Forged & Forgotten

Good morning. It’s good to see all of you this morning. If you’re joining us in person or you’re streaming in online. My name is Tim. I have the privilege of being the lead pastor. And what an exciting day. not only did we get to witness two baptisms, but can we also give praise to God for you and your generosity and the fact that over $10,000 in groceries bagged by bag can buy can, came in for our local food bank. So can we just give God praise for that? This morning? You guys are really an incredible church. If you didn’t know that just every single time there’s a challenge, to to live generously, you guys rise to the challenge and fulfilled, fulfilled, that need. So, just so thankful for all of you. if this is your first time here, we want to warmly welcome you. Or if you’re watching online for the first time, we’re in a series of messages going through the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, and we happened to be in part five. So we’re at the tail end of going through, all of Genesis. And so one of the ways, the easy way to kind of follow along with what we’re doing is by downloading our app. If you hadn’t done that, I’d really encourage you to do that. There’s a reading plan in there so you can see each week the passages that we’re covering.

There’s also questions that are a follow up to the message, as well as if you happen to have a family, there’s questions in there for you to be able to interact with the text, that we cover on Sunday during the week. but if you haven’t been here, let me just catch you up really quick on where we’ve been the last several weeks. there’s this guy named Joseph. If you grew up in church in Sunday school, you might remember, you might remember him as the as the kid that got the coat of many colors. And so that’s where he started out. as a teenager, he was his dad’s favorite, which is never a good thing. His dad bought him a coat and didn’t buy anybody else a nice, fancy coat, and they were jealous. And so they first came up with the idea that they should kill him. and then that quickly led to, oh, well, let’s just sell them. So how many think that was a better idea to sell them into slavery rather than kill them? And so off to Egypt he went, he he, ended up in Egypt. And as soon as he got there, he was sold again to this guy named Potiphar, who’s the captain of the guard.

So he’s in a very prestigious position. So remember that captain of the guard title. he actually ended up just making the best of his circumstances. So he worked really hard as a slave, and he worked himself all the way up to becoming Potiphar’s head servant. So now he’s in charge of all of Potter’s house and his entire estate. He had just one little problem, though, in that potter for his wife, even though she had everything she could possibly hope, dream, or imagine. For some reason, she really wanted Joseph. And if you were here last week, you remember what the scriptures told us about Joseph. There was very descriptive language that was used. He was what those of you there. Here he was handsome. And what? Well built. Just like your pastor. I’m handsome and I’m well-built. I know Ben is very good. Ben is much more handsome and well-built than I am. So we all know that, so what ends up happening is he just pushes back, refuses to go to bed with her, and then because she realizes that he’s never going to cave, she ends up lying to her husband and saying that he pursued her and he was trying to sleep with her.

And so then we left off with Potter for throwing him into prison. Now this guy is so wealthy, and this guy has so much influence that he has a prison, right, connected to his mansion. So, I mean, just imagine this guy’s influence at this time. And so last week, the last verse that we read to you was this, that the warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did. And the reason for that is when he was thrown into prison, he did the same exact thing is, when he first started out at Potiphar’s house, he was so disciplined and would make the best of his circumstance that he actually rose to prominence even in a prison. And so the warden ended up putting him in charge of all of the other prisoners. So imagine a guy like Joseph and having a positive outlook on life. And so today we’re going to go into chapter 40. If you have your Bibles with you and you want to turn there, we’re going to walk through this together. Chapter 40, verse one says this sometime later. How much is sometime later? Anybody know? Is it weeks? Is it months? Is it years? This is sometimes when scripture can get frustrating because it doesn’t always give you the answers. It just says sometime later there’s a cupbearer and a baker of the king of Egypt. they ended up offending their master, who’s the king of Egypt and the king of Egypt. His name was Pharaoh. And they offended him so much that he becomes angry with them.

