Would you take your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 5, the gospel of Matthew chapter 5. If you're here visiting today, our pastor is on sabbatical for a few months. And let me encourage you to come back and hear him preach. He's my favorite preacher. I miss him. And yeah, we can clap for that. He's not going to be happy I said that. I get to see him a couple times a week, though I'm coaching Shane Jr. on the basketball team. And so I try to keep the conversation very minimal. I don't tell him anything about what's going on here. I say, hey, how you doing? And he's already looking like he's getting some rest, but he misses you guys. He loves you. And his heart is here. And we're blessed to have a pastor like that. I know some pastors who, they can't stand the people they pastor. It's crazy, huh? You're in the wrong field, because pastoring is people work. It's not paperwork. It's not even, you know, just preaching is very important. It's probably the prominent role of being a pastor, but, you know, you gotta love people. Anyways, all right, so let me get back on track. Matthew chapter five, if you're there in your Bible, say amen. Amen. All right. And seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain. And when he was seated, he and his disciples came to him. And then he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. So we're in our series on the Beatitudes. And today we're going to focus on verse number four. Jesus said, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Let's pray one more time, and then we'll get right into the message. Lord, I need you. Hide me behind your cross. Lord, I pray you will fill me with your spirit, that you would use me as a vessel. Lord, may they hear you this morning, not me. May your word go forth in power and clarity. And Lord, like a surgeon, will you take your word and cut to the heart? And Lord, I pray for any in this room without Christ, or that today would be the day that they trust you as Lord and Savior. And we'll praise you for all that's accomplished here. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. About two years ago, we took our family to the happiest place on earth, Disneyland. We decided that would be the kids' Christmas present for that year, and so we went maybe a day or two after Christmas. And we got up that morning, of course, we were all excited, and we had our T-shirts, you know, you can't go to Disneyland without having your Disneyland T-shirts, your Mickey Mouse hats, you know, and whatnot. So we got up, we got all the kids ready, and we loaded in the car, and we drove. At that time, we were living in Inglewood. It was about a 45-minute drive. And so we get there, and it's already packed. I mean, from the parking, going in to get your parking space and to wait for the trolleys. And of course, we have a double stroller. We have two diaper bags. We have a kid. I'm holding a kid. And we don't have small kids. Our kids don't stay small. They always get plump and like Daddy. And even Baby Zuri, she's kind of getting long right now. She's already very long. But anyways, our kids get pretty pumped, so at this time, the baby was symphony, and I'm carrying her, you know, in a double stroller and a backpack, probably, and just, you know, it was unseasonably hot that day, and I just remember, like, it's December, it's supposed to be cooler, you know, we're in Orange County, but it was hot. You know, the sun was beaming on me, you know, and one of the things about being black is that the heat attracts to you, OK? Like, just being real. I don't know if you guys know that, some of you. My brothers and sisters in here of color, you would know that. So I'm hot, you know, I'm having this black Mickey Mouse shirt on. The crowds, my family knows I don't do well in big crowds. I'm a big guy, it's hard to walk, you know, get through. And so we're not even in the park and I'm already a little frustrated. At the happiest place on earth. So we get off the trolley, we get to the line, and the line is just astronomical, you know? We wait in the line about 45 minutes just to get up to pay and give them half of my life savings. I had to ... Anyways. We get up there, and the lady behind the desk, she says, well, we're at capacity already. And she said, hey, what I can do is I can give you the price of the two parks for one. The only thing is you can't go to Disneyland side until after 5 p.m. You have to stay at California Adventure. And so I'm like, oh my goodness. I was like, all right, you know, in my heart, I wanted to say, hey, let's go home, guys. It just wasn't meant to be, but I knew my kids would be so disappointed, my wife would be hurt, and, you know, she'd worked so hard doing hair, getting the kids ready, you know, like all this stuff. And so we went into, we took the deal, and we went into California Adventure. The lines were terrible over there. It was hot. Kids are, you know, cranky. waiting in those long lines, and I'm trying to maneuver this big stroller in the crowd. I