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[0:00] Well, good morning, church. It's good to see you all this morning. Would you turn with me to the book of Numbers?! Today, we'll be looking at chapters 13 and 14. That's page 113 in the Pew Bible.

[0:13] If you turn to page 113 and it's not Numbers 13, that means you have one of the new editions of the Pew Bible. Lucky you, it's somewhere close to there. You'll find it. If you're new to the Bible, then the chapters are the big numbers and the verses are the little numbers.

[0:27] We have a long passage today that we're going to look through. We'll skim through some of the paragraphs, but just follow along with me as we pick up. Let me pray first as we come to God's Word.

[0:45] Our Father in heaven, we thank you for these moments that we get on Sunday mornings to gather together. Lord, throughout our recent Sunday school class, we've been thinking about other parts of the world where gathering is not so easy. Lord, where there's much danger gathering on a Sunday morning.

[1:08] So, we're just grateful. We're grateful to be able to meet, to open your Word, to read it, to be edified by it. And as we do so, we remember that we do so with your people throughout the world, your people who are coming to your Word, so that we might hear what your Spirit is saying to us today, so that we might walk faithfully and worthily of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and fix our eyes on Him once again.

[1:36] So, we pray that by your Spirit, you would allow us to do that, allow us to understand, apply, and be transformed by your Word today. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

[1:50] All right, Numbers 13. I'm going to pick up at the end of chapter 12 just for context. We'll read some of this, and then we'll dive in. After that, the people set out from Hazaroth and camped in the wilderness of Paran.

[2:01] The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a chief among them.

[2:14] So, Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran, according to the command of the Lord, all of them men who were heads of the people of Israel. And then, in verses 4 through 16, are the names listed of those men by their tribes.

[2:26] You can scan over those names down to verse 17. We'll pick up there. Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan and said to them, Go up into the Negev and go into the hill country and see what the land is, and whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, whether they're many or few, and whether the land that they dwell in is good or bad, and whether the cities that they dwell in are camps or strongholds, and whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are trees in it or not.

[2:53] Be of good courage and bring some of the fruit of the land. Now, the time was the season of the first ripe grapes. And then, in verses 21 through 24, it says how the spies successfully spied out the land and how incredibly fruitful the land was, and then we pick up in 25 when they return.

[3:12] At the end of 40 days, they return from spying out the land. And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation and show them the fruit of the land.

[3:26] And they told them, We came to this land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified, very large.

[3:40] And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negev. The Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the Jordan.

[3:56] But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it. Then the men who had gone up with him said, We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.

[4:13] So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, The land through which we have gone to spy it out is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height.

[4:26] And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim, and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers. And so we seemed to them.

[4:38] And all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, Would that we had died in the land of Egypt, or would that we had died in this wilderness.

[4:55] Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?

[5:06] And they said to one another, Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt. All right, let's pause there. On the surface, doesn't this seem kind of hard to believe?

[5:24] How could they possibly want to return to Egypt? Right? After all they had seen and experienced up to that point, here they are on the verge of the promised land.

[5:35] How could they want to turn back now? The whole story from Exodus 1 up until this point has had one plot line, rescuing the people, God doing everything necessary to take them into the land.

[5:48] God had fulfilled so many of His promises. The people were now a great nation, massive in number. They'd been liberated from slavery and oppression and death in Egypt. They'd been given His instructions and commandments so that they might be His people and display His glory in the world.

[6:04] And now, right when they're at the climactic moment to enter the land and be settled in their home, to find rest from their slavery, rest from their wanderings, they're right there.

[6:17] And they turn back. They fail to enter. It just seems so hard to believe, right?

[6:30] Hard to believe, at least until we start to examine our own hearts, right? You know, the New Testament often will return to this episode in Numbers.

[6:41] It often looks back to this critical turning point in Israel's history, the rebellion of the Exodus generation, their failure to enter the land. And it will bring it up as a constant reminder.

[6:54] It will say things like Psalm 95, for example. It will say things like, today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness.

[7:10] And in the New Testament, the writer of Hebrews especially follows that same example, and he applies Numbers 13 through 14 to the church today. Giovanni read it for us earlier in the service.

[7:22] Remember what the author of Hebrews said? He said, Take care, brothers and sisters, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.

[7:34] But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

[7:44] So you see, according to Scripture, we too can be just like the people in Numbers 13 and 14. When faced with the challenges of the world, when faced with the seeming dangers and impossibilities before us as God's people living on God's mission, when faced with just constant and everyday fears and uncertainties, our hearts can give way to unbelief.

