Show Notes
Matthew 8:28-24
Pastor Stephen Lauer
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:08] Let's pray.
[00:00:10] Our gracious God and our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, we draw near to you and we hide ourselves in you. And we thank you that you are the rock of our salvation.
[00:00:24] You are the refuge from which we can hide from the storms of this life, from the persecution of this world, and even from the wrath that we so justly deserve for our sins.
[00:00:41] We thank youk that we are found in youn, not in ourselves or in our own righteousness, but we have been found by youy.
[00:00:51] And. And the Father finds us in you and in your righteousness.
[00:00:57] And he loves us for your sake.
[00:01:00] So as we come to hear from you in your word, O God, we thank you that we know that you love us and that the words that you speak to us come from the kindness, mercy and loving heart of our tender heavenly Father.
[00:01:16] We ask, O God, that by your Spirit you would make our hearts ready and willing to. To receive the message of the Gospel in its boldness, in its power, in its warnings, and especially in the loving heart of Jesus, our Savior.
[00:01:37] For we seek him.
[00:01:39] In his name we ask. Amen.
[00:01:43] We're going to read God's word from Matthew 8, Matthew 8 verses.
[00:01:51] Our sermon text will be verses 28 to 34. We'll begin reading in verse 18.
[00:02:01] Over the last two years almost, we have dipped into Matthew chapter eight five times. This will be our sixth and final message from this this chapter.
[00:02:18] Hear God's word, Matthew 8, beginning in verse 14. When Jesus entered. I'm sorry. Now. When Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side.
[00:02:33] And a scribe came up and said to him, teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.
[00:02:38] And Jesus said to him, foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.
[00:02:47] Another of the disciples came to him, said to him, lord, let me first go and bury my Father.
[00:02:54] And Jesus said to him, follow me and leave the dead to bury their own dead.
[00:03:01] When he got into the boat, his disciples followed him.
[00:03:04] And behold, there arose a great storm or the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves.
[00:03:12] But he was asleep, and they went and woke him, saying, save us, Lord, we are perishing.
[00:03:18] And he said to them, why are you afraid, O you of little faith?
[00:03:23] Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.
[00:03:30] The men marveled, saying, what sort of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him?
[00:03:40] In our sermon text, when he came to the other side to the country of the Gadarenes.
[00:03:48] Two demon possessed men met him, coming out of the tombs so fierce that no one could pass that way.
[00:03:58] And behold, they cried out, what have you to do with us, O son of God?
[00:04:06] Have you come here to torment us? Before the time now a herd of many pigs was feeding at some distance from them.
[00:04:18] And the demons begged him, saying, if you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs.
[00:04:27] And he said to them, go.
[00:04:30] So they came out and went into the pigs, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and was drowned in the waters.
[00:04:40] The herdsmen fled and going into the city, they told everything, especially what had happened to the demon possessed men.
[00:04:50] And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region.
[00:05:00] Please be seated.
[00:05:20] One of the great joys and experiences of life living, the human experience, living with other people, is that we get to meet people.
[00:05:33] Sometimes this can be a really wonderful experience.
[00:05:36] You move somewhere or someone new moves into your neighborhood and you get to meet a new neighbor.
[00:05:43] Often that can be a delightful experience.
[00:05:48] When you meet a new friend, I don't know if you've ever had that experience. You meet with someone, you connect, you realize that you have things in common, and you realize there's an immediate mutual inclination. You both want to get to know each other, to spend time together, to share life experiences.
[00:06:10] It can be really good to meet people. Sometimes it can be exciting to meet people.
[00:06:18] I had a niece born this past week. I don't know when I'm going to get to meet her, but I am excited to meet my newest niece.
[00:06:29] Sometimes meeting people can be a little anxiety inducing, right?
[00:06:33] You go to a job interview and you're meeting a prospective new employer. This might be your new boss. How is this going to go?
[00:06:46] You've been dating a young lady or young man and now you get to meet your prospective in laws.
