That’s roughly page 150 or so for Joshua chapter 8. And this is about battling back. Now, last time we saw that Joshua expected victory, but he was met with defeat. Can any of you relate to that? Are there ever times in your life where you can say, you know, I was so sure things were going to go well, that the plan was going to be executed well, that that God was in it or at least was paving the way in a way we expected.

And then there’s the setback. There’s the problem. It could be a a health concern or it could be a betrayal, a relationship that’s been soured. Things that come into our lives unexpectedly and and we we know that there is a unseen force. This isn’t just a physical world that we live in.

We dwell in a world where there’s unseen spiritual forces at work in the background as well. And part of the reminder of Joshua is that God promises for those who know and love Jesus, he promises a comeback victory. And it’s all about coming back to him first. One of the greatest things to watch in sports is a comeback. If you are like me, a football fan, you may remember the the greatest comeback in NFL history actually happened only three years ago, December 2022.

The Minnesota Vikings were down at halftime 33 to zero against the Atlanta Falcons. Everybody had counted the Vikings out. I think the score meter or whatever predicted they had a a less than 1% chance of winning that game. But in the locker room at halftime, the cornerback his name is Patrick Peterson. He said, “Guys, we just need five touchdowns to win.”

And you know, a lot of the teammates like you kind of chuckled like that. Good joke, man. Yeah, thanks. But that statement actually galvanized the team and they realized, you know what, he’s right. If we just do our job, if we get those five touchdowns, the game is ours.

They ended up having the record-breaking second half, the the greatest second half a team has ever had in NFL history with Kurt Cousins throwing a record 417 passing yards in the second half alone. And he’s not really a well-known famous quarterback, but he had the greatest second half in history. And in a sense, what we see here in Joshua chapter 8 is God has a halftime locker room talk with Joshua. He says,”Joshua, you’ve been you’ve been put down. You your the nation has has crumbled in many ways and and come to defeat.

It’s not over yet, though. It’s not over. It’s halftime and there’s still a comeback victory that needs to be had. Maybe you’re at a spot in life where you’re hoping for a comeback. You’re ready for a comeback.”

And that happens by God’s grace. Here’s the big idea this morning. No matter what has gone wrong in your life, you can you can put in the blank what you are thinking of. Grace means God turns your defeat into victory. And that’s something to praise God for.

If you’re able to, please stand for the reading of God’s holy and perfect word. Joshua chapter 8. I’m going to read the first nine verses of Joshua 8. It says this. Joshua 8.

And the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not fear and do not be dismayed. Take all the fighting men with you and arise. Go up to Ai. See, I have given into your hand the king of Ai and his people, his city and his land. And you shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king.

Only its spoil and its livestock you shall take as plunder for yourselves. Lay an ambush against the city behind it.” So Joshua and all the fighting men arose to go up to Ai. And Joshua chose 30,000 mighty men of valor and sent them out by night. And he commanded them, “Behold, you shall lie in ambush against the city behind it.

Do not go very far from the city, but all of you remain ready. And I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. And when they come out against us just as before, we shall flee before them. And they will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city. For they will say, “They are fleeing from us just as before.”

So we will flee before them. And then you shall rise up from the ambush and seize the city, for the Lord your God will give it into your hand. And as soon as you have taken the city, you shall set the city on fire. You shall do according to the word of the Lord. See, I have commanded you.”

So Joshua sent them out, and they went to the place of ambush and lay between Bethl and Ai to the west of Ai. But Joshua spent that night among the people. Thank you. May be seated. God is the God of great reversals.

And this is the lesson that I would say as followers of Jesus, we probably need to learn it and and relearn it again and again. God is a God of great reversals. Life is full of setbacks. Every single one of us knows what it’s like to have a a setback in life. Something that we didn’t expect come our way that that was not what we’d hoped for.

And yet with Jesus, defeat is never final. Now, sometimes it’s our sin that leads into defeat. And that’s when we need to repent. We need to come back to the Lord. He’s always ready to forgive us.

He says, “Come to me.” But there’s other times where it’s just a mistake we’ve made. It’s not actually a sin against God. We’ve we’ve done something. It’s a blunder.

We shouldn’t have done it, but it wasn’t something done with a a bad intention. There’s also the fact that circumstances happen to us because we live in a fallen world. And so it’s not necessarily because you did something wrong or made a mistake. It could be that just because we live in a world that’s not yet what it one day will be, terrible things happen. And then there’s the reality that we are in a spiritual war.

