Part 3 - The Gospel according to Mark

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Thanks. God blesses the reading of his word e keep your Bible open you'll uh need that as we go through we're uh continuing our Mark series my name's Dave one of the pastors here and it's a a joy to open God's word uh with you this morning why don't we uh pray as we uh begin father God we thank you that you are a God who speaks and that you've given us your word and Lord what a privilege it is that we can open this account from Mark probably the earliest account that we have of Jesus life and Ministry his death and resurrection and Lord we just pray that as uh we look at your word this morning that we might come to a a better understanding a a deeper and a clearer picture of who Jesus is and what it means to respond to his offer of forgiveness we pray this in his mighty name amen uh as you could gather from the title of our series uh the central theme of Mark's gospel who do you say say I am we've taken that from the central question that Mark asked his disciples in chapter 8 of Mark and we'll get to that uh in a few weeks time uh a question that we want to uh examine and unpack as we go throughout this series is to try and look at the evidence to try and see uh what the claims Jesus made about himself are to see the way in which he interacted with people to see the way in which they responded to him uh so that we can have a clearer picture of of what he is like and so whether your picture this morning is uh is maybe you don't have much of a picture you're not sure uh what it is about Jesus whether you think you've got a good picture you've got you got quite a good idea of what's going on or maybe you're somewhere in between what we want to do this morning is examine this evidence and make up our own minds about who he really is so far we've seen uh in the first chapter of of Mark over the last few weeks that Mark's opening Claim about Jesus is a is a big bold one Jesus is God's promised Messiah he's the son of God and Mark says this is especially good news because Jesus arrival on the scene marks the Fulfillment of thousands of years of Prophecy from God to promises to to save and redeem his people and and Mark's claims are backed up by the evidence of God's word by the the testimony of the prophets of John the Baptist the very voice of God from Heaven as Jesus was baptized there in the Jordan River what we saw last week is that Jesus uh preached the good news he announced the arrival of the kingdom of God and he's starting to gather F followers some disciples and he enters into capernium in the end of Mark chapter 1 and he starts teaching in the synagogue he's he's preaching that the kingdom of God is here and the people find that he's not like any other teacher that they've ever seen before there's an authority about Jesus that that is is beyond and above anything they've ever experienced and we saw that last week as as Jesus is is confronted by this man possessed with a an evil spirit and Jesus with a word commands the spirit to leave the man and he's restored we read those verses at the end of uh Mark uh chapter 1 uh last week the people were all so amazed this is in verses 27 and 28 of chapter 1 they asked each other what is this a new teaching and with authority he gives orders to impure spirits and they o obey him news about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee so the rest of the end of chapter one Jesus and his disciples go to the home of Simon and Andrew and he Jesus heals Simon's mother-in-law word gets out and about around the town and by dinner time all the the people are coming those who are sick and demon-possessed and we're told that Jesus heals a whole bunch of them later on there's a a man with Leprosy uh someone who is completely in that Society Outcast and Untouchable and he comes to Jesus and he begs him and he says Lord if you're willing could you heal me and Mark says that Jesus reached out in compassion and he touched the man and instantly his leprosy was cured yet another demonstration of his is Authority and that's the summary of where we picked up in our reading this morning that CLA read for us have a look at Mark chapter 2 those first two verses Jesus has left capernium for some days he's come back seems like this is his home base for a while and news has quickly spread around the town that he's come home and so all of a sudden the house where Jesus is staying it could still be uh uh Simon and Andrew's house we're not not exactly sure but the house is packed out to to the to the nth degree there's no more room for anybody in the house they're spilling outside the door Jesus is starting to get popular so much so that this news of him spreads more and more people start together so much so that uh uh Mark uh is giving this really clear picture here that there's no room at all inside I don't know if youve ever been to an event like that that was so packed out uh jam packed with with people just spilling out the door maybe it was a a concert event or something or um not long after Kelly and I got married we were looking for a home Church uh for ourselves we've been uh while we were courting we've been going along to church with Kelly's mom and dad and we just felt as a young new married couple it was probably time to to look for a church that was that was somewhere where we could Fellowship together a little bit more uh space from Kelly's mom and dad because we saw them quite a bit and Kelly's brother said to us um why don't you come and and check out the church that I go to and so we went and visited uh this church with Kelly's brother one evening and it just so happened that that was a baptism service that night we arrived and there was not a lot of parking it was in a residential area so it was a little street parking we had to walk a a bunch of streets