You are a dream come true Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's not the same. oh okay Good morning. So, Well, good morning Looks like y'all survived Christmas praise the Lord Okay, now if you can just make it through New Year's, huh? All right There's always a A test to see, of course, people don't write so many checks anymore, but how long into January is it before you start getting the right number behind it? But anyway. Okay, well, we'll look at announcements here in a minute. We'll ask you to begin singing with us. Bob's going to come and lead us. Joy to the World. If you want to look at the hymn notes, 125, otherwise we'll have them on the screen here. That's the only one with less verses, and the rest of them are all. All right, guys, let's stand and sing 125, Joy to the World. We'll sing one, two, and four, 125. Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let every heart prepare Him room, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and heaven and nature sing. Joy to the world, the Savior reigns. Number four. All right, you can turn to 132. Angels, we have heard on high. We'll sing all four verses there. Page 132. ♪ Angels we have heard on high ♪ ♪ Sweetly singing o'er the plains ♪ ♪ And the mountains in reply ♪ ♪ Echoed with their joyous strains ♪ ♪ In excelsis Deo ♪ ♪ Gloria in excelsis Deo ♪ ♪ Can words like this truly be ♪ O come, O come, O come, O come, to Bethlehem. ♪ And whose birth the angels sing ♪ ♪ From the dark of night to day ♪ ♪ Christ, the Lord, our new-born King ♪ ♪ Glo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o ♪ ♪ When He stills us daily, oh ♪ ♪ Sing with me a hymn to Thee ♪ ♪ Jesus, Lord of heaven and earth ♪ ♪ We rejoice in Thy glory ♪ ♪ Let us sing, let us sing, let us sing, let us sing ♪ You may be seated. Okay, praise the Lord. Many of our travelers been out and back, but we got a few more of them we need to get back home. And when's Abby coming back? Tuesday. Okay, so Abby's coming in Thursday. Lindsey's mom and dad head back to Wyoming. Somewhere in there. Yet to be determined, your mom and dad going to Florida. I suppose the back seat's all full up. Get your ride. Yeah, okay. All right. So we still got some more people you can pray for as they're traveling. One, if you got something you can ride on, Here's another prayer request Chris just gave me. These are fellows that he used to work with a few years back, a fellow by the name of Del Arkin, lives in Arkansas, that sounds like a good place, right? And he's been diagnosed with cancer, given three months to live, and a friend of his, that'd be a good friend, okay, Rick is going to drive from here drive down to Arkansas and see if he can witness to him and hopefully lead him to the Lord so you might pray for safe trip for Rick, but also for that He'd have opportunity to talk to Dell and that he'd understand it and trust Christ before it's too late If you haven't checked your mailbox, please do so we've got some new prayer cards out there. Thank you Karen we got the We usually think of them as home missionaries, but US-based missionaries on one side. On the other side, you've got our foreign missionaries. So laminated, so it'll last all year long, right? Okay. And there's a space in there if we have to write in somebody else with a magic marker. But anyway, use that to remember to pray for these folks and see what else we got. I think I sent this out as a, Email, some of you guys are talking about getting stuff in email. And other ones that don't have that, if I'm missing you and you don't do email, some of you need to check your email. Oh yeah, I haven't checked it last week. There was an urgent prayer request, you missed it. But anyway, there's an update here from the Hermans, kind of giving you some idea what they've been up to for the last year. What is it? 10,000 miles, been in 54 churches. So we need to be praying for these folks. They're like 77% or something trying to get to Ireland. And then their goals for the new year. So you might look at that, pray for them. New calendar, appreciate. That being made here each each month here through this last year and We thank you for Andrea putting that together for us each each month See, we've got anything else in here. Anyway, I trust you do take time to read some of these and Some of them are kind of long It's up both sides but that you aren't just Dumping them in your emails that you take time to read about some of these missionaries with her Some of the challenges they face and to know how to better pray for them Okay. Oh and there are new if you want to read your Bible through I know there's all kinds of different schedules out there you can just go straight through. This one has you reading a little in the Old Testament, one of the poetry books, and then something in the New Testament each day. But you can kind of check it off as you go there. Okay, I think that's probably enough for announcements. And let's see. Next one up here is a way to manger. Dr. Bob, do you want to come up here and Lead the way. 157, if you're looking at your hymn book, all three verses. All right, 157, let's stand up and sing all three verses, Away in a Manor, 157. The Lord is with thee. The