SPEAKER_00: A sermon text reading for today is Psalm 112.
SPEAKER_00: You can find this passage in the Sanctuary Bible on page eight hundred and ninety-four.
SPEAKER_00: Please listen as I read God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed are those who fear the Lord, who find great delight in his commands.
SPEAKER_00: Their children will be mighty in the land.
SPEAKER_00: The generation of the upright will be blessed.
SPEAKER_00: Wealth and riches are in their houses, and their righteousness endures forever.
SPEAKER_00: Even in darkness, light dawns for the upright.
SPEAKER_00: For those who are gracious and compassionate and righteous.
SPEAKER_00: Goodwill will come to those who are generous and lend freely, who conduct their affairs with justice.
SPEAKER_00: Surely the righteous will never be shaken.
SPEAKER_00: They will be remembered forever.
SPEAKER_00: They will have no fear or bad news.
SPEAKER_00: Their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Their hearts are secure.
SPEAKER_00: They will have no fear.
SPEAKER_00: In the end, they will look in triumph on their foes.
SPEAKER_00: They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor.
SPEAKER_00: Their righteousness endures forever.
SPEAKER_00: Their horn will be lifted high in honor.
SPEAKER_00: The wicked will see and be vexed.
SPEAKER_00: They will gnash their teeth and waste away.
SPEAKER_00: The longings of the wicked will come to nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Here ends the reading.
SPEAKER_02: All right.
SPEAKER_02: Good morning, Elmwood Church.
SPEAKER_02: I know many of you don't know me.
SPEAKER_02: I'm guest preacher.
SPEAKER_02: If you didn't know, I'm usually not the guy here, but I'm happy to be able to come and deliver God's word to you.
SPEAKER_02: My name is Brian Lair.
SPEAKER_02: I am the uh founding and senior pastor of Trinity City Church.
SPEAKER_02: If you're not familiar with where that is, uh we're just in St.
SPEAKER_02: Paul, very close to where uh St.
SPEAKER_02: Thomas University, McAllister College, that area is in St.
SPEAKER_02: Paul.
SPEAKER_02: Uh our church is just a little over 15 years old, uh, and we uh own a building uh that we purchased uh several years ago now from a uh Methodist church.
SPEAKER_02: It's an old school uh church building that was built in 1913, and we just love being able to do ministry uh from there.
SPEAKER_02: And uh it's just been such a joy to be a pastor there.
SPEAKER_02: I believe one of our other pastors did preach here um I don't know, several weeks ago at this point.
SPEAKER_02: Pastor Bryce is my associate pastor.
SPEAKER_02: He's also on staff at Trinity City Church.
SPEAKER_02: I also serve as a board member for the North Central District of our denomination, the Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and uh I also get to lead a pastor's fellowship of urban pastors that we meet about once a month for prayer and encouragement.
SPEAKER_02: And there's uh a pastor you may have heard of, Pastor John from Elmwood.
SPEAKER_02: He goes that, and we get to hang out uh a little bit at that uh prayer and pastors fellowship.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I've been married uh for 22 years to Tracy, my wife.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I met her while I was at a student, uh, a student at Northwestern in St.
SPEAKER_02: Paul.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, she currently works at Northwestern as well in the student life department.
SPEAKER_02: Uh we have four kids, three daughters and one son, ranging in ages from 12 to 18.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, one of my oldest daughters is about to head out into uh college.
SPEAKER_02: Uh so we're hitting that just the edge of that uh transition of stage of life where we're starting to march towards empty nest that uh used to feel far away, and now it's feeling very, very much closer.
SPEAKER_02: I also have a dog named Aidy after a comedian named Aidie Bryant from SNL.
SPEAKER_02: She doesn't work there anymore, but that's what she's named after.
SPEAKER_02: She's a burnadoodle, and we're okay together.
SPEAKER_02: Like we get along fine.
SPEAKER_02: Uh that's probably the most friction in my family is between me and that dog.
SPEAKER_02: Uh so that's Aidy, and that's the other family member at uh my house.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, for most of my ministry in the Twin Cities, I've known your pastor, Pastor John, and count him as a close colleague in the gospel and a dear friend as well.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I could tell you many stories about your beloved pastor.
