In our ongoing sermon series, it's now my honor to be able to take yet another step
among us.
We're going to take that step in the Gospel of John.
So if you have your Bibles, perhaps one in the rack in front of you, we'll be landing
in John chapter 19 for our study this morning.
I do feel the compulsion to share with you as we get started, that of all the different
things, the seven things that we have recorded in Scripture that Jesus said from the cross.
And again, you can see from our screens and you can see from your sermon outline this
morning that we are attempting to make connection from this sermon series to our church family's
connection with the My Hope Outreach Initiative in April.
That's not a hard sell at all because our hope indeed comes from the cross of Christ.
We're just allowing Jesus from the cross through the Scripture to speak to us and remind us
of the vast reasons we have in the hope, the vast reason for the hope that we have.
We want to understand the depth in other words of what Jesus has accomplished.
Of all the seven things that Jesus said from the cross, this particular statement we're
going to concern ourselves with today is the one that for me anyway is not one that I have
spent a lot of time with.
It's a simple thing for me as a follower of Jesus, in other words, to jump right into
some conversation, reflection and prayer with the Lord over a statement like, Father, forgive
them.
They don't know what they're doing.
Or the text that our pastor will consider next week, if Jesus doesn't return between
now and then, what it was for Jesus to be on the cross and truly to be forsaken by our
Father.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
That's an easy thing for me to do is to jump right into verses like that, statements that
Jesus made of such power.
The one we'll offer today is so easily overlooked.
And in my history as a Christian, I am guilty of that.
But what is so interesting is that time in this particular passage with this particular
statement of Jesus will change your view of God.
And so as we talk this morning about our hope, my hope for living every day, I'd open with
a question, wondering what it is that your view of God really is.
What is your view of God?
How do you consider Him?
Is He growing bigger in your estimation and in your journey with Him by the day?
Or are you struggling in this regard?
Many years ago, author C.S. Lewis penned a series that has since become very popular
on the big screen.
I would refer it further this morning to his book called Prince Caspian in the Line, The
Witch and the Wardrobe Series.
There is a scene in that book and therefore a scene that is played out regarding Aslan,
the large lion Christ figure of the story.
And he's being confronted by the young child Lucy upon their return to Narnia.
Lucy remarks to Aslan and she says, Aslan, you're bigger, you're bigger.
And Aslan replies, that is because you are older, little one.
And Lucy quickly asks the question, it's not because you are?
And then Aslan responds and says, I am not.
Every year you grow, you will find me bigger.
Today is a growth opportunity for us and I pray interacting with God through this particular
text.
What it is that Jesus said in regard to His earthly mother, our prayer is that your view
of God will grow and that indeed He will seem bigger, especially in the way He cares over
our every day.
I'm going to be reading from verse 23 and following and we'll pray and then we'll make
some remarks that we pray we'll do exactly that.
When the soldiers, verse 23, crucified Jesus, they took His clothes and divided them into
four parts, apart for each soldier.
They also took the tunic, which was seamless, woven in one piece from the top.
So they said to one another, let's not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who gets it.
And they did this to fulfill the scripture that says, they divided my clothes among themselves
and they cast lots for my clothing and this is what the soldiers did.
Now mind you, the soldiers are not at the foot of the cross with a heart for fulfilling
prophecy, but by the working of God and all of the events of the crucifixion, everything
we would call major, everything we would call minor, it is the word of God, it is the promise
of God from centuries past being fulfilled in this hearing.
Now verse 25 to pick back up, standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother, His mother's
sister, Mary the wife of Kloppus and Mary Magdalene.
When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple He loved standing there, He said to His mother,
woman, here is your son.
And then He said to the disciple, here is your mother.
And from that hour, the disciple took her into His home.
Father God, we offer a word of thanks, of gratitude for the scripture.
We believe this word that we hold, that we are holding that which is inerrant, perfect
revelation of you to us, and it touches us God, it touches us deeply.
