Favorite Chapters - Psalm 51

This is the First Mustang Pulpit Podcast, a podcast of the weekly preaching and teaching at First Mustang.! Thank you for joining us. Alright, well, Psalm 51, you can go ahead and open to Psalm 51.

And that will be our chapter that we look at continuing on with the theme that we've been doing this semester and favorite chapters of the Bible from your various pastoral staff members.

And I think one thing you've probably heard from each of us is the fact that these chapters are near and dear to us. It's not just for its content, but it's been applied to our lives.

And that is my prayer as well, that this would be applied to your life. And before we begin, by way of introduction, some of you may remember Steve Camp.

And he was a favorite of mine. He was an early, in the 80s, Christian singer. And I had all of his cassette tapes. Yes, it goes back to then.

But one song in particular was a favorite of mine. And it's entitled, He's All You Need. And I really, in preparing for tonight, I wish I could play the piano and I wish I could sing.

Because it's better if it's sung, but I'll spare you. Because I can't do anything more than chopsticks on the piano. And I definitely can't sing. So, there's one stanza that was particularly powerful to me over the years.

It reads like this. When you give in to that familiar sin, He is all you need. Guilt has you paralyzed.

It slowly eats you alive. He is all you need. He'll be faithful to you when your heart is untrue and your love's grown cold.

His forgiveness is real. It will comfort and heal. He is all you need. And man, I used to play that.

I wore that cassette tape out. Just hitting rewind and playing that over and over again. See, because I was consumed with the thought of sin in my life.

And remember, I shared in the Romans 8 chapter that we looked at in dealing with a lack of assurance. My focus was on myself. My focus was on my sin and my failure and my not meeting a standard and God's standard.

And that just consumed me. And so, Psalm 51 was definitely near and dear to my heart as well as a prayer that I often would pray to the Lord.

And this psalm in particular is one of seven penitential psalms. It's perhaps the clearest and expression of deep remorse and sorrow over sin as seen in these psalms.

Psalm 6, Psalm 32 is a companion. Psalm to Psalm 51, Psalm 38, Psalm 51, Psalm 102, Psalm 130, and Psalm 143.

I'll carry the idea of deep sorrow for your sin and confession and going to the Lord with your sin. Another man said, Confession is not informing God.

It is agreeing with Him. Confession is the first step to repentance. Martin Luther said, Wounds cannot be healed until they are revealed.

And sins cannot be forgiven until they are confessed. Richard Sibbes said, The way to cover our sin is to uncover it by confession.

And so, we turn our attention to Psalm 51. The backdrop for this psalm comes from 2 Samuel 11 and 12.

Perhaps many of you here on a Sunday night are familiar with David and Bathsheba. In the time, in the springtime, when kings would go out to war, David stayed home.

David got up late. David let his eyes wander. David coveted. David brought Bathsheba to him. David committed this sexually immoral and unfaithful act while her husband, a mighty man, was fighting for the nation.

And when she comes back to him and says that, I am pregnant. Rather than confess right then and there, what David does is what many of us do.

How can I cover this? How can I hide this? How can I conceal this? And thus starts the downward spiral. And the irony is just, it's dripping all over 2 Samuel 11 and 12.

Here is David, the unfaithful one. And he brings Uriah home and tells Uriah to go home to Bathsheba and to be with his wife. And Uriah is faithful to the king.

Incredible irony. He won't go home. How can I go home and be with my wife when there are men that are fighting? On behalf of the nation. It's powerful.

A book that I highly recommend by Paul David Tripp, Whiter Than Snow, captures this eloquently. He says, and this book is based on 52 meditations on Psalm 51.

Great, great book. He says, it all started with a sleepless night. A condition that many of us can relate to. But it explodes into a story of lust, adultery, pregnancy, deception, and murder.

If the story of David and Bathsheba were a television drama, you wouldn't watch it. Or a paperback, you wouldn't choose to buy it. Yet the terrible details of this ugly story splash across the pages of that religious book you and I call the Bible.

