The Better Wine

One of the things I love about that song is that line, or I guess it’s more of the dueling themes of we bless and we praise God’s name when the sun is shining down on us and when life is good. And we also bless and praise God’s name when life is hard and when there is pain in the road. God is equally deserving of being blessed and being praised no matter what we’re going through.

And I trust in a room like this one, we have some folks that are over here, you’ve had an awesome week. Man, kids obeyed, or maybe you obeyed mom and dad. Life is great, the bank account feels full, the tummy feels nice and full, and some of us are over here and we’re feeling a little bit like that empty coloring book that Al is showing. We’re just feeling empty, dry, there’s pain. And I tell you, God is here with both. He’s here with those that are having the great week, He’s here with those that are having the hard week. And moms, dads of little ones, He’s here especially with you.

God, in all the ways that He reveals Himself in His word and across His history, is one of my favorite ways is as a father. Which means, parents, as you are helping wrangle children with all the wonderful noises and wrangling that we have been praying for as a church for years, God, your heavenly father, is looking at you, just cheering you on. Doing a great job. Doing a great job, mom.

So, I want to reiterate what Caroline and Al have also already said. Man, we love your kids. We have chosen for kids to be part of this once a quarter worship service because we want to remind ourselves of, man, of what it’s like to see our young ones. We want to train our young ones to love Jesus more than we love them. And we also believe, man, kids are not just the church of the future. Kids are the young church today. And why not include the young church today with all of us stodgy older folks in big church? I didn’t say that out loud.

So, kids, something we do every Sunday morning, we really believe in prayer. So, we set aside a portion of our service every Sunday morning where we just pray. As great as mom and dad are, as great as Pastor Al is, we believe that who we really need to help us is God. So, we pray. We just spend a few moments asking God to help us.

And what we are praying for this morning is a very special person. We’re praying for each of us who has our one. Kids, what I mean is that you have a friend at school who is not yet a friend of Jesus. You have somebody that you love who doesn’t yet love Jesus. You have somebody you are close to who isn’t yet close to God. So, we’re going to pray for them. Pray for that friend at school who doesn’t know Jesus yet. Adults, pray for that co-worker, that neighbor, potentially that spouse that does not yet know Jesus. Pray for them by name.

I want you to grab a neighbor. Maybe grab another family sitting close beside you and just pray for them for a few moments. I’ll put a bow on it here in a second. Y’all take it away. Thank you.

Holy Spirit, thank you so much for today. Thank you so much for your kindness to us. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for making a way for us to be saved, to be cleansed of all of our sin. Thank you for making a way for us to still bless and praise you no matter what’s going on in our lives.

God, I pray for my one. God, please save him. I’ve said this before. He’s such a good guy. Genuinely, he cares for people. He is so respectful and kind. He’s a great citizen. But Father, he just doesn’t know you yet. Knows a lot about you, or at least he thinks he does. He thinks he does, but he doesn’t know you. God, please save him.

Lord, please work in the lives of all the ones that we’re praying for in this room. All of the classmates, all of the spouses, the neighbors, the co-workers, the kids. Whoever our ones are, God, I pray that you would please work in them. You get a hold of them, Lord. Do something in their lives that only you can do.

God, please bless these next few moments as I open your word. I pray that we would all Walk out of here loving You just a little bit more. And Lord, there may perhaps be one of our ones sitting in here right now. I pray, God, if there’s anybody in here who does not yet love You, that You would use the next few moments to get a hold of their hearts, please. God, I pray for these kids. I pray that You would help me connect with them. I pray that You would help them see their need for a Savior and that they would give their lives to You as well. In Your great name that we pray. Amen.

So some of y’all may have noticed before I get into the message, I’m a little dressed down this morning. I figured this would be a great opportunity for me to wear one of the t-shirts that we are selling for the Martin Hall fundraiser. So we are selling these, I believe, for $25 each because this is a fundraiser. All profits go directly to… Hey, sweetheart. All profits go directly to supporting the Martin Hall fundraiser. Hey, y’all need to know. I’ll hold it for a second. We’ll try this. Yeah. This may be the end of fifth quarter Family Worship Sunday. So all profits go directly to helping take care of the fundraiser for Martin Hall. This is a great way also just to kind of start conversations with people around town. Robbie was wearing his to work last night. I think like 50 people got saved because he wore a t-shirt. So it may be a bit of a stretch, but I’m the guy with the mic right now. So there we go. Hey, Honor, it is time for you to go back to Miss Debbie, okay? Do this. More stickers.