[00:06:55] Could be a little anxiety inducing, right?
[00:06:59] Butterflies there. How's this going to go?
[00:07:02] In this passage, this story here we read about people meeting Jesus.
[00:07:10] The two demon possessed men meet Jesus.
[00:07:16] The people of the city and the region of the Gadarenes meet Jesus. Even the demons meet Jesus. There's a whole host of emotions and different things going on in this story, but what's happening here fundamentally is that people are meeting Jesus and having a different array of responses to him.
[00:07:40] We want to look this morning at meeting Jesus. First, we'll look at how these two demon possessed men meet Jesus. Jesus.
[00:07:49] Secondly, a different kind of meeting how the demons meet the pigs. And then thirdly, how the people of the town meet Jesus.
[00:07:59] First, these two demon possessed men meeting Jesus.
[00:08:04] Parts of this story are familiar to us. The story really includes the whole section that we read this morning. Beginning back in verse 18.
[00:08:16] It begins there. Jesus gave orders to go over to the other side.
[00:08:20] Jesus and his 12 disciples are in Galilee, which is Jewish land, Israelite territory. And Jesus says, now we're going to go over across the sea. This is very deliberate. We're going to get in boat and we're going to cross the sea and go over to the other side. And they go over the other side and enter Gentile territory. Not Israelite territory, but the nations, the land of the nations where the Gadarenes live.
[00:08:48] On their way across the sea, Jesus brings them into a storm. They enter the storm. Then of course, as you know, he calms the storm, the wind and the waves.
[00:08:58] And now we find Jesus and his 12 disciples in the country of the Gadarenes.
[00:09:06] And two men immediately come out to meet Jesus. That's what it says. Two demon possessed men met him.
[00:09:15] Now these two demon possessed men who come out to meet Jesus.
[00:09:22] It's a little confusing, a little strange to us. This isn't something we encounter ordinarily.
[00:09:27] These two men are under the influence or the control, the domination of demons, evil spirits, angels that were originally created good but rebelled against God cast them out of heaven. They came down and they wreak havoc here on earth. And here they are controlling these two men, ruining their lives.
[00:09:53] They control what they do, they control what they say.
[00:09:58] And the result of that is that the two men we're told are extremely violent.
[00:10:03] When it says that they are exceedingly fierce, it's talking about their being very violent.
[00:10:10] Their behavior towards others is violent. So violent that no one can go their way, no one can be near them.
[00:10:19] What's going on here is that two men who have sinful, fallen hearts with sinful, even angry, violent tendencies have. Have been brought under the direct influence of demons. And what the demons do to these sinful, fallen men is to magnify the sinful tendencies of their hearts.
[00:10:44] They had violent, angry thoughts, bitterness, hatred. Perhaps a desire to hurt others, maybe as they had been hurt.
[00:10:53] And this is brought out in extreme degrees by the demonic influence.
[00:11:00] It's so bad, we're told, that no one could pass by their way.
[00:11:05] Why?
[00:11:07] Because the men were so violent that if you passed by their way, they would come out and hurt you, perhaps kill you.
[00:11:15] These two men came out to meet Jesus.
[00:11:20] But as they came out to meet Jesus, we begin to understand that it isn't just the two men, but it is the demons who influence and control the men who have come out to meet Jesus.
[00:11:33] After all, the men do what they tell them to.
[00:11:39] What are these demons? Well, we said that Jesus went to Gentile territory and the Gentiles didn't worship the living and true God Jehovah over the Israelites, the God who made the heaven and the earth and so forth.
[00:11:52] The Gentiles worshiped idols. The people of the Gadarene region would be pagans, idol worshipers.
[00:11:59] And there's a connection between the demons and the idol worshiping. Psalm 106 in the Old Testament in verse 35 says that God's people, the Israelites, mingled with the Gentiles and learned their works.
[00:12:19] They, God's people, went and served the Gentile idols, which became a snare to them.
