Of First Importance

Good morning.

First Corinthians chapter 15, verses 1 through 11.

1 Corinthians 15:1–11

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preach to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved.

If you hold fast to the word I preach to you, unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered you as of first importance, what I also received, that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me, for I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain.

On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Whether then it was I or they, so we preach, and so you believe.

Help us to understand the power that is there, Lord, and that um the the just be struck in awe, Lord, by your your truth, your love, your grace, your wisdom.

God, just be with us and be with Brother Dylan as he delivers it, and help him to just be a vessel of yours today.

Pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Good morning.

I'm Dylan, I'm one of the pastors here.

I haven't preached in five or six weeks.

I I told Michael and Robert both before this morning I'm I'm uh nervous almost.

Don't don't hold your breath for me, I'll be okay.

Uh but but uh feeling a little out of sorts.

I uh uh many of you know, if you don't, that's fine.

I I hesitated to even say anything, but I think it'd be weird if I didn't.

I took some unexpected time off several weeks ago.

I'm okay.

It's nothing strange or untoward.

I just got really tired.

It snuck up on me.

Uh it it occurred to me that I took two weeks off, one time for our honeymoon nine years ago.

Uh that's the longest I've taken off in a row.

So it just uh the and then as the weariness set in, uh, so did the man, I just, and listen, bear with me.

I am not fishing.

Uh please don't try to console me.

Uh as the as the weariness set in, so did the like, man, I am just I pardon my profanity, I suck at this.

The just the man, I can't catch a wind.

I don't, what am I doing?

Just the the lies and the tiredness that'll that'll weigh down in you.

So I between tiredness and pride, and maybe you're surprised to hear that I just called that pride, uh, but but as for the first time preaching in five or six weeks, I get this passage, and Paul says, I am unworthy, but by the grace of God I am who I am.

Uh and and to some degree, I don't know how much my weariness was that I was uh leaning on my own competencies, frankly, to be to be very uh candid with you as your pastor.

Uh I I don't it not in grotesque sin, but in some quiet pride that is, man, when those competencies started to break down several in a row and to add the weariness to it, uh, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Uh and then this passage is is what I'm given the opportunity to preach and praise God.

I I let me give you a warning on the front end.

I um uh you've probably heard me cry a little bit or get choked up in the emotionality of preaching.

This morning has the potential to jam me up pretty good.

I'm just still raw from the I'm okay.

I'm just raw at the mercy and the grace of the Lord poured out on me and poured out on us, uh, and I'm thankful.

So if I seem heavy or or heavy laden, I am, uh, but I'm okay in a good way.

I think I'm already uh considering, I will look back at at the my 35th and sixth year as another watershed.

The Lord is pressing me out.

Uh and just I've already said more than I meant to, but but thank you all.

Thank you.

You guys have been so loving and caring, and you have ministered to me.

Uh so be encouraged that that I am, I'm glad I'm here for for this season and not somewhere else.

But let's let's turn to our passage.

Uh I also am still a preacher.

I I said all that somewhat also on purpose to tie us into the passage.

I when I served, the last church I served in Maui, it's an older gentleman.

He'd come around, he'd come to church every once in a while, but he'd come to my office about every month, and he would, he would let himself in and I would look up and he'd be sitting across from me.

And it it's this sounds cartoonish, but it's real.

For every month for probably a year, he wanted to come in and and was really trying to pin me down on Pastor.

What's just I just what's like the one verse that I really just like give me just what's the most important one?

And for every month for a year, I said, brother, that's just I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna indulge that.

Uh that said, hear me carefully, if you're gonna start somewhere, don't end here, but if you're gonna start somewhere, we go to John 3.16.

Uh, those are wonderful passages, but throughout the history of the church, people have pointed to 1 Corinthians 15 as a centerpiece.

Paul lays it all out succinctly and directly, helpfully, here.

Christ died for our sins according to scriptures.

A lot of people saw it.

We can trust it to be true.

And through his grace, we are who we are.

We received it, we didn't earn it, we stand in it.

It is the power that props us up, particularly when you think your own competencies are what's doing that for you.

The Lord will pull those away from you to remind you that uh you are standing on my gospel, not your own proficiencies and the power of the gospel by which you are being saved.

