2 Corinthians 1:1-11 - God of All Comfort

We're going to read the first 11 verses today, but I'm going to

just read the first two and then stop and talk about them a bit.

But they'll come up on the screen.

But it's always good to follow on and have it open with you as

well. So it says Paul, an apostle of

Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother to the

Church of God in Corinth, together with all his holy

people throughout Akaya peace, grace and peace to you from God

our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

So what I, what I believe that God wants to pull out of this,

these, these first few verses of Corinthians, I think there's

plenty of stuff that you can get out of this.

But there's two things that as I was reading this through the

past couple of weeks that I believe God wants to speak to

us. Two very clear things.

I think he wants to speak to us through the words of it says

Paul and Timothy. And the first thing is, is that

God wants to change you. God's desire is to make us more

like Christ, and he does that through his church.

He does that through men and women filled with the presence

of Jesus Christ. Therefore, we need each other.

You need me and I need you. We need each other.

I love how you all didn't say yes when I said I you need me.

Silence, I need you. Yes you do and we need to be a

people that are full of the Holy Spirit.

So number one, God changes us through his Holy Spirit filled

church. Secondly, and this is where this

morning has come in so beautifully is that God through

his Holy Spirit works through our brokenness.

That doesn't just mean that he is able to help us through

storms and testings and trials. What actually means is God is,

yes, He's able to do that, but He is able to redeem our

troubles. He's able to redeem our storms

and our brokenness and use as we're going to read about Paul

and Timothy, He's able to use our brokenness for his glory and

those around us their goods. So this this book, this letter

to the Corinthian church. We know it as two Corinthians or

if you're American, it's second second letter to the

Corinthians, which I'm not a fan of because as you read through

the book, it's not the second letter that Paul ever wrote to

the Corinthian church. Actually, we we tell this hints

that there were plenty of other letters that Paul wrote to the

church in in Corinth, but through God's Providence,

through his Holy Spirit, we have in our Bibles that not today, 1

Corinthians and Two Corinthians. And you can read, and I

encourage you to read this week Acts 18 where it talks about

Paul planting the church, starting the church in Corinth

and how that happened. And we read actually earlier on

this year, we went through the book of 1 Corinthians and in One

Corinthians we read that it was, it was written by Paul and

Sosthenes. And they had multiple things

that they had to address in that church, multiple things that

led. Ultimately, the big things were

sexual immorality and brokenness in the sense of disunity and

infighting. I follow this person.

You follow that person. I don't like you because you're

different than me. And what Paul and Saussenese

they did through the the letter, they would remind the church

constantly that despite their sin, despite their mess, we

worship a God who stepped down into our mess to lift us up.

And then about a year later, scholars reckon that Paul and

Timothy write this this letter to the Corinthian church from

Macedonia in about 56 AD. And like I said, the first point

I want us to look at this morning is the fact that God

changes us. He changes you and me through

his Holy Spirit filled church, through each other.

We need each other. You see, Paul is going to Paul

and Timothy are going to be used by gods to help grow this

church. And I want you to, I mentioned

this in the first message we did in One Corinthians, but I want

you to message, remember again that this letter is written from

Paul and Timothy. We will quite often just say,

you know, Paul says this and Paul says that, but actually

it's Paul and Timothy. And I just wanted to remind you

of that because Jesus isn't about super Christians.

Jesus isn't about one man or one woman prophet or or apostle or

or one, you know, one super teacher that we all gather

round. It's about the body.

It's about the church together. And Paul is going to use, so God

is going to use Paul and Timothy, their words to change

and mould and make more like him.

Those in the church in Corinth and us here who listen to him,

Jesus said in Matthew chapter 13.

Matthew 13 · chapter mention

He said a farmer went out to sow seeds.

As he was scattering the seeds, some fell on the path and the

birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places where

it did not have much soil. It sprang up and quickly became

quickly because the soil was shallow.

But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched and they

withered because they had no root.

Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the

plants. Still other seeds fell on fell

on good soil, where it produced a crop 160 thirty times what it

sowed. Whoever has ears to hear, let

them hear. You see, Jesus desire is for you

to grow. His desire is for you to produce

fruit. And what I mean by fruit, what

Jesus means by fruit is that we become basically more like him,

that we act in our everyday lives like he would act if he

was in your situation. That we we bear fruit means that

we become more loving and kind and patient.

