John 13:1-13

If you're a Bible, John 13, John 13. So we're starting a new series tonight. That's gonna last over the next couple of weeks. It's called Passion, the Week that Changed Everything.

And that we just finished out, Sermon on the Mount, Chapter Five, the Sermon on the Mount. We did that for a few months. And now for the next five weeks or so, we're gonna be talking about the Passion Week of Jesus, the week leading up to Jesus' resurrection. We're gonna be talking about specific stories, just preparing our hearts for that resurrection Sunday, Easter Sunday.

Now, technically, we're really only covering a couple of days, because we're gonna start at Thursday night of Passion Week, the Lord's Supper. And there's a reason why. It's because the Lord's Supper, not only tends to be like the moment in the story of John that is in the middle of the Passion story, but it also gives us a great picture of what the next few hours are going to look like for Jesus. It's gonna give us an insight into the other stories that we're gonna be talking about the next few weeks in Jesus' Passion Week.

Now, if you remember anything about the Passion Week, it starts off, Jesus comes into Jerusalem, and everyone's excited, right? We celebrate a thing called Palm Sunday, that's the week before, Easter, and that's when people are laying palm fronds in front of Jesus, they're celebrating Jesus, they're saying, that means God save us, right? They are loving Jesus, and they are worshiping Jesus, and they think he's gonna be this great military ruler. And they're saying, that God save us, let's kick those Romans out, we're tired of the Romans, I'm being under Roman oppression.

And so all the people thought that Jesus was gonna be this military ruler. Now, we know in scripture that one day he will come back as the ruler of all, that's in Revelation. But this time he's coming back not as a lion, but he's coming as a lamb, a sacrificial lamb, which is what we're gonna see. He is gonna assert his authority and his control and his power in the world, not through might or brute force, but he's gonna accomplish it through sacrifice.

And so we see that in the beginning of this week, everyone's excited about Jesus, and as the Pharisees continue to develop their plan to crucify him and to kill Jesus off because he's making too much of a disturbance, he's changing too many things all at once, we finally get to the point where it's really Jesus and the 12. And the only people to really stick with Jesus throughout the week is his most trusted friends. And what we were probably considered today, family, right? Because a lot of times friends can be like family to us, his closest friends and family, the 12 disciples.

These are the people who've been with him for three plus years, walking with him, learning from Jesus, struggling with Jesus, right? And the harshness of roaming the desert sometimes, they've seen Jesus do his miracles, they've been encouraged by Jesus sometimes, they've been rebuked and challenged by him, but nonetheless it's just the 12 and Jesus up in this room on Thursday night. Just let you know in this short 24 hours, Jesus will be hung on a cross. And there's a lot of events that happen in between there, which we're gonna cover the next five weeks.

So if you had your Bibles, John chapter 13, we're gonna read 15 verses, and if you don't have a Bible, it's okay, we'll have it on the screen for you, does this. Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. Verse two, during supper when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that all that he had come from God and was going back to God rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.

Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with a towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet? Jesus answered him, what I am doing, what I am doing, you do not understand now, but afterwards you will understand. Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet.

And Jesus answered him, if I do not wash you, you have no share with me. Simon Peter then said to him, Lord, then not only wash my feet also, but wash my hands and my head. And Jesus said to him, the one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean and you are clean, but not every one of you. Where he knew who was about to betray him, that was why he said, not all of you are clean.

Verse 12, when he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, do you understand what I have done to you? You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet, where I have given you an example that you also should do just as I have done to you. Now verse 15 says to us that, Jesus has given us an example.

And so the question we're gonna ask of this text is this, what example is he trying to show us? What are the examples of Jesus from this passage that we can take and follow him in? Is it just about washing the feet? Or are there more examples that Jesus is trying to point to and I think that there is?

So Jesus is giving us an example of one of really seven things, six are gonna be found in this passage and then we're gonna go to Matthew 26 to finish out the story later, but there are gonna be six examples from this passage and the first one is this, he shows us an example of what it means to be present. He shows an example of presence. Look at verse one, now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart of this world to the Father. Jesus knows at this very moment, what is about to happen to him?

