Sunday Service: "It Starts with Prayer" (Sunday 5 September 2021)

welcome to our all souls online service this sunday is johnny dyer's last sermon as a member of the clergy and staff team here johnny has chosen to preach on nehemiah 1. i'll let him tell us why later on but let me read us the first verse of nehemiah's prayer lord the god of heaven the great and awesome god who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments we meet even scattered all over the world and through a computer screen we meet to remember what is true about our great gods and his promise keeping love you may not be watching this with thousands in the albert hall but i hope you will join us in thankfulness in your heart as we sing love divine [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] nehemiah prays to the god who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments but then nehemiah immediately turns to confess and confess the ways that he and his people have not obeyed god in john's first letter in the new testament he says that we have a choice about whether to be truthful when we speak to our gods if we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us but if we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness so we're going to say together a prayer of confession almighty god our heavenly father we have sinned against you and against our neighbors in thought and word and deed through negligence through weakness through our own deliberate fault we are truly sorry and repent of all our sins for the sake of your son jesus christ who died for us forgive us all that is past and grant that we may serve you in newness of life to the glory of your name amen john continues if anybody does sin we have an advocate with the father jesus christ the righteous one he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world so as brothers and sisters from across the whole world we're going to join in the prayer of the children of gods the lord's prayer [Music] [Music] for the kingdom the [Music] we're now going to celebrate god's forgiveness and love in the words of one of our children's songs foreign is is me you me foreign me this sunday at all souls it is johnny and naomi diaz last sunday on the staff team johnny naomi tom and ted they've been at all souls since 2011 when johnny joined the team as the student minister naomi also joined the staff team in 2018 leading the mums and toddlers group based at robert adams straits johnny was ordained in 2017 and has served in a wide variety of ways including most recently leading all souls through the interregnum alongside steve and then supporting me as i've started here johnny's wise advice and encouragement has been invaluable and i will continue to keep his number on speed dial for more of the same well we will miss them both very much from the staff team i am so delighted that they will not be leaving the church family straight away so we will continue to see them and johnny has agreed to step in as a visiting preacher while we're without an associate director we are looking forward to the restart of our small groups this month and if you're watching this from london and want to gather to pray and listen to god in his word in a group this year then please go to allsouls.org hello when you get there you'll be asked a few questions that will help allocate you to a suitable group if you're new to all souls then christianity explored or springboard are likely to be the best places to start but someone will be in touch with you to discuss the options if you're a parent and in london you'll want to know that our children's and youth groups start again next week on the 12th of september if you're already on the email list then you should hear details automatically but if you haven't heard then please get in touch with the church office we are grateful to all those who give financially to support the ministry here and particularly to those from around the world who listen online the link below would give you all the details on how to give if you'd like to do that that's all souls.org give as every week we want to give glory to the god who gives us all things so all things come from you o lords and of your own do we give you we're going to pray together now nehemiah prayed lord the god of heaven the great and awesome gods we thank you heavenly father that from your throne room in heaven you promise to hear the prayers of your children here on earth we think of the stars and planets that you created and the vast diversity of your universe and we marvel that you are mindful of us we thank you for your great and awesome power that you know all things and that every one of our requests and concerns is known to you before we ask it and we ask that you would increase our knowledge of your greatness and our humble wonder before you our great and awesome gods amen thank you for your covenant of love and for your promise-keeping nature thank you for sending your son to die on the cross and for his place as risen lord at your right hand where he advocates for his people we ask for all of us that you would deepen our understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of christ in particular we ask for the gathering of christians around your words and for our life groups here at all salts we ask for the leaders right across those groups in the children's groups the youth groups and in all the adult groups we ask that we would be filled to the measure of christ and enable to remember your saving actions through all of history and that those groups would turn us to love and serve our promised keeping god in jesus name amen we turn now to pray for our world and for our mission partners heavenly father please revive and refresh mission partners john and tessa cox and their team following a busy summer with groups of young people visiting adventure plus for weeks of adventure activities and outreach please encourage equip and strengthen them