Pastors Brian and Jacque Lother
Pastor Brian: I appreciate the word that Pastor Robert gave about transition. There is a lot of transition happening. Transition is not a bad thing. It's a good thing when God is in it, especially. How many have noticed the dirt pile out to the west of the church here? If you've been driving north on 116, there's another big dirt pile across the road and there's transition happening here in our own city with the city of Corcoran. The first water tower in Corcoran is going over here to my right, your left, and the water treatment plant is going across the street. Development is coming to our city. And that's a transition that we haven't had to this magnitude up to this point. God has just really blessed us that we are being able to be just a small part of that.
Jacque: I remember when we first came out here to build the church, I said to Brian, "Aren't you supposed to build a church where there's people?" It was just all fields everywhere, no houses.
Pastor Brian: Yeah. The movie, Feel the Dreams had just come out. I remember the byline, if you build it, they will come. So we built the church and it has taken a while, but the people are coming. People are coming.
Jacque: Yes. And we have developed and put a place that will stand for Jesus Yeah. For generations to come. Yes. That's the plan.
Pastor Brian: Our intention is to more officially come before the city this summer and with kind of a master plan, a master plan for our site. I'm really excited about what we've been able to get feedback from the city up to this point. Everybody seems to be very positive about what is on the horizon. And so we are excited about that transition that's happening here too.
Jacque: As the years come, we are going to see a lot more dirt piles.
Pastor Brian: Maybe so, but, but it'll eventually be smoothed out. They are just stockpiling it right now.
One of the challenges that we face in life is how to build relationships with people. How many have found that can be challenging at times to build relationships with people that last? Right. One of the things that sometimes we avoid in our relationships is we avoid being honest and frank with each other because we are fearful of rejection. We are fearful of what other people might think. And so oftentimes we are not honest or frank with people because it puts us in a position of being vulnerable because nobody likes being rejected. God made us so that we would thrive when we are loved and that we would thrive when we love people. That's how God made us. That's the optimum way for us to live, is to be loved and to love.
You don't have a choice over whether somebody else loves you. You can be rejected, you can do everything right, and people can still reject you. One thing you do have control over is whether or not you will be willing to love and to follow that aspect in your life. One of the ways that we can truly love people that we are endeavoring to have a relationship with is to just always do our best to be honest and frank with them. That doesn't have to be a harsh thing. It doesn't have to be a pointing the finger type of thing. I don't think that's at all what I'm talking about.
I admire the courage of a person in the Old Testament whose name was Esther. Her story is found in the book of Esther. She was put in a position where she knew that being honest and Frank could actually put her life at risk and she was honest and frank anyways. And that's basically the essence of my sermon today. Honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable in your relationships. But be honest and frank anyway. This is another one of the anyway series that I've been teaching on, and I think it's one of the ways of Jesus.
I want to give you a little bit of the backstory, as we move forward here really quickly. The Jews had been taken into exile. They were now many years in exile. There was the king who was now over this kingdom. Nicodemus, not Nicodemus. Nebuchadnezzar was the king that brought the Jews into exile. But he passed away and another king came to the throne. His name was Xerxes. Xerxes was giving a lavish a banquet. And this banquet, I'll tell you how lavish it was: it lasted six months. I wouldn't really call it a banquet. I'd call it a, a celebration of indulgence, shall we say. As part of this festival that he was celebrating-- and he was actually wanting to honor everybody in the kingdom. He was a generous king. He was really a good king in many ways.
He called for his queen at that time, Vashti to come. He wanted to let the people of the kingdom see her and maybe in some respect show her off. I'm not sure. That's not really part of the text, but I can imagine that might have been part of the backstory. And she said no. It's not a good thing for anybody, but especially the queen to disobey the king. All of the nobles got their heads together and all the people that knew what was going on, and they said, "You can't have this. If the queen is going to say no to you, everybody else in the kingdom is going to start saying no to you?" How many understand that if you keep saying no to the king, then the sovereign is no longer sovereign.
What ended up happening is because she had disobeyed his command, Xerxes, basically, banished her from the kingdom. When she was banished, there was this need to fill the void of the absence of a queen. And so the nobles got together, and they did this major search to find someone who would replace Vashti. One of the people that came across was this gal by the name of Esther. Esther was a Jewish girl. Her parents had died. She was an orphan, and she was being raised by her uncle whose name was Mordecai. Mordecai was a very devout Jewish person. During this discovery process on the king's search, she was brought to the palace and went through this rather rigorous process of, shall we say, beautification and all the things that they did to prepare her to meet the king. The moment, he laid eyes on her, his heart was stricken, fell in love, and he put the crown on her head. And right then and there she became the queen.
