and the land of the free and the home of the brave. Good morning. It's great to be with you again today. It's been quite a while since I was here, and it's great to have my family here with me as well today. You can easily tell us apart because we are wearing the Ukrainian national shirts. This is not what I usually preach in, but when we visit churches, we like to wear these shirts to give you a visual impression as well of the country where we serve. Being over there, we are the hands, the feet of the church planting work in the city of Lviv, Western Ukraine, planting reform church there. But through your prayers, through your financial giving, you are part of what God is doing in Ukraine. So it's an honor to be with you this morning, to bring God's Word, and after the service also to tell you a little bit more about what you are also doing in Ukraine, what God is doing through you. So if you will, please open your Bibles with me to Acts Chapter 8, the fifth book in the New Testament. Book of Acts, chapter 8. We will read here from verses 26 to 40. This is page 1089 in Pew Bibles. At least the one that I found up here. I think you have the same ones. Very good, thank you. Acts chapter 8, beginning at verse 26. Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert place. And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, do you understand what you're reading? And he said, how can I unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this. Like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opened not his mouth. In his humiliation, justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth. And the eunuch said to Philip, about whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else? Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with the scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus. And as they were going along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, See, here is water. What prevents me from being baptized? And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through, he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. So what do you think? Does God really care about this world? About all the millions, billions of people who live in it? Is it not perhaps true that all the problems in our society actually prove that God really doesn't care what happens to us? A lot of people have that opinion. Why is it that so many people in the world today do not believe in Jesus Christ, do not know Him, do not love Him? Maybe God really doesn't care about those people. Why, for example, are there people in Africa and Asia today, even in the US, I think, who have never even heard the truth about Jesus Christ? Or haven't heard of Him at all, haven't heard His name. What will happen to those people when they die? Will they not inherit eternal life? Why does God not save these people? Doesn't he care? We really want people to be saved from an empty life, from their sins, from eternal punishment, don't we? We preach the gospel and we send missionaries to faraway lands so people will hear about Christ. But does God care? Today we'll briefly look at Acts chapter 8 verses 26 to 40 in order to answer the question, does God care about sinful people who deserve eternal death? When traveling in the ancient world from Jerusalem down to Africa, one had to first travel to Gaza. We know today as the Gaza Strip where there's all sorts of problems. They first had to travel to Gaza on the Mediterranean Sea where one could get water before you make the long journey down to what's called here Ethiopia, going through the desert to Egypt. Luke writes that one day a man from Ethiopia was making this long journey. He was not from the country we call Ethiopia today. Ancient Ethiopia was located along the Nile River in the southern part of what we call Egypt today, the northern part of modern Sudan. This territory is also known as Nubia today or Kush in the writings of the Old Testament. We often read about Kush in the Old Testament. The Ethiopian man we read about served the queen of Ethiopia. Really, she was the queen mother, and her title was Candace. It's not her name. It's her title. At that time, the king of Ethiopia was considered to be the son of the sun, and people worshipped him. They worshipped the king of Ethiopia. He didn't bother himself with the details of ruling his country every day, so he left that to his mom. She took care of everything that happened in the country. And it was common in the ancient world for the most trusted servants of these kings and queens to be eunuchs. My kids, you might not know what a eunuch is. It's men who had operations done so they wouldn't have children. Such men were considered to be the most trustworthy. This Ethiopian eunuch therefore probably, we don't know for sure, but probably had himself made into a eunuch so that he could serve the queen and in this way further advance his career in the palace. And we read that he was quite successful at it. He was in charge of all of the queen's treasure. So he's a very important official in the kingdom of Ethiopia. He was not a follower, though, of the traditional religion of Ethiopia, because Luke tells us that this man had a scroll of the book of the prophet Isaiah. We also know that he was traveling from Jerusalem, where Luke says he worshiped. So he feared the God of the Hebrews, and he had probably participated in one