Our gospel lesson text this morning is from First Chronicles chapter 16. Please turn there with me in your Bible or the Bible that's in your seat. If you're using the Bible that's in your seat that's found on page 297. I'll give you a moment to turn there. First Chronicles is located a little bit left of the book of Psalms. Find Psalms, go left and keep going. You'll see the very big books of First and Second Chronicles. We're in First Chronicles chapter 16.
Last week we read in chapter 15 and the beginning of 16 and we know that the context of this passage we're about to read is that David, King David, has just brought the Ark of God back into Jerusalem. It had been abandoned by God's people for years and years under King Saul and David goes and he gets the Ark of God and returns it to the city. There's great worship and celebration as this event occurs and this passage we're about to read belongs to this event. At that this event David's bringing the Ark of God into the city and they're celebrating. There are worshiping God and David hands the psalm over to be used for worship. We'll begin in verse 7 of chapter 16. This is God's word eternally true. That day David first committed to ASAP and his associates this psalm of thanks to the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name, make known among the nations what he has done, sing to him, sing praise to him, tell of all his wonderful acts, glory in his holy name, let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Look to the Lord and his strength seek his face always. Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles and the judgments he pronounced. O descendants of Israel, his servant, O sons of Jacob, his chosen ones, he is the Lord our God, his judgments are in all the earth. He remembers his covenant forever, the word he commanded, for a thousand generations, the covenant he made with Abraham, the oath he swore to Isaac. He confirmed it to Jacob as an accrued to Israel as an everlasting covenant. To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion you will inherit. When they were but few in number, few indeed in strangers in it, they wandered from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another. He allowed no man to oppress them, for their sake he rebuked kings, do not touch my anointed ones, do not do my prophets no harm. Sing to the Lord, albeit, proclaim his salvation day after day, declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deed among all peoples. For great is the Lord, and most worthy of praise, he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him, strength and joy in his dwelling place. A scribe to the Lord of families of nations, a scribe to the Lord glory and strength, a scribe to the Lord the glory, do his name. Bring an offering and come before him, worship the Lord and the splendor of his holiness, tremble before him all the earth, the world is firmly established it cannot be moved. Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad, let them say among the nations the Lord reigns, let the sea resound in all that is in it, let the fields be jubilant in everything in them. Then the trees of the forest will sing, they will sing for joy before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his love endures forever, cry out, save us, O God our Savior, gather us and deliver us from the nations that we may give thanks to your holy name, that we may glory in your praise. Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting, then all the people said amen and praise the Lord. David left ASF and his associates before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord to minister there regularly according to each day's requirements. He also left Obedietim and his 68 associates the minister with him, Obedietim son of Jaduthin and also Hosa for gatekeepers. David left Zadok the priest and his fellow priest before the tabernacle of the Lord at the high-placing Givians present burnt offerings to the Lord on the altar burnt offering regularly, morning and evening in accordance with everything written in the law of the Lord which he had given Israel. With them were him and Jaduthin and the rest of those chosen and designated by name to give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever. Hemin and Jaduthin were responsible for sounding the trumpets and symbols and for the plain of the other instruments for sacred song, the sons of Jaduthin were stationed at the gate. Then all the people left each for his own home and David returned home and he blessed his family. This is the word of the Lord. Let's now fully, I didn't mean that to be our my call there, but this is the word of the Lord for us. The word of the Lord, let's pray, our God and our Father, we are grateful to you for your word, for thankful that you've given it to us and we are not thankful enough enough. If we are not serious enough about your word, cause us to repent in our hearts, cause us to see the depth of what your word declares. The importance of what it states for us in our lives today. Jesus, we ask that you would preach to us by your word and that spirit you would illumine this word for us, grant us understanding, we ask in Christ name. Amen.
