great to be here. I think a lie I mentioned earlier, my name is Brad Tubesing. I'm the RUF campus minister at University of Alabama in Huntsville. And Alex, obviously, is away this morning. And he asked me to come preach this morning. And Alex has been a great friend of mine ever since we've been in Huntsville. I've moved, I guess, about a year or so before he did. But he and I have been great friends. And he's just been a great support to me in ministry as well as just a great personal friend. So it's an honor to be here with you all. Even though I don't get here very much, I'd know a lot about what's going on in the church through Alex and pray for you all often. And just absolutely thrilled to-- whenever I hear him, whenever Alex and I talk and hear how things are going here, it's great. But even just to be here with you and to worship with you is awesome. So thank you for giving me that privilege this morning. If you have your Bible, I'd invite you to go ahead and open to the Gospel of Luke. We're going to be in chapter 18. Go ahead and turn there. I'm going to be looking at a parable this morning. And I've been doing this with my students this semester. And so I thought there was one parable that I really liked. And I felt, I think I'd like to talk about that parable with you all the day and sit in there thinking, well, none of my students, I don't think, will be here. And then I get here and I see Laura over there and go, oh. She's going to be like, I've heard this. I guess I'll take a nap this morning. Brad talked about this with us just a month or so ago. So apologies to Laura. But everyone else, it's a great passage. So I'm really excited to look at it for the second time. And I guess about a month or so for me, I absolutely love this passage. So it's felt like it'd be a good one for us to look at. But as you're turning there, just a little bit of introduction on this passage, my wife, basically everyone in my family are graduates of the University of Missouri, Columbia. And at Mizzou, I've been there many times. And Caroline and I dated through college. So I would go there often and see this place. But in the middle of campus in Mizzou, they have a thing called speaker circle. And it's really a neat concept where anyone can come and basically speak their mind to just a public, just large audience. And it's in a very strategic location, kind of right in the middle of campus. And I'm sure hundreds of people pass by there every day. And I'm sure you've heard of these kind of things. I think it's Hyde Park in London. I think it's the park where they have kind of a similar thing where I think on one morning a week, people come and kind of have their soap boxes, literally, and stand on soap boxes and speak. And gather audiences. But I can remember as Caroline and I dated through college, we'd be on the phone. I was at another school in another state. But we'd talk on the phone at night. And she'd say things like, oh, you wouldn't believe it was at speaker circle today. And you wouldn't believe some of the things that this person was campaigning for, was sharing. And it was crazy, but it was really interesting. It was this big crowd kind of watching. And I was always kind of jealous. My school didn't have anything like that. And I thought it was kind of a neat, edgy kind of thing that the campus had that, of this environment, that had that much going on. And you'd have everything from, I know at UAH, we've had these kind of fundamentalist preachers before saying it's because you're a student at a secular university, you're going to hell. You'd have everything from those people on one side to the other side, people protesting, the US military actions currently, or something like that. But as I was thinking about it, the question occurred to me, why do these places exist? Why have we created these kind of places? Like I said, the college campuses, the parks all over the place. Well, I think the reason why is because they satisfy a fundamental need in the human heart. They satisfy our need to justify ourselves, our need to prove that, hey, I'm worth something. I matter. My life has value. And I'm important. And think about it. What better way to prove, hey, I matter. And I'm worth something than to stand up in a public area where nobody has any reason to listen to you, but to hold captive in audience for, whether it's 10 minutes or two hours and perfect strangers to stop and listen to you and say, hey, what you have to say is important. I want to hear you out. If you can do that, you can go home with your head held high and feel pretty good about yourself. The cause I was speaking about or the belief that I was sharing with these people or just this thing that I'm really motivated about. People listen to me, share about it. I must be important. Now, what I believe in must be really important. And you can go home and kind of pat yourself on the back, if you will. So like I said, I think these places feel a very just central human need to feel justified. And I think every human being has that need within themselves. So today, I want us to look at a parable that Jesus tells that it's really about this same need when it boils down to it. Jesus tells us about two men who went about seeking to fill this need to feel justified, but they went about it in very different ways. And I believe these two men represent really the only two options we have when we really boil it down to the heart of the matter, really the only two options we have of filling our need to feel justified. And it's a story that really confronts us with that reality. It makes us ask ourselves, how am I justifying myself? If I've never thought about that, how do I want to justify myself? But really, it's something, even if we don't know it, we probably ask ourselves that very often, do I matter? And how