Where to Look for Love

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A. Craig Troxel
Just introduce myself very briefly. I’ve been a pastor for 25 years up until about a year and a half ago, when I became a professor of practical Theology at Westminster Seminary in California. I’m a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And so I’m here representing ws see the OPC. And also crossway, my publisher who took a real chance on me, you’re probably saying, no kidding. Let’s begin with prayer. Gracious God, and our Father, we come together as your children, in this place at this time to sit at the feet of our true teacher, the Lord Jesus Christ, come to drink at the well of his grace. And so we asked for your spirit, to teach us from Your Word, that there’ll be a holy agreement between your truth and our hearts even as we learn about our hearts. This we pray in Christ’s name. Amen. So as you well know, the Lord Jesus Christ was asked, What is the greatest commandment in the Bible? And he answered by saying, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and your strength. Each and every Christian knows this commandment. And our Lord made it very clear, this is the greatest commandment, this is the most important business that is before us. And so as we think of this commandment to love God, with just this particular phrase to love him with all of our heart, you might be saying, well, I know what the word heart means. If you have no heart, it means you’re cruel. If you have a heart of gold, it means that you’re kind of wear your heart on your sleeves, it means that you are obvious. If you put your heart into it, it means that your passion is obvious. If someone says to you, well, at least your heart was in the right place, means you messed up. But you meant well. When a friend speaks to you from the bottom of their heart, they’re telling the truth. When your children come to you and say, I crossed my heart, it means they just might be telling the truth this time. If your team showed hard, it means they rallied. If they lost heart, it means they gave up. It also means your team is a Pittsburgh Steelers. My wife is from Philadelphia. So it’s a loyalty thing. If you gave your heart to a girl when you were young, was because you’re in love. She was not. And so like Billy Ray Cyrus, you have an Achy Breaky Heart. Or worse yet, like Johnny Cash who sings in the Folsom Prison Blues, you flush me from the bathroom of your heart. I have no idea what that means. But because Johnny Cash thing it is extremely cool. Better than them is Sia. She’s got a thick skin and an elastic heart. I’m still trying to figure out that music video was trying to buff I don’t know how to destroy his career. If you’re a preacher, you know that you’re wholehearted on Sunday. You are light hearted on Monday, you’re faint hearted after congregational meeting. And to the worship team leader, you are cold hearted. On our bumper stickers, we have I heart fishing, I heart, Leonard Skinner, I heart particular redemption. So everybody says we understand what we mean by the heart. But many people see the heart primarily in terms of emotion, that the heart is more about feeling than thinking. And there are many Christians who would would pose the heart against the head they would put them into into tension. As with Plato, and Nietzsche, the Corinthian church, and there are many Christians perhaps would be comfortable with the following conversation. The 10 men said, but brains are not the best thing in the world. Have you any? inquired the Scarecrow? No, my head is quite empty, answered the Woodman. But once I had brains, and a heart also so having tried them both, I should much rather have a heart. We hear people say listen to your heart, which has now become a maxim etched into cultural granite in our world.

