A Different Vision (Derik Fuller) | Different

Well, glad everybody both recovered from bleary eyes last

night. Staying up to watch the Jays

game and got the time right with time change.

I was so thankful last night that I got an extra hour.

Man, I don't know about you. Turn your Bibles to Luke chapter

Luke 6:37–42

6, verses 37 to 42. If you're using some of the

Bibles found around the auditorium underneath some of

the seats, it's page #915 if you don't have a Bible, take that

Bible. That's our gift to you.

We would love to be able to give that to you as a gift today.

If you're new here or this is your first time with us in a

while, we're so glad that you're here.

And we're walking through the book of Luke slowly, but we're

getting there. We broke it up into different

chunks. We're in this part of Luke that

is called the Sermon on the plane.

It's a corollary to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew.

And Luke is one of four accounts of the life of Jesus that we

call the Gospels. So if you ever wondered what

are, what are they talking about?

Not when we talk about the Gospel.

We talk about books of the Bible called the Gospels.

It's Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Those are the the four people

who who set about to set an account of the life and dealings

and death and resurrection of Jesus.

And Luke says that he set about to do this because we read in

verse 1 three-way back when we started this.

He had carefully investigated everything from the first to

write an orderly sequence to a guy by the name of Theophilus,

which means the lover of God. He's setting about to to kind of

set the account of Jesus's life. And so as we pick up here, we're

getting the first kind of extended chunk of teaching that

Jesus gives in the book of Luke. And we're right in the thick of

it right now in verse 37 to 42. And I want to read that

together. So I'm going to open up the Word

of God and let's listen to the words of Jesus as He speaks to

the audience in front of him, but also to us today.

Do not judge and you will not be judged.

Do not condemn and you will not be condemned.

Forgive and you will be forgiven.

Give and it will be given to you.

A good measure pressed down, shaken together, and running

over will be poured into your lap, for with the measure that

you use, it will be measured back to you.

And he also told them a parable. Can the blind guide guide the

blind? Won't they fall both into a pit?

A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is

fully trained will be like his teacher.

Why do you look at the splinter in your brother's eye, but don't

notice the beam of wood in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your brother, brother, let me take

out the splinter that's in your eye when you yourself you don't

see the beam of wood in your eye, hypocrite, First take the

beam of wood out of your eye and then you will see clearly to

take out the splinter in your brother's eye.

Some of you know that I struggle with color blindness.

So the doctor tells me that the average person sees

approximately 1,000,000 colors, and I probably can differentiate

about 10,000 colors. I've talked about that before.

My vision is not as it ought to be, but a lot of you probably

don't know that more than color blindness.

I had terrible vision as a kid. I was born with severe myopia

and astigmatism. I was nearsighted and everything

was distorted beyond the near sightedness.

So I've got a couple pictures to help you see how I saw the

world. That would be kind of what I

would see in the evening if I was out without glasses on or

corrective lenses. Here's here's a picture is

really helpful. I was somewhere between the -3

in that bottom left hand corner in the -6.

And so that's how I saw the world from the time I was born.

My parents figured out very quickly I would not move off of

the couch, even though it looked like I could walk carefully

because I had no idea what was in front of me.

And so at the age of 21, I had corrective eye surgery, LASIK

surgery. I was, this was way back in 2001

or 2002 and it was incredible. They, they put me on this table.

They started burning my eyes. I don't know how else to, but

I'm laying there and all I can smell is what smells like

burning hair. And something dawns on me.

That's my eyeball that's burning, but they had to to

reshape my eyes because my cornea was was way too thick and

peaked. And so the cornea is the lens

through which you see and it was reflect.

It was refracting the light in such a way that it distorted

everything. And all the sudden after this

corrective surgery, I could sit up and for the very first time

in my life, this is not a big deal to some of you, but it was

a huge deal to me. They had one of those giant

clocks on the wall because your your vision still has a little

bit of correcting to do as as you heal up.

But I can see it with my own eyes.

I didn't have to put any contact lenses in.

I don't have to put any glasses on.

I could read that giant clock on the wall And I thought, this is

incredible. Why am I talking about this?

Because you, we walked through that scripture today.