There is a battle being waged right now. And for those who have eyes to see, they’d recognize the evil that we see in the world. There’s a mastermind behind so much of it and the good that we see in the world. We give all glory to God for that. So wherever you might be, God can take you where you’re at.

And what could feel like defeat right now, God is already at work to turn that into victory. So if you think about your own life, you could probably see that nearly everything that you do that is worthwhile anyway, everything you do that’s worthwhile is about overcoming adversity. You think about this in your life, there’s no easy victories in life, are there? Even for the Lord Jesus who had the greatest victory of all when he defeated sin, death, and Satan on the cross. He did all of that and he had this ultimate conquest.

And yet, it came at the cost of his life. Now, Joshua’s story was unique on the one hand. We’re not in the Middle East and and we’re not engaged in Bronze Age warfare. But the same God who met Joshua where he was at and said, “Listen, Joshua, I will give you the victory. You’ve seen what defeat is like.

I know you’re a man of war, Joshua. You love to battle for my name. I’m going to give you the victory that you want. And so, just as he told Joshua, so he tells us, “Be strong and courageous.” We need to hear those words.

Be strong and courageous. Whatever you’re facing right now, do not be afraid. Do not be dismayed. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. He’s present in the midst of that.

Those times where he seems so absent. It seems like I’m in this fight alone. You’re not alone. This is what marks the difference between Joshua 7 and Joshua 8. In Joshua 7, you may remember, Israel didn’t consult the Lord first.

They kind of went on it in this campaign on their own. They went it alone. They didn’t seek the Lord first. In Joshua 8, it’s totally different. Joshua seeks the Lord first.

He he goes to the Lord and the Lord tells him, “This is the victory I’m going to give you because I’m the one leading the battle and I will tell you exactly how to have victory.” Joshua, when the word of God is in the driver’s seat of your life, the destination is always victory. In your notes, our God is the God of second chances and his mercy shines brightest when we are at our lowest. See, God knows this about us. He knows our frame.

The Bible talks about that. He knows that we are but dust. In other words, he knows how limited we are. He is the infinite God. So think about this.

The infinite God can relate to us because he came as a man. Not only because he his knowledge is perfect. He knows intimately what it’s like to live in this fallen world. He came as the Lord Jesus. That’s why he says to Joshua in verse one of chapter 8, “Do not fear and do not be dismayed.”

He knows that after setbacks in life, we’re often prone to fear. And fear will hold us back from moving forward. He’s got great plans in store for us. But sometimes fear is that thing that holds us captive. And we think, I I know what happens if I go that direction.

I can’t do that. And yet God is saying, I am with you. And he says to them to Joshua, take all the fighting men with you. Before the spies said, two or three thousand is all you need. And and there was this overconfidence.

Joshua didn’t register that God actually wants every one of the warriors, all the fighting men involved. He didn’t he thought of it as this is an easy victory so I can do this automatically. God was thinking of it in terms of I want everyone involved. I want everyone to experience this victory, not just a few. And Joshua can lead this comeback victory now knowing that the outcome has already been decided.

See, God is the one who writes your story. From the very beginning, but before you were even conceived in the womb, God was writing a story. It was had your name on it, and it pointed to his grace. So, those great losses in your life, they’re actually paving the way for something far grander and far more glorious. They’re pointing the way to a comeback.

Think about Peter. And and you could pull many examples from the Bible, but Peter is one classic example because on the night when Jesus most needed his friends, he is the one who denied he even knew him. He he swore to the Lord. I don’t know the man. And so you’d think after that, surely Peter is feeling like, oh, Jesus, he’s not going to want anything to do with me.

Who who would want anything to do with the one who acted like he didn’t even know him when he’s in his most stressful, distressing situation? But Jesus had already told Peter, “Satan has asked to sift you like wheat.” Again, Satan is behind so much of what we face, but I have prayed for you and when you return, strengthen your brothers. In other words, Peter, you’re going to make a comeback and you’re going to come back stronger. So even though things are going to look bad, you’re going to be sifted like wheat, you are going to come back the man I want you to be.

