Our Good Father Gives Good Gifts - Matthew 7:7-11

All right, well, like like Mike said, my name is Jason and I am

the planting pastor with Redemption Bear River.

If you have your Bibles, we're going to continue on in our

Kingdom Living series here, the Sermon on the Mount.

Make sure my click is on. There we go.

All right, so continuing on again, and our King and his

Kingdom, there is our passage. We have Matthew Chapter 7 verses

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

7:00 to 11:00. So if you would please stand

with me and let's read the word of the Lord together.

And after we read, we say this is the word of the Lord, Amen.

Let's start here in Matthew Chapter 7, starting in verse 7.

Matthew 7 · chapter mention

Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find knock,

and it will be open to you, for everyone who asks receives, and

the one who seeks fines, and to the one who knocks it will be

give opened. Or which one of you?

If his son ask him for bread, we'll give him a stone, or if he

asks for a fish, we'll give him a serpent.

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your

children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven

give good things to those who asked?

This is the word of the Lord. Amen.

All right, thank you, guys. If you do have your Bibles with

you, go ahead and turn in your Bibles to that passage in

Matthew. We'll be referencing it quite a

bit. And as you're turning there, I

just want to share a quick story with you.

And as I was preparing for this sermon this week, I happened

upon a video of a Marine who had served in the Pacific theater

during World War 2. And he was sharing a story about

how that's him right up there, about how prior to being

deployed, he was in San Diego, CA training.

And he recalled how he needed to get a Colt 45 pistol.

He really wanted to get this Colt 45 pistol before he headed

over to the Pacific, and he had been unable to find one where he

was at. And so he wrote his dear mother

a letter and told her his need and asked if she could somehow

procure this Colt 45 and and send it to him.

And he told of how his mother was a widow raising six

additional children. And so when he asked her to find

this Colt 45 pistol for him, he told about how she already worn

thin, as you can imagine, from taking care of six kids, trying

to scrape out a living for those children.

He told about how she had taken on additional jobs to save up

money to be able to go and buy this Colt 45 pistol.

Now she searched for several weeks and she was unable to find

one until finally she found a local gunsmith who was operating

out of his house. And, and she went to him and she

said, do you have this Colt 45 pistol?

And he said, well, yes, I do. I have one right here.

And she said, how much? And he said, ma'am, it's $200.

And she lowered her head and she said, I, I can't afford that.

I've only got about $75. And so she lowered her head and,

and she walked out and she headed back out to her meager

house. And not long after that, the

gunsmith came running out chasing after her.

And he finally caught up to her. And he says, you know, ma'am,

I'm, I'm curious. Why do you need such a powerful

weapon, being a woman of such small stature?

And the widow says, well, it's it's not for me, It's for my

son. He's being sent over and he's

fighting in the war. And he told me that he needs

this pistol. And so the gunsmith granted, he

said, ma'am, I I think I can do business with you.

And finally, this Marine concludes his story and recalled

how his mother took what little bit of money she had left the

last the last bit of money that she had left.

And she bought a bus ticket and she took a 36 hour bus ride from

East Texas all the way to San Diego, CA to put that Colt 45

pistol in her son's hand. And as this battle hardened

decorated combat marine finishes the story, his eyes are misty as

he's recalling fondly the links to which his mother went to

provide that weapon that would keep him safe.

He reached down and he pulled up that same very Colt 45 that she

had given him. Now, for those of you in here

who are parents, you can certainly relate to that story,

right? You can relate.

There is no height, there is no depth to which a parent would

not go to provide for their children.

And if you're not yet a parent, maybe you can think about your

own parents, maybe grandparents, somebody in your life that has

cared for you in that way. They meet every need that you

have, no matter the sacrifice. But in our passage today, we see

that even that great of a love has limits.

But God in His infinite love and goodness provides not only for

the physical needs of His children, but He is also

provided the greatest need that any of us have, and that is our

spiritual standing before a perfectly holy God.

And so where the love of an earthly parent cannot reach, we

will see how God's boundless love and grace meets the most

urgent need that we have by giving us the greatest gift that

we could ever receive. And that is the title for our

sermon today, is that our good Father gives good gifts.

Now beginning in verse 7, I have to point this clicker.

Is it working? Oh, there we go.

