Letters to the Thessalonians | 3:1-13

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This week I got an email from the school nurse that said that Cameron got stung by a bee at recess.

Cameron is mostly invincible.

He's my son.

He's mostly invincible and afraid of nothing.

Many things he ought to be afraid of.

He is not afraid of.

But one thing that has been his Achilles heel is bee stings.

He's had many encounters with bees over the years.

And if you live in North Texas and you spend a lot of time outside, like he does, you encounter a lot of them.

There are wasps everywhere, right?

They just spring up overnight and you get new wasp nests.

I remember when he was playing T-ball, he was five years old, playing shortstop, and he's just out there playing ball and he gets stung by a bee in the middle of the inning.

And it was like the first encounter with a bee sting, and he just collapsed on the field.

You can imagine just a little five-year-old, just I mean, it's a whole field of five-year-olds.

And then when one kid gets stinged sung by a bee, then they all start panicking, and you can imagine how that goes.

The more uh traumatic event, though, was we were on vacation one time and Cameron was climbing on some rocks fearlessly.

I think this is probably, I don't know, he's probably about the same age.

He's probably about five years old.

He's climbing on some rocks and he conquers it.

He makes it to the top, only to find that there's a ground nest at the top.

And so immediately a swarm of bees come up and he gets stung like seven times.

Yeah.

So if you can imagine, like he's now has this like this traumatic response anytime he's around bees.

And so we've had to work really hard to not be terrorized when a bee flies by because they're always around for about 37 months out of the year.

It's hot in Texas, and there are bees all over the place.

And we have this really great patio in our backyard.

And uh, you know, we have the fence all the way around.

Um, I remember when I moved moved in, we had like 22 wasp nests on our fence.

I counted them.

I can count that high, folks.

So we we counted.

So we have we have a lot of uh ideal homes for wasps to build their nests.

So I've had to be deliberate with Cameron, and we've had to tackle these things together, and so now he's a part of the solution.

He identifies them, and then we go get the wasp spray.

Have you ever used that wasp spray?

And you they just start spazzing out and then they hit the ground.

So it's a satisfactory thing for someone who is terrified of bees and wasps to see them come to their demise and to be part of that resolution.

And so now he's to the part where he's brave enough to spray them himself.

But it's taken a lot of time to get there, many years, to get to the place where he's not going to collapse at the sight or even at the sting of a bee.

You need we had to develop that courage, didn't we?

It's not something that he just was able to grab out of thin air.

Someone had to teach him how to be courageous in the face of something that was terrifying to him.

We all have things in our life that are terrifying to us, things that we dread, things that we're afraid of, things that cause us worry and doubt and anxiety.

But I'd say, even more so, the need for courage isn't to face our fears, but to face our uncertainties.

Those are really the things that our our courage is built for.

The future promises us nothing.

We don't know what tomorrow brings.

We don't even know if we will have a tomorrow.

And so the uncertainty has all the hypotheticals and the theoreticals of what could go wrong in our life.

And that evokes these anxieties and fears.

And so, really, where we need to develop the courage of faith is in the face of uncertainty.

We're gonna look at those tones that Paul addresses in his letter to the Thessalonians as he speaks about how to respond with courage in the face of troubles and trials.

So I want you to look along with me as we read in 1 Thessalonians chapter 3.

1 Thessalonians 3 · chapter mention

We're gonna read along, and Paul is gonna use language and terms to highlight this idea of how to respond in uncertainty and how he addresses and anticipates this need.

So read along with me.

If you have your Bibles, you can read along with your Bibles, you can read along on your phone, you can read along on the screen as well.

So read along with me.

First Thessalonians chapter 3.

1 Thessalonians 3 · chapter mention

Finally, when we could stand it no longer, we decided to stay alone in Athens and we sent Timothy to visit you.

He is our brother and God's coworker in proclaiming the good news of Christ.

We sent him to strengthen you and to encourage you in your faith and to keep you from being shaken by the troubles you were going through.

But you know that we are all destined for such troubles.

Even while we were with you, we warned you that troubles would soon come, and they did, as you will know.

Verse 5.

That is why, when I could bear it no longer, I sent Timothy to find whether your faith was still strong.

I was afraid that the tempter had gotten the best of you, and that our work had been useless.

But now, Timothy, he has just returned, bringing us good news about your faith and love.

He reports that you are you always remember our visit in joy with joy and that you want to see us as much as we want to see you.

So we have been greatly encouraged in the midst of our troubles and suffering, dear brothers and sisters, because you have remained strong in your faith.

