We're going to read the first 11 verses today, but I'm going to
just read the first two and then stop and talk about them a bit.
But they'll come up on the screen.
But it's always good to follow on and have it open with you as
well. So it says Paul, an apostle of
Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother to the
Church of God in Corinth, together with all his holy
people throughout Akaya peace, grace and peace to you from God
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
So what I, what I believe that God wants to pull out of this,
these, these first few verses of Corinthians, I think there's
plenty of stuff that you can get out of this.
But there's two things that as I was reading this through the
past couple of weeks that I believe God wants to speak to
us. Two very clear things.
I think he wants to speak to us through the words of it says
Paul and Timothy. And the first thing is, is that
God wants to change you. God's desire is to make us more
like Christ, and he does that through his church.
He does that through men and women filled with the presence
of Jesus Christ. Therefore, we need each other.
You need me and I need you. We need each other.
I love how you all didn't say yes when I said I you need me.
Silence, I need you. Yes you do and we need to be a
people that are full of the Holy Spirit.
So number one, God changes us through his Holy Spirit filled
church. Secondly, and this is where this
morning has come in so beautifully is that God through
his Holy Spirit works through our brokenness.
That doesn't just mean that he is able to help us through
storms and testings and trials. What actually means is God is,
yes, He's able to do that, but He is able to redeem our
troubles. He's able to redeem our storms
and our brokenness and use as we're going to read about Paul
and Timothy, He's able to use our brokenness for his glory and
those around us their goods. So this this book, this letter
to the Corinthian church. We know it as two Corinthians or
if you're American, it's second second letter to the
Corinthians, which I'm not a fan of because as you read through
the book, it's not the second letter that Paul ever wrote to
the Corinthian church. Actually, we we tell this hints
that there were plenty of other letters that Paul wrote to the
church in in Corinth, but through God's Providence,
through his Holy Spirit, we have in our Bibles that not today, 1
Corinthians and Two Corinthians. And you can read, and I
encourage you to read this week Acts 18 where it talks about
Paul planting the church, starting the church in Corinth
and how that happened. And we read actually earlier on
this year, we went through the book of 1 Corinthians and in One
Corinthians we read that it was, it was written by Paul and
Sosthenes. And they had multiple things
that they had to address in that church, multiple things that
led. Ultimately, the big things were
sexual immorality and brokenness in the sense of disunity and
infighting. I follow this person.
You follow that person. I don't like you because you're
different than me. And what Paul and Saussenese
they did through the the letter, they would remind the church
constantly that despite their sin, despite their mess, we
worship a God who stepped down into our mess to lift us up.
And then about a year later, scholars reckon that Paul and
Timothy write this this letter to the Corinthian church from
Macedonia in about 56 AD. And like I said, the first point
I want us to look at this morning is the fact that God
changes us. He changes you and me through
his Holy Spirit filled church, through each other.
We need each other. You see, Paul is going to Paul
and Timothy are going to be used by gods to help grow this
church. And I want you to, I mentioned
this in the first message we did in One Corinthians, but I want
you to message, remember again that this letter is written from
Paul and Timothy. We will quite often just say,
you know, Paul says this and Paul says that, but actually
it's Paul and Timothy. And I just wanted to remind you
of that because Jesus isn't about super Christians.
Jesus isn't about one man or one woman prophet or or apostle or
or one, you know, one super teacher that we all gather
round. It's about the body.
It's about the church together. And Paul is going to use, so God
is going to use Paul and Timothy, their words to change
and mould and make more like him.
Those in the church in Corinth and us here who listen to him,
Jesus said in Matthew chapter 13.
He said a farmer went out to sow seeds.
As he was scattering the seeds, some fell on the path and the
birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places where
it did not have much soil. It sprang up and quickly became
quickly because the soil was shallow.
But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched and they
withered because they had no root.
Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the
plants. Still other seeds fell on fell
on good soil, where it produced a crop 160 thirty times what it
sowed. Whoever has ears to hear, let
them hear. You see, Jesus desire is for you
to grow. His desire is for you to produce
fruit. And what I mean by fruit, what
Jesus means by fruit is that we become basically more like him,
that we act in our everyday lives like he would act if he
was in your situation. That we we bear fruit means that
we become more loving and kind and patient.