I don't know if you've ever had a moment where you've been burdened by something, and it's just like you check out like you're physically there, but you're so weighted down by burdens, worry, anxiety, stress, that even people talking to you, like they can tell that there's something wrong because you're not really present. What have you ever had that before? Jesus knows that he's about to die. He knows he's about to be crucified, tortured, spit on mocked, falsely accused.

He knows all this is about to happen to him, and yet what we see is somebody who goes to watch his disciples feed his present with them. I thought of a couple examples to speak of this idea of being present, Amber and I left to watch Top Chef. For some reason, reality cooking TV shows are like addiction at the Salino household. I don't know why, we love them all, right?

Top Chef, we like Hell's Kitchen, but the ones that are muted because they curse a lot in that show, it's word and ramsies, what do you expect? But we love the sets of shows, the shows, and at Top Chef it was amazing. They had a top Michelin, like two star Michelin chef on the show, and she was missing home. She had been away from her family for about five or six weeks.

She was from Alaska, missing her family, hadn't seen her family, and you could tell that she was burdened some by just her family, and she literally checked out, and the elimination challenge was this, make an omelet. What kind of Michelin star chef cannot make an omelet? Well, she can't, why? Because she's thinking about her family.

She is not there, she is not present. I thought about what the effect of that can have on people when you're not present in the moment. And sometimes it can do some damaging when you need to be there and you're not there. You're thinking about something else.

I thought about this thing I saw on Facebook. It was kind of like this journal thing, like as a his journal, or her journal diary entry for the day, and then it had the husband's journal, and I just wanted to read it to you, because it's like super funny. And it talks about this idea of checking out. This is her diary, this is the wife's diary entry.

Tonight, I thought, I don't know why I just did that, because I'm trying to read, you know. And it was if I was a wife tonight, I thought my husband was acting weird. We had made plans to meet at a nice restaurant for dinner. I was shopping with my friends all day long, so I thought he was upset at the fact that I was a bit late, but he made no comment of that while we were eating.

Conversation wasn't flowing, so I suggested that we do some required so we could talk. He agreed, but he didn't say much. I asked him what was wrong, he said nothing. I asked him if it was my fault that he was upset, and he said he wasn't upset, and then I had nothing to do with it.

So just don't worry about it. Now, in the way home, I told him that I loved him. He smiled slightly, but kept on driving. I can't explain his behavior.

I don't know why he didn't say, I love you too. And so when we got home, I felt as if I had completely lost him, as if he wanted nothing to do with me anymore. He just sat there quietly and watched TV. He continued to seem distant, and after finally, with all silence around us, I decided to go to bed.

And about 15 minutes later, he came to bed, but I still felt that he was distracted, and his thoughts were somewhere else. He fell asleep, and I cried. I don't know what to do. I'm almost sure that his thoughts are with someone else.

My life is a disaster. That's the end of her diary entry. His diary entry, and it says this, motorcycle won't start, can't figure out why. That's pretty good, wasn't it?

He completely checked out, I made his wife worry about nothing. And what I really just want to take from this as an example is that Jesus, it's a beautiful thing. Jesus is facing his death. He is completely present with his people.

As followers of Jesus, if you're someone who follows him, sometimes you're going to have major burdens in your life, but it's going to require you to really be present with everybody else. You just can't check out as a follower of Jesus. When someone comes to you with a struggle, with an emergency, as a follower of Jesus, as much as you just want to think about your own problem, you really have to shift gears and say, you know what, you're a problem because my problem now. You need to be present and not to distract it.

And reason why is this because we know God's in control. We don't have to worry about the burdensome things in this life because God is in control. We need to be present. Second thing you see an example of in this text is also from verse one.

And it's this, it's the end of verse one. It says, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. I want you to look at that last phrase. He loved them to the end.

There's two ideas here that are represented here in scripture. The first is this, he loved them to the very end, meaning death. He went to the farthest extent that he could go in this life and that is to willingly die for someone else. That's pretty great love when someone's wanting to die for you.

But there's a second kind of implication here from this word, the example of love, love them to the end. And it's really love to the fullest extent. And here's what I mean. As human beings who are not perfect, we can do our best to love, but will we ever be able to give someone perfect love?

