What is the Greatest Commandment?

Well, if you have your Bibles open them with me to Mark chapter 12, and we are going to continue our study through this gospel we have been looking through the gospel of Mark now for many months and Though we are not really near the end.

We are we are in the last week of Jesus's earthly life and ministry and And as I have often mentioned about Mark is what you have and Mark really is a long passion narrative with a extended introduction this was everything from the first Nine to ten chapters was getting us to this point where Jesus is now in the

Final week and so mark is spending time going through each day and we are the third day of the week of Passion week and that would be

Tuesday. So this is Tuesday of Passion week and if you don't have one,

I'm happy to print you one brother Mike a few years ago made a outline where he harmonized the events of Holy Week beginning with the triumphal entry ending with Resurrection Sunday and he has

Sort of the events day by day and what's happening on each day and I gave those out when

I first began This section, but if you didn't get one Either get with me after or email me and I'll be happy to email you a copy that way you can have that for your

Notes, that's sort of been helping me sort of keep an outline of the days as we go through each day so Chapter 12 begins with Jesus giving the parable of the tenants where he very clearly calls out the leaders of the

Jewish people for their mistreatment of God's Messengers God had sent prophets

God had sent them people to come and command Repentance to call them to repentance and they had rejected them

They had as it says stoned them and even killed them and then he

References and says and then the master of the vineyard will send his son. Surely they will respect his son but no, what do they do with the

Sun they kill the Sun and He says what will the master do to those tenants?

He will come and destroy them. Well They recognized that Jesus gave that parable against them

We see this if you look in verse 12, it says and they were seeking to arrest him

But they feared the people for they perceived that he had told the parable against them

So they left him and went away. So they recognized that they were the object of Jesus's Lesson and they recognized that they were in fact the evil tenants in that parable

Well following this they seek to bring Jesus down by way of questions and I have noted over the last few weeks that there are three sections with three questions and the three questions are of One the issue of taxation

Two is the issue of theology and Three is on the issue of priority the issue of taxation was verses 13 through 17

Where they came and asked Jesus whether or not they should pay taxes to Caesar and then of course

Jesus asking for a denarius held it and said whose picture and image or whose image and inscription is on this they said

Caesar And he says rendered to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's and we've looked at that two weeks ago

After this, oh and by the way, that was the Pharisees and the Herodians who came to him then and what we're going to see is there's four groups that are going to be represented in this section the

Pharisees and the Herodians came together the Pharisees represented the religious elite the leaders the conservative leaders and that they were very fastidious and their keeping of God's law at least they believe they were and the

Herodians who were politically aligned with Herod's Kingdom or Herod's royalty and then the next group to come are the

Sadducees the Sadducees were those who did not believe in Angels, they did not believe in the resurrection.

And so they came to Jesus with a question about the resurrection and they asked him

That that interesting story we talked about last week of the woman who had seven husbands and you know if each of them die and then she dies when she when they're resurrected who gets to have her as wife and Jesus Chided them saying that they know neither the scriptures nor the power of God Which was something to say to people who had in one sense

Dedicated themselves to knowing the scriptures and yet Jesus said they did not really understand the scriptures and they certainly did not know the power of God and So again, if you if you weren't here last week or the week before and you want more on these you can go back and listen to those messages but tonight we come to the third of these interactions and this one

Comes from the scribes you'll notice that the

Pharisees and the Sadducees were the ones who brought the firm side of the Pharisees and the Herodians brought the first question the Sadducees brought the second question.

Well the scribes who were basically the legal experts they are the ones who will bring this final question and it will come in the

It will come from one man it will be one scribe who will lift up his voice and What happens in the midst of this is interesting because there is a positive disposition at least

Jesus recognizes a somewhat positive disposition in this man toward the end of the interaction

But lest we think that that this is Maybe some positive thing this does come out of this movement to try to bring

Jesus down and and I just Point out the fact that if you if you look over in Matthew's gospel and compare the two what you find in Matthew 2234 is that it says when the

Pharisees and the Heard that Jesus silenced the Sadducees they gathered together and Then one of them a lawyer goes and asks

Jesus just this question So so however, he ends up in the story would have maybe a positive disposition

He begins as part of this cohort that is trying to trap Jesus so this is a third attempt to bring

Jesus under some type of a trap in his words and So let's read how the scenario plays out

Beginning again in verse 28, so we're going to read tonight 28 to 34 It says and one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another and Seeing that he answered them.

