Sermon: Wrath for the Proud, Grace for the Humble

Well, as Nate mentioned, if you don't know me, my name is Ben Prizer and I serve as a pastoral fellow here at University Reform Church. So I am very, very, very happy, very excited to get to be here. It's an honor, it's a joy to preach tonight. So I am excited for what the Lord has to teach us tonight from His word in Zephaniah Chapter two, grab a pew Bible from in front of you of your own if you brought one from home.

And turn open to chapter two of Zephaniah Ben doing this very short series through the book of Zephaniah. Dave Hinkley very ably preached chapter one last week. We've got a couple more to to wrap it up and bring it home after this week, but we'll be in chapter two tonight, the entirety of chapter two, all 15 verses before I read it, let's pray together and ask for the Lord to bless us,

our Father in heaven.

Your word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

Without it, we are lost in the darkness. We don't know where we are going because the darkness has blinded our eyes By the power of your Holy Spirit. We may see and we ask that you would speak, oh Lord, as we come to you to receive the food of your holy word. Would you use my weak and sinful mouth? Would you use a man of unclean lips to preach holy things to your chosen people tonight? And all God's people said, amen.

Follow along as I read this chapter for us. Zephaniah chapter two,

gather together. Yes, gather oh shameless nation before the decree takes effect before the day passes away like chaff before there comes upon you, the burning anger of the Lord before there comes upon you the day of the anger of the Lord. Seek the Lord all you humble of the land who do his just commands. Seek righteousness. Seek humility. Perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the Lord. For Gaza shall be deserted

and ashlan shall become a desolation Ash. Dodd's people shall be driven out at noon and Akron shall be uprooted. Woe to you inhabitants of the seacoast you nation of the CARite. The word of the Lord is against you. O Canin, land of the Philistines and I will destroy you until no inhabitant is left and you o seacoast shall be pastures with meadows for shepherds and folds for flocks. The seacoast shall become the possession of the remnant

of the house of Judah on which they shall graze. And in the houses of ashkelon, they shall lie down an evening for the Lord. Their God will be mindful of them and restore their fortunes. I have heard the taunts of Moab and the revealings of the Ammonites, how they have taunted my people and made boasts against their territory. Therefore, as I live declares the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Moab shall become like Sodom

and the Ammonites like Gamora, a land possessed by nettles and salt pits and a waste forever. The remnant of my people shall plunder them and the survivors of my nation shall possess them. This shall be their lot in return for their pride because they taunted and boasted against the people of the Lord of hosts. The Lord will be awesome against them, for he will famish all the gods of the earth. And to him shall bow down each in its place,

all the lands of the nations. You also, o cushite shall be slain by my sword and he will stretch out his hand against the north and destroy Ay. And he will make Nineveh a desolation. A dry waste like the desert herd shall lie down in her midst. All kinds of beasts, even the owl and the hedgehog shall lodge in her capitals. A voice shall hoot in the window. Devastation will be on the threshold for her. Cedar work will be laid bare.

This is the exultant city that lived securely that said in her heart, I am and there is no one else. What a desolation. She has become a lair for wild beasts. Everyone who passes by her hisses and shakes his fist. Amen. Though the grass withers and the flower fades, the word of our God will stand forever. Praise be to God. Amen.

In the Roman pantheon of Gods, there was a minor deity known as Janice who is the God of beginnings and endings and the God of transitions. And you may have never heard his name before, but we know him primarily nowadays as the namesake of the month of January, the month when the old year ends. And the new one begins, Janice, if you look up a statue of him or some sort of a picture, how he was depicted was with two faces facing in either direction

because of his role, the beginning and endings, the transitions. And now we come to Zephaniah chapter two and we're standing in the middle of the book looking both forward and back like this. Roman God, Janis, we stand at a transitional point and we look both ways. We look back to chapter one, which is a lot of judgment, the promise of the day of the Lord that is coming a day of wrath and a day of anger. And we look forward to the climax at the end

of chapter three, which is full of grace, joy, the singing of God and his people for the joy of salvation. But here in the middle in chapter two, we actually find both of those themes, wrath and salvation in the words of Alec Moir, here we find depicted the God of holy wrath and the God of holy hope. But does that make the God of Zephaniah two, a ski schizophrenic? God is he like Janice two-faced the world of unbelief might voice such an objection

