Holy Week Special - Easter People Part 1: Mary the Magdalene

Holy Week Special - Easter People Part 1: Mary the Magdalene

Holy Week is a time when we can reflect on the events that led to Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection from the dead. In this short series of sermons that were originally delivered in 2025, we are drawn into these events through the eyes and the experiences of five people. Some were very close to Jesus throughout his ministry whilst others appear momentarily. But all can say the same thing: that they met Jesus. In the first of the series, we consider Mary the Magdalene and in so doing, are invited to look at events through familiar eyes, because we all know who Mary the Magdalene is ... don't we?

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Transcript

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The Holy Week is a time when we can reflect on the events that led to Jesus' crucifixion and his resurrection from the dead. In this short series of sermons, we're drawn into those events through the eyes and experience of five different people. In this first sermon, we consider Mary the Magdalene. Who was she? What can we learn from her? What do we know of her life?

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I don't normally give titles to my sermons, but like Bus says, two titles came on this week. Could have called it the something about Mary, or we could call it the show must go on. And it's what we're going to be looking at over the next few weeks. We're looking at Easter, Easter people. Because the Easter story is about people. People who encountered Jesus, the risen Savior, people who saw what happened, people who were there, people who relayed what they saw and what they experienced. People who are like us. We are Easter people. We are Christians. That's what a Christian is. Different to any other. We are Easter people. The one thing that makes Christianity different is the resurrection. The one thing that changes the entire world is the resurrection. It's the linchpin of our faith. It's the cornerstone. It's the thing that all our hope is built upon. It's the thing that brings us through the valley of the shadow of death. It's our victory. It's our life. It's where everything is centered. The resurrection. Without it, Paul says we are of all people most to be pitied. Without this thing, then we're simply trying to be good people. And there's nothing wrong with that. But it's a bit empty. It's a hollow life because it ends. There's a full stop. But the resurrection means that there is a purpose. And us and our striving and our wrestling and pressing on and fighting through this world and standing up for what is right and good and being bold and claiming that we have victory and we have hope and we try to live up to what Christ has called us to. All of that without the resurrection is completely pointless. All of that is just nice people trying to be nice, which is good for you, but no good beyond the grave. It's the resurrection that made Christianity what it is. It's the resurrection on which it was all built. It was that that turned everything round. And I've shared many times before in our Easter messages that even historians don't know why the church exists. It doesn't make sense. There was sort of nothing in there, this weird group of people, and this one rabbi in the middle of nowhere preaching a message, and then suddenly it grew and it grew and it grew and it grew against persecution and against all odds. It doesn't make sense, and yet here it is. It's almost as if something world-changing happened on that Sunday all those years ago. Something that couldn't be explained but couldn't be denied. Something that couldn't be boxed in or contained, it had to be proclaimed because it changed everything. One man rose in victory over Satan's sin and death. And the world has not been the same since. And so we're going to consider this wonderful show. And I maybe you hesitate to call it a show because the show feels like it's performance or it's an act, but the word show means it's a demonstration. It's a sort of a spectacle, a display, which is what Easter is. It's a display. It's a display of God's power. It's a display of his love. It's a display of his ability and his willingness to take us from where we are and bring us to where he is. It's a display of his humble humility to step down into our darkest, bleakest, most horrific moments, and from there start turning things around that his kingdom might come. And this show must go on. This show must continue. What we're going to do is we're going to start by looking at someone who had a front row seat to this show. The first person to encounter the risen Savior, the first person to see it and see what we can glean from what she spotted on that day. That person is Mary Magdalene. She was the lady, we've sung about her today. I don't know if you noticed in that song. What was it? To go with Mary, there it is. To go with Mary. That's what we're going to do today. We're going to go to Mary to that place where they laid him. Where they laid you, Jesus. And in the morning, find the stone rolled away, the cross, the victory that was found in that moment. We've sung about it, and now we're going to do it. And so we're going to start with Mark, who tells us about what happens, this encounter that takes place. It says, when the Sabbath was over, the Saturday's over, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Saloon brought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise. They