Luke #8: The Ministry of John (3:1-20)
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: Luke 3:1-20
N: Week of Prayer paper
Welcome
Welcome
Again, welcome to Family Worship with the church body of Eastern Hills Baptist Church this morning! I’m Bill Connors, senior pastor of the church family here, and I’d like to open by saying thanks to our Associate Pastor for Senior Adults, Rich Willard, for his taking the pulpit last week while I was away with our student ministry. Rich, I was blessed by your message on Jesus as the Perfect Boy.
It’s been a great morning of praise and worship, and it’s a joy to be able to share in this experience together. If you’re visiting with us this morning, thanks for being here today. We’d really like to be able to connect with you to thank you for joining us for worship. If you could take a second during my message and fill out a communication card, which you’ll find in the back of the pew in front of you, we would really appreciate it. You can return that to us one of two ways: First, you can bring it down to me at the end of the service, because I’d like to meet you and give you a small gift as a token of our gratitude for your visit today. If you don’t have time for that this morning, you can drop the Welcome card in the boxes by the doors as you leave after the service ends. If you’d rather fill out something online, you can head to ehbc.org or download our church app (EHBC Albuquerque) and fill out the contact form at the bottom of the “I’m New” link.
I’d also like to say thanks to a special group of folks who serve in our church family. Student ministry needs caring and consistent adults to connect with teens. We have a great team of student ministry volunteers! A bunch of those adults went on Winter Retreat last weekend with the students, and I’d just like to say thanks to them for their investment in them.
Announcements
Announcements
AAEO ($19K) and Week of Prayer begins next Sunday. (paper)
Auxano Survey Sunday next week in Family Worship. Plan to be here!
Opening
Opening
One of the things that is a part of my role as senior pastor is vision casting. This is a big aspect of why we are doing the vision framing process with Auxano. Aside from the fact that “vision” is in the name, we need to be able to know both where we are and where we are going if we are going to chart a course from one place to the other. This makes sense, right? If I were to tell you to go to my house, you would need to know where it is. You would also need to have a good understanding of where you are, and the relative position of where you are compared to where my house is. It’s southeast of here, near the intersection of Indian School and Tramway. There would also be the question on the way we would choose to get there. Some of you might choose (like I do) to go up Candelaria to Tramway, because I’d rather spend more time driving on Tramway because of its width and speed. Some of you might rather stay on Morris and drive down to Menaul or even Indian School before turning to the east, because you’d rather take a more scenic route. If you were walking or even biking, you’d take a different path than either of those, most likely, perhaps going up the walking trail between Menaul and Indian School.
And each of the Gospels is kind of like that: each is aiming at a particular point—the declaration of the Good News of the love of God shown through the coming of His Son Jesus Christ in the flesh to live a completely sinless life (as Rich so clearly spoke about last week), and ultimately to die on the cross to pay the debt that we owe because of our sins, but then to overcome death by rising again to life and ascending to the right hand of the Father, from whence He will return to bring judgment on the disobedient and to reward the faithful, before He sets everything in creation right again.
But each Gospel starts at a different place, and emphasizes a different vantage point from which to view Jesus. As we saw in December, John’s Gospel starts truly at the very beginning—with the fact that Jesus was the Word who was with God and who was God, and that remains his focus throughout his writing. Mark emphasized the actions of Christ—Jesus was constantly going, healing, casting out demons, “miraclizing,” and one of his favorite things to say was that things happened “immediately.” The book of Matthew was written by a Jew for the Jews about the Jewish Messiah, and so makes a very Jewish argument and quotes a lot of Old Testament prophecy. The Gospel of Luke is written by a Gentile for a primarily Gentile audience in order to explain both the universal need for a Savior and the provision that God has graciously made for that need in Christ.
And as we’ve seen so far in Luke’s Gospel, the Messianic Age was prepared when God broke hundreds of years of His silence to send His angel to speak to Zechariah about how his son would be the forerunner to the Savior of the world, who was then foretold by the angel to Mary. John and Jesus were each born and grew up, as we saw at the end of chapters 1 and 2, respectively. And this morning, we find that the ministry of the King of kings was about to begin as His chosen herald would come and proclaim the good news for all to hear and believe.
