The Book Of Acts | Restorative Power (November 29th, 2020) - Mike Armstrong

Alright, well, let's get to God's Word now.

If you would uh take your Bible, your copy of God's Word, and get it open to Acts chapter 9.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

We're gonna finish Acts 9 today.

Um, and so uh as you are um finding that spot there, uh my father-in-law is uh is a mechanic, okay, and he has always been involved in the automotive industry, either uh buying cars, selling cars certainly, and uh and even racing into truck pulls, which is pretty sweet.

Uh but one of the things that he is uh really good at and enjoys doing is fixing or restoring old cars and trucks.

Certainly a passion of his, and and uh he has uh for years been been doing, you know, even just little jobs.

I know that he would restore and fix up old vehicles for his kids to drive.

I remember back in the day, Ange, remember seeing pictures of Ange.

She literally drove an old taxi uh in high school, so she was a legend in high school, and her friends love driving in that.

Uh, but this is the latest project, actually.

You see the picture on the screen there uh that he is working on.

It's a restoration of a 66 Ford Galaxy 500 XL convertible.

And uh this thing is uh was sitting in his garage.

I've seen it uh face to face, it's getting pretty close to done now.

He's done more work than what you see uh there in the picture.

Uh but this is for a client of his, and this is the kind of thing that he uh just really loves to do.

Now, whether you're a car person, you're into cars or not, I think there's something very, very gospel about restoring a broken down vehicle.

After all, if you think about it, that's really what the Lord does with us.

Okay, we were originally designed, you and I, to be flawless, to be perfect, to enjoy the many blessings of a right relationship with our Creator.

Okay, free from sin and the barrier that that is between us and God, free from the chaos and the and the decay, the carnage that sin causes that we all see around us and experience and even create ourselves.

Now, of course, that sin and all of that, that all began in the Garden of Eden when when Adam and Eve decided, you know what, we're not gonna obey God.

We're gonna go our own way here.

We're gonna we're gonna rebel, we're gonna disobey and do our own thing.

Okay, so from that moment, if you think about it this way, from that moment, the Lord God has been in the restoration business.

Okay, that's what he does.

He he's he fixes our brokenness.

He sent Jesus, of course, to you know, to make us right again, to make us right with our heavenly Father.

He did all of that through the cross by by taking our punishment, taking our penalty uh upon himself.

And God continues to restore us today, Christians.

Right?

He does that through the Holy Spirit and he works to make us so that we actually function, practically speaking, uh in everyday life in a way that lines up with who God has declared us to be.

Okay, so no question when the Lord's restorative power is unleashed on us, okay, it is it is astonishing.

It is life-changing.

You know, and I don't know about you, but I I certainly want to see this more uh in my life.

Right?

I was even you know, just wrestling and and and and battling my own flesh this week and my own idolatry and something like just just comfort and pleasure and and how my my heart longs for that more than I long for the things of the Lord sometimes, and just kind of chewing on that and grinding through that.

I want to see him, I want to see him unload that power on me.

I want to see him continue to restore me and turn me into the image of Jesus Christ.

And listen, I want that for you as well.

I want that for our church, and I trust that you want that for yourself and for our church.

When God unleashes power, it's awesome.

Right?

It really is, and I think we certainly see that here uh in our text today, in the passage that we're gonna look at.

So let's do that right now.

Acts 9, and we're gonna be starting off in verse 32.

Read along with me.

It says, Now as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lida.

There he found a man named Aeneas, bedridden for eight years, who is paralyzed.

And Peter said to him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you.

Rise and make your bed.

And immediately he rose.

And all the residents of Lidah and Sharon saw him and they turned to the Lord.

Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which translated means Dorcas.

She was full of good works and acts of charity.

In those days she became ill and died, and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room.

Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, Please come with us without delay.

So Peter rose and went with them.

And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room.

All the widows stood beside him weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas had made when she was with them.

But Peter put them all outside and knelt down and prayed, and turning to the body, he said, Tabitha, arise.

She opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up, and he gave her his hand and raised her up.

Then calling the saints in widows, he presented her alive, and it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.

And he stayed in Joppa for many days with one Simon, a tanner.

Let's pray.