do I know that? How does my life show that I have value? We're all trying to prove that to ourselves somehow. So I want us to think about that today. And I want us to think about that as we consider this story. What do you look to for justification? Think about that as we read this passage now and I invite you to follow along with me. Again, this is the 18th chapter of Luke's gospel. And we're going to read verse 9 through 14, follow along with me. He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt. Two men went up to the temple to pray. One, a Pharisee and the other, a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus. God, I thank you that I am not like other men. Exstortioners, unjust adulterers are even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give ties of all that I get but the tax collector. Standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but beat his breath, saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this passage. We thank you for your word that it is an errand. It is infallible. It is given that we might know truth, that we might know our Creator better. And so Lord, we ask that you would come, be with us this morning, that you would guide my words and I would accurately teach what this text is saying. And Lord, that your spirit would apply the message to each heart here, that in every heart, whether they know you as their Savior or not, that you would speak to each heart and that you would show us how this message needs to grip our lives, how it needs to change us. And Lord, we know that we will be convicted. Lord, we would pray that we would also be convicted and encouraged by your spirit, Lord, that we would have a fuller grasp of how just big and wonderful the gospel is. Lord, we pray that in all this, you would be glorified. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, like I said, in this picture, Jesus paints a picture of two very different men, two people who have a very different understanding of themselves and their standing before God. So let's look at the first man in this parable first and look at what's going on in this story in his life. If you've grown up going to church or even if, you know, maybe this is your first time being in church this morning and regardless, you've probably heard of the term Pharisees. They're more than just characters in the Bible in our culture. I mean, they're a symbol and even in people not in church know kind of a Pharisee. Yeah, that's someone who are these very holy, very pious, very good people. And that's not just a myth. That's really who the Pharisees were in the Bible. They were men who belonged to kind of a certain group of Judaism that had a very strict and very rigorous adherence to the law. And in that day, in the ancient Near East and Jesus' day, they were the ones that everyone else looked to as those are the really good people. Those are the holier than us people, the very pious, very admirable religious leaders. And so, you know, we could compare them to maybe a highly respected pastor in our community or maybe a very deeply admired elder in the community. So Jesus tells us that this Pharisee went up into the temple to pray. And so therefore, we can imagine the response of everyone else who was in the temple that day, everyone else who saw him, they probably knew who he was. Oh, that's that Pharisee. He's an important man. If he's going to pray, we should listen to what he's saying. He knows God's law. He's a holy man. We should listen to his prayer. And from some of the clues in this text, we can probably assume he went right into the middle of the temple in a very prominent position so that he could be heard. And so, we need to listen to what he said. Those present were undoubtedly listening to him. And one of the things that's most obvious about his prayer is that he said, I, five times in just these two verses. Our prayers are obviously supposed to be directed to God. They're supposed to be God-centered. But his prayer was anything but that. In fact, we could translate the verse 11 in the Greek. It could be translated to read, he prayed about himself. So literally, Luke is telling us this man went up there really to pray about himself. And that's exactly what he did. It was not a God-centered prayer. He wanted to tell God and everyone else listening, hey, I want to tell you how great of a person I am. Verse 11 tells us that it says, essentially, he says, God, I am better than so many people. And then he lists a bunch of these obvious sinners. And he says, thank you, that I am not like them. In other words, God and everyone else listening, don't forget, I'm a really good person. That's essentially what he wanted to communicate. He lists his moral accomplishments. He says, I fast twice a week and I give ties of all that I get. But that's more than just, hey, I'm a good person. I mean, that's pretty incredible. Picture of Alex would have stand up here on a Sunday morning. And he said, you know, I go to Bible studies and I give my money away. That'd be one thing. But what if he said, you know, I go to three different Bible studies a week and I give away a third of all that I get. And if you want to be securing your standing before God, you really need to do the same thing. That'd be ludicrous. That'd be insane. God's word never says you have to go to X amount of Bible studies for a week or it never says you have to give away a third or a half of your money. I mean, certainly those can be good things if done with the right motivation. But God's word doesn't say that. So to bind that to people is wrong and to somehow think, well, I'm in a better standing with God because I go beyond like this Pharisee did is crazy. God's law requires only fasting once a year on what Jews still today called it the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur. It's