We really are celebrating the gift of Jason and Whitney Smith and their family as our staff pastors. And we’ve waited a year for that. And we have persevered from the good contributions of Steve and Debbie and Rob and I have had the privilege of transitioning you for a year on that. I was thinking the other day about Rob and my I’m going to I’m going be a little over the board today. Whatever.

I was thinking in this last year because as pastors who teach we really work on the area of not only the text and being accurate to the text but illustrations that illustrate it. And so I was thinking in my own mind in in the time that I had what’s the best illustrations that Rob and I have used in the last year with you in this transition time. And unfortunately my mind did not give me the award although I think the curl of the p pig’s tail is pretty good. The award really goes to Rob. And you remember one of his early messages.

And the reason I say this is because in our men’s group on Saturday Glenn and others regularly refer to this. Rob said, “I was in the forest and my mind said go this way, but the compass said go that way.” And he said the compass was right and the teaching was follow the word. That was a great illustration. Rob, you win the award for the last year in terms of the best sermon illustration and transition.

We’re really thankful for the prayers, the work of the committee, and the prayers of this church in bringing the Smith family to us. And I I really do believe in the Ed Dememory theory, which is that during the time where we did not have a staff pastor, we as a body exercised ourselves more greatly and reached out to each other in ways that we would normally defer to a staff pastor. And I think that happened and I think that’s to God’s grace and glory that our body was stretched for that year before the Smiths came. And don’t mistake it now. You’re seeing in the Smith family what you saw some of you and Stephen Debbie 30 years ago.

Busy, busy, busy with little children. And we were just commenting in the staff meeting before the service about how Steve how how Jason often delays coming up here to pray with you until we’re through singing. And the reason is a couple reasons. First of all, he’s really into the worship, which is really good. And secondly, he’s usually got one of his kids in his arms.

So this is a really busy busy time. We are back into our series on face tof face which is talking about the parables of Jesus. We have four or five to do and given the pace at which I’ll appear back up here, it may be four or five years before we finish this series, but we’re going to finish it and we’re in about the fourth or fifth parable from the end this morning in Matthew chapter 20. So, let’s see your Bibles, our phones, our computers, iPads. Very good.

Colin, I see yours. You’re you’re John and John and and Nancy normally hold up his Bible as well. But he’s not here today. He said, “You’re preaching today, so I’m gone.” And I said said, “John, you’re not going to get your Sunday school pinned that way.”

we are in Matthew chapter 20 and we’re talking about the parable of the workers in the vineyard. Somewhat of a close subject to me being the owner of a vineyard, but really the common themes for us as people who labor in the world that we have. Social sec social security statistics tell us that if you at the time a person starts to work at the age of 18 to 20 if he or she if you track them for 40 years you’ll find out that in that time of tracking them there will be one of those individuals that turns out being particularly wealthy. There will be 20 or 25 of them that continue to work past the age of social security retirement and there will at least be 35 of them who have died. And the point of the social security statistics are that you can’t count on that necessarily for being something that you can lean on for at least financial support.

And of that group that’s alive, the statistics in social security are that at least 50% of them are dependent on their family for family support. But that’s not uncommon to life as we know it. I love the term vicissitudes. I’ve taught it to you over the years. It means the anomalies, the unexpected things of life that kind of catch us short.

And it’s not as if we’re not grateful for what we have. We’ve all drawn breath. None of us have said to our hearts this morning, start beating so we can be here. We’re here by the gift of God. But it’s easy to compare.

And that’s really the message of the morning that the distractions of life, those things that don’t meet our growing and changing expectations in life, we have to figure out how to factor them in, how to understand them. And this parable in Matthew 20 helps us with that. So let’s read it together beginning in verse one in Matthew chapter 20. The first word is for. And that means that it draws the instruction from Matthew 19 into this parable.

And the instruction of Matthew 19 was the rich young ruler, the rich rich man that said, “What must I do to get eternal life?” And Jesus said, “Okay, test number one. Don’t murder. Don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t give false testimony, etc. And he said, “I win.

I did that.” And Jesus said, “Well, what do I lack?” Jesus said, “Well, if you want to be perfect, go sell your possessions and give to the poor and you’ll have treasure there. Then come follow me.” And the text tells us that the man went away sad because he was of great wealth.