Why would God preserve such a dark story? Who is the sex and blood of this story going to help anyway? He continues by referencing 1 Corinthians 10, that these things were written to be an instruction to us.

We are to learn from these things. He goes on. Think about David, whose story of temptation and sin is the backdrop of the psalm that provides the content for these meditations in this book.

When you read about all the war between nations and bloody power struggles that surrounded David's reign, it would be tempting to think that David's biggest enemy was the warring nation around him.

But what this story demonstrates is that David carried his most powerful enemy within him.

The enemy lived inside of him. That enemy lives inside of us as well. That enemy is called sin.

But the dominant theme of Psalm 51 is not sin. The dominant theme of Psalm 51 is grace.

Don't miss this line. There would be no Psalm 51 if a God of boundless love hadn't sent Nathan to David as an instrument of rescuing mercy and restoring grace.

It's a psalm of grace. Yes, there is confession of sin, but think about that. I've shared that often with people. God's merciful love is when he reveals your hidden sin.

He's being merciful to you. When he sends someone your way who confronts you with the truth of the word of God, that is an act of his love. That is an act of his compassion.

That is an act of his mercy when your sin is uncovered. Rather than living a double life, hiding in your sin.

There'd be no Psalm 51 if a God of boundless love hadn't sent Nathan to David as an instrument of rescuing mercy and restoring grace.

Let's turn our attention now to the psalm. And I want to look at four aspects of this psalm. Spurgeon divides it into two categories.

And he says verses 1 through 12 are the confessions and the plea for forgiveness. Confession and plea for forgiveness. Then verses 13 to 19 is the gratitude that David has in being restored in the way that he resolves to display it.

So there's gratitude for being forgiven and restored. But then the resolve to display it, to live this out. That's how Spurgeon divides this up. That's probably easier to remember.

Plus, anytime you put Spurgeon's name with it, you know, you can take that to the bank pretty much. So, but here's Jeff Leduc's four observations from the text here.

Number one, the first aspect that we see in this psalm is a glimpse into the nature of God. The nature of God.

You see it right there in verse 1. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.

You see, if you were to read Psalm 32, Psalm 32 reveals that what happens when David kept his sin hidden and that his bones just were wasting away and he was depleted of strength.

It was miserable. He was tired. He was weary. And I wonder if that strikes a chord with you. When we strive to take care of sin in our own strength or with our own measures, we'll grow weary.

We'll grow tired. And there's no true cleansing. And David here recognizes that when he turns to God, he sees the nature of God.

And you see it right there in three different ways. According to your steadfast love. So beginning, verse 1, have mercy on me, O God.

So he turns to God, recognizing that he is a God of mercy, withholding that which we deserve. And then, secondly, he has a God of steadfast love.

That is committed, covenantal love. It's unbreakable love. And then, thirdly, he is a God of compassion.

Or the ESV translates it again here, according to your abundant mercy, pointing to his great compassion. In fact, it's the same word in the Hebrew that when we go to the New Testament in the Greek, it was when Jesus was moved with compassion, seeing the crowds that are like sheep without a shepherd.

It was a guttural movement. It was in the bowels that he was moved. He physically felt it. And this is the God that we turn to.

And David turns to. How about you and your view of God? How do you view God?

Do you view God as one who is constantly disappointed with you? Constantly shaking his head that you just don't measure up? Do you view God as one who's always angry?

Has a frown and a scowl on his face when he looks to you? Or perhaps he's distant. Perhaps you sin, you fail, then, okay, I'm just not going to talk to you.

I'm not even going to look at you. See, all of these ways creep in, especially when dealing with sin in our lives. And what we can learn from David in this psalm is when we turn to God, we call upon what the Bible declares as his character and his nature and his attributes.

So I love the song that John wrote based on Psalm 51, especially in the, I think it's the bridge or it's a chorus or something, when we are just singing over and over again his attributes.

You are loving, you are kind, you are gracious, you are patient. So a great reminder, especially in the midst of sin, looking at who God is, focusing on who God is, that he is the one who has mercy, and he is the one who has steadfast love, and he is the one who has abundant, overflowing compassion.

