Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] When they looked into the grave, there was an angel sitting where the body of Jesus had been.
[00:00:12] And the angel said to Mary, why do you seek the living among the dead?
[00:00:19] He is not here. He is risen.
[00:00:24] And that's what we're celebrating this morning.
[00:00:28] Our dear Heavenly Father, for the majesty and the mystery of Christ.
[00:00:37] We are eternally grateful for the wonder of who he did, who he was, and for the miracle of what he did.
[00:00:48] We give thanks to you this morning, and it is our hope and our prayer that the wonder of Jesus Christ could touch us in a fresh way this morning.
[00:01:04] I pray that we would not drift in and out of Easter without a conversion in our heart and a movement of our soul toward you.
[00:01:17] And I ask this for Jesus name's sake alone.
[00:01:21] Amen.
[00:01:25] Jesus was trying to explain to his disciples that it was necessary for him to die and to rise again on the third day.
[00:01:40] But it was a concept that they couldn't understand.
[00:01:46] And so Jesus said to his 12, you remember the prophet Jonah as he was three days and three nights in the sea creature.
[00:02:04] And then God called him out of the sea creature and back to life.
[00:02:10] The Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
[00:02:17] And if we're really going to understand that, we have to understand the story of Jonah.
[00:02:23] We've been studying the book of Jonah together.
[00:02:27] Jonah was a prophet who lived about 800 years before Christ.
[00:02:38] And he was a good man and he was reliable, and he had been a faithful servant of God.
[00:02:47] Until one day the word of the Lord came to Jonah.
[00:02:51] And he said, jonah, I want you to go to Nineveh, and I want you to tell them that unless they repent, things are not gonna go well with them.
[00:03:05] Well, Jonah had animosity to toward the Assyrians.
[00:03:11] They were a superpower.
[00:03:13] They were threatening to overrun every country.
[00:03:18] And for the first time in his life, Jonah said to God, no, I'm not going.
[00:03:28] And he went down to the port city of Joppa, and he bought a ticket and got on a boat and started sailing in the opposite direction of Nineveh.
[00:03:41] But God met that boat on the Mediterranean with a great storm that stopped its progress.
[00:03:50] And in the end, the sailors ended up heaving Jonah overboard.
[00:03:57] And the biggest bass that ever lived came jumping for the lure.
[00:04:05] And Jonah spent three days and three nights.
[00:04:10] He tells us about it in Jonah, chapter two.
[00:04:15] And he came to Venom himself.
[00:04:18] He was certain that he was dying.
[00:04:23] And his last thought before he passed out was, he remembered the Lord.
[00:04:31] He remembered that God is good, that he is merciful and gracious, that he's slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin.
[00:04:48] And then he lost consciousness.
[00:04:52] And at the word of the Lord, the great fish, ah, hawked Jonah out.
[00:05:03] And Jonah woke up on a sandy beach on the east coast of the Mediterranean, was covered in seaweed and he pulled it off himself. And he drug himself up out of the surf and probably laid down on the warm sand.
[00:05:26] But he woke up and his subconscious mind had been praying and he had been giving thanks to God because God is the God of salvation.
[00:05:41] But now he's laying on the sandy beach.
[00:05:47] Now he's wondering what is to become of him after abandoning God. Would God ever trust him to be a prophet again?
[00:06:00] And then Jonah tells us in Jonah, chapter three, the word of the Lord came to him a second time, saying, rise, Go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I will tell you this phrase, the word of the Lord. It's used throughout the Old Testament, and it means God speaking to his people.
[00:06:28] The word of the Lord came to people in a variety of ways. The word of the Lord came to Noah in a warning.
[00:06:36] It came to Abraham in a covenant.
[00:06:41] It came to Joseph in a dream.
[00:06:46] It came to Moses in a burning bush.
[00:06:49] The word of the Lord came to people in a variety of ways.
[00:06:54] Because God has to speak to all of us in different ways.
[00:06:59] The word of the Lord wants to come to you today.
[00:07:03] God wants to speak to you.
[00:07:06] He wants your Easter experience to be something new and holy and fresh in your heart.
[00:07:16] And no matter where you are in your thinking, no matter where you are in your heart, no matter what happened to you this week, no matter if you failed and failed miserably, or succeeded and succeeded wonderfully, God has a word for you today.
