You are invited to examine your heart today and ask God to soften any hardness that keeps you from seeing His power. Trust that Jesus has already carried your burdens and covered your shame. You can live in the freedom He purchased for you.
Thank you. Praise God. Oh, I gotta start low. Alright. Heavenly Father God, I thank you.
You deserve all the honor and the praise. You deserve every clap. You deserve every adoration. You deserve our our attention. *Father, I pray, Lord, that your presence* would be known in this place today in a in a more we in a more in a more way, in more.
Lord, grow our capacity so we can receive more of you. There is more to be received. We give you all the glory, all the honor, all the praise. You are the reason that we are here. I thank you, Lord, that I can do nothing.
I can do nothing and you do everything. Everything good comes from you. And so, Lord, I give you all the praise and honor. I lift your name high, Lord, this morning. You are my father.
You are my friend. You are you are my leader. I follow you. In Jesus name, amen. Amen.
I'm gonna stay down here for just a minute. I have some people I need to honor today. And, my parents are here. Yeah. Yeah.
My parents are here. They came down from Michigan. Just very last minute, I was not expecting them to come and I have to honor them. If you've heard me preach before, I have honored them before. You gotta get used to it and let it inspire you to honor your own parents as well.
My parents are incredible. They raised me to love the Lord. They love the Lord. I think a really good way to summarize how I grew up is my childhood dog was named Shekinah. Her her full name was Shekinah Glory Dykema.
And, if you don't know, Shekinah means the the manifest presence of the Lord. And so, you'll see that in the wilderness with the Israelites, there's a pillar that's a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, and it's the manifest presence of God that led them. And so, you can imagine my large family walking through the neighborhood trying to find our dog yelling, Shekinah, Shekinah glory. And my dad taught sixth grade for 30 I should have asked him this, 35 years? I don't remember.
30 some years. He is the most patient man on the planet. Came home to 5 children after teaching sixth grade all day long with just a joy in him and a desire to connect with us and to pour out more of his life when he got home. I would go to his classroom occasionally when he would teach, and all of the students would come up to me and say, I wish your dad was my dad. My mom all my friends would come into my house to get wisdom and advice from my mom.
So, all of my friends are calling my mom and dad, mom and dad throughout my whole life. I'm so honored to have them as my parents, and so I have to honor them. I also have to honor pastor David and pastor Courtney. They have poured out their life for me. They have given me this this microphone, which is wild, and I do not take lightly.
And they have poured into me, allowing me to grow, allowing me to be who I am. Thank you so much. I honor you in my heart. I honor you today. You you are incredible leaders.
You lead our church so well. Thank you. And last but not least, I have to honor my husband. Yeah. I love him.
Yeah. Yes. Gabriel, you are an incredible husband. You are an incredible father. When I first started dating in college, my very protective brother told me, do not marry someone who will not allow you to live out your call.
Don't marry someone who's gonna be jealous or unsupportive. I did not know how important that was going to be until I married Gabe. He is the most supportive husband. I would not be up here without him. I am who I am because I married him.
And so, you're single, don't marry somebody that won't let you do your call. Marry somebody who will push you forward, and you will push forward. Alright? I I love you, Gabriel. Thank you for being my husband.
Oh, I'm gonna tell you a story today. And if you can open to Mark-6 while I set this up. *Mark-6*. I'm really gonna highlight Mark-6 verse 50 through 52, but I I need to set this up and tell you a little bit about it. Jesus had just fed the 5,000.
He took 5 loaves and 2 fish and broke them and gave them to the disciples and they dispersed them throughout a crowd instead of 5,000 men and their families. So, more than 5,000. He fed the more than 5,000. An incredible miracle. And then, it takes us to verse 45.
I didn't give this to to the tech team, so you won't see this part on the screen. But I'm gonna read through this for a moment. And you can follow along with me in your bibles if you have it. It's Mark-6:45. Or just take a posture of listening.
Sometimes I'll close my eyes so I can put myself in the story. But find a way that you can let the story impact you. Immediately after this, immediately after feeding the 5,000, *Jesus* insisted that his disciples get back into the boat and head across the lake to Bethsaida. While he sent the people home oh, while he sent the people home. So so they're going across the lake.
