back to indexBerean Community Church Evening Devotions 3.29.21
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All right, welcome to the Monday's devotional for this Passion Week. 00:15:08.000 |
We're gonna go ahead and pray, and then we're gonna have a time of just 00:15:16.000 |
And then our sister Agnes is gonna come up and share her testimony. 00:15:20.000 |
And then after she shares, we're gonna have a time of just devotion and 00:15:26.000 |
So pray with me and then we'll get our evening started. 00:15:33.000 |
Father, we thank you for giving us the great privilege of coming and 00:15:43.000 |
And Lord, we ask that you would help us really to have hearts that 00:15:49.000 |
are softened throughout each and every day of this week. 00:15:54.000 |
So that we would truly understand our position before you 00:16:03.000 |
And to understand the depths of your love through your sacrifice. 00:16:09.000 |
And just the great power that is ours because Christ is no longer in the grave. 00:16:15.000 |
So as we chart through each and every day of this week, 00:16:19.000 |
I pray that you would help us to be sober minded, to be soft hearted. 00:16:26.000 |
But to be filled with immense joy, knowing that we are your children, 00:16:31.000 |
that we are your bride, and that you love us intimately and deeply. 00:16:37.000 |
So help us, Lord, to worship you in spirit and in truth, even on this night. 00:16:51.000 |
>> Why don't we all stand for a time of praise? 00:17:42.000 |
>> Thank you, oh my Father, for giving us your Son. 00:17:55.000 |
And even your Spirit, still the work on Earth is done. 00:18:25.000 |
Precious Lamb of God, Messiah, all for sinners slain. 00:18:39.000 |
Thank you, oh my Father, for giving us your Son. 00:18:52.000 |
And even your Spirit, still the work on Earth is done. 00:19:23.000 |
There I'll serve my King forever in that holy place. 00:19:36.000 |
>> Thank you, oh my Father, for giving us your Son. 00:19:49.000 |
And even your Spirit, still the work on Earth is done. 00:20:03.000 |
Thank you, oh my Father, for giving us your Son. 00:20:16.000 |
And even your Spirit, still the work on Earth is done. 00:21:08.000 |
Many times I've wondered at your gift of life. 00:21:29.000 |
And once again I look upon the cross where you died. 00:21:36.000 |
I'm humbled by your mercy, and I'm broken inside. 00:21:56.000 |
Now you are exalted to the highest place, King of the heavens. 00:22:07.000 |
And one day I'll bow, but for now I marvel at this saving grace. 00:22:31.000 |
And once again I look upon the cross where you died. 00:22:38.000 |
I'm humbled by your mercy, and I'm broken inside. 00:23:26.000 |
And once again I look upon the cross where you died. 00:23:33.000 |
I'm humbled by your mercy, and I'm broken inside. 00:23:57.000 |
>> Hi, my name is Agnes, and I'm a fourth year -- oh, sorry. 00:24:22.000 |
Hi, my name is Agnes, and I'm a fourth year in college. 00:24:27.000 |
I grew up in a Christian household in Hong Kong, and I attended a Christian school my whole life since kindergarten. 00:24:33.000 |
Being a pastor's kid, I was very complacent with my identity as a Christian, thinking that because everyone around me was a Christian, 00:24:42.000 |
and because I was raised with Christian values, I must be a Christian too. 00:24:47.000 |
My parents told me that I prayed the prayer when I was six years old, and I knew all the right answers at Sunday school, 00:24:54.000 |
but my faith was very much inherited and based on external works. 00:24:59.000 |
My understanding of God was quite shallow, and I did not truly know what it meant to be a genuine believer. 00:25:06.000 |
My understanding of the gospel was only that Jesus died to save me from hell, and that was it. 00:25:13.000 |
I thought that I was a good Christian because I was an extremely obedient child at home and at school, 00:25:19.000 |
but in my heart, there was a lot of self-righteousness and anger against God. 00:25:24.000 |
I became addicted to the approval and validation from people, and I was enslaved to serve man. 00:25:31.000 |
Throughout my childhood, I was struck with many illnesses and frequently visited the hospital. 00:25:37.000 |
