Welcome to the Wilton Baptist Church, where we worship God, walk with others, and win people to the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm Pastor Steve, and our congregation is pleased to share this message with you today, and we pray it'll be a blessing and encouragement to you. Blessings as you listen or watch. The doxology of broken people. Doxa is a word which has to do with praise and offering praise to the Lord. It's the Greek version of the word praise. Doxa, so doxology, the praise of broken people. And a lot of the Psalms are doxologies. They are praising, they are lifting up, they are exalting the name of our Lord. I like how one person wrote, his name is Danny Gokey, he wrote these words, we're so quick to point a finger. We judge things from our point of view. The things that we say, the trouble it makes, it hurts you and it hurts me too. This is such a fallen world we live in. It's really not the way it's supposed to be. What if we could see each other different? It'd probably change everything. We're all broken people. Don't we all need Jesus? Every moment of our lives, 24, 365, Our human is equal. Don't we all have our weakness? Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody needs that grace. We all need Jesus. I like the words of this poem that is a song. We're all broken people. Don't we all need Jesus? Sometimes as Christians, we're not as quick as we should be to admit that. We're broken people who are patched up and repaired by the Lord Jesus Christ. People are broken. However, the proud in heart refused to acknowledge that. And so those who would totally refuse that are absolutely refusing Christ as their savior because I can make it on my own with my own works, actions, religion, or my own way. But we are broken. We're all broken people. We are sinful by nature. We are sinful by choice. Since the Garden of Eden, humanity has been broken. There's not one person, no matter how beautiful they are, how smart they appear to be, how wealthy they are, or well off they are, or how accomplished they may appear to us, all of us are broken people in need of Jesus. And broken people in the scriptures, when they admit and confess and realize and admit this to the Lord, they admit that I recognize I am a broken person. I don't have it all together. I am imperfect. I am sinful and I need Christ. Broken people in the idea of contrition and repentance and humility, broken people come to a place where they realize their brokenness and with a broken heart confess that and confess their need to the Lord. Brokenness in the Bible, and this is a statement that I crafted for this message today, brokenness in the Bible refers to the attitude of the human spirit toward God and sin. That's our attitude towards the Lord and to our own sin that we would come to be broken about who we are and who we've become and the lives that we live before the Lord. Now, the book of Psalms is amazing. 150 songs that you could sing and we find that the Psalms is a book of singing or songs that the Hebrew people would sing. There's great variety within the Psalms. And you'll notice this is the theme of the message, broken people praise the Lord. But let's notice these different Psalms. And I made this little chart. from uh... charles riley so we could see it a little bit but there are messianic songs that speak to the person in the work of the lord jesus christ it's talking about price before he physically came on the earth there are testimonial songs and that's uh... telling others what god has done uh... we sing a lot of songs ourselves that are testimonial songs here's what god has done for me and here's salvation and things such as this uh... that we would sing as well there's a lament songs a cry to god for help i can't do this we can't make it we are lamenting about the condition we are and and we are confessing our need for god so we're lamenting uh... to the lord and that's what the songs in this particular ones would mention there are pilgrim songs and this is songs that they would sing while they were traveling up to jerusalem This would also include some of the songs of degrees. Whenever you read your Old Testament through the Book of Psalms, some of the headings would say this is a song of degrees. This would be the traveling or the pilgrim psalms. And some of them, they would sing a stanza while they took like a step up. for each step going up to the temple, once the temple was built. And so they would take a step, they would sing another verse or stanza of the psalm. And so some of those would be the pilgrim psalms. Then there's imprecatory psalms. And this is asking for judgment on wicked men. And sometimes people pray this way as well. They're like, you know, Lord, give them what they deserve. And that's basically what the psalms would be in song. And then penitential songs or penitentiary songs type things, sorrowing over sin. I am remorseful over my sin. I am repenting. I'm confessing this. There's great remorse and sorrow. So there's some tears that you'll see associated in those psalms. And then there's nature psalms that really describe the handiwork of God, like the heavens declare the glory of God. They show his handiwork, these types of psalms. And then wisdom songs, guidelines for godly people, so some wisdom. And then historical psalms that give kind of history lessons. And they would sing, like we would sing folk songs in America, like early American folk songs, you know, taken off of history. These would be songs that they would sing about their past and their historical psalms. Psalm 105 and 106, are historical Psalms. And they would sing these