Jesus is talking about vision. Notice there's a couple

different illustrations about vision and, and, and the big

idea that I want us to see this morning is this, that following

Jesus requires looking at others and ourselves through a

different lens. That if we're going to follow

Jesus, Jesus is going to do some work on us, particularly in the

area of how we see others. He's got to do some corrective

surgery on us. Every single one of us in this

room has lenses by which we look at the world and look at other

people. We, we actually, we call this,

there's a, there's a word for this.

It's called a worldview. You have a worldview you you

have presuppositions. You have ways that you think

about the world, think about meaning in the world, think

about purpose in the world, think about the people in the

world, think about the value of human life.

All of these things are encompassed in something that's

called a worldview. It's how you see the world.

And to have a Christian worldview at its most basic

level means seeing the world like Jesus sees the world.

It means having our vision shaped by him.

It means having our vision shaped by the word of God, by

the fundamental truths of what the Bible teaches about what

reality is, what God is like is the ultimate reality, who we

are, what we're like, how he sees us.

Growing as a disciple, then, means increasingly learning to

see the world as we're meant to see it, as Jesus has called us

to see it. And that means that you and I,

as that happens, we're going to see the world very differently

as we've been talking about, right as Jesus is teaching here.

What is so obvious when you read through this teaching of Jesus

that Jesus got a different way of seeing things than we're

seeing things. The way of Jesus is a different

way of of living and being and seeing the world.

And this morning in particular, we need to see this reality that

Jesus calls us to see others differently.

So he starts in verse 37. He says do not judge and you

will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not

be condemned. Forgive and you will be

forgiven. I used to think that John 316

was the most famous verse in the Bible.

I've come to understand that the very most famous verse in the

Bible is Luke 637, at least the very beginning of it.

Because people who couldn't tell you anything else about the

Bible, about Jesus, will say, hey, doesn't the Bible say don't

judge, right? Like it's like everybody knows

this verse and it does in fact, as we read here say do not

judge. But like everything, context

matters, right? So this same statement is given

in Matthew 7 verse one. And as I said, this is a

corollary to that teaching in Matthew.

They're probably different times, but Jesus, Jesus had a

certain things that he taught on frequently and he was like 1000

preacher. He was teaching in different

spots. And so he's teaching many of the

same things here to this group of people as he taught on the

Sermon on the Mount. And he says, don't judge, do not

judge lest you be judged. But in Matthew, if you go down

five more verses in that same section, Jesus continues on in

his teaching and says, this, Don't give what is holy to dogs

or toss your pearls before the swine.

Then a few verses after that, he says be on your guard against

false prophets. Guess what living out those

verses require you to do? To judge, you have to have some

judgment. You have to have some

discernment, right? In fact, Jesus himself says in

the Gospel of John, John 7/24, he says, yes, stop judging

according to outward appearances.

But there's a second part to the verse.

Rather judge according to righteous judgment.

So like, it's simply impossible to live life for any of us

without judging, because even to judge that someone is judging

requires judging, right? We all have to use judgment and

discernment. So what is Jesus saying here to

us? He's saying this.

The issue isn't that you as a Christian can't judge.

The issue that is that you as a Christian is 1 who's going to

follow Jesus. You need to not be judgy, right?

That's a big difference using judgment versus being judgy,

right? Jesus speaking against

judgmentalism, he's speaking against that critical heart,

that critical spirit, a heart that's just ready to to view

others through a lens of negativity, A posture that's

puffed up, that's proud, that's quick to condemn other.

But that's why he says don't condemn, right.

He fills us out. Don't judge what I mean by that.

Don't condemn. That's this, that same posture

when we're quick to condemn that we're very slow to offer

forgiveness and mercy and compassion and understanding and

empathy towards others, Right. And so he says forgive.

It's it's about asking this question, what's the natural

leaning and posture of my heart? Where does my heart most

naturally go? Are you, are you someone who

walks through life quick to assume the worst in others, the

worst about others? Are you someone who is quick in

this life to, to, to size somebody up and to write them

off? That that's what Jesus is

talking about here. Jesus is saying I need you to

see others through a different lens.

I need you to see people through the lens of compassion rather

than condemnation. See, we, we live in a world, I

don't know if you'd noticed this, that that is not the

natural way that most of us walk around.

