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[0:00] Father, in these moments, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight.

[0:12] ! O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.! We pray that in Christ's name. Amen. If you've been with us for the past several months, we have been walking through the grand story of the Old Testament, seeing what the Lord has done in creation in separating a special people to himself.

[0:36] He has liberated them from slavery. He has given them his law. He has given them rescue. And today, he is going to ask them to make him a space to dwell among them.

[0:55] Many of you know that I used to be in the Coast Guard. So I have a heart for these cadets here. I have a heart for people who are suffering, as it were. And when I graduated, one of my first duties in my first tour included running a Coast Guard command center where search and rescue operations happen.

[1:19] So I ran search and rescue cases. I had the big picture. The maps, the screens, the search patterns, the radio towers. I ran that.

[1:32] Now, and it's kind of like what you would think of, you know, in the movies, kind of a command center. But I wasn't out on the water. When a rescue happened, I wasn't the one who did it.

[1:45] I had the big picture. And I knew what our Coast Guard men and women on the small boats and in the helicopters were doing. I had all the information. In fact, more information than they did.

[1:59] But I didn't really understand their experience. Like, I didn't know, I don't know to this day what it is like to pull someone out of the water.

[2:10] I don't know exactly what those men and women on the water were going through. I mean, they could tell me about the challenges they faced.

[2:23] But I didn't experience those challenges myself. I didn't participate in them. And so, if you talk to me about my Coast Guard experience, I will never tell you I did search and rescue.

[2:36] I'll tell you I supported search and rescue or I coordinated it. But I won't tell you that I did it because I never actually did it. And if an officer in a command center, miles away from the actual operation, is really, you know, removed from the real life situation, how much further could God be removed from people's situations?

[3:04] He reigns from heaven. How much further would he be, could he be removed from you and from me? Well, I mean, he could certainly be very distant.

[3:18] And he has every right to be. He could follow Israel's progress from a distance, like I did. You know, on a screen, so to speak. He could have radioed in instructions to them.

[3:31] But what we see here in Exodus 25 is that the Lord entered into his people's experience. One theologian wrote, You know, since the Israelites lived in tents, in the midst of their wilderness wanderings here, the idea of God's identifying his lot with theirs could not be more strikingly expressed than by sharing their homes.

[4:02] And that's what we're going to see today in Exodus 25. The Lord says, You are living in tents. Make me a tent too. You know, that probably sounds nice to you kind of in a sentimental sense, right?

[4:18] When I say God identifies with his people, it has, you know, that certain nostalgic ring to you, perhaps. But is it only a nice thing that the Lord identifies with his people, that he enters into their experience?

[4:31] Is it a pleasant message, but ultimately kind of a take it or leave it sort of thing? Or is it more than that? Is it nice?

[4:42] Or is it a necessity? Is it beneficial? Or is it beautiful? The answer is this.

[4:54] The idea that God identifies with his people isn't just nice to have. It's actually necessary for our very lives. And the idea that God identifies with his people isn't just a beneficial thing.

[5:09] It is a thing of real beauty. And if we don't see it clearly, we will be robbed of joy in this life. Robbed of comfort.

[5:21] And so that's what we're going to look at today. First, that it is necessary for God's people that he identifies with them. Secondly, that it is beautiful that God identifies with his people.

[5:32] And that it transforms our lives. It really actually transforms the very circumstances we walk through. And last, we'll ask how we can live in light of that.

[5:45] And so let's begin thinking about God identifying with his people and why it is so necessary for us. So God's people are living in tents. They are wandering in the wilderness.

[5:55] They have been freed from Egypt and they are going to the promised land. And the Lord desires to associate with them. He didn't want to be distant.

[6:07] And from the very beginning, he made men and women in his own image. That's Genesis chapter 1, the very first page of the Bible. We are made for fellowship with him. And he created us out of his desire to show his grace to us, to show his love to us.

[6:25] And we are fearfully and wonderfully made for that very purpose. To know and to love God. And so his people lived in tents.

[6:37] God chose to live in a tent. And he would accompany them through their long journey. It's a lot bigger. Well, God is a lot bigger, right?

[6:47] Than the universe itself. Let that sink in. The earth is his footstool, the scriptures say.

[6:59] But he called this tabernacle, this tent of meeting. He called that home. He loves his people. And so he makes his home among them. And his home looks like theirs.

