On My Way Up: A Summer Pilgrimage in the Psalms of Ascent | Psalm 130

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And now, here is this week's message.

Wherever you're watching from today, or in the room with us now, or um in the student sanctuary.

The student sanctuary is being used more and more.

If if you haven't noticed, I don't want you to feel like if you're in there, that you're in Siberia.

Um worship there and elders are there to pray and the like.

So um the most unique place it seems like we that people tune in is uh my cousin will watch from the cockpit of a Airbus 330 um that he is piloting on whatever day if he happens to be on the tarmac when uh when we're when we're on, he'll send me a picture.

Uh I've I've checked my phone twice, so I he hasn't he hasn't texted me today, so maybe he's not he's not flying today, but he'll text me a picture of him, the first officer there uh watching watching our service is always um uh encouraging to see that.

Uh I have high expectations this morning.

I wrote that in my notes.

So in the first paragraph, I end with my expectations are high this morning.

And um so they stay high at the 11 out of the nine.

Uh we're going to do Psalm 130 today.

It's the 11th Psalm of Ascent.

If you're if you're new with us today, we've been going through the Psalms of Ascent, Psalm 120 and 134.

Um something, if I haven't made it clear, I want to make it clear today, that um the Psalms of Ascent weren't written together sequentially, they were compiled together with all the Psalms in order by it peers Ezra, um, who was a priest.

Now, the Psalms of Ascent were sung and taught and read uh on the three annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem every year.

And so that tells me that there is just intrinsically something embedded in these psalms that are trying to teach us kind of the holistic nature of God and how we relate to God in a variety of our life travels, pilgrimages.

Now, the interesting thing about Ezra, Ezra was a priest, but Ezra, and he was in the line of Aaron, who was the first high priest, but Ezra's work at the temple wasn't around the altar, it was around the word.

He was a scribe, he was a teacher of the law, specifically to exiles in Babylon, and then in the what's called the post-exilic period, when they were coming back to Jerusalem out of Babylon.

So I so it it it wasn't lost on me that here is a man who lived before exile, in exile, and after exile, and after 70 plus years of Israel not going up to Jerusalem for Passover or Pentecost, or that he would then would compile these Psalms in an order to say this is how we're going to approach God in Jerusalem.

Ezra leads the second wave of exiles back out of Babylon.

Um, and then in the third wave, in the third wave with Nehemiah, Nehemiah has Ezra to read the law before all the people.

Now, you go back a couple hundred years before that, and right before uh Jerusalem is uh taken and the temple destroyed, um, there is a there is a priest that finds the book of the law in the temple.

Now, that begs a question.

How does the book of the law get lost in the temple?

The book of the law had been lost in the temple.

It had not been opened for decades and decades and decades and decades and decades.

And so it's found by a priest, and he's instructed to read it before the people.

And when he reads it before the people, they all start weeping, especially the king.

The king tries to call back the nation to worship, puts a number of things in place, but the people, it was short-lived with them, and here comes the exile.

Now, third wave of exiles is back.

Ezra, who would have compiled these Psalms, is instructed by Nehemiah, read the law before the people.

And as he reads the law before the people, they start crying.

Now, why would they cry?

Why would you weep when you hear the law?

Because it it really marked the difference between where they were and where God was, the gap there.

But in this case, and Nehemiah would have known the history, Nehemiah stops them from crying.

He says, today's not a day for tears.

Today's a day for rejoicing.

No tears, just rejoicing.

Now, what's the difference?

Nehemiah wanted them not just to see the gap.

He wasn't whitewashing the gap between where Israel was and where God was.

What he wanted to highlight was, in spite of that gap, look where he's brought us.

He has brought us out of exile and restored us back here.

It's a pretty amazing kind of backstory to these psalms.

And Psalm 130, if some it's so hard for me to kind of put titles on sermons, and I didn't even put it on this one per se, but I think it's a um a composition of God.

It is a um, it's going to be a not a totality look at God, but the the psalmist is going to bring us into seeing a couple really big aspects of who God is.

And I'll and I'll just tell you how how he's going to do that.

Um, so one of the I don't know if you put it up yet, but there's a time for tears of repentance before the Lord, but there's a time to rejoice in the forgiveness and the restoration of the Lord.

