Two. As you're turning there, I'll just mention briefly that there is an error in your bulletins. We talked about Islam this morning, that they believe that. The Bible is full of errors. We don't believe that. We believe the Bible is inerrant and reliable and trustworthy. But there are errors in your bulletin, and one of them is the title of the message, which actually came from an old outline. It should be, Are You Possessed? And I think you'll understand that title as we read these verses that are before us. Let's look at 1 Peter chapter 2 and verses 9 and 10. are a chosen race in contrast to those who disobey the word and are destined to do so, as we saw in verse eight. But you, Peter says, are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people. But now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Now, last week we talked about this, these ideas here that Peter lays out and unpacks what it means to be a chosen race, a royal priesthood and a holy nation. And this morning I want to pick up where we left off. The second part of verse nine, where Peter says, we are a people for God's own possession. A people for God's own possession. The idea of possession is a very powerful thing that's built into our very being, our very fabric. All of us have a strong desire to possess. In fact, I was listening to a guy this last week talk about something related to my business. And he was saying that possession is the fear of loss and possessing something is much greater than the fear even to gain something. And the illustration that he gave was that if your neighbor called you up in the middle of the night at two o'clock in the morning and said, Hey, Sean, there's a Sale going on down the street downtown at the tire store. And if you buy two tires between two o'clock and three o'clock this morning, they'll give you two free. And Sean would say to his neighbor, are you nuts? Why are you calling me at two o'clock in the morning? Brother, go back to sleep. I'm not getting up and going down to the tire shop to get a couple of free tires. Now, if that same neighbor called you up at 2 o'clock in the morning and said, hey, Sean, there's some teenagers down in your garage, and they're taking your snow tires, and they're loading them into their pickup truck, and they're about to run away with them. Sean would run down and risk life and limb, and so would you, to save those snow tires that someone is trying to steal from your garage. The idea there is that you possess them. They belong to you. And possession is a very powerful thing, something that you own. And in fact, as we can see here, it's built into our very fabric because God also believes in what belongs to him and jealously guarding it. It belongs to him. And what is it that belongs to him? Well, it's you. It's us. We belong to God. We are his possession. And as we'll see this morning, as we unpack these words of Peter, how powerful this is, how powerful is God's jealousy? When we look at this idea of possession as Peter uses it, we see that we are a people that belong to God and to God alone. You know, there's a sense in the Old Testament. When people had other gods and idols that those gods and idols actually belonged to the people, they belonged to them. They possessed the gods rather than the other way around, the gods possessing them. They were their personal gods that people created and worshipped and entreated those gods to meet their personal needs. You might recall the story of Jacob. How he snuck out of Haran by night with Rachel and Leah and all of his possessions and that Laban pursued Jacob. And when he caught up with him in Genesis 31, he said this. Why did you flee secretly and deceive me and did not tell me so that I might have sent you away with joy and with songs, with Timbrel and with Lear? And did not you did not allow me to kiss my sons and my daughters. Now you have done foolishly. It is in my power to do you harm. But the God of your father spoke to me last night saying, be careful not to speak either good or bad to Jacob. And now you have indeed gone away because you longed greatly for your father's house. And then he ends with this. But why did you steal my gods? Why did you steal my gods? They were mine and you stole them from me. Now, later in the story, we find that Rachel is actually the one that had stolen the idols and had hidden them in her tent. She sat on them so that no one would find them. She put them underneath the blanket. And when they came into the tent, she says, it's the time of month for me and I can't get up. And she hid the gods from their view. Well, the very wording of the narrative in an almost poetic form, demonstrates really how silly it is to think that there are such things as other gods. If these gods were real gods, the narrative shows us that they were in possession of their owners to do with what they liked, and they had no power in themselves. They were in the possession of those who carried them. They could be fashioned and put on a shelf and stolen and hidden and sold. And by God's word, we often see that they can be destroyed and torn down. As in any error, however, there's usually a hint of truth. There's a sense in the Old Testament that the people's God is their possession. And before I go on here by way of application, I think it's something that we each need to come to terms with in our own culture, our culture which is in fact a hedonistic and self-centered culture. We need to ask ourselves this question. When we think about what we