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Matthew 5:17-20
17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
If you all have a Bible, I invite you to turn to Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5 as we continue our study on the Sermon on the Mount. Years ago, I was assembling a desk, that I had bought from Ikea. And I came to that point that every man has to come to when you're assembling a Ikean desk. You have to abandon the manual.
Jeffrey Heine:And, I I say every man because women, a lot of times, don't reach that point. But men, we we reached the point where we know we have to abandon the manual, to try to put it together. And I love Ikea furniture. I do, but I also know that wherever you build it, that needs to be where it will remain for its entire life. It's not meant to move.
Jeffrey Heine:And when you go and you buy IKEA furniture, just go ahead and go to the extra parts bins that they have there. Throw in as many random parts as you can think of because you're going to need them. You're gonna need all of them. Even if you happen to have all of the spare parts, it's still gonna be difficult for you to assemble this piece of furniture, because the instructions, well, you could tell English wasn't the first language that they were written in. You could tell it was written from another culture.
Jeffrey Heine:It's hard to understand the, or you know, make sense of the illustrations. So even if you can kind of make do with all of that, often there's a time where really the manual's just wrong. You look at the pictures, you look what's being, you know, the the things you have, and maybe it's the shelf or the leg is mislabeled, or maybe it's the manual's wrong, but you realize it doesn't have the parts you need or it's just not making any sense, and so you have to put the manual aside and just use your brains to put it together. So the question I have is this. I want you to hold that image in front of you and think about the Bible.
Jeffrey Heine:As we look at Matthew 5, we need to we need to ask a question. Is this the approach we are supposed to take to scripture? Should we see the Bible is just a really helpful start? Very useful, but because it was put together in a different culture with a different language, it's kinda hard to understand. And even if you kinda understand it, it's missing some parts that you actually need to apply to your life.
Jeffrey Heine:It doesn't speak into those issues. And then maybe there's times where you think it's just wrong. It's just wrong. And so you need to abandon, not all of it, but just maybe abandon part of it, and then just use your brains and do the best you can to put something together. Is that how we're supposed to treat the Bible?
Jeffrey Heine:Should we maybe keep just the parts that we like? Maybe the parts about love, loving your neighbor, but maybe discarding the parts about sexual ethics? Or should we, keep the parts about being created in the image of God, but then maybe remove the parts that talk about Jesus being the only way. Keep the parts about heaven. Remove the parts of hell.
Jeffrey Heine:Are we supposed to take that kind of Ikea manual approach to scriptures? It's an important question. The verses that we have before us, are the most important verses in all of the bible that teach us about how to read the bible and about what the Bible says about itself. So Matthew chapter 5, we'll begin reading in verse 17. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
Jeffrey Heine:I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Jeffrey Heine:This is the word of the Lord. It is to your god. Pray with me. Father, as we read your word, I pray there'd be more than black ink on white pages, but through your spirit, we would hear you talking to us. We would hear your truths penetrating our hearts.
Jeffrey Heine:I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. Lord may your words remain and may they change us. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So this past week, I was asked at our, new to redeemer dinner.
Jeffrey Heine:I was asked about that prayer, that phrase that I end every prayer before I preach in. And may my words fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. Somebody just asked, where does that come from? And, and I realize I've never once have explained that.
Jeffrey Heine:Been praying that for 20 years. It comes from 1st Samuel chapter 3, in which Samuel, the prophet Samuel was described this way. He was a man whom the Lord did not let his words fall to the ground. Now Samuel was a prophet. Meaning that he communicated God's word.
Jeffrey Heine:And as a result of when he spoke, it was God's word going forth. God said, I will not let your words hit the ground. But they're going to hit their mark. That's always just it's stuck in my head. If you don't know it or not, I'm not a prophet.
Jeffrey Heine:Alright. I'm not a prophet. I'm just a preacher. And so one of the things I I pray is, well, I don't want just my words cluttering up your mind. What I really want is for us to hear from God.
