The Compassionate Life-Giver (Derik Fuller) | Who Is Jesus?

Morning church going to ask you to open your Bibles to Luke

Luke 7:11

Chapter 7 verse 11. Today, Luke Chapter 7 verse 11.

Luke 7:11

I want to start by asking a question this morning.

Maybe it's a question you've been asked before.

Who are you? Who are you?

How do you answer that question when somebody approaches you and

ask you who you are? Yeah, thinking about that for

myself this week. And it's a whole bunch of ways

we could answer depending on who's asking us, right.

I started thinking about the list of things.

So you could say I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm a son, I'm an

uncle. Oftentimes we'll talk about what

we do as who we are. And so maybe I'd say I'm a

pastor, although I usually try and hold that off for as long as

possible when I'm meeting somebody new just so that they

can apologize to me after they've sworn in the

conversation at some point. I'm a Costco member.

That is true. I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan, I'm a

Raptors fan, I'm a Toronto Blue Jays fan, and I am a Toronto

Maple Leafs mocker and skeptic. I'm a winter hater.

I am a healthier eating convert. Maybe I'd say that I'm a

follower of Jesus and I'm a Sinner who's fallen short, but I

am a St. in Jesus Christ. I'm a deeply loved child of God

who still struggles to believe that and still struggles with

deep failings and flaws. Identity is a complex thing,

isn't it? It's complex.

We started walking through Luke Chapter 7 and eight last week

Luke 7 · chapter mention

and I said we're going to spend these next 10 weeks, we're going

to explore the question of identity as it comes to to Jesus

because that's what Luke is going to give us pictures into.

He's going to give us pictures into who Jesus is.

And I told you last week, I don't think there's a more

critical question that we could ask then who is Jesus?

If what Luke shows us to be true about Jesus really is true and

not just the truth to know, right?

Not just facts about Jesus to have on hand, but like something

that is true to us, then that has huge implications for our

lives. Like I've I've been around

church long enough to know that those of you who have been

around church could do a really good job of listing off the

factoids about who Jesus is. That's not necessarily a

problem. But also that as much as we may

believe those things, we're also all unbelievers.

And here's what I mean by that. For every single one of us,

there are areas where we struggle to really believe what

we believe about Jesus to as we talked about last week, to just

take him at his word, We struggle.

I mean, we can say that. We can say he's the one with

authority and I'll take him at his word.

But to believe that, to believe that what he says about us is

true, that that we struggle as much as we know things to know

them in our hearts. And today we're going to see a

new truth about Jesus in this series, that Jesus is the

compassionate life giver. And some of us here, you know,

like in the fullness of reality, we would say we're unbelievers.

I maybe you're here today or you're watching online or you're

listening. At some point you'd say, I don't

actually believe that Jesus. And Jesus was alone.

Alone is the one who out of compassion and love gave his

life so that I could have life. And I mean, I'm just so glad

that you're here, that you're tuning in, that you're

listening, that you're exploring and grappling with this

question. Many of us here and many of us

listening would say we have believed that to some extent.

But we still struggle, right? We still struggle to live as if

those truths are true, to live out the implications of the

truth that Jesus is the compassionate life giver.

We know in theory Jesus is compassionate, but we struggle

to believe that he could have compassion on us, that we could

be those who Jesus looks on with compassion.

We struggle to model compassion to others.

We struggle to actually live lives of compassion to others.

And so as we get into this day, I just want to start and ask

that God, wherever we are today and whatever the extent of our

unbelief, would meet us and help us to believe more today.

Let's pray. Father God, help us to see you.

Help us to see Jesus, to see him for who he is.

God, if we're here today and we're exploring Jesus and we're

not sure if we really have a handle on on who he is, God, I

pray that you would do. We can't do for ourselves who

You by Your Holy Spirit would open our eyes and give us eyes

to see that Jesus is the one who died to give life and Father for

those of us who You have done that miracle in our lives.

You and you alone have brought us from death to life, have

given us eyes as the blind to see who Jesus is in those areas

where our hearts still struggle to believe.

Would You lead us into deeper and greater belief so that we

could act in fullness and accord with what our heads know to be

true? We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.

All right, let's read this story.

I love this story. You know, if you've been around

the church a long time, you grew up going to Sunday school or

kids ministry, you probably heard this story a few times.

Maybe you can picture the flannel graph you saw it on.

