Sermons
Summer In The Psalms Pt 8 - The Path Of Life
(upbeat music) Please stand for the reading of God's word. We're gonna be reading out of Psalm 36, verses seven to nine this morning. How priceless your faithful love is, God. People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They are filled from the abundance of your house. You let them drink from your refreshing stream. For the wellspring of life is with you. By means of your light, we see light. Let's pray. Lord, each of us came here this morning with our own challenges, pain, sorrow, and doubts. And you know them all. Help us to take this time to offload our burdens into your good hands and to find refuge in your presence, embracing and treasuring the love you have shown to us and to be refreshed by you. You have given all of this to us through Jesus, who is the light and through whom we have life. We rejoice in the salvation you extended to us through his sacrifice. Open our hearts to hear and respond to your word by your spirit and through your servant, Pastor Jeff. In Jesus' name, amen. - Amen, you may be seated. Thank you, Vic. Good morning. - Good morning. - I just wanna welcome the youth and the youth team back. Yay, they just came back from camp. Would you join me in welcoming them? (audience applauding) Hopefully unscathed and filled with the Holy Spirit and ready to go, ready to go for a new school year. Let me ask you a question. How often do you pray for God to preserve something? How often do you pray for God to preserve something? I know while the kids were away, I was praying for God to preserve their lives and bring them back to us safely. But often that is a prayer. In the Christian life, we do pray, God, would you protect this? Would you preserve this? And we're gonna be looking at a text that encourages us to do that today. I very often pray for this church. I pray for this church. I pray that God would preserve us in the face of all the cultural change, chaos, the craziness that's in this world. I counted a privilege to pray for you and your needs and to pray for this body. I pray for the preservation of our nation. I hope you do too. I personally believe that America is a good idea. I'm overjoyed that the thought that there is one nation on the planet earth in the history of the world who has as its founding idea, preserving and securing the rights of every individual. Isn't that a great idea? It is. And I pray that God would preserve us from tyranny no matter which direction it comes from. No matter which direction it comes and so that we may secure the right to worship as we see fit. One of the things that I pray is that God would help us and protect us from the encroachment of the government telling us what we can say and what we can't say. Because on the day that they do that you and I do not have any more freedoms. And so preserving this idea of being able to stand up here and proclaim God's word without a centralized government telling us, no you cannot say that because that's hate speech. I pray against that. And I pray also for America that we would experience another great awakening that God will give us one more generation, at least who would humble themselves and seek God's face and turn from their wicked ways and experience revival in the land. I pray for that very often. And I pray for the churches around the world that the kingdom of God, the good news of the kingdom of God would make inroads into every nation and every culture in the world. And I pray daily for my family. I hope you do too. I pray that God will preserve my wife's life and that her cancer will never return. I pray that God will give her many years of faithful ministry and service to the body of Christ and to our family. I pray for my kids and their protection, their love for Jesus and their strength. But I must confess to you, as I read this passage this week and as I studied it, I was convicted because I don't very often pray for myself. I don't pray this prayer for myself. I don't ask God very often to preserve me, to preserve my life, to preserve my ministry, to protect and preserve me. And why is that? Well, it's partly because you just need to know, I believe in this doctrine called the Perseverance of the Saints. I think part of it is just subconsciously, I just assume what the Bible teaches is that every single person that God has called his elect, every person that he calls to Jesus will come to Jesus and they will not be snatched out of Jesus' hand. The scripture says in Ephesians chapter two that we are saved by grace through faith and this is not of yourselves, what? The grace and the faith. There is nothing in me that brings salvation to the table. I don't supply it at all. Salvation is God's gift to me 100%. It is not my gift to God. So I just have this kind of theological understanding, but then I've just made a wrong inference. Like I've just assumed, well, I don't have to pray for myself then. But David is going to challenge that today. David knows that God is the sovereign grantor and giver of every single blessing, but yet right here in this text, he's going to teach us, pray for yourself. Pray that you will be preserved because he knows that God also supplies us with the means of our preservation. As we're going to talk about three things in the text today, the source, the means and the future of our preservation in the gospel. And if you have your bullets and you can follow along with my outline with it. Number one, what is the source of our perseverance? What is the source of it? David says, in Psalm chapter 16 verse one, he says, preserve me, God. Oh God, for in you, I take refuge. I say to the Lord, you are my Lord and I have no good apart from you. Over the last year, we discovered that there were many