As our choir is coming down, if you would, let's take our Bibles together and turn to Psalm 73. Psalm 73 this morning. We're going to begin a new study coming into the Christmas season this morning. thinking about our longing for the Lord to come and to deliver on all of his promises. And we're gonna do that with the third book of the Psalms, Psalm 73 through 89, as our frame of reference. We're not gonna cover every Psalm along the way, but we are gonna look at three of those this Sunday, next Sunday, and the Sunday following. This morning we're gonna begin with the first of these, Psalm 73. Let's hear God's Word to us this morning. Psalm 73, beginning in verse 1. Psalm 73, beginning in verse 1. Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped, for I was envious of the arrogant, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they have no pangs until death. Their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are. They are not stricken like the rest of mankind. Therefore, pride is their necklace. Violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out through fatness. Their hearts overflow with follies. They scoff and speak with malice. Loftily they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens and their tongue struts to the earth. Therefore His people turn back to them and find no fault in them. And they say, How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High? Behold, these are the wicked, always at ease. They increase in riches. All in vain I have kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning. If I had said thus, I will speak thus. I would have betrayed the generation of your children. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task until I went into the sanctuary of God. Then I discerned their end." Truly, you set them in slippery places. You make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors, like a dream when one awakes. Oh Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant. I was like a beast toward you. Nevertheless, I am continually with you. You hold me, my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, Those who are far from you shall perish, but you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray this morning. Father, truly you are good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for us, our feet almost stumble and our steps often nearly slip. Because when we look at the world around us, we see how often wickedness, evil, sin seem to carry the day. But Lord, what we learn from your word is that all flesh is like grass. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but your word, our God, stands forever. Lord, I pray this morning and this Christmas season that we would put our hope more resolutely than ever in the promises of your word, of your written word, which point to your incarnate word, our Lord Jesus Christ, who has come for us and our salvation. Lord, would you cause our hearts to desire him? And as our hearts are full of desire for Him, would you satisfy that desire in us through Jesus, by His Spirit, as we meet with Him through His Word, even today? I ask these things in Jesus' name, amen. Christmas is a fun time of the year for a lot of reasons, but if you were to ask me what really shapes our experience of the Christmas season, it's actually anticipation. You think about what Christmas is all about, we start celebrating, some of us in early November, some of us after Thanksgiving, some of you maybe are a little bit longer in your preparation, but we start prepping for Christmas early, but all of that is focused on the excitement for many of us of one day, One day where all of the things that we've been doing, the decorating, the parties, the gift purchasing, the wrapping, all of those things are going to come together, we hope, in the joy of certain things. We anticipate the time that we're going to spend with family. We anticipate the observance of traditions that have become precious to us. We anticipate, especially the youngest among us, we anticipate the gifts that we hope to receive at Christmas. Christmas is a season full of anticipation. It's built into the framework of the way we do things. But it's not just a season of anticipation because of the way our culture observes Christmas. Anticipation has always been at the heart of Christian observance of Christmas. For centuries, as Christians have observed the Christmas season, they've observed it in two parts. We don't do this because we are descended from the Puritans and we don't do all those things as Baptists. But you may be aware of other church traditions where they observe Advent and then Christmas. The language Advent for me as a kid was just something that the last Presbyterians and Methodists in my hometown did. I didn't know what it was, but as I've become an adult, I've seen the value of it. Advent is the season of weeks, four weeks leading up to Christmas where Christians of all stripes have historically said, we're going to enter into the anticipation that God's people felt for the first coming of Jesus as a way to prepare our hearts for his second coming. Christians throughout their history have said, we're gonna devote a month of time, not to celebration of Christmas, but of waiting for Christmas and of evaluating our lives with the expectation we feel for the day when Christ comes. I think that's one of the reasons that a lot of us feel a sense of dissatisfaction when