A. Craig Troxel
But how do these these views map on Scripture? What does the Bible mean when it speaks of the heart? And again, the heart is immensely important as a word in Scripture. This is the most often used word in Scripture to describe our inner self. Scripture speaks of the inner life as soul, spirit conscience. Paul talks about the inner man, but heart is the most often used Word and appears 981 times Bruce Waukee Old Testament scholar says heart is the most important anthropological term in the Old Testament. I think this is true in New as well. So we have all these words to describe the inner life. But the thing that sets apart heart what makes it different is that it is nuanced, it reflects more complexity that we find within. It’s like the word snow in English. That white stuff that falls it can be freshly fallen, it can be crusted, it can be thin or deep or fine, or wet or soft or heavily compactable. Ideal for snow balls, we just use one word snow. But in the Yupik language in northern Alaska, they’re in northern Canada that uses multiple lexemes. To describe each of these nuances of texture, and types of snow hard is the same thing in the Word of God. It carries a variety of distinctive nuances. So the heart does two things simultaneously in the way it’s used. The Scripture captures the unity of who we are within, but it also reflects the complexity of the inner self. So on the one hand, it is simple enough of a word to reflect the unity and the integrity and the totality of the inner self. Abraham Kuyper put it this way, he says it is the point in our consciousness in which our life is still undivided, in lies comprehended in its unity. To get straight to the point, Proverbs 423 talks about the importance of keeping your heart Why is it so important? It says for from it flow, the springs of life, everything of your life flows from this one central point. So we can say at the heart is the control center. It’s the driver’s seat. It’s the helm of the ship. As goes the heart. So goes a person. So on the one hand, the word heart is useful because it’s so simple, it captures that unity. But on the other hand, where it is different from these other words to describe the inner life is it’s comprehensive enough to reveal the threefold complexity of the inner person. And this is verified by modern biblical scholarship again, let me just quote priests walkie no other English word calm combines the complex interplay of intellect, sensibility. And we’ll we’ll come back to those categories in a moment. This was the the bread and butter of Puritan theology of the heart. You find this in John Owen look in volume six of his works, especially a temptation, and then mortification of sin. Richard sibs and Bruce read. Stephen Charnock Johnson Edwards used to very, very similar grid as well, this is not something that’s novel. It’s not something that’s particularly profound. It is something there, though, in our tradition in the reform family. So it’s this comprehensive part, this complexity, I want to take little time to kind of spin out for you. Because it’s obviously important if we’re going to love the Lord our God with all of our hearts, if we’re going to follow Jesus, with all of our heart, it means that it’s not just from this point of unity, but to to honor this complexity of who we are within. And it’s threefold fold capacity, the heart is found in these three things, the mind, the desires are what the Puritans called the affections and the will, the mind the desires, or affections, and the will. Or to put it another way, it’s, it’s what you know, what you love, and what you choose. So first of all, the mind is what you know, we tend to think of the heart primarily, again, in terms of feeling.

A. Craig Troxel
But Scripture, this is particularly true in the Old Testament with the Hebrew word slave in the VAV. It’s it, it describes the intellectual life of a believer, our thinking, our planning, our understanding, our imagination, our memory, our wisdom. So for instance, Psalm 139, Search me, O God, and know my heart. try me and know my thoughts, hearts and thoughts. They’re interchangeable. Matthew nine, for Jesus knew their thoughts. And he said, Why do you think evil in your hearts are Ephesians 117? May God give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your heart enlightened, are in Hebrews 412, unknown, well known passage about the Word of God, that is sharper than any two edged sword, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. There are many scripture passages we could read, show this as a case perhaps another example a little bit contrary to what you would expect is that in the book of Proverbs, anytime you see the phrase lacks sense. Like proverbs 632, he commits adultery lacks sense. If you look at the Hebrew underneath the translation is a word lacks heart. So often in Scripture, we see that the heart is is that place where thinking takes place, heart and thinking are not intention. As I was going, as I said, they are blood brothers. The second is the desires of the heart, the affections what you love. And this, of course, is getting at what you want, what is it that you longed for? What do you seek? What do you crave, using the language of hunger and thirst, the Old Testament, the psalmist, uses this language to describe the zeal that that he has for the Lord. And I’m simply asking the question, what is it that gets the very best of your, of your energy? Where have you invested yourself emotionally? So in Matthew 621, when our Savior says, for you where your treasure is, there, your heart will be also? What is it that you most treasure, it’s what you most desire. Now, in Scripture, that word desire in itself is a neutral term, you have to look at the context to see what it means. So desire in Scripture is not necessarily bad. But it’s not necessarily legitimate. The Word of God says there are desires that can be healthy, some desires that can be unhealthy, some that are mature, some that are childish, some that are beneficial, some that will destroy you. And so there are desires that have to be subdued, some that need to be encouraged, some that need to be smothered, and some that need to be fanned into flame, the issue is the object of those desires. Or the amount of that desire is John Freeman has said that our desires are wrong when they are out of bounds, or out of balance. So for instance, Exodus 2017, You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. It’s actually the word desire. So context, or, and Luke 22, I have earnestly desire to eat this Passover with you, our Lord and Savior, obviously, it’s a good desire. So it depends upon the contexts. But those desires sometimes can get out of control. We call that idolatry, and idolatrous desire, or we could call them Uber desires is when you can’t control yourself like this conversation, Lord of the Rings, where Marissa said, Why did you look why do you always have to look and Pippin says I don’t know I can’t help it. There. He said, You never can. Any Christian can understand that conversation. And so many times when these desires are met, or when they are denied, we either feel joy or feel anger, we either feel excitement or envy, or anxious fear or, or sorrow or anguish or contempt. And this is why we rightly associate emotion and feeling with a heart because when our desires fine with it as they want or when they are cut off or denied those things, we feel these profound emotional reactions. And this is this Laurel visceral category in Scripture to describe where we feel things. So second only to the heart and Old Testament is the word liver. Many times the Old Testament in this translation where it says The Lord knows the heart and the mind. If you looked at the Hebrew, it’s hard and liver. So if you like a literal translation, be careful what you wish for. Might be a little more graphic than what you want. Like in first John 317 When John says if you see your brother and you close your bowels to him, how can the love of God be in you? So you’re grateful that we somebody put heart in there and not bowels, if you restrict your bowels we consider that actually an act of love in public. But this is a conference we don’t need to get so graphic. But you can feel for the transfer of trying to say these are the things where we feel things