And this is what it means to be a Christian. It means your story is a redemption story. That’s the way we should think of all of our lives. There’s many setbacks. There’s many things where it feels like it’s one defeat after another and we’re not gaining ground spiritually.

It seems like we’re going backwards sometimes. But God is reminding us here. He has the wide angle lens of redemption. He sees the beginning from the end. He sees it all laid out in front of him.

He understands how it all fits together. And he knows that he’s writing a story that’s more beautiful. It’s more glorious because of the trials, because of the challenges that draw us closer to him. So ask yourself when you look at your own story, do you see it as a story of failure or a story of redemption? See, a story of redemption still has many great losses in it, but the dominant theme is the redemption, the comeback.

This is what we have in Christ. All too often, people feel that they’ve they’ve strayed too far. They’ve they’ve gone into an addiction or they’ve gone into too much turmoil in their life. They’ve broken relationships with family members. They think it’s I’ve gone too far.

But Jesus offers us fullness of life. He offers us the comeback. This is what the Bible says. Ephesians 3:20. Now all glory to God who is able through his mighty power at work within us to accomplish infinitely more than we think or imagine.

Now imagine your life as a comeback story. Think about all the the good, the bad. It’s all part of this grand comeback story. And whatever you can imagine for a redemption story for your own life, God is telling us he’s able to do infinitely more. Whatever you could think of is like this would be the best thing in my life to bring about redemption.

God has something far better, infinitely better in store for you. Last week, we saw that Joshua’s men were struck with fear when they fled AI. Their hearts melted. They were because of Achen’s sin, God didn’t bless them with his presence. They were going it alone.

They thought, “Hey, we can do this and they failed. They had to address something first.” But now God has a new word for them. He says to Joshua, “I have given you this city.” You see, sometimes Joshua could think like, “I’m the one who’s going to give Israel the city.”

God has to remind him, if the city is going to be given to you, it’s coming from me. I’m giving you the city. And past failure can cause us to shrink back in fear. Sometimes because of our past failures, we we grow bitter. We think of the times that we’ve been mistreated and then we start to become suspicious of others and and we again, it’s all because of fear.

We’re not walking forward in love in those times as God calls us. In fact, one of the most common commands in the Bible is fear not. Fear not. New Testament says perfect love casts out fear. Perfect love.

So if right now if you’re experiencing fear in your life, if you feel like you’re struggling with fearful thoughts, anxiety about the future, whatever it might be, it could be that you’re not spending enough time dwelling in God’s loving presence. Just pondering and thinking about how much he loves you, focusing on the cross where his love shines the brightest. Next, notice that Joshua draws up a specific plan of attack for warriors. And this is where we see the military conquest side of Joshua. He tells them, and it’s based on what God has told him, but he says, “All right, I’m going to take a group of men, smaller force.

We’re going to go and we’re going to approach the city and then we’ll pretend to flee.” And that’s going to draw out the enemy. They’re going to be overconfident like we were. They’re going to do what we did, only they’re going to be coming out of the city. They’re going to evacuate the city.

So sure, they’re going to conquer us. And then when I give the signal, a larger force from behind is going to ambush them and burn the city. It’s a great military strategy of misdirection. And it reminds us that trust in the Lord is not at odds with making plans. You think about making plans that if you’re committing it to the Lord, that’s an act of trust.

It’s not as though they’re pitted against each other in scripture. So, here’s my question for you. What’s your comeback plan? What’s your comeback plan? Seek the Lord.

Share with a friend and develop a plan for victory. We’ve all gone through setbacks just like Joshua. And so we need to have a comeback plan, a plan to overcome that adversity that’s sure to come in the future. Joshua couldn’t dwell on the past. That’s what would leave him frozen in fear.

He had to think forward. He had to think this is what God has now called us to do. I I can’t keep thinking about all the failures. I can’t think about how how bad things were. I’ve got to look at what God wants us to do now.

What do we do with the situation now? They couldn’t let their past define their future. Now, we just had some baptisms. And you remember when Jesus began his ministry, what happened? He got baptized.

And there was a voice from heaven. The father said to him, “This is my beloved son. You are my beloved son. With you I am well pleased.” And we need to remember that because of our faith in Jesus, we are adopted.

We are made God’s sons and daughters. And so the same declaration that God made over Jesus, that’s made over you. Think about that. God says to you, “You are my beloved child. I’m so proud of you.

