00:02:59:22 - 00:03:11:03]
Speaker 2
 Welcome back to Further. I am Britain Grimm. This week, we have two guys in here, Paul Fishbach and Matt Mitchell. How's it going, guys? It's going good. Glad to be here. Good.

[00:03:12:12 - 00:03:12:19]
Speaker 2
 Yeah,

[00:03:14:00 - 00:03:30:00]
Speaker 2
 as we kind of wrapped up, John 11 had some interesting things to talk about today. Appreciate your guys' work throughout this week. What-- how did the week go in prep? And what did you guys kind of take away from your study?

[00:03:31:09 - 00:03:38:08]
Speaker 3
 Great question. Yeah, I'll start. Just at first read, I thought to myself, how am I going to make a sermon out of this?

[00:03:39:08 - 00:03:40:05]
Speaker 4
 I had the same thought.

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Speaker 3
 But that's because it's a bridge passage. So there's no I am statements. There's no direct commands. But John is actually filling us in on some extremely important details that tie the whole story together. And so once I sat with it longer and just started thinking about what was going on and God's sovereign plans over top of this whole narrative, I was kind of blown away at how amazing our Lord is. And it was a fun one to preach.

[00:04:08:07 - 00:04:18:04]
Speaker 4
 Yeah, I was talking with a woman after service at Danville on Sunday. And she came up to me afterwards. And she goes, I was looking at it this week and thinking, what are they going to do with this passage?

[00:04:21:01 - 00:04:32:20]
Speaker 4
 She said, I was pleasantly surprised. So God brought some clarity to Matt and I. So it was nice that we were on the same page. And of course, we talked a little bit ahead of time before we wrote our messages.

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Speaker 3
 Yeah, that was helpful.

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Speaker 4
 We prepared some notes. And that was helpful. I think we were able to help each other a little bit in seeing where God was leading on it.

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Speaker 2
 Yeah, right. OK, good. Well,

[00:04:44:14 - 00:05:06:00]
Speaker 2
 I want to jump into kind of-- I don't know, you guys spent a lot of time on this topic. And so I just have a few specific questions here. So I think a lot can be learned from what we see the high priest Caiaphas saying in this passage. So we see God's sovereignty interacting with the sin of man.

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Speaker 2
 But I think we also see a warning here for us.

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Speaker 2
 Caiaphas is looking at the situation very pragmatically.

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Speaker 2
 And he's advocating for the quickest way out that will protect their power.

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Speaker 2
 So what can we learn from Caiaphas's actions about our own tendency to trade the right course for an easier self-serving one?

[00:05:33:10 - 00:05:57:07]
Speaker 3
 Yeah, I'll start in here. I talked about this in my message. But it becomes pretty obvious as the Sanhedrin's meeting that they are threatened by Jesus. They want to take him out. But their intentions are-- it's all self-preservation. It's selfish. It's our place, our nation.

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Speaker 3
 Caiaphas says, don't you know what's best for you? Is that one man would die, not the whole nation. And I think any organization, any church that starts to compromise on what ought to happen according to God's word, what ought to happen according to integrity's sake, and things start moving behind the scenes to-- because of self-preservation, we don't want this thing to come out in the public because it's going to ruin the church. Or it's like, well, that's going to ruin the church long term because that needs to be dealt with. It's just really faulty thinking. And we're not above it. This can happen to us too, and our marriages, and the workplace, and just small little compromises. But I'm thinking of this right now. I didn't mention this in my sermon. But they don't inquire of God. It's not like, Lord, what should we do about the Jesus situation? They just have their minds made up already. And there's not this humility there, or this seeking after the Lord.

[00:07:04:19 - 00:07:22:03]
Speaker 4
 You mentioned it in a context of organizational overtones that that can have, where organizations can be self-preserving and protecting themselves, and managing their brand, and all that kind of stuff. But I think that can come down to our personal lives as well.

[00:07:23:15 - 00:07:33:22]
Speaker 4
 We can protect our family name. And so there's things that we maybe don't want to address, or we protect ourselves, or justify things.

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Speaker 4
 And I think you can see that in here. They've certainly justified their own actions in our own mind, and see it as even justifying it as a godly thing to do. Jesus is a blasphemer, so we're going to defend God, and we're going to take this guy out.

[00:07:50:04 - 00:08:06:23]
Speaker 4
 So I think that's a natural tendency for any of us as human beings. We want to be in control. We want to protect ourselves. We like to justify ourselves. We don't like to admit we're wrong. And we all can have that Caiaphas attitude.

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Speaker 4
 I think a lot of times that even sneaks in

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Speaker 4
 without even our awareness. We drift into that, because it's part of our natural fleshly desire.

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Speaker 2
 Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

[00:08:23:01 - 00:08:37:00]
Speaker 2
 Just after this, we see kind of John's commentary on the situation, saying that while Caiaphas is trying to do one thing, he's actually prophesying of the Gentiles' inclusion into the kingdom

[00:08:38:00 - 00:08:52:00]
Speaker 2
 through the death of Jesus, the very thing that he's suggesting. And so first of all, I think it's worth just marveling at the way that God works out his plans through the evil of people.

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Speaker 2
 But what can we learn about God's sovereignty from this passage, especially in light of our sin, in the way that God kind of sovereignly interacts with our choices?

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Speaker 4
 I think certainly God is not the author of sin.

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Speaker 4
 So scripture teaches that Satan tempts us. Our flesh also is a source of temptation and sin.

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Speaker 4
 And when that fully-- I'm thinking of James chapter 1, where it talks about when temptation has gone its course, then we fall into sin.

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Speaker 4
 And so that comes from our own fleshly desires.

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Speaker 4
 So God is not the source of that. But I think we see that God works-- he's not puzzled by our sin or anything like that either. He uses that for his glory. So he turns that around for his glory.

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Speaker 4
 And that's, to me, a source of joy that God can change what man meant for evil.

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Speaker 4
 I think you quoted that verse from back in Exodus.

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Speaker 4
 What man meant for evil, God intended for good. And that he turns our sin into something that does eventually end up glorifying him in some way, shape, or form, and is also for the good of others.

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Speaker 4
 And so he accomplishes that. I'm not sure if that fully answers your question. Yeah.

[00:10:30:09 - 00:10:32:13]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, that helps. What about you, Matt?

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Speaker 3
 Yeah, I guess all I would contribute to that is disagreeing with what Paul already said and what the scriptures say. But what's so amazing, I think, about our God is that he is so powerful and so amazing that he can work in and through and over the evil to accomplish what he wants. And if you think about any other book or movie,

[00:11:00:23 - 00:11:12:00]
Speaker 3
 good versus evil, it's just that's what it is. It's the good trying to win out over the evil. But the good's not working in and through the evil to bring about the ultimate good.

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Speaker 3
 Our God is just so much different in that way.

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Speaker 3
 It's not like him versus evil. He's just over it all, and he's working in and through it all. And who else can do that but him? Yeah. So.

[00:11:25:08 - 00:11:36:04]
Speaker 2
 Yeah, I think we're going to get into this a little more later. But just in general, how should this truth, this idea of God being sovereign even through sin,

[00:11:37:13 - 00:11:40:10]
Speaker 2
 shape the way we view and respond to evil today?

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Speaker 2
 What should our mindset be in light of that truth?

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Speaker 4
 Well, I don't think it should make us say sin is okay.

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Speaker 4
 I don't think we should just default to that. Yeah. God doesn't want us to sin. We're called to live holy lives. He's called us to be holy like he is holy.

[00:12:00:03 - 00:12:11:05]
Speaker 4
 So we should strive for that. But at the same time, I think we can find comfort in the fact that even when, especially as believers, when we do sin, hopefully that grieves us like it should.

