Elisha Series

If you'd like to either turn 2, 2 Kings 8, if you've got a bible or the reading is gonna come up on the screen. And we're gonna be reading about the shunammite woman again. And if you've been listening along to our series in 2 kings and in Elijah, then you'll remember we met this lady first in 2 Kings chapter 4 And she'd been on a bit of a roller coaster, so she met the prophet Elijah. And in order to be hospitable to him, she built him a little study remember a little upper room where he was able to study? And then she she had a big problem though.

She was barren, and she couldn't have children. But then she was given a son. The Lord gave her a son, but then the sun died, and then the sun was raised to life again. And so she's been on this amazing journey, and we're we're picking up the story with the shunemite woman and and, well, remembering remembering her in this next reading. So this is 2 kings 8, and we're gonna read verse 1 to 6.

Now Elijah had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, go away with your family and stay for a while wherever you can because the Lord has decreed a famine in the land that will last 7 years. The woman proceeded to do as the man of God said. She and her family went away and stayed in the land of the Philistines for 7 years. At the end of the 7 years, she came back from the land of the Philistines and went to appeal to the king for her house and land. The king was talking to Guhazi, the servant of the man of God and had said, tell me about all the great things Elijah has done.

Just as Ghazi was telling the king howard Elijah had restored the dead to life. The woman whose son Elijah had brought back to life came to appeal to the king for her house and land. Ghazi said, this is the woman my lord king, and this is her son whom Elijah restored to life. The king asked the woman about it, and she told him. Then he assigned an official to her case and said to him, give back everything that belonged to her, including all the income from her land from the day she left the country until now, and that Peter is gonna come and preach God's word to us from that passage.

Thank you, Tom. Let's pray. Father help us now as we look at this passage, this fantastic story. We pray that we would learn lessons not only in our head and mind, but actually in our actions, in the everyday practical ways we go about living our life. While we thank you that you are a God that is interested in all things in our life.

And help us to live in the light of that we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Well, here's a question for you this morning. It's a beautiful morning. The sun is out. The sky is blue.

No. Don't put that question up yet. I'll get there in the end. Are you a deist? That's the question.

It's a good 1 in there. Are you a deist? Are you a deist? Now let's just get what a deist is. A deist isn't like a racist, you know, racist that hates a particular race, and a deist is someone who prefers the night and hates the day, spelt differently as you can see.

A deist is a person that has a particular belief or theory about God. And about how God interacts with the world. That's what a deist is. And so I'm asking you, are you a deist? Now, of course, there are all kinds of different types of a dais as there are in any sort of philosophy.

But the class dast or the days as we know now, is is someone that would say that there is a God definitely and that God is like a divine watchmaker or a clockmaker. And he's made the world and he's wound the world up or he's put a battery in in into the clock, into the into the world, and then he stepped away. And basically, the world created by God runs itself. It ticks on without God sort of intervening really or speaking to the world. So God has established laws of nature.

The, you know, the the the springs and the and the mechanisms in the clock. He's established laws of nature set things in motion and then leaves it to its own devices. So are you a deist? Now I suspect everyone is, oh, no, how dare you, but are you a practical deist? Let me ask that then.

Do you live your life as if actually you are a deist. So the day in the life of a deist would go something like this. They step out into the day which is largely run by the laws of nature, the sun rises because the earth is in orbit around it because of the laws of nature. The day is then may prepare for rain in the afternoon because the weather front is coming from the west, and the laws of nature can be predicted that it might bring rain. The days then plans their journey knowing how to avoid the rush hour, and the traffic jams because of the habits of people and the laws of the city.

The deus knows that there 24 hours in the day and therefore can plan meetings and lunch and leisure time around those hours because the Lord God wound up the world to click like that. The deist knows that his cheese sandwich will last until lunchtime before going Moldy, the laws of nature. The deist will know that her coffee will keep 2 hours warm in her special coffee mug because of the laws of nature. The days will know and be able to plan to come home and know that the laws of mathematics will work her computer so that she can watch the latest episode in line of duty. That's what the day is this.

