Zach Peters' Podcast
A place for sermons, reflections, and general pondering on life and stuff.
Zach Peters' Podcast
1 Samuel 3 Part One (The Word)
God's Word is life-altering, but we often take it for granted until it's gone—like health, relationships, or abilities that we only appreciate in their absence.
• Samuel's story contrasts innocent receptivity with deliberate avoidance of God's voice
• Without prophetic vision, people do whatever they want—historically leading to societal collapse
• Our lives require more than self-created goals; we need divine guidance beyond our limited perspective
• John 1 reveals the Word as the foundation of creation—the code to life itself
• Many try substituting God's Word with pursuits like money or relationships, similar to running a diesel engine on cooking oil
• The living Word doesn't just offer information but makes sense of our existence
• God's Word became flesh in Jesus, making it impossible to forget when the Holy Spirit resides within us
Get into God's Word daily—it's not just a book that you understand; it's a book that understands you.
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Well, good morning again. Welcome to church. 1 Samuel 3, verses 1-21, or at least around that. We'll get there. I'll try to keep it on the screen, but we'll see how that goes with me doing this Again.
Speaker 1:This was going to be a one-and of sermon and I read it and then I started studying and digging in and realized not going to be one and done here we got to break this down. But just for for context, you know, we the beginning of Samuel was sort of the story of of Hannah getting pregnant with Samuel, which was this, and Samuel being given back to the temple to serve God, and in between that and this we have this sort of I don't know information given to us about Eli the priest and his sons. And Eli's sons, hophnii and Phinehas, were evil. They were evil. They were supposed to be priests. They were supposed to be helping people get closer to God. They were supposed to be priests. They were supposed to be helping people get closer to God. They were supposed to know the word of the Lord. But they didn't do any of that and they did whatever they wanted to do. They did some pretty unsavory things. I won't get into any details, but many, many things they weren't supposed to do and they did it all the time. And finally, god essentially pronounces that. That's it. I'm not dealing with you or your family anymore. And Eli, even though he seems to be a righteous man, he couldn't control his family. He couldn't do what he needed to do in order to correct his two sons right, because he had things he could have done, but he didn't do it.
Speaker 1:And that brings us to 1 Samuel 3. And it starts off this way. Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli, and the word of the Lord was rare in those days. There was no frequent visions. At the time, eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, meaning it was very, very late at night, almost early morning, but not quite morning yet, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called Samuel and he said here I am, and ran to Eli and said here I am, for you called me, but he said I did not call you. Lie down again. So he went and lay down and the Lord called again Samuel. And Samuel arose and went to Eli and said here I am, for you called me. But he said I did not call my son. Lie down again Now. Samuel did not yet know the Lord and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. Pause right there just for a second.
Speaker 1:In chapter 2, we are told that the sons of Eli, phineas and Ferb I almost said Phineas and Ferb, yeah, oh gosh. Anyways, the sons of Eli, not Phineas and Ferb. But they did not know the word of the Lord. Right, they're supposed to be priests, but they didn't know the ways of the Lord. Right? Here it says this little boy doesn't yet know the word of the Lord. So what's the difference? Right? Some of you probably read this story before and you know where it's headed. What's the difference between two groups of people who don't know the word of the Lord? Well, the difference in this regard is that there is an innocence and a right attitude where you are able to hear the word of the Lord.
Speaker 1:And then we see that Eli's sons had chosen over time not to hear the word of the Lord and thus not know the Lord.
Speaker 1:And the Lord called Samuel again a third time and he arose and went to Eli and said here I am, where you called me.
Speaker 1:And then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore, eli said to Samuel go lie down, and if he calls you again, you shall say speak, lord, for your servant hears. So Samuel went and lay down in his place and the Lord came and stood calling, as at other times. Samuel, samuel and Samuel said Speak, for your servant hears. Then the Lord said to Samuel Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end, and I declared to him that I am about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God and he did not restrain them. Therefore, I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever. And Samuel lay until the morning.
Speaker 1:Then he opened the door of the house of the Lord and Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said Samuel, my son. And he said here I am. And Eli said what was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you, and more also if you hide anything from me of all that he told you. So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. And he said it is the Lord, let him do what seems good to him. And Samuel grew and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground and all Israel, from Dan to Bathsheba, knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the Lord and the Lord appeared again at Shiloh. For the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord.
