Sunday service

Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Test, test, test, test, test. Let me turn line up on that. Testing, testing, testing. Yes. Test. Testing, testing, testing. On the bottom shelf of the coffee thing. Test. Amen.

Good morning. We are very glad that you are with us this morning, whether you are joining us here in person or online. We are thankful that you have gathered with us this morning to worship. Just an announcement before we get started. If you didn't get a chance to pick up some communion elements at the entryway, I would encourage you. You're welcome to do that now. We'll be partaking together here in a few moments. In the 72nd Psalm, it says this, "Blessed the Lord, blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. Blessed be his glorious name forever. May the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and amen." Let us pray. Father, this morning as we gather together, we just ask that you would use this time to take our eyes off of ourselves and to put them on you, that we would see your goodness, that we would see your greatness, that we would see your holiness, that we would see your love.

And as we worship through song, as we gather around the table, as we open your word, that you would encourage our hearts, if they are fearful and afraid, that you would strengthen us. If we are weak, we just ask that you would guide our time together this morning. It is in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. We're going to go ahead and stand for our first Song, "Bless the Lord."

Okay. Let me jump back. Let me jump back. Let me jump back. Let me jump back. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul. Worship His holy name. Sing like never before, O my soul. Worship Your holy name. The sun comes up, it's a new day dawning. It's time to sing Your song again. Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me, let me be singing when the evening comes. Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul. Worship His holy name. Sin like never before, O my soul, I'll worship Your holy name.

You're rich in love, and you're slow to end up. Your name is great, and your heart is kind. For all your goodness, I will keep on singing. Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find. Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul. Worship His holy name. Sin like never before, O my soul. I'll worship Your holy name.

And on that day, when my strength is failing, the end draws near, and my time has come, still my soul will sing Your praise unending. Ten thousand years, and then forevermore. Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul. Worship His holy name. Sing like never before. O my soul, I'll worship His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul. Worship His holy name. Sing like never before. O my soul. O my soul, I'll worship Your holy name. Yes, I will worship Your holy name. Lord, I'll worship Your holy name.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below. Praise Him, above all creatures. Praise Him, above ye heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul. Worship His holiness. Let's pray. And help us understand that in the midst of difficulty, you are with us. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. In 2 Peter, where we have been on Wednesday nights, Peter begins his letter by explaining to us that God has been so very good to us. He says, "His divine power has granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who has called us to his own glory and excellence." And Peter begins this second letter to the church by saying, "God has given you everything that you need. All the things that we think we need, so often we don't, but God has given us everything we need for now and for eternity." And so then Peter will go on to explain how this wonderful truth calls us to righteousness. He'll say, "For this very reason." And then he will begin to list ways in which you and I can grow in righteousness with your faith, virtue, and with virtue, knowledge, and knowledge, self-control, self-control, steadfastness.

steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. And then he says something that's very interesting. He says, "Whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his sins." And Peter says that if we are struggling, to grow in grace, that if we are struggling to grow in righteousness, if we are struggling to leave sin behind, part of the problem is that we are focused in exactly the wrong area. When he says that you're so nearsighted you're blind, what he means is that you're focusing on what is right in front of your eyes to the exclusion of everything else. And so many times we do the exact same thing. We only focus on what is directly in front of us to the exclusion of everything else.

It may be our troubles and our fears, and we put them in front of our eyes and we only focus on that. It may be our hurts or our sorrow, and it may be our sinful desires. And so Peter's solution to righteousness is to look to the God who gives you all things that you need pertaining to life and godliness. Peter says, "I'm going to remind you of what God has done." Paul does in 1 Corinthians 15 where he says this, "I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word that I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with Scriptures,

that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and then he appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve, and then he appeared to more than 500 at one time, most of whom who are still alive, though some have fallen asleep." And so Paul, writing to a church that is struggling, calls them to remember the good news of the gospel, that Jesus died in their place, he was buried, and that he rose again on the third day. We can be forgetful people. We can be short-sighted people who look at the wrong things and put our attention in the wrong area and expend our energy on exactly the things that are worse for us. We need to be reminded. And so Jesus, knowing this, at the Last Supper, institutes a meal for us. A meal to remind us

