Desperation
Marc Jolicoeur · Tidal Church Moncton · November 16, 2025 · Malachi series
Marc Jolicoeur closes the Malachi series with Malachi 4:2 and the story of the woman who touched Jesus' cloak in Luke 8. He invites us to bring our need to Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, and not to numb it.
More from Marc Jolicoeur · The Malachi series
Topics: Hope, Faith, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:00] I'm wrapping up our series on Malachi. And so depending upon the kind of person you are, you're either going, "Aw," or you're going, "Hey, we're moving away from this kinda Old Testament book." But I hope that you, like me, actually enjoyed the opportunity to dig into this book. Over the last few weeks, Pastor Jeremy gave us a bit of a call at week one. After he set some context for us, he let us know, "Hey, this is a book that was written during the kind of second temple period." So this is just after the people of of the Jewish people came back from Babylon, were resettled back into their own land, you know, 70 or so odd years after the first temple was destroyed. And most of the land was kind of sacked. So he gave us some context and gave us an excellent sermon about doubt, right?
[0:46] And this is the idea that if you forget what God is doing or what God has done or what He's capable of doing, the remedy to that is to remember. Actually, we sang about that this morning. We sang that song, "God, You're So Good." And that line in that third verse, "Should this life bring suffering, Lord, I will remember," right? That's such a beautiful opportunity, just remembering, recentering ourselves. But then he also said, "Hey, you should read Malachi. You should read it throughout this next few weeks, multiple times." I hope you did that. If you did, I hope you found it to be as instructive and helpful as I did last week. Pastor Sam gave us a jarring and important message on drift. So we had doubt, we have drift. This idea of, like, what happens when you are no longer on the exact right path.
[1:32] You have to get pulled back onto the path, you've gotta get recentered. If you're off a little bit and you keep going, you're gonna go real wide. So you've gotta be brought back. We can't drift. So doubt, drift. And as I have the last section of Malachi, I'm gonna talk to us about desperation. Everybody's favorite word. Can you say desperation? De, you guys are good. Alright, so yeah, the last section of this book, we're gonna talk about desperation. And I wanna give you a little bit of a one more insight. I mean, I guess Jeremy gave us a lot of reasons why we chose this book. But here's one more reason why we chose this book. We're coming into this season of Advent. Jim just showed us these little invite cards that we can use to invite people, and the idea is we can bring them back for Christmas, right?
[2:18] A lot of people think of Christmas as any day from kind of December 1st on. If you look at my house, you would think, we think it's November 1st on. But that's a problem that we have to deal with, not you. But Christmas really, I kinda actually happens on Christmas Day, December 25th. That's when we acknowledge the birth, the coming of our King, our Messiah, Jesus Christ. And the months, the month or so leading up to that, four weeks, is what we call Advent, which is a Latin term, which means kind of coming or the coming. So it's actually supposed to be a little bit less eggnog and candy canes and a little bit more preparation, anticipation, waiting. And so that's actually one of the reasons we chose this book, Malachi. So you can see here, this is the Old Testament, right? But two thirds of your Bible, it's pretty meaty, it's pretty chunky.
[3:04] This back half, or back third, rather. The New Testament also meaty, also chunky, but smaller. And Malachi is that bridge between the two, right? Just look how easy it is. Just flip a page. So easy, right? So it naturally leads us from Malachi to Matthew, right? The coming of the King and the coming of the Messiah. And that's what we wanna talk about this morning, is our Messiah. But Malachi actually has more to let us know about than just the Messiah, but also the Messiah's forerunner, Saint John, as he's called in some churches, St. John the Forerunner. So we're actually gonna hear a little bit about this, what Malachi 3:1 refers to as His messenger, which is going ahead. But we're gonna read Malachi chapter 4, verses 5 and 6 to get started.
[3:50] And here it says, "Look, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord arrives. His preaching will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse." Now, it says there, "Otherwise I will come and strike the land of a curse," that we see here. But as you know, this is being translated from another language into English. And so it would be perfectly appropriate to also consider, as some translations say, "Otherwise, when I come, I will strike the land with a curse." So in some respects, what we're saying is He's coming one way or another, He's coming. And the question is, how will His coming be received? Now, if you're paying attention to this, you heard the word and the name Elijah, and you're like, if you know anything about the Bible at all, you're like, "I think Elijah already came," right?
