Jesus Knows

[0:00] Let's turn back for a few moments this evening to the chapter that we read, the letter to the Hebrews in chapter 4. We'll read again from verse 13, Hebrews chapter 4, reading from verse 13.

[0:18] And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens.

[0:32] Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

[0:48] Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

[1:03] I read some time ago about a little girl who was playing in her back garden with her daddy and as they were playing together, the little girl, she went to her dad and she asked if she could climb to the top of the hill that rose up behind her house.

[1:21] She wanted to see the view from the top of the hill. She wanted to see what the house looked like from high above it. And so he took her and they went out the garden gate and they walked to the bottom of the hill.

[1:36] But as they got to the bottom of the hill, she saw that the path was steep, that it was rough. And she said to her dad, but daddy, the path isn't smooth.

[1:51] It's too rough. It's all bumpy and stony. Of course it is, said her father. How else could we climb to the top if it wasn't? All of these stones, all of these bumps, these are the things that give us grip on the path so that we can climb this hill and so that we can get to the top.

[2:14] Otherwise, we'd just be slipping and sliding in the mud. Now for you and me, for us, we know that God works sometimes in mysterious ways to perform his wonders.

[2:27] But sometimes, just sometimes, that becomes something of a cliché for us, doesn't it? Something of maybe a meaningless, maybe an empty phrase.

[2:39] And it's true that God in his faithfulness, and it is his faithfulness, he allows affliction to come into our lives.

[2:50] He allows troubles to come down our path. And sometimes, he can even put what we think are huge stumbling blocks, he can put these things in our way.

[3:02] But for believers, if we trust in Jesus Christ, these obstacles can become stepping stones to the higher ground that he promises us of victory and of blessing.

[3:20] Often the paths that our lives take, the route that we follow in this life, they're just like that hilly path climbed by the little girl and her dad. We can be taken by surprise by all the rough places, all the difficult places, the lumps, the bumps, the rough patches.

[3:42] And sometimes it's very easy for us to forget that in everything that we face in this life, that God has a plan.

[3:53] His plan is behind everything that we encounter. And that even as we struggle, even as we strain with our grip on the path that he has chosen for us to follow, that we are just heading up.

[4:11] Now the Hebrew Christians that this letter was written to, the people that this letter was targeted at, they were having a tough time. There was persecution for the early church.

[4:23] It was a dangerous thing to proclaim that you were a follower of Jesus Christ. And many were tortured, many were killed for their faith. And because of that, their faith was a daily struggle.

[4:39] And many of them felt like giving up. They'd never known troubles like this before in their lives until they came to profess that they believed in Jesus Christ.

[4:49] They didn't realize that following Jesus could be so difficult. And that's why the writer of this letter to these first century Hebrew Jewish believers, that's why he urges them to hold fast to their confession.

[5:08] Sometimes we feel like that too, don't we? It can be difficult to follow Jesus. It can be difficult to follow the path of life that is laid out for you.

[5:19] To stick to that path. Quite often we feel like chucking in the towel, turning back, going and doing something else. And it's often through that when things get difficult, when the way gets tough, that maybe we start to look somewhere else.

[5:40] For encouragement. For help. For a quick fix. To make ourselves feel better. To help us get over the tiles.

[5:51] We look somewhere else, for something else, to something else. To lift our hearts and our minds. Instead of turning to the Lord for help. Well, let me remind you this evening, if you do need reminding, that Jesus Christ is far better than any other form of help that we can turn to.

[6:16] All of these other quick fixes that we go to, they just get in the way of us seeing that God's plan is still that His people, His saints, people like you and me, that we live by faith.

[6:34] Somewhere else in this letter to the Hebrews, in chapter 11, the writer says that without faith, it is impossible to please God. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.

[6:52] It's impossible to please God without faith. But it's easy to lose faith. It's easy to become discouraged.

[7:07] But my friends, we have to try and avoid the temptation of falling into doubt. about our faith. Well, together, this evening, I want us to look at these verses in the chapter that we read in chapter 4 to see if, within these verses, we can see why Jesus is worth our faith, why He's worthy of our faith.

[7:35] And I hope by the end of this evening, we'll be able to see that He can be trusted to fulfill any and every need that you and I have in this life. I'm speaking primarily to believers here.

[7:51] If we can trust Jesus to wash our sins away, there was a day where we came to Him for forgiveness. And we trusted Him to forgive us.