SPEAKER_02: I'll highlight one from our time a couple summers ago, hiking the Tour Mount Blanc in Europe with a dozen other North Central District pastors.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, in many ways, I wouldn't be here today.
SPEAKER_02: I'd be still on that mountain if it wasn't for John, because I, about halfway through that hike, developed some tendinitis in my knees and really couldn't descend uh these very, very large mountains very well.
SPEAKER_02: And um, this probably tells you a little bit about the difference between him and I, but he's a very prepared person.
SPEAKER_02: And he had extra knee pads and tape, and he would he literally took one off of his knee, gave it to me so I could hobble down the mountain a little bit better.
SPEAKER_02: Uh I also uh didn't always think through the the meals I would have on lunch when we ate on the trail, so he always thought I think my meals were pathetic and that I was gonna waste away.
SPEAKER_02: Uh so he would give me some of his prepared meals and feed me on the side of that mountain as well.
SPEAKER_02: Um and so that just gives you kind of a great uh picture of why I picture uh why I appreciate Pastor John so well.
SPEAKER_02: Uh uh there's no one I'd rather go hiking with or do ministry alongside of than him.
SPEAKER_02: He's the type of colleague in the gospel who will help a person get to the end of a hike through ministry.
SPEAKER_02: And I appreciate you, brother.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm so happy that you had a time of rest uh during your sabbatical.
SPEAKER_02: Uh maybe you'll need to help me get off the stage.
SPEAKER_02: We'll see how my knees are doing at the end of the sermon, all right?
SPEAKER_02: We are in the middle, or probably at the end at this point, of a sermon series on the heart where different pastors, guest preachers have been sharing different passages uh that has been on their heart and the theology behind uh God's word and why it's been on their heart.
SPEAKER_02: And I will make clear in the introduction of the sermon after we pray why uh Psalm 112 especially has been on my heart.
SPEAKER_02: So let's go ahead and pray to prepare our hearts for the Lord and to hear his word.
SPEAKER_02: God of mercy, you promised to us never to break your promises to us.
SPEAKER_02: Amid all the changing words of our generation.
SPEAKER_02: Speak right now your eternal word that does not change.
SPEAKER_02: Enable us, this congregation, to respond to your gracious promises with faithful and reverent lives through Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_02: A major thing that's been on my heart the last couple months is uh recently experiencing uh my father-in-law Lyle passing away after many years of battling Parkinson's disease.
SPEAKER_02: These final moments with somebody are always sacred, and I got to spend very uh a lot of time uh with Lyle as he was passing from this life into the next.
SPEAKER_02: The one thing that you start to reflect on in these final conversations with uh this man was just the impact that one person can have on others.
SPEAKER_02: How in the ordinary life that he lived, how he made an extraordinary impact on others.
SPEAKER_02: The funeral was filled with both grief at the loss and gratitude for who he was, a man who feared God and delighted in the commands of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And like any Christian man, Lyle was not perfect, but he was saved by grace through faith, and God's grace transformed him into a selfless person who delighted in life and serving others.
SPEAKER_02: I remember meeting Lyle for the first time because I had interest in his daughter.
SPEAKER_02: I got lost trying to find his house in Austin, Minnesota.
SPEAKER_02: So the four of us instead uh changed plans and met at the local AW restaurant instead.
SPEAKER_02: And even though I have direction difficulties even to this day, uh Lyle was patient enough to eventually allow me to find my way into marrying his daughter.
SPEAKER_02: He had a great sense of humor.
SPEAKER_02: It was legendary, it was an absolute joy.
SPEAKER_02: Some of the best jokes came when he and I would walk into a public restroom together.
SPEAKER_02: And if this wasn't church, I would share some of those jokes with you.
SPEAKER_02: Uh you might have to ask me a little bit more off the record.
SPEAKER_02: And I remember, I mean, everybody would laugh at Lyle, but uh he would laugh harder than anyone else at his own jokes.
SPEAKER_02: That was just kind of the joy that he had.
SPEAKER_02: What these finals, these final days with him showed me is that uh how much a life can uh be impactful, especially in the ordinary days of life leading up to those final moments.
SPEAKER_02: When you listen to Psalm 112, especially starting with verse 1, you find not only a description, I would say, of my father-in-law Lyle, but a description of what we all would want to be said of us when we pass from this life into life everlasting.