[8:16] We can become hardened, Hebrews says, by the deceitfulness of sin. When the difficulties at work seem to mount up, when the pressures rise to conform to our peers, when our own habitual sins and failings seem to not be getting any better, unbelief can start to creep in.

[8:35] We fear things will never get better, that maybe we should just give up and go along with the crowd. We think that perhaps it's not worth the effort to follow and obey Christ.

[8:49] Suddenly, we start to think and act more and more like the Israelites in Numbers 13 and 14. Let's just pick another leader, go back to Egypt. Now, maybe we wouldn't put it that bluntly, right?

[9:02] We wouldn't explicitly reject Christ or leave the church, but we start to harden. Our hearts start to get callous, get jaded, get uncaring, no longer believing that God's promises are true and that God's promises are what really matter in life and in death and in everything in between.

[9:30] So what do we do? How do we prevent this hardening that I think all of us have felt some, right? How do we combat this subtle unbelief from growing in our hearts?

[9:43] Well, Hebrews says, we must exhort one another every day. Thankfully, this very passage, Numbers 13 through 14, shows us a number of things that can do just that.

[9:56] There are a number of things here that come to speak to us and to soften our hearts. So let's look at each of them in turn so that our hearts might be softened today, so that we might grow in our believing, trusting God, even in the face of great challenges and uncertainties and fears.

[10:16] So we're going to look at three things in the rest of chapter 14. First thing we see is this. There's a faithful exhortation to soften our hearts, a faithful exhortation. This is found in verses 5 through 9 of chapter 14.

[10:29] Thankfully, not every spy that day was convinced that they should run away. Not every spy that day gave a bad report, which the Hebrew word there actually has shades of a false report.

[10:41] They started to skew the report because they were so afraid, because they were so unbelieving. Did you catch how they skewed it, right? Everyone there is a giant, right?

[10:52] The land devours its inhabitants. How could the land devour its inhabitants and everyone be these giant, huge, flourishing people? That doesn't seem to add up, right? Thankfully, not everyone gave a bad report that day.

[11:05] Two spies, Caleb and Joshua, exhorted the people to remember the reality greater than the challenges in front of them, the reality of the God who had promised to go with them.

[11:17] Let's pick up in verse 5. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel. And Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes and said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, the land which we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land.

[11:37] If the Lord delights in us, He will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord and do not fear the people of the land, for they are bred for us.

[11:49] Their protection is removed from them and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them. You see, what often happens when we face trials is that we do exactly what the ten fearful spies did.

[12:06] And what they did was is they put their however in the wrong place. We contend to put our however in the wrong place. What do I mean by that?

[12:17] Look back at verses 27 through 28. In 27 through 28, the ten fearful spies say, we came to the land which you sent us. Notice, which Moses, they're saying, you sent us here, Moses.

[12:29] They forgot that it was the Lord who had sent them there. We came to this land which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey and this is its fruit. However, the people who dwell in the land are strong and the cities are fortified and very large.

[12:43] Do you see where they put the however? The land is good, they say. However, the people are strong. Therefore, we're doomed.

[12:53] Let's give up and abandon ship. But notice what Joshua and Caleb do. As you read verses 7, 8, and 9, you don't literally see the word however anywhere in there.

[13:05] But in essence, don't they say this? The land is good. And yes, the people are strong. However, the Lord is with us. They put their however in a much different place.

[13:21] And that made all the difference. It wasn't the strength of the inhabitants that had the last word. It was the reality and presence of God. Just think of the difference that would make in our lives.

[13:37] Think about our mission as a church. You know, if we said, there are lots of people in our city who need Christ, however, most of them don't seem interested in hearing the gospel. That begins to make human realities the final word.

[13:54] But instead, what's really true? There are lots of people in our city who need Christ, and many of them don't seem interested in hearing the gospel. however, God has many in this city who are His, and He will make sure according to His word that He converts every single sinner for whom He died.

[14:17] So where are you putting your however when it comes to your marriage or your children or that difficult relationship in your small group or in your friend circle?

[14:31] is your however giving God the rightful and final place that He deserves? Yes, your marriage may be rocky.

[14:42] Yes, you may be in a challenging season of parenting. Yes, there might be tense relationships. However, God has given you everything you need for life and godliness in the gospel.

[14:55] He can change hearts and give you patience and wisdom and kindness. He can heal and restore. He can instruct and guide. The Lord is with us, verse 9 says.

[15:06] Don't fear. Do not harden your hearts, friends. Don't harden your hearts by dwelling on how great the problems or the trials may be and all the attending circumstances.

[15:20] You don't need to minimize those things, but instead, put those great problems and trials before the greatness of the almighty God who rescued you, who filled you with His Spirit and now promises to never leave you or forsake you as you walk in trusting obedience with Him.