Jeffrey Heine:And so I want his words like like the words that came out of Samuel. Those words that that he's gonna speak through his written word here, may they hit their mark. May they not fall, but may mine fall away. That's actually what we do when we gather together on Sundays. That's our hopeful anticipation as we come to God's word.
Jeffrey Heine:We would clearly hear him speaking to us through the scriptures. That's what we believe about the scriptures. But the question is this, what did Jesus actually believe about the Bible? We know what we believe, but is it what Jesus actually believed? That's an important question for us to grapple with, because if you want to follow Jesus, you have to follow what he thinks about scripture.
Jeffrey Heine:In other words, you cannot follow Christ without following his understanding of the Bible. So what did Jesus think about the scriptures? Well here in this context, apparently as he was just starting out in the sermon, he feels the need to respond to maybe some rumors or even accusations that been circulating around about him. That he was abandoning the Hebrew Bible. He was abandoning the law.
Jeffrey Heine:He was abandoning what we call as the old testament and presenting something new instead. And here Jesus decides to address that issue head on. And he says, exactly what he believes about the law and the prophets. And the law and the prophets is just a way of saying the the entirety of the Hebrew Bible or all of the old testament. And what Jesus says is he believes it to be completely true.
Jeffrey Heine:Verse 18 says he It says that heaven and earth will pass away, but not an iota, not a dot will pass away from the law until all is accomplished. Now in the original language, what Jesus is describing here is the the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet, which looks like a comma there. And then he's also describing the smallest part of a letter in the Hebrew alphabet. What we might call a seraph. My my middle child Natalie, she's been working on calligraphy and so she's been working a lot on that last little stroke that ends every letter, that little squiggly flare there.
Jeffrey Heine:That's what Jesus is alluding to here. He says not the smallest letter in the alphabet, not the smallest little end or flare to it passes away until it's all accomplished. We would say it this way, not a single I, is missing or a single t doesn't have the line through it Until all is accomplished. All of it is the Word of God. 100% true, down to the smallest detail.
Jeffrey Heine:I heard a theologian put it this way, that when God writes, His hand never slips and the ink never fades. When God writes, his hand never slips and the ink never fades. Jesus even goes so far as to say that heaven and earth will pass away before the slightest stroke of scripture will. We could do that as a modern translation this way, pigs will fly or hell will freeze over before my word fades away and is not accomplished. It won't happen.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus absolutely believes in the enduring truthfulness of God's word, of scripture. And he was always quoting scripture. Just in the next few chapters ahead, just in Matthew, in the next few chapters, he refers to so many passages of scripture. He refers to Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5 and 16, Leviticus 19, Jeremiah 3, Proverbs 21, Job 26, Isaiah 8, 14, 16, 23. Malachi 3.
Jeffrey Heine:1st Samuel 21. 1st Chronicles 9. Micah 6. And you could keep going on and on. Literally, the old testament was the air he breathed.
Jeffrey Heine:He was always expounding on the Torah or on the law. I would go so far as to say this, that if you were to to puncture Jesus, he would bleed scripture. And I could say that with such confidence because that's exactly what we saw on the cross. When Jesus was being crucified and he's in terrible physical agony, as well as being in the pit of hell at that moment, absorbing the wrath of God, what comes out of his mouth is Psalm 22. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Jeffrey Heine:Then he quotes Psalm 31. Father into thy hands, I commit my spirit. Think of the last time you were in agony. The last time you were hammering something and the hammer slipped and you nailed your thumb. The last time you stubbed your toe as you were walking some place or you were pulling up in your desk and you nailed your knee on the corner of the leg.
Jeffrey Heine:Or perhaps when you're up in your attic and you stood up in your head and nailed one of those attic beams there. I want you to think of that moment, because when that happened, something came out of your mouth. Alright? Alright. I'm gonna count to 3 and I want all of you to say it.
Jeffrey Heine:Like, there's no way you're gonna say that. Thing is you didn't think about what came out of your mouth. You weren't planning. I would like to say these words when this pain has like, pain hits you and then it just out of the the depths within you, something just comes out. And what comes out is what's really deep within you.