There's our title slide. It's beginning in Matthew

Matthew 7:7

Chapter 7, verse 7 and 8. We see here that Jesus is giving

3 imperatives. He gives 3 calls to action here

which are followed by three promises.

Ask, seek, and knock are the imperatives.

And So what does He promise to those who ask, to those who

seek, and to those who knock? Well, he says that for those who

ask, it will be given to you. Seek and you will find, and

finally knock, and it will be opened to you.

And again in verse 8, he reinforces those promises.

He says that everyone who asks receives.

The one who seeks finds, and the one who knocks, it will be

opened. So we see Jesus here calling to

everybody who hears this teaching to hears this sermon,

to act. This is a call to action.

And then we see how God responds to those actions.

Now, if you remember back to the end of chapter 6 that we just

went over a few weeks ago, where Jesus says not to be anxious or

to worry about what you'll eat, what you'll drink, what you'll

wear there in that passage, He is certainly addressing and

describing God's ability to abundantly meet the physical

needs of his children, and God certainly does that.

But the application, I think for that passage and especially for

our passage today, is that our prayer life should be reflective

of this kind of petitioning, right?

But there's a danger here that I think we have to avoid in

studying this passage. And it's one that a lot of false

teachers will use to portray God as just some kind of spiritual

genie, right? Just like Aladdin up there.

You ain't never had a friend like me.

We take this passage and we look at it that way.

That's what happens, right? That's how we perceive God that

that just some spiritual cosmic genie that we use to manifest

health and wealth and prosperity in our lives.

The misappropriating miss applying this passage in that

way, It not only distorts what the spirit is actually speaking

in the text, but what it does is it shifts the power dynamic,

especially in terms of how we think about that relationship

between US and God. See, it shifts the power from

God to us because we think that somehow God is like our personal

Butler and that he's at our beckon call and and whatever we

ask, he's just supposed to give us, right?

And So what that does is it changes it changes our view of

God and it changes the attitude with which we ask him.

And so I think for us to understand not only this

imperative, the first one here, but this whole passage, the

question should be is how should we ask?

How should we ask? And I think the past of the the

answer there can be found in Matthew chapter 18 verses one

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

through 4. Now the passage here says that

at that time Jesus of the disciples came to Jesus saying,

Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?

And calling to him a child. He put him in the midst of him

and said, truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like

children, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven.

Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in

the Kingdom of heaven. So this passage here gives us a

clue of how we are to come to God with our request.

I want you to think back again about that parent child

relationship. That's a that's a theme that we

see played out over and over here in this passage.

But think about that parent child relationship.

See, a child is completely dependent on their parents.

A child has no means to provide for all the things that that are

needed to sustain their life. And knowing that a child goes to

their parent and they trust that in asking their parents for what

they need, that the parents will meet those needs, fulfill those

needs, that's what that parent child relationship is, at least

in its ideal form. But how many of us, when we feel

the pressures of life that fill us with anxiety, how often do we

say, you know what, I'll figure it out.

I'll make something happen, I'll make it work, I will, I will, I

will, I can, I can, I can see. We neglect to go humbly to God

and trust Him, and instead we take it on ourselves to act on

our own behalf. And how does that usually end

up? It usually makes things worse,

right? First, Peter chapter 5, verse 7

again. Humble yourselves, therefore,

under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time He may

exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him, because He

cares for you. So how should we ask?

We should ask with humility and complete trust.

We should ask with humility and in complete trust because in

asking that way, we are trusting that God will supply exactly

what we need, exactly when we need it.

And you know, just like Mike mentioned, we're we're getting

ready to plant a church in Tremont.

And I think back over my life over the last 3-4 years since

moving to Utah from South Carolina, how difficult that was

and all the trials and difficulties that came along

with that uncertainty, not knowing what the future would

be, but it but, but learning how to trust God through that

process. And now as we've moved up to

Tremont and we're assembling our core team together, we're, we're

looking at budgets for 20/26/27 and we're thinking, where's this

money going to come from? How are we going to get this?

What we're looking for a building where, where we're

going to end up all these questions that we don't

necessarily know the answers to all the time, but in humility

what we do is we say, you know what?

I have seen God a hundreds of time, time after time provide

exactly what we need exactly when we need it.