bread of our Jesus, the bread He makes, I love Thee, O Jesus. And then page 145, O Come All Ye Faithful, 145. We'll sing all the verses there as well. 145. O come, let us adore him, O come, let us adore him, O come, let us adore him, O come, let us adore him, O come, let us adore him. Stand up, all ye angels, stand up! O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, You may be seated. You can stay seated if you want, but if you want to get up and greet those around you, please do so, because I got some shuffling around to do here a minute. Hi, kiddo. Good to see you. Okay. I didn't know if I bumped or something. Okay. Now I'm putting up the screen. I just saw some leftover giving envelopes. If you have, yours should be in your mailbox downstairs, but some reason you didn't get one, you want one, let us know and we'll get you one. That's the only time you're a number around here. Okay. Otherwise, we try to use the names the Lord's given us here. Okay. If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Isaiah 43. Isaiah 43. Okay. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day, the opportunity you have Open your word and to read it, study it, apply it to our lives. Pray that you'd help us to truly learn that our lives would be changed because of what we read and study and apply, that you can help us to see progress in our Christian life. Not that we're trying to impress anybody else, but you're observing our lives and help us to see growth there. We do pray for those that are still traveling this week, for Lindsey's mom and dad and Abby, others at Alley, headed back to school and back home again. Pray you give them safety in their driving and flights. And we thank you for the many miles that you've protected people from already here this fall, traveling. and the moves that people have made. We pray that you'd help Sandy to find a good church down there in Texas, get to know people down there. Lord, we thank you now for your word as we look forward into the new year ahead of us. I mean, it's just another day really on a calendar, but oftentimes we think about that as it's time to make some changes. I want to do things differently. the next year than maybe we did behind. We just pray you'll guide us by your Holy Spirit today, in Jesus name, amen. All right, so we're looking at Isaiah 43. We're gonna be looking, zeroing in on verse 18 to 21. But think a bit about New Year's resolutions. I know some people make them, some don't. Just a kind of a tip that you probably already know, but try to make them measurable, you know, because sometimes we just say, oh, well, I want to do better. Well, how do we know if we're doing better? Something that you can measure, you can tell whether or not you're making any progress. And then also to make them realistic. Sometimes we set the goal too high. We can always raise it if we need to, if we reach it. We still need to go a little bit further, but sometimes if it's too high, we get discouraged when we don't achieve those goals. Not everybody quite understands how that's supposed to work. I come across a couple of stories and then we'll get into the scriptures here today. But one lady seems to miss the point with her New Year's resolution. She decided that she wanted to make some changes in her financial habits. And so she understood that it was a good thing to get her credit cards paid off. So she called the credit card company and say, I want to pay off my MasterCard. Do you take Visa? There's a bit of a list. Oftentimes, it depends on what list you look at. People's popular resolutions usually has something to do with weight, how much we're going to lose or hope to lose. But some other ones that came across was to get a job or a better one, to get in shape. Let me remind you, there's all kinds of shapes. Rounds of shape. Spend less, pay down bet, give up a habit, get an education or a better education, you know, kind of the list goes on from there. And I came across another one, I was talking about weight. And this was somebody who followed them for seven years, you know, and that was on the list every year. First year, I will get my weight down to 180. Second year, I will watch my calories till I get below 190. Third year, I will follow my new diet religiously until I get below 200. Fourth year, I will try to develop a realistic attitude about my weight. Now, how do you measure that one? Year five, I will work out five days a week. Year six, I will work out three days a week. Year seven, I'll try to drive by the gym once a week. So, you know, different traditions, you know, you wonder where in the world this come from, but it seems to be around us. at least the English speaking world. I don't know what some of the other ones are singing, but oftentimes around New Year's, if you stay up, it depends on how you want to bring in the new year. If you got to see the ball drop, you know, on TV or something, or I guess become a stick in the mud, I'm ready to, sleep in the new year. But anyway, you're singing Old Ang Zine. And that was written by, at least partially, by Robert Burns back in the 1700s. I think it's been around for a long time. It says it's an old Scottish tune. Old Ang Zine means old, long