Jeffrey Heine:And what came out of Jesus in that moment was the scriptures. Literally in the pit of hell, total agony, scripture flows out. I'll go so far as to say this, that when Jesus could no longer feel His Father's presence, He still listened to His Father through the word that he had written on his heart. He could still hear his father speak to him, even when he no longer could feel this father's presence. Jesus bled scripture.
Jeffrey Heine:His entire identity was built on the word of God. And if you want to follow Jesus, you must follow the word that he accepted. All of it. You cannot reject any part of scripture. Because if you reject any part of it, you're rejecting Jesus because he built his whole life on it.
Jeffrey Heine:If you have a bible, alright, a little interactive, I want you to hold it up. Actually, hold up your bible. Phones don't count. If you have a phone or if an iPad just leave. Alright?
Jeffrey Heine:But I'll assume you have it memorized if you're not, you know, don't have this up. Alright. What what you have in your hands is the entirety of Jesus's library. You have his entire library in your hands as you have the old testament here. That is an incredible privilege that we have.
Jeffrey Heine:And we need to be building our lives on the same thing that Jesus built his life upon. Now, I grew up in a time in church when I was a youth, when there was a whole lot of debate about this. I mean, it's still raging on to some degree, but denominations were being split over this issue. They were trying to decide whether they should add books to this. Add books to the to the library.
Jeffrey Heine:Whether they should take away certain parts of this library. They were trying to decide what parts of the manual do they keep, what parts of the manual do they discard, and entire denominations were split over this. And it has been interesting to see the aftermath of that 40 years later. And it's the churches, in an attempt to be relevant. The churches in an attempt to to try to pull in people, because certainly if they held to this, it would be distasteful and everybody would leave.
Jeffrey Heine:It's it's the churches that got rid of parts of the manual that are dying or near dead. But the churches that held to this as the word of God are the churches that are remaining. The previous churches that discarded parts of the manual, well, they built they built their church's identity on the sand. It might have been a mansion, but it was built on the sand. Instead of building it on the rock of Jesus' word.
Jeffrey Heine:We need to hold fast to this book, but we need to learn to read it the right way. And Jesus tells us how in verse 17. It says, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. This verse is the key to this passage.
Jeffrey Heine:There's not a more important verse or explanation as to the meaning of scripture than this one passage here. So you need to highlight it, you need to star it, you need to underline it. Do whatever you do with your iPhone. I don't know what you do. Take a selfie with it.
Jeffrey Heine:Whatever it is, like, this this is an important word. Alright? Jesus came to fulfill the law and the prophets. He doesn't say he came to obey the law and the prophets. Although that would have certainly been correct, because Jesus obeyed the law and the prophets, but that's not what he says here.
Jeffrey Heine:He says that he came to fulfill them. Fulfill or the word itself means to fill fill. Can't get any more full than this. And on that one word fulfill hangs hangs the entire passage. Jesus means here when he says, he came to fulfill this, is that all of the old testament laws, all of the old testament stories, all the old testament prophecies, they find their completion in him.
Jeffrey Heine:All of it points to Jesus. I've heard it described this way. Jesus now becomes the face of the Old Testament. Jesus becomes the face of the Torah or the law. Meaning if you wanna know what the old testament looks like, what the Old Testament is about, you look at Jesus who perfectly embodies it as the word made flesh.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus becomes the face of the law. My seminary professor, I would cite which one it was. I can't remember. But he gave me this useful illustration that I have not forgotten. It's always been tucked in there.
Jeffrey Heine:But he said that we should think of the old testament as a cup. And we need to think of Jesus as the liquid that fills that cup or fulfills that cup. He says, you see a cup by itself is useless. It needs liquid in order to have purpose, in order to have meaning. And liquid, well it cannot be grasped, cannot be absorbed into oneself unless there's a cup.
Jeffrey Heine:Says the point of the old testament is for you to have the ability to grasp Jesus. That's the entire point of the old testament. It's to allow you to understand and to absorb or to take in Jesus. To understand who he is. When Jesus says that he came to fulfill or to fill up the law of the prophets, he is saying that if you don't have an understanding of the law or the priest or the prophets or the tabernacle or the temple or the sacrificial systems.