and their team as they look ahead to new opportunities at the start of the school year and as they continue to grow the adventure-based sites with the aim to be able to welcome twice as many children and young people each year grant them favor with the planners and also please lord give them the funds needed we pray for many opportunities to share god's love with young people in jesus name amen lord god as we continue to cry out to you about those parts of the world highlighted in the news in particular for christians in afghanistan and in northern nigeria we also pray for christians in uzbekistan and especially for believers in rural areas who face considerable pressure from family friends and communities who see them as traitors we also pray for pastors of unregistered churches whose meetings can be raided by police and who risk being arrested or fined thank you that your church continues to grow despite this and we pray that you would turn yet more hearts to you from every people group in uzbekistan let them see the hope that you can give and the riches of life with you in jesus name amen i'll close with the church of england's set prayer for today almighty god whose only son has opened for us a new and living way into your presence give us pure hearts and steadfast wills to worship you in spirit and in truth through jesus christ your son our lord who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever amen in just a second we're going to have our bible reading as uh praetha comes to read for us and then johnny will preach but our next song is also a press so join us in singing as we continue in prayer [Music] [Applause] [Music] more hungry than before now we're on your steps of mercy and we're knocking at your door hold on [Music] before we see your ashes returns to songs lord we know your heart is [Music] is [Music] before we is oh [Music] is is [Music] oh hi my name is prieta and i will be leading us in today's reading today's reading is taken from the book of nehemiah chapter 1 verses 1 to 11. that's nehemiah chapter 1 verses 1 to 11. the words of nehemiah son of hakkalia in the month of kislev in the 20th year while i was in the citadel of susa han and i one of my brothers came from judah with some other men and i questioned them about the jewish remnant that had survived the exile and also about jerusalem they said to me those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace the wall of jerusalem is broken down and its gates have been burned with fire when i heard these things i sat down and wept for some days i mourned and fasted and prayed before the god of heaven then i said lord the god of heaven the great and awesome god who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants the people of israel i confess the sins we israelites including myself and my father's family have committed against you we have acted very wickedly towards you we have not obeyed the commands decrees and laws you gave your servant moses remember the instruction you gave your servant moses saying if you are unfaithful i will scatter you among the nations but if you return to me and obey my commands then even if your exiled people are at the farthest horizon i will gather them from there and bring them to the place i have chosen as a dwelling for my name they are your servants and your people whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand lord let your year be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of this man i was cup bearer to the king this is the word of the lord thanks be to god before i pray i do just want to take a moment to say thank you for your love and support to our family these past 10 years when charlie gave me free reign to choose the passage from my last sermon as associate rector here at all souls langan place nehemiah chapter 1 immediately came to mind nehemiah teaches us that we cannot do anything in our own strength it's a lesson the lord has been continually teaching me we are utterly dependent on the lord in prayer if there is one thing i want to leave with you is the encouragement to keep prayer at the center of all you do join me as we pray together our father in heaven come now and speak to as we pray open up your word and hide it within our hearts for jesus sake amen what is your calling what is the thing the lord is asking you to do this coming year what are the priorities he's asking you to set it may be at one level quite mundane but of real importance to keep going to keep being faithful it may of course be something new these past weeks possibly months the lord has been laying a calling on your life and he's just waiting for you to respond it's been nearly 18 months since the first lockdown and we as individuals as a congregation as a nation as a world have been through it many of us are still going through the fire still suffering at the hand of the pandemic we may currently have covered or still be struggling with long covered or we live in fear that we might yet catch it others of us have suffered in other ways it flat it's left us feeling isolated lonely you know it's really affected our mental well-being family tensions that bubbled under the surface for years have emerged as we've lived in close contact and we're struggling to resolve them some of us may even have lost our jobs or live in fear that unemployment is just around the corner for many of us covid has left us weaker for others of us what started out last year as a pandemic to be feared has turned into a wonderful opportunity life changes were forced upon us back then and we have gone on to thrive and working from home has really worked and we hope to continue doing that in some form we've never spent so much time with family and we find we really get on quite well and generally we're enjoying a better work-life balance kovid has actually left us so far in a stronger place now whether kovid has left us feeling weaker or stronger it seems to me that there