Isaiah 41:1-20 - No Weapon Formed Against You

And if you don't have a Bible or you would like to use the Pew Bible that's in front of you, you can turn to page 636.

636.

636.

In the mid-1730s, john Wesley made his way across the Atlantic Ocean over to what was then the colony of Georgia.

It was a very deep, informative and painful couple years for him, but God used the failure of his trip over to Georgia in order to prepare him for something grand and glorious.

Wesley arrived full of spunk and vigor and determination, with a high hopes that he'd be able to evangelize the indigenous people that lived in that area and also to bring some spiritual revitalization to the English settlers who were there.

The colony of Georgia was set up in order to populate, or to repatriate or patriate, I should say people who had been recently released from prison, and so the colony of Georgia was 70% male and the majority of which had a criminal record.

Wesley was driven by an idea of trying to bring the church back to its primitive roots, to return to what he saw as the purity and discipline of that early days in which the church was in the world world.

But his somewhat proud and very, very determined and even judgmental idealism ran smack up against reality.

He struggled to connect with the indigenous populations and he did not find very much favor among the people that were there who were from England, and one of the most infamous episodes revolved around a lady that he was courting by the name of Sophia Hopke.

He and Sophia met each other often and even had thoughts about marriage, but after Sophia married, another man came to church.

Wesley sought to excommunicate her, and this obviously sparked a public outrage and even was filed in court.

They wanted to imprison him for this, and because of this scandal, wesley turned tail and fled from the colony of Georgia and made his way onto a ship to head back to England, and he later wrote in his journal I came to America to convert the Indians, but oh, oh, who is going to convert me?

That's a pretty raw confession, but it shows some of the spiritual crisis that he was in.

And yet this failure was the soil for God's grace.

After he returned to England, he made his way to London in a place called Aldersgate, which you can visit now it's the Museum of London, and there's a large statuary there of Wesley's journal that talks about the moment where he and a small group were in an upper room reading the introduction to Luther's commentary on the book of Galatians, and he found the saving grace of Jesus Christ flooding his heart with hope.

This failure brought him to the Savior.

This crushing defeat and this panic-stricken flee from prison at his lowest point in life brought him to the place where he saw, for the first time in his life, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Maybe you're here this morning and you might sense a little bit of something of what Wesley had gone through.

Maybe you feel like your life has been a failure.

Maybe there's something in your past, some weight, that still carries along with you in your mind.

Or perhaps you're sensing some rejection from people that have been very important to you, whether they're in your family or at work.

Maybe it's not even a dramatic something like Wesley's desire to excommunicate his old girlfriend.

Maybe you're just feeling lost in the midst of a slow drain of weariness, feeling that your passion and your purpose has left you long ago as you have succumbed to the daily grind and demands of real life.

Or maybe you've just been one of those ones who look at yourself and just say I really have never been in a place where I could serve, and I'm not sure I'm even capable of ever being a part of God's kingdom in any kind of contributive way.

Well, the people of Israel and we're going to look at them in chapter 41 in just a moment would have felt exactly like all of that.

41 in just a moment would have felt exactly like all of that.

Here they are, exiles in Babylon, hundreds of miles away from their home, and the towers of Babylon are looming over them, showing them that they're really nothing but captives of this conquering nation.

Their temple lies in ruins, their covenant promises are long gone, laying in the dust, and their story seems to be over.

And their exile raises a haunting question, one that sometimes reverberates in our hearts has God moved on?

Has God left me behind?

Is he finished with me, with us?

Certainly, these were the kind of questions that they were asking themselves.

But in Isaiah, chapter 41, god speaks into that question, and he does so with thunder and tenderness.

Isaiah 41 · chapter mention

At the same time, he'll say to them in verse 9, and we'll look at it.

You are my servant, I've chosen you and not cast you off.

Fear not, for I'm with you.

I will strengthen you.

And, as we'll see, god is telling them in this chapter, and we're going to look at the first 20 verses today, that God isn't finished with them, not even close.

He's going to transform their defeat into a renewed calling and he's going to take their situation, where they're nothing but full of weakness, into one in which they can find a reversal of grace and an empowerment to be able to accomplish God's good purposes.

Now the full answer will come in chapter 42, where he points them to where that reversal is coming.

Behold, my servant, the hope of Israel, is humming in chapter 41.

Now I have to say something about chapter 41.

