How Jesus Reveals Himself

SERMON: 2012-01-22--ac1280--how-jesus-reveals-himself-part-2 SOURCE DURATION: 00:42:00.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The sermon begins clearly at segment [0]. The material in the closing window consists entirely of sustained acoustic music intervals and musical praise, indicating that the main sermon content concluded with segment [31]. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:39:15.820-00:41:59.060 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Well, I pointed out last week that when all is said and done, what ultimately changes sinners into saints is nothing short of our revelation of Jesus Christ. That you will recall is what turned Saul of Tarsus' life around. One moment the Bible says he is breathing murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He's on his way to Damascus with the authority of the religious authorities in Jerusalem in order to arrest believers and to wreak havoc upon the church of Damascus, even as he has in Jerusalem and in other cities, he tells us later on in the book of Acts. And the next moment he's flat on the ground because he has been confronted by the exalted and the glorified Lord Jesus. Listen to how Luke describes it in Acts chapter 9. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" "Who are you, Lord," Saul asked. "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting," he replied, "now get up and go into the city and you will be told what to do." That encounter changed his life from a persecutor of the church in Jesus to a flaming apostle who eventually, tradition tells us, had his head cut off, executed by Rome because of his loyalty to Jesus. He had a revelation of Christ. And years later, in that Galatian passage that we have just read together, he puts it this way. He says, "But when God who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his Son in or to me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was. But I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus." And Paul's point there is this, not only did I meet Jesus on the road to Damascus, but in meeting Jesus, he gave me such a revelation of himself that that became the substance of the gospel that I preached. I didn't learn the gospel by going to seminary, he says. I did not preach because the apostles taught it to me. No, I had a revelation of Jesus. That Damascus road experience not only changed his life, but it defined his ministry. His conversion was profoundly dramatic. But here's the problem with dramatic conversions, because sometimes it can give us the wrong impression. And there are some who would look at a story like this and they would make it normative for the Christian experience and they would say to you and to me, "Unless you have a Damascus road experience, you haven't really met Jesus and you aren't really converted." I wonder if you've ever met people like that. I grew up in PEI with a neighbor who attended the Gospel Hall. And Gospel Hallers are wonderfully devout Christians. They are part of the Brethren movement. But this particular group, and this may be across the board, I'm not sure of that, are absolutely convinced that unless you can name the day, the time, and the scripture of your conversion, then you likely are not a Christian at all. And so, because our family had grown up in church all its life unable to answer that kind of question, they had serious questions about our religious commitment. In fact, we sort of became the objects of their evangelism, as you can well imagine. You see, when you make experience the standard, then you create an impossible standard for other people because what if their experience doesn't match up? You see, the way this happens historically is that the founders of a given spiritual movement will have a certain encounter with God that becomes defining in their lives and that becomes the reason for being for that particular movement or that particular church group. Subsequent generations, then, look back on that and pretty soon this man or this woman's experience becomes the norm that we all strive for. You see that, for example, in classic Pentecostalism. When in the early 1900s the Pentecostal movement was born at Azusa Street and the Lord poured out His Holy Spirit, there was a flood of tongue speaking. And so very quickly, as part of official Pentecostal doctrine, not of all Pentecostal movements but some in particular, the evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is what? It's speaking in tongues. Never mind that I, for one, know all kinds of people that I know are filled with the Holy Spirit who do not speak in tongues. You see the danger of using your experience now to define what ought to be normative in living the Christian life. Now lest we look down our noses at people who elevate a certain type of experience, let me remind you the opposite is true too. People who do not have an experience tend to normalize the lack of experience and tend to look down their noses at people who have experiences, is that not true? A colleague of mine has just written a book called "Not Sure, A Pastor's Journey from Faith to Doubt" and in the book he talks about how in the process of growing up and being involved in ministry he's lost that childlike faith that he had once upon a time and he now calls himself, even though he continues to