about the God of our Bible. They might read the words of Exodus 34 and scoff at the apparent contradiction that they read there the Lord pass before him and proclaim the Lord, the Lord a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. But who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children

and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. They read unbelievers do of our covenant making, loving and holy God. And they only see a two-faced Janus, capricious, unpredictable, contradictory, but gospel loving Christians clinging to the magnificent words of Romans three that says, God is both the just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. The Bible teaches us that God is perfectly righteous,

who will by no means clear the guilty, but it adds that he is abundantly merciful and abounds in steadfast love. And he's precisely able to forgive because he pours out his wrath in perfect justice, in perfect holiness on Jesus Christ, our substitute the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world and thus he's both righteous and merciful. And I think we should see that in Zephaniah chapter two. I think that is the vision of God

and his gospel that we get from this chapter. Admittedly, the emphasis on wrath is rather more pronounced. But nevertheless, I hope you notice there are true notes of gospel hope in this chapter and the restoration that God promises. So the theme of our sermon this evening, it's very simple. Here's your your main point of this sermon Zephaniah to reminds us that God has wrath for the proud and grace for the humble. He has wrath for the proud and he shows grace to the humble.

So let's meditate on each of those two points in turn. First, what does it mean that God has wrath against those who are proud? Well, most of this chapter after takes a certain form that is often called an oracle against the nations. You may have heard this before if you've done a Bible study in any prophetic books, and it's a very common motif. It's a pattern that the Old Testament prophets follow. It's it's very widespread.

We find it cropping up in Isaiah 13 through 23, 11 chapters of just Oracles against the nations. Jeremiah 46 through 51, another long stretch Ezekiel 25 through 32. Three of the four major prophets dedicate chapters upon chapters of laying out these oracles against the nations, not Judah and and Israel, but the nations around them. Amos chapter one and two has this as well. And the entire books of Nahum and obadiah are simply oracles

against pagan nations. So what do we do with these chapters? What? What? Why are they in the Bible? What's the message for us? What do we do when we read these oracles? When prophets take the time just to pronounce doom on the nation's surrounding God's people? Well it teaches us a couple things. First, we learned that God is the God of everyone. He deserves the worship of all people. If that was not so then on what grounds would he be able

to judge these nonis Israelite peoples? The God of the Bible, Yahweh is not a provincial God. He's not a local deity. He's the creator of heaven and earth, the creator of every person, all cultures, all nations, all societies. And in choosing their own way, each of these other nations have sinned against their creator and they stand guilty before him. No one on earth is exempt from God's law, from his judgment. So the Oracles against the nations,

they teach us that one thing. And the second thing they that we see is that God is actively the judge of the world. He doesn't just have something against the nations, but he plans to execute judgment and justice against these transgressions. God is both omniscient and just he's keeping track of the sins of the world he's watching. Nothing escapes his notice. And this is a little hard to see. So I just wanna, I want you to follow along with this.

You may have noticed as I did the reading, I intentionally paused between certain verses because there are four different sections or groups of people that are called out here and they occur in a very deliberate sequence. So we have names like Gaza, Ashkelon, CARite, the Seacoast, the Philistines, that's verses four through seven. This is nations or groups to the west of Judah along the seacoast. And then starting in verse eight we hear about Moab

in the Ammonites. These are relatives of Judah, descendants of Abraham's nephew, lot Moab and Amon. And they live to the east of Judah. So we have west and then we have east. Then there's a single verse in verse 12 that talks about the cushite who live in Africa, far south of God's promised land. And then you can see it quite explicitly in verse 13, God will stretch out his hand against the north and destroy Assyria who is actually really more northeast.

But because of the desert, whenever a nation wanted to come down and attack Juda, they had to come from the north. So they're considered in the north, they are the northerly country or northerly enemy of God's people. So again, this is meant to drive home for us and for the original audience of Zephaniah, this this comprehensive, no one left out vision of God's judgment. No one's escaping here. God is watching. He sees from west to east, from south to north

comprehensively he sees and he will judge. No sinful nation will escape God's evaluating gaze. So imagine you're in high school, some of you may have to cast your minds back. Some of you maybe came from there this week or you will return there I suppose at the end of the summer. But imagine you're in high school, the sort of high school that has assemblies, right? And so your your school calls an assembly, you all have

to go into the gymnasium. And when you get there, you see on the stage on the platform, four chairs and in these chairs are seated different students that you recognize. There's the surly and degenerate school bully and there's your cousin sitting there, a member of your family who you haven't quite gotten along with for a few years. And then there's the new girl who just moved cross country from southern California is new in town.

