I think if I wasn't Swedish, I would do what Pastor Larry could do much easier than me. I would just stand here and cry a while because this has been good fellowship. But I'm crying on the inside, okay? And I'm thanking God for each one of you and for the gift of fellowship and what it means to have fellowship with men and women and boys and girls of like precious faith. to be able to see what God is doing in lives. I'm telling you, we just had an experience a while ago. I don't know, I think we had a baker's dozen or so of men of God praying over a brother and anointing with oil in the name of Jesus. And wow. I just asked God at the end if he'd just slop over it. Slop over on Richard and anyone else that needed healing. We prayed. God was there. Well, on earth, all good things come to an end. But the end, even when we go home to be with Jesus, the end is just the beginning. This is the bubble. That's the eternal story. And I want to tell you, that I would add to the messages, I would add to the messages that we've heard, Paul de Bechere and what he had to say to us about really believing that Jesus is coming back and living in the light of that truth. Paul, that was on fire. That was on fire. That was just what we needed. What a tremendous devotional it was. Thank you so much. If you'll open your Bibles to our main theme verse, Isaiah 41 and verse 10. And if you notice, there's only 10 passages there, about 20 some verses. That's all I'm gonna be preaching on. So it's gonna be short. You're gonna be able not to rush. I think it's even possible Pastor Reuben and Evangeline, and we'll get to sit down, not have to take it in a sack lunch. I can't prophesy, but I will say I don't think I'll be that long. Fear not, for I'm with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous Right hand. And now, Father, use your word powerfully among us one more time. While on others you're calling, don't pass us by today. Let your anointing be on this, your servant, and on us, your servants, as we study the texts that talk about your righteous right hand, that talk about your strong arm, Don't let us ever think this idea of being strengthened by Jesus is just a wild thing. It is the truth. It is the truth of our lives. What would we do without you, Jesus? What would we do without you? Without you, we can do nothing. Now may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our heart be acceptable unto you, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. As I prepared for this final message of this conference, I want to tell you that sometimes a theme is given to you by the Lord. Sometimes it comes in the night seasons. Sometimes someone walks up to you, like your wife or something, and says, have you thought about this theme? But sometimes a theme is What you feel has happened in your life and you can't think of anything else. Over and over, as I wrestled over a theme, all I could feel was carried by the Lord. All I could feel was the power of His righteous right hand. I could sense that He was carrying me. And the theme, that he was telling me afresh. I wrote down some of the words that I felt as I chose the theme strengthened by Jesus. And today it's let's humbly work together in love. The theme I sensed was Jesus just with his righteous right hand around my shoulder, sometimes carrying me, sometimes just his hand on my head. Sometimes his arms wrapped around me like a little child. Sometimes as if he had me sitting as his child on his knee as he took the little children and blessed them. I felt he was saying to me these words, you can depend on my presence. I'm your God. I'm all sufficient in the worst of times. Listen to me. Hear my tender words. Hold on to my tenderness. Don't be afraid. I am with you. I'm beside you. Don't forget, I'm in you by my spirit. Don't be dismayed at those who are against you. Are you weak? I am strong. I'll strengthen you with my righteous right hand. Do you feel alone? I do. You're not alone. I'm your friend. I stick closer than a brother. Do you feel ready to sink? I do. I feel ready to fall. I'll uphold you. I'll hold you up. I'll steady you with my righteous right hand. Trust my guidance. Listen. Bank on my words as I lead you. I'll help you up when you're faint. I'll help you when you fall. When you're weak, when your confidence is wavering, when you're trembling, I will silence your fears. Fear not, for I'm with you. Be not dismayed. I'm your God. I'll strengthen you. I will help you. I will oppose you with my righteous right hand. When I chose the text, I chose only 10. They all spoke to me. And the message theme is strengthened by Jesus. Let's humbly work together in love. I have four directives for us about this theme. I'm gonna use all 10 texts. Somewhere I'll weasel them in, I'll weave them in. And so you'll say, oh, that's another one of them. But I want you to hear the cry, I believe, of God's heart for us as a district, for us in our