fine to do it another time, but in no way is it necessary. But this man gave a tithe of all that he had. We're in the economic system of that day. You were only required to tithe on a certain amount of things. They didn't really tithe income. They didn't have as much income, but it was material goods, those kind of things. But he ties like that and he gives so much money away because as I've been saying, he's doing this to justify himself. He's doing this to prove, God, I'm worthy. I'm worthy of your love. He thinks, God, if I can show you all the good things I'm doing, then certainly I'll feel secure in my status as yours. I will know that I'm accepted by you, that I've earned that right. And I think for us, for probably many of us, yes, that struggle is there. We're trying to prove God to God, hey, I'm accepted by you because of my good works. But I think for a lot of us, if we're honest, we get that. We get the gospel. No, I'm saved by grace, where this strikes us, where we are like that Pharisee. Because we think, well, yes, I've been accepted by grace, but in order to keep his grace, I've got to keep doing these things. I've got to keep my act together. And if I don't, then I need to worry. Maybe God will get frustrated and cast me off. I don't keep doing these things. Yes, I know I've received it by grace, but to keep it, I've got to keep my act together. And that's just wrong. So if we tend to go, well, I don't struggle with that. I know I'm saved by grace. I'm nothing like that Pharisee. Maybe we need to think a little harder and realize for us, it might just mean we think we have to do something to keep his love. Or it might not even be to keep our salvation, but it might be God, I've got a big day tomorrow. I've got some really big things on my plate that I'm worried about. If I read my Bible this morning, though, I know you'll bless me. Or if I go to church this week, and if those sins I've been really struggling with, if I find victory over them and really do well over the next several days, and I know you'll bless this thing that's looming on my calendar that I'm really anxious about. And so we think, God, I'll somehow earn more of your favor if I do well. And if I don't do well, if I forget to read my Bible of those sins I've been struggling with, really just get at me and I fail, well, then I need to be worried. That's really the same struggle that this Pharisee has. Looking to ourselves, rather than trusting in God's grace. I'm sure probably many of you have seen a movie saving a private Ryan. It's a great movie. It's a movie about a group of men from the Army's second ranger battalion. And it's about how the Army learns that their three brothers are all killed within a few days in different theaters in World War II fighting. And the brother of one of them, Private James Ryan, is still fighting in Normandy. So the Army learns this soldier's brothers have been killed. We've got to send him back. We've got to give this family some consolation. They've paid a huge sacrifice for this nation, and we've got to save them. So the Army sends out this small group of men from the second ranger battalion to find Private James Ryan and send him back home. They go on this very risky mission behind enemy lines soon after the D-Day invasion to find Private Ryan. And that's what the movie's about, is their mission. Well, there's a scene at the end of the movie, and it fast forwards to a much older James Ryan. It's been over 50 years since these men, the second ranger battalion, embarked on this deadly mission to save him. And the scene opens with this now elderly Ryan walking through a Normandy graveyard, where many of the men who died on D-Day are now buried. And as he walks through the graveyard with his family now close at hand, he sees he's looking for something, and he finds this one grave, and he starts to kind of break away from the rest of his family. Just as if nothing else in the world matters, he sees that grave, and he's locked in, and his eyes get big, and he rushes up to it and starts to move kind of frantically, because he knows whose grave this is. And as he starts to distance himself and walks towards this grave and can indeed read whose grave it is, he begins to become overcome with emotion. And he sinks down as he gets the grave and reads the writing in fine print. And we see Captain John Miller on the grave stone. And we remember, all of a sudden we flash back, we remember this scene just not too long before in the movie. Captain John Miller was the leader of the second ranger battalion that went to save Ryan, to find him and send him home. And we remember the scene as some of Miller's men have all died in this mission. And now Miller has been wounded. And as a mortal wound is laying there, dying on the battlefield. And private Ryan comes up to him and looks at him in the eye. And these words undoubtedly come back to Ryan. He remembers Miller's dying words, where he simply says in his last breath, "earnness." This is all Ryan can think about, as these words are echoing in his head. As he now 50-some years later is staring at Miller's grave. And his wife kind of comes from the rest of the family, as they're wondering, what is he doing? And they come forward. And she comes and kind of puts her arm on Ryan's shoulder. And honey is everything OK. And with tears now streaming down his face, he looks at her. And with the only words he can muster, he says, "Tell me, I have led a good life. Tell me, I've been a good man." You see what's underlying his question. He's received an incredible gift. His life was saved while Captain Miller's and these other men of this battalion lost theirs for his. And we see in Ryan this deep desire to feel as if he has somehow earned this, he's somehow deserved this, that he's somehow justified their cause