There is no goodness and there's no string of good decisions in a row that you can make that will replace what the gospel does for us, received and standing and saving.

So don't stop here.

But the answer to that, dear brother, is let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

As a if you are just trying to find somewhere to begin, memorizing, internalizing, and pressing the word of the Lord onto your heart, there's a good place to start.

Now, to understand this passage, we need to read ahead just a bit.

Look down past our current passage into verse 12.

Paul wrote, Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

So as with much of the rest of 1 Corinthians, Paul is correcting something.

We read on, and and and verses 1 through 11 make that Paul is correcting some incorrect thoughts, teachings, assertions from some of them.

Apparently they were saying that the resurrection did not happen, or that it wasn't real, or perhaps that it wasn't for everyone.

And so we look back up into our context and see a defense.

This confessional statement says, essentially, be reminded, church, of what is true and of what we believe.

If there is no resurrection, the the saving work of Christ was ineffectual.

He was just a good teacher that died.

The resurrection is crucial to the hope of the gospel, this defeating sin and death.

We'll get into that in the coming weeks.

I won't dip into other sermons, but for now we get this robust summary statement of the gospel message delivered with the evidence of eyewitnesses, many eyewitnesses, and the and the personal testimony of God's grace in Paul's life, which we can take and apply to our own.

If you are currently under the sound of my voice, uh covered in the blood of Jesus, you have a story like what Paul proclaims here.

But what he is expressing is I don't deserve to be who I am.

It is by God's grace.

And that grace was not in vain.

What grace and rest and peace that has brought my soul in a season where I have been confronted with my own quiet pride in these ways.

Maybe it isn't as quiet as I hope it is, but my own, uh my own uh Michael just called it gospel amnesia.

I thought maybe I think that's some of my my layered in here too.

But let's look at our passage.

It says, uh, this is of first importance.

For I deliver to you what I also received as of first importance, this gospel message that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.

That is of first importance.

The Corinthians had been distracted.

We think back through the first 14 chapters, when we are introduced to the problems in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, they are making of first importance who's the best teacher, Apollos, Cephas, Paul.

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

He immediately is having to address, you have made other things of first importance.

They were distracted by sinful patterns that they were allowing in the body, in chapter 5 and 6, idolatries, chapter 7, 8, and 9.

They were distracted by disunity and disgrace when they gathered for communion, and the first things had become uh uh uh set in the the back of the list or forgotten altogether.

So Paul here, as he begins to sum up his letter, says, Now I would remind you, brothers, that this gospel that I preach to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word that I preach you, uh preach to you, unless you are being uh unless you believed in vain, for I've ever delivered to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins in accordance to the scriptures.

We are not immune to these things.

I we all the preachers say this often.

I'm aware of my propensity to say it quite frequently.

I I don't know about you.

Sometimes we can read what is what is an ancient text, it's not only an ancient text, it's living and active, but we can read an ancient text about ancient people and go, those silly gooses, those silly fools, the how could they do such a thing?

And we are no different and no better.

Just we we we have 2,000 years of development to more technologically advance our sins and our distractions and putting other things in first order where the gospel of Jesus Christ goes.

We'll get distracted from that which is of first importance, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.

It wasn't plan B, it wasn't an audible, the Lord wasn't scrambling and rocked back on his heels.

In accordance to the scriptures and the plan of the Lord, Christ died for our sins to God's glory and to our goods.

And by his grace, we are who we are.

How quickly will we get derailed by all manner of worldly things that that might even feel spiritually important?

I bet you the Corinthians thought that these arguments and infighting about the best preacher and the way of communion and who should do what and where all felt spiritually important.

And ultimately, Paul says all of this has distracted you from the spear tip, which is Christ died for your sins according to the scriptures.

He was buried and he was raised, and we have this hope.

Notice Paul does not say it's the only thing of importance, but it is of first importance.

It should be the spear tip, it should be the touch point, the guidepost to all other actions and decisions and outpourings of the Christian life.

We lead with Christ died for our sins.

Praise God.

Anything we do to make that less is a problem.

If we prioritize the purpose of church, if Heartland became about us providing you teaching to have a better life, or if we focus just on that we should hope for the blessings that come, or if we make our mercy ministries, our identity, all those things are spiritually good and important, but of first importance is what drives all of those things that Christ died for our sins.

All the benefits of that are trailing.