[4:42] You're trying to kind of plot this on a storyline. You're like, you had all these, you know, the first kingdoms of Israel and Judah, I think Elijah is way back then, like way before this. And so this idea that he's coming again, what's going on with this? Well, this is a good question. So in Matthew chapter 17, Jesus' followers ask Him, starting in verse 10, "Hey, why do the teachers of religious law insist that Elijah must return before the Messiah comes?" Jesus replied, "Elijah is indeed coming first to get everything ready, but I tell you, Elijah has already come. Yeah, we know that. But he wasn't recognized, and they chose to abuse him. And in the same way, they will also make the Son of Man suffer."
[5:30] And it's, at this point, the disciples realized he was talking about John the Baptist. Many people heard of John the Baptist. He's a pretty famous, he's a pretty famous guy, right? John the Baptist, even if you haven't read the Bible, possibly you've heard about this guy, crazy hair, weird clothing, kind of a strange diet. And he's actually so famous that he's attested to outside the Bible. Like there's no, like, it's not just like this biblical character. He is actually Josephus and other ancient historians reference this guy known as John, who had a significant, significant following that actually lasted well after his death. And in the book, according to Luke, the Gospel, rather, according to Luke, he's actually so important that he gets his own birth narrative. We know the idea that, like, Mary has a birth narrative, and you know, angels speak to the mother of Jesus. Well, angels speak to the mother of John, actually the father of John as well.
[6:19] So it's a really, really big deal. And he has a lot of followers. Jesus, in some respects, is kind of one of his followers, even though he'd be sur Him, as we're gonna read here. So in Luke chapter 3, John is speaking to people who are gathered around him, and everyone was expecting. This is Luke chapter 3, verses 15 and 16. Everyone at this point was expecting the Messiah to come soon, and they were eager to know whether John might be this Messiah. John answered the questions by saying, "I baptize you with water, but someone is coming soon who is greater than I am, so much greater that I'm not even worthy to be a slave. And to untie the straps of His sandals, He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire."
[7:04] Now let's take that word fire, and let's kind of tuck that into the back of our brains. We'll bring that out later on. So everyone at this point in time was expecting the Messiah. Why? Why was everyone expecting the Messiah? If you read through the Old Testament without the frame of the Messiah, I mean, you can see these snippets, these little kind of like hints that there's a person coming. But at this point in time, apparently according to the Gospel, everyone is just expecting He's gonna come soon, this Messiah. Why? Why this kind of fervent hope and expectation? Well, I would say partly because they really needed hope. There's a number of things that had failed the Jewish people at this point in time. And we can overstate this, but I do think this is well attested in Scripture, and I think it seems to stand to reason that they had lost their hope in a number of things.
[7:56] They had lost their hope in the temple. So we refer to this as the Second Temple period because it's the second temple. So before they get carried away to Babylon, remember, we're talking about people who had come back from Babylon, but before they get carried away from there, people come in and they destroy the temple, the place where they went to as their kind of the primary locus of God's presence here on earth. And there's a number of places we could read in the Old Testament about this kind of disappointment or desperation about the temple. But we'll take a look at Ezra chapter 3 and just read a little bit from verse 12. This is what it says: many of the older priests, this is actually when they're getting ready to lay, they have laid the foundation, they've poured the slab, they've laid the foundation for the new temple.
[8:45] And some people who at this point in time, no offense to any octogenarians in the room, quite old, they would've had to been quite old because they would've had to have been alive for the 70 years between when they got carried away and brought back. But they remember what the temple was like. And it says here that many of the older priests and Levites and the other leaders who had seen the first temple, they wept aloud when they saw the new temple's foundation. Why? Because they were disappointed. They're like, "I know what the temple was like, this, this is kinda lame." This is a bit of a lame. And to be honest with you, it does start out quite lame. That is not really what they would've hoped when they thought about this grand temple. Now, somewhat ironically, over the centuries between when this text is written and when we come to Jesus, the temple, the second temple, has grown to be actually far larger than the first temple.
[9:38] It has more gold, it has more glitz, it has more glam. But what we seem to find is that people are still disappointed in the temple. And if you read through the Old Testament, when the first temple is dedicated by Solomon, or even when the tabernacle, the tent, where they used to meet in the wilderness, when it's dedicated by Moses, there is this unbelievable scene that's described where God's presence blows into the place, and it is so full of God that people actually, they can't even get through the doors. They're just kinda held out. There's this just amazing sense of God's living and active presence in those places. But we don't actually have that recounted at any point in time for the second temple.
