[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's word you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to him. If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 830 or 10:30 a.m. if you have any other questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison church, find
[email protected] dot. Be sure to also check out our Bible study podcast, Madison Church of Christ Bible studies. Thanks again for stopping by.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Any trip we had growing up, going out of town, it seemed like our go to place that we would stay overnight would be camping, and that would be sometimes if we went to the beach, we went to a place called camping on the Gulf. If I had like a soccer game or maybe we had a cross country meet while my other friends were staying in hotels, we were camping. Now, when you hear camping, I don't want you to hear rv or glamping. I want you to know I'm talking the tent, stakes, poles, tarps, all of those things. And as I was thinking about that this week, the first thing I kept thinking is, bless my mom's heart, she had to load us up anyway. And then on top of that, pack a bunch of camping things. And then she had to, of course, sleep on an air mattress by the morning was completely deflated.
And I thought, growing up, my parents are so cool. They were just being cheap. But I did have some really good memories in that. But part of that process of getting ready for those camping trips, I remember the energy and the effort and the time it took to set up a campsite. But I also think, too, that one of the times that I really remember, we were going through Sam's club and, you know, Sam's is that place where basically it's a ground for testing out products to see if people are really going to buy them or like them or not. And so we were going through Sam's and they were advertising this camping tent that you take out of the bag. You just throw it and it pops up. And so we were really excited about that. We bought one of those and we enjoyed it two times.
It was awful. And what I remember about that thing, the polls didn't last while we got like one good camp out of it. The problem was everything started to bend and it was getting warped. And I found it online this past week on Amazon, and it was a 1.9 out of five star review. So the thing doesn't last, and it's not something that you really want to live in. And what was interesting about that very tent is when Lori Ann and I got married, you know, some of you might have gotten from your family, like fine china. My parents decided to give us the tent that we used to go camping with growing up. So that's what we still have in our garage. But what's interesting is that tent that we had that took a lot of work, that took a lot of time, is something that we're still enjoying today. And the reason I share that with you is we know this. In any and everything in life, anything that lasts, anything that we care a lot about, it takes time, it takes sacrifice, it takes energy, and it takes effort.
I was thinking about all of that this week as I was getting ready for today's message in Isaiah 54. And I want to go ahead and tell y'all, this was an interesting week for me, sermon prep wise, because I had something completely different planned out. But y'all know how in your bibles we have cross references, and the text I was planning to use kept cross referencing to Isaiah 54. And I was like, what is Isaiah 54 about? Like, what does that have to do with this? And then I started to read it, and I was like, oh, man, I'm scrapping whatever I just was planning to do. This is what I want to share this week. And so when I say to you, Isaiah 54, if I'm in your shoes, you're probably thinking what I thought, oh, Isaiah 53. Yeah, I know about that. That's kind of, like, up in the ranking of psalm 23 or psalm 119, a text we use. We're very familiar with Isaiah 53, which is a prophecy Isaiah received about the coming of Jesus Christ. That Isaiah received this prophecy that one day, you and I are gonna have a savior and a redeemer that is unlike any person that has ever walked the face of this earth. He's gonna be God in the flesh, but it's gonna be God in the flesh that gets down on his hands and knees, puts on a servant's towel, washes feet. He breaks bread with sinners and tax collectors. He's coming to redeem you.
And so we love that text. But don't forget, our bibles that we have today have the chapters in them. But when it was originally written, there was no chapter headings. So right after Isaiah 53 comes Isaiah 54.
And so Isaiah 53 is about the fact that God wants to redeem us.
But then Isaiah 54 is a prophecy about the church.
It's a picture that now God has redeemed you and he's redeemed me. He wants to build something with us.
And this building that he's getting ready to build is a picture of the church and its growth and its expansion. And what's beautiful about this picture in Isaiah 54 is that this expansion, this growth that he gives this people of a picture of God bringing people and more people and more people into this gospel promise. It comes with a promise. It's saying in this text that the participation that we have as a body of Christ in believing that he's bringing people for us to reach, bringing us people to love that feeling that when you have to love somebody at times that's difficult, to love those feelings at times, we know that comes with the sacrificial nature of even ourselves being loved. It comes with a promise.
And so the context of this text in Isaiah 54 is this, Israel, God's people had been in bondage in Babylon for 70 years.
This is a very dark time for them. And in that Babylon captivity, they were experiencing desolation.