possess, we think about our time, our talents, our money, The very things that we possess, we need to ask ourselves, along with Peter here. Who do we belong to? Nothing that we have, in fact, belongs to us, not even our breath. For when we awaken in the morning, everything that we possess is a gift from God. And if God were to touch your health, if God were to touch your life, if God were to touch the life of a loved one, then it would be gone just like that. I was reading a little bit in a book that Sean gave me this week about the sermons that shaped America and reading a little bit about Cotton Mather and some of the things that he endured in his life. He was married three times and all of his wives died. Fifteen children, twelve of them perished before him at a young age. The tremendous grief that he endured in this life. And yet he said, I know that heaven is my possession. And I know that heaven will recompense for all that is lost. He had the perspective that all that he had in this life belonged to God and in God's providence, whether good or difficult providence, that he was the possession of God, that he belonged to God and he could entrust himself to God because God is his maker, his creator. and his caregiver. So this question, do we belong to God ought to be at the forefront of our minds each day as we awaken all that we have. Who does it belong to? See, God turns this idea of possession that we own what we own on its head, because for God's people, who are distinct and peculiar and different from the rest of the culture. Before we can understand that God is our possession, we must understand that he we are his possession, that we belong to him. We're not our own. We've been bought with a price. We belong to God because we've been redeemed. We've been purchased with the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ from the very slave market of sin. And because we've been purchased, we belong to God. That's his possession. We looked last time at Exodus 19. Let's look there again. Keep your finger here in first Peter. Let's turn back to Exodus 19 as we revisit this passage from which Peter is drawing much of this theology. Look at Exodus 19, verses one through six. on the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt. On that day, they came into the wilderness of Sinai. They set out for from refugees and came into the wilderness of Sinai and they encamped in the wilderness. Their Israel and camp before the mountain, while Moses went up to God, the Lord called to him out of the mountain, saying, Thus, you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel, You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples. For the earth is mine and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you shall speak to the people of Israel. Now, this word that is in Hebrew in Exodus chapter 19 is the word Megillah, this Hebrew word for possession. This idea of possession is actually somewhat of a unique word. In the Old Testament, it has a particular meaning and a rather unique meaning as it is used throughout the Old Testament. It's not used just as any possession. Say, I possess this house or I possess this car or whatever. It's not used in that sense. It is used in a rather technical sense, a special sense. It's used to mean literally valued property or treasure, and not just any treasure, but a particular treasure or a peculiar treasure, a special treasure that is actually given value not because of its inherent worth, but because of who it belongs to. Now, this word is actually used eight times in the Old Testament. Six of those occurrences refer to God's people as being his peculiar treasure. And the other two occurrences, it's not to a treasure in general, but as in First Chronicles 29, it is the treasure of David, the king. And in Ecclesiastes 2, it is the treasure of Solomon that is referred to. It is the treasure that belongs to a king. It is a royal treasure. And so this appears to be a very special word that is limited to this idea of royal possession. Now, let me give you an illustration that I thought of that helped me to understand this. Try to imagine that there is a shoemaker in England, and he's opening the back of his boot that he finds and is trying to repair. And in the back of that boot, he finds a diamond. And it's a beautiful diamond. And as we all know, that diamond in and of itself would have inherent value. It would have some inherent worth. But what if that same diamond were given to the queen and the queen were to take that diamond and were to have it mounted on a special mount. And she were to show off that diamond in royal extravagance. She were to wear it to the ball and show it to all the people. Look at this diamond that belongs to me. We all know that that diamond would go from having inherent worth, being able to buy it at Zales, to being a very special jewel, not because of the worth in the diamond itself, but because of who the diamond belongs to. It belongs to the queen. It is a royal diamond. It is a very unique and special treasure, which is why they say that the royal jewels are without worth, without measurable worth. Not because of the rock itself, but because of whom it belonged to. There's much talk today in our culture about man's inherent value. If you've ever studied psychology or counseling, one of the biggest misnomers, or I believe wrong-headed thinking about psychology is that modern psychology, even so-called Christian psychology, says that we need to emphasize with mankind and with