Hope Has a Name

You know, that was one of the first things that Becca and our family got to do last year after we had come here for me to begin being pastor here, and I was blown away last year, blown away this year as well. Seriously, there’s a lot of really just really cool things going on in the life of our church. And if we haven’t met yet, my name is Jeremy. I get to be the pastor here. If you’d like to grab some coffee and talk about something you’re navigating in life, or just to get to chat and connect, I’d love to do that. Just do a connect card and put it in one of the offering plates at the corners of the sanctuary at the end of the service. We’d be more than happy to do that. And seriously, there’s a lot of really cool things happening. I’d love to get you and your family or your friends engaged in the life of stuff.

Wanted to double-click on something: the women’s ministry Christmas ornament exchange. Yet you got the flyer in this. This is like this week’s premiere event or whatever, if you want to call it that. There was a little confusion over the time of some of the things happening, so we’re just reiterating all the special stuff this month at 6 p.m. So go off of this time, not the one printed in the bulletin, for there. Okay, something else that’s going on now, and we as Southern Baptists, we participate in something called the Cooperative Program. I mentioned this last week. The Cooperative Program is this kind of unified giving missions fund, all right? It is a way that we get to cooperate with the 40-something-something-thousand Southern Baptist churches in our nation to accomplish more together than we could ever hope or dare to dream separate and alone. So throughout the year we go through various giving opportunities with the Cooperative Program. This month we are celebrating the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. So if you got a bulletin, this was in those bulletins. If you didn’t grab a bulletin, then on your way out I want you to grab this because this has more information about what the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering is all about, as well. It has eight days of prayer for missions around the world. So what we’re going to do this morning is we’re just going to pray according to this prayer guide that you got in your bulletin. Last year, by God’s grace, we were able to raise a total of 3,235 for Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. Man, I’m so proud of that. So I figured why not make that our goal this year? And so here’s my specific pitch to you: is that you would contribute to the Lottie Moon Offering on top of your normal giving that you’re already doing here at church. That’s my invitation to you, because here’s the thing: God does not need your money. He doesn’t. He created everything. He runs the universe. He’s not just sitting in heaven wringing His hands saying, “Man, if the folks at Sauldam would just give me a little bit more, then I could really do something.” What this is, it’s an opportunity for you to continue to put your treasure somewhere, because as Jesus said, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So for you to treasure the growth of God’s kingdom through people accepting the gospel, through the work of the International Mission Board this month, that’s my invitation to you. So right now we’re going to go into our time of prayer. Just grab a neighbor and pray. You can even just use this day one guide of prayer that you may have gotten in the bulletin, or just pray that God would use what we raise this month to help bring somebody into His family. And here in a second I’ll wrap a bow on it and I’ll pray for all of us. Okay, you guys take it away. You pray for a moment.

Father, thank you so much for today, God. Thank you that we get to come into this Advent season, a month of intentionally setting our eyes on You and remembering Jesus, that You did come. You came 2,000 years ago. You came, and because of that, nothing has ever been the same. And we get to gather here at 5945 County Line Road, and we get to celebrate that. Jesus, thank You. Thank You, Lord, that You came not just to rescue us, though certainly You do that. You also came to put us, to bring us into the game, to help us join You in Your work. Lord, I want to thank You for Moses and his wife Beth who serve You in Senegal. I want to thank You for giving Moses the bravery to do island ministry even though he can’t swim. God, I want to thank You for Your blessing on their work, that 15 new folks on their island that they’ve been engaging in are believing the gospel because Moses, though he could not swim, he still crossed that water to take the gospel to them. Father, I want to pray for all the folks in Senegal, a nation that probably most of us don’t really know very much about, to be honest. God, it says in this guide that there is deep persecution from families in Senegal whenever somebody professes faith in You. Their parents, their loved ones, their aunts, their uncles, their siblings, maybe even their spouses, God, start persecuting them. So we pray for folks in Senegal that claim You. God, I’m asking that You would strengthen and You would, You would help them, please, Lord. Thank You that we get to partner with the church in Senegal through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. I pray, God, as we sow a financial investment into the work of the IMB, God, that You would give us a deeper heart for the lost around the world and a deeper heart for the lost here in the Low Country as well. God, I pray that as we walk away from today, You would give us a deeper heart for Christ because You came, we can have hope. So thank You. Holy Spirit, would You get a hold of me right now that I would preach all of what You have told me to preach, that I wouldn’t do anything else. Help me, please, to communicate the hope of the gospel with clarity. And for anybody here that does not yet have that hope living inside of them, I pray they would walk away changed on the inside. God, we love You, and that’s in Your great name we pray. Amen. Amen.

