Thank you so much for listening to Riverbend Churches podcast.
Riverbend Church exists to bring people to Jesus, grow
generations in Jesus, and send disciples for Jesus.
We hope that you enjoy this message.
We have been in a series called Joseph, and we've been walking
through the life and the narrative of a guy whose story
is given to us in the book of Genesis, God by the name of
Joseph. If you call Riverbend home or
you've been with us throughout this series, whether in the room
or online, you've been journeying with us throughout
these weeks. We got this week and we got next
week to where we'll be closing out our Joseph series.
We didn't go into this in our into our 930 service, but I'll
tell you as 11:00, our next series is called The Unseen
World to where we're going to be talking about spiritual warfare.
So it's something that you most definitely do not, do not, do
not want to miss. But let me go ahead and kick
things off, ask you just to contemplate a question really
quick. Has there ever been a time, a
situation, a circumstance in your life to where there was
deep pain, there was a lot of hurt, but then the more that
situation or circumstance unfolded, the beauty that came
out of that caused all the pain and the hurt to pale in
comparison. Now let me go ahead and tell you
as a guy, as a dude, you're guy's men.
We, we got to think a minute for that to to the ladies,
especially the moms in the room. You know exactly what I'm
talking about. You know exactly what I'm
talking about. Like if just thinking back to
the birth of that little baby, you know, thinking about maybe
the, the weeks or months of, of morning sickness or just the,
the restless nights just struggling to get comfortable
or, or, or the pain, the overall pains involved in labor and
delivery. And if you're a guy in here, do
not say I had bronchitis once. So I know what it's like.
Because ladies, if you want to slap them, that's pre forgiven.
So, but I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, mom's like the moment
that they handed you that newborn baby, man, everything
changed, right? Everything paled in comparison.
Like it, it doesn't mean that it doesn't mean that you weren't
sick all those mornings or all those days.
And it doesn't mean that that that you were well rested and
that you were comfortable for all those months.
And it certainly doesn't mean that you didn't go through a lot
of intense pain during labor. It just means that when you held
that newborn baby, the, the, the joy and the blessing of holding
that baby caused all the pain to pale in comparison, right?
And I wonder, I wonder if you and I, I wonder if we together,
if there's some things that we were, were holding on to the,
the points of pain and the points of, of hurt and trauma
that keep us from living in what God has for us today.
You see, I firmly believe that that God wants to provide
breakthrough for every single one of us.
And that's going to look different for every single one
of us. But I firmly believe that God
wants to provide breakthrough for every single one of us.
But pain, isn't it true that like, pain has such a loud voice
and it has such a loud voice in our mind to where it almost
becomes all-encompassing and there's such a gravitational
pull backwards to relive that source of pain over and over and
over. So, you know, one of the things
that we've been talking about is there are certain things in our
lives that threaten to break us. And I would say that giving into
those loud voices to revisit yesterday's pains, to live
there, to set up shop there is actually one of the greatest
deterrents from us living in the blessings that God has for us
today. Or if you've been with us
throughout the series, this the the big idea, the truth that
we've been revolving around throughout the series will sound
familiar to you. If you're new to the series and
you're taking notes with us here, it is One of the things we
commonly come back to throughout the series is what can easily
break you, God turns in to breakthrough.
What can easily break you, God turns in to breakthrough.
And here's what I would tell you.
Nothing threatens there's nothing that threatens our
living in the breakthrough that God has for us today.
Then giving in to the voices of yesterday's pains and, and, and
not only revisiting those, but setting up shop and living in
the midst of yesterday's pains. So how do we as a people, how do
we as a people, how do we, I wouldn't say ignore, how do we,
how do we kind of tune out the voices of yesterday's pains in
order to live in the blessings that God has in front of us
today? Well, if you've been with us
throughout the series, we've been going through the life of a
God by the name of Joseph. And if you have a Bible with
you, I encourage you to find Genesis chapter 41 with me,
Genesis chapter 41. And in Genesis chapter 41, we're
going to be looking at just two verses this morning.