Last week we saw from the previous passage that were to be intense about worship and that intensity folds out in two different ways. One were to be intense when we're at worship, when we're in worship, where to be completely focused upon the Lord, upon him, giving to him the glory that's due his name, where to be all about him, when we're here in worship, where to be intense in that way. But we're also to be intense about worship in the way of being intense about getting to worship, whether that's here or some other place. We as individuals called by God, called by his name, Christians, are to be intense about worshiping the Lord, but why are we to do this? I believe a lot of the wise, if why we're to be intense about worshiping the Lord in both of those ways, are included, given to us by the Lord in this passage. Have you ever been told to do something when you're a kid, perhaps, or maybe at your workplace, you're told to do something and you don't know why, you have to do this thing? Maybe you're told by your parents just do it, or do it anyway. I'm not going to explain why, you just need to do it. I was thinking about this recently and I thought about the movie Rocky, Rocky 1, the one that won Best Picture, and in Rocky, Mickey starts to train Rocky. And there are a number of things that are peculiar about Rocky's training, one of which is that he eats those five raw eggs in the morning when he wakes up at 5 a.m., so he goes running. But another thing that was peculiar about his training was that Mickey, his trainer, Burgess Meredith, takes Rocky in between these two buildings, they're in the city of Philadelphia, and there's just this clearing where probably a building was at one time, and now it's just dirt. There's the sidewalk, there's building building, and then just dirt, and it's surrounded by senses, and they go in, and Burgess Meredith, Nick, has this chicken, and he sets the chicken down, and says, no, Rocky, I won't do that the whole thing, the whole way for you, but he says, I want you to chase this chicken. Rocky says, you'll miss, where there will be a chasing chicken. So just do it. And Rocky does it, and gets frustrated because the chicken's fast and darting all over the place, and Rocky quits. He has got his arms up like this, he says, you'll miss, where there will be a chasing chicken, if you chase this chicken, if you can catch this thing, you'll agree with lightning. You know, you're quick, this will, you know, he explains this will work on his quickness, and Rocky isn't convinced that firstness is what, feel like a Kentucky fraud idiot. Remember that line? But Rocky eventually catches on and sees the wisdom of this, and it enables Rocky to try harder than he had previously tried before I knew why he had to chase this chicken. Well, that's the case for us in anything. If we understand why we're to do something, it helps us to do it. We're motivated to do it. We don't understand that two paces, fluoride in it, and fluoride that's in cavities, and we're not motivated to brush our teeth. We're like my Tesla who just cries the whole time. She doesn't know this is good for her. She's unmotivated. She just knows that it happens. This passage here in Scripture today is put there in part to help us to know not that just worship happens, but to instruct us is the why worship happens, why worship is important for us, why it's proper, it's proper and appropriate for us, why it's why we can be motivated to worship the Lord each week. There are a list of things, and if you like to follow along in an outline, you do have an outline here for you. Six points, six reasons for us to worship. Two of these reasons we heard from the Lord last week, and I'll cover those briefly. Those are the first two. Why are we to worship? What motivation is there for us to worship? Well, first of all, what we talked about last week, we worship God, you and I are to worship God to fulfill your purpose in life. That's your blank, their purpose. Worship God to fulfill your purpose in life. We talked about last week, God and the heavens wasn't sitting there and creating the heavens in the earth, and He didn't want to come to the creation of man, say, boy, I need somebody down there to eat, or I need somebody down there to sleep, or I need somebody down there to play golf. None of these things, all those things are fine, and some would argue necessary, but He said, let us make man in our image, and He put us here to worship Him. This is about Him to show off His glory, His goodness. We were created, here's your blank, we were created to worship our Creator, and so when we're intense about worship, we're fulfilling our purpose, our purpose of creation, the reason we're here. So we worship God to fulfill our purpose in life. Secondly, we worship God to receive God's blessings. We worship God to receive God's blessings. Last week, we heard from God that intense commitment to worship was and is a key to having Christ build up His church. The people that received this book when it was first written, first chronicles were sitting in ashes and rubble. There was no temple for them to go to worship. Their houses had been knocked down with the Babylonians coming into Israel to promise lands. But the writer of Chronicles writes this passage encouraging His people, God's people to be intense about worship because through this there would be great joy. Remember raising cakes, date cakes, and loads of bread given to everybody there at the celebration of worship. God would restore His people fully. He would build His church, He would rebuild the temple as they were committed to worship. And so we worship God to receive His blessings knowing that He will build His church in a magnified way as we're committed in intense about worship. Now onward, the four new reasons we see from this song that we are to be intense about worship. All of these reasons have something to do with the gospel. Firstly God says to us, your number three in your outline, worship God for His loving mercy, worship God for His loving mercy. We see mention of the Lord's mercy and love specifically in this song that David writes and