You Can't Do This on Your Own

If you have your Bibles turned to Matthew chapter 5 and verse 43, I'm going to start in the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus teaching Matthew 5 through 7.

And I want to look at a few verses here, and we'll go verse 43 through 48.

Jesus says, You've heard the law that says, love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

You're like, where is that law?

Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

Well, Jesus is quoting Leviticus 19, 18, which is in the Old Testament law.

And what it says in Leviticus 19, 18 is to love your neighbor.

It doesn't say to hate your enemy.

The hate your enemy part was sort of a cultural thing that had developed, and it was a way essentially, it had become this sort of way of demonstrating how patriotic you were as an Israelite, particularly man.

So it wasn't enough for you to just love your fellow Israelite, or love, and that's how they define neighbor.

Your neighbor was your your tribe, your your countrymen, your the fellow Israelite.

It wasn't enough to just love your neighbor.

If you were a real one, you didn't just love your neighbor.

You hated everybody who was uncircumcised.

You hated everybody who wasn't one of your people.

And so with that, that it kind of became a thing.

And so Jesus is sort of going after that.

In fact, it's a little tongue-in-cheek because they would have known that Leviticus 19, 18 didn't say hate your neighbor, but this was a part of the culture that had become a reality.

So it says in verse 44, he said, But I say, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven.

For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust to light.

We got to hear this through the ear of the listener.

Um, when we think of rain, we always kind of think of it as a bad thing.

Hey, it's like rain on your wedding day, right?

Or it's like you got rained out, the thing got rained out, or don't rain on my parade.

Okay.

This wasn't a bad thing to them.

Rain represented nourishment of the land.

Everybody wanted rain because that means the crops were going to grow, and one of their big fears would have been a famine in the land.

And so Jesus says something peculiar here that he causes the sun to warm and essentially the rain to nourish the land on both the just and the unjust alike.

Verse 46.

If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that?

Even corrupt tax collectors do that much.

Verse 47, if you're kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else?

Even pagans do that, but you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

I want to read this to you in the message translation.

The message is uh it's like a more free verse translation.

I don't usually read out of the uh or preach out of the message, but when I read it, it's uh it just kind of hit me some kind of way.

I want to share it with you.

So this is the message.

It says, same text.

You're familiar with the old written law, love your friend and its unwritten companion, hate your enemy.

I'm challenging that.

I'm telling you to love your enemies.

Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst.

When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the supple moves of prayer, and then and then you're working out of your true selves, your God-created selves.

This is what God does.

He gives his best, the sun to warm and the rain to nourish to everyone, regardless, the good and the bad, the nice and nasty.

If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus?

Anyone can do that.

If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal?

Any run-of-the-mill center does that.

Okay.

What do we do with this?

This is one of those texts, you gotta kind of figure out what you're gonna do with it.

Uh, because depending on how you think about it, it could sort of lead you down a few different paths.

One, it can almost feel a bit irresponsible, right?

You're like, well, what are you saying, Jesus?

That I'm supposed to love my enemies?

My enemies are enemies for a variety of reasons.

Often they're enemies because they're toxic, they're enemies because they're harmful, they're enemies because they're abusive.

Are you is this like a type of verse that would keep me in an abusive relationship?

Would cause it to me to continue to subject myself to perpetual uh abuse or mistreatment because I've devalued myself, because I just keep loving my enemy and letting them do these type of things to me?

Is this the whole like turn the other cheek means I just keep getting my face pounded in and I say, please, can I have another?

Is that is that what you're asking me to do?

Um it also can be one of those verses that feels unrealistic, like it's impossible.

I'm gonna love my enemies.

Like, think about this.

In the text it says, hey, anybody can love those who love them.

But let's be honest, sometimes it is hard to love people who love you.

Right?

I mean, I got lots of people that love me and I love them, and sometimes it's hard to do that.

In our own house, in our own community, in our own relationship, like lovely people, but it's like I'm having a hard time loving you right now.

And I and I'll be honest, I I can be very hard to love at times.

There are times I'm like, you know, I don't know that I want to be married to me.

So loving those that love you has its own set of difficulties.

But to love your enemy, is this one of those just impossible things?

