Congregation, turn with me to 1 Peter chapter 5. 1 Peter chapter 5. I plan either to finish next Sunday or the Sunday following the first Peter, and then we're going to move into several Advent messages on remembering Jesus Christ. So this morning, if you were not here last Sunday, it's important that you go in and listen to this first message, the first message on Scripture's remedy for anxiety, for care. That's the word that Peter uses here, the translation of the word that Peter uses in this particular passage of Scripture. And I mentioned to you last Sunday morning that in researching anxiety through scripture, the scripture has a great deal to say about worry and anxiety and care, and we could probably spend an entire series on that, but we'll do our best to finish this this morning. Now one of the things that you need to remember is that people become anxious because of what verse eight says. And verse 8 says, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, we are anxious because we know that we have an adversary. And so in the writing of scripture, remember there are no chapter and verse divisions. So the flow of this is continual. And again, we'll see that this morning. Next Sunday, we'll start to look at the adversary, and then we'll move into the close, which is the acclamation of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I want to read verses five through seven. Likewise, you younger people submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another and be clothed with humility for God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. And that's from Proverbs three. Therefore, humble yourselves unto the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him, for he cares for you." This is one of those remarkable passages of Scripture, and it's interesting that Peter, that the Spirit of God moved up Peter to write this, because Peter was Anything but humble until after the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ in John 21 and then of course in Acts 1 and 2. So he is writing obviously because the Spirit laid this upon his heart, but he's also writing because this is something that he learned. These are learned behaviors. We're not born humble. They're learned behaviors. And we learn them from the Word. So this morning I want to again look at how the word of God speaks to our human anxiety. Let's go to the Lord Jesus in prayer. Father, bless, I pray, the word. It's the only agency in this life that you've promised to promote, and in this promotion, it exalts Jesus Christ, who indeed does care for us. And we see that, Father, as we look back through history, we will remember it this morning at the Lord's table. His care for us is far, far superior to any of the human care that we may proffer to others, whether it be our family, whether it be church family. And so we praise you for this wonderful truth this morning. Teach us to cast our anxiety on you. In Jesus' name we make this prayer, amen. So Brother Logan, if you'd be so kind, the first slide. By the way, we have ordered a new projector, so not sure when it will come in, but some of this, obviously we're hoping that most of this shading will be gone when that is installed. So last Sunday we looked at how the Word of God, or began to look at how the Word of God speaks to our human anxiety, and we actually began last Sunday morning with a quote from Alistair Begg, and this morning I'm going to begin with another quote from him, and he said humility is recognizing that I am not the center of the universe. He says I am not even the center of my own universe. So that's a hard thing. The culture's focus on us today is primarily on self. All you have to do is look back at all the rigmarole from the past election. The focus on self. Because we are part of the culture, and we are, our minds are easily persuaded by what we read in verse eight, by a roaring lion. He's also called the wolf, he's also called the serpent. He's called a number of, the dragon, a number of things throughout scripture, and so what the main takeaway from that, and we'll talk about it next Sunday, is that God the Father, the triune God looks at Satan as an animal. Not as a person. Although he is. So put that in the back of your noodle, we'll talk about it next Sunday morning. Our minds are easily persuaded by the roaring lion. He is a formidable adversary and opponent. And we are persuaded that we are the center of the universe's attention all the time. Everything revolves around us. And the Bible says that everything revolves around the Lord Jesus Christ. So there's a contradiction here. What do we do with that? Well, if we want to have our anxiety remedied or lessened, we need to follow what the Word of God teaches us. Albert Barnes in his commentary on I Peter wrote, it should not be that any of us are engaged to gain popularity Grace is not about popularity, and it's not about performance. People struggle with that, but that's what the Bible says. He says we're not to be engaged to gain popularity, to live a life of ease, to rule over people, or to make the preaching of the gospel simply an occasion of advancing ourselves in the world. The Apostle Paul had much to say about that, and Peter does too. Augustine in his book, The City of God, which I would recommend that you read if you haven't read it. And yeah, it's about 1600 years old, but it won't hurt you to read it because Augustine has a very keen insight into human nature. And