Hope Fellowship July 6 2025 Special Guest Scott McIntyre

Okay, perfect. Good morning, everyone. Why don't you stand up just for a moment or two? I'm going to keep you here for at least four hours. So stand up and move around while you can. That'll be all right. Turn to somebody you didn't see yet this morning. Give them a handshake or something like that. Move your legs a little bit while I get my life organized up here as well and we'll be all right to go, I think. All right. Give somebody a wave from across the room or do a little dance or whatever you do. That's all good. I was going to say go refill your coffee, but some of you have already had too much. So, slow down. You need that constant drip just put in your arms so you don't have to keep refilling. All right, everybody. All right? Happy summer. Happy heat. Don't wish it away. Nice to be back with you. I always know a year has passed essentially when I'm back. I have to tell Jen, she's sitting up there. Jen, what you're going to hear today, they didn't teach us in Bible school. We always remember that when we talk together. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your love. Thank you for your favor. Thank you for your grace. Father, thank you for the hope fellowship community. Thank you for your life in each one and your blessing upon each household represented here. Father, I'm just going to take a moment. I remember the list that we saw on the screen just a few moments ago. Father, we agree together in the name of Jesus that you are the great helper. You are the great healer. You are the one who brings great peace. So I Father, I thank you today that where bodies are broken currently, you bring restoration. Where relationships are broken currently, you bring peace. Where there's need for forgiveness, where there's need for forgiveness even within oneself, thank you for your grace that abounds in those matters. For every name represented on that list that was shared with us today, may there be a witness in those bodies, in those hearts, and in those minds of recovery and renewal. We don't come to you on any claim of our own, but simply looking to your love, looking to your grace, looking to your compassion, and giving you thanks for what you've done and given to us through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So we thank you for each one today in this room, family members represented elsewhere, families viewing online, even your grace reaches everyone because of your love revealed to us, declared to us through our savior Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray today. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right, here we go. Now, today's message is actually part testimony on my part and part teaching. So, we'll have a little bit of both of those, but we'll start with the testimony part. I'm going to share in a few moments, we'll get to the theme. But what I'm going to talk about today is something that I think of as a rerun in my life. Anybody like a good rerun? I do. This is something I'm going to talk about something that has come back to me over and over for about 19 years now. I remember the moment that it first came into my life and it's been rerun for me. I love a good rerun. I was over in Ajax, Ontario a few weeks ago. I was going to speak at a little conference there on the Saturday morning. So, I went over for the Friday evening sessions as well. And the evening session ended about 9 or 9:30 in the evening and I was hungry. So, I'm going back to my hotel and I think, "Oh, there's a pizza pizza." So, I stop at the pizza pizza. I get me some pizza pizza and then I go to the hotel and it's pushing on 10 o'clock before I got home. And like usual when you eat too much pizza and then you try to go to bed. Friday night guy messed up Saturday morning guy, but that's a different story. So I'm in the hotel room and I thought, "Oh shoot, ate too much pizza. It's pushing on 11:00. Can't get to sleep. I need to get up about 6:30 and get myself ready to teach the morning session and the clock is ticking towards 11. I need a rerun. That's what I need." So, I get the TV remote out, turn it on, and praise the Lord, there were MASH reruns going on. How many of you appreciate a MASH rerun? So, I got a MASH rerun there and I get to enjoy the antics of Pierce and Honeycutt and Klinger. It was actually the episode where Major Charles Emerson Winchester first appeared at the MASH. That always made it more interesting, right? So, for 25 minutes as I'm trying to drift off to sleep, I'm watching a MASH rerun and everything's right in my world, even if it's just for a few minutes. But that's kind of what I think of the theme of what I'm talking about today. I first encountered what I'm going to share about 19 years ago. And whether intentionally or just in the natural course of my own thoughts, it has come back to me many, many times as a rerun. And it's something, this is going to sound a little weird. I hope you don't kick me out for my arrogance, but that's not the point here. I think of it this way. It might not be true for you. It probably won't be, but for me, this is my testimony so far. It's probably the most profound thing I've heard, the most helpful thing, the most practical thing, the most whatever. I don't know if impactful is a word. We're