One Precious Donkey

In this passage, we come not
to an unfamiliar subject. We’ve faced the Sabbath challenge
before. Christ, once again, is going
to work a miracle on the Sabbath. It became one of Christ’s regular
features of His ministry, challenging the widely held opinion and the
practices of the Sabbath. Christ’s ever one not to shy
away, but to deal with things straightforwardly. We find almost
an identical scene as seen before. It’s the last mention of Jesus
teaching in a synagogue. What a sad way for His public
teaching ministry to go away in the midst of a controversy
like this. But Christ knew. Christ knew what was going to
come. This is just one of the many symptoms, really, of Christ
facing the religious elite. And in this last occasion of
His teaching in a synagogue, it’s one of the last of His doing
so in the latter part of His ministry, perhaps the many elders
that were in charge of these places of teaching began to shut
him out and forbid him from teaching because of the so-called controversies. Even in the last journey, as
Christ is journeying literally to the cross, we could expect
nothing less than the taunts that He was receiving, the opposition,
the catcalls, the deprecating remarks that He was constantly
receiving, the Phariseeism, if you will, of the Pharisees, It
shouldn’t have surprised him. As I mentioned, this one passage
before us isn’t the only Sabbath healing. We’ll look at the others
briefly in a moment. But if you would, let’s consider
the passage before us. Chapter 13, verses 10 and following. Follow along as I read. And he
was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And there was
a woman who for 18 years had had a sickness caused by a spirit. And she was bent double and could
not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, He called
her over and said to her, Woman, you are freed from your sickness.
And He laid His hands on her. And immediately she was made
erect again and began glorifying God. But the synagogue official indignant because Jesus had healed
on the Sabbath, began saying to the crowd in response, there
are six days in which work should be done. So come during them
and get healed and not on the Sabbath day. But the Lord answered
him and said, you hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath
untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to
water him? And this woman, A daughter of
Abraham, as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years. Should she not have been released
from this bond on the Sabbath day? As as he said this, all his opponents
were being humiliated and the entire crowd was rejoicing over
all the glorious things being done by him. I told you that it wasn’t just
a one-time occurrence. Perhaps even the religious elite
may have been willing to overlook a one-time occurrence. But there
are at least five and possibly two additional Sabbath healings.
This wasn’t just an accident. One could almost say that Christ
went looking for these opportunities, an opportunity to challenge the
opinions held by the religious elite An opportunity for Christ
to correct them if possible. Let me take you on just a brief
tour. You’re welcome to turn if you wish and thumb through
these passages as I go, but we’ll move quickly enough that you
may just want to pause and in your mind’s eye, follow along.
In chronological order, as far as we’re able, to secure that
Christ came upon a lame man laying by the pool of Bethesda there
in John chapter five. And in that passage, here was
this crippled man. And as the legend had it, some
kind of spirit would stir up the waters and the first one
allegedly to jump in the waters would be healed. We don’t know
anything outside of what God’s word tells us about this other
than there was a legend to that end. The response to that particular
occasion, his very first Sabbath healing, was an inquest or an
investigation that went on. And what resulted from that was
they were persecuting Jesus, even seeking to kill Him. This
was a very serious offense in the mind of the strict Jews. But it wasn’t the only Sabbath
healing. There would be others. In Matthew 12, which passage
parallels the one that we looked at in Luke 1, or if you will,
Mark 3. This also occurred in the synagogue. The man with the withered hand
whom Jesus ministered to and instantly healed. The response
to that one? They wanted to destroy him. Initially,
they sought to put him to death, but now they absolutely want
to hound Christ all the way to the grave. This was a severe
and serious transgression of the law in their opinion. But
it wasn’t the it wouldn’t stop there. It wasn’t the only other
Sabbath healing in chronological order comes the one that we look
at this morning and we’ll return to it momentarily. The fourth
so-called Sabbath healing occurred outside the temple. We’ve looked
at that in different contexts in times past. It’s in John chapter
9. In John chapter 9, you know of
it well, it’s the passage of the man born blind. Who sinned,
this man or his parents, that he should be born blind? This
too happened on a Sabbath. This too brought an investigation
and hostility towards Christ. They had long since decided they
wanted to do away with them. It was simply now the timing
and the means. Finally, the passage which will
come to here in the next few weeks, a man suffering from a
disease called dropsy. And to this, Jesus challenges
them and there is no reply. They are done arguing with the
Lord Jesus Christ. They are done trying to persuade
Him, trying to correct His behavior. They are done with Him. And from
that point on, it is one step after another towards the cross
for Christ. It wasn’t just a one time occurrence
because Jesus Christ was trying to make a point with these people.