It also means that we are people who speak words of life, that we

are people who speak words of healing and release from demonic

strongholds, just like Jesus did.

But to grow, what does the parable say?

To grow, we need what? What do we need?

We need good soil, and we all need good soil to grow.

And we get good soil by reading Scripture, by immersing

ourselves in the Word, by sitting under good teaching, by

praying in the Spirit, but also by spending time with each

other. If you spend time with God's

church, with men and women, filled with the Holy Spirit,

they will produce in you good soil.

See through the words of Paul and Timothy.

God is desiring to produce good soil in this messed up, broken

church in Corinth. For those who receive his plan,

those who listen, those who take to heart what Paul and Timothy

have to say, God says through Jesus.

He said Jesus says that they will produce a harvest 100 times

what they have received. That's God's heart for us.

See, God has placed you within a church community so that you can

produce good soil in others and they can produce good soil in

you. God changes us through His Holy

Spirit filled church. That's .1.

Let's carry on reading. He says Praise be to the God and

Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the

God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that

we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we

ourselves receive from gods. For just as we share abundantly

in the sufferings of Christ, also, so also our comfort

abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for

your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for

your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the

same sufferings we suffer. We and our hope for you is firm

because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also

you share in our comfort. We do not want you to be

uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we

experienced in the province of Asia.

We, we were under great pressure, far beyond our ability

to ensure so that we despaired of life itself.

Indeed, we felt we had received a sentence of death.

But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves, but on

God who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such

deadly peril and He will deliver us again on Him.

We have set our hope that He will continue to deliver us as

you help us in our prayers there many will give thanks on our

behalf for the gracious favour granted us in the answer to many

prayers. See, God changes us through His

Holy Spirit filled church and Christ's Spirit works through

our brokenness. You see, many of you, many of

you have stories of brokenness. Many of you have stories of

testings, of trials, of, of being passed over by promotion,

by by losing your job, by having to flee the nation that you grew

up in, by losing your health, by losing friends, by losing

family, by losing a spouse, by losing children.

Many of you have gone through extreme trials, extreme storms,

and you understand you can stand with Paul and Timothy when they

write. We were under great pressure,

far beyond our ability to endure, so that we were

despairing of life itself. Has anyone felt weak?

Does anyone feel weak? Now you see the church in

Corinth at the writing of Two Corinthians.

It had some issues. It had issues.

It probably had some of the same issues of the writing of 1

Corinthians, but it had a few new ones as well.

And one of the threads that runs through this letter is a thread

that what I'd say is it is a thread of prosperity gospel

thinking, which is a false gospel that teaches if you are

healthy, if you are wealthy, if you are influential and

powerful, it is because God is happy with you.

And if you are poor and if you are sick, and if you are

unimportant, it's because God doesn't like you, because God

despairs about, because God is judging you.

Therefore what's which is an evil, evil doctrine.

But the church in Corinth, they had grasped hold of this.

And we're going to read later on that they had elevated these men

and women who they called super apostles.

Now, these were people who looked beautiful.

These are people who are charismatic, amazing teachers.

These are people who are rich. These are people who had

influence in the empire. And so the church in Corinth

said they must be blessed of God.

They're the ones we have to follow.

Paul, on the other hand, well, Scripture kind of gives us a

sense that Paul wasn't that pretty.

Paul, he wasn't that amazing charismatic preacher, yes, and

he had a mind that was awesome and was able to apply the truths

that he had learnt in his upbringing to now being in

Christ. But actually, he was a sort of

preacher who sent people to sleep.

And we read about him in the book of Acts that he's preaching

one day and someone falls out the window asleep and dies on

the floor. I mean, he wasn't the kind of

charismatic preacher that everyone's sitting on the edge

of their seat waiting to listen to.

We read that he will say he has struggles.

He has a thorn in the flesh, which he doesn't expound on.

But many people would believe that there's some sort of

physical or mental disability that he carries at all, which

leads the church in Corinth to go.

Paul's not very impressive. Maybe his leadership, maybe his

gifting is illegitimate because God obviously doesn't like him

too much. God obviously is a cross with

him. But what does Jesus say?

What does Jesus say? In Matthew 5?

Jesus says he that is God the Father.