things that David had to flee to God for refuge. He literally took refuge in the Lord, in the desert, in the wilderness of Ziph, from all of his enemies, from Saul in the Philistines and everybody else, all of his adversaries. But this is also a picture of the Christian life. Jesus told the disciples in John chapter 16 that he spoke these words to you. He said, so all this stuff I've been teaching you, I spoke these words to you. Here's why, so that you will have peace in your hearts. Why? Because you won't have peace in the world. Your external reality very often is not going to match your internal disposition, your internal state of being. And he said, so I pray for God's peace in your heart because in the world you will have tribulation, tribulation, but take heart, why? Because I have overcome the world, amen. The believer must constantly be reminded that we take refuge in the God who is our shield and our fortress and our deliverer. We remind ourselves of the words of the psalmist whose heart just bursts. Don't you feel it? Read these words with me in Psalm 103. He says, bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all of his benefits, who forgives all of our iniquity, heals all of your diseases, who redeems you your light from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good, so that your youth is renewed like eagles. How many of you would like to have your youth renewed? I think I would. If I had gone to youth camp last week, I would come back and my youth would not be renewed, it would be drained, sucked out of my body from the stories that I'm hearing. But everything he needs, he says, everything that we need, he says, forgiveness of sins and healing and redemption of our bodies and death, God's unfailing love and mercy. All of the good that satisfies and the strength that renews us, all of that comes from God, the Father. David stops and prays, God preserve me because you are the source of all of my good. You are the source of all of my good. Jesus' little brother, James, agrees with that. Here's what he said in James chapter one, he says, every good and every perfect gift comes from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. There is nothing in the spectrum of your life, not one single thing that has touched your life that is good, that hasn't come from God. And Paul insists on it too, listen to this, this will blow your mind. If you've never read this before, you've never meditated on this before, watch this. He says in Ephesians one, he says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. There is no blessing that God is going to withhold from you because he's blessed you with it in heavenly realms in Christ. And so we bless the Lord by remembering and not forgetting all of his benefits, that accompany a life in Christ. We remember ourselves as David did, that we would have nothing of value. There would be nothing good. We're not for the God who supplies it. He renews our strength to face another day. He has seated us in heavenly realms with Christ. He has blessed us with every imaginable spiritual blessing. You can't even imagine what heaven will be like my friend. And it's no accident that right after David asked the Lord to preserve his life, that his mind turns immediately, his thoughts turn immediately to the God who supplies him richly with everything. Number two, what has God supplied? What are the means of my perseverance? Verses three through eight. The Psalmist reminds us to pray for our own preservation and troubling times, then David draws our attention to the primary means of the instruments through which God has provided that for us. And the first thing that comes to his mind is community. The first thing that comes to his mind is holy community, verse three. He says, "As for the saints in the land, "they are at the excellent ones, "and whom is in whom is all my delight?" The saints. Now, what saints is he talking about here? Is he talking about Moses and Abraham? No, he's not, not only. The way in which he uses the word saints is not the same in which it is used in some circles today. I think of the way the Roman Catholics teach it. The Catholics, I think, have erroneously taught that St. Hood is for a few select people who meet a specific criteria, like being venerable or being martyred, or having a confirmed miracle working power or a miracle. But the New Testament, you need to know, teaches no such thing. Instead, it teaches the universal, listen, the universal St. Hood of all who are in Christ. If you are in Christ, the Bible says you're a saint. This is, in fact, Paul's favorite term when he refers to the people in the church. Unless he is calling them believers, he is calling them saints. When he's not calling them believers, he's calling them saints. It's the word Haggioi when he writes to the church in Corinth. What does he say? He says to the church in Corinth, comma, the saints. When he writes to the church in Ephesus, he says to the church in Ephesus, the saints. The Bible teaches that every person who is in Christ is a saint because that word means to be sanctified. And we have been sanctified in the blood of Christ. We have been washed clean in the blood of Christ. The Bible also teaches the universal priesthood of all saints. The universal priesthood of all saints is why we don't practice a priesthood in our ecclesiology and the way we do church. Revelation chapter one tells us that God has made his people, the church, the people of God, a kingdom of priests. We are God's kingdom of priests. Peter tells us this too. He refers to the global church scattered throughout the Roman Empire and he calls him a royal priesthood, a holy nation. So David is here reflecting on his need for holy community, not just a select few, not