Father, we pray this morning that Your great grace would be known to us, Lord, that we wouldn’t be here this morning.

Lord, just because we’re supposed to be, because it’s what we do on Sunday, but Lord, we’re here because as Your people, as the body of Christ, we desire to meet with You in the Spirit.

God, let it be so that we desire Your truth to amaze us, Your truth to overwhelm us, Your truth to shape and to form us into the image of Jesus, that we would be all the more equipped, Lord, to serve You, and that all of our serving You would flow from our knowing and being known by You, God.

Thank You, Lord, that even in our wandering, You love us and You keep us. Thank You for Your grace. Thank You for Your mercy. Thank You for Your love.

Lord, we pray that our tithe and our offering, whether we give online or we give in the back, Lord, You would take that, You would multiply it, Lord, that we would live with generous hearts, open hearts, open hands, Lord, as You’ve loved us in Christ. Christ, lavish, Lord, so we would live for You and give back. So, Father, we just pray You’d open our ears, open our eyes this morning to Your truth. We pray that in Christ’s name. Amen. Amen.

Well, good morning. It’s good to be with you. Good to see you. We’re going to do a psalm this morning. We’re going to take a break from Matthew this week. We’ll be back in Matthew next week. And in a lot of ways, I think this psalm will set us up for where we’re going to be in Matthew because we’re going to look at the end times next week where the disciples ask Jesus for the first time, you know, when will the end come? When will these things be? So, we’re going to be in Psalm 12. If you want to turn there with me, if you’ve got a Bible, Psalm 12.

Psalm 12. Psalm 12.

The psalmist writes,

Save, O Lord, for the godly one is gone,

for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man. Everyone utters lies to his neighbor with flattering lips and double heart they speak. May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that makes great boasts. Those who say with our tongue we will prevail, our lips are with us. Who is master? Over us. Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will now arise, says the Lord. I will place him in the safety for which he longs. The word of the Lord are pure words like silver found in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times. You, O Lord, will keep them. You will guard us from this generation forever. On every side the wicked prowl as vileness is exalted among the children of man. If you’ve ever, chipped a tooth, you ever done that, you know how bad that feels instantly. There’s no ignoring it, especially, you know, you open your mouth and cold air hits that chipped tooth and hits those raw nerves. And it’s miserable. I would rather break my leg than have like tooth pains. I hate mouth, mouth pain. I remember one evening years and years ago, Jessica and I were sitting at a restaurant and I just had this unpleasant sensation in my tooth back here and it just got bigger and bigger and bigger. And so I couldn’t even like move my mouth. And the next day I was calling every dentist I could find. I need to get in somewhere that day. And I had an abscess and they had to, you know, pull out, you know, my molars, whatever. So teeth hurt bad when it happens. And it’s an emergency indicator, isn’t it? Those raw nerves. Something’s wrong. Something’s not right. Something must be fixed. Something must be different. And that same sort of emergency, is on the psalmist here in Psalm 12. He is overwhelmed by godlessness. Now the psalms are so often a cry out to God to be saved. To be saved from the sinful man. To be saved from sinful culture. The psalmist is so sure he’s at the very end and ruin is upon him and he sings these songs. Oh God, save. Save. And it’s no different. You and I, in our time, the threat of godlessness that’s true for every age in the age of the church. And will our response be the same as David’s? Save, O Lord. Save, O Lord. The first observation I want you to see here in Psalm chapter 12

is David’s acute condition. And it is a condition. It’s a gracious condition God puts some of us in. Hopefully all of us. If you’re a Christian. It’s a painful condition, but it’s an acute condition. And the condition is that oversensitivity

to the absence of godliness. It’s a prayer for David. It’s a song. He doesn’t observe it. Like you read about something really bad in a third world country and oh, that’s so bad. I hate that for them. And you shrug your shoulders and move on. That’s not at all what’s happening for David. His soul is shaken. His bones are rattled. So much so he doesn’t lament the thing. He does the only thing. The only thing his soul knows to do. He cries out. His heart cries out to God. God, save me. Save. The godly one is gone. It means that he doesn’t exist anymore. That’s what it means. He says the faithful. That means the one who has affection for you. The one who has allegiance to you. That person has disappeared. They’re gone. He is in all degrees sensitive to the absence of godliness among his people. And he longs for salvation from its effects. And its consequences. His awareness of it serves as a prompting to be saved from it.