It's not the natural bent of our culture to be quick to

compassion and slow to condemn. Now we live in a culture that is

quick to cancel, right? And that is antithetical to the

way of Jesus, right? And this is especially

especially, especially especially true given the

context of where we were last week.

Remember last week we were talking about how are you

supposed to treat your enemies? Jesus didn't extract.

This is flowing right out of it. You want, you want a quick gauge

of whether your heart is a critical heart, a judgy heart is

how do you approach those who you most naturally disagree

with? Do you immediately kind of jump

to conclusions about them? Most of us do.

Most of us run into this. Most of us are quick to condemn

because we're puffed up and, and we assume the worst others.

And there's two reasons for that.

The first is this. I think part of it is, is self

protection. I mean, we, we just think, well,

if I assume the worst, I can't be let down that if I don't let

somebody in, they can't hurt me. So there's self protection, but

there's a, there's another self that's involved.

It's called self righteousness. The, the deep down we love to

feel superior to others. We like that feeling.

We, we like feeling like we're better than somebody else.

And remember, Jesus is speaking and there's a, there's a

background history here, right? We, you might not remember, you

might not have been with us, but we've been introduced to this

cast of characters called the Pharisees who were known for

their righteousness, for their following of the rules and for

their catching of other people as they've already tried to

catch Jesus not following the rules.

There's a smugness and smarminess of self righteousness

that we can so easily fall into. And I'm telling you that this is

both religious and irreligious people who fall into smug self

righteousness. I mean, like, let's be honest,

this is not to get political, but the reason that the guy who

was our Prime Minister before is no longer a Prime Minister, part

of it has to do with the attitude that he carried the,

the lens of condescension, right?

And that can we can all fall into that.

You don't have to be religious or irreligious.

Is it easy to get sparmy and smug and feel like you have a

higher way of seeing things than everybody else?

Jesus is saying like, if you're going to follow me, you can't

have that whiff of smugness and smarminess and self

righteousness on you. You have to not just let go of

yourself protection, but you have to let go of your

pretensions, your pride. And if you don't, here's what

happens. He says what you give is what

you'll get that the way that you view others, the way that you

come at others, the way you approach others, you can start

to get some of that back at you. So if you come and, and you've

got a sense of arrogance about you, a sense of smugness about

you, a critical spirit about you, guess what people are going

to have towards you. Those same things are coming

right back at you and that's from others.

But it's also a reality that like, hey, if you understand

grace, then how can this even be?

And it's a, it's a pretty key indicator that your heart maybe

hasn't fully understood the grace of God.

If you don't walk around extending grace to others.

He says forgive and you will be forgiven.

The extension of that is if you're a forgiven person, you

should be one who forgives Jesus.

Jesus is, he tells us, right? If we belong to him, we should

bear fruit. We looked at that at the

beginning of the fall. And part of the fruit of that

should be people who have received grace extend grace,

people who understand compassion, extend compassion

and an unforgiving and an an unforgiving, a critical, a

judgmental spirit is incompatible with being a

Christian who is filled with the spirit.

Those things they do not go together.

They're counter. We got all sorts of things that

we look at people and and and their external sins that

sometimes we're like, man, I don't like that doesn't seem to

match up with being Jesus. I think we give critical spirit.

We don't we don't put enough attention on that.

It is so counter to the gospel to walk around with a critical

spirit. It's the it's the ultimate

absence of grace. Give and it will be given to

you. A good measure, he says, pressed

down, shaken together, running over, will be poured out into

your lap for the measure you use.

It will be measured back to you. Now this picture of measurement

that he's talking about here is a picture of being at the, the

market in his time. And you're going, and you're

going to buy some seed, you're going to buy some wheat.

And, and if you've ever done this, maybe in like a, a bulk

barn or something, you fill something up and, and it, it,

it, it fills up, but it's, it's not, it's not even right.

It fills up and there's a, there's a hump in the middle.

And so you got to shake it down a little bit to get more room in

the bag. And so that's the picture here

of like, be the type of person who when you're selling

something, you take that bag, you shake it up so you can pour

more in, you shake it up so you can get it overfill.

You want to get as much bag, you want to be as generous as

possible. This is again, going back to

last week. This is this call to us being

people who have generous hearts and generous spirits, not just

in in giving financially, but generosity of grace and

forgiveness and kindness and empathy and compassion to

people. As followers of Jesus, we should

be in the place where if we are going to air with somebody, if

we're going to get it wrong, let's get it wrong on the side

of grace. Let's let's get it wrong on

believing the best in people, not the worst in people.

