If you would, I'd like you to turn with me this morning to the gospel of Mark as we continue through our series of Jesus Christ, Savior and Servant. And we come to a section actually last week began it. But we are looking at a section of Mark's gospel where we really begin to see the controversy that Jesus is preaching brings upon himself and upon later his disciples. And it's it's no it's no surprise to us that the message of the gospel offensive to sinners because when we come saying that the things in your life are not right and that things in your life must be taken care of and the only way that those things can be taken care of is through the shed blood of Jesus Christ and the resurrection power that he gives That message is very offensive to many people. And so we'll see today in a message titled YOY that there are five particular instances all through Mark chapter 2 and even into the beginning of chapter 3 where Jesus' message and the works that He is doing is going to stir up a lot of trouble. And so I'm going to ask before we begin, Brother Rick Ratliff, if you would ask a blessing upon the services. May he bless this time, I think it's a very honor of service that you've given us, Father, that we may lift you up in the song that we sang, Father, of the very work of compassion and grace. Amen. Thank you, Rick. As I said, we looked last week if you were here and just to give you a reminder, if you weren't, we looked at Jesus calling Levi. And we talked about the fact that Levi was not a man that most of us would have pursued after had we began forming a church or calling disciples. He was not the type of person, based on his history as a tax collector, that we would probably seek out. But as we learned, the scribes and the Pharisees looked down on Jesus because after Levi was called, he follows and then he goes back to Levi's house where there's tax collectors and sinners. And the scribes look down and say, what in the world are you doing? Why are you eating with people like that? And the only way that you can ask that kind of question is if you don't think you are a sinner. And that was the self-righteous arrogance that describes in the Pharisees continually showed time and time again. Back in chapter 2, verse 7, Jesus, you remember, healed the paralytic. He healed him. The men dropped him down at Jesus' feet, and he heals him. And Jesus said in verse 7 that he had the authority to forgive sins. And they asked him, why? Does this man speak like that? Then he calls Levi. And in verse 16, the scribes and the Pharisees say, why does he eat with tax collectors? sinners and now today we're going to look at some more stories in verse 18 you'll find as we go through today they're going to ask why did John and John's and the Pharisees disciples fast and your disciples don't And then in verse 24, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? So you see, time and time again, Jesus' actions and His words are going to upset the religious people. And that is still true today. When we point people to grace, The flesh will always be offended because the flesh always wants to do. The flesh always wants to work because the flesh wants to gratify itself. And if you have any involvement in your salvation, in your sanctification, you can boast. You can take credit for what you've done. But grace says it's all undeserved. It's all unmerited. It's all unearned because it's all about Jesus and not you. And that's the message of the gospel. is that you can't save yourself and you can't keep yourself, but Christ has done it all for you if you'll submit to him. And so let's look this morning at two more stories from Mark chapter 2 beginning at verse 18. It says, now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? And Jesus said to them, Can the wedding guest fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. No one sews a piece of untrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, and the new the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But the new wine is for fresh wineskins." So here they are again, like I said, they're questioning, why? Why don't you fast? Why don't you fast? And Jesus doesn't sit down and give them an explanation of fasting and what it means. He simply shows them their heart. He shows them where their hearts and where their concerns are really centered at. And that is the amazing thing about the Holy Spirit. He'll get a hold of your life, and He'll begin to show you, and He'll begin to convict you, and He'll begin to take the Word of God and press it upon you a little bit. And that is when decisions have to be made. And as Jesus begins discussing with them about these stories that He shares, I want us to understand a little bit about fasting in the Bible. Fasting is only commanded in one place in the Old Testament, and that is one time a year on the Day of Atonement, in Leviticus 23-27. It says now on the tenth day of the seventh month is the day of atonement. We call that today Yom Kippur. You might see that on your calendars. It says it shall be for you a time of holy convocation and you shall afflict yourselves. That's speaking of the fast and present a food offering to the Lord. So fasting occurs throughout the Bible. We see it all the time in the Old Testament. People would fast when they were praying. They would fast when they were mourning over sin or over a serious situation. But those times