They were expecting at this point in their lives to already start seeing some of the promises from Abram. Remember when God told Abram, hey, you're going to have a family, and it's going to be so big, like the sand on the seashore, it's going to, like, outnumber that. I want you to know, like, that's the promise you have. So they had known about that promise. They talked about that promise all the time. But here they are. They're in Babylon captivity, and they're wondering, okay, all right, when's the promise going to happen? You know, when are we going to actually live this out? And so that's the setting of Isaiah 54. And so knowing that going in, this is what it says, it says, sing, o barren one who did not bear break forth into singing cry aloud. You who have not been in labor for the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married, says the Lord. You're like, wait, what does this have to do with overflow?
What does this have to do with us as the church? Well, the desolate woman that is described in this text is Israel.
And he's saying, Israel, I know right now you seem Barren, that you were expecting to see something now, and you're kind of wondering when that is going to happen. Well, here's what I want you to know. What you see in bold, the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of Hur, who is married. What he's saying is what you've been living in under this old covenant. What I'm letting you know, because we just talked about the redeemer that he is bringing and making a people that is going to far outnumber what you've seen before.
And here's what's interesting about this. I have read this text over and over in Galatians. Galatians chapter four quotes this very verse.
And if you remember the context of Galatians four, Paul just told the church in Galatia, here's what I want you to know, you guys. You are heirs of Christ.
And so, as he's trying to give them a picture of what it means to be an heir with Christ, here's what's interesting. Paul, the tent maker, is about to use an illustration of a tent and the expansive nature of God's kingdom, how it's growing and it's expanding. He just needs his people to grow and expand in their belief.
He says, after he quotes Isaiah 54, look what he says to the people in Galatia now. You.
You are children of that promise, y'all. That's us.
We are living in that promise. Now, what was prophesied in Isaiah 53, that Jesus would redeem us. And then what was prophesied in Isaiah 54, that he would build something with us.
We are living in that right now.
We are living in that promise.
And that promise is so awesome, because here's what it is. It's a partnership that we get to be a part of. But as I was reading this text, here's what kind of blew my mind.
I know it's giving a physical illustration of a people, but think about what is being asked of this woman.
She is told to sing, but she's barren.
What is she singing about? Well, she's singing about what is to come.
Because if you think about it, if you're in her shoes and she's told, hey, sing, okay, but I don't have what I've been wanting, and I'm still waiting to see what's going to happen next. You know why? He tells her to sing in the same way that we sing.
We don't sing because of the backstory. We sing because of the promise.
Because if it was all about just the backstory, none of us would worship, none of us would sing. It's because we believe in the promises that come with our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. That's why we sing.
But then on top of that, the other thing that I think about, keep in mind she's told to sing. Her situation has not changed, but what she's declaring has changed. She's singing because she has received a promise. Do you see what's happening? Her womb is still empty, but her worship is absolutely full. Why?
Because she believes in a promise.
So right after he tells her to sing, he then goes up to her and says this. All right, so now I need you to enlarge the place of your tent.
Let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out, don't hold back. Lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.
So it's one thing to tell her to sing. Now you're saying, hey, add on a room to your house, make it bigger.
And here's what's interesting about that for her. If you put this in a physical illustration, and I know it's about a church, but that's the point he's trying to say, all right, if you were this one, think about the difficult conversation you would have during this day when you were a nomad living in a tent like this. You would usually live with other people right nearby.
So your campsite would be right near their campsite. And their campsite. And their campsite and their campsite. So if you're told, hey, make it bigger, guess what you're gonna have to do? You're gonna have to go to the people who have a campsite right next to yours and be like, well, you don't knock, whatever you do. Hey, you know, I gotta tell you something.
Our situation is this. We're gonna need you guys to move your whole campsite, like that way, 20ft.
I know the poles and the tarp and the bed and the food and all the things. Yeah, if you just move it 20ft. Why?
So my wife is having a baby. Awesome. I didn't know she was pregnant. Oh, she's not? Okay, hold on. Like, why am I moving all of this stuff when she's not even pregnant yet? Oh, because we believe.
Like, we believe because we got a promise.
It's an amazing call of faith that this woman has and she's not told, hey, get the child and then build.
And keep in mind, this text is not about a building, it's about a belief. But she's told to build because she believes. Does that make sense?
And to have this expansive view of what God is to bring.
And she's not even pregnant yet.
It's not just the faith she has. To me, that's amazing.
But the sacrifice it would have been to have those conversations outside of the tent.
So strong's commentary mentioned this, and I thought this was so neat. It says, the call to make the tents larger assumes that there will be an expanding population.