I had eczema, chronic rhinitis, allergic conjunctivitis, scoliosis, foot pronation, and other things that I can't pronounce. 00:25:46.000 |
I was so frustrated at God because I didn't understand why God, my creator, would allow such an unfortunate thing to happen to his creation. 00:25:56.000 |
Yet my parents would tell me over and over again that God loved me. 00:26:01.000 |
With good intention, my loving parents would invite many pastors over to my home to pray over me, 00:26:08.000 |
and my conditions would never improve, which led me to doubt that God really so loved the world. 00:26:15.000 |
When I got a little older, I experienced a lot of spiritual highs when attending and serving at camps and retreats. 00:26:23.000 |
Looking back, despite my involvement at these events, I was still extremely unaware of my sin, 00:26:29.000 |
and I did not have any personal struggle against it. 00:26:33.000 |
Any feeling of intimacy with God was not long-lasting. 00:26:37.000 |
I had little desire to seriously seek a deeper relationship with Christ in my own life 00:26:42.000 |
because there were many idols at the time that had appeared to be much more attractive and seemed to promise satisfaction. 00:26:50.000 |
At home, I was still very obedient to my parents and never caused much trouble, but at school I lived another life. 00:26:58.000 |
Wanting to fit in, I said a lot of words that I didn't even know the meaning to. 00:27:03.000 |
I manipulated people so that I might be more popular. 00:27:07.000 |
I compulsively lied to friends, teachers, and my parents to get out of trouble 00:27:12.000 |
and idolized the common things that teenage girls idolized. 00:27:16.000 |
The summer before I entered college, I fell into a pattern of consistently missing church 00:27:22.000 |
because I spent Saturday nights partying with friends and being very determined and even excited to step away from the Christian bubble. 00:27:32.000 |
Because of the hardness of my weak and wandering heart, I desired the world and not anything of Christ. 00:27:40.000 |
Coming into college, to my surprise, I was very unhappy with my circumstances. 00:27:45.000 |
I didn't know how to make new friends, and I was an ocean away from all of my loved ones. 00:27:51.000 |
Everything that I had placed my identity in disappeared, and I had to start fresh. 00:27:57.000 |
In those brief moments of emptiness and loneliness, by God's grace, I was led to Berean. 00:28:04.000 |
I bumped into a friend from home during the Aunt Eder involvement fair and was invited out to Friday night Bible study. 00:28:11.000 |
I reluctantly attended and originally did not see myself staying at this church, 00:28:16.000 |
as I had grown up in a much more charismatic background. 00:28:20.000 |
It was during a message about making decisions in life that I realized that the things that gave me temporary joy were sinful 00:28:28.000 |
and was the root of my unhappiness and dissatisfaction. 00:28:32.000 |
The Spirit convicted me to recognize that I had to make a decision on whether or not I would choose to invest my time in worldly desires 00:28:40.000 |
and live as a Christian half-heartedly or repent to God and seek to be totally transformed by him. 00:28:48.000 |
During a parachurch meeting on campus, I heard a message about God's holiness 00:28:53.000 |
and was so convicted when I learned about how short I had fallen from the standard of holiness 00:28:58.000 |
that Jesus mandates for believers to strive for. 00:29:02.000 |
I finally believed in my heart that God was a holy God who was completely unique and utterly all-powerful, 00:29:09.000 |
and I was humbled as I saw that I could not compare myself to him. 00:29:14.000 |
The Lord graciously softened my heart through his word and the Spirit, 00:29:19.000 |
and I gradually was able to identify the many idols that I had been shoving into my life 00:29:24.000 |
in order to fill the God-shaped hole in my heart. 00:29:28.000 |
I distinctly remember the pastor using several analogies to explain how we cannot serve two masters 00:29:34.000 |
and why we had to destroy our idols in order to gain the imperishable glory of God. 00:29:40.000 |
It was completely God and his grace that my ears were open to understand this mystery of the gospel 00:29:47.000 |
