The Graciousness Of God

Thank you, Sean and Zachary and Christopher.

Appreciate it very much.

If you're a student, you're dismissed.

If you're not a student, come have a seat.

Let me real quickly make an announcement.

Okay.

Saturday, June the 3rd, which I guess is in two Saturdays, give or take.

The C3 Children's Ministry will be beginning their children's summer kickoff with their first summer event.

And it's for all children.

It's from 1 to 3 on Saturday, June the 3rd.

And it's at the Greenfield Arena.

That's a soccer place in Midtown.

And there'll be games and activities, and it'll be a great time for your kids.

And so I hope that you will bring your kids and let them participate.

I think it'll be a lot of fun.

Okay, thanks to the children's ministry for providing such a wonderful event.

Let me turn this off so it's done now.

Amen.

Welcome to Christ Community Church.

I'm very glad you're here.

I uh trust that God's got a word for us today.

I've been nervous as a cat preparing this because I've never in 43 years of being a pastor, I've taught on grace as a topic or as a subtopic.

I don't know.

Hundreds and hundreds of times.

But I confess to you that I've never done a biblical study of the word grace.

I've just gone to a specific passage and studied that passage, focused on that passage, taught that passage, and I've never done a Bible study on what the Word of God as a unit says about grace until this past week or two weeks.

And uh I got a it was earth shattering for me.

It really was.

It was it was life shattering.

That's a word it made me as uncomfortable as I've been in a long time.

And for those of you that are relatively new in your faith in Christ and your decision to follow Jesus, you're just gonna love this.

You're gonna go, oh wow, that's great.

For those of you that have grown up in church, it's gonna make you very uncomfortable.

And you're gonna balk if you're and uh um probably maybe even disagree a little bit, and because it goes against what you grew up with.

And so all I ask you to do is to listen, and at the end of it, go home, take your own Bible, do your own study, and at the end of it, if you come up going, that's what Larry said is wrong, let me know.

And if you go home and you do your own study and you go, dead gum it, Larry, what he said was right.

Send me a text and say, Good job.

How about that?

Um uh let me pray for us, Lord God.

The person in the Bible that rejected and balked and rebelled against the biblical idea of grace the most was the one that knew the Bible the best, the Apostle Paul.

He could not get it, he could not embrace it, he could not believe in it until he had an encounter with you on the road to Damascus.

And then being an idea that he opposed, it became the idea that drove his life.

I don't know what happened to Paul on the road to Damascus, but I ask you to let us have a similar encounter today.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

My bride's not here today, she's actually in bed, uh, sick.

She's never sick, never.

And uh um she got sick this weekend, and she's not feeling good, and so she's in the bed.

So anyway, she's sad that she couldn't be here.

Um we're in a study, a multi-week study, looking at two verses of scripture in the book of Exodus, Exodus 34, 6 and 7.

And it I'll read it to you again.

It says, Yahweh, Yahweh, a God of compassion and graciousness, slow to anger, and abounding in covenant love and faithfulness.

Let me read it one more time.

This is God speaking to Moses, but he's actually speaking to his people through Moses, but Yahweh speaking himself.

And he speaks to Moses up on the side of Mount Sinai in a storm, and um he's uh speaking to Moses, and he says, Yahweh, Yahweh, a God of compassion and graciousness, slow to anger and abounding in covenant love and faithfulness.

And over the last few weeks I've tried to convince you that this is the very first time in the Bible that God reveals himself, reveals his character to us, to his people.

And he does it himself.

And he, in these verses, he describes the fundamental core qualities that define who he is, the things that drive him, the things that drive how he relates to us.

And he starts with these five.

The writers of the Bible, after Moses wrote this down in Exodus 34, thought that these five things were so important that they re-quoted them in the rest of the Old Testament and the New Testament more times than anything else in Scripture.

Over 30 times.

That's very significant.

That these five things, the writers of the Bible go, dead gummit.

Those five things are a big deal.

They open our eyes to who God is in a way that nothing else does.

And what theologians would say that means is that those five qualities are the foundation of God's identity, and every other quality of God flows out of those five, is what they would say.

Okay?

I also told y'all, or yeah, I taught y'all, that um the understanding that God said these five things to his people at a moment where they had just rebelled against him.

God and Israel had just gotten married, and within days they commit adultery, they tell God, we don't want you, we're rebelling against you, we're rejecting you, and God is hurt.

He's angry.

