Farmers, Saints, and Sinners

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

What would happen if we started to do the things Jesus did while here on earth?

In many ways, I think we would look like this person right here.

This man right here.

This is a picture from the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival, where on August 17th, 1969, the third day of the music festival, Max Jasker, a 49-year-old simple, hardworking dairy farmer, welcomed a crowd of almost a half a million young people to a six-acre farm in Bethel, New York.

And he said these words to them on that third day.

He says, You've proven something to the world.

The important thing is that you've proven to the world is that a half a million kids, and I call you kids because I have children who are older than you are, a half a million young people can get together and have a three, have three days of fun and music, and have nothing but fun and music, and God bless you for it.

Now, if you are familiar with the iconic story of Woodstock and its mark on American history, you'll know that this three-day festival was really only meant to draw 40,000 people.

Yet it hit a nerve of a dividing nation, attracting almost a half a million concertgoers.

And so as the 60s movement was led by a young generation self-described as hippies, this three-day music festival of music and art became their pilgrimage.

In many ways, it was a lifestyle protest representing the strands of a larger countercultural movement that was going on at that time.

Yet somehow, as this music festival was their ultimate and free expression of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, an unassuming champion and protector of this concert was a politically and religiously conservative farmer, husband, and father named Max.

You see, the name Woodstock was actually named after its original location, Woodstock, New York.

It's the historic stomping grounds of famous musicians like the band Van Morrison and Bob Dylan.

But the townspeople of Woodstock, they wanted nothing to do with the crowds, nor did they want anything to do with these hippie, irreligious outcasts of society.

And so the promoters, they moved the festival to Walk Hill, New York.

But it was just down the road, and guys, the same distancing response was given to these people that offended them in their culture.

And so when the promoters were then introduced to Max just a few miles down the road in Bethel, New York, Max had already heard of their mistreatment.

And though he didn't agree with the lifestyle associated with this hippie movement, he was bothered by the injustice they faced and how it was an echo of America's deeper divide.

Max said these words.

He said, if the generation gap is to be closed, we older people have to do more than what we've done.

And so in the midst of both saints and sinners, this farmer did something.

And when the rest of the town said that these outcasts first had to behave or believe in certain ways before they could belong, Max said, No, you belong.

And so with a firm handshake, Max sealed the deal in warmly welcoming the Woodstock Festival to his farm.

And as Max welcomed in the outcast to his farm, we find that the welcoming in of outcasts is really a central storyline to Jesus' life here on earth.

And as we continue just to honor the Jesus-centric focus of our 2023 vision, for when we scan the gospels, these first four books of the New Testament, we discover that Jesus was constantly on the lookout for the sinful castaways of his day.

Not to condemn, but to boldly and graciously demonstrate that they belonged in his coming kingdom.

One of the many examples of Jesus welcoming in the social exile into his inner circle is found in Mark chapter 2, where he adds another very questionable and very flawed individual onto this ragtag team of disciples that he's assembling.

Mark 2 · chapter mention

Mark chapter 2, verse 14, it reads, As he walked along, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax collector's booth.

Mark 2:14

Follow me, Jesus told him.

Levi got up and followed him.

Now, many of you are familiar with this invitation that occurred after several interactions between Jesus and Levi.

And the reason why there's so much controversy around this, because Levi, also known as Matthew, was a traitor to his own Jewish people.

You see, as a tax collector, Levi, he not only worked for the oppressive powers of Rome that occupied their land, but he was also overcharging his own people and pocketing the surplus.

You need to know that throughout the region, tax collectors were universally known as outcasts.

They were excommunicated from the synagogue.

They were disqualified from ever being a witness in court, and they were actually shunned and disgraced by their immediate and extended family.

But to the adulterers, to the bullies, to the criminals, to the dysfunctional, Jesus says, Follow me.

You see, Jesus wasn't going to fit in the mold of the typical religious leader of his day.

And he does not fit into the mold of this 21st century suburban Jesus that we've created that is overly fixated on individual morality and personal safety.

Jesus' disproportionate pursuit of the outsider, it deeply offended the religious of his day, but at the same time, it greatly attracted the crooks, the drunks, and the prostitutes to his side.

These social lepers were drawn to him, and over time they came in droves just to experience what true belonging, genuine friendship felt and looked like.

