Show Notes
Lev 15:25-31 Luke 8:40-56
Pastor Stephen Lauer
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Let's pray.
Our merciful Heavenly Father, how we thank you for this great patience and forgiveness that you show us in your Son.
We thank you that we can know as we look to the cross, that everything that separates us from you, our sin, the pollution of our sin, our uncleanness, all of it you have taken away and placed on your Son.
And you take us and wash us clean in his blood. And you present us to yourself then as your children, whom you love, whom you receive, and whom you will never let go from your embrace.
Our God, we ask that you would deal with the troubles of our hearts, that we have trouble because of our unbelief and so we doubt your goodness.
We have trouble because of our sin that remains in us, that we struggle with and sometimes we give in to.
And that causes us to doubt whether we are truly your children.
And we have all manner of troubles.
The world causes us anxiety.
Our own circumstances cause us to wonder whether we will make it through the day or the week, whether things will be okay.
Seal to our hearts, O God, your love and care for us in Christ, that we might be able to leave all of these worries and troubles behind and know the joy, the joy that comes from knowing that yout rejoice over us and delight in us as a father, his children, and Christ as a husband, his bride.
Help us then to come before your Word as it speaks to us with expectant hearts, trusting that you will feed us where we are hungry, that you will nourish us where we are, we can need to be strengthened, that you will correct us where we are in error, that by your Word you will rebuke us where we are in sin, calling us back to yourself into your loving arms.
Hear us, we ask for Jesus sake and work in us by your Holy Spirit, Amen.
I'm going to ask you to be seated.
We have two scripture readings this evening. Our sermon text will be from Luke chapter 8.
So if you want to turn to Luke 8, you can do that and put a finger in there.
Because first we'll be reading from Leviticus 15, Leviticus 15, beginning in verse 25 and reading through verse 31. So Leviticus 15 first and then turning to Luke chapter 8, where we'll begin reading in verse 40.
I want to speak very briefly to the children who are here, adults you can listen to. But if you children can listen to me for a moment.
There are every week things that the preacher talks about, the pastor talks about. We use big words sometimes. We talk about ideas that are hard to understand.
That's normal. That's okay.
This is one of those weeks where there's some things that are complicated, things that children don't normally think about or understand. We're going to read about women who have a flow or a discharge of blood. So I'm going to encourage you to take this as an opportunity. Children, if you hear things like that, that you don't understand, this should be every week, go home and ask your mom and dad, what was that about? I didn't understand that they're there to help you understand what God's Word is saying to you too. So this is some things that you don't normally hear about.
If you hear about those on any Sunday, today included, go home and ask mom and dad. They will be happy to tell you what God's Word with the Gospel, what Jesus has to say to you.
So I'm going to read now from Leviticus, chapter 15, beginning in verse 25 and then turning to Luke 8.
This is God's word, His good Gospel. Good news for you and for me.
If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, not at the time of her menstrual impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her impurity, all the days of the discharge she shall continue in uncleanness, as in the days of her impurity, she shall be unclean.
Every bed on which she lies, all the days of her discharge, shall be to her as the bed of her impurity and everything on which she sits shall be unclean, as in the uncleanness of her menstrual impurity.
Whoever touches these things shall be unclean, and shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the evening.
But if she is cleansed of her discharge, she shall count for herself seven days, and after that she shall be clean and on the eighth day she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons, and bring them to the priest to the entrance of the tent of meeting.
The priest shall use one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering.
The priest shall make atonement for her before the Lord for her unclean discharge.
Thus you shall keep the people of Israel separate from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst.
This is the law for him who has a discharge, and for him who has an emission of semen becoming unclean thereby, and also for her who is unwell with her menstrual impurity, that is, for anyone, male or female who has a discharge, and for the man who lies with a woman who is unclean.
And now turning to Luke, chapter 8, verse.
We'll begin reading in verse 40 and read through the end of the chapter.
Now. When Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him.
There came a man named Jairus, who was a ruler of the synagogue. And falling at Jesus feet, he implored him to come to his house.
For he had an only daughter about 12 years of age, and she was dying.
As Jesus went, the people pressed around him.
And there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years.
And though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone.
She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment. And immediately her discharge of blood ceased.
And Jesus said, who was it that touched me?
And when all denied it, Peter said, master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you.
But Jesus said, someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me.
And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling and falling down before him, declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed.
He said to her, daughter, your faith has made you well.