It also means that we are people who speak words of life, that we
are people who speak words of healing and release from demonic
strongholds, just like Jesus did.
But to grow, what does the parable say?
To grow, we need what? What do we need?
We need good soil, and we all need good soil to grow.
And we get good soil by reading Scripture, by immersing
ourselves in the Word, by sitting under good teaching, by
praying in the Spirit, but also by spending time with each
other. If you spend time with God's
church, with men and women, filled with the Holy Spirit,
they will produce in you good soil.
See through the words of Paul and Timothy.
God is desiring to produce good soil in this messed up, broken
church in Corinth. For those who receive his plan,
those who listen, those who take to heart what Paul and Timothy
have to say, God says through Jesus.
He said Jesus says that they will produce a harvest 100 times
what they have received. That's God's heart for us.
See, God has placed you within a church community so that you can
produce good soil in others and they can produce good soil in
you. God changes us through His Holy
Spirit filled church. That's .1.
Let's carry on reading. He says Praise be to the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the
God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that
we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we
ourselves receive from gods. For just as we share abundantly
in the sufferings of Christ, also, so also our comfort
abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for
your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for
your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the
same sufferings we suffer. We and our hope for you is firm
because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also
you share in our comfort. We do not want you to be
uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we
experienced in the province of Asia.
We, we were under great pressure, far beyond our ability
to ensure so that we despaired of life itself.
Indeed, we felt we had received a sentence of death.
But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves, but on
God who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such
deadly peril and He will deliver us again on Him.
We have set our hope that He will continue to deliver us as
you help us in our prayers there many will give thanks on our
behalf for the gracious favour granted us in the answer to many
prayers. See, God changes us through His
Holy Spirit filled church and Christ's Spirit works through
our brokenness. You see, many of you, many of
you have stories of brokenness. Many of you have stories of
testings, of trials, of, of being passed over by promotion,
by by losing your job, by having to flee the nation that you grew
up in, by losing your health, by losing friends, by losing
family, by losing a spouse, by losing children.
Many of you have gone through extreme trials, extreme storms,
and you understand you can stand with Paul and Timothy when they
write. We were under great pressure,
far beyond our ability to endure, so that we were
despairing of life itself. Has anyone felt weak?
Does anyone feel weak? Now you see the church in
Corinth at the writing of Two Corinthians.
It had some issues. It had issues.
It probably had some of the same issues of the writing of 1
Corinthians, but it had a few new ones as well.
And one of the threads that runs through this letter is a thread
that what I'd say is it is a thread of prosperity gospel
thinking, which is a false gospel that teaches if you are
healthy, if you are wealthy, if you are influential and
powerful, it is because God is happy with you.
And if you are poor and if you are sick, and if you are
unimportant, it's because God doesn't like you, because God
despairs about, because God is judging you.
Therefore what's which is an evil, evil doctrine.
But the church in Corinth, they had grasped hold of this.
And we're going to read later on that they had elevated these men
and women who they called super apostles.
Now, these were people who looked beautiful.
These are people who are charismatic, amazing teachers.
These are people who are rich. These are people who had
influence in the empire. And so the church in Corinth
said they must be blessed of God.
They're the ones we have to follow.
Paul, on the other hand, well, Scripture kind of gives us a
sense that Paul wasn't that pretty.
Paul, he wasn't that amazing charismatic preacher, yes, and
he had a mind that was awesome and was able to apply the truths
that he had learnt in his upbringing to now being in
Christ. But actually, he was a sort of
preacher who sent people to sleep.
And we read about him in the book of Acts that he's preaching
one day and someone falls out the window asleep and dies on
the floor. I mean, he wasn't the kind of
charismatic preacher that everyone's sitting on the edge
of their seat waiting to listen to.
We read that he will say he has struggles.
He has a thorn in the flesh, which he doesn't expound on.
But many people would believe that there's some sort of
physical or mental disability that he carries at all, which
leads the church in Corinth to go.
Paul's not very impressive. Maybe his leadership, maybe his
gifting is illegitimate because God obviously doesn't like him
too much. God obviously is a cross with
him. But what does Jesus say?
What does Jesus say? In Matthew 5?
Jesus says he that is God the Father.
He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good.