we come to Christmas today. We've lost the sense of anticipation that we felt when we were children ourselves or when we had young children and saw their excitement. I don't know if you're like me, but I went through this season as a young adult, as a college student, as a high school student even, where Christmas was just kind of a disappointment every year. Because I had all of these great memories of what Christmas was supposed to be from when I was little, but by the time I reached adulthood, it wasn't really all that exciting anymore. But the thing that we need to remember as we come into the Christmas season is that if we're going to enjoy the satisfaction of celebrating Christ's coming, we need to remind ourselves first of the depth of our need. Christ's coming is going to mean more for us if we understand how desperately we need him. So that's what we're gonna be doing for the next few weeks. My goal with the next three sermons is to work with you to create a deeper awareness of our need for Christ's coming because it's through Jesus Christ that God satisfies all of the longings of our heart. What do you want, really? When I was a teenager, we sang a song called My Grown-Up Christmas List. The things that a grown-up might approach Santa Claus and ask for. No more lives torn apart, that wars would never start, that time would heal all hearts, that every man would have a friend, and right would always win, and love would never end. This is my grown-up Christmas list. I mean, ask yourself, all of you, children to grown-ups, what do you really want? What is it that you want more than anything else? I don't know about you, but the things that I want are a lot bigger than the things that you can put under a tree. I want justice. I want forgiveness. I want peace. I want reconciliation. I want sin to be gone. I want God to fix this broken world as only God can and the sin that still dwells in the darkest corners of my heart. That's what I want for Christmas. And the amazing thing about the Christmas season is that we are celebrating that God has delivered that through Jesus Christ. So let's just step into those longings a little bit. And let's try to feel them in light of what God's Word teaches us. Let's try to step into the longings of the Israelites and let them shape our hearts and our expectations. This morning we're coming to Psalm 73. I mentioned briefly when we read our passage that Psalm 73 is the first Psalm in the third book of Psalms. The Psalter, the Psalms, are divided into five major sections, five books. And this is the first of the third of those books, Psalms 73 through 89. One commentator I read this week noted that at the heart of Psalms 73 through 89 is Israel's frustration that there is no king occupying the throne of David. Because the Israelites understood, especially as they went into exile because of their sins, that all of God's promises were wrapped up in a descendant of David coming to establish the kind of kingdom that would bring righteousness and justice and peace and prosperity, not just to Israel and Judah, but to all the earth under his sovereign dominion. Everybody was looking for the king. And the question that comes in Psalm 73 through 89 is where is he? You can see the hopes that Israel had if you turn back one Psalm before Psalm 73 to Psalm 72. Solomon, the son of David, writes in Psalm 72 verse 1, Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to the royal son. May he judge your people with righteousness. and your poor with justice. Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people, and the hills in righteousness. May He defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the children of the needy, and crush the oppressor. Later, he calls for this king to have dominion far beyond the boundaries of Israel's ancestral inheritance. He prays in verse 8, may he have dominion from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. May desert tribes bow down before him and his enemies lick the dust. May the kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands render him tribute. May the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts. May all kings fall down before him. All nations serve him. The great hope for God to deliver on all of His promises, not just for Israel, but for all of us, is wrapped up in the appearance of this King. And when you step into Psalm 73 through 89, the question on the mouths of the Israelites in these Psalms is, okay, where is He? Because we're not going to get all these things until He comes. Justice, righteousness, peace, prosperity, reconciliation, whatever it is that our hearts are wanting, we're not going to get all of this until He comes. And you can feel the anguish of the Israelites' hearts then as we come into Psalm 73. Psalm 73, the psalmist is asking God for justice. He's asking for God to do something about the wickedness that he sees in the world around him. God, how long is evil gonna win? Do you ever ask that question? Watch the news or scroll through social media and think, how long is evil going to seem to win the battle? How long are we going to watch as it looks as though, as Longfellow wrote in I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, how long are we going to look at the world around us and think that God is dead or sleeping because of the way that the wickedness of the world seems to be winning? And the psalmist feels the discouragement that many of us feel as we look around us and ask, where is God's King? When is God going to do something about the wickedness that we see? Notice what we read in verse 1. Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. So the psalmist begins with the right truth. Notice that. Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. He's theologically correct, but the problem is there's a disconnect between his head and his heart. Do you ever find yourself in that place? You can say all the right things about God, but in your heart you have a hard time feeling the right things about God. He says, I know that God is good, but verse two, but as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. I know who God is, but I'm tempted to go in a different direction. Why? Notice verse three. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. The psalmist says, look, I know that God is good, But when I look at the world around me, it seems like the good people in the world are only experiencing bad stuff, and the bad people in the world are experiencing good stuff, and that's just not fair. And I would like an answer from heaven about that, thank you very much. You sense that tension? In Asaph, the psalmist, do you sense that tension in yourself sometimes? You ever notice how hyped Christians get, how excited Christians get when a celebrity professes faith in Jesus? I hesitate to use this example because he's kind of crazy. You all remember when Kanye West announced that he was a Christian. Does anybody remember that a few years ago? Kanye West is a rapper, very accomplished and successful in hip-hop, a significant figure in the history of hip-hop. Kanye West, a few years ago, comes out and announces, even in the midst of his marriage to one of the Kardashians, that he has trusted Jesus. And everyone in evangelical life was super, super excited. And we should have been, had he genuinely trusted Jesus. Now, it turns out that we're not super clear on whether he did, but I was thinking at the time, why are we so excited? Why are we so excited about the idea that somebody that's a celebrity would trust Jesus? And the answer is, it's really rare for a celebrity to trust Jesus. Because normally, being a celebrity means you're doing things that are inconsistent with Christian profession. It's hard to be wealthy and famous and follow Jesus at the same time. We look at the world around us, how many people do you know in the celebrity sphere, at the top of their sport, in the highest reaches of politics, how many people do you know who are consistently and faithfully walking out their Christian life? Compared to the total number of people there, it's not that many. And I step back and I go, that's not fair. Why is God letting the wicked prosper while faithful Christians struggle? And you catch Asaph's sense here. He walks through some of the things that he sees. He acknowledges some of his frustrations. He acknowledges that he's frustrated because the wicked are carefree. Notice verses 4 and 5. They have no pangs until death. They don't hurt. Their bodies are fat and sleek. This is not a description of my physique, okay? Fat and sleek means healthy, okay? We don't associate fat with healthy. But in the ancient world where you didn't know where your food was coming from, And you walked everywhere? To be fat was to be healthy. It meant she had enough to eat. Their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are. They are not stricken like the rest of mankind. He says they don't have anything to worry about. The wicked are doing really well. Not only are they carefree, but they're arrogant. Look at verses 6 through 9. Therefore pride is their necklace. Violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out through fatness. Their hearts overflow with follies. They're full of desires for things. And for all kinds of arrogance, they scoff and speak with malice. Loftily, they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongue struts to the earth. Verse 9 is interesting. They walk around saying, I got it all. I got it all in heaven and on earth. I'm the king of the world. I've got it everywhere. Who can challenge me? And nobody seems to. Verse 10, therefore his people turn back to them. We'll come to this in just a moment. Therefore his people turn back to them and find no fault in them. And they say, how can God know? Is their knowledge in the most high? Behold, these are the wicked. Always at ease, they increase in riches. Everything goes well for them, so they're full of arrogance. And not only are they full of arrogance, but they're popular. You see verse 10, therefore his people, whose people? God's people. God's people turn back to them. They see how successful the wicked are and they say, well, there can't be anything wrong with those people over there. Look how good they're doing. God seems to be blessing them. I don't know what they're up to, but it can't be all that bad. Maybe I should be more like them. Have you ever felt that? Have you ever caught yourself in a work situation where you see somebody close to you succeeding, and they're doing things the wrong way? They're not working hard, they're cutting corners, they may be even doing something ethically questionable, maybe even legally questionable, and they're not getting caught, and when they do, nothing seems to happen to them, and you step back and you think, gosh, maybe just to stay on top, I need to be