Judges chapter number 10. We have been going through the book of Judges on and off this year, and we have seen a cycle that Israel keeps experiencing over and over again. And in doing so, I think that there is parallels for what we see in our own lives and what we see in the lives of those around us. It has garnered this week the question that I have asked many times. How do you know when someone has repented? So many times we have those experiences with people in our sphere, right? Where someone is living a certain way and struggling with something, and then they have this moment where they say, no, I'm going to change. And so you're all on board and your desire is to be encouraging and be a help. And then it's not too long that that person finds themselves doing the same sin again. And after a while, as you, as they're someone who does love them and wants to be there, you begin to experience sort of a frustration, a grief of, here we go again. Maybe an unbelief, an untrustworthiness of whenever they say, oh, it's going to be different now. And you say, in your mind, you're thinking, sure it will. And you're just counting the time whenever the relapse happens. And then we can even think about this in our own personal lives. Those little sins that may not be open to everyone around us, but yet we keep asking ourselves, why do we keep falling back into this pattern of sin? Whether it's a pattern of lust, whether it's a pattern of handling our problems in an unbiblical way by worry, stress, overeating, whatever it is. How we go to escapism whenever something in our life gets hard. We know we shouldn't, but we keep asking the question, God, why do I keep doing this when I keep repenting? We make all kinds of promises to God. Yet it seems whenever pressure builds, we fall right back into it. I was really faced heart to heart with this question a few years back. My best friend, of course, before I married my wife, Mary has truly been my best friend since we've been married. But my best friend, probably besides that, was for a long, long time, had always been my brother. I have three brothers. My youngest one though, the youngest one in our family, the only brother that I have that's younger than me, we did everything together. We had a lot of the same likes and so we ended up going towards a lot of the same things that we enjoyed doing in our free time. We had aspirations and dreams. We had this idea that one of these days as we got ministry experience, both of us, that we would leave our respective ministries and go start a church somewhere together and plan our families there and just build a church together. Of course, a lot of things have changed as far as even my view on those types of things at Theology, but that was our goal. Five years ago, well, no, six years ago, we were getting ready to go to the hospital. And we were ready to go. My parents were in town to watch our kids because we were about to welcome into the world a little girl that we named Mackenzie Jade. We were excited, nervous even. And I got a phone call the night before. Actually, we were trying to put the kids to bed so we could get to bed because we had a really early morning. That phone call changed everything. As many of you know, my brother is now serving time in prison for the actions that he did at his church with a teenager in his youth group. We have children in here this morning, so I'm not going to go any further than that. I think you can make the connections there. And I remember going to see. Of course, living here and visitation is not like the way they make it on TV. You can't just go anytime you want. And so you have to make certain appointments, and you only can have certain time. And then even that, once he actually was sentenced and then went to prison, even when you go to the prison, when you go, you can't just leave. You have to stay there the entire time. So you have a really bad visit. Makes for another awkward hour and a half. Sorry, dark humor, I apologize. But I remember one of the first visits I had after he went to prison, me and my brother went there and every time I would go, my nephew would go and we were all sitting there talking and he had been in prison for about a year or since he had gone in the jail, he had been there behind bars probably about a year, maybe a year and a half. Of course, he said, you know, after he landed in prison, that he'd gotten right with God and all of these things. And, you know, for the most part, our family believed him. And he asked me this question, and I was so taken back. You know, now, you've been there, right? Where somebody asks you a question, and you're not expecting it, and then, like, The next day you keep thinking about it. I should have said this I should have said this I should you really have thought it through and you think man this would have been a great reply, but in the moment you're like What did you just say and you really give a very? You know rough reply because you were taken back the question that he asked that did that to me was this Do you think I still need to be behind bars? Do you think that I still should be in prison? and I said You know, he had done this sin, broken even the law, and he actually got a good sentence. His sentence was 15 years. He could have had life. And he asked the question, do you think I should still be in prison? And I said, this was the best answer I could come up with. I