[8:03] If we can trust Him to do that, then surely we can trust Him to bring us through this life and to help us cope with life's much smaller issues.

[8:15] God has met your deepest need by providing a Savior. so we can trust Him to do everything else for us. Let's look at these verses and see why Jesus is worthy of our faith.

[8:32] Look at verse 13. I included this. Maybe it doesn't quite sit with the way that we normally read the chapter. But I wanted to include verse 13 because there's something very special in verse 13 that should be an encouragement to us.

[8:51] And it's this. God can see your path. This verse deals expressly with the idea of God's judgment.

[9:04] It reminds us that God keeps a perfect record of everything that happens, everything that transpires, everything that we think or do or say. And that one day He will execute swift, accurate, precise, personal judgment against every sinner.

[9:28] But the same ability that enables God to see all of the sins of the wicked also allows Him to see all of the steps that His children take.

[9:42] Just because He can see what the lost sinner is doing does not mean He takes His eyes off what the saved sinner is going through. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ tonight, then God is constantly watching your path.

[10:01] He's watching your walk. He's seeing your life. The Lord's eyes miss nothing. There's a great example of this in Matthew chapter 10.

[10:16] The Lord sends the disciples away. Jesus sends the disciples away in the boat out onto the sea of Galilee. And He goes away up into a mountain by Himself to pray.

[10:27] And it's dark. And as the disciples row, they find themselves in the grip of a storm. And the waves are crashing over the gunwales of the boat.

[10:41] The wind is thrashing against them. The rain. They're rowing for fear of their lives. These hardened fishermen are terrified about the situation that they're in.

[10:51] But we're also told that the Lord's eye was on them. He was miles away on top of a mountain praying, but He could see their every struggle from where He was.

[11:06] And at the depths of their despair, at the darkest part of the night, He came to them. They were struggling, but Jesus saw it all.

[11:19] He sees your trials. He sees you when you are going through the most difficult circumstances that you can imagine, the most painful steps that you have to take in your life.

[11:33] He sees you when you wrestle with the burdens that threaten to break you. He sees you. His eye is on you at all times.

[11:45] And He sees your temptations too. He sees you when Satan comes and whispers in your ear that it's alright to do this and do that.

[11:57] It's alright to give in to this or that action or thought or impulse. God sees all of that. He sees everything you wrestle with.

[12:09] And He sees your tears. He sees your brokenhearted tears. Maybe that you keep to yourself. That you hide from everybody else.

[12:21] We can hide nothing from God because we are wide open before Him. He sees you when you are at your brokenhearted worst. And the psalmists say in Psalm 56, You have put my tears in your bottle.

[12:40] Are they not in your book? God sees and God records and God knows everything. Everything that is in your life.

[12:53] and He's continually working out your path. We sang that in Psalm 37. The footsteps of a man, of a good man are ordered aright.

[13:08] And in Proverbs we're told that the heart of man plans his way but it's the Lord who establishes His steps. no matter where your life leads you, no matter what road you are taking down, you can be sure that God is in control of everything that happens.

[13:28] There's that famous verse in Romans chapter 8 that tells us that all things work together for the ultimate good of those who love God.

[13:41] look at the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. Joseph was one of 12 brothers. Joseph was a believer in God.

[13:52] Joseph was a promising if slightly precocious young man. And in his teenage years his older brothers ganged up against him and threw him in a pit.

[14:07] And they convinced their father that he'd been murdered by a wild beast. And they sold him into slavery. And he ended up down in Egypt in Potiphar's house where he was falsely accused and thrown in prison again.

[14:23] And then he was forgotten about in prison for years. What a wasted life. What a difficult providence. What a thing to have to deal with your own family.

[14:35] Not just did they turn their back on you, but they sold you. They hated you so much that they got rid of you. What did God do with all that? Out of all of that wasted life, wasted time, all of that hatred and envy, God produced the Prime Minister of Egypt, the man who saved Egypt from famine, the man who saved Israel from famine, the man who saved the family who hated him from famine.

[15:13] God orders everything right. Not everything is pleasant, but God's in charge. Look at Ruth. Ruth was born in Moab. And if you read in the Bible about somebody coming from Moab or being a Moabite, that's not a good thing.

[15:29] Moab marries young. And her husband dies, and his brother dies, and her father-in-law dies, and there's a famine, and they end up with nothing.

