Series: John
John 7
David Stockton - September 6, 2020

(starting at 1:49)

It’s exciting to be back. We’re going to be in John Chapter 7. I thought the best way to start this next phase of our church was with a teaching called “Disappointed with Jesus.” Some snickers there. John Chapter 7 is where we’re going to be.

There’s a guy named John Cheever. He says, “The main emotion of the adult American who has all the advantages of wealth, education and culture, is disappointment.”

And Ravi Zacharias—who actually passed away this summer—says, “The loneliest moment in life is when you have experienced or achieved that which you thought would deliver the ultimate and it has let you down.”

All of the things that we though were solid and stable this year, obviously have been shaken and we’re all left with a little bit of confusion, a lot more uncertainty, and it’s very, very possible that many people in this room, or many people that you associate with, are dealing with severe disappointment with Jesus right now. Because often, the Jesus we want is not the Jesus we need. People are finding that out in the book of John right now in a serious way.

Before we jump in there, I felt so inspired during our worship time—we’ve been focusing on prayer. We felt that that is where we are supposed to be. The reason we did one piano, one singer, was intentional. It’s not just that everyone’s on vacation this weekend. We just feel like the hand of the Lord is heavy on us to be humble, to walk slow, the word “contrite” comes to mind. That’s the posture and position that we feel like Jesus is really calling us to right now. So we are trying to kind of walk slowly and carefully, paying close attention to what he’s doing.

We don’t want to get running. We don’t want to get in a hurry. We don’t want to just go back to the way things were. We want to go forward into the things he’s leading us into. So bear with us. If you’re like, “Hey, I’m good. I’m ready to dance and sing and all of that.” There are a lot of people who are saying, “I really want to be still. I really want to be quiet before the Lord and really hear what he might be saying because I’m a little unsure.”

While we were praying I just really felt the need to pray and intercede for the black community. So if you’ll join me in that:

Lord, we come before you, Maker of heaven and earth. And I just really want to pray that you would be with our black brothers and sisters, especially in Phoenix, that are processing so much right now. They’re having this frustration, this pain, this anger that is legitimate. And they’re trying to figure out what is the right thing to do. And at the same time, they are being offered so many solutions.
And, Lord, I pray that you really would help them find the truth in it all. That you would help them to teach us all. You would raise up leaders and teachers and new John the Baptists, and prophets in the black community that would really be able to help guide us through this confusing time and uncertain time. And Lord, I pray that you would diminish all the voices that are not helping, that are not actually trying to help, and don’t have your truth.
Lord, I thank you that I’m in contact with so many that are giving me so much encouragement, so many black men that are teaching me and guiding me. I just pray for more. I pray that this would be a really beautiful time in the black community. That they would come out of this and be more rooted in truth and love and freer than ever before. I pray you would show our church what we can do.
Lord, I pray that you would show us how to pray, how to love, how to care, how to listen. Lord, I pray for the predominantly black churches in our city, that they would really experience your strength, your favor, your clarity, your joy, your peace and your provision. And that, Lord, we would work together and walk together, as I know it would please you. So I thank you, Lord, that you’re on the move. And we just pray that we would be with you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

John Chapter 7:

1 After this, Jesus went around in Galilee. He did not want to go about in Judea because the Jewish leaders there were looking for a way to kill him. 2 But when the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles was near, 3 Jesus’ brothers said to him, “Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. 4 No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.” 5 For even his own brothers did not believe in him.

Now, this is a moment in time where John, who was with Jesus during all this time, and then when Jesus left, basically continued to walk with Jesus in the Spirit for the rest of his life, until he was old. He was probably in his 80’s or 90’s, maybe even kind of late 90’s. We don’t know exactly. John seemed to keep on living. So he’s writing this as he has processed a lot. This is not just his first take at this thing. All of this stuff about Jesus, all of these memories have really gotten into his system. He’s been living them out and proving and testing them.