But it's in how we ask him those things.

Do we go to him humbly? Do we go to him prayerfully?

That's how we should ask. And that's what we've seen in

our lives over the last several years.

Like I said, as as God has continued to grow us in this

process of planting redemption Bear River, stretching our faith

and growing our faith in ways that I, I quite honestly, I

could never have imagined apart from this process.

It's been beautiful to see how God has not only used the people

around us, but even people back in South Carolina and, and in

the East Coast and all those folks to be part of this church

plan. And we're blessed to be part of

it, but we're trusting God. We're trusting God for all of

it. But you know, there are so many

people who feel overwhelmed by those anxieties of life that we

talked about, people who are just kind of trying to figure

out what life is about, people who are searching for answers,

but they're looking in the wrong places.

Think about how much of our life inning and purpose, but that

search ultimately comes up empty if it does not result in seeking

God's will for their life. And that second imperative that

we see here, we see that Jesus is saying that as as Christians,

we should be actively searching to know what the will of God is.

It's like when we played this game when we were little, played

hide and seek. Now we would count, you know,

just like this young boy against the tree. 78910 And then we say,

have y'all ever played hide and seek before?

Is there? Let me check for a gas leak in

here 78910, Ready or not, here I come.

Now when you say ready or not, here I come.

Are you just kind of leaning on that tree, looking out here,

scanning maybe I see one over there.

No. What are you doing?

You take off running, right? You are looking under every

Bush, You're looking behind every tree.

You are actively searching for those that have gone and hid.

And that's what we should do as Christians as we're seeking God

more and becoming more like Jesus.

And you know, this is this time of year, the new year.

We're already kind of thinking in those terms, right?

Making some changes for the upcoming year.

Well, let me tell you, just like this morning, we started a new

series about spiritual disciplines.

We've got a reading series, a Bible reading series in EU

Version app that a lot of folks here participating in.

Those are ways that you can commit to a more disciplined

spiritual life as you are actively seeking to know more

about who God is and His will for your life.

In First Timothy chapter 4 verse 7, it says have nothing to do

1 Timothy 4:7

with irreverent silly myths. Rather, train yourself for

godliness. For while bodily training is of

some value, godliness is of value in every way as it holds

promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

So there is value in a more disciplined spiritual life, not

just eternally and how it affects us and our relationship

with God eternally, but even in the right now, even in how we

live. Because a more disciplined

spiritual life means that we prioritize prayer, We prioritize

the study of God's Word, and there's a much more intentional

and focused approach to that. See, the more that we read

Scripture, the more that the Holy Spirit reveals to us about

the nature, the character, the attributes of God.

We learn more about how we are to live in light of our faith

and how that faith has to be acted out.

And then in conjunction with that, when we're actively

seeking the guidance of in the conviction of the Holy Spirit,

what we do is we find that that our will begins to take a back

seat to what God's will is for our life.

As we become more disciplined in seeking God and his will, we see

our desires fade and we find that we're much less likely to

act according to our will, but instead we want to act according

to the will of God that's been revealed to us by the Spirit

through the practice and through the application of spiritual

disciplines. So in actively seeking, we

should be actively seeking God through a disciplined spiritual

life. We should be actively seeking

God through a disciplined spiritual life.

And what happens is that leads us to a much higher view of who

God is, right? The more time that we spend in

prayer, the more time that we spend in His Word, we have a

higher view of who God is. And we begin to submit our will

for His will. Because things don't always end

up how we want them to end up, right?

They don't always happen how we want things to happen.

But if our selfish desire and will and want is what motivates

us, if that's how we're going to God and asking, then guess what?

The likelihood that you're going to end up disappointed is going

to happen a lot. Because until our will, what we

want matters less than what God wants.

How we perceive God in answering those prayers is radically

different, dramatically different.

But see, when we exchange our will for his through a

disciplined spiritual life, we begin to see the chipping away,

the eroding away of our own will in our life, and we begin to see

God's will more and more. What happens is that we have

less disappointment. We're not disappointed.

Instead, we have more affirmation, more acceptance of

the sovereignty of God because we understand that in his

infinite wisdom, He always knows that what we want is not

necessarily what we need, but the more intent that we're

actively seeking how to follow His will, the more that we begin

to see that right? And that's important.