And so the parable before our parable talks about the dangers of wealth and the distractions of wealth and the way in which life is measured by the level of our commitment quantitatively and qualitatively. So Peter being the first out of the bushes of the disciples says Lord we’ve given everything for you. And Jesus responds back and says,”There’ll be a reward for you in heaven, a hundred times more than anything you’ve given, but then his instruction at the end, but many who are first will be last, and the la and the ones who are last will be first.” That’s the hinge thought that pushes us into the parable of the workers in the vineyard. Those who are last shall be first and the first shall be last.

And the word for ties us into that. So, if you were in your Bible, you could take I’m I don’t have any problem with marking up my Bible. And what I’ve done is on the chapter 20, the 2, I just put an X through it because there shouldn’t be a chapter break here. This should flow right into this next parable. So, now we’re reading for the kingdom of heaven.

So, we know that this parable is not just teaching about mechanical, physical, brickandmortar issues. It’s talking about spiritual issues. For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner. And the word here is really a house lord. He’s not just a a slum lord who owns different properties and turns some of them into vineyards and then makes money on them.

This is a man who has homes and wealth and as part of that he has this vineyard. There’s a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. Now later on we learn that he he has a foreman but he’s doing this himself. He agreed to pay them a daenarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. So that was the early morning.

You could probably say about 6:00 in the morning. They were workers who said, “Here’s the deal. We’ll pay you a daenarius. You work all day for me. Get paid at the end of the day.”

They said, “Done.” They weren’t particularly redeeming in terms of wanting to do more than that, but they certainly weren’t willing to do less. They were going to work in that vineyard all day long. About the third hour or 9:00, this vineyard owner went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing doing nothing. He said to them, “You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.”

That phrase whatever is right is a key phrase that helps us understand the parable. So they went he went out and again about the sixth hour now it’s 12:00 and the 9inth hour that’s 3:00 and did the same thing about the 11th hour 5:00 he went and found others who were still standing around and said why have you been standing around all the day? He said because no one’s hired us. He said to them go out and work in the vineyard. When evening came, the owner came back to the vineyard and said to his foremen, “Call the workers and pay them their wages.”

Before we talk about that, let’s talk about how to understand the parables for a minute. By way of reminder, you remember what I’ve said to you. Don’t overallize the parables. Don’t make every rock and every feature of the parables some spiritual meaning. Some have said, “Well, okay, if the owner of the vineyard is God, then the foreman is Jesus, and Jesus has been told to pay the workers.”

Well, no, that’s not it. Even though in John chapter 5, it says, “All judgment is not given to the father, it’s given to the son.” That’s not the analogy here. The foreman fades after this instruction. Jesus never faded.

This is not the God and Jesus. This is just two figures that help make us up the story of the vineyard. So he said to his foremen, “Go and pay him their wages, beginning with the last one hired and going to the first.” Well, that’s a bit odd, but it has a purpose. So the ones who worked for 12 hours are standing around waiting for the daenerius.

The ones who came at 9:00 says he’s going to do what’s fair. The ones who came at 12 and 3:00 say, “Okay, we’re here.” But to the ones who worked one hour, the worker who would who was hired about the 11th hour came and each received a daenarius. Whoa. What’s going on?

So when they came when those who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them had received a daenarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. These men who were hired last worked only one hour. They said, “And you have made them equal to us who have worked have done the burden of the work and the heat of the day.”

But the landowner said one of them, “Friend,” and you know, the gentleness of God as he provides instruction, the gentleness of Jesus as he provides direction is in this text. Friend, I’m not being unfair to you. And didn’t you agree to work for Daenerius? Take your pay and go. I want to give it to the man who is hired last the same as I give to you.

Don’t I have the right to do what I want? There’s our phrase that’s key again. With what? My own money. Or are you envious because I’m generous?

So the last will be first and the first will be last. So Jesus in this parable wants to get us underneath the covers of what it means to have motives and intent in the kingdom of God. You know, it’s it’s easy for us to have a certain level of expectations until we begin to compare to others. And then when we do that, all of a sudden we don’t have what the next one has. You know, he’s got that big boat that he’s backing out of the garage into his into the street and I don’t have that, etc.

, etc. So, what Jesus is saying is examine what you’re really here for. And the way to do that, I’ve suggested, is with a polygraph machine. And more than one of you have said in this last week, John, how in the world are you gonna tie polygraphs as a theme into your message? Well, here I’m gonna try.

