Getting On The Same Page
Tom Shrader opens the Cannon Beach conference by establishing two foundational truths for the week. Drawing from 2 Timothy 3:16-17, he teaches that Scripture is the inspired Word of God, profitable for teaching what's right, what's wrong, how to get right, and how to stay right. He then addresses humanity's sinful condition from Romans 3, explaining that salvation comes not through human effort or religion, but only through faith in Jesus Christ.
“Religion is a picture of a sinful man trying to reach up to a holy God. Biblical Christianity is the story of a holy God reaching down to a sinful man.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: CBCC July 2014
Recorded: 2014 at Cannon Beach Conference Center
Duration: 38 min
Themes: scripture, salvation, sin, faith, truth, foundation, unity, teaching, conference attendee, new believer, pastor, bible teacher, struggling with doubt, seeking truth, bible study leader, young adult
Scripture: 2 Timothy 3:1, 2 Timothy 3:2, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Psalm 119, Hebrews 4:12, Romans 3:10, Romans 3:12, Romans 6:23, Ephesians 2, Romans 5:6, Romans 5:8, Romans 5:10
Theological Themes: biblical inspiration, word of god, total depravity, human sinfulness, justification by faith, sola scriptura, biblical authority, soteriology
Full Transcript
Getting On The Same Page
Will you thank Jesse and the band for tonight? Thank you, sir.
Good evening. I was back by the door, and somebody was coming in. I said, "How are you doing?" They said, "We're weary. We traveled all day, and we just had a big meal." So as a speaker, I've got to tell you, that's like the perfect combination. I'm so excited that you were able to be tired and full, and the room's a little warm. So let's see, it's 8:10. You should be asleep by 8:20, maybe 8:15, something like that.
Sandy and I had the same day you did. We traveled this morning. Actually, she got up early and ran. I got up early and made coffee and watched the news, and we got ready. It was amazing to me. We're sitting in the airport, and I said to Sandy, "In nine hours, we'll be teaching at Cannon Beach." All you can think of is Lewis and Clark. If you told them that, they'd be going, "Really?" I mean, the world has changed so much. That's an amazing deal.
We are happy to be here and honored to be able to split the week with Bill and looking forward to hearing from Him. As Jeff said, I'm going to take tonight, and then I'll have the mornings. I put together a new series for this, and we'll start tomorrow morning. It's called Learning from the Legends.
Learning from the Legends
The idea is to look at five guys: Joseph, Daniel, Paul, Peter, and then a surprise, a fifth legend. Just what can we get out of this? I love teaching Bible. I love the theology of it, but I'm big on the practical stuff. So when somebody speaks, you should be asking yourself: What did he say? Is it true? And so what? So we're going to be looking at that.
Jesse put his finger right on really the biggest challenge coming into a night or a week like this, and that is you come from all sorts of different backgrounds. He mentioned it as it relates to music. Some of you like a certain style of music. Somebody's totally different. There are probably 200 preferences in the room.
Well, the same thing is true as I think about a week like this in coming together and understanding we come from really different backgrounds and to a week like this with totally different expectations. Some of you, as Jeff suggested, registered last year. You were here this week last year. You registered, so you get the room, get the same week. You love this. Jeff's going to do announcements and tell you the schedule, but you already got them. You already got the alarm clock set for continental breakfast tomorrow, and you know you got sand castles. You got the whole week figured out.
Different Expectations, Different Backgrounds
Others of you are driving up here, and as you're driving up, you're talking to each other, going, "Why are we doing this again? Why? I mean, can we still get our money back? No." And so you said, "All right, we'll go anyway."
Some of you come, and you've got the Bible memorized, except for Lamentations. You got the Bible memorized, and so you know it all. You know it inside out. You know all the doctrine. Some of you, this is brand new stuff. Some of you are church people. Some of you are not. Some of you are denominational. Some of you are Presbyterian or Methodist or Bible church or community church. We come from all sorts of different places.
I've been doing conferences, men's retreats, all those kind of things now since about 1984. In that time, I've learned that though it's repetitive, it's important that first night to get on the same page. It's important that first night to understand we come from all these different backgrounds, but there are certain things that if you don't get these in place, then these next 11 sessions are going to be confusing to you.