And I pray that today would be that kind of day for you.

Um so um here are uh well, A.W.

Tozier, if you were here a couple years ago, I use this quote pretty often, where it said, A.W.

Tozier said, What we believe about God is the most important thing about us.

What we believe about God is the most important thing about us.

And here's why, right?

Because it impacts how we relate to God and how we live our lives, what we believe about Him.

And what you believe about God is going to be determined by what you know about God.

It's important to know God.

So our knowledge about God is the lens by which we understand all of our experiences with God.

So, what this means to me is what you believe about God is too important to leave up to some secondhand information, especially from dissatisfied or disgruntled people.

And I think it's too it's too important to just leave up to an AI synthesis.

And uh I use AI, I I've I've used AI for a number of things.

Um it's a great research tool, it it compiles all bunch of information, but it's not the Holy Spirit.

And here's what I mean by that.

If I'm going to understand God, I can understand God, and his spirit would re will reveal himself to me.

So so I don't I don't like the problem using AI even in uh your daily life or a Bible study or whatever, but let's not farm out our how we how we relate to God or understand God for AI.

Let's not forget what it stands for.

The A stands for artificial.

And so we have the I.

I mean, it's his number one identification.

I am, which we'll get to.

This psalm was highlights that.

All right.

So we're gonna get into this knowledge of God.

So here is here is uh some firsthand knowledge.

We're gonna do Psalm 130 is one through eight.

It's on the screen, or if you have your Bibles, open your Bibles and look at it.

Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord, Lord, hear my voice.

Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.

If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who would who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness, so that we can with reverence serve you.

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.

I wait for the Lord more than the watchman wait for the morning, more than the watchman wait for the morning.

Israel, put your hope in the Lord.

For with the Lord is unfailing love, with him is full redemption.

He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.

Now, the word Lord should stand out, right?

It's eight different times.

The psalmist uses the word Lord, translated in two different ways in a very unique pattern, that I think.

So it it it doesn't, it doesn't pull it out in what we've pulled from the screen, but in the NIV specifically, and again, I don't I don't know why it didn't pull, but when the NIV editors edit the word for God Yahweh, they spell Lord all in caps.

L-O-R-D.

And then with all the other names of God, it's spelled with a capital L, then O-R-D, just lowercase.

In this psalm, in verses 1 and 2, and then 3 and 4, and then 5 and 6, the psalmist begins with Lord Yahweh, and then immediately transitions to the next one, Lord Adonai.

Does that in verse 3 and then 4 and 5 and 6, and then he ends verse 7 and 8, listing all three as Yahweh.

All right, now here's here's here's the difference.

You can't parse God, but there's so much to God that all his names kind of mean something.

So Yahweh is the name he uses when he introduces himself to Moses.

So when Moses says, Hey, they're gonna not trust me, Israel.

So who do I tell them who has sent me?

And this is how God chooses to identify himself.

I call this his personal name.

Yahweh, it's the covenant God, the loving, faithful God, Yahweh.

Then Adonai, Adonai represents and means his majesty and his authority.

I call this his positional name.

Okay?

And so again, when I when I when I go through these, you're gonna hear him first call out to Lord Yahweh, faithful, covenant loving God.

And then he's gonna immediately address God as majestic and authority, like you are Lord, I'm servant.

And and what we'll learn as we go through this is how we can relate to God, that the kind of the expanse of who God is.

Um so here's verse one.

Out of the depths I cried to the Lord, I cry to you, Lord Yahweh.

And out of the depths I cry to Yahweh, Lord Adonai, hear my voice, let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy.

Out of the depths.

So this is a nod, this is a nod to even Jonah, out of the depths.

This is this is the idea of being completely underwater.

Completely underwater.

So God is the God of the heavenlies.

So think about the gap distance.

That God is the God of the heavenlies, and the psalmist is crying on behalf of himself and a nation, that out of the depths, so this is where I'm this is where I am, out of the depths, I cry to Yahweh, I cry out to Yahweh.

So even in the depths, he recognizes the loving, faithful covenant God as close enough to be heard that he cries out.

Now, I don't know why there's um there's been studies on the most um the most way in which to die that people are most afraid of.

Like I put them all up there for me.

You know what I'm saying?

