Earth & Heaven

Once again, we want to thank you for joining us today. My name is Tim. I get the privilege of being the lead pastor here. We do know that we have guests with us. Whether you’re here for the baptism. So thank you for coming. Or maybe God just led you to be here. You. You’re invited by a friend as well. Those of you that are joining us online, thanks for tuning in and checking out, a little bit more about Shepherd’s Gate. If you are brand new, we are in a series of messages that we’re calling Genesis, and it happens to be part four. Because one of the things that we love doing as a church is going through a book of the Bible, and Genesis is a really big book. It’s 50 chapters. There’s a lot of content. And so what we do is we kind of break it down into bite sized pieces. And so we do different series throughout the year, to help do that. And we just happen to be in part four of Genesis. But don’t worry if you haven’t been here, I will give you enough context, catch you right up.

You’ll be able to follow along, with us this morning. But before we get into that, I want to ask you this. How was your weekend? Well, that’s good. Kim had a good weekend. How many of you had a crummy weekend? Anybody? You don’t you don’t remember the weekend? Some of you don’t even know where you’re at right now. And do you? Because that’s usually how life is. We just go and go and go and go. All right. So let me ask you, this is Sunday, the end of the week or the beginning of the week. Yeah. Oh, a little mixed in there, maybe a little bit more from the beginning of the week. Because I’ll tell you this, the way that you approach church and Sunday morning church and even how you decipher your schedule for the week, does have a profound impact on your life. Is it okay if I tell you about my weekend? All right. So Friday night, somehow a miracle happened and there was nothing on our family calendar. And we actually had a night, just the four of us, my wife and two boys. And of course, we sat down and we wanted to make sure that we watched the Detroit Tigers game. 

Anybody else with me on that? And why was it important to watch the Detroit Tigers game? Because we wanted to see if they won, which they’ve been on this hot streak. I mean, they went from being nobody and everybody believing there was no way they would ever make it to the playoffs. So all of a sudden, if they win Friday night, they become contenders and they seal their spot for the playoffs. And I’ll be honest with you, because I’m getting older, I was kind of dozing off Friday night from from the week, and it wasn’t until both my boys were screaming at the top of the lungs, their lungs, when it was solidified that we had actually won the game and made the playoffs. But isn’t that what we do? All the fans, we get together the at the games and some of you, maybe you were at homecoming or you were at football games, or you’re at your kid’s events or dance or whatever it may be for you, and it’s just this release. Like we just release our lungs. We, we, we’re passionate about our kids. We want to celebrate what is happening in their lives and even in our local communities and whatever teams we follow. 

And then what’s so interesting is on Saturday morning, I had a week of really early because my son had AA9AM football game. And so the coach always make sure you get there early, don’t they? So we had to get there at 8 a.m.. So we get here we are at the field at 8 a.m., the sun is barely out and wouldn’t you know, one of the other coaches from the other team came over and said, I don’t know why you guys are here so early. The game doesn’t start till 10 a.m.. And all the parents were like, oh, that’s fine, no big deal. Everyone was really cool about it and nobody complained. Yeah, right. All the parents were livid, weren’t they? I can’t believe this. And who’s in charge? And we’re on this group chat and then parents are lighting up the group chat. I want names, I want numbers, I want heads, I want people fired. What? How could this is a, you know, how could anybody wake me up an hour early than I needed to be here? And then what’s so interesting is there’s all these teams and all all of this football happening at Utica High School, including my son’s teams. And I always say, whenever you go to a sporting event with parents, there’s two things that you’ll witness. I call them the two C’s. 

One is a whole lot of celebration. If their kid is playing and the things are going well, and they agree with the calls that the refs are making, I mean, people are screaming. They’re going nuts, me included. Is that true? Now, simultaneously, this is really weird because there’s other parents that when their teams aren’t going the way they want it to and they don’t agree with what the coach is doing, especially if they’re not playing their kid and there’s issues with the refs. What do you think the other key is? Who cursing. They didn’t see that at the nine, but I like that. Cursing and complaining. Now think of this. Do you think there’s more celebration or complaining that takes place in our. The 9:00 said the same thing that people complain more than they celebrate. You ever scratch your head and go, why? What? What? It’s up with us? Are we just a bunch of complainers or are we just not? I mean, our kids are playing sports. At the end of the day, who cares who wins? Let me go on, okay? Because we left the game and we got in the car with another family, and we went down to the city of Detroit because we had tickets to the Tigers game. And what was happening yesterday. You should not go to an outdoor sporting event when it’s raining, and then all of a sudden you get the notification that the game has been delayed because of.

