There Goes That Man | Their Eyes Were Opened | Chad Bruegman

If you're at Missouri City, we just want to say welcome this morning.

Hope you guys are having an incredible time of worship so far.

Everyone down at the West End campus with Pastor Abe and the team.

We love you all inside the loop.

Everybody that is with us and watching online, we are grateful for technology and that you get to be with us today and that at every campus, come on, let's let them hear us.

For all the men at our God Behind Bars campuses, we love you, gentlemen.

Such an honor that we get to uh have church with you guys at the Ramsey unit.

I'm gonna do this in the spirit of graduation, in the spirit of uh the seniors and commencement weekend.

I'm gonna start by talking about commencement.

As you guys know, commencement or graduation, that's uh a sacred moment of any kind, any kind of commencement.

And we have several of these really big moments in life where uh it's sacred because it's a new beginning.

Let's start with the first and most obvious one is your birthday.

The day you were born, right?

I mean, it's so sacred that we stop everything on the day you were born and people make you cakes and give you gifts and write half-truths about you in cards that are real, you know, nice and all of that stuff.

Why?

Because it's a beginning, man, of life.

God chose you.

I'm not gonna get into this science of the odds of any one of us being born, but when you look at it just biologically, you hit the lottery being on this planet.

Do you know that?

Like it's it's it's this beautiful commencement, your birthday.

And then the next really big one is what we call puberty.

And it is sacred.

And I know a bunch of you parents walking your kid through that right now go, sacred is not the first adjective I would use to describe that season.

But listen to me, this is the first moment where you are introducing your young daughter or your young son into the very first phase of becoming a young man and a young woman.

This is why for thousands of years different cultures have had these really important sacred traditions, like uh in the Jewish culture, right?

They have at 12 and 13 years of age they have the bar mitzvah for the boys and they have the bot mitzvah for uh the girls.

Um down to the south of us, the the Mexican culture created this, and now it's uh over the hundreds of years spread through all of the Latin communities.

Uh, when you're a girl and you turn 15, you have the quincinera, right?

And it's this beautiful celebration and witness to a uh a young girl who's a child entering the first stages of becoming a young lady.

Uh I'm white and German, so we had to make our own up at our house.

And we have three boys and one girl, and so what we decided is uh, and we call it with the boys, we call it a bro mitzvah.

And with my daughter, we only have one, we didn't know, so I went with bra mitzvah.

I'm not sure if that's good or not, but she wasn't real happy about it, but it is what it is.

Um but we said when they turned 13 they could pick any city in the 48 states, Hawaii and Alaska out.

We don't have that kind of cash flowing around.

But their mom and I would take them separately without the other kids there, and for a couple days we would just go to that city they chose, and we would just see the city and have fun, and then we would buy them a piece of jewelry and we'd have a dinner with them, and we'd sit them down and we would talk about what this new phase of life is.

And we use this phrase hey, you have a bunch of new freedom at your hands, but you also have a bunch of new responsibility.

And the degree with which you are responsible will be the degree with which we allow you liberty and freedom, and the choice is yours, but we love you and we commission you and we bless you into the first phase of adulthood.

Then we get to the one we just celebrated, right?

High school is a huge commencement.

You are entering into the early stages, early onset adulting is what I call it, right?

It's the first stages of a whole new degree of freedom, but also student, a whole new degree of responsibility, and then we go to the next phase that's huge, which is marriage, right?

Uh no freedom and tons of responsibility.

I mean, new freedom.

That was Freudian slip, sorry.

New freedom, sorry.

New responsibility.

Then you retire, that's a big one, right?

Whole bunch of new freedom, hopefully, when it plays out, right?

I mean, you've been working 30, 40, 50 years, some of you.

There's this new freedom, but also with that twilight season comes new responsibility, and then the ultimate commencement, because we were created to be eternal beings, is when you breathe your last.

It's new freedom, new responsibility.

Off to eternity, whether that good or bad, that is a commencement, and they are all these sacred mile marker moments in our life.

And the reason I bring that up is because we are going to talk about a commencement of all commencements, is when Jesus breathed his last on the cross.

And he said these words, he says, It is finished.

There goes that man.

You want to talk about the ultimate there goes that man moment?

It was Jesus on the cross and what Jesus did, knowing how we human beings are and how prone to forgetfulness we are.

