02 What’s Easiest to Say? (Mark 2:1-12)

SPEAKER_01: We are going through the Gospel of Mark this year and we are stopping in the places where Jesus asks a question. And it's another way to look at the way Jesus taught and his passages or his uh teachings. I imagine many of you have studied his sermon passages or the parables or the miracles. And but there's another way he taught, and that's by asking questions. And that's what we're going to look at. Why would Jesus ask a question, particularly if he already knows the answer? What's he trying to do? It's generally a teaching tool. And I think he's trying to get us to look at something deeper, to look at some other point that we might miss, and prepare us to hear the rest of what he has to say. So let me give you just a brief little bit of background. Last week we looked, I gave an introduction to the gospel, and I'm just going to review briefly for those of you who weren't here. Excuse me. The Gospel of Mark is the most vivid of the Gospels, the most dramatic. He tends to omit the long teaching sermons like the Sermon on the Mount that you would find in Matthew or the others. It's the shortest gospel, and Mark focuses on Jesus as the servant, the suffering servant, the one who came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. And that's his main theme, the aspect of Jesus' ministry that he's trying to emphasize the most. And so that's we're going to be pulling that out a lot as we go through this section. Mark's gospel was the first one written, and at the time it was an entirely new literary genre. There had been nothing like it in ancient literature in the world before, so he created basically this kind of gospel biography genre. And of course, it's a message that transformed Western civilization. His Hebrew name was John, his Greek name was Mark, so you'll often see him referred to in the New Testament as John Mark, or John whose other name was Mark, or Mark, who's sometimes called John. He's the son of Mary, who is not Mary Magdalene. She's a wealthy widow who was living in Jerusalem. And her house became a staging place for the early ministry of Jesus. So he, when he was in Jerusalem, he is often at her house. Most people think that the upper room discourse, which was his last talk right before he was arrested, was in Mary's house. Mark was not an apostle, but most people include him as one of the 70 who was sent out. And it's likely that he was an eyewitness to much of the gospel accounts because he was an associate of Peter and of Paul. And of course, his mother's home was a place where a lot of things, a lot of the events of the New Testament took place. And there's one little cryptic description that appears only in Mark's Gospel, and this is Mark 15, 41. It says a young man wearing nothing but a linen garment was following Jesus. When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind. So that's um this is in the arrest of Jesus in the garden, and there's this young man wearing nothing but a linen cloth in the commotion. They grab him and he runs off naked. Most people think that's Mark because he was um likely to have been there. It's the only gospel that has that little detail, and we think Mark probably knew because it was him. He um was a cousin of Barnabas and an associate of Paul and Barnabas. He accompanied them on their first missionary journey, and then we don't know the cause, but Mark uh left halfway through that journey, and Paul was not happy about that, and Barnabas was more forgiving. So when it came time to do their second journey, um Paul wants to go again. Barnabas says, Let's take Mark along too, and Paul says, No, he was not faithful the first time, we're not going to take him this time, and it creates such an impasse that they split, and Barnabas takes Mark and goes to Cyprus, and Paul picks Silas to go with him on his second journey. So you have Mark is kind of labeled a failure. And um the Apostle Peter, who was also often labeled a failure, took Mark under his wing, and um Mark became an associate of Peter's, and most people believe that the gospel that he wrote is Peter's version, that he wrote down what Peter had told him for the things that he didn't wasn't actually present for. And just to finish the story, Paul is later reconciled to Mark. There's a little um in in 2 Timothy, which is one of the last letters Paul wrote, Paul writes that bring Tim bring Mark to me, he's useful to me for the ministry. Um and so apparently they reconciled. Alright, so think about Mark being labeled a failure. Paul doesn't want to give him a second chance. He's the servant who didn't quite complete the journey, and yet he writes this gospel of Jesus as the suffering servant, and that's um what we're gonna be looking at. Okay, so we're gonna look at Mark chapter 2, verses 1 through 12 today. This is the first question Jesus asks. And there's actually uh two questions in this passage. He asks, Why are you thinking these things? And then the second part is which is easier to say your sins are forgiven, or to say, get up and walk. So let me read it and then we'll I'll give you some background. So this is Mark chapter 2, verses 1 through 12. A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus, and