The second announcement before I really get into the message is Kim, our kids director, is recruiting more team members for the kids ministry. If you can’t tell, we are bursting at the seams with little ones. From newborns all the way up to fifth graders, man, there is so much opportunity to invest in these children so that they would be making an impact for the gospel today and into the future. If you are at all interested in investing your life into something that’s going to outlive you and go into eternity, Kim is your woman to talk with. If you have some free time on Sunday mornings or Wednesday nights and you’re wondering how you can spend it, Kim is your person to talk to. If you feel like you need to invigorate your life with some youthfulness and you’re done with all of the punctures and all of the creams and you want to say, man, maybe there’s something else I can do to help me feel young again. Kim is the person you talk to, okay? She is going to answer and solve all those problems for you.

Now let’s get into the message. Get a bit of a pop quiz for everybody. There’s a lot of proud moms in the room. A lot of proud moms looking at their kids or maybe there’s a lot of kids looking at their moms. The passage this morning features a very proud mom. As a bit of a warm-up, I want to see if y’all know these three proud moms from history. This mom is mother to multiple political folks. Her husband was also one of our presidents. Her name is Barbara. What is her last name? There we go. All right, Barbara Bush, proud mom number one. She’s super proud of all of her kids. Obviously, George Jr. and Jeb were some of the political folks. The Bushes, great family.

The second proud mom. This is Oracine Price. She had two daughters. She has two daughters that were both international athletes that competed at the highest level. Miss Becky knows. All right, tennis. Miss Sabrina and Venus Williams. There we go. Morrisene Price, mother to Sabrina and Venus Williams.

All right, third mom, mother to John and Charles Wesley, two of 19 children birthed by the same woman. Mad respect or judgment. I’m not sure. Susanna Wesley, a truly incredible mom. This was obviously before the time of pictures, so they did portraits to the best of our ability to understand. Susanna Wesley had this really cool practice because there’s always noise and commotion around her. Whenever she wanted to pray, she would take her apron and she would lift it over her head like this. And her kids knew if mom is draped in her own apron, don’t go mess with her because she’s praying. Probably to have patience with me.

So like I said, the passage this morning features another extremely proud mom. Maybe some of The moms in this room will see their kids grow up to be international athletes or preachers that rock literally entire continents or songwriters who will write hymns that will be still be sung in churches hundreds of years later. But what would it be like to be mom to God in the flesh? To be the mother of the one who would raise the dead? To be the mother of the one who would teach? And at His word, thousands of people would be on the edge of their seats just yearning for more. The mother of the one who would offer His life as a sacrifice for the sins of all humanity. This is Mary, the earthly mother of Jesus, an extremely proud mom.

Let’s look at the passage all together. This is John chapter 2 verses 1 through 12. It’ll be on the screens. Follow along with me. On the third day, a wedding took place in Cana of Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there and Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding as well. When the wine ran out, Jesus’ mother told Him, “They don’t have any wine.” And then Jesus, as Miss Beth has told us, responded in a way that’s kinder back then than what we understand now. “What has this concern of yours to do with me, woman?” Jesus asked. “My hour has not yet come.” “Do whatever He tells you,” Mary told the servants.

Verse 6, now six stone water jars had been set there for Jewish purification. Each contained 20 or 30 gallons. “Fill the jars with water,” Jesus told them. So they filled them to the brim. Then He said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the head waiter.” And they did. When the head waiter tasted the water after it had become wine, you see he didn’t know where it came from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew, the head waiter calls the groom and tells them, tells him, “Everyone sets out the fine wine first. Then, after people are drunk, the inferior. But you’ve kept the fine wine until now.” Jesus did this, the first of His signs in Cana of Galilee. He revealed His glory and His disciples believed in Him. After this, He went down to Capernaum together with His mother, His brothers and His disciples and they stayed there only a few days.

Proud mom in this passage looks to her resourceful son to solve her problem. At first, that son kind of dismisses her requests, her request. And then whenever it’s private, He steps in and totally handles the situation. In fact, the main point that I want you to take away this morning, if you are a note taker, write this down. God shows us His glory by handling our deepest needs. I’ll say it again. God shows us His glory by handling our deepest needs.