Well asked him which commandment is the most important of all?

Jesus answered the most important is here Oh Israel the

Lord our God the Lord is one and You shall love the Lord your

God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength the second is this

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these and The scribe said to him you are right teacher

You have truly said that he is one and there is no other beside him and to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding with all the strength and to love one's neighbor as oneself is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices and when

Jesus saw That he answered wisely He said to him you are not far from the kingdom of God and after that no one dared to ask him any more questions

I Just want to pray just for a moment father Lord Help me as I seek to give an understanding of this text.

Keep me from error Lord and bless your people as we seek to Look at the subject of loving you and loving our neighbors and how this is

The epitome of the law of God in Jesus name Amen the first two questions

That were given to Jesus Were traps and we know that not by way of simple conjecture

But the text clearly says that they were traps If you read verse 13

It says and they sent to him some of the Pharisees and some of the Herodians to trap him in his talk

What's the word in the King James there brother? Catch him in his word. There is there and what's interesting about that word

Is even though a similar word is used in the other Gospels that is the only place where that word is used in the

New Testament that word that's translated here trap or catch and it seems as if mark is trying to emphasize what's happening by using this word, which is a

Unique to the Gospels unique in its place and So we know that the question about taxes was with the hope to catch

Jesus Telling people not to pay their taxes because if he tells people not to pay their taxes

He becomes the enemy of the state. He becomes an insurrectionist. He becomes one worthy of punishment in fact

What was one of the accusations that they make against Jesus when they brought him to fair to pilot? He tells people not to pay taxes to Rome right tells people not to pay taxes to Caesar.

That's one of the accusations It wasn't true, but certainly there were a lot of accusations all the accusations of against Jesus were untrue

So we have this First attempt to trap him the second attempt to trap him is

In regard to theology I say it's in regard to theology because the Sadducees and the Pharisees had great debates about the resurrection

The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. The Pharisees did believe in the resurrection The Pharisees had a very unique and sort of somewhat peculiar doctrine of resurrection

But they all debated this and so it was an attempt to try to get Jesus's following to lose

Confidence in him if we can get him if we can show him to be a fool Certainly all of these people who are gathered around him will disperse if we can show him to be someone whose theology is

Obscure or foolish But when it comes to this third question there is somewhat of a

Question mark as to what is this one all about? Because we understand the first one was to get him in trouble with Rome and the second one is to get him in trouble with the people his theology

But when they say what is the greatest? Law the

King James says What is the first? law and By first it doesn't mean first by way of consecutive

It means first by way of priority and that's why I say this is a question of priority

What law is first among them all? You say well, why would that be?

Why would that even be on the list? Why would that come out? Why would you because it says and again Matthew's gospel that the

Pharisees and the Sadducees Gathered together and out of that this question came why that question?

Why did they think this one was going to be the one that could possibly be the one to send people away or cause

Jesus to lose face with the people and I think the answer is this one of the

Accusations made against Christ Was that he? Was teaching things that were not in accord with the law of Moses That Jesus was teaching things that were opposed to the law of Moses think of think back to the

Sabbath when his men are taking the heads of grain and Popping them off rubbing them in their hands and eating them what they say you why do your men do what's unlawful on the

Sabbath? Right like so they're they're saying you're teaching people to disobey Moses right and so what this could be is this could be their attempt

To get Jesus and say what's the greatest law for him to give some law? That they could then point to and say that's not in Moses's law.

Therefore. This man is teaching against Moses Therefore he is to be rejected See if they could if they could get

Jesus to say something that wasn't what Moses said or something that they could twist into a

Contradiction against what Moses said perhaps this could be the thing that causes his entire house of cards to fall so That could be the reason they're asking this question about what law is the greatest?

and It just interestingly enough This this past week actually

I think it was yesterday. I came across a video of a of a man he is a

I Am very I'm I'll use the word pastor

But I use it with air quotes He's a young man.

