Someone Go Tell Peter

Halleluyah. Halleluyah. Well, it's good to be in the house of the Lord tonight. Amen. Amen. If you'll have your Bibles, if you have your Bibles, if you'll stand with me, we're gonna go to the Gospel of Mark chapter 16. As you can tell, I'm ministering tonight. So pastored, thank you so much for the opportunity to preach tonight. Mark chapter 16, and if you'll allow me, we'll start with verse one. And I will be reading from the the NIV. The word says this: when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint in Jesus's 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 the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. And they entered the tomb, and 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 he laid. And I want to take my thought right here from verse 7 that says this: 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. Verse 8: trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. Looking back on verse 7: but go tell his disciples and Peter.

If you don't mind, since your Bible stands, let's lift our hands in this place. Let's begin to call on the name of the Lord. Jesus Lord, we thank you today, God. We thank you for meeting us in this place, God. We thank you for your that we feel right now, Jesus. I just pray, God, that you open our hearts, our minds, our ears today, to receive this word today, Jesus. In the mighty name of Jesus. And let the church say Amen. And amen. You may be seated.

Now I don't know about you, we are living in some weird times. Absolutely some weird times. But I have come here today to let you know that God is still moving, no matter how weird or how chaotic, or no matter how much destruction that the enemy thinks that he can lay today. God is still moving in his church. Amen. I don't know about you, but I believe still in this place, within this body of believers, there is some apostolic authority in this house today. Amen. I believe today that we can still lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. Amen. That the lame can walk again, and that the Deaf can hear, and the blind can see. Hallelujah. I believe that God is up to something.

We we saw it just as soon as they announced the quarantine and everybody went home. All of a sudden we, we see, I would say like two different types of people. We've got those that took advantage of the fact that they were on the quarantine and just relaxed. But there were others that saw it as a perfect time for them to get on their feet and get in motion, to begin to use their voices, or I could say their keyboards, to step outside of their comfort zones and to begin to reach out to other people. Amen. Because they saw that there was a shift or a change in the atmosphere. When I read the scripture, or as I was praying about this in reading the scripture, I begin to think about a couple of people. And before I get into the life of Peter, the first one that I begin to think about is Nicodemus. Now for us that know the story of Nicodemus, we see a man who, if you'll allow me to compare the two, he was raised in church. He knew the word. I mean, you could not become about a better Bible Quiz er than Nicodemus. Studied under the best, knew the word. He was constantly in the house of God. What a great upbringing that Nicodemus must have had. I would say that there are some parents in here today that thrive to raise their kids the way that the parents of Nicodemus raised him. Someone who's in the house. Someone who's reading the word. Someone who's striving to have a relationship with God. And it's exactly that relationship that draws him into the presence of Jesus. And I don't know about you today, but I want to go to that next level in Jesus. I don't want to just stay stagnant. I don't want to just be where I'm at. But I want to go to that next level. And we see Nicodemus here, because he's striving to be closer to God, he comes in contact with the one who would change his life. Jesus makes the statement to him that you need to be born again. The way that you've been living is not enough to get you into heaven. You need to change your ways. Well, how do I change my ways, if the way that I have been weren't walking is blameless and right in what I think is the Lord's eyes? I think that it's important for all of us to examine ourselves in this place, and to ask ourselves the exact same question: what exactly does it mean for me, as a follower of Jesus, to be born again? Jesus makes a statement, he says: except a man be born of the water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. And so as I look at the life of Nicodemus, I asked you out there that feel like, man, everything's going good. There's a lot of chaos in the world, but if I look at my life, everything's going pretty good. I still feel the presence of God. I encourage you today that you still need to be born again. And you may say: hey, I've been baptized. I've been filled with his spirit. What are you talking about? What I'm saying is, is that there are going to be times where you're gonna have to face certain obstacles. And it's important for us to look back on our life and remember the time that we were baptized. Remember the time that God washed away our sins. Remember that place where we were standing when he filled us with his spirit. Amen. There are times that that we have to look back. We often preach that it's best to leave the past in the past, that we need to move forward. But when we look at the context of nicodemus, sometimes it's important for us to actually look back on our past, to remind ourselves what our future is. Amen. In other words, we're still bought by the blood. We're still forgiven. He's still seeking a relationship with us. He's still drawing us by his spirit.

