The Name of Jesus • December 21, 2025 • Andrew Spradlin • Isaiah 9-6, Matthew 1-18–25

Welcome to the Valley Baptist Church sermon podcast.

We're so glad you're here,

and we hope this message inspires you,

builds your faith,

and moves you toward a deep relationship with God.

Today, you'll find great insight into the Bible

and learn how you can apply it straight to your life.

So welcome and enjoy the message.

If you have your Bible,

please open it with me to Matthew chapter one,

And later in the message, we're going to look at a verse in Isaiah chapter 9.

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

So if you want to flip there and be ready, you're welcome to do that.

In a message, I'm calling the name of Jesus.

You know, names are significant.

Whatever name that you're given, you're kind of stuck with for life.

Back in Oklahoma, where my family's from, there's some pretty funny names out there.

My aunt told me one time of a lady named Ima, and her name was Hogg.

I'm a hog.

And her sister's name was Yura,

which I think is even worse.

Now, I don't know if that's apocryphal or not,

but I do know that one time when I was a kid

at the Tulsa Nationals at a wrestling tournament,

there was a kid in the tournament named Rusty,

and his last name was Nails.

He always showed up late to his match,

so they'd announce over the loudspeaker

in this large arena,

would Rusty Nails please come to the head table?

I heard probably two dozen,

maybe that's an exaggeration,

a dozen funny names between services today.

I knew this person named Penny Nickel

and this person named whatever it might be.

Names are funny.

My great uncle, when he was born,

my great grandma and grandpa Spradlin

couldn't agree on his name.

And so they fought about it for years, for several years.

Everyone just called him Boy.

Finally, he gets tired of it, he's about five years old, and he names himself Lee.

True story.

My dad and my son are both named after Uncle Lee, who was a preacher.

Roger Lee Spradlin, Micah Lee Spradlin.

A good, strong name is important because a name in many ways defines a person, or certainly

it does with the Lord Jesus.

who had the most famous name in all of human history.

And this morning, we're gonna take a closer look

at a handful of names that scripture ascribes to him.

Now we know the story of his birth.

Luke tells us all about it,

about how a decree went out from Caesar Augustus

that all the world should be registered.

And so Mary and Joseph, they pack up their belongings

and they head south from Nazareth.

And they went to the town that Joseph was from,

the town of Bethlehem.

And when they arrived, we know the story, there was no room for them in the inn.

And so they found their way to a stable, which was probably really just carved out of the side of a hill, a little cave.

There in the stable, Mary gave birth to Jesus.

They wrapped him in swaddling clothes and then they laid him in a manger.

Now, that's the part of the Christmas story that's on most of our minds, and rightfully so.

But this morning, I want to back up in the story just a bit to the announcement of his birth.

An angel appeared to the Virgin Mary and told her that she would be with child of the Holy Spirit

and that she would give birth to the Son of God.

Now that created a little bit of a relationship problem, I'm sure, with her because Mary was

betrothed to a man named Joseph.

It was not until after Mary was already pregnant that an angel appeared to him.

We read about that in verse number 18 of chapter 1.

It says, Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows.

After his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit.

Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly.

But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying,

Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary, your wife, for that which is conceived of her is of the Holy Spirit.

Now, a lot is made of Mary in the Christmas story,

and rightfully so.

I mean, God said that all generations

shall call her blessed, and we do.

But Joseph, the adopted father of our Lord,

is also a very significant person in this story.

In fact, he's called here the son of David,

meaning he's of royal blood.

And when Joseph named Jesus,

he legally was claiming him as his own.

Now, let's put ourselves in Joseph's shoes for just a moment.

Joseph, he was betrothed to Mary, which in Judaism was a step between engagement and marriage.

Betrothal lasted about one year and actually required a legal divorce in order to separate.

And so while Mary and Joseph are betrothed to one another,

before they came together and were intimate, Mary gets pregnant.

Now, we don't have all the details about how Joseph found out about her pregnancy, but can you imagine how devastating it must have been?