He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good.

He sends the rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Jesus does good to us. When we receive good things, it

is not because we have been good, It is because Jesus is

good to us. He is not good to you because

you've earned it. He's good to you because he is

good. And you know what?

When bad things happen, yeah, sometimes bad things happen to

us because we make stupid decisions and we have to deal

with the fallout of that. But sometimes bad things happen

because we live in a fallen world which is still under the

curse and we have bodies which though one day will be

glorified, still live with the reality of sickness and death.

It's the world that we live in. But at times, I don't know if

you can, you can, you can, you can sympathise with this.

But at times, these storms, these trials, these testings

that God puts us through, they can feel beyond our ability, our

ability to endure. They can feel like we start to

question, is God really good? Is God really?

For me, however, Scripture constantly reminds us that our

sufferings are not a sign of God's displeasure.

Rather, they are an opportunity to trust in Jesus.

Does anyone feel like they're going through a storm?

You don't need to put your hands up.

Yeah. I mean, sometimes the Bible

calls it a storm. Jesus calls it storms, But

actually sometimes it's. Bible says God tests us.

Anyone. Come on, This is open to

everyone. Anyone Old Testament heroes that

were tested by gods? Abraham.

Yeah, Abraham, He's waited his whole life for a son.

He's waited his whole life for a son.

And then all of a sudden God says, you know, God says, yes, I

will give you a son. And then he has to wait several

years for that to happen. And then all of a sudden he gets

a son. And God says, I want you to

sacrifice your son to me. What's Abraham going to do?

Is he going to trust God or is he going to go his own way?

Is he going to run away from Yahweh?

Or? The Bible says actually in the

book of Hebrews that Abraham trusted God so much that he

believed that even if Isaac was to die, God was able to raise

him up to life again. Anyone else who was tested in

Scripture? Job Yes, a man who's got

everything, who's you know, who's got the family, he's got

the business, he's got the land, he's got wealth.

And then all of a sudden we get invited into God's heavenly

throne room and Satan comes and says, my paraphrase, the only

reason why Job worships you God is because his life is so good.

And God's like, OK, don't kill him, but take it all away.

Will Job curse God because everything's left his life?

Or will he trust Gods? Will he listen to his friends

that he's the problem? Will he listen to his wife who

just says curse God and die? What a wonderful woman.

No, he trusts Gods. He passed the test.

Anyone else? Oh, Mary.

Well, yeah. Well, she had to, Yeah.

I mean, she is. She has to.

There's so many with Mary. But, you know, she she is told,

this teenage girl is told you are going to give birth to the

savour of the world. And she, I mean, she was

unmarried. She was.

She'd never been with a man, but she knew in her culture how she

would have been ridiculed, how she would, how she could have

even been put to death herself. But she says glory to God, she

trusts him completely. Anyone else?

David. Does someone say, yeah, David.

I've just been reading the other day about David and what an

amazing story. Actually, David.

He's on the run from gods. No, not from gods.

He's on the run from Saul. Sorry.

And there's this amazing funny story in the book of Samuel

where Saul goes to use take a bathroom break, doesn't he?

And he goes and he goes and crouches down in a cave where

David is. And David's men are like, here's

a spear, kill him. Then you can be king and we can

get out of this place. And David says, no, I'm not

going to kill him. I'm going to let God be the one.

I'm not going to take things into my own hand.

This man may have been awful to me, but he is God's chosen.

And I will, I will take my place when God allows me to.

David has for years. He's he.

Unbeknown to most people, he is the anointed king of Israel.

But he chooses not to grab it. And actually even later on,

David has to run away from Saul and he he finds himself in the

land of the Philistines, the enemy.

He manages to trick them and they allow him to stay there.

And then all of a sudden they they plan to March on King Saul

to to take over Israel. And the king wants David to come

and, and fight with him. But all the other soldiers, they

say we don't trust David, leave him here.

And amazingly, God removes David from that battle.

And it is that battle where King Saul and his sons are killed,

which then allows David to become king.

I mean, think of Joseph. Joseph, he has a dream, doesn't

he? The whole world is going to bow

down to me. And then where's he find

himself? In a pit waiting to be sold by

his brothers, He then he, then. He then is put as a servant, as

a slave in Potiphar's house. Will he serve Well?