mean, I was having a miserable time, and the kids were, too. We would have to wait for every ride for so long. And so, at the happiest place on Earth, there was no joy there for us. After we got home that night, I told my wife, I'm never going there again. And she agreed with me. I was surprised. She was like, yeah, that was horrible. And so, I mention that because as we learned last week, Jesus is, of course, dealing with the Beatitudes. And he mentions before each one of these four Beatitudes is that blessed or happy, joyful is the one who possesses this particular virtue, this attitude. And last week we learned about the virtue of being poor of spirit and how there's joy that comes from those who are poor in spirit. This morning we're going to look at the next virtue, the next beatitude. It is that of being those who mourn. And Jesus is, of course, very aware of human nature. He's omniscient, he's God in the flesh. I don't know if you guys are aware of this, but Jesus, even though he was 100% man, he kept his omniscience, and that means he was all-knowing, he knew man, being creator, he knew all the ins and outs of the human psyche, he knew about the anatomy, he knew about what it was to be a human, and even so much more now that he was one of us. Y'all understand what happened, what we just celebrated in December? God became a man, and he dwelt among us, the Bible says. So, he was living, first-hand account, the human experience. And, of course, in the human experience, there are ups and there are downs. And Jesus is going to mention the part of mourning, the part of sorrow, the part that we all share in common of pain, loss, tragedy. And he's going to say something that seems not to make sense. He's going to say, blessed are those who mourn. And as I begin to study that this week, I, you know, Jesus was a masterful teacher and he knew exactly how to get to the heart of the matter. You remember the Pharisees were all about the exterior, but Jesus was focused on the heart, the interior, the attitudes of those who call themselves by his name. And so he's going to get right to the heart of the matter. And he says, blessed are those that mourn. And I want us to see that mourning, there is an element to it. There's an element to trials, loss, tragedy that God is in like he is in no other place. I heard it said this way, that in the good times, in the trivial times, in the times of joy, God whispers. But in the times of suffering, pain, and anguish, He screams. I've learned this in my life. The most spiritual growth in my life have come from painful situations. Situations that in and of myself I would have never chosen. You see, God knows that through the fiery trial of life and the seasons that come of difficulty is when our faith is tested and our hearts are exposed and we're we can turn to whatever it is that our foundation is, and many find out during trials that they are not really founded on Christ. And their hearts become hard. But many, during times of trial, there's a grace there. And they grow, and they don't become bitter, they become better. Jesus says, Blessed are those who mourn. The first area I think he was speaking about was those who, in fact, are mourning because of tragedy. C.S. Lewis said it this way, we were promised sufferings. They were a part of the program. We were even told, blessed are they that mourn, and I accept it. I've got nothing that I haven't bargained for. Of course it is different when it happens to oneself, not to others. And in reality, not in imagination. C.S. Lewis was a man who loved God, and he went through the trial of losing the love of his life. The deep sorrow that came from that, it wrecked him. You see, we as humans, we will face days that there's no consolation for them. When you lose a loved one, when you lose a spouse, when someone near and dear to you is going through cancer. There's going to come a day when each one of us will be in a hospital bed somewhere, hooked up to a machine maybe, with only some, maybe on hospice, only a few days to live, and what in that time do you have to cling to? And so Jesus, he's hitting on that. He's getting straight to the reality of things. And one of the reasons why I know the Bible is the word of God is because it's very relevant. It's very truthful. It exposes men for what we are. God doesn't gloss over our sin or our weakness. He is very transparent about us and what we will go through. And one of the things I love about my Savior is that he himself can relate. You guys understand Jesus has gone through everything that we could possibly experience, even death. He lost his father, his earthly father, Joseph. He went through poverty being raised by a woman who did not have a husband. You know, Jesus had to step up and begin working probably at a very young age to take care of his family. He understands what it's like to struggle. He understands what it's like later to be homeless. He understands what it's like to have those who are closest to him reject him and dismiss his sayings