Pastor Brian and Jacque Lother
Jacque: I can't talk until the last note is done. It's so beautiful. It's so good to have everybody here; it's so good to see your faces. It’s so good. We have new faces here, and it's so good to see you too. I want to make sure that if you are new today, that you got a gift from us. You got a gift, good. You got a gift, good. In that gift is a beautiful CD of Brian and our youngest son. One of the instruments he plays his Irish whistle, and there is a beautiful CD in there. I hope you enjoy it. We just are so honored that you would come and is it us today. I'm sure there are some visitors on live stream today too. We are just so honored that you would be with us today. Thank you for worshiping with us at Hope.
Brian: If you are visiting online, we also have a special gift for them as well. So all we need is their email address and we can send them a gift as well through our email process.
Jacque: We are working on that. Brian, I have to fix your collar. I can't do this.
Brian: You have to fix my color. What's wrong with my collar?
Jacque: I can’t do this. It's just your collar; it's crooked. It's not right.
Brian: My neck is crooked.
Jacque: Something is crooked.
Brian: Thank you. Do I look better?
Jacque: Yes.
Brian: All right. Okay, good.
Jacque: You couldn't just look at that the whole time. They wouldn't even hear you. They would be thinking, "Look at his collar." That's why you have me.
Brian: This reminds me of a story. Should I tell them?
Jacque: Oh boy. I don't know. You should have checked it out first.
Brian: There was this guy that had a friend who was trying to become a tailor. He thought, well, he would give him some business, so he gave him a jacket, commissioned him to make a sports jacket for him. This guy didn't do a very good job. One sleeve was way up here and one sleeve was way down there like that. It was all cockeyed. He didn't want to make the guy feel bad, so he thought, well, if I hold my hand up like this and I put my arm way down like this, and I walk like this, it looks like it fits. So he was walking down the street like that.
Jacque: Don't mess up your collar again.
Brian: Sorry. This kid was walking with his mom and he said to his mom, "Oh, that poor guy, he is all contorted and all bent over. I feel so bad for him." And his mom said, "Yeah, but he certainly has a good tailor, doesn't he?" So what can I say?
Jacque: That's good. That's awesome.
Brian: That wasn't as funny as I thought it was going to be. Yeah.
Jacque: It was cute. There might be some kind of good meaning coming out of that if you really thought about it.
Brian: How are you doing today?
Jacque: I'm doing good. I'm doing good. I'm very grateful. I don't know; can I bring a little update about my mom? Thank you. My mom is in hospice and she is 96. She is now living at Saint Therese Care Center. She is so happy there. God has just helped us. A very quick transition had to happen. It was harder on me than her, but you know what? He is helping all of us and we have transitioned and she is just being a light there for Jesus. I'm telling you, the people tell me all the time, “Your mother!" So we just pray that God's presence is so beautiful in her room and that she is able to touch many people with God's love there. So thank you all for your prayers for her. She misses not being here.
Brian: She has got nurses that pray for her, right?
Jacque: She has got nurses that pray for her as a character. They are taking such good care of her. So I appreciate your prayers for our family.
Brian: Thankful for prayer. Aren't you thankful for the ability to touch God through our prayers and to experience his presence?
Jacque: And he cares about everything that concerns us. He cares; just think of that. He cares about everything that concerns us, every person's concern.
Brian: He talks about that in the sermon on the mountain. He also talks about that in Matthew 6 which is the Sermon on the Mount, the extended version. He talks about how he cares about the sparrows that fall. He cares about the sparrows that fall and how he cares about us as well to a much greater degree.
Jacque: We are not in this alone.
Brian: No, we are never in this alone. How many of you could admit to this statement that you are not what you ought to be? Can you admit to that? I say that I'm not what I ought to be, and I'm certainly not what I wish to be. I am certainly not even what I hope to be, but by the cross of Christ, I'm not what I used to be either. Isn't that good? We have a sign on the door as you come into the sanctuary that says come as you are. I want everybody to feel welcome. I don't want people to feel they have to fix themselves up, clean themselves up or whatever to belong here because they don't. But I have also good news for you today that you don't have to leave the same way you came. You can leave totally changed by encountering the presence of God.
As I was actually preparing for Palm Sunday, Easter Sunday, and Good Friday, I was doing obviously a lot of reading in the scriptures. I had too much material for Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter, and so I'm going to give you some of the leftovers that I didn't use in those three messages today. Is that okay?
