Sermon Transcript
The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.
- Jesus in His Hometown
- Why Is Seeing Not Believing?
- Why Did Jesus Marvel?
- Why Could Jesus Not Do Miracles?
- Christ Cannot Bless Unbelief
- Faith Is God’s Appointed Means
- The Nature of Salvation
- What Faith Is
- A Present Savior
Jesus in His Hometown
Good morning, how are you? Open your Bibles to Matthew 13. We’re actually going to end up in Mark because we’re going to continue our study of Mark. But this is the parallel passage in Matthew. Matthew 13:53. Now it came to pass when Jesus had finished these parables that he departed from there. When he had come to his own country, he taught them in their synagogues so that they were astonished and said, where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary and his brother, James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Where did this man get all these things? So they were offended at him. But Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor, except in his own country and in his own house. Now he did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.“ Now the parallel passage in Mark 6, starting in verse 1 we read, Then he, Jesus, went out from there and came to his own country, and his disciples followed him, and when the Sabbath had come he began to teach in the synagogue. And many hearing him were astonished, saying, where did this man get these things? And what wisdom is this which is given to him that such mighty works are performed by his hands? Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us? So they were offended at him. But Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor except in his own country among his own relatives and in his own house. Now he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them, and He marveled because of their unbelief. Then he went about the villages in a circuit teaching. The title of my sermon today is The Marvel of Unbelief, and we’re going to ask three questions about the text as we look at this topic. You know, as we read about Jesus returning to his hometown, it’s striking, the hostility of His relatives to Him as a prophet. There’s an old saying that familiarity breeds contempt. And it’s certainly true. It is human nature to take for granted the people in our lives, to take for granted the things that we have and to not appreciate them as they ought to be appreciated. So Jesus used a well-known proverb that a prophet is not without honor except in his own home. In his own home he’s not recognized; elsewhere he is. The kindred of Jesus thought that they knew Him, when in fact they were mistaken as to His true identity. To them he was a carpenter of wood, but in truth he was the creator of the world. To them he was the son of Joseph, but in truth he was the son of God.
So as we look at this passage I want to ask three questions.
Why Is Seeing Not Believing?
And the first is this. Why is seeing not believing? Why is seeing not believing? As I pointed out before, when you look at the structure of Mark, Mark precedes this account with the story of two miracles in Mark 5:21 through the end of the chapter, two very significant miracles one of which included raising the dead and then he immediately he brings up the story of the unbelief of his own kinsmen and the intention of Mark is to show us this contrast between faith and unbelief. Now the people in Jesus’ hometown heard about what he did.
They actually knew what he did. They even said, where did he get these mighty works? They saw the works, they saw the wisdom, they saw the manifestations of God in and through Jesus, and yet instead of receiving him, they were offended at him. So, you may talk to skeptics and they will say to you, well if I saw a miracle I would believe, or if I saw God I would believe, in fact that is not true. Because seeing in and of itself does not produce faith. Why? Because we interpret what we see based upon our presuppositions. Or we could say, we interpret what we see based upon the condition of our heart. Remember earlier Mark when we studied the sower and the seed? Remember that, say yes. In that passage there was one sower, there was one seed, but there were four different results. Why? Because there were four different kinds of soil. As we learn there, the soil is the heart. The word was the same, the preacher was the same, the fruit was different, based upon what? Based upon the condition of the soil. So two people can see the same thing and one believes and one does not. Why is that? They both have the same evidence. It’s because of the condition of their hearts. C.S. Lewis, in his well-known book on miracles, says this. He says, in all my life, I have met only one person who claims to have seen a ghost. And the interesting thing about the story is that that person disbelieved in the immortal soul before she saw the ghost and still disbelieves after seeing it.
