Friends of days of glorious morning, I shall see you face to face. That's amazing grace, that's amazing grace, Good morning. Thank you for joining us. If you would stand we'll continue with our song service Hebrews chapter 12 verse 28 says wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear for our God is a consuming fire It's good to be in the Lord's house today by the price. Would you open us an order prayer? Amen, let's all take your hand. Let's turn to hymn number 429. 429, all right, let's sing it. ♪ Hark, hark, the herald angels sing ♪ ♪ Glory to the newborn King ♪ ♪ Hosanna in the highest, sing it loud ♪ I love you. ♪ Come to the Lord and sing ♪ ♪ Glory to the newborn King ♪ ♪ Come to the Lord and sing ♪ ♪ Glory to the newborn King ♪ ♪ Till we meet again in heaven ♪ ♪ By the river we shall see ♪ ♪ We'll know each other through the rain ♪ ♪ When peace comes, when peace has come ♪ ♪ Peace will be as I have known it long ago ♪ ♪ O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave ♪ Looking gently, soft as a baby, born to a lowly virgin girl. to our world. Holy Shepherds, the stars so bright, while the nations lay deep in slumber, looking gently in the night. Oh, what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh. Then there are trumpets, they're rolling off and come to earth. For the promised sender he entered, choosing instead a humble birth. Love came gently, sweetly to save us, knowing the price He'd have to pay. And to all who trust in the Savior, love comes gently still. Let's all stand. Take our hand. Let's turn to him with 423. I love you, Tampa. I love you, Tampa. I love you, Tampa. ♪ It's the time, it's the first, it's the time ♪ ♪ Our hearts will ever be together as one ♪ ♪ We'll go to heaven, we'll go to heaven ♪ ♪ That is the place, that is the time ♪ ♪ The glory of God is right in the sky ♪ Thank you. Thank you. you. you Do you hear what I hear on a Christmas day? Echoes from the stable long ago. Word of God now bundled in a manger lined with hay. Baby with a message born to grow. Hear the sound of chains now broken. Love came down. has spoken songs of hope ringing through the sky on this not so silent night. Oh, to be an angel On the midnight clear, joining in a chorus of unending joy, tell it on the mountain. ♪ Heaven has drawn near ♪ Hand of God with fingers of a tiny boy ♪ Hear the bells resound with glory ♪ Hear them tell The angels' story, songs of hope, ringing through the sky on this not-so-silent night. Voice of God, a newborn cry. A father calls through a gift of love. Chains still broken, though he ain't in the sun. All chains now broken, love came down. God has spoken, songs of hope ringing through the sky. on this night so silent. Hear the bells, resound with glory. Oh, hear them tell. Let's all stand. Take your hand, let's turn it on 433. 433, Away in the Major. Away in the major. Away in the major. Away in the major. ♪ I live for Jesus, how bright it gleams ♪ ♪ I love your Jesus, the crown of the sky ♪ ♪ And say, I pray, the morning is nigh ♪ ♪ Believe me, Lord Jesus, I ask thee ♪ Amen. Thank you, baby. baby, a virgin birth. My God, the high and lofty one, you came to earth to be a slave, servant of all. You washed my you took my fall. And though you were rich, you became poor. That you would die, that I might live. You poured out your soul, even to death. Taking my sin just to forgive me Then they led you down the road To a hill called Calvary I took the nails in your hands and feet You drank the cup of wrath that was reserved for me And though you were rich, you became poor That you would die, that I might live You poured out your soul, even to death Taking my sin just to forgive me. Laid in the ground. A stone cold tomb, the wrath of God resting on you. You knew no sin, yet sin became. From the foundation you are the lamb who was slain. rose again. You hold the keys of death and hell. You conquered sin. You paid my debt, a costly price. I know that I will be with you in paradise. And though you were rich, You became poor, that you would die, that I might live. You poured out your soul, even to death, taking my sin just to forgive. And though you were rich, You became poor, that You would die, that I might live. You poured out Your soul, even to death, taking my sin just to Well, amen, it's good to be in the Lord's house today. If you would take your Bibles, turn to Psalms 31, Psalms 31. We want you to pray for Brother James Benson. He's up preaching in Leavenworth today, not in the prison, but he's up there. Preaching at a church up there. Preacher was out of town. He had lined up a guy to preach for him. He got sick. We're in that season, right, where people get sick. And so we look a little sparse ourselves. We need to pray for one another during this time. It's good to have Dylan and Emma here. The cars all the way from Texas. And it's always good to have Dylan back. We watched him grow up. Man, do we have stories about him, Emma, I'm telling you. We got so many stories about him. But all of them are true and love him. I'm telling you, it's good to watch him grow up. and love God and serve the Lord today. I wanna have the Lavas come up today, or not today, but in two days, a big day in their lives, they're gonna celebrate an anniversary, right? How many years? Two, all right, that's good, yeah. They're easy now. Wait until you have to take your shoes off, okay? This is from the church to both of you. We love you and appreciate you and thank you for working with the young people like you do. We really appreciate your love for God and your service to him. And let's sing happy anniversary to him, okay? Haven't