The Pharisees had turned the Sabbath from the blessing that
it was designed by God to be into a curse. It was a burdensome
obligation that had become so, heavily saddled with countless
man-made ordinances that went right along with the Sabbath.
In truth, the Jews regarded the Sabbath as a joyful day. It was
supposed to be that by God’s design. Saddled it, as I said, with so
many restrictions that could not have helped become burdensome. Works of all kinds, as you know,
were prohibited. The attempt to define work became
so precise that they would determine exactly what was allowed and
what wasn’t to the point of absurdity at times. For instance, on the
Sabbath, You were allowed to borrow wine or oil. You could
go to your neighbor and knock on his door and ask for wine
or oil, but you could not offer to repay because that was an
implied transaction and transactions implied writing and writing was
forbidden on the Sabbath. Absurd. You were also allowed
on the Sabbath to douse your lamp. to put out the light that
your lamp was giving off, the oil lamps that they so often
used. If you’re afraid of perhaps thieves breaking in, people lurking
around your house, you’re okay to put out your lamp. But if
you’re only trying to preserve oil, or if you were trying to
preserve the wick, you were not allowed to put out your lamp.
You were guilty of working and breaking the law. Sabbath healings were not exempt
from legal interpretations. Healing on the Sabbath. There
was a provision along these lines that if you happen to use vinegar
to cure a toothache, I know I’m not recommending it, people.
Apparently, it was a remedy that was common in the day. No wonder they didn’t have any
friends. But if you used vinegar to cure a toothache, that was
a breach of the law. But if you happened to have vinegar
on your salad and on your food while you were dining and your
tooth just happened to be healed, and that’s the way so many of
the laws went. Always an attempt to find these
curious and creative loopholes to circumvent the law. The fourth commandment, as we’ve
seen it in the past, was a favorite area for the Jewish Pharisees
to apply their religiousness, to go to extremes, whether it
was by their ostentatious rigor in the way they enforced the
law. They went about almost as some kind of a strike team through
the neighborhoods looking for breaches of the law. in some
kind of an attempt to show themselves as zealots for God’s law. And
it’s where this fear is where Jesus so often came to confront
their religiosity, their phoniness. Jesus came to vindicate the law,
to make it lovable once again, to put it in its proper perspective. One pastor said it this way.
He said the rigid observance of the Sabbath was one of the
main constituents of the Jewish religion. Apart from the principles
in connection with the keeping of the Sabbath of the Old Testament,
the doctors of the law laid down literally thousands of subtle
provisions of what was commanded and especially of what was forbidden
on the Sabbath. Thus, the keeping of the Sabbath
had degenerated into deadly formalism. Do you hear what he’s saying?
In essence, he says that just merely by walking this rigid,
fine line, people thought that they could be saved. Carrying things was a double
violation because as they reasoned, you had to pick it up and that
was work. And eventually you would have
to set it down and that too was work. In fact, you weren’t even supposed
to carry anything heavier than a dried fig. If you wanted to
catch rain, it was fine. That’s fine to catch rain as
long as it’s trickling down a wall. But if you catch it trickling
off of the roof, it was somehow a violation. The legalistic Jews numbered
each distinctive act that could be called work, and they listed
them all as separate sins so that if your sins stacked up
before you, you would have to bring a sacrifice for each one
of those sins. As we saw in the attack on the
apostles, picking grains off of the field, plucking the ear
was one act and rubbing it between their hands was another act of
work. Jesus rebuked them. Jesus had a mind to let the Pharisees
know not only that He was Lord of the Sabbath, but their whole
interpretation of God’s law was completely warped Christ made his choice of the
Sabbath day as a day when he did so much of his teaching. And here he used this occasion
to teach where the Pharisees were so completely off. Was on
their worship of God through the observation of the Sabbath.