after digging through it, lowered the map the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven. Now some teachers of the law were sitting there thinking to themselves, Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this is what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, Get up, take your mat, and walk. But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic, I tell you, get up, take your mat, and go home. He got up, took his mat, and walked out in full view of them all. And this amazed everyone, and they praised God, saying, We have never seen anything like this. That's probably a familiar story to most of you, but before we look at the details and the questions, let me make some observations about where we are and what and give you some context. This is early in Jesus' public ministry. He's just beginning, and his popularity is spreading like wildfire throughout Galilee at this point. But what was very exciting in Galilee is not very popular in Jerusalem. So that's provoking controversy in Jerusalem, and as a result, they send this delegation of scribes or teachers of the law to come and check Jesus out, see who is this guy who's teaching, and probably discredit him. And this is the first of five scenes that escalate this conflict between the people and Jesus and their excitement for Jesus and then kind of the powers that be in Jerusalem. So from 2-1 to 3-6, there's this scene after scene where the conflict escalates. So Jesus had been on a kind of a little preaching tour through Galilee, and now he's back at home in Capernaum. And that's an interesting question. It says Jesus was at home, or some translations say in the house, which is probably an idiom for at home. And the question is, what does that mean that Jesus was at home? We know he grew up in Nazareth, and Capernaum and Nazareth are not very far from each other. In Luke chapter 4, he tells us that after this preaching tour, Jesus returned to his hometown, to Nazareth. And this was, oh no, it was after his baptism and his um temptation in the wilderness. He goes back to Nazareth, but there he is so thoroughly rejected by the people he grew up with that he leaves Nazareth and he makes Capernaum his home base. It was a little fishing village on the Sea of Galilee. And it if you trace his actions through the Gospels, you'll see he comes back to Capernaum. He likes goes out and does all these events, then he comes back for a few days of kind of rest in Capernaum. So it becomes his home base. The commentators are divided on what it means that he was at home. Some say, well, his mother and brothers must have also left Nazareth and moved to Capernaum, and so it was now really was his home. Others say, no, no, it was probably just that he was renting a house or someone had made a house available for him to use. And still others say, well, Simon Peter was from Capernaum. We're told that Simon Peter's family is there. Um and so maybe this is uh Peter's house that he's staying at when he's there. So we don't really know, but what we do know is that that was his home base. That's where he kind of uh operated from. Now, notice that the paralytic is also from Capernaum. Verse 11 tell tells us uh to take his mat and go home, which suggests that he is from Capernaum itself or nearby. Um and that's if you think about that, that's interesting because uh why was this man's condition so urgent? So the paralytic was probably from Capernaum because if you think about being disabled in first century um the ancient Near East, it was probably not an easy place to get around. Um there were no wheelchairs, there were no uh paved roads, there was nothing was very smooth, everything had stairs, and there were probably rock stairs and vertical rises. So this man would have been dependent on his friends and he couldn't have gone very far without uh any kind of help. So here he is. The homes are small generally in those days, but crowd filling the home was maybe 50 or 100 at the most, and we're told that they're spilling out into the street, and the houses were generally made of stone with these flat roofs that were beams across the top, and then in between the beams they would pack straw and thatch with clay to make the roof. And they tended to use their roofs the way we use front porches. So they most houses had external stairways, and they would go up these external stairs and sit on the roof in the evening in the cool of the day so they could catch the breeze. So they would use their roof the way we would use a front porch. So apparently what these men do is they climb that external stairway and they start digging out the straw and the thatch between the beams to open a hole in the roof. So you read that and you think, okay, this is really odd. Because why was the paralyzed man's condition so urgent? We're told Jesus is at home, so he's not likely to be going anywhere. He's just been traveling, but he's back, so he's likely to be here for a few days. The paralytic also probably lived in Capernaum or someplace very close by. It's not a very big town, and he's paralyzed, so where's he gonna go? I mean, it's not likely that he's headed off somewhere. And if you think about his