Living the Dream | Joseph the Forgotten

Thanks for checking out this podcast from Cardiffo Christian Church.

We're so glad you're here.

Our hope is that through these messages you'll grow deeper in your faith and experience the life-changing hope of Jesus.

Now let's jump into this week's teaching.

It was three years ago, this past July.

Whitney's side of the family, my bride, we often go to Wisconsin for a week of vacation during the summer.

And we had our one-year-old Eden with us, and all the joys of traveling eight hours up to the cabin is always a ton of fun.

But we got to the cabin and day one went well.

We were having fun, playing at the lake, everything was good.

Day two, it started to get a little bit different.

Eden just wasn't acting her normal self.

But by day three, something was wrong.

We could tell she just wasn't not only acting her normal self, but she had a temperature.

And so uh Whitney took her down to the lake, just trying to uh cool her off and have fun with her.

And as she's down at the lake, we're up in the cabin getting the dinner ready.

She brings Eden upstairs, and uh at this moment, Eden is just not happy.

She's upset, she's crying, but crying harder than she normally does.

And so we try and just get her to calm down and we sit her at the table to give her some food to eat.

But as she starts eating her food, she throws up everywhere, and she begins to cry really, really hard.

And we know that at this moment something is wrong.

And so we go and grab the thermometer, and she's at 104 degrees temperature.

So we cleaned the puke off of her, and we went to put her in the bath so that uh hopefully the bath would help cool her off.

I remember Whitney getting her out of the bath, we dry her off, and Eden's head is just resting on Whitney's shoulder.

And she goes and sits in the recliner, and I go with them, and I look, and Eden is just staring at me, but she's not blinking.

She's not breathing.

And it's in this moment we realize she's having a seizure.

I didn't know what to do in that moment.

The only thing I knew to do was to pray, Lord Jesus, fill her lungs with air.

Lord Jesus, fill her lungs with air.

We set a timer.

And almost two minutes go by without that little girl taking a breath.

Now praise God, her breath came back.

But I remember the days following that while we were at the cabin being so, so angry.

God, why?

Why would you let my little girl get hurt like that?

God, why?

Why, why did you do this?

Why did you allow this to happen?

You ever been there?

A moment of just complete desperation, begging and pleading the Lord, God, where are you and why have you forgotten me?

Maybe some of you in this room this morning.

Maybe you lost someone you deeply cherish.

Maybe others of you.

You were abandoned by your father.

Maybe for others of you in this room, you thought you were gonna get the job promotion, but you didn't.

You got a D-motion.

Maybe for others of us.

We're just trying to figure out how we're gonna make it to the next day with the very little amount of money that we have.

Have you ever been there?

It seems like Joseph may have been there too.

If you have your Bible with you, turn to Genesis chapter 40, because today I'm gonna continue in the series we've been working through on the life of Joseph.

Genesis 40 · chapter mention

And in Genesis 40, we see this theme, the title of my sermon, which is Joseph the Forgotten.

Joseph the Forgotten.

Now, to catch us up on where we have been, uh Joseph, his story starts in Genesis 37.

And if you remember, uh, he had this ornate robe that he was wearing uh that his father Jacob had given him.

But because of that robe, his brothers hated him.

They didn't want to do anything with him except for to beat him up.

And so they take Joseph and they throw him into a pit.

And eventually Joseph gets out of that pit, but the Midianites sell him to Potiphar in Egypt, and he becomes a servant of Egypt.

And while he's there in Genesis 39, if we recall what Austin preached on a couple weeks ago, that while he's there, he is second in command, everything is going well for him, but he is falsely accused by Potiphar's wife, and because of that, Potiphar throws Joseph into prison.

And then last week, Austin talked about how Joseph, sitting in prison, meets a cupbearer and a baker at the beginning of Genesis 40.

And there we see that the cupbearer and the baker, they are dejected.

They're upset, they're frustrated.

And Joseph sees them and goes to them and says, Why are you dejected?

And it's because of the dreams that they've had.

And so Joseph says, the only one that can reveal dreams is God.

So let me tell you what your dreams are about.

The cupbearer, in three days, you will be restored to Pharaoh, and you will give the cup to his hand.

The baker, uh thinking that maybe uh he can give a good interpretation to him too, asked Joseph, uh, What's what's my dream about?

And Joseph says, In three days you will be impaled on a pole.