So he’s writing these things. And what he’s writing here is this moment of confusion that was going on in Jerusalem. There were all these different groups of people. In this chapter, there are 52 verses. Here are the groups that he mentions. In these two verses that we read he talks about the Jewish leaders and Jesus’ brothers. But he also mentions the disciples who stayed with him and the disciples who left. That’s a reference to chapter 6 at the very end. Jesus basically had 5,000 men. We know about 120 disciples and they were all there at this moment, trying to make him king after he had fed the 5,000 with just those loaves of bread and fish.

And there was this major moment, and Jesus teaches them that he’s not really interested in their movements. He’s not really interested in just feeding them bread so they don’t get hungry. He’s actually a lot more interested in building a kingdom that’s not of this world. He’s actually a lot more interested in feeding their spiritual needs than their physical needs. He’s way more interested in their spiritual formation than their national aspirations. And people were like, “Come again? What did he say? You see what Herod just did to John the Baptist? He took his head off! How could we not march on him right now?”

And Jesus was like, “I’m sorry. This is just not what I’m about.”

It was an intense moment. And then he goes and says, “Actually, if you really want to be a part of me, you’re going to eat my body and drink my blood.” It’s not a real cool thing to say at a moment like that. And so they all left. There were only twelve that remained. And Jesus said to them, “Are you going to go, too?” And they kind of said, “No. We want to stay with you.” But they also kind of said, “We really don’t have anywhere else to go.” It’s kind of a combination. They were like, “You have the words of eternal life. We know that what you’re doing, even though we think you really messed it up right now. We think you know what you’re doing and you’re going to accomplish the good that we really, ultimately long for.” And it was a real moment for them.

There were disciples who left, disciples who stayed. Some other groups: there were the crowds, there were the jews, there were some of the people that believed in him, there were Pharisees, temple guards that went to arrest him but after they heard him speak they were like, “I never heard anybody speak like that. I don’t know what to do.” And then we have the chief priests and Nicodemus.

All of them have a different opinion about who Jesus is. It’s very confusing. Lots of disappointment. Lots of confusion about who he is. And we’ll go through this, but before we do, I want to introduce you to this, in case you didn’t know. There is this Bible translated in kind of like a Hawaiian Pigeon English called The Jesus Book. And I just love it in this passage, in particular. It says this:

Afta dat, Jesus go aroun inside Galilee. He neva like go aroun inside Judea, cuz da Jewish leada guys ova dea stay looking fo him, fo kill him. Now, almos time fo da spesho religious time, wen da Jewish peopo rememba da time dea ancesta guys wen walk all ova da boonies, an stay inside shacks, long time befo. Den Jesus bruddas tell him, “Go way from hea, an go Judea side, so da peopo you wan teach can see da kine stuff you stay doin. If one guy like everybody know bout him, he no goin do stuff wea nobody can see him, yeah? You stay doin all dis kine stuff, so, let everybody all ova da place see ya doin um! You know, even Jesus bruddas neva trus him.

I love it. There you go. Jesus’ brothers never trust him. That phrase really sticks out to me because, first of all, Jesus had brother—and sisters probably. So that’s just wild to think about. Obviously they didn’t have the same dad—virgin birth and all of that—but they had the same mom. So these are his half-brothers. Jesus was the oldest and he had all these brothers. And his brothers, the ones who grew up with him, they don’t trust him. They don’t believe in him. They’ve seen the things he’s done. They’ve heard the things. And everybody else is getting caught up in this Jesus train, and they’re not buying it for a second. They don’t believe him.

I grew up as the youngest of three boys. And my brothers, they don’t believe me. They didn’t believe me. They don’t trust me. They called me The Tyrant. Somehow, I was so small, but I was like a dictator. And they would beat me up all the time. And I never trusted them. My mom would say, “All right. What happened? Who broke that?” Everything was broken all the time. Including my body parts sometimes. Broken arm. Broken collar bone three times. Whatever.

My mom would say, “So, what happened?” And we would all have our own opinion and story. It just so happened every time I told the story it was really good for me. Made me look good. Same for them. So we knew that all of us were liars.

