538: From Grace to Grumbling | Dave Sloop

Introduction

If you were here last week, you know that we looked at the same exact passage, John chapter six, verses 35 to 59. And what Tim was dealing with in that passage were the claims that Jesus makes about himself and the complaints that follow those claims. Because Jesus claims, by the way, are pretty controversial. And we see that clearly in this passage.

My assignment this week is to look at those same claims and to consider how consequential those claims are. You see, Jesus claims about himself are never meant to stand alone. In fact, if you read through chapter six, there's a very clear pattern that emerges, and it's this: Jesus is going to make a claim about himself and he's going to tell you immediately what it means for you. These claims are consequential.

But before we get into that, before we look at the consequences of his claims, what I want to do is remind you of his central claims in this chapter and to remind you why they were so controversial. And I think that will help us as we walk through this text together.

The Controversial Claims of Jesus

Do you remember the first claim that they were frustrated by, that they grumbled about? He came down from heaven. You can see that in verse 33: he says, the bread of God is He who comes down and gives life to the world. And then he says more explicitly in verse 38: I have come down from heaven.

And the question is, why were they so offended by that claim? And my answer to that question is because they understood what he meant. When Jesus said, I've come down from heaven, he was telling them, I am God.

When you're having a conversation, a debate, when you're going back and forth with someone and they say, Listen, let me just be honest, I'm God, the debate ends, okay? If that person is who they claim to be, there is no more conversation because you guys are not collaborating to figure out ultimate reality. You're standing before someone who created ultimate reality. And He is there to reveal to you what is true, not to take feedback on what you'd like to be true. And so they're offended. It's offensive when he says, I am God. Okay. That's the first claim.

Now the second claim that he makes that they become offended by, do you remember what it is? I am the bread of life. And the question is, why is that offensive? I mean, it sounds, that doesn't sound so bad. But in order to understand why that was such a controversial thing for Jesus to say, we have to understand and kind of dip our toe into why this was such a consequential statement.

When Jesus says, I am the bread of life, what He is claiming, first of all, that claim, it is experiential, not just theoretical. He's going to tell you at the end of the chapter, and Tim deeply handled this last week. We're not really going to look at the end of the chapter, but what he says is, what it means to believe me, and there's going to be a bunch of synonyms for what it means to genuinely come to Him in belief. He says, come to me, believe in me, eat my flesh, drink my blood. These are flagrant comments that Jesus is making and He means for them to be.

What He is suggesting is that our identification with Him is supposed to be so deep and experiential. What He's telling us when He says, I'm the bread of life, He's telling us that you have a hunger, and I come to meet that hunger. He's saying, What food is to your stomach, I am to your soul. We all know what it's like to be thirsty, a hot day after you mow the lawn. Do you know this feeling of drinking a tall glass of ice water when you are parched and sweating? It is not just what you need, it is so satisfying. And Jesus is saying, I offer a satisfaction that every human heart that has ever been created is longing for. It is the universal spiritual longing. And Jesus is saying, I'm the one that will have you, help you to experience that.

That's the first thing. Secondly, the claim to be the bread of life, it is essential, not optional. He's going to say that unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, there will be no life in you. It's a binary: eat my flesh or die. That is to say, what food is to your life, by way of satisfaction, and what your heart needs in order to avoid eternal destruction—He's not saying I'm one among many ways to experience this and receive it—you know, I'm the only way.

Okay? Jesus is going to say this explicitly in John 14 when he says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. He's making an exclusive claim here.

And now here is what I want us to see, that Jesus is talking to a group of people that look like they have come to Him. They look like they do believe in Him, but Jesus is going to tell them in verse 36, you don't believe in me. It's not genuine. Here's what I want you to see: that in between the claim and the consequence is a key. It is not just, hey, I'm the bread of life, therefore you will never hunger, never thirst, never die. It's not what he's saying. He's saying, I'm the bread of life. And in order for you to experience the benefit of me being bread, you have to believe.