But when Joseph was talking to the cupbearer in verse 14 of Genesis 40, he tells him, Please remember me when you go back to Pharaoh.

Remember me, and tell him that I was accused and I should not be here.

And so Austin left off at verse 19 last week, and I want to pick up where he left off in Genesis 40, starting in verse 23.

This is or verse 20.

This is what it says.

Now the third day was Pharaoh's birthday, and he gave a feast.

The word here is a drinking party.

There's a lot of good cheese, but there's also a lot of good wine.

Uh, and for all of his officials, he lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker in the presence of his officials.

He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, so that he once again put the cup into Pharaoh's hand, but he impaled the chief baker, just as Pharaoh, or just as Joseph had said to them in his interpretation.

And then I want to lock in on verse 23.

This is what the sermon's all about today, verse 23.

The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph.

He forgot him.

He forgot him.

There's two words in verse 23 that I really want to focus in on this morning.

Two words that I think lead to two opportunities for Joseph and for you and I.

The first word is that word forgot.

In other words, Joseph is forgotten.

He is not remembered.

He is the one that when the cupbearer is restored, the cupbearer has no clue who Joseph is.

Joseph is forgotten.

And he is forgotten even though he had done all the right things.

He had told them the right dream.

He had been falsely accused and put in prison, and yet he's done all the right things.

His life had been going the right way, and yet, and yet, he's forgotten.

It's interesting that even though Joseph is forgotten, he doesn't just sit there, I would assume.

He's not wondering what he's gonna do next.

Or maybe, maybe I'm assuming that since he's possibly forgotten after he's sat there for a while, he may have uh an array of emotions.

He may be pretty fired up.

Uh maybe as he sits there uh in the cell, he is uh angry at God.

Angry at the fact that he revealed, he he did the right thing, and yet he is not freed from this prison.

Maybe he's angry.

Maybe, maybe he's weeping.

Maybe as he sits there, he thinks back through his life, the brothers that he had, the father who loved him, all the things he had until he came here.

And maybe he's weeping, maybe he's upset, or maybe he's numb.

Maybe he's he's ready to give in.

Maybe he's ready to quit.

He's ready to throw in the towel and say, I am all done with it.

I don't know exactly what Joseph is experiencing, but I'm assuming he's experiencing a vast array of emotions in the midst of sitting in a prison.

Because he should have got out.

But instead, he's forgotten.

And so he's upset.

And if you actually look through your Bible, you'll see that God often shows us pictures of people in the Bible who think that God has forgotten them, who show that uh their frustration with God in the way that they talk to him.

One of those examples is Hannah.

Hannah in 1 Samuel, she's frustrated with God because she can't bear a child.

And so she cries out in 1 Samuel saying, Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant's misery and remember me and not forgive, forget your servant, but give her a son.

Hannah's honest.

She honestly complains before the Lord.

This is what she does.

King David is familiar with this theme of forgotten.

In Psalm 13, he will pin down how he feels forgotten by the Lord when he says in Psalm 13, How long, Lord, will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?

How long will my enemy triumph over me?

David feels forgotten.

The sons of Asaph in Psalm 44, as they create a communal lament, it's God's people coming together to lament to God.

This is what they say in Psalm 44 Awake, Lord, why do you sleep?

Rouse yourself, do not reject us forever.

Why do you hide your face and forget our misery and oppression?

In other words, God's people feel forgotten.

They feel like they're not being seen or heard from God Himself.

The point is that the characters of the Bible are not foreign to feeling forgotten by God.

It's not a foreign concept for them.

And so I'm not gonna stand up here this morning and pretend like all of you who walked in here, life is just going well.

That life is all just sunshine and rainbows, it's wonderful.

Because that's not reality.

I know the reality.

Some of you are walking in here and you're hurt and you're frustrated and you're angry with God because it seems like he has forgotten you.

You see, Joseph and us, we have an opportunity when we feel forgotten to do something.

And that opportunity that Joseph has is the same opportunity that we have.

He has an opportunity to turn those feelings to the Lord.

That's the opportunity that's presented right here for Joseph.

Sitting in a prison cell, will he hold on to those emotions and not say a single thing, just bottle them up, or will he turn those feelings over to the Lord?

You see, sometimes in church, we're really good at singing the psalms of praise, but we often forget about the psalms of lament.

We love joyful worship services, and I do too, but sometimes we have to face the reality that life isn't just going the way we want it to.