The day is that the end of the day, may thank God for setting up this whole process But I don't know whether God could hear hear them because he's a distant God, and so probably wouldn't hear. It's a bit like trying to thank the driver of an automatic driverless train. There isn't a driver there, and you can't thank him. So I'm asking you the question. Are you a deist?

Are you a deist in your practical life? Okay. Let me carry on. So long time till we get to the bible passage, by the way. But hopefully, it'll click.

Are you a modified deist? Okay? Or a christianized dayist. Yeah? You're largely your day is the same as the day I've just described.

Large is the same. Living as if God is distant. He's distant from you. Certainly, on a practical level, he's not really interested in all kinds of practical things. He's either too big or too small.

He's either too big and too busy to be involved with someone like you or he's too small because how could he cope with someone like you and all the other someone's like you around the world? Until something goes wrong in your life. And injustice happens, your plans are interrupted. An illness strikes, then you dial 9 9 9 to the distant God. And he intervenes.

And he will come in and perhaps change the laws of nature. That's what a miracle is. So you believe actually in an interventionist God, a God that will sort out the problems of the lords of laws of nature that you're in. He'll come when you cry out or say a special prayer or dial 9 9 9, He'll sort out the problem with a miracle, change the laws of nature, intervene, and then go away again until you call on him again. Are you a deist?

Now if you're largely living as a deist, Can I can I press reboot in your life? I want to press reboot I want you to walk out of this door or your home with this wonderful teaching of scripture about God. I wanna talk about the doctrine of the Providence of God. The providence of God. The English word for Providence comes from 2 Latin words, pro and video, pro and video.

And together, they mean to see ahead, to see beforehand. The bible you see says God is the God of Providence. Not a deist God at all. And not just the God of intervention. He's the God of Providence, which is much more complex than intervening with a miracle.

It's much bigger. It's much grander. Not only did God create the world, God sustains the world, we're told. He's actively involved with the world right now. The world hasn't just happened and doesn't just happen.

The sun, even though scientists can explain what is happening, the earth orbiting the sun, the sun only or the earth, only orbits the sun because of God according to the bible. It's not just laws of nature. God knows the future plans the future. Not only knows what lies ahead, but he plans and executes it perfectly to his plan. God is not an absentee God that you have to call on every now and then to intervene.

God is not waiting around for the 9 9 9 call. He's utterly actively involved. Here's an old catechism. It's a funny 1. It's called the Heidelberg catechism.

It's 1 of the nicest ones around, actually. But here's a catechism. A catechism is something that Christians used to use. It was a question, and then you learned the answer. So you got the q and the a there.

I love this. This explains what Providence is. What do you understand by the Providence of God is the question? And the answer is The Almighty and ever present power of God by which he upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain, and drought. Fruitful, and lean years, food, and drink, health and sickness, prosperity, and poverty.

All things, in fact, come to us, not by chance, but by his fatherly hand. That's what we mean by the providences of God. And that's what I want you to go out from this this room believing in. Here's a couple of verses from the bible. Job, in his hand, is the life of every creature, and the breath of all mankind.

Anyone breathing? Anyone not breathing? It'd be hard to put your hand up, wouldn't it? It's hard breathing through those masks. That breath that you take there is because God is working.

It's not the laws of nature, it's not the laws of your body. It's because God is putting those laws into practice. Acts chapter 17 verse 28. For in Him, that's God, We live and move and have our being. We live and move and have our being.

In him. You wanna find out who you are, you don't need to go on a search within to discover who you are, It's in him. You live and move and have your being. See, as we've got rid of God, we've got all of these issues that people have today. It's in him.

So I want you to believe in the providences of God. The so called laws of nature are the normal everyday workings of God. His hands on involvement every day working out his plans, every breath, There is an intimate personal God purpose in everything that happens. Even in what might be called Monday daily routine. God is working.