But but if, and Michael said it again, if if all Christ ever did was die for our sins, that is amazing.

If the rest of your life is toil and trouble, by the way, Jesus said it, it it probably will be.

For in this world you will experience trials and tribulations, but take heart, be encouraged, for I have overcome the world.

Not take heart for it will get better, but take heart because ultimately I have secured your victory.

Through my work on the cross, through my obedience to the Father, Jesus says, You are who you are.

Praise God and praise the Son.

Paul goes on with this confession of faith, the summary statement.

He says that Jesus was buried.

The scholars generally believe that this detail is addressing rumors that had already surfaced that Jesus' body had been had been snuck away and never actually got put in the tomb so that they could fake the resurrection.

It was convenient to the story, and so they they slid Jesus' body out the side, and he was never actually in there.

So when the tomb is opened, it looks like a magic trick.

Apparently, that concern had already surfaced.

So Paul says, He was buried.

We have witnesses.

Remembering our larger context, some of the Corinthians were doubting the details.

So Paul reminds them his body was broken and physically dead.

In the context, again, in the coming weeks, it focuses the rest of chapter 15 specifically on the resurrection.

There is this sense of you can't resurrect someone who's not dead.

And the resurrection of someone who was dead and buried, their body broken, raised to new life as the firstborn of the inheritance.

The inheritance in which we hope and which we are given as children of God.

Praise him.

And praise God that he includes this summary piece here in 1 Corinthians 15 that helps us come out of this gospel amnesia, or that shakes us out of what we have made more important than Christ died for our sins.

He was buried because he died, and he was raised because he was resurrected by the power of God as the firstborn of the inheritance.

The gospel message is all those things dead, buried, but resurrected.

Jesus said he would do, or Jesus did what he said he would do.

Jesus said, or Jesus did what the prophet said he would do.

Jesus was on purpose.

There was no accidental saving.

His obedience to the point of death on a cross was according to plan of God's love and mercy poured out on us.

On us.

That is striking.

I am struck by for me.

I get it maybe for this other person I know who's very, very good, but for me.

Paul goes on, says, Remember the facts.

Remember that you can trust these facts because interestingly he get he gives testimony.

There are witnesses to the resurrection in quite a few of them.

Let me read again for us, verses five and following.

He appeared to Cephas, Peter, and then to the twelve.

And then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

It's kind of a New Testament Greek way of saying that they have passed on for now.

Then he appeared to James, and then to all the apostles, and last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

We'll get to that untimely born.

It's it's fascinating.

But for now, Paul says that you know, you can go ask these people who saw what happens.

Why are you moving forward on rumor?

Why are you allowing your faith to be shaken?

Uh when when you have key eyewitness, trustworthy testimony that says this happened and we can hope on it.

And this is the point that you're even gathered to talk about it, anyways, is because it is real.

He takes off on this extended timeline of eyewitness testimonies to the resurrected Christ, and on a hunch or on a rumor or a doubt, some of you are claiming what?

That it was a shared hallucination amongst hundreds of people.

He names Peter and James and the apostles, presumably because they would have been respected amongst the Corinthian congregation.

Remember, at the beginning of the book, they're arguing about who's the best teacher or who's the most important.

And he names those.

I know you guys love these guys.

They saw Jesus.

They saw him alive and then dead and alive again.

They also was seen by a large amount of people.

He says, Many of them are still alive.

He doesn't go here.

I've made an assumption a bit, but it reads like, Go ask them.

A few of them are dead, but you can ask the 480 some odd that are left.

Go ask them what they saw.

And by the way, he says he appeared to me too, as to one untimely born.

This is a bit of a strange phrase.

It's not just in the ESV.

The NIV says abnormally born.

The CSB says born at the wrong time.

Strange wording.

Here's what I found is the general sense of the phrase: an unusual birth, something unexpected.

This is typical of Paul's humility and his repeated assertion throughout his letters that he is the least of the apostles, the chief among sinners.

In reminding the Corinthians of the first important priority level of the gospel, he lists off a multitude of people who can bear witness to the resurrected Christ.

And that list includes even him, but even so he says, even, he even appeared to me as one untimely born.

That could mean that he received the gospel later than the rest of them.

He was the last one, presumably, to see the resurrected Christ before ascension.