And yet, in that pain and in that anger, what God chooses to say, his response to the terrible failure of his people, of his new bride, what he responds with is, I am a God of compassion.

I am a God of graciousness.

I am slow to anger.

I am a God that is abundant in covenant love, and I am a God of faithfulness.

It's very important that we see when God said these things.

Last week we talked about the first quality that God lists, which is very significant, that it's the first, and that is that he's a God of compassion.

And I also thought that it was very significant that that word compassion is literally the Hebrew word for a mother's womb.

Her core, the part of her through which life is created.

And the message that God wants us to hear from understanding that that's his first quality and that it's the word for womb, is that God feels about us.

When he says, I am a God of compassion, what he's saying is, Adam, I feel about you.

It's a feeling word, it's an emotional word.

Okay?

Like a mother, like a mom of a newborn.

And what he's saying is, Adam, I feel about you like a mom feels about the baby that is nursing at her breast.

That's the way I feel about you.

It's a very emotional word.

And it says that God longs to show us compassion and that he will show us compassion every time we ask for it.

Today we're gonna talk about the second quality, and that is that God, Yahweh, is a God of graciousness.

He describes himself as a God of graciousness.

Now, my bride was gonna get into all these literary examples, and I was gonna ask her when you think of grace or graceful or graciousness, what words come to your mind?

And she and I talked about all these different ideas, and she was gonna share all this.

Well, she obviously she's not gonna do that.

But I would ask you, real quickly, just when you hear the word grace, not necessarily in a religious context, that's part of the problem, is that we have made grace an idea that stays in the church house.

But in reality, that's that's a that's a small thought process.

Um when you think of the word graceful, gracious, graciousness, I wrote down ideas like um nimble or um, you know, like a ballerina.

I don't know what the right word for that is, but whatever a, you know, like a ballerina or a dancer or uh, you know, somebody that would be graceful and the movement of that.

The Bible uses it that way.

Um the Bible describes a deer running through the woods as an animal that is graceful.

Um it also can be used, and we use it this way in English, um, hospitable or courteous or kind.

We use it to just in a way that what we're saying is that somebody is generous or somebody is kind or nice, they're a gracious person.

And all of those, uh even the word good, we would say they're a gracious person, and we're we're sort of communicating this idea that they're a good person.

Um in the Hebrew Old Testament, when it was written, the word grace always was connected to the eyes.

Compassion is connected with a woman's womb, her core, how she feels, and how God feels about us.

The word grace has to do with the eyes, it's how something is seen or viewed, and it's always connected with viewing something as favorable or as good or as lovely, or the main word that is used is the word delightful.

If I view you with delight, I see you as delightful.

I'm seeing you with a with a view of grace.

In fact, what we know if you if you've got a if you study your Bible, the Bible says this all the time.

Somebody will go up to the king or the general or the landowner, and he'll say, They need help.

And what they'll say is, may I find grace in your eyes.

Or it'll say, He found grace or she found grace in that person's eyes.

It's connected with how we see things.

And not only how I see, I see you with delight, but I respond accordingly.

Because I see you as delightful, I treat you that way.

I treat you well because you've impacted me well.

How I see you drives how I treat you.

It's a very interesting word.

Um, compassion has to do with how I feel about something.

Grace has to do with how I see something, how I view something.

Most often it's it's related to this idea that I view you as valuable, I view you as delightful.

It's a very, it's used in the in the Old Testament alone, the word grace or favor in your Bibles.

If your Bible translates this idea as favor or as grace, same exact word.

Same exact word.

Okay.

Favor, I found favor in your eyes, I found grace in your eyes.

Same, same exact word in there that you can translate it either way.

Um it's a very deep, rich, multi-layered word full of many, many different nuances of meaning.

Um it is it's very often it'll be connected with compassion.

Grace and compassion.

I think 50 some odd times, the the these two words compassionate and graceful, grace and compassion, that those two words are written together, connected in the Old Testament a lot.

It's used in the Old Testament almost 200 times.

Compassion was used right at a fact, not right at it, a hundred times.

It was a hundred times.

Grace is used almost 200 times.

Two-thirds of those times, two-thirds of the time, when the word grace is used or favor, it's talking about how God sees and relates to us.

Okay, just so you know.

It's also the word grace is often associated with beauty.

When the Bible talks about grace, it very often will give us images that communicate that grace is beautiful.

We understand that.

If we see somebody that is graceful or full of grace and how they live, we find that person attractive.

We find that person beautiful.

The Bible describes a deer running through the forest, the movement of that animal as beautiful.