You see, obviously, in the passage, Jesus handles an immediate need. There is a shortage of wine at a wedding. Here’s what I’m going to run through a couple of details for us to get an idea. Weddings back then in the ancient Near East were not just on Saturday nights from 5 to 10 with a little bit of dinner, maybe a cocktail hour and such like that. Weddings for them were at least a full week long. And the groom, it was him and his family’s responsibility to pay for all of it. And it wasn’t just a week of setting out like soup. It was a week of feasting, a week of partying. It was sun up, past sun down, enjoying each other’s company. A full week, seven plus days of hanging out and enjoying time. Therefore, if you were going to have a wedding, you had to have lots of food, lots of wine, lots of supplies. That’s because not only did you want to make sure everybody’s needs were met, but if you ran out, big no-no.

I mean, imagine going to a wedding today and you get up to the food line, you’re at table like 20 out of 22 and they’ve run out of chicken. And all they have is salad, a couple soggy potatoes, and maybe a piece of asparagus. And you get to the food and you’re like, “Come on, man. I got all dressed up for this. I drove like an hour to this venue for this. I’m hungry. You made me sit through that entire service and your cocktail hour and all you have for me is salad and a potato?” It’d take your frustration and magnify it. That’s how it would have been. There would have been immense shame on the family if they would have run out of food. In fact, at that time, the bride’s family had the legal right to sue the groom and his family if the groom ran out of food. Imagine going on your honeymoon and you had just run out of food and your new bride is still looking at you from across the suite. You didn’t buy enough steak. You ran out of shrimp, you know? But they wouldn’t have eaten shrimp, you know, they were Jewish. So I guess that doesn’t carry over. Running out of wine at a wedding is a big deal.

So Jesus, in His excessive lavish provision, doesn’t just top off a couple bottles or wine skins. No, He looks at these huge jars, these stone jars that would have held 20 or 30 gallons of water. You go to Lowe’s or Home Depot, you go to the garden section and you look at those huge planters that might hold a ficus or something bigger. That’s what He’s looking at. He says, “Hey, go fill up those jars. 20 or 30 gallons in all six of these.” It’s about 150 gallons. He commands the servants, “Hey, fill those up. Fill them up with water. Go to the well. Draw enough water to fill all of these.” It says, “To the brim.”

Jesus, in the way He meets this immediate need, is excessive and lavish. And I’ll tell you, the way He meets your needs, you better believe. Excessive and lavish. Now, some of us know what it’s like to open the fridge and there not be any food. Some of us know what it’s like to get to the end of the month and there not be any more money to take care of the bills. Some of us know that, but most of us living in America today don’t deal with that. Most of us living in America deal with lavish and excessive provision.

The Bible, Jesus teaches, God sees the birds of the air and He feeds them without them ever having to work for their food. And if God so cares for the birds of the air, how much more He cares for you, Pam? If God so deeply cares for the birds of the air, how much more He cares for you, Mr. Sonny? God’s provision for us is excessive and lavish. So Jesus meets this immediate need and totally goes above what anybody, let alone His very proud mom, would have been expecting.

Now, let me give a little bit of my pastoral take on how He meets it. It’s wine. I imagine in a room like this, we have a variety of opinions on alcohol. Even between me and Al, as me and Al and Robbie were talking this past week about how I handle this, we weren’t exactly on the same opinion. Let me say what I believe. You test this and I’ll come back around in a second. I believe that alcohol or wine falls in the category of everything else. God has made it. Sin has impacted it. Therefore, whenever we interact with it, it can harm us. Romance is that way. Money is that way. Family is that way. I think that when it comes to alcohol, the Bible, it’s a bit gray. However, when the Bible speaks about drunkenness, the Bible is extremely black and white.

We, as followers of Jesus, are commanded not to be enslaved by anything. And whenever the New Testament comes around, Paul explicitly says, “Do not be drunk with wine. Avoid this at all costs.” No matter what you may believe about the goodness or the badness of alcohol, we can all agree that whenever you’ve had too much, you’ve crossed a line. Which means for some of us in this room, we need to not worry about how much can I have. And we just need to say, I’m not going to have any at all.

