Sunday, March 30

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Amen.

Thank you. You don't live what can I In the empty waters I call you to come In the rivers of sorrow Don't try not to go For I will be with your troubles in my life I'll be thankful for your weakness tonight

When you're a fiery trial, your pathway shall lie, my correction shall be your supply. The place where you're not hiding Our only desire You're just to consume And you're a goal to refine

And I don't know how to lead for you, though I want to lock it up to you, though That's all the world has, should endeavor to show I'll never know now, but I'll never forsake Thank you. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. I see the most of you, I will go to the end, which shall never come.

Christ, I'm sure you will stay here. The tempest of the rage is on. The temptation, the battle and the sea. The light is warm, deeper still than gold. The end of the day, though I trust the least and the cure, I will hold it to the end that shall never die.

To the flood above me Hold this song now, oh my soul now Lift your eyes to Calvary This my vilest of assurance Sees love forever I will hold you to the anchor It shall never be removed Christ is sure and steady anchor As we face the weight of death When these trials give way for me As we draw our final breath We will come by the great horizon Cloud behind and life secure And the calm will be the best For the storms that we see Christ the shore of our salvation Ever pray for whatever you do. Leave the whole hand to the ankle, it shall never be. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I was buried beneath my shame Who could carry that kind of weight? It was my tomb Till I met you I was breathing but not alive All my failures I tried to hide It was mine too Till I met you You called my name And I ran out of that grave Out of the darkness Into your glorious day You called my name And I ran out of that grave Out of the darkness Into your glorious day Now your mercy has saved my soul Now your freedom is all that I know The old made new Jesus, when I met you You called my name And I ran out of that grave Out of the darkness Into your glorious day You called my name And I ran out of that grave Out of the darkness Into your glorious day

I needed rescue, my sin was heavy The chains break at the weight of your glory I needed shelter, I was an orphan Now you call me a citizen of heaven When I was broken, you were my healing Now your love is the air that I'm breathing I have a future, my eyes are open Cause when you call my name I ran out of that grave Out of the darkness Into your glorious day You call my name And I ran out of that grave Out of the darkness to your glorious day.

I love you Lord, your mercy never fails me, all my days, I've been held in your hands, From the moment that I wake up, until I lay my head, I will sing of the goodness of God.

All my life you have been faithful. All my life you have been so, so good. With every breath that I am able, I will sing of the goodness of God. I love your voice You have led me through the fire In the darkest nights You are close like no other I've known you as a father I've known you as a friend I have lived in the goodness of God All my life you have been faithful All my life you have been so, so good With every breath that I am able I will sing of the goodness of God Your goodness is running after It's running after me Your goodness is running after It's running after me With my life laid down I'm surrendered now I give you everything Your goodness is running after It's running after me

All my life you have been faithful All my life you have been so, so good With every breath that I am able I will sing of the goodness of God All my life you have been faithful All my life you have been so, so good With every breath that I have able I will sing of the goodness of God I will sing of the goodness of God Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I like, at least for, it is good for me to answer the question for myself, why? It's a question I probably asked a lot as a child. Also a question that I frequently ask when, you know, somebody says, well, you should do this. And oftentimes my first response is, why? And when it comes to our time of prayer, one of the important answers to that question is that this time of prayer we just went through is a time to put our eyes on God and to put our hope in the midst of both the times where it feels like life is falling apart and those times that are filled with joy, that in prayer, one of the practical effects for our hearts is it directs us to the goodness of God. And in the psalm we began with this morning, the 33rd psalm, toward the middle of the psalm,

it talks about how God sees all things, but we're tempted to hope for things. Specifically, he talks about the king and how the king hopes for salvation in his army or in his war horses. And then he contrasts that with us as Christians. It says, behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love. And one of the ways in which we renew our hope on the steadfast love of God is by taking both our joys and our sorrows, our fears and our triumphs, our requests and our hopes to hymn and prayer. So I'm just very thankful that we get to spend time in prayer each Sunday. And so as we come to gather together to celebrate the Lord's Supper, we're going to start by singing Man of Sorrows.

