Is Grace Enough

And good morning. Good morning, balcony. Happy day after Valentine's Day to all of you. I hope you had a great Valentine's Day yesterday and last night. Of course, all the people whose first love is Jesus were here last night. So, no, I'm just kidding. But we're so glad that, thank you, we're so glad that you are with us. And like Val said, I mean, my goodness, I know it's a holiday weekend. I don't know where else you would go. It's just so gorgeous here this weekend.

You might recall that last weekend there was actually this wet stuff falling out of the sky, sometimes in heavy doses. And on Monday, it was just such a glorious, beautiful day after the storm. I had an opportunity to take a walk down on the beach at Seascape. And it was cool because the waves were still just humongous. And with the high tide, the water was pushing so far up onto the beach that it was forming these ponds in on the flat sections of the beach. And these ponds were trapping all sorts of flotsam and jetsam. It was just kind of foam and kelp and various types of debris.

And this little white object caught my eye and I walked over to it and I stooped down. And when I go to pick it up, I'm stunned because on it, there's a Twin Lakes Church 2020 logo on this little castaway. It turns out to be one of these little shovels that we gave to the kids back in September. It says, "Can you dig it?" We used these at our groundbreaking for the building that Val was talking about just a moment ago. I picked this up and kind of wiped it off. And I can't believe I'm thinking, what are the odds that I would find this almost six months later on the beach?

And then the cool thing got even better because when I flipped it over, just very faintly, I could read the name of its owner. I'm like, no way, just barely see it. But if your name is Rowan, R-O-W-Y-N, I've got your shovel. And you can have it right after the service. I'm dying to hear the story behind this. Like, wouldn't it be cool if this came from Hawaii or something like that? Rowan went to Hawaii and lost this. Much better story than if Rowan was like at the beach 20 minutes before I walked by. Keep you posted.

I even, I was so astounded by this, I told the other pastors here at Twin Lakes Church, I said, "Man, I mean, do you think there's like a sign or something like that? Do any of you have like some sort of interpretation for me?" They didn't. They didn't. I got nothing from them. But I tell you this story because Jesus loved to tell stories about things that were lost and found. Lost sheep, lost coin, a lost son. And He did that so that we would understand that God's heart is bent on seeking out, searching, finding people that are lost, people that may not even know or care that they're lost, people that may not even want to be found. He still seeks after them nonetheless.

And so this morning I want to tell you, share with you three faith stories, three lost and found stories. And these are three very different people. They really have little to nothing in common except for one thing. None of them were looking for Jesus when He found them. Which tells us that at the heart of every faith story is a grace story. Because God pursues us even when He's the last thought that we have in our minds of Him.

The first faith story comes from a woman named Anne Lamont. Anne is an author, lives up in Marin. And she wrote this book, "Traveling Mercies," a couple years ago that it's autobiographical. It talks about her own story. She grew up in Tiburon in the 60s during the heyday of the swinging, drinking, hallucinogenic drug-taking scene. And her parents, they were all in. Her father was an atheist, her mother pretty much the same. She would go to church once a year at Christmas and then she would come home and tell Anne how ridiculous it all was.

And by the time Anne reaches her 30s, her life's just an absolute mess. She's an alcoholic, her relationships are in total disarray. But she's drawn to this little Presbyterian church in Marin called St. Andrew. And she's drawn by the music. The predominantly African American choir would sing these great old gospel hymns and would just pull her in every Sunday, even though on any given Sunday she'd either be drunk or hung over. She just couldn't stay away until the sermon started and then she would always leave. She lived just a couple hundred yards away on a houseboat.

And she did this for some time until she ends up having an abortion and in the days following it just plunges her into just an epic binge episode, alcohol, pot, sleeping pills. Seven days into this, she starts to bleed rather heavily and it alarms her. But she's too ashamed to ask for help from a doctor or even from a close friend. And after a couple hours, her bleeding stops. But the time, the scare has given her an opportunity to sober up. And what happens next? Well, I'll just read from her own story.