said, well, I said, the Bible teaches us that we are subject to the governing authorities that are over us. And I said, it's God's will for us to do this. I said, the governing authorities over you have deemed it necessary for you to be behind bars. So yes, I do think that you should still be behind bars. He didn't like that answer. He didn't like that answer at all. His thinking was this. Since he had spiritually repented and gotten right with God, he believed that he should be able to be back with his family or try to put his family back together and live life. That was where his thinking was. That right there was a signal point to me that got me into studying this subject of repentance. because I thought that just does not sound right to me. Of course, now what I understand and what we're going to sort of go through a little bit this morning leads me to the conclusion that six years later, repentance still hasn't taken place. And we see this in our text. What are the signs of true repentance? You think about a nation. Today is, of course, July 4th. I know some of you are probably thinking, we haven't done anything about America this morning. Okay, we're not going to, all right? I'm not trying to be rude. I love patriotism, but we're here to worship the Lord, okay? So we think even in the realms of a nation, and we look at our nation today, And we think of what would it take for our nation to change and turn to God. And the word we're looking for in that is repentance. Repentance. And so we look in just chapter 10 and we see this in a national repentance. But I think we're going to come to this question. Did Israel really repent? Let's look at it. Let's begin reading in verse number six. We covered verses one through five, which was two more judges after the whole debacle with Abimelech, wicked leader, awful tyrant, lots of lots of murder and death and just awful, awful time, right? Then God gives them 45 years of peace and prosperity with Tola and Jair. OK, then we come to verse number six of chapter 10. So let's look at that verse number six of chapter number 10. Then the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals and the Ashereths, the gods of Syria, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the people of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines. and they forsook the Lord and did not serve Him. So the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and into the hands of the people of Ammon. From that year they harassed and oppressed the children of Israel for eighteen years." All the children of Israel who were on the other side of the Jordan in the land of the Amorites and Gilead. Moreover, the people of Ammon crossed over the Jordan to fight against Judah also, against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was severely distressed. And the children of Israel cried out to the Lord, saying, We have sinned against you, because we have both forsaken our God and served Baal's. So the Lord said to the children of Israel, Did I not deliver you from the Egyptians, and from the Amorites, and from the people of Ammon, from the Philistines? Also the Sidonians, and Amalekites, and the Maonites oppressed you. And you cried out to me, and I delivered you from their hand. Yet you have forsaken me and served other gods. Therefore, I will deliver you no more. Go and cry out to the gods which you have chosen. Let them deliver you in your time of distress. And the children of Israel said to the Lord, We have sinned. Do to us whatever seems best to you. Only deliver us this day, we pray." So they put away their foreign gods from among them and served the Lord, and his soul could no longer endure the misery of Israel. And the people of Ammon gathered together and encamped in Gilead, and the children of Israel assembled together and encamped in Mizpah. And the people, the leaders of Gilead, said one to another, begin to fight against the people of Ammon? He shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead." That's where we're going to stop. This is sort of a prelude, if you will, to the next judge that we'll cover. His name's Jephthah. How many of you have ever heard of Jephthah before, know the story of Jephthah? We're going to get to that story, really interesting story, and I'm going to tell you about the first time I ever heard Jephthah preached about and how it was a very... they totally missed the point of the passage. But we're going to get to that. So this is sort of the setup before we get to the judge named Jephthah. Before that we get a chapter, the majority, the meat of this chapter is talking one more time about this cycle of sin that Israel is in. Um... Herbert Wolfe said this is the final and most extensive list of Israel's sins. It may apply to even the whole period. Because he says, he goes on to talk about how in verse 6 he says, It goes through this whole list of who they left God, the worship of God, and this is who they worship. We call that what? Idolatry. Idolatry. So this is, I put this under Israel relapses. This is verse 6. Israel relapses. Israel had been enjoying 45 years of peace and prosperity. It tells us that in verses 1 through 5, it says that they enjoyed 22 years of peace under this judge and 23 years of peace in this judge. And then the second judge, I believe his name is Jair, actually had 30 children, they had 30 cities, they each had 30 donkeys, and it was giving a sign, that's