[15:43] And she goes with her mother-in-law, and fair play to Ruth. She doesn't listen to her mother-in-law when her mother-in-law tries to send her away. She loves her mother-in-law, and she goes with her back to Israel, where in just a very, very short time, a matter of a few weeks, she meets this man, Boaz, who looks after her, and takes care of her, and loves her, and redeems her, and marries her.

[16:11] And they have a son, and that son is David's grandfather. God plans everything in intricate, intimate, detail.

[16:25] There's no such thing as coincidence. There's no such thing as accidents for a child of God. There's only providence, that's God's plan.

[16:37] And there's only sovereignty, God's rule over everything. These are the only things that there are in your life and mine. No accidents, no coincidences.

[16:48] It's all God working. Now, admittedly, not everything that God allows into our lives is pleasant. We don't have necessarily an easy ride in this life.

[17:02] Not everything we go through is comfortable. But we have to remember that at all times, and it may be difficult for us to say this, but we have to remember that every single thing that God does is right.

[17:17] and that every single thing that God allows into our lives is part of his plan. C.S. Lewis, the writer of the Narnia Chronicles, among other things, says that whether we like it or not, God intends to give us what we need, not what we want.

[17:40] over where I live in, back up, just up behind the houses, out on the moor a wee bit, there's some small locks.

[17:52] And there was a wee boy playing with his boat at the side of one of these locks. And then a gust of wind came and carried the boat away from him, and it was out of his reach.

[18:03] And he went to go into the water, but it was too deep, it was going to come over the top of his wellies, and he didn't want to get a row from his mum. When he went home, so he started crying. He just sat down on the bank and he cried as he watched his boat being carried away.

[18:20] And then to top it all, his big brother who was out with him, he started throwing stones at the boat, and it looked like he was trying to sink it, so he started shouting at him, and yelling, why are you throwing stones at my boat?

[18:32] Stop it! And his big brother looked at him and he said, with a scorn in his voice, that only a big brother can have, he's juicer, you be quiet, you have no idea what I'm doing, watch me, I'm throwing the stones away on the far side of the boat to make waves that will push the boat back to you, trust me, I know what I'm doing, said the big brother, I've done it before.

[19:00] God knows what he's doing when he throws these stones into our lives with ripples that upset the peace that we think we have. He knows what he's doing when he sends waves into our experience that rock our boat because these waves are designed to push us closer to God, not away from him.

[19:23] God isn't cruel, God isn't a despot, he's not a tyrant, he doesn't torment his children, we're not just his playthings.

[19:36] Spurgeon said, that prince of preachers from a bygone age, he said, I have learned to love the waves that smash me into the rock of ages.

[19:52] I have learned to love the waves that smash me into the rock of ages. we'd all rather have sunshine like today, we'd all rather have sunshine and bright skies than the rain and the showers and the storms that we've had this year, this winter that's gone past.

[20:18] 110 mile an hour winds, storms for days, rain day after day after day. But imagine what our existence, what our life out here would be like if it never rained, if it never rained again.

[20:39] There's a place in South America between the range of mountains, the Andes mountains on one hand and the Pacific Ocean on the other, there's a place called the Atacama.

[20:52] And it hardly ever rains in the Atacama. can go for years, four, five, six, seven, eight years without a drop of rain. Every day the sun rises, every day it shines down, and storms can be seen up high in the mountains and the mountaintops, mist covers the mountaintops, and sometimes you can see banks of fog out on the Pacific Ocean.

[21:21] But day after day after day the sun keeps beating down on the Atacama desert, you'd think that this was a paradise. Sounds lovely, sounds perfect, idyllic, but it's a desert.

[21:38] There's no streams of water, there's nothing growing, there's no life anywhere to be seen. Too often we long for sunshine and joy perpetually in our lives.

[21:53] We want happy days, high days, good days, we want them all constantly. We want to be free from the burdens and the responsibilities and the difficulties that seem to be ours in this life.

[22:09] But a life without burdens, without trials, wonderful though it may sound, appealing though that image would be to us, these things wouldn't be creative, they wouldn't be productive, challenging, they wouldn't shape us to be like our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

[22:29] He did not suffer so that we wouldn't suffer. He suffered so that when we suffer, we would be more like Him. We need the sunshine, but we also need the showers and the storms to bring us through.

[22:47] my wife and I, we got married in 1987. And we went to Amsterdam for our honeymoon, it was my first time abroad.

[23:03] And we did a number of tours and we saw a number of sites, the Anne Frank House and some of the churches in Amsterdam. But one thing sticks in my mind.