SPEAKER_02: Uh Psalm 112, verse 1 says, Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Blessed are those who fear the Lord, who find great delight in his commands.
SPEAKER_02: The word blessed here, which is used throughout Scripture, means one who is happy or joyous.
SPEAKER_02: This is a person who has received blessings, which are the desirable and delightful things that lead to a good life that come from the hand of God and his grace as a gift from his gracious gift.
SPEAKER_02: This blessed life is one that includes conduct and attitudes that reflect that a person truly fears God and delights in the Lord's commands.
SPEAKER_02: Fear in this passage is not being terrified of God.
SPEAKER_02: It's reverence, it's a heaviness in our soul because we know that our God is glorious and that our God is good and deserves a life that reflects that glory and goodness to others.
SPEAKER_02: It's a healthy respect and honor due to the one who is awesome and powerful.
SPEAKER_02: So this psalm reflects on the life of those who are blessed because of the fear of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And it raises the question I want to ask: what are the marks of someone who fears God?
SPEAKER_02: And this psalm will give us five marks on those who fear God.
SPEAKER_02: The first mark of those who fear the Lord is that they have mighty children.
SPEAKER_02: Look at verse two in your Bibles.
SPEAKER_02: Their children will be mighty in the land.
SPEAKER_02: The generation of the upright will be blessed.
SPEAKER_02: If you're like me, I'm a parent.
SPEAKER_02: What parent wouldn't want their children to be called mighty, right?
SPEAKER_02: That's a great description of your children.
SPEAKER_02: Mighty children.
SPEAKER_02: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_02: In this verse, the term is also uh this this word that's in the verse, that uh if you see that word elsewhere, it's also used in a military context to speak about power and influence.
SPEAKER_02: So in this context, this psalm is celebrating that the one who fears the Lord, that delights in God's commands, is the one who passes that on to their children and on to the next generation.
SPEAKER_02: The fear of the Lord, in other words, is a generational blessing.
SPEAKER_02: Whereas rejecting the love, mercy, and justice of God brings generational struggle.
SPEAKER_02: It's a reminder that our decisions shape more than our own lives, but also the next generation.
SPEAKER_02: Often I think the work of pastoral counseling that I've had over the years is unpacking the bad decisions of previous generations and how that impacts the people of today.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe that's something that you can relate to.
SPEAKER_02: Parents understandably feel the weight of these things.
SPEAKER_02: And we should feel the weight of passing on the fear of the Lord to the next generation, but often I think we overburden ourselves on that vocation.
SPEAKER_02: First, this psalm is giving us wisdom, not a guaranteed result.
SPEAKER_02: This psalm functions like Proverbs 22, 6, which says, train up a child on the way they should go, and even when they are old, they will not turn from it.
SPEAKER_02: The point of that wisdom is not that if you do certain things, you are guaranteed a child who doesn't depart from the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: That's not what it's saying.
SPEAKER_02: The point of wisdom is that training a child in the fear and ways of the Lord is wise because it means in most cases they will grow up in the ways of love and life grounded in the gospel.
SPEAKER_02: Even if you have this experience, even if you have a child that became prodigal, that departed from the faith, the imprint that you have on the gospel, on that person's soul, their baptism, taking the Lord's Supper, learning about the ways of the Christian faith, if that is what they've been immersed in and have left it, they will be haunted by that in a good way the rest of their lives.
SPEAKER_02: And we always pray that the Lord would use that to bring those prodigals back.
SPEAKER_02: Second, it also means that some of the ordinary and normal things that young and tired families are doing are indeed passing on the faith to the next generation.
SPEAKER_02: Parents often think that faith must function like a sports club or an AAU club, that if I invest in the best programs, then my child will be a mighty generation.
SPEAKER_02: But programs do not pass on the faith.
SPEAKER_02: Ministries and the fellowship of the church help and empower parents to pass on the faith.
SPEAKER_02: The most impactful things that you can do as a parent for your children are gather with your local church, let your child hear you sing and worship the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: To serve an ordinary ministry with your kids looking on as you minister to others.
SPEAKER_02: Develop deep friendships with other Christian families and invite your children into that fellowship, that intergenerational fellowship of the church.