the text giving a sign of that they actually were prospering, they were growing in their wealth. Does this remind you of Anybody? Any nation that enjoys peace and prosperity? Comfortable living. Warren Wiersbe said this, comfortable living often produces weak character. Think about that. Comfortable living often produces weak character. We always are doing this, what? We're praying and seeking and asking God for blessings, prosperity, which is probably the last thing that we need. Because it is the one thing that will weaken the next generation then to turn away from God and say, who? Wiersbe goes on to say this, character is built when we make right decisions in life. And those decisions are made on the basis of the things that we value most. Since Israel didn't value the things of God, she ended up destroying her own national character. Could we read that again and say America? So, we go to verses 7-9 where God reaps. Let's look at verses 7-9. So the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel. And what did He do? He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and into the hands of the people of Ammon. Verse number 8, from that year they harassed and oppressed the children of Israel for eighteen years. All the children of Israel who were on the other side of the Jordan and the land of the Amorites and Gilead. Moreover, the people of Ammon crossed over the Jordan to fight against Judah also, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was severely distressed." The language is interesting. The words, severely distressed. And it just didn't happen to one tribe. It began to spread across the entire nation. You know, it's interesting. We read the Bible. Watch this. We read passages like this and go through the Old Testament and we say, yep, look at Israel's sin. We even look through history and see nations that suffered through communistic dictators and tyrants like Stalin or Hitler or Mao in China. And we say, yep, look at their godless systems. But when it comes to us, we say, God, Why are these people in charge? We are real good, and I say this on a nationalistic level, but maybe we should talk about it on a personal level. We are real good at looking around and being able to identify everybody else's sin, but when it comes to our sin, we sit there and say, why am I going through this? We do that on a personal level. I do that in my own selfish, self-righteous pride. Next, Israel cries out. The cycle continues. Look at verse 10. And the children of Israel cried out to the Lord, saying, We have sinned against you, because we have both forsaken our God and served the Baals. True? Yes. What's the problem? Herbert Wolfe says, The Lord is not to be called on only for emergencies. This is what happens, right? We don't need God until life gets hard. The pressure of tragedy comes, and it causes people to say, I need to get in church. Yes, come to church. You need God. If your thinking is, I need to get in church, maybe you'll get what you need. But if your thinking is that, your thinking is off because you can come to a lot of churches that aren't going to give you God. You need to God. Listen, you need God before the tragedy. You need God every day of your life. So this is what they do. They say, we have sinned. Save us, save us, save us. Why? Because they've severely distressed. It's gotten bad. It's gotten bad before, and they did the same thing, and God delivered them. That's what He told them. But then we come to number four, God replies. And God addresses this, and so He speaks. Now, in this text, some commentators have looked at this and said, maybe this was through a prophet. The scripture, the text, does not actually tell us that He raised up a prophet, or that a prophet came to them and spoke. So some actually will jump at that and say, you know, there was probably a prophet that came and delivered this message to Israel. I'm inclined to agree with that. But don't sit there and say, that's what happened. I don't know. The text doesn't share that with me. So that's where I sort of land. This prophet God used to come and deliver this message. And this is what he said. It's divided into three parts. The first part is this. Now watch this. Whenever that happens to you, let's talk about this a little bit personally. When that happens to you, imagine when you're running to God in that moment and you're asking God this question, He's replying to you with these things. This is what He's going to answer back, right? You say, God, speak to me. Go to Judges 10, verses 11-14 and listen to what He's saying here in this situation. Number one, God reminds the Israelites of His past favors. verses 11 and 12. So the Lord said to the children of Israel, did I not deliver you from the who? Egyptians. He says, let's get out the history book. Let's break out the history book. You remember the Egyptians? You remember 400 years of slavery? You remember that? Did I not do that? and from the Amorites, and from the people of Ammon, and from the Philistines?" That's his question. Did I not do this? What's the answer? Yes. How can we think about this in our own personal lives? Are we recounting God's victories and deliveries in our own personal life? How easy we are, you know, we have spiritual amnesia so badly. We are so quick to forget where God has brought us to. You know, I saw on Facebook just this past week, Josh put on there again his testimony. about