to remind us of our salvation, to remind us of the love of God, to remind us of our forgiveness, to remind us of hope. To take our eyes from all of our struggles and all of our worries and all of our fears and to put them on the one who saves. And it doesn't just remind this meal that we are about to partake of, but it also nourishes. Not a physical nourishment. You are physically hungry before you eat this little piece of bread and drink this little cup of juice. You'll still be physically hungry afterwards, but the nourishment is a spiritual nourishment of a God who meets all of our needs, who satisfies the longings of our heart in Christ. And I need to be reminded. I don't want to be short-sighted as Peter writes to the church. I don't want to be forgetful. I don't want to not stand in the

truth and the wonder of the gospel. I need to be reminded. So I'm going to pray, and then I'll read from Matthew, the 26th chapter, and we will gather together and to celebrate the Lord's Supper. Father, forgive us where we are short-sighted. Forgive us where we are distracted. Forgive us where we turn our eyes away from you. And may this moment of quiet, this moment of reflection, you remind us of your love, that you so loved us, you sent your Son to die in our place, that you have forgiven us, that you have given us righteousness through him. Help us to remember that there is hope. May this be a moment that nourishes our hearts that so often are hungry for other things. May we hunger for you and may you satisfy the yearnings of our soul.

May you bless this bread. May you bless this cup. May we be a people who proclaim your Son until he comes again. It's in his name we pray. Amen. So Jesus, after supper, will take the bread, and I encourage you to do that with me. And he will say, "Take, eat. This is my body." Would you eat with me? And after supper, he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you, for this is the blood of my covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." Jesus, as he takes that cup in Passover, it would be the cup of redemption, where you're buying back something that once belonged to you. And he says, "This blood that I am about to shed on the cross is a

cup of redemption." Will you drink with me? Father in heaven, thank you for this meal. Thank you for how it refocuses us. That we see that it is not us who are in the center, but you. That it is not our strength, but yours. That it's not our hope, but it's in you. It's not our energy, but it's yours. Be with us this morning as we gather around your word for a brief moment. May you encourage us. May you convict us. May you help us to see the goodness that is found in you. May we turn our backs on sin and run toward righteousness. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We're going to be in Genesis, the third chapter this morning. We've looked, as we've gone through the book of Genesis, we've looked at the fact that God creates, that everything that is made was made by God, and that it all points to Him, and that He is the ultimate authority, and that He is the one who gets to set the rules for creation.

And then we begin to look through creation a little bit, and one of the things that we find is that God speaks, that God speaks, and His Word has immense and awesome and wonderful power. And He doesn't just speak at creation, but He speaks throughout history, and He speaks to us now. And then we looked last week at how God creates man and woman in His image, and how He designed this world to work. And in Genesis 3, we begin to see how it all falls apart. You see, we all know this. There are warning signs when something goes wrong. So in our house, if the kids are too quiet, you know that something is afoot, right? It's not the middle of the night. You're in the middle of the day, and they've been running around being loud, and all of a sudden it's quiet.

You know that somebody somewhere is doing something that they are not supposed to do. Most likely drawing on the walls, right? Making some new art in the house. Or with our former dog, Rigby, we always knew that there was a problem when we came home, and she wasn't at the door wagging her little stub of a tail, but rather she was hiding somewhere, because it meant that she had gone to her favorite restaurant, which was the trash can, helped herself to it, and it would be all over the kitchen floor or all over the living room floor. So there are signs that we can see when something goes wrong. And when we look at this world, what we see is a world that has gone wrong. And the brokenness that we experience is not the humorous brokenness of our kids riding on the wall,

or your dog eating a bowl of chili out of the trash. The brokenness that we feel in this world is heartbreakingly real. We see it in our relationships, in our families, in our work. Even in the sickness that we experience, and we see others experience, we see the brokenness of this world. And it is heartbreaking. And in the midst of all of us, there is this feeling that things are not as they should be, that things are not right, that something is broken. And the question that we all have is, "What happened?" And what's remarkable is Genesis, the third chapter, tells us what happened. And I would say this, that Adam and Eve, in their sin, it's not just a historical side note. It's not just an interesting bit of history. This is the story of us. This is the story of you and I. Just like Adam and Eve, we have made the same decision, and we suffer the same consequences.