always making up new words these days because we think we need new words. I don't know if impactful is a word or not. But that's what this has been in my life. The most profound thing I've heard in relation to my understanding of the Bible or my studies of the gospel or my studies of the old covenant or the new covenant or doctrine or whatever term we want to give to it. This is the most profound thing I've ever heard. Now, here's the arrogance thing. It came out of my own mouth. Imagine that. The most profound, helpful thing I've ever heard in relation to my understanding of the Bible came out of my own mouth. Now, some of you are going to finish hearing this message and you go, "You think that's profound? Duh." But for me, this has helped me. And I think God has a way of helping all of us the way he knows we can be helped. Can I get an amen on that one? Amen. He knows all of us. He hasn't painted us all with broad strokes entirely. No, we're all individuals. We're all personalities. And he has a way to minister to us that wouldn't necessarily minister to somebody else, but he knows. Yes, he knows. That's part of being the good shepherd. If I can use that Old Testament illustration as an example. So, I believe God has ministered this to me. I'm going to share it with you. And you might go, "Well, duh. I knew that." Or you might go, "Whoa, that is profound. That helps me." I hope so. Whatever the case is, I'll leave that with you. But for me, I kind of feel like Moses. You know, we're told to some degree that Moses recorded some of the early scriptures. I don't know we can argue about that or not. I'm not going to bother. But at some point in time, somebody wrote that Moses was the most humble man on the face of the earth. Imagine writing that about yourself. There goes your humility, right? But it's in there. It's in the book. You sure you want me to write that? Yeah. Go ahead and put it in there. You sure? Yeah. Put it in. So, this most helpful thing, this rerun that I've encountered many, many times, it first came out of my own mouth, and I'm not sure I may be mistaken. I don't remember ever writing it down. I typed it out for your benefit a couple of days ago, but I'm not sure I ever wrote it down before this. Now, I will give you a warning. Today we are going to talk about blood. I know there's a temptation in this day and age to try and clean up the Bible. Don't clean it up. It's a mess. The stories in the Old Testament and even a lot of them in the New Testament, they are messy stories and that's okay. It's a different time, a different place. Long time ago, things happened differently and there was blood involved and that's okay. Don't try and hide the dirty parts. The dirtiest part of all is what led to our redemption. Yeah. So, we can't clean it up. We're just going to leave it exactly like it is. And we'll trust the Holy Spirit to help us wade through the messiness. All right. The most profound thing I've ever heard that came out of my mouth, the most helpful rerun that I have. Here it comes. Jen, are you ready? Number one for us here. The one, this is how it came out of my I can quote it verbatim whether I ever wrote it down. I can quote it as though I heard it 30 seconds ago. The one who passes through the blood assumes responsibility for the upkeep of the covenant. I was actually in Indonesia when this happened. I was living in a smaller city in the North Sumatra island of Indonesia. And that morning I had been doing just a little Bible study. If I recall, as I often did, I was reading about Abraham in the Old Testament. And I was just walking around what was my bedroom at the time, just kind of thinking or I can use a funny word, let me use a funny word. I was meditating on the word of God. And sometimes when I meditate, it's like I'm preaching to myself and nobody else is in the room. So, I just preach to me and I was preaching to myself a little bit that morning. And out of my mouth came, "Hey, the one who passes through the blood assumes responsibility for the upkeep of the covenant." And I went, "Who the?" And I didn't have to ask that it be said again. It was just suddenly burned in my brain. It was there. The one who passes through the blood assumes responsibility for the upkeep of the covenant. And over the subsequent years that have passed since then, this little sentence has become a rerun. It has comforted me like watching MASH late at night when I ate too much pizza. If something wasn't right in my mind, if I was frustrated, if I was disappointed, if I'd done something I knew was wrong, or if there was just something going on in life that I wasn't sure about and maybe I was starting to think about God as if he's as if some as if maybe as if I did. How many you had those moments? And you need a rerun. It's okay to need a rerun when you start to put yourself as the center of reference instead of Christ as the center of reference. Sometimes we need a rerun. And this has come back to me whether ever wrote it down or not. I don't recall. It's probably hidden in a notebook somewhere. The one who passes through the blood. If I can say it this way, the way things will be in the relationship with God, that's what we're talking about by the word covenant. The way things will be in the relationship with the covenant, the one who