We're starting a new week of Keylight Broadcast, and it's our practice before we study the book to go before the throne, so let's do that. Father, we praise You and worship You and adore You because You're worthy of our praise, an adoration and worship, and the praise and adoration and worship of all Your creation and all Your creatures. Father, we stand before You. We're all struck with Your power and Your majesty and Your greatness, Your omnipotence and omnipresence and omniscience You are God, but Father, You're more than that. You're our Father, and You've entered time and space, and we remember where You found us. Father, Your name would not be on our lips had You not first found us, and we remember where we were, and we look forward to where You've promised. But in the between times, Father, sometimes it's hard. You know the difficulties we go through, the financial problems, the family problems. You know the sin and the loneliness, the times when we wake up at three in the morning, absolutely it wiped out, and so Father, we come before You asking that You would meet us at the point of our needs. We praise You and we worship You and we adore You. Father, we come also to confess that we're not worthy of being in Your presence, and we're not for the blood of Christ we could not be here. Father, thank You for allowing us to come boldly before the throne. Father, we come confessing our sins. We have not done what we ought to have done, and we have done those things we should not have done. Father, have mercy upon us and forgive us. And Father, as we study Your Word this week on key life, we pray for the one who teaches. They call Him reverend, and He's not. Forgiving the sins, we would see Jesus and Him only, and we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, if you have your Bible open into Romans 4 9 through 12, that's going to be our text for this entire week on key life, and we're going to talk about God's weird choices. You and me. Now if you were listening last week, you know that we went down one side road to it, that Paul continually relates the gospel of Christ to the older Testament. That's Romans 4.1, and then last week we juxtaposed Matthew 20, 1 through 15. With Romans 4, 1 through 8, and we saw that everybody wants to be 1 up, 4 to, everybody wants to be even 4.4. Everybody wants to be good for 3. Everybody wants to be proud for 5. Everybody wants to be responsive for 7 through 8, and then we saw that God's grace is just that. It's given through faith and grace, despite our inability to be 1 up, even good, proud or responsive. Now, let's turn to the text for this week. If you're driving, you keep your eyes on the road, you scare me to death. Romans 4 9 through 12, Paul, my dear friend, writes as follows. Does this blessedness, now look at what went on before he's talking about the blessedness of being forgiven, having your sins covered, does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised in other words, the Jews only, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness, how then was it accounted? While he was circumcised, our uncircumcised, not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised, and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness may be imputed to them also, and the father of the circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but also walk in the steps of the faith which our father, Abraham, had while still uncircumcised. Now what's Paul saying? Paul is saying that there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, goyum. He's saying that we, that we, when we have faith, are the same. Now this week on Key Life, as I said, we're going to look at God's weird choices, but before we do that, I want to go down a couple of side roads. Cyborg number one, please note that a biblical symbol is a representation of our reality. It is not the reality itself, Romans 4.11. He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised. When I was growing up, my pastor taught me that baptism was defined as an outward symbol of an inward grace. I went through some changes during my days and graduate theological school, but now that I'm a lot older and a little bit wiser, I realized that my pastor was absolutely right about that and a lot of other things. A symbol, a sacrament, is an outward sign of an inward grace. Somebody tells the story about a woman who was on her deathbed and she was visited by one of the dear saints in the church. And the saint said to her, what are you going to say to God when you get before him and he knows that you've never been baptized? You have never come forward. You have never been baptized and you're going to be ashamed when you stand before the judgment thrown of God. And the woman who was dying, in answer to the question, what will you say to him, lifted her callous hands, hands that have been used to serve God's people and held them up and said, I will show him my hands. One of the problems with symbols, ordinances and sacraments is that we want to make them the reality instead of allowing them to point to the reality. I love the visit Catholic churches because I like all of the symbolism. The truth is that, as long as one recognizes that the symbolism is just that, it's fine. Once you start