It gives us new life to know that you are standing firm in the Lord.

So we see Paul, and he is reflecting from his vantage point what he witnesses about the Thessalonians.

And he remembers, he recalls back, and he says, When we were with you, we promised you that there were going to be trials, there was going to be trouble, there was going to be difficulty, that making a decision to follow Jesus wasn't just a walk in the park.

That adversary was going to present as you made the decision to pursue the Lord.

And as you well know, you've experienced this.

You can yourselves testify, he says to the Thessalonian people.

And I'm sure that they've had exchange of stories of persecution and trouble and pushback that they've received, ridicule, embarrassment, humiliation, perhaps.

And Paul says, We've been there, folks.

We know what this is like.

Me and my companions, we have experienced it.

But you, your faith is strong and your faith is good.

And if you will endure, God will bless it.

And so he encourages them in advance before those trials even come.

Man, that's a what a blessing to have.

To not be taken by surprise when something difficult comes.

And to know that someone else has anticipated it on our behalf, to know that someone else has experienced it before we have, know that it's possible to endure and to come out on the other side.

Do you want people in your life who are willing to be that for you?

Do you want people in your life who are willing to be honest with you up front and say, hey, this isn't going to be an easy thing?

But you're capable of doing this.

Or do you want to be left to your own devices and hope for the best?

When we read 1 Thessalonians 3, 1 through 8, the way I kind of read it here, the way I'm interpreting, is this is Paul's unofficial position on the question, do I need a church?

That's a question I get often.

That's a question if you're especially online, if you're on social media, if you're on forums, that question comes up often.

If I can read my Bible, if I can pray on my own, I don't really need to go to a church.

My faith can be individualized.

I can do it on my own.

But Paul really combats that idea in this passage of scripture.

He's really saying we need each other because that's where we get encouragement.

You can't get encouragement if you're in isolation, right?

That's what he's highlighting here.

We need to be together, we need to be able to interface because that's where blessing occurs.

In verse 3, Paul says that we can be shaken in our troubles.

That there's that we can abandon, we can regress in what we believe in our courage when troubles come.

We can become less courageous when we face trials of any kind, right?

And so Paul says these things are inevitable.

And so, what do we do to anticipate the inevitability of these troubles that are going to come?

Well, we anticipate them by being in community with other believers so that we can receive and we can deliver courage.

You see, individual Christianity is never modeled in the Bible.

You hear me?

There's no such thing as individual Christianity ever mentioned in the Bible.

There's no indication like, well, some people should live in Christian community.

Others, they're okay to do it on their own.

There's not even necessarily a highlight saying, hey, if you can get together, good for you.

If not, that's totally cool too.

Am I saying that people can't be a Christian without a church?

I believe that the Holy Spirit is capable of enough to sustain.

But the whole point of Jesus coming is that we would be a family, that we'd be together, we'd be unified under one kingdom and one people.

And if we try to do that individually, then we're really saying, I want parts of what you've done for me, Jesus, but I don't really want what you want for me, Jesus.

And so Paul is giving us the material to understand the importance of what it means to live in community.

Here's our simple truth that I want you to get today.

That is, the new disciple receives courage from the seasoned disciple.

The new disciple receives courage from the seasoned disciple, that it is not just the capability, but the duty of the person who has walked with the Lord to be able to encourage the one who is newly pursuing the Lord.

There are people in your life who want to have the relationship with Jesus that you have experienced.

But God has placed you in their life to teach them how to have the courage to pursue and endure in faith.

If I can simplify it further, maybe we just can make this the approachable way we think about this.

The disciple receives courage from the disciple.

The disciple receives courage from the disciple, nowhere else.

We don't receive it from ourselves, we don't receive it from bloggers or YouTubers or anything like that.

We receive courage from one another, from living life side by side, enduring troubles, enduring challenges, enduring celebrations.

We receive courage by being in the community of God's people and living it out together.

The disciple receives courage from the from the disciple.

I want to illustrate this uh with just an experience that I think that we probably have all had.

So let me start by this.

I um I go running at South Lakes Park pretty often, and like as I mentioned before, uh there are people that I see recurring.

The same people are out there the same times.

And there's this one man who he's not particularly social.

So I never really had a conversation.

We've just greeted each other and said hello many times as we walk and run in opposite directions.

He's an older man, and he always goes out with his three huskies.

And I don't know if you've ever seen there's uh like stuff comes up on my feed sometimes of people with huskies.

You ever see these?