done that for a while. Let's give it a try. Happy anniversary to you. Happy anniversary to you. Happy anniversary, God bless you. Happy anniversary to you. I'm just so thankful to have those kids, and at least have Miss Caitlin. It's a real blessing. I like to tease Lalo, that's why I say that. But it is a real blessing, and when Charles and Crystal were leaving, all the angst of who we're gonna get, and how they're gonna fit, and God just really did a blessing for us. Psalms 31. If you have that, and you can, let's stand one more time in the reading of the word of God, and I'm just gonna read a few verses here, and then we'll pray. It says, in thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Let me never be ashamed. Deliver me in thy righteousness. Bow down thine ear to me. Deliver me speedily. Be thou my strong rock, for in house of defense to save me. For thou art my rock and my fortress. Therefore, for thy name's sake, lead me and guide me. Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me. For thou art my strength. Lord, we love you and we thank you for your word that we hold in our hands. How many times, if we're not careful, we just kind of blow through the reading that we're trying to do to maybe get it done for the day or whatever. Lord, I thank you for the Psalms. The more I study in them, the more I recognize their importance to the rest of the Bible. And I thank you for David and his life and having written the majority of the Psalms, what insight and how you worked in this man of God. Lord, just thank you for it. I pray that you would open our hearts and make us receptive to your word today and teach us from your word how that we might better live for you and serve you with our lives. Lord, if there'd be one that's not saved today, Lord, might this be the day they'd come to saving knowledge of Jesus. Have your will and your way done in our lives and our hearts, and we'll give you the honor and glory and praise for what you do. We ask these things in your blessed and most holy name. And all the people said, amen. You may be seated. So I've entitled this Hold On to Your Faith. Hold on to your faith. So we know the world is in mass chaos. We've got a new president's going to be seated here on January 20th. Some in our nation are holding great hope for that, that things might turn around, things might look different. I think, Christian, our hope needs to be in the Lord Jesus Christ, that we might serve him. He is the answer, man is not. And so, as we think about going into 2025, boy, that's so hard to say, 2025. Do you remember 1999 and we were getting ready to go into 2000? Why 2K? Ooh, Y2K. And people were burying food and hiding money and all that kind of stuff, because, you know, computers will crash and we'll all die. And lo and behold, here we are, 2025, almost there, just like we can fall over and touch it, right? 2025. Back at 1999, I thought, Maybe there'll never be a 2025. But here we are. And you know, time keeps marching on. The Lord Jesus hasn't come back yet. And so we need to stay busy for the Lord, amen? We need to hold on. I wanna finish faithful. I don't wanna finish halfway. I don't wanna like... Get close to the end and then quit. I wanna go all the way. I wanna get across that finish line. I'm looking forward to when I step on glory shore and I meet my Savior. I don't wanna have to hang my head and say, you know, I did really good for 10 years and then I gave up. Life got too hard, it was too difficult. I just gave up serving him. No, I wanna finish all the way. I wanna finish strong, cross that finish line and bring honor and glory to our Lord and Savior. So this psalm is a pretty unique psalm in the fact that Jesus quoted some of his final words from this psalm. I thought about maybe doing that as a quiz and giving you five minutes to find that portion of scripture, but just stay with me, I'll identify it when we get there. This psalm contains one of David's many prayers during his trials. Anybody here have trials and testings? Of course we do. We're human, right? I mean, that's just part of life. And so I'm guaranteeing you, maybe between now and 2025, you're gonna have trials in your life. You're gonna have testings. I don't care how good it looks, they're coming. They're just around the corner. And so as we think about trials and testings, when we look at this portion of scripture today, there's seven signs in this portion of scripture of a person of faith during a trial. So as you're going through a trial, there's seven things we're gonna look at today, hopefully, seven things. that should be evident in our life if we really love God and we're really seeking to live for Him in all that we do. Our first one is this, a dependency, okay? When you face a trial, when you face a difficulty, when you're seeking to hold on, there has to be a dependency. A person of faith depends upon God for deliverance. Now I love my wife and I depend on her for all kinds of things. Like most of you notice that we always match. Guess who is not in charge of that? I'm not in charge of that, because it doesn't matter to me. I'll put striped ties with striped suit. I mean, but her, it's a deal. And so what she does is on Saturday night, she goes in, she picks out her clothes, and then she goes, oh, I'll put goofball in this, and I'll hang this tie here. And so when I walk in on Sunday morning, I know I'm wearing the suit with the tie. It's just that simple. I like it that way. I love it that way. I'm glad she cares what we look like. I do, too. I mean, I don't want to look like a goof up here, but she lays that all out. She takes care of it, so I