My Personal View of Jesus—the Lion of Judah

It is a pleasure to be with you tonight, and also to conclude this series of meditations on the person of Jesus, in which each of the pastors of the Church has the opportunity to express his or her own version, his or her own feelings about Jesus. I believe that many times, when we express what Jesus means to us specifically, we are revealing a great deal about our psyche and our personality, because according to what one sees in Jesus, one expresses certain aspects of one’s personality and one’s way of viewing life and spiritual things. So I believe I am going to reveal certain aspects of my personality as I share with you the Jesus whom I serve, in my conception of Jesus Christ.

When I look at Jesus, I do not necessarily see the tender and approachable Jesus whom some have presented during these weeks, although obviously that part of Jesus exists, is real, and is very important, and we must always keep it in mind. Absolutely, Jesus is that tender, cordial, kind, compassionate being who sees the hidden treasure in people and values the person whom no one else would value, who redeems them and lifts them up, restoring the dignity they have lost. I believe that, when speaking of that Jesus, we often have to speak of grace, mercy, love, compassion, tolerance, and patience as an essential part of our ethics as a Church, as a congregation, and it is very important that we not forget that. We have to present a real Christ to the world. That is why Christ became incarnate, became man: to enter our dimension, feel what we feel, identify with us, and be able to speak to a dimension of our being. We can identify with that human Jesus, who knows, as the Bible says, our temptations, our illnesses, and our struggles. Because He knows that, the Bible says that He can therefore be a priest who presents us to God.

So please do not interpret anything I want to say tonight as a denial of that Jesus. Now, having said that and having covered myself, I want to speak to you about my conception of Christ, and I believe this can even be normative for our congregation. Many of you have heard me over the years share, at appropriate moments, the dream I had about twenty years ago concerning the Lion of Judah. The Lion of Judah was not a very important image to me when I had that dream. I knew the image because I had read about it in the Bible, in the Scriptures, but it was not something that predominated in my mind; it was not something to which I paid much attention. In that dream I saw—and I will repeat it for everyone who is new to the Church and perhaps has not heard me—the skyscrapers of the city of Boston, as though you were seeing them on a screen like that one, like those pictures showing the city with its skyline, the skyscrapers, the large buildings, and the river. I saw something similar, and I remember very clearly that it was specifically the financial area, the financial district where the large banks and many of the city of Boston’s financial institutions are located. I saw that series of buildings, and above the buildings, emerging from the right side of the screen, there began to glide silently and slowly, as though they were immense airplanes, a pack or swarm of poisonous spiders—in our country they are called cacatas. They were tarantulas; I do not know what other name to use—black, hairy, large, immense—and they glided above the buildings and settled like a dark cloud over all the buildings, at a height that in this case may have been, I do not know, a thousand feet above the tallest buildings.

And as they did this, they were somehow exerting influence over the city. I could see these animals, these beings, and understand that they were demons, because I could sense the intelligence within them. I do not remember whether they had eyes, but I remember that they were intelligent beings. One thing that struck me was that they were full of venom, poison; they were venomous, completely filled with venom, to the point that their skin was taut and shiny from the amount of venom they had inside them. They settled there above the city, and in the dream I understood that they were demonic beings that exerted influence and controlled what happened in the city of Boston.

Then suddenly, above them, at a much greater height, on the left side of the screen, high, very high above, the face of a Lion suddenly appeared. It was like a flat disk, and it looked down upon this scene of the spiders and the city below, while I was at ground level, watching all of this from some distance away. Now, this face was the face of a lion, but it was not an animal face. What do I mean? I try not to portray Jesus, the Lion of Judah, as a lion, even though He is a lion. What impressed me most about that lion were its eyes. They were powerful eyes, steady eyes, very human eyes, eyes of authority that stood out from the face. As it looked down upon that scene, I understood—and it was as though I was given a close-up of that face—I understood that, as that lion looked upon the scene, it was exercising supreme authority, control, and total influence. The lion’s eyes did not flinch. They were not eyes of fear, agitation, or annoyance; they were eyes that simply looked serenely, but with supreme authority, upon that scene.