[7:11] They live in tents. He doesn't come down from heaven with his throne and an army of angels serving him. No, he kneels down to their level. Links himself to a wandering people.

[7:25] He joins their caravan. And so the Lord becomes a part of his people. One among the great assembly of the nation of Israel.

[7:36] And this doesn't diminish his glory or his leadership. In fact, he's more glorious for showing this humble kind of love.

[7:49] And who doesn't want a leader that is down in the trenches with his people, right? Who doesn't want that? And it's not just a one-time event.

[7:59] He doesn't do this as a show for them and then heads back to heaven. Right? The Lord camps with his people for their entire journey. So it's not just lip service to a connection with his people.

[8:14] He's connected to them for the long haul. And what we see as we look at the rest of the Bible, that this God who connects himself to his people, he doesn't stop there.

[8:27] No, no. When we get to the New Testament and Jesus is born, we see the fullness of this only there. Right? When Jesus came, the Lord took this idea that he was going to identify with his people and he turned it up to 11.

[8:44] Right? In Christ, God didn't just live with us. In Christ, God didn't just see what we were going through. In Christ, God didn't just walk with us.

[8:56] And have the same house as us. All those things are true and good and beautiful. And they're important parts of God identifying and associating with us.

[9:07] But, but, in Christ, God identified himself with us at the most basic, deepest level possible.

[9:18] Didn't he? He became a man. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

[9:30] He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him. And without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

[9:41] The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.

[9:52] And we have seen his glory. Glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. No one has ever seen God, the only God, who is at the Father's side.

[10:05] He has made him known. See, he didn't just take on housing in common with us. The Lord who said, make me a tent to, came, took on a human body and a human nature.

[10:20] He took his greatness, his limitlessness. He humbled himself and took on our limitations.

[10:32] More on that in a bit. The Lord knows what it's like to be a man, because God the Son became a man. He doesn't know it abstractly.

[10:43] He didn't read it in a book. He became a man. To live with men. And if that's not associating with you and with me, I don't know what is.

[10:57] Right? So Jesus knows what it's like to have a human body and to have human limitations. What it's like not to have all the information, or to hurt, or to be wounded by others, or to grieve.

[11:11] He is linked to us in our hurts and in our limitations. But that's not all.

[11:23] See, unlike you and me, Jesus was and is the perfect man. The perfect man. So his experience isn't exactly like ours, is it?

[11:36] He never had to ask for forgiveness. Can you imagine a life like that? Just for a moment. Could you imagine that? Having never harmed someone?

[11:49] How beautiful would that be? Having never sinned against the Lord? How beautiful must that life have been? How harmonious. How beautiful is it? How beautiful is it? But our king not only dwelt with Israel in tents, he not only took on our nature and all its limitations and hardships, the perfect man also associated himself with sinful men.

[12:17] He showed us that at his baptism. In Matthew chapter 3, we read, In those days, John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

[12:31] Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now that makes sense for sinful people to repent, to confess, to ask for the Lord's forgiveness.

[12:47] We need to turn from our sins and seek forgiveness, but Jesus had no sin. He had no use of a baptism of repentance. None whatsoever.

[13:00] But because he is the same God who linked himself to his people when they lived in tents by living in a tent himself, what did he do?

[13:14] What did he do? Matthew continues, Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me.

[13:29] Now, why did John protest? One writer put it this way, If you're not having trouble picturing the role reversal that happened here, imagine a surgeon stepping to the side of the operating table, handing the scalpel to the patient and asking, Will you operate on me?

[13:48] When we think of it this way, the absurdity of the scene stands out in sharp relief. The one who should have been repenting, John, was baptizing the only perfect person present, Jesus.

[14:04] Matthew continues, But Jesus answered him, Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Then John consented, And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him.

[14:25] And behold, a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. The only sinless man went down into the same waters that sinners entered into to proclaim their repentance.

[14:43] And so he identified himself, not just with our limitations, but he connected himself to us as sinners. Jesus was saying, in essence, one pastor put it this way, My baptism is important, John, because by it, I'm identifying with sinful people.

[15:08] John, you denounce sin, and that's good, but that will never cure sin. Righteousness needs to be fulfilled, and that's why I've come, to do what no one else could ever do to make people right with God.

