Thank you. And it's a wonderful reminder of reality that there's mortal life in this life. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, again, we're grateful for this opportunity. We have to be together, to be the family of God together here at Kendall Presbyterian Church. To call you, Father, look to Jesus as our Lord and Savior, our Redeemer, our Messiah, our elder brother. And for the Holy Spirit is our family bond. That you would meet now with your people as this preacher presents the Word of God, that you would take this word from the pages of your book and write it on the tablets of our hearts and mold us and shape us and transform us more and more into conformity with the image of your Son Jesus and whose name I pray. Amen. Well, this weekend we had yet one more memorial service as most of you, I'm sure you know, we had the memorial service for Bill Sherman yesterday. What a wonderful man as I said about him, wasn't real spiritual, but it was absolutely true and came from my heart. I said, that was one tough son of a gun. I can't tell you how many times I, and I don't keep track of these things, but I do believe that I probably, I believe I visited Bill Sherman in the hospital, at least in Baptist more than anybody I've ever visited. And every time, well, I can't say every time, but an awful lot of times when I leave his room, I think, I'm not going to see Bill in this life again, and then I'd look up on Sunday, he'd be sitting right there. It's an amazing guy, it's a great loss, but a friend of mine said Friday, as I was leaving to go to the visitation over at Stanford, funeral home, friend of mine said, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry you have to go to another one of these memorial services. I said, no, I appreciate what you're saying, but no, no, this is a privilege. It's a privilege for me to have known Bill and Iris, and Evelyn, and I could go on a long since lost count. It's a privilege for me to know these people and to have been allowed to be a part of their lives. And for me to be, to be part of a visitation, to be with the family, to be part of a memorial service, to be allowed into people's hospital rooms, when nobody but them, their doctor, and their immediate family, to be in there with them, to be allowed at their bedside as they take their final breaths, it's a privilege. It's a privilege, I'd rather put off for about two, three decades in every case, but a privilege nonetheless. I told the Lord a long time ago, he began to make it clear to me that in spite of what I wanted to do, that I was going to be a pastor, that was not high on my list of things I wanted to be. I saw how these guys lived, and I said, I don't want to be a part of that. And the God said, guess what? So when I began to sense God's calling me to be a pastor, I said, look, I'm in this for the real stuff. I'm not in this for platitudes, I'm not in this to say nice things to nice people, hasn't pat me on the back, and I'll see you later. If I'm going to be a pastor, I'm going to be in for the real stuff. I'm talking about the birth and the baptisms and the graduations and the weddings, but I'm also talking about the homeless shelters and the rehab clinics and the courtrooms and the jail cells and the hospital rooms and I see you in a hospice, watches and the funeral parlors and the grave size, all of it. If I'm going to do this, I want to be in for all of it, the highs and the lows. I like the birthing sweets and the graduations a whole lot more. I like to do a lot more of those, but regardless of that, I told God if you wanted me to be a pastor, I would try not to duck any of it. We're talking about life, ladies and gentlemen, life. Life, struggle, pain, victory, loss, death, final words, we're talking about legacy as well. I think about these things a lot. It's not because I'm morbid, it's because I'm a pastor and I'm confronted with these things often. All confronts us with these things in this letter we call second Timothy. I started preaching through Timothy a year ago, September. We finished up first Timothy about four or five months ago and I really thought I'll take a quick pause, do a few topics that need to be addressed and then I'll get into second Timothy and then life happened and then here we are. Remember the 18th and we're talking about 2nd Timothy chapter 1 versus 1 through 7. Paul writes, Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus. And by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, to Timothy my dear son, grace, mercy and peace, from God the Father and Christ our Lord. I thank God who my serve as my forefathers did with the clear conscience. As night and day, I constantly remember you in my prayers, recalling your tears. I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I have been reminded of your sincere faith which first lived in your grandmother, Lois and in your mother, Eunice and I am persuaded, now lives in you also. For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline life and death, everything in between, the Bible is not a fairy tale book, it's not a bunch of nice children's stories. People say, oh yes nice, all the nice moralisms and the fables, these are people who are known as people who have never read the Bible. You can't get to Genesis 3 without realizing this is no fairy tale, it was one we write. This is reality. Paul begins with a prestandard greeting, he's Paul, he's an