Acts Pt. 3 // The Promise of a Saviour Pt. 2 // Acts 13:26-41 (Apr 10) Mike Armstrong

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Okay, Acts chapter 13 is uh where we are gonna continue this morning.

Acts 13 · chapter mention

And as you're getting flipped there, um I just wanted to say, before we even really jump into it, I just wanted to extend my gratitude uh to each of you um regarding your kindness to myself and to our family uh regarding uh the announcement of my resignation just uh last week.

We know that that hits hard.

You can you you know you better believe I was dreading, looking forward to uh dreading, moving towards last Sunday.

And uh, but at the same time, I you know, we knew that we, you know, we're loved and we are supported here.

We totally uh knew that, but I would say that you have exceeded our expectation on that in the way that you've uh really encouraged me personally and my wife uh and our kids.

And so again, I just want to thank you for that, for your kindness to us in that and your prayers uh for us.

And uh, if you got the Thursday email, you can you you can see the uh the family chat there where we explained all of that.

If you haven't seen it yet, you can go back and look at that.

Uh but you also saw that we're gonna have another family chat uh today, and uh you can rest assured it's a much more pleasant one uh than uh than last week's was.

Uh Dave Locke is gonna come up at the end of the service and talk about um the person that we have hired to uh to replace me and to be the new lead pastor here.

So this has moved uh in a very good way.

The Lord has been amazing to our church.

I am excited about this.

You can be excited about this when he announces it.

Okay, you don't have to be like, oh, Mike's in the room.

This is weird.

No, I'm I'm pumped.

I think this is amazing the Lord has provided.

And so more of that uh to come, just kind of a little teaser for you, if you will.

Um, but let's get into Acts 13 um and uh and continue to work our way through this.

Last week, uh you might remember that we started into Paul's uh message, right?

It was his message to the men at the synagogue in Antioch and Pisidia, right?

The men that were gathered there, and it's where he uh launched into, you remember, a summary of Israel's history.

And he kind of talked from the beginning to the present moment, from the moment that God chose them to be his people, okay, right up through the time of John the Baptist.

Remember, he was mentioned, and then of course Jesus arriving as the Savior of the world, okay, and all of it uh to show Paul's listeners just how how good our God was to deliver on his promise to rescue, on his promise to redeem a sinful, uh uh broken and lost people uh like you and I.

Okay, Jesus, of course, being the very embodiment of God's salvation plan.

Okay, so today we're really gonna pick that thought up.

We're gonna we're gonna continue to unpack uh his message, that very thought.

So last week, like I mentioned, that was part one.

This week is uh is part two.

So let me pray uh and then we'll get into it.

Lord, we thank you uh for today.

Lord, we thank you for this church and how you have called us and uh how the we have an amazing privilege and honor to bring forward the gospel each week and and uh to see disciples made.

Uh Lord, I pray that that would continue this morning.

Father, I pray that uh we would grow as disciples.

I pray, Lord, that you would do the work that's necessary in our hearts to get us where you want us to be.

Lord, I pray that you would show us how awesome you are.

Lord, I pray that you would spur us on, encourage us, motivate us to be as excited to uh proclaim the gospel to others as we were when we received it for the first time and were saved.

And so, God, as we look into Acts 13 here, Lord, uh open up our hearts and our minds, uh, give us joy, um, exalt Christ, Lord, we pray all of these things in your name.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, well, here we go.

There's two things this morning.

Here's the first one.

Okay, God was so good to promise us a savior, okay, and now we get to declare that Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise.

Okay, so look with me now at Acts 13, verse 26.

Acts 13:26

We pick it up right there.

It says this, and he says, Paul says, uh, brothers, okay, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God.

Okay, so you remember this is kind of how he started this message.

Okay, he's readdressing his audience again as he gets them set for uh part two of what he's about to say.

And so you might remember we've got we've got Jews in attendance, right, at the synagogue there, uh, as well as the word is proselytes.

Okay, proselytes, meaning that they're gentile converts, or yeah, gentile converts to Judaism.

Okay, so you've got this audience in front of him, and and him kind of saying this again is also his way of kind of making sure that he's still got their attention.

