Holiness & Mercy - Isaiah 6 - The Heart of Jesus

All right, guys. Well, hey, if you have a copy of scripture to all of our campuses, I want to invite you to take it out and turn with me to guess where.

OK, Isaiah chapter six. What a powerful setup we have for this. And so we are going to dive right into it. All right. Let me go ahead and just out the gate, give you the big idea here for this weekend.

Here it is. If you're taking notes in in your book or somewhere else, the big idea is God's holiness grows our understanding of his mercy. OK, can I get can I give you guys a little bit of an insight on a little bit of a fear that I have in a sermon series about the heart of Christ. We're talking a ton about the humanity of Christ, that he has come to us, that he feels that he's a man of truth and tears, that he is drawn to the sufferer and the sinner. And my fear in that is that we've got to just make sure that in talking about the heart of Christ, we don't lose the divinity of Christ. OK, that you understand, like in talking about how he is so near to the broken hearted, we don't want to end up seeing him as less than totally holy and otherly. OK. You know, I feel like sometimes it may be attempting for us to view Jesus like we view a trainer at a gym. It's like, man, they're a little bit stronger, a little bit better shape. You know, they're a little further ahead.

But maybe I could get there if I just had more resolve or something like that. And we sort of think it's like, no, man, Jesus is otherly. He is set apart. Man, the God of this of this universe is holy. That's we're going to get into that moral perfection.

Man, us, you know, us trying to win. Without the blood of Christ covering us, throw ourselves on to God would be like trying to hug the surface of the sun. He is that different than us. He is that holy compared to where we are in our sin. And I think the best way to think about this is this, OK? We need to get to the place where the mercy of God is not diminishing his holiness. Instead, the holiness of God is enlarging our view of his mercy. You understand?

It's like, man, when we see him for who he is, there's loads in our life, this idea of man, even though he is that, he has come for us and covered that gap and he has made atonement for our sin. That's where we're going to go here this weekend. All right. So let's dive in. We're going to be in Isaiah Chapter six.

And I'm just going to walk through. Hey, this is one of those sermons. It's a total belief oriented sermon.

OK, there's not like a bunch of like you need to do this or get in a group or do this kind of stuff or or there's the whole application is, man, how do you view God? How how are you seeing his holiness and how it flows? Directly into his mercy, that when we see his holiness, we might be tempted to try to tamp that down. But we don't need to. We need to see him in all of his splendor and glory and holiness and otherliness, but then be sent running to the refuge of his mercy and grace. And this is how our heart is enlarged and inflamed for him.

All right. Look, Isaiah Chapter six. Let's just we're going to go through a verse by verse. Pastor Gary already read it beautifully.

Let's just go through. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up. And the train of his robe filled the temple. The king is dead. And now we get the vision of a new king.

And I think that's exactly what Isaiah is after. OK, there is there has been a time in Israel's history here. There's a time with King Uzziah where there has been great prosperity.

There has been great stability. OK, King Uzziah, you could go read this. The Second Chronicles 26 was 16 years old when he came to the throne. Can you think of anything scarier in the whole Bible? That a 16 year old little dude coming to the throne. Right. But what God does is he ends up using this a great time of prosperity.

But you know what? As King Uzziah is fading off the scene, Babylon and Assyria are getting very strong. And the freedom that God's people have felt their own sovereignty in terms of being a nation is now being questioned.

And there's a lot of instability coming into the people's light. And that is what Isaiah anchors the people in when God gives him this vision. You know, it's unique in the Bible. That a prophet would anchor the time of his writing in the death of a king. But Isaiah does it for this reason so that we would understand sometimes it is an instability that we get a chance to see the stability of God. One pastor pointed out like this. You realize maybe 100, 110 years from now, every single person on planet Earth will have turned over.

If Jesus doesn't come back. It's very unstable. You understand? It's like, man, everything is always in flux. It's like God's telling us to see the stability of God. Sometimes, and we live this, okay? We live this life in a place like the United States and maybe in the socioeconomic bracket that many of you are in. Sometimes we live a life of prosperity and stability. And that can end up harming our view of God.

It shouldn't. Right? But sometimes prosperity and stability can make it hard to see God. Now, I don't want instability in my life. Right? I don't want the valleys.