apostle of Christ, an apostle means sent one, one who was sent to messenger, he's a messenger of God by the will of God. He's going to talk to Timothy, you have to understand this letter, this is written somewhere around 66, 67 AD, he probably, probably 66 AD, Paul died in 67 AD, legend tells us we don't have a historical account of it, but he died at the hands of Nero, one of the many Neuronic persecutions, since Nero died in 68 AD, we know Paul died shortly before that, so along the way, along in this letter, Paul knowing that his time was drawing short, whether God revealed it to him or he could just read the stitches on a breaking pitch, I don't know, but Paul knew his time was growing short, so he writes about struggle and defeat and pain and temptation and also victory and loneliness and departure and legacy and he writes about friendship and who you can count on and who you cannot count on, but the emphasis here is on life. He's an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of life as in Christ Jesus and you'll notice by the way, he uses the phrase Christ Jesus, Christ Jesus often in this letter, more often than in his other letters, we think Christ was his last name, but if Jesus had a house on his mailbox, it would have said Christ, no, Christ was a title, Christ was a title that just meant Messiah, anointed one, so Paul is calling him Messiah Jesus, Messiah Jesus for his Jewish friend who would have been Messiah, Yeshua, Yeshua, for his Greek friends, Christos, Jesus for us is Christ Jesus and he's talking about life, he's talking about this one, he's thinking of the life to come, you know, we're all thirsty for life, all of us, we're all thirsty for life, a lot of us have been drinking at the wrong fountains, have been maybe still are, but we're all thirsty for life. Now I'm not just talking about the guys and the women who drink hard and party hard, I'm talking about the people and you know people like this, I'm not religious but I am spiritual, I'm spiritual, I'm just not religious, by which they mean is my idea of God is he's basically a bigger, nicer, more powerful version of me, and he never makes any demands on me, the new age is like that, if you know much about the new age movement, it's kind of, it's crest a little bit, it's not as much in the front page of the news anymore, the headline news anymore, and that mainly is because it's so common place so accepted, it's not exactly cutting edge anymore, but the new age movement has been defined functionally as the fastest growing alternative belief system in the United States, alternative, alternative what, alternative to Christianity, primarily our Judeo-Christian heritage, well the new age is an alternative to that, I'm going to take a quick, quick excursus or field trip down the new age, let me just tell you a little bit about why it's called the new age, centuries and centuries ago, the ancients look up in the skies and they look at those stars and they thought well of course anybody can clearly see, that's a fish, it's two fish, come on you can see that right, fish, well I don't see it either but they thought those were fish, so that's where we get the astrological sign of Pisces, and that symbol has come to us today to look a little more like that, I know you fishermen are thinking right now, man I need to be out there on the water, the symbol for Pisces, that's an ancient astrological symbol but at the time of Christ it also became appropriated to be a symbol for Jesus, and ancient Christians and persecuted areas, they couldn't put a sign out that says, first church of Antioch or first church of Cestria of Philippi or first church of Ephesus meets here, services at 830 and 11 coffee in the courtyard, child keepy, they couldn't do that, they had to go underground in the caves and the catacombs, so it's simply draw a picture of a fish, it's come down to us as an Ictus, we found some of them, this is an ancient one, found near the catacombe of Saint Sebastian in Rome, and they would write, I'm not sure how this will transfer to the screen here but on top there you see that what looks to us like an I-X-O-Y-E was not, it's the Greek for Ictus, I can explain you why it is that way but I'd put you to sleep faster, so just trust me on this, we pronounce it Ictus, and if you know anything about fish, ethyology, yes that's where it comes from, and here's how it breaks down, it stands for, the I is Jesus, the CH is Christ, the TH which looks like an infinity symbol, that's God, and here's in the possesses of God's Son and our Savior, are you writing this down? There could be a quiz on this, you don't get this in your average Presbyterian church, and no Baptist churches at all, people ask people can't why do you say that about the Baptist, I do it out of respect, I really do, I can pick on a lot of churches, I pick on the Baptist because they're big and strong and they can take it and I love them, so I talk about the Baptist, I wonder why I don't talk about other churches, okay so we're moving from the age, according to the new age movement, we've been in the age of Christ, what we call AD, Annos Domini, they just now call CE, instead of Year of Our Lord's Christian era, that's what they say about it, but we're transferring now into something else, so go back with me to the ancients where they looked up in the skies, and they saw that, they saw that, and they said if anybody can clearly see, well