The cause will be restoration and multiplication. And the effect stated in the text is there expanding tense when I read that phrase, assumes there will be an expanding population. You know what I thought of here?
Yes, we're experiencing it here. We're experiencing overflow in our classrooms. We're experiencing overflow, especially in our community right now. You know, we talk about it all the time. It has been prayed about over and over and over again up here in our connect groups, because we'll have this conversation that Huntsville, you know, is the fastest growing city, one of those in America. It's the biggest city now in Alabama. We're the fastest growing county in Alabama, and we talk about all the time. With all of these opportunities comes an opportunity and a responsibility for us to look outside of the tent and to see the needs that are there.
But what was interesting, as you go further down in that commentary, he talks about that word enlarge, and in it says, enlarge meant to grow large, to go beyond, to make more room, to increase capacity, to break out, to break through, to expand, go further, occupy new territories. No limits, no boundaries. Thinking big. How does this happen? Well, notice what he said in the text.
It requires being stretched out, not holding back, lengthening your cords, and strengthening your stakes. Keep in mind, this is a prophecy. So that means it's a spiritual declaration of something. It has a spiritual meaning behind every one of those.
The idea of stretch is different than I kind of thought going into this lesson.
When I first heard, all right, stretch, I thought about the times where I've tried to, like, put a tent together for a campground. You know what I'm talking about, where you're trying to pull, like, the canvas, and you're like, it might rip, but I'm trying to get it into the pole to set it up. That's the picture I had in mind. But during this day, when they stretched the canvas of a tent, it wasn't stretching the actual material. Stretch meant adding material because the tents were made of animal skins.
So if you're told to add onto your tent that's made of animal skins, what do you need to go get?
Well, you got to go kill some animals.
The idea of stretching, what it actually meant was sacrifice, that in order for this to grow, there is going to be some sacrifices that have to be made.
But what I also thought was interesting is one of the commentaries pointed this out, that most translations say, let them.
So notice God is saying, all right, I'm doing my part, I'm bringing.
But you, the them that's us, are also in on this promise.
Strong says let them is an implication that the whole body needs to gain vision for missions and outreach.
It's developing an attitude or culture of expectation. I want y'all to hold on to that phrase. A culture of expectation and a culture of receiving the blessing of new people.
Yes, we want to be a blessing, but we also know sometimes the difficulty is receiving a blessing, isn't it? He said, it's both ways.
And as I was thinking about the faith that this woman had to stretch, I couldn't help but think about Hebrews and all those that are listed, the men and women. Faith's hall of fame. Originally, I was going to go through it. We don't have the time, but just go through that list and think about the stretching it took of those men and women to do what they were doing.
We talk a lot about strong faith. Strong faith, according to the Bible, implies that it's a faith that'll stretch, bend, but not break. Maybe is the way to put it.
That faith is really demonstrated through those times where there is that sacrifice that's involved. But here's the beauty of that sacrifice. It comes with a promise. Here's the second thing mentioned. Don't hold back.
Why did he have to say that?
Well, he had to say that because we have an inclination, right? And a tendency at times to what? To hold back. So this means overcoming fear.
And as I was thinking about not holding back, and the fear it takes to overcome that, the example of stretching in that that came to my mind is in Mark, chapter three. And if you remember Mark, chapter three, Jesus had been in the synagogue, and it was also the Sabbath. And here's what's interesting. Y'all know that the pharisees were constantly trying to catch Jesus and to try to find different things wrong with him. And I love how several of the translations said that they were following Jesus around on the Sabbath because they knew he would be compassionate.
Wouldn't that be an awesome reputation?
Man, we're just going to follow that person around and them around and you around and you around, because I just know. I just know they're going to be compassionate.
So they were following jesus around because they just knew he was going to be compassionate. And he sees a man with a withered hand, and, you know, and I know one of the laws, right? That day was on the Sabbath. You can't do what work.
You can't do any stretching. You can't do anything.
And so Jesus said to the man with the withered hand, verse three, come here.
And he said to them, this is those that were standing nearby getting ready to accuse Jesus, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm?
Should you save a life or should you kill one? And I love how it next is kind of a drop mic moment. It says this, but they were silent.
And then verse five.
And before you get to verse five, put yourself in the shoes of the man with the withered hand.
He sees the staring and the glaring eyes at him from those pharisees, wondering what he's going to do.
But you know who he also sees?
Jesus.
And here's what I think. I think he says, you know what? I know what your law says, but I've been living outside the tent for all these years.
I'm going for it.
