Turn with me to 1 Peter, chapter 2. 1 Peter, chapter 2, we'll be reading verses 9 and 10. The Bible is the infallible, inerrant, inspired Word of God, our only rule of faith and practice. Amen? Amen. 1 Peter 2, verses 9 and 10, then a brief prayer. but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. For you once were not a people, but you now are the people of God. You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Let us pray. Father, in the name of Jesus, we bow before you and we understand that you are the only savior of sinners. There is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. And Jesus, you yourself said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And no one comes to the Father but through me. Now, Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would come down upon the preacher and everyone here. Because Lord, without you, we can do nothing. Lord, we're not interested in a preacher's opinions about sports, weather, politics, news, anything else. We want to hear your word. We want to see Jesus, because Father, this community needs Jesus, just as we need him every day, even as those who've been bought by the blood of Jesus. So Father, we pray that we'd see Jesus high and lifted up, knowing and believing that as he is lifted up, he will draw the nations unto himself. So Lord, we pray that you would move in us Father, remind us of who we are and remind us of what we're to do. And Lord, if there are any here today who are still not yet in your kingdom, we ask that you would be merciful to them, open their eyes to see, give them a heart to believe the gospel. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated. Now I want you to think for a moment of the thousands of people that live within just a couple of miles of this church. Maybe you know some of them. Perhaps, most certainly, you don't know all of them. But what are these people like? Well, first of all, they're all made in the image of God. They all have dignity from the Creator. Now we also know that the fall into sin has been accomplished on all of us. For through one man, sin entered into the world, and death through sin. So death passed upon all men because we all sinned. Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden. That means the sentence of death and sin is upon every last one of us. We are born with a sinful, rebellious nature. Now in God's common grace, some perhaps are not as bad off as others, but the fact is that all of us have fallen short of the glory of God. All of us have sinned. So we can say this about the people in the neighborhood. Some perhaps are very nice neighbors, but they're one of two types of people. They're either in Christ being saved by the blood of Jesus, shed for them, or they are outside of Christ Still in their sins. Again, they might be very nice people. That's what we know about them. Now, each of them have their own specific issues. What are they doing? Well, perhaps most of them are simply doing what we all would like to do. They simply want to live a nice life. They want a job that can provide for their families. They want to rear their children. They want their children to be perhaps more successful than they are. They want their families to remain together. They're looking forward to Thanksgiving, bringing all together for Thanksgiving and Christmas. These are what all people in this community want, just what we want. But what do they believe about God? Well, again, we don't know specifically. Some of them believe that Jesus Christ is the Savior of sinners. Some of them believe in the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. But perhaps there's many of this community who really do not know who God is. They have made God in their own image. They have their own ideas. They perhaps see him as a God of love and of mercy, but perhaps they do not see him in the full-orbed manifestation of who he is in the Bible. Maybe they are following another religion. And again, they have some nebulous idea of God. Maybe they believe that if you are good enough, then somehow or another, your good will outweigh your bad. And because God is a God of mercy, because God is a God in the forgiveness business, somehow or another, we're all going to make it there, unless we're really, really wicked at people like pedophiles or like Adolf Hitler. But the rest of us, somehow or another, are going to make it. That's the general idea. And if you were to ask people in the community, what do you think happens to you at death, many of them will say, I don't know. I've never really thought about it. You know, that's something we don't want to think about too much. We want to kick the can down the road. It's too painful. It's too frightening, frankly, to think about it. But if you really ask themselves what's going to happen, a lot of them will say, well, I think when we die, it's just over. We just go back to the ground and that's it. What do these people need in the community? Well, the answer is found in this passage before us. And it's very important that we answer two questions here concerning us and then what we're to do. What does God say about you? Not just the people of the community, but what does God say about you? Who are you? Now, based on that, what are you to do? Now, Peter is writing to people who have been dispersed because of the persecution. These are believers. These are followers of Jesus, but they've been dispersed. They've been called by God. They've been kept in Jesus Christ. They've been sprinkled with his blood, and they're called to obey Jesus Christ. These are God's people who are suffering