[00:07:39] And it is a word of hope.
[00:07:41] It's a word of faith. It's a word of forgiveness.
[00:07:45] It's a word of love.
[00:07:48] Do you have a heart to hear the word of the Lord?
[00:07:53] Is there any openness in your soul to let God say to you today, you are my beloved child.
[00:08:03] I hold you dearly, and I have something beautiful in store for you.
[00:08:12] God gave Jonah a second chance.
[00:08:16] God is a God of second chances.
[00:08:19] For some of us, it's 100 second chances, 300 second chances.
[00:08:29] Jonah felt like he had lost the privilege of his relationship with God. And God said to Jonah, you misunderstand me. I am the God of second chances.
[00:08:44] Some of you need a second chance.
[00:08:48] You need a second chance.
[00:08:51] Life has pushed you around.
[00:08:54] You're in a place right now that you would prefer to be in a different place.
[00:09:00] Would you let the word of the Lord whisper to you this morning?
[00:09:05] Would you let him say to you, ah, I've got something better for you.
[00:09:12] I'm not done with you yet.
[00:09:15] I am still at work in you, both to will and to work, according to my own good pleasure.
[00:09:23] Ah.
[00:09:25] But the word of the Lord came to Jonah and it called for action.
[00:09:31] The word of the Lord is not a passive thing.
[00:09:35] Christianity is not a passive religion. It is a religion of action.
[00:09:42] And the Lord said to Jonah, I'm giving you a second chance now get up and go to Nineveh.
[00:09:50] Some of you need to hear Christ say to you this morning, it's time for you to get up.
[00:09:57] Yeah, you got knocked down.
[00:10:00] Yeah, it hurt bad.
[00:10:03] Yeah. It wasn't what you wanted or expected, but you've laid there long enough and now it's time for you to get up.
[00:10:12] Easter morning is about resurrection.
[00:10:16] Easter morning is about rising up and letting go of the past and taking hold of the future.
[00:10:24] Can you hear this?
[00:10:26] That regret that is holding you down?
[00:10:29] Get up and walk away from it.
[00:10:33] That shame that is holding you down. Get up and walk away from it.
[00:10:41] That failure in your past that haunt you.
[00:10:46] The word of the Lord says to you this morning, it's Easter. The stone is rolled away. Now you rise up and go into the new life that God has for you.
[00:11:01] Nineveh was probably the largest city in the world at that time.
[00:11:08] Many people believe that over a million people live there.
[00:11:12] For us, a million people is a lot, but there are cities with tens of millions.
[00:11:20] But at that time, to sustain a city of a million people without our technology was incredibly difficult.
[00:11:31] And then the Lord said to Noah, to Jonah, if I say Noah, just ignore it. I'm talking about Jonah.
[00:11:39] You have to go with what I'm thinking, not what I'm saying.
[00:11:45] And then the Lord said to Jonah, I'm giving you a second chance, but you're going to have to have some courage.
[00:11:56] Second chances require courage.
[00:11:59] And he said, I want you to go to Nineveh and I want you to challenge their evil. I want you to challenge their wickedness.
[00:12:06] I want you to tell them they have to. They have to repent.
[00:12:11] Brothers and sisters, God does not give us second chances so we can push back the handle on our La Z boy and watch a Survivor.
[00:12:25] God gives us second chances so that we can be His Partner. And in challenging the world to become what God wants it to be, our second chances are the opportunities to partner with God in a new way.
[00:12:42] To partner with him in a new way in our home. To partner with him in a new way in our workplace. To partner with him in a new way at church.
[00:12:51] The second chance is God saying, ah, we have work to do together.
[00:13:02] The Lord required Jonah to challenge the culture in Nineveh.
[00:13:10] I wonder what God would challenge in our culture.
[00:13:17] Oh, I know what some of you are thinking.
[00:13:19] You think in politics, oh, yeah, God would tell that person, oh, yeah, God would set that person straight.
[00:13:31] I very much doubt it.
[00:13:34] When God sent Jonah to Nineveh, there was no political agenda.
[00:13:40] When God sent Jonah, it was with a call to repentance.
[00:13:48] Can you hear me?
[00:13:50] Everyone in this room, me included? We all have things we need to repent of.
[00:13:56] If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
[00:14:03] I'm telling you what God would challenge in our culture. He would call every one of us to do a re examination of our heart. And he would ask us to repent.