Well, you go ahead and turn to Isaiah chapter 53. This is the scripture that Al read as part of our call to worship this morning. It’s the scripture that Donnie sang during the song, and it’s the scripture that I’m going to be preaching this morning, Isaiah chapter 53. As you’re turning there, I’m curious, what are you hoping for this holiday season, or maybe just in life? What are you hoping for? Some of our families and friends, some of us, we were hoping for like this perfect family gathering, and either your bubble was burst on Thursday or Friday, or maybe it’s still standing, and yeah, you’re looking forward to Christmas. Maybe you’re hoping for a better health situation after the New Year. Maybe you’ve got some tests coming up, or you’re looking at your chart, your medical situation, you’re just hoping that something would turn there. Maybe you’re hoping for a financial boost. I don’t know what it is, but what are you hoping for?

I think that we are designed to hope. I think that God has hardwired into us this stubborn desire to see some light at the end of the tunnel, this desire to have hope. Yet if we’re honest, pretty much everything we hope for in this life, it either doesn’t happen at all, or it doesn’t last if it does happen, or if it does happen and it lasts, it doesn’t actually solve the problem. How many times have you hoped for something, thinking that that financial boost or that better health outcome would solve all your problems, and by God’s grace you did get a bigger paycheck, or by God’s grace your diagnosis went away, and a new problem set in? Man, that happens to us all the time. We need something strong to hope in, and our world needs something strong to hope in. The people of this world are dealing with so much, from personal difficulties of mental health issues to unknown futures dealing with their own health and financial stuff, maybe like societal decline and how we see just kind of the trend of this world going toward dark things, broken families, that man, kids and adults are just looking for a person to hope in. The problem of evil, the pervasive nature of sin, we are all looking for something to hope in. This morning we begin celebrating Advent because we have something to hope in. Yes, we do. For…

Christians, for those who profess their faith in God and in Jesus Christ, this is it. Jesus Christ is our Living Hope. Jesus Christ, He is our Living Hope. And what I am praying and begging the Lord to do this morning is that He would help open your heart, open the eyes of your heart to see Him this way, that you would walk out of here with a renewed hope in Him that would carry you not just through this week, but something that would carry you through the rest of your life.

Isaiah 53. Give you a little context before I read it for you. This came 700 years before Jesus arrived on the scene. 700 years before Jesus Christ was ever whispered from Mary to her baby boy, this message came. This message came at an interesting time in the life of God’s people as well. You see, the nation of Israel has split, north, south, Israel, Judah. There’s this guy named Isaiah. Isaiah is called by God to become a prophet, and Isaiah’s ministry is in that southern kingdom, Judah. Now the people of Judah, they have been going against God’s desires, they’ve been going against His ways, and what God has been doing is He’s been sending His messengers, the prophets, to tell them, “Hey, repent and turn from your sin, or else I’m going to send you a more severe discipline. There’s this nation that’s going to come and conquer you, they’re going to exile you as they invade you.” Hello, the book of Nehemiah, that’s what we just studied over the last 17 weeks. This what I’m about to read this morning is for Nehemiah, which means you already know the end of this story. The ministry of Isaiah was all about how salvation is coming, but first discipline. The passage I’m going to read this morning out of chapter 53 is part of this longer song called The Suffering Servant Song. It’s a prophecy about a coming Savior who would self-sacrifice for the sake of God’s people. This week, if you’ve got time, read this song in your quiet time. It’s on the digging deeper portion of your bulletin. I’ve written some Bible study questions for you to look at it with. Take some time, grab a cup of coffee, and read this in total, and you’ll be blown away by the beauty of Jesus and the depths of who we can be. This song would give Israel the hope that they needed to weather the storm of exile and punishment, and I believe what we’re going to read this morning is going to give us some hope too. So without further ado, this is Isaiah 53:1-6.