He has gained a huge following online he is an open practicing homosexual and he argues for the that that God endorses homosexuality that God sanctions and sanctifies homosexuality and Like I said, he's got hundreds of thousands of people who just lap up what he has to say like, you know

Just listen to what he has to say but I I had an opportunity of a video came across my

My phone and it was a video of him talking about Paul and He was saying how

Paul Had a different gospel than Jesus Now I may do a response video because I you know, sometimes

I'll do that I'll respond normally I don't respond to the truly wicked but this guy

It deserves to be responded to because he was saying Paul had a different gospel than Jesus and there were times that Paul Contradicts Jesus and he said

Paul never even met Jesus And and and which I guess he never read, you know

The story of the road to Damascus, but anyhow his argument was so poor

But sounded convincing though. I'm sure to ears that were wanting to hear it ears that were willing to be tickled

It was certainly sounded good But what his what he was trying to do was he was trying to show

That Paul and Jesus didn't agree and what he said was and when Paul doesn't agree with Jesus, I'm gonna go with Jesus Well, the reason why

I bring that video up tonight. I almost brought it to show you It's only a couple minutes, but I thought you probably don't want to see it

But here's my point What that man is doing? between Paul and Jesus is

Essentially what the fair or the the the scribes here are doing with Jesus and Moses They're trying to get

Jesus and Moses to show a Disagreement so that they can say if it's between Jesus and Moses, I'm gonna go with Moses See cuz that's what that's guy's doing.

If it's between Paul and Jesus, I'm gonna go with Jesus Well, they're saying this if it's between Jesus and Moses, I'm gonna go with Moses So what they're hoping

I think and again, this is my opinion I think what they're hoping is Jesus is going to give some law that they can either twist or Contort into saying see he's opposed to Moses a

Little did they know that he was He's gonna go right to Moses he's gonna jump into Deuteronomy and Leviticus Just the places we love to spend our devotional time, right?

So that's what he does Miracle of miracles Jesus knows these men and he knows their hearts and he knows what they're trying to do they say what's the what's the greatest commandment and Jesus says well the first one is

Hero Israel The Lord our God the Lord is one and you shall love the Lord your

God with all your heart with all your soul And with all your mind and with all your strength

Now what text is that? Yes And it's as Mike just said it's also known as the

Some people say Shema, but it's normally pronounced Shema Shema that he sort of just flows

The Shema and the reason why it's called that is because that's the first word here

Shema Shema Elohim and that's as far as I know, but if you hear any an

Israelite or a Hebrew say it Shema Elohim and then they go into the rest and it's it is a

Hero or hero Israel the Lord thy God the Lord is one and it's as he said

Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 4 through 6 Now here's here's what's amazing to me is you would you would suspect if Jesus was going to go to the

Commandments That he would actually go to the Decalogue The Decalogue is the

Ten Commandments, right? When Moses went up on Mount Sinai and he came down he came down with Ten Commandments from God and you would assume that those commandments

Represented God's highest law because they of course are his Ten Commandments to the people

Now in just a few moments, we're gonna go back to that But I just want to just mention the fact that he didn't go to the

Ten Commandments But rather he went to what some might consider an obscure passage in Deuteronomy Deuteronomy which is the later of the five books of Moses remember

I said this on Sunday Deuteronomy was written to the second generation the generation that was going into the promised land

It was the Deuteronomy means the second law or second giving of the law. This is this book written to them

It's basically the sermons of Moses Retelling them the law that was given in Exodus and Leviticus Right.

He's he's retelling them of this law and Here we have this

Seemingly obscure command which is a call to prayer Or at least today it is where they say here

Oh Israel the Lord your God is One by the way when

I teach my class on the Trinity, I always reference this verse

Because this is one of the places in the Old Testament Where we are reminded that the

Jewish faith is monotheistic They believe God is one.

In fact, what's that? What's the response of the of the scribe if you look just real quick at verse 32?

He says and the scribe said to him you are right teacher You have truly said that he is one and there's no other besides him

So what's interesting we often get we often focus on the love your love God and love your neighbor and we're gonna get there

But notice the scribe doesn't miss the fact that the first thing that Jesus says is that God is one

That there's only one God Only one to be worshipped and that's part of this that there's only one

God and he says you spoke, right? You recognized that within that call to love

God there is also a reminder of the uniqueness of that God who we love of the absolute

Singularity of that God whom we love That there is none beside him

Dagon Baal and all of the other gods were false gods

Now some might say they had demons attached to them and that's a whole other conversation About what were the false gods of the old world?