And they just howl at each other, and then one starts howling, and then the other starts howling, and it's like they have a conversation and they kind of use words and they mimic the words and you ever see that?

Like that's kind of how huskies interact.

Do you know this guy at the park?

He walks, his huskies don't do that.

They calmly and responsibly walk around the path like they've done it a million times.

He doesn't have to give commands, he doesn't have to jerk them, he doesn't have to instruct them.

They know what they're supposed to do.

He's got three of them.

He gets puts them in the back of his truck, he's got this cage thing that goes in the back of his truck so they don't hop out because we know that dogs are dumb and sheep or not, right?

So that was a few weeks ago.

They will jump out of the back, but this guy, he's got this cage.

And so he gets them out and he does his walk around the park, and they obediently walk around the park.

Alternatively, perhaps you have been in a situation where you've visited someone's house and you've ring the doorbell, and you have been attacked by four dogs because the dogs attack the doorbell.

Have you ever?

Maybe not.

And I'm sure this is not you and your dogs.

You probably have husky walker dogs, right?

You probably have obedient, well-behaved, you don't even need a leash kind of dogs.

They just do, they just follow your command and then follow know your mannerisms to know exactly what to do.

But some people have dogs where there's like four of them and they just like try to tear the door down if they sense that there's somebody coming in the door.

Do you know why this happens?

Because there's a social order to the way that dogs function.

If you have one dog that is high anxiety and panicky, and then you get a puppy, do you know what that puppy learns how to do?

Be high anxiety and yippy and aggressive, right?

And then if you get a third dog and you have two dogs that already model that behavior, do you know what happens with the third dog?

Again, you they're not learning from you, they're learning from the other dogs, right?

So you end up with multiple dogs, and so we just need to have self-control that if we have one misbehaving dog to not get more dogs.

Okay?

We're just anyway, that's neither here nor there.

But we can see ourselves in the creatures, okay?

That there is a social order to the dogs, and likewise, if we recognize that we're only ever putting ourselves around people who are not courageous, who are not encouraging, then what is going to be our response?

If instead we are around people who are high anxiety, high worry, high fear, high combativeness, then what does that going to teach us how to do?

What is that going to teach us how to do?

If that is how we surround ourselves, then that is who we will become.

Likewise, if we behave that way, can we expect those that we minister to, those that we lead, those that we exemplify our lives to, those that we are trying to point to Jesus, can we expect other people to be faith-filled believers if we're anxiety-filled believers?

Is that even a thing you can say?

Is there such a thing as an anxiety-filled believer?

Those are really difficult to coexist.

Because Jesus wants to come and replace our anxiety with hope and peace.

Let me challenge you with something today.

Let me challenge you with this idea that you might not like to hear, but I want you to hear it.

Who we are becoming is what you are sharing with us.

Who we are becoming is what you are sharing with us.

We don't like to think that we have any kind of negative impact on the world around us, or maybe sometimes we don't like to even think we have any impact, even positive impact, on the world around us.

But if we're living in the community, in a church, in a family, then the people around you will become what you are sharing.

What you are projecting, what you are passing on, is what other people are going to absorb.

And so if you lack courage in your own faith, if you lack durability or endurance in your faith, then that is what you will pass on to others.

If you live with courage, you will pass it on.

But also if you will live with fear, that is what you will pass on.

If you will live by faith, walking by faith, yes, that's what other people will learn to do as well.

But they will also learn to live with doubt and uncertainty.

If you live with an abundance of love, that will be absorbed and then transmitted out.

But if you live selfishly, then other people are going to learn to be selfish as you are selfish.

You see the trend here?

Our devotion is replicated, but so is our insecurity.

Our endurance is replicated, but so is our impulsiveness.

And so we have to be mindful as a disciple of who we are becoming, who God is making us to be, because other people around us are receiving that example.

They're receiving courage from our example.

Paul and his companions here, they demonstrated courage and then they passed that example on to the Thessalonians.

They entered into the domain of the Thessalonian people, they established the church.

And they said, This is what is going to happen, and this is how you endure.

Have faith, endure, face troubles, endure.

That the Lord is with you.

He has not forsaken you, he has not abandoned you.

You can endure.

And so what happens is that they leave, they exit, they go on to their next missionary journey, and then they wonder, did it stick?

Were we assertive enough in our our call to courage, that they could borrow our courage enough so that when their trials show up, that they can call upon that courage and endure.

And there's the the worry that it might not.

But then Paul sends Timothy and he says, I sent Timothy to check on you, and the report I got back was good.

