Our reading text, we will be in the book of 2 Samuel in chapter seven tonight. I do appreciate the opportunity to be here. I've been in this sanctuary many, many, many times. I did a devotional here some years ago. I don't know that I've ever stood behind this pulpit and preached a sermon, and I do wanna tell the church I appreciate you having me here this evening. 2 Samuel 7. We'll be starting in verse eight, but just to give you some context, because we're jumping in a little bit in the middle of something. And so we're, as we have been building through some of these chapters, in chapter five, we see that David is anointed as king, not only of Judah, but king over all of Israel. He is now united and he has been made king over Israel. And then in chapter 6 we see that David has brought the ark of God, as he calls it, the ark of the covenant that has been off and he has brought it into Jerusalem with joy and thanksgiving And then in chapter 7, as we enter it in, and you look into verse 1, it says that God had given David rest from his enemies. So we're at a high point, if you will, in David's life. He's been anointed king. The ark of the covenant has been brought to Jerusalem, and he has made Jerusalem the center. That's where he is going to be. That's where the ark is now. And now he has been given rest from his enemies. a lofty position, if you will, at this point in his life. And so these are the events that have been building up, building up, building up. And as you get into chapter 7, David talks to Nathan, the prophet, and he says that it's in his heart to build God a house, to build a house for the ark. And his desire, the ark had been in the tabernacle, it had been in a tent, and it had been mobile. It had been moving with the children of Israel. Of course, they had wandered through the wilderness and they had built the ark, and it had a functional purpose. It was mobile, as they were mobile. It was something that guided them and went with them. And they had a very, thorough system of how to set it up and how to take it down, and they had done that for many, many, many years. And now he's brought the Ark of the Covenant, and in Jerusalem it was not in the initial tabernacle. There was actually two tabernacles, if you will, at this point in time. There was one, I believe it was in Gibeon, and then there was the Ark, and he had made a tent for it, a temporary dwelling, if you will, there in Jerusalem. And it was in his heart to build a a more permanent, something that was permanent structure, a temple, if you will, and he called it a house. Nathan, the prophet, had said, you know, do what's on your heart. I believe that's in verse three, he says, and Nathan said to the king, go do all that is in thine heart, for the Lord is with thee. God comes to Nathan in the night and tells him something a little bit different. And that's what we're going to get into. So we're going to pick up in verse eight. So as we begin, God tells Nathan, he says that God has never asked for a permanent dwelling, a house, if you will, that he had been content through all this time. And Israel had been in the promised land for a number of years through the period of the judges, hundreds of years. even through the kingship of Saul, and never had God told the people that they were supposed to build him a temple or a permanent house or dwelling for the ark. And he explains that, that he had never asked for that house of cedar, as he calls it in verse 7. and we'll pick up in verse eight, and we'll read a few verses here, and it's gonna be a little bit of a lengthier reading tonight, and so I ask that you bear with me. But this is almost the pre-reading, if you will. We'll start, pick up in verse eight. And it says, now therefore, so this is God speaking to the prophet Nathan. Now therefore, so shalt thou say unto my servant David, thus saith the Lord of hosts, I took thee from the sheep coat, from following the sheep, to be ruler over my people, over Israel. And I was with thee whithersoever thou wentest, and have cut off all thine enemies out of thy sight, and have made thee a great name, likened to the name of the great men that are in the earth. Moreover, I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more, neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more as before time. And as since the time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel, and have caused thee to rest from all thine enemies, also the Lord telleth thee that he will make thee an house. And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seat after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the stripes of the children of men. But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee. Thy throne shall be established forever. according to all these words and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak unto David. And we'll pause right there. So what we just read is what you may hear called the Davidic Covenant. And so this is God's promise to David. And you have covenants that go on throughout redemptive history. God, of course, he makes a covenant, he makes a promise to Abraham that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through his offspring. And of course, we have the advantage of getting to look back in redemptive history and we see how God has brought these promises to fruition through our Savior, Jesus Christ. He made the promise to Abraham, but at that point it was, Abraham knew that his seed, that he was gonna have a multitude of children as the stars in the sky, and he knew that all the nations of the earth would be blessed, and Abraham believed that promise. We go on and we have Moses, and there's the Mosaic Covenant, and there's the promises that God makes, and the law that is provided, and God telling them that he would be their God, and they would be his people. And so he has chosen the nation of Israel, and he delivers them from bondage in Egypt through the leadership of Moses. They're entering into the promised land. They have the period of the judges. Of course, they quickly slipped into idolatry, abandoned their God, called for a king that God knew that they would call for, and they received King Saul. He was anointed. He was chosen by God. But Saul was not a king after God's own heart. God, as God mentioned here, he removed himself. He put Saul away from before him. And David was anointed king. And so now David here in this passage receives a promise that we see as almost like as you're zooming in, as God continues over time to reveal more and more of his grand plan. Abraham was promised that in his seat all the nations would be blessed. David is promised that his house, would be established, and God took David's heart. David wanted to build for God a house. And God, though, while honoring David's heart to do so, he essentially told David that David would not do, this is one of the nicest no's that you will ever hear. David says, I want to build for God a house, and God says, no, David, you will not be the one to do this, but your son will. You're not gonna build for me a house, I'm going to build for you a house. I'm going to build your house, establish your house, establish your descendants, establish your dynasty, and establish your throne. It will be established, it will be blessed, and it will continue forever. Those are some kind, wonderful words. Can you imagine David? He was talking to Nathan, and he's got this idea. Of course, things I'm sure looked a