and the power of this good news that caused me to long to live in obedience of faith. 00:29:53.000 |
After a few months, I went back home for winter break and I hung out with some friends one night. 00:29:58.000 |
These friends, like me, claimed to be a Christian but lived lives that were inconsistent with their confessions of faith. 00:30:05.000 |
I observed the passions of the flesh that my friends indulged in, that I once indulged in too. 00:30:11.000 |
Although my conversion was not immediate, God used that moment to cause in my heart a genuine sorrow, 00:30:18.000 |
and I uncontrollably wept over my wickedness and my sin. 00:30:22.000 |
I realized that all along I had been aimlessly trying to find my worth in the strength of my flesh. 00:30:29.000 |
Despite hearing the gospel countless times growing up, in that moment I finally really understood 00:30:35.000 |
that I was fully deserving of punishment and separation from God, and that I was in need of forgiveness from him. 00:30:42.000 |
God showed me that I was headed for death and destruction, but because of his love for mankind, 00:30:48.000 |
he sent his son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross and place my sin upon himself, 00:30:53.000 |
and that by faith I was forgiven and granted a new and eternal life through his precious blood. 00:30:59.000 |
He opened my eyes to see that there is no goodness in me apart from Christ, 00:31:04.000 |
and therefore I needed a perfect substitution to pay and atone for the wrath that I deserved. 00:31:10.000 |
By his mercy alone, I was brought to repentance. 00:31:14.000 |
My chains were removed and God filled my heart with an unexplainable joy from being free 00:31:19.000 |
that allowed me to see how precious it was to know Christ and to be known and adopted by my heavenly father. 00:31:26.000 |
For the first time ever, it was not just a temporary feeling of being loved by a distant God, 00:31:32.000 |
but there was a genuine and personal longing to draw near to God. 00:31:36.000 |
Through the faithful preaching of his word and a growing eagerness to not just learn about God, but to know God, 00:31:43.000 |
I acknowledged the lordship of Christ and understood God's sovereignty and authority over my life. 00:31:49.000 |
God showed me that I needed a savior not to save me from my circumstances or from suffering and sickness 00:31:56.000 |
or from never needing to wrestle with sin anymore, 00:31:59.000 |
but to be my steadfast source of life that I could place my trust and my faith in. 00:32:05.000 |
Philippians 3.8 says, "I count all things to be lost in view of their surpassing value 00:32:10.000 |
of knowing Christ Jesus my lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things 00:32:15.000 |
and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ." 00:32:19.000 |
As a newcomer at the church, the immense love and care that many brothers and sisters expressed 00:32:25.000 |
over my spiritual life showed me the powerful love of God that compelled these people 00:32:33.000 |
My hunger for the word grew and my heart contained new desires, 00:32:38.000 |
a desire to please God, to obey, to bring him glory, and to reflect his righteousness. 00:32:44.000 |
Through the church I gained a high view of God and in turn a high view of his word. 00:32:50.000 |
I now live not to be a slave to idols and the things of the flesh, but I strive to live as a servant of God. 00:32:56.000 |
I know that by his word, despite being totally undeserving of it, 00:33:01.000 |
I have assurance of salvation as I walk by faith in him with my eyes set on eternity. 00:33:07.000 |
God wasted nothing in my life in order to turn me to Christ and deepen my dependence on him. 00:33:13.000 |
The Lord continues to sanctify and humble me and shows me that I am in need of a savior every day. 00:33:20.000 |
I thank God that he has predestined to and is conforming me into the image of his son day by day. 00:33:26.000 |
Romans 8, 29 to 30 says, "For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed 00:33:33.000 |
to the image of his son so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren. 00:33:38.000 |