She says, "I got in bed, shaky and sad and too wild to have another drink or take a sleeping pill. I had a cigarette and turned off the light. After a while as I lay there, I became aware of someone with me hunkered down in the corner. The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there. Of course there wasn't. But after a while in the dark again, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus. I felt Him as surely as I feel my dog lying nearby as I write this. And I was appalled. I thought about my life and my brilliant, hilarious, progressive friends. I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian. And it seemed an utterly impossible thing that simply could not be allowed to happen. I turned to the wall and said out loud, 'I would rather die.'

I felt Him just sitting there on His haunches, watching me with patience and love. And I squinched my eyes shut. But that did not help because that's not what I was seeing Him with. Finally, I fell asleep. And in the morning, He was gone. This experience spooked me badly, but I thought it was just an apparition. Born of fear and self-loathing and booze and loss of blood. But then everywhere I went, I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up. Wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen. You let a cat in one time, you give it a little milk, and then it stays forever. So I tried to keep one step ahead of it, slamming my houseboat door when I entered or left.

And one week later, when I went back to church, I was so hungover that I couldn't stand up for the songs. And this time, I stayed for the sermon, which I thought was just so ridiculous, like someone trying to convince me of the existence of extraterrestrials. But the last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. Something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid. And I opened up to that feeling, and it washed over me. I began to cry and left before the benediction. And I raced home and felt the little cat running along at my heels. I opened the door to my houseboat, and I stood there a moment. And then I hung my head and said, well, I can't tell you what she said because it's not polite church talk, but it's insert expletive here. I quit. I took a long, deep breath and said out loud, 'All right, you can come in.'

So this was my beautiful moment of conversion. I love that because it's so honest. But if you're a church person, you've perhaps heard Jesus referred to as the hound of heaven. Ever hear that? Well, I guess in Anne's case, he was the pesky little cat of heaven. But at any rate, when "Traveling Mercies" comes out, she goes on an obligatory book tour. And this involved a series of radio interviews. And she would say later that it was not uncommon for people to call in church people, professing Christian people, in fact, and they would tell her over the phone that she was going to hell. And they would tell her this because they didn't like her politics. They didn't like her opinions on some matters. They didn't think that her theology was perfectly worked out. And so to their way of thinking, she could not possibly belong to Jesus.

You know, the same dynamic is kind of happening in the church in Galatia. And you pick this up as you work through this letter. The big question in the Galatian church is really this, "Is grace enough?" You might want to write that down in your notes. "Is grace enough?" Because after Paul plants these churches in Galatia and he leaves, sometime after there are these self-professed teachers and they come essentially saying to them, "You know, Paul gave you a watered-down version of the gospel." "God saves you simply by the gift of His grace?" Well, that's the start. That's okay. But we're here to tell you there's more to that. And so they pull out their lists of religious rules and in many cases just customs. And they say, "You got to be doing this too." And so the question is, is it grace alone or is it grace plus?

And when Paul hears this, he just goes bonkers. In fact, if you were with us last week in Galatians 1:6, he says, "I am astonished," and he barely says hello and then he just launches, "I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ." He's like, "Really, guys? Do you really think that you can add anything to what Jesus did on the cross?" Let's find out because today I want you to open up to Galatians 1. We're going to look at verses 11 through 24. And in the process of addressing this, the first thing Paul's going to do is share his own faith story. That's going to be our second faith story for this morning.

He's going to share his own faith story. And really, there's three things that are going to come out of his story that remind us that grace is indeed enough. And the first one is this, that the gospel of grace is God's idea. It's God's idea. I was talking to a friend several years ago, and he was...we were talking about what he was doing in his area of church and ministry. He doesn't live in this area, and he was saying, "You know, I'm hearing a lot about Twin Lakes. You guys have a very consistent emphasis on grace." And he said, "Yeah, that sounds great, and I know people are responding, but Mark, is it true? Is it actually true?"

And he didn't ask this question to be rude or even critical. It's that his mind was just spinning because pretty much his entire church experience had been in an environment where there was so much pressure. There was this constant, you know, drumming into people that you got to be doing this, that, and the other thing so that God will be pleased with you. And so to him, grace sounded like a novelty, like something we just cooked up here at Twin Lakes. And yet, again, Paul is essentially dealing with the same thought, that maybe there's really more to it. And yet, listen to what he says starting at verse 11. He says, "For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed to me is not of human origin, for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ."

