Imprisoned and Forgotten

Amen.

Well, listen, it is great to see everybody this morning.

Um, my name is Russ.

If I haven't met you or had the chance to meet you, it is so good to have you with us this morning.

I especially want to say a big welcome to those of you that might be here for the first time, second time, excited that you are with us this morning.

Um you've come uh kind of early in this uh a series, a teaching series that we are doing on the life of Joseph.

Uh subtitled God has good plans, and this is um uh that's important to know because the life of Joseph, if we don't know that God is good, a story like this, and maybe even our own story can be a bit discouraging and depressing.

And I was just thinking about that word grace.

That word grace.

That that word grace, let me tell you how the world began.

The world began with this beautiful garden where there was no there was no barrier between God and his creation.

There was no barrier between God and humanity.

As a matter of fact, it says Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the day.

There was no barrier.

There was no sin.

There was no consequences to sin.

Listen, the word grace would not even be in the dictionary when you think of a pre-sin existence in the world.

Forgiveness would not be in the dictionary, redemption would not be in the dictionary.

And so that's that's the world and that's the setting before before there was rebellion, before there was sin, and so before before Adam and Eve decided that their way was better than God's way.

And so they rebel, they sin, they they they they partake of what God has told them is not available to them.

And and all of a sudden, brokenness enters the world.

There is a barrier between humanity and God.

And so that they can't they can't have a relationship with God.

And all of a sudden, there is a need.

Those words, grace, redemption, forgiveness, wholeness, shalom in the Hebrew, all those words now take on meaning.

And so we experience hurt.

We experience pain.

We experience the decline in our human bodies.

We experience the suffering emotionally, the suffering physically.

We experience all of these things because of disobedience and sin and rebellion and doing things our own way.

And so we we look at a world and we look at it and we say, why?

We ask the question, why?

We ask the question, why would a child be abused?

Why would a marriage fail?

Why would we do the things that we do?

Wives mistreat husbands, husbands abuse wives.

Uh why would pastors fail or fall or abuse or mistreat a person or a congregation?

And so we we we look at the world and we think, man, it can't get any worse, and then all of a sudden we're shocked to see some of the terrible things that happen in our world.

And we're angry, we're confused, we're we're we're we're we're hurt, we're broken.

We don't even know why, but we just we feel anxiety and depression, and we feel all these emotions.

Nothing new.

We think you know, all some of these things are are newer.

Maybe they have have progressed, but it's nothing new.

You know, um Charles Spurgeon was one of the great preachers in history.

He suffered from great depression, but he didn't call it depression.

He called it the dark night of the soul.

And so we you you go back further and we see in Scripture there is a whole book written called Lamentations.

The book of Psalms.

Much of the book of Psalms are laments and of pain, emotional hurts and pains.

And so and so we understand that.

We understand that our attitudes and actions are affected by the fall.

Uh 1 Peter 2.20 says this, of course.

You get no credit for being patient if you are beaten for doing wrong.

And he he is speaking to the early church and Christians that are suffering at the hands of what we would call persecution.

He says, but if you suffer for doing good and endure it patiently, God is pleased with you.

And so sometimes we we look at the world and we look at our life and we look at the events around us, and we just have to we just have to say, you know what, I don't get it.

And that's why Isaiah says in Isaiah 55, 8, 9, he says, My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord, and my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.

For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

And so our human ways are based on what seems fair.

Our human ways are based on what seems fair.

Define fair.

Define fair.

God has been known to allow unfair treatment to occur in the lives of, and here's, I said this this morning.

God has been known to allow unfair treatment to occur in the lives of some absolutely innocent people.

But who's innocent?

If you're innocent, raise your hand.

There's nobody, nobody's innocent.

We're all guilty.

We're all in the need.

Let me tell you, grace.

Grace has significance because of this chapter that we're about to read in Isaiah chapter 40.

Isaiah 40 · chapter mention

I'm not not Isaiah, Genesis chapter 40.

Genesis 40 · chapter mention

Genesis chapter 40.

Genesis 40 · chapter mention

And so, for some reasons, beyond our understanding, God allows suffering, allows us to hurt, allows us to go through what we go through.

And with that in mind is the big idea this morning.

When you can't trace God's hand, you can trust his heart and his plans.