to substitute the symbol for the reality, you miss the truth of the reality. We Protestants can get into trouble if we aren't careful too. There's some of us who believe that plainness is godliness, therefore we dislike symbol sometimes calling them idolatry. There's a church on Cape God where I serve for a number of years which is the oldest congregational church in continuous existence in North America. One of my friends, Richard Shankwaller, was the pastor of that church. You never go there. You'll know that there is absolutely no symbolism, no stained glass windows, no carved images, no banners. Our Puritan forebathers felt that that was old sinful and kept it out of the church. However, if you're ever there, I want you to look at the cushion on which the big pulpit Bible rests. It's the most ornate, beautiful, artistic, silk cushion you have ever seen. What was happening? Let me tell you. It is impossible to stifle our need for beauty and symbols, and if we try to do that, it will come out wrong. Let me tell you something. It will come out somewhere. Let me tell you something. We, in our effort to be godly and pure, and removing all symbols from the church, have left ourselves bereft of the emotion that God would have us for you. I'll tell you something. There was a committee from a Presbytery in a church my brother served that came and found banners hanging on the wall, and the committee told them to take the banners down. My brother was so mad he could spit. He didn't know theology, and he didn't know what the Bible said, and he didn't know how to deal with the objections to the banners. But if I'd been there, I would have told them, you guys leave, we'll keep the banners. It's important to have symbols, but it's important that one never confuse the symbols with a reality. And inside Road No. 2, please note the truth that Gentiles have come into a Jewish religion Romans 4 and 12, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are obvious circumcision, that means the Jews, but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised. Let me show you a wonderful scripture. You'll find it in Ephesians 2, 11-18. You'll never find it before I read it unless you are Baptist and have been through those ordinary youth. Ephesians 2, 11-18, therefore remember that you want Gentiles in the flesh who were called uncircumcision by what is called circumcision, made in the flesh by hands, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the governance of promise, having no hope in without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He himself is our peace who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances. So as to create in Himself one new man from the two, making peace, and that we might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. It became and preached peace to you who were a far off, and to those who were near, for through Him we both have access to one spirit in the Father. In others an arrogant among Gentile Christians sometimes that is quite frightening. Paul, and we'll look at this more in detail when we get to Romans 9 through 11, says that we are grafted on branches, and that we are to make jealous the natural branches, and so far we've only made the Jews frightened and angry. I was speaking at a conference not too long ago, and a woman during the question and answer period said she had a rabbi friend who was really worried about the religious right. She asked, what should I say to him, and I told her that the first thing she should do is understand him. The truth is that throughout history every time the Christians have gotten together the Jews have gotten into trouble. The truth is that the Christian faith properly understood it, no matter how involved we get politically should be a blessing to Jews, because it is from the Bible that we get the values of love, charity, tolerance, and kindness. When Christians are anything other than that we have violated the basic verities of our Christian faith. Now we're going to turn to the main thrust for this text and what we're going to be talking about all this week. We're going to talk about God's weird choices. Let me tell you a rule of my life. I never read a biography that is a puffed biography. I mean, I want to know the upside, and I want to know the downside that the biography doesn't tell me the truth, then I think it ought to be burned. You see, you see the problem with puffed biographies is that they depress me. They make me think that I can't do anything given my insecurity and my sin. If he won't we do is that we love celebrities. We love heroes. And when we do write a biography about our hero, we only say the good stuff. Now God never does that. God never writes puffed biographies. God tells us the truth, and his work, case in point, is Abraham. How odd that God would choose the Jews, but even more how odd that God would choose Abraham. How odd that God would choose you. How odd that God would choose me. You'll remember that Abraham was at Err of the Caldys. Liberals have said that Abraham was an ignorant nomad and illiterate and an educated ancient Err of the Caldys was a sinner, by the way, of advanced culture. There were libraries in the schools and temples. The people used grammars, dictionaries