what does it look like to let the difficult things Jesus teaches sink into our heart and how do we let Christ be the king of our lives today on gospel and life Tim Keller continues to look at the teachings of Jesus that challenge us now here's today's message [Music] you'll find the passage on which the teachings based it's printed out it's the parable of the wedding Feast at least it's a Matthew's version Matthew 22 1-14 very different by the way than the parallel version in Luke in Luke the king sends people into the country to find his guests in Matthew he sends the People Into the Heart of the City and that's why we're reading Matthew 22. this morning Jesus spoke to them again in Parables saying the Kingdom of Heaven is like a king who prepared A Wedding Banquet for his son he sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come but they refused to come then he sent some more servants and said tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner my oxidant fat and cat cattle have been butchered and everything is ready come to The Wedding Banquet but they paid no attention and went off went to his field another to his business and the rest seized his servants mistreated them and killed them the King was enraged he sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their City then he said to the servants The Wedding Banquet is ready but those I invited did not deserve to come go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find so the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find both good and bad and the wedding hall was filled with guests but when the king came in to see the guests he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes friend he asked how did you get in here without wedding clothes the man was speechless then the king told the attendants tie him hand and foot and throw him outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth for many are invited but few were chosen this is God's word now we need Mercy a very recent George very recent just read about it yesterday I think in the paper a George Gallup recently released a poll that he took an extensive poll of what Americans thought were going to be the biggest issues they faced when they died and and uh Gallup pointed out that 42 are almost half really of Americans said that one of the things that they faced if they when they were going to die as they considered what it meant to die 42 said that they were very very anxious very worried very concerned about whether God would forgive them or not now one of the things that I think is ironic about that is that almost for sure the 42 percent who are most worried uh and and most feel the need for God's mercy are probably the people who have lived the least selfish lives the best lives Lincoln is relatively speaking a good man and because he's a good man he knows about his flaws Abraham Lincoln and therefore he cries out for Mercy Hitler is a bad man and therefore he doesn't know about his flaws and he doesn't see the need for mercy so the great irony of the Gallup poll is if almost half the people believe that they're and they're worried they don't know whether they're going to have mercy from God the half of the people who most want Mercy are probably the half of anything who need it the least and the people who don't feel the need for Mercy always we can see this just by comparing Abraham Lincoln Adolf Hitler the people who are the least uh aware of their need for Mercy are usually the ones who most need it and what that means is we need Mercy now how does the mercy of God come to us and this passage is uh tells us that the mercy of God comes in three forms and in three ways you see the uh it mentions up at the very top that he's saying this it says Jesus spoke to them again now you have to go all the way back into chapter 21 to find out who the them is the them are the chief priests and the scribes and the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who come to Jesus and say by what Authority are you doing all these things and what they mean is this say we we paid the price we earned our way to the top of the religious pecking order through moral scrupulosity and doctrinal punctiliousness and and and approval of all the right committees and we've earned our place who do you think you are to come in and do all this and Jesus looks at them and says this reminds me of the story and he says do you think the kingdom of God is a meritocracy absolutely not if anything it's a merciocracy the kingdom of God runs completely on mercy and here's how you get it Mercy comes according to this Parable in three forms in fact it comes in three stages it comes as a call has a covering and as a feast okay first of all first of all the first thing we see is Mercy is a call you have here in verses one to four to five we see that originally the king who has a son and is going to throw this tremendous banquet it would be a once in a lifetime experience he sends his Messengers out to who now look carefully it says he sends them out verse 4 then he sends some more pardon me verse 3 he sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come now notice carefully they'd already been invited well wait a minute why was he inviting them again well you see it took weeks to prepare a banquet like this and it also took days to to come to a banquet like this the bank would take days so these are people who had already said yes they'd already been invited they'd already made reservations they'd already been invited and now the messengers were simply going out to announce it's time to get dressed and to come get on your clothes and come and they don't now before we go on let me just let me we don't have much time today so let me just uh bring it home to your hearts for a second you know who he's talking to he's talking to the religious insiders when he says this when you were baptized you said I'm coming but have you come see when you join the church you say I'm coming but have you come when every time you