those that are hurting their inherent worth because they're made in the image of God. Do we have inherent worth because we're made in the image of God? Yes, we do. We're made in His image. We have value because we're made in God's image. But I want you to know that the inherent beauty that we have has been defaced by sin. The inherent beauty that God created and made in each one of us has been defaced. The diamond has been cracked. It has been broken. It is now flawed and it is in fact worthless. It has no inherent value. When we look at mankind in his natural state, what we must recognize from a biblical perspective is that man really has no value apart from God. In fact, as we look at a common passage like John chapter 3, where men often, and rightly so, emphasize the love of God, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. In Arminian theology, the emphasis is God loves us because we're valued, valuable. But when you come to the end of that chapter, what John says is that for those who don't believe they are present, hence, under the wrath of God. Because we have been defaced by sin, we are under the wrath of God in our natural state. We are haters of God. We are enemies of God. God does not value us in our natural state. He hates our sin, not like the Muslim concept of God giving a law and we break the law. But as we've been talking about the past few weeks in Sunday school, it's because of who he is. God is a holy God and in him there is no imperfection. And so to stand in God's presence as an imperfect, flawed, sinful human being. We're under the wrath of God, we are enemies God is out to destroy us. Because of our sin, because we have sinned against his being his holy character, which is why the law is so important in scripture that God will justify God will justify you if you obey his law, but you must obey his law perfectly. Jesus said you must be perfect, even as my heavenly father is perfect. And so if you can obey the law perfectly and present yourself before God as a flawless diamond, then there is justification for this modern notion that you have inherent worth before God. But I want to tell you, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ and his blood, you have no inherent worth before God. Now, does that mean that We ought to condone the killing of human beings. We ought to condone the killing of babies in the womb. Of course not. Because men are still made in the image of God. It is flawed yet to be sure they are made in the image of God. And God has commanded us because of his image we are not to take a life. But this notion that we have some wonderful, tremendous, worth, self-worth before God in and of ourselves is in itself a flawed and wrong idea. It is only because God restores to us his beauty, the beauty of his son, when God imputes to us the righteousness of his son who took our sin upon himself. It is only in that that we find that we have true value before God. Which is why we are his royal possession. We belong to him. And now, because we are in Christ, because we are that diamond mounted upon the cross, upon his son. Then God says, now, because I see you in my son. You have beauty before me, you are my royal possession. not only before me, but before the whole earth. And I'm going to show you off and I'm going to show you just how beautiful you are because you've been made to look like. The beauty of my son. Deuteronomy 26 18 and 19 says the Lord has today declared you to be his people a treasured possession as he has promised you that you should keep all his commandments and that you should set you should set you high above all the nations which he has made for praise praise fame and honor and that you shall be a consecrated people to the Lord your God as he has spoken. The church today, just as Israel in the Old Testament, is to be a consecrated people, a city that set on a hill, a beautiful city set high above all the nations to be a shining beacon for the glory of God. Now, and that, Peter describes here next, is our ultimate purpose as a people. Notice. Here that Peter goes on and he says, you are a people for his own possession. Notice that he doesn't leave it there, but says that. What is that? Whenever you see that in the Bible, it tells you that there's a purpose clause that's about to follow. You've got to pay attention to that purpose clause because you're not the frozen chosen. Because you're not. A people of God that are called to cloister in your little home or even in your church and to just soak in all of the wonderful grace that God gives to us. But he says that what that. You may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Isaiah 43, 21 says, The people whom I formed for myself will declare my praise. This possession that I have will be a shining, glorious possession that will shine the light of the love of God through his son to all of the nations. It will not be hidden in a vault. It will not be put behind glass just to be looked at by a few tourists who come along, but rather it will be displayed. It will be taken around the world and shown off before the nations. Look, God says, at what I've done. Look at my special possession. Now, the reason why this word in Greek is, which is a retos, is translated usually praises and excellencies to declare the praises and excellencies of him who called us out of darkness. And the reason why it's alternately translated with those words is because various translations are trying to bring out different aspects of the word. In fact, the word