ago, or the good old days. You ever had people talk about the good old days? Now they may not refer to that, but they talk about those good old days. And what do you remember about the good old days? Why do we want to relish those times to reflect on those good old days? We tend to have selective memories, don't we? We tend to remember the good stuff, And maybe some of the other, the bad things that came along, at least from our perspective, we tend to kind of forget about. But if you spend a lot of time in the past, you're very likely to miss what's going on in the present. And oftentimes even Christians, are kind of caught up in the good old days and we miss out on the present. And that's where we need to be leading the fight and staying on track. You know, I've come across people through the years telling about what they used to do for the Lord, you know, and how they worked in the bus ministry and they did this, that, and the other things. And, you know, the question is, but what are you doing now? You know, I mean, sometimes physically we can't always do what we used to do, you know, but there's usually something that we can be doing for the Lord. How to continue to keep on serving Him, not just simply sit in the bleachers and watch other people do it. And we can continue, as we mentioned here in Sunday school and other times, but the ministry of prayer, there's always room for a few more prayer warriors. And if you look at that prayer sheet of ours, That's just what we come up with that people have shared, related somehow to people here within our church. Plus you have your own families that you can be praying for. But sometimes we think about the past and we want to stay in the past because then we don't have to deal with the pain that we're going through in the present. Sometimes you're remembering relationships before they were broken. You remember loved ones before they passed away. You remember things back when you were young and energetic and kind of didn't have too many cares in the world. We spend time thinking about those and sometimes people desperately want to go back to those days and folks, there's no way of turning back the clock. I've met other people who talk about that. I wish we lived like they did a hundred years ago. Do you really? I miss the stagecoach. Oh, well, there'll be another one in a week. I was probably one of the last ones. Well, some of you might have experienced that. I remember I was a little kid. Still had a path out back. Boy, it was cold out there. Yeah. So no, there's a lot of things that we need to move ahead with. But sometimes, again, we use up our time and energy reliving the past. And I think God has something else in mind for us. Rather than living in the past, we ought to learn from it. We go through things, kind of like going through school. You learn things, you go along, but does anybody want to go back and stay in seventh grade or sophomore in high school? No, we want to move on. And we need to kind of move on our Christian lives as well. Learn from it, but not live in it. Don't get stuck in the past. And the Lord tells us to remember throughout scripture, but to remember what God has done for us in the past. You know, sometimes we're, we need to be reminded that we're facing a trial, a difficulty of some kind. And we need to remind ourselves how God has cared for us in the past and what he can do for us now. And then to be hopeful how God's going to continue to care for us in the future. And so, Don't dwell too much, too long on the path. Learn from it, but don't go back and live there. And as we consider looking at this passage here today, we notice here, first of all, that we want to get ourselves out of the past. And if you're not familiar with Isaiah chapter 43, we'd encourage you to spend a little time there. Maybe read that through a couple of times during the week. But we're not going to look at the whole chapter, but just a little kind of a brief outline of that to know what's going on here in those First, it's kind of divided into a couple of sections. First seven verses talks about God's faithfulness to his people. And that wasn't just something that God did back in the Old Testament. No, he's still faithful to his people today. We can depend on it. There's a lot of things you can't depend on, but you can depend on the Lord, okay? Because he doesn't change. He's not on one day and off the next. Oh, what did I see here the other day? Uh, not, I don't want you to all run out. Uh, and let's see, what's the next one? Uh, 2028 and, uh, start running for president. Uh, cause the, they were showing up the other day in the last four years. He's been on vacation 500 and some days. 40% of his time has been on vacation. But on the other hand, maybe that's a good thing. Somebody said, he's at the beach now. Well, that's fine. As long as he doesn't have a pen in his hand, he can't start writing, letting any more people out of jail or whatever. God wants us to look on into the future. And he's gonna continue to care for us no matter what comes, okay? Good things, difficult things, and God will remain faithful to us. Well, then we see in verses eight through 13, God is telling his people they are