We’ll go ahead and get started with our message today. Really is great to see all of you. Great to be together again today. And thank God for the opportunity. And I hope we don’t take it for granted, because as Marcus prayed, our brothers and sisters in the Ukraine are basically trying to stay alive.
And we get to come and be in the comfort of an air conditioned building. So let’s not take for granted the blessing that we do have. And let’s pray for Tyler’s friend, whose father is passing as well. For those who don’t know me, I’m Eddie Francis, and I’m one of the elders here in the Church, and we’ve been doing a great series on Hebrews. I hope you’re getting a lot out of it.
I hope you’re digging deep and going a little bit deeper. We’re going to talk a little more about that today. And the title of today’s message is The Threat of Falling Away, taking from Hebrews five and six. And it’s one of those messages that we really do need to take to heart because the Bible has it in there for us. It is in the Scriptures.
And this section starts with if you look at Hebrews five, verse eleven, it starts with a phrase that says, we have much more to say about this. You can go to the next slide. There it is. We have much more to say about this. And this is referring to the priesthood of Jesus, which we’ve kind of been moving around a little bit in this section.
And Marcus is going to have much more to say about the priesthood of Jesus this coming Sunday. So look forward to that. We’ll go ahead and read our text for the day and part of what we’ll cover, I’ll forewarn you, will be challenging to hear, but I believe we will end on a very positive and powerful note, a very encouraging note from Hebrew six. So let’s go ahead and get into it.
Hebrews, chapter five, verse eleven. It says, we have much more to say about this, meaning the priesthood of Jesus, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. In fact, though, by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food.
Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
The Hebrew writer knows the people that he’s writing to. We’ve heard that. We know the theme of the book is Jesus is better. And we see that theme multiplied in various ways. He’s better than the Old Testament priesthood.
He’s better than Moses, he’s better than the Angels. And Marcus is going to unpack the theme of his priesthood next Sunday. That should be incredible. Our focus today is to talk about the fact that he is giving them pretty stern warnings because he is concerned about where they are spiritually. They’ve drifted.
These are probably disciples, maybe not unlike us in the Orlando Church who have been around a long time. It shocked me yesterday when I thought about my own baptism. It was in 1972 and I’m going to mess with some of you. How many of you weren’t even a thought in your parents mind in 1972? Have mercy.
Look at your young people in this room. I’m sure we got a bunch of online, but it was a long time ago. Part of the challenge when you’ve been around a long time, is that you can start to drift. You can get to a place where this is sort of routine, where you aren’t really as fired up as maybe you once were. And we’re going to talk about that a little bit here.
And if you’re to go to the next slide, I want to read this to you in the English Standard version. It says, about this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing. Dull of hearing. Now the word he uses for dull is nothros.
This Greek word nothros, which means sluggish or slothful. But I want to read to you what one commentator, the theologian William Barkley, says about this. It says in Greek, it means slow moving in mind. It means torpid in understanding, and torpid means sluggish or apathetic or listless in understanding. It means dull of hearing.
It means witlessly and senselessly forgetful. Listen to this. It can be used of a person who has the imperceptive and lethargic nature of a stone.
Now think about that. Want you hear that again. To be dull of hearing, this is used of a person who has the imperceptive and lethargic nature of a stone. He is basically telling his friends, you’re as dumb as a rock, you’re as dull as you can be spiritually.
That’s why he’s so concerned about where they are and about them being what God wants them to be. His complaint is that his hearers have been Christians for many years and they’re still babies. They haven’t matured in Christ. And that’s why we’re talking about this today. He says by now some of you, you should be teachers, but you’re not.
You’re not what God wants you to be. And what he’s talking about. We’re not talking about a situation where someone maybe from birth didn’t develop properly. People have no control over that. Like the man in John chapter nine.
You remember the man who was born blind. The disciples said, well, who sinned, this man or his parents? He was born this way. Jesus said nobody sinned, this is for the glory of God.