Some of us in this room, we come from families that have been dominated by alcohol abuse or some sort of substance abuse. Man, if that’s your situation, if you have had a family member whose life and therefore your life has been wrecked by this, have some sort of addiction to alcohol or substances, man, my pleading to you is to avoid alcohol like a plague. It will not go well for you. In fact, if that is your situation and you are dealing with alcohol, you’re dealing with substances, you’ve got something in your life that you want to get rid of, but you just can’t, we have a recovery ministry just for you. Please be here six o’clock tonight with Robbie and his folks in a total judgment-free zone where you get to talk about your struggles, where You just get to open up and not be judged, not be thought any less of, but actually through your humility and through recognizing your weakness, you’d be honored for it. Man, Robbie would love to help anybody in this room that’s looking for freedom from anything to find that freedom in Jesus Christ.

So for some of us in the room, we need to avoid alcohol terribly because it has ruined somebody’s life, where it might ruin yours. Others of us need to abstain from alcohol because Paul also says in 1 Corinthians that in the church, you have a group of believers that are called the strong brother, and you have a group of believers that are called the weak brother. And for whatever reason, for the weak brother, alcohol for them is a big taboo issue. And if they knew that you were drinking alcohol, it would shipwreck their faith. It would really damage the unity in here. So some of us need to avoid alcohol, not because it’s a problem for us, but because it’s going to be a problem for your fellow member at church. And you just need to look at it and you say, hey, you know what? I don’t have a problem with it. It hasn’t messed with my life, but man, he or she really has a problem. And if they knew that I drank, I don’t know that we would be able to have unity.

There’s a lot of reasons for us to consider not drinking alcohol. For Jesus at this wedding, He chose for His first miracle on earth to make wine. We just got to let that be what it is.

Jesus handled the immediate need. But the more beautiful thing as we return to the passage is that Jesus handles our deepest need. And we know that because of how He handled the immediate need. Look back when Mary approaches Jesus, when she finds her son that she is very proud of. Look at what she says. They don’t have any wine. Jesus’s response, verse four. What has this concern of yours to do with me, woman? My hour has not yet come.

Jesus was communicating something to Mary in that moment. When He says, what has this concern to do with me? What He is saying is, mom, your problems, your desires don’t dictate My life. The heavenly Father’s problems, the heavenly Father’s desires, that’s where I take My orders. In other words, Jesus, His life was dominated by the heavenly voice, not by earthly ones. Jesus looks at His mom and He says, hey, I love you, but I love the Father more. And whatever He wants Me to do, that’s what I’m going to do. What has your problem to do with me? Because I’ve set My sights on heaven, not on this stuff.

In fact, as a discipleship test for you, I want to ask you a question because it’s kind of abstract. Who do you listen to more? God or that friend that keeps leading you away from Him? Kids, who do you listen to more? God or that voice inside that tells you to take your siblings’ toys? Adults, who do you listen to more? God or that bank statement rolling in every month that you pour over with a devotion that outmatches how much of the Bible you actually read? Who do you listen to more? God or the news channel? Who do you listen to more? God or that desire for comfort?

Jesus in this moment is showing us what it looks like to listen to God most by not letting the needs around Him dictate what He does.

Man, if you want to grow in that ability, if you want to grow in that ability to be attentive to the voice of your heavenly Father, then I would implore you, I plead with you, I beg with you, I encourage, I urge you, take that sign-up slip in the bulletin and put your name on it. Now, we’ve got a group of leaders here at Sauldam that don’t have it all figured out. You will not be able to sign up for any ministry led by any person here at Sauldam that is an expert at all things following Jesus. We don’t have that. We don’t offer that. What we do offer are little pockets of discipleship where we are all learning how to love God more. And if you’re ready to sign up for that, we’ve got a spot for you.

Men, we’re going to have groups all through the week. Women, we’ve got morning and evening options. Kids, we’ve got incredible programming on Sunday mornings and coming up Wednesday nights. Students, we’ve got awesome stuff happening for you all through the week as well. Sign up for one of these discipleship groups and get in so that you can learn to recognize the voice of the heavenly Father. Jesus always listened to the voice of the heavenly Father. And He said in the second part of verse four, “My hour hasn’t yet come.” Jesus knew when I start doing miracles, I begin walking to the cross. Jesus knew whenever He came out publicly as the Messiah, it was going to start a path that couldn’t be undone. But He decided to meet this immediate need and through that to show us how He meets our deepest need.

