Sermons
Summer In The Psalms Pt 9 - Rescue And Rejoicing
(upbeat music) - This morning's reading comes from Psalm 30, where David attributes all the Lord God and not to anything of himself. He writes, "I will exalt you, Lord, because you have lifted me up and have not allowed my enemies to triumph over me. Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you healed me. Lord, you brought me up from shale. You spared me from those going down to the pit. Sing to the Lord, you his faithful ones, and praise his holy name. For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor a lifetime. Weaving may stay overnight, but there is joy in the morning. When I was secure, I said, "I will never be shaken. "Lord, when you showed your favor, "you made me stand like a strong mountain. "When you hid your face, I was terrified. "Lord, I called to you. "I sought favor from my Lord. "What gain is there in my death? "If I go down to the pit, will the dust praise you? "Will it proclaim your truth? "Lord, listen and be gracious to me. "Lord, be my helper. "You turn my lament into dancing. "You remove my sackcloth, "enclothed me with gladness, "so that I can sing to you and not be silent. "Lord my God, I will praise you forever. "Will you pray with me? "Our God and our Father, we acknowledge "that you are the provider of all good things "in ultimate deliver from our sin and its effects. "We confess that in trials, we can lose trust in you, "and there are many times where we don't desire you "as we should. "We also confess that in our arrogance and pride, "we can view our positive circumstances "and foolishly think, look what I have done. "But we give thanks that you are a patient and gracious God, "looking past our human frailty and pride "and loving us when we are far from you. "We thank you that in Jesus your Son, "we have a righteousness we could never have "through our own efforts. "This morning, please give Pastor Daniel wisdom "to speak through the power of your Holy Spirit, "and please give us hearts to humbly listen and obey. "In the name of Jesus Christ our Savior, amen." - Amen. - Thank you, Daniel. Hey, can we give a round of applause to the worship team for their all their hard work? (audience applauds) My name is Daniel, if you don't know me, I'm one of the pastors here at Christ Community Church, and usually I get to help lead worship, but this morning it's my joy to get to preach from Psalm chapter 30, we are continuing on in our series, "The Summer and the Psalms," where we're looking for the gospel from the hymnal of Israel. And it's funny, I normally get tasked with pretty, like, bummer texts, and this one is not a bummer text, and I had so much difficulty with it. So, I wanted to start this morning with a story. During our wedding planning, my wife, Kristen, and I had one of the biggest fights of our entire relationship. I know you're all shocked. I'm sure that you think that we probably have a perfect relationship, but it's true. We actually have arguments, big ones, even, and this one was massive. You see, we both said, during our planning, that we would like a small wedding. However, her definition of small, and my definition of small, were drastically different. I thought small meant our immediate family, and she thought that was stupid. (audience laughing) And so, this battle erupted. We've since learned to argue in much healthier ways, and I'm happy to report that we did, in fact, get married. We have stayed married, and it's working out great, but here's the funny part. We held our wedding on the front porch of a friend's house in the historic district of our town, and as the crowd started gathering that day, it was evident that the 120 wedding invitations that we had sent out had somehow multiplied into more like 200. People were standing in the driveway, and on the sidewalk, and they were lining the edges of the yard, and why were so many people there? Because in my excitement over marrying Kristen, I invited pretty much everyone I ran into, the week leading up to the wedding, at church, at work, in the grocery store, and here's the thing, in my rejoicing, over Kristen, I couldn't keep my mouth shut about it, and I wanted others to come and participate in my joy. I wanted them to know how God had brought us together, and I wanted them to join us in celebrating the culmination of that story. And this is what's happening here in Psalm 30. David is writing this psalm at the culmination of a great project, the building of his royal home. He writes this dedication song from the backstory of his life, and he's inviting all to come join in the culmination of that story. Now, there's some debate over what house it was, if it was just his own residence, or if it was indeed his palace. But I think it makes more sense that it was his palace. David had most certainly suffered illness and injury during his time on the run. He had been pursued by Paul through treacherous landscapes. He'd lived in barren deserts. He'd had to take refuge with his enemies, and he had lived under the shadow of death constantly. And so here he is by the grace of God beholding a protected dwelling, a palace, a fortified residence for himself, a place where he can rest secure. And it is a picture, this palace is a picture of his rescue from exile and oppression. And his heart rejoices, it exalts, and he wants others to come and exalt with him, to know the story and to rejoice at its conclusion. Which brings us to the main point of the text this morning. And it's laid out for