I’m like, make these guys play in the rain. They’re worth, you know, millions of dollars. Here we are. We came all the way down here. So everyone floods the restaurants, everybody waits. And then wouldn’t you know, I found myself sitting in a chair under an umbrella with thousands of my closest friends, cheering for a team that’s already clinched the playoffs. What is wrong with me? What is wrong with us? Do you know that people are going to go today to watch the Tigers play? And you know today’s game doesn’t matter. There is something in eight and us where we just want to celebrate. We want to be part of this. And of course tomorrow night is the Detroit Lions. Super Bowl contenders are going to go and destroy the Seattle Seahawks. So I mean, if you don’t realize what’s going to happen at Ford Field and. But then what happens is we come here on Sunday morning and we’re tired. We have no energy. The idea of singing a worship song just seems impossible. And, you know, I would submit to you that today is the most important day of the week. 

What happens in here? And when we gather and we sing God’s praises and we we come together and we pray over the request and the needs that we have in our lives and those in our faith community. When we open God’s Word and we say, okay, God, we know and trust that this to be true and not only for our lives. We want to make sure that this is center first and foremost in our marriages and God. We also want to make sure that we’re passing this faith on to our kids. Because here’s what I know about every single person in this room. You ready for this? We are all dysfunctional and we are all from dysfunctional families. There is not one family in this room right now that doesn’t have issues. You don’t have baggage from your childhood. You don’t have parental issues, mommy issues, daddy issues, grandparent issues. You know, they’re every single family has trauma. Every single family has been through devastating losses. Every single person is in the same state. And what’s incredible is when we open the pages of Scripture, even going back to the Old Testament book of Genesis, you find the same exact thing. In fact, I’ll catch you up because here’s our major characters for the next several weeks. 

This is where we started with Genesis for Isaac and Rebecca. Mom and dad. Isaac is old. He thinks he’s dying, but he’s not really dying. But he keeps having these feelings that he’s dying. Rebecca is not a very faithful wife, by the way. She has no problem pushing the envelope and doing things that would be against her husband’s will. Esau and Jacob are twin brothers. Esau is a little bit older than Jacob, but not by much. They couldn’t be polar opposite brothers, by the way. Completely different. They look completely different. They have completely different interests. In fact, here’s how dysfunctional they are.

Isaac has trust issues. He doesn’t trust God, and he doesn’t really trust the people around them. And part of it is for not trusting the people around him. He actually has good reasons. Rebecca, as I said, is just loyal. She’s just loyal to her husband, and she’s actually disloyal to God because, as we learned last week, she got ahead of God’s plan and promise for her family. Esau is kind of the older, disconnected brother.  A lot of the things that he’s been offered in life, he’s just been kind of, you know, pushed aside and he’s kind of marginalized. Instead, now he’s in a state where he’s actually really angry with his younger brother Jacob, because Jacob actually tricked him not once, but twice. And he took his birthright, which was his rightful inheritance, to his dad’s fortune and inheritance. But he also took his blessing from him. And so what we found out last week where we left off, is that Esau is so enraged that he vowed to kill his brother. Anybody ever wanted to kill a sibling? If you have a sibling, you’ve wanted to kill them at some point. Okay? Of course Jacob. Is not going to just sit around and wait for his brother to kill him. And so his mom gets involved in the situation and she says, you got to get out of here. You got to flee to Haran, which is where she was from. Now, what you also find in Scripture, and we looked at this last week as well, is that the Bible tells us that Isaac loved Esau and Rebecca loved Jacob, and we talked about parent favoritism. 