[00:12:27] And then speaking of the idols, it says they even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.
[00:12:38] In other words, as God's people, these Israelites were led astray into idol worship by their pagan neighbors.
[00:12:48] They were just worshiping the physical image. But what was behind the image were the evil spirits who ruled and oppressed their pagan neighbors.
[00:13:00] And note that their pagan neighbors, their demonic overlords whom they worshiped, demanded of them violence.
[00:13:10] They sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons.
[00:13:16] This fits. This is the Old Testament teaching that the idols, what's behind them is the demons whom the nations serve.
[00:13:24] This fits what the Gospel of Matthew itself teaches us. If you remember back earlier in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 4, Jesus met the chief demon, Satan.
[00:13:38] When the Holy Spirit led Jesus out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, there he was 40 days and 40 nights. And then you read the story of the three different temptations that Jesus underwent and overcame.
[00:13:53] He overcame the devil in those temptations. But there, in the middle of those temptations, the devil claims that he can give Jesus the kingdoms of this world in all their glory because they belong to him, they're mine, so I can give them to you. And in a sense, that's very real. The nations served the devil and his minions, the demons.
[00:14:18] This is the kingdom of darkness.
[00:14:22] And the Bible, other places speaks of it that way. It calls it the kingdom or the domain of darkness, the rule of darkness. It calls the devil, the prince of the power of the air, prince or ruler over the kingdom of darkness. And it calls him, lowercase G, little G, the God of this world who's blinded the minds of the nations.
[00:14:48] Yes, the devils really had control over the nations.
[00:14:53] Now, this kingdom of darkness, what does it do? It caused these men not only to be violent and drove them to further violence, but it caused them to live in the tomb.
[00:15:06] The kingdom of darkness drives its subjects to go and live in the place of death, the shadow of death.
[00:15:15] When it says that they were in the tombs, they came out of the tombs. Don't think of gravestones beautifully laid out in modern cemeteries here in the West.
[00:15:26] Think of men coming out of tombs, meaning coming out of holes carved or caves carved in the side of hills where bodies would be laid. Remember the garden tune? They're living in the tombs and they come forth to meet Jesus. Coming out of the domain of death, they come to meet Jesus. The demons and the two men, they come to meet Jesus like warriors coming out of the gates of hell.
[00:15:56] These demons drive the two violent men, like violent warriors, from the tombs to meet Jesus.
[00:16:06] Now you meet someone, you can have different responses depending on the circumstances, depending on what's going on, who this kind of person is that you meet the demons when they meet Jesus, they want nothing to do with him.
[00:16:23] That's what you read. What have you to do with us, O Son of God?
[00:16:30] We have nothing to do with each other. Jesus. This is their response when they get out and they see who Jesus is and they meet him.
[00:16:40] We share nothing with you, Jesus.
[00:16:43] No fellowship, no friendship.
[00:16:47] Why?
[00:16:48] The demons are the bitter enemies of the Son of God. Theirs is the kingdom of darkness. His is the kingdom of heaven and. And light.
[00:17:02] What's more, they are terrified of Jesus. They meet him, they want nothing to do with him, they want him gone.
[00:17:11] And they are terrified of this man in front of them. This man has the power to torment.
[00:17:23] Have you come here to torment us before the time?
[00:17:28] What does it mean for a spirit to be tormented?
[00:17:35] Take a moment to try to grab ahold of the terror that the demons are expressing.
[00:17:45] We understand, most of us, to varying degrees, something of what it means to suffer or to be tormented in our bodies. We get very sick. You have a high fever, maybe you're shaking, you have the chills, you feel awful, you feel tormented. Maybe you've experienced great pain in your body.
[00:18:07] But what does it mean for a spirit to suffer, to be tormented? We have a physical analogy in our bodies, suffering and being tormented.
[00:18:21] But what happens when a soul is tormented?
[00:18:25] This is hard to imagine, but this is how the Bible describes hell, the place where the demons don't want Jesus to send them.
