5.11.23 pm

[0:00] Good evening, good evening. Welcome to the service this evening. We're going to begin this time of worship. I'm singing from Psalm 103, verses 8 to 11.

[0:13] And I'll just speak in English. The Lord our God is merciful, and he is gracious. Long suffering and slain to your wrath, a mercy plentious.

[0:25] He will not try to continue, nor keep his anger still. The mercy dealt, and as we singed, nor did we quite our ill. For as the heaven in its height, the earth surmounted far.

[0:37] So great to the Lord. We'll remain seated and sing Psalm 103. Psalm 103. Psalm 102.

[1:01] Mind-a-eneful. Thank you, dear.

[1:31] Thank you.

[2:01] Thank you.

[2:31] Thank you.

[3:01] Thank you. Thank you.

[4:01] Thank you. Thank you.

[5:01] Thank you. Thank you.

[6:01] Thank you. Thank you.

[7:01] Thank you. Thank you.

[8:01] Thank you. Amen.

[8:35] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[8:47] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6.

[9:06] Let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6.

[9:36] Let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6.

[10:06] Let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6. Let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6. Let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6. Let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6. Let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6.

[10:18] Let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6. Let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6. Let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6. Let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6. Let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6.

[10:32] Let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6. Let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6. Let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6. Let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6. Let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6. I Am 1-1-2-6.

[10:43] Let's sing 1-1-2-6. Let's dance and sing 1-1-2-6. Let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6. Let's stand and sing 1-1-3. Therefore, let's stand and sing 1-1-2-6. Let's sing 1-1-2-6.

[10:58] Let's sing 1-1-3-6., Z-1-1-1-2-6. W1-1-3. They're as dimin хочется 1-3-6.

[11:10] They far too small Love so amazing So divine Demands my soul My life, my all Let's just pray Loving Heavenly Father we are reminded in the words of this hymn that we've just sung Lord, just how amazing your love is And Lord, how it should make us want to surrender ourselves to you And to give you our all, our whole life And yet Lord, we confess that so often our lives are selfish We live our own little worlds that rotate around Satisfaction and money and health and all these things that

[12:14] Can distract us from what's really important in our lives Heavenly Father, please forgive us for our attitudes And our ways that distance ourselves from you And draw us close to you, we pray We pray, Lord, for our world We see so much chaos on the news Lord, there's wars And rumours of wars Things that have been kicking off in just the last few weeks And it's frightening to see what's going on And Lord, we Could get worried and we could get frantic And we could start Getting over-anxious about these things But you tell us in your word to not be afraid And you don't tell us to be To not be afraid just as a Shallow patting on the back It's because you've seen the future You know what will happen And you look at us And you tell us to not be afraid It's going to be alright And so we will trust you, Lord

[13:15] Please forgive our unbelief, Lord And when we don't trust you As we should Lord, we pray for those in our Church family, Lord Who are suffering at the moment Whether it's mental illness Or physical illness Maybe they're struggling with Their spiritual walk with you, Lord We just pray for them, Lord Whether they're here in this room Or online, Lord We lift them lovingly to you And pray, Lord, that your peace And that your Holy Spirit Would minister to them Lord, we pray for those Who are suffering In a sense of grieving, Lord Who've lost loved ones Whether it's recently Or long ago, Lord It still can be very raw And we pray, Lord That your comfort Would be with them at this time And Lord, we pray for this church We pray for the activities That go ahead every week, Lord In this church so faithfully And we pray that, Lord You would bless these efforts Please, Lord Draw people to you Please help young people

[14:16] To grow up in the knowledge of you And when they leave home And when they move on That, Lord, these things Would never leave them And that they would have A strong faith in you We pray So, Lord, we lift these things Before you in faith Acknowledging that we are weak We're broken vessels Lord, we're If we're honest with ourselves Lord, we're Such sinful Hopeless creatures, Lord But actually We don't live without hope We have hope in the Lord Jesus And he is the reason That we're here And he is the reason That we Can Come before you this evening In praise And in worship And in thanksgiving And we do this now In Jesus' name Amen The passage we're going to read From this evening Is Matthew chapter 20 But I've asked Amant If he might Put up a couple of

[15:18] A little bit unusual things But I'll explain as we go along I don't know if you remember But about Was it five years ago? The Protestant Reformation Celebrated its 500th anniversary And so basically It's 500 years since A very brilliant And stubborn monk Called Martin Luther Published his 95 complaints Or theses Against the church And he did that By nailing them to the door Of Rittenberg Church In Germany Probably the equivalent Of posting something On social media And it went viral And he was moved To do that By the practice Of indulgences Can everyone hear me okay?

