Our Church Is Bigger Than You Think

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A sermon by Adam Barcott

Septemer 29, 2019

Dear heavenly father, we thank you for your provision this week. We thank you for your faithfulness and your love for us. We thank you for your word and we thank you that we’re here today. We recognize that every good and perfect gift is from you. And we ask that you would settle our hearts, our minds and root us in the gospel and the good news of Jesus Christ. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

So let’s begin with our prayer of confession on page D. As an ordained minister of the Gospel I am authorized to announce the Forgiveness of Sins to all who ask in Jesus Name, and ask if you believe that to be true, this is for your comfort and God’s glory. I will announce this to you in this prayer, at the preaching of the word, and in the Lord’s supper. However I want you to memorize that part of absolution so that when you’re praying during the week, you can say it out loud to yourself as the voice of God. You understand? It is important to hear God’s word to you a poor sinner who longs to be made right in Jesus Christ.

Let’s stand together for this. So as we put ourselves in the mindset, we engage in a repentance by saying.. Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against thee in thought word and deed. By what we have done and by what we have left undone. Almighty God in his mercy has given his son to die for you and for his sake, forgives you all your sins.

Lord, apply this to our hearts. Holy spirit, you bring this absolution back to our minds throughout the week. Whenever we’re repenting or feeling foolish or out of control, I pray that we might rest in your direct means of grace through confession, and absolution. Thank you for forgiving us. It’s in Jesus name. Amen.

Today we’re gonna we’re going to do something a little interactive before we sing. Today is St. Michael’s and all Angels day. Because we are following the Church calendar that has been aroung for hundreds of years we get to be reminded of things maybe we don’t think about all the time, yet are an important part of our Christian reality and expression. So today’s focus is on victory we have in Christ and the fact that we’re living this life with Christ and his angels. So I’m going to read Psalm 91 to get us started.

Verse says; “for he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways on their hands. They will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against the stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent, you will trample under foot because he holds fast to me in love. I will deliver him. I will protect him because he knows my name. When he calls to me, I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and honor him with long life. I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.”

What I want you to do now is to turn to somebody and say, the angels rejoice over you and I’m glad you’re here. Can you say that the angels rejoice over you and so do I. glad you’re here. Go ahead. The angels rejoice over you! I’m glad you’re here.

You did it right. The angels rejoice over you and so do I, and I’m glad you’re here. Hey Mr. Sound guy. The angels rejoice over you and I’m glad you’re here. The angels rejoice. Every time there’s creation, the angels rejoice. The angels are rejoicing over you. Heaven rejoices over you. And so we should rejoice over each other and we rejoice over Christ and what he’s done. Let’s turn to number seven in our song book and sing, And can it be. While you’re going there, consider this line from the song, “TIS mystery all the immortal dies, who can explore his strange design? In vain the firstborn seref tries, to sound the depths of love divine.” You know what that means? It’s talking about the seref who are angels that worship God. And that the plan of redemption was not always known to the angels. They were looking into the love of Christ. But his love is so deep that there’s still mystery for them. The angels are created beings. So when you sing that part, realize you’re singing that the angels are also created to worship God and that they’re looking into God and being saved and nurtured and loved just as we are. And so God’s amazing love is for heaven and earth, angels and humans, that’s what this stanza means. Every once in a while it’s good to recognize what we’re singing. It’s often a forgotten part of our existence because we can only think about what’s in front of us and what we see. But as Christians, there’s more to that. There’s more than what we see. Lets celebrate all of God’s creation, his angels, his humans and the Christ who rules and reigns over all in love, grace and mecy! What great love!

Today’s Gospel readingg is located in Luke chapter 10 verse 17 through 20. It’s found on page 500 if you’re following along in the Bible provided. These are the words of Jesus.

Luke 10:17-20The 72 returned with joy saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. And he said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

This is the reading of God’s word. Praise be to God!