During that process, Esther did not reveal her nationality or her family background to the king. She didn't do this because Mordecai had told her not to do it. We see that in Esther chapter 2:10.
Jacque: Esther had not told anyone of her nationality and family background because Mordecai had directed her not to do so.
Pastor Brian: How many really understand this, that it's, it's a good thing to obey the authorities that God has placed over us? How many know that that's a good thing? There's a wonderful book that was written shortly after the turn of the century called Spiritual Authority by a writer from China, whose name was Watchman Nee. He wrote a book called Spiritual Authority. It should be a good read. It should be actually a mandatory read for anybody who really wants to be a follower of Christ, because it really teaches the principle of authority.
Even the centurion who came to Jesus, who's servant was sick. He said, "Can you please heal my servant?" And Jesus said, "I'll go right now." And he said, "No, you don't need to. You don't need to come. All you gotta do is say the word." He said, "I'm a man who's under authority and I have people who are under my authority, and all I have to do is say, do this, and they do it." There's a spiritual concept in authority that we need to transition into our relationship with God and with each other that oftentimes, is lost when all that we think that God is interested in is our personal relationship with them. If that was all that God was interested in, he wouldn't be talking about a kingdom. Because a kingdom is much different than just the personal relationship between two people, isn't it?
A kingdom has a king and a kingdom has subjects and a kingdom has laws that need to be complied with in order for the kingdom to be successful, the king needs to keep his word to the subjects. The king can't be lying to the subjects all the1:18:00 time because otherwise you have no trust in the king. There are all sorts of ramifications that we, the church in the 21st century, are suffering from because we don't understand the concept of being submitted to authority and submitted to spiritual authority.
I know the word submission is kind of a really negative word because it has been abused even by the church. I'm not talking about just sitting under an abusive situation and not saying a peep. I'm not talking about that. But what I am talking about is that there is authority that God has established all throughout his kingdom, and we need to honor that authority. He even tells us and commands us in Romans 13 to pray for our earthly authorities, whether they be presidents or city council members or governors or senators, whatever it might be. We are to pray for these people.
How many find it much easier to criticize our government leaders and to pray for them? You should all be raising your hand on that one. Because how many times have we gotten into a-- we go to an open house and the first thing out of our mouths is, "Can you believe what Biden has just done?" rather than say, have you prayed for our president yet today? Anybody feeling a little guilty? It's really easy to criticize people that the scriptures say God has placed in authority. It's very easy to do that.
I don't sit here before you today guiltless on that count either. I have to be intentional about praying for political leaders because frankly I think they make some of the most outlandish decisions that make absolutely no sense whatsoever. But that wasn't a qualifier to pray for them. If they made good decisions, pray for them. They are in positions that need a lot of prayer and maybe just maybe our country. If you don't like the direction of it, it's because we haven't been praying and caring enough about our leaders. Maybe we need to take a little more responsibility for where our country is at rather than point the finger at everybody else that we don't like what they are doing. Thank you for not getting up and leaving.
Esther is now in this position of authority, and she still had a relational authority to be under her uncle, even though she was a queen. So she honored what her uncle said, and she kept her identity in a sense, hidden. Sometime later, after she became queen, the king elevated another noble men by the name of Haman and gave him a seat of honor higher than any of the other nobles in the kingdom. All the people were instructed to bow down to Haman. And of course, Mordecai wasn't going to do this because he served God. It's a similar story to-- remember?
Jacque: Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
Pastor Brian: Yeah. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego that they wouldn't bow either. Here's Haman. He is a very, very, very wealthy man. He was absolutely enraged that this guy, Mordecai would not bow to him. Did you want to say something?
Jacque: No.
Pastor Brian: Okay. And so he determined that he was going to kill not just Mordecai, but all of the Jewish people, because he knew Mordecai was Jewish, in the kingdom. This kingdom was no small kingdom. This wasn't like Luxembourg. There were 127 provinces in the kingdom of Xerxes, and his kingdom went from India all the way down to Ethiopia. That's a pretty large kingdom, isn't it? There were multiple languages spoke throughout that kingdom. They were all under his authority, all under his rule. Haman obtained permission from the king to carry out a plot to exterminate all the Jews. Hitler wasn't the first one to try and do that. There has been plots all throughout history to exterminate the Jewish race. This edict was sent out, because Haman came-- and we'll read this in a moment. Haman came to the king and said, "There's this group of people that don't honor you and we need to get rid of them. So let's read it, Esther chapter 3, verses 5 and 6.