I also understood in the dream that this lion was the Lion of Judah, and as I watched that scene from where I stood, I raised my right arm toward the Lion and said three times, “You are the Lord,” and when I made that declaration, my dream ended. When I awoke in the morning, I felt that this had not been an ordinary dream and that God had given me, so to speak, a vision of Jesus and of a reality that existed in the city of Boston, but which I believe exists in every city throughout the world, where demonic beings govern everything connected with evil, crime, violence, sexual excess, rebellion against God, the oppression of man by man, and the exploitation of the poor. All these things are governed by those demonic beings. As the apostle Paul says, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against beings that are in the heavenly realms and rule the darkness.

And that is the origin of all evil and all suffering, sin, and negativity in the world. I therefore understood that God was saying to me, “That is the city of Boston, governed by those demonic beings.” But after the dream, I also understood that the Lord was calling us as a Church—we were in the city of Cambridge at the time—to come to the city of Boston, to relocate, in order to establish a transforming presence, a presence of warfare and struggle against the reality I saw in the dream. And that gave rise to and unleashed within me the concern that I later shared with the Church: that we should move to the city of Boston and change everything, leaving behind the very comfortable place we had there, leaving behind a decent situation, and coming to this city, which at that time was a disaster—full of crime, full of violence, with broken streets, potholes everywhere, and crumbling buildings. It was a dump; this area was full of drug addicts and every kind of evil and dysfunction.

It is a long story; that is why we are here. God also placed in my heart the calling to change the name of our Church and call it Congregation Lion of Judah. Our original name was Central Baptist Church—a slightly tamer name. Congregation Lion of Judah. This is really just for decoration; if someone has a little water, I would be infinitely grateful. By the way, Raquel, thank you for doing all these decorations. Let’s give her a round of applause, because every week she has been preparing these sets and has graduated as an interior decorator. (Applause.)

Brothers and sisters, I want to speak to you precisely about this image of mine, my understanding of Jesus as the Lion of Judah. In my psyche, in my spiritual understanding, I see—I believe—that the image God has personally given me of Jesus, my pastoral style, my understanding of ministry, what I believe God has called our Church to be, and what He is calling the Church of Jesus Christ, with a capital C, to be in this time, are all connected with that image of Jesus as the lion, the warrior of the jungle. The lion is fierce; the lion is militant; the lion tolerates no questioning of his authority; the lion is frightened by nothing; he does not flee from hunters; the lion is strong; the lion demands recognition of his authority and power; when the lion focuses on his prey, he does not rest until he brings it down and devours it. That is my understanding of Jesus.

Notice that many would say, “Oh, what an ugly understanding of Jesus!” Those who like to see that tender, meek, humble, unassuming Jesus—the little blond, blue-eyed Jesus with a lamb in His hand—I know they are going to feel offended by this concept of Jesus. Nevertheless, on the cross, the risen Christ—that is the image presented to us. Notice, for example—I am not going to read the passages—but when John sees Jesus in chapter 1 of the book of Revelation, he sees Him with white hair, it says, and His clothing shone, His eyes blazed, and He was like burnished bronze. He was a threatening Jesus. It says that a sword came out of His mouth. And when John saw that dreadful image of Jesus—as happened to Daniel when he also saw an image of God, as happened to Ezekiel when he saw the image of God, and as happened to Peter when he saw Jesus after the catch of fish and experienced the same terror—all those people experienced the same terror upon seeing God that John experienced when he saw that dreadful, powerful, sinister Christ, to use that word. And that is the Jesus who interests me most.

Again, the other Jesus is also important, but I see this vision of Jesus Christ as the Lord, the warrior, the royal, noble being, the King who demands homage and reverence. One must walk carefully with Him and around Him, as one walks alongside a very, very powerful King. It is interesting that I have also told you the story of how, when we finished negotiating for this building, I stood outside here one day, shortly after learning about this building—which I learned about in a rather confidential way. When I stood in front of it—I do not know how many of you have seen it—at the front door, which was the building’s original entrance, since this entrance was added later, but the front entrance was that one, which is now hardly used, I looked up at the façade and discovered a lion in relief that had survived the change to the façade. That is the original façade, with that roaring lion.

