The Lord’s Day Evening
March 5, 2006
Matthew 5:6
“As the Deer Pants for Water”
The Reverend Mr. Mike Campbell
Good evening, everyone. It is a great joy and a privilege
for me to have the opportunity of opening God’s word with you tonight at First
Pres.
Before I read the Scripture and pray, let me just
say a few words of thanks. First of all, I thank Dr. Duncan and the Session for
inviting me to be here and to have this opportunity, and then, secondly, I want
to thank all of you at First Pres. I had an opportunity (I don’t know — a couple
of months ago) to speak at the Men of the Covenant Luncheon, and most of the
folks that were there were First Pres folks, and I thank these men for your
support and your commitment to Redeemer Church.
You have been a great blessing to us in many, many
ways, and we have felt it and we know it. We really do feel that you are
“family.” I appreciate your support, but I feel like I’m among family anyway,
and that’s how we view First Pres. You have been a great blessing to us. You
have blessed us with your prayers. As a matter of fact, I was talking to a
gentleman tonight. He was taking me down to Ligon’s office, and he said that he
had been praying for me years before I even arrived on the scene. And so I
praise God for that. And I thank you for your financial support. I thank you for
those individuals who I know Ligon has wholeheartedly sent who are now members
of Redeemer Church, who have come out of First Presbyterian Church, and we
praise God for that.
If you would, please open your Bibles with me this
evening to the Book of Matthew, and I am going to be reading from Matthew,
chapter five, verse six — one verse — which is the fourth Beatitude. And as you
find your way to this Beatitude in Matthew’s Gospel, let me just preface that by
reading this statement from a sermon that Martyn Lloyd-Jones preached on this
particular Beatitude. He said this:
“And I do not know of a better test that anyone can apply to himself or herself
in this whole matter of the Christian profession than a verse like this.”
And then he goes on to say this (I’m paraphrasing a little
bit now), ‘If this verse is significant to your heart, if this verse is most
blessed to you and to your Christian life, then you can know that you are the
Lord’s.’
Now consider that as we read this Beatitude.
Matthew 5:6. Jesus says,
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.”
This is the word of our great God, holy, infallible,
inspired, and true in all that it proclaims. May we submit our lives to it.
Let’s bow in prayer.
Father, as we bow this evening in Your presence,
we do so with the greatest of thanksgiving and praise because of Jesus, our
Savior and our Lord. We thank You, O Father, that You have sent Christ; that He
has died on Calvary’s cross for our sin; that You have called us to Yourself,
and now we are beloved and accepted by the Father. We thank You for that. And we
thank You, O Lord, that You have spoken to us infallibly in Your word. And Lord,
we ask tonight as the word of God has now been read and now, O Lord, as it is
about to be preached, that You would lead and guide and direct Your servant,
that all that I say this evening would be true to Your word, honoring to You,
and it would magnify Your holy name, that it would edify and comfort and bring
conviction to Your people. And so, Lord, we ask tonight that we would not just
hear from a man, but that, O Lord, we would hear from You and from Your word as
Your Spirit teaches us tonight. Lead, guide, and direct, we pray. Open our ears.
Open our hearts. Open us up for the truth of Your word, for it is in the name of
Jesus, our Lord and our Savior that we pray. Amen.
Notice how Jesus begins this Beatitude.
He begins by saying, “Blessed are those who hunger, and blessed are those
who thirst….” Who hunger and who thirst. Now what He’s doing here in
this Beatitude is He’s taking these physical realities, these things that any
first-century Jew would have come to understand in their very lives, and He’s
applying these to a deeper spiritual truth: that even as we hunger and thirst
physically, we are to hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God. And the
fact of the matter is that most of us have not experienced actually what Jesus
is talking about here in the physical sense, because most of us have such
immediate access to food and to drink. If we’re hungry, we open the
refrigerator. If we’re hungry, we go to the store. If we’re hungry, we go to
McDonald’s® or Burger King®
or a restaurant. If we’re thirsty, we turn on the faucet. If we’re thirsty, we
get a bottle of water or Coke® or a soft
drink or whatever it is that we like to drink, and we immediately satisfy those
longings, that hunger and that thirst, so that we don’t really get to what Jesus
is actually saying here. A first-century Jew would have known, though.