But but drowning, drowning seems to be the one most people are afraid of.

This idea of being completely conscious and yet engulfed and surrounded by water.

I remember I went to a beach in South Florida with our family, and Annie was only about five or six, and I wasn't paying enough attention to realize how close the waves were breaking to the shore.

And when I got out there with her, we just got hammered.

Boom! And knocked us down, tried to get back up another one.

Boom, they were relentless.

By this time, I I am like completely, I'm just holding her up.

I am down, I can't get out of the water, and I just hold her up thinking, well, at least one of us will make it, you know, and fortunately my wife was close by and she came and saved Annie.

And I'm here, so I don't know how I got out of it, but but but I made it out of it.

But but my my mind went to this idea of this pounding and this inability to get up and this being surrounded as the context by which this psalm was starting, out of the depths, out of the depths, I cry out to the loving, faithful covenant God.

And then he shifts and he says, Lord, Adonai, hear my cry for mercy.

I need mercy, and I'm asking for mercy from the majestic authority.

I want my loving father to hear me, and the majestic authority, God, I ask you for mercy.

This is your position.

You are heavenly father, you are also majestic and just and authority, carrying both those two images, carrying both those two images together.

I remember that God isn't bipolar, he doesn't have multiple personalities, but he is both loving and faithful as well as majestic and authoritative.

Um so you know, Jonah cries out to God for mercy, and Jonah's not drowning.

Um, Jonah uh is being digested.

Read the story later.

It's a whole book, and it's only four chapters, and you'll appreciate the humor on the back side of reading that.

Um have you been so in the depth that you were even afraid to cry out?

So in Hebrews it tells us that we have a high priest that's in Christ, and that we can boldly come before the throne of grace.

The older I get, the more bold and the more humble I do that.

When I was younger, when we're all younger, cocky, know it all.

Um and then the older I get, and the older you get, you realize that's not the case.

So even in Christianity, yeah, I can go before the throne of God.

Yeah.

Well, I can.

But I need to go there humbly because he is majestic and he is the authority, and he is just, and I have no business being in there.

I got no business being there.

And yet, and yet, the loving father, the covenant God, he says, come.

He says, Come.

That's the that's a little justiposition that the psalmist is giving us there.

So here the heart of verse one.

Sin creates a depth gap between us and God, but not enough of a gap to swallow up our cry or to deter his hearing or his response.

Our mortal enemy Satan doesn't want us to believe that.

He entices us into separation, and then he does one of two things, depending on your disposition and your personality, I think.

He either smears God as abandoning you, or he shames us to believing that we won't be hurt or considered.

All right, verse 3.

If you, Lord, Yahweh, kept a record of sins, Lord Adonai, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness so that we can with reverence serve you.

I wonder, are you a record keeper?

Are you a record keeper?

Do you um I think we all are to some extent?

Uh are you willing to move on with the relationship and let things go, or do you keep receipts?

I think most of us keep receipts.

So the psalmists in this case are tying the two positional, the personal name and the positional name of God very, very close together.

Um, our personal covenant, God, it if he kept a record of our sins, our failures, and shortcomings, who could stand underneath that authority?

And here's the observation: it's not that God, Adonai, is a poor bookkeeper or that he's somehow flippant regarding our sin.

Because he doesn't miss a thing.

The point is that he, Yahweh, chooses not to hold the past against us in a manner that keeps us in our place.

This is how the enemy entices us, or the enemy, he entices us into sin, and then he wants to keep us in our place.

You would think someone in authority would every once in a while want to make sure that you're in your place.

Don't forget your place.

Anybody ever been told that?

Don't forget your place.

Why would God, who empties heaven with his son, to take our place so that our place is changed?

Let's not be convinced, let's not be um hoodwinked in believing then that when we go to God our Father, that He wants to keep us in our place.

The enemy wants to keep us in this relational relational loop with God, from a sin to repentance, a sin to repentance, a sin to repentance.

Like if he can if i i if that's is all he can keep you, if that's the only loop he can keep you in, he wants to keep you in that loop.

God wants to change your place.

He's changed your place.

You're a son and daughter of God.

And in that case, he has flipped it, he has changed.

And so who can keep who could stand before you?

Well, no one can.

He keeps good records.