things and they would sing these particular Psalms here. Psalm 106 specifically is a song of national repentance. As the people return from captivity, God patiently delivered them and God patiently delivers us in spite of our forgetfulness and self-willed rebellion. There's other Psalms that are historical, Psalm 68, 78, 106, and 105, 106, 111, 114, and 135, and 136. So you can see how these are all clumped up. There's a lot of different Psalms. There's great variety within this Psalms, this songbook that Israel would sing. Now Psalm 106 is the last chapter of the book, the fourth book of Psalms. Did you know that the book of Psalms is divided up into five units? Five specific sections that are given. And Psalm 106 is book four, is in book four out of the five. It's the last song in section four. And it includes what we would call a doxology. a praise, a celebration, an exaltation of the Lord. There's also a lot of history. And over the next several weeks, Lord willing, we'll look at some of the history of early Israel, where they crossed the Red Sea, where they forgot about the Lord, where God provided for them food to eat, but they complained about the food God gave to them. And all these other different things like Achan and the complaining and Moses delivering the people and Moses interceding on behalf of the people and God answering his prayer. We're going to go over a lot of these different things each week, Lord willing, as we unpack this Psalm book of history. This book, Psalm 106, gives a detailed confession of the sins of Israel in all the periods of its history, with special reference to the terms of the covenant, and it's introduced by praise to God for His wonderful mercy, and it concludes with a supplication or a prayer and a doxology. Now, Psalm 105 and 106 really go together when you want to consider the whole of history. Psalm 105 gives the history of Israel from going into captivity or going into Egypt, basically, and it gives some of that early history. And then Psalm 106 takes the escape from Egypt and then goes all the way into the land of Israel and then into captivity, into Babylonian captivity. So it's really a broad spectrum of history in the verses that we're about to read. Psalm 105 speaks to God's faithfulness. Psalm 106 speaks to the unfaithfulness. of his people and talks about their sinfulness and we relate to that because our sinfulness is just as much. Psalm 105 sets the tone in the context of Psalm 106. And so let's go ahead and read and think about the goal of the gospel and the goal of the verses that we read is relationship. It's that we would be God's people and God would be our God and that's what Jesus did on the cross It's that so we could be his person as a son or a daughter and that he would be our God So the gospel is all about relationship. We'll try to bring that out again in just a moment. God delivers his people time and time again with the goal of relationship. They loved God. They walked away from God. He delivered them. They said, oh, thank you, Lord. And then they forgot about his wondrous works. We're going to read the specific verses here in just a moment. He remembers his covenant with Abraham and passed it on down to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the rest of his descendants. And he brought out his people out of bondage and gave them what was to them a new land. It was one that the people had already claimed before that, that God had already given to them. Psalm 105 verse 45. We'll start with that as we go into Psalm 106. That they might observe his statutes and keep his laws, praise ye the Lord. So all of these events, all of these circumstances, all the teaching that Moses gave to the people, and that the judges and the kings and the prophets deliver to the people that they may observe his statutes and keep his laws. Praise ye the Lord. There's some relationship here. There's some obligation in this relationship with God. Now, Psalm 106, verses one through 12. Let's check out these verses together. Praise ye the Lord. O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? The word mighty acts has to do with the strength, the power of God. Who can do that? Who can show forth? all his praise. The word show forth means, it's the Hebrew word shema, which has to do with teaching and listening, with the idea of responding. It's the word hear, like in Exodus, it's the word hear. So who can show forth, who can teach about this, all his praise. And this word praise here is different than the one that it begins with. The word praise here, it means a song of praise. Who can do this? Well, it's only the people of God. Only the people of God who's been delivered can talk about the Messiah and talk about the deliverance of the Lord in a meaningful way. Blessed, in verse 3, are they that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times. Remember me, O Lord. That means to be mindful. Remember. Be thinking about me. God, would you be thinking about me? As they were singing this, they were thinking, Lord, would you think about me? Like a personal testimony, a personal song. Lord, think about us and me specifically. Oh, Lord, with a favor that thou bearest unto thy people. Oh, visit me or come to me with thy salvation. And the word salvation is the word Yeshua. And eventually, by the time we get to the New Testament, we know who that is. It's Jesus. In the Old Testament, it's Joshua. In the New Testament, it's Jesus. So in a way, when they sang this song, they were saying, Lord, would you come to us with Jesus? Would you come to us with your salvation? Who's our salvation? Well, it's not me, and it's