And so when we return to the story of Woodstock, we find that due to Max's welcoming posture to the untouchables of his day, a similar groundswell was occurring.

During the final days of the festival's preparations, the promoters realized that something big was happening.

That as the opening act was still days away, young men and women were ascending by the thousands to the town of Bethel and onto Max's farm.

Guys, when you are expecting 50,000 concert goers and 400,000 are soon to arrive, it creates a bit of a logistical nightmare.

Worse than trying to find parking at the prune yard, right?

All right, all right.

I'm a local now, I can say these things.

All right.

Yeah.

Therefore, the concert promoter, Michael Lang, one of the main ones, he soon came to the conclusion stating you do everything you can to get the gates and the fences finished, but you have priorities.

People are coming.

And you need to be able to feed them, take care of them, and give them a show.

So you have to prioritize.

So the concert promoters prioritized, and they did the unthinkable.

They put the people over the profit making the difficult decision to tear down the fences and turn Woodstock into a free event.

I would have had an incredibly happy wife and daughter if Taylor Swift would have done this a month ago.

I want you to know that.

So as their love for people won over their fear of losing profit, Max had no idea what he was in for, nor could he have ever predicted that his welcoming invitation for a concert would soon turn into the most pivotal moment in musical and countercultural history.

Church, you hear this.

The older we get, the more we prefer the predictable, the comfortable, and the safe things.

But our God, He loves the element of surprise, contradicting how we think things should go.

Because for John, James, Peter, and Andrew, the current disciples with Jesus at this time, they had to be completely disgusted and unnerved with Jesus' surprise draft pick.

They had no idea that when they woke up that day to follow Jesus, that he would ever ask them to befriend a traitor.

And nor could they have ever predicted that further fences would be turned down, eating in the home of the tax collector with his very friends.

Because this Messiah without home, without bed, follows up his invitation by hosting a party at Levi's house as we continue on reading in verse 15.

It says, while Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors, sinners, were eating with him and his disciples.

For there were many who followed him.

Guys, hear me on this.

The more Christ-centered you become, yes, the less sin you will have, but the more sinners you should have.

See, the word sinner here in the text has less to do with classified sinner of falling short of God's perfection, and it refers more towards those who were social outcasts, the criminals, the cultural untouchables, those who didn't play by the religious rules of his day.

And Jesus loved being with people like this.

It wasn't that he was just tolerating them so he could grace them with his presence, but Jesus actually loved and liked the outsider.

He was eager to hang with them, hear their stories.

He wanted to get to know them and be friends with them.

When you sat with Jesus, you felt true inclusion and genuine belonging.

Awakening, we always want to be a church that moves and transitions us from rows to circles and experience new levels of connection and community like this.

And it's good for us to gather like this, collectively give God our worship, sit under the teaching of His Word, but at the same time, we're very diligent of trying to move us towards deeper relational intimacy and connection.

And we're gonna have groups and studies that are gonna be launching here in just a few weeks under Roland's leadership.

And I really just want to encourage you, prioritize this opportunity.

It drives you deeper into these more intimate spaces that we find right here.

Yeah, I if you're asking me, small groups are weird and they're awkward.

And I'm not a fan of them, but I know I need them.

And every time I go to a small group, I'm kicking and screaming, and every time I leave, I'm like, I'm so thankful I did that.

I'm designed to grow in the context of relationship, even though my inner self wants to fight it.

And the same is true with you.

And so, guys, these newly formed relationships that we can have in just a few weeks, they're gonna grow us, but they also are an example of unity in the midst of diversity to a world so desperate for harmony.

You have to understand when Jesus had dinner with Levi's friends, he was not only just hanging out and enjoying a good meal with one another, but he was also making a profound statement.

For a meal in Jesus' day was the most emphatic way to declare unity with others and a statement to the world that a sense of belonging with Jesus and his followers preceded believing or behaving.

And for Max, he too wanted to create a movement of belonging with a generation that he did not align with when it came to how they believed and behaved.

And though Max had a high value towards personal purity, he wasn't going to allow that to diminish his personal calling to live in proximity with the so-called marginalized or the rebellious.

Yet for many of the neighbors and friends of Max, again, you first had to believe in certain things.