Genesis 41 verses 50 and 51, verses 50 and 51.
Here's what Genesis 4150 says. Before the year the famine came,
two sons were born to Joseph. As an act, the daughter of
Potiphar, priest of own, bore them to him.
Joseph called the name of the first Manasseh, for he said, God
has made me forget all my hardships and all my father's
house. So what in the world did these
two verses, these two seemingly random verses, what in the world
did these have to do with us moving forward in what God has
for us? Well, if you're new to this
series, we've been really kind of walking through the life of
Joseph asking and these different passages asking 3
primary questions. What does it tell me about
Joseph? What does it tell me about God?
And what does this tell me about me?
Let's tackle that first one first.
If you're taking notes with us, what this tells me about Joseph
is #1 Joseph's current blessings far outweighed his past pains.
His current blessings far outweighed his past pains.
Now, I think it's probably really important for us to have
some historical background in what's going on here.
You see in Joseph's day and in his age, it was very, very
common that a parent would name their child on the basis of a
situation or circumstance of what that parent was going
through at that time. So for example, Jacob, who we
know is Joseph's dad, Jacob had ten other boys before Joseph was
born. Joseph, Jacob named Joseph,
Joseph because Joseph literally means increaser or God will add.
So it doesn't take a rocket scientist to go, hey, listen, I
got 10 other boys, we'll name them Joseph.
That means increaser. God's going to add 1.
That's why Joseph was named Joseph.
God. God called Adam Adam because
Adam literally means man or mankind or humankind.
Our oldest son, we have three kids.
Our oldest son, Landon, we named Landon.
Landon because Landon literally means my parents are dirt poor.
My dad has never changed a diaper in his entire life, but
he's about to get a lot of practice.
So Landon for short, you see, names in that day and age had a
lot of significance. They had a lot of weight.
As a matter of fact. You ever been reading through
the Old Testament and you come up on a passage or a verse or or
chapter and you're like, man, I have no idea how to even
pronounce that name. I will call him Bob.
And Bob saith unto the Lord. I'll tell you something that's
pretty fascinating. If you ever like as you're going
through the Old Testament, as you're reading through the
Bible, when you come up on some like really weird sounding
names, if you look up what they meant in Hebrew, it is
fascinating. You'll get much more of a depth
of what's going on in the background.
So Joseph had Joseph had had two sons born to him.
The first one, the oldest ones named Manasseh.
So what does Manasseh mean? Manasseh means God has caused me
to forget. God has caused me to forget.
Now, the way that that word forget is used here, it doesn't
mean that through all of Joseph's past, his pain, his
hurt, his trauma, his betrayal, all of it, it doesn't mean that
God wiped his memory of it. It doesn't mean that God erased
his memory of all of that that happened to him.
What it does mean is that that that all that God had blessed
him with, that everything that he had gone through, man that
paled in comparison. It completely paled in
comparison. So he named his son Manasseh.
But here's the thing, I don't think that that came easy for
Joseph. I don't think that it, it came
easy for Joseph because like we talked about last week, and as
we've been reminding ourselves throughout this series, Joseph
was a real man with real feelings, real emotions, real
hurts, real pains, all the above.
He wasn't some fictitious character.
He was a real man. So I don't think that it came
natural for Joseph just to look at all of his current blessings
and sit there and go. God has caused me to forget.
You see, I think that there was a lot of intentionality behind
it. Let me show you what I mean.
Second thing that we learn about Joseph is this.
He embraced the blessings in front of him rather than cling
to the pains behind him. Joseph embrace the blessings in
front of him rather than cling to the pains behind him.
Like we said, God did not erase Joseph's memory of his pains.
So for example, it is 1000% true that is a 17 year old Joseph was
beaten, betrayed, thrown into a pit, and sold into slavery by
the very brothers that he once looked up to.
It is 100% true that Joseph was was falsely accused of sexual
misconduct by his master's wife and thrown into prison.