take the Lord's Supper do you know what you're doing when you take the Lord's Supper you're receiving an invitation and you're making a reservation you're saying I'm coming but have you come think of the prayer you made the last time you were in trouble and you said I would do this you said I'm coming but have you come what does it mean to come well it's pretty simple how are you sitting down at the king's table are you rejoicing in his deities are you rejoicing in his love are you experiencing it see are you rejoicing in him with all of your heart think of it these are people who are religious insiders and a lot of us are religious insiders a lot of it we're baptized we take the Lord's Supper a lot of us are officers a lot of you've said you're coming but have you come these people never come now why not the reason they don't come is they say in verse 5 interestingly enough in verse 5 it says that they decided that what they had their business their field they went off to what they had and literally verse 5 says they didn't care they saw what was offered they didn't think was as good as what they had and so they were indifferent but verse 6 shows us that underneath the indifference was a hostility because we see here that the rest seized his servants and mistreated them and killed them and if you think verse 7 is really kind of extreme think about it if we had a U. S embassy in a foreign land those are servants Representatives and what if what if the embassy was stormed one night and everybody in it was slaughtered would you think that it would be excessive to go to war of course not that is an act of War and see what we're being told here is you can be a person who on the outside has said I'm coming you may be baptized you may have given your life in in a formal way but on the inside there is no feasting there is no delighting there is really is no coming there's no coming and that indifference is not really just an indifference it's actually a way of saying nobody nobody can tell me how to run my life the call now before we move on to the second part did you see here how the Kingdom of Heaven starts off this way anybody who does come comes because they're called these people don't come later on another group of people come who do come uh they're called and they do come but the first point is that nobody comes to the king's Feast unless they're called if you or I do good things and if we act in good faith it's always the result of a complex interplay between God's calling and our response the first group get a call they don't respond the second group get a call and they do respond but there's no group no group no group who ever responds without a call you see that and what that means is you have a test to see whether or not you've experienced the mercy of God or not there's a lot of religious people there's a lot of people having spiritual experiences out there I'm reading about it in the papers all the time aren't you but here's one of the ways we know whether or not your spiritual experiences are authentic Christian experience anybody who's experienced the mercy of God anybody who has come to Jesus knows it wasn't your idea anybody who says I decided for Christ within seconds at least within minutes with an hour certainly not long after that you come to realize you were decided upon and therefore the most important first point here the important first point is one of the ways in which you know you've had the mercy of God in your life is that you know this is not that I had to choose thee for Lord that could not be this heart would still refuse thee hast thou not chosen me you know it you realize that he'd been drawing you over and over repeatedly and you know that you experience that you say you know ultimately it wasn't so much that I came to him I thought I was but after I found him I found out he was drawing me now before we move on let me apply that a little bit this text tells us that even though some people are called and they don't come and some people are called they do come nobody ever comes without being called nobody so there's a warning and a comfort here's the warning there's a lot of you here that are still trying to figure out what to believe about Christianity I mean this is can I give you a typical profile sorry but I've been here a long time now there are dozens of you now scores of you maybe more hundreds of you who are here today and somebody brought you and you had some kind of religious background but now you're here and you're starting to try to reassess Christianity and what you believe and and you're feeling a tug you're feeling a spiritual tug you're feeling a call good he's patient and you mustn't come precipitously you mustn't come without understanding you mustn't come without counting the cost but do you see don't postpone indefinitely and here's why you really are incapable of coming when you want in other words a person mustn't say well it's pretty interesting as Christianity maybe next year you can't come when you want you can't come when you want look when somebody says I've got a meal this is the image here I've got a meal you say I think I'll come next month it won't be there next month you can only come to a meal when you're called see you can only come to a banquet when it's being thrown you can't just say I think I'll come to your banquet next month but they won't be there then then for someone to say I would like to have God but I'm not sure I want to have God right now I'll come later you won't want to come later the one thing that you're experiencing right now is his Mercy you're giving yourself too much credit a dead man doesn't certainly say I think I'll get up if a person says I think I'm dead they're not if they're not because life in them in them dead spiritual sensibility is beginning to wake up it's only because God is at your elbow and he's doing something and don't be like Augustine who said Lord Make Me pure but after I got to know that little number that just started working at