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This is the First Mustang Pulpit Podcast, a podcast of the weekly preaching and teaching at First Mustang.! Thank you for joining us. Lord, we thank you for your word, for the sound of your people gathered here in this sanctuary for the purpose of worship.
The sound of songs being sung, the sound of conversations being had, the sound of Bibles being opened, and the proclamation of your word.
These are the sounds of worship. I pray that you would help us tonight as we embark in a new season and do our best to study and to learn from this Old Testament book that you would help us.
May our minds be attentive. Lord, may we learn. May we be challenged. May we be encouraged. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
Amen. The story of humanity is painfully repetitive. The names, the details, and the characters may change, but the reality of what takes place tends to repeat itself over and over.
There is one constant theme we see in the Old Testament indeed that we see even in our life today, and that is that people rebel against the Lord, and the Lord responds.
Grace for those who believe in Him, and judgment for those who do not. In the Old Testament, we see this happen over and over again as the Lord in His kindness establishes Israel, a nation, to be a light to the entire world.
They are given unique privileges as the people of God, and yet over and over again they slide into idolatry, into sin.
It's so easy for us to read the Old Testament and see that and think to ourselves, what is wrong with these people? Until we take an honest evaluation of our own lives and see how painfully repetitive our own hearts can be, as we too have been given great privilege by the Lord to know Him, to have His Word, to have His Holy Spirit within us, and yet we too often find our hearts sliding into sin.
We turn to the book of Nehemiah where we find some interesting things. Chapter 1, verse 1, the words of Nehemiah, the son of Hekeliah.
Now it happened in the month of Kislev in the twentieth year, as I was in Susa, the citadel. We probably ought to pause for a moment when we come across those words and ask ourselves, how did this happen?
How is it that Nehemiah finds himself in Susa? Nehemiah is a Hebrew name.
It means Yahweh comforts. Nehemiah is a Hebrew name. And yet, this one who has been named after the very comfort that the God of Israel gives to His people, finds himself of all places in Susa.
Nehemiah, not in Jerusalem, not living in the land of Israel, but in a palace in Susa, the capital of the Persian Empire.
If you were with us last spring, we studied through the entire book of Esther. Susa would be familiar to you. This is happening there about the same time. But the question needs to be asked and considered, how is it that the people of God went from the land given to them in Israel to being in Persia?
When the Lord had selected a people, He had given them promises, He had given them land, and He had said that if you disobey Me, judgment will come upon you.
They disobeyed, and judgment fell. After the death of King Solomon, that nation would divide into two.
Two kingdoms, not one. That northern kingdom that would retain the name of Israel found themselves being conquered by the Assyrians in 722 B.C.
And about a century later, that southern kingdom of Judah found themselves being conquered by the Babylonians with King Nebuchadnezzar. King Nebuchadnezzar then took the people, many of them, that dwelled there in the land and took them away, some 800 miles away, to Babylon in exile.
That would take place in three separate waves as people would be taken out of the land and taken into a foreign place.
All while this happens, the world empires will change. It will go from Assyria being the dominant group to the Babylonians being the dominant group.
And then something interesting happens as Darius the Mede joins with Cyrus the Persian and they join forces. And we get what we know as the Medo-Persian Empire.
Persia, the larger of the two. They join together and join forces and they invade Babylon and overthrow Babylon. Babylon. That's how the people from the land got there.
The people had disobeyed. Judgment that had been promised happened. And in one of the darkest seasons known to the people of God, they were taken out of the land and moved into Babylon.
Babylon. Well then, God in His providence works and a king named Cyrus decrees that the people of God dwelling in the land of Persia can go back home.
They were taken out in three waves. They go back home in three waves. The book of Ezra is helpful for us here as it helps us to understand how that took place and that first group goes back to the homeland under the leadership of Zerubbabel.
Interestingly enough, it was Cyrus who decreed they could do that. Cyrus himself, not even a believer, which lets us know that God is not limited to who He can use and how He can accomplish His work.
The Lord has no limitations. He has no peer. He has no equal. The Lord will do what He chooses to do. While people are going back to the homeland, that's the book of Ezra, there are some of the Jewish people who stay there in Persia.