[16:03] I've got a very soft voice So please just Wave if you can't hear me The practice of indulgences That's something That the church The Catholic church Used to do A very wicked Money making scheme Whereby they would Ask people to pay money And in return They would earn merit Or favour with God And what Luther grasped 500 years ago Was that after reading The Bible He realised Hold on This isn't about merit It's about grace And we can't buy ourselves Into God's favour It's given freely So these are I'm going to ask Alan To show two of these complaints And this is the first one It says The true treasure Of the church Is the most holy gospel Of the glory And the grace Of God Yes Amen I think we can all Definitely agree with that one Listen to the second one though Number 63 But this treasure By which he's referring To the gospel Of the glory And grace of God Is naturally

[17:03] The most odious Because it makes The first to be last Why is it odious? What did Luther mean By saying That God's grace Naturally disgusts us Because it makes The first to be last I think the parable We're about to read From Matthew 20 Will help highlight What he meant So if you could turn To Matthew 20 We're actually going to read The verse just before that Chapter 19 verse 30 To begin with Because it all sort of ties in But many who are first Will be last And many who are last Will be first For the kingdom of heaven Is like a landowner Who went out early in the morning To hire workers For his vineyard He agreed to pay them A denarius for the day And sent them Into his vineyard About nine in the morning He went out And saw others Standing in the marketplace Doing nothing He told them You also go and work In my vineyard And I will pay you Whatever is right

[18:04] So they went He went out again About noon And about three In the afternoon And did the same thing About five in the afternoon He went out And found still others Standing around He asked them Why have you been Standing here all day long Doing nothing Because no one's hired us They answered He said to them You also go and work In my vineyard When evening came The owner of the vineyard Said to his foreman Call the workers And pay them their wages Beginning with the last ones hired And going on to the first The workers who were hired About five in the afternoon Came And each received A denarius So when those Who were hired first Came They expected to receive more But each one of them Also received A denarius When they received it They began to grumble Against the landowner These who were hired last Worked only one hour They said And you have made them

[19:04] Equal to us Who have borne the burden Of the work And the heat of the day But he answered one of them I'm not being unfair To you friend Didn't you agree To work for denarius Take your pay and go I want to give the one Who was hired last The same as I gave you Don't I have the right To do what I want With my own money Or are you envious Because I'm generous So the last will be first And the first will be last Before we look at this passage together Let's sing again I'm going to sing from Mission Praise 1164 Come thou fount of every blessing Tune my heart to sing your grace Streams of mercy never ceasing Call for songs of loudest praise Songs of God's abundant treasure Sung by angel tongues above Songs that tell the boundless measure Of my Lord's unchanging love

[20:05] And then The last verse is Through God's grace I am his debtor Daily I this thought renew Let that grace Lord Like a fetter Bind my wandering heart to you Prone to wonder Lord I feel it Prone to leave the God I love Take my heart Oh take and seal it Seal it from your courts above Let's stand and sing 1164 Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Amen Come oh find all every blessing To my heart to sing your grace Dreams of mercy never ceasing Love are songs of loudest praise Songs of God's abundant treasure Songs of my angels tongues above

[21:09] Songs of God's abundant treasure Of my heart's unchanging love I remember God's great mercy By his help I safely come And I know thee will not fail me But will surely bring me home Jesus loved thee when a stranger Walking far away from God And to rescue me from danger Shed for me as precious blood Through God's grace I am his better Daily I this thought renew

[22:10] Let thy grace form like a fetter Bide my wandering heart to you Fall to wander Lord I feel it Fall to be the God I love Take my heart Oh take and seal it Seal it from your course of love Let's just pray again Heavenly Father as we've just been singing We realise Lord that As Christians we are Prone to wander Lord We are prone to leave the God that we love Just like the prodigal son did And Lord that's something that we want to put to death

[23:11] We want to stop being like that So please help us And Lord as we look at your word now Please help us to be attentive Help our eyes and ears And our heart to be open To what you have to say to us tonight Lord help us to treat your word With the respect it deserves Lord And please don't let us leave this building tonight Lord Without in some way having changed for the good Lord In a way that glorifies you we pray Amen On the 20th of July 1969 Something very special happened Maybe some here remember it well A man walked on the moon for the first time And I'm sure most of you know who that first person was Neil Armstrong But what's less commonly known Is that in total Only 12 people have ever walked on the moon And the last person was on Apollo 17 in December 1972

[24:12] Does anyone know his name? Didn't think so His name was Harrison Schmidt But most of us have never heard of him We know the first person But most of us don't know Or have very little interest in the last person There's something about being first isn't there?