And so Jesus said to the man, stretch out your hand.
He stretched out his hand, and the Bible says this in verse five. And his hand was restored. That's the point of stretching.
I mean, it seems like a stretch. Yeah, that's the point.
Stretching does feel like a stretch. That's the point of flexible faith. A strong faith is assumed to be a flexible faith. It's that bend, but it doesn't break.
But the other thing he says in the text is this, lengthen. The idea of lengthen means that you're making more room for more people.
You and I know in any relationship in life, good relationships, bad relationships, family relationships, non family relationships, relationships have a way of stretching us. Right?
But you know what really stretches relationships?
New people.
And part of the reason it is, is because you're learning about yourself. You're learning about them. In fact, a common leadership principle that applies to the church, it applies to everything else, is this. It's this statement, and you've probably heard it before. Everybody loves the idea of growth until it happens.
And what that statement means is, oh, I'm gonna have to stretch some.
And so here he's saying, listen, you're gonna have to lengthen your cords to make room. Lengthen your reach is probably a better way to put it. And then the fourth thing is this, to strengthen your stakes, that the stakes were implying the idea that there has to be this solid foundation, because if the tent is getting bigger and this is the picture of God's promise connected and given to the church as it gets bigger. Guess what's also gonna happen.
You need stakes if winds are coming.
If there's gonna be difficulty, he's giving us a picture. Oh, if you build anything for God, Satan's gonna hate it. He's gonna try to bring up division. He's gonna try to bring up difficulty. He's gonna try to do anything to stop its growth.
So strengthen your stakes. Let's just take a step back for a second and realize what she has just done. She has been told to sing. She has been told to enlarge this tent, to stretch it out, to put stakes down, to lengthen its cords. And keep in mind, she's told to do all of this stuff, and she still has no children.
Wow. What face.
But again, don't miss what the text is emphasizing. The text is not emphasizing the building, but it is emphasizing a belief. And he wants her to build because there is a belief. We just sang that, right? We believe in the God of the Bible. Y'all know that was a declaration.
We were just declaring something together as a church. We believe.
So, this picture was shown in coffee and conversation downstairs by Mike. And for those of you that are guests here with us this morning, or maybe you're a new member, you don't know. This is the very first Sunday in the room that you're sitting in right now. Some of you, a lot of you were in this room, and I can see some of your shoulder pads, and I can see some of your really good hairdos in that.
And what's neat about this building, and Mike mentioned this downstairs, is that when this whole structure was planned and built, it was planned and built for 400 times the population that they had at the church at that time in that area.
400 times.
So if we did that today, we would buy Publix in phase three in the homes between it.
Do you see the vision that they had?
And so here's where this becomes personal for all of us.
Every single person that is in this room right now is a part of that 400%.
We are beneficiaries of that vision.
I believe that the people that were in that room believed that prophecy in Isaiah 54.
Oh, I'm bringing people. Like, I don't think that they really knew that Huntsville would be, like, the fastest growing city, the biggest city. I just think they believed.
And so guess what they did.
They built.
And so here's why the building happened in Isaiah 54. He said, because of what's happening outside the tent, it says, for you, you will spread out to the right and to the left and your offspring are going to possess nations and will people the desolate cities. Here's what that's implying in saying the left and to the right is talking about the tribal allotments that are right outside of this area.
Now, can we go overseas? Absolutely. And I'm so glad that we do that, and we will continue to do that.
But this text, and you'll notice in your bibles, a lot of it, is cross referencing to acts one and two, where he says, when you receive the Holy Spirit, here's what you're going to do.
You're gonna start where? In Jerusalem and then Judea. Where is he talking about? Right around.
And then what? The uttermost parts of the earth.
We've talked about the great commission. Well, the great commission says, go into all the world. Yes, it does. You know what it also says as you go saying where you're at?
You know, I believe in that because it's a promise from God.
And, yes, we can go overseas. But, y'all, as we're gonna see in just a second, there is so much life right outside of the tent.
And the more you spend time outside of the tent, the more you'll see that God's going to come through on that promise.
So if you look in your bibles, you'll notice that this is cross referenced a lot to Abram. And the reason it is, is Abram had spent a lot of time in tent.
In fact, you might remember kind of his backstory. God had come to Abram at a time where he and his wife had been desolate, barren.