just the priests, but he's talking about the whole family of God, the people of God. And he is talking about his need for community and the joy of fellowship in that community. I looked up the stats on this. These stats are staggering. They're staggering. The attrition among Catholics, mainline Protestant denominations and other religions, like Islam, are just staggering. People are leaving these religious groups in droves. I'll just give you one of those stats. You can write this one down. 52% of those raised Catholic have left the church. And 30% of that number consider themselves not Catholic or not believers in any sense. Think about that. And the other 20% have converted to either evangelical Christianity or they've called themselves spiritual, but nothing, or spiritual and unaffiliated, which means they're not affiliated with any church. Now there are lots of reasons why these people have unaffiliated these, there are lots of reasons why they have left the Catholic church. We see them in the news all of the time. There's a lack of spiritual and personal experience of salvation there. There's a lack of spiritual vitality and passion in the Lord. And people just, eventually people just leave that. They just walk away from that. There are all kinds of sexual scandals in the church that are causing people to leave as well. There are all kinds of reasons and many or all of those reasons may be good, but I want to tell you that it's also happening in the evangelical church today. There is attrition in the evangelical church over all the tenants among gospel preaching, evangelical churches like this one is about 84% of what it was prior to the pandemic. So after the pandemic, a solid number of people have just chosen, I'm not going back to church. I don't value the community. I don't value the people of God. And I want to say this very clearly, okay? Hear me well, that when we opt for a detached, individualized, disembodied spirituality, apart from holy community, we are depriving ourselves of a primary means of our perseverance and the saints, of our perseverance and the gospel. And this is why David can pray and ask God to persevere him, to preserve him in the faith. And then immediately think about the first means that God has given him to do that, which is the people, the people of God who encourage my faith and that I can encourage. We need Christ's community. We need Christ's community, not a detached, disembodied individual spirituality that is tailor-made for my likes and dislikes. We need embodied gospel-centered fellowship. And then David turns to the second means of our perseverance in verse four, which is right worship. Correct and right worship. The sorrows of those he says, who run after another God shall multiply. Their drink offerings of blood, I will not pour out. Or take their names on my lips. That is the names of these gods, I won't do that. And what he's saying is, I'm not gonna do what my predecessor Saul did. I'm not gonna offer pagan sacrifices to false gods. I'm not going to do that. You remember what we said a few weeks ago, the fool has said, the psalmist said, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. Remember what we also said, that an atheist who chooses not to worship God does not choose a life of non-religion or non-worship. That is not the choice. The choice is between worshiping the one true God or worshiping other false gods. Because those who choose this path of channeling their worship into sports or leisure or pleasure-seeking or career or hedonism simply multiply their sorrows because they've channeled all of their energies and instincts for worship into the wrong gods. And what David says here is, I'm not gonna run after those false gods because one of the primary means of my preservation of God answering this prayer in my life is the community, the holy community, where we worship rightly. We worship according to this book. We worship according to this word. We worship the one true God. And this is why Paul can appeal to the Romans in Romans chapter 12. This is what he tells him. He tells us exactly what worship is. If you've ever wondered how the Bible defines us right there, Romans chapter 12, verses one through three. He says, present your bodies, therefore I beseech you. I appeal to you because of the mercies of Christ, because of the mercies of God. Present your bodies like a living sacrifice to the Lord. Present your bodily life like it's just an ongoing living sacrifice to the Lord, which is your spiritual, reasonable act of worship. But then he says, and do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but instead, be conformed, be transformed by the renewing of your minds, and what, in the truth. So what is he saying there? He's saying, present your body life and your mental life, your spiritual life, all of it, as an act of worship to the Lord. And then what will you be able to do? You will be able to discern what the good, pleasing, perfect will of God is. Don't you want to know that? Wouldn't you want to know what the good, pleasing, perfect will of God is for my life? Paul says, it's simple, live a life in right worship. Offer yourselves wholly and completely and fully to your God, your body and your soul, all of you, all of you. And David's thoughts then turn to his heritage. His heritage, he immediately begins to think about his inheritance in the saints. Versus five through six, he says, the Lord is my chosen portion. And my cup, you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. If you die and you leave all of your stuff to your children, what are you leaving them? Well, you're leaving them your portion. You're leaving them what you have. You're leading them your lot. The boundaries of your property. That's what