In my profession, we at times use something called a lie detector machine, a polygraph machine. You hook it up and it’s pretty accurate. In fact, it’s so accurate that evidence laws are such that you cannot bring the results of a polygraph into court because that would be overly persuasive to the factfinder, be that the judge or the jury. But polygraphs are used often by our district attorneys to see if people on probation are following the rules. They’re not they’re not doing what they shouldn’t.

They’re not drinking or consuming what they shouldn’t be. And it really was a machine that was invented a hundred years ago. And there’s some competition about who invented it. The early inventors suggested that it was invented by a man named Willen William Mutin Marston. Marston was a man who in the early years of of the 1900s at least in the early versions he and his wife invented the polygraph and they they did it for the purpose of illustrating and finding truth.

In fact it was Marston who later on was the author of Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman has a shield of truth. So his thinking was let’s do a machine to try to weigh that out. The the more later evidence is that a man named John Augustus Larson really perfected the polygraph and he was a man who as a police officer was tired of being lied to. So as he went to law school and as he became an attorney he became a excuse me as he went to medical school and he became a doctor he also became a psychiatrist and he worked with two groups. He worked with paroleies and he worked with people in mental institutions.

Same thing. He was tired of getting lied to. So he invented this machine that basically measures whether you’re telling the truth. And really that’s really where we’re going to be today in this message. We’re going to measure out our motives and intents as to what we really believe.

And this is the way it works. Sheree Sheree Weekes knows this because she’s got a degree in administration and justice. We’re going to put Sheree on this machine. We’re going to strap her up to the polygraph. And in order for it to work, we first of all ask there are three questions at least that we ask.

The first question is measure truth. So we ask Sheree Weekes, “What’s your name?” And she says, “My name is Sheree Weeks.” And the machine says she’s telling the truth. The second question that it asks is, “Are you a man or a woman?”

And she says, “I’m a woman.” And now, except for one Supreme Court justice in our country who’s confused about that. Sheree is not. And when she says she’s a woman, it’s true. Third question, how old are you?

And Sheree says, “41.” And the machine just kind of goes sideways. And now this polygrapher knows what’s truth and what’s not. But here’s my point. What we’re going to do this morning is we’re going to ask you to test yourself.

Actually, there’s precedent for that in the Bible. In in u James chapter 1, it says, “Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.” In 1 Corinthians chapter 11, we’re told that before we take the Lord’s table, we’re to examine oursel. In 2 Corinthians chap 11, we’re told again, examine yourself. In Galatians chapter 6, we’re told to test oursel to know what is truth so that you’ll not be more proud of yourself than you should.

So, there is some precedent in the Bible to kind of here’s the point, become introspective, become self-examiners of what is true and not true in our life. And that’s really some of the core issues that the parable was getting to. Now, to see that more clearly, we go back to Genesis. So, if you have your Bibles, turn to Genesis chapter 3, and we’re going back to the we’re going back to the the Garden of Eden. We’ve talked about in Genesis 2 and 3, the wonderful provisions of the garden and of the man, Adam, and the woman Eve.

In the garden. What we haven’t talked about yet is some of the core issues underneath Adam and Eve that tricked them by the evil one, Satan. In Genesis chapter 2, for example, verse 18, God says, “It’s not good for you to be alone, Adam.” And Adam looked around and said, “Well, you know, I kind of do feel isolated.” so the definition of who God is comes in him interceding as to defining what is good for Adam.

And though he had the lay of the land and all of the career expectations of tending the garden, he was not complete until Eve came. And and before we go farther, let’s at least say this. The Bible is a spiritually feminist book. It holds up women in auditory and wonderful way. And we as Christians should be coming out of our socks in thankfulness for the female females in our in our group.

For example, in the eastern cultures, there’s no books that talk about the creation of woman except the Bible. And in the Bible, there’s one verse that talks about the creation of Adam. There are six verses that talk about the creation of Eve. Now, you’re going to think we’re going to be a little down on Eve because of Genesis 3. We’re not because her problem is also Adam’s problem.

But you remember the narrative in Genesis chapter 3 that they were told not to eat of the knowledge of the tree or good or evil because of that you will die. So there was a prohibition to Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve in the garden. In chapter three, now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord had made. He said to the woman that God, did God really say you must not eat from any tree of the garden? The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden, but God did say you must not eat from the tree that’s in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it.”

