Sunday 12 • 08 • 19

My name is Paul Deschamps. If you don't know me, I serve here at CTK with our student ministry, and it's a real joy for me to get to stand up here this Sunday and bring God's word.

This season of Advent, we've been looking into a less than traditional passage of scripture as we prepare for the coming of Christ. We're focusing this series on the genealogy of Jesus as found in the Gospel of Matthew. Now, as Jeff showed us last week, it isn't what would be expected of a genealogy for a king because it includes a few people—in particular, four women who are not known for their greatness but by their struggles most commonly.

Every week this month, we'll be focusing in on the particulars of the stories of one of these women and how they're tied to Jesus. Last week, Jeff showed us the great redemption that is offered and found in the story of Tamar. This week, we're going to be looking into the story of Rahab.

So allow me to read for you her story. This week, I'm going to be doing the heavy lifting of the Hebrew names, and I would like to invite you to participate by just following along either by turning to Matthew one in your Bibles or in your bulletins or by following along on the screen.

Let me read to you from the Book of Matthew, Matthew 1:1-5:

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nashon, and Nashon the father of Salmon, and Salmon father of Boaz, Boaz by Rahab. — Matthew 1:1-5

Now turn with me to Joshua 2, where we're going to read Rahab's story found in the second chapter, verses 1 through 21:

And Joshua, the son of Nun, sent two men secretly from Shittim as spies saying, "Go view the land, especially Jericho." And they went and came into the house of a prostitute whose name was Rahab and lodged there. And it was told to the king of Jericho, "Behold, men of Israel have come here tonight to search out the land." Then the king of Jericho sent to Rahab saying, "Bring out the men who have come to you, who entered your house, for they have come to search out all the land." But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them, and she said, "True, the men came to me, but I did not know where they were from. And the gate was about to be closed dark, and the men went out. I do not know where the men went. Pursue them quickly, for you will overtake them." But she had brought them up to the roof and hid them with the stalks of flax that she had laid in order on the roof. So the men pursued after them on the way to the Jordan as far as the fords, and the gate was shut as soon as the pursuers had gone out.

Before the men lay down, she came up to them on the roof and said to the men, "I know that the Lord has given you the land and that the fear of you has fallen upon us and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who are beyond the Jordan to Sion and Og whom you devoted to destruction. And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you. For the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that as I have dealt kindly with you, you also will deal kindly with my father's house, and give me a sure sign that you will save alive my father and my mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death." And the men said to her, "Our life for yours, even to death. If you do not tell this business of ours, then when the Lord gives us the land, we will deal kindly and faithfully with you." Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was built into the city wall so that she lived in the wall. And she said to them, "Go into the hills where the pursuers will encounter you and hide there three days until the pursuers have returned. Then afterwards, you may go your way." And the men said to her, "We will be guiltless with respect to this oath of yours that you have made us swear. Behold, when we come into the land, you shall tie this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down. And you shall gather into your house your father and mother, your brothers, and all your father's household. Then if anyone goes out of the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be on his own head, and we shall be guiltless. But if a hand is laid on anyone who is with you in the house, his blood shall be on our head." — Joshua 2:1-21

But if you tell this business of ours, then we shall be guiltless with respect to your oath that you have made us swear. And she said, according to your words, so be it. Then she sent them away, and they departed. And she tied the scarlet cord in the window. This is the word of the Lord.

Let me pray for us. Oh, come, oh come Emmanuel, and ransom captive hearts for your glory. Come, Lord Jesus, and be with us now and always, for you are our king and our salvation. Amen.

A couple of weeks ago, Tom Hanks was taking the red carpet at the premiere of his new movie, It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, a biopic on the life of the incomparable Mister Fred Rogers. While he's on the red carpet, he gets interviewed by Access Hollywood, and they present him with this envelope. As he opens it, they say to him, our good friends at ancestry.com have done some digging, and they found out that you are a sixth cousin of Mister Rogers. Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, are surprised, and it's really a cool moment. It's cool moments like this that have gone on to fuel a multibillion dollar industry of genealogical research, a business aimed at telling people their own story. It's amazing what you can find out with today's tools about your past, about your family, by doing genealogy research. You can even spit in a cup and send it away in the mail, and somebody's going to do DNA search and tell you with even greater specificity details about your life and past.