And so sometimes a situation may occur where you have no control. But what he’s dealing with here are people who refuse to understand, they refuse to do what’s right. No one ever really says, you know what? I’m done growing. I have arrived. I understand everything. I can’t be any more like Jesus than I am today. So I’m just going to stop growing. Nobody does that. But the way this happens is you stop being open to correction.
You stop being open to growing. I did a quick search in Proverbs. There are at least ten different scriptures that talk about the need for correction that we all have. I will tell you a secret. I’m an elder in this Church, but I still have to be corrected.
Ask Lepatic on any given day and she will let you know that Brother Man is pretty cool, but yeah, he messes up quite a bit. We all need to be corrected. We can stop and if we’re not careful, we’ll stop growing in knowledge. We’ll stop growing in our behavior.
I mean, let’s face it, you’ve been around a long time. How many of you have experienced at least one problem since you’ve been in the Church? Okay, we got a lot of honest people. I like that. I’m sure online.
Reggie’s got two hands up and a leg. Yes, these things are going to happen. But you see, if I don’t grow spiritually, I’ll tend to deal with those problems the way I did as a young Christian. I think, well, man, this can’t be God’s Church. People hurt my feelings.
Well, guess what? It’s going to happen again. I hate to tell you, I wish I could say it will always be perfect, but we’ll say more about that in a minute. We need to continue to grow in our knowledge and our biblical knowledge. You have not arrived.
And really, sometimes I think we’re sort of like this next slide here. We’re sort of like this. What do you remember about Peter Pan? What did he say? What was it?
Yes, he didn’t want to grow up. He said, I’ll never grow up. I’ll never grow up. I’ll never grow up. That’s the way some of you have the Peter Pan syndrome.
And that is defined as people who do not want to grow up. People with the body of an adult, but the mind of a child. It describes an adult who is socially immature. And spiritually, guys, we can do that. We can become Peter Pan in the Church.
That’s what he’s telling. He said, you guys are as dumb as a rock. You’re dull. You’re not where you need to be. You’re no longer trying to understand.
Maturity doesn’t just happen. It takes study. It takes effort. You’ve got to give it the time. What happens if we don’t apply ourselves to learning and growing?
Okay, let me just ask a couple of questions. What happens when illness, opposition or financial loss occur in your life? Well, if you’re not growing, then you look at God and say, Well, God, why did you do this to me, and you struggle and you have this attitude. You can become discouraged, you can doubt his love. You can feel like God has abandoned you and moved on to somebody more worthy. And you don’t mature.
What happens when bad things happen at Church? I mean, it still amazes me every now and then when somebody will say, Why came up to you and you didn’t give me a hug. Okay, now, during COVID, we didn’t give tons of hugs anyway. But someone says, you didn’t give me a hug. And I said, well, which side of me did you come up on?
Because if you come up on this side, I can’t see my hand. I have lost peripheral vision in my right eye. So if I ever don’t hug you from the right side, I probably don’t see you. And I’m going to mess with the campus guys for a moment.
Back in my campus days, when I was still playing a lot of basketball, I would have those people who say, So you mean to tell me, Eddie, I can come up on your right side and you won’t see me? I said, Bro, if it takes that for you to beat me, you use that. If you’re that bad that you gotta play on my messed up right eye, then go for it, you know? But it’s the kind of thing where bad things will happen, even in the Church, and you can get disillusioned and you can decide, Well, I’m going to stop coming to Church. I’m going to stop participating.
I won’t be apart. You’re not growing in your behavior when you make that. I’m going to go to the Church across the street. I’ll go to real life, and I’ll tell you a secret. Once you get there, it will have problems because you will have just arrived.
So it will have problems very soon. But what I’m getting at here, guys, is that if we’re not careful, if we’re not growing, if you’re not growing in your knowledge of the word of God, then you also become susceptible to false teachers and leaders. They can come to you saying some really good words, and all of a sudden you’re feeling like, yeah, this is good. This is right. The Bible has tons to say about the need for maturity.
Matthew, chapter 18, verse two. We’re going to read this together. The attitude we need to have is what Jesus talks about here. He says, in calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.