Jesus wanted to correct their hearts and practice. And once
again, he uses this occasion as an attempt. Let’s go back
and look at verse 10. Let’s track through here. I’ve
selected out that essentially my outline today is one that
we’re going to zero in on as we approach it. What I hope to
present to you is the superiority of the love of Christ, the superiority
of the love of God that was so far superior. to the love of
mankind as manifested through the religious elite of that day,
the Pharisees. Look at verse 10. He was teaching
in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, and there was a woman
who for 18 years had had a sickness caused by a spirit. Now, we’ve
seen in times past, and we’ve dealt with this question, there
were those that thought that every sickness was simply a result
of sin in your life, and therefore, you’re reaping what you’ve sown.
And we dealt with that in times past. John chapter 9 was one
of our texts as we considered that. It’s not axiomatic that
sickness equals some prior sin in your life. Nor is it axiomatic
that every sin, every sickness, or rather, every sickness, every
disease is directly attributable to Satan. But in this particular
case, in this particular case, Luke gives us the detail inspired
by the Holy Spirit that this was caused by some kind of demonic
or devilish element. The result was she was bent over
double and could not straighten up at all, and there were all
kinds of I don’t know. I don’t know if there were any
hypotheses and suggestions offered as to what this disease was.
Some kind of severe case of scoliosis. We don’t know. And especially
since it says that it was a spirit caused illness, it could have
just even seriously been a serious case rather of cramping in the
stomachs that kept her bent over double. The woman was completely bent
over. Her condition was connected with some physical weakness of
some kind. And directly attributable to
some kind of satanic agency. But you know what? There’s something
else to notice about this woman. And this is completely aside.
This is a free sermon within a sermon. You know the thing
that I noticed about this woman that surprised me the most? She
was there. She was there. She was at essentially
worship. She had come out of her home
where most people in this condition would have been just fine to
hide. And if you weren’t able to stand
up just to lie on your bed and flip from side to side the rest
of your life, most people, but not this woman. This woman had
a heart to worship and she was there in the synagogue for that
purpose. And I’ll tell you why in a moment.
I’ve noticed over the years how little it takes people or how
little it takes to take people out of church. How little it takes to take people
out of ministry, to take people out of service, to take people
out of their devotion to Christ, one bad day, one bad sign of
God’s providence, one difficult era in their lives, and suddenly
they stop following Christ. One little difficulty in their
life and they fail to come to worship. Not this woman. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying
if you got the flu, stay home. Somewhere in there in the Hebrew,
it’s there. But not this woman. This woman
had a chronic illness. It no doubt must have been extremely
painful. She couldn’t even stand up. And
can you imagine seeing her walk down the street? She must have
been the spectacle. That didn’t stop her. Not this
woman. Here she is, doubled over by
sickness and disease, and yet she was there in worship, in
devotion to her God. Sickness wasn’t an excuse for
her, avoiding God’s house. In spite of this suffering, she
was there. She found her way where the Word of God was going
to be unfolded, where she could be with the people of God. Their
presence in the synagogue had to be a spectacle. There were other maladies recorded
in Scripture attributed to the devil. You know of Job’s. Satan went looking for Job. He
had his sights set on Job. He sought out the throne room
of God and brought Job up in God’s presence and appealed to
God for the privilege to go touch his physical nature. Job chapter 2, the Lord said
to Satan, Behold, he is in your power. Only spare his life. And
then it says that Satan went out from the presence of the
Lord and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot
to the crown of his head. This woman wasn’t in a completely
unique situation. Others in Acts chapter 10, verse
38. Records there, you know, of Jesus
of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit with
power and how he went about doing good and healing all who were
oppressed by the devil. And I take that to mean not only
oppressed by their sinful natures and oppressed by temptations
to sin, but even oppressed by physical infirmities caused by
the devil. Luke 11, as we saw just a couple
of weeks, he was casting out a demon and it was mute. Not
only the demon, but the man. The man had a mute demon, if
you will, Mark 9, almost the identical scene. One of the crowd
answered him, Teacher, I brought to you my son, possessed with
a spirit which makes him mute. There was another. Mark 9, verse
25, When Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, he rebuked
the unclean spirit, saying, You, you, you, you, you, deaf and
mute spirit. I command you, come out of him.”
