We've all been hurt.
We all carry scars.
We can all overcome these things and be healed through a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Let's build that relationship together right here.
Welcome to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
That said, let's go ahead and let's hop into our message for today.
Of course, we've already opened up in prayer.
So let me just say good morning, everybody.
Welcome.
Welcome to Sanctuary.
Welcome everybody joining us online.
Those people who follow in on the podcast.
Maybe we'll have slides today.
I don't know.
Give me a second here.
Oh, that's fine by me.
Okay, that works.
Apparently, the system is not working.
Stitch has a glitch.
So unfortunately, we're not going to have PowerPoint slides, but that's okay.
That's what we have our Bibles and our apps for, right?
So maybe we can get a nice background going up there then at least, you know, or something.
I don't know.
Darren, I'll let you work on that so we don't just have like a black abyss behind me.
So anyway, yeah.
So welcome, everybody.
Good morning.
Welcome to everybody online.
Everybody following on the stream.
Of course, it was great to have everybody with us.
As I said, this is our last Sunday before Christmas.
Of course, we'll be meeting back up here Tuesday night.
Staying in tune with the season, you know, we're going to take a look today at how God
can use evil and all the bad things going on in the world for good.
You know, I've been speaking about it the last few weeks.
This is a time of year, people get very hung up, you know, depression, illness, loss of
loved ones, you know, troubles going on with jobs, and so on and so forth.
There's so many things going on that it really, you know, it deters people and people are
like, man, what's going on?
Where's God?
So we're going to be looking at it.
So you know, the overall thought here, of course, you know, comes from Genesis 50 verse
20, you know, and that God can use all things to his good.
And so I want everybody to keep that in the back of their mind as we go through here today.
And with that said, everybody, let's go ahead and open our Bibles or our Bible apps to Matthew
chapter two.
So Matthew chapter two.
And since we don't have our slides today, this is where I'm really glad I put everything
down here in my notes.
I don't have my Bible up here with me, I just have my tablet.
So Matthew chapter two, verses one through five, the word tells us.
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise
men, or Magi, from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born king
of the Jews?
For we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him.
When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him.
And when he gathered all of the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired
of them where the Christ was to be born.
So they said to him, in Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophets.
So when you're looking at you go into verse six there, you can actually see what it's
referring to, because it actually has the prophecy written right there.
So Herod, of course, he was king at this time, but he was really acting king.
He was not the actual heir to the throne.
All right?
And with that said, he was also very paranoid because of that, that somebody was going to
come and kick him off the throne.
He didn't want to give up that power.
So he was very scared, he was watching those dark corners, watching shadows, all that kind
of thing.
And not only that, but in general, people did not like him.
They didn't like him even a little.
He was not a good dude.
Most people, they saw him as a usurper to the throne.
Not the kind of guy you want out there in the first place.
So of course, when you come the wise men, the magi, and they're like, hey, where's the
Messiah?
Where's he at?
Where's the king?
Let's put him on high alert.
It's like, whoa, say what?
So in the back of his head, he's already on high alert.
A little perturbed to say the least, right?
Because if what he's being told is true, then he knows trouble is coming.
Not only that, but you have the three wise men here.
Well, it says the wise men.
We assume it's three.
We don't know the number because later on, we relate three to the number of gifts.
And we'll get into that in a minute.
But these are magi, and they came from a region right there next to Rome called Parthia.
This is a very powerful region.
And this is a region that would very happily cheer on a Jewish king for a number of reasons.
But the number one reason for them was because it would actually swing the power of the region
their way and away from Rome.
So it changed things drastically for the people.
Like I said, traditionally, we say, you know, wise men, because depending on what text you're
reading, that's how it reads.
But these were magi.
They could have been astronomers.
They could have been princes.
We don't get the specifics, and unfortunately, history doesn't give us a whole lot there.
There's a lot of speculation out there, but it's nothing to get hung up on.
Needless to say, these were people who were prominent enough in their position that they
were being guided out for this purpose.
And not only that, well, we'll get to the gifts here in a minute.
But you know, they didn't just come a short distance.
This wasn't like, hey, let's grab the donkey or whatever, hop up on the horse, the camel,
and you know, take a couple hours stroll down the road.
These guys traveled for days and days on end, and they carried a lot of things with them
that were very valuable to actually pay for this trip.