and psychopedias and reference works, along with textbooks on mathematics, religion, and politics, so the Liberals are tweets. They're wrong. When I was a young man, I was impressed with the fact that Moses could not have written the penitent, because writing was not invented until much later. I'm older now, and I found out that those who taught me that drivel didn't know what they were talking about. In fact, just the opposite. There was writing and scholarship in the time of Abraham, and even a thousand years before that in Egypt, in any rate, God found Abraham, chose him, and called him. Now if I were God, can we talk, if I were God, I would have chosen a Egyptian, or a Babylonian or somebody. I wouldn't have chosen Abraham. Now that I think about it, if I were God, I would not have chosen me, but let me share it with you. Abraham's call, you'll find it in Genesis 12, 1 through 3. The Lord said to Abraham, get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you, I will make you a great nation. I'll bless you and make your name great. You shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So Abraham departed as the Lord had spoken to him. Now most people, if they had an experience with God, like the one I just read to you, would become quite committed, quite pure, quite holy, but that's not what happened Abraham. He didn't believe God's promise. He, with the collusion of his wife, Sarah, set up a sexual relationship with their maid, hey, God, causing more problems than you would believe, but we're not going to go into that now. Not only that, when he was traveling in Girard, he came across the king at Benalach, and he said to his wife, when you meet the king, tell him that you are my sister, so he can have a relationship with you. Now that doesn't sound very spiritual to me, but Abraham wasn't just a scoundrel. There's more to the story. Abraham had a son of promised by the name of Isaac. God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. This is in Genesis 22, and Abraham was about to do the deed when an angel stopped him. Genesis 22, 15 through 19. Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said, by myself, I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son, blessing, I will bless you, and multiplying, I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies, and your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed my boy. So Abraham returned to his young men, and they rose and went together to Bershiba and Abraham dwelt at Bershiba. All right, that's our forefather. You say, well, I'm not that happy with my family. Certainly can't brag on my family one like that. One of my great delights is when I'm with people who have traced their ancestry back through kings and queens, and the famous men and women in the past. And I say, we tried to check our family, but when we checked, they were all horse thieves and banking bezzlers. Proof is, as Christians, our family isn't that great either. Let me tell you something, only God is great. Okay. During the rest of the time, a lot of it to me this week on Key Life, I want to take our text, and tell you some important things Paul says about Abraham. Let's read the text one more time. Does this blessedness, the forgiveness, then come upon the circumcised, that is, Jews only, or upon the Gentiles, earn uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness, how then was it accounted? While he was circumcised or uncircumcised, not while he was circumcised, but while uncircum cised. And he received the sign of circumcision, the seal of the righteousness of the faith, which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe. Though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness may be imputed to them also, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but also walk in the steps of the faith which our father, Abraham, while he was still uncircumcised. Alright. Let's dig in. First, I want you to note that God really does choose people, look at Romans 4 and 9. Does this blessedness, then, come upon, then I'm not going to get off on a theological hobby horse. I am reformed, and I believe in a legend. But my friend, Jay, I Packard, talks about an intimony. Do you know what that means? That means there are two truths that you know are true, but won't reconcile. One says that you were elect. You were called. You were chosen from the foundation of the earth, before God hung the stars and hollowed out the valleys he chose you. The other theme in Scripture is that you are responsible, and that you have to respond to that, and you say, well, look, if God chose me, and His grace will cause me to come to Him, then I don't have anything to do with it. No, the Bible doesn't say that. The Bible says, you have a lot to do with it, and you are responsible. You say, well, if I am responsible, if I am free to make this choice, then God doesn't have anything to do with it. Oh, yes, the Bible teaches that God does have something to do with it. You see, the problem is that we think, like Greeks—you remember in 1 Corinthians, when Paul said, that the Jews demand signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Gentiles, Greeks, or stumbling block to Jews, and folly to Gentiles in Greeks. What was Paul talking