is somewhat difficult to translate in English and probably means something like God's praise worthiness because of his moral excellency, because of who he is. Because he is a God of perfection, a God without any flaws in his character, in his being or in his doing. And because of his moral excellency, he's praiseworthy. And that's what Peter seems to be bringing out here. This passage fits so well with all that Peter has been developing in the book up to this point that we've been born again by the spirit of God. And for this reason, we can't help give praise to God because he is worthy of our praise because of who he is, because of his excellence. Because he's redeemed us from our sin by the blood of his son. You see, we praise God for what he has done. What God has done and because of who he is, what he has done is simply a reflection of who he is. He's a just God and he is a loving God. He is a just God that must bring justice because of sin, and he did it. He. poured out his wrath. The biblical doctrine is propitiation. He poured out his wrath on his son who took our place on the cross. God was justified. And because God got justice by pouring out his wrath on his son, He is able to show mercy to you and me, is able to make us a special and prized possession. So in the last part of verse nine and verse 10, Peter gives us three reasons why it is our duty to declare the greatness of our God, both in the assembly of God's people as we gather together and in the marketplace as we tell of his excellent greatness to all that God places in our path. The first reason, he says, we've been called out of darkness into his marvelous light. Now, I don't know about you, but when I was thinking about this this week, when I think of darkness, I typically think of, well, it's an inconvenience. If I get up in the middle of the night and have to go to the restroom, I might stub my toe on the bed and I say, oh, crumb, I can't see in the darkness. I wish there was some light in here. And so it's kind of an inconvenience or maybe there's some fear associated with it. You hear a noise downstairs and you wonder what's out there, what's in the darkness. And so maybe you're afraid in the darkness. But that's not the idea that Peter builds upon here with this idea of darkness. Certainly, there is fear associated with it. There ought to be. For Peter, the notion of darkness is much more. It's well, dark, very, very dark. It's very gloomy. It's very, very scary. Look at second Peter. Chapter two, Pastor Doug preached on this not too long ago. And you may recall some of the things that he brought out there in regards to this. Look at chapter two and verse four. He says, for if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to change of the word here really is not darkness. The word here in verse four is really gloomy pitch. That's the actual word. It's gloomy pits. He condemned them to gloomy pits to be kept until the judgment. The idea that Pastor Doug brought out here is probably a reference, almost certainly, to those angels in Genesis six who did not keep their domain, but rather bred with the daughters of men. And because of that, at some point in history, Doug's actually working on a book right now about this, and it's very interesting, talking about the history of demonic activity in the world and how it's taken forms from the very earliest parts of the world. But the idea here that Peter brings out, and Jude also, is that these angelic demons, for whatever reason, were committed to these dungeons to these gloomy pits and work are being kept there until the time of judgment. Now look also at verse 17 talking about false prophets who are demon possessed. Most likely we've been talking about that. Mohammed and Joseph Smith and in the class on the Colts. and this whole idea of demonic possession and influence. We shouldn't rule it out because demons are, the devil is the author of lies and certainly influences those who teach these lies. Peter puts it like this. These false prophets are waterless springs misdriven by a storm. For them, he uses the same words, the gloom of utter darkness. has been reserved. Now, when we look at Peter's use of darkness in this context, then we can start to think more realistically. One of the things Doug is working on is that we've because of Boltman, we've demythologized the Bible. And we've kind of removed the whole notion and the reality of what's really taking place out there in the demonic forces that our battle, as Paul said, is not against fleshy blood, but it's against principalities and forces of the air. It's against Satan and his minions. Christ has crushed, he's won the victory. And when we look at it from that perspective, Then we begin to understand what Peter's talking about here. He says, because he has redeemed you, he has removed you, has taken you out of darkness. Called you out of darkness. Into his marvelous light. Listen, folks. When we were in our sin and if you're here this morning, if you're still in your sin, you need to understand that it's not just. Your opinion against God's opinion, you are being held in dungeons of darkness, in demonic possession, you're either possessed by God or you're possessed by the devil, there isn't any middle ground. This is why Jesus said to the Pharisees who thought they were possessed of God. Because of their heritage, because of their lineage, he says, no, you're not of your father, Abraham, I'll tell you who you are, you're of your father, the devil. You belong to him, that's