be active in ministry, a Christian agnostic, he's just not sure. And if you talk to him then he will minimize Christian experience, in fact he will challenge anybody who uses the term a personal relationship with God and that comes out of his own lack of experience. But you see, both extremes are wrong because if I make my experience the norm just because I have a dramatic encounter with Christ doesn't mean that you are going to have an equally dramatic encounter with Christ, true? Similarly, just because I've never had a dramatic encounter with Christ doesn't minimize the reality of your encounter with Christ. And what matters at the end of the day is not the drama, not how Christ comes to us, but whether or not he has. And I love the way the Apostle Paul puts it because he always gets it in right balance right into the Galatians later on, chapter 6, verse 15. In a different context, he says, "Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything. What counts is what? A new creation." What matters is have you met Jesus and has he and is he changing your life? And so in the time that we have this morning, I want to walk you through what I believe the scripture teaches on how it is in many and various ways that Jesus reveals himself to his people. And as you listen to that and as hopefully you reflect on that in the course of the week, the question that I want you to ask yourself is this, have I met Christ? And if so, how have I met him? Because at the end of the day, that's really all that matters. So the revelation of Jesus begins, interestingly enough, in eternity past with a thing that we can call a divine choice. That is to say, God chooses us to belong to himself. We saw last week how that played out in the Apostle Paul's life when we read these words where the Lord says to Ananias, "Go, this man that is Saul, is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel." And we talked about the fact that from before Saul was even out of his mother's womb, just like Jeremiah and perhaps John the Baptist, he was already chosen by God for the mission that God had prepared for him. And theologians may argue whether that specific call applies to all believers in general, or if it only applies to certain people with a very specific calling, this much we know from scripture that every last child of God has been chosen by God to belong to him. Listen to these words of Jesus, John 15 verse 16, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last. You did not choose me, but I chose you." Now theologically that's known as the doctrine of election. Another name for the doctrine of election is the doctrine of predestination. It means that long before you and I were even a glint in our parents' eyes, God picked us out of all humanity in Christ that we might belong to him. Paul writing to Romans, Romans 8.29 puts it this way, he says, "For those God forenear, he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers." You and I might think we came to Christ because we chose to believe in him. And yes, choosing to believe in him is an important response, but we love because why? He first loved us. Now the doctrine of election gets a lot of people into all kinds of funny places. And I can tell you why. Because the doctrine of election or the doctrine of predestination can be interpreted as meaning that if I don't make it to heaven, it's because God did not want me. And I know all kinds of people when they have been confronted by what I think is faulty teaching about the doctrine of election, when they struggle in the Christian life, one of the first reactions is, "Well, I must not be elect. God doesn't love me. I'm not predestined. What choice or chance do I have to ever make it to salvation?" Ever hear that kind of thinking? Maybe even have thought it in your own heart or mind. I believe biblically that is a distorted view of election. Nowhere in scripture do I find election taught from the perspective that salvation is sort of like a cosmic crap shoot. Eenie, meenie, miney, mo. You're going to make it. You're not going to make it, poor soul. Election in scripture, now listen to me carefully, is always cast in the context of bringing comfort to God's people when times are tough. Because when times are tough and you wonder, "Can I hold on to Jesus? Will I be able to face a martyr's death? Can I take up my cross and follow Jesus? I don't believe that I can." Scripture says, "He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion." Why? Because you did not choose me, I chose you. And because I chose you, I will give you what it takes to keep you on track. And when you and I get to the new creation and we share eternally in the glory of God, none of us is going to be able to say, "Well, I'm here because I made all the right choices and I'm here because I chose to belong to God." We're going to be there because God says, "You did not choose me, I chose you." Tremendously encouraging a doctrine of comfort for God's people. Similarly, nobody's going to wake up in hell and going to be able to say authentically, "I'm here, though I didn't want to be here because God did not choose me to belong to Him." Everybody that wakes up in hell is going to wake up in hell because they chose deliberately to go there. Does that make sense? Very important to understand that distinction. Esau in the Old Testament is a good