And we did. If you remember, we all admitted that there are times as a parent that sometimes we love one kid more than the other. So you don’t want to say it because you’re sitting next to your kids. It’s fine. Okay. Now remember, Isaac loves Esau and he was enraged when he was tricked and gave blessing to Jacob instead of Esau. But watch what happens now this morning in our text, because it actually says Isaac called for Jacob, who he goes from being enraged to to now blessing him, and he actually commands him, do not marry a Canaanite woman. Go at once to pardon Haram to the house of your mother’s father, before you will take a wife for yourself. There from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. This is the exact same instructions that his mom had already given him. Then it goes a step further. He gives him a blessing. He says, May God Almighty, the God of the heavens and the earth, may he bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples. May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham. That’s very important. 

See, God was the one that determined that the line would start with Abraham. Then it was Isaac, and then it would go to Jacob, even though he was the second born, God was the one that put those things in that order. And Isaac, now you’re seeing is actually getting in line with God’s will. And he goes that you may take possession of the land where you now reside as a foreigner, the land God gave to Abraham. So he is transferring this generational blessing upon Jacob. Now remember, there’s still Esau who still wants to kill him. He’s kind of waiting in the wings. And so when he learns that Isaac has blessed Jacob a second time and he sends him to, he’s going to send him to pardon Hyrum for a wife and told him not to marry a king and a woman. You can see that Jacob has in fact obeyed his father and mother, and he’s about to make that journey. And Esau starts thinking about the fact that his parents didn’t really like that he married someone outside of their circle, and they were displeased about the Canaanite women that were in his family. So he goes, listen to this, to Ishmael. 

Everybody remember Ishmael, Isaac’s half brother, and he marries the the daughter of Ishmael, the son of Abraham, because he’s trying to move toward the center. He’s trying to, like, bring a little bit of harmony and peace into the family. So you could basically say this morning that they’re going from a dysfunctional family to a functional family, kind of, sort of Isaac’s blessing. Jacob, again, think of that. Jacob is not just obeying one parent, which he shouldn’t have done, but now he’s obeying both parents, which is good if he wants to save his life. And then we have Esau, who’s starting to honor his parents and their wishes by what has been communicated to him. Is it all makes sense? So this is where we’re going to continue. Verse ten Jacob is now leaving for, Beersheba, the place, the only place he’s ever known. And he’s setting out for Haran. So do you have any idea where this is at? Here’s a map. See? Beersheba way down at the bottom. See her runway at the top. That’s a long distance to go. Now, there’s another place that’s being highlighted. 

Bethel. I want you remember that, because we’re going to come back to that in a few moments. First time leaving the home, not going with an entourage. He’s going out by himself. He’s trusting his parents that this is actually what is best for him. Says that when he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Well, that makes sense to us when the sun is setting, you get tired. It’s probably a good time to turn it in. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and he lay down to sleep. Can we all be thankful that this tradition has not passed down to us? That someone along the way. I don’t know who it is. Many can send it to me later. Invented the thing called a pillow. And then we begin to build homes and we have the safety that we have today. For them, this was not a big deal. I mean, they were so used to living outside, he could he could handle this. And even finding a rock to sleep on. Imagine the back issues this guy must have had. But here’s what’s important. He had a dream. Dreams are very important in Scripture, and in this dream, he sees a stairway resting on the earth, which, with its top reaching the heaven. And listen to this. 

The angels of God are ascending and descending on it. Well, that’s odd, isn’t it? Why is Jacob having this dream? What is God doing in this moment? Because here’s what I would submit to you. God is always at work in our lives. God is the one that holds time in his hand. God is the one that knows every single thing about you, and he orchestrates the events of human history and our lives to align it with his perfect and sovereign will. What God is actually doing in this moment is he is connecting heaven to earth. Let me ask you this what has Jacob done up to this point to deserve this dream? The answer is nothing. He didn’t go worship God faithfully. He didn’t have a bunch of incredible acts that he went and did in his community. He didn’t start a food bank or a homeless shelter. This guy has done absolutely nothing. He’s a mama’s boy. Read the scripture. He didn’t even go out into the wilderness and hot like his brother. 

He stayed at home and he was kind of a homemaker. And he only did what mom told him to do. And even in this situation, he’s doing what mom told him to do. Yet the God of heaven and earth comes to him in a dream, and not only does he come to him in this incredible dream, he speaks to him and he says, I am the Lord, the God of your father, Abraham, the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, and to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. Listen to this. Lean into this. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. Who is doing all the work? In this passage. Think about that for a moment. Jacob brings nothing to the equation. He brings absolutely nothing to the table. And in God’s sovereignty, he comes to him and he tells him the promise that he gave Grandpa Abraham and Father Isaac. 