Imagine that. What is a lion doing attached to a building there? How many lions have you seen like that, right in the center above an entrance? One sees many things, certainly, but a lion? I had already told the Church about the dream. The dream was what brought us to Boston and caused us to change the Church’s name to Congregation Lion of Judah. And suddenly I stand here and see this blessed lion roaring, with its jaws open. It is a fierce lion roaring out there, and for me that was confirmation that this was from God. And that lion is still there, still roaring, as if saying, “Be careful.” That image of God pursues me. I believe there is something in God’s calling for us as a Church, and for my life. It is something personal. I do not expect many people necessarily to share that image of Jesus, but I believe God has called me to proclaim it in my ministry. And I believe that in the future the lion’s temperament will become more and more real in our Church. It is already happening, but I believe it is like a genetic code that God has implanted in our Church: that aspect of His lordship, His power, His majesty, His militancy, His warrior character, His need for worship, submission, and reverence, and for His power to be acknowledged in every dimension, because He does not tolerate neglect of His glory. And that is what I believe we have been called to declare as a Church. In a world where the Lord is being neglected, contradicted, resisted, and disrespected, there is a need for a ministry, for called people who exalt the name of Jesus and call the nations and the Church to acknowledge the lordship, the power—how shall I put it?—the severity and seriousness of the Christ whom we serve.

So remember well what we are saying. If you ask me, “What is your vision of Christ?” I would say: the Lion, the militant, powerful being, full of authority, who must be served, to whom we must submit, and before whom we must walk with utmost reverence and fear and trembling. The other things are good; they are complementary. But in our culture—which is, how shall I put it, informal, and emphasizes needs, emphasizes care and tenderness and attention, and healing people of their weaknesses and problems—that severe Jesus, that powerful, royal, majestic Jesus often does not fit very well. I believe that neglecting this dimension of Jesus has been detrimental; it has been harmful to the life of the Church and to us as well. We must recover that image of Jesus.

Another passage that helps me remember that—there are many passages that help me, but another one is Luke chapter 19, the Lord’s parable. You will remember that scene in which, in this parable, a lord summons his servants—a man, it says, of noble birth, a nobleman—and calls them, lines them up, and tells them, “I am going on a journey,” and he distributes a sum of money to each one and tells them, “Do business until I return.” And he leaves and goes to a distant place. Time passes, and it is a clear picture of Jesus ascending to heaven, leaving His Church with the task of doing business, moving forward, and doing different things. He gives them endowments of power, authority, and gifts, and then tells them, “While I am away, make those gifts yield a return for Me; put them to work.”

When he returns, it says that he summoned his servants, called them to account, and asked them, “What did you do?” Each of the servants gives back to him the talent he had given them, multiplied, except for one. He says to him, “Sir, I was afraid. I was afraid because I know that you reap where you do not sow and that you are a severe man,” it says. And this man, who is a figure of Jesus, does not contradict him. What is more, the servant then tells him, “And that is why I was afraid, and I took my talent, wrapped it in a handkerchief, and hid it.” And he says to him, “Aha! Unfaithful servant, why did you not at least put it in the bank so that it could earn interest?” Then he says, “Take the talent away from him and give it to the one who has.” The servants, somewhat trembling, say, “But sir, how can that be? Are you going to give the little talent he has to the other one?” And the lord says, “No, because the little one person has will be given to the one who has, and it will be taken away from the one who keeps it.” And afterward he orders all those who resisted his return, his coming back, to be killed. It says so as well. He is a severe man; he is a terribly serious man. Sometimes we do not like to talk about that Jesus, and yet I believe that the Church must recover that Jesus without losing the other Jesus, because the thing about Jesus is that Jesus is Lord and servant. He once told the disciples, “You call Me Lord, and rightly so, for that is what I am.” But then that same Lord serves His disciples, washes their feet with water, and dries their feet with a towel.

So Jesus has this twofold aspect of Lord and servant. Toward those who accept Him, receive Him, and love Him, He is tender; but those who resist Him had better be careful, because He is severe and terribly dangerous as well. So I believe that the Church needs to recover this image of Jesus as that King who is also severe.

So I believe we must see this again and again. For example, in Revelation chapter 5—look it up there, verses 11 onward—it presents a scene of the Lord Jesus Christ being worshiped by the 24 elders and the 4 living creatures: “And I looked,” John says, “and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders, and their number was millions upon millions, saying with a loud voice, ‘The Lamb who was slain is worthy to receive power, riches, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, and praise.’ And I heard everything created that is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all things in them, saying, ‘To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise, honor, glory, and power forever and ever.’” Wow, that is a powerful image of Jesus.

