Birthright

Hello, Church.

Hear now the word of the true and living God, Genesis 25, starting in verse 29.

Once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field and he was exhausted.

And Esau said to Jacob, Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted.

Therefore his name was called Edom.

Jacob said, Sell me your birthright now.

Esau said, I'm about to die.

Of what use is a birthright to me?

Jacob said, Swear to me now.

So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob.

Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way.

Thus Esau despised his birthright.

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Good morning.

Welcome to church.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor at well, here.

And uh I've got a couple of announcements this morning.

I'm gonna kind of try and blitz through them uh to cover our text today.

So the we're the prayer team uh is sort of beginning, and its first meeting, it's an interest meeting, is taking place today, right after the service.

So if you're interested in joining our prayer team, then just uh meet right like there after the service uh with Liz Carr.

Liz, can you stand up and give a wave and everybody give a clap?

Nice.

Great.

Uh next on February 20th, right after the service, we are having a become a member thing.

So if you would like to become a member of Redemption Church Denver, stick around on February 20th after the service for about an hour and a half, and we'll break down what membership means at Redemption Church.

And uh yeah, and you can say, like, oh yeah, that's a good idea.

I should be a member, things like that.

Uh February 20th, right after the service.

Then right after that, we'll all go home, watch the Daytona 500, and then come back on uh uh later that evening for an event that's taking place at Trinity Church, which is over by the Capitol building.

And they are hosting a speaker named Nancy Pearcy.

Uh, she's a wonderful author.

I've only read one of her books, to be frank, Total Truth, but it's a big book and it's really excellent.

And she has written another book called Love Thy Body, which engages with all of the social conversation that's taking place right now around our relationships to our own physical bodies.

What does how does how do we relate to questions such as gender, sexuality, abortion, those hot button issues all center around a concept of what does it fundamentally mean to be human and have a body?

She speaks about these things very well.

Uh and she's just a wonderful, I've I've learned a lot from her just in her one book.

So uh this is a free event.

We're partnering with some other churches to help make this free for anyone to join.

Uh, you can just show up, but what would be even better is if you signed up before you showed up, and you can do that in our app.

Uh just go to the calendar and uh look up Love Thy Body uh to sign up for that event.

Also, a new uh little thing that our app can do, our app can sell you a book.

So if those books that are on the shelves, right when you walk into the auditorium, those were handpicked by me.

And you can uh you can purchase them for the price of what we paid for them, uh it just write in your app.

So if you're like, hey, love thy body, that was mentioned today in the service.

I wonder where I could pick that up.

We got you covered.

Uh I'm obsessed with books.

I was talking with um uh uh a a lady who goes for our church.

I won't single anybody out, um, but I'll single half of you out.

It was a woman.

Start flipping down your guess whose and she uh uh we were talking just about how the Lord has pursued us in our own stories.

And one of the things that we both related to one another on was how it was how the Lord just providentially gave us the right books at the right time.

Has anybody else experienced that?

Well, me and this lady really did.

Um, brown hair.

Uh glasses.

Um so anyway, I want our church to be a part of that for our church, that like we can help have the good books find you and encourage you in your faith.

Uh then uh after uh after that, uh on March 4th and 5th, we're hosting a conference here.

It's like an online streaming conference, but you'll come in person here called the If Gathering.

It's a women's conference.

Um you might see her there.

And it's called a callback.

And you uh uh uh it's a conference we uh uh Krista hosted last year, and if you want more information on that, you can sign up in the calendar.

If you want just more information on what it's gonna be like, uh you can talk to Krista.

Krista, will you stand up and wave?

Now you guys clap.

Good job.

That is the way crowds interact with individuals.

Let's pray.

Father, we praise you for the just ushering us into a little taste of your glory and worship this morning.

Lord, we praise you that each Sunday we get to gather and experience just a slice of heaven, an uh outpost of your kingdom here as we're gathered together and you inhabit our praises.

Lord, what an unthinkable privilege.

Lord, I pray that you would help us understand the value that we have in your promises towards us this morning.

Lord, would you show us the supremacy of your value over everything else?

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So today's text is about value.

And it's about valuing things that you can't see.

What value do we place on different objects in the world?

And it kind of prods this question: is value something that's real?

It actually exists in the world, or is it just a lie that we all agree to believe?

