TRANSCRIPT
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Well, good morning, South. It’s an honor and a privilege to be with you here this morning, my name is Billy Berglund, and my wife Hannah and I have been part of this community for the past six years, and you’ve done just a huge blessing to each of us in our little family we’ve got a now, a little two-year-old named Cooper, loves to run around, and I’ve gotten a chance to work with the students for four years while I was in seminary, and then being able to come back in September as the interim youth pastor, and it’s been such a huge blessing. This has been a crazy year in so many ways, especially for students as they go from online to in-person school or a hybrid or a mix, but the chance just for us to have gathered together this year was such a blessing. And God is doing something incredible things in the lives of these students, last Wednesday, we celebrated our graduating seniors that they go off to new things in their story. And then this coming Sunday, next week, we’ve got baptism Sunday for the church, and we’ve got a number of our students can be baptized, so it’s gonna be a wonderful celebration, just so fun to partner with what God is doing in their lives.

And you guys have welcomed pan and I so well to this community, and it’s a little bit or sweet here this morning as Hannan, I are actually gonna be moving to Omaha, Nebraska in a few weeks, as I take a student pastor role back in Omaha where I grew up and where both sets of our families are from. And so, just really privileged to be one last chance to share with you here in the main services today, and we’re actually gonna be continuing on in our series titled searched Exploring questions that we’re actually asking… I don’t know about you, but I’ve really enjoyed this series. Pastor Alex is kinda walked us through these big questions of life. Why is there suffering? If God is good, does God hate me?

Why does God care what I do with my body? What happens when we die? What is the purpose of life? Nice, light, easy questions that we’ve been wrestling through, but last week, Pastor Alex concluded for us, the meaning of life is to find a relationship with the God who loves you, and to partner with him in bringing life to the world and the people around you. I love that little phrase, in other words, to glorify God and enjoy him forever. And today we’re gonna be asking this question as we wrap up this series, Who is Jesus and why does he matter? Who is Jesus? And why does he matter? It’s a big question. You might come in today in a variety of different responses to that as in your experiences and in your past, but we’re gonna wrestle with this question this morning. In other words, the question that we’re gonna be asking is, what’s the big deal about Jesus?

You might ask that in other areas of life… I remember when my wife and I moved to Colorado back in 2015, we wondered, what’s the big deal about the Broncos? Everybody seemed to love the Broncos. I’d actually, I grew up in Nebraska, we don’t have pro sports in Nebraska, we have the users, so we try… But I moves in Chicago for a few years with the Bears, I was up in Minnesota with the Vikings for a few years. But nothing is like the Broncos and the fans that we have here, so actually our first year here was the year that the Broncos won the super bowl, which was really exciting to see that I actually had to run an errand at half time of the game, and I remember driving down the road and there’s literally no one on the road is like a ghost town, everybody’s locked into the TV, but I don’t think we fully understood until we had a chance to go to a game, it was 2017, it was actually a pre-season game versus my Green Bay Packers, a Packers fan. We went and we sat up high in the nose bleeds, and we watched this performance before the game, I don’t know what else to call it, but the… The people, the fly over, the para-shooting guy who lands on the field, the big horse and the national anthem, this whole thing, it was incredible to experience…

I looked over at my wife and she’s crying, and I say, handle what’s wrong? It’s just so beautiful, this experience, and it really was… We’d heard about the Broncos, but until we experienced it, we were able to really see just how big a deal the Broncos actually are, you know.

You may have walked in today and you saw with big letters our mission statement To live in the way of Jesus with the heart of Jesus. We talk about Jesus a lot, he shapes everything that we do, but

The reality is, you might be wondering, Well, who is he, can he actually change everything about our lives? And maybe this is your first time at church, or you’ve come a couple of times and you’ve been hearing about this Jesus, but you’re kind of wondering what’s so important about this guy, maybe you’ve come to church for a long time and you’ve heard about Jesus for most of your life, but you’ve been wondering a little bit more lately, is he actually matter? Can he speak into every area of our lives, like we said, this has been a crazy year and out of control at times, and how does this Jesus figure speak into our lives today, is it just some complex idea or wishful thinking, or is there actual hope to be found in Him.

