Father, we thank you for Jesus, that he is truly with us, truly with us, Lord.

We thank you for all these things we’ve sung about and these scriptures we’ve read. Lord, you are just very here. God, help us to believe that and just live in your goodness, Lord. Thank you, Father, for your love. Thank you for Jesus.

Lord, we pray for our tithe, our offering. Lord, we want to never just let things fly out of our bank account and not realize what they’re doing for you or that you’ve called us to do that. Lord, we just pray you would bless our finances, and you always have. We just pray, Lord, that you would multiply offerings given from faith, Lord, and Lord, we would be your people in all things. In this we pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Good evening, church. It’s good to be with you.

So we’re going to start the book of Revelation next week.

But I’ve got to catch my breath before we can do that because that sounds daunting. But I want to do it. So we’re going to do it. But I didn’t feel like jumping into it yet. We just finished Corinthians. So I wanted to just be in the Psalms this week. I like visiting the Psalms every once in a while. So we’re going to be in Psalm chapter 16.

Psalm chapter 16. I just want to walk through the Psalm with you this evening.

Psalm chapter 16, starting in verse 1.

The psalmist says, Preserve me, O God, for in You I take refuge.

I say to the Lord, You are my Lord, and I have no good apart from You.

Have you ever been on a trip of some sort and you’re somewhere you’re not usually are and your cell phone service is spotty? Or remember when cell phones first came out? That was just generally the case. It was just highly spotty, like whether or not you’re going to get service. And it’s worse to me when you’re talking to someone and it goes in and out, like you’re getting every third word, but they don’t realize it, so they keep talking. And it’s hugely aggravating. It’s aggravating and annoying. But I think sometimes we think our relationship with God is like that. Like God is not so present. God is not so constant. There are maybe variables in life. Maybe it’s due to my errors, my mistakes, whether those are real errors or mistakes or ones I’m just afraid I have committed or we just have a misunderstanding of who God is, misunderstanding of what God has said about Himself. And so you and I don’t live with the peace, the joy, the life that God wants us to have at all moments. We can live in the presence of the Lord every single moment. It’s not like bad cell phone service. And I want you to see that from this psalm with me.

He says, Preserve me, O God, for in You I take refuge. David’s praying for something that’s a sure thing. He’s not praying for possibilities. You know, at Christmas, it’s getting closer. Christmas is getting closer. I’m starting to save up little Christmas villages. My parents always tell me I’m anti-Christmas. I’m getting the spirit up. So this year, I’m buying all these little ceramic Christmas houses and we’re going to make a Christmas village. You know, so yeah, it’s going to be fun. So I’ve been shopping all this this early. So, you know, I have good ones to choose from. But we all love Christmas because if you’re an adult, there’s still that feeling like, what am I going to get this year? What am I going to get this year? Or if you’re a kid and you make like this list and you’re like, you know, like, what is mom and dad willing to spend on me this year? Like, you don’t know what you’re going to get. It’s very much so a whimsical sort of hope. But the thing that David asked God for, he knows he’s going to. And God must give David what David asked for. He has to give David what he asked for. If not, then the Christian God would be disproved entirely.

And what David asks for is preservation.

He wants to be kept. He wants to be watched over. That’s what it means to be preserved. And it doesn’t specify what David is praying about. You could take a pic. David had all kinds of turmoil in his life from sin temptation to horrible sins committed to, you know, whatever, warfare. He had all kinds of upside down turmoil with his children and his own house. You know, as he got older and his children grew up, horrible things happened under his own roof. And so it’s the same thing for you. You need preservation in your life because your troubles vary, don’t they?

Many are the possibilities of spiritual warfare and the kinds of battles you could get in. Many are the snares of the devil. Many are the trials we face like David.

Yet this psalm is encouraging because it says to us, it teaches us God must preserve his servant. He must do it despite apparent difficulty. Because God’s testimony about himself is he’s perfectly powerful. So it can’t be said that God would, but he can’t. In the book of Jeremiah, it says, Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?

God will preserve you and me despite our worthiness. Worthiness. Worthiness. Because we’re not.

Here’s something else God says in the book of Jeremiah. You will seek me and find me. What? When you seek me with all your heart. So God has to defend. He has to stand behind his own words. And here’s why I’m drawing these from Jeremiah. I think it’s powerful. Because Jeremiah is to a group of people, the Israelites, who are in exile for having horribly sinned against their God. So God is not talking to a bunch of worthy people. Yet he says, you will find me if you would seek me.