you're leaving them. And he talks about this as being a beautiful inheritance. He is looking forward to his inheritance in the saints. And David had lots of heartache in his life. Some of it was involuntary. A lot of it was actually stuff done to him. But David also had some heartache because as we learned over the last year, due to his consequences, the consequences of his own sin. But when he reflects on all of life's circumstances, his mind goes immediately to his inheritance in the saints, his inheritance in the people of God. And likewise, the believer looks forward to a time and we will be ushered into the fullness of his glorious presence at death as we await our bodily resurrection. We're the only people on the planet who actually look forward to the day when we are called home. We're the only people on this planet who actually look forward to the day when Christ resurrects us from the dead and we will never die again. Do you look forward to that? Well, that's what he's talking about here. He's looking forward to his inheritance. That's why Paul says in Ephesians chapter one, having the eyes of your heart enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints. And Paul prays that the eyes of their souls would be able to see, would be able to perceive the eternal hope that they have in Christ. And David reminds himself of his heritage and his birthright in the same way we must find solace and comfort by regularly fixating on an eternal inheritance in Christ kept for us in heaven, imperishable, undefiled, unfading. Let me ask you, how often do you think about eternity? I probably think about it more than you do. And it's not because I study the Bible more than you do. I'm sure some of you study the Bible more than me. I'm sure of that's true by talking with some of you nerds. But I think about it more probably more often than you do because I usually do most of the funerals around here. I did one yesterday for Paul Meggio and it was a beautiful funeral and you know what we reflected on? Paul's hope, his hope for Jesus, his hope to be brought home with the Lord. My sister-in-law just died yesterday from the same disease, from pancreatic cancer. And we just got the news yesterday and she was a believer in Jesus and she was received into the arms of Jesus. The moment she closed her eyes for the last time she was welcomed into the full rays of God's glory in heaven. And we are the only people on earth that think about eternity that way. Everybody else is afraid to die or they've just tuned it out or they just shorted out and chose not to think about it because it's so depressing. But we don't think that way. We think about our inheritance because that's what God has promised. How often do you think about eternity? We sang it in that song. Teach me Lord to number my days. All of us have a date on the calendar. We don't know when it is, but we're going to go. Where will you go? Do you think about that? A fourth instrument of our endurance is comfort and guidance, verses seven through eight. He says, "I bless the Lord who gives me counsel. "In the night also my heart instructs me." I think what he's talking about here, if I may be honest with you, is his consciousness and his subconsciousness. Most of the things that you do, you do subconsciously. You don't even think about them. You do them by instinct or by nature. Most of everything that you do is that way. And I think that's what he's trying to distinguish just with ancient 1000 BC language. He's trying to say that God has brought me instruction and I have listened to the Lord's wise counsel and I have listened to the Lord's wise instruction, but my subconscious, like while I'm sleeping or while I'm in rest, my heart is helping me figure it out. That instruction is working itself out in me. And I have said to Lord always before me because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. So he says, "God is not only my reward, "but he is an ever-present help in times of need." David knows that God has been his counselor, his comforter, giving him comfort and wise instruction throughout his life. And over the last year, we've seen that David constantly, unlike Saul, David will go back and he'll ask the Ephod, "Lord, what would you have me do?" And that's a distinguishing feature between David and Saul. He constantly sought the counsel of the Lord. He sought the wise counsel and the comfort and the guidance and instruction of God. And Jesus said this to his disciples. He said, "Blessed are those who mourn, "for they shall be comforted. "For the Christian grief is a season in life, "but our counsel, consolation, and comfort "goes on to eternity. "It lasts for eternity." And in his farewell discourse in John 14 through 16, this is what Christ told the disciples, "I will ask the Father, "and he will give you another counselor "to be with you forever even the Spirit of truth." And that is the Holy Spirit. Let me ask you, do you need some help today? Do you need an advocate? Has God poured out the Holy Spirit on you because if he has, you have God's counselor. You have his comforter. You have his advocate in the seasons of life. And Jesus said he is the Spirit of truth. He leads us and instructs us and guides us into all truth. He never takes us away from the truth. There's this poignant, beautiful scene in Revelation 24. It's actually the end of the story. And it's just the best news. This is the best way to end this whole story, the whole human story. And here's what it says in verse four. It says he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away. Wouldn't that be great? Don't you look forward to that? The Christian life is not some Pollyanna-ish existence where we just expect unicorns and rainbows every day. Life includes bad