case in point. The Bible says, "Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated." The Bible makes it very clear that Esau was not elect for a whole bunch of reasons. But Esau ended up being rejected. Not because he wasn't elect, but because he chose to sell out his spiritual birthright for a bowl of potage. His present world and his present comfort was more important than the spiritual inheritance that God had for him and he made his choice and having made his choice, had to live with the consequences. How does Jesus reveal Himself? It begins by picking us in eternity past in Christ, we don't fully understand how that all works, to belong to Him. And as I said, that's a tremendously comforting doctrine to me at least because you know why? It means that every time I proclaim the gospel to a group of people, no matter how many people there might be who aren't interested in responding, God always has His elect. And you know what happens when you're elect? You can be as far away from God as anybody can be, but if you're elect and you hear the gospel, there will be something inside you that says, "Uh-oh, there is something here that rings true, something here that draws me," and it starts us on that journey to faith and repentance. The opposite is true too, if you're not elect and you hear the gospel, you don't get it, you aren't interested in it, it makes your heart cold and it drives you the other way. And the antidote to the question, "Am I elect or not?" is very simple biblically speaking because Peter says, "Be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. If you do these things, you will never fall and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ." How do you make your calling and election sure? Well, he says, "You make every effort to add to your faith goodness, to goodness knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, and to perseverance godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." All right, after election, what do you think happens next? Well, after election comes the call of God. Note again how Paul in Romans chapter 8 verse 30 goes on, he says, "And those he predestined he also called, and those he called he also justified, and those he justified he also glorified." So there you have predestination, God's election, and then the next step is that God calls us to himself. And again, you see that worked out in the apostle Paul's own history where in Acts 9 verse 4 we read that he fell to the ground, heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" and then the words of Jesus, "Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do." Notice Jesus doesn't beg, Jesus doesn't say, "Well, why don't you please come and follow me?" Jesus has this thing about being Lord, just in case you forget sometimes, he's the boss, he calls the shots, doesn't have to ask you anything. He says, "Come and follow me." And you go through all the gospels and you read the stories of how Jesus calls his disciples, and a disciple is a learner, a disciple is a follower. The call is always a call to follow me. And there are two things about the call of Jesus on our lives that are important for us to keep in mind. The first thing is that his call is always a radical call, one that demands obedience. And obedience is forsaking everything and all other loyalties that must come secondary to our devotion to Jesus and his claim on our lives. Also happens these past couple of weeks, I've been reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book The Cost of Discipleship. I've known about this book for a long, long time, it was written back in 1937, only recently somebody gave me a copy of it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany and very early on decided that he, though he himself was a pacifist interestingly enough, had to take his stand against Hitler and National Socialism. And so he joined the underground movement and was complicit in a plot to kill Hitler. Which is very intriguing because if you read his book, he takes the Sermon on the Mount very literally, a pacifist doesn't believe in fighting back, a pacifist believes in turning the other cheek. And yet in the reality of that war situation, he was complicit in the plot to kill Hitler. The plot went awry, the conspirators were arrested, and on April the 9th of 1945, just before the end of the war, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged for being disloyal to the Hitler regime. And since then, as is so often the case with martyrs, his books have taken off and many, many people have been deeply stirred about the call to discipleship. And he makes no bones about the fact that following Jesus really means following Him. And he talks a lot about it isn't just a question of faith, I believe in Jesus, you can't believe in Jesus without following Him. And so throughout the Gospels when Jesus calls people, He says, "Come and follow Me." And however that interprets or works out in your life and in my life, the important thing is to understand that if we're going to follow Jesus, then He must be Lord of all or He is not Lord at all. And while there is much growing into that through faith in Christ as time goes on, we don't start off by negotiating. We start off by saying, "Okay, Jesus, you are my Lord and whatever it is that you have for my life, I want to follow you because you are worthy