Man of sorrows, Lamb of God, By his own betrayed, The sin of man and wrath of God, Has been on Jesus' leg. Silent as He stood accused Feet in mocked and scorned Bowing to the Father's will He took a crown of the Lord O that rugged cross, my salvation, where your love poured out over me. Now my soul cries out, Hallelujah, praise and honor unto thee. I am God's own Son, to purchase every deed, And reconcile the very ones who nailed Him Him to that dream Oh that rugged cross, my salvation Where Your love poured out over me Now my soul cries out, "Hallelujah!" praise and honor one to thee see the stone is rolled away behold the The empty jewel. Hallelujah, God be praised. He's risen from the grave. Oh, that rugged cross, my salvation. Where your love poured out over me. Now my soul cries out, Hallelujah, praise and honor unto thee, praise and honor unto thee.

In the 51st Psalm, it's a psalm that begins before the song itself actually starts with a little bit of a header. And the header is this, to the chief musician, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba. And the story behind this psalm is one of brokenness. It's one of awful decisions. It's one of intentionally disregarding what God has called you to do to seek. David's seeking his own pleasure. It's the story of a cover-up. It's the story of a betrayal. And it's the story of a loss of life of one of David's commanders. All because of David's sin. Charles Spurgeon writes about this prayer, this song, which is a song of David's repentance. In fact, it begins as David starts by saying, Have mercy on me, O God.

And he calls to God for forgiveness and for restoration. Here's what Spurgeon says about this psalm. It is not enough to blot out the sin. David's person is defiled and he would be purified. He would have cleansed him, for nobody but he could do it effectively. The washing must be thorough. It must be repeated. Therefore, he cries, wash me thoroughly. And Spurgeon will say, the dye in itself is immovable. And I, the sinner, have lain long in it till the crimson is ingrained. But, Lord, wash and wash and wash again until the last stain is gone and not a trace of my defilement is left. Hypocrites are content if their garments are washed, but the truly repentant cries, wash me. The careless soul is content with the nominal cleaning, but the true awakened conscience desires a real and practical washing, that of the most complete and efficient kind.

When we deal seriously with our sin, God will deal gently with us. And when we hate what the Lord hates, he will soon make an end of it for our joy and for our peace. Hear the words of David. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones you have broken may rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out my iniquities. Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me by your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners shall be converted to you.

Let's pray. Father, as we come to the table, bring our minds to the cross where your Son stood in the place of broken and sinful people. And because of his sacrifice, we who are covered in sin, whose lives are filled with brokenness, can be washed clean and made whole again. And so remind us of the power of the good news. Remind us of your forgiveness and of the hope that you have given to us. remind us that as your people you have given us clean hearts remind us of all of your goodness to our lives be with us be with us as we partake of this bread and this cup may we see the cost of this meal that we are partaking that you would remind us of the seriousness and you would remind us of the joy and the hope that lies in you.

We ask that you bless this bread and this cup. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. If you would, take the bread and partake with me as Jesus shares with his disciples, telling them that this is his body which is given for them. And if you would take the cup with me, which Jesus tells us is the blood of his covenant that is poured out for the forgiveness of our sins. Father in heaven, we thank you for this moment and this meal. May you help us feel the weight. You would nourish our souls. That you would strengthen our weaknesses. That you would give us courage in the face of our fears. Direct us to Jesus. It's in his name we pray. Amen. So we just have a few weeks until we move into sort of the season,

as the season has actually already begun, the season of Easter. And so what we're going to do beginning this week, next week, then Palm Sunday and Easter as we're sort of journeying together toward the cross to be reminded of the sacrifice of Jesus, but also to rejoice in the victory and the power of his resurrection. So we're going to go ahead and just pray one more time, and then we'll dive into it, and we'll read the text sort of as we go along this morning. Father, thank you for your word. We thank you for the testimony of the Gospels. Thank you that we can see and hear these wonderful things. May you ingrain them on our hearts. May your spirit use them to transform our lives and be with us as we open your word.