I love this. Let's read it together.

Afterward, he was on his way to a town called Name.

His disciples in a large crowd were traveling with him, and

just as he neared the gate of the town, a dead man was being

carried out. He was his mother's only son,

and she was a widow. A large crowd from the town was

also with her. When the Lord saw her, he had

compassion on her, and he said, Don't weep.

Then he came up and he touched the open coffin.

The pallbearer stopped and he said, young man, I tell you, get

up. And the dead man sat up and

began to speak. And Jesus gave him to his

mother. And then fear, as you can

imagine, came over everyone. And they glorify God, saying, a

great prophet has risen among us, and God has visited his

people. And this report about Him went

throughout Judea in all the vicinity.

May God bless the reading of His Word today.

So if I was to ask you right now, just immediately as you

think about Jesus, what comes to mind?

What words and descriptors come to mind?

I imagine we would get a whole bunch of responses, Savior,

Lord, loving, holy, gracious, merciful, humble, authoritative,

and we could list off all of these different things.

And those are all true, but I hope you see in this story, Luke

wants us to understand there is a reality about Jesus that we

have to get that he is compassionate, that Jesus is

compassionate. The the Greek word that that

Luke uses for compassion here is splagnisomae.

I love this is Splagnisomae. He uses this word and and the

the synoptic gospel writers, the writers of Matthew, Luke and

Mark use this word to describe Jesus a dozen plus times in the

New Testament. And splagnezomy means this.

It means to be moved in one's guts, to be moved in like the

pit of your feeling to, to just have your innards moved.

And it's such a powerful descriptor in the Greek that the

Jesus in this moment, he sees this woman who's in pain, who's

grieving, who's broken, and he feels it down to his guts.

I hope you have experienced that before, where you just like you

just feel it. You feel the pain for somebody

else. Here he sees a mom who we see

has, first of all lost her only son.

And that is devastating. It's devastating.

Like, on a personal level, we would feel that devastation.

But there's extra meaning here. You see, in the Old Testament,

the death of the only son was considered to be the epitome of

what grief looked like. It was the loss of all future.

In Jeremiah 626, Jeremiah, the prophet on behalf of God, tells

the people of Israel they ought to mourn as one would for an

only son, a bitter lament. He says he was his mother's only

son. And we see a second fact here.

She was a widow. She's a wife who first lost her

husband and now lost her only son.

And not only is there a depth of relational loss, there is there

a heartache and grieving that some of you in this room know

all too well. But in this circumstance, in

this society, in this time, in this culture, it means she has

lost everything. There is no social safety net.

Her husband and her son were her social safety net.

That was where she was going to be taken care of out of in her

old age. There would be 1 to provide for

her. She has lost it all.

She's lost the death of her family line.

She's lost her social safety net.

She's lost her future. She's lost hope.

And it says that when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on

her. Those words matter to the Lord

saw her. It's idea that the Jesus with

everything that is going on around him, that his attention

is drawn towards this woman who is in pain, in grief, in

brokenness. And he seals, sees this pain and

he feels it deeply in his gut. I have had the blessing and it

is a blessing to visit a number of countries now where the

brokenness of this world, the injustice of this world, the

pain of this world like it smacks you in the face and in

your senses the moment you walk off the plane until you get back

on and enter into Canada. And in those places, I've had

the deep privilege but also challenge as a Canadian who

quite honestly lives in an in a make believe bubble of comfort

to go in and speak in these situations.

How, how should I speak to somebody who has next to

nothing? How do I speak to somebody who

has moved from one country, lost all they had there, moved to

another country, lost all they had, there is a refugee through

war and crisis and now is in a third country?

How do I look at somebody who has just been so forgotten by

the world, by their governments, often times, unfortunately by

their brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ in other countries,

who just feels totally unseen? What do you say in those

moments? And in those moments, I've so

often found myself going to a passage in Exodus chapter 2 and

Exodus 2 · chapter mention

in that space, in that passage in Exodus chapter 2, verses 23

to 26, the people are there. God's people are enslaved,

oppressed, taken advantage of. And it says in the midst of

that, in their groaning, in their crying out, verse 25 says

God saw the Israelites. God saw the Israelites and God

knew. And so this is really important

language. When it says Jesus saw her, it

doesn't just mean that he notices her, but that his, his

heart, his attention is moved towards her.