Jesus says, One of the greatest things that we can do is to have a childlike spirit, not a childish spirit. There is a big difference. We have got to retain a humble attitude so that God can illuminate his spirit in our hearts and keep us growing spiritually. We need to wrestle with God’s character so that we can be like him. God gave us this book.
There are 66 books in this book in this big book. He gave us this, next slide, so that, like I said, there will no longer be infants tossed to and fro by the waves. He wants us to grow. He says, So you’ll no longer be in tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. This is not an ideal for just a few heroic Christians.
God expects all of us to mature. He expects all of us to grow. He expects our families to become more and more stable. He expects us to be that stabilizing influence in the community. He expects us to do our part to help advance his cause throughout the world.
That’s what God expects of us. Now there are two different teachings that I’ll hit on briefly hear from Hebrews Five in the next slide. It talks about how there are teachings about the elementary truths. Then they’re also teachings about righteousness. Okay.
And we’re going to take them in reverse order. Let’s talk about teachings about righteousness. Righteousness simply stand for what is right. It’s doing what is right in the eyes of God, as good as judged by God’s character and nature. It’s what every Christian should be known for, is that we believe in doing what’s right.
We live what’s right, and that’s how we live. However, and I thought this was shocking, came across statistics that says over half of those who claim to be followers of Jesus, over half of them answer most moral and ethical questions the same way non believers do. So you have people over half, let’s say 55%. They’ll answer moral and ethical questions away people who are non believers who are living a horrible life outside. Now, what does that mean?
That means immorality sexual morality, usually one of the top ones in those lists of sins. You ask those professing Christians, well, what do you think about immorality? Well, I think it’s okay as long as you love the person or as long as you’re going to get married. We say that. Well, that’s what people in the world say.
Well, what about drug use? Well, I think doing a little drugs here and there is fine as long as you’re not hurting anybody or alcohol abuse. Well, I think it’s okay. I heard a brother just yesterday who was talking to a friend of his who was 20 years old.
He’s about to turn 21, and he said, I am looking forward to when I’m 21 because I’m going to get wasted drunk. People feel like it’s a rite of passage with age. There’s nothing, morality has nothing to do with it. And that’s why the world looks at the Church. And they said, well, we don’t see righteousness, we don’t see it in your behavior, we don’t hear it in your words.
Well, he said, the way to avoid that is what it says on the screen. It says, Solid food is for the mature who by constant use have trained themselves to discern the difference between good and evil. Guys, when we get into our Bibles, when we’re studying, when we’re praying, when we’re dedicated to learning more about God, God helps us discern the difference between right and wrong. And this is very important. The world needs to see very distinct lives.
Now, what does it mean to grow up? It means giving effort. It means putting in the time, constant use. Now, one of the things I want to mention to you, what I’m not saying is, man, you got to work so hard and you got to bust your butt and you got to figure it all out. I believe God will be with you.
Okay? God gives us the Holy Spirit. John, chapter 7, our theme verse about living water. Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit, whom those who believed in him would later receive. If you were a child of God, you got God’s spirit.
You don’t have to worry about trying to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, but you’ve got to put in the effort. You’ve got to decide, I am going to walk with God. I am going to do what’s right. I don’t care if the people around me aren’t doing it. I don’t care what popular opinion is.
I’m going to do what’s right. So you’ve got to make sure you are doing it says, by constant use. Now let’s talk briefly about the elementary teachings. In Hebrews six, verse one, let’s read this together. It says, Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death and the faith in God. Instruction about cleansing rights.
Other translations say baptisms, the laying on hand the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment, and God permitting, we will do so. Talks about several errors. These are all basic doctrines. These are things that you should believe as a follower of Jesus. These should make up your foundation upon which God continues to build.
He says, Repentance from acts that leads to death. Repentance is the Greek word Metanoia, which means to change. It’s a change of mind. It’s a change of mind about your life, about God, about all that you do in life and other men. So it’s a change of mind, faith in God.
Hebrews eleven says, without faith it’s impossible to please God. You got to have faith in God. And sometimes I know, even in my own life when I’m really struggling with God, I have to come back to this and say, okay, do I still believe? Okay, do I still believe? Because that’s the way I started was with faith.