What is it that drives something value, something's value?

A way that we assess something's value is we see what would we exchange for it?

What would we exchange in order to receive this thing of value?

That's the way that we understand something is valuable.

And today we're going to look at a couple of exchanges that take place in Scripture.

One of them wrongly assesses the value of the promises of God, and the other rightly assesses the value of the promises of God.

We're going to look and ask this question of what value are the promises of God?

All right, so first our story in Genesis, as we continue moving through this, we'll see the wrong exchange of value.

Genesis 25, 29 to 34.

Oh, actually, this is slightly less than that.

Come on, James, edit.

Once you copy and paste.

Once, when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field and he was exhausted.

And Esau said to Jacob, Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted.

Therefore, his name was called Edom.

Last week, you may remember, we introduced these characters, Jacob and Esau.

We saw their birth story and the prophecy that surrounded their birth story from God, that they would be a people divided against one another.

The older will serve the younger, that they will be uh incommiserable nations that will always be at odds with one another.

And this was named of them by God even before either of them were born.

God made that selection and that distinction.

And then we saw it play out in their characteristics of their lives.

One of them was an indoor guy, that's Jacob, the other was more of an outdoor guy, that's Esau.

And here we see them living according to these characteristics.

Jacob is inside cooking stew, and Esau comes in from the field and is exhausted.

And Esau says to Jacob, Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted.

Therefore his name was called Edom.

Edom uh sounds like red in Hebrew.

Now, the translation here of this moment is um slightly more gentle on Esau than it comes across in the Hebrew, so I'm told by people who speak Hebrew.

It sounds more like this is it's all it feels gross to say, but Esau runs in and he says, That red stuff, let me gulp that red stuff.

Isn't that gross?

He runs in exhausted, that red stuff, let me gulp that red stuff.

Jacob, we had learned previously, is quiet.

That word carries a lot of meaning.

It's a cool type of meaning, it's a collected type of person.

And he spots an opportunity here with Esau's exhaustion and thrusting himself forward at uh whatever might satisfy his appetite right now.

And so Jacob coolly says in verse 31, sell me your birthright now.

Always be closing.

Sell me your birthright now, he says.

We see his coolness come through.

He sees the need, at least the expressed need of Esau, and he sees an opportunity to exchange a vastly disproportionate value.

This stew that I'm making could become the birthright that belongs to Esau.

Now, what is a birthright?

What are we talking about?

Esau was the firstborn, Jacob was the secondborn.

The birthright belongs to the firstborn.

And it's described to us in Deuteronomy 21, meaning that the firstborn will receive a double portion of the inheritance.

So, as compared to all of the other heirs, the firstborn receives the authority over most of the assets that the family has.

Now, that is good enough to receive.

That's quite a deal.

Isaac has done pretty well for himself as their father, as had Abraham, Isaac's father before him.

And so there likely would have been a lot of flocks and herds to have inherited, but it's more than that for this family, because this is the family of promise.

Abraham is the grandfather.

Isaac is the son who inherited the promise that Abraham received.

Jacob and Esau would have received that same promise, at least one of them would.

And what is that promise?

It is a mixture of physical things and spiritual things.

Abraham was promised through your family the whole world will be blessed.

And part of the means of that blessing is the distribution of the land of Canaan that will be occupied by his offspring.

So that means you need a lot of offspring and you need the land to receive it.

It's a promise of land and offspring.

But the problem is with that type of inheritance, it doesn't exist yet.

All that they own in Canaan is a burial plot.

There is no off, there is no large amount of offspring that are living in the land of Canaan.

So this birthright is incredibly valuable.

It's the whole land of Canaan.

It's this promise that the whole world will be blessed through your family.

Those are linked together.

But at this point, you can't point anywhere to see it.

It doesn't exist in the world.

It is as valuable as just a promise.

But it's the promise of God.

So, of what value is the promise of God?

That's the question that Esau is facing.

Of what value is the promise of God to me?

That red stuff, let me gulp that red stuff.

Here's how Esau justifies it in his mind.

Esau said, I am about to die.

Of what use is a birthright to me?

Jacob said, Swear to me now.

So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob.

Let's follow Esau's line of reasoning.

He makes a pragmatic argument.

Look, I'm about to die of hunger coming in from the field.