It whispers more than it yells.

There are themes in chapter 41 that are simply alluded to that get introduced more clearly in further chapters.

As we look at this song of 40 to 55.

And as they get introduced in later chapters, they get developed and they build and they move to a wondrous crescendo.

So by the time we get to chapter 55, all of us will have just a great display of the symphony of God's mercies and grace.

But in chapter 41, there's just little notes that get played as the symphony is moving along, just sort of giving us an introduction to some notations of God's grace that we're going to hear in clear and more vibrant and even louder ways as the chapters go.

And one of the great motifs that gets introduced here, that gets whispered, is God's glorious plan of reversal, that the exiles are going to return, that they're going to be forgiven, and that the weak are going to be strengthened and the broken are going to be made whole again and the forgotten are going to be given God's purposes.

All because the servant of the Lord is coming, the servant of the Lord who is spirit-filled and gentle and just and unstoppable in his mercy.

The Gospels will reveal that servant as Jesus very, very clearly.

But the book of Acts also tells us that what Jesus does as God's servant is now transferred to his people as part of the body of Christ, and that we take up even the roles and the responsibilities and the actions of the servant in our life here.

But I'm getting way ahead of myself.

That's more the crescendo of this glorious, glorious song.

But let me say once again, what gets whispered here will be shouted soon.

God is not finished yet, he just is not.

And perhaps you felt too weak, too wounded, too weary, maybe even too wayward, for God to ever look upon your life and put you into a place of usefulness in his kingdom.

Isaiah, chapter 41, is a great place for us to go.

Isaiah 41 · chapter mention

It was written for us in those exact moments and as we go through these 20 verses together, I want you to pick up how God brings these words of encouragement into the hearts of the people who are in exile.

And the first thing I want us to notice in verse four verses is that God is not finished with his plan.

He has not abandoned his plan for his people.

Here and the chapter opens up like in a courtroom drama.

Take a look at verse one, chapter 41.

Be silent before me, coast and islands.

Here the nations are summoned into silence and, unlike the usual pattern that we've seen in Isaiah, it's not Israel who's brought into the courtroom, it's the nations.

And in this court case, god and the idols are put up one against the other for the purpose of determining who is really God, who is really in control of everything.

And God calls these nations to listen to him as he compares himself to the idols and calls them to witness not only his sovereignty but also his purposes.

Take a look at verse 2 and 4.

He asks some questions here.

Who has stirred up someone from the east In righteousness?

He calls him to serve.

The Lord hands nations over to him and he subdues kings.

He makes them like dust with his sword, like wind-driven stubble with his bow.

He pursues them, going on safely, hardly touching the path with his feet.

And then another question who has performed and done this?

Calling the generations from the beginning?

These are rhetorical questions, questions with an obvious answer who is the one who controls people and nations?

Who is the one that knows the end from the beginning?

Only God, only Yahweh.

And in verse four he makes that very clear I am the Lord, the first and with the last, I am he.

You see, yahweh is not a God who reacts, he's a God who initiates.

You see, yahweh is not a God who reacts, he's a God who initiates, and he is not given to the whims and wishes of the nations.

He's driving the purposes of this world according to his own design.

He is raising up kings, he is toppling nations, he is reordering the peoples according to his own purposes.

And he mentions one man in verse 2, who has stirred up someone from the east.

And then he goes on to describe this person who's going to have the nations handed over to him and who's going to subdue other kings like dust and stubble Again.

Another one of those themes that the rest of this section of Isaiah is going to expand and develop.

The symphony is just playing a little note or two.

Who is this one?

Well, in chapter 45, we find out.

His name is Cyrus, whose right hand I've grasped.

To subdue nations before him and disarm kings, it says in verse 1 of chapter 45, to open doors before him, and even city gates shall not be shut.

The Lord has a plan, and here he's just whispering what that is that he's going to call a Persian king to topple the kingdom of Babylon.

You see, this God, who knows all things, who holds the beginning and the end together in his wisdom and sovereign will, is not just part of the process, like the pagan gods are.

He's the one who stands outside of time, who put the clock a ticking and who commands and directs its path and brings all time to an end.

I am he, he says.

And there he's making himself as the self-existent one.

And there he's making himself as the self-existent one.

He's reflecting that statement in Exodus, chapter 6, in verse 3.

Exodus 6 · chapter mention

He is the one who is the great I am.

