Date: Sunday, February 14, 2021   Scripture: Mark 8:1-9

Transcript .pdf       Sea of Galilee map

Mark chapter 8, as we've been working our way through the gospel of Mark, we come this morning to Mark chapter 8. We're going to be in verses one through 9 and the title of this sermon this morning is the compassionate provision of Christ. The compassionate provision of Christ. 

We're going to see the compassion of Christ on display this morning as he shows compassion towards a bunch of gentiles. So let's read our passage this morning and Mark chapter 8. Will you follow along as I read starting in verse 1. 

8:1 In those days, when there was again a large crowd and they had nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples and said to them, 2 “I feel compassion for the people because they have remained with Me now three days and have nothing to eat. 3 If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way; and some of them have come from a great distance.” 4 And His disciples answered Him, “Where will anyone be able to find enough bread here in this desolate place to satisfy these people?” 5 And He was asking them, “How many loaves do you have?” And they said, “Seven.” 6 And He directed the people to sit down on the ground; and taking the seven loaves, He gave thanks and broke them, and started giving them to His disciples to serve to them, and they served them to the people. 7 They also had a few small fish; and after He had blessed them, He ordered these to be served as well. 8 And they ate and were satisfied; and they picked up seven large baskets full of what was left over of the broken pieces. 9 About four thousand were there; and He sent them away. 

There are many reasons that people don't believe the Bible today. Some say that they don't believe the Bible because it was written by men. Some say they don't believe it because it's an ancient document and we don't have the original copies. It's too old to believe. Others will say they don't believe it because it's full of errors. Some reject the Bible because they say it's cruel and unjust. But one of the most common reasons that people don't believe the Bible is because they say that it contradicts itself. There's lots of contradictions in there, is what they say. 

In fact, in an article by the American Humanist Society, it says this. “The Bible is an unreliable authority because it contains numerous contradictions. Logically, if two statements are contradictory, at least one of them is false. The biblical contradictions, therefore, prove that the book has many false statements and is not infallible.” 

And one of the contradictions that people will point to is our passage here this morning. But humanists are not the only ones who don't believe the Bible. In fact, there are even liberals so-called Christian scholars who question the Bible too. One guy D.E. Nineham, a British theologian says this. “It is now generally accepted that we are dealing with alternative and somewhat divergent accounts of a single incident.” As he talks about this very passage that we're studying this morning. 

And what he's referring to is this passage here in Mark chapter 8 verses the account of the feeding of 5,000 that we've talked about that we've studied before. Everyone knows about the feeding of the 5,000 we saw that a couple weeks ago, but how many people know about the feeding of 4,000? Did you know that Jesus fed 4,000 as well? 

But because people don't know their Bibles, they will equate these two stories. Or as the humanist does. That this is a contradiction of the feeding of the 5,000. But as we'll see in our text this morning, both the humanists and the liberal theologians are wrong. They're wrong. 

Mark gives us both accounts of the feeding of the 5,000 and the 4,000. Matthew also gives us the account of the 4,000 and Matthew chapter 15. But people land on this view of contradictions within scripture because they have a low view of scripture. A low view of Scripture and of low view of the inspiration of scripture. But we have a high view of scripture, right? 

We have a high view of scripture and we believe that every word is breathed out by God. And therefore we conclude that the feeding of this 4,000 here is a separate event from the feeding of the 5,000. Which we will see as we work our way through our passage this morning.  

And so let's pick up in verse 1 and we'll look at this account of the feeding of the 4,000 and we'll break our passage down into three sections here.  

1. First, we'll look at The Compassion of Christ found in verses 1-3. 

1. Second, we’ll look at The Fullness of the Disciples found in verses 4-5 and then 

1. Third we’ll look at The Provision for the People found in verses 6 through 9.  

So let's look at our first point here this morning  

1. The Compassion of Christ, The Compassion of Christ. 

Look at verse 1 “In those days, when there was again a large crowd and they had nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples and said to them, 2 “I feel compassion for the people because they have remained with Me now three days and have nothing to eat.”    Now notice what it says there at the beginning of verse 1 “in those days.” 

Well, the logical question would be, “in what days? What days are you talking about here Mark?” Well, if you remember back to last week, Jesus has arrived as he's had this great “walking seminar” with the disciples and he's arrived now to the region of Decapolis where Jesus healed the deaf man. 