Of what use to me is this birthright?

I have this immediate need, this immediate desire for satisfaction that sits in front of me.

Of what use is the is some future unrealized promise of God that I can't even point to right now if I'm going to die and be dead, you know.

Two steps to dying.

Die, be dead.

And so what is so he makes the exchange completely on those terms?

That is the calculation that Esau makes.

His immediate felt need is more valuable than the promises of God.

So what are the promises of God worth?

Where do we see something's value?

We see their value in the exchange.

And here in Esau's exchange to Esau, the promises of God are worth a few bites of stew.

They're worth that red stuff.

Let me gulp that red stuff.

And the promises of God fade into the ether.

Verse 34.

Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank and rose and went his way.

Thus Esau despised his birthright.

The speedy recovery after the meal.

It kind of makes you wonder how close to death Esau was.

Also, Isaac, Rebecca, they didn't have any food.

There's a lot of questions that are just raised about Esau's response and how he is so satisfied by the food, he's able to just sit down, eat, stand up, and walk.

The text is clear.

It's almost it's extremely rare.

I mean, you've probably noticed if you're doing the Bible reading plan with us, for example, there are so many stories in scripture that the Bible just tells the story and then it gives no moral commentary on it.

And oftentimes you'll read a story and it's like, okay, I saw that guy, you know, did that.

He took a second wife, but can can the narrator chime in and say whether that was good or bad?

And instead the story just stands.

But this time, the writer is clear.

Who is the villain here?

Who did the bad thing?

It is in this way that Esau despised his birthright.

He makes this exchange that the promises of God are of no more value than the satisfaction of his immediate desires.

It is a despising of his birthright.

Now, this judgment that Scripture makes here in Genesis continues and is picked up again in Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

Hebrews chapter 12 comes right after Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

And Hebrews chapter 11 is the hall of faith, it's called.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

And it's this list of just people throughout Scripture that have held fast to the Lord in dire circumstances.

They have believed in the promises of God far beyond anything that they could see.

And many of them even died in faith, not having realized the promises of God.

And so at the end of Hebrews 11, then there's a shift in the text, and it begins to describe what someone looks like who doesn't hold to the promises of God.

And the the most absolute, the archetypal example of this that scripture provides is Esau in this story.

In Hebrews 12, it's describing the the way the text is, well, I'll read the scripture.

Hebrews 12, 16 says it's telling you things in the church to see to it that you don't do these things.

So see to it that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal.

Now, why is it that this event with Esau is paired with sexual immorality?

Why are those so similar?

You know, when it when I hear when I read the story, mixing some stew, Esau runs in hungry from the field, sells his birthright, I'm not thinking like, oh man, you need a filter on your computer.

That does those those lines don't link up so clearly.

But we see that there is there is a a clear parallel in the shape of sexual immorality and Esau despising his birthright.

Because sexual immorality is at least sacrificing the future for the sake of the present.

It's at least that.

Sexual immorality at its most fundamental level is a way of distancing the realities of what sex can be and the context in which sex is meant to take place.

It's about the sex is about the establishment of family between a man and a woman, and then in the offspring that comes from them.

And so sexual immorality is a way of saying I'm going to cut off the future results and the hope of what sex can establish, and I'm going to reduce it to where all of its meaning is about the satisfaction of my immediate desires.

It is a hopeless view of your body, and it is a way of ignoring it, of distancing sex from any sort of promise.

Now, when we consider that Esau, with the exchange that he is making, what is the promise of God?

What is the like practically what is the birthright?

What is the promise of God that's given to Abraham and then given to Isaac and that he has, that Esau has a birthright to?

It's a promise of land and offspring.

It's a promise of family.

And he is saying, I'm willing to sacrifice this promise of family, this promise of real connection in the future, even with God, and I will sacrifice that type of connection for whatever my immediate need happens to be.

You see, the exchange has the same shape as sexual immorality.

The exchange that Esau makes here is the same shape.

And exchanges are a complicated thing when we do them because they're always a double exchange.

You know, when you exchange the promises of God for the satisfaction of your immediate needs when those trade places, and now the the satisfaction of your immediate needs sits up here, and the promises of God sit down here.

You're doing two things.

At one point, you're denigrating the promises of God, you're saying that these.

Promises of God are not of any real value.