condition, this is the opposite of an emergency. I mean, one of the things that makes that condition so tragic is it doesn't change. He's gonna be the same tomorrow and the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. So he doesn't have a fever, he doesn't have a broken bone, he's not bleeding to death, he's not didn't, you know, he's not violently ill, doesn't need an operation, he hasn't been in an accident. So his circumstances are the same, and they're gonna be the same the next day. So why do his friends think it's so important they can't wait a moment longer? They can't wait for the talk to end and the crowd to disperse. They have to get this man to Jesus right now. That that is the the intriguing question to me. I mean, we're gonna look at later when uh Jarius comes, the synagogue officials whose daughter is dying, and he says, hurry, there's not a moment to lose. That's a life or death situation. This is not. So the clue, I think, is how Jesus reacts to him. You notice in verse 5, they lower him down, and it says, When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven. So Jesus doesn't respond to his physical condition, he responds to his spiritual condition. And I think that was the emergency. That for whatever reason, whatever had happened in this man's life, he had come to a point where he was either going to turn toward God or he was gonna turn away from him. That maybe his despair or his depression or bitterness over his his illness, or maybe years of blaming God for his paralysis, or maybe the way people treated him, or the sorrows of his life, or something, all of that had come to a point where he just needed to know the gospel. He needed to be set free, and his friends recognize that, that he's in a crisis, he has to uh turn toward God or turn away. And so they say, I know, we'll take him to Jesus right now. This is the man who can solve that problem. And that's what Jesus responds to. I think the other things that that clue that in is no one remarks on the obvious. I mean, it's very peculiar in this story that no one comments that someone's digging a hole in the roof. I mean, think about if there's a wiggly child in church and they're five rows away, we notice, right? I mean, they may not bother us, but you kind of notice. And imagine somebody walking around on the roof digging a hole. Why why wouldn't you notice that? And there would be debris, you know, the straw and the thatch would be falling down and the dust must have been kicked up. And nobody says, hmm, why are they putting a hole in the roof? Um, or goes up and tries to stop them, or says, Who do you think you are? There's no indignation, there's no anger, there's no order to get off the roof. So that's strange. The other thing that's strange is nobody appears to notice that this man is paralyzed. So they lower him down and he can't move. I mean he can't get off the mat, he can't unbind himself, he can just hang there or lie there, depending on if they lowered him vertically or horizontally, looking at Jesus. And you don't see any indication in the text of, oh, this poor man or what a horrible life he must have had, or there's no expression of compassion or sympathy. So the two most obvious things in the story are ignored. They're left out. And I think that's when that happens, you think, okay, there must be a point. Why would Mark leave that out? What do the missing elements tell me? And I think again it points to the fact that this man needed his sins forgiven, that the paralysis was not the main point. The hole in the roof was not the main point. The point was he needed to find faith and he needed to know now. And that's what Jesus responds to, that's what his friends respond to, and I think that's why um it's his faith that is the the crisis, the emergency. And if you notice, Jesus doesn't react to the hole in his roof, but instead he reacts to the man's faith. So that's a question. How does he know this man needs faith? And it's plural. When he saw their faith, which is presumably the paralyzed man and his four friends, how does he know that they have faith? Um, think it you have to kind of think that one through. If and the way what they did is very counterintuitive. So if you think of, say, Billy Graham comes to town and you have a favor to ask him. So somebody well respected, somebody who's got some degree of prominence, is known, and say you have a friend that you know Billy Graham could help, he's the only one who could help him. So you want to make a good impression on this man, you want to be nice to him, show him great hospitality, ask and then you're gonna ask him for a favor, so I know, let's go dig up his root. You know? That's gonna get us on his good side. I mean, it's so strange. The last thing you would do for somebody that you want a favor from is tear up his house. It's like, why why would you possibly think that you could come in and put a hole in my roof and then I'm gonna want to grant your favor, I'm gonna do something nice for you. It's counterintuitive, and I think that is what tips Jesus off, other than being divine, but at least on the human side, that's what tips him off that they have faith. Because he's been going around teaching, I'm