He knew how prone we humans are to take back page news stories and make them of front page importance, and how we would take front page news stories and put them on the back page of importance.

And so he instituted this very sacred thing, and he told the church, do it as often as you can.

It's this sacred thing called communion.

And we're gonna wrap up this There Goes This Man series this morning by taking communion together as a church at all of our different campuses.

I was thinking long and hard, how in week four of this series do we end it the best?

And this is what I said would be the most appropriate thing to do was to just honor, celebrate, remember, and give thanks yet again to the There Goes That Man.

That the reason you're probably here today is because in some profound, amazing way, he changed your life, and he day after day continues to change your life more and more.

So we come to the table uh to just honor and break bread and celebrate the very real presence of Jesus in our life.

Now I'm gonna go one more time to what I have been calling a quintessential, there goes that man story, and it all wraps up in this idea of communion.

If you have your Bibles, it's in Luke chapter 24.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

If not, don't worry, it'll come up on all your screens at all the campuses.

But what's happening is Jesus had just been resurrected from the dead.

But most people, if other than a couple women, don't know this yet, so everyone's spiraling, and we see it in this story.

Jesus immediately leaves Jerusalem.

We're not fully sure where he was headed, but he's going on this ancient highway outside of Jerusalem called the Road to Emmaus, the Emmaus Highway.

And as he's walking, uh, he comes upon these two guys, and he could tell their conversation is very passionate, and he could tell that they were disturbed and that they were somewhat kind of debating and arguing with each other.

He could feel that there was some anxiety in their conversation, and so Jesus, with his always calm presence, walks up and kind of asks what they're talking about.

And they say, Have you not heard?

And then Jesus, and remember, I tell you, God never asked a question he needed an answer to.

He always asks us questions that we need to answer.

And so Jesus plays dumb and a bit coy, and he goes, Well, what happened?

What's wrong?

And they kind of have a sarcastic remark back to him, like, Are you the only person in our district that doesn't know the chaos of what just happened this weekend?

The one who we thought we really thought was the Messiah, we really thought he was going to be the salvation and savior of Israel.

It wasn't him because he's now been in the grave over 72 hours, and in their culture, that's when they medically officially declared someone dead.

They didn't quite know yet that Jesus truly had been raised from the dead, and it keeps saying in this part of the story that I'm telling you, they had no clue the whole time it was Jesus.

And so Jesus does this because they would have walked, uh, historians guesstimate about seven miles together before they got to these men's house.

And so it says Jesus just starts speaking the scripture to him.

He starts retelling the story.

And the Bible says in Luke 24, from the time of Moses to the time of the present moment with them, Jesus probably spent two or three hours probably talking and teaching about the some 220 different prophecies about the Messiah coming to save not only Israel, but the rest of the world.

And then as he's wrapping that up, those men finally get to their house in the journey, and it's getting dark, and here's where we pick up.

Luke 24, 28 says, As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther.

But they urged him strongly, hey, stay with us, for it's nearly evening, the day is almost over, and so Jesus went and decided to stay with him.

When he was at the table with them, right, we call communion what?

The Lord's table, the Lord's supper.

When Jesus was at the table with them, he took bread.

Notice this language here, it sounds familiar.

He took the bread, he gave thanks, he broke it, and he began to give it to them, which I think is interesting because he's the guest in their house.

He just met them a few hours ago, and now he's the one hosting.

Why?

Because this is so much more than a meal.

He took the bread, broke it, gave thanks, and gave it to them.

Listen to what happens next.

This is key to the whole day-to-day before we take communion.

Then what happens?

Their eyes were opened and they finally recognized that it was Jesus.

Stop there for a minute.

I don't pretend to know all of the intricacies about what communion is and what it isn't.

I definitely know some things from the scriptures, but we've had thousands of years of tradition where groups and denominations of people feel differently about it.

Like our Catholic brothers and sisters, uh, and and I respect them for this.

I respectfully don't see it that way, but they they believe in what's called transubstantiation.

I know that's a big word.

Don't worry about it, I can't even spell it.

But that simply means they believe when they take the Lord's Supper that they're literally eating and partaking in the body and the blood of Christ.

Now, in my personal faith and view, I can't get there, but here's where I can have deep respect for that is how serious they take that moment.

Right?