not you, and it's not the things that we do. Our salvation is Christ. So when they were singing this, in a sense, they were saying, come to us, come to us with Jesus, the Yeshua, come to us. with your salvation. Oh, I just, I love that. Sometimes when you study the scriptures, you kind of have those jump out of your seats moments. And this was one of those for me, it's like, oh, this is so exciting. They were literally praying, Lord, send Jesus to save us. That's what they were crying out as they sang this song. Let's keep going. That I may see the good of thy chosen, that'd be the Hebrew people, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, the word nation, it simply means people once again, and that I may glory with thine inheritance. The word inheritance has to do with possession or property. And it's again referring to the Hebrew people. So you have three verbs, you have three groups of people that are mentioned here, all the same people. The word glory in verse five, it's that same word halal or praise. And we'll show it on the screen here just a little bit when I get into the message. But we need to glory and praise the Lord. Broken people praise the Lord. We have sinned, notice that confession. We have sinned with our fathers. We have missed the mark, we have gone wrong. We have committed iniquity. The word and phrase we have committed iniquity means to bend or to twist. What God has given to us, we have twisted, we have manipulated, we have made it into something that it was not intended to be. We have committed iniquity. We have done wickedly. To be wicked, to act wickedly, it means bad or evil. Notice how they're very, They're very descriptive and it's not repetitive. They're just describing different levels of evil or different types of evil and wrong that has been a part of their lives. Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt. They remember not the multitude of thy mercies, but provoked. That means rebellion. They provoked him at the Red Sea. The word Mara, some of you know that from the book of Ruth, the word Mara. You know, Naomi comes back and says, just call me Mara. Bitterness, rebellion, that's what it is. That's the word provoked here in its verb form. They were provoking the Lord. They had some rebellion. They had some bitterness in them at the Red Sea, even at the Red Sea. Nevertheless, he saved them for his name's sake, that he might make his mighty power to be known. He rebuked the Red Sea also, and it was dried up. So he led them through the depths as through the wilderness, and he saved them. That's that word, yeshah, that we get Yeshua from. And from the hand of him that hated them and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. And the waters covered their enemies, and there was none of them left. Then believed they his words, and they sang his praise. We're actually gonna look, Lord willing, next week at the Red Sea Miracle in more detail. If you're interested in that, this is a phenomenal film series called Patterns of Evidence, and I highly recommend it. I mean, there's nothing like it. They've been trying to search for where did the Red Sea Crossing go? A lot of people discount what we just read about God performing a miracle. And they'll say, oh, you know, it was like shallow water and it just dried up one day. So they went across and it was an absolute miracle. We're going to talk about this more next week in our message, but I'd like you to notice if you would, at the very end of the book, Psalm 106, look, if you would, the last two verses, 47 and 48. Because this is like a bookend. It bookends. It begins with praise or doxology. It ends with praise and doxology. And they use that same term for salvation. Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the heathen to give thanks unto thy holy name and to triumph in thy praise. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting. And let all the people say, Amen. Praise ye the Lord. Oh, I love this passage. I'm excited for this series over the next several weeks, and I hope that you are as well. We're going to learn a lot of amazing things. Broken people, praise the Lord. Broken people, praise God. Save us, O Lord, and gather us from among the heathen. Now the word praise at the very beginning, it's the word halal. And I mentioned it during our song service. And basically you read Hebrew from right to left. You read it backwards from we usually read left to right. And most of us read from left to right. In Hebrew, you read backwards. So see this thing, it looks like a backwards N right there. That'd be like an H to us. And then this T looking thing would be like an A to us. And then this L, it would be like an L to us, it's Lamad. And like a lamb's crook back in the early, when it was like symbols and things, it'd be like a lamb's, a shepherd's crook would be what it is. And then that would be an A, it's a different looking, isn't it? To us, it'd be like an A, and that it's almost like a transliteration, halal. And it means praise or glory to shine forth, to flash forth or to shone. And so when they would say the word praise, sometimes it's also the word glory, the word glory. And when they would write it down or when they would say it, they would think of it in these terms because that Lamed right there, these Ls, it was a form of a person lifting their hands up. That's the language. That's what the language looks like when you read it in early Hebrew. And so halal, I'm gonna praise the Lord. Remember when your kids were really small, I can say this now because they're not small anymore. So remember when your kids were really small, and what would