And so this chief cupbearer and the chief baker, he puts them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, which is who? So here they go. They’re going to Potiphar’s house. They’re going into his prison. It’s the same prison where Joseph has been confined and so the captain of the guard assigns them to Joseph. So it’s interesting that Joseph and Potiphar are still having conversations to some degree in that he trust chose him with some of, Pharaoh’s, people, but also now as prisoners. And so he’s responsible for them. So he inherits two more prisoners. He’s got to keep track of. And what I want to do at the beginning of this is just pause for a moment to realize this, okay? I want you to get this treat down, because we’re going to repeat this over and over again today in the sermon, you may not be where you want to be, yet God has never abandoned you. And when almost say it again, you may not be where you want to be, yet God has never abandoned you. And here you have Joseph, this young guy who’s done absolutely nothing wrong up to this point. Everything that’s happened to him and his life circumstances are a result of other people’s decisions. It wasn’t like he had some grave sin that he committed, or that he disobeyed God, or that he’s running away from God.

He’s literally living his life. And because of other people’s bad decisions and choices, he finds himself in these precarious situations. Now let’s look at the text again, because it says after they had been in custody for some time again, how long is that? We don’t know. Each of the two men, the cupbearer and the baker, the king of Egypt, who were being held in prison. Oh, what do you know? They had a dream, and they’re given these dreams on the same night. And each dream had a meaning of its own. So for whatever reason, God Almighty allows them to have these dreams. He reveals these dreams to them. Now, if you’ve been with us for all of Genesis, you know that dreams in the Bible, but specifically in Genesis, are very important. There’s been lots of dreams along the way, starting all the way back with Abraham, when the scriptures tell us that God put him in a very deep sleep. And that’s when God revealed to him his future, and he made a covenant that through his seed, all of the world would be blessed. He gave about the lack of a dream and revealed to him that Sarah was actually Abraham’s wife, not a sister.

Remember that messed up story? He gave two dreams to Jacob first, when he left home and went to Haran and stayed there for 20 years, and then 20 years later he had another dream that he was to return home. Laban, who was the father in law of Jacob, also had a dream that he was that he used to watch what he said to Jacob and then Joseph. Now, just a few weeks ago, as we looked at God giving him not one but two dreams. Now, out of this list is kind of interesting because these aren’t all followers of God. In fact, if you look at dreams from from one end to the other, Genesis to Revelation two out of three times that you see dreams, God shows up. The people that don’t believe in him. So God, believe it or not, Almighty has the ability to come to people that don’t even believe in him and reveal himself to them. And each time you see that they actually have respect for God, even though they don’t have faith in him. That’s how powerful God is. Well, this is what happens in our text. When God came to them the next morning, he saw that they were troubled, which if you’re in prison, aren’t you troubled? Every morning when you wake up like I’m still here, things haven’t gotten better. And so he asked Pharaoh’s officials who were in custody with them in his master’s house. Why do you look so sad today? We get to do nothing again today.

I mean, this is prison. Isn’t that what it’s all about? We both had dreams, they answered, but there is no one to interpret them. And maybe that’s because when they were back and they were serving with Pharaoh, that maybe they had access to sorcerers or people that were into mystical things. And so Pharaoh, being a pagan, would have certainly had those type of people around him. And maybe they would have thought, okay, well, we can seek these people out and maybe they can help us with these dreams that we’ve been given. But look at how Joseph replies. He says to them, do not interpretations belong to God? And then he just boldly asked, like, tell me your dreams. I believe in God. I’ve had dreams of my own. Maybe I can help you in this situation. Which kind of leads us to this. Does God interpret dreams and visions today? Or is that just in the Old Testament? Thousands of years ago, or was it just during the apostolic time, which is the time when Jesus and his closest disciples and apostles walked the earth? Or does God still reveal himself in dreams and visions today? What do you think? Yeah, yes. Here’s what’s so fascinating. If you go to the book of acts, the second chapter, Peter gets up on the day of Pentecost. It’s the first ever sermon, the first ever church sermon ever preached. And he goes back and quote the book of Joel from the Old Testament. And he says this in the last days, your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.

Do you think we’re living in the last days? Now? How many of you here today, man, you would admit you’re an old man. How many you think it’d be pretty cool if God revealed some visions and dreams to you? Or how about our young men in here? Wouldn’t it be incredible? Some of you that are teenagers, some of you that are that are in college, if God started showing up and revealing things to you, I mean, if God says he’s going to do it, then certainly he’s going to do it now. There’s a caution in this. There’s something we ought to be careful of, because sometimes people will say they have visions and dreams, and then you kind of scratch your head and go, I don’t know if that was of God. So we also know that there’s a devil, and the devil does everything you can to counterfeit the things of God. Now, a long time ago, a long, long time ago, when I was in my 20s. I was dating a girl who had dreams. And she would tell me these dreams. And the crazy part is, she would go to someone that she paid to interpret her dreams. And it was some weird stuff, like some out there kind of stuff. And that was probably red flag number. Who knows what at that point of this probably is not going to work out. And it ended up not working out.