[00:12:13:02 - 00:12:21:00]
Speaker 4
 But then we confess, we repent of that, and we know that God can use that for good. And He can redeem that, sanctify us through that.

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Speaker 4
 He can overcome some of the consequences of that.

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Speaker 4
 There are consequences for sin that we're going to deal with in life. Sure. But God is sovereign over all of that, and He has incredible wisdom beyond our comprehension to bring about His purposes that, yeah, we don't have to worry about upsetting His ultimate plan.

[00:12:49:19 - 00:12:59:17]
Speaker 3
 Yeah. I find comfort in knowing that if you look at all the characters in the Bible, all the stories, male and female,

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Speaker 3
 you have all these people who are broken, who sin in huge ways.

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Speaker 3
 And God works through all of that to bring about,

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Speaker 3
 yes, His salvation, but Jesus' lineage

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Speaker 3
 comes from all these sinners and all these problems. And you've got instances of rape and former prostitutes. And these are Jesus' ancestors, Jesus is without sin, but He comes from this line of sinners.

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Speaker 3
 And you're just like, God brings about the sinless Messiah through this evil, through these sins of others. And He can do that with our lives too, and He does. So I just find comfort in knowing that sin will not have the last word. Jesus has the last word, and where sin increases, grace increases all the more. But should we continue to sin? So grace abounds by no means is what Paul says in Romans six. So yeah, that's where I'd leave that one.

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Speaker 2
 Yeah. Paul, you mentioned a couple common objections to the idea of God's sovereignty.

[00:14:18:02 - 00:14:22:23]
Speaker 2
 One of them was that, I'm going to start that over because I didn't mean to say couple. Cut.

[00:14:26:10 - 00:14:30:09]
Speaker 2
 Paul, you mentioned a couple. I just said it again. Cut.

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Speaker 3
 Common. Can you think of another one?

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Speaker 4
 Can you comment?

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Speaker 2
 Comment.

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Speaker 2
 Paul, you mentioned a common objection to the idea of God's sovereignty, which is that this doctrine makes us puppets, right? So that if God has a decree, then we have no real freedom.

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Speaker 2
 Acknowledging first, obviously, that we are not philosophers here, how would both of you guys answer that objection?

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Speaker 4
 Yeah, I tried to answer this in the message that I shared. I don't think obviously that we are puppets. The Bible does say that we are responsible for our choices.

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Speaker 4
 And that's what we're ultimately going to be, God's going to judge people for, is the choices that they have made in their life.

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Speaker 4
 So we're not puppets in that sense, but God's always going to accomplish his purposes. And he makes that very clear.

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Speaker 4
 I think when we think about, I brought this up and I said, towards the end, I was referenced the movie free guy and kind of the how the culture wrestles with that question.

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Speaker 4
 And I said, if you want to be free, let's think about what freedom really is. And I don't know, as I was thinking about this, this message and processing this, I was praying about that and thinking, well, what has God made us for?

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Speaker 4
 Who are we created to be? And God intended for us to glorify him, that to be in relationship with him, we weren't intended to be independent from God. And that's what I was trying to share on Sunday was, if ultimately we're going to be free, freedom is fulfilling the creative purpose that God made us to be in the first place. And so that is in relationship with him. It's restored with him. It's glorifying him with our lives. You think about the Westminster Catechism, what's the chief end of man? Chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. That's what we made it made for. And that's where we feel and experience the most freedom. So I think the lie from the very beginning that Satan gave was, you need to be free from God. And I think that actually is, and I was arguing, that's actually enslavement. That's not freedom. And so if we want to be free, it's following Christ. And that's what we experience true freedom.

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Speaker 2
 Matt, do you have any thoughts on that?

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Speaker 3
 Yeah, just the whole puppet thing, it just flies in the face of what we actually read in Scripture. So if you,

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Speaker 3
 it's really easy to just start thinking about this stuff too much to the point where it's like, God is up there, pulling all the levers. And I don't have any choice over my life. And

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Speaker 3
 he's causing me to sin. And it's like, no, that's not true. Because it flies in the face of Scripture. Like James 1 13 says that God cuz no one, tempts no one to do evil. But then it says, as you read, it's like there's always these commands like, choose this day who you will serve.