Verse six says that Jesus used the jars for Jewish purification to make that wine. Let’s talk about this for a second. God, in His wisdom, gave the people of Israel in the Old Testament only a couple hundred commands and rules, which Jesus chiefly summed up as, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, and do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Jesus says that’s the heart of the law. Yet the Jewish people were so scared of breaking the heart that they invented about 400 of their own commands, which they used as a picket fence around the yard of God’s commands. Their thinking was, instead of figuring out how far I can go, I’m going to set the rules way back here so that I never get to the cliff.

On its surface, that’s a good idea. You’re driving up in the mountains this fall. You want to go get some apples in the upstate? You would really appreciate when those highways have that little guard there so you don’t careen off the cliff. That makes sense. But the Jewish people started thinking that their rules were equal with God’s rules, and if they followed their rules, then God would love them more. So the Pharisees invented this rule that you would have to wash your hands before you ate, while you ate, and after you ate. And before you come into somebody’s house, you’ve got to wash your feet. They would do it in these purification jars.

So in a week full of feasting, let’s say you eat four or five times a day, seven days a week. That’s a lot of washing, right? That’s a lot of rule breaking, potentially. That’s a lot of splashing water out. Imagine in a week of going to the house, leaving, coming back. That’s a lot of foot washing. Imagine the state of those purification jars. Because they didn’t have sidewalks and roads like we do. They’re walking their donkeys in the same street. They’re walking their horses in the same street.

We went downtown a few weeks ago, and Honor loves horses. She sees all those horse-drawn carriages downtown. She’s just like, “Horse, horse.” It’s all facts for her. No interpretation whatsoever. She’s like a great news reporter. “Horse, seen at 1203 on Meeting Street.” Another one of my kids is more into the interpretation, and they say, “Why do they have that little bag under their tail?” So I explain why they have that bag under their tail. Imagine living in Jerusalem with all those horses and no bags. That’s what you’re walking in. And the only way to clean your feet whenever you get to the party is you dip them in that jar.

So Jesus has the audacity to say, “Hey, fill those up.” All that crud. There we go. Now we’re starting to get all that junk, all that grossness. Fill that up. Take your special ladle. Put it in a cup. And go give it to the waiter. Imagine being that servant. That’s right, Mary Hannah. You got it. Imagine being that servant carrying the water to the waiter. And you back up a little bit because you don’t want to be sprayed. He takes a sip, spits it out. “This is the best wine I’ve ever had. What’d you do? You saved the good stuff for last.”

You see, Jesus was confronting the restrictive practices of the day by replacing the old with something better. Jesus meets our deepest need by purifying what’s unclean about us. Let me say that again, because everybody saw my beautiful wife coming in. You’re not looking at me. Look at me. Jesus meets our deepest need by cleansing us from the inside out. We are like those jars, full of crud, full of dirtiness, full of nonsense, full of grossness. Jesus looks at us, and He fills us with His own living water, and He makes us become something that we are not in and of ourselves.

And in doing that, in transforming our identity, Jesus says, “You are clean. You’re beautiful. To me, you taste delicious. That’s who you are now. You are not the sum of your mistakes. You are not your failures. You are not your sin. You are not the darkness that’s hanging over you. You are not all the, ‘Why’d you do that?’ You are not the screw up that people might tell you that you are. You are not the black sheep of the family. In God’s eyes, you are a precious child who has been made clean from the inside out.” And isn’t that good news? Isn’t that good news?

I wonder what your purification jar might be. I’ll start landing the plane here. What’s the thing that you do that you think makes you clean with God? You know, the Jewish people, they use these purification jars because they’re trying to clean themselves up. How do you clean up? I think some of us, honestly, we clean up by dressing up. We come to church, we dress to the nines, and we say, “Because I look good here at church, I’m better. I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a t-shirt in church like Pastor Jeremy is right now.” A little bit of nervous laughter.

I think some of us try to clean ourselves up maybe just by good, just being moral people. “I’ll stop cussing. Yeah, yeah, I’ll stop drinking. I’ll stop doing that stuff for sure.” It doesn’t work.

Some of us try to clean ourselves up like more like in mystical ways. Like we take the Lord’s Supper and we think, “Man, if I just drink the juice, if I just eat the bread, then God will, He’ll use that somehow to make me better.” Or maybe I’ll get baptized, or maybe I’ll rededicate my life, or maybe I’ll donate some money to the church and God will like me more because of that. That doesn’t work either.

