The King

Welcome to Gateway Churches Podcast.

Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're encouraged by today's message.

All right, so we're talking about Jesus in the Old Testament, and we're looking at all of these instances where Jesus shows up in human form.

The Bible says that we cannot see God the Father, that we can only see him through the unique one, through Jesus.

Jesus is the one who, when we see him, he takes a glorified form as well.

But when we see Jesus show up in human form, this is Jesus.

And actually, there's very, very few instances where we actually see God the Father in the Old Testament.

And in reality, we don't even see him.

These are visions that we're given.

And so the glory of the Father did not consume the person.

But even in visions, it was dicey, okay?

And so uh let me show you one of those visions where we see Jesus and God the Father at the same time.

This is in Daniel chapter 7, starting in verse 13.

Daniel 7 · chapter mention

It says, In my vision at night I looked, and therefore before me was one like a son of man.

Who's that?

That's Jesus.

Coming with the clouds of heaven.

He approached who?

The ancient of days, and was led into his presence.

So we see both of those characters here.

Jesus the Son and God the Father, the ancient of days, he was given authority, glory, and sovereign power.

All nations and peoples of every language worshipped him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

So this is an instance where we see Jesus and God the Father at the same time.

God the Father is called the ancient of days here, but all authority is given to the Son in this passage, the authority over the heavenly realm and the earthly realm.

And this is important because it is where we see the transfer of authority to Jesus, and that is how we know that he is the king.

The Bible refers to him over and over and over again as the king.

I can only find two places where I think the Bible may have been referring to God the Father as the King.

That doesn't mean that he's not the king.

It means that what his what is reigning and ruling is is even above that, almost like the an emperor.

And then what you really have is then Jesus being the king over a territory or a certain section of the cosmos, of the universe.

And so Jesus is the king.

This illustrates that transfer of authority that took place.

Revelation 5 is another place where we see Jesus and the Father together.

And that is another reason why we cannot believe in a Jesus-only theology.

Jesus comes from the Father.

The Bible says he comes from the bosom of the Father.

He comes from the Father and originates from him.

And so a Jesus-only theology doesn't make sense because we see all of these instances where the Father is there.

Now, some Jewish people might reject that Jesus really was the Messiah.

And one of the reasons that they may have an objection to that is because it it seems as though when Jesus came to the earth, in general, certainly there were exceptions to this, but in general, the Jewish people did not accept him as the Messiah, but a lot of Gentiles did accept him as the Messiah.

So I just want to take a brief moment and let's answer that question because the fact that he was not necessarily accepted by his family, the Jewish people, is actually a fulfillment of the prophecy that says that he is the Messiah and not an indication that he is not the Messiah.

Psalm 118, verse 22 says, the stone, the builders rejected, has become the cornerstone.

Psalms 118:22

Isaiah chapter 53, verse 3, it says explicitly here, he was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering and familiar with pain, like one from whom the people hide their faces, he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Isaiah 53:3

So Jesus is being not accepted necessarily by all Jewish people.

It's not an indication that he was not the Messiah.

One of the best pictures in the Old Testament of Jesus as the Messiah is actually the story of Joseph.

And uh, Pastor Robert, my dad, he'll be starting a series um in two weeks, and it will be on the topic of Joseph.

If you watch and pay attention to the story of Joseph, it is the it is the telling of the story of Christ.

And even this element of Jesus being rejected by the ones who should accept him the most is also foretold even in the story of Joseph, because you'll remember that he is rejected even by his own brothers, his family, but becomes ruler over Egypt.

And so here, uh this Egypt would then represent the Gentiles.

He becomes ruler over them, but is rejected by his own family.

All right, so as we talk about Jesus the King, we we uh we often focus very much on Jesus the suffering servant, the one who came humbly offering grace and died for our sins.

There's obviously nothing wrong with that.

But as we're seeing Jesus in the Old Testament and then reconciling Jesus of the New Testament, you might start having some questions.

Those questions might pertain to the idea that, well, in the Old Testament, God seems very harsh, judgmental, law-giving, uh very, very much lacking grace.

And then Jesus comes in the New Testament, and he's full of grace, and he's full of love and compassion.

