Don't everyone look at them when they come in here. I don't think they're actually going to. I think it's a teacher, so anyway. I know, hey, they're my heroes. All right. So tonight, we are continuing our series on Covenant Life Together, a study of the Grace Covenant Church membership covenant. If you have your covenant there, go ahead and turn to paragraph three, and I would just like to read the first sentence there. I think I'm gonna cut it off in the middle. It says, we commit to practice personal and family worship to train our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. So what I'd like to do tonight is hopefully briefly, and if there's some time at the end, we can have a little discussion. It almost never happens, but I certainly will strive for it. is I'd like to just talk a little bit tonight about personal worship and family worship, or another way to call personal worship, personal devotions, okay? Maybe you've heard personal devotions, maybe you've heard personal worship. But these two dimensions of the spiritual life make up the warp and woof of Christian health, if I could put it that way. We are primarily dependent on the ministry of the word in the context of the church as the corporate body of believers. But as a supplement, we are, if I could put it this way, to be self feeders. Have you ever heard that term? Anybody ever heard that term? You are to be a self feeder, which basically means you are not only to be fed the word through the ministry of the word in the context of the church, but then throughout the week, you need to be skilled enough in the word to be able to feed yourself. You need to be able to nourish yourself spiritually. And the only way you can nourish yourself spiritually is if you are familiar with this weapon called the word of God. If you are familiar with the means of grace called prayer, you not only need to do that on a personal level, but then when children come, well, let me back up. When a spouse comes into the picture, you need to be able, as Paul says in Ephesians 5, husbands, to wash her with the water of the word. Did you know that that's one of your responsibilities? Jesus Christ washes the church with the water of the word. And Paul puts that model of Christ's love for the church and the church's submission to Christ as a model for the husband and the wife's relationship. And so just as Christ washes the church with the water of the word, so the husband is to wash his wife with the water of the word. Another way to say it is he is to disciple his wife, he is to teach his wife, he is to humble himself before his wife in the presence of the word. He is to be, if I could put it in this way, the priest of his home. And then children come along. And then he is to continue to minister the word of God to these olive shoots and olive plants that bud around his table. But you start by learning how to be a self feeder. And so I'd like to talk tonight briefly about personal devotions and family worship. And I want to submit to you that there's four good reasons to talk about this topic. First off, to be reminded of our covenant obligation. to be reminded of our covenant obligation. Remember the big context, the big umbrella under which we're talking about these things is our membership covenant that we made before God and before our brothers and sisters. We have made a commitment to practice, as this vow says, personal and family worship, to train our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Remember that. Remember that that's a vow that you made. And as Solomon says, or whoever wrote Ecclesiastes, it's better not to make a vow than to make it and not fulfill it. But a second reason that it's good to consider these two issues is to look back on the past year and reflect upon how useful our time of personal and family worship has been. Think through what worked, think through what didn't work. You know, early on for me, my wife can attest to this, at the end of every year, what I concluded is I bit off more than I could chew. I tried to do the Murray McShane reading plan in my personal devotions, which is like four chapters a day. And, you know, I would not read for days and days and days. And then I'd tell Christina on Sunday, all right, we're reading 25 chapters today between services. And sometimes I'd get so lazy I just wouldn't even want to read it, so I'd find a recording. I'd be like, all right, we're going to sit on the couch and read 30 chapters today or have it read to us. So, you know, we can look back on our personal devotions, our life of personal devotions, our life of family worship, and say, okay, what worked? What didn't work? Was I a little too rigid? Was I a little too lax? What do I need to refine? And then thirdly, which goes with the second one, a good reason to consider this is so that we can make modifications for 2019. I didn't necessarily plan this, but Pastor Jim and I switched lessons, and it just so happens that this talk on personal and family worship is the Sunday before the first week of the year. So it's a good time to kind of prime the pump for us to think through how we can refine our personal and family worship. So we want to make modifications in our plans for 2019 that will encourage