In order to experience the consequence of the claim, you have to come. And this group of people, Jesus looks at them and he says, in verse 36, But I tell you that you do not believe. Now, let's just park here for a second and let's remember some things about this crowd because they did come to him in the wilderness and they experienced some very real things. They experienced a miracle that they knew, unless he was working with God's power, he could not have performed that miracle. They saw and believed, this is a prophet sent from God. They did not believe he was God, but they believed he was a messenger from God, just as all prophets were.

He had God's power. He had God's blessing. In fact, they believed he was the prophetic fulfillment of the prophet that God said he was going to send in Deuteronomy—that would be like Moses—here is that one. They believed him so deeply, it seemed, that they were like, that's going to be our king. We want him to be our king. They were enthusiastic about this guy. They had a lot of marks of belief. And yet Jesus says, You don't believe me. And we've spent considerable time talking about why their belief was in genuine. They were interested in the sign, but not the savior. They wanted him to give them other things. They weren't really interested in him.

But in any case, Jesus looks at them and he says, you do not believe. Now, here is what I want to suggest to you today. The question that this text is going to answer for us today is why is it that some people believe and others don't? Why is it that some people hear the all-satisfying, life-saving message of God's redemptive purposes in his son, Jesus Christ, who came to this world fully God, fully man, who lived a perfect life that you could not live to meet the righteous requirements of a law that you could not keep, who allowed himself to be attached to a cross bearing in his body the penalty that you and I deserved for sin, serving as a sufficient substitute that we desperately needed. Why do some people hear that message and it wrecks them and it changes their life forever? And then some people hear that message and they think hogwash, foolishness. Have you ever wondered that? I wonder if you've ever asked yourself the question, why is it that I believe? What makes me different? Why is it that I responded? But some of the people that I hold most dear have not.

This is a tough question. Now, what I am going to talk about today is a hard teaching. In fact, I'll just be honest with you. In my short time as one of your pastors here, been teaching from this stage for about two years, this is hands down the hardest message that I've ever had to prepare. And it's not because I'm unclear about what I think Jesus is saying here, but the opposite. I think I do understand what Jesus is saying in here. And while it isn't unclear to me, and I add that sentence on purpose, it's not unclear to me, it is uncomfortable.

In fact, it is so uncomfortable that there's a crowd of people that after hearing Jesus say a bunch of uncomfortable, unpopular things, at the end in verse 61, they're going to say, this is a hard teaching. Who can hear it? They have lost interest in listening to Jesus. By verse 61, in verse 15, they were so enthusiastic they wanted to make him king, but here they've completely lost interest in all that he has to say, which makes it all the more shocking and surprising how Jesus responds to their frustration.

See, Jesus is losing this crowd in real time. His disciples must have been thinking, Jesus, what are you doing? And that's exactly what Jesus does. But Jesus doesn't dial back any of the things that he says. He doesn't soften his words. He sharpens them. Accelerates even further. He puts the pedal to the floor and he says something that is so uncomfortably clear and offensive.

Then in verse 66, this is what we read: After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. Oh yeah, it is verse 66. And people turned around and never walked with him again because of the uncomfortable words of Jesus.

I know what some of you are probably thinking right now: Sloop, if Jesus lost the audience when He tried to teach this message, what do you think you're doing? And that's a fair question. Let me tell you what it is that we're talking about.

The Doctrine of Election

What we're talking about today is what theologians have called the doctrine of election. Another word for it is predestination. And as soon as I say that word, my suspicion is that many of you are shifting in your seat because it is not something that we like to talk about; it's uncomfortable. But I want to tell you why we're going to talk about it.

Because we are walking through John's gospel and Jesus talks about it. And my commitment to you as one of your pastors, and I know I speak for Tim, who is the other primary teacher at this church, is this: our commitment to you is to do the best that we can to exegete, which means to draw out the intended meaning of the scriptures as best we can. Sometimes that's a hard job.

There are two ways to read the scriptures, by the way. One is called exegesis, and one is called eisegesis. Eisegesis is when you bring your presuppositions to a text and you read into the passage what might not be there. Exegesis is when you labor to draw out the original meaning because what it meant originally is what it always means for everybody. We have to get to that meaning first. And that's what I'm going to do my best to do.