[23:14] We visited a diamond factory. Now I'd never seen an uncut diamond before. I'd never seen a raw stone, a diamond in its natural state before.

[23:30] And when I saw one, I thought, what's all the fuss about? You wouldn't give tuppence for that. It just looked like an ordinary pebble that you would find on the beach.

[23:44] But when a craftsman, a skilled craftsman, a diamond polisher, when he picks up a stone and he looks at that stone and he knows where the beauty in that stone is and he starts holding that stone to the grindstone, he starts holding that diamond to the grindstone and there's heat and there's cutting and there's pressure and there's sparks flying.

[24:08] that's when you start to see the real deep hidden beauty that lies in that stone. And that's how it is with God's children.

[24:20] That's how it is for you and me to make us fit for his work, to reveal the beauty that's hidden in us and sometimes it's hidden so deep, to reveal that hidden beauty, he takes us through the furnaces of tiles, he puts us into the testing rooms of life, he applies pressure to us, the sparks fly, there's heat, to sanctify us, to make us holy, to reveal our weaknesses so that only his grace, his strength can put these things right.

[25:03] he shows the beauty that's hidden in us. And he's waiting at the end of your path. He sees your path, he plans your path, he's waiting at the end of your path.

[25:18] Everything that God does in your life, everything that God allows to happen in your life, that's all part of his plan to mature you as a believer, as a child of God, into the image of our older brother, his son Jesus.

[25:38] Paul says in Ephesians chapter 4 that we must all attain to the unity of faith, the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood.

[25:52] And what's that? To the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. That's what he's doing to you in this life. That's why he's shaping you, that's why these things are in your life, difficult though they may be, so that you will trust in him and love him, so that you will rest in his strength, not yours, because his desire that we will decrease, so that he increases.

[26:26] And he senses our pain. look at verse 15. Verse 15, we're told that we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

[26:44] There's a double negative there. We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize. The double negative there, makes a strong positive statement about the Lord's power.

[27:03] A negative in maths and counting and arithmetic, a negative multiplied by a negative makes a positive. And that's what happens here. This is a strong positive statement about the power that the Lord has.

[27:19] He feels our pain. In Acts chapter 9, we read about how Saul of Tarsus was converted, how he met with Jesus on the road to Damascus.

[27:30] He had persecuted the church, he said himself, that he had tried to waste the church, he tried to wipe the church out. The last thing that he wanted was to be converted.

[27:46] And when we read about Saul, the last thing that we think he deserves was to be converted. it. But here on the road to Damascus, he meets with Jesus.

[27:58] And the words that Jesus uses when he speaks to Paul are very, very particular. They're very specific. He doesn't say to him, why are you persecuting my church?

[28:09] Why are you persecuting these believers? Why are you persecuting these people? He says, why are you persecuting me?

[28:23] Jesus stands beside his people in the pain and the suffering that they were going through at the hands of this man. And just as he felt the pain for all of those people in the first century, he feels your pain today.

[28:39] And when you have a need in your life, when you have a burden that's too much for you to bear, heaven is moved to take care of it. Jesus knows what you feel and he loves you and he stands beside you and he helps you bear it.

[29:02] And he understands our problems. Somebody asked me some time ago, he was saying, how on earth can Jesus know what I'm going through?

[29:12] He's perfect. He's way off up in heaven. How can he possibly feel and understand what I feel when I'm tempted to sin and to drink and to go off the rails?

[29:25] How can he understand that? Well, Jesus knows what human beings, what you and I, he knows what we feel because he lived a human life.

[29:39] He lived an ordinary human life. He experienced the same trials and hardships that we experience. In Matthew chapter 4, Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness.

[29:59] And the three ways that the devil tempted him, if you look at the essence, if you look at the nature of the temptations that were put in front of Jesus' way, you'll see that he was tempted in exactly the same areas that we're tempted in today.

[30:16] He'd gone 40 days without food. His appetite was desperate to be satisfied. He was lusting for food. His body wanted, it ached for food, and the devil tempted him by saying, turn these stones into bread.

[30:34] And there was the pride and power, the pride through yourself. off the temple, and the angels will come and bear you up.

[30:47] Show who you are. There was pride, the temptation of pride, and there was the temptation of power and possessions. I'll give you everything that you can see, says the devil, conveniently forgetting that everything that he could see was already the Lord's anyway.

