Christ in Exodus

I used to love superhero movies.

My brothers and I would wait eagerly for every new Marvel movie. We'd watch all the trailers, all excited, and then as soon as it came out, we would watch these, all the Marvel superhero movies in the cinemas.

And we do, they're like excited, walking with our tickets, smuggling our snacks under our jacket, because we're not buying the stuff from the cinema. We buy it from Coles because it's cheaper.

Smuggling all of our snacks into the cinemas and then watching this movie, the Marvel movies, two hours of action and intensity that just draws you in, this moment of time where you forget how many minutes have passed.

And then you walk out of the movie. And how do you walk out of the movie when you watch a Marvel movie? Like this, right?

I'm Captain America, yeah. You puff your shoulders back, puff out your chest, you lift your head. That's what movies do to us.

That's what good stories do to us. They draw us into them because we see ourselves in the story. I am Captain America.

I am Iron Man. I am the one who saves the world. We puff out our chest because the story draws us in.

I want to put it to you that the story of Exodus is a good story. It's a good story not because it's not true. I don't mean it's good because it's not true.

It is true historically and experientially. It is our story. When we read the Book of Exodus, it draws us in because we see ourselves in the Book of Exodus and we see God's salvation of his people, Israel, and his salvation of us.

So we're going to look at this story of the Book of Exodus in its three acts. Act one, the way out. Act two, the way through.

And act three, the way in. And I am confident that all of us in this room and those joining online find ourselves in at least one of those places. The story of Exodus draws us in and we see ourselves in it.

Before we jump in, let me remind you that we are six out of 66 sermons through our way in the Christ in Scripture project.

We are working over these two years through every single book in the Bible in order to see how it points us to the person of Jesus and to his life, death and resurrection. If you hear last week, we looked at the book of Genesis.

Christ in Genesis is the promised serpent crusher, the one that we wait for. Next week, we're going to dive into Leviticus, which is going to be fun. We'll see.

Jack is preaching and he is an academic, and it's the most well-researched sermon I've ever seen in my life. So I do encourage you to come next week.

But today we're looking at the book of Exodus, a 30,000 foot view of the story of the second book of the Bible and the way that that points us to Jesus.

1 — THE WAY OUT

So we're going to dive in through the first act of the story, A Way Out. The word Exodus literally means way out in Greek, ex hodos. It's the word which is above all the car parks in Athens, way out, way in, Exodus.

The book of Exodus picks up where Genesis leaves off, that is that the family of Israel, who was originally named Jacob, they number 70 people and they end up in Egypt. Now, Wendy has read for us the first seven verses of the book of Exodus.

The people of Israel are in Egypt and they multiply and multiply. They're blessed. They're growing and growing.

The promise of God to Abram is coming true, but it's not fully true because they're not in their own land. They're not a nation yet, and they're only partly blessed. And then we read this.

This is the very next verse after what Wendy read for us, verse eight of chapter one. Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. You can hear the ominous, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.

This king is Pharaoh, Pharaoh King of Egypt, is jealous of God's blessing on Israel. He's jealous of their multiplication, and so he enslaves them. Egypt enslaved the people of Israel.

They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields. In all their harsh labor, the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly. Egypt enslaves Israel.

Not only so, they also murder all of the firstborn, all of the boys, all of the boys of the Hebrews are thrown into the Nile to try and curb the population.

This is a murderous, violent, oppressive, unjust empire, pitted against the purposes of God and God's people. The people of God need a way out. They need a way out of slavery in Egypt.

God's solution begins with a baby boy, a Levite from the tribe of Levi, who is delivered from death in an ark, floating down the Nile. Interestingly, the word for ark, the basket, is the same word that Noah was saved through the waters.

The Bible is beautiful when you pick up on the meaning of the repetition of words. This baby is saved in an ark floating down the Nile River. He's by God's providence found by Pharaoh's daughter.

Pharaoh's daughter takes him in and names him what? Moses. The name Moses means, in Hebrew, draw out, because Pharaoh's daughter drew him out of the water.