were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb. But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. Don't be alarmed, he said. You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid him? But go, tell his disciples and Peter, he is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him just as he told you. Trembling and bewildered, the woman went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone because they were afraid. Mary has this angel encounter, this messenger who declares he's not here. You're looking in the wrong place. You're looking for living among the dead, and that's not where you find the living. He is gone. The stone has been rolled away, and everything from this moment has changed. It's a remarkable moment. We're going to come on to another encounter that happens a bit later as she meets Jesus himself in the garden, hears her name spoken, and sees him face to face. But it's quite a journey from where Mary started. We get this the end of the story here where Mary is in this place, and you might think, well, she it was good for her. The right place at the right time, sort of just happened to be Mary, who was the one who was part of this group who saw it. But I think as we look at what Mary was like, we see that this was no mere accident. That there was something about Mary that made her appropriate to be the one who would see this, the one who would bring this message. Before Billy Graham, before D.L. Moody, before Spurgeon, before Dean Burgess proclaimed he is risen, Mary is the original preacher who gets to proclaim he is risen, he's conquered death, he's alive. And she goes and proclaims this message. But her story starts a lot earlier. We don't actually know much about Mary. She's mentioned about 12 times in the Gospels. Actually, interesting, that's more than some of the disciples. We don't really know much about Bartholomew. Anyone know anything about Bartholomew? Poor guy. He's in there, he's part of the butt but Mary is mentioned more times than some of the disciples. But through the stories, we don't get much about her, but what we do get is truly fascinating. Luke 8 puts it like this if you're a lady, Luke is the gospel for you. Because while many talk about what Jesus did and the disciples did, Luke goes, No, no, no, we're not going to forget about these incredible women who made all this possible. People have called it the gospel of womanhood for this reason. Because he says, after this, Jesus travelled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases. So you've got Jesus and the twelve familiar with that, but he also says there are one translation says certain women, a group of women who also traveled around with him. He goes on and says, Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had come out, Joanna, the wife of Chusa, the manager of Herod's household, Susanna and many others, these women were helping to support them out of their own means. Jesus and his disciples were not able to do anything they did if it hadn't been for these women. Who pays for their expenses? Who gives them shelter when they have nowhere to stay? Who pays for the meals that they are to eat? Who provides for them? Who sustains them? Who keeps them going? It is these women who do everything that is necessary so that Jesus can do what he has been called to do. They support him, they serve and they work. And sadly, they are so often forgotten. But Mary is a part of this number, this group of people who served and ministered and worked with Jesus. All we know about her from here is that seven demons had come out of her. There had been a time where seven demons, an unholy hotel, if you will, that she was filled. And we don't know if seven is an exact number where you could name them, or whether seven is this symbol of this complete consumption, completely taken over by this spirit, this demonic attack, these spirits that consumed her and fed her lies and distorted things and shaped the way that she lived. But she'd been rescued from all that. We don't know the story, but whether it was with a touch or with a word, but the encounter with Jesus has changed this woman. What I love about this is that you wouldn't know this from how Mary is portrayed later in the Gospels. You wouldn't know that this was her history from the way that she is in the garden when she meets Jesus. Some people wear their trials and their suffering out in the open, and you can sort of tell before you get to them that they've got a history. But others wear it inside. It no longer defines them, no longer characterizes them. You'd have to hear them tell their story, and then you'd go, really? That's what happened to you? Really? That's what you've been through? How are you you then? How are you so put how are you able to function if you've got that as your story? Mary's one of those people where God has done such a work that to meet her later, you wouldn't know where she had been. You wouldn't know how bleak and how dark it had been. Seven demons. I don't know how you count, but that's a lot. One would be enough. Seven consuming her, defining her, and yet later we find that she is a different person. She's been set free. Like the people thrown into the fire in the book of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they come out and it says, not even the smell of smoke was on them. That's us. That God's grace is that powerful that he can bring us out of something so that not even the smell of it is on us anymore. The transformation, the work he can do, and maybe you're in it in the moment, you think that will never be. But if you trust his grace and you walk in step with him, he brings you to a place where