Luke 23, verse 39, And one of the male factors, which were Hain, railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answered and rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear God, seeing you are in the same condemnation? For we indeed justly, we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing to miss. And he said to Jesus, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus said to him, very last thing to you today. Shalt thou be with me in paradise. Let's pray. Father, I pray for your help this morning as we seek to minister the Word of God unto your people today. And for those of us here today that knew Gordon well, we pray, Lord, for ourselves that we, Lord, will be comforted by the Word of God today. Lord, as your people. I pray for those here this morning, Lord, that do not know Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray for their salvation today. I know we have some today, Lord, that are here that have never trusted in Christ. And Lord, I pray that even today, that at this occasion in which we have come to the Word of God and this passage because of the passing of our dear brother, Lord, this will be the day that you have set apart and ordained that you would bring one of your children, even unto yourself. And so we pray for the salvation of the lost that are here today. Father, we thank you for those that are visiting with us today. We pray that, Lord, that they would feel welcome in the house of the Lord and also the understanding of the hurt and pain of the church at this time. And we thank you for them and their visit. We just thank you, Lord, that we have a high priest that we can pray to, that hears our cries and our hearts. And we're thankful that we have a throne of grace where we can find help. in time of need. Help us in the Word of the Lord today as we look at this account, and I pray that as we build up into the time in which you say these things unto the thief on the cross next to you, Lord Jesus, I pray that it would encourage the hearts of your saints. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Of course, as I was thinking this morning about what Jesus said to the man here on the cross next to Him today who will be with me in paradise, a part of me really just wanted to focus on what Jesus said to him at that time. But to me, if I just do that, if I just jump right in to what Jesus said to him, and we do not look this morning a little bit about what happened ahead of time, you kind of lose a little bit of that and what all that means to the man on the cross next to Christ. And so we want to deal with this whole thing here this morning as much as we can in the time we have. A few things I really love about this, just by way of passing or introduction, is how the sovereignty of God is really seen in the salvation of this one thief. At one point, both of these men were mocking the Lord Jesus Christ according to the other Gospels, but now something has transpired in the heart of this man. Also, something that jumps out to me is that the salvation of this thief came at a time when, if you would, all outward appearances in regards to Christ would seem to leave Christ as though He is without power. I mean, there's Jesus. on the cross. But even though we might think that there's a very weak Jesus there, He is not. And He's not weak by no means. But Jesus is here able to save even at this moment while He's on the cross. When He was born, He was keen in a cradle. And my friend, we don't think of Him as keen then, and we don't think of Him as keen on the cross either, do we? He's keen on the cross. He's right there able to save at that moment. Also, what I see here is that this feast conversion also took place before what you might say the supernatural events of the day. In just a little while, things are going to turn black. But they haven't happened yet. You know, God doesn't need great big supernatural things, does He, to work in the hearts of people. He can use those. They didn't have to have them. And so we'll see that as well. And then also, I think that in this thief, we see that we see represented there the manner in which God saves his people. There's some things that jump out at us in this discussion and what takes place in this account that we can learn from it for ourselves today. But before we look at this discussion and the things that this thief that becomes saved, before we look at what he says, let's look at the one that wasn't saved for just a moment. Notice in verse 39, the one that continued to rail on Jesus said, if you be the Christ, save yourself and us. If you be the Christ, save yourself and us." First of all, notice that this man is full of doubt in regard to who Christ is. He was unbelieving in respect to who Jesus was. He did not believe that Jesus was the Christ. He said, if you be the Christ. We kind of challenged him. If you are who they are mocking you to be, if you really are that person, you really are that man, then save yourself and us. Two, he is obviously ignorant of what was going on. And we say that based upon the fact that he would even tell Jesus to save himself. Jesus does not need to save himself. If Jesus wanted to save himself, he very well could have. Remember when he was betrayed, and Peter there, the cut-off, the servant of one of the high priests there, cut-off his ear, and Jesus said, hey, I'm about my father's business, basically. He said, I'm here to do the Father's will. If I wanted to, I could call down the legions of angels, but that wasn't the