But the name Moses also means, in Egyptian, son of. It means son of. So Moses has one name with two meanings in two languages, and I think that reflects his wrestle, the wrestle of his identity.

He spends 40 years, an Egyptian prince, son of Pharaoh, and then he spends 40 years, a Hebrew exile in Midian. He's wrestling with these two parts of his identity, until God appears to him in a burning bush.

The Lord said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I'm concerned about their suffering.

So I've come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey. God sends Moses. He commissions him to go and tell Pharaoh to let my people go.

This is God's rescue plan in action. The first plague, do you know what the first plague was? Blood.

There's ten of them, so that's fair enough. The plague of blood was first. Through Moses, God turns the river Nile into blood.

We read this in verse 22 of chapter 7. But the Egyptian magicians did the same thing by their secret arts, and Pharaoh's heart became hard. Notice those two things.

The Egyptians did the same thing, and Pharaoh's heart became hard. He would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said. The plague of blood is first.

The second plague is the plague of frogs. And again, Egypt does the same thing. The sorcerers, by whatever demonic powers they possess, match what God has done in Egypt.

And it says again, Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Five times, the first five plagues, Pharaoh hardened his own heart in response to God's voice. And then the next five, it says the Lord hardened his heart.

We have to get the order of those two things right. That's a tricky question, the way in which God hardens hearts. But you have to see that Pharaoh hardened his heart first, and then God hardened it afterwards.

Blood, frogs, gnats, flies, livestock, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and the firstborn. We're moving so quickly over Exodus here. This is 30,000 foot view, but these are the 10 plagues.

I wonder what Israel were feeling in the midst of these 10 plagues. Surely it's like one of those Godzilla vs. King Kong movies when the humans are tiny and these enormous monsters are battling it out.

This cosmic battle between the God of Israel and the gods of Egypt is taking place. And Egypt, Israel are just like the little humans being thrown and tossed about in the midst of it all.

I think Israel are asking, what is it going to take to set us free? They're realizing they could never have set themselves free. They're witnessing the power of God against the pride of Pharaoh.

The 10 plagues, they ramp up and up and up and up until the final plague. The 10th plague is the ultimate act of judgment. God takes the life of the firstborn of all of Egypt.

But for his own people, he spares them through the blood of the Passover lamb. Exodus 12, on that same night, God says, I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals.

And I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. The blood of the lamb will be a sign for you on the houses where you are.

And when I see the blood, I will pass over. That's why it's called Passover. The destroyer will pass over you and no destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

So finally Pharaoh lets God's people go. God takes the life of the firstborn of all of Egypt, but not Israel. And so Pharaoh lets the people of Israel go.

They make it down to the Red Sea, and then he hardens his heart one more time, and he follows them. And then God, you know the story. We've known it since Sunday school.

God parts the Red Sea. Israel walks through on dry ground, and then the sea closes in on the horses and chariots of Egypt. And so God makes a way out.

This is God's salvation. God brings his people out of slavery in Egypt, the way out. Now, we are moving so fast, it's not even funny how many incredible details we're missing.

Hopefully, you've had a chance to read Exodus. Remember, two weeks ago, we talked about the three altitudes that this project works on. Hopefully, we're all reading every word of every book, so we can wrestle with the details.

And then, this sermon is a 30,000 foot view of the story of Exodus. And two weeks ago, I preached a 100,000 foot view of the story of the whole Bible. God makes a way out for his people, and there was no way that they could have done it themselves.

So what's your Egypt? What's the thing that you are in slavery to? The thing that holds you captive?

Maybe it's an addiction or a thought pattern or a habit or an unconscious action that you just keep doing. Do you remember Paul's language in Romans 7? He says, I don't do what I want to do, but what I want to do, I don't do, I'm torn.

He's talking about slavery to sin, bondage to a will that is not ours, the power of sin. What is your Egypt? At the end of Romans 7, Paul says, what a wretched person I am.

Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? He's lamenting that he doesn't have a way out. He's stuck in slavery to sin.