and he understands what it's like to be abandoned in his most darkest moments. He understands everything that you and I could possibly go through and the Bible says that God purposely allowed him to go through suffering so that he could be a more compassionate Savior to you and I. Aren't you thankful this morning that we have a high priest who can be touched by the feelings of our infirmities because in all points he was tempted like we are. He's been through it. He said, blessed are those who mourn. This morning, I know in a crowd this size, there's people hurting. You've lost a loved one. You have children who have turned their back on God. You mourn over them. You have loss and pain in your life at this very moment, or you've had it for years. And may I say, Jesus is with you. He's for you. A few weeks ago, when I preached last year, I preached about Barnabas, and after the second message that Sunday morning, a man came up to the platform, and he was carrying something. I could just tell he was burdened with something. And he just comes over to me, and like a child, he falls in my arms, and he begins to weep. He tells me that his son passed away the day before. And he just cried like a baby in my arms, and I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to comfort him, because I haven't experienced that. Hopefully, I never will, but Jesus knows how to comfort. And I just prayed with him, and just hugged him, and just told him that I loved him, and that Jesus loved him. And let me tell you this morning, if you're going through suffering, Jesus loves you. He's with you through this time. His arms, He wants to wrap them around you. Just run to Him. Don't run away from Him. Come to Him, all you who are heavy laden. He'll give you rest because He's meek and lowly of spirit. He understands what you're going through. See, personal loss has a way to to help us realize what's really important. I've learned this, that sometimes it takes us getting to the point where all we have is Jesus to realize that Jesus is all that we need. And we don't get that any other place but in suffering. My mother, she grew up in Louisiana, in a very small town, Louisiana, very poor. She was one of 12 children. You know, we complained I got five, you know, but there were 12 of them. Six boys, six girls, and very poor. Her father was an alcoholic, very ungodly man, never really took care of all the needs of his family. Even though he did well financially, he would, my mother told me that he would feed his hunting dogs much better than he would feed his 12 children. She went from that when her mother, when my grandmother finally couldn't stand the abuse and the neglect and the suffering, she finally left. And now she was a single mom with 12 kids, and she cleaned houses to take care of her kids. And my mother, she had a very hard life. And she went from that, and she met my father. They got married pretty young. And they, God blessed them with a child, with a little girl. Her name is Kaven. Kaven was beautiful. Beautiful little baby girl. And they were, of course, very thankful for her. About six months into Kaven's life, she felt very sick. And it was spinal meningitis. She went into the hospital. Of course, she was in the ICU for over a month, and the doctors did everything they knew to do, but the prognosis wasn't good, and my mother said she remembers the day where a caveman had been pretty much in a comatose state, but she opened her eyes for just a moment, and she raised her little hand, and she touched my mom's face, she said, and she looked at her, And my mom said the peace of God fell on her. It was like God was, or Cavan was saying to her, I'm going to be with Jesus. No more suffering here. And that was her last day and she passed. And my mother said that of course it broke her. But let me tell you, that brokenness sent my mom to the feet of Jesus. It sent her, to a close abiding relationship with Jesus. She's the most godly person that I've ever known. From the time I can remember, she would be up three, four in the morning worshiping Jesus. The most vivid memories of my life is hearing the pages of her Bibles turning while it was still dark outside. Every year she'd go through a Bible. She would read it so much it would be falling apart. And may I say this, I've seen many people with Bibles that are falling apart and their lives aren't. Up until I was in all throughout high school, my bedtime, guys, listen to this, it was eight o'clock. You wanna know why? Because my mom was gonna wake us up at four and five in the morning to give us a Bible study before we went off to the public school. She was gonna teach us about Jesus. I've watched this woman live by faith. I've watched her in her prayer life. I've observed her and I know without a shadow of a doubt, I am standing here this morning because of her prayers. Let me tell you, let me tell you, I don't know if that happens. If Kaven didn't go to be with Jesus, my mother said to me, she said, before, yeah, I was saved and I knew