There’s this great story that is told from World War
I. It’s a story about a combined group of forces — British forces, Australian
forces, New Zealand forces, who are pursuing the Turks as a part of the
liberation of Palestine. And they’re pursuing them up through the desert, and it
was burning hot with heat. And in the pursuit of the Turks, what ended up
happening is that they got so far ahead of the water trains that were lagging
behind that were on camels, that they ran out of water. And as they ran out of
water and they were experiencing all the realities of the heat of the desert,
they were starting to become dehydrated.
They had one of two choices. They could turn around
and go back, and hopefully meet up with the water train before they all died in
the desert, or they could keep pushing forward, moving forward until they got to
the Wells of Shirea. And if they were able to take the Wells of Shirea, they
knew that they would have all the water that they would ever need. And so they
decided to keep moving forward. And giving everything they had, they fought this
battle at the Wells of Shirea and they took the wells, so that they had
thousands upon thousands of gallons of fresh drinking water.
But here is the thing: they lost hundreds of
soldiers in the heat of the desert from dehydration. There were some that were
still in reasonably good condition, even though they were thirsty as anything
you could possibly imagine. But what the commanders of the forces said is that
those of you who are in the best condition, you stand guard. And only those in
the worst of condition could go immediately and drink of the Wells of Shirea. It
took a total of four hours before the last person was able to go to the wells
and drink.
Now, I want you to consider that with me for a
moment. All of the thirst of the desert, all of the heat of the desert, all of
them were thirsty. All of them were dehydrated. And yet, some still had to wait
four hours to drink of the water. It is reported that one of the soldiers, a
Christian, in response to all this, after he had to wait for a long time, he
responded by saying this:
“I believe that we all learned our first real Bible lesson on the march from
Beersheba to the Shirea Wells. If such were our thirst for God, our thirst for
righteousness, and for His will in our lives, a consuming, all-embracing
pre-occupying desire, how rich would all of us be in the fruit of the Spirit.”
Now, when I even read these words and I think about
the implications of what this man said, the only way that I can properly respond
to that is in utter repentance because I immediately realize that when it comes
to a longing for the righteousness of God, a longing for the holiness of God,
there are so many times in my life — and I can imagine it’s true for you — so
many times in my life where the longing just isn’t there, where I am desiring so
many other things. All of us here know…if you’ve walked the Christian walk for
any length of time, you know that the Christian life is a battle, that there’s
warfare, and that there are all of these things that are pulling us in one
direction or the other so that our desires, our longing, is not ultimately at
times for the righteousness of God Almighty.
But Jesus tells us here that even as the starving
man, even as the man who is thirsting to the point of dehydration, will long for
food and long for water, so must we long for the righteousness of God.
And what we have here in this fourth Beatitude,
then, is this. It is both a reminder and the guidance and the empowerment to
truly hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God each and every day in our
lives. As a matter of fact, the parallel account of this is over in Luke 6:21.
There Jesus says this: “Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be
satisfied.” That we hunger now — not waiting till we’re older, not
waiting to the day of crisis, but that we hunger right now as we’re sitting here
in this church this evening, that we hunger for the righteousness of God even
tonight.
Now how do we truly do that? How do we begin to see
this hunger for the righteousness of God in our lives? I believe there are
three things that we can look at as we think through this particular Beatitude,
three things that I want us to examine as we think about what it means to long
for His righteousness, what it means to hunger and to thirst for the
righteousness of God. The three things are these: That we begin to
understand what it means to long for happiness (that’s one); secondly, that we
understand what it means to long for holiness; and the third, what it means to
long for heaven. A longing for happiness, a longing for holiness, and a
longing for heaven.
I. A longing for happiness.
I have pastored long enough that in my experiences
in dealing with people who are going through difficult times, I have had many a
person come to me in my office and say something like this in the midst of a
crisis or a family difficulty, or a husband who is unfaithful, all of these
kinds of things. I’ve heard many a person say to me, “All I want to be is
happy.” I can imagine that some of you here have said that or thought that.