persecution. And after laying all of that out in chapter 1, talking about how they have everything they need pertaining to life and godliness in 2 Peter 1, but earlier he's talking about how they're to enter their faith, moral excellence, and moral excellence, self-control, and self-control, perseverance, and perseverance, brotherly kindness, and brotherly kindness, Christian love, If these qualities are increasing in them, they render them neither useless nor unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things has forgotten his former calling. So he's laying all that out to them, and then he says four things about them. This is glorious, and this is true of every believer wherever they are in the world, whatever their situation might be. He says four things about you. He says you are a chosen race. just as He chose us and Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ Himself according to His kind intention, to the praise of the glory of His grace. Ephesians 1 says God the Father chose us before the foundation of the world Romans 8 says that he foreknew us That means that God has loved you as long as he's existed How long has God existed? God is eternal. From everlasting to everlasting, I am God, he says. He didn't just come into being. He's always been. So he says, you are a chosen race. You are a royal priesthood. Exodus 19 speaks of the children of God as they are in the wilderness. These are priests. You are a priest, meaning you don't have to go through some other priest. As a priest, you're able to have access to the Father. You can come and you can pray to Him, whatever your situation might be. A number of years ago, there was a woman in our church in Georgia. She was about 35 years old, and she was driving home one night, and she lost control of her car. She didn't have her seatbelt on. She was ejected from the car, and she died instantly. And I did the funeral, and she had about a 10-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl. And they were devastated, as you can imagine. And as I was preaching that funeral, I stepped down from the pulpit and I stood right in front of them. I said, now, when you are alone at night, And when you begin to cry out for your mama who's now with Jesus, I want you to remember this, that you can pray to Jesus and He's right there with you. You can call upon Him wherever you are and He will meet you right there because you see you're a priest. You have access to the Father through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's true of every one of us in Christ Jesus. You are a chosen race. You are a royal priesthood. You are a holy nation. The word nation is ethne. We are now one in Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter what our various ethnicities might be. He says that he'll make from every family and nation and tongue a people for himself. And he says, not only are you God's people, you are a holy nation. That means that because Christ Jesus has come to you, because he's given you the righteousness of faith, he's given you justification, he's also now set you aside. It's interesting how throughout the epistles, all of the epistles of the Apostle Paul, except one, the book of Galatians, all begin with Paul making the statement that we are saints. He says to the Corinthians, you have been sanctified. And if you know much about the Corinthian church, they had a lot of problems, major problems. And yet he still says to these people, you are saints. How can he say that when he's about to talk about all these problems? Because they've been set apart. There is a positional sense in which they are sanctified. And now they're going to grow in what we call progressive sanctification because the Holy Spirit's indwelling them. They're a chosen race, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession. A people for God's own possession. The King James has it, a peculiar people. That sounds strange to us, but it means that we're unique. We're not like everybody else. Jesus said at the end of Matthew chapter 7, the Sermon on the Mount, enter by the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction and many of those who find it. Enter by the narrow gate for the gate is narrow and the way is narrow that leads to life and fewer of those who find it. When I do open air preaching, one of the things I do as people are walking by is I will say to them, are you on the broad road or are you on the narrow road? The broad road, it's easy to be on the broad road because you enter by the broad gate. Everybody in the world is on the broad road and they're going all in the same direction. Maybe they're having a lot of fun going to a ball game or a sporting event of some sort. They're all on the road, moving in the same direction. Everybody's going in that direction, and I say to them, that might sound like fun, but you see, you've entered by the broad gate, and it can be any number of belief systems you want, but it's going to lead ultimately to destruction. But by God's grace, He's opened your eyes to enter by the narrow gate. What's the narrow gate? The narrow gate is Jesus. He says, I am... the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but through Me. You must bow down as many of you have done at the foot of the cross and say, Jesus, I surrender to You. That's the entering by the narrow gate, and now you're on the narrow road. What is that? You live by the Word of God. And because you live by the Word of God, because He's given you the grace to see, you're going to the place of eternal life. That's the Christian. And that makes you peculiar to people. 