Well, let me ask you this today. Where is your hope this morning? You might be here as someone who's a follower of Christ. That's a relevant question. Where is your hope? Maybe you're not a follower of Christ. Maybe you're here with lots of doubts and questions within your faith. Where is your hope this morning? And whomever we are, whether you're a Christian or you're not, or you're doubting within the faith or on the circumference of the faith, I think that's one thing that we all have in common, which is this, we all put our hopes in something, and I just wanna ask that simple question, what is your hope in this morning? Where is your hope? Think of it like this. Whether you are a Christian or not, whatever you hope in reveals what you worship. So my statement to us all this morning is whether you're a Christian or you're not a Christian, we all hope in something and whatever you hope in reveals what you worship. So what do you hope in? Let me give you an illustration. This may not help you at all. It may not be your genre, but in the first book of Harry Potter, he looks into an object called the Mirror of Erised, and Harry's sitting in front of this mirror, and he sees his parents. Now, that's strange. You're supposed to see yourself in the mirror, not your parents, but the real strange thing is that Harry's parents have both passed away. And as he looks into this mirror, his parents greet him. They give him words of encouragement. They love him. They show affection for him. And Harry's so blown away that he goes and gets his best friend Ron, and he says, Ron, I want you to look in the mirror and look at my parents. Only Ron doesn't see Harry's parents. He sees something else in this mirror of Erised. When Ron looks in the mirror, he sees himself as the captain, the champion of the school sports team. And all the adulation that comes with it. And then it hits both Harry and Ron at the same time. The mirror of Irised is the mirror of desire. Irised desire spelled backwards. And when you look into the mirror, it shows you the deepest, desperate longings of your heart. And that's what's written over the inscription. I show you not your face. but your heart's desire. You know what? If you look into the mirror of your hopes this morning and your desires, you'll find the deepest desires of your heart looking back at you. What are those for you? And then I wanna ask you not only what they are, something that you have to have to make life work. Something that says, if I have this, I'll be happy. If I have this, I'll know who I am. I'll find my place in this world. And whatever it is, whatever that is for you, what is your hope and will your hope hold? Will your hope hold? Here's what I mean by that. In 2005, David Foster Wallace gave what Time Magazine calls one of the top 10 commencement addresses, the Kenyon College, a liberal arts university. And near the end of his address, he confronts the liberal arts graduates at Kenyon College in Ohio in an insightful way. He's not an evangelical Christian at all. He's addressing these graduates on the cusp of pursuing the American dream. But he warns them about their hopes, and he asked him if their hopes were hold. Listen to how he explains it. He warns them. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there's actually no such thing as atheism. There's no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And pretty much anything you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure, and you will always feel ugly, and when the time and age start showing, you'll die a million deaths before they finally plant you in the ground. Worship power, and you'll feel weak and afraid, and you'll need ever more power over others to keep that fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you'll end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out, and so on. Whatever you worship will eat you alive, and whatever you worship will never be enough. What is your hope? Will your hope hold? Will it last? This morning, I want to talk about a hope that will hold you. Not a hope that you hold, but a hope that holds you. Would you please locate Psalm 33? Psalm 33 is in the first half of the Christian Bible, or roughly right in the middle of it. And Psalm 33 is the songbook of the Christian Bible. We have 150 lyrics, but not one inspired tune. And Psalms is not like other books in the Bible that are typically written in some kind of chronological fashion. The Psalms does record the experience of God's people. And sometimes we can refer to it as the Psalter, P-S-A-L-T-E-R. The Psalter records the experiences of God's people across their entire Old Testament history. It covers about a thousand years of history. So when you read Psalms, you're reading the story of the Old Testament set to music from creation all the way to the return from captivity. To read the Psalter is to listen to the soundtrack of the Old Testament. Martin Luther called it a little Bible, the Psalms. The Psalter was finally arranged in the order that we now have it, sometime after the exile, maybe by somebody like Ezra when he comes back with Nehemiah. And I think that the ordering of the Psalms is quite intentional. We tend to think of the Psalms as the greatest one-hit wonders from Israel's history, all compiled for you in this five-volume collection. Now, go listen to your favorite one. But there's an intentional ordering to the Psalter that's not random, but it's quite purposeful that's retelling Israel's story. That means that the people who received the Psalms and its five books and the order that they are in, that that first audience who got this five-volume collection were those people emerging from the exile for being disciplined from their