depend upon her for that, but I'm telling you, she's not my whole dependency in life. I depend on her. I love her. I'm thankful for her. I'm thankful for what she brings to our marriage. I'm thankful how she completes me and makes me one. I'm so thankful for that. But I'm telling you, there's sometimes I've got to step out, even from my dependency upon her, and I have to say, God, you're the only one. You're the only one. Now, I know she's going through this time where we're losing her mom. Of course, she's in hospice care and all that. And she knows as much as I love her, I'm trying to make this easy on her. I've switched my schedule all around. We go twice a day to see her mom and do all that. And I tell her, look, whatever you want from me, you just ask, OK? This is the perfect time for her to get almost anything. Almost, anything. Yeah, don't take too good of notes. But because I call this the no regret zone, okay? This is a point in our life that when we get through it, we want to look back and not say, oh, I wish I'd done this, and I wish I'd done that. I told her, if you want to stay all night, we'll stay all night. Whatever you want to do, I'm with you. I want to encourage you and help you during this time. But even in the midst of all that, Our dependency has to be upon God. He is the one. that she has to truly rely on. You may have people in your life that you rely on, that you hope won't let you down, you won't fail. Listen, I'm telling you, people fail all the time. Your number one dependency needs to be upon Jesus. He's the one who loves you, he's the one who died for you, he's the one that saved you, he's the one that's given you a home in heaven, and your number one dependency needs to be upon him. He's the one in the dark of the night, When no one else is awake, when you can raise no one else, he is the one that you can turn to. God, help me, give me what I need, help me, guide me through this difficult time. God, you are the one that I'm relying upon. And so dependence upon God is so important if we're gonna live for him and serve him with our lives. My crazy machine blocked on me, sorry. So we gotta have a dependency on him. Verse one and two says, in thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Let me never be ashamed. Deliver me in thy righteousness. And so David's crying out. He's taking refuge in God. He's telling God, in you do I put my trust. Never let me be ashamed, God. I'm putting all my trust in you. Deliver me in thy righteousness. And then he says, bow down thy ear to me. Deliver me speedily. Be thou my strong rock. or a house of defense to save me. Do you have a strong rock in your life? Do you have someone you hold on to? Someone that you can hang to? I'm telling you, Jesus Christ is the one. During whatever trial, during whatever testing of your faith that you go to, God is there. He is there to be your help. In Psalms 2, in verse number 12, we read, kiss the son lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way. When his wrath is kindled but a little, blessed are all they that put their trust in him. That word kiss there means to worship in purity. And so he's talking about worship the Lord in purity. Worship him wholly. Just wholly and purely worship him. Draw close to him in your time of need. Draw close to him as you walk with him every day of your life. I'm so thankful that when we went through Cindy's thing with cancer, you've heard the testimony before. There was a time that the doctor came to me and he told me, he said, look, we've had to stop our surgery. We've had to move her in the ICU. And I'm questioning, like, so how long will that be? What does that look like? And he goes, we don't know. He goes, I said, so will she eventually get good enough that we can go home? He goes, she may never get any better. You know how low that puts you? I'm glad at that point that all my faith wasn't in her because I knew where to turn. I said, God, I need your help. This is my wife who I love so much. You've given her to be a help to me and me to her and we've become one all these years. God, I'm not ready to give her up yet. I'm so glad that I could pour my heart out to God in the middle of KU University there at that hospital. I could call out to him. I didn't have to make phone calls. I didn't have to go to somebody and have them pray over me. I could go directly to God and pour my heart out to him. I'm glad that he's my rock. And you know him as your Lord and Savior. He can be your rock also if you'll seek to draw close to him and worship him and seek to lift him up in your life. He deserves our praise for the protection from our enemies. In Psalms 18.2 and verse 31 and 46 and 19.14, we read, the Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer. My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of salvation, my stronghold. Where do you turn when you're in the midst of discouragement, when you're in the midst of adversity, when you're in the midst of a trial and it seems like there's no way out? Where do you turn? You turn to the rock, it's bigger than us. Deuteronomy 32 verse number four says the rock His work is perfect, for all his ways are just. A God of faithfulness and without injustice. Righteous and upright is he. That's my God. That's who I turn to. That's the one that's higher than I. He is the one that I run to in the midst of adversity, trial, and problems. I turn to him and say, God, I need you in my life. That's what David did too. He had a dependency. The second thing was he had a trust. He had a trust, a person of faith, trust in God's guidance. Verses three and four says, for thou art my rock and my fortress. Therefore, for thy namesake, lead me and guide me. Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me, for thou art my strength. Trust in the Lord, seek his guidance, seek his leading. David cried out for God to lead and guide him. When you're facing a difficulty or trial, what you need to do is pray and say, God, if this is of you, I need you to lead me through this problem. I need you to lead me through this trial. God, I need you to help me to get to the other side. I cannot see what lies ahead, but you do, God, and so I wanna just trust you. I wanna walk with you. I can remember as a little boy, I grew up right over here off 47th Street. You would hang a left, you'd go right up the driveway where I grew up when I was a little big boy. So, when you go by there, please put your hand over your heart. So, I grew up there. We grew up on 10 acres. We had some horses and stuff and had pasture. And I can remember one time my dad said, hey, I'm going to walk back to the pond. And I'm like, I want to go with you. Man, those weeds, I was about this tall and the weeds were about that tall. And my dad starts walking out across, and I go, hold my hand. He goes, walk in my footsteps. We walked through that pasture, me following his big steps, walking through that pasture. He was knocking the weeds down, and I was following him. When we go through life, that's what we have to do. Our dependency, our trust needs to be in him. I trusted my dad. I couldn't see where we were going. I trusted that he could see where we're going. I trusted he knew the way, and I couldn't see it, but I trusted him, and he led the way. It's so good that when troubles and trials come into our life, we can trust him. We can seek to follow him in all that happens. The third thing that we need in our life is submission. Submission. A person of faith submits to God's will. He doesn't balk at it, he doesn't fight it, he's willing to say, okay God, if this is what you have for me, I'm just gonna submit myself to it. Verses five through eight. Into thine hand I commit my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God, of truth. I have hated them that regard lying vanities, but I trust in the Lord. I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy, for thou hast considered my trouble, thou hast known my soul in adversities, and hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy. Thou hast set my feet in a large room. Even when he faced death, David promised that he would trust the Lord. He sought to walk with God. As he ran from Saul, who tried on many occasions to kill him, David just trusted in God. We see that Jesus even quotes from these words on the cross. In Luke 23, 46, he says, and when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Having said thus, he gave up the ghost. And so important that David, put his trust in Jesus Christ, put his trust in him. And so for us, we need to put our trust in God. David put his trust in God. Jesus put his trust in God. We need to put our trust in God that we might walk with him, that our faith might show submission and obedience as we live this life for him. Trials come for a reason. They come to help us to draw closer to God and to become more like Him. So when you face a trial, don't say, I'm gonna run, I wanna go the other way. Because many times there's nothing you can do about it. You're there. The best thing you can do is turn to God and say, God, I need your help through this. I don't know the way, you do, lead me through it. Psalms 55 and verse number 18 says, he will redeem my soul in peace for the battle which is against me, for they are many who are aggressive towards me. We can rely upon him, he will protect us and lead us as we submit to his leading in our life. The fourth thing that we find today in this portion of scripture is humility, humility. Oh, that we might learn to be humble. By the way, if you think you're humble, you're probably not humble, okay? Trials have a way of humbling us if we'll let them. They bring us to the point that we realize we're not what we thought we were. We're not able to do what we thought, and what it should do is it should transform us, trials should transform us into recognize, I can't make it through life without God leading me. I can't do anything without him. Can you order the next breath you take? Nope, that's all up to God. Man can do the best that man can do, but God is the one, and we just need to learn just humbly submit to him. Verse number nine says, have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am in trouble. Mine eye is consumed with grief. Yea, my soul and my belly, it's overtaken me. For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing. My strength felleth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed. I was a reproach among all mine enemies, but especially among my neighbors, and a fear to mine acquaintance. They that did see me without fled from me. I am forgotten as a dead man, out of mind. I am like a broken vessel, for I've heard the slander of many. Fear was on every side. While they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life. David knew what it was like to just trust God, to put all of his trust in Him, to allow Him to lead him. He was a broken man, and during every trial that he faced, he sought to come closer to God that he might learn humility in his life. When you pastor a trial, just remember, God's leading you through it to teach you something, and one of those things He's trying to teach you is humility. The fifth thing is perseverance. Perseverance. A person of faith perseveres during a trial. Verses 14 through 18. But I trusted in thee, O Lord. I said, thou art my God. My times are in thy hand. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from them that persecute me. Make thy face to shine upon thy servant. Save me for thy mercy's sake. Let me not be ashamed, O Lord, for I have called upon thee. Let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave. Let the lying lips be put to silence, which speak grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous. Perseverance. David continued to face his enemies. Even though he knew people were trying to kill him, he continued to walk with God. He continued to face the problems and the issues that came his way. During every trial, he sought to persevere through God's help. In the face of his attacks, David's faith in God persevered. When you find yourself facing trials and testings and tribulations, just persevere, just hang on a little bit longer and trust God. So when I was in high school, I was a miler and there were times in running a mile that, especially when you were in a race, there were times that you'd come to the wall And it's a point where your body's saying, let's just stop and walk. But in your mind, you're thinking, I'm in a race. I'm wanting to win. I'm wanting to complete this race. And so you would push through that wall. You would persevere through that wall. So in our life, we're gonna face hard, difficult times. We just need to say, God's help, I'm pushing through. quitting. I'm not backing up. I'm not walking away from God. I'm not quitting the one who loves me the most. I'm not quitting and walking away. I'm going to continue and finish this course that God has given me. Persevere. In Romans chapter 5, Verse three, and it says, not only so, but we glory in tribulations. Also knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope make it not a shame, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. Some of you this last year, you walked through some pretty difficult things. And I'm sure that if you could have picked them for you, you wouldn't have picked them for you. But God did. And God was there to help you through it. He helped you through it. And he wants to help you every day to be victorious to the point that you can then use it as a testimony to those around you. He doesn't hurt us to hurt us. He allows hurt to come into our life to solidify us, to make us a better witness and a better testimony for his glory. Gratitude, gratitude, the sixth thing, gratitude. A person of faith is grateful for God's faithfulness. I'm so thankful that God is faithful. He is faithful. He's proved himself faithful to me over and over again. In verse 19 through 21, we read, oh, how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee, which thou hast wrought for them that trusted in thee before the sons of men. Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence. From the pride of man, thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. Bless be the Lord, for he has showed me his marvelous kindness in a strong city, where I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes. Nevertheless, thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee. David expressed his gratitude for God's ongoing faithfulness. When his faith began to falter, he turned to God that much more. When your faith seems to be tested to the point you want to quit, just trust God that much more. Just persevere. Turn to him, rely upon him. God, I need you to help me. And then when you get to the other side of that difficulty and you've won that victory and you've got past that trial, then stop and say, God, thank you for helping me through this trial. Thank you for bringing me through this difficult time. Thank you, God, for helping to exercise me, to grow me. Thank you, God, for caring enough to develop me to be more like you. And then God, help me to use this. to bring glory to your name. That's the real realm, if you would, of gratitude. Starts off by giving thanks for what God has done in our life, and the circle of how he strengthened us, and then to the point of God, use this for your glory. However it would bring glory to you, then use it for your glory. Finally, seventh is encouragement. Encouragement. A person of faith encourages others to turn to God. Verse 23 and 24. Oh, love the Lord, all ye his saints. For the Lord preserveth the faithful and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer. Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart. All ye that hope in the Lord. So, eight or nine, maybe 10 years ago, I had a friend that I had made through being on the board of directors at Heartland Baptist Bible College. He was a good man, pastor, church in Texas. And, We'd begun this friendship and so forth. He had kids that were on the mission field. And I appreciate families that have kids on the mission field. He had a, I can't remember if it was a grandson or a granddaughter, die on the field. And it hurt me. Because this is my friend. I can't, I'll be honest, a lot of times I stop and I think, how would it be if I lost one of my grandkids? Man. So I had this heaviness on my heart. And I thought, I know what I'll do. I'll call and encourage my family. And I called him. You know, sometimes it's not what you say. Sometimes it's that you care enough. I called him, I said, hey, brother, I just wanted to call and encourage you. I heard about your grandchild. And then I started to cry. Just cried. I didn't think of anything else to say, but I cried. Brother Messinger, I want you to know, your tears and the phone call mean more than anything you ever said to me. Just the fact you care. Just