What The World Needs Right Now - Pastor Daniel Batarseh

Meet me in the book of Daniel, go to chapter five. And as you're turning your bibles to chapter five in the book of Daniel, I have to say that, and I'm sure you can agree to this, that if, if you ever understood the importance of meeting together physically as the body of Christ, it has been magnified concerning your appreciation and your understanding of it all the more these past few weeks. And since we're starting to come back together and to meet again consistently, I think it's appropriate for us to have, a reminder of what the church is about. That's not the message. It's just a quick reminder of what the church is about and what this church is about.

I think that's something to consider because if we can sum it up in one thing it is simply this, we want to be the church that Jesus Christ died for. And by God's grace we will not succumb to the temptation of what many have accepted the church to be and that is a gathering of people to hear a well thought out sermon for an hour and a half, one time a week. Neither will we, give in to any other idea except for striving to make sure that every person that calls United Evangelical Church home will be unified in thought for this, that we will do everything we can by God's grace to be a bible loving, Christ adoring, mission minded people. And we will be continually reminded that as long as we are on this earth, individually as Christians and as a church, we will continually have in our minds the great commission and we will strive to fulfill it until Jesus calls us home. What I'm trying to say is this, we wanna be what Christ wants us to be.

And even though the world may not want that, it doesn't matter. We will do what Christ calls us to do. And that is important because it demands at this time a greater intensity and a greater passion more than ever before. Why? Because we just learned as a church that every ministry can be stripped from us without warning.

And on top of all of that, now we have added stuff. What we're facing now is a national combustion of hate, division, violence, confusion, chaos. So you know what we have? In the past few months, we've felt it in the air, a concern because of a virus. Now we have it mingled with a tension of hatred because of violence.

And it seems like we're just catching up with things and things are just gonna be added one thing on top of the other. And when things seem to rest, another thing seems to come up. That is what 2020 has all been about really, interruptions. And what's my point? Here's my point, the church is living in amazing times.

The church has entered into a land of opportunity. Because all of this shouldn't make us scared, it should invite us to realize that as much as the world is getting dark, we're gonna shine all the brighter. But it takes active obedience for that to happen. It's something that is demanding us to do something. It's not something that's just gonna happen.

And I wanna take this morning to simply speak on one subject and it is this. If I can title this message anything, it would it'd be this, what the world needs from the church now. What the world needs from the church now. And as I'm speaking, you're gonna realize, you're gonna feel hopefully by the Spirit that we have a sense of responsibility. And the reason why I started the way we started is because again, the church in the West especially, they feel as though what we're experiencing is something that we're watching at a distance, when in fact it's a call to action.

It's a call to action. We don't run away from problems, we run into them with solutions. And what I'm fearful of in our generation is that we have again, reduced church to just coming to hear a message, being stirred emotionally, talking about how great it was, how the music touched me this week not as much as last week, and that's church. When we are now facing so much and it is asking something of the church because God left the church in here for seasons like this. And so this is gonna be an exciting thing and we have to be open to it because it's God's word for us.

And the first thing I would say, what the world needs from the church right now, is to declare the unchanging, uncompromising word of God, number one. Now this has always been the church's call and she is never called to relax in it, in season, out of season, preach the word of God. But how much more is the message needed today? I'm sure you can agree that one of the most frustrating experiences these past few weeks has been the utter confusion that has been spewed out of the mouths of so many people. It's like you can't get answers anywhere and everybody feels like they're being lied to.

You turn on one news station, you get one perspective. You turn on the other news station, you get a completely different perspective. Okay. Let me go on social media. I've never wanted to get rid of social media like I have these past few weeks.

When I go on it, and I have limited platform, I just go on Facebook. When I go on it, I am emotionally exhausted just by scrolling through my timeline. Here is an article and here's another conspiracy theory and here's my perspective and here's my policy. Here's what I think is gonna solve this issue and look at this and you have people on threads arguing and you and it's it's so taxing. But here's the thing that I realized over the past few weeks, and maybe you realize it, everybody is talking but nobody's really giving answers.