One popular pop singer, Demi Lovato. You’ve probably heard of her. She just released a new show kind of documenting her life on YouTube. She came out very recently as a pansexual. And her words attracted to anything. She also cut her hair just in the last couple weeks as a statement that she’s breaking free from the norms, the gender norms, sexuality norms of Christianity that she grew up with. And she is praised. And it’s sad. That’s not some weird thing. Everyone praises that. That’s wonderful. For the first time in America’s history, we have a transgender assistant secretary of health. He called me. He calls himself Rachel Levine. He is for minors, genital mutilation, pressed really hard in a Senate hearing. He would not say that he was against parents’ rights being taken away. The child should be able to decide for themselves if they want to mutilate their own genitals. He would not agree to that.

Paul Maxwell. You may or may not have heard Paul Maxwell. Paul Maxwell is kind of an up-and-coming theologian. He had a doctorate. He put out a lot of books. If you’ve heard of Desiring God, it’s a website kind of started by John Piper. They put out a lot of great material. He was one of the main writers for Desiring God when they started back in 2015 through 2017. Wrote a lot of things. Professor of Philosophy at the Moody Bible Institute. Just came out with his latest book at the end of last year. And he released on Instagram in tears this past week that he is no longer a Christian and he’s the happiest he’s ever been. And he can’t wait to start his new journey.

The CDC released an article just this week that of all abortions, I guess 117,000, over a third of all abortions that have happened in the last year, over a third of those are black babies. So not only do we have a problem with abortion, but there is in the black community these lies being told that it is better and life’s better without your baby. The Bible says, The Biden administration just approved this last week it’s okay for researchers to use fetal tissue of aborted babies to do research.

The Biden administration also directed that anyone receiving federal funds in any colleges, you must allow males who identifies females to use female dorm rooms, bathrooms, etc. And then just a couple weeks ago, Brandon Robertson, who is a, self-professed gay pastor, and I think we talked about this in group, he said that Jesus was a racist and the great thing about Jesus is he repented of his sins. And he also would support all versions of LGBTQ+. Now read all that, and that’s just recent events, right? We could talk about the triviality of divorce in the church. We could talk about how pornography grows like a wild vine in the hearts of men inside the church. We could talk about gross materialism. We could talk about just the triviality of life, how so many people just waste their lives away binge-watching TV shows, binge-watching movies, most of which that are designed to radicalize your children with a very leftist, godless agenda. We could go there, and we could go there. And I think there’s part of me that says this, and it’s a wrong impulse, well, but this is the Deep South, and people are against that in the Deep South, and that’s a foolish thing to do because it’s increasingly not, true, younger generations, I don’t care if it’s Alabama or wherever you are, they’re increasingly

desensitized to things that were given decades ago. So never take godliness as a given. Never take godliness as, oh, it’s something that’s for granted. Of course, everyone here is that way, friends. You can lose ground much quicker than you can gain it.

Saying, well, it’s not as bad here as it is somewhere else, is like a morbidly obese person saying, I saw someone even bigger than me, thus, I don’t need to do anything about my current condition. Friends, if there’s something wrong, it must be addressed. If it’s present, it must be fixed. If you care, you care. If you don’t care, you don’t care.

And the psalmist is that thing that you and I, if we’re truly godly, if we truly have the spirit of Christ in us, we will be. He isn’t all things sensitive. He’s wearied by sin and sinful man all around. He’s burdened by ungodliness. So much so that he says, Lord, save the godlier gone. In the Hebrew, what that means, the godly, it means loyal love. God, there are no people here anymore who have loyal love to you. The air he breathed was thick with wickedness. He looked at you. He looks around and he sees a horde of not covenant-keeping Israelites. He sees covenant-breaking ones.

David is most likely on the run from Saul right now. He’s probably hiding out in a cave. And in this entanglement with Saul and his armies, he laments he’s broken because the king and his people are not godly as they ought to be. It breaks him.