us and challenge us. Listen, listen to me very carefully, to press into the Lord in a more efficient and helpful manner. Have you asked yourself that question? First off, am I pressing into the Lord? Am I pressing into the Lord in times of affliction, in times of doubts, in times of apathy, in times when the Lord is not giving me the things that I want, in times of discontentment, in times of anger, in times of strife? Am I pressing into the Lord? Do I even know what that metaphor means? And in my pressing into the Lord, how effective has it been? Am I teaching my children how to press into the Lord? Am I modeling before them what it looks like so that when my little man grows up, he knows how to be a godly husband to his wife. When my little girl grows up, she knows what to look for in a godly man. So I'm not, you know, batting away gorillas trying to court her. Okay. What am I doing? And then finally, the fourth reason is to remember why we commit to family and personal worship. So let me just start with number one, and I hope you have your notes, and if you don't, hopefully it's clear enough for you to follow. Let me just ask the question, what are personal devotions? Somebody tell me, let's get a little interactive here. What are personal devotions? Okay, all right, that's fine. Okay, would anybody from their own experience like to add or take away from the definition? Feel free. Singing, wonderful, wonderful. Singing, anything else? Yeah. With, okay. Prayer, good, yes. Praying without ceasing, absolutely. Anything else? Thank you, that's good. Okay. Is there a biblical warrant to a personal time of worship to the Lord? Does anybody have an answer? Is there a biblical warrant or a biblical justification for saying to a Christian you need to be having personal worship every single day? Can you lay that on their conscience? Jesus did it, that's true. Good, good, okay. Right, okay. So what I, yes, Phil. Yeah. Worship. That's right. Good. That's right. That's right. We're actually using it. So I want to give a caveat or caveat, however you want to say it, to everything I'm about to say about personal devotions, okay? Remember that for the first, what, when did the Gutenberg Press come? Was that 16th century? 15th century? Okay. So for the first 1,500 years, It's really not that big of a deal. No, so sometime 15 to 17, I think it was, I mean, the Reformation sparked in the 16th century and the Reformation was spawned because of the Gutenberg Press, so it had to be before the 16th century or at the beginning of the 16th century. But let's just say, as a rough sketch, for the first 1500 years of the church, people did not have their own individual Bibles, right? Now let's back up a little bit more. In the time of the people of Israel, did they have their own personal scrolls? They didn't have their personal scrolls. Huh? Many of them couldn't even read. Many of them were illiterate Israelite farmers, okay? So, on the one hand, here's my caveat, on the one hand, we need to be careful about saying, if you're not reading your Bible every day, you're sinning. Well, then the church was sinning for 1,500 years, okay? So you gotta be careful. the Jews were sinning for however long the earth has been around, okay? On the other hand, turn in your Bibles very quickly to Psalm 119, and go to Zion, because you all know your Hebrew alphabet, right? Verse 49. Psalm 119, as you know, is an acrostic of the Hebrew alphabet, and we're going to look at verses 49 and following. If you ever want to hear the heart cry of a man or woman who wants God to be real in their life and can't get enough of His word. Go to Psalm 119. Psalm 119, the psalmist says, remember your word to your servant in which you have made me hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life. The insolent utterly deride me, but I do not turn away from your law. When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O Lord. Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked who forsake your law. Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning. I remember your name in the night, O Lord, and keep your law. This blessing has fallen to me that I have kept your precepts. Let me ask you a question. Throughout any point of the day, Is there ever a time throughout any point in the day that you don't desire hope? Is there any point throughout the day that you don't want consolation? Whether you are dealing in an argument with your spouse, or you're dealing with an argument with your boss, or just dealing with difficult people, or dealing with the budget that doesn't seem to stretch to the end of the month, or dealing with dreams that don't come true, unrequited love, you're always looking for hope. You're always looking for consolation. And the psalmist says, remember, I love this, remember your word to your servant, O Lord, in which you have made me hope. Where does hope come? It comes in the word. It comes through the word. This is my comfort, verse 50, in my affliction that your promises give me life. So if you're gonna have consolation, if you're gonna have hope, if you're gonna be able to get through the day, you need the word. The word is the, receptacle, if you will, in which hope is transferred from God in