I. A God Worthy of Worship 00:00

[Lord, we] pray that as we go through this Lent you would enthrone yourself in our hearts, that you would displace the little gods we’ve loved to serve, and that you would replace them with the true worship of you. In Jesus’ name, amen.

So I was reading this book again this week that I haven’t read for quite a while. It’s by a guy I actually had the pleasure of meeting one time. His name is Stephen R. Lawhead, and he’s a Christian fiction writer. He writes these fantasy books, often historical fantasies, and he weaves the Christian faith into these fantastical battles. This one in particular is about the King Arthur myth, and he conflates it with the coming of Christianity to Britain. He’s talking about the old druids, and they’re encountering the Christian priests, and there’s this battle between the spiritual forces of darkness and the coming light of Jesus Christ. It’s really fun. I mean, I’m a geek, so that’s exactly the type of book I like to read.

But I was also thinking about the conversations in this book. Obviously they’re all fictional, but they really do represent a lot of the conversations that were happening as this crazy religion of Christianity was taking over the world. Because remember, Jesus had twelve disciples, one of whom betrayed him and ended up not being a follower anymore. And so he has these eleven guys, and that becomes the most worldwide religion that has ever existed in the history of the world. It doesn’t make any sense.

And in fact, the conversations being had are with these people who are like, “Well, I’ve got all these gods. I can worship your God too. That’s fine. But why does he have to be number one? Why does he have to be the only God?” Because it was normal in Rome for new gods to come up, or they’d conquer a new tribe and they’d say, “You worship your god, that’s fine, but worship our gods too.” But there was something different going on in Christianity, because there was a claim, even in early Judaism, that our God, Yahweh, was the God above all gods, and that there were no gods beside him.

And in our Lenten season I’ve been thinking about the fact that people are calling this modern era a new pagan culture. They’re saying that the United States was characterized for a long time by the beliefs of Christianity, but now it’s as common, or more common, that you’re going to encounter somebody who wasn’t raised in the church, who isn’t a Christian, who doesn’t know the truth of Jesus Christ, who doesn’t even know the stories of the Bible; that our culture has become secularized. That’s one of the terms.

So why am I bringing all this up? Why am I rambling about this idea? Well, there are these conversations in this book between these pagan priests and these Christian priests, and they resemble conversations I’ve had myself with people who don’t understand Christianity: “Well, why do I need to follow that old book, written thousands of years ago by a little tribe in the middle of nowhere? Why does it matter? Or why do I need to change my lifestyle to serve this new thing?” And that’s really the challenge we face in the culture today: why is Jesus in particular worthy of our worship?

It’s not a challenge of us convincing other people, “You know what? All those things, money, wealth, power, sex, fame, those are bad.” You go out there and preach that message and see how far you get, how many people are going to listen to you. I’ll tell you: not many. Not many. The truth and the Christian message, the kernel that has survived every persecution, every culture shift (there’s not a country in the world that has outlasted Christianity), what is at the center of it? It’s a God who is worthy of our worship, a God who is so good that you should give up every other god and serve him.

And that’s the way I think Lent should operate in our life. We give up some things: maybe it’s alcohol or TV or social media. I was just talking to somebody who wants to give up gossiping. Great, love it. You get things out of your way so that you can see the goodness of God. That’s the reason. Not because “You wicked sinner, you be better.” No, it’s because those things make it so you can’t see the goodness of God, a God who is worthy of worship, a God for whom it’s better if you just give up all the other gods and serve him.

II. Jesus' Last Week 05:03

And so today, as we’re talking, that’s the journey Christ is making into Jerusalem. We’re going through this series where we study Holy Week. We look at Jesus’ last week before his crucifixion. What was he doing? He was uprooting all the other gods that had found their way into the Jewish religion, all the other gods, including the Roman ones. He was saying, “No, I am Lord of all.” And he put his big stamp on it by dying on a cross, which makes zero sense. Why would you do that? Didn’t you just lose? You picked a battle and you lost. That’s the scandal of Christianity: actually, through his death he conquered death. And of course we know Easter is coming.

