The Word of the Lord Stands Forever
Download MP3If you have a bible, I invite you to turn to Isaiah chapter 40. If you don't have a bible with you, you can use one in the pew or the text is there in your worship guide. For the next ten weeks, we will be looking at the Isaiah forties. And I have been looking forward to these 10 chapters for a long, long time. I'm especially looking forward to the next five weeks.
Joel Brooks:Sorry, my voice, I'm gonna sound like a kid through puberty. It is just going up and down like crazy. But I'm especially looking forward to the next five weeks because I'm not preaching the next five weeks. You're gonna get to hear from some of our other pastors and our other elders as they go through this. But these 10 chapters in Isaiah, I've had a profound impact on my life.
Joel Brooks:I have read at least just a few verses from these chapters. At one point, I read them every day for for years. I don't even know how many years I I did this. I didn't plan on doing it. It just kinda happened.
Joel Brooks:I just kinda kept returning to that well. I'm not a big reader of poetry by any means. And by that, I mean, I don't read any poetry. But but the poetry here in the bible, here in Isaiah, I mean these words, over these 10 chapters, they're they're they're They're they're deep, they're profound, they're they're memorable, they're hopeful, and they just kind of irresistibly drew me in. They sound very much like the Psalms, but they're not the Psalms.
Joel Brooks:Because you don't have the songs and prayers that you find in the Psalms. What you do find in these chapters are the theology on which those prayers and songs are based. And Isaiah, he's gonna plunge us into the depths with some really rich theology over the, over these 10 chapters. But it's not gonna be a dry theology. This is a theology you will want to sing.
Joel Brooks:You will likely read and reread many of these passages, not because you have to, but simply because you want to. And so, with that as an introduction, we're gonna look at Isaiah 40 and we're gonna spend the next three weeks on just this chapter alone. Comfort. Comfort my people says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins.
Joel Brooks:A voice cries, in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low. The uneven ground shall become level and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
Joel Brooks:A voice says, cry. And I said, what shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers. The flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it.
Joel Brooks:Surely, people are grass, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Go on a pot up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news. Lift up your voice with strength, oh Jerusalem, herald of good news. Lift it up, fear not. Say to the cities of Judah, behold your god.
Joel Brooks:Behold, the lord god comes with might and his arm rules for him. Behold, his reward is with him and his recompense before him. He will tend his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arms and he will carry them in his bosom and gently lead those that are with young. This is the word of the lord.
Joel Brooks:If you would pray with me. Father, the reason that we are here is because your word stands forever. And we wanna build our lives on that word. No one here, wants to or needs to hear from me. We need to hear what you have to say.
Joel Brooks:And so I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Lauren and I, we have three daughters, aged 17, 19, and 22.
Joel Brooks:And this is Father's Day, and when a father thinks of his children, he often wonders what the future's gonna look like for them. And I I wonder what the world's gonna look like for my daughters, as they're all beginning to to launch into adulthood, adulthood into the world. Our family, we've spent a lot of time over the last few months talking about what the future looks like. We've been talking about the AI revolution that is upon us. At least, I've been talking about it.
Joel Brooks:Usually, I bring up AI, I just get groans or eye rolls or dad, can we please talk about something else? But I've pushed through. The world's changing and we shouldn't close our eyes to it. I recently read that by the end of the year, it's likely that 20% of all white collar jobs will become obsolete. And this of course is only going to increase more in the years ahead.
Joel Brooks:This combined with the the soaring housing costs, the rising inflation, it it makes one wonder as a dad how his daughters are gonna make it in the world to come. I'm also, I'm getting flooded with advertisements for me to sign up for an AI companion. Any of you getting those advertisements? These ads, they tell me that I can have an AI companion that's gonna look lifelike. And that I can have meaningful conversations with her.
Joel Brooks:Not it, but meaningful conversations with her. And that she can give me the emotional support that I need. They also let me know that just almost as a side note that these AI companions have an endless assortment of wardrobes that I get to select from. I listened to a lecture on this where the speaker said, we are looking at a AI assisted collapse of human intimacy and it has already begun. And, of course, even before all of this AI, it was already hard to know what was real and what isn't real when we look at the news, isn't it?