[00:18:35] They know that there, in hell, the Place of the damned.
[00:18:39] They will be tormented there, the souls of men and fallen angels. The demons will be tormented by the wrath of the Son of God.
[00:18:51] They are terrified to meet the one who will torment not only the body, but the soul.
[00:18:59] All who meet Jesus Christ, the Son of God, should consider very carefully who he is.
[00:19:07] Who is this man, this God man whom you meet?
[00:19:11] You should consider not only who he is, but yourself, your own state.
[00:19:18] Who is he and who? And what am I?
[00:19:22] We're tempted to look at these two men, demon possessed, living in the region of the Gadarenes, living out in the tombs as some weird, strange set of circumstances, something far unremoved from us. Right? This is. We don't get this, their violence.
[00:19:42] But we're not fundamentally different as sinners from these men.
[00:19:48] Our constitution, our makeup as those who are fallen and sinful is fundamentally the same as theirs. Yes, we're not walking around controlled by demons like they were. Yes, there's a difference.
[00:20:03] But as sinners, before Jesus comes and saves us, we, like them, are under the sway of Satan, under the power and rule of the kingdom of darkness.
[00:20:16] And we are, because of the sin that's in our hearts. That's the point. That's where they have control over these men. It's because they're sinners.
[00:20:28] Their outward violence so fierce that no one could come their way. That's obvious to everyone around us. We read it. It's shocking.
[00:20:36] They come out of tombs. They live in tombs. This is far from us. And yet this is how the Bible describes the state of our sinful heart and the things that flow from it.
[00:20:48] The Bible says that our words are violent, like knives and spears. They come out and they hurt and they wound and they pierce others.
[00:20:58] So maybe we don't strike with our fists, but who among us has not wounded with his words?
[00:21:06] Psalm 52. 2.
[00:21:08] You tongue plots destruction like a sharp razor.
[00:21:12] You worker of deceit.
[00:21:15] Have you lied about someone?
[00:21:19] Psalm 57. 4. My soul is in the midst of lions. I lie down amid fiery beasts, all strange, foreign. That's not us, right? Like these two men.
[00:21:33] My soul in the midst of lions. I lie down amidst fiery beasts, the children of men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.
[00:21:50] We're more like them than we want to admit.
[00:21:53] The words that pour forth from our mouths, where do they come from? They come from within.
[00:22:02] Psalm 5, 9 says that these words pour forth from our throats, which are like an open grave.
[00:22:13] Why do things that hurt come forth as words from our mouths? Because what's on the inside wants death.
[00:22:24] The throat is like an open grave.
[00:22:27] Or the New Testament teaches similar things. James 3. 6. The tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness.
[00:22:37] The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life.
[00:22:45] And he says, the tongue is set on fire by hell.
[00:22:54] Any sinner who meets Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as these two men met him, and as these demons met him, any sinner who meets Jesus should be terrified, terrified of his wrath, terrified of his power to torment, terrified of his holiness and his justice, which demands that sinners be punished eternally.
[00:23:21] Jesus says that every careless word that men speak, he will one day hold them accountable for, well, the two men met Jesus, the demons meet the pigs. The story unfolds and progresses.
[00:23:38] The demons meet Jesus, they're terrified. They grovel before Jesus. They beg and plead, jesus, if you're going to cast us out of these two men, if you're going to remove us from them and send us away, then let us go into the swine.
[00:23:55] Don't send us to hell yet, the place of torment.
[00:24:00] Send us into these pigs.
[00:24:03] Then the herd of pigs rushes down. As soon as the rushes down and is drowned. We know the story.
[00:24:12] What's going on here.
[00:24:14] Here in Matthew, if you compare the other stories, it's also told in Mark and in Luke. You see various other things that are drawn out here.
[00:24:23] But here we see at least two things.
[00:24:26] As the demons meet the pigs, we see the demonic purpose, the intent, the desire of the kingdom of darkness towards sinful mankind on the one hand. And on the other hand we see the purpose of Jesus.