No. There's always gonna be somewhere where we're gonna fall short of giving somebody perfect love. And on the flip side of that, by the way, is that somebody is always gonna fall short of giving us perfect love. And yet God who is perfect displays the best love that could ever be displayed to mankind.

He loved them to the fullest extent. He loved them to the end. He died to bring this love. No greater love was seen than when Jesus dies for his people.

Now let's go on verse two. And I hope you guys see what I'm doing here. I'm just walking you through the text. My job as a pastor is not just to feed you things, right?

My job is to try to help you like, when you go to a text, walk through the pastors, like I'm doing, right? It doesn't take a genius, right? To do this. I'm just trying to teach you how to cultivate this type of reading.

So verse two, it says this, during supper when the devil had already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him. The third example here in verse two, is, no, that's the third one. Sorry, I'm getting lost in verse two in verse, whatever. So example of forgiveness right here.

Example of forgiveness is the second thing. I love this right here because it talks about Judas Iscariot. Now, I don't know if you know the story, but in a few short hours Judas is going to betray Jesus. He's gonna take, he's gonna betray Jesus for actually very little money.

30 pieces of silver was actually wasn't a lot back in that day. He's gonna betray Jesus for some money. And then he's going to lead the whole Roman guard to go arrest Jesus in the Garden of Yosemite. And I love this passage because what it tells me is that Jesus even washed Judas's feet.

Just think about the act there. Jesus knowing already who is going to betray him. It tells us that in the text. He already knows that Judas is going to betray him.

And yet he's willing to wash Judas's feet. I was thinking about the other disciples there. He washes Peter's feet. Peter's gonna deny Jesus three times in the next few hours.

Jesus washes, Jesus washes the rest of the disciples' feet. That when the first inclination of danger, most of them are gonna scatter and they are gonna turn their backs on Jesus. They're not gonna be there at his crucifixion. They're not gonna be crying over Jesus.

They actually go all back to their own jobs. They forget about Jesus. Yeah, he still washes their feet. He washes Peter, James and John's feet in the Garden of Yosemite.

The moment where he asked them, will you please stay up and encourage me? This is very, Jesus most dire hour of need is best friends fall asleep. They're not there for him. And yet he still continues to wash their feet.

And so what I wanna just paint this picture of is just how forgiving and how loving Jesus is here. That even knowing that, he's willing to forgive. I really, Judas by the way, we'll mention it in a brief in the next few weeks, Judas will end up taking his own life because he knows how much he betrayed Jesus. But I really believe even Judas would have been forgiven by Jesus because of this.

Example of forgiveness. The next thing we have here is an example of humility. Look at verse three through five with me. There's three through five.

Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. Then he laid aside his outer garments, taking a towel, tied around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin, began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. Now we don't do a lot of feet washing in our culture, if you do, then it's a little weird, but that's okay.

I'm just kidding, it's fine if you wash your feet. But the reason why was because they wore sandals most of the time here and they would get a lot of dirt on the feet. Have you ever gone to the beach and then he'd walk inside and you're like, oh man, I really gotta wash the sand off. It might be from the beach, I don't tear around the house.

Like exactly it. But what was interesting here is that in this culture, Jews would not allow other Jews to wash their feet because they were like, I'm not gonna let a fellow countrymen do that type of job. So what they would do is they would find the lowest ranking, non-Jew to wash their feet and the thought process was this. Because you are the scum of the earth, you can wash the scum off my feet.

Like that was the idea that because you're so worth nothing, you can actually wash the dirt off my feet. Like that's your job to do that. It was meant for people who had the littlest amount of respect in society. And here it is, Jesus, the Savior of the world who kneels down to wash his disciples' feet.

And here's the coolest part. In verse three, it says, Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands. God, there's different ways to translate this verse and I love this, it's super cool. It could also be translated.

Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his power. That's the idea here, his power, his authority. But it could also, you can flip hands out with feet, knowing that the Father had given all things under his feet. Again, it's this idea of power.

Jesus has all the power. And I love the translation more of feet. And here's why. In Ephesians, it tells us that God gave Jesus all of the already and everything was under his feet.

The idea here is that Jesus, God who uses the Earth as his footstool, he is so powerful, he's so controlling that literally he just puts his feet up on the Earth. That God is the one who kneels down instead and washes the feet of humans, of humanity. I think that's the irony that's trying to be presented here. But the one who would use the Earth as his footstool is the one who kneels down to wash the feet of people who really have no power in them of themselves.