God, but we weren't even going to church. We weren't, you know, my father was not a godly man and he didn't take us to church. And so Blessed are those who mourn. You say, Pastor, you don't know what I'm going through. You don't know the pain I'm dealing with. I don't. But Jesus does. And the Bible says that the Lord is near the brokenhearted. He's near you. Whatever you're facing, go to him. Kneel at his feet. Learn. to count it all joy when you go through the trials and the fires of life. Because I promise you, it will be to your spiritual good. I've seen pain and sorrow and grief do the opposite with people. Instead of softening them, it hardens them. I know you've been hurt by your love, and I know you've lost the love, and I know you've been through it, but the hardness that comes from it. I've heard people say, how could God do this? How could He allow this? And may I say to you, that's not the right question to ask. God has a purpose, and His ways are above our ways. And I can't ever pretend to have that answer for people when they ask it, but it does reveal where their hearts are at. I've seen people, instead of getting better when tragedy hits, get bitter and walk away from the faith. And that reveals what was going on in here far before the trial hit. And let me encourage each and every one of you. Be like Job. Job said, can I only accept good from him? Job said, though he slay me, I still will trust in him. I came into this world naked, I'll leave naked. Blessed be the name of the Lord. You know what's gonna make a difference? You know, the type of Christianity that's going to impact our culture, the type of Christianity that when we go through trials, we bless the Lord because he was good for the time that he did give us with our loved one, for the days of good health that he did give, for the grace that he did show, You know what people are looking at? They're not looking at us when things are going well, when the bank account's full, when our kids are all in line. They're looking at how we react when the trials hit. And may we be a people who understand that we must cling to God in those situations and not trust our own understanding. I know, I'm not... I wouldn't choose pain and suffering and trials. But if God chooses that for my life, I need to be ready. I need to remember this verse and live it. It's easy to preach, huh? It's harder to live. But Jesus will give us the grace. So he said, blessed are those that mourn. I thank those who mourn from personal tragedy. But there's another type of mourning I think Jesus would want us to have in our lives. And it's the mourning of our own sin. To mourn the personal sin that we have in our lives. And I remember Jesus is dealing with the heart. He's dealing with discipleship and who we are as followers. And there is a emphasis on the inward. We'll see later in this message that he gets to the heart of the matter and he talks about people who are involved in certain types of sin, they were inward sin. Now you remember the leaders of that day, the Pharisees, they were all about the outward, right? They adhered to all the rules, they looked the right way, they said the right things, and they went all through the right motions, but Jesus said on the inside they were dead. The Pharisees, They thought because they didn't have the outward sin as the rest of the community, the egregious sins of those who were tax collectors, who were harlots, who were caught in adultery, and who had what they call the big sins, that they were better off. And may I say that type of spirit has crept into Christianity today. Many people think that they're right with God because they don't drink or smoke or sleep around and do these things. And don't get me wrong, we should not do those things. But may I say it goes to an even deeper level with God. He's concerned with our hearts. Later on in this sermon, He will talk about how if you even hate your brother, you've already committed murder. He talked about if you lust on a woman, you've committed adultery with her. See, Jesus takes it to a deeper level, and he says, hey, you may conform and do things on the outward, but I'm concerned with who you are on the inside, and I see that you struggle with the same things, even though you haven't necessarily acted upon it yet. Let's get down to the matter. This morning, church family, sin is killing the church. Why is the church powerless against the culture today? Why have we been marginalized? Because we aren't much different. We watch the same things. We do the same things. Our divorce rate is almost nearly what theirs are. We are not too much different than the world, so why would they want what we have? But yet we don't mourn it. I heard of a prominent pastor that before he would hire a staff member, He would ask this man or woman, when was the last time that you wept over your own sin? And if the man or woman couldn't think of a time, he wouldn't hire them. Where's the brokenness over our own sin? We come to church week after week, we lift up