And so we’re gonna be exploring that question today To start, who is Jesus? If you were to take a look at various religions all across the world, you’ll find a wide range of answers about what people would say about who Jesus is, a great teacher, a prophet, a great man, a God-wise…

Some might even say that he was born of a virgin, but interestingly, all of the world’s major religions feel the need to account for Jesus in some way. Regardless of your beliefs, most people would say that Jesus is important in some way, historically, he was an influential person, in world history. But who is he actually? And why does he matter?

Jesus made some pretty important claims about himself, and in the book of John, we see seven of these I am statements that Jesus describes of himself. And what he’s doing is identifying himself as God.

He says this, I am the Bread of Life, the Light of the World, the gates, the Good Shepherd, the resurrection and the life. The way the truth and the life, and lastly, the True Vine, these are really important claims, and how do we approach these, CS Lewis in his famous book, Mere Christianity, he challenges is this this common notion that maybe Jesus was just a great moral teacher, he famously writes this, a man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.

He would either be a lunatic on a level… With the man who says he is a poached egg or LC would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice, either this man was and is the son of God, or else a madman or something worse.

You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and call him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us, he did not intend to liar, lunatic or Lord. This famous quote really causes us to wrestle Lewis would eventually conclude, now it seems obvious that he was neither a lunatic nor opened, and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely, it may seem I have to accept the view that he was and is God… You can kinda see the implications is broken down if your mind maybe work a little bit more this way, but Jesus claims to be God, if his claim is false, and Jesus did not know his claim was false. He was a lunatic. If he knew his claim was false, he’d be a liar, but if his claim is true, Jesus is gone. Now, does this quota this idea of prove God’s existence? Not necessarily, but I think it forces us to think about this by who Jesus is.

Today, I wanna present the biblical view of Jesus, and as I’ve been thinking and preparing for this sermon, there’s so many directions that we could go so much I’d love to dive in to say everything, but I do wanna present very clearly who Jesus is, and also why he matters for our lives

Here at south, we have a statement of beliefs, if you were to go to South fellowship dot-org, you could see what we believe about Jesus Christ from the Bible, and this is kind of the summary statement that we have at South about who Jesus is, I think it’s really helpful. We believe that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, became man without ceasing to be God, being conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, He came to reveal God to mankind and to redeem sinful humanity by giving Himself as a sinless sacrifice on the cross of Calvary, carrying the cross and penalty for sin on our behalf, which is physical and spiritual death, He then a rose bodily from the dead and ascended to the Father’s right hand where He intercedes on the believers behalf, all of the scriptures from first to last. Testify of Him. I think that’s a great summary of who Jesus is from scripture.

And it’s important that last statement that the whole thing, the whole Bible is about Jesus, it’s one unified story that all points to him on every page, from the old testament to the new… J Alec motor has this quote, and he says this… It’s a little bit of a chart here, the Old Testament is Jesus predicted. The Gospels is Jesus revealed. Act is Jesus preached, the Epistles is Jesus explained in revelation, is Jesus expected. It is one story that all points to him from Scripture. Now, you might be saying, Well, that’s great. That’s from the Bible. But what else do we know about Jesus from other sources? Are we just gaining all of this from scripture, and the reality is, is that there are lots of non-Christian sources, in fact, money who are hostile to Jesus, that actually say a lot about him.