It is a grace, it is a deer of grace, and its movement is beautiful.

Describes it as a necklace that a woman would put on.

And it's the first thing you see when you walk up to this lady, the first thing you see is this grace, uh, this necklace of grace.

That says a lot.

First thing you pick up on when you are around somebody for just a few seconds, if they're a person of grace, they notice that you feel that, you see that, you receive that it impacts you.

Um the Bible talks about lips of grace.

People that we find people beautiful that speak graceful words versus harsh words, scornful words, mean words, condescending words, foolish words.

We find people that speak gracious words, we find those people beautiful.

And then finally, one of the Bible's favorite images to associate it with grace is a crown.

A crown of grace.

But just that people who live, people who live lives of grace, they are people that ultimately have the greatest impact upon others versus bullies, arrogant, authoritarian, mean, bossy, harsh, name-calling, ugly, those people make a big splash, but very quickly the water levels out.

People that are that live their lives graciously.

They're like a king that is like what's the last lady that ruled England, Queen Elizabeth?

I mean, I didn't know her from Adam's house, cat, okay?

But she reigned forever.

I mean, like 60 years or 70 years, I mean forever.

Think about the impact that she had really on the world.

Her re to reign, that's the image that the Bible is, when the Bible says that grace is like a crown.

Grace is more powerful than being a bully.

Words of grace are more powerful than name calling, yelling, scorning, all that kind of stuff.

That person makes a big splash, but he goes away.

Where is that guy?

I don't know.

He was here for a minute.

There's a lot there.

I'll leave that alone.

There is no English word that is the equivalent to grace.

The Hebrew word.

It takes lots of words in English to communicate what the Hebrew people would speak when they use the word favor or grace.

And let me just real quickly, therefore, grace is much easier to see than it is to define.

It's a very hard word in Hebrew to define, but it's very easy to see it.

So let me give you some of the visuals, okay?

Grace is actually used, and I did not know this until I started studying.

It's crazy what you learn when you study.

Isn't that amazing?

Um, grace is used predominantly, not exclusively, but predominantly in four ways, just sheer number number of times.

The way that grace is used, or favor is used most often in the Old Testament.

It's used in not just the Old Testament, in the Bible, in four ways.

First way is this grace or favor, it is what I show.

When I view you with delight, I view you as having value.

And we'll get to the last one I'm going to tell you just up front.

In English, the word grace for us means I give you favor when I don't see any.

That's only one form of grace.

And it's not even the most used form.

Most used form of grace in the Bible is where I do, you do possess value.

You do possess beauty.

Beauty, intelligence, skill, but you have worth, value, and I see it.

And when I see it, it makes me happy.

The Bible says that in Genesis 3, uh, 6, God looked upon mankind.

Everybody down here was a rat.

But then he looked at Noah.

And Noah found favor or grace.

Why?

Then the very next verse.

Because Noah was a righteous man.

Oh no, no, no, no, no, no.

That can't be right.

But that's what it says.

Noah found favor or grace in the eyes of the Lord.

Why?

Because God saw that he lived his life intentionally trying to live the right way, to treat people the right way.

Does that make sense?

The Bible says that Potiphar gave grace or favor to Joseph, because as he watched Joseph, he was a young man of skill.

What it says, he was handsome, but also he was a young man of great skill.

And as he watched Joseph work, it made him delighted.

Joseph filled Potiphar with delight because Potiphar saw that he worked well, to the point that at some point Potiphar said, Dead gummit, I'm gonna go home and want some soaps.

I don't have to do anything else.

I just let Joseph take care of everything.

So it's favor that is given because value has been seen.

That makes sense.

Very important that we see that.

Favor shown from value or delight that has been seen.

The Bible says that about Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Rahab, Ruth.

Remember Boaz?

Boaz is in his field, or he comes up to his field to check on everything, and he looks out and he goes, Who is that lady right there?

Now, it didn't hurt that she was drop dead gorgeous, okay?

But what it's and the answer is, oh, that's the young lady that left her family and land and came back with her mother-in-law and has spent her life serving her mother-in-law.

And the Bible says that Boaz gave favor or grace to Ruth.

It wasn't just that Ruth was standing there, some bumpkin, ugly, lazy, sitting around eating peanuts, and Boaz walked by and said, Here's a thousand dollars.

That's almost what we think grace is.

That is not what the Bible teaches.

Okay?