Yes. Potiphar's wife throws herself

at him. Will he stay pure?

Will he stay loyal to gods? Yes, he does.

What is he getting? Rewards?

He gets thrown in a dungeon. But then gods, he raises him up,

and one day he raises him up from the bottom of the bottom to

the top to one of the most important men in the entire

world. How about Shadrach, Meshach and

Abednego? I love that story.

The king of Babylon says worship, bow down and worship my

gods. And they say, no, you can kill

us, but we believe in a God who's able to rescue us.

And even if he doesn't, and that's really important line

because there are many people who've been burnt for their

faith and they weren't rescued. But they say even if he doesn't

rescue us, we will never bow the knee to your gods.

And you know the story. Amazingly, they are thrown in

the furnace. Nebuchadnezzar's guards die as

they throw them in, but they survive as as God appears in the

furnace and rescues them. You see, God does, he allows us

to go through trials. And what I want is, is for us to

not think of trials as being something that God is ski up.

They're scheming in heaven, thinking, how can I trip these

people up? How can I prove to them they're

not as special as they think they are?

Rather, I would love you to think of of trials as storms, as

as tests that we go through. This is an imperfect analogy,

but go with it as a driving instructor, OK, You're thinking

how on earth does that go with God's testing us a driving

structure? You see any of you who've learnt

to drive or maybe learning to drive, you get into a car with

someone, they teach you to drive and now what?

They don't do or mind in anyway. So I assume it's the same with

you. They don't go right, OK, you

can't drive, but I'm going to put you with the examiner who's

going to see if you can drive or not.

That's not what they do. They say, I know you can drive,

Now go and show the examiner that you can drive.

You are ready to drive. Now go and show the examiner

that you can do it. And that's what God does.

That's what God does. You see, think of Abraham.

Abraham he is, he's on the top of Mount Moriah.

And when he passes the test, God says, now I know, I know your

heart, I know that you are faithful.

Did God need Abraham to go through a test to know his

heart? No, but the next line, the next

line, it says that Abraham, he then called that place Yahweh,

Jireh. And many of you, we've heard it

is you the Lord who provides. What's it More accurately

translated, it is the Lord who will see to it.

It's the, it's not just the God who provides things.

It's the God who will make it happen.

If he said he'll do it, he will do it.

You see, the reason for Abraham going through that test wasn't

so much for God to know. Oh, now I know what Abraham's

like. No, it was so Abraham could know

more of who God was. Like, it was for that very

reason. You see, that's what trials and

storms are there for, there for us when we lean on Christ, for

us to know in a deeper way who Jesus is.

I mean, do we want to go through storms?

No. Who wants to go through a storm?

Who wants to go through a trial? No one.

But but as Paul says in this this passage, he says, but this

happened to us that we might not rely on ourselves, but on gods.

This happened so we could actually put into practise what

God has said to us. You see, Jesus tells a a story

of of two men and one builds a house on rock and the other

builds a house on sand. Both experience storms.

These promises we will all experience trouble.

We will all experience things that hurt us that we struggled

through. But the one who built his house

on the on the stone, on the rock, when the storm came, he

endured. Actually, the sense is that when

the trials come, those who build their house on Jesus, they will

endure forever. Where those who build their

house on the sand, their lives will be ripped apart.

But we know not everyone passes the test.

You know you've not always passed the test.

You know, you have not always trusted in gods that you have

not always been. And you know, you read the story

and I love the Bible how how true it is.

Because you read the stories of, of Abraham and, and, and all the

other Old Testament Saints and you see that they are messed up

people who sometimes did really well.

And in the book of Hebrews, it picks up not on all the stuff

they did wrong, not on all the times they fell flat on their

face, not the times when Abraham was going to Egypt.

He decided he was too scared that he'd tell his wife to

pretend he wasn't his wife so no one would kill him and go and

marry Pharaoh or whatever. Like he doesn't, He doesn't

share those things. In Hebrews, God remembers the

act of faith that Abraham has. And it's the same for us.

You see Peter, Peter, remember Peter, at the end, near the end

of the Gospels, Jesus says to all his disciples, you're all

going to deny me, you're all going to fail me, you're all

going to let me down. Peter says not me.

I can believe the rest of these, not woods, but not me.