And to sum up what's really the noise of everything, it's mainly accusation. Let's be honest. There it's a blame game. It's their fault. It's our leaders fault.

It's China's fault. It's the WHO's fault. It's this fault. The police's fault. Blame blame everybody's pointing at everybody else.

And if there's any solution, we can't even agree on it as a nation. If there's any offering of maybe we should try it doesn't matter. You have you always have an opposing view. And it's grand enough where you can cut it in half where you have two armies at least that will stand against each other. You know what this proves?

That the world doesn't really have answers. That's what it proves. The world doesn't really have answers. So who does? They have opinions.

Maybe they have statistics. They don't have lasting strategies. And if there is any strategy, I argue that it's only putting a band aid on cancer. And it reminds me of what happened here in Daniel chapter five. What's happening here in Daniel chapter five?

What an amazing book this is. We're introduced to King Belshazzar in verse one. He is the son of King Nebuchadnezzar. And the way we're introduced to him is not in a nice light because we read here, King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand. The first thing that we see of King Belshazzar is he's having a party, and it's no ordinary party.

This guy had the audacity to say, Hey, didn't my dad go to Jerusalem and grab a bunch of vessels from that temple? Go get the cups. Go get the gold. Go get the silver. Bring them out so that we can use them and and not just use them, but celebrate these elements.

Right? What do we read here? In verse three, then they brought in the golden vessels that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and those lords, his wives and his concubines drank from them. They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone. And it looks like everything's fine.

It looks like things are going the way they always have been going. And all for a sudden you and I are introduced to a word in the next verse, and it's an important word, immediately. Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace opposite the lampstand. Can you imagine in the middle of a thousand person party, appears this hand in the air and it begins to write on the wall, party is over. And what do you see here?

You see that in the middle of prosperity, in the middle of political power, in the middle of indulgence of pleasure, there's a divine interruption. God steps on the scene and it wasn't announced. He came immediately and it instantly changed the atmosphere. It's amazing how God by the snap of a finger, no pun intended, can literally change the attitude and the destiny of a people in a moment. And you have a people that were dancing and drinking, and just like that were screaming and shaking in terror.

And so what do you see here in Daniel chapter five? You see a room of high officials, of leaders, of celebrities, now in great perplexity, confused and confounded, terrified and flustered. And what's before them is something that they can't even solve, they can't even understand. And so what does the king do in this state of terror? Well, what does he do?

He says it right here in verse seven. The king called Lauli to bring the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the astrologers. The king declared to the wise men of Babylon, 'Whoever reads this writing and shows me its interpretation shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around his neck and shall be third ruler in the kingdom.' You know what he's doing? He's trying to find answers. You know what he's doing wrong?

He's finding in all the wrong places. And obviously, this king has a sense of hope because he hired these guys in the first place. This is what their job was, to give answers to supernatural phenomenon, to things that the human mind cannot really understand, things that are outside of the human control. These were why the guys were there. And perhaps on a smaller level, he received some kind of satisfaction because they are obviously still in position, but you know what's amazing?

When it really came down to an hour of need, they couldn't pull through. And so they're just as perplexed as he is, and they humbly admit we can't interpret what's going on. We're just as dumbfounded as you are, king. That's what we read of in verse eight. Then all the king's wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or make known to the king the interpretation.

And let me say this, I argue that leaders in our nation today are doing the very same thing. They're looking at the writing on the wall and they can't even understand it. They're looking at one another and they're trying to interpret what's happening and they can't find language for it. And if one person once says something, the other person says the other. And now what we're seeing is even leaks of our leaders hating each other, barking at each other, divided on the highest level.