So what I want to do tonight, and briefly, again, acknowledging that this is a tough day, is I want to get us on the same page in terms of two really big truths.
The Bible is the Word of God
The first one is this: The Bible is the word of God.
There's a bumper sticker that you used to see all over. Haven't seen it in a while. If it's on your car out there, not making fun of you, don't know you. So this isn't pointed at you. But there's a bumper sticker you used to see all over, and it said this: "God said it. I believe it. That settles it." Well, a third of that ink is a waste. God said it. That settles it. Whether you believe it or not is irrelevant.
So you may be in that position where you understand, "Here's what God said." Now there's a whole bunch of people that don't believe it. You may be one of them. But that's irrelevant to the discussion. Here's what we mean by that.
We go to 2 Timothy. If you have Bibles, you can open them. I'm going to try to do something a little bit different this week together. That is have most of the Scripture on the screen for you, especially as we're moving through some narratives these first couple of days.
Paul's Final Words to Timothy
In 2 Timothy, one of my favorite books. I just got done teaching 2 Timothy. Jeff mentioned I used to teach every Sunday in a church. I stopped that on a regular basis about a year ago, a year and a half ago. But I still teach three times a week in the marketplace. It started primarily businessmen and women. But what's happened is I've been doing it so long that they're all old people like me now. We go through different books, different series. We just finished 2 Timothy. So it's really fresh in my mind.
If you've got your Bible, if you look at 2 Timothy chapter 3, Paul—and this is just to set the backdrop—this is the last written word we have from the Apostle Paul. He's writing to, I would argue, his favorite guy in the whole world. His, what he calls, beloved son. Though they don't share a chain of DNA, they share this spiritual closeness. Paul's writing this last letter to Him. He understands, Paul tells us, He understands that His time for His departure has come. He understands that the end of His life is near.
There's an intensity there. If you know that, that's why I enjoy being in the hospital with people. Because there's no pretense there. If you're sitting in the hospital and the doctor was just in and told you it's not looking good, and your friend comes in and you go, "How about those Mariners?" That's not where the discussion goes. The discussion goes to the deep things of life.
So Paul's writing to Timothy as His beloved son, as a pastor, as a follower of Christ. And in chapter 3 verse 1, He says this: "Realize that in the last days difficult times will come." Now, the last days—are we in the last days? Yes, it's that time period from when Christ ascends to when Christ returns.
The Character of the Last Days
He said, "Here's what I want to talk about." And He doesn't talk about earthquakes and wars and rumors of war and floods and all those. He says, "Let's talk about people. Here's what they're going to be like."
Look at verse 2: "Men will be lovers..." The word "lovers" is used four times in these three or four verses. "Men will be lovers of self, lovers of money." And then He talks about what that's going to look like: "Boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious, gossips, without self-control, haters of good, reckless, treacherous, conceited." Here you go again: "Lovers of pleasure." So kind of bookends. Men are going to be lovers of self, lovers of money, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God.
Now does that sound anything like the world you live in? Or the house you live in maybe? Or the church you go to or the club you go to? Does that sound like your homeowner's association? Sure. Lovers of self, lovers of money, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God. But they're not going to be unspiritual. They're going to hold to a form of godliness, but deny its power. The power is the person of Christ.
God's Communication to Us
Well, what do we do in a world like that? What's important in this world you live in? Well, it's the Bible. It's the Word of God.
God has spoken to us through creation. That's Romans 1. He says, all you've got to do, if you want to understand—now, we're not going to talk about God at this point—but you want to understand there's at least this higher power that's created. All you've got to do is look. And this is a perfect place to do it: to look at the ocean, to look at the stars, to be able to say that tomorrow morning at 5:14 or whatever it is, the sun will rise. Because there's this whole massive universe around it. And it screams of a creator.
Now, Jesus comes along and God communicates to us again. But God communicates to us today through this Word, the Bible. If I want to know God and understand God, I need to understand the Scripture.
R.C. Sproul writes this: "If you wish to know God, you must know His Word. If you wish to perceive His power, you must see how He works by His Word. If you wish to know His purpose before it comes to pass, you can only discover it by His Word." Scripture.