And so as we read through what he talks about, I want you to keep this in mind. In the same way that we identified ourselves with Israel when we were walking through the Exodus story (we talked about the soul that was in tyranny and then got brought into the wilderness, where maybe there was no tyranny but there was utter chaos, and they had to learn how to be a people who loved God, who served God, who looked to him for their provision), in the same way that we identified ourselves with Israel, we should identify ourselves with Jerusalem in Holy Week. Jesus is coming in and he’s proclaiming the truth. How will you respond? Because that’s the question for Jerusalem. How is Jerusalem going to respond when Jesus comes? He’s been ministering for three years, and now he comes and makes his proclamation. How are they going to respond to him?

So let’s talk through this. Last time we covered Palm Sunday. He was riding high. All of Jerusalem, besides the religious leaders, was declaring, “Hosanna, Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

III. The Barren Fig Tree 07:17

He retreats to Bethany, has a good night’s sleep, and now he’s heading back into Jerusalem. And like I warned you, he’s going to stir some things up. He’s going to stir up the opposition by proclaiming the hard truths he is asking them to accept. Mark 11, beginning in verse 12:

12 On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. Mark 11.12

That’s just a great little phrase. I’m really not going to preach on that phrase, but Jesus was so man that he was hungry. Maybe he didn’t eat enough breakfast that morning. Thank God for a God who will identify with all of our weakness. You think God doesn’t care when you’re hungry? He knows what it’s like.

13 And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. Mark 11.13

And he said to it, “It’s all right, it’s not the season for figs. I’ll move on.” No:

14 And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it. Mark 11.14

Okay, did Jesus not know that it wasn’t the season? No. He grew up in a culture that lived off the food they were able to grow. We don’t really get that, because we go to the grocery store and it’s the season for everything all the time: “Where are my special apples that I like?” whatever they are. We really don’t understand. No, he knew the season. So that’s a little hint that he’s trying to make a different point. He’s not making the point that because he’s God, that tree should have had figs on it. No, he’s making a different point.

So what is he saying? Well, he could have just said, “Fig tree, bring forth fruit,” and don’t you know it would have brought forth fruit? We’ve seen him do crazier things. But instead he is using it as a symbol of the failure of Jerusalem to produce the fruits of the mission God gave them when he rescued them out of Egypt, when he made Abraham the father of nations. He said all the world would be blessed by you. And we get to this time, and the world has not been blessed by Israel. What happened?

We even saw in our Exodus series that the point of God setting this people apart was that he loved the entire world and he wanted to save them by the witness of his kingdom of priests, his people serving God. But Israel is a lot like us, and they weren’t very good witnesses to the culture. Over and over again a culture would come in and say, “We’ve got a better god,” and they’d be like, “Well, let’s go follow him.” That’s not a witness.

In the same way, over and over again our culture says, “You need to serve our gods: money, finance, sex, fame, power, drugs, rock and roll,” whatever it is. All things that have their place. Drugs can cure incurable diseases. I’m not going to go into all of these. Let’s say fame: fame has its uses, significance. We should recognize people who should be admired. Money provides for our life. All of these things have their places. But as soon as the culture asks you to serve them, to give them your all, as if they are the most important, they become gods that must be overturned. And that’s what they mean when they say we’re in a pagan culture: there are more people serving all of those gods than there are serving God.

And so as we think about this, what is happening? Jesus is declaring something that has been declared to Jerusalem for hundreds of years through the prophets. In fact, there are no fewer than seven references in the prophets to Israel being a withered fig tree. This is something they said over and over again: “Israel, you’re not producing any fruit. God asks you to produce fruit, to save the world, to point everybody to him.” And so Jesus, through this one miracle of cursing the fig tree, which at first seems like “What is going on here?”, is actually doing something that all of the religious leaders especially would have recognized: the day of judgment has come. Jesus is coming; the day of judgment has come.