I mean, he knew he had not been with Mary. He knew the baby was not his. And yet she shows up pregnant.

I'm sure he's crushed. He experienced all kinds of emotions of betrayal and disgust and devastation.

I imagine that Mary tried to tell him about the story of an angel appearing and saying,

hey, don't worry, Joseph, I'm having the Son of God.

I'm sure that went over real well.

Joseph doesn't believe her, and I mean, who would?

And so Joseph decides, the Scriptures say, to put her away secretly.

That means to divorce her quietly.

Now he could have made her a public example of adultery, and legally she could have been

stoned.

But clearly, no.

Joseph loved Mary.

And the Bible says that he was a just man,

which means Joseph understood something about the grace of God.

So one night, as Joseph went to bed,

it says that he was thinking about these things.

I'm sure he was.

I mean, I'm sure it consumed him.

Anytime you've been betrayed by someone

or you've been hurt by someone,

and a relationship is broken, it can consume you.

And so he's consumed by these thoughts.

And why would she do this to me?

What am I gonna tell my parents?

What's gonna happen?

to Mary.

And while he's thinking about all of these different things,

he falls asleep eventually.

And an angel appears to him in a dream

and says that Mary is pregnant with a child that's

from the Holy Spirit.

And the angel continues in verse 21.

He says, and she will bring forth a son, and you, Joseph, shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, that is the prophet Isaiah.

Behold, saying, Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is translated God with us.

Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.

And he took to him his wife, and he did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn son.

And he called his name Jesus.

Now, for the rest and remainder of the message, I want to focus on the name that Joseph was instructed to give Jesus.

And then I'm going to flip over to Isaiah chapter 9, and we're going to look at some more names that belong to our Lord.

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

First of all, though, the angel says, "'You shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.'"

You see, the name Jesus, Joshua in Hebrew, Yeshua, it literally means Savior.

So we see here that Jesus, his name is Savior.

Now we're going to see Jesus has a lot of wonderful names.

We're not even going to cover all of them.

But out of them all, I think my favorite is Savior.

Why?

Because it's very personal to me.

Jesus saved me.

As a little boy, my sister had been killed by a car, had been hit by a car, and I was terrified of dying.

And Jesus reached down and he touched my life and he saved me from that tear of fear of dying.

He saved me from my sin.

I've never gotten over it.

Jesus said, I came in to seek and to save that which is lost.

Well, what's lost?

Everyone's lost who does not know Christ as Savior.

Now, the very concept of being saved implies that there's danger, doesn't it?

When someone's drowning and they're rescued and someone jumps in and they save that person,

what they've done is they've saved them from danger.

So what's the dangerous predicament that Jesus saves us from?

He saves us from our sin.

The Bible says, for all have sinned.

Every one of us has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

And here's the problem.

Sin distorts and destroys all that's good.

God created the world good.

It is full of love, joy, peace, kindness, all those wonderful things, but sin wrecked it.

So then now we experience pain and misery, loss, loneliness, death.

Jesus came to save us from all of that.

You see, because of our sin, mankind is headed towards a Christless eternity.

But the story of the Bible is that God sent his only begotten son into the world to save the world

and everyone in the world who will call upon him in faith.

Speaking of Jesus, the Apostle Peter said in Acts 4, verse 12,

Acts 4:12

he says,

Nor is there salvation in any other,

for there's no other name under heaven given among men

by which we must be saved.

The name of Jesus is powerful to save.

Now, all week long, there's been this old song going through my mind

as I'm preparing this message.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, there's just something about that name.

It's a name that soldiers call out when they're on the battlefield.

It's a name that the dying whisper upon their deathbed.

The name of Jesus is powerful to save.

Now, Matthew points out that all of this was done to fulfill what the prophet Isaiah had said in Isaiah chapter 7,

Isaiah 7 · chapter mention

that a virgin shall bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is translated God with us.

We say here that Jesus, his name also is Emmanuel.

No, the name of Jesus reveals the purpose of Jesus, that he came to save us.

The name Emmanuel reveals the nature of Jesus, that he's God with us.