It is in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. I was thinking back to the time when I first began to preach. I didn't really want to, but one of the requirements in my first year of college was that you had to take an oral communications class, which if you go to Bible college, that's just preaching. So I had never preached a sermon. In fact, I maybe had done, I think, in high school for a speech competition, I did a humorous interpretation of literature. And the literature in question was this comedian who wrote in the back page of Outdoor Life. So it was real deep literature. And so I remember that first sermon. You're preaching in front of your classmates, which is probably one of the weirdest things. To make it even more strange, our preaching class, the bottom floor of the men's dormitory,

you know, no girls allowed, but that's where our preaching class was because they had a big extra classroom, the big heavy pulpit, and somehow my grandma snuck in the back door and was sitting in the front row. So not only, right, do I have all of my friends and buddies hearing the first sermon, but my saintly grandmother is sitting there in the front row. And so we had, I think we preached two sermons that semester, and then I remember going back home for the summer, and one of the things that our pastor at the time did was like, oh, well, you want to preach a Sunday? And I was like, well, how hard can it be? And there is something different, even as awkward as it was to preach in a preaching class, to preaching in front of a church, but it's even worse when it's your

home church, right? Because everybody has known all the things you've done growing up, all the mistakes you've made, all the dumb decisions you've made. And at one point during my first sermon in my home church, I made a joke about how I was like super well behaved growing up and I was like the perfect child. And then to get only heckled by this guy named Frank going, you grew up here, we know about you, right? And I don't know what to do. I'm not used to like, we're the Church of Christ. We don't yell out in the middle of the sermons, right? And so I'm all thrown off and it was a weird experience. And so this morning what we're going to do is we're going to take a look at Jesus as he returns to his hometown of Nazareth and he goes into the synagogue. And what we're

going to find is this is not his first time he's taught in the synagogue, but it is the first time that he has talked in his home synagogue. We won't read to the end this morning of what happens, but just to give you a spoiler alert, but he gets done teaching and answering their questions. They're so mad, they try to push him off a cliff. So it does not go well for Jesus, but I primarily want us to look at the two verses, sort of three verses that he says here. So we're going to begin in 17. We're going to go to 21 this morning.

And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, and he unrolled the scroll, and he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him, and he began to say to them, today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. So just a little bit of historical context. In Jesus's day, when you would have a traveling rabbi come in, often you would ask them to read some Scripture and make

some comments on it. And so you would read from different parts of the, what we would call the Old Testament. They would just call it, you know, the Bible, God's word. And so Jesus is given the reading from Isaiah, just the scroll of the prophet. He unrolls it. He stands to read and they sit to teach. And so he begins to teach from these two verses in Isaiah. Now, I want you to notice just a couple things about what Jesus does and what Jesus says during this. The first is in Luke chapter 4, verse 17, where it says this about Jesus, he unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written. And so these words of Jesus are intentional. This is not Jesus trying to come up with something real quick to share, he has a plan and a purpose in what he is

doing. And I don't know if you've ever been in the situation where you've had to come up with something quickly. We have a church that is Spanish speaking that meets here. And when they were having a celebration service, because they'd been able to hire a new pastor, we came to the service. And I thought I was just coming to sort of observe. And I walk in and they said, pastor, come sit up here in front. So I'm sitting in front and they're singing and we sang. And then there was like five or six pastors who all got up and they would read something. And I'm like, you know what? I think I might be in trouble. I didn't realize I was supposed to prepare some remarks. Like, and you sort of see it getting closer and closer and closer to you. And I have

my Bible and I'm like, well, what do I say? And so we got there and it was okay. That's not what Jesus is doing here, right? He knows what he is doing, and notice what it says. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to them. He unrolled it. Remember, this is a big scroll, and so Jesus is going to roll and roll. This is chapter 61. He's going to unroll and roll and roll and roll until he finds this specific text. The second thing we find is that this is a declaration of the mission of Jesus. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to the captives, the recovering of sight to the blind, and set at liberty those who are oppressed, and proclaim the fear of the Lord's favor. And so Jesus, in reading

these, is simply saying, this is why I'm here. This is what I have come to do. I'm proclaiming good news, I'm proclaiming liberty, I'm proclaiming sight to the blind, to those who are crushed, I'm proclaiming hope. But this is not simply a five-point action plan, right? We all hear politics all the time, and before a politician gets into office, they give a campaign speech, and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do this. Now Jesus, as he says, This is not a sort of a campaign speech about, if you follow me, this is what I will do. But listen to what he says in verse 21. And he began to say to them, Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Not today this Scripture is beginning to be fulfilled for God's people,