sins and now God's promises of grace to bring them back again to the land. Now what does that mean? Well, it means that the people who originally heard this five-volume collection had few of the benefits that we have today. I don't know what's on your mind. They had no vaccines for any diseases. and didn't get to choose the administration that they're under. They had no monarch, no president to call their own, and no house either when they returned back. After 70 years, they march across the Fertile Crescent with dangers all involved, and they start to rebuild their lives, their homes, their very place of worship from the rubble ruins of 70 years ago. They had few things to hope in that we do, so what did they hope in? And the answer comes in Psalm 33, and it's this, God's sovereign and his steadfast love. That was the hope that would hold them. That was the hope that held them through the exile. And whatever you're looking for in all of your hopes, whatever you're looking for is actually found in Christ, God's Son, sent to be the hope of the world. And the surest thing, Psalm 33, the Lord's Supper that we will take later, it's telling you the surest thing that you can hope in, the hope that will hold you, the hope that will hold all your hopes together, is the same thing these brothers and sisters set their hope in. It's the steadfast love of God. So that's what we wanna think about, celebrating the sovereign and steadfast love of God, because we all need a hope outside of ourselves, a hope outside of our government, outside of our jobs, even a hope outside of ourselves. Later, you will probably eat lunch and dinner, and you'll take a nap, and you'll go to sleep, and those are gracious reminders telling you, you are not self-sufficient. You need hope outside of yourself. And that hope that we have is a steadfast love of God. Now Abe already gave us this introduction this morning, but we'll read Psalm 33 in parts and make a few comments as we go. Breaking down, it's like hitting the play button and then stop. Did you hear what they just sang? That's what we'll do, okay? So let's read now Psalm 33 down through verse 33. Here's the opening of the song. Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous. Praise befits the upright. Give thanks to the Lord with a lyre. Make melody to Him with a harp of ten strings. Sing to Him a new song. Play skillfully on the strings with loud shouts. This is the word of the Lord. This is a loud song, did you see that? Verse one opens with a ringing cry of shout, and verse three ends with loud shouts. Now the whole congregation together has entered into this praise. But it's also a joyful song, a jubilant song, because they shout for joy in the Lord and give thanks. And you notice Psalm 33 encourages people to bring their instruments for a holy jam session of joy. Make melody with the harp, play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts. And this isn't, I mean, if you know music, it's not one F, which means loud. It's not two Fs, meaning really loud. It's three Fs, with loud shouts, as loud as you can. Make your praise known to the Lord. And this isn't, these are the kind of commands we would like to obey. I think, shout for joy, give thanks, make melodies, sing. He's calling us to a celebration, to a party of God's praise. and all these commands are plural. You know what that means? I know, we all do it. This isn't talking about you and your favorite song with the windows rolled up and you singing like you're auditioning for The Voice or you in the shower belting it out. That's good, but this is a corporate call to shout to the Lord together. That's why it gets louder and it gets louder as one voice is added to another voice and the whole congregation is lifting their voice of corporate praise to the Lord. And what's the cause of the loud praise supported by well-played instruments? What's the cause of it? Would you look at verse three? We have an indication. He says, sing a what? A new song. Now, new song doesn't mean a song from an old artist that just dropped a new song you hadn't heard from in a while. It doesn't mean a song fresh off the charts. New song in the Bible refers to a new act of the Lord's gracious deliverance of his people. So one of the first times we see this is in Exodus 15. Maybe you've seen Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments and maybe that's your vision of it. But God rescues his people by the blood of the Lamb from Egypt. He rescues them through the Red Sea and then he drowns Pharaoh's army. And you know what the response is to that redeeming act of God? Moses writes a new song. And he writes a song celebrating the redemption. And then Miriam, we're told in Exodus 15, Miriam and all the sisters with her grabbed their tambourines and they danced and they sang Moses's new song. That's the command here in Psalm 33. It's a song not about style, but about content. It's a song that the redeemed offer to the Redeemer about the redemption. That's the new song. That's what it always, and when you get to the end of the Bible, I mean, it's an old song by then, but they're still singing in heaven this new song of Moses, praising the Redeemer about the redemption coming from those who've been redeemed. So, when the songwriter in Psalm 33 commands us to belt out a new song together corporately, he's talking about belting out loud songs of God's redemption, of celebrating his victory, of celebrating his love. But God's redeeming love, like the brilliant colors of the rainbow, has many facets to it. So what aspect of God's redeeming love is this Psalm calling us to celebrate? Here's what I mean. I think Psalm 33 is calling us to celebrate a particular aspect of redemption, the heart of it, that is our forgiveness from sins. Here's what I mean, let me try to show that to you. We don't often think, I said, of the Psalter being arranged intentionally, but every psalm has a context, a historical context, a literary context, and this big redemptive context. So you should read every psalm in its context near and far like you do any other part of the Bible. So when you read Psalm 33 in its context, you notice what comes right before it is Psalm 32. And did you notice how Psalm 32 ends? If you have a copy of the Bible, would you look up at the end of Psalm 32, verse 11? See if it sounds familiar. Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy all you upright in heart. Psalm 32 ends in the way Psalm 32 begins. Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous. Praise befits the upright. So Psalm 33 opens like Psalm 32 ends. And what does that mean? Are you still tracking with me? All right, so what does that mean? That while Psalm 32 and 33 are individual compositions, the editors put them together so that you hear them together. They harmonize each other. One explains the other. So Psalm 32 provides the context from which 33 emerges. Why is that a big deal? Well, Psalm 32 ends with a shout for joy. And if you've read the Bible for any length of time, maybe you remember what Psalm 32 is about. Psalm 32 is written by David, the great king of Israel. And what's David the king doing? David is repenting of a sin. I acknowledged my sin to you. I did not cover my iniquity for you. I said I will confess my transgression to the Lord and you forgave me all my sin. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity. That's what Psalm 32 is celebrating. And then verse 10 says, sing of the steadfast love of the Lord who surrounds us and forgives us. So when you put 33 and 32 together, what you have is this. Psalm 33 is celebrating, it's the new song of redemption about the forgiveness of sins that David has sung about in Psalm 32. And just as Psalm 33 opens with God's steadfast love, this new song now next to Psalm 33, declaring his forgiveness, that's exactly how Psalm 33 ends. It opens with a new song of a steadfast love, celebrating his forgiveness, and Psalm 33 ends, let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you. So this new song is grounded in God's saving work of forgiving sinful people like you and me and that his steadfast love now surrounds all those who trust in him. Maybe I can put it like this. What you have in Psalm 32 and 33 are an ancient inspired version of it is well with my soul. Think of the line, my sin Oh the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the whole is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. That's Psalm 32. How do you respond to that kind of news? Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul. That's Psalm 33. It's the response of the congregation to God's saving work among people who deserve to be judged. And what aren't you gonna do? Shout for joy for your steadfast love. That's the flow of 32 and 33. So he is the one hope, his love is the one love that won't disappoint, that won't fail you. There's an old song, I don't remember who wrote it. Some of you are gonna tell me who wrote it. There's a line, you know, you've been looking for love in all the wrong places. Wherever you're looking for love, you're really looking for love in this redeemer, in this savior. Every pursuit of hope, every pursuit of love, you're looking for this steadfast love. The love that you seek, the hope that you're after will only come in this person, in this king. I'm gonna tell you, Heritage Bible Church, fill your playlists, your reading with songs and stories of His redeeming love. Read your Bible looking for His love and His grace. Come ready each week with your heart ready to obey this command as you add your voice to other voices and you celebrate the work of a steadfast love and forgiving this congregation from its sin. It's something you can do every week because His love is steadfast every week. Let your steadfast love be on us even as we hope in you. Now listen, in between this opening of a new song of steadfast love about forgiveness and this close are reasons that we sing and celebrate a steadfast love. Now what I want to do is to read a few sections, give you some meditative thoughts. So sing and celebrate his steadfast love, his work of forgiveness. Now let's look at some reasons why we are to do that, the psalmist gives to us. First, We sing of a steadfast love because of his sovereign word. And his sovereign word we'll see is reliable, and it's powerful, and it's invincible. The psalmist is singing of his sovereign word. First, it's reliable. Look at verse four. For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord. People don't always keep their word Not even in marriage. Some in my church have felt the sting of that. Maybe some in this room. Our bosses, our leaders, they don't keep their word. We feel the disappointment of that. Maybe your parents have let you down. But the sovereign word of the Lord is always reliable. The word of the Lord is upright. and his reliable word reveals his reliable character. All his work revealed through his word is done in faithfulness. What we long for, justice and righteousness, we long for that and this God loves it. He loves righteousness and justice. So we celebrate his steadfast love because his word is reliable as is his character. And when you come to this great God and His Son, Christ, by the Spirit, you come to one whose word can be trusted and whose character can be counted on. And you can say that of nobody else. His word can be trusted and His character counted on. Second, we sing of a steadfast love because His