Amen. And I'd like to preach today on a new year and renewed faithfulness. Now, I've called it in times past, I've called it a thousand years from now. And by calling it 1,000 years from now, the whole premise is, what would Sovereign Grace Baptist Church be like 1,000 years from now if somehow it were still around 1,000 years from now? And of course, none of us will be part of that at that particular time. But as we come to a new year, I'm calling it this year a new year and renewed faithfulness, and we take a look back in our doctrinal and practical heritage to see the things most surely believed amongst us. And if God so wills, we look forward to saying that these same truths would be proclaimed a thousand years from now, if not here, at least still being proclaimed in the world. And if this church is somehow still here, we pray it would be proclaimed here too. You know, I'm sorry to say, As far as churches go, and as far as denominations go, as far as groups go, history kind of tells us 25 years is what you get. 25 years. And then there's a natural drift into lesser than what it ought to be. Now, that's not 100%. And that isn't across the board. But 25 years is a very good standard to judge things by. And the drift often comes through the seminaries and the training of men. And as the training becomes less than it ought to be, It filters its way into the churches. That's why 25 years becomes a real standard. Now, obviously, we've been going a lot longer than 25 years ourselves. I've been pastor here for 34 years. I always have to think it through. I've been pastor here for 34 years, and I hope we haven't drifted. And I hope that we're still proclaiming the same gospel and the same truth. So 25 years isn't something that is true for every group and every organization. But mark it down, look at it historically, and you'll see that often is exactly what happens. Today, I want to talk about the things most surely believed amongst us. And then I want to end with a challenge to each of us for renewed faithfulness in the year 2017. You know, I heard a lot of news this last week about how terrible 2016 was, you know, and how horrible it was. And of course, it was kind of shocking, the amount of celebrities that passed away this year, especially in the last month. It was just kind of overwhelming and made us all think, made us, you know, kind of believe that 2016 was a horrible year, a terrible year. Well, you know what 2016 was? It was a year like every other year. We made a trip around the sun once again, you know. Some of you had personal tragedies in your life. Some of you were spared those things by God's grace. It's very easy to make generalities, but the Bible tells us that the wheat and tares grow together. In its primary application, that means the saved and the lost are together on this earth until the Lord ends this earth as we know it. The saved and the lost, the wheat and the tares grow together until the end. And so that's always going to be the case. But we can also take it by application, too, to say that the good and the difficult grow together. And the things that are pleasing to us and the things that are challenging to us grow together. And that's true individually. That's true as a family. It's true as a nation. It's true in the world. 2016 wasn't really all that bad a year for most of us, if you really come right down to it. But if you lived in Syria, And if you lived in Aleppo, yeah, it's about as bad as it gets. Not going to get much worse than that. Yet we lived personally in relative peace, safety, harmony. Things may not have all been exactly what we wanted, and we certainly did see some challenges, and saw some challenges nationally. But you know, the wheat and the tares grow together. Don't expect 2017 to be anything different. We have to constantly be looking to Jesus and trusting in him. Now, there are truths that really matter and should not change. Labels change. And I found myself this year deciding to even change the labels I was using. Because my three-point outline has always been a very simple one. What would we want to be 1,000 years from now? We'd want to be evangelical, we'd want to be reformed, and we'd want to be Baptist. That's always been the outline. I preach this sermon many other times, although it changes every time I preach it. And that has been my outline. But as time has gone on, I've become less and less satisfied with that term evangelical. I'm sorry to say, because terms change, and meanings change. I'll give you an example. The term fundamentalist has changed tremendously. A fundamentalist was a label given at the turn of the last century to those who believed the Bible is the word of God, and was standing against the liberalism of those that were denying such things as miracles, denying such things as the truth of God's word. We've seen it go all the way with the Jesus Seminar to denying that Jesus even spoke the words that are given in the Bible except for 50 words. Somehow they found 50 of them that they think the Lord Jesus Christ actually said, you know. And that's just what liberalism and unbelief will do. So fundamentalism was given a term and led by G. Gresham Machen, who, an excellent man, a godly man, well worth reading anything you can by G. Gresham Machen. And if you want a fellow that's kind of contemporary like him, and believes like him, R.C. Sproul is a good example of what G. Gresham Mason was and what he fought for in that particular day, including infant baptism, which we don't believe