The deaf man, who also had a speech impediment. Do you remember that from last week? And now it's in these days when Jesus is there in Decapolis ministering to these Gentiles that He is there with His disciples and these 4,000 people? Now, if you remember back to the feeding of the 5,000 -- the feeding of the 5,000 took place back up in Galilee, up in the region of Bethsaida that there was a Jewish region. 

Lots of Jews there in that region, but Jesus is now here in a gentile territory. These are gentiles here in this region. And notice what it says there. “When there was again a large crowd”, when there was a large crowd. Now this is a few months after Jesus feeding of the 5,000 and now they're there in this region of Decapolis and there is a large crowd that is gathered there. Why is this large crowd gathered there around Jesus? Why are they there?  

Well, first of all, because if you remember back to the demoniac, if you remember when when Jesus was fell asleep in the boat and they were in the storm and Jesus calms the storm, they come then into the the region of the Gerasenes. And that's where Decapolis was, in that region. And there was a demoniac who had come to Jesus there. And Jesus cast the demon out of this demoniac, and then He sent him back to Decapolis to go and spread the news that He was the one who healed him. 

And so this demoniac has gone back to Decapolis and he's told everybody what Jesus has done. He was the first missionary there into Decapolis. He's gone and proclaimed to the people that he met Jesus, and Jesus was the one who healed him. And so these people in this region here, these Gentiles in this region have seen this demoniac man completely healed. And they've heard about Jesus. But this crowd is there also because of the deaf man and his friends that we talked about last week, and their disobedience. Do you remember that? 

The disobedience when Jesus told them back in chapter 7 in verse 36, Jesus told them not to tell anyone. Don't tell anyone what has happened here. Yes, I have healed the deaf man. I have fixed his speech impediment but do not tell anyone what has happened here. 

But what do they do? They go and tell everyone, right? They disobey Jesus. They go around and they begin to tell everyone what has happened. And so now here is Jesus. Here at this point with this large crowd that's following Him and they're gathered around Him. And notice what it says there about this crowd. 

“They had nothing to eat.” They had nothing to eat. Just as the crowd back in Galilee was hungry after a long day, one day of listening to Jesus teach and heal people. This crowd here is now hungry as well. But there's something different about this feeding than the feeding of the 5,000 back in Mark chapter 6 in verse 35. It tells us that Hs disciples came to Him. His disciples came to Him, and they were the ones who were telling Jesus that the people needed something to eat... if you remember that back in Mark chapter 6. 

But notice here in Mark chapter 8, who is the one who initiates the feeding? Jesus is. It's not the disciples who initiate the feeding. Jesus is the one now who initiates the feeding of these people who are hungry. Notice what it says there at the end of verse 1 “Jesus called His disciples and said to them.” Jesus is the one who initiates this feeding for these Gentile people. And that's a key thing to note. These are gentiles here.  

Now remember what Jesus is teaching the disciples up to this point during this whole visit to these gentile territories. Jesus is teaching these guys. They've just gone on a really long walk. Remember about 120 miles from Tyre. They've come down now to the region of Decapolis. There's a lot of things that Jesus is teaching them, but He's teaching them that Jesus has come to save both Jews and Gentiles. 

And we're thankful for that, right? As Gentiles ourselves. We're grateful that Christ came to save both Jews and Gentiles. And it's interesting that the disciples would have been interested in the hunger of the Jews, as they were the ones who initiated the feeding back in Galilee with the Jews. They were the ones who initiated it there. But who initiates it for the Gentiles? Not them. They don't initiate it. They aren't interested in the hunger of the Gentiles. And Jesus now has to initiate this feeding for them. And so what does He say? 

Look at verse 2. Look what he says there. “I feel compassion.”  “I feel compassion for the people because they have remained with me. Now three days and have nothing to eat.” Now with the Jews back in Bethsaida, it was not even one full day that they were there with Jesus and it was getting late, and the disciples then get worried about all these Jews that are there that are hungry. But with the Gentiles, it's been three days, not one day as with the Jews back there, but it's been three days with these Gentiles. They've been there with Jesus for three days. And they're hungry.  