You see, every other form is derivative of God, but he's the one who's had no beginning and no end.

He simply is.

Now, why does this matter?

What is this point?

Well, if God can reign over Cyrus and direct his path, if God can bring Cyrus to the place of conquering the Babylonians, then certainly, as you deduce through this argument the exiles are to hear this reverberating word he hasn't forgotten you either.

You're not outside of his control.

God here is appealing to his unique activity in history as an evidence that he alone is God, but he alone is God for purposes that include these people who are now in exile.

And so, if he can move empires, he can certainly renew hearts, and if he can command history, he can sustain hope in these that are hopeless at this moment.

And if he can stir up Cyrus, well, he can stir up any one of us.

Actually and this is a note that we shouldn't miss, because we live in this world where it just feels like sometimes, history has taken a left turn and veered completely off course, where none of the things that we'd hoped for and thought were going to happen 10, 20 years ago are ever going to be met again, or perhaps where our own personal story has gone adrift and we find ourselves older, weaker, in positions of life where we never expected ourselves to be.

But God hasn't abandoned us.

He hasn't abandoned his plan and he's telling them here.

He still can do these mighty things.

Now, we may not always grasp what he's about, but one thing we can always trust is that he has a plan and we can trust him because he's not finished.

He's not finished with human history.

He's not finished with these people in exile and he's not finished.

He's not finished with human history.

He's not finished with these people in exile and he's not finished with us.

Let's move forward, because he's going to expand this a bit more In the next three verses verses 5 to 7, not only does God show that he still has a plan, but he also gives strength, and here we see him compared to the idols who need nails.

Verses 5 to 7, we see the nations in response to this glorious statement that Cyrus is going to be raised up in order to bring the Babylonians to the dust.

The coast and the island see and are afraid.

The whole earth trembles.

They approach and arrive.

What is the response of the people, these nations, when they hear that God is going to raise up a conqueror?

They tremble and they quake and they shake at this terrifying news.

But what can they do?

They don't know a God who controls history because of righteousness.

So what can they do?

The only thing they know how to do, and that is to make a better God.

That's what they do.

Take a look at the verse.

Each one helps the other and says take courage.

The craftsman encourages the metal worker.

The one who flattens with a hammer encourages the one who strikes the anvil, saying to the soldering it is good, and he fastens it with nails so that it will not fall over.

And here Isaiah is talking about the complexity of the process, referring to four different kinds of craftsmen here that are needed to make gods.

And so they build statues and they fortify their gods with nails so they don't topple over.

It's pretty hard to make your maker, I guess.

But this is the great reversal of idolatry Is that they're serving something they hoped would save them, but they're propping up their deities in the hope that these deities would prop them up.

But that's not how God works.

The true and living God doesn't need us putting nails in him to hold him up.

And notice what they say to one another in verse 7.

Saying of the soldering it is good?

Is that word it is good?

Looking at the handiwork that you've just completed, sounds somewhat familiar.

Genesis, chapter 1, right, god said let there be, and there was.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

And when he looked on the creation on several of the days, he behold what had been made.

And what would he say it is good.

And now it's not the creator who's speaking over his work.

These are humans echoing divine language when they're looking at the gods they've nailed down, and isaiah is using this taunting irony and sarcasm in order to tell them, tell the exiles, who God really is and who these things are Nothing but propped up pieces of wood and stone and metal.

What a tragic place these nations are at.

What a humiliation of humanity to have a rejection of the God who's made us in order to prop up a God that we could hold up for ourselves and perhaps might be able to do something for us.

And this is that tragic comedy of sin that the false gods need to be helped and they can't help anyone.

The Lord here is calling them and us to the recognition that he doesn't need reinforcements, that when God comes into your life and you begin to unpackage who God is, you're never going to find in the bottom of the box, may need some further construction.

Right, you're never going to find that, with God, might require some assembly.

God is all and all and complete.

The idols need to be nailed down Today.

Our idols don't come in wood and stone and metal.

They show up every morning when we look in the mirror.

We see ourselves and we try to prop up this idol that we're worshiping.

We see ourselves and we try to prop up this idol that we're worshiping with achievement, with image projection, with control of people or surroundings around us, with a yearning and longing for approval.

And so we build our brands, we craft our social personas.

We all do something in an effort to make who we are a little more solid.

And maybe, if people thought we were solid, we would be solid.