And then if you're not careful, you either just fly by the text and you kind of go, that's just Jesus being Jesus.

Or you might be tempted to fall into like doing something different on the outside than what's on the inside, also known as hypocrisy.

And you just sort of like on the outside, you're like, Yeah, I'm too blessed to be stressed, and you're kind of like you do this outside thing, like, no, I don't hate anybody, you know, I love everybody.

And inside, like, if you ever met one of these people, man, they are like, they're really locked into the shtick that they don't have any, they don't hate anybody, but you can feel the subterranean anger.

You're like, Sister so-and-so's gonna snap, all right?

She keeps saying she's not, but I'm telling you, I can feel it.

It's just a matter of time.

Um, you know, we don't want to do this.

I mean, think about this.

If we don't really understand what Jesus is talking about here, we will just at best sort of do the exterior thing.

And we know Jesus wasn't about just the outside, he was all about the inside.

Okay?

So if we're not careful, this becomes one of those Jesus tells us to do something.

We're like, why?

Because I said so.

Okay, I guess I'll love my enemies, but I have no clue how.

Um, you grew up in one of those families when you got in a fight with your siblings, they made you hug.

They made you tell them that you love her, tell her you love her, you know.

You're like, I don't want it.

Tell her you love her, you're like, I love you.

I was running this by my buddy Melvin before this morning, and I was like talking it through.

He told me a story, true story, when he was eight, he got in a fight with his friend, and they it came to fists, and they they they punched one another.

And so their moms, their moms were very close friends, and and and this happened at a cookout, bunch of people.

And so their moms made them hug for 25 minutes.

He's like, I'm still emotionally scarred, you know.

They're hugging for 25.

He's like, people are walking past with their plates and food, and we had to sit there and hug.

Everyone's eating their food while we hug for 25 minutes.

I was like, are you guys friends?

He's like, we are.

So I guess it worked, I mean, in some way.

They're still friends.

He said, we still talk about it to this day.

But but I don't think it's the intention of Jesus simply that we would say it on the outside, like I'm hugging you on the outside, but I'm punching you on the inside, right?

How about this verse?

Anyone remember Ephesians 4.26?

It says, Don't let the sun go down on your anger.

Anybody's mom and dad ever hit them with that one?

You know?

You're like super ticked.

They're like, Bible says don't let the sun go down in your anger, and it's getting dark, you know, and you're still upset.

You go to bed at night, you're like, I guess I'm a sinner, dude, because I'm mad, okay?

And it's definitely dark, sun's down.

Ugh, how do I do this?

Okay.

And again, if we're not careful, man, if we just sort of haphazardly handle these scriptures and we don't think about how to do it, how to do it, versus just what we should do, I do think we live often in some like internal dissonance and something doesn't feel quite right, and that's not Jesus' intention.

So, what we're not gonna do is ignore the text, but I do think we should rethink it.

What's Jesus up to here?

All right, I want to use this an illustration, actually.

Um I want I want to use uh I'm gonna use a track and field analogy.

Okay, so we're we're gonna um start with uh the highest high jump in history.

The highest high jump recorded in human history was by Javier Sotomayor of Cuba in 1993.

Go ahead and bring that up.

Uh Javier Sotomayor, 1993, the only person in human history, listen to this, to jump eight feet.

Eight feet and a quarter inch.

Only person ever.

Okay?

So with Javier Sotomayor, we're gonna use this to illustrate the boundaries of human capacity.

Somebody someday will probably jump higher than eight feet, quarter inch, but it won't be by much.

You see what I'm saying?

Barely at all.

Because Javier Sotomayor is incredibly talented, gifted.

He ate properly, he trained properly, uh, he got good coaching, he got his technique down, uh, mastered it, and on the right day, he hit up, got on the good foot, the right foot, got up there, and he cleared eight feet.

And that right now, currently, is what humans are capable of in their own strength.

At its absolute best.

So we'll call this if you were great at loving those who love you.

Like, incredibly healthy marriage, great relationship with your family, an extended family, great with your neighbors, co-workers.

You you're the award-winning coworker, you're the best neighbor there ever was, okay?

This is what you're capable of.

Alright?