God, as we read this text, we are struck by the power involved in making a man who has is unable to physically move, let alone walk, and get up.

Lord, we're we marvel at the power that it takes to bring someone who is literally dead to open their eyes and to rise them up, Lord.

Your power is incredible.

Lord, I pray that as we work our way through these verses here this morning, God, we would recognize that you are still powerful, you are still at work, you are still doing amazing things.

You have done amazing things and you are still doing it.

And so, God, I pray that as we as we look at this, we would we would marvel, we would glorify you.

We would praise you, Lord.

Lord, you would encourage and edify your church.

And Lord, even as we think about that, we our hearts go out to our brothers and sisters in Corfu, Haiti, who are uh today becoming a church that's that's part of our movement of churches, Lord, and we pray for Pastor Charles down there in Harvest Bible Chapel and and pray that you would bless them and that you would encourage them, Lord, and that you would bind their hearts to us, even though they're so far away, Lord.

We're excited to be able to partner with them in a small way.

And so, Lord, I pray that that you would uh really bring rejoicing to the souls of the people there and continue to do a mighty work of discipleship in that area, Lord.

God, as even as we have had an opportunity to give and and still do, Lord, I pray that you would take those those funds, Lord, and use them for your glory and pray.

And Lord, I pray that in that you would be worshipped.

And so, God, as we think about all these things, Lord, I pray that our hearts would be stirred, we would be filled with joy.

Lord, I pray that you would continue to do a work of salvation in our in our city, in our town.

Lord, you continue to transform us and make us like Jesus.

To his glory we pray these things.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, well, here's the first thing this morning.

It's two points today.

All right, when the Lord's restorative power is unleashed, it transforms even our most dire predicaments.

All right, so two examples that we see of this uh in the passage today.

Okay, this first one, we've already read it, I know, but this first one picks up in verse 32 as Peter re-enters the scene.

Okay, we remember Peter, of course, but the last time that we saw him was back in uh chapter 5 when he was telling the Jewish council that we must obey God rather than man.

You remember that?

The council had tried to stop them, to muzzle them from proclaiming Jesus as Lord, and they're like, yeah, no, that's not happening.

We're gonna continue to share the gospel, whether you like it or not.

Okay, well, here he is uh again, again, verse 32.

It says, Now as Peter went here and there among them.

All right, so what he's doing then, he's he's visiting a bunch of the believers and a bunch of the churches in the area uh just outside Jerusalem.

Okay, so it says that he came down also to the saints.

Okay, saints is just another word for Christians.

He came down also to the saints who lived at Lida.

Okay, so where is Lidah?

Lidda is 37 kilometers from Jerusalem.

So again, he's not too far from town, from where he lives.

But verse 33 again, or there it says, uh, there he found a man named Aeneas.

Okay, presumably he was one of the saints there, one of the believers.

It says that he was bedridden for four uh for eight years, and he was paralyzed.

Okay, so obviously a a pretty dire predicament for this guy.

Right?

He's completely unable to walk.

He's he's resigned to being in a bed.

He can't move at all from the looks of it.

He's paralyzed.

Okay, but look what the Lord does here.

Verse 34, it says, And Peter said to him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ, heals you.

Rise and make your bed.

Okay, or another way of thinking about that is pick up your mat, that mat that you've been laying on, because you're not going to need that anymore.

Okay, and it says, and immediately Aeneas rose.

Okay, so this is the first example that we see here in this passage of God doing the impossible, doing what nobody expected, where he reaches down into this incredibly bleak situation here, you know, where from a from a human perspective, uh there's no hope.

Right?

None whatsoever, no, no, no opportunity for any any physical progress in Aeneas' life.

You know, healthcare being what it was, I mean, he there's no chance that he was he was gonna visit a a physio and and you know and and get his muscles going and be able to walk again.

No, it says that he was paralyzed, he's he's bedridden, he's been he's been in that position for for eight years.

And yet the Lord just totally reaches down and and restores this man's entire quality of life.

Okay, so that's the first example.

Second example here of God transforming a dire predicament, an even more bleak one.

Jump down, skip over verse 35, go over to verse 36.

We'll go back to that other verse uh in a moment.

But here's what it says.

It says, now there was in Joppa, okay, Joppa's another town.