is at least one thing that on the back of the pandemic we now share in common we all emerge from it with a greater sense of purpose we all have a greater awareness of what we no longer want to do but while at the same time we are clearer about what we want to do the real danger for many of us could be particularly as coveted restrictions lived and we enter a new academic year is that we set off in our own strength without pausing to ask what does the lord want want us to do what is his will for my life which is potentially not only foolish but also sinful may i dare to suggest to you this morning the future provides a unique gospel opportunity for all of us like all of humanity we've been humbled brought to our knees we've lived in fear of catching covered and it killing us we've looked death in the face and asked ourselves are we ready to die has my life counted for anything and yet this morning we are alive with a future with friends and family to enjoy with life to appreciate but also with work around us to be done to build the church and minister to a world crying out for answers it's why i want to suggest to us today there's an opportunity not to be missed it's why there's also never been a greater need for people of passion people of principle people of holy spirit vision willing to say not my will but your will be done lord in order to realize that opportunity we first have to reckon with the futility of everything that can ever come from our own imagined strength or weakness this is what nehemiah had to do before he was called to build the wall he first had to understand that he couldn't do anything of worth in his own strength you see only in so far as every part of our life is adjusted to god in every detail can god achieve his purpose through us and only as he achieves his purpose through us will our life be successful in the truest sense of the word it's only when we realize that the lord has the supreme claim upon the life of each one of us that we can be truly effective it's what nehemiah had to realize first it's the 20th year of the rule of king artaxerxes now we looked at the story of ezra as a congregation early in the pandemic and we've jumped ahead 13 years from the close of the book of ezra to the beginning of the book of nehemiah it's the year 445 bc we're in a place called souza it wasn't the capital of the empire rather it was the winter residence of the persian kings it's a huge city 250 acres and the citadel the palace was itself situated on some mountains overlooking a river a grand palace with 72 columns upward of 70 to 80 feet in heights it was a wonderful place to winter in and nehemiah is king artaxerxes cupbearer he's at the top of his profession it's a position according to the greek historian herodotus that carried with a great honor because the king will have chosen you personally persian kings feared poisoning so they'd hire someone who they trusted implicitly someone who they trusted with their life to sip the wine or taste the food before they ate the king would then wait a minute to see if this cupbearer keeled over and if not he'd tuck in and wherever the king was the cupbearer was whenever the king ate and he ate several times a day the cupbearer was there which gave the cupbearer an unusual degree of access to the king nehemiah clearly is a man of immense integrity but there are lots of unknowns about him how did he reach this position who were his parents what were the influences on this man's life because we also know that he's a godly man and a prayerful man nehemiah is an intriguing and complex character he's a strong character temperamental at times we see an incident later in the book when he pulls out the hair of a certain individual he's so angry with them but this morning we want to see the particular feature of nehemiah that stands out and shines above the others and it's this he is first and foremost a man of prayer a person of prayer who is seeking to discern his calling in verse two we're giving the setting for prayer han and i one of my brothers or kinsmen came from judah with some other men it's an official delegation from jerusalem seeking help one of my brothers he may be a literal brother or you he may just be a brother in the sense that he's a fellow jew it's certain that nehemiah knew many who went with ezra 13 years earlier to build the wall understandably nehemiah wants to know about the progress of the wall and he seems to have asked them all kinds of of questions how are they doing how is so and so but how is the lord's work prospering tell me about the church in jerusalem tell me about the people of god tell me about the preaching of ezra see ezra had gone to build the walls but also to raise the moral and spiritual life of the people who had grown cold and haphazard in their faith what says her preaching on is it numbers or deuteronomy or is he in the book of genesis and how is the preaching being received are the people growing are they flourishing now as christians we should be like that when we hear about the church in some other part of the world we should be concerned about the lord's work there we should be concerned about the church in afghanistan what is the impact going to be on our brothers and particularly our sisters now the taliban are back in charge it's like william carey when he was a cobbler and a part-time teacher he'd been reading captain cook's travel dialogues about far-off places and he bought her a map and he put it on the wall behind him and on that map he'd write all kinds of statistics and figures about the church about the people of god about the unreached who needed to hear the gospel a growing interest in something is often evidence of a passion that can reveal a calling you know we can see the example of a growing vision for a foreign land preparing william carey for his life called to be a missionary it's a vision for a place or a need or a ministry that the lord often uses to begin