What is the best way to handle when someone comes and tells you they have a dream or a vision? What is the standard in this? Whenever somebody has some but something to this degree, the easiest thing to do is to go back to the Word of God, where God has already revealed himself and detested according to the scriptures. If you’re having dreams and visions, they’re for a specific purpose. More often than not, it’s so that more people will come to a saving knowledge of Jesus, that God is giving you pieces of the puzzle to help you walk in the way that he wants you to walk, to fulfill the plan that he has for your life. So no matter what it is, you always go back and compare it to scripture. Well, look what happens. The chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream and he said to him, in my dream I saw a vine in front of me, and on the vine were three branches. As soon as it parted, it blossomed and its clusters ripened into grapes. Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes, squeezed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and put the cup in his hand. How many of you find this disgusting? See, sometimes we read scripture so quickly we don’t even realize what’s going on. What is this? Is he really squeezing these grapes with his hand? Is that how they did it? Or was there a pressure or something? It’s just weird. And then he gives the cup and apparently Ferrell then drinks it.

Joseph, immediately, because God had given it to him, reveals to him what the dream means. And he says the three branches are three days. Within three days, Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your position, and you will put Pharaoh’s cup in his hand, just as you used to do when you were his cupbearer. How do you think this is good news? How many you think that he didn’t sleep for three days? I mean, imagine that. Oh, this is so exciting. Like I’m not going to be stuck in this prison for the rest of my life. There is a way out, and I can’t wait to be restored in the position that I used to have. And it’s kind of interesting because it didn’t stop there. Joseph decided he was going to add one more little caveat to the whole thing, and he said this, hey, I know it’s going to go well with you, and this is all I’m asking of you. Well, you just remember me and show me kindness that I interpreted your dream. Would you just mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison? And then he goes back and he recaps his life. Up to this point, I was forcefully carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being in a dungeon. So he’s sharing his testimony with this guy, and the only thing he’s asking is that when he’s restored, when he gets an opportunity, when he has the ear of Pharaoh, could you just remember to tell him that that you had this dream?

And then I interpreted for you think of his journey again, Joseph’s journey from his parents house, where he was living high, and he had everything he could want, and he was his dad’s favorite. And everything was going well to his brothers, throwing them in a pit and then selling him, and then off on this long journey to Egypt, where he gets put in somebody else’s house, rises to the ranks, only to be thrown into the prison at the same exact house where he used to serve. And now that he’s in prison, working his ranks up to being in charge of the other prisoners. And I’m always fascinated when you study the life of Joseph and you compare it to the life that we live. This is what I’ve kind of learned from from working with people and seeing people’s behaviors over time. I’m always fascinated at people that God has blessed, that have. What would be considered a good life. And so God blesses them financially. God gives them health. And yet, because they’re so self-focused, because the whole world just revolves around them, they’re actually miserable people. Is anybody else run into people like this in their lives? Like literally they go on fancy vacations and they come back and every single time they come back, they just talk about how awful their vacation was and all the things that went wrong. See, I would submit to you today that we are either living each and every day in misery, or we live each and every day on mission. And it’s so easy in the society that we live in to be so self-focused, to make it all about us, me, me, me and I. And what can I get out of this life and how do I make myself comfortable?

And I’ve just learned over time that the more you fall into the trap and the more you live in that reality, what ends up happening is it’s not fulfilling. And then you begin to nitpicked everybody else in every other thing. And even when things go wrong, you just can’t ever be happy. You can’t ever be content. You can never move on. It’s always somebody else’s fault, and it’s always a circumstance that led to what it is. Or we can live our mission that even when things don’t work out and we’re thrown into situations that maybe we had no control of, which oftentimes happens in life. Did you ever notice that? Do you ever have a situation where you’re just going about your day and you have everything planned out, and then all of a sudden somebody else disrupts your life? Like you get the call that your kid threw up at school. And what’s the first reaction parents, I don’t have time for this. What the heck? And everything gets turned upside down. And now you have to deal with this crisis, and you got to figure out how to rearrange your schedule or something at work, or something with a parent or something here, or something over there. Each and every day we have an opportunity to either live for ourselves, which I’m just going to tell you, I think leads to misery or live on mission, that God has something for you. Every single day there is a person, there is a situation that God would use you to influence in a positive way, and to share the love of Jesus with others.