passes through the blood is responsible for the way things will be. Are we okay so far? Some of you are still watching MASH in your head. You're not really listening to the message, but no, just kidding. The one who passes through the blood assumes responsibility for the upkeep of the covenant. I can quote it verbatim like I just heard it and heard it again and I heard it again. Let's take a couple of examples from the Old Testament here. Let's go to the next screen there, Jen. That's okay. In Exodus 24, actually starting even in Exodus 19 and 20, you have the people of Israel. They've come out of Egypt and they've arrived at Sinai. And around Exodus 20 is where you have God giving Moses what we call today the Ten Commandments. And in the subsequent chapters, as we call them, Moses gives more laws, more laws, more laws, relationship laws, animal laws, sacrifices, feasts, all these things are in that 20, 21, 22, 23. And then we come to chapter 24. Chapter 24. Let's read it together. We got it there on the screen. Then he Moses took the blood of the covenant and or sorry took the book of the covenant and read in the hearing of the people. Remember he's just recorded all these things for them. He takes the book and he reads it in the hearing of the people. And they said, "All that the Lord has said we will do and be obedient." And Moses took the blood. We got screen number three up there. Moses took the blood, sprinkled it. Read it with me. He sprinkled it on the people and said, "This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to all these words." Moses reads the law. He reads the covenant. And what does it say he does? He took the blood and he sprinkled it on the people. What was my rerun? The one who passes through the blood assumes responsibility for the upkeep of the covenant. They accepted the blood of the covenant. They are saying, "We accept responsibility." Just as they said, "Hey, Moses, whatever he tells you to do, we're going to do it." Can you picture Moses? Maybe just in hindsight now I can picture Moses going. I have the daunting suspicion that this ain't going to work. I don't know if he had that much foresight or not. Maybe he did. I don't know. As time went on, I'm sure he did. Remember, he's like, "Hey, God, you're so mad at these people and you want to kill them all. Take me, too." Remember he said that at one point in time. I don't know if it's going to work. He sprinkled the blood on the people. You can almost hear him saying, "Oh boy." And then we get to the New Testament, as many of you know. And the Apostle Paul would later help us by saying this. That was the covenant, the ministry of death and condemnation written on stones. It's not a criticism of Moses. Remember the book of Hebrews tells us Moses was faithful. I just wouldn't want to have to be faithful in what Moses was faithful in. Thank you very much. Sometimes I picture, you know, if in eternity or wherever whatever word we want to give for the then and there or whatever the then and there is. I don't know, maybe it's actually the here and now, but whoop-de-doo. I can almost see Moses sitting in a group like this and maybe there's some pastors and there's some evangelists and there's some apostles and there's some prophets and the one guy stands up and says, "Woo, thank God he gave me a great teaching ministry." And the apostle Paul will stand up and say, "Woo, I thank the Lord for the apostolic ministry that he gave to me." And somebody else, maybe it's an Oral Roberts or whoever it was in the later days, and they would say, "Oh, the Lord helped me with a great healing ministry." And then Moses would stand up and say, "Well, as it turns out, I had the ministry of death and condemnation." I hope somebody's there to give Moses a hug. Say, "We appreciate your ministry, too, Moses. Thank you for being faithful. Thank you that you had that little part. Not little. Unfortunately, it was a lot of years in there. Thank you that you had that part of showing us how deep the hole was, how deathy the death was, how lost the lostness was, how dark the darkness was. Thank you that even in the midst of that ministry, you were said to be one. You said you were said to be a leader like one God would raise up for us. We're thankful for the great one that God has raised up for us. Thanks Moses for helping us on the journey. I'm sure it wasn't easy. I'm sure it was not. Maybe he would have preferred to stay up on the mountain rather than bother coming back down. I don't know, right? But in the example even from the ministry of Moses, he sprinkled the people with blood and they become responsible for the upkeep of the covenant. This isn't going to work. All right, we're going to go back even a little bit further in the story, further than Moses. Let's go back further than him. In fact, I'm going to we're going to look at a story. Oh, I like this one. This story that we're going to look at briefly is so important, I found that somebody found it so important that they depicted it with Lego. You don't need a 10-part Netflix series. You don't need a three-hour movie made about your life. If you want to know that something is of great significance, if somebody makes it out of Lego, you got it made. Somebody depicted this story in Lego, which is kind because it's kind of a weird story