And the ones who are supposed to have answers don't. And on top of that, because of their frustration of trying to find answers and solutions, it has trickled down to a people who've adopted their same attitude. And so from the highest to lowest, from great to small, the world is watching our nation become something that arguably hasn't been the case in a long time at least. So what what's gonna happen here when you have leaders in panic mode? What's gonna happen here now that you have people insulting and criticizing each other, not in this text, at least they had some decency?

He's gonna find answers in the right places because a queen, the queen, comes up. In verse 10, it says the queen comes and she gives insight about a man. And we go to verse 11. There's a man in your kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy gods. In the days of your father, light and understanding and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods were found in him.

And King Nebuchadnezzar your father, your father the king, made him chief of the magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and astrologers. And we go down and we realize that this man is Daniel. The queen steps onto the scene as these knees were buckling. And she says, you guys realize who's in our realm, right? There's a guy named Daniel, and the queen understood something because she had witnessed this man operate in a different spirit.

And she said, there's a different substance that this man carries, and he taps into a different source of power than none of these other people have. And the reason why he has answers is because he's connected to the living God, while all these other people are connected to false gods. So I present to you, oh king, a possible solution. Grab the man who has the living God on his side, and let's just see if he can provide some solution to our mess. And I would like to think that Daniel in this text is a picture of the church.

I wonder if society can look to the church and find some answers. And it's not our responsibility to come onto the scene and be like, we have answers. I mean we can, but Daniel didn't come into the room and say, oh I'm here to rescue you all. He was summoned. Daniel's responsibility wasn't to step on the scene and say, let us fix this mess whether you want us to or not.

He wasn't imposing, but he was ready. He was walking with God. Ever since from his youth he had made a commitment that I am an exile in Babylon. I am a minority in this land. I'm not praised for what I believe, but I'm gonna stick to what I believe.

I'm gonna stay walking with God. I'm gonna stay in tune with God. I'm not gonna allow the principles and the philosophies of Babylon affect me. I'm gonna let the rule of God reign in my life, and I'm gonna stay as a prayerful man. And would you know it that in a time of crisis he was summoned?

This is a possibility for the church. I don't know how it can be, but here's the thing. Perhaps the world can get so desperate that they're willing to. And the question is we need to be ready. We need to be ready as a people.

And on a on a minuscule level, on a minor level, conversations. The people that we know immediately. Maybe we can't touch the government so to speak, but we can touch those who are near to us and close to us. And the reason why I'm bringing this is because in the past few weeks I've noticed that supposed leaders in the Christian community, they're sounding just like the world. They're sounding just like the world.

Their arguments, their pleas, their policies, many pulpits have become political platforms. And they're trying to sound like the world, give solutions like the world, and they sprinkle a little Jesus on it so that the Christian community doesn't get too suspicious. But if anybody has any sense of discernment, they can see pass through it. I said this statement over again and maybe we have to hit hear it one more time. The church cannot be and cannot afford to be an echo.

It has to have the voice of God, and that's from the word of God. Stick to the word of God. The gospel, gospel principles, gospel convictions. Don't get swept up by what people are saying and what they're trying to provide as solutions, because I can guarantee you this, people who are not in their bibles can get swept up. And the world needs something outside of this world to heal this world.

And we are his representatives, so we need to honor the scriptures and honor God's wisdom. It is for all generations and there is a solution to every problem. So I would say that if the world needs anything right now, it's not to sound like the world. Unfortunately, I've seen more passion for protests than people having passion for prayer in these times. Do you wanna know how you can really bring change?

It's not to go on your feet with a sign in your hand, it's to get on your knees and call upon heaven. And people aren't willing to do that. If you remember before the lockdown, there was a message on the coronavirus and why or what is God's perspective in all of this. And there was a little portion there that mentioned that this could potentially be a holy nudge from God to get right with him. And then a statement followed that, which was something along the lines of, do we need to wait for the world to melt around us before we get serious with God?