that is a man holding a bucket pouring water, you can see that right? Stars? Can I hold in the bucket? How about that, that help? Now look, it's easy for me to make fun of this because I don't know Zodiac from Zoology and the adult care, it's easy for me to make fun of this, you know a lot of people think Christian is like this too, we just looked up in the skies and we made up a God and these are also people who also never read the Bible, they don't know anything about Christianity because let me tell you this is not the religion we make up, I make up the big guy in the sky, it's just like me, it makes a note of man's on me, they looked up there and they said, ah this is the aquarium, the water bearer, and he similizes for us flow and help a little bit, remember the stars move across the sky, similizes flow and the quenching of ancient thirst from the era of Pisces, the fish, which represented Christ now in era of flow and quenching of ancient thirst, if they had ever read the Bible they would have known that Jesus, the feast of Tabernacles says this on the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and said in loud voice, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink, whoever believes in me as the scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him, are you thirsty? We all are, we're all thirsty for life, someone's been drinking at the wrong wells for a long time, my message to you and any of your new AG friends would be, you know the odd not religious, I'm just spiritual, those kind, my message would be well when you're ready to get serious, when the crisis is, when the doctor's report is bad, when your son and your daughter says, mom, dad, I'm in trouble, when that day comes and yoga and crystals and incense and Starbucks, spiritual, don't get it when you're ready for big boy religion, big boy truth, his name is Jesus and he stands by ready and he says out of me flow streams of living water and if you're thirsty you may come to me and drink. I've mentioned to you before, from CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, the fourth book is called The Silver Chair, I understand they're making this for you in the movie, also I sure hope they do a better job with this one. For me the the scene that I have loved since I read it 800 years ago, let me set it up, if you've never read the Chronicles of Narnia, first of all, shame on you, you ought to read them, they're so easy to read and you do page one of the line in which an award wrote, you'll read them, into this alternate world called Narnia where there are talking animals and elves and dwarves and witches and wizards and the Christ figure is a giant lion named Aslan, into this alternative world to English kids, Eustace and Jill have been drawn into this alternative world and Jill finds herself all alone and quite frightened and she's thirsty, she's cried herself out and I understand if you're a really good long cry, you're parched, you're thirsty and she hears the sound of a stream rippling with delicious sounding water so she moves toward that stream and she gets close to it, she sees this enormous lion lying there. I'll pick it up from Lewis's narrative, the lion says, if your thirsty come and drink, Jill didn't know about talking animals and she freezes, are you not thirsty said the lion? I'm dying of thirst said Jill, then drink said the lion. May I, could I, would you mind going away while I do said Jill? The lion is interested this only by a look and a very low growl and his Jill gazed at his motion as a bulk, she realized she might just as well have asked for a whole mountain to move aside for her convenience. The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic. Will you promise not to do anything to me if I do come said Jill? I make no promise said the lion, Jill was so thirsty now that without realizing she'd come a step nearer. Do you eat children? She said, I have swallowed up boys and girls, women and men, kings and emperor cities and realms said the lion. It didn't say this as if we're boasting nor as if we're sorry nor as if we're angry, it just said it. Then I daren't come and drink said Jill. Then you will die of thirst said the lion. Oh dear said Jill coming another step nearer. I suppose I must go and look for another stream then. There is no other stream said the lion.
If you're thirsty come and drink. There ain't no other stream ladies and gentlemen, if thirsty for life come and drink. There is no other stream. Paul's talking about life. He said this life and he's thinking about the life to come. He knows the grains of sand in his hour glass are just about, just about out. So later on this same letter and what we'll call chapter 4 and verses 6-8, Paul has this to say to Son Timothy, Son of the Faith Timothy, for I'm already being poured out like a drink offering. The time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Now there isn't store for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge will award me on that day and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing. As I told you I think about this stuff a lot not because I'm more because I get to be with people in their struggles and in their final hours. It's a continual reminder to me, a perspective that I think is rather lacking in our modern American culture with our obsession with youth, with our denial of the aging process, our denial of death. I remember reading one