churches, for us in our ministry. Some of you here are struggling with the next season in your life. You don't even know what is ahead. You don't know what's up ahead. Listen to the voice of God. Listen to His little whispers. Sometimes He whispers to us. He whispers to us. It's a still, small voice. Listen to his whispers. Jesus, help us humbly work together in love. The first directive is strengthened by Jesus. Focus on him and him alone. Notice Isaiah 41.10. There are two I am's here. I love all the I am's all through scripture. I am, I am, I am, I am. Fear not, for I am with you. Who's with us? Who's with us? I am is with us. The great I am. Fear not, I am with you. Be not dismayed, I am your God. Who's our God? I am. I'll strengthen you, I'll help you, I'll uphold you with my righteous right hand. Notice Isaiah loves to use a tactic that we often do as we preach. We speak for God because God speaks through us as vessels. And so he uses the personal pronoun, I, not of himself, but of God. Five times in that little verse, fear not for I am with you. Be not dismayed, I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will oppose you with my righteous right hand. There's five. Hurry on down to Isaiah 41 verse 13 and 14. You have four more. Takes us up from five to nine. For I, the Lord, hold your right hand. It is I who say to you, fear not. I am the one who helps you. Fear not, you worm, Jacob, you men of Israel. I am the one who helps you, declares the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. That's only nine. Jump ahead to Isaiah. Chapter 43, verse 1 to 3. Let's make it a baker's dozen with four more. For thus says the Lord who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel. Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm or drown you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned and the flame will not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. That's a baker's dozen. 13 times he's saying to us, He's speaking for God. I am with you. Don't feel alone. Don't feel by yourself. Don't feel weak. In Christ, you and I are strong. One other passage in Isaiah, the gospel according to Isaiah. in the Old Testament, Isaiah 53, not 53, but 35. Three and four is another direct to go to God for our strength. The prophet says, strengthen the weak hands. If anyone here has weak hands, you want to join me and put your hands out. Just put your hands out if you feel weak. Any of you? There's a bunch of you feel weak. Strengthen the weak hands, Scott. Make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance. With the recompense of God, he will come and save you. I call us as a district to quit talking about and quit looking at our small size. Stop it. Stop it. God is in control. He knows what he's doing. The prophet Zechariah, remember, he said in Zechariah 4.10, this is the word of the Lord, not by might, not by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts. I confess to you the easiest thing to do when we sense inadequacy and defeat and doubts and fears is to examine ourselves. How many of you have examined yourself when you feel weak? It is a putrid, putrefying sore. It's like looking at cancer. Don't do it. It's like coming to a raging flood and seeing a bridge that's over the troubled waters. And you come there and you stand in front of the troubled waters and the bridge and you examine yourself to see whether you can get across. It's foolish and it's stupid. Go over and look at the bridge and examine the bridge. Jesus is our bridge over troubled waters. Don't examine your faith. Examine the bridge. He is the author of our faith. It's not of yourselves. It's not of me. Lest any of us should boast. Look at the bridge and who provided it. Walk across. It robs God of His glory and us of our power when we allow anything else but God to be our focus, when we fear and doubt and are anxious and we're facing difficult times. And I'm preaching to myself. I need what I'm preaching. I'm not telling you I've got it and you need it. I'm telling you I need it. Maybe you've got it. But I need my message. We got to focus on Jesus Christ. Strengthened by Jesus, focus on his strength alone. Leonardo da Vinci was 43 years old and the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Savorza commissioned him to paint a dramatic scene of the Last Supper. I'm sure many of you have seen and you have it in your home. Some of you even have it, the Last Supper. Da Vinci spent three years on the assignment. He grouped the disciples in threes, threes, and Christ in the middle with his arms outstretched. and holding in his right hand was a beautiful, beautiful cup. When da Vinci showed the Duke his painting, Ludovico Sforza was asked for his opinion. And he says, it's wonderful. It's just wonderful. It's the most wonderful picture I've ever seen. Oh, it's beautiful. I can't take my eyes off the cup. I can't take my eyes off it. It's so beautiful. And