That we are, that you're overjoyed by the visit we have, that it's transformed your life, and that you, in the face of the troubles that we all know that you have experienced, that you have endured.

And your courage has now given us even more courage to keep on proclaiming the word.

So let me ask you, what spiritual traits are you passing on?

Are those following your example more courageous in faith because of your example?

Perhaps the hardest and the best part about following Christ is uncertainty.

Does that sound weird?

Perhaps the hardest and the best part of following Christ is uncertainty.

You know why?

Because it causes us to live with surrender.

You know, I like this posture, this idea.

Like I think this is something that's good to practice.

Like if you're praying and and you're trying to feel like I just need to connect with the Lord, and I'm not sure how to how to connect with the Lord, but sometimes we can use physical expression and gesture in posturing our heart to respond.

And so sometimes when I pray, there's I'll pray, and if I need to surrender something and release something, I can set it down.

And if I want to receive something from God, I can open my hands upward as if he's putting something in my hand.

But what this does is it postures my my physical posture, postures my mind and my heart and my spirit person to surrender.

And surrender doesn't mean abandoning, it doesn't mean throwing things in the dumpster, it doesn't mean destroying.

What it means is entrusting something over to God, saying, This is something I cherish, this is something I love, this is something that is deeply important to me, and I want to control it, Lord, but instead I'm gonna place it in your hands.

And this can mean anything, folks.

This can be our future, a decision that we're trying to make about our future.

This can be a relationship, somebody that we care about.

I want to control it so this person can do what I desire and to be what I desire, or we can surrender that person.

It could be a skill or a gift or a capability that God has bestowed upon you in a special way that we could use it for our own selfish gain, or we can put it in his hands and it can be redeemed for an even greater purpose.

I'll tell, I'll just uh this comes to my mind right now.

I came to I went to college to do business.

I wanted to be an entrepreneur.

I wanted to, I wanted to work for myself.

I wanted to be able to call my own shots, I wanted to be able to retire young, and I didn't want to have to answer to anybody else.

And then I encountered Jesus, folks.

And when you encountered Jesus and he says, live for me and not for yourself, I found that my motivations in entrepreneurship were selfish in nature, and I had to lay those things down.

But I'll tell you what, when I was willing to do that, God positioned me an opportunity, and if I lived in faith over the many years that led up, now I'm in a position, I'm not running a business by any means, but many of the appealing qualities of entrepreneurial mentality are parallel to being a pastor.

But I'll tell you, the pastoral work is far more rewarding and meaningful than I ever would have gotten had I gone and opened up some retail store or whatever I wanted to do in life.

I'm not telling you that you need to go into the ministry here today, folks, but I am telling you that there is the best and hardest thing in your hands, and that is the uncertainty and how you're going to live by faith with uncertainty in your life.

To have courage to trust God and to walk by faith and to see things out when you don't know how things are gonna play out or how things are gonna exist outside of your control.

Let me ask, what if every one of us found just one person to encourage?

Living a surrendered life is a difficult, difficult thing, but it's also a beautiful thing.

And it's a hard ask for me to go to somebody and say, all you gotta do is just lay down every aspect of your life that you love.

Go for it, kid.

And then walk away.

Is that what it means to be a Christian?

How hard of an ask is that?

But if I was able to come alongside a disciple and say, This is gonna be hard, but God is gonna bless you so much if you're willing to entrust him everything that you love and walk by faith.

To lay it down at his feet and say, Jesus, this is better with you than with me.

And to stand side by side as we walk through and explore what it means to exercise courage in those moments.

What if every one of us found one person to encourage?

What would we become then?

This is what I want us to do, real quick.

I just want us to pause for just a second.

And I want to give you some space to begin to think and let the Lord maybe you deposit into your mind who in your life, identify who in your life needs courage right now.

Maybe it's a classmate or a coworker, maybe it's a family member or a neighbor, maybe it's maybe even just an acquaintance that you've encountered that you encounter infrequently, but that the Holy Spirit has maybe nudged you to say, this person is in need of some kind of courage.

I'm just gonna give you a minute.

I'm not gonna interrupt you because the Holy Spirit wants to reveal that person to you.

Maybe it's somebody that you haven't even considered, maybe it's somebody who surprises you.

What do you say?

What do you say to somebody that maybe the Lord puts that person on your heart, but then what do you say to them?

Is it awkward?

Especially if encouragement is not part of our normal vocabulary, our normal dialogue.

What do we say?

You say, you are not alone today.

You are never alone.