In 2023, in an indoor meet in France, there was another record that was set, and it was by Armand Duplantis from Sweden, and he got to 20 feet, four and three-quarter inches.

20 feet, four and three-quarter inches, more than double.

How do you get there?

You gotta have something outside of yourself.

Um, by the way, borrowed this pole vault from Gehanna Lincoln High School.

Shout out to Gehanna Lincoln.

Shout out, shout out to the girls' track team at Gehanna Lincoln, back-to-back state champs.

Come on, somebody.

All right, in my human capacity, in your human capacity, the best that a human can do, eight feet and twenty feet if you get this right and you figure this out.

Okay.

What Jesus does in the Sermon on the Mount is he takes the bar and puts it up to 20 feet.

And I do think Jesus wanted to, in an appropriate way, demoralize us from trying to jump 20 feet.

Like if you if he put it at eight feet and a half, you might keep trying.

And you might think you could get there.

But he puts it to 20.

He puts it where you can't get it.

Love my enemies?

I'm trying to make up with my brother.

I'm trying to, I'm trying to work it out with my business partner.

I'm trying to get so we don't sue one another.

We were we were college friends, and I'm trying to love my enemy.

How would I love my enemy?

How would I pray for those who persecute me?

He puts it up to 20, and ultimately what Jesus is doing is setting up our need.

He puts a standard so high that you can't get there without Jesus.

Well, let's keep going.

Well, Greg, what does that even mean?

That sounds like a church thing to say.

All right, let's let's let's go into this.

Um, if you stay with the Sermon on the Mount, um, Jesus talks about loving your enemy, but he uses uh he he talks about other things that are 20 feet high, like this.

Matthew 5, 27 and 28.

He says, You've heard that it was said, do not commit adultery.

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her, he's speaking to men here.

He did a group of men he was talking to.

He said, Uh, anyone who looks at a woman lustfully or lust to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

To this, the men are like, I can if I have a lustful thought, it's as if I followed all the way through into an extramarital affair.

I committed adultery, what?

I mean, again, it's up here to where a man's like, I'm never supposed to have a lustful thought.

That's like, it feels like it's impossible, right?

You're like, that's 20 feet high.

Because even if I don't want to have a lustful thought, sometimes you have a lustful thought.

You didn't try to, you didn't want to, it wasn't premeditated.

Sometimes a lustful thought was in there before you knew it was in there, and it's in there, and you don't want you don't want it in there, but it's there.

So now it's like shame, back to like loving your neighbor.

It's like, how am I gonna do that?

How am I gonna do that?

Think of other things like um jealousy.

I don't want to be jealous of anyone, I don't want that on in my mind.

I don't want that.

You know, I I feel jealous of people all the time.

And and I it takes me forever to admit it because it's so ugly and so petty.

I never want to admit it.

Okay, I'd be like, no, I'm not jealous of that person.

I'm not jealous of that person.

Yes, I am.

Totally jealous of that person.

They get opportunities I didn't get.

They they they're good at things that I had to really work at.

Things came naturally.

So they do stuff easily that's very difficult for me.

They got a measure of talent I didn't get or something.

I mean, there is I see them, and what would I do is I just act like I don't pay them any mind, or I don't I I certainly can't celebrate the good things happening to them because I'm jealous.

I don't want to be jealous.

If I could just flip a switch and not be jealous, I would.

How do I not be jealous?

How do I not lust?

How do I not hate or love my enemy?

How how would this how would I be able to do this?

Um, okay, so think about this.

Let's let's let's stick with lust for a second.

What's the big deal about lust?

Okay, let's what's the big deal about lust?

The fact that we all have these primal urges, we all have these biological, physiological urges, and the idea that you would want to express that, right?

You you you'd want to get that out.

Um, what happens when you lust?

What's happening in your mind?

When you lust, and again, I know uh it's he's speaking to men here, so I'm gonna keep it there, although I know men and women uh deal with lust.

Men and women deal with hate, men and women deal with jealousy.

So I'm just gonna stick with men for a minute, it's Father's Day, I'm a dude, let's just stay with it.

What happens when a man lusts?

Okay, when a man lusts, here's what he's doing: he's taking this woman who's made in the image of God, God's daughter, and he's reducing her down to the sum of her parts, and simply, in a sense, she's not like dehumanizing her, making her less of a person.