he wrote there, there is something about humility that appeals to my ego. What a remarkable reflection of where we are as human beings. And so, it is because that we are sinners, hyped up on pride, we'll talk more about that next Sunday morning, but we're hyped up on pride, and this pride is so pervasive in us that we will even conjure up humility in our pride. And pride is the root cause of most anxiety. Turn with me to Luke 10. And we're gonna read this this morning and then we're gonna close with this also, Luke chapter 10. Luke 10 is just prior to what's written here in beginning in verse 38 is the parable of the good Samaritan. So it's interesting that Luke corrals these in the same place. Verse 38, now it happened as they went that he entered a certain village and a certain woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. She had a sister called Mary who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard his words. But Martha was distracted with much serving and she approached him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore, tell her to help me. And Jesus answered and said to her, Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, one thing is necessary. And Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her. And by contrast, Martha, if you follow your sister's path here, it won't be taken away from you either. So, now Martha was doing a good thing, but she also began to complain because her sister was doing a better thing. Again. Our human thought process is that, well, Mary should have gotten out of whatever she was doing and went and helped Martha. Well, apparently Jesus thought otherwise. This is why Jesus is the most controversial person that has ever lived. So keep that in your mind. We're gonna close with something from here this morning. So sometimes in the midst of very difficult anxieties, Christians have not learned the pattern of reaching for the truths of the scripture. And I'm at fault for this. All of us are at fault for not turning to scripture when we need to have our anxieties quelled. Next slide. Our cognitive thinking, that's our deep thought. The way we perceive and think about situations. This is not cursory thought. This is not see to the pants thing, this is deep thought. Our deep thought is conditioned through years of thinking patterns. And it must be addressed when we deal with anxiety. The culture does that. Last Sunday morning, we closed the service with reading from a number of passages of scripture here that I have listed, Psalm 56, Psalm 77, Matthew 6, 2 Corinthians 10, Philippians 4. Scripture cleanses thinking. If you haven't had a chance to go in and read those, and we're gonna look at Psalm 77 here in just a moment, but you need to. And this is obviously, this is not an exhaustive list. of passages of scripture that speak to us about anxiety. You have two psalmists, David and Esau. You have the Lord Jesus and Matthew. You have Paul in II Corinthians and in Philippians, and here you have Peter in I Peter 5. So the writers of scripture are very, very, very exposed to care and anxiety in their life. Scripture also reveals the deep truths in our hearts about the tendency to create false gods and idols. There is a reason that the first commandment says, you will have no other gods before me. Because human nature is very good at constructing idols. Sometimes they're constructed out of good things, but they're still idols. And when we construct or create false gods and idols, they cause anxiety because these false gods and idols can't address anxiousness. And often we'll use them to elevate ourselves, our thinking to an unholy or an ungodly place. We become like Isaiah, woe is me. Sometimes, and we talked about this last Sunday morning, our job, our family, our reputation, our money, ad infinitum, become idols and scripture calls us to repentance. Whenever there's something that we determine, by the way, the Spirit of God is very keen to alert us to what is an idol in our life. Whenever the scripture calls us to repentance, there's either an ability to repent or there is this stubbornness that says, well, I'm not that bad. It's something we have to watch, something I have to watch in my own life. Idolatry causes anxiety. when our idol is not worshiped by others, because idols are unique to self. And if people look at, if they don't look at my idol the way I think they need to look at my idol, then what happens? The idol fails us. And it's ultimately exposed as a false god. So scripture's wisdom yields the fruit of peace when we filter our lives and our thinking through it. This is why the scripture speaks about meditation. Meditating. This is why the psalmist will sometimes use the word sila, pause, think. Give some time to reflect. Now that's a hard thing to do in our society, is it not? reflect on what Scripture is saying. Now, specific texts from Scripture are helpful. We're looking at one here in 1 Peter 5. Yet we need to avoid focusing on just proof text. They are important, but the understanding is the Bible as a whole, all of the Bible, will teach us specific doctrines or speaks to a particular concern, and anxiety is one of those. So we're not going to find a remedy for our anxiety or for our care if we are anxious to get through Scripture. It takes some time. And this guides us from taking passages out of context. This is vitally important. When we come to 2 Peter, especially chapter three, quite a bit of 2 Peter three is