to be his witnesses, okay? We are to be satisfied customers. We appreciate what the Lord's done for us. Tell other people about it, okay? I mean, you go to a new restaurant or something, and the service is great, and the food's great, and the prices are great. You know, you tell people, well, we got something a whole lot better than a restaurant. You know, and tell them about the Lord Jesus. He can change their life now throughout eternity. And so he's, and then we look at the rest of the chapter and we see what God is gonna do for his people. And so we wanna focus here in our time here together on Isaiah 43. Look together here with me if you would at verse 18 and on through here. He says, remember ye not the former things, or the past, okay? Neither consider the old things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing. Now it shall spring forth. Shall you not know? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. And so God has some, he says, don't get hung up on the past. God had been, up to this point, God had done some marvelous things. He'd gotten him out of Egypt, got him through the Red Sea, took him through the wilderness for 40 years, you know, got him into the land. I mean, God had been doing some awesome things for us, but he says, don't just live back there. He says, I got some other things that I have. And so who is it that's speaking? Well, it's God. It's not Moses making promises or Aaron or anybody else at that time. It's the Lord saying that. And what does he say to do? He says two things. First of all, he says, Forget the past. Don't be just living back there. Okay. That was good. Learn from it. But then he goes on to say, now I want you to see what I'm going to be doing now. And so for the Israelites, he's telling them how he's going to deliver them. And in fact, he tells us here a few days or a few verses later that, you know, he'd save them. Okay. And he had physically delivered them when they came out of Egypt and old Pharaoh's armies chasing them. And God delivered them, got them safely through the Red Sea and wiped out the army. Okay. Nobody but God can do that. You can say, well, that's a nice story. Well, there's a whole lot more to it, man. They're going back over there with their scuba diving stuff and finding the chariot wheels and everything else down in the bottom of the sea there. It happened, folks. And he says, I'm going to do something different now. He says, something that you never thought of. And he's going to provide redemption for them and for us, but God has some new things in mind. And this is the same God that was talking to these people some, you know, 2,500 years ago or more. He said, forget the past and look to see what I'm going to be doing now. You know, you ever think about what God might want to do through your life and mine? in 2025, you know, it depends on where you're at, you know, but you might be looking forward to it, maybe not so much, but maybe you might be somebody who's, you look back at your life and to be honest, it's been kind of a mess up to this point. And you made a lot of mistakes along the way, made some wrong choices. And he's saying, forget that. What can we do about the past? Can we do anything about it? No, you can't change it. We don't have a time machine and go back. X number of years, so you get a do-over. No, you can't change the past. And yet often Satan will use that as a tool to beat you up, saying, you can't do that. You don't deserve that because look what you did back when, you know, so-and-so, what happened there? You're in no condition to do anything, you know, in the present or in the future. But what does God's word say? It says, if we've confessed those sins, and I say sins plural, because we've all sinned more than once. And God says, we can put that behind us. God says, I've put it behind me. As far as the East is from the West. And as far as the deepest of the sea. If God isn't gonna bring it up again, then why should we? Why should we keep on beating ourselves up about what we did wrong in the past. God's forgiven us. Sometimes we have a harder time forgiving ourselves to realize that God is able to wipe away the sin, to cleanse us and give us a new beginning. And I'm sure all of us, myself included, there's a few things in life that you'd like to be able, if you had the opportunity, you had the means to go back and do it over again. Because you're thinking, you know, that 2020 hindsight, that wasn't such a good decision. I should have done something differently here. And once in a while, we get a rerun that we get another opportunity at it. But many of the times, we don't. And we all have a past, okay? Some of them, somebody's life might be a little bit bright and shinier than yours, but there's still some sin back there. Well, hold your place here in Isaiah. Let me invite you to look back in the New Testament, or forward, I guess I should say, 1 Corinthians chapter six. 1 Corinthians six. I don't think this is in verses in your outline, but you can write it in there. 