[00:14:16] He would ask us to allow his spirit to change our mind about compromises we've made with evil.
[00:14:28] Ah.
[00:14:31] And then there's an odd phrase here, it's easy to read over. He said, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it. And look what he says.
[00:14:41] I'll tell you the message when you get there.
[00:14:45] Do you see what the scripture says?
[00:14:48] Call out against it. The message that I will tell you.
[00:14:54] Ah, this is interesting. Ah, God is so brilliant that he knows how to nuance the message.
[00:15:05] I'm not a believer in, in bowling people over with Bible verses.
[00:15:11] Have you ever met people like that?
[00:15:13] They have to quote to you 35 Bible verses. They kind of have to beat you down with the Bible.
[00:15:20] Ah, ah, ah. From time to time, I have somebody come rushing up to me after a sermon and. And. And they want to quote a Bible verse to me. And, and because I'm such a pure heart, I feel like saying, wow, is that really in the Bible?
[00:15:41] Wow, you are so smart.
[00:15:46] I'm not. I don't think that is how God works.
[00:15:51] I think God works in the nuance.
[00:15:55] God works in the moment.
[00:15:58] God meets us in the moment and he helps us to recognize where the openings are.
[00:16:09] And then he asks us to graciously move through that opening with something that will nurture the human soul.
[00:16:21] The people around you that you want to help, the people around you that you Want to share the word of the Lord with the people around you, that you want to partner with God in helping them find a better way.
[00:16:33] There is a nuanced moment that God will create, and you just have to be ready to be his partner in that moment. Do you hear?
[00:16:45] You just have to be ready to tell them something beautiful about Jesus Christ.
[00:16:54] So Jonah rose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord.
[00:17:00] Now Nineveh was exceeding an exceedingly great city, three days journey in breadth.
[00:17:07] The Jonah who had been reluctant and ran away from the Lord when he got his second chance. He was obedient and he did exactly what the Lord told him to do.
[00:17:18] This is what we call a conversion. Jonah was converted. He was converted from being reluctant about God to be totally reliant on God.
[00:17:31] Conversion, true conversion, always consists both in hating sin and fleeing from sin and in a sincere love for God in his service.
[00:17:44] God wants to be converting us the same way he converted Jonah.
[00:17:50] He wants to be changing that which is most wicked and ugly about us, and he wants to be renewing it in the image of God.
[00:18:00] He wants to convert us from selfishness and self love to unselfish love and love of God Church.
[00:18:10] And he wants to convert us again and again. Day by day.
[00:18:16] Jonah began to hate that he had defected from God.
[00:18:21] He hated that he fled from God.
[00:18:27] He offered God a sincere love and a diligent service.
[00:18:33] I wonder, Church where are you this morning?
[00:18:39] In what direction are you moving?
[00:18:42] If you look at your life over the last three years, would you say you have moved closer to God in the last three years?
[00:18:51] Or would you say you're probably farther from God right now than you were three years ago?
[00:18:58] What is the direction of your soul?
[00:19:02] Which way are you moving?
[00:19:04] Can you remember a time when you were more passionate in your love of Christ?
[00:19:10] Can you remember a time when you were more eager to be a partner with God in doing good?
[00:19:17] Can you remember a time when prayer was really meaningful to you?
[00:19:22] Can you remember a time when you couldn't wait to get to church?
[00:19:31] Or if you remember three years ago, you go, I am a lot closer to God today than I was then three years ago, if I went to Easter, it was because my wife wouldn't quit nagging me three years ago, if I prayed, it was because, ah, ah, ah. I was desperate.
[00:19:57] Three years ago, Christ rarely came into my thinking.
[00:20:01] But today I find myself drawn to Him.
[00:20:06] I find he's interesting to me. I want to know him better.
[00:20:12] I was glad when they said, let us go into the house of the Lord.
[00:20:16] What is the direction of your life?
[00:20:19] Conversion means if you are going in the wrong direction, you turn and go back toward God.
[00:20:29] Jonah was converted. He moved from fleeing away from God to being totally dependent on God.
[00:20:39] And he rose and went to Tarsh. He rose and went to Nineveh.
[00:20:44] Let me tell you about Nineveh.
[00:20:47] You can actually look up Nineveh and, and you can see up excavations of the ancient city.