taken out of context. We don't want to. Context is king. And we are guilty of it. I'm guilty of it. We lift passages out of context, or we treat the Bible simply as a pillbox. from which we gather various medication. But as a entire course of treatment in our moments of fear, worry, and anxiety patterns. So if we're anxious about a particular event, or a particular struggle, or a particular thing, whatever that may be, one of the ways to have the spirit of God bring this peace that passes all understanding is to pause Read and reflect. Obviously prayer falls into this as well. Next slide. Now Peter in this passage, he's summarizing basically what he has been writing for five chapters now. He calls his readers. and his hearers, you and I, who are living with anxiety. And remember now, Peter, in just a short order, after he finished 2 Peter, it wasn't but a brief period of time that Peter was crucified. So he, likewise, was anxious about what was facing him. And this anxiety causes us to remember that humility fosters God's care. Pride is what God resists. Humility is what gives grace. And so Peter drives these sojourners, these pilgrims, back to one of the most misunderstood doctrines of God, which is a doctrine of theology proper, especially the doctrine of God the Father. And that's why he mentions in this passage, in verses five through seven, he mentions the work of God at least four times. It causes us to reflect, and we need to reflect on the beings and the attributes and the nature of God within the framework of the Trinity. How is peace brought into our life? By focusing on the work of the Trinity. If we are born again, that is not the end of the story. It's the beginning of the story. And to attribute finite qualities to God, and we do, we all do this, we consider him less than omniscient. Well, the Lord doesn't know what I'm going through. And no one has ever been through what I've been through. So we consider, when we say that, we consider him to be less than omniscient. He doesn't know. And sometimes we assume that he is immutable, that he's changing. Well, he did this for somebody, but he's not gonna do this for me. God is immutable. He is unchanging. He is omniscient. And with all of the cares that we have, he cares for us. We view him as passable. In other words, we view him as emotional, that he has the same vagaries of looking at life like we do. Sometimes he's tired. Sometimes he's hungry. Sometimes he's sleepy. And of course the Lord Jesus went through these because of the incarnation, but it did not change the nature, his God nature, that was implanted in him in the incarnation that was given to him. So these things, less than omniscient, that he's changeable, that he's passable, that he's emotional, or to misrepresent the Trinitarian orthodoxy, and there's a lot of that today. are all to be avoided in our faith, and particularly if we are anxious. We need to be called back to understanding the nature of the sovereignty of God. In fact, one of the primary themes of I Peter is the sovereignty of God. Now II Peter, one of the primary themes is the responsibility of man. So if we lack an understanding of God's sovereignty, then we're going to worship a God that is less than what the Bible teaches us. Anxious people need to understand that God isn't subject to human passions. And because He is a subject, His caring is superior to ours. God's immutability when understood by the finite mind, and we do have finite minds. I know you teenagers think that you don't, but you do. I thought the same thing. By the finite mind, along with an understanding of his absolute sovereignty and his love, aid us when we have moments of deep fear and we sense a loss of control. And God's sovereignty is a primary theme in 1 Peter. And Peter had to learn it. We're not born understanding or acknowledging the sovereignty of God. We're born in acknowledging the sovereignty of self. And it is because of that that we learn humility. Counselors won't help us if they misrepresent the God of the Bible. Good biblical counselors are necessary, but if they misrepresent the God of the Bible and they offer instead some less than knowledge of God that's found in scripture, then that becomes idolatry. If we think of God less than the God that is presented in scripture, that becomes idolatry. We have conjured up a God of our own choosing. A God of our own making. And that doesn't help our anxiety. And so, because of this, we are subject to human frailty. God is not. God is impassable. He is not subject to emotion. or to feelings. Next slide. It's a great quote here. This is from the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. And this is from the section on the sovereignty of God. It's but one only living and true God. I think most of us would agree with that. Whose subsistence is in and of himself. In other words, he has no need. Infinite in being and perfection. That doesn't mean that he has reached a level of perfection that is superior to yours and mine. It means that his being and his perfection are without a ceiling. Whose essence cannot be comprehended by any but himself. Why do we have the revelation of scripture? Because God cannot be comprehended by human minds. We have to be told about this triune God. He is a most pure spirit, as Jesus said. He is invisible. He is without body, parts, or passions. He is immortal. He dwells in the light, which no man can approach unto. He's immutable, he's unchangeable. He