also just in the content of it. Verse 34, if you've got your Bible still open, look down there. David writes, give thanks to the Lord for He is good, His love endures forever. Cry out, save us O God, our Savior. Gather us and deliver us from the nations that we may give thanks to your holy name that we may glory in your praise. Verse 41, second half of verse 41, look down there. It repeats this line that we see throughout the Psalms twice here in this passage for His love, God's love endures forever. David worship the Lord because the Lord had been merciful to him. The Lord had been merciful to God's people under him. David recognized that God and putting David upon the throne had been merciful to David for David was a sinful person. David recognized that God and giving David all his military conquests, all his victories in battle had been merciful to him. David knew it was God who had fought the battle before him, God and his mercy, choosing David as his anointed to rule over his people, to serve as military leader over his people. David realized that it was God and his mercy that it had been enabled, had enabled David to conquer Jerusalem, the city where God would put his name, his very presence. God's people hadn't been able to conquer Jerusalem when they entered in the Promised Land with Joshua. It was one of those areas, one of the cities that would remain uncongered by David conquered it. David recognized that it's not because I'm a great king, not because I'm a great military leader, but because God has been gracious and merciful to me and his people and has granted us the victory. David praised God for his loving mercy. What about us and our lives? We haven't been in any military battles, at least most of us, in which God has been merciful to us. What about us? How has God been and how will he be and how is he merciful to you? Well, simply put, it's this, you and I sin. And you and I deserve the penalty for that sin, that's your penalty for that sin, which is the wrath of God. Come out against all those who commit treason against him, king of the universe. We're required by virtue of our creation, by virtue of being created by God, required to do all that he tells us to do and to refrain from all that he tells us to refrain from. And we have not done that, not one of us. And there's not a day that goes by that one of us has done that. And so we deserve God's wrath, we deserve the penalty for our sin. But God has granted us instead his mercy, forgiveness, life eternal. In the movie The Born Identity, Jason Born is a character who's forgotten his identity. He's hit on the head and he forgets who he is. And as the movie comes toward its end, he gets greater and greater memory of what occurred before he got bumped on the head. And what he sees and what you see there in that movie is that he was assigned as a secret agent as an undercover guy to assassinate somebody. And he's gotten with scuba gear on and everything onto this yacht, this boat. And the man he needs to assassinate is right there and he comes up and he's behind him at night time. And the man's sleeping, his falling asleep in the couch. And as he comes to assassinate him, he realizes as he gets close and starts looking at the top of this man's head that his six year old daughter has been asleep on his lap. And his son who looks to be about eight or ten years old is sleeping beside him. And the girl wakes up and she looks at Matt Damon, Jason Born, and he chooses to show mercy. He doesn't complete his assignment. He shows mercy on this man he's supposed to assassinate because he sees that this man has a child there on his lap and a child to his side. We stood in the same predicament with God. Everybody does in the face of this earth. We're not for God's mercy. We would be wiped away. We would be done for God in Christ is chosen to show us mercy. So we give praise to God. We come to worship to give praise to God for his loving mercy to us. We should have been dead in our sins with no hope, but he's brought life to us in Christ and the forgiveness of those sins. We worship God for his loving mercy. We also worship God for his power. Worship God for his power. That's your next blank. Look at verse 11 in our text here this morning. David says, look to the Lord in his strength. Seek his face. Always remember the wonders he has done. His miracles. David says, we consider the Lord's strength, his power, his wonders for us, his miracles. Also in the Psalm, we see the name of God that phrase, praise to the name of God for different times. We've talked about before last week and in previous weeks that the name of God indicates God's powerful presence. That's your blank. God's powerful presence and activity on behalf of his people. When scripture talks about the name of God, it is talking about God protecting his people by being there for them, by protecting them, by fighting for them. That's God's activity for his people. It's his presence, working, protecting us, fighting for us. This had been powerful in David's life. His battles had been numerous and he was grateful for the presence of God, for his protection, for his power in fighting these battles, or David. For David, the power of the Lord, the name of God meant salvation for him, his life had been saved by God from people like Saul and from the Philistines and others whom he had encountered in battle. We too, like David, are saved from a dangerous situation. Not so much from a dangerous situation from our work or from our family or even from the military battle in those cases. But we're saved from a dangerous situation. The situation of that our sin puts us in. Satan would have us die in our sin. He