there's no longer a hint of it, where people can't sense it anymore. That's Mary's story from where she's come from. Seven demons that consumed her, and yet she's been set free. And now she's living for Jesus. An incredible story of what God can do. But what's interesting is the kind of person she was. See, we call her Mary Magdalene, but Magdalene isn't her surname. Just like Jesus Christ, Christ isn't her surname. We might have learned something today. And that it wasn't Mary Christ and Joseph Christ and Jesus Christ, that it's a title. It's Jesus the Christ. Jesus the Anointed One, the Messiah, the promised King who's to come. And Mary Magdalene's the same. It's meant to be Mary the Magdalene. Because it wasn't her surname, it was where she was from, a place called Magdala. A little town on the side of the Sea of Galilee. What we know about this town from excavations and things that have gone on is that it was an incredibly wealthy town. A town where they sold cloth and dyes and they were incredibly well funded because of that. And Mary, commentators say that she was called the Magdalene, called Magdalene, the Magdalene, because she so epitomized this town. She summed it up. She was someone, because of her support that we shall read about later, she had funds. She had wealth. She had prestige. She was a wealthy woman. She lived in the penthouse. She had in the nice neighborhood. She had the nice background. She had the funds, she had the support. Which I wonder, does that change your picture when you hear someone possessed by seven demons? Because in my mind, when I hear someone who had seven demons come out of them, I'm thinking of someone sat under a bridge somewhere, perhaps addicted to something, unkempt, dishevelled, a mess. But Mary was the Magdalene. She was the lady from Magdala. She was known, this was the thing that defined her. The woman who came from the town where there was wealth, where they were successful, the one who lived in the nice place, but still was consumed by the demonic spirits. Interesting our picture when we think of how the enemy might attack us, we think of heads turning around and frothing at the mouth. We don't think of being consumed with self. We don't think of being controlled by wealth. We don't think of only putting ourselves in first and only thinking of our own needs and dismissing others. We don't think of selfishness. We don't think of the barriers we put up. We don't think of the hurt that we cause by the things we say and the things we do. That's just bad behavior. But I wonder if that's perhaps a better picture of how the enemy gets us. Because the enemy, if you remember, he's been doing this a long time. A few thousand years by most accounts. He's seen all of human history and he knows how we operate. Someone comes in and froths up the mouse and head spins around, we go, ah, I know what that is. But if someone comes in and gradually, slowly their selfishness just consumes them and it hurts others. Through kindness, they build up a reputation and then use that to bolster their own position. It's so subtle that we miss it. We just wonder if we don't realize that the enemy is much cleverer than we are. And that his way of consuming us might be more subtle than we think. That's why we're often told, be careful. He prowls around. Be careful. He's seeking entrances, he's looking for ways to come in. He doesn't kick down the door and go, here I am, because we'd see it and we'd stand against it. He sneaks in subtly through people who you would go, No, not them. Not Mary. See how she dresses her fine clothes? Not her. Have you seen that with the money she has? Surely not her. But through those who we least suspect, through the subtle art of turning them in on themselves. Consumption by greed or pride or arrogance. Those that we think no, they would never become the ones that need to be saved. From the way the enemy has deceived them and the lies that he's poured into them. Mary the Magdalene, from whom seven demons had come out, is meant to make us go, really? Not Mary. But this is who she was. And this is where God has brought her. And because of this, everything has changed. Everything that once perhaps was used to consume her, everything that was used for herself, suddenly is transformed. The demons come out, and now her wealth and her prestige and her ability and her reputation is used to serve the kingdom of God. God has taken what was destructive, what was complete consumption by the enemy, and has now turned it around to bless and to build up and allow others to be healed and set free in the way that she has. To find out how others find the grace and the goodness of God that is in Jesus. Now all that she has, all my life I lay down. We just sang it. Mary says, now all I have is no longer for me, it's for you to serve you. There's a joke that says there's an elderly lady who used to come out onto a porch every morning and would raise her arms to the sky and shout, Praise the Lord! And one day a man moved in next door. He didn't believe in God and he became irritated with this worshipping woman. So every morning after he heard her exclamation of praise, he would shout out, There is no Lord! This went on for several months, and then one morning in the middle of winter, the lady stepped onto a front porch and shouted, Praise the Lord! But please, Lord, reveal your will to me because I have no food and I'm starving. Please provide for me, O Lord. The next morning when she came up to her porch, there were two huge bags of groceries sitting there. Praise the Lord, she cried out again. He has provided groceries for me. Just then