A. Craig Troxel
you can take me to the spot in that room with that film when you got that one phone call. And it sent you to your knees and you felt it right here that shock that news or moral repulsiveness or love some of 88 when I fell in love with my my wife, she just didn’t know it. Then I put on her plane to say goodbye the rest of the day on the job. We’re framing I keep looking down for this hole. Right here thinking physically I would see something and it was was love I felt. This is part of the heart as well. So there’s a mind what you know the desires, what you love, then there’s a will what you choose. This was a big deal to the reformers. Calvin starts talking about this in chapter one of the institute’s this is your decision making function of the heart, your volition, your resolve. Are you going to submit or resist? Are you going to say yes? Are you going to say no, like Joshua Choose you this day, whom you will serve. And this is where the battle for control is won. Or it is loss of control for the heart depending upon the weakness, or the strength of your will whether you’re lost or born again. Because you see that sinful will in Scripture is described as something that is profoundly rebellious and stubborn, think of the heart and heart of Pharaoh. And yet that same heart can be weak and enslaved temptation and sin. It resists God with all of its might and yet it it caves powerlessly. as it seeks to resist temptation, then there’s a righteous will, instead of being a hardened heart, it’s a broken heart in Scripture, it’s a heart filled with repentance. And yet, it’s a heart that is established and strong, filled with courage, and is free. And this is where we see whether beliefs and knowledge have seeped down into the marrow of our bones. Richard Sibbes appeared and said, it’s not sufficient for judgment to be right. It must also be ready and strong. There’s more to it than just knowledge. That reset point of conviction that you’ll stand by it. I lived in Alaska for three and a half years after college and every Alaska knows what you are to do. When you meet a grizzly bear. There’s like this protocol of these three steps when it comes to the point where the grizzly bear is chasing you. Every Alaskan knows, you go down, you get in a fetal position. We all know this. That’s not the issue. The issue is, what are you going to do when it happens? Do you have the resolve to stick to your convictions? Or do what I do, I just kept with friends who ran slower than I did. So all your heart means your mind and your desires, and your will. All that you are I’ll let you have to lay it before Christ, I will follow you. And of course some of his favorite one of these categories of the others. And we have to be mindful of this and be self aware of some of us when it comes to the mind. We are very prepared to intellectualize the faith and make sure it’s compartmentalize. So it never touches anything practical in my life. And some of us to be candid or lazy. And to be anti intellectual, or to push away doctrine is easy for us. Where there’s the desires of the heart, some of us are just way too prone towards self indulgence. We never want to deny ourselves anything that would be scandalous says the world to deny yourself something that you want. And some of us tend to be legalistic, perhaps raised in a tradition where if it’s really fun and feels good, well, obviously a sinful we’ll come back to that in a little bit. Then there’s a will some of us very strong willed and stubborn we have a hard time admitting when we’re wrong. And those of us who are weak willed, always afraid, never established in our faith. And some of us have weaknesses and strikes here we need to consider these things. But that’s not even the beginning. Because then there’s our sin. The sense of the mind. The most popular word in Scripture for sin means to fall short, and it means that you and I know better. But we fall short of that standard. We know exactly what God requires of us, but we don’t exactly meet it. And as we think of Sins of the mind, there there are those secret thoughts are lost or fantasizing. That anger that’s maybe not being expressed but as smoldering.