1 Corinthians six, verses nine through 11. He says, know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revelers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such," what's that next word? Were. What is that? That's past tense. Some of you folks used to be, and you say, well, mine's not in there. Well, it's in there somewhere, okay? God wasn't trying to list all the sins that are out there, okay? But He says, some and such were some of you, but ye are washed. Okay, there's been a change that's take place. God's cleansed you of your sin. You're washed, but you're sanctified. You've been set apart to God. You're justified. You've been declared righteous in the name of the Lord Jesus by the Spirit of our God, okay? God's able to wipe the slate clean, to give us a new beginning. And not that it just happens on January 1st, automatically kind of thing. It does, we confess our sins. If you haven't confessed them, then you need to deal with that. But we see here, again, nobody gets to do them over. But God can, we call them mistakes. They weren't, maybe not all sins, maybe just poor choices, but God wants us to live in the present, not in the past. And we see here too, that we need to start thinking about the present and the future. And to the one who wishes again for the good old days, God says, in a sense, forget them, because God's doing different things now. for the person who's lonely. Forget those thoughts. I know it says easier said than done, but God doesn't want us to keep going back there and just, you know, making ourselves miserable again. God says, I'm with you right now. And I'm making a new way for you. I got some new things in mind for you. And so we might be living in the past, but he says, I want you to look forward. I want you to look into the future to see what God is going to do. Forget it. Look to me. I'm going to do a new thing. And it's not just for Israel, but by application, we can make it true for us as well. And again, we see that reassurance. You look on here back in Isaiah 43, Look at verse 20, he says, the beast of the field shall honor me, the dragons and the owls, because I give waters in the wilderness and the rivers in the desert to give drink to my people, my chosen. This people have I formed for myself and they shall show forth my praise. He said, in a sense, just as I've cared for the animals, I'm going to care for you. Okay. You know, God tells us in scripture that he's caring for the sparrows, okay? We've got a couple of bird feeders. We must not have the deluxe kind of bird food. I'm going, kind of cheap stuff. So we just get sparrows. But once in a while, we'll get a cardinal pop in, you know, and we, It shows how sad we are. I think this happened during COVID, but we even got the Cardinals names. It's Jack and Jill. Hey, Jack's out there, Jill's out there. Or don't get the white coats ready for us yet, but cheap thrills, okay? Something beside the little sparrows, but hey, God cares about those sparrows. He's gonna feed them, He's gonna take care of them. And he's going to take care of us too. And, you know, we might be overwhelmed at times because what has happened, what we're fearful of what might happen, what the future holds and, or what's happened in the past, you know, it's kind of, we're unsettled about what's going on, but God says, forget the past. And maybe a better word would be to don't dwell on the past. Don't let it consume you. Don't let it run your life or ruin your life because I'm going to do something good, something great in your life and something maybe you never expected. And you know, the Bible tells us, God's got it all planned out. You know, sometimes we kind of play things day by day. You know, our plans change. We look out, the weather. Okay, I'll pick on Chris and Patty. They were gonna go, was it Monday? And if the weather was bad, we'll go Tuesday. Well, look out, well, if it's icy, you know, can we believe the weatherman? Well, he's right half the time, you know, so. But yeah, our plans change. But see, the God knows everything from the beginning. He doesn't have to be going to plan B like we tend to do. Let me see, let me catch up the verse I'm after here. I think I can say it here by heart, but actually this is, It's hard to pick a life verse, but this is one of the top ones for me here. It's found in Philippians chapter one and verse six. Paul says, being confident or being assured of this very thing, he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it. And the idea is we'll continue to perform it, okay? It's not a one-time deal, continue to perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. And usually we're thinking, okay, God started a good work in our life when we got saved. Well, maybe I'm getting picky, but it's really before that. And it's when the Holy Spirit was working on our hearts and lives and helped us to see I'm a sinner and I need to be saved and I need to trust in Christ alone for my salvation. He began a good work in us at that point. And he, We get saved and he's gonna keep on doing a good work all the time until he takes us home, folks. It's an ongoing thing. And we can count on the Lord to do that. And no matter what happens in this world, whether the economy's up or down, you know, whether the wall gets built or doesn't or what Wall Street does or anything anybody else does, God's there for us. 24 seven. And