to get to church we're running a little bit late and when we arrived we saw that the front windows of the church building were open and they'd set up rows of plastic chairs on the foot paath there were so many people at that service for the baptism that they had people sitting outside on the footpath it was awesome we enjoyed our first uh church service there sitting in the back row almost in the gutter and we could hear it was just an awesome awesome awesome time this is kind of what was going on in capernium Jesus is in his prime he's the Talk of the Town he's captivating he's like the mustsee TV he's that next episode of your favorite show that you can't wait to see for for the young people he's the Tik Tok video that you you can't wait for he's the next big thing and this there's a great deal of expectation and arrival about his arrival as he's come in he's we think about that you ever had that same expectation of waiting to meet somebody waiting for that important phone call or that email maybe waiting for that championship match waiting for the movie sequel to watch whatever it is with experiened some level of anticipation some level of of waiting this uh expectation in our lives I'm sure that that all of us here have experienced something of that feeling and as we read these opening verses I can't help but think what expectation do we have when we come to Jesus cuz that's what this fuss was all about in the town people were so EXP expect they were filled with anticipation they just wanted to be in the room with him whether it was because they had some need that they wanted him to meet because they'd heard along the way that maybe he could meet it whether they wanted to hear the words that he was teaching this this new teaching with authority about the kingdom of God and peace this good news people were anticipating and expecting exp in something great is that our expectation when it comes to Jesus as we journeyed through Mark so far maybe you've picked up that there are three distinct groups that we we've been introduced to that have been gathering around Jesus um it's been a little little bit subtle but we'll see more of this as the story unfolds G as Jesus is preaching God's kingdom as he's sharing the good news we see these three main groups present themselves there's this group of disciples those who have accepted and made up their mind about Jesus they they are choosing to believe and to follow after him we're told that the in chapter one how Simon Andrew James and John left everything behind to follow Jesus they're the disciples then there's the crowds and there's probably several different people that make up the crowd some probably came for the Miracles they came for the healings there was a need that they had and they were hoping just to meet Jesus so that he might meet that need maybe there were others in that crowd who were just curious about what was going on and they were coming for the show just wanted to see what would happen because it's exciting to be a part of it maybe there were some that came to hear what Jesus had to say certainly he had this reputation as being an interesting teacher and then there's the religious leaders that we're introduced to in verse 6 of chapter 2 Mark says that they were teachers of the religious law if we look at Luke's account of of this same event Luke uh gives us a little bit of extra detail in Luke Chapter 5 he says that there were both Pharisees and scribes present two different types of religious leaders of the day the Pharisees were like the Guardians of the the legalistic traditions of first century Judaism they were the the ones that saw themselves in that society and in that culture as the most holy people of the day and we'll later learn that it was merely just an external Holiness it was it was all for show they liked to be seen in the synagogues and on the streets as following God and keeping the commands of scripture but when it comes to teaching God's word the Bible tells us that that the the the Pharisees didn't always hold that up as the most important thing Thing by this particular time in history uh the Pharisees were a lot more concerned about the other teachings of the other rabbis and having all of the information and how to interpret God's word one commentator I was reading during the week he put it this way he said rather than Faithfully explaining the simple meaning of the scriptures the Pharisees delighted in complex musing obscure insights fanciful allegories m mystical Notions and the teaching of earlier rabbis Jesus will later say that they're like whitewashed tombs they look clean they look holy they look righteous but inside they're like dead men's bones then there were the scribes these are the theologians of the day these are the the Bible scholars these are the ones that are responsible for the copying and preserving and interpreting of all of the scriptures to God's people the scribes were the ones who were deep in it every day and they understood what it meant and their job was to help share God's word with God's people and it was the scribes who were the ones who would follow along wherever Jesus went and make sure that he wasn't teaching anything contrary to what they were saying or were teaching so that's our our two groups but the the thing that we find about these religious leaders is that their hearts were hard towards Jesus they were coming along to this event in capernium to this house because they wanted to follow Jesus or because they even wanted to get a clearer picture of him so they could make up their mind no they'd already made up their mind their hearts were hard they were coming along to see what Jesus was teaching maybe gather some Intel on him so that they could get something that they could use against him I think this highlights an important Truth for us this morning mere proximity