[15:21] John the Baptist was learning that that instant, that Israel's long-awaited Messiah, had come to identify with broken, fallen, sinful humanity.

[15:35] He wanted to launch his ministry among the common people, the sinful ones, those who knew they needed God to do a new work in their lives. So, there's a moment in Exodus 25 where God says, make me attend to.

[15:53] That's the Lord identifying himself with his people, and he wasn't just aware of their situation, right? He walked right into it and pointed forward to the ultimate act of relating to his people.

[16:06] It's the first step along the process that we find our fullness, the fullness of this idea, the ultimate act of relating to his people in Jesus Christ. Our Lord entered into our situation fully.

[16:18] He took on our flesh, our limitations, so that he would live through our hardships, not from a command center, but on the water, so to speak. When he was baptized in John's baptism of repentance, he didn't know only about our sinfulness.

[16:38] He linked himself to sinners, to you and to me. Now, now, and only now, can we answer the question we asked earlier.

[16:52] Why does it matter that the Lord associates with us, identifies himself with us, relates himself to his people? Two reasons, right? We said, first, it's necessary for us, and second, it's beautiful for us.

[17:05] First, it's necessary. It's necessary for our salvation. We're not going to look at the tabernacle's furnishings today. The next several chapters in Exodus unfold what's there, and some of it is some of the stuff you would normally see in a home, but much of it is unique.

[17:23] You'll see that God's tent has some extra furniture that you wouldn't find in Israel's tents, because this tent has special items for sacrifices. Why?

[17:35] Now, even though they're his people, Israel isn't holy like God is holy. They're sinners, and they need to be made clean before they can ever enter his presence.

[17:47] To enter a home today, you just knock on the front door, or you ring the doorbell. But to approach God's home, you need to be purified. As we'll see in greater detail in a few weeks as we look at the sacrificial system, that's really what it's for.

[18:04] An animal symbolically bears the guilt of sin and loses its life. That's the penalty for sin. That's how God's people can approach his tent. They need a substitute.

[18:17] But here's the thing. The animals don't actually bear the weight of sin and guilt and death themselves. They're symbols anticipating a substitute that really can make an end of their sin.

[18:32] Here's how the book of Hebrews puts it in Hebrews 10. The law can never by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, and those are the animal substitutes we're talking about, it can never make perfect those who draw near.

[18:49] But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Why is it impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins?

[19:06] Why can't they do it? They're not an adequate substitute. Right? They're not people. A bull or a goat doesn't have the same value as a person.

[19:17] You are so much more valuable than a goat. Right? You are a moral being. A goat doesn't even know what sin is.

[19:28] doesn't know what righteousness is. And so it can't bear the guilt of a person because it has no moral capacity. But when God became a man, fully and truly a man, he could bear the weight of our sin and pay the penalty that we have earned.

[19:47] That's why we just sang, man of sorrows, lamb of God, by his own betrayed, the sin of man and wrath of God has been on Jesus laid. Now my debt is paid.

[20:00] It is paid in full by the precious blood that Jesus spilled. Now the curse of sin has no hold on me. Whom the Son sets free is free indeed.

[20:16] That's the first reason we care that the Lord identifies so closely with his people because the gospel doesn't work without it. If Jesus didn't become a man, he couldn't have been a substitute for us on the cross and we would still be lost in our sins and we would have no hope of reconciliation with the Lord.

[20:34] It's only that he came and that he took upon him our flesh that he could associate with sinful men and women like us and take all our sins and nail them to his cross.

[20:49] And so we care that our Lord Jesus identifies us, identifies with us because it's a critical component of the gospel.

[21:04] Without it we have no redemption from sin. And the second reason we care, we care because it's beautiful, beautiful. When the Lord set up camp with Israel, he didn't only see their sin, right?

[21:21] We just led with that. But he didn't only see their sin. He also entered into their hardships, right? He was in the desert with them. He knew what a pain it must have been to break camp and pack all your belongings and mosey on every time they moved.

[21:44] He entered into their long journey seemingly without end. It lasted a generation with no end in sight. So in other words, he walked with them through their troubles.

[21:57] And because Jesus entered into our situation fully, his baptism united him to sinners, but he also linked himself to us in another way. His birth, being born in human form, united him to us in our frailties, in our limitations, in our troubles.