It's extraordinary, isn't it? Look, let me try to illustrate this. The regular what we call laws of nature, a bit like a man or a woman whose routine for work is this. They get up in the morning, they have a cup of tea, they dress, they go out the front door, they turn right, they go down the hill and they get on the train. That's the regular routine.

All of every day, they do that in their working day. It's like the laws of nature. That's what God's regular, sustaining work. He he praises the sun, he sends the rain, he's doing all of these things there, his regular provident workings of God. You see it in these these verses of the bible.

Have a look at this. Talks about oh, Jesus, actually, upholding the universe by the power of his word. You see it in colossians chapter 2. Again, Jesus, he is before all things and in him, all things hold together. That's God's regular everyday working.

The laws of nature are the workings of God. Yeah. A miracle you could describe like this. The same person, man or woman, gets up, And instead of turning right and going down the hill to catch the train, on this 1 occasion decides to turn left and go up the hill and catch the bus. That's a miracle.

It's sort of easy for God really. He just changes his way of working. That's a miracle. Miracles are easy. Providence if you can say it in these terms with God, he's much, much more difficult.

He's working out everything every day. Now, there's more to providence than that than just holding all things together. The end of that catechism that I read said this, all things in fact come to us, not by chance, but by his fatherly hand. So it's not just that he's a great God knitting everything together, holding and sustaining everything together. He is in his providence prearranging your life.

Knitting everything together. Here's Romans. You know this verse. I hope you do. It's extraordinary.

And we know that in all things God works All things. We did a whole series, I think, on this verse. You can go back and listen to those terms, and we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him. Who have been called according to his purpose. For those God for knew, he also predestined, to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

God is working all things for his wonderful, wonderful grand purpose, it's to make you you like Christ. You want to find yourself? You come to Christ. God is gonna make you like Jesus whom he loves and adores and always has for all eternity. God is knitting everything together.

All things to make you more like Christ. That's his glorious plan. God is using everything, including the mundane routines. Including viruses and diseases, including hardships and sadnesses, including deaths, including births, including joy, including taste and flavors, and excitement about meeting together again. The providences of God are like a tapestry, that only God could use everything, pulling strings together, From us sometimes underneath the tapestry, we just see bits of red and green and blue and and they don't seem to they're just hanging down bits.

From God, he's pulling in this event, and that event, and even mundane things and hardships, and even viruses, and he's tapestry, making it together, tying it together, and 1 day we'll see the beautiful picture of the providences of God in our life. Now, why do I tell you all of this? Because this is the teaching of this passage That was the longest bit of a sermon. This is the teaching of this passage, a wonderful story of a woman that we've just read who is protected and cared for by God. God who intimately draws threads together.

You'll see it as we go through it. And it's a story of of the workings of God in this 1 woman's life that is sandwiched between horror stories. And poor old Tom's had the horror stories either side. I got the good 1. There's a horror story of the judgment of God upon people that don't believe in God at all, and they're living a life that shows it and not only are they judged by God for not believing in him and trusting in him, then also their way of life is a judgment itself.

Sandwiched between horror stories of 2 women eating their babies. To again, you'll see someone next week who wants to come and destroy more babies. The horror story of the world that's rejected God and goes from bad to worse, right smack bang is this love story. This commitment, this protection that even though the world, this woman lives in, is under the judgment of God, He works everything for her. For her is beautiful.

And I want to say that the original readers of 2 kings, this book, 2 kings, were probably in exile. Their country had been taken and was under the judgment of God, and they were in exile. And as they read this story, they see that even if a woman like this woman is taken into exile, she has to go to the Philistine lands because of a famine. God will bring her back and restore her. That's what happens in the story.

And I want to say to you, and this is still all my introduction. If you're going to survive, and even more than that, if you're going to thrive in this world, you need to learn that God is not a distant God like the deists believe. He's not there just to intervene in a miracle, although he may do, and he did in this woman's life, by the way, previously. He hasn't left the world just to tick on. We need to learn that he's more than an interventionist God that we ring up or say our prayers to in a 9 9 9 way, he's totally in control.