Paul's going to unpack this in the remaining text that we have, but you might be thinking to yourself, "Well, you know, Paul, saying that God told you so, that's not the most convincing thing in the world. I mean, don't terrorists and religious nuts say the same thing? I had a revelation." And Paul's going to expand much more on just this experience, but he has to establish from the very beginning that the trajectory of the gospel is from heaven to earth, that it comes directly from Jesus Christ, that humankind did not invent this. So there's no way that he was, you know, raised in the school of this, so to speak, because it came directly from Jesus. It's God's initiative. And that's a very important point, that this is God's idea.

And you know what? It's always been that way. If you go back to the very beginning of the Bible, if you look in Genesis 3 and you read the story of Adam and Eve and they rebel against God and they're cast out of paradise, who is on the outside of Eden with them? God is. God continues to pursue them. And then you read a few chapters down and you see that Abraham is called a friend of God. When they ask you, "Did Abraham call on God or did God call Abraham?" It's God's initiative. And the entire biblical drama of God's dealing with the nation of Israel is over and over and over again. God takes the initiative. God establishes a covenant with them. God restores the covenant. God keeps doing whatever it takes to keep pulling them back to Himself.

And later in the Old Testament, Isaiah would say that someday the promise is that a virgin will give birth to a son and his name will be what? Emmanuel. God with us. And you open up Matthew's Gospel and he says, "And here he is born and stable in Bethlehem." Grace is God's idea. He amazingly, incredibly, despite us deserving nothing from him, pursues us and often when we're not even looking for him. And think about it this way. The problems that we face, every single one of us, the biggest, biggest problems like sin, death, alienation from God, these are all above our pay grade. These are problems that human beings are completely incapable of solving. But God can. God did. It was God's idea.

And so Paul will not bend on the issue of grace. Reminds me of a great little quote I found from Pastor Tim Keller. He puts it like this. "Christ will do everything for you or nothing. You cannot combine merit and grace." That's what the Galatians thought they were supposed to do. It's a little bit God, it's a little bit us. But Christ will do everything for you or nothing. And so Paul just keeps hammering this home. Not only was the gospel of grace God's idea, but number two, the miracle of salvation is God's work. We're not just saved by grace, we're changed by it. We're transformed. And you're going to see that as he starts to get into his story. Watch how this happens. Picking up at verse 13.

"You have heard no doubt of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the Church of God and was trying to destroy it." He's the words there for destroy like an army would go in and destroy a city. "I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors." And in a sense Paul is giving the reader's digest version of his testimony because presumably he's already shared this with the Galatians when he first went and preached to them. But we can recover what he would have said because his stories also told pretty much at length in the book of Acts.

In fact, at the end of chapter 7, we are introduced to the Saul of Tarsus who is a member of a strict sect within Judaism called the Pharisees. And he's likely referring to this when he says, "I was far more zealous for the traditions." Pharisees was a religious tradition of my ancestors. And Paul was really a Pharisees Pharisee. I mean, he was top of the class but you know you don't have to read very far into the Gospels to see that Jesus and the Pharisees, they didn't exactly see eye to eye on things. In fact, they're constantly clashing because Jesus is announcing, "Hey the kingdom of heaven has come to you." And if the Pharisees are thinking, you know it's really about us through our own effort achieving holiness or continuing in God's favor.

And so they had developed literally hundreds of religious rules. You've heard this before. Literally there were 613 rules that they tried to keep. There was to be exact 248 do's and 365 don'ts. Okay so they had a don't for every year, every day of the year. But to be fair to them their underlying motive was good. They actually simply wanted to be faithful to God. The problem was is that rules cannot change the human heart. Rules can control the heart. You can control behavior through religious policy but as they continue to add on rule after rule, rules that were by the way if you got down into the root of them based in ethics that most of us would agree with. But as they continue to pile this on and by the time of Jesus think we're just kind of out of control it turned their hearts cold. And it turned Saul's heart cold.

Saul this young zealous Pharisee takes it upon himself to really lead this program against the first followers of the church and he's going to set himself apart in terms of persecuting them too. And he's having them arrested, he's having them beaten. In some case they're being killed with his approval and applause. And then he gets permission to go to Damascus kind of gets a hunting license to go there and persecute the church in Damascus and then suddenly he gets intercepted on the road on his way. The resurrected Jesus appears to him in blinding light and there he is flat on his face. His mission has just ground to a halt.