Now, on the one hand, I know how we respond to
something like that. That seems so worldly; that seems so trite; that seems so
insignificant…“All that we want is happiness.” And the reason why we respond
that way is because of the way the world says that. But the fact of the matter
is there is something deeper that this expression actually speaks to. Do you
realize that? As a matter of fact, I will go back with you to the very founding
of our nation. I will remind you of something. The very framers of the
Declaration of Independence, what did they say? “That we hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life,” “liberty,”
“The pursuit of happiness.” Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…that
in the very establishment of our nation this thought was there: that there is a
longing in all men for happiness.
Now, you probably know this already, but as you run
through the Beatitudes the word that is translated in most of our modern
versions blessed can also be translated either fortunate or it can
be translated happy. And so as you look at the Beatitudes, you can see
“Happy are the poor in spirit…happy are those who mourn…happy are the
meek…happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…happy are the
merciful…happy are the pure in heart…happy are the peacemakers…happy are
those who are persecuted for righteousness…happy are you when others revile
you and persecute you.”
And immediately, though, when I translate it that
way, you begin to realize what the problem is. The problem in translating it
that way is the way that we typically understand the English word happy.
How do we understand it? The English word happy to us is an emotional
state, and it is an emotional state that is opposite to the emotional state of
sadness. And so when we talk about happy, what we are generally thinking
about is this: We are thinking about those things that would make us laugh, or
those things that would make us giddy — those good things. And when we
understand happiness generally, we’re talking about circumstances creating an
emotional state. And so, you’ve just got a new job — you’re happy. You’ve just
got a huge promotion and a raise — you’re happy. You just had a beautiful,
healthy baby or grandbaby — you’re happy. But…I mean…how many of us would
say “Happy are you when you’re downtrodden in spirit”? Or, “Happy are you when
you mourn”? That sounds like a contradiction, right? Or, “Happy are you when
you’re persecuted”? We’re not masochists, right? We wouldn’t say that.
As a matter of fact, this idea of blessed is
a deeper reality. It’s deeper than that. It speaks of the state of blessedness
that doesn’t come from just circumstances, but it comes from relationship, it
comes from God, so that we know — because God Almighty loves us, has called us,
is with us, providentially takes care of us, guides and leads us — that we are
blessed regardless of circumstances, that we are blessed even in the most
difficult of realities, even in the most difficult of life’s experiences–that we
are blessed!
The Apostle Paul knew something about this, didn’t
he, so that from prison he could write the joy letter; from prison he could say,
“Rejoice in the Lord always; I say again, rejoice.” Now how in the world can he
from prison say that? It is because Paul knew of this deeper reality of being
blessed. He understood that. So this is the best translation, but ….
One of the things I did in preparation for this
message is I picked up my New Collegiate English Dictionary and I looked
up the word happiness. And here is how that word is defined:
“Happiness:” (this is one of the definitions) “…a state of well-being; a state
of contentment.”
Happiness is satisfaction. Look at the Beatitude:
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be
satisfied.”
Happiness is being satisfied. Now, the Greek word for
bless and the Greek word for be satisfied are two different Greek
words. But in order for you to get the sense of what’s being communicated here,
I want to paraphrase this Beatitude this way and it will be very clear to you:
‘Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be
happy’…’Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they
shall be happy.’
Now what does this speak to? I think there are
two things that we need to see immediately in this Beatitude. One, Jesus is
reminding all of us of the longing that is in all of our hearts. And it’s there.
It is placed there by God; it is an eternal longing for satisfaction, and God
has given it to us. But at the same time we acknowledge that, what this also
makes clear is if satisfaction, if happiness can only come to us by a hunger and
a thirst for the righteousness of God, then what we know for sure is this: That
all of those other things that we would pursue, that we would attempt to find
happiness, satisfaction, contentment in — that none of those things can actually
give it to us. What he’s saying is the longing is real. The longing is there and
it’s in all of us. But there’s only one way to find it filled, and that’s in the
righteousness of God Almighty.