Were they truly just made up or were they demonic spirits? And certainly we believe in demons and things so we could have that conversation another time, but when it came to God When it came to Creator when it came to the in the beginning

God created there's only one there is only one God and he says

Jesus said the most important law is here. Oh Israel the Lord our God. The Lord is one and You shall love that one

God the Lord your God with all your heart

And with all your soul with all your mind with all your strength just very quickly I want to show you something this may be seem inconsequential to you, but I think it's kind of neat Go back to Deuteronomy real quick.

You haven't already just turn Deuteronomy 6 so in Deuteronomy 6 for This is where Jesus is quoting from and I just want you to see if you see any

Distinction between what we read in Mark and what we're going to read here Here Oh Israel the

Lord our God the Lord is one and You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might

Is there any Does anything jump out at you as a distinction between what

Jesus says in? Mark's gospel and what we read here. That's right there there is a expansion in Mark's gospel because here we are told that we are to love the

Lord our God with what all of our Yeah heart

So and Yours says mind might might thank you Said mine is like doesn't say

Okay, cuz it's heart soul and might and might there could also be strength, right?

But when we turn back to Mark's gospel again, this may seem inconsequential to you But I hope to show you that I think there's something here.

Okay, it's not much but it's You know any nuggets we can mine from the Word of God are good, right?

It's always good to see so what so what do we see in Mark's gospel? We see the heart, right

What's the next one? Soul, so we're saying same mind and strength

So we we come to this and we say, okay, does Jesus just not know Scripture? Jesus knows

Scripture better than anyone, you know kind of like I don't know if you're Lord of the

Rings or not Lord of the Rings. Was it Narnia fan? Where Aslan said to the witch don't quote the scriptures to me.

I was there when they were written Like don't quote that to me. I was there when it was written. I said

Jesus, right? He was there when it was written. So he knows what it says. Jesus is not

Misinterpreting or misreading the scripture, but we do get this word and and and and what some have

Conjectured is that in this there is also The and whether we place it here or here.

There is the idea of the intellect There is the idea of the intellect Because you know, we think heart soul and strength

Yes, okay But what is what do we talk about the heart? The Bible says believe with all your

Heart right, right. So the Bible uses the heart sometimes in reference to the intellect Sometimes it uses the bowels in reference to the emotions, right?

We've talked about that I've talked about that in some of my sermons how sometimes in the ancient world the bowels or the loins were used to represent emotional feelings

Right. So there is in this The idea of the intellect it's just not as explicit but Christ makes it explicit

He gives us the explicit reminder that we are to love God not only with our heart and soul but with our mind

And our strength as well That there is something that we ought to do with our mind

This is one of my one of the great issues. I have with modern worship And I and I and again,

I'm not opposed to modern music I'm not opposed to contemporary worship styles and things like that but I am opposed to the shutting off of the mind in worship, which often is the

Encouraging right just feel just Let go and let God and just have this feeling

Rather than to engage with the mind Paul says in 1st Corinthians chapter 14

I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also and What he's saying is there's going to be an engaging of the intellect and my love for God It's not just feeling but there isn't an intellectual

Love I I again the love for God and love for wife is not the same But I could be there are certain parallels we can make in In the fact that when when

I love my wife, one of the things I wanted to do more was to know her better Right, and and the more

I know her the older we get The more I love her because the better I know her and If we have been in Christ for 10 years 15 years 20 years and we don't know

God any better than we did when we Started how has our love for him grown and that's that's why that's why

I wanted to point this out Just this idea of the mind Jesus This word is there and and I think again

It's just a reminder to us if nothing else that we are to love our love the Lord our God with our heart soul mind and strength

None of us does it perfectly. None of us does it, right? But that's the call that's the command and then the second one is

To love your neighbor as Yourself now you probably or may know this but I I'm not gonna ask you to show of hands because I don't certainly wouldn't want to embarrass anyone

But does anyone in your mind just right off rip know where that comes from? Most people don't but some do you you look like, you know

That's right The second commandment if the first one was obscure and and we could say it's somewhat obscure at least though.

It's a prayer I mean, we know it's an important passage Deuteronomy 6 for hero Israel the Lord thy God That's an important passage.