the fact. You may witness people go through a hard time and you may say, I wanna say something real encouraging. And a lot of times, the wrong thing gets said. Sometimes it's just best to come up, maybe give the person a hug if you're a hugger. Say, I want you to know I'm praying for you. That's all you gotta say. I want you to know I'm praying for you. I don't know how to pray. but I'm praying for you and leave it at that. Don't say something dumb, okay? Just say I'm praying for you, I wanna encourage you. Man, there's been times people come by and at times they don't even recognize that I've been going through a difficulty and they just stop and say a simple thing that encourages me in a great way. Just encourage one another. When we go through these trials, when we go through these testings, what they ought to do is help us to realize that, hey, there's going to be others, and I'm going to witness them go through what I've gone through. And maybe I can go to them and just put an arm around them and tell them I'm praying for them. And maybe they may reach to me and say, hey, I know you've been through this. What did you do? How can I get through this? What do I do? Where do I turn? and we can then encourage them to continue to serve God, continue to put him first in your life, continue to draw close to him. David didn't just care about himself. He wanted to encourage others. When he faced the trials, when he faced the temptations, when he faced all that he went through, he could've quit. Probably one of the greatest things David's known for is his sin with Bathsheba. And he could've quit because of that. And people could have pushed him away and said, oh, what a vile man. But then as you study, you find out that David was loved by God greatly because of his tender heart, because of the remorse in his soul and how he turned his life back to God. And God went on and used David in a great and mighty way to write these Psalms for us to read and to study for ourselves. And David always looked to that point, say, God, thank you. Thank you for this difficulty. Thank you that I went through this. God, thank you for loving me enough to get my attention while I'm in this sin, for bringing me back. God, thank you, thank you, thank you. Now, we might be an encouragement ourselves as we walk through whatever difficulty it is. Hebrews 3.13 says, but exhort one another daily. while it is called today. Lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. Isaiah 49, six says, it is too small a thing that you should be a servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel. I will also make you a light of the nations so that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. And then Acts 13, 47. For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. Trials, difficulties come in our lives sometimes that others might be saved. What a wonderful thing. What a wonderful thing that the lost world can watch a saved person go through great difficulty and say, how did they do that? How did they make it through that? How are you able to accomplish those things? And then it gives us opportunity to say, it's by the grace of God. If I didn't have God, I don't know where I'd be, right? I've been with some of you and we've walked through those things and if it wasn't for God, we didn't know where the next step would come. But God was faithful. And it gives us opportunity to testify of the great God that we love and that we serve. Are you gonna go through a testing this year? You almost bet on it. How you gonna come through it? Are you gonna exceed and excel and make it to the next level? Or will it knock you out of service for God? will cause you to go, eh, if that's the way God's gonna be, I'm gonna walk away. That doesn't mean those things will quit, by the way. He's the one to hold on to in our time of troubles, trials. Lord, we love you, and we thank you for the truth of your word. We pray to God that you might be honored and glorifying, use it in our lives and our hearts, that we might better serve you. We ask these sayings in your blessed and most holy name, Amen. Let's go ahead and stand. We'll have a moment of invitation today. If God spoke into your heart, encourage you to come. The altar's open and God's leading you. We'd encourage you to come today. Let's sing. is begun to thee, O Lamb of God. Just as I am, and waiting not to lay my soul upon Thy blood, to Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot, O Lamb of God, I come. Just as I am, though tossed about with many a problem, ♪ My fears and fears within ♪ ♪ Without a land of God I come ♪ ♪ I come ♪ ♪ Just as I am, O wretched mind ♪ Spiritual spirit, wing of the mind, pray all I need in thee to find, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. Just as I am, thou wilt receive, wilt welcome heart and lips redeem, because I promise thine in evil Lamb of God I All right, couple announcements. Year of end giving, if you wish to make a year of end donation to the church, please have that done by next Tuesday, December 31st. Anything thereafter that will be recorded in 2025 ledger. New Year's Day we'll be having our service normal on Wednesday evening at 7 PM. And then church cleaning sign up sheet still has some entries in there getting filled up pretty quick. So if you want to be part of that ministry please sign up. Patch program will resume. On Wednesday January 8th. Details will. Come on the new semester. And team cleaning will be on Saturday January 11th. PM. Please bring money. pulled pork sliders please i'm a yankee i don't know how to make it uh... brother to price can you close in prayer please