He sends the rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
Jesus does good to us. When we receive good things, it
is not because we have been good, It is because Jesus is
good to us. He is not good to you because
you've earned it. He's good to you because he is
good. And you know what?
When bad things happen, yeah, sometimes bad things happen to
us because we make stupid decisions and we have to deal
with the fallout of that. But sometimes bad things happen
because we live in a fallen world which is still under the
curse and we have bodies which though one day will be
glorified, still live with the reality of sickness and death.
It's the world that we live in. But at times, I don't know if
you can, you can, you can, you can sympathise with this.
But at times, these storms, these trials, these testings
that God puts us through, they can feel beyond our ability, our
ability to endure. They can feel like we start to
question, is God really good? Is God really?
For me, however, Scripture constantly reminds us that our
sufferings are not a sign of God's displeasure.
Rather, they are an opportunity to trust in Jesus.
Does anyone feel like they're going through a storm?
You don't need to put your hands up.
Yeah. I mean, sometimes the Bible
calls it a storm. Jesus calls it storms, But
actually sometimes it's. Bible says God tests us.
Anyone. Come on, This is open to
everyone. Anyone Old Testament heroes that
were tested by gods? Abraham.
Yeah, Abraham, He's waited his whole life for a son.
He's waited his whole life for a son.
And then all of a sudden God says, you know, God says, yes, I
will give you a son. And then he has to wait several
years for that to happen. And then all of a sudden he gets
a son. And God says, I want you to
sacrifice your son to me. What's Abraham going to do?
Is he going to trust God or is he going to go his own way?
Is he going to run away from Yahweh?
Or? The Bible says actually in the
book of Hebrews that Abraham trusted God so much that he
believed that even if Isaac was to die, God was able to raise
him up to life again. Anyone else who was tested in
Scripture? Job Yes, a man who's got
everything, who's you know, who's got the family, he's got
the business, he's got the land, he's got wealth.
And then all of a sudden we get invited into God's heavenly
throne room and Satan comes and says, my paraphrase, the only
reason why Job worships you God is because his life is so good.
And God's like, OK, don't kill him, but take it all away.
Will Job curse God because everything's left his life?
Or will he trust Gods? Will he listen to his friends
that he's the problem? Will he listen to his wife who
just says curse God and die? What a wonderful woman.
No, he trusts Gods. He passed the test.
Anyone else? Oh, Mary.
Well, yeah. Well, she had to, Yeah.
I mean, she is. She has to.
There's so many with Mary. But, you know, she she is told,
this teenage girl is told you are going to give birth to the
savour of the world. And she, I mean, she was
unmarried. She was.
She'd never been with a man, but she knew in her culture how she
would have been ridiculed, how she would, how she could have
even been put to death herself. But she says glory to God, she
trusts him completely. Anyone else?
David. Does someone say, yeah, David.
I've just been reading the other day about David and what an
amazing story. Actually, David.
He's on the run from gods. No, not from gods.
He's on the run from Saul. Sorry.
And there's this amazing funny story in the book of Samuel
where Saul goes to use take a bathroom break, doesn't he?
And he goes and he goes and crouches down in a cave where
David is. And David's men are like, here's
a spear, kill him. Then you can be king and we can
get out of this place. And David says, no, I'm not
going to kill him. I'm going to let God be the one.
I'm not going to take things into my own hand.
This man may have been awful to me, but he is God's chosen.
And I will, I will take my place when God allows me to.
David has for years. He's he.
Unbeknown to most people, he is the anointed king of Israel.
But he chooses not to grab it. And actually even later on,
David has to run away from Saul and he he finds himself in the
land of the Philistines, the enemy.
He manages to trick them and they allow him to stay there.
And then all of a sudden they they plan to March on King Saul
to to take over Israel. And the king wants David to come
and, and fight with him. But all the other soldiers, they
say we don't trust David, leave him here.
And amazingly, God removes David from that battle.
And it is that battle where King Saul and his sons are killed,
which then allows David to become king.
I mean, think of Joseph. Joseph, he has a dream, doesn't
he? The whole world is going to bow
down to me. And then where's he find
himself? In a pit waiting to be sold by
his brothers, He then he, then. He then is put as a servant, as
a slave in Potiphar's house. Will he serve Well?