The second one seemingly comes out of nowhere In fact, I want you to even look at it go you already have your

Bible to Deuteronomy turn over to Leviticus and Go to chapter 19 And go to verse 17

Now it's in 18, but I want to just show you the context and this is what it says in verse 17

You shall not hate your brother in your heart But you shall reason frankly with your neighbor lest you incur sin because of him

Verse 18 you shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people

But you shall love your neighbor as yourself I am the

Lord It's not even the whole sentence And what

I mean by that Jesus doesn't even quote the whole thing He just quotes like a small part of the last part of that sentence

But he makes that the most important Leviticus 19

Sits in a very interesting part of the book of Leviticus. Sometimes it's referred to as the holiness code which is

The portion of Leviticus where we see over and over God saying

You shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy, right? and so we see this phrase over and over and so this this section of Leviticus is often called the holiness code and Again my only point to bring out of this is to simply say

Jesus didn't go to the Dachalog and he didn't he didn't start going down the Ten Commandments and showing one or the other

He went to two obscure places but he then makes this wonderful point and That is that when you put these two together all of the law comes into view

Now it's not this passage in Mark, but in another passage he says on these two

Commandments rests the whole of the law so Yeah, all along the prophets.

Thank you. John all along the prophets right here on these two Commandments and You say how could that be?

but if you step back and You just look at the commandments that God has given they are all based on a simple ethic of love of God and Love of neighbor and I know you've heard people say this before you probably heard me say it before but if you walk through the

Ten Commandments You know, however, we look at the Ten Commandments is their place in the history of Israel if you look at them

It really breaks down to love God and love your neighbor Right have another

God's before me why because if you have another God before God, you're not loving God, right? Right do not make idols.

Why because when you make idols you rob God of his glory and you give it to something else That's not loving God. Why do you not use the

Lord's name in vain because that's not loving God Why do you win in the command of the

Sabbath? Why is it wrong to do that because God has given this command and when you break it you're violating him

And therefore you're not loving him Right. Why do you honor your father mother?

Why is this command there and there's a debate, you know Is it first that first table of the law or the second table of the law?

the the command to love and obey and respect your your father and your mother is because you're commanded to recognize the authority

God has placed over you and Again, it's a love for God when you disobey your parents

What are you doing when you when you dishonor your parents rather when you dishonor your parents, what are you doing? You're spitting in God's face

Right. So there's this whole Thing about looking at the law and stepping back and say it's it's an ethic of love when

I teach on ethics We have to consider love as the as the as the priority

It's hard sometimes because the world has such a perverted view of love The world's view of love is not the biblical view of love

The biblical view of love is given to us in what chapter of the Bible? First Corinthians 13 is that what you said miss miss

Cindy first Corinthians 13, right? Love is patient and kind love does not envy or boast.

It keeps no record of wrong, right? There's this there's this example and if we look first at that that's

God's love for us God is patient towards us and long -suffering. He is kind toward us.

He does not hold our sin against us, right? He but he places it on Christ and he forgives us, right?

And so he separates it as far as the East is from the West so God loves us and then he calls us to love him and love our

Neighbors and this is the ethic of Christianity This is the wonderful blessing.

Is that when it comes down to do we have to remember? 613 laws

That's how many people say I've never counted them myself but they'll say 600 and some number and I think that the traditional answer 613 laws of the

Old Testament No, there's two

That we love the Lord our God with all of our heart soul mind strength. Love our neighbors ourself and then you realize

That that very statement Has a weight attached to it

That crushes the core when you think about the fact that if that's the standard

We haven't met it I I know

I've told this story before and I think some of you may have heard it About the guy who came here that night and told me he didn't sin

Remember that You heard this story there was a guy we were having a

Wednesday night Bible study like tonight But Aaron Bell was teaching so that's showed you how long ago that was he was our worship leader at the time and he was teaching a history of Baptists it was we were doing a church history series and he was doing a history of Baptists So we were in the fellowship hall those before this room was this room

So we're in the fellowship hall one night. He's teaching and this man I've never seen before came in and sat next to me and I actually he came in sat down I went and intentionally sat next to him so that I could just kind of be there and talk with him

Halfway through the lesson he gets up and walks out Well now I gots to know right like yeah, you know without me finding out why you're leaving middle of the lesson

So he gets to the foyer. I walk out behind him and I said, sir I just wanted you to know I'm thankful that you came tonight, and I'm really glad to have you

You know hope to see you again I was just trying to be nice and and and he looked at me stone -faced and sneered and he said

I Just want to know what you guys are all about and I said well

We are about telling people that they are sinners and need a Savior and Jesus is the only

Savior Simple answer right? That's what we're about Telling people they're sinners and need a

Savior and Christ is the only Savior and he said but I'm not a sinner It's like Huh?