in. But, you know, just giving you a heads up of what it's all about. But the trouble is, it didn't take long for things to change in the fundamentalist movement. And instead of just being only about the Word of God and the importance of the Word of God, it became about such personal opinions and often certain styles of preaching, which included being really loud. And that was one of the features. And opinions became essentials. And debatable issues took the place of the authority of the Word of God. exactly the opposite of what the fundamentalist movement started out as. It only took about a quarter of a century for this to take place, 25 years that I'm talking about, you know? And instead of the Ten Commandments, the Naughty Nine replaced them, you know? And the preaching became against such issues as smoking, drinking, dancing, playing cards, sometimes even dominoes or games with dice. You know, come on. This is what became the issues in the 40s and the 50s. Absolutely no Hollywood movies, although watching movies on TV for some reason became okay. That's kind of a hard one to figure out. Yet these things became changeable within the movement. Some things that were considered sins became acceptable. Now why would that be? Whenever you have a standard that's made by men, It's gonna be changeable. And I'm not trying to mock anybody's personal preferences. I am not. In matters of sin, Christian liberty is an important doctrine. And you must never let anyone bind your conscience with anything except the word of God. But at the same time, you need to make sure that your conscience is trained by the word of God. And make sure that you can stand on your convictions by the word of God. But you know what? You can have preferences. You're allowed to have preferences. You have things that you aren't going to participate in. Things that you don't want to deal with, and no one can make you do that, because those that would try to force you towards that are engaging in another form of tyranny. So tyranny goes both ways. Going against us on things that are allowable, but tyranny also, they're trying to force people to go against things that they just plain choose not to do. Man-made restrictions are fine for personal preferences. We all have them, we have to, to live in this present world. But man-made restrictions must never be bound upon the people of God as if they were thus saith the Lord. So what I'm trying to say is our fundamentalist friends, and they are our friends, often engaged in a list of do's and don'ts. along with being dispensationalism, or dispensational, something the original fundamentalists never envisioned. Certainly just read J. Gresham Machen, you'll see what I mean. So, I'm changing it from evangelical, reformed, and Baptist, to historically Christian. Reformed, and Baptists, because I think historically Christian is probably a much better term. Evangelical has become so broad in meaning that it almost means nothing, and incorporates anything that isn't Roman Catholic, and even kind of incorporating that to some extent. And it's also become a buzzword for a political movement, and that's not what we're involved in, nor what we care to be involved in. So the truths of scripture do not change, But hopefully the church at large, and our church in particular, grows, matures, reaps the benefits of those who've gone before her. So historical Christianity becomes a good term to use, I believe. And conservative Christian thought can be found in ancient writers like the church fathers Irenaeus and Tertullian and Athanasius and Augustine, or early reformers like Wycliffe and Huss. And of course, the reformers, like Luther, Calvin, and Knox, followed on their heels by the Puritans, and then men like Owen and Bunyan, who himself was a Baptist, John Bunyan, tremendous man. And of course, closer to our time, and sometimes called the last of the Puritans, C.H. Spurgeon. And so here are safe guides that we can look at, not that we would agree with every jot and tittle of the things that they say, but we're talking about the broad spectrum of historic Christianity. And turn to Ephesians chapter two. And maybe here more than any other place, we find historic Christianity, what needs to be confessed in order to truly be Christian, and what needs to actually, well, let me just put it that way, what needs to be confessed in order to be historically Christian. Ephesians chapter two. And as you turn there, let me just say, it's salvation from sin by the grace of God. And it's not because of good works or given because of any merit on the part of man for any good found within man. True good works come only through the power of the Holy Spirit working in the heart and a life changed by God. Ephesians 2, verse 8. Now, did you notice what it said? Salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, by Christ alone, And that's the hallmark of historic Christianity. Anything else must be called a false gospel. And historic Christianity teaches certain truths that we pray SGBC would still proclaim 1,000 years from now. We believe in the literal account of Adam and Eve, the deity of Christ, personality of the Holy Spirit, the doctrine of the Trinity, the plenary inspiration of the Word of God, which means the full and complete inspiration of the Word of God, a belief in the miraculous accounts of Scripture, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, Christ's literal death and resurrection, His ascension into heaven, His personal and glorious coming again, and the