Okay, he's like, I don't want to lose you now, pay attention, right?

Listen up, eyes up here, right?

That's kind of how he's saying that.

You've heard me kind of do those things before.

I'm just a huge uh Paul Wannabe.

Okay?

But here's what he says He says, Sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation.

Okay, in other words, uh disciples of Jesus Christ have been given the responsibility or the opportunity to declare the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Okay, that's what he's saying.

We've been given this message.

Now, verse 27.

For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers.

Okay, now who's he talking about specifically?

Well, we've talked a lot about how the early church got its start in Jerusalem.

The Christians started there, but that's not the group that he's referring to.

He's referring to the just the Jewish population in general, okay, along with their leaders who had opposed Jesus.

Okay, so he says, for those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, okay, because they did not recognize him, meaning they didn't recognize that Jesus was the Messiah, okay, the promised Messiah, nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, okay, fulfilled them by condemning him.

Okay, so he's saying there that because the Jews, generally speaking, they failed to recognize that Jesus was the Savior, and due to their stubbornness of their pride, they were they were unable to understand what the prophets had been talking about and had been pointing to for centuries.

Okay, and and the very thing that had been read to them every single Sabbath.

You guys heard it over and over and over again, but it's like over your heads, in one ear, out the other, you completely gapped.

On top of all of that, the Jews inadvertently, yet tragically fulfilled what some of the Old Testament prophets had said, and that they, this is the Jews, actually condemned Jesus to die.

Okay, they were actually responsible for that.

Prophecies like Psalm 118 verse 22.

Psalms 118:22

I'll just read it for you.

But you've heard this before, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

This was said way back in the Psalms, the stone that referring to Jesus.

Okay, that the builders rejected, the builders being the Jews.

They they rejected him, he became the cornerstone, though, of salvation, of redemption.

They've completely rejected them.

That was one prophet that they fulfilled when they condemned Jesus to die.

Or how about Isaiah 53?

In verse 3, it says, He, Jesus, was despised and rejected by men.

Okay, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised.

And we, talking about the Jews, we esteemed him not.

Now, just to be clear, if if we're we don't understand this yet, these are not exactly the kind of prophecies that you want to be in the habit of fulfilling.

Okay, it's not a good thing.

Okay, let's keep going.

Verse 28, and keep in mind this here, what Paul says through the rest of this here, this is the heart of Good Friday.

Right?

This is the heart of the Easter message, which of course we know is is right around the corner.

We've been talking about that.

It's next week for us.

Okay, so keep going.

Verse 28 says, And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, meaning that Jesus was innocent of all the charges they brought against him, okay, they asked Pilate to have him executed.

So kind of scummy there.

They they wanted Pilate, they wanted the Romans to carry out their dirty work.

Okay, now verse 29, and when they had carried out all that was written of him, okay, fulfilling even more prophecies, they they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb.

But God raised him from the dead.

Amen.

Verse 31.

And for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people.

And we bring you, listen, we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, there's our word, promised, right?

What he promised to the fathers, thus this he has fulfilled to us, their children, by raising Jesus Christ, right?

By raising him.

Okay, all of this is awesome.

Okay, now notice this though, it says this, as also it is written in the second Psalm, okay, so going back to the Psalms, it says, You are my son, today I have begotten you.

Now you might be wondering, like, what's what's that about exactly?

Well, let's kind of focus in on that word, uh, begotten.

Okay, it means more than simply a parent bringing a child into existence.

Okay, it means more than that.

It actually carries with it the meaning very similar to when a father accepts his adopted son uh as his very own.

It's the father legitimizing him as his true son.

Okay, now this is not to say that Jesus was adopted by the Father.

Okay, don't don't miss the point here.

Okay, the point is that when the father declared these words at Christ's baptism, he was publicly legitimizing his son Jesus as the Savior he had promised to send.

Okay, which was ultimately hammered home and and fulfilled when Christ was raised from the dead.

That's what Paul's talking about here.

Okay, the the the original words there in the second Psalm, Psalm 2, uh were about God legitimizing David as king of Israel, while here the words are being fulfilled spiritually in the person and the work of Jesus Christ.

So Paul's showing us how Jesus is the fulfillment of God's promise to send a Savior.