On a far lesser scale there was a bit of a interception interruption you might say right in the skies above this building on Friday. You might have read about this but some poor guy was flying his little prop plane right over the church. And at the same time the president was at Stanford and the no fly zone extended all the way past the airspace above us. But this guy I guess didn't get the memo until he was strafed by an F-15 going like mock whatever. In fact it was so loud because those things can only fly so slow. So it's doing laps around this guy in his Cessna you know it's like as if to say you know like Gandalf "You shall not pass!" He's like "Okay!" I heard through a pilot that they actually send the bill to you if you do that and I don't know what it costs to fill the tank on one of those things but it can't be a little bit. It's like the government's way of saying yeah read the memo next time.

Anyway on a much, much, much, much grander scale the resurrected Christ intercepts Paul and suddenly with his face down in the dirt he hears this voice say "Saul, Saul why are you persecuting me?" And what do you say? I don't know. He doesn't even answer the question he just asks one of us oh and he says "Who are you Lord?" And then he hears an answer that just had the I mean talk about shivers down your spine. "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting." It's like uh-oh and Jesus says "And now I'm going to smash you like a bug." He doesn't do that. In fact he doesn't even review any of Paul's past. He says "Get up Paul, get up because you know what now you're on my team." And just like that Saul of Tarsus begins his new life he will become the mighty Apostle Paul.

Why? Because it was his idea? No. It's totally absolutely by his grace and he's speaking to this moment and perhaps the sum of everything else that preceded it and followed it starting in verse 15 when he says "But when God who had set me apart before I was born" see God was there way before Paul even knew it. "and called me through his grace was pleased was actually pleased to reveal his son to me so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles. I did not confer with any human being nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me but I went away at once to Arabia and afterwards I returned to Damascus."

Paul makes it as clear as he can that when God was pleased to call him by his what? By his grace. That it was clear as a bell. He didn't need you know to ask the fellow pastors what it meant. He didn't need anyone to unpack it for him. All he feels the need to do is go out into what he calls Arabia and go into some lonely place because his head's about to explode. He just has to process this life-altering encounter where Jesus just descends on him and says "You're mine." And then he says eventually verses 18 through 20 "After three years I did go to Jerusalem to visit Cephas" that's Peter in Aramaic "and stayed within 15 days but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord's brother in what I'm writing you before God I do not lie."

Essentially yeah I had some brief interactions with these guys three years later but in no way was I informed through them I was informed my life my message is a direct result of my encounter with Jesus Christ and why is he so emphatic here? He's emphatic because the Galatians are going well you know there's these teachers and they sound pretty smart so we probably ought to believe them and those teachers probably said well you know we actually you know we were tied into some people pretty high up on the org chart and so that's where our authority comes from and Paul's going no I actually got this directly from Jesus and it doesn't get any higher than that.

In a sense his whole story can be summed up with just those three words but when God he before that he says yeah I mean I was zealous I was gonna pull down the church I hated the name of Jesus I was trying to destroy everything that I thought he was about I had no intention of ever changing but when God intervened my life was never the same. And we could go around this room and there are folks here could say you know what I was so full of myself I was so filled a full I'm just kind of building my own little kingdom or bolstering my pride I was so full of anger I was so full of lust I was so full of addictions I was so full of evil desires I was so full of it but when God when he intervened my life took a completely different direction not overnight perhaps not in a day not in a year but I just it just started to take on a new course and I've never been the same.

You see Paul did not go from being this religious terrorist to an evangelist because he adopted some new conduct of living some new rules to go by the gospel of grace was God's idea and it just hit him right between the eyes and not only that but the miracle of his salvation his transformation was God's work which means that the credit for a changed life can only be God's alone and again you see the direction the trajectory of all this it's what God does in us and you know it took a while for the first followers of Jesus to believe that Paul was actually legit like he'd become one of them they kind of stayed away from him at first because they're like Paul's one of us yeah right I mean we may look stupid but we're not dumb.