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Speaker 3
 And like all the commands in the Bible are two humans, like fall the Lord or don't fall the Lord. And like, what are we going to do with that? And then, but the beauty is that we, when we fail, because we can't do it all perfectly, we never will. God comes to our aid. And we see that most clearly through Jesus. And so, yeah, just if you just read the Bible cover to cover, you're not going to walk away with the conclusion that God is just up there pulling all the strings in a way that we don't have any sort of responsibility or we don't have any sort of relation to that. Our God is a relational God and relationships happen within a context of love and knowing someone else. And it's not just, yeah, God pushing buttons or pulling strings.

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Speaker 4
 I think another verse that came to mind was the apostle Paul talking about, do not quench the Spirit of God that is in you. Well, the fact that we can quench the Spirit of God shows that God is, we're not puppets of who got, he allows himself to be grieved by us when we quench his spirit within us.

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Speaker 4
 And yet that doesn't thwart his sovereign plan either.

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Speaker 4
 So we see these both truths in scripture that God is sovereign over all things. He has a plan that will be accomplished. And yet we have ability and choices within our life that we're responsible for.

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Speaker 2
 Yeah. And even this passage, I think,

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Speaker 2
 even as John is giving this commentary on the sovereignty of God and how he's working out all these things toward the cross, we see a clear reason why Caiaphas responds like this. I mean, it comes straight out of his desires.

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Speaker 2
 That had been his desire the whole time was to protect themselves, protect their power. And so we see clear reasons for why people do what they do. And I think even experientially, we know why we sin. We sin out of selfish desires. It's not because we're compelled into that. So yeah.

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Speaker 2
 Another way that you guys talked about sovereignty was that it's a source of comfort.

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Speaker 2
 First of all, why? Why is God's sovereignty comforting to us?

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Speaker 3
 Yeah. I'll start in and say that God's sovereignty is of great comfort because

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Speaker 3
 we have the end of the story already written.

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Speaker 3
 There's a God who is outside of time and He knows all things.

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Speaker 3
 He's the beginning and the end.

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Speaker 3
 And following a God that already has the end in mind and the end is sure to happen.

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Speaker 3
 How amazing is that? It'd be like if your favorite sports team was in the Super Bowl and you already knew the final score somehow,

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Speaker 3
 you're probably still going to enjoy the game, but it's going to be like, you know, that like suspense of like, Oh my goodness.

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Speaker 2
 I hope, you know, I think there's some conspiracies on that.

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Speaker 3
 There might be some games that have been thrown a little bit.

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Speaker 3
 But either way, God knew who was going to win the game. Right?

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Speaker 3
 So yeah, that's what I would say is if we serve a God that is not in control and doesn't know, that's pretty scary.

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Speaker 3
 And I mentioned, you know, movies and books earlier,

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Speaker 3
 I'm a big Lord of the Rings fan, but people probably know that if they've heard a sermon for me or two. But I just think when I used to watch the Lord of the Rings as like a middle schooler, you know, there's the good guys and there's the bad guys, but it did not feel like the good guys were going to win or they were in control. Just like kind of at the very end, they kind of, you know, they prevail, but didn't seem like that. And so it was kind of scary to watch those and to wait through that, but it is so much different with, with our God and he is in control and we can rest in that. And scripture after scripture proves that to us.

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Speaker 2
 So why, why do you guys think that sovereignty can be so unsettling for people? Why is this a hard doctrine to grasp or to accept?

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Speaker 4
 I think I mentioned on Sunday, I think it disturbs people.