[00:24:48] The demonic purpose pictured in the pigs is to destroy.
[00:24:54] And it's to destroy with great speed. They rushed that herd, rushed down as fast as it could, down into the water, down to be drowned, down to be destroyed.
[00:25:11] This is what the demonic empire does to mankind. They take sinful mankind, made in God's image, but fallen, and its desire is to hurt and to destroy, to take mankind and reduce us to nothing.
[00:25:32] And this outside of God's grace. In Jesus Christ, outside of meeting the Son of God in his saving power, this is all that's left for fallen mankind is to be driven into destruction by demonic overlords. That's the picture here. To have lives that are warped and used for evil purposes, for selfishness, for destructive purposes, and so on, and then ultimately to perish.
[00:26:03] That's the demonic purpose for the pigs, but for mankind, unless they meet Jesus.
[00:26:13] But Christ had a purpose in sending them into the pigs.
[00:26:18] If you remember. If you go back and you think about the rest of Matthew, chapter eight, the story as it's been unfolding here in Matthew.
[00:26:29] With a word, Jesus healed the centurion's servant.
[00:26:34] With a word, Jesus rebuked the wind and the waves and delivered his disciples from death and destruction.
[00:26:43] With a word, Jesus sent the demons out and sent them to the very waters of judgment that he had just saved his disciples from. From.
[00:26:57] Jesus came to save sinners from that destructive, oppressive demonic system.
[00:27:07] And he does indeed plan to destroy them and torment them for all that they've done to his people.
[00:27:15] Now every man or woman, every person or demon who meets Jesus and rejects him faces the same fate as this demonic horde faced. Not the flood waters of Noah, not the waters of the Red Sea, nor the drowning in the Lake of Galilee.
[00:27:39] But one day Jesus will come and cast all who've rebelled against him, Jesus, demon or man, into the lake of fire.
[00:27:49] And there they will face the eternal wrath of the Lamb.
[00:27:55] The demons met the two men. I'm sorry. The two men met Jesus. The demons met the pigs.
[00:28:02] The people meet Jesus.
[00:28:06] The story continues.
[00:28:09] The pig herders see everything that's taken place. The two men come, they meet Jesus and they see all of this. And they run to the city.
[00:28:19] They flee there.
[00:28:22] That's what it says in verse 33. The herdsmen fled.
[00:28:27] They ran away from all of this. They too were terrified at what they saw. And we're told that they report everything. Especially they report about the demon possessed men and their deliverance.
[00:28:46] Let's review their report.
[00:28:49] They come and they report to everyone that will listen. In the city, a man came.
[00:28:55] He went by the tombs that we all avoid.
[00:29:00] There he met the two violent demon possessed men that we all steer clear of.
[00:29:08] And he talked to them.
[00:29:11] And the men didn't harm him.
[00:29:15] Instead, the demons left the man.
[00:29:19] And now the men are free.
[00:29:21] They're safe and sound. All is well for them.
[00:29:28] The man had power over the demons.
[00:29:33] And we saw that. Because not only did he free the two men, but he sent the demons into our herd of pigs.
[00:29:40] And all of our many pigs are drowned.
[00:29:48] We're terrified.
[00:29:50] We've met the man who has power over demons, who can control the demons that rule our nation, whose idols we worship, who's greater than they?
[00:30:04] And this man frees men from the demons.
[00:30:09] He frees them from their sinful violence, their evil.
[00:30:13] But guess what?
[00:30:15] It costs us something.
[00:30:19] We lost our whole costly herd of pigs in order for that Freedom to happen.
[00:30:32] The people respond. They hear this report, they say, no, wait, this doesn't work for us. We can't have men named Jesus running around casting out demons, destroying our livelihood and our pigs meddling with our demonic overlords.
[00:30:47] So they pour out of the city to look for this Jesus, to confirm the report for themselves, to see what needs to be done.