You see, how you view God will affect whether you turn to him or away from him. And David here turns to the Lord.

He turns to him and he calls upon him being gracious, steadfast in love, and compassionate. It moves on into a second aspect here.

Not only do we see a glimpse of the nature of God, but then we see the nature of sin. Verses 2-6. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words, and blameless in your judgment.

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth and the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

See, we see a glimpse in the aspects of sin, and you see them there, in a trifecta, if you will, again, with various words that he uses.

For I know my transgressions. To transgress would mean that you would cross the line that has been set.

Don't cross this line. I'm going to cross this line. We tell our children, no, you can't go outside. What do they do? They go to the door, and I'm just going to stand by the door.

And then transgression comes when they open the door, and then they go outside. Or no, there's no chocolate chip cookies before dinner. And then they kind of find themselves meandering through the kitchen and kind of twirling about where the cookie jar is, and they're waiting for the opportunity in which they won't get caught, where they could perhaps take a cookie.

It's the idea of transgression, rebellion. It's a breaking away from. Setting oneself up against lawful authority.

You tell me I have to wear my seatbelt? Well, I'll show you. I don't have to wear my seatbelt. You tell me the speed limit is 35 out here in Mustang Road?

Well, we'll see if you pull me over at 45. See, it's within all of us as sinners that if authority sets a rule, then we're ready to transgress.

We're ready to rebel. And David says, I know my transgressions. Bathsheba was not his wife.

Bathsheba was another man's wife. Not his to take. He transgressed.

He rebelled against God. But then we also see iniquity. Iniquity would call to mind that which is twisted or bent.

It's actually where we get our word for wrong. We get it from its root. That which is warped or wrung from what is straight.

It's the idea of veering off. We veer off to the left. We're to the right. We veer off to the left. And instead of keeping to the straight and narrow, iniquity, we're twisted, we're bent.

It also carries with it the idea of that which is within us. But then we see sin as well. Just the word sin.

Missing the mark. Missing an aim. One man said sin misses its own aim of happiness.

A man never gets what he hoped for by doing wrong. Or if he seems to do so, he gets something more that spoils it all.

He pursues after the fleeing form that seems so fair. And when he reaches her side and lifts her veil, eager to embrace the tempter, a hideous skeleton grins and gibbers at him.

Alexander McLaren said that. Think of that picture. You're tempted. And I need this. I want this. I desire this. And then when you get it, you realize you're bankrupt.

You realize it's not all that you hoped for. In fact, it will cost you more than you could ever pay. It's the idea behind getting a glimpse of the nature of sin, transgressions and sin and iniquity.

Now, one thing that I want to call your attention to in these verses is, take note of this. David accepts responsibility. That's huge.

For confession to be biblical, you've got to quit the blame game. You accept responsibility for your sin.

We see this goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden when Adam ultimately blames God, the woman that thou hast given me, she gave to me.

See, the idea is we're going to shift the blame to someone else and not take responsibility. And listen, guys, we're living in the midst of a culture that does not want to take responsibility for anything.

That's why we have labels and titles for everything under the sun because we don't bear responsibility. It's got to be my upbringing or it's got to be that which is in my family tree or it's got to be somebody else's fault.

And here we see in Psalm 51, David saying, I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me.

Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. He accepts responsibility and that is huge.

And listen, side note here in direct application, that is massive for you as parents and grandparents as well to teach your children responsibility for their actions.

Blaming others. Blaming their circumstances. Blaming authority. Blaming their friend. Blaming their parents.

Accept responsibility. And David does that. So we see the nature of sin, but this moves just naturally, right even in these verses, right into verses 7 through 12, we see the nature of forgiveness.

The nature of forgiveness. Again, we're going to see three terms that leap off the page. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean.

Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. See, here we see the nature of forgiveness.

Purge me with hyssop. I love what Tripp says in his book. He said, Here, Wikipedia doesn't help us. You just type in hyssop and you're not going to get a lot of help from this.

You'll find that it was a plant and that it had medicinal value, but the point isn't the hyssop. The point is what David is pointing to that God, you would purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean.