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Speaker 4
 But I think, and I didn't say this explicitly, but I think that happens because we want to be sovereign. We want to be sovereign of our own life and we don't want God to be God. We want to be God. And so they find it disturbing to think that somebody else would have sovereignty over them. And I think we naturally recoil at that because of our flesh, our sinful flesh.

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Speaker 4
 So that's why I think people find it disturbing.

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Speaker 2
 We do come to accept this doctrine. How can we learn to trust God and his sovereignty more deeply? Like how even in the face of hard stuff, trials,

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Speaker 2
 how can we keep that in our minds as, you know,

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Speaker 2
 God is sovereign over this situation and he's faithful to bring about our good?

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Speaker 4
 I'm going to go back to what Matt talked about a little bit ago, just how we find comfort in God's sovereignty a little bit there.

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Speaker 4
 And I think that leads to trust, but I think the Bible is replete with examples and I gave several of them on Sunday where we can see God's sovereignty in a situation in different people's lives that in the moment they didn't see it or know it, but then later on we're able to look back on it. So Joseph and Moses and Jesus himself and in each of those stories, there was intention for evil or plots and plans that man had for themselves that were selfish. And yet God sovereignly turned that to accomplish his plans and save others and bless others and all of that kind of thing. I think when we see those all throughout scripture, as we read our Bible, that gives us comfort in knowing the situation I'm in right now. I don't know how this is going to turn out. I don't know where this is going. And it might not be according to the plan that I would like it to be or in the timing that I wanted. I even mentioned that with Mary and Martha, like they wanted Jesus to heal their brother before he died and he didn't. And that was confusing and disturbing to them. They didn't like it. And yet Jesus had a different plan. And so there's, I think that gives us comfort and peace and an ability to trust and say, I've seen you do this before and I'm going to trust that you're going to do it now. Not necessarily the way that I want, but you've got a greater plan. And I trust you because I've seen that you are trustworthy in all these other examples that I see in scripture.

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Speaker 3
 No, that's fantastic Paul. I totally agree. And I, the greatest example, both of us

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Speaker 3
 made this clear in our sermons. The greatest example of God doing this is

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Speaker 3
 giving his sinless son to be crucified on a cross by evil men to substitute for their sin. So whenever we think, I can't believe God would allow me to go through this. That's a fair question to ask and lament.

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Speaker 4
 Yes.

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Speaker 3
 Like I'm not saying that we ought to lament and ask God why, but then we need to go back to the scriptures and look at his son and remember, oh my goodness, God gave the highest price to defeat evil. And it was the suffering and the death of his son. And that's, we just have to remember that. And we use the phrase like Emmanuel God with us around Christmas time. Like Jesus came as a baby. So sweet. The incarnate son of God. Yes. But God with us and suffering God with us, the one who died in our place. And he wasn't, he didn't say you will have tribulation in this world would take heart. I've overcome the world, but I'm out of here. I'm not going to actually enter into any suffering with you guys. You know, he did, he entered into human frailty at the incarnation and then he's the suffering servant who died. So that's, I think every new Testament letter is a looping back to that truth.

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Speaker 4
 And I think the strength of our trust in God is, is not in our faith in him. It's not in the level of our faith. It's in who he is. And if, and if he really is sovereign, if he really is good and holy and pure and loving and gracious and merciful and all those attributes of God, if we believe those things really are true about who he is, then we can trust him. And even when things aren't going the way that we want it to be.

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Speaker 2
 Yeah, that's good.

[00:27:29:13 - 00:27:37:18]
Speaker 2
 Matt, you said we shouldn't be surprised by the stuff we face in our own lives. Mankind is evil and apart from God, this is the default.

[00:27:39:02 - 00:27:51:21]
Speaker 2
 So this is certainly true. I agree, but I think that this idea could cause someone to be looking for trouble around every corner, which, you know, isn't a especially productive way to live.

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Speaker 2
 How can we accept this without just becoming cynical?

[00:28:00:07 - 00:28:08:03]
Speaker 3
 The, yeah, how can we accept this? Like the world's going to Hades in a handbasket and why even try? It's just, it's just awful.