Okay, but he's not done showing us these things, explaining these things.

Keep going here in the text, verse 34.

It says, and as for the fact that he raised him from the dead, no more to return to corruption.

Okay, we're gonna see that word corruption come up again in a sec, but first it says he has spoken in this way.

I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.

Which is actually a reference to Isaiah 55, verse 3.

Isaiah 55:3

Okay, but now verse 35.

Therefore, he says also in another Psalm, this is Psalm 16 now, he says, You will not let your holy one see corruption.

There's that word again.

Okay, so just like Psalm 2, which he referred to uh first, Isaiah 53 and Psalm 16 originally referred to David.

Okay, all of them were originally about David.

Where David, as as God's holy one, as his anointed king uh over Israel, would not be allowed to see corruption.

Okay, in the sense that God would protect him from being killed by his enemies in battle.

Okay, that's what that was originally referring to.

Okay, but here in Acts 13, Paul is saying that these that these passages, again, they they foreshadow Christ.

That they're messianic.

Okay, Jesus was the one who would receive the holy and sure blessings of David, right?

That was the Isaiah 53 part.

And then he would reign forever as Savior, as Messiah.

Jesus was the holy one who would not see corruption, in the sense that his body would not remain in the grave, right?

Where it would decay, where it would become corrupted in that way.

And we see Paul explain that very thing next here in verse 36.

Look at it.

It says, For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep, meaning he died.

Okay, and he was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, meaning David's body did decay, it did rot, right?

It was corrupted in that sense.

Okay, but verse 37, but he whom God raised up, Jesus, did not see corruption.

Because of course the grave did not hold him down.

Okay, so so Paul, he is he's declaring that while these Old Testament passages, you got Psalm 2 and Isaiah 53, you've got Psalm 16, he's like, well, those apply to David in certain ways at the time that they were written, ultimately they were messianic promises foreshadowing the Savior.

Okay, Jesus being the clear fulfillment of them.

Now, permission to take a you know a bit of a deep breath there and exhale.

We just kind of plowed through uh a lot there.

Uh we really did, but but just consider with me here for a moment everything that Paul has just communicated.

Everything that he's just shared, everything that he's just declared in these 11 verses.

Okay, he's presenting to his Jewish brothers and the Gentile converts to Judaism, he's convinced, he's presenting a very convincing case.

Okay, that Christ is the fulfillment of God's good promise to save the world from sin.

Right?

To save the world from God's wrath, which he has to pour out because he is a just God.

He'd given scriptural evidence to show that Jesus was God's salvation plan all along.

Okay, but if you remember, even before diving into all of that, getting into it, he mentions at the very beginning of the passage that we're looking at here today, in verse 26, that the message of this salvation had been sent to them.

Okay, to the disciples, to the to the apostles, so that they could now proclaim it, declare it to the world.

Okay, so on top of what Paul actually said, try trying to notice with me the attitude with which he said it, or or the motivation, the you know, the desire that he has as he's sharing these things.

Okay, or let me frame it up in you know in another way, in the form of a question.

Okay, what do you think Paul's, okay, and and keep in mind Barnabas is with him at this stage, what do you think their attitude or their mindset or or their desires were or was when it came to proclaiming the good news to those who needed to hear it?

You know, where do you think they were they were at on the fired up scale?

Do you think they were they were jacked and they were excited about that?

Or do you think they were like, eh?

No, I think it's pretty obvious.

They they they couldn't wait to do it.

Right?

You definitely get the sense that it was a joy for them to be able to share this.

Right?

It was an absolute privilege to be chosen by God to take this message out to the world.

They relished the opportunity.

They were highly motivated to see others to come to saving faith as they had.

In other words, their their basic or or core impulse, their their feeling about this message given to them that they were to give to others is like, hey, all right, we get to do this.

Right?

This is a good thing, let's go.

And then you take that and you take what we're seeing here in the text and and and then contrast that with the the attitude and the mindset, the desire that you and I often bring to the table when it comes to evangelism.

Right?

Think about that.

Perhaps for you it's it's the sort of the lazy or or aloof mindset of I have to do this?

Right?

I have to share the gospel, really?