the shepherd that has come to I will leave the 99 and I will find the one sheep that's lost, and I'm the great healer, the physician that has come not for those who are well, but for those who are sick. And he throughout his teaching in the opening days, we've seen him repeatedly make the point that I'm here for the broken and the needy and the hurting and the desperate, and they believe him. They have a friend who's broken and needy and hurting and desperate, and they are audacious enough to believe him and say, if that's what you came to do, here's one of those people. You need to see him now. So I think that's evidence of their faith. They've heard Jesus' teaching and they act on it, and they do something so strange and so counterintuitive because they trust that Jesus is who he says he is. He is someone who cares for the broken, he is someone who cares for the lost. And he's not going to reprimand them for the hole in the roof. Instead, he's going to react to the person who's lost and desperate and needy, and that's in fact what he does. So the hole in the roof is no problem for him. And I think their willingness to do something so totally bizarre is evidence that they trusted in who Jesus said he was. Okay, so in the paralyzed man and the his four friends, Jesus sees sees faith, but now let's look at the scribes. So look back at Mark 2, verse 5. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven. Now, some teachers of the law were sitting there thinking to themselves, now it's a dangerous thing, thinking to yourselves in the presence of Jesus. Why does this fellow talk like that? He's what he's blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this is what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, get up and take your mat. But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic, I tell you, get up, take your mat, and go home. So the first question he asks is, Why are you thinking these things? And notice in this particular account, we're told he already knows the answer. He knows what they're thinking in their hearts, and he wants them to understand something. And I think the force of his question is, what kind of a God do you serve? He has just forgiven the paralytic sins. He's given him relief from the spiritual crisis or the desperation that was driving him to God, and he's free of that burden, he's not concerned about the hole in the roof. He calls the man son or my child, which is a tender term, and then he turns to the scribes and says, Look, why are you thinking these things? And he already knows what he's thinking. They're thinking he's he's blaspheming. Only God can forgive sins, and here he just forgave this person's sins. So think about it, they're teachers of the law, and they know what the law says about how and why and when God forgives, and this it's not this easy in their mind, because they know that if you want to have your sins forgiven, you have to go to Jerusalem. It doesn't happen here in Capernaum, and you have to go to the temple, not someone's home. And there better be a priest there, not just some itinerant carpenter who's out preaching, and there better be a sacrifice involved, not a mere word. And that's how and when and where God forgives, and this is not it. You can't, I mean, what did the paralytic man do? He didn't do anything. He was paralyzed, he couldn't even move. He didn't get on his knees, he didn't confess, he didn't sacrifice, he didn't make reparations, he didn't grovel, he didn't go to a priest with a with a dove or a peace offering, he didn't offer any sacrifice of any kind. As far as we know, he didn't say a word, and Jesus says, Your sins are forgiven, the scribes are outraged. That is not how God forgives in their mind. That is not the way it happens. It's not that easy. Or is it? And that's so when they ask the question, why does this fellow talk like that? They're orthodox. Isaiah 43 tells us that God alone is the one who can wipe out our transgressions, and their theology is orthodox. God's the only one who can do it, and the penalty for blasphemy in Leviticus is stoning, so they ought to be running for the rocks. But instead, they're reasoning in their hearts. And Jesus looks at them and says, think about this. What kind of a God do you serve? Do you serve a God who delights in forgiveness, who's passionate about forgiveness, who's lavish with his forgiveness, or one who withholds it? And that's the problem they have, and that's what Jesus said. I think it's trying to get him to see, get them to see, that God is not a God who stands off in some distant corner and says, Okay, earn it. Prove to me you're worthy of forgiveness, and then maybe I'll forgive you. That's not the kind of a God we have. We have a God who comes to us, who finds us in our brokenness, who finds us in the midst of our despair and lavishes grace and forgiveness on it when we don't deserve it. And that's what he's trying to get them to see. What kind of a God do you serve? Do you serve one who will meet you in your unbelief, will get you through those doubts, one who loves to lavish grace and mercy and forgiveness on you, or do you serve one who stands at a distance and says, hmm, I don't know. Maybe, maybe I'll