And and I listen, that that's probably one of the most common phrases that I that I that I lean on in life.

When you can't trace God's hand, you can trust his heart.

And I know I think that comes from some famous preacher somewhere down the line, but I learned it from my pastor, uh Pastor Ike, back back in the day when I was a youth pastor.

And some of you have heard me tell his story where he lost his wife and his child on the same day in the labor and delivery room.

And so I'm not gonna go back to that story, but let's look, let's look at Joseph's story.

Joseph's mistreatment.

Joseph knew what it was like to experience mistreatment.

He knew what it was like to receive what was considered to be unfair treatment from his family.

And, you know, not I don't want to go into great detail reviewing you.

Go back and read Genesis 37, um, and and last week, Genesis 39.

Uh, Joseph is the child of Jacob.

Jacob had many sons, and Joseph is the young child, he's the young son from his old age, and he is the favorite.

Probably uh shouldn't have been treated as the favorite like he was, but that is the case.

And his brothers resented it so much that they wanted to kill him.

And if it wasn't for the good, the good brother, Reuben, who says, let's don't kill him, let's sell him into slavery to this caravan that is traveling through our territory, and so he he is sold into slavery and and he and and he goes to Egypt.

He is sold to a guy named Potiphar.

He is he has God's hand on his life.

He has God's favor and God's blessing.

God's favor and God's blessing.

So he rises to the top.

He ends up being the assistant to the Secretary of Defense or to a general or an admiral or whatever Potiphar would be known in modern day life.

And then Potiphar's wife comes on to him and he runs away, but he's falsely accused, so he is sent down into prison.

And but very quickly he rises up.

Joseph's imprisonment.

Joseph 40, 15 said he's put into a dungeon and he and he has returned to the pit again.

Joseph is probably, we don't know for sure, but let's he let's say he's in his late 20s, very likely somewhere in that age range.

The question is, where is God?

Where is God in this?

God is somewhere in the story.

We don't see him real clearly, and it's not evident, but he is with him.

There's this phrase that we'll we keep coming back to over and over, and you'll find it throughout the rest of the story, all the way to Genesis chapter 50.

Genesis 50 · chapter mention

And it says, God was with Joseph.

And I read that, and I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.

You've got to be kidding me.

And some of us would look at our lives, and I can tell you, let's say it by faith.

Let's say it by the grace of God.

God is with you.

Russ, you've got to be kidding me.

I'm telling you, God is with you.

His sovereign hand is with you in every detail of your life.

And that's why you need to understand that when you can't trace his hand, you trust his heart.

Genesis 39, 21 through 23.

But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his faithful love.

He showed him his faithful love.

He's in prison, but he shows him his faithful love.

That word in the Hebrew is the word hasted.

You just kind of, if you want to sound like you're Jewish, you just kind of.

But listen, our English language does not do that word justice.

It is this overwhelming, surpassing human understanding, show of kindness and grace and unfailing faithfulness and love from the Heavenly Father.

In prison.

And the Lord made Joseph a favorite with the prison warden.

Before long, the warden put Joseph in charge of all the other prisoners, and over everything that happened in the prison, the warden had no more worries because Joseph took care of everything.

The Lord was with him and caused everything he did to succeed.

God was with Joseph and gave him favor.

God was with Joseph and gave him favor.

I think I shared this a little bit last week.

My my wife and my youngest son, we were talking about history, the history of God's people.

And all the way back to antiquity and all the way up to modern to the modern world that we're in.

Now I mean, you look at the suffering of God's people, you look at things like the Holocaust.

But but so there's two questions.

My son says, why does it seem, why does it seem that these people are out to get, they're out to get God's people?

Why is it why is there so much angst?

Why is there so much hate?

Why are people protesting?

Why are university students so anti-Semitic?

And then on the other end of that, why is God's people seem to rise above and and prosper the way they do?

It's called favor and blessing.

And that is probably the answer to the first question.

The world doesn't know what to do with the favor and the blessing.

I mean, you go back to Egypt.

It's a small family that arrives in Egypt, and before you know it, 400 years pass, and they are a nation of people.

There is a new Pharaoh, and he is threatened by the sheer number.

You know why?

Because they prosper.

They're fruitful.

They multiply.

It's favor and blessing.

And the world doesn't know what to do with that.

So let's let's exterminate them.