And these whom he predestined, he also called, and these whom he called, he also justified, 00:33:43.000 |
and these whom he justified, he also glorified." Thank you. 00:33:57.000 |
Thank you, Agnes. As a pastor, there's a part of me that is so thankful for your testimony. 00:34:07.000 |
And what I know of Agnes, I'm hoping in many ways that my own daughter can grow up to be similar 00:34:18.000 |
and share a lot of these traits. And I'm sure your parents are very proud, 00:34:29.000 |
Well, it's Monday night, and each year our observance of the Passion Week begins on Palm Sunday, 00:34:37.000 |
as you guys know, with Jesus' triumphal entry on a donkey into Jerusalem. 00:34:43.000 |
And we reflected on this yesterday, and so each evening this week, we will be meeting here 00:34:51.000 |
to reflect on each of the days leading up to Jesus' death and resurrection. 00:34:57.000 |
The Passion Week, which means the week of his sufferings, is the most important week in all of human history, 00:35:05.000 |
and it's also central to the narratives of the four gospel accounts. 00:35:10.000 |
The man Jesus, you guys know, walked 30 years, 33 years on the earth, 00:35:17.000 |
and nearly half of all the gospel accounts are devoted to the events and the teachings of just this single week. 00:35:25.000 |
During this week, most all things public—Christ's teachings, confrontations with religious leaders, 00:35:33.000 |
and the events surrounding his trial—they all take place in Jerusalem. 00:35:38.000 |
But after each day, Jesus and his disciples, they walk about two miles and return to Bethany, 00:35:45.000 |
presumably to the home of Lazarus and his sisters. 00:35:49.000 |
So, Bethany to Jerusalem, Jerusalem to Bethany, Bethany to Jerusalem, 00:35:54.000 |
and much teaching happens to and from, and also on the road. 00:36:00.000 |
So this is the physical setting of this week, Bethany to Jerusalem, back and forth. 00:36:07.000 |
And this is a week in which we also see a lot of Jesus' emotions. 00:36:17.000 |
and elsewhere in the gospel narratives, we see more amazement from Jesus than either weeping or raging. 00:36:25.000 |
But this week is different, and understandably, we see more emotion as Jesus heads toward the cross. 00:36:35.000 |
And you can tell a lot about the passions of a person's heart by what we see him weep over and what we see him rage over. 00:36:43.000 |
And you can observe a lot of what a person loves and what a person hates by outbursts of these emotions. 00:36:59.000 |
And there are two major things that Scripture points us to that take place on Monday. 00:37:04.000 |
The first one is the only miracle of destruction in the gospel accounts, 00:37:11.000 |
where Jesus curses a fig tree while on his way toward Jerusalem. 00:37:17.000 |
The second is Jesus causing a scene in the temple where he overturns tables, 00:37:24.000 |
chases away the money changers, drives away those selling doves, 00:37:28.000 |
and then he gets into it with the religious leaders. 00:37:32.000 |
And we read that Jesus literally stands physically in people's ways so that they can't carry merchandise through the temple. 00:37:41.000 |
So this is possibly the most physically animated we have ever seen Jesus. 00:37:47.000 |
So Jesus curses the fig tree. Jesus disrupts business at the temple. 00:37:53.000 |
The fig tree and the temple. And there is a connection between these two events. 00:37:58.000 |
The curse of the fig tree is a symbol of God's judgment on the temple. 00:38:03.000 |
The leafy fig tree, with all its promise of fruit, is as deceptive as the temple, 00:38:10.000 |
which, despite its religious activity, it's really an outlaw's hideout, a robber's den. 00:38:18.000 |
It had the appearance of fruitfulness, of holy sacrifice, but in reality it was barren of anything of worth. 00:38:26.000 |
So let's take a look at Mark's account together. 00:38:30.000 |
I'll be reading Mark 11, 15 to 19 for you, and it's up on the screen. 00:38:36.000 |
"Then they came to Jerusalem, and he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in the temple, 00:38:45.000 |
and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. 00:38:50.000 |
And he would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple. 00:38:55.000 |