I think all of this research is driven by a deep question we all have about who we really are. We want to know who we are because our identity, our story is important to us. While genealogy may be an interesting hobby for some, in first century Palestine, it was as important as a well-polished resume. Especially if you were like the Jews living in the time of Matthew, they have been looking and longing to have a king. They haven't had a king for hundreds of years, and they want a king to come and sit on the throne and rule over them. The book of Matthew is written to them to show them Jesus is your king. This is your king. This genealogy, this resume of Jesus, tells us that Jesus is a mighty king who's come to rescue the lost. It shows us that Jesus is a king who is capable of great forgiveness. He does this by connecting his story to the story of this woman named Rahab, a prostitute from Canaan, living and working in the city of Jericho.

If you like an outline and want to know where we're going today, here it is. I've got three P's for you to remember: the problem of Rahab, the profession of Rahab, and the pardon of Rahab.

Why Rahab's Story Is a Problem

So why is the story of Rahab a problem? In case you need a refresher on your Old Testament history, the story we read from the book of Joshua tells us about God's people and how God has faithfully been delivering them to the promised land of Canaan. This is the promised land, the land that he had promised to Abraham way back in Genesis. The people of God have sojourned in the land, then they've been enslaved in Egypt, and after their freedom from slavery, they wander in the desert for another forty years. This book tells us that God is bringing his people home.

The challenge to the Israelites is that this land is full of people. These people are warring nations, and they're people that have been known for their atrocities. The first obstacle in their path is the city of Jericho. Before Joshua is going to commit his troops to battle, he sends these spies. They go into Jericho to gain some intel about what they'll be facing. The spies wind up in a brothel.

Now, going to a brothel wasn't actually as scandalous of a decision as it may seem to us. It was actually smart. The text is really careful not to insinuate that these spies are there for any of the licentious reasons that we might think they went. But as it turns out, this is the place for them to go. This was the right move. This was a smart move.

A brothel at this time is like the information superhighway. This is where the real information about the town is found. All the people who deal in secrets, all the people who have the dirt on everybody else are likely to pass through the brothel. If you really want to know what's happening, you don't go and have a meeting with the king and try to have an appointment to get the official word. You go and listen in the streets. You listen for the secrets. So going to Rahab's house is actually a pretty smart move.

Now we see this stuff all the time, like when we watch spy movies.

Spies never go to the government in opposition and say, "I wanna know about all the dirty things that are happening." No. They go and meet with all the shady people in the story. They're the ones that show up with an envelope full of cash and ask, "What's the secrets? What's the real information that's happening?" In the spy business, maybe we're gonna have some hard feelings, but we're gonna get some really good intel. We're gonna know what's really happening.

So while the spies are there, they meet Rahab, the owner of the brothel. And then this amazing story unfolds in which she hides them, and she lies about their whereabouts, which was committing treason to her own king. She rescues the spies and hides them so that they can return to Joshua and give this report about what's happening. It's a great story. This would make a good movie, but it's a difficult story if we think about it. It's a difficult story for Israel to hear. It's a difficult story for Matthew's audience to hear. And this is a difficult story for us too.

We don't know much about the person of Rahab and her story. It only appears here in Joshua 2, and then a couple verses in Joshua 6. And that's really it. That's all we know. A couple other times she's mentioned in the Bible, but it almost always references back to this moment. This is her leaf in the ancestry.com search. This is her little bit of history. This is all we know.

From what we know, it's not very likely that she's going to be a first round draft pick for the great, great grandmother of Jesus. First, she's a Canaanite. The Israelites—this means she's out. She's a cultural and an ethnic outsider. She has no claim to the covenant promises of God. The Canaanites didn't worship the God of Israel. She doesn't have his blessing. She doesn't know the promises. She is an enemy of God. As you read the book of Joshua, you'll read many accounts about how God has commanded the Jews to take back the land and utterly and violently destroy these people as judgment for their wickedness. She's what we would call a gentile, and she has no hope.