So let’s open our Bibles or our Bible apps to our focal passage this morning: Luke chapter 3, verses 1-20, and stand in honor of the Word of God as I read:
1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, while Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Iturea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, God’s word came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 He went into all the vicinity of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah: A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight! 5 Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be made low; the crooked will become straight, the rough ways smooth, 6 and everyone will see the salvation of God. 7 He then said to the crowds who came out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance. And don’t start saying to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones. 9 The ax is already at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” 10 “What then should we do?” the crowds were asking him. 11 He replied to them, “The one who has two shirts must share with someone who has none, and the one who has food must do the same.” 12 Tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13 He told them, “Don’t collect any more than what you have been authorized.” 14 Some soldiers also questioned him, “What should we do?” He said to them, “Don’t take money from anyone by force or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.” 15 Now the people were waiting expectantly, and all of them were questioning in their hearts whether John might be the Messiah. 16 John answered them all, “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I am is coming. I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing shovel is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with fire that never goes out.” 18 Then, along with many other exhortations, he proclaimed good news to the people. 19 But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the evil things he had done, 20 Herod added this to everything else—he locked up John in prison.
PRAYER (Christians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Luke gives us a great opening to the ministry of John the Baptist by immediately setting his arrival on the scene as an adult in both the political and religious contexts of his day. While we cannot say with absolute certainty the precise date of the launch of his baptizing ministry, we can get really close because of Luke’s accuracy. Very likely, John’s ministry started sometime in late AD 28 to late AD 29, because that would have been the 15th year of Tiberius following Augustus’ death in AD 14. Pontius Pilate was the leader of Judea, while Herod Antipas (son of Herod the Great) and Philip served as tetrarchs (minor kings, or princes) of Galilee (basically the sea of Galilee to the Mediterranean) and Iturea and Trachonitis (the Golan Heights north into Lebanon and east into Syria). Someone named Lysanias was governor of the area north of Iturea at the time, called Abilene.
Religiously, Annas had stopped being the high priest in AD 15, but his son-in-law Caiaphas became high priest and served as such until AD 37, and Annas was still referred to as high priest and had a great amount of influence. The high priesthood was a lifetime office, much like former presidents are still called “Mr. President” today.
In the tradition of the Old Testament prophets, we see that “God’s Word came to John the son of Zechariah” while he was in the wilderness, as was said of prophets like Ezekiel (which we started reading yesterday), Hosea, and Micah:
1 The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Beeri during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and of Jeroboam son of Jehoash, king of Israel.
1 The word of the Lord that came to Micah the Moreshite—what he saw regarding Samaria and Jerusalem in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
Furthermore, the Word of the Lord came to John while he was “in the wilderness”—a place where God had often sent His messengers or even His people to prepare them for what was going to come next. Remember that when we last saw John the Baptist back in chapter 1, he was in the wilderness.
80 The child grew up and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel.
We’re picking this thread back up in chapter 3 after covering the birth and young life of Jesus in chapter 2.
John’s message was simple. I like how Thabiti Anyabwile explains it:
I love John. He only has one good sermon. And the truth is every pastor only has one good sermon—the gospel of Jesus Christ.
—Thabiti Anyabwile, Exalting Jesus in the Gospel of Luke
He’s right. The great preacher Charles Spurgeon said, “A sermon without Christ in it is like a loaf of bread without any flour in it. No Christ in your sermon, sir? Then go home, and never preach again until you have something worth preaching.” John called people to believe the good news of the coming Messiah. And he did so by calling all people to repentance and fruitfulness, and ultimately, to Christ Himself.
1: John called all people to repentance.
1: John called all people to repentance.
Unfortunately, one of the greatest sins that the culture claims that we can commit is to offend someone else… to come across as being judgmental of someone else. In the UK, for example, you can actually be fined (sometimes heftily) or even jailed for making a statement that is “grossly offensive” to someone else, but there’s no clear language that says what “grossly offensive” means. We don’t like to be told that we’re in sin, or that we need to repent. But John wasn’t at all shy about the people’s sinfulness or their need for forgiveness. If he had lived in modern-day England, I’m sure he would have been arrested! The Scriptures tell us what his ministry looked like:
3 He went into all the vicinity of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah: A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight! 5 Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be made low; the crooked will become straight, the rough ways smooth, 6 and everyone will see the salvation of God.
Now, we have to keep in mind that the quote from Isaiah 40:3-5 isn’t what John preached: He preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins with a simple statement as recorded by Matthew:
1 In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2 and saying, “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near!”