No one ever watched porn and was like, I wonder what her real name is.

I wonder what her middle name is.

When she was growing up in school, I wonder what her first essay was about.

I wonder what her dreams were as a child.

No one sits there and watches that.

I was like, you know, you know, that's one of God's daughters right there.

It's kind of funny, but it's kind of not, right?

No one's sitting there like, you know, that one right there, she's made in the image of God.

God has a plan for her life, God has a purpose for her life.

No one's sitting there watching, like, I wonder what other gift she has.

No one's doing that.

Why?

You've reduced that person.

In fact, the moment you got out your primal urges, instincts, and you're all done with that, and now I have no use for you, I'm out.

That could happen again through pornography, it could happen in a one-night stand, somebody you don't care.

It's a booty call.

And once the booty's done calling and you answer, now it's like, hey, it's time for you to go.

Time for you to go.

Time for you to go.

Why?

You've reduced the person down to the sum of their parts.

And friend, I gotta tell you, this slippery slope, if you start looking at how far that reaches, some of the greatest atrocities and evils in the history of mankind have come from reducing a person to the sum of their parts or reducing someone less than human, forgetting that they're made in the image of God.

So what happens?

Hitler calls the Jews rats.

What do you do with rats?

You exterminate them.

You you view someone as three-fifths of a person, you have no problem persecuting that person, you have no problem creating an injustice.

Why?

Well, because they're they're less than me.

They're less than me.

So so the golden rule doesn't apply.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you because we're not unequal, you're three-fifths of me.

And so so this can happen in all kinds of ways, things that we're we we look at, we don't even really want to look at, but here's what I'm telling you.

It's actually the the slippery slope begins with more innocuous types of dehumanization.

It it you don't usually go right to extermination, it starts with little stuff.

I was taking this text, man, I was really thinking about this, okay, and I start thinking about okay, Lord, what are you trying to say to me?

Where are the areas that I tend to reduce people?

Right?

I may not make them three-fifths, but where I make them like seven-eighths.

So I started thinking, I probably shouldn't say this, but I'm going to I'm going to go ahead and say it.

Hopefully, this helps someone.

I, and this is gonna sound somewhat innocuous, but I'm telling you, in my head, it's not good.

Have you noticed post-pandemic customer service is terrible?

I've worked in customer service, dude.

We started this church, I worked at the front desk at Urban Active Fitness, they trained me, and they said to me in my training, you never sit down, you stand behind the thing and you greet everyone as they walk in.

Friend, I'm gonna tell you, for over a year, I didn't sit down one time.

Not one time.

I walk in now, there smoking, you know, in the gym.

No one greets me.

I was doing drills memorizing names.

Memorize names.

I see Sheska right here.

I look I met Sheska at 6 a.m.

13 years ago.

True or false?

They don't even look at me.

I didn't plant her there, by the way.

That was real, that's real life.

They don't even look at me.

I walk in, they're I could probably not pay for a membership and just act like I belong.

Like, what am I even paying this thing for?

I walk into stores right now, and there's like three employees are over there talking, no one greets me.

I walk in, they're sitting there talking, you know.

I'm like, okay, and I walk around, and then I need help trying to figure something out.

I walk over to the cluster of conversation that's going on over here.

I walk over and I'm like, excuse me.

And they're like I I don't take them to three-fifths.

Maybe seven-eighths.

Because I'm like, I would never do that.

Have some pride in your work, have some standards.

I don't care.

Dude, I was memorizing names for minimum wage.

Have some standards, dude.

And you know what I want to do?

I want to get real sarcastic.

And I walk over because I, you know, I can get away with that because it's plausible deniability.

I'm a pastor.

If anyone's like, he said this, I'm like, oh no, I didn't mean it.

Um so I want to walk over and be like, you know, hey, hey guys, can uh somebody help me?

And they're like, and I want to go, sorry, did I bother you guys?

I hate hate to break up your combo, but uh I'm maybe gonna buy something here.

Help me, Jesus, help me.

Jesus, Lord, help me out.

Okay?

Now, is innocuous as a customer service attitude and whatever, it really is a slippery slope.