David did some pretty rotten things in his life, didn’t he? He did some pretty nasty things. But this is why this text is so amazing. It teaches us, friends, that our preservation does not depend on us. David knew it didn’t depend on David. What does it depend on? Just this. And this is incredible. It depends only on the character and the heart of God. And those things don’t change.

You know, so David can say confidently,

confidently, preserve me, O God. And he can know that God will preserve him and God will be his refuge. He’s really just saying the same thing twice. He’s asked God in earnest to preserve him. So God will be his refuge. And because God is his refuge, it must be so that David will be preserved.

But I want to ask you a gut level question. How often do you go through life thinking and feeling that God is semi-present?

God is semi-concerned about your lot. God is half upset with you. God is tired of you. God has rolled his eyes plenty of times. But you, in your own mind, and that’s not God.

God would have us live in this moment-by-moment consciousness of his saturating presence and love. His own words bind him to this.

He says, anyone who calls upon me, anyone who calls upon me, if you turn to me, I will turn to you. And I think what God ends up being for us a lot of times, you’ve got to admit, like, is this grumpy, grumpy uncle who, like, had to take us in. You know, and we live in his, like, cellar in the basement, and it’s like, can I have just something to eat? Can I have some kind of help with this? Or God becomes this stoic deity, you know? He’s very unthoughtful. He’s very unfeeling. He kind of tenses up when you come into his presence. Like, you know, you imagine him tensing up when you think about how he thinks about you. And not as the thing that he presents himself, as in his word, which is his what? A loving father.

And so if we fail to see God as who God is, let me ask you this question. Does it change who he is? Just because we see him wrongly?

No. It just means you and I live bereft and empty of the God who is there and of the blessing that we could have. And this is really pagan religion. This is how, you know, Romans and Greeks thought, you know, if there’s bad weather, there’s bad crops, things are going wrong, the gods must be angry. What did we do? How can we appease the gods? And I think what you and I have a lot of times, even if we don’t realize it, is we have magic eight ball theology. I don’t know, do they still make magic eight balls? But, you know, when you’re a kid, it’s like, am I going to get a pony? Yes. Yes. You know, it’s like, whatever it says, like you want to believe it’s true, but maybe it says no, or maybe it says maybe, or it says kind of, or we’ll see. And we come to this very sure, certain God with that same mentality

that’s entirely fictitious.

So friends, if it’s not a breakdown of God’s character and heart, what’s it a breakdown of?

It’s a breakdown of my faith. That’s what it’s a breakdown of. Look how Paul talks about this in Romans chapter 10.

He says, If you confess with your mouth, that Jesus is Lord, and you believe in your heart, that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. No caveat. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches on who? All who call on Him. For, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Multiple times in that passage, Paul makes so clear to you and I that everyone, everyone, it’s beautifully generic,

everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. What if I’m not worthy? Of course you’re not. Of course you’re not. But in Christ Jesus, you and I have a, we have a certain refuge that can’t be broken. In Christ Jesus, you and I have a Father who loves us and keeps us despite anything. We have a Father to whom we can go and we can boldly say, Dad, Father, I need this. And He says, okay, I love you.

That’s who the God of the Bible is.

Again, another verse from Jeremiah for you.

He says, I have loved you with an everlasting love. How about that? I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore, I have continued my faithfulness to you. See, it doesn’t depend on you, does it? It doesn’t depend on how lovable you are. It depends on God saying, I will always be this God of an everlasting, faithful love to you. So God doesn’t change. God doesn’t go away. We were talking, we were talking about this in systematic theology Wednesday, actually. We talked about the immutability and the omnipresence of God. Immutability, meaning God cannot and does not change. He’s always who He is. And He’s omnipresent. He’s everywhere. He’s not bound by a spatial dimension. He’s everywhere. And how much more wonderful are those general doctrines when you apply them to those who have the Spirit of God. He’s not just in me generally, but He’s in me as one who is in Christ, whom He loves deeply. And He’s unchanging in His promises and purpose and goodness towards me.

And verse 2 is such a compliment to verse 1 in chapter 16. He says, I say to the Lord, You are my Lord. I have no good apart from You. So David makes no attempt to diversify. You see those commercials you hear on the radio? In these uncertain times, you should diversify your portfolio. Buy silver, buy gold. Like, I don’t have money to buy silver and gold. Diversify.