holy hands, we go home by Monday, we're back on the internet watching pornography. Most of the time that we do counseling here at the church is because there's bitterness in the heart of maybe a couple and one is not unforgiving. I'm telling you, God is not pleased with us. He's not pleased if we are not looking at sin the same way that he looks at sin. He hates sin. You wanna know what God thinks about sin? Look at what he did to his son on the cross to pay for sin and we play with sin. We entertain sin. The Bible says if we regard iniquity in our heart, God will not hear us. I'm telling you, some of your prayers are being hindered because there's sin in your life and you won't repent of it. You won't turn away from it. You need to ask God and I need to ask God to change our mind about our own sin. I hate some of the things that I've done. I wouldn't want my life played on that screen. And this week, God reminded me of who I am so that I would not come in here on my righteous high horse and try to preach down at you guys. I'm not preaching down at you. I'm saying to you this morning, I'm with you. I need to shed more tears over my sin. I need to hate my sin like I hate other people's sin. I need to be real with God because he sees to the heart. God resisted the proud, but he gave it more grace to the humble. Where's the brokenness? David was a man after God's own heart, but David was not a perfect man. David failed on many occasions, but David was still called a man after God's own heart because he knew how to repent, and he wouldn't go back to the same sin. David's most talked about sin, of course, was that with Bathsheba. Of course, David, he was king, and he was supposed to be at war, but he stayed home. He had idle time, and men, that idle time is the devil's workshop. Men and women, young people, idle time is the devil's workshop. We should be busy for the Lord. But anyhow, he went on to his rooftop, and it would have been an elevated place, the king's house, and he looked down, and he saw a beautiful woman bathing. It was Bathsheba, and he lusted after her, and he sent his servants to go get her, and he laid with her, She sent word back a few, maybe, weeks later and said, I'm pregnant. Bathsheba was married to one of David's most loyal men in the army. His name was Uriah. And David, at that point, began to try to cover up. He began a cover-up plan, and he did everything he could to try to cover up his sin. He brought Uriah home out of the battle and he got him drunk and he sent him home expecting that he would go in and lay with his wife. But Uriah was so loyal, he had so much integrity that he would not enjoy the company of his beautiful wife while his brothers were on a cold, dark, dirty battle the outfield. So, he slept outside of his house and he was a man of integrity and may I say this, something God worked in my heart this week and and reminded me of the need of this is that we should be men and women of integrity. Amen. Let our yay be yay and our no be no. Uriah was that. David tried everything he could to finally what he needed him to do so that it could be covered. And so he sent back with Uriah the orders of his own death. And Uriah, of course, his blood was spilt on the battlefield. David brought Bathsheba into his home. It's all taken care of, right? Several months passed. And you know, that really impressed upon me this week as I thought about that. Several months had passed. There's nowhere in scripture where we see David getting right with God. Until finally the prophet came to David and told David a story. He said there was a rich man who had many, many lambs and there was a poor man who had one. It was very precious to him. The rich man healed the poor man and took the one lamb that he had. David said, tell me who the man is so I can kill him. You know what I've noticed? When sin is in my life and in your life, I get really righteously indignation or indignant against other people's sins. I get really condemnational on others, if that's a word, condemnational. I'm ready to condemn someone in a minute. You know, that's the nature of humans. It's not godly. Nathan pointed his bony finger, the prophet, the man of God, pointed his finger towards David and said, you are the man. David, he confessed. And he began to repent. If you read Psalm 51, he begins to repent before God and he knew what to say. He knew how to lean on the grace and the loving kindness and the mercy of God. But if you notice in that Psalm, as he's trying to get right, he says, restore unto me, Lord, the joy of my salvation. Many of us are not happy because there's unconfessed sin in our lives. There's no peace. There's no joy. And the sin doesn't even have to be as outward as David's was. Is there bitterness here? Do you have someone you haven't forgiven here? Is there jealousy here? Is there covetousness here? I can go down the list and sins on the inside. Lust, greed, self-centeredness, pride, ego, all these things that God very clearly in his word says they're sin. We need