Go in peace.
While he was still speaking, someone from the ruler's house came and said, you, daughter is dead.
Do not trouble the Teacher anymore.
Jesus, on hearing this, answered him, do not fear, only believe, and she will be well.
And when he came to the house, he allowed no one to enter with him except Peter and John and James, and the father and the mother of the child.
And all were weeping and mourning for her.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: But he said, do not weep, for she is not dead but sleeping.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: And they laughed at him.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Knowing that she was dead, taking her.
[00:09:25] Speaker A: By the hand, he called, saying, child, arise.
And her spirit returned.
[00:09:32] Speaker B: And she got up at once, and he directed that something should be given her to eat.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: And her parents were amazed, but he charged them to tell no one what.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: Had happened thus far.
[00:09:46] Speaker A: God's word Luke 8 is a chapter full of questions.
If you read Leviticus 15, I think you'll find the same experience.
What is going on with all of these discharges? Why do they make people unclean?
[00:10:12] Speaker B: What is God doing? You find something similar here in Luke 8.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: There's a couple stories we're very familiar with.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: For example, the parable of the Sower and Jesus explanation of that.
[00:10:25] Speaker A: The next story is the story of Jesus and the disciples in the boat.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: Crossing the Sea of Galilee. The storm comes up. Jesus Quiets the storm and calms the.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: Wind and the waves.
Then we come to two stories that are very mysterious. The story of the man who was.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: Possessed by a legion of demons. Lots of questions there.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: And then this story, even more questions.
But it isn't just our questions.
The stories themselves have questions embedded in them. Jesus asked, who was it that touched me?
But this isn't the first question in the chapter.
Jesus asked, the man with the demons, what is your name?
But if we go back to the story of Jesus and the disciples crossing the Sea of Galilee and the storm being calmed, we come to the first two questions, questions that the chapter is really answering for us.
If you look back there, verse 28.
After Jesus calmed the sea, he probes the disciples. And here he's probing us too.
Where is your faith?
Where is your faith?
And then the disciples have a question.
Who is this, this man who, when he speaks, even the wind and the waves obey him?
If you're reading this for the first time, these questions would jump out at you.
Who is this? And where is my faith?
Story of Jesus setting the man free from the legion of demons, answers the first question in a remarkable way. Jesus is the son of God. Words that come from the demons.
This is the Son of God.
And Jesus, through his actions, shows us that he is the Son of God. Came in the flesh to deliver men from the kingdom of darkness.
But here in this story, we come to the question of faith.
Jairus faith, the woman's faith.
Where is our faith?
As we look at this story, the story is really. It gives us a summary of just about every element of the gospel. You'll see that as we walk through it, as Jesus saves the two daughters. And that's our theme this morning. Jesus saving the two daughters. We're going to deal with these questions of who Jesus is and the faith that he calls us to have in him for our salvation.
The three heads or three points this morning are first, the daughter's condition. As Jesus is saving the daughters, we're going to see what he saves the from. The daughter's condition. Secondly, the daughter's faith.
And thirdly, the daughter's savior. There's two daughters in the story, right? Jesus addresses the woman with the flow of blood, calls her daughter, and there's Jairus daughter. We're going to look at their condition, their faith, and then finally their savior.
So first, the daughter's condition. What is it Jesus is saving them from?
Where are they at when they come to Jesus for salvation?
As we look at the condition we're looking at the two daughters. So first we want to look at Jairus daughter.
We're immediately pulled in.
Our hearts are drawn to this 12 year old girl and to her father who throws himself at Jesus feet, pleading with Jesus to to come and heal his daughter.
We get it, she's sick, she's on the verge of death. And we learn very quickly that she actually dies from this illness.
We get his urgency, his pleading, his willingness to throw himself at the feet of a stranger who he thinks might save his daughter.
There's few things in this life that are more difficult to bear than watching parents bury their children.
If you've been through that or you've seen someone you love go through that, you know how difficult that is. It's unnatural.
Yeah, it's difficult for children to bury their parents when they grow old. But we accept that. It's the way of life.
It feels unnatural.
It twists our hearts and hurts deeply when parents have to bury their children.
But this isn't just a child. I've known parents who buried their adult children. This is a 12 year old girl.
The whole of her life is ahead of her. She's just arriving at physical maturity, the age of childbearing for a woman just about to become a woman.
Life is ahead of her for fruitfulness, bearing children, being a wife, caring for her home, all of this.