to Jesus doesn't mean that we have faith in him there were many in that crowded room who didn't have faith and trust in Jesus we know that the religious leaders certainly didn't that that comes out clear later on but it's important for us to understand that truth isn't it that just being close to Jesus doesn't necessarily mean we have faith in him we need to get that because there's a implication for us here today we we can come along to church every Sunday you can come week after week you can sing the songs that we that we sing up here declaring who God is and what he's done and and we can hear the scriptures opened and read and and preached and taught and we can do that Time After Time After Time for for years but if we don't actively respond to the voice of God's holy spirit if we don't respond to the good news of the Gospel that good news about Jesus if we don't respond in faith and receive that and believe for who he is then we're just attending we're not saved we're we're not Christians until we put our faith and our trust in the Lord Jesus until we believe that he is who he claimed to be and and what he did paid for our sins if we don't believe that and yet we come to church week after week after week after week then we're just coming to church we're simply turning up to an event like like half the people in the house in capernia maybe who knows it doesn't make us a disciple of Jesus until we put our faith in him and it's the same everywhere we might gather as God's people across across the week uh in our extended family groups our efgs or our midweek Bible studies our youth group or um in kids club play group craft plus seniors whatever uh way in which we're gathering together if you're just attending the group or turning up to the event and you don't have your faith in Jesus then you're just attending it's not about proximity to Jesus it's about whether you believe in him being being a disciple of Jesus means responding in faith to the good news of God's kingdom it means repenting of our sin it means believing that he saves us and it's only through that faith in his death and Resurrection for our sins that we can be saved let's keep reading and have a look at this group that did respond to Jesus verses 2 to5 while Jesus is preaching God's word to them those four men arrive they carry their paralyzed man uh on a mat and they can quickly see that there's no space they're not getting in but they're determined because they've got a faith in Jesus they've heard about him and they're trusting that he can do something he can meet the need they have that faith and so they uh know about the Jewish homes in that particular time flat roofs steps up to the side you could get up there and dry your washing and do stuff up on the roof it was a a useful space and so they carry this man up the roof I don't know how awkward that was don't know how wide the stairs were but they get him up there and then apparently they get him right above where Jesus was preaching underneath I don't know how they did that either um and yet they dig through the roof they tear it up they start pulling apart the sticks and the mud and the dirt and it's obviously a crazy scene imagine it Jesus is teaching and suddenly there's bits of roof falling down and bits of dirt coming down and lights coming through and this whole opens up and suddenly there's this dude being lowered down on a mat carefully in front of Jesus it's weird it's a it's a crazy crazy story lots of things Jesus could have said in that moment you're interrupting my talk um look out it's a bit dangerous that bit's going to fall down uh he could have addressed the guy coming down and said something about his condition but he didn't do any of that look at verse 5 look at what Jesus said he saw their faith and he said to the man my child or my son in in other translations your sins are forgiven that's a really unexpected thing for Jesus to say I'd imagine people there would have been super confused because it's obvious to everybody else it's obvious to Mark in the story this dude's paralyzed there's a reason why they're bringing him to Jesus their their faith is kind of telling everybody that this is what this guy needs his paralysis seems to be his most immediate concern isn't it but Jesus response in verse 5 seems to suggest something different these four men wanted their friend to be healed physically and yet Jesus doesn't address his physical ailment at all not at this point what does he say he said say your sins are forgiven Jesus goes deeper and he addresses this spiritual ailment this spiritual condition one that we all share and this is the problem of this man's sin it's like in verse 5 Jesus is kind of making this clear declaration as he says to this man your sins are forgiven he's saying to him you know that the main problem in your life it is not that you can't walk that the main problem in your life is not your sickness it's not your suffering but it's your sin there's no clue in this text to suggest that the man is uh suffering because of sin um there was a bit of a a Jewish them that they often thought that if you were struggling if you were struggling with an illness like this that maybe somewhere God was angry with you and you'd sinned um none of that is in this text it doesn't even come up here but I think Jesus is pointing out the reality that we can't separate the Brokenness in this world from the problem of sin it's completely intertwined the Bible story tells us that that this goes right back to the beginning In the Garden in Genesis when when mankind when Humanity fell when we chose to rebel against God and and live apart from his will the Bible says that sin causes such d Rift between us and our heavenly father between humanity and our creator that it creates this divide this debt that we can't ever repay and that sin that rejection