[00:20:56] If you remember the Iraq war, Mosul was a major city in Iraq, in the northern end of Iraq.
[00:21:09] And Nineveh, the ruins of Nineveh are just outside of Mosul. So if you look at a map and you find Mosul, that's where Nineveh, the ruins of Nineveh are.
[00:21:22] The city was probably 2,500 years old when, when Jonah got there.
[00:21:29] In fact it shows up in the book of Genesis, Genesis 10:10.
[00:21:35] The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Eric Akkad, Calna, in the land of Shinar.
[00:21:45] And from that land he went to Assyria and built Nineveh.
[00:21:52] Nineveh was a very ancient city dating all the way back to the book of Genesis.
[00:21:59] Ah, Nineveh shows up in I Isaiah's prophecy.
[00:22:06] The Nineveh was the capital of the empire of Assyria and Assyria was invading all the world around them.
[00:22:17] And the king of Assyria was a man named Sennacherib.
[00:22:23] And he surrounded the city of Jerusalem and he wanted to sack the city, but God divinely rescued the city. Sennacherib went home to Nineveh and his two sons killed him with the sword while he was worshiping in the false in the temple of the false God Ara Nisroch.
[00:22:46] There's another whole book in the Bible about Nineveh and it's the book of Nahum that was probably written about 50 years after Jonah.
[00:22:58] I'll read you just a piece of poetry from the book.
[00:23:02] Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder.
[00:23:09] No end to the prey.
[00:23:12] The crack of the whip, the rumble of the wheel. Galloping horse, bounding chariot, horseman charging, flashing sword, glittering spear. Hosts of slain heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end. They stumble over the bodies.
[00:23:36] Pretty, pretty bleak. Look, Anahum is predicting the destruction of Nineveh.
[00:23:49] The people who do the studies say the city was probably had a wall. The city definitely had a wall around it. It was probably a 63 mile wall.
[00:24:00] They had a wall around the city that was probably 63 miles. That's how big the city was.
[00:24:06] So Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he cried out, 40 days and Nineveh will be over.
[00:24:20] Jonah found a convenient place in the city and God caused people to start coming to him. And when he drew a crowd, he said to the crowd, ah, this city has 40 days to repent. And if it doesn't, ah, it will come to an end.
[00:24:40] There is an explicit and an implicit message that he makes.
[00:24:47] Talk about both.
[00:24:48] The explicit message is just what he said. You got 40 days to repent.
[00:24:54] But there's something implied in that.
[00:24:57] The implied message is God is merciful, gracious and ready to forgive you if you repent.
[00:25:07] There is a danger to be avoided. But there's more than a danger to be avoided. There is a great God to, to be embraced.
[00:25:18] A God who's ready to forgive, a God who is merciful. A God who wants to set you free from the ugliness in your life.
[00:25:31] You should know that this happened during the reign of Ashur Dan III.
[00:25:38] He ruled from 773 to 755.
[00:25:43] And if you study this period, there were two plagues and five civil revolts.
[00:25:50] So when Jonah says bad days are coming, they were already experiencing bad days.
[00:25:58] Two plagues had hit the city, five civil revolts had happened. And Jonah said, if you don't come back to God, this is not going to end well for you.
[00:26:14] Do you believe?
[00:26:16] Woe unto the nation that forgets the Lord.
[00:26:22] Do we really believe that?
[00:26:25] Is it hard for you to imagine archeologists SoMeday Excavating Washington D.C.
[00:26:39] Can you imagine them digging through mounds and finding the base of the Washington Monument?
[00:26:50] Digging through mounds and finding the pillars of the Lincoln Memorial, scrounging around and excavating the graves of Arlington National Seminary Cemetery.
[00:27:06] Can you. Is that. Do you have the imagination to see that?
[00:27:10] Well, that is exactly what happened in the ancient world.
[00:27:13] The people of Nineveh said, this city will always be here.
[00:27:18] We're too great to be overthrown. We're too powerful, we're too smart.
[00:27:25] And today that city that was once the greatest city in the world is an excavation site.
[00:27:33] The Romans dreamed of a thousand year reign of the Roman Empire.
[00:27:43] And today you go and see what's left of the Coliseum.
[00:27:50] You go and view Roman roads that have been lost for generations.
[00:27:57] Church cultures can't survive when they turn their back on the living God.