That's where the book of Esther comes in that we studied last semester. Not everybody went back because the life of the Jewish people in the Persian Empire was pretty good for most. In fact, some of them were able to be elevated to leadership positions as Mordecai was, as Esther eventually was.
But then we come to Nehemiah. This third group that returns back from the land, back home from exile.
And as he comes back, the primary task that we read about in the book of Nehemiah is going to be the rebuilding of the wall. This monumental task is going to be completed in only 52 days.
And when you get to the end of Nehemiah, the wall around the city is rebuilt. The people are somewhat restored, and yet a familiar theme will once again present itself.
As the ones blessed by God find themselves again enticed by sin. How did Nehemiah get approval to go from Susa back home?
When he went back home, how did he organize the people to do the work? What kind of work did the people do? What was the motivation behind the work?
And how do they complete the work so quickly? All of these questions are answered for us in the book of Nehemiah. Quite interestingly so. And yet, here is Nehemiah, the man whose name means Yahweh comforts, as he seeks to organize and lead his people to find the comfort that only God can provide even to a people who so often seem to refuse to be comforted by the Lord Himself.
But God will preserve Himself a people. It may be a remnant, but a remnant it will be. God has always had His people.
At times, it looked very beautiful and promising. At times, they were the envy of the world like when they had the temple under King Solomon. After 931 B.C., when Solomon has died and the kingdom is split, it looks dark.
And by the time you get to the 70 years of exile, it looks darker than ever before. But God has always had His people. Which brings us to Nehemiah 1.
Nehemiah, born in captivity, his family from Judah. And remember that a Jew never forgot the homeland. Psalm 137 speaks of that.
Even if they weren't physically there, their heart was, their mind was. Nehemiah, we'll learn, was a cupbearer to the king.
It's a strange term for us. We don't have cupbearers as such today, but it's actually quite an elevated position. It's a kind of a chief of staff.
It's a very important role. And it's been said that in the book of Nehemiah, we find Nehemiah wearing three hats. He's a cupbearer, he's a builder, and he's a governor.
Throughout these chapters, we will see Nehemiah in all of these roles. First, as a cupbearer to the king in Persia, and then as a builder and organizer, and finally as a governor over the people.
Let's look at chapter 1 tonight. Verses 1-3, notice first, a question of concern. A question of concern.
Chapter 1, verse 1. The words of Nehemiah, the son of Hakaliah. We don't know anything about Nehemiah's father.
We do know that Nehemiah, as cupbearer to the king, is a kind of right-hand man to the king. It happened in the month of Kislev in the 20th year, as I was in Susa, the citadel.
Some 800, 900 miles away from Jerusalem. Here's what happened. Verse 2. Hananiah, I'm sorry, Hananiah, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah.
And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem. These Jewish people have gone back home.
Not all of them, but some had gone back home. Nehemiah encounters his brother, he mentions here, and he begins to ask questions of concern. How are the people?
And what's the condition in Jerusalem? I asked them concerning the Jews, that's the question about the people, and I asked them concerning Jerusalem, what's happened to the land?
In 605, when Nebuchadnezzar marches into town, they begin to roll through the town. That takes place until 586, when the temple comes down, and now for some 70 years, it's been an absolute disaster.
The people have gone back, and they've got to rebuild. Nehemiah, like all Jewish people, had his heart and his mind in Jerusalem.
How are the people? And what happened to the city? Maybe you grew up in a small town, and you knew everybody there.
Your whole life was there. Your childhood was there. And then maybe you moved away when you got married, or moved away when you got to college. And maybe for a little bit of time, you went back to visit.
But now, years have turned into decades, and you no longer have any reason to go back. And maybe you run into somebody, or talk to somebody, who lives in that hometown, and you say, what's become of the city?
Is that building still there? Is that small run-down hotel still there? Is the stoplight still flashed because it doesn't work? It never did work before. What's become of the city?
What's it like to live there? My heart and my mind is there, and his concern comes out in his questions. Verse 3, He said to me, the remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame.
The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire. We can read that description, but admittedly, it's hard for us to grasp what that fully means.
This is the city that had the temple. This was the envy of all. The walls were not just about security.