Repentance is when my mind, my heart, and my direction all change regarding my sin—I agree with God that my sin is, in fact, sinful, and I agree with Him that it should be hated and rejected, and I turn to Him in faith and move toward God instead of away from Him. Baptism for John was an outer sign of an inner change. Those who came to John for baptism were being baptized as a symbol of their hearts’ posture toward both God and their sin. But truly, this baptism of repentance was a means of fulfilling the prophecy about him from Isaiah, because through his baptism, people were being called to prepare the way of the Lord in their hearts.
The things that John referred to—the straightening of paths, the filling in of valleys, the lowering of mountains—were the kinds of things that would be done in order to remove difficulties or obstacles from the arrival of a monarch or sovereign. The prophecy in Isaiah wasn’t him advocating for better roads and more level ground—it was a prediction about the kind of work that the forerunner to Messiah would do in hearts.
1 “See, I am going to send my messenger, and he will clear the way before me. Then the Lord you seek will suddenly come to his temple, the Messenger of the covenant you delight in—see, he is coming,” says the Lord of Armies.
The King of kings was coming. His Kingdom would come through hearts—and that was where the obstacles needed to be removed.
Repentance is a vital aspect of the process of salvation, motivated by the recognition of God’s lovingkindness in our lives:
4 Or do you despise the riches of his kindness, restraint, and patience, not recognizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?
Repentance and faith are basically two sides of the same coin as far as our salvation is concerned. Without repentance, we remain rebels against God, and therefore, do not walk by faith. Without faith, we will not repent of our sin—especially not our sin of self-righteousness—and thus will remain at enmity with God because of it.
The question that each of us must wrestle with this morning regarding repentance is this: how many “sin obstacles” exist in my heart that need to be removed? Are the paths straight? The valleys raised and the mountains lowered?
John had it right: Repent of your sin, and believe in Christ. Trust Him as Savior and surrender to Him as Lord. He has shown great kindness to you in a zillion ways, most of which you haven’t even noticed, all to lead you to repentance and faith in Him. Will you repent and surrender to Jesus today?
The truth is that God is being patient with you, according to Scripture. 2 Peter 3:9 tells us:
9 The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.
He doesn’t want any to perish. His message of salvation is for the whole world, which brings me to the last thing I wanted to mention for this first point: Note that I phrased it as “John called all people to repentance.” This is because of what was written in verse 6: that everyone will see the salvation of God. All of us—believer and unbeliever alike—will see the reality of God’s plan of salvation for humanity through Jesus. But not all of us will experience that salvation, because we refuse to repent, refuse to surrender, refuse to believe. And sadly, in the final judgment, some of those who think that they are right with God will discover that they are not, because they never truly repented, never truly believed, never truly surrendered, were never truly saved.
As John said it, the evidence for that is the fact that they never bore fruit.
2: John called all people to fruitfulness.
2: John called all people to fruitfulness.
In the Scriptures, and particularly in the New Testament, there is a direct connection between repentance and fruitfulness—or the doing of things that show the reality of a person’s change of heart toward things of God. Now, being good Baptists, we might internally recoil just a little bit at the idea that works have anything at all to do with our salvation. I’m am not saying that we are saved by works at all. I’m saying that our salvation, if it’s real, will be a salvation that works—that bears fruit. I’ll expand more on that in a moment. But first, here’s how John addressed it:
7 He then said to the crowds who came out to be baptized by him, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance. And don’t start saying to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones. 9 The ax is already at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Now, we see in Matthew’s account of this same declaration by John that the “crowds” that John addressed in verse 7 were “many of the Pharisees and Sadducees,” religious Jews who regularly opposed Jesus’s ministry. John’s imagery is basically that of a field that has been set ablaze, and the snakes living in the field are attempting to escape the flames.
However, the way he addresses them is interesting. It’s like he’s asking them a rhetorical question: “Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” The unspoken answer: No one did. They weren’t there for repentance or forgiveness: Just to look good and pious by being baptized by this wacky prophet from the sticks who ate bugs and wore camel-skin clothing, or to ride the cultural wave through some sort of religious FOMO.
His point with them is that if they are truly repentant, then they should bear fruit that matches it. Repentance isn’t simply a mental thing. If we truly repent, it’s always accompanied by fruit… by good deeds (or the cessation of bad ones).
Paul preached this same connection:
20 Instead, I preached to those in Damascus first, and to those in Jerusalem and in all the region of Judea, and to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works worthy of repentance.