And today I would say this to you, if you're here and you're

in a place of pain and brokenness and heartache and

hurting, and you're feeling like probably so many of us are in

this moment, just the deep brokenness and brutality of this

world. God sees you.

Jesus sees you. He sees the lost, He sees the

hurt, He sees the suffering, He sees our needs, he sees our

heartache. He knows it and and he feels it

in his gut. He aches for us.

But when the gospel writers talk about compassion and they talk

about a compassion that's deep down, it's never just about

feeling this. This matters so much.

See, I need you to see the Jesus feeling of compassion here.

His emotion of compassion is directly linked to actions of

compassion. Jesus compassion moves him to

action. The compassion Jesus feels.

Whenever this word is used it, it is a word that denotes both

feeling and movement, feeling and action.

Most frequently it is translated moved by compassion and and here

we see this Jesus feels this feeling in his gut and it moves

him to act and moves him to compassion that acts when the

Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and he does something.

He actually does two things here.

First he says this and he said don't weep, don't weep.

The first way that Jesus compassion moves him to action

is to step into the grief that this woman is feeling.

He doesn't just stand at a distance as he watches this

funeral procession come out the gate and just oh man, what a sad

thing and and just feel bad as he watches have no, he enters

in, he steps up, He says, don't, don't weep.

Now we often struggle to enter into proximity with people when

they are hurting and broken. And I think if we're really

honest, it's more about us than them.

I, I, I felt it in times where I just like, Lord, I don't want to

go in there. I don't know what to say.

You ever felt that? I don't know what to say, but

that's not a me, That's not a them thing.

That's not about them. That's about me.

I don't want to do it. This is uncomfortable.

There are lots of things you can't fix in this world, but you

can always OfferUp your presence to someone who's hurting.

You can always enter in. You don't have to fix it.

You don't have to have the words that make it all right.

In fact, don't weep is probably the worst thing that we could do

if we were entering into the situation.

Most of the time when we mess stuff up is we're trying to find

the right words to say. Just shut up, don't say

anything, be present. Let them know they are loved and

care for. Jesus tells her not about to not

to weep because he's also about to do something so much more

than that, right. He's coming in to fix the cause

of her pain. It says he came up, he touched

the open coffin and the pallbearer stopped and he said,

young man, I tell you, get up. And the dead man sat up and

began to speak. Jesus enters into the pain and,

and because Jesus is God, he says get up and the dead rise

because that's what Jesus does. And it said this last week,

because Jesus speaks reality into existence.

That's who he is. That's the authority that he

has. I think it's important to

recognize no one asked Jesus to do this.

You know, there's a lot of people out there who would teach

you that miracles only happen because you have enough faith.

Nonsense. Nobody here asked Jesus to enter

in. Nobody.

This is not about a human faith thing.

It is about a God is sovereign and he acts thing.

God will act. Mercy often precedes faith, but

at the same time it always seeks to awaken faith.

God doesn't need faith to enter in to start this miracle, but as

we're going to see, it spurs faith when God acts in mercy

towards people in the miraculous.

Faith is a requirement for ultimate salvation, absolutely.

But faith is no requirement for God to work a miracle.

God does what God will do. So Jesus acts, He moves.

He works because he has compassion, and his compassion

then moves him to action, and he acts in a way that only God can

act. He.

He raises the dead son of a grieving mother to life.

So we could say, of course Jesus acts.

How could he not act? I mean, if I was the Son of God,

if I had that power, I would, in fact, I would act all the time,

every time, everywhere. But Jesus is also 100% human.

He's fully divine and fully human, and his action comes at a

cost, and it's easy to miss that if you just skim over this whole

thing. But we need to see that Jesus

puts aside his comfort to act with compassion.

There's there's at least three ways in this passage where Jesus

puts aside his own comfort and acts at a cost to himself to act

with compassion. The first is this.

Jesus acts even though he had to be utterly exhausted.

There's a little line right there at the beginning that says

that he's traveled from where he was today.

Now we actually know where he was because we were just there.

He's in Capernaum. The journey from Capernaum to

name the people who were reading this would know was 40

kilometers. You remember maybe growing up or

maybe you've done this as a parent.

You say, you know, when I was your age, I used to walk to

school 5 miles in a Blizzard, uphill both ways.