You had to behave in certain ways before you could ever belong.

It's one thing to say that you love the outsider from a distance, it's a whole other thing to bring them into your personal space and say that we are in this together.

So the town pushed back.

They made personal threats to Max.

They boycotted the sales of his milk.

They posted signs everywhere saying, don't buy Jasker's milk.

He loves the hippies.

Here's one of many protest signs shown in the county paper declaring not only to stop buying Max's milk, but it also said stop Max's hippie music festival.

No 150,000 hippies here.

Which it wasn't 150, it was maybe 500,000.

The main reason they didn't want these hippies had less to do with the crowds and more to do with the lifestyle of open sex, free drug use, and alcohol abuse.

Awakening, I have never ever met a person who fell in love with Jesus because someone bashed them over the head about their immoral lifestyle.

Sixteen years I was pastoring at a church in Akron, Ohio.

By state law, I'm to say that that is the home of LeBron James.

And while having several roles there, my first eight years I was a youth pastor.

And I started off as really a hypocritical legalist.

I was able to learn grace from my senior pastor there, and the church was located in the downtown district surrounded by inner-city communities.

However, our attenders primarily came from the outside suburbs.

And so as our church had a vibrant ministry to the needs of the local inner city, like many churches, it was primarily one-dimensional, keeping the needy and the marginalized at arm's length.

And so when our student ministries began to bridge the gap and blend our events and programs with inner city students who were far from God, some of our parents they cried foul.

You see, their noble value of safety had warped itself into unbiblical ideas of comfort, uniformity, and separatism.

I'll never forget one outreach event where a middle school student showed up with a t-shirt and a huge marijuana leaf on it.

Now, this was back in the day when marijuana was illegal, more taboo, not like today where you smell it in every third car driving off the 101.

You know, it's like, oh, okay, alright.

But back then it was, it was it was way more taboo.

And so, in light of this so-called serious infraction, a parent volunteer started to walk over and asked that student to to turn his shirt inside out.

And I just beelined over there and I stopped her.

And I said, we will not do that here.

And then I brought that team together after that event, and I said, We will never tolerate such condemnation degradation to a student again.

That though there may be things that are offensive, we will not become easily offended.

And I essentially told them that, guys, listen, when we see more shirts like this, that is then a true sign of success.

That we're actually reaching the people that Jesus would reach.

Now they had thought that that was the new metric and tried to turn our logo into marijuana leaf to boost numbers and lawsuit with Snoop Dogg.

No, that's that last part.

That last part's untrue.

All right.

It was dumb.

That last part was dumb.

I retract that.

You see, for Jesus guys, dinner with sinners was a success.

And the more, the merrier.

However, the legalistic leaders of Jesus' day, they were masters of shaming, hiding behind their masks of self-justification.

They easily offend these easily offended watchdogs love to play the moral police, catching people doing the wrong thing, especially Jesus, the king of scandal.

And so these local townspeople made up of teachers and Pharisees, they react in verse 16 as we read here.

When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?

Jesus was constantly experiencing guilt by association, accused of being a drunk and a glutton and a cheat due to the people he hung out with.

Today we have people who actually, we, in my opinion, read way too much into a like on social media, to a bake cake for a questionable wedding or the holding of a bud light can.

And like the Pharisees of old, we can ignorantly begin to see that any act of kindness, solidarity, or even public service to an immoral or questionable person is also an endorsement of that person's ethics and actions and ideals.

We draw those lines.

We connect those dots when we shouldn't.

Years ago, when I was working with an inner city ministry in Philadelphia, my church team, we were assigned a work project with an apartment building occupied by a couple that this inner city ministry was building a relationship with.

This couple had a small child and they were in desperate need of any kind of financial hope, communal hope, spiritual hope.

However, a month-long rapport that this ministry was building with this couple was destroyed within seconds when one of our team members they angrily left only minutes after arriving, shouting that she refused to serve a house of unmarried sinners living together.

You see, Jesus was willing to be misunderstood and walked out on for the sake of love and belonging because anytime you create a culture of inclusion, it comes with confusion and especially questioning from the outside world, but especially irritating those that want their God and their faith in a clean and tidy box.

And Christ wasn't going to cater to the interrogation of these leaders who were more concerned with his unrighteous company than their own self-righteous hearts.

