1. "All your most weighty decisions depend on what story you think you're living in and what part of the story it is."

2. "God cares far more about how you listen to his word and how you treat the vulnerable than whether you fast or feast."

3. "You have a choice whether to let God's word work on your heart like a carving tool to shape it into the character that God requires. And of course, God's word can't be broken. But if you harden your heart against God's word, eventually it will be God's word of judgment that breaks you."

4. "Don't think that God will listen to your prayers if you do not listen to his word. Don't think that you can refuse to worship God and then demand that he serve you. Don't think that you can ignore God when you like and then use him when you want."

5. "God's commitment to you does not strengthen or waver because your commitment to him strengthens or wavers. God's devotion to you does not depend on but creates your devotion to him."

6. "God is our lavish creator and our consistently good ruler. Yet we've all rebelled against him. We've all earned a curse rather than a blessing. But Christ came to give his life on the cross and rise again in order to bear our curse and bestow on us his blessing."

7. "The God who created the universe can remake the universe. The God who gave you life can raise you from the dead. If God is who the Bible says he is, if he is the creator of all things, then nothing is too hard for him."

8. "The God who gave you yourself in creation is more than willing to give you himself in redemption."

9. "For all who are in Christ, God's last word over guilt is forgiveness. God's last word over shame is glory. God's last word over loneliness is satisfaction in him forever. God's last word over loss is new creation. God's last word over death is resurrection."

10. "A life of repenting and devoting yourself to what God says is right. A life that escapes from the strangling grasp of fear because you are totally confident in God's ability and willingness to save. A life of seeking the Lord because his redeeming love is your greatest joy."

Observation Questions

1. In Zechariah 7:1-3, what specific question do the people of Bethel send their delegation to ask the priests and prophets, and how long had they been observing this practice?

2. According to Zechariah 7:9-10, what four specific commands does God give regarding how His people should treat one another, and which four groups of vulnerable people are specifically mentioned?

3. In Zechariah 7:11-12, what three physical images does the text use to describe how the pre-exile generation responded to God's word (look for references to shoulders, ears, and hearts)?

4. What specific promises does God make in Zechariah 8:4-5 about what life will look like in Jerusalem, and what do these images of old people and children suggest about the city's condition?

5. In Zechariah 8:13, what contrast does God draw between what His people have been among the nations and what they will become, and what command does He give twice in verses 13 and 15?

6. According to Zechariah 8:20-23, who will come seeking the Lord, and what will people from the nations say when they take hold of a Jew's robe?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why does God respond to the people's question about fasting (Zechariah 7:1-3) by redirecting their attention to justice, kindness, and mercy toward the vulnerable (7:9-10)? What does this reveal about what God truly values in worship?

2. The text describes the pre-exile generation making their hearts "diamond hard" against God's word (7:12). How does the poetic justice described in verse 13—"As I called and they would not hear, so they called and I would not hear"—help us understand the relationship between listening to God's word and having our prayers heard?

3. In Zechariah 8:6, God asks whether what seems "marvelous" to His people should also be marvelous in His sight. What is God communicating about His ability to fulfill His promises, and why might the returning exiles have struggled to believe these promises?

4. How do the promises in Zechariah 8:1-17 (God's presence, His determined devotion, regathering exiles, and security/flourishing) connect to God's ultimate salvation through Christ and the work of the Spirit in the church today?

5. Zechariah 8:20-23 describes people from every nation seeking the Lord and saying, "God is with you." How does this prophecy relate to what happened at Pentecost in Acts 2 and the ongoing mission of the church?

Application Questions

1. The sermon asked, "What loves do your laments reveal?" When you consider what you most often grieve or mourn, what does this reveal about your deepest values—are you primarily mourning natural losses (comfort, opportunity, health), or do you also mourn sin, spiritual lostness, and injustice?

