There are so many things that
I really want to do in this text. But I pray that you're reading
it because if we do not read the word we will not know it. You know, we can read storybooks
and fiction books. I mean, I don't know about you
guys, but I mean, I've read through things. I had a season there
of about 25 years I hated reading anything. And then a season there
of 10 years I loved reading everything. But you know, you go back to
fiction, you go back to stories that you enjoy. You rewatch movies
and you think about them and you know the story, you know
how it's gonna end. But there's always something more. There's
always an opportunity where you can glean a little bit of that
first experience, a little bit of that insight, something else
in there that maybe you didn't see or something there that you
just enjoyed. And now that you know that it's there, you can
anticipate that portion. And beloved, if this is true
for the stories of creativity, the stories of life, the stories
of fiction, the stories of fantasy, how much greater is the truth of God Himself speaking
through the Word that He has written for us. We must be in the Bible as a
discipline if we intend to see the promises of God fulfilled
in us and in our lives. I would say that the reading
of the Word of God is probably the foundational, most infantile
discipline that we should have as Christians. Many times people
say, well, what should I do as a father, husband, mother, wife,
brother, sister, family member? How can I engage other people
in worship and the word? Just read it. and read it to
them, read it aloud. Let the Word of God be heard. Through the hearing of the Word
of God, the Spirit of God grants salvation to the elect as he
chooses. Through the hearing of the Word
of God, the saints grow in their understanding and their peace
and their knowledge. Through the hearing of the Word
of God, we are strengthened, encouraged, admonished and rebuked. through the Word of God and its
hearing, we learn to defend the truth that's there. We learn
the reality of what is true and pure and righteous and glorious
and absolute, so that when other things come along, we will see
that they are not that which we know. If we bring a secondary
character or a character that's not in a story that we're well
familiar with, if someone brings it into a conversation, we go,
wait a minute, that didn't happen in that story. We make up something
and someone who knows the story well would say, no, that's not
what happened. And beloved, if we want to be able to defend
the truth of scripture, we must be involved in its reading by
itself with no footnotes, no commentary, no study guides,
no pastors in our ear, but us and God alone through the written
word. So with that in mind, let us
hear the word of the Lord and let's start reading together
in chapter 11, verse 39. And all these, though commended
through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since
God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they
should not be made perfect. Therefore, since we are surrounded
by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight
and every sin which clings so closely, and let us run with
endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus,
the founder and the perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy
that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame,
and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider
him. who endured from sinners such
hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary and
fainthearted. In your struggle against sin,
you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My
son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be
weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the
one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. See, it
is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you
as children. For what child is there whom
his father does not discipline? If you're left without discipline
in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children
and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly
fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not
much more be subject to the father of spirits and live? For they
disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but
He disciplines us for our good, that we may share in His separateness,
in His holiness. For the moment all discipline
seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful
fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Therefore lift your drooping hands, and strengthen your weak
knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is
lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Strive
for peace with everyone, and for the holiness, without which
no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to
obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs
up and causes trouble, and by it may become defiled, that no
one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright
for a single meal. For you know that afterward,
when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for
he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears."
Now, I'm going to skip a good portion of this. Because we're
going to focus on that which Paul is arguing and then next
week we will focus on some of these more difficult sections
of this text in and of themselves. So let's set the stage. Paul
has done a very good job with this. He's shown that Christ
alone is sufficient for salvation. That the elect who have been
purchased by the blood of Christ, by the death of Christ, by the
propitiation of Christ, the justification of Christ, All these things that
are true of redemption, of atonement, are all that is needed for atonement. That Christ and His work is the
fulfillment of all the shadows of the law, the fulfillment of
all the precepts of Moses, the fulfillment of all things in
creation, that Christ, His life, His death, His resurrection,
are the single and sole instrument of redemption, period. to bring
about the promises of eternal life to God's people. So therefore
there is no need for us to fall back into slavery, back into
the law, back into works righteousness, back into assurance by gauging
our lives. There's no reason for us to fall
into the practices of Judaism, into the practices of conditions.
into the practices of pleasing people culturally because in
the circle in which we live, people want this of us so that
we can be seen spiritual. These are the things that these
Jews ethnically were dealing with because they were now spiritually
children of God. And so they were hurting, they
were in terrible shape emotionally, financially, They were dealing
with relational strife like they'd never seen before. Their economy
was nothing. Their religion became nothing.