[00:28:05] What Jonah said to Nineveh, God says to us today, we have a sacred trust.
[00:28:12] We have a sacred trust with God.
[00:28:15] If we are a great culture, if we are a great People it is because we are followers of a great God.
[00:28:30] And when we let go of the thing that made us great, we mustn't expect greatness to continue.
[00:28:40] Church.
[00:28:42] Ah.
[00:28:44] Ah.
[00:28:47] The hope of our America is not in politics and it's not in culture. It's in the Church.
[00:28:55] Can you hear this? If America has a future, it will be carried on the shoulders of the church.
[00:29:03] It will not be carried in politicians briefcases.
[00:29:07] It will not be. It will not be. It will not be passed on through universities.
[00:29:14] The church is. Is the hope of the world.
[00:29:18] And when the church is what we're supposed to be, we have a profound effect on the culture even if we don't make the evening news.
[00:29:30] Church.
[00:29:33] Ah.
[00:29:36] And so Jonas preached and the people listened.
[00:29:40] And the people of Nineveh believed God and they called for a fast and put on sackcloth. From the greatest of them to the least.
[00:29:49] There was a change in the people of Nineveh.
[00:29:54] They believed in God.
[00:29:56] They started looking at things differently.
[00:30:00] But now I have to ask, what is it they believed about God?
[00:30:08] This matters.
[00:30:11] Did they repent because they were terrified of God's wrath?
[00:30:18] Or did they repent because they were fascinated and drawn to his goodness?
[00:30:25] Church.
[00:30:28] It matters.
[00:30:30] Ah.
[00:30:32] Ah.
[00:30:33] I became a Christian as a boy because I was convinced that I'd get sent to hell.
[00:30:47] I didn't become a Christian because I loved Christ.
[00:30:51] I didn't become a Christian because I was fascinated with him, because I wanted to, I was interested in his teaching.
[00:30:59] I became a Christian because they scared the hell out of me.
[00:31:05] Church and that has not been a healthy basis for a quality of religious life.
[00:31:16] It was not till later in life that I came to see Jesus in a radically different way.
[00:31:24] I'm not a Christian today because I'm afraid of hell.
[00:31:29] I am a Christian today because I love Jesus Christ.
[00:31:39] I feel on Good Friday that everything Christ experienced was a divine gift to me.
[00:31:48] I feel that when he rose that first Easter day, He promised because I have risen and you also will rise.
[00:31:57] I love Christ because he's fascinating. He's altogether wonderful. I can't look away from him. He just calls me and calls me and calls me church.
[00:32:10] Why is this important? Because there is a big difference between contrition and attrition.
[00:32:19] Let's do some theology together.
[00:32:22] Ah.
[00:32:24] You're right. This isn't an Easter sermon. But if all I do is preach each of sermons, you only come on Easter. You don't get to hear all the good stuff.
[00:32:40] Attrition means I am a.
[00:32:46] I'm Sorry for the bad things I've done, but I'm basically sorry because I don't wanna be punished.
[00:32:56] That's attrition.
[00:32:57] I repent because.
[00:33:01] Not because I'm sorry I did it, but because I'm afraid of the consequences. Church and we've all had attrition.
[00:33:11] Everyone in this room has felt attrition.
[00:33:14] I hope God doesn't lower the boom on me on this one. Church Repentance, that is fear driven, Doesn't produce the result God wants.
[00:33:32] Contrition is, I'm sorry because I love Christ and. And it hurts me to disappoint him.
[00:33:42] Church now let me give you an illustration.
[00:33:47] If the only reason I don't. If the only reason I treat my wife well is because I don't want the results of not treating her well, that's not love, that's manipulation, right?
[00:34:04] I'm only treating her well because I don't like the results of what happens when I don't treat her well. That's not love.
[00:34:13] All right?
[00:34:14] On the other hand, if I treat her well because I delight in her, I want her to live a good life, I want her to enjoy life, I want to be a blessing to her. That's love.
[00:34:31] Attrition doesn't love God.
[00:34:35] Attrition only fears God.
[00:34:41] But perfect love casts out all fear.
[00:34:45] I don't believe that the people of Nineveh had contrition. I believe they had attrition.
[00:34:53] They were afraid of what might happen and not delighted with the God of mercy and grace.