of God is the cause of all pain suffering and death since then and it's still messing up the world today the Bible says that that our sin that my sin that that your sin is at the very heart of the problem Jesus has already shown in the end of Mark chapter 1 that he can heal physically but if he's truly God's Messiah just healing the the symptom doesn't do anything about the actual cause Jesus addresses the cause and not the symptom and he shows us that ultimately what we need is forgiveness Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God it's clear in the Bible it's it's right throughout the scripture record we all have a sin de that we can't possibly ever hope to repay there's no greater need for us as as as a as human beings than to have our sins forgiven because that's what we need if we're ever to be reconciled to God because he is Holy he is the holy God and he is righteous and just and so he has to deal with our sin friends this is why Jesus came this is his sole purpose if you remember back to the the angel that that came to Joseph before uh Mary gave birth to Jesus what did the angel say to Joseph he said you're going to call him Jesus because he's going to say save his people from their sins in Matthew 1:21 later on uh when we get to Mark 10 we'll hear that that Jesus says he didn't come to be served but he came to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many Apostle Paul would speak about that in 2 Corinthians 5: 18-9 Paul writes this way he says all of this is a gift from God who brought us back to himself through Christ Christ God has given us this task of reconciling people to him for God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself no longer counting people's sins against them he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation that's the message of the Gospel that Jesus came to take the punishment for our sin so that we could be made right with God so that we could have a relationship with him and not have any of that guilt or shame the power of sin hanging over us Jesus Paid It All To Have Faith In Jesus means to believe in that he can wipe away all our sin past present and future back when I was in high school doing assignments we didn't have a computer at home it wasn't a thing that most people had back then uh there were expensive machines you might have had them in in businesses uh if you're at University you might have been lucky to get time on a university computer and and use one of those but very few people had computers at home and so assignments were handwritten things or if you were lucky you might had a typewriter at home and you'd click clack clack it out on a typewriter um we we had typing as a subject at school school they wouldn't let me do it I wasn't fast enough um so assignments took a while and often you'd type the wrong thing and you'd mess it up and what you'd have to do to fix those mistakes so you have to get this little jar of white out and like a white paint and you'd have to paint the page and cover over the error it didn't take it away it just made this big lump that was messy and sometimes you'd type over it again and the typing would crack it all up and you'd have about halfway through High School dad for his business got this fancy electric typewriter it had a single LCD line display and it would hold a about a sentence or a sentence and a half at a time and and you could type into this thing and check it over and and then you could press print and it would print that line and you could start typing the next line and it was such an upgrade because no longer did you have to deal with these big blobs of white and mess on your assignment page because you could check what you were reading if there was an error you just hit the backspace key and delete it and it was actually gone by the time you pressed print all that came out was the right thing if you're here today and you haven't yet trusted in Jesus if you don't know him yet Jesus words to this paralytic man that we have through this earliest account of his life as Mark's given it to us Jesus words of forgiveness tell us that he can do it there's there's no mistake there's no error there's nothing that you could ever do or have done that is beyond his ability to forgive and save it's not like that old typewriter where you make a mistake and you only ever try and just cover it up and hide it and and it just becomes this ugly bump and a mess and you you still get burdened down by the guilt of it all no Jesus totally erases that sin Deb and he says my child your sin is Forgiven Kelly read that verse at the beginning of the service about God not remembering our debts anymore it's a verse in our prayer notes this week that says the same thing as far as the East is from the West God remembers our sin no more because Jesus Paid It All if you're here this morning and you have been saved if you know this good news if you know the hope of this forgiveness then maybe just pause for a moment and think about the week ahead think about the places that you're going to visit this week think about your weekly rhythm there are places where we all frequent throughout the week the coffee shop we visit the the shopping center we go to the the neighbors we interact the work colleagues that we that we sit next to friends we might spend time with wonder what it would look like this week for us to go and share that good news with somebody that doesn't yet know Jesus don't know about you but it could be a problem for me it's really easy to see people and not see people at the same time you can be out and about you can be focused on your weekly Rhythm you can be uh uh on the way to a task or moving from one place to another place and there's people there you know that they're there but you don't really register you be so focused on the thoughts in your own mind that you you might