If you want to know what God's like, you just look to the life of Jesus, because Jesus is God who is with us.

Sometimes people, they think about God as some distant force who's uninterested in our lives.

But that's not the God of the universe, not at all.

The God of the universe, yes, he's transcendent.

Yes, he's otherworldly, but he's also eminent.

And he's near and he's close to the brokenhearted.

He is close to us.

He loves us.

He cares for us.

Cares for the brokenhearted.

And that's not just theological talk.

The eternal Son of God, he stepped out of heaven and he

came to dwell among us.

And through the virgin birth, God took on human flesh.

Now, when the Son of God did that, it's not that he lost his divine nature.

It's not that his divine nature was diminished in any way.

It's just that he added his human nature.

So that now he is both 100% God and 100% man simultaneously.

Jesus is Emmanuel, which is God with us.

Now, Isaiah continued his prophecy in Isaiah chapter 9, verse number 6.

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

It says,

It says,

Prince of Peace, of the increase of his government and peace.

There will be no end.

Now, this is a prophecy from Isaiah about the coming Messiah, who we know to be Jesus.

And he's given four or five names here, depending on how you read it.

I read it as four. So that's what we're going with today. All right.

His name, we see, is also called Wonderful Counselor.

In John chapter 1, it says, in the beginning was the word.

John 1 · chapter mention

Now, that word, word, is logos in Greek.

It means logic or reason.

So in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.

You see, Jesus in flesh is the full embodiment of logic, truth, reason, and wisdom,

which means he's a wonderful counselor, isn't he?

If you have a problem, I'm telling you, Jesus is the answer.

If you have problems, Jesus has all the answer.

There is not a problem that you're facing in life that Jesus is not the ultimate answer to.

Sometimes we're sort of at a loss in life and we think, well, man, if I just could have someone to give me some good advice, then I'd be okay.

Listen, Jesus is the most wonderful counselor our world has ever known.

His wisdom is infinite and it knows no bounds.

In John chapter 7, after Jesus had grown up and begun his public ministry,

John 7 · chapter mention

the Pharisees and the chief priests sent some officers to arrest Jesus.

And eventually those officers come back to them empty handed.

And so the Pharisees, they're upset.

They want to know why.

Why haven't you arrested Jesus?

And the officers said, no man ever spoke like this man.

In other words, this man's different.

The things that he is saying are so wonderfully profound.

We can't arrest him.

You see, the crowds were astonished at the teaching of our Lord as he taught as one who has authority, which he did.

And he does.

He is our wonderful counselor.

Or at least he's my wonderful counselor.

Let me ask you, is he your counselor?

No.

Who do you get your advice from?

Who directs and guides your life down the path?

What path are you following?

Maybe you get your advice from the news.

Maybe you get it from pop culture.

Maybe you get it from social media or YouTube or your friends at school,

young people, or your friends at work, or maybe some people in the neighborhood.

Where do you get your advice and your direction?

I would recommend that you get your advice from the one who made you,

the one who knows you intimately,

the one who knows the beginning from the end in his name.

is Jesus.

I'm learning more and more that every obstacle I face in life,

every disappointment and letdown that I experience,

I'm learning that it's an opportunity for me

to come to my wonderful counselor

and ask him what to do.

Lord, what do I do here?

Lord, now that this wasn't in my plan, what would I do?

How do you want to get?

Lord, teach me.

Where are you guiding me?

Where are you leading me?

Would you counsel me, Lord?

Isaiah also said that the child,

his name shall be called Mighty God.

See, Jesus was and he is Almighty God.

Jesus is not just the Son of God, he is God the Son.

Now, there are many so-called Christian skeptics

who deny the deity of Christ,

but they are ignoring the scriptures when they do so,

where Jesus clearly claimed to be divine.

I mean, we know that Jesus claimed to be God when he forgave sins,

because no one can forgive sins but God.

One day Jesus was in a house, and the house was packed out with people.

In fact, it was so full that it was spilling out of the house.

And there were a few guys who brought their friend to Jesus who was paralyzed.

He couldn't walk.