Let me just say something else about this. There are good and godly people that land in different places on this issue. There really are. In fact, I want to share with you a story. There's a man named R. C. Sproul, who shares what I'll call the reformed view that I share. And someone asked him once, Billy Graham would hold to the more Arminian view of salvation—that we come to God by our free choice—and they said to R. C. Sproul, Do you think you'll see Billy Graham in heaven? And RC Sproul thought about it. And then he said, No. He said, Billy Graham will be so close to the throne of God that I will scarcely be able to catch a glimpse. What's the point? People are going to land in different places on this, and that's okay.

This is not an issue that we break fellowship over. And there are issues that are so important that we would. For example, if you were to say to me, Jesus Christ is a mere mortal, he's a human being, and he came as a good example of the kind of human being that I could be. And the way that I experience salvation is by modeling my life after him, but this nonsense about him being God in the flesh and him dying and being raised—hogwash—I would say to you, we can be friends, but we cannot be brothers and sisters in Christ because that is a different gospel. Or as Paul would say, that is no gospel at all.

This is not one of those issues. I hesitate to call it a minor issue because I do think that there are a lot of implications for how we read the scriptures based on how we interpret this particular text, but it is minor by comparison to the essentials of our faith.

But I come to you today, I think in the same manner that Paul showed up to the Corinthians church where he said, I came not with wisdom and eloquence, but with fear and trembling. Wanting to see a demonstration of God's spirit. Because as we will see from this text, if God doesn't speak, if He doesn't clarify, we remain lost and in darkness and dead.

This is an uncomfortable passage, but it is an important one. And with that, I want to say a short prayer and then I want to jump in.

Conclusion

Father, thank you for your word. And I want to pray two things. One, I want to pray for myself—that you would guard my tongue and that you would guard my tone. Lord, these are tender issues. They were tender when you said them. I'm not going to do better than you. But Father, I also pray for our hearts collectively together—that you would make us a people that are soft in your hands. That when we get to tough scriptures, we don't just skip over them, but that we are willing to sit with your uncomfortable words to try to figure out what it is that you mean.

Help us now, we pray. Christ's name, amen.

As we've already discussed, Jesus says in verse 35, I'm the bread of life. And he who comes to me will never thirst. He who believes in me will never hunger. And then he says in verse 36, but as I said to you, you do not believe. And with that framing, this is what he says next in verse 37 to explain to this group of people why it is that they do not believe:

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.

There are some beautiful promises in this one single verse. He says, there are some people—and he means to contrast this hypothetical group of people with the group of people who have come to him displaying no genuine belief—and he says, there are some people who will come with genuine belief. And all of those people who come, here's the promise: I will never cast them out.

We're going to take Jesus at his word there. Here's what he's saying: there's no such thing as a person who comes to me that I will say, uh-uh. Jesus doesn't turn people away who are genuinely seeking him. Full stop. Not only that, as we're going to see, he's going to keep them to the very end. He's going to keep using this phrase: I will raise him up at the last day. I will raise him up at the last day. He is not only going to not turn you away, he is going to carry you all the way to completion, to the final day, to the culmination of all things. You will be with him.

If you come to him, he will keep you. That's the promise.

But there's something else in here. There's something else that Jesus is telling us, I believe, that precedes our coming. Let's listen to it in his words. Here's what he says:

All that the Father gives to me will come to me.

Jesus is suggesting here that there's something, he calls it a giving, that the Father is giving some people to Jesus. And those people that the Father gives, they will come. And the ones who come will be kept. And I want you to notice this too: there is zero attrition. All who are given to Jesus will come to Jesus, all of them. He's going to say throughout this gospel: I will lose none. Not one will I lose from my hand, he will say in John 10.

If they are called, they will come. But it's not just that. Those who come will be kept. Zero attrition. He will lose none in the coming. He will lose none in the keeping. Every single one who comes will make it across the finish line. That's what Jesus is saying.

If you want to put a verse next to this, it would be from Philippians 1: He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. You're a passive recipient there. There is a role that we play. Obviously, we talked about it at Sunday school—to be Spirit-filled. We cooperate, but in the coming to Him, it is not a partnership. It is an awakening. We don't need a divine assist; we need to be revived. Why? Because we're dead, we are spiritually dead.