were never commanded by God. They were beneficial, as it is today for us to fast. But the only time in the Old Testament at all where it is commanded is on the Day of Atonement. Why is that important? Because we fast forward to Jesus' time, to where the Gospel is being written, and you're going to see that the Pharisees and the scribes have turned fasting into something that it was never ever intended to be. The Pharisees would fast so that they could be seen. And the Pharisees made it a burden, and they made it their own command. They fasted twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, and they would do this for 12 hours, and then after the fast was over, they would go and gorge themselves on a big feast. But during the fast, they would make sure that everybody knew, they would, you know, have this look on their face, and they would go out of their way to make sure that people noticed them. Matthew 6.16 says, Jesus speaking, when you fast, Do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, like the scribes and the Pharisees would. For they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward." They did that because they wanted people to see just how holy in their own eyes that they were. Look at us. We're fasting. We're so spiritual. We are just so close with God. Can you just see? See, you need to be more like us. You need to be like us. And they use that fasting as a type of and a way to elevate themselves and to self-righteously look down on others as we see them doing time and time again. Now look again at chapter 2 where we just read from. Look at verses 19 and 20. Look how Jesus answers them concerning that fast. He says, Can the wedding get fast while the bridegroom is with them? You have to understand a Jewish wedding for this to make sense. There would be an engagement period, a betrothal period, alright? You didn't go out necessarily and find your bride. Most times the parents would already have a bride picked out, okay? And they would have the husband ready. And so there would be a long period where the bridegroom would go away and he would prepare a place. Does that sound familiar? Jesus' language? When he says, I'll go away to prepare a place for you. If I go away, I'll come again. That's the language of a Jewish wedding. The bridegroom would go away, prepare a place. Then there would be a big procession to the house, usually at night. The thief comes in the night. You see how Jesus' language ties into that culture? They would come at night in a big, big celebration. And then there would be this big feast. For seven days they would gather together and celebrate. They would have a big party that was going on. And that's Jesus' language here. He's saying that the bridegroom, I am here. I am here. My disciples aren't going to fast and mourn when I'm in your presence. This is a time of celebration. It's a time to rejoice that the long-awaited Messiah is now here. That's why my disciples aren't fasting. They're in the very presence of God. And why is that important to us? It's because Jesus Christ, if you are a believer, lives within you, and He is with you always. And yet we often forget to rejoice in that fact. We often forget because when our trials and our troubles and our suffering comes, we feel so alone and so discouraged. And we lose sight of the fact that He is with us because He lives in us. The Holy Spirit Himself dwells, makes His abiding place in His people. And so it's a time that we can rejoice and draw strength and find joy and peace because God is with us. But we get caught up in this attitude that the Pharisees have. And look what, as we go on, look at verses 21 and 22. This is the point that Jesus wants to show them. They had taken things that were beneficial, holy things, and turned them into traditions. And when we take things that God has given us and make them nothing more than religious traditions, they're no longer blessings that bring us joy, they're burdens that weigh us down because we can't keep them. We can't live by them. And it's never intended for us to do so. The first illustration he talks about is in verse 21, the old garment. And the new garment. He says basically if you have an old garment that's been worn and washed, it's already shrunk and down to size. And so if you take a new patch and stick it over this hole, and then you wash it and wear it, that patch is going to shrink. The new garment is going to shrink. And it's going to tear away from the hole and make things worse. And what he's trying to get across to these people is this. You can't take Old Testament ceremonial ritualistic laws, the Judaistic foundations, and try to tack the gospel of grace onto that. You cannot make the law and grace work together. They cannot sustain one another. It will completely corrupt the message of the gospel if you tell people you have to do this and do that to be justified before God. And that's exactly what the Pharisees would do. They would come to people and say, if you want to be right with God, here are 613 laws. Obey them all. Good luck. And when we try to live under the weight and burden of the law, you'll only find yourself condemned. You will only find yourself condemned. This went on so much that it came to a head after Christ had died and ascended, and the early church was formed, that there became The dispute between the Jews and the Gentiles, so much so that they had to