Joel Brooks:Not only to our our news sources out there, very skewed, very one dimensional, but often the stories that they report on aren't even real at all. Some of you maybe you've read this article. It's been a numerous sources out there, so I can't verify it's truth. But an Israeli tech firm recently did a study on the origins of the social media posts that were surrounding a certain boycott for a certain company that I I won't name. And, it's a all these media posts were creating or reporting a a public outrage against this company.
Joel Brooks:Anyway, the this Israeli tech firm found that at one point, 39% of all social media posts across all the platforms were fake. On one day, 39% were fake. And, they were being used just to create a false narrative, to create a public outrage that actually didn't exist. Have any of you seen all of the quotes from the new pope? Pope Leo the fourteenth?
Joel Brooks:His I mean, quotes are all over the place. Quotes on DEI, quotes on immigration, quotes on wokeness, whatever it is. He's been quoted on all subjects. I have yet to find a single quote of his that's actually true. The him wearing the white socks hat did happen, just so you know.
Joel Brooks:Of all the things, that was the one that was true. But this is what I found even miss even more disheartening was actually, a 10% of adults admitted to passing on and sharing information that they knew was false. All because it supported the narrative they wanted to believe. So I mean, say all this just to ask the question, how do you actually know what is true anymore? How do you know it's real or not?
Joel Brooks:How do you know if the the outrage or the empathy that you feel towards a towards a certain issue, how do you know that's not all based off of a false narrative and that you're just a pawn being played by somebody. I mean, when you can't trust any picture, you can't trust any video, you can't trust any any video, any of the the type print out there, you can't trust anything. What do you trust? Now, some of you might think when I look at the future and what awaits us, what awaits my daughters that I'm anxious or I'm fearful or I just want things to go back to the good old days when they didn't even have cell phones. I can assure you that that's not the case.
Joel Brooks:I am not anxious. I'm not fearful. And do you wanna know why? Because the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God remains forever. Church, we don't have anything to fear when everything around us is constantly shifting.
Joel Brooks:Because we, of all people on earth, we actually have solid ground beneath our feet. Our lives are built on the solid rock of Jesus and on his eternal word. And church, when I look at the future, I actually get really excited about the days ahead. I get excited because this is our moment to actually be a city on a hill and to shine. This is our moment when we actually get to get up and declare a truth that people can build their whole lives on.
Joel Brooks:Cause they're all looking for it. I mean, what an opportunity we have as a church. We get to show people what it actually means to be created as a human. To be created in God's image. What it actually an authentic relationship looks like, where an image of God is relating to another image of God.
Joel Brooks:In a time of increasing isolation, we actually get to show the world what community looks like. And how we could be so united in Christ. By the way that we love and the way that we care for one another, that they're gonna look at us and say, that's a community stronger than any blood ties. Or for people who are struggling to find any meaning at all in their lives. We get to tell them that they were created and they have a purpose.
Joel Brooks:And that their purpose is to find their joy and their satisfaction in their creator. Church, the greater the darkness, the greater the light. And our calling is to be a city on a hill and to let our light shine. So I am encouraged, I am so hopeful for the days ahead and you can already see things turning. Last year alone, there was a 22% increase in bible sales.
Joel Brooks:That's unprecedented. And most of this is being driven by generation z. It's fascinating to see what the Lord is already working in our midst. Now Isaiah 40, I say all this because Isaiah 40 is written to a people, written to a generation that felt even more adrift than we do. There were more false prophets, more false narratives, more fake news circulating all around, More hopelessness than we deal with.
Joel Brooks:These people they they thought they had no real future, that their best days were behind them. They were sick of listening to all the boomers out there talking about the glory days. They're like, it was great for you. But but what do we have? And now, the Lord through Isaiah, he tells these people, your future is glorious.
Joel Brooks:It's glorious. And you wanna know why? Because the Lord is coming to save you. This whole chapter is just full of comfort for the anxious troubled soul. And then now chapter 40 marks a major shift in the book of Isaiah.