but for those who are in Nazareth, in that synagogue listening, and for us as well, to hear these Scriptures read about the brokenhearted, about the captors, about those who are crushed and those who are blind, Jesus says, it's fulfilled. Today it has been fulfilled. So it's not just about what Jesus will do, and he does do all of these things, But to those listening, he is saying, it has been fulfilled. And so what we find is this picture of what the Messiah would do, and Jesus says, I have done it, and I am doing it right here. I want to zoom in specifically on what Jesus says just for a moment. This quotation from Isaiah, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor,

sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the years of the Lord's favor. And one of the sort of conversations that happens around this text, and one of the disagreements that often happens in the church about this text, is Jesus is Jesus as he speaks. Is he speaking physically or is he speaking spiritually? Or another way maybe of wording that is Jesus, for example, saying, I'm here to deal with physical blindness or spiritual blindness. So we're coming into one of my favorite times of the year where we can start to cook outside with some consistency. And you go to a friend's house for a cookout and They say, we have hamburgers and hot dogs, which one do you want?

And you go, yes, right? All of the above, yes, I just want it all. So the question about this text, is Jesus speaking physically or is he speaking spiritually? And the answer is yes, Jesus is going to come and he's going to heal the blind. He's going to set people free from their brokenness. He's going to break the chains of the demon-possessed man, casting out the demons. He's going to pick up those who are crushed. He's going to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. But also, and I think more importantly, he's speaking spiritually. The problem comes when we sort of go to one or the other. If we only talk about the spiritual or the physical things, we end up being really nice people but with no depth. And if we only see the spiritual side of the text,

We have great theology, but we don't put the teachings of Jesus into practice. Now, with that being said, that we should think both of Jesus physically healing the blind and helping them to see spiritually, my focus this morning is not to talk about both, but to direct us to what Jesus is saying spiritually this morning. And one of the questions, as I was reading and meditating and praying about this text over this past week, is this question, how do we end up needing this good news? How do we end up poor? How do we end up in captivity? How do we end up blind? How do we end up oppressed? There's two ways you can end up in any of these situations. Sometimes, it's through no fault of our own. Take, for example, when Jesus says,

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives. Throughout the New Testament, there's all kinds of people who end up in captivity for doing what is right and for good and for proclaiming the gospel. And so in all of these, there's some way we can end up in these through no fault of our own. However, that's not the case for us. We find ourselves spiritually poor and broken, in slavery to sin, spiritually blind, crushed by the burden of our shame, with everything seeming to be broken and out of kilter because we have walked away from God, choosing ourselves over Him. Isaiah says it like this in Isaiah 53. He just says this very simply. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. Now Isaiah will continue to talk about Jesus.

But what I want us to focus on in this is that these categories Jesus has given us of captivity and blindness and the need and the brokenness, They all result from this. We have turned everyone to his own way. We need this good news. All of us have walked away from God, choosing ourselves over him. And it always leaves us broken. So I want to talk about that just for a minute. Because sin, in the most simple definition, is breaking the law of God. 1 John 3 says, everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. And then he summarizes like this, sin is lawlessness. Sin is ignoring the law of God. And there's a lot that we could say about that, but I want us to consider that law of God that we

are breaking. I want to do so by reading as God gives the law to the people of Israel in Deuteronomy chapter 6. Listen to what he says. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes and to fear the Lord our God for our good always. That he might preserve us alive as we are to this day and it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God. He has commanded us. Specifically hear these words. The Lord has commanded us to do all these statutes. To fear the Lord our God for our good always. I want you to understand that God's commands do not keep you from joy, but rather they bring you to joy. They are for our good. So in our house sometimes we have secret ice cream that we hide from the kids, right? And then

after they go to bed, it's like, oh, we got our secret ice cream. Let's have our secret ice cream. Some of us, when it comes to sin, we feel like maybe God has some secret ice cream and he just doesn't want to share the goodness with us. In fact, that's Satan's argument to Eve in Genesis chapter 3. Like, did God really say? He doesn't want you to taste this fruit because he knows the good that it will bring into your life. And I want you to understand when it comes to sin and ignoring the law of God, it's not because God is keeping joy from you, but his commandments are our path into joy. They are for our good always. If you want to understand how commitment can be for your good always, get some animals, specifically domesticated animals, right? So we have a rabbit.