of the great Jewish festivals in Jerusalem. That's why he was there. Although, as we will see in a minute, he could never become a full-fledged Jewish believer. Yet Luke writes that this Ethiopian eunuch, or he writes about this Ethiopian eunuch in the Book of Acts. So this man is very important to Luke. One probable reason is that Jesus had told his disciples, if you remember in Matthew chapter 28, that they must go and make disciples of all nations of the earth. They must go to the ends of the earth. And this man is from Ethiopia, which was considered at that time to be one of the far corners of the Roman Empire. So Luke shows us how Jesus' words are beginning to be fulfilled in Acts chapter 8. Another likely reason why this man is important to Luke, why he mentions him, is that his story shows us very clearly how God cares for particular people. This man lived about 1,500 miles from Jerusalem, from the city where Jesus was crucified and resurrected. At the same time, though, God knows about him, and God has a plan designed especially for this eunuch. Luke shows us that God is not cold-hearted toward the fate of people who live in Africa or Ukraine or other distant countries. At this point in the history of the church, the apostles themselves are not yet ready to go to faraway lands. When we read the book of Acts, we see the apostles don't want to preach to other people. They don't want to tell other people about Jesus. They don't want to leave Jerusalem. But God plans every detail in order to give this man faith in Jesus, the anointed one. That's because God uses all sorts of circumstances and individuals to give true faith to particular people. In the Old Testament, for example, we read about how God used two Israelite spies to give faith to a prostitute named Rahab. If you remember, she lived in Jericho. We read that he used Daniel to change the heart of a very selfish Babylonian king called Nebuchadnezzar. We see that God spoke through Jonah to save the people of the violent city of Nineveh. And that's because God cares about the salvation of particular people. We can only guess at the paths that God had used to first bring this man from Ethiopia to faith in the God of the Old Testament. And now, He's using Philip, one of the leaders, early leaders of the church in Jerusalem. We read about him first in Acts chapter six. He's some kind of a deacon in the church. God is now using him to give faith to this man, faith in the only Messiah. Philip was just following the orders that God gave him to go into the desert. And he was just using the opportunity God gave him to talk to this very important official from Ethiopia. You might think back on your particular journey to faith. Which events, circumstances, or people did God use to open your eyes, to open your heart, to give faith to you? Maybe it was your parents, maybe it was friends, maybe it was tough times that God used. We read in the Bible how God used tough times in the life of Job, and we even read how God used Satan in the life of Job to bring about those tough times. My wife, Anya, was a student in her first year of university in Kiev, the capital city in Ukraine, when somehow she got into a group of girls one night who participated in an occult seance to call up a spirit. Obviously, she was not a Christian at this time, because this is not something that Christians do. But people who are searching for different experiences and so on do these kinds of things. But Anya participated in this seance. And they used a Ouija board. You might have heard of this. It's seen in the movies. To communicate with the spirit, and the spirit spoke to the girl's presence, saying all sorts of unpleasant things to those who were there. And when it was Anya's turn to get a word from this spirit, this demon, I presume, he said to her, go to church. God actually used this negative experience in my wife Anya's life to encourage her to think about her own soul and to put her on the road to faith and to make her search out a Christian church. The fact is that God loves and gives true faith to particular people, and he uses all sorts of experiences and people in our lives to bring us to true faith. The Apostle Paul writes about this in Ephesians 1. Ephesians 1, verses 4 and 5, and also in verse 11, the Apostle Paul says, God chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will. In Him, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will. In the book of Isaiah, God says the following to us in chapter 43. He says, fear not. I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. God cared about us, about our forgiveness so much that he sent his son to this rock hurtling through space called Earth so that he would become a man here and live among us and give his life for us here so that we can be free from punishment, so we can have eternal life. If God truly could not care less about the fate of sinful people who have rebelled against Him, then He would never have sent His Son to experience a shameful, terrible death. He would have just left us to our own devices. At the cross of Christ, we see best of all how much God truly loves us. And He cares about every fleeting moment of your life. He planned every detail of the salvation of this eunuch from Ethiopia, and He has planned every detail of your life to give you faith in Him. So in the first place, you can be sure that God cares about the salvation of people. First point this morning, you can be sure that God cares about the salvation of people. In fact, He actually cares a lot more about it than we do. In the second place, Therefore, act boldly in light of God's mercy. Act boldly in light of God's mercy. It is clear in the book of Acts that God plans not only the reality, the fact of the salvation of particular individuals, but he also plans the means of their conversion to true faith. In verse 26, we read the following words. Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert place. Earlier in chapter 8, we read how Philip himself begins to preach to the Samaritans after persecution started in Jerusalem. The whole church was in Jerusalem. It was growing to thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. It was really growing strong. But people wouldn't go anywhere. And then God dropped a bomb of persecution in Jerusalem so that his people would leave and start taking the gospel to other people. And so Philip leaves Jerusalem, among others, and he starts preaching to the Samaritans. Many Samaritans who read believe in Christ through Philip's words and through the miracles that he does by God's power. Philip becomes a famous man in Samaria. Verses 25 to 26 seem to imply that he came back to Jerusalem with Peter and John after they had brought the Holy Spirit to people in Samaria. Philip may have received a hero's welcome in Jerusalem. He had preached in Samaria. People had come to Christ, and they're welcoming him back in the church in Jerusalem. He was the first missionary who preached to non-Jews, and he did so really successfully. But now God calls Philip, this successful evangelist, to go into the desert. From this, we can draw at least two conclusions for ourselves. First of all, God's plan makes us necessary. God acts through people. We may never use God's sovereign choice of individuals and His plan for their salvation as an excuse not to speak to other people about Jesus Christ. We may never say, God chooses, He saves, He doesn't need me. God wants Philip to talk to that eunuch. That's because God's plan does not make us unnecessary. On the contrary, his plan makes us indispensable. That's because God plans both the fact and the means of our salvation. The second conclusion we can draw from the fact that God's sending Philip to the desert is this. Our Heavenly Father wants us to act in different situations and places. God calls Philip to go into the wilderness, the desert. It's interesting to note that the word translated as south in verse 26 can also be translated as noon. Because in the northern hemisphere, where we live, as you know, at noon, the sun is always in the south. So the words south and noon are oftentimes used interchangeably in Greek. So it's possible that God calls Philip not just to go from Jerusalem to the desert, but to do so at noon, in the middle of the day. Why should Philip do that? Why would anybody want to go in the desert in the middle of the day? God's plan is often incomprehensible to us. Sometimes he calls us to go into the desert, to a place where we are uncomfortable, like a fish out of water. That's the way I felt when I first moved to Ukraine about 22 years ago. It was very hard to adjust to this country where everybody was speaking a language I don't know and a different culture and my friends are not there. I really felt like a fish out of water, like I was in the desert. A desert might be a place where we are alone, where things are hard on us, where we do not see meaning in God's plan. I'm sure that most of you have already gone through such dry, desert times in your life when you just cannot understand what God is doing. Why am I in these circumstances or in this place? What is going on in my life? What is God's purpose here? Sometimes our circumstances are the exact opposite of what seems good to us, the exact opposite of what we want. But the fact is that God acts also in the deserts of our lives. And sometimes the desert is a much more fruitful place for us than a lush garden. And God wants us to be faithful to him in the desert as well. God doesn't tell Philip why he needs to go down to the desert road. Philip doesn't know God's plan, but Philip listens. Having arrived in the wilderness, Philip is surprised to see a whole caravan of people in the desert. Perhaps it's in the middle of the day. An important figure like this eunuch from Ethiopia would not travel alone. He has servants and soldiers who accompany him on this long, dangerous journey. So there's a whole caravan of people. Philip must have been surprised to see all these dark-skinned people in the desert south of Jerusalem, perhaps in the middle of the day. But he believes that God has a plan. There's no coincidence with God. And so Philip is ready to act. Well, how about us? Every week, every day, God gives us opportunities to show his love to other people, to do good, to speak about our savior, Jesus Christ? Do you pray for such opportunities in your life? Is this something you pray for? God would give the opportunity to do good, to love others, to speak about Christ. And do you use these opportunities when they come? At home with your children, with your neighbors, at work with employees, with other people you happen to meet or run into? Remember, God acts through us. People do not see God, but they see and hear us. He gives us all sorts of