Joel Brooks:It's a shift in both the tone and in the timeline in Isaiah. A matter of fact, this divide is so stark that a lot of people try to try to divide Isaiah into two different books. Isaiah one and Isaiah two. But we do have the first 39 chapters of Isaiah, they speak of mostly, they speak about God's judgment. For 39 chapters, God has been pointing out all of the sins of the people.
Joel Brooks:The sins of both the liberals and the sins that the conservatives love to point out in other people. No one's excluded. You have the sins of greed, the sins of oppression of the poor, racial prejudice. You also have the sins of sexual immorality, impurity, for not honoring the marriage covenant, sins of idolatry. And so for 39 chapters, Isaiah has been pointing all of those out in the judgment that's coming to the people because of it.
Joel Brooks:But now he moves. Now moving forward, most of Isaiah are is gonna be words of comfort, words of assurance and forgiveness, words of God's love and restoration for the people. So you have to ask the question, why the shift? I mean, why the sudden dramatic shift there? Well, remember last week, looked at king Hezekiah.
Joel Brooks:At the very end of the the narrative about his life, at the very end of chapter 39, right before this, God told king Hezekiah that within just a few generations, he would finally judge Judah for all of its sins. And sure enough, this is exactly what happens about a hundred years later. God brings in Babylon, replaces Assyria as the dominant power in that region, brings in Babylon, destroys Judah, destroys Jerusalem and its temple, and takes the people into exile to go live in Babylon. And now, beginning in chapter 40, what the Lord does is he gives Isaiah a word. It's it's almost like he lifts up Isaiah and to look into the future, into that moment where he could see those exiles.
Joel Brooks:Over a hundred years now, really about a hundred and fifty years away and he gives Isaiah a word for them. And that's gonna be the the the next 27 chapters. It's gonna be speaking to those in the future, and we'll realize as we study this, it's not just speaking about their future and to their situation, but actually a future beyond. He speaks words of comfort to these people who are wondering if they've been abandoned by God and doomed to live and to die in to in Babylon because of their sin. And the first words that God says to them is comfort.
Joel Brooks:Comfort. Look at verse one. Comfort. Comfort my people says your God. And now God's not telling these exiles to be comforted.
Joel Brooks:It's actually a plural verb there. He's he's commanding a group of people in the future to give comfort to his people. So so they're they're the ones who are to to comfort others. Give comfort. Give comfort or you could translate this as encourage.
Joel Brooks:Encourage. Encourage my people. So no longer is God raising up messengers to give judgment. He's raising up messengers to give comfort. You know, there are certainly, many parts of the Christian life that are full of sacrifice, full of suffering, full of the discipline of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:But can I tell you the majority of the Christian life is not that? The the thrust, if you will, of the Christian life is one of comfort. Comfort and joy. Do you believe that? I mean, we sing it every Christmas.
Joel Brooks:You know, glad tidings of comfort and joy. Comfort and joy. Well, it's it's God rest you merry gentlemen. We don't sing it every Christmas, but you get the point. That that that's our message.
Joel Brooks:Comfort, joy. God tells this group of people how they should give this message and how they should comfort his people next. He says, speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all of her sins. So that's how this group of people supposed to provide comfort is just to tell people, hey, the debt's been paid. Someone's someone's paid this debt.
Joel Brooks:It's actually been double paid. And your iniquity is now pardoned. Now this payment for sins is is not just talking about, hey, you've completed, you've served your time in exile like it was a prison sentence. You served your time, you paid for your sins. That's not what is happening here because not one minute spent in exile paid for any of their sins.
Joel Brooks:None of it did. It it certainly was not a sufficient suffering to cover any kind of the multitude of sins that Judah had been committing. Remember, King Ahaz literally burned his sons through the fire. The wages of sin is not exile. The wages of sin is death.
Joel Brooks:So, they were not paying for their sins in exile. So, how is it that the lord has received double for their sins? And I hate to do this, but I'm gonna have to do a little spoiler alert for you in Isaiah. But in the chapters ahead, Isaiah's gonna tell us how. And he's gonna tell us about a servant that is gonna come from God, who's gonna come and live the righteous life that every one of us was supposed to live.