And would you know it, within a few weeks we're seeing the world melt before us. And here's what I'm afraid of, that Christians are still not waking up. They didn't wake up with the coronavirus. Now they're not waking up with national riots. What is it going to take?

Does a knife need to come to our neck before we start praying? Before we start seeking? Before we start getting serious? Number two, if the world needs anything right now, it's not just to stick to the uncompromising, unchanging word of God. It's to tap into the power of clean hands.

Tap into the power of clean hands. You might be wondering, what are you what are you saying? Sometime this past week I found myself, I'm sure as you were, disturbed, greatly disturbed. All you have to do is sit and watch a few news clips to get your heart going. And at this point I couldn't really find myself to pray for anything that I usually pray for, but just focus on praying for what's happening in our day, in our nation.

And it just came to a point where in the simplicity of my heart saying, Lord, there's got to be an answer. Like, there has to be something that we can do. We're just watching, but what is it that we can actually involve ourselves in to make somewhat of a difference? And as I was approaching the word of God, all I did was went to the last place that I was reading in my continual devotion, in my reading plan, so to speak. And I was in the book of Job and still am.

And I would encourage you to turn there in Job 22 because as I turned to this specific passage, a verse popped out to me in a way that it shook me. It shook me in that moment. It shook me to the point where I did something that I never did in my bible, and that's right the date beside the verse. Job 22 is an interesting chapter because the whole book is really about what I'm about to say. You have Job's three friends attempting to comfort Job, but they're not really comforting, they're trying to confront him.

And here's a man broken by the things that he's experienced, and you have the three friends, one by one, attempting to get out of him the sin that he must have because surely when you suffer it's because you've sinned, according to the theology of some. And so Eliphaz is up. And Eliphaz now is trying to preach to Job and he's trying to convince Job to repent by showing him the blessings that are involved in rightly relating to God. It's a beautiful chapter. If you read specifically from verse 21 down, oh, it's awesome.

Each verse is worthy of memorization almost. And so he's trying to stir Job's heart. This is what you can expect if you know God and walk with God and are clean in your conscience and in your walk and in your deeds. And and as he's doing this, there's a verse at the end that I personally never noticed. In fact, it wasn't even highlighted, whereas the rest are pretty much highlighted, and it's verse 30.

Look what he says. He, being God, delivers even the one who is not innocent, who will be delivered through the cleanliness of your hands. It's from the ESV. Let me read it from the New King James. He, being God, will even deliver one who is not innocent.

Yes, he will be delivered by the purity of your hands. Do we understand the implications of this verse? See the thing about the book of Joab, and we have we have to be careful is because what the friends did was wrong, but what they said was not necessarily wrong. We have to sift through it and the best way to do is to see the Bible for what it is completely, to realize if what they are saying is true. So what Eliphaz is saying in this verse is true.

Where he was wrong is that he misapplied it. And people can know truth and misapply it all the time. And that's what the book of Job one of the lessons is at least. Here's a man who is telling truth truthful things about God and being rightly related to God. But here's a man who's misapplying it because he's trying to tell Job to get clean, to become pure, to repent, but he's in no need of repentance.

We know that from chapter one. He was a God fearing man. But here is what this verse means and it's powerful. If a man who is rightly related to God with a pure conscience, with a pure lifestyle, for that man's sake, God is willing to answer his prayers even though the object of his prayers are worthy of discipline and judgment. The man with clean hands has the influence to lift those holy hands to heaven, and God can see into the man's heart and so honor this man who walks in the fear of God that because of his innocence, he's willing to deliver the guilty through his prayers.

That's power. And this is what it means for us, that what this guilty nation needs are the prayers of a pure church. It's not time to be apathetic. It's not time to be comfortable. It's not time to be laid back.

It's time to act. And can we make this potential case that maybe the reason why so many ministries have been cut off is so that we can focus on this one? Because this is what this nation needs more than anything. You know what's amazing about this? It's very ironic what Eliphaz is saying.