2. God commands His people to "render true judgments, show kindness and mercy" and not to "oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor" (7:9-10). Who are the vulnerable people in your everyday life—at work, in your neighborhood, or in your church—and what is one specific way you could show them justice or mercy this week?

3. The sermon challenged listeners to identify what fear "keeps you awake at night or wakes you up once you've fallen asleep." What is that fear for you, and how does God's promise that He "will save" and His command to "fear not" (8:13, 15) speak to that specific anxiety?

4. God rebuked the pre-exile generation for hardening their hearts against His word rather than letting it shape them. What is one area of your life where you sense you may be "stopping your ears" or resisting what God's word says, and what would it look like to soften your heart in that area?

5. The sermon suggested a practical exercise: praying daily about your greatest fear in light of a Scripture passage for one week. What passage might you choose, and how could you structure this practice into your morning routine?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Isaiah 58:1-12 — This passage directly addresses the same issue of fasting and reveals that God desires justice for the oppressed rather than empty religious rituals.

2. 2 Corinthians 6:1-10 — Paul describes the Christian life as "sorrowful yet always rejoicing," illustrating how believers hold together grief and joy that the sermon emphasized.

3. Ephesians 2:11-22 — This passage shows how Gentiles are brought near through Christ and built together as God's temple, fulfilling Zechariah's prophecy of the nations seeking the Lord.

4. Acts 2:1-21 — The Pentecost account demonstrates the initial fulfillment of God's promise that people from every nation would come to seek Him and find His favor.

5. Hebrews 3:7-19 — This New Testament warning against hardening hearts echoes Zechariah's description of the pre-exile generation and applies it urgently to believers today.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Question of "What Time Is It?" Shapes Our Lives

II. It's Time to Repent and Do Right Because God Is Just (Zechariah 7:1-14)

III. It's Time to Not Be Afraid Because God Will Save (Zechariah 8:1-17)

IV. It's Time to Seek the Lord Because He Has Come to Bring Us Joy (Zechariah 8:19-23)

Detailed Sermon Outline

Have you ever woken up and not known what day it is? Wait, is it Saturday? Can I sleep in a little? Do you have to give that presentation at work today? Oh no, that was yesterday.

It's over, thankfully. Have you ever walked outside in the morning and been surprised by an overnight change of seasons so that it is 30 degrees colder than when you went to sleep? Happens often here in DC. You walk out the door and realize, wait a minute, where's my winter coat? Is it still in the basement in that box I left it in?

What time is it? What day of the week? What season of the year? The answers to those questions can dramatically affect your approach to the day.

If you voted in the recent election, How you voted for a range of offices and ballot measures depended on your answer to a version of the question, what time is it? What are present opportunities to advance justice and the common good? What are present threats or challenges to the goal of protecting life? To the goal of promoting the common good, to the goal of preserving and promoting justice so that more and more of us can live better and better lives.

But moving beyond waking up and the weather and even voting, all the most important decisions you make are informed by your answer to the question, what time is it? Is it time to plant or time to pluck up? Is it time to mourn or time to dance?

Time for war or time for peace? In other words, all your most weighty decisions depend on what story you think you're living in and what part of the story It is. What time is it? That's the question answered in chapters seven and eight of the Old Testament prophetic book of Zechariah. And its answers for the people of Judah in 518 BC are strikingly relevant for the part of the story that we Christians are living in here and now.

This morning we have the pleasure of resuming a series that we left off eight months ago.

Back in February and March, I preached through the first six chapters of Zechariah and two sermons, you can find those on the church website. In those chapters, the people of Judah have returned from the exile that God had imposed on them as punishment for their sin. And in those six chapters, we saw many long months ago that God promises to be with his people, to equip them to finish rebuilding the temple. He promises to protect them from those who threaten them, and he promises eventually to restore their fortunes beyond anything they can ask or imagine. Chapters seven and eight of Zechariah pick up this same thread of restoration begun but not yet complete.