And those who saw them as foolish ostracized them. But yet there
was a stream of Jewish well-meaning souls that would come to them
and say, you have Christ, but just stand back over here with
us. Bring Christ. back to Moses. Paul says it cannot be. As a
matter of fact, when he teaches the elect beloved of Galatia,
he tells them, why have you so quickly abandoned the gospel
that you've received? By faith, we stand in the promises
of God. By faith, we stand in our convictions
of the promises of God. By faith, we stand on the purposes
of the promises of God. And even when our faith is not,
the promises of God stand. And all of these people, all
of these heroes, these great cloud of witnesses, they certainly
did not see that which was promised. Yet they endured to the very
end and they received that a greater place. They received that life,
that crown of righteousness. They were granted the promise
that God had given them from the very beginning that He, He
would take them to where He was. And so, as we've seen several
times in this letter already, Paul encourages the readers to
endure, to stand fast, to hold fast, and to not be shaken. But why should we be shaken?
Isn't it a blessing to be in and part of the body? Yes. But when we are with other believers,
we will be identified as such and we will be marked and we
will be persecuted if we do not fall back into the lines that
the culture so passionately dictates. so we need to endure. We've already
seen, and I've talked about this for several weeks ago, we've
seen that we endure by looking at the cross, by looking at Christ. How do we look at Christ today?
Through the living Word of God, through the written Word of God.
How do we look then also at our suffering? Not as chastisement,
not as punishment, but as gracious discipline. That is, how we should
look at it. Discipline, the love of God for
us, that through these trials, God trains us to understand what? He trains us to understand the
suffering of Christ. He trains us to understand His
promises. He trains us to understand His
glory. He trains us to understand that
we are not of this world, though we are in this world, and that
His promises aren't of this world. But we will escape, for we have
been rescued out of the world. And we have a better and an abiding
hope. And a better and an abiding promise. Better and an abiding life. I often think about what it will
be like in eternity. I even said today, I wonder what
the work we have to accomplish will be like in eternity. In
the new creation, the new heaven and the new earth, we know that
the work of man and wife, they had jobs before the fall. Work
in and of itself is part of the Imagio Dei. It's part of the
blessing of life. Yet the work after the fall came
with destruction, with harshness. with toil that never ended. We
weed the garden today, they choke it out tomorrow. We build the
house today, it rots tomorrow. What will work be like in eternity? I'll tell you that the work will
not be burdensome. I'll tell you that the ministry
to each other will not be something that is costly for any of us.
But it will flow out of the natural reality of what Christ is in
us. What we've been made to be. I
don't know what that's like. I've never had a conversation
with a human being in a sinless way. With a sinless mind. With a sinless flesh. What does
that look like? What does it look like to stare
into the sky without the taint of sin? I shudder to imagine. I shudder
to think what my mind might do with just that reality. But the
discipline teaches us and trains us. And there's nothing that
we can really do to avoid it. We can't avoid the suffering.
We cannot avoid the pain. As a matter of fact, the harder
that we endure, the longer that we wait, the more and the more
and the more others will come into our lives and seek to set
us off the path of grace. And while it seems unpleasant,
it later yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. So what
is the exhortation now to the church? What is the exhortation
here? If we flip back over to Isaiah
35, We hear these words. The wilderness and the dry land
shall be glad. The desert shall rejoice and
blossom like the crocus. It shall blossom abundantly and
rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be
given to it. The majesty of Carmel and Sharon,
they shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.
Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees. Say
to those who have an anxious heart, be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with
vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save
you. Then the eyes of the blind shall
be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. And then shall
the lame men leap like a deer and the tongue of the mute sing
for joy. For waters break forth in the
wilderness, and streams in the desert. The burning sand shall
become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water, and
the haunt of jackals, where they lie down. The grass shall become
reeds and rushes. And a highway shall be there,
and it shall be called the way of holiness. The unclean shall
not pass over it. It shall belong to those who
walk on the way, even if they are fools, that shall not go
astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall
any ravenous beast come up upon it. They shall not be found there,
but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransom of the Lord shall
return and come to Zion with singing. Everlasting joy shall
be upon their heads. They shall obtain gladness and
joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Now, beloved, I'll
be honest with you. I don't have to preach that.
It says everything it needs to say without my thoughts and commentary.
Here we see from the prophet Isaiah the word of the Lord teaching
the day of redemption, teaching the blessing of God, teaching
the grace and the mercy of God. And there are many phrases in
that imagery, in that poetry, that really give me joy. Some people have said to me concerning
that passage out of Isaiah, what do you mean there's not going
to be lions? What about the Lion of Judah? It's an expression. We're
not going to have to worry about some beast eating us in the presence
of the Lord. We're not going to have to worry
about starving in the presence of the Lord. We're not going
to have to worry about sickness in the presence of the Lord. We're not
going to have to worry about calamity in the presence of the Lord.
There is a promise of the Lord Himself that these things are
temporary for our good Preparing us for a glory that is beyond
comparison. I think we might even have gone
to 2 Corinthians chapter 4 last week. That famous section of
scripture where we were crushed but not perplexed. We were struck down but not driven
to despair. always being given over to death,
but in the life for you, death in the body, but life in Christ,
and so on and so forth. Beloved, this is what these Christians
were facing. They were facing unprecedented
times of persecution by believing in the Messiah that their forefathers
had prophesied about for millennia. And why do they believe? It's
not because they were smart. They did not believe because
they had been taught well. They did not believe because
somebody came along and taught them the right thing to do. Taught
them the right thing to say. They believed because by the
mercy of God, He caused them to see. And that faith caused
them to know that they could rest in the promises of God through
Jesus Christ. Faith. Faith is a gift of God
to His people. And I've said this a thousand
times if I've said it once, all those for whom Christ died will
come to faith. No one whose sins have not been
paid for by the blood of Jesus will ever, ever see eternal life. But what do we do? See, that's
the thing. That's where Paul's going here.
What do we do? Okay, we're suffering. We know
the gospel. Yes, we've been tempted. Some of us have even gone back
to Tabernacle. Some of us have gone back to
Temple. We've been going back for months. Some of the people of Galatia,
they're lining up for circumcision. They're tired of the fight. He
says, Do not give in to this. Stand firm. But it's hard. Of course it's
hard. Of course it's hard. It's hard not to go in the philosophical
corners of our community. It's hard not to go into the
central theological themes of our culture. It's hard not to
glad hand with the rest of them. Why is it hard not to? Because
when you don't, you stand out. When you stand by grace alone, people hate it. They hate it
and they hate you because they hate grace. They hate it. They hate that they have no say. They hate it that they didn't
get to decide to be saved. They hate it that they didn't
get to put a condition on you or me so that they could mold
us into what a saved person is and looks like. Then they could
say, aha, see. Because as long as I can give
the requirements for your regeneration, then I can in some way take credit
for it. I can in some way say, I taught her that. She learned that from me. I straightened that out. And that's what pulpits look
like all over the world. That's what evangelism looks
like all over the world. Blasphemous attempts to placate
to a common community of people who hate grace. So how do we deal with the suffering?
We endure. How? Look at Christ. Where? In the Word. I'm sure not being
punished. No, you're being taught. You're
being trained. You're being secured. Woe when men speak well of you. But I still feel destroyed. See,
isn't that it? I still feel destroyed. I'm still
here. I'm still in this moment. I'm
still in these circumstances. I'm still looking at these people. I'm looking at these problems.
I'm looking at this pain. And I see God's purpose. I know
it in my brain, in my mind, and I understand it. And then there
are small moments when my heart is overjoyed thinking about it,
but what am I supposed to do? Well, we don't dwell on it. Therefore, a hard day's work,
no matter if it's at a desk or with a shovel, is a hard day's
work. Whether it's cold or hot or just
perfect outside, whether you're in a refrigerator, in an office
building, or on a moped, work is hard. And when you're done
and you want to sit down, you want to sit down. You want to
sleep. You want to rest. And then the sun comes up and
it's to do it all over again. And this is the life of humanity.