purpose of God, of course. But anyhow, Jesus wasn't there to save himself. He was there to save. He wasn't there to save himself, but he was there to save. And in 3 also, in this thief that is still lost, we see that he's only thinking about the temple. He's only thinking about the temple. Here he is about ready to die, and all he's got on his mind is just not dying and hopefully being able to live a little bit longer. He says, if you can be the Christ, save thyself and us. The only reason he was concerned about Jesus was because he was concerned about himself. He said, if you can save yourself and save us, and so that's what he wanted. And you know, this is the kind of salvation that some want today. They maybe just want a better life. They want things to become better in their life. They're not concerned maybe about the eternal things of God, as this man was not. He was not concerned about the eternal things. The other thief wanted something better than that, though. The other thief, God is obviously working upon his heart and his mind, and is bringing him to himself, and he's thinking about something that is in the future, and not something temporary. And we're reminded of those sayings when we face death, aren't we, as a people of God? We were reminded, you know what? This is, even if I was currently delivered from whatever is facing me right now in this life, what does that matter in the long term, right? I mean, when you think about it like that. I mean, I wanted God to heal Gordon and bring him home. That's what I wanted. That's what we all wanted. But He had something far better ahead of Him. Something far better. And if this thief hears he's dying, he's not thinking about the temporal, Lord, just take this cross away from me, take this away from me, bring off this cross, let me live. No, he was not thinking of that death of the thief. He's thinking about something beyond this life. Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Let us look at these things that the thief says, and the one that's saved, things he says. First of all, in verse 40, he rebukes the other one. He rebukes the other one that said what he did. And he says, Do you not fear God? Now here we see that when God is working on someone to bring them to Himself, He works within them, if you would, the fear of the Lord. He said, Do you not fear God? He had a sense of the judgment of God in him. He wasn't thinking about what man can do to him anymore. He's thinking about how he must answer to God. He has not yet asked Jesus to remember him at this moment. These are words he says in just a little while, but he says, do you not fear God? And so we see here, the Lord is beginning to work in his heart and showing him, revealing to him that he would have to answer to God for what he has done. That's what he is thinking about. Here is a man hanging on the cross because of the wrath of man. Now, he was a thief, and he was being judged for that by man, but here he is hanging on the cross. Let me say this, even though he was a thief, by even biblical law, he was not to be killed. He was not to be killed. Now, he was to pay back sevenfold for what he had taken, but he was not to be killed. But anyhow, so the wrath of man here is even greater than the wrath of God, if you would, so far as his physical punishment upon this earth that God had prescribed in the law. But here is a man hanging on the cross because of the wrath and punishment of man. But his main concern was no more what can man do to me? He's not thinking about that. Do you not fear God? He's thinking about when he will stand before the Lord. For man had done all that man could possibly do as he hung upon the cross, but his concern was that he was going to stand before God. Jesus said, fear not them which kill the body. but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. That's the one here this morning that you must fear if you do not know Christ. You don't need to fear all the bad things that may happen to you in this life. You need not to fear the things that can happen to you right here temporarily while you're in this flesh. What you need to fear is that one day you'll stand but for God, and give Him an account of your sin. If you're here in loss, there's nothing greater to fear than that. Secondly, we see somewhere, as we said, somewhere along the line, God has touched this heart of this thief, and he's seen the folly of mocking Christ, and seen that he was in no better condition Can you imagine? Just the folly of that. As they once were, as both of them once were, mocking Jesus. And there they are on a cross next to Jesus. I mean, that's human nature, isn't it? I mean, people can always find someone else to earn themselves a look at, right? And so that's what the other thief was continuing to do. Mark tells us in 1532 that both these thieves were reviling Christ at one time, meaning they were taunting Him, reproaching Him. So before God had showed Him His folly, He was like the other thief who is also still like many today. Who it matters not how bad off they may be, they can always find someone else, if you would, that they think is worse off than they are or make fun of. And that is part, as we said, of that old nature. But notice also here, thirdly, this man, he comes to see his own sinfulness during this time. He says, for we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds. You see, this man had come to a place where he feared God. Jesus was not to be mocked. He was in no place to do that. And that he deserved