Then maybe we could be in a position of strength and not the weakness that we feel deep within us.

But when life quakes, idols fall.

Things that you prop up, they deconstruct.

There's a better foundation for life and it is in God who has come.

It is in Jesus Christ, who called himself our rock, and he doesn't ask us to nail him down and to prop him up.

He's actually come and even willingly took nails himself so that we might be freed.

He doesn't need our efforts.

He's coming to minister to us with mercy and grace and he invites us not to build up something that be worthy of him, but to come as we are.

To come weak and worn and weary and even wayward, especially when we recognize we are and to rest in him Because he's telling us here he has a plan and he gives strength.

He is not finished.

He is not finished.

And this comes into a beautiful, beautiful direct statement in verses 8 to 10, where he says to them you are not cast off.

And God reaffirms his covenant love.

Not only does he has not he abandoned his plan.

Not only does he provide strength, but he also reaffirms his covenant love.

Look at verses 8 to 10.

But you, israel, my servant Jacob, whom I've chosen, descended of Abraham, my friend.

I brought you from the ends of the earth and called you from its farthest corners.

I've said to you you are my servant, I have chosen you.

I haven't rejected you.

Do not fear, for I'm with you.

Do not be afraid, for I'm your God.

I will strengthen you.

I will rejected you, do not fear, for I'm with you.

Do not be afraid, for I'm your God.

I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will hold on to you with my righteous right hand.

If there was ever any verse you wanted to put on your wall in your house, I think that should be one of them, because grace is breaking through here like the morning light does at the dawn, and he's speaking this glorious word to who Defeated?

People scattered into Babylon from their home, with their temple left as nothing but rubble on the ground.

Why?

Because of their covenant infidelity, their disobedience to God over generations.

God had every right to say well, you feel like your story's finished?

It is, but he isn't saying that you are my servant.

I have chosen you.

I have not cast you off.

This isn't just mere sentimentality, this is covenant language.

And God is not telling them look, I'll give you another chance.

He's calling them into a remembrance of who he is.

I chose you.

Now.

Isaiah is speaking this in a time frame in which these people are still looking forward, where nations will rise and Babylon will conquer and they'll be captives.

He's telling this to people who are still quaking under the hand of Assyria, not yet under the control of Babylon, and he's telling them even when they see the destruction of Assyria, not yet under the control of Babylon.

And he's telling them, even when they see the destruction of it all, even when they see their temple rubble, even when they see themselves put in chains and captured and drug away from their home, even when they see themselves surrounded by the false gods in the high towers and walls of Babylon, that they should remember something God has not forgotten them, and he's not calling them to be strong, he's calling them simply to remember who he is.

I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you.

This is the gospel in prophetic form, isn't it?

This is God not issuing a summons to humanity to try harder to be better.

He's issuing a statement of invitation to trust him.

And he's not commanding them to prove themselves, but rather to show to us how glorious his promises are.

And so, with covenant voice, he binds his name to these people.

You are my servant as a reminder that he hasn't erased his purposes for them, and he's going to continue to speak to them like this after they've long forgotten it.

What a wonder this is, that this message of grace is meant to speak louder than their failure.

And perhaps you're in a place right now where you've thought silence must mean abandonment.

I feel adrift because I've been cut loose.

But you're not cast off.

These people weren't cast off.

God was not finished with them.

He was still going to form them, he was still going to use them, he was still going to be writing their story into his redemptive plan.

And he can say that to any human today, anyone.

Let's go to the next few verses 11 to 16.

Not only has God not abandoned his plan, he upholds it.

Not only does he give strength and not only does he reaffirm his covenant commitment, but he also turns worms into weapons.

I love the picturesque phraseology in this section.

Verse 14,.

The reality of who Jacob is at this moment is spoken.

You, worm Jacob.

Next time you wake up in the morning and you look in the mirror, just go.

You worm Jacob.

But what does he say to the worm?

Be sure that all who are enraged against you verse 11, will be ashamed and disgraced.

All who contend with you will become as nothing and will perish.

You'll look for those who contend with you, but you will not find them.

Those who war against you will become absolutely nothing.

Wow, god is promising deliverance.

Not because Israel is strong, not because they've triumphed, but because he's with them.

And this image becomes very, very tender and sweet in verse 13.

I am the lord, your god, who holds your right hand, who says to you do not fear, I will help you, I.