He's sending the people home. After telling everyone goodbye, he went up into the hills by himself to pray. Late that night, the disciples were in their boat in the middle of the lake, and Jesus was alone on land. He saw that they were in serious trouble, which is already a wild thing. The disciples are in the boat and he's on land, but they see but he sees that they are in serious trouble, rowing hard and struggling against the wind and waves.
About 03:00 in the morning, Jesus came toward them "walking on the water". He intended to go past them. Another funny thing. But when they saw him walking on the water, they cried out in terror thinking he was a ghost. They were all terrified when they saw him.
This is the important part that I wanna highlight today. But Jesus spoke to them at once. Don't be afraid, he said. Take courage. I am here.
Then he climbed into the boat and the wind stopped. They were totally amazed for they still didn't understand the significance of the miracle of the loaves. Their hearts were too hard to take it in. There's a few questions that I have when I read that, a few things that stand out to me. For 1, they didn't understand the significance of the miracle of the loaves.
So, what's the significance Right. Of the miracle of the loaves? The other thing that stands out to me is that their hearts were too hard to take it in. Some say their hearts some versions say their hearts were too hard to understand. So, they were lacking understanding because their hearts were hard.
The significance of the miracle of the loaves is that it addressed and displayed the authority given to Jesus. It displayed his power on earth. It displayed who he was. And it was also this symbol of breaking bread and multiplying it, which is what he was going to do through his sacrifice. There was a lot that was happening in that moment that was not received because hearts were too hard.
Did you know that your heart could be too hard to understand a miracle? And that that is the important thing. To the point where Jesus walks on water and they're amazed. They're like, what? Now, I'm amazed by the Lord, but I want my heart to be soft so that I can receive and understand what he is communicating to me through miracles.
That's right. Amen? Amen. I gotta read this too. It's it's John-6:26.
Let's do that. This is similar timing after they get to the other side of the lake. And and the people there ask him, Rabbi, when did you get here? They found him. And Jesus replied, I tell you the truth.
You want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs. But don't be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the son of man can give you. For the for God the father has given me the seal of his approval. They replied, we want to perform God's works too.
What should we do? This is incredible. I'm gonna stop here just for a moment. First they say First, Jesus knows they want bread. Right?
So, they're going to Jesus saying, give us a sign. Give us a miracle. We wanna see it. It's like when you go to the fourth of July and you see the fireworks and you're like, woah. And you think, I wanna see this again.
So, you record it on your phone. Like, you're gonna watch it later. And, *Jesus* is like, that's not how this works. Like, the the miraculous sign, you you should have received what I gave you then, but you didn't understand then. And so, when he says So, when they say we want to perform God's works too, it's like they're saying, well, if you won't give us fireworks, can you give us the ability to do
fireworks? Can we
do that? And Jesus told them, this is how he responds, this is the only work God wants from you. Believe in the 1 he has sent. Amen. This is the work.
We get to *believe* in Jesus. Alright. I wanna tell you my testimony. When I was young, I had asthma and it was real bad. I took medicine day and night, my puffs.
I had asthma attacks, and so I would use this nebulizer, the mask and the loud machine. And I would have asthma attacks from running, and I'm the youngest of 5 kids, so there's a lot of running to be done as a young kid. And I couldn't do that because it would it would start up an asthma attack. And so, my parents taught me to pray for healing over my body. They taught me that that's what Jesus does.
And so, I remember as a young girl before bed praying, Jesus, heal my asthma. And 1 night, there was a healing service at my church. It was an evening service and a guest speaker had come to teach on healing. And so my family went, as my family did. We went to church as much as possible.
And I remember going to the front to receive prayer at the end of the teaching. And, this is so hard to explain. Like, every time I say it, I think that doesn't justify it. I got prayed for. And, I felt this **overwhelming power* of the Holy Spirit* on me.
I began weeping. It was and shaking, and and it was an immense impact on me physically through my spirit. And, I take a deep breath and it was like my lungs popped. And, I took my first deep breath ever. And I was completely healed in that moment.
Completely. *Amen. Glory*. Come on. The teaching that they gave, they said, if you get healed and you are on medication, you should have your doctor confirm it before you stop taking medication.
That was the advice they gave us. And so, I'm on the way home with my family and I realized I have a doctor's appointment scheduled the next day. Like, happened to. Have a doctor's appointment. Just a routine, how's the asthma going?
And I say to my mom, mom, what are we gonna tell my doctor? And she says, well, we'll
tell him the truth. We'll tell him
that that God healed you.