Now, I I can't go that far, but then we we Protestants, we we kind of frame it more as simply a beautiful metaphor to help retell the story.

And I fully agree with that, but I would also say to people like us, we gotta be careful because it's it is that, but it's more than that.

And and this right here is tipping us off to that.

Like, it wasn't until they broke bread.

Now, they they got two hours of Jesus' teaching on scriptures, and it was amazing.

We're gonna go on to read that, but it wasn't until they broke bread and Jesus administered it to them that their eyes were open and they finally actually realized that what?

That it was Jesus.

And there's the part where I can't boldly tell you exactly what we're about to do, but I can promise you this there is something way more sacred and powerful in this moment.

We are as a community of believers together about to participate in it.

Something happens when you lean in and allow it.

When you take the Lord's Supper with sobriety and when you take it with humility, and here's the biggest one when you take it full of gratitude, it's like our eyes get reopened to what matters most.

It's like our eyes get fixated back on front page news, Christ's death, Christ's burial, Christ's resurrection, and that it's for all who will receive it.

It goes on to say this.

They asked each other, oh, go back.

I'm sorry, Mary Ann, can you go back?

Man, I've messed this up all morning.

The last thing it says is, I love this.

He disappeared from their sight.

My translation?

There goes that man.

What just happened?

There he goes again.

Man, did he just move on our behalf?

Man, did he just make something out of nothing?

So Jesus just disappears, just like that.

They asked each other after he left, were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us?

They got up and returned at once then to Jerusalem.

They had to tell people about what happened.

There they found the eleven disciples and those who were with them assembled together.

And they said to them, It is true, the Lord is risen and has appeared to Simon, then to the two then to the two, man, I'm having so much trouble today.

If you're visiting with us, this is about what I got.

I'm sorry.

Then the two told what happened on the way and how Jesus was recognized by them when he was, I just want to reiterate it, when he broke the bread, to which I think the eleven disciples would have gone, oh, he did that with us like the night before he was betrayed.

Like there's something happening here when we're at the table with Jesus Christ, and it is powerful.

But the thing I want us to remember, and then we're gonna go back to the commencement, the of all commencements, the beginning of all beginnings, the book of Genesis, and we're gonna see how this all beautifully ties together, what's happening here.

I just want you to remember what happened when they broke bread.

Their eyes were what?

Opened.

And so now we go and we're gonna do what we did a couple months ago in a series.

We're gonna do some quick etinology.

We're gonna go back to Genesis 1, 2, and 3.

And in chapter 1, I'll just quickly uh remind you guys God was just creating everything.

Six days, thing after thing after thing in creation, and he kept stopping and going, It's good, it's done, it's right.

And that word good in the Hebrew means what?

Rhythmic, flawless, perfect, without spot, without wrinkle, everything it's supposed to be.

And then in Genesis 2, he gets to you and I, Adam and Eve, right?

And he says, now it's really good.

Like now it's ready, because they're gonna be the ones of all creation that bear my image, and therefore I'm gonna give them stewardship and dominion over the rest of creation to do what?

To cultivate it, to steward it.

And I love this because we don't talk about this enough.

God's original intent to enjoy it.

Because when we get enjoyment out of what God got joy out of creating, guess what?

We bring glory to God.

But then we know what happens in Genesis 3.

There is an adversary.

Jesus said he wants to kill, steal, and destroy from you.

The Bible has a name for him.

They call him Satan or the devil.

The Bible says he's the father of all lies.

And so we know in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve were told, you can have your freedom for everything on planet earth.

There's just one law, one tree you can't touch.

It's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Because God's thinking, hey, there is a celestial civil war going on between me and some fallen angels.

We had and and and it is above your pay grade.

And I did not design you humans to steward between the spectrum of good and evil.

I just want you in perpetual good.

I don't even want you to know that the word evil exists.

And so just please do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

But then the liar and the accuser starts coming in and playing tricks on their mind.

And here's where we pick up in Genesis.

Genesis 3, starting in verse 6.

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, what did she do?

She took some and she ate it.

She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.

It goes on to say this.

Ready for the language?

Then what happens after they partake of what they weren't supposed to partake of?

The eyes of both of them were opened.

What happened to the men on the road to Emmaus when they partook and what they were supposed to take in?

The eyes of them were opened.

