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Worship Guide Study GuideJesus Through Isaiah’s Eyes: Beautiful News
March 3, 2024
Reverend Jason Harris
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There's an old saying in the news business, “If it bleeds, it leads,” meaning it's the stories about conflict, pain, and death that often make the headlines and lead off at the top of the news hour. Most of us are probably familiar with the way in which the marathon got its name. In the year 490 BC, there was a Greek herald or day-runner named Pheidippides, who was sent from Athens to Sparta to request help because the Persians had attacked and landed at Marathon. The Greeks won the battle, but Pheidippides noticed that the sales of the Persian ships had turned, and now they were headed towards Athens, perhaps to raid the city, perhaps to engage in a disinformation mission to spread false news. Pheidippides sped off like a shot. He ran the 26.2 miles from Marathon to Athens to get there first in order to declare the truth about the battle. Along the way, he strips himself of his weapons and even of his clothing, so that nothing would weigh him down. When he finally arrives in Athens, he comes to the assembly and he collapses naked on the ground, and then he declares the victory of the Greeks with just one word in Greek, which would translate, “We win.” Then he breathes his last breath and dies. If it bleeds, it leads.
Exactly 250 years prior to that moment, God called a man named Isaiah, to become a prophet. Isaiah also spoke of a day when a herald would come running over the hills with news of an even more important battle and an even more significant victory that would lead to an even more lasting and enduring peace. Isaiah is often referred to as the fifth gospel. Isaiah is quoted over 66 times in the New Testament — more than all the other Old Testament prophets combined. Some 800 years after Isaiah began his work, Jesus read the scroll of Isaiah. He studied Isaiah. He meditated over Isaiah. He memorized Isaiah. He loved Isaiah. Not only did Jesus look down the long centuries to learn from Isaiah, but also Isaiah looked ahead and saw Jesus coming. As Jesus poured over the scroll of Isaiah, he knew that Isaiah was writing all about him. Jesus understood his own identity, his own calling, his own mission, his own destiny, in light of Isaiah, and we can do the same.
During this season of Lent, we're exploring Jesus through the eyes of Isaiah, and in the passage that is before us today, Isaiah presents Jesus as the ultimate herald, the ultimate news announcer, the ultimate news bringer. What I'd like to do during our time together is to consider what these passages tell us about 1) the mission of Jesus, 2) the message of Jesus, and 3) the model of Jesus.
7How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,
who publishes salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”
8The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice;
together they sing for joy;
for eye to eye they see
the return of the Lord to Zion.
1“Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
2Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
6“Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
7let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
8For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
9For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
11so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
The Mission Of Jesus
First, let's consider the mission of Jesus. At the beginning of this passage, Isaiah speaks in glowing terms of a herald who comes running over the hills with good news. Isaiah declares:
“'How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,
who publishes salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.'”
One of the striking features of the New Testament is that the gospel writers tell us that when Jesus began his public ministry, when he launched his public career, he didn't just go around teaching or healing or offering instruction. No, they tell us that Jesus' priority was to become a news announcer. The first thing Jesus does is he announces good news. Mark 1:14-15, “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ’The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” Or Matthew 4:23-24 tells us this: “And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria …”
The Christian faith is presented as good news. Most people know that. That's what the old English word “gospel” means. Gospel simply means good news. But even those who understand that in theory often fail to take into account the significance of that fact in practice. Rather than viewing Christianity as good news, we often treat it as merely good advice. We assume that Christianity is offering us advice about how to perhaps become more spiritual, to become a better person, to perhaps live a better life, or maybe to improve our broader society.
Here's one very subtle way in which very well-meaning Christians can twist the good news of the gospel into merely good advice. A lot of people would say, “If you want to preach the gospel, if you want to proclaim the gospel, you have to explain to people that there's a heaven and a hell. There's a good place and a bad place. If you want to go to the good place when you die then you have to follow this advice, take these steps, say this prayer, and then you can go to heaven.”
This is subtle, but this effectively ends up turning the good news of the gospel into a formula, and therefore the thought becomes, “If you just believe the right things about Jesus, and if you say the right words, if you say the right prayer, then God will forgive you and take you to heaven when you die, leaving the rest of your life here and now unchanged.” The problem with that is that when we treat the gospel like this minimum required set of facts that we're supposed to believe about the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus, we turn the gospel into a Get Out of Jail Free card. How many Monopoly lovers do we have out here? You know what I'm talking about, right? We turn the gospel into a Get Out of Jail Free card. The gospel is so much more than merely a formula so that we might be forgiven and go to heaven when we die.