They didn’t intimidate Christ. In fact, when Christ saw her,
His eyes fell upon her. Perhaps like everyone else in
the synagogue that morning, they couldn’t help but notice. That
didn’t deter her. There are many who walking into
a room like that would literally crawl along the wall for fear
of being seen, doing anything they could to be noticed. And it says that when Jesus saw
her, He called her over and said to her, woman, you are freed
from your sickness. And that must have been encouraging
to her to be noticed. And she must have taken those
as kind words But to have the faith to actually begin to stand
up for the first time in 18 years, I mean, I know what it’s like,
don’t you? After you’ve crouched there for
15 minutes, fixing a water faucet or what have you, and then you
go to stand up. The spirit is willing, but the
flesh is weak, right? But to have the faith of this
woman, to stand up after 18 years, Perhaps that’s why Jesus reached
over. Look at verse 13. And He laid
His hands on her and immediately, it says, immediately she was
made erect again. She stood up. She took Christ
at His Word. She felt His gentle touch on
her arm and she began to glorify God immediately. It was obviously
a test of the woman’s faith. Would she, upon hearing these
words, stand up? No sooner had she stood up, no
sooner had she really experienced the full healing of God’s touch,
she began to pour forth her joy. She began to sing praises to
God and to thank Him for the benefit that she had received. But you know what? Her song of praise wasn’t echoed
by the congregation. It wasn’t echoed by the lead
up and join in with her like they should have. Instead, what
we hear is narrow, ignorant, rather indignation
by this ruler of the synagogue. Look down with me at verse 14. Where almost astoundingly, the
sentence begins with but. Here is a woman, 18 years in
her infirmity and disease, healed instantly by the Lord Jesus Christ,
but the synagogue official. Knowing what we know of them,
could we have expected any less? It says the synagogue official
indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. This didn’t catch
Jesus by surprise. Remember, we know that He went
looking for these occasions. He began saying to the crowd
in response, there are six days in which work should be done.
And then, amazingly, He seems to chide the woman, but He doesn’t
even have the courage to look directly at Christ or to look
directly at the woman. And he begins just to chide the
woman, come during those six days and get healed. Not on the
Sabbath day. He spoke to the audience, spoke
to the general public, perhaps Jesus and the woman were over
here and he turned his attention to the congregation and began
appealing to them, but he was rebuking Christ. He was rebuking
the woman. And in that, he was a hypocrite,
a phony. But here was this woman, a member
of his own congregation, who had the presumption to be healed. Can you imagine the audacity?
That’s the man’s attitude. That this woman has the audacity
to receive healing as if she could do anything against the
almighty power of God. He was armed with his favorite
texts and with his fussy official hypocrisy, he got up and began
to rebuke the completely innocent multitude. But if you notice, this poor
woman, she never even said a word to Christ. I doubt that her attitude
was one, as I said, of slinking back into the corner of the crowd,
blending in as far as possible, hiding wherever she could. She
didn’t go seeking a miracle of Christ. Not one word of appeal. She didn’t even want attention
called to her. The miss words are utterly senseless,
ridiculous, ludicrous. He could have only meant a few
things by his words. Perhaps he meant that you sick
people shouldn’t come to the synagogue at all. Don’t come
here. Or maybe he meant this. Don’t come
here on Sunday, because if you come here on Sunday and there’s
a healer, you might get healed and break the Sabbath law. Nobody had asked his opinion,
nobody had asked his thoughts on these matters. He stands up
and begins to assert what really was the Pharisees position. The traditional law for the work
of the physician was simple. You could act on your calling
in cases of emergency. If it was a life or death situation,
you could respond. If you were the resident EMT
of Jerusalem, you could ply your wares, do your thing on a life
and death case, but not a chronic disease. And that was the attitude
of the Pharisee. He said, not a chronic disease.
You must do that elsewhere at another time. Not on the Sabbath. One described it this way. It’s
obvious that this narrative for Luke would have had importance.
Luke, remember the physician. Perhaps he was even in this same
predicament from time to time, doing his calling as a doctor,
healing people, even on the Sabbath. doing what was right on the Sabbath
to do. Perhaps he even had suffered
the same kinds of rebukes that Christ had faced. Only in the case of life or death,
only in the case of deadly peril could a sick person be treated
medically on the Sabbath. Jesus went against everything
that they believed in. The strictest group even forbade
the consolation of the sick on the Sabbath day. You couldn’t
even do hospital visitation on the Sabbath day if you were the
local pastor. This man’s bitterness, sarcasm,
if you will, is almost astounding as you begin
to consider it. The very sight of a miracle.