These chapters show a down payment has been made on God's promises, but we await the full fulfillment. So what time is it? These chapters give us three answers. Point one, it's time to repent and do right because God is just. Point number one, it's time to repent and do right, because God is just.

This is the theme of all of chapter 7, verses 1 to 14. Look with me first at verses 1 to 3.

In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Kislev. Now the people of Bethel had sent CharizEr and Regemmelech and their men to entreat the favor of the Lord, saying to the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts and the prophets, Should I weep and abstain in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?

That question in verse 3, Should I weep and abstain, is a question about observing a fast. There is no biblical command that required God's old covenant people to fast in the fifth month. But the people of Judah during the time of the exile began to observe a series of fasts that commemorated the events that led immediately to the exile, the invasion of Jerusalem, the breach of its walls, the day of its destruction, and so on. Their fasts mourned the fact that they were displaced from home and being disciplined by God. But now the people have been back in the land for 20 years.

The temple rebuilding is progressing well. There are priests in the temple regularly offering sacrifices. So the people are asking, they're inquiring of the Lord, is it still time to mourn?

Is it time to mourn?

Is always an important question for Christians to ask. Is it time to mourn? Yes and no. No and yes. As the apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6:10, We are sorrowful yet always rejoicing.

We have grounds for joy in that God has forgiven our sins and promised us everlasting life with him through Christ. And yet we still have cause for sorrow. We still suffer the shattering effects of the fall and God's curse on creation because of our sin. We could spend all day naming those griefs. An earthquake that levels buildings and kills many.

A 20-year-old beloved son who suddenly passes away with no prior warning.

The people of Judah were mourning their absence from their land and God's apparent absence from their midst. What do you mourn?

Do you lament only natural losses, trials, natural sorts of pain and hardship like the loss of pleasure or prosperity or opportunity?

Or do you lament that others are spiritually lost? Do you lament your own sin? Do you lament the consequences of others' sins for their lives?

What loves do your laments Reveal. Is it time to mourn? What should we mourn? In Matthew 9:15, Jesus says, Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.

In the next few verses, the Lord through the prophet Zechariah begins to answer the people's question about fasting and mourning. This answer continues all the way through the end of chapter eight. Look first at verses four to six. Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, say to all the people of the land and the priests, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh for these seventy years, Was it for me that you fasted and when you eat and when you drink? Do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?

This sounds a lot like the Lord is rebuking them for hypocrisy, saying that in their fasting and feasting, their motives were selfish rather than directed toward God. That's a very possible reading of these verses. It's how most commentators take them. And it's also the main point of what the Lord says about fasting in Isaiah chapter 58. But I'm not 100% sure, honestly.

It's also possible that God's point here is simply this: I never commanded you to fast for the exile. That's all on you guys. You just decided to do that. In other words, they were free to fast. There's nothing wrong with it.

It was an appropriate thing to mourn, but they were also free to feast. Free to eat and drink. It could be that the Lord is simply saying, this fasting is neither commanded nor forbidden. Either way, however you understand those verses, the answer sets up a contrast with what God does require, as we read in the rest of the chapter. That's what verses seven to 14 give us.

Please follow along as I read those verses. Starting in verse seven, Were not these the words that the Lord proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous with her cities around her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited? And the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another. Do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart, but they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear. They made their hearts diamond hard, lest they should hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets.

Therefore, great anger came from the Lord of hosts. As I called, and they would not hear, so they called, and I would not hear, says the Lord of hosts. And I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate so that no one went to and fro, and the pleasant land was made desolate.

Here's the main point of these verses. God cares far more about how you listen to his word and how you treat the vulnerable than whether you fast or feast. Verse 7 points forward. It's pointing to the words of the former prophets, which are those that Zechariah gives in verses 9 and following. Then verses 9 and 10 summarize what God requires of his people toward each other: justice, kindness, and mercy, especially to those who are the weakest and most vulnerable.