Speaker 1:All right, you guys heard me read it. You probably saw 90% of it, as I continue to forget to switch over to slides. But we did it. We did it. We got through that.
Speaker 1:We're going to spend some time on this scripture, but today it just struck me the word of the Lord, god speaking, hearing God's voice. It's all sort of connected and I just know from experience. It seems like sometimes God is silent. He's silent. At least we feel that way, right, we feel like God is silent, that we have no direction and all of this stuff and we get depressed, we get bent out of shape. We're told several times that Israel is not hearing God's voice in the scripture. But we also know that maybe they're not just hearing, but maybe they're not hearing because they're not listening, based on some of their behavior and based on what they're doing, going a little bit of a different direction at the front end of this thing. From that point we'll get back to that.
Speaker 1:But we take a lot of things for granted in life. We do Every single one of us across the board, from the time that we're born to now. We just take things for granted. We often do not appreciate the goodness and the blessings of these things until we lose them Good health, good parents, good friends, good parents, good job, whatever it might be, a good skill that you have that goes away with age, like being able to see. I was struggling, not going to lie, I was struggling to see the tiny words on the screen. I was like, okay, well, this is going to be fun, right? You don't know what you got until it's gone, right? That's the phrase. We've all heard that before. This list of things. It could be extended, right, and so as long as such things are a part of our normal life. Sometimes we don't think about them, we don't give them credence.
Speaker 1:My work truck has these cool running boards that flip out when you open the door. I like that because it's off the ground a little bit, the truck is, the doors and interways are a little high, and if you can't tell, I'm not the tallest person in the world, so I like it. It comes out, nice little step. Here's the problem with that it happens automatically. I don't got to press a button or anything like that. I open the door, it comes out. I took my truck to the shop and just for an oil change. So I have no idea why they did what they did, but they finished the oil change, they pull it out. I go to get in, open the door and I go to step on the step. It doesn't fall, it doesn't come out and I fall into my truck like a fool. But for whatever reason, they had decided to unplug the little automatic thing that came out. But since it happens automatically, I never give any thought about it coming out and so it just became habit, didn't think about it. Right, it's a blessing.
Speaker 1:That sort of I don't know got lost in the normalcy of it happening. It's also true of sort of not thinking about things, because some people never know good things, they never know what they have, they never experience a good family, never experience this or that or good health, and so they don't know what they're missing. I remember Tara makes fun of me because I remember the first time I had things and I guess maybe she doesn't think about that stuff but I remember the first time I had a steak whenever I was seven years old, at a Fourth of July. Before that moment I didn't know what I was missing. Okay, now I know what I'm missing whenever I can't have steak but before that I didn't know. Do you know what people 40 years ago weren't missing? They weren't missing anything involving the internet and they weren't missing anything involving social media because they hadn't experienced it yet. And so, one way or another, whether we just normalize good things or whether we never experience good things, we sort of kind of forget stuff, we don't think about it, we don't reflect on it. And one good, I would rather say one great thing that's taken for granted. I would rather say one great thing that's taken for granted, taken for granted by some, completely unknown to others, because they've never experienced, is the Word of God. The Word of God. Samuel received a word from God and it was a nation altering experience. And can I go ahead and tell you something? When we can experience the Word of God in our life, right here, right now, it is a life-altering experience, if you let it.
Speaker 1:The Old Testament prophet Amos issued a terrible threat to the people of Israel in the 8th century. It's sort of a prophecy that was happening in real time for them. But he says this Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will send a famine on the land, but not a famine of bread, nor of thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, from north to east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it. God will be silent. Amos warns his hearers and his listeners, the people who are experiencing the evil of the days, and it'll be like a terrible famine, but not a famine where people are searching and desperate for water, but they're desperate to hear something from God, but the Lord's not listening to them. Desperate to hear something from God, but the Lord's not listening to them, and that'll mean, as Amos says a few lines before what we just read, it'll be the end of Israel. Right?