And if we neglect the psalms of lament, we're actually neglecting what it is that God may be inviting us into.

Something deeper with him, so that we can grow to become more like him.

And so in this moment, we have an opportunity to turn our emotions to the Lord.

We can either push them down or honestly and realistically give them over to him, whatever it may be.

Joseph can do that, and we can too.

There's a man by the name of Henry Nowen.

He was a spiritual writer and uh a priest, uh, a very, very wise uh follower of Jesus.

But he wrote a book called Spiritual Formation, uh, following the movements of the spirit.

And in this book, he describes our journeys with Jesus as like movements that you go through movement one and then movement two and movement three.

But the first movement uh that he, or the second movement he talks about is from sorrow to joy.

From sorrow to joy.

And in this chapter, he describes how sometimes we can just come to church and we can ignore what's actually going on in our life and just put on a happy face and pretend as if everything's okay.

But he says that if you want to experience true joy, real joy, the only way to find it is through your sorrow.

I'm gonna read a lot from what he says.

I hope it's helpful.

This is what Nawan says, uh, talking about our uh losses.

It's called Mourn Your Losses.

Hear what he has to say.

The question is not whether you have experienced loss, but rather how you live your losses.

Are you hiding them?

Are you pretending they aren't real?

Are you refusing to share them with your fellow travelers?

Are you trying to convince yourself that your losses are little compared with your gains?

Are you blaming someone for what you have suffered and loss?

There is another option, the possibility of mourning.

Yes, you can mourn your losses.

You cannot talk or act them away, but you can shed tears over them and allow yourself to grieve deeply.

You can never get to the joy if you dare not cry, if you do not have the courage to weep, if you don't take the opportunity to experience the pain.

The world says, just ignore it, be strong, don't cry, get over it, move on.

But if you don't mourn, you can become bitter.

All your grief can go right into your deepest self and sit there for the rest of your life.

He then says, better to mourn your losses than to deny them.

Dare to feel your losses, dare to grieve them, name your pain.

And then he defines grief in this way.

He says, To fully grieve is to allow your losses to tear apart feelings of false security and safety and lead you to the painful truth of your brokenness and dependence upon God alone.

And then one last sentence.

He says, true healing begins at the moment that when we can face the reality of our losses and let go of the illusions of control.

So, church, we have an opportunity today.

We have an opportunity when we feel forgotten.

Will we stuff everything down and pretend like everything is okay?

Or will we turn our emotions over to the Lord?

Will we be like King David, who cries out, God, why have you forgotten me?

Will we be like Hannah, who cries out, God, will you please hear your servant?

It seems like you have forgotten me.

We have an opportunity, just as Joseph did, to turn our emotions over to the Lord.

So here's what I want to do for the next couple minutes.

Uh, if you haven't already, you should have got a note card when you walked into the room.

If you didn't, uh, there's note cards at the communion tables, and there's pins there if you need one.

But here's what I want you to do for the next couple minutes.

There's gonna be a couple questions that pop up on the screen, and I just want you to wrestle with God for a couple minutes.

This this is a safe, this is a safe place where we should be able to wrestle truly and authentically with what we feel like is going on in our life.

And so maybe wrestle with the questions of where do you feel like God has forgotten you?

Where do you feel like God has forgotten you?

Or maybe wrestle with the question of what hardship are you facing that you need to cry out about.

And I want you, just on one side of that note card, please don't use both, just one side, write out.

Write out what you're thinking, write out what you're feeling.

I'll give you a couple minutes to do that.

Good morning.

And I know sometimes the silence can be so uncomfortable.

But can you hear the truth this morning?

Of Isaiah 49, verses 14 through 16.

Isaiah 49:14–16

May this truth bring you comfort when you feel forgotten.

In verse 14, it says that Zion says, Zion is the city of God, it's God's people.

Zion says, Why have you forsaken me, God?

Why have you forgotten me?

And I don't think there's any any hesitation in verses uh from verse 14 to verse 15.

This is God's direct answer to that question.

If you sit here and you feel forgotten, hear this truth this morning.

That what God says to you when you feel forgotten is this.

Can a mother, can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has born, though she may forget.

God says, I will not forget you.

I have engraved you in the palms of my hand.

And your your frame, your walls are ever before me.

Do you hear the truth, church?

Please hear me.

Sometimes, sometimes emotions can be helpful, but they are not always the best God.