They had wanted for years to have a child. God comes to Abram and says, hey, I'm gonna build a family through you. And it's gonna be so much bigger than you could even imagine. He's like, oh, that's awesome. You know why? Because I'm excited about the whole family thing. But also, we as a family have wanted a family. Like, my wife has had to see all these other women get pregnant, and she's really trying to celebrate with them, but deep down, she's hurting because she can't have what they have. This is so awesome. Like, I'm so excited that we have this news. So she gets that news, and then she has to wait and wait and wait.
So the promise happens.
But then we get to chapter 15 of Genesis. And what you find in Genesis 15 is a very frustrated Abram.
And if you look in verse three, most translations before O Lord, it says this.
Abram said to God, look, can you mind saying that to God, Lord God, what will you give me for I continue childless in the heir of my house as Eleazar. Remember the air in Galatians four.
The heir of my house is Eleazar. Damascus.
Some neat connections there.
Let's stop here for a second and just take in almost the humor of the fact that you read. In the next two verses, we find out Abram's inside of a tent when he tells God to look.
He is inside the four walls of a tent, and he tells him to look as if God's not the ultimate looker, like he sees everything.
And so when he says to him, look, look what God's response is to him in verse five.
And he brought him outside the tent, and this is what he said to him, look.
He said, here's where I want you to look. I want you to look towards heaven.
He said, number the stars.
So he's wanting to go outside and start counting.
And then he says this, if you are able to number them, it's like his way of saying, can you do that? He doesn't say, no, but we know what the answer is. No, I can't number that.
And then he said to him, so shall your offspring be.
He had to realize that there was life outside of the what? The tent. Y'all remember when John was in prison and he sent word to Jesus being like, hey, can you go tell Jesus, like, I've done everything he's told me to do and I'm in prison? And then Jesus said, well, tell John this. Tell him to look. Because right outside his prison walls, the lame are walking blind are receiving sight. The dead are raising from the dead. So tell him that outside the walls of where he's living, things are happening. That's why he says, isaiah 53 is, Jesus has redeemed you. Isaiah 54 is, we bring that redeeming message outside of the tent.
He said, it's all around you.
And you might think, well, is there, like, are there really that many opportunities outside the tent? Let me. If you intersect your life with non Christians in this community, you'll see it.
It's not a matter of if there's opportunity. They are happening, and they're happening quickly.
But one of the things I also think is, too, I don't want to raise my kids to think that they have to only go other places to show love and show other people Christ.
I want them to understand that wherever they go, there are going to be those opportunities.
There is so much life and there is so much opportunity outside the tent. I don't know, if you are like me, I feel like I have spent too much time sometimes with Abram in the tent telling God to look.
When you think about what this woman might be feeling when she's told, all right, sing, build, expand.
You have to wonder if she's probably maybe thinking, if she was a physical woman, she was probably thinking, but here's my situation. He's like, your situation does not scare me.
It's almost like, build it and they will come type mentality.
What I tell you is attached to a promise. So here's what he says. As you build, do not be afraid.
Do not fear disgrace.
Some translations say, do not be focused on what they may say.
And he goes on to say, for your maker is your husband. You know what that's talking about? The church, our marriage relationship as the bride of Christ.
You see what he's saying? As you build, as you build. Number one, do not be afraid.
Number two, do not be obsessed with what other people think.
One of the quickest ways to miss out on what God wants to do in something is to be obsessed with what everybody else thinks.
And number three, if you notice, what he says is your maker is your husband. He's reminding, hey, that promise, you're married to him.
That's how close the relationship is.
As I was getting ready for the message this week, my normal routine is to go up to one of the rooms up here and talk to myself. And I told the earlier crowd, if y'all don't ever like a lesson, you should know how I feel. I have to hear it ten times usually, but I go in there and I'll go over it and over it and edit it and things like that. And this started to get personal for me. The more I started to think about different moments where this promise from God was lived out. I just missed it.
And to kind of explain why I came to that is one of the things that when Brandon and I preach and we say this, but I really want y'all to know it. Whatever you guys hear us share on Sunday from God's word, is things we struggle with.
There's that side of it, but the other side of it is whenever we are sharing what we are sharing, he and I talk about all the time. We don't want it to be just. We don't want this to be information exchange, is what I'm saying.
We want to believe the things that we are sharing. I don't want to just practice it because I preach. I want to practice it because we are the body of Christ.