One of the things I did not know about rabbits is they like to chew through wires, right? So like our particular rabbit chewed through an entire set of jumper cables. Like we're not talking small wires, right? And it was fine because they're not hooked up to the car, but what if they were, right? We don't want her chewing through wires, not because we're trying to steal the rabbit's joy, but because we're trying to keep her safe. Our hamsters, when they're running around in their little hamster ball on the floor, right, and they're like, oh, there's the stairs, right? We don't shut the door to the stairs because we're trying to hide the joy of going down the stairs in a hamster ball from the hamsters, right? We are doing so to protect them. Well, one of the dogs go, oh, is that

chocolate you're eating? I would really love some of that chocolate. I'm not keeping chocolate from them because I'm trying to steal their joy, but to keep them safe. And what God is doing in regard to sin is in his righteousness and in his goodness. It is a front to both his nature, but it also breaks us and leaves us hurting spiritually poor, spiritually imprisoned, spiritually blind, spiritually crushed with everything out of sync. And what happens is we in our pride think we know better. Like the hamster heading for the stairs and its ball going, I can't wait to have this joy of the stairs. Thinking we know better and in our pride we only find brokenness. And so there is this picture here that I want you to understand that God's commands is not to steal your joy, but to lead you into it. And so in our brokenness,

Jesus comes to proclaim the good news. Listen to what he says. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to the captives, recovery of sight, the blind set at liberty, those who are oppressed, and proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And he starts by talking about those who do not have enough. And we come and we find ourselves spiritually bankrupt because everything we've tried to satisfy our soul turns to dust. And maybe you've experienced this, right? If I can get this, if I can have this, if I can achieve this. If this event works out how I want it to, then I'll be happy, and then I'll be content, and then everything good will be right in my life. And then at the end, when we get those

things, we find that there's still not enough to fill that void. And Jesus says there's good news to those who feel like they are empty. He says liberty to the captives, Locked up where you don't want to be. Like our pups when we open that door first thing in the morning and they see that freedom and they go out into the yard. The picture here is that our sin has locked us away from joy and the peace and the goodness of God. And here we are confined. He talks about sight to the blind. Those who spiritually can't see but now can. And this, at least for our family, hits pretty close to home. So I think most of you know what he went through over the last couple of months from one of our kids not being able to see it all from one eye.

And by God's grace and his provision and the goodness of his common grace through medicine, sight begins to be restored and comes back. And it's a joyful thing. Many of us are spiritually living with blindness. He says, he comes to release the oppressed, those who have been broken. The word here literally means broken into pieces. Crushed by a burden that is so heavy, it just shatters you. And maybe you've seen those hydraulic press videos. Some guy said, I got a hydraulic press. Let's make some money on YouTube. We'll put stuff in it and we'll crush it and see what happens. And they're fascinating, but here's the thing. Everything gets crushed and ends up in little tiny pieces. And there's times when the burden of life comes crashing down onto us. We find ourselves crushed, and Jesus says,

I am here for those who have been broken into little pieces. And then he says this, proclaiming the year of the Lord's favor. Literally, the acceptable year of the Lord, the year of Jubilee. And what happens in Israel when you would sell property? You wouldn't sell it forever. you would sell it and it would be returned on the year of Jubilee, 50 years after you sold it. So you're not selling forever, you're selling it for a period of time. So all that land that you've sold, those things that you've sold, all get returned on that 50th year. And the point is that everything gets put back where it's supposed to be. All those things that have been given away or sold or taken, or because of our brokenness and our need, we had to sell them,

it all comes and is put back together in that year. And what Jesus says, I have come to proclaim that I am the one to put everything back where it is supposed to be. In this text that we have been looking at this morning, these verses from the prophet Isaiah, in many ways they may be the opposite of what you have heard about Christianity. Because there is a lot of Christianity that says you need to clean yourself up and you need to make yourself look good, and you need to stop being broken and get yourself fixed. And Jesus says, no, I'm here for the broken, and I'm here for the blind, and I'm here for the hurting, and I'm here for the crushed, and I'm here for those whose lives have been scattered everywhere, and I'm here to restore them. And it's not just what Jesus says in this text, it's what he doesn't