And then you have the whole fig tree. Why do they keep talking about fig trees? Well, in the garden, Adam and Eve: what did they clothe themselves with? Fig leaves (Gen 3.7). So the point of the fig tree is that all of your human effort to clothe yourself through the religion of sacrifices, even the godly religion God set up for them, because you brought your humanity into it in the fallen, broken way, hasn’t borne fruit. And Jesus over and over again is confronting the religious leaders, saying, “Yeah, you follow all these rules, but look at the widow you just let languish in the street. It hasn’t changed your heart. It hasn’t changed your heart.” And we’re going to get to more of that as we go to the next thing.

IV. Faith Without Works Is Dead 11:39

But there’s a curious notion here that I don’t want us to pass over, which is that when you follow Jesus (if we’re going to identify ourselves with Jerusalem in this story), you have to bear fruit. You actually don’t get to just live your life saying, “Yes, I’m a Christian,” and when they send the survey you mark “Christian” on the form, and when you have a baby you get them baptized. That’s actually not the Christian life. There is so much more.

And I think it causes quite a bit of tension in the Christian faith. In fact, the Mormons… I used to do these trips with my high school where we went and debated Mormons about their faith. We had these great talks. I made some great friends. But their biggest criticism of Christianity is: you can be a Christian and not be a Christian. You could be a Christian and live your life like anybody else. You won’t recognize a Christian on the street. “At least we know who the Mormons are.” That was their big argument: that we’re hypocrites. And honestly, although there’s some theological stuff you can go into about that, they have a point. We should absolutely take that seriously.

In fact, James was already seeing this happen in the early church. So let’s go to James chapter 2. This is just a great Lenten passage, verse 14. James is talking to the early church, within thirty years of Jesus, in Jerusalem, and he’s already talking to them about this stuff. He says:

14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. James 2.14–18

That’s a heavy passage, because the point is that good intentions actually don’t count. In fact, there’s one more step beyond. I’m going to go one step further: the passage here is telling you that you don’t believe if you don’t do the things that are in keeping with your beliefs.

So I can say all day, “I believe that red is the best color,” but then I buy a bunch of blue things, and I don’t have a single red thing in my house. Do I really believe that red is the best color? No. I am not living in keeping with my belief. To put a finer point on it: I can say, “I believe that Jesus is my Lord and Savior,” but live like I’m in charge of my own life. Do I really believe that Jesus is my Lord and Savior? Do you? I don’t know. Now, we say the Lord weighs the hearts (Prov 21.2). But that’s the challenge in this passage: “You say you have faith, but you’re living in the world just as if you don’t have faith. So I’m going to show you my faith by living the Christian life, taking up my cross and following Jesus. I’m going to show you I have faith by laying down the things I want to do in favor of the things God’s asking me to do.”

That was the challenge I felt this morning reading this passage: when was the last time I did something differently than I wanted to because Jesus told me to? Sometimes it goes a pretty good stretch where I’m just living my life, and I’m not listening to what maybe he wants me to do. This is Lent. This is the journey where we clear out some of the stuff that has been crowding our heart, that has been demanding our time, our attention, our obedience, and we look: “Jesus, what do you want me to do?” Let your faith lead to fruits in keeping with repentance (Matt 3.8).

V. A House of Prayer for All the Nations 16:10

Let’s keep going, because there’s more to this story as we go along. So Jesus curses the fig tree, and he goes into Jerusalem, and it says:

15 And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 16 And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17 And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” Mark 11.15–17

So this is right after the fig tree. He’s cursing the fig tree symbolically, and then he’s going to the place that should have been the greatest witness of God’s faithfulness in the whole world, in the center of Jerusalem, in the temple. And it’s a market where they compete to charge people the most they can for the sacrifices they are required to make by this religion in the temple. They are trafficking in human guilt. They are using a God-given rite of atonement (these things the priests are supposed to help them with, so that they can reconcile with the Lord, so they can restore relationship), and they’re using it as a way to make money. On top of that, they are not allowing foreigners into the temple. And Jesus is like, “The whole point was that all the nations could come and see the glory of God in you. The whole point.”

I hear some pretty strong convictions for the church today. We always need to be asking ourselves: are we doing this so that we can bring people to encounter the love of God? Or are we doing it so that we’re comfortable, we have our people around, and our church looks the best and feels the best for us? We always have to have that in mind.