It is 100% true that Joseph was forgotten about in prison, and
it's probably sinking to those emotional depths.
But it's also 100% true that God protected Joseph every step of
the way. It's also 100% true that God
prepared Joseph every step of the way for what he had prepared
for Joseph. It's also 100% true that God
through Joseph, interpreted Pharaoh's dreams.
And Pharaoh exalted Joseph to not only being over the warden
of the prison and Potiphar and his lying wife, but over all the
people of Egypt except for Pharaoh himself.
And it was also true that Joseph, while in Egypt, he had a
wife. God gave him a wife, and God
gave them sons. He had a family of his own.
Listen, Joseph only had enough bandwidth to live in one day.
He could have lived in his yesterday, or he could have
lived in his today. Joseph chose to intentionally
embrace the blessings in front of him rather than cling to the
pains behind him. How did he do that?
You know how we said that Manasseh literally means God has
caused me to forget? Do you know that there's also a
different translation for Manasseh?
Manasseh can also be translated a different way.
It's not only God has caused me to forget.
It is also not only God has caused me for to forget, but to
let go of something. Manasseh literally means to let
go of something. Listen, not in a not in some
like Bible superhero way at all. Not in an uncompassionate way at
all, but Joseph realized that he only had enough bandwidth to
live into one, live in one day. He could live in yesterday's
hurts and pains, or he could live in today's blessings.
So in order to live in today's blessings, he had to let go of
yesterday's hurts and pains. So that's what it tells us about
Joseph. Here's the second question.
What does it tell us about God? These two seemingly random
verses, verses 50 and 51 of Genesis 41.
First thing it tells us. God's plans for me are always
for my good. God's plans for me are always
for my good. God's plans for you are always
for your good. God's plans for us are always
for our good. Not because I'm good, not
because you're good, not because we're good, but because God is
good. OK.
God's plans for you are for good, not because you're good,
but because he's good. Don't fall into the trap of
determining or trying to distinguish if God is good or
not based off of your personal experiences.
How easy is it to go? Man, life is good, God is good
or man, life is tough? I'm not so sure about God's
goodness anymore, man. That that's some shaky sand that
you're building your theology and that you're building your
faith and that you're building your life on.
You may say, well then it doesn't seem like God is good.
At this particular time and moment in my life.
I get it, I really do. If you're a parent in the room,
I'm not going to ask that you raise your hand or anything like
that, but see if you can track with me.
If you're a parent in the room, you know that the best thing for
your kid is not just to allow them to eat junk food.
The best thing for your kid is to establish a bedtime for them.
The best thing for your kid is to to make them go to school and
if you're the parent of a middle schooler, the best thing for
your kid and the best thing for all of us is make them take a
shower pack out of pulse. Now listen, if it was up to your
kid, if it was up to your kid, your, your kids going to just be
eating like Cheetos and drinking Mountain Dew and staying up all
hours of the night online or, or playing video games.
And they certainly don't want to go to school.
So they so they won't go to school.
And for whatever reason, middle schoolers don't like taking
shower like they're allergic to water and soap.
But listen, as a parent, you desire ultimate good for your
kid. So you establish these
boundaries right now, what you know is established for the
ultimate good of your kid. Your kid doesn't always see it
that way. Your kid doesn't feel it that
way. But as a, as a, as a good loving
parent, you know that it's for their ultimate good.
Here's the point. Did you know that God will call
us to do hard things and He will guide us through hard seasons
that may not seem good, may not look good, smell good, feel
good, but it doesn't mean that He is not good and that He
doesn't desire good for us. There are ways in which God, as
a perfect heavenly Father, is working all things for the good,
even when we can't quite comprehend it, and even when we
don't quite like it and when we don't quite feel like it.
God is always working things for the good.
He desires our ultimate good, for our good and for His glory.
Second thing that we know about God is God alone has the power
to redeem my deepest wounds. God alone has the power to
redeem my deepest wounds. Give you a moment to jot that
down. Then I want to unpack that.