immediately without anything being said, Da Vinci reached over and got a brush and just brushed through the cup. And he said to the Duke, nothing shall distract anyone from Christ. at his table today. Nothing must distract us from our Lord Jesus Christ. Strengthened by Jesus, we're going to work together. We've got to get it right ourselves first. We've got to focus on Jesus. We've got to be a bunch of people that don't know any different but what we can't do it without him. We have to realize it's all because of him and it's all through him. It can't happen Apart from him. John 15, 5. You want to say it with me? Apart from me, you can do nothing. You want to try it five times? Apart from me, you can do nothing. Say it again. Apart from me, you can do nothing. That's two. Apart from me, you can do nothing. That's three. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Four. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Now, how many of you have memorized that? Those that have memorized it, would you say it together? Apart from me, you can do nothing. You're in a scripture memory program. Remember, you went to church today, came to a conference and you learned the Bible verse, apart from me, you can do nothing. That's the first directive. The second directive is strengthened by Jesus, depend on his strong arm, depend on his right hand. Where's Michelle at? Michelle here anywhere? I see Josh, you can tell her what I said. She said, if he's got something in his right hand that leaves his left hand free to help us. And it's not that his left hand can't help us, but he so often speaks about his right hand. If you want to turn there, you can turn to the Virgin Mary's Magnificat. She responded to Elizabeth. Remember, Elizabeth was up in the hill country, and the angel of the Lord had come to the Virgin Mary, and all she knew is she was a young gal just doing her duty. Maybe she was getting some water. Who knows what she was doing? The movies all try to tell us what was going on, some kind of a sanctified imagination. I don't know what she was doing when all of a sudden the Spirit of God came, and Angel Gabriel came and said, Mary, you've been chosen of God to bear a son who shall be called the Son of God. Well, if you're a young girl in your teens, like she probably was, the commentators, and they're all just commentators like you and me, they're just guessing. They say probably between 13 and 16. I like to think between 14 and 18. But when I was growing up down in Kentucky, people were getting married at 14 like flies. So all I can just tell you is that however old it was, she's a young thing. She's a young little girl. And she's being told you're going to have a baby and she knows better. She knows in her heart, it's impossible. I've never known a man. And the angel says, the Holy Spirit will come over you and hover over you. And that which shall be born to you will be of God, the Holy Spirit. Praise God, there was somebody that was pregnant at the same time, probably 65 years of age, past childbearing stage. You remember Elizabeth? She's up in the hill country. She's carrying little John the Baptist. who hasn't been named yet, of course, but we can speak about him as if that was his name. That didn't happen until Zechariah, who was struck dumb because he wouldn't believe God because they were both too old. But he said, when the child was going to be circumcised, his name, oh, it should be Zechariah, it should be all these other, no, no, his name is John. But now she's walking up to the hill country and as she's going up to the hill country, she gets there and she comes in the house. She calls out Elizabeth and Elizabeth instantly says strange words. This little one is microscopic. Jesus in her womb is tiny, tiny, tiny. Do a sonogram on that. Nothing there, but there was something there. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. We know who that is, that's Jesus. Where did this teenage girl find the wisdom to how to respond? If you're a teenager and somebody says that to you, it's like, this must be true. Be it unto me according to your word and immediately, immediately. The mother of my Lord. Are you kidding? And she begins to quote scriptures. If you turn to Luke chapter 1 and you read the Magnificat, you'll find that this woman is so schooled in the Old Testament. People say, no, it's just the men that were schooled. Let me tell you, this gal was schooled. My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior. For he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed. For he was mighty. Where'd you get all this idea? Has done great things for me and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm. Woo! There it is. Strengthened by Jesus. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud and the thoughts of their hearts. He's brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate. He's filled the hungry with good things and the rich. He has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and his offspring forever. You would think that this was a man of God who had studied the word for literally decades. This is a teenage girl. who knew her Old Testament. What'd she know? Well, she knew things like Psalm 62, eight and nine. The Lord has sworn by his right hand and by his mighty arm. From Isaiah 51, nine to 11. Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord. Awake as in the days of old, the generations of long ago. Wasn't it you who dried up the sea? Wasn't it you who made the waters of the great deep, the depths of sea, a way for the redeemed to pass over and the ransom to the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing and everlasting joy shall be on their heads. They'll obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and sign will flee away. She's just borrowing from scripture. She quotes. Psalm 98.1. Oh, sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. Mary rejoiced in God, her Savior. As I studied this passage, I just started singing. You want to sing with me? What have I to dread? What have I to fear? Leaning on the everlasting arms. I have blessed peace with my Lord so near. Leaning on the everlasting arms. Leaning on Jesus. I'm leaning on Jesus. Safe and secure from all alarms. Leaning on Jesus, I'm leaning on Jesus. Leaning on the everlasting arms. Wow, we just have four and it just turned about 11 o'clock. I got time. Number three. Not only strengthened by Jesus, focus on his strength alone. Strengthened by Jesus, depend on his strong arm and hand. Now the directive begins to speak about body language. Strengthened by Jesus, draw on his majesty to humbly and mercifully work together in love. Strengthened by Jesus, draw on his majesty to humbly and mercifully work together in love. I don't know about you, I just need to tell you ahead of time, that I will always wake up in the morning and have the first thought on my mind. I'm a child of the king. I'm a child of the king. Now I know some people are better than I. Sometimes I think I've got a headache. Sometimes I think I'm behind. I need to hurry. I've had devotions in bed. You say you have devotions in bed? Yeah. Yeah, I do. Does God listen to you in bed? Yeah, he does. He does. That's not all I have. I have other times of devotion as well. But I read a couple of devotionals, pray, usually with my wife. I love the words of the anonymous psalmist in Psalm 118, 15, and 16 that says, glad songs of salvation are in the tents of the righteous. The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. The right hand of the Lord exalts or is exalted. The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. And I began to look up in the commentaries and I liked what Albert Barnes had to say 100 years ago. Let me read it to you. It's really sweet. It's a family thing. He says, there's nothing that spreads so much joy and happiness throughout a family as worshipping the Lord together. There is no joy like that of a member of a family who has been converted. There's no place on earth happier than when a family bows before God without the feeling that all within the family are children of God and heirs of salvation. Reuben, I asked you to come in yesterday after that man received Christ, Ryan Daniel McCoy. And I said, you follow him up and I'm going to sit here and listen to see what you do. You know what Reuben said first of all? First thing, first thing off the bat. He says there's a party in heaven. He says there's rejoicing in heaven because one person has been redeemed. Everything else he said I knew he was going to say, but I didn't know he was going to say that. Isn't that good? There's a party in glory. We need to realize that when we're saved and we draw on his majesty that we are children of the king and now we have another child of the king that's now a part of our family. Beloved, what we are in the family is nothing but a band of repentant sinners. That's it. We've been washed in the blood. Did you know God has never saved a good person ever? Never been a good person he's ever saved. He only saves sinners. If you haven't become a sinner yet, if you don't acknowledge it, Had a man come in recently, and I asked him if he was a sinner. He said, no. I said, I'd like to share some things with you, but I don't think it'll do any good because you're not a sinner, and God only saves sinners. Well, he said, hold it, hold it, hold it. Well, what do you mean by sin? I said, missing the mark. I just asked him, are you ever proud? Well, of course, everybody's proud. That's a huge sin. Oh, started naming a few sins. Well, I guess I am a sinner. You can go on. Frederick II, I'll tell you a story you probably know. Stories you already know that you hear again are some of the best stories. So if you already know this story, just put up with me. I'm not senile, I'm just repeating myself. Frederick II, King of Prussia, 1712 to 1786, before