Now strike two for Rahab, and the text is really clear about this one, is her job. She's a prostitute, and there's really no nice way to slice this one up. A lot of people have tried to sanitize her story, maybe lessen the degree in which she was engaged in prostitution. Some will say she was probably a temple prostitute, which was a form of slavery, and it wasn't really her fault that she was in this problem. Others will say that because the spies lodged there, she was probably more of an innkeeper. She ran a bed and breakfast, kind of thing. But the word here is the Hebrew word zona, and zona just means she was a common prostitute.

For the Jews, this is a total deal breaker. Not only is she an ethnic outsider, but her sinfulness has put her in direct violation with God's law. This woman's a sinner. If you're trying to make the case that Jesus is gonna be the true king, having Rahab in the line with the Messiah, that can feel like a problem. But Matthew is putting forward Jesus's resume to show us who he is, and having her here feels like listing that job on your resume that you got fired from where you're like, "Yeah, you should check this as your reference. Yeah. This is the guy you should call." One of the pastors that I listened to was saying, when you create your resume, you're telling your story. We only like to put the good nuggets in our story. The good pieces that when you look at me on a piece of paper, here's my good story that you need to follow. You wouldn't include things that reflect poorly on you. We only include the good jobs and the good references, but Matthew includes her.

When we check her references, what we see is that she acts in complete violation to the character that we assume that she is. Despite her labels, she acts more boldly, more faithfully, and more sacrificially than many of the people of Israel. She betrays her king and her people to protect the people that are coming to kill her. And she sends them home with only a glimmer of hope that she'll be saved.

The problem with Rahab—it's not only for a Jewish audience looking for a king. She poses a problem for us too. We have a much easier time in this modern day accepting a story about her conversion. But we're far more likely to look at the actions of the story as the point and not at her heart. The danger with her story is that it's easy for us to think that she's here at the center. And when we do, we find ourselves in one of two camps.

Now on one hand, we see a faith that has lived boldly, and that's inspiring. We are really tempted to try and go out and be like Rahab. Let's live a big, bold faith. Right? And do you guys know that quote? Well behaved women rarely make history. Well, I think that there's a Christian version of that. It's a version where we know that we struggle with our faith, and we feel a need to prove our faith to the world and to prove it to God and to prove it to ourselves. And so we go out and we say, I'm gonna act boldly and daringly. I'm gonna go out and do faith like this.

Now, our other temptation is to condemn Rahab. So like so many people, when we openly know their sins, they stop becoming people and they start becoming their labels. We can only see them as a list of attributes that make up who they are, and they stop being real. She's an outsider. She's a sinner. She's a prostitute. She is only trying to save her own skin. Someone like her couldn't really be saved.

And if you don't think this is true, run down the list of people in your head who you think that maybe I'd like to invite them to church. And then ask yourself, why won't you do it? See, I think we only have the ability to see people for their sin, but God can see the heart. And while we might be tempted to be embarrassed by someone like Rahab, the Bible's not embarrassed by her.

And if you take a look at Hebrews chapter 11, it's this great chapter on faith. And in this chapter, you're gonna read like a who's who list of these pillars of faith, the patriarchs. And you're gonna read names like Abel and Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac, Moses. Now, nobody's gonna debate you when you're like, this person is a person of faith. We're like, yep, that guy gets it. That person gets it. But then right there next to all these names is Rahab.

See, Rahab's actions were born out of the change of her heart. Hebrews tells us it wasn't her actions that saved her. Her actions were only a symptom of what is really happening inside her. Rahab is saved for her faith. And what is recorded in Joshua two is a beautiful profession of her faith. So the profession of Rahab is her profession of faith, and that's the real action in this story.