is immense. He's everywhere at the same time, and yet he's spirit. He's eternal. God is incomprehensible until we meet Him by the Spirit of God and the Word and Jesus Christ. He's almighty, in every way infinite, most holy, most wise. Now this begins to shake us a little bit here. I've seen some things in my life where God was not quite that wise, but He is. He's most free. In fact, you and I, until we're born again, are enslaved to sin and we are still given to sin. We're not as free as God, never will be as free as God. We will be submissive to Him in heaven. He's most absolute. He works all things according to the counsel of His own immutable, His unchangeable and his most righteous will for his own glory. He's most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering. He's abundant in goodness and truth. He forgives iniquity. He forgives transgression. He forgives sin. The reward of them that diligently seek him. Are you seeking him this morning? When you're anxious about a particular thing, when you have care in your life about a particular thing, do you seek him or do you seek some other means? He's a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. And yet most just and terrible in his judgments, hating all sin, who will by no means clear the guilty. Now, and if you happen to read this, by the way, you can Google the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. After this particular statement, there will be a list of scriptures that are as long as the statement is. So search them. It's helpful to understand that God is not made up of parts. doesn't have fingers, hands, arms, and legs. In the incarnation Jesus embodied, He became the God-Man. But the triune God is Spirit. He is simply God. In other words, His love isn't just one part of Him. but that's his nature, and that's just part of the nature of God. Well, I like this story, God is love, and that's a wonderful, well, that's fine, he is. John wrote that, God is love. But there are literally myriads of other attributes of God that he is in connection with his love. And all of these deep theological truths, and they are, they are given to us so that we would meditate on them. They're necessary, but they're acutely necessary when we are anxious. Why is this happening to me? Why is this happening to my friend? Why is this happening to me? in my family. Why is this happening in our church? And so forth and so on. Why? Because the Lord our God is but one, the only living and true God. Oh, how we forget that. I forget it. We forget it. Next slide. So we easily misrepresent the God of the Bible. And we seek a quick remedy. Could be our adultery a solution to human frailty. As I mentioned last Sunday morning, we're looking for the drive-through window remedy for our anxiety. And it just doesn't happen. What we need, and what I need when I'm most anxious, is not a God brought down to my level. I don't want a God brought down to my level. Or I might think I do, but I don't. A God that's just a little bigger than humanity. Just slightly bigger than my problems. And then I can dump my cares on him. But I need the God of the Bible in all of his splendor. I need that to be proclaimed to me boldly. I need to have that wow, I coulda had a V8 moment. That lifts me out of human sorrow, human conditions. Does that mean the anxiousness will go away? It means that the peace of God will come into my life and help to quell that anxiousness. And in order for this to happen, there's a connection between humility and anxiety. That's what Peter writes here. The command for humility sometimes causes us to be anxious. because we know we're not humble. Notice how the verse reads. Look at verse six. Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him for he cares for you. I want you to notice something. Notice how the verse reads. Notice that at the end, therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, comma, that he may exalt you in due time, comma, casting all your care upon him for he cares for you, period. The scripture does not read humble yourselves, period, and cast your anxiety, period. What does this teach us? Well, one of the great things that it teaches us, and in the Greek, the commas are present, One of the great things that it teaches us that even the punctuation in scripture is inspired. Commons are given to help us read and read effectively so that we come to a particular point and we pause. We just talked about that, did we not? That's the reason they're given. Humility and anxiety then are linked. And it's because of these commas, just a little punctuation mark, that we see that. If we humble ourselves, we are moved upon by the Spirit of God to cast our care upon him. And we do that because there's a command, because he cares for us. Scripture must be the solution and the catalyst for our anxiety. And pastors and leaders ought to recognize that patience and humility are essential. Turn with me to I Thessalonians chapter five, briefly for a moment. I Thessalonians chapter five. Remember, Peter started writing chapter five addressing shepherds. So shepherds are here, sheep are here, we're all here. Verse 14, 1 Thessalonians 5. Now we exhort you brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all. That's the admonition. And so pastors or leaders ought to recognize that patience and humility, again, are linked, and they are essential to dealing with the flock of God. Next slide. Dr. David Steinmetz, who is a