We say, I believe in you because I know who God's made you to be.

We say God is with you today, that he sees you, that he is for you, that he is beside you, and he is within you.

What happens when we engage someone?

I'll tell you folks that words are not only verbal.

Do you know that today?

They're not only verbal, they're also emotional.

They affect the feelings of both the person who speaks and the person who listens.

Do you realize that as you encourage somebody else that it affects you as well?

You know, this last week um was a wild ride for me, unexpected, a lot of things that I did not expect to do.

But um one of the things that gave me a lot of life as I was struggling this week was just finding opportunities to encourage other people.

Um I was I had a this I injured my finger, and so I had to spend some time around some medical personnel.

You know how hard a job a nurse has, medical technician, you know how hard a job is?

I heard some of their interactions.

And so one of the most life-giving things that I experienced is just by saying, thank you for being here today.

Thank you for your service.

You're doing a good job.

You're good at what you do.

Do you know how much that means to somebody who's who's facing a trial in a day?

But do you know how much that it lifts me up as well?

That that affects me as the one who speaks it, that there's an emotional impact.

You know, God created words, that He communicated, He created the world through words.

He created us, He speaks us into existence.

Words are His means for spiritual impartation.

And so we see that there is an emotional embedding that affects the feelings of both the speaker and the listener, but there's also a spiritual impact too.

That our words are a thread that ties to the spiritual kingdom of God, that when we speak things, that God honors those things.

As a disciple of Jesus, when I speak things, that God honors what I say because I'm speaking on behalf of God when I'm speaking them to somebody else.

When I'm encouraging someone else and saying, God is with you today.

Do you know who else is saying that along with me?

The Holy Spirit is.

That's not just my words.

I'm not making something up.

I'm not contriving something.

God is speaking when I speak because I'm in alignment with the Lord.

And so the courage that I give is also the Holy Spirit speaking through me.

But most importantly, you have to recognize that our encouragement calls upon Jesus to partner with our words.

That we are inviting Jesus into somebody else's life when we offer courage.

Know that if you have ever received spiritual encouragement, that Jesus is at work in your life.

You ever feel like Jesus is not working the way that you want him to in your life?

You ever feel that way?

Like I just really wish that he would show up and do this thing that I need him to do right now and the way that I need him to do it.

You ever feel that way?

I just, I just need to get him to get me out of this mess.

I just need him to fix this problem.

I just need him to provide for me in this way.

Let me tell you today that Jesus is at work in your life if you've ever received encouragement because he is tied in to the encouraging words of the believers that are in your life.

If he has spoken to you, if someone else has spoken words of encouragement to you, Jesus is in that word of encouragement and is affecting your life.

And if you've received that word of encouragement, if you've accepted it, then Jesus is alongside you and providing for you as you go.

That Jesus is upon your life today.

If you've ever been to a Sunday service at Lifeline Church today, know that Jesus is at work in your life.

He is at work in your life today.

That he resides in the blessings of his people.

I want you to know today that the power of Christ is within you and he is upon you.

What does that mean?

That he is within you.

That means that if he's within us, that means that he is bringing transformation into our life, making us into a new person, making us like Jesus.

But if he's also upon us, that means the things that we put our hands to, the work that we do, the relationships that we have, that he is blessing those things as well.

And that there is an effect that comes just by our proximity to Jesus that he flows through us.

I want us to finish this section here, 1 Thessalonians chapter 3.

1 Thessalonians 3 · chapter mention

Let's pick up in verse 9 and see how Paul concludes this section of the letter.

He says, How we thank God for you.

Because of you, we have great joy as we enter God's presence.

Night and day we pray earnestly for you, asking God to let us see you again to fill the gaps, to fill the gaps of your faith.

Verse 11, may God, our Father and our Lord Jesus, bring us to you very soon, and may the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow and overflow, just as our love for you overflows.

May He as a result make your heart strong, blameless, and holy as you stand before God our Father when our Lord Jesus comes again with all of his holy people.

Amen.

What a blessing.

I love this letter because Paul just kind of he says, Hey, this is something I want to tell you, and let me bless you.

Hey, this is what I learned about you.

Let me bless you.

Hey, this is a question you had, let me answer it, and then let me bless you.

It's like he goes out of his way to bless people all the time.

It's like it's what comes out of him.

He's demonstrating it.

And I believe that the Thessalonians are learning to live out their faith in the same way that Paul is demonstrating it.

I'm gonna invite the worship team to come up and help me close because we're gonna close with a theme that we see here in 1 Thessalonians.