Let me give you an illustration of this. When I was in college, I went to visit my grandmother. But before you think I was a really great kid— I'm sorry, but I'm gonna shatter your perception of your pastor — I got caught speeding. So the state trooper pulls me over, and he asks me, “Where are you coming from? Where are you going? Why are you driving so fast?” He takes my license and registration, and he goes back to the patrol car. I explain to him that I'm a student at Princeton, I’ve come to visit my grandmother. When he comes back, he says, “Okay, I'll tell you what. I'm not going to give you a ticket, but I want you to do something for me.” Then he explains that his brother was a public safety officer back on Princeton's campus. So he says, “When you get back to school, I want you to go find my brother. I want you to tell him what happened, how I pulled you over but I didn't give you a ticket. Then I want you to ask him this: I want you to say to my brother, “What can I do to make your life easier.” So I go back to campus, and I go to the Public Safety office. Usually they're prepared to deal with some kind of crisis. This was clearly not a crisis. This man is a little bit puzzled by why I'm asking for him in particular, so then I explained that his brother had picked me up for speeding but didn't give me a ticket, then he told me that I had to come find you, so what can I do to make your life easier? He says, “You do realize that my brother really did you a favor here. Not only did he save you a lot of money on the ticket, but he also saved you points on your license.” Then he kind of laughed it off, and basically just told me, “Go and sin no more.” So I got off the hook. I did what I was supposed to do. I followed the formula. I followed the steps. I said the right words. I didn't get a ticket, and then I never had to deal with that officer ever again. That's how we often treat the gospel. It's like this formula that we have to follow. If we just believe the right things, say the right words, then we can be forgiven and go to heaven when we die and we never ever have to deal with Jesus ever again.
But that's not the gospel. The gospel is not advice about what we need to do, but news about what God has already done for us by his grace. Think of the difference between the two, between good advice and good news. Imagine that I sat across the table from you one day, and I said, “Listen, I've got some really good advice for you.” On the one hand, the advice might be good. If you follow it, it might benefit you in some way. But there's also sort of a take it or leave it quality to advice. It might just be nothing more than a matter of my own personal subjective opinion. But regardless, with advice, the onus is on you to do something. That's the whole reason why we give people advice. We're telling them what they need to do in order to achieve some kind of result.
On the other hand, if I sat across the table from you, and I said, “Listen, I have got some really good news,” that is going to create a completely different expectation in your mind because now you're not waiting for me to tell you something that you need to do. Rather, you're waiting for me to tell you something that has happened, something that has happened that fundamentally changes your life for the better. You might need to respond to that news in some way. If I tell you that the good news is that you've been accepted into graduate school, or that I'm going to offer you a new job, then you have to respond. You have to show up for that first day of class, and you have to show up for that first day of work. But the point with good news is that something has already happened by somebody else. A decision has been made, an event has taken place, and that event changes your circumstances for better. Now you have to reorient your whole life around that truth. That's what it means for the gospel to be good news rather than good advice. God isn't just telling us what we need to do in order to achieve some desired result. Rather, he's telling us that something has happened that fundamentally changes our life for the better, and now we need to reorient ourselves around that truth.
The New Testament scholar N.T. Wright has written on this subject at length in a book called “Simply Good News.” (By the way, let me also just share that Wright will be guest preaching for us on Sunday, June 2, so mark that date on your calendar.) In this book, Wright suggests that there are three dimensions to good news. It doesn't really matter what kind of good news we're talking about, all forms of good news share these three aspects which are related to the past, the future, and the present.
News Has A Backstory
If somebody tells you that they have really good news, the only way you can understand that good news is in light of its backstory. Good news is rooted in a larger context that's rooted in the past, so if you want to understand this good news, it's only going to make sense within that longer story. You have to understand the backstory.
News Is About Something That Has Happened
Secondly, good news is about something that has happened that alters the future in some way. That's what makes it good. That's what makes this news news rather than mere advice. Something has happened that alters the future. It has an impact. You can't ignore it. Once you hear this news, you can't just say, “That's interesting. Now I’ll just go back to living my life the way it was before.” You can't. This news has altered the future.
News Changes It For Better
Thirdly, this news changes your situation for the better in the present. News introduces this intermediate period of excitement as you wait to experience whatever it is that has been promised about the future. When you hear good news, it places a new event in an old story. That changes the way in which you wait for that full story to come to fruition. It opens up a new future that previously you didn't even think was possible. So now, rather than living a hopeless life, now you wait in the present with both excitement and joy for what you know is now on the way, for what you know is definitely going to happen.