And they wanted to get them to Jesus because they'd known and seen and heard about all the miracles.

And so they couldn't press through the crowd.

So they went up on the roof and they lifted their friend up on the roof.

They tore a hole in the ceiling.

They left, let their friend down to see Jesus.

Jesus looked at the paralyzed man.

He said, because of their faith, your sins are forgiven.

And the religious leaders were outraged by that because no one could forgive sins but God alone.

Jesus knew knowing what they were thinking.

He says, so that you know that I have power to forgive sins.

He looked at the paralyzed man.

He said, get up, take up your bed and walk.

Go home.

And what did the man do?

He got up and he walked out of the house and the crowd was absolutely amazed

that Jesus has the power to forgive sins and to heal the lame.

Jesus also claimed to be God when he received worship from people.

No one should be worshiped except for God, right?

After Jesus was raised from the dead, one of his disciples by the name of Thomas

was not with the rest of the group of disciples when Jesus first appeared.

So he started doubting the resurrection.

He said, I've got to see it.

And so eventually Jesus appears to him, and he shows,

and Thomas sees the scars in his hand and the scars in his side,

and Thomas touches the scar, and he says, my Lord and my God,

and Jesus received his worship.

Now.

We also know that Jesus claimed to be God by claiming the very name of God.

One day as Jesus was teaching, the Jews were challenging him.

It's kind of a back and forth in the midst of that back and forth.

Jesus said to them, most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.

I am.

I am.

And what did they do?

They picked up stones to try to stone him, and he had to escape and get away.

Why?

Because it was clear Jesus was claiming to be the great I am, God in flesh.

Right?

Now, many people will still try to explain all of that away,

describing Jesus as merely a great man.

I love what Dr. W.A.

Crystal said concerning those who compare other great men to the greatness of Jesus.

He said to compare the greatest men on earth like Alexander or Caesar or Shakespeare

is like comparing a grain of dust to the whole universe, like comparing a molehill to Mount Everest.

Others have said, well, he's not really divine, but he was a great moral teacher.

I love what C.S. Lewis responded to in that line of thinking.

He said, I'm trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him.

I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God.

That is the one thing we must not say.

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.

He would either be a lunatic on the level of a man who says he was a poached egg,

or else he would be the devil of hell.

You must make your choice.

Either this man was and is the son of God, or else he's a madman or something worse.

You can shut him up for a fool.

You can spit at him and kill him as a demon.

Or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God.

But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about him being a great human teacher.

He has not left that open to us.

See, Jesus is the Son of God.

Jesus made the mute to speak.

He made the blind to see.

He made the lame to walk again.

He accepted worship.

He forgave sins.

He claimed to be the great I Am, and then He rose from the dead,

proving that all He said of Himself is true.

Jesus is Almighty God.

Isaiah also says that the child born shall be called Everlasting Father.

Don't get confused by that.

Isaiah is not confusing the Trinity here.

See, Scripture teaches concerning God that God is one,

but it also teaches that God is Trinity.

The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God.

But Scripture teaches as well that the Father is not the Son,

and the Son is not the Father, and the same with the Holy Spirit.

So the question is, what is the prophet Isaiah,

what does he mean when he calls the coming Son of God

the everlasting Father?

I think we need to understand

how the Jews often used the word Father.

For them, Father describes the originator of something.

That's why Jesus called Satan the father of lies.

He's the originator of lies.

So what I think Isaiah is really saying is that

Jesus is the father of everlasting.

That's an appropriate translation.

He's the originator of everlasting life.

You see, from his very nature, he's eternal and everlasting.

And the message of the Bible is that because of our sin, his earning of death,

God sent his son Jesus, and he came into this world to pay for the penalty of sin

so that he could share his everlasting life.

1 John 5, verse 11 says,

1 John 5:11

And this is the testimony that God has given us eternal, everlasting life.

And this life is in His Son.

He who has the Son has life.

He who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

Jesus is the originator and the giver of everlasting life.

He's the Father of everlasting life.

Now, the last name that Isaiah ascribes to Jesus is that he is the prince of peace.