And it can be easy to look back at Genesis chapter 3 and say, "That's a long time ago, and that doesn't impact me in any way." But the reality is, this is your story. And this is my story. And so I want to look at this third chapter of Genesis in three parts. I want to start with the temptation itself. Then I want to dive a little deeper and look at the lies that are underneath the temptation. And then I want us to take a look at our response to sin. So Genesis chapter 3, beginning in verse 1, going through the first half of verse 6. "Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, 'Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?'

And the woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden.' But God said, 'You shall not eat the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it, lest you die.' But the serpent said to the woman, 'You shall not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.' So the woman saw the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and the tree was to be desired to make one wise." And I want to zoom in on that first half of verse 6. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes,

and the tree was to be desired to make one wise. So there is a pattern here in the temptation of Eve that goes on to be the temptation of Adam that spreads not just here in Genesis 3, but moves throughout Scripture. In fact, the apostle John will sum it up this way in 1 John 2. He will say, "Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the word, does the will of God, abides forever."

And so what John does is he puts temptation into three categories. He talks about the desires of the flesh. And what that means, something that satisfies or we think will satisfy a physical longing or a physical need. And so if you're outside on a day like today, and it's hot, and you're sweating, you say, "You know, all I want to do is go into the air conditioning." You have something in your life that you feel physically would change if you had something else, and that thing is air conditioning. Now what John says when he says the desires of the flesh, he says there are sinful things in our life that our bodies say that we need. And it can be one of a million different things. Our flesh says, "I want that, and I need that." It's a physical temptation.

But then look what he says next, "The desire of the eyes." This is something that looks good, and is attractive, and we look at it, and we say, "We want it," right? You're at the bakery, and they have that pie in the case, and it's like that perfect pie with the perfect amount of whipped cream, and you look at it and you say, "That's beautiful," right? And so you have the lust of the flesh that says, "I want that," and you have the lust of the eyes that says, "Good to look at," and then we go home and we eat the pie. And then we have the pride of life. And this is the desire to lift ourselves up, often at the expense of putting others down. And look at how the temptation of Eve fits into this pattern that we see in Genesis 3,

and in 1 John 2, she sees that this fruit that the serpent is tempting her with is good for food, right? It satisfies a physical longing. And notice that the hunger is not a bad longing. It's satisfying it in the wrong way, in the wrong manner. And then it says that she saw this fruit was a delight to the eyes. It looks good, just like John says, the desire of the eyes. And then she says it's a desire to make one wise, to lift me up. It's the pride of life. This pattern of temptation is not unique to Genesis 3. John, in his letter, writes about it. The lust of the flesh, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, the boastful pride of life. It's a pattern of temptation. James summarizes it that way. We see it illustrated in the garden in Genesis 3. But we also see it in the temptation of Jesus.

If you read through when Jesus is tempted in the wilderness, you find three temptations. One is a temptation to turn rock into bread. Right? The desires of the flesh to get something good, which is bread, but to get it in the wrong way. Then Satan takes Jesus up, and he has him look over the world and says, "Look at all these kingdoms, and they could be yours." Look how good all of this looks. And then the pride of life, where he takes him to the top of the temple, and Satan himself quotes Scripture, says, "Throw yourself down, and descend, and everybody will know you're the Savior." Lift yourself up. This pride of life. And we see this pattern of temptation. This appeal to our our physical desires. This appeal to the things that we look at, and we say, "That looks so good."

And this appeal to our pride that says, "If you get this, you'll be better than everybody else." And Satan has been tempting us in this manner since the beginning, since Genesis chapter 3. Jesus faces this temptation. John, the apostle, writes about it. You see, we see this pattern of temptation to sin, and what we find is that temptation always lies. And it's promised to satisfy our physical desires, or to satisfy the desires of our eyes because it looks good, or to make us proud. It doesn't. It never satisfies. At the heart, it's dishonest. Have you ever gone and ordered a burger from somewhere? And on the menu, the picture of the burger, you had this beautiful, plump sesame seed bun, and you had this beautiful hamburger patty, nice crisp lettuce, and the tomato is nice and red, and the cheese is perfectly aligned, and there's pickles.