as a child of God, God is working in our lives. We may not always see what's going on, okay? Oftentimes what God's doing is kind of behind the scenes. And he may work through tragedies in our lives, but again, they're not mistakes. It's not bad luck. He may work through good times. God works at all times. And he's, one thing we can be certain of is that God's working and it says he's going to do a new thing. And so he invites us to forget what might have happened. You know, sometimes we run down that road. Oh, well, this might happen. That might happen. You know, and we spend a lot of time worrying about stuff. And what do they say? You know, it's like high nineties of all the stuff that we worry about tends not to happen anyway, okay? And most of the time we can't do much about it, but what might happen, but to zero in on what God's doing now, to believe that God's doing a work in our lives. He's making a way for us, not just for Israel, back there in the old Testament, but for us here today. And as we think about, you know, we only got a few more days left here in 24, but what God has for us, not just as individuals, but as a church, you know, one of the, probably the worst things that a church can do is to settle into the rut, if you will, kind of doing the same old thing. It's not, it's not all bad. Okay. But sometimes, Churches, you know, just keep doing the same old thing, the same old way. And God may want to move you on to something else. You know, what used to work in the past, doesn't always work in the future. And this past week, some of you may remember Brad Starich. Some of you, it's been a long time. He called me up from Florida. in October, October 29th, he said. And he says, been a long time since we communicated, but he kind of thought about it and said, I'm going to call him. So he called me up. It was his anniversary. He'd gotten saved 35 years before that. And so, amazing. You know, it's good for my ego, but yeah, I listen to you on the radio or on the thing all the time. He drives a lot. And so, he listens to the streams that are recorded for us. But yeah, he's one of, he says, we went to lunch with him here this last week. and was saying, yeah, I remember when we used to go calling and knocking on doors. Well, yeah, we used to go down neighborhoods and we'd have a fly, church brochure and a track and whatever else may be going on and knock on doors and give it to people and talk to them a little bit and invite them to church. That didn't work so well today. You can't most time, you don't get anybody to even answer the door. They look out and see some, I don't know him, I'm not answering the door. You know, so some of the things doesn't mean that we shouldn't still try to reach out, but maybe we have to do it in a little different way. And so I'm thankful. I've, I don't know if I suppose somewhere along the line, I'd heard it somewhere, but I haven't heard that. Well, we've, that's not the way we do it here, or we've never done it that way before. You start something and you got to do it for the rest of your life, whether it's good, bad, or otherwise. God may be wanting to do something new. And what I'm talking about here is doing something different. That doesn't mean that we're going to change doctrine, our teaching, our beliefs, but just some of the things that we do may not work as well now as it did 30 years ago. And not every new idea is a good one. And not every old idea was a good one or a bad one, okay? But sometimes churches kind of die on the vine because they forget that God may be wanting them to do something new. And they don't think about what God wants to do in and through their lives today. So let's be looking towards the Lord. He wants to do a new thing. Hebrews chapter 11, you know, the faith chapter of verse six says, but without faith, it's impossible to please him for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Are we seeking the Lord on a daily basis or are we kind of living in the past? Maybe you've been listening to me this morning. You're thinking, well, pastor, you know, all that sounds good, but I just can't forget the past. There's no switch that I can just flip. Well, like I said, maybe there's a better word than forget is maybe don't dwell. You're still going to be in your memory bank. Okay, the events in your life, things that happened, whatever, you still can remember them, but we don't go back and we don't live there. We take up residence there because it's more comfortable back there than it is in the present. And so maybe we've experienced a lot of pain along the way. And I can't say, well, I know how you feel. And I think I've kind of warned you on that one before. Be careful of those that you talk to that are hurting for one thing or another, and you say, oh, I know just how you feel. We don't. You might have gone through the same kind of thing outwardly, but everybody's different. We respond differently. I don't even remember who it was or where it was. Somebody, I remember somebody was talking, they were telling about a loved one died. And so I heard somebody say, well, I know just how you feel. I had to put my dog down last week. So I'm not just, I know you got a lot of your dog