they do when you come home? Dad or mom, what would they do? Daddy! And they run over to you, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, and they had their hands up like this, right? What are they doing? They're demonstrating, I'm trusting you, I'm safe with you, I'm asking you to lift me up. Isn't that what they're asking for? Papaw, mamaw, same thing. They're asking for you to do that. What's your baby doing? What's the young one doing? They're lifting up their hands. It's no different. We lift up our hands to God. Lord, I'm giving myself to you. Just like the young child is saying, I'm giving myself to my grandparent. Here, take me, lift me up. Here, take me, mom and dad. Take me, lift me up. It's the same idea. I am offering myself. to God. That's what lifting up our hands is. So I'm lifting up my praise to the Lord. I'm demonstrating. And it doesn't have to be physical. Sometimes, you know, as Baptists, we're really afraid of lifting our hands up. You know, it's kind of ingrained in us, you know. Don't show any emotion. Don't act like it means anything to you, okay? No, we shouldn't be like that, but we are. It's just somehow it's how things have developed for us as Baptists a lot of times, but it means I'm lifting up my hands. It doesn't have to be physical, but even just a heart attitude, I'm lifting up my hands to the Lord. I'm praising the Lord. I'm committing myself to him. You could think of this praise and glory in that regard. That's some great symbolism that you could draw from with that. So halal is the raising of the hands. So how do we raise our hands to God? How do we praise the Lord in adoration and worship? So here's a question, what's the doxology of your life? What's the praise of your life? That's why we call this message series, The Doxology of Broken People. I mean, here's the Israelite people, the Hebrew people. We love God, and we're following God. Oh yeah, way to go Moses, we'll follow you. And then what are they doing? Complaining. And then the next time you know it, what's happening? Well, God gave us food to eat, but we don't like it, and they're complaining. They're broken people. And eventually, by the time we get to the last two verses, 47 and 48, what are they doing once again? They're confessing. They're repenting. Hey, we're broken people. We are broken because of our sin and our rebellion. And we are praising you, God. You have mercy. You have forgiveness. You love us when we don't deserve to be loved. And I'm giving myself to you in praise and celebration of the Lord Jesus Christ for us today, of Jehovah God for them, of the Messiah that would be to come. So how do we praise the Lord? Four days a week, when I was in Bible college, we would sing what's called the doxology. The doxology. ♪ Praise God from whom all blessings flow ♪ ♪ Praise him all creatures here below ♪ ♪ Praise him above the heavenly host ♪ ♪ Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ♪ We put a real nice ending on it. ♪ Amen ♪ I always loved that, singing with three or 4,000 people is amazing. Absolutely, love it. It's doxology. It's lifting praise to the Lord. And so how do we lift up our praise to the Lord? How do we praise God today? I'll give you three ideas, and we'll find more, of course, along the way over the next several months, or next several weeks, rather. How do we praise the Lord? Number one, give thanks to the Lord. When you give thanks to God, you are offering praise to him. Notice in verse one, praise ye the Lord. Hallel, lift up your hands, praise or exalt, give glory to the Lord. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, and for his mercy endureth forever. we are called upon to give thanks to the Lord. And they were giving thanks to the Lord as well. God is good. The word good means pleasant or agreeable. Good, God is good. There's nothing wrong in God. There's nothing out of place with God. Everything is excellent with the Lord. He is good and he is pleasant. Everything with God is good. Psalm 145 verse nine, the Lord is good to all. He's good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works. Nahum 1 7, the Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knoweth them that trust in him. Not only is God good, but his mercy is enduring. The word mercy means goodness and kindness. It has the idea of deeds of devotion. And we understand that mercy is God not giving us what we deserve. I deserve death and judgment and bad things in life. I deserve that. But when God shows mercy, then we, and we don't even always know when we receive God's mercy. But we know when we wake up every morning, we've received God's mercy. Even with the different conditions and, and sicknesses and things that come into our lives. Jeremiah, speaks about mercy and he says it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions, his mercies fail not. I look back on my records and last year I preached in at least eight funerals and I attended many other funerals. for some of you and your loved ones as well. And I know a lot of us, we've lost loved ones, family members, parents, friends, cousins, relatives, co-workers or classmates. And each time it's a sad time of mourning and loss and difficulty. And as we turn into another year, we reflect and maybe you've been very reflective about the sense of loss. And let me tell you something, I miss Colin Brown. I miss Beth Stanley. These are just some from the last few months that I connected with because we were serving God together. And you have people in your life, the same thing. At the same time with that grief and that loss, I thank God that we got to live life together for just a little