But that’s the point, right? You know, the stock market, the bottom falls out. Yay, you still got some silver or gold or something like that. But David doesn’t do that. He burns his bridges, as it were. He says, You are my Lord. All my faith is in this God, which is faith, because wouldn’t you agree that faith diversified is faith insincere? If I’m willing to kind of put all my faith in these different things, that’s not really faith. That’s hedging your bets and just hoping you’ve got some kind of lifeline in the end. He says, You, not something I can get from You, not something I like about You. God, You.

You are what my faith is in.

Charles Spurgeon,

he says, According to Thy faith, be it done unto Thee, is a great rule of heaven in dispensing favor. And when we can sincerely declare that we exercise faith in the mighty God with regard to the mercy which we seek, we may rest assured that our plea will prevail.

It’s something like this, like a tuning fork, or before modern technology, if an orchestra, or a band want to get tuned, you really have to tune to the piano because pianos aren’t so easily tuned. But if everyone tuned to the piano, you’re going to be in tune. But let’s say you had five, ten guys and one guy tuned his instrument to the piano and the next guy tuned to that guy and the next guy tuned to that guy and you went down the line. That tenth guy, you would think if you just heard him play, oh, that’s an accurate pitch. That’s an accurate note.

But if you played with that piano, ten guys up the line, you’d go, oh, hold on, that’s not accurate at all. And so friends, you and I, we tend to do that with God, be it worldly voices, be it the voice of the devil, be it our own selves, kind of self-destructing and pushing against the faith we have in Jesus. We start to create a God that’s not really there. Friends, we must go back and listen to the voice of God and God says, I have loved you with an everlasting love. God is a refuge for you. God is a refuge for you in all things. And I don’t know what you’re going through. I don’t know what you’ll go through tomorrow, but I know that many are our valleys, you know, as Christians, and we need the saturating presence of God in those valleys. We need the God who’s actually there. And let me say this again to you. If you seek Him, you will find Him.

Now, I think you could hear this and you could hear that and I’m speaking from experience and you go, oh, that sounds so good. Problem, I probably don’t possess the faith that I need to believe that. So that’s all good, but I’m not like this Charles Spurgeon fellow or some better Christian who has this faith that’s so sincere and they’re going to get what they ask for. The problem that you don’t is because you’re looking to your faith to save you, not the object of your faith. If you dwelt on Jesus, entirely trustworthy, and on a Father who is faithful beyond description, and you stared and you dwelt upon Christ, you’ll go, well, that’s a faithful God. That’s a God who’s never broken His promises in the Scripture. That’s a God who in Jesus has overcome all. You would find your faith then bolstered because your faith wouldn’t have anything to do with how much you can believe, but with how believable God is when you take Him at His Word. So friend, don’t look in when you, when you feel small in faith, look up. Look to God and see how wonderfully trustworthy He is.

And I want to say to you on this also, I think the devil when he robs us of this kind of certain preservation and refuge, you know, it’s just a general restlessness. It’s a general just living uncomfortable in your mind and fears berating you and tearing you apart. And I think when the devil can get you in that place, boy, you become, you become not just ineffective for the kingdom, but you just become a big mess, don’t you? You become so susceptible to more and more lies and you just kind of whittle down to nothing because you’ve stopped seeing your refuge, your strong tower. So again, I say to you, look to Christ in those valleys. Look to Christ every day and have the peace, the preservation that’s afforded you in Christ Jesus. Second thing I want you to see from this passage if we’re to live in the presence of God is not that we just have a small, a certain refuge, but we also find true fellowship. He says in verse 3, as through the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight. The sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply. Their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names on my lips. Now that seems like an awkward turn because we’re talking about God, whether or not He’s faithful, whether or not He’ll preserve, whether this God, this God in heaven can pull off being a help to me in every spiritual trial and adversity that I could face. Why are we talking about people now? It seems an awkward transition. And He doesn’t even just refer to, you know, other people that, you know, are Old Testament saints, as it were. But He says these are noble ones, or it means excellent ones, or it means the majestic ones. Why would He call them that? For this reason alone, they’re chasing after the same God by faith that He is. You can’t live in solitude. If you’re going to pursue God, pursue Christ, you can’t do that. Life is tied up with being around people and people inevitably exercise influence on you. The psalmist is ecstatic because he says, oh my gosh, there’s a fellowship of faith. That’s amazing. It’s not just me against the world. There’s a fellowship of people trying to do this too, and I can abide with them. And in the midst of my trials, this fellowship can bolster my faith when my faith fluctuates. And surely, it does fluctuate. They say to me, believe on, look on, go on. Don’t stop in your discouragement. Don’t compromise in temptation. So, you know, I float that word a lot, Christ-centered community. But it’s so intrinsic to being God’s people. Old Testament, you can see. Or New Testament, as we go along, we talk about it so much. Being with God’s people is necessary and vital