opportunities to talk about him and to show his love to others. And he also gives us the right words and the power to act, so we can act boldly in light of God's mercy. He really cares about the salvation of other people much more than we do. but he wants to include us in the process of bringing people to true faith. In the third place, acknowledge Jesus Christ as the key that reveals the secrets of God's word. Acknowledge Jesus Christ as the key that reveals the secrets of God's word. God's Spirit tells Philip that he needs to go to the chariot. It's probably more like a cart than a chariot. When I think of a chariot, I think of a man standing up and holding the reins. He's not going to do that all the way from Jerusalem to Ethiopia. So this is more like a cart. The man is sitting down and riding from Jerusalem all the way down through the desert, traveling for many days, weeks perhaps. Philip rushes over to this man in the cart, and he hears that he is reading something. So the man's reading out loud. Kids, when we think of somebody reading out loud, we think of somebody who cannot read that well, perhaps, or you read when you're starting, you read out loud when you're just learning how to read. Our son, Christian, a few years ago, he's nine now, but a few years ago, he was still reading out loud when he was in first grade to himself in a rich reading. You can hear him in his room reading out loud. As that was going on with this eunuch, he's not well-educated, he's just learning how to read. Well, actually, people in the ancient world always read out loud. And that's because it was very, very difficult to read their scrolls that were written by hand, obviously, all in uppercase letters. So no upper and lower case. No spaces between the words. So you don't really know where words and sentences begin and end. So people had to sound out everything to figure out what they were reading, where words and sentences begin and end. here again we see the details of God's plan for the comes to the road just as the caravan is passing by and he rushes to the cart exactly at the moment when the unit is reading the Old Testament and at that moment the man from Ethiopia is reading the words from the book of Isaiah. Philip can hear him reading from Isaiah. And these words speak of Jesus Christ perhaps better than any other passage in the Old Testament. He's reading these words from Isaiah 53. Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer is silent so he opened not his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? for his life was taken away from the earth. And hearing these words, Philip asks the eunuch a great question. Do you understand what you are reading? And the Ethiopian man answers, how can I unless someone guides me? I think we hear the voice of God speaking to Philip through this eunuch. God is telling Philip that now is his turn to speak. So then the eunuch invites Philip to sit next to him on the carriage. and he asks who is the prophet talking about he's talking about himself or someone else he really has no idea because before the birth of christ nobody made a connection between the different prophecies in the old testament people did not think that the royal king from david's family when we read about in first samuel seven or the divine son of man we read about in daniel seven And the suffering servant, we read about in the book of Isaiah, that these are all the same person, the same Messiah. No one could understand that the Messiah will be both God and man. He will be both king and servant, both conqueror and sacrifice. Even the prophet Isaiah didn't understand everything about the mysteries he was writing about. And therefore, the eunuch asks Philip, who was the prophet talking about? The story of Philip and the eunuch, which Luke tells, is very similar to another story. Because in chapter 24 of the Gospel of Luke, the same author, he tells us how after his resurrection, Jesus meets two of his followers on the road to Emmaus. You all know that story, I think. After dinner, Jesus reveals to them the secrets of the Old Testament. They don't know who he is, but he starts explaining the secrets of the Old Testament. He shows them how all of Scripture prophesies about him. He explains to these two disciples that he is the true fulfillment of the symbols, the prototypes, the prophecies of God's word. And then, suddenly, Jesus disappears. And here in chapter 8 of the book of Acts, something very similar happens. After meeting on the road, Philip explains to the eunuch that the entire Old Testament actually talks about Jesus Christ, who had been crucified shortly before then in Jerusalem. Jesus is the golden, or you might say the blood red thread, that combines everything described in the Old Testament. He runs through everything that is in the Old Testament, from the first promise of the destruction of the serpent, Genesis chapter 3 verse 15 to the ceremonies of Sacrifice in the temple to all the prophecies and the symbols of the Messiah in the Old Testament Jesus Christ is the key to revealing the secrets of God's Word Many people and scholars read and study the Bible and Yet not all of them believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the God and Savior of people. But brothers and sisters, without Jesus Christ, the Bible is pointless. In the same way, our conversations with people about God should be focused