that work of preparation for a call so let's have a closer look then at how god prepares nehemiah for his calling and we see first he was prepared by vision the story of what nehemiah hears is a tragic one it's given to us in the third verse of this chapter the remnants are in great trouble and disgrace the wall of jerusalem is broken down and its gates have been burned with fire it's important to remember that nehemiah recounts all these events himself it's his personal memoirs if you like and the mention of remnant may have been a carefully chosen word it's an old testament word loaded with meaning it speaks of the people who are not merely survivors who escape destruction but according to isaiah chapter 10 lean upon the lord in truth they are people with a future the remnants are in great trouble and disgrace the wall of jerusalem is broken down and its gates have been burned with fire and in the ancient world this was the calamity of total defenselessness those living in an unwalled city lived in constant stress and tension they never knew when they might be attacked and brutalized every man lived in constant fear for his wife and children it was an achievement just to survive the background is the sequence of events in chapter four of the book of ezra and you may recall the story ezra began rebuilding the walls only to meet local opposition letter was written by the locals to king artaxerxes accusing the jews of being rebellious and troublesome and the king replied issuing a decree ordering the building of the walls to stop immediately it was a crushing blow to the jews for the ring of hostile neighbors could now claim royal backing the patronage which ezra had enjoyed was suddenly in ruins as completely as a city walls and gates jerusalem was not only disarmed but on its own and the people of god are greatly discouraged now how many occasions have we taken up a task in the name of the lord only to withdraw beaten discouraged and baffled and it's important to remember every discouragement has been allowed to come to us in order that through it we may be cast in utter helplessness at the savior's feet all around us today we see discouragement growing hostility towards our faith the gospel seeming to have so little impact the circumstances of this last year have left many of us deeply discouraged but if the truth be known many of us have been living with great trouble in constant distress living only as survivors for years it's only that events have brought this to the surface now is it time to cast ourselves in utter helplessness at the savior's feet for our calling is to be more than mere survivors god not only wants us to be conquerors but more than conquerors through him who loved us if the jews in jerusalem are discouraged this seems to pale in comparison with the discouragement felt by nehemiah upon receiving the report from hanani his legs give way and he collapses into his seat now it's one thing to know that the state of affairs in a general way is quite another for his own brother to come to susa and tell him the story and for nehemiah to feel the pressure and burden of it in his own hearts and as nehemiah heard this story we are told in verse 4 that he sat down and he wept and he mourned and he fasted and he prayed but nehemiah was not the last to weep over jerusalem one day jesus sat on the slopes of the mount of olives and wept over that city and mourned and prayed and sacrificed his life for it and hundreds of people ever since have found that their life's work for god has only begun when they have wept and mourned and fasted and prayed over the seriousness of how bad things really are let's learn this lesson from nehemiah you never lighten the load make something less overwhelming unless first you have felt the pressure in your own soul you are never used of god to bring blessing until god has opened your eyes and made you see things as they are there is no other preparation for gospel work than that nehemiah was called to build the wall but first he had to weep over the ruins you see our tendency is to be supremely concerned about building walls the wall of our soul the wall in our church the wall in our missionary endeavors and yet we learn from the story of nehemiah that before we commence by the grace of god to rebuild the walls we must first of all see the ruins in which they lie we cannot slip into what god is calling us to do as some kind of hobby we'd fail terribly if we do that before we attempt any service for god however comparatively small however apparently insignificant we would do well to first of all survey the ruins around us we would do well to take a good long look at the growing disdain to the work of god in our society then we should take a long look at the failure concerning church attendance we then would do well to mourn over the indifference of christian people and grieve over the failure of christian leaders perhaps most of all as we survey the walls that need rebuilding we are called to mourn over the failing in our own lives to live lives which reflect jesus christ jerusalem's walls were in ruins and its gates were burned to a modern city like london that means nothing but god's purpose for jerusalem was that its walls should be salvation and its gates should be praised and the emblems of salvation and praise lay in utter ruin is god calling some of us to weep and mourn over the ruins of those emblems in our lives the symbol of salvation the symbol of praise the wall that marks our separation from the world does it today lie in tragic ruin there is no blessing until we look deep down in our own soul and see our spiritual life as it really is should we mourn over that in our life today what about the wall of our prayer life and daily bible readings what about the wall of our consistent testimony before others what about the wall of our walk with god what about the wall of our faithfulness in marriage what about the wall of purity do