And for David would have remembered the Passover. And at the Passover, they were instructed to take blood and with the hyssop, they were to put blood around their doorframe.

So that what? The angel of death would pass over them and thus they'd be saved. See, this is rooted in Old Testament history in ancient Israel in the idea that God, you are the one who can purge me.

You're the one who can forgive me and in such a manner that then I will be clean. This also alludes to the cleansing of a leper.

Leviticus 14.6, the idea of one who was a leper, who was unclean in the midst of the camp and yet when they're declared clean, then they're accepted.

We see this obviously in the New Testament as well in Jesus touching the leper. It's ritual cleansing when one comes into contact with a dead body as well.

It's a reference to that in Numbers 19. There came this cleansing that would happen if one had come in contact with a dead body, thus they were unclean. Well, then the priest would declare them and cleanse them based on washings and rituals that they are now purged clean.

Not only that, but we see wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. This idea of washing a garment, it carries with it the idea that you would tread and that you would beat something in order to make it thoroughly clean.

Don't think of our modern day washing machines. But think of being out there and actually using your elbow grease to wash a garment and to beat it, to get the dirt out of it and then to rinse it again and just that's the idea of wash me and he says wash me thoroughly.

Wash me and may it be thoroughly and I shall be whiter than snow. This should call attention to Isaiah 1.18. Though your sins be as scarlet, you shall be whiter than snow.

It's only... God can only do this. God can purge. God can wash. But then there's the idea of cleansing as well. This priestly act of declaring one ceremonially clean.

The cessation of being polluted. That now you've been cleansed and you're clean.

All of this would point to the idea that he captures in verse 9 of hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.

The blotting out, the removing of that which is written down that can't be removed, that only God can remove. And you see David's remorse. David's sense in which he doesn't even want God to look upon his sins.

Now, for us who are New Testament believers, do you see the foreshadowing that is to come with Christ on the cross?

David pens these words acknowledging and confessing and believing God in his character and his nature, understanding the nature of sin in his own life, but then understanding, God, you're the only one who can provide the cleansing that I need, the purging that I need, the forgiveness that I need.

And ultimately, we see that in Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Ultimately, we see this in Christ that he is the one who purges us. He is the one who washes us thoroughly. He is the one who cleanses us. Listen, folks, that's why you don't clean yourself up first and then come to God.

God, because you can't do it. It's all feeble attempts. You come to him just as you are and he's the one who cleans you up. He's the one who washes you.

He's the one who cleanses you. He's the one who purges you. He's the one who blots out transgressions. David understands this in the nature of forgiveness and I would submit to you if you were to read Hebrews.

You would get a great picture in the New Testament how Christ is the very fulfillment of the sacrificial system in that only he can provide the sacrifice once for all so that we don't have to keep repeating ceremonial rituals.

We don't have to keep repeating sacrifices because he was the perfect sacrifice. So there's the nature of forgiveness and fourthly, there's the nature of testimony.

The nature of testimony. We see this in verses 13 to 19. Verse 13, Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you.

Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God. O God of my salvation and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise for you will not delight in sacrifice or I would give it.

You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Do good to Zion in your good pleasure. Build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then you will delight in right sacrifices and burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings.

Then bulls will be offered on your altar. Testimony. The nature of testimony. You see, really, we get a picture in an Old Testament sense of ministry.

That when one is forgiven, one should be led to declare their praise unto the Lord. Filled with thanksgiving, gratitude.

And that leads you to then want to teach others. Then I will teach transgressors your way. So the nature of testimony is, number one, that we teach.

There's instruction. What are we instructing people of? We're instructing them of the nature of God, the nature of sin, and the nature of forgiveness.

But here's the added punch. You're also doing that by way of experience as well.

Because you've been a recipient of that. You've been a recipient of great grace and mercy and forgiveness. And that should lead us to want to be able to share that with others.

That's the idea that David captures here. Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you. Because when a sinner understands that you're never outside the reach of God, then they turn to Him.