the office Lord Make Me pure but not yet he said listen think of the inappropriateness of it if there's a God he created the universe if there's a God he created a universe that is filled with billions of stars and solar systems and milky ways and galaxies and he holds it all together with the word of his power his pinky and if he is calling you you don't say to somebody like that wait you come when I call you how dare you I mean see listen I'm not I'm not proving there is a God I'm just trying to say if there is a God you must come when he calls to say I'm not going to come until I'm ready is essentially to make up your mind ahead of time of the thing you said you're thinking about that as you're you're acting as if there is no God or a god of your own making who cares about a god of your own making that person that God can't possibly save you if there's a real God you have to come when he calls that's the warning there's a comfort though and the comfort is I'm especially speaking to those of you who uh worry that you're not going to keep your Christian Life up don't you see when a person says I worry so much that I'm not going to be able to keep this life up it's been so hard to do it right and lately I've been struggling and lately I've been falling down and maybe when when the Lord's Supper comes around some of you are going to say I don't know I don't know if I'm even going to be able to keep it up I've been subject to Temptation I feel like I'm going to fall don't forget this every bit of your Christian Life all your good desires even the fear you've got right now is a gift from him and you know one of the reasons why we're not more aware of how much he loves us is we actually give ourselves too much credit we forget this doctrine of the call we think here I am scared that maybe I'll lose God's love but it's only by God's love that you would be scared you're not getting his Mercy by keeping up you're keeping up only by his Mercy and what I'm trying to say to some of you is if the doctrine of the call is true some of you need to Rejoice for a change some of you need to strive to enter into his rest in that weird strive to enter into his rest I mean that's in the Bible strive to enter into his arrest that's how could that be yes you have to work to stop working you have to you have to be worried about only one thing that you're too worried it's his Mercy which called you the great things in your life are not there either through luck or by performance and therefore you can stop your worry now Mercy comes through a call you have to respond but you see Mercy is a call secondly Mercy is a covering and this boy the reason that we're looking at these controversies during the Christmas season is because everybody the doctrine of Christmas is that Jesus was not just born he came he wasn't just he Jesus wasn't just born the doctrine of Christmas is that he existed before he was born he's the only person that ever has and therefore he came and he came with a message and that message is continually misunderstood and all through the New Testament you will see if you look carefully that The Libertines thought he was a fundamentalist and the fundamentalists thought he was a liberal and the reason for this is because the gospel does not fit into any human category and so he was always arguing to try to thread the needle and there's no place where he threads the needle better than this you don't see it so much in the first part but in the second part of the parable which many commentators actually they are so obtuse to the meaning of it that they don't believe that Jesus ever said it I'll show you why look carefully it looks like what the king does is he changes his standards the first group of people that were invited were landowners receivers five they were landowners they were out there they were the kind of people you invite to a royal wedding but now he says to the servants let's change our strategy let's go out and he says to the street corners now that's that's an awkward translation and it's because it's an awkward uh statement the word that he uses here that Jesus uses here is that literally it says the way that the ways cross and commentators say that this is actually a term for the place in which the major thoroughfares would enter the city limits you see here was a city and when the major third Affairs came into the city there were always these public squares places where generally a major road would come in and from that spot all the roads would start to to come out into the city you don't need a lot of roads in the countryside see so you have one major road coming in like this but as soon as it hits the city limits it would spread out and those were the places where you saw everybody you saw the rich and the poor and every ethnicity that's the place where the king says let's go there and he sends his servants out and instead of bringing in High Society he brings in everybody you see Not only would this mean it would be diverse economically and socially but it's even diverse morally and in one of the most stressed I think stunning places anywhere in the Bible the King which is God invites into the wedding Feast of his son which is Jesus Christ both the good and the bad and so it sure looks like what's going on now is we've gotten rid of standards at one point it looked like you had to be a person of a certain standing in order to come to the wedding Feast but now anybody can come anybody at all it's absolutely free it's wonderful and yet then there's this little appendix very strange appendix one man walks in and the King has come in to meet his guests that's wonderful he comes in to meet his guests verse 11 I think it is and he says he came in but he noticed a man who was not wearing wedding clothes now why do you need to wear expensive garments to a high occasion like this it's not because of and I was I have to speak to us baby boomers here remember how we used to hate dressing up remember how we thought it was cool to wear jeans