And I want us to see the difference as we retell today the story of God so that we can honor and celebrate the story of God.

Their eyes were opened, and here's what happens when your eyes get opened the wrong way.

They realize they were naked.

That's not just literally, but that's like they were for the first time vulnerable, insecure, afraid of themselves, afraid of each other, and the worst, afraid of God.

Because they started sewing fig leaves together and they started making coverings for themselves.

And I want to stop there for a minute.

And I want to talk about what's happening here.

About the two different parallels of the old covenant, the old part of the story, the ultimate beginning, right?

Genesis means beginning, means commencement.

And then what's happening after the resurrection on the road to Emmaus's eyes were being opened.

But what happens is when their eyes were open, when Jesus broke bread and gave it to them, do you know what that was signifying?

And this is the beauty of this tradition of communion.

It was signifying in another way that the curse has been reversed.

That redemption is here.

That reconciliation between God and man, and man and each other is here for the taking.

That's why Jesus said, as often as you do this, you can take communion nonstop.

As often as you do this, do this in remembrance of me.

Paul would go on talking to the church about what communion is.

He says, whenever you talk about communion and take communion together, here's what you're doing: you're proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes back a second time.

You are, as essence, retelling the story of God.

Why is that so important?

Because we humans are just naturally drifters, are we not?

Like we are so forgetful oftentimes about the thing that matters most in this life.

And so Jesus said, as often as you do, keep retelling the story over and over.

Jesus is like, I promise you it won't get redundant.

Because your human soul is going to need it every single day, fresh and new.

We're going to renew our minds back to the story.

And so what's happening here is when Adam and Eve take a bite of that apple, now their eyes are open, and their new fixation isn't on creation and God.

Do you know what their fixation is on?

The person in the mirror.

All of a sudden you don't like how you look.

All of a sudden you're trying to cover up things about you that you don't think other people will like about you.

You're trying to cover up things that you feel people are going to judge you for.

You're trying to cover up the sin and the mistakes that you think God's going to come and be mad and punish you for.

And the beauty of what Jesus did and the beauty of why he said, I want this sacred tradition of communion to constantly be in front of the church is precisely this.

Communion is a war against self-fixation.

Communion is this sobering, humble moment where we refuse to be constantly obsessed with nothing more than just the person in the mirror.

Because that never goes well.

That never brings transformation.

That never brings change.

It's just a constant cycle of comparison.

It brings disunity to the body of Christ.

And so think about this: Adam and Eve bought into the lie of the devil.

They broke God's law.

We call it sin, right?

And what happens between them and God and them and each other?

Disunion.

What happens when the men on the road to Emmaus partake in the bread that Jesus broke for them?

Co communion.

Communion is simply this: community reunionizing, coming back together.

It's when community, God's image bearers, you and I, start to come back together.

And communion is sacred in the sense of it holds us accountable to getting our eyes out of the mirror, to getting away from this self-obsession that does nothing but drive us further and deeper into pits of despair and fixing our eyes back where they belong, which is on Jesus.

So the devil wanted disunion with God because misery loves company, and Jesus, to the point of death, brought communion back to us because misery, yes, loves company, but holiness also loves company.

Righteousness also loves company, so much so that righteousness in its perfect form was willing in our place to go to the cross for you and I.

I love this about the Garden of Eden and what it teaches us about communion.

There's a phrase in the Word of God.

Jesus is referred to in many different names and titles.

But in 1 Corinthians 15 and in Romans chapter 5, he gets this really interesting title.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

Paul calls him the second Adam.

And he loved to juxtapose between the first Adam who did everything wrong and the perfectly righteous Adam, the second Adam Adam that came along and did what we humans were supposed to do.

Adam and Eve were never supposed to partake from that tree.

That tree was never reserved for them to partake in, right?

What's Jesus do?

He sovereignly and willfully chooses to go and be put up on a tree that was never reserved for him.

Why?

To reverse the curse.

This is what the second Adam does.

The word of God says, cursed is every man who hangeth upon a tree.

Adam and Eve took and broke fruit and ate together, and it opened their eyes to everything God never wanted us to open our eyes to.

It created an obsession with self that God never designed us to have.

And then Jesus, who's also in 1 Corinthians, called the first what?

Fruits of resurrection.

Resurrection gets put back up on that tree to make it all right again.