And he began to teach and say to them, 'Is it not written, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations"? 00:39:10.000 |
The chief priests and the scribes heard this and began seeking how to destroy him, for they were afraid of him, 00:39:18.000 |
for the whole crowd was astonished at his teaching. 00:39:22.000 |
And when evening came, they would go out of the city." 00:39:26.000 |
So here in verse 17, we see Jesus alluding to two Old Testament prophecies, Isaiah 56, Jeremiah 7. 00:39:34.000 |
And I'm going to read little sections of both for you. 00:39:37.000 |
The first one, Isaiah 56, is one of the most uplifting chapters in all of the Old Testament. 00:39:43.000 |
In Isaiah chapter 55, he says, "Seek the Lord while he may be found. 00:39:48.000 |
Call upon him while he is near." And then in 56, it describes reward upon reward for those who earnestly seek the Lord's face in obedience. 00:39:59.000 |
So I'm going to read verses 6 through 7 of Isaiah 56 for you. 00:40:04.000 |
"Also the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, and to love the name of the Lord, 00:40:12.000 |
to be his servants, everyone who keeps from profaning the Sabbath and holds fast my covenant, 00:40:19.000 |
even those I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. 00:40:25.000 |
Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar, 00:40:30.000 |
for my house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples." 00:40:37.000 |
The second passage, where the den of robbers is prophesied, has a very different feel. 00:40:44.000 |
So Jeremiah 7, 8 through 11 reads, "Behold, you are trusting in deceptive words to no avail. 00:40:54.000 |
Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and offer sacrifices to Baal, 00:41:03.000 |
and walk after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, 00:41:10.000 |
which is called by my name, and say, 'We are delivered,' that you may do all these abominations? 00:41:19.000 |
Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight? 00:41:27.000 |
Behold, I, even I, have seen it, declares the Lord." 00:41:33.000 |
So you can just tell that the mood of this is very different. 00:41:38.000 |
The temple of God was always meant to be a physical place where sinful man could draw near in worship to seek holy God. 00:41:47.000 |
There had to be blood sacrifices, and humility, and a turning away from sins, 00:41:54.000 |
and an earnest seeking heart of the worshiper to enable him to draw near to God. 00:42:00.000 |
And one of the first things that God had told Solomon after the completion of the temple, 00:42:08.000 |
You guys, this is a very familiar passage, and many of you have memorized it, but let me read. 00:42:12.000 |
"And my people who are called by my name, humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, 00:42:21.000 |
and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. 00:42:28.000 |
Now my eyes will be open, and my ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place." 00:42:39.000 |
So the temple was always meant to be a place where the worshiper could seek God, draw near to him, and to pray to him. 00:42:48.000 |
But in Jesus' day, the religious elite who profited greatly from the business at the temple 00:42:54.000 |
had turned it into a place where they could use God for personal gain. 00:43:00.000 |
And it's important to remember that the Passion Week was during the Jewish Passover, 00:43:08.000 |
It's a time where the people of God were to remember that God had passed over their sins by blood sacrifice 00:43:16.000 |
so that they could be his people and that he could be their God. 00:43:20.000 |
But the opportunity of the holidays had great appeal, 00:43:25.000 |
and so this had become a lucrative business for the religious elite. 00:43:35.000 |
After all, they were serving God, and God had ordained portions for their services in Leviticus and in the Book of Numbers. 00:43:42.000 |
They worked hard for God's blessings, so they deserved God's blessings. 00:43:51.000 |
The temple was meant to be a place of seeking God, but they had turned it into a place of using God. 00:44:00.000 |