Even for Max, he was not only accused of being a lover of hippies, which he was actually fine with, but he was also seen as someone who approved of their ideology, such as sex without boundaries, illegal drug use.

Max faced signs of boycott as well as rumors and gossip of ethical compromise from a small town.

However, the truth was that Max's ethical guardrails didn't align with reckless sex.

He didn't align with illegal drug use.

And as there were a wide variety of drugs used during the festival, the drug of choice was LSD.

And the use of acid on Max's farm, it horrified him.

At night he would pace through his house just wondering if he made a terrible mistake.

Now, Church, I do feel like I need to make a public service announcement here.

There are times when Jesus' pursuit of inclusion and belonging elevated the threat level with actual tangible harm and danger.

However, from what I can see, I don't think he was reckless to the point of putting the vulnerable, the vulnerable around him in danger.

And we just have to recognize we have varied convictions and guidelines on these matters.

We recognize we need wisdom with each invitational opportunity.

I believe some victims shouldn't welcome in their former abusers.

Some addicts shouldn't enter into some certain environments.

And families with young children, you need to establish some guardrails.

When I was in a long-standing friendship with a homeless, paranoid schizophrenic that had a history of armed violence, I really felt like I needed to keep that friendship and relationship outside of my family for their own safety.

However, when our family became decade-long friends with an active drug addict and a former felon who was regularly in our home for meals and family celebrations, we still had to have some guardrails.

Our kids knew, hey, you're not to be alone with this person.

You're never to be alone with this person in the car, they're never to be driving you anywhere.

Balancing truth and love, it can be complex.

It can be a gut-wrenching process.

And when you create a wide on-ramp of loving inclusion that eventually leads to the narrow, exclusive path of Jesus' truth, there's a constant temptation to want to jump ahead and get to that narrow path of critique and instruction.

But when you see the constant pattern outlined by Jesus, he was always starting with a relational platform of belonging before he ever offered a loving challenge to believe or a humble critique to behave.

And when we reverse the sequence, leading with behaving and believing, we immediately create a posture of shame for those seeking a community to journey towards Christ-centeredness with.

And so these people they start to feel like they're too messy, too far from God.

They begin to accept the lies of both their inner and outer voice, and they change their very identity.

And what we find here in Woodstock's the young people who attended Woodstock, guys, they heard America devaluing them for so long that it became their identity, and so they proudly just took on the shameful badge of hippie and freak.

Awakening the formula for shame is continually realizing you don't live up to the standards of the community and then reinforcing it through the continuous actions of condemnation.

Over time you begin to believe that you're worthless and you reject your very self.

However, despite the large segment of protesters in Bethel, New York, there were others that refused to allow these hippies to be self identified as freaks.

When some locals, many of them Christ followers, heard of this festival that was unable to feed the unexpected number of so called outcasts, they actually began to immediately raid their pantries and refrigerators, airlifting continuous supply of food onto concert grounds.

Chicken farmers depleted their egg supplies.

They hard-boiled them.

They sent hundreds of thousands to the festival.

One local woman who was handing out homemade sandwiches to concertgoers was interviewed by a TV news reporter asking why she was enabling these hippies to overrun her town.

And the woman replied with these words right here: We do as the Bible tells us, we welcome strangers.

We don't say get out.

It's not our communities.

They're hungry, so we feed them.

You see, despite what culture was saying about this young generation, several families were able to rise above the cultural rules, rise above the product protests that were played out in media, and they were able to truly see and love the individual casualties in front of them.

They were able to see the image of God.

For Max, he too was determined to counter the cultural of this current of shame.

And for the marginalized generation to experience affirmation and loving support, for them to hear the words, I am for you.

I am with you.

We are in this together.

Even at one town meeting seeking to change the zoning laws to stop the festival, Max patiently listened to all their complaints, and then he stood up and he said these words.

I hear you're considering changing the zoning law to prevent the festival.

I hear you don't like the look of these kids who are working at the site.

I hear you don't like their lifestyle.

I hear you don't like they're against the war and that they say it very loudly.

I don't particularly like the looks of them, these kids either.

I don't particularly like their lifestyle, especially the drugs and free love.

And I don't like what some of them are saying about our government.