[15:42] Notice how that changes things. Notice how it changed things for Joshua and Caleb. You know, the ten spies saw the people of the land and they thought, we look like little grasshoppers next to these giants.

[15:55] Right? Now, grasshoppers were like, you know, they weren't like karate apprentices, you know. Grasshoppers in the ancient world were like the smallest edible creature you could find, right?

[16:08] So the spies were basically saying, like, look, these guys are going to eat us up like a plate of chicken nuggets. Like, this is not going to go well. But notice what Joshua and Caleb say in verse 9.

[16:20] Don't fear the people of the land for they're bread for us. Putting God in the center of their vision, putting God in the place of their however, it changes even their self-perception.

[16:34] The ten spies literally said, we seem to ourselves to be grasshoppers. We don't stand a chance. But that wasn't what Joshua and Caleb understood to be really true. They couldn't wallow in self-pity or despair.

[16:48] They had found an appropriate confidence, not a prideful confidence in their own abilities of their own strength, but a God-centered confidence because of God's ability and strength. The Lord is with us.

[17:00] Do not fear them. So here's the first thing that will soften our hearts, a faithful exhortation to put God uppermost in our thinking, to end even our sentences, not with our horizontal circumstances or with our present trials or troubles or difficulties, but to give God the final word, to put His reality in front of our fears, a faithful exhortation.

[17:32] Now, the second thing in Numbers 13 through 14 that can soften our hearts is not just a faithful exhortation, but a faithful intercession, a faithful intercession. We see this in verses 10 through 19.

[17:44] Unfortunately, the people did not heed Joshua and Caleb's exhortation, and we read this in verse 10. Then all the congregation said to stone them with stones, but the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel.

[17:59] And the Lord said to Moses, How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me in spite of all the signs that I have done among them? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they.

[18:15] But Moses said to the Lord, Then the Egyptians will hear it, for you brought up this people in your might from among them, and they will tell the inhabitants of this land according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people from Egypt until now.

[18:37] So the people pick up stones to judge Joshua and Caleb. That was a judicial act, right? As a sign of their total rebellion, the people are ready to judge the people who are attempting to draw them towards faithfulness.

[18:52] So the Lord comes down to this people and speaks a word of judgment over them. They've rejected the Lord and His chosen mediator Moses.

[19:03] They've declared that they'd rather go back to Egypt than go forward into the promised land, trusting His promises. So God is ready to judge them completely for their rebellion and for disregarding and dishonoring all the mercy and kindness and power He's shown on their behalf.

[19:20] A word of judgment comes. But then, the God-appointed mediator, Moses, intercedes. When God threatens to wipe the people out because of their sin, to give them over to the death that they've chosen for themselves, when God's ready to give them exactly what is perfect and good justice requires, Moses intercedes.

[19:43] And His intercession has two parts. First, He prays in light of God's glory. And then, second, He prays in light of God's character.

[19:55] We see His prayer in light of God's glory in verses 13 through 16. Moses, in essence, says, Lord, what will the nations think if You wipe out Your people? Well, they'll think that You aren't actually able to bring them into the promised land.

[20:11] They'll think that the Lord wasn't strong enough, wasn't mighty enough, wasn't wise enough, wasn't good enough. It will result in God's glory being defamed among the nations. And false gods will go on getting the honor and praise that only the true God deserves.

[20:28] So Moses prays for God's glory to be advanced. God is God. Only God deserves the praise and honor of creation because God is the Creator and Redeemer of all that is.

[20:41] So Moses prays, God, praise God, pardon Your people because such a pardon will increase to Your glory. Then second, Moses prays in light of God's character in verses 17 through 19.

[20:55] And the central verse here, verse 18, is Moses rehearsing the self-revelation that God gives in Exodus 34. You remember, that was the golden calf incident and God had to sort of reestablish His covenant with the people after that.

[21:09] And this is where God gives this revelation of His very nature. The Lord is unlimited in love and mercy. The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression.

[21:25] But at one and the same time, the Lord is also completely just. He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.

[21:39] That is, the effects of sin will go down into the succeeding generations. And don't we know that that's how it works, right? That the sins are passed down generation after generation.

[21:52] What do we see here? God's love and God's justice. We see that God's love is a righteous love. God's justice is a merciful justice.

[22:05] He's all these things at once. And so Moses' intercession appeals to God's own character. He appeals to His righteous love, to His merciful justice.

[22:18] And on that basis, he asks God to pardon His people. not because of who the people are, but because of who God is, who God has revealed Himself to be.

