The Wisdom of God in Preparing His Servants

Transcript

scriptures to our sermon text this morning, which is Exodus chapter four. We will be focusing specifically on the last part of chapter four, beginning in verse 18 down through the end of the chapter. And Moses' return to Egypt, Exodus chapter four verses 18 through 31. Here now once again the word of the Lord. Moses went back to Jethro, his father-in-law, and said to him, "Please let me go back to my brothers in Egypt to see whether they are still alive." And Jethro said to Moses, "Go in peace." And the Lord said to Moses and Midian, "Go back to Egypt for all the men who were seeking your life are dead." So Moses took his wife and his sons and had them ride on a donkey and went back to the land of Egypt.

And Moses took the staff of God and his hand. And the Lord said to Moses, "When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power, but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the Lord, 'Israel is my firstborn.' And I say to you, 'Let my son go that he may serve me. If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.'" At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met him and sought to put him to death. Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it and said, "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me." So he let him alone.

It was then that she said, "A bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision." The Lord said to Aaron, "Go into the wilderness to meet Moses." So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him. Then Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord with which he had sent him to speak and all the signs that he commanded him to do. Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel. Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people. And the people believed.

And when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let's pray together. Lord our God, as we bow before you, once again this morning we ask, Lord, your blessing on the reading of your word and the hearing of your word, but not only on the hearing of your word, we ask your blessing that you would give us the wills, that you would inspire in us by your spirit the right response to your word so that we might be doers of your word.

And we pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. Well, I don't know about you, all the parents out there, but in my house we often have conversations about wisdom. God generally gives wisdom to parents so that they might teach their children.

And that's because they're parents. That's one of the things that it means to be a parent. But, as we all know, or at least most of us know, children come with a default switch turned on. And that switch tells them, of course, that they know more and they have more wisdom than their parents. Now think about the way children are with their parents and compare that with how all of us are with God.

Aren't we exactly the same way? We might not say it out loud with our words. We may not even think it truly and completely in our minds, but often we behave in a way that we think that we are actually wiser than God. In the previous context of Exodus, we've just encountered Moses at the burning bush, a long section, three sermons on that passage where God is speaking to Moses out of the burning bush. Moses was, of course, in the wilderness, having been out of Egypt now for 40 years.

And if you remember, he was tending sheep on the far side of the wilderness when God did call him out of the burning bush. And it was there that God gave Moses his commission. He told Moses what he was to do. The time had come for Israel's exodus. Now it was true that Moses needed time for preparation.

He needed to be stripped of all of his self-dependence. But in his process of preparation and his own wilderness, his own exodus, Moses really had gotten too comfortable. The living God of the universe condescended to Moses. He revealed himself specially to Moses. Yet, at an important fundamental level, here's what we see.

Moses didn't believe God. He didn't believe God could use him for such a calling. After all, he tried to do something about Israel's plight, but he failed, and he failed miserably, and the people turned on him. He was rejected. So because of this, because of his experience, because of his comfort for 40 years in Midian and the wilderness, Moses objected to God's calling, and he objected to God giving him such a task.

As we saw in Pastor Dylan's sermon last week, Moses tried to think of every reason that he could in order to not go. But of course, he ended with this one final plea after he was out of excuses. "Please just send someone else." Moses' stubborn unbelief became crystal clear to us. But God assured him that he is the one. He was the one.

He must go, and he must obey. This morning's text shows us the steps between God sending Moses from the burning bush to his transition into actually going back to Egypt. And in these transition verses, we find that Moses' remaining doubt and his remaining self-reliance are once and for all finally stripped away. And we see, through all of this, God's wisdom as he kindly deals with his servant. This text, as we just read, is essentially made up of four separate scenes that all work together.

And these four scenes unfold as they do so. We see that God continuously, through these scenes, through these steps to Egypt, if you will, back to Egypt, that God is continually purifying his servant. God is removing Moses' self-reliance, and he's teaching Moses to finally and fully trust his word. It's time for Moses to go back. When he first arrives before Pharaoh, he will be fully prepared as God's thunderous mouthpiece.