would have us go to not everlasting life, but everlasting perdition, everlasting lostness because we're just not as good as we think we are. Satan would deceive our minds. He would have us be fooled into thinking, I'm pretty good and God thinks I'm okay. Apart from any sense of repentance or faith in Christ, those who believe in Christ are not just saved from an enemy army like David had been or from a jealous Saul, but we're saved from our enemy Satan, an eternal death. Satan would have us if he could to bring us to hell, but it is the power of God that overcomes this. First in Jesus, the power of God overcame death in Jesus. When Jesus died on a cross, he did not remain dead, but the power of God brought Jesus to life again. And through that power, we have life. That those that believe in Christ are in Christ and have been raised up with him, resurrection power, given power to live this life and to resist sin, to do what God calls us to do. And when Jesus comes again, we will bodily be raised in God's power to life everlasting in the new heavens and the new earth. So we give worship to God. We give praise to God. Why do we worship? Because God's power has accomplished for us our salvation. Now, in being a part of God's church, but in the future when Jesus comes again and rescues us finally, completely, holy, body and soul, we're to keep this in mind as we worship our God that he not only has saved us, but he will save us finally. That's power. Remember Lazarus during Jesus' life Lazarus has died and he's in the grave four days and he speaks the word like a creation, life from death, order out of chaos. He speaks the word Lazarus come forth and dead Lazarus comes forth, life from the grave. So the bewilderment of everyone around him, who has ever seen someone come four days dead, come back to life, nobody. Can you imagine standing there behind Jesus looking forward at this tomb? Jesus says, Father, thank you for hearing my prayer for the sake of those around me. And he says, Lazarus come forth and out from the grave comes your brother that you buried four days ago. This is power. This is the power that Christ brings to bear on our lives. So we praise God for his power, his resurrection power, which brings us life from our death spiritually and in the end bodily. Fifth, and you're outlined, worship God for his faithfulness, worship God for his faithfulness. We worship God to fulfill our purpose in life, we worship God to receive his blessings, we worship God for his loving mercy, we worship God for his power, we worship God for his faithfulness. Look at verse 15 in your passage there, David writes of God, he remembers his covenant forever, the word he commanded for a thousand generations. Then David goes on to spell out what this faithfulness looks like. God had promised to Abraham the land of Canaan as a promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey, but it didn't come to Abraham. In fact, it didn't come to even Abraham's son Isaac, it didn't come to Isaac's son Jacob. In fact, Jacob's sons were in each of 400 years in slavery and it was only after those 400 years that that land of Canaan came to Abraham's people. To Jacob's descendants, God was faithful to his covenant, to his promise to give them the land of Canaan. It took a long time, God's whole Abraham it would take that long, but God was faithful. He hadn't forgotten even after 400, 500, 600 years, whatever it was, God does not forget his promises, he comes through on his promises. David sitting in his day was one that was inside the promised lands. He had experienced the fact that God was faithful to his covenant promises, David lives in the promised land. He was a recipient of the blessing of God being faithful to his word to Abraham to give Abraham's descendants that land. Faithfulness is simply defined, you have that in your outline there. Faithfulness is doing what you say you'll do. Faithfulness is doing what you'll say you'll do. It's accomplishing what you say you'll accomplish. In the movie Return of the Jedi, the one-party Luke and Han Solo and all have gone down on this moon planet island thing. And on this moon is a power generator that controls the force field that protects the death star. The empires rebuilding the death star, the ultimate weapon. And while they're rebuilding it and while you can still see the scaffolding up in it, it's being protected by this force field. But this force field has its power generation from this nearby moon, which the death star is orbiting. And Han Solo with a party that includes Luke and Princess Lay and the whole gang, all the good guys, are down on that moon and they're trying to knock out this power generator. So this fleet of rebel forces can come in and knock out the death star before it gets fully operational. Well, a land out Calruzian, Billy D. Williams has taken over the Millennium Falcon and he's going along with this whole fleet of rebel forces. And they come up to the death star and they realize the force field is not down yet. And they know they can't attack, but here's the window of opportunity and they've made themselves known. So what do they do? Do they attack anyway? Or do they wait? And Billy D. Williams' land out says, we have to give Han more time. He will get it done. To get this force field down, we've got to give him more time. And as it turns out, Han gets it done with the help of his friends. They're down on the moon. They knock out this power station. The force field goes down. Han accomplished exactly what he was supposed to accomplish to the benefit of all his friends. And that's what God does for us. God is faithful to do what he says he will do. He's faithful