doing what the wicked are doing. You ever see people around you succeeding in other ways? You see wicked people, you long for a certain lifestyle. Wicked people seem to have this lifestyle that you want. They're constantly going on vacation. They seem to have plenty of money. Everything seems to be going on their way. Their kids are beautiful. They're successful. Everything looks great. And you look at their lives and you say, I wish I had a little bit more of that. Maybe they've actually got something figured out. Maybe I can imitate them to a point. so that I can have what they have. That's what the psalmist is acknowledging. Even people that belong to God are looking at them and saying, well, they can't be all that bad. Everything seems to be going good for them and bad for me. How do I begin to make sense of this? But I want you to notice what we read in verse 16. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task. I couldn't wrap my mind around it. Notice verse 17. Until I went into the sanctuary of God, then I discerned their end. The psalmist is saying that the reign of injustice, the reign of wickedness, the reign of sin will not last forever. There's a counter. There's a clock. There's a timer. and the day of God's justice is coming. When we draw near to God, we discover that God is not ignoring sin, God is being patient with sin, but we need to avoid confusing patience with injustice. See, God's patience doesn't nullify his justice. This is the big truth I want you to see this morning. Just because God is patient with sinful people doesn't mean that God is unjust all of a sudden. God is often patient with sinners, but the day is coming when God will act justly with regards to all wickedness and he will put everything right. This is exactly what Asaph learns in God's presence. Verse 18, truly you set them in slippery places. Earlier he says that his feet were slippery, but he says, no, they're on slippery places. You make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors, like a dream when one awakens, O Lord. When you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. They seem like they've got all the substance, he says, but they're actually as unreal as ghosts. They're nothing. Verse 21, when my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and arrogant. I was like a beast toward you. Nevertheless, I am continually with you. You hold my right hand, you guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. I may not have everything I want right now, but as I draw near to you, God, you give me a promise that one day you will receive me, not them, to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Do you see what Asaph is saying? He's saying all the wicked have all of this stuff, but when I understand who God is, I would rather have him than everything they have. I would rather have God and what he offers me than all that they have because the day is coming when they're going to be reduced to nothing. Verse 27, for behold, those who are far from you shall perish. You put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Lord God my refuge that I may tell of all your works. Asaph is saying the day is coming when the Lord is going to establish his justice in the world. He's gonna bring the wicked to nothing and he's going to give to the pure in heart all that he has promised. But then we stop and we look at the world around us and we say, okay, but when? How? I mean, that's a great promise. But there's a part of me that goes, Lord, I'm so thankful that I can count on that, but I would sure like it to happen soon. Do you ever feel that way? Like sooner rather than later, Lord, please. Do something sooner rather than later. I'm tired of wickedness winning. I'm tired of wickedness controlling everything around me. I wanna see your justice. I wanna see your righteousness. I wanna see you fix what sin has broken. When are you gonna do something? How are you gonna do something? And the answer comes from the Psalm right before this one. God is going to do something when he delivers the king from David's family. He's going to put everything right. Who is that king? Jesus. You see what Psalm 73 does is it grabs the longings of our hearts and it yanks us along into a place where we with Israel see that what we really need is David's greater son. And what we get to see at our point in history is that God has actually sent him into the world to give us what we've longed for. Jesus acknowledges that he fulfills the eager expectations of God's people through history. For example, in Isaiah 42, Isaiah writes, Behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen and whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for his law. And Matthew says, as Jesus is healing people in Matthew 15, that this is fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus is the one who realizes God's promises to bring justice to the earth. You see, God has promised justice through his Messiah. Jesus has begun to show us that in his first coming. All the things that Jesus was doing as he fulfilled his ministry were designed to show us that God was bringing justice to the earth, that God was making things right again. How did Jesus show that? He healed sick people. You know, sickness ain't right. Like, sickness is not right. Hospitals shouldn't exist. Why are they there? It's because things aren't the way they're supposed to be. It's because sin has broken