And so, what kind of disparity exists here?

So, what I want to talk to you today about is Jesus the king, but he is not just the king, he is the warrior king.

Jesus, in in his kingship and authority, has all authority to make whatever decisions he wants to make.

And and you could think of it as uh a mother trying to protect her children, or a mother bear trying to protect her cubs.

You could think of it as uh the father who hears the sound as someone's breaking into their home and he wakes up saying, I will do whatever it takes to protect my family.

This is the style of king that Jesus is, one who is watching out for us, one who is a warrior and and is ready to go to battle to protect us in every way.

So we're gonna look at a couple different instances where Jesus is this warrior king.

We start in Joshua chapter 5.

Joshua 5 · chapter mention

I'm gonna start in verse 13.

This is the story of Joshua, and Jesus shows up to him here.

It says, Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man.

That's our first indication that this is Jesus, standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand.

And Joshua went up to him and asked, Are you for us or for our enemies?

He replied, Neither.

Some some translations just say, No.

He was like, No, not a valid question.

But as a commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come.

Then Joshua fell face down to the ground in reverence and asked him, What message does my Lord have for his servant?

The commander of the Lord's army replied, Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.

And Joshua did so.

Does this ring any bells?

Remember last week?

The same thing.

Jesus in the midst of the burning bush said the exact same thing to Moses Take off your sandals because you are standing in holy ground.

This is Jesus that is speaking.

He is consistent, just as he was at the burning bush, to this moment now.

He is God.

He is worshipped as God by Joshua, and he speaks as God.

This is God in the form of man.

He shows up, he's got his sword drawn, meaning he's ready for battle.

He's looking buff.

He's all like, he's all cut, he's ready to go, he's ready to do some battle.

And Joshua sees this man and he's a warrior.

And so he says, he's a he's this is a this is a soldier, this is a warrior.

Whose side are you on?

And Jesus says, Neither.

Neither.

Here Jesus is expressing, I am not going to be on your side or their side because I don't follow you, you follow me.

Jesus as the warrior steps in and goes into this fight.

He is not simply a man or an angel, he is God.

Joshua even acknowledges him as God.

And I believe that Joshua was familiar with his voice.

For instance, he sees this soldier walking up to him.

He says, Whose side are you on?

And he says, Neither, I'm the commander of the Lord's army.

Okay, theoretically, that could have been an angel or anybody else, but I believe because of Joshua's proximity to Moses, the Bible even says that when Moses would leave the tent of meeting, Joshua would stick around.

So I believe that he had heard the voice of Jesus before.

And as soon as he says, Neither, I am the commander of the Lord's army, that's how Joshua knows immediately to fall to the ground, face first, and to worship this man as God, because he knows that this is God.

So Jesus then guides Joshua through these difficult times.

And what's really important about this encounter can't be overstated, is that this is Yeshua, Jesus, and Jehoshua, Joshua.

It's a derivative of the exact same name, Yeshua and Joshua meeting face to face.

If you don't know this, Joshua is also a type of Christ.

Joshua's life is a foretelling or a prophecy of the Jesus to come.

So here, Joshua and Jesus are meeting face to face.

What this is, is a meeting face-to-face where you have Joshua who is currently fulfilling the role of prophesying the future role of Jesus.

And Jesus who will one day testify to all the things that happened to Joshua by becoming the fulfillment of the prophecy.

And here they are meeting face to face.

The power that is in this moment is incredible.

Jesus is the commander of the Lord's army.

Now, who is the Lord's army?

The Lord's army is the angels, the ones who haven't fallen, and they are in Jesus' army, and there's a spiritual war that's always taking place to win over the territory of this earth.

I'll explain more about that in just a moment, but we say it's a spiritual realm.

Really, it's a dimension that we can't see.

We actually lost our ability to see that dimension in the fall.

Before that, Adam and Eve had spiritual sight.

The definition or the explanation of the word of the sight when they see the tree of life is a spiritual sight.

The next time we see that word used is when Moses has a spiritual sight of the burning bush.

So what happens is that in the moment that Adam and Eve become aware that they are naked, it is not that they gained sight to notice that they were naked, it is that they lost sight and they could not see their glorified bodies anymore, only their shameful bodies.