I believe, once again, that this Jesus who is worthy of praise, worship, power, honor, and glory, whose lordship the seas, the earth, the stars, and the planets declare and acknowledge—I believe that this Jesus, at this point in human history, is waiting to reveal Himself again and needs to be recovered, and we have been called to that kind of ministry. That is my conception of Jesus; that is how I see Him. The other conceptions are true and complementary, but mine, I believe, is the one God has called me to bring to fruition. In coming to Boston, we have come to bring to fruition the elements of that original dream I had.

I believe we have an epidemic of niceness in the United States. All of us in ministry want people to find us nice and pleasant; we are afraid of offending them. No one dares to point out the truth and state God’s demands. It is all about feeling that your needs are being met. Throughout the North American evangelical world today, there is a great deal of this idea of churches removing the cross, removing the Christian denominational name, and adopting neutral names—Church of Hope, Restoration Church, Church of the Way—because they do not want to sound religious, because they are afraid that if people hear anything that is not generic and accessible, they will not come. And many pastors do not like it anymore either; we do not want it. We have literally been muzzled, and we can no longer talk about things that might spoil people’s fun or ruin their lunch when they go to their favorite restaurant. So in many churches everything is, “God loves you. God wants to heal you. God has your needs in mind. God is loving, tender, and merciful.” What we have today is a therapeutic Church. And I believe in all of that. I believe the Church has to speak about family, marriage, and all these things; they are necessary. But there is also the other dimension: the dimension of obedience, holiness, the lordship of Christ, the terribly holy God, entering church almost with fear and trembling, the fear inspired by who God is. When we see Him as He truly is, He is terrifying. The One who is coming is a Christ of power, riding a white horse; it says that His garment is covered in blood from all the warfare He unleashes against His enemies. That is a Christ about whom we often do not speak, and we have to recover that Jesus. In our lives we must reflect that dimension of Jesus, and this Church has to move more and more in that direction, recovering that aspect of Jesus Christ. In our lives, we have to reflect it. That is the Christ I would like to proclaim one day, and I know that this is waiting to be fully unleashed. And it is going to be a ministry of confrontation, warfare, persecution, and denouncing many things. That is there waiting, my brothers and sisters.

If my intuition is correct, this is something embryonic within this ministry, waiting to be unleashed, and it is not far from being fully unleashed, because it is something God wants to do at this point in history. What is needed are ministries that confront two things: ministries that call the Church to reckon with this terribly holy and serious God, with whom we must walk very carefully and who requires everything from us, so that this Church, filled with the power and gifting of Jesus, may then have the gifts needed to rescue the world and reclaim it for God; and a ministry that confronts the world and announces that Jesus Christ is Lord, that people must bow before Him and obey Him whether they like it or not, because God does not share His glory, nor does He permit His glory to be diminished. And I believe that God is calling the Church to be that kind of church, and that He is calling other congregations to prepare to undertake that kind of ministry.

Psalm 2—with this I am coming to a close. Looking at it today, I realized that it is a psalm for our time. In fact, it is a messianic psalm, and this psalm says: “Why do the peoples riot and imagine vain things? The kings and rulers will rise up against Jehovah and against His Anointed One, saying, ‘Let us break their bonds and cast away their cords from us.’” It is speaking about humanity—nations and kings—that rebels, saying, “You know what? We are going to free ourselves from this nonsense. Why do we have to obey Christianity? We are going to seek our own ethical and moral standards for our lives.” So it says, “Let us break their bonds.” Then kings will rise up and say, “Let us break their bonds and cast away their cords from us”—a rebellious humanity, rebellious governments and nations, as this nation is today. Its chief leader—apart from being a decent person with good intentions—but personally, forgive me, I see nothing Christian in his conduct, his priorities, his moral way of leading this nation, or anything else. Forgive me, but that is the truth. That is what I am saying: many times we pastors do not dare tell the truth, and many brothers and sisters get upset. Too bad. I am very sorry, because I have the microphone right now.

Forgive me, but that is the reality. I believe the Church has to be warned, and people like our friend Obama—I am going to mention him, why not?—will one day have to be confronted by God’s apostles and prophets, and they will have to be called to account by the Lion of the tribe of Judah.