[24:33] No one's interested in who is last This is our kind of ranking system We strive for that first place But anything else is kind of of little interest Especially last But this parable we've just read Starts and ends by saying what the kingdom of God is like And it's the opposite of how we would rank things So this passage is a bit like a sort of a sandwich With bread on either side So the first verse Which is verse 30 Of chapter 19 And then the last verse Which is verse 16 of chapter 20 They echo each other They both say The first will be last And the last will be first But actually I think it's more like a club sandwich Because in the middle there's another slice of bread Which is in verse 8 And if we just read that When evening came The owner of the vineyard said to his foreman Call the workers and pay them their wages Beginning with the last ones hired And going on to the first

[25:35] So this first shall be last motif Is very similar to the first and last verse That we read from isn't it? It's obviously a very clear principle That we should take away And something that Jesus wants us to understand here What does he actually mean by saying The first shall be last And the last shall be first?

[25:52] He certainly isn't here to confuse us I love playing all kinds of different games Whether it's board games like Monopoly Or football or whatever it is But I have to confess I'm very competitive And I think that probably means I'm probably not much fun to play with On the whole And that carries on through Into my daily life as well I find it all too easy To sort of compare myself With other people And to the point of Sometimes being very envious Of what they have Or what they can do Maybe that rings bells With other people here I don't know Or maybe you're prone to grumble Instead of having a grateful heart Often when things in life Are not going quite as you'd like them to go You start to grumble I'm sure most of us here Can probably admit to that as well Well as we unpack this parable this evening Let's see what the Lord's trying to teach us About dealing with these things And we discover that Jesus is actually turning our world view upside down

[26:53] So let's look at this passage First of all let's notice That the first group of workers here They have a contract with the landowner And this is the group that he approaches First in the morning Early morning 6am And these guys They agreed to work a full day So in those days That would have been 12 hours It was a long shift And they agreed to one denarius pay Which standard days pay In those days For a foot soldier Or a labourer One denarius So that's An honest day's work For an honest day's wage Everyone's clear about the conditions Of the contract Everyone's happy Then at 9am The landowner goes back And he hires some more guys These workers are not On contract however They're hired on trust He doesn't tell them what they'll earn All he says is that He'll pay them whatever is right And then that's repeated at midday

[27:53] And at 3pm And then at the 11th hour Or 5pm Which is literally one hour Before it's due to finish And he hires that last group With the same proviso Trust me I'll pay you What's fair And what's right Then the whistle blows At 6pm The workday's over It's time to be paid And this is where Everything starts to go Pear shaped It's interesting That the landowner Insists on paying Those who are hired last First The middle bit Of that club sandwich If you like Why does he do that?

[28:31] Isn't he asking for trouble? Isn't he just frustrating Those workers Who've worked hard all day By doing that? But then Grace can be frustrating And it can be odious As Luther put it So the guys who showed up Only an hour before home time They come forward And compared to the guys Who've been there all day long They Look pretty clean They probably smell alright They're still fresh And energetic Probably never even Broke a sweat To be honest And the owner says I agreed to pay you What was fair So Here is a denarius For you And you And you Well seeing that You can only imagine What was going through The minds of the guys Who were hired first They must have wondered What these last guys Would get For just an hour's work So when they see them Getting a denarius Cha-ching Their eyes probably light up With denarius signs If one hour's work Equals one denarius Then twelve hours work

[29:33] Wow Guaranteed we're going home Rich tonight lads Maybe they're already Thinking how they're Going to pay What they're going to pay Things on And what their Next spend will be Well you know What happens next Next the 3pm guys Go up And they get Their denarius And the midday group And the 9am guys They go up And get theirs And finally That first group Who were under contract Go up And they get The same amount As all the previous Groups of workers Just that one denarius You can just imagine What they're going to say Wait a minute This isn't fair We've been slaving All day long Under the blazing sun And you're telling me That these Sweat free Easy going Upstarts Are going to get paid The same as us That is so unfair And you know What we read about here Goes against everything You know about Employer motivation Fair compensation All those kind of things Doesn't it I think children