And the truth you need to hear this morning is this is that you feel forgotten, but God is right there with you in your midst.

God has not forgotten you.

It may feel like it, but I promise He is here and He is present, and He will not leave, He will not forsake, He will not abandon.

He is not distant, He is close and near.

He is closer than the air we breathe.

This is the God we serve.

He is with us, and this is what we hold on to when we feel forgotten.

I remember being eight years old and going to the grocery store with my mom.

It was the normal weekly, uh, I need to get all the groceries for the house.

And so I'm uh eight-year-old James, uh, so just think a lot shorter, um, a lot redder hair.

Um, and I'm sitting uh standing in the Cheez-Its aisle.

Uh and there in the Cheez-Its aisle, uh, Walmart is very deceitful, and they love to put Oreos and Cheez-Its in the very same aisle.

And so I'm standing in this aisle, and my mom is just a little bit further down getting some of the groceries from this aisle.

Uh, and this is my favorite aisle.

So I'm just staring, looking at all the Cheez-Its and all the things uh that uh the world has to offer.

Uh and my mom uh eventually leaves the aisle, but I don't go with her.

I just think it's fine, I'll be back here in a second.

I'm gonna keep staring at what flavored Cheez It I'm gonna get because they have so many options and so many Oreo options.

And so I'm sitting there staring at all of the snack food options, wondering which one I'm gonna get, and I recognize.

It's actually been like a minute or two since my mom's been back in the aisle.

But I'm like, it's fine, I'll just keep looking.

And so I eventually move down to the Oreos and I'm looking at the Oreos.

And it's in this moment I realize she is not coming back to the aisle.

Like I'm I'm standing in this aisle as an eight-year-old, and I have been forgotten.

I don't know where to go and I don't know what to do.

And so I'm starting to feel this angst in my heart, in my belly, so much so that I begin to run down the aisle.

And no lie, at the Web City Walmart, over the intercom, they say, if there is a James Bond in the building, please come up front.

Your mom is waiting for you.

So I run, I book it, I get as fast as I can up to the front of the store, and there is my mom waiting for me.

And so I give her a big old hug, and she gives me a big old hug.

And in that moment, all of my fear, all of my anxiety, all of my nervousness went away because one person showed up.

I don't think she forgot me.

She remembered.

But when I was in her presence, I felt so much better.

I was glad she didn't forget me, but that she remembered me.

And that's the second most important word that appears in Genesis 40, 23.

Joseph is forgotten, but look back at the text with me.

Verse 23, and we'll read through chapter 41, verse 1.

The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph.

He forgot him.

When two full years had passed, Pharaoh had a dream.

Two full years.

Could you imagine?

Joseph, I'm assuming, uh, he this this word remember, even though he doesn't hear it, we hear it as the reader, and our ears should perk up.

Because this word remember has a lot of different connotations to it, but one of the overwhelming connotations to it is for someone to retain thought and then put into action.

Uh the one one Old Testament scholar said it's an it's an enactment uh and an embodiment of God's own word uh to the people.

This is what he's doing.

He he is remembering.

When this word appears in uh Genesis, we our ears should perk up.

We should say, Oh boy, this is this is exciting.

Something's about to happen.

God is on the move.

That's what that word means.

This word occurs ten times in Genesis, six times before it appears, right here in verse 23.

The very first time it appears is Genesis 8, where God remembered Noah while they're sitting on the ark and they're waiting.

Uh in Genesis chapter 9, after the waters have receded, uh, it's there that God remembers the covenant that he made with Noah.

Genesis 9 · chapter mention

And then when the rainbow appears in the sky, he will remember his covenant.

Uh, later on in Genesis 19, it appears, where uh in Genesis 19, if you remember the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where the city is destroyed, uh, and right after the city is destroyed, uh, Lot's nephew was living there, but he escaped by God's grace, and because of that, Abraham wakes up the next morning and he sees smoke coming from the city.

And it says that God remembered Abraham, the promises attached to him.

So he spares his nephew Lot.

Later on in Genesis chapter 30, God remembered Rachel.

Genesis 30 · chapter mention

If you remember, Rachel and Leah were the fighting uh wives of Jacob, and yet Rachel can't have kids.

And it says, God remembered Rachel, and she was able to conceive.

The next occurrence of this word actually appears in Genesis 40.

Genesis 40, it's Joseph using the word, talking to the cupbearer in verse 14.

Will you remember me?