That's important because we see Jesus doing that very thing just

hours before he would be nailed to the cross and while He was

fully God and fully man in His human nature.

Here Matthew 2639, it says he fell to his face to pray.

He's deeply troubled, crying out to the Father.

My Father, ABBA, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass

from me nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.

Now, this is certainly not Jesus in his divine nature disagreeing

with the will of the Father. There's no disagreement, there's

no disunity, right? This is Jesus as a man in his

human nature, thinking how unbearable this horrible

distribution of God's wrath would be, but knowing that for

God's plan of redemption to be carried out, he must submit to

the will of the Father. And Jesus here, in his human

nature, as an example to us, submits to the will of the

Father, despite the unimaginable agony and suffering that He knew

He had to endure. I want you to think about that

for a minute and let's kind of take a little bit of a mental

break. This seems like a good place to

take a little bit of a mental break.

So I want you to take a second and I want you to let your mind

go to Galilee in the 1st century.

Imagine you're there. Now imagine you're walking down

a dusty road and and you come upon a house.

Can you kind of visualize what a house in 1st century Galilee

would look like? Probably nothing too fancy,

right? Probably made out of mud brick.

Well, here's a rendering here to help you based on archaeology

science of what a house from around the same period, from

around the same region that Jesus gave his Sermon on the

Mount would have looked like. So you see, pretty standard

house here in 1st century Galilee.

Now, if you look up here, you see there's a wall kind of going

all the way around this part of the house right here.

Now this is where, you know, you would have lived and slept and

done all those things. And if you look right here,

right where this enormous ox is standing, you see that that

would have been a gate right there.

And that would have been a big wide gate, probably made out of

pretty heavy wood. And if you can imagine that

you're walking up that dusty road and you come upon this

house, maybe your friend lives here, and you go to that big

heavy gate that's outside of where the the people are

actually living in the house. You walk up to that gate and you

knock on the gate and you go. You think anybody's going to

come out of that door and come let you in if you go up and you

knock like this? No.

But what if you knock like this? You knock more intently, and

then you knock like this and you start pounding and you're

knocking and you keep knocking and you persist.

You knock intently and you persist in your knocking.

And then this third imperative here, Jesus wants his followers

to knock and to keep knocking, persisting in prayer, persisting

in a disciplined spiritual life, enduring in their faith as they

are, continuing to be conformed to the will of God, being molded

through a discipline life which produces a life that looks more

like that of Jesus. That's the result, right?

Mike talked about the goal. The result.

Goal's not to do it. The end goal is what it produces

in US. And so this last imperative here

of this, this fervent, persistent prayer, right.

Imagine, imagine if you will, that if you're, if you're in

your prayer life, not always is God quick to answer, at least by

our standards when we pray, right?

We think sometimes it takes too long.

Now you can have confidence that he will answer, always trust and

believe that, but that doesn't necessarily always align with

with our timing, right? But what if we change the way

that we view our prayer life? What if we took a different

approach? And what if we didn't just utter

the same prayers couple days a week, you know, right before we

go to bed? Here's a challenge for all of

us. Everybody in this room, I would

guess, has one of these probably in their pockets, right?

What if instead of mindlessly scrolling on these, we spent

that same amount of time in prayer or in the Word of God?

What would our relationship with God look like then, if we prayed

that way? Fervent, persistent, intent

prayers. Just like we're standing at that

gate pounding, knocking intently, persistently resolve

that we're not going to walk away until somebody comes to let

us in. And so this last imperative here

can be summed up like this. God says we should pray, we

should pray intently and we should pray often.

And as we pray this way, what what happens is that we we see

our faith increase so that what we're asking of God is not so

much for things anymore, right? We kind of lose our our focus

shifts away from things like he said, we shouldn't worry about

those things like what will we wear or what will we eat or what

will we drink? We shouldn't worry about those

things. But what we start to ask for and

seek for is his presence, right? We want to commune with him.

We want to spend time with him like you would when you go and

visit your friend and you knock on their door and they let you

in. You're there to commune.