The other person I think of is Mary Magdalene. The person that we just read about. And we we see this person out in the world. It's the person that did not have the best home life. The person that was not raised in church. The person that, if you bring them in to Sunday School and you talk about Jonah, they have no idea who Jonah or Moses is. Probably the only reason they know who Jesus is is because I saw a billboard outside. We see Mary Magdalene in the same situation, warning something more, desiring something more. And because of a relationship or a drawing from Jesus, her life completely changes. But here we come to the tomb, and Mary standing there, and the person that she met that changed her life is dead. I don't know about you, but I've had some awesome experiences in my life, things that I felt like was life-changing. But the older I get, the more I realized that those were just moments. Then it's not something that I could just hold on to and hope that it completely changes my life. No, it was just a moment. It was, it was something that that causes me to want more. And in the case of both Nicodemus and and Mary, we see them, the person that changed their life is now laying in a tomb, dead. And I imagined the stories that they told each other, thinking back about how he changed their life. But what do we do now that he is dead?

I don't know about you, but I like restoration. I like restoration. I like it when when I go over to someone's house, and they've got a garage or barn, and they say: hey, I want to show you something. Come, come out here. I want to show you something. You walk in, and they've taken something that was beat-up, ugly, some sort of car, some sort of truck, and they have restored it. It looks like it's brand-new. Takes you back in time. You know, it makes me think of my dad. For example, if you were to go to his house, there's three channels that he likes to watch. He pays this outrageous satellite bill for just three channels. But he he told me, he said, the reason I do it is because if I don't, I don't get the three channels that I want. One of them is, is the westerns Channel. You go into his house, he's usually got Bonanza on, Gunsmoke, occasionally Hopalong Cassidy comes on there. But of course, on the weekend there's gonna be a John Wayne movie on. And I asked my dad, I said: dad, why do you go back and you rewatch these old episodes? I mean, I can leave for a weekend, come back the next weekend, and he's watching the exact same episode again. And he told me something. He said: Hank, you know, growing up we didn't have TV. And he said, when we finally got it, you could barely see it, and it was on the weekends that we got to watch this. And he said, there's a piece of it that takes me back to my childhood. How many of you, you have something that takes you back to a time in your life that that's a good memory?

The other thing he likes to watch is the History Channel. And if you know anything about the History Channel, it's everything but the History Channel. Some of you watch The History Channel, I say. But one of the shows on there is, is, or several shows on there, or restoration shows. One of them is American restoration. And it's a, it's a show about a guy named Rick and his kids, that they go in and they take these vintage items and they restore them. And they've been doing this for over thirty years. And this show consistently averaged 7.3 out of 10, which is a very good score for a show. And I began to think to myself: if my dad likes to watch it, and it seems like the majority of America likes to watch it, what is it that we can learn from it? And I believe it's this: there's a fascination within us about restoring old things to its original look. There's a fascination there.

I've got a couple of pictures I want to throw up. Let's sister Debbie throw up the first one up here. I don't know that's you, but that looks like a piece of junk. If you were to invite me over to your house and say, Hank, I've got something I want to show you, I'm sure there's a few people in here right now that's thinking back: I could probably get something for those scraps right there. Right? But there are other people that see that, and they think to themselves: there's a hidden treasure right here. Let's go ahead to the next image. And they take something that looked like what we saw before, and they turn it into this right here. They restore it to its original look. Now anybody out here like coca-cola? Let's look at the next image. We have a cooler here. Imagine going hunting, and you fall over this just out in a junkyard, baby. Looks like a piece of junk to me. But to somebody else, they see something that's worth restoring. And they take this, and then they make it into this right here. Something that works. Something that takes them back to a happy place. For many of us, when we see things restored, it takes us back to a happier time.