final resurrection and judgment of all men, and the reality of heaven and hell. When we talk about ascension into heaven, it's going to be my privilege to preach on that very subject at our next ARBCA-GA. I look forward to doing that, getting to preach on Christ's ascension. All these things are cardinal doctrines that have been held by true Christians down through the ages. So 1,000 years from now, I would pray that we'd still be holding to the word of God and these truths, but I would hope for more. These are the parameters of Christian, but within the parameters of Christian, there's the reformed faith. And for a text there, turn to 2 Timothy 1. Notice it's a different sermon than we usually preach. We're usually going verse by verse through texts of the scripture. I wanted to give you an exhortation this morning, something that we do on occasion and bring it forward to you. 2 Timothy chapter 1. It's no accident that the rise of expository preaching has given a renewed interest in the doctrines of grace. Free will preaching is almost always textual by nature, one verse followed by whatever happens next, you know. but expository in a broad sense, large portions of scripture, well that's problematic too because you can have such large portions of scripture that you gloss over the things that aren't easily understood or something that you're uncomfortable with. So I think maybe a paragraph at a time is a good way to go through the scriptures and deal with the issues fully. That's what we try to do here at Sovereign Grace. Here in 2 Timothy chapter one, We have the voice of one generation speaking to another generation. The Apostle Paul knew his time was short. This is actually the last book of the Bible that he wrote. About three to six months later, he lost his head, literally, at the hands of Caesar. Paul knew his time was short. He knew the care of the churches would be left into the hands of others. And Timothy was a young, relatively inexperienced man. but he was chosen by the Holy Spirit and chosen by the Apostle Paul to be one of the leaders to take Christianity to its second generation. Soon, all the apostles would be gone, but they would leave behind an apostolic word, but they also knew there'd be those who would pervert that word to their own purposes, and that happened even during the lifetime of Paul himself. 2 Timothy 1, verse 8. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner. But share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, It's a long sentence, but the Apostle Paul liked long sentences, didn't he? Verse 12. For this reason I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I'm not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed to him until that day. Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you've heard from me in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed to you, keep by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. Let's just spend a few moments seeing what the Apostle Paul is saying to us here and what we need to note. Back to verse 8. See, as you read 2 Timothy, you see that Paul knows that his time is short and his days are numbered. But note Paul's attitude. He wanted to have Timothy realize that he was not Caesar's prisoner at all. The Apostle Paul was the prisoner of the Lord, and therefore the cause of Christ. So he saw this as coming from the providence of God. Verse nine tells us something else, and here is a powerful truth that we believe at SGBC and pray that we'd still cling to a thousand years from now. Who has saved us? and called us to a holy calling. He's the one that saved us. It's His doing, not the work of our own hands. And what are we called to? Called to holiness. Called to true holiness. Called to live for Him. This is God's purpose in our salvation. Salvation isn't just saying a prayer. True salvation is the mighty working of God, changing our heart and life, and causing us to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Some have reduced salvation to a prayer. Repeat this prayer and you'll be saved. But true salvation is repentance, faith, trust, belief, and commitment. And the rest of the verse, notice what it says here. who saved us and called us for the holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began." If we were doing our normal exposition, I think probably verses 8 and 9 would be about as far as we could go because they're so rich and so full and there's so much that we could say. But let me just point to you the rest of verse 9. In Christ Jesus, before time began. There's a time factor here. It's not our works that makes the difference. It's His purpose. It's His grace. And this comes to us through Jesus Christ. And when did it come? Determined by God before time began. What's Paul saying here? Well, there's people that say, I don't believe in predestination. I don't want to think about predestination. The doctrine's too lofty for me to understand, and it shouldn't be preached because no one else can understand it either. Well, the Apostle Paul obviously didn't feel that way because he actually talks about before time began. And we can boil it down very simply. Who's in control? Man or God? And I think you know the answer to that. Verse 10. But it has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ. So it was before time began, but the revelation of it has to come at a particular time because right now we are creatures of time and we live in time. But it has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ. And what