Even the passages that over the course of our lives, we catch ourselves relegating to
a place that may not touch us, a place that is not so frequently visited.
This is one of those places.
Well Father God, we're asking you this morning to take something that's not as familiar and
to change our view of you through it.
Since Jesus spoke to Mary and spoke to John, we now ask you to speak to us and to make
very plain how special the truth we consider today is for our everyday living.
We love you.
We make this prayer in Jesus' name, amen.
And as I would admit, it's just sheer admission to come before you and for me to envision
Jesus on the cross and turning his attention, focusing even for a second on Mary and John
at the foot of the cross, coming to grips with the pain that they were feeling, what
it was that they were experiencing.
This is not something, this is not something at first glance that draws our attention.
But after today, that will change, because again, there is such significant special truth
in this brief moment of conversation.
We have to understand, in order to really appreciate what Jesus is doing, we have to
really understand what is going on for him on the cross, what is actually happening.
We must understand it.
Now in Scripture's terminology, to answer this question in its simplest form, we could
lean on something that John the Baptist is recorded as saying.
And for those of you who are making notes, this is recorded in John chapter 1 verse 29.
We read in John chapter 1 that when John the Baptist, as he is baptizing, as he's preaching,
and he's coming in now into view of Jesus who is coming to him, his statement is the
following, behold the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world.
He has come to take away the sin of the world.
What is happening on the cross for Jesus is precisely that.
He is taking away the sin of the world.
And so what we do this morning in dissecting what that experience would have been like
for Jesus from a physical standpoint, from an emotional standpoint, and especially from
a spiritual standpoint, then what we end up doing is seeing what it was for him to literally
take sin by the throat and take it away, to literally take it away.
It harkens reminders to Leviticus chapter 16, and we'll get to that in just a moment.
The next few minutes are very deep, dear friend, and so if you've got a belt there in your
pew, I encourage you to buckle it in because we're going to need to go pretty fast.
This Leviticus 16 story of what the day of atonement would have been like for the people
of God, seeing one goat completely sacrificed, seeing one goat confessed over and taken away
out of the camp, the sins of the people symbolically taken away, both of them come together in what
Jesus is accomplishing to take away the sin of the world.
So what does that look like?
From a physical standpoint, we're asking the question today, what was the cross physically
for Jesus?
Well, we know by the Gospels that preceding the crucifixion that Jesus was scourged,
and he was scourged in an incredibly brutal way.
There's truly no form.
We've seen it in movies, there's the passion of the Christ, I admit to you, I've not seen
the newest release, The Son of God, and so I have no idea at this present time how that
film portrayed particularly the scourging of Jesus, but I would share with you that even
in the most vivid graphic portrayal that our big screens could provide, there's no real
way for us to consider the brutality that Jesus faced.
He is facing the wrath, you might say, of sin itself against God poured out first in that
scourging, that beating that took him to the inch of his life.
We know also from the scripture that following that scourging, that he faced a mocking of
the soldiers, that's where the crown of thorns comes into place, and then he is forced to
walk his way through Jerusalem to the outskirts of the city, out to the hill of the skull
where our pastor described a couple of weeks ago, where the crucifixion took place.
All of this carrying its physical toll to the point, if you'll recall from the scripture,
that Jesus reached a point where he needed help with his cross, and it was there that
a man named Simon was commissioned to carry that cross the rest of the way to Calvary.
But to speak of this speaks nothing of the horror of crucifixion, and what is so interesting,
what is so interesting is that our gospel writers offer us virtually no insight into
what that crucifixion itself would have been like for Jesus, the horror of it, I mean.
We read simply that he was crucified, a simple statement.
But to bring graphicness, to bring sobriety to this occasion, even in brief fashion, what
crucifixion would have been like for Jesus, you understand, nail through the hand, nail
through the hand, nails to the feet to keep him on the cross.
It was not meant to be a torture tactic that took his life immediately.
It was meant to be a torture tactic that took it over time.
He was there as a gesture of shame before the crowd who would be looking.