And my dad, he called me one weekend, and he said: son, he said, you've got to come out to my house. Wink, when can you come? And I said: dad, I got this particular weekend available. And he said: come on, come on, you got to do it. So this is a two-hour drive for me. I drive two hours for him to take me out to where his barn is. And he opens the door up, and I see this piece of junk. And he is, he is so excited about this piece of junk. He said: what do you think? And I said: what do you want me tell you? You want the truth, or you want me to tell you something else? He's like, what do you say? I said: I don't even know what it is. I said: it looks like a piece of junk to me. He said: so you don't know what this is? I said: I dad, I have no idea. It looks like an old van to me. And that's what it looked like. Didn't look like a truck, didn't look like a car. It looked like a van. But it was old. And he said: it's an old panel truck. And I said: still doesn't mean anything to me. You made me drive two hours to see that. You could've just took a picture and sent to me. So anyways, he goes on to tell me. He said: I have a vision for this panel truck. He he begins to tell me about the colors that he's gonna bring in, and and this thing doesn't have tires, the type of tires he's gonna put on it, how he's gonna change the front, the seats. He's, he's gonna change everything out on this. There's certain buttons, and the look, and everything. And it's like he could just smell, you know, and see this this vision that he had for this old panel truck. And I said: what are you gonna do about the back? And he said: all the back is the best part. He said: I'm gonna take some plywood, and I'm gonna build some benches, and I'm not even gonna paint them. And I was a little confused by this. And he said: let me tell you a story. He said: when I was a kid, he said, when I was in elementary school, we usually had to walk to school uphill both ways. You've heard the story. He said: occasionally a truck would pick us up, and it would take us to school. But he said, most of time, either people, either the kids either walked to school, or they had a mule that took him to school, or they rode a horse to school. And I'm thinking: dad, what what year was this? But he told me, he said, there was an old man that retired. He used to be a milkman, and he would carry other dairy products. And he had an old panel truck. And he saw that there was a need in the community. He felt like education was important. So once he retired, he stripped that truck down, and he put some benches in the back of this truck. And he went around from house to house, and he picked up all the kids, which included me. And he said that he would take us to school. And he said: my vision for this is to restore this panel truck to look exactly like the old man's. Something about restoration. Something about taking us back.

I believe that there's a another reason for our fascination with restoration. Something that goes deeper than our imagination. Something that goes deeper than our dreams and our wishes. Something that's, dare I say, spiritual. Something that is dear to God. I believe that we see ourselves in the restoration, or at least we see somebody we love in the restoration. It gives us hope, because we realize that that's something that's broken down, something that that looks like junk, that somebody else can be made new again. Amen. Maybe you've convinced yourself today that that nobody cares. III don't know what hand you have been dealt. I don't know what it is you're facing. I don't know what kind of Giants that you deal with. But I do know something today: there's a reason why we are here tonight. And it goes beyond because it's routine, or because it's in my calendar, or because it just fit. There's a reason while we're here today. And if there's not a reason that we're here today, then we're wasting our time. Amen. And so maybe the enemy's been beating you up and telling you that that you're not worth it, that you're nobody, that nobody loves you. Maybe he's telling you that your time has come and it has passed. When you think about restoration, if you looked in the mirror today, you would probably realize that it's possible that you're trying to restore yourself. Think about, maybe if you've had an injury and you've had to have some sort of surgery, what's the point? I'm trying to restore myself. The higher my hairline gets, the shorter I am, the more I try to put my hair up, so it makes me look taller. Try to restore myself. But you know, for some of us we go to unhealthy places in the way that we try to restore ourselves. Maybe the depression that you're feeling has led you down a path of where you were trying drugs. And with each drug, and with each high, you need another high. More drugs to get you to where you need to be, to feel like you're worth something. But then in the morning you wake up, and you're not satisfied. Maybe it's alcohol. No matter how much you drink, you still wake up the next day, and you don't feel like you're worth anything. Maybe you're on a quest to find love, and so you move from partner to partner. Your sole purpose is you're just looking for someone that loves you for who you are. But yet your heart is broken. Your life is broken. And you've allowed the names that somebody has called you to define who you are. But I want to tell you today that our God is in the restoration business. Amen.