to a wedding maybe the first ones in 500 years to do it do you remember that because we thought it was empty formalism but of course you see the king listen it's not empty formalism it's not convention the reason when somebody gives you the honor of inviting you into something at the heart of that person you dress up you go to the expense which is always expensive to wear these kinds of clothes to show honor and respect for the person who's put out for you but this man thought that he could go right into the king this man thought that his everyday wear was fine this man thought that he could come as he was that it should be certainly good enough and when the King asks him why don't you have a wedding garment on the speechlessness is critical to the whole story now you see there's two good reasons why anybody would not have a wedding garment there's only there's two possible reasons one possible reason is of course I didn't have one because I didn't have a chance another one is I didn't have a chance to go home and get it the second reason is I didn't have one because I don't own one but why does he say neither of those things and here's the reason why if you look more carefully you'll see up in verse three and four the original guests were invited in having been invited in other words they were all ready but if you look carefully at verse 8 9 what did they do it says so on verse 10 the servants went out into the streets and they gathered all the people in there wasn't take reservations they came right on in and therefore none of them could have possibly had their own wedding garments with them a because they wouldn't have had they came right in they didn't go home but B because many of them would have been poor and wouldn't have had them and therefore the king must have provided the wedding garments at his expense and this guy even though they're right at the door the reason he couldn't say I didn't have a chance to get one well nobody had and the reason he can't say I don't know well nobody did and therefore he's thrown now what is the point traditional see here's the the commentators get very upset at this point and they say somebody added this later Jesus couldn't have said that you know what because the commentators see that the first part of the of the of the parable seems to be saying that it used to be that there were standards but now Jesus is here and he accepts everyone just as they are that's the whole idea he goes out he lets anybody in Jesus is talking to the Pharisees who say your place in the Kingdom of Heaven must be earned and Jesus it looks like it's coming along and saying oh no no you're placing the Kingdom of Heaven is absolutely free you Can Come Just As You Are well here's the question which is it this appendix here this this little State this little appendix really screws everything up because you see if it's earned how can the good and the bad both be there how could it be that Jesus Christ would actually say at my wedding Feast there are bad people I have embraced them but on the other hand it seems to be that it's it's not earned it's not earned but on the other hand if it's earned how could both good and bad be there but if it's free how could this guy be rejected and this is where Jesus threads the needle this is why the Liberals think he's a fundamentalist and the fundamentals think he's a liberal and anybody who follows him carefully will have the same experience because on the one hand of course you see Jesus is saying I will take anybody your record means nothing but on the other hand he says you can't just come in as you are so he see he he goes against both and this is the reason why [Music] as the king did not just let everybody in he let anybody come anybody no matter what your record but he clothed them at the door so God at his expense a far greater expense at an infinite expense will take anyone and your record means nothing and your socioeconomic background means nothing and your standing means nothing you come into the Feast of the of the of the Sun not by being fit but by admitting you're not fit and by letting the Lord clothe you now here's here's why I'm going to press this there are many people and many of you who say yes I don't believe like the Pharisees that idea that you earn your place I don't believe in a god of wrath I don't believe in a god of who punishes people I don't believe in a god of that I believe in a God who accepts everyone just as they are now if you believe that with all due respect you're coming in without a wedding garment one of the biggest obstacles for people to believe in Christianity is that they think they already know all about it but if we look at Jesus's encounters with various people during his life we'll find some of our assumptions challenged we see him meeting people and responding to their most important unanswered questions the gospels are full of moments that made a profound impact on those who spoke with Jesus and in his book encounters with Jesus DrTimothy Keller explores how these interactions can still address our questions and doubts today this resource is our thanks for your gift to help gospel and Life share Christ's love with more people so request your copy of encounters with Jesus when you give today at gospelandlife.