Jacque: Holy week continued.
Brian: Holy week continued, yes. You know what, we are in the Easter season, Easter is not just a day; it's a season. It continues for the 50 days after the resurrection, all the way through the day of Pentecost, which is the day that is celebrated for the when Jesus ascended into heaven. I want to read a portion of scripture that is kind of a prelude to Palm Sunday when Jesus was going to make his entrance. We find him putting a request out to his disciples in Matthew chapter 21 verses 1 through 3. Let's read that together.
Jacque: When they neared Jerusalem, having arrived at Bethpage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples with these instructions: go over to the village across from you. You'll find a donkey tethered there, her Colt with her. Untie her and bring them to me. If anyone asks what you are doing, say the master needs them and he will send them with you.
Brian: We've kind of read this portion of scripture and just kind of read over it really quickly, because most of us know the story that they got the donkey, and that's what Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. But as I was reading this person a scripture, I had some questions that came into my mind. The first question especially for the donkey owner was I wonder who actually owned that donkey. Some somebody owned it. Somebody owned that animal. I wonder if this person knew that Jesus was in need of this donkey. I wondered if they knew it was Jesus that had need of it. I wondered if he saw the donkey and saw Jesus riding into Jerusalem that day. I wonder how it felt to see Jesus on your donkey. "Well, here is my donkey. Jesus is on my donkey." I wonder if the guy was proud that Jesus was on his donkey. I thought to myself, I wonder what the donkey was saying, "Are we there yet?" type of thing. Are we there yet?
I wonder if the guy was annoyed because Jesus had the donkey and he needed to use the donkey for something, or did the owner know that the donkey was actually going to become more famous than him? I wonder how that affected him. That's the donkey that Jesus road on. Yeah, but I'm owner of the donkey. I wonder if it was hard to give up something to Jesus for him to use. That's where it started to get home to me because there are times where Jesus asks me to give something up for him and I just want to hang onto it. I don't want to let it go. I'm concerned that I won't have enough if I give what Jesus is asking me to give to him. There are other times of course, that I yield to what the Lord asks me to give, and I feel really good in those times. There are other times where I haven't given what I sense God wanted me to give to Christ, and later on, I felt pretty bad because I missed my chance.
Sometimes you don't get second chances in all of those kinds of things. Other times I hear him and my heart is open to him and I obey him, and I feel good about that, that a gift that I would give would be used to carry Jesus into another place; just like this donkey was used to carry Jesus into Jerusalem. Every single one of us today, those of you who are watching, and those of you who are here, we all have assets in our lives, which we actually can give back to God. We have time. We have resources; some of us have more resources than others, but we all have something. We all have kindness to give. What kind of assets do you have that you can actually give to carry Jesus to that next place, that next person, that next community, that next nation, that next person that can be touched? What do you have that can be given so that Jesus can ride that asset of yours in to the next place?
Jesus did a very interesting thing as we move forward to what we call Maundy Thursday, which was the night of the Passover. They were having what we call the last supper together. It was their Passover meal. After the meal, Jesus did something very interesting that is kind of very mind-boggling, actually to all of us. We see this in John chapter 13, verses 3 through 5. Let's read that.
Jacque: Jesus new the father had put him in complete charge of everything, that he came from God and was on his way back to God. So he got up from the supper table, set aside his robe and put on an apron. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the feet of the disciples, drying them with his apron.
Brian: Now, this is again, an interesting thing. Our culture doesn't relate to this very well, of course, because we don't walk dusty roads wearing sandals. But obviously that was the common occurrence of the day during the time of Jesus and people's feet would get very dirty and dusty from there soldiering on these dusty roads. And so at the last supper, one of the things that Jesus did was he knelt down and girded himself with a towel and an apron, and he began to wash the feet of his disciples. What do you think was the dirtiest part of all the disciples at that time? It was their feet, wasn't it? He went right after the dirtiest part of them. That's what he did. He began to wash the disciples’ feet. It's hard to understand at times how God can be actually so kind to us. It's tough to understand that, isn't it at times?