[30:33] Have an amazing way Of expressing What adults Often struggle with And if I was to get A group of the Sunday school kids Up here And I was to give Them different levels Of tasks So I was to give One group A really quite tricky Task to do Another group Just a fairly mediocre one And then the last group A really simple Simple task And then at the end I was to say to them all Well done And give them all One sweet Well you know What would happen It wouldn't be long Before there'd be Some howling and crying And wait a minute That's not fair And they'd be right Wouldn't they It isn't fair And maybe like me You've read this parable Before and you've Found it a bit hard To understand In fact it Almost raises your Heckles because Those lazy Good for nothings Who show up late Are paid the same I mean that's scandalous You almost want to Contact the great Pickers union And complain Because you feel For those people Who've worked really hard Now if the landowner Here represents God

[31:34] And he does In this parable What's God trying To say about himself That he's unfair That God doesn't give For what is rightly theirs And where's the justice In that You've perhaps heard The idioms The early bird Gets the worm Or no pain No gain Or no free lunch And things like that And that's fair So why is God Telling us that The kingdom of heaven Is so unfair I mean surely God should be Encouraging justice And what's fair And square And perhaps Discovering That the kingdom Of heaven Is like this Makes you think Well actually You know I think I prefer fairness I prefer justice I prefer to get What I deserve I prefer to understand it For it to be quantifiable For it to be predictable Comfortable Really?

[32:28] Do we really want To enter a contract With God Stating that we should Get what we deserve? Think about it I mean seriously Do we really want To go there? Do you really want Your just reward?

[32:40] Romans 6.23 Tells us what that is That's the wages Of sin is death And if we're going To be technical About it We're all sinners And that's what We all deserve And anything more Than that Is just sheer grace And mercy So if we really Want to play out This give me What is mine Give me what I deserve Thing Then you and I We're all doomed I think Jesus Gives us this parable About grace To tell us that Grace can't be Calculated in the Same way As a day's wages We might find That frustrating Or as Luther Would put it Odious Jesus is telling us That he wants To give us What he wants To give us And we should Trust him That what he Gives us Is right This story Is just flat out Frustrating Isn't it Unless you're The eleventh hour

[33:40] Worker That is And that's what's Key to understand In this passage The key question We have to ask Ourselves this evening Is Who do you identify With most In this parable A man was driving In the country One day And he saw An old man Sitting on the fence Watching the cars Go by Stopping to pass The time of day The traveller said I could never stand Living out here You don't see anything And I'm sure You don't travel Like I do I'm on the go All the time The old man On the fence Looked down On the stranger And said I can't see Much difference In what I'm doing And what you're doing I sit on the fence And watch the cars Go by And you sit in your car And watch the fences Go by It's just the way You look at things And it is a question Of perspective Isn't it Depends where You're looking from And perhaps We're looking at this Parable the wrong way We're not identifying With the correct group Now if you're anything Like me

[34:40] You would have Heard this parable From the mindset Of the one who was Hired first That hard worker But what if Despite Of our hard work And effort We're not the first In the queue To be hired Like we so confidently Think we are What if we're actually Meant to identify With those who are Hired last If you take a moment To think about that If that were the case Then that wouldn't Be fair either Would it That would be Generosity Beyond our wildest dreams Indiscriminate grace But this is our God Verse 15 tells us I am generous Full of grace Paying us more Than we're worth Not because of Who we are But because of Who he is This parable Is all about God And this parable Should change Our perspective On who we are And what God's Done for us Because God Is turning our Thinking upside down

[35:40] Or perhaps we should Say he's turning it The right way up Really We keep thinking That we're like Those first people In the vineyard Instead of the last We need to have A correct perspective On who we are And who God is And then we'll be Able to see Just how much Worth we have When we think Of what we are In him You know God Is telling us That there's great Reward in his Kingdom for those Who follow him We get adopted As his children We get life Eternal and abundant But none of it None of it At all Is on the basis Of what we've done So this is the Challenge that Jesus is issuing Us all this evening Are you someone Who thinks of Themselves as first Or are you someone Who thinks of Themselves as last Or first Or last If you like It's a tricky Question But I think There's actually Two signs From our Attitudes That give away The answer To this Firstly Those who think Of themselves