Historically, J. Warner Wallace, he was a cold case homicide detective, and now he’s an apologist, and he studied these old writings of people who were contemporaries of Jesus, and then in the years that followed them to… Described his life, and it was fascinating, Pliny the Younger and Tacitus or Cephas and Dallas, they each kind of put together this composite picture of who Jesus is, and so What do non-biblical source to say about Jesus… This was fascinating to me. This is just from outside of Scripture, Jesus was born and lived in Palestine. He was a wise man who claimed to be God and the Messiah, he had unusual magical powers and performed miraculous deeds, he healed the lame, He accurately predicted the future, he persecuted by the… He was beaten with rods crucified on the day of his crucifixion, this guy grew dark and there was an earthquake, and it was fascinating to read some of these accounts from non-Christian sources, non-biblical sources, they could not explain why the world went dark that day. Afterward, He was buried in the tomb, and the tomb was later found to be empty, He appeared to His disciples resurrected from the grave, He showed them His wounds, the disciples then told others that Jesus was resurrected and ascended into heaven.

The disciples were also persecuted for their faith, but were martyred without changing their claims, they met regularly to worship Jesus even after his death. Which is pretty remarkable and pretty impressive considering the information there all comes from non-biblical sources. They were reporting history. Jesus is not just some made up person, he’s a real historical person who changed the world now, people would disagree on how to interpret that evidence. Was he truly the Son of God? But as Christians, I think is kind of the foundation of our faith. Here are the essentials of Christianity of which Jesus is the central figure. And if we would say this, what makes Christianity unique? And

All religion, some people would say that all religions are essentially the same, you boil them all down, but as Christians, we would say that there are a few things that kinda distinguished Christianity from other religions, and I think the first is this, is it’s based on receiving a gift, rather than earning our way to God, Romans 5-8, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us for all of sin and fall short of the glory of God. And so this is about receiving a gift, placing our trust and our faith in Jesus who died for us and who rose again, that we believe in Him rather than trying to earn our salvation.

Secondly, it’s based on a relationship with God that we don’t have to appease God to receive His favor, that he already showed us, his love for us by sending Jesus to die on a cross in our place for our sins. The separation between us and God was appeased, and we didn’t have to do a thing except for believe, and

So now as we live our lives, we live from approval, not for approval. We live from a personal relationship, not a cold and distant relationship with a God who’s not very interested in us. We have a personal relationship with the Creator of the universe who entered into our story and took on flesh, it’s a relationship, and third, it’s based on the resurrection. The tomb was empty. Jesus is alive. Every other major religious leader is dead, but Jesus came back to life, that He is who He said He was.

And yet you might be saying, Well, that’s great, but resurrection don’t happen. That’s not something that just naturally takes place, and so many people have presented naturalistic explanations for what happened with the resurrection. Because there’s significant weight on this event, if Jesus rose from the dead, then He is who He said He was, and our faith is true, and if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then Christianity is not real. And

So a few explanations that have been put forth, different theories, the stolen body theory. Maybe his disciples went to… Stole the body. Hallucination, maybe when Jesus appeared to people, they were all having a big hallucination to over 500 people.

Maybe the swoon theory, maybe Jesus didn’t actually die on the cross, he just kind of faked his death and came back, or maybe they went to the wrong tube. Well, the question is, what’s the best explanation for the evidence as you walk through each of those accounts, the stolen body theory, disciples wouldn’t have had a reason to go steal the body because they were hiding and afraid they didn’t believe he was gonna come back.

The hallucination theory, that 500 people see a hallucination for a period of 40 days. That’s not how hallucinations work. The swoon theory, the Romans were really good at their job, they made sure that Jesus was dead, the wrong tomb theory, that would have been very easy just to go to the right tomb to see that Jesus was there and so… Did the resurrection actually happened? I think there’s three things with that that we can say that the tomb was empty, that six independent sources confirm this, that Jesus died, he was laid in the tomb, and then later the tomb was found empty, the women actually discovered the empty tomb, and that’s significant because if people were making up a story, they would not have had that detail, women’s testimony was not held to be as high as others in that society, it was next to worthless. So the reality is, they were reporting truth that women discovered the empty tomb, the

Jewish authorities in the moment they make up a story that maybe Jesus’s followers stole the body, but we’ve discussed that one, or how about the second, the appearances that we see that Jesus did appear to over 500 people in four different gospel accounts confirm this. It’s historically certain that he appeared to people after His resurrection, and lastly to the disciples, believe perhaps the most convincing piece of proof that the disciples who were hiding and scared when Jesus died, they meet the risen Christ, and they were so convinced that their lives were transformed and they go around sharing the gospel, they’re willing to die for their faith, many of them were tortured and killed in brutal ways for what they believed, the rise of Christianity can only be described by the empty tomb, that Jesus did rise from the dead. There’s just no other plausible naturalistic explanation for these facts.