So Rahab, Ruth, Abigail, Esther, the king gave, Esther found favor in the eyes of the king of Persia because she was beautiful and because she was very, what the word is, is intelligent.

And the king saw it, it filled him with delight, and he gave her favor.

And crazy that I didn't know this.

It's crazy.

Second way it's shown.

Favor or delight that is shown because of association.

I see you, Fatty, and I see I view you with delight or with favor, but it's not because you have any.

You are a bumpkin.

You're sitting there eating peanuts.

But because I favor or delight in Rita, and y'all are married because of the association, I favor you, I delight in you because you are in relationship with someone that I do delight in.

Does that make sense?

Every one of us, our minds are going to people that if left of themselves, they're fine.

But we delight in them.

We enjoy them.

We like them.

We see them as good, but it's not because they're that sharp, but they're related to somebody that we find very sharp.

There's a friend of mine, one of my best friends.

I love her like, I mean, I love her.

And she has shown me immeasurable kindness, favor, blessing.

Good friend to Brenda's.

You know why?

Who I'm married to.

It's the truth.

I get a tech or a phone call one day from this lady, and she goes, this is many, many years ago, and she goes, uh, hey, I'd like to take you to lunch.

I said, Well, who are you?

She told me your name.

I'd like to meet you at a restaurant.

It's where SOB is now.

Uh it was something else, interim, I think, at the time.

And uh, I didn't know what I'd never heard of this lady.

That didn't know what you looked like.

She and she said she described herself and she said, I'm gonna be in the restaurant.

Come tomorrow at this time.

And I said, Okay.

That night I said, Shirley, you know this lady?

She goes, Oh yeah, I know her well.

And um uh she said, she wants to have lunch with me tomorrow.

And she said, She does?

Why?

I said, I don't know.

So I went the next day, she was sitting there, and we had lunch, and at the end of the lunch, she did something for me that I I can't describe to you.

I'm embarrassed to even, oh, and I'm not gonna say it, but she did something incredible for me.

Life-changing.

I mean life-changing, direction changing.

And uh I got up and I was getting in the car and I started asking, you know, why in the world would you do that?

You know why?

Because she finds my, she views, not me, she never seen me before.

But because she viewed my wife with delight, she saw me with delight.

Does that do you see what I'm saying there?

And the Bible's filled with examples.

Um Jacob, Jacob's sons, Joseph gave his brothers favor because they were all fine, godly, wise, God-loving, uh, honest people.

Not a one.

Rats, everyone.

But when Joseph saw his brothers, he showed them favor because of his dad.

Because of his dad.

Mephiboshev.

David says, My best friend got any kids?

Yeah, he's got it.

We got one, we've got one kid.

Bring him in.

Everybody in the whole country said, Oh, that dude's dead.

Dead, dead, dead.

And he knew it too.

Mephiboshef comes in.

David says, Are you the son of my best friend Jonathan?

He goes, Yeah.

Everybody's sitting there going, oh Lord, what's next?

And what happened next is David said, Mephiboshef, I adopt you as my son.

You're now gonna live in the palace, and I'm gonna, you what, where my kids eat, what my kids wear, where my kids live, how I treat all my other kids, that's why I'm gonna treat you too.

I see you as one of my kids.

I'm giving you grace, I'm giving you favor.

Was he a sharp, young, strapping warrior that was gonna be a big addition to the army of David?

No, he was a crippled man, he couldn't even walk.

But because he was the son of David's best friend, when I see you, Mohiboshev, I see Jonathan.

And therefore I find I see you with delight, and I'm gonna treat you accordingly.

Esther and the Jews living in Persia, the Bible says that the Jews were spared and found favor with the king because they were all wonderful people.

No, because the king saw Esther with delight.

Because of Esther, all of Israel that was in captivity was spared.

Number three, grace is shown, favor is shown, not because there's anything, I see nothing.

I see nothing good.

There is nothing to delight in, nothing to value.

But there's something in me that says, if I show grace to you while you have nothing, maybe that'll blossom into something.

So I show favor, I show grace, not because I see anything to delight in, but because there's something in me that tells me if I show grace to you while you have nothing to offer, maybe that'll become something wonderful down the road.

I've got another good friend.

I consider him one of my dearest friends, Jerry Balden.

Jerry Balden has a ministry that he helps lead, and he goes into some needy areas of Memphis, and he finds young men who have nothing to offer.

They bring nothing to the table.

They have no money, no education, no skills, no big name reputation.

They have nothing.

And Jerry shows them huge favor.