He’s going to give and fulfill through him and all. By the way, he’s never going to leave them or forsake them. He’s going to watch over them, and he’s going to bring them back to this land that he’s now just happens to be resting in.That doesn’t belong to him, and he will not leave him until he fulfills his  promise for Jacob. Isn’t that incredible? No matter how much Jacob could screw this up and go the wrong way. God was going to make sure that he keeps bring him back to the path that he has for him. There’s another crucial part of this passage that we have to highlight this morning, and I want you to see it, because it’s in the middle of these incredible. I statements from God. It says all peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring, who are all peoples. Who is all peoples? It’s us. This is when you can see yourself in the pages of Scripture, a promise that God made to Jacob thousands of years ago has been fulfilled in you. Sitting here right now and reading this text and understanding that you are part of God’s promise that nobody is here on accident, that you were born and that you were gifted your families. And just as we saw today, a third boy, that’s incredible. Goal for five. Maybe. 

No, those are blessings from God. Your boys are blessings from God. God knew that they would have three boys. God knew that. That their son would be brought to the waters of baptism today. God knew that that mark would be placed in his life. He’d bring them into his own. And now not only is he began his physical journey, but he has begun his spiritual journey, just like all of us are on a spiritual journey with God. What’s interesting is if you have a dream like this, of course you’re going to wake up from it. And he thought, surely the Lord is in this place. I wasn’t even aware of it. Why wasn’t he aware of it? Do you know why he wasn’t aware of it? Because he didn’t stop to pray. He didn’t stop to acknowledge God. He didn’t, you know, set up an altar and sacrifice something to God. God came to him while he still was lost and broken. It goes on to say he was afraid and that afraid. That word is actually in a healthy way that once he understood the magnitude of God, he says, how awesome is this place that God could meet me out here? 

That he actually knew that I would be here all alone? It’s just me and some dirt and a rock. There is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of Heaven. God showed up here. God minister to me here. God promised, made promises to me here. Now hold on to that, because I want to go back where we’ve been in Genesis, and I want you to see what happens when God speaks and God shows up. You go all the way back to the beginning with Adam and Eve. When did God show up in the garden? After they had sinned. As soon as they ate that fruit, they knew they were sinners. And they went and got some fig leaves and covered themselves. And God waited because he’s a patient God. And it says he came in the cool of the day to them. What about when man was trying to build a tower to God and they were doing this on their own? Was that was that a good thing or a bad thing? And yet God came to them. You might not remember this man’s name of that milk. Let me just remind you of what took place. This was when Father Abraham and his wife, Sarah, they decided to leave where they were, where God told them to stay. And they went to Egypt out of fear because of a famine.

And while they were in Egypt, they met the ruler at the time of Amalek. And Abraham got afraid. And so he lied to Abimelech and told them that Sarah was his sister, not his wife. Because there’s no dysfunctional in that, is there? And so about the work. Saw that she was beautiful. So he takes her as one of his wives, and it was Almighty God. They gave a bundle back who’s not a believer who didn’t have a connection with God, shows up in his dream and said, don’t you touch that woman. You give her back to. Abraham and Alma went off on Abraham. Why would you do this? Why would you trick me? I don’t want your God angry at me, God at work, in sin. And as you look at these patriarchs that we call them Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, all of them struggled with sin. All of them struggled. They weren’t these, you know, big, you know, spiritual giants of their times. In fact, there’s more recorded sin in Scripture about what they did than there is the victories that they had, because it was always God working in and through them. 

So let me ask you this morning, and I’m going to ask in a very specific way, when has God shown up in your life? Not when you’re on a mission trip, not when you just got done serving somebody and you ministered to the homeless and you feel really good about it. When is God showing up in your life? When you were in the pit, when his God showed up in your life, when you stopped going to church and you stop praying, you stop reading your Bible. You stop being around Christians and you thought, I can live my life however I want and I’m going to pursue these things, the things of the world. And the further you went and the more time that you spent in doing that, you got to yourself to a point where you were just completely surrounded in your own sinful, fallen nature, and you were completely unable to do anything to rescue yourself. And yet it was Almighty God that came to you in that moment. He was Almighty God, in his way, in his, in his sovereignty, revealed himself to you and reminded you that you are his child, that he has never stopped watching over you, that he’s never stopped listening to your voice, that he knows you’re coming and you’re going. 