It was about an inner safety. It was about a peace. It was about a pride. It was about a joy. Their whole life was wrapped up in their security.
They were God's people. They had Moses. The Ten Commandments.
The tabernacle. The temple. David. Solomon. And now, the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.
There's a word right above that sentence that probably for us, we read and skip over, but we ought to feel the impact of it at the first report because it's something that helps us to understand the significance of what Nehemiah is going to do.
The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile, these people who went back home, they are in great trouble and shame.
In a culture where honor and shame is everything, the people back home have a collective shame.
not just because they're vulnerable, but their temple has been destroyed. Their walls have been tumbled over.
To be sure, they weren't safe from their enemies, but worse than being afraid of their enemies, is being devastated by shame.
Broken walls around the city didn't just make them unsafe, it left them humiliated and dishonored. And you can begin to imagine, at least in some way, how devastating this report would be to Nehemiah.
How are the people? Well, the people are living in shame. How's the city? The city is in shambles. That helps us to see, secondly, why Nehemiah had a response of contrition.
Verse 4, As soon as I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days.
And I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. The response here is as immediate as it is emotional.
Here's Nehemiah in a powerful position to be a cupbearer, to be the right-hand man to the king, and when he is told the condition of the people and of the city, his heart breaks.
This is a powerful, influential man with a tender heart. And can I say for those of you particularly who are called to leadership positions, don't ever lose that.
Leadership does not need to take your compassion. To have the responsibility responsibility of leadership should not rob you of your kindness or of your grace.
As soon as I heard these words, I sat down and I wept. One man speaking of that sentence said this, this is broken hearts kneel.
Broken hearts kneel. Let your first instinct be to pray.
This is so interesting as we read this unfolding because Nehemiah didn't live there. In one sense, Nehemiah is not responsible for what's happening there.
And yet he weeps. And it says he mourned for days. The proper response to seeing the effects of sin and judgment is to be grieved.
I want to encourage you that the normal response we should have to brokenness, to sin, and to judgment is that we should be grieved.
Nehemiah could have said, well, that's what my ancestors get. They were told the rules.
Foolish. Slow to believe. I've heard stories about how difficult they were. What are you going to do?
Or he could have said, well, that's a shame. I've got my own problems here. I've got plenty to worry about here. After all, I'm the cupbearer to the king. If somebody wants to hurt the king, they're going to get me first.
I don't have time to worry about somebody else. That's not what we learn here. To be unmoved by brokenness is a strange thing.
It should be a natural thing that we would be moved by pain around us. Never cease to allow your heart to hurt for those who are in need.
And we've got to be so careful here because we are surrounded by so much need all around us. If we're not very careful, we will quickly become numb to it.
How many funerals have you been to? I've been to a lot.
You probably have too. But the next funeral you and I attend will be the hardest day in the life of somebody.
don't let your heart become calloused. It's easy to do though, isn't it? As a way to protect ourselves from hurt and from grief and from pain, it's easy for us just to kind of push away from the reality of the brokenness of our world and just say to people, that's just life.
Well, part of being human is to grieve. And if we see nothing else, in chapter 1, we see from Nehemiah that it ought to be the response of the people of God that when you see people's lives in ruin and in shame, we ought to weep and grieve for them.
He goes on, he says, I continued fasting. In fact, we're going to learn as we go on, Nehemiah is going to live with this burden for four months before something changes.
He's going to pray. He's going to fast. He's going to weep. Day after day.
Week after week. Until it turns into four months of continuing to cry out to God for help and for intervention. Verse 4 ends, I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.
Twelve times in the book of Nehemiah we find prayer taking place. That's our response. When we hear of needs and concerns, it should be our response to be people who pray.
And don't cease to allow your heart to feel the weight of the struggles of this world. To feel deeply for people is not a sign of weakness.
It's the response of the redeemed. We see thirdly, a prayer of confidence. We get to listen in to the prayer.
This is the prayer that he was praying over and over and over again. I continued fasting. I continued praying before the Lord God of heaven.
I want to just mark for you the flow of this prayer with a few words. And I think this can become for us a helpful way to think of how we should pray to the Lord.
Not that you have to be formulaic in your prayer, but I think this becomes a good example for us of how we are to pray and especially how we are to pray with a broken heart.