And then right here it says, He was not remembered.

The point, I think, of this word is that our ear should perk up and we should recognize something is about to happen.

Someone is uh something good is about to happen from this story.

So although Joseph is not remembered, the thing you need to put after that is dot dot dot yet.

He is not remembered yet.

I mean, could you imagine what Joseph feels like in this situation?

What he's thinking, what he's processing.

He's sitting in the prison, he's revealed the dream to the cupbearer, the cupbearer is restored, and he's sitting there thinking he's got his bags packed, he's ready, like two days, I'm out of here, right?

Like he he knows he's he's been in prison, but now he's coming out because the cupbearer will tell him, and so he's excited, he's joyful, and yet a week goes by, and two weeks go by, and three weeks go by, and he begins to think to himself, I probably should like take the clothes out of my bag and start using those.

Because maybe I'm gonna be here longer than I thought.

And a year goes by and two full years.

He has to wait, he has to endure.

You see, I think sometimes this prison for Joseph can be a metaphor for the furnace, it can be a metaphor of trust.

Will Joseph trust in God even when it doesn't make sense?

Will Joseph rely on God's good character even when his life doesn't seem like it's going the way it should?

Will he do it?

Will he trust him?

That's the opportunity Joseph has.

And I think it's the same opportunity we have this morning as well.

That not only the prison is an opportunity to turn our emotions to the Lord, but the prison is an opportunity to trust in the Lord, to know that he is good, even when it doesn't seem like it.

And so this is what Joseph has to wrestle with.

Will he trust God and will he turn to him or will he keep trying to do life on his own?

I love what uh Flannery O'Connor says.

She was a Catholic writer.

She said that suffering is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be endured.

We can't solve suffering.

I can't give you an answer on why you're suffering.

It's something to be endured.

It's something that we sit and wait through, knowing that our God is present with us in it, and we see what happens.

So we have to learn how to endure.

We have to learn how to fight even when you want to quit fighting.

We have to learn what it's like when life isn't going our way to stand up and say, I'm still gonna trust you because you've been faithful all this long.

This is what Joseph has to do, and I think this is what we have to do as well.

Because the reality is God will show up.

He will.

Later on, we'll we'll read this next week.

He will show up, and Joseph will be restored.

But I think there's something we need to grasp from this as well.

I love what J.K.

Jones says, he's a longtime spiritual formation professor at Lincoln Seminary.

Uh, he one time uh said this he said, God is seldom early, but never late.

God is seldom early, but never late.

In other words, he shows up at just the right time, every time, but not on our time.

This is what he does.

In the midst of suffering, he will show up, but it he may not show up the way you want him to.

And we have to be okay with that.

Because he is God and we are not.

So the question we have to ask is will we trust him in our hardships, in our suffering, in the battles we face, will we turn our emotions to him, and will we turn to trust him no matter what?

Because when we feel forgotten, God remembers us.

When we feel forgotten, God remembers us.

So I don't know what you walked in here with this morning.

I don't know if you're looking for a quick fix to your problem.

But the thing I know about Scripture, and what Joseph's story tells us, is that there are no quick fixes.

Is that oftentimes it's slow and it's long, but God will remember you.

And he will be with you, and he will walk with you no matter what you're facing.

You see, I can't give you an answer to your suffering.

This leads to another quote by Francis Spewford.

He one time said, We don't have an argument that solves the problem of the cruel world, but we have a story.

We have a story.

And this story changes everything.

This is where uh Joseph's story uh helps us see the fuller story of scripture because we have a story that changes not only Joseph's life, but every life that encounters this story.

Because you see, Joseph isn't the only prisoner in the Bible.

There's another prisoner that will come.

His name is Jesus.

You see, Jesus is the one who was the perfect God man.

He lived uh in uh in his earthly uh life, he had twelve disciples who would follow him uh and see what he did uh and do what he did.

And as he was living his life, uh there were the uh religious elite around him, seeing what he was doing and wondering why it is he's doing what he's doing.

They even charged him with blasphemy, saying he's claiming that he's God and he's not allowed to do that.

And so, because of that, they figure out a way to arrest him and kill him.

And so Jesus, with his twelve disciples, in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 22, he goes to this room, and there in this room he has some bread and he has some juice.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

And in that room, and the only gospel record, Luke is the only one who records this, he says, Eat the bread and drink the juice.

Do this in remembrance of me.

Remember me.