Now follow me to Revelation chapter 12 verse 7 through 12, it’s found on page 599 if you’re following along with the provided Bibles. And just a reminder as we approach this pericope, Revelation is a vision given to John by God to testify to the heavenly reality of things now and to come, so it’s languistic patterns follow that of apocalyptic literature. Meaning that things are not to be taken literlly but represent ideas and major movements of God now and not yet. Revelation is a vision intended to comfort God’s people as they gloriously have been raised to life in their baptism but await the final judgment and salvation of our coming Lord Jesus Christ.

We find today’s reading in the middle of a vision where the church has given birth to God’s son and he has been delivered from the Satan waiting to destroy the baby, then the church has been given deliverenc and shelter in the wilderness for a prescribed amount of time. The verses we are considering are revealing the rest of the story in heaven.

Revelation 12:7-12Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon and the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down that ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth and his angels were thrown down with them. And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they love, not their lives, even unto death. Therefore rejoice. Oh heavens and you who dwell in them. But woe to you o earth and sea for the devil has come down to you in great wrath because he knows that his time is short.”

This is the reading of God’s word. Praise be to God!

So here we are. Revelation again. It ought to always be a book of comfort. It’s a book of comfort, not confusion. It wasn’t written to confuse. It was written to show us the victory of God, the victory of Christ. And so when John sees these visions, he is seeing spiritual realities happening and he doesn’t know exactly what time they happened. But these are spiritual realities that apply to our earthly reality. So the comfort here today is the victory of Christ. And what that victory means for us is that our church, our lives, what we do is way bigger than you think We live in a world where if it’s bigger, it’s better. There’s more people, it’s more successful. If there’s more money, it’s better. There’s more land, it’s better if there’s more, more, more, better, better, better. Right?

So we look at ourselves and notice… I’m lacking. I’m deficient. I don’t have a lot. So that’s a failure. We can agree on that…. the word of God says you Christian are a part of something huge, and today we tap into that just a little bit. You’re part of something bigger than this earth. You’re part of heaven and earth. You’re part of something bigger than just humans. We are in coordination and working with angels and humans. You’re part of something called the church, which is victorious in expelling Satan from the earth. That’s what we’re a part of.

It’s big, but maybe you don’t realize how big because we live in a world that says, unless you’re doing something that we can see as big you don’t really matter. But we live in a culture that quietly says if you’re an unwanted baby, we should kill it. If you’re old or you’ve been paralyzed or rendered useless, our current culture will decide your value and might eliminate you. You only matter if the world says you matter. So how do you know you matter? If I don’t do something good, I could be exterminated. This is the culture we are up against every day as we go here and there.

Downtown, I drive by an electrical box that someone has painted on, (cause they do cool things like that downtown) and it says “you matter”. At first I thought… that’s nice. But I have started to wonder, to a culture where there is no God and your only value is making someone’s life better or contributing, why does anyone matter? Your only value is based on what other people think so how do you matter without God? Because the only way you can matter is if someone cares about you. So maybe another human can matter to a person, family and friends. But big picture, if there is no God, you don’t matter. You are a speck of dust, you’re going to be worm food, and your legacy will slowly be forgotten. I’m just trying to maintain a consistent philosophy of life apart from God, because I believe life is better with Jesus and you actually do matter to the creator of the universe.

So you are up against a world that does not believe in God, and will mock you for believing in angels. You and I believe in angels. In fact, I saw a clip of a famous show where the main character is making fun of America for being stupid. He says, a lot of Americans still believe in angels to prove his point and everyone laughs. I’m just telling you the situation, we believe in angels, but we live in a world that doesn’t know anything about value and then has the nerve to take the position of God by saying, Oh you matter. Why are you lying to me? How do I matter? Why? Did I do something for you? This is the negative part, but I’m setting it up to show you the truth, which is when I say you matter, I say it cause God says you matter. And it’s true. He has all this proof to back it up. All He has done is pour out his grace and mercy to say…you matter.