The Nature and Purpose of Scripture
So, on the screen before you, in your Bibles, 2 Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17: "All Scripture is inspired by God." God breathed. Who wrote 2 Timothy? Well, Paul did, but on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This is the Word of God.
Psalm 119—when we checked into our room and we got up to the room today, we had a Bible in there. It was open to Psalm 119. And here are two verses from Psalm 119: "Forever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven. The sum of Thy Word is truth. And every one of Thy righteous ordinances is everlasting."
All Scripture is inspired by God. Now look, if you mark in your Bible, here's a place to write. Four things. All Scripture is inspired by God, and it's profitable, useful, beneficial for four things: for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.
Teaching—the idea there is divine instruction. Doctrinal content. It's not this act of communicating. Here's what He's saying: this is God's truth. This is the doctrine. Just a chapter later, Paul's going to say, "I fought the good fight. I finished the course. I kept the faith"—the definite article. "I kept the faith"—this body of truth that was passed on to me.
So the Bible's profitable for teaching, for reproof. That is to show somebody else that they're wrong in behavior or in doctrine. It's not that you're out looking for that, but it becomes the basis of conversation. Haven't you had the privilege of sitting down with somebody, and they're in blatant sin? Or somebody said that with you, and you're in sin. And they say to you, "You're wrong." And you say, "Who made you king? Who says?" Well, God says. Reproof.
Correction—it's the only time that that Greek word appears in the New Testament. It means to restore something to its proper condition. And for training in righteousness—that's positive instruction on godly living.
A Simple Way to Remember
So here you go. The Bible's good for, profitable for teaching. Here's how you're going to remember this. Teaching tells me what's right. Reproof, what's not right. Correction, how to get right. Training, how to stay right.
So that's the Bible. That's what the Bible tells me. The author of Hebrews writes this in Hebrews 4:12: "The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of the soul and the spirit of both joints and marrow. It's able to judge thoughts and intentions of the heart."
The Bible, the word of God, here you go, tells me what's right, what's not right, how to get right, how to stay right. Say that with me: "The Bible tells me what's right, what's not right, how to get right, how to stay right." How awesome is that?
You got that? I figured some of you had to be from Oregon State and you'd never get it. So I just figured it was a waste of time. But look how we powered through that. Always impressive. The Bible tells me what's right, what's not right, how to get right, how to stay right. But the Bible is useful for practical truths.
I want to tell you about a guy that's kind of a hero of mine, and maybe yours too. His name is George Washington Carver. He was born to a slave family in a little city that's now called Diamond, Missouri. He got a BS from the Iowa Agricultural College. That's now Iowa State.
I have to read this because I want to get it right. He researched and developed 325 products from the peanut, 108 applications for sweet potatoes, 75 products from pecans. He moved and taught at Tuskegee University, and he taught there until his death in 1943. While he was there, he developed applications from agriculture for products derived from 118 different products, including a rubber substitute and over 500 dye and pigments from 28 different plants. In 1927, he developed a process for producing paints and stains from soybeans and was awarded three separate patents for that.
Henry Ford tried to hire him. Thomas Edison offered him a six-figure job back when a dollar was a dollar, but he turned them all down. He stayed in education.
The Source of True Innovation
In 1921, he was called before a Senate committee that was investigating where all this technology was coming from. Let me read you a dialogue. I quote:
Senator: "How did you learn all these things?"
Carver: "From an old book."
Senator: "What book?"
Carver: "The Bible."
Senator: "Does the Bible tell us about peanuts?"
Carver: "No, sir, but it tells me about the God who made the peanut, and I asked Him to show me what to do with it, and He did."
There's just the practical application of this. I'm a big doctrine guy. I love doctrine. I love doctrine because, first of all, it's the thought and the mind of God, but it gives me practical advice on how to live. All scripture is inspired by God, and it tells me what's right, what's not right, how to get right, how to stay right.
The Bible's Complete Authority
J.C. Ryle writes this: "The Bible contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, the happiness of believers. Its doctrine is holy. Its precepts are binding. Its histories are true. Its decisions are immutable. Read it to be wise. Believe it to be safe. Practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, comfort to cheer you. It's the traveler's map, the pilgrim's staff, the pilot's compass, the soldier's sword, the Christian's charter. Christ is its grand subject, and our good, its design. And the glory of God is its end. It should fill the memory, rule the heart, guide the feet. Read it slowly, frequently, prayerfully. It's a mind of wealth, a health to the soul, a river of pleasure."