on Jesus Christ. It's impossible to share the good news with people about forgiveness of sins without talking about the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. People today like to talk about a higher power, some kind of God, all these different religions that lead to God. So unless you talk about Jesus Christ, you have not talked about the true God. Our God, the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, wants us to know about Jesus Christ, the only Savior of mankind. It is impossible to have salvation without knowing about Jesus Christ and believing in Him. And that's why we must acknowledge Jesus Christ as the key that reveals the secrets of God's Word. And in the fourth place, lastly, trust in Jesus every day as the one who removes all your shortcomings. Trust in Jesus every day as the one who removes all of your shortcomings, your sins. After Philip goes up to this important Ethiopian official's carriage, he explains to him the true meaning of the words from Isaiah 53 that he was reading. He tells this man about the life of Jesus, his death, his resurrection, his ascension into heaven. He talks about the new church, we assume, that was formed in Jerusalem. He probably must be talking to him about the special signs of the Lord's Supper and baptism because the Ethiopian eunuch puts his faith in Jesus Christ and then asks to be baptized. in a rare, I assume, pool of water that just happens to be right there in the desert at just the right moment. Philip is convinced of the man's faith and he baptizes him right then and there. That's something we usually do today. Today the process is usually a little longer, but things were a little different back then in the early church. So right then and there, this man from Ethiopia is baptized by Philip. And after this, Philip miraculously vanishes and the Holy Spirit takes him to another place where he continues to tell people about Jesus of Nazareth. God has done using Philip in the life of this particular man, but the Ethiopian's life following Jesus Christ is just beginning. Although on some level it must have been strange for the eunuch that Philip was willing to baptize him. Because according to the Jewish faith, This man could never be completely accepted. The Old Testament law in Deuteronomy 23 verse 1 clearly says that eunuchs are not allowed to enter the temple. His physical condition made him unworthy to enter God's holy place. He was always on the outside looking in. You know that experience? Not being part of the group, being on the outside looking in? But through Jesus Christ, all the things that make us unworthy to be in God's presence are done away with. Because of Jesus, any person can receive forgiveness and become a member of God's family. It's noteworthy, it's really neat that Isaiah, the prophet whose book the eunuch was reading, writes about this himself. In chapter 11 of Isaiah, the prophet writes that people from Cush, people from Ethiopia, will also become God's children. He mentions them. And in chapter 56, he even writes God's words that foreigners and eunuchs will be better than sons or daughters in the heavenly kingdom. In other words, they will be true sons and daughters in the heavenly kingdom. Isaiah 56 verses 3-5. He says, Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, The Lord will surely separate me from his people. And let not the eunuch say, Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus says the Lord. to the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. And so the story of the Ethiopian eunuch ends with his rejoicing greatly. He thought that he was searching for God. He had gone to Jerusalem to the festivals. He was searching for God, for truth. But in reality, as it turns out, God was searching for him. And now it had become clear to him how God had been planning all the events of his life in order to give him a place in his heavenly kingdom. We don't read anything else about this Ethiopian eunuch in the Book of Acts or the rest of the Bible. But over time, the Christian church in Africa becomes very large and strong. It actually becomes the largest Christian church for a period of time. And it yields several early Christian fathers, such as Cyprian, Tertullian, and, of course, Augustine. And the Coptic Church, which still exists today in Egypt, experiencing a lot of persecution, that church might even have its origin in this eunuch. We don't know what kind of influence he had and how God used him. According to the Old Testament, he could not become a true Jew. But in Jesus Christ, this man was completely accepted as a child of God because the Messiah made him worthy. You and I do not come to God as eunuchs, thankfully, but each of us comes to God with our own particular sins, shortcomings, vices, our own histories, our own proclivity to do what's wrong and what's bad. And sometimes we think that we have to get rid of particular sins in our lives before God will accept us. We want to make ourselves clean. We want to make ourselves clean enough so that we can be part of church, so that we can serve in the church, so that God will take us into his family. Brothers and sisters, we can never make ourselves acceptable to God. As we say to students at our English camp in the Carpathian Mountains, we say to them, you can never be good enough for God to accept you. You can only be bad enough. which means you can