And then there's the popular and influential class president. What a lineup. You look at each of these very different students and you just can't help but wonder what do these people have in common? Why are they all here on stage? What has brought them together like this? And then the president takes the microphone, not the president, sorry, the principal takes the microphone and proceeds to announce that all four of these students have been caught cheating in their classes

in various ways this semester and that they're all going to be expelled. Now you're in high school so you might have a bad attitude and grumble about this, but what the principal wants you to take away from this assembly is a feeling in your own heart, which is, I better be careful. All four of these people are so different, but none of them were able to escape notice for what they had done wrong. None of them could escape the consequences,

not the prominent ones, not the ones on the fringes, not the powerful or the lowly. Neither the well connected nor the impressive nor the intimidating, none of them could get away. And so we're reminded that all across the world and in our own lives our sin, it never escapes God's notice. So that's the general gist of the oracle against the nations. Why do these appear in the Bible? I just wanted to give you some lenses that you can think

through when you get to Isaiah in your reading plan, you hit chapter 13, you think I got 11 chapters of this to slog through just one nation after another? There's a couple points for you. All the nations stand before God accountable to him and their sin does not escape his sight. But what about the particular sin that God has in mind in this chapter? And here we see the point that I'm trying to lay out for us that God's wrath against the proud

because the sin here in view is pride. Did you see that in verse eight?

God says, I have heard the taunts of Moab, the reviling of the Ammonites, how they have taunt to my people and made boasts against their territory. And then their penalty in verse 10, this shall be their lot in return for their pride because they taunted and boasted against God's people. So pride is there in those verses. And then look at the last verse too. Chapter uh, verse 15. Look at the the heart of pride, how it's described in verse 15.

And now remember this is Assyria. This is a different nation. This is the exultant city that lives securely that said in her heart, I am. And there is no one else. Pride. Pride is what is in God's cross hairs in this chapter. Now there are actually two different types of pride that are being characterized here. They're described in different ways. There's Moabite pride or ammonite pride which consists in tearing others down,

boasting against them. And most people in the world today, even non-Christians would look at that and say, yeah, that's wrong, that's sinful. Or they might not use that word, but they would say That's that's bad. We don't do that. We should not do that. And so you'll hear songs about sit down and be humble. You shouldn't be boasting in yourself. You shouldn't be trying to rag on others and drag them down. You should be a humble person. You shouldn't be prideful.

However, there's another type of pride that's not this very easy to diagnose, this judgmental, arrogant pride. There's a Syrian pride which looks different. And just by the way, I'm not saying that there weren't people of both prideful types in both of these nations. 'cause there surely were. But I think that God is trying to unfold for us the forms of pride that we see in the world and in our hearts. So Assyrian pride looks different from this Moabite Ammonite

tear people down, boast against them. Assyrian pride consists in boasting in yourself and throwing yourself as the very center of your own personal delight and reality. You catch that in this phrase? I am. And there is no one else a serious saying. I, I'm my own best friend. I am the greatest and I don't need anyone else. I am everything that I need. And this pride is sometimes actually celebrated in our culture as a virtue.

Sometimes it's rebranded as self-care or positive self-talk or high self-esteem. And we could quote a different song that's been popular uh, by Meghan Trainor. She has a song called I Love Me. And there's a bridge in that song that says, I don't mean to brag, I don't mean to boast, I love all y'all but I love me the most. That is a different type of pride. And that's lionized, that attitude, that perspective is celebrated in the world around us.

People look at that and they say that's just good high self-esteem. That's just someone knowing their worth and knowing their value. But verse 15 of Zephaniah two says, that's pride. That is a D pride in a different guise in a different costume, but it's the same heart. It's the same sin considering ourselves at the center instead of the God who made us. So we need to be on guard against all varieties of pride. And there's even more probably

that we could find in our own hearts if we searched courageously enough, we need to be on guard. And at least one reason why is because when we think about the Christian necessity of repentance, it's an important thing for a Christian to to understand. There is no attitude more contrary to repentance than pride. There are no two more antithetical principles, no two more oil and water substances that cannot mix than pride and repentance.