news, suffering, loss, setbacks. But there will come a time when all of that, this age, the former things will pass away and God will wipe every tear from our eyes. And death will be abolished in a new world, a new creation with no mourning, suffering, pain or tears. And that is our hope. And this hope brings us great comfort for what is otherwise inconsolable. It inspires optimism and brings courage, infuses courage within us. Isn't truth really comforting? You know, when the doctor called me, the doctor's office called me and told me that I had thyroid cancer, that wasn't, that didn't feel very comforting. Let me tell you though, it is. Truth is generally, I speaking, I think it's even in spite of bad news, it is generally very comforting to know and not to, instead of not knowing, right? Isn't that better? I think it is. Sometimes we fear the truth because bad news may come, but generally I would say that it is a comfort to know rather than not to know the truth. My wife discovered this about her dad. Carrie viewed her dad. Now if you saw Lauren, especially 20, 25 years ago, man, he lived his entire life as a minor in the Silver Valley, Idaho. Do you know where that is? That's North, Panhandle, okay? So he lived in the Silver Valley there and he was a silver miner. And this guy's about six foot four. And when I first met him, shaking his hand, it was like shaking a catcher's mitt. And he got those hands as a mind shaft repairman. So he'd be down in these minds all day, just with these heavy beams, just repairing minds all day, mind shafts all day. And let me tell you, he did kind of look like a scary person, but as soon as you get to know him, you know he's just mushy and gushy on the inside. Just full of nougaty goodness on the inside, right? He's just a great guy. He loves the Lord. But Carrie grew up all her life because she was so little and he is so big and he is so brownie. She just always thought, man, he's kind of scary. I mean, she wasn't afraid of her dad, but she was always a little hesitant to ask him for anything. And then she got to college and she confided in me. She said, you know what I realized? I had this epiphany. I realized my dad is the most generous human being I know. And then her relationship to her dad changed. Her view of her dad's strength changed. Her view of her dad's strength changed. And I suggest to you that that's the epiphany we need to get of our God. That's the same epiphany that we need to get of our God. We need to understand that our God and his power and his strength, his strength is not there to bar you from blessing. It's not there to push you away. It's not there to smash you when you get it wrong. That's not why it's there. It's there to uphold you. It's there to encourage you, to infuse you with courage and heart, to help you to take heart, to guide you. Yes, to discipline when necessary, but to preserve your life, to preserve your faith. And David discovered that God was his strength. David discovered that God is his source of all good things and he has no good thing apart from God. And he discovered the means of his perseverance, which is holy community, the saints, right worship, the promise of a glorious inheritance and constant counsel and guidance and comfort from the Lord, his God. Number three, the result of my perseverance. So what does this result in? What does it result in? So I'm 16 verses nine through 11. Well, the first thing that it results in is rejoicing in the midst of suffering. Being able to rejoice in the midst of suffering, verse nine, he says, therefore my heart is glad. And my whole being rejoices. My flesh dwells secure. That is my body. I know that my body someday is gonna be raised from the dead. And David says that my heart is overjoyed because God has so richly supplied me with these blessings, my entire being, body, soul, strength. I celebrate the Lord because of what he's done, not because my horizons are always sunny, but because I know the one that I have believed. I know who he is. Jesus said that the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous. How many of you are from Seattle? Anybody, yeah. In June, are you thankful for the rain? No, we are out there cursing the rain in June. But if you live in the Southwest, how many of you are from the Southwest? Yeah, okay, June, July, August, we're probably praying for a little rain at this point. The rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous, but the righteous and the unrighteous do not have the same perspective on rain. They do not always see it as a blessing or see it the way God intends it. And understand what he's saying right here, is he's saying, I can have gladness of heart. I can celebrate. I can be a person of joy in the midst of whatever rain is falling in my life, whatever is touching my life. The believer can experience a deep joy, a remarkable sense of deep peace, even when they suffer loss and sorrow. And though the rains come and the winds blow against this house, this house will not fall because it has been built on the foundation of the teachings of Jesus. And next, he talks about the hope of resurrection. Verse 10, he says, "For you will not abandon my soul "to Sheol, which is the grave, "or let your Holy One see corruption." Now this in Acts chapter two is the very passage that Peter quotes in Acts chapter two when he's trying to tell the Jews, this passage was not about David. How do we know that? Because David says he will not allow my body to be abandoned to the grave or let your Holy One see corruption. But what Peter says is, "David's grave is here." David's still buried in that grave. So this could not, even though he's the composer of the Psalm, this could not be about David. David's hope for resurrection is in the new