when you read it in the book of Genesis. It's one of those ones that say, "But I'm glad for it, but I don't really know what's going on." And I can't tell you I know all the ins and outs of this story. That would be a lie if I did. We're just going to I'm going to use it as a reference point for our theme today. But I'm glad it was so important. Somebody decided to help us by using Lego. This is from Genesis 14. And the story goes in the earlier chapters, God has spoken to Abram and he said, "Leave your country. Leave your family. Go to the place I'll show you. Don't bother booking a Howard Johnson. Just leave. Go." So Abraham goes and this is where Abraham encounters many of the promises of God. And like you and like me, Abraham is a human and sometimes he needs help with his understanding and even with his faith. And at one point in time, Abram says to God, he says, "God, how will I know that I will inherit what you've promised to me? I need some help here, God. I want to trust. I need some help." And then it gets messy. God says, "Get these animals. Cut some of them in half." And so that's what you're seeing here. By the way, I'm glad it's in Lego because I don't want to see the real version to be quite honest with you. Right? So Abraham took the animals. Now, I will say this. Abram doesn't ask any questions. He immediately does what he's told. That suggests to me that he knows what's going on. This is not something entirely unfamiliar to him, but he's probably thinking, "God's going to do this with me? This is what the kings and the leaders do. But this is going to be God and me. All right." So he gets the animals. He cuts them and they make a mess of blood. A path of blood between cut up carcasses. You got about an hour till lunch. So don't worry, the memory will fade and you'll be okay by the time the dinner bell rings. Right. So he makes the pathway of blood as God instructed him to. A covenant in blood is about to be established. But what happened? Read it there. I'll read it. You can read on the screen. When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram. And it came to pass when the sun went down and it was dark that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. Abraham might have been expecting, "I got to walk through that." Abraham doesn't get to walk through. Abraham goes to sleep. I don't know what that sleep was. To some degree, he could see what was going on. So, I don't know what the sleeping exactly was. Whether it was a vision or whether it was a dream, I have no idea. But to whatever degree he experienced it, the path of blood was there. But did he pass through the blood? He didn't. He went to sleep. He went to sleep. And when he doesn't pass through the blood, he does not assume responsibility for the upkeep of the covenant. Ah, now we're getting somewhere. But something else appears. In fact, two things appear. A smoking fire, a smoking pot, and a burning torch. I can't tell you 100% that I know exactly what's going on, but I know that Abram's sleeping on the sand and I know that to some degree God has appeared on the scene and he's working things out on his own. And Abram is a silent witness and he's a beneficiary. Abraham's asleep on the sand. He's not passing through the blood which says to me whatever benefit comes out of this covenant, it will be God's doing and God's alone. He's asleep on the sand. And yet the promises are made to him. And this covenant is cut in response to his request. "How will I know?" So there's something in this little ceremony that bears witness to Abraham that says God is taking care of this matter. Now, it gets funny. Fast forward a few years. I can't prove this to you from the Bible, but I have a suspicion. Remember Jesus is having one of those schoolyard bickerings with the Pharisees. "You have your father. We're not born in fornication. Yeah, you're born in fornication. You have the father was not a father." And then they say, "Oh, we have Abraham as our father. Abraham's not your father." Yes, Abraham is our father. No, Abraham is not your father. If Abraham is your father, you would believe in me, but you don't believe in me. So, Abraham is not your father. Yes, Abraham is a brother. We are not born of born again. You remember that one? It's a back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And then Jesus drops the bomb. "Abraham saw my day and rejoiced in it." Wait a minute. You're not even 40 years old. You've seen Abraham before Abraham was born. I am. And they took up stones to stone him. I always laugh at that part. Just such an anticlimactic way to end the story. They had no answers. Let's just throw stones at them. Try and get rid of them. But I can't help but think when Jesus says, "Abraham saw my day." I think maybe this is when he saw it. God has made me these promises. I have no idea how to get there on my own. And God comes and bears witness to Abraham as though saying, "I'll take care of it. Don't pass through that blood because you'll be the short circuit and it won't work. I will take care of it." That reminds me of just a few chapters later in the book of Genesis. Remember Isaac and Abraham are going for a little walk and Isaac says, "Hey, Dad, you got the knife. I'm carrying the wood. You got the fire. Where's the lamb or the goat or the sheep