It's a loss of sight.

That's what's taking place.

And so in this realm, this realm exists all around us, and there is a there's a battle that is being waged, a war that is being waged.

You have the Satan, the accuser, the fallen one who then took a third of the angels with him.

They act as an enemy to God, constantly trying to thwart everything that he does, and constantly trying to end the story of Christ in this world.

And so this spiritual sight, we're not able to see it, but this war is waging all the time.

And these warriors that fight with Jesus are the angels who have remained in his realm.

All right, so let's look now at who that army is.

What do they look like?

What do they sound like?

What who is this army?

We see not the commander in this passage, but we see the army in 2 Kings chapter 6, starting in verse 15.

2 Kings 6 · chapter mention

It says, When the servant of the man of God, this is a story about Elisha, and this servant is a servant of Elisha.

So it's talking about the man of God is Elisha.

When this servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city.

Oh no, my Lord, what shall we do?

the servant asked.

Don't be afraid, the prophet answered.

Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.

And he's thinking, like, he's lost his mind right now.

But Elisha prayed, Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.

Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, gave him that spiritual vision once again, and he looked and he saw the hills were full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

This is the war that is being waged in the spiritual realm.

These are those fighters.

These are those fighters that it is describing that are standing on chariots of fire with horses, and they are up on the hills, indicating number one, that they have the high ground over the enemy, and number two, that they descended from on high and rested on the hills to help fight that battle.

So earlier then in Joshua 5, we see the commander of the army, but no army, all right?

Then here in 2 Kings, we see the army, but not the commander of the army.

So is there a place in the Bible where we get to see the commander of the army and the army together?

Yes, it is at the end of the age.

It's in the least confusing book in the Bible, Revelation, and I'll show that to you now.

It's the if you're like a brand new Christian, jump straight into Revelation.

You'll understand all of it.

Revelation 19, chapter 11, says, I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called faithful and true.

If you don't already know, this is talking about Jesus, okay?

With justice, he judges and wages war.

His eyes are like blazing fire, and his head and on his head are many crowns.

He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself.

He is dressed in a robe, dipped in blood, and his name is the word of God.

The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean.

Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword.

Some of those some of the translations do describe those chariots as having fire as well, just like we just read.

Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations.

He will rule them with an iron scepter.

He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.

On his robe and on his thigh, he has the name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

So Revelation 19 puts together the commander of the Lord's army that we saw and the army that we saw, puts both of those together in the same form, carrying the sword in the same identity, confirming to us if Revelation 19 is talking about Jesus, which it absolutely and clearly is talking about the second coming of Jesus, then we know also that this same character that we see in Joshua is Jesus himself, the commander of the Lord's army, standing there with Jesus.

The commander is the same commander.

The connection between Revelation 19 and Joshua 5 is extremely significant because it pulls all of these together and the unity between these two images of the divine army commander forms a profound connection between the worldview of the new covenant and the old, between the Christian worldview and the Jewish worldview.

Asher and Trader says, when understood correctly, it is a bridge that provides a consistent theme from the beginning of the scriptures to the end.

Side note, next week, I know I've been telling you a lot about this, next week is gonna be one story all the way through.

And I've only been able to give you a little piece of this and a little piece of that and a little piece of this in each of the messages.

And next week, we're gonna pull it all together in one story, and it's it's gonna bring a lot of these things that maybe are left unknown right now.

It's gonna bring a lot of those things together.

So we'll hear the whole consistent theme from the beginning to end.

Now, Jesus is this warrior king, and when he returns, he will set things right.

We saw the transfer of power that takes place in Daniel 7.

Uh, and it's important to know then that Jesus is the king of this earth, he is the king of this realm.

It was never taken from them, it never has been taken from him, and it never will be taken from him.

Jesus is king.

So if Jesus is king, what would our role be in that?

What would our role be in serving this?

Jesus creates everything with a specific purpose in mind.

Our specific purpose was fellowship and communion with God, and it was also to have dominion over the earth.

That's stated clearly in Genesis that God gave Adam and Eve dominion over the earth.

So the king who has all authority and all dominion, created the world himself, understands and knows all things, decided to partner with you and I so that he would give us dominion over the earth.