So let's look at the story then, about time. Yeah? Ready? First point. God is in control of all things, big and small.

You see it from the story. Look at the big things. And the big thing here is the famine. So verse 1 of chapter 8 is now Elijah had said to the woman whose son he had restored to life. So there was a miracle in this woman's life.

Go away. With your family, and stay for a while wherever you can, because the Lord has decreed a famine. This is the big event. In the land that will last 7 years. A famine that's gonna last for 7 years.

Now, you've got to put this together with the story that we've just had we had in the previous chapter. Here's Sumeria, you may remember, which is the capital of the northern kingdom, which the capital of Israel. It had a marvelous deliverance from God. The Armenian, the the Syrian army, had surrounded this capital city, some area, and and and it had caused a terrible, terrible famine. So much so that those women were talking about, and 1 did eat the baby.

That's how horrific it was. But overnight, got intervened, and overnight, lockdown has finished. The Samarian army ran away, and suddenly there was so much food in the Samarian army camp that food was going at knocked down prices. They literally literally had come out of lockdown and they were feasting, not in sixes but just shoving it in their mouths as much as they could get. All the restaurants were open.

Everything was knocked down prices. It was a bit like last summer, where the government would give you 10 quid to go and eat. Yeah? Brilliant. That's what was happening.

Now you would think that a nation that had such obvious blessings from God would be thankful to God, but there's no thanks to God. There's no acknowledgement of God. In fact, you see them continuing with their false gods and their false idols and their false philosophies. God doesn't count. They're living like daists.

And so now we're told there's another famine. And this time, it's gonna be 7 years. They've come out of lockdown They're eating well, they're enjoying meeting together, now there's another 1. You've got 7 years 7 years more of that. And this famine is a decree of God not an accident.

The word decree that is used there in verse 1 means called summons. God summons it. It didn't just take place and then God use it. It's not just the laws of nature working themselves out and God says, okay. Well, I'll use that for good.

No. No. No. He actually calls it. It's part of his gracious judgment on Israel showing Israel.

If you don't listen, This is what it's like. Your sin will be like this. You can't even feed yourself without me and yet you give no thanks. When people ignore God's word, God off and speaks through creation to show who's in charge. If you're a deist here, of course, this famine isn't God speaking to you.

And you certainly can't hear anything. It's just the laws of nature. It's it's tragic. It's awful. You know, we must pull ourselves together and fight this thing somehow.

This is nature against us. There is no meaning to the famine, and therefore life is for meaningless thing. But this woman isn't a deist. She believes in the providences of God. And look what she had.

She had a revelation. She had a word of explanation. You see it there in verse 1. Now Elijah said to the woman whose son he had restored to life, go away with your family and stay for a while wherever you can because the lord has decreed a famine in the land that will last for 7 years. She's got a word of the lord.

She knows why this famine is happening. She understands the world. When she steps out into the world, it's not just laws of nature and now a horrible famine laws of nature. It's no no no no no no I can step out into this famine because God is in control, even of the famine. If you're a deist, you can't say that.

She wasn't blindly stepping into a universe with only the purposeless laws of nature. She wasn't blindly stepping into the universe and saying, I need some scheme myself to survive in this famine. All I know, I'll scheme with another woman and we'll talk about eating our own children. We'll do some wickedness. We have to steal.

We have to do something. No. No. No. She believes that when she steps out into this world of famine, God is in control.

And so her whole actions are different. She obeys the Word of the Lord. Look at verse 2. The woman proceeded to do as the man the man of God had said. She and her family went away and stayed in the land of the Philistines for 7 years.

You noticed this, she didn't ask for a sign actually, she just obeyed the word. I noticed she didn't even ask for a a miracle here actually. It's quite interesting, isn't it? Because she could have said, I don't know whether you remember, there was another woman in 2 kings chapter 4 that was going through a famine and the lord did a miracle of the jar of oil. Do you remember that 1?