Jesus literally just walked 40 kilometers and it was all

uphill. It's down by the lake up into

the mountains. And these are not little hills.

This is this is not Hamilton Mountain.

OK, He's, he's really gone up. It's a long, exhausting journey.

The average Canadian walks 4 kilometers a day on flat ground

and we're tired. 9:00 PM. I'm falling asleep on the couch

after my 4 kilometers of walking around the church when I'm

tired. I don't know if this is true

about you, but it's definitely true about me.

When I am tired, I tend to think only about me and I have a

really, really hard time thinking about others.

And yet here is Jesus in his humanity.

He would have been tired and exhausted because he's human

just like you and me. He knows what this feels like.

He's tired. He just wants to get to a bed

and get some food and rest. Man, when when we were young

parents, we had a 19 month old and then Luke was born our

second child when Maya was 19 months.

So we had 219 months and younger at her house.

And Luke was a tough baby. I've shared this before, but he

was, he was rough. Two PM, 2:00 AM to 4:00 AM every

night. Every night for like 8 months.

Screaming screaming. And as much as I love my son,

there got to a point where all I could think about was how tired

I was. Maybe you're there.

I just want to let you know it gets better if you're there

today. But man, when we're tired, it's

difficult to care for those who we love.

Jesus here, His heart is moved to compassion towards somebody

he's never even met and doesn't even know.

But he sees her and he's moved to act in compassion.

Jesus was weary and he still stepped forward and he acted

with compassion even though there was big social risk here.

Did you see this story? If you have ever been a

pallbearer or you've ever been to a funeral, if you can imagine

just if you were here at the church and we had a recessional

going out, the recessional comes out into the lobby.

A stranger who's just walked in the door into the church,

doesn't know a funeral is going on, comes up, steps in front of

the pallbearers with the coffin and stops the thing.

And then he comes up and he's going to lay hands on this

coffin. I mean, I'd be ready to punch

him in the face if I was the pallbearer in the midst of my

grief. What are you doing?

How, how dare you do this? This is an honor.

Shame culture like this is a shameful behavior that you would

do this, but Jesus out of his compassion and his care, it

causes him to disregard the social discomfort of what's

about to take place. See, Jesus is facing rejection

and he still steps forward, but there's a third thing.

He acts with compassion despite the religious stigma that is

attached with what he's going to do.

Touching a coffin is one thing for us.

Touching a coffin that's open and placing your hand on a dead

body for a Jew is unacceptable. It's unclean to touch a dead

thing. To touch a dead body is is an

absolute no, no. And so there's a whole nother

level of stigma. And yet he's going to show his

authority over these laws that the Son of God can't actually be

made unclean. He's the one who is clean, who

makes unclean things clean. But he demonstrates here a

willingness to break religious stigmas and boundaries, to put

his reputation on the line and step forward.

You may say, well, that's all well and good for Jesus.

What does that mean for me? Well, the first thing I want you

to see is this. Jesus puts aside his comfort to

act with compassion towards you. Some of you.

This whole time as I've been talking, you've been sitting

there and maybe you would never say this to anybody.

You just keep it quietly to yourself.

But deep down you're saying that's great, What about me?

I'm in pain, I'm grieving, I'm hurt.

This world's been terrible to me.

I've just suffered so much injustice, but I don't see Jesus

showing up here to see me. If Jesus is so compassionate, if

he's so powerful, if he's willing to put his side, his

comfort for the sake of others, why does he do something for me?

And I would just say to you, that's the story of the Gospels.

He has his compassion for you, His compassion for me, for the

person beside you, in front of you, behind you, in the car with

you, on the couch with you. It's the entire reason he came.

His compassion for you, His compassion that moved him to

action for you, that Kozno put his comfort aside for you.

Jesus, compassion for you led him to leave the comforts and

glory of the most beautiful, incredible, amazing, perfect

place you can imagine and enter into this, into all of this

stuff that we wish so badly we could get out of.

To come in and to experience what it meant to be hungry, to

experience what it was to grieve and to suffer loss, to be

betrayed, to be abused, to ultimately be scorned and mocked

and beaten and whipped and nailed, bloody and naked to a

piece of wood and to asphyxiate on that piece of wood.

What would move God to leave the glories of heaven and come to

earth? His compassion for you, His love

for you, Paul says in Ephesians 2/1.

He did it so that we who were dead in our trespasses and sin

would be raised up with him and seated with him in the heavens.