We have that dominion over the earth.

And and contrary to what we we often think, we never actually lost our dominion in the fall.

Because if you just look a little bit later in the story of Noah, it confirms that man still has dominion over the earth.

What actually happened in the fall is that we had dominion over the earth, which meant that we had authority.

And when Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, decided not to be uh sustained by God, but instead to be sustained by their own knowledge, what they handed over was not the dominion of the earth, but the authority.

The authority of the earth was handed over to Satan in that moment.

And we know that it was because when Jesus comes to earth, remember that Satan shows up to him in the wilderness, and what does he offer him?

The authority over the kingdoms and rulers of the world.

Satan owned that at that time.

We have handed over the authority that Jesus gave to us.

He is still king, we still have dominion, we have complete control, we do not have to listen to the voice of the accuser, and we do not have to do what he says.

Dominion of the earth still belongs to us, and it is what we were designed for.

Paul says that the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable.

Our dominion over this earth cannot be revoked.

But what can happen is that we can abdicate our authority to the accuser.

So what we lost then in the fall of man is the authority over this earth, all right?

And when we lost our authority, it was given to the beast, the Satan, and all of his fallen angels and the sons of God that had rebelled and taken over different territories.

And as the authority was given over, even as the Bible talks about princes and principalities, those are areas where princes of darkness, fallen sons of God, have taken authority over certain areas of land, principalities.

They have taken authority over those principalities of land.

We're gonna understand next week why it is that God worked in the way that he did to bring restoration.

And it has a lot to do with the spiritual realm, it has very defined rules.

Satan must abide even as a fallen angel.

He must abide by the rules of the spiritual realm.

And so this is a battle for the dominion of the earth.

That's what he's trying to take from us.

So we lost our authority.

Jesus is coming, he will make things right in the world, and he will commit a final judgment towards the accuser or towards the Satan.

And what will happen then is that there will be a new heaven and a new earth.

No longer will there be a barrier between our vision of the earthly realm and the spiritual realm.

We'll continue to have dominion and authority over the earth, but the two realms will be perfectly brought together together.

Heaven and earth will exist together.

So then how should we handle our dominion over the earth?

All right, well, let's think back to the passage that we read a moment ago where Joshua asked Jesus, Are you for us or against us?

This is the question that we would only ask if we had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Before that, we would say, Jesus, you tell me where to go, you tell me what to do, and I'll do that and only that.

Jesus was the model of that.

He said, I do and say only what the Father tells me to do and say.

So we have this dominion, but yet at the same time, we in our fallen state try to always decide what is right and wrong.

We've seen Christians, we've seen uh culture wars that are happening all over the world.

We see the degradation.

Of values or morals, and we believe this is the fight that we need to fight because God is on our side.

What I want to say to you today is not so fast.

Even if you have the Bible that tells you everything that you need to know about this, you still, even if you know that you are in the right, you are still not supposed to go wage a war unless God has told you to do it.

The only reason why Joshua wins that war is because when he sees the commander of the Lord's army, he says, You tell me what to do, and that's what I'll do.

I wonder if maybe we've been going out and trying to fight culture wars, thinking that this is really the battle.

It's a distraction from the enemy.

We are to be listening to the commander of the Lord's army, following our king and doing exactly as he says and only when he says it.

So we must be fighting, but we will never get very far unless he's on our side.

And it doesn't mean that we should fight this war and then ask him if he's on our side.

It means we should say, Lord, what battle would you have me fight today?

We must be warriors just as Jesus was.

I'm going to tell you about how that actually works in just a moment, but we must be able to fight the battles that God has called us to fight because our dominion over the earth is what is at stake.

It does not mean that we will rule in whatever way that we want to.

This is how we actually lost our dominion in the first place.

It will be that we are warriors, but that we are only following the one true king.

All right, so um I've been trying to, I'm gonna do something weird.

And I've been trying to think about how to do this, and so you just have to forgive me if uh um if it uh if I struggle with it a little bit.

Uh so you know the story of the prodigal son, uh uh, probably.

And and let me just let me just uh clear like uh restate it briefly for just a moment.

You have a father, he lives in his house, and he has two sons.