Speaker 1:Israel was God's chosen nation, and to be separated from the Word of God was to be separated from the whole reason why they existed in the first place. To be separated from the Word of God would mean that the nation of Israel essentially ceases to exist as it was supposed to exist. And it's a difficult sort of thing for us to wrap our heads around, because we don't necessarily can put ourselves in that position, in those shoes. But we don't readily appreciate the Word of God. On the one hand, we don't appreciate the brilliance of the Word of God, we don't appreciate the profound connection and dependence on the Word of God, and so it's just, I don't know. The Word of God in our life means everything, and this may be because we come to take the Word of God for granted, or because we never knew the goodness of the Word of God either, or if we are separated from it, it's bad news. We need the Word of God in our life. We need it for so many reasons. In fact, I would say we are reliant upon the Word of God, whether you recognize it or not.
Speaker 1:Proverbs 29, 18. You've heard this before, probably when there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint. But blessed is he who keeps the law. Fyi, the law is just another form of God's word. Leaders, especially Christian leaders right, I did, my master's degree was in leadership, development and organization and so a lot of Christian leaders and leaders who are leaders in faith and nonprofits right, they love this verse. Right, but they love a form of this verse that's incomplete. They often quote this verse by saying where there is no vision, they leave out the prophetic that people will perish. Okay, while that's nice, that's not the complete understanding of what's here.
Speaker 1:That word vision is actually prophetic vision, meaning this it's not something that we come up with on our own, it's not just one of our dreams, it's not just our roadmap. It is something that happens outside of ourselves. In fact, it is something that's connected to what only God can provide a vision for our lives that is from him. Where there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint because without his word, we do whatever we want to do and we know how that turns out. Right, sodom and Gomorrah we saw how that turned out, they were doing whatever they wanted to do. Noah's Ark right, everybody was doing whatever they wanted to do, except for Noah's family. We see what happens. We see, at the end of the Roman Empire, a lot of rich people were doing whatever they wanted to do. We see what happens, right. Greece we see, in Athens, they were doing whatever they wanted to do. We see what happens when we do whatever we want to do. Right?
Speaker 1:You understand that from a historical perspective, we've got to have something that is above and beyond ourselves, that leads and guides us and connects us to something greater than ourselves, where there is no prophetic vision, not just a vision, not just a map that we come up with, not just a destination that we come up with, not just a goal that we want, but something that exclusively can be given to us by God. That's what we need. We need direction in our life, and surely you know this in your own life. You've seen this played out in people's lives around you. You've seen people who have no vision for their life and they sort of just flounder. Maybe you have had seasons in your life where there was no goal, no vision, no dream, and so you floundered.
Speaker 1:But we've got to have goals, we've got to have dreams. We've got to have dreams. You've got to have a vision of where you want to end up in a day, in a week, in a month, in a year, in a couple of years. Heck, even if you want to take a good vacation, chances are you probably ought to have some sort of vision about what you want your vacation to look like. Otherwise, it'll never happen. Okay, so you've got to have a vision, you've got to have an idea of what you want to accomplish.
Speaker 1:But let's be honest not all visions, not all plans are created equal, and even the most driven and organized and thoughtful person can be wrong about the vision they create for their lives. They can get wrong the destination, they can be wrong about the map they make for themselves, and so there are plenty of successful people out there who are still missing the mark because they are relying on their own vision. Because they are relying on their own vision, they are relying on their own word. And so what we need, then, is not just a vision, but a vision given to us by God, god's living word, his scripture. Right, it's not just words, it's living. It applies to our life every day in brand new ways. That's why we can keep preaching 2,000 years later, because it is brand new in every culture and every season of your life. And maybe that's not fancy to you or that's not exciting to you, but that's okay.
Speaker 1:Vision, right, that vision for your life, it's given primarily to you through the word of God. Now I'm not saying sometimes, in certain circumstances, maybe God will speak audibly to you somehow some way. Never personally happened to me before. I don't think. Maybe One time I think God told me a joke, but I'm not sure I could have just been dreaming, I don't know, I won't go there. But what I'm saying is, maybe that's not the norm. I will say maybe the Holy Spirit, maybe you're not getting these audible voices in your head, but maybe the Holy Spirit is dropping these hints in your heart and in your mind. He's giving you visions of things to do. Maybe that's something you do.