[31:07] But the three areas in which Jesus was tempted are exactly the same areas that we are tempted in to sin and to fall today. And actually there's a school of thought that says that Jesus' temptations may have been more severe than yours or mine because of the fact that he was sinless.

[31:30] But he wasn't just sinless. He was actually incapable of sinning. He had a hatred, sin, he had a repugnance, he had an abhorrence of sin that's difficult for us to fully understand.

[31:47] So coming to face to face with sin was something awful for Jesus. And so he knows about sin, he knows about the pitfalls of sin, he knows about the temptations to sin.

[32:01] And he can help you when you are tempted. He can give you the strength to overcome because he overcame. sin. And he understands poverty, he understands need.

[32:11] This is the king of kings. This is the ruler of the universe, the creator of heaven and earth. But this is also the Jesus who said foxes have holes, birds have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.

[32:29] When they came and asked him about paying the temple tax, he didn't have any coins, he didn't have any money with which to pay the tax, so he sent Peter to go and take the first fish, that he found and the two pence that he would find in his mouth that he would take and pay the tax for Jesus and for Peter.

[32:47] He knows what it's like when the ends won't meet, no matter how far you stretch them. He understands need, he understands poverty, he understands difficulty, and he's able to offer you the help and the support during these times.

[33:04] and he understands grief. Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus and the Jews as they looked at him said, look, look at how he loved him.

[33:20] Jesus knows exactly what it's like to lose somebody that you love. So he can help you when you come to these points in your life, when you feel times of loss.

[33:34] Jesus understands human heartbreak, and he understands loneliness. As he prayed in Gethsemane, the night on which he was betrayed, as he prayed in Gethsemane, the disciples that he took with him, to pray with him, to pray for him, what did they do?

[33:54] These great warriors of the faith, they fell asleep, they left him alone. Peter, the disciple who was there in Pilate's palace as he was being falsely accused, as he was being beaten and whipped, what did Peter do?

[34:13] Did he stand up for him? No, Peter denied him. I've got nothing to do with this man. He left his Lord alone. Jesus knows what it's like to have no one around who understands what he's going through.

[34:29] he knows what it's like to hurt alone. He knows how to help you, how to lift you, how to support you in these times of bitter loneliness too. And he understands rejection.

[34:44] He knows what it's like to have a whole world turn its back on you. He knows what it's like to struggle alone. Many of his followers, they left him when his teaching got too tough for them.

[35:00] And he even turned to his disciples and he said, will you also go away? But Jesus knows something.

[35:12] He knows what it's like to face something that I hope and I pray with every ounce of my being that nobody inside this building tonight will ever experience.

[35:24] Jesus. Because Jesus knows what it's like to have God the Father turn his back upon him. He knows what it's like to have God forsake him.

[35:38] My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? God, he went through all of that so that he could help you when you face the difficult times that come in your own life.

[35:57] There's nothing that you are going through or will go through or have gone through that he cannot support you in. And he can solve your problems.

[36:11] Look at verse 16 there. Confidently coming near to a throne of grace. The Lord gives mankind an open invitation to come to himself to help get through this life.

[36:25] This is not an easy life. Why is it then that when Jesus should be a first resort, he should be a first port of call when things go wrong, that he's our last?

[36:40] We're so guilty of trying everything else before we seriously get on our knees before him and look for help from him. We try worry as if that's going to change anything.

[36:54] We try pity. We try self-effort. And it's only when all of these things fail and we don't get anywhere with these things that we go to Jesus and we look to him for the help that we could have received long, long, long, long before.

[37:14] Do you know that in the Word, in Philippians, there's set out God's plan for you and for me in times of trouble? It's very clear.

[37:28] Philippians chapter 4, we're told this, do not be anxious about anything, do not worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

[37:44] And what? So what? And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Jesus Christ.

[38:00] Peace that doesn't bear explaining on human terms. I know of a man with a young family and a young wife and a newly built house and he was dying and he was dying with a smile on his face and his wife said to him, why?

[38:24] How can you die with that smile on your face when you're leaving me and the child and the house behind? How can you do that? and he said to her, if you knew the Lord like I knew the Lord and if you loved him like I love him then you would see, you would know how he can help you through all of these things.

[38:54] A peace that passed understanding. so let's with confidence draw near to this throne of grace.

[39:09] In ancient days those who had thrones, kings, rulers, they had absolute power, absolute sway over the issues of life and death for their people.