any of us were born. He was on an inspection tour of one of his state prisons. He was greeted with cries of prisoners. Most of them fell on their knees. They loudly protested their unjust punishment. While listening to their pleas of being not guilty and innocent, the king eyed a solitary figure over in a corner, probably over there, like a sergeant, by himself. The man seemed unconcerned with all the screaming and shouting and pleas for mercy. He's just sitting there. Finally, the king of Prussia walked up as close as he could to the cell. He didn't say, I'm the king. He just said, why are you here? The quiet prisoner replied, armed robbery, your majesty. Armed robbery. The king asked him, were you guilty? The prisoner answered absolutely, yes, your majesty. I deserve the sentence I'm serving. I deserve this punishment. He called the jailer. He said to the jailer, please immediately release this guilty man at once. I will not have him in prison with all of these other innocent people to corrupt them. The sooner we admit we're sinners, the better off we are. Jesus only redeems sinners. We need mercy. If you want justice, don't pray for justice. I'm not asking for justice, beloved. I keep asking for mercy. Jesus our Son of David, have mercy on me. What do you think John Huss prayed when they were burning him at a stake? He chanted. The song, Jesus, our son of David, have mercy on me. Jesus, our son of David. It's getting hotter. Have mercy on me. And he sang it until he was dead. I stand here today to tell you I'm a lost sinner that's been saved by grace 77 years ago as a little boy. I came to Jesus. He came into my life. I needed mercy. He gave me his majesty. He gave me his majesty. He made me a child of the king. And we are together to dispense mercy to those that since there's no mercy for them. Matthew 5, 7 says, blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Looking back on this past year, God has shown mercy on me and to so many others. We've come to faith. We've seen many come to faith in Jesus. Some have joined our church. Some are being baptized. We had four baptisms April 6th in ice cold water. Here are everything, audio. Andrew knows about this. All our audio went out. The fact that we're up here and he's leading us in singing means he spent incredible time helping Mark, Duncan, getting things together so we could even have anything. This is all old equipment that we brought back out. All our new stuff was fried. And we had baptism here. Four baptized in ice cold water, I think it took. They're all still living for Jesus. Beloved, when we view each other as sinners saved by grace with the ground level at the foot of the cross, it will never be impossible for us to work together with fellow sinners. The more I look at you and you look at me, and you say, I don't know if I want to work with you. I don't know if I want to listen to you. Stop it. You're just a fellow sinner like me. I'm just a fellow sinner like you. We can work together. I can't take my mind off Jude 24. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless, blameless before the presence of his glory, before his effulgence. Talk about majesty because of his mercy. He's going to do it with great joy. To the only wise God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen. We're three quarters. We're gonna make it by the grace of God. We got one more directive. I've told you, strengthened by Jesus, focus on his strength alone. Strengthened by Jesus, depend on his strong arm, his right hand. Strengthened by Jesus, draw on his majesty to humbly and mercifully work together in love. Now we're gonna get a little particular. Strengthened by Jesus, find your significance in him and help one another do the same. Right in this room right now, I would imagine if the truth would be known, and I'd ask everyone to stand, that right now is struggling with your own significance. I would imagine half of us or more would stand. When we remember we have been saved from slavery and sin, As the Israelites were saved from Egyptian bondage, we'll find our significance and each other's significance, not in who we are, but in who Jesus is. In Exodus 13, 3, Moses instructed the Israelites to slaughter a lamb and put the blood of the lamb on the lintel in the doorposts of each home. And then Moses said, remember this day in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand, The Lord brought you out from this place. How did he save us? He took us out of a horrible pit and he placed us on a solid rock and established our going by his strong hand. God didn't pass over any of the Israelite homes because they had strong faith. He didn't take a whole bunch of the eldest sons away because they had weak faith. No. In Goshen, where all those Israelites were, whether they had strong faith or weak faith or hardly any faith, just a little faith, but they swiped the blood on the lintel and the doorposts. And when the