A woman being made to stand after not being able to stand upright
for 18 years, shouldn’t that have convinced the ruler that
Jesus was the Christ? Shouldn’t that have given him
cause to praise Almighty God for the works that were done
in his midst? But as was the case in every
one of Christ’s Sabbath healings, The Pharisees ignored the miracle
and attacked instead the so-called violation of the command. Astounding. One person described this scene
in these terms. He said, the whole range of the
Gospels does not supply another instance of an interference so
illogical. And so if you’re reading this
and it sounds strange to you that a man would react like this,
it was strange to Christ. It was strange to the Gospel
writers. He says, no other instance of
an interference so illogical, stupidity so hopeless and the
indirect underhanded way in which he gave vent to his outraged
ignorance. What a scene he paints. That
word that he uses there implies a strong personal resentment
when he replied to Christ, when he stood up and began to rebuke
the crowd. It’s used in Matthew 20, 24.
Hearing this, they became indignant. They were absolutely infuriated. Matthew 26, 8, the disciples
were indignant when they saw this. This is a strong word. One commentator described the
scene in these terms. He said, as though the reception
of divine grace was a Sabbath breaking toil. Hear this poor
woman. I mean, you talk about being
a hapless victim in the midst of the circumstance. She walks
in by a Satan induced illness, doesn’t even ask for a miracle.
Christ singles her out, heals her on the spot and she gets
rebuked. It’s amazing. Few remarks of
the opponents of our Lord were so transparently illogical and
hypocritical as this. It was meanly indirect because
it was aimed at Jesus, though the man was too much in awe to
address it to him. In awe, he was too much in hatred. He wouldn’t even look at Christ. And it’s here that I want to
zero in. And I want to look at the love of Christ. I want to
look at the love of God bestowed towards this woman and really
to all. Look at verse 15, but the Lord
answered him and said, you hypocrites. And it sounds like a strong word.
And it is. It is calling a phony a phony. It is calling somebody essentially
an actor, a fake, a pretender. And what he does in one word
is put this man in the class that he belonged with all the
other Pharisees because they were hypocrites. They were disguising
essentially their secret hatred towards Christ in this so-called
pretense of zeal for the law. It was phony. It was hypocritical.
And Christ called it what it was. You hypocrites. Does not each of you on the Sabbath
untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to
water him? And Christ knew that they did. And the funny thing was, is that
these donkeys often were carrying the burdens that the Pharisees
so-called claimed that they were unable to carry because of the
law And as a result, they would take their donkeys and water
them. I’m going to give you all three points right at once. All
three points right at once. Christ’s love is so far superior
to man’s love, and he gives it all at once. The love of Christ
is superior, first of all, in its object. It’s superior in
its object because here the Pharisees, Jesus says, were taking better
care of their donkey than they were of this woman, a member
of their congregation, taking better care of their donkey.
That’s why I entitled the sermon. That’s one precious donkey. The love of Christ is superior
in its object. Secondly, the love of Christ
is superior in its obstacle. Here is this donkey tied to the
hitching post, untied by the Pharisees, which was work in
anybody’s eyes. Compared to this woman. Who was
bound. By none other than the devil
himself. Bound in an illness for 18 years. And Christ undoes
it in an instant. Not only is the superiority of
Christ’s love demonstrated in the object, in the obstacle,
but finally in the offering. The Pharisees would have led
the donkey to water at the drop of a hat. But they could this woman. And
the offering that Christ gave was not just a drink of water,
it was life itself. And I believe even eternal life
in and by her faith. Jesus had a number of arguments. If you go to each of the Sabbath
healings, he had a number of arguments that he used to dispel
the Pharisees approach to the law and the Sabbath. Sometimes
he appealed to his own authority that he was the Lord, even of
the Sabbath, sometimes to scriptural precedence, as we saw in Luke,
sometimes to common sense. And here he uses the arguments. Very simple. He refuted their
traditional rules. Not the rules of God’s word,
their tradition. By pointing out the selfishness
and insincerity and the inconsistency in which they applied them. What
he was trying to show was this nation, was their view of the
Sabbath had completely degraded to some kind of revolting and
disgusting bondage. In Matthew chapter 12, Jesus
responded this way. He said to them, What man is
there among you who has a sheep? And if it falls into a pit on
the Sabbath, will he not take hold of it and lift it out? If
that’s not a sin, how can a healing be a sin? Here, he goes even
further. There, the illustration is drawn
from something that’s almost far-fetched exceptional. Here,
this is a regular practice. By the time you get to the synagogue,
you take your donkey and you give him some water. It was a reasonable accommodation. But Jesus says there’s hypocrisy.