has He done? Who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. That's the amazing thing. By His death, He brings life to us. And that's the gospel. It's plainly, plainly given throughout the scriptures. Salvation's by faith in Christ. And God's plan is as eternal as God Himself. His plan is perfect and unchangeable because God Himself is perfect and unchangeable. And God's plan came to full fruition in time Bible tells us that. Before time, it was planned, came to fruition in time when the fullness of time had come. And about 2,000 years ago, everything was pointing towards the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And since his death, burial, and resurrection, and ascension into glory, where he sits at the right hand of the Father, everything points back to him now. and we need to keep him constantly in our mind. And, you know, it actually talks about, it says in verse 10 too, who brought life and immortality to light to the gospel. Verse 11, to which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle to the Gentiles. Now, verse 12, for this reason I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I'm not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that I am able to keep myself. No, that's not what it says. If your Bible says that, then there's a misprint there. I've believed and am persuaded that he's able to keep that what I've committed to him until that day. And the doctrine of falling from grace is actually a terrible doctrine. It's a denial of the entire system of grace taught in the scripture. When you think about it, it's a denial of total depravity. It's certainly a denial of God's purpose in election, and a denial of election itself. It's a denial of the power of forgiveness through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. And it's a denial of the effectual work of the Holy Spirit. Yeah, we commit to God. but we trust Him for life and immortality. We trust Him for our entire being and living. And to talk about falling from grace is actually a denial of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, by Christ alone, because we've inserted our own self into that and what we have to do. Verse 13. Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you've heard from me in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Hold fast the pattern presupposes there is a pattern. You can't hold fast to something that doesn't exist. It was a pattern. It was discernible. It was systematic. And there's no way around it. Paul was talking about doctrine. The word that's translated pattern, In the Greek, it denotes an outline sketch of what one might do. Or in literature, it might be called a rough draft for the writer. That's the pattern. The pattern may not tell you everything, but it's a pattern that helps you to know that you're on the right course. In our own church, that's our confession. Confessions are important. They are a doctrinal standard. They don't tell you everything, and they're not meant to tell you everything, but they put you on a path and help you to discern what the scriptures principally teach. And that's helpful. And there are some things, even confessions, that brothers and sisters disagree with. And that's fine, because a confession isn't perfect, and it can't be perfect because it's been written by men. A sermon preached by a man isn't gonna be perfect either. Nothing can be perfect except the word of God, which is absolutely perfect. But a confession is meant to be a distillation of what the scriptures principally teach, and a guide to keep us on the path. So they're important. and they're helpful. And a good confession has historic Christianity behind it. That'd be true for the Westminster, that'd be true for the Belgic, that'd be true for the Heidelberg Catechism, be true for our own 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. You may not believe everything that's in them, and you don't have to. But this church stands for the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. Our officers, our elders, and our deacons need to hold to that. Our church members, you know, those of you that have gone through our church membership process are told that you don't have to hold to everything in our confession. But what you do have to understand And it's important that you do understand. What you do have to understand is these are the things that are going to be proclaimed. These are the things that we're going to say. And if you have disagreements, we'd ask you to respectfully please not make issues out of them and just understand that, understand that, not to try to cause trouble over those things, and people have been very, very kind over that in the past. So as church members, you don't have to believe every single thing that's in our confession, but our officers do, and if they don't, well certainly, we'll be something else 25 years from now. and 100 years from now, and even further down the road. We want to be consistent, and we want to stay consistent by God's grace, which is a very difficult thing to do, by the way, but by his grace. You know, doctrine doesn't mean anything without life, though, and so notice what he said again in verse 13. Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you've heard from me in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Sometimes we hear about dead orthodoxy. Why does orthodoxy have to be dead? Can't good doctrine be lively? Can't we love the things of God and love God himself? Of course we can. And so Paul says it well. Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you've heard from me in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Then verse 14, Paul talks about the gospel. That good thing which was committed to you, keep by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. Let me be blunt here. If we don't have the gospel, we really have no reason for our existence as a church. If we don't have the gospel, It would be better for the cause of the gospel to shutter the doors, sell the property, and leave the gospel to those that know what the gospel is. If we lose the gospel, as so many have, we cease to be a true church. We're to guard the gospel, and we're to do it by the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells amongst us. So three words should describe Sovereign Grace Baptist Church 1,000 years from now. Historically Christian, Reformed, and Baptist. Now, for sake of time, and because there's no reason for repetition, I'm not going to really deal with Baptists. I'm not gonna elaborate on that. Mike has been teaching on some American Baptist history in our Sunday school hour, and we'll be doing that again this coming week on the 8th. And Adam has been taking us through the book, Jesus Loves the Church and So Should You, which teaches Baptist doctrine. So it really would be kind of superfluous for me to spend a lot of time on Baptist doctrine here. So I'll leave that to them in the coming weeks and months. But there are things that are possibly going to be understood better 1,000 years from now if the Lord has not returned. And probably the most glaring one of all is eschatology. All you have to do is go in your Christian bookstore, or just go online, really, and take a look at the books that have been written that now are absolutely worthless. that tell us all the things that are going to happen, and they didn't happen. So what good is that? What good is it to believe something that really isn't true? As far as eschatology goes, it's the one area of doctrine that hasn't received enough biblical study over the years, and the study it has received has often been prone to excess and wild speculations. and 1,000 years from now, which is a possibility. We have no guarantee that the Lord is going to come in our lifetime. You know, if you lived back in the first century, you never would have believed that the year 1,000 was coming. If you lived in the year 1,000, you probably never would have believed the year 2,000 was coming. I have a hard time believing the year 3,000 will ever come, but it might. If 1,000 years to the Lord is as a day, a day is 1,000 years, and he would be in the tomb for three days, 3,000 years doesn't seem like it would be unreasonable either. We don't know. We don't know. He could come right away. He could come way past our lifetime. We don't know. 1,000 years from now, if the Lord has not returned, I can guarantee you this, the world's gonna be a very different place. I mean, the world's a very different place from the time that I was born and grew up. And some of you have me on that. You're older than I am. You've seen even more changes than I've seen in this short lifetime. And it's doubtful 1,000 years from now, there'll be a United States of America as we know it. because countries simply don't usually last that long. Even if they keep the same name, they become very different in what they happen to be. But there are some things that aren't going to change, be it 10 years, 100 years, 1,000 years. Some things will be the same as they are today. Men and women will still be sinners. There still will be a Church of Jesus Christ on the earth, even if it's not this particular one. There'll still be those faithfully proclaiming the truth. Sometimes they'll find themselves in the extreme minority. Or there could be times of great revival that will cause many to come to faith. And if things go the way they usually go, It won't be worldwide. It'll be great apostasy over here, possibly revival over here, normalcy over here, depending on where you live at that particular time. You know, we've seen the gospel actually penetrating into Asia during our lifetime. So we just don't know what God's going to do next. Evil will continue to grow, but good will grow too. Because over the long haul, good and evil grow together. And I can tell you this, 1,000 years from now, or even 100 years from now, those of us that are adult age, well, we're not going to be here to see it. And that's just the facts of the matter. We'll either be with the Lord or suffering his wrath for all eternity. And which is it for you? Do you know Jesus Christ as Savior? Now, I promised a final exhortation, and I do want to give you that. It's an exhortation basically for Christians. We're beginning a new year. As I said, it's just an arbitrary date on the calendar. It's another trip around the sun. But it does give us a chance to look back and look forward. And that's a good thing. That's something we ought to do on a regular basis in our life. I try to do that from time to time during the course of the year. Stop and evaluate what I'm doing. See, okay, this needs to be done and it needs to be a top priority and I need to really set my face upon that and focus upon it. These other things have crowded into my life And I can get rid of them. I can kind of either make them less than they are today or get rid of them altogether because we all have a tendency to collect junk. Junk in our life. And so the first of the year is really a good chance to do that for