[22:20] See, he knows what it is like. Our God knows what it is like to hunger. He knows what it is like to thirst.

[22:32] He knows what it is like to have blisters on your feet, to be betrayed by those whom you love. He knows what that is like, not because he has studied it or seen it from afar, but because it has happened to him.

[22:47] He knows what it is like to be mocked. He knows what it is like to be misunderstood. He knows these things not because he was in a command center and saw it happening on a screen.

[23:03] He knows it because he was on the water, actually living the life. that's what it means that God identifies with his people.

[23:16] He lived life with them in their tents, and in Christ, he lived with us our very lives. He doesn't just know about grief.

[23:30] He has grieved. Jesus wept, the scriptures say. He doesn't just have an understanding of our cares and our burdens.

[23:41] He has held them in his own hands. In Matthew 26 we read, he began to be sorrowful and troubled.

[23:53] He knows, he knows what our cares and our burdens are like from his own experience. I love what this does for our relationship with God.

[24:10] I love it. Here's how one biblical counselor put it. When we ask, does God really care that I'm hurting? The answer can be clearly seen in God's actions.

[24:25] God cares about your hurts to the extent that he willingly suffered in order to both identify with you and to save you. God and God voluntarily suffered at the hands of evil people.

[24:44] Although evil and pain are the result of mankind's choices and not the results of God's choices, God does not subject his creation to something he is unwilling to endure himself.

[24:56] When you undergo loss, rejection, illness, or pain, remember that God knows how you feel from his own personal experience and he hurts with you.

[25:11] When God became a man, he entered fully into fallen humanity and thus fully experienced the suffering of humanity except that he was without sin. What does that mean for us?

[25:29] Practically. What does it mean for us in our lives? Well, it means that when we pray about our troubles, it is not to a disinterested God.

[25:42] It means that when we cry out because it hurts, it's not to a God who doesn't know what that's like. It means that when we are mistreated, it's to a God who knows exactly what that's like.

[25:57] It means that when we are grieving, we call out to a God who himself wept. It means that when we are rejected, when we are rejected, we pray to a God who was nailed naked to a cross for us.

[26:19] God who is to us. When we hurt in any sense, we have a God in heaven who understands, understands in his heart, from his experience, what we are going through.

[26:35] We pray to a God who has compassion on us. And so when we walk through deep waters, we do not walk alone. that is a help and it is hope for everyone.

[26:54] If you're hurting today, reach out to the God who knows exactly what you are going through. Who knows exactly what it's like for you to walk through it.

[27:07] Cry out to him. Find comfort in fellowship with him. I want to point you back to the scriptures here for a moment.

[27:18] Pick one of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, and meet your Savior with fresh eyes. Pay particular attention as you read through. Pay attention to how he walked through the griefs that we walk through, the griefs that you are walking through.

[27:37] You will find that he was rejected. You will see that he mourned. You will find that he was good, that his body suffered physically.

[27:52] Our Lord walked through every kind of sadness and brokenness so that you will never have to walk alone. He can empathize with us in a way that no one else could.

[28:08] One author says, God knows your suffering. He sees, responds, and invites you to participate in the sorrow and grief he has for your situation. You're not encouraged to be silent or deny, but to feel and express your emotions, to cry and weep, to grieve the destruction that you have experienced.

[28:29] God has compassion for the victims of injustice, and at the root of his compassion is the fact that he witnessed and entered into the suffering of the abused.

[28:42] I want to pause here and briefly say that it is easy for Christians, especially for Christians like me, if you've grown up in the church, it might be easier for you.

[29:00] If you're a husband, it also might be easier for you. I don't know why that is, but husbands tend to struggle with this towards their wives. forgetting that we are both sinful creatures and limited creatures, and looking at someone else and saying, wow, you're messed up right now, you must be sinning, and having no category, no grace for people who are limited.

[29:29] limited. It's funny because our culture has essentially lost any category for sin, right? Everything is some sort of, you know, the DSM-5 will now label basically any negative behavior as some sort of syndrome, right?

[29:47] And has no category left for personal sin. And I think that Christians can easily turn that around and have no category for limitation, become Pharisees. It's easy for us to lump everybody's problem that anybody ever has into that sin category and judge them.