Jairus is on the verge of seeing this disappear.
He feels helpless and hopeless except for Christ before him.
We get her condition, or we think we do.
How about the woman with this discharge or flow of blood?
What is her condition? So the daughter on the verge of death we get. But what about this woman who sneaks up behind Jesus and touches the fringe of his garment?
Hers is a little more mysterious.
This is where the questions really start to come out, don't they?
What's wrong with her? Now, if we're men or children, we don't understand this very well, right?
Women hopefully get this, I think. But we struggle just to understand what's going on with her.
Why does she sneak up on Jesus? Why doesn't she come like everyone else, like Jairus, and ask for help?
This flow of blood isn't just any old flow of blood. It's not a cut, it's an internal hemorrhage as it were.
But not just any old internal bleeding like a brain bleed or something else. Her condition is very directly related to her ability to have children.
And it's the sort of subject or topic that a woman wouldn't bring up normally in public with people around her.
It's sensitive.
This is the sort of flow of blood or bleeding that leaves a woman weak, perhaps unable to do her housework, causes all kinds of symptoms.
It would have been very difficult, challenging for her to live with this.
If she had been.
Had she developed this condition before meeting a man, she probably couldn't have gotten married. You'll see why in a moment.
But if she were married, her chores would be difficult. But worse, she probably was barren, almost for certain.
She's been unable to have children 12 years.
Not just sick, but barren.
Not just barren, but as we saw from Leviticus 15, unclean.
The flow of blood, according to the law, left her unclean.
And when an Israelite is unclean, this means she, as an Israelite woman, couldn't be around people.
If another person were to touch her, or even to touch a chair or a bed or some other object that she had touched, her uncleanness would spread to that other person.
And so it was difficult for people to be around her or her to be around other people while she was unclean.
Her uncleanness spreads.
That has the effect of isolating a person, doesn't it?
She probably has to be by herself much of the time.
You can see why marriage would have been difficult if she were married. And if she weren't married, she couldn't get married with this condition.
Unclean didn't mean dirty. So we see it isolates. But it didn't mean that someone was dirty, like there was dirt that you could scrub off by taking a bath.
To be unclean for her meant not just that she was isolated, but that she couldn't go to God's house and worship.
The uncleanness of an Israelite, man or woman, meant that she was separated from God. While unclean, she couldn't come worship God, couldn't come sing his praises, couldn't come participate in the sacrifices.
We saw in Leviticus 15 that this law was to keep unclean people from coming near God and defiling his tabernacle. God was holy and those who were unclean could not come near Him.
So to summarize her condition, ordinarily a healthy Jewish woman of childbearing age.
Due to her monthly cycle, her monthly bleeding, she would be left unclean for seven days, one week out of every month. She couldn't draw near to God.
But this woman's uncleanness, her separation from God, lasted not one week, a month, but 12 years, non stop, 12 long years of bleeding, weakness, barrenness, loneliness and exclusion from God's presence.
I didn't really answer Any questions? Now we just have more.
Why?
Why God?
Why is she unclean? Why can she not come near to God?
Because it's not her bleeding that makes her unclean.
God made everything, and he said it was good.
On the sixth day, he made the man and the woman. He stepped back from what he had made and he said, behold, it's very good.
That included the woman. That included her monthly cycle. It too, God declared to be good.
Not unclean, but good.
The law in Leviticus 15 was teaching Israelite women and all Israelites and us a very important lesson.
The monthly blood. And for this woman, 12 years was a picture to teach us something about ourselves.
God used this to teach us that he is holy and he lives among us.
And where he lives, there can be no uncleanness and no sin.
The problem isn't blood. The problem is sin.
A holy God cannot have sin in his presence.
The blood was no more sinful than pigs or dogs or other creatures. The Israelites weren't allowed to eat or be around.
But the blood taught the woman about her sin. And if you read the rest of Leviticus 15, you'll see that the men have a similar lesson that they learn from what comes forth from their bodies. They too are sinners that defile themselves and cannot be near God.
Let's confirm this teaching of Leviticus 15.
Isaiah 64, verses 5 and 6. Bring this out clearly. What was pictured in the law. We see and hear the Lesson clearly. Isaiah 64, verses 5 and 6.
Isaiah says, Behold, you were angry for we sinned. He's confessing the sins of God's people to God.
For all of us have become in our sins, all of us have become like one who is unclean.