Some of you may have been in the occasion where your heart was so broken you couldn't help but pray. Others of you may have had your heart so broken you didn't even know how to start to pray. Well, the first thing he does is he begins with praise.
Verse 5, And I said, O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments.
This is a good way to pray. Begin by acknowledging the goodness and the greatness of God. Before you address your need to God, remind yourself of who it is you take your request to.
Nehemiah's burden was great. The needs of the people were unfathomable and yet, he starts his prayer by reminding himself, God, You are great and You are awesome.
You are a God who keeps covenant. You are a God of steadfast love. You are a God who is faithful to those who love You and You keep. And as they keep their commandments, they experience, Lord, Your greatness.
God, this is the God we pray to. And can I tell you why this is so important? Because when your heart is broken, whether it's over your sin, the sin in somebody else's life, the condition that other people in your family find themselves in, the pain of the world, whatever it may be that's driving you to your knees in prayer, if we're not careful, we may wrongly convince ourselves that God does not care or that God is not strong or that God does not know.
And Nehemiah begins by saying, Lord, You are the God of heaven. You see everything. You are great and awesome.
Powerful. To be awesome is to have a condition, a characteristic where people are in awe of who You are.
You are an awesome God. You leave us in awe when we consider the fullness of who You are. These are important words because our flesh says, God, do You even care?
God, do You even know? God, are You even listening? God, are You doing anything about this? Remind yourself with the truth of who God is.
There's praise in His prayer. In verse 6, there's persistence in His prayer. Verse 6, Let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of Your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel, Your servants.
This is Nehemiah saying to God, I'm not letting You go. I'm coming after You in prayer day and night over and over.
I'm going to weep. I'm going to mourn. I'm going to fast. I'm going to pray. I'm going to pray when the sun comes up. I'm going to pray during the day. I'm going to pray at night. I'm going to pray when I'm joyful.
I'm going to pray when I'm hopeful. I'm going to pray when I'm disappointed. I'm going to pray when I'm overwhelmed. I'm going to pray when the sun shines. I'm going to pray when I can't see my hand in front of my face.
It's so dark. Lord, day and night, I'm coming to you in prayer. I'm relying upon your greatness. As we move through the details of this book in the weeks to come, part of what we are going to see, humanly speaking, is the organizational skills of Nehemiah, the passion of Nehemiah, the vision of Nehemiah, the boldness of Nehemiah.
But we would be badly mistaken if we turned this book into a story of what Nehemiah can do, as if all we should do is dare to be a Nehemiah.
What Nehemiah has done is bent his knees to cry out in persistent prayer to the one from whom all real strength is derived. We must be prayerful.
He is persistent in his prayer. And notice the way he sees himself as he prays here in verse 6. I pray before you day and night for the people of Israel, your servants.
Verse 6, he mentions servants. Verse 7, servants. Verse 8, servants. Verse 10, servants. Verse 11, servants. Not only does Nehemiah rightly approach God in prayer, he approaches him with the right understanding that we are your servant.
We are here and exist for you. I'm not here to tell you what to do as if I'm God and you're my genie. I am here as your servant. Yes, I lift my request to you. Yes, I'm asking you to move.
Yes, I'm trusting in you. But even our prayer of supplication is from the standpoint of, I am a servant and you are the great and awesome God. As you pray to God, we pray boldly as we pray according to his will.
But we pray as a servant to a king. Yes, we're a child and he's our father. Absolutely. That's always true. So is it also true that he is the king of all kings and we are his servant.
Don't forget that. Third, and maybe even a bit shockingly, we see personal confession.
Let your ear be attentive to your, and your eyes open, verse 6, to hear the prayer of your servant that now I pray before you day and night for the people of Israel, your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, Israel, which, what's your pronoun?
Which we have sinned against you. Nehemiah is not in Jerusalem. He's in Susa.
But his heart's in Jerusalem. He knows the sins of his forefathers. And he knows his own heart too.
You could read the story of somebody's downfall with pride and say, what in the world is wrong with them? Or you could say, you know what? I didn't do it exactly that way, but my heart's been prideful too.