You make the decision to believe the best about someone until.

They don't give you that option anymore.

Don't start out believing that that the person that you

disagree with that your enemy, that your opponent is wicked and

evil. Allow for the the possibility

that you might actually be at least in part in this situation

in the wrong. And if you come to a point using

your judgment, looking and and understanding through the lens

of Jesus, no, they, they, they've got this wrong.

They're not in truth, then here's what you do.

You don't come at them from a position of assuming they are

naturally malevolent. You come at them assuming

they're in a spot where they're misguided and you try and lead

them towards truth. You, you give the best, most

generous interpretation of an opponent's argument.

Nothing drives me more crazy in this world than this.

Everybody straw man's the people that they're against or the

arguments they're against. If you give an argument and it's

not an argument, the person who you are disagreeing with would

say, yeah, that's an accurate reflection of what I believe.

Then you're not acting with integrity, you're acting like a

liar. You need to steal man people's

arguments, not straw man people's arguments.

Listen, the critical spirit is incompatible with the spirit.

This is cannot be the way that we see others Christians with

this. This can't be what we're known

for. Now Jesus is going to tell us

two ways that two different things that blur our vision,

that get us to this point of struggling to see things the way

that Jesus sees them. First, he says this says he told

them a parable. Can the blind guide the blind?

Won't they both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above his

teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his

teacher. So I would say this first, Jesus

telling us that seeing others differently requires following

people who see the world differently.

Our mission at Forward Church. If you've been here anytime at

all, you should know this. We exist to make disciples of

Jesus who love God, love others, and serve the world.

What we sometimes neglect to mention is that everyone is a

disciple. You're like, well, I don't even

believe in Jesus. Well, you're still a disciple

because the disciple is simply someone who is following

somebody else, somebody who is being apprenticed by somebody

else, somebody who's being shaped by somebody else.

Every single person is being shaped and influenced and and

trained into someone. The only question is this Who

are you being discipled by and what are you being discipled

into? Because you are being discipled

every day in every way. Every one of us is being

discipled. We're being taught, we're being

formed. How's that happen?

Well, we've all got voices who are speaking into our lives.

Some of those voices are flesh and blood people that we

surround ourselves with. Craig Rochelle says that if you

show me your friends, I'll show you your future.

It's a great line. Like the people you surround

yourself with most closely, you will end up looking more and

more like it's just true. You'll be discipled into that.

What media are you listening to? We are in a media saturated

world. Most of us are listening,

viewing, seeing things all the time.

Like how much screen time would your phone say that you had this

past week on average a day? And that's just your phone.

So what podcasts? What television shows?

And yes, some people even read books still these days.

I would encourage you to do so. If you spend 2.5 hours regularly

with Joe Rogan, you can barely get 5 minutes into the Bible in

a week. Who do you think's discipling

you more? Listen, I, I, I don't, I don't

care whether your information sources or your entertainment

sources skew whatever direction politically tribe you want to

associate with, left, right, center.

Here's what I know. There's no tribe, there's no

political party, there's no grouping in society that sees

the world Jesus the way Jesus sees it, because you just find

me a political party. I don't care what the political

party is, That is teaching. Love your enemies, that is

teaching. Blessed are the poor, the

hungry, those who mourn, those who are poorly spoken of.

That's just what we've covered in the last few weeks.

I don't hear anybody shaping us that way other than Jesus and

Christian. If you are following blind

guides, if if the influences in your life aren't looking to

Jesus as their ultimate source and example, and and you're only

following them in so far as they follow Jesus, which means you

got to know what Jesus is talking about, what Jesus looks

like, then you'll fall into a pit.

Jesus says because everyone who is fully formed looks like their

teacher. Do you want to look like the

influences that you are putting into your life?

Listen, character matters. I, I know it seems like we live

in this time where that's up for debate, but character matters

all the time in everything. Tone matters.

The way you speak of and speak to and speak about people

matters. Fruit.

Fruit matters. Are the people who are

influencing you demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit or the

works of the flesh? Paul lays it out really clearly.