This hope in the future of what God has to offer is of no actual value.

It doesn't manifest in the world or in my life in any way.

And that's bad.

But there's one that's perhaps even more dangerous.

You are elevating the satisfaction of your immediate desires to the place of God.

Most of our ethic is formed around this.

We have an ethic that says God is good insofar as he supports or enables the satisfaction of my immediate temporal desires.

And as long as God supports, you know, he joins me in worshiping the satisfaction of my immediate and temporal desires, then I will call him good.

But if he doesn't, I will exchange him.

So what does that mean of our immediate and temporal desires?

What role do those then play in our lives when we make this exchange?

It is not just that we denigrate God, it is that we elevate the satisfaction of our immediate and temporal desires to the place of God.

And what do gods do?

They bestow identity.

When Paul begins to preach in Ephesus, there's a silversmith who gets really angry because he makes little statuettes of Artemis, just right outside the temple.

It's very convenient and they're lovely.

Now, when Paul comes in and he begins preaching that there is a true God over Artemis, the whole city is thrown into confusion.

Why is the city thrown into confusion when a God is announced over the city's God?

Why do they begin to disintegrate?

Because what do gods do?

They bestow identity.

What does it mean to be an Ephesian?

Artemis is how we know what it means to be an Ephesian.

And if that begins to fall apart, the city disintegrates because it loses its identity.

This is why our culture thinks of our desires not as things we would like to receive, but as identities.

Do you see this?

Do you see the logic of this?

The things that we most temporally temporally desire in our culture, we view as an expression of our identities.

Now, I know you know it's easy in a Christian context, you're thinking of this just sexually.

And of course, that that is that is very evident in our culture that we think of our sexual desires as identities.

Why?

Because we serve them like they're gods, and what do gods do?

They bestow identity.

But there's all sorts of ways that we do this in our hearts, where your work is served like a God to the neglect of your family and your other responsibilities, to the neglect of the rest that God demands from you as an offering to Him.

You will so freely neglect it for the sake of the identity that is promised to you when you make that exchange.

This is a dangerous exchange that we make.

You cannot lower God's status without placing something else there that will treat you like a subject.

The exchange is always a double exchange.

Consider why else would the first commandment before all the other commandments does anybody know it?

No other gods before me.

Why do you you know let's consider the context?

God has ushered a people fresh out of slavery.

Says, what's gonna break your slavery?

You have no other gods but me.

Your master, which may be your own, the satisfaction of your own immediate desires, your master there, I will take that place.

And if your life is totally oriented towards me, that is, you could imagine that a great Bible teacher might say something like, If you were to lay your life down before the Lord, then you might take it up again.

If you were to die to the promises of Christ, then you wouldn't be enslaved, but you'd be set free.

God is the only one who can hold that position of absolute most supreme value.

And when you lay your life down to Him, you are not enslaved, you are freed.

So what if?

What if let's just back up and try and ground this a bit?

Ground this in the situation of selling the birthright.

Esau comes in and he really is so hungry.

There are these life.

Let's imagine that this was really life or death for Esau.

I mean, Jacob, come on, who are you to assume that it wasn't life or death for Esau?

Wasn't Jacob just taking advantage of someone in need?

Wasn't Jacob just seeing someone that he should have had compassion for?

Should have offered restraint, his own restraint towards.

And then wasn't he just wrong and conniving and backbiting by taking advantage of Esau in that situation?

Like if you just read the story, perhaps when you first heard it read this morning, what was your impression of Jacob?

Anybody care to share?

Jerk.

Jerk.

Selfish.

Manipulative.

Alright, now what about Esau?

Who is it who I'm curious, just kind of like as a as a I'm just kind of curious, who thought, if we're just gonna say who was worse?

Who thought Jacob was worse?

Okay, cool.

Who thought Esau was worse?

Okay, most people thought Jacob was worse.

Isn't that wild?

So you're probably thinking, like, okay, James, like when are you gonna talk about Jacob?

It feels like we're just going too easy on Jacob.

Okay, that's good.

This is going to work out well.

This is what we mean when we say that God's value is absolute over everything.

I'm going to say something very provocative.

God's value is more important than compassion.

Let's look at another exchange of value.

This takes place in Mark chapter 14.

Mark 14 · chapter mention

Jesus is at dinner.