So here are my two big points tonight to make sure we're on the same page. Number one, what you're going to hear from Bill and hopefully from me is going to flow from this scripture. You're going to get, I'm sure, some of our thoughts, some of our impressions, our stories. But those are all subjective. The Bible is the final authority in our life. That's the first thing.
The Universal Condition of Mankind
Here's the second thing, and it's encompassed in that first part of the Ryle quote. The Bible tells us the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation. So I look around the world and around my world, and I'm asking, what are people like?
Here's what the Bible says. The Bible says, and look at the all-inclusive terms from Romans 3:10: "There is none righteous, not one. There is none who understands. There's none who seek after God. All have turned aside. Together they've become useless." Look at the summary statement in verse 12: "There's none who does good, not even one."
Now for some of you, you're thinking, whatever, come on, get on to the next point. For others of you, and that's the group, frankly, I'm most concerned about, especially tonight, you're thinking, wait a minute. That doesn't sound right. That doesn't sound like my world. I mean, there's people around me. I've got a neighbor that when I'm gone, I don't even ask him, and he cuts the grass. He's got to be a good guy. I've got co-workers. We had a co-worker killed, and we started this whole fund for a funeral and for the family. That's good, wait a minute. What about Nana? Are you telling me Nana's no good?
The Uncomfortable Truth
I'm not telling you anything. God's telling you that there's no one. Now I'll add to the word, which we wouldn't want you to do. There's none who does good, not even Nana, not one. That's the condition of man. That's what we have to understand.
I was trying to get my daughter to get some pictures together so I could show you some family pictures. I have eight grandkids, and the oldest is eight. I have two daughters, and so they go eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, literally. One would take a rest. The other one would reproduce. The next one would take a rest. That's how they do it.
If I showed you the picture of the last three, and literally, I'm not bragging. I guess all these grandparents say this. I don't think I'm one of them, but if I put the last three up there, you would think, oh, oh. The three-year-old, she is so cute. Now, if you're talking to her, she'll say to you, "Do you think I'm adorable?" Then we'll have to say, "Well, not right now." Then the one after her, Sandy loves the one after her because she'll just sit and watch everything, and then, bam, she goes full bore into it. Then the youngest, McKinley, just turned one. She sat for like 12 months and hardly said anything. Now, she grabs.
See, when you're with them, and you go over, so we're going to, one night, probably the last night, don't the kids come in and sing? You're going to be out there with your pictures. You're going to take all these pictures. You're going to think, isn't this so cute? Oh, it makes me cry. Then they're going to get out there, and
You're going to say, "I want some ice cream." You're going to go, "I want ice cream." That's because there's none good, not one. That's who we are by nature and by personality.
Paul says in Ephesians 2, we're sons of disobedience, children of wrath. That's why you never have to teach your kids to lie, but you have to teach them to tell the truth. That's who you are. I am, we are by nature. Paul says something, again, similar, maybe a little more concise, in Romans 3, "All have sinned," you, me, all of us, "have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
Our Natural Condition
So we need to understand that we come into the world separated from God, that there's no one who is good. Again, in Romans, this time Romans 6:23, "The wage of sin is death." So you go, "Listen, God, I'm not into the grace thing. I only want what I deserve. I only want what I've earned." Well, your wage is death. Death means separation.
So by nature, we're children of wrath, we're dead in our sins and trespasses, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. Paul's writing to these believers at Rome and to us, and he says, "We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," that I come into the world separated from Him, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.
The Universal Search
I come into the world, and at some point, every person recognizes the world's messed up, the country's messed up, the state's messed up, the city's messed up, you're messed up. And that messed up is called sin, and the result of sin is that you're empty. There's something missing.
I'm reading summer books now. If you have any titles that you want to recommend, boy, please do. I just finished a book that maybe some of you have read, *Boys in the Boat*. How many of you have read *Boys in the Boat*? It's an amazing story on the University of Washington rowing team in 1936. It's a great book.