about? He was talking about two ways of thinking about things. We are Aristotelian in our Greek thought forms, in other words, we have a principle of non-contradiction. I mean, two plus two can't be four, and five, and three all at the same time. And so when we deal with God's sovereignty and human freedom, we say you can't have both of those, you can only have one of those, but if you let a Jewish right by. And you say, look, is God absolutely sovereign over everything that happens throughout all of history and into eternity future? And you'll say, of course, you'll say, well, am I free? And I'm responsible, and he will say, of course. And you will say, but you can't have both those things, and the Jewish Rabbi will say, oh, ey, and then he will say, God is God, and because God is God, I don't have him figured out. And so we're talking about one side of that intimidated relationship we're talking about the fact that God is sovereign, and that he does choose people. I want to emphasize the doctrine of election. Before you were ever born, God chose you. When you became a Christian, did it feel like it was something new? Or was it a bit more like coming home? Coming home, of course. It was coming home because you were his before you knew his name. One of my favorite stories is the story of Helen Keller. You remember that Helen Keller couldn't speak, and she couldn't hear, and she couldn't see. They finally worked a way to get through to her by writing on the palm of her hand. They call Phillips Brooks, and if you're ever in Boston, you ought to go by Trinity Church. They are in Boston. There's a statue of Phillips Brooks, and Jesus is standing behind him. At any rate, they call the rector at Trinity Church, Phillips Brooks, to come and tell Helen Keller the old story of Jesus and his love, and those who were there said that they sat knee to knee, and he began to tell her about Christ. Halfway through Helen Keller jumped up from her chair, and she said, I knew him. I knew him. I just didn't know his name. Does that ring true with you? Now remember, the other side is freedom and responsibility. We're not talking about that. We're talking about that election. When you came to him, was it sort of like coming home? With me, it was sort of like coming home, and I bet it was with you, too. The truth is, before Lord God hung the stars. He knew you by name, and he called you to himself. God chooses people. He chooses it before there's any good or bad in them, so he won't love them any less when they're good or and he won't reject them when they're bad or because from the foundation of the earth, God, the God of the universe knew your name. Now that's a family secret, you know, go out and preach that on the corner, but I'll tell you, when you go to sleep at night, it's a very comforting thought. See as Lewis, the only hero I have left, had a very pedestrian testimony. When I first discovered see as Lewis, I thought, this is wonderful. And then I found out he had written an autobiography, and the book was called Surprise by Joy. I went down to the bookstore and I bought that book and I could hardly wait to read it and to be honest with you, and I like it because I like CS Lewis, but the book isn't that great. I mean, if you're going to, if you're going to start reading CS Lewis, don't start with Surprise by Joy. Anyway, in that book, he said he was the most reluctant convert in all of England. When I read his autobiography, I thought I would read about a thunder and lightning conversion experience. The truth was kind of dull. This is what he said. When we started for Whipsnade Zoo, I didn't believe that Jesus was the son of God. When we got there, I did, and I want to say, uh-huh, and that's it. I must have missed something, but what Lewis said about his relationship to Christ is quite interesting. He said that to say that he was searching for God was like saying that a mouse was searching for a cat. He said that every time he would work at night, he would feel a presence behind him and he would turn around and no one would be there. It was the hound of heaven, the same hound of heaven, who chose Abraham and ordained his future, and the same hound of heaven, God of the universe, who chose you before you were born and ordained your future. Now secondly, not only does God choose people, listen to this, when God chooses people, it isn't because they're so wonderful, Romans 4 and 9. Does this blessedness then come up on the circumcised only, or upon the uncircumcised also? Now he's talking about the uncircumcised, the heathen. Let me give you a great text. You'll find it in 1 Corinthians 1, 26 through 31, Paul writes, for you see you're calling brothers that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are mighty, and the base things of the world, and the things which are despised, God has chosen, and the things which are not to bring to nothing to things that are. That no flesh should glory in his presence, but of him you are in Christ Jesus who became for us wisdom of God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that as it is written he who glorifies, let him glory in the Lord. One of the most dangerous things you can ever make is that God is fortunate to have you as a part of his family. One once