Well, she overinterpreted his requirement, but it really led to a core issue. “You won’t die, the serpent snarled to the woman. For God knows that when you eat it, your eyes will be open and you’ll be like God, knowing good and evil.” There’s our operative word again. So now the thinking begins to go in Eve’s mind.

And she says, “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took time, she took some and he ate it and gave it to her husband. He ate it as well.” What’s going on? Eve concluded that for all of the perfection in the garden, the provision of Adam as her soulmate, as her one corresponding to, for all the provisions of the garden, with that restriction, there was something in which God was not good. And so she took upon herself to define what good was.

And she said, “Well, what you’re saying makes sense to me.” and she took and ate of the apple, ate of the tree. And in that all the human race fell because of the progeny of Adam and Eve. It was really a at its core a challenge to the character of God, saying, “Thankful for everything you provided, Lord, but it’s not enough. I know better.”

And what I know is that there’s a part of you that’s not good because of this prohibition. The theme of God as a good provider of those that he has directed is found again in Exodus chapter 34. Remember that’s a fascinating passage because God provides by his own inscription tablets of stone which are the ten commandments. And Israel can’t fast enough run away from those instructions such that Moses took those tablets and smashed them. And yet in the course of that through Moses’s intercession and relationship to God, a relationship which mark remarkably says the Lord would speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks with his friend.

Amazing relationship Moses had with God. And because of that, God provided again a second set of tablets. And in Exodus 34 and verse 6, the Lord says, “And he passed in front of Moses proclaiming the Lord.” The Lord is compassionate and gracious. He is slow to anger.

He’s abounding in love. His faithfulness maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wicked wickedness, rebellion, and sin. So the goodness of God bore through the rebellion of Israel in a way that saved them as a nation and through Moses’s intercession kept them alive for the next purpose in God’s prophecy which by the way rabbit trail don’t stop praying for Israel. That’s the landing pad for Jesus when he comes back. They’re an evil nation like all other nations and not seeking God in many respects, but it’s a nation that needs to survive for Jesus to come back.

So pray for Israel as well as our country. Okay? So the same is true of Jesus when he taught in Matthew chapter 7. In Matthew 7, Jesus again reaffirmed the truth of the goodness of God. And he talked about the provisions of God, comparing them to a human father and said, which of you, if a son asks for bread, will give him fa give him a stone, or if he asks for a fish, we’ll give him a snake.

If you then though you are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how to give to those who ask him so much as everything do every so much more so as your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him. So in everything do to those what you would have them do to you for this sums up the law and the prophets. So again measuring the standard of the goodness of God even as against a human father Jesus says God will give you everything good and everything that you need that is an answer to your prayer asking and seeking and knocking. So when we get back to Matthew 20 we really are talking about laborers who have three levels of understanding. The first level of understanding for a laborer is one who says, “All right, here’s a deal.

I’m going to work for a daenarius. We don’t really know how much it apparently was a fair wage for a day. There’s a lot of work out there about how many pennies it was and what it makes in in the in the course of today’s wages. I didn’t find anything really reliable in my research on that, but it was a fair wage for the day.” and they said, you know, we’ll take this contractual agreement between us and we’ll work for a day for daenarius.

It was a, for lack of a better term, a contractual agreement. The second group who came later began to illustrate that this first worker group had made an error. They’d forgotten who owns the vineyard and they’d taken an expectation and risen it above the level of the deal they had with the vineyard owner. The third mistake they made was jealousy and greed. And they said, “What the heck?

If they got a daenarius for one hour, do the math. I should get 12 daenariuses for my 12 hours.” And in fact the point of this parable is that in fact the last shall be first and the first shall be last. What’s the mistake these workers made illustrated by paying the last ones first. The first mistake was they un they did not understand that they were should be working for more than just a wage.

They needed to be working for the landowner. They needed to be working for his approval. They needed to be working not just for what they got out of life, but they needed to be working for what in fact they could contribute to the kingdom of God as illustrated in this vineyard. The second mistake they made was that they forgot that it’s God who is so sovereign. That vineyard belongs to him.

This day that we have and the opportunities we have to serve him and to reach out and care for others in the name of Jesus is because it’s God’s day for us and he has seen fit to give us the opportunities that we have in a sovereign and disp dispassionate way. The third thing these workers made the mistake on was flatout greed. And in that Jesus said, let’s take these lessons and learn that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. There’s great controversy that comes theologically with different theologians on this on this parable, but John Calvin really summed it up in a way where I think he picks up the purpose of the parable as far as it’s told by Jesus when Calvin says, “God freely calls whomever he pleases and gives those he calls whatever reward he finds suitable for them.” period.