It's just he's chosen, he's chosen to pay the price for that record.

So that he doesn't act like that didn't exist, that it didn't happen.

He he's more of a realist than you and I are.

It happened.

That's who you were.

That's not who you are.

Because I have, Yahweh, I have satisfied the authority of Adonai by giving you Jesus.

Ephesians 2, 1 and 6 goes a little further.

It says, As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

All of us lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts.

Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our transgressions.

It is by grace you've been saved and raised up with Christ Jesus and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.

Not only have been we've been taken out of the depths, we've been placed with him in the heavenlies.

The enemy does not want you to buy into that.

He wants to do everything he can.

If he can't keep you from coming to Christ, he wants to keep you just stunted in your understanding of who God is and how he relates to you.

I understand my bent is to lean into God more as authority and majestic.

That's just my sense of duty, firstborn, only child.

It's just so easy for me to gauge my relationship with God based on my perspective.

Performance with and for God.

That may be your bet.

And if that's your bet, He's coming as Yahweh.

I am the covenant, faithful, loving God.

It doesn't wipe away my authority.

My authority and my majestic nature is real.

But you're my son and daughter.

You know, dads, a loving dad can discipline a son and not hurt the son.

My dad didn't know Jesus to so much later in his life.

And there was times in which my dad spoke to me or didn't speak to me, was more the case, in the manner that hurt me.

But there were so many times what he did grew me, changed me, strengthened me.

Because it wasn't coming from a guy who just said, Oh, it's okay, son.

It's okay.

It was coming from a dad that said, now son, that's not appropriate.

That's not gonna serve you well growing up.

This will.

You got it?

All right.

Let's go.

That balances this equation that somehow God is just so he's flippant.

He's flippant with record keeping.

He is not, he is an excellent record keeper.

I know the verse says that cast the sin as far as the east is from the west, right?

They don't they don't touch one another.

You gotta know that's a choice he makes.

When it says he keeps no record of wrongs, it doesn't mean he doesn't remember.

It means paid for.

Why bring it back up?

The enemy wants to keep you stuck in bringing it up and up and up and over and over and over and over.

Satan once held the position of power over each of us, but that's been broken by the atoning death of Jesus Christ.

So Yahweh isn't a record keeper, he's a covenant keeper.

And I think Adonai, the way I listed here was he's a chin a chin lifter.

Because, like when when you get disciplined, when you get disciplined in anything, then the nature of that is you drop your head.

Is that right, right?

You get disciplined, the nature is Adonai has not here to make you dip your head and stay there.

Picks our chin up.

Come on, son.

Come on, daughter.

All right, here we go.

Next next verses.

I wait for the Lord, Yahweh, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.

I wait for the Lord, Adonai, more than the watchman wait for the morning, more than the watchman wait for the morning.

Israel understand that Israel understood that repentance, that repentance preceded forgiveness, and that forgiveness preceded restoration.

So let me say it another way.

With repentance, God immediately followed with forgiveness.

And with forgiveness, he follows with restoration.

They understand that this is a pattern.

This is unbreakable.

This is how he works with us.

He follows repentance with forgiveness, he follows forgiveness with restoration.

All right.

Now let me talk briefly about repentance and how how I've how I've managed this in my life.

There's been plenty of times in my life where I've recognized what I did was sinful and wrong, and I have said to God, okay, I recognize that as sinful and wrong.

Let's move on.

I got it.

I know.

Let's go.

Let's move on.

What I have learned with me is it's not until the tears flow that repentance has happened.

When I actually pause long enough to be sorrowful for what I've broken.

And it's amazing the difference.

I know I say feelings are real, they're not reliable, but it's a di there's a difference in me when repentance comes with tears and not just this, okay, got it, we on the same page, let's go.

Who seems like they're an authority in that situation?

It seems like I'm the authority.

Like, hey, catch up, God, because I've already done it.

Already said I'm sorry, and I'm ready to move on.

But when it breaks my heart, I'm changed.

And then what follows true repentance is actually a completely transformative behavior.

I can't transform my behavior outside of repentance.

It's just trying harder.

I'll do better next time.

You said it?

I'll do better next time.

This won't this won't trip me up next time.

That's different.

It plays out differently than I'm sorrowful for the sin that I have committed.