But what I want to go to today is this. If we are representing Jerusalem, the temple (it says in the scriptures, in the New Testament, that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit; 1 Cor 6.19), who are all the people in your heart who are crowding things up? Where are all the different voices that are keeping you from the worship of God? Because that was the whole point. Instead of worshiping God, people were coming there, and there was a clamor of voices trying to get their money, trying to get their time, trying to get their devotion, aside from God.

So we see this historical act of Jesus driving out the money changers in the temple, and I see this as lining up directly with Lent: get the stuff out of your heart so that you can worship the Lord. The whole point is not “You evil, wicked sinners.” Believe it or not, Jesus doesn’t actually say that. Occasionally he uses some harsh words. But the point, like we read in our Gospel today, John 3:16, probably the most famous verse in the whole Bible, is that he came to save the world, not to condemn it (John 3.16–17).

So why is he driving the money changers out? Is it because he wants them to know how bad they are, or because he wants to give them the best opportunity to finally take their God seriously? And in the same way, in Lent, is God trying to get you to change your behavior, to get rid of some things you’re holding on to, so that he can make you feel awful about how bad you are? Or is he trying to clear the way so you can encounter him in this time? Now, everybody has to make the choice for themselves. There may be something in your life that you have to give up, even beyond whatever you decided to give up for Lent. There may be a practice or a time or a thing you’re holding on to. But why? Your God is worthy of your worship, if you’ll open your eyes and see. But sometimes that requires letting go.

VI. Not a God of Transactions 20:35

Now, in this season of repentance, let’s just remember that our God is not a God of transactions. On top of all the things I’ve said about faith and works in keeping with repentance, and “clear your heart” (there’s a lot), our God doesn’t require that in order to love you. He loves just the crazy, wicked sinner that you are. I don’t know about you, but I feel that way. Sometimes I go, “God, how am I standing in the pulpit preaching to your people when I’ve got all this stuff I’m dealing with, A, B, C or D?” My wife can tell you I am not perfect.

And God wants you to know today the other thing he needed to make clear in that temple: you don’t have to pay a price in order to encounter God. You have to turn from your sin. Now, we just talked about faith and works: once you do that, there will be a cost to turning from your sin. But it’s not transactional. The love, the salvation, the death on the cross, the resurrection, everything is there for you already. And the question is: how far are you willing to go? How much are you willing for God to take over in your life? How much resurrection life do you want to experience? Because it’s directly linked to what you’re willing to give to him.

Another James or First John passage says, “If you say you have no sin, you deceive yourself, but if you confess your sins, God is faithful and just to forgive your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1.8–9). So there’s the pair here: give up what you’re holding on to, and God is faithful. We read in our collect that his glory is always to show mercy.

VII. Poking the Bear 21:40

Now, the religious leaders hear all of this, and they have a really different reaction than all of us holy people would. All of us holy people, if Jesus was convicting us, would say, “Yes, Lord.” No, they have the same reaction that we often have when Jesus wants to take something that’s precious to us but isn’t of him:

18 And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. 19 And when evening came they went out of the city. Mark 11.18–19

So what’s going on there? Well, not to spend a lot of time here, but Jesus is poking the bear. “Hosanna, Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” That’s where the people are on Sunday. By Friday they’re crucifying him. What happened in the middle? This. He went into their precious place, their temple, the place they had built to their own glory, although they claimed it was for God, and he overturned everything. And he cursed the fig tree, saying the time of judgment is here. And all the religious leaders said, “Oh, not I. I am so good. Look what I’ve done. I’m important.”

And all of us say the same when God says, “Hey, maybe you need to be a little more humble in how you talk to people. Maybe you’re too sure of yourself. Maybe you’re holding on too tightly to that thing.” “Well, I’ve just got to have my one hour a week where I get to do what I want to do,” or whatever it is. We have all these reasons why what we get is deserved. And when Jesus comes in, sometimes we just turn the volume off. We just keep going: “That probably wasn’t bad. That probably wasn’t God.”