Work, eat, sleep, eat, work, die. That's it. And then sometimes
in that, depending on who you are and where you live and how
your circumstances are, you might have a little bit of fun on the
way. My beloved, the Christian faith
is no different. We work, we rest, we eat, we work, we rest,
we eat. And if we're looking for the
day in the faith, as the church, that we collectively will just
have this incredible, just long stretch of peace and joy without
any outside influence, we are asking for that which God has
denied us. We are not praying the will of
the Father when we ask for there to never be any more pain, for
there to never be any more strife. For there to never be any more
division. It's like chasing the rainbow.
It's refracted light. The moisture moves on. There's
no gold there and there's no little guy gonna try to keep
it from you. How many times are believers
chasing that very thing? So what do we do? That's why
I read out of Isaiah. Lift your drooping hands. Strengthen your weak knees. Make straight the paths for your
feet. So that what is lame may not
be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Now stop there for
a second. That's almost a direct quote
out of that chapter of Isaiah that we just read. It's almost
a direct quote, Isaiah 35. Because that's the way we feel,
isn't it? Persecution comes our way, sorrow, whatever it might
be, the discipline of the Lord comes, and we recognize it, but
we moan in it. We wallow in it. We sleep in
it. And the scripture here is saying,
therefore, stop letting your hands fall. Stop cowering and
breaking at your knees. Clean the stuff up in front of
you, So you can move forward. So you can run. You can run the
race of fate set before us with endurance because Christ has
gone before us already. See, He has paved the way of
righteousness. Isaiah 30, Isaiah 35. The highway
shall be there and it shall be called the way of holiness, not
righteousness. And nothing unclean shall ever
pass over it. And even if those who walk upon
it, it shall belong to them, even if they're fools, they shall
not go astray. And I'm gonna tell you something. If I ever could be honest with
myself to a place of absolute truth, I'll tell you this. I feel like that fool sometimes. And it is a blessing to know
that my foolishness will not kick me off the way of holiness. That my error will not snatch
me out of the love of God. That my anger will not wipe away
the blood of Christ. That my fear will not cause me
to faint and fall in a ditch. Lift your drooping hands. I believe
that Paul quoted that out of Isaiah on purpose. I believe
he quoted it on purpose because the readers would hear it and
they would know that particular portion of the prophet was an
opportunity to hear again the promises of God about redemption
and salvation, about the promises of life, the promises of joy,
the promises of hope, the promises of solidity. So we now can see
that we're told to remember the gospel of free grace. Remember
that it is sovereign and that God in his power is causing us
to believe and causing us to stay and causing us to adhere
to that which is true. And even when the craziest of
experiences cause us to doubt and wonder and even lose faith,
we will never throw away our confidence in Christ. He will
bring us back to the center of our hope because we belong to
Him. He is not in the business of letting those for whom He
died fall away. It will not happen. And we are
subject to Him by being subject to the Word of God. For the discipline
of the Lord is endured by the Scripture. We participate as true sons and
daughters. We see and we rejoice because
we've been given this peace, because we have taken the bull by the horns. We haven't
really. The bull has us because we have become the target. We are going to feel the sting. But the scripture here commands
us to stand up and remember the promises of joy. to lift our
drooping hands. I want you to just get this image
for a minute. It seems odd, doesn't it? I'm unable to get up. I'm unable to move forward. I'm
unable to be strong. I feel weak. I'm down. Have you
ever been there in your spirit? Yes. Recently. Right now, if
I have to be honest. Yet the Scripture says to get
up. Just like Jesus said to the man at the pool of Bethesda. You want to walk? What could
the man do? Make excuses that he couldn't
walk. For 38 years, I've been laying
at this pool, hoping someone else could drag my paralyzed
legs into the pool so that I might walk. So let's paraphrase that. A man
of 38 years, invalid, laying around a pool,
hoping for a miracle that didn't exist. Because the historical writings
and other writings teach us that they thought that when the wind
blew, that an angel was touching the water and the first one in
would be healed. So he says, do you want to walk?