And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, he was reclining at table, and a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head.

Jesus is dining, he's at dinner.

A woman comes in, her name's Mary, and uh Jesus had done something really wonderful for Mary.

He brought her brother back from the dead.

That's pretty nice.

So he at this house there are Pharisees there, and Jesus' disciples are present.

And she comes in and breaks this alabaster flask.

Uh, in other stories described as this is a pound of pure nard.

This is a lot of perfume.

And she she pours it over Jesus' feet, but in other texts we see that it goes up even to his to his head that he's anointed, and she wipes her hair with him.

It's very, quite frankly, sensual.

And uh extremely what's the word like overflowing in its value.

I the um what this is worth, this flask, would have been worth a year's salary.

What's your salary for a year?

Think about that.

You hold it in your hands, and then you come and you pour it on Jesus.

What's the use?

You know, you think of Esau's language of what use to me is the birthright?

What is the use of this perfume being poured on Jesus?

It's just worship.

What's the value of worship to God?

We all just did it.

What is the value of that?

So she takes a year's salary and pours it on Jesus' feet, likely, likely the greatest uh possession that the family had.

You know, look at we're talking about financial giving as an act of worship.

We're talking about giving to your church.

We're not talking about just that.

It's not the only act of worship, but we're not talking about less than that.

Financially sacrificing as an act of worship to the Lord.

Now, though everybody else who was eating stood up and clapped and joined in praise of this woman for the glorious sacrificial act of worship.

No, that's not what happened.

Mark 14, 4 through 5, there were some who said to themselves indignantly, we learn from John that one of those was Judas.

His story doesn't pan out as well as others.

Said to themselves indignantly, Why was the ointment wasted like that?

For this ointment could have been sold for more than 300 denarii and given to the poor.

And they scolded her.

Why would you waste this in an act of worship?

Don't you realize this very thing could have been sold and given to the poor?

This is the same shape of argument that Esau uses to justify exchanging the glory of the promises of God for that red stuff.

But it's prettier, isn't it?

That red stuff, let me gulp that red stuff.

It's not pretty.

This could have been given to the poor.

I'm not thinking about me.

This could have been given to the poor.

It sounds much prettier.

It's the same argument.

The same form of logic.

Jesus said, Leave her alone.

Why do you trouble her?

She has done a beautiful thing to me, for you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them, but you will not always have me.

Jesus sees.

Worship of Jesus, when he is Lord, when he is in the absolute position of worship and honor, and our lives are geared totally towards him, where we would say there is nothing more important in life than that Jesus is treated as God, that he is Lord of our lives, that he is glorified and in the position of absolute honor and authority, then a person who lives in that way will lead a life, and part of the fragrance of that life will be love and charity and giving to the poor and compassion to the poor.

But if it is ever, if the option is ever given to you, worship Jesus or show compassion, the answer is always worship Jesus.

And if it ever becomes, I will exchange the glory of Jesus for showing some compassion elsewhere.

And that compassion will become a slave driver of manipulation.

Do you see why this is probably the most extreme example we as Christians could imagine for the heights of the glory of God?

If Jesus isn't at the apex of it, if Jesus isn't the goal and the driving force for our compassion and our love for one another, then our compassion is manipulation.

How strange.

How strange of a world we live in.

We can flesh this out a bit more.

Why is Jesus worthy of the perfume being poured out on him in worship, of a life being geared totally towards him in honor and glory.

Well, what did the anointing in that perfume mean?

Jesus describes it as, and Mary didn't know this, but Jesus knew it.

Jesus described it as his anointing for his burial.

It was a burial anointing.

And that's because Jesus was on the way to make an exchange of his own.

Jesus was on the way to the cross, in which the exchange that Jesus made went something like this: here's the promise that I have given to my people, that I will lay my life down, take on the burden of their sin, that they might be raised up in life.

And so what is the promise?

The promise of God that Jesus is heading towards.

Don't you see?

It's the same calculation that Esau had to make.

Do I hold the promise of God or do I not die?

The exchange that Jesus made was: I will die because the promises of God are more valuable.

They're more satisfactory.

They'll amount to more.

And what happens?

Jesus dies, and what is the exchange?

He exchanges our position for his.

So that he takes the place of death, that we might take the place of life.

That is the promise, the one that Esau sold for that red stuff.