You start to dehumanize, you start to take somebody from a full person to a I would never say that, I would never do that, I would never think that.

What is what is the pole vault?

What is gonna help me get to a place where my flesh won't get because what Jesus says is look, if you just stick with your human nature, what you're capable of, the best is you'll get, you'll kind of know how to treat people, you'll be good with the people that love you, and and so if you just want the world the way it is, okay, it's predictable.

Predictable, and so just do the best you can.

But he sets this bar so incredibly high.

How would I do it?

Okay.

I'm gonna describe right now an experience.

Some of you have experienced, maybe some of you haven't, but it is the encounter that a human being has, the genuine encounter that you have with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So at some point you're in a place.

It might be this place, it might have been something having nothing to do with any church or anything, but at some point you become aware, not just rationally, not just academically, but you have an encounter with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And what you understand is that as if you're a human being, you become convicted of your sin.

Not condemnation like hopeless, you actually become aware of your humanity and your flaws and your flesh, and you become appropriately humble in your weaknesses, and then what you understand about God is that He sees you in your full vulnerability and he loves you in that state, and he gives you grace, and then you understand the cross of Jesus, that Jesus came, he died for our sin.

Because it's because the wages of my sin, like there is a penalty for that.

And it wasn't cheap, but Jesus paid it.

So so it's not it's not that like we act like that sin didn't happen, it's just he paid for it.

It's like if you came and broke something at my house, it still costs to fix it, but I'll pay for it.

You're like, no, I want to pay for it.

No, I got it.

I paid.

It wasn't free, it's just I paid for it.

So Jesus paid for my sin.

When I do that, I'm overwhelmed by his love.

And as I'm overwhelmed by his love, now I start to understand things like I am made in the image of God.

That God knows me completely and loves me.

That God so loved the world that he sent his son, that God made he who had no sin to be sin for me, that I might become the righteousness of God.

That God demonstrated his love toward us in that while we were sinners, not after we cleaned it up and were looking right, acting right, smelling right, talking right, but before I even said sorry.

He died for my sin.

And that is a profound experience.

If you've not experienced it, I can't, as I'm explaining it to you, this might just be words, but those who have experienced this, you're feeling it all over again.

So when you're impacted at that level, you're you you you experience it.

That experience now, once I fully feel it and I feel fully embrace it, it's not just for that moment.

In fact, one of the lessons you have to learn early in your faith, and sometimes it takes a while to get there, is I'm still a human being and I still have flesh.

So I'm gonna get outside of the bounds and I'm gonna mess up.

Early on, I was afraid when I messed up to come back to God and say, I'm sorry, because I'm like, ah, but you gave me all that grace that one time.

Until I read John 1 that says God uh is full of grace and truth, and that he gives grace in place of grace already given.

We would sing it like that, his mercies are new every morning.

So once I realized that, I start to shorten the gap between my sin and my repentance.

I used to sin and it would take me a long time to repent.

I'd hide, I'd hide out.

You know what I'm saying?

Any of you ever who have children is Father's Day, so let's think about it.

You you come home and you can tell how good the kids were based on the welcome that you got when you got home.

If you walk in the door and they're like, I guess, you're like, it was a good day.

You walk in, you're like, anybody here?

You know, they're hiding.

They're hiding.

I don't want dad to find me.

Why?

Because man, I got something to answer for.

I used to do that with God until I understood repentance and I understood his grace, and it got me right back in line.

So so now instead of stepping in it and dragging it all through my life, once I step in it, I go and get his grace.

Okay, okay.

So that experience, now we're starting to figure this out because that experience, it I experience it, and then I extend it to other people.

So now how I see my enemy.

See, folks treat people like enemies, and then they get so they're surprised when they do unto others as you would have them do unto you when they treat you like an enemy, and then you act like a victim, but you treated them like an enemy, they treated you like an enemy.

So now it affects how I treat my enemies.

It affects how I think about people I might lust after.

It affects what I do when I lust.

So so I didn't bat a thousand and I fell down, I missed the bar, and instead of letting it extend out, I come back to Jesus, I get to forget, and then now I start to realize no, these this person, this person I'm jealous of, this person where lust is an issue, this person where hate is an issue, this is my enemy.