five years ago. I love a person who's always bringing back up whenever God rescued them from their own pit of sin. And Josh is saying, five years ago, I was doing my own thing and then God. And if you talk to him for about five minutes, he's going to tell you that story. We tend to forget our testimony. How many times are we sharing that? I'm talking to myself. You know, we are so quick to forget, just like Israel. Before we just start saying, you know, Israel's terrible, let's point back at us and think about us in that situation too. How quickly are we forgetting God's deliveries? Number two, God rebukes, first He reminds, then He rebukes Israel for their ingratitude and treasonous response. Look at verse 13. Well, I'm sorry, verse 12, he goes on, he continues to talk about how he's delivered him from the Sidonians, the Amalekites, the Maniites oppressed you, and you cried out to me and I delivered you from their hand. Verse 13, yet you have forsaken me and served other gods. What is the response? of recognizing that God has done something great in your life. It's thankfulness, right? It's gratitude. The first step to idolatry is ingratitude. It is not thinking about thanking God for what He has done. And he says, you have forgotten that, you have forsaken me, and then what is their treasonous response? You've served other gods. You've worshipped those that have done nothing for you and can do nothing for you. They cannot do anything for you. And then the third thing, he says this, he says after he gives him that, he says in the second part of verse 13, he says, Therefore, I will deliver you no more. And then the third thing, and these three points Daniel Block pointed out, God rejects the confession of the people and does not listen to their cry for help. Let me read that again, and I hope that that sobers us. Think about that. He rejects the confession of the people and does not listen to their cry. Look at verse 14. The second part of verse 13, Therefore I will deliver you no more. Go and cry out to the gods which you have chosen. Let them deliver you in your time of distress. That's hard. Whoa, whoa, whoa. No, that's not God. That's not God. God loves everybody. God accepts everybody. That's not God. What did he say? I'll deliver you no more. You like this pit that you've dug for yourself? Go stay in it. Look at Romans 1. Warren Weersbe, let me give you another quote of Warren Weersbe as we turn to Romans 1. I want you to turn there. I want you to read this with me. Look at Romans 1. Warren Weersbe said, the greatest judgment God can send to His people is to let them have their own way and not interfere. Look at Romans 1 beginning in verse number 21. Verse 20 says, For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, there's that in gratitude, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools. changed their glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds, four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore, God also..." Watch this. Who did the work? God did. "...God also gave them up to uncleanness in the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves." who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, here it is again, this is the second time we've seen this, when they have done this, when the nation has done this, when a person, when the people do this, they left God, they are not thankful for who He is, they do not glorify Him for who He is and what He has done, then they begin to believe the lie God gives them up. And then again, the second time, verse 26, for this reason, God gave them up. Who did it? God, this is a form of judgment and punishment. God is doing this judgment to them. What is He doing? How is He judging them? He's giving them over to what they want. He gave them up to vile passions for even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise, also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men, committing what is shameful and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, here it is the third time, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting. Being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness, they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God. violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful." Who? Now watch this. Knowing the righteous judgment of God and that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same, but also approve. of those who practice them. What is the profile? What's the profile of a people who is under this judgment? What's the profile of a people that God has given them over to this judgment? The things that in the Old Testament God dealt out capital punishment for, they now celebrate. I looked up just a quick short list. This is not exhaustive. Here's some of the things that, in the law in the Old Testament, God gave capital punishment offenses for. Homicide. Even negligent homicide. Striking one's parents or cursing one's parents or rebellion to one's parents. Kidnapping. Witchcraft. worshipping other gods, violating the Sabbath, adultery, incest, homosexuality, and blasphemy. Let me say it again. What is the profile of a nation that God has given up and given over into judgment? Those things that would have garnered capital punishment are now celebrated. I don't think I have to say a whole lot more than that. Here's where Israel is. Now what we're trying to discern from the passage is, where