It was just south of what is modern-day uh Tel Aviv, and again, just 18 kilometers away from where from where Peter was in Lida.

Okay, so now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which translated means Dorcas, meaning gazelle.

I'm not really sure of the significance of that, but that's what a little note at the bottom of your Bible will tell you.

Okay, it says that she was full of good works and acts of charity.

Alright, so she was obviously a quality person, uh, seems like a really great lady and was definitely appreciated.

We'll see that here.

Verse 37, it says, In those days she became ill and died.

And when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room.

Now, since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, please come to us without delay.

Now, the typical course of action when somebody passes away is obviously to bury them.

After you prepare the body, you would you would then bury the person.

All right, so so this decision to lay her body in an upper room there and then and then urgently send for Peter to come to come to them suggests to us.

It doesn't tell us explicitly, but it suggests to us that they were somewhat hopeful that that God would do uh the impossible, that they were hopeful for a miracle of miracles.

Now, why did they have that kind of hope exactly?

I'm not sure.

Was the Lord stirring in them that something was going to happen?

Again, we're we're not exactly told.

Okay, but Peter, he doesn't just say, no, you guys are you're crazy here.

He he's he's willing to go.

I mean, take a look at verse 39.

So the Lord must be stirring in him as well, right?

It says, so Peter rose and went with them.

And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room.

All the widows stood beside him weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas had made while she was with them.

Alright, so clearly this was a very respected woman, and she had a major impact on the people around her.

In verse 40, but Peter put them all outside.

He sends them away, says that he knelt down and prayed, returning to the body, which again tells us she was dead.

He says, Tabitha, arise.

She opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up.

Now, what you have here is as you look at that is an even wilder scenario than the first one.

Right?

Tabitha is, I mean, she's gone.

Her situation is as over as it gets.

And yet the Lord restores her very life, right?

Shortly after, restoring Aeneas's paralyzed body back to being able to fully function.

Now, both of these miracles here as we look at this really need to be understood as extremely unusual events.

Okay, even for back then.

This kind of thing, it just didn't happen very often.

Okay, but but this was such an extraordinary time in human history where God was doing something uniquely exceptional, right?

Speak.

He was, you know, he was reaching down, he was reaching out into a broken world with the power and the truth of the gospel.

He was advancing the mission and spreading it out in a way that had never been seen before.

And he was doing it with with heightened levels of shock and awe, you know, for maximum impact and and maximum engagement with the people.

If you think about it, the the Jews, remember, these are Gentiles here, but the Jews, okay, they had been having their minds blown at God's amazing power already.

I mean, you even think about uh the the lame man who had who was healed earlier in Acts outside of the temple gates.

Remember, Peter was involved in that.

And it was, you know, uh in front of a whole crowd as they were going to worship, and it was it was to show the people, oh my goodness, like the Lord is is behind this.

I mean, they had seen him do uh so many amazing things, many wonders, many many signs, and he did that through the gos uh through the disciples, okay, which which provided for for those who saw it and heard about it, crystal clear evidence that the Lord was behind it.

Okay, so that's what had been happening to the Jews.

Now it was the Gentiles' turn uh to experience that.

And so what he was doing now through these two stories here is he's just blowing the doors off of everything that they thought was possible.

Right?

He's like expanding their mind to realize, whoa, like this is the God that we are are dealing with here.

I mean, this was this was his power unleashed, like like they couldn't even imagine.

And so while I I think here that we should, you know, today stop short of saying that God could never do something uh like this these days, right?

I think we should stop short of saying that.

I believe that God can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants.

He's certainly powerful enough.

Okay, but that being said, as we think about our day and age, should should it be our expectation that we see these exact same things happen now as though they should be common occurrences?

Probably not.

But again, that doesn't mean that God couldn't do them.

And it doesn't mean that that because we don't see these things in an everyday situation or hear about them even, it doesn't mean that that God is somehow not good.

And again, it doesn't mean that God is somehow not powerful because we haven't seen our loved ones healed, maybe, or our loved ones rise from the dead, or maybe because our own physical disabilities remain.

You know, I think sometimes we're tempted to think and and believe somewhere within us here that God's not good and and God's not powerful because I'm not seeing my circumstances change.