for lasting, for enduring as a Christian. It’s not elective. And I think we like to think it’s elective in the 21st century. Well, you’ve got enough credits to graduate. You can do woodworking or Christian fellowship. It’s up to you. It doesn’t matter at all. Or study hall. You know, a.k.a. take a nap. For me, you know, whatever. So, I had that my senior year and it was like, you know, I didn’t want to do as little as I could do and get away with it. I wouldn’t do that now if I could go back, but I wasn’t as motivated. All that to say, it’s not elective. It’s not elective. It’s necessary. Think about a very popular, very popular proverb. As iron sharpens iron, what? One man sharpens another, right? And, you know, what happens to a sword? What happens to a plow or farm equipment when it gets dull? It can’t be the thing it’s supposed to be. It can’t do the thing it’s supposed to do. So God has given you, God has given me these excellent ones. It’s you. That’s a weird title to hold, isn’t it? Oh, I like that. I’m an excellent one. I’m an excellent one. But, you know, we’re the excellent ones not because we have an innate excellence. We’re excellent because we’ve been given an excellent calling. You and I have been given a noble calling. We’ve been given a majestic calling. And pursuing that together makes us God’s excellent ones. That’s an amazing, amazing truth that he would refer to the Old Testament church, but much more the New Testament church in such a way.

The presence of God, God is a community experience and pursuit. The presence of God is a community experience and pursuit. I must decide I want to be in this companionship if I truly want to be in the presence of God with my dear brothers, with my dear sisters, who God will use to keep me living in and longing for the presence of God. And God will use me to keep them longing for, leaning in, desiring the presence of God as well. Now, I haven’t read the Bible, but I’ve read the Bible. I haven’t referenced Pilgrim’s Progress in a while, so I’ll do it. Obviously, it’s this amazing story about God keeping Christian Pilgrim on his way, but Christian would have failed and not gotten back up so many times if it was not for his friends’ faithful and hopeful. They kept him going.

Friends, see the strength that is drawn from being a part of Christian fellowship. As we gather Sundays like this, it’s not what we do because we’re religious people. It’s because together we’re in the presence of God and we’re built up together. We’re building up one another just to be here, you know, probably in ways you can’t see. That fourth grade Sunday school teacher or person that poured into you, you know, that was one of God’s excellent ones that he was using, you know, and you can’t even remember that. Or maybe it’s just currently somewhere. Maybe it’s someone who’s long passed away, and you can’t wait to see them again in glory, you know, because you know that they helped keep you, you know, on the straight and the narrow. So friends, he’s using his excellent ones. He wants to use you. Do you want to be used in that way, I would ask? Are you purely a taker? It’s fun taking, isn’t it? It’s fun taking. But what does Jesus say? He says it’s more blessed to give than to receive. Didn’t he say that? In other words, the Christian life, yes, it’s a life of taking because the Gospel is just the story of God’s generosity to love me and keep me. But how amazing when I get a hold of that, man, that’s how I love people. And God uses me as a tool for them to be kept. That’s a pretty amazing thing to think about.

What is heaven?

Well, we get a description in Revelation, don’t we, of all the saints from different tribes, tongues, nations, and what are all these people doing in the presence of God? Why together worshiping? So do you long to arrive with these precious saints? Do you long to arrive with one another at heaven’s gates?

Everyone exerts influence. Who are you going to give that privilege in your life? He says in verse 4, to sharp distinction, the sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply. Their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take their names. On my lips. Because he knows it will be to the peril of his own soul. He says if you have a false God and you serve a false thing, it has no return. It may seem productive or you may be giving your money and your time to something in life, but it doesn’t actually keep you. And then past that, there’s no spiritual life. There’s only spiritual death in other gods. And it’s really an expression of gravity. He says I don’t even want the names of such people on my lips. Now, I imagine David’s talking mostly about Israelites at the time who were apostate and unfaithful to God. But so it goes all the way around. He’s making the point not that you can’t ever interact with non-believers or something like that. It’s the point simply of this. You know, knowing someone, being around them is one thing. Letting them being a chief and powerful influence your life is something different altogether. Something different altogether.