I'm never going to fail you. I'm never going to let you down

Jesus, I'm always going to do exactly what you tell me to do.

And Jesus looks back at him and goes Peter, Peter, today before

the cockerel crows, you will deny me 3 times.

And then, you know, Peter's there.

He's trying to earwig on what's happening with the trial of

Jesus in the temple court. And this young woman comes up to

him. You're one of those Galileans.

No, it's not me. No, no, no, I recognise your

accent. You're with Jesus, not me.

Yeah, I'm sure I've seen you with Jesus.

I don't even know the man in curses.

And then the cockerel crows and he's broken.

I'm not perfect. I've failed.

I've failed the test. But wonderfully, when we pass

the test, we get to see Jesus in a new light.

But also when we fail, we also get to see Jesus in a new and

better light. Do you think the end of John's

gospel? It tells us that one day Peter

and the others, they're fishing and Jesus appears to him,

appears to them on the shore. Peter could have turned the boat

around and said, right, we're we're going away from here.

I don't want to see Jesus. I let him down.

I can't be in his presence anymore.

No, they turn the boat around. Peter jumps in the water.

He swims to Jesus, and Jesus forgives him.

He is reconciled with him. And not only does he do that, he

actually commissions him and sends him out to go again.

That is the mercy and grace that God shows us.

See, where are you being tested right now?

Where are you suffering right now?

I mean, this is what came through our Tyre worship.

Where are you? Where are you?

You feeling weak? I, I'd love to pray for some of

you afterwards, but I'd love just to pray for us all right

now and just take a moment just to pray for us all.

And so if you're, if you're suffering, if you feel that life

is heavy right now, if you feel like you're going through a

storm, I just encourage you, just close your eyes, hold out

your hands. It's a sign of I want to receive

from God and I'm just going to pray.

And I encourage you just to pray along with me.

And we're going to ask for Jesus help in our situations.

So Jesus God, you, you know our hearts, God, you know every

burden, every storm, every trial that we go through.

And I want to thank you for your unfailing love and your constant

presence in our lives. Lord Jesus, I want to pray.

Lord God, in those moments when we feel weak, where life feels

too heavy, I pray, Lord God, that you would give us the

strength to trust in you. Lord God, I pray that you would

fill me with your strength. I pray, Holy Spirit, that you

would fill us right now, that we would be able, that you would

enable us to be able to choose you and flee from sin.

Lord God, I pray that you would teach us to lean not on our own

abilities, but on you and your power and strength.

Amen. Amen.

How about winning? Where are you winning?

I mean, some of you, that's a really hard question, 'cause

you're like, I ain't winning anything, but are you to really

try hard? I mean, it might not be a

massive thing where you think I've just got life sorted, I'm

winning now. It might just be actually

earlier on this year I was falling flat on my face and

sinning in these areas every single time.

Now I only fall flat on my face and sin on in these areas.

Sometimes that's a win. That's you.

That's you becoming and growing more like Jesus.

So where are you winning? I just want to give a moment for

you just to think and just thank God for be, for being, for

working in your life, for that. You know, you may have never

shared the gospel with someone, but you've managed to share it

once this week with someone. That's a massive win.

Where's God? Where's God winning?

Where is he doing stuff in your life?

I just want us to take a moment just to thank him.

Yeah, Jesus, I am so grateful. I'm so grateful that even though

we fail so often that you are bringing victories in our lives.

God, I thank you for opportunities that we have taken

to share your name, opportunities to live for you.

I thank you for increased faith in this room.

God, I thank you that every trial that we have been through,

that you have carried us, Lord God, and we are able to see that

now. Lord Jesus, I pray, Lord God,

that you will help us to continue to trust in you.

Amen. All right, just one thing to end

on. You know, Paul says that Paul

says, he says praise be to the Father, the God and Father of

our Lord Jesus Christ for our for the Father of compassion and

the God of all comfort who comforts us in our troubles.

See we can do that right now. When you are overwhelmed, when

you are in trouble, Jesus says come to me.

Paul says come to the Father. That is who I have received

help, that's who I've received comfort from.

That is who I've received love from.

But church, it doesn't end there, he says.

He says we come to you for comfort for all our troubles, so

that we can be a comfort for those in their troubles.

As we have received Gods, we can give away.