It kept filling up. She could have said, why don't you do that? But he didn't. She could have even said, look, I've had a miracle in my life. My son died and you brought him to life again through the profit.

Why don't you do that again? No. No. She realizes that God works in different ways. And she heard the word of God and didn't argue and obeyed, the woman proceeded to do as the man of God had said, verse 2.

She and her family went away and stayed in the land of the Philistines for 7 years. Now just think about how hard that obedience would be. She's leaving her whole property, all that she's worked for to go to an enemy nation. She's gonna be a refugee. She's gonna be from a wealthy woman to a beggar.

She's a beggar now in Philosine. And it's it's it's awful. And yet, she knows that every day of that 7 years God is in control. She knows that. And when you know that life isn't just a happening or a chance or the law of nature, Even a famine, hardships like that.

If you know that God has a loving plan in it, you can survive. You may not understand the plan, but you know God does. You can survive. And every day of her 7 years, however hard that was, and we're not told, but I guess it was hard, she knows that God had a loving plan for her. Back to the catechism.

Let me show you these. Back to that catechism. I love this. Look. See, ask these questions and it helps you answer them.

How does the knowledge of God's creation and providence help us? How does it help us? Here we go. We can be patient when things go against us, thankful when things go well, and for the future, we can have good confidence in our faithful God and Father that nothing in creation will separate us from his love. For all creatures are so completely in God's hands that without his will, they can neither move nor be moved.

How how does the Providence of God help us? God is utterly completely in control, even in a famine, even in a pandemic. God is in control of those big events, and that gives her confidence to step out into the world and say, God is with me. God is with me. But they're the big events.

Let me just show you quickly the small events, and I love this. You see the small events here that God is in control of. So he has power obviously over the big. He has power over those seemingly small and seemingly meaningless events in our lives. That may even irritate us.

Yeah. There's a saying, you may you you the older ones will know this. I like this sort of thing. So For want of a general, the battle was lost. You know that?

You know that? For want of a general, the battle was lost. For want of a horse, the general was absent, For want of a shoe, the horse was unavailable, for want of a nail, the shoe couldn't be fitted, so the whole battle was lost because of a nail. It's right, isn't it? So if you're not lord over the small things, you're gonna lose the battle.

Do you young people get that? Or is that so complicated for you? Yeah. There wasn't a general because there wasn't a horse, there wasn't a horse, because there wasn't a shoe, there wasn't a shoe, because on the horse, that is, and there wasn't a shoe because there wasn't a nail. If only the bloke had a nail, he would have put the nail in the shoe of the horse, then there would have been a horse for the general, then the general would have won the won the battle.

Got it? But there wasn't. There wasn't a nail. So there wasn't a horse that was known so forth. Yeah.

Please get it. Yeah? So God's gotta be in control of the small details and he is. And you see it here, After 7 years, the woman comes back and her property has been seized It's not hers anymore. She hasn't got a home.

She hasn't got property. After 7 years look at verse 3. At the end of 7 years, she came back the land of the Philistines and went to appeal to the king for her house and land. The king was talking to Kaheisai, the servant of the man of God. And had said, tell me about all the great things Elijah had done.

Justice at Keheesai was telling the king how Elijah had restored the dead to life. The woman who sunny Elijah had brought back to life, came to appeal to the king for her house and land. Gajeso said, this to woman, my Lord, the king. After 7 years, this is the woman, and this is her son. Whom elisha restored to life, the king asked the woman about it, and she told him, after 7 years, She comes back and there's a conversation going on.

Here's Gihase, that unbelieving, ungodly man servant of the man of God who now is no no no longer his servant. Obviously, making money at telling stories you know, going around doing the system, covering up his leprosy. He he should have been flipping in lockdown, but he wasn't. He was out. Illegally covering up, talking to the king, and talk telling all the stories and probably making money out of storytelling about the work of God, That's because that's what some people do, isn't it?