Who has believed what we’ve heard, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before Him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He didn’t have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at Him, no appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. He was like someone people turned away from. He was despised, and we didn’t value Him. Yet He Himself bore our sicknesses, and He carried our pains, but we in turn regarded Him stricken, struck down by God, afflicted. But He was pierced for our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities. Punishment for our peace was on Him, and we are all healed by His wounds. We all went astray like sheep; we all have turned to our own way, and the Lord has punished Him for the iniquity of us all.

Man, that is God’s word for us this morning. There’s an initial question you ought to ask because there’s a lot of pronouns being used but no names. Who is being talked about here? Spoiler alert, it’s Jesus. 1 Peter chapter 2 says this, it’ll be on your screens for you. 1 Peter chapter 2:24-25. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but you now have returned to your Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

Hey, here’s a Bible study tip real quick, this is for free, this isn’t really part of the sermon, this is just for you to take away. Let the Bible tell you what the Bible means. So when the New Testament quotes from the Old Testament, that’s the author of the Bible telling you how to understand what the author of the Bible has said. Okay, this passage, Isaiah 53:1-6, His name’s not Mentioned, but this is all about Jesus. For the Christian, Jesus Christ is your Living Hope, and for the non-Christian, only Jesus can give you hope. If you’re in here this morning and you are, you’re still trying to figure out what you believe about this Jesus guy. You may have made up your mind what you think about me or you think about us, but the one that you’re still dealing with is Jesus. My invitation to you this morning: suspend some of those doubts, check some of those hesitations, and let Jesus tell you who He is. All right.

Isaiah 53:1-6 displays three dynamics of Living Hope. In you, if you’re a notetaker, write this down. The first is this: we can doubt Living Hope. It’s unfortunate, but we can doubt Living Hope. Sight and hearing were not enough for the Jews of Jesus’s day. Imagine what they heard Jesus do, and imagine or imagine what they saw Jesus do. Imagine what they heard Jesus say. Put yourself in the shoes of somebody who would have been in that crowded house that Jesus was teaching at, and all of a sudden the roof starts sprinkling down on you, and the hole starts expanding in the roof, and there’s these four guys, and they’re lowering a bed that a paralytic is laying on right in front of Jesus, in front of this incredibly packed house. And remember what Jesus says. He says, “Hey, your sins are forgiven.” And the the friends are like, “Hey, what gives? Like, okay, we we appreciate the sins being forgiven, but we also really want this guy to be healed.” And He just says, “Oh yeah, I could do that too.” And He heals the guy, and the guy stands up and walks out. Imagine seeing that.

Imagine being on the hillside where Jesus was, where there’s no food, and there’s tens of thousands of people. We know there’s at least 5,000 men, and man, no man goes to church without his wife, right? So there’s there’s got to be thousands of people there too. And Jesus takes these couple pieces of bread and these fish, and He breaks it, and He blesses it, and He feeds thousands of people with a kid’s meal. Imagine seeing that. Imagine hearing the words that Jesus said about how good God is and how much grace He has for you, and turning away away from it all. Seeing is not always believing. You can doubt Living Hope. The people saw Jesus; they watched Him grow up. He was like a young plant, a young shoot, it says in verse two, and He grew up. They watched Him grow up, yet they did not believe that He was God in the flesh, the long-awaited Savior. The Gospel of John puts it this way: Jesus was in the world, and the world was created through Jesus, yet the world didn’t recognize Him. Jesus came to His own people, and His own people did not receive Him. It’s not enough to know about Jesus. It’s not enough to grow up in church. It is not enough to sing songs, to pray prayers, or to toss a little bit of money in the plate as it passes. It is not enough to have spiritual moments. You must personally submit to Jesus as Lord. You must personally call on Him as Savior for you to have the real living hope that you want and that you need. The people of Jesus’s day saw Him, and they still doubted Him.