David, the new David who doesn't see corruption, the new David who dies and is buried and is resurrected from the dead. And David's hope for resurrection is in his own son who will someday come and never, never stay in the grave or he will be killed but not stay in the grave. So all who are in Christ, including King David, will be raised to life on the last day when Jesus returns. If you want more to read on that, you can read 1 Corinthians chapter 15. The whole chapter is about the hope of the believer's resurrection. Read it. The next thing he says is eternal life. The last thing that he appeals to is eternal life. He says this is the third result. This is the last result of all this that God has supplied. He says in verse 11, he says, "You make known to me the path of life in your presence, there is fullness of joy at your right hand or pleasures forevermore. The redeemed who are someday resurrected know that the end result of their faith and perseverance is the pleasure, the ecstasy, the pure delight of God's awesome presence, eternity in God's presence. The God who reigns in splendor and glory and majesty, we will be in his presence forever." Well, the last couple of weeks I had a chance to go on vacation and we went up to North Idaho and north of Coeur d'Alene, there is a little theme park called "Civilwood." If you ever get up there, "Civilwood" is a really good time, especially if you have kids, man. So half of the park is just park rides and fun and games and stuff like that. But the other half of the park is a really huge water park. And so it is just a really good fun day. Best way to do it is the way we did it, do it in two days, right? Do the park or the rides and the roller coasters in one day, water park, the other day. And so we did that. And as I was walking around, I had this thought. We were walking around and I'm telling you, man, roller coasters are just rolling by your head, over your head. And you here at a theme park, you hear the strangest sound and you really don't hear it anywhere else. It is the sound of people screaming in terror while smiling and laughing. It is just the only place I can think of where you can have that simultaneous experience, right? And so "Silverwood" is really a fun time. The whole day, it's just this really fun time. But then as the sun begins to set and you begin to walk out of the park toward your car, you realize the fun is over. And now you have to go back to your life. You're like, "Man, I wish life could just be like Silverwood." But it's not. Silverwood provides a temporary escape. It's a fun house full of rides and games and water park adventures that distract us from our daily struggles and realities. Now contrast that with the eternal joy and pleasure that David is talking about in this verse. Contrast that. This kind of joy that he's talking about is fundamentally different. It's fundamentally different, both in terms of its quality and its duration. The Creator designed you to experience the greatest pleasure in life in his presence. And in his presence, there are pleasures at his right hand and in his presence that you cannot imagine. There is no pleasure you could pursue, no fix that you could seek, nothing that could satisfy the ache in your heart, that hole inside of you that you have not been able to fill because that is a God-shaped void, that is a God-shaped hole. So David reminds us that God is the source of all of this blessing, that God has supplied all that we need to persevere in this life. And he tells us to pray for that, pray for our own perseverance. And the result of what God has done in our hearts, that we rejoice in the midst of suffering in trials, we have a hope in the promise of resurrection life, hope for in eternity with Christ. And there just is nothing, nothing that comes close to that. Amen? Will you pray with me? Spray together. I'm gonna invite the worship team of one to come back up. Let me ask you, would you say that you have that hope this morning? If you're here and you're an unbeliever, I'd do this all the time, but I'm doing it again, and I'm gonna keep on doing it till Jesus takes me home. Will you just please not walk out that door before you embrace Jesus as your Lord and Savior? My friend, you don't have any hope. If you don't have Jesus, you have no hope. Will you just embrace him? Will you confess your sins that you are a sinner and that God sent Christ Jesus to die on a cross to pay the price for your sins and that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead so that you don't have to die. When you die, you don't have to stay dead. Will you just embrace the salvation that he offers this morning? And if you are a believer here this morning, may I challenge you? Would you join me, my commitment to pray for your own perseverance? And pray that God will persevere you to the very end and that you will not get off track and you will not go right or left that you will stay on the straight and narrow. You will walk with God and walk according to his word and stay and keep your life planted in holy community for the strengthening and encouraging of your faith. Will you pray that this morning? Will you ask God to help you do it? You're a believer here, I want you to know that God has promised to keep you to the end, but God uses means toward that end. God expects us to engage in life in the body. God expects us to read his word and plant ourselves and to regularly meditate on eternity. How often do you meditate on the fact that someday you're gonna die? Where are you gonna go? Who's gonna hold your life in that moment? Will you live the rest of your life for that day? With that day in sight and in view? In Christ's name we pray, amen. 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