Speaker 1:But primarily, you get your prophetic vision for your life from Scripture. You don't have to listen. You don't got to find some person gifted to be a prophet. You don't got to have someone divine, some sort of image for your life that you can chase. You don't have to have a word from the Lord, from somebody at church.
Speaker 1:I used to get so frustrated at church camp when everybody else was getting words in the altar and I was sitting there having a good time but no one was talking to me. No one was coming to me giving me a word. You don't need that. You know what you need, you. No one was coming to me giving me a word. You don't need that. You know what you need. You need the word of God, and we got the word of God right in front of us all the time. We got apps now that have every translation you could ever want of the word of God. You want direction for your life. You want vision for your life. You want to know what to do with your life.
Speaker 1:It starts with the word of God, and so, if you're not in the word of God, you are creating your own vision for your life. Get in the word of God, receive his word. His word is like a spring bursting forth in the desert, right, I don't know if you've ever seen it before, but whenever there's fresh rain or whether there's a fresh source of water in a dry and arid place, that place thrives and it flourishes, and I don't know, if you've noticed, we can live in a very dry and arid society, culturally and with faith, and with just emotions and depression and anxiety, and it's easy to feel like you're walking through a wasteland. Well, the word of God bursts forth from the ground and provides you a chance and opportunity at a new type of life. The sons of Eli ignored the words of God over and over and over again until they just don't have it anymore and they do whatever they want. We need the word of the Lord. John, chapter 1, verses 1 through 5,.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite openings to the gospel in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. Word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made. That was made in him was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. We wonder why the word of God is so important. Is because it underpins all of creation? We are not here without the word of God is so important? Is because it underpins all of creation. We are not here without the word of God In the beginning. God, what he spoke, and life happened. It's in our DNA, it's in physics, it's in chemistry, it's in the law, it's in the laws that we have that the universe is governed by. It was their guiding and creating from the very beginning, at the very start. The word of God is a code to life. It is the main ingredient in the recipe. It's also the cookbook, all wrapped up in one.
Speaker 1:The word of God is a big deal. It's a big deal that God gives us his word. It just is. And then we see that the word wasn't just words, it wasn't just lines on a paper. It wasn't just noises that we hear, but the word was a paper. It wasn't just noises that we hear, but the word was a person. It's a person. Word was action. Word was what God was doing, and what God is, the great I am, is words. That simply means that God is doing and is what he is. Word, the word and that person. That word was life. It was a spark of humanity, it was a source of life that was produced in a person who had its source in the word of God from the very beginning.
Speaker 1:Without the word of God we don't have existence. So no wonder we languish when we don't acknowledge God in our life. No wonder we we fail to flourish when we don't let Jesus into our life to do what he needs to do. We are starved for the thing that we need most and we try to replace the divine life with all sorts of other sources that are inferior to the real thing. Over and over again, we fill our lives with stuff and things and pursuits that aren't the word of God.
Speaker 1:First and foremost, can I tell you something? You can run a diesel engine at least old school diesel engines on a lot of different stuff, right? And that's how you've ever seen those crazy people who run their diesel engines in their cars on like old cooking oil? Well, they're doing that in a diesel engine. And while it might be green or whatever, that diesel engine is not going to last very long. Your gas mileage is not going to be as good, it's not going to be as efficient. So you might be able to get some places, but it ain't the way the engine was designed. Well, that's what we do with the Word of God. The Word of God is what we were designed to run on.
Speaker 1:But oftentimes we pick other stuff to try to run our life on. We pick a goal, right, we pick some sort of goal to pursue and chase Then what. You pick money you chase it. You pick a career you chase it. You pick a good time, a fun time, a fun life you chase it. You pick an injustice to try to end, which is a good thing, but that by itself is not really anything. You pick a hobby to chase. You pick relationships to chase. You pick relationships to chase. You can be the best you can be at anything you want to be at, but that's it. That's where it stops, that's where it ends, that's all. And you can run your life on that stuff and you can get some mileage out of it, you can see some stuff on it, but there's a better way. There's a better way than that mess and that stuff.