Let's get rid of them.

Let's let's let's persecute them.

False accusations put Joseph in prison.

But God was with him there.

The warden trusted him, Joseph, so much that he didn't supervise anything under Joseph's charge because the Lord was with him.

Whatever he did, the Lord made to prosper.

And so when the dungeon experience comes, the quickest and easiest response is to feel that you're forgotten.

You're forgotten by God.

And so let's take a look at a couple of cellmates of Joseph.

Joseph's cellmates, Genesis 40, 1 through 3, sometime later, Pharaoh's chief cupbearer and chief baker offended their royal master.

Pharaoh became angry with these two officials, and he put them in the prison where Joseph was in the palace of the captain of the guard.

So you've got the cupbearer and the king's baker.

The cupbearer, um, look look look at verse 4.

They remained in prison for quite some time, and the captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, who looked after them.

While they were in prison, Pharaoh's cupbearer and baker each had a dream one night, and each dream had its own meaning.

When Joseph saw them the next morning, he noticed they both looked upset.

Why do you look so worried today?

He asked them.

And so, when your heart's right, let me, this is me talking, when your heart's right, even though the bottom may have dropped out of your life, it's remarkable how sensitive you can be to somebody else in need.

Verse 8.

And they replied, We both had dreams last night, but no one can tell us what they mean.

Interpreting dreams is God's business, Joseph replied.

Go ahead and tell me your dreams.

Verse 9, so the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream first.

In my dream, he said, I saw a grapevine in front of me.

The vine had three branches that began to bud and blossom, and soon it produced clusters of ripe grapes.

I was holding Pharaoh's wine cup in my hand, so I took a cluster of grapes and squeezed the juice into the cup, and then I placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand.

So here's what Joseph says.

Verse 12, this is what the dream means, Joseph said.

The three branches represent three days.

Within three days, Pharaoh will lift you up and restore you to your position as his chief cupbearer.

Man, that's some good news, isn't it?

Man, that's good news.

Three days you get your old job back.

You have been demoted, but now you get your old job back.

And so, so Joseph makes a request, and please, please remember me and do me a favor when things go well for you.

Mention me to Pharaoh so he might let me out of this place.

For I was kidnapped from my homeland, the land of the Hebrews, and now I'm here in prison, but I did nothing to deserve it.

So you get a little insight that Joseph is human.

I mean, it seems like he's superhuman in his faith and in the way he conducts himself and in the blessing and the favor of God.

But we get a little peek in the fact in the reality.

Man, he's hurting.

He is hurting, he wants out of prison.

So he emphasizes, when you get restored, please remember me.

Now, second dream, verse 16, when the chief baker, so you got the cupbearer and you got the baker.

When the chief baker saw that Joseph had given the first dream such a positive interpretation, he said to Joseph, I had a dream too.

In my dream there were three baskets of white pastry stacked on my head.

The top basket contained all kinds of pastries for Pharaoh.

But the birds came and ate them from the basket on my head.

And so Joseph, man, can you imagine?

Can you imagine the baker's excitement?

Man, the cupbearer got restored.

I can't wait to hear my interpretation.

I can't.

This is I'm sitting on the edge of my seat.

And Joseph, a man of integrity, he's got to be honest, right?

He knew the dream meant that the guy was going to be killed.

Who wants to share that?

He could have told the baker anything.

He could have made it up something.

He could have died anyway.

Who would have known the difference?

But Joseph was a man who told the truth.

He wasn't about trying to win friends and influence people.

He was representing God.

Verse 18.

This is what the dream means, Joseph told him.

The three baskets also represents three days.

And the baker's sitting on the edge of his seat.

Three days from now, Pharaoh will lift you up and impale your body on a pole.

Dun dun dun.

What?

Certainly.

Certainly.

I misunderstood you.

You don't know our language yet very well.

Did I mistake what you said?

Then the birds will come and peck away at your flesh.

In three days he'll be executed.

Now this is bad news.

Obviously.

No positive thinking will change.

Think all you want to positively.

Now, look at verse 20.

Pharaoh's birthday came three days later, and he prepared a banquet for all his officials and staff.

He summoned his chief cupbearer and chief baker to join the other officials.

Then he restored the chief cupbearer to his former position so he could again hand Pharaoh his cup.