Though there are four scenes here, I'm going to point out to you three truths that we can glean from this text that I want you to take away and hopefully apply to your lives. First of all, we see how God providentially prepares his people. Second, we see how God requires covenant faithfulness. And then third and finally, we'll see how God carefully fulfills all of his promises. And with each of these three prominent truths, there is a theme that's woven throughout all of them.

And that theme is this, the wisdom of God in preparing his servants. So these first four chapters have really all been about preparation. That's what we've been pointing out to you over and over again. God has been preparing the Israelites so that they really feel the weight of their sin, their burden, their misery. He's also preparing Moses specifically.

God has let him see his own failure in being presumptuous. He's given him a fine Egyptian education, first of all. Then he let him see his own failure in presumptuousness. He's also prepared him through these last 40 years in his own exodus in the wilderness. And now, most clearly, God has prepared Moses in this scene at the burning bush.

He's revealed his glory. He's revealed his name. He's revealed his plan of redemption. And he's even answered all of Moses' objections. It's clear that Moses' experiences over the last 40 years have humbled him.

The problem is they haven't alleviated his lack of faith. Therefore, they haven't truly humbled him enough. What we find in these transition verses is what I'm calling a reluctant obedience. But in God's wisdom, he will use this reluctant obedience to break Moses. He will fully prepare Moses so that he might rightly stand before Pharaoh.

In this first scene in the text, we find that God always providentially prepares his servants. This is what he does for Moses, and this is what he does, indeed, for all of his children, for you and for me, who are in Christ. To say that God providentially prepares, I simply mean this, that God graciously provides what we need at just the moment when we need it, always. God does this not so that we can have comfortable, easy lives. He doesn't do this so that we can live unto ourselves.

No, he does all of this for what reason? That he's making so clear in these passages. He does it for his own glory, and he does it so that we might actually bring him glory, so that we might actually respond in true and genuine worship. To show you the first way that God does this, I'm going to, I'm calling it cheat a little bit, okay? What I mean by that is I think the first way God providentially prepares Moses is actually right in the previous text just before this, but it's important because this theme comes back up in our text today.

The first evidence of God's providential preparation is in providing Moses an essential helper. In verse 14 of chapter 4, to answer Moses' objection about his speech problem, God promises to do what? Promises to send Aaron to essentially be Moses' mouthpiece. This is relevant to the current passage because we are going to see Aaron appear later in this text for the first time. Let's read those words just once again back in chapter 4, verse 14.

It says, "Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and he said, 'Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do. He shall speak for you to the people, and he shall be your mouth, and you shall be as God to him.'" Aaron is a gracious provision for Moses' weak faith.

He is a helper for Moses. The wonderful thing about God's amazing grace toward sinners like us is that he never calls us to follow his will in isolation and loneliness, and that's really important to bear in mind. When God calls us to service, he also always calls us to community. He calls us to serve him not by ourselves, but as a people, as a holy nation, a royal priesthood. And this, dear brothers and sisters, it strengthens our faith so that we might be confident and even more confident in doing God's will.

The next way we see God providentially preparing Moses is through graciously assuring him, but he's doing so in a gentle and a wise manner. See this in the text. We do see that Moses is obeying in verse 18, do we not? After meeting with God at the burning bush, he goes back to Midian, and he goes back to his father-in-law. What does he do when he gets there?

He requests to leave. This is a good thing. This is a step of obedience. This is a step of faith. He expresses his need to leave as a custom and courtesy to his father-in-law.

He also needs to ask to be relieved from his duties from his employer. His father-in-law is also his employer, as we've been reading. But did you catch the reason that Moses gave for why he needs to leave? Please let me go back to my brothers in Egypt to see whether they are still alive. What's wrong with that?

Does Moses know that his brothers, meaning his fellow Israelites, are still alive? Well, of course he does. That's what God's been talking to him about this whole time. This is a huge indicator for us in the way that Moses tells of his need to go to Egypt. This is a huge indicator for us of Moses's reluctant faith.