Jacque: When Haman saw that Mordecai would not bow down or show him respect, he was filled with rage. He had learned of Mordecai's nationality, so he decided it was not enough to lay hands on Mordecai alone. Instead, he looked for a way to destroy all the Jews throughout the entire empire of Xerxes.
Pastor Brian: So then he approached the king; he had an audience with the king, and this is what he said.
Jacque: Then Haman approached King Xerxes and said, there is a certain race of people scattered throughout all the provinces of your empire, who keep themselves separate from everyone else. Their laws are different from those of any other people. And they refuse to obey the laws of the king.
Pastor Brian: Which really wasn't true. They didn't, they didn't refuse to obey the laws of the king. They just didn't want to bow down to Mordecai. His pride got in the way, and he got angry. By the way, be careful what you get angry at. It can cost you your life. Road rages cost a lot of people's lives. Is that worth dying for, someone cutting you off on the highway? Literally, is that worth dying for? No, it's not, is it? Mordecai had all this wealth, had all this prestige, he had all this stuff, but he got angry because of his pride.
Jacque: We should probably figure out our motive for our anger.
Pastor Brian: That's right. I'm not saying you shouldn't be angry. The Bible says be angry and sin not. There are things that should make us indignant. Injustice should make us angry. People who are abused should make us angry. We should be indignant over these kinds of things. But Haman was indignant because somebody wouldn't bow down to him. That was rooted in pride. And so this is what ended up happening.
Jacque: Then he continued to say to the king, so it is not in the king's interest to let them live. If it pleases the king, issue a decree that they be destroyed.
Pastor Brian: Now listen to this. The motivation for the king to do this was going to be what?
Jacque: And I will give 10,000 large sacks of silver to the government administrators to be deposited in the Royal Treasury.
Pastor Brian: Sounds like a political action committee to me.
Jacque: It sounds like a bribe.
Pastor Brian: It sounds like a bribe. You are right. By the way, just to give a little context, 10,000 large sacks of silver is equivalent of 375 tons of silver. Just think about how much that was worth. And Haman was saying, I will give you, King Xerxes, 375 tons of silver, if you will write this edict. Isn't vengeance a really bad thing? It costs you a lot, doesn't it?
Jacque: He already had so much.
Pastor Brian: He had so much.
Jacque: He just wanted more power.
Pastor Brian: And his pride was causing him to not think very clearly. Let's go on to verse 12.
Jacque: So on April 17th, the king's secretaries were summoned, and the decree was written exactly as Haman dictated. It was sent to the king's highest officers, the governors of the respective provinces and the nobles of each province in their own scripts and languages. The decree was written in the name of Kings Xerxes and sealed with the king's signet ring.
Pastor Brian: This decree went out. Now interestingly enough, this decree went out on April 17th of that year, and the execution date was going to be March 7th of the following year. There was, there was about a nine-month waiting period here. During this waiting period, Mordecai, here's what is transpiring. And he sends word to Esther, urging her to go to the king and beg for mercy on behalf of her people. Well, this was a risky thing to do because in that culture, according to the law, any person, including the queen who approached the king while he was in his inner court, without being requested to be there without permission, would actually be put to death. Kind of a strange law. Certainly, they didn't get that from British parliament, right? Has anybody ever watched British Parliament. They are the most obnoxious, rude people. I mean, it's like, how do they ever get anything done?
Jacque: They are all shouting at once.
Pastor Brian: Everybody is always yelling and shouting at each other. I don't know. But you couldn't even approach the king. You couldn't come into that inner court unless you were summoned. An interesting thing had happened here. Esther had actually not been called even to see the king for over 30 days herself. We kind of don't understand at times. We think like they were husband and wife and they just talked with each other. That really wasn't how it was. It was a king and a queen, and it was all about authority. It was all about the monarchy in a sense. That's what it was all about. She had not been called to see him for 30 days and if she just went in on her own and the king did not extend the golden scepter in her direction, they would take her out and execute her.
We don't really relate to that in our culture, in our government system. And I'm thankful that we don't have to relate to that. But in that culture, that was a very real thing that she was facing. We see this encounter between Mordecai and Esther in Esther Chapter 4, verses 10 and11.
Jacque: Then Esther told Hathach to go back and relay this message to Mordecai. All the king's officials and even the people in the provinces know that anyone who appears before the king in his inner court without being invited is doomed to die unless the king holds out his golden scepter. And the king has not called for me to come to him for 30 days.