I want all mountaintops all the time. But isn't it true, isn't it true, church, that sometimes it is in the valley? Sometimes it is in the instability that we actually get a clear picture of God. You know, Pastor Chris Gaynor, he came and preached for some of you guys that were group leaders. He preached at our group leader retreat in the fall.

So that gives you a mental picture. He's an older guy, but he has teenagers at home. And he was sharing this with our group of pastors. And he was saying, man, you know, I feel like God has really confronted me because, and I was really convicted by this. Because it's like, man, I pray for my kids' faith and then I immediately begin to pray that their life is awesome. Right? And he said, man, he was sitting in his living room and he's praying for his kids and he's praying for their faith. And he felt like God spoke right into his soul and said, Chris, every single week you pray for their faith and then the next thing out of your mouth is you pray that they would have a life where they don't need it.

Right? You pray for them to have faith, but then the next thing out of your mouth is no pain, no instability. All blessing, all the time. And he said, he said, the Lord said, Chris, what if you can't have both?

Then which one do you want for them? Right? That's convicting, isn't it? Now I don't want instability. And I think it's fine to pray for blessing. I really do. I've taught you that many times. Like, man, I think our prayers should be huge in terms of what we want for our life, what we want, you know, to see God do in our life as long as our motivations are pure and it's about his glory. I love that kind of stuff.

Okay. But, man, life ain't always going to be like that. Right? And there's times when we are going to be in an unstable sort of environment and in that moment we have the opportunity. You know, I don't know what it looks like for King Uzziah to die in our day and maybe this is bringing it too low, but I just think about things that maybe shift the sand under our feet. Guys, I think about sickness. I think about people in our church that have been waiting and waiting and waiting on an adoption scenario and it feels like it's never going to work out.

Man, I feel like even things like inflation or fracturing of relational dynamics in a high school setting, maybe among teenagers, you know, what is sort of a destabilizing event in our life? Can we see that? I know we don't want that. I don't want it. I know we don't want it. But in that moment, can we see that maybe we have an opportunity to catch a clear vision that, yes, Uzziah is dead, but God is alive.

Right? He's alive. The king is still on the throne. And actually, you know, he's sitting on the throne, the train of his rope. He's not really all that bothered. He's not in a hurry. He's in a hurry. He's in a hurry.

He's in a hurry. God is filled with smoke. We saw in verse one a real picture, I think, from Psalm 93, actually, that God is filled with majesty and splendor. But then we get to verse two and we realize that he is being praised by the seraphim, by these angelic beasts that are that are coming around him and circling him.

And it's just this beautiful scene. I think the seraphim is one of those things that maybe we don't know exactly what it is, but the scripture gives us a little bit of insight. The literal translation of seraphim is burning, burning, burning, ones.

Okay? And it actually ends, there are places where it almost seems serpent-like. I think the idea is that these angelic beasts are flying and burning and screaming, and many of us have the wrong view of angels when we're thinking of Cupid and a baby and a diaper and wings.

And it's just wrong, right? Most of the time in the scripture, when people see an angel, they're afraid. And this is not even like that kind of picture. It's an angelic beast who is there for a particular reason.

You know, the angelic beasts, there were stories about this in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, different places, where beasts like this would guard Pharaoh or would guard the different guards and all that kind of, you know, gods and all that kind of stuff. But you got to understand something here. These are not guarding anything. They've got their face covered. They're not there to guard.

The seraphim are not there to guard. They're there to glorify God. That's what they're there to do. Man, they're there to shout his praise. And if you were Isaiah, you're getting this picture. Majesty. I mean, you're getting this picture of these beasts are there just to see him and behold him.

And every time they go around, they're saying holy, holy, holy. It's this beautiful picture. It's not the chubby little angel.

Instead, I think the picture and what you get in Isaiah is a little more like you're at the Blue Angels show. Okay. I don't know if any of you guys know the Blue Angels. All right.

I realize some of our younger people don't. There we go. All right. The Blue Angels are an elite fighting kind of jet force that do a lot of trick shows. And this is what they do. 400 miles an hour, 18 inches apart at different times during the show.

Okay. I remember going to these shows when I was a kid and we would go because the Jacksonville Naval Base is out there. We would go out there and your parents bring you out there. And it's kind of cool, but it's also like the scariest thing you've ever been to. I mean, these jets are flying 400 miles an hour in a total death dive right at you.