what he was getting. He knew that he deserved punishment. Now when the Lord begins to work on our hearts, We understand that. When we come to that place where we're like that thief, we know that if God were to send us into hell at that very moment, that we deserve the judgment of the Lord for our sin. He said, we indeed justly... I like what one person said, I heard him say years ago, when God's working on your heart and in repentance, you get on God's side against yourself. And that's the way you get on God's side against yourself. You know that if God would send you to hell, that he would justly do so. That's where you deserve to go. But you would sin against a holy God. Now, many today might agree and say, yes, I'm a sinner, but to be worthy of eternal punishment? Never. Most not believe that they're worthy of some kind of punishment for their sin. But just punishment, never. And just punishment would never be eternal life without God. Now, fourthly, we see that this man bore witness to the sinlessness of Christ. Notice he says, but this man, speaking of Jesus, has done nothing wrong or nothing amiss. So he bore witness to this. You know, the moral character of the Lord Jesus Christ has been preserved throughout this whole thing. I mean, even Judas, when Judas had betrayed Jesus, he said, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. Pilate's wife even said, Have thou nothing to do with that just man? For I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him. And did not the thief possibly even hear Pilate say, I find no fault in him? And then they continued to crucify Him. And then Pilate said, wow, what evil has He done? The innocence, the purity of the Lord Jesus Christ has been kept intact through this whole thing. And now the thief has come to realize that Jesus Christ was innocent. Jesus Christ had done nothing wrong. Let me tell you what, I tell you why I love it when the Lord is working on your heart when you're lost, and you come to see those kind of things. That may not be all that together in order at the same time, but you do come to realize you need to fear God, you deserve punishment, that Jesus Christ did not deserve what He went through. And that He is the one that is altogether lovely, without sin, without spot, without blemish. He had done nothing amiss, meaning nothing improper, nothing injurious or wicked. Now with all this said so far, I want to take notice that it's not just simply coming to a place where, so I've sinned. You know, Judas even said that. Judas said, I have sinned. It's not just acknowledging what Jesus didn't sin, it's even more than that. And so sometimes people think today that if they can just get people to acknowledge that they're a sinner and Jesus died on the cross, that they're all good. But it's more than that. There's faith. There's faith that takes place here. And that's what I'm building up to. I remember years ago when I seen this, I just loved it. Oftentimes, if you do a word study in the Word of God, you look up the word faith. You know what, you're not going to find everywhere where faith is at in the Word of God. You're not going to find it if you just do a word study on the word faith. One of the greatest examples of that is the account of Hebrews chapter 11. We often call it the faith chapter. And all through there we have, by faith Noah did this, and by faith Moses did this, and by faith Joseph did this. But you go back and you study those accounts, you won't find the word faith anywhere in the Word of God. It's a lot more than just saying, I have faith, right? This man has faith. I want us to see that this morning, because it is by faith that we are saved. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. It's not repeating a prayer that says, Lord Jesus, I have faith. That's not it either, though you might say that. I'm just saying, it's not in our words that we say. It's not a magical formula that we come up with. But I want you to recognize the faith that this man has, and that one, he knew who Jesus was, And he knew that when Jesus died, that that wasn't going to be the end. And we're going to consider that. First of all, notice what he says to Jesus now. In verse 42, he said unto Jesus, Lord. I like that. Lord. Oftentimes, we say it, that if Jesus is going to be your Savior, He must first be your Lord. We're told to believe on who? The Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said, who are you, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus. The same Paul later said, wherefore I give you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and that no man can say that Jesus is Lord but by the Holy Spirit. It's not enough simply to say you agree with Judas and say, I have sinned, but we must know that Jesus Christ is indeed Lord. He becomes Lord. That's part of that repentance that is implied when the Word of God says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, thou shalt be saved. Repentance is implied by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. No longer will you be Lord of your life. Jesus Christ will be your Lord as you trust Him. So we see that he acknowledged Jesus Christ is Lord. And here's where we see faith. We see it here with what he says to Jesus. Notice what he says, Lord, remember me. When? you come into your kingdom." He said to remember Him when He come into His kingdom. To believe that Jesus would have a kingdom. He would have to believe that Jesus a kingdom that he would come into where he would have to believe that Jesus