to accomplish what he says he will accomplish. What is he said he will accomplish? What is he said he will do? What is he promised to us? He's promised to rescue us. Not from the chaos of Egypt. Like he had promised to Abraham and his descendants. He's promised to rescue us from the death and hell we deserve. Your blank there is hell. He's promised to care for you as a father. Some in the church worldwide believe that a person can have salvation and lose it. Is this possible? And somebody can have salvation. Somebody can have truly repented and believed that the Christ had saving faith and then lose their salvation. Well, if our salvation was dependent upon our faithfulness, everybody here would have lost their salvation many many times over. Because we don't do what we say we'll do. We've signed on for this thing called Christianity. And when we sign on for Christianity we vow to follow Christ in such a way that honors him, that glorifies him. And every day we have things in our lines that were glad that nobody else sees because it would bring shame to ourselves and shame to our Savior. But our salvation is not dependent upon us being faithful. Fortunately, our salvation is based on the fact that the thing that David is looking to right here. That God is faithful. You know what? When I sin throughout each day, I can rejoice. Not that I'm sinning, but I can rejoice because God is faithful when I'm not. I can rejoice because my salvation is not based on me meeting some certain arbitrary standard wherever that is of holiness. If I'm above, I'm in. If I'm not, then I've lost my salvation. No, not at all. That's not how it is. I can rejoice because my salvation is based on the faithfulness of Christ. Christ does what he says. He says in John 6 of those who father has given me, I will lose not one. I will lose not one. And so as we come together to worship our God, we worship him and we rejoice in him because he is faithful. Because you know what? This week I did plenty of sin. But you know what? I don't have my salvation because he is faithful. Let's rejoice. Let's rejoice because I'm a dirt ball, but my God is faithful. And he's declared that whoever has repented and believed, he will not lose me. He is a good shepherd. I am his people. Our salvation, your blank if you haven't gotten it. Our salvation depends on the faithfulness of Christ who does what he says he will do. Now lastly number six, why do we worship God? Why are we intense about worship? What motivates us to worship God? Worship God so that more people might believe. This Psalm calls all the earth to praise God, verse 23, verse 30. It goes beyond that, verses 31 through 33, it declares that all nature should praise God. The trees, the seas, the mountains, all nature give praise to God. This language is often used in Scripture when there is great exuberance for worshipping the Lord. Let everything that all of his bread praise the Lord, we read in various parts of Scripture. But this is not just an expression of exuberance, of hyperbole, of exaggeration. This language is also an expression of hope, of a pattern that our worshipping God, as God's people will lead other people that aren't currently a part of God's people. We'll lead those that are outside of the church to say in Christ. We saw this a number of places in the Old Testament one that we looked at this morning was this Isaiah 49 passage. As the nations witnessed the return of God's people to Israel after they had been exiled to Babylon, and as the kingship was reestablished and as people saw the mercy of God upon the people, and the worship of God reestablished, the hope they expressed in Isaiah 49, is that the kings of other nations would bow, would respect, would honor the God of Israel, even converts. We see this in Acts 13 with Paul and Barnabas in their ministry. They go to the synagogue first there in the city in Antioch, and they preach in the synagogue week after week, and then finally Paul declares that many of the Jews are in opposition against him and against the message of Jesus Christ. He declares that this has been declared beforehand, that the proper worship of God, that the proper worship of God, which was now with Paul, a worship of Jesus, God revealed in flesh, that this would lead, that this would be a light to the Gentiles, that the Gentiles would have entrants into the people of God, entrants into the true nation of Israel, all those who believe, because there is a worshiping community, there's a pattern, there's an expectation, we see throughout scripture, all the new testaments, that is that worship, and tend to the about worship will lead some outside the church to come into faith, that's your blank faith in Christ. How might this be? How might our worship lead to people coming to faith in Christ? Well, one is just supernatural. God can see any congregation of people and say, you know what, they really care about me, they love me, because they love me, they care about my truth, the Bible, they care about learning about me more, they want to know me more, and they worship me, they give to me and worship, they praise me, they honor me, such as their edits, with their hearts. God sees this, He knows this, and this is the kind of worshiping community that God can sovereignly bring somebody into. Many of us have been in a point in our lives where we've been out of the church for some time, and we say, you know what, I really need to get back into the church, and at that time we weren't a believer in Christ, we didn't understand what it meant to repent and believe, but God brought us to a church, and God can do that to people around us, here in Clayton, as He sees us, fervent