sure. Most people are doing that, Christian or not. But let me ask you this, Christian friend. How was 2016 for you spiritually? How was it for you spiritually? I want you to think with me now. Were you diligent in the means of grace? And can you be more diligent in 2017? God's grace comes to us in salvation, but it comes to us daily? It comes to us weekly, and it comes to us monthly, and it comes to us as we take up the necessary and ordinary means that He Himself has ordained. So getting very practical now, what about church attendance? What has your church attendance been like? The Lord's Day comes around one day in seven, and guess what? It's going to come around whether you're here or not. It's going to happen. Daily Bible reading. You know, that's a privilege you have that Christians up until, well, up until maybe the last 300 years really couldn't be expected to do. Bibles were extremely expensive. In fact, they were almost impossible to procure when they were written out by hand. But you have the Word of God. You probably have, well, I couldn't tell you how many Bibles I have. But I'd be surprised if most of you don't have two, three, four, five Bibles at home. And that's nice, but they don't do any good if they're left unread. Daily Bible reading, to keep the Word of God in your heart and in your mind. A lot of us, I preach out of the New King James Version. A lot of us love the Old King James Version, you know why? A lot of us do love the Old King James Version. I'm one of those that do, because that's what I've memorized out of. When I quote scripture, I quote scripture out of the Old King James, because that's what I grew up with, that's what I knew, that's what I'm familiar with, that's what I'm comfortable with. And of course, a lot of you younger folks using other translations, that's fine. No problem with that at all, but you know, Having the word of God in your heart and mind is what's important. And it's a habit. It really is a habit. If you were to read for 15 minutes a day, if you're an average reader or better, you would read through the Bible in a year. And if you're challenged at reading, you could still read through the Bible in two years, easily enough, at 15 minutes a day. And that's with spending some time to think about what you're reading, too, and to inculcate it. Most of us have a lot of bad habits, but you can inculcate good habits by regular discipline. Prayer. How many of us pray as much as we ought to? How many of us really show the Lord that we're serious about Him and that we really believe in Him and we really trust in Him? Our prayer life really shows how much we are trusting in the Lord and how much we're believing in Him. 2017 can be better for all of us in our prayer life, I'm sure. And what about giving to the work of the Lord? Now, we don't pass an offering plate here, you notice that. I think that's good. That's by design. Our people know they're to give. The Bible tells us to give generously without letting our left hand know what our right hand is doing, and we certainly don't want to give to be seen of men and praised of men. That's one of the reasons we have a box in the back where our people can give. And it's also good, because our visitors know that we're not out for their money, because we're not. But there is a downside to not taking an offering. Out of sight, out of mind. It's easy just to forget our privilege and our responsibility. And I hope you don't have to have an offering plate go by you every service in order to remind you that we worship the Lord by our tithes and our offerings. Just in conclusion, I don't know what 2017 holds. I know who holds 2017, but I don't know what 2017 holds. But I'll tell you the truth. In some ways, I'm optimistic. I'm looking forward. Optimistic that the moral decline that has come to so much of our country can be stymied, That the antagonism to the gospel that has been the direction in our universities and other places maybe can be turned around. And optimistic for the opportunities of the gospel to go forward in this church and in the world in 2017. And I do pray that God will cause us to look to him and trust him fully. And if we do that, whatever befalls in 2017, we can rest assured that all things work for good to those that love God and to those that are called according to his purpose. Amen. Let's look to the Lord in prayer. Father, help us to think on the simple things. Help us to think on the fundamental things. Help us to think on the first things. And Father, if we think on the first things, we'll think on the Lord Jesus Christ, and his great love for us, and what he's done for us, and his mercy and his grace that extends to us. And it's mercy, Father, because it's not what we deserve, and it's grace, Father, because Lord, it's what you have done, and what you have given. So Lord, we thank you for that. We thank you for the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, this faith that comes as a gift from you, Lord, cause us to ever look to our Savior. Cause us to trust in Him. We pray that we would live for him in 2017. We thank you for 2016 and the things that have happened. And now, Lord, we look forward and press forward to a new day and ask, Lord, that even though it's just one more mark on the calendar, that you'd cause us to take some time to inventory and then, Lord, to make corrections where corrections are needed and to have a renewed faithfulness by your grace. And we would give you thanks. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.