heaven to you. And so if you say, well, we don't need to be reflecting on the word every day, what you're saying is I don't need hope every day. I don't need consolation every day. I can get through it. Let me ask you a question. How's that working out for you? How's it working out for you? So the caveat I want to make will guard against antinomianism, which is lawlessness, and legalism in this way. On the one hand, the elders aren't gonna come knocking at your door if you're not reading your Bible every single day. On the other hand, the spirit of the Bible itself, as exhibited to us in places like this, in the Psalms, in the life of Jesus, in almost every word that drips off the page of Scripture, gives this heart cry of one who can't get enough of the word. And if you're gonna be formed to the image of Jesus Christ, and we'll get to this in a moment, you need to have a sober view of yourself. If you think, by the way, as a Calvinist, you shouldn't think this, if you think that you're good enough to be able to make it through one day, go read T in Calvin's thought, okay? Total depravity. You are a wicked, depraved sinner. You aren't good, okay? Paul says in Romans 1, there's nothing good within you. You need all the help you can get. And where does that help come from? It comes from the word. So let me ask you another question, just in trying to give a biblical warrant. We don't wanna sin, right? No, we don't wanna sin. So here's a purpose clause in Psalm 119.11. I have stored up your word in my heart that, what? I might not sin against you. You don't want to sin? You don't want to blow up to your boss? You don't want to blow up to your wife? Blow up to your kids? You don't want to blow up, you know, in a vape shop like I saw in this, you guys see that story? Pretty crazy, all right? If you haven't seen it, look at Drudge, he'll show you. Some guy blew up because a guy walked in with a Trump shirt on. Make America great again. He just blew up and didn't want to admit. You don't want to blow up like that guy? Hide the Word of God away in your heart so that you might not sin. If you think that you can get through the day, the week, the month without the Word of God and be successful and be walking close to Jesus, people like to use the example of, it's like getting in a car and running out of gas and thinking you can go. I don't like that example. I like the example that says it's like running out of oil because when your car runs out of oil, can you still go? You actually can. You can go for a little bit. You're gonna go for a little bit, but then your engine's just gonna blow up. Okay, so you can go without oil, you can go without the word of God, but there's going to come a point when you're going to break down. Let me just give you an anecdotal story, okay? It's kind of a synthesis anecdotal story. Whenever I have somebody come in for counseling, whether it's somebody outside the church or inside the church, and I'm thinking of my whole experience in counseling. Every person that comes in, I ask them about their habits of Bible reading and prayer. Every single one, without fail. It's just part of my diagnostic checklist of questions that I go down. Without fail, the people that come into my office whose lives are down to the ground don't pray and don't read their Bible. They just don't. They just don't pray and they don't read their Bible. They say, well, I pray before meals. The classic line is, I could always pray more. Like, yeah, thanks, Captain Obvious. We could all pray more, okay? But they just, they don't pray and they don't read their Bibles. Is there a correlation? Can you make the connection? Is there a correlation between peoples whose lives are burning down to the ground who are not reading and praying? Yes, there's a correlation. And if you don't see the connection, you don't believe in the power of the gospel, period. So I have hidden your word in my heart that I may not sin against you. He says in verses 15 and 16, Psalm 119, I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes. I will not forget your words. I could go on and on, but I'm gonna move forward. So is there a historical precedent for personal devotions? Yes, there are. Robert Murray McShane, an Irish, or was he Scottish or Irish? Oh, no, I'm glad there's no Irish or Scottish people here for mixing those up. I'm sorry. He was one of them. He was Scottish, thank you. They're not the same, okay? And neither of them are Welsh, okay? Woo, all right. Robert Murray McShane had a burden for his people as a pastor, and he actually created what is now known as the Murray McShane Reading Plan that takes you through the whole Old Testament once in a year, and the Psalms in the New Testament twice in a year. That rounds out to about four chapters a day. And what he did is he said two chapters are for private reading, so your personal devotions, and then two chapters are for family worship. And many people through the years have done this and found it very profitable. A great Puritan once said, I think it was William Gurnall, a Christian is born by the word and he must be what? Anybody know? Bred by the word. A Christian is born by the word and he must be bred by the word. He's gonna be brought up, he must be