Jesus connected repentance to fruitfulness in His call to the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2:
5 Remember then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
The Bible warns us that if our lives are not bearing good fruit, then we probably are not good “trees,” and if we are not good trees, then we should be exceedingly fearful of the coming judgment: The ax positioned at the root of the trees, and fire that the fruitless trees will be thrown into. Jesus will speak about this again in chapter 6 of Luke.
Good works without belief in Jesus aren’t sufficient to save us. For example: Just getting baptized isn’t enough. Without a saving relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ, baptism just gets you wet.
Jumping through religious hoops for the sake of the hoops themselves isn’t going to save us. Neither is our family heritage. The Jews thought they’d be okay with God because Abraham was their father. But that didn’t matter. God could make stones into Abraham’s descendants without breaking a sweat. Similarly, it doesn’t matter if your name is on a church roll: If you’re not saved, being a member of a church won’t help in the judgment. You need Jesus.
Fruitfulness is in part why we’re taking the survey next week—we’re exploring and reflecting on the fruit that God is working on in our lives. I know that I will be greatly convicted in some ways as I take the survey, and I need to be as I consider the fruit that my life is producing or not producing.
Verses 10-14 are unique to Luke. In them, John offers advice on bearing fruit in keeping with repentance to three groups, or three categories of fruit:
A: Compassion
A: Compassion
First, some of the people ask the right question in response to what John has said:
10 “What then should we do?” the crowds were asking him. 11 He replied to them, “The one who has two shirts must share with someone who has none, and the one who has food must do the same.”
Remember that Paul wrote in Romans that the Lord’s kindness is intended to lead us to repentance? One of the ways that we should bear fruit is in exercising kindness to those around us who are less fortunate. Obviously, this doesn’t just mean clothes and food, but that is a good starting place. In the book of James, he argues that a “faith” that is not motivated to help a brother or sister in need is actually dead.
14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can such faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, stay warm, and be well fed,” but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself.
And Paul described how we should work as a result of our salvation, and our perspective on our eternal rewards:
9 Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up. 10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us work for the good of all, especially for those who belong to the household of faith.
Compassion is a fruit that should be borne in the life of the believer. The second is:
B: Integrity
B: Integrity
Commentator Robert H. Stein suggests that those in today’s passage were perhaps more accurately “toll collectors,” people who collected tolls, customs, and tariffs at booths in commercial centers (such as Matthew, as we will see when we get to chapter 5). Tax collecting was a different industry in the Roman Empire. Citizens of tribute lands would essentially “bid” for the right to be an area’s tax or toll collector—paying in advance a set amount to Rome. Since they bid for the position and paid in advance, their profit was determined by how much they collected, which led to widespread abuse. Tax collectors were hated by Jewish society, because they were seen as sellouts, as traitors—Jews who served a foreign power that kept God’s people under its thumb. They could not even testify in court, because dishonesty was considered a character trait of a tax collector. These also came and asked John what they should do:
12 Tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13 He told them, “Don’t collect any more than what you have been authorized.”
The general concept here is, as I said, integrity. It is being honest and fair in our dealings with others. Tax collectors were paid by the chief collector, so they made a living at it. They didn’t need to extort extra from the people they were collecting from. So John told them not to. Sometimes bearing good fruit is more about what we don’t do. Jesus also suggested that, in a broader sense, bearing the godly fruit of integrity begins with the keeping of your word:
37 But let your ‘yes’ mean ‘yes,’ and your ‘no’ mean ‘no.’ Anything more than this is from the evil one.
The book of Proverbs shines a little light on the connection between integrity and faith:
2 Whoever lives with integrity fears the Lord, but the one who is devious in his ways despises him.
Being a cheat or a thief reveals a lack of fear, reverence, and respect for the Lord. Do our lives bear a harvest of integrity?
C: Humility
C: Humility
The final fruit that John shares that should be seen in the lives of those who repent in faith is the fruit of humility. The question was posed to him by soldiers:
14 Some soldiers also questioned him, “What should we do?” He said to them, “Don’t take money from anyone by force or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
These soldiers were not Romans, but again, Jewish men who worked for the Roman government, perhaps guarding the tax collectors. However, since they were employed by Rome, they had a certain amount of power, and could leverage that power improperly in order to extort money. They were bullies. John calls them to humble themselves by being satisfied with their pay, so that they would not be tempted to abuse others for personal gain.