Extremely ironic. Because he thinks he's preaching, but he is unknowingly being prophetic. He tells Job, and some of you know where we're going here, if you're rightly related to God through your prayers, God will deliver the guilty. Well, let's go to Job 42 and see what happens. Who's the really guilty one in this text?

I'll tell you, it's not Job. In verse seven of Job 42, the Lord himself now steps on the scene because he gets the final word. People can argue, make cases and try to do all these things. God gets the final word. He makes the final judgment and that is certainly true in this case.

He steps on the scene and he's gonna rebuke all of them. Look at verse seven. After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz, that's who we're talking about in Job 22, the Timonite, my anger burns against you and against your two friends for you have not spoken of me what is right as my servant Job has. Now look at this. Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves.

And here it is. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I'll accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. How ironic. Eliphaz was prophetic and didn't even know it. Hey Job, get right with God and you can pray and things will happen.

Well isn't that nice? Because at the end of the whole thing he ends up doing it and it worked. But here's the practical point here. Can you sense the honor about this? Can you feel the privilege behind this?

God bestows upon the man with such influence that the destiny of his friends are hinging upon his willingness to pray. You know what Job could have done if he was in the flesh? These past few days you've done nothing but accuse me, To add greater discomfort to me? To try to condemn me? I need a break from you guys and I'll think about it.

Maybe you guys should smother in this suffering for a little bit and get a taste of your own medicine. No, he doesn't do anything. He prays. He prays for them even though he was mistreated, even though he was the object of scorn. What Job had, you and I have.

We have that kind of potential with our prayers, and it should cause us to not only feel responsible, it should cause us to rejoice to think that God is willing to work with us. And here's the condition though, our hands need to be clean. And Job was a man who had clean hands, because that's how we're introduced to him in chapter one. He feared God. He was a righteous man.

He walked in the ways of the Lord. And Job makes the case with his own life about how he walked in integrity and dignity. Here's one, Job thirty one one. Job says, I have made a covenant with my eyes. How then could I gaze at a virgin?

He even says, my eyes are not even I've made a commitment with my eyes not to lust with them. And so you see sprinkled throughout this book how Job was a man who had clean hands. And you know what the honor for that is? That when you pray, things happen. And this is what America needs from a pure church, not just to pray, but to be pure and then pray.

Because if we pray without purity then we lose the power in our prayers. And it's not talking about perfection, it's just talking about a conscious awareness of willing to let go whatever grieves God. And when we do that he goes, I'll honor your prayers now. To the degree that even if a person is guilty, I'm willing to have compassion on them because you sought my face on their behalf. This is the God that we serve.

This is what James talked about, the effectual prayers of a righteous man. That has power. That's what we need. So much so that we're gonna apply it, not this morning necessarily, though we will have a time of short prayer. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday of this week, we are opening our doors to pray.

The sanctuary will be open 07:00 Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this week to ask God for revival, to ask God for a move of his Holy Spirit, to ask God to touch his church, to touch this nation, and to see something in our generation that will make up for the mess that 2020 has been. But again, it's in our hands. It's in our hands. But this verse encouraged me so much. Why?

Because Job was one man and three people were touched by him. We don't need many. We just need commitment. And we need people who are willing to say, if this is what my prayers can do, then how can I not pray? What do we have to lose?

Is not praying gonna do more? I've never heard the argument. We must be committed to declaring on the unchanging, uncompromising word of God. We must tap into the power of pure hands. And lastly, let's go to John 17.

This is the words of Jesus in his own prayer, in the high priestly prayer. And notice what Jesus says as one of the burdens of his cries. To the father, he says in verse 20 of John 17, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word. So Jesus transitioned in his prayers not just to pray for his immediate disciples who follow them throughout his earthly ministry. He prays for the subsequent converts that would come to faith through their message, through the written written word of God.