for his life. It's the same thing in this Pharisee. He has to know God somehow, surely, I've done something to deserve eternal life, right? He feels as if he has to have earned this somehow. And we see the same thing in ourselves. Even if we know, yes, it was given to me as a gift. I never could have done anything to first receive it. The Lord, now, come on, I still do something every day to make you go, OK, I'm grateful I save you. I'm grateful you're my child, right? I mean, I make you happy. You know, I'm good enough so that you're grateful, right? You're not doubting and going, why did I save you? You're so sinful and you're such a mess. And why are you in my kingdom of all people, right? I'm doing something to make you happy for this, right? We're just like James Ryan 50 years later, still saying, clearly, I've been good enough to merit the cost that those men gave. The answer is no, no matter how good of a man he was, he never could have somehow justified the cost that these men gave, even if he went on to become the greatest person that ever lived, no way. And we could never do the same thing. So if I'm suggesting that this Pharisee is no hope in looking to his own goodness, yet he is a good, righteous, moral man, then we have no hope, right? I mean, we have no hope of feeling justified in that way. Is that right? Let's see what the tax collector shows us. What does his life show us? Like I said, the Pharisee painted a picture of two very different-- or excuse me, Jesus painted a picture of two very different people in this parable just for just as much as this Pharisee was looked up to and admired in this culture, this tax collector was looked down upon. He was the bottom tier of society. And it was partly because the tax collectors worked for the occupying Romans. I mean, think about it in the colonial days as the revolution was starting. If there was a loyalist tax collector working for the British, I mean, obviously the other colonists would have thought, you're the enemy, you're the oppressors who are charging these terrible taxes on us. And these people we want to break away from, it was kind of the same way for the Jews looking upon this tax collector. But even more, tax collectors, almost across the board, where you can assume not all of them, but most of them, were very crooked men. And it was almost as if the Romans encouraged this. They would simply say, OK, in this district, they would just say in different districts, this is the amount of money that should be brought in from this district. So go out, collect that money. We don't care how. We're not even going to watch you in terms of if you do this well. Just go collect that money. And we're not going to pay you either. So if you want to have any money for your family, just take some off the top from what you collect. So there was really no accountability. These men almost didn't have a choice, but to take this money for themselves. And all the people knew that. They knew that here's $100 to the tax collector, but that tax collector was going to take 25 or 50 of it, put in his own pocket, and never be punished for doing that. So we can see why, to a degree, this tax collector prayed the way he did. He didn't belong in a temple. It's a holy place, and he's anything but holy. So let's look at his prayer. It says, standing far off. While the Pharisee went into the inner court of the temple to pray, this tax collector stood far away because he didn't want to be seen. He didn't want to be heard. Verse 13 tells us, he would not even lift up his eyes to heaven because he knew how unworthy he was to even approach God. He took all the courage he had to even mutter this prayer to him, because he knew he had no right to stand before this God. He brought nothing which he could say, God, listen to my prayer. We read that he beat his brass, and the original listeners would have understood this is a sign of brokenness, of humility, of contrition, unlike kind of a sign of bravado, like it might be in our culture today. So listen to a couple other passages from scripture, where the author has a similar understanding of his own brokenness, his own unworthiness before God. Ezra 9, 6, as he writes, oh my God, I am ashamed, and I blush to lift my face to you, my God, far on niceties of risen, higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens. In Psalm 51, David, after he was confronted with his sin for Bathsheba, he set up for I know my transgression, and my sin is ever before me against you. You only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, oh Lord. And finally, Peter and Luke 5a, when he is humbled, he writes and says this, but when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down, and Jesus is me, saying, depart from me, for I am a sinful man, oh Lord. This is the kind of understanding that this tax collector had of himself. Further, he refers to himself as the sinner. He uses the definite article, the, as though to say, I am the sinner. I don't care about any other sinners in the world. I know before you though, God, I am a sinner. If you're a fan of World War II history, perhaps you've heard the name Adolf Eitmann. He was one of the principal architects of the Jewish Holocaust, and after the Civil War, he, excuse me, after World War II, I like history a lot, and I guess I've read too much different history of getting it confused. After World War II, he fled to Central America under an assumed name, yet years later was tracked down by kind of the Israeli version of the CIA, and was flown back to Israel and put on trial after this covert operation to capture him. He was put on trial before the television cameras of the world, really, and which was what was to become an international spectacle. So he was put on trial for the crimes that obviously he committed in the Holocaust. One