or the whatever?" And Abraham says, "The Lord will see to it." The Lord will see to it. The covenant that was cut there in the midst of that mess says to Abraham, "The promises that you're receiving from me, Abraham, I will see to it. I will see to it. You don't pass through. You don't take the responsibility. I will see to it." He was a witness. He was a beneficiary. But only God would make it happen. Amen. This is covenant language we're talking about here, right? We skip forward a few hundred pages and a few hundred years in the Old Testament. And I'm just going to share a little quote that has often come back to my mind as well on these themes. Let's go to the last screen there, Jen, if you would please. I like this one. This is Isaiah speaking. This is many, many years beyond Abraham and Moses, of course, but still looking forward to the time of Jesus. And it seems in the middle chapters of the book of Isaiah, it almost comes across as though there's a conversation happening between God and Messiah who we know are one and the same. But in the mind of Israel at the time, it's being presented as God is sending someone, right? Them not necessarily recognizing that the someone was God himself, but God is sending someone. And it's like God is talking to this someone in the book of Isaiah and he says this. "I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people." I like to think of it this way. The new covenant has another name. What's the name of the new covenant? The name of the new covenant is Jesus. He's the name. He is the new covenant. Remember at what we call the last supper after dinner, he took the bread and he took the cup and he said, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Not mine and yours. Not mine and his. It's the new covenant in my blood." Just mine. It's the new covenant in my blood is what Jesus told his disciples. And the next day, where does he end up? He goes to the cross. And what happens at the cross? The old covenant finds its completion and its closure in Jesus. I like the picture we have here because you can see the cross in the distance, but the picture is not like somebody was in there with a camera. It's just a depiction. So, just relax. It's as though you're looking out of the empty tomb and you can still see the cross. The cross marking the place where the old covenant was closed and satisfied and the empty tomb marking the place where the new and everlasting and eternal covenant was opened and continues from there by the resurrected Jesus. Amen. But what did he say? "This cup is the new covenant in my blood." You don't participate. Only I do. Remember in Jesus, I'm sure I've said this at Hope Fellowship more than once over the years. In Jesus, God is faithful to the covenant. In Jesus, humanity is also faithful to the covenant. What does it mean for the covenant? You can't break it because you're not involved to break it. You can't do away with it because you're not involved to do away with it. Even as the Apostle Paul would later write in the New Testament, he says, "Even if it's a covenant made between two natural people, nobody annuls it and nobody adds to it." How much more when it's all wrapped up in the person of Jesus Christ. Now, if I say what I'm about to say, every Christian person in the world would agree with what I'm about to say. There is no shortcoming in Jesus. Baptist, Pentecostal, Catholic, Word of Faith, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Anglican, Presbyterian. If we could get them all to clap their hands, they would all clap their hands in agreement with that statement. There is no shortcoming in Jesus. But here's the other one, and the flip side of that same statement. In Jesus, there's no room for improvement. That's right. That's kind of the essence of what Paul is saying is nobody adds to it because it's already perfect. Nobody annuls it because there's no shortcoming. Where does that leave me? It leaves me with Abraham resting as a beneficiary and a witness of what God himself has accomplished. I think we're doing all right up here today. Everybody okay? I'm a witness. I'm a beneficiary of what God has accomplished by giving us the covenant who is Jesus. Amen. No one adds to the covenant as though there was something missing. No one annuls it as though we found something better. Amen. Jesus is our new and everlasting covenant. I don't know whether to say this next part, but I think I will. Maybe just for a laugh. Remember in the Old Testament, "Behold, I do a new thing." Forgive me if I'm being facetious. I do a new thing. Why is it that when everybody's raising money for Christian activities, somebody comes along and says, "I believe the word of the Lord is that God is doing a new thing." Got to get the hype up to bring in the... Oh, boy. I should stop now. I better stop. What did Isaiah say? "I do a new thing." He did it. It's done. The new thing was the closing of the old thing and the eternal opening of the new covenant who is Jesus. And then the Apostle Paul would help us along the same lines and he would say, "We are transformed in his image from glory to glory by the spirit of God." And then some of us get a hold of that and say, "We're going from glory to glory to glory to glory to glory." No, that's not what he said. As though we're Super Mario