She says that what she saw must have been an illusion or a trick of the nerves. And obviously, she may be right. Seeing is not believing. And he goes on and talks more about this very thing, that if people are predisposed to not believe, then all the evidence in the world will not convince them. Because that unbelief is a condition of the heart, listen, are you listening? Yeah. Unbelief is a condition of the heart through which what is seen is filtered. So, while they think they see, in fact they do not see. His kinsmen thought they knew who Jesus was, but in fact they did not see Him as He was because of their unbelief. So I believe God works miracles. Anybody else believe that? I believe it because the Word of God says it, but I believe it because I’ve also seen it. the miracles I’ve seen I could have easily explained away if I was not predisposed to believe. And so all throughout Jesus’ ministry you see that he preaches some believe some don’t. He preaches, the masses believe, the Pharisees don’t. This constant division between those who believe and those who do not.
So the evidence for Jesus was, and we could say is, there. He evidenced his Messiahship through his ministry and through all the miracles that He did, yet some simply did not believe because they refused to believe. The problem was not a lack of evidence; the problem was a lack of heart on their part.
Why Did Jesus Marvel?
Second question I want to ask about this text is, why did Jesus marvel at their unbelief? Now this is a point that Mark brings up. Matthew doesn’t say it, Mark gives us this little insight that when Jesus saw the response of his kindred to his ministry, it says in verse 6 of Mark 6, and He marveled because of their unbelief. Now remember Jesus up to this point had been encountering unbelief everywhere he went. The Pharisees were already plotting his death. Many people rejected his message, not only in the leadership, but even amongst the masses. So it’s not as if he had never experienced unbelief before. So what made this, why did he marvel? Well, there are two possible answers. One is, he marveled at their unbelief despite so much miraculous evidence. At this point in his ministry, as I said, there had been repeated miracles, multitudes, hundreds, who knows, maybe thousands. I mean, the way Mark depicts it is Jesus was constantly thronged by people, constantly pressing on him, and multitudes were getting healed, multitudes were being delivered from demons. Jesus was working miracles all the time. There was enough evidence. So perhaps at this point, belief should have been a foregone conclusion. That’s one possibility. The accumulation of evidence made their unbelief all the more remarkable. But I think perhaps it’s something else. I think Jesus marveled not just that they didn’t believe; I think Jesus marveled at the depth of their unbelief.
What do I mean? Well, when you look at the text, it doesn’t say he marveled because of their unbelief. He says He marveled at their unbelief. And this brings up an interesting point that commentators are divided on. When we look at the Gospels, there’s three places where Jesus, it says Jesus went back to his hometown. Matthew 13, which we read, Mark 6, which we just read, but there’s one other place, and that’s in Luke 4. Now if you go to Luke 4, if you want to turn there, this is the famous passage where Jesus gets up and He takes the scroll in the synagogue and He reads Isaiah. He says in verse 18 of Luke 4, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those [audio unclear] And they said, Is this not Joseph’s son? Now some commentators think that this was an earlier visit and that the one in Mark is a later visit, but some commentators think in fact it’s the same visit. And that Luke gives us detail that Matthew and Mark leave out. And if this is the same visit, we can see why Jesus marveled. Because they didn’t just disbelieve in Jesus, they were profoundly hostile toward Jesus. Let’s go on, verse 23. And he said to them, you will surely say this proverb to me, physician, heal yourself. Whatever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in your country. Then he said, surely I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout the land. But to none of them was Elijah sent, except to Zarephath, in the region of Sidon, to a woman who [audio unclear] Really mad. We might call it rage. And they rose up and thrust him out of the city, and they led him to the brow of the hill on which the city was built, that they might throw him down over the cliff. Then passing through the midst of them, he went his way. If this is the same account, we can understand Jesus marveling because it’s not just that they didn’t believe. He’d already encountered belief, but this kind of hostility and rage from his own countrymen was truly marvelous. Jesus expected to be rejected. He even said a prophet is not without honor except in his own country. He understood the principle of familiarity breeds contempt. Yet the rage and hostility that he faced at his hometown was truly marvelous.
Why Could Jesus Not Do Miracles?