And then you order your burger, and you get there, and if you order it from fast food, you open the box, and it looks like somebody sat on your burger. Instead of being all nice and full, it's flat, the cheese is half on the patty, half sliding off the bun, the tomato is still green, the lettuce is kind of wilty, and you go, "This isn't what I wanted at all. This is exactly the lie that sin tells us. It says, look how good this looks." But when we get it, what we find is we are unsatisfied, and it's nowhere near as good as the picture. So let's take a look at the lie of the temptation. Notice what Satan says, "Did God actually say?" Verse one, he says to the woman, "Did God actually say you

shall not eat of any tree in the garden?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die." Notice that God didn't say that. Satan comes and said, "Did God really say you shouldn't eat of any tree?" But look what God says. "The Lord God commanded the man, saying, you shall surely eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For that day you eat of it, you shall surely die." Look at how the lie functions. And this is so important. What it does is, is Satan minimizes the good gifts of God. In Genesis 2, God

says you can eat of every tree in the garden, except for one. And what does Satan do? He comes and says, "Did God really say you can't have any fruit whatsoever?" And in doing so, he minimizes and causes Eve to turn her attention away from the good gifts of God, the wonderful things that God has given, to the one thing that God has prohibited. And Eve makes it even a little stronger. She'll add a prohibition. She'll say, "God says don't even touch the tree. That's not what God said." We know what God said, and Satan intentionally misunderstands God. Eve changes a little bit of what God said, and she ends up ignoring the good gifts of God. And one of the things that the lies of Satan do to us is it causes us to forget all of the

wonderful things that God has done for us, and to turn our eyes away from everything good that he has given us. And the second thing that the serpent does, that I think is the most horrible thing, is he begins to call into question God's love for his people. He's really saying, "Does God really care for you?" And the serpent said to the woman, "You shall not surely die. For God knows when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And what he says to her is, "God doesn't want you to have it, because he knows how wonderful it is, and he's selfish, and he wants to keep it all for himself." Do you know what the serpent is doing in this point? He's questioning God's love for Adam and Eve. And it's insidious, and it's sneaky, and it's

terrible. You see, God gives us rules for our flourishing, for our joy, for our good, for our protection, and he does it out of love. I'd illustrate it this way. I don't let my kids play in the road, not because I don't want them to have the joy of playing in the road, but because I want to keep them safe, right? The reason that I keep Luke out of the road isn't because the road is so fun, and I want to save all the fun of the road for myself, it's because he's so little, and the cars go so fast, and I want to keep him safe, and I want to protect him. Now, imagine what kind of lie it would be if somebody came to little Luke and says, "Your dad doesn't want you to play in the road because he doesn't love you. You

should go play in the road because it's so much fun, and your dad doesn't want you to play in that road because he doesn't really love you." And we would look at that person, and we would say of that person that they are evil, because they are questioning, first of all, the love of the Father, and then they're encouraging a little one to do something that could cause him to lose his life. This is exactly what Satan is doing to Eve. He's saying, "Come on. He doesn't really love you. Come do this thing that is dangerous, that will break all of creation." It's an evil, insidious lie. And at the heart of temptation, in both of these cases, the temptation is really to turn our eyes onto ourselves. Don't look at what God has actually said. That's what the serpent is saying. He said, "Did God really say?" and then begins to lie. Don't

look at the fact that God loves you. Turn everything upside down and look at yourself. That is the heart of these temptations is what's happening. Don't look at the goodness of God. Don't look at the love of God. Don't look at the Word of God, but rather look at yourself and look at what you desire and look at what you want and look at what you think will be best for you. Instead of focusing on the goodness of God, look at yourself. What's interesting is when we see Jesus in the wilderness facing this same kind of temptation. He counters every temptation with the right focus. He quotes the Word of God. He points to the goodness of God. While in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve look simply at themselves. And it's easy for me, and it might be easy for you to look at Adam and Eve and say, "You

know what? They're not that bright. They don't have it all figured out, but I'm different." The reality is we're not different. Every single one of us have fallen for the lie of Satan. Whether it's the desire of the flesh or the desire of the eyes or the boastful pride of life, we have doubted what God has said. We have doubted His goodness. We've turned our focus from Him to ourselves, and creation breaks. Let me continue reading. Picking up in verse 6, "So when the woman saw the tree was good for food, and it was a delight to the eyes, and the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they

knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man said to his wife, the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to man and said, "Where are you?" And He said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself." And He said, "Who told you you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat?" And the man said, "The woman you gave to me, she gave me the fruit of the tree, and I ate." And the Lord God said to the woman, "What have you done?"