So it tells you a little bit how prominent they are and what they're passing with them
to establish their importance, right?
So going back into the reading, we're going to skip right over to verses seven through
12 now.
So Matthew two, verses seven through 12.
The word tells us, then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from
them what time the star appeared.
And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, go and search carefully for the young child.
For when you have found him, bring back word to me that I may come and worship him also.
When they heard the king, they departed and behold, the star which they had seen in the
east went before them.
So it came and stood over where the young child was.
When they saw the star, they rejoiced and exceeding with exceedingly great joy.
And when they had come to the house, they saw the young child with Mary, his mother,
and fell down and worshiped him.
And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to him, gold, frankincense,
and myrrh.
Then being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed
for their own country another way.
Now reading through here, one thing I'd like to point out, depending on the translation
you're reading, you'll notice that it says him and child, but capitalized a lot as a
title denoting his importance, his greatness.
We are talking about God being born man here.
That's why it's capitalized.
It's establishing.
We're not just talking about any child.
We're talking the child.
And with that said, as I started to mention before, going into the gifts, frankincense,
gold, myrrh, even today, gold is a very valuable commodity.
It doesn't really lose its value or its worth.
Even when you look at fashion, people go out and they want the gold chains and all the
cool stuff, the gold tooth and everything.
It's a pretty prominent thing.
Even back then, these were not cheap things to carry around with you.
Matter of fact, even more so back then, their value was huge, which is why actually calling
out what these gifts were by name is so important.
These weren't just cheap things that you go to the market, pick up and be like, hey, you
know, it's a gift for a baby.
No, what they were doing was they were acknowledging here's the future king and they were giving
gifts that notated that.
The very things that they could have used to fund their trip home, they were giving
up to the new king.
They're already setting him apart from others.
They knew how important he was.
They were worshiping him already.
That's a big thing.
These were all three gifts.
These were all things that would benefit Jesus and his family at various points in his life
as well.
Gold being gold.
But we think about some of these products, these are things that were used to prepare
someone after they died.
So this is, like I said, they're establishing from life to death, his whole life was being
provided for right here.
Not only that, they get this dream.
They were already, they weren't dummies going in.
Needless to say, they already had a good idea who they were dealing with when they went
in front of Herod.
And then they get the warning from God, hey, you don't want to go back that way, dudes.
Take another route.
Bye.
And they were very receptive to it.
They knew Herod was liar.
He had ill will in his heart.
There's no good to come over going back to him and there's certainly not going to be
any good that would come of it if he found out where Jesus was.
Right?
This is one of those areas where I say baby Jesus.
Just you know, you can say baby Jesus.
That's fine.
Just don't forget he grew up.
He ain't a baby no more.
Right?
So, but yeah, essentially though, Herod was trying to trick them and say, hey, where's
the baby?
Give me that baby.
I don't know.
I read this and it's just kind of like, he's a troll, wasn't he?
But yeah, so they took a different route home.
They weren't about to get caught up in this trap and tell him, hey, this is where he's
at.
When you go into verses 13 through 15, the word tells us not only that, Joseph also got
a warning.
So he picked up baby Jesus.
He picked up Mary and they fled to Egypt.
Right?
Peace out.
Bye.
On a side note, you can research this yourself.
Everybody has Google and Bing and all that stuff these days.
The oldest known Bible actually came from Egypt.
A lot of people think Middle East, no.
It actually was found in Africa.
I know I'm a nerd.
That's okay because I'm going to get nerdtastic here in just a little bit.
You're going to love it.
So the original words, correct, they were not in Greek at all.
A lot of things out there were in the Hebrew.
There are also other translations too because you also have to think about the different
regions and everything that things went through with all the different scrolls and all that.
But yeah, definitely that's a topic we get into.
We spend a lot of time on.
I'll tell you what.
Scholars themselves, that's kind of where some of the clashes and all that kind of stuff
come from.
But yeah, a lot of Hebrew out there for sure.
Oh no, that's okay.
That's good stuff.
The movement, they say the Bible is because it's written in Greek, but the Greeks got
translated from the Hebrew language to Greek.
Yeah, there was a lot translated to Greek.
Absolutely.
Well, I mean, it's kind of like, you know, me, I mean, neither one of us could pick up
any of those and be like, what is this?
And we're looking at the writing, like, huh?
So yeah, a lot of things did have to get translated.