A prideful heart finds it incredibly difficult to repent, essentially impossible. And there may be some here tonight who have never ever bent the knee to Jesus before. And if that's you, I hope you hear the Bible inviting you to do so, to place your trust in him to repent, acknowledge your weakness. Come to him. There is more grace in him than there is sin in you. Revelation chapter three records what Jesus says to the spiritually prideful.

He says, you say I am rich, I have prospered and I need nothing. Not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked. And this is what Jesus says to these prideful people who don't realize what they're in there predicament. Jesus says, I counsel to you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich and white garments so that you may clothe yourself. And the shame of your nakedness may not be seen

and sve to anoint your eyes so that you may see all metaphors that Jesus is laying out simply to say, come to me. I have what you need. I have what you cannot possibly get yourself. You think that you're rich and you're empty, but I have all fullness. These are the words that Jesus extends to the sinful and unrepentant, the prideful, the lost in sin. So if that's you tonight, hear those words, consider the offer that Christ makes to give you something

that you cannot get for yourself. Something that you may not realize that you need yet. However, I know a lot of you pretty well. I think it's more likely that most of us tonight are true Christians who actually simply need to hear about our ongoing need to put our pride to death. It's not a problem that only nonbelievers struggle with. Pride is an ongoing enemy in a believer's heart. So ask yourself these questions. Maybe jot one of these down and and think it over later.

Ask yourself this. Do I say sorry easily? Is it like pulling teeth to get me to repent? Do my family, do my friends, my neighbors see me as a an arrogant person, a prideful person. Someone who never admits when they're wrong. Do I dare to ask them if they think I'm a prideful person? And here's the kicker, if I do ask them and they say, yeah, that's you. You're prideful. Do I believe them? Will I listen? Will I humble myself and say, you know what?

Maybe, maybe you're right. Maybe I am prideful. 'cause what is a prideful heart gonna say to that? No, I'm not prideful. You're prideful for calling me prideful. I'm the right one, not you. That's a prideful heart friends and it is so dangerous. Ask ourselves. We should these questions. Ask someone you know who knows you well, do you think I'm, am I proud? Tell me if I'm proud. Tell me if I'm not admitting when I'm wrong.

Tell me if I'm being pigheaded and arrogant and reasserting that everyone else is the blind one and I'm the only one who really sees what's going on. It is so dangerous. It is so hard to root that out. So if your attitude is to assume that you are the best or the most discerning person in the room, watch out. It's not merely a sin to be repented of like so many other things in our lives by its nature, pride prejudice us, prejudices us against repentance.

It makes it harder to repent. There are some sins that they're bad, they're sinful, but we see 'em and we know they're wrong and then we can repent. But pride blinds us to see how lost, how in danger, how burdened down we are by the sin. So beware dear friends of pride. God has a day against all that is high and lifted up in its own eyes against arrogant hearts, against boastful voices. They will be humbled on that day, not in glad repentance,

but because of God's righteous wrath against such high handed sin. So God is wrathful against the proud. But what about the second part? What about the fun stuff, the good news that we want to hear, the grace that God has for the humble? Well it shows up in a couple forms in this passage and one of them is not what you might expect. God's grace actually shows up first in a command. And we might not be used to thinking

of commandments from God as expressions of his grace, but in fact they are. Here's what Deuteronomy 10 says as and now Israel, what does the Lord of your God require of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I'm commanding you today for your good. Look it up Deuteronomy 10 13. That's what it says.

Why does God command us these things for our good? He wants good for you. That's why he says these things. He's not stingy or miserly, he's not a killjoy. He is not trying to rob you of something good. He's trying to give you good when he gives you a commandment or a law. So when he says, love the Lord your God with all your heart follow in my paths, he's commanding us for our good without God's laws. We're wandering, we're lost,

we desperately seek the right way, but we're unable to find it. We're bound to serve our consciences, but we don't have any divine standard to give us some direction. But a God in kindness, in compassion, in mercy, in grace, God speaks into our moral confusion with his perfectly good and holy commands to set the record straight to show us which way to go. His word is a lamp to our feet, a light to our path. So what is the command?