Amen. Well, look what happens when the Chief Baker saw that Joseph had given a favorable interpretation, right? He’s like, wow, this is really cool. Well, you know, my buddy here got a got a great interpretation. I’m going to tell him my dream too. I can’t wait to hear what what my dream is going to amount to. He said, Joseph, listen to my dream on my head. We’re three baskets of bread. We’ll just be honest. That’s odd, isn’t it? Who carries three baskets of bread on their head and the top basket where all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh. Still weird, but the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head. In your head right now, can you can you, like, envision this? Three baskets, some baked goods on top and birds eating out of it? And Joseph not missing a beat, just like he did with the cupbearer, tells him what it means. The three baskets are three days, same same scenario. Within three days Pharaoh will not lift up your head. He’s going to lift off your head and impale your body on a pole. Oh, and by the way, the birds will eat away your flesh.

What? Why is this in the Bible? Some of you are finally opening your Bibles like that can’t be in there. This is why we go chapter by chapter, verse by verse. Here at Shepherds Gate, we don’t want to miss any of the good parts. What does this mean? How can this be profitable for you? Of all Scripture is God breathed, and it’s useful for teaching and training and correcting and helping us become the righteous people that God calls us to be. You read something like this. This is often my response. We watch. Hold on to that for a moment because I want you to see what happens. Three days go by and when you know it’s Pharaoh’s birthday, who doesn’t like a good birthday party and if it’s Pharaoh’s birthday, my gosh, the whole place must have shut down for him. He gives a massive feast for all his officials. He lifted up the head of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker in the presence of officials. So he restores them. He gets them both out of prison. He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, so they once again put the cup in Pharaoh’s hand. But he impaled the chief baker just as Joseph had said to them in his interpretation.

Joseph was right. Joseph did in fact hear from God, and Pharaoh did exactly as he said he was going to do in his dream. Why? And I had to dig deep this week, just so you guys know. Like I had to do some serious digging into this because there’s different philosophies and ideas from theologians and people that write commentaries were people that dig deep and try to figure out the meaning of this. And oftentimes in the Old Testament, the Old Testament is a foreshadowing of what is to come, because all Scripture ultimately points to the person and work of Jesus Christ. And so some commentaries would say, is this a foreshadowing of when Jesus was on the cross and he has two thieves hanging between him, one on his left and one on his right, and one of them is perfectly fine, mocking him and dying a terrible, awful death, and then ultimately suffering eternal damnation where the other thief actually recognized Jesus as the Messiah, the Savior, and Jesus turns to him and says, today you will be with me in Paradise. Or is it a foreshadowing of when Jesus comes back, when he gets the nod from God the Father and he comes back for his church? And as Jesus put it, he separates the sheep from the goats. Or another way to say it is believers from unbelievers. And so here again is this example of the fact that eternity hangs in the balance for all of us, that heaven and hell are real, that it’s not just make believe.

And so this is kind of a marker or determination of maybe what is to come later in history. One of my favorite explanations was this, and it was specifically targeting pastors and churches. Do you go to a church and do you have pastors that you allow to speak into your life that won’t just tell you the good news, but they’ll also tell you the bad news and what I mean by that is that they’ll tell you the truth. They’re not going to back away from what it is that the Word of God actually says. And so if my job is to be the mouthpiece of God and to tell you what Scripture says, and I tell you, these are the parameters that God calls all of us to live in, that you would rather be part of a church and have a pastor that tells you the absolute truth, because the truth is what you need to hear. The truth is what’s best for you, and the truth is what will eventually lead you to repentance. When you realize the way that God wants you to live your life on this earth. And so this week, Ben and I had that discussion. What kind of pastors do we want to be? Those of you that have been with us the last couple of weeks, I know what you’re thinking.