They were using the spiritual needs of the people to satisfy the cravings of their idolatrous and their greedy hearts. 00:44:08.000 |
And in Jesus' actions, we observe the hatred that God has toward idolatry. 00:44:18.000 |
If you're a diligent student of the Bible, if you're just reading the Old and the New Testaments, 00:44:24.000 |
one of the things you'll notice when you get to the New Testament is that the Hebrew race, 00:44:28.000 |
who struggled nonstop for a millennia in the Old Testament, 00:44:32.000 |
they're almost idophobic when you get to the New Testament. 00:44:37.000 |
They were taught that physical idolatry had led to the loss of all their fame, their wealth, their power, and their land. 00:44:46.000 |
And so this entire group of people was kind of traumatized by the external practices of idol worship. 00:44:52.000 |
So statues, monuments, even coins that hinted of idol worship, they didn't touch with a ten-foot pole. 00:45:01.000 |
But their heart of idolatry, the heart they wanted to use God for personal gain, it had never gone away or had been dealt with. 00:45:15.000 |
And this was very readily personified in the religious leaders who Jesus upset at the temple. 00:45:23.000 |
So there are a couple lessons we can learn today as we reflect on the events of Monday of the Passion Week. 00:45:30.000 |
And I'm going to leave you just with one very sobering truth. 00:45:37.000 |
The seeking of God and the using of God often looks the same. 00:45:47.000 |
The seeking of God and the using of God often looks the same. 00:45:58.000 |
The first is worship that is done in spirit and in truth. 00:46:04.000 |
The other is akin to a dancing around astral poles or bowing before golden calves. 00:46:13.000 |
At its root, the heart of worship cries, "I want to know you, Lord. 00:46:21.000 |
I seek first your kingdom and your righteousness, even if all these things do not get added unto me." 00:46:32.000 |
The heart of a genuine worshiper of God seeks first his kingdom and his righteousness, even if none of the things get added. 00:46:46.000 |
But at its root, the heart of idolatry cries, "I want to appease you, Lord, and curry favor. 00:46:55.000 |
I want to seek your kingdom and your righteousness so that all these things can be added unto me." 00:47:06.000 |
Given time, the worshiper, like the fig tree that was supposed to bear figs, it bears fruit. 00:47:32.000 |
The worshiper feeds deeply upon the word of truth. 00:47:38.000 |
The idolater is satisfied with his ears being tickled. 00:47:49.000 |
The idolater is either smug or bitter, depending on the reward that he gets. 00:48:01.000 |
The idolatrous religious leaders got in the way of those who had come to the temple to worship. 00:48:09.000 |
Idolatrous greed and fruitlessness, masked in religiosity, evoked a very passionate response from the Lord Jesus. 00:48:22.000 |
As we examine the events of this week, and today's just Monday, as we examine just all the days leading up to the cross, 00:48:32.000 |
we're going to be introduced to many characters in the gospel narratives. 00:48:38.000 |
But for Monday, as I reflected deeply, just preparing just for this devotion, I was troubled a little bit and saddened. 00:48:50.000 |
Because I see elements in my heart, in my life, that closely resemble these religious leaders, and it has nothing to do with my occupation. 00:49:00.000 |
There are elements in my heart that long to profit off of God for my kingdom, for my pleasure, for my comfort, for my glory. 00:49:12.000 |
And we learned yesterday that his kingdom is not of this world. 00:49:19.000 |
I'm not sure who you'll identify most with this week. 00:49:23.000 |
The Pharisees, the teachers of the law, the confused disciples, Judas Iscariot perhaps, the Roman centurion, 00:49:36.000 |
the thief on the cross, or the ladies who grieve at the tomb. 00:49:42.000 |
Every single one of these characters, every single person in human history, and every single one of us in this room, 00:49:49.000 |
and every single one of you watching online, there is a few things that we all have in common. 00:49:56.000 |
We all have idolatrous hearts of stone that cannot be turned into hearts of flesh by effort or by adherence to religious conformity. 00:50:08.000 |