You gotta have faith. He talks about instruction about ceremonial washings, or baptism. Baptism is one of the big tenets of the faith in Ephesians chapter four. It says, there’s one God and one Spirit, just as you recall the one faith when you were called one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all is over all and through all and in all. Baptism is right in there.
And I know in our world, people want to say, well, baptism is not that important. Well, no, God said it is. God is in that list, and the Spirit is in that list. And we don’t write those parts out of it, but we want to do it with baptism. You got to understand baptism.
He talks about the laying on of hands. Laying on of hands. I thought of at least three different ways this occurs. There’s the transference of guilt in the Old Testament, the priest would lay his hands on the goat that they would release into the wilderness with the sin of the people.
There would be that kind of laying on hands. They would be laying on of hands of father, passing on blessings to his kids, Jacob with Joseph and that kind of thing. Then there’s also the situations where people would be called to a responsibility in Acts when they would send out the mission team, they would lay hands on them. Those are just some examples of this laying on of hands idea. And the other two resurrection of the dead.
There will be a resurrection of the dead. There will be a resurrection of the dead. And I always love Marcus’s statement. He says, our best days are where? Right in front of us, they’re coming. But the cool part about the resurrection is that our truly best days will be after this life is done.
There’s no more war, no more pain, no more Ukraine and Russia situations, no more crazy leaders out there. And we need to pray for Vladimir Putin, whether you like what he’s doing or not. The Bible says, pray for our leaders. We need to pray for this man, pray for Zelensky, pray for Biden, pray for all the other world leaders in this whole conflict, there will be a resurrection of the dead, something we look forward to and eternal judgment. Hebrews 9:27 said, it is appointed unto men that I want them after that to face judgment.
We will face judgment, and everybody in here will either spend eternity with God or separated from God. That’s just a fact. That’s not being unkind. We don’t like to look at God that way, but God will make a decision. But you are making the decision now.
We’ll talk about that more in a moment. Now we’re going to get to that kind of the tougher section here. As we get ready to wrap things up and take Communion, we’re going to look over in Hebrews chapter six, start reading it verse four.
And even though there’s controversy surrounding this, this is going to end on, I think, a very positive high note for all of us. Hebrews six, verse four. It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, and who have fallen away to be brought back to repentance. To their loss, they are crucifying the son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. Land that drinks in the rain often fallen on it, and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receive the blessing of God.
But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless and is in danger of being cursed and in the end will be burned. Now, this is a strong passage because he talks about how it is impossible to bring certain people back. He is talking about people who have sinned to such a degree that they can’t repent. And I know there are some of us here, you can think of someone that has fallen away, who’s not a part of the Church. Maybe in your own life, you know you’re not where you need to be.
And I hope to give you a little bit of clarity about this, because I think there can be some ambiguity that we don’t necessarily need to have about this passage. So let’s try to unpackage them a little bit. There are those that really, genuinely believe that a genuine Christian cannot fall away. Okay? And I’m going to give you the scriptures that they generally will point to.
And you can study these out because I want your leads, the elementary stuff, and go on to maturity. So I’m going to give you some homework here. And also keep in mind, we do have a resource page online with some great articles talking about this idea of falling away. You can get in there, study these things out. But here are some of the passages that people normally use to support the idea that a genuine Christian can’t fall away.
One is John 1027 through 29. These won’t be on your screen, so I’ll give them to you. John 10:27 through 29. That’s the place where Jesus says, My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me.
I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. And so the idea is that okay, if no one can snatch them out of my hand, then the person is secure. But along with that idea, is that okay? Even you can’t snatch yourself out of his hand.
The challenge I have with taking an approach like this is that this verse tells me what an amazing Jesus I have. There are tons of verses that talk about how our Salvation is conditional. It says, if you hold on to the confidence you had at first. You look at John chapter eight, where it says to the Jews they believed in Jesus said, if you hold to my teaching, you’re really my disciples and you know the truth and the truth sets you free. So what if it happens if I don’t hold to his teaching? Well, I think the converse is also true.