How many people have you ever come in contact with that say to you, listen, you don't know the depths of my depravity. You don't know what I've done. you don't know the skeletons that are in my closet.

The response, God knows. And He bids you come. Turn to Him for He is gracious. And turn to Him for He is merciful.

Turn to Him because He is a God of steadfast love. Well, how do you know that? Well, I'm a living testimony of His great grace and His mercy, His forgiveness.

You see, the enemy would seek to silence you and paralyze you in your sin. But God, in His forgiveness, releases you to teach others.

Here's what I've learned. And God's providential hand is this. God is going to lead people across your path that your testimony is going to directly apply to their lives.

That's not a coincidence. That's God's providential hand giving you ministry opportunity with the people that He leads your way.

So that's number one. He says that He will teach, but then also there's the idea of singing. Singing.

My tongue, verse 14, will sing aloud of your righteousness. Listen, you hear this often because our pastor loves hymns and loves to sing and our worship pastor loves to sing and our associate pastor leads us when our worship pastor is gone and we're filled with singing all around us and the importance of singing.

For when you sing, you are committing to memory that which is true about God and His nature and His attributes and His character and we're singing the promises of God and we're reminding each other that He will hold you fast.

When we sing that and I hear you sing that, then you're reminding me He is the one who will hold me fast. and that builds and bolsters faith.

But a tongue will sing when a tongue has been set free. When you experience forgiveness at the level that David has experienced, then your tongue will sing aloud of His life, His own life?

No, of your righteousness. righteousness. That's what I'll sing aloud. I'll declare your righteousness through song. So the nature of testimony is teaching and singing and then it is declaring your praise.

Verse 15, O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise. When, Psalm 32, when I kept silent about my sin, I was one who was wasting away.

And here we see when He confessed His sin comes not only the desire to teach transgressors His ways, but to sing of your righteousness, God's righteousness, but also to declare His praise, your praise.

illustrate it best this way. When I was growing up in the church that we attended, we used to have a group, some of you may be familiar with Teen Challenge. Teen Challenge was a ministry that was provided primarily for those who were in the throes of addiction to drugs and alcohol and Teen Challenge, it was a strict program and it was a Bible-based program and people had to come in and they had to live by authority in their lives and they had structure and it would be similar to what Hope is Alive is in our own community.

And they had a choir and every time they would come to our church and they would sing in the choir, you know what you would not see? One person with a frown on their face.

There wasn't one. everyone had a smile from ear to ear especially when they were singing of the forgiveness that they had received through Jesus Christ.

And we'd lock in and you couldn't help it that there were a lot of guys who were there and they grew up in the African American church and so they were swaying and they were getting with it and they're moving.

Here's a predominantly white church and you know what happened after a few songs? Everybody's swaying. Everybody's saying amen. People are like, did you just say that out loud? We don't do that here.

You know, and it was contagious. What were they doing? They were declaring the praise of God. His righteousness.

His mercy. His steadfast love. All of this by nature of testimony. Now, verses 16 and 17 are obviously key to this entire psalm in the idea of not going through mere rituals and practices.

Understand, we can become evangelical and have our evangelical rosaries or Hail Marys. Practices that we commit to by saying over and over again, God forgive me, God forgive me, God forgive me, God forgive me.

Rather than, God forgive me and then believing He forgives you based on the righteousness of His Son and the sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection of His Son. And so, the idea is the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

It's all about the heart, not the practice. It's all about the heart. We see this all throughout Scripture in the Old Testament that leads us into the New Testament. It's the very point of Jesus' point in the Sermon on the Mount.

Getting to the heart, getting to the heart, getting to the heart. Now, before we finish, verses 18 and 19. I think this is powerful.

Because if you're just reading along, you might get to verses 18 and 19 and think, okay, what? Verse 17 would have been a great place to just finish the psalm.

But we do have verses 18 and 19. Here's what's powerful about this. Most liberal theologians believe this was added later. perhaps in the Babylonian exile or in the people of Israel added this later.

I'm not a liberal nor a great theologian, but I side with those who point to this fact about verses 18 and 19. Do good design and your good pleasure.