Church, are we broken like that for godlessness in our own time? Are we sensitive to, let’s just be honest and use New Testament language, are we sensitive to the spirit of Antichrist in our age? Are we friendly to it? We’re either appalled at godlessness or we are applauding it. David cries out. He cannot coexist. He cannot live and let live. It’s too much. He can’t handle it. Now certainly there is a sort of godly patience we should have. God puts us in unrighteous places. That’s so much of what it means to be a Christian, to be a light in the darkness. That’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about people that should be broken over sin, yet they have a sort of careless passiveness as to whether it’s one way or another. Hear me say to you this morning, if we are godly people, godlessness, whether you see it in small or large portions, it will work on your soul like sandpaper. It will. He cannot and does not want to be comfortable among it. It reminds me of Lot’s to-be-son-in-laws in Genesis chapter 19, verse 12. The angels who are getting ready to destroy the city. It says, The men said to Lot, Have you anyone else here, sons-in-laws, sons and daughters or anyone in the city, bring them out of the place for we are about to destroy this place because the outcry against the people has become so great before the Lord and the Lord has sent us to destroy it. It says, Sodom and Gomorrah are so wicked. We’re getting ready to destroy it. So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law who were to marry his daughters, Up, get out of this place for the Lord is about to destroy the city. But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting.

Are you so comfortable among godlessness that taking it serious, it is as someone is jesting. I am at home here.

This psalm I think really pushes us to discern what spirit has hold of us. Because some spirit does have hold of you. You’re not your own master. No one is. We love to think so, don’t we? In our 21st century society. We are born slaves of the Antichrist. And by grace and grace alone, we’re brought into a better slavery under that of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says it’s the spirit at work and the sons of disobedience. And it’s only by grace that you come under the Lord Jesus Christ. So we’re friends or enemies of the world. Neutrality is an impossible thing. Jessica and I have been watching this show kind of through the eyes of the Swedes and Norwegians during World War II. And they say, oh, Germany will never attack us. We’re neutral. Oh, Germany will never attack us. We’re a neutral country. They can’t. They can’t. And right up to the moment you have these Norwegians say, oh, we can never be attacked. We’re a neutral country. And guess what? Nazism swept them up just the same. So God says be hot for me or be cold for me. He doesn’t say, I don’t even like the in-between. In fact, He hates the in-between even more. He says, you try to be in-between the two and you’re out of my mouth. You’re gone. I’m going to vomit at you.

Friend, I want to ask you, does the Spirit of the Kingdom of Heaven keep you soul sick? Because God is not exalted in our government. God is not exalted in our schools. Are you wearied because man lives for his own glory? If Christ is ours, the pursuit of godliness will be paramount. The presence of godliness, all important, and the absence of it, unbearable. Which brings us to the second reason for why David cries out. Not only because by grace, David saw godlessness to be an abhorrent thing to him, but the dangers of living amongst ungodliness.

The world, or again, let’s just speak plainly, the spirit of Antichrist does not want autonomy. It doesn’t want to just be separate from godlessness. You know what it wants? It wants surrender. It doesn’t want compromise. It wants control. And that’s the great folly in the church today when we compromise. Every time we compromise, we’re giving a little bit more control to Satan. Every time the church makes a concession to culture, Satan’s getting a little bit more control. It’s one doctrine. It’s one more doctrine. It’s one more doctrine. It’s one more doctrine. It’s not even recognizable as doctrine. It’s something else altogether. Whether it be stance on marriage or confronting sin or intercourse, entertainment culture in the church today, there’s this very, I think, perverse, strange attempt to make the church a place where no one could possibly be offended. And in the end, it’s not an effective, useful place for anybody. It’s altogether worldly, not godly.

Do you know how much Satan compromises? None. How much does the devil, how much does he make deals? Does he make deals? No. So you see what distress David’s in. He sees godlessness like a tidal wave coming across the land, swallowing souls, demanding allegiance, fooling the simple hearted. Charles Spurgeon says, the fish smells first at the head. And when godly men decay, the whole commonwealth will soon go rotten. So David knows he cannot contend with it. The great King David, you know, I slay bears and lions with my bare hands. I kill dragons. I kill giants. That David says, God, I can’t do anything with this. I cannot.

God, you are my solitary hope in this. World leaders, celebrities, internet personalities, they may think they’re masters of their own fate, but surely we know better. There’s a puppet master behind each one pulling those strings, warring against God’s church, warring against God. And what would be our salvation if not for the intervention of God himself?