I was like, okay. So, we went
to the doctor and we tell him what happened and he says, alright. Well and he does all these tests to see how it's doing. And he says, I don't know what to tell you. You don't have asthma anymore. Yeah.
And he goes on, you can tell he's confused. He's like, you didn't have the the kind of asthma that you would have like, grown out of. He's you can tell he's confused. And and I'm just praising the Lord. I have never taken medication for asthma since that day.
Never again have I needed it. And I've I run sometimes too. Sometimes. I wanna be specific about this testimony because when I was healed of asthma that day, the most important thing that happened to me in that moment is that I received an understanding of the power of the Holy Spirit and the love of God. Yes.
That was the most important thing that happened to me in that moment. Had I left that day and still had asthma, but received the Holy Spirit, I would have received everything that I needed. If I had been healed and had not received an understanding of the love of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, I would have been no better off. "No better off". That day changed my life forever and now my heart aches for Jesus.
Since that day, I desire him so much. I desire his presence. I know his love. That revelation of his love has impacted me so greatly. And, Jesus, he's after our hearts.
Yes. Is my mission now that everyone would have an encounter with the God who loves them. Yes. That is my greatest desire. And, it is my desire that as a church, we understand the significance of miracles.
Yeah. The first step to that is that we allow God to soften our hearts. I remember as a child, my dad telling me the story of Pharaoh and the Israelites when they left Egypt. And it it impacted me greatly as a child when he was talking about how Pharaoh had a hard heart. He was so full of pride.
And then, he hardened his own heart, and then God hardened his heart, and that blew my mind. And I thought, oh Lord, please do not harden my heart. Please "soften my heart", God. And so, as a kid, my sister and I, we would argue. And, I remember getting frustrated with her and we'd be playing, I'm not playing with you anymore.
We'd go away and I'd go to the Lord and I would say, Lord, I need you to soften my heart. And I would just wait there until he did it. And sometimes I'd have to say it twice, *God*, I really mean it. I need you to soften my heart. And I would just wait until I'd feel my heart soften.
And then I would go to my sister, and I would say, I'm so sorry for what I did. And there's something so loving of the Lord that he taught me that lesson before I was healed of asthma. That happened before I was healed. That he would teach me to have a soft heart at a young age. That he would allow me uncomfortable positions where I had to figure out, is it better to be right?
Is it better to fight about this? Or is it better that my heart would remain soft? And then I'm healed of asthma, I could have been healed and my heart could have been too hard to receive the truth of that moment. But, he had taken the time to allow my heart to be able to receive truly what he had for me that day. Come on.
And so, I was able to, by the grace of God, have a soft heart to receive the Holy Spirit in fullness that day. Amen? Amen. Since that day, that is the number 1 prayer that I pray for myself. When I'm praying for myself, it is Lord, soften my heart because everything that I need will come after that.
Yes. *Samuel-16:7 talks about how man looks at outward appearance, but God looks at the heart*. And this is something that I teach my kids. I have a 5 year old, Isaiah, a 3 and a half year old, Judah, and then a 9 month old, Yael. And my 5 year old and my 3 and a half year old, when they get frustrated at each other and and and they're working through their emotions, I will tell them, mom, I can't see your heart.
That's not something I can do. Only God can see your heart. And we can't even see each other's hearts. Isaiah, you can't see Judah's heart. And Judah, you can't see Isaiah's heart.
But God sees your heart. And I see your actions. And so sometimes I'll see you do something that's not very kind and I say, that's not very good for your heart. And so, we'll take time when they get into arguments and they're figuring out how to do life together, and we'll pray for 1 another and we'll pray, Lord, heal my hard heart. Help me have a good heart.
*Jesus died so that our hearts* could be made clean, so that we could have a soft and responsive heart. Jesus died so that we can walk forward with a soft heart. Yes. And, we talk about that with my with my kids, and and they'll pray for each other when they have to forgive 1 another and they'll say, Lord, I pray you'll soften Isaiah's heart so he stops doing no no's and he does nice things. I have a strong belief that if I can't explain it to my 5 year old, I don't know it.
And, this is just this is just fun. The other day, we were sitting at the table talking about how *Jesus died for our sins*. And I say, what is sin? And Judah says, when you eat fruit, that's sin. And then Isaiah, my 5 year old says, no, when you eat bad fruit.