A. Craig Troxel
And then Jeremiah 79, the heart is deceitful above all things, we are constantly fooling ourselves about how strong we think we are. How humble we think we are, how right? We think we are in the sins of our desires. iniquity is a word that means to prefer the means to take something that is straight and the twisted and contorted and make it crooked, or something that was pure and it was good, but but we corrupted it. And that’s exactly what we do with our desires. Many times there’s something that God meant for to for purity to be used for something good and noble. And we pollute it. We make it dirty. And there’s a problem of the will. And here we think of the cluster of words God gives to us to describe sin as transgression. Rebellion. This is the favorite scriptural word for a revolution to overthrow the authority the one above me it means that that brazen defiance of the one who has the right to tell me what to do with means to dig in my heels in that stubbornness and that rebellious Ness or perhaps the more cool way, the more subtle way is passive aggressiveness, it’s still aggressiveness, still rebellion. Those times in which we are weak, and enslaved, we lack self discipline, or self control. I wish I had time to do just speak of the ministry of Christ. I talk about all these things, but I just want to address one of them because of the time this morning or this afternoon rather. And to make sure that we leave I can drill down into one of these areas of the threefold capacity of the heart. And think about how this one particular area can be devoted to Christ, and how we can give to him all that we are. But I would encourage you to think carefully about these other categories and the search the Scriptures and to think upon, what does it mean to obey Him with all of my heart this is one of the Puritans said, If you’ve not given to Him your heart, what have you actually given to him? This is what he wants. I mean, he wants everything until we’ve given to him our hearts, what have we given to him. And so I’d like now to take the rest of our time to, to focus upon one particular passage that comes up in the Beatitudes, where a savior says in Matthew five, eight blessings are the pure in heart, for they shall see God Blessed are the pure in heart, and this is one of those those words that pure in which we could, we could understand it to mean what means to be clean. And of course, the the word that’s used here can have that, that meaning, but that’s not what’s meant here. And I think it’s helpful to look at this, to appreciate what’s being said about a pure heart. The word pure is as using heat being used here by our Lord, it means something that’s not divided or something that’s without mixture. In other words, pure means is purged of its contaminants. So it there’s nothing extraneous, or there’s no unnecessary ingredients that remain. So think of the fact that many of us are carrying around these plastic bottles of pure spring water. Many times the labels say that or jacket 100%, pure wool, or hamburger. Here in United States, we prefer 100% pure beef, I was in England one time, and I found out that you can actually have a little bit of a horse meat in there, and it’s still considered beef, as remind my friends, horses are for writing, they’re not for eating. So 100% Pure, as we think of the temple, the temple was overlaid with with pure gold, the incense was a pure mixture that was consecrated unto God. Or think of how Scripture describes our faith. That pure faith is not mixed without. But because it is it needs to be constantly refined. And we see this in first Peter one six, says we have been grieved by various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith may be tested, like gold tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory, in honor and what’s being described there as the same process that Isaiah speaks of in Isaiah 125, where he says, I will smell to weigh your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy. And so the same idea is found here and the purity of the heart. So like in faith, and First Peter one and Isaiah one, the idea there is to you take metal and you heat it up and heat it up until the impurities rise to the top and you scrape off all that impurity, all that dross so that the metal that you have left behind is either more valuable or it is more strong. And what Our Lord is describing here is a pure heart is one that is not distracted. It’s not compromised, it’s unified. And it has it has a singular devotion.