So when God created the earth, he created the heavens and the earth. This is what we talked about on our Tuesday nights, but I’ll catch everybody up. We always just think God created the earth. No, he created the heavens and the earth. He created angels, seraphim and cheribum him are always worshiping God on our behalf. Angels are ministering the word of God to heaven and earth. God created them, then created humans on the earth. This is God’s full order of creation, heaven and earth together, God and man, angels and humanity working together. Beautiful. No death, no dying. That’s the order He created. But one of the angels, Satan, rebelled. And so what we find out when we start looking into the whole created order is that there is a war. Did you know there’s a war? We are in the middle of war? You didn’t know that? Because we only care about what we see down here, and we’re not currently in a war, but we’re Christians. And the Bible says there’s a war. Satan has waged a war.

So guess what happens in wartime? Does it matter if you win or lose war? Like if we’re at war? How does it matter if we win or lose? Why would you care if we were in the middle of a war? Because you want to live! All of a sudden it matters who’s going to win that war. You’ll work together. You try to survive because there’s a war. We don’t believe there’s a war and God’s reminding us there’s a war and it’s already started. It started in heaven.

I was thinking about Schindler’s list. So during world war II, Oskar Schindler saves 1200 Jewish people from being killed by the Nazis. 1200. Why does that matter?

The only reason it matters is because the Nazis lost the war because the right side won the war. If the Nazis had won the war, would it have mattered, he had 1200 Jews working in his factory. No, they just would have been exterminated later.

So the war matters. The war matters. Therefore, who wins the war matters. And guess what? The first phase of the war has been won, which means every little Christian thats saved in this little room right now matters because we win the war. There’s a safe place for us. You matter. That’s why there’s a war. So who’s fighting the war? A lot of times we think God and Satan are fighting. But just to set your mind straight, Satan’s in a different class than God. He can’t fight God. God is the uncontested creator of the universe. He created angels and humans. And so Satan doesn’t try to fight God because Satan doesn’t want to be God there. Satan wants the earth. He can’t understand why he put weak people like us in charge of it. So who does Satan fight?

First, who does he fight? Angels. So it says in our passage now a war arose in heaven. Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon and his angels. Satan. See, Satan fights against angels. He will fight against us too. He fights the angels and he’s fighting for the earth to get us. And he’s fighting for a place in heaven. You know why? He’s fighting for a place in heaven because Jesus was born. He died. He Rose again from the dead. And this is key. He ascended. You know He ascended to the right hand of God the father almighty. He ascended into the heavenlies and at his Ascension, Satan is kicked out.

You’re outta here. You can’t be here anymore. So one of the things we discussed in small groups is was the hierarchies, the spiritual realities where there’s a divine council. And did you know God could handle having good angels and bad angels in his heaven, where he dwells? Over and over again in the scriptures, God is asking for an an evil spirit that would go to that person and an evil spirit steps up? Yeah, I’ll go. Because there’s good and bad spirits up there, right? It’s not God saying that he is evil, he’s dealing with the fall of angels up there. Remember the scene in Job, where Satan is going before God saying, Hey, I think Job’s a bad guy. Let me at him. You ever wonder how did Satan just go before God? Because God can handle having good and bad around him and he can handle working it out and hoping for their redemption. He can handle it. He’s God, it’s not threatening him. Satan is not threatening him. He’s threatening God’s creation and he’s already stolen from us and our inheritance of this earth.

So Satan is in heaven. But when Jesus dies and raises again and has ascended, that’s when it’s like, all right Satan, it’s time for you to get outta here. You can’t try to kill my son and still have a seat at the table. So he kicks out Satan. That’s what this whole passage is, the expulsion of the Dragon from Heaven. Verse 8 he was defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down. The ancient serpent who is called the devil, the Satan, he’s thrown to the earth. Does that make sense? And here’s why that’s important. Because now heaven is set apart for the people who trust in Christ. They can go to a safe place where there isn’t an accuser. Where there is no more death.

The angels fought that for us. And so we say thank you. You cleared out heaven for us. And you start to realize that we’re a part of not just this earth, but we’re part of heaven too. So heaven has already been defeated. Thank you God. But then you realize what the angels have actually ministered to us by defeating Satan, allowing Jesus to ascend to the throne of God. Is that we are now represented properly in heaven.