Speaker 1:And as we return to young Samuel here at Shiloh, we learn that those days were somewhat like the days that Amos was prophesying about a couple of centuries later, when the word of the Lord was rare. They were starved for direction, they were starved for vision, they were starved for something beyond what was going on. They were just floating through life and a lot of people were doing whatever they wanted to do and the Philistines were creeping in and the people and the priests who were supposed to be leading were evil and doing the wrong thing. What makes this moment so significant for Eli and Samuel and all of Israel is that God and his word was showing up for the first time in a while, and it was refreshing and exciting. Eli and his family had failed, his sons priests. They failed. They didn't know the voice of God. They were supposed to be shepherds, but they didn't even know the shepherd.
Speaker 1:And now the Lord, despite all of this, is speaking again to this child, and it's a beautiful thing. Now we won't talk about it this week, but I will just say the word, the word that Samuel receives. As brilliant, as amazing as the word of God is, he receives a challenging word, not an easy word. Sometimes, when God speaks, you're not going to like it. Sometimes, when God speaks, it means that you're being called out for some stuff that you're going through. We'll talk about that more another time, but this is a turning point for Israel. It won't be easy, but the voice of God at work in Samuel's life will lead them and guide them to victory and to stability and to anoint kings and to win battles and all of this great stuff. And it starts with a Samuel, Samuel, samuel and then a kid just trying to figure it all out, which, again, there's a lesson there about just trying to hear God's word, understand God's word and do something with it for another time as well.
Speaker 1:How do we get God into our life? How do we get God's word into our life? I know we got scripture, we've talked about that but for Israel the word of God was active through the law, the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible that was given to Moses. It was through the prophets that he would raise up from time to time. It was through the judges that he had to raise up. It was supposed to be through some kings that he raised up. It was supposed to be through the tabernacle and through the temple that would remind people of God's word and their connection to God, their special connection to God. All of these things were supposed to work together to be the living word of God for the people of Israel.
Speaker 1:But I think us in here know from history and from scripture that it wasn't enough for the people of Israel. The law wasn't enough. A prophet, a judge was not enough. A king was not enough. The tabernacle was not enough. The temple was not enough. The problem was is that the words always fell from memory. They forgot them, they faded away. The law was twisted, prophets died, judges died, kings didn't live up to how they were supposed to live up. The temple was torn down, and so the word of God was lost. It was ignored. It wasn't enough. The word became lifeless to the people of Israel, for the vast majority of them, and they were stuck in this cycle of revival and sinking, and revival and sinking, because it just was not enough.
Speaker 1:And then we get back to John, chapter 1. A few verses later, in verse 14, it says this and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We know the Word was a person, but the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, the glory as the only Son from the Father, full of grace and full of truth, the word that was there at the beginning, the word that was with God and was God, the word that was life to mankind, the word that we need to survive and thrive, the word that is at this very center of our DNA and at the very center of how this world runs and how the universe runs. It was there and it was physical and he showed up for us. And it wasn't just a temple, a building, it wasn't just a prophet, or it wasn't even just a book. He was a living word acting out God's perfect plan to perfection for us, and he was experienced by the disciples and by others in all of his glory and he was found to be truthful of his testimony that he was a living son of God. The Word became flesh.
Speaker 1:We walk through life sometimes, and maybe not in here, but perhaps certainly in seasons. We walk through life, maybe feeling like we can't hear the Word of the Lord. Whenever we have been offered an invitation to have the living Word reside in our heart, we finally have access to the word of God in perfect action. It makes it impossible to forget whenever God is living inside of you, when the Holy Spirit is remunerating inside of you and making you a living temple, living temple. Holy Spirit is residing inside of you, can reside inside of you to bring you the word in action in your life at all times.
Speaker 1:I said that God is silent, but, more accurately, sometimes we just don't listen. And the reality is that Eli's sons had hardened their hearts to God. Eli had failed to use the law, which was a form of the word, to help his sons, and Samuel, with childlike innocence and a clear heart to serve, was there to hear God's voice, and he grew every day closer because he received the word of God. I guarantee you, if Eli had made use of the word that he did have in the Old Testament the law and he had done something about his sons, his story would be different. Are we going to do something with the word? Are we going to do something with what we've received? We have the living word of God available to us in so many ways. Are we listening?