[00:30:56] And the people come to meet Jesus.
[00:31:00] When they find Jesus, they see him and they see the situation for themselves. They see the two men set free, delivered, no longer violent in their right minds, no longer in the tombs, freed, delivered from death.
[00:31:19] And then they turn and they look at the Sea of Galilee and they see hundreds of pigs floating dead.
[00:31:29] And they turn to Jesus and they say, leave.
[00:31:33] Go away and don't come back.
[00:31:36] We want nothing to do with you.
[00:31:41] The way Matthew tells the story is deliberate.
[00:31:45] He doesn't want us to miss who the people are choosing.
[00:31:50] When they meet Jesus, the people identify not with the two demon possessed men who are set free. They don't say, we want to be like them.
[00:32:02] Jesus set us free from our demonic overlords.
[00:32:09] But they identify with the demons like the demons. They beg and plead with Jesus like the demons.
[00:32:24] They plead to be set free of Jesus.
[00:32:31] What have we to do with each other? Jesus, you would come and set us free from our demons, from our sin.
[00:32:41] We want no such thing.
[00:32:43] You terrify us, Jesus.
[00:32:46] You have the power to judge men, demons, pigs.
[00:32:52] Leave us, Jesus.
[00:32:56] Well, this morning you have met Jesus.
[00:33:03] He is both terrifying and comforting.
[00:33:07] He is both the Lamb of God and the lion of the tribe of Judah.
[00:33:16] He is a lamb whom God provides to make atonement for the sins of the world.
[00:33:24] And he is a lion whom God will send one day to destroy his enemies.
[00:33:32] He has the power to destroy and the power to save.
[00:33:37] Why is this?
[00:33:39] It's because one day, as you continue reading the story in Matthew, one day Jesus would willingly go to the cross and there he would become the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And because he went to the cross and broke the power of sin over sinners, he received power over all spiritual authorities. He rules the righteous angels and he has power over the demons and the rebellious angels.
[00:34:10] See, on the cross, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, through his death conquered the demons.
[00:34:19] That's what we read in Colossians chapter two, Paul talking about Jesus work on the cross where he bore the guilt of sinners. He blotted out the charges against us.
[00:34:33] And he says that there as Jesus took away the sins of his people, he disarmed Colossians 2:15. He disarmed the rulers and authorities.
[00:34:43] These are the demons. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, triumphing over them in Him.
[00:34:54] Jesus came to die on the cross so that he might save sinners from the sin that's within them and from the demons who control them.
[00:35:07] From the kingdom of darkness, he came to set us free, just like in the Old Testament. He came and brought his people Israel out of slavery in Egypt and out of the misery and oppression. And he came to set sinners free from the misery and oppression of sin and the kingdom of sin.
[00:35:26] He came to set you free, dear people of God.
[00:35:32] When the two demon possessed men came and met Jesus, it was because Jesus crossed the sea to meet them. He crossed the sea. He passed through judgment waters and storm to save these two men for Himself.
[00:35:51] You see Matthew's story.
[00:35:54] Jesus came from heaven to earth to save sinners.
[00:36:03] Jesus came to meet these two men not in wrath, but in grace. The demons saw Jesus wrath and were terrified. The people of the city saw his wrath and they were terrified.
[00:36:17] But the two men whom he set free met Jesus in His mercy and grace. They met the Jesus who would go and die on the cross for their sins, to set them free, to give them new life, to make them whole.
[00:36:35] And one day, if you know Jesus and you go and you enter his kingdom, you'll see these two men there.
[00:36:42] You'll see them in their freedom. And you'll see them because you too have met Jesus in His mercy and grace.
[00:36:52] And that's where you need to meet him today.
[00:36:55] Yes, he's terrifying. Yes, he's powerful. Yes, he will one day rightly come to judge mankind and demons for their sin and rebellion.
[00:37:03] But Jesus comes today in grace and in mercy and in forgiveness.