to mourn them. We need to ask God to help us to hate and despise our sin like we do others. The grace that we show ourselves is really the grace we should be extending to others. We should be hard on our own sins and easy on others. What would that do for your marriage? Jesus is hitting to the heart. You say, Pastor, all that comes from one verse? Yes. Jesus is getting to the heart of the matter, and he says, where are those who weep over their own, who mourn their own sin? Mourning, if you read that word in the original language, it was a deep, despised, hurt, it was a deep-rooted pain over. Blessed are those who mourn, who mourn when they're going through personal loss, who mourn over their own personal sin. And lastly this morning, blessed are those who mourn. And I would say the mourning that we need to address here is that of social evil, societal sin. Now I won't spend a lot of time here because we're very good at picking on the world, but the world is lost. They don't know God. They're going to act like it. We expect people who don't know Jesus to act like Jesus' followers. And that is not very wise. It's not very smart. But we do have to acknowledge the society which we live in and the sinfulness that is all around us and it should grieve us to the core. It should grieve us. We've gotten so calloused. We can watch people around us going through everything, lost, dying, going to a Christless hell, and we are unmoved. We don't mourn. We never shed a tear over the lost. Jesus, when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them. Nehemiah, when he heard about the wall and the condition of Jerusalem, he wept, he fasted many days. Where are those type of believers today? Where you lose sleep over the fact that babies are being slaughtered in the womb, up until nine months. Corruption in every part of our nation, government, I was reading about a star, a recent pop star, her name is Billie Eilish. And I'm not picking on her. So I just was reading about her. She had swept the Grammys. I was interested in her story. She had been homeschooled. And I think she just won five Grammys. And her career is skyrocketing. But I'm getting to hear about her songs and what she, you know, what her songs say, and she deals with things like depression, suicide, homosexuality. I mean, you name it, she talks about it. In her Grammy award-winning song, the song of the year, it's called Bad Guy, she talks about that she's the type of girl who might seduce someone's dad. And she was maybe 16 years old when she wrote that. I'm saying to you guys, wake up. The Bible says, those that go forth weeping will in doubtless return bringing in the sheaves. So let me unpack that verse for you. Those who have a compassion in their heart for people who are lost to the point where it brings them to tears, they will reap. They will see people come to know Christ in the harvest because they truly love those who oppose even themselves. Paul said it this way, that we, he said, I preach Christ and my gospel isn't hid because the God of this world who's blinding the mind of those who don't believe, I care about them. I'm paraphrasing. But we need to look within. We need to take a real look at ourselves. If there's no grieving there, something isn't right with our hearts. If there's no concern for others, there's something not right in our walk with Jesus, because Jesus' Spirit cannot live in here. and there be no concern over the loss in the world around us and those who are dying and going to hell. Oh, God impressed us on me early in my ministry. I remember hearing about Los Angeles and how there were 4.2 million people there and that there weren't too many Bible preaching churches who would who would share the gospel and I decided as a 21 year old man that if God would allow me and my family one day I'd go down there and I'd find somewhere to preach the gospel and I remember going down there and the first day we moved in there was gunshots and the first day we moved in there were helicopters and all these things but God impressed it upon me hey you need to be here and preach the gospel because these people are the ones who need you the most And may I say this, right here where we live in this Antelope Valley, you're needed. Child abuse out here is running rampant. My sister's a social worker. And she tells me, how this is one of the worst areas in the country for child abuse. We know of two children who have died at the hands of their abusers here within the last five or so years, and yet the church is silent. Our foster care system is overflowing with orphans, and even though the Bible clearly says that pure religion, undefiled, is this to visit the fatherless and the widows and their affliction, most Christians would never, ever, ever fathom opening their homes to one of these kids. because they're all wrapped up in having their 401k and retiring at this age and going to get a motor home and going to pick up seashells off the coast of Florida while these children are being adopted by homosexual