I can’t believe that they actually read those passages. I can’t believe we went there in Scripture, but that’s because of how we view what our role is. It’s not just always say the nice, fun things that everyone wants to hear. Amen. Here’s the problem in America, a lot of churches have become this. A lot of churches will only focus on what we call boyfriend Jesus. And so they just tell you all the nice things about God and Jesus, and here’s this and here’s that. And then they leave out the parts over here that maybe are harder to hear, but actually still need to be preached and still need to be proclaimed from the pulpits in America. But how about for you? Where are you at in this text? Put yourself in Joseph’s shoes. If the Holy Spirit comes to you and interrupts your day, and it presses upon your heart that you’re to go in your to communicate to someone and let’s start with the cupbearer to go and to give positive news to someone, or you’re just going to sit in to be an encouragement to someone, to lay down your schedule, to lay down whatever it is you have on your agenda and to go and to bring good news to someone. Are you going to do that? Likewise, if you know that a brother or sister has gotten caught in sin, or you can see that there’s a there’s a destructive way in their life, do you love that person enough to respond to the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is saying to you, hey, it’s really important that you go have a face to face conversation with that person.

It’s really important that you go speak the truth in love, and you don’t buy into this passivity that we that a lot of us have bought into. Because you love that person and you want what’s best for that person, and you can see that the lifestyle that they’re leading and where that eventually is going to lead, because all sin ultimately leads to death. And I believe that’s what we see happening here. See what’s so amazing? I find in Scripture is the way that God pulls us close to him and reveals his heart to us. That night, God never promised that life would be easy for anyone on this planet. Did you know that the more we study Joseph, the more you’re going to realize that there wasn’t anything that he did to get himself and the circumstances that he found himself in, but yet, each and every time he was put in a difficult circumstance, he yielded to the work of God. He was willing to make the most out of every situation and look at the positive and figure out how to be the most productive person he could be each and every day, if it meant doing it in view of who God is, and fulfilling the purpose that God had for him with his time on this earth. Now, this whole idea of a cup, it’s all throughout scripture. Many of you were going to remember that it was the night Jesus was betrayed, when he was in an upper room with his closest disciples, and here they were thinking they were just celebrating a Passover meal, which the people at that time had done for hundreds and hundreds of years. This would be like you celebrating a Christmas dinner or an Easter dinner. It’s just what we do. It’s our tradition. And during the course of that meal, Jesus was the one that took bread and wine and he reinstituted them. He created new meaning and purpose for them. And he said, this bread that I’m holding up is now going to represent my body, which I’m about to give on the cross. And this cup is going to represent the blood that I’m about to shed for the sins of the world.

And isn’t it fascinating that here we are, 2000 years later, after Jesus reinstituted something? We still celebrate that in our churches today. We celebrate what it is that Jesus has done for us. And on that same night, after they were done having that meal, he took them to a garden, the Garden of Gethsemane, and he told his disciples to wait here and to pray. And he went on a little bit further so that he could pray alone. And as he went on a little further, he fell on his face to the ground. And these are the words that he prayed my father, if it is possible, if there’s any way we can come up with a different way to do this, may this cup be taken from me. Why would he say that? Why would he be asking his father to take the cup from him? You have to realize that Jesus was both fully God and fully man. And because he’s fully God, he knows everything past, present, and future. He knows the punishment that was about to be put on his physical body. He knew how how unbelievably painful the next few hours for him were going to be, including hanging on a cross for your sins and for my sins. And so what you see here is his humanity kicking in. If there’s another way, if there’s any other way that we can do this, God. Let’s figure this out. But yet, in the same breath, he’s able to say. Yet not as I will. God. Not according to my plan, not according to my agenda. In the way that I want to see things laid out.

God. But as you will, which is exactly what happened as it started in the garden, with him being taken captive and throwing in and being thrown into the pit of the high priest, his house, and then ultimately being hung on a cross for you and for me, and taking our sins, all of our sins, upon himself. And if you think it doesn’t get any worse for Joseph, who all he wanted was to be remembered, all he wanted was for the chief cupbearer to to get into the ear of Pharaoh. It tells us in the last verse that the chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph. He forgot him, went right back to being selfish, right? Right back to being all about him. Why, that doesn’t seem very fair, does it? I mean, this guy’s a jerk, is he not? One simple thing that he was asked. And now I’m going to do something this morning that we normally don’t do. I am actually going to go into the next chapter. I’m going to go into chapter 41 for us as a teaser, so that you’ll come back next week. Okay. This is what it says in the first verse of chapter 41, when two full years had passed.