The third question I wanna ask about this text is this. Why could Jesus not do miracles in the face of unbelief? Now, in Matthew, Matthew says that Jesus did not do many miracles because of their unbelief. In Mark, it says Jesus could do no mighty work because of their unbelief.
I’m not sure that the did not versus the could not is significant. But some people read the phrase could not and get troubled by that as if somehow there were limits to Jesus or somehow there are limits to God.
When the scripture says that Jesus could not or did not do miracles, it’s not talking about what Jesus could or would do in an absolute sense. Jesus could do [audio unclear]
Christ Cannot Bless Unbelief
Christ cannot bless unbelief, for to do so would be to reward sin.
Let me say that again.
Christ cannot bless unbelief, for to do so would be to reward sin. Now, the reason unbel- there are many reasons unbelief is a sin, but let me just mention a few. One, unbelief disparages God’s character. Remember when the devil came to Eve in the garden and said, Has God really said? Isn’t God holding back on you? Doesn’t God know that you will be as gods, and so therefore that’s why He doesn’t want you to eat the fruit? All of this he was saying was implying something negative about God’s character. It was disparaging God. Okay? It was to disparage his character- and that’s what unbelief does. Unbelief, disparages God’s character because he who does not believe says, are you listening? God is a liar. Thus, his character is disparaged. And his word is dishonored. His word is dishonored. Unbelief is also sin [audio unclear] in our lives, which is simply not true. God is able to do whatever God promises. And when we read about the faith of Abraham, which is held up really as like the exemplar of faith, it says in Romans 4 that in spite of his wife’s barrenness, in spite of his old age, it says Abraham believed that God was able.
God was able. Whatever He has promised, He is able to fulfill. And to not believe implies that he is not able. And thus it diminishes his power. Unbelief also doubts God’s love. Because it’s one thing to believe God is able, another thing to believe He is willing. But God is willing. Jesus was willing to heal in His hometown. The problem was not that He was unwilling, the problem was that they were unwilling. And so, to not believe God suggests either that He is not good, that He is not honest, He’s not able, that He [audio unclear] is unwilling — that is a sin. Yet it’s interesting that the Greek word for — one of the Greek words for unbelief — can be translated, and in some verses is translated, disobedience. Because unbelief is disobedience. And disobedience is the fruit of unbelief. Eve first had to have her faith shaken, and then based upon her unbelief, she acted in sin. So unbelief is a sin, and then unbelief leads to other sins.
Faith Is God’s Appointed Means
Secondly, Christ could not or did not do miracles in this case because faith is God’s appointed means for receiving. Hear me?
Faith is God’s appointed means for receiving. Jesus said in the Gospels, in a number of places, According to your faith, so be it. According to your faith, so be it. Hebrews says that without faith it is impossible to please God, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. So faith is not optional in the Christian life, because [audio unclear] Then God works miracles bringing them out: after all the miracles of the plagues, then the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea, then the miracle of the manna. God brings them out of the Red Sea, leads them up right to the border of the Promised Land. and they have been told repeatedly, I have given you this land. And what did Israel do? Did they take the land? They didn’t take the land. Did God lie? Did God fail? What happened? Unbelief. They didn’t take what God offered. It’s called appropriation. That’s what theologians call it. Faith appropriates the promises of God. Faith appropriates the riches of God and faith appropriates the work of Christ. You see? And so they were brought up to the land, they were promised the land repeatedly by God and yet they looked and they saw giants in the land and they withdrew in unbelief. And in Hebrews we have a New Testament commentary on what happened there in the wilderness and this is what it says turn to Hebrews 3 if you would, Hebrews chapter 3 verse 7: Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: Today, if you will hear His voice — and by the way, he’s quoting Psalms here, so there’s an Old Testament commentary on the story, and then there’s a New Testament commentary on the story — Today, if you’ll hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, when your fathers tested Me, tried Me, and saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, They always go astray in their hearts, and they have not known My ways. So I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My rest. And then the warning to the church is in verse 12: Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end. While it is said today, you will hear his voice do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was he angry forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they should not enter his rest, but those who did not obey? By the word, that word obey there is the, that can also be translated, not believe. So we see they could not enter in because of unbelief, or your version might say disobedience. That same word can be translated either way, and either way it means the same thing. The disobedience of Israel was the disobedience of unbelief. the sin was. And by not believing, they could not enter in. We cannot receive the blessings of God by unbelief because faith is the appointed means of receiving. crying isn’t, whining isn’t, Complaining isn’t. Serving isn’t. Giving isn’t. Church isn’t. Faith is. Faith is.