time that a Brit said Americans are the only ones who think the death is optional with our obsession with health and fitness. And that's good, that's fine. And I can remember when the fitness craze first burst across our country back in the late 70s and early 80s. I saw the bumper cigarettes said eat health food, jog daily, die anyway. So I said well thank you Reverend Sunshine, I'm so glad you're talking about this stuff. I'm not trying to be a down, I'm trying to be a realist. I remember seeing right here, right here after Miss Iris's Memorial Service and having a lady come up to be just in tears because Iris was gone. And I wasn't crying, I was smiling. I said you have to understand, I'm going to see Iris again. I'm going to see her again in the blink of an eye, the time that we're going to spend with her is going to be so much longer than time will be apart from her. And that's reality today isn't gentlemen. Do you have that assurance? Do you have that assurance when you take your final breath? What I'm talking about here right now, this reality would be the first thing you see on the other side and you'll stand before a God who's either your best friend or a complete stranger. And the way to know him is the Christ and Christ alone. And then Paul says I think, you can know by the way, if you don't know, just get with me or one of the elders after the service. Just get with one of us, we'll say how you can know for sure. I thank God who my serve, Paul says, who my serve. He thanks God. Oh, the grace of gratitude. Ladies and gentlemen, the grace and the discipline of gratitude is Thanksgiving time. This is time we always talk about what we're thankful for. Man, don't make this a one-day year thing. One time a year, the grace and the discipline of gratitude is so important. And Budapest, my man goes to his rabbi and he complains, life is unbearable. There are nine of us in one room. What do we do? Rabbi says, here's what you do. Take your goat into the room with you. Man says, you can't be serious. Rabbi says, do what I say. Take your goat into the room with you. Come back in a week. The week goes by and the man comes back and says the Rabbi, we cannot stand it. The goat is filthy. He's trashing everything. Rabbi says, go home. Let the goat out. Come back in another week. The week goes by and the man comes back. He's radiant. He's beaming. He says the Rabbi, life is beautiful. We enjoy every single minute of it. Now there's no goat only the nine of us. The grace and the discipline of giving thanks. You know the giving thanks is mentioned thanks to the Lord 138 times in the scripture. Do you think it's trying to tell us something? We'll give you a great opportunity to do that Wednesday night right here at 7pm. Come in and declare publicly before the household of faith and before the Lord. What it is your thing before. I remember that awful heroic story during Hurricane Sandy when the the boat, the bounty that they used in the movie, the meeting on the mountain, it sank. Most of the people on board survived but the captain didn't. I remember they were interviewing the the survivors and one man said, I will never have another bad day the rest of my life. So grateful to be alive. Yeah, things are a little tougher in this country now. I've told you what I think about where we are morally and spiritually in this country. Now we've had an economic downturn. You understand those of you come from other countries, you know this, those of you travel, you know this, those of you know about history, you know this. But for the rest of you, let me tell you the worst day here is better than the best day in 99% of the rest of the world for all time. God has been so good to us. We need to be in the discipline of embracing the grace of gratitude. I thank God who my serve Paul says this word he uses for serve here. The Greek word, it's usually used to mean worship. It's the God I worship. You understand ladies and gentlemen what we are doing now. This is not a spectator sport where the congregation, the minister ministers and the congregation congregates. This is your service of worship. That's why we call it a worship service where you're actively engaged in giving God your heart, soul, mind, your will. What you should be. When you leave here you shouldn't say how you like the music or the sanctuary of renovation or the sermon. What you ought to say is Lord, how did I do today? Did I worship you in spirit and truth? Did I get my utmost for your highest? That's the question we'll have to answer. You can dissect the sermon in the music later. But the number one question is to leave this place ought to be Lord, how did I do today? Do I give you my best? I give the best I have of me to the best I know of you. And he says I'm praying for your Timothy day and night constantly remembering you and my prayers. The ministry of intercessory prayer is the hard work of the ministry. The rest of this is easy compared to the minister prayer. I thank God for your prayer warriors. They're a great gathering of them here on Thursday evening. It's past Thursday evening. They meet every Thursday night at seven to pray just to pray for half an hour. Come get with them. Pray for our country. We're calling your tears. I'll say I long to see you. This is Paul, you know, the gospel warrior that take no prisoners apostle. The one you'd call the high priest, the white washed wall and stand before kings and