And that is the case He's going to make in verse 44, which we have not gotten there yet. Okay? He's going to ground this promise. And just to remind you what the promise is: those who are called will come, and those who come will be kept—100% effective.

Theologians would say this is called efficacious grace. There's no such thing, in my view, as grace that is ineffective. When God puts grace in the life of a person, they always come. And when they come, they always make it to the end. Not because of themselves, but because of Christ. He is effective. He is strong, even though we are weak.

In fact, he's going to say it later in this chapter: the flesh is of no value. The spirit gives life. The help, the flesh, is no help. Okay. And he's going to ground this promise in verse 38, in his father's will. Listen to what he says:

For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

In verse 39, this is the will of him who sent me: that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. He's saying the same thing again in a different way. Everyone who has been given to me, they're all going to come, and I will raise them all up—every single one of them.

Verse 40, he's going to say it again: This is the will of my Father—that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. He's just repeating the same thing over and over again, slightly different angles or perspectives—same message.

Those who are called will come, and those who come will be kept.

In verses 41 to 42, we see the grumbling Jews. The Israelites do not like what he's saying. The primary complaint is that he's claiming to be God, but they just don't like what he's saying. It's uncomfortable. It's unpopular. They don't like it.

I want to tell you something I think that John is intentionally doing here in the use of that word grumble. Can you think of another time that a group of people were fed with miraculous bread in the wilderness, and they grumbled because they didn't like it? This is Israel in the wilderness all over again.

Back then, if you read in Numbers 11, God provides this miraculous bread. It is keeping them alive. Every single day they wake up and it's just on the ground. They would perish without this bread. And yet, they had the audacity to say to Moses in Numbers 11, I can't believe you brought us out to this wilderness. Remember, it was like back in Egypt when we had fish and cucumbers. Who's longing for cucumbers? Don't raise your hand; it's embarrassing. Nobody wants cucumbers, but these guys did for some reason.

And then they say this, this chilling verse, and all we have to look at is this manna. They grumbled because they did not like the bread that God provided. Why does this crowd grumble? They do not like the bread that God has provided.

In verse 44, actually, verse 43, Jesus is going to tell them, Do not grumble among yourselves. And then in verse 44, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up at the last day. There's that repeated phrase again, which connects it to verse 40, verse 39, verse 37. Same thing in a different way.

In fact, what Jesus has already said in the affirmative, all that are called will come, what he's saying is no one can come unless they are called. In fact, Jesus is going to answer this question—and it's a question that I have asked for so long. In fact, some of the answers that God gives us to this are not completely satisfying. They remain a mystery.

But the question that you might be asking, which I certainly have asked, is: why does it have to be this way? Why didn't God just give everybody an opportunity? Why doesn't God just leave it open-ended—that whoever wants to come can? Well, I think Jesus answers that question here because if he left it up to us, we never would.

He says, no one can come. That word in the Greek for can, it is ability. We do not have the ability. Have you ever stumbled upon a statue of an animal that looked real? Or let's just say a stuffed animal of a little dog was up here, and I was like, Come here, come on, come on, get over here. It's not going to come because it can't, because it's dead, it's lifeless.

Jesus is going to say, this is not cruelty. It's just the human condition: apart from God's intervention, we are dead. I cannot see.

Let me throw up a couple of verses to illustrate this point. In Romans 3, Paul would put it this way:

As it is written, none is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together, they have become worthless. No one does good, no, not one.

Paul is saying, look, the problem with your sin is not just that you do bad things. It’s that you can't see and understand good things. And he would say this very clearly in 1 Corinthians 2, which we looked at in Sunday school today: that the spiritual things are only perceived and understood by people who have the Spirit. He would say to Nicodemus in John chapter 3, Nicodemus, your problem is not lack of information. And I would say this is the Spirit in which Jesus shares this with this grumbling crowd: it's not saying, Nanny nanny boo boo, you can't see me. What he's saying is, Your problem isn't lack of information. It is an orientation of your heart that you can't fix apart from me. You need me to awaken your heart. You need me to cure your spiritual blindness.