And they're breaking the sound barrier and the ground is shaking underneath you. And you're six years old and you're just like hiding under a blanket, you know. And it's kind of like, dude, we kind of think about like the little Cupid baby angel. It's like, no, we need to think Blue Angels.

That's kind of more the idea. Actually, Pastor Brian, one of the most theologically astute people in our entire church. Okay. He was convinced that this passage is where they got their name from the Blue Angels.

Actually, that turns out to be wrong. They got it from a nightclub in New York City. Okay. So was it? Was it?

Was it Isaiah? Now, I don't know where the nightclub got its name. Okay. But anyway, don't you understand? And what these angels are doing, y'all, they're hot. What are they saying to each other? Holy, holy, holy. Is holiness, is holy not the word that we use when everything else fails? It's like, man, every time they go around, it's like, holy.

That's what it is. What does holy mean? Holy means morally perfect. Holy means set apart totally. That's what it means.

Morally perfect and totally set apart. It's kind of like you're at a JV basketball game or something and like one side of the crowd is going, we got spirit. That's what we do, right? And they're throwing it to the other side. And the other side is saying it back.

Oh, that's what these guys are doing all day, day and night. And they're saying, man, they every time they come around, holy, holy, holy, no, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy. I mean, it's just this beautiful picture of God and all of His majesty. And we were being confronted with this image today. And look what happens.

I mean, the glory of God is filling the temple and Isaiah is there and he is beholding all of this and he's getting this picture. And then this is what happened. And this is where I want to bring you today, all right?

I want us to see today. Don't we understand, listen, does everybody in here know somebody that has really low self-awareness? Okay, don't raise your hand, all right? But everybody's like, yeah, everybody kind of knows somebody. You know, everybody knows somebody that has low self-awareness, which means that every one of us are probably what somebody else was thinking of, right?

Like every one of us. Harvard Business Journal put out this thing. They said, man, if you actually look at the tenets of self-awareness, about 14% of the population is actually self-aware. You know? And I think that's probably, well, I think it's actually probably pretty generous, okay? Why am I bringing that up now?

I'm gonna tell you why. Because this passage gives us extreme self-awareness. You know, D. Martin Lloyd-Jones said it like this. He said, we are all very, very, we are all on very good terms with ourselves.

You know, that's what D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, we all are on very good terms with ourselves. It's like, man, we see ourselves, we see, man, I'm a little bit this, I'm a little bit that, I got a little bit, you know, God is just, he's like that trainer, you know, he's a little ahead of me, he's a little better, but if I just, a little more determination, and I'm gonna get there. And this passage is meant to show us, like, dude, we're talking about something else.

And when we're actually confronting, this is self-awareness. Look at verse five. I have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. This God is magnificent and great. And when I see him, the ground is shaking, and he's high and lifted up, and he's in all his, Psalm 93, majesty and splendor, and the seraphim, and the smoke is filling the temple. And when I see all that, don't you notice that he doesn't say, wow. He says, whoa. Whoa, whoa is me.

I am undone. This is not a, hey, what's up, God? This is not the 90s subculture little t-shirt for Christians of Jesus is my homeboy. That's not where we're at in Isaiah 6. Where we're at is, I see God and I immediately know the gig is up. Like when I see holiness straight up, everything in my heart is exposed.

And that's what's going on here in this passage. I see myself for who I am. I see who my sin is against.

I see that gap between where I am and where I could never, I mean, it's just all coming to light when you actually begin to contemplate and think about God. How countercultural is this? I mean, this message is so countercultural. We live in a culture that says everything about God affirms everything about you. Like we go look for a God that already agrees with everything we already think.

It's like that's what we do. And here what we have is, no, no, not a God who is there to serve what we think about ourselves and to say, yes, yes, yes, and affirm everything about us. What we serve is a God who is totally separate and otherly. And when we see holiness, the gig is up.

And we know that. Man, when we see moral perfection, when we see that he is totally set apart, man, it changes our view of self. And this is all happening in Isaiah's life. It's all happening in this vision that he sees.

And here's what I want to get into with you. Look at verse six. Listen, this is crushing, right? The holiness of God is crushing. When he says undone, if you get into the language of that, what he's saying is I am coming apart.

I am totally coming apart. Every one of us would be undone in the presence of God if it wasn't. Listen, if the story ended there, we would all be in big time trouble, right? But doesn't end there. Look at verse six. He says, God is holy. And your sin is atoned for. You know, Isaiah realizes without God's intervention, I am absolutely undone. There is a gap here between me and him that will never be overcome by my good works.