You could look at somebody else's sin and say, I can't believe they would do that. Or you could look in the mirror and say, the details may be different. The dates and occasions may be varied.
But the heart that led them to do that, I've been guilty of that too. Lord, would you listen?
Look at your next sentence. Even I and my father's house have sinned.
I cringe when people turn the book of Nehemiah into nothing more than a building project series.
There are things to learn here if you're going through a building project. And there are churches who will study Nehemiah in a building project. And that's good. I'm not down on that. But what I'm cringing at is when they turn it into nothing more than that.
As if Nehemiah is only about how you organize a people, get some materials, and build a building. There's so much more than that going on here. If we were getting ready to build a building, this would be a good book for us to go through.
It's a great thing to study Nehemiah before a building project. That's great. Nothing wrong with that. But my plea to pastors would be don't skip chapter 1. Don't skip chapter 1.
There's no materials here. There's no fundraising here. There's no masons here. There's confession.
We've sinned, God. I and my fathers have sinned. Verse 8, there's a plea.
Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples. But if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcast are in the uttermost parts of heaven, and from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen to make my name dwell there.
Where's that coming from? Deuteronomy 30. Nehemiah lets the truthfulness of who God is record, revealed, and retained in Scripture become what fuels his prayer.
This is the biggest safeguard for our hearts to know that we're praying in accordance with His will is when we pray according to His Word. The confidence he has in his prayer is not in himself, it's that he knows God keeps His Word, God keeps His promises.
Verse 10, They are Your servants and Your people whom You have redeemed by Your great power and by Your strong hand. O Lord, let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant and to the prayer of Your servants.
And then he ends the prayer in verse 11 with praise. Those who delight to fear Your name and give success to Your servant today and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.
This man? Who is this man? This is the king.
This man? This isn't disrespectful, but this is absolutely saying this is not the man I am afraid of.
This isn't disrespectful, but this is certainly not saying this is the man who has all the power and all the authority. If Nehemiah is going to be allowed to go back to Jerusalem, or in his case, to be able to go to Jerusalem, he's going to have to have the king say it's okay to go.
In one sense, this Nehemiah, his life, his plans, in one sense, they are completely wrapped up at the decision of the king.
But in a greater sense, he says, his life is in the hands of the one true king. The king has power, but he's just a man.
There are people in your life and they have real influence over you and they can really create some blessing or pain in your life, but they're just man. They're not sovereign.
As Nehemiah praised this prayer, you see him loving his people, identifying with his people, confessing his sin, praising the Lord, but here you see his confidence in God.
Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and would you give success to your servant today and grant him mercy in the sight of this man who, he tells us, I was cupbearer to the king.
That's the this man. The king. But by comparison, even the king is just a man.
He's not a ruler in the truest sense. Only God is. So when we pray, if we would learn to pray like this, we would have a powerful example.
Begin by praise, thanking the Lord for His power. Be persistent in your prayer day and night. Personal confession of your sin.
A plea to God, letting your requests be made known to God, and then ending with praise as you acknowledge that God has all the power over all things.
When you get to the end of chapter 1, he's just told us, I was a cupbearer to the king. Which means, Nehemiah is as close to anyone, maybe except for the queen, or maybe including the queen, he is as close to the king as anybody else.
But he recognizes his life ultimately is not in the hands of the king, it's at the unfolding of the providence of God. When you get to the end of Nehemiah 1, you see a heartbroken, grieving Nehemiah who is completely confident in his God.
I fear sometimes that we tend to think that if we confess our sins too much that we'll be weak. Well, we will be weak, but when we are weak, He is strong. I fear sometimes we think that to be compassionate is to be seen as being weak, but in Scripture, the people of God are to be a compassionate, loving people.
And isn't it ironic that because he is so clear in his trust in God, he recognizes that it's not the king who holds the ultimate power over him, it's God Himself.
What did Nehemiah do in chapter 1? He knelt, and he prayed, he wept, and then he's going to stand and work.
He's going to kneel and weep and pray, and he's going to stand and he's going to work. In about a month, on Sunday morning, as we go through our series on the church, we're going to do, we're going to have a message on a Sunday morning where we consider the tension of the church, the paradox that we have as a Christian.
that in one hand, we've been told to pray and depend upon the Lord, the Lord does what the Lord does, and yet, on the other hand, we've been told to be people that are doing spiritual things and using our spiritual gifts.