You know, when you’re a kid, you know what your mom said? Don’t you hang around that boy. He’s going to be a what influence on you? Bad influence on you. Here’s something interesting. That word influence or influencer, that’s probably one of the hottest words in culture today. Bloomberg had an article a couple of years ago, and you can find more about it. But 86% of young people want to be influencers. Like when they grow up, like a career. Like what do you want to be when you grow up? A firefighter. What do you want to be? I want to be an influencer. Like what is that? What is that? And basically, like I have a podcast or I have a YouTube channel or something of that nature, and I influence people. I just, I make people make decisions about everything from relationships to the style of clothes they’re wearing, to the car. I just want to influence people. That’s, it’s a whole thing that people think about. So who are you being influenced by really? Let me say, who are your people? You know, it’s like, like what church do you go to? I ask people that question all the time. Oh, I go down to the, what’s that church on the corner of, what’s the name of that? That’s happened once. It’s happened a thousand times to me. And I fill in the blank sometimes. Yeah, yeah, that’s the church. That’s your church. That’s not your people. That’s not your people.

Friends, who influences you? Who is it on the TV? Who is it on YouTube? Who, these are real places where people are, they’re framing their perspective on life. You know, and social media, it’s subtle. It’s subtle the way that we see videos of this and that and the other and we’re slowly changed. I want to say to you, lean into Christian fellowship. Lean into the body of Christ. It’s the body of Christ by which God wants you to be influenced. Keeping in, staying in the presence of God. That’s God’s tool for keeping you faithful. You know, and you’ve talked about it before, but again, you’re like, I don’t know what that looks like. I’ve never had that in my life. Talk about it. Ask me about it. Because you know what? There’s somebody that needs to disciple you or there’s somebody you need to disciple. There’s a Tuesday night Bible study that needs to happen. You need to show up to Shaggy’s at, what time do we meet? Seven o’clock on Wednesday mornings. It’s hard to get up at seven o’clock. Come do it. Come be in Christian fellowship. Fellowship. It’s there if you ask God for it. Grow, grow, grow. Here’s the third thing from this psalm.

It’s future blessing. So, presently kept, certain refuge now. There’s true fellowship. And then thirdly, there’s future blessing. Verse 5. He says, The Lord is my chosen portion in my cup. You hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me, me in pleasant places. Indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. It’s a wonderful verse. I bless the Lord who gives me counsel.

In the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me because He is at my right hand. I shall not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad and my whole being rejoices. My flesh also dwells secure for you will not abandon my soul to shield or let your Holy One see. Corruption.

So, if we’re going to take comfort from a God who’s unchanging,

we must believe that that unchanging God is going to be here next week. He’s going to be here next month. He doesn’t wear out with time. He doesn’t be like, well, I am the God that you know, but I got about a century left and I’m going to wear out. I’m going to lose my memory. You know, I’m going to forget some of my promises. I’m not going to be strong. It’s not how it happens.

God’s words to me today, are the same thing He would say to me five centuries from now or five millennia from now. It’s a future blessing. So He says, today God is my chosen portion and cup. Today God satisfies me. Today God’s my food and my drink. But then He says, God controls my lot. Now, who gets to control their inheritance?

Nobody. Who gets to say, I like to inherit a castle from my parents. Someday. Do your parents have one? No. I would love to inherit $5 million from my great uncle that I’ve never met someday. Do you have a great uncle that’s got $5 million? Probably not. You can only inherit, you know, what the people who love you give you. Usually your family, you know, maybe you win favor with a stranger and I want you to have my 67 Camaro when I’m gone. Like, great. That’s wonderful. You know, maybe, but it depends on love. It depends on, love. Right? So, this is the amazing thing. God then, He determines my lot in life now, but He determines my future lot because He is my Father. He is my God. And the psalmist can say, the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Like, where’s my inheritance? You see that big desert out there? It’s a dry crack. Sorry. That’s where the lines fell for your property. That’s not what David’s saying. He’s saying, man, the lines fell for my property and it’s, you know, that valley down there and the grass is green and there’s that waterfall over there and the weather is always good and it’s beautiful and it’s clean and you could spend an eternity. David’s saying, that is what this God who loves me says will always be my lot.

God has adopted us as His own. And so we can say, it’s my lot.

The sureness of the present portion of the Lord promises me a future portion.

And that future portion is knowing that God will always love me. He will always know me experientially. He will always care for me and His care and love and knowing are perfect. They’re perfect.

The abiding presence of God. God gives me a peace and strength that’s indefatigable and unconquerable because God is. Because God is.

I want you to see this though and I think this is the really amazing thing about this passage.