We are called to the same thing—to bear the fruit of humility by not seeing others as people to be used by us for our benefit. Paul said in Philippians 2:
3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves.
Whose “rights” do we find more important? Our own, or others’? Are we willing to mistreat others in order to get our way? If we see ourselves as more important than others, then we are not walking in repentance—looking at ourselves, others, and our circumstances the way God does. Humility should be a hallmark of the Christian life.
Each of these fruits is referenced in some way by Paul in his summary of what it means to put on the “new self” in Colossians 3:
11 In Christ there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all. 12 Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. 14 Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.
This is the fruit that we are to bear as those who have repented and believed the Gospel of Christ, who John ultimately called all people to trust.
3: John called all people to Christ.
3: John called all people to Christ.
The people wanted hope. They wanted Messiah to come, who many of them believed would be a political or military hero who would rescue the Jews from the oppression of Rome. And since John was so outspoken and different, it’s not surprising that people began to wonder if perhaps he was the long-awaited Messiah. He made it clear that he was not:
15 Now the people were waiting expectantly, and all of them were questioning in their hearts whether John might be the Messiah. 16 John answered them all, “I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I am is coming. I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17 His winnowing shovel is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with fire that never goes out.” 18 Then, along with many other exhortations, he proclaimed good news to the people.
John had a role. He was to prepare the way for the Messiah. And that it was he was doing. He called people to repentance and faith in the One who was coming who was greater that he was—the One who would baptize with more than just water, and who John was unfit to undo his sandal strap (the lowest job for the lowest servant in a household at the time). John knew his position, and understood his role. He would say as recorded in the Gospel of John:
30 He must increase, but I must decrease.”
And in this, we can see that John bore the fruit that he had just challenged the people to bear: John was compassionate, telling the people what they needed to hear, not what they wanted to hear. John showed integrity because he spoke truthfully about the coming Messiah and about the people themselves. He showed humility because he wasn’t trying to build his ministry, his name, or his brand—he was just pointing people to Jesus, who he said would baptize the people with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
How are we to take this reference to fire? Some suggest that this is a reference to the tongues of fire that appeared when the Holy Spirit came on the believers on the Day of Pentecost in the book of Acts:
1 When the day of Pentecost had arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like that of a violent rushing wind came from heaven, and it filled the whole house where they were staying. 3 They saw tongues like flames of fire that separated and rested on each one of them. 4 Then they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them.
However, in the context, it appears that John is speaking about two separate things: the baptism of the Holy Spirit for believers, and the baptism of the fires of judgment for unbelievers. This is evidenced by verse 17, and the reference to the winnowing shovel. The winnowing shovel or winnowing fork is a threshing tool: basically a pitchfork, used to lift harvested, dried wheat in order to toss it into the air, where the breeze would catch the light, dried chaff, while the much heavier grains fall to the ground. Here’s a picture of a modern person using a winnowing shovel.
The point is that the grain could then be collected in one place, and the chaff in another. The two would be separated, and the grain kept while the chaff burned.
We have seen that John’s audience was a mixed one: the genuinely repentant, and the unrepentant. Jesus came to provide the means of salvation for everyone, but sadly not everyone will be saved. Believe the Gospel, repenting of your sin, and be set free from the fires of judgment to come.
Just as John did, do we do? Are we calling people to Christ?
Closing
Closing
Very quickly, in the closing of our focal passage, we get a glimpse into John’s future (because Luke was writing after the fact):
19 But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the evil things he had done, 20 Herod added this to everything else—he locked up John in prison.
I just want to be clear that this was still to come. John would eventually be killed for speaking the truth. He “grossly offended” Herodias, and would pay the price. John declared the good news to the people—the Kingdom of heaven was at hand, and as we will see next week, John would get to be a part of the launch of Jesus’s earthly ministry.
Repent and believe.
Baptism as evidence of that.
Church membership: Come this morning if we’ve talked and you’re ready to be presented to the church for membership.
Prayer
Giving
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Bible reading (Eze 2-3, Ps 47) Glitch in the Plan part of the app… not showing Ezekiel (which started yesterday). Should be fixed by Tuesday.
Pastor’s Study: Almost done with armor
Prayer Meeting: Hezekiah’s prayer in 2 Kings 19
Instructions for guests
Benediction
Benediction
12 Therefore, strengthen your tired hands and weakened knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed instead.