And the man says, I can't walk. I can't even get in the pool.
I can't walk. But why do you think I'm standing
here, laying here? I want to walk, but I can't walk. It's
never going to work for me. I'm not going to be healed. So Jesus
answers him by saying, stand up, pick up your bed, and go. Go! And the man stood up, picked
up his bed, and went. The Lord is telling us there
also. The promises of our Savior, lift
up your drooping hands, strengthen your weak knees, clear out the
paths, go and be healed. The promises of God in the gospel
of grace. That is the peace of God that
surpasses all understanding. Now, beloved, I don't know about
you, I've been in a lonely place, and I've been in a dark place,
and I've been in a place where my mind could not distinguish
a lot. And it was this letter, believe
it or not, that helped me through this. It was this letter, from
the very beginning, as we see in Hebrews chapter 1, here in
chapter 12, it's the same story. In the very beginning, where
it says that long ago, and many times, and many ways, God spoke
to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days He has
spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed the heir of
all things, through whom also He created the world. He, the
Son, is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of
His nature, who upholds the universe by the word of His power, After
making purification for sins, He, the Son of God, sat down
at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become much superior
to the angels, as the name He has inherited is more excellent
than theirs. Therefore, lift your drooping
hands and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is
lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Because
you have the peace of Christ. And beloved, it is easier as
a body. You realize Jesus saved a body
of people. The church. That's what we call
it. The elect. We have, in our culture,
especially the United States, we have become so individualistic
when it comes to salvation that we've forgotten the imperatives of the New Testament. We've forgotten that we exist
for one another. You know what's amazing about
a family? Even when a family is going through
the same sufferings, somebody's strong enough to help. Even when the majority of the
family may be sick, somebody's well enough to step in. God's means of helping us endure
includes each other. Includes taking that out of joint
issue, whatever it may be, whatever it may be. I've been out of joint
a lot in my lifetime, not just physically. Sometimes a good, well-meaning
brother or sister will come along at the right time and share the
gospel, and share the word, and the Spirit of God will take it
straight out. And because we have the peace that we have in Christ, the next
command, verse 14, is this. Strive for peace with everyone. I want you to look at that. Strive for peace with everyone. There's three things here that
he commands. Strive for peace with everyone.
Strive for the holiness without which you will not see, without
which no one will see the Lord, not you. And do not fail to obtain
grace, but see to it that your brothers and sisters do not fail
to obtain grace. See to it. And then one more
thing, see that no root of bitterness
springs up and causes trouble. Now, this is like, if you're
not careful, Sunday afternoon dinner and we
forgot some stuff on the counter at the grocery store. Hey honey,
will you run to the grocery store? Yeah, what are we getting? Oreos,
toilet paper, you know, this smorgasbord of a list, but this
list is not like that. This list is connected to the
various circumstances here in this context. Because what is
the one thing that typically takes place in the heart of a
human being when we're suffering? Bitterness. We're bitter because somebody
causes problems. We're bitter because we have
problems and they don't. We're bitter because we're suffering. We're bitter because we wish
we didn't Wish we weren't suffering? We're bitter because we weren't
exercising enough faith? We become bitter with people.
But yet we've been given the peace of Christ. We've been given
the person of Christ. We've been given the death of
Christ and thus we have the life of Christ. So why would Paul
then say these things? He says, strive for peace. With whom? Everyone. And it's
not the only place he puts that. We see that in Romans. We see
that in his letters to Timothy. We see that in a lot of places.
Strive for peace. Guess what terms that peace requires? The gospel. That's why we can strive for
peace. We can be at peace. We can work quietly, work with
our hands. We can do what's required by
the law, by the government, so that they would look favorable
to us. We can take care of our needs
and save and take care of other people's needs in time. There
are a lot of ways that we're supposed to be living. But if
we're not at peace, we're not living according to the gospel.