I do trust and hope that you've been in a place of weakness and frailty and temerousness of heart and you've had someone who's taken your hand and held it for you and said don't worry.

And what an encouragement that is, that tender touch, that personal assurance that speaks past your ears into the depth of your heart.

Here is the God who moves nations, who spoke the stars and the universe with a word into existence.

And yet he says I'm going to be right next to you and I'm going to hold your hand.

And he wants to steady that trembling, trembling fear that we might have, because he speaks to us with intimacy here.

He says in verse 14, do not fear worm Jacob, I'm the one who helps you.

And in verse 15, he talks about him threshing on the mountains.

And he uses warrior language here just to show the dramatic change this worm becomes a weapon in God's hand.

Not because a worm is sharp in and of itself Obviously it isn't but because God takes it up.

And here's the shape of God's grace.

He's not just comforting the weak, he's issuing a recommission that they're being put into his active plan and determination to do his purposes, that they're going to be instruments, not just held by his hand but used by his mighty arm.

He's going to turn these trembling fingers into tools of deliverance.

And when he calls him Worm Jacob, it's not simply to bring him to shame, but to show him just how dramatic God's transformation can be.

Shame, but to show them just how dramatic God's transformation can be.

Yes, they must have thought themselves diminished, disqualified, left desolate.

God says I have something better here for you.

I'm going to take you, I'm going to forgive you, I'm going to restore you.

And I'm going to take you.

I'm going to forgive you, I'm going to restore you and I'm going to use you.

This is again the good news that God doesn't call us to self-improvement.

He calls us as we are weak.

He fills us as we are, are helpless, with his power.

And then he takes us and sends us to do something that would be beyond us and impossible.

Just had a talk yesterday with Kevin Cooney and I thought this beautiful, beautiful passage in light of that, here is a guy running around Garden City terrorizing the neighborhood.

You know, a party animal.

God captures him with grace and turns him into a servant of the gospel in a place halfway around the world where he looks like a monster in comparison to them.

He looks like a monster in comparison to any of us too, but anyway, over there it's really, really apparent.

And yet this guy, who could lift up boat engines with his arms and carry them off of the beach into the shed, is speaking with such grace and tenderness and softness of soul to talk about a savior that's forgiven him of his sins and can forgive them of theirs.

And all of this is whisperings of a time when we'll see someone who does all of this, that servant in chapter 42 and other songs as we go to the end of chapter 55.

This one that the gospels talk about is Jesus, who's come into this world not to conquer Rome with mighty weapons of human ability, but to crush sin.

And he didn't come atop mountains to stake a claim that he owned the territory.

He went to a cross so that he might be Lord of all the nations.

You see, god's not finished.

God's got a plan, and Isaiah is pushing these people forward, beyond themselves, to understand that that plan is there and that he has strength that none of the idols around them could ever know, and that he has covenant love that he's committed to and that he can take a worm and make it a weapon.

This brings us to our last point, verses 17 to 20.

The Lord has intentions beyond anyone's dreams.

This is where it gets very clear.

We've only been building up to this passage, but now we've reached the crescendo of God's mercy.

He's speaking remind ourselves of this that he's speaking to people who are exiled in captives in a foreign land, imprisoned by a conquering people, because of their own covenant abandonment, because they were a people who had walked away from God.

And they're now wondering if God is going to walk away from them.

And he comes in these verses with promises so lush, so lavish.

It sounds like Eden is breaking back into the world.

Take a look at verse 17.

The poor and the needy seek water, but there's none.

Their tongues are parched with thirst.

I will answer them.

I am the God.

I am the Lord, the God of Israel.

I will not abandon them.

I will open rivers on the barren heights and springs in the middle of the plains.

I will turn the desert into a pool and dry land into springs.

I will plant cedar, acacia, myrtle and olive trees in the wilderness.

I will put juniper, elm and cypress trees together in the desert.

This isn't just rescue, this isn't just let you back in the land.

This is reversal of the curse, where the dry ground becomes a garden, where the arid wilderness becomes a witness of God's glorious growth, where the forsaken become fountains of life.

And here God borrows the brush strokes of Genesis and paints a promise of a new creation.

Where there was desolation, there's now abundance, and it's not just mere survival, it's joy and renewal and life.

Why, why would he do this?