And that’s wonderful for us to realize, but you might be sitting here today and you might be like, Wow, Billy, that’s a lot. Cool, you can look up all those cool facts, but I could have looked at up all online, and the reality is, is you walked in today, you didn’t come to hear a bunch of facts and evidence.

Though I think there is a lot that points to who Jesus is and what he’s all about. But

The reality is, is that life is hard. You might have walked in today feeling hopeless or discouraged, and you can hear all of these facts and say, Oh, that’s nice. But why does Jesus really matter in my life? This year has been hard and wear some in a lot of ways, I teach in a school full-time and it’s been a tiring year for teachers as I work with students and hear their stories, it’s been hard and lonely and unsettling on a lot of them, they move from in-person learning to online and back and forth, and normal rhythms and sporting events and things that just… You’ve come accustomed to have been changed, it’s been hard on families financially, emotionally, transitions changes, new normals, disconnection, constantly adapting budgets, mask loss of loved ones. Quarantines this year has been unlike any other… You turn on the news and you see so much division and hatred in our world, the pandemics caused so many challenges on our country, I know each of us in some way have walked through challenges this year in some fashion, and

I think at the core of everyone we long to know, where can we find hope? Does Jesus have anything to actually say into our lives in terms of hope and how he matters, what can we stake our life on to find true. Lasting and real.

I wanna make the statement today that Jesus is our true hope, I truly and firmly believe that. Probably more accurately, I should say I believe that, and I’m learning to believe that more and more in my life, that our relationship with Jesus is not just some purely academic or intellectual exercise, but there certainly is strong evidence for Jesus when you examine the fact and get facing yet I think we all long for a personal relationship and connection with Jesus, belong for an experience with him, not just facts about him. And so this word has been on my mind a lot over the past few years, hope, as I’ve had conversations with people in a variety of fields and careers and life stages, it seems like for a lot of us, our identity is kind of been shaking a bit this year, whether that was finances or whether that was something that we had placed our security, I know it seems like Death and Mortality has become more tangible this year than in the past… At least it has to. My wife and I, in December 2019, I lost… My grandma grew up next door to me, dear to me, an influential youth leader of mine when I was in high school who made a huge impact on my life, recently lost his wife after a three-year battle with cancer, three young kids, a seminary couple of friend of ours that we went through seminary together, they recently lost their one-year-old little boy and attending a funeral for a one-year-old little boy, and in our own story with my wife, HANA and I, and having three miscarriages in the past nine months that the mental and emotional.

Grief and tall is great. And this question then, where do we find hope? And all of that. And what does Jesus have to do with it? I’m so glad that you asked that. If you’ll turn with me, Philippians chapter two.

We’re gonna be camping out in Philippians Chapter two for most of the rest of today, we’re gonna look at a few other Verses as well, but we’re gonna be in pilipinas Chapter Two, and in Paul in this passage, he’s writing this letter to this church at Philippi, he’s

Actually writing from prison, and he’s writing this letter to them, and this letter is all about joy, how to find joy in the midst of any circumstances, and he talks so much about who Jesus is, what He’s done, and then what that looks like for us and how… We live… And so there’s this beautiful passage, Philippians 2, 1 through 11, if you’ll read with me… Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded. Having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain. Can see, rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interest, but each of you to the interest of the others. Verse Five, In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. Who being in very nature, God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

In verse 9, therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord. To the glory of God the Father. This passage is beautiful. And in the last part of the passage, Verses 6 through 11 is known as the Christ Him. We see Jesus in his humiliation coming to earth dying, a horrible death on a cross, and then His exaltation in Verses 9-11, and he’s raised again and He’s seated at the right hand of God. And the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. We’re gonna come back to the first four verses a little bit later on, what we see in starting in Verse 5 is this pre-existence of Christ, the eternal sun, the second member of the Trinity, there with the father, the true and exact nature of God, and who being in the very nature God, He’s equal with God is God.