That's also, you know, remind you in those days, a lot of things, yeah, you had certain
people who would take the time and they'd write things out.
You had your scribes that would just painstakingly word for word, dot for dot, T for T and all
that.
But you also, you know, a lot of people at that time would actually memorize things and
everything, you know, you think of like barge and that kind of stuff, because that's how
they shared was the verbal, you know, the old stuff, the old oral traditions.
So yeah, so that's where a lot of that comes in as well.
So yeah, no, that's that's good, brother.
Absolutely.
I made it here again, but that was because he was a huge guy.
He basically, they're losers.
And he's this guy's good.
And you know, you know, by the way, he just got off the bad ass.
That was the most difficult, you know, because he remembers everything.
So he really pushed his moves to shame, you know, by Jesus.
I like watching him.
He was a very good debater.
Oh, yeah.
No, there's some out there.
I mean, I think he's a very good debater.
I like watching him.
The way that some people are able to commit things to memory is astonishing.
You know, it's like even like we've had Dennis Cole here, the way like, you know, he has
certain books that he could just verbatim work for work.
And it's like, oh, my goodness.
It's pretty incredible.
Oh, yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of study that goes there.
It's actually pretty interesting when you go through.
It really is.
All right.
Okay, if we go to the next verse, Matthew two, verse 16, basically, I'm going to kind
of summarize this here.
This right here, this work King Herod, he basically loses his mind.
Right?
Like, what?
He's angry.
That's, that's kind of minimalizing it.
And he's furious.
So furious effect that he actually issued an order.
And this tells you how evil his heart was and what his intentions truly were.
He sends out a decree saying that all male children, two years of age and younger are
to be gathered up and put to death.
So kill the babies, kill the kiddos.
He does not want anyone to take him off his throne.
He doesn't want to risk losing power or any of that kind of stuff.
So he's just, you know, Alice in Wonderland style off with their heads.
Right?
He's not a good dude.
You know, you know, thank God, you know, the Magi Joseph, you know, and of course, you
know, there's people that they came in contact with, but you know, they're like, nope, I
ain't telling you nothing.
Bye exit stage left and they left.
Right?
So King Herod did not know.
He had an idea.
Okay, Bethlehem, I got this.
But he didn't have this.
So he failed in his task.
Right?
And what's happening here, even from the birth of Jesus, there's foreshadowing to be had
because from birth, just like with you and I, Satan was on the attack, but especially
with Jesus.
Oh, no.
You know, it's like, I know who this demons know who Jesus is.
Right?
It's like, ah, let's let's let's let's nip this in the bud before it gets any further.
But you know, he failed.
You know, Satan was on the attack and King Herod, he was, he was shouting essentially
the same thing that the crowds were with Jesus.
Right?
When Jesus went before Pilate and everything, if we go to John chapter 19 verse 15 says
right here, but they cried out away with him away with him, crucify him.
An evil man with a hardened heart and a horrible agenda.
And he started a rally cry that has carried forth.
Oh, beautiful.
We've got our slides now.
But yeah, he started a rally cry that has burned in the hearts of evil men and people
with hard hearts ever since.
Right?
Because when we turn from God and we sin, and we let ourselves get carried away by all
this stuff and the ways of the world, our actions are doing the exact same thing.
Not only that, but then you have other people.
Right?
You get people who even say, you know, oh, I'm a Jew and everything else.
But then they say, no, Jesus has no partner courts.
Jesus has no partner schools.
Jesus has no part in this or that separation of, you know, church and state.
Well, guess what?
They could say a separation all I want, but there is truly no way to separate the church
and the state because God is everywhere.
Period.
There is no foundation for what is right and what is wrong without God.
There's no us without God.
So again, going into Genesis 50 verse 20, but as for you, you meant evil against me,
but God meant it for good.
In order to bring it about as it is this day to save many people alive.
What the enemy meant for evil, God can take and use for good.
You know, it's our Lord and savior who's already come and done so much for us.
Guys, you already got a sneak peek.
We're going to pull out our history books here.
This is one of my favorite things.
I like to, one of my favorite songs even actually talks about this very event that we're about
to talk about.
So Christmas, you pull out your history books and you go to the year 1914, Christmas time,
1914.
Who remembers what was going on in 1914?
World War I.
That's right.
World War I and a time that came to be known as the Christmas Truce.
475 ish miles of the Western front.