In Lent, my invitation is: let Jesus wreck the insides of your temple. Let him turn over the tables. Like I said, he’s cleansing it so that he can be there. Wouldn’t you rather do it all with him? I would. I need more of him every day.

So there’s this historic thing happening where now the religious leaders are ramping up their smear campaign against Jesus: “Did you see what he did in the temple?” They’re going after him in this, and it’s going to be building, and I just want you to keep that in mind as we move on.

VIII. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem 25:10

But as Jesus is leaving this prophetic scene, where he’s cursed the fig tree and overturned the tables, he looks out on Jerusalem, he looks back, and he says this passage, in Matthew 23:37:

37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 38 See, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” Matt 23.37–39

And here we get the heart behind the invitation. Because if all you heard was everything I’ve said so far, you might be feeling the burden of condemnation. But this is an insight: no, Jesus is doing all of these things because he loves Jerusalem, because he loves the Pharisees. The very ones who call out for his death, he loves. And he knows they’re going to turn on him. He knows they’re already plotting his death. But he really wants them to change. He really wants them to repent. He actually wants relationship with those murderers. And believe it or not, that means he can also want relationship with you. In the same way, Jesus comes in and disrupts everything for relationship with you.

And the whole point of this is that Jerusalem was a symbol of God’s peace on earth, God’s goodwill toward men, and they had transformed it into the same bureaucracy that every human culture in the history of the world has built to keep people in line, to oppress people, to get the most money out of them. They had fallen into all of those problems, and Jesus goes, “No. Not my city.”

And we look at this and we see that the God of judgment from the Old Testament is also the God of love, because there is nothing in Jesus that is not in God our Father. So if you don’t know this already: the book of the Bible is not about a big, judgmental, Zeus-like God striking people down, and then Jesus goes, “God, don’t do it. Strike me instead.” No, no, no. The book of the Bible is about the God who created everything, made it good, loved it. And then we said no, and he said, “I’m coming for you.” And then we said no again, and he said, “Let me rescue you again.” And we said no, and he sent his only Son, Jesus. He said, “Surely they’ll hear him.” And then we crucified him. And then he said, “Don’t worry. I will raise him from the dead, and through that cross and resurrection I have now purchased your entire salvation.” There’s not a battle you face today that God didn’t buy on the cross.

And so the good news, in the midst of all of this (“Hey, you should give up your gods; hey, you should take Lent seriously; hey, you should do all these things”), in the midst of all of this, is that it’s all for you: that you might be free, that you might have relationship with the God who loves you and has been pursuing you from the garden till eternity.

IX. Holiness, Love and God's Time 28:41

And so let’s talk about that love. Because there’s something going on in our nation that is challenging the stale, hypocritical Christianity that has often been portrayed across our time. And we’re guilty of it too. Not one of us has been perfect. Thank you, Lent, for reminding us of that. But right now God wants to pour out his love in a unique and powerful way.

Maybe some people can trace it to that Asbury thing that was going on. You had a college campus where a guy stood up and just gave a normal message: “Hey, God wants to love you in spite of your sin and your suffering.” And he even texted his wife: “No, just another stinker.” Just another stinker message; “I’ve preached a bunch of them.” And from that moment on they had something like fourteen days of people in 24/7 prayer, receiving an outpouring of the love of God, because he got up and just preached “God loves you.” He brought it out of Romans: no matter where you’re at, God loves you, and you need to encounter the love of God. Some students stayed, more people came, and lo and behold, when the love of God shows up, people want that.

What did I say at the beginning? Go out there and preach to everybody, “You’re bad, you’re evil, you’re whatever,” and they’re not going to listen. But if you preach, “There is one who is worthy of your love, who loves you,” that’s a message people will hear.

And so they had this great outpouring, and there were a bunch of stories that came out of it, and there are two things I want to point out about these stories. Number one: people would go into that room and they would say they encountered the holiness of God, the true set-apartness (holy means set apart), that thing where he’s so immense and he’s so good, and they would realize how unworthy they were. This is story after story after story. But in that same instant they would encounter the closeness, the love of God, meeting them in their brokenness.