It's not only that no one can come. He says, no one can come unless they are drawn—unless they are drawn by my Father who sent me. That word for drawn, almost every time it is used in the New Testament, you know what it means? Drag. Do you know why? Because you would never come on your own. It's used to talk about Peter dragging his net full of fish and Paul and Silas being dragged before the magistrates, go to a place they didn't want to be.

The reality is, we don't have the capacity to see God for who he is unless the Spirit comes and opens our eyes. Which is why he's going to say in verse 45, it is written in the prophets, and they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.

He says, as it is written, they will all be taught by God. What is he referring to here? And why does he say the prophets, plural? Because the prophets, multiple prophets, talk about a day that was coming—when this disobedient, stiff-necked people who could not for the life of them obey God, we're going to get something new. It is the new covenant.

In Ezekiel 36:26-27, let's go there:

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Have you ever wondered why it is that God had to come and put a Spirit in us—to force us to obey his rules? It's because you can't, without him. We're never going to find him on our own.

You see, you are not born again because you believe; you believe because you were born again. The theological term for this is regeneration. That God wakes you up. It's the only way that we can believe. I think this is what Jesus is teaching.

It's uncomfortable. And I can't begin to unpack all the implications, all the questions that this stirs in us. But what I can tell you is my own story, which is this: I hated this doctrine. I couldn't stand it. When I was in college, I had a guy in my life that just, it was like he was an evangelist for this doctrine. And I was so turned off by that guy that I just dismissed him any time he talked.

And one day I was having my quiet time in my room at the Toolbox where I live—that's what we call our house, college Toolbox. And I was sitting in my room and I was reading John six, and I read these words. And for me, it was like the scales fell off. This doctrine that I didn't want to believe, I realized, oh my gosh, this isn't just Paul saying it. It's like in that moment I realized, oh my gosh, Jesus—sorry, but Jesus, Jesus is the one that said this. In fact, Ezekiel said it; it’s always been God's plan.

The valley of the dry bones—the whole point is, it's a bunch of dead corpses and they need life. And the only way to get life is the breath, or the Spirit, of God. And until that Spirit comes in, they cannot move, they cannot see, they cannot respond. We need a touch. We need a divine touch from the Spirit of God.

And I just want to tell you, let me just say a couple of things and then make a few points and then I'll be done. If we are willing, when we get to Jesus' hard words—and this is one of them—if we're willing to sit and stay under the discomfort of those words, there's always treasure on the other side of that process.

And listen, I'm not suggesting that it means you're going to land where I have landed. I am teaching you because this is the only way I know how to teach this passage. But there are others, good friends of mine in this room, that have landed in a different place. And as I said before, that is okay.

But regardless of where you land on this passage, what I'm hoping is not just to teach today, but to model, is a willingness to grapple with the hard teachings of Scripture. We have to. See, the temptation is to turn the page, skip it, suppress it, don't think about it. In some cases, reinterpret it. I'm not suggesting that people who oppose the view that I'm sharing have done that. I'm not making any accusations here. But what I'm saying is that there is a temptation in me to do that—to twist and bend God's Word—say what I would be more comfortable if it said, instead of drawing out the intended meaning.

And for me, when I got to a place of just yielding to what I think God is teaching here, here's what happened in my heart. I want to tell you four things.

Number one, it deepens our humility. Now, some of us might think, really more humble to say that you're one of the chosen, but here's the deal: if you've ever considered why it is that you believe to begin with, if the answer is anything other than Christ drew my dead heart, I contributed nothing, then at some point, what you have to admit is: I brought something to this. I was more willing, more humble, more intellectual, more gracious. There was something in me that made it possible for me to hear and not the other people. And while you may not feel condescension towards people that don't believe, it leaves us vulnerable to that possibility because you did contribute. You were part of the reason that you got it.

But the moment that you begin to believe, it wasn't me—I don't, as I said before, I don't believe because I was, I'm sorry, I am not born again because I believed. I believe because I was born again. That something happened before I even started walking and moving towards him that enabled that process. And therefore, it removes all boasting, which is why Paul says, it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And then he interrupts himself and says, this is not from yourselves; it is the gift of God. Why? So that no one can boast.

Even in our believing, there is no boasting. That's the first thing.