And the woman said, "The servant deceived me, and I ate." And immediately upon choosing themselves over God, which is the choice you and I have all made, you find things beginning to break. You find a move from joy and fearlessness to shame and regret and blame. And Adam and Eve, just like their temptation is a pattern for every temptation that we face, their response to the brokenness of sin is exactly how we respond. And the very first thing they do, what do they do? They try to fix it. And so they say, "Oh, we're naked!" They realize that because of their shame, and they go and they get some fig leaves, and they try to make clothes out of those fig leaves. And it does not go well. But if you're really trying to sow something, leaves, even as strong as they are, will tear and they will break.

They'll be flimsy, and they'll wear out. And they try to fix it as best they can, and they can't do it. Just like we do when we break something, our first inclination is to try to put it back together. Maybe nobody will notice, but it's still broken. And then what do they do? They try to hide. They run from God, and it's not very effective, right? It's like a toddler closing his eyes, going, "You can't see me." Or yesterday, Dodger, who turns out is not a fan of fireworks, on the drive home, instead of sitting in the back with the girls where he normally sits and he can roll around and has lots of room, he was literally on the passenger footwell, curled up in this tiny ball next to Rachel. Maybe if I don't see the fireworks, they won't see me, and I won't hear them, right? It doesn't work. We can hide, but it doesn't work.

And then look what they do. They make excuses. And I think Adam's excuses are the worst because ultimately he blames God. Look at what he says. The man said, "The woman you gave to me to be with me, she gave me the fruit." So look at what he's doing. He's blaming, first of all, Eve. He's like, "It's her fault." So immediately he starts to point fingers, but he doesn't just point a finger at Eve. What does he do? He points a finger at God. "You're the one who gave her to me." And so ultimately it's her fault. If you wouldn't have given me this woman, she wouldn't have tricked me with this fruit. And it's all God's fault, and it's all Eve's fault, and it's none of Adam's fault." Immediately he begins to point fingers.

God says, "Eve, what do you have to say?" "Well, it's the serpent's fault." You see what happens? Everybody begins to blame everybody else, and you and I have seen that, and we see it so clearly in our world. When something goes wrong, what do we do? The first thing we try to do, let's find somebody to blame, and let's point the finger at them, and when the finger is pointed at them, they point it at somebody else, who points it at somebody else, and nobody takes responsibility for the wrong that has been done. So Adam and Eve, they try to fix it, and it doesn't work. They try to hide from it. It doesn't work. They try to blame each other and God, and it doesn't work. You and I, when we sin, we do the same exact thing.

Sometimes we try to fix it. We try to fix the problems in this world. If we only had more money, if we only had better education, if only this person was in power, it would fix it. But I'll tell you what, nothing will fix this broken world apart from the one who created it. And then we try to hide from it. And we have so many distractions. We distract ourselves with entertainment and with hobbies, hoping that maybe if we don't see the brokenness, that it won't see us. But at the end of the day and in the dark of the night, we still feel the brokenness of this world. And so we begin to make excuses. It's not my fault. It's because of this or because of that. Just like Adam and Eve, we choose ourselves over God. And just like Adam and Eve, when we sin, we try to fix it and we find we can't.

We try to hide from it and we find we can't. We try to blame someone else and we find that we can't. And we end up in this broken, dark, fearful place. You see, this is our world. We believe the lie. Things have gone wrong, we're trying to fix it, we're trying to hide from it, we're trying to make excuses, and nothing works. But there is good news. In Romans, the fifth chapter, it says this: "For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ? Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. And Paul says when you look at the brokenness of the world, and in Romans he's unpacked that in chapters 1 and 2 as he points to the unrighteousness and how we haven't given God thanks and we've traded the wonders of God for all of these other things that we worship generally ourselves. He says, "Into the brokenness of this world comes Jesus." And just like brokenness enters through one man, Adam and Eve, redemption and righteousness enters through another man, Jesus. You see, just as Adam and Eve in that garden made the choice that glorified themselves, that they chose their desires over worshiping and following God. So Jesus, we find Him in another garden.