these things in the sight of god lie in ruins now when god takes up a person and uses them in his service the first thing he does is to show them their own utter inadequacy insufficiency and unworthiness for the task this was an essential part of nehemiah's preparation nehemiah is burdened his heart is heavy he's concerned about the kingdom he's concerned about the cause of god but he can't do anything about it he's the cup bearer he can't take a week off he can't put an out of office message up on gmail saying i'm going to be away for a couple of weeks the king ate every day and every day nehemiah would be there doing the king's bidding looking the part playing the role so what does he do we see what he does in verse 5 to verse 11. he prays he prays from the month of kislev chapter 1 verse 1 to the month of nissan chapter 2 verse 1. he prays and mourns and fasts for four months and we've seen how god prepared nehemiah by a vision of the ruins we see now how nehemiah is prepared by prayer when we have a vision of ruin and brokenness in ourselves and also in the things we're praying for we can be tempted to say there's very little i can do to help i might as well not even try we can be tempted to give up before we started or we can be tempted to take matters into our own hands to take charge and given nehemiah's natural bent was for swift decisive action his behavior here is remarkable it shows where his priorities lie he neither gives up nor takes matters into his own hands he prays initially his response is to sit down and pray but there comes a point when he has to get up he has to pray on the job he has to pray when he's before the king it's all that he can do and yet it's everything that he can do it's the instinct of its heart of his heart it's the disposition of his redeemed nature to pour out his soul to almighty god and we see this in the opening lines verse five deliberately postpones there any cry for help which otherwise could be faithless and self-pitying instead he mounts immediately to heaven in prayer to gain a right perspective as he reflects on the character of god it reflects not only on the loyalty and love of god for encouragement but first of all on the lord's majesty which brings all humanity with a friend or foe into their rightful place before god with a place of worship nehemiah is bringing us as readers into a worshipping encounter with god we're each to be impacted as we meditate on this prayer we're to ask do we love the lord our god and keep his commandments do we worship him as we should night and day verse six nehemiah prays his stickability and patience in prayer is remarkable over and over he's praying perhaps he's beginning to think maybe his brothers had said something like you would be a good man to come to jerusalem maybe he's thinking but i can't come i'm the cupbearer how could i possibly come if i'm going to come then something extraordinary must happen circumstances must change artaxerxes must die i must be released of course he don't mention any of this in the king's presence so he's praying not knowing not understanding what his role in the future will be whatever his desires may be he has no idea at this stage how god is going to use him and if god is only going to use him as a vehicle of prayer but he continues praying day and night for 16 weeks god's timetable is perfect he's never early and he's never late when things happen they happen right on schedule and here is nehemiah he's disciplined he's patient in prayer don't give up praying now that burden of that situation that soul that you're praying for don't give up keep praying don't stop nehemiah's prayer is founded then on adoration it's also rooted in repentance verse 7 the remembrance of god's covenants and the obligation to keep his commandments inevitably leads to heart searching and confession nehemiah faced with such a standard owns up to personal as well as corporate guilt now it would be very easy for us here to pass over the strong sense of solidarity nehemiah shows to god's people end of verse 6 and verse 7. he doesn't simply pray for them he identifies with the sin he repents for himself and the people of god real sincere intercession for others requires an identification with their hurt and pain we enter into their narrative and story we journey with them in prayer and this mode of praying can grow us in maturity and insight into god's grace as nehemiah prays a shift happens in him it's more than a shift from praise to repentance it's a shift emotionally and spiritually into the place and space of the israelites nehemiah through this prayer leaves the comforts of susa long before he petitions the king to travel to jerusalem the scope of nehemiah's and the people's sinfulness is named comprehensively and stating end of verse seven we have not kept the commandments the statues and the rules that you commanded your servant moses when it comes to prayer we can be honest with one another that we find it hard it's why the disciples ask jesus lord teach us how to pray we're struggling with prayer help us how can we how are we supposed to pray now jesus could have said go and read nehemiah chapter one it follows a very similar structure to the lord's prayer it's a prayer founded on adoration rooted in confession it's also a prayer grounded in the word as i read through this prayer it was like listening to the prayers of some of the old saints in my home church growing up it's a prayer that continually quotes scripture one commentator states he's a student of scripture nehemiah knows his bible well he knows the threats and promises to make a strong not a tentative request quoting deuteronomy in verse eight and nine claiming the promise god made if you return to me i will return to you nehemiah reasons and persuades god with his own words from scripture i'm reminded of the story of the outbreak of the hebrides revival in a small cottage there lived two elderly women peggy and