He says there's two ways. There's the works of the flesh.

In Galatians 519, the works of the flesh are obvious.

Sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry,

sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger,

selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness,

carousing, and anything similar. You'll notice that that category

of things covers things that seem to fall in all sorts of

groups. But then there's the fruits of

the spirit. But the fruit of the Spirit is

Lovejoy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,

faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Are those the things that are most evident in the voices that

are speaking into your life and shaping you?

If you're going to follow Jesus, if you're going to see the world

through the lens that He sees it through, you need to follow

people who are following Him. You need to be led by people who

are being led by Jesus. Only the teacher who who

clearly, the only teacher who who sees clearly is Jesus

himself. All the rest of us are just

trying to do our best. So, so don't follow me and don't

follow Kirk if we're not following Jesus, Follow Jesus.

Above all, seeing others differently requires following

people who see the world differently and and seeing

others differently, Jesus says, requires seeing ourselves

clearly. Verse 41 Why do you look at the

splinter in your brother's eye, but you don't notice the beam of

wood in your own eye? How can you say to your brother,

brother, let me take that splinter, Let me take out the

splinter that's in your eye when you yourself don't see the beam

of wood in your eye. Jesus using this really funny

picture, right? Like people think Jesus isn't

funny. This is funny.

Like Can you imagine having this giant plank sticking out of your

eye and you're trying to go in and grab the splinter out?

It's ridiculous. But what what he's saying is

this. Like, have you ever noticed how

those who are most eager to find fault in others so often have

some glaring flaws in their own life?

That the things that we're so quick to notice from a negative

sense that drive us crazy about somebody else are things that

like, deep down inside, we kind of know are there in US?

That's what every parent knows this, right?

What's the thing that drives you craziest about your kids?

Generally it's the thing that drives you deep down craziest

about yourself. Kids have a, a, a phrase for

this. It goes like this.

It takes one to no one, right? We're so quick to notice things

because they're actually in US. Psychologists have a term for

this. It's called projection.

We project things onto other people and the rest of the world

has a term for this. It's called hypocrisy.

So like, let me let me explain how this works its way out.

If you've been sitting through this message and you've been

thinking the whole time, well, I can't wait to send this message

to blank. I guess we know where your issue

is. That's that's our critical,

that's our judgmental spirit refusing to look internally and

seeing that it's our problem before we get worried about how

we're going to fix somebody else's problem.

Jesus says hypocrite, first take the beam of wood out of your

eye. Then you can see clearly to help

that other person out. The call is not to never help

others. That's not what Jesus is saying.

He's just saying get honest about yourself before you do it.

Get real about your own stuff first.

First take the beam out of your eye.

Then you can work on helping your brother or sister who has

the splinter in their eye. So so like, let me ask a few

questions. When a Co worker messes up.

When a family member frustrates you and drives you nuts?

When when somebody posts something incredibly stupid

online, do you first go to grace or go for the gavel to pronounce

judgment? Do you find yourself in your

life more eager to call people out for the the the flaws and

the failings you see them in, or more desperate to call them to

the grace of Jesus Christ? Do you deep down, maybe you

wouldn't admit to anybody else, but you kind of, You really love

the feeling of rebuking somebody else more than you actually

truly long for them to come to repentance?

Here's one when you don't like something, are you quick to

criticize it and have a conversation with others before

you ever have a conversation with the person whom you're

holding in contempt? To see others clearly, you, you

have to 1st see yourself clearly.

And the only way that I know of to see yourself clearly is to

see Jesus clearly, because Jesus alone is the one who clearly is

qualified and the only one who is qualified to stand in

judgment. In first, Peter 222 says he did

not commit sin and no deceit was found in his mouth.

Unless that's true of you, you don't qualify the way Jesus

qualifies. He alone has the authority, the

moral authority to stand in judgment.

He alone is the one who would be in his rights to stand in

condemnation. And someday he will stand in

judgment over everyone. Whether you believe it or not,

whether you believe in him or not.

I'm just telling you, someday you will have to stand before

Jesus and give an account. But here's the good news for all

of us who have blurred vision and don't see things clearly.

Jesus came not to condemn, but to heal our vision because the

cross is the ultimate corrective lens.

It's it's what changes how God sees us, right?

No one stands before God on their merit.