It's humbling. He is humbling himself, which is what's going to lead him to the cross. Philippians 2 tells us he humbled himself to the point of death, even to death on the cross. Not only do we see humility on the cross in a few weeks, we're going to see humility next week in the Garden of Yosemite when he says, I could call down legions of angels and come destroy everyone that's here, but I'm not going to.

That's how humble Jesus was. I think Jesus is calling his followers to follow in that example that listen, it's not about us. I think the number one category that people love to talk about is normally themselves. And so whenever I'm talking with somebody, I normally just ask them a bunch of questions because they love talking about themselves.

It's great to talk about things that are going on. As a father of Jesus though, and I get caught up in this all the times I love talking about myself too, it's not about me, it's not about you. It's about how we serve other people. Like Jesus served other people.

It's how we humble ourselves. Guys, I really believe that's even to the point of death. Next we see here is an example of patience, example of patience. Verse six through 11, I won't read it all, but what I want to point out to you is this, that Peter and Jesus have a really unique exchange here.

If you don't remember, Peter's the guy who's always like talking, like, you know, always making false promises to God, oh, I can do that. He's the one like, oh, I walk out and I walk out and I walk but in Jesus, and then he realizes that the waves are too big, and then he starts singing it down. He is the one who's like, all party, but doesn't actually ever follow through with anything. Like that's Jesus, like I can see him at the Jubilee when they're walking into Jerusalem at the beginning of the week.

Like he's walking down. He's like, yeah, I like Jesus and he's probably doing the whip in the nae nae or something like that. As people are watching from the streets. And then now I was like, oh yeah, I want to deny you three times and then he's going into them nine three times.

He's always the talk, but he never can follow through. That's Peter. And so what Jesus says, his thing to watch, Peter says, you can't wash my feet, that is for lowly people here. And then Jesus says, but I need to, and he says, well, if you're going to wash my feet, you might as well wash the rest of my body.

And the idea here is that he's not understanding, he's not giving the time for Jesus to really prove his point. I love this. If Jesus is basically telling Peter, why are you ruining my illustration? Like Jesus trying to have this moment, right?

He's trying to love on his disciples, and Peter's ruining it. I mean, that's what's happening here. Peter is ruining the moment. And yeah, over and over and over again, you see Jesus giving him patience here by explaining it to him.

You see patience with the rest of the disciples the next few days. You see patience even when Peter denies Jesus. You see patience in the character of Jesus and the court. Extreme patience.

And that's the type of patience that we're supposed to have followers of Jesus. Lastly from this text in verse 12 through 14. He just tells us this, we need to be servant leaders. He shows us what it means to have leadership.

Having leadership is not just about commanding people, but it is serving people. We see that in this text verse 12 through 14. It says when he had washed her feet, he put everything back on. Verse 13, you call me teacher and Lord, which I am.

Verse 14. So you also ought to wash one another's feet. Our jobs as followers of Jesus is to wash other people's feet. Maybe not physically, but it's to find out, okay, what is that in our culture?

What does it mean to serve other people? That's, we can think about this. After this moment, Jesus is going to lead. Go to the Garden of Gethsemane.

He's gonna pray, he's gonna be taken by guards and he's gonna go to his death. This is the last teaching moment of Jesus. And what does he say? Serve.

He doesn't say go out there on the corner and make sure everyone knows your thoughts. He doesn't say go pick it. He doesn't say do any of this. What he says to do is serve.

In his last teaching moment, he says, be there for people with your presence. He says, love them to no end with your love. He says, forgive them. And not only forgive them like Jesus has done, but then wash their feet.

Follow through with your forgiveness and show them a, show the person that you need to forgive, a demonstration that you've forgiven them. All right? Then he says, humble yourself. It's not about you.

He says, be patient with people. He says, lead people to become more like Jesus. Have a servant attitude. We are leading people to become more like and doing the things of Jesus.

And then he says, well, then after this, he's gonna go into a transition where then he says, trust in my sacrifice and Jesus' sacrifice. And so the last example is this, it's the example of sacrifice. This is gonna be in Matthew 26. But before we jump to Matthew 26, there's something, there's one story that happens between this, between the washing of the feet and where Jesus says, this is my body and my blood.