us in the first verse of the song. The first verse of the song says, "I will exalt you, Lord, because you have lifted me up and have not allowed my enemies to triumph over me." And we can boil that down to this main point. Praise is the proper response to the work of God in our lives. Praise is the proper response to the work of God in our lives. We need, say, little else this morning. However God is working in your life today, the fitting response is always the praise of God, amen? All right, let's get the band back up here. I'm just kidding. We are gonna take some time to look at why praise is always befitting. Why praise is always the right choice to offer to the trying God. Praise is befitting because of the nature of God. Praise is always the right choice because of the nature of God. The Bible is a far more human document than I am comfortable with, right, if I'm honest. And we certainly affirm at this church that the people who wrote it were carried along by the Holy Spirit and that it has been well-preserved by the God of heaven. We believe in its inspiration and in its infallibility, its trustworthiness, but it was penned by men at certain times in history for human reasons and it has human fingerprints all over it. But it's ultimately a book about God. It's ultimately a book about God, his nature, his works, his plans and his purposes. And this song, though it is written about a human experience reveals so much about who God is. And we're gonna just look at a few of those. And if you've noticed in the reading, there's these little couplets that David uses, favor and anger, lamenting, rejoicing, sorrow and dancing. And so we're gonna, just for fun, put those together. So God is revealed that God is transcendent and imminent. God is transcendent and imminent. Now, transcendent means that God sits above the creation. He is distinct from it. And it is, he's beyond its comprehension. And he is establishing, he's the fundamental order of all things. But he's imminent in that God is somehow still present within that creation. And accessible to the people in that creation. And he is actively orchestrating the outcome of history. This is a paradox, it's a tension. And we see that the Psalmist's opening praise carries this tension in it. He says in verse one, "I will exalt you, Lord, "because you have lifted me up "and have not allowed my enemies to triumph over me. "Lord, my God, I cried to you for help and you healed me. "Lord, you brought me up from Sheol "and spared me from among those going down to the pit." David cried out to God because his earthly reality seemed devoid of God's presence. Devoid of God's activity, the transcendent God, has ordered the universe in such a way that sickness kills and overwhelming enemy forces destroy. And in the face of this reality, what does David do? He calls out to God to enter into that reality and intervene on his behalf. And he did. The picture, the God of heaven stoops down to draw David up out of his distress. It's a picture of someone reaching down into a well and scooping water out of it. So the transcendent God is imminent throughout his creation. David even says to the, his, his imminence extends to the underworld, this place Sheol. As a friend of mine puts it, "There is no spot where God is not." Right? So he is transcendent and imminent and he is worthy of praise for it. So David exalts God. He lifts up God in praise because God bends down to affect his creation. And we also see that God is both holy and gracious, holy and gracious. In verse four and five, he says, "Sing to the Lord, you faithful ones, "and praise his holy name. "For his anger lasts only a moment, "but his favor a lifetime. "Weeping may stay overnight, "but there is joy in the morning. "God is holy. "He is morally pure and set apart from anything defiled. "And as we have preached a lot over the last few months, "his anger burns against sin. "And his holiness has ordered the entire universe "to be in opposition to sin. "It's woven in the fabric of nature "as much as the laws of physics are." So disregarding God's law of gravity results in what? Death and destruction. So what will disregarding God's law of holiness result in? Death and destruction. And Romans tells us that we as image bearers of that holy God, we have all fallen short. Through sin, through our refusal time after time to do what he has declared to be right and our insistence time after time to do what he has declared to be evil. And the just penalty for that is destruction and death. So there's no one who deserves to be rescued from the consequences of sin. No one who deserves to be shown mercy or defended. And yet, we see that God is gracious. As much of a hero of the faith as David was in the court of cosmic justice, he deserves nothing but God's wrath. But here he is talking not about God's everlasting anger, but about his everlasting favor. To those whose only portion should be darkness and weeping, God orchestrates for them a new dawn and a feast of joy. One of the best pieces of pastoring I ever saw was that the church that Kristin and I met at. They were a pretty hipster church. They liked doing the cool stuff. And so they served coffee and really good coffee. And they got to the end of one of their budget cycles and they realized that with inflation taken into account, they were spending something like $55,000 a year just on coffee. And so they said, this probably isn't the best expenditure. You know, we could probably fund an entire missionary family for a