But eventually as they see the fruit of his life they see that the transformation eventually verses 21 through 24 he says then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia and I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ they only heard it said the one who formally was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy and here's the punch line and they glorified God because of me the story starts with Saul the persecutor it ends with Paul the preacher and the people glorifying God because of what they saw in his life isn't that a great epitaph wouldn't you love that you know that was on your tombstone they glorified God because of me.

And you know what I have to think there are people that knew Anne Lamont when she was growing up and they know her now as someone who not only had this amazing encounter but would go on to be baptized in her church professing Jesus Christ as her Lord who would go on to teach Sunday school and she would probably tell you I'm still kind of a hot mess but God is you know she's very much aware that yes grace meets us where we are but it doesn't leave us there and people would look at that change in her life and go wow God nice work and there are people that would look into your life and you might not even know it but they go wow God I knew that person 20 years ago nice work or maybe that's something that's in your future who knows but you never know where someone has come from not not entirely and you certainly don't know where God will take them but what you can know is that God is always pursuing us in his loving grace.

And along those lines your third faith story for this morning comes from a friend of mine and fellow Twin Lakes pastor would you please welcome Dave Hicks as he makes his way up here thanks Mark I was kind of laughing as you were telling that story about Anne Lamont and then thinking of Paul and how many of us thought wow Paul was always this religious follower and and that that uh what I wanted was reminded of was the sequel to what I'm about to tell it's kind of the postscript because when when it turned out that I was changed I got my picture in the paper the church sent a photo of myself with the caption it was on the front of the metro the local section of Pasadena Star News and it would have Dave Hicks missionary bound to Alaska and my college friends and friends at school and stuff some of them even tore it out and came to me in the hallway and went what's up with you a missionary what a what a waste of time I mean they had they could not believe that something had changed me.

And that's what happens up here when we're standing before you and say you know my name's Dave I'm one of the pastors here I'm Mark one of the pastors of Trent as Trent said this morning I'm one of the pastors here and the reality that um that the tendency is to sit out there and think you know you've always been like that well that's not the truth and that's certainly not the in my case I was in my 20s I'm in college and I was um well I I was struggling with life and I found that uh I kind of had chucked faith churchy anody religion I'd gone to church I'd been taught about God I was told and taught to believe in God and I heard about Jesus and and then I went to church and I heard so many shed sermons you should do this or you should be this way and I I would sometimes leave on a Sunday morning and walk out and say wow I really got shitted on this morning so but I uh I knew the should part but I was well aware that I couldn't.

I felt responsible and some of you know I at 12 I crashed a neighbor's Lincoln Continental and yeah you laugh but it wasn't funny then and then I uh I felt responsible for the death of a close friend when I was young and and to hear about the shoulds and to be well aware that I didn't measure up was a big part of that so I was in college and I went surfing one Saturday and down in Newport Beach and I had it was early afternoon and I'd come in for a break and was sitting on the towel and and this bus pulled in in fact two buses pulled in and off the bus came these people that I being somewhat familiar with churchy anody uh they were religious people I could tell because they were wearing dark leather shoes black socks straw hats and had clipboards and big black bibles and I as I saw them coming out across the sand to talk to us um I went this is this is bad news so I grabbed I didn't even take the time to put my wetsuit on I grabbed my board and headed for the water and paddled out and stayed out there about as long as I could and when the surf died down and the wave of people had passed down the beach past my towel I came in and laid down to warm up.

And it wasn't too long later that I felt like the sun had passed over a cloud had passed over the sun and I looked up and there was this guy standing over my towel shading me and he looked at me and said have you ever heard of the four spiritual laws and I went no and he said would you like to and I said sure if you sit down and stop blocking my son I whatever and over the next few minutes he shared with me four spiritual principles that even a few minutes later I didn't remember but these were the four God loves you and has a plan for your life but the problem is people are sinful and separated from God and that's why they don't know and experience that love and plan but Jesus is God's provision for our sin through him you can know and experience God's love and plan for your life and the fourth thing is it's an individual decision it's not religion it's a relationship with a God who pursues you and loves you.

And you know I didn't remember for even a few minutes those four things but I did remember one thing and it was because I think early on as a kid I had learned John 3:16 and there was a verse that he shared with me that was from John as well it was from John 10 and the verse went like this that Jesus said that the reason he came was that we might have life and have it to the full and he said that several times and we were talking and that stuck in my head and as I drove home that night that went through my head and I thought I wonder if that's true I wonder if what Jesus said is true that he came that I might have life and have it abundantly.