This is the means God has established by which we [audio unclear] take. When Jesus was on earth, he looked at Jerusalem and he wept over Jerusalem and he said, how often I would have gathered you under my wings as a mother hen gathers her chicks. I would. My will was that. But He says, But you would not. Or as it says in the New King James, but you were not willing.
Why was Jerusalem destroyed in 70 AD? Because they were not willing. Now we can all talk abstract theology. And because God can do whatever God wants to do, God could have spared Jerusalem. But God could have brought Israel into the land apart from their faith and God could do this and God could do that Well, He could. But He won’t. He won’t. And it is a sobering thing to contemplate that God might let some of us die in the wilderness.
It’s a sobering thing to think that our unbelief can stay the hand of God, that can hinder His Holy Spirit, and that our unbelief can keep us out of the promised land that God has for us. But it’s true. Now you might be like, no, that’s not true because God loves me and He would never let that happen to me. Well, I believe God loved Israel.
I believe Jesus loved Jerusalem. Unless He was faking, because He literally wept over it. But they would not. They were not willing. Jesus says, behold I stand at the door and knock. The text does not say behold I come with a ramrod to knock the door down. It does not say behold I will invade your home with my presence. It does not say I will invade your heart whether you like it or not. It says, no, I’m knocking on the door of your heart, of your home, of your church, but you must open the door.
The Nature of Salvation
The third reason Jesus could not, and this is a principle that applies not just to Jesus in his hometown, but to all the Lord’s dealings with his people, is that faith is required of us by the very nature of salvation. The very nature of salvation. What do I mean? Well, let me read you a quote by McLaren, where he says this. He says, after talking about salvation, of course, including heaven, and for many people that’s all salvation is. I’m not gonna go to hell, but I’m going to heaven. He says, clearly that is true, but it’s hardly the fullness of the gospel, right?
He says, for what is salvation? What are the blessings that Jesus Christ bestows? A new life, a new love, new desires, a new direction of the whole being, a new spirit within us. Amen? These are the gifts. And how can these be given to a man if he does not trust in the Giver? Salvation is at bottom that a man’s will shall be harmonized with the will of God. Without faith, his will is discordant with the will of God. And how can it be harmonized and discordant at the same time? What are the powers by which Christ works upon men’s hearts, his truth, his love, his spirit? How can a truth operate if it is not believed?