Mr.

Farmer went on from there, and then he concluded concluded his rebuttal with a little good old-fashioned uh righteous anger.

And he concluded saying this the only, so the only objective to this fest objection to this festival here is to keep long hairs out of town where you can go pound salt up here, fill in the blank, because come August 15th, we're gonna have a festival.

That's actually the only fill in the blank I put in the teaching notes, and I think that's funny.

Alright.

I can just be a little kid sometimes, and I was like, well, at least I'll be chuckling about that tonight.

All right.

So in the midst of opposition as to why Jesus can't, uh excuse me, and in the midst of Jesus' opposition as to why he eats with tax collectors and sinners, there's actually a firm response to the smug that Jesus gives.

Very similar to Max, a little bit more tact, but Jesus ends with these words at the party.

He says this in verse 17.

On hearing this, Jesus said to them, Is it not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick?

It is not the healthy that need a doctor, but the sick.

I have come to call the righteous.

I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

It's up there, you can read it.

I obviously can't.

Now I'm a New Jersey native, and I love Jesus' response here because he uses one of my state's greatest exports.

Sarcasm.

You see, Jesus is very subtly using some righteous sarcasm here.

He's essentially saying, Yeah, I'm not here for you so-called perfect people, but I'm here for these people.

People who actually realize they need help in being made whole again.

And similar to what Max was saying at that town hall meeting, Jesus is saying, you know what?

I'm with them.

And there are those in our community, the homeless, the addicts, the sexual minorities, the prostitutes, the undocumented, the list goes on that are desperately seeking to hear these words from us.

No matter who they are, what they've done, how they may differ and how they bel in what they believe from you, they are yearning for us to say we are with you.

Come sit at the table and we will journey with you.

And so when you start with belonging before, believing, and behaving, when you follow the biblical pattern of love and grace to come before truth and ethics, it always comes with a price.

For Jesus, leading with love and compassion, it eventually took his life.

For Max, it took his friends, his finances, and even his farm, as seen here during the last act of the festival.

Loving like Jesus, guys, is messy.

This was a little more tolerable because Hendricks was playing at this time, but still.

The aftermath of Woodstock on Max's farm, it was devastating.

Not only was his land trash, but the neighboring farm sued him$35,000 for damages on their property.

Another 80 lawsuits were then filed by farmers to the concert promoters, but this dairy farmer knew that you don't produce a profit without painful committed investment.

For Max, the greatest profit and reward for his investment was to see many rescued from the damaging abuse of drugs.

Because after he built a relational rapport and respect with concert goers, he used his new public platform to become a vocal crusader against drug abuse.

And as the result of Max leading with love before a humble challenge in ethics, hundreds of letters poured in from festivalgoers thanking him for his hospitality while informing him that they had quit drugs due to his loving challenge.

You see, Max masterfully walked the line between blind acceptance and ruthless honesty.

And that he would patiently reveal truth once a relationship had been built.

He had these drug users on his land and in his home and around his dinner table showing them acceptance and respect.

And then he was able to provide himself the right to be heard about his own personal truth and ethic.

Creating a community of belonging doesn't mean you have to personally abandon your core beliefs or an ethical behavior that is unpopular with the majority, because we know there is always going to be foundations of our faith that are countercultural.

Because we have broken hearts and we want to continually adjust God-ordained boundaries.

But we have to realize similar to a river with banks that provides life and flourishing, a river without banks leads to destruction.

True freedom can only exist within boundaries.

And Max knew his boundaries about addiction and drug use were important, but he couldn't address them until a relational friendship had been built.

And as Max had a personal impact with addicts, there was also a national impact for his courageous act of loving and belonging, because again, the festival that took place on his farm became the most iconic touchstone of the changing 60s culture, altering really the very fabric of rock and roll and pop culture forever.

And despite the mess and personal loss for Max, it was a victory.

A victory to show the world that these generations who are different can come together, that a half a million so-called hippies and unruly freaks could gather in peace and love and turn their identity in the history books from the hippie generation to the Woodstock generation.

Because of one man saying yes to belonging before believing and behaving, awakening, this is what was created.

I want you to see that picture.

No one could have ever predicted that a farmer's invitation would create such a sea of people.