It's really interesting. Jesus is washing the feet of Jesus. And Matthew tells us that right after this, that all that is simple started arguing about who's the greatest among them. Just think about this for a moment.

Jesus, who's showing this extreme example of humility, God and flesh washing the feet of humanity. And yet there they are, they're arguing about who's better at the table, who's greater. I was trying to think of an example, I was thinking just because of this recent Super Bowl. I was thinking about Tom Brady.

I'm not a Patriots fan and I normally refer them to lose, but no one can deny that Brady is an amazing quarterback. I mean, he's just unreal. And I was thinking to myself, what if Brady came over one time and was like, hey, let me show you how to throw a football. And I'm like, okay, I can do that.

And I just said, you know what, I brought Tom? You know, I use his first name, okay? Tom, listen, I had one successful pass in high school, in the middle of a football game when I play football. I don't think I need your instruction.

And to be honest with you, you're probably not as, I mean, you may be a slight better athletically than me, but you know, it's hard to tell Tom, okay, come on, right? No, you would say no, I would never say that because Tom Brady, who's arguably one of the best quarterbacks of all time, is there. I would never say, oh yeah, I'm just as good, or I'm close to being good. And yeah, Jesus is there washing the feet of the cycle.

He's God in flesh. And they're like, oh yeah, I'm pretty good. I'm pretty cool. I might be the greatest among this table.

I mean, just how silly that is with Jesus being there. And I kind of see the situation, from the office that Jesus notched the lonally grabs the bread that we're about to read in Matthew 26. He grabs the bread. And it just does that thing.

Remember when you're in school, and like everyone's talking, and like they're just waiting, like the teacher just sits there silently waiting for everyone to recognize. And then when they finally recognize like, you know, like they all hush down, like the awkward moment. That's what I envisioned in my mind at this moment. He's just listening and just sitting there quietly and just waiting for them to recognize that they are sitting at the table of Jesus.

And here's Matthew 26. As they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed it, and broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, take it, eat of it. This is my body. And he took a cup and after giving things, he gave it to them and said, drink from it, all of you.

Or this is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many, for the forgiveness of sins. But I tell you, I will not drink from the fruit of the vine from now until the day when I drink of it new with you in my Father's Kingdom. Let me just explain a few things that are happening here. First, they're celebrating dinner.

And this is we know from verse one, is what the feast of the Passover. The Passover was a time where the Jews would celebrate to commemorate and to celebrate their deliverance, their ancestors' deliverance from Egypt. Remember that story? The Israelites are held captive.

They've grew numerically large. And the Egyptians, afraid of that, make them their slaves. And after some time, there's a deliverer, Moses, who God picks to deliver the people. And in order to do that, Moses goes with Aaron and he tells a pharaoh, let my people go.

And the pharaoh says, I ain't doing that. Like, who is your God? I've never heard of Yahweh before. I've never heard of that God.

And so what happens? God sends a plague. He sends something devastating to get the attention of Pharaoh. Well, he doesn't do it.

He doesn't release the Israelites. So, plague after plague after plague. Each one giving the pharaoh a chance to let the Israelites go. And finally, the 10th plague, there's a super important.

The 10th plague, God says, all right, if you're not gonna let my people go, I'm gonna resort to the worst plague, I'm gonna send the spirit of death over every house in Egypt. And for those who kill a lamb and spread that lamb's blood on the wood of a doorpost, when the spirit of death comes to that house, it's going to pass over it. Let's go get the term Passover. But for the houses that don't have it, death will come to the firstborn son.

Now, I want you to just think about this for a moment. Think about that and think about what Jesus is doing here. Jesus has been, it's called not only the Passover lamb because he's, and he's not only eating this at Passover time, but he is specifically dying at this moment so that he can show us that that story, Moses and the plagues and with Pharaoh is a foresight to Jesus. Now, when he wrote that story, that story was written, it was a foreshadowing of who Jesus was going to be.

That now the spirit of death passes over, not by the people who put blood of a lamb on a wood of a doorpost, but now the spirit of death passes over, the people who've trusted in the blood of Jesus that was on the wood of a cross. And think about this for a moment, those in Egypt who did not have that blood, the firstborn son would die. The text highlights Pharaoh's new son. So probably under three.