There is no other relationship. And with my relationship with Lepatic guys, I am not going to treat her like dirt under my feet and have it be okay. That’s just not how relationships work. But somehow this vers is used to project the idea that okay, it doesn’t matter what I do. I can’t be snatched away.
Another verse is used in Romans chapter 8:31 to 39. That’s the place where it says, what shall we say in response is what’s going to separate me from the love of God? And it’s powerful, neither death nor hardship and all that kind of good stuff. It really is a great passage. But again, that’s about God.
That’s the confidence we can have in God. I know you can’t take away my sight. I don’t have to worry about Chandler if he comes to me and says, you know what, Eddie? I don’t think you’re right with God. You’re not going to heaven.
And I’ll say, who cares what you think, Chandler? I love you, bro. You’re a great song leader, but I don’t care what you think. And sometimes we have put ourselves in the place of God and made decisions for others that God hasn’t made. But this is about the incredible God that we serve.
He says, nothing can separate us from him. Another passage that used is Philippians one, verse six, where Paul says, being confident is he who began a good work in you will carry down the completion of the day of Christ. But again, that’s about God. That’s about the incredible God that we serve. Here’s what I’m getting at.
You can look at some of these ways of thought that people have people have tried all sorts of ways to get around this. Some people and this is kind of a last thought. Some people feel like this verse is all about people who got really close. Maybe they studied the Bible, they learned enough of the Scriptures, they learned about God, they learned about Jesus and his death. And they got really, really close.
But they never came to a point of genuine faith. That’s another angle that people use to try to understand this verse here in Hebrew six. Problem I have with that one is that if you never really made it, how do you know that you ever really made it? In other words, I may go before God on the day of judgment and say, you know what, Eddie? You came really close.
Sorry you get to go that way. But my Bible says in 1 John chapter five, I write these things to you so that you may know you have eternal life. Guys, you won’t convince anybody else to come be miserable with you in Church if you’re not even sure of where you stand with God. God wants you to be sure of where you stand, and we can be sure.
Here’s the way I think you ought to look at Hebrews chapter six, verse four. Let me just say this on the front end. If you’re still in the land of living, there’s hope. If someone close to you isn’t where you want them to be. Instead of using the word fall away, maybe we should use the word wander away. That’s what it talks about in James chapter five.
It talks about people who wander away. Some people may be drifting, but when you reach the point that he’s talking about here, this is a point of no return. That’s why he’s talking to them about it. I believe he looks at them and he sees that you’re drifting dangerously close. And I love you too much to not tell you the truth.
So here’s the way I look at Hebrews chapter six, verse four. It talks here, and I learned something about that I learned in the Athens Institute of Ministry is that unless you have a reason to look at a scripture differently than what it says at face value, then you take it at face value. Now, we understand that some of the Bible is historical, some is allegorical, and some of it is poetry. And so you have to keep that in mind. The Bible says, My wife’s eyes are as beautiful as deer on a sunny morning.
My wife ain’t a deer, all right, she ain’t a deer. You don’t read it that way. You don’t take that literally. It’s poetry. Here’s the way I look at Hebrew six.
Here’s what it says about these people. These are people who have once been enlightened. These have tasted the heavenly gift. They share it in the Holy Spirit. They’ve tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age.
These are people who are Christians. These are Christians. These are people who have been right with God, and now they have reached that place of no return. I really believe with all my heart there is a place of no return. How do you know if you’re there?
Sometimes people will say, well, look, I know people have fallen away and they’ve come back. How can they be sure of their Salvation in light of this scripture? How can they be sure that they are right with God? I believe probably a better way to look at it in the NIV kind of messes up with that version of the Bible messes up.
When we use the term fall away, we probably should use the term drift away or wander away. Because there’s hope if you drift or you wander. There’s no hope when you fall away. There’s a very big difference. And I really think that the real key here is if you’re still in the land of the living, there’s hope. Okay, if you’re still here, keep praying for those that you’re close to who aren’t where you want them to be.