I really love being a mom. It is the greatest.
Let's look at Ezekiel-36:25. *Ezekiel-36:25*. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols. And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you.
I will take out your stony stubborn heart and give you a tender responsive heart. And I will put my spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations. There's this connection between the Lord allowing our hearts to remain soft and to be obedient. And, there's this this lean towards having a stubborn heart and sin and disobedience. And, the Lord will will push you in the directions that you are going.
You give him a tender heart. You say, yes, Lord, I want that. He will give it to you. He is a good father and he will give you a tender and responsive heart. I'm gonna pray for us for a moment.
If you will, take your hands and put it on your heart if this is something you want to receive. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would break up the fallow ground of our hearts. That you would take out any stony pieces and replace it with responsiveness. Replace our hearts with responsive, tender hearts that we can see you, that we can understand you, that we can know you, that we can love 1 another in the way that you have called us to love 1 another. Father, we give you our hearts and we, in humility, press into more humility.
Thank you Lord that you are good, that you allow us to be removed from sin and separation from you. *Amen*. Amen. I'm gonna set you up for something, but we need to read Ephesians. I'm just gonna read it to you real quick.
*Ephesians-5:13* says, but everything exposed by the light becomes visible And, everything that is illuminated becomes a light. And, James-5:16 says, to confess your sins 1 to another so that you may be "set free". This is a practice that I think is so important. We don't confess our sins 1 to another so that we feel more guilty that other people know. No.
We've all fallen short. We confess our sins 1 to another so that we may be set free, So, that the things that we've tried to hide in our heart that become stony becomes light when we bring it out to the light and we say, here Lord, I give this to you. And, it immediately becomes a testimony of the glory of God and that he sets us free from those things. So, let me prepare you right now. We're doing communion a little differently today and I love doing things just a little different.
So, *praise* the Lord that y'all let me. We're gonna do communion differently today and there's gonna be 3 things that you're going to do at the end of service. So, I want you to prepare your heart and mind to be bold. The first thing that you're gonna have the opportunity to do is in a small group where there is a leader. I lead the altar team.
So, these are all leaders that will be leading this. Okay? Sometimes we just let random people lead. That's great and fine. This time, you will be led by somebody that is a leader in the church through altar ministry.
They are prepared for for today. You will have the opportunity to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. You will have an opportunity for salvation and and you say, I'm ready to give my life to the Lord. You can do that through communion. So, if you're thinking, I need that, prepare your heart for boldness to say, hey, I need that when we get into those groups.
The next thing that you'll do is if you would need healing in your body, you'll say, hey, I need healing in my body. Now, some people get funny about these things. They say, oh, I don't know if I'm hurting enough. If I have a hangnail, I'm saying, hey Lord, what a
great opportunity to talk.
What a great opportunity to receive your encounter today. Right? So, I want you to in boldness say, I want an encounter from the Lord and I want healing in my body. I want the Lord to touch me today. If you need healing, you bring that up in that group.
*Amen*? Amen. The next thing that I want you to do in that group is I want to give you an opportunity to confess your sins 1 to another. That may seem scary for you, but that's why it's important to bring it into the light. The devil will lie to you and say, oh, it wouldn't be good to share this.
Oh, what what will people think of you? People will probably say, hey, I have that testimony too. God set me free from that a year ago. God set me free from that next hey, I actually need freedom from that. Thank you for sharing that.
Now, I'm encouraged to to also be set free from that thing. Amen. We get to support 1 another in this way. So, I want to encourage you to confess your sins 1 to another. Decide in boldness today that you will do that in that group.
If you feel like you can't share it with the group that you're in, at the end, take your leader aside and confess it to them. They are ready to encourage you. They are ready to say, praise the Lord, by your confession, you are set free. What a great moment. Alright?
So, prepare your hearts now for that moment coming. There's such a need for humility to even hear what Jesus is saying. He spoke in parables all the time, these little riddles that people had to figure out what is he saying. And he did that so that those with "hardened hearts", their hearts would become harder. And those with soft hearts, their hearts would become softer.
They would become more humble and more sensitive to the Lord. In Luke-10:21, Jesus says, oh father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding these things from those who think themselves wise and clever and for revealing them to the childlike. Yes, father, it pleases you to do it this way. The pharisees and the religious leaders, they had so much pride they couldn't receive Jesus. They were so hardened they couldn't see the obvious choice was the Lord, a God that would lay his life down for them.