I’m so pleased with you. That’s what it is to be united to Christ. That’s when Jesus after he received that identity statement, that’s when he went into the desert to battle the devil. And so, that’s what we have to think as well. We need to get our identity from God before we go into battle.

It says in verse 9 that Joshua spent the night out in the camp with his men. And I love what that says about Joshua. He’s he’s not one who just barks orders from afar. He wants to be there with his men in the trenches preparing for battle the next day. And we know that he was encouraging them.

He was saying, “God is with us. You cannot think about the last time. You have to think about this time. God is with us and he will give us the victory.” And you know that his words made a difference because the next day there was this fire in their hearts.

They fought with courage unlike before. Their hearts weren’t melting. They were renewed. Not only because they knew Joshua was with them in the battle, but more importantly, they knew God was with them. In the same way, we need to remind ourselves of all the people in our lives who want to to go to the next step.

Who can we encourage? Who can we build up? Many people in life, they won’t take that next step in their spiritual journey. They’ll keep holding back in fear until they get that word of encouragement. And what if God has planned it out so that you are that person who’s going to give them that word of encouragement to build them up and say you can do this in the Lord’s strength?

There’s also a sense in which we need to remember that there’s times to break away from certain people to to cut off from certain people for a time at least because if certain people are still stuck in the sin cycle that we used to be a part of that can cause problems for us. The Bible says bad company corrupts good morals. Who you interact with, who you spend time with, that’s influencing you constantly. You may be wondering how you could ever make a comeback in life. Now, maybe you’ve made foolish choices that have filled you with regret, regret to this day.

Maybe some of these foolish choices have caught up to you. Others maybe have been mistreated, made to feel worthless. Whatever may be the case, you need to know this. Your story isn’t over. You may have blown it in the past, but this is the story of redemption.

This is what it means to be a follower of Jesus, to be a Christian. The story is not over. If you’re feeling like you’re in defeat, victory is coming. The comeback. I know that Jeremiah 29:11 was originally spoken to the nation of Israel.

But I believe as children of God, this is a promise that we can take to heart. It says this, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future. So think about that.

That is God’s heart for you. He has a plan for your good. He wants to give you this mindset. There’s hope coming. There’s a future for me.

Whatever is the past has been that that ultimately doesn’t matter. Someone in recent history who could be called the comeback king is Johnny Cash, the man in black. If you know his story, you know that there were many seasons in his life where he made comebacks from addiction and and all the devastation and poor choices he made that devastated his family. And yet his repentance and and commitment to the Lord was genuine. But it’s as though these same old patterns kept showing up in his life.

They would dog his steps and he would sing about that. One time when giving his testimony at a concert, Cash said he’d heard from somebody who said that they once felt so bad that they were afraid they were going to die. And he said, “During my hospitalization one time, I felt so bad I was afraid I was going to live.” But then he said this, “I don’t feel that way anymore. And I thank God for bringing me out of it and putting me back on my feet to do the thing I most love.

Sing a gospel song for you. You know, singing those gospel songs, I believe, was Cash’s way of reminding himself that he’s not too far, that God hasn’t given up on him. He needed those songs that he was singing to others. So, in the midst of Israel’s comeback battle, God tells Joshua to lift up his spear. He needed to be in a prominent space where everybody could see him.

Joshua, lift up that spear so that the people know this is the time to cause the ambush. This is the time to go in and take the city. And Joshua did that. He held that spear up, if you can believe it, until the end of the battle. Something I noticed about Joshua is that his every move seems to be motivated by the promises of God.

God promised him the land. God promised to be with him just like he was with Moses. God promised to give him the victory. And it’s those promises that made him into the warrior that made him strong in battle. Joshua developed a plan and a strategy to win this battle.

And he planned for success. Never once did Joshua say, “Okay, if things go badly, this is what you guys need to do.” No, he thought, “You know what? God’s given us the victory. He’s already promised it.

All we got to do is be obedient, and it’s ours.” That’s what motivated these people. So, maybe you’re at a time in life where you’re facing a lot of fear and anxiety. Well, this might be a time to make a plan. Maybe it’s you need to make a plan to memorize one verse of the Bible a day that fights fear and see what happens.

See what God will do with that when his word is implanted in your heart. Or maybe it’s something else. But whatever it is, commit it to the Lord. Every plan surrendered to the Lord is sure to succeed. And third, I want you to see from this story in your notes that because of the cross, we have the blessing of victory.