You know how we're able to look and to read about the life of
Joseph from start to finish. If you were to start at the very
beginning, you can turn to Genesis chapter 37 to where
you're introduced to a 17 year old Joseph.
And you can read all the way from Genesis 37 all the way to
Genesis 50. And you can see how God's hand
was with him and how God guided him.
And we're, we're able to not just to have a 30,000 foot view
of Joseph's life, we're able to have like Joseph's life, we're
able to see it from start to finish.
And that's a complete game changer while we read the
different portions of Joseph's life, right?
So, for example, our hearts could be broken for a 17 year
old kid that he's betrayed by his brothers and sold into
slavery by them. However, our hearts may be
broken, but that broken heartedness is still tempered by
the fact that we're able to read ahead and go, hey, Joseph, hold
on man, because God is going to use this for your good and for
his glory. He's going to elevate you to the
palace in Egypt. Or we can read about how Joe
Joseph was falsely accused by his master's wife about like
when she pursued him, when she hit on him and he didn't
compromise. And because she was offended and
because she was hurt and because she wanted to save face, she
made-up a lie and twisted the whole narrative and said, no, it
was Joseph that hit on me and made improper advances towards
me. And nobody would listen to him.
And there was no recourse. He was actually just thrown into
prison. And we can just get angry at the
injustice of that, but our anger at that injustice is still
tempered by the fact that we just want to almost say, man,
just hold on, Joseph, hold on. God is going to use the prison
to prepare you for, for the palace that he has prepared for
you. Or you know, how sad is it that
Joseph finally encounters 2 guys from the Royal Court, a Baker
and A and a cupbearer and he tells them he goes hey listen
would y'all just just just remember my name, Remember my
name and remember my case because I was unjustly brought
here. I'm in justly imprisoned here.
And the cupbearer, he gets into the palace and the next thing we
hear about that guy's, he forgot about Joseph.
And Joseph there in a, in a prison cell for two more years,
forgotten. But our heart still goes out to
him because we're like, hey, Joseph, just hold on, man.
God is preparing you for what he has prepared for you and he's
about to elevate you to the palace.
Why are we able to do that? Because we know the whole story,
right? We'll think about it this way.
Because God exists out of what we think of as space and time.
He's able to look at my life and your life and our lives the same
way that we're able to look at Joseph's life in totality.
That's not meant to confuse you. It's actually meant to comfort
you that there are certain things that God will allow into
our lives to prepare us for what He has prepared for us, and He
wants to take past hurts and pains and and trauma to redeem
those things. Here's what I mean by that.
Who else do you think could be most powerfully used by God to
speak hope into the life of someone who has lost their
spouse than someone who has lost their spouse?
Who else do you think could be more you?
Most you powerfully used by God to speak hope into the life of
someone who's struggling with addiction than someone who has
been freed by the chains of addiction through the cross of
Jesus. Who else do you think could be
used most powerfully by God to speak hope into the life of
someone who has experienced abuse than someone than a
daughter or a son of God that has walked that painful path but
has found healing by the blood of the cross?
You see, our past pain, our past hurt, our past trauma, It
doesn't have to be wasted. God never calls us to forget it.
God never calls us, hey, just like move on from it.
He wants to redeem it. So this is what it tells us
about God. What does all of this?
What are these two verses? What does it tell me about me #1
I cannot move forward in what God has for me while clinging to
my past. I cannot move forward and what
God has for me while clinging to my past.
Give you a moment, jot that down.
Let then let me unpack it. This does not say you just need
to get over it. This does not say you'll ever
seen the bumper stickers like let go and let God or let God
and let go. It doesn't matter the order.
Both of them are really bad theology and very unloving and
in compassion uncompassionate. So uncompassionate or in
compassionate we don't know. Both of them are wrong and
unloving. Cannot move forward and what God
has for me while clinging to my past.