Now some people say, well, how are we to have peace with the
people who are hurting us? We endure. We can plead and we can try to
talk and work through it, but, I mean, look at Romans 14 and
15. As long as it is up to you. All we can do in that context
is what we can do. And all we can do is humble ourselves
to be willing to walk in the gospel together, to live in the
gospel together, and to understand the Word of God, to endure. I think here is some of the idea
that, you know, God is our Avenger. We don't need to rile up in our
own hearts and minds about what we would do and how we would
respond and what we should do or what we want to do and that's
a fleshly thing that happens for some of us. Yet we saw over
in Isaiah, what did he say? Strengthen the weak hands and
make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious
heart, be strong and fear not. Behold your God, see Your God
will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God, and He
will come and save you. So you realize the salvation
that we've been promised culminates when we're snatched out of this
world by death or glory. So then, we guard ourselves. We rejoice. We thank God for
it. And I believe, beloved, when
we see over in chapter 10, these assurances, the blood of Jesus
Christ and everything that is taught there. And we see these
admonishments to not fall into the practice of not being together. When we neglect the assembly. We're neglecting, let me change
that word, we're rejecting the very means of grace through which
God has promised to heal our bodies, our spiritual sense. I'm not talking about health,
I'm talking about spiritual health, our minds. So when we are striving for peace,
we are longing to be inclusive with our brothers and sisters
in the faith. We are longing to be intimate
in the Word of God with the lost. You realize we're not supposed
to hate the lost. We're supposed to teach the lost. The greatest
ministry we could ever have is to be known as a person who is
willing to sit down and talk about the Bible with anyone who's
willing to listen. Most importantly, our brothers
and sisters in Christ. And we see this next part of
this text. So strive for peace with everyone
and strive for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
And there's a lot there and next week I want to pick up there
and really focus on that. But as a way of knowing what
it means in this context, what are we talking about? We share
in the holiness of the Lord in His discipline. How? Because
of His love for us. The way of holiness in Isaiah
35 is the gospel of grace. The love of God for His people.
The salvation that is promised. So we strive to continue in the
conviction, in the faith, in the truth, and therein we will
find our center, who is Jesus Christ, our righteousness. Beloved, when this is all said
and done, and we get to see that which we cannot see, the comparison
is going to be unimaginable. Listen to verses 18 through 24. For you have not come to what
may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a
tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made
the hearers beg that no further words, messages be spoken to
them. For they could not endure. the order that was given. If
even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. Indeed, so
terrifying was the sight that Moses said, quote, I tremble
with fear. You have not come to this, but
you have come to Mount Zion and you have come to the city of
the living God. You have come to the heavenly
Jerusalem. You have come to the innumerable angels in festal
gathering and to the only place in the word of God that it talks
about, the church universal, the assembly of the firstborn
who are enrolled in heaven. And you have come to God. And
look at this moniker, the judge of all. And you have come to
the spirits of the righteous, made perfect. In verse 24, you
have come to Jesus. the mediator of a new covenant.
And you've come to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word
than the blood of Abel. And I can't wait to go through
that. But beloved, there's our encouragement. There is the power
of God to cause us to stand in our spirit and to rejoice and
to be strong and to keep moving, walking and striving toward Christ
who will never let us go. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your
mercy. Lord, help us in these times
when we are helpless to rest and to behold you and to see
you for who you are and what you are and to share the gospel
with one another so that we may be encouraged. Lord, I pray that
as a body, as a family of faith, that you would give us a deep
desire to share the Gospel, to be in the Word and have the discipline
of the Scripture in us so that when we are able and when you
provide opportunity that we would know the prompting of your Spirit
to teach the truth of Christ. Father, that we would be patient
with people. that we would learn from you and that we would be
able to see your work in your time bring your people to a greater
intimacy knowing that what we have even in the best of days
is not the point it's not the promise it's a temporal passing
through and one day we will see it all and we will see you through
the face of Jesus Christ, your Son, who is our King, our Redeemer,
the great Lamb who has taken away our sins and set us upon
the mountain, the mountain of life. In Jesus' name, Amen.