Those two sons are gonna inherit his kingdom, his property, his his money, finances, world, all of those things.

These two sons are gonna inherit it.

One of the sons says, I'd like to go ahead and take my inheritance now.

He takes his inheritance, he sells it all so that he can have the money, and he goes and lives in absolute lavish decadence until it runs out.

And then he lives with pigs.

Um he literally eats the slop from the pig trough.

He is uh is destitute, he's dying, he's he's he's in an awful place to be.

And that's the story of the prodigal son, and he realizes in in that that that he needs grace.

And he says, if I went back to my father's house, then even as a servant, I would be living better than I'm living now.

And so he goes back and the father welcomes him.

And and and instead of uh uh some kind of critical judgment from the father, he hugs him, he kisses him, he brings him in.

And and I I think it was Pastor Greg Stone that told me that in in Jewish culture, especially at that time, part of the reason that the father goes running out to meet him in the street is for the son's protection, because anyone in that community who would take their father's blessing and go and squander it in that way was deserving of death.

So, really, the father's even actually protecting the son and then not only bringing him in and not punishing him, but rewarding him.

He puts new clothes on him and new shoes on him.

This represents the righteousness that when we come back to Jesus, he puts on righteousness on us.

And then a ring was placed on his finger.

The ring has the signet or the family crest on it.

It means I'm a member of this family and I carry the authority of this family.

And so it restored him to everything that he had lost before, the authority that he had, the the right standing, the place that he had, it's all restored.

That's the story of the prodigal son.

And if you remember that the the other brother was uh jealous, you would say, that that that this son is getting a party thrown for him when he had stayed and been faithful the whole time.

And there are there are there's some valid comparisons to draw with the Gentiles and the Jewish people, that that maybe as the Gentiles come to the the Father or to Jesus, that the the Jewish people say, but we've been here, we've been your family all along.

There's some good comparisons to make there.

Primarily uh, though, comparisons of grace, the grace that that the son experiences as he comes back.

And the fact that everything is restored to him, including all of the authority that he had before.

That's the story of the the prodigal son.

It was needed, necessary for that time.

It it makes sense.

So that's the story of the prodigal son.

I want to tell you a story that's really similar to it.

I'm not trying to add to scripture, but I want to illustrate what it's actually like.

If you've had trouble reconciling this uh uh vicious king that comes in with fire coming from his eyes and a sword in his hand, if you if we want to justify that and also understand Jesus, the suffering servant who lays down his life, let me just tell you a story.

It's my story, all right?

It's not about scripture, but I'm basing it as a frame of reference for the prodigal son so that we can understand the story.

So again, you have a father, he has a kingdom, a household, and he has two sons.

And the younger son leaves, takes his inheritance, sells it all, lives in lavish decadence, does whatever he wants to do for as long as he wants to do it, and then eventually the money runs out, and then he he he becomes indebted to others.

The person gets into uh uh uh gambling, into uh uh violence with people that are not kind, people that you would owe things to in the future, gets into such a mess that he cannot get out of it.

Not simply that he's living in uh a pig sty or something like that, but so so trapped and ingrained in his sin and the violence and the corruption that he's been a part of, that now he owes the wrong people money.

And so they're holding him captive.

And the older son notices that the father is sitting on the porch every day looking for the son.

And instead of becoming jealous by that or enraged by that, he gathers up a bag of stuff that he'll need and he takes off on the road and he goes looking.

And when he encounters evil, it sometimes looks maybe like the movie Taken, like he is he's a beast.

He beats him up, he kills them, he does whatever it takes, he's on a mission, he's gonna find his brother and he's gonna bring him home.

The violence in this example is that he is uh powering through out of being driven by love, whatever resistance comes against him in whatever way he needs to power through it in order to get back to the person that he loves.

But then finally he gets to the boss, and the boss is the one holding captive the brother, the younger brother.

And the boss says, the problem is that your brother, your younger brother, he made a deal with me.

And the deal was that if he lost, he would owe me his life.

And there's no getting out of that deal.

And so the older brother says, Alright, I hear you, but why don't you take me and let him go free?

The younger brother leaves there thinking, I've lost my older brother.

I'm grateful that he saved me.