Oh, what a name, the prince of peace.

Everyone wants peace, don't they?

I mean, all of us.

Come on, just give me some peace.

We want peace, right?

There's a lot that people will go through.

There's a lot that people do in order to get peace.

Some will work tirelessly at work trying to have success in their career in order to have peace.

Some seek peace through relationships or with other people, with money, with sex, with alcohol, with drugs, with entertainment.

Some seek peace through rest.

A lot of people.

Think, well, if I could just get some more vacation, if I could just retire, then I could get some peace.

Listen, vacation and retirement might be able to buy you some rest, but it can never buy you peace.

Peace is not something that we work for.

It's not something we earn.

It's not something we buy.

It's something we receive from God.

And the name of the gift is Jesus.

He's the Prince of Peace.

Now, there's two aspects of peace that Jesus can bring into your life today if you'll receive it.

First of all is peace with God.

And then there's a peace from God.

The most important peace that you possibly can experience in life is peace with God.

You see, our sin, it drives a wedge between us and God so that there's a separation between us and God.

We do not experience this peace.

The peace that we crave and desire and long for, it eludes us because when we sin instead of peace, we get shame.

and we get guilt.

But did you know the story of the Bible

is that the Prince of Peace came into this world

paying for our sins so that he could remove

our shame and our guilt and replace it with his peace.

Romans chapter five, verse number one says,

"'Therefore, having been justified by faith,

"'we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

"'through whom also we have access by faith

"'into this grace in which we stand

"'and rejoice in the hope of the glory

Paul is saying, here's how you can have peace with God.

It's through Jesus.

It's the gift of God's grace that is received by faith in Christ.

Now, that's peace with God.

But there's also a peace that comes from God.

It's a peace that comes from being in a right relationship with him.

It's an inner peace that's not determined by any of the circumstances of our life.

When my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died,

I can tell you I hurt and I grieved and I mourned,

but I can tell you right now there's not a time that I remember that I lacked peace.

And that may not make sense to many of you that have never experienced that before.

But once God gives you his son Jesus to reside in your life, once he gives you his peace,

you realize peace is available no matter what you're going through.

Peace is available no matter how people hurt you or wrong you or what you are grieving.

Peace is available because it's not about circumstances.

It's about the gift of God that he gives into our life.

His name is Jesus.

John chapter 14, Jesus said,

John 14 · chapter mention

peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you.

Not as the world gives do I give to you.

Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Now there's a third kind of peace that Jesus brings.

And I actually think it's the main point of Isaiah chapter nine contextually

with this title Prince of Peace.

And that is that someday Jesus will bring world peace.

When Jesus returns for a second time and he ushers in his kingdom in full upon the earth,

the government will be upon his shoulders and he will be called Prince of Peace.

Jesus.

There's no other name in all the world that compares with the name of Jesus.

His name is Savior.

His name is Emmanuel.

His name is Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.

Let me ask you, is he your peace today?

Have you personalized the message of God?

And here's the message of God.

It's the gospel that God sent his son in the world to save sinners.

See, Jesus isn't going to force this peace upon you.

He only gives it to those who humble themselves and receive him by faith.

That's the moment that peace can come to your life when you believe.

Philippians chapter 2, verse number 9 says,

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Therefore God has highly exalted him, that's Jesus.

And he's given him a name which is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

of those in heaven, of those on the earth, and those under the earth,

and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

Now I praise God for the Christmas story that the Son of God

became a little baby born in Bethlehem.

I praise God for the cross that Jesus died for our sins,

but let me share some good news with you.

Jesus is no longer on the cross.

He's no longer in the grave.

He's been exalted to the right hand of the throne of God,

and he's been given a name that is above every name.

And someday, all of us will come before him.

All of humanity, every angelic creature in heaven,

on the earth, and under the earth.

I think that means the devil and the demons.

They're all gonna come before him.

They're gonna bow before his throne.

And at the name of Jesus, we'll all bow.

and will confess his name, that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

So, let's personalize this today, okay?