David stands among a remnant, a small remnant of people. And it’s no different today. We stand among a small remnant and so we together must look up to God and say, God, you alone, you alone could save me from being swept into godlessness, falling in love with godlessness. It would be you and you alone who would save me.

Jessica and I once took a train ride through the Appalachian Mountains. There was this, you know, this beautiful dinner train. It was really cool. And you’re going through these mountains. There’s this tour guide explaining everything and showing you like different Indian burial sites and all this stuff. And you come to this place where there’s this huge mountainside and it comes down to like this river. And there are these old like 1920s, 1930s cars and there’s sandwich on top of each other. Smash, smash, smash. And they’re like shoved under the mountainside like in the riverbed, like where it meets the river. And you see all these old cars smashed up under into the riverbed. And he said, he said that’s what they did to prevent soil erosion back then. He said they stopped doing it in the 30s because they introduced Asian kudzu, which was a huge mistake.

And if you know anything about kudzu, it’s called the mile a minute plant because it grows up to a foot in a day. And kudzu, it’s pretty resilient against herbicides and it’ll ruin forests, ruin trees. It’ll ruin insect life. It would overtake homes if you didn’t cut it down. If you didn’t cut it back, there’s very little you can do to stop that invasive plant.

Friends, let us love. Let us say to the world, yes, yes, yes, you sin. You’re a sinner. But God loves you. And God would make you. Let’s be as kind and compassionate as Christ is. But Christ never gave up heaven to appease earth. Christ never made concessions. And I think there’s that lie going around that, speaking the truth is a hurtful thing. If you speak truth and you hurt someone’s feeling, you must have done something wrong. And the truth is, that’s the most loving thing to do. So we could and should have conversations about what it means to engage the world well. But at the end of the day, friends, we cannot give up what we have lest we have nothing.

Second, I want to say only what Paul says. He says as a command, live by the Spirit. If you live by the Spirit of God, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Live by the Spirit. It’s just a command. If you have the Spirit, live by it. Because you know what’s going to happen if you’re not consciously obeying that command. You will live by the flesh. And godliness will shrink in your life. Or godliness would.

What’s the traffic of your heart like? What things do you let in and out of your heart? What entertainment goes in there? What things? What things do you think you should be watching to bring you pleasure and joy? Chase and I were talking the last couple weeks and I said, you’ve got a lot of joy and excitement about the Lord lately that’s coming off. He said, well, you know what I’ve done? I’m going to ride home. Instead of listening to talk radio, I listen to sermons.

What kind of traffic do you have going into your heart? Who are you following?

Who’s really persuading you and kind of shaping you, friends? And lastly, what does Peter say about godliness? He says, as long as I’m in this body, I will remind you of it. I will remind you of it. So this is where that Christ-centered community comes in. And I’m not just concerned. I’m not just sensitive to godlessness for me. Being a part of the body of Christ means I’m sensitive to godlessness for you, for the other. I want us to be a whole healthy body. I want us to strive for that together. So we’ve said this before. Holiness is a team sport. Holiness is a team sport. You can’t win it on your own. The Bible doesn’t intend you to. Are we concerned? Are we sensitive to the spirit of the age versus the spirit of Christ within us? Are we living by that spirit together?

Verse 5 in chapter 12. The psalmist says, Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will now arise, says the Lord. I will place Him in the safety for which He longs. The words of the Lord are pure words like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times. I came across this story. This is 1952. A young woman by the name of Florence Chadwick stepped off the beach at Catalina Island into the water, determined to swim to the shore of mainland California. She was already an experienced long-distance swimmer. She was the first woman to swim the English Channel both ways. The weather was foggy and chilly, on the day she set out, she could barely see the boat that was accompanying her. For 15 hours she swam. She begged to be taken out. But her trainer urged persistence, telling her again and again she could make it, that the shore was not far. Physically and emotionally exhausted, she finally just stopped swimming and was pulled out. The boat went to the shore and she discovered she was a mere half mile away. The next day she gave a news conference. What she said was this, I do not want to make excuses for myself, I’m the one who has to be pulled out, but I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it. I would have made it.

Church, so much of the Christian life is lived in light of what we know is right around the corner, what we know is right there. That’s the obvious conclusion if you read the Bible. If you read about Abraham’s life all the way to Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians, it’s a map. It’s a matter of keeping your mind on the end of the thing. God says to Abraham, you’re going to have a son. Abraham, I don’t see one. And it was decades and decades. Paul says to the Thessalonians, he has not destined you for wrath. Glory is right around the corner. Keep looking to the end.