So what's your Egypt? The Egypt for all of us is sin. That three-letter word, that ugly but also really helpful word in understanding this world.

The truth is that all of us are born into a world that is captive under the power of sin. And we are both victim and perpetrator of sin in this world.

Our core need in Egypt, whatever your Egypt is, and the biggest Egypt is sin, whatever your Egypt is, our core need is a way. We just need a way. The core lie that sin tells us is that there is no way.

You can't possibly resist this. You have to sin this way. You have to do this action.

There's no hope for you. There's no way out. That's the core lie that sin tells us.

But the good news is that there is a way. Christ is the way. Christ in Exodus is the Passover lamb.

Revelation says that Jesus is the lamb slain before the creation of the world. John 1 says that he's the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Christ in Exodus is the Passover lamb whose blood covers us and sets us free from the power of sin. So if you're in Egypt of some kind, and I don't mean, if you're Egyptian here, I'm sorry, I keep derogatorily referring to Egypt.

I'm talking about Egypt 3,000 years ago, the oppressive power. Certainly not Egypt today. But if you are in the Egypt of slavery to sin, then hear the good news that God sees you and he hears you, and he has made a way out for you in Christ.

I hope you already know that. I'm confident that I'm talking to a majority Christian room here. And if you are a Christian, then you have been set free from the power of sin because of what Jesus did on the cross.

But if you're like me, you might have this thing where Jesus dealt with my capital S sin, all of it. He dealt with that on the cross by his bloodshed.

But my lower case S sin, this little situation I find myself in, I want to try and fight my way out of this myself. Thank you, Jesus. You've set me free from all my sin, but I'll fight this one.

You fight the big battle, I'll fight the small battle. The good news is that he has made a way out of every sin.

You know that song we sing here, Battle Belongs, the chorus says, when I fight, I fight on my knees with my hands lifted high because the battle belongs to you. We can't fight our way out of sin, but he has made a way out for us.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, no temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful, he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will provide what?

A way out. He always provides a way out so that we can endure it. If you need a way out of Egypt, his name is Jesus. Christ is our Exodus.

2 — THE WAY THROUGH

The second act of the Book of Exodus is a way through, a way out and a way through. God has saved his people out of Egypt. They crossed the Red Sea, they reached the other side.

And then we read in chapter 15 that Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the desert of Sheur. For three days, they traveled in the desert without finding water.

When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. That's why it's called Marah. Marah is the Hebrew word for bitter.

So the people grumbled against Moses saying, what are we to drink? They've made their way out of Egypt.

They're on the way into the promised land, but there's something in between, something in between the way out and the way in, and that is the wilderness. In the wilderness, the people of God need a way through, a way through the wilderness.

When Israel looked back at the Exodus from Egypt, I think God's hand is so clearly seen. The ten plagues, like that is cosmic God level action stuff. God literally parted the Red Sea before them.

God leads them by a pillar of cloud and fire. And in the future, they're looking forward to this promised land that is overflowing with milk and honey and blessing.

Israel might be tempted to think that God is back there and God is ahead of us, but where is God now? That's what the wilderness season is about, the question, where is God? In the wilderness, God strips away.

He strips away from us the good and the bad. The slavery that we were under in Egypt, God strips that away, praise God.

But also the food they had, the water they had, the shelter they had, the attachments that they had in Egypt, God strips them away as well.

That's why in the wilderness, the people of Israel are constantly grumbling, saying, back in Egypt, we had food to eat, we had a shelter over our heads, we had water to drink. God strips away in the wilderness.

In Exodus 32, God has led Israel to the foot of Mount Sinai, and Moses goes up the mountain.

And when the people of Israel, at the bottom of the mountain, saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, come, make us gods who will go before us.

As for this fellow Moses who brought us out of Egypt, we don't know what's happened to him. You know, what follows is the golden calf incident.

Aaron collects all the gold from the jewelry that they plundered from Egypt and makes a calf, and they worship the cow. And on that day, 3,000 people died.