It could mean that he was the most unlikely to receive the gospel from that witness list, because he goes on to say, I was persecuting the church.

He appeared even to me as one untimely.

It is unlikely that Jesus should have wanted to save me, but he did.

If you'll remember or if you didn't know, when when Paul was confronted by the gospel of Christ, he was on his way to go participate in killing Christians or at least administering the deaths.

Jesus says, even you, even you.

This gospel is for even you.

And Paul clearly had a hard time shaking that.

But he lived in the grace of God.

Again, this here comes my the heaviness for me.

Not in a bad way, just in the the weight of the gospel.

Yes, even for you, Paul.

And if even for Paul, then even for me.

You ever feel like that?

Either you're a believer or you and you are regularly in awe that Jesus would save you because you know you.

Or perhaps you're a believer, but you're in this room this morning because you've you've heard about the gospel message that Christ died for your sins, and you just can't believe that someone else would pay the price that you owe.

Why would somebody else do that for me?

Even if I understand the depth of my depravity, even if I'm not maybe uh just crushed under the weight of my own sin yet, uh why would somebody else bother to do something?

Well, it's hard to grasp the entirety of the selflessness that is Christ Jesus stepping down from the throne and coming to us, condescending down to us.

He had every right to stay and to remain out of this mess, and yet he did.

And now we have grace and mercy at the throne of Jesus.

We have grace and mercy at the foot of the cross.

And we'll we have grace and mercy from the creator of the universe who is holy and sinless, who is wrathful against our sin and just to be so, and at the same time, he is patient and loving.

And in the face of all that, I cannot earn it.

I cannot pay a fraction of what I owe.

I can't string enough good decisions together in a row to make it an hour, much less to make it a lifetime to tip that scale in my favor.

So, how can this?

Possibly be true.

It's not that I don't want to believe it.

But because how could this possibly be for me?

I don't deserve it.

That seems to be the weight of Paul in this moment.

And he's he's watching a group of people infighting about silly details.

And he goes, What listen to what Jesus has done?

Knock all this off.

If you are feeling that or if you've ever felt that, Paul seems to have felt the same way.

In verse 9, he says, I am the least of the apostles.

Here we are reading his writing 2,000 years ago.

I am the least of the apostles.

Unworthy to be called an apostle.

Because I persecuted the church of God.

Unworthy.

So I was writing this part of the sermon.

This has happened to me somewhat later in life.

Hymns come to mind.

I was writing this part of the sermon.

Y'all heard I stand amazed in the presence?

It's an older hymn, not incredibly old, but older, written by a guy named Charles Gabriel.

Apparently, it first showed up in hymnals in 1905, thinking about what how this is for me too, Lord.

Even me, you would offer this forgiveness.

And even me, you had in mind 2,000 years in advance.

As Jesus goes to the cross, it is for me too and for you.

And a hundred years ago, Charles Gabriel writes, I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene, and wonder how could he love me?

A sinner condemned and unclean.

How marvelous and how wonderful.

And my song shall ever be, how marvelous, how wonderful is my Savior's love to me.

Paul thought it.

Paul had that same how even to me, how marvelous.

And saints throughout the history of Christendom have repeated that refrain.

How could this be for me?

I am unworthy, untimely born.

I know the depths of my sin and junk and ungodliness.

And Jesus loves me, anyways.

I know what I've done, Lord, and even so Jesus paid the price.

He died for our sins according to the scriptures.

He was buried and raised under resurrected life, according to the reliable testimony of many, many people.

And that testimony has been faithfully carried from generation to generation, all the way to South Haven, Mississippi.

And here we are the recipients and the beneficiaries, the inheritors of this gospel testimony that has been faithfully and carefully guarded and passed from generation to generation.

And even still here, we stand amazed and in awe and in wonder that Jesus would love us to.

This offer of salvation, of forgiveness of our sins against God is on offer.

We don't earn it.

The beginning of this passage, Paul says, You received.

We don't earn.

We stand in it by its power, not ours, and we are saved by it.

How marvelous and how wonderful is our Savior's love for us.

Not because I deserve it, but because I don't.

Not because the the the wonder of the work of Christ for us is amazing.

Not because we deserve it, but because we don't.

I it it almost it makes me uncomfortable, to be frank.