And Jesus often gave people this opportunity to not follow him or to not believe. He would heal someone and then he would say, go and tell no 1. And he did that in the Garden Of Eden too, where he he made a choice, this opportunity to to not choose the Lord. Here's here's all these good trees, but there's this 1 tree you shouldn't eat of. That was this opportunity to create choice.
Yeah. Because God does not manipulate in any way, even though he's the obvious choice. He would not manipulate you into repentance. It would not be real repentance. And he wouldn't do that even through fear or or through even a hope of a miracle.
He simply increases what is there. He allows you to choose and then he increases it by his spirit. *Hebrews-3:7* through 11. You guys keeping up? Yeah.
*Praise God*.
*Hebrews-3:7* through 11. Today, when you hear his voice, don't harden your *hearts* as Israel did when they rebelled, when they tested me in the wilderness. There your ancestors tested and tried my patience even though they saw my miracles for 40 years. So, I was angry with them and I said, their hearts always turn away from me. They refuse to do what I tell them.
So in anger, I took an oath, they will never enter my place of rest. They saw God's miracles. We desire to see God's miracles. I desire so strongly that the Lord's love would be known throughout this church and this county and the whole world. But if our hearts are not soft, it will be for nothing.
And a hard heart, it's tied to disobedience and a soft heart, there you find rest. You find obedience and you find rest. This isn't something we work for, but this is something that that is a surrendering into him. *Jesus*, he he would be so kind, he would draw so many people to him. Crowds came because he was so captivating.
And then, he would say something that would be so offensive to just see if you'll lay down your own human *flesh* thoughts. That's right. I love this section of scripture in John. It's John-6. Sometimes I think if I preach, just might just read the bible the whole time.
I hope you guys read your bibles. Right. It's needed. *John-6:53*. *Jesus* said again, I tell you the truth, unless you eat the *flesh* of the son of man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you.
But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. And I will raise that person at the last day for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. People heard this and they were so offended they started to leave. The crowd was just like, that's weird.
And there's this human bit of me that goes, that is weird. Eat his flesh and drink his blood. That is aggressive. That is quite the image. And yet, he said it and he meant it.
And I think about that often and and I'm not here to discuss the theology of does his *flesh* turn into bread because he said I'm the bread of life or does the bread turn into his flesh? I don't know. But I know I need to lay down my life in this moment and say, I I have to receive the Lord. The response of the disciples is what's so beautiful here. At this point, many of the disciples turned away and deserted him.
Then Jesus turned to the 12 disciples and asked, are you also going to leave? Simon Peter replied, Lord, to whom would we go? You have the "words that give eternal life". We believe and we know you are the holy 1, that you are the holy God. It is right there that you see their humility.
Yes. Where they say, you know, I don't really get it. This is hard. This is a hard 1 to receive, but where else am I gonna go? And that alone will keep you in that place where you say, his thoughts must be higher.
His ways must be higher than mine. That's what the word says. His thoughts and his ways, they're higher than mine. And so, whatever it is, flesh or bread, I'm doing it. I have to.
Where else would I go? Do I have any other option? Can we have some music play, please? Mister Alex Rolls. I have been feeling like the Lord has pressed it on me to look at the cross during worship.
And so I found myself just on my knees visualizing the cross, seeing Jesus crucified, seeing him take everything that belonged to me and and bear it himself. And the visuals that we see of the crucifixion in day to day life on jewelry, statues, paintings. They're so pleasant. They're so appropriate for public, but there was nothing pleasant or appropriate about it. The reason that the pharisees wanted Jesus to be crucified was to absolutely humiliate him.
Crucifixion, it was humiliating and it was slow torture. And I don't mean to be unnecessarily gruesome, but even more so, I don't want to diminish the work and the sacrifice that was done on the cross. And hear me when I say this, this true story is not a story of tragedy, but it is a display of the love of God poured out. When the Lord brought me to do that, he would say, how can you receive what you can't look at? Because I would think about the cross and I felt I felt in my spirit to look away because it felt too intense for me to think about, and I felt like I couldn't get through it.
And the Lord said, just as John-3:14 references he says, just as the bronze serpent was lifted up to bring *healing* to those dying of poison, so Jesus was lifted on a cross to bring healing and life to all poisoned by sin. The Israelites, they were not healed by works, rituals, or self effort, but by faith filled focus on the object that God appointed. And so, in the same way today, we are healed, body, soul,
and spirit, by looking to Jesus, our substitute, our our redeemer, our healer.