The day that the law was given, 3,000 died, which, just a little aside, just how cool the Bible is. You know, in Pentecost, you know when Peter preaches his first sermon? Do you know how many people got saved?

3,000. The day the law came, 3,000 died. The day the Spirit came, 3,000 came to life.

This is the beauty of Christ in Scripture. This is why we study the Bible, to see these things. The golden calf incident is a interesting reflection and a helpful reflection on idolatry.

But I think for us, in the story of Exodus, it highlights the main question of the wilderness. Where is God? Israel can look back, and they can clearly see that God led them out of Egypt.

They can look forward and see that God is in the future. But where is God now? Where's Moses now?

He's gone up the mountain and they're thinking, what are we supposed to do? Make us a God so we know where God is. The golden calf incident teaches us this question, where is God?

Israel are in the wilderness and they can't see God. He seems to be in the past. He seems to be in the future, but he's not present.

St. John of the Cross, who's one of the saints of church history, called this experience the dark night of the soul. It's a season that all of us go through multiple times in life where the presence of God feels much more like his absence.

That question, where are you God? Where are you at work in my situation? The wilderness season of our life.

For 40 years, Israel wandered in the wilderness. 40 years in a circle. Now, Exodus is only the start of the wilderness.

The wilderness actually takes up the rest of the entire Torah. They don't enter the promised land until the start of the Book of Joshua. But 40 years they spend in this wilderness place asking where is God?

You might know the number 40 is a significant number in the Bible. Forty days and nights it rained on Noah. Moses spent 40 years as a prince in Egypt, 40 years as an exile, Hebrew in Midian.

Israel were in slavery for 400 years. Forty years they wandered in the wilderness. This number 40 is a significant number.

It's often said that the meaning of the number 40 in the Bible is it's a waiting period. It's a time of waiting. And that's true.

When you see the number 40, they're always waiting. It's a time of testing, but I think we could go one step further and say that 40 is a time of gestation, of pregnancy. I think in the providence of God, he made it.

I think God made it that a woman's natural human gestation period is about 40 weeks. My daughter Esther was born 40 weeks plus one day, so slightly longer. Obviously, there's variation either way.

But 40 weeks, this time of testing, waiting, but not just waiting, waiting for something new to be birthed.

I think that's the meaning of the number 40 in the Bible, a time of testing and trial and waiting in order that something new might be birthed in and through us.

When you see the number 40 in the Bible, the people in the story never get to the other side of the 40 in the same situation that they were in before the 40. God always births something in and through them on the other side of the 40.

And so we read in Isaiah chapter 43. This is what the Lord says. He who made a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters, who drew out the chariots and horses, the army and reinforcements together.

This is Exodus language. And they lay there never to rise again, extinguished, snuffed out like a wick. God says, forget the former things, do not dwell on the past.

See, I'm doing a new thing. Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it?

I'm making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. He's talking to a wilderness people, looking back at the Exodus and looking forward at the new thing that God is doing.

God is making a way in the wilderness, streams in the wasteland, the wild animals honor me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed

for myself that they may proclaim my praise. God doesn't waste the wilderness season of our life. He always uses it to do something new in us on the other side. So let me ask you, what is your wilderness?

What's your season of life right now? Does it feel like this test, this in between? If you're asking, where is God, you might be in a wilderness season.

And be encouraged this morning that God uses wilderness seasons. It's not just waiting in order that we might go back. In fact, that's what the Israelites want to do.

Remember, they constantly grumble and they say, we want to go back, back to Egypt, back to slavery. But God wants to lead them through to the other side to do something new in them.

If you're in the wilderness, if we are in the wilderness, our core need is truth, because the people of Israel wandered in a circle for 40 years in the wilderness. They need a light of truth to guide them into the presence of God.

In the wilderness, we learned that you can't live by sight. You have to live by faith, because in the wilderness, God strips away everything that we could see by sight in order to deepen our trust in him and to do something new in us.

Do you remember when Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days? Do you remember what he did?

He fasted, but he quoted scripture, truth, the thing that got Jesus through the wilderness, literally being tempted by Satan in the wilderness, the thing that held him together and got Jesus to the other side was he quoted truth.