forgive you, maybe not. And I think what he wants them to see is, of course, God is a God who delights in forgiveness. He's not a God who waits for us to earn it. And that I think is a problem we still have today, because the more knowledge we gain about the Bible, the more involved we get in church projects or Bible studies or church life and so on, the more we learn to hide the fact that we're sinners. You know, it's much easier to put on a good front than to let everybody else know that I I'm sinful. You know, we we kind of expect, well, okay, God will understand, but my neighbors won't. unknown: You know. SPEAKER_01: People sitting next to me in church, they might not appreciate it. And so we we put on these masks. We hide our forgiveness, and we hide our sinfulness instead of seeking forgiveness. In fact, one of the ways a lot of religious uh cults seek to manipulate people is to keep them uncertain of their forgiveness. Well, you know, I'm not sure if you're really in the group or not, so you better keep coming back. That ought not to be the position of the church. The church is, child, your sins are forgiven. It is that easy. It takes merely coming to Jesus and asking for forgiveness. Um that I think is what he's trying to get them to see. So he's saying the question, what kind of which of why are you thinking these things is to get them to think, what kind of God do you serve? Do you serve one who loves to forgive or one who doesn't? Do you serve a God who's passionate about forgiving sins and loves to remove that burden, or one who does not? Okay, so now he's gonna prove it. He's gonna heat up the controversy with his second question. He says, which is easiest to say? Your sins are forgiven, or get up and take your mat and walk. So the the question that remains is they might answer, okay, well, we believe that God can forgive sins and he delights in forgiveness, but you do not. You, Jesus, are not the one who can forgive sins. You don't have that authority. Only God has that authority. So he's going to prove it. So he says, which is easier to say your sins are forgiven or to say take your mat and walk? Well, it's easy to say your sins are forgiven because I can't prove it. I could say that to Libby, and she would look the same, probably feel the same, act the same. Nothing about her would be different. There would be no way to prove it. So when Jesus says to the paralyzed man, your sins are forgiven, how do they know? Nothing about him may have changed at all. Nothing they could see on the outside. On the other hand, if he says to the paralytic, take your mat and walk, ooh, now I can prove that. Because either he's going to get up and walk or he's not. Now there's physical, tangible, verifiable evidence that I said this thing and it happened. So he's saying, which is easier? It's easier to say your sins are forgiven. It's harder to say, get up and take your mat and walk, because that we can prove. So he says, just so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, there's the point. So that you know that I have the authority to forgive sins, I'm going to do the harder thing, the verifiable, tangible, visible, visible thing, so that you will know. And um, just to heat up the controversy, he calls himself the son of man. Now, if he had ticked them off before, that would be just throwing gasoline on the fire. You know, that was like, okay, what more can I he's already got them thinking he's blasphemy. Now he claims to have the authority to forgive sins, and he claims to be the son of man. And that title was a popular title in the first century that the Jews applied to the Messiah. It comes from the book of Daniel. And in Daniel, in that book, there's Daniel sees a vision, and he says, one like a son of man coming through the clouds to have dominion over the whole earth. And Jesus says, That's me. The one who's going to have dominion over the whole earth, the one who will deal with all of Israel's enemies and establish an eternal kingdom, that's me. And so that you know that that's me, and I have the authority to forgive sins, I'm gonna tell this man to walk. So he's not leaving any room for neutrality here. He's throwing it right into their face and says, I'm gonna prove it, and he does. He tells the man to get up and walk, and he does. And now the crowd that couldn't make room for him to come in the front door parts like the Red Sea, you know, for him to walk out, which if you think about that, it's a great visual image. Um, and the miracle not only validates his authority but his identity, and it should cause the scribes to say, Who is this? Who is this person that that has the authority to forgive sins? He was saying something that's blasphemous, but he proved it. And that's the question that I want to leave us with, because I think that's what this this section ought to get us to ask. Who is Jesus and who does he claim to be? Is he a rabbi or just a good teacher? Well, yes, he is, but no other teacher before him has claimed to have that kind of authority to forgive sins. Is he a prophet? Well, yes, but no other prophet claimed to have the authority to forgive sins. He's unique in that. Is he a king? Well, yes, he's a king, but he claimed