And I got home and I went down the hall and there was a note under my door my mom had left me in note and it said Adrian called and wanted to invite you to go to church tomorrow and I thought about it and I thought she's she's really cute so I think I'll go so I called her and said yeah I'll come I'll meet you there and I did and went Sunday night and as I was sitting there they sang for a while like we did here and and then the youth pastor got up and said I want you to turn in if you have your bible would you open your bible and turn to John 10 and went wow that's weird what a coincidence but not only that but he went straight to John 10 and he said Jesus said that I have come that you might have life and have it to the full and I thought this is weird this has got to be a coincidence and at the end he gave an invitation and and I uh I kind of thought well that's kind of cool that uh that this would be the same topic and I went home that night and the next morning I was driving to college and going to class and I was going down Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena and I was driving my my really hot car Chevy and I was kind of cruising along and I was turning the music up and I changed the station and and I got to a religious station and you can always tell you can always tell when it's a religious station because they talk different you know they say god and Jesus you know and I mean it's just the way it was and I and and it sounded like cheeses you know but he but the guy the pastor or the speaker said and Jesus said I've come that you might have life and have it abundantly and that's when I pulled an animal on I swore and I turned the channel turned the station and I thought oh crap this is crazy and I pulled up to the light just like over here Cabrillo you know where you pull up the intersection and all the students get the path and everybody's passing and crossing the street and I pulled up in my car and and I had big chrome pipes down the side it was not a quiet car it's out there idling rumbling and and I wished it didn't because when I looked to my left coming across the crosswalk in front of my car I was the first one in line were the two girls that I'd been dating who who I didn't know knew each other and they both saw me at the same time as they got in the middle of the street and they went Dave and they went oh you know Dave and by the time they got to the curb across on the other side I realized my plan for abundant life was over.

And when the light turned green I punched it and looked for a place to park and parked and came back to the street in Colorado Boulevard and and I sat down on the curb and I put my feet in the gutter and I went god is this is this you are you speaking to me is this Jesus is this true is this more than a coincidence if if if this is true that you came that I might have life and have it abundantly I give up I want it I need it and if I hear you I hear you saying that you want to do that in my life and make me the person that you made me to be that you created me to be and I realize it's all you it's your work your pursuit of my life and that's grace my life has never been the same since wherever you're sitting maybe that bench maybe that's your curb but Colorado Boulevard was mine and it was a decision that I made and it's all because of god's grace.

Mark, thank you for yeah thank you Dave three faith stories three very very different people one common thread the grace of god given to us in Jesus Christ and there's actually one more faith story I'd actually want you to think about and that would be yours maybe you're here this morning you're just checking out Christianity or you're you you come but you you if you're honest you'd say I'm resistant I prefer to sit on the periphery the grace is good enough for god if grace is good enough for Paul for Anne Lamont for Dave for for many many of us I would just ask you to consider this question is grace enough for me it's grace enough for me.

You referred Dave to John 3:16 you learned as a kid I mean that's really the core of the Christian message right there for god so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life it's his gift his grace given when I was a kid I learned that that grace kind of stood for god's riches at Christ's expense that's god's riches at Christ's expense and that's really what that verse is saying right there and maybe if if you've been here for a long time you've been a Christian for a long time but you feel your faith has gotten kind of boring or tired or wrote my prayer is that god's grace would just wash over you anew and you would reflect on all that he has done in your life all that would not be there were it not for his grace and may that review of his goodness cause joy to well up in your heart once again.

Would you pray with me heavenly father thank you so much for the fact that yes your grace meets us where we are but it does not leave us there thank you for the fact lord that that you not only save us but that you call us there's a purpose behind us that we could not only belong to you but that we could be a part of what you're doing in this world in in our communities in our families that that we have this amazing purpose and destiny and future and it's it's just so amazing pray that it would just sink into our hearts and lives however we need that some people lord they just feel like absolute failures lift them up by your grace some people would just burn out they're burnt out on religion because they've been trying to kind of somehow curry your favor I pray lord that wherever we're at that your grace will penetrate our hearts in a new and fresh and transformational way this morning I ask this in Jesus name amen.