It's right at the beginning of the chapter. Dave stole it from me. Last week we looked ahead a few verses and I grant it to him. It probably would make more sense to preach it with chapter one, but I get to preach it tonight. So these first three verses, you probably notice there are four befores in verse two and there are three seeks in verse three. So the before is giving the context what's coming, this judgment and the command is in verse three, seek.

Seek the Lord, seek righteousness, seek humility.

Now as I mentioned before, we think of the end of Zephaniah three as the climax of the book and it is, but this segment is the heart of the book. This is the beating heart of the prophecy of Zephaniah. Back in chapter one. Look at verse six. If you have your Bible still open, verse six of chapter one. This is what Zephaniah says, that Judah are those who have turned back from following the Lord who do not seek the Lord or inquire of him.

That's the problem according to Zephaniah, the problem is that they have stopped seeking God, that they have turned back from him. And this is just one way the Bible defines sin, sin a rejection of God and a deciding not to seek him. Remember how Paul in Romans three describes the state of mankind who's all lost in sin? He gives those famous words, none is righteous. No, not one. But the very next sentence he says, no one understands.

No one seeks for God. No one seeks him. Sin is a lack of seeking God. So now Zephaniah prescribes the solution. Your problem is that you haven't sought God. And so you should change your minds. You should turn back to God. You should begin to seek him. What does it mean to seek God? What does it mean to look for him to try to find him? We've talked already tonight about repentance. I think it repentance is perhaps the beginning

or maybe even all of what it means to seek God is repentance. Remember earlier we saw that pride was totally against repentance, completely opposed to it. But now we see the flip side of that. A repentant heart that seeks the Lord is a humble heart, an un prideful heart. If pride is the biggest obstacle to repentance, then humility is its greatest ally. And that's why it says seek the Lord. Seek righteousness, seek humility.

You need them to go together. So God counts as his people to humble themselves to repent. He gives them this gracious warning before the day of judgment arrives, repent before the judge's gavel falls. Repent before it's too late. Repent. Seek the Lord. And this is a gracious thing. And look, look ahead too. We've already looked back at chapter one. Look ahead at chapter three of Zephaniah and look what God promises in verses 11 and 12.

He says, on that day, you shall not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against me. For then I will remove from your midst. You are proudly exultant ones and you shall no longer be haughty in my holy mountain. But I will leave in your midst. A people humble and lowly. They shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord. There's our key word again, seek and you can see clearly how connected it is with humility.

But there's another side of grace. In this passage we have a command, a gracious command, a kind command to seek the Lord, which we should heed, which we should do if that prideful bit earlier sounded a lot like you and the grace of Zephaniah two one through three comes to you and says, learn repentance, learn humility, learn what it means to seek the Lord. But there are further glimpses of grace in Zephaniah two. We see promises that God gives to restore

and to bring mercy to his people. And they're just sort of sprinkled throughout the pronouncements of judgment. Look at verse seven of Zephaniah two. He's pronounced judgment on the Philistines, which remember are to the west of Judah. And so that's along the coast, the sea coast. So in verse seven he says, the seacoast shall become the possession of the remnant of the house of Judah on which they shall graze. And then the houses of Ashkelon

that shall lie down an evening for the Lord their God will be mindful of them and restore their fortunes. And then just two verses later, he talks about Moab and Amon, different nation, different judgment. Same God, same judge. But then he says that they shall become like Sodom and Gomorrah and then the remnant of my people shall plunder them and the survivors of my nation shall possess them. So like a soThe that sweeps across a field

and cuts down all the lofty stalks of grain or grass that are are lifted up high. The prouder cut down, but the humble stalks that bow themselves remain. They're the remnant what is left, the humble in the land. And they are there to sort of sweep up the scraps. They are there to possess this land that has been purified and cleansed of sin against God. Those who remain are only those who have found the path of humility and repentance.