wrote to John Wesley who was a scholar, Mr. Wesley, God can get along quite well without your scholarship, and Wesley wrote back, Madam, God can get along quite well without your ignorance. Now this isn't a brief or stupidity or ignorance, but it is a brief or God's grace directed to poor sinners who are in desperate need. And I've told you this before, my father never went to church because he didn't think he was good enough. He didn't think there were hypocrites in the church, he just thought if he went he would be a hypocrite. So he thought the church was a place for good people, no matter how many people told him different, he didn't understand. Let me tell you something. God didn't choose you because you were so good looking, so wonderful and so beautiful and so great, Bill Bess that WCOP in Georgia gave me a wonderful point. Look at it this way, I know my face ain't no star, I know how ugly I really are. But I don't mind because I'm behind it, it's the folks out front that gets the joker. God didn't call you because you were so beautiful, but you get that idea sometimes. I mean we get celebrity, somebody that's won the Miss America page and we give her a book contract and put her on a road and let her talk about Jesus. Or we get a football star who found Christ and then we put him on a road, and people get the idea that unless you're beautiful and you can run fast and play football you can't be a Christian. Now I'm for people using the platform that God has given, but let me tell you something, dear for me. And remember this, God didn't choose you because you were wonderful, he didn't choose Abraham because he was wonderful and he didn't choose me because I'm wonderful. God looked down and he said, I'm going to choose some stiff-neck people. I'm going to choose some sinners. I'm going to choose some people who if they do anything for me I'll get all of the credit because everybody will know they couldn't have done it by themselves. My friend Alan Emory's statement is wonderful when you see a turtle on a gatepost you know he didn't get there by himself. And so it's important that you recognize the doctrine of election, God chooses people. But he doesn't choose people because they're so wonderful or so lovable, he looks for sinners. God's unqualified love. His reserved for unqualified people. Let me say that again, God's unqualified love is reserved for unqualified people. And so if you've been sitting around thinking you weren't good enough, don't miss it. Because you're not good enough, that's the reason he reaches out to you. Thirdly, and this is brand new, not only does God choose people. Not only does God choose people aside from their righteousness, but I would have you also know that when God chooses people it isn't because they're trying really hard. It's 4-9 before we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. Well, it'd better be or Abraham is in deep trouble. Roman's 4-10, how then, was it righteousness accounted? While he was circumcised or uncircumcised, not wild circumcised, but wild uncircumcised. In other words, he didn't know God. He wasn't trying hard. He wasn't any great shakes. You know there are no people on the face of the earth who try harder than the people of Israel. But the problem is that those who try the most are not in God's economy, those who get the love of God. Let me give you a quote from Madeline Langel. I love some of her fiction. I don't agree with everything she says, but I think she's a tremendous artist. And she has some insights. Listen to this, the opposite of sin can only be faith and never virtue. For when I attempt to make myself virtuous, the need that I can thus organise and discipline is no more than the me of which I am aware. And it is precisely the equating of my total self with the small part of it which is the root cause of all sin. This is the fundamental mistake often made in exhortations to repentance and amendment. They attempt to conform me or in me my lack of faith by getting me to organise the self I know against the self I don't know. The result is that growth of self-awareness is inhibited. There's a sort of devilish perversity in this organising need not to sin by means of the very thing which ensures that I shall sin. Faith, on the other hand, consists in the awareness that I am more than I know. Such faith cannot be contrived. If it were contrivable, if it were something I could create in myself by following some recipe or other, then it would not be faith. It would be worked by organising the self I know. That faith can only be the gift of God, emphasises the scandal of our human condition, the scandal of our absolute dependence on Him. I have to depend very largely upon that which I do not know and cannot control. Justification by faith means I have nothing else on which to depend, except my receptivity to what I can never own or manage. And this very capacity to receive cannot be the result of effort. Faith is something given, not achieved, it is created by God's word in Christ. The world says, if at first, if you don't succeed, try again. God says if at first you don't succeed, you are beginning to understand an important lesson. To it God helps those who can't help themselves and who know it. Let me say that again