He kneels before us and he takes, in a sense, symbolically or metaphorically, our feet to his hands and he begins to wash them. In washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus actually is telling us that he will wash the very dirtiest parts of our lives as well. That's why we can come as we are, but we can leave totally different when we encounter the presence of God. It is us that is being cleansed, obviously not from dirt, but from our sins, from the things that capture us, that hold us in. To place our feet, in essence, again, metaphorically speaking, into the basin of Jesus is to really place the very filthiest parts of our lives, the things that we want to keep hidden from anybody else from seeing. We put them in the basin of Jesus and we let him wash us.
What is really mind boggling to me is that Jesus is really taking the position of a servant here. I thought to myself that I don't feel like washing people's feet very often. I have more of a propensity to rather judge them for their dirtiness rather than help them get cleansed from their dirtiness. I realized that the more I'm in the presence of God and the more I welcome him into my life, and the more I say, I give this moment to you, I give this day to you, I need your presence with me, the more I do that, the more often I do that during the course of the day, the less I'm angry with other people.
Jacque: I was just brought back to Mary Jo Copeland. Do you remember when we went down there? We had a women’s tea and she was the focus of our offering. We took an offering from Mary Jo Copeland's ministries, caring and sharing hands. I had several hundred dollars. This was years ago and I brought it. I just wanted to bring it to her. Brian and I went down there and we just joined the lineup of people that were standing, waiting to talk to her, broken people.
Brian: She gave them your undivided attention.
Jacque: Undivided attention, and then many of them, she got down and washed their feet.
Brian: They were infected. Many of them were homeless.
Jacque: That was a main thing that she would do to people; she would just instantly wash their feet. I remember Brian, when I finally got up to her, I just burst into tears. I said, “Why am I crying? I'm here to give you an offering.” And she said, "It's Jesus, honey. It's Jesus, honey."
Brian: Jesus takes on the role of being our servant. It's hard to connect the dots to at times; it really is to connect the dots that Jesus is taking on the role of a servant to us. He offers us this cleansing water in this basin. Again, I'm speaking metaphorically here, but he offers us this cleansing water, but it will only cleanse us when we are willing to confess. It's only when it comes to a time of confession, and because you know at the root of confession is humility. The scriptures talks about how God resists the proud, but he exalts the humble. When we, in humility, come and confess our sins to Jesus, he will cleanse us from all unrighteousness as John, the apostle says, but until we let Jesus wash us of our uncleanliness, we will never be able to wash the feet of those people who hurt us.
But I've discovered something really interesting: I'm not mad at anybody when I'm in the presence of Jesus. When I'm in the presence of Jesus, I'm not mad at anybody. In fact, I'm not worried about anything. I'm not anxious about anything. The other night, of course you can attest to this. I was in an owly mood.
Jacque: It's kind of unusual for you.
Brian: Not an hourly mood, an owly mood.
Jacque: You are not really ever like that.
Brian: Not too often, but it can come out. It can be there. I realized, I kind of went back and kind of benchmarked, in a sense, my day, and I had all these imaginary conversations in my head with people. And then I went from that, to this, from that to this, and I never got into the presence of God, never invited God's presence to be with me. What happened is I became Berry unlovely and I needed more of the presence of God. Once I sit down and worship, and once I welcome him, especially into our 15 minute time slot from 6:45 to 7, and God's presence comes and we make room just for him. We don't ask him for anything other than himself. We are not making our requests known before the Lord. We are not praying and interceding on behalf of other people. We just want God's presence to come and we are asking more of him in our lives.
I never leave that moment of time angry. I never leave that moment of time discouraged or fearful. Jesus, obviously after they had the last supper, he washed his disciples feet, they went to the garden of Gethsemane. Let's read that it's in Matthew chapter 26, a couple of verses here, and this is what Jesus said and did.
Jacque: Then Jesus went with them to a garden called Gethsemane and told his disciples stay here while I go over there and pray. Taking along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he plunged into an agonizing sorrow. Then he said, "This sorrow is crushing my life out; stay here and keep vigil with me."
Brian: The words of Jesus were that this sorrow, this weight, this heaviness is starting to bear away the sins of the world. This sorrow was crushing his life out. He was in the garden of Gethsemane. I learned a very interesting thing when I was a young boy, we had a corner lot. We had a pretty big yard; it took to me, it felt like all day to mow the yard. I went back there just recently and I looked at that yard and I thought I could mow that thing in 7 minutes. Why did it take so long for me to mow when I was a kid? It looked gigantic to me when I was a kid. Now, it's like, wow, it's like a postage stamp lot.