christine smith they were 84 and 82 years old peggy was blind and her sister almost uh bent double with arthritis unable to attend church their cottage became a place of prayer and one day in prayer they came the promise from isaiah chapter four verse three i will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground they pleaded this day and night in prayer until it was answered it all begins with prayer it's a prayer founded on adoration rooted in repentance grounded in the word and also established on god's promise observe the 10th verse of this chapter they are your servants and your people whom you redeemed by your great strength and your mighty hand in verse 10 nehemiah went back hundreds and hundreds of years and he dared to remind god of the covenant that god had given to his people that someday they would possess this land nehemiah quotes here the words in which moses had pleaded for israel and mount sinai deuteronomy 9 verse 29 that god would stand by his own they're your servants and your people at that point israel had been threatened with extinction extinction and now it seems nehemiah sees a situation as hardly less perilous like moses he stands in the gap between god and the people pleading on their behalf and nehemiah based all his prayer upon god's past dealings and he's sawing them a mirror of all of god's future plans whatever the ruin we feel in our souls today let me encourage us to go back to god's past to ground our prayers upon a cross upon an empty tomb upon an ascended lord and then we will see in these things the mirror reflecting all god's purposes for this world of ours we do not hear much of this kind of praying these days i fear most of our prayers are just asking god to bless the work and to bless some folks that are ill and to keep us plugging along to keep the work going but prayer is more than that it is warfare real prayer engages in a battle real prayer is rooted in the promises of god and the covenant of blood do we pray like that we can look back to a place where jesus died and shed his blood and we can know that he is coming again certainly he did not do all that to leave us living as we are today or to leave our churches weak and inadequate in their impact and insufficient in their witness take a long look at the cross and then we will know something about the effective way of praying the prayer concludes with a final request verse 11 nehemiah moves to petitioning for his own success before the king give your servant success today by granting him favor in the presence of king artaxerxes and nehemiah understands do you see that he's in an extraordinary position of influence with the king he's the cupbearer to the king he's with him every single day i'm not sure if nehemiah fully understood how god was going to answer this because it's breathtaking it's a heart-stopping moment when nehemiah actually has to address the king and his life is probably in danger he's praying have mercy remember your word remember your promises to your people lord do this for your sake in the meantime he must wait for the right moment he's waiting waiting in prayer waiting before the presence of god my dear friend is that where you are this morning in your own personal life you are waiting before god in prayer with a burden on your hearts well take courage from nehemiah what an extraordinary encouraging thing it is to see god having mercy stepping in remembering his word coming to the aid of his people answering nehemiah's prayer psalm 127 verse 1 reads unless the lord builds the house the builders labor in vain this was nehemiah's heart as we've seen today perhaps the greatest joy for me in serving alongside you for these 10 years has been to see us as a church particularly in these last two years growing in prayer praying together daily as the lord has stripped us back it has been thrilling to see the way we thrown ourselves upon his mercy and how he has answered prayer and most recently in providing charlie it's an exciting time for you as a church and my prayers for you are that the deepening roots of prayer will grow as you look to rebuild the walls and build his house at all salts would you join me as we pray father we thank you for this extraordinary prayer of nehemiah free us from self-sufficiency that we may depend utterly and completely upon you help us to listen to you and respond in obedience in jesus name amen [Music] oh lord themselves their own soul could heal our shame was deeper than your grace is deeper still who o lord could save themselves their own so good here our shame was deeper than the sea your grace is deeper still and you alone can rescue you alone can say you alone can lift us from the grave you came down to find us let us out of death highest price [Music] you o lord have made a way the great [Music] evidence for when our hearts were far away your love went further still [Music] [Music] you came down to find us let us out of death [Music] is [Applause] [Music] we lift up our eyes lift up our eyes you're the giver of life we lift up our eyes lift up for eyes you're the giver of life [Music] and you alone can rescue you alone can save you alone can lift us from the grave you came down to find us let us out of death do you allow me alone the highest [Music] us [Music] well thank you for joining us this morning or whenever you are listening and watching this um we as i said earlier we're hugely grateful for johnny and naomi and for johnny's preaching ministry to us and for what we have just heard there and we asked that god's word would be at work in us as we continue to think and reflect and pray on what we've heard i'm going to close with some words from revelation great and marvelous are your deeds lord god almighty just and true are your ways king of the nations who will not fear you lord and bring glory to your name for you alone are holy amen you

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Published: Sun Sep 05 2021