I'm plotting against them.

Now all of a sudden I start to see that they also are made in the image of God.

They also have been given grace in place of grace.

Jesus says, I cause it to rain and put sun on the just and the unjust.

Okay, look, look, look at this, by the way.

The apostle Paul, when he's writing, ah, I got three minutes.

We gotta go fast.

Okay, he's Paul's writing to Titus.

Titus is his son in the faith.

This is very appropriate.

Father's Day, son in the faith.

He's got Timothy and Titus.

Titus, he sends him to Crete, which is Crete is a um, it's an island off the coast of Greece.

Crete was a beautiful place, great ports, great potential, but it was violent, it was corrupt, it was it was it was a really rough place to be.

And he sends Titus there.

But he sends them with a letter, and and so he's training him how to train them, how how to raise them up.

And so here's what he says in Titus 3, 3 through 8.

He said, Once we too were foolish and disobedient, once we too, so we're I'm remembering what I did and who I was before Jesus found me.

And he said, We were misled and became slaves to many lusts and pleasures.

We know what it's like to dehumanize somebody, we know what it's like, look at this, to hate your enemy.

He says, Our lives were full of evil and envy, jealousy, and we hated each other.

We knew what it was like to hate your enemy, to fall into jealousy or lust.

But look at this, verse 4.

But, and then he just goes into the gospel.

When God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, he saved us because of the uh, not because of the righteous things we have done, but because of his mercy.

He washed away our sins, giving us new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit.

He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ, our Savior.

And because of his grace, he made us right in his sight and gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life.

Eternal life, not even just meaning life after death, but actually life connected to the eternal here on earth.

So, verse 8, look at this.

This is a trustworthy saying, and I want you to insist on these teachings.

If you look at this in different translations, in the NIV, it says, I want you to stress these things.

In the King James, it says, I want you to affirm constantly.

In the uh Amplified, it says, I want you to speak with great confidence.

In other words, I want you to be repetitive about this.

Because the gospel or the salvation of Jesus or the entry of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit entering your life isn't like this one thing that happened back in this year at this moment and then it stopped there.

It's a constant, it's a constant orientation of my mind.

It's a constant experience that I experience.

Even when I sin, I get his grace fresh and new, which then I encounter and extend.

So, how am I going to be able to love an enemy?

Or how am I going to get past my issue of lust?

Or how am I going to stop being jealous of folk and we can keep going?

I would do that by repenting, encountering his love and grace, and then realizing that all of those human beings that fall into those various categories are just as loved by God as I am, are also made in the image of God, also have a plan and purpose, are also sons and daughters of God.

Jesus died for them too.

So when I extend that, when I extend that, now it causes me to see them differently and I'm able to do things I wouldn't do.

Here's my point for the day.

My experience with the gospel is the pull vault, is the pole vault that helps me do things I can't do on my own.

The gospel, my experience with the gospel is the pole vault that helps me do the things I can't do on my own.

So here's here's how I want us to end today.

I want you to take a moment and I want you to encounter and extend.

Encounter and extend.

I want you to start with the encounter.

I think all of us, no matter if you're like, man, yeah, my my flaws are right fresh in my mind, or maybe, maybe not.

Maybe you feel like you're doing really good.

Doesn't matter.

Either way, it brings us back to our humanity, it takes us to the love of God.

Let's let's allow God right now, fresh and new, to bring his grace to you.

In fact, let's do this right now.

Let's pray together.

Lord, we thank you for your love.

Lord, we recognize today that we did not save ourselves.

We thank you that you come full of grace and truth.

Today we recognize that we are made in your image, that we are fully loved.

We are sons and daughters that bring you great joy.

We know, Lord, that you have a purpose and plan.

We're not here by the will of human beings.

We're here because you created us.

And Lord, we thank you that the best part of us is the real us.

And the ugly things that come out are the battle that we learn to battle and manage our flesh.

And when those things erupt, and when they come out, Lord, we come to you, we run to your feet, we run to your mercy.

Not full of shame, Lord, full of confidence, Lord, that you will restore us and you will forgive us.

You'll show us a way out.

You'll give us grace that you're quick to forgive.