[36:41] As last Respond to what Life throws at Them with gratitude If you're a Lasty You think of What life Throws at you When life Throws things At you You respond With gratitude Whereas those Who think of Themselves as First Respond to what Life throws at Them with grumbling I.e. they think They deserve more Than they get Stuart had a Good illustration This morning And it's a similar One I wanted to Share this evening I want you to Try and imagine Something What if you Discovered that Unbeknown to you Some TV crews Had been into Your house And installed Secret cameras All around Your house And they Were secretly Recording your Life for a Reality TV show Perhaps a bit Like that Truman show I don't know If you've Seen that Movie And what if As people In their Living rooms Watched your Action packed Life in all Its glory Also saw From their Sofas on The TV screen A scoreboard Above

[37:41] At the top Of the screen And every Time you Grumbled about Something That scoreboard Went up And then The other side Of the scoreboard There was Another bit Where it said That every time That you Were grateful For something That number Went up What would Your life Be like Where would Your numbers Be Would they Be balanced Or as I Suspect Most of us If we're Being honest I think They'd probably Be more on The grumble Scale Than on the Gratitude Scale Some people Say things Like A leopard Never changes Its spots I.e.

[38:19] You'll never Change If you're A grumbler Now You are Always Going to Be a Grumbler And you Wait until You're old But the Bible tells A very Different Story People can Change With God's Help But grumblings It's so easy To do isn't It We all fall Into it It's very Easy to Find yourself Being more Prone to Grumbling Than to be Grateful And if That is the Case Then it's a Sign of Showing that In your Life You've Changed From thinking Of yourself As first Rather than Last And if That's the Case we Need to Bring ourselves Back to the Cross We need to Remember That what we Truly deserve Is God's Wrath God's Punishment And instead What we've Received is Grace And forgiveness Now the Second sign I think That gives Us away As a Firsty Or a Lasty Is this Those who Think of Themselves As last Are content Those who Think of Themselves First

[39:19] Are people Who compare Themselves With others A bit like Those workers In the Parable Roosevelt Once said That comparison Is the Thief of Joy And it Is Let's be Honest We all Fall into The trap Of comparison At some Point or Another And end Up feeling Envious How come She has A nice Holiday Every year And I Have to Work my Socks off And I Can't Afford A holiday Or Wow He's so Good at Playing the Guitar But I've Got so Few skills That's Just so Unfair Why does She have It so Easy In life You know We all Do that Don't We Why does This Person Have to You know Just turn Up on a Sunday And do Nothing Whereas I Work really Hard behind The scenes And no One Realises It's been Said that That kind Of comparison Is the Cancer of The church And you Can see Why But yet We find Ourselves Getting drawn In so Easily Don't We The famous 19th century Evangelist D.L.

[40:18] Moody Once told The fable Of an Eagle Who was Comparing Himself With another Eagle Who could Fly better Than he Could And Consequently This eagle Became Very Envious One day The bird Saw a Hunter Or an Archer With a Bone Arrow And he Said to Him I wish You would Bring down That eagle From up There And the Man said Well I Will do If you Give me Some feathers For my Arrow So the Envious Eagle Pulled out One from His wing And he Gave it To the Hunter The Arrow Was shot But it Didn't Quite reach The rival Bird Because he Was flying A little Bit too High The first Eagle Pulled out Another Feather And another Feather And you Can see What will Happen In the End He Couldn't Fly And the Archer Took advantage Of the Situation Turned Around And killed That helpless Bird D.L.

[41:11] Moody Made this Application He said If you Are envious Of others The one You will Hurt the Most By your Actions Will actually Be yourself Envy is The result Of comparison And we've Got to be So careful As Christians Not to Self-harm By comparing Ourselves With others No one Here can Seriously Say that They're better Than anyone Else Here That is Really Dangerous Territory To get Into Only God Knows What's Truly Inside And no One is Beyond Redemption Anyone Can come To God In repentance And can be Graciously Forgiven And brought Into a Relationship With their Creator And gain That promise Of heaven We can all Receive that Denarius Of God's Grace Because grace God's grace Is generous And it's Equal And it Puts To death All that Kind of Comparison Now if You've Never Made that Commitment Can I Encourage You Tonight To seek God While he May be Found Knock on

[42:12] That door And it Will be Open to You Before It's Too Late Don't Think you Can live Your life Your way And then On your Deathbed Turn to God Perhaps Quoting The thief On the Cross As being An example As a Wise Puritan Once said On this Subject We have An account Of a Deathbed Repentance In the Bible In order That no Man Need Despair We Have Only One In order That no Man May Presume I'll Read that Again We have An account Of a Deathbed Repentance In the Bible In order That no Man Need Despair We have Only One In order That no Man May Presume And speaking Of putting Comparison To death Perhaps Some of us Might worry What other People will Think about As if We were To publicly Commit our Lives to The Lord Perhaps Because they Already Think we're Saved Whereas God knows And we Know in Our hearts That we're Not yet Right with Him In spite Of that Christian We've