because it's important. So what the Bible teaches is it's the main thrust of the reformation. The world says if at first you don't succeed, try again. God says if at first you don't succeed, you are beginning to understand an important lesson to it. God helps those who can't help themselves and who know it. Let me get another point fourthly. I want you to note that God not only chooses people who aren't qualified, but he qualifies those people he chooses. Say it again, not only does God choose people who aren't qualified, he qualifies those he decides to choose Romans 4.9 B for we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. Romans 4.11 B that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised that righteousness here comes, sportsman, righteousness might be imputed to them also. What is the word impute or imputed mean? That's from a Latin word imputare and meaning to enter into the account of, in other words, if righteousness is imputed to you, it's put into your account. At a church I attend, we're a very small church, by the way. We meet in a shopping mall. Every time my pastor says beloved, I blush, we're that small, now this past summer we went through a very difficult time financially and you know what happened. In our church and we don't know who anonymously sneaked over to the bank and deposited $1,500 in the church's account. I don't know who did that, but he didn't do it just once, he did it two or three times. And we don't know who did it. Now, if we were using this text and wanted to emphasize this text, we would say that he imputed money to the bank account of the church. And he was imputed to us in the same way. Righteousness is imputed to us through Jesus Christ, now listen to me. At the church we would spend the money that was imputed to us and end up with nothing. The righteousness that was imputed to you, are you listening? Is unlimited? Why is that? Because it was the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the perfect Lamb of God. You can't use it up, you can't wear it out, you are covered, no matter what. You can't even afford it, hasn't. Tell me about a man who went into a Rolls-Royce showroom and he looked over a car and he had the money, and it's a lot of money, more than you paid for your house. And he said to the salesman, he said, I'm going to buy this car, but I want to know exactly what the power ratio for the Rolls-Royce is, and the salesman said, Sir, I don't know. Most people don't ask that question, but I'll find out for you. So he wrote the Rolls-Royce factory and he said, I had a customer and the customer wants to know about the power ratio of the Rolls-Royce. Would you send me some details? He got a one-word diagram and it says, adequate. That's what God says to you. When he looks at you, he says, your righteousness is adequate because it is the adequacy of Jesus Christ. That means that all of your goodness and all of your righteous acts and all of your purehood and all of the going to church and all of the reading of the Bible and all of your witnessing, all of that is good, but it comes out of your relationship with Him. It isn't the cause of your relationship with Him. Righteousness, the righteousness that pleases God was imputed given into your account and the account is without limit. Now, not only does God choose people who weren't qualified and qualified them, I would have you note that when God chooses people, it is for His purposes and not the purpose of the people He chooses, Romans 4 and 11 through 12, and He received the sign of circumcision, the seal of the righteousness of the seal, I lost my place, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which He had while still uncircumcised, here comes, that He might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised. You see it? God knew you before you were born. He proposed to love you. He began a good work in you. He brought you to Himself. He imputed righteousness to you for His purposes and not for yours. Let me tell you something. We are here for them. You ever think about that? Do you know why Christian radio is on? Do you know why? Professional Christian broadcasters at this ministry so that we can see God's people and so that we can build ourselves up because we are here for them, those on the outside, are to speak or say once at a conference, you think I've come here to make you feel good and to give you rest? Not so. I've come to bind your wounds and send you back into the battle. So remember that you are here for them. We aren't home yet. Don't witness to your goodness or your knowledge, but to His love that Abraham might be the father of a whole lot of others who need to hear about the grace and forgiveness offered in Jesus Christ. But in Manning's book, Lyon and the Lamb, he tells about a play written by Echeryevsky called Gideon. Gideon gets really angry with God. When he goes out in a wilderness, a thousand miles from anybody and God overwhelms him and Gideon says to God, God, tell me you love me and God says, Gideon, I love you. Gideon says, God, tell me you love me. God says, Gideon, I love you and Gideon says, why? There's a long silence. God says, I don't know. There's just something unreasonable about my passion. Don't think about that. I'm in.