That's you and me. So consider this, Jesus, when he walked this earth, he bent the knee and he prayed for you and me. And you know what was on Jesus's heart in alignment with the father when he prayed for the church, you and I in 2020? This was his prayer. Verse 21, that they may all be one, just as you, father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us.

Let's just stop there. This is Christ's desire for unity amongst his people. And it's not ordinary unity. We are talking about a standard of harmony that points to the Godhead. When Jesus says I want them to be one, he says, oh, father, the same way you and I are one, that's what I want for the church.

You know what that means? It's perfect unity. You know what that means that we look to the Trinity and the Trinity teaches us something about community. And what does the Trinity teach us about unity? Well consider the relationship within the Godhead.

The church is to reflect the unbroken agreement that the Godhead has concerning purpose and mission. There's no disagreement amongst them. The Father, Son and Spirit, they are aligned totally and they know what they are after, from eternity past to eternity future, and the church should reflect the same. The church is to reflect the honoring of the unique persons within the group, expressing mutual admiration for the respective roles that each one carries. The father has a role, the son has a role, the spirit has a role and all of them are working hand in hand.

There's no disruption, there's no friction, there's no jealousy, there's no selfish ambition, there's no comparison. The church is to know a perfect freedom from what? Internal conflict. Because of the absence of selfish ambition. You will find no such thing in the Godhead.

You will find no disagreement within the Trinity. No arguing. No no bickering. They're consumed with love for one another and the glory that they are seeking, and they work together. I love the doctrine of the Trinity because it has practical, practical implications when we understand it.

And Jesus said, the same way, Father, you and I are connected, let your people be the same. Now, you would think that the reason why Jesus prayed for that is because it is the recipe for internal peace and necessary for advancement in purpose and mission. Right? That it has everything to do with the community itself, within the four walls, within our meetings, within our budget and our finances, and within our efforts. No.

This is the reason why Jesus prayed for unity. Let's finish the verse. So that the world may believe that you have sent me. So that the world may know that you have sent me. In other words, the pursuit of unity is an evangelistic effort.

And that when the church is unified, she shines all the brighter to intrigue the world a little bit more. So that when the the world peeks into the church and they see the love and the sacrifice and the mercy that we give to one another, it should at least cause some to pause and think, what is it that's keeping them this way? What is it that's keeping them so connected? How is it that I see different tribes and tongues and races and social statuses and backgrounds and age groups and personalities, yet they act like family. And there's so much joy, and peace, and harmony, and agreement, and willingness to lift each other up, and help one another when one is down.

How is it? It should not offend us or or discourage us if a person walks in and comments about how this church is like a family. It should not. We should not be like, no. We want people to realize other things.

This is what Jesus wanted. It should stir us to think that when people come in, one of the first things they notice is that they love each other. They actually care for one another. Now for them to just want that is not right. But for them to to at least be hooked by that and then what?

Jesus says, not so that they can have a nice place to hang out once or twice a week. So that they can believe that you have sent me. In other words, by seeing the supernatural unity in the church, people would be caused to think surely this is a work of God. That's how much the church needs to be unified. It's it's not the way the world is is unified or or tries to do things together.

Grudging and biting their teeth and and just trying to go through it and and just like for the sake of getting things done. No. That's not how the trinity works. There is a pure love. There's an eternal bond.

And why is that important for our day today? It's no secret. There is more division than ever. There is a brokenness and America's greatest threat today is America herself, never mind foreign nations or nuclear war. We are eating our own.

We're killing our own. We're spewing hatred to our own. We're disrespecting people in authority and we are creating a recipe for even greater self destruction. And if God doesn't come in revival, you and I are gonna experience something different in our generation. The way arguments are being made and the way people are creating different ideas is absolute The fact that things are being recommended alone is absurd.

Never mind experienced. We need to strive for that. And here's the temptation, that the attitude of the world, the arguments of the world, the viewpoints of the world can seep into the church, and then you have people turning on each other for things outside of the realm of the kingdom of God. And we're seeing it. Let me tell you, I'm seeing Christian leaders that are attacking each other for different reasons.