Now, I think we doubt Him and we doubt Living Hope for a variety of reasons, namely, this is too good to be true. It’s kind of like if somebody gives you this get-rich-quick scheme: “Hey, you invest $100, and in a month you’ll get $100,000 back to you.” That sounds too good to be true, right? Or maybe you’re out Black Friday shopping, and you you find your favorite luxury item marked down 95%. You just pay a couple dollars for it. It would take thousands to accomplish that. That’s too good to be true, right? Yes, Jesus, however, is not too good to be true. Here’s what Jesus really does offer: He really does offer unconditional love and acceptance. Jesus really does offer miraculous power to work in your life. Jesus really does offer total forgiveness and freedom for you. Jesus offers eternal life that begins now and goes forever, and this offer is available to anybody who would believe in Him. It’s available to anybody. Jesus is not too good to be true, but still we doubt Him. I think sometimes we doubt Him not just because He’s too good to be true, but because He didn’t come the way we’d want Him to come. That phrase in verse two—I’ll just read it again. Or sorry, verse one: “Who has believed that we have heard, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” Arm of the Lord used across the Old Testament to communicate God’s strength, His salvation. It’s how God rescues and redeems His people. It’s my man Phili at the Fall Fest with the arm wrestling table. It’s the arm of the Lord. When God shows His arm, He is about to do something strong. The arm of the Lord is revealed in Jesus as a baby. Who sends a baby to a fight on your behalf, right? Who says, “Hey, don’t worry, I’ve got the ultimate solution to this little 50-yard line scuffle between my team and your team. I’m going to put my child in there, and He’s going to solve it all.” God reveals His strength. He shows His arm through the miraculous birth of a baby.

I keep reading: “He grew up before Him like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground. He didn’t have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at Him, no appearance that we should desire Him.” An impressive or attractive form, be- beauty. Jesus did not have beauty. He just didn’t. That’s what Scripture says. He was just an average-looking guy, and He had no majesty to revere Him. That would have been power. Jesus, when you saw Him, would not have been a physically imposing person. He would have just been kind of an average guy. Whatever average was 2,000 years ago in Israel at that time, that was Jesus. We like to paint Jesus and depict Jesus as being this strong-jawed, wide-shouldered guy that everybody would have been beholden to. The Bible literally says that’s not what He looked like. He looked average.

Jesus was unbelievable. He was doubtable because He denied Himself the privileges of beauty and power. He took up instead the way of humility and sacrifice. Now you and me, we have it wrong. We trust the beautiful and the powerful. When we want a leader like the people of King Saul’s day, we say, “Give us the most physically impressive, the most worldly powerful person you could ever imagine. That’s my guy.” That wasn’t Jesus’s way. We trust the beautiful and the powerful, which usually means that Hollywood and Washington have the hearts of America. Yet Jesus came without beauty. He would have been shunned by Hollywood. He came without power. He wouldn’t have been accepted in Washington. And His ways, though Isaiah 55 says that His ways are higher than our ways, and His ways are greater and better than our ways. Jesus, living hope. We doubted Him.

The second dynamic is this: we can reject living hope too. Terrifying. We can reject living hope. I’ll read verse three again. Jesus, our living hope: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. He was like someone people turned away from. He was despised, and we did not value Him.” When Jesus, the long-awaited Savior of the world, the one who was promised in Isaiah 53, who 700 years later came and walked this world—when He got here, you know what people did? They despised Him. They rejected the guy. They turned away from Him. They didn’t value Him. They didn’t value Him.

Jesus, though, was fully aware of the pain and the difficulty that you experience in this life. The book of Hebrews, chapter 4, says it this way: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. No, we have one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.” There may be some situation you are going through that feels hopeless. There may be something you experience, and you just assume God doesn’t know, because if He knew, then He would do something about it. I can’t solve all of that from here, but what I can tell you is that Jesus experienced the hardest and the darkest aspects of life that you and I experience. He experienced the highest joys of life that you and I get to experience. He experienced just the kind of mundane, just every day, just kind of going through the calendar stuff that you and I experience. He experienced everything you and I experienced. He didn’t sit in traffic on Highway 17 or 526 because that wasn’t built yet, but Jesus had to sit in lines. Imagine that—the Creator of the universe that started everything, subjecting Himself to a line, or imagine the Creator of the universe, the One that made food. At some point, He got food poisoning. He experienced everything you and I experience. There’s a modern worship song called “The Son of Suffering” that puts it this way:

Oh, the perfect Son of God, and all His innocence, here walking in the dirt with you and me. He knows what living is; He’s acquainted with our grief. Man of sorrows, man of suffering, the blood and tears, how can it be? There’s a God who weeps, there’s a God who bleeds. Oh, praise the One who would reach for me. Hallelujah to the Son of Suffering.