Or we're tempted to think, well, he he used to be he used to be powerful back then, right, in the Bible.

I've read that.

He he used to restore people, but he doesn't really do those things anymore.

Right?

He seems to have backed away.

Okay, but that that's not true either.

Okay, it's not even close to being true.

Okay, because think about it this way: if you are a Christian, right, if you have surrendered your brokenness and admitted your sins before God and invited Jesus Christ to be your savior, and you are trusting in him to make you right between you and God, listen, you have been risen, raised from the dead.

Okay, you have been healed spiritually, right?

And that is by far the most dire predicament that you or I have ever faced.

Okay, we need to think about it that way.

If you've been saved, you have been brought from death to life.

Right?

The Bible talks about this in Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

Let's get this on the screen here.

Ephesians chapter 2, uh, verses 1 to 6.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

Look what it says.

Follow along.

It says, and you were what?

Dead.

Dead is the word.

And notice how it says, you were dead, implying what?

Not anymore.

Right?

You're not anymore in Christ.

It says, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of the world, following the world's ways, the world's whims, the world's desires.

Okay, following the prince of the power of the air, that's that's Satan.

Okay, that the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, like other other unbelievers, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, deservingly so, like the rest of mankind.

Then look at this, look at where it hinges here and it switches gears.

But God, right?

That's worth underlining in your Bibles, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us.

Okay, so notice here how how the Lord is gonna do something now, not dependent on your behavior, your goodness, it's but dependent on his mercy, right?

Dependent on his love.

He's doing this because he loves you.

Even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive.

That's the resurrection there, right?

He made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved.

It repeats it again, and raised us up.

Right?

You've been raised to new life.

Raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Okay, you have been raised from the dead.

You've also been healed.

How about this from 1 Peter 2, verse 24?

1 Peter 2:24

Let's look at this on the screen as well.

It says, He himself, this is Jesus, of course.

It says, bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

There's the resurrection again, right?

By his wounds, you have been what?

You've been healed.

Exactly.

Okay, so listen, bottom line, like as a Christ follower, the Lord has already unleashed his restorative power in your life.

He's done it.

He's already transformed, again, your most dire predicament ever, which is that you were in the crosshairs of uh of a holy and righteous God's wrath.

Right again, and and deservedly so, like I said, you and I, we both deserved it.

How was our journey's end at the end at the end of this life?

That's where we were all headed.

We were all incapable of veering off course, of pumping.

Open the brakes on that.

That's that's just it was a runaway freight train.

We couldn't change any of that in our own strength.

Apart from God's grace, apart from God's mercy and love, as Ephesians 2 showed us, apart from all of that, you and I are dead.

Right?

We're just like Tabitha.

Apart from what Christ has done, you and I are we're paralyzed spiritually, unable to revive ourselves, and unable to do anything.

Yet, of course, the miracle of our salvation is that we've been raised to life.

We've been healed, we've been restored.

Now you might still be kind of wondering.

Like, okay, I kind of get that.

And Pastor, I'm gonna work to remind myself of that and remember that if I feel discouraged, but but what about like my my physical dire predicaments?

What about my circumstances?

What about my my the the issues that I got going on in my life?

Right?

Aeneas and Tabitha, they had theirs restored.

Right?

That's pretty sweet, but but will I have will I have mine restored?

What's gonna happen to me?

Will it all get fixed?

Will the Lord do that?

Sometimes.

Sometimes he will.

Sometimes God transforms our circumstances and our situations and the various predicaments we find ourselves in.

Absolutely.

And sometimes, in his wisdom and in his sovereignty, he chooses not to.

Not in the way that maybe we've been asking.

Okay, but listen, always, always, always, because he is working something else out.

Always because he's doing something else.

It might be something in your heart that needs to be changed, that needs to be healed, that needs to be fixed.

It could be something in your belief, in your trust.

It could be that he's drawing you into a deeper level of pure worship.

It could be that he's working something out in you so that you will be a greater witness and example to other people.

Listen, in those moments where our physical and our and our earthly scenarios don't change as we as we'd like, we're called to be patient, right?

We're called to trust him.

We're called to glorify him, anyways.