Wright right offers this example. Let's say you're sitting in a restaurant one day, and all of a sudden a woman bursts into the restaurant and says, “I have good news! The greatest news you've ever heard! You'll never believe it!” She announces, she proclaims good news. But you're not going to understand this news unless you understand the backstory. What is this news about? As you listen to the conversation that is taking place around you, you realize that this woman is a doctor. She's talking to the man seated next to you. You realize that this man has a daughter who has been in the hospital for months. She has been lying sick and dying from a rather rare disease. What is the news that this woman announces? The doctor proclaims that they found a cure, and now that changes everything. The future has been altered. But it doesn't just change the future; now it also changes the way in which this man and his daughter live in the present. His daughter is still in the hospital. She's still sick, but she's going to get better. So therefore, rather than waiting anxiously and sorrowfully, they now wait expectantly, joyfully with hope.
Wright would say that that's the way that all good news works. Something has happened, which makes the world a different place. What I want you to see here is that was Jesus' mission. Many people make the mistake of saying, “Jesus' mission was to be a religious guru who introduced a new path of spirituality.” Or other people would say, “Jesus' mission was to be a moral teacher who introduced new ethical instruction.” Or people might say that Jesus was basically a philosopher who introduced a new theory on how life works. Or maybe Jesus was a social activist who was trying to improve our social structures. Of course Jesus has something to say about spirituality and about ethics and about philosophy and about the social order, but that was not his mission. His mission was to proclaim good news, rather than good advice. The heart of that mission is that God has done for us what we could never do for ourselves. As a result of his action, our future has been altered, and now we have to reorient our whole lives around this news. We have to receive it and now live our lives in light of it with expectant hope.
The Message of Jesus
But if that was Jesus' mission, to announce good news, what exactly was the message that Jesus proclaimed? Let's follow those steps. Good news has a backstory. It alters the future, and it changes your situation in the present for the better.
Understand The Backstory
The first step is we have to understand the backstory, and that's exactly what Isaiah provides for us. Isaiah provides us with the backstory to Jesus' good news. The prophet Isaiah understood that God had called his people to be the vehicle through which he would bless the whole world. The only problem is that God's people failed in their mission as a result of their own recalcitrance and sin, so much so that now the rescuers needed to be rescued. As a prophet, Isaiah could see ahead of his own time. He knew that as a result of God's people's rebellion and failure, eventually the people of Babylon were going to lay siege to the city of Jerusalem. They would tear down its walls. They would destroy the temple, and they would carry the people away into exile.
Isaiah could see farther still. He also knew that there would come a day when God would come to the rescue of his people. He would overcome every obstacle. He would fulfill all the ancient promises in order to restore his people to himself. When you read through Isaiah, it would be very easy, at first glance, to think that the promises that God is making through Isaiah are really just about the return from the Babylonian captivity, the return from exile. But if you read Isaiah closely — and you have to read it closely — you realize that the promises that God is making are far too extravagant to be talking about merely a human solution to an earthly problem like exile or war. When God declares peace, he's not just talking about an end to conflict with the Babylonians. No, he's talking about an end to the conflict with himself, because our sin has formed a barrier between us and God. So God is going to do what we could never do for ourselves. He is going to do away with the ultimate enemies of sin, evil, and death. But what's most important is that God promises through Isaiah that God himself is going to come back in person. The rescuers need to be rescued, so God himself is going to come in order to do what only he can do: to rescue his people and the world.
In his mind's eye, Isaiah sees in Isaiah 52 a herald, and notice it is a singular figure. He sees a herald:
“How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,
who publishes salvation,
who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’”
Then he imagines watchmen standing on the ramparts of the city walls. First they see the herald and it fills them with joy. They sing, and their joy then spreads to the rest of the people. But that's not all. Here's the kicker. Because hard on the heels of that herald who's running to the city, what do the watchmen see? They see the Lord himself returning to Zion. It's the return of the King. God, the world's one true King, is now returning to put right everything that had once gone wrong. When you understand that, then it puts the words of Jesus in a whole new light. All of Jesus' words when he begins his public ministry take on new meaning when you understand the backstory of Isaiah.
Now you see why Jesus proclaimed the gospel by saying, “The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is now at hand.” What he's saying is that this is the moment we've all been waiting for. This is the moment that Isaiah promised would come. The Lord himself is coming back in person, and therefore the kingdom of God, the kingship of God, the rule of God is now confronting you as a present reality. The presence and the power of God are now open and available to you because they are present in the person of the king, and his name is Jesus. The Lord will come back in person.