In this pretended rebuke, he wasn’t centering the crowd. He
wasn’t even centering the woman. He was centering Christ in professing
to have this so-called zeal for the law when his motive was hatred
against the healer. Jesus isn’t going to have any
of it. It’s not going to he’s not going to allow this Pharisee
to steal what is rightfully his gift to the woman. And look at
the woman. He points her out and he says,
and this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is. And that’s
what makes me say this woman was a true worshiper. Remember
when Zacchaeus was healed? The man’s heart was right. And
when he was converted, Jesus said of him, he is a son of Abraham. It was a designation of a true
worshipper of God. Somebody who maybe didn’t have
it all right, but their heart was right. They believed in God. They believed in God’s Word.
They were seeking to do what was right. Jesus says, if you’re going to
care for an animal, how much more a daughter of Abraham, one
of your own people, an Israelite, If you’re worried about a donkey
who’s been tied up for a few hours, what about caring for
a woman who’s been bound for 18 years? If you’re worried about
providing water, which the donkey will need again in a few hours,
what about providing the means of eternal life, which this woman
will never lose? They were all of that mindset. Every one of them would have
untied their donkey and trotted him out to the well for a drink. The command to do no work on
the Sabbath wasn’t intended to prohibit works of necessity and
mercy and worship. The Sabbath was made for man’s
benefit and not for his herd. It was appointed to promote man’s
best and his highest interest, Jesus said. and not to debar
him from what was good. Look at the response. As he said
this, verse 17, all of his opponents were being humiliated and the
entire crowd was rejoicing over the glorious things done by him. When it says they were being
humiliated, these Pharisees, this religious elite, this wasn’t
something they were doing. They weren’t humbling themselves
before the Lord of glory. They were being humbled. They
were being humiliated. They weren’t ashamed at their
behavior. They were being shamed. And there’s a big difference. Christ’s argument was so substantial
and so clear, so effective, that all the adversaries that were
there that morning, the ruler of the synagogue and all of those
that sided with him, they were silenced and they were made to
hang their heads in shame. The sad thing is that we’re not
entirely unlike them. We will come up with all kinds
of rules on why we should care for things over against people. I’ve seen the dearest of families
break up over inheritance. I’ve seen relationships destroyed
over money borrowed. I’ve seen people divide over
the pickiest, silliest little things. We’re not unlike the
Pharisees, not entirely. We can’t overcome the obstacle
that Christ overcame, but it’s amazing what we fail to pray
over. It’s amazing what we fail to
try. We’re willing to do the greatest amounts of work for
ourselves and the least amount of works at times for others. And the one where we fall and
fail most miserably is where the Pharisees failed. They would
give their donkey water, but they never held forth the water
of life. And there is one where we consistently struggle, isn’t
it? Unlike the Pharisees, perhaps
it isn’t our intent to obscure Christ. But by failing to open
our heart and proclaim Christ, to share Him with our neighbors,
to share Him with our friends, in essence, we’re doing the same
thing that the Pharisees did. What a great word for us. A surprising
word. The love of Christ is far superior. But the love of Christ is what
we’re called to emulate. Let’s plead for God’s grace. Our gracious God, we do thank
You for Your Word. We thank You for Your example.
We thank You for Your love. Love that not only touched this
unfortunate woman, But Father, Your love touched
us. We thank You for the salvation that we possess and we pray,
don’t make us like these Pharisees, constantly on the lookout for
an excuse to serve or an excuse not to serve. Help us to open
our hands and open our hearts and open our mouths and proclaim
our Lord Jesus Christ. Lord God, we thank You and we
praise You. It’s in Jesus’ name that we pray, Amen.