That is not who I want to be.

And then here comes the power of the spirit that transforms me and transforms my behavior.

Now, even though forgiveness immediately follows repentance, always, like there's no gap, guys.

He didn't sit around like Yahweh doesn't turn to Adonai.

That's funny.

And say, Hey, what are you thinking?

Adani doesn't turn to Yahweh and say, I think you're giving them too much, too much slack.

Thank you, think you just too light here.

You need repentance, forgiveness.

Now look, but there is generally a gap between forgiveness and restoration.

Not between us and God, but between the mess that our sin had created.

So think about it this way The first two chapters of the Bible, everything is perfect.

Everything's perfect.

The last two chapters of the Bible, everything's perfect again.

And there's 1185 other chapters in the middle that get us from perfect to perfect.

Just because the restoration becomes slow after repentance doesn't mean that restoration isn't coming.

See, Yahweh, I put my hope in the word of Yahweh.

Why?

Because Yahweh doesn't break his promises.

He is the covenant-loving, faithful God.

Then I look, I look for the sunrise from Adonai, the authority, the majesty, because that sun's coming.

You can count on Adonai that that sun's coming.

And it repeats it, right?

As the watchman waits for the dawn, as the watchman waits for dawn, the watchman in an ancient city waited for the dawn.

The watchman's purpose was to watch over the city when things, bad things happen and they happen at night and early morning.

So the what but the watchman never wondered when the dawn was coming.

I believe every hour he looks at his Apple Watch and goes, one hour down, one hour closer to sunrise.

Sunrise is coming, do my job, sunrise is coming, I'm good all day, I'll get back to work at night and watch again.

The sun is gonna r the sun rose this morning on y'all.

Whatever, whatever you are wrestling, and don't we wrestle more at night?

Or we don't sleep.

The sun came up today, guys.

And I don't say that in some manner of, you know, just put that day behind you.

I'm saying God is faithful like that sunrise.

And tomorrow morning, if that sun doesn't rise, and you're a follower of Jesus, you a Jesus, and you don't need a sun no more.

Yahweh, Adonai.

You are in the position of authority?

I am not.

You are a personal God, a covenant, a covenant, trustworthy God.

Yahweh is worthy of our hope for restoration, and Adonai is faithful as the dawn.

His majesty and his authority always prevails.

Here's the last one.

Seven and eight.

Israel put your hope in the Lord, Yahweh.

For with the Lord, Yahweh, is unfailing love, and with him, Yahweh, is full redemption.

He himself, pronouns, but Yahweh, referring back to Yahweh, will redeem Israel from all their sins.

I love that He wants us to understand the two natures of God in here.

He wants us to understand the justice, the majesty, and the authority of God.

And he wants us to understand the loving, faithful covenant of God.

He wants us to understand them both in the context of all of our life.

He ends with just Yahweh.

Yahweh is hopeworthy.

Yahweh is unfailing.

And Yahweh redeems fully, not partially.

You were not partially redeemed, folks.

We were transformed in the image of Christ, and we are becoming more and more like Him every passing day.

Now, come on up, team.

I learned something unique about this psalm in my research that I did not know ahead of time.

Psalm 130 was considered by Martin Luther one of the, he called them a Pauline Psalm.

There was about four or five he called Pauline Psalms.

What he meant was when he read this psalm, he was assured of what he learned from Paul and Romans that we are justified by faith in Christ alone.

Luther would torture himself.

He would sleep on the concrete.

He would go days and days without eating, all in a way in which to try to grow this piety and demonstrate his ability to earn the love and the acceptance of God.

And he kept, it just never was enough.

It was never enough.

And he had this epiphany out of Romans that the just shall live by faith.

So I want you to think about this.

So he reads Psalm 130, and he said, because that's it.

And he writes a hymn, a German hymn called Out of the Depths is its short version of it.

And he writes that hymn out of Psalm 130.

This is the great reformer.

This was a man born and raised in the Catholic Church.

And Saw that the Catholic Church kept moving towards this idea that we get to God through the church.

And then we have to do all these things in which to somehow stay in union with Him.

And it's Luther that comes to this realization that's not it at all.

You've missed it completely.

Salvation is by faith through Christ.