And this remnant will be blessed by the God that they have sought for all of what we feel like we'll lose when we, when we give up pretense, when we confess our pride, when we say I'm not gonna pretend anymore, I am wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I am wrong, Lord, you are right. I want to seek you. I repent. Please forgive me For all those who will say that, who will go through that painful process, their promises, their graces extended to us,

restoration of far more than we have lost, far more than we even think we ever wanted. This remnant is blessed. Once the judgment is passed, they will take possession of the land that is now vacant. The Lord their God will be mindful of them and restore their fortunes. But there's one more promise here, lest we think that Zephaniah is only making promises to Judah, to Israel, to this narrow band, this one nation. And it's a little subtle, but look in verse 11, this is

how we'll end one more promise in verse 11 of Zephaniah two. It says, the Lord will be awesome against them for hem will famish all the gods of the earth. That's judgment, right? Awesome against vanishing the gods of the earth. But then there's a turn it says, and to him that is to the Lord, bow down each in its place, all the lands of the nations. Now, the first time I read this, I thought it meant bow down in shame, bow down

in unrelenting, just un or un unavoidable submission to God as the judge, the just the absolute ruler of the world. We can't deny it anymore as much as we would love to. Sort of like the vision, the other prophetic vision of people crying out and fall on us mountains hide us from the wrath of God. Cowering down, bowing down in fear of God's wrath. But I don't think that's what this is saying actually that's what I thought.

I don't think that's what verse 11 is about. In the second half it's more likely given the context, and I'll show you another verse from chapter three. It's more likely that this verse is talking about the promise of gentile nations becoming true worshipers of the God of Israel. Listen to what it says in chapter three verse nine. Here's a another promise that God gives through zephaniah. And he says, for at that time, I will change the speech

of the peoples to a pure speech that all of them may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord from beyond the rivers of kush. My worshipers, the daughter of my dispersed ones shall bring, bring my offering.

In other words, the praise of God's people throughout the world will come from many different tribes and tongues, but whose voices will all be united in a pure speech, into a singular worship to their great redeeming Lord and king. I think verse 11 of Zephaniah two gives us the promise of a great harvest of the Gentiles. The sights swinging low not to cut off the chaff, to throw into the fire, but to gather into God's barn as it says,

as Jesus says in the New Testament, a harvest not just among Judah, not just a remnant of those people, but a remnant throughout the world. Humble ones in every nation who will bow their knee to God, who will admit their pride, who will choose humility in the Lord's grace. At home we have a piece of artwork. It's very simple, but I love it dearly. It's a watercolor painting of a world map and it's two feet wide. It's one foot high. It's not, it's not big,

it's just a world map. But emblazoned across the center of that map are the words of Psalm 2227. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. And every time I look at it, it's a precious reminder of that promise. Psalm 2227, which is also here in Zephaniah two 11, our God is a God of the nations, the whole world, his judgment extends to every person without exception.

And his mercy goes out across the world, read the book of Acts and wonder at his plan of salvation. That's what Peter and the apostles did. They couldn't, um, they could not have imagined how gracious God was going to be to all the peoples living in the cities around them. They couldn't. They literally couldn't believe it at first. And they were silent in Acts chapter 10. They said God has chosen them to, he's that good, his gospels for all the peoples,

all who will bother knee to him acknowledge their guilty pride

And run freely

to take the water of life.

Humble repentance is not a grace restricted only to Israelites. Thank God. Look around you really not like this morning when Devon told you to look around and you didn't like actually like turn to your neighbors. Look at the people in this room. How many of them do you think are Jewish? Not many. And if you are, praise the Lord. I'm glad you're here. But in the categories of Zephaniah, two, we are not residents of Judah.

We're the Ammonites. We are the cushite, the Assyrians, the Philistines. And yet we are redeemed.

We are the humble red that is received mercy. We are proof positive that God has kept his promise

in Zephaniah two 11. And so we have confidence that he who began a good work in us will surely bring it to completion all around the world, in every place, giving mercy to the humble of every tribe and tongue and people and nation until the day of Christ Jesus. Amen. Let's pray.

Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing. Lord of our great redeemer, thank you for your love for us and for people we will never meet.

Give us mouths to tell them of Christ, those around us who are not yet humbled. And we pray that you would send those into the harvest, who will go to the prideful and counsel them like Jesus does, to bend their need of Christ and to receive fullness of life, fullness of mercy for all those who will humble themselves and come to you In Christ name we pray, amen.