As members of God's new covenant people, we should especially exemplify this justice and mercy toward each other. But these things should also characterize how we treat all people. We should be marked by a concern to do justice for those who are most likely to be denied justice. We should stand up for the rights of those who are most likely to have their rights denied. What we must not do is harden our hearts against God's word like the generation before the exile did.

That's the point God repeatedly drives home in verses 11 and 12. Verse 11, They refused to pay attention. They stopped their ears. Verse 12, They made their hearts diamond hard lest they should hear the law. Diamond is the hardest naturally occurring mineral.

A diamond is so hard that it is able to scratch any other mineral. Use the wrong tool on it or the right tool in the wrong way and the tool will break instead of the diamond. Kind of like the time I recently broke our ice cream scoop because I failed to wait until the ice cream was sufficiently thought. God's point here is you have a choice whether to let God's word work on your heart like a carving tool to shape it into the character that God requires. And of course, God's word can't be broken.

But if you harden your heart against God's word, eventually it will be God's word of judgment that breaks you.

The question of these verses is, did the people of Judah learn the lesson of exile? They were punished for rejecting God's word and descending into idolatry and injustice. So has the discipline worked? Have their hearts changed as well as their circumstances? That's the question these chapters pose.

So what about you? What about us? What lessons would God have us learn through this pandemic? I'm not at all suggesting that this pandemic was caused by anyone's sin, but surely God and his providence still has lessons to teach you, lessons to teach us all, lessons that you would not learn in more prosperous and stable and secure Circumstances, what are those lessons? Have you been learning them?

How have you done at putting them into practice?

In verses 13 and 14, God reminds his people that his judgment that he poured out on them is perfectly just. He treated them just as their sins deserved. Look again at verse 13. As I called and they would not hear, so they called and I would not hear, says the Lord of hosts. This is not only justice, but poetic justice.

Don't think that God will listen to your prayers if you do not listen to his word. Don't think that you can refuse to worship God and then demand that he serve you. Don't think that you can ignore God when you like and then use him when you want. What time is it? It's time to repent and do right because God is just.

Point two, it's time to not be afraid. Because God will save. Point two, it's time to not be afraid because God will save. This is the comfort and exhortation that God gives us in chapter 8, verses 1 to 17. Please follow along as I read that whole section.

And the word of the Lord of hosts came, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath. Thus says the Lord, I have returned to Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city, and the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain. Thus says the Lord of hosts, Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets. Thus says the Lord of hosts, if it is marvelous in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, Should it also be marvelous in my sight, declares the Lord of hosts?

Thus says the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will save my people from the east country and from the west country, and I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God in faithfulness and in righteousness. Thus says the Lord of hosts. Let your hands be strong, you who in these days have been hearing these words from the mouth of the prophets who were present on the day that the foundation of the house of the Lord of hosts was laid, that the temple might be built. For before those days, there was no wage for man or any wage for beast, neither was there any safety from the foe for him who went out or came in.

For I set every man against his neighbor, but now I will not deal with the remnant of this people, as in the former days, declares the Lord of hosts. For there shall be a sowing of peace. The vine shall give its fruit, and the ground shall give its produce, and the heavens shall give their dew. And I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things. And as you have been a byword of cursing among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you and you shall be a blessing.

Fear not, but let your hands be strong. For thus says the Lord of hosts, as I purposed to bring disaster to you when your fathers provoked me to wrath, and I did not relent, says the Lord of hosts, so again have I purposed in these days to bring good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. Fear not, these are the things that you shall do. Speak the truth to one another, render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace. Do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath.

For all these things I hate.

Declares the Lord.

There are basically four parts to the promises God makes to his people in these verses.

First, God's personal presence with us. We see this in verses 1, 2, and 3. Look especially at verse 3. Thus says the Lord, I have returned to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. God's presence with his people is what makes their return a restoration.