We come. We receive from God when we are

in trouble, not to keep it be like I'm OK now, but so we can

give away to those who are going through troubles themselves.

I mean, this is what he's saying.

He's saying in life we all have trouble, but don't please wallow

and mope and wail about your troubles.

Instead, come to God, come to Jesus and find comfort.

Receive grace that will sustain you so that you then can give

grace and mercy to those around you.

So you can. So you let Jesus produce good

soil in you, so you can produce good soil in others.

You see what Paul is arguing here is that in Corinth they

look to these super apostles that have got everything

together. They're smart and they're

they're intelligent and they're great speakers and they're rich

and influential. What Paul is arguing is that he

is more equipped to help produce good soil in them because he has

no trouble. He is more equipped because he

has no trouble. Church life is full of storms

and sadly many people are derailed.

Many people don't find the comfort of Jesus.

I was looking at some stats earlier on this summer and it's

said that it was talking about children who grow up in

Christian homes. And what was the difference

between children who grow up in Christian homes who leave home

in their 20s or whatever and run for Jesus, and children who grow

up in Christian homes who leave home and aren't really bothered

or aren't on fire for gods or even choose to go a different

way? What was the key factor?

They've all got Christians, their parents.

And the study said the key factor was that in these young

people's lives, as they were teenagers, as they were

children, they could count at least five adults who spoke

truth, who spoke love into them. And because of that, because of

not just their parents, because of other adults speaking truth,

speaking life, Holy Spirit, men and women feel men and women

speaking truth and love into their life.

Good soil was produced to them at such a young age that when

they left home, they flew. They flew.

That's what we want. That's what we want.

And we say, can you be that adult?

Can you be that adult now? I can.

I can think of easily five adults in my teenage lives who

not related to me, who spoke into me, who helped produce good

soil in my life. You can be that person.

You can be that person. Let me encourage you parents,

put good spirit filled Christians in your kids lives.

Let them speak in tonight. We've got youth group, the first

youth group back after summer. Youth group is a priority in my

house. Not because it's you have to go

to church boys. No, it's because we've got Isaac

and Lizzie who are spirit filled, wonderful human beings,

followers of Jesus. And I want my boys to spend as

much time with them as possible. I want them to spend as much

time as possible. You know, after after October,

Hannah's going to be coming back in and helping out with youth.

She is a wonderful woman, a spirit filled woman.

And I want my kids spending as much time with her as possible.

Joanne is going to be helping as well.

She I want, I want people spending time with her.

I want because the more adults who love Jesus, who spend time

with my kids, the statistics tell me, the more likely it is

that when they leave home, they are going to run full pelp for

Jesus. And I want that.

I want that. And let's just imagine, I'm not

seeing any stats on it, but let's just imagine that adults

are just the same as teenagers. That means that each one of us

probably needs a few adults who we allow speak into our lives to

produce good soil. Who is speaking into you?

Who are you allowing to speak into you?

For some of you, maybe you need to grab someone and say I want

to get together with you. Who is speaking into you?

And if it takes five adults to speak into one person, that

means each of us needs to be speaking into someone else.

We all need to be filled with the Spirit and speaking in to

others. And we think, well, I'm in

equipped. I don't know much if you saw my

life. It's a complete mess.

That's what Paul writes here in Two Corinthians.

Those of us who are the most messed up but trust in Jesus are

the most qualified to speak truth and love in to others.

So who is speaking into you and who can you speak into?

God changes us, His ideal, His love.

He loves to change us through you guys, through His Holy

Spirit filled church and his Spirit loves to work through our

brokenness. Let's pray.

Lord God, I thank you for your Holy Spirit inspired words.

I want to thank you for these words of Paul and Timothy that

have survived the, the, the, the the test of time and are just as

true for the church in Blackpool here as it is to the church in

Corinth 2000 years ago. Lord Jesus, I pray God that we

would be men and women who are filled by your Holy Spirit.

God, we will be people who long to and love to speak into one

another to help produce good soil.

God, we would turn up, we'd be around others and we would allow

others to produce good soil in US.

God, I ask you even now that you'd put on our heart people

that we can be friends, that the Holy Spirit can use to bless

through us. And I pray for people that we

may want to ask, we want to give permission to speak into our

lives right now. Lord Jesus, we thank you for all

that you are. Amen.

Amen.