things and yet Jesus steps onto the picture of history and heals the sick. Jesus casts out demons. You know what demons are? They were angels that God created to worship him. What did they do? They rebelled against God. And as they rebelled against God, they sought to drag what God had made good down into the muck and mire of sin. And when Jesus steps in the picture, he says, demons aren't right either. But what does he say to them? Get out. And they go. Jesus heals the blind. He heals the deaf. He heals those who can't walk. He announces to the entirety of God's people that God's kingdom has come. He preaches the good news of the kingdom of God. And then, most powerfully and beautifully, Jesus declares that God is putting things right as he dies for our sins and as he is raised from the dead, declaring once and for all that he has defeated sin, he has defeated Satan, and he has defeated death. God has put things right through Jesus. And so we can sing at Christmas time, joy to the world, the Lord is come. Not just joy to the Lord, the Lord will come. Joy to the world, the Lord is come, because in Christ's first coming, God has begun to put things right, but he's not done yet. He has put things right. He is putting things right in you. That's what we're here for, aren't we? This is our declaration to a sinful world that Jesus has won. We gather on Sunday because that was the day that Jesus was raised from the dead to say that God is making things right and it begins right here. If any person is in Christ, he or she is new creation. The old has passed away and the new has come. God is making things right and the day is coming when he will make them right. We stand in this place now where we look back at what Jesus has done, but we also look forward and we say the day is coming when Jesus is going to come with the clouds of heaven, having received a kingdom from the ancient of days that knows no boundaries. He's gonna put away all of the sin, all of the evil, all of the wickedness, all of the injustice. He's gonna put it all away with all of its consequences, death, difficulty in childbirth, labor and work, all of the curses of sin are gonna be dealt with and Jesus is gonna cause righteousness to reign forever. And as we step into the Christmas season, the cry of our heart ought to be, come Lord Jesus, make it right. The greatest desire of our heart ought to be that Christ would come again. Paul acknowledges that this is what we're waiting for. Acts 17, the times of ignorance God overlooked. But now he commands all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed. And of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. Is Christ in the grave? Where is Jesus? He's ascended to the Father from which he will come again to judge the living and the dead and to bring righteousness to the world. See, what we're doing right now at Christmas is we're not just saying we want Christ's first coming. We are entering into the longing of Israel so we can say, yes, we want all that he did in his first coming, but we're looking for the second. We're looking for the day when Jesus comes to make right all the things that are wrong. And because Jesus has been raised from the dead, we know he will. Now, we don't know when he's gonna come, do we? He tells us that nobody knows the day or the hour. He says that in his humanity, not even he knows, only the Father knows. We don't know when Jesus is gonna come again, do we? And it's a part of us that, I don't know, let's be honest, I'm a little bit scared and frustrated by that at the same time. Jesus says that we're not gonna be able to tell anything about his coming. The signs that Jesus talks about in Matthew 24 are about the destruction of the temple. His whole point is that when he comes, it will be obvious and it will be a surprise. We long for his coming, but we're still living here right now in a world broken by sin. So what do we do in the meantime? We watch the sky. But how do we wait well? This is where I want us to land this morning. I just wanna give you some really practical things to help you make the most out of this season. As we're waiting for God's kingdom to come in its fullness, as we're waiting with confidence that God is gonna deliver on his promises, what we need to be doing is we need to be seeking refuge in Jesus's presence. That's what Asaph does. As Asaph is making sense of his life, As Asaph is making sense of the evil of the world, what does he do? Where does he go to make sense of all that he's seeing and all that he's waiting for? Where does he go to make sense of the death of the righteous? Where does he go to make sense of the suffering of the pure in heart? He tells us that he goes to be with God. Nevertheless, he says in verse 23, I am continually with you. You hold my right hand, you guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Verse 28, but for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I might tell of all your works. See, Asaph never knows when God is gonna do something about the wicked, but what he does know is that it is good for him to be near God. So that as he's waiting, that's where he goes. Where are you supposed to go while you're waiting for Jesus to come? You know, the greatest enemy to you discerning what God is up to with the coming of Jesus is busyness. Because if you're busy, you can't be with God. If you're busy with every other relationship and every other