It does not mean that we do not have past hurts, pains, traumas,
wounds and scars. It just means that we refuse to
be defined by those things. You see, there's some of us in
here we are experiencing even now in this moment.
It could be the passing of a loved one.
It could be the betrayal of a friend.
It could be a lot of doubts. It could be anything,
everything. There could be a lot of anger.
There could be a lot of fear. There could be a lot of doubt in
your life. It could be anything and
everything from your past, the voices of the past.
That gravitational pull is pulling you back.
And here's where I would tell you is if you have given those
areas of your life, those pain points of your life over to
Jesus, said Jesus, and you know that I'm struggling so mightily
in this way. Would you meet me at a place
deep within my soul that only your Holy Spirit can go?
His answer every single time is a resounding yes.
And here's what that yes means. That means that through the
blood of Jesus, He has already won the victory.
You see, when we fight against those voices that pull us
backwards to define ourselves by the past hurt, pain, and trauma,
we're not fighting for victory. We're fighting from victory
because Jesus has already won the victory.
It doesn't mean that we don't fight.
It doesn't mean that we don't grieve.
It doesn't mean that we don't cry.
It doesn't mean that we don't weep.
We don't have a lot of pent up emotions about.
It just means that we don't allow that past pain, hurt, and
trauma to define us, to define us.
And just like Joseph, did you know that you and I, we only
have enough bandwidth to live in one day.
We can live, we can choose to live in today and all that God
has ahead of us, or we can choose to be trapped by the
past, by yesterday. We cannot live in both.
We cannot live in both today and yesterday.
So maybe today jotted this note down.
Maybe today as we're talking about Manasseh, your Manasseh
prayer goes something a little bit like this.
God, I need to let go of my past so that I can move forward and
all that you have for me. It doesn't mean letting go of
your past. It doesn't mean, hey, you just
need to get over it. You just need to move on.
God, I need your blood, the blood of the cross to cover my
past. I don't want to.
I don't want to allow my past to define me anymore.
God, I know that you desire good for me.
And if you can use my past hurts, pains and trauma for the
good, for my good and for your glory, God, I'm all yours.
Second thing that this passage tells us about Joseph is this is
I'm living for the day when I can look back and say it was
worth it all. It was worth it all.
Listen, even in this room, our 930 service was full of men and
women that are experiencing a lot of hurt, a lot of struggle.
You've been praying for years and years and years.
You may, you may find yourself in here this morning like we had
people in the 930 service in the room and online that you're
struggling. You're fighting those chains of
addiction. You're struggling like with all
that is within you, to walk in alignment with God's will and
his ways and his word. You're struggling to fight for
your family that you're walking and God's will for your family.
And here's what I would tell you, don't give up.
And the struggle is worth it. As your pastor and as your
friend, I want to remind you of something.
Two things actually, in one sentence #1 the best is yet to
come. The best is yet to come.
And it will all be worth it. It will all be worth it.
I cannot wait for us to experience all that God has for
us and to look back over all that we've been through.
And we can reminisce over past hurts and pains and trauma
together, but to look together at that and go, you know what?
It was worth it all. God, you did something so
amazing out of something so hard and so gross and so evil, but it
was worth it all. Look at all the glory that you
get from this. So maybe your Manasseh type of
prayer is God. Would you give me the strength
and the faith to discover? Would you give me the strength
and the faith to discover that the that the blessings that you
have in front of me make the pain that you have behind me all
worth it? Would you give me the strength
and the faith to discover that the blessings that you have in
front of me are greater than the pains that you have behind me?
If you've been with us over the past several weeks throughout
this series, one of the things that we do at the end of our
time together is we kind of turn it to the personal.
We walk through three key questions together as a church
and I basically just challenge you, Hey, I want you to think
about these three key questions. Pray about them in your, in your
time, where you are right now. And then respond.
Here's what we're going to do. If you look at the bottom of
your note sheet there, there are some key questions there.