Joel Brooks:But rather than being rewarded for his righteousness, he is going to suffer for it. And he is gonna suffer more than any human in history. And it's through his suffering that our iniquities will be carried away. It's through his suffering that payment will be made for our sins. And of course, we understand the suffering servant to be Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And can I tell you, it is so important that you see that he paid double? He didn't just pay for your sins, he he paid double. It's likely if if you're not experiencing the freedom or the joy of of the Christian life, it very well might be perhaps you just think that he just made a sufficient payment for your sins, but he didn't pay double. Because let me tell you, the difference is is being forgiven this much and being forgiven this much. One of them is this, if he just pays for your sins, well, that just restores you to the sinless state.
Joel Brooks:It's like, you know, you've been wearing clothes, your sin has soiled them to just pay for the new clothes is okay. Well, I'll find you a replacement. That's not what Jesus does. He doesn't find us a suitable replacement for the clothes that we soiled with our sin. He gives us his own clothes of righteousness.
Joel Brooks:So he doesn't just bring us back to the sinless state, he goes over and he gives us on top of his righteousness. And so this double payment is the difference between being a forgiven stranger and a forgiven child. And now he embraces us. He pulls us in close. We've been forgiven double for all of our sins.
Joel Brooks:Alright. We gotta move on because there's a lot of good stuff ahead, and I'm looking at the clock. I'm already behind. We won't get to it all. So there's freedom in that.
Joel Brooks:In verse three, Isaiah, he hears a voice. Apparently, it's coming from this anonymous group here. And the voice says, in the wilderness, prepare the way of the lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our god. This would have been familiar language to those listening.
Joel Brooks:Whenever a king would take a trip and visit one of his cities, all the roads would get redone. Especially, the the road that he would take to the city would be redone. So if there were, you know, rocks that needed to be removed, they'd be removed. If there was places that actually a new road needed to be put in and straightened out, it'd be straightened out. And here the Lord says, I'm coming.
Joel Brooks:I'm coming. And preparations need to be made. And when human kings come, you do things like when you come across a ditch, you you just build a bridge over the ditch. Or if there's mountains there, you know, you just think of ways, what's the best pass? What's the easiest route to get through these mountains?
Joel Brooks:But look what happens when the Lord comes. Entire valleys, not just ditches, entire valleys are raised up and then mountains are leveled. This is not something that that any group of people can do. This is the Lord himself making his way, making his own preparations for him to come. And he says that when he comes, Israel's gonna not just Israel's gonna see my glory, but all flesh, the whole world's gonna see my glory.
Joel Brooks:So he is no longer talking about God just coming and visiting his people in exile. He is talking about God visiting all of humanity because all of humanity has been living in exile ever since we were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. This is God saying, I'm gonna come to all the exiles. All the world will see my glory. Now, all four gospels quote verse three.
Joel Brooks:They attribute this voice to John the Baptist. Let me just read you what Mark says. Mark actually begins his gospel with a quote from Isaiah three. The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God. As it is written in in Isaiah the prophet, behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way.
Joel Brooks:The voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his path straight. John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. So John the Baptist is this voice, this future voice.
Joel Brooks:And how did John tell the people to repair to prepare for the Lord's coming? He told them two things. One, they needed to be aware of their sins. He pointed out everyone's need to be saved from their sin. And then, he pointed to the one who would actually save them from their sin.
Joel Brooks:So two things John the Baptist did. In the opening chapters of the Gospel of John, John the Baptist is actually asked, are you the Messiah? Or perhaps, you Elijah? And John says, I'm neither of those. I'm just a voice.
Joel Brooks:And then we read that Jesus came to him. And as he saw Jesus walking to him, John the Baptist points at him and says, behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. This is the guy I've been talking about. He just points to Jesus, because it's Jesus, not John who reveals to us the glory of the Lord. And what the glory of the Lord looked like was him going around healing the sick.
Joel Brooks:Giving sight to the blind. Giving hearing to those who are deaf. Raising the dead. It looked like feeding the poor, welcoming the outcast, touching those who no one else would touch, touching the unclean. And having dinner with sinner, after sinner, after sinner, after sinner.