the man next door jumped out of the bushes and shouted, There is no Lord! I brought those groceries. Without skipping a beat, the lady threw her arms in the air and said, Praise the Lord! He has provided me of groceries and he made the devil pay for them. If you look at that name, that's exactly what's happened. The thing that the enemy perhaps used on Mary to consume where has now been used to support Jesus. It goes on, Joanna. You know Joanna? Oh, who's Joanna? Well, it's the wife of Chuser. Who's Chuser? Or he's the manager of Herod's household. Who's Herod? There's a few Herods in the Bible. There's the one that tries to kill all the babies when Jesus is born. And then there's his son, Herod Antipas, the one who killed John the Baptist, because of his way that he opposed him. Now Herod Antipas had a manager of his household that he obviously paid very well because it's a reputable job. And he was obviously married to this woman, Joanna. His name was Chuser, and he was married to Joanna. So Herod's money that goes to Chuser is passed on to Joanna, who Joanna passes on to Jesus. Herod's money is funding Jesus' ministry. The devil's paying for it. He's taking the thing, Herod, and all his power and all his wealth, and God's going, no, no, no, no, we're not doing that anymore. Follow the money, follow the money. This is now going to be used to build the kingdom of God. This is what God does. He takes that thing that consumes us, that thing that holds us and says, no, no, no, you're going to be set free. And not just set free in that it goes away and never comes back. I'm going to take that and I'm going to make it serve what God wants to do. I've said it before, but it's worth repeating. When the Bible says we are more than conquerors through Christ, that's what it means. Not that we've just conquered, but that now everything that was against us now serves what God wants to do in us. Everything that once was used for something bad isn't just laid in the ground, it's now resurrected, it's now brought back, and now it funds, it supports, it blesses what God is doing. It's David as he defeats Goliath, and all the Israelites run in and they plunder the enemy's camp and bring it back that it might support them and build up God's people. And here we see it played out. It's Mary and all that she had now laid down. We serve you, Jesus. Joanna, all that I have, all my husband doesn't know that he's paying for, but he's paying for this. I'll put it on his credit card. He's gonna fund Jesus and his ministry, and Herod's now paying for it. And Susanna, we don't know anything about her, but all these others, these wonderful women who have been saved and set free, and it now flows out in a show. They show it. A show of generosity. We're gonna take all we have and we're gonna serve you. They are angel investors, is the modern term. I think it's in um Silicon Valley where there's businesses start up and they need someone. Someone comes in and parachutes the money. It actually comes from Broadway, where people would write a story in America and they'd want to put it on a stage, but they didn't have the money. So you'd get an angel investor who believed in the story and would fund it. That's what Merritt is. She's someone who says, I believe in this, so I'm going to fund it. Gratitude. Gratitude is never silent. Gratitude expresses itself, it goes beyond itself. The lepers who go, the one that comes back. It's not that the others weren't thankful, I'm sure they were. Thank goodness I'm no longer sick, no longer ostracized, no longer cut off. But the gratitude that Jesus wants is the one that comes back and shows itself. Shows it's grateful. Shows of courage. Mary, all the other disciples flee at the cross, and you have Mary and a few other women stood there. The show of courage because of what God has done. The show of character. It takes the disciples a while to become what they're meant to be. Mary already has it. At the end, when Jesus is laid in the tomb, she's going to go and serve him because it's no longer something that's added on to her. It is her. It's what she does. The show of grace. She would do this. And she would do it because she has been blessed so much. She wants to honour the one who saved her. You see, I don't think it was an accident that Mary was there at the end. Mary was there because of what God had done in her life. And as we head back to the tomb, we see that as she stands there in John, it says on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved. That's John's nickname for himself. Please take it for yourself, because it's a wonderful nickname. That assurance, I'm the one he loves. They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we don't know where they have put him. And so Peter and the other disciples started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there, but did not go in. And Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. Typical Peter blunders in, and he saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus' head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. Finally, the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went inside. He saw and believed. They still did not understand from the scriptures that Jesus had to rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to where they were staying. Now Mary. Mary stood outside the tomb. This is where he was last, so I'm going to stay here. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. She's there because she's doing what she always did. From the moment he saved her, she's going to serve her saviour. She goes with the spices. I'm going to I saw how hastily they they buried him. I'm going to honor and serve him. And uh Peter and John have run off, scattered off to figure out what's going on. I'm going to stay here. And she stays there. And they asked the woman, why are you crying? They have taken my Lord away, she said. And I don't know where they have put him. At this she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He asked her, Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for? Thinking he was the gardener, she said, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you've put him and I will get him. When they bury a body, it's nearly half the body weight that gets wrapped in linen and cloths. And Mary's going, I'm going to get I'll pick up that body myself and I'll bring it back. You tell me where it is. This is my savior. I'm going to do this. And Jesus says to her, Mary. The next moment she runs and throws her arms around him. It doesn't say that in the text, but then Jesus has to say to her, Do not hold on to me, so we know that she must have come to him. Do not hold on to me, for I've not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, I am ascending to your my father and your father, to my God and your God. That last line and the line that Mary speaks earlier on, I think, are the clue to Mary and why she's here at this moment. My God and your God. Notice earlier when she says, They've taken my Lord away. They haven't taken the Lord away. They haven't taken the Savior away. It's my Lord that they've taken. The one who saved me. The one who loved me. The one who delivered me, the one that I gave my life to. The one that I will serve with everything that I have, and even in death, I will serve him still. Even if he is taken and he is in that tomb, I will find him because he's my Lord. And I will give everything for him because of what he's done for me. I will pour out everything I have, everything that belongs to me, everything that once consumed me. I lay at his feet and I give to him because he is the only one that matters. My Lord. If you're an English teacher, you call it the possessive pronoun, is it? And tell me I'm wrong later. That ability to say my is the transforming power that Mary experienced that meant she showed up. I see you can show up to church just because it's entertaining or it's comforting or it's a nice thing to do. But the only thing that will hold you, the only thing that keeps you, the thing that makes you an Easter person is when you come because he is my Lord. I praise him because he's my Lord. I open his word because he's my Lord. I love others and I follow him and I serve him because he's my Lord. He is my God. So I'll give all I have to him. She showed up. And she has done from Luke chapter 8 all the way here to here, the very end. Mary is doing the same thing that she learnt to do very early on. She showed up with her finances, she showed up to support, she shows up to pray, she leads and influences others as they uh encounter this grace. And here she still shows up in the power of those two words to change our lives. And I'm no longer talking about the Lord. Because there are lots of people who perhaps know more about Jesus than any one of us who could tell you all the stories. I'll tell you one of them. It's the Satan, the enemy, knows more about God than any one of us, knows every single theological textbook in and out, every doctrine, every bit of understanding, every he knows every worship song, he knows every translation of the Bible, he knows the Greek and the Hebrew. But he cannot say my Lord. He cannot say my God. And so it's empty. The opposite's true. You can have none of that. Mary didn't. You can have none of the that understanding, but if you see and the Spirit speaks to your heart and you simply say, My Lord, you've opened the door to all the grace, all the glory, all the victory of heaven. Because you've taken hold of where life is found. It's Him. And Mary in this moment demonstrates the secret to her life. We don't know much about her, but what we know is that she knew Jesus. She was able to say, You are my Lord. You are my King. You are my Savior. So I cling to you. I love that picture. And I also love that it's her name that awakens her to the fact that it's Jesus who's speaking to her. But Mary, my sheep hear my voice. Mary is one of the sheep. What could be more important? In our day, in our time, in times of crisis and chaos, in trials and difficulties, what could be more valuable than tuning our ears to the sound of our shepherd's voice? My shepherd. Who calls us and gives us the ability to follow him. My Savior, my King. And in this moment we see again the show. The show where Jesus has triumphed. Mary is a show. She is a display. She is a spectacle to behold. Where God has done something. Paul puts it like this a bit later in his book of the Colossians. He says, When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness which stood against us and condemned us. He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them. Other translations say a public show of them, triumphing over them by the cross. This is the show of Easter, where God exposes the enemy and then puts him on public display to say, look, here he is, and he has no fangs. He has no venom. He has no power anymore. He has nothing to hold against you. He can hurl all he likes at you, but it no longer sticks. He can accuse and he can he can point and he can shout and he can roar, but he cannot take you down. He can deceive and he can he can lie, but the truth in you is greater. And the power that is in you is greater than he that is in the world. He has