SPEAKER_02: And that you pause and pray with your child at night when your little ones are sharing an anxious thought.
SPEAKER_02: Or maybe your older ones are sharing an anxious thought with a phone call from wherever they're living.
SPEAKER_02: The second mark of those who fear the Lord is an enduring household.
SPEAKER_02: Look at verse 3.
SPEAKER_02: Wealth and riches are in their houses, and their righteousness endures forever.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe this verse makes you think about what's called the prosperity gospel, that if you have enough faith, uh then you will be wealthy, that you'll have riches in your house.
SPEAKER_02: If you just fear the Lord enough, then that will mark your life, and then it will translate into the size of your home being bigger, the lavishness of the room renovations that you can afford will be better, the frequency of your vocations will be more as a reward for one's faith.
SPEAKER_02: This is where sometimes even reading a footnote in a simple study Bible can help clarify things.
SPEAKER_02: This is from one study Bible that makes uh clear what this verse is actually getting at.
SPEAKER_02: Not that faith will be rewarded with riches, but rather, here's the quote: in a culture like ancient Israel, based on subsistence art agriculture, wealth means good crops, a well-fed family, and a stable farm to pass on one's to one's children, rather than the luxurious wealth a modern reader may think of.
SPEAKER_02: Further, in the book of Proverbs, has a clear set of priorities in which wisdom is far better than wealth, and righteousness with few possessions is better than wealth without knowing the Lord and without walking in his righteousness.
SPEAKER_02: End quote.
SPEAKER_02: So going back to verse three in this psalm isn't this desire for modern day wealth, but rather it's this blessing of bringing stability to one's household.
SPEAKER_02: A person who fears the Lord is diligent about the work of providing for others.
SPEAKER_02: The goal isn't necessarily to become a millionaire.
SPEAKER_02: The goal is to wake up, to put your hand to a task to provide for others, often giving the fruit of your labor to those under your care, to your ministry, and to the most vulnerable.
SPEAKER_02: It's also a reminder as we think about what the scriptures talk about as a real blessed life in the Lord, that a truly blessed life is not filled with expensive things, but the enjoyment of ordinary things.
SPEAKER_02: If you want to live like a king and you want to see if your life is living like a king or a queen, well, if you have evenings where you're hanging out with friends on your back porch, that you get to enjoy uh fellowship with old friends with half-priced apps, that you have rich laughter surrounded by those you love, that means you are living like an absolute king or queen.
SPEAKER_02: And it's also about cultivating an enduring faith that impacts not only your kids but your neighbors, your coworkers, and your brothers and sisters in Christ at your local church.
SPEAKER_02: A person can work their whole life to accumulate what others will eventually divide, or you fear the Lord and leave something that can never be lost.
SPEAKER_02: What you cannot buy is life in Christ, and that is the treasure worth passing on because Christ had already bought it.
SPEAKER_02: Prosperity in the scriptures isn't defined by earthly wealth, but by passing on the treasure of heaven to others in the next generation.
SPEAKER_02: Number three, a mark of those who fear the Lord is that they are a righteous light.
SPEAKER_02: Look at verse 4.
SPEAKER_02: Even in darkness, light draw dawns for the upright, for those who are gracious and compassionate and righteous.
SPEAKER_02: Here is a reminder that the fear of God doesn't result in an easy life.
SPEAKER_02: Life has days that are really dark, and we are sometimes deep in the valley of life.
SPEAKER_02: Life certainly includes those joyful days with your family and friends around the dinner table, but they also include those times of grieving loss, bearing the weight of a burden that is crushing you, and experiencing a season full of tears instead of smiles.
SPEAKER_02: For those who fear God, expressed in a gracious and compassionate and righteous life, they receive God's light in these moments of darkness.
SPEAKER_02: Hope in God's promises and faith in his presence often leads us not around the time of darkness or the valley, but through it with God's presence with us.
SPEAKER_02: And how we can get through it is often with our brothers and sisters in Christ, especially the older generations that have already experienced walking with the Lord through these difficult times.
SPEAKER_02: It's, for example, the older woman who lost a child praying with the young woman, struggling with infertility.