Why are they hungry? When they first come to see Jesus they didn't bring enough food with them, because they didn't think they were going to be there that long with Jesus. So they don't bring enough food with them. Their food eventually runs out, and now these people are there. They can't get enough of Jesus and they're hungry. Physically hungry. They ran out of food. 

So what does Jesus say about them? I feel compassion for these people. For these Gentiles. I feel compassion for them.  

Now Jesus also felt compassion for the Jews and Bethsaida but in that account it was because they were like sheep without a shepherd. If you remember that. He had compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. 

But here he feels compassion for these Gentiles, because they don't have anything to eat. Now, did Jesus know what it was like to go hungry? Of course He did. He knew what it was like to go hungry. Remember when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness? How long did He go without food? 40 days being tempted in the wilderness without any food. He's hungry. He understands hunger. He understands what these Gentiles are going through. And He knew their needs. He knew the needs of these Gentiles. 

And notice though why they are hungry. It wasn't just because they didn't pack enough food. It was because they couldn't get enough of Jesus. They wanted to stay there and hear Him teach. They love to listen to Jesus teach. He was the most amazing teacher that's ever walked the face of the earth and they couldn't get enough of Him. They were eager to be there with Jesus and they didn't want to leave, and so they just hang around until they run out of food. And they're so exhausted that if they had left and gone back home they wouldn't have made it. They would have fainted on their way home. 

Which is what Jesus says in verse 3. Look what He says there. “If I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way, and some of them have come from a great distance.” 

Some of these people that have come out in this wilderness area to come and see Jesus. They've traveled a long way and now they're hungry. They've come a long way to to see Him and they're probably concerned.  That “if I were to leave Jesus at this point and go back home and grab a bite to eat that when I come back, Jesus would be gone. I'd miss out.” So what do they do? We'll just go hungry. It's all right. We're here with Jesus. We'll just go hungry because we're eager to hear Him teach.  

They didn't want to leave Jesus, we won't go home for food because we don't want to leave this man. They're desperate and they're spiritually hungry, and they wanted to stay there and be with Jesus, even if it meant that they would go physically hungry.  

And yet, how many Christians today want church to end on a Sunday morning so that we can go home and grab a bite to eat? These gentiles are there and they say even if it means we go hungry we’ll be here with Jesus. We can't get enough of Him. And sadly with us, we're eager to go home on a Sunday morning instead of being here with God's people in the presence of God as we worship Him together, as we hear from Him in His Word.  

We should learn from these Gentiles who love to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to Him. That needs to be us. That needs to be our heart. That needs to be our attitude. Not going home to a ball game or getting to some other social event. No, I love to be at church. And I love to hear from God. And I can't wait to be there and I'll stay there as long as we need to be there. Because I love to hear from God. That should be our heart. That should be our attitude. These people are there, these gentiles are there and they want to stay with Jesus no matter what the cost. This desire of these people to be there with Jesus it touched the heart of Jesus. It touches His heart.  

And Jesus says, look what he says in verse 3. “If I send them away.”  Now, this sounds familiar, doesn't it? Sending them away. If you remember back to the feeding of the 5,000 what did the disciples come to Jesus and tell Jesus to do? 

Mark chapter 6 verses 35-36. The disciples said "this place is desolate and it's already quite late. Send them away so that they may go into the surrounding countryside and village and buys themselves something to eat.” Send them away, Jesus. I know they're here with You, and they're learning from You, and You’re healing all these people, but they're hungry. Send them away.  

What does Jesus say? If I send them away, what will happen? Continuing on in verse 3, He says “they will faint on their way, and some of them have come from a great distance.” Jesus is concerned for these people. He doesn't want them to become so weak on their journey home that they don't make it. He cares for their physical hunger.  

And so Jesus has a plan. But the disciples still don't get it. Jesus has a plan. The disciples don't get it and look at how this has all lined up. You would think that they would know exactly what Jesus is going to do at this point, right? He's done it before with 5,000. He’s fed a multitude like this. He'll do it again. But what did the disciples say? 

This leads to point #2. 

1. The Dullness of the Disciples. The Dullness of the Disciples. 

Look at verse 4. Look at what it says there... “And His disciples answered Him, “Where will anyone be able to find enough bread here in this desolate place to satisfy these people?”  