Our neighbor next to us always had this incredible garden. I remember very vividly in the spring, they would bring cow manure in, and then of course the wind was blowing towards our house all the time. So we smelled that garden for a few days and so forth, but man, they just grew all sorts of stuff and they had the best garden in the whole town, but I learned something that it was okay to play ball in my yard, but my ball better not go onto this guy's garden. I better not mess with his garden. And you know what? Satan learned his lesson the hard way by coming into a garden that he wasn't invited to.
There was a garden; we know it to be the Garden of Eden, and this garden belonged to our father in heaven. Satan entered that garden uninvited, and maybe he has also come into a garden of your life uninvited. You don't have to give Satan an invitation for him to show up in your life. How many of you know that? He shows up uninvited into our lives with his schemes and his conniving ways to cause death to come to our dreams and death to come to what we want to grow in our garden.
Satan learned that there was something that happened to him that I don't believe he foresaw because the scripture says in Genesis 3:15, that after Adam and Eve fell, after Adam went to that tree and ate of the tree of life in the knowledge of good and evil that God came and said, okay, there is going to be a consequence here. I'm going to send one and he is going to crush the head of Satan. I wonder if Satan knew that that was going to be the result of him going into that garden, if he would have actually ever gone there. I don't think that he actually knew that that was going to be the result.
The Bible, actually, is this wonderful story of two gardens. We have the Garden of Eden and the garden of Gethsemane, and they both have an effect on our lives. We all have a fallen nature today because of the fall in the Garden of Eden. In the first garden, Adam took a fall. Adam took a fall, but in the second garden, Jesus took a stance for us. In the first garden God sought out Adam because he began to hide after he had sinned. In the second garden, Jesus sought after God. He prayed. He prayed until he even sweats blood.
In the Garden of Eden, Satan led Adam to a tree that led to his death, but in the garden of Gethsemane, God led Jesus to a tree that led to our life, the cross. Satan was never invited into that garden just like, he is not invited into your life, but he will still make inroads there. I would just say today, if he has invaded any part of the garden of your life, then let's invite Jesus to reclaim it because that's what the garden of Gethsemane and the cross did for us: it reclaimed all that was lost, all that was stolen.
I love the portion of scripture found in the book of Samuel. It's talking about David and how the enemy came in; while David and his mighty men were out and battle, another warring tribe came in and stole all of his goods and their wives and their children and hauled them off. The men came back and they were angry, they were frustrated, they were sad and some were weeping. The word of the Lord came to David, and he said, this, "You are to pursue them. You are to overtake them and you are to recover all that the enemy has stolen it." That's what Jesus did.
When our garden had been interrupted, and when our garden had been ransacked, when our garden had been disrupted, Jesus came to the cross and he pursued us. He overtook us, and he is recovering all that the enemy has stolen from us. Jesus will do for you what he did in the garden of Gethsemane. He will pray for you because he is living to ever make intercession for us. He sits at the right hand of the father, making intercession for us, and he will protect us. I love this: he will also reclaim; he will reclaim us.
I want to read one portion of scripture here this morning. We find it actually in Hebrews chapter 12. I want to just kind of lay a background of this because Hebrews chapter 11 is what is called the faith chapter. It goes through this history of all these different biblical characters. I say character in a good sense, not in a, "he was a real character" type of sense, but all these people who are biblical personalities, who many did incredible miracles through faith. And then there is also about a third of the list of people who are also people who suffer greatly through faith. They lost everything. They lost their lives; they lost their homes and hey lost their families through faith.
These people now that looked towards the future, which was Jesus, and never experienced Christ in the way that we have, those people are now defined by the writer of Hebrews as this great cloud of witnesses that we see of in Hebrews chapter 12. So let's read that: Hebrews chapter 12 verses I think 1 through 3 here.
Jacque: I just am still stuck back at what great people of faith they were. The Holy Spirit wasn't there to help them.
Brian: Not like we have today.
Jacque: They couldn't see so much and they just hung on to their faith.
Brian: They didn't know the person of Jesus. They didn't know him in a personal way. They had faith in God. They believed in the promise of this Redeemer. They believed in the promise that God was going to send someone to bring freedom to them. They look forward and it was accounted to them as righteousness spoken of about Abraham. They had a tenacious faith, and they held on to great with great faith. And so now we see here in Hebrews 12, 1 through 3, what the writer here is trying to say.