angel came, he didn't look at their faith, strong or weak. He says, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. It's not how strong our faith is today, beloved. It's the power of the blood of Jesus. Our significance is that we've been washed in the blood. There's no comparing. Quit comparing yourself with other people. They're down here and I'm up here, or I'm down here and they're way up here. Forget it. The ground is level. I tell you that I've only said it so many, I don't want to exaggerate, but I've said it so many times in 58 years of ministry. The only hope is the blood of the lamb applied. How we talk to each other. The significance of one another as being blood-washed saints makes all the difference in how we learn to work together. How are we going to work together if we look down at one another or have to look up at one another? I don't know how many of you know the story of Victor Serebryakov. Anybody ever heard of Victor Serebryakov? Now you have. At age 15, his teacher in London, England told him he would never finish high school. It's just like I was told in my freshman year not to go back for my sophomore year. I was told by a psychologist. who looked at my MMPI, only 576 questions, and he said, I'll tell you, if I were you, I'd go back to Kentucky where your dad was a pastor. He said, I wouldn't take any more years of college. You're not going to be able to make it. I was the only man that graduated with honors in her class, and I don't even know how I did it, because he told me I couldn't. Anything I made was but the grace of God. But Victor, bless his heart, Victor Serebryakov was told to drop out of school and learn a trade. So he just left school. He just walked out. For 17 years, Victor moved from town to town all over England. He got temporary odd jobs. Do a little here, do a little there. Everybody told him he was ignorant. He would never succeed. He was brain deficient. He believed them. Then somebody said, I think you ought to take an IQ test. He said, I don't know what an IQ test is. I told him what it was, intelligent quotient. He scored, Victor Serebryakov scored in the top 2% of the world's population ever with a 161. Crazy. He started acting like who he was. He was a genius. He started writing books, wrote a whole bunch of books. He started discovering and making things and he secured many patents. He became a successful businessman. He had a lumber mill. This man just, it was like he was shot out of a cannon. What happened? What made the difference? He saw himself in a new light. Have we ever come to realize it isn't the intelligent quotient we need, it's the wisdom to trust the Word of who we are in Christ. Who am I in Christ? I don't have to get up here and say, God, I can't speak as good as Pastor Jim. I can't speak like Pastor, I can't speak like Pastor Ruben. I can't speak like Saji did last night. I can't speak like Dan did. No, if I did that, I wouldn't even stand here. I'd say, those guys have got it. I can only tell you who I am in Christ and share my significances in Him. We have become new creatures in Christ, a new birth. We have a new identity in Jesus. We see each other in that new light. We cease and desist from living in blame and shame and rejection. We must. So I'm going to close with giving you four of Satan's lies and God's truth. I thought you might like that as we close. The father of lies, Ever since the Garden of Eden, he's been shelling out lies. I want you to know he tells you and me that our worth is our performance plus others' opinions. And if you don't like my message, I'm sorry, but I'm just preaching what God told me. And it's not going to change the fact that I know this is what he told me to share. God's truth by his strong hand and his strong arm is that our worth is not what others say about us, but what God's word says about us. My worth is in his word. So lie number one, Satan pulls on all of us. Those who fail are unworthy of love and deserve to be blamed and condemned. I'll say it again. The devil's lie. Many of you may believe it. Those who fail are unworthy of love. They deserve to be blamed and condemned. What's God's truth? God's truth is propitiation, satisfaction. God is satisfied with his children. He, what he's done for us, 1 John 4, 10, in this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son be the propitiation, the satisfaction for our sins. Well, I don't have to be unworthy another day in my life as far as wondering if I can do what God wants me to do. I can worthily do it because of who I am in Christ. He loves me. He paid for my sin at Calvary. Line number two, We each must meet certain standards to feel good about ourselves. How many of us are living under it right now? If we don't, we're failures. We're afraid of failure. How many of us have lived under it for years? What does God say? He gives us another big word, not propitiation, but justification. He says we're justified