Joel Brooks:And everywhere Jesus went, he offered himself up as the solution to everything that was wrong with this world. He never pointed to anything else. He said, come to me. If you're thirsty, come to me. If you're hungry, come to me.
Joel Brooks:If you're weary, come to me. And so John the Baptist says, don't come to me, go to him. John the Baptist actually gives us a great model for how we are to bring comfort to this world. And and this is, we we don't have to try and be the Messiah. We're not.
Joel Brooks:You can't save anyone. And if you try, you're only gonna steer them away from the person who can. You can't save anyone. You also don't have to try to be a miracle worker like Elijah. I mean, that's what he was known for.
Joel Brooks:He could do all types of miracles. And we can't save anyone. We don't have to be a miracle. You know what's required of you to bring comfort to this world? You have to be a voice.
Joel Brooks:That's what you have to be. You just say, look at Jesus. He's the one who takes away the sins of the world. Just be a voice. You don't have to be a somebody.
Joel Brooks:You don't have to be particularly gifted. You don't have to be educated. You don't have to be wealthy. You don't have to look a certain way. I mean, John the Baptist, he was wearing what?
Joel Brooks:Camel's hair? Eating locusts? You could you could buy your clothes at Walmart. I mean, not just not the one down $2.80 is great. You could you could buy our clothes at the Irondale Walmart.
Joel Brooks:Alright? You can eat at Taco Bell. It it doesn't matter. Let the lawsuits begin. All that matters is that you speak.
Joel Brooks:You hear that, you just speak. And you just say, look at Jesus. Jesus then does the saving. He's the one who does the leveling. He's the one who does the raising.
Joel Brooks:And when Jesus came, he certainly did remove mountains and he raised valleys. He blasted away at the self righteousness of people who thought that they didn't need a savior. They were just doing fine. Thank you. And then he raised up those who thought they were too far gone to ever be saved.
Joel Brooks:Jesus still does the same. Hear me. If you want the Lord to come to you, I mean, we say that, I would love you know to I would love love to know God. I would love for him to come for to me. But if you really want the Lord to come to you, do you have any idea what you're actually asking?
Joel Brooks:Because when he comes, he's gonna completely turn your life upside down. He's gonna disrupt every part of your life. I've heard it said about our generation that we are the most idealistic while also having the least amount of pain tolerance. And I think in many ways, it's true. So know this, if you want Jesus to come in your life, mountains are gonna need to be blasted.
Joel Brooks:You know that hill that you said you'll die on? I'll die before I ever give that up. I'll die before I ever give up that that belief. Jesus, if you want him to come, he's gonna blast that thing away. Or or for those of you who just feel so hopeless, maybe so addicted, you you you have fallen into a ditch that you dug for yourself and you can't get out.
Joel Brooks:That ditch, that valley is gonna be filled in with the gospel. He's gonna raise you up, lift you up out of your hopelessness. He's gonna give you a new heart. But when he comes, it's gonna be a major upheaval. Next in this passage, we hear in another anonymous voice.
Joel Brooks:This time the voice says, cry. And Isaiah responds with, what shall I cry? It's very similar to Isaiah six when Isaiah gets his calling, know, whom shall I send? Isaiah says the Lord, or he says, here I am, send me. It's very similar, but this time it's not really a call to Isaiah, it's a calling for the future Isaiahs.
Joel Brooks:For the future messengers out there. What what do we decry? We cry all flesh is grass. All its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it.
Joel Brooks:Surely, people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. How can Israel be so certain their exile will end and that they will be forgiven? Well, it's because the Lord said so. He said so and he always keeps his promises.
Joel Brooks:His word stands forever. This is why I often say these words here at funerals. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our Lord, it remains or stands forever. I say that because in that moment, we've seen a flower fade. We've seen the grass wither.
Joel Brooks:And there's no more hopeless situation. And when when someone is being lowered in the grave, what do you actually have to hold on to? The only thing we have left people is the word of God. That's it. It's all of our hope in which God says, that doesn't have the final word.