of those who was brought forward to testify against him was a man named Yehil Denur, who was a concentration camp survivor, who told the story of his time at Auschwitz 18 years earlier, and as Denir entered the courtroom to testify for the first time against Eitmann, when he was first brought in, he saw Eitmann for the first time, it had been 18 years since he hadn't had any experience with this man. He hadn't seen him since his time in Auschwitz. And as he saw him, he go read about this and read news reports, says immediately he stopped, and as he saw him, he began to weep uncontrollably. Denir actually fainted and collapsed in a heap on the floor of the courtroom. He was later interviewed by Mike Wallace, the well-known TV journalist, and Wallace asked him why he responded that way, why was he so overcome with grief when he saw this obviously wicked man in this man, he would devastated the life of his people. Listen to what Denir said, he told him that he realized at this moment that Eitmann was not some larger than life, God-like army officer who had set so many to their deaths. Rather, he realized in this moment when he first saw him that he was an ordinary man, many said this. He said, I was afraid about myself. I saw that I am capable to do this. I am exactly like he is. That's crazy. Most of us would say, yes, I'm a sinner, I'm broken, but I'm nothing like someone who would be the architect of the Holocaust and murder millions of people. But I think Denir had an understanding of himself like this tax collector that before God, it's really no different. We are all sinners. We are all, have fallen short of his perfection. That's why you can say about himself, I am the sinner. So what does Jesus say about his understanding of himself? What does he say about the tax collector's understanding? Well, as we conclude, that's look at verse 14, it shows us the verdict. It shows us kind of what Jesus has to say about all this. As I said, Jesus pronounces his verdict, if you will, in verse 14. It says, if each man has gone to trial before Jesus, and the Pharisee brings his defense, his own good works, his own spotless moral record as his defense, but the tax collector brings nothing. He has no evidence, he has no defense attorney, he simply pleads guilty. He says, nothing other than God be merciful to me. And amazingly, Jesus tells us in verse 14 that the tax collector went unjustified, not the Pharisee. To say that that verdict is shocking to the people who first heard Jesus tell this parable, that would be an understatement. This is unthinkable to them. They would have been absolutely stunned. To say that the tax collector's justified while the Pharisee isn't. And that's like saying like a pimp, excuse me, a pimp prayed and received salvation while an elder prayed and his prayer wasn't accepted. Well, there's one other thing, we just briefly need to point out about this passage. And I think it's so remarkable. Notice the assumptions that this Pharisee makes about the tax collector. Verse 11, he says, thank you, that I'm not like all these other sinners he lists or even like this tax collector. When I mean, yeah, maybe he can assume because he's a tax collector, he's probably a simple man, but he doesn't know that, he assumes it. And further, why does he compare himself to this tax collector into all these other sinners he lists? Well, I think Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains it well. He says this, self-justification and judging others go together is justification by grace and serving others go together. Let me read that one more time. Self-justification and judging others go together as justification by grace and serving others go together. You see, if we believe the only way we can be justified is to justify ourselves, then we're gonna be constantly comparing ourselves to others. We're gonna be constantly saying, yes, I'm better than that person. Ooh, I'm not quite as good as that person. I need to work on things or, okay, I'm better than that person. Yes, I'm better than that person. To feel better about ourselves, think, okay, I'm good. Yeah, I know I'm doing better than him. I must be good in God's eyes. And so we're constantly gonna be judging others and looking down at people. But the opposite is also true. If we know we can't be justified in and of ourselves and we must trust in the mercy of another to be justified as this tax collector did, we won't feel the need to compare ourselves to other people. Instead, we can love them and we can serve them. We can say, hey, I'm broken and all of us are broken. I don't need to compare, but I know before God, I'm accepted. Therefore, I can love you. I don't need to worry about how do I compare to you. But I think as Christian, we struggle with this. We often fail to understand the message that is at the very core of the gospel that we can't be justified, that grace alone can justify us. And so we struggle with comparing ourselves. Even if we're not doing it outwardly, inwardly, we're constantly stacking ourselves up to other people and going, my as good as that person or my better. 