Pastor Brian: So then Mordecai sends a reply back to Esther, and here he was, being very frank and honest.
Jacque: Mordecai sent this reply to Esther. Don't think for a moment that because you are in the palace you'll escape when all other Jews are killed. If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this.
This is like probably the most well-known verse in all of the book of Esther: for who knows if you weren't brought to the kingdom for such a time as this. We understand that God sees so much more than we do, and that God had Esther just in the right place at the right time. How many know that God if he was a chess player, he would be like 35 moves ahead of you? That's how God is with us in life. God understood what was in the hearts of people. He understood that he had a very prized possession. That was his people. You and I are his people. We are very much a prized possession to God. He knows how to take care of what belongs to him. He knows how to take care of what belongs to you even when there are storm clouds on the horizon.
Do you think the Jewish people, when they heard about this edict, do you think they started to get a little pang of anxiety? Of course, they did. Of course, they did. Mordecai saw the bigger picture. He understood. He said, "Deliverance will come from another source if you don't do it. But who knows if you weren't really the one that was brought to the kingdom for such a time as this?" One of the questions that we all need to ask ourselves is what were we brought to this point in time for in our lives? What were you made for by God to do? Was it just to try and die with the most toys? You've seen the bumper sticker, right? He who dies with the most toys wins. I don't think they win. Not that having toys isn't a good thing. I love to have toys. Makes work a lot easier. If I'm going to split wood, I'd rather have a wood processor than my back.
But the issue here is that God has brought every single one of us individually and corporately. I truly believe in my heart, when we were looking for a place to land and start a church over 25 years ago, we would do prayer drives. We would drive around all this western part of the city, and we got right out to this spot, and Jacque started to get hot flashes before her hot flash time of life. There are some mystical things about walking with God. There are supernatural things about walking with God and we shouldn't be ashamed to talk about that or believe in that. There were some very supernatural things that began to happen. We started to sense God's presence right here. Not that God didn't care about any place else, but God was calling us to do something specific.
Jacque: We were crying out for him to lead us.
Pastor Brian: We were asking God to lead us. Where do you want us to go? Where should we be? And we had this incredible sense that this is where God wanted us to be. And then one very supernatural thing after another began to happen, and the rest of the story is we are now here 25 years later.
Jacque: We are still here.
Pastor Brian: We are still here. Hopefully irritating the snot out of the devil, hopefully. I had a sense, and I've had a sense that God put us here for such a time as this. When we started 25 years ago, I never really felt like some of the things that we are now facing as a culture that we would be facing. But that's okay. I believe God was aware of those things. And so we have a collective calling as a church community to establish ways to bless this city and to bless people in more ways than just getting them to go to heaven when they die. That's the ultimate, I mean, that's a great thing. I don't want to belittle that. That's a wonderful thing. I'm thankful that someday I'm going to go and be with my mom and dad and my grandfather and my other relatives that have preceded me and my other friends.
We've had over 50 people in our church since we started pass away, dear friends, people that we were, we love dearly, and they are with the Lord right now. And yet what God has called us to do is beyond just trying to get people on earth to agree to go to heaven when they die, but to really establish God's kingdom of service and provision here in our community, and the things that we have in our heart to do on this site, will partly do that. We have aspirations to bring medical facilities to this site. That will be a blessing to people. We have aspirations to bring housing to this site. That will be a blessing to people. We have aspirations to bring some retail business to this site. That will be a blessing to people in our community. We have been put here to do a lot more than just, just tell people that Jesus loves them.
Jacque: We hope to build senior, independent living that moves down to assisted living, a care center.
Pastor Brian: Even hospice,
Jacque: And even down to hospice. That would be my dream.
Pastor Brian: We believe in caring for people from the womb to the tomb. So to do that, God has given us this acreage, and he didn't give us 70 acres at the time that we acquired this. He didn't give us 70 acres for just a church. There's a reason that we put the church where we located it on our facility, on the site. There's a reason for that. We didn't put our church out on the corner because we knew the corner one day would become very valuable for other kind of commercial businesses. And that would be a whole campus that could work together as a church, a faith community, a place of residence for people, a place of business for people, medical, et cetera.