call a meeting called the Jerusalem Conference, where everybody came back to Jerusalem to discuss this issue of law and grace. And let me, I'm not going to read the whole thing to you, but let me, you can read this in Acts chapter 15. But listen to what it says in Acts 15.1. It says, but some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, unless you're circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. That was the Judaizers still trying to add this law to them, trying to say that Christ is okay, you can have Jesus, but it's Jesus plus this. It's Jesus plus that. And the Gospel is Jesus Christ, period. He said it is finished. And we no longer look back to the shadows when we have the substance in front of us. Because the law, if you don't get anything else out of this message, get this, the law can never save you. You can hang the Ten Commandments under your bed and strive to live by them every day of your life and die lost. Because the law can only show you your sinfulness, and it can only show you the magnificent splendor of Jesus Christ, but it can't bridge the gap between your sin and His perfection. That's only through the blood of Christ that you can be made right. Romans 3.20, Paul says, For by the works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight. That excludes everybody in this room. since through the law comes the knowledge of sin." So there you see Paul saying the law is good, it's holy, it's from God, but it has a purpose. And that purpose is not to save. It shows you your sin. And then in Galatians 3.24 he says, so then the law was our guardian, our schoolmaster, our tutor. Whatever translation you're using, the wording might be different there. But the law was your schoolmaster. It directed you, it pointed you, it tutored you. It served a purpose and that was to reveal your sin and take you to the cross of Christ where you can be saved. So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we may be justified by faith. It's by faith in Jesus Christ that you will find forgiveness, not in the works of the law. And that is where the Pharisees could never, ever, ever get it right. Christ was standing before them. He was preaching that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, that they can be free from these rituals and routines, but the flesh loves, as I said, to serve itself. It wants to be a participant in salvation. It wants to work. It wants to boast in itself. It's prideful. It's prideful. And as believers in Christ, we now walk in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. And throughout the Bible, we see that contrasted. Paul in Romans, time and time again, talks about you're either in the Spirit or in the flesh. But he never says you're either in grace or in the law. That's not an option. You're either living carnally or you're living spiritually. But He commands us to walk in the Spirit and to be led by the Spirit. Let me give you some more scriptures. If you're writing these down, you can take notes and go back and check these later. Hebrews 10.9 says, then He added, behold, this is speaking of Christ, behold, I have come to do your will. He does away with the first. What's he talking about? The whole book of Hebrews is about the old covenant being replaced by the fulfillment of Christ coming. He does away with the old covenant, the law, the commands of Moses. He does away with the first in order to establish the second. What's the second? The age of grace that we live in. When Christ rose and the church was established, we were no longer bound by the law. We were set free to live in Christ. And that's what the writer of Hebrews is saying. Let me give you some more. Colossians chapter 2 verse 14. It says that he cancelled the record of debt. that stood against us with its legal demands. Remember what I told you? The law can only prove your guilt. It shows you that everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Everybody in this room is a liar and an adulterer. And Jesus said, if you hate your brother, you're a murderer, which puts most of us in that category. And on and on and on we go with our sin. And Colossians, Paul says, he cancelled the record of debt that stood against us with those legal demands, and he set it aside and nailed it to the cross. What happened on the cross? Christ died. And when Christ died, the law died with him. Because we're no longer bound by that. We were legally guilty because the law condemned. And listen to me, here's the dangerous thing. If you're still trying to live by the law, then you're still guilty. because the law can only condemn. And so you don't understand sometimes the danger of trying to be a law-driven person. You're basically saying that the sacrifice of Christ is not sufficient. I'm going to try to live up to this standard. And by doing so, you're just proving your guilt over and over again. Let me give you some more. Galatians 5, verses 1-4. The church in Galatia struggled with this legalistic spirit quite a bit. So Paul says to them, For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. If you go back to that Old Testament, Old Covenant way of living that says we're set apart because we're circumcised, You're not living for Christ. Because Christ sets us apart. There is no Jew or Greek, bond or free, male or female. He says we are all one in Christ. That's the freedom that He gives. Let me continue reading this to you from Galatians. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep The whole law. When you live by the law, if you offend in one area, you're guilty of offending in all, James says. You see how difficult, how impossible it is to live by the law. He says, you are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law, and you have fallen away from grace. They're not compatible, church. We all understand that grace is what we need to be saved. And we cry out to Christ, nothing in my hand I bring, only to the cross I cling. And we plead with Him for mercy. Because we know that we can't save ourselves. But we've still fooled ourselves and been deceived enough to think that we can live the Christian life in our own strength. You're saved by grace, you'll live by grace, and you'll reach heaven by grace. It's nothing that you can do. We walk in the Spirit, we labor to live holy lives, but not by keeping a list of rules. It's by the love of Christ in us, by drawing into His presence. I've used this illustration before and I'll give it again. I'm bound by the law to provide for my child. I have to give her shelter and food and clothing. But it's not because those things are written down in some rule book that I do that. I provide for my child and care for my child because I love her with all my heart. And when you want to live for Christ, you don't say, well, this Bible's got a lot of rules and I'm just going to make sure that I follow all those. No, you understand that the love of Jesus Christ sent His Son, sent Him to the cross to die for you. And He loves you so much, and He means so much to you, that your heart desires to love the Lord thy God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. He said, in that lies all the law and the prophets. That's the fulfillment of the law, is love. Love for Christ and love for others. And when you're loving God and when you're loving others, there's not a commandment that you can break. None of them. Go through the ten commandments. The first four point to you and God. The last six point to you and man. And if you're loving both, you won't break those commandments in any way. but it's not by keeping a list. Romans 10.4, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. If you want to be right before God, you need to just simply be in Christ. Not keeping the law, just be in Christ. Paul says in Ephesians 6, you are accepted in the beloved. You are accepted by God, not because of who you are, but because of who Christ is. And if you're found in him, you're righteous, you're holy, you're forgiven, and you're loved. And that's the way that we have to come. And he gives that same principle as Jesus tells this story in verse 22 with the skins, the same idea. If you take a new wineskin, an old wineskin rather, and pour new wine into it, as it ferments and ages and those gases build up, it's brittle and old, it's going to rip and burst and you're going to lose the wine and the wineskin. And the same principle. You cannot add grace and tack it on to the Old Testament system. You're either under the law or under grace. Some of you may have, in my mom's neighborhood, it's very common. There's a lot of old oak trees, and they're really beautiful. But the thing about oak trees is that the leaves don't usually fall off like they do on other trees. They just kind of hang on. You can go in the middle of winter and still see leaves clinging on to an oak tree. And usually they don't come off until sometimes in spring when that sap starts to come back into the tree and new life starts to spring forward. And as those buds come out, it pushes off. the old leaves as that new life comes in. The new life causes the dead to fall away. That's a really wonderful picture in nature that God has given us about how grace works. That old nature, that old sinful man wants to hang on in every way, shape, or form. But the way that it's going to fall off is when that new life that Christ gives you on the inside starts to press out on the outside. It'll push away the deadness. It'll push away the sin. There won't be enough room for the old man if you allow yourself to be filled by the Spirit and live in the new man. Have you ever stopped and thought about that? If you're struggling with sin, what's our default method? Man, I got to stop this. I got to do better. I got to work at this. And certainly it's good to take steps. You don't want to make temptation easy. Let me put it that way. If you struggle with pornography, don't put a computer in the basement where you can lock the door and be by yourself. Okay? If you struggle with alcoholism, don't get a job as a bartender. There's things you need to do to try to prevent sin from happening. That's not what I'm saying. But you know as well as I do, when you struggle with sin, all your efforts to try to beat it usually just make it worse. Because you fail, and then the guilt comes in, the shame comes in, and it's this struggle. But when you fill yourself with Christ, when you surround yourself in prayer and His Word and His people, and that relationship grows, the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. That's not just a song, that's a biblical truth. The things of earth will grow strangely dim as you fill yourself with Christ more and more. He says in Matthew's Gospel that he didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. And fulfill it he did in