But Pharaoh impaled the chief baker just as Joseph had predicted when he interpreted his dream.

Alright.

So God has given a gift to Joseph.

You know what it's called?

It's called the Spirit of God.

Supernatural.

A supernatural gift.

Now, that you know, at this point in history, the Spirit does not live inside of every human being like he does now, post-resurrection, post-Pentecost, but the Holy Spirit shows up.

He shows up at according to God's will.

And so he works through Joseph's life in a supernatural way.

But there's still disappointment.

Here's Joseph's disappointment.

Joseph thought for sure, this is going to get me out of the dungeon.

I mean, the cupbearer.

The cupbearer.

Hey, I interpreted his dream.

Man, you're gonna get, you're gonna, in three days, you're gonna be restored back.

Hey, would you please do me a favor?

Remember me to Pharaoh?

And the cupbearer gets out, celebrates, gets busy.

What does he forget?

He forgets Joseph.

Verse 23, Pharaoh's chief cupbearer, however, forgot all about Joseph, never giving him another thought.

Now I'm gonna tell you, that's how a lot of us, how you feel, how I feel at times.

Especially, man, I I want I I genuinely love God.

I genuinely love the Lord.

I genuinely want to please God.

I want to live a life that pleases God.

You you you probably feel the same way.

I love God.

We're not perfect.

That's why we have to count on God's grace.

God's grace.

We're broken.

We're fallible.

We're not perfect.

But I love the Lord.

I mean, I love you love the Lord.

Do you ever feel forgotten?

Come on, let's just be real.

Can we just be real?

You know, one of the one there's a sin.

You're not gonna like me telling you this.

But there's a sin, there's a sin that probably in this generation that we suffer from worse than any previous generation.

It's called the sin of comparison.

The sin of comparison.

We look at somebody else's life and we think, man, they've got God's favor on their life.

Now, how do we see that?

How do we look at how do we look at their life?

How do we how do we see all this supposed favor?

Man, look at how God is blessing them.

Man, there's a bunch of favor.

God, look at look at how God is look at their house.

Look at their boat, look at their car.

You know, the problem is they're not posting depression, brokenness.

They're not posting all the consequences of their bad decisions.

Unless they're not sober.

Some people will post things they shouldn't post, and then all of a sudden you're trying to get rid of it, right?

It's like when you accidentally follow somebody you don't want to follow.

My girl, my my my son, you know, what my son says, my oldest son, he he he says, I met this new girl.

I said, and he tells me, he starts telling me, I said, what's her name?

And and he'll get out, Marcia, uh-uh, uh-uh, Dad, I know what you're gonna do.

I know what you're gonna do.

Don't, I said, I said, I I'm not gonna, I all I want to do is look up, it, I I I just want to look up her her picture.

I just want to, you know, he said, no, Dad, you're gonna you're gonna follow her.

I said, I'm not gonna follow her.

He said, Dad, you're gonna do it accidentally.

I'm just I'm just I'm just trying to be a good dad.

And you know, and check out, you know, and they see when I follow her, I get I get to see who who she's following and and who follows her, and I get to see who her parents are and get it to see their life, and and then, but anyway, it's that's it's a whole web, and I and they won't tell me anything now it back to the sin of comparison.

And so, however, Joseph feels forgotten.

Two full years later, how long have you been forgotten, by the way?

How long do you feel forgotten?

Two full years later, Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing on the bank of the Nile River.

So talk about disappointment.

Instead of being remembered and rewarded, he's forgotten for two more years.

What do you think was Joseph's mindset here?

What is his attitude?

How strong is his faith?

We get a little peek into some of his humanity in this story.

So let's apply it.

Let's can we just for a second, let's do some application.

Joseph's situation then applied to ours today.

Now, obviously, the culture has changed a bit.

We're thousands of years later.

We're a lot more dignified, maybe.

We're a lot more advanced, maybe.

But I think that we can still identify with Joseph's mistreatment, disappointment, and feelings of abandonment.

And that can resonate with us.

Even those of us that come from the best families, we can feel some of these emotions.

We can feel these experiences.

Why am I still single?

Why did my marriage fail?

Why do I feel alone?

Wives without husbands, husbands without wives, children without parents, parents without children, men and women struggling financially with the right job, unfair treatment, mistreatment comes in many forms, but most of it falls into one of four categories.