It'll never be overcome by me putting in a little more time. That there is a gap that is here. There is such a massive amount of holiness. God is holy.

I am not. He's seeing all of that. And then all of a sudden, he realizes there is mercy. And that's the whole point of the sermon today is that God's holiness. We need to tamp down his holiness because we're talking about mercy. What we need to see is in light of God's holiness, look how grand his mercy is. That Isaiah would feel like a worm in this moment. And yet God would still come to him.

And God would say, man, there's nothing you could do, but I'm going to take it away. And what happens? This angel comes, and it's this great image, right? It's a vision of this burning coal.

And this coal comes and touches. It's supposed to kind of be the imagery of purity, right? And what God is doing is he said, hey, I'm a man of unclean lips. I mean, what are our lips? What are our words? Like, how do you know somebody? You know somebody by their words.

You know somebody by what they say. And what he's saying is, man, the things that we say reflective of our heart, whole sinful beings coming out in our words. So here's what God does. I'm going to meet you in the place of your need. And I'm going to come and I'm going to take away and I'm going to tone for the sin that you mentioned in the unclean lips that is symbolic really of all of the sin that goes on in our life. And I'm going to do that by taking a burning coal from the altar. Guys, what happens on the altar? Think about it.

Think about your Old Testament here. What's this deal with the altar? He don't just go get it from somewhere.

It's like, no, where do you get the burning coal? You get it from the altar. And what is the altar?

We see a little bit of his chapter one, a little bit of his chapter 16. Y'all, the altar is where the sacrifice goes as a symbolic symbol of God saying, one day I will make right what you have gotten wrong. I don't want to do that. Blood has to be shed. I require life for what you have done in your sin against me because of how holy I am and how majestic I am.

But what we'll do is this. And this was the placeholder in the Old Testament, Leviticus. The animal goes down so that you go free, right? The animal will take what you deserve and he will be slain upon the altar so that you will be able to go free. If you want to be atoned for, you know, atoned just means covering.

That's all it means. If you want to have your sin covered, something has got to die in your place. Of course, it was all, of course, a placeholder for Jesus Christ. Y'all, Jesus Christ went to the cross and died for our sin. He was the true sacrifice that could actually atone for all of our sins. It was always a placeholder so that Jesus, the one who could actually stand in for us, the perfect Lamb of God, could do, and that's what he did. Y'all, you think about this. Jesus laid on the altar so that we could stand before God in the temple.

That's what he did. This is how I, and I believe, okay, and it is maybe a little bit of a stretch, okay? I think Isaiah is seeing all of that. And I'm not going to go into it because it would be another whole sermon, but you get into the later parts of Isaiah and other things that he begins to see in the suffering Savior that is going to come. It's like, man, there is a lot going on in this vision. And what we end up seeing, I think, is that he's seeing God on his throne, but he's also seeing God involved in this sacrifice. Now, this is what's interesting.

This is what's super interesting, all right? And you can write this down. All right, John chapter 12, verse 41. What you end up with is the apostle John goes back to the vision of Isaiah, all right? And he goes back to what Isaiah wrote about. And in John chapter 12, what John ends up saying is that he ends up interpreting Isaiah's writing as something like this. He says, Isaiah saw his glory, but when he says his glory, he's actually referencing Jesus. So my question for you is this. We know, and this gets into Trinitarian theology, God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I understand that. But who is he actually seeing on the throne? The apostle John. I would say this, that Jesus is the one that Isaiah is referencing on the throne.

And what that means, now you think about this. What that means is that Jesus is not only the one who is high and lifted up on the throne, but he was also the one who ended up being high and lifted up on the cross. That he was the king, but he was also the sacrifice. He was high and lifted up on the throne. He was high and lifted up on the cross.

Sure, he had a robe whose train filled the temple, but that same imagery and idea of clothes, he would be stripped, and it would be torn, and it would be gambled over. Yes, the very foundations of the temple in this vision shook, but then you also see the earth shake because the heart of God is breaking when Jesus dies on the cross. It's not just this vision of the king. It's this vision of the sacrifice of what it would take for us to be brought back into the family of God again.

You know, this is what we got to see today, all right? Holiness, and it flows into mercy. You see this beautiful picture.