And I want to just invite you, take this, take this note sheet
home with you. And I I pray that you would pray
through these questions that you would you would invite the Holy
Spirit into these three questions to reveal to you what
needs to be revealed to you to grow you where you need to grow
through these three key questions.
It just in your time alone with God this week.
But I want to circle back to that last light, Manasseh type
of prayer, the one to where we say, God, would you give me the
strength and the faith to discover that the, that that the
blessings ahead of me are far greater than the pains behind
me, that it was worth it, that God is, is, is is going to be
worth it all? I'm going to spend a little bit
of time on that one because did you know when, when we go into a
heart posture, an attitude of our heart, an attitude of our
mind, when we go into that type of heart posture, do you know
that we're closely walking in the footsteps of Jesus and the
heart posture that he put on at the very end of his life?
Remember how Jesus, right before he was betrayed by one of his
best friends, Judas, he goes out and he prays in the Garden of
Gethsemane. And, and, and it's not just like
this kneel prayer, like God bless the gift and the giver.
You know, some like rote prayer. The Bible tells us that he's
praying so intently that like he begins to sweat drops of blood
that it actually burst the capillaries in his forehead,
which is a real medical condition under mass distress.
And what what was this prayer? If you grew up in church, you
know that essentially his prayer was Father, if there's any other
way, let this cup pass from me. In other words, Father, I know
what's about to happen. But if there's any other way
that could happen in any other way, please let it be made
known. But that's not where he stopped
his prayer. He ends it with but not my will,
but your will be done. I want to show you something
about the cross of Jesus and it comes to us from the book of
Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 12, verse 2.
Check out what the writer of Hebrews says.
He says as we look to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our
faith, who for the joy that was set before him endure the cross,
despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the
throne of God. Here's what this means.
For the joy that was set before him, endure the cross.
What in the world is that about? It doesn't mean that the the the
the crown of thorns didn't hurt. It doesn't mean that, as he had
nails driven into his wrists and into his ankles, that they did
not hurt. It doesn't mean that as he was
laughed at and scoffed at and spit at and he was hung,
humiliated for just the entertainment of anybody that
wanted to walk by hanging on a cross.
It doesn't mean that none of that hurt.
What it does mean, however, is as he is seated at the right
hand of the throne of God, because we know that Jesus
didn't stay dead. He was resurrected from the dead
three days later. He is seated at the right hand
of the right hand of the throne of God going, it was all worth
it. It was all worth it.
And I love how we get a picture of the resurrected Jesus to
where he appears to his disciples and especially Thomas.
And he goes, Thomas, put your hand in my wrist.
In other words, the resurrected Jesus still maintain the scars.
And I think the scars are there as a reminder.
It was all worth it. It was all Jesus went through,
everything that he went through so that your sins and my sins
can be forgiven and so that we can be made right with God.
It was all worth it. So when we begin to pray, God,
give me the faith and give me the strength to discover that
the blessings that you have ahead of me are far greater than
the pains that are behind me. In many ways, we're following in
the footsteps of Jesus. So in just a few moments we're
going to partake of the Lord's Supper together to where we we
we take of the bread and we take of the cup.
But before we get there, I want to show you something that the
apostle Paul warns us about and taking the Lord's Supper.
This is in First Corinthians Chapter 11.
Paul wrote, Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup
of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning
the body and the blood of the Lord.
Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread
and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks
without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.
So Church, here's the big question.
How in the world do we make sure that we're not about to take the
bread and the cup in an unworthy manner?
Well, it has everything to do with we have to examine ourself.
So here's what I want to invite you to do before we take the
bread, before we take the cup, I just want to invite you just
across the room. If you would bow your heads and,
and close your eyes. And this is not some religious
sacred posture. It's not that, you know, we get
heaven's attention when we bow our heads and close our eyes.
We bow our heads and close our eyes to be able to tune out all
distractions around us. And I would just, I would just
say make every effort not to move during this moment because
you don't want to distract the people around you.
But with your head bowed and with your eyes closed, it's just
a picture. It's just, it's just you and God
in this moment. And I want you to ask God.