Well, maybe more specific, for political reasons. Calling each other out, condemning. And and I I just sit back and think, focus. Focus. Focus.

And that's what we're called to do. Focus. Focus. Let this guide us. Let this ground us.

Let us be in agreement that this is above all things, and we will be just fine. Unity doesn't mean we don't have different opinions, by the way. Unity means that if you have a different opinion, we're still gonna strive for something greater than what our opinions offer, and that's the greatest solution. Doesn't mean we're robots. It doesn't mean that we all wear the same clothes and talk the same and and no.

It's not that. It's that we are overcome by something greater than all those things. And that whenever these things even come up in our conversation or come up in whatever it may be, they are dismissed because they are eclipsed by the cross of Jesus Christ. So the world you know what the world needs more than anything? To see that the binding factor for lifelong unity is found in the crimson blood of Jesus.

Again, there are more talks of politics and policies and this and that than there is about the blood. I'm not saying don't be practical, I'm saying you have to find the source and it has to come from the word. Let me say this, as a church moving forward in these crazy times, not only will this pulpit by the grace of God preach the unchanging word, you as the people of God Let's keep that in the forefront of your minds. You're a different people. You're spiritual.

You're waiting for a kingdom to manifest. We're waiting for the dictator, the righteous dictator, Jesus Christ, to come and come with a rod of iron to deal with all the mess that we see. We will we will tap into the power of pure hands as much as we can. Because again, this is just a challenge to me, just walking day by day and thinking and reflecting and talking to the Lord, Lord, if this can't get me going, if this can't get me going, then I fail to realize what the church can actually do in my society. I fail to realize what a community of believers can actually do.

Now it doesn't seem like we can do much, but oh, Job twenty two thirty, that he's willing to deal with the guilty on behalf of the prayers of the innocent. And lastly, to remain unified. No matter what, we hold on to each other's hands, we remain on our knees, and nothing will break us. Nothing will break us. It may happen to other people and that's fine, but Jesus prayed and that means it's possible to remain as unified as the Godhead is for the rest of our days.

This is what the world needs right now. This is what the world needs right now. And I know we're a small church in a corner of a street, but Job was one man. God can do much with little. I'm excited for what the church is gonna rise up to in our day.

I am. I am so excited. And get ready for anything, by the way. We're hearing this and maybe our hearts are getting stirred, but this might change for the church. What I'm saying is, just a heads up, this could potentially be the gateway for persecution in the church in America like she's never known.

And don't be surprised if it comes. Stay strong. Stay focused. Stay in the spirit, because we're already getting hints of it. We're already smelling it.

It's on the horizon. And again, unless God intervenes, never mind coronavirus affecting the way we do church, we're gonna have to deal with different threats. And you know what America is tasting right now, especially the church in America? Just a little bit of suffering. Just a little bit of suffering that the world and our brothers and sisters have known across nations for generations.

Just a little bit. And I believe as well there's gonna be a sifting of the church. That where people really stand in their faith is gonna be exposed from the leadership down. And some people might be shocked to realize what people really stand for and what people are willing to compromise for other agendas. Don't be surprised.

But let me rehearse what I said in the beginning. By God's grace and all humility, I hope this doesn't come off as proud or anything else. We say this with humility. But as for this church, we will stick with what God has already given us. We will strive to seek his will and know his will, and we will prayfully ask the Lord that in the midst of all of this blanketing wickedness that there will be a city on a hill.

By God's grace, it would be you. It would be us. People would see something different in this generation. When people have lost so much hope for millennials and gen zeds, We can show them that the gospel knows no bounds and the gospel is not limited to a certain time of history. You know, you have people say that that no stories of revival, no stories of moves of God, they go, well that was back then.

There was a different receiving of the gospel. There was a different openness to religious talk. No. Adam's race is the same. Adam's race is the same throughout time.