Yes. Potiphar's wife throws herself
at him. Will he stay pure?
Will he stay loyal to gods? Yes, he does.
What is he getting? Rewards?
He gets thrown in a dungeon. But then gods, he raises him up,
and one day he raises him up from the bottom of the bottom to
the top to one of the most important men in the entire
world. How about Shadrach, Meshach and
Abednego? I love that story.
The king of Babylon says worship, bow down and worship my
gods. And they say, no, you can kill
us, but we believe in a God who's able to rescue us.
And even if he doesn't, and that's really important line
because there are many people who've been burnt for their
faith and they weren't rescued. But they say even if he doesn't
rescue us, we will never bow the knee to your gods.
And you know the story. Amazingly, they are thrown in
the furnace. Nebuchadnezzar's guards die as
they throw them in, but they survive as as God appears in the
furnace and rescues them. You see, God does, he allows us
to go through trials. And what I want is, is for us to
not think of trials as being something that God is ski up.
They're scheming in heaven, thinking, how can I trip these
people up? How can I prove to them they're
not as special as they think they are?
Rather, I would love you to think of of trials as storms, as
as tests that we go through. This is an imperfect analogy,
but go with it as a driving instructor, OK, You're thinking
how on earth does that go with God's testing us a driving
structure? You see any of you who've learnt
to drive or maybe learning to drive, you get into a car with
someone, they teach you to drive and now what?
They don't do or mind in anyway. So I assume it's the same with
you. They don't go right, OK, you
can't drive, but I'm going to put you with the examiner who's
going to see if you can drive or not.
That's not what they do. They say, I know you can drive,
Now go and show the examiner that you can drive.
You are ready to drive. Now go and show the examiner
that you can do it. And that's what God does.
That's what God does. You see, think of Abraham.
Abraham he is, he's on the top of Mount Moriah.
And when he passes the test, God says, now I know, I know your
heart, I know that you are faithful.
Did God need Abraham to go through a test to know his
heart? No, but the next line, the next
line, it says that Abraham, he then called that place Yahweh,
Jireh. And many of you, we've heard it
is you the Lord who provides. What's it More accurately
translated, it is the Lord who will see to it.
It's the, it's not just the God who provides things.
It's the God who will make it happen.
If he said he'll do it, he will do it.
You see, the reason for Abraham going through that test wasn't
so much for God to know. Oh, now I know what Abraham's
like. No, it was so Abraham could know
more of who God was. Like, it was for that very
reason. You see, that's what trials and
storms are there for, there for us when we lean on Christ, for
us to know in a deeper way who Jesus is.
I mean, do we want to go through storms?
No. Who wants to go through a storm?
Who wants to go through a trial? No one.
But but as Paul says in this this passage, he says, but this
happened to us that we might not rely on ourselves, but on gods.
This happened so we could actually put into practise what
God has said to us. You see, Jesus tells a a story
of of two men and one builds a house on rock and the other
builds a house on sand. Both experience storms.
These promises we will all experience trouble.
We will all experience things that hurt us that we struggled
through. But the one who built his house
on the on the stone, on the rock, when the storm came, he
endured. Actually, the sense is that when
the trials come, those who build their house on Jesus, they will
endure forever. Where those who build their
house on the sand, their lives will be ripped apart.
But we know not everyone passes the test.
You know you've not always passed the test.
You know, you have not always trusted in gods that you have
not always been. And you know, you read the story
and I love the Bible how how true it is.
Because you read the stories of, of Abraham and, and, and all the
other Old Testament Saints and you see that they are messed up
people who sometimes did really well.
And in the book of Hebrews, it picks up not on all the stuff
they did wrong, not on all the times they fell flat on their
face, not the times when Abraham was going to Egypt.
He decided he was too scared that he'd tell his wife to
pretend he wasn't his wife so no one would kill him and go and
marry Pharaoh or whatever. Like he doesn't, He doesn't
share those things. In Hebrews, God remembers the
act of faith that Abraham has. And it's the same for us.
You see Peter, Peter, remember Peter, at the end, near the end
of the Gospels, Jesus says to all his disciples, you're all
going to deny me, you're all going to fail me, you're all
going to let me down. Peter says not me.
I can believe the rest of these, not woods, but not me.