Jeffrey Heine:You don't understand all of that. You will not be able to grasp me. You won't be able to know why I came or who I am. Because all those things were written to point to me. And this isn't the only time that Jesus has said something like this.
Jeffrey Heine:In John chapter 5, he looked at the people who had been studying the scriptures, the scribes and the Pharisees, the religious leaders, and he says, you search the scriptures because you think in them you will find life. It's a good reason to search the scriptures. He says, but these are the scriptures that point to me. Yet you refuse to come to me that you might have life. Searching the scriptures without searching them for Jesus only brings death, but searching the scriptures and realizing how they point to Jesus brings us life.
Jeffrey Heine:In Luke 24, after the resurrection, Jesus is walking with 2 of his disciples on the road to Emmaus. During that time, He's talking with them and He says that beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all scriptures the things concerning Himself. All the scriptures were about him. All about Jesus. Even the scriptures you know about not eating shellfish.
Jeffrey Heine:The scriptures about the purity laws, the things that you can eat or not eat or touch or not touch. About the different boils and the different pus that comes out of the different boils. You know, when you read that in Leviticus. All of those things are about Jesus. I mean the purity laws, they are there to show us that we are impure, to help us to constantly be thinking of our impurity, and that we need to constantly be doing things to try to become pure.
Jeffrey Heine:We need to constantly be washed over and over, and all of that's there to point us to the person who could finally provide for us purity. Who can finally deal with our sins through being washed in his own blood. The sacrificial system. Well it's there till we were reminded over and over again as we read through all of the different sacrifices we have to make. Read through the first five chapters of Leviticus and like how many sacrifices do I have to make?
Jeffrey Heine:It seems endless, but yes you're always making a sacrifice for your sin. Over and over and over. Why? Was to remind you that you have sin that needs to be atoned for. And it's to point to the ultimate sacrifice.
Jeffrey Heine:The lamb of God, who forever takes away the sin of the world. Everything points to Jesus. Now I know for some of you, perhaps many of you, the Bible, especially the old testament is confusing. Actually it's more than confusing. It's, I mean when you look at it, it's full of jumbled stories.
Jeffrey Heine:These terms you don't understand. These ancient histories. You have no idea where these places or these towns are. There seems to be war after war, all of this violence. But at least you know, that's kind of interesting because if it's not a war, it goes into really dull and dry, boring parts.
Jeffrey Heine:And it's just hard. And there are, honestly, there's places that are just so dull and dry. I was reading this past week, I'm gonna read this for you, in Exodus 26. Let me just read you a section of scripture. You shall make 50 clasps of bronze and put the clasp into the loops, and couple the tent together, that it may be a single hole, and the part that remains of the curtains of the tent, the half curtain that remains shall hang over the back of the tabernacle.
Jeffrey Heine:Y'all with me? Alright. Come on. And the extra that remains in the length of the curtains, the cubit on the one side and the cubit on the other side, shall hang over the sides of the tabernacle on this side and on that side to cover it. And you shall make for the tent a covering of tanned ramskins, and you shall make upright frames for the tabernacle.
Jeffrey Heine:10 cubits shall be the length of a frame and a cubit and a half the breadth of a frame. It goes on and on. And be honest, does that not read like an IKEA manual? I mean, you're trying to even put together the image in your head. You've already given up.
Jeffrey Heine:You can't make heads or tails of this. What do you do with sections like that? Jesus says it all points to him. What I wanna encourage you is to not give up. Not give up as you're reading through your bible and you are in February now in your Bible reading plan like 6 weeks in.
Jeffrey Heine:Don't give up. Keep pouring in because Jesus says He's on every page. And the more and more you begin to dig in scripture, the more and more you begin to see it. You begin to see that there actually is this overarching story and it's all about Jesus. For those of you who struggle with understanding the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, I'd like to take just just a few minutes to briefly give you the story of the Bible.