He is in the business of doing something that's supernatural. It's not a P. It's not alcohol. It's not the hair products that's gonna fix this. Amen. What we need today is to understand who we are in the eyes of God, and that he is still in the restoration business. It's possible there's so many different personalities out here today, that maybe you you just heard everything I said right then, you said: nope, doesn't apply to me. But instead, where you find yourself is in the area of trying to climb the ladder. Trying to get to that next level. And so what you do is, you throw yourself into your work, and you're just trying to climb that ladder. It's not even about the money. It's just climbing the ladder. Just trying to prove that I can be the best that I can be. And so with each hour that goes by, you're climbing that ladder. But you're finding out that you're pushing others away as you're trying to climb that ladder. So you see that you pushed your family way. It's possible that you push the church away. And you're finding yourself exhausted and empty. Or it's possible that you're celebrating a birthday today. And with each candle, with each cake, you realize that you're losing the stamina that you had. You're losing your vision. In fact, you're needing help just trying to get to the next room. And with each click of the clock, you feel like your time is running out. I'm here to tell you today that as long as you have breath in your body, God can still use you. Amen. He's still in the restoration business. God wants you to know that he's not done with you yet. All you have to do is be available for him to use you. Amen.

In our opening passage, we see that Simon Peter, man, he's so lucky, getting to walk with Jesus for all the years that he did. Jesus goes out, he he chooses to of people to follow him. And of course, we know that there are other followers as well. But he had 12 people that he hand-picked to say: you're gonna help me with this ministry. And that within that 12, he had three that went to another level with him. And Peter was one of them. And so Peter was there. He saw each miracle. He's, he heard every sermon that Jesus ever preached. In fact, Jesus told him, he said: this is what I want to tell you to do. You've seen me do it. Now you go do it yourself. I want to send you out two by two. And what happens? They go out two by two, and they see the same thing. Miracles taking place. People listening to the message. They're baptizing people. It's a great time. They're winning. Peter sees and witnesses all of this. Man, he feels like he's the right hand man. There's no way that we can be defeated. But then we skip when we get to the Garden of Gethsemane. And what is it we see? We see that the leader that they've been following has been stripped away from them. And Peter follows, follows Jesus, but from a distance this time. And from a distance he witnesses a trial that takes place in the middle of the night. And he knows, ain't no way we're gonna win this one. And so with each question, he begins to deny Jesus. And all of a sudden, he went from feeling like he was victorious to feeling like a loser. Depression begins to hit him. Jesus is beaten, crucified, put in a tomb. And this is what I find fascinating with the scripture that we read: the angel tells the women, go tell the disciples and Peter. Which tells me something about depression. When you're dealing with it, even though everybody else felt like you were part of the group, you don't like you're part of the group. And that angel is specifically speaking to Peter in his need. Imagine with me for a minute: they were 13 strong. Judas goes down. Jesus goes down. And now Peter goes down. And what felt like victory after victory now feels like defeat after defeat after defeat. And the others are looking around, and they're going: where is Peter? And what was it that Peter did? Peter went back to the place where it all began. I've seen the miracles. I've tasted the victory. But it just seemed like a moment. And because it's a moment, I'm gonna go back to doing what I know to do. I want to take care of myself. And in this place today, I feel like that there are Saints who feel like that. There are tests or trials that you have been facing, and you feel like you have been defeated. And with every day you fall further and further back. But I want to tell you something today. Usually when we preach about restoration, where do we go? We go to the prodigal son, because it's a great story. But this is what I want to do. I want to take it from a different perspective. And it's this percent perspective: we're not in the story anymore. Instead, we're in the shoes of Peter. And Peter sitting back, and he's standing behind Jesus as Jesus is preaching the message. And he's a minun. And he's going: yeah, somebody out there needs to hear this message. Somebody needs to hear. Oh, somebody's going to get restored today. How many times do we do that in a message? I'm assuming you probably turned me off already. You're going up, not for me. Everything's good with me. Yeah, go preach it, man. Somebody in here needs to be restored. So Peter is hearing this message being preached, and he's Amen and the preacher. But he's never thinking about the fact that maybe what I should do is, even though the message doesn't apply to me today, maybe I should take it and put it on the bookshelf. Because there's a couple of days down the road, something's gonna happen, and I'm gonna have to take it off the bookshelf and apply it to my life. There's a reason why we're here today. It's because Jesus wants us to be victorious. He doesn't want us to be defeated. The enemy has come to steal, kill and destroy. And what has it come to steal, kill and destroy? You and me. And yet Jesus gives us hope today.