And it uncomfortable, it's uncomfortable to receive a compliment, is it not?

And here's the God of the universe says, I'll give you my life.

I'll give you my life.

Paul considered himself the least among the apostles.

He was actively persecuting the church when the resurrected Jesus appeared to him and he received the gospel for the forgiveness of his sins.

And where he had a heart of stone, he was given a heart of flesh.

Paul's words in the last couple of verses of our passage this morning drive that home.

In verse 10, uh, this has been life for me uh lately.

Verse 10, but by the grace of God I am who I am.

And his grace towards me was not in vain.

Now, on the contrary, I worked harder than any of them.

But it wasn't me, it was the grace of God that is within me.

Let me split that verse in half.

Just think about the first sentence for now.

As to the question, who am I that the Lord would look upon me in love?

And who am I that Jesus would die for me?

All these me's and I's are us collectively, it's understood.

I am a recipient of grace.

Well, if you, as I have at times here recently, if you get stuck in this, who am who am I a recipient of grace?

That that's it.

That's the long and the short, but it is infathomably deep and wide and unsearchable, and the best news, but it is weighty and can be uncomfortable.

It provides our identity and our and our position in relation to God, not who I am, not my abilities, not my competencies, not my uh not my string of not failing in a row, or I only fail a little bit.

It is God's grace.

By God's grace I am what I am.

That's it.

That's it.

And that grace is not in vain, it wasn't a mistake.

I am, and we are no one.

That is the the heart of our end of the gospel.

Remember the beginning of the passage.

That which you received and in which you stand, it props you up.

It saves you.

The gospel is doing all the heavy lifting of your life, frankly.

Even giving you the sustenance and the ongoing grace to do those works, to get after the business of God.

That is, the grace of God empowering you to go do those things that He has prepared ahead of time.

It's a result, not a leading measure.

I can't, Jesus wasn't waiting for my approval to save me.

He saved me and I receive it.

I didn't make a good decision with my life and stop doing one bad thing, and all of a sudden I'm wise and I did the other thing.

Jesus grabbed me by the collar and whipped me around, as he did for all of you.

Paul's life is the prototype of that.

On his way marching to another town to further persecute the church, Paul wasn't confronted with an apologetic presentation of the gospel in which he said, Good point, I've changed my mind.

Jesus wrecked him and turned his life around.

And here, Paul says, It is by that grace that I am who I am.

And it was not in vain.

I don't deserve it, and and you don't deserve it.

And Paul didn't deserve it.

And praise God.

He goes on.

His grace towards me was not in vain.

His grace is not in vain.

It's effectual, it's on purpose, it's not mistaken.

By God's grace, you are who you are according to the great I am.

The contextual thought here seems to be that God's grace was not in vain because Paul did something with it.

It was not fire insurance faith for Paul.

Thanks for saving me.

I'm gonna go rest.

He said, I gotta do something about this.

Well, the grace I have received that that Paul clearly recognized he didn't deserve, he over and over and says it calls himself unworthy.

And his response is, I'm gonna go tell other people.

I'm gonna be busy about it.

That his grace was not in vain.

He says, because I worked harder than all of them.

And it almost feels like Paul's taking a turn back up into his own competencies.

But he but he wraps it back down.

He says, But it wasn't me.

I worked harder than any of them, but it wasn't me.

It was the grace of God that is with me.

It seems like perhaps there is this uh the this uh tethered graph that exists amongst grace and what you do with it, that the the deeper you understand your need for grace, probably the more work you're gonna go out and do for the Lord.

And that's not earning it, and that's not look at you.

That is the the the depth and the width and the extent to which I can understand what I why me who am I, and that God loved me anyways, is gonna directly correlate with me turning around and go, I have got to let other people know.

Because if I if just one other person, Paul says, whether it was I or they, whoever, whoever preached and you believed, praise God.

If I spend a lifetime in this pulpit and one person responds to the gospel, that needs to be worth it.

That needs to be worth a life poured out in response to the grace poured over you.

I have a unique context as a pastor and a preacher, but but you are not you are not excused from proclaiming the gospel.

You are not set aside, it's not bring them to Robert and I.

It's declare the gospel, bring them here because they're gonna want to worship in response to the grace that they have received.

He died for me.

I want to live for him.