sovereign word is powerful. Verses seven to nine. By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made. And by the breath of his mouth, all their host. He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap. He puts the deeps in storehouses. Here's the response, so let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. You know why? Because he spoke and it came to be. He commanded and it stood firm. Maybe some of you baked something recently. birthday and anniversary, part of your job, maybe you even built something, maybe you're still putting something together after Christmas, you're like, why did I ever give this gift to them, now I've got to put it together. Maybe it's Legos, a bike, a bookshelf, or whatever it was in the last month, I bet you didn't open the Legos and look at them and say, be an AT-AT, and it went. And I bet you didn't walk into your kitchen and say, be a chocolate cake with favorite ice cream. None of you did that. But you wanna know how Jehovah created the world? With his word, and then it happened. He spoke it into existence. And not only that, when he commanded it, it stood firm. And now we're being upheld by that same creative word of his power. His Word is powerful, His Word gives life and without Him was not anything made. His Word is powerful and irresistible and the earth is full of His steadfast love. I don't know if some of you did what I did with one of my boys, but December 21st, got in the car to go try the best look to see the Jupiter, Saturn, planet, star in the sky, a once in a lifetime, once in a millennium occurrence. I have to tell you, it was anticlimactic for me. Was it for you? I mean, if you didn't have it, I thought it was going to be this glorious sky-sized IMAX thing, and I was like, that's it, right there. It was still cool to think about. I'm not downplaying that. But this verse says, God made those kinds of starry hosts with his breath. There it was. He scatters the stars in the sky, and he arranges them like constellations, maybe like you put well-placed sprinkles on a cookie, or you put garnish on a well-plated dish, and then he says, and this is very good. And he not only speaks the world into existence, do you see, he speaks beauty into existence. The Lord not only spoke the world, he spoke beauty. You don't come to God because he's useful, you come because he's beautiful. There's no one like him anywhere. He spoke beauty with a word. And the word revealed his own beauty. And the crashing waves and the rising floods and the reflective lakes and the ebb and flow of the ocean tides are all under the baton of his control. Indeed, the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord. The frosty morning, the sleet in the afternoon, the glowing moon that hangs an invisible string like a pearl against a dark sky, it's full of his steadfast love. And he did it with a word, with his breath. Have you ever thought how the moon displays God's steadfast love? One of the podcasts my wife would listen to was a 10 minute podcast in the morning on the way to school with the kids, and on one of those podcasts, an interviewer was a Cambridge professor with an Irish accent, which made it even cooler to listen to. And he wrote a book, now two years old maybe, The Moon is Always Round, and maybe you've seen it by now. The conceit of the book is just like the moon is always round, even when it doesn't look like it, God is always good even when he doesn't look like it. And here's the heartbreaking context of the book. This professor is also a dad and husband, and he and his wife had just lost a child at birth. And the dad wrote the book to explain to his young son that even so, God is always good. What's the shape of the moon, son? It's a crescent moon, it's a half moon, it's a gibbous moon, dad. Yes, son, but it only looks that way to us. The moon is actually round. The moon is always round, son. Even so, God is always good, even when it doesn't look that way to us. God is always good, even like the moon is always round. The steadfast love of the Lord endures forever. The earth is full of a steadfast love. Every planet, every star, every wave is a sermon for you to hear a steadfast love. It's reliable. The word of the Lord is powerful. And when you put God's powerful creating word in the context of the Bible, you realize that his creating word is actually his redeeming word. That is, Paul, the converted rabbi, thinks of this kind of thing and says, you know what, God, who said let light shine out of darkness, you know what that was about? He now said let light shine into your hearts to see the glory of Christ. The creating word is the redeeming word. When you sing of God as creator, you are singing him, singing of him as the one who is the redeemer. The sovereign word is reliable, it's powerful, and the sovereign word of the Lord is invincible. Look at verses 10 and 11. The Lord brings the counsel, the words of the nations to nothing. He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, but the plans of his heart to all generations I don't know what's going on here, but it seems to me you have a possible reference to that story at the beginning of the Bible, the Tower of Babel, when the nations gathered together and united in their agreement to make a name for themselves in hostility against God. But what did he do there when the nations conspired together? He brought their counsel to nothing. And now that God's people have returned from the exile, what did he do to the plans of Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus? What has he done? He's brought their counsel to nothing. Nations and rulers and administrations and bosses and powers and world leaders do nothing but bring about his ordained