is repentance? Where is repentance? Daniel Bloch continues on and says, in his response, God exposes the purely utilitarian and manipulative nature of the cry. The people have used him repeatedly simply to get them out of their difficult circumstances. So, point number five I have with a question mark, because I'll be honest with you. I'm going to give you some things here on this. I don't know. I'm not sure where I'm landing yet on it. Israel repents? Look at verses 15 and 16. The children of Israel said to the Lord, We have sinned. Do to us whatever seems best to you. Only deliver us this day, we pray. So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord, and his soul could no longer endure the misery of Israel. Now, let's try to see if we can observe some things to determine what the signs of true repentance look like. Bloch says again, they call on Yahweh to do for them what is right in His eyes. The response appears to be completely submissive. So what do they get? They go from, deliver us please, to then saying, yes, we sinned. Whatever you think is right, do to us. What does that signal? It does signal an element of humility. Why? Because they're saying, you know what God, if you need to wipe us off this earth, do it. Now, is that what was in their hearts? I don't know. Could it have been a manipulative plea or ploy to try to get God, you know, change? Listen, man is so folly in the way he tries to talk to God. Could they have been trying to do this? I don't know. But that's what they say. Another thing, Gary Phillips said, if one appeals to the one true God, one must accept his authority over one's life. We cannot pick and choose from among God's guidelines. God says, I'm not gonna do this. They say in response, whatever seems best to you. Is that our attitude? Are we trying to lay guidelines on how we expect God to deliver us? God, please deliver me. I will serve you if you do this, this, and this. And God does this, but does it do this and this? And you say, God, you're not doing your job. Who's playing God? You are. See, it is the acknowledgment and relinquishment of any understanding that we are of any position to declare terms. We don't declare terms. We bow and submit to His terms. Look at verse 16. I'm going to come back to this in the application. So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord and his soul could no longer endure the misery of Israel. I don't know if you have a different translation than the New King James this morning, but that that phrase right there is divided. His soul could no longer endure the misery of Israel. That phrase right there is actually divided among many scholars that study Hebrew because there's disagreement on what he's actually saying. Now our English translation gives us one point of view. So the one side of the argument is this, that what he's actually saying is that God could no longer stand, he loved Israel so much, he couldn't stand them suffering like this, and so he went in for deliverance. But the other side views that the Hebrew was constructed in a way that that's not actually what it's saying. What it's saying is that it was miserable to him and he could no longer endure their crying, meaning he was done with them. Now, which one is the right interpretation? I'm not sure, because I can make points on both sides, because it's not crystal clear. Does he deliver them? I think that could be debated, because when we look at the last two verses of the chapter, the prelude to Jephthah, what we see is them looking around for somebody to stand up and fight against this oppressive nation. We don't see God raising him up. Now, when you get to Jephthah's story, you find that Jephthah has a great victory and then does some really stupid things. So, did God raise Jephthah up? Well, yes, in His sovereign ordaining decree, He did. But is this Him raising them up in answer to their plea of deliverance? I don't know. Could it be that Jephthah was brought in as continued part of the judgment on the people of Israel? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not completely settled where I stand on that. I apologize if you think the pastor should have everything just down correct. I just don't this morning, okay? Weersbe said, whether in a nation or a local church, look at verse 17-18 and we'll finish this up. And the people and the leaders of Gilead said to one another, Who is the man who will begin the fight against the people of Ammon? He shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. What do they say? They get together after this supposed repentance. Again, not sure where I land on that. They get together and instead of saying, who has God raised up? They say this, who's our guy? They don't know who to pick. And they end up going with Jephthah as we'll see later. Wiersbe said, whether in a nation or a local church, the absence of qualified leaders is often a judgment of God and evidence of the low spiritual level of the people. That's interesting. So let's move to the application this morning. You think of Israel and their sin. Think of maybe even America and its sin. Think of that person you know that keeps that cycle of relapsing. Think of yourself and that sin that maybe nobody knows about, but you're still struggling with. There is a kind of spiritual insanity about sin. It makes no logical sense. Anyone who is separated from God by sin is also separated from reality. This is