God put us here for such a time as this. One of the things that went into play in this story of Esther--- and I have to wrap things up here and I'm going to finish this sermon in two weeks. But one of the items that came into play was with Esther. She decided to do something about this dilemma. She requested a banquet for the king and Haman and the king lowered the scepter to her, invited her in. She invited him to a banquet. Then the king said, "Why are you wanting to do this banquet for us?" She said, well, "I want to have you come to another banquet tomorrow, and I want to invite Haman." Haman goes home and starts bragging about this queen that just thinks he is the cat's meow. He has no clue what's about to happen.
The queen took the courage to go in and speak to the king. At that second banquet, the king said, "Why did you want to really see me?" And she went and said, "There's a person who's trying to take my life and the life of my people." And she revealed her true identity. She revealed who she was. She was vulnerable. She became honest and frank with the king. Esther knew that being honest and frank would make her vulnerable, but she had the courage to do it. To make a long story short, Haman said, "Who's trying to kill you?" And the guy that was trying to actually kill her was sitting right by the king. And he said, well, it's none other than Haman. As the story goes, and most of you probably remember it, that the gallows that had Haman had built to kill Mordecai on was the same gallows that he lost his life on.
So be careful what you get angry with. Be careful what you get angry with. But God spared the Jewish people and Esther, because she had the courage to be honest and frank about where she was at and what she needed. I just want to encourage you. I'm going to do a part two on this message in a couple of weeks and we are going to talk about Jesus, how Jesus was very honest and frank with people, and oftentimes, they wanted to stone him. I mean, how's that for rejection? I've never worried about being stoned. Have you? No. And so we see this importance of speaking the truth in love. I want to just read that verse. We'll read it again in a couple weeks. Ephesians 4:15, I'm going to jump forward to Ephesians four 15 and read this.
Jacque: Instead, we will speak the truth in love growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.
Pastor Brian: So we will speak the truth in love. It's not good to speak the truth in anger, but speaking the truth in love is a very, very good thing. But in order to do that, oftentimes you have to put yourself in a place of being vulnerable. Being vulnerable. But you know what? If you allow yourself to be vulnerable, that's how you actually go deeper in your relationships with one another.
Jacque: That's true. That's so true.
Pastor Brian: I would suggest that the first place to start being honest is with God. He sees it all, of course. So we are not going to let him in on some news that he is not aware of, are we? But when we really get candid and honest with God and confess to him even our sins and our shortcomings and our failings, when we confess to him, "I'm afraid right now," or "I'm struggling to actually believe your word, Lord," when we are honest like that before God, he will actually come. I believe in a powerful way to minister to us. But when we want to act, especially before God, like we have it all together, he actually sees through that, doesn't he? He sees through that. And so to be just honest and frank with God, and then start with your family, being really honest and frank with your family. And if you have the courage, extend that honesty and frankness out to your relationship with your friends.
Jacque: Sometimes we have to be honest and with ourselves too.
Pastor Brian: That's right. We lie to ourselves a lot. We do. I'm not saying that we say we are a worthwhile human being. That's not lying to ourselves. Lying to ourselves is saying, "well I don't need to do that. I don't need to change."
Jacque: And really checking our motives for our words, for our actions. Just asking God, "Holy Spirit, show me what's in my heart."
Pastor Brian: I'd like Pastor Jeff to come and just pray over us, just the prayer that would help us be empowered to become more frank and more honest with God and course our families and each other, which will deepen all of our relationships with each other.
Pastor Jeff: Amen. Thank you, Pastor Brian. Thank you, Jacque. Esther is one of my all-time favorite stories. There's a lot there to learn. And you really brought out some great truths. The last thing when you were talking, what came to my mind was in the sermon on the mountain, Matthew 5, Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." And very simply put, to be poor in the spirit means that you know that you need help. It's about as simple as that. One day I realized, if we keep telling God no, I'm good. No, I'm good. He'll just say okay. We'll never get the help we need.
But when we say, God, I need help, he says okay, and he comes and he helps us. You see it's our posture that determines whether our lives will change or not. Whether you are a believer or whether you are yet to be a believer, and there may be some people who are watching this by livestream, or even somebody here right now who has never actually trusted Jesus, and you need your life to change or maybe you met Jesus a long time ago and you need your life to change. In any case, the first step is to say, Jesus, I need help, just being honest, just saying the truth. As Jacque said, sometimes we gotta be, be truthful with ourselves. Sometimes, we gotta be truthful with ourselves so that we can be truthful with God. I think that's a great place to start.