That means that someday you're going to bow.

If you've never given your life to Jesus

and you have never bowed before Him,

you've never confessed His name,

you've never called upon Him as Savior,

please know someday you will.

And here's the question.

Are you gonna bow to Him willingly by faith

and allow Him to be your Savior?

and to receive his life and his grace and his love and his goodness and his peace and his joy?

Or are you going to reject that?

And instead, someday you're going to be forced to bow before the king and receive his judgment.

That's the question.

In the name of Jesus.

There's nothing like it in all the world.

It's a name that divides the lost from the saved,

the hopeful from the hopeless,

the miserable from the joyful.

It's a name that saves.

You'll just call upon it today if you call on Jesus.

Let's bow together in an attitude of prayer,

both here and at Olive Drive.

This is a holy moment in the life of our church.

This is a moment that we've set aside as a church family

to do business with God.

God tells us not to be hearers of the word only, but to be doers.

In other words, he wants us always to respond with faith, love, and obedience.

So this is our time to do that.

In just a moment, I'm going to pray.

And when I pray, we're going to stand together and we're going to sing a song.

And there's going to be pastors and other leaders all across the front of our worship center here at Olive Drive.

And we're going to ask you, as God leads,

to step out from wherever you're at

and to walk down one of these aisles,

to walk down one of these staircases,

say, I want to give my life to Christ.

I want to receive God's grace today.

I want to receive Jesus.

These leaders will know exactly how to help you.

You see, the Bible says,

for God so loved the world

that he gave his only begotten son

That whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

Sometimes we overcomplicate it.

We think, well, you know what?

I've got to do this and I've got to do that.

Then I'm going to give my life to Jesus.

My life's just not ready.

I'm a mess.

I've got all this sin.

I can't possibly give my life to Jesus today.

No, no, no.

You can only give your life to Jesus as a mess.

Because you can't do it.

Even if you start cleaning up your life,

you just replace one sin for another.

That'll be self-righteousness.

The only way you can come to God

He's as you are.

In fact, that's a prerequisite that you recognize you are a sinful person

and that you need him.

So I want to invite you to come as you are, warts and all, failures and all,

and ask him to save you, to receive him by faith, to go all in for Jesus.

The Bible says,

Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Maybe you've given your heart and life to Jesus, but you've never gone public through baptism.

You can come forward, let one of these leaders know that you'd like to be baptized.

We'd love to talk with you about baptism, what it is, what it's not, why it's important.

Maybe you say, I want to join this faith family.

I want to be connected in an official way so this is home, this is family,

so I can serve among the family.

You come let us know.

Or maybe it's not any of those things.

Maybe you just need prayer.

Say, I need someone to pray for me.

We'd love to pray for you.

Or maybe you don't need to talk with anyone at all.

You need to go past the pastor straight to the master.

Let these steps serve as an altar between you and the Lord.

And you just come before the wonderful counselor

and you ask him to help you.

You ask him to save you.

You ask him, you give him whatever weighing on you,

whatever's burdening you, whatever's troubling you,

You take it to him and you asked our wonderful counselor for his help.

And he will meet you here. Let's pray. Father,

we thank you so much

for the gift of your son, that while we were still sinners,

you sent your son on a rescue mission.

He's born of a virgin. He lived a perfect life.

The Spirit of God testified of his divine nature through the miracles and the power and the resurrection of his life.

Thank you for loving us so much that you saved us.

Lord, I pray for those that have not yet experienced the grace of God in their life.

They don't know your love like some of us know your love.

They don't know your peace like they can.

Lord, would you do something that's spiritual, something that goes beyond the physical realm?

something that goes beyond my audible voice,

something that goes beyond the words written in your scriptures, Lord,

would you bring these words to light and to life spiritually in the minds,

in the hearts of those listening?

Would you touch people at a deep place of their being, their souls?

Please open eyes and soften hearts.

Give people the courage that it's going to take to step out and come and give their life to you.

We want to help them, Lord.

Would you guide us? Would you direct us?

Would you go beyond what we're able to do?

We give this time to you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

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