[10:23] And so for some reason, the people have lost their hope in this physical space. They've also lost their hope in the land, actually the land that they've returned to. If you know anything about the Old Testament, have you heard the land of milk and honey? Have you heard in the Bible, the promised land? It's the promised land. It's described as the land of milk and honey. If you're lactose intolerant, that sounds a little bit less exciting. But honey's great for everyone. It's got enzymes, you know, it's all the rage. The point was that it was a land that was just dripping with excess. It was just full, lush, sometimes called the Fertile Crescent. You had everything there. When they first went there, they had these people who picked a cluster of grapes.
[11:09] And I mean, I don't know if this is hyperbole or not, but they said they had to put it on a pole and two people carrying these grapes. Golly, that is a lot of grapes. I don't even know if you could bite into one of those things. But anyway, there was just so much. But by this point, it doesn't feel like it's so plush. And so actually, though, we'll read the verse right before this a little bit later on, we know that there's a reason, at least Malachi presents a reason why this is happening. But listen to what Malachi is saying in chapter 3, verse 11. This is the word, the Lord speaking to the people. He says, "Then I will stop the plague from ruining your crops. And the vine will not lose its fruit before harvest then." So I think we can infer, it's pretty easy at this point in time, there is a plague that is ruining people's crops, and the vine is losing its fruit before the harvest.
[12:03] The land of milk and honey is not so milky and it's not so sweet. It's not actually yielding the kind of produce that they were hoping for. They'd lost hope in the temple. They'd lost hope in this promised, quote unquote, land. And then there's more that we could say, obviously. But one last one I wanna hit at is that they lost hope in their leaders. And Sam did an excellent job last week of letting us know exactly why they might have lost hope in their leaders. So we won't return to Malachi chapter 2. Instead, we'll just take a look at a contemporaneous prophet, Zechariah, what he says in chapter 10 and verse 2. This is the word of the Lord. "So my people are wandering like lost sheep. They are attacked because they have no shepherd.
[12:50] My anger burns against your shepherds, and I will punish these leaders." Right? The shepherd is not just one who looks after sheep, but one who looks after people. They had lost hope in the temple. They'd lost hope in their land, and they'd lost hope in their leaders. They were desperate. And before we return to Malachi, I'd like us to hang out in the first century for just a few moments. The time when the Messiah has actually burst onto the scene. And there's a picture of a desperate person. I think maybe so much like a paradigmatic version of desperation that if you looked up, you know, "desperate" in the dictionary, possibly this person could be like one of the examples that's listed. Real rough stuff.
[13:41] This is from the Gospel according to Luke chapter 8. Many of you will know this story. This is chapter 8, starting in verse 43. There was a woman who had been suffering from a flow of blood for 12 years. And though she had spent all she had on physicians, no one could cure her. Actually, this is told in multiple Gospels, and sometimes it says she actually just kept getting worse. Her savings depleted, absolutely no help. It says that she came up behind Him. That is, she came up behind Jesus and she touched the fringe of His cloak, and immediately her flow of blood stopped.
[14:28] And then Jesus asked, "Who touched Me?" They all denied it. And Peter said, "Master, the crowds that You're hemming You in and pressing against You." But Jesus said, "Someone touched Me, for I noticed the power had gone out from Me." And when the woman realized, you know, she could not remain hidden, she came trembling and falling down before Him. She declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched Him, and how she had been immediately healed. And Jesus said to her, "Daughter, it's your faith that's made you well. Go in peace." So my question when I'm reading this text is, why this particular hope?
[15:15] I understand the hope, I understand the hope for Messiah, but what would lead her to think, if I could just touch the edge of whatever He's wearing? Like, that's not something that I would think would cross one's mind. Where does this particular hope come from? And this is our opportunity to return to our friend Malachi. So in Malachi chapter 4 verse 2, here is a famous messianic prophecy. So it says, "For you who fear My name," this is the Lord speaking, "the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in His wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture." The sun of righteousness.