He built his life on the truth of scripture. But Israel, in their wilderness, they don't want to build their lives on truth. They want to go back to the way things were.

So can I encourage you if you were in this season of a wilderness and in between time, not here, not there, not in the presence of God, asking where God is, cling to truth.

Let your faith be built on truth, the truth that is in God's word, even when you can't see by sight that you might see by faith.

3 — THE WAY IN

The third act of the story of Exodus is a way in, a way out, a way through, and then a way in. God has brought his people the way out of Egypt, through the 10 plagues, the parting of the Red Sea.

They are following the way through the wilderness, as God leads them through Moses. But the story of Exodus ends with the way in to his presence.

Now not in to the promised land, that doesn't happen until after the Torah, but the way in to the presence of God. That's how the book of Exodus ends. In fact, Exodus as a book, when we do 30,000 foot view, has two sections.

Section chapters 1 to 18 is the Egypt story, plagues, parting of the Red Sea, that whole thing. Chapters 19 to 40 is the Sinai story.

Israel are at the foot of Mount Sinai, the law, and the structure of the second half of Exodus is culminating in this moment when the glory of Yahweh descends to earth. We see that the second half of Exodus is structured as what they call a chiasm.

Chai, chai, technically, is the Greek letter X, chai. So a chiasm, chiasm is a, sorry, that was an awful sound to do into a microphone. A chiasm is when a text is structured so that it mirrors itself, like a mirror, like an X.

And when we look at the second half of Exodus, we see that it's paralleling itself in an X shape. So in Exodus 24, when Moses went up on Mount Sinai, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai.

For six days, the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day, the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud. The glory of the Lord settling on the mountain. This is the culmination of Exodus, God dwelling among his people.

Now, he's only halfway, because God is on the mountain, not among the people. And so, by the time we get to Exodus 40, God's presence will dwell all the way to the bottom of the mountain.

But in between those two endings is the tabernacle instructions and the tabernacle construction, which is like six chapters each. It says, go build the tent this way, and then it says, they built the tent this way.

Crazy repetition, but the whole point is to teach us about what the presence of God is like. It's like the Garden of Eden. Do you remember the tabernacle was trees and plants and all this Eden imagery?

So, glory of God descending on a mountain, tabernacle construction and instruction. In the heart of the second half of Exodus is this passage, the character of God, Exodus 34.

God passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, it actually says Yahweh, Yahweh, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin, yet he does

not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents, to the third and fourth generation. This is the center of the chiasm of Exodus, the revelation of the character of God.

When Israel are thinking about what it means to make the way into the presence of God, this is the God that they are drawing into the presence of.

This is the God who drew them out of Egypt, the God who was compassionate and gracious to his people, but who was also just and righteous against the pride of Egypt. He was, I was going to say there's a tension.

There's no tension in the character of God. God is not constrained by anything. He is in perfect harmony with himself.

God is love and justice, compassion and righteousness. This is the God that Israel are drawing into the presence of. And so then we get to the end of the Book of Exodus, and the glory comes down, Exodus 40.

Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle, not the mountain. God has gone all the way down, and he's dwelling in this tent, the tabernacle that Israel have made. So this is it.

This is the end of the Bible, right? God has descended and he's living among his people again, just like it was in Eden.

And so all that remains now is for Israel to walk into the tabernacle, walk into the presence of God, and what they would be doing is walking back into the garden, walking through, remember the flaming cherubim, flaming swords that block the way into

the garden? God has descended, they walk back into the tent, and that's the end of the Bible, right? There's two books in the Bible, Genesis and Exodus, that's all. Except for the next sentence.

The glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle, Moses could not enter. He could not enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle, and that's the end of Exodus.

The people don't make their way into the presence of God. You know as well as I do, the Bible is not two books, it's 66 books. It's a much, much, much, much longer, much better story than that.

Israel do not make their way into the presence of God because they're not clean. They still have sin and God is a holy God. God is life and sin leads to death.