Even in this this warfare scenario, we see a picture of Jesus. In your notes, it says, “Because Jesus took the curse of sin, every blessing is secured for you in him.” So, at the end of the battle, when Ai has been fully conquered, the the city is burning at this point. Joshua executes the king of Ai following the Lord’s leading. Here’s how it reads in verse 28.

So Joshua burned Ai and made it forever a heap of ruins as it is to this day. And he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening. And at sunset Joshua commanded and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city and raised over it a great heap of stones which stands there to this day. It occurred to me as I was studying this passage that in God’s law it says that any man hanged on a tree is considered cursed of God. So this was a vivid picture that the city is burning, the king is hanging from a tree.

The king of Ai is a picture of God’s judgment. Now this is how Israel treated their worst enemies. This is how God basically declared these people are accursed. And it struck me that this way that this wretched king of Ai died is almost exactly the way our King Jesus died. Everyone who knew Jesus recognized that he was the sinless and spotless lamb of God.

He was deserving of all blessing. Everything he did was good and right and holy. And God said from the heavens, as I mentioned earlier, you’re my beloved son. With you I’m well pleased. But when he was hanging on the cross, hanging from a tree outside the city, he was under God’s curse.

This is what the Bible teaches. He said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” See, this is where we can never fully plumb the depths of God’s love for us as seen in the cross. Because we can never fully understand what Jesus went through for us. The Bible says, “God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God, clothed in his righteousness.

We receive his blessing because he received our curse.” You think about that. What does that mean for the holy and sinless son of God to be made to be sin? Elsewhere in Galatians, we read, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written,” cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree so that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles.

So, so just like that wicked King Ai who fully deserved it. He was a terrible leader, a terrible person under God’s curse, hanging from a tree outside the city. In that same way, our Lord Jesus died. He who only deserved the father’s blessing experienced the cold darkness of God forsakenness. And why did he do it?

Why? You can imagine as Jesus is calling out those words, why have you forsaken me? Surely his disciples wondered the same thing. Why? Why would he have to go through that?

He did it for us, for you and for me. He bore the curse of our sin fully so that we could fully embrace God’s blessing which belonged to him. And then we read this in Joshua verse 33. This is following the command of Moses. He set up an altar on Mount Abal.

And it says in verse 33, “And all Israel, sojourer as well as nativeborn with their elders and officers and their judges stood on opposite sides of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord. Half of them in front of Mount Garazim and half of them in front of Mount Abal, just as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded at the first to bless the people of Israel.” And afterward he read all the words of the law. The blessing and the curse according to all that is written in the book of the law. So if you go to Deuteronomy 27, you see where Joshua gives these or excuse me, Moses gives these instructions.

And this is a place these two little mountains right next to each other in the West Bank still there today. Mount Abal, Mount Garazine. He had half of the tribes stand on Mount Abal representing the curses of the law and half of the tribes standing on Mount Garazine representing the blessings. And they had a a sacred relationship called a covenant where God says,”I committing myself to you.” And Israel pledged themselves to God.

And Joshua read all the blessings for obedience and all the curses for disobedience. Now, I just talked about how Jesus took the curse for our disobedience so that we could receive the blessing of his obedience. But each time they said this, each each line that Joshua would read or the the priests would read, the people would say, “Amen.” Which means, “Let it be so. We agree with you.”

You can imagine the impact of that moment. The entire nation gathered together, the echoing off the mountains, no doubt, hearing Joshua read out these blessings and these curses. In other passages in scripture, we see the same kind of thing where the people are are told to give a response of amen or hallelujah, which means praise the Lord. So, what I thought it would be great for us to do just to to kind of take a page from scripture, follow the cue that we see here, is is do that here this morning where I would like for all of you who are on your right to be the amen group. Okay?

You’re going to say amen. All the and splitting it, cut it in half right here. All this group, you are going to be the hallelujah group. Okay? And what I’m going to do is because Jesus took the curse for us.

We have only blessings in him. This is the good news. I’m going to read a a verse of the Bible and then I’m going to point over here and then you are going to say, >> “Amen.” >> Good. And then I’m going to read another verse and you all are going to say, >> “Hallelujah.”