[16:00] Now, I can do several things. One of the things I cannot do is draw. I still draw like I'm in kindergarten. So if I was gonna draw you a sun, I would do a circle, and then I would just do these little lines that come off the circle, right? I'd be like, oh, look, maybe if I had the time, I would color it yellow. There you go. It's the sun, right? So these rays, this idea of like the emanations that come off of the center of a sun, that's actually also a way of understanding what wings would also be. If you're in this room here today, if you're joining us online, we have a room here with multiple sections. And the further you get to the edge, we actually call the outside of the auditorium the wings of the auditorium. If you know anything about the White House, you know, there's several sections off the center, and they are called wings of the building, right?
[16:46] So wing is not just like, wing is the extremities, right? The edges, the fringes away from the center. And actually, if you've ever seen a television program or a movie that kind of depicts what Jewish people are wearing during this time, this is obviously debated. All things by scholars are debated. That's how they keep jobs. But it's very possible that people were wearing things at that time that look a lot like this actually put up on the screen here, these things that are called tallit. Tallit, yeah. And you can see on the edges there these things that are, these fringes, they're called tzitzit. Do I say tzitzit? I know you wanna do it. Tzitzit.
[17:33] It's fine. Tzitzit. Try it out. It's okay. So there's these things that hang out and they're kind of for religious purposes in some respects, and we won't tie into the whole reason why, but it's interpretations of kind of ancient Old Testament texts. But the point is, is that it's very likely that people, especially rabbis, but observant Jewish people, would've been wearing those at the time. In fact, I have a friend who a few years ago went to Jerusalem and he brought me back this prayer shawl, beautiful prayer shawl. And on there's a number of Scriptures that are kind of laid out in different languages, some in English, some in Hebrew, but you can also see that at the edges of this, we have some pretty prominent tzitzit, right? This idea is that the further away from you, you have these edges, these fringes that come down. And so the point is, is that when the sun of righteousness will rise, He will be so holy.
[18:23] He will be so full of hope, He'll be so full of power, so full of grace, so full of truth that even the edges, the absolute fringes, the barest threads that He wears will be full of healing. And this woman was at the absolute edge of herself. Nothing left in her resources, nothing left in her tank. She had nothing. But when her extremity, touched His extremity, when the fringes came together, there was healing in His wings. And so for you this morning, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that there are some people in this room and some people with the sound of my voice online who are at the edge of themselves.
[19:15] We sang that song, "Have you come to the end of yourself?" You need to know that the sun of righteousness has risen and there is healing in His wings. All we need to do is to face, our desperation. Don't hide from your need. Actually bring your need to Him and He will be there for you. How He meets you, how He heals you. Those are different stories for different people. But know that the sun of righteousness has risen and there is healing in His wings. And so for those of you who are desperate this morning, I hope that you'll find hope in Him and that we'll even have an opportunity to pray with you.
[20:03] Maybe at the end of the service, maybe even right now, you can be seeking someone to pray with you. But I have a kind of a particular word for the rest of us. Those people who don't find themselves, to be honest, at the edge of themselves, who don't find themselves dancing at the end of their resources. To be honest with you, the overwhelming majority of you, and I have what I feel like is a bit of a strange word this morning, and I'm a little bit nervous to bring it. And that granted, I already brought it once, and so, well, jury is still out, how effective it was. I'm concerned that it'll be misunderstood, but I do pray that God will allow this to sink in, in the right places and then just kind of fall away if it happens to be not the right word. But for some of us, it's not necessarily about us kind of facing our desperation.
[20:53] It could be about fostering our desperation. We live in a world, most of us live in a world that is custom designed to meet all of our needs, even before we express them, to be honest with you. And if they can't, if the world can't meet our needs, it'll be very happy to numb those needs, right? To make sure that we don't feel our need. When I leave this service today and go home, I could take the time to make myself a nice healthy lunch, or I could go to my kids' room and raid the leftover Halloween candy that they have. They would never notice that it was gone. Okay? It would be so easy, so easy.
[21:39] It's a perfect crime, and it would numb my need, but it wouldn't really meet my need, right? If maybe you can't find that special someone, you've had a hard time finding romance, the good news is that you have the internet, and the internet will provide exactly what you need at any point in time to make sure that you feel satisfied, right? And if you are ever, God forbid, bored and you feel a little bit restless, and you could invest your time in prayer, you could invest your time in learning, you could invest your time in a relationship. The good news is you don't have to because you could just reach for your phone. And if you need a surgery, you need some kind of physical help, but for whatever reason there's a long wait list or you just can't quite, they don't have the right surgery available for you.