SPEAKER_02: It's the cancer survivor sharing God's word with one another, who with another person who has received a crushing health diagnosis.
SPEAKER_02: The person who has been sober for several years, now walking alongside someone who is just entering the recovery community, showing the power of hope in something bigger than yourself.
SPEAKER_02: I recently heard it said that life isn't so much struggling with this reality that bad things happen to good people, it's realizing that bad things happen to all people.
SPEAKER_02: And those that walk in fear of the Lord respond to those bad things with a life of righteousness and goodness, following those ahead of us with the scars that have overcome it by God's grace.
SPEAKER_02: The fourth mark of those who fear the Lord is generous justice.
SPEAKER_02: Look at verse five.
SPEAKER_02: God will come to the uh good rather will come to those who are generous and lend freely, who conduct their affairs with justice.
SPEAKER_02: This fourth mark is someone who conducts their affairs with justice.
SPEAKER_02: This verse is saying that generosity is an expression of justice.
SPEAKER_02: And the specific example it's giving is lending freely.
SPEAKER_02: Of course, this means more than avoiding a loan with high interest.
SPEAKER_02: It means generosity that doesn't attempt to profit from others.
SPEAKER_02: It's not giving with strings attached, whether of your possessions or your time.
SPEAKER_02: If you go on to verse 9, it also says that they have freely scattered their gifts to the poor.
SPEAKER_02: That is generosity of time and money to those who are the most vulnerable.
SPEAKER_02: It is helping a neighbor with a house project who cannot afford to hire it done.
SPEAKER_02: It's donating or volunteering with Christian ministries who help those on the fringes of society.
SPEAKER_02: It's helping the single parent by allowing her to drop her kids off at your house.
SPEAKER_02: It is giving to your local church that then reaches the poor in spirit through the gospel that some may inherit the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_02: The one who fears the Lord gives without calculating the return.
SPEAKER_02: Generosity that keeps score is not generosity that.
SPEAKER_02: That's leverage.
SPEAKER_02: The one who fears the Lord gives freely and cheerfully.
SPEAKER_02: And that is a mark of those who fear the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And then there's the final mark, the fifth mark of those who fear the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: It takes four verses to unpack.
SPEAKER_02: Let's look at verses six through nine.
SPEAKER_02: Surely the righteous will never be shaken.
SPEAKER_02: They will be remembered forever.
SPEAKER_02: They will have no fear of bad news.
SPEAKER_02: Their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Their hearts are secure.
SPEAKER_02: They will have no fear.
SPEAKER_02: In the end, they will look in triumph on their foes.
SPEAKER_02: They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor.
SPEAKER_02: Their righteousness endures forever.
SPEAKER_02: Their horn will be lifted high in honor.
SPEAKER_02: So now we come to that fifth and final mark.
SPEAKER_02: Of those who fear the Lord, they have a secure heart.
SPEAKER_02: These verses remind us that the fear of God and the delight in his commands, again, don't prevent tough things from happening to us in our life.
SPEAKER_02: But it does, it does change the impact that they have on our souls and on our life.
SPEAKER_02: Isn't this true?
SPEAKER_02: Our world is just filled with bad news to fear.
SPEAKER_02: Just filled with it.
SPEAKER_02: Today we have the technology and the access to read bad news the entire day and find new stories that bring anxiety to our souls and not even get through all the news that we have access to.
SPEAKER_02: There is an endless supply of bad news and a never-ending list for things for us to fear if we want to consume it.
SPEAKER_02: It is there.
SPEAKER_02: But there's a difference between being an informed and active citizen and a person who constantly consumes cynical media.
SPEAKER_02: The fear of God doesn't make the bad news go away, but it gives us the power to face them and to walk through them.
SPEAKER_02: Fear of God and faith in his word makes a person who cannot be shaken, who hears about the bad news but doesn't respond with fear, who sees a world where the wicked and unjust seem to get away with anything, but yet does not stop fearing the Lord or being generous and just.
SPEAKER_02: The Psalm sings that their horn will be lifted up in honor.
SPEAKER_02: The horn here is likely an animal horn that would symbolize power and triumph.
SPEAKER_02: Here you have someone who have met may have been brought low, yet knows God will lift them up in time.
SPEAKER_02: It is someone who has been knocked back by the hard realities of life but did not fall.