com give that's gospelandlife. com give now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching do you really mean that do you really say I believe in a god of love who accepts everybody just as they are controlled they're for the world look at look at the oppression look at the Injustice if we have a God who just says I love you all just the way you are what hope is there for the world the Bible's God the biblical God certainly gives us hope for the world because the biblical God says I will Square everything there will not be one unjust deed that will not be paid but the biblical God also says it could be paid one of two ways either you will pay or my son can pay and therefore don't you see unlike the traditional religion Jesus says you do not earn your place in the kingdom of God but unlike the modern I just God just accepts everybody God does not love people unconditionally he loves people counter-conditionally and an infinite cost to himself and therefore do you see unless you believe that if you go right into God just as you are you'll be thrown into the outer Darkness unless you believe in that there'll be no joy in your life you see this man is not allowed Joy this man doesn't get any Joy and I would listen here's my other test for you how do you know if you've experienced here's the second test how do you know if you've experienced the mercy of God I can ask you do you believe God loves you yes but are you thrilled are you amazed are you astonished you see what's going on here the people at this Feast were people saying here's how they were talking the first group of people coming in would have said well always knew I'd make this if I really tried I always knew I would finally get into a king's Feast if I kept on as the businessman I really am I always knew I'd make it but these people are saying yesterday I was begging in the street and now I'm eating with a king this is incredible now unless you feel that way unless you feel like if I just walk in by my as I am I'm thrown into the outer Darkness this is a holy God but he's clothed me at the infinite cross at infinite cost himself and to his son who died on the cross for my sins if you believe that you're galvanized by the idea of Mercy you're thrilled by the idea of Mercy you're Changed by the idea of Mercy but there's plenty of people here who believe in a merciful god but they don't really believe in a merciful god they believe in a god whose love for you cost nothing and this is the point the point is salvation is free to us but it's not free to God it's the old liberalism says it's free old traditionalism says it's expensive you see old traditionalism say you got to pay the price and all liberalism says absolutely free God just accepts it all but the gospel says it's free to us but it's expensive to him you're so wicked and you're so sinful and you're so lost that you'll be thrown into the outer Darkness unless you're clothed with what Jesus Christ has done for you if you don't believe that look I'm not proving it I'm just telling you this your life will not be changed the thought of God's love will not just Amaze you it will not transform you it will not send you through the roof it won't you won't be at the feast you know I love Spurgeon Charles Spurgeon who was uh who lived in in London in the 1860s as a Baptist preacher he has a great sermon on this and he says he says you know what you always want Beggars at your feast because you know the prim and proper ladies they sit there like this and in comes the food and they say hmm but the Beggars cheer for every dish you imagine the Beggars here comes another one look at that look at the size of that turkey hooray for the turkey everybody you know okay you say oh yeah beggars only Beggars come in see Beggars cheer at every plate are you changed by the mercy of God or or do you take it for granted have you said of course I believe in the mercy of God I forgive I ask for God's forgiveness at certain times you see you're going in without a garment when you say my my sins sure but God accepts us that's that's his job do you understand that Mercy is not an abstract sentiment it's a covering now lastly Mercy is a feast you notice what's interesting here the it's there's so many ways in which the idea that salvation is a finished work by God given to us as a gift not a process by which we slowly slowly bring ourselves to the place where God will listen to us you know what's so intriguing so intriguing about uh this this passage is what this is really telling us the only person who gets thrown out are not the bad not the people who are humiliated to come before the king and who then are very happy to take the Garment but a person who feels he's he's fine see what this passage is really saying is if there's no feasting in your life if there's no Astound if there's no astonishment if you're not cheering for every dish in other words every good thing that comes into your life you got into college you got into grad school you got a job you've got somebody who loves you you've got several people who love you are you just are you on the ground weeping before God enjoy and Glory here's why not if you're not and generally you're not you know why you're not you know why you're not cheering for every dish the meaning of this Parable is it's not your sins that really keep you from God it's not your Badness that keeps you from God it's your goodness it's your good deeds it's not your sins that really keep you from God it's your damnable good works it's the things that you think make you good enough the only reason for example most of us are not just amazed with every good thing that comes in our life the reason we're not cheering for every plate because we feel like we deserve it and we deserve better the reason many of you for God is because your life isn't going right it's because you say I know other people who aren't as good as me whose lives are going better do you see what's going on there's two ways to try to kick God out of your life and take control and be your own God and try to control your own world and be your own Lord and Master one way is to be absolutely bad so I'm going to cheat when I want to I'm going to lie when I want to I'm going to I'm going to have commit adultery when I want to and the other way to completely kick out of your life and totally control them and totally control your world and be your own Lord Masters by being good by being good you can tell God you owe me by being good you can tell other people you owe me and by being good you completely sap your life of joy because you look at your goodness you say you do better you deserve better but if you look at your Badness and you see your own Fitness and you see what Jesus Christ has done for you then you cheer at every plate there's a playfulness there's a celebrativeness your your whole life is at a feast let me finish this way true story uh there was a Highland Scott named Murdo McDonald if you didn't believe he was a Highland Scott just listen to that name Murdo McDonald and during World War II he was um uh captured and he was put in a prisoner of war camp and he was captured with another Scott who was a chaplain and the two Scots actually were put one with the with the British uh group on one side of the fence and one with the American group on the other side of the fence and um and they acted as chaplains and once a day they were allowed to come to a big fence in the middle of the prisoner of war camp and they're able to talk to each other briefly but they had to do it in the presence of the guards and the guards knew English and they knew French as well as German of course but one thing is these two scotsmen discovered was that the guards did not know Gaelic and Gaelic is the native tongue of of Scotland and it turned out that one of the Americans had a shortwave radio homemade that the Germans didn't know about and so every day Murdo you would would bring news to the the gate and he would give it to the other guy in Gaelic and he would take it back in and one day he he came to the gate and he said Germany surrendered the war is over door's over but of course the guards didn't know about it because communication had totally broken down he gave it in Gaelic to the other Scott who went back into the British barracks and next thing you know you could hear this incredible cheer go up the Germans had no idea what was going on and Myrtle McDonald said for the next three days almost four the guards had no idea that the war was over we were still prisoners in a sense but he says boy we we walked around and we thought we were at a party we didn't complain about the food anymore we didn't hate the guards anymore we smiled at them we felt sorry for them they were pointing guns at us they were still our prisoners we were still in prison but here's what he said four days later they woke up and the guards were gone they got in the word and the guards had opened all the doors but he says guess what we were liberated by the news before we were liberated by the guards every other religion every other philosophy is a religion of Merit and it says maybe eventually you will be saved and you will be saved by striving by what you do Christianity alone is not advice it's news it's not good advice it's good news Jesus Christ does not come saying here's some good advice live according to the Ten Commandments and you will find God no he says here's the news I have done something that's already saved you not here's how you can be saved I have done it Myrtle McDonald gives us a perfect illustration of what our lives can be like to the degree we understand we're saved by Mercy and by what Jesus has done in history not by Merit and what we're doing now if you're not able to walk around no matter what prison you're in and smile at the guards if you don't stop complaining about the food you don't know how complete your salvation is you just don't know it when we go to the Lord's table there's two kinds of people who are going to find the cup and the bread coming in front of you some of you are being called and one of the great things that redeemer is many of you will find as the bread and the cup come by that you have to ask yourself am I a Christian and hopefully on the basis of what you're hearing and maybe even today you're going to say I might actually be I may have gone through religious phases but I was never been a Christian I don't know what this what I don't know what this is I've never experienced this all right when the bread and the cup come by don't take the bread in the cup it's for people who are Christians and who know they're Christians but uh instead take Jesus and say you're calling I finally answer or maybe you can even say you know I was baptized at the age of 13 in a church back in Louisiana that's when I signed up but today I'm coming and for those of us we've heard the call we've answered the call you know what the reason we're not walking around smiling and cheering for every plate that comes in even the ones even even prison food is because by the Holy Spirit these things aren't real to us ask the Holy Spirit as the bread and the come come by say this little simulated Feast let my life be characterized by feasting this by by celebration let me let let me taste that the Lord is good not just know it let me see what God has done not just have some kind of conceptual understanding of it do that and he'll come you see so what's so interesting is because he's invited us now we can actually say Lord come to me and he never delays and he never holds back let's pray Our Father we do ask that you would make it possible for us to get a sense as we take this bread in this cup which you have you have through your through your lord through your son our Lord Jesus Christ uh you have told us to observe we pray that you would help us to actually by faith taste the Heavenly Feast which is laid out for us we ask Lord that you would help us to repent of how we hear but we don't respond we ask that you would help us to repent of how we let our good works come between us and you we ask that you would help us repent of our lack of celebration in our lives the lack of cheering for every plate that comes in and we ask that now be by your Holy Spirit during this time of the sacrament you might make these realities truly what they are to us our meat and our drink we ask it in Jesus name amen thanks for listening to today's message here on gospel and life we pray you were encouraged by DrKeller's teaching today and that you have a deeper trust in Christ we want to invite you to help gospel and life reach more people with the life-changing power of Jesus's love and Grace by becoming a gospel and life monthly partner visit gospelinlife.