And it's at night. And in that garden, He makes a choice. Not to satisfy His own desires or to seek His own comfort, but that choice in the garden to give His life for broken, sinful humans. And we see how that choice plays out, because in that garden, as He prays, Roman soldiers come with torches. And they drag Him down into Jerusalem, where He is tried six times during the night. He is beaten, He is mocked, and then He is crucified. And because death came to Jesus, life can come to you and I. And the good news about Jesus is that because He did not choose His own desires, because He did not sin, the grave could not hold Him. And He rose again, and there is hope, and there is peace, and there is forgiveness, and His righteousness is given to us broken, hurting sinners.

But just like we, like Adam and Eve, have chosen ourselves, tried to fix it ourselves, and it doesn't work, Jesus chooses righteousness in the garden. And He goes to the cross, and He rises again. And because of that, we can be made new. Romans 6 says that we rose to walk in the newness of life, that through Jesus our life is made new. That is our hope, and that is our future, and it must be our focus. Let's pray. Father, as we look at the brokenness of this world, as we look at the heartache that surrounds us, whether it's from physical sickness, or from injustice, or from all of the sin that overflows in so many different ways, we look at this world and we are heartbroken. And we can see that things have gone wrong. So this morning, as we look at what that has been, help us to see that the only redemption is found in You. Help us to stop trying to fix it, stop trying to hide from it, stop making excuses, and may we run to You with all of our sin, knowing that it is through Jesus that our sins are taken away.

Help us to strive for righteousness. Help us to see the schemes of the devil. Help us not to be taken captive by His lies. Give us strength. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Normally, at this point, we would stand for a closing song, but because I am...are we ready to go? All right, let's see if we can do it. Let's go ahead and stand.

In Christ alone, my hope is found. He is my light, my strength, my song. This cornerstone, this solid ground. Firm through the fiercest drought. And storm. What heights of love. What depths of peace. When fears are stilled. When strivings cease. My comforter. My all in all. Here in the love of Christ I stand. In Christ alone. Who took on flesh. The fullness of God in helpless faith. This gift of love. And righteousness. Scorned by the ones He came to save. Till on that cross. As Jesus died. The wrath of God. Was satisfied. For every sin. On Him was laid. Here in the death of Christ I live.

Where in the ground His body lay. Light of the world by darkness slain. Then bursting forth in glorious day. Up from the grave He rose again. And as He stands in victory. Sin's curse has lost its glory. Sin's curse has lost its grip on me. For I am His, and He is mine. Brought with the precious blood of Christ. No guilt in life. No fear in death. This is the power of Christ in me. From life's first cry to final breath. Jesus commends my destiny. No power of hell. No scheme of man. Can ever pluck me from His hand. Till He returns or calls me home. Here in the power of Christ I'll stand. No power of hell. No scheme of man. Can ever pluck me from His hand. Till He returns or calls me home. Here in the power of Christ I'll stand.

Good morning. Thank you all for being here with us this morning. We will be back on Wednesday night. We are walking through 2 Peter, and we're going to try to finish up chapter 1, where Peter begins to talk about the Word of God and how he is an eyewitness to what God has done. And it's interesting how these things fit together, where Satan comes to us and says, "Did God really say?" and seeks to cast doubt upon the Word of God. This Wednesday night, we'll be looking at how Peter points to the goodness and the rightness and the reliability of the Word of God. So that's Wednesday night at 7 p.m. You can join us here at the church building or online, and we'd invite you to join with us in that. Let's go ahead and have a word of prayer, and we'll be dismissed.

Father in heaven, thank you for taking care of us. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for how you are at work in our lives and in our world. Help us not to be distracted by all of our fears and worries and hurts, but that we would come to you as the one who heals our hurts and the one who saves our souls. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We have one more song or is it? Okay. We're all set.