This is almost laughable if it wasn't true right? I mean come on guys. You've seen this happen before with more people. There were 5,000 of them and this is your question? Have you guys just lost your memory? You guys have dementia or something? What's going on here guys. Jesus has done this before. 

But as one commentator says, “it is a common observation that believers frequently forget God's amazing dealings with them in the past when confronted with some new crisis.” How often do we do this? We are guilty. We look at these disciples and we go ”Wow guys, really?” But we've got to look in the mirror. Look at our own heart. When we're in a time in a crisis where we go OK, God, I don't know if You're big enough for this one. I know You got me out of the last one and you let me through, but God, do You understand where I'm at now?  

And instead of trusting Him. That God is going to provide, that God is going to see us through this crisis, what do we do? We ask questions like these disciples did...showing the dullness of our faith. But God wants us to grow in our faith and that's why he puts us through those events in our life. Through those hardships in our life, because he wants us to grow in our faith in Him and watch and see how He gets us through every crisis. Every trouble that we go through, we see His faithfulness in our lives. 

And then when we go into the next one, we can stand and say, God, I know You're going to get me through this one. How do I know? Because You got me through the last one. Sadly, we're just like these disciples. We need to grow in our faith.  

Look at what these guys have done. Now, if you remember back in Bethsaida there was a town around to send these people into going buy food, but here they are out in the wilderness. There's no town around their way out in the region of Decapolis, outside of there. There's no town. There's no marketplace where they could go and send people to go and grab a bite to eat. And so they ask “Where will anyone be able to find enough bread? Where Jesus?” Or “We can take our money and go into town and get some food.”   

And here is most likely the problem that these disciples had. They weren't going to eat a meal with these Gentiles because Jews didn't eat with Gentiles. “Jesus, can't we just send them away? You see who all these people are? They're gentiles. We don't eat with Gentiles. Remember that they are unclean, Jesus?”  

But what is Jesus teaching these guys? That the Gospel was going to go to these people who have been there for three days listening to Him. But they're so spiritually dull that they still don't get it. They don't understand.  

And so their concern was, where can we find enough food to satisfy these people? “Look, Jesus, we're going to send these people back from the wilderness all the way back to their home. They're going to need a good meal in order to sustain them. Where are we going to find enough food to feed all of these people in this wilderness, Jesus?”   

And so Jesus asks them a question. Look what he says in verse 5. “How many loaves do you have?” How many loaves do you have? Now back in the feeding of the 5,000 -- if you remember that -- Jesus had the disciples go out and find some food, remember that. And what do they do there? They go, and they find a boy who has five loaves, and... what?  Two fish.  But this time Jesus turns the attention onto them, these Jewish boys, these Jewish disciples. How many loaves do you have guys? 

And what did they say? What was their response? Seven... We got seven. Jesus was going to take what was theirs as Jewish boys. He's going to take what was theirs. These seven loaves and feed them to who? Gentiles. Really, Jesus? This is our bread. But these guys needed still another lesson to help and wake them up to the reality of what is going on here. 

Jesus is teaching them in every instance on this Gentile tour that they are going to need to get comfortable with the Gentiles. Because their mission was going to be to go and take the gospel out to the world to go and take the gospel to these very gentiles.  

Why? Because that's the heart of Christ. Because Christ came as the savior of both the Jews and the Gentiles. And He came to save people not from their stomach problems, but he came to save people from their heart problems.  

And you might be here this morning with a heart problem. Your heart is dead. Your heart is spiritually dead. And you don't know Christ. You don't have eternal life. You have not received the free gift of salvation. And you are spiritually dead. But Christ came to give you life. Eternal life. And He calls you to repent of your sin and put your faith in Jesus Christ. For the forgiveness of your sins so that your heart can be made alive. So that you can have spiritual life, eternal life with Him. If you have not repented of your sin and put your faith in Jesus, do that this morning. Don't wait, come to Him. He is the savior of all men of both Jews and Gentiles, and He calls you to come to Him and to surrender your life and to give your life to Him. Believe in Him. Put your trust in Him. And He will give you the free gift of salvation. Eternal life. Do that this morning. 

Well, after Jesus takes the bread from these disciples. Jesus then begins to do something that He did before back in Bethsaida. Which leads to our third point, point #3.  