Joel Brooks:I have the final word. My word stands and I say that he or she shall rise again. That's our hope. That the word of God is eternal. No other no other words stand the test of time like this.
Joel Brooks:I mean, I I I'm I consider myself pretty patriotic. We have an American flag flies outside our house. I love the declaration of independence. We hold these truths to be self evident. I mean, nobody nobody writes like that anymore.
Joel Brooks:But you know, as as much as I love the declaration of independence, it will not last forever. Neither will the latest podcast you listen to, that lay the latest thought provoking article you just read and have forwarded to others who won't read? Your latest social post, social media posts that you put out there hoping it would change the world? It didn't. And it'll quickly be forgotten that that that image of a cat or whatever you put on there, it'll be forget unless you put a bible verse on it, it it will be forgotten.
Joel Brooks:Only the word of our God stands forever. I mean church, we hear words every day. These words either subtly or not so subtly. They tell us how to live. They tell us what to build our entire lives on.
Joel Brooks:All of those words are sinking sand. Hey, do you know how Jesus actually ends his sermon on the mount? His most famous sermon, and one that everybody, you know, whole world says they love, but most people have never read. Because if most people, if you read it, you wouldn't love it. But he actually ends his sermon this way.
Joel Brooks:He goes, everything I've heard, everything I've spoken to you. If you build your life on those words, on my words, you're building it on a rock. And let the storms come because you will not falter. But if you're a fool, you will not build your life on my words. And when the storms come, great will be your fall.
Joel Brooks:This section of Isaiah 40 here ends with the Lord telling this unnamed group of people in the future. Go up on a high mountain, oh Zion, herald of good news. That word good news is gospel. So herald of the gospel, good news. Lift up your voice with strength, oh Jerusalem, herald of the gospel, good news.
Joel Brooks:Lift it up, fear not, say to the cities of Judah, behold or look at your God. Do you know what the word Zion actually means? And that's what we're you know told here. Oh Zion, you're you're the herald of good news. It literally means rock.
Joel Brooks:It means rock. It came to mean the rocky hill on which the city of Jerusalem was built. So a lot of times Jerusalem and Zion are used interchangeably. But it actually just means rock. I want you to hold that thought there that it means rock.
Joel Brooks:And now I want you to think of Jesus when he renames Simon Peter. Which means rock. Simon gives this confession. Jesus asks, who do you think I am? And Simon steps up and says, you are the Christ, the son of the living God.
Joel Brooks:And at that point, Jesus renames Simon. Says, no longer are you Simon Bar Jonah. Tell you right now, your name is Peter Petros Rock. And on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. What Jesus is doing in this moment, he's saying, it's not a city that saves anyone.
Joel Brooks:That's not it. My my kingdom's not about this this city that you you keep pointing to Jerusalem up here. It's not that. You know what the rock is? It's actually a people who hold to this confession.
Joel Brooks:You are the Christ. They're the son of God. That's my rock. That's the city on a hill. He's talking about the church.
Joel Brooks:I believe that that's where Isaiah is steering us here. That we are the city on a hill. We're we're Zion. We're the ones to cry out the good news of the gospel. We're that unnamed group that Isaiah keeps exhorting, comfort your people.
Joel Brooks:Comfort, encourage. And here he says, say it with a lift up your voice and do it with strength. You wanna know why I'm so hopeful about the days ahead and why you should be too? Because we as a church, resting on Jesus, we're a rock. Rock.
Joel Brooks:And he has given us this message of comfort that the whole world needs to hear. It's a message that we've been saved by and now it's a message that we get to share. So church, I exhort you, I exhort us, let us be a city on a hill. Let's pray to our Lord. Jesus, I thank you for your word.
Joel Brooks:It's inexhaustible. It's way deeper than I could go, way higher than I can attain, but I'm gonna try. And I pray your people would try because we believe your words are life. Lord, right now through your spirit, I pray that you would raise up not just your church universal, but your church right here, Redeemer Community Church. That you would strengthen our voices to proclaim your gospel, to proclaim truth to a world that needs to hear it.
Joel Brooks:And we pray this in the name of Jesus, our present and our future king. Amen.