He's starting to get there, but he doesn't quite fully believe yet, and we see that in his words. So Jethro releases Moses with his blessing, then listen to the way that the Lord so patiently and kindly and graciously and lovingly once again deals with Moses in verse 19. He says, "Go back to Egypt for all the men who are seeking your life are dead." God doesn't even respond to Moses's half-truth before Jethro. Moses did want to know if some people were still alive, but it wasn't his brothers. No, it was the men who wanted to kill him, including Pharaoh.

So God, in his gracious, loving, mercy, and kindness, assures Moses that he will go and that when he goes, the previous obstacles he faced 40 years ago have been removed. Doesn't mean he won't face obstacles, but these are going to be new obstacles, not the previous obstacles. And through God's gracious provision, Moses once again responds in faith. This is made clear in how he responds. He takes his family, he places them on a donkey, and he goes back to Egypt.

He knows that his family must go with him. His first duties, as he's making clear in his actions, are to be what? A husband and a father. And this is an important lesson for all of us who are called to any sort of ministry, any sort of calling by God, which is everyone in this room. Our first duty on earth is to manage our own households well, to love our wives and our children, fathers and husbands, and mothers.

The same call is true for you as well. So even in Moses's call as the deliverer of Israel, he is still called to be a husband and father first, and we see that on display in his action. We also see another act of faith, and that is found in verse 17. Remember what Moses, God told, I'm sorry, it's found in, not in verse 17 rather, it's found in verse 20. But remember what God told Moses in verse 17 at the end.

Pastor Dillon highlighted this well last week. Just take your staff with you, Moses. That was his response, right? In verse 21, we see Moses taking his staff. But notice a difference now in the way that this staff is referred to.

What is it called this time in verse 21? He takes the staff of God with him. This is the powerful symbol by which God will work through Moses. This staff is nothing special in and of itself. The only reason this staff has any significance is because God gave it significance.

So Moses is walking in obedience once again, even though he might still be reluctantly doing so. So God graciously assures Moses that he will not be met with his old resistance when he returns to Egypt, rather. But God goes on to assure him even more throughout his journey, and that's what we see next. That brings us to the next and final means of God's providential preparation of Moses. God equips Moses for perseverance.

He does this by now giving Moses more context for what he is about to face when he and Aaron go before Pharaoh. In chapter three, verse 20, God told Moses, "I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it. After that, I will let you go." Or he will let you go, rather. But now God tells Moses that he will do the miracles specifically through Moses's hand. Those signs that he told him about to perform before the Israelites so that they believe, those signs aren't just for the people, they're also signs for Pharaoh himself and for all the Egyptians.

But in their case, these are signs of condemnation. When you go back to Egypt, God says, "See that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power." But here's the next promise, "I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go." But the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, as we all know, becomes a major theme throughout the book of Exodus. And there are three different ways that we read about the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. Sometimes we read that Pharaoh hardens his heart. Other times we read simply that Pharaoh's heart was hardened.

And then other times, like this one here, we read that God hardens Pharaoh's heart. So which is it? The answer is yes. It's all of them. So here we're shown a vital lesson that is often referenced when we think about God's sovereignty.

God is both completely sovereign, even over the hearts of wicked men, and we as humans are at the same time completely responsible for all of our actions. This is a vital truth. Children, this is a vital truth for you to understand and to know and to live by. We are always responsible for all of our actions, even though God himself is totally sovereign over everything. Yet, God is never the author of sin, even though he's totally sovereign.

Pharaoh will be responsible for his own hardness of heart, but it's also God who will be hardening it, and he will be using that hardening for his own glory and purposes. Next, God tells Moses what he must say to Pharaoh. "Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, let my son go, that he may serve me. If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son." Now, how do these words specifically equip Moses for perseverance? Well, they tell Moses exactly what he should expect.