I need to remember that love. I’ve encountered it so many times, and yet I go out into the world, and I gain all of these things, and I think, “Man, I’m unworthy again,” and I have to encounter that love again. And so these people are encountering the goodness of God, the holiness of God, the faith-without-works-is-dead of God, all of that stuff, and they’re encountering at the same time the love of God, which is the same God.

And second, they’re experiencing God’s timing. Again and again they’re saying, “I sat down and I thought it was ten minutes, and it was two hours.” “I thought it was five minutes, and it was three hours.” “I thought it was twenty minutes, and it was five hours.” I’ve heard story after story. So I think, as I’ve been praying about this, that there’s actually a prophetic message for us. There are some of us who feel like there’s just no more time left, that we’re out of time, that God can’t do that thing he promised, or there are situations we’ve given up for hopeless. God wants to show us that in his time he’s going to show up.

X. In an Instant, Suddenly 31:44

I think we’re in what some people have termed an “in an instant, suddenly” moment. Because over and over we see these things in Scripture where it goes, “In an instant, suddenly, God showed up.” And you’re like, “Yeah, but they were waiting for sixty years for that to happen.” But in an instant, suddenly, he showed up. And I think that’s the message for us in this season, as God is showing up in his holiness and his love, as we repent and we encounter him, and we realize the love of God, which shows us who we are: that he also wants to break through and bring us into his time. And in his perfect time all of our needs are met, all of the promises are yes and amen (2 Cor 1.20), and there is no fear in that love (1 John 4.18).

And at our worship night on Wednesday we encountered a portion of that outpouring. Because God’s been speaking to us. We’ve had prophetic words, we’ve had people be healed, we’ve had things happening over the past few weeks. And we’re like, “Man, we’ve got to have a worship night.” I had several people telling me, “Jesse, man, can you plan a worship night?” I said, “Great, let’s do it. Let’s go see what God will do when we take time out of our week and we say, ‘God, we’re just here to encounter you.’”

We started with repentance, because of these words that have been coming out of Asbury. I thought, “You know what? We need to start with acknowledging our unworthiness.” And then we went into worship, and we went into praying for people, and for an hour and a half God showed up and poured out on the people who showed up. There was weeping, there was breakthrough, there were moments of God’s presence, and it all centered on the love of God for us. So praise God, God’s doing something right now in this season, and the invitation to all of us is to press into him.

And this is not some kooky, weird, “Whoa, what’s happening?” This is how God showed up all the time, throughout all of time. God shows up in powerful ways. He convicts people of their sin, and he encounters them with love. You read it all throughout the Bible, all throughout the New Testament, all throughout the history of the church. And so thank God that we get to be a part of a special time where he’s doing that.

But you know what I think he’s doing for our church in this season of Holy Spirit power, of the things he’s doing in our life? He’s teaching us how to be the church all the time. I think there’s a special moment where prayers are easier, where encounters with God are closer. I don’t know exactly how that all works, but the veil seems to be thin. I don’t know. I go to my devotions, and they used to feel really dry: “Man, I’ve got to do these.” And all of a sudden they’re feeling richer. There’s stuff coming out. I think that’s a part of being a part of God’s purpose in the world right now. I think there’s a special moment right now.

But man, let’s not leave it there. This is just the beginning. He’s filling us up, changing us, bringing breakthroughs, so that we can live as people who are shaped by encounter with the presence and the power of God. We have a couple more worship nights coming up, and I encourage you to come to one of those. But the point is bigger than those moments of encounter. Please be there; absolutely, they are wonderful. I’m going to be at all of them. It’s great. But the point is that we serve a living God who loves you, who wants to change you, who wants to save your life.

God doesn’t just want something from us; it’s because he wants something for us. That’s true; I said that last week. But the next stage is: God wants something for us because he wants something for the whole world. And if we can enter into the purposes of God, us, little Saint Michael’s Church, then San Clemente will be impacted as we go about our lives. Then the state of California, that godless heathen country, will be impacted and changed, because we chose to serve God. That’s it. It’s simple, it’s powerful, and it’s the most difficult thing you will ever have to do for the rest of your life: to serve God and love others. There is hope for California. Amen.