It’s his vineyard and we work to please him. So really there are two points to the end of this passage which says the last shall be first and the first shall be last. The first is don’t be among the first who will be last. The first who will be last in this parable are the workers who said I’m in this for what I can get out of it. And you know, we have to be careful because we as Christians understand at times that we get into the same mentality.

We say, “Okay, I’m a follower of Jesus because I think that can fix the problem I have with pride.” Or, “I’m a follower of Jesus because I’ve got a handicapped child and I think that God can cure that child. I’m a follower of Jesus because I’m impatient. I’m unhappy. I’m in pain.

I am not happy where I’m at. So I look around and this is a going concern of a church. The there are makers and shakers and movers in this group. And I want to be associated with them. That’s all wrong.

That’s all wrong. And it’s illustrated by the first who will be last. They were in it for what they could get out of it. The ones who are last but will be first are rather ones who say everything I have comes from God. And in fact, my job is to live by faith.

I don’t know about you, but I have not recovered from the persistent widow of Luke 18, and I hope I never do. The two messages of that amazing parable are one. God has a job to do and it’s going to be bringing justice to this world. And I have a job to do and it’s to be one who lives by faith. And the ones who are last but will be first are ones who believe this.

God is and he’s a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Those are the ones who are last. And the heaven heavenly accounting they will be first. So Socrates was kind of right when he said the unexamined life is not worth living. He was right in the sense that there’s a value to us with this polygraph analysis to analyze ourselves.

We’ll spread that out in a minute. He wasn’t right in that he was on trial for for corrupting the the youth of his day and he was sentenced to and put to death because of that trial. But what I’m suggesting for you is that we strap on this theological polygraph when things happen to us that we don’t understand and we ask two questions. First question we ask is who do I think God is in my situation? Is he a good God?

Has he brought this about by his good hand for my well-being? And if your answer is anything but he is a good God, giving faithfully to all those who follow him, then you’ve got some self-correction to make. So, it’s not so much a lie detector test, it’s a faith detector test. And so, when you run into that next brick wall, wasn’t something you planned on, health, lack of wealth, unusual circumstances that have troubled you, family dilemmas, and problems. Take a step back and say, “All right, God, who are you in this?

Am I gonna make the mistake of Eve of challenging your goodness and saying, “You just haven’t given me enough, so I’m gonna go out on my own.” Or do you have the wisdom that Jesus teaches us this parable of saying whatever wherever you land up on the vineyard 6:00 9 12 3 5 when God meets you at the end of your days what you want from him is that reward that says well done good and faithful servant there are three applications to this parable it’s a remarkable parable first is live with an attitude of gratitude. I don’t know how we as Christians can do anything but be grateful on a consistent basis. That doesn’t mean that things happen to you that don’t distract you, that you struggle with. And the best thing you can do is be honest about that.

We have men and women here in this assembly who are facing some calamitous potential situations for health for themselves and their family. And it’s okay to say, “God, I believe. Help me in my unbelief.” It’s okay to be like Thomas to say, “Lord, can you can you just show me the marks in your hand again?” God will not be critical for you for struggling with your faith.

He won’t. He wants you to be honest, but then he wants you to meet him at the level of faith where I say by either vision or nonvision, I’m believing and taking it to the bank that God is good in this situation. And that’s an attitude of gratitude. You know, there’s a there’s a series of instructions that come from people who are involved in the burial and and commemoration of family members who they’ve lost. And that is a one which says Lord I don’t know whether this is all that I understand of your purposes in my life now but I know this that I I’m not following you just because it’s an absence of pain.

I’m not following you because I think I’ll get more benefits and prosperous and standing in the community. I’m following you because I believe that you are and you reward those who faithfully follow after you. So if you say to God and the and the limmerick is and God said no I asked God to take away my pride. He said no that’s not for me to take away but it’s for you to give up. I asked God to make my handicapped child hold and he said no her spirit is whole.

Her body is temporary. I asked God to grant me patience. He said, “No, patience is a byproduct of tribulation. It isn’t granted. It’s earned.

I ask God to give me happiness.” He said, “No, I give you blessing. Happiness is up to you.” I ask God to spare me pain. He said, “No, suffering draws you apart from worldly cares and brings you closer to me.