was going to conquer the death that he was facing. I mean, think about that. Here's Jesus dying on the cross. He said, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. He had to know something. He had to come to know something, realize something about who Jesus was and what was going to happen to Jesus after he died. He had to see that. Now in the Scriptures, we don't see him crying out, I believe, I believe. But we see words of faith, one in the Lordship of Christ, and words of faith that he did not believe this was going to be the end of Jesus Christ. I have no doubt that he heard Jesus possibly tell Pilate, say, my kingdom is not of this world. You see, that's the kingdom He wants. He wants a kingdom not of this world, and so He says, Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom. I want a kingdom that's out of this world. So remember me, Lord, when You come in that kingdom. Now we notice in all of this His cry for salvation when He says, Lord, remember me. He's saying, Lord, think on me. Lord, consider me. And you've got to think back a little bit, if you would, about what all has transpired and what has happened as this thief is here next to the Lord Jesus Christ. I love it because I think about what this thief has seen as he's heard possibly some of the accounts of this mock trial, and as he's seen Jesus Christ go up to Calvary, and he's hanging there on the cross, and he hears the mocking and the scoffing, and he sees the beating, and all that Christ has went through. and he sees that he did not deserve it at all, and he's hanging it on the cross, and somewhere in the midst of all this, this thief hears something when he first gets to the cross, and he hears these words, Father, forgive them. A little bit later, you've got to put the dialogue together to get it. A little bit later, he says, Lord, Remember me. He has to be asking for forgiveness, isn't he? Remember me. Forgive me. Remember me when you come into your kingdom. The Word of God says, "...whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Listen, when we call upon God, we don't say the same things. You know, the Lord brought us through so many different things in our life, so many different testimonies, how we come to know the Lord. We may have one time said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Or, Lord, that I might receive my sight, or remember me. Or we may not have said anything audibly at all. Remember the one woman who didn't say anything within herself, but just said, if I may touch the hem of His garment, I shall behold, she said nothing out loud. You know, it's not a magical formula of words, is it? It's the faith. It's the faith that lays hold upon the promise of God. And it is He that laid hold upon the promise that this kingdom was not of this world. And He laid hold upon that promise and understood what that meant, that Jesus, Jesus was going to conquer death. My friend, that's the gospel message, isn't it? The gospel is how Christ came, died for our sins, was buried for our sins, and in three days rose again. That's the gospel message that we believe. And by repentance and faith in the gospel message, we are saved from our sins. When the Lord Jesus would respond to those as He walked on this earth, those that He would heal or save, He would say something along these lines. He would maybe say, your faith has saved you, or thy faith has made you whole. You know, it's faith. It's not the magical words. It's faith. Now let us go on here. I wanted to build up to this because this to me, if you don't have that background, you know, it doesn't do it justice when you come to what Jesus says to him. What Jesus says to him. And this is what I want to look at in closing for about ten minutes or so. Words of comfort before he died. The words of the comfort of Christ before he died. I love this. Let me say this, if you cry out to God in earnestness, I promise you, He's going to hear. And I promise you, you open up the Word of God. God's going to respond to you. He's going to respond to you. And so he cries out to the Lord. And Jesus said to them, verily, truly, I'm speaking truth to you, verily, I say unto you today, you shall be with Me in Paradise. I want to consider three things about this this morning. First of all, I want to say this, that salvation is personal. He said, I say unto you. I say unto you. You know, the Word of God, dear lost person, needs to come to you. You need to hear the words of Christ for yourself. You don't need to simply hear them through your mother, or through your father, or through your grandfather. You need to open up the Word of God, and the Word of God must speak to you. And of course, I pray that the Lord is speaking to you through His Word this morning. But salvation is personal. You must hear the words of Christ for yourself. Jesus said He knows His own sheep and He calls them out by name. You must hear the words of assurance from Christ Himself through the Word of the living God. It's not enough to know that Jesus saved others. You need to know that Jesus can save you. And then very secondly, and I don't want to make light of this, and we mentioned this actually this morning in Sunday School, And we notice that Jesus taught against soul sleep, didn't He? Jesus taught against soul sleep. He teaches against purgatory, and He teaches against reincarnation all right here in this one Word. He said, Today, today will you be with Me in Paradise. Now with that thought in mind, I think about what the thief had just requested. He said, Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom. Now this thief didn't have a full understanding, did he, at all of everything about Jesus, about the promises of God, of very possibly of as soon as he dies he's going to be in the very presence of the Lord. Did he know all of that? Likely not. He had a vague understanding of things he'd put together that God had shown him with what he had heard. The Lord Jesus makes it clear to him. Listen, he basically said, Lord, remember when you come to your kingdom, Jesus says, uh-uh. Basically, I'm paraphrasing, today, you'll be with me in paradise. My friend, here upon a cross, you don't have to wait until I come to my kingdom. Today you want to be with me. You see that? He was thinking futuristic and he was saying it was faith, though he didn't have a clear understanding of everything. It was true that Jesus was going to come in his kingdom, but he's going to get something far better than what he asked. And the Lord does that too, doesn't he? He wants something far better than he asked. He wasn't just going to be remembered when Jesus came into his kingdom. He was being remembered right then, and he was going to be with Jesus that very day. We looked at the passages this morning in Sunday School. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. There's not a nanosecond of limbo or one possible moment there whenever we leave this body that we will not know that we are with the Lord. Now we don't know it all yet, that's for sure. And the half is not yet to be told. And there are things that are going on in glory that the human tongue cannot tell. They are unspeakable, unexplainable to our human language. But one thing is for certain, one moment, two seconds in glory is going to clear so much up, isn't it? Today, He would be with the Lord in Paradise. Now this brings us to our third thought of comfort here. So that's a comfort as he speaks to him personally. It's a comfort that he was saying, hey, you're not just going to go to sleep when you die. You're not going to wait until you come into the kingdom. Hey, you're going to move me today. And the third issue of comfort here is to think about this. As he assured this man, you know what? It would have been a great comfort for him to say, today you'll be in paradise. That would have been pretty good too, wouldn't it? He said, Lord, remember when you come in your kingdom. And then he said, today you'll be in paradise. I thought, that would have been pretty good. All right. I don't have to wait till Jesus comes in his kingdom. I'll be in paradise today. That's good. But Jesus gave him something even better than that. He said, today you will be with me. in paradise. Folks, that's the glory of heaven right there. It's not the streets of gold. It's not the Crystal River. It's not the 1,500-mile-high walls of the New Jerusalem. It's not that. If it's not that at all, it's that we will be in the presence of the Lord, and His presence will radiate all of the new Jerusalem, and light it all, and there will be no need of the sun any longer. The greatest thing about heaven to the child of God is that we will be with Christ our Savior, our Creator, and our Lord. As said, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. This is our joy. We lost Bobby in our church just three and a half weeks ago, and now three and a half weeks later, we've lost Gordon. And three and a half weeks ago, I felt led to go to John 14 on that Sunday morning. But it's there in those verses 1 through 3 where Jesus was seeking to comfort the hearts of the disciples. The comfort there is not just simply that He's going to go and prepare a mansion for them. That wasn't the comfort that Jesus was seeking to give. The comfort was that one day He was coming back for them, and that where He was, there they would be also. That's the comfort of the child of God. Let me tell you, a lot of people think they want to go to heaven. But yet in this life, they don't act like they want to be with Jesus. The greatest thing about heaven Is there ever going to be with Jesus Christ? And we will finally see Him face to face. I rejoice with my brother this morning who has been a good friend to me. That he is in the presence of his King. That he is present with the Lord. He has been a faithful servant. If you're here this morning, you're lost without Christ. Oh, how you need Jesus. You need Jesus or you one day will be banished from the presence of the Lord forever. 2 Thessalonians 1, 7-9. People think that the worst thing about hell is going to be the fire. Hell's going to be terrible because of the fire. Hell's going to be terrible because of the darkness. Hell's going to be terrible because man's going to be bound hand and foot. Hell is going to be terrible because man is going to be extremely thirsty and tormented in the flames. My friends, I think the greatest punishment in Hell is that sinners will be banished from the presence of God forever and ever and ever. And live there without any hope that that will ever change. to experience all that they're experiencing without the presence of God and in their mind know that it's never, ever going to change. Banished forever from the light of God. Banished forever from the Lord above. And knowing that all eternity that you'll be punished in such a manner. Oh, my friends that are lost without Christ this morning, I weep not for Gordon. I weep for some of you because you're going to go to such a place. You've heard the Gospel time and time again. And I know it must