Understanding the Structure

Now, as I was studying for this passage, one of the commentaries I read explained that to understand this story, we need to understand the structure. And the structure of this passage is it's put together kind of like a sandwich. Now in the beginning of the chapter and at the end of the chapter is Joshua. Joshua kind of serves as like the bread, holds the sandwich together. It's the bookends. Then there's all this action around the spies. They're coming to Jericho. They're hiding. They're being sent back from Jericho delivering the news. Now this is a sandwich. This is the lettuce and the tomatoes, the mayonnaise. This is all the interesting things that make a sandwich good. But in the seven or so verses in the middle, this is the meat. This is the heart of the passage.

Now, when we call a ham sandwich a ham sandwich, we call that because it's full of ham. Good. You guys are with me. It's awesome. Well, this is a faith sandwich.

Rahab Encounters God's Might

And the first thing that we notice is that Rahab comes face to face with the might of God. And beginning in verse nine and ten, she says:

I know the Lord has given you this land, and we melt in fear. — Joshua 2:9-10

What a word to describe fear. Melting. Now when I think of melting, I think of ice cream. I think of ice cream in the summertime on a hot day when it's 95 and humid, and you're standing there holding that cone, and it doesn't matter what you do, that cone's gonna melt. The ice cream is gonna melt. You're faced with two choices. Eat it quick or watch it drip down over your fingers and be gone. See, there's no hope for the ice cream on a hot day.

But when we apply that same word, that same feeling to the emotion of fear, that's something completely other. Now I'm used to thinking about fear as crippling, but melting? That's something way beyond that. See, Rahab and the inhabitants of Jericho are feeling utterly hopeless and helpless. And why? Because they've seen the mighty works of God. They've heard about how he delivered Israel out of Egypt, how he parted the Red Sea and they crossed on dry land. He's heard how he's cared for them in the wilderness and how with his strength, they defeated these two kings, Sion and Og, on the other side of the Jordan. And they didn't just beat them. They utterly devastated them.

This is the basis for her faith. She was talking about the mighty work of God. She's heard about them, and she's come to this conclusion that this is the real God. This is a God with power. She's learned some facts and has come to believe that there's really something real here.

Now this is actually really normal for us, and this should give us a little bit of hope because this is how we come to faith.

Dilralf Davis, a biblical scholar, says that biblical faith is based on at least some information, some data, some evidence, some knowledge. Entering into a relationship with God is similar to entering into a relationship with any other person. You can't fall in love with someone without knowing at least a little bit about who they are. You don't get engaged when you swipe right on Tinder. Real relationships happen when you talk. When you learn about their past, you learn about their likes and dislikes. You find things in common. If romance is based on at least some sort of knowledge, so is faith.

Faith is not just a warm, cozy feeling about God. It's being able to look at him and see who he is and see what he's done for his people, what he's done for you. We are so much more blessed than Rahab because Rahab witnessed only the devastation and destruction of God, but God's given us his entire word.

Rahab's Confession of Faith

This leads Rahab to see something. She sees the majesty of God. Now, it's not enough to merely know about God. This knowledge has to bring about some kind of response in our lives. For Rahab, we see in verse 11, it brings about conviction of faith and a true confession of faith. When she says, "Your God is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath," she's saying something truly amazing. What she's saying are the words that would be a true Israelite confession.

Deuteronomy 4:39 says these words almost exactly.

This is a shocking statement from her because she's a Canaanite with no real knowledge of God. They were a pagan nation. They worship many gods. They're polytheistic. They worship Baal and Asherah and Marduk and Ishtar and many other gods. This confession is her rejecting the faith of her people, and she's saying, "Your God is not like our gods. Your God has real power. We've seen what he can do, and we melt in fear because our gods are powerless. Your God is the only God." This God who she has heard about is the only God who can function in heaven and on earth.

This profound profession of her faith leads to the conclusion of her actions, and she seeks the mercy of God. See this in verses 12 and 13:

"Look, I know that this is true, and I've treated you kindly. Save your lives. When the Lord delivers us into your hands, will you be kind to me? Will you swear an oath to me by your God that you will save me and my family from death and destruction?"

These verses are the evidence of her faith. Genuine saving faith never comes from being content with knowing the reality of God. Saving faith comes when we seek our refuge in him alone.