One of the bloodiest fields of battle that have ever been fought on, on the face of this
planet.
We're talking about one of the last truly hand to hand events, no man's land type things,
brutal.
And going into the Christmas season, the Pope and various other religious leaders and other
leaders and other groups and everything were trying to call for at least a ceasefire, a
time of peace in the Christmas season.
No, they're not the first ones.
Remember we talked about this, about the Civil War back around Thanksgiving time.
It's kind of a common thing, right?
But you have all these people, they're crying for peace, ceasefire at least, right?
Let's lay down our arms, trying to establish something good for people, right?
And the powers that be said, no, not having it.
Let's get this done.
Take them out.
You keep sending those rounds down range, keep stacking bodies.
This is the way it was looked at.
So a world at war officially ignoring these requests.
Taking Christmas back, we're going to celebrate it over here, but death to them, right?
Not very Christianly.
It's not the way we should look at things.
I mean, that's war though.
It is war, unfortunately.
If we're being real about it, when you're at war, you don't see the human side of people
necessarily.
More times than not, you see a target, you see an opportunity.
That's just the way it is.
And unfortunately, that's the way wars have to be fought.
So that part was ignored.
And the war was going to carry on business as usual.
However, right around Christmas Eve in 1914, a miracle began to emerge.
All up and down the Western Front, like I said, roughly 475 miles of territory, marks
between trenches and a no man's land.
It's called no man's land for good reason.
If you went out there, we weren't going to be around very much longer.
It was brutal.
But all up and down the front, troops started laying down their weapons.
The Germans, the French, the Brits, they're yelling Christmas greetings in their own language
back and forth across the field, singing Christmas carols, Christmas hymns.
And at first, some of the groups, even the Brits were the first to admit, like, ooh,
this is a trap.
No, this is not going to be good.
They're trying to lure us out.
If we're honest, everybody in this room would be the same way, especially given those circumstances.
But eventually, they see people taking a chance, and they're coming out.
And the people across the field from them can see, hey, they're unarmed.
I know, amen.
But they're unarmed, and they're coming out in peace.
In peace.
So eventually, you have troops on all sides coming out.
And it's a beautiful thing, right?
Everybody's kind of curious.
It's like, what's going on?
Well, they're unarmed.
They meet halfway across the field.
And it's one of the bloodiest battlefields ever on this planet, and a miracle is taking
place.
And it truly is a miracle.
Prisoners were traded back to their own countries.
These troops of various countries worked together to collect the dead off the battlefield and
give them proper burials or however they were going to treat their dead, depending, of course,
on their background, their culture, their wishes, that kind of thing.
And that right there is already amazing in itself, is it not?
But the miracle doesn't stop.
It keeps growing.
Eventually, it grows to the point where men are seen up and down the line trading cigarettes,
drinking cigars, trinkets from their uniforms, exchanges gifts, trying to communicate with
each other in brotherly love, continuing to sing hymns, Christmas carols.
Some of them even asking each other a really good question, why are we fighting each other?
They're no longer seeing each other as the enemy, but realizing before me stands another
man, another brother.
And for a time, all the ugliness, all the evil, all the chaos, the hate and the discontent
are set aside.
They're forgotten for a few hours.
This is how jovial it became.
Thing of legends happens.
And there's different stories saying how it occurred.
But a football game broke out.
Over here in America, we call it soccer.
They played soccer like a bunch of kids just having a good old time.
So we don't need guns.
We can settle this like this.
Who's got the ball?
Let's have a little footy.
Right?
This is good stuff.
Night starts to descend.
It's getting dark.
It doesn't stop.
Candles are lit.
They're placed in trees like Christmas lights and in various other places.
And the Western Front is still illuminated.
All these war-torn warriors taking time, a brief moment of peace and joy and love for
these exhausted men.
A lot of war-torn war fighters.
And a gift.
Afterwards, once many of them start going back to their trenches, officers and enlisted,
they would take time and they were right home expressing their shock and disbelief.
Like you wouldn't believe it.
One person even said, I wouldn't believe it if I wasn't here to witness it.
Because it's not the thing that you hear by like, yeah, right.
Come on, get real.
No.
It happened.
Right?
But it did.
It's unbelievable.
German Lieutenant was quoted as saying how marvelously wonderful, yet how strange it
was the English officers felt the same way about it.