reared by the word. If you think of what the scriptures say about how we are born, regeneration, it comes through the spirit and the word, that cyclone, that supernatural cyclone of supernatural activity. And in the same way that we are brought into new life with the word, we must also be bred by the word. Matthew Henry, author of the famous commentary that many of you have read, has written what I think is perhaps one of the best books on prayer. It's actually called A Method for Prayer. And what he does in this book is he gives a few, you know, essays about why prayer is important and when to do it and how to do it and in what seasons to do it. He gives kind of an older version of the Acts, which we're going to talk about in a second. But then what he does in this book is he just basically gives you breviaries, which are like digests of prayers that are drawn straight from Scripture. He just puts Scripture together and shows you how to pray it. And another way you can do that is praying the Psalms, which we've talked about quite a bit. So this has historical precedent. So do you really need a personal worship? Yes, let me just give you two reasons why, okay? Two reasons why you need personal worship. Number one, and I've already kind of mentioned this, we need a sober view of ourselves. Look at Romans 12, verse three. Look at Romans 12, verse three. For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. Okay? What does it mean to have sober judgment about yourself? Somebody tell me. This is not a trick question. It's an easy, easy answer. Okay, have an honest estimation of yourself, okay? Have you ever had unrealistic expectations about your abilities in fighting sin? Anybody? Okay, everybody should have their hands up, okay? All right, we put ourselves in circumstances where we think, maybe it'll be different this time. Have you ever said that? I've literally told that to myself. Maybe it'll be different this time, and it's not, and you fall into it, okay? I don't have a sober view of myself, a sober estimation of myself. And once again, when we come back to this idea of do you really think you're strong enough? Because here's the thing, even someone who is reading the Word every single day and praying every single day, you think everything's rainbows and unicorns for them? No, they're in the thick of the battle. And they've got the Word on their side for that day. They've got it in their heart if they'd done the right thing and not just read it, but simulated it, assimilated it into their hearts. And they're prayed up. But it's tough for them. How much more, I would say, how much more for the one who has not prepared themselves for the day? When you're hungry, what do you do? You eat. When you're sick, what do you do? Take medicine or go to the doctor. When you're out of shape, what are we all going to do on January 1st? What are we going to do? We're going to exercise. Well, you're going to eat. Okay, good. You're going to bulk up on protein and then you're going to go work out, okay? What do you do when you have a spiritual need? What do you do when you have a spiritual need? You know, I get hangry, and before about five years ago, I didn't realize the connection. My wife told me, you're being a jerk right now, Josh, because you're hungry. And finally, I made the connection. I'm like, OK, everybody stop. I've got to eat, OK? So when things are burning down and you're hungry, you eat. When you're sick, you get medicine. But what about when you're spiritually depleted? What do you do? You need the word. And then not only that, but that's where vitamin analogy comes in, right? You don't take vitamins when you're sick. I mean, you do do that, but the idea of vitamins is it's preemptive, right? You take vitamins preemptively so that you don't get sick and you stay healthy. That's the idea of the word of God. You take it preemptively so that you don't fall. The idea is you don't fall into temptation. You are filled up with hope. You're reminded of the precepts of the Lord. So we must have a sober view of ourselves. And secondly, we must be alert at all times. Look at Ephesians 6, 11 through 18. Ephesians 6 says, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you will be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore. having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness, I love that, readiness, given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one and the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. You see this rich language of Paul where he's basically saying, hey, Christians, be ready. Be prepared. Put on your armor. Do you even know what your helmet is? Do you know what your breastplate is? Do you know what the Word of God is? When you take up the Word of God, are you fumbling around and trying to figure out where the concordance is and looking at it this way? Or do you know? Do you know your way around the Word of God? Let me ask you a question. I love asking this question. Somebody tell me what their favorite Psalm is, and you can't say 23. Who said 25? Okay. 51, okay. Okay, 18, 37, 46. Psalm one, okay. Wonderful. Somebody tell me why that's your favorite psalm. Somebody with a raised hand. You find yourself coming back to it a