So we live in a what’s called a cancel culture, right? So let me give you an example. It’s very satanic. Our culture right now, is a cancel culture. They can cancel you for anything and they will try to, this is a story I heard this week about a football game last weekend. A young man held up a sign. It said need beer money. Venmo me at and it was a nationally televised game and so people all over the country were just sending small amounts of money to his Venmo account. So for us older people, it’s a way to electronically send money over the invisible wires and the guy, this 22 year old guy makes $1 million dollars. Yes, it’s probably going to start happening a lot more now. I was thinking about just going to a game and doing that, but I don’t know how to figure out Venmo.

So he makes $1 million. But guess what he does? He says, this is the university of Iowa I’m going to give the money to the cancer research, the children cancer research center in Iowa. Wow. I’m going to give it all. Amazing. So that happened like on a Saturday, and then Monday, guess what happened? Anniehuiser Busch says we’re going to match whatever you give, we’re with you. And then guess what happened? Tuesday, someone said, we saw that when you were 16 years old, you tweeted a racist comment… And then what happened? Anniehuiser Busch says, we have nothing to do with this guy, he’s bad. And everyone says boo, and the kids get some money for cancer.

So this guy, did a good thing and then he got to enjoy it for like a day…before being canceled. Nothing you can do is good because you said horrible hate-filled things at one point in your life and you made the mistake of writing it down. That’s cancel culture, right? Cancel whatever good you’ve done, because it is no good. That is the work of Satan. Day and night he sat up in the throne room of God making a perfect case against all of us. Oh, they worshiped you today. Look at he worshiped you. She did this, but did you look what she said? Look what she said in the car. Talk about a racist. Oh, look what she thought. Look what he thought. Look what they did. God, they say they love you, but then all day long Satan is canceling every good thing you can ever do. That’s why you can’t trust your good works. It can be canceled legally. They can find a reason, to wipe it away and accuse you.

But the victory we’re celebrating is that the angels defeated Satan, the accuser, the one who spends day at night accusing you before God. He is now out of the courtroom. He’s been deposed and who has taken his place? Jesus. And what does Jesus do? He intercedes on your behalf day and night. He says, I love my children. These are your children, Lord. So at Jesus’ baptism, he gets the spirit of God. The spirit descends on him and the voice of God says, this is my son with whom I am well pleased. When we are baptized, the spirit of Jesus descends upon us and we get the voice of God just like is said to Jesus. You are my child with whom I am well pleased. And so Jesus now is before God saying forgive them. Yeah, they tweeted some bad things, but look at their hearts. I saved them by my blood on the cross.

Look at the good. Jesus is actually doing that for us now. And this is because the angels are fighting in heaven on our behalf to make that possible. And so they’re rejoicing now because all the charges have been dropped against us in the real heavenly court. And the only thing that exists now is Satan thrashing on earth. And now it’s just accusations. There is no courtroom. It’s just nonstop death throws. He’s in his death throws. And so he’s trying to accuse you till you give up or your reputation gets hurt or you lose things. But guess what? Jesus said this would happen. And he said, blessed are you when they falsely accuse you. Blessed are you. The early church is accused of being atheist because they don’t worship all the gods, or they’re accused of being cannibals because they’re eating the body and blood of Christ. They’re accused of being bad citizens. Blessed are you when falsely accused because the prophets were accused. Jesus was accused. But here’s the real good news, and this is what the angels rejoice about. We rejoiced that the angels have fought for us and with us. We rejoice in the work of Jesus Christ. And now he’s representing us, but they’re rejoicing in the church.

Look at verse 11 … it switches. Michael is fighting this battle with his angels. He defeats Satan, but then it says something about the church…and they have conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they love, not their lives even unto death. Do you know who the they is? The church. They.

So now Satan is battling against the church. We’re in a war. He wants to discredit us to discourage us, to stop us because we’re getting the inheritance and in his mind we don’t deserve it. And in our mind we say, yeah, we don’t deserve it. Jesus deserves it. But how do we conquer? The blood of the lamb.