divinity professor at Duke Seminary, He is a Lutheran and Reformation scholar. He wrote this about Scripture. Scripture is not in our power. It is not at the disposal of our intellect, and it's not obliged to render up its secrets to those who have theological training, merely because they'll learn. Scripture imposes its own meaning. It binds the soul to God through faith. Because the initiative of Scripture remains in the hands of God, we must humble ourselves in his presence and pray that he will give us understanding and wisdom. And so he gives us to us as we meditate on the sacred text. While we may take courage from the thought that God gives understanding to the humble, and he does, we should also heed the warning that the truth of God can never coexist with human pride. They are incompatible. And we'll learn about that, why they're incompatible, obviously from the devil himself. Now, Paul Tripp, this weekend, I get, on Wednesday, I get an email from him, and he had a little prayer that I copied. I thought it was quite good. He said, Lord God, help me to understand that every word of Scripture is beneficial and useful to me. He says, I am prone, Father, to want to skip over pieces of the Bible that I feel really don't line up with where I am or what I'm going through. And I need you to help me to see how that all of Scripture is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. Again, there's that pill effect. I need this gospel for anxiety, or I need this gospel for my illness, instead of reveling in all the word of God. He said it's profitable, as II Timothy says, for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and training in righteousness. Help me to see what the point is in every single one of your words. Marvelous little prayer. And if we pray this, I suspect that the Spirit of God will give us insight into that. Next slide, brother. Now here's the thing. I'm gonna bring this to a close in the next couple of slides here. We learn to cast our anxiety in God's house. When we become extremely anxious, one of the things we do is we withdraw from other people, especially we withdraw from the preaching and teaching of God's Word. When we are anxious, we need the body of Christ. We need the Creator. Look at I Peter chapter 4 and verse 19. We spent some time on this when we were looking at this particular verse. Therefore, that those who suffer according to the will of God commit to their souls to Him in doing good is through a faithful Creator. We need the Creator to pattern our life. And that is through the house of God. And one benefit of coming to worship the Lord on the Lord's day is that it should cause us to come to leave free from the cares and the work of this world. And if not, then our anxiety is far, far too much for us to handle ourselves. It needs to be given to the Lord in humility. Gathering with the saints on the Lord's day, is crucial to aid our anxiety. It is our relationship with the body of Christ. I need it. You need it. Peter needed it. The sojourners needed it. It never changes. God's immutable. And so the word he gives us to the church 2,000 years ago still applies today. Amidst our anxieties and fears, we need the word proclaimed and we need the word heard. Our fears cause us to doubt God's goodness. We just covered this a moment ago. His faithfulness or His promise to save. Some of you here this morning may be doubting your salvation, and one of the reasons that is is because you have allowed the adversary to dispense to you some anxiety where you question the goodness of God. The church, then, is crucial, particularly when we wrestle with anxiety. And so we read from Psalm 77 last Sunday. Let's go back to that. Psalm 77, I'm not gonna read it in its entirety, but I do want to point out a particular verse. This is a Psalm of Asaph, and if you read it, and you should, when you get home today, if you have the opportunity or sometime later to speak, This is, in my Bible, it's entitled The Consoling Memory of God's Redemptive Works. We're gonna do that here in just a moment. But notice what Psalm 77, verse 13 says. Well, look at verse 11. I will remember the works of the Lord. Surely I will remember your wonders of old. I will also meditate on all your work and talk of your deeds. Your way, O God, is in the sanctuary. Who is so great a God as our God? One of the great lies of our adversary is that you can be saved without the Lord's house. You don't need to go every Sunday or have opportunity to worship with God's people. You're a man or you're a woman to yourself. What a lie. And because of our culture and because of the wiles of the devil, we succumb to that. Your way, oh God, is in the sanctuary. Casting anxiety on God is a humbling of self. That's what Peter says. And when we do this, it's crucial that we understand that we are humbling ourselves because God's hand is mighty. And his desire is that we be clothed with humility. Now casting our anxiety on God is not something that we do after we humble ourselves. It's something that we do in order to humble ourselves. Next slide. Why do we need our God to take anxiety away in order for us to be humble? What does it mean to be humble? We talked briefly about this last Sunday morning. It means that when I made a mistake, that I admitted and apologized for it. It means that when I am weak or sick or inadequate for a task, not being too proud to ask for help. And all these things, we think these are common sense, but