How can love bless and cherish if it is not trusted? How can the Spirit hallow and cleanse if it is not yielded to? [audio unclear] just going to heaven anyway. That is not the gospel. The gospel is that God has made us accepted in his beloved, and being united to Christ, we have the fullness of blessings in the heavenly places. Read Ephesians 1, and that’s only one passage. God has, through the work of Christ, a fullness and a richness for us, not only in the future, but in the present. In Colossians, Paul is extolling Jesus. [audio unclear] And he’s extolling Jesus because in Colossae there were heretics who were offering to improve the gospel and that’s always the problem, right? That was the problem in Galatia. We’re going to improve it. Paul’s right, but we have an improvement. We have a new and improved version We’re gonna add some stuff to make it a little bit better and so in Colossae there were Gnostic heretics who were offering access into the heavenlies and fellowship with angels and Teaching people how to have visions and dreams and doing all this cool spiritual stuff But in fact they were denigrating Jesus Christ in the process. And so Paul says that — I didn’t tell you where. Today, can you guess from one word? No. 1:13: He — Jesus? — delivered us from the power of darkness. Excuse me, He is God the Father: He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the son of his love. In verse 15, he, Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body of the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have preeminence. In all things He may have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.” And I could go on and on and on and on. And then he goes on in chapter 2 and he says this of Colossians. Verse 9: In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in Him. [audio unclear] Everything that we need for life and godliness has been given to us in, by, and through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is your promised land. Jesus Christ is the one who has fullness of life, joy, peace, strength, wisdom, holiness, power, everything that you need for life and godliness. And here we are, standing on the border of the Promised Land, looking in and we see that the land is good. Ah, Jesus is good. Jesus is beautiful. Jesus is powerful. Jesus is wise. But will we, oh, wait a minute. I see there’s some giants in the land. I see that there’s some opposition. I see that there may be rejection from my friends if I really sell out to Jesus. Oh, I see that, oh, actually I have to discipline myself to get into it. I have to fight fights. I have to do warfare. I have to pray. I have to read my Bible. Well, that’s just too hard. I’m more comfortable in the wilderness. Really? The promise to God’s people given to Joshua was wherever you put the sole of your foot, that is yours. You can have the fullness of Jesus Christ, but you must enter in. You must press in. You must believe. You must pray. You must read. You must obey. You must meet the terms, if you will. Not because they are in addition to faith, because they are expressions of faith. If you really believed in the Promised Land that it was available for you, if you really believed then you would press into it. Jesus is not just someone who died for us a long time ago so that we could go to heaven. Jesus is a present Savior. Jesus is salvation. This is what Paul says in Corinthians. He says to them, in 1.30, But of Him, meaning God, You are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that it is written, He who glories, let him glory in the Lord. In, in other words, it’s in Jesus Christ that we receive all of these things. In Jesus, we can have victory over sin. I only got two amens, I need more than that. There is no reason the believers have to walk in bondage to sin. The word of God says in Romans 4 that the Spirit of God dwells in us and that He being in us, He fulfills in us the righteousness of the law. Holiness is available to the Christian. Victory over sin is available to the Christian. Victory over the enemy is available to the Christian. But these things must be appropriated by faith. We must believe if we’re going to receive. Now I probably used this illustration before to talk about being saved, but I’m talking to people that are saved — or at least say they’re saved. Always the same thing, by the way. Because I’ve talked about faith for the- past 40 minutes, but you didn’t ask me a very important question, what’s faith? Right?
What Faith Is
So faith, true faith, has three elements. It has an intellectual element, it has an emotional element, and it has a volitional element. Volitional is a big word for will. And that’s basically, our personality is mind, emotions, will. Faith is an act of the entire inner man. When the Bible talks about the heart, it means the entire inner man, not part of us, not just our emotions, not just our mind, not just our will, but all of us. So faith is when the whole man embraces God, God’s Word, or Jesus, or Jesus’ Word, okay, but it’s the whole person. Now let’s Let’s say that I’m tired of standing up, and I see this stool, and I look at the stool, do a little inspection, seems pretty solid, right? Based upon my intellectual evaluation, I have determined this stool can hold me up.
And the longer I stand here, the more tired I get actually. So the more tired I get, the more happy I am that I have a stool. I am really happy that I have a stool that I can sit on because I’m getting tired And the more tired I get, the more happy I get. I call that being slaphappy. So I believe intellectually this stool will hold me up And I’m glad that it will hold me up when I want to sit in it.
So question is, will I will to sit in it?