So here's how it applies to us, I think, today, is undeserved treatment from our family.

Undeserved treatment from our family.

Man, we we all got stories, don't we?

We've all got stories with our family.

Why, why did, why, why did I seem forgotten?

Why wasn't I the favorite?

Why why didn't I get a fair share of the inheritance?

Why doesn't my why why don't my parents seem to show the same care?

Why?

I mean we could why this, why that?

Undeserved treatment from family.

I mean I you've you've you've heard me share my testimony of growing up with dysfunction, an alcoholic father.

Unfaithful to my mother.

And and I'm I'm in my I I I have I have professed Christ, and I'm in my early 20s.

And so my brother has surrendered to ministry.

He lives in Savannah, Georgia, and he's got a loving pastor that is investing in his life, and we're our family is falling apart, it it feels like.

I mean, I can't tell you the anger that I feel.

And my brother experienced the same anger, but he's got a pastor that's investing in him.

And I and I was in a church, but I didn't have the kind of relationship, you know, with with a pastor that he had.

I mean, he's on staff at a church and he's got this experienced, wise pastor that is giving him counsel.

And I I'm I'm wanting to go hunt my dad down and physically hurt him because of the way he's treated my mother.

And so my brother, so my brother is taking the wise counsel he's receiving, and he is sharing this wise counsel with me.

And it's truth.

He's sharing the truth of God's word, which says, you honor your mother and father.

Do you know that that is a command that comes without any conditions?

So I'm having to learn to honor my father, and I begin to surrender the anger and the hurt.

And my dad calls up and he says, Hey, I want to come see you, and I want to bring my girlfriend.

Yes, sir.

Long story.

My mother, my mother and father end up reconciling.

But I mean, I I mean, I feel like my family's falling apart at the scenes.

The story ends a lot, ends really well, ends, ends with my dad's salvation.

But I'm telling you, in the midst of it, it hurts and it feels so undeserved.

Why am I experiencing the consequences and the emotional baggage from my family?

Did I deserve that?

Number two is unexpected restriction of circumstances.

Unexpected restriction of circumstances.

What do I mean by that?

It means you're confined emotionally or physically.

There's sickness, or there's an injury, or there's a traumatic disease in your life, or someone from you.

There are scars left from abuse in your life.

Number three are untrue accusations.

Untrue accusations.

That's why I'm so I'm so careful about having healthy boundaries.

My brother told me a story when he was in seminary and he this stuck with me.

He said, Russ, it doesn't take you committing a sin to ruin your ministry.

All it takes is an accusation.

And he shared with me a story about one of his friends who's called by a young woman in distress, and he shows up at a motel to help this needy woman who is sharing, she's in distress.

When ends up, she accuses him of assaulting her.

Who's telling the truth?

My brother tells me, he said, Russ, I honestly believe my friend is innocent.

He said, but it didn't take, it didn't take a true story.

All it took was an accusation.

Accusations bring down people every day.

Unfair abandonment.

Unfair abandonment.

It may be in a marriage, it may be in a family, it might be a parent, child, it might be emotional abandonment.

Now, here's what I want you to see is that through all of this, God is at work.

God is working through his sovereign hand.

And sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it's less obvious, but we have this vantage point of reading this story thousands of years later, and we can point to where God is working.

Now, we don't have that vantage point right now, do we?

That's why we got to sometimes step back and say, you know what?

I am going to look, I'm going to trust God.

When I can't trace his hand, I'm going to trust his heart.

And these circumstances are hard to accept, but it is the type of pain.

It's this type of pain that God gives his best messages.

God speaks more clearly.

And I probably overquote it.

C.S.

Lewis says, God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains.

He shouts in our pains.

And so here's the bottom line.

You've got two choices.

You've got one path or another path.

One path is being disillusioned and embittered.

You get a bitter heart.

God's not good.

Look at what he's done.

Man, I look at what the church, how the church has hurt me.

And we equate fallible people with a holy, loving, faithful, gracious God.

Let me tell you something.

Fallible is always going to hurt.

That's why you trust in a holy God.

He's got a perfect plan.

So you can become disillusioned or embittered, or we can take the difficulty and the pain and the hurt, and it can become a platform of hope and grace.

Let's go back to the beginning.