been exposed. And so, brothers and sisters, let's stop giving him too much dew. Let's stop giving him too much rain. Let's stop listening to his voice. Let's stop allowing him to deceive us. Let's stop allowing him to sow discord. Let's stop with letting him whisper in our ears and look at each other in ways that are not gospel-centered. Let us continue to love and let love grow and overflow. We are more than we currently believe. Because of what Jesus has done in us. And the enemy has been put on display. And it's only us now that get in the way. Us who continue to believe the lies. Us who believe that we're still dead in our sin. Us who continue to live under that guilt and that shame, not the fact that there is no condemnation in Christ. Us who live with that sense of worth that is defined by how others have treated us and what others have said and how we feel about ourselves. Rather than the display of love that God has put on display for us that should define us. He's made a spectacle of him. I don't know where this lands for you. It can be, I don't know what the seven demons, I was trying to think of seven different things, I couldn't do it, but things that might consume you. Whether it's pride, whether it's lies, perhaps it's the way you've been treated, the way that you've suffered, the hurt that you've been through. A touch from Jesus, a word from Jesus. Hearing him call your name is enough to cast out all of those things and to bring you into the victory and the love and the life that he has won for us. Otherwise, we we are wasting our time. Because good ideas and and nice talks don't save anyone. We need a savior. I need my savior. I need my Lord. I need my God. And that's the message that Mary proclaims. Go. I'm going to return to my God and your God. He's your God too. His victory is your victory. His life is your life. His hope is your hope. His kingdom is your kingdom. His family is your family. I feel like I'm saying too much now. So perhaps we just need to pause and allow the Spirit to minister to us. To take anything that you've heard and allow him to press on where it lands with you. So just take a moment to be still and ask God, would you show me? Because I'm you're all lovely, respectable people, just like Mary. Well dressed, clean, friendly. Mary is a reminder that that doesn't mean that there isn't an enemy that wants to attack. There isn't a liar who wants to sow seeds in you. That there aren't mindsets and attitudes that left to themselves will destroy. Because the enemy does that. He steals and he kills and he destroys. Jesus comes as he did with Mary and gives you life in abundance. And so come, Lord Jesus, and give us that life today, we pray. Come, Lord Jesus, cast out anything that is of the enemy. Cast out his lies and cast out his accusations. Cast out the footholds that we've given him and the strongholds where he's taken over. Breathe life where he has brought death. Heal where he tries to kill. Your ability, the fact that you have triumphed over the evil one. That you've put up, you've put him on display, you've exposed him for who he is. Because you've done that, we come with a boldness and an assurance that you are able to do far more than we ask or imagine. You can heal what we don't think is possible to be healed. You can restore what we're not sure can be restored. You can set free where all we've known is imprisonment. You can bring life and hope where there is only despair. Would you begin that work? And would you continue that work? Like Mary, all you ask of us, Lord, is that we show up, that we come to you. We say, Lord, all we have is yours. And we cry out, you are my God, you are my Lord, you are my Savior. We thank you for the promise that all who came on the name of the Lord will be saved, will be forgiven, will be set free, will be made new and born again. And for any today who are doing that for the first time, Lord, would you confirm in them your seal, your promise, that as they call on you, that they are brought into this new life that is found only in you. For those who have wondered, that today are considering coming back. Those who've been in the wilderness, that today sense in them this desire to return to the life-giving water that only you have, Lord, would you would you refresh them as they call again on their Savior? Would you restore them and would you heal them? I pray for those, Lord, who perhaps are so so consumed, so overwhelmed, so attacked and harassed by the enemy that that they can't even see it. Lord, would you powerfully break in today? Would you set free? Would you shine light and dispel that darkness? Would you break that hold? Would you cast out those demons? It is for freedom that you have set us free, Lord. Help us to live in that freedom today. Lead us, Lord Jesus, that we might be a show to the world of your grace and your goodness. That as we take what we have and we lay it before you, may you use us to show to the world the power of your gospel and the grace that is in you. We ask all of this in the mighty name of our Jesus, my Jesus. Amen.

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We hope that you've enjoyed listening to Dean's thoughts today. If anything that he has said has challenged you or raised questions that you'd like answers to, please don't hesitate to contact us and ask for a chat. You can find our details on our website, which is leobc.co.uk, as well as on the information that we have posted for this podcast. Alternatively, if you live in our area, you're very welcome to join us on Sunday morning at 10 30 to hear things fell standard. We'd love to see you there.