Why?

Because there's something in Jerry that has convinced him if I show favor to you while you're nothing, maybe, just maybe, that nothing, with when it's mixed with grace, becomes something awesome, great, life-changing, world-changing.

And that's what he does.

That's a very well used example of grace in the Bible.

We see it with how David treated Saul, how uh Hosea treated Gomer, how Jesus treated everybody.

If you want to know, well, I don't want to know how that works.

Just how did Jesus treat?

Jesus go around and said, Hey, I need a little money.

Hey, I need a little influence.

Hey, I need a little help.

No, no, Jesus never asked anybody for Jack.

He didn't need anything.

He gave grace where there was nothing to see valuable or beautiful to demon-possessed people and cripples and prostitutes and crooks and murderers and mean people.

But he did it because he realized if I show some grace where there's none, there's nothing to delight and nothing to value.

But if I show grace, maybe that nothing mixed with some grace will become something glorious.

Last example of grace.

And this is the grace that you and I pretty much think all grace is.

And that is that I see you as something that I want to bless, I want to show favor to, I want to show delight in, but to do so is going to cost me great sacrifice.

That is a strictly New Testament idea of grace.

There is no example of literature in the history of humanity before the life of Jesus.

Really before 100 A.D.

Now you see it in all kinds of literature, but before 100 AD, there were no examples of that kind of grace.

No king, no general, no leader, no wealthy person, no landowner would see someone and want to show them favor, either because they saw it or they didn't see it or they hoped it would be there, or it was because of association.

Nobody that had means or power or position would ever show grace if it cost them everything.

They always showed it out of their abundance.

I've got a bunch of power, influence, wealth, whatever, and I'm gonna give you some of it.

But the last example of grace is where somebody would see you and go, I delight in you.

I want to show you favor.

You fill me with delight, and I want to respond by giving you grace.

But to do so, I've got to give you everything.

It will cost me greatly.

The only example, well, no, the example I'm just for time, the example that immediately came to my mind, other than the best example, was the uh uh the uh good Samaritan.

Now that Good Samaritan dude could have been rich, but he probably wasn't.

He probably was just a regular low-income worker man who was traveling on business trying to make a living, and he sees a person beat up and near death, and this man risked his safety to go help him.

He he sacrificed his safety, and then he took him to an inn and probably gave him all the money he had and said, Please take care of him, Mr.

Innkeeper, and I'm coming back through here, and if if you if it costs more, I'll give you more.

It's probable he was gonna have to go make some new money to be able to go back and pay the innkeeper some more money.

It was sacrificial for him to show favor.

Okay, and I could give you other examples, but you you you see the point.

So here's my question.

Which one of those kinds of grace does God show us?

Don't be a knucklehead and speak too quickly.

Think.

Which of those four?

I see value, worth, beauty, and it fills me with delight, and I want to show favor in response.

I see somebody hasn't got much going on, but you're in relationship with somebody that I adore.

And because you are, I see them when I look at you.

And that motivates me to want to give you favor.

I see somebody that ain't got much going on.

Best day, they're a knucklehead.

But I have in me this just this hope that if I show you grace, I show you favor, I show you blessing, that that will become something magical and glorious and abundant and life-changing?

Or is it that I want to bless you?

I wanna, I wanna, I just wanna favor you and bless you and delight in you, and the only way to do it is I have to sacrifice everything that's of real value.

Which one of those kinds of grace does God show us?

Bible scholars?

Anyone in here that's a Bible scholar?

Which one of those?

Debbie?

Okay, you say I got you.

You think it's number four?

Does anybody have a different idea?

Thank you.

Every one of them.

When God sees me as his image bearer, as his intimate personal creation.

He delights in me.

Whether I'm a whatever I am, whatever I am, when God sees me just as a child of Adam, that he created in his image, and that reflects who he is.

He finds delight in that.

When he sees me, and I'm clothed in the righteousness of Christ, he finds delight in that he sees his son in me.

He finds delight in looking at my life and not just seeing what I am, screwed up and broken and messed up and dropping balls and messing stuff up, but he sees what I can be and what I will be, and it fills him with delight.

And yes, the most glorious, the most wonderful, the most, yeah, I don't know what to say, is number four.

God said, I want to show them delight.

I want to show them favor, but I don't want to just show them a little manna or a little water out of a rock or uh uh uh growing some crops or uh I don't want to I I don't want to just show them turning some water into wine or calming a storm or uh helping them live a few extra days or months or years by healing their sicknesses.