In verse 8, he says, because He is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. And he goes all the way down to say He won’t be abandoned to Sheol, which is a reference to in the Old Testament, in the sense of both just death, so dying, but also kind of a dark, shadowy afterworld. It’s in a sense like Old Testament hell. Okay? Look at Acts 2, verse 25-28.

This is Peter talking. Okay? For David says concerning Him, that means Jesus, I saw the Lord always, for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced. My flesh also will dwell in hope for you will not abandon my soul to Hades or let your Holy One see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life. You will make me full of gladness with your presence. You see what happened there? David in Psalm 16 was writing a prophecy. Whether he knew it or not, I don’t know. But that, that was Jesus. Peter says David spoke of Him. Jesus is the One who ever kept the Father at His right hand. Jesus is the One who perfectly trusted the Father. Jesus is the One whom God did not abandon the shield. Jesus is the One who has pleasures forevermore. So what’s that mean for me? It means if I turn to Jesus, my future blessing is secure because Jesus already accomplished that on the cross. Jesus already defeated sin and death and hell. And so Paul says in Christ Jesus, I have the inheritance in the heavenly places, the treasures of Christ in heaven forevermore. So it doesn’t depend on me. It depends on turning to and being filled with Christ. It’s all about Jesus. Jesus is my present blessing. Jesus is my future blessing. How amazing that all these centuries before, David is prophetically writing about our Savior. Who will forever secure our future blessing.

Are you in Christ? Have you been joined to Christ? Because only those who are in Christ have this future blessing. One writer, I tried to find the passage and I couldn’t find it in the book, but it’s one of the best books I ever read. It’s called One with Christ. And he’s encouraging in this section, this book, about the sureness of your salvation and the unchanging nature of it. When you get afraid, it just can’t be so. And he said something so amazing. His point was this. You are, we are all referenced as what the body of Christ, right? Like the body of Christ. That’s about as intimate as you could be called. Like I’m part of Jesus. If it were so that the Father was going to take my salvation away, it means that God the Father would have to literally dismember and mutilate His own Son’s body to take my salvation away and rip me out.

That’s amazing.

It means that Jesus, if I am in Him and I’m kept by Him and I’m part of Him, it means that the Father will always be my Father because I’m in His Son, Jesus. I’m in His Son, Jesus.

So friend, don’t be wondering about tomorrow and will God be here tomorrow. And certainly don’t be wondering about eternity.

Trust that God loves you in the presence of God that’s here today. It’s going to be, He’s going to be here tomorrow and it’s not going to wane. If anything, it’s going to increase and increase as you and I draw closer and closer to eternity. And the presence of the Lord is life and joy and pleasure forevermore because in Jesus, there’s life and joy and pleasure forevermore. In Jesus, we have a refuge. In Jesus, we have fellowship. In Jesus, we have a future blessing. So don’t believe your feelings. All right, that’s my final word on this. But I feel like, it feels like, I don’t feel saved. I don’t feel loved. I don’t feel loved. I don’t feel loved by God a lot of times. But you know what I have to do? I have to say, okay, am I going to believe my feelings or am I going to go to this and believe the Word of God? I have loved you with an everlasting love, God says. And hold on to that by faith. It’s true. And God stands on His Word. Amen. Let’s pray together.

Father, thank You for Your Word. It is an unmatched treasure.

It’s an unmatched treasure because it tells us of Your perfect love and Your perfect power. It tells us of how You have pledged and promised Yourself. It tells us of how You have pledged and promised Yourself to sinners.

Lord, we just can’t even wrap our hearts around that. And Lord, in disbelief, we want to just figure out how that can’t be true and why we still need to be worried. There’s still cause for anxiety. There’s still cause to be on shaky ground. There’s something there. But God, Your Word is just so clear. That You will turn to the One who turns to You. You are a Father to the One that’s in Christ Jesus. We are brothers and sisters eternally in Christ. We are kept. We are loved. Lord, help us believe these things. Help us see how good and how trustworthy You are and Your Word is. Lord, flood us with that peace. Flood us with that joy that we wouldn’t just enjoy You, which You want us to do for Your glory, but that we could help other people enjoy You. For Your glory. So Lord, help us enjoy You. And help us show others You and how much You’re worth and how worthy and wonderful You are, God. Just pray You turn our hearts and our minds from all the small little things that either we get overly interested and fascinated with or things that just flat out become a monster to us that we think You can’t defeat or overcome. Come, Lord. Lord, help us believe all the more. Just know and love You.

For You know and love us. And we pray that in Jesus’ name. Amen.