And we cannot save ourselves from idolatry. We cannot help ourselves. 00:50:15.000 |
We are prone to worship the created things rather than the creator who is to be forever praised. 00:50:24.000 |
We cannot save ourselves from hearts that are idolatrous. 00:50:31.000 |
We cannot make our blind eyes see by our own effort. 00:50:37.000 |
We cannot make our hardened hearts very soft. 00:50:42.000 |
And we cannot draw near to God by effort or by our own endeavoring of righteousness. 00:50:54.000 |
Atonement had to be made. Sin had to be defeated. 00:51:00.000 |
And today I wanted to just reflect on idolatry. 00:51:07.000 |
Spiritual heart transplants needed to be performed. 00:51:12.000 |
And hardened hearts have to be made receptive and fertile supernaturally. 00:51:20.000 |
And each of these things we'll be reflecting deeply on over the course of this week, 00:51:29.000 |
as we understand that we cannot come to God on our terms, 00:51:36.000 |
but we serve a God who is gracious and compassionate, just slow to anger, abundant in loving kindness. 00:51:47.000 |
But if we're not careful, we may reject this God and not know it. 00:51:56.000 |
Because the heart that seeks the Lord and the heart that desires to use the Lord on the surface may look the same. 00:52:05.000 |
So my hope and my prayer for our congregation is that over the course of this week, 00:52:12.000 |
that our hearts would grow more and more broken over our sin, over our flaws, over our desperation. 00:52:21.000 |
That they would become much more receptive yet again with the constant reminders 00:52:28.000 |
that holy God came down to meet man, sinful man, through the atoning work of his one and only beloved son. 00:52:41.000 |
So by the time we get to Friday, that Jesus' trials, his floggings, and his crucifixion 00:52:52.000 |
would serve to remind us that we are absolutely and utterly just desperate, 00:53:01.000 |
and that we cannot help but to rely on the grace and the goodness of God. 00:53:08.000 |
So that on Sunday when we're reminded that sin and death have been defeated, 00:53:14.000 |
there will be shouts of acclamation and shouts of joy from people who understand their depravity, 00:53:21.000 |
but understand better the great and mighty love of our good God and heavenly Father. 00:53:41.000 |
There are elements of every flawed and foolish character in scriptures that we see in our own hearts. 00:53:55.000 |
We are no better than these flawed religious leaders who dare to challenge you. 00:54:04.000 |
And we are here simply because you've opened our eyes, you've softened our hearts, you've reached out and drawn near. 00:54:15.000 |
It's your kindness, we confess, that has led us to repentance. 00:54:21.000 |
But our flesh is weak, Lord. The things of this world have great appeal. 00:54:29.000 |
And we are constantly tricked and deceived and enticed to look to the things around us. 00:54:44.000 |
So we pray that this week would strengthen our spiritual legs, would open wider our spiritual eyes, 00:54:53.000 |
so that we would understand a little bit better what it means to worship you in spirit and in truth. 00:55:02.000 |
Thank you, Lord, for just your kindness and patience. 00:55:11.000 |
Why don't we all stand for our closing praise. 00:55:34.000 |
Purify my heart, let me be as gold and precious silver. 00:55:49.000 |
Purify my heart, let me be as gold, pure gold, refiners fine. 00:56:25.000 |
Set apart for you, Lord, I choose to be holy. 00:56:39.000 |
Set apart for you, my master, ready to do your will. 00:57:17.000 |
Cleanse me from my sin deep within, refiners fine. 00:57:47.000 |
Set apart for you, Lord, I choose to be holy. 00:58:01.000 |
Set apart for you, my master, ready to do your will. 00:58:38.000 |
Set apart for you, Lord, I choose to be holy. 00:58:53.000 |
Set apart for you, my master, ready to do your will. 00:59:13.000 |
Father, we thank you for just a good Monday evening, and we pray that each and every day this week, 00:59:20.000 |
as we just reflect and pray on our own and as we gather to reflect together, 00:59:26.000 |
I pray that you really would cause our hearts to grow in greater appreciation of you 00:59:32.000 |
and that our lives would reflect this gratitude.