Jeffrey Heine:That one unifying story. The story begins with God. In the beginning, God. God created the heavens and the earth. And after he created the heavens and the earth, he created man.
Jeffrey Heine:And then God himself came to live with man on earth as our creator king. We read that Adam actually used to take walks with his king in the garden in the cool of the evening. So God was with man. He was their king, but then man and woman rebelled against their king because they wanted self rule. They wanted to be kings themselves.
Jeffrey Heine:And so as a result of this, the king left and everything fell to pieces. Adam and Eve were were kicked out of the garden. The world became a hostile place to live. Adam and Eve's relationship with one another was wrecked. Their relationship with God was wrecked.
Jeffrey Heine:The whole world becomes a very hard place to live and now there's this one question floating out there. Will the king ever come back? We've done such wrong, we've made such a mess of things, will the king actually ever come back? And the answer is yes. The king came back.
Jeffrey Heine:The king came to Moses, and through him he began to once again restore and to redeem his people. He began to deliver them from oppression that they had brought on themselves because of their sin. He rescued them from slavery and he took them to Mount Sinai where he gave them his law. The king gave the laws of the kingdom. And the law was really a reminder, a reminder of who they were and who he was as their long forgotten king.
Jeffrey Heine:His laws revealed His heart. They'd forgotten who He was. This is my heart. This is who you were supposed to be. And then the King had Moses build a tabernacle.
Jeffrey Heine:And once again, the King came down and dwelled among men in the tabernacle. Explicit instructions were given as to how to build this tabernacle. We just read some of those. Those very explicit instructions. But there was a there's a reason there's so many details.
Jeffrey Heine:Because what God was doing is He wanted man to recreate the Garden of Eden. The entire tabernacle with all of His embroideries, with all of his furniture. Everything was made, you know to show the tree of life or different elements of the Garden of Eden. And He was recreating the garden there where He would come as their king to once again dwell. But not everybody could walk with Him in the cool of the evening.
Jeffrey Heine:As a matter of fact, only one person could meet with Him only once a year. That was in the dark room called the Holy of Holies and only after making much atonement for his sin. Later a temple replaced the tabernacle, but the temple too, very explicit instructions were given about the temple because it too was to replicate the Garden of Eden. And once again, the king came down and he filled the presence, his presence into the temple. But just like the tabernacle, once again, there had to be that veil.
Jeffrey Heine:There had to be that barrier to where not everybody could walk with Him or see Him. Just the high priest once a year. Years pass under this relationship, but the people are people and they rebel and they want self rule. And once again, they reject God as King. The temple's destroyed, and the people again wonder, we've blown it so many times.
Jeffrey Heine:Will the king ever return? Will he? And God sends prophets to say, yes. The king will return. The prophets come to prepare the way for the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:And then finally, after 100 of years, Jesus comes. Jesus comes, and when he comes, he makes an astonishing claim. He claims to actually be the temple. He says I'm the temple. You destroy this body in 3 days, and I will raise it back up.
Jeffrey Heine:He not only claimed to be the temple, the place where the king's presence could come and once again dwell, he claims himself to be the final sacrifice. The week before he was killed, he goes into Jerusalem straight to the temple that was there and he drives out every single sacrifice that was there, Every animal gone to where Jesus stands there alone. Alone as the final sacrifice to take away the sins of the world. Jesus came and for 3 years, The King lived among his people. Once again, teaching them his law, Teaching them who they were to be.
Jeffrey Heine:Teaching them who He is. We're actually studying this in the Sermon on the Mount. For 3 years, He healed people, reminding them once again of what it was like to live in the Garden of Eden, where you're whole, spiritually whole, physically whole and healed. That's what it's like to live next to the king. And we still rejected him.
Jeffrey Heine:Still rejected him and we crucified him. And so the question goes out there once again. The King's gone. Can he ever return? We killed him.
Jeffrey Heine:But yes, the king can return, and he does. Not even death can separate us from the love of our king. And the King rises from the grave 3 days later, conquering sin and death. Providing forgiveness for us. When he does so, the temple veil that separated his presence from the people is ripped from top to bottom and now God's presence is unleashed in this world.