You're there to spend time. You're there to cultivate a

deeper and more meaningful relationship so that no matter

what God chooses to bring into our lives, we rejoice in it

because, as Romans 828 says, He is working all things for the

good of those who love Him and who are called according to His

purpose. Now, sometimes our definition of

what's good doesn't necessarily match up with what God's

definition is. Sometimes we have to be taught

what that means, right? But as we're asking, as we're

actively seeking, intently praying and knocking for that

deeper relationship, that is what God is revealing to us

through that process. But what is that purpose that it

talks about there in Romans 828 for those that are called

according to his purpose? What is that purpose?

Well, if we think back again to the end of that passage in

Matthew chapter 6, if you have your Bible, you can turn there.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

It's in verse 33 right after where Jesus says don't be

anxious about what you will eat or drink or where.

If we keep reading verse 33, Jesus says those things

shouldn't be our focus because we are to what?

Seek first the Kingdom of heaven or Kingdom of God, and all these

things will be added to you. You see, God knows that our

greatest need is not physical, it is spiritual.

And as we've worked through this first section, I hope you're

starting to see that this is not just talking about God providing

physically. This is about something deeper,

something more meaningful. Because see, the temporary needs

of this life, they are far, far outweighed by the eternity.

Listen, the eternity that we will spend either in the

presence of God and his glory for those who have trusted Jesus

as Savior, or an eternity in the fiery torment and torture of

hell for those who reject Jesus. And that's just how it is, one

or the other. But the more intently that we

ask, the more humbly that we ask God and His Spirit to show us

how to enter into that deeper relationship.

He is faithful to do just that, right?

If we act, if we ask humbly, if we seek intently, if we pray

fervently, what does He promise to do here?

He promises to give. He promises that we'll find.

And He promises that when we knock, it will be opened to us.

And see, the more seriously that we take our faith, the deeper

our appreciation of the links to which God is willing to go to

redeem sinful man begins to shift our focus, turn us from

those things that that don't really last, that don't matter,

that aren't eternal. And it turns our focus toward

Jesus's promise of eternal life for all those who place their

trust in Him as Lord. And verses 7 or verses 9 through

11. Here we see the contrast of that

goodness of God, just how good he is here versus an imperfect

earthly father where Jesus asked for which one of you, if his Son

asked for bread, will give him a stone.

Now you might know this has been seen this a lot lately, but you

might know that the bread that we eat now is way different than

the bread that they would have eaten here back in this ancient

time, right in the 1st century. Quite different.

See, the bread that we have now, it's got all the chemicals and

genetic modifiers and all these things that have been done to

the seed that have somehow changed the nutritional value of

the grain versus how they used to make ancient bread.

But did you know that in the 1st century, around this time, 70 to

80% of a person's daily diet was made-up of bread?

70 to 80%. Some of y'all don't even like

looking at bread. I can't have the carbs.

Can you imagine 8 out of every 10 things you eat in a day or

bread? But that's because it was

essential sustenance, right? Agriculture and livestock and,

and all those things weren't the greatest during that time.

So what they could do is they could grow grain and they could

make bread and they could eat a lot of it and it was essential.

It was essential to be sustained.

Now, so, so obviously no reasonable loving father or

mother who loves their child would deny necessary sustenance

and instead give something like a stone that could in no way

meet any of those needs, right? No reasonable parent would do

that. Obviously the answer is no.

Continuing in verse 10, Jesus says, or if he asked for a fish,

would give him a serpent. Now again, obviously the answer

here is no. No reasonable or loving parent

would give their child something like a serpent that could harm

or cause grave injury. Now, certainly we look forward

to the day that our children can play over the whole of the

cobra. Remember, back to Isaiah, that's

not today, not quite here yet. So don't give your kids the

serpent instead of a fish. And obviously, if you love your

kids, you wouldn't do that, right?

These are rhetorical questions. Jesus knows the answer and they

know the answer. Of course not.

Of course we wouldn't do these things, but Jesus here in verse

11, he concludes with what I think is the most powerful truth

of this entire passage in verse 11.

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your

children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven

give good things to those who ask him?

Jesus is saying here that earthly fathers, human fathers,

limited even those who might have experienced a saving faith.

They still carry this remnant of evil and wickedness and sin, but

Even so, they still have the capability.

They still have the ability to give good things to meet the

needs of their children, wicked, sinful fathers, and still do

that. But how much greater?

How much greater is our Father in heaven, the Almighty, who

dwells in a place where human love could never reach?