You know, Jeremiah talked about this when he said
this of the people of God: that they had forsaken the fountains of living water,
and they had hewed out cisterns that were cracked and broken and could not hold
water. I mean, just consider that image with me for a moment, that here is this
mighty living water and it’s for the people of God, and what the people of God
actually did, instead of just drinking of the fountain of living water, the
source of all satisfaction, instead of that we turn over and what we do is we
are digging these broken, cracked cisterns that will not satisfy, and we’re
lapping up that, and it brings no satisfaction!
That’s the point. The longing is real, the
longing is there; God has given it. There’s only one way for it to be
satisfied, and so what the Beatitude offers us is an invitation to come, an
invitation to drink, an invitation to feast. The prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 55
said, “Come, all of you who are thirsty, come to the waters. Listen to me, and
eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.” Jesus to
the woman at the well said this (John 4): “Everyone who drinks this water will
be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.”
Many of you know this statement of Augustine where
he said this: “Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless until it
finds rest in…” Who? “…Thee.” And we know how the world misses this, don’t
we? And we look at the world and we see their pursuit of all of this destructive
behavior that can never satisfy, and we look at our world and its pursuit of
addictions and pursuit of alcoholism and sexual promiscuity and all of these
things, and we look at the world and we say and we shout “That will not
satisfy!” Well, brothers and sisters in Christ, don’t think that we can’t be
guilty of this as well in the church of God! Don’t think in the church of God
there are not people who profess Christ who are even genuine believers in
Christ, and instead of them going to the genuine source of satisfaction, they’re
trying to find it in the same ways the world finds it, even in all those bad
things that the world tries to find satisfaction in.
But not only that, here’s what we’re guilty about.
Us nice-looking Presbyterian folk, here’s what we’re guilty of. We try to find
it in even those good things, and those matters of indifference…doesn’t really
matter. We try to find our satisfaction in our spouse, and you can see it when
you become angry with your wife or your husband because they are not meeting
your need. We try to find it in our accomplishments. We try to find it in our
work. We try to find it in sports and recreation, in all of those things. Jesus
is reminding us to look to the right place, and longing for happiness.
II. A longing for holiness.
The second thing we see here is a hunger and
a longing for holiness…for holiness. Notice what He says here: “Blessed are
those who hunger and thirst for righteousness… righteousness.” How are
we to understand this word? There are several ways biblically you can understand
the word righteousness, all important, all Scriptural.
One aspect of righteousness is legal — legal
righteousness, forensic righteousness, the imputation of Christ’s
righteousness, justification by faith; declarative righteousness in the very
courtrooms of heaven, that we have been declared righteous before God solely
based upon the righteousness of Christ alone. Legal righteousness is one way.
Another way of understanding this aspect of
righteousness is moral righteousness, or sanctification — the progressive
living out, being conformed to the image of Christ as His Holy Spirit works in
and through the word to grow us in Christ.
A third way to understand righteousness which you
often see in the Old Testament is social righteousness. It is an expression
of justice in the world.
Now those are three aspects of righteousness. I
would submit to you this evening that you cannot understand moral righteousness
rightly, nor can you understand social righteousness and live it out rightly
unless you first understand legal righteousness: unless you first understand
what it means to live in the reality of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness
to us, to understand that we have been declared righteous by God in Christ
alone, and that we have trusted in Christ alone. That is foundational to all
other understandings of righteousness.
Now, in saying that, what is Jesus talking about
here when He says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness….”? Well, I think there’s something important to understand
behind this even as we begin to look at it.
First of all, in order to get it right, you have
to go back and look at verse 1 where it says, “Seeing the crowds, He went up on
the mountain, and when He sat down, His disciples came to Him.” Not
the crowd, His disciples, His followers, those who knew Christ. That reality is
behind everything you read in the Beatitudes, and so as you begin to look at the
Beatitudes, it is inappropriate in applying these (as many have made)–to apply
them to the whole of society. These are kingdom values here! Kingdom values!
But even when you look at the Beatitude itself,
where it says “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” there
is a hunger and thirst for righteousness. Where does that come from? If there
is a longing, it had to have been put there. We don’t just make up a desire for
genuine righteousness. As a matter of fact, if you look at the Pharisees one of
the things that you see in them is that Jesus is constantly condemning them
because they are not that which they proclaim to be! They’re not righteous, even
though they think they are!