not stop or pause what if we prayed this week that we would intentionally visit some of these places just to be thinking missionally as we go about our week don't have to do anything different just do what you're already doing in the spaces God has already placed you but prayerfully consider and ask the Lord to give you eyes to see the people all around about you pray that you might have opportunity to to listen and understand where maybe some of them are at to to get alongside them to to start to build a relationship with the ones that you see regularly what if you took that opportunity to share the hope that you have in Jesus to explain that good news so that they too can have their greatest need met their need for forgiveness friends if we want to see the world reached for Christ we have to share this good news it's it's that Ministry of reconciliation that is given to all of us who have our faith in him when we hear Jesus declare that this man's sins are forgiven it's pretty easy for us to skip over what a big deal it actually is but uh the teachers of the law that are there in verse 6 they understand that look at verse 6 there they're sitting there thinking to themselves verse 7 what is he saying this is blasphemy only God can forgive sins this was a highly offensive thing for Jesus to say in this context specifically in front of these religious leaders maybe for some of the the Jews that were there who might have been in the in attendance they might have been offended by this as well too it's a huge claim that Jesus is making by saying to this man your sins are forgiven Jesus is actually putting himself on par with God this uh blasphemy that these uh religious leaders were talking about uh there were three ways that you could blaspheme God one of them was to deny the attributes of God another one would be to maybe add attributes that aren't of God and and put them on to him or the third one which is the one that uh Jesus is seeming to claim here making himself equal with God this third one would have been what they heard by saying your sins are forgiven he's essentially putting himself in the place of God because their understanding of all that God had revealed about himself was that only God could forgive sins verse eight we see that Jesus immediately knew what they were thinking and so he asked them why do you question this in your hearts is it easier to say to this paralyzed man your sins are forgiven or stand up pick up your mat and walk it's an interesting question isn't it tells us that Jesus is no ordinary man there's something Supernatural about this exchange because he knows in his Spirit what they were thinking that would have been like the tell straight away right that should have given it away to these religious leaders that there was something extra going on here how does he know what I'm thinking I haven't even said it yet but but that wasn't enough it didn't tip them off it didn't freak them out cuz their hearts were H and so Jesus question cuts to the heart of that and he says which is easy to say your sin is Forgiven or to pick up your mat and go home we see in verse 10 Jesus says that he'll prove it to them to show that the son of man has Authority on Earth to forgive sins Jesus Jesus turns to the paralyzed man and he says stand up pick up your M and go home that title son of man in verse 10 there Jesus is using a title that they would have known they were familiar with their Old Testament with Daniel chter 7 in Daniel 7:3 Daniel talks about a vision that he was given from the Lord and now Daniel 7:13 he says in my vision at night I looked and there before me was one like the son of man coming from the clouds of Heaven he approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence he was given Authority glory and Sovereign power All Nations and people of every language worshiped him his Dominion is an everlasting Dominion that will not pass away and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed in using this title of himself Jesus is further doubling down on this audacious claim I am this son of man in Daniel chapter 7 this Vision that Daniel was given the the son of man was was a representative of God's true people and and this representative before God was given all authority to to bring about God's judgment and so Jesus in claiming this title for himself says that's me but we don't see him bringing about God's judgment on this paralyzed man we see him bringing about forgiveness mercy and Grace it's a powerful picture from a human standpoint that question Jesus asked those religious leaders are both impossible humans can't forgive sins humans can't can't say to somebody get up and walk and they do it if they've been paralyzed for who knows how long from the context we see that Jesus is suggesting that maybe it's easier to say your sins are forgiven because uh there's no way to prove that I mean God's the only one who sees the human heart he's the only one who truly knows if if we've been forgiven so you could say to somebody yeah you're you're forgiven and there's no way to prove it but if you say to somebody get up and walk they either get up and walk or they don't instantly you going to know whether the person who said it has the authority to do it and this is what is going on here verse 12 the man jumps up he grabs his mat and he walks out through the stunned on luas They're All Amazed and they praise God exclaiming we've never seen anything like this before we don't know how long he was paralyzed I mentioned earlier that uh some of the the Jewish thinking at that time was that if you had been infirm like this maybe from birth perhaps he sinned or his parents sinned or somewhere in the family liners sinned and God was angry at them and so that's why this had happened there was a a a a a wrong view to have of God but it was of you that was around at