[43:13] Perhaps Been Working Hard At Portraying Over The Years And you Know the Devil Rubs His hands In glee When he Thinks that We are Worrying what Others will Think of Us When we Allow Concern Perhaps about A Very Short Very short Bits To To Yes Some People Might Talk About It If we Were to Give Our Lives to The Lord Maybe Even Joke About It A bit Until The Next Juicy Tip Comes Along

[44:13] To Jesus That You Let Him Take The Burden Of Your Sin And Repentance And That You Truly Became Free And Eternally Secure Just To Finish You Know It's Interesting That Jesus Tells This Parable In Response To What Peter Was Doing We Heard From Stuart This Morning A bit About The Kind Of Person Peter Was And If You Look At The End Of The Previous Chapter So If You Look At Chapter 19 Verse 27 You See What Peter Is Doing He Is Comparing Himself Again Peter Answered Him We've Left Everything To What Then Will There Be For Us I Think From Time To Time We Can All Be Like Peter We Can Look At People Around Us And Compare Ourselves Look At What I've Given Up Look At The Sacrifice I've Made To Follow Jesus And Yet This Person Does Very Little And They're Going To Get The Same Reward Or Why

[45:13] Does She Get To Go To Heaven Having Trusted On Her Deathbed And She's Done Nothing That's Just Not Fair And Again We're Grumbling And Complaining Once Again We're Slipping Into The Thought That We're Saved By Works Even Though We're Not Realizing We're Doing It We Say That We're Saved By Faith And Not Works But Somehow We Seem To Think That Maybe Some Of Our Works Must Carry Some Extra Merit But Instead Of Being Like We're Realizing That Our Being Saved Has Nothing Whatsoever To do With What We've Done Imagine What a Burden That Must Have Been To Think That Salvation Was A Result Of Our Performance You'd Never Be sure You'd Done Enough It Must Have Been Awful But Instead In God's Amazing Grace And Mercy The First Shall Be Last And The Last Shall Be First What A Good And

[46:14] Generous God We Have Let's Pray Loving Father God We Thank You For This Amazing Parable Of Jesus And The Fact That It Exposes Us And Our Hearts For What They Really Are Lord We Realize That Our Default Position Is That We Want To Be First We Think We Deserve Something But Lord Thank You For Exposing That And Please Give Us The Humility To Accept That That's What We're Like But Lord It's Wonderful To Know That The Kingdom Of Heaven Is Not Like That And That It's All About Grace That Wonderful Grace That We Don't Deserve Lord Lord We Want To Stop Comparing Ourselves We Want To Stop Grumbling Please Help Us Please Grant That To Happen In Our Lives We Pray Teach Us Contentment Teach Us To Be Grateful Above All Teach Us To Be Thankful For That Eternal Gift Of Grace And That Life That

[47:14] You've Given Us Abundantly But These Are Deep Things To Grasp The Things That We Need To Mull Over And Think About And You're Speaking To Each One Of Us Here Tonight Lord We Pray That For Those Who Have Yet To Make That Commitment That Lord This Would Be A Call To Stop Resisting Your Grace And For The Rest Of Amen We're Going To Close By Singing Amazing Grace How Sweet The Sound That Saved A Wretch Like A Wretch Like A Wretch Like A Wretch Like A Wretch Like A Wretch Like A Wretch Like A Wretch How Sweet The Sound That Saved A Wretch Like Wretch

[48:14] Like I Once Was Lost But Now I Found Was Blind But Now I See It Was Grace That Taught My Heart To Fear And Grace My Fears Revealed How Precious Did That Grace Appeal The Out I First Be Through Many Dangerous Toils And Stairs I Have Already Come Tis

[49:14] Grace That Brought Me Saved Thus Far And Grace Will Lead Me Whole And We In There A Thousand Years Are Shining As The Sun We Will Go As Days To Sing God's Praise Than When We First Be God Now All glory to God who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault All glory to him who alone is God our Saviour through Jesus Christ our Lord All glory majesty power and authority are his before all time and in the present and beyond all time

[50:18] Amen Amen