Some imagine You are distant and removed, but You chased us down in merciful pursuit. To the sinner, You were grace, and the broken, You embraced. And in the end, the proof is in Your wounds. The blood and tears, how can it be? There’s a God who weeps, there’s a God who bleeds. Oh, praise the One who would reach for me. Hallelujah to the Son of Suffering.

Jesus entered your experience to extend the love of God to you. And what do we do? The people were promised in Isaiah 53 to reject Him. That people, 700 years later, when they got Jesus, they rejected Him. And you and me, if we’re honest, every day we have little moments where we reject Him too. Some of your family members still reject Him totally, and they don’t believe Jesus as Lord at all. They think that some of this is just a weird hobby, or we’re crazy. Some of you in the room, perhaps you got drug here. This is just kind of your only option for the morning, and you might also deny this and say, “Man, that’s fine for you. It’s fine for that well-meaning guy up front. That’s not me.” We all do this. We all reject Him.

But imagine everything had to come from something. Nothing plus nothing can’t equal everything. The pew you’re sitting in, to the air you’re breathing, to the food you’re going to eat later—somebody had to make all that. The family you have, somebody had to make those people. God exists, and God is not distant from us, but God actually embraces and approaches us, not begging or demanding. He’s not begging from us as if He needs us, nor is He demanding things from us, forcing us to fulfill a certain formula or earn enough good credit with Him. That’s not God. No, God bleeds for you, and God weeps over you, so that He could have you, and He could give Himself to you.

Like I said at the very beginning, if you are still settling who Jesus is and your relationship with Him, what do you have to lose? Why not—this sounds weird—why not give Jesus a try? You might be here because nothing else is working, right? We all want hope. We all want something to hope in. We all want something bigger than ourselves to lean on and to give us some confidence and stability when life gets a little upside down. Maybe, just maybe, Jesus would meet you in that. Right now, you’d stop listening to me, and you’d just do a little business with the Creator of the universe who is calling you to Himself. Please don’t reject Him. Some doubt Him, some reject Him, but ultimately, here’s the truth: we can’t deny Living Hope. We can’t deny Living Hope.

Verses 4 through 6, I’ll read it again. Yet—imagine real quick—God, who made this plan to save you, He knew that He would be rejected, and He knew that you would reject Him. Yet, yet He Himself bore your sickness, and He carried your pain. But we, in turn, we regarded Him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But He was pierced for your rebellion, crushed for our iniquities; the punishment for our peace was on Him, and we are healed by His wounds. We all went astray like sheep, just wandering around, trusting in our own way. We all turned to our own way, and the Lord punished Him for the iniquity of us.

Why is this passage written in past tense? This is 700 years before the guy ever showed up. Why would it be written in past tense? It’s because these are promises that would be fulfilled. I want you to hear me say this: what God starts, He completes. When God says He’s going to do something, He’s not going to forget about it like some well-meaning family member, nor is He trying to trick you and just get you to say yes.

To something He wants. When God says He’s going to do something, He’s going to do it. You can believe Him. You can trust in Him. You can hope in Him. You can lean on Him. Just look at what He did for you. He bore our sicknesses and He carried our pains. Imagine He personally dealt with the things you deal with. He did that. He put them on His own shoulders. He carried them for you. After that, He was struck down by God. Sure, people were the means by which Jesus in the flesh died, but we know God’s sovereignty was the one driving the spear into His side. God’s sovereignty was driving the nails into His hands. God’s sovereignty was what was lifting that cross up. God’s sovereignty is what was pouring the wrath of God on Jesus instead of on you, so that you could have peace.