He made Himself unclean, taking on all of our sin and burying it

on the cross to cleanse us from all our sin and unrighteousness.

You want to know how much compassion He has for you?

You want to know how moved to compassion He is for you?

Just look at the cross. That's how moved to compassion

He is for us. And then He also promises us to

meet us right now, right here in the midst of this brokenness, in

the midst of this pain, in the midst of this world that is so

unjust, and to lead us towards healing while we're in the thick

of it. He gives us, John tells us, the

one who is called the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, that God

himself comes and he takes up residence in those who believe

in him and trust in Him. And he seals us for the day.

He prepares us for the day. He leads us into the day when

all of that brokenness and all of that pain and everything that

is wrong with this world is set to right.

The compassion that raised a dead son in name is the same

compassion that Jesus had in giving His own life up for you

and for me. And the invitation that He

offers is just this. To believe that, to be true, to

trust in it, to place your faith in it, and to receive the life

that the compassionate life giver offers through belief in

Him and trust in Him and following Him, That's the good

news of the gospel. That's why the gospel is such

good news. The gospel is such good news for

us that Jesus would act with compassion towards us.

But yet this story is not simply good news for us.

It acts as an example to us. See, to follow Jesus requires

putting aside our comfort in acting with compassion towards

others. If we believe that Jesus is the

one who acted with compassion towards us, that ought to move

us to do likewise, to be people who bring compassion into this.

I don't know if you noticed this, but the world could use a

little compassion. I don't know if you felt that at

all. If you're a disciple of Jesus,

you have to ask the question. Are you willing to put aside

your comfort to serve others, to step into the brokenness?

Sometimes we got to ask ourselves a question twice.

So I'm going to say this to you. Are you willing to put aside

your comfort for the sake of bringing compassion to this

world? Really.

Like really, am I willing to do that or do I only do it so long

as it fits within my schedule? So long as it doesn't interrupt

my plans? Do we wake up praying the prayer

that Jesus prayed in the garden as he was headed towards the

cross to give up himself for us? Do we say, Lord, but not my

will, but yours be done? Is that the posture of our

hearts as followers of Jesus? Will you sacrifice your calendar

and your agenda? Will you put your finances on

the line to help somebody else in crisis?

Are you willing to get uncomfortable to serve those

that Jesus called the least of these?

And I want you to think whoever you think the least is, that's

who you need to serve. On the flip side, some of us,

man where our hearts already move with compassion, right?

But are you willing to call people out out of love, Not out

of judgement, The ground is flat at the foot of the cross, but to

see the brokenness and the sin and the brokenness that somebody

else is bringing to somebody else's life and out of love for

them and love for others, to stand up and say, hey, you got

to stop to call them out so you can call them up.

Are you willing to put that type of comfort on the line because

you have compassion? Are you willing to risk

rejection because listen, it's there.

It's amazing how often you will act with compassion and love for

others. It will ultimately lead to some

people rejecting you. There's some of us who, just

like I, can't share the gospel with somebody else.

They might not like me. And again, I've said this

before, I'll say it again. You know what that tells me?

We care more about us being liked than we care about them

going to hell. Our hearts moved for the sake of

others. Were we most concerned about our

own comfort? Are you willing to risk your

reputation with religious people by getting your hands dirty with

the people the religious people wouldn't hang out with, wouldn't

want to be seen around? I mean, Jesus did it all the

time. Were we willing to engage with

people that some of the people around us who look real clean

and polished up would view as unclean?

I started by saying, hey, we're all unbelievers.

We all have parts of us in our heart where we struggle to

believe what we say we know is true.

Do you really believe? Do we really believe today that

Jesus is the compassionate life giver?

Do we believe it to such an extent that we would be those

who would live as compassionate life givers Today?

We're going to take communion together, our first communion

together as a church here in 2026.

And if you're new with us, maybe you're new to church, here's

what communion. Communion is a time for those of

us who have placed our faith in Jesus, who are followers of

Jesus, who have trusted in him to join together and to remember

the price that was paid, the comfort that was put aside, the

cost that was paid by Jesus to bring us to life out of his

compassion. And so if you're a follower

Jesus, that even if today, even if today is the day where you

said, hey, I think I believe who Jesus is, I'm going to follow

him. I trust that he died on the

cross for me. We would love to have you join

us. Let this be your first

community. We'll celebrate with you in

that. And if you didn't receive a cup

when you came in, you just put your hand up.