And this is how it was over six hours time that Jesus would have remained alive.
You see, there's only one way to breathe when you're on the cross.
With hands stretched and nails in your feet, the only way you can breathe is to push your
body up from the nail in your feet.
This relieves pressure in your abdomen and you can take breath.
You're still nailed here, and you're still nailed here, but you're forcing yourself
up so you can actually take a breath.
Only problem is there's only so long that a crucifixion victim could take that kind
of pain in their feet.
And so finally, to relieve that pain, you release the pressure through your knees and
you rest on the nails in your hands, right?
Are you picturing this, everybody?
Okay, so finally the pain in your feet is somewhat relieved.
The problem is, is now you've got the pain in your hands and the pressure's back on your
abdomen so you can't breathe, and so you must imagine this morning the physical torment
on Jesus pressing up and letting himself down, pressing himself up and letting himself down
for every breath.
All of the seven statements we read from Jesus on the cross, the way he is able to say them
out loud is to push himself up and then muster the energy to speak.
So this is physical, physical torture of an unspeakable variety that Jesus is going through
on the cross, and this in close connection with what it means to take our sin away.
What about emotionally?
What about the emotional strain of the cross?
For one thing, he was naked.
There's great shame for the crucifixion victim in being naked before this crowd.
Our movies depict crucifixion victims with at least a loincloth covering them that would
not have been Roman crucifixion.
He would have been naked, and he would have been hung at eye level, not somehow way up
here.
So there is definite eye contact here with every part of Jesus.
This doesn't even speak of the verbal abuse that he is receiving from the crowd.
We even talked last week about the verbal abuse coming from the crosses, the thieves
to his left and to his right.
What's so interesting is the emotional abuse that could have come from one other source.
Now friends, did you read with us in our text this morning before we prayed verses 23 and
following?
Did you read about what the soldiers were doing, they're recorded doing at the foot
of the cross?
What were they doing with the clothing that had been taken off of Jesus?
What were they doing with it?
What were they doing?
They were casting lots for it.
That's right.
You normally would have had four soldiers, there would have been four pieces of clothing
there, and so they're gambling to see who gets what.
Now there's a problem there, there's a fifth piece of garment, and that would have been
the tunic.
We even read a word about this tunic, that it was a one-piece tunic, it would have made
it extremely valuable.
We would read in this text that that's where the soldiers gamble for this particular tunic.
They don't want to cut it into pieces and divide it up, so they're gambling for it.
And I want you to imagine for just a moment what kind of trauma Jesus would experience
emotionally to see his clothes being gambled for.
And even more to the point, there are commentators who suggest that this particular tunic would
have been a priestly garment and very likely a gift prepared for him in his youth by his
mother.
And so part of my wondering what's happening on the cross, the emotional trauma for Jesus,
I wonder if he's not watching at the foot.
These soldiers gambling for this one special article of clothing and not far from them
is the woman who actually made it.
But I wonder in his 100% humanness if Jesus is not experiencing emotional trauma, simply
overseeing this.
In any event, you've got physical trauma, you've got emotional trauma, and now we get
to the worst of all, the spiritual trauma.
What's happening spiritually at the cross?
Well, we're going to end up focusing for the next few moments on three key words of what
it is that's actually unfolding there through Jesus Christ on the cross.
And the first word, I'm sure you're familiar with it, is the word atonement, the word atonement.
This is the essence of what we as Southern Baptists, we as evangelical Christians have
come to know over time as the doctrine of substitution, of substitution.
And what it literally means is this, to atone for the sins of the world, to literally take
away the penalty of our sins, a substitution sacrifice must be made, and Jesus Christ is
that substitute.
Thus what's happening at the cross is a sacrifice of atonement.
A few moments ago, we referenced verbally the Leviticus 16 passage that one year per
day prescribed for the people of God, again, to sacrifice this particular goat, to confess
sins over this other goat, both of them being symbolic of what Jesus would do.