And finally, I asked God to make my spirit grow.” He said, ‘N no, you must grow on your own, but I’ll prune you and make you fruitful and give you a honorable life that is commendable to my father and to me. So the first thing we learn from this parable is an attitude of gratitude. The second thing we learn is that we are a people that can live with confidence. We are people that understand that our lives are in his hand and the timing of things though it may not meet our expectations are ones that he has entire and complete control over.

Some of you may have heard the story of Howard Hendrick’s father who was not a believer and for years and years Hendrickx who was a national Christian speaker prayed for his father and never came to faith and he went into the hospital as a kind of a firm military man and Hendrickx came in one day to talk to him in the hospital and his father said his face was all lit up and he said, “I want you to meet my roommate, Bill.” And Dr. Hendrix said, “Great. Good to meet you.” And then his father said, “Bill introduced me to Jesus.”

So it wasn’t Hrix. It wasn’t his connections, but the prayers led to another person coming into Hendrick’s life, into his father’s life, and leading him to faith. Even though for him, of course, it was the 11th hour. The third thing that I think this parable teaches us, it gives us hope and comfort. I want to introduce you to one of my one of my former clients.

His name is Lorenzo Gigglieri. Lorenzo Gigglieri was a remarkable man. He’s a man that Wamtt Week called, and I’m quoting, one of the Northwest’s best recognized and most prolific bronze sculptures. He’s a man who during his lifetime drove a Dodge pickup around our community and he had huge bronze eagles mounted in the back of that pickup. You may have seen him.

He loved Costco, so I often saw him at Costco. But anyway, I did some work for him and I find myself in his studio one day and to Lorenzo, we got to talking about Abraham Lincoln and I said to him, “Lorenzo, I’m an admirer of Abraham Lincoln. I think he’s one of our most amazing presidents we’ve ever had.” And Lorenzo, without saying another word, went over in his studio to his workbench and he got some clay and he started to shape right while I’m there a a shape of Lincoln, a bust of Lincoln’s head. And he got about halfway done while I was there, but enough so that I could see that it was Lincoln that he this all from memory.

He was doing it right while I was talking to him. As it turned out, in the next couple of weeks, Lorenzo went into a care facility and shortly thereafter died. And as best I know, that bust was never finished. And I certainly don’t have it. But I have to realize that’s really God’s work for each of us.

He has shaped us. He’s started molding us. He has you in a place where he wants you. And he wants you by faith to say, “God, I believe you’re good. And I believe by faith you want me to trust you in the circumstance that I’m in.

And in that situation, I’ll trust you for the results as well.” So though Lorenzo I don’t know whether he’s with the Lord now he made a lasting impact on my life just by reminding me that some of the great works of and he by the way he has he has bronze sculptures in the Vatican. He was quite quite an artist. That that shaping that God is doing in all of us is not finished yet for any of us. Some of you know that one of the highlights of my week is Saturday morning.

Really doesn’t matter what my practice is or does, whether there’s success or not success in a given week. I I can’t wait for Saturday morning. And the men that we meet together over there come ready to minister to each other. It’s kind of what Ed Demery said about the body ministering to the body. It’s amazing.

And often I I’ll say very little after opening and the men just take over. But after one particularly memorable Saturday recently, Steve McCracken and I were talking and it’s kind of appropriate that if we started the message today with a thankfulness to God for Jason Smith and his family, we can end today with an affirmation from the lips of our former pastor, Steve McCracken. Steve said, and I’m reading this without permission, but it’s nothing secret. So, I told Steve this morning, I’m going to quote you even though I don’t have your permission. The email says, I’m guessing, and he’s talking about a particularly memorable Saturday morning.

I’m guessing you sensed as well. You and I have met so many people over the years and were two two of and and we are two of them who wonder with surprise after a lifetime of knowing Jesus, how could he possibly choose to use someone like us? I think that’s why the Apostle Paul never stopped telling about his past because in part he couldn’t believe that God chose to use him. And you remember he kept saying, “I’m the chief of sinners.” And Steve ends that email with, “Messy, yes.

Complicated, yes. Frequently, beautiful in every way. You serve a God who is good and who wants the best for you. And all I ask of you is believe that he is and that is a rewarder of those who earnestly seek him. Let’s pray.

Lord, it’s with grateful hearts th

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