So you must have a hope for tomorrow of what is soon to come. And that hope is not whimsical like Santa Claus or the tooth fairy, which is, you know, a hope.

Friends, our hope is found in the character of God before anything else. Knowing who He is. In Jeremiah 29, verse 13,

He says to sinning, erring Israel, you will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. God is a God who is unchangeably tender to those who want Him. Who want to be saved. If God was to refuse to save the one who reached out to be saved from evil, He would stop being God. God helps the one tread down by the wicked. He is kind to save the person who wants to be away from the wicked man. I will bring you away from the wicked man. He is a Savior. That’s what He is.

Almost 50 times in all the Psalms, David talks about God as his refuge. Over 70 times, the psalmist says, God is my salvation. So see, how David knows when wickedness flexes its muscles, wherever that’s happening, the one who says, I want to be saved from that, God’s like, I’m going to save you from that. Don’t worry. I’m a God that saves people from wickedness. I save them who desire Me. So seeing all that great upheaval with Saul, how do you keep your hat on, David? How do you have some hope of salvation? And for David, it’s this. He knows the character of God that God will save. It’s who God is.

And church, I want to ask you, how plain is that for us this morning in the cross of Jesus? Even in the fall in the garden, God says, I’m going to send My Savior to deal with this. I’m going to send that seed. And He came. And Jesus dealt with sin. And He dealt with Satan. And He dealt with all of it for us. And He offers that and says, who wants this salvation? It’s for you. See what I’ve done to provide a way out from evil, from sin, and from death. The cross of Jesus proves the character of God.

But it’s not as though, God saves the one who doesn’t want to be saved.

God’s salvation for David and much more for us in Christ, it comes when we ask for it and cry out for it. There in verse 5, when He says, I will place Him in the safety for which He longs, the Hebrew word longs means breathe out. It’s used elsewhere in the Bible to talk about the one who breathes out lies. So you see, with air in your lungs, breathe out to God. Save me.

Don’t keep your longing inside. Say, God, save me. What comfort is that for you, church? In the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, as impossible as salvation seems with darkness all around, if you would just say to Jesus, Jesus, save me. And it’s not qualified by the right kind of special words. It’s not qualified by doing the right works. It’s not qualified by prerequisites like Chase talked about last week in his sermon. Simply breathe out. Save me. Save me, Jesus. And believe He will do it. And He will. You know, we’re always doubting God. Like, where’s the fine print? Like, surely there’s fine print in the Bible because it seems too simple. Where’s the fine print? Like, I’m reading in between the lines, but there’s no words in between the lines. There’s no fine print in the Scripture. God says, cry out to me. The prophet Isaiah says, look and see salvation all the world.

Jeremiah, again, 33 says, call to me, and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.

Remember the thief on the cross?

Jesus, Rabbi of Nazareth, Holy One, come of Israel, wilt Thou saveth me? Jesus remembered me.

It’s so simple. And Jesus says, hey, you know what? Today, today, you’re going to be with me. You’re going to be in paradise.

Can you trust the character of Christ? Trust the character of God. He desires to save, and He will save the one who cries out for it. Matthew Henry says, God’s Word is really as it is there represented, and not otherwise. It does not jest with us, not impose upon us, nor has it any other design towards us than our own good. The precious, the preciousness of God’s Word, it is of great intrinsic value, like silver refined to the highest degree. It has nothing in it to depreciate it. It has often been tried. All the saints in all ages have trusted it and tried it, and never has it deceived them, nor frustrated their expectations.

Oh, are you certain that God will save you from ungodliness? Would you ask Him in faith? Would you breathe out, save Lord? The godly one’s gone. The faithful has vanished.

Because in a real way, isn’t it true that it’s already come to pass?

If the world must grow as dark as it needs to grow before Christ actually returns in our own time, isn’t it true we’re already saved? Because Jesus didn’t already come as a babe. I read that story. Hasn’t He been offered up as a bloody sacrifice? Didn’t He already walk out of the grave? Isn’t the Gospel on offer? Doesn’t the Spirit confirm and seal us that we’re gods forevermore? Paul says in Romans, chapter 14, for if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

Can’t you see the saving nature of God in Christ Jesus? Oh, He wants to save us. If we would just cry out, Oh God, save me from a crooked, twisted generation.