If you are watching this and you've never, ever trusted Jesus with your life, or if you are watching this and you, and you are a current believer and yet there are struggles that aren't getting resolved, then we can pray the same prayer. And you can say it with me. We just say this. We say, Jesus, I need help. I open my heart for you to come. Show me how I need to repent, how I'm thinking wrong, how I'm seen wrong, and lead me in a new path. I will take your hand and I will follow you. I choose to trust you. I give up my way, my denial, my pride. I give up my right to be right and I follow you. Fill me Holy Spirit, and changed my life.
That is such a powerful prayer. It is such a powerful thing to begin to trust your God. Because if there's anything that he is that's faithful to you. We are even told in the New Testament that even if we deny him, he remains faithful to us. He is always faithful to us. As soon as we reach out our hand, he reaches his down and takes a hold of it. Because that's who he is. Thank you, Lord.
It would be good this morning just to take a minute to pray for any needs that are present in the house or anybody who is watching on livestream. If you have a need for healing, if you need a financial breakthrough, if you got a relational conflict that needs, somehow, God to help just lift up your hand. I want to pray for you. I may not know what need you are facing, but I'm going to trust the Lord with you. We are going to trust the Lord with each other. Yes. Yes. That he is going to heal us, meet us, redeem us, intervene for us exactly the way we need.
Father, you saw the hands, you recognize the needs for healing, needs for help, needs for you to be present. We need you to be present sometimes to come with your power and your love and your mercy. And to meet us right where we are at. And so for those who need healing right now, I just release grace for healing, healing knees, healing shoulders. I see someone with a stomach issue. I don't know if it's ulcers or something else, but the Lord is touching that right now. I see someone with pain in the lower right behind their neck. I don't know what that is, but I believe the Lord is touching that right now.
I know that there's at least one person here that struggles with migraines on a regular basis. I just release your grace, Holy Spirit, and your healing right now to touch that, to bring an equilibrium and a breakthrough. The doctors can't find, they can't figure out. But you know, you do, just like you did with a woman, with the issue of blood. All the time and money she spent on doctors and then one touch and you touched her. I just released the touch of God to those of you who are struggling with migraines and headaches.
Father, thank you. Thank you for meeting us in our financial needs. Thank you for teaching us your ways of generosity and releasing faith in us as we give to you. Thank you for healing broken relationships. Thank you for teaching us how to forgive, how to wait, how to trust you when we can't coerce or somehow make things happen. But you can and we trust you for that, those who need your help, those who don't know you yet those that we've been praying for. You've seen our prayers, Lord, and we continue to trust you for healing a broken hearts and broken relationships. And we thank you because you are good. You are so good. You are so good. And because of you, our lives are good. Amen.
Pastor Brian: I'm so thankful for the Lord. He does so many things for us. And I'm not ashamed, as Paul says, of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news. I'm not ashamed to say I need a savior. I'm not ashamed to say I need his help. I have a fair amount of education, but I'd rather have his leading and guidance than rely on my training. I'd rather him be making the way smooth and straight than for me to just try be adventurous on my own. I'd rather just be with Jesus. I don't try to hide that fact.
We just, Lord give everyone and everything to you, I give my life to you again today. I give this church and its future ministry to you, Lord, today. I give my family to you and their safekeeping to you today, Jesus. I give this congregation to you, and all of those who are part of our faith community, who watch us online, Lord, I give them to you because I know you can take better care of them than I can. Give us wisdom on how we can love each other so that we can encourage each other on this journey, this journey of walking with you and becoming what you have made us to be, walking into the purposes as Mordecai said to Esther and who knows that you haven't come to the kingdom for such a time as this. Help us God, to see where you have placed us and what reasons we are there. This, we pray Jesus in your name. Let's lift our hands together, shall we?
And now, may the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. And may the Lord turn his face towards you and give you his peace. And may you know with a certainty why God has made you and why you are here in this place at this time, so that you can go forward with confidence and assurance that you are making a difference where the Lord has planted you. This we pray in the name of the Father Son Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen.
God bless you. Thank you for being here today. I do need to apologize to Jim and Brenda. I've got so many things going on in my mind that I thought last week was the second Sunday of the month. It was the first Sunday, and I, inadvertently, had John and Tina go serve communion. But John and Tina are going to serve communion again today. We are going to give Jim and Brenda a little month off from serving communion. They deserve a rest. But John and Tina will be over here to serve communion for anybody who wants to have communion this week. We also will have people at the altar to pray for you if you have any prayer needs. God bless you. Thank you for being here today. And God bless all of you who are watching by livestream We love you very much. Thank you for being a part of this community. Bye-bye.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 6-11-23. If you would like to watch the full service, click the link below.