Something Has Happened That Alters The Future
You have to understand the backstory, and then you have to realize that this good news is about something that has happened that alters the future. When Jesus went around through Galilee, he didn't say, “If you'd like to try a new technique that might enhance your spiritual life, you might want to try following me.” That wasn't his message. No, he said that despite humanity's rebellion and failure, he was going to do everything that was necessary to reconcile us in relationship to God and to renew the whole world by living the life that we were supposed to live, by dying the death that we deserve to die. His ultimate goal is not to remove us from this world after we die but to renew this world so that God might be with us forever. His goal is the renewal of all things. That means that the gospel is not less than forgiveness, but it's a whole lot more. God promises to live with us, to live in us, to reign over us, to put right everything that once went wrong, so that nothing could ever separate us from his love.
Changes The Way We Live In The Present For The Better
Something has happened. The king himself has come, which alters our future, and that changes the situation for the better in the present. Once you hear this news, your life can never really be the same. This news opens up a new future that previously you wouldn't have even thought was possible, and it fills this present moment with hope. If God has come to heal everything, to fix everything, to transform everything with his powerful love, then rather than living a hopeless life, we now live this life filled with excitement and joy, with expectant hope, because we know that this is just the beginning, that God is only just getting started, and that the best is yet to come.
That's why Jesus says, after proclaiming the good news of the gospel, “Repent and believe the good news.” The problem is that when we hear the word “repent,” we think repent means “clean up your life,” but that would be advice. Jesus proclaims the good news of the gospel and says, “Repent,” because repent is not really a doing word, it's actually a thinking word. In the Greek, the word “repent” means, literally, “Change your mind. Revise your strategy for living. Everything you previously thought was wrong, here's what's true. Repent, change your mind, believe the gospel, and now reorient your life around this truth.” That's why Isaiah likewise says in Isaiah 55:6-7a,
“‘Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts.”
Change your mind. Again, God reminds us in verse 8-9,
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Change your thinking.
The Model of Jesus
Jesus' mission was to announce the good news. This message only makes sense as part of a longer story. It's something that has happened that alters the future, and when this new event is plopped into that older story, it changes everything about how we live in the present. We have to reorient our whole lives around this future with expectant hope.
What I want you to see is that announcing the good news was not only Jesus' mission, it is also the model that he lays out for us. Just as Jesus made it his life mission to proclaim this good news, to share it with others, we're supposed to do the same. We share this good news that others might discover and experience the life transformation that only Jesus can bring. That's why in the 10th chapter of his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul quotes Isaiah 52:7, though with a slight change. Isaiah says, “[Blessed] are the feet of him who brings good news.” But when Paul quotes Isaiah, he says, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring news.” He extends it all out to us. We all have a role to play now, in a derivative sense, of sharing, of announcing, of proclaiming this good news to others. This isn't just reserved for Jesus or Paul or for the professional preachers. This is for all of us.
Why is that? Paul understood that the gospel, the good news, is the power of God. That's what he says in Romans 1:16. The gospel doesn't just contain power, possess power, reveal power, demonstrate power. It is the very power of God, meaning that when the good news of Jesus is announced in its unadulterated form, when people hear it for what it really is, it lifts them up, and it changes them. When the gospel is announced, it unleashes the power of God in the world. Isaiah says the same thing at the end of Isaiah 55:10-11,
“‘For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.’”
Which means that the gospel isn't just about something that has happened in the past and will happen in the future. It's also about something that's happening right now. This is difficult to explain, but there is something mysterious, there is something curious, there is something powerful about the proclamation of the gospel. It changes things, even if — perhaps especially if — people at first think the gospel is crazy, foolish, silly, and unsophisticated. It unleashes the power of God, and it changes people's lives. I can't explain it, but that's what happened when Jesus announced it. That's what happened when Paul proclaimed it. It's still happening today.
Let me sum up three things that often happen when people truly hear and receive the gospel for themselves.
It fills people with a sense that they are profoundly loved by God. When you hear that the gospel is news of what God has done and not advice about what you must do for him, finally, for the first time, it fills you with this sense that you are profoundly loved by God. You realize that God's love for you is not conditional. God doesn't love you because of who you are or what you've done. But then you also realize that his love is even better than unconditional love. He doesn't merely love you as you are. No, his love is contra-conditional. He loves you despite who you are and despite what you've done, despite all of your rebellion and failure, despite all your mistakes and sins, because he's done it all for you by his grace. It fills you with this profound sense of love.