He just sort of preacher making money out of the word of God. And he's telling the story about this woman and lo and behold after 7 years the woman turns up. And what makes her so bold to be able to stroll up to a king and ask for her property back is that she believes in the providences of God. She knows that God is in control of the big and the small and even the conversation between a king and a wicked servant. If you read the book of Job, you see that even the forming of frost on the hedge or the thickness of ice on the lake is decreed by God.

If you read the book of Psalms, you'll see that every blade of grass pushes its way through the ground by the decree of God. If you read the teaching of Jesus, you'll find that the sun shining and the rain falling is all decreed by God. If you read the book of Daniel, you'll read that governments stand and fall by the decree of God. If you listen to Paul preaching, you'll see that the precise boundaries of the nations are decreed by God. There is nothing anywhere, small or big that God isn't in control of.

And because of that, all is restored to this woman. Verse 5, Gihase said, this is the woman, my lord, the king, and then the king gives her back everything. The king, then he assigned an official to her case and said, give back everything that belongs to her. She's back. She can look back now and see the providences of God.

At the time, It was painful, famine. But now she sees the providences of God. Now let me just rub this in and I'm sorry it's been so long. The workings of God, can I ask you, are you working out this belief in the providences of God, or are you a deist? Stop being a deist.

God is involved with everything. In this life. If you are now a little scared, and I know some are, about getting back to normal life after the pandemic, trusting God, will he? Apply this to yourself. Don't just dismiss things.

God is in control. God is working. Step out into life. Knowing that he's in control. There is nothing luck that can be given over to luck or chance God is in control.

It's quite interesting, isn't it? Because there were thousands of people taken up in this famine But God just focuses in on 1 woman and she's unnamed. We don't know her name but he does and he just shows how he loves his own people. All the big wigs, all the famous, all the thousands, is this 1 woman that God is knitting everything together for. It's extraordinary.

And she comes back after 7 years, and Giraz is telling her story. This woman's story illustrates this passage of the Bible. I'm sorry if this is long now. So poor old Tom, Just go on to 1 Peter. Forget that.

Let me read this out. And just this this this story illustrates this passage. Let me read it out slowly. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

And into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. If you're a Christian, you've been bought by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and his resurrection into an inheritance, you'll have it at the end. Nothing can take that away, not even a virus. Listen. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you.

God's keeping it for you. Who through faith are shielded sorry, this inheritance is kept is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of salvation that is ready. To be revealed in the last time. In all this, you greatly rejoice. Though for a little while, you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

These have come, so that the proven genuineness of your faith of greater worth than gold, which perishes, even though refined by fire, may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. See? Look at what Jesus has done for you.

Understand your bought and redeemed and you have an inheritance. And all the things that happened to you are working for the good to prove your faith and trust in him, so you'll be more like him. And then verses 13 and 14 of this passage says, therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. As obedient children do not form to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance, so obey. God is calling us back, obey.

God is saying, step out into the world, obey. Why? How can I obey? Because he's in control? Trust him.

He's in control whether you suffer or don't suffer. He's in control. So I want to leave you with this. Where does this challenge your life, this doctrine? Where does it challenge your life?

Let me give you an illustration where it challenges my life. I was writing this sermon And I went to see my mom on Friday with Anne in the car. It's she lives in Windsor. It takes 30, 40 minutes to drive there. It took us over 2 hours coming back.

That's the providences of God, but not in my mind, I'm a deist at that point. I'm saying bring back lockdown. The traffic was unbelievable. I'm cursing every person that works for Kingstonborough that puts traffic lights everywhere that has 4 way systems that let 1 car out at a time, 4 ways. I'm a deist at that point.

Whereas I should be saying all things work for good. Oh, I've got time with my lovely wife, Anne here, who's telling me to calm down. Yeah. Yeah. I've got time to just listen to her advice to me.

You don't have to go that fast between stops. I've got time to have my life worked out to be more like but where where does it work out in your life? Are you scared of coming back to church? But then you've got to work on that. Think about that.

Some people I know have massive anxiety about coming in to church. Yeah? Hey, listen. I'm not saying those battles aren't real. Of course they're real.