Jacque: Do you see what this means? All these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on.
Brian: Don't you get that? These people are cheering you and I on. We are not alone in this just because we can't see them with our natural eye. There is a whole cloud of witnesses out there. There are all these— I like the word that Eugene Peterson uses here. He says all these veterans, all these veterans that are cheering us on. So it means that we better what?
Jacque: I'm back here with what they are saying as they are cheering us on: get up!
Brian: Get up! That's right. Get up.
Jacque: You can do this!
Brian: It means we better get on with it.
Jacque: Okay. I'll get on with it. It means we better get on with it. Strip down, start running and never quit.
Brian: Yeah. How many of you have seen the Olympics, summer Olympics? Do you watch the summer Olympics? All these people come out and what do they wear?
Jacque: Very light clothes.
Brian: No, they actually wear warm-up clothes.
Jacque: Oh before that.
Brian: Yeah. They were these warm up clothes and their pants and jackets, and sometimes there are two or three layers and some of them have towels around their neck, but nobody runs with all that stuff on. They don't. So here is the analogy that the writer of Hebrews is saying: now stripped down to your running clothes. Get your running clothes on. Get your dancing shoes on. That's what they are really saying.
Jacque: Never quit.
Brian: Never quit; start running and never quit.
Jacque: No extra spiritual fat.
Brian: Yeah. Here is what I think that means: There are all sorts of things that we can argue about theologically, and I think God gets very disappointed in all of that. I think that's what the writer here is saying. He calls that spiritual fat. We need to keep our eyes focused on Jesus and what Jesus is asking us to do, becoming like Jesus. I had a discussion with a person last night; I just felt like I needed to pray with this person. I called them up. It was a little late in the evening and we began to talk. One of the things that came up in our discussion was the way the body of Christ has responded to this pandemic that we've been in the last year, and how this pandemic has actually exposed some very ugly things that are in the hearts and minds of the people of the body of Christ.
We haven't walked in grace. We haven't walked in love. We haven't treated each other as we would want to be treated. We haven't loved our neighbor as we love ourselves. I think at times we get into all these arguments over different things. There is more arguing in the body of Christ today than ever before. I'm just telling you people, it has to stop. It just has to stop. We have to take our minds that are so prone to division and judgment and arguing and take our minds captive and focus them on Jesus. Keep our minds focused on Jesus; keep our eyes on the prize, keep our eyes on the prize. The writer of Hebrews says it this way: let's not have any spiritual fat or any other what?
Jacque: Parasitic sins.
Brian: Any other sins, parasites. You talked about this to me yesterday, what a parasite is like. It's not really big; you don't see it, but it kind of make inroads. Sometimes the sins that most easily be set us aren't glaringly obvious, especially to us, but God can see them. We want him to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Jacque: Sometimes the problem is sins against us and what has happened to our thought process because of that. We can get into real rejection thinking or our thinking can get so confused when hurt has happened to us.
Brian: It hurts can dominate our minds instead of love.
Jacque: Yes. And then we just need to keep our eyes on Christ and pray for the mind of Christ and let him heal our thinking.
Brian: So no parasitic sins and—
Jacque: Keep your eyes on Jesus.
Brian: Keep your eyes on Jesus.
Jacque: Who both began and finished this race that we are in. Study how he did it.
Brian: Here is the thing: Jesus began the race and finished it, the same race that you and I are in. So the word to us instruction to us is let's look at his life, let's look at what he did and let's do what he did. How did he do this?
Jacque: It said that he experienced everything that we experienced.
Brian: That's right, yet without sin.
Jacque: Because he never lost sight of where he was headed. That exhilarating finish in and with God, he could put up with anything along the way, the cross shame, whatever. And now he is there in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourself flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through that will shoot adrenaline into your souls.
Brian: Jesus plowed through a long litany of resistance and hostility. As we look and fix our eyes on Jesus, that same power that helped Jesus lived the way he lived will be transferred to us. That same power is available to us, that same resurrection power. I said last week that the resurrection is much more than just a doctrine. It is to be much more than just a doctrine of the church; it is actually the way of transforming death onto life. It's a way of transforming death unto life. So we see that we all have experienced adrenaline, this push of adrenaline that happens. It sometimes it's when we are afraid or sometimes it's just kind of a fight type of thing, and we experienced this push of adrenaline. That's a great way to describe what can happen to our souls, just this infusion of strength into our inner man as we fix our eyes on Jesus, as we look to him, the author and finisher or completer of our faith. He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. It's not me completing it as much as he will complete it in me, as long as I keep my eyes focused on him.