You know, or or maybe for you it's it's kind of this mixture of of fear or or guilt-driven attitude, right?

Of, oh no, like, do I really have to do this?

Are you sure, really?

And those mindsets, those those those attitudes can can obviously extend to really any area of obedience that God calls us to.

Right?

Where we're we're misfiring in our motivations very often, and it's way more, uh, right, I have to, instead of, alright, I get to.

And so listen, as you're assessing your heart attitudes and you know, your motivation and desire when it comes to declaring the good news to people, you know, and considering that that what we just read is literally the message of Good Friday and Easter, and that Good Friday and Easter is literally next week.

Okay, what is your gut reaction to the urging or the encouragement from me to you to like invite people out?

Like take this message out and encourage people to come to church where they're going to hear the gospel.

Take this message out and share it with them yourselves.

What's your response to that?

Just on a like on a gut level.

Right?

I know we all know the right answer is to be like, yay, we're gonna go do this.

But inside we're like, I don't know if I want to, or I'm pretty sure I don't want to.

Well, as you battle through all of that in your soul, and listen, we all do on some level and in certain ways, I jot this down.

Okay, we're gonna have this on the screen for you.

How to go from I have to to I get to.

How do we get to that point?

Right, where it becomes a privilege and a joy and something we're excited about and we want to do this, and it drives us.

Well, here's the first one.

Okay, pray for the humility and courage to face the problem.

Right?

I think in so many ways, we we've we you know we've we've all sat in church and we've we've heard a message and we've felt, you know, that kind of sting of conviction, or or maybe it's guilt, or maybe it's fear, or whatever it might be, and we're kind of like, you know, not today, Lourdes.

Like, I got a lot going on.

You know, and I don't really want to get to this, and and so we just kind of ignore it, we kind of push it away, and we don't really want to get to it.

And I think that's often because of our pride.

We don't we don't really want to be told or or or urged to go do something.

We just we want to do what we want to do.

So to get to that place where it's like I have to to, yay, I get to, we need to be praying for humility.

Lord, would you would you grant me the humility?

You don't have the humility in and of yourself, by the way.

Like, be more humble.

You you'll hear that all the time.

That's that's not a thing.

Okay, we we we need humility.

The Lord gives us humility.

We humble ourselves, right?

And we we we cry out to the Lord.

That's what we need.

Humility.

Are you willing to pray for the humility to allow God to do the work in your heart, in your motivations, in your attitude, the things that need to be done so that you can do the things Christ has called you to do.

Okay, so humility is a big thing we need to pray for.

Courage is another one.

Courage.

I've heard a lot of Christians say, you know, I don't really share the gospel, I don't exactly know what to say, and and I feel like I'm gonna get stuck, and so therefore I don't.

And listen, at the end of the day, I think the biggest reason we don't share the gospel is because we lack courage.

We lack courage.

You think about the disciples at the beginning of Acts, they were, you know, they were brought before the council.

They were told, you know, you cannot do this, you cannot speak of Christ.

And so what did they do?

How do they respond?

They went to the upper room, they prayed, and they asked for boldness.

Lord, give us boldness, give us courage.

This is what we need.

Right?

And so many of us, we we allow the fear to stop us from doing what Christ has called us to do.

So I think this is a matter of prayer.

Start there.

Start with praying, Lord, would you would you allow me to humble myself?

Would you give me the humility that it takes to really face this thing that I've been ignoring?

And then, Lord, would you give me the courage to proclaim Christ?

I'm gonna tell you right now, you don't need to take an evangelism class to learn five tips on how to better share your faith.

If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, if you are saved, you know how to proclaim it.

Right?

If you are saved, it means you understood the gospel, you received it.

You can declare that in a very simple way to anybody.

So many people you see in the scriptures, so many new believers that you and I know are so jazzed, they're so fired up to share Christ right away.

They haven't taken a seminary class, they don't even, they've never heard the word seminary.

Right?

They're just excited because what Christ has done in them, they want to explain to other people.

They want to see Christ do that with them as well.

Okay, so pray for humility and courage.

That's how we got go from have to to get to.

Here's the second thing.

Set your mind on the awesome reality of the gospel.

Right?