On the one hand, we're told that nobody comes to salvation unless the Father draws him, and yet we're told to pray for people to be saved. On the one hand, we're told to take the gospel to all the world, yet on the other hand, and we're told that no one can believe unless the Spirit of God converts them.
This is the tension with which we live. That we recognize God is sovereign, we're not. Only God can save, and God is going to accomplish His purpose, and God knows the end from the beginning, and if God knows the end from the beginning, why are we praying anyway?
And why are we doing evangelism, and why are we making disciples? And the answer is, you cannot love your child when they're sick apart from praying for them. Of course you believe God is sovereign, but the instinct of the believing parent is to lift your child's name before the throne because God has so orchestrated this world that He moves on behalf of His people as they wait for Him, Isaiah 64 says, and God moves in response to our prayers, and God, who has ordained the end, the end also ordains the means to that end.
What else could we do but to be prayerful and obedient and to preach the gospel and call on people to repent and use our spiritual gifts to the glory of God even though we understand that apart from the Lord we can't do anything.
And wouldn't you know that Nehemiah chapter 4 actually gives voice to this exact situation. They're going to go back home and they've got all these enemies around them and they've got to build a wall because they need to be safe.
And in Nehemiah 4 it's going to say we prayed to our God and we put a watchman on the wall.
We cried out to God for safety knowing that ultimately our deliverance comes from Him but in our wisdom if you've got people coming after you get a guy on the wall to watch and to cry out if you need to call the army.
We put a watchman up there and we prayed. We shared the gospel and we prayed for God to do what only God can do.
We preached the truth and we asked the Spirit of God to cause it to take root in the hearts of people. We taught and trained our children at home and we prayed for God to bring about life because only He can.
We gave money as a church so that we could send people on mission trips and we prayed to our God that He would grant them spiritual success knowing only He can do that. this is the tension with which we live.
And we see it in the life of Nehemiah who kneels and weeps and prays and then stands up and gets to work. Hundreds of you in our church teach in all the various ministries of our church and if you are not praying you are missing the most important weapon you have.
But after you pray get to work. You've got to read. You've got to study. You've got to labor.
You've got to work. If you think your skill and your wisdom and your experience and your education exempts you from the need of prayer you have put far too much confidence in yourself.
And if you think because you have prayed you can check out and do no work and not get messy in the battle you've missed how God has chosen to accomplish His purposes. He says, we put a watchman on the wall?
And we pray to our God for safety. But which is it Nehemiah? Are you organized to defend your people?
Or are you trusting in God? Which is it for you? Are you taking your child to the doctor?
Are you praying for God to bring healing? Which is it for you? Are you praying for God to bring conversion to someone's life? Or are you opening your mouth to share the gospel?
This is the tension we live with. That we pray to a God who can do anything He desires and the way He chooses to work is as His people humble themselves to do what God has given us to do.
And so we're going to take chapter 4 verse 9 and we're going to spend an entire Sunday morning just on that truth. As we come to the end of chapter 1 we find a man a leader who has sat knelt prayed and will soon rise up and work.
praying does not exempt us from doing the hard work that the need requires. But do not think that your work alone will ever be more powerful than praying to the King of all kings who does whatever He pleases.
Lord, I wish we could just keep going into chapter 2. I feel as though we have introduced the story and the background and the main characters and there's so much more for us and we pray that in due time You would allow us to be able to see all that You have for us in this study.
I pray that You would help us to be obedient to be responsive to be caring and compassionate and may we every day put a watchman on the wall as we pray to You for protection.
may we pray for You to save sinners as we open our mouth and share the Gospel. May we study our Awana lesson our Sunday school lesson as we call on Your Holy Spirit to bring fruit from it.
May we continue to teach our children as we call upon You to guide them and give them a heart to love You. Lord, make us faithful.
Keep us holy. May our hearts be joyful in knowing that everybody else in this world compared to You is just this man.
If You are for us, who could be against us? In Christ's name we pray. Amen. God bless you.
May our hearts So now we begin to marinate my heart and change for us. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you.
God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you.