'Cause we don't trust that God justifies us alone. I want to tell one last amazing story that I came across as we conclude. Evan O'Neill Caine was a doctor from Pennsylvania who practiced medicine during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And in 1921, at the age of 60, he checked himself into a hospital in Pennsylvania to have his appendix removed. And everything happened as expected. He was registered at the hospital. He had the surgery and he was released to go home the very next day after his surgery. It was a successful surgery, excuse me, a successful surgery. His recovery went smoothly and it was back to normal the very next day. However, there's one interesting fact about this surgery, the surgeon, and the interesting thing about this surgeon was that it was Dr. Caine himself. You see, he was a big advocate of localized anesthetic. Yet in this day and across the board generalized anesthetic was what was almost always used and not just big surgeries, but even more minor surgeries like an appendectomy. But he believed, he was one of the few people that believed for this kind of surgery, for a more minor surgery like this, localized anesthetic should be used. It is safer, it doesn't have the same risk of putting someone completely under and dealing with all the heart issues that could come with that. So in order to show that localized anesthetic was actually much better to be used in this situation, he wanted to prove it. So he decided to quote unquote use himself as a guinea pig. So he administered the localized anesthetic. Yeah, obviously at other people there watching. And with the help of mirrors, he removed his own appendix. He knew if he wanted to prove this is safe, then he would have to show, look, if it's safe, I'll do it to myself to prove it. He knew in order to people to trust him, that was the only way he could do it. And I'm sitting here telling us this morning that we can't justify ourselves, that we'd have to be perfect. And that's simply impossible. And I know we're tempted to say, well, what other hope do I have? How else can I know that I'm in a good standing with the creator of the universe? Well, like Dr. Kane, we have a savior who has done it for us. You see, it'd be one thing if God said, well, there was some person in some point in history, just trust me, he's taken care of it for you. Just believe me, I won't really go into all the details. I mean, you can't know all about it, but just trust me. But no, even more, God is saying, I have done this. You can trust me because I did it to myself. My very own son went and lived a perfect life, died a perfect death. So trust me, I have done it for you. I have been perfect, I have done what you could never do. Because I've done it, you can trust me. Because not only am I the judge who says, this is what you have to do, but only I have satisfied that requirement myself because of that, I am trustworthy, and nothing else could be that trustworthy. He lived a perfect life, and we have no option, but to trust him that he's done something we can never do. So it leaves us with the question, do we trust him? Do we trust him that our standing before God is good, and perfect, and unchangeable because of what he has done? Who are we trusting in? If you're trusting in yourself like this Pharisee, you probably are hating what it feels like. You're running yourself raggots, you know, if I can be a better parent, if I can be a better employee, if I can be a better church member, you know, I know I was saved by grace, but if I can do those things, then I'll feel good about my standing. If I can just kick this sin, or if I can just, you know, have these accomplishments behind me, then I will feel good. And you're running yourself raggot, you're worn out recognizing am I ever gonna feel good enough? And I'm telling you, you won't, because we're sinners, and we're never gonna be able to do it good enough in our own eyes, and even more, we're never gonna be able to do it good enough in God's eyes, 'cause the standard is perfection. So quit running yourself raggot. Trust that God has done it for us. Rest, and that gift he's given us. When we trust in that mercy, it gives us such confidence, such peace, no matter what we're going through, no matter what trials, what uncertainties, what fears, we can come to him saying God, I got no right to pray to you about this. I have no right to ask for your help in this. But because Jesus has paid for my sins because he has covered me, I have every right to come before your throne and ask for mercy. And he longs to give us that mercy. He longs to hear us say, I got no right to be here, but I know because Jesus has covered me, I have every right. And he longs for us to come to him in that standing. So do that, whatever you're going through, whatever fears, whatever uncertainties you're facing. I know Naomi certainly is and moving to another state, taking care of this child and those kinds of uncertainties, whatever you're facing, health, the economic downturn like we're in, Jesus, he is listening, he is there for you because he has justified you through his son. If your trust is in him, it's offensive to him to keep thinking, no, I've got to get my act together. Then you'll accept me. No, that spits on the face of what he's done through Jesus. So accept that work that he has done that for you and live in the grace and the peace and the joy that it gives. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that you have provided a way to make us perfect and holy in your side, a way we could never get on our own. Lord, I pray you would give us the ability to trust in that. Even though everything in our hearts wants to say, no, I've done it. I've earned it myself or it convict us that we can never do that, that you and you alone can give us that standing. Lord, if anyone doesn't understand that, put it upon their hearts to think through this, to talk to someone even today that they might. Lord, for many of us like myself who do get this, but who, like me, I know struggle desperately in every day to find the peace, the joy that comes from this. I know so often, Lord, when I ask you for things, when I kind of wonder how I'm doing, I think of my own performance instead of the fact that Jesus has done it all for me. Give me the joy, give me the peace that I can have from that and help all of us to come before you, boldly asking for your mercy, knowing you long to give it because you see us as no different than your son. Lord, we pray these things in your name. Amen. [ Silence ]