And he puts that among 94 other things and hammers them on a door and starts the whole Protestant Reformation.

And Psalm 130 was a cornerstone of that.

It gets better.

Several hundred years later, John Wesley.

John Wesley is the founder of the Methodist movement.

Wesley is doing everything he knows to do to serve God in the role he feels called to serve God.

And yet a Moravian asks him, Do you know for sure, John, that you're saved?

And it through him, like, have I done enough?

Have I?

And he hears a sermon on a Sunday out of Romans 3, followed by an old German hymn called Out of the Depths.

And he hears Psalm 130 sang.

And this is where he's quoted as saying, and my heart was strangely warmed.

The assurance that his faith rested on what Christ did, not what he was doing, warmed his heart.

The enemy wants to keep you in your place.

He just does.

If he can't keep you from Christ, he wants to keep you in your place.

And he'll use God against you to scare you.

You think about it.

Adam and Eve sin, what do they do?

They hide.

They believed the lie that God was holding out on them, that there was a life actually better than what he was providing.

We do it all the time, but I just find that very, very difficult to imagine.

And then somehow we have no record of this.

Somehow, though, he he has already sowed enough doubt into who God is that the God that they used to walk with in the evening is the God they're hiding from.

You don't need to hide from God any longer.

You might have come today, you might watch this, who knows when you might watch it.

You may watch it and you are hiding from God.

Maybe the tuning in or the coming is all a part of how do I, how do I just calm some of these voices I've got in my head?

And the way God wants to reveal Himself to you today, guys, is He is not hiding from you.

He is not hiding from you.

He is out in the open, majestic and authoritative for sure, wrapped in the loving, faithful, covenant God.

I just find it so ironic that when Moses says, Who are you?

This is the word he uses.

I am.

I am fully covenant, faithful, loving Father.

That's who I am.

Nothing else changes about me.

This is the essence of who I am.

Don't need to hide anymore.

If you're hiding, don't need to be stuck anymore.

Don't be stuck.

Don't be stuck in this sin repentance loop.

Cry some tears.

Understand what the enemy's doing and how he's deceiving you.

Plant your foot in the other direction.

The Holy Spirit will empower you to walk that out.

Loving, faithful God.

Your bet may be like mine.

It's always easier for me to see God as authority over the over the Father.

It's just been something my whole life.

But the older I get, the older I get, the more I lean into the Father heart of God.

I think it's because when I was younger, I really believed I could kind of do this by myself.

I was a good kid, made good choices.

I'm the mature one.

Right?

I'm the mature one.

I'm the one you can count on.

I'm the loyal.

And probably believed that's pretty good on my own.

God, it's nice to have you around.

You're a good fallback.

And the older you get, you realize, yeah, I'm really not in control of anything.

Anything.

So if I'm not going to be in control of anything, I need to find the one that's in control of everything.

And I need better practice at being a son and a daughter.

That's the invitation to you today.

A composite of God is kind of what I look at in this psalm.

It's a composite of God, especially the stuff we sang today, too.

A composite of God.

Over here, if you want to pray with someone during the last song of worship, there will be elders and other people here that you can pray with.

If you'd like to just spend some time by yourself in prayer, you can do that over here.

We have communion on my left and I'm all right.

I read a news article this week about a girl who had transitioned and as a 20-something was transitioning back to her biological sex.

And she said in there in one of the really crux of her life, where she realized that she had made a mistake, that she had believed lies.

The next thing she said that she heard was, he won't want you back.

He won't want you back.

You've already messed up, you've already broken.

He don't want broken people.

Fortunately, she had enough people in her life that was able to illustrate to her a God that wants broken people back.

You could, you cannot break yourself beyond the loving, caring, faithful covenant God.

You cannot break yourself past his reception of you.

Your brokenness may not be as obvious physically as hers was, but it's the same internally.

And he wants you back.

Things we were going to do after church, things that we still have to do before we go back to work on Monday or school.

And yet you have interrupted us.

You have completely interrupted that flow right now.

For us to reach out to you, your hand, church, his hand is extended to you.

Take it.

Stand for worship, and I invite you to move.

We hope you were encouraged and challenged by today's message.

Again, to learn more about Gateway Franklin Church, find us online at gatewayfranklin.com.

Thanks for joining us today.