to be followed." The call is always a radical call, but it is also, as theologians in olden days used to like to say, it is what's known as an effectual call. That is to say, the call contains the power to make it happen. It's like the word of God in creation, God speaks, what happens? Creation springs into being. Somebody's made the observation that when Jesus called Lazarus out of the grave, and when He said, "Lazarus, come forth," if He hadn't named him by name specifically, all the dead everywhere would have come bopping out of their graves by the authority of the word of Jesus. And so it's always a tremendous encouragement to me personally that Jesus isn't going to ask me to do something that He doesn't also equip me to do. Remember the words in Philippians, "God is at work in you to will and to work for His good pleasure." So God picks you from before time began, however that works, and then in due course, He comes to you and to me, and He calls us to Himself. He chooses in one way or another to reveal Himself. And that's the third thing I want to talk about in the time that we have this morning, and that is the fact that the call of Jesus to His elect comes in many different ways. Let me try to walk you through that in the time that we have as quickly as I can. First of all, it comes in the form of a dramatic divine intervention. That clearly is what happens with Saul on the road to Damascus. The Bible says a light from heaven flashed around him and he fell to the ground. Later on in the book of Acts, when Paul is telling his testimony in response to his arrest, he gives us more details. He says the light was brighter than the sun. The Bible also goes on to tell us that all the people with him also fell to the ground. There is a miraculous divine intervention. As I said last week, there are times when that happens with people, particularly when God has chosen them for a particular task because certainly Paul needed to clearly know who Jesus was if he was going to face the kind of opposition that he was going to face in his ministry, and also because he was so deeply steeped in his Judaism that short of being knocked down by that kind of revelation, he could not have moved towards Christ because all the talk in the world would not have convinced him. There is an important lesson there because as I said last week, sometimes we who grow up in Christian circles, we get jealous of people who have dramatic conversions and we say what's wrong with me because I haven't had a dramatic conversion. Here's a principle, and I've studied this very carefully in watching many people's lives over the years. Here's a principle that will help you understand that the deeper we are steeped in sin or the more deeply we are steeped in the power of hell, the greater has to be the power encounter that sets us free. And so in scripture, you've got these certain historical events where there are power encounters where God shows his power over against the power of the enemy. The Exodus in Egypt is one example, Moses over against Pharaoh and all the wise men of Pharaoh. Later on, you have Elijah and the prophets of Baal, you've got this power encounter. And in the book of Daniel, you've got some of those power encounters. You've got them in the ministry of Jesus where every demon in hell is suddenly popping up. And the question becomes, who is the Lord and who's going to be the king? And if you're a man, woman, boy, or a girl who have been deeply sold out to sin or who comes from an inheritance of spiritual evil that keeps you from believing and God chooses you to belong to him and he calls you to himself, it may well need a mighty holy ghost during an event to get you out of where you are to where you need to be. Does that make sense? But by the same token, if you've grown up with a godly inheritance and you've grown up with Bible stories and you've loved Jesus from when you were a child, doesn't mean you don't have to come to faith, doesn't mean you don't have to give your life to Jesus, but it doesn't take the kind of earthquake to move you from where you are to where you need to be. It may just take a still small voice of the Holy Spirit to show you this is who Jesus is. Come follow me. Make sense? Tremendously liberating because everybody's experiences are different and as I said earlier, it's not the experience that makes you or unmakes you. What makes you in the kingdom is have you met up with Jesus and Jesus can reveal himself in the fire, in the storm, in the earthquake, but he can also reveal himself with a still small voice. So yes, there are those dramatic interventions, but a second way in which the Lord Jesus reveals himself, of course, is through the scriptures. John 5, 39, 40, Jesus speaking to the religious leaders of his day, he says, "You diligently study the scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you might have life." The written word always points to the living word. And for most of us, especially if we grow up in a Christian home or a Christian environment, those of us who have had that privilege, we will have learned about who Jesus is from the Bible stories that we have read, the sermons that we have heard, and the hymns that we have sung. My own revelation of Jesus is most deeply rooted in a revelation of scripture and some of you know that story, how at a certain point in my life