And so I was going through this lesson and thinking about this promise, and the thing that popped in my mind that I remembered was a conversation that I had with my dad. So my dad, whenever he calls me one thing that is a constant, he always asks, hey, how are you treating Lori Ann? And have you done anything special for her? And there's been times where I was like, no, but I'm gonna do something special for her. He's like, okay, go ahead. I was like, yeah, I am. He's like, no, I mean, like right now. I'm like. Like, right now? He's like, yes, send her a text. I was like, okay, I will when I hang up. No, right now. I'll wait on the line. You know, like, that's him. He's not like, do it now. All right. And then he does even a follow up. Did you send her a card? I'm like, ugh, leave me alone. You know? But anyway, so he will do that.
But there's been multiple occasions, and I'm only going to highlight one, that he has called. And he said, hey, also, I want you to know I've been praying that God would send you somebody to share Christ with.
And he told me that and he said, so I prayed that God would send you somebody to share Christ with. And can we pray about that? I was like, yeah, absolutely. So we prayed about this.
And then that afternoon, I met a lady at the ballpark named Trish. Now, here's what's interesting about this whole situation is part of the reason why I met her and had an opportunity to invite her to something is a year before that, the Madison church of Christ brought a group of youth down to Robertsdale, and they started something at our church called mother's morning out.
And so because Madison helped us start that, we started doing that from nine till noon on that Wednesday.
And so I said, hey, we would love to have your little girl come join us for that. And she did. Well, she ended up getting so much love from the church family that within a few weeks, Trish and her husband ended up putting on Christ in baptism.
And here's what's remarkable.
Her mom, that lived right down the street caddy corner, she decided to join Trish. She put on Christ in baptism. And then fast forward. The brother in law and the sister in law ended up beginning their relationship with Christ and put on baptism, too.
And I was thinking about all of that when I thought about this text today, about that promise. He said, I just, I need you to believe it.
I'm sending people I just need you to believe it.
So I was like, all right. After Brandon and I talk about all the things we talk about, Lord, help me to believe that more like, help me to believe you are going to send people.
So I prayed, and y'all can believe whatever you want to about this, but I know what I believe about it is right after I prayed that prayer, I go down into my office, and Lori Kendrick buzzes me over the intercom in my office, said, hey, andrew, someone is on the line for you. And I was like, okay.
And her name is Amber.
And so we end up having a conversation with Amber.
And later that day, Amber puts on Christ in baptism, and we just saying we believe.
Do we really, really believe?
I think we do.
And if we believe that God is going to send us people like her and others to love and send other people like her and others to love us back, I love what was mentioned earlier, you know, that I pray that we have to do this again.
Last week, Bill Brown did an awesome job in our communion. Thoughts? And in that, one of the things he said, he said, you know, our family has been here for a certain amount of years, and he shared what brought he and his family here to Madison. And he said, you know what? I've noticed, and this is no secret, by the way. He said, there's literally two directions.
Either churches are shrinking or they're dying.
You're either going one direction or you're going the other direction.
And it's a belief in that promise that gives me so much faith about what's next.
I can't wait to see how we lengthen, how we stretch. I can't wait to see the stakes that we already have, the foundation getting deeper. I believe that.
And so what I want to do is I want to pray, and I want to say a prayer for all of this. And I want to pray that we will all believe in that promise and that we will have eyes that are always looking for those opportunities. And after that, we'll have the invitation. And maybe you're here this morning, and part of the challenge you felt is you've spent, like me, at times, too much time inside the tent, and that you want to see the opportunities that are around you.
One thing I know maybe is you come here this morning and you're wounded.
You know, I know one thing about wounds is in order for wounds to heal, sometimes the bandages have to be off. They have to be exposed.
Kind of like with Abram. He needed to be outside of the tent and let his wound get some oxygen.
Maybe that's what you need. So I'm going to say a prayer this morning, and I'm going to pray for wherever you find yourself.
And I pray that we will all take a step in a leap of faith and believe in the promise of Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 54. Let's pray together. God, we thank you so much for your promises.
And stretching at times does feel like a stretch, but we know that that stretching comes with a promise.
Lord, we believe.
Lord, we ask that you be with us as a congregation. Help us to spend more time outside of the tent.
Lord, we pray as we do that we will strengthen, we will stretch and we will grow. Lord, for those of us that are going through difficult times, that are hurting, help us to step outside of the tent to count the stars, to see what you're doing.
Because we know oftentimes when we see the things that are bigger than us, we understand that you have the power to redeem us. And you have the power through Jesus Christ to save us. Lord, help us with our unbelief. We ask all these things in your son's name. Amen. If you're here today and are subject for any kind of invitation, maybe to spend more time outside of the tent or maybe to let that wound get some oxygen, maybe for some of you, is to put on Christ in baptism. We want to support you and encourage you as we stand and we sing this song.