So I just started a book on Steve Jobs, and it's interesting in this beginning of this book, and obviously you guys probably are more familiar with a guy than I am, but a different cat. But there's something in His life that keeps driving him and compelling him, and there's something missing, and he doesn't know what it is, and his parents have him as a kid going to church, though he's not buying into all of that. And as a young man, young boy, it sounds like as I read it in Sunday school class, he's coming to grips with the suffering in the world, and he's trying to reconcile the suffering in the world and his own experience and the sovereignty of God, and he's saying, "I don't want that God."
Creating God in Our Image
So Jobs does what every person does. Voltaire said it this way: "God made man in His own image, and man has been returning the favor ever since." What you do is I'm going to hunt and hunt and hunt until I find a God, so I come to this God in the Bible, and I say, "Well, I don't like that God." FYI, this is the only option you have. This is the one true God.
So all of a sudden I realize that there's something missing in the world, and I begin this search, this hunt for a God made in my own image, a God that does what I think He ought to do. And it may have something to do with God, but it always has something to do with me.
Now here you go. Hang in there. You got 10 minutes. I know I said that five minutes ago, but you got 10 minutes, and that's it. That search where you say "I'm going to do something," that's called religion.
Biblical Christianity versus Religion
So here you go. Let's pretend we're at summer camp. Look up here. That's what we got to do. You've got biblical Christianity and everything else, and everything else is called religion. That's man saying somehow I'm going to make myself better or at least good enough to be accepted by a holy God, but the Bible tells us that we're sinned and separated from Him, and there's nothing we can do to fix that. Our flinch is to try, but we can't. We're in this hopeless, helpless situation.
My Personal Story
Let me give you my story. I was born and raised in Iowa. Anybody here from Iowa? Where are you from? Okay, Des Moines and Ames. Anybody else? Usually there's a chunk of people from Iowa. Iowa, idiots out walking around. That's who we are. I owe the world an apology. I love Iowa.
Sandy and I are two weeks away from going back. I'm going to do a coaches conference in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Then we're going to Sheraton, Iowa, Melrose, Iowa, Knoxville, Albia, Osceola, Ottumwa. That's where Tom Arnold's from. Ottumwa, Muscatine, Davenport. You're about as excited as this as Sandy is. But I love Iowa. Not enough to live there, but I love it.
Growing Up Catholic
I'm born and raised Catholic, grade school, high school, college. I was trained by a group of people who are the most misnamed organization in the world. They're called the Sisters of Mercy. They weren't on committee. Mercy, Sisters, they flew like this.
Here's what I heard. I heard, whether they said it or not, don't argue with this. I just want to give you my story. Whether they said it or not, here's what I heard: You need to be good enough to go to heaven. Somehow, they didn't say this, but this was my picture, that when you die, God hits this button, and somehow there's this computer, didn't know what a computer was then, and if you had more bad than good, you went to hell. More good than bad, you went to heaven.
By my sophomore year of college, my bad stack was so high that I said, "This is silly. I'm never going to get the good stack up there. Let's see how high we can get the bad stack."
The Search for Happiness
Then when I got to Phoenix, I went down there just to play golf. I knew I was going to have to get a job at some point, but I just started to party and just started to go after whatever I thought would make me happy. The odd thing is, the more I pursued what I thought would make me happy, the more miserable I was. I could be happy for a moment, but it didn't last.
I knew there was something wrong, and I knew it was me. I couldn't put it together, and that's why this Bible and this message communicates to the whole world around you, because everybody's looking for something.
Whether it was Steve Jobs or the guys who were rowing, or whoever these people... everybody's looking for something, and that something that's going to make you happy is not a person, place, or thing. It's Jesus.
Now, here you go. I can't earn it, but He's done it for me. Romans chapter 5, verses 6, 8, and 10. Look at the condition you're in. Look at God's response. While we were still helpless, Christ died for us. But God demonstrated His love for us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.
Our True Condition Before God
So look at the condition we're in, the way God describes it in His Word. We were helpless. We were sinners. We were enemies. We were religious, perhaps. We'll look at that in our fourth legend. Maybe religious. But here you go. Religion is a picture of a sinful man trying to reach up to a holy God. Biblical Christianity is the story of a holy God reaching down to a sinful man.