People don’t…Scripture is clear on this…people
don’t just seek God. Scripture describes the unbelieving man or woman as “dead
in transgressions and sins.” Therefore, if there is a longing for righteousness,
the longing has to be a result of the work of God Almighty by His grace before
it’s even there in the first place.
Now, I say that to you to make this point. Legal
righteousness, justification by faith, forensic righteousness is all over this.
But at the same time, that’s not the primary application of what Jesus is
saying. As a matter of fact, as you continue on in looking at the Sermon on the
Mount, you can see many times that Jesus talks about righteousness, and it
becomes clear that He’s talking about holiness. He’s talking about the growth of
holiness and righteousness in the life of a believer. Look down at verse 10,
where He says “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.”
They’re persecuted. Why? Because they’re living for Jesus. Or, over at 5:20
where it says “I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the
scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Now that is
saying two things. On the one hand, it is saying that the believer’s
righteousness is qualitatively different from that of the Pharisees. It is
different because of what? We have believed in Jesus! But at the same time it is
manifested so that it is different in degree from that of the Pharisees.
It is from the inside out, but it is an expression of holiness, genuine
holiness, in life.
Or, you look at chapter six, verse one: “Beware of
practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them,
for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” Beware of
practicing it….or 6:33, where it says “But seek first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” It is the
expression of righteousness, the expression of genuine holiness, and what Jesus
is saying here (understanding that behind this is justification by faith,
understanding that behind this is surrendering our lives to Jesus Christ as
Savior and Lord), what this is meaning is this: That we are to hunger and thirst
for the holiness of God to be expressed in our lives and to be expressed in our
churches.
I would say to you this: I honestly do believe in my
heart of hearts that part of the reason why there is not more of an expression
of the holiness and the righteousness of God Almighty in Bible-believing
evangelical churches in America today is simply because of this: We do not
genuinely desire it. We don’t want it. We’re not longing for it.
I have a group of men that I work with at our
church. They’re coming out of different churches, and these are a group of men
that love Jesus. I mean, they love Jesus, and I’m discipling these
brothers and they are just feeding on the word of God, loving the word of God,
eating it up, growing in our church. One brother one evening said this — that
as he’s growing and as he’s reading the word and he’s talking about Jesus all
the time, that his friends — those from churches, those from work who profess
Christ — they are seeing his eagerness for the word of God, and they’re actually
responding in this way: “Do you want to be a minister or something? Do you want
to be a preacher? ” Did you catch that? What they’re actually saying is this: A
genuine desire for holiness, a genuine desire for growth, must mean that you’re
not a normal Christian; you must want to be a preacher!
I grew up in a church like that. I became a
Christian at 16. I was so excited about the things of the Lord, and I remember
the first year of faith I read through the whole Bible twice. People saw that
and my zeal for the Lord, and immediately — 16 years old! — “You must be called
to be a preacher, because you like reading the Bible.”
Now…that sounds like…that’s those “other”
folk…that’s those Pentecostal folk…those Baptist folk…them folk, not us!
They’re not us Presbyterians! Certainly not Redeemer Church and First
Presbyterian Church — no!
I’ll tell you how we do it. We make much (rightfully
so) of the Lord’s Day. We make much (rightfully so) of the Sabbath. We talk
about the significance of worship and being in God’s presence. We are one of the
few denominations that still has worship on Sunday morning and Sunday evening.
We talk about the importance of biblical elements of worship and guarding the
worship. We talk about all of this. But let me ask you, Christians, is your
righteousness, your longing for righteousness, your longing for holiness, is it
a Lord’s Day thing only? Is the longing for holiness in your life a Monday
thing, and a Tuesday thing, and a Wednesday thing, and a Thursday and a Friday
and a Saturday and a Sunday? Or is it like this: We gather in the house of the
Lord, we love all that’s happening in the house of the Lord, and we love
preaching and we love singing, and we love being righteous here, but the
real world is altogether something different. The real world is about me needing
to get my hands dirty, me needing to take care of business. And in order to take
care of business and in order to exist and to function and to be respected in
the world, I have to act like the world. Don’t think we don’t do this.