And of course, remember the fact that the Lord has done a miracle in us already.

A major one, the most important one.

He's saved us.

Okay, and listen to this.

And to remember that life isn't about us, anyways.

It's really not.

I mean, that is a wake-up call that I think we all need constantly.

Life is not about us having all of our problems just kind of smoothed out by God.

Right?

And even if he does happen to restore our circumstances and those prayers that you have are answered in the exact way that you would like, listen, even then it's not about us.

Do you realize that?

I think we really see that here in this last thing.

Second point is that when the Lord's restorative power is unleashed, his greatness draws even more people to himself.

Okay, notice with me here what happens when God restores Aeneas and Tabitha.

Okay, starting back with Aeneas again, back to verse 35.

I said we'd get back to that.

Look what it says.

It says, and all the residents of Lida and Sharon, I don't think that's Sharon, Ontario, but all the residents there saw him.

Okay, that word all there, we say all the residents saw him.

Don't don't push that overly literally.

Okay, it's it's Luke's way of suggesting an extremely large number, okay, lots of people.

Okay, lots of people uh saw him, it says, and they what?

They turned to the Lord.

Okay, so what happened?

Aeneas rises up off of his bed, off of his mat, you know, and everyone around town sees him just walking, he's he's out and about, and it has this like mega shockwave effect, as you can only imagine, where people are struck by the awesomeness of God's restorative power unleashed in this man's life, and they're just like, I turn to you, Lord.

Like you are real, I surrender my life to you.

They they get saved.

Okay, similar thing happens back in in Tabitha's story as well.

Jump back down to verse 41.

It says, And he, it's Peter, and he gave her his hand and raised her up.

Then calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive.

And it became known throughout all Joppa.

And look at this, and many believed in the Lord.

And just of Peter, it says that he stayed in Joppa for many days with one Simon, a tanner, which is a verse that really tees up the next sermon in chapter 10, which we'll get to next time, of course.

Okay, but again, the same thing happens here with Tabitha that happened with Aeneas.

She revives, she comes back to life, and word of it spreads around town, of course, as it would, and and it's yet another shockwave of God's power and how awesome God is, and says that many believed in the Lord.

Clear evidence.

See, I think these two stories here show us something that's just so critical and and we can't afford to miss, but but I think we often do.

It's that when the Lord's restorative power is unleashed in your life or my life, you know, in the various ways that he does that, of course in our salvation, we've talked about that, or or in how he gives you grace to grow in maturity in Christ-likeness, or or or it's in the times where he does do those miracles, you know, in your life and your circumstances and predicaments.

Listen, when he does those things and he unloads his power, listen, he's actually doing something much bigger than what he's accomplishing in you.

You realize that he is.

He's using those events to do even more.

He to reach others through what he's doing in you.

Do you tend to look at it that way?

He's working to draw them to himself, okay, just like he's done and is continuing to do in your life.

See, I think we have to always remember here, be reminded, that naturally, each one of us here, we have we have our eyes, we have our we have our focus kind of constantly turned turned inward.

Meaning that instinctively, naturally speaking, you know, we you know we're inclined to think about and and care about and and and focus on ourselves primarily.

Okay, and it's sin's warping effect that is that has done that to us.

There's this inherent selfishness and pride there in each one of us that the Holy Spirit is working to sanctify out of us.

That's what he's doing.

And so, because my sanctification, your sanctification, it's all a work in progress, what this often means is that you and I, we often operate from this place of wanting God to show us his power, but because of that pride and that selfishness, we want him to do it for our sake.

Lord, would you just would you work in in, you know, finally do something for me?

And we want it to be for our comfort or or or our personal happiness or or our pleasure.

And again, instinctively, we don't we don't really think much beyond that, much beyond ourselves.

But as we see here, and as we see all through Acts, and I mean we see it all through the Bible, is that while the Lord cares immensely about the individual, but he cares immensely about you, he cares about me, right?

And he's pouring his power into our lives, certainly.

But what we see here is that there's a much bigger operation in play.

It's to use what he's doing in you and for you as a statement to the world.

Okay, where he's demonstrating his greatness in you to be a signal to the rest of the world to draw them to himself as well.

Okay, so remember, God wants to restore you.