This right here is the great attitude changer.

Right?

This is it.

So many of us have this like kind of surfacey, sort of working knowledge of the barrier.

Bone facts of the gospel.

Jesus died, three days later he rose, right?

But we don't necessarily personalize that and and meditate on how awesome that is for you and I.

That he forgives our iniquity, right?

That he rescues us from death, from an eternity in hell.

That we don't think about his love towards us.

That despite our our daily, weekly, constant failures and sin, he's still patient with us.

He still loves us.

He doesn't cast us aside.

He moves towards us in our sin.

He's not repulsed by all of that.

He actually wants to move towards you in all of that.

That's why he came.

Do you think about that?

Is Sunday morning when you hear some other guy teach it to you the only time you think about the gospel?

If that's the case, no wonder we're not motivated and don't have the desire to obey the Lord, specifically as we're talking about in evangelism, because it hasn't hasn't really gripped our hearts.

It's grown cold for us.

We need to meditate on these things, like stew in it, let it seep into your soul.

The gospel is awesome.

As you begin to see what the Lord does, and that that is pressed deeper and deeper into you.

Your attitude towards sharing that with others is going to change, I'm telling you.

How do I go from I have to to I get to?

That's one of them.

Here's the third one.

Plan to take steps forward, even if you don't want to yet.

Isn't that saying like I'm still gonna have to do things even though I don't feel like it?

That feels like I have to, not I get to.

Yeah?

I think so many of us are thinking, you know what, I'm not gonna do anything until the Lord has perfectly made my heart want to do this.

You know, he hasn't done it yet, so I guess that's on him.

You know, I don't really feel like it, so I guess I won't do anything.

No, uh discipline produces desire.

Do you understand that?

So, like pray for, pray for the humility, pray for the courage, right?

Meditate on the gospel, think about these things, and then take steps forward, even if your heart isn't 100% there yet.

Trusting that the Lord will encourage you, the Lord will give you the words, right?

The Lord will give you the desire.

You will go from uh I have to to uh right, I get to.

This is awesome.

Let's keep going here.

Second thing.

Okay, God was so good to promise us a Savior.

Okay, and now we get to declare that Jesus is the fulfillment of that promise.

Okay, got that.

And then here it is, while offering true freedom to anyone who will see and believe.

For this, we look at verse 38.

Check it out with me now.

Paul says to them, let it be known to you, therefore, brothers.

You notice how he calls them brothers.

That's a pretty sweet thing, actually, even though they haven't received Christ as Lord yet, as far as we can see.

He has such a deep affection for them, right?

You see the heart that Paul has for his fellow Jews, right?

He longs for them to see and believe, right, just as he has.

Okay, let it be known to you, therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.

He put all this together, it's not hard to see that he wants to proclaim it too.

Right?

It's it's not just like drudgery, it's not just like this miserable duty that he has to do.

No, he wants to.

That heart longing for for their fellow brothers to receive forgiveness.

That's what they've got.

Now, verse 39 says, and by him, Jesus, everyone who believes is freed from everything which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

You know, that word freed there is excellent.

It's so good, right?

It can also be translated a number of other ways.

It can be translated as justified, okay, uh, to put right with.

Okay, it can be it can be the word vindicate or declare righteous or or or to cause to be cause one to be in right relation.

Okay, in other words, Jesus fixes what is broken.

Okay, and what's broken is our relationship with our heavenly Father because of our sin against him.

Okay, that's what Paul's communicating here.

Okay, but but far from God desiring to punish and destroy us, he sent his son Jesus, the Savior, to fix the problem, to be the fix.

He alone fixes what the law can never fix in us.

He alone frees us from the demands of the law.

Okay, and that demand, if you're wondering, if those demands, altogether, it requires, the demand is absolute moral perfection.

That is what God requires of you and I.

And Paul's telling his brothers that they can never achieve absolute moral perfection by following the law.

Right?

Try as hard as you want to be a good little Christian boy or girl.

Try as hard as you can to follow all the rules and pick all of those boxes.

You're never gonna get them all.

And your sin has tainted you and warped you.

You and I, we ne we don't have a fighting chance to get to the place of absolute moral perfection.