The second thing is this: it expands our gratitude. I'm just telling you that for me, when I started to understand this, it became personal in a new way for me. When I started to realize, wait, I didn't just respond to an open-ended invitation—He sought me. And if you notice Jesus, the invitation, it is broad. He says, everyone who believes, but then he says, I will raise him. It's grammatically awkward not to say, everyone who believes, I will raise them, all. Him. Because the truth is, He is drawing to Himself a community of people, but that community of people is made up of individual people that He cares about individually. And He affects our salvation individually.

There is an error to over-individualize every single verse of scripture, but there is an equally opposite error in seeing every promise of God as just a corporate thing and not personal. It became deeply personal for me when I realized He came after me and He opened my eyes, He opened my heart—not because of anything that I did. He just set His love on me. He set His affection on me. And I'm just telling you, for me, I had a new level of gratitude when I realized that.

Here's the third thing: it magnifies our security. If I contribute to my salvation, it leaves open the possibility that I can lose that salvation. If I did not earn that salvation, then there's nothing I can do to unearn it. If he sets His love on me—not because of my faithfulness, my obedience, my wisdom, my intellect, but only because He loves me—I love this phrase—He loves me because He loves me, period, then my failures aren't going to separate me from his love. He's going to keep me. He's going to bring me to the end. He will raise me up at the last day—not because of me, but because of Him. He's the one that keeps.

Fourth, it directs my hope. Here's why I think this message is so difficult to accept. It's hard to sit with because many of this is personal. Many of us have people that we desperately want to know Christ. And this feels like fatalism or determinism. But listen, we don't know who God's calling. It's not our job to even try to figure that out. And He's already told us: there's no such thing as somebody that comes and gets turned away. The point is this: anybody who is coming is revealing to be someone who was called.

But here's the other thing. If you have someone that you love and you're dying for them to know the truth and the importance and the significance of the gospel and how it applies to them personally, you might be tempted to convince them, especially if what you believe is that we contribute to our salvation by understanding it. You might be tempted to coerce them. You might be frustrated with them that they just can't get it.

But the moment you realize only God can do this work, it redefines all of that. In the Old Testament, when they say salvation belongs to our God, I think that's what that means. It means it is a process that God owns and completes from start to finish. The moment that we realize what people need is not a more convincing argument, but a divine touch in the heart from God, it directs my hope. It shows me where to put my energy: on my knees, begging God.

Let me tell you something—it might sound like a contradiction, but it is not a problem to be solved; it is a tension to live in. And it's this: in 1 Timothy 2: He says something that sounds so contradictory:

God desires all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.

I read a book shortly after I read this, John six, when I was a junior in college. The book was called Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. The idea would be, what's the point of evangelism? Why do we pray? If what this is teaching is some kind of fatalism or determinism, why do we even bother talking to people? God's going to do what he's going to do.

However, 1 Timothy 2 says, God desires all men to be saved. Romans 10: How can they hear without someone preaching? How can they respond if they don't hear the gospel? Paul is the most overtly Calvinistic person who speaks in the Bible other than Jesus, in my view. But Paul was the most zealous evangelist. Those things are not mutually exclusive for Paul.

And even more, when we pray, we can say, God, I know your heart. I don't understand why you desire all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth, but at the same time, it's not happening for everyone. I don't get that. I don't understand it. But when I come to you, I claim that verse because it's true.

And somehow, in God's economy, those things are not at odds with one another; they are both true. And so we are bold to pray and bold to direct our hope to a God who alone can save, both in the calling and in the coming and the keeping.

And if you are here today as someone who has not yet responded, I wonder: do you hear his voice today? Because the promise to you is: if you sense him drawing you, it's evidence that you're called. He's already there, willing you to himself so that you might taste and see that he's good, that you might experience the all-satisfying, life-saving benefits of Jesus as bread. Would you come, lay hold of it? It is yours for the taking.

To all who would come, let's pray.

Closing Prayer

Father, this is a hard teaching—who can hear it? I am just asking, Lord, that anything I might have said that is not from you would fall to the ground. Anything I said in an unhelpful tone, I pray that it would be forgotten.

Lord, I pray. I thank you. Thank you for saving me. Because if you didn't, I would still be lost. And so would all of us. Amen.