Take a few moments to ask God. God, is there anything in my
life that is not pleasing to you?
Is there anything in my life that shouldn't be in my life?
Give Him access to every part of you, the deepest parts of you,
the darkest parts of you. Listen, He already knows them
anyway. Give Him access to those deep
parts. God, would you reveal to me any
part of my life that is displeasing to you?
That's not an alignment with you?
And when He reveals those things to us, when He causes those
things to rise to the surface of our minds, he's not doing it
because he's angry with you. He's doing it because he's
calling you to confess those things to him as sin.
If you were with us last week, we talked about how the the two
ways in which we fast track our relationship with God is being
quick to forgive and practicing regular confession.
God's not revealing these things to you about you because He
hates you. He's revealing these things to
you, about you because He loves you and He's pointing out to you
spiritual cancer in your life and confession to Him is the
only cure. So confess it as sin before Him
and ask Him to forgive it, and then ask Him to cleanse you.
God, I don't want to take the bread in the cup in an unworthy
manner. God, whatever it looks like for
me to take the bread in the cup in a worthy manner, God, the
answer is yes. God, we thank you for knowing
everything that there is to know about us and still choosing to
love us anyway. Because God, we understand that
your love for us is not based on who we are or what we do.
It's based on who you are. So God, as you have revealed
things to us about us this morning, God, would you remind
us that they're not because it's not because you hate us, It's
actually because you love us. And you've brought these things
you, you've caused these things that are inconsistent in our
lives, inconsistent with who you are and what you would have for
us. You brought sin to the to the
top of our minds so that we can hand that sin over to you and
call it what it is, sin and ask that you take it and ask that
you forgive us and ask that you cleanse us and clean us from the
inside. God, I pray that you would over
the next few moments as we take the bread, as we take the cup,
God, that you're to remind us of your incredible love for each
and everyone of us, and not just your love for us, but your love
for the people in which you, every single person that you
bring into our lives. So God, I pray that you would
focus our hearts, focus our minds, focus our lives on you
during these moments. And it's in Jesus name that we
pray, Amen. So the Bible tells us that on
that night, the Passover night, Jesus disciples, they met with
Jesus in the upper room and these guys, they've done the
Passover meal couple times already.
But there was something different about this night.
On this night, Jesus took the bread and it said that he broke
the bread. And as he broke it, I can
imagine he looks around the room, probably looks at every
single one of the people in that room that night, straight in the
eyes. And then he said, this is my
body, which is broken for you. And even though I'm sure that in
the moment, just as disciples, they didn't quite get what he
was talking about, they had no way of knowing what was just a
few hours away. But before they departed that
room, Jesus took the cup. And I can imagine these guys,
they had, they've been a part of this Passover meal for years.
And for the past couple years they've been a part of the
Passover meal with Jesus. And the person over the meal,
they would take that cup and they would hold this cup up and
then they would go through the Passover rituals.
But again, there was something different about that night.
That night Jesus took the cup and I believe that he looked
them in the eyes and he said, this is my blood which is given,
which is poured out for you. God, in times like this, we are
so aware of how inadequate our words are.
But God, from the deepest parts of us, from those guttural parts
of us, Lord, we say thank you. Thank you for dying in our
place. Thank you for sending your son
into this world to die in our place.
Everything that he went through for me, everything that he went
through for us, God, we thank you.
God, we pray that you would continue to challenge us to live
differently because of it. Got to keep our eyes focused on
you and your love for us and how that changes everything, and
your love for the people around us and how that changes
everything. God, we pray that you would
continue to guide us, to grow us, to use us, and to prepare
us. God, I pray that you would
redeem our deepest hurts in our past for our good and for your
glory. Can I pray that you will
continue to guide us. And it's in Jesus name that we
pray. Amen.
Thank you for listening to Riverbend Church's podcast.
To find out more about this message or Riverbend Church,
connect with us online at Riverbend Church dot live.