We've got some people in the aisle, some of our front lines

team who will get a cup over to you.

So just keep it up until they've got that to you.

If you're here today and you haven't come to that point yet

where you have decided to trust in Jesus again, I just say, hey,

we're super here. Glad that you're here, that

you're tracking along, that you're exploring this.

But this is a declaration that this is what we believe.

And so if that's not true for you, I don't want you to live in

a a life that doesn't live in integrity.

So, so don't take this with us today.

Be honest about that and be welcomed here today.

These two elements, they are tangible expressions of Jesus

compassion. That's how I want to take them

today. So I'm going to ask you first of

all, just to take out the bread. Paul says that this wafer, this

bread, reminds us that Christ's body was broken for us, that his

flesh was torn by whips, that a crown of thorns was pushed down

into his head, that a spear was shoved into his side, that his

naked body was nailed to the cross in the most painful way

possible. Why?

Because he was one who acted with compassion for you.

If you doubt the compassion of Jesus for you today, look at

this wafer. This is the reminder of his love

and mercy. And I know you're in some spots

today where you're hurting. And it's easy for Satan to get

into our ear and say Jesus doesn't love you.

He doesn't care about you. He doesn't see what's going on.

He doesn't feel it in his guts. He did and he does.

So here's what we're going to do.

Just ask you again to bow. You bow your heads, close your

eyes. Nothing magical about this.

It just helps to remove distractions in a distracted

world. Take this wafer and first of

all, just take a moment and thank him for the love and

compassion and mercy he has shown to you.

And when you're if you're struggling to feel, ask him to

help you experience it in your guts today that He would pour

his love out in into you and you would know it.

Father, we thank you. Thank you for loving us.

Thank you that You are the compassionate life giver and

this wafer is the reminder of both compassion that you had for

us and the reality that you have given us life through Jesus

Christ. We take this as a reminder of

your body broken for us. Let's take it together and let's

eat together. Now I'd invite you to take out

the cup. In Matthew chapter 26, Jesus

Matthew 26 · chapter mention

says that this cup is my blood of the covenant, which is poured

out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

As we were talking today about acting with compassion, let me

just say there's so many times where I've fallen short of

acting with compassion, where my comfort has trumped any

compassionate. And maybe that's true for you.

In fact, I I would just about bet that every single one of us

in this room, that's a true reality.

May even be true this morning. Maybe you got here this morning.

And if we were to have a video camera playing in your house or

in your car on the way here, it wasn't exactly a compassionate

scene with your family today. You know, the good news of the

gospel is forgiveness is always available.

We are forgiven. And when we come to Jesus, we

ask for forgiveness. He gives it and he gives it, and

he gives it and He gives it. So I want you to take the cup in

again. Let's close our eyes.

Let's bow our head. Some of us need just a moment of

confession today. Maybe it's a confession about a

very specific action that as I've been talking this morning,

we've opened up scripture. The Holy Spirit has brought some

people to mind. He's brought some things to mind

and you just need to say, Lord, I'm, I'm sorry, help me to act

in the newness of life that you've given to me.

Help me to be who you have made me to be.

Forgive me. Maybe you just need to invite

the Holy Spirit to reveal some things in your heart where

you've got a hardness in your heart towards.

Maybe it's an entire group of people, the people that you

would call those people. Maybe it's an ethnicity, maybe

it's a socio economic reality, maybe it's a certain type of sin

that people fall into, maybe it's a political designation.

Whatever the tribe is that you see yourselves as better than

other than you would ask God to forgive you and give you heart

to see them and to serve them. And then Father, this is what we

know, the beauty of what you promised us, that we confess our

sins, You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to

cleanse us from all unrighteousness, that all of

this stuff, all of this sin, all of our shame is washed clean by

the blood of Jesus. So as we take this cup today, if

you have called out to God for forgiveness, know that

forgiveness is yours. It's it's been paid for and we

take this in remembrance of the forgiveness that Jesus has given

us. Let's take and drink.

Worship is always as Pastor Keith was sharing to our team in

in the backroom before we started today.

It starts with God. It's a response to what God has

done for us. So we're going to sing now, and

let's sing in response to God's goodness and grace and mercy and

compassion and life giving to us.