[30:06] And have no grace and no patience for people who are struggling. And so if that's you, you need to see that you're Lord, I need to see that my Lord identifies with our sinfulness and with our brokenness, with our limits.

[30:22] And it's easy to forget that the Lord has knit each of us together differently. Some people are going to be more sensitive to certain issues and it's going to affect them more. And it's never an excuse to sin.

[30:35] There's never an excuse to sin in any circumstance. But we can be cruel if we judge people, either in our own hearts or actually with our mouths and our words, for struggling under the weight of a particular issue, as if struggling itself were a sin.

[30:56] And again, for whatever reason, husbands, this is typically a particular issue for us. And I often default to label all of my wife's troubles as either immaturity or faithlessness and simply ignore that she has limitations.

[31:15] And now that half the room is getting elbowed in the ribs, let's ask the question, what do we do now with the rest of this?

[31:27] What do we do with this wonderful truth that our Lord has entered into our human situation, carried our sins to his cross, felt the full weight of our brokenness, and walked the road of sorrow, grief, and trouble, the same road that we walk?

[31:43] What do we do with that? How does that affect today and tomorrow and the next day? Well, what does the Lord ask Israel to do in Exodus 25?

[31:57] He tells them to make a tent. Verses 1 and 2 say, the Lord said to Moses, speak to the people of Israel that they take from me a contribution. From every man whose heart moves him, you shall receive the contribution.

[32:10] Verses 3 through 7 are all about what to contribute to make this tent. And then verse 8 says, let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst. Now, don't panic.

[32:22] I am not kicking off a giving campaign to construct a church building or a facility. That's not what we're doing today. But what I do want you to consider is the attitude that is here on display.

[32:37] God spoke to his people and asked them to participate in welcoming him into their midst. Right in the middle of their wandering, right in the middle of the desert, right in the middle of their uncertainty, that is when God said, welcome me into your life.

[32:57] Gerhardus Voss says, the materials out of which the tent was constructed had to come from a free will offering of the people. So as to symbolize that they desired their God to dwell among them.

[33:10] And that is exactly where this passage lands home. that is exactly where it connects to today and tomorrow and every day of our life. Our Lord identified with us to the point where he walked into this world as a human being and walked through the same troubles we faced.

[33:30] And now, will you welcome that Lord into the midst, the very midst of your troubles? Will you? what does it look like to welcome the Lord into the middle of your troubles?

[33:44] What does that look like practically today? Well, it looks like this. When you walk through deep waters, whatever that trial is, whatever that challenge is, whatever that struggle is in your life, where will you go with your pain?

[34:08] with your grief and with your sorrow? Where will you take it? I think so often we are robbed of joy and of comfort because we fail to take our sorrows to the Lord and we take them somewhere else.

[34:32] Where will you go with the pain of rejection? When you are rejected, when you are made to feel like nothing, or when you are mocked, or ridiculed, or scorned, where will you go with that pain?

[34:49] Will you retreat inward? Will you wall up your heart so that nothing can harm you again? Will you stand behind those calluses and return the ridicule, either in your mind's eye or actually with your words?

[35:07] Is that where you will take the pain of rejection? Or, instead of turning in, will you stop becoming an emotional turtle, right?

[35:22] Will you stop that? Will you turn instead your eyes to heaven? In the midst of that pain, will you take it, the pain, the hurt, the rejection, to the king of glory, who received scorn and insults and rejection?

[35:39] Will you take it there? Will you pour out your heart at his feet? In a wounded prayer, saying, Lord, I need you, and I know you know what this is like.

[35:56] Will you walk with me through it? He understands the pain of rejection. He understands it because he's lived it.

[36:07] He has walked this path, and he loves you, so walk with him. One of my professors said that Jesus was born a commoner and an outcast who knows you and identifies with you, so you can identify with him.

[36:27] He is also the king who takes you to the heights of honor and privilege. You see, when you run to him with your rejection, he reminds you that you are a son or a daughter of the king.

[36:45] He trades your rejection for honor. Let's think again. Where will you take, where will you go with the pain of your loss?

[37:01] When you suffer loss, when someone or something is taken from you, when you lose your footing, your status, or your security, where will you go with your uncertainty?

[37:14] Where will you take it for comfort? Will you throw yourself endlessly into your work? Will you throw yourself into a bottle? where will you go with your loss?