trying to go from one level to the next. No. We have been brought in the context of what Paul was writing to the Corinthians. We have been brought out of the glory of the old which it had for a while. For a while that old covenant law was the exalted point of reference. But there came a time when it was done away with. As the writer of Hebrews says, he takes away the one that he might establish the other one. So we are brought out of the glory of the old. Full stop. And we are brought into the glory of the new full stop. Amen. I'm not Donkey Kong. I'm not Super Mario. I'm not banging my head on bricks trying to get to a new level. I like playing Pac-Man, but I'm not chasing ghosts and fruit around some maze trying to get to the next maze. No, I've been ushered into the presence of God joined with Jesus. I don't dare take credit for it, but I will give thanks for it. Everybody okay? We finish with this thought here. What's our part then? If the covenant is Jesus and there's no shortcoming and no one will annul, I think we can take a little example from Abraham. I might be completely wrong and is it okay that I'm that honest? I might be completely wrong in how I'm reading what I'm about to refer to, but at one point in time in the story of Abraham, kind of in the early days when God is still introducing the promises to Abraham, God comes to him and he says, "Abraham, as for me, behold, my covenant is with you." I read that as though God is saying, "As for me, Abraham, if you would like to agree with what I'm about to tell you, this is how it will be. As for me, what you say you what do you say? As for me, my covenant is with you. If you want to tell me to buzz off, buzz off. I will." I don't think that's in the original Hebrew, but anyway. "As for me, my covenant is with you." If you agree with me, Abraham, here's how we'll move forward together. Is the gospel really any different? We are invited to agree with what God has already ordained through Jesus Christ. Yes, it's a complete story. It's a complete glory, if I can use that New Testament language. And the invitation for us is as though God would say, "As for me, here's the covenant granted to you in Jesus." Would you like it to count for you? Then it does. If you don't, it won't. If you want to cooperate, yes, if you don't. So, we have this same invitation just as Abraham did. As for me, Jesus is the covenant. Jesus is your righteousness, your peace. Jesus is your sanctification, your holiness. All of these things that the people under the old glory were trying to get to, we're now told they are granted to us, gifted to us in the person of Jesus Christ. And the invitation from God is simply to agree with what he has already ordained through Jesus. I think of the word confess. The apostle Paul says, "If you confess with your mouth," this helped me a long time, many, many years ago. This one helped me too. It's always been a bit of a rerun in my life, too. That word confess, one meaning of that word is simply say the same thing. Jesus is Lord, whether Scott agrees or not. So, the smart thing for Scott to do would be say the same thing as God says. God says Jesus is Lord. I'll say the same thing. Will I sometimes miss it and not act like it? Oh, yeah. You can count on that. But because of Jesus, nobody takes from and nobody adds to the covenant. The best thing for me to do is rerun it again. And when I watch the rerun, I'm going to say the same thing. Amen. The one who passes through the blood assumes responsibility for the upkeep of the covenant. This cup He might have said it this way. I don't think he did. But "This cup is the blood which I will pass through shortly" is what Jesus might have said. He didn't tell them that part because they would have just run away screaming. Peter already got upset about him a few weeks before when he started talking about it. This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Don't try and get involved yourself. Let it be God's initiative, God's accomplishment, God's doing. Let us be the ones who receive it, never taking credit, but always giving thanks to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, thank you today for Jesus, our savior. Thank you that you are a covenant God, and you've given us Jesus, the new covenant, the eternal covenant. Thank you that our relationship with you is secure. Thank you that we can rerun again what we know to be true. Thank you, Holy Spirit, that you would help us see in increasing and new light the truth of who we are and what you've given to us through Jesus. Most of all, may we see and magnify him that he's even as the New Testament tells us in all things may he have the preeminence in our understanding, in our thinking concerning you and our walk in the light of your grace. We thank you, oh Savior, for the peace that works in our hearts. Thank you, Holy Spirit, that you would help us to have those reruns when needed, to refresh us in our thinking. And help us once again to look ahead with hope, with peace, with grace, with compassion, all rooted in the love that's been revealed to us by the coming of your son. We thank you, oh Savior, for who you are, all you've done, all you've made us to be because of your great favor, your great kindness, and your great love. It's in Jesus name we pray together today. Amen.