I'm never going to fail you. I'm never going to let you down
Jesus, I'm always going to do exactly what you tell me to do.
And Jesus looks back at him and goes Peter, Peter, today before
the cockerel crows, you will deny me 3 times.
And then, you know, Peter's there.
He's trying to earwig on what's happening with the trial of
Jesus in the temple court. And this young woman comes up to
him. You're one of those Galileans.
No, it's not me. No, no, no, I recognise your
accent. You're with Jesus, not me.
Yeah, I'm sure I've seen you with Jesus.
I don't even know the man in curses.
And then the cockerel crows and he's broken.
I'm not perfect. I've failed.
I've failed the test. But wonderfully, when we pass
the test, we get to see Jesus in a new light.
But also when we fail, we also get to see Jesus in a new and
better light. Do you think the end of John's
gospel? It tells us that one day Peter
and the others, they're fishing and Jesus appears to him,
appears to them on the shore. Peter could have turned the boat
around and said, right, we're we're going away from here.
I don't want to see Jesus. I let him down.
I can't be in his presence anymore.
No, they turn the boat around. Peter jumps in the water.
He swims to Jesus, and Jesus forgives him.
He is reconciled with him. And not only does he do that, he
actually commissions him and sends him out to go again.
That is the mercy and grace that God shows us.
See, where are you being tested right now?
Where are you suffering right now?
I mean, this is what came through our Tyre worship.
Where are you? Where are you?
You feeling weak? I, I'd love to pray for some of
you afterwards, but I'd love just to pray for us all right
now and just take a moment just to pray for us all.
And so if you're, if you're suffering, if you feel that life
is heavy right now, if you feel like you're going through a
storm, I just encourage you, just close your eyes, hold out
your hands. It's a sign of I want to receive
from God and I'm just going to pray.
And I encourage you just to pray along with me.
And we're going to ask for Jesus help in our situations.
So Jesus God, you, you know our hearts, God, you know every
burden, every storm, every trial that we go through.
And I want to thank you for your unfailing love and your constant
presence in our lives. Lord Jesus, I want to pray.
Lord God, in those moments when we feel weak, where life feels
too heavy, I pray, Lord God, that you would give us the
strength to trust in you. Lord God, I pray that you would
fill me with your strength. I pray, Holy Spirit, that you
would fill us right now, that we would be able, that you would
enable us to be able to choose you and flee from sin.
Lord God, I pray that you would teach us to lean not on our own
abilities, but on you and your power and strength.
Amen. Amen.
How about winning? Where are you winning?
I mean, some of you, that's a really hard question, 'cause
you're like, I ain't winning anything, but are you to really
try hard? I mean, it might not be a
massive thing where you think I've just got life sorted, I'm
winning now. It might just be actually
earlier on this year I was falling flat on my face and
sinning in these areas every single time.
Now I only fall flat on my face and sin on in these areas.
Sometimes that's a win. That's you.
That's you becoming and growing more like Jesus.
So where are you winning? I just want to give a moment for
you just to think and just thank God for be, for being, for
working in your life, for that. You know, you may have never
shared the gospel with someone, but you've managed to share it
once this week with someone. That's a massive win.
Where's God? Where's God winning?
Where is he doing stuff in your life?
I just want us to take a moment just to thank him.
Yeah, Jesus, I am so grateful. I'm so grateful that even though
we fail so often that you are bringing victories in our lives.
God, I thank you for opportunities that we have taken
to share your name, opportunities to live for you.
I thank you for increased faith in this room.
God, I thank you that every trial that we have been through,
that you have carried us, Lord God, and we are able to see that
now. Lord Jesus, I pray, Lord God,
that you will help us to continue to trust in you.
Amen. All right, just one thing to end
on. You know, Paul says that Paul
says, he says praise be to the Father, the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ for our for the Father of compassion and
the God of all comfort who comforts us in our troubles.
See we can do that right now. When you are overwhelmed, when
you are in trouble, Jesus says come to me.
Paul says come to the Father. That is who I have received
help, that's who I've received comfort from.
That is who I've received love from.
But church, it doesn't end there, he says.
He says we come to you for comfort for all our troubles, so
that we can be a comfort for those in their troubles.
As we have received Gods, we can give away.