year with this money. And so they said, hey, there's lots of Starbucks, there's a lot, you can get coffee at McDonald's. We're gonna stop serving coffee and people lost their minds. They started threatening to no longer give to the church. They tried to have meetings with the elder board to address this. They lost their minds. And so the pastor the next week preaches this sermon. And guys, it was the first half was Hellfire and brimstone. It was on par with sinners in the hands of an angry God. Right? I'm surprised people weren't trembling in the aisles pleading for mercy. But then the second half was this glorious presentation of the mercy and the grace that God has shown to us in Christ Jesus. And then he addresses the madness of the coffee moment. And he said, listen, you guys are being ridiculous. Here's the deal. We're gonna continue to serve coffee, but you're gonna pay for it. We're gonna have little boxes out there. When you come and get a cup of coffee, throw a cup of bucks in, it's cheaper than Starbucks. Then he addressed a couple other things, brought it back to Jesus. He ended the sermon with this. And remember, you deserve Hell. (congregation laughing) So enjoy your cup of coffee. (congregation laughing) But listen, God gives more grace than just a small thing like coffee. In his love, he gave his only son so that those who would put their faith in him would not live in eternal darkness, in eternal sorrow and separation, but that they would have eternal life with him, filled with everlasting joy. They would feast at his table with no more crying, no more pain, no more burden of sin, and its destructive consequences. And oh, how we long for that day, the eternal morning where we gaze upon our Savior. But in the meantime, we also see in this song that God is a disciplinarian and a helper. Read with me, verses six through eight. It says, "When I was secure, I said, "I will never be shaken. "Lord, when you showed me your favor, "you made me stand at like a strong mountain. "But when you hid your face, I was terrified. "Look down at what you said, Lord, I called to you. "I sought favor for my Lord. "But what he says in verse 10, "Lord, listen and be gracious to me, "Lord, be my helper. "Listen, if we have put our faith in Jesus Christ, "we are not exempt from times of trouble." As I said, God has ordained the universe to be in opposition to sin, and the universe has not reached a state of sinless perfection yet. We still suffer physical infirmities, mental health disorders, thorns, and thistles in our vocation, emotional and physical difficulties with sex and relationships. And all of us will one day face the final enemy of death. But the New Testament affirms that all those afflictions for the believer are not the hatred of God towards us. Romans 8 assures us there is therefore no condemnation, no damnatory sentence, no judgment requiring payment for those who are in Christ Jesus, our earthly trials or what Shakespeare calls the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, they have become the discipline of a loving father. They are not the anger of a wrathful God, they are the discipline of a loving father to us. They're the tools by which the holy and gracious God helped to make us more like Christ. They're the fire that burns us not to destroy us, but to bring forth pure gold. David was helped to be more holy, to be rid of his arrogant self-assurance by God allowing suffering in his life. Which allowed David and us to also see that God is a rescuer and a redeemer. Rescuer and redeemer. Read what it says in verse 11. David says, "You turned my lament into dancing. "You removed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness. "David has been lifted up out of the pit, "he's been pulled out of the depths of hell, "healed of sickness and brokenness, "he's been delivered from his enemies, "he's been rescued from living in caves "and being unjustly hunted, being betrayed by his king, "witnessing the suffering of his beloved people "under the hand of an incompetent and corrupt ruler. "He's been rescued from suffering the pains of hunger "and thirst and the anxiety of being a fugitive. "And here he is writing this song of joy at his palace, "his fortress, his place of refuge as it is dedicated. "He's been rescued by the hand of the imminent "and the transcendent God. "But don't miss this, even though he has been rescued. "He was not spared the suffering that came before it. "He was not spared the sadness that was his constant companion. "He was not spared the loss of his dearest friend. "And he does not say, 'You erased my lament.' "He says, 'You turned my lament into dancing.' "He does not say, 'I never wore sackcloth.' "I was never wrapped up in sorrow or in mourning. "He says, 'You made that sorrow and mourning "release its grip on me. "And in its place you have armored me, "you have girded me with gladness. "God doesn't snap his fingers "and simply undo what has come before. "He redeems all that has come before. "He redeems all that has come before "to work for his glory and the good of all those "who are loved by him and called according to his purpose. "God did not spare Christ the injustice "and suffering and humiliation of the cross. "He redeemed the world through it. "In Jesus Christ, God showed himself "to be both transcendent and imminent. "That's what the name Emmanuel means, God with us. "In the work of the cross and the resurrection, "God the Father has redeemed us "from the kingdom of darkness. "He's graciously made