But here’s the trick with Jesus. When Mary would come and say, “Okay, what happened?” everyone knew who was going to tell the truth. Everyone knew what the truth was. Jesus was like, “Well this is what happened.” And his brothers were like (grumbling sound). It was kind of a rough situation. But they didn’t trust him. They thought he might be crazy at this point.

But two of them, for sure, that we know—James, who wrote the book of James in the New Testament, who became the lead pastor of the first church in Jerusalem—went from never trusting him to believing that he was God sent from God to be the Lamb who was slain for the sins of the world. What a trip to go from this moment all the way to that place where James actually was killed because he so believed that Jesus was Lord. His brother was Lord of all, Maker of Heaven and Earth. And then Jude—the guy who wrote the epistle of Jude at the end of the Bible, he also was a brother of Jesus that came to faith that Jesus really was the one he said he was. After the resurrection, they were kind of like, “Uh, all right. That one’s pretty good.” And they believed him. But what a trip that is.

That was their journey. So let’s continue on. It says that Jesus told them, when his brothers were saying, “Go up…”

6 Therefore Jesus told them, “My time is not yet here; for you any time will do. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil.

And here, Jesus, again, he’s sharing with his actual brothers. His disciples are there with them. There’s this debate about whether he should become a public figure or not, and he’s saying, “You don’t understand. That’s not what I’m here for. That’s not what I’m about.” And he says, “You guys can come and go as you please, but I need you to know that the world hates me.”

Now, at this point, it didn’t seem like the world hated him. They were all a little disappointed. They were all a little confused why he didn’t want to become king and do what they wanted him to do. But, “Hatred? You’re crazy. I don’t understand.”

But Jesus was teaching them something that it’s very important for him to teach, something important for his disciples to understand. And he continues to go back to this time and time again with his disciples. John 15:18 says this:

18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.

So this is later on in the book of John, as the tension is rising, as the heat is rising. Jesus is saying, “Don’t forget. I told you before that if they hate me they’re going to hate you. But let me remind you that if they persecute me, they’re going to persecute you.”

There has not been a nation in human history that has continued to give favor to and believe in the ways of God. And here in America, we have experienced favor as Christians, no doubt about it. Hallelujah. Thank you for all of those who fought for that and are still fighting for that. It’s wonderful to be able to gather in a place like this. But this isn’t true in a lot of the world. And if you follow human history and nations that rise and fall, it’s not going to be true in America forever.

Now am I saying we are about to be persecuted and everybody hates us? No. I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I don’t want us to be unaware of what Jesus is teaching his disciples. If you call yourself a disciple, basically Jesus says, “You’re on your way to persecution. You’re on your way to being hated. You’re on your way to death.” I’m not saying it. Jesus is saying it.

Welcome back to church. Isn’t it good to be here? How disappointing is that? Wait Jesus. You just turned water into wine, you healed people of diseases, you fed five thousand. We were into that. We liked that Jesus. That was great! That’s all we need. And now you’re telling us that’s not what you’re about? That’s not ultimately the most important thing to you? We were becoming popular. People were loving us. And Jesus says, “Just wait. Just wait.”

Again, this is Jesus preempting this thing. It hadn’t actually flushed out in public that everyone was trying to kill Jesus or hated Jesus, but it becomes that way. Jesus saw it coming before it showed up.

He says:

8 You go to the festival. I am not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come.” 9 After he had said this, he stayed in Galilee.
10 However, after his brothers had left for the festival, he went also, not publicly, but in secret. 11 Now at the festival the Jewish leaders were watching for Jesus and asking, “Where is he?”
12 Among the crowds there was widespread whispering about him. Some said, “He is a good man.”

Others replied, “No, he deceives the people.” 13 But no one would say anything publicly about him for fear of the leaders.

You can see that even in our day right now. You have to be so careful what you say in our society these days. Like, am I allowed to pray for the black community in church? There’s part of me going, “That feels dangerous.” You’re praying for people? That should not be dangerous. But these people are all nervous. There’s tension.