SPEAKER_02: Instead of shrinking back in fear of this world, this person fears God.
SPEAKER_02: Instead of fearing life, they grab life by the horns.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 10 continues on that the wicked will see and be vexed, they will gnash their teeth and waste away.
SPEAKER_02: The longings of the wicked will come to nothing.
SPEAKER_02: What that verse is saying?
SPEAKER_02: That the wicked are, as the kids say, they're crashing out.
SPEAKER_02: That's what that verse is saying, if I'm going to translate it into a modern language.
SPEAKER_02: The wicked are crashing out.
SPEAKER_02: In contrast to those who have secure hearts, and those who fear God, the wicked with no fear are, quote, coming to nothing.
SPEAKER_02: That is, they are melting away.
SPEAKER_02: Their courage and hope is evaporating.
SPEAKER_02: They are sinking down, they are wasting way because in the end they did not fear God and build their life upon the rock of Christ.
SPEAKER_02: A friend of mine, he's a contractor, and he was once uh working with someone who bought a plot of land in St.
SPEAKER_02: Paul, in a St.
SPEAKER_02: Paul neighborhood.
SPEAKER_02: And before they started to lay the foundation for the home, they discovered that the soil was filled with peat.
SPEAKER_02: This is this organic soil that doesn't do a great job of burying a weighty structure like a house.
SPEAKER_02: And if you drill down and you find this on a plot of land that you have uh bought, you have a problem, specifically an expensive and complicated problem.
SPEAKER_02: Because if you leave it alone and you put your structure there, it will shift and crack and sink over time.
SPEAKER_02: Or you can do what's called a soil correction, which entails evacuating the bad soil and replacing it with something that's more stable.
SPEAKER_02: And it's costly, but it's the only way to have a house that holds and stays steady.
SPEAKER_02: What is true about buildings is true about life.
SPEAKER_02: What you build on absolutely matters.
SPEAKER_02: What you place your faith in absolutely matters.
SPEAKER_02: After teaching about the blessed life in the Sermon of the Mount, the Lord Jesus concludes with these words in Matthew 7, 24 through 27.
SPEAKER_02: Therefore, who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
SPEAKER_02: The rain came, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
SPEAKER_02: But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
SPEAKER_02: The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.
SPEAKER_02: Let me remind you of the gospel of Jesus Christ, brothers and sisters, that the Lord Jesus came down from heaven for us and for our salvation, that he was truly God and truly man, that he died for our sins, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, where he lives and reigns to this day.
SPEAKER_02: This is the reality.
SPEAKER_02: There is no foundation more sturdy to put your faith in and to ground your life in than the resurrected King of all, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: There is no foundation more stable.
SPEAKER_02: He calls us to turn from our sins, to place our faith in him, to be baptized in the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: He is calling you to build your life on the only ground that holds.
SPEAKER_02: To fear the one who defeated sin and death, to delight in the commands of who him who calls us to love God and to love neighbor is to be both blessed in this life and the life that is to come.
SPEAKER_02: This psalm preaches the good news to us.
SPEAKER_02: Blessed is the one who fears and have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_02: And Lord, as we now prepare our hearts to open them up to confession to you, to respond with being reminded of your broken body and your shed blood.
SPEAKER_02: We pray that your heart, your word would dwell in our hearts, would transform us, would bring us back in repentance and faith to your grace and your love.
SPEAKER_02: To confess those to you, Lord, and to build our house, build our life on the foundation of your Son.
SPEAKER_02: He is our sure foundation.
SPEAKER_02: And it's in his name we pray for you.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Brian.
SPEAKER_01: Each week our family comes together and we acknowledge our need to fear God above all else.
SPEAKER_01: We take the communion as a reminder of our constant need for him.
SPEAKER_01: The only one who's worthy of our awe and respect.
SPEAKER_01: It's a chance for us to declare with our actions that Jesus is our Savior and our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: It's a public declaration of our private and communal trust in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And each week we lament that we haven't arrived at the perfect God-fearing lives that we want to have.
SPEAKER_01: And so this week, as we prepare to come to the communion table, please let's just take a few moments of silent confession and reflection to consider the ways that God is still working on us to bring about the fear of God in our lives.