[22:29] The technology is still waiting. The good news is that we have painkillers, we have things that can numb your pain. Now hopefully you hear what I'm saying, that's actually kind of a good thing. And this is part of the problem, that all these things range from good to bad to kind of ambivalent. But the point is that our world is custom made to make sure that we don't feel desperation. But what about the fact that sometimes a certain level of desperation actually draws us closer to Christ? Jeremy, when he set up the series a few weeks ago, he gave us this idea, a statement, and then sort of a rebuttal to the statement, and then an explanation of the statement.
[23:17] So God says, "You're doing this," and the people go, "How are we doing that?" And then He explains how they're doing it. And I wanna point out two of these kinda statements that I believe are showing us that the people of Israel were unwilling to follow God to the letter, unwilling to follow God in the right direction because they were afraid that it was gonna make them vulnerable. They were afraid that it was gonna make them actually feel their need. God forbid that they might actually feel desperate. Malachi 1:8, He says that they have been making light of His name, and they say, "How have we made light of Your name?" They did that by offering substandard, blemished sacrifices. So rather than bringing the best lamb, they brought the one that nobody would wanna look at for more than a few seconds if they didn't have to, right?
[24:07] Just kind of bring the leftovers and bring 'em out. And then how? So how is that in some respects, you know, making sure that you're not desperate? Well, the truth is, if you take your absolute best lamb, that's your most valuable item, right? The one that has the most kind of financial worth. And so if you're like, "How will I get, how will I sell this at the market? You know, how will I actually get what I need to be able to pay my bills? Or how will I be able to entertain?" Well, if I have to have an ugly lamb? That kind of goes towards the slaughter. Now the other section is Malachi 3:9-10. I don't know if we've referenced this, but this is actually the section that comes right before what I read earlier from Malachi 3:11 that talks about the land being blighted by plague. And this is actually the cause towards that. He says that you have robbed Me. And they say, "How have we robbed You?"
[24:54] You've robbed Me by being unwilling to bring in the full tithes and offerings to My temple. Now, that's a specific set of commands that was actually only applying to the people of Israel at that point in time, the people of Judea. But nonetheless, the point is that they were unwilling to give from their first fruits, to give what they had because they were afraid. What if I give too much? What if I actually give what You're asking of me? And then I don't have enough for myself. I become more hungry than I'm used to, more thirsty than I'm used to. I become desperate. These are contexts that in some respects feel like they're kind of outside of our, like I don't offer a lot of lambs for sacrifices. We don't have a storehouse here where you can bring in your grain offerings.
[25:41] I understand that. But I do think that there's kind of a general principle that I feel personally is weighed upon me as I've been contemplating the Scripture. And here's the question that I want us even right now, take a moment and ask this question: Lord, how have we ignored Your expectations to try and avoid the very desperation that would draw us to You? Is it in our finances? Is it in our ability to witness to those in our neighborhood or in our environment, is it in our sexuality?
[26:26] Lord, how have we ignored Your expectations to try and avoid the very desperation that would draw us to You? That question will circle back around for us in just a few minutes. But before that, I wanna give two different kind of two different "don't" statements. The first one is, don't give in to cynical despair. Don't give in to cynical despair.
[27:11] Malachi chapter 3, verses 14 to 15. Malachi says, "You guys have said, 'Hey, what's the use of serving God? I mean, what have we gained by obeying His commands or by trying to show the Lord of heaven's armies that we're even sorry for our sins? From now on, we will call the arrogant blessed, for those who do evil get rich, and those who dare God to punish them suffer no harm.'" Don't allow the temporary realities of what you see around you to bring you to a cynical despair where you no longer have the hope of what He has offered. You know, the Apostle Paul tells us that love never fails.
[28:00] Hope doesn't disappoint. We have to remain hopeful of how God will meet us in our need. Don't give in to cynical despair, but likewise, don't give up and numb your desperation. Again, this world, and I mean literally the globe, the economy, the governments, everything about it is trying to help us not feel our desperation. We often viewed need as a bad thing, but we are made to need Jesus Himself. In Matthew chapter 5, His Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
[28:48] Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek. They will inherit the earth. Or listen to this. Blessed are those who hunger and who thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. This is a word. I should have said this earlier. This is a word to the church, okay? If you are here and you're just visiting us, you're visiting with some friends, you just wanna find a little bit more about Jesus, welcome, my goodness, welcome. I'm sorry this isn't a happier message. You're always welcome. And there is an unbelievable and ultimate hope that I hope you'll find in Christ. But these words here are to those who have decided and who have been brought in line with Messiah, with King Jesus.