14 Not until halfway through the festival did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to teach. 15 The Jews there were amazed and asked, “How did this man get such learning without having been taught?”
16 Jesus answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me. 17 Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.

This is a key moment right here. And again, Jesus is speaking to his disciples, as well as he is speaking to the crowd. He’s probably actually on that temple mount. He was a rabbi. His disciples were there and he began teaching them, some other people came. Jesus is kind of the buzz word these days. Probably more people came. But there were probably other rabbis sitting with their disciples, teaching them in this moment. There’s a whole bunch of people in Jerusalem.

And Jesus is telling them, “Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or from man.” Because there was debate as to whether what Jesus was saying was true. And I love this because this is so classic John. We’ve talked about John. John’s premise for writing his book, the Gospel of John, is so that you would believe.

And we spent time talking about the difference of what that means “to believe.” To John, it clearly means “trust over time.” We talked about, for Paul, faith kind of means “pledge of allegiance.” I’m going this way and I’m forsaking everything else. But for John it means trust over time.

Because John was just a fisherman. Out fishing by the Sea of Galilee when a guy came up and said, “Hey, you wanna hang out?” And John was like, “Okay.” And they started hanging out and next thing he knew he was at a wedding with this guy and the guy turned water into wine. And John was like, “All right! I’m with this guy right here.”

And then John saw him heal people and feed five thousand and he heard the teachings and he watched the life that he lived. John was more and more convinced over time that the words that Jesus spoke were true. All the way to the point at which John saw Jesus up on that cross. All the other disciples had forsaken him. John was the only one that was there because he had begun to trust that Jesus was everything he said he would be and more than John could ever comprehend.

And then, when John heard the whisper that Jesus had risen from the dead, he ran to that tomb. And, once again, his trust was deepened and deepened and deepened. And that’s why John is writing these stories, so that you will begin to trust in the name of Jesus, in the words of Jesus, in the way of Jesus. And as you begin to walk in it, you will find that it is true.

When I first started really following Jesus, trying to really practice the way of Jesus, it was great. It was like “This all makes sense.” But then my dad took his life. And there was this moment where I had to say, “Okay, God, I guess right now I’m going to see if this stuff really works.” And it did. And it does.

Shortly after that, me and some friends, one of them is sitting right over there, we decided that we were going to go to Ireland for three months. Just buy a ticket and go to see what the Lord might do. Some stupid young man idea (or young woman, I don’t know. You probably have bad ideas, too.) But it was just like I needed to see. “Okay, Lord, I want to see what you’re going to do. I want to see if you’re going to show up.”

So we did. We just got on a plane and flew over there. And I had, like, a hundred and fifty dollars. And he had, like, fifteen cents. And within three days we had a place to live, we had jobs, and we were going all over Northern Ireland to tell people about Jesus. And then my little bit of faith just got a little bit bigger. And it was just this trust over time.

And then I married this lady named Brittany and she’s like, “Let’s go to Belize where there’s no running water and be there for a year and see what the Lord might do.

It’s like, three months Ireland? Okay. Nine months Belize? Gasp. With a one-year-old? Gasp. And yet the way that the Lord met us in that place was trust over time.

And Jesus is saying, “Look, it’s going to get tough. It’s going to get hard. But if you will do what I’m saying to do, if you will walk with me, you will see that my words are not coming from man.”

And there are a lot of words coming from mankind right now that are not to be trusted. But Jesus is trustworthy—more than we’ll ever know, until that final day when we’ll get to really see that everything he’s done has been righteous and true. Even though the Jesus we want is oftentimesnot the Jesus we need—even though we go through lots of times of disappointment with Jesus, he’s still trustworthy.

Let’s continue on:

18 Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him. 19 Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?”
20 “You are demon-possessed,” the crowd answered. “Who is trying to kill you?”