And seeing God face to face with unveiled eyes is what will make heaven heaven. Second, God's determined devotion to us. Verse 8, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God in faithfulness and righteousness. Here God promises to be with us and for us. And not only that, He promises to perfectly embody toward us the devotion that He requires of us.

And again in verses 13 and 15, As I purposed to bring disaster to you, When your fathers provoked me to wrath and I did not relent, says the Lord of hosts. So again have I purposed in these days to bring good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. Fear not. God's commitment to his chosen people, God's commitment to all those who are in Christ is resolute and unwavering. God's commitment to you does not strengthen or waver because your commitment to him strengthens or wavers.

God's devotion to you does not depend on but creates your devotion to him. If you are in Christ, God has always loved you and will always love you. A third element of this series of promises in chapter eight is regathering remaining exiles. That's what God promises in verses seven and eight. At this point in Judah's history, many had returned from exile in Babylon and elsewhere, but not all.

And so God promises to complete that work. He will not lose a single one of his sheep. He will gather every one safely into his fold. Fourth, God promises security, abundance, and flourishing. We see this in several parts of the chapter.

Verses four and five give us the image of old people and children enjoying themselves outside. You can only do that when there is safety, stability, prosperity. The streets of those verses, they're not talking about avenues for transportation, but more like open squares or parks for recreation. During the exile and even during the 20 years since many people had returned, Their cities had been unsafe, vulnerable, and exposed to foreign invasion. So here God promises that the very places in which the Israelites could not gather for fear of harm would one day be full of people congregating together and children laughing and playing.

In verses 12 and 13, God promises overflowing material abundance. This will result in the nations no longer mocking and cursing Judah, but using their very name as a blessing. Now, the question for us is, when would God fulfill these promises? And I think the basic answer is, some then, some now, and some when Christ returns. It would be a good follow-up study for you to go through this chapter in detail this week, compare it to other passages of the Old and New Testaments, try to identify ways from reading Zechariah, from reading Haggai, try to identify ways these promises were fulfilled in Zechariah's day, ways they've been fulfilled now through Christ's work for us and the Spirit's work in us, and ways they will only be fulfilled when Christ returns and remakes creation and raises us from the dead.

What's the main point of these promises? The Lord tells us twice in verses 7 and 13, Verse 7, Behold, I will save my people. Verse 13, so I will save you and you shall be a blessing. Fear not. How has God kept this promise to save?

It's by sending his Son to die and rise again for us. God is our lavish creator and our consistently good ruler. Yet we've all rebelled against him. We've all earned a curse rather than a blessing. But Christ came to give his life on the cross and rise again in order to bear our curse and bestow on us his blessing.

All you need to do to escape that curse and to receive his blessing is turn from sin and trust in him. Renounce your effort to rule your own life and submit to his rule. Don't try to earn your way back to him. Instead, simply trust and receive. Does that sound like a good deal?

Maybe too good a deal? There must be some catch, some fine print. Look at verse 6 of chapter 8. Thus says the Lord of hosts, if it is marvelous in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, Should it also be marvelous in my sight? declares the Lord of hosts.

God is asking whether you think this salvation is too hard for him to accomplish or maybe too good to be true.

Actually, that's the French philosopher, Luke Ferry's main objection to Christianity in his thoughtful and instructive book, A Brief history of thought. Respectfully and without any trace of malice, Ferry says that the promises God makes in Scripture are too good to be true. But God was about 2,500 years ahead of Ferry. He thought of that one already.

If you're with us today and you're not a Christian, do you resonate with Ferry's objection to the kind of things I've just been talking about?

Might Christianity be too good to be true? What that view gets right, what that kind of cynicism is actually rightly latching onto is that the promises God makes in passages like these are staggering. They're overwhelming. They're far beyond anything we could expect in this life.

And they're far beyond anything we could ever hope to deserve. But that is just the point. God promises all this by his grace and mercy, not based on whether or not we can work our way back to him. The God who created the universe can remake the universe. The God who gave you life can raise you from the dead.