Grace means nothing without brokenness.

Redemption means nothing without brokenness and sin.

Forgiveness means nothing without fallible people that turn their backs on God.

So can I encourage you?

That God is always at work for your good.

He is always at work for his glory.

His glory comes first, but he is always at work for his glory and for our good.

Now, you may not see it and you may not feel it in the middle of your circumstances.

But that's why we've got to step back and say, God, you are worthy.

You are good.

That is a rock.

That is a foundation I'm going to stand on and build my life on.

That God is good.

A.W.

Tozier says the most important thing that ever goes through your mind is what you think about God.

And he is good.

And all the time, he's good.

And so sometimes we're blinded.

We're blinded to that reality until we open our heart up and give our heart to Jesus.

We repent of our sins and we turn and we put our faith in Jesus.

The gospel is good news.

Jesus said the kingdom of God is come.

It is now.

Repent and believe the good news.

That is what we talk about when we talk about salvation.

But that is not salvation complete.

That's the beginning of the story.

See, we in America, we teach a very short gospel.

A very partial gospel.

Hey, I prayed the prayer.

I got my ticket.

I'm good to go.

No, God's just beginning his work.

He wants the kingdom of God to become a reality in your life.

That's what Romans says.

Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

So we begin this journey, and he begins to transform us into the person that he wants us to be.

And we become more Christ-like.

We become more gracious.

We carry the attributes and the characteristics of our Savior with us.

You see it?

And that's when, listen, that's when we encounter other people, and they're in the midst of what we used to be in, and they have no answers.

And we may not have every single answer to every little detail of their situation, but we know that there is a God who is sovereign over all things.

So you got to remember.

You got to remember how God has provided.

What is the one thing you've got to remember?

One thing.

You remember what Christ has done in his life, death, and resurrection.

In his broken body that was broken on the cross for your redemption.

In his spilled blood that was shed for the remission of your sins.

That's where we find our hope.

Right?

In his bodily resurrection to prove that he had power over sin and death in the grave.

And so we come to the Lord's table this morning.

We come to the Lord's table, and it is a it is a Act of remembrance.

God is good.

God's body is broken.

He says, Eat of my body.

That's a strange thing.

But he tells us to do it.

The early Christians were thought to be cannibals.

What?

You're eating the flesh of your God.

And he says, to drink my blood.

That's a strange thing.

He said, do it in remembrance.

Do it in remembrance.

So we've got the wafers.

And you dip it into the juice.

And I'm telling you, listen, if you come, I'm going to ask, so I'm going to ask, some of you need a miracle.

Some of you need God tangibly.

Well, this is a tangible act.

Reminding us of a tangible God that tangibly gave his life.

Tangibly gave his body to be broken.

Tangibly gave his blood to be spilled.

Tangibly rose again for our salvation.

It's so amazing.

I can't get it out.

And so I'm going to ask our team to lead us.

And we're going to sing back to the Lord.

We're going to sing how we trust in the Lord.

And as they come, I'm going to ask if Chantell will, you know, they're going to come and just have a moment for us to reflect.

And then Chantel, you give the word.

You give the word and invite people to come to the table.

Okay?

And let's pray together.

Let's pray.

Father, we love you.

We thank you for your goodness.

God, we thank you for grace.

God, we thank you for the cassid, the cassid, the faithful love.

And the faithful presence.

Your unfailing love that was shown to Joseph as he is imprisoned.

God, he is wrongly imprisoned.

He is unfairly in prison.

And God, many of us can identify we feel as if we have experienced some of the things that we've experienced unfairly.

Well, the truth is that we're all guilty.

Who measures what fair and unfair you do?

And we all need Christ.

I pray for those that may need Christ and need to trust Him for the first time this morning.

I pray for those that are coming, carrying heavy weight, that God, that they need a miracle, and that through participating in this tangible practice of remembrance, that your presence will be real to them.

And your presence will be the promise of what is to come.

Healing and hope.

And that God, that we can walk out of here, not plagued by comparison and disappointment and confusion, but walk knowing that even in the difficulty that we have in life, it can provide for us a platform where other people will take notice.

And look at how they are trusting in their Lord.

Father, we love you.

God, we thank you.

God, we come to worship you and to partake of this meal out of obedience.

God, would you bless it?

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.