[37:32] Will you go the places that the world around us goes? Or will you go to the fountain of every blessing? Jesus chose to lose so much, lose so much, when he came to redeem us, to bring us glory.

[37:51] He left heaven, he humbled himself to take on the form of a creature, that is a human man, an impoverished man, and he bore your burdens to the cross.

[38:02] He lost so much, all for your sake. Will you go to him with your loss? He knows what loss is, intimately.

[38:15] Take your loss to the one who lost his life for you. when you suffer great loss, will you let him be your great gain?

[38:33] Where will you go with your grief? The Hollywood stereotype of grieving a breakup is a pint of Ben and Jerry's on the couch in front of a chick flick, right?

[38:47] Americans grieve death by avoiding the issue as much as possible. We don't even use the word anymore. People have passed away or we have lost them, right?

[39:00] We don't even use the words. Now, you can grieve all sorts of things, and you can do it in all sorts of ways, but all your grieving will be ultimately hopeless apart to Christ.

[39:13] Because, and listen to this, if this world is all you have, if this world is all you have, whatever you lose is gone for good. But if you have Christ, you have everything.

[39:31] Why? Well, he was grieved. He was grieved by our fallen condition so much that he submitted himself to death itself, so that he could break death for all who are found in him by rising from the grave that first Easter.

[39:52] And that means that this world will be remade, and us with it. He will wipe every tear from our eyes, and we will walk streets of gold with our Savior in transcendent joy forever.

[40:14] He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us, how much more will he with him give us all things? So I'm not saying don't grieve.

[40:30] I'm saying when you grieve, take your grief to the God whose own grief prompted him to conquer death itself. grief, he will reshape your grief so that it does not undo you.

[40:50] The psalmist says, give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my groaning, give attention to the sound of my cry, my King and my God, for to you do I pray.

[41:02] And even though this psalmist is groaning in his grief, and in his pain, and in his distress, he finds comfort when he takes his grief to God. But I, he says, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house.

[41:21] When we take our griefs, our sorrows, our troubles, our pains, to the Lord, if we go to him with them, I think we just forget to do that.

[41:35] But when we go to him, he transforms them. Where will you go with the burden of your sin? When you have sinned against someone and there is a relational hurt between you, or when you are feeling the guilt of your sin, where will you go with that?

[41:58] Will you cover up your failures and try to put on a good show? Will you be as slow as you possibly can be to admit your guilt or wear yourself out trying to prove that you're still okay?

[42:14] Or will you remember how you have been freely loved and welcomed by God? Will you remember that he identified himself with you in his baptism so he could destroy the burden of your guilt?

[42:32] psalmist says again, when I thought my foot slips, your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.

[42:43] When he cares, when the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul. And so when we see that the Lord has identified himself with us, in every facet of our lives, that means that we can take our real life to him.

[43:07] We must. And we will grieve, we will struggle, we will be troubled alone. And we give up so much comfort and so much joy when we don't go straight to God with our troubles.

[43:23] and so does the rest of the world. There are so many people that we walk past every day that don't know the hope of Christ.

[43:39] When someone says to you, nobody understands, nobody gets me, nobody knows what I'm going through, that might be the moment to say, can I introduce you to Jesus?

[43:53] who knows exactly what you're going through. Because our God has walked the path that we have walked. He knows every burden, every limitation, every grief, and every sorrow.

[44:10] And he has risen from the grave. Where will you go? That's the question. When Jesus asked his disciples if they would leave him, Peter answered, Lord, where else would we go?

[44:32] Where else indeed? Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you that you have sent your son to identify with us in all things of our lives.

[44:53] Thank you that he knows our frame. Thank you that he knows what it is like to grieve, what it is like to have sorrows and troubles and uncertainties, to be rejected, to be mocked, to be scorned, to be separated from those we love.

[45:15] Lord, thank you that he even associated himself with sinners and made an end of not only our griefs, but also our sins.

[45:31] And so, Father, will you help us to go to you first and always with every struggle, with every challenge, with every trouble, with every grief.

[45:45] May we find comfort and joy and relief and sweet fellowship with the King who made himself a commoner so that we could become sons and daughters of that King.

[46:06]  we pray all these things in the matchless name of Jesus Christ our King. Amen. Amen.