Jesus was pierced because of our rebellion. He was crushed because of our sin. Jesus suffered unfairly, not for His wrong, but because of ours. Rebellion and iniquity—that’s sin. Jesus didn’t sin. He didn’t do it. Jesus did no wrong, yet He was punished as if He had. This is the gospel: Jesus in your place. This is the heart of the gospel, the good news of the Bible, that there is someone who suffered for sin. There is, and His name’s not Jeremy. His name’s not Linda. It’s not Michael. It’s not Clyde. It’s not Steve. It’s not Kingston. It’s not Paul. It’s not Cera. There is one who suffered for sin, and it’s not you. It’s Jesus. Jesus stood in your place.

Imagine it like this: you’re standing on a train track. You’re just strapped there. Let’s say you’re lying down on a train track and you are all tied up, and you see a train coming. The train is God’s wrath on your sin. The thing holding you to that train track is all those ropes. Those ropes represent your sin, and you are tied up so tight, and you are bound so securely, you can’t get yourself free, and you can’t get yourself off of that, which means you will be hit by that train. Jesus then comes, and He lifts you up, and He carries you to safety, and He places you over here. Jesus then takes that rope, and He wraps Himself, and He lies down on the track, and He takes the full impact of God’s sin—or of God’s wrath for your sin. That’s the gospel: that Jesus would trade places with you so that you could now be an accepted son or daughter of God, that when God would look at you, He would say, “Oh, she’s mine,” because Jesus took care of it all for me. That’s the gospel. Jesus is trading places with you. He was pierced for you, the punishment for you to have peace with God. It was laid on Him. Jesus suffered so that we could have peace, and by His wounds you are healed.

Here’s the deal: your main issue in life is not physical or financial. It’s not your family. Those are things that we swim in and out of. Those are just circumstances we deal with. Your main issue in life is sin, and Jesus dealt with that main issue. He healed that main wound and sickness that you have. Jesus’s perfect sacrifice heals you in your deepest part, so that you could become whole and restored and have life instead. You might see it at this point: Jesus is my living hope. And the question is this: is Jesus your living hope as well? Is He your living hope? The fact of the matter is, hope is not just something you talk about. Hope is something that you live on.

It’s kind of like this. I could describe this stool in a number of ways. I could say it’s got four legs, two, I guess, kind of curvy legs, but I don’t see a—yeah, I don’t see a weight rating. I bet this thing—what do you think, Al? How many? 400? Maybe you think I weigh 400. I could describe this stool to you all day long. Strong stool. That’s a good piece of wood right there, huh? What if I just stood like this and I said, “Man, I totally believe this stool can hold me up.” Would you believe me if I still got one foot on the stage? Anybody get nervous? I didn’t tell [inaudible] I was going to do this. I knew she would have talked me out of it.

Here’s the fact of the matter: this is hope. My full weight’s on the stool. Some of us…

are treating Jesus a little like this. I’ll lean on Him when life seems a little hard. I rock back on myself, my family, my money, my world. When life gets a little easy again, scary medical situation, I lean on Jesus a little bit. My full weight’s not on Him. I’m not totally set on Him yet. Stuff goes away, I lean back. The Bible says you either on the stool, you’re not. You might wobble a little bit. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter about my balance. It matters how strong the stool is. How strong is Jesus for you? The question is, is Jesus your Living Hope or not? Close your eyes, please. Let’s just be really honest with ourselves and with God for a moment. I want to ask you a question. You don’t have to tell me. You don’t have to tell the person that brought you. But answer this honestly: Is Jesus your Living Hope? Or put in a different way, are you standing on the stool or not? If you’re not, you’re in the very best place to be. If you want to be on the stool, if you want Jesus to be your Living Hope, if you want to experience personally what I’ve been talking about, you would pray a prayer like this: Jesus, I don’t know very much about You, and frankly, I’ve been turned off from You, and I’ve been rejecting and doubting You for a long time. But I need hope, and I can’t deny that You came and You have changed some people’s lives, and I’m asking You would change mine. I give myself to You. Just pray that prayer. As Jesus is your Living Hope, you pray something like this: Lord, thank You. Thank You for saving me and opening my eyes and my heart to You. Help me to share this message of hope with others and open their eyes as well. Holy Spirit, would You please, would You settle these things in the hearts and in the lives of the people here right now, that we would all walk away from here with You being our Living Hope. Thank You. Amen.