Life cannot be in the presence of death. And so, Israel don't make their way into the presence of God. The story of the Bible keeps going.

In fact, when we turn from Exodus to Leviticus, we read this in chapter 1 verse 1, the Lord called to Moses and spoke to him from the tent. Not in the tent. Moses isn't in the tent.

God is in the tent. Moses is not. God speaks to Moses from the tent of meeting and he said, and then you have the whole book of Leviticus, which get excited, come next week and learn about the book of Leviticus.

The story goes on because the people of God don't make their way into the presence of God.

JESUS: THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE

Through wilderness and conquest, kings and kingdoms, exile and return, the Bible is one long but unified story that leads to Jesus Christ. In John 14, John says the word became flesh and tabernacled. The word iskenosen in Greek means to pitch a tent.

It's recalling the imagery of the tabernacle, that Jesus is the presence of God in the body. He's God and man. Jesus has come down to earth and made his dwelling among us.

We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son who came from the father full of grace and truth. He tabernacled among us and we saw his glory. The word of God, the son of God, the one full of grace and truth has a name.

And the Bible says his name is Jesus. He is the one that the whole story points us to. In fact, Jesus said in John 14 verse 6, I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the father except through me. The way, the truth and the life. In saying that, Jesus pulls the story of the entire Old Testament onto himself.

He is the way. He is the truth and he is the life. So this question, how is Christ in Exodus?

Christ is the Exodus. He is the way out. Jesus said, I am the way, not I point you to the way.

Jesus is the way. He is the Exodus, the way out of sin. He is the Passover lamb whose blood sets us free and gives us life.

He is the truth, the way he is the truth, the one that we need in the wilderness to guide us when we can't find the presence of God. And Jesus is the life. He is the very presence of God dwelling among his people.

He is the glory of the Father and we can be in his presence because he cleanses us by his blood. How is Christ in Exodus? He is the Exodus.

He is the way out. He is the way through and he is the way in. So come to Jesus if you need a way out of sin for the first time or for the 500th time.

Come to Jesus and he is the way out. Come to Jesus if you're in the wilderness asking where God is and he will lead you the way through. Come to Jesus if you are outside the presence of God and he will show you the way in because he is the way in.

Behold him. That's the end. Behold him.

Christ in Exodus. Behold him. Paul says that we all who with unveiled faces, when Moses was on the mountain, he saw the glory of God and he came back down, he had to veil his face because Israel were terrified to look at him.

His face was glowing, not just because he had a good skincare routine. He had been in the presence of a glorious God and his face was glowing.

Paul says that we, community of faith around Jesus, with unveiled face, behold the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Behold Christ in Scripture, Christ in Exodus. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And in doing so, be transformed into glory.

I have to sneak a Dallas Willard idea. Dallas Willard says that the best way to understand glory is to say it like a Southern American preacher. How would a Southern American preacher say glory?

Glory. Glory. Glory.

Glory is glowing. It's light. He is from the American South, so Dallas Willard can do it.

Glory. That is what we are being transformed into as we contemplate the Lord's glory, we reflect His glory, transformed into His image. So behold Christ in Exodus.

He is the way out, the way through and the way in. Let me pray for us and then we'll worship Him together. Thank you Lord Jesus that you are the lamb who was slain for us.

Thank you that your blood covers us. Thank you that you made a way out of our slavery to sin and death. We confess Lord that we could never save ourselves.

We could never do enough. We could never clean ourselves up enough, but you've done all that is necessary. You saved us Lord and we're just grateful to receive it.

And so I pray for my brothers and sisters here, for those who haven't yet received your gift, your gift of grace and new life. Would you pour it out in their lives even now? Lead them in what it means to trust you.

I pray for myself and for many who have received the gift but still fall into the trap of fighting sin on our own two feet. Lord, would you break our chains by your blood?

You're the only one who can fight the battle and win because you did win it in the cross. Thank you God that you are our way out, our way through and our way in. So whatever place we're coming from in life, would you meet us here and lead us forward?

Because we pray in Jesus name, Amen.

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