He spent an extra two years, an extra two years in prison because the one guy in his inability to remember one simple thing. Let me say it again. You may not be where you want to be, yet God has never abandoned you. And where is it for you this morning? Is it relationally? You’re not where you want to be. Is the life that you’re living whether it be your marriage or your family, not ideal? And there’s some circumstances and there’s some stress and there’s some anger and there’s some just difficulty that you’re facing because of that. Or maybe you don’t have a family or you don’t have a spouse, and you’re waiting on God and you’re patiently waiting on God, and you just hope and pray that maybe 2025 is going to be the year. About financially. Here we are in the second month of this new year, and you’re looking at your checkbook every month and you’re saying, man, I can’t seem to get out of this. Why is it the same thing over and over again and just want to get ahead? Something else comes into my life. And when I just get ahead, another expense out of nowhere comes into my life. God, don’t you see me? Don’t you care?

Think of the people just in our church alone that have got an insane medical diagnosis, difficult things that they’re facing, members of ours, family members of ours that are in hospital beds right now. And you scratch your head and you go, God, why? Why are they going through the pain that they’re going through? This last week was kind of an unusual week for our church. There was four different funerals this week that were connected to our church in one way, shape or form. There were people that were in the hospital undergoing major hours long surgeries. Friday morning I was down in Detroit sitting with one of our members as his wife was under the knife for six hours, and part of me was saying, God, why? Why is why does she have to go through this? Part of me was saying, why does he have to go through it? Because, you know, sometimes being the caregivers even harder than the person that’s going through the difficulty. And again, sometimes that’s what’s so frustrating is we don’t always have the answer. We don’t always know God’s timing on things or why he lets us go through the prisons in the hell that we go through this side of eternity. But here’s the good news don’t miss this this morning that you have a God that sent Jesus to your prison. Into my prison that came to us and was willing to speak the truth in love to us so that we could experience eternal life with him. Do you know that God has given us every single thing? Not that we want, but every single thing that we need through a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Amen. And here’s what’s so incredible. I want you to hear this this morning as we end, if God is for us, no matter the circumstance you’re going through, if God is for us, who can be against us? Sometimes I read this passage and I struggle with it. God, sometimes it doesn’t feel like you’re with me. God, sometimes it doesn’t seem like you’re there. It doesn’t seem like you’re working on my behalf. But yet you remind us you’re there and nothing comes against us. Oh, and by the way, he who did not spare his own son, he didn’t take that cup of wrath from him. He made him go to that cross for you and for me, and he gave him up for all of us. How will we not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Do we still believe that God is going to graciously give us everything that we need in life? The reality is, if you have Jesus, you have everything. You have everything. Christ Jesus, who died more than that, was raised to life and is at the right hand of God. And listen to this. He’s interceding for you. He he’s mourning with you. He’s carrying that burden with you. He sees you, he knows you, and he loves you. And as we close our time together this morning, we’re going to sing a song. And part of the lyrics of the song sometimes are, I’ll be honest, they’re difficult to sing because it says In the Storm and the difficulty. God, I don’t understand it, but I’m still going to praise you and the difficulties that I face in life. God, I don’t always like it and I wish that he wasn’t stuck in this prison for as long as I have been.

But no matter what, I’m going to trust you. And I’m going to believe that you’re at work, and I know that you’re going to see me through it. Because ultimately, you have already done everything for me through your son, Jesus Christ. Amen. Will you please stand with me this morning and join me in prayer? Heavenly father, we thank you, God. We thank you that you have gathered us, even here this morning, to once again open your word to experience you in the pages of Scripture. As you tell us, you speak to us through your Word. God, you know every heart in this room. You know every circumstance. You know what people are facing. God with our heads bowed and our eyes closed. We humble ourselves before you. We ask God that you once again remind us of who you are, what it is that you have already done for us, and that God. You have, in fact, never left us or abandoned us. And that by your grace and your mercy, you call us back to yourself, and you remind us how much we are loved and valued by you, and that you will see us through no matter what circumstance life throws at us this time. This side of eternity. So, God, because of that, we love you, we thank you and we now respond by singing your praises and enthralling you with these words. We pray all these things in your precious name. Amen.