None of us get to stand before God on our own righteousness.

You aren't good enough. The only way for us to escape

the judgment and condemnation that we rightly deserve for our

sins is that we would trust in Jesus Christ and place our faith

in Him as the One who was the only true, perfect, sinless

Savior. And when we place our faith in

Him as the one who died on the cross to pay the penalty for our

sins, that we deserve judgment and justice for, this incredible

thing happens where all of a sudden God no longer sees our

sin, but he sees Christ's perfection.

He sees Christ's righteousness. Second Corinthians 521 Apostle

Paul says this. He made the one who did not know

sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the

righteousness of God. Jesus takes our sin, and when we

trust in Him, we receive His perfection and His

righteousness. But it's not righteousness that

I attained, it's Christ's righteousness.

So now God sees me differently through the lens of the cross if

and only if I place my faith in Him.

But that then should change the way that I see and deal with

others, right? Because there's a natural

overflows. There's some logical conclusions

that have to come out of this because there's no longer room

for a judgmental spirit at the foot of the cross.

Because I don't have any righteousness in and of myself.

I don't stand on any different plane than anyone else in this

room. Anyone else who will watch this

online or listen to it later? I'm a Sinner and apart from

Jesus I got nothing. And that's the same for every

single one of us who have come to Christ.

That's the confession we've made.

So I don't get to correct you out of a spirit of standing

above you. I'm standing shoulder to

shoulder with you. And all the sudden now

correction can begin to come out of a heart of compassion of of

somebody else who knows what it looks like to stumble and to

fall and to mess up and to receive God's grace.

And not out of spirit of criticism, because I need grace

as much as you need grace. So here's what I want to have

you think about as we draw to a close here.

Who are you currently judging the God is calling you to see

through a lens of mercy and compassion?

Are you being shaped to see the world by people who see Jesus

clearly and it's clearly manifested in their character,

in their behavior, or are you following some blind guides that

are going to lead you into a ditch?

Is there a beam in your eye right now that you're ignoring?

And until you get to work on getting that beam removed,

you're really not in a place in a position to be able to help

out anyone else. And we need you to get that beam

fixed because we need your help. I I need people who are going to

be able to look into my life and call stuff out in me, But you

can't do it. When you got a beam in your eye,

what would it look like for you to let Jesus change the way that

you see so that you could love others the way that Jesus loves

others? Jesus came.

He came to heal blind eyes. Physically, yes, but also

spiritually. Maybe today he's wanting to

adjust your vision. Maybe today he's opened your

eyes to the fact that without him, you're sunk and he's

calling on you to let him not just heal your blindness, but

take you from death to life through the power of the cross

and the resurrection. Maybe he wants to give you new

eyes to see that person that you have written off, clarity for

the sin you've ignored, or compassion for the one you've

condemned. I don't know what it is, but I

know this. When Jesus changes the way that

we see, it changes the way that we live.

Let's pray. Father God, I thank you that you

are in the healing business. I thank you that well, you have

every right. Stand in condemnation and

judgment over us. Your Word tells us in John 316

that Jesus didn't come into the world to condemn the world, but

to save it. That you looked on us, us who

are worthy of your condemnation, worthy of your judgment,

imperfect, fallen, broken, traitors, and treasonous.

The most holy God of gods and King of kings, You've had

compassion on us in our sin. God, show us where we can better

reflect you. If we're if we're followers of

you, convict us of our critical spirits.

Where we have attitudes towards groups of people or individuals,

we have a hardness of heart that's quick to judge and quick

to write off and slow to extend mercy and compassion.

God, that's not compatible with the Holy Spirit you've placed in

US. It's not the fruit you're

looking for. Help us to be people who assume

the best before jumping to the worst God.

If there is those here today who don't know you, who have yet to

come to a point where you have removed the blinders from their

eyes about who Jesus truly is, I pray today would be the day

where you would allow them to see clearly that Jesus alone is

righteous, Jesus alone is sinless, and Jesus came to die

to rescue and redeem and save them if they would only trust in

Him. Got it.

I thank you, thank you, thank you for your love for us, shown

to us through the cross. Your grace poured out to us

through the cross. And we pray in the name of the

one who died to save us, to redeem us, and to pour out his

grace on US, Jesus Christ. Amen.