So Peter hears the message, but yet he's allowed the depression to hurt him. I believe that it's important for us today to go back. And as Jesus hangs on the cross, we just need to cling to the feet of Jesus. If if Peter would have just done that, just clung to the feet as Jesus hung there. Because we see two different stories here. We see John, John did that. John did that. But Peter didn't. Come to tell somebody that there's hope in this place today, that God is still in the restoration business. And he desires to restore his children. And he is calling, he's calling out to each and every one of you.

Have you ever met someone that you can see discouragement all over them? You just see it. It's like they wear it. And you ask him, you're like: how you doing? And they're like: Oh fine. You're like: that's not true. It's because we live in the south. That's what we say. You have things good, but it's not true. You're not good. You're not good. There's discouragement all over you, and you need some help today.

And we see this in athletes from time to time. As they get older, they feel like that they've got to quit. They feel like they've got to retire, because they can't go the extra mile that they used to. But the thing is, is that we're a little bit different than athletes today. Because we're called to run this race, and we're called to finish this race. And he tells us that if we run this race, we're going to be victorious today. Amen. This is something that I find fascinating in the scripture. The Bible tells us that we over come him, the enemy, by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony. Right? And so what I see here is, I can't do anything about the blood of the Lamb. It's already been taken care of. But what I can control is the word of my testimony. Amen. Jesus, he did it all for us. The blood was shed for us. But all he says is: if you want to overcome the enemy, you just got to talk about it. Tell your testimony. Share it with somebody.