Someone has said, “How much do you want
righteousness? Do you want it as much as a starving man wants food, and as much
as a man dying of thirst wants water?” How intense is our desire for
righteousness?
But here’s what I want you to see, because it is
so powerful and so precious if you understand this. Notice what Jesus says
and what He doesn’t say. He says “Blessed are those who hunger
for righteousness…blessed are those who thirst for righteousness, for
they shall be satisfied.” Do you know what He’s saying to us? He’s saying that
all He is asking from us is that we long for — genuinely long for — the holiness
of God to take hold of our lives. Do you understand, brothers and sisters in
Christ, that when we Presbyterians talk about the means of grace we are talking
about that which God uses to grow us? We are simply availing ourselves to that
which God Almighty has established to grow His people. We long to read the word
because God satisfies. He’s not calling us to be Pharisees. He’s not calling us
to think that you enter into the kingdom by believing, but then the rest of it
is all about cleaning ourselves up. What He’s saying is ‘Desire Me. Long for
Me. Seek and knock, and I will open the door. I’ll grow you.’ A longing for
holiness.
III. A longing for heaven.
Briefly, third thing. You can test this with
this last thing. Do you have a longing for heaven? For heaven…. If there is
in us a real, genuine, longing for the righteousness of God, that will by
necessity mean that we long for the day of glory. It will by necessity mean that
there is, there must be (if you’re longing and hungering for the righteousness
of God) a sense of dis-satisfaction in the things of this earth.
Now don’t misunderstand me here. I’m not saying to
you don’t enjoy the blessings of your life. I’m not saying that. I’m not saying
to you don’t enjoy your wife or your husband or your children, or your
grandchildren or all that God has blessed you with. We of all people understand
that every good thing comes from Him. We too often take these things for
granted. We need to be praising God for the blessings in our lives. But at the
same time, brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to understand that this is
not it, that all we have to do is look around a little bit and we realize
that this world is broken and fallen and corrupt. And you know how far you have
to look? Go in your bathroom, look in your mirror. That’ll make it easy.
You know what Peter says in II Peter 3:13? He says,
“But in keeping with His promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a
new earth, the home of righteousness.” Can you say that tonight? That in keeping
with His promise that we are looking forward to this because we know that that
is the home of righteousness? If we are hungering for righteousness, if we are
thirsting for righteousness, how can we not thirst and hunger for the home of
righteousness?
C.S. Lewis nailed it when he put it this way:
“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy,
the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
We fill ourselves up. And if you’re sitting there
tonight and you’re going, “I’m not longing for heaven,” I’m not saying to you
that you’re not a Christian, but what I am saying to you is this — and you don’t
have to invite me back if you’re offended by this. You’re in sin. It’s as clear
as that. We’re in sin. We’re feeding to such an extent on the things of the
world that we’re not even seeing the brokenness and the sinfulness of our world.
I love John Piper’s book A Hunger for God.
It’s a book on fasting. I love that! It’s my favorite book on fasting. In that
book he makes a statement. . Piper says this — that if you don’t feel strong
desires for the manifestation of the glory of God…let me rephrase that to
match this passage, because it all fits together. He could also say if you
don’t feel strong desires for the reality of heaven, the home of
righteousness…he goes on, and this is a quote: “…it is not because you have
drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the
table of the world your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room
for the good.”
As much as all of us, I pray, as I look out on this
congregation, I pray that all of us are being blessed mightily by the Lord. At
the same time, brothers and sisters in Christ, don’t let that ever stop you from
knowing, believing, what Paul knew and believed, and it’s this: That that is
better. It’s better.
A longing for happiness, a longing for holiness,
a longing for heaven. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” Let us pray.
Father, once again we give You thanks. And we
pray, O Lord, tonight that You would take
this word and all that I have said that is honoring to
You and to Your word and that You would apply it to our lives. May we long for
the expression of the holiness of God in our individual lives, in our families,
and in our churches. May we fall in love with You again, fall in love with the
word of God, fall in love with the worship of God, fall in love with turning to
You in prayer. Lord, work in us, we ask. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.
Let us stand as I pronounce the benediction.
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the
love of God and the sweet fellowship of His Holy Spirit rest, rule, and abide
with you now and forevermore. Amen.