In all cases, this son was probably considered innocent. Did he deserve to die because of his father's mistake? No. But I want you to show you this.

It's an innocent child who dies there and Jesus is an innocent savior who dies. There's a lot of different types of parallels in those stories, but the main point is this. What Jesus is doing here with the bread and the wine, he is trying to show his people that he is fulfilling this foreshadowing type, that he is his Passover lamb, that he is going to die, that his body is going to be broken, like bread is broken, and that his blood is going to be spilled just like the color of wine. But then he says something here as well.

He says, this is the blood of my covenant. I mentioned this a few times before, but a covenant is a promise between two groups or two parties. And in the Old Testament, what they would do is, they would, depending on how big the type of covenant was, like how expansive it was, determine how many animals they would kill, but they would do it. They would take an ox and they would cut it straight in half.

They lay one half of the ox here, one half of the ox here, other animals who split it in half, and then the two people would walk through the center of it together to say, if I don't hold up my end of the bargain, may this happen to me? It's a promise that says, if I don't do what I'm going to say, I'm going to do, you can literally cut me in half. Now bleed all over. What's amazing here is this, who didn't keep up their end of the bargain with God?

Was it God? No, it was us. And yet it is God who says, I'm gonna take on what should have happened to you. I'm gonna take that upon myself, and I am going to spill my blood for you.

That's what is being said here. I just want you to get the idea that Jesus' sacrifice for you came at a great cost. Jesus, God in flesh, loved us so much that he was willing to do this. It's about his presence and his love, his forgiveness, his humility, his patience, his leadership and overall sacrifice.

Sacrifice, the last thing is the act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important. Jesus was willing to sacrifice himself so that we could be saved. Why? Because that was most important.

The humanity would finally have a way to God. We'll see these examples over the next few weeks. We'll see humility in patience in the garden. We'll see forgiveness in the story of Peter.

We will see how far love is extended even to criminals like Barabbas. We'll see how all these are displayed in Jesus on the cross. And we'll see a hope from all these things in the resurrection on Easter Sunday. Be there for people, love them to know and forgive and follow through with action, humble yourself.

Be patient with people, lead people to become more like Jesus. Trust in his sacrifice. Here's my two main goals. If you're a follower of Jesus here, here's what I want to ask you, think about this question.

What do you need to thank Jesus for from this list? Is it his presence in your life? Is it his love? Is it his humility?

Is it his patience? Is it from that list that we talked about that you need to thank Jesus for the most? And if you're somebody who says, I don't have a relationship with Jesus, here's my goal for you. If you were a follower of Jesus, what stick out most to you about Jesus?

What out of those things sticks out to most to you about his character? I think we can all agree that Jesus was remarkable. But some of these things I know are hard for me to do, but I'm grateful that Jesus could do them perfectly for us. In a moment, we're gonna have a time of communion.

And the way that we do it here is that if you're a follower of Jesus, you can come and partake of the elements. We ask them, during the song, you can literally get up any time you want and go. So we don't have ushers or anything like that. Any time during the song, as you feel led by the Spirit, come and grab it.

We do have gluten free on the right. So if you need that, it's there. And you just take it at your will. Pray to the Lord, use this time as reflection on who Jesus is and really prepare our hearts the next five weeks as we go through this series on the passion of Jesus.

It's pray, Lord, we just thank you so much for your grace. We love that you love us. Lord, thank you for your presence. Thank you for your humility.

Thank you for your patience and thank you for how you forgive us and your way you led, your people and your encouragement for us to go and lead. And thank you for your sacrifice. Lord, may we just love you and serve you. Lord, I ask the Holy Spirit, we just fill our hearts with revelation when it comes to things in our life that we need to get straight as we grow in our relationship with you.

Lord, I pray that you would use your spirit to convict us of sin, to encourage us in growing in our relationship with you. But most of all God, I hope that you just enlighten our hearts. I think just of how beautiful Jesus is. Without Jesus, we are nothing.

Without Jesus, this church doesn't exist. It's all centered around the Savior, Jesus. So we love you and are grateful for you. In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.