us something holy and acceptable. "He has granted us new citizenship in Christ's kingdom "so that we may take refuge in the fortress "of the king of kings, now and forevermore. "And God the Holy Spirit has been given to us "as a helper in afflictions and as the down payment "on our eternal rescue. "Is this God not worthy of our highest praises? "Is his work not good enough? "His grace not amazing enough for us to lift our hearts "and our lives and our voices to exalt him? "He is the only one who is worthy of such exaltation. "And although the scriptures are primarily about God, "they do serve as a mirror to see ourselves rightly. "And what is revealed in this passage about us "makes praise of God all the more fitting. "So point two is the nature of humanity." That is terrible. I have a really huge head. And so there are no headsets that fit my gigantic dome so it all sits, the microphone sits here in my beard hair. And so that's why I'm always messing with it anyway. The nature of humanity, here we go. So as we saw God revealed in the previous point, this passage reveals that humanity is finite and dependent. David's song expresses that he has little influence over the natural and supernatural world. His enemies don't do what he wants them to do. His health doesn't do what he wants it to do. His emotions don't do what he wants them to do. His temporal circumstances don't do what he wants them to do. Shiel doesn't care about what David wants it to do. And he was brought to the point, through suffering, he's brought to the point of understanding exactly how finite and dependent upon God he is. And David's words make it plain that we too have little control over the outcome of things. And it is by God's grace that we exist. So we should praise him for our existence day by day. For every new morning, we should praise him for our existence. And in a similar vein, we see somewhat paradoxically that we are both needy and capable. We're both needy and capable, needy, in that we really do have enemies, physical and spiritual enemies that we need deliverance from. We really do have infirmities that need healing. We really do need the sun to rise and the darkness to lift. We really do need the Lord to provide for us. And this is King David at the dedication of his palace confessing that his needs surpassed his resources. And don't we all know this feeling? Whether it's credit card debt or raising children or chronic illnesses or a national political landscape that seems intent upon choosing chaos. Our needs easily outpace our ability to meet them. But the Lord meets them. Not always the way that we want, but we should praise him for his provision. But the Psalm also reveals our capability, our capacity. David isn't just sitting around praying that God who built him a house. He built the house and now he's dedicating it to the Lord. During his trials, he didn't just shrug and say, "Well, God's gonna do what God's gonna do." He prays, he cries out, he uses his mental and spiritual understanding to appeal to God. He exercises the agency that he has and he leaves the results up to God. And David isn't just ruminating on his past here. I want us to see this. He's not just sitting and bemoaning his past. He's using his capabilities in writing songs to praise God and to help others praise God. Now, this Psalm also reveals another part of our nature which is seeking and wandering and wandering and seeking and seeking and wandering and wandering. This whole Psalm is David seeking help and rescue from the Lord, right? But he tells this little mini story in it about how that's not how it always is. David gets a little bit of security and he starts to wander from the very one who provided it to him. Instead of saying, "The Lord is my rock. "The Lord is my strength. "The Lord is my shield. "He will never be shaken." David started saying, "I will never be shaken." And what happens? He gets shook and he falls from security into terror. Things get really bad for him. But the Lord uses that to draw him back from wandering, to make him a seeker again. David goes from, "I will never be shaken to Lord. "Be my helper." Had David never been shaken, he would likely never have sought the Lord the way he did. And he never would have experienced the help and the rescue and the nearness of God the way he did. God uses our seeking and our wandering to draw us back to him and he is praiseworthy for it. We see something else that is fundamental about our nature as it pertains to praise. It's more foundational than any of these other ones. We are in our nature, dust and breath. We are dust and breath. Look at how David appeals to God in verse nine. He says, "What gain is there in my death? "If I go down to the pit, will the dust praise you? "Will it proclaim your truth?" What he's doing here is he's appealing to the nature and the role of humanity as those who are made to reflect the glory of God into the creation. He made to declare his praises to all things. Genesis one tells us that we were made in God's image, right? We were to be his earthly representatives. So our ontological purpose, right? Our foundational purpose was to be heralds of God's nature and authority to the creation. Broadcasting the truth about him in our very being and by our stewardship of the earth. But what method did he use to create us? Genesis two tells us that he formed us out of the dust and then did what? He breathed the breath of life into us. So David is recognizing here that our combination of dust and breath