I'm undone. It sends us looking, and what it sends us looking for, we actually find in the heart of a savior who sacrificed himself for us. The only thing that should move us more than the vision of holiness in Isaiah 6 is what it actually cost Jesus to make us holy. That it wasn't just he's holy as a king, but what we see is, oh, he was willing to be sacrificed so that you and I could be brought to the family of God. And that we could have a covering so that we, no matter what it was, that we could have a covering and enter his family again.

Listen, the big application for this weekend is a belief-oriented application at all of our campuses. It's just that we would be moved, that the affections of our heart would be reoriented. I want to call you to praise God for his great mercy in light of his holiness. We don't want to take debate of saying, oh, yeah, well, we're talking a lot about Jesus and his heart for me. And he feels like we've, and all that stuff, and therefore he's not God.

No, no, no. Allow yourself to see the majesty and glory and holiness and then make that next leap. Oh, that God, he came for me. He came to cover me.

And this is what we need to see today. We need to see that in light of him, in light of him, we are, in light of him, we are undone. Woe is me, but for his great grace and mercy in our life. Withholding from us what we deserve for our sin and giving to us that which we did not deserve.

That's grace and mercy. Now, here's what I want to call you to as we close, all right? I want to call you away from the temptation that many of us have, okay? When we begin to feel and understand the holiness of God, universal temptation here. Our temptation is to try to get away from that guilt and shame that we feel over our sin. And many times what we do is in order to get away from that, we want to push down.

The holiness of God. Instead of seeing him for who he is, we got, we got to get that back in a box. We got to push it because I don't want that gap to be that far between me and him. And I want to call you away from that today. I'm going to give you an illustration, but I feel like I've got to set this up just for a second because I know it's on many of your hearts. It's on my heart as well. You guys saw the document that came out this week leaked Supreme Court, the decision coming out, Roe and Casey and all that. And man, I know, I know you're probably thinking about it's heavy on your heart. It's heavy on my heart. I've been thinking about it for months knowing this, this decision's coming out in June. Many of you guys have been following that.

Man, I, you know, I don't know, hear, hear about the leaked document. Here's what I would say, okay? I want to help you try to think about this and make sure you think about it or at least, well, at least let you know how we're thinking about as a leadership of our church, okay? What we need to be thinking about here in terms of, of, of kind of where we're at, cultural moment is that we need to, we need to be a people of prayer right now if we've ever been, okay?

Man, we need to, we need to pray specifically for the resolve of the court to not be swayed in this moment because of backlash and all that kind of stuff. We need to be, you guys know, when we talk about this issue of abortion, we talk about it in two ways at Mercy Hill. And this is how you confuse the world because the world wants to line up, all right?

The world wants to line up and be a voice crying in the wilderness, or they want to line up on the side of compassion. And what we need to do is say, man, we reject those categories. We're going to be prophet and priest, okay? That's what we need to have the voice of a prophet.

And the heart of a priest. What that means is this, we're thinking about this issue. We need to have the voice of a prophet. What I mean is we cry out against such injustice. There's been a grievous injustice that history will judge that God, his heart has been broken, not just for all of these innocent children, millions upon millions, but also for all the lives that have been destroyed through mothers and fathers.

We've got to cry out against this. We need to pray for the resolve of the court. The way that we would say, man, the Bible is clear about where God would be on this issue in terms of life. So we need to be a voice.

I got that. Hey, but we also need to have the heart of a priest, okay? And the heart of a priest is the one who looks in and has a very understanding attitude. Number one, they say, but for the grace of God, go I.

Okay, that's number one. But then number two, they say, man, just because the law gets right, though it needs to absolutely get right, just because the laws get right, man, that doesn't mean that there aren't going to be people in fear-filled, broken situations that are looking for a way out and don't know what to do. And that's exactly where the church shows up, right? So the heart of a priest says, man, yes, we want to make sure the law and the voice and truth and God, all that, but man, we want to be the ones that are there. We want to be there. Man, we want to be there through the pregnancy network. We want to be there with our time, talent, treasure. Like that's where we, in that moment of fear, that's where we want to show up and continue that ministry through foster care and adoption.

Through helping people build their families, through pregnancy network mentoring. I mean, just all of the stuff, man, we want to be there long after. So, man, we're praying that this is overturned, but we're also understanding. This is the way I thought about it. This is what I told my family.