Jeffrey Heine:Unleashed. And Jesus says, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me now as your king, And he has ascended and he is currently reigning, sitting on his throne, reigning the universe. And he will come again physically to be with us. And He shall forever be our King and we shall forever be His people. That's the grand story of the Bible.
Jeffrey Heine:Every page unfolds that story. And this is actually the great hope for us as we come to these words that Jesus says at the end of this when He says, for I tell you unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. For one, that is a shocking word. I mean, we I mean, through vacation bible school years of that, the Pharisees have gotten a bad rap. Alright?
Jeffrey Heine:But but in that day, I mean, when people were looking at the model of righteousness, they looked at the scribes, they looked at the Pharisees. There's no way to surpass them. That would be like me saying, unless your righteousness surpasses Mother Teresa's, surpasses Billy Graham's, surpasses Tim Keller, surpasses Francis Chan, surpasses all of them, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. You'd be like, how could I ever enter? But the reason in this day, these people, these Pharisees and these scribes could not enter the kingdom of Heaven, is because they didn't see Jesus as the point of the scriptures they studied.
Jeffrey Heine:They searched the scriptures in order that they might have life, but they refused to come to Jesus to whom the entire scriptures pointed that they might have life. And Jesus now he offers us, he says, I am the point of it all. Come to me and your righteousness does surpass that of the Pharisees and the scribes. And I will give you my spirit to where you can obey the law. And you can obey it in a deeper and more profound way than you ever imagined.
Jeffrey Heine:And we'll look at that next week as Jesus begins to unpack exactly what the law means to us. So the question is this, are you reading the Bible? Are you reading Jesus's library? And I'm not just talking about coming here on a Sunday and hearing us read some scripture and me preach on it. Actually, I figured it out.
Jeffrey Heine:If I were to read an entire chapter from the Bible, every Sunday and then preach on it, it would take me 23 years to go through the whole Bible. But, y'all know me. That's not ever gonna happen. I mean, it's gonna It's like I'll go through a verse on a Sunday. Alright?
Jeffrey Heine:So even if I were to, you know, double that up, we would, you know, just 2 sermons per chapter. That's 46 years to get through the Bible, which I'm I'm there's no way I'm preaching in 46 years unless you'll wheel me up here, prop me up, somebody move my mouth, you know, whatever it is. That's that's not happening. What it means is I cannot preach through what we would call the whole counsel of God. I cannot physically preach through everything here on a Sunday.
Jeffrey Heine:You have to, on your own, pick up your bible and read it. If you wanna know that overarching story, if you really want to know the cup that Jesus fills, so that you might grasp him and absorb him. Every day, you need to be opening up your Bible and reading. My wife and I, our our favorite time every morning is we get our cup of coffee and then we get our bibles and if it's we go outside if it's not 80 degrees already. If not we stay inside and we just, drink our coffee, read our bibles.
Jeffrey Heine:Coffee's the modern day incense. That's all it is. You know, you smell the coffee, the rises up to the heavens and you open up the word. And it's the best part of our day. To just sit there, because we have a God who speaks.
Jeffrey Heine:He speaks to us, and he speaks to us through his word. Now I've begun to pray that prayer that Samuel prays when he just says, speak Lord. Thy servant is listening. And then you read the words and it becomes more than black ink on white pages, but you actually hear the spirit of God speaking to you. Jesus Jesus' words going forth, accomplishing their purpose, changing your heart.
Jeffrey Heine:Are you doing this? Give time this week, starting maybe tonight or tomorrow morning, to where you open up your word, the word of God, and you listen to him speak. Pray with me. Lord Jesus, we are so thankful for your word. The old testament, the new testament, we are thankful for all of the scripture.
Jeffrey Heine:And I pray that through your spirit, you would write it on our hearts. I pray that we would be a people who bleed it, build our entire lives on it. We would not be like the fool who builds their life on the sand, but we build our lives on the rock of your word, Jesus. We pray this for our joy and for your glory. Amen.