the time before you were healed you had to First be forgiven and so when Jesus heals this man it's almost like he says to him son God is not angry with you this is not about your sin come to relationship with me I can't help but think of this exchange and think a little of that story in Luke chapter 15 that story of The Prodigal Son maybe you're familiar with the story there's a a father who had two sons and the youngest son said he didn't want anything to do with the father's relationship he'd had enough of that he wanted all the blessings of being that Father's son but he didn't want the relationship with the dad so he went to the dad he said give me my inheritance and I I'm going to go off and I'm going to live my own life as offensive as that would have been for the dad the dad in love divides The Inheritance he gives it to the Man and off he goes he squanders it he he wastes it it's all gone and at one point as he's feeding pigs and hungry and looking at the slop that he's given to the pigs his job he he thinks man even the servants back home have got food even the servants back home have got a roof over their head this is rubbish I'm just going to have to go back to Dad he's not going to take me back as a son no not after the offense that I've committed against him but maybe he'll let me come back as a servant and at least I'll have a meal and a roof over my head so The Story Goes that he he heads back towards home and before he even arrives we see the dad sees him coming at a distance and we're told that father in love runs and Embraces the son he throws his arms around him and he welcomes him back not as a slave but as a son he puts the family ring on his finger to signify that he's back gives him a robe and he puts on this big party and gets all the family and friends to celebrate his return that's the picture the parable the story that Jesus told to tell us what God is like he's the heavenly father who runs to meet us he's the heavenly father who though it would be within his right to reject us because of the things that we' have done because of our rejection of him no instead God shows love and grace and mercy to us through what Jesus has done in our place friends if you're here today and you feel like God is angry at you if you feel like maybe he's disappointed in you know that that is not the god of the Bible he's pictured as a loving heavenly father who invites you to come to him and receive the Forgiveness that free gift of Grace that he offers to all of us through Jesus we could never earn our place with him but he offers it freely how do you see Jesus what's your picture like do you see him as the one who has the ability to forgive your sins do you believe that he's the one who he claimed to be the son of man the Son of God the one who took away the sin of the world that's the question we have before us this morning as we see Jesus the forgiver 1 John 1:9 says if we confess our sin he's faithful and just he'll forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness it's only true if you're ready to trust him to believe that and receive it and you can do that today right you seat I'm going to pray pray just a moment before I do just give you an opportunity if if you haven't ever put that hope in Jesus do it today just in the quietness of your own heart you can you can talk to God you don't just say it out loud you can just think it in your mind he knows what we are thinking we've seen that in our story and you've just have to tell him that you're ready to receive that gift of Grace that you are going to put your hope in your trust in Jesus in what he did on the cross for you and the Bible says that you will be forgiven that God will open up relationship with you once more and he'll give his holy spirit to you and he will indwell in your life and like the disciples like those who came to Faith In Jesus their life was not the same again so good if that's you this morning I encourage you to accept that offer of forgiveness for those of us that have already received that Grace maybe the challenge for us this morning is to think about what are we doing with the grace that we have there's so many that need to know this truth of Jesus the forgiver right so let's pray that we'd have eyes to see and hearts that are open to the opportunities that God would give us this this week to tell what we know to be true let's pray loving Heavenly Father we do thank you for your grace to us and for this wonderful truth that Jesus is the one who truly forgives we see the authority that he has the proof of that claim in this amazing Miracle but father the miracle is not just that this paralyzed man could walk again but the bigger the deeper the greater Miracle is that this sinner was saved father we thank you for the Forgiveness that we are all offered through faith in Jesus father we pray for those ones that might be here today for the first time who have yet to put their hope and trust in you we pray Lord that you would meet them where they at give them the the courage to reach out in faith and to receive that gift that you offer to all who believe father if there's any that have done that this morning even right now where they're sitting as you've been speaking to them oh father would you just uh show them the reality of your presence with with them now as a child of God father that there is much rejoicing in heaven when one Lost Sinner returns to you like that father in in in the parable of the the the prodigal son who through the great party we know that all of Heaven rejoices when lost Ones turn back to you father for those of us that know your grace that have received your forgiveness help us this week to be ministers of reconciliation to be agents for the king who are able to tell what we know to be true of Christ Our Savior the one who has forgiven us it's in his name we pray. Amen.