A. Craig Troxel
Say my dear is found in James for a purify your hearts, you double minded. You have two hearts and make a choice. To me, it’s not having divided loyalties. This is what Elijah said. What meant when he said How long will you go limping between two different opinions if the Lord is gone? Follow him if bail than follow him. So a pure love is is one that’s not distracted by by faults loves or lesser loves or idolatrous loves. Psalm 24 Three Who shall ascend the hill the Lord He who has a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what his faults are? Think of Psalm 73 How many times have you prayed this Whom have I in heaven, but you there is nothing on earth that I desire and besides you, you are my one desire. Or Luke 10 When our Lord is instructing Martha and Mary says, Martha says you’re anxious and you’re troubled about many things. He’s saying right now your heart is so divided. But Mary has chosen the one thing the one necessary thing that good portion that cannot be taken from her she comes with a with a pure heart. John Newton wrote it this way to it means to be simple hearted. It’s to have one leading aim one deliberate, unreserved desire, one great devotion to which everything else is subordinate, that has no rival rivals. And the reason this is so important is because there is nothing else but Christ. There is no one else. It’s him alone. It’s like in the conversation between Aslan until in the Silver Chair. Browsing says if you are thirsty, you may drink or you’re thirsty. I’m dying of thirst, said Jill, then drink. So the lion will you promise not to do anything to me. If I come as Joe, I make no promise, said the Lion. Within I do not come and drink, said Joe, then you will die of thirst for the lion. Oh dear, said Joe, I suppose I must go and look for another stream, then there is no other stream, said the Lion. There is no other way. There was no other life. There was no other food that satisfies there is no other living water than what you can find in Christ, there is no other answer to the empty way of life. There is no other name in which you and I can find salvation. He wants all of us. And he wants a pure heart. But that raises the question then. So if we think of the heart this way, then what is the goal? When it comes to the desires of our heart, what does it mean? Well, the goal is not to have no desires are feeling at all. That the goal then is to distinguish or to extinguish our desires. But to remind you, this is the Christian faith, we are not Buddhists. We’re Nirvana. Nirvana is the goal to enlightenment, no desire, that’s the goal, no desire, or to become stoics will become Vulcans. Maven, sorry, I know what that means. So often, we hear somebody say, if you don’t feel like doing the right thing, then do it anyway, just Buck up. And there’s that’s true. There’s many things which that’s true. If you don’t feel it, if you don’t have the desire, you should still be obedient. That’s true. But it’s not the end of the goal of the Christian life to have no joy in our Christian life. It’s all bear duty. And my heart is not yet where it should be. If loving, my wife is on duty, something’s wrong. Something’s deficient. The goal is to have holy desires that become inflamed and become stronger. And they trumped those sinful temptations, from my heart to be controlled by that one simple point of, of godly desire that burns for Jesus Christ. And it burns more and more and more. It’s a good illustration of this that we see in Greek literature. You’ve heard the sirens, who sang and would Lord lured sailors to their death by singing the songs and lead them to skill in the Kryptos who would eventually kill those sailors. But there are two figures in Greek history that made it through in Greek mythology, I should say, when was Odysseus. And you know what he did, he stopped up the ears of his men, and bound he was bound to the mass so that when they went by the sirens that his men would continue to row and he could hear the song he could have his cake and eat it too, as it were, he lost six men, but that’s a technicality doesn’t serve the illustration of my talk.

A. Craig Troxel
But then there’s Orpheus and Orpheus gained the better way. Orpheus is considered the greatest of all Greek lyricist, and singers. And he was traveling with Jason The Argonauts. And as soon as they began to hear the song of the sirens, Jason began to sing. And he sang sweeter music than the sirens his song and chanted the men. But the more alluring song so at the ship passed by not only in safety, but all those sailors disdaining the song of the sirens. There is spiritual battles you and I can win by restricting our bodies like tying ourselves to a mast or perhaps limiting our access to certain forms of temptation, putting wax in our ears. And those things actually may be very important at certain times. But in the end, that’s not going to win the battle for us. It’s much better for us to get to the point with our heart that we hear the song of Christ is something sweeter. Than then all the impure songs were singing around us. It’s more important that the song of my wife is is more sweet and more endearing to me than the songs of other things around me that would tempt me. The world that desires will not satisfy they will not last and we have to learn that lesson again and again, that’s only Christ that offers us water that can quench our thirst and, and food that truly satisfy us and desires that can fulfill our hearts. The goal is not to have to desire less, but to desire more and more what is good and what is pure, so it will triumph over what is impure. I think CS Lewis put it well, he said it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition. When infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of holiday at the sea, we are far too easily pleased. This is exactly what God promises to do to renew our hearts, to purify us so that we would think and say and love and want and to will, what he wants and what is pleasing to Christ. Philippians two tells us that work out our salvation with fear and trembling, but the only weak way we can do that is because God is at work in us to work and to will, what His good pleasure is to desire it to want it and to want to want. So that means we need the Holy Spirit to constantly be teaching us even through trials, purifying our faith, through all of our failures of falling before false desires and false gods for him to constantly be recasting our hearts to love what God wants to love what God loves more

A. Craig Troxel
and more and more. So as we love God with all of our heart,

A. Craig Troxel
it overwhelms everything else. It makes everything else repulsive. This is his promise in us for our sanctification. But this is not the solid rock of our salvation.