where we see the gospel speaks into that, right? Because we see the lost world and what they do. And we sit there sometimes and we say, they've gone mad. Think about this. We live in a time where our nation's leaders believe it's okay for a five-year-old to unilaterally choose what gender they want to be. Now, it makes no logical sense, but that's what sin does. Now, the answer for that sin is found in the gospel. Because while we were plagued with that sin, we were in that sin, God in His holiness, there's that separation in Chasm. And God did what? He sent Jesus Christ, His Son, perfect. He wasn't tainted by sin. He was perfect. And He came in the middle of all of our sin and loved us. How many times in the New Testament in talking about Jesus says He had compassion on us? And if we remember, if we recognize and are honest, we didn't deserve anything but that punishment. Our wickedness. I heard somebody say this and I thought it was an astute statement. They said, if you don't recognize that your sin could damn the world to hell three times over, you don't have quite an understanding of your own sin. But Jesus had compassion on us. He died on the cross. He took the punishment for our sin and the wrath of God upon himself for us. And what does he do? He turns around after he rose again on the third day and he says, here's the gift. Believe, repent, and come to me. Now those of us in here that have done that, when we hear that, we have joy that sort of shoots off like a firework on the fourth of July. Hey, there you go. Here's your Independence Day reference. "...in our hearts, because we understand. But if you don't, can I plea with you this morning to come to Christ, repent of that sin, turn from that sin, and believe on Him as your only Lord and Savior?" 2 Corinthians 7 verses 10-11 says, for godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret. Whereas worldly grief produces death, for see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment. At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter. So what are some signs of true repentance? I believe number one, and I'm going to go quickly here, number one, there is honest humility. At the culprit of all of our sin is pride. when we truly turn and repent from a sin, we drop that pride. One of the telltale signs when you're dealing with somebody wondering if there is repentance is hinting at those notes of pride in their speech and their actions. Humility in coming clean. Humility in confession. Humility in receiving help. Number two, there should be a putting off and putting on. Now here's where I struggle a little bit with whether Israel did repent. Look at verse 16. They put away the foreign gods from among them. They put off their wickedness. What was the culprit? Their idolatry. They actually did put it off and then it says they went to serving God. So they put off that sin and they put on serving God. That is one evidence of repentance, of putting off the wicked behavior and putting on, replacing it with a righteous behavior. And then number three, there is honest recognition of what can happen again. What do I mean by that? There's an honest humility and understanding that you're susceptible still. You still carry around this flesh. As we said in the point number one about Israel's cycle, they relapse. I've used that word a lot this morning. You have a honest recognition that you could still relapse. So what do you do? You take safety measures. You take precautions. You have accountability help. You do those things where you know you can set yourself up from falling into that again. We don't know a person's heart. We can't judge someone's heart. We know that. But in our interactions with others, in our interactions with our own selves, I believe there are some things that we can pick up from Scripture that help us discern a little bit on whether we're seeing true repentance. We've spoken this morning a lot about national sin and about personal sin. Sometimes I think we get so focused on the national sin, because we are citizens, that maybe if we were worried less about that and more concerned with our own individual, things could be different. Because in this chapter, you had the people of Israel. You had the leaders, the people of Israel, actually coming to God and saying this. So it starts with you. It starts with us changing. You know, Adam's always talking about, you know, God sent a revival. You know, God saves souls. And I think a lot of this starts in the pulpit. I think the pulpit of America's, I think the pulpit here at Calvary. You know, it starts with me being clean. And so, you know, let us always strive for that. Thank you for being here this morning. Let's pray. And we're going to sing a chorus this morning to leave on. Change my heart, oh God. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for all that you've done for us. You're a great, wonderful, loving Savior. And we are unworthy, undeserving people. But in your grace and your mercy, you bring us into your family, deem us worthy. And we are so undeserving of it. You lavish your gifts and blessings on us. And we struggle even to be thankful for that. Father, help us to repent of our ingratitude and our idolatry in our own hearts. As we sing this chorus, Change My Heart, O God, I pray that we in here will sing it individually, that you will change our hearts. We love you and we give you praise. In Jesus' name, amen.