I'll never forget, I was riding with my dad. And this is something, I don't know it, I guess it's a quirk about me. But I'm the type of person that, if I'm getting in my vehicle, I'm just trying to get to my destination. I don't really care about everything else around me. I'm just, you know, Sydney's watching this. She'll see something, like a house for example, right, that she likes. And she'll go, and then all of a sudden I've slammed the brake on, because I'm convinced I just ran over a kid. Did you see that tree in that yard? No, see that trees, I got so pointedly. What, tell him at a tree? You know, I want to get from point A to point B, and that's it. But I learned something from my dad. My dad's the type of person, if if we were walking and there's just a valley full of clovers, he can find a four-leaf clover within minutes. He can't read the book in front of him, or see the sign down the road. But for some reason he can point a four-leaf clover in the middle of all these clovers. And so we'll be riding on the road, and he'll say: did you see that over there? Let's see, what, no I didn't see it. And you know what he taught me that day, or I should, I shouldn't say that day, for all these years I should say, is that we need to be aware of our surroundings. But I want to take it a little bit different. I believe I learned a spiritual principle, which is: we need to be aware of our surroundings. Because we as the church, we're going somewhere. We are going somewhere. And as we're getting to that place, there are people all around us that others see as junk. Within this city alone, there are tons of people who grew up in the church that are no longer living for the Lord, because they feel as though their junk. And I don't want us to get so caught up in tunnel vision that we don't look around us, and we start to say: hey, there's some treasure right here on the side. Yeah yeah, I've got somewhere to get, but there's some treasure right here on the side. Is it going to slow me down? Of course it's going to slow me down. Because anything worth restoring is going to take some time. And so Jesus is telling us today, he's saying: hey, you're worth the time. You're worth restoring them. And he does it for us. Amen. He does it for us. And so: someone go tell Peter that the Lord is ahead. Someone go tell Peter that I'm looking for him. Someone go tell Peter: hey, I'm still here. You, you're not done yet. Someone go tell Peter. And I believe in the spirit, that's exactly what God is telling the church today: that we need to go tell somebody who either used to be sitting in these chairs, or grew up in the church, that there is still a place for you, and there's still a home for you, and there's still a God that's crying out for you, and there's still a God that cares. And you know what? You may feel like nobody else cares, but I care. Because I got somewhere I'm trying to be, but I'm gonna put the brake on, and I'm gonna go out here, and I'm going to go amongst this tall grass right here, or I have no business being, by the way. And I want to pick up what seems to be trashed to other people. And I'm gonna bring it back in. And I'm gonna put it in my vehicle. And I'm gonna take it back to my shed, or I'm gonna take it back to my garage. And I'm gonna take the time, and I'm gonna restore this person back to where they need to be. I hope that we hope, we don't think within ourselves that we're not a part of the process. Because my friends, we have always been a part of the process. This book right here is not God doing it alone. It's God reaching his hand out and making a covenant between his people. And if we've taken on his name, he cares about us reaching those people.

I think to myself, one of my, one of our favorite scriptures, we always go to it, acts 2:38, write: repent, be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. But I tell you what my favorite scripture is: Acts 239. Because once I get past acts 2:38, I got to get to X 239. And it tells me that this promise is for your children, is, it's for you. It's for your children. Is to all those who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God shall call. And what exactly is he saying? Hey, go tell my disciples and Peter. Who's he calling? He's calling your neighbor. He's calling that person that needs restoring. And he's telling you and I: hey, go tell him I'm up ahead. But you gotta lead them to where I'm at. And that's our duty today. Amen. We can't get so distracted in our hobbies or our work that we forget about what our calling is. You know, Peters hope was not found in his hobbies. We see it in Scripture. It's not found in his hobbies. His hope was not found in his job, because that's exactly where he ran when Jesus died. But what he realized later is that his felt, his hope was found in the resurrection of Christ. And so our hope today is found in the resurrection of Christ. When you don't know what to tell somebody, tell them about the resurrection of Christ. That he is making all things new today. And that includes you. And that includes me. And that includes all those who are afar off. I know that in this place today, there are some parents that have been praying for some kids. You have poured yourself out to your kids, and it seems like they have completely ignored you. They're running the complete opposite direction. But I'm here to tell you today: God is in the restoration business. Don't give up. We see it. We see it in Jobe. What was it that joke did? Joe went, and think about the process. Pastor, you preached about it. You talked about the altars. And you've done such a great job of bringing out the illustration of how difficult it is to build an altar, not only to sacrifice on it, but just to build it in the prompt, in in the first place. And so you're lifting these heavy stones, and you're placing them one on top of another. And in the Bible days, it's not like it is today, where if I'm at a chicken, I just run down to the grocery store, or I run down to the fast-food restaurant. See, I knew I would get fast food out today. Tell them before I got up here, I said: I'm really hungry. It's not like it, well back then it's not that way. Because when you're making a sacrifice, you are sacrificing your living. What's for dinner today? We're not having dinner today. Well, why not? Cuz I made a sacrifice unto God. He said: what, why, why would you do that? Cuz I'm praying for you. Imagine Jobe. Yes, Joe was wealthy. Yes, he had a lot. But he had to pick us. He had to pick the best. And after he built his altar, he went through the bloody process of preparing the sacrifice. And what was the one thing he said? God protect my children. God keep my children. All that process, just to say that.