lot? Okay. Okay. Good. Good. Good. Thank you. One of my favorite is Psalm 73. My portion, God, you are my portion forever. Surely you are always with me. Though my flesh and my heart may fail, you are the strength and the source of my salvation and you will be my portion forever. I go back to that constantly. I go back to it when I start to have more joy in this world than I do in the new heavens and the new earth. I go back to it when I start to crave more for the approbation and approval of man more than I do for the approbation and approval of God. You need to have a psalm. You need to have a few psalms. You need to have those jugular passages that you go back to time and time again. All right, so let me just speed up here. Personal worship is not just for you, it is also so that you might be able to build others up also. I won't take the time to read it, but you can look at 1 Thessalonians 5, 5 through 11. You not only need to be ready in your own life, but you need to remember that one of your obligations and privileges, as far as I'm concerned, is that you get to build other people up in the faith. That's called edification. That's called encouraging one another as the day draws near, as the author of Hebrews says in Hebrews chapter 10. Do you find yourself doing that? And by the way, when you do encourage them, with what are you encouraging them? Boy, I like your tie today. OK, that's cool. Fine. Man, you've got a nice haircut. OK, cool. That'll last about two seconds. But if you take the Word of God and encourage them with the Word of God, if you recognize something of Christian growth in them, a burst of sanctification, you recognize, man, I see the Lord growing you, I see greater faith, I see greater dependence, I see greater joy, that'll keep a beam on their face. That's encouraging. And how can you do that? By being in the Word of God. So let me just give you a few practical suggestions, then we need to move on to family worship. Pick a time each day that is devoted to personal worship. Here's some practical suggestions. If you don't pick a time and you say, I'll do it later, I'll do it later, is later ever gonna come? Never gonna come, never gonna come. I'm not going to get into a fist fight with you about whether it should be the morning or the evening, okay? But I will say, depending on how you operate, it is nicer to do it at the front end of the day so that it kind of gives you a frame of mind for the rest of the day. But some people are night owls, and I get it. Whether you do at the beginning of the day, end of the day, if some of you do it at lunch, whatever, you have to pick a time. I'm telling you right now, if you don't pick a sanctified time where everything else is pushed out of the way and you say this time is for the Lord today, just he and I, it's not going to happen. OK, so number one, pick a time. Number two, choose a Bible reading plan. I've already sent you guys on a list of an email with a number of different Bible reading plans. Be realistic. If you've never done a Bible reading plan before, try a more realistic plan like reading the Bible every two years rather than once every year. Reading the Bible once a year is pretty aggressive. It can be done. I would submit to you that in the time that it takes you to read one article on CNN.com or Fox.com or Drudge Report or whatever, you could read probably two chapters, maybe three of the Bible. So just keep that in mind. Like the time you spend on an article, you could be reading a chapter of the Bible. Now, what are the benefits of a Bible reading plan? Well, the fact of the matter is there is buried treasure scattered throughout the Word of God. I will say all Scripture is equally inspired, but not all Scripture is equally profitable. Leviticus is sometimes hard to find profit in, I'm not gonna lie to you. But I will say this, so much of the New Testament assumes an Old Testament background, and the images that it uses, and the illusions that it uses, and the examples that it uses, that a lot can be lost on you if you don't have that Old Testament background. Okay, so I think that exposing yourself to the whole counsel of the Word of God will actually set a foundation for a greater appreciation for the New Testament. Absolutely, I agree 100%. I do agree 100%. You don't want an imbalanced diet. Okay, you want, and let me put it this way. Maybe you have your kind of jugular passage that you go to, but here's the thing, you can expand that arsenal of jugular passages that you go to by exposing yourself to the whole word of God. Now, I know some people that they'll read a Beth Moore book, devotional book, or a Spurgeon devotional book for devotions, and again, I'm not gonna get in a fist fight with you about whether that's a good idea or a bad idea, but I will say, I will say, If I had to choose between somebody else's thoughts on the Word of God or the Word of God, eight days out of the week, I'm gonna go with the Word of God, okay? Just read the Word of God. The Word of God is inspired. Spurgeon, as much as I love him, not inspired. Beth Moore, don't get me started. But just read the Word of God. I don't have a lot against Beth Moore. If you get behind, use the Lord's Day as a catch-up day. If you get