1. The Provision for the People. The Provision for the People. 

look at verse 6.  

“And He directed the people to sit down on the ground; and taking the seven loaves, He gave thanks and broke them, and started giving them to His disciples to serve to them, and they served them to the people.” 

Now what's interesting here is Jesus takes charge here. Jesus takes charge and he tells the people to sit down. Now according to Luke and John back in Bethsaida, Jesus had the disciples go and tell all the people to sit down. But Jesus takes control of this situation and he commands these Gentiles to go and sit down. 4,000 men -- plus there were women and children that were there as well. This is a large crowd and Jesus takes control of this crowd and He tells them to sit down.  

And Jesus takes the seven loaves from these Jewish boys. He takes their seven loaves. And what does He do? He gives thanks to God for them, as He always does before eating. Which is what we should always do before we eat, right? Give thanks to God for providing this for us.  

And He gives them to His disciples to go and serve the people. Now think about this. This is amazing. Up to this point, the disciples have been watching Jesus deal with a Gentile woman, remember the Gentile woman back in Tyre who was begging him to have her daughter healed of a demon? They watched this interaction with Jesus. They watched the interaction with Jesus healing the Gentle demoniac in the region of the Gerasenes when Jesus commands the demon to come out of that man. 

And they just saw Jesus heal a deaf Gentile man. They saw that happen and they were witnesses of it. And up to this point, things have been OK watching Jesus interact with the Gentiles, right? But what does Jesus have them do at this point? Go and serve the Gentiles. Those very people that you as Jews despise and claim are unclean. You boys need to go and serve them. Go and serve these unclean Gentiles ...they're hungry.  

Later on, these disciples would give Gentiles the message of the true bread, the gospel, right? That would be their mission. They would give the message of the gospel to the Gentiles so that the Gentiles can be saved. How do we know this? Turn over to Acts chapter 11. Look at this. This is amazing in Acts chapter 11. We get an account of Peter here in Acts chapter 11. And look at what it says in Acts chapter 11 and starting in verse 1: 

“Now the apostles and the brethren who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the Word of God. And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those who were circumcised took issue with him,” (That is, those who were Jews... that's the circumcised, the Jews took issue with him), “ saying “you went to the uncircumcised to the gentile men and” did what? “ate with them.” 

They got an issue with it. Peter, you did that. You went and ate with them. Look at verse 16. 

16 And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to say, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 Therefore if God gave to them the same gift as He gave to us (Jews) also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” 18 When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, “Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life.”  
 

What did Peter do? He went and ate with who? Gentiles. Where did he learn that from? Right here. Jesus was teaching these guys -- your mission is to go and preach the gospel to the Gentiles, and yes it's OK....You can eat with them. Why? Because they need the gospel. Peter went out and he preached the gospel to Gentiles. He preached to Jews also.  

He preached the gospel to the Gentiles back in Mark chapter 8 in verse 7 says this, “They also had a few small fish; and after He had blessed them, He ordered these to be served as well.” They then come across some small fish. And they bring those to Jesus, and He again blessed them. That is, He gave thanks to the Father for providing this meal for these people. For these Gentile people.  

And what did the disciples do? They go out and do what? Serve the Gentiles. They serve the Gentiles. They serve them bread and they serve them these fish as well. And as Jesus does -- He doesn't do half miracles. Jesus doesn't do half miracles. He didn't just give them a little food to get them up and going on their way. But they were completely satisfied. Look what it says in verse 8 “and they ate and were satisfied, and they picked up seven large baskets full of what was leftover of broken pieces.” 

Jesus made sure that they didn't just get a little food. No, they got enough to satisfy themselves because He knew many of them were going to go back on a long journey. And you wanted to make sure that they were going to get home. He's compassionate towards these Gentiles. He cares for them. Now, if you remember back in Bethsaida, how many baskets were left over there? Twelve. There were twelve full baskets, but notice here how many are leftover?  

Seven large baskets. Now these baskets here these large baskets are different from the baskets that the Jews had in Bethsaida. The Greek word for the baskets over there in Bethsaida that the Jews had, the Greek word is kophinos. And those were good size baskets that were...they were traveler-sized baskets that were used to carry one day's food supply in it. That's the size of the basket that they had. And Jesus filled 12 of them.  