[29:40] We must avoid a cynical desperation, but we also must avoid giving up our capacity to need. We must foster our desperation. In a few moments, we're gonna move into a time of communion. But I wanna point out something that I mentioned earlier that you should kind of tuck the word fire into the back of your head. Let's untuck it now and bring it to the front. I wanna read again Malachi 4:2. This is a messianic prophecy. For you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in His wings. The sun of righteousness will rise with healing in His wings.
[30:28] Pastor Sam, last week when he was talking about this, the sun, 'cause it actually shows up earlier on as well. It's this idea of it burning away the chaff, the dross, the excess. And I was just struck by this, this week, the same sun that is in the sky right now, somewhere behind those clouds that will make it maybe get above freezing today, if everything goes well, the same sun is the sun that come, you know, at the end of July, we'll be trying our very best to hide from, because it's gonna boil us at 40 degrees, right? The same sun. We know, especially us as Canadians, we know that the same sun can be experienced very differently depending upon the context.
[31:13] And this sun, the sun of righteousness, as He rises, He wants us all to find healing in His wings. But unless we are made right before Him, we don't experience it as healing. We experience it as judgment. It's the same chapter of Matthew that I read from earlier, the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says, the Lord causes the sun to rise on the just and the unjust, on the righteous and the unrighteous. And the good news is that to be the righteous in this doesn't mean the people who have done everything super right, all their life, spotless, clean, no mistakes found, no.
[32:04] It means those who have been made right by their faith and their faithfulness to King Jesus and Messiah. And so if that's something that you've never done before, I'd actually like to lead you. If you feel inclined, I'd like to lead you in a prayer this morning that will start you on that journey towards Him. And so maybe this is the first time you've done that. If that's the case, I would encourage you afterwards, if you want to talk to one of the prayer team members or talk to one of the pastors, we'd love to be able to have this conversation with you. But I'm just gonna invite you even right now where you are to pray this prayer with me. King Jesus, I know now that You are the Messiah, the one that was prophesied thousands of years ago, and the one who was alive and well today.
[32:56] I know that I cannot be made right on my own. And I know that I don't have to. I know that only You are the Sun of Righteousness. And that when You rise into my life, Lord, I want to receive the healing that's in Your wings. I repent. I say I'm sorry for the choices that I've made that are against Your will. I'm sorry for my sin. I ask that You would forgive me of that sin and that You would come into my life and that You would over time make me right and draw me closer to You. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
[33:41] Whether that means that as of this moment, you are a new follower of the Messiah of Jesus Christ, or whether that means you have been a follower for days, weeks, or for decades. We're gonna have an opportunity right now to participate together in the Lord's Supper in communion. In a few moments, I'll be inviting the ushers forward. What we're gonna do is I'm gonna ask you to remain seated as the elements are distributed throughout the house. And then what you're gonna do is you're gonna get a single cup that comes out of there. And what you do is you take that cup and just kind of twist it lightly and you'll be able to separate it in two cups. One of the cups will have the bread and the other one will have the juice. Just hold onto those elements so that we can kind of take them together in a few moments. When I come back, in the meantime, while the elements are being distributed, Charlene and the team are gonna lead us in a song.
[34:29] And I would love for you to take this as an opportunity to allow this question, the one that's on the screen right now, to just kinda sink into us a little bit. Lord, how have we ignored Your expectations to try and avoid the very desperation that would draw us to You? You know, in certain traditions, certain Christian traditions, they'll actually start fasting sundown on Saturday night. And the very first food that they will eat for 12 hours or depending on how long your church service is, is this little wafer. So a piece of bread in this cup. And just think about how that kind of framing, putting you in that sense of need and knowing that He's the one who meets your needs.
[35:18] Just think about that, contemplate that as we sing this song this morning, as the ushers come forward, I'll pray for the elements. We'll start to distribute them throughout the house. Lord, You are good and Your mercies are new each morning. And as we just pause right now to allow Your Spirit to speak to us and to give us a next step that we can take, we just wanna surrender and ask You to have Your way. We thank You for these elements and those who prepared them. Thank You for the bread. Thank You for the cup. I pray that in these moments, You would allow them to become so much more than what they were before they were offered to You, that You would bless them and that You'd bless Your nda. In Jesus' name, amen.