Some of us, we try to clean ourselves up just through mumbling a half-hearted “I’m sorry” after we’ve done the thing again. Having coffee with a guy a couple days ago and we’re both recognizing this temptation that we have whenever we sin again to just kind of toss up a “I’m sorry” and nothing ever changed. And we think just because we punctuate our sin with an “I’m sorry” that it’s fine and God sees us and we’re clean or something. What’s your purification jar? Because I tell you, it does not work. It doesn’t work.

There is no amount of Bible reading you can do to make God love you more. There is no amount of half-hearted “I’m sorry’s” that will tip the scales in your favor. Kids, there is no amount of good works you can do. You can’t make mom and dad happy enough through doing enough chores to make God love you because God already loves you. God loves you so much that even though you were a sinner, Christ came and died for you.

Even though you had already messed up your life, no matter how old you are, if you are five or 85, God knows that you are dirty on the inside and the only way for you to be made clean and for you to be made whole and for you to be made good before a perfect God is for God to do something in you that you can’t do for yourself. Therefore, He sends Jesus to live the perfect life that you were designed to live, but because of our weakness and our issues and our indwelling sin, we can’t live that perfect life. From the moment we can make choices, we go against God’s way. I’ll say it again for all the parents in the room. From the moment your kid can make choices, they go against God’s way. Amen? And that’s us. “We all like sheep have gone astray.” So the good shepherd comes and He searches for you so that He can bring you back to the fold so that He can redeem and save and cleanse you through His own death and resurrection.

Doing this miracle, Jesus reveals that He is the Messiah, but only a few people had the eyes to see it. His disciples, the servants, His mom. I hope you see it today.

So what do you need? Some of us walked in here this morning with a pretty big immediate need. Your money is short. You don’t know how you’re gonna pay your bills or make that car payment. You don’t know how you’re gonna feed your kids. And you’re like, “God, here I am.” Some of us, your immediate need is your health situation. You’ve been given a diagnosis.

And you don’t see the other end of this tunnel. Some of us, you came in with this immediate need of a relationship. Man, we’re two weeks into school. There’s already a bully with my name on his book. Some of us have come in with this immediate need. Man, you’ve lost your job. This crisis has erupted in your life and you’re trying to pick up the pieces and you’re like, God, where are You in this? To you, I wanna say God sees you. I wanna encourage you to count your blessings and pray through them. Literally, I have to do this. Maybe once a month, that’s generous. Once a quarter, I write down a blessing of God for every year that I am old. 21. 33. I write one through 33 on a piece of paper and I just write down my wife. Number two, my kids. Number three, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Number four, Sauldam Baptist Church. And I just go through the list. And I tell you, my needs, the things that feel so big for me, get a lot smaller when I remember all the ways God’s already provided for me.

Maybe you need to do that. Maybe instead of dwelling on that bank bill, maybe instead of dwelling on your sickness, instead, you would remember all the things God’s done for you and you would write that list down and thank God for each one of them. And the problems that seem so big to you would actually shrink. Some of us still have that deeper need that’s not met yet. You are still trying to cleanse yourself and it’s not working. You have some sort of unconfessed sin that the Proverbs say is rotting you from the inside out. Some of you came in this morning and this darkness is on you. And man, you can’t shake it and late at night, you almost swear that you can hear it speaking to you, telling you to do things that are destructive to you and to other people around you. Some of you walked in this morning feeling the temptation to try to clean yourself up through your good works or your religion and you’re wondering, is this the day? Is this the day I feel satisfied? Man, my encouragement to you is to open up. Open up to the Lord. Open up to somebody else. Talk about it. Get this off your chest and out of your head and ask God to help you with this.

Kids, y’all have been awesome. Parents, y’all have been awesome. Let me pray for us. Father, thank You for today. Lord, thank You for these kids. Thank You for their parents. God, thank You for this church. Thank You for what You’re doing here. Thank You, Jesus, for coming and meeting our deepest need and for also satisfying our immediate needs. Thank You so much for how incredible You are. God, for anybody in this room that’s dealing with an immediate need they don’t know the other way out of, God, I pray that You would just be lavish to them. You would provide for them. You would help them to see that You left them. And for those of us who come into this room and we still have that deepest need that’s yet unmet, this longing for wholeness in Christ and it hasn’t happened, would You use this final song to get a hold of them? Would this be the day they give their lives to You, please? God, we love You. Thank You for loving us. Amen.