emperors and say I'm not backing down. I don't know big God. Not you. This is Paul. The inside was a big mush. I started to say he was a hostess twinkie but I don't want to bring a tear to your eye. Paul was a steel covered marshal as what he was. Here reminds me of a true story of General Joshua Chamberlain. General Joshua Chamberlain was ahead of the union army at Appomattox. Now the day of the surrender at Appomattox came to the surrender triangle leading 60,000 union soldiers to accept the Confederate surrender. They'd been at war for four years. They'd lost countless friends, 600 and a quarter, 100,000, 620 plus thousand dead Americans. And now up come 9,000 Confederate soldiers. Joshua Chamberlain had been a Bible teacher at Bowdoin college before the war and he'd come to the army union with another generals accolade. He said, Jamlin, you got the soul of a lion and a heart of a woman. Strength, encouraged sensitivity and compassion. Lincoln was another one like that, you know. President Lincoln was. I can't wait to see the movie. If you see it don't tell me how it ends, okay? But I want to see that. You know what Lincoln said? I don't Lincoln. I'm ahead of the story. Let me finish the story by Joshua Chamberlain. Soldiers come forward to surrender. Joshua Chamberlain, they had a union army called all 60,000 of his soldiers to salute him,
giving dignity to a vanquish foe. He said later, he thought he'd get court-martial to it but he thought that was what he ought to do. Giving dignity to his vanquish foe contrasts that what we do in our culture today, the strutting and the taunting and the trash talking. Here this man gives dignity to his vanquished foe. You know what Lincoln said? General Grant had the surrender order for Lincoln. I mean not for for Robert E. Lee. Robert E. Lee thought for sure he'd be handing over his military paraphernalia and go into prison, probably for the rest of his life. And we got his terms of surrender. This is what his terms of surrender said. Twelve words. Put down your guns and go home. Let's rebuild this nation together. What a great, great man. What a great, great thing to do for your vanquished foe. Reconciliation. Is it my you need to get reconciled with? You tell me you can't get over that.
I'm reminded he says Paul to Timothy. I'm reminded you're sincere faith which first lived in your grandmother the lowest. Now your mother Eunice and I persuaded it lives in you also. I think of that godly lineage and godly heritage. Those of you who are raised in Christian homes by godly mom and a dad or one or the other. Well, I hope you rise and call your parents blessed. Bill Sherman's funeral yesterday. I'm looking at Laura. I'm thinking, young lady, how blessed you are to have had a mom like K and a dad like Bill. And for those of us who weren't what raised in the valley of Christian homes, you started. If your children are already grown, you help your grandchildren. I think of the great parents of the age. I think of the moms. Monica, the mother of Augustine who prayed for him for 31 years before he got saved. Susanna Wesley, the mother of John Charles Wesley. And although it wasn't you know, a mother child relationship, but I think of that incredible woman Abigail Adams and Roshi played in the life of John and the raising of their children. Listen, if your children are on this straight and narrow yet, you keep praying for him. You keep praying for him. That's what you can do. You can't nag him into the kingdom of god. You can't scold him into the kingdom of god, but you can pray him. You can pray him in. For this reason Paul said and I'm going to leave this thought and pick it up a lot next week. For this reason, I remind you of fan into flame, the gift of god, which is in you through the laying on your hands. It's the only time the whole Bible, this expression is used. The fanning of the flame, fan it into flame. You have a gift. This word gift right here. It's the word from which we got our word charisma. That's what a charismatic is. It's one who understands and understands the gifts. Carus, the gift is where we get that word charisma. It's the only place the term fanning in the flame is used in all the strips. Listen, you've ever been camping on a really cold day, cold night, and it's your job to get the fire going. Whether you got a lighter or you got two sticks to rub together, whatever you get that kiddling, you get that fire going. When you see that spark, what do you do? You take that hat off and you fan that thing and you just pray that fire gets going because everybody's cold and then what that fire going, it's time to make s'mores and you better get it done, right? The world is cold, ladies and gentlemen, and it's getting colder and cold people are drawn to a fire, not a discussion of the right and the wrong way to build one. They're drawn to a fire, holy pyromaniacs, Batman. We need to be holy pyromaniacs and as Richard Pratt reminded us very well a couple of weeks ago, no more of this frozen chosen business guys, no more. You got to repent of that stuff. We need to fan into flame our guests. By the way, everybody in your house would, if you know Christ, you have a spiritual gift and a lot of you have more than one, some of you have three, but one or two are dominant and out there in the lobby as you leave, you'll see a sign that says, do you know your spiritual gifts or sheets there that list the ones the Bible makes