only get to the point where you realize you are bad enough and you need someone to bring you forgiveness. Through faith in Christ, His perfect life is considered to be ours. That life cannot become any better by what we do. Through faith in Christ, we have Jesus' perfection. And He on the cross took our dirt, our disgusting sins on Himself, and He died for those sins. You cannot make yourself good. Christ is good. And when you trust in Him, you have His goodness, and there can be none better. And that's why you can be accepted into God's family. You don't have to try to make yourself good enough for Him, because Christ our Savior is good enough. God loves us and accepts us just the way we are. But of course, at the same time, He will never leave us the way we are. And that's why He also gives us His Spirit, who works in us every day to clean us, so that in our lives and the way we live every day, we will become more and more like His Son, who has given us perfection in the eyes of the Father. So admit your unworthiness. Admit your dirt to God. and He will accept you into His family. And trust in your Savior every day as the only one through whom you can be a part of God's family. So you can be sure that God cares about the salvation of people. The most active missionary in the world is God Himself. Act boldly, therefore, in light of God's mercy. Do not miss the daily opportunities that God gives you to do good and to speak to people about His mercy. Acknowledge Jesus Christ as the key that reveals the secrets of God's word. He is the center of our faith. He is our hope. There is no other savior besides Jesus Christ. And trust in Jesus every day as the one who removes all of your shortcomings, all of your sins. God loves you by name. Tom, Jim, Sarah, Amy, God loves you by name. In God's kingdom and his family, there are no eunuchs. In his kingdom, there are no blind, no deaf, no people with physical or spiritual disabilities. There are no murderers, adulterers, liars, idolaters. There are only forgiven, renewed sons and daughters who, through Jesus Christ, became sinless in God's eyes. And through faith, that's who you are in Christ, and that is who you will be forever. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the great truths that are revealed in your word. We thank you, dear Lord, that we know that you choose us, not because of who we are, in spite of who we are, that you plan everything in our lives to bring us to faith. And not just to bring us to faith, but to keep honing us and changing us and cleaning us. so that even after being your children, we become more like your son. We thank you, Father, that your work in each of us is not complete, but you will complete it on the day that your son returns. We thank you that we know that through faith in him, we are your children, and you will take us home to be with you. And we will be with you in eternity, and it will be good and great and more wonderful than we can imagine. We ask Lord that while we are here on this earth we are faithful to you. We will serve you with gladness. We will do good that we will love others and that we will tell them of the only savior the only name under heaven by which we can be saved Jesus Christ who has done everything. everything for our salvation, the one who is perfect and the one whose record can be ours through trusting in Him. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you take us. idolaters, adulterers, sinners, liars. You take us, Heavenly Father, and You accept us through the perfection of Your Son and through His death on our behalf. We thank You, Heavenly Father, that we do not have to somehow make ourselves good enough, but You take us and give us the perfection of Your Son. Help us to trust in Him every day and to remember it's not what we have done or will do, it's what your Son has done, what you are doing for us. Give us joy in our salvation, Heavenly Father, and may that joy spill over to people around us. Bless this congregation. Bless this congregation, its deacons, elders, its pastor, other people who are serving the congregation, every member, every child. May you work through this congregation also to bring much joy to many other people who see good. who experience your love and who hear the truth of the only Savior, Jesus Christ. May this congregation be a great light, and may you give every person here assurance of true salvation through faith, through true faith in your Son. And may you make all of us faithful to the day that your Son, Jesus Christ, returns. We pray these things in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Our hymn of response this morning is song number 243. We'll sing stanzas 1 through 4 and 6. Song number 243, stanzas 1 through 4 and 6. ♪ To Jesus declare ♪ by my righteous, omnipotent hand. Through the deep waters I call you to know ♪ To your troubles have rest ♪ ♪ And say good-bye to you ♪ ♪ Your deepest distress ♪ ♪ And through my retrials ♪ ♪ Your pathway shall I ♪ ♪ My graceful salvation shall be ♪ ♪ Your cross to consume ♪ ♪ And your gold to refine ♪ ♪ The song that on Jesus' weak glory flows ♪ Amen. People of God, it's now time for our morning gifts and offerings. This morning, that's for the general fund. Following that, our benediction and then our doxology number 572. Yeah. If you would stand, if able, The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen. you. Oh