Now look at what it says: “He who dwells in the heavens will laugh; the Lord will laugh at them. Then He will speak to them in His fury and trouble them in His wrath.” I believe we are living in a time when God is preparing to do precisely that. He is going to—His displeasure with these nations and these rulers, who have adopted secular and humanistic principles and have sought to shake off the tutelage of Christianity, often partly because the Church has failed in the way it lives—but it says that the Lord will laugh and say, “Who are you little tadpoles to reject My glory and question Me?” And He will trouble them. I believe that at this point in history we are going to see disasters; we are going to see terrible situations in the financial world, in nature, and in the cosmic realm, and tragedies of war coming upon the United States because of its rejection of the lordship of Christ, of Jehovah. And the Lord is going to trouble them even more; He is going to confuse them, and they will see that they cannot solve the problems, and God will practically back them into a corner.

And then verse 6 says: “But I have set My King upon Zion, My holy mountain.” This is a psalm that was written hundreds and hundreds of years before Christ came. I believe it is a psalm of David, and he is speaking prophetically. I believe that when David wrote this psalm, he himself did not know that he was prophesying about the coming of the Son of God. But look at what it says: “I will proclaim the decree: Jehovah has said to Me, ‘You are My Son; today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations as Your inheritance and the ends of the earth as Your possession. You will break them with a rod of iron; You will dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’” That does not sound to me like a meek, gentle, tender, pretty little lamb. This is a terrifying Jesus. Those nations do not want to accept His lordship; He is going to compel them with a rod of iron.

I believe we are moving toward a point in human history when, for a time—I do not know how long—before the final judgment, I believe the Lord and the Church of Jesus Christ will recover tremendous power over the nations. There will be tremendous, massive conversions of entire nations. Something is going to happen on earth whereby, for a time, it will be as though God’s government is upon the earth. I am still telling you that I am not ready to max out the credit card and buy myself a harp so I can go to heaven. There is still much work to be done. I believe that in the next 20, 30, or 40 years there is much work to do.

So ready your swords, strengthen your life, sharpen your weapons, tighten the screws, and prepare yourself like a soldier who is going on an elite mission tomorrow, as these Navy SEALs—the United States frogmen—do. When they went to attack Osama bin Laden, for example, I believe that the night before, they were oiling their rifles, counting the grenades they had, making sure everything was perfectly in place, rehearsing every movement, studying the plans of his mansion, knowing exactly what they would do if something went wrong, if this or that happened—preparing for the mission. And when they boarded those helicopters, they had rehearsed hundreds of times and were in perfect shape to do what they had to do.

And we are living in a time when God’s call for the Church to enter into its true power and its true identity is just around the corner. And you have to prepare yourself; this Church has to prepare itself—tightening the screws, growing stronger, slimming down. God is calling us to greater focus, greater vigilance, more study of the Word, and a fuller surrender of our lives—of everything—because we are almost at the point of embarking on the mission for which God has prepared us. And it is a mission of warfare and rescue; it is a mission of confrontation, and it requires a lucid, strong, clear-minded, determined, powerful people who can do what God wants them to do in order to restore the might of that Lion of Judah.

It says: “You will break them with a rod of iron. Now therefore, O kings, be wise; accept admonition, judges of the earth. Serve Jehovah with fear and rejoice with trembling. Honor the Son, lest He become angry and you perish along the way, for His wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who trust in Him.” I believe that Psalm 2 is a psalm for the nations today, and that is the Christ who is preparing for this, the Christ whom we must be serving. I see Jesus as the warrior, the One who, as John chapter 3 says, came to destroy the works of the devil. Our cities must be rescued. They must first be rescued from those horrific demonic powers behind the scenes, controlling the dynamics of the cities like puppeteers controlling the puppets.

We see the puppets down there on the stage, but above them are demonic hands controlling their movements—the movements of government officials, social agencies, universities, and philosophical and cultural movements. Behind all that are demonic powers that must be wrested away, brought under control, and subjected to the will and lordship of Christ. We must serve the Lord with fear and trembling. Lion of Judah has received a great calling, and we must live up to that calling. This is the time when we must begin to live as though we serve a great King and Lord who expects every knee to bow and every tongue to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. In light of that powerful Christ—Lord, King, and warrior—our mission is to establish the lordship of Jesus in the city of Boston and far beyond.