[00:37:09] And he has the power which you see here is he has the power to set sinners free from the very worst of bondage and oppression.
[00:37:19] That's the way the Bible talks about our sin.
[00:37:23] We can't set ourselves free from our sin. Do you have a habit of lying? Do you have a habit of lusting? Do you have a habit of bitterness or hatred or whatever it is that grips you that you can't get free from?
[00:37:38] Jesus has the power to free you of it.
[00:37:42] And he stands before you today in his word. But from heaven on high, he speaks to sinners and he says, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden because of your sin, and I will give you rest.
[00:37:57] Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.
[00:38:00] For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
[00:38:05] He says, come to me, meet me, I will set you free. For whom the Son sets free is free indeed. Let's pray.
[00:38:17] Our God and our Savior, how we thank youk.
[00:38:22] That though we deserve what these people were so terrified of wrath, what you offered to us in Jesus Christ is mercy and forgiveness. For you are a kind, merciful, tender and loving God.
[00:38:39] We ask, O God, that you would draw each of us to yourself today.
[00:38:44] That we would turn from our sin and repentance and turn to Jesus in faith.
[00:38:49] And we ask that you would turn us. For we know that we need the Lord Jesus, by the power of His Spirit, to turn our hearts, that we might be changed and that we might love him and believe him and cast ourselves on Him.
[00:39:03] O Lord our God, we do cast ourselves on you, on your mercy and on your goodness.
[00:39:09] And we bring to you this morning many needs that we have.
[00:39:14] We thank you that you promised to hear us for Jesus sake. We ask, O God, that you would apply to our hearts and their wounds, their weaknesses.
[00:39:25] Apply the gospel, that we might know the comfort, the peace and the joy that you offer us in Jesus Christ.
[00:39:33] Lord, heal the wounds that others and we ourselves have given us created in our hearts because of sin. Lord, heal it in your grace.
[00:39:44] We ask for our brothers and sisters who are straying in their sin, who are lost, who are anxious that you would comfort them and restore them and bring them back to to yourself.
[00:39:53] O Lord, we pray for a great many things beyond our own midst.
[00:40:00] We have not only spiritual needs, but there are many physical needs.
[00:40:05] We ask that you, Lord Jesus, as the King of Kings and the one who controls all things from the right hand of God, that you would reign over fallen, sinful mankind. You would restrain our evil.
[00:40:19] Lord, we plead with you that you would end wars which are happening even now in Europe and in the Middle East.
[00:40:25] We ask that you would grant relief to those who are affected by them. Lord, we thank you that you give us, in our own nation, stable government. We ask that you would use it to establish order and justice.
[00:40:38] We pray in particular that you would bless the work of those who put themselves in the line of danger every day, those who work as police and first responders, that you would keep them safe and use them in our local communities for good.
[00:40:57] We ask for your church universally, that you would bless the proclamation of the gospel. We ask that you would be with a team in Japan doing mission work from our Arizona churches. Bless their work over the next couple of weeks, that much fruit would come to your glory, both in the hearts of those who hear the gospel through them and in their own hearts as they serve and bless others.
[00:41:20] Lord, we pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ around the world that you would be near to them and deliver them from evil. Lord, we ask that you would watch over our families and our marriages and our children, protect and keep us, that we might serve you together.
[00:41:39] We ask especially for our children that you would grant them faith and knowledge that they would grow in their love for the Lord Jesus and that they would grow up to serve and know Him.
[00:41:52] We ask for our brothers and sisters who are sick and who are weak, that you would heal them for those who mourn, that you would grant them comfort for those who live alone or who are elderly and who are widowed. We ask that you would be near to them and comfort them and provide for all their needs.
[00:42:11] Lord, we pray for the poor in our own midst and around us that you would provide for their needs and that you would use us to be a blessing and that you would use our resources to care for their needs. Lord, we thank you that you hear all of our prayers for Jesus sake. And we ask that you would grant them in his name we pray. Amen.