I went through what I call the dark night of the soul, where my faith was tested like it had never been tested before. All the things that I had grown up with, believing, suddenly I didn't know if they were true anymore. I didn't know if there was a God or if the Bible was true. And out of that whole journey came a seeking after God, and one of the tools that the Lord used to get me out of that funk that I was in for a good period of time was a book by Watchman called The Normal Christian Life, study in the book of Romans. Most of it way over my head. But towards the end of the book there were two pages where he described the dark night of the soul and what its purpose was and how God refines our faith and he tests us. And for me the light went on in the sense that I knew I wasn't crazy, I knew God hadn't forsaken me, I wasn't losing my faith, it was just part of the process of being pruned. So that helped me get out of that place a little bit and I learned to walk by faith. And then I remembered reading his book, The Normal Christian Life, he talks a lot about what it is to be joined in the death and in the resurrection of Christ and I remember saying I don't get it. And so I remember praying fervently, Lord show me what it means to be joined to Jesus in his death and in his resurrection. And nothing happened. Five years went by and nothing happened until one day I was sitting in my study and this is the only time this has ever happened I believe in my life, the Lord spoke to me in my spirit and he said I want you to read Matthew 1 verse 1. It surprised me because I know what Matthew 1 verse 1 says, I didn't really have to turn to it, it's part of the genealogy of Jesus. But when the Lord says read it, it might just be a good idea to obey. And so I did. I turned to Matthew and I read verse 1, a record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, and poof, the light went on. Because all of a sudden I understood, first of all why this had taken five years, because all the pieces had to be put in place, but suddenly I understood that the promise that God made to Abraham, that when he left his world to belong to God, he would inherit all the world through faith, that promise which had come to an earthly fulfillment to some degree in the life and kingship of David was utterly and totally and completely fulfilled in Jesus. So that by faith in Jesus I shared the promise made to Abraham. That's how you and I get to inherit the promise that God made to Abraham that one day we're going to inherit the world. Now that may not mean much to you, but it blew my mind. It not only changed my life, but if you listen carefully to my teaching over the years, it is the foundation of what I teach. Because what it means is that it doesn't matter who you and I are by birth or by natural gifting. You can be the son of a king, you can be the son of a pauper. In the world, none of the promises of God apply to you eternally. But if by faith you are joined to Jesus, and Jesus is the offspring of Abraham, and Jesus has inherited God's everlasting and eternal kingdom, then whether you're rich or whether you're poor, when you're joined to Jesus, you become a co-heir with Christ of all that is to come. Get it! It'll change your life. Because all of a sudden, all the things we pride ourselves in, our cars, our money, our houses, our lovely children, our grandchildren, our friends, they're all wonderful gifts, but they will not give me the kingdom. The kingdom belongs to those who belong to Jesus. And that puts us all on the same level. That means the poorest of the poor, as well as the richest of the rich, at the cross of Jesus, become co-heirs with Christ of things that are to be revealed. Blew me out of the water, and I understood through scripture who Jesus was in the total scheme of things in ways that I had never understood before. Jesus, it's all about Jesus. Now there's a lot more that I wanted to say. There's the Holy Spirit, through whom he reveals himself, obviously, and the Bible has a lot to say about that. And then there's the church, and that may surprise you considering how sinful, broken, and miserable we are, some of the time anyway. Christ lives in us, and when Christ lives in us, he shines through us, sometimes in ways that we can't even begin to understand. Some of you also know this part of my story, that when I went to college to study for the ministry, another defining moment in my life was when some of my friends invited me to a men's retreat. And there, for the first time, I saw college men talking freely about Jesus, praying with each other, talking about scripture in ways that I had never experienced before. And I said to myself, "Whatever it is that they have, that's what I want." And yes, there's a lot more that I want to say about all of that, but I want to end this morning with about a four-minute video of an 11-year-old boy who goes through all of scripture to show you how Jesus is the summary of every book in the Bible. So watch this, and then we'll wind up the series. In Genesis, Jesus Christ is the seed of the woman. In Exodus, he is the Passover lamb. In Leviticus, he is our high priest. In Numbers, he is the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. In Deuteronomy, he is the prophet like unto Moses. In Joshua, he is the captain of our salvation. In Judges, he is our judge