[39:22] And earthly kings were powerful, maybe not so much today but they were powerful. but all of their power. Even if you take it all together and combine it into one thing, it's nothing next to the power of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[39:38] How's that? Well because the power of a king is only as great as the power of the kingdom behind him. And look at the power that Jesus has behind him.

[39:53] He has the power to cleanse. In 1 John chapter 1 we're told if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from all sin.

[40:06] Look at that power there. And he has power to meet your needs. Again in Philippians 4 my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches and glory.

[40:19] He can meet your needs. He has the power to heal. Too many times in the gospels for me to list. He heals the soul not just the sickness of the person that's brought him whether it's blindness or leprosy or whatever but he heals the soul as well as the body and he has power to lift your load.

[40:45] See what he says. Come to me. All you who labor are all you who struggle who are heavy laden who are bowed down with his life's burdens I will give you rest.

[41:01] And his power he has all power. He says that himself. All power is given to me in heaven and on earth. And everything is summed up in the words of Paul in Ephesians chapter 3 where he's speaking about Jesus says he is able to do more abundantly than we can ask or think.

[41:25] He is able. And our promise, his promise to us is that when we come to him in faith, when we come to him looking for help, when we come to him when we're at our wit's end, we can do no more, we can go no further, our hearts are breaking.

[41:45] then we will find all that we need to meet the needs of our heart and our life. He will give us exactly what we need because it's your father's good pleasure, it's your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

[42:10] Look at what Spurgeon said again. he says, I have all things and abound, not because I have skill, not because I have wit with which to win my bread.

[42:24] He says, it's not about me, that's not how I have everything, that's not how I abound, but because the Lord is my shepherd.

[42:39] His power is still enough, His power is still sufficient. It's still enough for everything that we need. It's still enough for forever.

[42:51] Have you been tempted to lose faith? Does it seem that the load that you've been called to bear, whatever it is, maybe you've shared it with others, maybe you've kept it in the secret of your heart, maybe it's just too heavy at times.

[43:08] maybe Satan, maybe other people, maybe your circumstances, maybe how rough the road is getting, the path, the rough, the obstacles, maybe all of these things, sometimes it feels like they're working together, and they make you feel like giving up, just throwing in the towel, you've had enough, no more.

[43:31] don't give up. Hold fast your confession, come to Jesus again, you've come to him before, come to him again, and again, and again, and again, because he is ready, he is willing, he is able to give you all that you need to get you through whatever it is that you're faced with.

[43:56] Because if you trust Jesus with your problems, with your trials, with your burdens, if you trust him with these things in faith, he will never fail you.

[44:09] Let him have his way in your life, let him rule in your hearts, and in your minds, and in your soul, and in your life, and you will find that he is enough.

[44:21] He is all that you will ever need. Amen. Let's pray. Eternal father, what can we say to you, oh lord, who guides our way?

[44:38] Accept that we need your guidance, we need your love, we need your shaping, we need you to order our ways, our right, we need you to see our paths, and we need you when we labor, when we're heavy laden, when we're burdened, when we're bowed down with sorrows, we need you, father.

[45:05] Every hour we need you. Help us to see that you are enough, you are all that we need, and help us to be satisfied in you, and to see that you are worthy of our love, and our faith, and our trust, because you are bringing us home.

[45:25] Bless us now, part us with your blessing, and bring us safe together again, if that be your will, for Jesus sake, amen. Let's sing together, Psalm 23, the Sing Psalms version, page 28, in the psalm books, we'll sing the whole of the psalm together, the Lord is my shepherd, no want shall I know he makes me lie down where the green pastures grow, he leads me to rest, where the calm waters flow, so surely your covenant mercy and grace will follow me closely, in all of my ways, I will dwell in the house of the Lord, all my days, Psalm 23, the whole of the psalm together to God's praise from the beginning, the Lord is my shepherd, no want shall I know.

[46:20] The Lord is my shepherd, no want shall I know, he makes me light down where the green pastures grow, he leads me to rest where the calm waters flow, my wandering steps he brings back to his way, his great paths of righteousness making me stay, and this he has done his greatness to display, though I walk in death's valley where darkness is here, because you are with me no evil lies fear, your old and your suffering me comfort and cheer, in the sight of my enemies how they will spread, the oil of rejoicing you pour on my head, my cup overclosed and I'm graciously fed, so surely your covenant and mercy and grace will follow me closely in all of my ways,

[48:20] I will dwell in the house of the Lord all my days. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit abide with us all now and forever more.

[48:39] Amen.