This woman's battle to go to of the Philistine country is massively real, but we need to obey. And you'll find in the end, God works. You'll see his providences. It's no good just blaming depression for not coming to church. You've got to say, why has God given me this?

How do I work this out? How by the grace of God do I work out the providences of God? How do I step out into this world? Not as a deist. That just has these laws that now are against me.

How do I step out and believe that God has the best for me and obey him and take up my inheritance. So can I can I challenge you? Where does the Providence of God challenge you, your your war? I don't know. Work it through and trust in God.

Let's just have a moment of thought there and I'm hand over to Tom. Father, we do thank you that your word, your living word does challenge us, and it corrects us, and it rebukes us. And father, we thank you for for doing that through your word this morning, and we just want to take the opportunity to say sorry to you and to confess our sin. For where we have functionally lived as if something other than you was in control, where we've gone about our days, either thinking that we are control of our lives or just that the general forces of the world are in control. And in so much of our lives and so much of our conversations, we can just forget or ignore the fact that you are this sovereign god.

All lord, we're sorry for when we treat you. Just as an interventionist, god, where we can largely manage by ourselves, except when things go wrong. And then like a genie, we summon you to come down for a brief moment to fix whatever problem that we have so that we can get on with our lives without you. There are so many different ways in which we can deny what we are taught about you in your word. And we just thank you for rebooting us this morning and rebooting us through this story.

We thank you for those words that we looked at that all things come to us, not by chance, but by your fatherly hand. And that in everything that comes our way, you have a good purpose. We thank you that whether it's the the leaf or the blade or summer or winter or sunshine or darkness or comfort or hardship or suffering or good health that all things come from your fatherly hand, and you have designed each and every 1 of them to make us like Jesus Christ. We thank you that behind everything is a good father who loves us, and we pray that you would help us to trust in you. We pray that you would help all of us to grasp these things.

Because as we've been hearing this morning, if we're gonna survive as Christians, and not just survive. If we're gonna thrive, we need to really grasp what sort of God we meet in the pages of the bible. And so we do pray, lord, that whatever our battles are, that you would help us to be patient when things are going against us, to be thankful when things are going well and in everything to be confident in the future. We thank you for that passage that we were looking at that you have a great inheritance kept for us, the Lord Jesus Christ, that he is safe and that nothing can ever take him away, that he will never perish or spoil or fade that he can never be stolen. He is safe and kept for us and that we can be so confident that you are leading us to that day.

When we will be with Jesus. And we just pray, lord, that you would help us whatever our battles are, whether it is battles with mental health or battles with health anxiety around this virus, whatever the struggles are that you would help us please to trust you, to work out those battles, to know you as this good and sovereign God. And we pray that all of us might have that knowledge of you. Lord, we do pray for this course. And we thank you for those unbelievers who were there on Thursday and for how encouraging it was to see people engaging with the word of God properly, perhaps for the very first time, and sovereign God, we pray that in your sovereignty, you might through this pandemic, which you have sent that you might use it to bring people to Christ.

That we would see that 1 of the good purposes behind this was to lead people to Jesus. And we pray that you would give us just here in our small corner of the world that we would have the privilege of seeing people come to Christ. We pray. And for the other churches who are reporting similar things, we just pray that all up and down this country, where churches are trying to get the gospel out, that you would bless their ministry and bless the work of their hands and bring people to yourself. We thank you for TNT, the mission partners we're praying for this month.

We thank you for the ongoing developments, more and more resources, more and more languages, more and more workers around the world. Lord, we just pray that you would help that ministry just to run free that there would be more and more open doors. We pray particularly that these children's resources would have a great reception in Islamic lands, where children are growing up under the darkness and the lies of Islam. That that children might come to Christ we pray through these resources in those countries. And we just thank you for this day that you've given us, and we pray that as we go now and talk after the service or as people talk with others at home, that we would continue to mull over these things in our hearts and minds in Jesus' name.