A Christmas celebration of love.
One-time enemies.
Now brothers, mortal enemies, no more.
What's not spoken about is probably the heartache that these men had knowing that just a few
hours they were going to have to resume fighting.
It's no longer a stranger across from them either.
They know the person.
It's a heavy weight.
But the example was set there.
A miracle took place across the entire Western front in World War I.
And there's only one person that has that power.
One person and one person only, Jesus Christ.
Our Lord and Savior who replaced the hate, the discontent, the fear with love.
With love.
And concern in the hearts of his children, of his family.
No one, absolutely no one that's ever walked this earth beyond him could ever have done
that.
And there's no doubt that in that time of hate, discontent, Satan was hard at work.
Up until this happened, you know, he was a happy dude.
And that's his playground right there, isn't it?
He's pulling on the heartstrings of men.
And he's got them locked in a worldwide battle.
And his battle, he uses fear and doubt to cast a shadow in an attempt to blot out the
light of God.
But again, God had other plans as we see here.
Going back again, Genesis chapter 50 verse 20.
But as for you, you meant evil against me.
But God meant it for good in order to bring it about as it is this day, so many people
alive.
It was love, plain and simple.
God's love for each and every one of us.
And it shows as we go throughout time even, a prime example that he is still with us.
No matter how ugly, no matter how hard, no matter how tormenting things get, no matter
how hard and how furious the enemy comes at us, he's still there walking beside us.
He's still there in the worst of circumstances.
And as we celebrate the birth of Christ this week, we need to reflect on his life, what
he's done for us.
We need to reflect on his death, his resurrection, his ascension, and the fact that he's coming
again.
Because don't forget, as I say, over the last couple of weeks, it's not just about his birth,
it's also about his return.
The hope for all of us as Christians, as all of us as believers have, Jesus came to set
us free so that we could be in fellowship with him, so we could be reunited with the
Father, so we could be reunited with each other.
It's a powerful gift.
And in doing so, how do we honor him?
How do we honor all those that have gone on to be with him and have also continued to
share and set that example and introduce us to him so that we could be united as family?
Well, it's really simple if you think about it.
We continue to follow that example.
We've followed that example and we use our lives as a response to the Great Commission.
It's one of those things, if you haven't already done so, today's the day, this is the time
you need to take Jesus into your heart.
You need to say, hey, be the Lord and Savior.
I can't do it without you.
I need you.
I need you to guide my steps.
I need you to guide me.
Take me out of the equation and let's make it about you.
Let's make it about you.
So Jesus came and he lived amongst us, setting a perfect example, the example for all of
us to strive towards.
Now are any of us going to get it all right?
Is any of us going to be perfect?
No, because he is the one and only perfect example.
But you know what?
We should strive for that every single day.
Every time we wake up, we open our eyes, we take a breath.
Thank you Lord for giving me a chance to do things right again, to correct my mistakes,
to set a good example and to point the way to you.
We do this because we're in a relationship with him.
It sets the tone, it sets the example.
It says what we truly believe and what kind of a relationship we have with him.
We can't be the type of person as a believer who wakes up and goes, oh, let's get this
done.
And let's face it, we all have those days where we wake up and say, oh, I just want
to go back to bed.
I'm not a morning person so I kind of sound like that frequently.
It's not really that.
It's just I have a hard time getting up in the morning.
I'm a night owl.
If I had my way as I work swing shifts at my day job and I'd be perfectly happy because
that's just how I'm geared.
Right?
Unfortunately, I don't have that option.
So this morning I wake up, I'm going in to take my shower and here comes my lovely wife.
Here, drink this stat.
She gives me a fresh cup of coffee.
My wife's awesome.
That's a gift in itself.
You're welcome.
Yes, thank you man.
On a good day, yes.
Absolutely, get that spoon standing.
Throw some extra sugar in there.
Let's get that boost going, overdrive.
Boom.
You know, but like I said, as the way we look at life though, as I digress, lucky man, as
we look at life, we can't be the kind of people who get up like, oh boy me.
Instead, even though we struggle waking up, that's okay because a lot of us do.
Not all of us, like my lovely wife will wake up like, ah, let's attack the day.
Ah.
I can see you're doing that.
She is.
She's like a rabbit wolverine in the morning.
She is a morning person.
I'll tell you what.
Talk about polar opposites.
Opposites do attract here.
You know?