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Speaker 3
 Yeah. I mean, people can get cynical when they start thinking about evil and suffering and their own suffering. That's so that's true, but we don't, we definitely don't want to stay in that spot and fester there.

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Speaker 3
 So yeah, I would say a few things.

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Speaker 3
 One, even acknowledging that we don't live in a utopia and that everything that happens on this day or in my life is not just going to be daisies and roses. I mean, I think everybody has a wakeup call at some point knowing like, well, things are not going the way I thought with whatever it is in life. And I actually think that's a grace of God to, to kind of start off in that place and become a little bit poor of spirit because we begin to see Kim and kind of face some of those hard realities.

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Speaker 3
 And I would say having good Christian community, brothers and sisters in the Lord, they're going to encourage you because on our worst days,

[00:29:16:22 - 00:29:29:23]
Speaker 3
 we can just be like believing lies and stuff that's not true and isn't helpful for us to keep rehearsing and to have others that are just going to pray for us and speak truth to us, I think is invaluable. And then I would say

[00:29:31:21 - 00:29:41:09]
Speaker 3
 continuing to engage in corporate worship and other spiritual disciplines and practices, like not just giving those up, like it's,

[00:29:42:15 - 00:29:46:21]
Speaker 3
 we'll find a renewed sense of peace and

[00:29:48:06 - 00:29:52:10]
Speaker 3
 joy as we continue to seek the Lord and wait on Him. That's God's promise.

[00:29:53:14 - 00:30:10:14]
Speaker 2
 Yeah. Well, it's important, right, to be realistic about things, right? We don't want to be cynical about everything, but we also don't want to be blind to the realities around us. We're going to face trials and we know that and we need to expect those things, right?

[00:30:14:08 - 00:30:20:10]
Speaker 2
 Okay. So Paul, you said you will not find freedom fighting to control your life and your circumstances.

[00:30:21:19 - 00:30:22:04]
Speaker 2
 Why not?

[00:30:24:04 - 00:30:28:13]
Speaker 2
 Like, isn't that the definition of freedom in our world to control our own destiny?

[00:30:28:13 - 00:30:31:05]
Speaker 4
 That's how the world defines it.

[00:30:32:15 - 00:32:17:22]
Speaker 4
 I think I was challenging that premise in my message, saying, "Well, what does it really mean to be free?" And I think the irony of our experience in life is the more we try to control our life, the less enjoyment we probably have actually living it. And it doesn't take much for God to wake us up to the reality of how little control we have of our life. We see this happen all the time. Some unexpected tragedy happens in our life and we're like, I had no control over that. There's nothing I could do about that situation. And I think we wrestle with those experiences when we have them. And my hope is that it shakes us awake to say, realize that God is God, you are not. And we ultimately are not going to have the control that we would like to have because God didn't make us for it. And we're not able to actually have the capacity to do that. I think we're trying to do that more and more in our world where we have so much information coming to us and we have so much access to information constantly. And yet it overwhelms us. We can't even handle all the information that is coming to us, process it, and make it work. So that's not freedom. That's enslavement to that. And it's overwhelming to us. I think that's part of our mental health crisis and all of the other stuff that people are struggling with in our world that we're overwhelmed by all of it.

[00:32:18:23 - 00:32:27:04]
Speaker 4
 And God is only the one who can really handle all that. He has the capacity. And so we shouldn't fight for that.

[00:32:27:04 - 00:32:40:17]
Speaker 2
 Matt, that kind of reminds me of the story that you had mentioned as an illustration about Cori Ten Boom and something that she had said. Just for people that haven't heard your message, what did she say?