commitment, you can't draw near to God. And ultimately, sometimes because we're so busy, we feel justified. Like, hey, I'm doing good stuff, but are you doing the best things? We're going to come to this in Luke very soon, but are you a Mary or are you a Martha? There's a lot of good things that Martha is up to when she's making dinner for Jesus, but Jesus says that Mary has chosen the better portion. If you want the best of this Christmas season, if you want the best of life in general, I have three things that I want to encourage you to do as we conclude. Number one, I want you to slow down. Sometimes we think we're more holy when we're more busy. But if the great hope of our lives is to live in God's presence, we need to slow down. Number two, don't ignore the wickedness and injustice of the world. Real Christianity does not come from clapping and smiling our way through life. Real Christianity comes through seeing the wickedness and injustice of this world as it is and saying, Jesus has conquered it all. So be honest. God is not upset when you come to him and you say, my life is not very good right now. Things are really hard right now. I'm struggling to understand what I'm seeing right now. God is not upset with you when you do that. God wants you to bring those things to him, because where else are you going to take them? So we come to him and we bring all of these things. I'm not saying you should go home and meditate on how terrible things are, because some of us need to do that less. But honestly, we need to be serious about how bad things are, whether we're talking about out there in the world or in here in our own hearts. Slow down, don't try to ignore wickedness and injustice in the world, but then draw near to Jesus. The response to wickedness and injustice in the world is not first and foremost political action, social action, advocacy, charitable giving. The response to wickedness and injustice in the world in the Bible first and foremost is to be near to the one who is righteous and just in everything. How do you do that? Go where God promises to be. He'll meet you in his word. He'll meet you when you pray. He'll meet you when you assemble with his people. Jesus wasn't joking when he said where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them. You wanna go and be in the presence of God? Go where he promises to be and let God's perspective on reality shape you more than the world's. You see, what we need is for Jesus to come and make things right. He has come, he is coming, and he will come. And so while we wait, yes, we wait with seriousness. We mourn the state of things as they are, but we wait with joy and hope. I heard a podcaster this week talk about the difference between hope and optimism. Optimism is where you just choose to seek the good in everything. I want to see the good. I want to be a glass half full kind of guy. Optimism is a valuable thing in a lot of places in this world. But the problem with optimism is that optimism is built on you ignoring the bad so that you can look at the good. Hope doesn't work that way. Hope looks at the bad. Hope sees it for what it is, and hope says, I'm gonna trust the Lord to bring me out on the other side. This Christmas season, that's what we're doing. We're looking at the world as it is. We're not sticking our heads in the sand, but we're trusting that God will bring us out on the other side as we belong to him, which raises a final point for me to make this morning. We're gonna come to a time of response. If you don't belong to Jesus and you're honest about who you are, you will understand that you as one of the wicked deserve to be one of those who falls under God's judgment. But the glorious news of Jesus' coming is that God will not only make everything right, he will make you right with him through faith in Jesus. So as we sing, you come to Jesus and let him make you right. He'll do it. He'll give you his spirit. He'll make you right with God through what he's done, and then he will work in you to make you right so that you begin to embody and reflect his character in Christ-shaped love. But for all of us, We have a lot to be hopeful in, don't we? Every Sunday for the month of December, we're gonna sing Joy to the World as our hymn of response. You're gonna get tired of it, but you're gonna memorize it. That's what the goal is. We're gonna celebrate that Christ has defeated it all. He's beaten the curse, and though we still live in a sin-sick world, though this creation is groaning and waiting for the revelation of the sons of God, because Christ has been raised from the dead, we know who wins. And so we sing joy to the world. The Lord has come. He is come. He will come. Let earth, let Manti, let Manti Baptist Church receive her King. Let's pray. Father, may we receive our King with the joy that you intend for us. would he come in great power and glory to our hearts today, and may we long for the day when he comes again. Lord, for those who haven't known him, I pray that you would so work in their hearts today that they would receive him, not just as these people's king, but as their king. And for all of us, Lord, cause us to fall on our knees before King Jesus and to receive him with the joy and with the glad submission that he deserves as the King who has conquered it all and who is making all things right, now and forever, world without end. We ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.