who you are, you're in his family before God opened our eyes to see before God like Nicodemus, blew by the spirit into our heart and regenerated us and gave us newness of life to see the truth before God made us new creatures. We were in dungeons of darkness. We were being held in chains. We were bound to our sin. This is why Martin Luther wrote his book, one of the most influential books in my entire life that I've ever read. bondage of the will. And when you read that book and you begin to understand just how strong our sin really is, when we were in our sin, we were in bondage to our nature. We couldn't do anything else other than sin. Now, certainly by God's common grace, men are restrained from running headlong into destruction. They are restrained from doing all that they might do if they were not restrained. Let me tell you, that's only because of God's common grace. The fact is that when you were in your sin, you were in bondage to your will and your will was in possession of your father, the devil. This is what Peter means. This is God has called you out of that. He's called you out of that bondage. You've been freed. Listen to this from 2nd Peter. I'm sorry, from Acts 26, when Paul was speaking before King Agrippa. He quoted the Lord Jesus. Jesus had spoken to him in his vision as he was on the road to Emmaus in his conversion experience, and there Jesus had said to Paul, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Arise, stand on your feet. For this purpose, I have appeared to you to appoint you as a minister and a witness, not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you, delivering you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles to whom I am sending you. Listen to what Jesus told Paul to say, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan. to God, from the kingdom of Satan, from Satan's hold upon their lives to God. In 1885, Herman Fick wrote a hymn that captures this theme very well. See the blindness of the heathen, strangers to thy glorious light, straying hopeless till they find thee, wandering aimless in the night. See Their pitiful condition, low, gross darkness covers all, and no ray of hope refreshes nor dispels the dreadful Paul. If thou, merciful Redeemer, hadst not saved us from this plight, in like darkness we would languish, hopeless, helpless in sin's might. Lovingly thou, Lord, didst seek us in the beauty of thy grace. Now with joy we freely serve thee, we thy blessed chosen race. Knowing thee and thy salvation, grateful love dare never cease to proclaim thy tender mercies, glorious Lord, thy heavenly peace. Shun we forth the gospel tidings to the earth's remotest bound, that the sinner may be pardoned. and forgiveness may be found. Let me tell you something. I grieve when I look at modern so-called missions. The emphasis today, there's a poster downstairs, you can walk by it and look. The emphasis in missions today is that you're salt. And the emphasis on light has been removed. It's that you're salt, you preserve the earth. How do you do it? By doing goodwill towards men. Give them food, give them water, give them shelter. Have a nice discussion with them, show them that you're a Christian by preserving the society and the good in society. It's pure liberalism. The emphasis today, I just read, see the blindness of the heathen. Look at the missions hymns in your hymnal and in the old hymnals. What is the emphasis of the missions hymns that you read from long ago and saying those songs, many of you as young people? It was on the darkness. Of the heathen, the darkness of their sin, and that we have been called out of darkness into his marvelous light now to go to them and proclaim the light. To proclaim that they are in darkness and they must repent and turn to Christ because of the light that has been revealed through the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. People today don't want to talk about the darkness. They don't want to talk about the darkness of our sin. That is precisely the problem that men have. It is not that they don't have enough food or water or shelter or that they can't get along with one another. The problem is that they are in darkness. And they need to be delivered from that darkness by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ through the preaching. What a blessed thing it is to have been saved by God's grace, to have been brought into the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. It ought then to be that we cannot help but to give praise to God, for Paul would reflect upon this same theme later in the Corinthians. He was reminded that God, who said, light shall shine out of darkness, is the one who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Oh, what a wonderful gospel. We've been given the light of the gospel. Now, this point leads to Peter's second point concerning our deliverance. Bear with me, I'm almost done. That is, we once were not a people, but now we are the people of God. This takes us back to Hosea, which we read last week. And there, that great tragedy of grand proportions was brought down upon the heads of God's children. And he says, once you were my people, but now, Hosea, marry this woman and she will become a prostitute and you'll have children by prostitution. In other words, other men's children. And you'll name them Lo-Ami. You're not my people. Once you were my people, now you're not my people. In many respects, Really, Hosea is like a writ of formal divorce. God has every right to carry out that