we rarely do them. It means working and spending time with ordinary people. being indifferent to accolades. Humility is a risk of losing face. Jesus was humiliated on the cross. He lost his face, literally lost face because of the crown of thorns and the beating that took place on his practice head. It means not being noticed. It means not being appreciated, not being praised, and not being rewarded. It's the risk of losing faith. That's what humiliation means, losing faith. One of the greatest things about the God of the Bible is that he commands us to let him work for us before commanding us to work for him. Come to me, Jesus said, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Great promise, cast your burden on the Lord, he will sustain you. Psalm 55, looked at this last Sunday morning. From of old, Isaiah wrote, no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides thee who works for those who wait for him, Isaiah 64. This is the God that saved us. This is the God that cares for us. Next slide. It's closed with us this morning. God wants to bear your burdens. And as believers, when we say, well, I can carry this my own, I can do it on my own, the point is we can't. It demonstrates his power to us. It demonstrates his compassion to us. So we learned last Sunday that the word casting means to throw the garments as they did on the colt that Jesus rode in on Palm Sunday, and to throw the nets that Peter was using to fish as it fell through the water. Throw the garments and the nets of your anxiety onto him. He wants to carry that load. Warren Wiersbein, this is a great quote. One of the types of evidences of our pride is our impatience with God. And one of the reasons for our suffering is that we may learn patience. our impatience with God's timing. One of the things I have learned in 50 years of ministry is patience, and it's a learned behavior. At times, I was very impatient. Well, maybe I need to do this to make things work out. Nope. By the way, God never gets in a hurry about anything. One of the types of evidences of our pride is our impatience with God's timing. And one of the reasons for our suffering is that we may learn patience. And Paul Tripp again, and this is a good analogy, poverty is a life of chasing things that have no ability to satisfy. Jesus told Martha in Luke 10, He said, Martha, one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part. It's a choice. And God gave us the responsibility to make that choice. And this good part will not be taken away from her, won't be taken away from me, won't be taken away from you, if we make the good choice. And so we are to choose the good part, which will not be taken away. Let's pray. Father, we thank you this morning for your word. We thank you that you're a God that hears and answers prayer. We thank you that you are a God that as feebly as we read and as we proclaim this morning, that is sovereign in our lives and works all things according to your will, to your glory, and to our goodness. So we pray, Father, if there's any that does not know your Savior, that you would bring them to the foot of the cross Have them be converted this morning as the children of God. May we rely on the scripture. May we learn to meditate on the scripture. May we learn to fellowship with others in the house of God. May we learn, Father, to cast these weights that easily beset us on our Lord Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us. In Jesus' name we make this prayer, amen. We're gonna sing a closing hymn this morning as we, in just a moment, prepare to receive the Lord's Supper. And so if you're here today and the Lord has spoken to your heart, perhaps you have a great deal of anxiety, but you also know that part of the reason that you're anxious is you don't know the Lord has saved you. So the scripture's been very clear, and Peter's talked about it all the way through his first epistle, that even though he is writing to believers, there's always a call to unbelievers. So if you're here this morning, and you do not know the Lord as Savior, then you need to make that right today. The Spirit of God has moved upon your heart. That is the grace of conviction, not performance, the grace of conviction. And that's grace, it's a good thing. And the Lord wants you to respond to His initiative to bring you to faith through the Lord Jesus Christ. We can't save you, but we can take you to a private prayer room, and we can lead you to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus, and you can leave here this morning with the assurance that Jesus is your Savior. So as we sing this morning, if you'll make your way out of the pew, we will, again, we will share the Word of God with you so that you may come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you're here today as a child of God, the Lord may be leading you into the fellowship of this church by a statement of faith or perhaps following the Lord in believer's baptism. We encourage you to do that also. So as we sing, you make your way out of the pew, and we'll be glad to receive you and present you to the Flat Creek family. As a child of God, we all suffer this. This is one of the reasons that we preach exposition, because we come to this, and people just, whoop, let's just jump over that. But it's there for our admonition, and it's there because God wants us to know he cares for us. So what number are we gonna sing, Brother Mike? 638, won't you come as we stand and sing?