Also it helps make sense of the world in which you live. Now, that's not true at first. Christianity doesn't make a whole lot of sense looking at it from the outside in, but when you step into Christianity and then look out at the world from within it, then everything else in the world around you seems to fall into place. That's why C.S. Lewis once said, “I believe in Christianity in the same way that I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
The gospel leads to the sense of being loved. It helps you make sense of the world in which you live in a way that nothing else could before. But then finally, and most curiously, when you receive the gospel for yourself, it fills you with a sense that Jesus is personally real and present with you. It's not just that you know things about him, but actually you know him as if he's standing right there beside you. This is how Wright puts it. He puts it so well, so I'll quote him at length. He says,
“Something … happens when this good news is announced … Although this good news is a scandal [to some] … although this good news is crazy, stupid nonsense [to others], although nobody in his or her right mind would believe it … yet, nevertheless, something happens to some of the people listening. The message … seems to go into them like a hot drink on a cold day … It refreshes them. It energizes them. They find, welling up inside, a sense of astonishment, of being loved …
With this comes a realization that, after all, this good news actually makes sense … like when the light goes on in someone’s face, when puzzlement or shock is suddenly replaced with a dawning recognition … This news creates its own world. But it isn’t, as you might imagine, a world apart, a kind of zany, private fantasyland. It’s a world that then makes sense — challenging, life-altering sense, but sense nonetheless — of every other aspect of the world, from farming and fishing to politics and philosophy, from love and laughter to history and hope …
It does things to people. It transforms them. What’s more, they find — this is perhaps the oddest bit of all, but it was and is central — that this Jesus, this Messiah, becomes personally present and real to them. He’s not just someone they are hearing about. It’s as though he were standing beside them … And with this sense of Jesus as present, alive, with them in a whole new way, all sorts of other things suddenly become clear …
When people find this happening to them, they are welcomed into a new family … Within that family, they quickly learn how the gospel works out in practice. The announcement of what has happened — Jesus’ death and resurrection of the fulfillment of the ancient promises and divine purposes — is matched by the assurance of what will happen in the future, when God is ‘all in all,’ transforming the whole of creation and raising his people into new, transformed, bodily life.”
Here's my question for you: Has that happened to you? Have you seen it happen to somebody else? Do you want to? If we were to share this good news with others, how are we supposed to do it? We have to follow Jesus' model. We have to share it the same way Jesus did. How did Jesus share this good news? Free of charge, with no strings attached, because the gospel is not advice; it's news. It's not about what you must do; it's about what God has done for you. It's not a message of merit that you need to achieve for yourself; it's a message of grace that you receive. That's what God is saying through Isaiah 55:1-2:
“‘Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.”
Jesus offers the gospel free of charge, no strings attached.
I'm familiar with those verses, and I have been for a long time, but I noticed something this week that I'd never really paid attention to before. There's something strange here. Why does God use this language of buying something with money if he's offering it at no cost? Why not just give it away for free? He tells us to come and buy but without money and without price. Why is that? Because he wants us to be very clear that he is offering us the possibility of joining him in a world made new. While that comes at no cost to us, it cost Jesus everything, and therefore we should not assume that this news that we're receiving is worthless or cheap. No, we can receive it, we can buy it without price, but only because Jesus has paid the ultimate price already by suffering and bleeding and dying on the cross in our place to do for us what we could never do for ourselves, to remove the barrier of sin and guilt, and to establish a whole new world. We can buy without price because he paid the ultimate price with his blood.
If you remember at the beginning, I said, “If it bleeds, it leads.” This is the greatest news the world has ever heard. Jesus is the ultimate herald, the ultimate news announcer, the ultimate news bringer. Jesus was never weighed down by weapons. As he approached the very end, he allowed even soldiers to strip him of his clothes. Just before he collapsed, naked on a cross, he utters the final words of victory, which in the Greek are just one word, translated “it is finished,” “paid in full.” There's nothing more to do. There's nothing more that could be done. He's done it all. The gospel is not about what you must do for God; it's about what he has already done for you by his grace. And now you simply receive that news. Repent, change your mind, revise your whole strategy of living, and reorient your life around that truth. Receive that gospel for yourself and let it change your life, but don't keep it to yourself. Share it, so that others might experience the life transforming power of the gospel for themselves.
Let me pray for us.
Father, we thank you that Isaiah provides us with the necessary backstory so that we can understand the mission, the message, and the model of Jesus. We pray that we might receive this message for ourselves, that you might place upon our hearts a sense of your profound love for us, that as we look out at the world through the lens of Christianity, everything else might fall in place so we might see that this makes the most sense of the world in which we live. Father, we pray that you would also give us a sense that Jesus is personally real and present with us and not merely someone we know about. Father, we pray that we would experience the gospel for ourselves, and that we might follow Jesus' model to share it with others free of charge, no strings attached, because the gospel is priceless. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.