How else could you account for sitting here this morning?

How else could you account for not having fallen away or given up through despair? How else could you account for not having given in to the pleasures of sin already? It’s this and it’s this alone. Grace moved you to cry out, and then you’re crying out. God said, I’ll never leave. I’ll never forsake. God has saved us. God is saving us. And someday Jesus will break through the clouds and He will save us.

Let that be, church, our food until He comes.

Do waves fail to break on the shore?

Does the sun fail to rise?

Do seasons fail to change?

Then the Savior will not fail to keep, to preserve.

And, you know, I think one thing about the psalms I love, and it’s one of those things, I wish I had known that earlier in life, but by grace I know it now, and I want you to hold on to it. Singing, that’s what psalms are, or there’s such a weapon against the enemy. Think how much David sings. He’s singing to God for salvation. Friends, you’ve got to open your mouth and sing. You know, I love sermons. I do, because we do this all the time, but, you know, the singing’s not like it’s a warm-up. We’re just getting loose so we can get to the sermon. I mean, we want to hear God’s Word, but we want to sing God’s Word. I think there’s power in singing God’s Word. It does something to just weaponize us. It’s against darkness. So sing, sing, sing. If Paul has to write, and the Hebrew writers has to write, hey, don’t give up. Don’t give up. It’s right around the corner. Don’t we need to dwell on salvation, on what we’re certain of that much too, so we don’t forget it? And again, as much as we should encourage one another in godliness, you know what else the Bible says you must do? Paul says encourage one another that the day is drawing near. It may feel far away, but friends, eternity’s just around the corner. It’s a few moments away.

Verse 7,

he says, You, O Lord, will keep them.

You, O Lord, will keep them. You will guard us from this generation forever. On every side the wicked prowl, as vileness is exalted among the children of man. So he answers his own question. He gives himself the assurance he needs. Verse 1, save. Verse 7, you will save.

Verse 1, save, they’re gone. It’s all vanished. It’s all black. Verse 7, you will save. You will guard. You will keep us from this generation. He even tacks on 8. There’s vileness all around. But he says, God, you will save. You will save. Friends, the gospel has made us sensitive to sin, hasn’t it? If we truly have looked upon Jesus and seen in Him the glory of God and the goodness of a world yet to come, oh, you should be sensitive. Sensitive to evil. Sensitive to how you are or not growing up in Christ as you ought. Sensitive to the Spirit keeping you. You should be thirsty and hungry for Jesus every day. Keep me today, Jesus. Abide in me. I want to be sensitive to what I was and what I’m not by grace. Friends, the gospel makes it certain. Because Jesus did get up out of the grave, God’s character is sure. Sure, and Jesus will come again. He has not given me or any other saint any other reason to believe He is a certain salvation.

Save us, O Lord. You will save us. Save us, O Lord. You will save us. I just want to close and read Hebrews 10. Verse 35. He says, Therefore, do not throw away your confidence which has a great reward for you. Have need of endurance so that when you have done it, when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised. For yet a little while in the coming one will come and will not delay. But my righteous one shall live by faith. And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

Let’s believe that, friends. Save us, Lord. You will save us. Let’s pray.

Father, not of works that we have done.

There’s no boast of any good thing we have done, any merit we have before You, but our plea could be this and this alone, and that is, the name of Your Son, Jesus.

Jesus, to reveal all that we deserve for our sins, all that God’s law condemns us for.

Yet in Jesus, we see all that grace provides. We see Your kindnesses. We see Your mercy. We see Your tenderheartedness and Your gentleness

towards the weak and the erring, God.

And Lord, bring what it may this day and every day after. Lord, in valleys and spots where it feels impossible, Lord, our one hope is that Your grace would move us to say, Save, Lord. Preserve me. Preserve me, Lord.

So, Lord, that’s our cry. That’s our hope. Jesus is our guiding light, Lord, on the straight and narrow, Lord. Would You keep us? Would You guard us? Would You guard our children, Lord?

By Your grace, will we raise up a generation of righteous people that say, Jesus is my righteousness. Save me, Jesus. Save me. Lord, let us eat and drink that food and that alone.