>> All right, I think you got the hang of this. All right, let’s do this. Okay. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

>> Amen. >> Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him? >> Hallelujah. >> He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. >> Amen.

Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless in his eyes. >> Hallelujah. >> But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. >> Amen. >> And all praise to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is by his great mercy that we have been born again because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. >> Hallelujah. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him.

And by his stripes, we are healed. >> Amen. >> And finally, he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.

>> Praise God. Amen. You all did amazing, by the way. Well, finally in in your notes, we’re going to close out with this. Let me encourage you.

Take time to celebrate God’s work of grace in your life. You know, this is such a gift. We want to be celebrating. We want to be known as the joyful people in our community. Amen.

We want people to know this work. We want people to know that God changes lives. He sets us apart. He loves us and he streng he strengthens us with his Holy Spirit. And so we don’t want to neglect those opportunities to celebrate.

We’re going to about to do that in in just a moment here when we take the Lord’s supper. But let me remind you it can be as simple as a prayer to God. But I think what’s cool is if you can do that even as a family or as a group of people from the church when God does something amazing in your life, let people know. Make sure it’s known what God is doing. Let’s pray together.

Father, thank you so much for your grace in our lives. And we do say amen and hallelujah to the ways you you amaze us. You astound us with your love for us. God, just like you promised the victory to Joshua and that motivated him to lead those people onward that encouraged him. I thank you that we have those promises given to us and that all the blessings found in Jesus come to us through the cross and resurrection.

We put our faith in that, Lord. We trust you and follow you. In Jesus name. Amen. At this time, I’ll ask the servers to come forward to pass out the elements of the Lord’s supper, which we’ll take together in a moment here.

This road is hard. Are you near? I feel surrounded by my fear. I feel so far from you, Lord, tonight. I’ve lost my way.

I need to change. Rearrange my life. It’s been too long. I need to come back. Regain my sight.

I know you’ve been calling. And I’ve been for most my life. I commit to you. That’s all I’ll do every day. You’re the choice I’ll make.

Stand beside my Lord and King. The one who died and made me clean. My lights gone dim. My faith’s grown thin. Sorrow.

This heart of stone. This bag of bones is rusting slow. I chase the dark, ignore the spark you tried to show. Now all I feel is the silent chill inside my soul. I commit to you.

That’s all I’ll do every day. You’re the choice I’ll make. I’ll stand beside my Lord and King, the one who died and made me clean. And even if you take my life and use it for something I never really wanted you to do, I commit to you. Even on the darkest nights, when everything inside of me just wants to hide away from the light, I commit to you, Jesus.

You can take my life and use it for something I never really wanted you to do. I commit to you. Even on the darkest nights when everything inside of me just wants to hide away from the light. I commit to you. I commit to you.

This road is hard, but you are near. And perfect love casts out my fear. Yes, perfect love casts out fear. Amen. And thank you so much, Ty, for singing.

In Matthew chapter 26, we read this. Now, as they were eating, Jesus took bread and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat. This is my body. And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many, for the forgiveness of sins. For I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.

And so, Jesus, we come before you once more. Delighting in who you are, knowing you delight in us first. What a gift, Lord, that you would sacrifice your body. You would give it for us. Those who did not deserve grace, did not deserve mercy, could never earn it, could never work hard enough or do anything worthy of such love.

But we thank you, God, that you chose you you made us worthy because of your love. That is a gift beyond measure. And so we celebrate you and we ask that you would remind us of your kingdom day in and day out that we would live for that glory. We pray this in your name. Amen.

>> Would you stand with us? There is no fear cuz I believe. There is no doubt cuz I have seen your faithfulness, my fortress over and over. I have a hope found in your name. I have a strength found in your grace.

Your faithfulness, my fortress over and over. Make way through the waters. Walk me through the fire to what you are famous for. What you are famous for. Shut the mouths of lions.

Bring dry bones to life and do what you are famous for. What you are famous for. I believe in you, God. I believe in you. Release your love inside of me.

Unleash your power for all to see. Spirit, come and fall on us over and over. Oh Lord, make way through the waters. Walk me through the fire. Do what you are famous for.

What you are famous for. Shut the mouths of lion. Bring dry bones to life and do what you are famous for. What you are famous for. God of exceedingly God of abundantly.

More than we ask or think. Lord, you will never fail. Your name is powerful. Your word’s unstoppable.

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