He knows every step that we take. You know, Scripture tells us that it’s God’s kindness that leads us to repentance. It’s not his wrath. It’s not his anger. He’s not some God sitting on a throne that’s just breathing out fire and ready to just burn up people. He loves us, and he spends all of his time and all of his energy bringing us back to himself and reminding us of who he is and what he has done for us through His Son, Jesus Christ. Now look at what Jacob’s responses. Look at what happens the next morning. The sun comes out. He takes that stone that he’s sleeping on, and he sets it up as a pillar, and he pours oil on top of it, and he calls the place Bethel changes the name of the town, which is incredible. Though the city used to be called lush. And if you don’t know, Bethel simply means House of God. Because when you have an experience with the one True and living God, when you finally come to that point in your life, when you realize how amazing God’s grace and mercy is, and that you and I are only standing today because of him, nothing that we can do. 

This is the response we surrender. We see God, I want to do something. I want to give back. I want to respond to you. I just don’t know how. And here’s the thing. There’s nothing that we can do. There’s absolutely nothing we can do to earn or deserve our salvation. There is nothing we can do to earn or deserve the faith that God has put in our hearts, in our lives. I will tell you this we are far more simple than we will ever admit. Do you know that it’s getting quiet in here? Your pastor just, you know, is far more simple than you will ever know. You are far more simple than I will ever know. Here’s the beautiful part. You are far more forgiving than you even realize. I am far more forgiving than I even realize. And that’s the point of Sunday morning. It’s a point of coming together as a church. It’s a point again, of aligning our minds and our thoughts in Scripture and on God, and realizing who he is and what he’s done, and how he’s going to continue to navigate the life that he has given us on this earth.

Think of it this way. Maybe this is a way to get at it. Where do you go to connect with God? Are you all sleeping now? Church. Church is probably a good place for prayer. As I open the Bible and I know some of you, you love getting out in nature. And it wasn’t Jacob’s natural inclination. He liked being a. Some of you maybe have a favorite chair in your house, and you go and you sit in that chair and you have your cup of coffee and you, you pray or you read God’s Word. Or maybe you do like getting outside. So you go to a particular lake or to a tree or some type of scenic area where you just you just need to get away from the noise, get away from the cell phone, get away from the laptop, get away from the television and all the news going on. And why are you doing that? The Holy Spirit’s calling and compelling you to do that, to find rest and finding true and meaningful rest with God. But what if we flip the question to this where does God go to connect with you? Where do you think God shows up? He can be in the shower. 

He can be in your backyard. He can be in your car. If he’s in your heart, he’s omnipresent, can be anywhere. And now in the world that we live in, this is why, again, we gather together because we know God shows up when his people, when they come together, when we sing his praises and we can hear each other singing the songs when we talk after the service and we shake hands and we give hugs and we find out how people are, are doing. And do you have any prayer requests that we can be praying about? How can we support and love and encourage one another that God works through his church, which isn’t just building? You know how I know that? Because we’re in a gym, people play basketball. Actually, people play a lot of pickleball in here. Hopefully they don’t cost when they’re playing pickleball.

Because this isn’t the church. You’re the church. I’m the church. Together, we are the community of believers. Look at his response. Jacob makes a vow after all this happens, and he’s like, he’s so in awe. I just love this. He’s like, man, if God will be with me and watch over me on this journey I am taking because he had him had some fear and having to make this long journey by himself. And he will give me food to eat and clothes to wear. 