We must use our gifts to the fullest and develop our gifts. We must serve the Lord with all our strength. We must engage in spiritual warfare and proclaim the lordship of Jesus in our gatherings and during our times of prayer. When the Church gathers—as we have seen the glory of the Lord on these Sundays, for example—we must move more and more in that direction and proclaim the power of Christ. There will be times when we will have to declare the lordship of Jesus and declare the defeat of the principalities and powers. I believe that one day God will give us a clearer and more powerful manifestation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit: healings, signs, wonders, deliverances, and the impartation of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. All these things are coming, and we must prepare ourselves because God has called us to establish the lordship of Christ in the city.

And our service must become more militant. That is why you sometimes see me apologize for how long the service is taking. Frankly, I am not that kind; I do it for show and so that you will think I am courteous. But in reality, more and more, I want to train our church, and I will do so little by little. Our services will have to become as long as they need to be, and I call upon you, my brothers and sisters. I look forward to the day when people come and say, “We don’t know what is going to happen today, okay?” And if we have to stay for four hours, amen. If we have to stay for five hours—I know we have to be careful with new believers; there is a balance, as you have told me many times—but I also believe this should be like a training ground, so that whoever comes here knows that this is a church that is a place for tender warriors—both things, right? On one side, they have a rod of authority, and on the other, they also have a little ointment for the wounded, to heal them as well.

But if you come here, know that you are going to enter a different kind of place. Omar, there is a chorus I want us to sing, but the Lord put me there and said to me, “Seated on His throne, clothed in light.” I think that chorus is appropriate for ending and concluding. So we must engage in spiritual warfare in our gatherings. We must sanctify our lives; we must define where we stand. Frankly, when I came here on New Year’s Eve, I was not thinking that God was going to give me that message about defining where we stand, but I believe we must think more and more about emphasizing that definition, because that is what God wants us to do this year and every day of our lives: serve that Christ. We must organize our lives, our homes, our marriages, and our church as a congregation so that we may serve that Lion of Judah, that ruler, with greater and greater effectiveness.

I hope that instead of robbing you of sleep, this fills you with anticipation for the Christ we serve. He is so wonderful. Precious times await the Church, and I believe that churches like ours must be places of preparation and training. One aspect of our vision is to be an exemplary church that represents the best values of the Kingdom of God and inspires other churches, both North American and Hispanic. Many people in this city see Lion of Judah as an exceptional church, to the glory of God, because we have a synthesis of many things the Church needs: social work, mercy, evangelism, powerful worship, spiritual warfare, a supernatural vision, good administration, and a people who give and surrender themselves. And the world—the Church of Christ—needs a church like ours. The day will come when people will not think of Lion of Judah as a Hispanic church; they will think of Lion of Judah simply as a church that leads and blesses.

I am not glorifying this church, because I know it has so many flaws, beginning with its pastor. But even so, God has given us something very special, and it is not so that we may become proud and say, “Oh, I belong to Lion of Judah.” God sometimes calls the least capable in order to glorify Himself, but we must live up to that calling, serve a powerful, warrior, militant, sovereign Christ, and do so with love and mercy, presenting to the world that Christ to whom it needs to submit and whose lordship it needs to acknowledge.

I hope this is clear and that this is—I believe this is the conclusion of this time. Thanks to Omar for beginning this series. And every one of you must recover that Christ whom God wants you to see, because Christ has many different facets. And perhaps you ask yourself, “Well, what would the symbol be? If you had to make a statue of Jesus that was like the symbol of my life and my relationship with Him, what would that statue look like? Would it be a lamb? Would it be a lion? Would it be a warrior? Would it be an advocate? Would it be the fair-haired man of Galilee? Would it be the way, the truth, the life?” There are many ways in which we can see Jesus. What does Christ mean to you? So stand up for a moment. We declare the lordship of Christ. Lord, through this word we declare and release that image of You: warrior, King, Lord Almighty, irresistible, holy, worthy of reverence, worthy of fear, worthy of admiration. Reign over every authority, every principality, and every power. No one can resist Your name. We want to please You, and we want to be fit for You.

Begin with each one of us, Lord, and may the message—may its content—spread and be disseminated throughout this entire congregation, among those who are near and those who are far away, and even beyond, throughout Your whole Church at this time in history. We worship You and bless You in the name of Jesus. Amen and amen.