And so Paul's urging him, he's saying, be freed from that exhausting and fruitless pursuit.

He offers them something so, so much better.

He's offering them true freedom if they would believe in Christ's absolute moral perfection, which he achieved for them on their behalf, through his life, through his death, and through the resurrection.

Right?

If only they would see what Paul is pointing them to, if only they would believe that Jesus has done these things, these acts of Christ satisfying the demands of the law, satisfying God's wrath towards us because we couldn't satisfy the demands of the law, and satisfying it once and for all.

This is what Paul is offering them.

And this is what you and I get to offer the world as well.

It's amazing.

Okay, but notice here as he finishes off, it's not quite done.

He actually attaches a warning at the end of his message, okay, for those who choose not to see, for those who choose not to believe.

Verse 40 says, Beware.

Okay, beware, therefore, lest what is said in the prophets should come about.

Okay, and then verse 41 quotes Habakkuk 1, verse 5, says, Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish, for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you.

Habakkuk 1:5

It's a warning to see, to recognize that what has happened through the events of Jesus Christ coming into this world, what has happened there, is it actually nothing short of the humanity-saving work of God Almighty.

That's what Paul is telling them.

He's warning them of that.

Failing to see it, choosing to reject it has eternal consequences.

Okay, choose not to believe, choose not to be freed through Jesus means dying and while while being at odds with your Maker.

And the result of that is devastating.

It's devastating.

Eternity separated from a good and loving God, right, in a place of misery that the Bible calls hell.

Listen, if if you're here today and you're sitting here, you're you're watching this online and you haven't believed in Christ, do it.

Right?

Do it today.

If you are here and you have done that, okay, remember that this gospel is what you and I get to offer to other people.

The promise of a savior who frees us from the bondage of sin and death.

The promise that sinners can be made right with the God who made them and who loves them.

Okay, so do it, church.

Do it, declare it.

Offer it to people, invite somebody to Good Friday.

Right?

Invite a friend, a relative, a neighbor, whatever it might be, to one of our Easter services.

And pray, right?

Join me in praying that they would see, right, that they would believe, receiving the freedom that Jesus Christ offers.

Listen, I want to pray for us now, and I want to pray for these things, that these things would be rooted deep in our soul, and I want to pray uh for those uh that we're gonna be inviting this week, for those that will come or will tune in online and watch.

They will come to know Jesus Christ and the love that He has for them.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you.

We thank you, Lord, for this time we've had together, Father.

We thank you for the incredible message of the gospel.

We thank you for all that it accomplishes.

Lord, it frees us from all the things that the law could never free us from.

The intention of the law was to just show us that we need something greater than the law.

And that something is a person, it's you.

And so, Father, I pray that we would recognize that.

I pray that we would love what you have done.

Not just pay lip service to it, not just act outwardly like we think Christians should act, but Lord, that this would compel us to truly love you, to humble ourselves, to want to be used, Lord, not being guilt-tripped and driven in a negative way, but Lord, fired up about the gospel, fired up about you, loving you, drawing close to you, and seeking and desiring that other people would experience the same thing that we've experienced.

So Lord, I I pray for for our church, I pray for this week, as it's a big one for us, Lord, as we will get the opportunity to invite neighbors and we'll be put in situations where we'll have to make a decision.

Am I gonna say it?

Am I gonna say it?

Am I gonna invite them?

Or am I gonna stay quiet?

Lord, I pray that you would give us courage in this.

Lord, and I pray that we would recognize that it's really not about us at all.

It's about you and it's about what you want to do to save others.

And so, God, give us this heart, I pray.

Bring us along, Lord.

We're all in different kind of stages of our passion for this.

Lord, awaken us if we're feeling uh kind of dead and neutral about this.

Lord, give us that fire and that passion.

Lord, I pray that we would come and we would see people get saved.

Lord, I pray that we would come and we would remember what you have done.

I pray that we would come and we would worship you for what you have done.

And so, Lord, I pray your blessing on our church.

I pray your blessing uh on us this week as we prepare and march towards Easter, Lord, that it'd be a wonderful uh weekend of rejoicing and celebration.

Lord, we pray that this would be to your glory.

And we pray it all in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.