20 years ago, Christianity was still fairly respectable in our culture. If you were a Christian 20 years ago in the business world, that might help you in business. It was probably a good idea to put a Bible on your desk and let everybody see, oh, he's a Christian. I bet I can trust him. I bet he's a man of integrity. Today, it doesn't work that way. In fact, today, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, it could be a liability in the workplace. Why? Because they think you're narrow-minded and bigoted and hate other types of people. That's where we are. So the world looks at you now and you're peculiar. These people believe that Jesus is the only Savior. These people believe that when you die you're going to be in heaven with Jesus. How about, was it two or three weeks ago, all those dear people murdered out there in Texas in church? You remember the response of the world? They think this is weird. They're out there praying. That praying didn't do them any good, did it? That's what they're saying. are those dear people in Charleston, South Carolina, who were at that prayer meeting at the AME Church a couple summers ago, and all those people were killed, and the next day they arrested the guy. And you remember how all those family members are saying, speaking to that man, saying, we forgive you. That's strange to the world. The world wants vengeance. Christianity is different than everything else. Christianity is full of peculiar people. We're God's own possession bought by the blood of Jesus. That's who you are. You're a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession. That's who you are and it's totally and completely the grace of God. You don't earn it. You didn't deserve it. God opened your eyes. Therefore, you're no better than the people in the community. God's had mercy. Amen? Now, Because of that, Peter then says, what are you to do with that? You are to proclaim the excellencies of Him. who calls you out of darkness into His marvelous light. You're a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession. You've been called out of darkness, every one of you, including me. even though perhaps you were a very nice, moral person. Maybe you went to church three times a week when you were growing up. Maybe you knew the Bible. Maybe you knew the Bible stories and you attended vacation Bible school and all of that. But until God regenerated you by the work of the Holy Spirit, you were on the road to destruction, the very best of you, but God had mercy. You were in darkness. And then God opens your eyes. God brought you from the domain of darkness and brought you into the kingdom of His beloved Son in whom you have redemption and the forgiveness of your sins. He's quoting Hosea when he says, you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God. He says the same thing at the end of Romans chapter 10. You once were not a people, now you are my people. You once were not beloved, but now you are beloved. This is an amazing thing. God looks at all of us, of all the different ethni of the world, whatever your condition might be, and he says, you are now my people. You once had no mercy, now you have mercy. Mercy means that you don't get what you deserve. We deserve hell, every one of us. And God has been rich in mercy, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, because he's done this great work, we, as Paul says in Romans chapter 1 and in 1 Corinthians chapter 9, we are under obligation. He says, I am under obligation. I am eager to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome. Why is he eager to preach the gospel to those who are in Rome? Well, because he's not ashamed of the gospel. Why is he not ashamed of the gospel? Because he knows the gospel is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. That's why he's bold in proclaiming it. He must proclaim it. And what Peter's saying is the same idea. Because of this great work and because of who he is, we are to proclaim His excellencies to the world. Beginning right here in the neighborhood, which begs the question, What do we mean by these excellencies of God? Well, now, my dear friends, we could go on for hours on this. We got to eat lunch a little bit later. Well, he's the creator. In the beginning was God. And God created all things. The heavens are telling of the glory of God. The expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day brings forth speech and night to night knowledge. Psalm 19 says that we should be able to look up at the heavens and say, yes, there is a God, not just a God, the true and living Creator God. Psalm 36 says that He spoke out of His mouth and all things came into being by His own creative fiat or declaration. He says, I make everything. He's the creator. He's the sustainer of all life. The Lord sustains those who fall and raises up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to Thee and Thou dost give them their food in due time. Thou dost open Thy hand and dost satisfy the desire of every living thing. Everything in this creation is under the control of God. He sustains His entire creation. There is no one like Me, He says. declaring the end from the beginning, from ancient times, things which have not been done, saying, my purpose will be established. I will accomplish all my good pleasure. Truly, I've spoken. Truly, I'll bring it to pass. I have planned it. Surely, I will do it. He is the creator. He is the sustainer. He is the redeemer of his people. When Adam and Eve fell into sin, and God's bringing a condemnation upon the evil one, then He says that He's going to make a covenant with His people. He begins that covenant with Abraham. Then he begins to unfold, excuse me, with Noah. Then he begins to unfold it with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Joseph, and David, and the prophets. And then finally, when Jesus comes after his death, Paul the Apostle said, in the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem us from the works of the law. Cursed is every man who hangs on the tree. Jesus hung on that tree. It was all planned out by Him. Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He grew it before Him like a tender shoot, like a root out of parched ground. He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him. nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and like one from whom men hide their face. He was despised and He was forsaken of men. Jesus Christ is that one about whom Isaiah spoke. Jesus Christ is the Redeemer. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace. God is the Creator. God is the Sustainer. God is the Redeemer. The Lord Jesus is that second person of the Godhead. Fully God and fully man. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. No man has seen God at any time. But God has revealed Himself in Christ Jesus. This is the Savior of sinners. Then there's the Holy Spirit, who is present at creation. The Holy Spirit was involved in every aspect of creation. When Israel's about to have the tabernacle designed, God raises up a man named Bezalel, and it says that He filled him with the Holy Spirit and gave him the skill to make those things in the particular tabernacle. We know the Holy Spirit was present in the Old Testament. Because David says, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. We know the Spirit was prophesied to be poured out. Joel chapter 2, I will pour out my Spirit on all mankind. But when Pentecost came, that's when the fullness of the Spirit came. The Spirit came in a different way at that time, and He filled every single believer. At the end of what Paul's saying in Ephesians chapter 1 about God the Father electing, God the Son redeeming, he says, in Him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, you are sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise. Every believer at his regeneration receives the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit regenerates, the Holy Spirit sanctifies, the Holy Spirit convicts, The Holy Spirit is the one who strengthens you, who gives you the power to live every day for Jesus Christ. We could go on and on. He's the Creator. He's the Redeemer. He's the Sustainer. Jesus Christ is the propitiation for our sins. More about that in a moment. But He's also sovereign. That means He's in control of everything. Psalm 3 says, The Lord has established His throne in the heavens and His sovereignty rules over all. Isaiah 45 says, I am God and there is no other, the one forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things. Nothing takes Him by surprise. When that evil man walked into the back of that church a few weeks ago, and opened up and killed all those dear people, those saints. They were praying together as they were dying. Did that take God by surprise? Was God in heaven ringing and saying, oh, now that's not what I want. What happened? I didn't know that was going to happen. No, God's in complete control of everything. Now that man is utterly responsible for what he did. And as a murderer, no doubt he went straight to hell when he died. But the simple fact is, is that God allows these things to happen ultimately for His good. And great good has come from it. You talk about a powerful witness there and a powerful witness in Charleston, South Carolina a few years ago. That's what happens. God allows sometimes His people to die and it builds up the church and it brings glory to Himself because we know they're going to heaven anyway. Those people, when they die, they went straight to Jesus. That's what we have. He's sovereign, but He's also transcendent. Who has measured the waters of the hollow of His hand, and marked off the heavens by the span, and calculated the dust of the earth in the measure, and weighed the mountains in a hill of balance and the scales. In other words, you look at Isaiah 40, and you see the vastness of God. the vastness of his creation. And maybe you've read about how many universes there are and how many millions of light years they are. And he fills up every bit of it. He's transcendent. That means he's above all of his creation, but he's not just out there not having anything to do with us. He's also eminent. But now, thus says the Lord your Creator, O Jacob, the one who formed you, O Israel, do not fear, for I redeemed you, have called you by name, for you are mine. Though you walk through the waters, I'll be with you, and through the deep rivers I'll not overflow you. When you pass through the fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you, for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. When you pass through the valley of the shadow of death, I'll be with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you, this great transcendent majestic, creating, sustaining, salvation God also is right here with us. And no doubt, when you've gone through some hard times, you know He's with you. He gives you a peace that passes all understanding. Listen, this is the God this community needs to know. Not some nebulous God out there, but a true God revealed in the Scriptures, revealed in nature. This is the one people need to know. He's a great and glorious and majestic God. He's the only one who can satisfy them and the only one who can redeem them. The only one who can save them. The only one who can meet them in the night time when they're fearful. He's holy. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of His glory. He's not a benevolent grandfather. Now, when my children were little and they acted up, I spanked them. When my grandchildren act up, I look the other way. You know what I'm saying? Somehow or another, I become soft, you know, toward my grandchildren. But God is not a benevolent grandfather. He does not look the other way at sin. Nahum chapter 1 says, A jealous and avenging God is the Lord. Our Lord is vengeful and wrathful, and He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. Every person in the community around us who are not yet in Christ, they again might be nice people, but because they're Not in Christ Jesus. They're under the wrath of God. And God is angry with the sinner every day. He's a holy God. He's a God of justice. But He's a God of goodness. Taste and see that the Lord is good. The lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they who seek the Lord shall not be unwanted any good thing. I have been young and now I am old, but I have never seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread. All day long they are gracious and give. That's who God is. He meets the needs of His people. He delights in our steps. When we fall, we will not be hurled headlong, for the Lord is the one who holds our hand. He is with His people. He sustains His people. This is the one our community here needs to know, the true and living God, the transcendent one, the eminent one, the holy one, the just one, the good God, the loving God. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. When I preach in the open air, most of the time I'll start and I'll say, I want to give you folks some good news. We could use some good news, couldn't we? Well, here's the good news. The good news is this, that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life." Then I'll say, now, in order for you to really understand that, you've got to have a conscience. There is some bad news, and the bad news is that we all have broken this good God's law. By this, the love of God was manifested, that God sent His Son into the world, that we might live through Him. And this is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation or atoning sacrifice for our sins. My dear friends, God loves people. How do we know? You cannot base an understanding of God's love on how well things are going in your personal life. You can't base it on how God's blessed this nation. You can't base it on that because sooner or later, every one of us, even though we're having some good times and maybe we're living large right now, sooner or later, something's going wrong. Sickness, lose a job, bankruptcy, whatever. Something's going down. It always does. So if you're basing the idea of God's love on all these good things happening to you, what happens when you lose something? Now you're starting to doubt God's love. No, no, no. The way that we know God loves people is He sent His Son to die for us. That's the great message. Now, when you realize who you are, when you realize what He's done for you, now you understand what you're to do. You're to proclaim His excellencies. Oh, I don't know how to do that. Yes, you do, in the sense that you can go through the side door all day long. You have neighbors, you simply tell them, Oh, God is a good God. Let me explain to you what I mean by that. God has met our needs. You bring God up in your testimony, just daily telling people about what he's doing, and they'll listen to that. And they may just say, oh, whatever. But then they know they're listening. And sooner or later, maybe next month, maybe five years from now, those people in your community, something's going south on them as well, and they're going to have some trouble. And they said, you know, my next door neighbor must be religious. He talks about God a lot. Maybe he could help me. Maybe he's got a church that could help me. There you go. Now you've got a bona fide, straight up opportunity to minister to that person. And what I'm after for you today is I want you to be aware. Not just in your mind. See, you know this stuff in your mind. I want you to get it deep in your heart. What a glorious, majestic God we serve. Now let me close with this example. A number of years ago when we were in Georgia, we developed a ministry with HIV positive homosexual men. They were all very poor. And I ministered to them by having a meeting every week, every Wednesday night. It was sort of an open, get in a circle, kind of a share what's going on type ministry. And I would listen to their needs. They were almost 99% homosexual, HIV positive, Many of them were already into full-blown AIDS. And I would listen to them, and I'd say, now, before we go, let me tell you another story about Jesus. And I would just go through the Gospel of Mark, and I would just paint a vivid picture of the love of God, the love of Jesus for sinners like me and like you and like them. There's one man in particular. that was already near death. He was 42 years old. He'd been a hairdresser in New York City. By the way, all of these men have a story. Somebody's hurt them. Somebody's abandoned them. Somebody's abused them. So you should always have compassion. Always compassion. Well, this man was near the end, and he was already in a hospice. And I would drive to the hospice place to pick him up. I'd help him out. He was on a walker. He was 42. And I put the walker in the back seat of my car, put him beside me, and we'd go to the meeting, and we went back and forth like three weeks. Then I'm visiting him one day, and we're talking about various things, and I said, well, how do you feel? He began to weep. He said, I'm afraid to die. He knew the end was near. I said, I understand, but let me tell you what happens to the Christian when he dies. And this can be true of you. I said, now, when the Christian dies, his soul immediately goes to be with Jesus. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. So I said, now, if you become a follower of Jesus, when you die, your soul is conscious, you know where you are. You will see Christian loved ones who have gone before you. You see the Apostle Paul, Peter, all these great saints of all the ages. And all that's important, you hear the 24 elders, the four living creatures saying, worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. You'll see this majestic worship service and everything is focused on Jesus, the glorified Christ. And you will have joy inexpressible and full of glory. Paul says, eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has it entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for them who love him. So I said, you think of the most wonderful, lawful, beautiful thing in the world, and heaven is infinitely greater than that. That's what happens to the Christian when he dies. I said, now, that's pretty good, isn't it? He goes, oh, yeah. I said, but that's not the end. It gets better than that. I said, because you see, your body's going back to the grave, and your body is wracked with disease. Your body is failing. You're wracked with this horrible disease. You're in pain. You're wasting away. We know it. But if you come to Christ, when you die, your soul will immediately be in the presence of Jesus. But one of these days, Jesus promises that He's coming back. And in 1 Corinthians 15, He says, the body is sown, a perishable body. It will be raised an imperishable body. It's sown. In dishonor, it will be raised in glory. It's sown in weakness, it will be raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it will be raised a spiritual body. Then I said, not only that, then Paul says this, behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in the moment of the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised imperishable. When the perishable will put on the imperishable, and mortal will put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O grave, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin. The power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore be steadfast and movable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Knowing that your labor in the Lord is never in vain. I said now listen if you embrace Christ This frail disease ridden body will one day be made a perfect Glorified body no sin. No sickness. No death. No disease You will live on the new earth with Jesus Christ and the restoration of all things forever and ever and ever with all the saints from all the different ages from all the different ethnicities That's my God. That's who I serve. That's who Jesus Christ is. And it appears that he called on the name of the Lord. Six days later, he was gone. He'd been living a homosexual lifestyle for years. Can God save people in the end? Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, people, there are folks around you in this neighborhood, there are family members perhaps that don't know who the true God is. You're a chosen race. You're a royal priesthood. You're a holy nation. You're people for God's own possession. You were once not the people of God. Now you are the people of God. You once had no mercy. Now you have mercy. You joyfully and willingly are to proclaim, that means to announce, The excellencies that he's a creator. He's the sustainer. He's the redeemer. He is holy. He is transcendent. He is eminent. He is good. He is loving. He is merciful. We're to announce that God in Jesus Christ. Will you do so? And if you hear today and you say, man, I don't know this, I don't know this God you're talking about. You know what? He'll save you right now. He loves when people humble themselves and say, you're the Lord and I'm not and I see my need and I call upon you. If you'll call upon Him right now, meet you right where you are. I don't care how bad you've been. It doesn't matter how wicked you've been. None of that matters at all. He will take away your sin as far as the east is from the west. The blood of Jesus can wash away your sin, every last bit of it. That's the great hope we have in Jesus. Call upon Him right now. Talk to the elders, pastor, and let them pray for you. Call on the name of the Lord. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for this dear congregation, and thank you for what you have done this weekend. It's been a wonderful time, a wonderful time in the presence of the Lord, a time of refreshment, being with these dear saints. And Lord, I ask you to bless them richly. Lord, remind us daily, because you know I forget it too. I forget the glory of what you've done in my life. Father, forgive me for that. And Lord, I pray that you work in each of us and that we be filled up with joy, inexpressible and full of glory. And when we're filled up with joy, inexpressible and full of glory, we can't help but tell people about Jesus. It just comes out. We can't help it. So, Lord, help us. And draw any to yourself today, Lord, who are out there saying, yeah, I'm not a Christian. But today, Lord, make it today the day of salvation for them. Hear our prayer. We make it in Jesus name. Amen.