We were even reading in Isaiah 53 what it is for through our Savior to have our sins
forgiven.
It's through His stripes we read in Isaiah 53 that we are healed.
So there is a substitution element going on there on the cross.
And for Jesus, He not only understands it, He embraces it.
That is the reason for which He has come.
He is making atonement for us in this moment.
To take that even deeper is to bring up another theological word, Brother Herb, this is one
of my favorites because it's hard to say.
It's the word propitiation.
I mean, if you've ever heard the word propitiation before, I mean, if you've ever tried to say
it, you know, you're going to do really well and you're witnessing tomorrow at work.
If you'll get the word propitiation in, there's some value in simply saying it properly.
The word propitiation, it means the following.
To be a propitiation means that you are taking wrath away from someone else.
That's what you're doing.
You are a wrath bearer.
You are innocent, but you are taking a wrath of guilt away from the guilty.
In other words, you're substituting for them.
Now, I understand we just talked about substitution.
There's no reason to go back into that for the time being.
But understand that the Scripture tells us that what Jesus was accomplishing was not
merely an atonement from man's perspective, but he was coming before God, our Father,
and making sacrifice as well.
He was taking the wrath against sin, the wrath of a holy God, and he was not deflecting it
away from us.
He was literally taking it for us.
That's what the word propitiation comes down to.
And on the screen, you've got a couple of references this afternoon after lunch.
You're going to want to read these texts.
Romans chapter 3, verse 23, not only tells us that the wager that all of us have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God, but that text also prescribes to us the solution.
That solution being the fact that Jesus serves as our wrath bearer.
That's what he came to do.
First John, this is a favorite theme of John chapter 2 and chapter 4.
He refers to Jesus as our propitiation.
So imagine for just a moment on the cross, Jesus is taking all of the physical torture
of the death.
He's taking all of the emotional trauma of the scene around him, but there is the spiritual
trauma as well, him coming in this crucial time in human history, this crucial time in
the history of history to make atonement for our sins by being our wrath bearer before
a holy God.
And this, friends, unfolding to the extreme where our third word is actually real.
And that's the word separation.
And bless you, pastor.
I can't go as far as I want to here because that's our next statement from the cross next
week.
It's so hard.
It's so hard.
It's like operating with a lottery ticket in my hand as a preacher and not spending
the money.
I want so bad to go into Matthew's reference where Jesus cries out, my God, my God, why
have you forsaken me?
This is the moment of extreme and all of a sudden Jesus is such the wrath bearer and
such the sin offering that for the first time and for the only time, praise God, the father
and the son are actually separate.
And in this moment, second Corinthians five, we read that Jesus is not only making atonement
for sin, that he has actually become sin, being put to death on the cross.
There is no way for us to estimate in this setting this morning how brutal a circumstance
like this is.
And that's the amazing part of this word that Jesus offers on the cross today.
That's what makes it so amazing.
It's in a context like this that Jesus seemingly impossibly turns attention to his mother
and to his friend at the foot of that cross.
Going through everything that he was going through, we would rightly understand if all
Jesus longed to be consumed with was simply getting this over with, but in the middle
of it, he turns his attention to her and he turns his attention to him and he makes this
statement that is going to provide for the care of his earthly mother, I'm blown away.
I'm just blown away.
Now to be fair and to take this from the right angle, I listened to some podcasts this week.
Christian and I share some podcasts.
What's the word I'm looking for?
Affinity.
We like to listen to Andy Stanley out of Atlanta.
Have you listened to Matt Carter out of Austin, Texas?
I really want to encourage the Austin Stone podcast.
I happened to catch this in the last couple of weeks, a message on this very text, Glory
be to God.
That's just fantastic.
In this podcast, in this preaching broadcast, everyone, it was Matt Carter who offered the
following question and for the remainder of our message, this guides the thought.
Why was it?
If Jesus had in him the desire to make sure his mother would be provided for, that she
would have a place to live, that she would have food on her table, that she would have
the companionship of connection with one who would be her son.