[00:32:40:17 - 00:34:04:15]
Speaker 3
 Yeah. So I found this online this week as I was researching this topic about suffering and the knowledge of evil in this. And she recalls this time growing up, young girl, she's on the train with her father. Her father did different business because he made clocks. And she asked her dad a question that she wouldn't know the answer to, but she quickly realized that she wasn't mature enough to be able to handle the full answer. So her dad basically said, "Cori, grab my briefcase or my big luggage case up on the top rack. And can you carry this off the train for me?" And she's like, "No, dad, I can't do that. It's too heavy for me." And he said exactly. And he basically said this how knowledge is. There's certain things we just can't carry. And that's why we need a good father to do that for us. And then she obviously made the connection later in life that this is how our heavenly father is with us. And there's just certain things we can't carry, nor should we, until a time that we're ready. And I think what she was insinuating by that was when we're glorified and we see Jesus face to face. And the Lord really can put all the pieces together for us that we need to know. And it'll make sense to us in a way that we can bear it. But right now, we really can't. And yeah, I find comfort in that too. I think it's a great example of

[00:34:06:02 - 00:34:10:18]
Speaker 3
 someone with a greater concern and knowledge, a parent with their child. And

[00:34:11:19 - 00:34:14:23]
Speaker 3
 that's the relationship that we have with our heavenly father.

[00:34:14:23 - 00:34:43:13]
Speaker 2
 Well, I think it points out the importance of humility and actually understanding our position before God. That we just don't have the capacity to do what we desire to do. We desire to be free and to rule ourselves, but that's not what we're built for. And there needs to be an understanding and a humility in our position and to submit before God in that.

[00:34:45:00 - 00:35:31:12]
Speaker 4
 I was going to just comment on a phrase that I just came to mind was at the end of our passage, it said that Jesus died not only for the nation, but to bring into one all the children of God. The description of those who are believers are children of God. It goes kind of back to your illustration of Corey Ten Boom, but we're not the parent. We're not the one in charge. We're his children. And that's what he's created us for. And that's not demeaning. It's honoring. It's a privilege. And we get to be his children and he gets to love us and care for us. And he's got a sovereign plan for us and we can trust him. Jesus said,

[00:35:32:14 - 00:35:35:11]
Speaker 4
 those who come to the kingdom must come with the faith of a child.

[00:35:36:15 - 00:35:40:15]
Speaker 3
 The final thing, before you asked the Corey Ten Boom thing, it threw me off.

[00:35:40:15 - 00:35:41:18]
Speaker 4
 Yeah, go for it.

[00:35:41:18 - 00:35:51:10]
Speaker 3
 I was thinking of the staying out of the beauty and the example that we have in Christ.

[00:35:53:21 - 00:35:56:15]
Speaker 3
 After this moment of the Sanhedrin, after he actually gets,

[00:35:57:18 - 00:36:26:12]
Speaker 3
 no, after this moment with the Sanhedrin, passion week happens. All these things begin to unfold, the Last Supper, but then Jesus goes into the Garden of Gethsemane and he's praying. And he actually is petitioning the Father saying, if it's possible, take this cut from me. This is not my will, but your will be done. And the more I've gone back to that passage, the more comfort I find in that passage. And just thinking about Jesus is,

[00:36:27:18 - 00:36:45:01]
Speaker 3
 he doesn't want to go forward with something, but then he submits to the Father's will. And he ultimately knows that's going to be what's best as the Father's will. And it is what's best, but it's just such a good example for us. Because we come to these crossroads all the time in our own life where

[00:36:47:00 - 00:36:55:00]
Speaker 3
 God wants us to come to him and wrestle through it, but then ultimately surrender it back over to him and say, you're the one in charge. You've got the plans.

[00:36:56:02 - 00:37:12:15]
Speaker 3
 I'm going to submit to those plans. Help me to do that. And by the power of his Holy Spirit and the sovereignty of his providence, his plans will succeed and be good. So I find comfort in that.

[00:37:12:15 - 00:37:28:02]
Speaker 2
 Yeah. All right. Well, thanks guys. Appreciate your work and for you joining me today. If you guys have any questions at home, ask it for the podcast.com and we will talk to you next week. Thanks guys.