Oh, that's good stuff.

Yay! But I want to give them some favor that'll last for eternity.

That'll change the trajectory of their life.

I want to give them some favor that when they stand in the face of their greatest enemy death, it's no longer an enemy, it's just a doorway.

How am I gonna accomplish that?

What's gonna, what's that gonna cost?

Your son.

You're gonna have to call it your son.

He's gonna have to die on the cross, and if he dies on the cross, that death will provide the means through which humanity can experience God's favor, not just temporarily or on a B-teamed level, second class level, but forever first class.

Oh, crud.

Okay.

Last thing I'll say is this.

We're gonna end.

We'll maybe we'll do this another time.

Um go home.

Go home.

In this summer, do something wild and crazy.

Read through your Bible.

And when you see the word grace and you see the word favor, look at the context, look at the story, look at the personalities, look at the images.

And discover what the Bible says about grace.

We come up with these goofy little Christ righteousness at Christ's expense, and we think that's it.

That's true, but that's there's so much.

There's so much.

Grace, the people of the old of the New Testament, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Jews, they did not balk when the early church taught about compassion.

They did not balk when they talked about forgiving your enemies.

They didn't talk, they didn't know nobody balked at most of the things that Jesus taught or that the early church taught.

But what Paul says, the Jews, what does it say?

The Jews says, Paul says, we preach Christ and that he was crucified, and it is an offense to the Jews.

He's talking about grace, it's an offense to the Jews, and it's foolishness to the Gentiles.

What made grace scandalous?

What made grace a problem for the rest of the world when the early church declared it, was that God offered it to everyone.

Red and yellow, black and white, male and female, smart and dumb, rich and poor, high class, low class.

God offers his grace to everyone.

And he offers it according to the verses that Robin read as a free gift.

You have been saved by grace through faith.

But don't forget that Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 6, do not receive God's grace in vain.

2 Corinthians 6 · chapter mention

By definition, grace given expects grace returned.

Blessing given, it's understood, it's reasonable that then grace will be shown.

If I've received grace, I should then give grace.

My question to us all is are we?

We are a people that are defined by grace.

Whether you're a Methodist or a Baptist or a Catholic or Episcopalian or a whatever you are.

The Christians of the world are a people that are defined by grace, received.

My question is, when the world looks at us as Christians, do they define us as a people who give grace in return?

And I'm ashamed of my answer.

Maybe you have a better answer.

My answer is not so optimistic.

I'll receive, shoo! Yes, sir! I'd like a bushel.

But grace in the Bible, when received, there was an expectation, there was an understanding, it would then be returned.

Do we do that?

Do I do that?

With my family, with my friends, with my neighbors, with my coworkers.

And I think Jesus might even add, my enemies.

Okay, we're gonna take the Lord's Supper real quick.

Christopher, come up here and play us a song.

Um Kim and Jerry, y'all want to come up here and help me, please?

And Don and Kathy, would y'all come up here and help me?

And would y'all too do me a favor and sit right there?

Please.

Take all your debris and sit right there for me.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

I need these seats, is what I'm needing.

Okay, thank you.

Yes, yes.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

Um, we're gonna celebrate the Lord's Supper.

I was lovingly scolded.

You don't use the same bread every week.

That's on purpose.

You think Jesus ate the same bread every day?

No.

He ate cornbread and rye bread and wheat bread and whole wheat bread, and if he was really lucky, he got to eat wonder white bread.

But but uh he he he didn't eat the same bread every day, so why should we, right?

So yes, for any kind of bread.

Um we eat and we drink bread and wine, really juice, um a weekly basis to remind ourselves that we are a people of grace.

It is not because we've lived good enough lives or done enough good deeds.

That's not why God sees us with delight.

He does see us with delight for many reasons.

But it's not because I've worked extra hard and dotted every I and crossed every T and followed every rule perfectly.

I'm so thankful that's not the requirement.

But He's given us grace and He showed us that grace most clearly and powerfully when He sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins.

If you believe that that gift of grace has led God to see you with delight and favor on your best day and on your worst day.

He loves you.

You fill him with delight.

If that's your belief, if that's your hope, then I invite you to come.

We have covered uh communion elements and we have uncovered.

Get a piece of bread from me and a little cup of juice and uh go back and sit down for just a minute.

I'm gonna we're gonna do something.

We're gonna dedicate our and pray over our graduates real quick.

I won't take just a minute.

So come and eat and drink and remember and give thanks.