bit. We can thank God because he is good and he is merciful to us. Time and time again, God demonstrates mercy to early Israel and God shows the same mercy to us. Peter said it this way, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again into a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So thank God for being God. Thank God for what He's done. He's demonstrated mercy and goodness to us, and thank God for what He will do in the future, just all the goodness that God will do in us. David said it this way, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Number two, take responsibility for your life. Look at the little icon there. It's like, it's my bad. Like on a basketball court, a guy drops the ball. My bad. Blame me. I own up. I shouldn't have taken that shot. You know, it's my fault. Take responsibility for your life. Notice in verses six and seven, what they do. We have sinned. Wow. That's some responsibility. We have sinned with our fathers. We have committed iniquity. We have done wickedly. Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt. They remember not the multitude of thy mercies. You know, at some point, you gotta stop blaming your parents. At some point, you gotta stop blaming God. They said, our fathers didn't know this. They didn't understand this. But at some point, we know it now. We're accountable now. It's our sin. It's our iniquity. It's our wrong. It's our evil. It's what we've done against God. And so take responsibility for your life. To sin means to miss or to go wrong. Iniquity here means to bend or to twist. Wickedness means bad or evil. And provocation means to be contentious or rebellious. So confess those hard attitudes and those actions that are wrong in your life. Confess those to God. God, forgive me of this wrong, of this evil and this wrong. I missed the mark. I failed. Phrases that God values in relationship to him and in relationship to other people could include, I am sorry. Please forgive me. These are good words. I'm sorry I was wrong. I wish I did better. Would you please forgive me? These are good things to say. They're good things to mean. And we should utilize these words probably a lot because we're sinful people. and relationships just are screaming for injuries and hurts, relational injuries and hurts. 1 John 1, 9 says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Let me encourage you, if someone is asking forgiveness of you and they say, hey, would you please forgive me? I was wrong, I was an idiot, would you please forgive me? Whatever they say, they're saying that to you, with God's help, Lord, help me to forgive them. and do it, it's like, hey, I do forgive you. It doesn't change the pain or the hurt or the circumstance necessarily, or what you do in the future even, but I can forgive them. I'm not gonna be chained up to unforgiveness for the rest of my life. When others ask forgiveness, yes, I forgive you, that's a good thing. Right after the Lord's prayer, the model prayer, Jesus said, for if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. So be a forgiving person. Forgive those who've hurt you or said something or did something that was wrong. Now we all have problems, so stop blaming other people. Stop blaming God. Stop blaming your circumstances. By the way, if you have constant conflict in your life, examine your life and your relationships and see who the central figure of conflict is. And a lot of times the central figure of conflict is us. It's me, it's like, why am I having fights with all these people? Well, who's the guy right in the middle of all these fights? Well, it's me. So you assess that, you look at that and then confess that to the Lord and take responsibility for that. Own your problems. Own your sin. Give account to God. Give account to those to whom you're accountable. Offer confession and then repent, which means I was going this way, but now I'm going a new direction. So that means life change, you know, how you interact with people change, things like that. And so give thanks to the Lord. Take responsibility for your life. And number three, look for God daily. Look for God daily. In verse five, Notice, that I may see the good of thy chosen, that I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, that I may glory with thine inheritance. Oh, this is so powerful. We need to see good in other of God's chosen, in other Christians for us today. We need to see what's good in their life. How easy it is for us to check off what's wrong with everybody else. You know what I'm saying? What's wrong with this person? What's wrong with this person? And we're really good at inspecting other people for their faults. But wouldn't it be so much better to do what this says and it's to see the good, see the good in other of God's chosen, in other of God's people. It goes on to tell us to rejoice or to be glad in the joy of others. Now, if you are kind of like the jealous type or something, This may be kind of difficult because when somebody else succeeds, someone else gets a promotion, someone else is blessed, something good happens to somebody else, like, hey, I wish that happened to me. This verse says that second cause there is that we would rejoice when good things happen to other people. Be glad for it. Be glad when something good happens to somebody else. And then finally, glory with God's people. The word glory there again is that word praise. I'm going to praise with God's people. I'm going to glory with God's people. And this is something that we can't do apart from being part of a congregation because he's talking about being with God's people and praising the Lord. So