He's gonna do that in a number of different ways.

He wants to unleash his power in you.

He's gonna do that when he sees fit, he's gonna do that how he sees fit.

And oh, and while all of that is is certainly to bless you as an individual, it's about way more than that, which is awesome.

Those moments, again, are to serve as like a conduit really to reaching other people with the gospel.

And so, hey, whatever like whatever you're going through today, whatever you're kind of struggling with, and and maybe you know you're feeling weak in in you know one or more areas, or you know, you're seeing your brokenness, it's just becoming so clear, it's being revealed to you, and there's like this painful clarity to it all, right?

And you're realizing, man, like I need the Lord's restorative power so bad.

I need I need it to fall hard on my life.

Okay, recognize that as while that is so, so important, and it's so good that that's happening, and and that that sin is kind of coming to the to the top where the Lord can skim it all off and purify you, while all of that is so good.

Recognize that that beyond that, he has an even bigger plan in the works.

Love that.

Okay, and whatever he's doing in you, whatever he's doing in me, it's ultimately going to be for the benefit of others around us.

Right?

That's God's plan.

And so listen, as you as you pray about these things for yourself, you pray about this for the people that you know and love, pray from a heart that says that says, Lord, like do a work in me.

Please do it.

But do it for your glory.

Right?

Do it for the furthering of your purposes, not for whatever mildly or or majorly selfish tainted reasons that I might have.

Do it for uh do it how you see fit.

Lord, use me as a vessel here to take the good news of the gospel, that you restore sinners to new life, that that you heal our brokenness.

Use me and what you are accomplishing in my life to draw even more people to you.

That they would see your greatness as as I have, as I'm learning to, and that they would turn to you.

And listen, that's that's really the message of the gospel that's offered to anyone here today.

Anyone in this room, anybody watching at home.

Christ offers to to repair you, to restore you, to fix what's broken in you.

And that's your sin.

And that sin is is is making a mess.

Do you sense it?

Do you feel it?

Do you log into social media and see it in the world all around you?

God sent his son Jesus Christ to heal us, to make us right, to purify us.

All of that happened on the cross.

Would you would you admit your brokenness before the Lord?

Would you invite him to be your Savior?

Would you invite him to heal you, to raise you up spiritually?

As we always say, if if you have a question about that or something's a little bit unclear or or or you sense the Lord's stirring in you, would you would you reach out to us today?

Because we would love to be able to pray with you.

We would love to be able to answer questions that you might have about what it means to be in a relationship with God.

So listen, I want to pray for you now.

I want to pray for each one of us.

That these things would be pressed into our hearts even more and that we would go from here in joy as Derek comes back up.

Lord, we pray and want to rejoice in the restorative power of our amazing God, Lord.

And Father, as we think about anybody here who might be kind of wrestling with their own sin and who does not know you, Lord, I pray that you would open up their eyes and soften their hearts and help them to see that you offer them eternal life.

You offer them forgiveness, you offer them true and real healing, Lord, that nothing else in this world could ever could ever offer and could ever deliver on.

So Lord, we thank you that through Jesus Christ dying on the cross and and rising again from the grave, Lord, our sins have been have been taken care of.

The punishment fell on you.

We don't have to, we don't have to endure that anymore.

We get the free gift of salvation.

And so, Lord, save somebody today, we pray.

We pray boldly, we pray that you would do that.

Lord, I pray that the rest of us, as we're still working out the reality of practically speaking, we're still somewhat broken and we're still trying to work through that stuff and live in line with who you declare us to be.

God, I pray that we would feel the joy and experience the joy of the Holy Spirit that you are working and you are still transforming us.

Lord, encourage people today.

Lord, I pray that as we want to see our lives restored, we want to see our predicaments restored, we want to see you use us, Lord, I pray that we would remember that the finishing touches of restoration are still to come.

And Lord, will come because you have promised they will come when you return and make all things new.

And so, Lord, I pray that in that we would long for heaven.

Lord, I pray that that in that we would we would have an eternal perspective and realize that that everything being perfectly fixed in every way, shape, and form is happening.

Would we rejoice?

Would we worship you?

Would we keep our eyes locked on you before that day comes?

To the glory of Christ, we pray it all.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.