And so they take the bread and they take the juice, and it's through that that they don't, the disciples truly don't understand what Jesus is trying to say.

They don't fully grasp what it is he's saying with this last supper.

But after the last supper, they leave the upper room and they go to the Garden of Gethsemane.

And there, the gospel of Luke, the writer Luke, tells us this that Jesus gets on his knees and he prays in anguish, and drops of blood are coming from his forehead for how anguished and upset he is, because he knows what's coming, he knows where he's headed.

And it's in this moment of prayer that he says, Father, take this cup from me, yet not my will but yours be done.

And the disciples are asleep, they don't get it.

And Jesus sees a band of soldiers coming with a guy named Judas, once a close friend, now no longer, because Judas hands Jesus over for some change, and as soon as that happens, all the disciples flee and scatter.

Jesus is taken alone with those soldiers.

Jesus would be taken to Caiaphas's house, and there at Caiaphas' house, he would be taken out six times on trial.

He would be, he would face the judge and figure out what his verdict would be.

But where do they put Jesus when he's not on trial?

Many people will say that there's a little prison cell underneath Caiaphas's house.

Jesus, the Lord of heaven and earth, sunk deep down low, alone, waiting for sinners to approve his trial.

He's sitting in that dungeon through Thursday night.

And then on Friday morning, he faces Pilate.

And there, as he faces Pilate, Pilate asks the crowd who wants to be crucified, and they point to Jesus and they say, Crucify him, crucify him.

Pilate wipes his hands clean and says, Crucify him.

So Jesus, all alone, taken and beaten, and mocked and spit at and made fun of and taunted.

And those soldiers put a crown of thorns on his head and they put a big wooden cross on his back and they made him carry that cross all the way to a mountain called Gogotha.

And there on a cross, Jesus alone, they nailed, they put nails through his hands, nails through his feet.

No one was there to defend him.

No one was there to help them see who he really was.

And there, as he's dying, he takes his last breath and he says, My God, my God, why have you forgotten me?

Jesus in his darkest moment is alone, so that we would never have to be alone again.

Please hear me.

Jesus died so that when we feel forgotten, we are no longer because he walks with us.

And as he takes his last breath, and as he dies, they take him off the cross and they go and put him in a tomb.

They prepare his body for burial.

And after that, we know what happens.

Because on Friday night, there was no breath, no, no, no living, nothing.

The disciples are hopeless, they don't know where to turn, they don't know where to go.

Saturday morning comes, and Peter and his gang of fishermen go fish again.

Their forsaken Messiah is no longer here, but church, we are a third kind of day people because we know what happened on the third day.

Our King Jesus rose from the dead, declaring that he is no longer a forsaken prisoner, but the cosmic Christ who rules the universe.

And so we look to him, we go to him because right after he resurrects from the dead, he goes to his scattered disciples and says, Look, I am alive, I am living.

Now go make disciples in whatever you face, whatever you encounter, you will not do it alone because I will stand with you.

And so this is what we hold on to.

With that note card you have, would you flip it to the other side and write one more word?

Remember.

Write the word, big letters, remember.

And what I specifically want you to remember is Christ and his church.

Remember Christ and his church.

Remember the gospel story that you are not alone.

But remember this big beautiful body called the church.

That we don't have to do this alone.

We get to walk this journey with Jesus with brothers and sisters in Christ right here in this room.

So I want to get very practical today, very tangible response for you today.

I want to take communion together.

And the way I want to do this is I want you here in a minute, you're gonna be dismissed, to go grab the uh juice, uh the juice and the bread.

And I want you to go grab that, and then I want you to go back and with your spouse or with a friend, whoever is sitting next to you, I want you to look at them and say, You are not alone.

You are not alone.

And then and then I want you to pray together.

Pray that we would be a church that mourns and weeps for those who mourn and weep.

Pray that we would be a church that remembers that our King is the risen Lord of the universe.

Pray together as a tangible reminder that you are not forgotten because Jesus our King is alive.

Let me pray, and then you'll be dismissed to the tables.

Father in heaven, thank you for your love.

Thank you that you have not forgotten us.

You are good, and we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You can go to the tables.

Thanks again for listening to the Carterville Christian Church podcast.

Our prayer is that today's message has encouraged you and drawn you closer to Jesus.

To learn more or get connected with our church family, visit Carterville Christian.com.

We'd love to walk alongside you in your journey of faith.