say so as he reads this passage from Isaiah and he ends with to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor Jesus intentionally stops do you know what the next phrase in Isaiah 61 is says to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God and Jesus says that day of vengeance is not yet but as Isaiah sees it he just sees the line of history. And we know that Jesus comes, proclaims the year of the Lord's favor, and that God is patient with us. But there is coming a day when there will be judgment. What Jesus is saying is there is time. As Paul says, today is the day of salvation. And Christians, there's a tendency for us to think God's kind of got us on the right track. I'll take it from here. I'll figure it out.

You can see it throughout Scripture of where God works in somebody's life and pride sort of slips in and God has been working and instead of trusting him, they go their own way. Think about Abraham and Sarah and the promise of the heir. You think about Saul made king, then turns to his own plans and his own provisions right throughout Scripture there is this tendency for us to try to do it ourself and Christians we need to be reminded that's not how it works that we need Jesus just as much now as we did the day we came to him and one of the symptoms of this wrong view of thinking that Jesus gets me on the right path, I'll take it from here, is Christians who are tired, discontent, frustrated, and angry. Because instead of trusting in the good grace of God, we have

begun to trust our own strength, and it's never enough, and it's never good enough. And we ended up tired, frustrated, discontent, and angry. And so, Christians, and to our church, we need this reminder that Jesus is the one who brings good news to the spiritually broken and empty. He brings liberty to those who are enslaved to sin. He brings us sight in the midst of our blindness. He takes those who are crushed and sets us at liberty and he proclaims the year of the Lord's favor. If you're not a Christian this morning, Jesus's message is this, right? Today is the day of salvation. I have come this time and I am proclaiming the year of the Lord's favor and we know that he's coming again, right? This is a call to come to the one who loves and who saves and who

has given his life for you and to hear that good news let's pray father in heaven i thank you for Jesus and for grace for watching over us for giving us strength bringing us to hope help us as we seek to walk with you that we would not simply try to do so under our own ideas or our own plans, that we would put our trust fully in you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We're going to stand and sing about how we're transformed by the goodness of God.

Man's empty praise and treasures that fade are never enough Then you came along and put me back together And every desire is now satisfied Here in your love Oh, there's nothing better than you There's nothing better than you, Lord There's nothing, nothing is better than you I'm not afraid to show my weakness My failures and flaws, Lord, you've seen them all And you still call me friend Because the God of the mountain Is the God of the valley And there's not a place Your mercy and grace Won't find me again Oh, there's nothing Better than you There's nothing Better than you Lord, there's nothing Nothing is better than you Oh, there's nothing Better than you There's nothing Better than you Lord, there's nothing, nothing is better than you. You turn mourning to dancing. You give beauty for ashes.

You turn shame into glory. You're the only one who can. You turn graves into gardens You turn bones into armies You turn seas into highways You're the only one who can Oh, there's nothing better than you There's nothing better than you, Lord. There's nothing, nothing is better than you. Oh, there's nothing better than you. There's nothing better than you, Lord. There's nothing, nothing is better than you. You turn graves into gardens. You turn bones into armies. You turn seas into highways. You're the only one who cares. Just a couple of quick announcements on the back table. There's some information about VBS. If you would like to learn more about that, I'll be happy to answer your questions or direct you to where you can get those questions answered. Also, we need volunteers, So there are some volunteer sign-ups there.

If there's not, we gave out a couple this week. There are some more downstairs we can grab for that. So that's where we're at for VBS. We'll be back here Wednesday night for Wednesday evening Bible study and then back here again next Sunday. Let's go ahead and have a word of prayer. We'll read from Ephesians 3 and sing the doxology. Father in heaven, thank you that you transform the broken into something that is wonderful. We thank you for your power and your strength and your grace. And we're thankful for how it is at work in our lives. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In Ephesians 3, Paul writes this, Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below. Praise Him, above ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.