In the wilderness, they had to look upon the serpent. They had to look and that was that was how they were healed. That was the remedy was to look. And so, how can we receive Jesus if we don't take a moment and "look at him on the cross"? We don't know much about Jesus before the age of 30.
But, by the time he was 30, it it's pretty clear that he knew what his purpose was. He came as a baby, so he he didn't come talking. So, at some point, he had to learn what his life would lead to. And I wonder at what age did Jesus know, did the spirit reveal to Jesus when his family would celebrate Passover every year? Did he look at the lamb and say, that's me?
At what point as a young boy did he did he take the blood that was spilled out from the lamb and paint his own doorpost and say, this is my blood? I wanna take a moment of focus on this. If you would join me and close your eyes. If if you need to get on your knees, you're welcome to do that, but but we need to close our eyes and just look at the sacrifice that Jesus made in this moment. In the Garden Of Gethsemane, Jesus said, "my soul is crushed with grief" to the point of death.
It describes Jesus in extreme anguish praying and in intense stress
till the point that his sweat came like blood. And Jesus cried out. He said, Abba Father. He said, dad, everything is possible for you. And he meant that everything is possible for the Lord.
And he said, please take this cup of suffering away from me. *God* could have done that. He could have taken the cup of suffering from his perfect beautiful son
But he didn't
because there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friend. And so Jesus was this display of a no greater love. And God did not remove the value on your life by removing the suffering from Jesus and instead he left it there. And Jesus says, yet I want your will to
be done and not mine.
And this was the moment that the cross was settled in his flesh. As Jesus learned *obedience* as a man through suffering. This was the moment when the full weight of what he was about to endure bore down on his soul, his emotions, his mind, and his will. Jesus overcame and demonstrated the utmost obedience by submitting his will to the will of his father. By the leading of the
*spirit*, he said, I want your will to be done
and not mine.
Then Jesus was arrested and all of his followers fled in fear leaving him utterly alone.
Jesus, you were betrayed so that my betrayal of you would be forgiven. You were deserted so that I would never be alone. On your darkest day, 1 of your closest friends denied he ever knew you so that we could always have a friend that knew Jesus. Jesus was bound like a criminal and taken so that I would be set free of all the laws that I ever broke. So that I would no longer be bound and I am set free from my sin.
He was bound. He was blindfolded. He was spat on. He was slapped and mocked so that I could see clearly, so I would be made clean and without blemish and given honor as a son and a daughter. Crucify him, they yelled.
They beat him until he was unpleasant to look at. A disgusting sight of the most holy being. Roman soldiers flogged him with a whip embedded with bone and metal. This tore his flesh, opening his back with 39. And yet Jesus said through the prophet Isaiah, I gave my back.
He gave his back. This was the payment for our pain, for our sickness, for our diseases. It was by these stripes we were healed. After Jesus was beaten almost to death, he was forced to carry the cross until he collapsed under the weight.
He carried the weight of our burdens so that our yoke is now light.
He carried our worries. He took upon his back our rebellion. *Jesus*, you were stripped of your clothing. You were naked. A deep public shame so that I would be clothed.
You were treated in a way to torture and dehumanize you.
You took all shame from me, bearing it for me. You covered our nakedness.
When Adam and Eve sinned, the first thing they realized was that they were naked and felt shame. And you came and you were naked on display so our nakedness could be covered.
Lord, you clothed me in righteousness.
You were nailed through your hands and your feet and hung on a cross, king of the Jews. You were mocked and given sour vinegar to drink when you were thirsty. And on that dark day, *Jesus* cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He bore the weight of sin and separation. Spiritual agony beyond comprehension.
*Jesus gave up his soul so that my soul could have life*. Jesus, you took the crushing burden of
death, hell,
and the grave so that I could live in unity with my father. *Isaiah-53:5*, but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. And "by his stripes", "we were healed".
Thank you, Jesus. We look upon you, Jesus, with your **"crown of thorns"** and we glorify you in our hearts and we receive the "full sacrifice" that you laid out for us. You are worthy, Lord, and we receive you, God. Amen. In a moment, I'm gonna I'm going to guide you so that you can get into groups and receive communion as a church body.