We come. We receive from God when we are
in trouble, not to keep it be like I'm OK now, but so we can
give away to those who are going through troubles themselves.
I mean, this is what he's saying.
He's saying in life we all have trouble, but don't please wallow
and mope and wail about your troubles.
Instead, come to God, come to Jesus and find comfort.
Receive grace that will sustain you so that you then can give
grace and mercy to those around you.
So you can. So you let Jesus produce good
soil in you, so you can produce good soil in others.
You see what Paul is arguing here is that in Corinth they
look to these super apostles that have got everything
together. They're smart and they're
they're intelligent and they're great speakers and they're rich
and influential. What Paul is arguing is that he
is more equipped to help produce good soil in them because he has
no trouble. He is more equipped because he
has no trouble. Church life is full of storms
and sadly many people are derailed.
Many people don't find the comfort of Jesus.
I was looking at some stats earlier on this summer and it's
said that it was talking about children who grow up in
Christian homes. And what was the difference
between children who grow up in Christian homes who leave home
in their 20s or whatever and run for Jesus, and children who grow
up in Christian homes who leave home and aren't really bothered
or aren't on fire for gods or even choose to go a different
way? What was the key factor?
They've all got Christians, their parents.
And the study said the key factor was that in these young
people's lives, as they were teenagers, as they were
children, they could count at least five adults who spoke
truth, who spoke love into them. And because of that, because of
not just their parents, because of other adults speaking truth,
speaking life, Holy Spirit, men and women feel men and women
speaking truth and love into their life.
Good soil was produced to them at such a young age that when
they left home, they flew. They flew.
That's what we want. That's what we want.
And we say, can you be that adult?
Can you be that adult now? I can.
I can think of easily five adults in my teenage lives who
not related to me, who spoke into me, who helped produce good
soil in my life. You can be that person.
Let me encourage you parents,
put good spirit filled Christians in your kids lives.
Let them speak in tonight. We've got youth group, the first
youth group back after summer. Youth group is a priority in my
house. Not because it's you have to go
to church boys. No, it's because we've got Isaac
and Lizzie who are spirit filled, wonderful human beings,
followers of Jesus. And I want my boys to spend as
much time with them as possible. I want them to spend as much
time as possible. You know, after after October,
Hannah's going to be coming back in and helping out with youth.
She is a wonderful woman, a spirit filled woman.
And I want my kids spending as much time with her as possible.
Joanne is going to be helping as well.
She I want, I want people spending time with her.
I want because the more adults who love Jesus, who spend time
with my kids, the statistics tell me, the more likely it is
that when they leave home, they are going to run full pelp for
Jesus. And I want that.
I want that. And let's just imagine, I'm not
seeing any stats on it, but let's just imagine that adults
are just the same as teenagers. That means that each one of us
probably needs a few adults who we allow speak into our lives to
produce good soil. Who is speaking into you?
Who are you allowing to speak into you?
For some of you, maybe you need to grab someone and say I want
to get together with you. Who is speaking into you?
And if it takes five adults to speak into one person, that
means each of us needs to be speaking into someone else.
We all need to be filled with the Spirit and speaking in to
others. And we think, well, I'm in
equipped. I don't know much if you saw my
life. It's a complete mess.
That's what Paul writes here in Two Corinthians.
Those of us who are the most messed up but trust in Jesus are
the most qualified to speak truth and love in to others.
So who is speaking into you and who can you speak into?
God changes us, His ideal, His love.
He loves to change us through you guys, through His Holy
Spirit filled church and his Spirit loves to work through our
brokenness. Let's pray.
Lord God, I thank you for your Holy Spirit inspired words.
I want to thank you for these words of Paul and Timothy that
have survived the, the, the, the the test of time and are just as
true for the church in Blackpool here as it is to the church in
Corinth 2000 years ago. Lord Jesus, I pray God that we
would be men and women who are filled by your Holy Spirit.
God, we will be people who long to and love to speak into one
another to help produce good soil.
God, we would turn up, we'd be around others and we would allow
others to produce good soil in US.
God, I ask you even now that you'd put on our heart people
that we can be friends, that the Holy Spirit can use to bless
through us. And I pray for people that we
may want to ask, we want to give permission to speak into our
lives right now. Lord Jesus, we thank you for all
that you are. Amen.