[00:35:04] Now, where are you this morning?
[00:35:08] Where is your soul right now?
[00:35:11] When you think about God and your relationship to him, do you find there is more fear than there is longing?
[00:35:25] Or when you think about your relationship to God, has fear taken a second place and you find a genuine desire to be around God and to do what is pleasing to him?
[00:35:43] Why do I think it's attrition? Because how did they repent?
[00:35:48] They called a fast and they put on hair cloth.
[00:35:53] They used to weave tunics out of camel hair.
[00:35:59] And it was a very, very coarse hair. And these shirts would be very uncomfortable and they would actually rub you raw in the places where they touch the most. It was a form of self punishment.
[00:36:17] When they repented, they said to God, we'll punish ourselves so you don't have to punish us.
[00:36:25] We'll fast, we'll wear this shirt. We'll feel bad.
[00:36:32] We won't tell any jokes for a week, all right?
[00:36:37] Church that's not the way God works.
[00:36:42] God does not forgive our sins because we punish ourselves.
[00:36:48] He forgives our sins to rescue us from all punishment.
[00:36:53] Peter himself wrote, he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.
[00:37:06] Do you hear this today?
[00:37:09] If your relationship to Christ is not what it should be, you don't punish your way back to God.
[00:37:17] You trust your way back to God.
[00:37:20] You receive his grace, you receive his hope, you receive his love.
[00:37:28] You said that, Doc, just last week.
[00:37:34] I failed him again.
[00:37:37] Then I say to you, John, the beloved apostle wrote, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to cleanse us from our sins, to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
[00:37:51] The Christ who rose up that first day is not a vindictive Christian.
[00:37:59] He's not looking for you to gravel.
[00:38:03] He's not looking for you to inflict punishment on yourself.
[00:38:08] He's not looking for you to be a tyrant in your own mind.
[00:38:13] He's looking for you to simply yield to the wonder and the majesty of his saving grace.
[00:38:21] He's looking for you to say, what I can't do for myself, I believe you can do.
[00:38:30] Are you in a state of attrition today, or are you in a state of contrition?
[00:38:38] Attrition always produces reluctance.
[00:38:42] If I'm terrified of God, I always have to keep a safe distance from Him.
[00:38:48] Can you hear this, Church?
[00:38:50] I never really wholly trust him.
[00:38:54] I never really open my heart completely to Him.
[00:38:58] Fear keeps me reluctant in the presence of God, but perfect love casts out all fear. And then we throw our heart door open and we say to Christ, whatever grace you have for me, I will receive.
[00:39:18] Whatever mercy you have for me. I accept.
[00:39:22] Whatever love you had for me, I receive.
[00:39:26] I trust you with everything most personal about who I am.
[00:39:34] Church.
[00:39:37] The Resurrected Christ offers you freedom from fear and peace with God.
[00:39:44] In the same way that Jonah woke up that day on the beach and he let his past life be his past life.
[00:39:56] And he began to move into a new life with God.
[00:40:00] Why don't you do the same?
[00:40:04] Why don't you, right where you are right now, just say to God, for all my failures in the past, I ask for your forgiveness and for the life that I want to live.
[00:40:21] I pray that your spirit would begin to do something new and fresh in me right now.
[00:40:27] I pray that this just will not be another Easter where we wear fancy clothes and have a great dinner.
[00:40:36] I pray this will be an Easter of genuine contrition, where I say to God, I want your forgiveness because I love you. And I want to be around you.
[00:40:51] Why not say to God this morning, ah, ah, ah.
[00:41:01] Because Christ lives.
[00:41:03] I want to live a Christlike life.
[00:41:08] Our dear Heavenly Father, I pray that your spirit would whisper to our hearts in ways that only he can.
[00:41:19] I pray for everyone in this room and everyone who's watching online.
[00:41:25] Dear Heavenly Father, I pray that the word of the Lord would come to our hearts.
[00:41:31] We would hear your spirit whisper to us.
[00:41:35] That whisper would be converting.
[00:41:38] It would change us from what we've been in the past to who you are making us in the future.
[00:41:44] I pray that whisper would lead to contrition and we would humble ourselves before you because we love you, because we delight in you, because you mean everything to us.
[00:41:58] And then I pray that the life of Christ would be real and vibrant in us in these coming days. In Christ's name, amen.