every way so that you and I don't have to. He fulfilled the moral side of the law because he lived a perfect and sinful life. He fulfilled the ceremonial law because He was the substance of what all those shadows pointed to. He was the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. We don't have to go out and sacrifice an animal any longer when we sin because He sat down at the right hand of the Father after He made atonement for sin. It's finished. It's done. And He fulfilled the judicial law because He was the perfect embodiment of justice. On the cross, God's wrath was satisfied because Jesus Christ legally paid the debt that you and I owe. That's how He can declare you righteous. That's how as judge, when you stand before Him, you'll be not guilty. It's not because you've got a good record. It's because Christ paid your fine. That's the only way to be set free. And the Pharisees and the scribes couldn't see it. And this story continues on when we see them on the Sabbath day. It says on verse 23, One Sabbath he was going through the cornfields, and as they made their way, his disciples began to pluck ears of corn or wheat. They were taking these heads of wheat and crushing them and eating the tops of them. And it says, And the Pharisees were saying to him, Why, there it is again, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? And he said to them, have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry and those that were with him? How he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for any but the priest to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him. And he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Now again, the Pharisees took something that God had given and they turned it into this gigantic burden that nobody could keep. There's an entire list, and this is interesting if you like to study further, look this up sometime and read for yourself. I just wrote down a few of the things to share with you. These are some of the things that the Pharisees and the scribes and those religious leaders decided that you could not do on the Sabbath. Not scriptural, not commanded by God. These were just extra things tacked on to the law of God about the Sabbath. You couldn't travel on the Sabbath more than 3,000 feet. You had to count your steps, no more than 3,000. You couldn't carry anything heavier than a fig. I don't know who came up with that, but they decided that a fig was the standard. Couldn't carry anything heavier than that. You couldn't throw something in the air and catch it with your other hand. That would be considered winnowing and you couldn't do it. A fire could not be lit or extinguished on the Sabbath. You had to light it before the Sabbath began or you sat in the dark on the Sabbath. And on and on and on could I give you rule and regulation that they had continually came up with to add to what God had given. But I want you to understand what the Sabbath really pointed to. Again, it pointed to Christ coming to be our eternal rest. Hebrews chapter 4, verses 9-11. I want you to understand that if you're a child of God, you enter into the Sabbath rest that Christ has provided. It says in Hebrews 4, 9-11, So then, there remains a Sabbath rest, for who? for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest, has also rested from His works as God did from His. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience." He says the true fulfillment of the Sabbath is in Christ. You cease from your works. You cease from your labor. Again, you're not trying to live up to some standard of law keeping that you can't do. Grace gives you rest. And I hope that you understand that this morning. If you're here and you're lost, and you think, man, I've just got to straighten up my life first, and I've got to be a better person, and I've got to be more like these other church people before they would accept me. No. No. There's nobody in this room that's worthy of God's love or forgiveness. But you don't have to be worthy. You just have to be willing to call on Him by faith. You have to lay down your pride and say, I can't do this. Jesus, I need you. And it's that grace that comes in and gives you rest from your works. So I want you to take heart this morning to know that you don't have to prove yourself to God. He's already proved that He loves you enough to die for you. And that's what you need. The Sabbath was given again to the nation of Israel as a covenant between God and them, just like circumcision was. And so they would take these things that were given to Israel as a covenant sign and try to press them off on the Gentiles and on to other believers. Exodus chapter 31, let me show you where this is in the Bible in just one place. There are several others that mention this. Exodus 31, verses 16 and 17. Therefore, the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed." And one more verse I want to give you, because I want you to understand that Jesus is ultimately the fulfillment of the Sabbath as your rest. We sometimes get caught up in the same thing, like the Pharisees. Oh, we can't do this on Sunday, and we can't do that on Sunday, and we better watch this, and we better... And we miss the big picture that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Sabbath, and that He is our rest. And it's not by doing this and not doing that that you find favor with God. You find favor in God by trusting in Christ. Colossians chapter 2 verse 16 and 17. Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival, or a new moon, or a Sabbath. Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or Sabbath." Again, he's saying the fulfillment there is now in Christ. Your rest is found there. And Jesus makes that point in verse 27 and 28. He says, The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. He says the Sabbath was given to people as a time of rest. as a time for you to cease from your labors. And the Pharisees had turned it into a big burdensome ordeal where you wouldn't rest. My goodness, you were, if anything, you were constantly worrying, wondering if you had kept the law. It wasn't a restful time, it was a stressful time. And that's not what it was, he says, because the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. even of the Sabbath. He is Lord. And in every area of your life, this morning, I would challenge you Is your walk with Christ based around traditions and legalistic do this, do that terms? Or is your relationship with Christ just really built around the fact that He loved you so much that He came to die for you? And that while you were at your worst, He gave you His best. Is that really what your relationship is about this morning? Or is it just some burdensome bunch of commands and at the end of the day you hope you've done enough to make Him happy? That's not the way to live your Christian life. He saves you by grace, and He keeps you by grace, and He offers you grace this morning. Wherever you're at, whatever you've done, grace says, come, I've paid it all. So as we stand this morning as Jeff comes, your opportunity now is to respond to what you've heard. Why not be free from all that bondage that you're living in? Why not be free from your sin and come this morning and call upon Christ? If you need to do so, now is your opportunity, as we sing. Just as I am without one thee, But that thy blood was shed for me, And that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb, of God I come. I come just as I am and waiting not to rid my soul of wonder and want to lead Whose blood can cleanse each spot O Lamb of God, I come Just as I am You need to come this morning ♪ Will welcome Lord of friends ♪ ♪ Redeem me, He calls thy promise ♪ ♪ O Lamb of God, I come ♪ ♪ I believe, O Lamb of God, I come, I come ♪ I'm going to ask if you would to just be seated for a moment. It's been amazing to watch God at work in our church and amongst our people. It seems like every week I get a call of something that God has done, whether it's save someone or call them into some area of service or just perform miracles. Obviously, we talk a lot about our prayer requests, but God has done some amazing things in our midst that only he could do. And that is, once again, what happened this morning. I'm going to ask Steve and Christina and Adam to come up. I got a call Friday night from Christina that she wanted to come over and know if I could talk a little bit to Adam, because he had been asking a lot of questions. He'd been asking me a lot of questions on Sunday mornings. He'd come out and meet me at the door. And you guys can come on up if you want to. Caitlin, Jacob, we'll embarrass you two. He'd been asking a lot of questions. And you know, one of the things that we always want to be careful of with young kids is to make sure that they understand. We want to make sure that it's not just some spur of the moment thing, but that they really get it. And one of the things I've always found is kids will get excited about something for five minutes, and it's gone. And you know that if you buy video games or toys, it's great for all of 10 minutes, and then it lays in the corner. But Adam's continually come back, he's continued to show concern over his sin, concern over his soul. And so they had a long talk and they felt confident. He came over and we talked some more and I felt confident. So based on that, We are bringing them before the church this morning to present Adam Bundy upon his profession of faith to join the church and May 31st, I think tentatively, we have a date for baptism. So I wanted you to get a chance to rejoice with this family. All those in favor, let it be known by saying amen. So another great thing I'm gonna give you a chance as we dismiss to come around and shake hands But also real quick wanted to ask if Scott and Tara Patrick would come and Chris We've had all these baptisms and one of the things we like to do is present Bibles But it's been happening so rapidly. I haven't been able to get the Bibles in time So I finally have those and I wanted to present those to you all this morning Chris I'm going to start with you Here's your new Bible, buddy. Read it and pray that God will use it to help you grow. Tara, for you as well. God bless. Scott, you as well. Bless you all. Thank you guys so much. Let's give them a hand. And I'm going to ask if you would stand to your feet and we'll be dismissed. Come back tonight at 6 o'clock. We've been watching, just started a few weeks ago, a film that I think is really educational, will help you to better understand some of the things in the Bible. So we're going to show some more of that tonight. So if you're able, come back at 6 o'clock. I think you'll really, really enjoy that. And I'm going to ask Roger Dunn, do you mind to close us out this morning, please? Thank you.