Knowing About God vs. Faith in God

There's a real difference between knowing about God and placing your faith in him. I've got a great book on my shelves at home about kayaking. It explains so much about kayaking, but knowing about kayaking doesn't make me a kayaker. I only become a kayaker when I get in the boat and start paddling.

Rahab gets it. She knew the truth about God, but as we read, so did everybody else in Jericho. They were all melting with fear, remember? She alone knows that she's got to escape this coming wrath, and her greatest hope isn't to run further away. It isn't to go and hide. Her greatest hope is to seek the mercy of God, to run to him.

I think this is actually a sobering point. Because there's a lot of people who spend a lot of time around the church. But spending time in a church doesn't make you a Christian. You can learn a lot about God. But until you embrace Jesus Christ as your only hope and salvation in your heart, you're still melting.

Some might say, "Sure, that was really great news for her, but I'm not that bad. I may not be perfect, but I'm no Rahab. On the whole, I'm a pretty good person." But the Bible is absolutely clear about this. There's no middle ground here. You are either saved in Christ or you're not. If you repent and you believe the good news of Jesus Christ, we are promised that you will be saved. Rahab helps us to see this when we see how she's pardoned.

The Strange Presence of Joshua 2

As I've been thinking about this passage over the last several weeks, I've really started to like it. It's a really cool story, and it's kind of a strange story. It's not just strange because of its content. It's strange that we even have it. If you look at the book of Joshua as a whole, you see that it's the story of conquest of the promised land. It's about God fulfilling his promises to deliver them to the land, to judge the wicked. It's a book full of judgment and wrath. Finally, Israel is coming home and the underdog is calling out the shots. This has led some to raise the question: Why is Joshua 2 even here?

I mean, chapter one tells us about Joshua being commissioned as the general and the leader of the army. And in chapter three, the people crossed the Jordan, and they begin this conquest. It would flow really nicely if this story wasn't here and that it really has nothing essential to say about how Israel goes home. But it tells us something. It tells us about the character of God. See, in a book that's full of witnessing the awesome wrath and the judgment of God, this first story that we read is a story about mercy. This is a story of the conversion of a pagan Canaanite prostitute. It's a story of forgiveness.

We know that she's saved and she's forgiven by what happens in Joshua chapter six. So when the walls of Jericho finally come tumbling down and her house is left standing, they go to find her and it says in chapter six, verse 25 tells us what happened to her.

Rahab and all who belonged to her were saved alive by Joshua, and she has lived in Israel to this day. — Joshua 6:25

It's incredible. Not only is she miraculously saved, and she's allowed to live another day, but she is welcomed in. Rahab is invited in to the people of God. And we know that it's a happy ending kind of story because of this genealogy. She wasn't just made to live outside the camp. She wasn't kept at arm's length to scratch and save, to try and survive. No, she's included. She finds family. She's married to a man named Salmon. She has a baby named Boaz who becomes part of this line of Christ and we're going to hear about him next week. This woman, this stranger to God's people would become part of the family tree of Jesus.

And her story tells us that God is a God who welcomes the sinner. He welcomes the broken and the hurting and the lost, and that he is a God who says, I am a God of great might. I am the only God worth worshiping, and I love you. And God longs for broken people struggling with the pain of their own sin to turn to him, to find refuge. And he welcomes them not only into his love, but into the love of his people.

The Church as Hospital

And now if you're here today and the church feels kind of weird, being in a church feels kind of weird. You're in the right place. And those are good feelings. Because the church isn't a place for nice, clean, well put together middle class people who pay their taxes. See, saying the church is only for these kind of people is kind of like saying that a hospital is only for doctors and nurses and x-ray machines. No, a hospital exists to help sick people, and the church is here to help broken people.

And if you're here today and you feel like you've spent your entire life running from God, hiding your sins, hiding your pain, trying to live like someone you were never meant to be, I'm so glad that you are here because Jesus is the great physician, and he came to heal your broken heart.

And I want to invite you, all of you, all of us here today, right now, take a look around. Take a look at your neighbor. Look at the person on your left. Look at the person on your right. Look behind you. Look in front of you. That person—I want you to know this: that person is not your nurse. That person is a fellow patient.