I'm so glad for those who've joined with us in this auditorium today to worship and serve the Lord. The word inheritance specifically refers to God's people once again. And there's so much more that we could go, but let me encourage you with this. See God at work today, look for it. We see him at work. We see God at work in other people. We see God at work into our future. Broken people look for God in the everyday, in the small things, in the large things, in the difficult and in the pleasant things, in the good things, in the bad things. Keep your eyes looking for how God is working and how God is moving in your life and in the lives of other of God's chosen, of God's people. Broken people, praise the Lord. Did you know that preachers and pastors are broken too? They're broken people as well. The Old Testament prophet Elijah, he was depressed. The great preacher, the prince of preachers, he's called a lot of seminary study, Charles Spurgeon. He wrestled with depression throughout his life. Martin Luther, John Bunyan, they had grappled with significant balance of anxiety and fear. And one person said, God's men are clay pots indeed. Absolutely, we're just people as well. Don't lift the pastor or preacher up so he can fall down, lift them up in prayer. Lift him up in prayer. He's just a person as well. As a broken, sinful man, there's times when I think of myself more highly than I ought to think. Have you ever done that? As a man, sometimes I'll have negative thoughts or depressing ideas that flash across my mind, and sometimes they will dwell there longer than they should. There's moments in my life when I resist the call of God to change something in my life. Have you ever done that as well? There's times when I was depressed and discouraged and kept pressing on, but without the joy of the Lord. But once confession of brokenness took place, what a help, what a relief. God, I'm broken. I don't have to act like I'm perfect. We're not perfect people. We're all broken people. And when you confess that, I'm broken. And with brokenness and humility, now it goes to the verb part of this. I'm not just broken like adjective describing, but now I'm broken before the Lord. Here's my sin. Here's my wrong. Here's the wrong thinking. Lord, please forgive me. I need Jesus. It changes your life. Christian, it'll change your outlook. So give thanks to the Lord, take responsibility for life and look for God daily. Giovanna wrote about the relief that offering confession brought to her. I felt as if I was the only Christian struggling. There was this expectation I had set for myself as soon as I gave my life to Jesus, sin would be in the rear view mirror. I was dealing with pride, seeking validation and affirmation from the student ministry group I was leading. I was experiencing grief, or greed rather, terrified by offering up my finances to the Lord while barely being able to pay rent. I was envious, scrolling for hours on Instagram and comparing myself to others, yet I would show up to my small group every Monday night, recite what I learned in our study that week to my leader, and stare down at my hands as soon as the prayer requests rolled around, unwilling to share the many sins seemingly taking hold of my heart. Have you ever put your Christian mask and hid behind Christian jargon to distract from the fact that you're struggling? Everything changed for me one night when I was sitting in that very same small group, a woman I knew to be a devout Christian who led in various capacities, confessed the sins she was struggling with. I never confessed or witnessed such boldness and courage in admitting weakness before. Slowly but surely, women spoke up from different spots in this living room, sharing their experiences with the same sins and confessing their sins to others. And Giovanna found great relief when confessing, I need God. I can't live the Christian life without Him. So, church, lift up your hands to God, offering yourself to Him, offering confession, giving praise, offering thanks and taking responsibility and looking for Him in the day-to-day of our lives. Let's take a moment and visit with the Lord. We are all broken people. Maybe you would confess this. I will give thanks to the Lord. That's my request today. Lord, I will give thanks to you in my life. I want to give thanks for your goodness and your mercy. Anybody like that? Let's give thanks to God today. Yes, yes, yes. God help us. Number two, I will take responsibility for my life. There are actions I'm ashamed of. There are attitudes that I should confess. Lord, I will take responsibility for my life. Anybody like that? Confess it to God, repent of it, turn around from it. Yes, yes, yes. Only you can do that in your life. And then I will look for God daily. Every day, you can catch a glimpse of God doing something in your life. in the life of others, but you have to look for it. God, I will look for you daily. Anybody like that, just raise your hands. A lot of testimonies today, yes. Yes, God help us today. Father, we thank you for this time to really confess our need for you. This time to open the scriptures and see hearts and life change. Father, we pray that you would help each of us to be thankful people. Let us worship you and give praise to you with our thanks. Let us take responsibility, lifting up our lives to you as an offering of something that's giving you glory. And then let us really look for you each day. With all the distractions in life, we can still see you at work. And so let us focus upon that and give you the glory and give you the praise. And we pray this in Christ's name, amen. Well, thank you.