If Jesus was consumed in any way by this, then the question begs, why did he not do
something about it earlier?
Why did he wait until this moment right here to utter these words?
As an example, you know what it was that happened the night before the crucifixion?
What was it?
What significant happened with Jesus gathered with his disciples?
What was it that happened?
It was the Passover.
It was the Passover.
They got together, they came together in that upper room that we remember reading about
and they had a Passover meal.
There was much conversation around the table.
Most of it dominated by Jesus and what it was that he had to say.
But you know what's interesting is that we read that right beside him for that entire
Passover meal was one disciple.
What was his name?
It was John.
He was there the entire time.
It is who the Gospel of John would refer to here as the disciple that Jesus loved.
My point being this, and this was Matt's point in the podcast, is that when John is right
there beside him the entire evening of the Passover meal, then why is it that Jesus didn't
turn to John at some point and say something like this, hey John, I know you've not caught
this most times that I've taught it, most times that I've shared it, but you know what?
After tomorrow my body is going to be in the grave and after that I will be departing from
this world.
I was wondering, I was just wondering if you would take care of my mother.
Now it probably wouldn't have been said exactly that way, but I have to admit that question
rings true for me.
It rings with some significance.
I catch myself wondering, why didn't you do it Jesus the night before?
The same logic, brother, takes us to the after the resurrection.
If this was something that was important to Jesus, making sure that his earthly mother
was cared for, well then surely he could have offered this request after he was raised from
the dead.
I mean, come on everybody, do you know your Bibles?
How long was it that Jesus appeared with his disciples before he ascended into heaven?
It was what, 40 days?
That's plenty of opportunity for Jesus to take John aside, and to say my mother, she
needs someone to care for her.
In this context, this culture today, if she's by herself she will not survive.
We need someone for her to be taken care of by, and I want to ask you, why did it have
to be the night of the cross, excuse me, why did it have to be from the cross?
And that's when my gears really get to grinding, and really get to thinking, and really getting
to reflect.
We spoke last week in our sermon introduction that of these seven things that Jesus said
on the cross, we may not attach, we may not attach dramatic value to these, but of all
seven of these statements, there's not one that's lacking in significance.
Every one of them was on purpose, and every one of them was significant.
And what that means is though the context of this statement may not blink in neon lights
for us, but guaranteed there is a truth, there is something in the heart of God that Jesus
is seeking to communicate that absolutely does.
So if that's the case, what is it?
What is that truth, that revelation of God's heart that Jesus is showing us in this text?
And it's here that I have to ask you to really ward off a short-sighted view of God, to really
ward it off, to make sure that your view of God is not small in any way.
It's true.
The cross shows me that in sin I am in worse shape than I ever could have fully realized,
but that I'm also more loved than I could have ever imagined.
And this, the love of God that is guiding, it's near, it's practical, it's attentive,
and yet so often, me knowing this about the love of God, I find myself in everyday life
in the middle of a short-sighted view of God.
Here's a better idea of what I mean by everyday life.
It's so often that you and I will go through trials, we'll go through difficulties, we'll
find ourselves battling such things as loneliness, the specter of disease, what it is to go
through life facing persecution or opposition or simply having circumstances stack up against
us.
And suddenly we feel like in everyday life, though our faith in God is great and our
understanding that God himself is greater, we'll often feel as if we're abandoned, maybe
even neglected.
I remember in our home as a kid, my mom is here, she can attest to this, in our home
as a kid and for Daniel and Abigail, it's often the case that they'll lose some toys.
If your kid's ever lost toys before.
There's not much trauma in a young house like the time when you lose some toys.
What it leads to always is a tearing apart of the bedroom, well, eventually.
How many of your kids have ended up searching for a toy that was lost and it had actually
fallen in between that crack between the bed and their wall?
Have you ever had that happen in your house?
It may have fallen between the crack of the bed and the wall and sort of stumbled its
way underneath the bed and there, it's just kind of lost.