Sounds like daily bread stall. Sounds like Lord’s prayer type stuff so that I return safely to my father’s house. So he’s going to tell me that I’m going to be safe. And by the way, my brother’s not going to find me and kill me. Or if my brother does find me, he’s not going to kill me, then the Lord will be my God. And this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house. And all that you give me. I will give you a 10th. I want you to see the heart of Jacob in this. For someone that hasn’t really been following God, someone who’s been far from God, someone who’s committed some things in lying to his dad and being devious with his mom up to this point, what you see is a man so broken, yet at the same time humbled by the fact that God would come to him, that he doesn’t know how else to respond.So that’s why he goes and gets a stone. That’s why you pours oil on it. That’s why  he turns it into this pillar. And that’s why he’s trying to respond to what he has a 10th of what he has. And I know what some of you are thinking right now. Here it comes. This is the tithe talk. 

This is when the whole and you’re probably thinking, man, you should have told us because we wanted to schedule a different Sunday for our baptism. Here’s the good news. This isn’t a money talk. It’s not a tithe talk. It’s not a percentage talk. What we see here is somebody trying to connect back to God, trying to show his appreciation toward him. People don’t even know why he gave to God and why he made it a tent. You can read all the commentaries you want. They all argue about it or come up with different ideas. I believe as you read this text, what you see is a man broken before the Lord, wanting to show his affection and his love to Almighty God. Here’s the incredible part is when you go from the Old Testament to the New Testament, you see the patterns in Scripture. You find Jesus on the scene, and he’s calling his disciples a particular disciple named Nathaniel. Nathaniel happened to fall asleep under a fig tree. And when Jesus approached him, he said, yeah, I saw you sleeping under a fig tree. But I more importantly in the conversation, I want you to be my disciple. And what’s so crazy is that Nathaniel was blown away, that Jesus saw him sleeping under a fig tree. It’s kind of crazy. 

This is what Jesus said. You believe because I saw you under the tree, you are going to see what greater things than these. Very truly I tell you, you will see. Have an open in the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. What Jesus is doing in this moment is he’s pointing back to this account in Scripture, and he was saying, Jacob is a real person at a real time. And this really, truly took place because what you were seeing now, Nathaniel, is the fulfillment of my Heavenly Father, the promise that he made to him. And now I am here because all of that lineage was so that I could be born, so that I could be here, so that you could be one of my disciples, so that you could watch miracle after miracle after miracle after miracle take place in the three years that I’m doing ministry. Because ultimately, the greatest miracle is when I’m going to go to the cross and stretch out my arms and take the sins of the world upon myself so that I can break out of a tomb and declare victory over sin, death, and the devil in any type of sin you could ever even conjure up. That’s the love that God has for us. That’s why when you go to the book of acts over and over again, you see God show up, his spirit resting upon people. The disciples sometimes didn’t even know it was happening, because sometimes they go into homes of people that weren’t even Jewish, and they would just begin to quote Scripture. They began to talk about what Jesus life was like and the Holy Spirit would just pour out upon them. 

Can I just tell you, that’s our desire for this church, that when we gather together, there is never a time constraint that people aren’t looking at their watches or looking at their cell phones and wondering, okay, well, buddy, I hope you get through this because you’re already over your time that when we come together, we’re excited. All the baptisms that we’re seeing take place, that we’re excited when we when we have the Sundays where we celebrate Holy Communion together. That we’re together worshiping our God. And so this is how we want to end our time together. This morning, the worship team, as you can see, they’re coming up at this time. We designed today to be a day that maybe we can just pause for a few extra moments at the end of our service to worship God. If I can scream my lungs out at my kids football game, certainly I can worship God. If I can go crazy and cheer for the Detroit Lions, of which I will probably never meet any of them, or they’ll never invite me to their home. Certainly, I can come together with the people of God and sing his praises. Parents listen to me. Grandparents listen to me. 

The single most important thing you will do for your family is transfer faith onto the next generation. Sports are amazing, dances amazing. All the activities that we have for our kids are absolutely amazing grandparents. It’s the same way your kids need to see you worshiping your kids need to see that this is a priority for you. Your kids need to see your faith being lived out. Not that you’re perfect, not that you’ll get it all correct, but that you’re willing to come together. And some of you with young families, I know it’s a pain in the butt to try to get them here on Sunday morning. Isn’t it? Even at the 11:00 am service, God sees you. He knows you. He’s with you. Don’t give up. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to sing and we’re going to praise God with all of our being, and we are going to respond to the incredible grace and mercy that he has given us. How’s this sound?