[22:31] And you see, friends, this faithful intercession should soften our hearts, should soften our hearts because we know, we know in light of the New Testament that for the sake of His own glory and for the sake of His own character, God has forgiven us.

[22:55] God has pardoned us. And He has ultimately done it through an even greater intercessor than Moses. You know, don't you read the Old Testament sometimes when you think, God's here, and then Moses jumps in, and then God changes His mind?

[23:09] What does that seem like? Well, friends, don't you see, all of that is God crafting a picture of what would be true when the even greater intercessor came?

[23:22] Jesus Christ, the true and better Moses, is the one who offers perfect intercession for us. Jesus is the very glory of God incarnate, the second person of the Holy Trinity, the eternal Son of the eternal Father, become flesh for us, who now intercedes at the Father's right hand for us.

[23:43] And the basis of Jesus' intercession is not simply God's character, but His fulfillment of that character in history through His own life, death, and resurrection. Because in the life of Jesus, and in particularly at the cross, we see God's character, His mercy, and His justice in perfect expression.

[24:05] God's justice is displayed because at the cross, human sin is judged in the humanity of Jesus.

[24:17] And God's mercy is perfectly displayed because at the cross, sinners are forgiven. Jesus becomes our substitute.

[24:28] He pays the penalty for our sin and gives us His righteousness so that we can be forever accepted by the Father. So you see, Moses' intercession buried here in Numbers 14 takes us right to the heart of God's glory and God's character, and therefore, it takes us right to the heart of the good news, the gospel.

[24:50] And by the power of the Spirit, the gospel, God's mercy displayed in perfect fulfillment of His justice at the cross, that is what softens even the most hardened heart.

[25:02] Jesus intercedes for you, His blood, His righteousness. He's offered them up for you and for all who unite themselves to Christ by faith.

[25:20] And you know what that means, friends? That means that now when you reach the verge of the true and better promised land, that is when your earthly days are nearing their end, and when you stand on the verge of the metaphorical Jordan, ready to cross into eternity, when you stand in that place, if you are united to Christ, then you need not fear the greatest enemies, the most terrifying giants.

[25:54] you need not fear sin. You need not fear Satan. You need not fear death. You need not fear hell, because Christ has conquered them all.

[26:10] He died so that you might live now and forever, so that you need never turn back when fear and uncertainty raise their heads. If He has conquered those enemies, and you can cross through even death itself with confidence, what else do you have to fear?

[26:29] Have courage, brothers and sisters. The risen Lord Jesus intercedes for you with His own life, His own blood, His own righteousness. So this is the second thing we see in this passage, a faithful intercession that takes us to the heart of the gospel.

[26:50] But what's the last? We've seen a faithful exhortation and a faithful intercession. But last, the passage ends with a firm warning. A firm warning.

[27:01] And this warning is also meant to soften our hearts. Let's read the rest of chapter 14, picking up in verse 20. Then the Lord said, I have pardoned according to your word, but truly as I live and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and yet have put me to the test these ten times and have not obeyed my voice shall see the land that I swore to give to their fathers.

[27:31] And none of those who despised me shall see it. But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went and his descendants shall possess it.

[27:44] Now, since the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwell in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me?

[27:59] I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel which they grumble against me. Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing, I will do to you.

[28:11] Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. Of all your number listed in the census from twenty years old and upward who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land that I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, the son of Nun.

[28:27] But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness.

[28:50] According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.

[29:01] I, the Lord, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me. In this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.

[29:16] And the men who Moses sent to spy out the land who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land, the men who brought up a bad report of the land died by plague before the Lord.

[29:29] Of those men who went to spy out the land, only Joshua, the son of Nun, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, remained alive. When Moses told all these words to all the people of Israel, the people mourned greatly.

[29:41] And they rose early in the morning and went up to the heights of the hill country saying, We are here. We will go up to the place that the Lord has promised, for we have sinned. But Moses said, Why now are you transgressing the command of the Lord when that will not succeed?

[29:54] Do not go up, for the Lord is not among you, lest you be struck down before your enemies. For there the Amalekites and the Canaanites are facing you, and you shall fall by the sword because you have turned back from following the Lord.

[30:07] The Lord will not be with you. But they presumed, they presumed to go up to the heights of the hill country, although neither the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed out of the camp.

[30:22] Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and defeated them and pursued them even to Hormah. So the Lord, in response to Moses' intercession for the sake of His own glory and character, pardons the people.

[30:41] He doesn't make an end to them. He doesn't give them what their sins fully deserve and completely wipe them out. But there are still consequences for their sin.

[30:52] the Lord disciplines them. And even in those consequences, even in that discipline, the Lord proves Himself to be just and merciful. Merciful because God promises that the people will live, their children won't die, and that next generation will inherit the land.