Now, some of us have been hanging around the church long enough to feel like we have an MD in salvation. But this hospital, this church, it only has one doctor and his name is Jesus Christ and he has come for people like Rahab. He has come for people like you and he has come for people like me.

Jesus Came in Mercy

See, this is what is so incredible during Advent as we prepare for Jesus, the Messiah, the coming king—a king for everybody. He didn't come as a conquering king. He came as a baby. And he didn't come to a kingdom. He came to a poor family, a family that was full of broken stories. And he didn't come with force, and he didn't come with wrath and punishment. He came in mercy. He didn't come to condemn sinners. He came to rescue them. And he didn't just come to redeem the stories of the people from his past like Rahab, but he has come to redeem our stories too.

And he demonstrates this all over the gospels. During his life in ministry, we see loads of examples about how Jesus shows his love and his mercy and his forgiveness. But when I think about Rahab, I think about this one story and you find it in Luke chapter seven.

See, Jesus has been going about his ministry and he's been doing amazing things. He's been bringing people back from the dead. He's been healing people of sicknesses and afflictions. He's been casting out demons. He's been teaching with great power and authority, and everybody is in awe of all the things that they're seeing Jesus do. He's demonstrating this might of God that he has, and he gets invited over to this man named Simon's house. Now, Simon was a Pharisee, and he's been watching Jesus, and he's like, I need to know what's up with this guy. I need to know who he is. I need to evaluate him.

So he invites him over for a meal. And something really unique happens during this meal. Let me read it to you. It says in Luke seven verse 37, I think we have a slide for it. You guys can follow along.

And behold, a woman of the city who was a sinner when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment and standing behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wipe them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. — Luke 7:37

Man, this is a Rahab kind of story. This woman's sins have made her an outcast, sins which most commentators believe were adultery. She's hopeless. She's judged. She's rejected by all of those around her, and she hears about Jesus, and she knows Jesus is my only option. And what unfolds is an awkward scene. The people in the house are scandalized and they judge her for her reputation, and then they judge Jesus for not knowing just what kind of person this is, what everybody else can so plainly see that this is the wrong kind of person.

But what they can only see is her problems, while Jesus is seeing a person. A person who is hurting and a person who is sorry, a person who needs to be rescued. Now to some of you, this might hit home because you've been that kind of person. You've been a physical outsider. You've been labeled by your actions. You've been made to feel like less than a person. And if this is you, have hope because Jesus sees you with kind eyes and outstretched arms.

And now some of you may have never felt like an outsider, and I praise God for that, that you've been protected. But spiritually, we've all been outcasts. In this story, there are those in power and then there's the powerless. But the truth that we see is that every single person in this dinner party needs forgiveness. And Jesus calls this out.

In verse 44, he says, do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss. But from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little loves little. And he said to her, your sins are forgiven. And those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, who is this who even forgives sins? — Luke 7:44-49

Jesus is a different kind of king. He's a king to set captives free and welcome them into his family. I mean, why is it that after several thousand years, I'm standing up here preaching about this story. Why does Rahab's story even matter? Is it because it's a story with some scandal in it? No. Every single one of those stories in time will be forgotten.

Her story matters because her name is tied to the only name that lasts forever because her name is tied to Jesus. And she got her ancestry.com leaf, and she is forever a part of the tree of life. What about you? Is Jesus your king? Are you a part of his family tree? The story tells us that he has room for you, that your sins, your problems, that your job, your money, that your race, that your gender is no match for the love of Jesus Christ because he is a king for everybody.

So this season of Advent, can you see how Jesus is mighty, how he's majestic, how he is merciful? And will you let your heart be moved to see that you are not the labels you think you wear, but that you are the object of desire of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, that he loves you so much that he would do all of this for you, that he would suffer the wrath that you deserve just to be close to you again. And all you have to do is turn around and be forgiven.

Let me pray for us. Jesus, would we see your power? Would we see your glory? And would we receive your grace? Pray this in your name. Amen.