We know that the killing of the firstborn will be the tenth and the final play as we get ahead in Exodus, but now God told Moses that Pharaoh's heart will be hardened and that God will likely have to take Pharaoh's firstborn son. Moses will have to endure and continue returning to Pharaoh until God's will is accomplished, so this prepares him for how many times, or at least a number of times, that he will have to go back. Pharaoh is so hardened in his sin that it will take nothing less than God taking his own son to achieve total justice. So, in these opening two scenes, we see that God providentially prepares Moses in three ways, providing a helper, assuring him to calm his fears, and equipping him to preserve. Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, God does the very same thing for all his people.

Know this and believe it. He knows our frailties and he knows our weaknesses, and he always provides for our needs in these same kinds of ways. We read that earlier in Matthew, right? He provides for all of our needs. More than that, God condescends to our weak, sinful flesh by giving us the greatest source of providential preparation.

God provides a savior in the Lord Jesus Christ who himself, in himself, meets all of our frail human needs. When God causes us to be born again, he sends our greatest helper, not just other people around us, but other people who were bonded to by the Spirit of God because of our corporate union with Christ. And so, the greatest helper we have is the Spirit of God himself. And then, with that, he also saves us into his body, the church. Here, we regularly are assured of his grace through his ordained means of feeding our souls.

And there, he also equips us for persevering in our faith. Praise God that he providentially prepares his servants to serve him faithfully. And this brings us to our second point from the text, and that is this. God requires covenant faithfulness. God requires covenant faithfulness.

There's something in the second scene that I sort of glossed over and now I need to return to. Here is the first time that we see God referring to Israel as his firstborn son. And because Israel is God's firstborn son, and Pharaoh has taken over the position of being Israel's master, God's son's master, God will then require Pharaoh's firstborn son in return. What do you think is the significance of the statement that Israel is God's firstborn son? What is God saying here?

Well, in essence, in these words to Moses along the journey, as he's providentially preparing him, God is restating and re-establishing his covenant with Israel in these words. He's assuring Moses of his covenant with the people of Israel. Israel is his firstborn son. So God has rights to them as his firstborn son. Now it's true that God, the creator, has rights over everyone.

Everyone who has ever created is accountable to God. But God has peculiar and particular rights to his covenant people, and that's the point here. And Pharaoh has stolen those rights. He has demanded servitude, obedience, and worship of himself and his gods. You might say, "When did God establish this covenant, his rights with Israel specifically?" Well, it doesn't happen only at Mount Sinai.

There's a new covenant established there when they come back in chapters 19 through 24. There's a new covenant established there, but more specifically, we go all the way back to Abraham. We go all the way back to Genesis chapter 17. Here's what we read. "And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.

And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God." And then he gives the specific physical sign of that covenant in Genesis 17.10. "This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised." This then brings us to the reason for my second point, and one of admittedly what seems to be one of the strangest occurrences in all of Scripture, certainly in the book of Exodus. We get here and we read this next paragraph and we think, "What in the world is going on?" Along the journey, God graciously reminded, reestablished, and clarified his covenant purposes with Moses. It's almost as if he was trying to send Moses a hint.

"Israel is my firstborn son. They've been stolen from me, so I'll take Pharaoh's firstborn son. Hey, Moses, what about your son?" So we get to the place where God's anger is so kindled against Moses that he's actually ready to kill him, to put him to death. How in the world does this happen? How can God go from preparing and calling Moses to be the deliverer of his people to this?

How can God be about to kill Moses? The answer is that God requires covenant faithfulness from his people. God also requires integrity of character from all Christians, from all of his people, but especially from those whom he calls to lead his people. For whatever reason, Moses had failed. We don't know why.

He failed in a terrible and inexcusable way. He had failed to circumcise his son. At this point, Moses has two signs. So we're not sure which son the text is referring to. It's not specific, but I think it's probably referring to Gershom, who is Moses's firstborn son.

At least that brings continuity in what we're seeing here. But either way, it could have been both of his sons that he was referring to, and the emphasis is just placed on the one son. So God is in some way ready to put Moses to death because of his negligence in circumcising his son. This is disobedience. This is a lack of faith.