[31:11] He will keep His faith with His people. But God is also just. Just because the generation that rebelled will not enter the promised land.

[31:23] Instead, they will get what they asked for. They will get a life outside the land. They will have to turn back towards the Red Sea, turn back towards Egypt, and wander in the wilderness for forty years.

[31:35] One year for every day the spies spied out the land. Except for Joshua and Caleb. The Lord knew their faithfulness and they will enter.

[31:46] They will be the only two of the whole generation that was counted in chapter one who will enter the land. And the other ten spies, the ones who gave a bad report, who led the people astray, they're judged immediately.

[32:02] You see, those in positions of leadership are held accountable to a greater degree, and so they bear the penalty right away for their unrepentant hearts and so that their unbelief doesn't continue to spread amidst the next generation.

[32:15] But perhaps the most tragic part of this passage is the final paragraph. Some of the people in presumption decide that they will take the land after all and they're defeated because the Lord isn't with them.

[32:31] The people shift overnight from faithless fear to faithless presumption. And in neither their fear nor their presumption were they accepting what God said and living accordingly.

[32:47] It would have been better for them at this point to accept God's discipline than to presumptuously think they could go into the promised land without God. So the passage ends with a warning.

[33:02] You see, friends, the cost of unbelief is great, as great as could be imagined. That's why Hebrews says exhort one another every day as long as it's called today so that you won't be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

[33:20] The cost of unbelief is so great. This generation lost the earthly promised land because they allowed the fear of man to overshadow their awe and trust in the Lord.

[33:35] They didn't enter, Hebrews says, because of unbelief. And the same is true today. Friends, there's only one way to face our fears and to enter the heavenly promised land, and that is through faith.

[33:54] Believing, ongoing trust in God's promises fulfilled in Jesus Christ. You see, God would keep His promises.

[34:06] In a generation, Joshua, would lead the people into the promised land. In fact, the Jordan River would part just like the Red Sea. The people would walk through on dry land, and Jericho, one of those great fortified cities, would collapse.

[34:21] How? Because the people obeyed the Lord and walked around it seven times. But it wouldn't stop there. God would continue to be faithful to His people and His promises.

[34:33] No matter what enemies or trials arose, think of Gideon. Gideon would defeat the Midianites with nothing more than torches and clay jars. David would defeat Goliath with a sling and a stone.

[34:49] Hundreds of years later, the exiles would return, protected and preserved, though their enemies abounded. God would remain faithful. But the reality is a true place of rest, a true home, would still remain for the people of God.

[35:08] Joshua wouldn't be the one to truly lead his people to ultimate rest. David wouldn't be the one to ultimately defeat the enemies. Ezra and Nehemiah wouldn't be the ones to bring the people in to the safety of the ultimate promised land.

[35:23] It would be Jesus. His resurrection would inaugurate the new creation and open the door to our true rest.

[35:35] And through trusting in Him, our real rest, our real home is found. So friends, don't be like the people of Numbers 13 who stood on the verge of victory and instead chose defeat.

[35:53] Trust God's promises trust that He's already conquered our greatest foes. Trust in Christ. Yes, your sin is great. Yes, the wages of sin is death.

[36:03] However, Christ has died and rose again for all who believe. And there's no weapon formed against us that can stand. And nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

[36:20] Let's pray. Amen. Our Father in Heaven, we confess this morning that we do bring with us many fears.

[36:35] And we confess that often we are tempted to slide into obscuring the greatness of who You are in our own hearts. Lord, we see the calcification of our own hearts setting in at times.

[36:54] But we thank You for the work of Your Spirit who through Your Word comes and softens us. So soften us today. Cause faith to rise up in our souls as we behold Christ, our great champion and King.

[37:11] Help us, Lord, to put You in the uppermost of our minds, Your reality and Your promises to not give credit to these earthly circumstances, but to give all the credit and all the honor to You, God.

[37:31] And Lord, help us to encourage one another with these things. Hebrews says to exhort one another. So give us the words, give us the wisdom in our community to be able to speak life-giving, encouraging, exhorting words to one another.

[37:49] Lord, help it to happen in conversations and in small groups, in marriages, between parents and children. Lord, between friends. And Lord, would how we live as Your people, free from fear, be a great witness to those around us.

[38:07] Lord, we know the uncertainties in the world are great. Lord, the challenges, the trials, the fears, or they abound in our neighbors. But, O Lord, allow our confidence in You, our trust in You, our boldness in You to speak brightly of the matchless grace of Jesus that is offered to all who believe in which You draw all people to Yourself.

[38:36]  We pray this in Your mighty name, Jesus. Amen.