Adam and Eve disobeyed in the Garden of Eden.

Jesus went to the Garden of what?

Gethsemane to get ready to perfectly obey.

The second Adam is reversing the curse.

He's doing everything that we humans could never do on our absolute best day.

Remember after Adam and Eve took the fruit, one of the things that came with that is creations, there's a curse to it now.

There's a difficulty to it now.

Right?

He said, Adam, it's through thorns and thistles and through the sweat of your brow that you're going to now cultivate and steward and enjoy planet Earth.

It's going to be problematic.

It's going to wear you out.

It's going to make you tired.

You're going to want to retire.

And I never originally created retirement to have to be a thing, but you're going to want to retire because of the thorns and thistles and the sweat of your brow with which you'll work.

Come on, we've all felt that, those of us in the workforce, year after year, time after time, can wear you down, right?

There was a curse to creation because Adam and Eve disobeyed.

But when Jesus is going to the cross, what is it, ironically, that they put on his head as he was walking that cross to the Mount of Golgotha?

A crown of thorns and thistles placed upon what?

The sweat of his brow.

He was going to reverse the curse.

Like this is the beauty.

He's saying, your eyes got opened at the beginning of time to everything I never, as your loving father, wanted your eyes to be open to.

So now when we come back to the body and the blood of Jesus and we retell the story over and over and over, do you know what we're doing?

We're coming to have our eyes open again.

We're coming to have our hearts, like the men on the road to Emmaus said, our hearts burning within us because Jesus retold the story to us for like three hours.

And their hearts were burning.

When we preach, sometimes, if if God's presence is here, not how good the preacher does, if God's presence is here, there should be moments in the sermon when we're talking through the scriptures that you feel your heart burning, you feel God speaking to you, you feel something in you coming alive, and that is a beautiful feeling.

But it's when we come to the table with Christ, is when that burning heart finally has our eyes more and more open to a greater revelation of how awesome Jesus is.

And I think ultimately what I hope I heard from the Lord this week, because there's so many different angles and ways to retell the story of God, and we'll keep telling it in all the different dimensions that we can to the best of our ability.

But the thing I felt the most, God speaking to my heart, which is usually him just saying, So I want you to pass it on to my people, to my sons and my daughters, is simply this communion for everything that it is.

Here's one thing Jesus was saying, here's why I want you to retell the story over and over.

It's not because I need your praise.

I was good before y'all were created.

God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit were in need of nothing before he created us.

We don't praise and give honor and gratitude because he's needing us to compensate for what he's lacking.

He does it to bring us back, to remind us of this.

When Jesus got ready to breathe his last on the cross, what did he finally say?

It is finished.

Some of you guys sometimes will come up and go, We've always took bets during service on what your tattoo says.

If that's you, it just says finished.

And I just put that there because I am profoundly forgetful.

And I have a knack, like the rest of humans, to obsess with the person in the mirror.

And I just wanted to look down every day and be accountable to the fact that the work is done.

Everything I do when I get up out of bed is worship.

You may call it work, it may sometimes feel like work, but everything that we do now has already been paid for and done in full.

And so now we just simply, as New Testament believers, offer our bodies.

It's an offering.

It's worship, our living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, for this is our spiritual act of worship.

I heard God all week saying to me personally and to you today, you are enough.

The world will tell you you're not, pastors will tell you you're not.

People in your church, whether they say it literally or judgmentally, will tell you you're not, but you are enough right here, right now.

He paid it all in full.

And here is the irony.

Here's why the table of Jesus is so beautiful and communion is so beautiful it's this sobering uh reminder that true transformation of the human heart back to the heart of God will never happen with self-obsession.

It will never happen by berating yourself over and over.

It'll never happen by constantly nitpicking everything that's wrong about you, everything that's wrong about life, everything that's wrong about this season, everything that's going bad, everything that you still fall prey to in terms of sin patterns and struggles.

Every time you break God's law yet again, and you want to stop, and you really want to stop, and you just keep somehow keep on doing it.

God is up there screaming from the cross, you are enough.

I finished the work.

Quit obsessing and fixating on you.

That's what Adam and Eve did the minute they bought into the lie.

Sin is what causes us to never feel like enough.

Sin and the voice of the devil, the accuser, the liar.

He's the one that's constantly berating the person in the mirror.