And all our righteous deeds, which are truly sinful, all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment.
Our translations clean it up. The Hebrew says, all our righteous deeds are like a menstrual cloth.
The blood we've sinned and our sin has made us unclean. Like the blood which pictures our sin and uncleanness.
It was not the blood, but the sin of the Israelites and our sin that pollutes us, that makes us filthy and unclean before God.
It is sin that stains sin that corrupts, sin that pollutes sin that spreads like the blood. Sin comes from within like the blood. We have no control over it to stop it.
And nothing, no amount of money, no amount of doctors could cure this woman. Nothing can cure and quench the flow of sin from our hearts.
Our sin, it spreads like the uncleanness in Leviticus 15, this woman. Our sin spreads. Everything we touch, we pollute.
Our sin spreads to other people. It affects them. It affects our relationships.
You see now what kept this woman from coming near to God?
It's the same thing that keeps all of us from drawing near to God.
We are no different from this woman.
But not one month, not one week out of the month, not 12 years. But for us, our sin keeps us from God all our life long. And unless we draw near to Christ and are delivered from our sin, our sin will keep us from God for eternity.
We asked why about this woman.
We skipped the why about Jairus daughter, the other daughter and her condition.
What does every parent do?
What did Jairus do when he saw his daughter dying?
What do we do when a child dies?
We ask why?
Why God does this child innocent, seeming to have done nothing wrong?
Why did he or she deserve to die? Jairus question is our question.
But the reason the two daughters are placed side by side in the story is because understanding the condition of the one helps us to understand the condition of the other.
If we were a priest speaking to Jairus, explaining to him his daughter's condition based on the Old Testament law, we could explain it this way.
Jairus, your daughter is dying because she's not innocent.
Jairus, your daughter is about to learn, or has started already to learn the same lesson that this woman has been learning for 12 long years.
Your daughter, Jairus, is about to learn the lesson of sin and and pollution.
She's a sinner. And the wages of sin is death.
Death comes to all because all have sinned.
Why is Jairus daughter dying?
Because she sinned.
This is the condition of the two daughters. It's our condition also.
The question for you now is, do you see it?
Do you see your own uncleanness?
Do you see what your sin does to you?
What it does to those around you?
More importantly, do you see what your sin does between you and God?
Our sins make a separation.
Isaiah says, between us and God.
Our sin keeps us from fellowship with God.
Do you see that? Like that daughter of Jairus, in your sins you are dying.
We've looked at the daughter's condition. Now we want to look at the daughter's faith.
These two Jairus and the woman with the flow of blood both saw their condition. They understood what was going on and that they needed deliverance, salvation. And so they came to Jesus, the one who gives salvation.
Salvation is received by faith. The Bible is clear about that. Beginning to end. We're saved by grace alone. Through faith alone in Christ Jesus, alone.
That's at the heart of this story. The faith of the two daughters, the two questions in the boat are connected, aren't they?
Where is your faith? And who is this man Jesus?
They're connected because Jesus, the man whom they're asking about, is the object of saving faith.
Knowing who Jesus is, understanding him is crucial because if we know who he is and understand him, then our faith may lay hold of him and we might be delivered by him.
Now, our faith is in the person Jesus Christ.
If you want someone to heal you, to save you, as it were, you have to have trust in that person. Think of a surgeon. You need heart surgery.
You have a kind of trust in that surgeon.
What is it that saves you in that heart surgery? Example? It's not your trust that you have to entrust yourself to the surgeon. It's his skill. It's the person of the surgeon and the work that he's doing for you that brings the healing for your heart. Right?
The same is true with Jesus.
Yes, we must trust in him. But what saves us is not faith. It's Jesus, our faith, as it were. We might say our faith is not about us, it's about Jesus and about his power to save us. And that's a good thing, because our faith is weak.
And both of the people we meet in this story, whose faith we learn about, have a weak and doubting faith, a troubled faith.
The root problem there with both of them is that they haven't come to see Jesus and his power fully and completely.
You know, sometimes we talk about a picture and we talk about not seeing the full picture. When we see the full picture, we come to understand what's going on, right?
Sometimes we might use a similar analogy. If you're looking through a viewfinder, say binoculars, and they're out of focus or they're not quite aimed in the right place, you can't see the full picture. But you get them in focus and you get them aimed at the right place, and you can see what it is that you need to see.