But the Greek word here is spuris. And this was a larger basket that was big enough to carry a man inside of it. This was the basket you remember when Paul was let down in Acts chapter 9 in Damascus, to get him out of the city to escape because they wanted to kill him, and they let him down by a basket. That's this basket. Large basket that a man could fit inside of.  

And these seven baskets indicate that the amount of leftovers here was actually greater than the 12 baskets after feeding the 5,000 -- more leftovers for the Gentiles. He was compassionate and He cared for them. And He fed them. 

Now we don't know what they did with these leftovers. Probably gave it to those who had the longer journeys home. You've got a long journey. Raise your hand will give you some food, right? And they distributed the food and gave it to them. But there were obviously plenty of people to take these leftovers home. How many people were there? Look at what it says in verse 9 “about 4,000 were there and Jesus sent them away.”    Matthew tells us that there were 4,000 men, just the men. So again you would have somewhere between 10 to 15,000 people there, that are with Jesus. 

And what does he do with seven loaves of bread and a couple fish? He feeds them all. And He satisfies them. Gentiles, who are considered unclean by the Jews.  Jesus is showing these guys He cares. He has compassion for them. But notice this time with these Gentiles. What happened with the Jews last time? If you remember back to the feeding of the 5,000, what did they do there? What did the Jews want to do when they saw this amazing miracle that Jesus did? They wanted to set Him up as their...what? King...they wanted to make Him King.  “He's the Prophet. Make Him King. He'll deliver us from Rome!” 

Yeah. Jesus says no. It's not my time. It's not what I came to do. I came to go to the cross. To die for you sinners. And He was fixed on that mission. But these people are Gentiles here. They are Gentiles and they weren't trying to set Him up as King. Jesus just sends them away. Off they go. Satisfied. 

A gracious, and compassionate, and loving savior who provides for these Gentiles.  

In closing, there are two lessons that we can learn from this passage.  

1. The first lesson is this... That God provides. God provides. Just as He provided for these Gentile people, He provides and He cares for them. He provides both physically and He provides.. What? Spiritually. He's the bread of life. He's the bread of life who has come to take away the sins of all of those who would believe in Him. Do you believe in Him? That's what He came to do. To give you spiritual life.  Jesus said in John 6:35 “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”  Are you spiritually hungry? This morning come to Christ and He will fill you. He will fill your spiritual need.  

1. Secondly, we learn that we can have confidence in God's Word. We can have confidence in His Word. While the world is telling us not to believe our Bibles...they're telling us not to believe in the Jesus of the Bible. And what are they telling us? It's full of contradictions. But what have we seen this morning? No, it's not. It's the very Word of God. They're wrong. This is the Word of God, and we know that this Bible that we have in our hands is the truth. And we must believe it. That's what God calls us to do. Don't question His Word. Believe His Word. He will only speak to us that which is true. And He's spoken to us right here. Do you have confidence in His Word? You should. As believers, we know His Word. We should desire His Word. We should long for His Word and have confidence in His Word. And because we believe it, we believe in the One that it speaks of. The One who said “I am the bread of life, and he who comes to Me will not hunger.” Jesus Christ is our savior and therefore we believe His every word.  

Let's pray.  father. Thank you for this amazing time in Your Word and seeing how compassionate You are toward these Gentiles. As Gentiles ourselves, we are so grateful that You didn't come just to save the Jews, but You came to save both Jews and Gentiles. We thank You for calling us. We thank You for calling us through the gospel. Through Your Word that is true. Through Your Word that we can have confidence in. And help us each and every day as we open our Bibles as we open up Your Word. I pray that You would strengthen our faith in You and have confidence in every word that You speak to us through the Bible. God help us to leave from here with a greater compassion for others as we see the heart of our Savior and the compassion that He had for these Gentiles, these unclean Gentiles. God, I pray that You would give us a heart of compassion and love for the world, for our enemies that You have called us to pray for. And to love our enemies. God help us to leave from here and to live that out. And to bring glory to Your name. Thank You for being a compassionate God to us. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. We're so thankful for that. Help us to live in light of this truth as we leave from here this morning. We pray in Christ name. Amen.