is vital to our purpose of proclaiming who God is and what he does. And what's another word for the public proclamation of who God is and what he does? Praise. He's saying, God, you made me dust and breath to be a bullhorn of your praise. It was your plan and your purpose. So if you take that breath of life from me, how shall just the dust praise you? Our material bodies have been enlivened, invigorated with the breath of life so that we could breathe it back out in praise. It's our design. It's how we are supposed to function best. How many of you have heard the phrase the right tool for the right job? Well, you are the right tool for the job of praising God. And if you aren't doing that, you have to ask, what job are you being used for? So finally, we're gonna look at the nature of praise itself. This is a little more worship-pastory, preachy. I'll connect it at the end to the song, but we're gonna look at the nature of praise itself. This might be remedial for some of us, but it's always good to be reminded. Throughout scripture from Old Testament to, sorry guys, from the Old Testament to the new, the proper focus of praise is always God. The focus of praise is always God. He's the target that we're aiming at. God himself is to be the only one that our hearts and minds are set upon exulting. Our highest affections and admirations are to be reserved for him alone. The cardinal sin of the Old Testament was the worship of other gods, was idolatry. And guess what? That doesn't change in the New Testament. Now, people do get their affections twisted up all over the place, right? From blatant idolatry, where they carve images of created things and offer worship to it, to subtler things like sports or politics, or sex or careers. And what do you spend the most energy on? What consumes the majority of your thoughts, the majority of your time, the majority of your conversations? Those are the things that you truly believe are the most praiseworthy. I have known Christian sports fans who will jump up and down in their living room, shouting until their voices are hoarse, reciting from memory past team rosters and obscure players' statistics. And they know the college that every member of the current draft originates from, yet they would not be able to recite a single verse of scripture. They wouldn't be able to communicate the gospel in a meaningful way or even open their mouths to sing a song in church. This is a good indication that their highest affections and admirations are reserved for their sports team and not the Lord. But we are called, we are called to reserve our highest praises for the Lord. And we are to keep focusing on Him, to see that which is praiseworthy more clearly. But Pastor Daniel, you say, if God is perfect and lacking in nothing, why does He need us to praise Him? Is He just some egotistical monster who created a race of beings to satisfy His vanity? Well, first, that's blasphemy. Second, that's assuming that God is just like us. We seek praise, we seek praise to provide ourselves with a sense of value and affirmation. We generally drift towards wanting more praise than we are deserving of. And when we don't get it, we seek out ways to manipulate others or over esteem ourselves in order to get it. But that's not how it is with the Lord. He is worthy of all praise by nature. He is the embodiment and the source of all that is good and true and beautiful. And it is not wrong to give praise to that which is praiseworthy. God needs nothing from us, but He wants something for us. Though God is the focus of praise, the beneficiary of praise is humanity. Brothers and sisters, like I said, God is not deficient in anything, but we certainly are. How often do we forget the ways in which God has provided for us, for our every need? How regularly do the circumstances of life whisper to us that we have been forsaken by the Almighty? How often do we return to our sins and our addictions to try and cope with the darkness around us? Extolling God, singing His praises, washes and catechizes our minds in the truth of who God is and what God has done. For centuries, one of the primary ways people were taught was by putting information to song. This is the funniest example to me. It was terrible at math in the first 12 years of school. Not terrible, I just really didn't enjoy it. But I now know the squares up to 15, because of a silly song that was taught to climb in a homeschool co-op, right? One, four, nine, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, 100, 121, 144, 160, nine, 196, 225. I was in school for 12 years and I never learned that. And I learned it in one day because of a song in a kindergarten class, right? Singing the truth of God's praiseworthiness embeds the truth more securely in our hearts and in our minds than simply reading it. And it also connects our hearts and our bodies in a way that nothing else can. Saying, praise God from whom all blessings flow is fundamentally different than singing. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Both are true, both are beneficial, but one connects to the entirety of your being. And singing the praise of God loud and triumphantly stirs and directs your emotions like nothing else. Praise is a weapon. It is an antidepressant. It is a rallying cry to your heart to hold on in moments of terror. The King is coming. He will rescue you. He will be triumphant. And singing God's praises also benefits us by reminding us who the real hero is. It humbles us and reminds us that we are not it. But it also relieves us. It relieves us of the burden of trying to carry the weight of the world or the weight of our salvation upon our own shoulders. It relieves us of that. It makes us right-sized. Right-sized before God and before ourselves. And finally, the expression of praise, the public expression of praise is infectious. There is a reason that singing praise to God has to be done together. David, it's not bad for you to do it on your own just so you know. But David urges it in this psalm and in many others. Paul urges it in the New Testament. And in my estimation, there's nothing closer to an experience of the new heavens and the new earth than when the church gathers with a hunger and an expectation that God is going to meet them and they sing loudly. Something mystical happens. When the gathered bodies of the saints lift their voices in song, something happens that is greater than the sum of its parts. I gave this example in the men's group a couple of weeks ago. If you take a horse that can pull 8,000 pounds and you team it with another horse that can pull 8,000 pounds, you would think they would be able to pull a total of 16,000 pounds. But the reality is they end up being able to pull a total of 22,000 pounds or 25,000 pounds or 32,000 pounds with a well-trained team. When the saints sing together, their efforts and their offerings are magnified. We get a glimpse of heaven that we can experience nowhere else. You and I in our limitedness, we can't fellowship intimately with 650 people every week, but the Lord can. And He can connect us together in a way that transcends our own limitations. You know what my deepest desire for our worship gatherings is? I want the manifestation of God's kingdom and His presence to be so tangible that the unconverted are either forced to flee from the room or they are converted by the reality of the living God. And when we sing praise together, it's not just a testimony to the unconverted, it's an encouragement to the entire body. Listen, when you see a saint who has been given a terminal diagnosis, or who has experienced a catastrophic loss, lifting their hands and singing, I have lived in the goodness of God or singing whatever my God ordains is right, you are seeing something miraculous. And when other saints see you worshiping wholeheartedly when they know your struggles, when they know the pain that you're in, or when they see you stoic engineering types, raising your hands in worship, either out of pure obedience or pure delight, or when they know that your preference really isn't for this style of music, but you are lifting your voice in the congregation. When the other saints see you do that, they are encouraged. They are built up, encouraged to greater boldness, encouraged to greater faithfulness, encouraged to greater participation. And this is David's desire in this song. At this great event of dedication, he wants others to join in and experience the joy of it through praise. And David ends this song by saying, God, you've done all of this for me. You've done all this for me, for what purpose? So that I can sing to you and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever. At the dedication of his house, the symbol of his rescue, David dedicates himself to the praise of God. And this is our only application point this morning. As I'm gonna invite the band to come back up, and as they come back up, I wanna remind us, right? There are moments in praise where we get those feelings of transcendence and connection to one another and to the Lord. There's moments where those feelings prevail. And then there's moments where we drag ourselves in with stammering, lisping tongues, right? But at every moment, praise is a commitment. Praise is a commitment. Sometimes it happens spontaneously. But most of the time it happens because we have said to ourselves, Lord my God, I will praise you forever. Wherever you are at in life today, whether you're on a mountain top or in a valley, whether you are experiencing God's gentle providence or his severe providence, commit yourself to praising him. Commit yourself to praising him. If you have never sung in the congregation sing, even just open your mouth and see if you can get a little squawk out, right? If you sing, but you're really worried about what people think of you, make an offering to the Lord of your dignity and sing louder. But do something, commit yourself to praising the Lord in some way this morning and throughout this week because praise is a commitment more than it is a feeling. We pray with me. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for all the things it reveals in here that joy, though weeping, last for a night, joy comes in the morning. Though we might be at the very gates of shield, you can reach down and draw us out. We praise you and we thank you. And God, we commit ourselves as a church to the praise of you and you alone in the way that we sing, in the way that we speak, the way that we live our lives in the community. And Lord, if there are those here who do not know you, those here who have not bent the knee to King Jesus, I pray that your spirit would move on them to commit themselves to his praise by trusting him. By trusting that what he has done on the cross is sufficient for salvation, for reconciliation with you. Lord, God, we love you, we praise you, and we offer our worship to you now in your name and for your glory. Amen. All right, will you stand and sing. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)