He didn’t cease to be God, but yet he emptied himself out, he made himself nothing, meaning that he didn’t use his privileges for his own benefit or his own advantage, but He poured himself out and coming to earth. It’s

A remarkable thing that Christ had all the privileges that were rightly his as the king of the universe, He gave them up to become an ordinary Jewish boy, bound for the cross.

He could have stayed where he was in a position of power, but he became a week for. 2 Corinthians 8-9 says, Though He was rich, yet for your sake, He became poor, so that you by His poverty might become rich. He never gave up his divinity, but he took on humanity, came into our story, and he died the most excruciating way possible on a cross, it was degrading and humiliating, completely destroyed him in a painful public display. But in verse 9, we see that his humiliation led to His exaltation, that His name is above all names, that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And one day, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. It’s

A wonderful passage, and there’s so much in there for us to see.

But as we think about this question of, Well, why does Jesus really matter for our lives, this passage shows us the arc of Jesus’s life and the hope that we have in Him, but there’s three things that I want us to see, the first is the person of Jesus, that Jesus provides true hope in our time of need.

Jesus provides true hope in our time of need, that he entered into our story, he didn’t stay cold and distant apart, he came into humanity, He was tempted in every single way. We are. And yet He was without sin.

And that’s remarkable. We see in Hebrews 4, verses 14 to 16, Therefore, since we have a great high priest who as a Senate into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, Let us hold firmly to the faith that we profess. But we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who’s been tempted in every way, just as we are yet He did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. That Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father, Father and He intercedes for us, that we can come confidently before God in prayer, hears us that He cares for us deeply, and He provides hope in our time of need, the incarnation, Jesus coming into our flesh, changes everything for us. And I think sometimes as we think about connecting with God, we talked about our… Christianity is a relationship. We often think of prayer is perhaps our last resort, I’m gonna try everything and then I pray, then I can come before God. But I would argue that it should be the first thing that we do. I will admit, over the course of this past year, there’s been times when it’s been hard to pray, it’s been hard to know what to pray, ’cause we’ve walked through some of these things in our lives and

Something that has just meant the world to Hannah and I there was a few weeks ago, and I came into the office here at South, and I have a little mailbox, and I don’t usually often get mail, but I looked in the mail and there was a little package with my name on it.

It was really exciting. It was bright colors, and opened it up, and in this package, there’s this little booklet, and this person who goes to South has said God laid it on my heart to be praying for you over the course of this year, and

Month after month away back in December, January, in February, in March, this person was just Writing out prayers for us, and they say they would say things in there like God laid it on my heart to pray for this specific thing, they would have had no way of knowing what we were walking through.

And they were praying for us and lifting us up day after day, and it was truly incredible, and it meant so much to us that God has answered a lot of those prayers, that they’ve been lifting those up and encouraging us that prayer matters deeply. And Jesus provides us with that hope that we can come confidently before God and in a relationship with our creator, he offers to us… Secondly, we see the purpose of Jesus as He came to earth, He provides true hope for our sin and our brokenness, and

He entered into our story. In Luke 19-10 said, He came to seek and to save the lost. For Jesus came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. That He speaks into our sin and brokenness and provides a way for us to be forgiven, provides a way for us to be in a relationship with God, and this gives us this new identity as his fully loved children, and we are in a relationship with Him, the Second Corinthians 5-21 says, this God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God. That due to Jesus’s life and is entering into our story, dying on a cross, he offers us new identity as his fully loved children. My wife and I have loved this show called The Chosen, it’s come out, it’s on YouTube, and there’s also an app for it, but it’s basically the life of Jesus and his disciples, and it’s been a fascinating and really visual and powerful way just to describe Jesus’s life and as you get to know the characters and enter into the story, and each of the episodes, most of the episodes talk about how Jesus goes to those who are sick or who are lame, Hoare the outcasts or people…