Build up the walls of Jerusalem. Jerusalem. Then you will delight in right sacrifices and burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings. Then bulls will be offered on your altar. This is a call from David, who's the king of Israel, for national prosperity based on the goodness of God.

Now why is that important? Because David in his sin seen most clearly with Bathsheba was building his own kingdom.

I see her. I want her. I'll get her. That's what a selfish sin consumed king does.

And now, at the end of this great prayer in Psalm 51, he turns his attention back to where it should be.

As the king of Israel, he's an under-shepherd He's an under-shepherd of the king of kings and the lord of lords. God is the one who appointed him and anointed him to be the shepherd of Israel, to be the leader of Israel.

His focus should not have been on himself and his own kingdom, but his focus should have been on God's kingdom, God's people, God's design, God's plan. Now listen, here's the application for you.

The essence of sin is that we build our own kingdoms. Do we not? It's all about me. It's my desires, my wants, my rule, my fame.

But when you've been forgiven, now it's all about him, his name, his will, his plan.

So, David's call here, do good design and your good pleasure, is not a prosperity that's rooted in the people's desires themselves, but it's based on God and God's plan.

And David now has attention off of himself and his own kingdom back to where he rightly needs it. And that is being under God as an under shepherd, as the king of God's people.

And he says, now, Lord, you do good design and your good pleasure. Then build up the walls of Jerusalem where your dwelling place is, and then you delight in right sacrifices, burnt offerings, whole burnt offerings, and bowls are offered on your altar.

Then all things will be right. Now, this is all pointing us ultimately to when things will be made right with the perfect sacrifice that for David was yet to come.

for us. We look back and we've already seen he has come. So, folks, we see most clearly the nature of God, the nature of sin, the nature of forgiveness, and the nature of testimony in the cross of Christ.

Think about it. God's great love. He so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life, that God demonstrates his love for us in this, that while we were yet sinners, Christ Jesus died for us, Romans 5a.

And it's a reminder of his great love, and yet sin must be punished. And his son was punished and crushed for our iniquity so that we could be forgiven.

And now we get to participate in the greatest testimony and good news the world has ever known.

God forgives. God cleanses. God restores. God renews. God draws you to himself even when you weren't looking for him.

God bless you and that's the nature of our God. That's the nature of sin. That's the nature of forgiveness and that's the nature of our testimony.

May we be found faithful. Let's pray. our Father, we are so thankful for this psalm. And this psalm is such a stark reminder of sin and the effects of sin, the downward spiral of sin, all in the backdrop of 2 Samuel 11 and 12.

David's great transgression and iniquity and sin and yet he understands while there was great sin that was committed that deeply affected Bathsheba and Uriah and David's entire family and the people of God, the nation, ultimately his sin was against you, the one true God.

And so we thank you that we get a glimpse into your mercy, your compassion, your steadfast love.

And so as we bring our sin to you, may we be reminded of who you are, your character, your nature. And then as we are forgiven, help us to walk in that forgiveness.

We walk by faith and not by sight when we trust in your great promise that you have put our sin as far away as the east is from the west. Psalm 103 reminds us.

And then, oh Lord, help us to open our lips to teach and instruct and to sing. Oh, that we would sing at the top of our lungs grace, grace, marvelous grace.

grace. Grace that pardons, cleanses, redeems. And then may we share this with others, declaring your praise as we give testimony of your great grace and mercy and forgiveness.

We want to be found faithful, Lord, and you receive all the praise. So be with us now as we leave this place. Lord, we pray that your presence would be very near and dear to us as we go through our week, that we would be mindful that you never leave us nor forsake us and we'd be mindful that you are the one who's working sanctification in our lives and you're giving us opportunity to be part of the great commission.

We get to share the good news with others. So may we be found faithful with the people you bring our way this week. We ask all this in Jesus' name and all God's people said, amen and amen.

All right, God bless you. You are dismissed. Remember, this week we will not have Wednesday evening activities and so we're off this Wednesday and we'll look forward to seeing you next Sunday.

God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you.