lovers, you know, I like dogs too, but it's not the same thing as mom or dad or somebody. Okay. So be careful. You know, we, we haven't walked in their shoes. And we haven't gone through what they've gone through. So be careful about saying, you know, you might have some idea what they're going through. But the thing is, God knows. God knows exactly what you're going through. He knows the past. He knows the ugly, painful times that you can't seem to kick out of your mind. But he says, give it to me. Give it to me, I'll take care of it. 1 Peter 5, 7 says, casting all your care, all your anxieties, your worries, your concerns, to give it to Him. He careth for you. Have we honestly done that? Now, the thing is, it doesn't mean you do it once and you're never going to have to do it again. You might have to do it every day for a while. Because sometimes we, you know, we give it to God and then we take it back, you know. But to ask the Lord, not just for a day or two, maybe it's for a period of time. And you know, we look at the Psalms and we find people pouring out their hearts to God. They're not holding anything back. And would encourage you this morning, if you can't forget the past, to confess that. Give it to the Lord. He wants you to give it to him and to seek him. He wants to do something new in your life. He doesn't want you to stay in that old rut of the past. And again, remember the truths that we find here in Isaiah 43. Don't dwell on the past. God has new things in mind for us into the future to seek him. Think about the present. Think about the future. and earnestly seek Him. God has a plan. And I feel like I'm repeating Sunday school, but I really believe God is like a blueprint. God's got a plan, a purpose for our lives. We didn't just show up and He goes, I wonder what I'm gonna do with this one. No, He's got it all figured out. There's a plan and purpose for us to seek Him. Now that's not to say that we might not have some low spots in our life. I read this one, and this is a long time ago, but during the 30 Years War in the 17th century, German pastor Paul Gerhardt and his family were forced from their home. And one night they stayed in a small village in, homeless, afraid. His wife broke down and cried openly in despair. And to comfort her, Gerhardt reminded her of the scripture promises that God's provision and keeping. And then he went out into the garden alone And he too broke down and wept. He felt like he'd come to his darkest hour. Folks, there may be some dark times somewhere along the way before we leave this life. And there are going to be some emotional low spots in our lives, but folks, we don't have to stay there. We don't have to set up residence there. Again, God has a plan for us. You're not far away from it. You ought to have this one kind of marked in your Bibles anyway. Jeremiah 29, 11. Jeremiah 29, 11 says, for I know the thoughts, again, this is God thinking. He says, for I know the thoughts that I think towards you. Imagine that, God's thinking about us. I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the Lord. Thoughts of peace, not of evil, to give you an expected end. Okay? God knows what the end's going to be like. He says, I got some good things for you. Not evil, but some good things for you. Thoughts of peace. That's what God is thinking about us. That's pretty awesome when you stop and think about it. So I wish I'd had a picture. I look for one to be able to put up on the screen for you, but you can kind of picture this in your mind. Some time ago I saw a picture of an old burnt out mountain shack and all that remained was the chimney. The charred debris was out there in front. and everything they owned went up in smoke with that house. And out in front of this destroyed home stood an old grandfatherly looking man dressed only in his underclothes and a little boy standing next to him hanging on to a pair of old patched overalls. It was evident that the child had been crying and beneath the picture were the words the artist felt the man would be speaking to the boy, and the simple words presented a profound theology and philosophy of life. The words were, hush child, God ain't dead. Now, you know, you could look at that thing and get depressed, or you could look at it in another way. And as you think about this burnout shack and the old man and the weeping child, and thinking about that phrase, God ain't dead. I know it's not proper English, but that's probably what he may have said. But instead of being reminded of despair, it reminds us that there's hope. It reminds us that God's not dead. Tragedy may hit our lives in one form or another, but God's not dead. He's still got good things in mind for your life and mine. And we need to remind ourselves of that. Devil's going to be whispering in our ear, trying to drag us down, get us discouraged. But when you come back to the scriptures, you know, God is not dead. God is alive and well. God's got a plan. He's telling us about it. He's telling us about, he gives us a peek into the future, the rapture. Yes, there's going to be a tribulation, but we're not going to be a part of that. And he's going to come back and set up his rule and reign for a thousand years. And folks are going to be a part of that. And then there's a new heaven and a new earth. God's got so much more planned. Folks, the best is yet to come, not just in 2025, but in the future for us as believers. Corrie Ten Boom said something that maybe it will stick in our mind. She says, never be afraid to trust an unknown future. Folks, all of our futures is unknown, isn't it? None of us know what's gonna happen. She says, never be afraid to trust in an unknown future to a known God. Okay, God knows what's going on. and He's promised to take care of us. He'll do that in the coming year. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for loving us. Thank you for having a plan for our greatest need for salvation. Lord, we pray that if there be anybody here today that's never come to that point where they recognize their sin and need of a Savior, realizing there's nothing that they can do to save themselves, there's nothing they can do to remove their sin, that Jesus Christ is the only way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by him. Lord, we pray that they might trust Jesus Christ today or soon, to have their sins forgiven and have assurance of heaven. We pray that you'd help us, those who know the Lord, not to get down and discouraged by maybe what we hear in the news or that we hear is going on. A lot of rumors, a lot of false stuff out there. You can't believe everything you hear, but we can look at your word and know that it's true. It's accurate. We thank you for loving us. We thank you for the provision you made for salvation, the provision of forgiveness of sins and new life in Christ. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things become new. Our lives change when we trust Christ. But sometimes we can still kind of fall back into that old rut where we live in the past, going back, going back. God, let's be thinking about what God wants us to do in our lives today and tomorrow, the next day. Help us to be a blessing in the hearts and lives of those around about us. Lord, we thank you for your help. In Jesus' name, amen. I'd like for us to sing a closing hymn, if you would, please. Well, actually another Christmas one. You won't be seeing everything on the screen with colors here for a while, but that's the last of those. This is the last Christmas song. 154. 154. We're going to sing that through twice. What can I give him? 154. Find that and stand with me. We'll sing this through twice. I shall be, and I will be, and I will be, and I will be, and I will be, and I will be, and I will be, and I will be, and I will be, and I will be, and I will be. Oh, I'm sorry, we've got Tom and then we've got Lucy. Two Toms? Is that Tom and Tom? Lucy's two? Yeah. How's Lucy doing? Well, like Lucy, she's doing her surgery. She's a little bit sore and I think she's just a little bummed out that she's kind of bedridden because she's kind of a girl who likes to get up and go. So it's kind of more of a mental and emotional toll right now for her. So if you always want to do end brain for that, that'd be great. It appears to be doing well physically, but physically it's just part of the equation. Yeah, right. It all kind of goes together. And to make, anybody else did thyroid? I don't know exactly. You don't need to. Thyroid? I can give you a sore throat. I don't know what hers feels like, but just when they poked a few needles in mine, I didn't feel too good for a few days. And I can imagine when they're wiggling. So pray for Lucy, and pray for those that are still going to be traveling this week. And you've got your comforts at home, and think about those that are out on the road or in an airport somewhere. Hopefully those flights all connect. Yeah. What, Paul? I just wanted you to know. Pray for my mom. She's been sick for the last two weeks. Oh. And she's just starting to feel better. We thought we'd have to take her to the hospital. But she's so stubborn, she didn't want to go. But she is getting a little bit better. So she was, I don't know. That stubbornness, where do we get that? She's a sweetie. Yeah, I have a will for that. It's not just sweets. All right, let's pray for Carol and Lucy. Heavenly Father, we thank you for Carol. We pray that you'll continue to give her strength and healing, that she'll be up and around and be with us again here soon. We continue to strengthen Lucy physically, but mentally, emotionally as well, that she'll be able to be up and out of bed and feeling better and stronger. soon. We thank you for your healing power and many of us have experienced that here recently through different things in our lives and we pray you give us safety as we travel to our homes and give us a good day and we'll thank you for it now in Jesus' name. Amen. Lord bless you and thanks for coming today. Yeah. David Forrest, and Carol Conrad, who have a good time. Hello. But now when you will introduce the aliens. All right. Hey. You. You. All right. Thank you. Joy. I'm going to be wearing it. Mom. Oh, yeah. I don't know. It's just Hey, everybody. Yeah. Yeah. All righty. You guys enjoy your next few days? Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is there another farm? No. You've got to go back. I don't know.