And this, what we're seeing, is no different than what other people have seen in different ways. It is not enough darkness to push back the light. So we should have total faith that God can do something. And that's what we're gonna pray for. Here's what we're gonna do as we close.

We're gonna take time to just pray and here's what our prayers, here's here's the ingredients to the incense that we're gonna offer to the Lord. Thanksgiving for us to be in here and for the sun that's shining and for the fellowship that we're gonna experience. And also a mingling of, Lord, give me the heart to see it for what it is and and just help me believe that my hands, as they're lifted up to you, can actually change somebody's life. I don't know how that works in your will. I don't know how that works with how you maneuver, but I'm just gonna give you what you're asking of me and that's gonna be enough.

Let's do that. And and maybe a couple of the people from the worship team can come up and just play softly for us as we as we do that. So, hey, listen. You have the freedom, obviously, to honor the distancing, but you have the freedom to kneel if you want. You have the freedom to do whatever you wanna do as long as it's not distracting, to just seek the Lord in prayer and we're gonna respond to his word.

Just talk to the Lord in light of the message. Just be honest with the Lord as you're sitting in that pew. Just talk to him. Maybe you need to ask him, God, maybe I'm not sensing this the call of mission. Maybe I'm not realizing what I can do with my church.

Help me realize it, God. Change my attitude, Lord. Yes, Lord. We come before you in your sanctuary. We lift our hearts to you, God.

We lift our hearts to you, Lord. We thank you for this beautiful day, God. We're here together again. We bless you, Lord, for corporate worship. We thank you being in person to hear the word of God.

We thank you, Lord, for the family that is represented here. And yet, Lord, this morning, we respond to your word and we say yes to the mission that you have. We don't know what it is. We don't know how it's gonna look like. We don't know what is coming next for this nation or for the church, but we are ready.

And we are asking that you would make us strong and you would summon your power, Lord. Come. Fill us, Lord. Make us a spiritual people. Make us, Lord, a different breed of Christians.

Help us, Lord, see what is what is on the table as an opportunity to take advantage of it, Lord. Give us your heart, God. Enlarge our hearts that we may we may run into the way of your commandments, Lord. God, help us see this from heaven's point of view. Help us understand the eternal destination of so many in our own land.

And, lord, help us say, whatever it takes, we wanna serve. We wanna make a difference, Lord. God, we are weak. We lack wisdom. We lack direction, Lord.

But we see a world and we go, Lord, what what can we do? It's as though there is a glass between us and that world, and and we can't figure out a way to get in there. And so lord, if if the only thing that you've left at our disposal is to seek you with clean hands, then we'll do that. Lord, we will honor you and we will do whatever we can with what we've been given. And so God, we pray for favor for the church in this time.

We pray that she would be summoned as Daniel was to give answers. And Lord, that might not be this immediate local church, but we pray for those who have greater platforms that represent you. Lord, that you would anoint them, that you would give them a spirit of boldness, that there would be a a solemn assembly where the church would come somehow to seek you in repentance, god. Bring a move of the holy spirit in America. Lord, if we can see from coast to coast a shutdown of of a nation because of a sickness, and if we can see eruption of riots, lord, then surely you can bring a national move of the spirit.

Surely, we can see a sweeping conviction, an avalanche of conviction to crash in our generation that we would see on the news instead, repentance, people getting on their face, people crying out to you, brokenness. This is what we pray for. This is what we believe for. We wanna we wanna see it, God. Lord, we realize that the coronavirus was a nudge.

We realize that these riots is a greater nudge. We and we realize, Lord, that if we don't take up arms now, maybe it's gonna require more for the church to rise up in the West. Do what you need to do, lord, until your will is done in your people and that you sanctify her according to your word. And Father, we sing to you in faith now. We sing to you in faith believing that this transition is going to lead us into a way of doing church like we never know.

We lean into you this morning in Jesus' name.