You hear me? Will I choose to sit in it? Will I decide to sit in it, or will I simply admire it? I know I’m going to write a book on this stool. I’ve written a number of books, and I think it’s time to write a book on this stool. I’ll call it the [audio unclear] Chapter 3, it makes me happy. Whatever. I can write volumes on the black stool. But that doesn’t mean I’m trusting it. As many authors have said, and I read many, many different authors this week as I was studying faith, they make the point of saying there’s a difference between faith and belief. To me, I just use the words interchangeably. But the point they’re making is this. Is that true biblical faith includes the element of trust. Trust. Okay. Trust is not intellectual. Trust is not emotional. Trust is volitional. You hearing me? You can believe this stool is sound and you might be glad the stool is there when you need it But until you sit on the stool, you have not demonstrated trust in the stool. I might as well sit on it instead of talking about it, right? Oh, this is so good. I even get both feet up just so you know I’m really trusting. Not kind of trusting. Not a little bit trusting. Trusting the stool. Oh, Jesus is good. Promised land is good. Holy Spirit is good. Love, joy, peace is good. Victory is good. It’s all good, man. The devil wants to come and knock me off my stool. So I have to fight for this stool. There’s going to be battles for this stool. But God gave me the stool. I have the stool by faith. Amen? You have a Savior and His name is Jesus. He can save you from any predicament. He can save you from any need. He can heal you of any problem. Jesus is an almighty Savior. Yes, believe it. Do you believe it? There is a fullness of the Gospel that so many evangelicals are not walking in.
Because when they hear it preached they think, well that sounds a little charismatic to me. This isn’t about that. This is about taking the Word of God for what it says. I mean, when you — and I know I sound critical, and I’m sorry, but we need to realize that we are in a desperate time. Okay, when you look at the church in America, and there are good churches and there are good people, but when you read the social indicators on the church in America, it is deplorable. The divorce, the promiscuity, the drug abuse, the depression — go down the list. The church in America is in a new Babylonian captivity. The church in America needs to be set free. It needs to be delivered. And the problem is, in spite of what is professed, it is not being embraced that Jesus is a present Savior.
I believe that God offers all of his children a fullness and a richness of life that many have not even begun to imagine. But He will not force it on you. He cannot, by the very nature of the case, make us take what we do not want or will not receive.
We must, as McLaren said, we must bend our wills to His will. We must yield to His Holy Spirit if we would have what He has for us.
And let me say this, and I’ll end because I’m going long, and I apologize, is that this goes to the heart of who you believe God is. Because let me ask you this. If we really believed that God is good. And I don’t mean Santa Claus good. I mean holy good. Righteous good. Benevolent and kind and merciful good. If we believe the revelation of who God is in the Bible, tell me why should Should we not trust him? Why should we not yield?
There is no rational argument against surrender.
There’s an emotional argument. there’s even a volitional argument. I’m not naive. I’ve been through a lot of battles and a lot I understand the struggle of surrendering the will, but there’s no other way. I was reading Tozer last night — had nothing to do with the sermon — but he said that we need a philosophy of noble discontent in the church. Noble discontent. In other words, let’s not be satisfied with the status quo. Don’t be satisfied with failure in your life. Don’t be satisfied with a mediocre spirituality. Don’t be satisfied to be in bondage to sin. Don’t be satisfied with that, because God is offering you something better, and His name is Jesus. Jesus, the Savior of the world, not just the heaven ticket puncher of the world, the Savior, the one who unites us to God, the one who gives us the fullness of His Spirit, the one who blesses our lives with a richness and a depth and a holiness and a victory which would be unbelievable if it were not in fact revealed in God’s Word. But we must take it by faith. Must take it by faith. Jesus said according to your faith so be it. May God’s people hear this word, Amen.
A Present Savior
Lord, we thank you as we sang earlier that you are good, good, good Father you are. Jesus we thank you that you are a good, good Savior. Spirit, we thank you that you are a good, good counselor. [audio unclear] And Lord, we ought never doubt you. We ought never resist you. But Lord, we do at times, and we ask for your forgiveness. I pray Lord that you would create in us a holy discontentment with the status quo in our lives, in our homes, in our church, in our work.
Father, I believe that if I asked everyone here, Do you want more of Christ? They would say yes. I hope they would say yes. I pray, Lord, that they would cross the Jordan and begin to take the land. Begin to embrace Your Son in all of His fullness. Every day, in every situation, in every trial, Jesus Christ is a present Savior.