more than implied? If you don't know your spiritual gift, pick one up, pick one up on the way out and look at it and we're going to talk more about that next week here, okay, of how you know what your gifts are and what you're supposed to do with them. In this text, Paul is an I'm echoing, calling out the next generation of Christian leaders, young men, young women, especially young men, and even some of you who are not as young, I heard a great term yesterday that builds most of the term finishers, finishers, what are they? They're not done, they're not just throwing up their hands and I'm finished. No, they finish one career and then they go into something else that's more gospel, directly gospel later, support role perhaps, going to great volunteer, whatever it is got's placed on your heart to do, he's giving you a gift, it's not for decoration, he intends for us to use them, the church needs you, our church needs you, not salute those of you who give so much, so relics, so often, such great sacrifices, the church needs you and you need the church, nothing great has ever been accomplished for the kingdom of God in isolation from the church, let me say it again, nothing great has ever been accomplished for God in isolation from the church, sometimes it's cooperatively, sometimes it's as a reforming within the church, and sometimes it's in the face of the church, opposition to the church, but it's never been done in isolation from the church as if the church doesn't exist, it's been true for 2,000 years, it will be true, at the time Jesus says that's enough, listen I love church ministries, I love you for Christ and have it happen for humanity and reform the university ministry, I love those guys, I'm a product of youth for Christ, I love my involvement with fellowship of Christian athletes and interfacing on and on, I love those guys, but the church is the body of Christ, church is the bride of Christ, the church will be here when the curtain comes down, I don't know if the others will or not, they may, the church will be here because it's the body of Christ, we're going to talk more about gifts next week and what you do with them, but it's important to note here that the very name of Paul says in verse 7, God did not give us a spirit of timidity, a spirit of power, of love, self-discipline, it's very Greek, it's not this, it's that, it's not timidity, but it's power, it's love, it's self-discipline, listen me, now I'll bring this back next week, power without love is tyranny, love without power is just sentimentality, power without love is abusive, it's tyranny, love without power is wimpy and it's just mere sentimentality, love without self-discipline is license, self-discipline without love is legalism, love without self-discipline is license, self-discipline without love is just legalism, we need them all, the power and the love is self-discipline, Paul is not mecoing as well, calling out the next generation of Christian leaders, this college day at the high school, college, I'm sorry, career day at the high school, you've all been through them, maybe you've been part of, career day at the high school where people from all kinds of different occupations came and told those high school students why they ought to come to be a part of their profession, their representatives of the legal profession and the medical and engineering and sales and finance and teaching and every occupation you can think of in the last speaker that day, the last speaker to come to the microphone that big school auditorium was representing for the Marines, he said something rather different, he looked out at that auditorium full of a couple thousand, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen year olds and he said simply this, I doubt seriously, there's more than three or four of you in here that have what it takes to be Marines, and if you think you're one of them, I'm looking for you at the stairwell in this meetings over, Paul and out the next generation of leaders, church needs you, this church needs you, let's pray together, Father I don't know why you'd call any of us, there's nothing in this for you yet you've called us to be your own and you've loved us in spite of our sins and you gifted and equipped us everything we need for works of service that we might serve you and serve one another, Lord that you would lay out on our hearts this day to seek you and ask what is it you'd have me do this day Father and I'm so grateful and I'm so thankful not because this Thursday is a national holiday we call Thanksgiving for all that you've done for us now you've done for us by your mercy and of your grace you've given us Jesus to be our Lord and Savior and they're telling sacrifice for our sins all that he's done for us thank you to you and I ask it in Jesus name I'm here thanks for being here with us today again if it's your first time with us I'd love to get a chance to say hello to you we have a gift we'd like to put in your hands out here in the lobby as you leave come back this evening at six for evening worship I do join us this Wednesday night if you can at 7 p.m. for our service of Thanksgiving and communion if we don't see you until next Sunday we hope you have a great thanksgiving now we see the Lord's benediction go now on the love of God the Father the grace and mercy of God the Son the fellowship and companionship of God the Holy Spirit and live the life I'm here