the kingdom like no other king has claimed before him. He claimed one that was eternal and invisible and would not end. And now he claims to be the Son of Man, the one Daniel saw in his vision. And let's I'm just gonna read that to you. It's from Daniel 7, verses 13 and 14. In my vision at night I looked, and there were there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the ancient of days and was led into his presence. He was given authority and glory and sovereign power. All peoples, nations, and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed. So you have this vision of someone like a son of man, in other words, in human form, going to the ancient of days, that is, the Lord God Almighty, and being given authority, glory, and power, that all peoples and every nation worship him and has this everlasting, everlasting dominion, and a kingdom that will never be destroyed. And Jesus has just claimed, that's me. I'm the one. That I tell you, that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, let me prove it to you by healing this man. So you can't water that down. He's claiming right there to be the Son of Man, the Messiah, the one who has come to rule and has that authority. So that's the first question to take away from this. Who is Jesus? This is who he claimed to be. Do we believe it? The second thing to realize is how do we gain access to him? If he is who he says he is, how do we do we gain that forgiveness that he has the authority to give? Well, notice you don't stand in line and take a number. There's no uh protocol here. You don't have to make a pilgrimage to a holy city, there's no temple stairs to ascend, no intermediaries to to uh kneel before, you don't have to beg permission from a priest. In fact, as far as there's no protocol whatsoever, and woe to the church that erects those barriers between the sinner and Christ, we ought to be, as a church, a safe place for sinners to come and say, I'm a sinner in need of forgiveness, and let Jesus forgive them. And notice the paralyzed man does nothing except come to Jesus and hope and expect and ask and have faith that Jesus will do what he says he does. So who is Jesus? How do we gain access to him? And then what does that mean? If we can gain access to him, what does it mean to me? It means forgiveness. The forgiveness of our sins. The forgiveness which removes guilt, removes shame, and restores our relationship with God. And Jesus will say to us, just like he said to the paralyzed man, child, your sins are forgiven. That's his message to people like us. People who know we're failures, who know we're not the people we should be, who know there are things about us that we would be ashamed if anyone else ever in the room ever found out about them. That's who Jesus came to love and to heal. And I was I have a son who's struggling with this, and uh, we were talking this summer about he's been exploring other religions, and the thing that really struck me in all the reading we've done and talking about other religions is every other religion the answer is try harder. I mean, they realize you have a problem, but when you boil down all the activity or all the words, you know, whether it's seeking nirvana or meditate or um whatever the path is, the path always ends up being try harder. Find that divine spark within, do something out extraordinary, prove your loyalty and your faithfulness in a certain way or in cer by following certain rituals. And they vary in what that ritual is or the path, but the answer always boils out to down to try harder. And that's the major difference with Christianity, because the answer of Christianity is trying harder will not work. You can try as hard as you want, and it won't solve the problem. There's a better way, an easier way, and that is let Jesus solve the problem for you. And the only thing you have to do is ask. Just ask Him for forgiveness and trust that He will do it. Um you don't have to try harder. You will be given it as a gift of grace. So, Jesus has the authority to forgive sins. That's what he's starting out his ministry by proving. He's saying he reacts to the paralyzed man's faith and the faith of his friends. He heals his spiritual crisis first, and then heals his physical problem as a way to prove who he is and what he has the authority to do. And that I think is the point to start off with: that we ought to then shake off our paralysis, pick up our mats, and walk in the light. There's no uh other way to gain forgiveness. Let me just pray to close this and I'll give you some time to respond. Father, we thank you that you are um that you gave us your son to come and bear our sins, to be the servant who would not expect to be served, but came to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. And if any of us here are unsure of that or don't know who Jesus is or what he came to do, I pray that we um that they would find him. And we that this would be a safe place to ask questions, to expose our doubts, to um seek and find answers to the things that trouble us. I just pray that you would be working these words into our hearts and into our lives, making us more people who trust you, not just theology or head knowledge, but people who are.