When asked rightly, how much more freely and abundantly does

He give to His children? How much greater is the love of

God when we seek Him? Does He demonstrate His might

and His power that would make even the strongest of earthly

fathers look weak? No human father could touch the

strength of God. How much more is God willing to

invite those who need the renewal and the peace found only

in a right relationship with Him?

How much more is He willing to invite them into His loving

embrace? See, God is infinitely greater a

Father, and even the most loving and caring and devoted Father

that any of us have ever known or ever could know, even to the

point of sending His only begotten Son to the cross to die

in our place, that we might live eternally in the presence of our

Heavenly Father. And that is our main point for

today. Earthly parents sacrifice to

provide and preserve the physical lives of their

children, but our good Father sacrificed his own Son so that

we might have eternal life through his free gift of grace.

Imagine that. Imagine that He loves us so

much, He cares for us so deeply, to give up his own Son, his only

Son, that we might have eternal life with him through this free

gift of grace. And Christian, that should fill

you with encouragement and hope. If you have trusted Jesus as

your Savior, that should fill you with hope and encouragement

in the face of such a dark and a such an uncertain world.

But you might be here today, or watching online and and maybe

you've never felt the love of an earthly father.

And so maybe when we talk about fond memories and, and loving

provision of an earthly father, maybe all you can remember is

bitterness and, and distance and hurt and maybe the kind of love

that Jesus is talking about here, maybe even that kind of

love is something you can't quite understand.

But friend, I'm here to tell you, it's available for you

today. It's available for you today.

You see, God created us to be relational in relationship with

Him. And the first man and the first

woman, they had a perfect relationship with God until man

broke that covenant when he chose his own desire, when he

chose his own will instead of choosing to be obedient to God.

And it is that brokenness that has blinded our eyes in thinking

that we should have to ask God for anything.

It's the unrepentants that makes us look for purpose in our own

wants, in our own desires. And it is sin that bars the gate

that keeps us from entering into that loving and meaningful

relationship with our Creator. And that's the bad news.

But the good news, the good news is that our loving Father God

has sent us the greatest gift that anyone could ever receive.

In an unimaginable display of grace, He sent his Son Jesus to

be born to live as a man. And having lived that sinless

life, Jesus met God's perfect standard that we could never

live up to, of perfect obedience.

And Jesus gave himself up. Like we saw in that passage.

He said not my will, but your will be done.

Let it be so that He would go to the cross to die in our place,

to satisfy the penalty of sin, which is death.

And though He died for the sins of many, after three days He was

raised. Amen.

He now sits at the right hand of the Father until the day that he

returns to rule his Kingdom and the new heaven and the new

earth. And Jesus promised eternal life

in that Kingdom to all those who would place their trust in Him

and repent of their sin. Romans 623 says For the wages of

sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ

Jesus our Lord. Jesus said that whoever asks

receives the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks

it will be opened. So will you ask Him today to

forgive you of your sin and humbly submit to Him as Lord of

your life? Will you seek to turn from your

sin in repentance and will you knock on that narrow gate that

few enter that leads to eternal life in the Kingdom of heaven?

Let's pray together. Lord, I thank you for this

passage of Scripture. God, we can have such confidence

and boldness to come before your throne and ask because of the

work and person of Jesus. And so God, help us never take

that for granted. Lord, help us to to always be

humble in the face of your glory.

Help us always, Lord, to seek you intently and intentionally,

to prioritize the things, Lord, that will bring us closer to

deeper relationship with you, God, and help us to do that

persistently so that we might begin to see our will fade, to

grow, and to be more like your son Jesus, to do the will of the

Father as Jesus did. And so, God, I pray that if

there be anyone here today that has not received this free gift

of grace, they have not asked you for forgiveness to be Lord

of their life. They have not sought you out.

Lord, I pray that you would continue to stir their heart,

that you would continue to draw them to yourself that they might

know they need to ask that they not, that they might know that

they should be looking elsewhere than what this world has to

offer. And you are the greatest

treasure, Lord, that we could ever have.

And so I pray that today, God, as we continue to worship here

in song and in this benediction, Lord, speak to the hearts of

those, not only to the ones that know you and love you God, but

to the ones that are far from you here today.

And I pray that in Jesus name.