This is negligence and carelessness. Most of all, it displayed in Moses a lack of the fear of God. So what happens? God graciously provides another helper in the moment of Moses's pending death. We can speculate the reason why Zipporah, Moses's wife, performs the circumcision.

We would assume it's because in whatever capacity Moses is currently in, he's not able to do it himself. He's about to die. So God once again provides a helper for Moses, and now the helper is his wife, another gift of God. She quickly performs the circumcision, and she gives her son rather the covenant sign. Then she does something else that's strange.

She touches the boy's foreskin to Moses's feet and says, "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me." God requires covenant faithfulness. If Zipporah had not done this, then what would have happened according to Genesis 17? Moses and his son, sons, and his whole family would have been cut off from God. So the question is, why did this happen? Why did God allow Moses to get that far?

Why not remind Moses of this requirement when he was telling him everything else? Well, the short answer is God did remind him. God did tell him. I think that's the whole reason for the covenant language of the firstborn sons. But I think this is also the proverbial final straw that broke the camel's back.

It was this act, this danger that Moses was in, that finally woke Moses up. In God's wise dealing with Moses, he's finally preparing him to face off with the king of the most powerful nation in all the world at the time. And he has to root out all the unbelief and the lack of integrity that still remained in Moses. How can Moses lead God's covenant people and teach them of the importance of the covenant and the sign of the covenant and yet be lacking the sign of the covenant in his own son? God was teaching Moses a lesson and he was doing it in a way that Moses would never forget.

We cannot presume upon the patience and kindness of God. Our confession says this about God's providence in chapter five, paragraph five. "The most wise, righteous, and gracious God does oftentimes leave for a season his own children to manifold temptations and the corruptions of their own hearts to chastise them for their former sins or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts that they may be humbled and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support on himself and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin and for other just and holy ends so that whatsoever befalls any of his elect is by his appointment for his glory and for their good." Amen to that. This is what God was graciously doing for Moses in this account and this account should be shocking to us because it should remind us of the holiness of God. Once again, it should remind us of the glory of God.

It should remind us of how seriously God takes sin. It should remind us how careful we must be to obey God's word and his law. But here's the thing. None of us can obey God fully to satisfy his wrath against our sin. We all lack care and attention to detail to God's word and to his law.

In fact, if we're honest, we know that we break God's law every single day and this is where we can we can't just gloss over this emphasis on the firstborn son language here. God's true and perfect firstborn son is not the nation of Israel. They will go on to fail miserably as we all know. God's firstborn son is rather the one true Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ himself. God's only begotten son.

He perfectly obeyed God's law. Every jot, every tittle. He was without sin and he did this not because he needed to but he did it for his people as our substitute and in so doing he went to the cross to be our perfect substitutionary sacrifice to pay the penalty for our sins. He paid the penalty for the law of which we were guilty. We are guilty.

So in God's firstborn son he affirms, he establishes, and he clarifies his covenant with his people. What we call the covenant of grace to which the Abrahamic and the Mosaic and all the other covenants point us toward. And by faith we believe in him and we trust him alone as our perfect spotless righteousness. When we believe in him we know that we are united to him by his spirit. And guess what?

We then also in that moment become true sons of God. All of us. Male and female alike. This is exactly what we see in Galatians 3.26. For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.

Romans 8.29 likewise for those whom before knew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Do you see the connection? Do you see the emphasis here? And as his children God requires covenant faithfulness from us. That begins with us believing the promises of God that are fulfilled in Christ.

It starts with us trusting him alone for salvation and deliverance from the misery of our sin. And it follows in a life of thankful and loving obedience. We are freed from our sins so that we might serve God. Christian know this. Negligence of covenant faithfulness leads to cursing and it's ultimately a sign of a hardened heart in each and every one of us.