be the grace and power of the Spirit of God, but I pray today be that day that He would so work in your heart that you would want Christ more than you want anything else on this earth. You need saved. Praise be to God that no matter how long you have rejected God and rejected the Gospel, there is hope today. Just as there was hope for this thief and what he had done as he hung there upon the cross of Calvary. And I live in hope for you today that are without Christ, that Christ still has you here for that purpose to bring you unto Himself. To us that are saved, what a hope we have. We do not sorrow as others who have no hope. We have a most sure hope, an anchor of the soul. Oh, let us not forget that. Let us not get so wrapped up in this world and this earth that we forget that we are strangers and pilgrims passing through. That we are on our way home to be with Jesus. And let us be diligent in proclaiming the Gospel of Christ to our family and friends that do not know Jesus. And pray for them that God would so work in their heart. And this gives me hope for others. You know, I'm not one that wants to ever be of those that would want to say, when that person died, they went to hell. But you know what? If you were standing at a distance, you might have very well thought that about this thief. Wouldn't you? We probably would have. But you do not know. You weren't close enough to hear what transpired between him and his God in those last couple minutes. Indeed, if a person dies without repentance and without faith, they will go to hell. But my friend, unless you were there to hear their last mocking words of God and reject Him with their last very breath before they died, you have no clue as to what may have transpired in those last minutes. I'm thankful that God is a merciful God. And I'm thankful for the hope that we have in Christ. And I'm thankful. I'm thankful for testimonies like Gordon Austin, I keep thinking about that word faithfulness. I'm going to talk about that word tonight. I'm still working on that. Just the faithfulness. Faithfulness gives light. The Word of God talks about God being covered with faithfulness. Now let's talk about being covered with light. Faithfulness gives light. It sheds the way. It marks the path. There have been some that have come before us that have just laid the path out well for us as we serve the Lord because they've lighted the way. Like that song, you know, those who come behind us find us faithful. You know, will we light the way before them? And the life of Gordon Austin did just that. His life still speaks, though he's gone. His life of faithfulness and how consistent and persistent he was in serving the Lord. I've shared with you before about an older lady that was in Willow Hill where I pastored for eight years, Teresa Swisher. I mention her from time to time because I tell you what, when somebody serves the Lord that faithful and that bright, it doesn't leave you your whole life. And here was a woman who faithfully served the Lord. She was at every service. And the whole time I was there, she was always coming in on her strollers, you know, and barely walking. But she came no matter what to the house of God. And Gordon Austin has been that example to us for these many years. I mean, every time I'd see him just walk from the car to the back counter and stand there, whereas he couldn't go any further until he could catch his breath a little bit more so he could make it to the pews. That's never going to leave you guys. It's never going to leave me. His faithfulness as a husband, as a father, as a friend, his faithfulness speaks to us today. May God help us to be faithful. So that when we take our last breath, and we are in the presence of the Lord, that we can hear those words, well done, good and faithful servant. If you're hearing lost, I'll point you to Christ this morning. He is a faithful God. And He shall forgive of sin. What must you do to be saved? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. God's Word is faithful. His Word is sure. It's a promise. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. God's Word is faithful. Trust it. Father in Heaven, we ask, Lord, that You would use these words this morning. Though I felt very feeble in my flesh, I am confident in Your Spirit, Lord, that You can stream these words together and mean something to Your people. And to those that are here today without Christ, I pray for the loss that they would come to know the Lord. I pray for us to say that we'd be comforted in the reality that Gordon is in your presence right now. And that we would look forward to that day when we too will be with you. Help us not forget that in this journey on earth and as we go through this life. And I pray that we would be found faithful as our brother has. Lord, I just pray that you'd comfort a great deal, the Austin family. I pray for Pam, Lord. and help Gordon's kids and grandkids. And we just pray that You'd comfort them as only You can. Give them words of comfort by Your Holy Spirit and Your Word. And we pray for our church, Lord, that we would rally around her and her family. Weep with them that weep, and that we would encourage and strengthen in any way we can and be of service to them during this time. And we just want to thank You for the hope of the Gospel. Thank You that we do not have to grieve as those who have no hope. Help us to look up, for we know our redemption draws nigh. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's all stand, please, as we sing.