And so I want to encourage somebody in here today: whether it's your children, whether it's a family member, whether it's a neighbor, whether it's someone that that's a friend of yours, they are still worth making an altar for, and saying: God save them. I know my prayer is so simple, but God save them. God restore them. The person that used to sit next to me, God restore them. It's worth it, my friends. It's worth taking the time to just simply say: God bring them back.

So I'm 46, 1 through 11: God is our refuge and strength, are ever present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way, and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea. Though its waters roar and foam, and the mountains quake with a surging. Sounds like a bad day. It sounds like what we're facing right now. But I don't stop there. Verse 4: there is a river who streams make glad the City of God, the holy place where the most high dwells. God is within her. She will not fall. God will help her and break, at the break of day. Nations are in uproar. Kingdoms fall. He lifts his voice. The earth melts. The Lord Almighty is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. Come and see what the Lord has done, the desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes Wars cease to the ends of the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. He burns the shields with fire. He says: be still, and know that I am God. And I will be exalted among the nations, and I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord Almighty is with us, the God of Jacob is our fortress. When chaos rises up around us: be still, and know that I am God. When you're trying to find a solution to what it is you're facing: be still, and know that He is God. When there's protests and riots in division in this country: be still, and know that He is God. He's in the restoration business, my friends. When there's a kayo, a chaotic election around the corner: be still, and know that he's God. Want, because he can move on a president. He can move on the hearts of the people. In the midst of a, of a divided country that's fighting over race and hate, we can be still and know that he's gone, because he can restore us to where we need to be. In the midst of war, just be still. Another days God, because he has the power to stop the war. Whatever it is you're facing today, I encourage you: be still, and know that He is God. That he has it all under control. All we have to do is hand it over to him. Don't lose sleep over it. Don't lose your mind over it. Give it to the Lord. Amen. He says: I am God. He makes the statement: I am. Jesus says, I am. What does that mean? I am whatever you need. Amen. I'm exactly what you need.

There was a time when you can look to your left and to your right, and you saw those empty seats. But as I come to my conclusion tonight, if we can all stand, it's our duty to go and tell Peter. But the Lord's looking for him. And to lead them, lead him exactly where he needs to be. Lead her exactly where she needs to be. Amen. I think to myself about some of the old songs that we used to sing: Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind, but now I see. We need to keep our head held high. Stop looking horizontal. Let's go vertical. Keep her eyes on our father. And understand today: he's, he's restoring us. He's making us new. All we have to do is place ourselves in the saviours hands.

So today there is hope. If you have breath in your body, there's still hope. There's a miracle, and it's right around the corner. And you've been praying, and you've been steadfast. And I'm here to tell you today that the Lord spoke to my heart, and he told me to tell you that he hears you. You're not alone. Stand firm. Don't be rattled. Don't give up. And just place yourselves in his hands. Because he's going to restore us. Amen.

Let's lift our hands today. Father, in the name of Jesus, god, I praise you and I magnify you in this place today, God. Lord, I thank you for what you're doing, Jesus. God, give us a burden today, Lord, to reach others. God, if there's somebody in this place today that needs a restoration, Lord, I pray today, God, that they just go back, Lord, think back to the place where they were when you filled them with your spirit. God, we need a renewing today, Jesus. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Jesus, we praise you and we magnify you, Lord God. You are great. You are powerful, Jesus. We magnify you. Can we get the Lord a hand clap a praise in this place? Jesus, we thank you. We thank you, Jesus. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you all so much. You're dismissed tonight. In Jesus name.