But covenant faithfulness, obedience to God beginning with belief in the promises of God that are fulfilled in Christ Jesus always leads to blessing. God promises us in his word that we actually have the power to obey him if we are in Christ and that leads us to the third and final point. God carefully and always and without fail fulfills all his promises. That's what we see in the final joyous words of this passage. Moses continues his journey back to Egypt in the wilderness.

Meanwhile God has prepared Aaron as his helper and now Aaron goes on God's command and he meets Moses in the wilderness. But notice where they meet. Don't skip over this detail. Where do they meet? They meet at the mountain of God and when they meet at this holy place of worship their reunion is sweet.

It's been 40 years since they've seen each other and God has provided Aaron to help Moses. So Moses proceeds to tell every tell Aaron everything that God has said and that God will do. He tells Aaron specifically how he'll play a critical role in God's plan for deliverance and then immediately Moses and Aaron journey into Egypt. When they do they gather up all the elders of Israel just as God promised they come together as God's people's representatives and then Aaron speaks all the words that Moses told him to speak just as God had promised and just as God had promised he did the signs in the sight of the people and guess what just as God promised the people believed. Despite Moses's objections to God on the mountain God fulfilled all of his promises.

But don't miss the careful wording of how and why they believed. These words tie everything together so beautifully in the story. Exodus 4 31 says and the people believed and when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction they bowed their heads and worshiped. This hearkens us this should be familiar language it hearkens us right back to the end of chapter two and God heard their groaning and God remembered his covenant with Abraham with Isaac and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel and God knew and then also what we saw in chapter three verses seven through eight.

I had surely seen the affliction of my people who were in Egypt and I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians. So what is the correct response when God delivers his people from bondage and slavery and misery? Well the correct response is to bow and to worship. This really is the definition of covenant faithfulness.

Covenant faithfulness is required of all who are in Christ. God has heard our groaning. He has seen our affliction. He knows that we are miserable in our sin and I dare say he makes us miserable in our sin so that we can come to him knowing that he alone provides salvation and the Lord has visited his people ultimately and finally in his firstborn son. As we read in John 1 14 so beautifully and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory.

Glory as of the only son from the father full of grace and truth. Amen. Will you recognize this today? Will you believe these words and allow them to fuel you to a life of bowing and worshiping before the covenant God, the covenant keeping God? This really is our only right response.

Know this, God in his great wisdom and his perfect knowledge always prepares his servants to serve him and in these transition verses about Moses leaving the mountain of God and returning to Egypt we see God providentially prepares him with a helper with assurance and equips him to persevere. We also see the trustworthiness of God and the fact that he carefully fulfills all of his promises and we must remember that all the promises of God find their yes in Jesus. Because God has fulfilled all his all of his promises thus far in Christ, hear this brothers and sisters, we can absolutely be assured that he will continue to fulfill all those promises that are not yet fulfilled. We can know it as if it's already done. Knowing this then causes us to bow and to worship God and it enables us to live a life of total trust and obedience.

We can walk in faith. We can walk in obedience. Why? Because God is a perfect, gracious and loving master and God is wiser than we are. For this reason we can joyfully seek and submit to God's will, trusting him completely.

We can carefully seek to obey his word in every way knowing that that will indeed bring blessing even when we don't feel it, even when we don't feel like it. And we can do so knowing that he has already taken away the penalty of our sins by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, his firstborn son. Believe this and live. Let's pray together. Our Father, as we do bow before you, once again we acknowledge our grateful need of dependence on you that we like Moses so often turn a stray.

We so often try to do things according to our own plans and our own wisdom and yet Lord you tell us so plainly and clearly in your word that our wisdom is simply following. So help us, O Lord, to be more convinced of the truths of your word, more assured, more equipped to persevere, O Lord, so that we might respond in true covenant faithfulness as we acknowledge the covenant you have made with us and the call you offer to each person to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and to be saved from their sins, to be saved from their misery. We know we cannot do these things in our own. We need your help as we humbly submit ourselves before you by the power of your spirit and in the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.

Let's sing together and respond.