One of the things that Jesus did, and we will conclude with this, as he was in the garden praying, and he even said this, that the sorrow is crushing my life out of me. This is what he said. When sorrow maybe comes against you and sorrow seems to be crushing the life out of you, maybe the sorrow you have is because you have been struggling with an infirmity for a great length of time and you are now discouraged and you've prayed and prayed and prayed and not receive the answer.
Maybe you struggle with self-esteem issues. Maybe you struggle with addictive behaviors. Maybe you have tried this, and I've tried that. I've tried this and I can't break free, and now the sorrow is beginning to crush your life. When Jesus was in that moment of being crushed, here is what he did: he said, "Not my will, but yours be done." He said, "Not my will, but yours be done." I would just encourage you today to let that be part of your daily prayer life, is to say, Jesus, not my will, but yours be done in my life.
The two gardens had changed our destiny, of course, were the Garden of Eden and the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus said to his disciples, right before his ascension, he said, “All authority has been given to me and now I give it to you.” But the authority that Jesus had, and he even said this, that he knew that the father had put him in charge of everything and that he knew that he had come from his father and that he was going back to his father. But the authority that Jesus had wasn't for people to serve him; it was for him to serve people. That's what he was empowered to do.
Authority is like being empowered. If you have authority, you are empowered by people, by a government, by whomever to walk in a certain way. The authority that God has for you today, and the authority that God has for me today is not the power to acquire, but rather the power to serve, the power to truly demonstrate who Jesus is, how we can demonstrate who he is in the face of adversity, how we can demonstrate who Jesus is in the face of disappointment and even loss and disappointment.
When our questions aren't even answered, we can still say, not my will, but yours be done. The authority that Jesus has given you and I today is the authority to go and serve, serve. To place our feet in the basin of Jesus is to place the very worst part of our lives into his hands. As we do that, he will cleanse us and we will leave differently from that encounter. He invites all of us just to come as we are; we don't need to clean ourselves up. He just wants us to come to him, but when we come to him, I can guarantee you, he doesn't want you to leave the same way you came, in the same way that Lazarus was not the same man that was put into the tomb as the one that came out of the tomb. Once I was dead, but now I'm alive. He experienced the resurrected power of Christ.
Today, there may have been an invasion into a garden in your life that has created destruction; it may have created death of sorts. I'm here to encourage you today that there is a resurrected power that can resurrect that garden in your life. There is an enemy that your heel can crush, and there is a future of a great harvest that God wants to bring into your life. Let's pray together.
Father, I thank you today. I thank you, Lord, that you had good plans for the Garden of Eden and there was an invasion into that garden. Out of that invasion came death and you also had a second garden you went to, Jesus. Satan came to discourage you there as well. There was invasion in that garden, but you conquered him that day. You didn't yield to his temptations in the garden and you prayed through and you walked in that wonderful place where you realized that your father in heaven knew best. Father knows best; father always knows best. So you said not my will, but thine be done.
Through those words of confession, and through those words of determination, Lord, you have brought wholeness and restoration to the destroyed gardens of our lives. You've given us hope for tomorrow. You not only care about our outward man, but you also care about our inward man. So as we are renewed daily in our inward man, by your presence, I pray today, Holy Spirit, that you will come in your majesty and your glory. I thank you that you are not above washing our feet, taking the very grimy as part of our lives that we want to keep hidden. We don't want anybody to know about, we can bring them to you and you will, Lord pour your love and your grace and your power and your cleansing flow into those areas.
Your goal, Lord is to take us into your heart and have a relationship with us. May we live Jesus in such a way that we give you everything that you died for. This we pray, Jesus in your name and for your sake. Let me bless you. Let's raise our hands together. Now may the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn his face toward you and give you his peace. May you allow the Lord to cleanse the darkest parts of your life. This we pray in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
God bless you. Have a wonderful day today. Stay safe and hopefully we'll see you again real soon. God bless you.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 4-11-21. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.