I'm grateful that he got me out of the mess that I got myself into.

But I can't believe it ended in the death of my older brother.

And he's walking, much like maybe the sad disciples walking on the road to Emmaus, imagining what will life be like without my older brother.

And then as he's approaching the house, he sees that his father and his brother are there.

And somehow, by the miracle of the power of the Father, the Son has risen again.

And though he went on a mission searching for you, doing everything that it took to get you back, fighting every battle that he ever had to fight, and then eventually paying to get you back with the price of his own life.

When he welcomes you back, he puts a ring on your finger and says your authority is back.

He puts new clothes and new shoes on you and says your righteousness is back.

You remember what Jesus said to the disciples at the Last Supper?

I'm going to my father's house because I'm going to prepare a place for you.

I'm preparing a place for you.

You're going to be welcomed back.

You're going to be thrown a party.

You're going to be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven, and you're going to be given all authority that was lost in the fall.

It's all going to be given back to you.

And that's the miracle of the work of Jesus Christ.

That's what he did for us.

Jesus is strong, mighty, powerful.

The fear of the Lord is a real thing.

Like a wild fire, forest fire flowing through land that burns up all of the dead wood on the ground, that removes everything that is dead and is dying.

He is a force of nature and supernature.

He is everything.

He is powerful.

He has a sword that could remove and wipe out any person in your way, any enemy in your way.

He has that type of authority.

But he is also the person who is willing to put the short sword back in the sheath and lay down his life.

I'll tell you exactly what the definition of being like that is like.

Do you remember that Jesus was giving the Sermon on the Mount?

And he said this weird little saying.

He says in Matthew chapter 5, verse 5, Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Matthew 5:5

In the story of the Father who owns the house, the sons are going to get an inheritance.

Our inheritance, you and I, our inheritance is the earth.

So when we go back and we see Jesus says, Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth, this is actually talking about once Jesus comes again, the new heavens and the new earth, who will reign and rule on the new earth, who will rightfully have dominion over the earth, it's us.

We will continue to do that.

And the word meek does not mean weak.

The definition has changed.

If you look in the dictionary today, it's uh, you know, a pushover and things like this.

The definition of the word meek has changed.

When you go back to its biblical roots, the definition of the word meek goes something a little bit like this: one who has a sword and knows how to use it, but sheaths it instead.

You have been given, you have been given authority and dominion, and God asked you to use it wisely.

We as Christians have that kind of power, but who will it be that inherits the earth?

It's the ones who have all the power but know when not to use it.

How we treat people around us, how we decide to use the power that Christ has given us will be our testimony.

And it will be our inheritance.

You right there where you are.

Whether you're sitting at home, whether you're listening, whether you're watching online, at one of the campuses, or at one of the gatherings.

Hear the words that I'm about to speak over you.

You have power and dominion.

It is God given.

You did not attain it or earn it.

You have the power that has been given to you by God.

And the question we ask ourselves today is how will we use it?

Jesus knew when to dispense with enemies, and he also knew when to tell the woman who was caught in adultery that there was no condemnation.

Maybe today you're thinking about the corruption of America, the decadence of the world.

Maybe today you're thinking about all the evil that exists, and you go, God, just get me out of here.

This is our home and will continue to be our home, and he has asked us to do something about it.

So what will you do?

I'm asking you this week to walk with your chin up and your shoulders back.

A smile on your face that says, I know that I have dominion over this place.

And in all of my power, what I'm gonna choose to give to people is not my wrath, but my kindness.

In just a moment, we're gonna pray.

And that same king who fights for you, defends you, and passionately chases after you is ready to meet with you.

No matter what your need is, if it's a health need, a financial need, no matter what it is, he is ready and willing to meet with you today.

So, Lord, I pray that you would draw every single person in just a moment, whenever we pray, Lord, that every single person who needs prayer would come forward.

Lord, don't let the enemy stop us from joining together.

Where two or three are gathered together, you are in our midst.

And God, I pray that this body of people would go out of here today, having great power and using it in mighty and miraculous ways, never abusing it, but God using it to further your kingdom.

May your will be done on earth just as it is in heaven.

We pray all these things in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Thanks for joining us today.

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We hope you have a great week.