about Him, and about worshiping Him. A second way to be, be point in your outline, how can God do this, bring people to Himself through our worship, and that is by us inviting people, that's your blank there, inviting people. As we invite people and people come in amongst us, you know, worship services is a proof of sorts that God really exists. You come into a worship service, if you haven't been in one, you say, wow, these people believe this stuff. They hear the words of the Bible, and they really take it seriously, and a person in this setting us, anyone who's here, here's God's word, and can have that proper response to God's word, a proper response of being rebuked by it, by being corrected by it, a proper response of repenting in our hearts toward the things, and about the things which we hear from God's word, and turning in faith to our God. You ever watch the beef at that, you didn't want to watch? Maybe a family member or a friend, and I only got to watch this movie, or maybe you're getting together with somebody else, and they went to the video store and they picked a movie that you really didn't give a rip about ever seeing in your entire life. Have you ever been there? But have you ever been in a place where that's been the case, and you watch the movie, and you actually start to like it? I had this happen, it's something kind of embarrassing to me, not with a movie. It's happened with movies, but I was thinking most prominently of a TV show, and it was a TV show that was on when I was growing up, and it was a girl's show, still as a girl's show, but my wife watched it when she was growing up and embarrassed to mention it, but I'll mention it so you can laugh. It was a little house in the prairie, and Betsy and I were eating dinner one time when we were first married, and that came on the TV, and there it was, and I didn't want to be anti-social with my new bride and go sit at the table when she was sitting and watching the little house in the prairie, so I went and I watched it, and I realized there were actually some good things in the store, it's still girl stuff, but I started watching it for it there, and actually enjoying it, this can happen with somebody that comes into the assembly of God's people, and they see and hear of God, they could come in dragging their heels and saying, well, do this because someone says my friend and he really wants me to come, but this is just to appease him, and when they come in, they actually see an encounter for living God. They hear his word calling out to them, to believe, to turn from themselves, to throw themselves into his arms, to receive his forgiveness. If it's the triate and you'll like it, theology, I brought along this morning, one of my favorite books, Green Eggs and Ham. Yeah, double thumbs up for Green Eggs and Ham. Would you like it in a house? Would you like it with a mouse? I do not like it Sam, I am. Do you not like Green Eggs and Ham? Well, remember the end of this book. To get Sam, I am off his back, this character, whoever he is, I don't think he ever goes named, tries Green Eggs and Ham. To get Sam, I am off his back, and he tries and he says, I do like Green Eggs and Ham, and I will eat it with a mouse, and I will eat it on a house. I will eat it with a fox, I will eat it in a box. Oh, I do like Green Eggs and Ham, I do like them, Sam, I am. That's a picture for the church. As people who don't know Christ, come in and come to know Him. We come to worship our God for many reasons. It's part of our purpose in life. It's the purpose for which we were created. We worship God because God has told us if you're fervent about worshiping me, I will do good things to you, and as a church, especially. We worship God because He's been loving and merciful toward us. We deserve His wrath, we got His forgiveness. We worship God because He's powerful and He protects us with His power and He accomplishes for us that final resurrection when we will be with Him forever in a place of bliss. We worship God because He's faithful. He doesn't turn back on His word. He accomplishes everything He says He will do. And we worship God that has a side light of our worshiping that He will bring more and more people to faith in Himself. We were one of those people once, everyone in the church was one of those people once, that did not know Christ, but come and counter his word. We hear it and our hearts are stricken and we turn to Christ for the forgiveness, for the love of the power, the faithfulness that He offers to us. And for these reasons, we come each week to worship Him. Let us pray. Our Father and our God, we are grateful to you for being a powerful God, not a wimp, not on the sideline, not thinking that the world's in control and ringing your hands and saying, oh boy, oh boy, I wish I could do something about it. But being a God of great power and might who accomplishes our salvation, who controls the world for your glory, who protects us by the power of your hands. Father, we worship you for your merciful and loving. We don't deserve your attention, but you've given it to us and you've given us good things. You've been merciful to us by the repraise you for you are faithful. You do what you say that you will do. You won't pull back from a promise that you've given to us. And we need that because if our salvation were based on our behavior each week, then each week, you would have pulled back that offer of salvation to us. But you have been faithful and giving salvation to us through faith in you, regardless of our failings, of our faithfulness. So Lord, cause us to be a people that are intense about you, intense about loving you and about expressing that.