That's what those three verses are saying. It's the song that you sing every year at Christmas. God and sinners, what? Reconciled. That's the story. That while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Go back to the original premise that we started with. All Scripture's inspired by God. Telling us what's right, what's not right, how to get right, how to stay right.
Full Disclosure
So what I want, and if you don't buy this, that really doesn't change the truth of it. I just want full disclosure. I'm a real estate guy. That's what I am by profession. And we had this thing called full disclosure. Here's what it meant. It meant in a transaction, I couldn't hold back pertinent information that would somehow sway your decision. In other words, I couldn't tell you that you were buying on an oil spill. I had to disclose everything. I couldn't hold that back.
Well, here's full disclosure tonight. Here's what we believe. And when I say we, I mean the conference center, and I'm going to go ahead and boldly, I didn't cover this with Bill, but I think you'll be comfortable with it. We hope you'll be comfortable with it, or it'll be an interesting week for us, if not.
Here's what we believe. This Bible that I'm holding in my hand, many of you are holding in your hand, or on your phone app, or a pad app, this Bible's the Word of God. God's spoken to us. He's communicated. I don't have to speculate what God's like. He tells me right here. He tells me what's right. He tells me what's not right. He tells me how to get right. He tells me how to stay right. So that's the first thing, that the Bible's the Word of God.
The Only Way to Peace
The second thing is that I'm only going to find the peace of God through a personal relationship with Him, to come to that point of faith. It's almost a point, not when I say I'm going to try harder, that's kind of my reflex, naturally. Naturally, I'll go, man, I was doing pretty well, I messed up, I'm going to try harder. God says, quit trying. Jesse sang about it in the first song today. It's unfailing love. It's amazing grace. It blows your mind when you begin to contemplate it.
Here you are, sinner, helpless, an enemy of God. Here you go, these big words now, that God saves you, rescues you, delivers you, not because of you, but in spite of you. He doesn't look at you and say, wow, He's got potential. Wow, I could really use Him for my team. He looks at you, He looks at all mankind, and He sees us all lost. Some blatantly more lost. Some overtly, in terms of behavior, maybe more atrocious. But here's what He said, there's none good.
You know the difference between me and Adolf Hitler? One little mustache. Our heart is the same. I may disguise it better, but all are lost.
The Endless Search
And salvation and fulfillment is not found in a person, place, or thing. That explains, for some of you, that endless search. I'll try a new job. Oh, if I can just get her to go out with me. Oh, if she'll go steady. Oh, if she'll marry me. Oh, if she'll leave. I mean, it just goes on and on and on. So I go from person to person to person, place to place to place, job to job to job.
Here, some of you who have kids in college can relate to this. School to school to school, thinking I'm going to be happy. Boy, just get me to Oregon State, get me to the U. Get me to Southern Pacific, get me anywhere. Get me out of here, and I'll be happy. And He said, no, what's wrong with you is not an educational issue, not a financial issue. That's why some of you have achieved all your goals, and you're still miserable.
Some of those miserable people I know are people who have achieved extraordinary things. Why? Because what's missing in my life is not more of this or more of that or more of that. What's missing in my life and what's wrong with me is my sin problem, it's separating me from God, and God said, Jesus is the way. And by that He means if I put my faith and trust in Him. It means to acknowledge that I'm who God says I am, and He is who He says He is.
Moving Forward Together
So the first night, we want to get on the same page. That's where you're going to hear 11 messages that are all going to flow from this idea that the Scripture is the Word of God and that to be saved or delivered or rescued from the peril of my sin and from separation from God is found only through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Let me pray. Jesse's going to come and kind of close our time here. Father, thank You for that. Thank You for this amazing place that we can be gathered here. 70 years of tradition. And we can be here tonight and came with all sorts of different expectations. And we can be honest with You about those expectations. God, thank You for that. Thank You that You are a God who knows everything we're going to say before we say it, knows our heart. We can't surprise You. There's no point hiding, so we can be honest with You.
And for some, Father, this is a long week, potentially. For that same group, it could be the greatest week of their life. It's the week that they come to acknowledge
Opening Prayer
Father, we pray Your Spirit would work in this place, in our hearts. We pray it to You tonight. In Christ's name, amen.
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