couples and being indoctrinated time after time after time again. When are we going to wake up? Say, Pastor Abram, you're fired up today. This is God. He downloaded this into me because we need to be the church. We need to stop playing the church. The church isn't who just comes in this building on a Sunday. We need to be the people of God who go out and impact our culture. Where the rubber meets the road. Blessed are they that mourn. And Jesus says, for they shall be comforted. They're going to be comforted. And of course, this is future tense here in the text. And he's saying there's going to come a day when they'll be comforted. And I don't know if it's in this life or the next. And I wasn't too sure as I studied this, but I believe, of course, ultimately for the believer, The Christ follower, those who have trusted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, there's going to come a day when He will comfort us. When we're in heaven, the Bible talks about He'll wipe every tear away. Talks about how there's joy in heaven and that there's no night. It's the perfect place and he's preparing it for us. Jesus said, have I not told you that I go to prepare a place for you? In my father's house there are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. But he said this, I will come again. to receive you unto myself so that where I am, there you may be also for the believer, for those who have trusted Christ as your savior. This home, this world is not our home. We have a greater home waiting for us in heaven where he will comfort us all. Thank you, amen. Praise God. Thank you, Jesus. We will be comforted. If you're here this morning and you're not sure that you on your way to heaven. Today you can ask Christ and he'll save you. It's that simple. He paid for it when he shed his blood on the cross, and three days later when he rose from the grave to prove that he had won the victory over death, hell, and the grave, and he is not willing that any should perish, but that all would come to repentance, that you would turn in faith to him and ask him to save you the moment you do that the bible says that you are saved you're sealed by his holy spirit and you never have to worry about losing that because he always keeps his promises and i'm so thankful this morning that as a nine-year-old boy uh in denver colorado at a christian summer camp by the name of sky's the limit that i trusted jesus christ as my lord and savior and here i stand 25 years later just as sure of it because of the witness of the Holy Spirit within me, and I don't fear death because I know when I take my last breath on this side of eternity, I will be in the presence of Jesus. Can I get an amen, somebody, this morning? If you don't have that assurance this morning, I beg you, turn to Christ. He wants to save you. He wants to be your comfort. You just say, they'll be comforted. There's coming a day, guys. But in the meantime, blessed are those who are mourned. You say, how can somebody who mourned have the joy of the Lord? I can't really explain it to you, but I've seen it. I've seen it with my own eyes. How someone who just lost a loved one, The grace of God is evident in their lives, and they are still able to praise God. I've seen it. Someone who's in the grips of addiction and are fighting that, and they hate the life that they've led prior to Christ, but now they're seeking after Christ, and they're fighting that addiction by God's grace, and they have the joy of the Lord. I've seen it. And we ask God to give it to us. This morning, however God has spoken to you, I pray that you would make a decision today. If it's for Christ, that's the most important thing, to trust Him as your Savior today. Don't leave without trusting Christ. If it's about changing your mind about your own sin, come to the altar this morning. Father's arms are open wide. Forgiveness has already been bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. He wants to forgive your sin. He wants you to have that relationship. He wants to restore the joy of your salvation. He did it for David. He killed and he committed adultery. But God gave it to him. This morning, we need to pray for our nation. We need to ask God to break our heart for our nation. I hope that causes us to be at the polls come March and November. I hope it causes us to pray. I hope it causes us to shed a tear to the point where we get up and do something. You see, Nehemiah wept, and he went into the king's court with his countenance down. It could have cost him his neck, but God showed grace, and he moved in the heart of the king. And the king financed the return to Jerusalem and built the wall. I'm telling you, when we mourn, God moves. When Daniel wept over his nation, God sent Gabriel to give him the word that, hey, it's bad now, but I'm sending my Messiah. He's gonna reign and rule in Jerusalem. And until the end of his kingdom, there will be none. He comforted Daniel. I'm telling you this morning, I can't explain it all, But God keeps His promises.