A. Craig Troxel
He calls you to be about this work of trying with all of your mind with all of your will with your mind you and all your devotion to Him to continuously seek Him and to have your desires recast. This is the work of sanctification. But this is not your salvation, you cannot earn your salvation this way you cannot attain that pure heart that will turn his attention or when him favorably towards you. That’s not the rock upon what you’re building. At the end of the day, our ultimate comfort is found in Christ. Because even as Christians are many times we walk into public worship, and our hearts are wracked with guilt and shame. We can feel we can even get the sense of the fragrance of the filth of our flesh, and the pollution of our sin. Every day we we sense that nearness of our lost, and our anger, and our pride, and our selfishness. And we can feel the world lingering in our hearts. But how does God see us as those who confess Christ? Who’s those who are constantly casting ourselves upon him? Because we do see our hearts and we see what’s there and we see what is not there?

A. Craig Troxel
What does God see? God never sees you outside of his son. You and I are inseparably united to Christ by a bond that cannot be broken.

A. Craig Troxel
Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Because of you’ve cast yourself upon Christ, if you confess Him as your Savior and Lord, it means that you and I have been crucified with Him we have died with him and been buried with him and raised with Him we are forgiven of our sins. In Him we are accepted as righteousness sight. In Him, we are heirs with Him. And it also means we are holy in him, that your life is now hidden in Christ and united to all of the virtue and the merit and the assets and the blessings. And the excellence of Christ is one for you, and that the Holy Spirit has applied to your heart. But the one that Father looks upon all those who trust in Christ, the Father sees his son. And he sees the perfection of his obedience and the beauty of His sacrifice and the victory of His resurrection. And he sees the purity of his son. There’s nothing that can separate us from the love of God and Christ. And so also there’s nothing that can separate us from the righteousness that we have in Christ by faith. Nothing can separate us from the holiness and the purity that we have in Christ. Because when the father looks upon his son, and he sees his motives when he sees his zeal and his heart and this love that rose from a heart that was so pure, he sees that singular love that would obey the father to it to the end. Love so deep and committed that he would suffer so much for sinners like you, and like me. Allah is so strong that nothing could stand in his way. Christ was not dragged to the cross. He said his face towards Jerusalem. Scripture says He knew what awaited him there. He knew he’d be punched in the face and, and beaten, he knew he’d be flogged, he knew be crucified, and yet he went anyway. But his dad, that’s the determination of determination of Allah that will go to the very end, to pay any price to do whatever needs to be done in order to save you and me from our sins and from all of the impurity and the refuse of our source. That is a love that flows from a whole heart that every meditation the perfection of its adoration, its strength of its will all of this is his undivided, undistracted, no double heart here, it’s a wholehearted love that cannot possibly be turned away. And the father looks upon this, this love is the self sacrifice in this devotion, the death. And he says, No, this is love. This isn’t unblemished love, this is a beautiful love this is pure. Because this is a love that is infinite, eternal and unchangeable. To flows from a heart, with modos, like crystal that reflect the glory of God. There’s nothing more singular. Nothing more complete, nothing more sure nothing more pure

A. Craig Troxel
than that love. And God says that love is yours. that obedience is yours. That death is your righteousness, that resurrection is is your life.

A. Craig Troxel
That holiness is your purity upon which you stand. There’s more mercy in Christ than there is sin in you. And you need to believe that. And those moments when you say to him, but I know who I am. I know what I was just thinking. I know what I’ve done. He says to you I know I know. But I want you to see what I have done.

A. Craig Troxel
In my son. For you. What I see is pure. Brothers and sisters, that is your salvation. This Christ. Let’s pray. Gracious God, no foul father. Why would you have anything to do with us at all?

A. Craig Troxel
Why do you continue to forbear with us? Be so patient with such failures, such inconsistency. Oliver faults promises to do better, to love you more, to be more consistent, more obedient. And yet we continue to sin and you love us. And you love us. And you love us. All this because of Christ. We thank you that you hear us. We thank You that You accept us because of him. We thank You that You forgive us that you forgive sinners of their sins. And we praise You Father, Son and Holy Spirit for this remarkable gift. To wake up every morning and your grace, despite our sin and to know that we can claim Jesus Christ and all that he is and all that he has one for his people. We thank You Father for him who is sufficient to save us from our sins. His grace is sufficient to remove the condemning power of sin and His grace is sufficient to remove the corrupting power of us and we thank You, Father, that you walk with us and you continue to be at work in us give us hope. Especially those who are here are greatly discouraged of father be their encouragement. To know in Christ they have all that they need. And together we rejoice in this thing it’s we pray in Jesus name, amen.