But when when my strength, and and it's part of what I experienced over the last season, is for whatever reason, my living had started to shift into my competencies or my stamina or whatever.

I've just I'm gonna and praise God that he has pressed me out here recently to remind me that thank you for living for me, but it is still my grace that will sustain that.

It's still not you, and it's still not me.

Paul says, My efforts, even what I do in response to his grace, is empowered by his grace.

We're gonna uh sing this song to close the service.

I love this song.

Uh yet not I, but through Christ and Me.

It is uh, Michael's talking about like it's it's just in the passage.

We gotta sing it this week.

It's just in the passage.

This yet not I, but through Christ in me.

It's this beautiful song that repeatedly reminds us of what we have on offer, what we've been enabled to do, what we are able to endure, what we're able to accomplish for the glory of God.

And at the end of every stanza is this refrain, and yet not I, but through Christ in me.

What a wonderful reminder of not only has he saved us out of our sin, he enables us through his grace to go out and do something with us while we wait for that ultimate resurrection.

We have this hope of the future, this inheritance, uh, which the the witness testimony bears the truth of that Jesus is resurrected and we have that hope too.

So while we wait for that wonderful thing, we have wonderful work to do so that others may know and have hope and participate in this grace.

Believers, hold fast to that which is of first importance.

We will, even at Heartland, this wonderful, sweet church and congregation, we will get distracted here if we're not careful about things that feel spiritually important, and perhaps they are spiritually important, but we will reorder what is of first importance.

That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and by God's grace, we are who we are.

And that grace is not in vain.

And so we go and we preach and we proclaim and we invite we proclaim to one and we invite five, and we are faithful to the gospel message through through whatever may come, his grace will sustain us and praise him for that.

And unbelievers, this is for you too.

This this is, I hope I have made clear even in my uh emotional presentation of what what the hope that I have expressed this morning for myself and for the other believers in the room is on offer to you.

In the same way that uh maybe you are under that same conviction of that's nice for you, he wouldn't want me.

That that's nice for you, but you don't know what I've done.

Or that's nice for you, but I don't need that, I'm not that bad.

There's both ends of the spectrum and in resistance to the gospel.

Either I'm I'm too unclean or I'm I'm not that unclean.

And in both cases, we cannot imagine the extent to which we are wrong.

And perhaps maybe under the sound of my voice this morning, you're you're not to the end of yourself yet.

What which is our only response to the gospel is I'm at the end of myself, I I will receive this hope of forgiveness, uh, this anticipation of resurrection and this commitment that I will, whatever I was doing with my life, whatever Paul had in mind that he was headed to, that got canceled.

The plans were changed and joyfully so.

But listen, if that is now, we we would love to have that conversation with you.

It doesn't need to be me or Robert.

We don't have a special line to the gospel.

Every believer in this room is equipped to do so, but we're happy to have that conversation with you.

And you may make your way up here, but again, respond at what is on offer and receive that that will uh save you from your mess.

Because we are, as we have saw through the three circles, we are separated, we are sinners and disobedient.

But the God of the universe, although wrathful and just against that disobedience, is loving and merciful and gracious to offer us Jesus.

And we receive him.

We receive him.

I we would love to have that conversation with you.

Would you join me in prayer as we continue this morning?

Father, we thank you and we love you.

Father, we we we thank you for your grace that defines us.

Uh may we, uh when we when we find ourselves adrift, may we be reminded that that our identity, our value, who we are to you is defined by your grace.

We've received it.

It props up, we are standing, we are literally or metaphorically or both on our feet because of your grace.

And Father, when we stumble and when we fall, may we be reminded that you invite us back, that your grace is not in vain.

You didn't make a mistake in saving us, you didn't make a mistake in offering it to us.

And may we be reminded in those moments that it is by the power of the gospel that we are being saved.

Not our competencies, not our ability to make a couple good decisions in a row, not not not anything that we can write on a resume.

You, in your grace, in your mercy, that you lovingly and enthusiastically offer to us.

We see this picture of the prodigal returning, and and the father runs with joyful anticipation to meet us.

Father, thank you for this offer, and thank you that it's not just a it's not just an offer that is resistant or uh all right, fine, I'll save you.

You give us a picture in your word of the joy that you have in seeing your children turn to you and receive the offer of forgiveness and grace and mercy.

Thank you.

We love you.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.