Speaker 1:There's a guy. He lived a really long time. I think he was born like in 1890 or something like that, and he lived to the 1980s, I think, something like that. So he was really really old, but his name was Emile Calais and even though he's British, he was this I don't know this secular scholar. He was a naturalist, meaning that he believed that everything had a natural explanation, meaning that he did not believe in God, didn't believe in God at all, and so he spent all of his time and all of his schooling doing philosophy and some soft sciences and things like that, until World War I happened and he was called into the battlefield. And obviously World War I was pretty horrific. If you don't understand or don't know, I mean you're just talking about millions and millions of people gone, vanished from the face of the earth. During World War I. In single battles you had almost a million people die. So we're talking about some pretty severe stuff that this young man is going through. He's losing friends, he's losing loved ones, there's pain all around him and during the long and powerful nights that he would experience he wrote this during long night watches in the fox Souls in World War I.
Speaker 1:I had, in a strange way, been longing I must say it, however strange it may sound for a book that would understand me. But I knew of no such book. So what did he do? Well, he set out to construct for himself a book that would sort of know him and express for him, and he would write these things in secret. He would write little notes that he was inspired by. He would write little quotes from poetry and from philosophical works and from other novels, and he constructed this book over years, even after World War.
Speaker 1:I ended as he was sort of basically dealing with PTSD. They didn't call it that back then. They call it being shell-shocked, or a trench mind or whatever they want to call it. But they went through this experience and over several years he sort of does all this stuff and he gets to the end of this journey. He thinks let me read back and see what I've got here. And he rereads this work, this collection of stuff in his notes, and he's excited for a book that finally knows him and understands him. And he reads it and he is thoroughly disappointed because it was just stuff, just words. He didn't really know him. He had made it right, he'd done it himself and he was very disappointed. He's around 23 years old at this time, in college, still getting his PhD in philosophy, and he's just struggling with this. I can't believe I wasted so much time doing this. This is useless.
Speaker 1:That same day, that same day of his disappointment, his wife randomly decides to walk into a church for the first time in her life and she talks to the priest there and in French, even though they're English somehow she asks for a Bible in French and the pastor there at this old church gives him a Bible and whenever a Malay gets home, gives him a Bible and the wife was afraid. The wife was afraid to hand the Bible to him because she knew that he was an atheist, knew that he didn't want anything to do with that stuff, handed him the Bible anyways and instead of yelling and being mad he grabbed the Bible and he ran to his room and he opened it up and he immediately started reading the Bible, the Gospels, and he landed. The first thing he ever read in the Bible was the Beatitudes, and from there he just was. He's just astounded that finally he had found a book that understood him. He didn't have to understand it, the book was understanding him and he realized right then and there, early on. By the way, this is the first time he's ever seen a Bible, laid hands on a Bible, at 23 years old.
Speaker 1:There's a reason why they call it the living word. It makes sense of you, it makes sense of me, it makes sense of me. We desperately need the word of God in our life. We can come up with all sorts of lovely phrases and philosophies and strategies to make our life more manageable. Matter of fact, the world's full of those things, full of false religions and ideologies that try to replace what we truly need, and that is a connection to the living word of God that understands us. We need the word of God. We need the word of God. Let's pray.
Speaker 1:Heavenly Father, we love you, we thank you and I just pray right now that we would hear the word of the Lord in our lives.
Speaker 1:Let us hear your scriptures reverberate in our hearts and in our minds In our own private times of reading. I pray that you would just strike into our memories, into our hearts, the goodness of your word, lord, I pray that you would speak to us through your Holy Spirit and guide us and lead us and, lord, that we would leave behind anything that doesn't make sense, leave behind ways of doing life that doesn't fit with your living word, lord, that you would understand us to our very atoms, lord, and that you would help us make sense of our life. Lord, I pray right now for those who are part of our little church, who aren't here right now. I pray for healing, I pray for strength, both physically and emotionally and spiritually. I pray, holy Spirit, that you begin to work and deal in their lives and do what only you can do. God and God, I pray that you would use us in this room for your glory and for your honor. In Jesus Christ's name we pray and we all say Amen.