divorce and to banish his people from him forever because they broke their marital vows. And let me tell you, you have broken your marital vows also. You've broken covenant with God. That's why we come every week. We confess it. You've broken covenant with God. We plead the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. This is why Peter's words here are so striking. In fact, I believe that this letter was written to Gentiles because God says, once you were not the people of God and now you are the people of God. God was faithful to his covenant that he made with Abraham. And even though God's people, the Israelites, were faithless, they hardened their hearts and they sinned against him. They were unfaithful to him in every way. Nevertheless, God remains faithful. And even as we saw in the book of Ephesians not long ago, as Mason preached through that, that the dividing wall has been broken down and that the church now consists of Jews and Gentiles in one church. Nevertheless, God was faithful. He has preserved a remnant of his people. Paul witnesses and says, I know because I'm one of them. And. So God was faithful to his covenant for Israel and. As Peter says, you, however, You weren't even a people to begin with. If you're a Gentile, you weren't even God's possession to begin with. When Hosea married Gomer, she was a respectable girl. It wasn't until later she became a prostitute. Peter's point here is that when God found you, you didn't even come from the right family. Spiritually, you were already a filthy fornicator and the worst kind without God, without hope in the world. As I've pointed out before, Most of us in this room, if you can trace your ancestry, especially if you trace it back to Europe or anywhere else practically in the world, almost for sure your ancestors were idolaters of the worst kind. And all of us came from that family, from haters of God as whole peoples, as idolaters. The point here is that when God found you, that's who you were. Peter says, you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God. You once were a blight on the streets of society, a pagan, heathenistic, idol loving people. But now through Christ Jesus and the complete cleansing work of God's spirit, you've been made like a pure young woman betrothed to Christ, the king of all glory. All you're doing now is we're just waiting for Our beloved to return and fetch us to himself and make us his blessed bride forever and ever. We're just waiting for that blessed day. One more point, Peter says, you have not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. What is mercy? Not giving to us what we rightly deserve, what mercy is. Grace is that he gives to us what we don't deserve. Mercy is that he doesn't give to us what we do deserve. This is left out of so much Christian thinking today, the awfulness of our sin and our offense against the moral excellencies of God. I want to ask you this morning as I close. You've heard a lot about God's love in contemporary preaching. What do you know of God's mercy? Have you seen for yourself what you really are? Have you come to terms with your total and complete depravity and your hatred of the praises of God? If you've truly come to know that. You cannot help but to bask in the light of God's mercy, to sit at God's feet and weep Because you realize if it were not for the mercy of God in calling you out of darkness, you would be just like your ancestor. Your ancestor who sat the whole of his life in darkness. What did he do? He worshiped the sun as it came up over the horizon, because he thought that in the sun he saw the light. But he didn't realize that because of the darkness of his heart, the sun is not even a wet matchstick compared to the blazing glory of God. It is nothing. It is darkness compared to the Son of God. who now rises in your hearts. Brethren, once we were not a people of God, but we have become the people of God. We belong to him to do what? So that we may proclaim the moral excellencies of God, who called us out of moral darkness, into his marvelous life so that we may proclaim and live. By the grace of God, through the power of the spirit and in following the Lord Jesus Christ, we may do what the law commanded that we do obey his commandments. We may live in such a way that we will be a light. To the nation's a royal possession. to proclaim the glories and excellencies of Christ. May God make us that kind of a people. Father, we bow before you and we realize that for many of us, including myself, we're tempted because of our culture to think of you as being our possession, belonging to us. And yet, God, your word declares so powerfully that we were in darkness and bondage and possession of the devil himself. We had followed in the way of our father, Adam, rather than the way of your son, the second Adam. We had chosen the path of darkness, not light. But we thank you, God, that you have redeemed us from the darkness. and called us out in your son. And now you set us upon a hill. And I pray that we would live in such a way that we would be light to the nations proclaiming what is right. The darkness of sin and the light of the glory of God is revealed in our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, God, may we live in such a way. May we praise in such a way. Give to us, Lord, hearts and minds and behavior that praises you in the church and in the street. We pray that you might be glorified in all that you have accomplished in your people. We thank you in Jesus' precious name. Amen.