plans and purposes. He frustrates the plans of people. He brings their counsel to nothing. Therefore, our hope is in his invincible word. And remember, if you keep in mind that the Psalms are singing Israel's history, then if you put this verse, taking counsel together against the Lord's anointed, this happened first in Psalm 2. when David the king overhears rulers and nations taking counsel together against the Lord and his anointed king. And Peter, when he preaches based on Psalm 2, says the nations were taking counsel together against Jesus Christ, the Lord's ultimate anointed one. But at the empty tomb, the word of the Lord brought the plans of the nations to nothing. And now the living word, Jesus Christ, stands forever as the invincible word making intercession for us. So we hope in his reliable word, his powerful word, his invincible word, with the word on our side. 2021 marks a 500th anniversary of something, probably a lot of things. Here's the one thing that I know of. In January 1521, a German monk and professor was officially excommunicated from the Church of Rome. And there was a papal edict that was given that you can still read in the Vatican Library today, still there, the original copy. And he declared Martin Luther as a heretic, as well of any followers who followed Luther. And if you think some of the verbiage on social media today is bad, you should read this papal edict. Pope Leo X wrote, we prescribe and adjoin that men in question are everywhere to be denounced publicly, excommunicated, accursed, condemned, interdicted, deprived of possessions, and incapable of owning them, that they are strictly to be shunned by all faithful Christians. The last line, should anyone dare to attempt to help these individuals, let them know he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul. Happy New Year, Martin Luther. And in 2008, the Church of Rome was asked to rescind their excommunication of Luther, which they refused to do, which means technically all of Heritage Bible Church will still under the papal edict and we should be accursed. What was Luther's crime? I know you know the story probably, but remember again, he posted a series of statements. He just wanted to have a conversation with the Pope and he said, number one, salvation was free through Christ alone, received by faith alone and repentance. He said that repentance was a way of life, not something you earn by confession to a priest. I love this one, you should too. He said the true treasury of the church is the gospel, the merits of Christ, not the merits of dead saints. It's the gospel that's the treasury of merit that we have. He urged people not to waste money on prayers for the dead. He asked if the Pope wanted to release people from purgatory, why didn't he empty his own treasures than asking the poor to do that? And then he said it was blasphemous to see the cross with papal arms on it as of equal value to the cross of Christ himself. Can we talk about these things, he said. And of course that gave rise to the justification by faith alone that we are not made righteous with God by our work, but we are declared righteous before God by Christ's work alone. And that we're right with God then by Christ's grace, by faith alone in him. And this is the chief article Luther wrote at the end on which we stand. And for this Luther was excommunicated. What was his hope? I don't know, everything that was his hope. I don't know the chronology of it, but you remember that line, probably in a mighty fortress is our God, here's part of his hope. Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing, we're not the right man on our side. You ask who that may be, Christ Jesus it is he, the Lord of hosts his name and he, he must win the battle. Luther knew that even though nations were taking counsel together against the Lord and this gospel that had been entrusted to the church, that their counsel would be brought to nothing, they wouldn't get far. Jesus is the final word, the invincible word, who would win the battle. So his sovereign word is reliable, powerful, and invincible, and now two more points, and they're not as long as the first one, so you'll be okay. Now we sing of his rejoice and his love because of the kind of love it is. It's an electing sovereign love. Verse 12. Verse 12 might be the hinge of this psalm. Look at verse 12. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people he has chosen as his heritage. Think of singing that after you emerge from the exile and you have no monarchy in home anymore and now you're singing, this is still true for us. Now listen, this doesn't refer to any nation that chooses the Lord. Be careful, please, please understand. Nor is it a verse that you can add to a July 4th celebration. This is a verse that refers to the Lord's special choosing of ancient Israel as his special people who would showcase his special sovereign choosing, selecting love. And when God sets his love on a people, nothing can separate them from his love, not even 70 years of the exile. It's time for you to come back. I made promises to Jeremiah, you're coming home. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he's chosen as his heritage. And when you read the New Testament, this language is applied to us. Blessed be the God, the people whose nation is the Lord who chose us. What do you hear the Apostle Paul singing? Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, even as he blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places, even as he chose us in him. This is God's love set on his people. Those who trust in his steadfast love. This is for us today, his people. Heritage Bible Church, blessed are you because the sovereign Lord with his sovereign word has set his irrevocable, invincible, steadfast love on you as his people. He's chosen you. Why was I made to hear your voice and enter Wilder's room when thousands make a wretched choice and rather starve than come? Blessed are you, O Lord, that you have saved me. Finally, we praise him for his sovereign watch care, first over the nations. Sovereign care, watch care, love over the nations. Look at verse 13 to 17. The Lord looks down from heaven and he sees all the children of man. From where he sits enthroned, he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth. He who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds. The king is not saved by his great army. A warrior is not delivered by his great strength. The war horse is a false hope for salvation. And by its great might, it cannot rescue. Listen, everyone everywhere is under the sovereign eye of God. No thought or deed can escape his notice. No nation or governing body can put themselves in a soundproof room in which God cannot hear them or see them. The nations are doing exactly what he ordains. And listen, listen, I don't mean this as any kind of political statement, but I want you to think of this. If we can catch politicians and lawmakers breaking their own orders and going to parties and mask mandates and the like, if we can do that with our finite technology, don't you think God sees everything you're doing? Doesn't he see everything you're doing as a church? Everything going on in this nation? He looks down from heaven and he sees the children of man and everything is under his watch care. And then the psalmist says, and everything we trust in, a great army, physical strength, the war horse, all of those are useless. The war horse can't keep pace with the chariots of the almighty. The strength of the king can't save you from God himself. The mighty army of Rome is now a memory. The blitzkrieg of the Third Reich stalled out in the wintry fields of Russia, and one day America's own mighty army will join the dust of the history books, and so will you in your strength too. Will your hope hold? It's a good thing to know that after the exile, that Cyrus is not Lord, but Caesar is Lord. that Jesus is Lord, that people like you and me are not saved by strength or might, but we're saved by His strength and might, which leads to verses 18 and 19, the sovereign watch care over you and me. That's the sweet spot of the psalm. Yes, I get it, God's over the nations, but he's also over you. Behold, he says, behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him and on those who hope in his steadfast love, that he may deliver their soul from death and keep them from famine. It's not simply that God sees the important people. God sees his own people. God sees you. You, Heritage Bible Church, are the apple of his eye. Now in the Old Testament, his eye, he says, I will preserve you from death and famine. In the Old Testament, this is part of God's promises to his people that when you enter the promised land, if you follow my commands, none of the diseases will take you, you'll never have any famine, and none of these things will fall on you. But when you move into the new covenant, these promises get even greater. Here's what I mean. The same words are used in Romans 8, and you know them. who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us, because I'm persuaded that neither death, there it is, Psalm 33, we've had famine and death, neither famine nor death, life nor death, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come this month and this year, nor powers, nor height, nor depth. You may have forgotten this, Paul. Nor anything else in all of creation will be able to separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Our hope is in the steadfast love of the Lord in his son, Christ. That's why the psalm ends. How do you respond to this? Our soul waits for the Lord. You are our hope. May your steadfast love be on us even as we hope in you. Listen, Heritage Bible Church, whatever comes at you as a church or whether you as a brother or sister in this church, every ounce of providence that he sends you this way has been measured out by his mercy first for you. And every ounce, one ounce of his love works wonders against the ton of the sin in your life or your backstory. And his eye is on us that he might deliver us from death. Not even the nails at the cross could make the Lord Jesus open his hands and let go of you. And if he didn't let go of you at the cross, do you think he'll let go of you now? His love is sure and steadfast. That's what the Lord's table is all about. I love you. My love is steadfast. Here's the love that will hold you. Give you one more fact in history. Charles Spurgeon died in France in 1892 at 1105. He had kidney failure, went into a coma, and he never woke up. Today, at 57 years old in 1892, Spurgeon died. He was preaching on the high priestly prayer of the Lord that goes well with the Lord's table. Let me read you his words and I'll pray. Spurgeon said, You have not any notion how much God loves you. Dear brother, dear sister, you have never yet had half an idea or a tithe of an idea how precious you are to Christ. You think because you are so imperfect and you fall so much below your own ideal that therefore he doesn't love you very much and you think that he cannot do so. But have you ever measured the depth of Christ's agony in Gethsemane and of his death at Calvary? If you have tried to do so, you will be quite sure that apart from anything in you or about you, he loves you with a love that surpasses knowledge. Believe in it. Come to the king of steadfast love. Let's pray. Oh Lord, Finish these words in our heart for your glory and our good. Amen.