Everybody else is overlooked, and Jesus provides a new identity, he speaks into our story and makes us new, we are a new creation following him, and that’s a wonderful thing. He provides true hope for our sin and brokenness, and lastly, Jesus provides true hope for our weary souls in the exaltation of Jesus, we see the hope of what happened when he was raised from the dead, that it has given us this new hope and Jesus promises before he sends into Heaven the Holy Spirit to guide us, to direct us that wherever we go, his presence is with us. As we walk through any challenges or difficulties, we can cling to that hope that He is with us always. Jesus offers us this invitation in Matthew 11, 28-30, Come to me all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you’ll find, for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. That in the midst of our weariness and striving and working and working, that Jesus offers us a true rest, an invitation to a new way of life, an invitation to follow Him with everything that we are, knowing that we’re not alone, but he promises to be with us.

Always. And that is a wonderful thing as we experience this new life and we are called in an invitation to follow Him, that we’re not called just to sit on the sidelines, but to live out our faith fully trusting in Him with a new perspective, not just to be His fans or admirers of Jesus, but actually to be his followers, we’re called to have his mindset as we serve and love others each and every day. And we see that so clearly in Philippians 2 verse 14, about the beginning of this passion that Paul gave to us. If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if

Any common sharing in the spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interest, but each of you to the interest of the others. As we partner with Jesus and represent Him here on earth as were agents of restoration in our broken world, as we know his promise to be with us, always to guide us and to direct us here and now.

But as Christians, we also know the end of the story, we know how this will all end, that Jesus will come back and mention, my wife and I, we love to watch TV shows, and we’ve gotten into different ones over the years, some of them are more intense than others, but there’s one thing that particularly drives her crazy. As we start a TV show, we watch the first episode and we’ll turn it off and we’ll go do other things, and I’ll look up what happens at the very end of the show, the

Very last episode, I have to know how the story will end, and it drives her crazy, she just not wanna know how it’s gonna end, but for me, that gives me so much peace of mind, well, this person’s gonna go there, or this person’s gonna live, or this one’s not… And then I can watch the show knowing what’s going to happen, I just… That gives me peace of mind. Maybe I’m weird in that, but we know the end of the story, and as Christians, we know the end of the story too.

We know in Revelation that Jesus will come back and he’ll make all things. All things will be made right. And that is something that with hope that we cling to Revelation 21 verses 1 through 4. I know Pastor Alex has shared this passage as well in this series, but I think it’s such a fitting way to close… And it says this, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Look, God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There’ll be no more death or mourning, or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. This is Jesus’s promise to us. He provides true hope for our weary souls, both now and into the future as we follow after Him, and in a minute, we’re going to be stepping into a time of communion, we’ve ended each of the weeks during this series, the time of communion, as we reflect on Jesus’s love on His sacrifice for us on the cross, and His body and His blood.

But today, as we just reflect on who Jesus is and why He matters in our lives, that is incarnation, HIM coming into humanity, living the life that we could not live, dying the death that we deserve, to provide us with Hope gives us a new identity as his child, as a dearly loved child of God, and as an invitation to follow Him in every aspect of our lives, knowing that he’s with us, and the promise is sure that one day all things will be made right and there will be no more morning, our pain. We cling to that hope today, let’s pray. The only Father, we thank you so much for your word, thank you for who you are and the love that you’ve shown to us, the grace that you’ve extended to us, I pray for each and every person in this room and those watching online, we thank You for South, thank you for how you’ve worked in this place, you continue to work on how you guide us and direct us as we seek to live in your way, with your heart, I pray that you’ll just give us and peace that we can cling to the hope that we have in you, each and every day of our lives.