It's just there in no man's land, you can't really see it.
You often have other things under the bed that you can't really reach it.
That's sometimes what it feels like for us in everyday life as if we have stumbled through
a series of circumstances, fallen our way off of life's bed and now we're kind of stuck
in a spot where we're just not really sure that God is paying attention.
Well, we're not sure that we're still even in the gaze of our God.
We feel like we're in some nexus or twilight zone, if you will, kind of caught underneath
life's bed like a toy that's been misplaced and all of a sudden, this short-sighted view
of God, this small idea that maybe he's not attentive to every single detail in my life,
suddenly that takes root and it grows this awful fruit of loneliness and fear and despair.
I believe that what we see from Jesus in what he was going through on the cross and in his
making of these statements to his mother and to John, I believe what we see is him meeting
the most significant need of the universe, yet not being so tired or not being so distracted
from our life's smallest details.
In other words, the core lesson for today is the fact that God cares.
It's as simple as that, that God cares.
The cross does show how deeply God cares about my eternal life.
There's no questioning that, but it also shows how deeply he cares about your everyday life.
Every single detail, every single decision, every single joy, every single victory, every
fear and every source of pain, the core message this morning is the fact that God cares.
In fact, can I ask the 8.30 crowd this morning to say that simple truth with me?
God cares, cares.
He cares not just for establishing my eternal security.
The cross speaks for that, but you know what?
The cross also speaks in this instance for my everyday security.
He wants me to remember how deliberately he cares.
So the core truth of this message today, when you leave this morning and our surveyors ask
you outside that door, 10 minutes from now what the sermon was about, you can tell them
these two words, God cares, he cares.
And that, friends, is at the core of our hope, at the core of my hope.
My hope, friends, is anchored by God being even more than my savior.
And I know at first glance that statement is hard to really, it's hard to really wrap
your minds around because our first, our best praising of God in Jesus Christ is through
the word savior.
But friends, the cross shows us that he's even more than that.
It's anchored my hope is in him being more than my savior, but also being my everyday
father and my eternal friend, one who so deeply cares about the small in my life as much as
the big, one who wants me to know that I can trust him and I can follow him through everything.
If you are in a time of despair, if you are in a time of anxiety, and maybe part of you
can actually connect with that idea of the lost toy underneath the bed that no one seems
to care about, I tell you that your hope in Jesus Christ includes the fact that God loves
you as a father, as a father would a son or a daughter and takes care of that son daughter.
His love is for you as a friend that will walk with you.
The text of Scripture even says that he would walk with you closer than a brother.
I don't know what it is that we as the people of God in this room today, the 11 o'clock
crowd, the folks watching on television, those of you watching on the internet, good morning.
I waved at the camera by the way everybody.
Well, you're not laughing much this morning, I thought that was kind of funny.
There's no way to know in the depths of our hearts what each and every one of us in this
room is struggling with.
A rainy day, it's nothing.
It's nothing compared to the struggle inside of our human hearts.
Is anyone sick here today?
I mean sick, not just physically, but sick in your spirit.
Sick in your spirit over the condition of someone that you love.
Sick in your spirit over what's going on in your workplace.
Sick in your spirit over whether or not you still have a job.
Sick in your spirit over what someone else is going through, another brother or another
sister.
Is there anyone here that is lonely?
Isn't it interesting that loneliness can strike us even as followers of Jesus when
we have everyone around us?
Loneliness is the weirdest, weirdest enemy I've ever fought in my life because you know
the truth as a man, I've never really been alone, but somehow I can always find a way
to feel lonely.
How many of you this morning, they don't raise your hand, but how many of you are feeling
lonely, forgotten, neglected, uncared for?
Are you struggling with self-image?
Maybe it's even more practical.
Bad news from a doctor.
My marriage is on the rocks.
I'm not sure what to do about my son or my daughter.
The grades are bad.
The job is worse.
There's no way for us to estimate to a man, to a woman what each of us in our hearts is
struggling with today.