Our faith is similar. It may be looking in the right direction at Jesus, but it's weak and troubled because it isn't seeing the full picture about who Jesus is.
And so we have doubts and we have worries and we have concerns.
The solution is to see more of Jesus. Look at the woman.
Like her, we may have come and snuck up behind Jesus and said, aha, Jesus is my Savior. I'll touch the edge of his garment and I will be healed. And you Know what?
Even the faith of a mustard seed, A tiny faith that you cannot see. If that faith is there, if you draw near to Christ, you will be saved.
So it is true. She drew near to Christ in faith, and she was healed.
She knew she was healed.
But like her, we may shrink back into the crowd. What does she do in the weakness of her faith? Even though she draw near to Christ and was saved, she drew back.
She drew back into perhaps the shame, the fear, the trouble that she had felt 12 long years of separation from people and God.
She withdraws back into her isolation.
Yes, we've received salvation in Christ, but our faith remains weak. And the old things still haunt us, trouble us, don't they?
Just like her. It's a faith, but mixed with fear, struggling with doubt.
We may be unable to come near to Christ and as it were, look him straight in the eye.
But Jesus is merciful, even in our doubts and our weakness.
Where we have trouble seeing him clearly, he comes to us.
He draws us out. That's what he does for this woman, doesn't He?
Who touched me?
She sees that she didn't escape the notice of her Savior and she's drawn to him.
Our problem, like her, is that we haven't seen Jesus fully. We haven't seen enough of him. And so we doubt and we fear and we worry.
You see the same kind of thing in Jairus faith.
There's a weakness and an incompleteness in his faith.
And Jesus lovingly brings him along.
He has faith that Jesus can heal his daughter from her disease.
So he throws himself at Jesus feet at the beginning of the story.
But there's something missing. And so Jesus tests his faith to draw out the weakness and correct it. To show Jairus more of himself and his saving power, so that Jairus faith might be made complete.
Jairus comes. Jesus says, okay, I'm going to go with you.
But then he pauses. He delays to deal with this other woman.
Why?
Because Jesus is allowing Jairus daughter to die.
And as the story progresses, Jesus comforts and helps Jairus, pointing him to to fuller and greater faith in Jesus and his person.
It isn't just that Jesus can heal people.
Jairus needs to come to know that Jesus can raise sinners from their death.
We're not just polluted sinners. We're not just sick sinners that need to be healed.
We're dead sinners that need to be raised to new life from spiritual death.
We need a Savior who can do it all. We need the full picture, not just a little sick, not Just very sick, but completely dead, Completely unable and incapable of dealing with our problems.
But Jesus can do it all.
We need the full picture.
And Jesus brings us along lovingly.
If we looked at the daughter's faith, at their condition, we want to look finally at the daughter's Savior, Jesus.
We've been talking about our struggle with faith and how Jesus helps us by showing us more of himself. And the more of him we see, the greater our faith becomes, the greater our peace and assurance become.
Do you struggle with your faith?
Do you grow weary with the burdens of life, with the anxiety that comes as you sin more and more?
Do you grow weary?
Do you struggle with the same sins, perhaps again and again?
Do you sense that, like this woman, there's something about your sin that's like a fountain coming from within you and you have no control over it? Not just month after month, but year after year. You struggle with the same sins, maybe new sins, worse than previous ones.
Your lies pollute relationships. Your words hurt those around you.
And worse, you realize that you don't pursue God.
And maybe you realize that you don't pursue God because you don't want to.
The drive and the desire towards God may not even be there.
We rarely admit this to others. We sometimes won't even admit it to ourselves.
We come to worship and our hearts are cold and far away.
So part of the Christian life, the struggles of our faith.
We may sense that God is not near us. And if we're honest, we may realize it's because we're pursuing our sin and not Him.
Whatever your particular struggles, whatever it is that weighs on your heart, you come to ask, how could God love me?
I may have come and touched Jesus from behind, but I begin to shrink back.
How could he love me? How could he want me near Him?
Our faith is weak and it grows weaker.
As long as we look to ourselves and our condition, our faith will always only grow weaker.
Our problem is that we're not seeing Jesus, our Savior, that our eyes aren't looking to him, that he isn't in.
[00:37:54] Speaker B: Focus.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: That we don't have the full picture of Him.
We need to meet this woman like Jesus met Him. I'm sorry? We need to meet Jesus like this woman met. Met Him.
Jesus was touched by the woman.
Her uncleanness should have spread to him.