Remember, Jesus is saying, “They’re going to hate me,” but it’s not really prevalent yet. And he’s saying that they’re gong to try and kill him, which is true, but not everybody knows that. So they’re saying, “You’re demon possessed.” That’s what people think about him.

21 Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. 22 Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath. 23 Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? 24 Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.”

This is an important word for Christians today. We’ve got to be careful how we’re judging things. We’ve got to pray enough so that we can see clearly enough. Because there are a lot of powerful solutions being offered to people right now that are of human origin and will leave us high and dry. It’s so important that we really take this seriously.

In my weekly email this week I talked about a couple of things that I think are things that have some good but they’ve been mingled with things now to where they are actually very dangerous. And we, as Christians, we have to be very careful that we don’t try and link something that is in our world, our agenda, an idea or political party and try and link it with Jesus. Jesus made it very clear in his day and age (and still today) that his kingdom is not of this world.

Now, politics and social reform—all of those things are good things that it’s good for us to do what we can. But we have to be very careful to not ascribe Jesus to one of those things. Christian nationalism is a dangerous, dangerous thing. I want to read to you what the German Christians in 1934 were saying:

We are full of thanks to God that he, as Lord of history, has given us Adolph Hitler, our leader and savior from our difficult lot.

The German church, the German Christians were praising God for his sovereign providence in bringing a leader like Adolph Hitler to save them. And yet, there were some Christians—we know Bonhoeffer, we know Bart and many others, Corey ten Boom—they weren’t missing it. They were about the Father’s business, the Kingdom of Heaven, in the midst of such an atrocious moment in time.

And I just want to be those Christians. I don’t know how to be. That’s why I’m praying all the time. That’s why for nine weeks you guys came to an hour service and I was here for four hours. And it took the Lord tricking me into a four-hour prayer service, because it’s my job, to get me to actually do it. But, boy, was it rich! Four hours four the last nine Sundays, I’ve just been here, trying to hear from the Lord and it’s been awesome.

We need to be gathering in parks with our neighbors and friends, just saying, “Let’s just go and pray.” I heard about a group doing that. We need to just be getting people together, “Hey, let’s hang out and let’s just pray and see if we can get any idea what we’re supposed to do with our lives and our families right now.”

This church should be a house of prayer. I really want us to not be on the wrong side of this moment. I think we can, but I mean, the Spirit of God wants to lead us into all truth. But we’ve got to listen. We’ve got to be careful we don’t start associating things that aren’t there.

Now, in the first service, people thought that I was saying that Trump was Adolph Hitler. No way! I will name who I thing Adolph Hitler is today. No, I won’t. I’m not even going to try. Give me a break. I don’t know. If I knew it, I would say it. But I’m not saying it because I don’t know. I just know the spirit of anti-Christ, John told us later on, is alive in our world today. And I do know things that are very anti-biblical that are becoming very popular. And we’ve got to be careful and just say, “Okay, let’s see how this rolls out.”

So, please, don’t think I’m saying something I’m not saying right now. You could send me an email and be like, “You were talking about this…” And I would be, “No, I wasn’t talking about that guy!” So, are we clear on that?

But I’m bringing up the German Christians because they got it wrong. And they were calling themselves Christians. And here is Jesus, way before them, saying, “Hey, don’t get this wrong.” There is truth and there is not truth. And Jesus is about the truth. That’s why he’s trustworthy.

So we continue on:

25 At that point some of the people of Jerusalem began to ask, “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill? 26 Here he is, speaking publicly, and they are not saying a word to him. Have the authorities really concluded that he is the Messiah? 27 But we know where this man is from; when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.”
28 Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, 29 but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.”

Now, those of you who don’t think that Jesus ever claimed to be God, you don’t speak Jewish. What Jesus said right there, if you were a first century Jew, that’s blasphemy, unless it’s true. He’s saying, “I’m from God.” Basically, he’s saying, “I am God. I’m the whole deal.” How do I know that? Look:

30 At this they tried to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. 31 Still, many in the crowd believed in him. They said, “When the Messiah comes, will he perform more signs than this man?”