But our hope in Jesus Christ is a hope not merely for eternal life, it is a hope for
everyday life.
And so whatever you are going through today, whatever you are experiencing in the depth
of your hearts, whatever you're successfully hiding from man, but whatever is exposed uniquely
before God, I assure you by this word of Jesus on the cross that God cares.
And this, dear friends, as a word from 1 Peter is what you can do today.
It is what you can do.
It is a call for us to humble ourselves, to do this under the mighty hand of God, and
this so at the proper time he may exalt you.
Would you be willing to read the last phrase with me absolutely out loud, casting all your
anxieties on him, because he cares for you, God cares.
We see the heart of God for each and every person, a love displayed from Jesus in his
most horror filled moment, and I believe that the reason he chose this moment on the cross
for that word was to speak to us and to speak to every believer that would follow.
You will become convinced in everyday life that God is either absent or he doesn't care,
but I assure you, your God cares.
And this is an indispensable part of our hope.
As we pray this morning, we're actually going to pray over an entire assembly over what
it is that you, me, may be experiencing that in some way distracts us from the truth of
our hope, convinces us in some short-sighted view of God that he's either not here, he's
not listening, or he doesn't care.
We're going to pray this morning in such a way that allows God to take the truth of
our hope and sink it deep, anchor it deep.
And I want to ask you to join in that prayer, and from there, we'll move further into a
day that truly is just for him.
Our Father, thank you so much for this morning and truth.
I've admitted it before this assembly, and we'll have to do it again at 11.
If you were to lay out, Father, the seven things that Jesus was to say on the cross,
lay them out right in front of me on a piece of paper, and you gave me the choice of which
one I would read, which one I would most naturally preach, or maybe even which one would come
last for me.
I'm so sorry, Father, at first glance this would be the last one.
And now confronted with the truth of really what it would have meant then and what it
means now, all of a sudden I'm thrust into the idea that maybe, just maybe this is our
most important one.
I praise you, God, for securing our eternal life through Jesus on the cross, but also
praise you for showing us how much you care about everyday life.
Each and every one of us, Father, is going through details.
We're going through small things.
We're going through some things, Father, that we're wondering how to pray over them, how
attentive you're going to be over them, how willing you are to move your hand over them
and in them.
I hope us to remember this day, help the words of Jesus to his mother and to John echo in
our hearts with a simple reminder that you are the God who cares.
And, Father, with that being our hope, there truly isn't a day that we can't experience
true victory in you.
Thank you for loving us this deeply, for taking care of our today as well as our tomorrow.
We pray this, Father, offering ourselves in worship, yes, but offering ourselves in love
and for surrender and trust.
Together, we make that our prayer in Jesus' name, amen.
And to you, dear friends, on the heels of that prayer, we are going to sing, and we're
going to sing joyfully.
Now, always a hymn inviting friends to respond to Christ by faith, some sort of a song that
is meant to draw the lost into what it is to trust Christ.
If you're here this morning and you've not received Jesus, we've proclaimed him and
what he has done for you on the cross, and salvation from sin only comes through him
if you're here today.
And you've not received forgiveness from sin and eternal life in heaven with him by
believing him, then we want to be a part of that.
We want to actually help you come to that faith.
And so while we sing together, if you're here and you need Jesus as Savior, you come, but
also rejoice during this song and our response, rejoice over what it is to have a Savior that
cares over the everyday.
For friends, that's part of our hope.
If there's anything in your life that is happening and you feel completely helpless, completely
beyond maybe even the gaze of God, and you're wondering about your hope, you need someone
to pray with you, well then our pastor is back from Florida, he's right here and he's
going to be ready to pray.
Pastor Andy, myself, we're ready to pray with you any way we can help you be anchored in
the truth of the hope you have.
We're excited that our God is the God of everyday.
So guys, let's take our place and friends, let's stand and let's sing to our God.
And if you're here today and it would be prayer over your circumstances that would benefit
you and your walk with God, you come while we sing.