If God is who the Bible says he is, if he is the creator of all things, then nothing is too hard for him. This all depends on him absolutely. Everything you see around you, what you can't do or what you can't see, how it could be possible, is no limit on God.

The God who gave you yourself in creation is more than willing to give you himself in redemption. If you're a believer in Jesus, what should you do with all these promises? You should believe them and not be afraid. Again, as the Lord says in verse 13, Fear not, but let your hands be strong. Nothing is too hard for God.

So what are you afraid of? What thought keeps you awake at night or wakes you up once you've fallen asleep? What thought pops into your head uninvited and sends a chill down your spine? Whatever it is, remember that God is greater. It is entirely in God's hands.

Whether that thing you fear ever happens. And if it does, he remains good and will do good even in and through that thing you fear. And what you fear will never have the last word. God always gets the last word. And for all who are in Christ, God's last word over guilt is forgiveness.

God's last word over shame is glory. God's last word over loneliness is satisfaction in him forever. God's last word over loss is new creation. God's last word over death is resurrection.

It's time to not be afraid because God will save.

Point three briefly, it's time to seek the Lord because he has come to bring us joy. It's time to seek the Lord because he has come to bring us joy. Look at verses 19 to 23 of chapter 8.

And the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, 'Thus says the Lord of hosts, the fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts. Therefore, love, truth, and peace. Thus says the Lord of hosts, Peoples shall yet come, even the inhabitants of many cities. The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go at once to entreat the favor of the Lord and to seek the Lord of hosts. I myself am going.

Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew saying, 'Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.' Verses 18 and 19 give us God's long-deferred full answer to the question of chapter 7 verses 1 One to three. What's God's answer? That the fasts don't really matter one way or another. They certainly don't have to keep observing them.

And why is that? Because God is going to transform those very fasts into feasts. One day soon, the time for mourning will be finished forever. Verses 20 to 23 are being fulfilled here and now in the life of the church around the world. People from every nation are being added to God's people and finding the favor of the Lord.

Looking at verse 22, Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord. On the day of Pentecost, recorded in Acts chapter 2, God began this work of transforming and expanding his people to include people from every nation. On the day of Pentecost, the nations who had assembled at Jerusalem found God's favor through the pouring out of his Spirit and the proclamation of his Son. Ever since God's new covenant people have brought this favor, this grace, this gift of salvation with us as we've shared the gospel with people from every nation. So as Alejandra read to us earlier from Ephesians chapter two, this promise is now being fulfilled as people come not to an earthly Jerusalem with a physical temple, but as they join themselves to God's people who are God's temple.

That temple grows as each new living stone is added in. And that's what we're about to celebrate in baptism. So what should we do? We should seek the Lord. Seek him as your chief and unerring counselor.

Seek him as your unfailing satisfaction. Seek him as your life. Seek him as your wisdom. Seek him as your refuge and strength. Seek him as your only hope and savior.

And if you're looking for one practical way to do that this week. Think back to that question I asked about what you fear and whatever bubbled to the top of your list. Just make it a matter for prayer every morning. Find some passage of scripture to grab hold of and bring that fear to the Lord in the light of that passage. Do it every day for a week and see what kind of spiritual muscles the Lord develops in you.

Even after seven days. We should seek the Lord because He's come to bring us joy. Look again at the last phrase of verse 23. God promises that people from other nations will reach out and take hold of His chosen people saying, Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.

What kind of God is with his people? The God who sent his Son in the flesh and sent his Spirit into our hearts. What kind of life shows that God is with you? A life of repenting and devoting yourself to what God says is right. A life that escapes from the strangling grasp of fear because you are totally confident in God's ability and willingness to save.

A life of seeking the Lord because his redeeming love is your greatest joy. Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we praise you. Because nothing is too hard for you. Nothing is too marvelous for you. We praise you for accomplishing this salvation for us through Christ. And we praise you because we know that you will make good on all your promises.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.