And then, as he goes on, it’s kind of leading up to this moment:

37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

On this great moment of the festival—now every day for seven days they’ve been celebrating their wilderness wanderings and how God provided for them there. They actually built tents and booths and they would sleep in these things during the month. They would pour out this water every day from the Pool of Siloam, remembering how God provided water out of the rock in the desert. And there was this one day where they wouldn’t pour water out. It was kind of a climax. Almost like they were saying, “We’re longing fo the day when God once again visits us.” And it was at that moment that Jesus stood up in the crowd and said, “Let all who are thirsty for that moment, let all who really long for God to come again, let all who really long for the loving presence, the satisfying water of God, to come. Let them come to me and out of their innermost beings will gush torrents of living water.” That’s a moment right there.

That’s a moment that Jesus set up, where he was saying, “Everybody can come. Anybody can come and I will give you the water that your thirsty soul needs. And what I bring is not of human origin. It’s not temporal. It’s not going to leave you high and dry in the end. What I bring will begin small, but as you begin to trust and walk, it will keep growing and growing until it just starts pouring out of you forevermore.”

That’s the promise of Jesus.

I want to read a couple of things to close:

Church, don’t be surprised when evil prospers and things with demonic origin and agenda become popular. At the same time, don’t be surprised when doing the right thing, holding on to the truth and submitting your life to the authority of scripture becomes unpopular, hated and even persecuted. Don’t let your disappointment with the Jesus you want lead you to be deceived. Remember that the Jesus you want is not often the Jesus you really need. And the problem is your perspective is not his.

Remember what Philip Yancey says in his book Disappointment with God:

Why the delay? Why does God let evil and pain so flagrantly exist, even thrive on this planet? He holds back for our sakes. Re-creation involves us. We are, in fact, at the center of his plan. The motive behind all human history is to develop us, not God. Our very existence announces to the powers of the universe that restoration is underway. Every act of faith by every one of the people of God is like a tolling of the bell, and a faith like Job’s reverberates throughout the universe.

Every time you and I act in the truth, act in faith, it’s like this reverberating gong that goes throughout all of the cosmos and creation, that the restoration has begun. That what Jesus died to purchase is already beginning to play out. And if it plays out day in and day out, eventually it’s going to grow. The kingdom of heaven will grow. Like that mustard seed it will grow and it will ultimately fill everything. Then, at that moment, our perspective will be clear. And we will say, “Righteous and true are your judgments, O God. Thank you to bringing us to a place where every sad thing has become untrue.”

The restoration has begun in each of us. The kingdom has already begun. And if we will walk out with Job-like faith, we will be a part of that restoration and we will be with Jesus. But here’s the deal. Job-like faith is not an easy thing. Don’t listen to this. Don’t listen to these Bible verses. These are not fun. Okay? I’m just warning you. So, if you’re still listening, it’s your fault.

Job’s faith—he lost everything. He wasn’t just shaken or disrupted. He lost everything. And yet, he says in the face of God, “Though you slay me, yet I will trust you. Because I’m so convinced that you know what is right and you can accomplish it, that, though you slay me, I will trust you.” Because I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will one day stand on the earth. Though my body is destroyed, I will see him person and he will make it all make sense.”

Trust over time.

Let’s pray:

Jesus, wow. You know what you’re doing. You knew what you were doing and you were doing it. And it was amazing and it was wild, and it was confusing for people. Yet, it was beautiful and strong and brought about truth and salvation forever. And here, in our time, Lord, we know you’re alive. We know you know the way. We know you’re at work. But it’s hard to see. I pray that you would strengthen our faith for whatever may come, that you would develop our trust over time. Show us your way and your will and teach us to walk in it. And Lord, we pray right now that all this tension in our society would be released to renewal and revival. But if the tension gets released in another way, we pray that you would just help us to be on the right side of history, of your story—and you’d help us to rescue and save as many as we can, no matter what happens, because we’re so thankful that you rescued and saved us.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

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