Why would God, who is holy as he is, as holy other than everything that he's created, who is sovereign over the nations, would speak to these little people, who had been so disobedient to him, with such wondrous words of promise, to where the only thing he can bring into their minds that would help them connect is to give them a remembrance of the glories of a time when sin had not invaded the world and speaks of Eden restored?

Why?

Take a look at verse 20.

So that all may see and know and consider and understand that the hand of the Lord has done this.

The Holy One of Israel has created it, and so the Assyrians and the Babylonians and the Medes and the Persians and the Seleucids and the Greeks and the Romans and every other mighty power on earth might know that God has taken a frail, disobedient worm and preserved its existence.

Nations have come and gone during the multitude of years, the generations of the Old Testament, but the people of Israel were still there.

You see, this restoration is not just for relief.

It's revelation to the world, designed to say something, to show, by the preservation of these people, that God has a plan, that he's going to keep, that he's got strength to enact it and to make it happen, and that he's going to speak to the undeserving words of great comfort, because the day was going to come when the whole earth would hear a message of grace through one Messiah of these people, jesus Christ, who's going to make all things new.

And so this is where that rush of hope turns into a song that causes them to rise to and to stand up for and to open their hearts and their voices and their lungs and bellow with gladness.

This is not just a change of address for these people Babylon back to Jerusalem.

This is a new creation that God is offering, that he's going to make, and he uses these images of trees in the wilderness not just to assure them that they'll return, but a signpost of a glorious future.

This garden in the desert, you see again, chapter 41 is only plunking off a few notes of a symphony of grace that's building, and here he's just showing the beginning of it all.

It will move and grow and develop and rise in glorious, glorious concert as we learn more about the servant and more of what he'll bring and do in this world, that God's promises will take root and bloom and flourish.

That servant will come, and we'll see in chapter 42, he won't come as a mighty conqueror, but as a gentle redeemer.

He won't break the breezed root, he won't snuff out the smoldering wick and he's going to bring justice, gently and in the fullness of time.

He'll be revealed.

He's going to talk about a day when he will not only bring water to the desert, he'll be the water of life.

That he will not only restore the land, he'll make all things new.

That he'll not only end the land, he'll make all things new.

That he'll not only end the exile, he'll call people home.

And so here we are, to any of us who might feel forgotten today, any of us who look at our life and see only the expanse of a wasteland and wonder if God can still write beauty on our broken years.

God is speaking to those same kind of people, because God's not finished.

He moves in history and he holds the hands of the wounded.

He raises up kings, yes, he levels mountains, yes, he renews deserts, but he also offers mercy to the undeserving.

You see, he's not finished.

And in just a few verses, in a couple weeks, we're going to hear these words behold my servant, the servant who will come, the one who bears God's spirit, the one who fulfills what the people of Israel couldn't, the one who embodies what all humanity was meant to be, the one who not only will suffer as we'll see in chapter 52 and 53, but also will succeed.

His name is Jesus and, as we'll learn as we go through this, that that image of the servant also includes us, that he calls us bruised, small, overwhelmed, weak, weary, wayward, identifies us with this servant and calls us into a commission of mercy across these lands.

You see, you may be fearing your story's ended?

It hasn't.

There's one place it continues, and that is in the welcoming invitation of a God of grace and mercy.

If you feel like your hands are too tired and your soul's too thin, go to Jesus.

There you will find him, and there you'll hear the voice of Isaiah speaking to you like it spoke to these people.

You are my servant.

I have chosen you.

I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you.

Let's pray, I will uphold you, let's pray.

Father, we thank you for these glorious words.

They're too profound and too beyond our comprehension for them to enter in simply with our mental capacities.

For them to enter in simply with our mental capacities, we would find ourselves stunned at the shock of them all.

And so, father, we pray that you, lord, would give us ears to hear, that you would open our hearts, as you did to others, to receive and believe this message.

And I pray that, not only for those this morning who might be here, who don't know Christ as their Savior, but for all of us, no matter how long we've known, our sins are forgiven in Jesus, that we would receive what you say to us, far deeper than just mere mental interest.

May it soak into our soul and strengthen our hearts with grace and supply energy to our hands so that, when we step into this afternoon and tomorrow and the days and weeks and months and years and decades ahead of us as long as we live, that we will be energized by the truth of who you are and what you tell us.

And we ask this, father, for your glory's sake, in Christ's name, amen.