I want to call you today to be a giver of courage.

And that's what encouragement really means.

To provide courage.

Most people in our lives need some sort of courage.

And I I have found that when people don't know how to have courage, that they can take alone.

They can take your courage for a bit until they can learn how to live it out and develop their own.

They can see, they can, they can take your courage for a little while and see God show up.

They can see Jesus' provision and they can see the fruitfulness that comes.

And what that does is it gives us a little seat of evidence to say, okay, when I take a small step, Jesus is there.

This time I could take a bigger step and I can have a courage to know that he's going to be there.

And then I could take two steps and believe that he's going to be there.

But in everything we do, we have to recognize that there is a surrender that takes place, a surrendering of control, a surrendering of will, a surrendering of desire that takes place.

But in order to do that, to live a life of surrender, and it doesn't just happen just one time, folks.

It doesn't happen initially when we make a decision and then be done.

It doesn't happen only in big moments.

It's a daily decision to live a life of surrender, to lay down.

And every day, God's gonna say, I want you to give that to me.

I want you to trust me with that thing in your life, that trouble, that trial, that desire, that hope, that dream, that problem, whatever it might be, trust me with it today.

And every day we have to have the willingness to say, God, I want to trust you.

And I need the courage to live by faith.

And I tell you, folks, I just don't know how I would do it if I didn't have Christian believers to give me courage.

I don't know how I would do it if I didn't have Christian believers to encourage, because God encourages me as I encourage others.

And so my call to you today is to become givers of courage, to call upon Jesus to be your source of courage, because he is with you all the time.

But also recognize that he has put people in your life who require it.

And the fruit of Jesus' ministry is going to come through you by the way that you speak encouragement to others.

Let's follow Paul's example here, the believer's example, and we see that the fruitfulness of the Thessalonians is real and that they have endured and they have prospered as a result.

And I believe that there is probably fruitfulness that we don't see because of the Thessalonians' willingness to live this out.

But I want you to identify this individual and then have the courage to give courage this week.

You can do it in a text message, you can do it in a phone call, you can do it face to face, you can do it in a handwritten letter.

You can do any of these or all of these.

And I encourage you to exercise all different methods of encouragement.

But we are becoming what you are sharing with us.

And if we will be willing to share courage, then we'll be a courageous people.

Lifeline will be a courageous people.

Your family will be a courageous people.

Today I believe that maybe some of you are here today, and that you have existed in the social order of fear, anxiety, uncertainty, worry, doubt.

And that's what you've learned to do.

Perhaps it's a family quality, perhaps it's you've acquired it elsewhere.

It doesn't really matter.

But what's important today is that you acknowledge that there's a different order to things that God desires for you.

That He desires for you to live with courage, to have it every day.

Maybe it's a scary thought for you to release control, because that's really where we get stuck on anxiety, worry, and fear is that we it calls us to want to have more control over our lives.

But the real solution is to surrender it, to put it in the hands of Jesus.

And so I want to invite you today to let Jesus minister to you and to speak to you.

We're gonna respond.

And I would ask the band to just bless us with the blessing.

And sometimes with this song, it's better to maybe we need to sing it, but sometimes it's better just to listen and let it be the voice of God pouring over us and let his blessing be something that we just hold our hands out and receive.

So if you've never done this before, I'm gonna challenge you today to posture your body in a worship setting to receive.

You can hold your hands out, you can release, you can hold them up as a res as an expression to let the blessing pour over you, to let the courage of God come upon you.

So will you stand with me today as we respond with the blessing?

I'm gonna pray for us.

God, we thank you that you have favor for your people.

God, thank you that you are kind to us, that you see our trouble in advance, and that you surround us with people who are givers of courage.

God, I thank you that there is a blessing as we endure by living in faith, one step at a time.

God, I pray for those who are here today who are troubled, who are worried, who are uncertain.

God, I pray that you would place individuals in their life that would provide them with courage, but even more so, your Holy Spirit would be threaded into every word they hear at this church.

And the believers that are in their life, that they would be stirred up to believe that the words you say are true.

Yes, God, we thank you that you can bring new life, that you can redeem us of anxiety and fear and doubt.

And that you can help us to see the good things that come with putting things in your hand.

God, we bless you today.

Amen.

Amen.

May the discipleship of Jesus inhabit your life richly.

May the light of his gospel shine through you brightly.

May the world around you encounter him sincerely, and may his faithfulness bless you abundantly.

Amen.

Thanks for listening to this week's Sermon Podcast from Lifeline Church.

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