This is the God who laid himself down for our lives, so that we might be rescued eternally in him.

He deserves all glory and honor and worship.

And a life that is formed by him at the zenith.

We're receiving the absolute worship, the absolute goal of our lives will be one that includes in it an unthinkable compassion because we know what it is.

We've received it.

But we have to see the order.

So here's the question.

And this is a place Jesus understood that when he made a compassionate people, that he he opened this sort of door.

Do you see how strange this is?

In order to be compassionate, you have to love something more than compassion.

When Jesus is at the height, all else finds its order in him.

He holds it together.

Look at the model we have in him.

Look at the exchange that he made.

He took our death that we might receive his life.

What exchange do we make?

We cast off the false gods that enslave us so that we might receive his true life in him.

It is freely given.

Let us be a people that sees the value, that joins in the exchange, not sell it, not cheapen it, not for anything.

Let's encounter his glory in that.

Are there any questions today?

Cool.

Even if Esau did not correctly hold the promise of God, was it ethical for Jacob to propose such a disproportionate deal?

Do we have a responsibility to make deals that don't take advantage of other people, even if they aren't able to make good deals for themselves?

Yeah, man, great question.

I've thought about this one so much in this text because nowhere in scripture is Jacob condemned for this event, but Esau is.

And even in the text itself, it's it it's so clear, like thus, Jacob despised his birthright.

Like did a sentence get get dropped?

Thus, or a clause?

Thus, Jacob despised his birthright.

Be excuse me, Esau despised his birthright because Jacob was such a cold-hearted jerk.

Okay.

Then we could it would be much simpler.

But it it seems it seems like in in this situation, Jacob provided an opportunity for Esau's heart to be exposed.

And as Esau's heart was truly exposed, the chips fell where they may.

Now, in our dealings, I think it's absolutely important to not take advantage of somebody's weakness, not take advantage of somebody's lack of information.

But Esau was not ill informed.

Esau only saw value in the temporal.

So I think he is invited into an exchange.

I think Jacob invited him to make explicit an exchange that he was already making in his heart.

And to be frank, I think that's something we're called to do among each other.

Not allow us to live in lies, allow one another to live in lies, but instead to make explicit what is the exchange you're actually making here?

It is an eternal one.

It feels just like a search on the internet.

It feels just like a a little information on a financial document not put in.

It feels just like something you you your wife doesn't need to know anyway.

But what is explicit about it?

You're exchanging the glory of God for some temporal satisfaction.

I think that I think that needs to be made explicit.

Was there another question?

Usually don't do too.

Wondering, isn't Jacob a bit opportunistic scheming in this as well?

Without a doubt, Esau was making a bad trade, but wasn't Jacob also taking advantage of him?

Yeah.

See, see previous question.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That is the question of this text.

Certainly is.

The answer that ought to crush us.

Because I want to think of this in a way that think of this in the exchanges that you make, okay, in your ordinary life.

Those need to be made explicit as us exchanging the promises of God.

That passage in Hebrews is a warning to keep us in.

Don't pretend that this exchange is less than it is, that you might not end up enslaved.

Keep Jesus at the height.

Jesus was anointed to go to the cross, to have his body broken and his blood poured out.

That way he might exchange the glory that he was due for the death that we were due, that we might experience the benefit of that exchange, so that we too might receive eternal life from him.

This is the promise.

Life in his presence.

By his grace and his love alone, he was motivated to do that.

And we remember that and proclaim it each week by participating in communion together, where we eat the bread, which is his broken body, we drink the wine, which is his poured out blood, to declare that he is Lord over all, over all.

I pray that we might be an unthinkably compassionate people.

Why?

Because Jesus is our Lord.

Let us proclaim that together.

Holy Father, I pray that you would work in our hearts.

Lord, that you would expose the false thrones and the false exchanges that have reigned in our hearts and made us slaves, and that you might displace those so that we might see the heights of your glory in wonder and honor.

And that in seeing that we might be shocked that you would ever come close to beings like us, and that your cross might seem all the more wonderful and scandalous because of the free grace that you give to us, so that we might even seek goodness in our lives, not so that we might manipulate you into thinking of us as good, but knowing that you have made us absolutely pure in your presence by your own sacrifice.

Lord, we praise you.

We praise you for your free grace.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.