Right? That's what the law said. Whatever she touches, anyone that touches her becomes unclean.
And yet Jesus, though touched by her and her uncleanness, he was not affected.
She was.
When you come to Jesus with your sin, in all of its awfulness, all of its pollution, all of the horrible things. When you come to him and you touch him, he's not affected, you are.
Your sin is drawn to him and he takes it away.
He washes you clean.
That's the power that flows forth from Him.
Do you still draw back like her?
Look Jesus in the eyes and see his love for her and his love for you.
He sought her out. His questions drew her out. She came trembling.
That's you. Jesus is seeking you.
He wants to draw you to Himself and hold you in his arms.
Jesus purchased you with his blood. You belong to Him.
He says to you, be of good cheer.
He takes you by the hand and leads you to His Father.
And he says to the Father about you.
Dear Father, this is your child and my child.
Accept him. Accept her.
I washed her with my blood.
See, Father, she wears the robes of my righteousness.
She is clean.
I love her, Father. Love her too.
And the Father takes your hand from Jesus, takes you in his hand and he puts his arms around you.
And he receives you.
He receives you just as the woman he received. The woman whom Jesus healed.
But Preacher, you may say you don't know how deep my sin runs.
You don't know how dark my heart is.
I don't.
But I know how dark my heart is. And I know that as much of it, as deep as the sin runs in my heart, as black as my heart is, the truth of the matter is that neither you nor I know how deep and dark our sins are.
We just don't get it.
It's worse than pollution and uncleanness.
And that's the second daughter.
We're dead.
Rotting in the grave, dead.
That's worse than darkness.
We're dead in our sins and we need to be raised to life.
We talked about the one daughter's faith, but we didn't talk about Jairus daughter's faith.
Why is that?
Because she was dead when Jesus came to her and touched her. She was dead.
Jesus touches your and my pollution and uncleanness. He's not affected by it.
But death is the ultimate uncleanness. If you read the Old Testament law, worse than blood, worse than pollution, death unstoppable.
But Jesus comes and touches death and his touch reverses death.
What truly separated us permanently, forever from God, Jesus reverses what once and for all. How dark is my pollution? It doesn't matter. Jesus reverses your death and my death.
O sinner, you cannot be so dead nor so sinful that Jesus, through his death on the cross and through his resurrection cannot raise you up and present you before the Father.
Stop looking to yourself.
Look to Jesus.
He has saved you.
Let's pray.
O Lord our God, we confess how.
[00:43:14] Speaker B: Weak and miserable our faith is.
[00:43:17] Speaker A: We confess also how great our sin appears to us.
Yet we know it's far greater than we can understand.
But we thank you that as awful as we are, Jesus is greater.
We thank you that from heaven on high, through his spirit, he pours into our hearts resurrection life.
Lord God, we ask that today we might know a little bit more of that power.
That you would show us a little bit more of Jesus, that our faith would be strengthened and that we would be drawn to him, our great God.
We have so many needs.
[00:44:04] Speaker B: We ask that you would bless us for Jesus sake, that you would watch over and care for your church in every way.
We ask that you would strengthen us as a local congregation.
That you would bless us in our ministry to one another, in our witness to the world.
We ask that you would grant us, as families and individuals, patience through trials.
That you would grant us wisdom in navigating the difficult circumstances of life.
We ask that you would provide for all our needs, physical, give us strength for our jobs, give us.
[00:44:52] Speaker A: Joy in.
[00:44:53] Speaker B: Them and help us to know your blessing and love in all our endeavors.
We ask that you would be especially near to our brothers and sisters who are sick in the hospital.
That you would grant them relief and be near to them through this trial.
Be with those who are elderly and frail. Protect them.
We ask that you would bring peace to this world that is torn apart by war.
We have fear and trouble in our hearts as we consider a war breaking out in the Middle east and war that's been raging in Europe.
Our God, we ask that you would end these wars, that you would break the bow and cut the spear in two and that the world would be still before you.
We thank you for the blessing that those who were able to go to camp this past week, the blessing they were able to receive through the teaching and fellowship. We ask that much fruit would come from that in the coming weeks.
We ask your blessing on our pastor and his family as they take a few days of of travel and rest.
We ask that they would return to us refreshed, safe and sound.
Lord our God, we thank you that you hear our prayers. We bring them to you in Jesus name and for his sake.
[00:46:13] Speaker A: Amen.