Check this out. Jesus says, rejoice that your name is written in the Lamb’s book of life. We conquer the enemy, not by the miracles that we do, not by all the demonic people we clean out, not by all the good things we do. How do we defeat? How do we gain the victory on earth and eventually expel Satan from even earth? We confess the blood of the lamb. Wer’e the people who say, thank you Jesus, for saving me. The passage goes on to say by the word of their testimony. We say, Jesus saves. He forgives you. Wer’e the opposite of cancel culture. We’re cross culture. We’re the people who say, yeah, one of our great guys, Paul, he used to kill us, but now he writes amazing things because God forgave him and we forgive him. And so even when you have bad things in your past, you can still be useful and good, under our King. You’re not held accountable for every mistake. Jesus takes that for us. We have the word of testimony and then we’re the kind of people who die for this. We have martyrs. So there’s the testimony of the martyrs, all the church from 2000 years and before that are in heaven now testifying to us. This is all real. You all are part of this . You’re a small little group there, but we are huge up here and we’re waiting for you. The angels are saying, we’re so happy. You’re defeating Satan by your confession of faith.

And by your death. That’s it.

So we’re the kind of people who go, I give up things. I enter into baptism and die with Christ and expect resurrection. I’m looking at death to life instead of life being scared of death. We began with death. Angels are rejoicing, the martyrs, the people, all the Christians who’ve gone before rejoicing, God is rejoicing and we’re rejoicing and being a part of this and I want you to know that Christ has died he Rose and he will come again and we are currently at war. So when you look around and you go, why are bad things happening? I’m trying to do everything right? Because you’re in a war. You can try do everything right in a war and you still get bombed. So you reset your mindset. Your mindset has to be like, angels continue to defend us. Thank you. I will continue to confess Christ and ask that you protect us and I will continue to hold onto the story of Christ and i’m not going to let it go. I’m going to forgive others. I’m going to pray for others. I’m not going to cancel people out. This is how we win the war. And then we long for Christ come again, come back. Because what is Christ doing? He’s praying in his prayer. The very one which we will pray today. Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

See, this whole thing is not just earth and it’s not just up in heaven. It’s heaven and earth together. This is God’s created order that he’s restoring. That’s why angels are involved. That’s why we’re involved. So today, rejoice that your names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. Rejoice that we’re not alone. The angels are fighting on our behalf. Rejoice that the church is not just a group of people here and now, it’s something for over 2000 years, something eternal that when we worship now, we gather around the word of God, where the veil between heaven and earth is lifted. Do you know that? I know it doesn’t feel that way if we just look and touch and feel, but I’m telling you when we gather and worship, where two or more gathered the veil between heaven and earth lifts and God says, I’m there. My spirit is here. I’m delivering to you the means of grace that you need. Believe this and trust it and be nourished. We don’t always feel that, but I’m telling you it’s true. It’s what’s happening. That’s why you can’t kill the church.

That’s why I got into this business. The church is recession proof! No one can kill the church because we conquer by our little faith. It might seem so silly and small and you can’t prove it to sceptics, but we are victorious. He’s already won. He’s winning now and all we’re doing is believeing it. I love you Lord. That’s good news.

Your name is written in the Lamb’s book of life. He says, before you ever do anything, you are my child with whom I’m well pleased. I already love you. I don’t care about what you do. You’re going to walk into the stuff I have for you because you’re my child. Victorious. Praise God. Praise God. And that’s why we give Jesus all the wealth and all the wisdom and all the power and all the might and all the glory and all the honor and all the blessing. That’s why we gave it to him. He knows what to do with it.

Dear Heavenly Father thank you. I’m so glad that it’s always more than meets the eye with you and that we’re a part of a huge movement to save the earth. You have saved it by your blood. We confess our sins and they can no longer be held against us. Christ you have forgiven us. And we worship and carry this message now and forever. And so may you prepare our hearts and our minds to receive the victorious body and blood of Jesus Christ. We ask. In Jesus Name Amen.