Guys, this is exactly what Jesus was predicting with this invitation in Mark II.

You see, this meal with sinners, this first supper, was a foreshadowing of the sacred last supper that would then lead to Jesus on the cross tearing down the fences of our sin penalty, allowing anyone to belong to this great heavenly banquet of saints and sinners and farmers that awaits.

So when the friends of Levi, they sat back in their chairs, and it was after some wine and good food and laughter, they looked at each other, and I have to imagine they just said, guys, wow, we were sinners.

The Christ dined with us.

And years later, overtaken with the scandalous grace of this scandalous Savior, Paul, a former terrorist that was then turned apostle, he penned these words in Romans 5.8, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, awakening.

May we never forget that we are all spiritual outcasts who did not believe, who did not behave the right way, yet Christ first made a way for us to belong.

And so awakening is God is expanding our church family to allow more people to belong.

Where in our hearts is he asking us to expand?

Are you able to have a meaningful friendship with those that don't believe or behave like you?

And my question for you is this the seat, the empty seat near you, can anyone, anyone truly sit in that seat?

A QAnon fanatic?

A racist?

A drag queen?

A felon?

Or do you have your limits?

The only way that you can fill that chair next to you with truly anyone is to first start with the two chairs in your home.

Here's the two quick challenges.

First, the chair in your home.

Where you have that regular engagement with God's scripture and prayer.

And for some of you, you have this discipline of reading God's word in the morning, like our Pastor Ryan.

Others, it's the last thing you do before your head hits the pillow.

Whenever that private time with God is, I'm just challenging you to wrestle with God.

Ask Him to just bring forth any unforeseen fences demanding believing and behaving before anyone can belong in your life.

To consider just going through the next few weeks, going through the gospels and asking God to allow you to see Jesus in a new way and how he operated with his heart and hands throughout this world.

Second is the chair around your table.

When was a chair around your dinner table filled with a person that made you and your family feel a little out of your comfort zone, a little uncomfortable?

I'm not talking about your teenager.

Maybe it's a person of another faith or ethnicity, a sexual minority, someone of a different economic status, or one that just sits on the other side of the political aisle as you.

Sometimes it starts by just asking a typical stranger to come over for a meal, which you could do today with somebody in this room.

Awakening when we work with God in those two chairs, you'll be amazed of how easy it is to fill that chair next to you with truly anyone.

When Jesus left this earth, Luke tells us he was known as a friend of sinners.

When Max left this earth, he was only one of a handful of non-musicians to receive a full-page obituary in Rolling Stone magazine.

When you leave this earth, how would the moral failures, the marginalized, the untouchables of our society respond?

Will they give you tribute?

Will they say, That was my friend?

A divine legacy like this begins with a humble posture and a loving invitation to belong.

I would love for us just to end by just going to God in prayer, asking that he would bring to completion such a legacy in our own lives, in our own homes, and also in this church as well.

So let's go to him now in prayer.

And so, God, we just want to thank you that while we were still sinners, you sent your son to die for our sin penalty.

We didn't believe anything.

We didn't behave the right way, yet you've made a way to belong.

And so, as a people transformed by this incredible act of belonging, may we too tangibly reflect this message to a world around us.

God, thank you for the many in this room who lead the way in unconditional love.

I see their faces as I look out.

They lead the way in unmerited favor.

And just give us the strength and power to follow their example.

God, thank you for our connections team.

Just the way they welcome us with unconditional love every Sunday, and just what that means to all of us.

God, we ask that you would just remove the barriers in our hearts and prevent us from pouring out endless mercy and grace to the broken, shamed, and shunned of our community.

And for some of this room, God, may they surrender their lives to you for the first time.

Maybe something just clicked, but that they would embrace your loving act on the cross, now trusting in you as your as their one true rescuer and leader.

For others, may there be a re-surrendering during our personal chair time this week as we read your word, and that you would just tear down any fences preventing us from living out a life and your mission to the fullest.

And may it then lead to filling a chair around our dinner table, and even a chair within this room of those that you've called us to reach.

God, we do pray for our lead pastor, Ryan.

You bring him back refreshed.

We're thankful for this time he's had, and may you use him in a powerful way to stir our hearts and actions in reaching those that are far from you.

And so we ask all of this in the name of the one we belong, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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