way behind, like months behind, don't whine. Just start on the day where you are and just start from there and move out. Develop a prayer schedule. Praying can be very overwhelming when you think about who am I going to pray for? What am I going to pray for? The best thing to do is take your seven days out of the week and fill those slots with different things. So on Sunday, I pray for family members. On Monday, I pray for, you know, a third of the church. On Tuesday, I pray for government. On Wednesday, I pray for people in my school. You get the idea. Schedule it out so that every day of the week you're praying for different things. And then many of you have heard of the ACTS acronym. It's a very helpful model for prayer. Who has not heard of the ACTS acronym? You've all heard of the ACTS acronym, okay. Okay, here's what it is, okay. A, adoration, okay. You praise God, you begin with praise, telling God how amazing He is. C, confession, you confess to God your sins. T, thanksgiving, you give thanks to God for all the things that He's done. And then S, supplication, you're asking God for things. A-C-T-S, wonderful model for prayer. Finally, keeping a journal is a very helpful thing to do. Now I know some people hate journaling. And again, nothing in the Bible says you have to journal. But I will say this, I'm an on and off journaler. And one of the things I love about journaling is that I can look back in my journal to like three years ago, and jump into a conversation that I'm having with the Lord where I'm telling him. how big of a sinner and jerk I am in this one area. And now, you know, fast forward to 2018, I see, wow, I've grown in that area. I see some real legitimate growth in that area. I'm not like that guy anymore. I'm just a little less of a sinner today. To look back and see growth is huge. And in fact, I was just reading a biography on Peter Cartwright. He was an old circuit preacher in the Old West in the 19th century. And at the end of his life, he said, I've put together this autobiography, but I wish if I could go back, I would have kept a journal because there's so many memories that are just gone that would have made this autobiography so much more fulfilling and so much more helpful. So if I were to do it over again, I would write in a journal. Whenever old people tell you, if I had to do it over again, especially if they're godly men and women, we should listen to them, okay? All right, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna stop there, and next week I'm just gonna do part two because family worship is so important. We've got a few minutes for questions. Let me say this. If you've got a question or even just an anecdotal story of how personal devotions have been helpful for you, please share it with us in the time we have remaining, okay? Anyone? Yeah. And I've been going through just different passages, Psalm 119 is one of them. But just going through and being grateful. And I read a book on it by Nancy Lee DeMoss. And anyway, so as I've read through the Bible, and we have started a Bible reading plan as well, just see how you're supposed to cultivate thankfulness in everything. Yeah. That is the word of God at work. That is amazing to hear. Thank you for sharing. That is so refreshing and so and I hope encouraging for all of us to see how this works in real time. Anyone else? Yeah, Phil. Hmm. Hmm. So how do I get that hope through the word? So that my hope is not that I get the contract. That's right, right. I get this deal with this person on the next door neighbor who calls me rough because I told him he was a senator. It's not my goal. My goal is the hope of the gospel. Amen. Amen. to use your weapons you talked about, the hope that we have, right? Amen. Thank you, brother. Yeah? I actually haven't used the machine for a long time. And I don't know if it's on Android, but it's on an app on iOS. The app's called Bottle Replant. And you can basically pick whatever. They have all the different kinds, and they have the chain. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that. If you download the ESV Bible, just download the ESV Bible and you go into, there's a calendar app, a calendar button right there. It gives you all these different Bible reading plans. And then as Jacob says, like, instead of having your physical Bible and going to four different places, it just stacks them up right one after another. And you just read it one after another. Good. Yeah, George. A what? Okay. It's a good image, good picture. I love that picture. All right, let's, yes, Miss Stephanie. Yeah, that's, yeah. Mm. State on. Yeah. Amen. Amen. All right, listen, I'm praying just a moment, but if any of you have any questions about personal devotions, how to do it, the ins and outs of it, what suggestions we might have, come talk to me or Pastor Jim or Pastor Ken or, you know, even some of the brothers and sisters here. But if you're not doing it, can I just exhort you? Can I just exhort you to consider it in 2019? and see what the Lord does. I'm confident that he will boost your faith. I'm confident that it'll keep you closer to the cross. And I'm confident that his promises will be more appealing to you as you immerse yourself in the word. So let's pray.