Yeah, well I just in that moment, okay Yeah, you are

No, I'm not I'm a saint and the Bible tells me if I'm a saint I'm no longer a sinner and I said well,

I said, I think what you're doing is engaging in a category Error, you are mistaken.

Yes, the Bible does call us Saints, but that does not mean that we are no longer Sinners now in the category of sinner.

We could say we're no longer in the category of condemned for our sins But anyway, we had this sort of back and forth because he kept insisting.

I'm not a sinner. I'm not a sinner and I said, sir Have you loved the Lord your

God with all of your heart soul mind and strength? Perfectly from the moment you woke up this morning to this moment right now

And he said well, I didn't say I was perfect you did you totally did You absolutely did because you said you weren't a sinner

Well, that's not what it means to be a sir. I said yes I said if you don't love the Lord your God With all of your heart and all of your soul and all of your mind and all of your strength perfectly.

That's a sin. I Said and guess what? You never have That's why you need

Jesus now still. Yes, sir It's telling he went to a church Yeah, that's powerful that but Probably true in a lot of places, unfortunately

But I just remember that because this passage always comes to mind when it comes to the issue of sin

If you want to know how sinful we are if we want to know how depraved we are and how much we need

Christ Go to Deuteronomy 6 Read it and if you don't if it don't hit you the first time read again

Because the command of God to love him with all of our heart soul mind and strength and why because he's lovely

Because he deserves our love because he is infinitely Worthy of Adoration and yet we fail

And That's true that's true because that's the next thing right is loving our neighbor and what the first question well, who is my neighbor?

Well We're about out of time. So let me just finish this out because I don't want to leave this hanging the man agrees with Jesus and Then Jesus gives a positive response because he says the scribe said to him you're a right teacher

Which means that he understands what Jesus just said is the truth and He says something he adds to Jesus's words

He says to love one's neighbor as oneself and to love God is more than whole burnt offerings and sacrifices

He recognizes the Old Testament law talks about Obedience is better than sacrifice right it talks about that.

We remember that from the story of King Saul remember when King Saul brought back

Agag and and all of the things from the battle and it well I brought these for sacrifice. No, no No, God didn't ask you to sacrifice.

God told you to destroy it there and Obedience is better than sacrifice. So he recognizes there's something to this right?

There's something to the fact that the love is greater than Even sacrifice that there's something about this.

There's something about this being obedient to loving God and loving your neighbor And when Jesus saw this

He said you are not far from the kingdom of God. I I don't know what that man's face

Must have looked like when Jesus said that But I have in my mind just this idea of this man recognizing two things one

He was right And he was wrong at the same time Because Jesus didn't say you're in the kingdom

He said you're not far. I think about Nicodemus when he came to Jesus he recognized who

Jesus was and we see that because later in Jesus's life Nicodemus is sided with Jesus and Nicodemus is willing to stand for Christ And so we we know where Nicodemus was not far from the kingdom of God.

He is in the kingdom of God But this man, we don't know anything else about him But we know this he was right there

He recognized in that moment. Jesus was who he said he was And you said you're not far from the kingdom of God How many people?

Come to church regularly And they're not far from the kingdom

But they're not in it Yes, ma 'am, yeah the restaurant

Wow Wow That's that's a powerful thing to admit, all right,

I was almost there Wow What a scary thing it would be to be almost there to be almost there

Yeah, exactly, yeah almost there So I hope this was encouragement to you just thinking about what it means to to understand

God's law in light of God's love and and his call to love him and the danger of Knowing the truth, but the truth not being in our heart so Pray this was encouragement to you any questions before we close

All right, John would you mind praying for us Salvation and the gift of getting to know you and being a part of you being in the kingdom

We ask that you be with us as we as we travel home and keep each other safe And Lord as we open this session with petition for the health of so many people

Lord we just echo it again and ask you to be with with all those who are who are sick and close to those who are sick