by faith, completely forgiven, fully pleasing to God in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5, 21. For our sake, Jesus was made sin for us who knew no sin. Why? So we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Richard, it's one of your verses. Jesus paid for the satisfaction, the propitiation for my sin. He paid for my righteousness. My righteousness is not in me, it's in Christ. Lie number three. We must be approved and accepted by certain others. And there's always certain others. We're trying to live up to their standard. We must be approved and accepted by certain others to feel good about ourselves. If we aren't approved, we'll be rejected and feel rejected the rest of our lives. I really care about all of you. I'd like for all of you to just think I'm the greatest thing since cream of wheat or something. But I'm telling you, I'm not going to live under the condemnation of anyone that doesn't like me, anyone that doesn't think good about me. I can't live there. I can't go on. It's too much. I'm slammed. I'm slam dunked. Do you know what they said? Do you know what they said? Do you know what they said? Do you know what they said? I don't care what they said. I know what God says. His truth. His truth is another word. Propitiation, justification, now reconciled. Reconciled. totally accepted Colossians 1 19 to 22 says for in him Jesus all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to Reconcile to himself all things that's me to you whether on earth or in heaven making peace by the blood of his cross and You who once were alienated? Oh, I'm nothing and hostile in mine. I'm angry about it to doing evil deeds can't do anything else I He is now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him. That's where I stand today. That's where you stand in Jesus. Don't believe the devil's lies. How can we work together if we all believe the devil's lies? Last one, last lie. These aren't all the lies. There are thousands of other lies I just picked out for. I am what I am. We are who we are, but can't change. You got what you got. I'm hopeless and I'm ashamed. That's me. I wish I could do better, but that's the best you got. You want me, that's the best you can have. God's truth has another word. Not only. Propitiation, not only justification, not only reconciled, but regeneration. God's truth, we are regenerated. We're absolutely complete in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5.17 is ours for keeps. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature, a new creation. The old has passed away, the new has come. Well, preacher, he's spent a long time working on you. Yeah, and he's got a long ways to go. But I'm regenerated. I was regenerated the first moment I was saved. But he's still working on me to make me what he ought to be. It took him just a week to make the moon and stars, the sun and moon, Dan, Jupiter and Mars. How lovely and precious he must be. He's still working on me. There really ought to be a sign upon my heart. Don't judge me now. I'm an unfinished part. But I'll be perfect according to his plan, fashioned by the master's loving hand. He's still working on me to make me what I ought to be. I want to prepare us for the Lord's table with a psalm. Now, just a moment. I'm going to have Andrew come up and help me. Psalm 20, verse 1 to 7. It's the last of the 10 verses I said it was gonna quote. We read a mighty prophetic glorious word from the man after God's own heart who sinned greatly. All he did was adultery, murder, and deception of a whole nation. That was all he did. And Paul had the gall to say that he was the worst of sinners and David didn't get it. But listen to what David says in Psalm 21 to seven. And I dedicate it to every sinner in this room that's been saved by grace. And if you're not, you need to be. May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble. May the name of the God of Jacob protect you. May he send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion. May he remember all your offerings and regard with favor your burned sacrifices. Selah, think of that. Pause and reflect. May he grant you your heart's desire and fulfill all your plans. May we shout for joy over your salvation. And in the name of our God, may we set up our banners and our balloons, Sandy. Woo! Set up our banners. May the Lord fulfill all your petitions. Now I know. that the Lord saves his anointed. He will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses. But we trust in the name of the Lord, our God. Beloved, who would we be and where would we be and what would we be without Jesus and his mighty right hand? Strengthened by Jesus, may we work together in love for his glory until he comes again. If you would join me, Andrew, and come up here, we're going to have the Lord's Supper. The way we're going to do this is the people here at Church and Hope. The rest of you don't, so I'm just giving you instructions.