and lawgiver. In Ruth, he is our kinsman redeemer. In 1st and 2nd Samuel, he is our trusted prophet. In Kings and Chronicles, he is our reigning king. In Ezra, he is the rebuilder of the broken down walls of human life. In Esther, he is our Mordecai. In Job, he is our ever-living redeemer. In Psalms, he is our shepherd. In Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, he is our wisdom. In Song of Solomon, he is our loving bridegroom. In Isaiah, he is the prince of peace. In Jeremiah, he is our righteous branch. In Lamentations, he is our weeping prophet. In Ezekiel, he is the wonderful four-faced man. In Daniel, he is the fourth man in life's fiery furnace. In Hosea, he is the faithful husband forever married to the back-sider. In Joel, he is the baptizer with the Holy Ghost and fire. In Amos, he is our burden bearer. In Obadiah, he is mighty the savior. In Jonah, he is our great foreign missionary. In Micah, he is the messenger of beautiful feet. In Nahum, he is the avenger of God's way. In Habakkuk, he is God's evangelist, crying, "Revive thy works in the midst of the years." In Zechariah, he is our savior. In Haggai, he is the restorer of God's lost heritage. In Zechariah, he is opened up in the house of David for sin and unclear leaders. In Amalekai, he is the son of righteousness, rising with healing in his wings. In Matthew, he is the king of the Jews. In Mark, he is the servant. In Luke, he is the son of man, feeling what you feel. In John, he is the son of God. In Acts, he is the savior of the world. In Romans, he is the righteousness of God. In 1 Corinthians, he is the rock of all the zero. In 2 Corinthians, he is the triumphant one, giving victory. In Galatians, he is your liberty. He set you free. In Ephesians, he is the head of the church. In Philippians, he is your joy. In Colossians, he is your completeness. In 1 and 2 Thessalonians, he is your hope. In 1 Timothy, he is your faith. In 2 Timothy, he is your stability. In Philemon, he is your benefactor. In Titus, he is truth. In Hebrews, he is your perfection. In James, he is the power behind your faith. In 1 Peter, he is your example. In 2 Peter, he is your purity. In 1 John, he is your life. In 2 John, he is your pattern. In 3 John, he is your motivation. In Jude, he is the foundation of your faith. In Revelation, he is your coming king. He is the first and the last, beginning and the end. He is the keeper of creation and the creator of all. He is the architect of the universe and the manager of all time. He always was, he always is, and he always will be. Unmoved, unchanged, undefeated, and never undone. He was bruised and brought healing. He was pierced and he's pained. He was persecuted and brought freedom. He was dead and brought life. He is risen and brings power. He reigns and brings peace. The world can't understand him. The armies can't defeat him. The schools can't explain him. And the leaders can't ignore him. Herod couldn't kill him. The Pharisees couldn't confuse him. The people couldn't hold him. Nehru couldn't crush him. Hitler couldn't silence him. The New Age can't replace him. And Oprah can't explain him away. He is light, love, longevity, and more. He is goodness, kindness, gentleness, and God. He is holy, righteous, mighty, powerful, and pure. His ways are right. His word is eternal. His will is unchanging. And his mind is on peace. He is my redeemer. He is my savior. He is my guide. He is my peace. He is my joy. He is my comfort. He is my Lord. He rules my life. [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:39:15.820; remove through 00:42:00.000] [ [CUT]APPLAUSE] [MUSIC - "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain"] Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. Holy, holy is he. Sing a new song to him who sits on heaven's mercy seat. Let's step together. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. Holy, holy is he. Sing a new song to him who sits on heaven's mercy seat. Holy, holy, holy is the God of my being who was and is and is to come. With all creation I sing praise to the King and King. You are my everything, and I will adore you. Golden rainbows of living color, flashes of lightning, holes of thunder. Blessing in all your strength and glory around me. You're still the only one I need. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of my being who was and [CUT] is and is to come. [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:42:00.000; resume after this marked segment] With all creation I sing praise to the King and King. You are my everything, and I will adore you. Filled with wonder, host of wonders, have the legend of your name. Jesus, your name is power, forever living water. Such a marvelous mystery. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of my being who was and is and is to come. With all creation I sing praise to the King and King. You are my everything, and I will adore you. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of my being who was and is and is to come. With all creation I sing praise to the King and King. You are my everything, and I will adore you. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of my being who was and is and is to come. With all creation I sing praise to the King and King. You are my everything, and I will adore you. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain. Holy, holy is he.