God is not.

I don't care what church you've been at, I don't care what pastor or people you've ever heard from in the Christian world.

God is not up there doing that because God knows what we often forget.

Transformation is impossible until you get your eyes off of you and you do what the writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 12 says, we fix our eyes on Jesus.

He's the author of your faith.

He's the perfecter of your faith.

You will never perfect your faith on this side of eternity.

You don't have to.

He's already done it for you.

Listen, I'm all about growing in grace.

I'm all about uh entering new phases of being more like Jesus.

I am, as I grow, more hurt by my mistakes and my sins, of course.

But the thing I've learned, and part of it's come through the beauty of days like these at church, is that the only hope for any kind of transformative growth that leads to good and God things is getting my eyes off of myself and just keep coming back to the throne of grace.

I keep sprinting back to the cross, I keep leaving the beautiful things of my life at the cross, and I leave the broken things of my life at the cross.

And in doing so, transformation starts to happen organically instead of pull up your bootstraps, get those white knuckles out, try a little harder.

That's exhausting, y'all.

It's just surrendering to the beautiful otherworldly implications of the cross of Jesus Christ and Christ crucified to finish it, and then he conquers death three days later to say, hey, this world's still gonna mess with you.

There's still a devil that's currently active, so never lose hope because I've conquered everything he came to rob you from, has been conquered in the resurrection.

Like you can be in Jesus, and no matter what you walk through in this season of life, he has got you and he is for you.

And this whole series was just different ways to tell you how loved by God you are.

Man, for us to hold back, now I'm getting fired, I gotta go because of time, but I'm getting fired up right now.

Who told us?

Who told us, if not the devil, that we're supposed to come and minimize who you are until you get it a little bit more right?

That's trash theology, that's junk theology, man.

For God so loved the world.

Mind cannot see, eyes cannot see, minds cannot envision what God has prepared in store for those who love him and have put their faith in Jesus Christ.

He is so much better than you and I have been told.

Your identity is in the finished work of Christ, not the progressive work of the person in the mirror.

So in the name of Jesus, we break this with thanksgiving, we partake of this with thanksgiving to do this, if nothing else, to go, I'm putting my fixation back on the one who authored my faith, who's the pioneer of my faith, and the only one who can perfect my faith.

I'm giving glory back to him.

I'm giving my peace and my hope back to him.

I'm giving my troubles, my sins, my temptations, my mistakes, my successes.

I'm giving it all back to him.

I'm laying it at the cross and just simply saying, thank you for your mercy, Jesus.

That's it.

So we're gonna do this.

Uh Pastor Javi and Pastor Abe, I'm I'm passing it on to you at your campuses.

And if you have this right now, uh, let's do this.

At the bottom of this is the wafer, which is a representation of the body of Christ.

And the Bible says on the night before Jesus was betrayed, when he was with his disciples, he picked up a piece of bread, just like he did with those men on the road to Emmaus, and he broke that bread.

And he looked at these guys and he said, Hey, this bread being broken is significant because it's a picture of my body that's about to be broken for you.

So every time you eat or drink of this stuff, right here, do it in remembrance of me.

Let's do that right now.

Then after supper, said he took the cup.

Glass of wine, which kind of resembles the same kind of look as blood, and he says, he says, this cup represents the new covenant in my blood.

That it is finished work.

This is your new identity.

So every time you drink of this, do it in remembrance of me.

Let's drink together.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus.

So, Jesus, I pray that eyes would be open today to a whole new degree.

That peace would reign in this place as we dine with you.

That you would do supernatural things in our midst, like you did when people broke bread in your name.

God, I don't know what everyone here needs.

I don't know what everyone's going through, but I know your presence is where the fullness of joy is found.

God, I can't manipulate presence into this place.

God, I can't over-emote enough to bring your presence into this place.

People know when it's there.

And God, for people feeling and sensing the power of your Holy Spirit at work within them right now, God, I just pray, Lord, that eyes would be opened, that there would be a new spring in their steps because of you, that there would be a new vigor in their hearts and in their minds and in their souls because of you.

God, I pray as we're about to one more time lift you up and say thank you and call on your name and worship you, God, that you would meet every single one of these beautiful image bearers exactly where they need to be met.

God, all of these things we pray, we prayed in the mighty name of Jesus.

Amen.