Perhaps right now they’re just in that drifting state, but there is a point of no return. Second, Thessalonians chapter one, reading verses eleven and twelve, it talks there about how people can so reject the truth and so reject the truth that the Bible says they eventually start believing a lie. And then the scripture says God will send a powerful delusion so that they’ll believe a lie. And it’s like, okay, I don’t like to look at God that way. I don’t think God is this mean person who would do that.
Well, you’re already condemned because you’re not accepting the truth. And so there’s some little things that you can do to ensure yourself. What are you like when someone tries to confront you with truth? Are you willing to listen? I think if you’re willing to listen, there is still hope for you.
And so I want to close with this very encouraging part of this passage. Look at verse nine of Hebrew six.
Listen to what he says. He says, Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are convinced of better things in your case. The things that have to do with Salvation. God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and the love you are showing him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.
We want each of you to show the same diligence to the very end so that what you hope for may be fully realized. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who, through faith and patience, inherit what has been promised. The Hebrew writer looks at his friends and he says, Guys, I am convinced of better things for you. I really am. He calls them beloved.
He uses dear friends a very endearing term. It’s almost like he’s saying, it’s almost like a parent who has to spank their kids. Your parents say, okay, this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you. Some of you all said that and you knew better, but anyway, but it’s almost like he’s saying, I know I’ve just said some really hard stuff. I know you’ve been drifting.
I’m worried about whether you’re going to make it. You’re on a bad slide down a bad slope. You’re headed in a direction that’s not going to be healthy. And guys, if you don’t stop what’s going on, you’re going to reach a point where there will be no coming back. But I love you too much to not tell you that.
Just like Jesus said with the rich young man in Mark 10:21, he said Jesus looked at him and loved him. And he proceeded to say the hardest thing in the world to him. He said, Guys, I love you too much to not tell you the truth. He said, but you know what? You’re good people.
You’re helping God’s people. You’re serving others. It’s sort of like what John had, I think, to say in Revelation. He said, I know your deeds. You’re doing some good stuff, but you’ve missed out here.
You’ve lost your first love. He kept pointing it out. I think that’s a lot of what he’s getting at. He said, You’ve got some good stuff going on. We are an incredible Church.
I love this Church. Look around the room. I didn’t grow up in a Church like this. The Church was black that I grew up in, and I get to College and I go to us, and all of a sudden I’m going to a Church that only recently has started to be integrated. And that’s all I’ve known.
And I thought, this is great. This is the way it ought to be. The Church is incredible. We are an incredible Church. Some of you are so giving, so loving.
We ask for volunteers. You’re the first to get in line. We ask people to give for the missions offering, and you start saving your pennies a year in advance. I know some of you to give every week probably. There are a lot of good things, and that’s what he’s saying.
You got some good stuff going, but you’re on a slide in a bad direction and you’ve got to stop. You’ve got to get where you need to. Guys, being in the Church sometimes can be a little dry. Maybe the singer is not doing it for you. Maybe the sermon is not doing a lot for you.
Maybe people aren’t treating you quite the way you want to be treated. You have either two choices. You can sort of give up. You can give up. You can stop coming to Church, which is what he’s warning them about.
You can give up on God. You can give up on everything. And if you give up on everything, you will be lost. You will be in that category of those who fallen away and can’t come back. Or you can do what I’ve tried hard to do for many years.
It’s just to hang in there. I mean, sometimes I’ve hung on just by a thread. I’ve been mad at God. Some of you know, I’ve shared my story. I have been mad at God sometimes when he hasn’t allowed something to occur that I thought should happen.
When I felt like I did my part and he didn’t do his part, and I’ve been mad at God, but I still hung on and I kept on doing what’s right. And that would be my encouragement to you. As we segue in the Communion, the Bible says Jesus for the joy set before him. Hebrews chapter twelve endured the cross, scorning his shade and sat down at the right hand of God. Guys hang in there.
I’m saying it as a friend. I’m saying it as a father figure. Or the grandfather figure for some of you as well, hang in there. You’ll make it. Good times are coming.
You’ll make it to safe harbor. But you won’t make it if you quit. So let’s get ready to take Communion. Let’s remember that Jesus for that joy. But that joy was out there.
He says. I’m going to keep going. I’m going to do this.