I've been trying to talk to my kids about this. I said, listen, if June comes around, this ends up holding and all that kind of stuff, and Roe and Casey get repealed, what we're going to end up, what our family's going to do is hit our knees, weep, probably uncontrollably. Praise God like crazy, and then get up and get back to work, right?

Get up and get back to work so that our church can be mobilized. Now, here's why I say all that, all right? Because I want to use this illustration, but I feel like we need to understand how to think about these things.

All right, here's the illustration. Here's why I bring it up. Many people in our church have been touched by this and have walked through abortion, and there's such grace for you. There's such grace for you, right?

But here's the deal. If the other reaction is that we want to shrink the holiness of God, that's the way to get away from that feeling of guilt or shame. What we saw Patty do last week was say, no, no, no, man, once I finally kind of understand, what we've got to do is throw ourselves upon the grace and mercy of God because the cross is bigger than all of this, right? The other reaction is to say, man, I've got to tamp down the holiness because I can't live feeling this guilt and shame.

So, man, no names. Public figure came out last week, and here's what they said. I mean, the second the document was leaked, there was rallies all over and all that kind of stuff against, you know, what the court may do. And this is what one woman said with a microphone. She said, and she was talking about in her 20s, how, you know, she had to, she felt like she, you know, had to make this decision because of the plan that she had for her life. And that's the way she talked about it, okay? This is hard.

This stuff's tough. She said, I walk proudly into Planned Parenthood, and I make no apologies to anyone. And then she said this, my God teaches me all about love and acceptance. My God teaches me about privacy. My God says, you've got to make the best decision for your body and for your life, and so I make no apologies to anyone.

Now, this is why I bring that up, all right? I mean, if you see my God, my God, my God, I mean, what the Scriptures says is that we are His possession, not the other way, right? But here is the heartbeat, and this is why I think someone would want to go to the place that she went and why some of us are going to go there today. You have the chance to run headlong into God's grace and His mercy, to see His holiness, feel probably the gift of a little bit of guilt and shame over your sin so that you would run to His mercy and grace. But instead, to get away from that, what we're going to do is we're going to say, no, He's not holy. He does what I say, and what I say He does is He tells me that I'm okay and that everything I've ever done is right and all of that.

And it literally may be the issue of abortion, or it might be that you have a gambling addiction, or it might be that you stepped out on a marriage, or it might be that you have tons of pride in your life or tons of greed in your life or there's secret purchases that are going on and your spouse doesn't know. I don't know what the actual thing is, but don't you understand the temptation is always to say, push down the holiness, push down the holiness. But what we got to do today is say, no, no, let the holiness be what it is and then allow that to enlarge our view of His grace and His mercy in our life. Would you bow your heads for just a minute across all of our locations? Bow your heads.

We're not going into a long invitation here, but I do want to give you the opportunity. Listen, if you're not a believer at all of our locations, you're not a believer today, you know you're not a Christian yet. If you're trying desperately to believe things about God that the Bible doesn't talk about in order to get out of that guilt and to get out of that shame, would you instead see Him for who He is in moral perfection and allow all of a sudden allow that to enlarge your view of His mercy and His grace? I mean, He saw everything you ever did, whatever it is that's on your mind right now that you're trying to get away from the shame and guilt of that, He saw it before the world began and He loves you enough to go to the cross and die for you anyway. He loves you.

He wants you. His heart breaks for the sinner and the sufferer. Would you trust Him today? Hey, admit you are a sinner. Believe in what Christ has done for you on the cross. He was the sacrifice to atone for your sin confess him as the Lord of your life, but believer Same question for you today run to his grace and what are you feeling shame and guilt over today? Would you run to his grace and mercy Would you realize that there is forgiveness at the foot of the cross for every sinner and sufferer today?

Would you allow that to wash over you man? He is holy. He is man his glory He is majestic. He is all that we have seen today and yet it flows directly into his mercy. I Pray you would see that and respond to him Father we come before you today and will we ask right now that you would move in our congregation God, I pray you and move in our hearts Lord allow us just to see you for who you are God every one of us have stuff Every one of us have things in our life that we wonder is the cross big enough. Can you handle it? God, I pray today that you would convince us that your grace and mercy Overcomes all of our sin if we put our faith in you Lord for the believer. I pray that any feelings of shame and guilt would send us running headlong Into your arms into your gracious arms into your merciful arms God in our heart would be enlarged in our loving and in response to you in Christ and we pray amen