So one of the ideas I came across this last week as we were doing our small group, we’re talking about the Holy spirit and how the Holy spirit creates, and there’s a verse in Corinthians that says, no one can say Jesus Christ is Lord apart from the Holy spirit. So even when you say Jesus Christ is Lord just saying that. Know, that is an act of the Holy spirit. You know, we just think, Oh, I said that. I believe it. But that is an act. The Holy spirit is creating faith in you and you are confessing. And that’s one of the ways we conquer, say Jesus Christ is Lord. And so, as we were going to say, the Apostle’s creed, it’s one of the reasons I’ve been doing that this year is because it gives us an opportunity, whether you understand it a lot or you don’t know what’s going on, the Holy spirit is still filling you to say these words regardless of the degree of intellectual assent, you’re actually conquering Satan by confessing, I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe in God the father. That’s huge. That is more powerful than you think.

So let’s stand and allow the Holy spirit to use us right now in front of each other in the most powerful way by confessing what it is that we believe.

So what is it, Christian, that you believe? I believe in God, the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord who was conceived by the Holy spirit, born of Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day, he Rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the father almighty. From there, he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy spirit, the Holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Amen. You may be seated.

And so we respond by confessing and then making our lives about carrying this story. So we have an opportunity. to create the space to go, God, what do you want? And so that’s what the offering is. The chance to just worship God by going, everything I have is a gift. And I’m with you and I want your word to continue, your confession to continue on earth as it is in heaven to continue to defeat evil in death. So Lord, as we, we often give online, or are we give at other times, whatever we can give now or even just the moment to say, Oh, what should I give to you? It’s a good muscle to exercise, Lord. And so I pray that we would become more and more sensitive to what your will is, what your desires are, what you’re doing, and as your spirit ministers to us the reality that we are the safest when we’re close to you, that we are the strongest when we’re close to you, that we have the most hope and the most meaning when we are with you.

And so we align our hearts, our minds, our talents, our treasures, all that stuff we align with you and ask that you’re will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. In Jesus name. Amen.

So before, as we get into the Lord’s supper, I do want to pray the Lord’s prayer. It’s on page C. This is the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples and start to notice how Jesus prays with the spiritual reality over everything.

Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Amen.

So we’re prepared for the meal. The night that Jesus was betrayed again, he’s like, you don’t fully understand what I’m doing because I’m not just operating here on earth. I’m representing heaven and earth. There’s a lot going on and so I’m going to pay for everything you owe.

And so the night that he’s betrayed, he takes the bread. He says, this is my body broken for you. In the same way. He takes the cup and he pours it, he blesses it. And he says, this is my blood for the forgiveness of sins. It’s a new covenant. I’m restoring your inheritance. You’re going to have victory over Satan because I’m dying. I’m taking away death. And that’s the only card Satan has is death, the ending of things. And that’s been thrown out and now you are incorporated into the body of Christ. The blood of Christ is yours. And now the church is the body of Christ. So we have this great knitting together, this unity with one another because we’re the people who forgive and with Christ, he’s the God who forgives.

So if you believe this in the same way that we do, we invite you to come and receive, and many of you have and you know what’s going on. So I look forward to sharing this with you. Father, bless this meal. We know that it’s a small, like a little sample size of a real big feast coming, but we apply your word to this bread and this wine, things that you created. But we apply by faith, the word of God to it and your word creates. And so make this into the life giving body and blood of Christ, the victorious unity that we have with you now and forever. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

When we worship God He is pleased. The Bible says over and over He’s just really happy whenever we get together around Him and his word, so happy that he promises to show up everytime. So right now you can be assured that God’s really pleased and the angels are rejoicing and singing around and dancing too. Know by God’s word, that you’re a part of that. Okay? Promise me you’ll know that. Receive God’s blessing.

May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord shine his face upon you and give you grace. May he look upon you with favor and give you peace, his peace now and forever. Amen.