But I mean, that's the way we need to wake up.
When we look at what we have to do, when we look at our jobs, right?
When we look at the things that are in front of us and the opportunities that we have,
the way we should be looking at is, how can I serve today?
How can I serve you?
How can I serve the people I'm interacting with?
Right?
Even you just look at married couples.
You know, people always wonder, hey, how do these couples stay married 30, 40, 50 years?
It's because they wake up and they're not thinking, hey, what did you make for breakfast?
Instead, it's, what can I do to serve you?
They take themselves out of the equation, right?
Because it's no longer about them.
It is about their spouse.
Sometimes it's easier than others, right?
Especially when you're waking up at 4 o'clock in the morning, right?
2 o'clock, yeah.
5, whatever, you know?
But no, in general though, you know what I'm saying, is going through life with somebody,
for somebody, not because you have to.
Relationships are not supposed to be an obligation.
When they become an obligation, you've already failed.
My wife demonstrated that greatly this morning when she brought me that coffee.
Also probably for her own sanity because she knew the bear was coming out of the cave.
Oh, and breakfast, that's true.
You know, but you know, with that said, this is what we need to do as the bride of Christ.
When we wake up every day, like I said, thank you, Lord, for another opportunity to go out
and point the way to you, to do things that point the way to you and share your light
with the world that lets people see your Holy Spirit in me and what you've done for me so
that they could come and know you, a life of service to him.
Like I said earlier, it's so easy for us to get caught up in the bad things of life, that
humdrum, that stuff that just really drags you down as you go.
Right?
Sorrow, depression, all these things ensue for a lot of us.
This can be a tough season because we get wrapped up in these things.
The people that we miss, both those that we're not connected to anymore and those that we've
lost.
Things are, you know, things are in a rush at work.
And you figure, you know, some of us are traveling, some of us have lottery list chores to get
done.
You know, I myself this week, I felt some anxiety.
I've been a lot of prayer on that.
Right?
However, we need to remember that with all this stuff that's troubling us, all this stuff
that's weighing us down, no matter how bad it gets, God can use all these things to bring
about good.
Even though you're not seeing it necessarily at this moment, even though you're not necessarily
feeling it, God's there.
God's in the details.
God's at work in the background.
And he's not going to stop.
If we go to Romans chapter 8 and verse 28, the word says, and we know that all things
work together for the good of, to those who love God, to those who are the called according
to his purpose.
Because remember, it's about him, not us.
His will, not ours.
His time, his perfect time, not ours.
Jeremiah 29 verse 11, for I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts
of peace, not evil, to give you a future and a hope.
That's a big one.
It's Christmas season.
This is a time that we need to step back and no matter what's going on around us, we need
to remember Jesus is the reason for the season.
He's at work on your behalf.
So this is a season that we need to make sure that we're using as a time of renewal, a time
of refreshment.
So my wife was reminding me this morning of joy.
Where's your joy?
Right?
Because God is saying, come to me.
Rather, he's saying, I'm with you.
I'm alongside you every step of the way.
I'm not going to leave you.
We're going through this together.
And he doesn't watch us from a distance.
He's right here with us.
He's in the midst.
He's walking among us.
He's in our midst.
He's alive and active.
And it only takes a mustard grade of faith.
That's all we need.
Living a life for him and glorifying him.
And it's the least that we can do because of his sacrifice for us.
From the day Jesus was born to the day he went to the cross.
The day he came back, ascended, and the day he's coming back for each and every one of
us as his family.
Let us pray.
Lord, we thank you for speaking to our hearts and reminding us that you have been, you currently
are, and you always will be in control.
That regardless of all the stuff that's going on in the world, all the things that the enemy
brings against us, that you're there with us.
And you will ensure that everything that's going on will ultimately be used for good
and for your kingdom.
That you're looking out for our best interests.
You won't be giving that up.
We thank you for your sacrifice and we thank you for your love for each and every single
one of us.
And as we leave here today, please guide our steps, guide our words, guide our actions,
guide us to those places that you've prepared for us, and guide us in reflecting your light
and your love into the world.
We thank you for the gift of Jesus and your Holy Spirit which resides in each and every
single one of us.
And all of these people said amen and amen.
Remember when you leave here today, you're loved and you are blessed, so go and be the
church.
Look forward to seeing everybody on Tuesday evening, 6.30 p.m.