little bit different, but I can just imagine David and Nathan are sitting around, and David said, you know what, Nathan? I have this beautiful house, all this cedar that I'm living in, and it's grand and it's wonderful, and the Ark of God is sitting there in a tent. I got an idea, I wanna build a house for the Ark of God. And Nathan, he's listening, and it's the king, and all sounds good, and that sounds great, David, and they go to bed, and David, I'm sure, is all excited about the house that he's gonna build, and here comes Nathan after God has given him this vision through the night, and Nathan gives these words to David. Can you imagine? What has God just done? These precious promises that he's just made. I was going to build for him a house of cedar, of wood, and he is going to build my house, my dynasty, my throne, through my descendants, and it will continue forever. I don't know how much David understood of all of what that meant. I don't know how much of the Messiah he saw in that promise. But we know, and the writers even in the New Testament time in the book of Acts in chapter 13, as Paul is preaching, I believe it's in Antioch, not the, one of the Antiochs, and he explains and he goes back to this time and he says that, well, let me just read it to make sure that I get it correctly. In Acts, we'll be back in 2 Samuel here in just a bit. I haven't even got to my main text yet. There's a lot here. Acts chapter 13, Paul is preaching at Antioch in Pisidia, and in verse 21 it says, he raised up unto them David to be their king, to whom also he gave testimony and said, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfill all my will. Of this man's seed hath God, according to his promise, according to his promise, raised unto Israel a Savior, Jesus. David maybe didn't understand the full picture when God gave him these gracious words, but the Apostle Paul recognized that this promise, that David's throne would continue forever, finds its fulfillment in our Savior Jesus Christ. I don't know where the physical lineage of David is at in the world today. I don't know if there's any sort of kingship or position of authority for any of his physical descendants at this stage in history, but his throne shall stand forever in the kingship of King Jesus. Paul understood this, and Paul related that the promise, though there was a short-term fulfillment of the promise in his son Solomon, and Solomon built the temple, and God promised that he would not remove from Solomon, though Solomon and future descendants, they strayed away from God, and they continued to go into idolatry and rebellion as we see in the future events, and yet God did not fully remove his hand from the lineage of David. He continued on with them and he preserved them from generation to generation to generation until one day Jesus was born. And all those promises, some of which were fulfilled partially in Solomon, all of a sudden they are fulfilled. And now David's lineage, his house, his dynasty, it is established, it is blessed, and it continues forever through Jesus Christ. That is the background as I wanna get into this. And so, this is where we're at, and I wanted to read the Davidic Covenant. I wanted to read God's promises, His words to David, because now I want to read David's response. And I felt like the only way that we could truly get a grasp of David's response was to really dive into, at least for just a short period, what he was responding to. So this is the Davidic covenant. He has just received this, and now David is, I'm sure, in awe, and he responds. And we will read David's response, and I know this is going to be a little bit of a longer reading, and I was thinking through this, and sometimes it's beneficial to take to take a shorter passage and to really dissect it and dive into it and get into the Hebrew or the Greek. And those are wonderful things to start to connect all the pieces together. Sometimes you need to take the rose and you need to start pulling back some of the petals and start dissecting the pieces so that you can see how it all works together. And sometimes you need to take it and admire the rose. And so this will be a little bit more of a high-level highlight. I want to admire the response of David as he responds back to God. Starting in verse 18, it says, Then went King David in, and sat before the Lord. And he said, Who am I, O Lord God? And what is my house that thou hast brought me hither to? And this was yet a small thing in thy sight, O Lord God, but thou hast spoken also of thy servant's house for a great while to come. And is this the manner of man, O Lord God? And what can David say more unto thee? For thou, Lord God, knowest thy servant. For thy word's sake and according to thine own heart hast thou done all these great things to make thy servant know them. Wherefore thou art great, O Lord God, for there is none like thee, neither is there any God beside thee, according to all that we have heard with our ears. And what one nation in the earth is like thy people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to himself, and to make him a name, and to do for you great things and terrible, for thy land before thy people, which thou redeemest to thee from Egypt, from the nations and their gods? For thou hast confirmed to thyself thy people Israel to be a people unto thee forever, and thou, Lord, art become their God. And now, O Lord God, the word that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant and concerning his house, establish it forever, and do as thou hast said. And let thy name be magnified forever, saying, The Lord of hosts is the God over Israel. And let the house of thy servant David be established before thee. For thou, O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, hast revealed to thy servant, saying, I will build thee an house. Therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee. And now, O Lord God, thou art that God, and thy words be true, and thou hast promised this goodness unto thy servant. Therefore now let it please thee to bless the house of thy servant, that it may continue forever before thee. For thou, O Lord God, hast spoken it, and with thy blessing let the house of thy servant be blessed forever. If I was to try to put a title or a thought around what's on my heart and what I want to try to expound out of this text is believing God's promises and worshiping Him. Believing God's promises and worshiping Him. David has just been promised these wonderful things. that his throne and his house and his descendants, his dynasty would be blessed and established and built and continue forever. One might say, sounds too good to be true. In this life, sometimes we can get a little jaded. We can get a little We've been burned sometimes, haven't we? Times when we were promised things, we were told things, we were sold things, they were hyped up, they were promoted, and they just weren't what we thought they were gonna be. David was a shepherd, and God had anointed him king, and he had then spent several years of his life on the run, hiding in caves as King Saul tried to kill him. He'd even gone off and was living with the enemies of Israel in Philistia, with the Philistines, prepared to go out to battle with them against the Israelites. He had watched as the only king that he knew the only king that Israel had ever had in Saul, and he had watched Saul fall. He had watched his kingship spiral out of control, and he then ultimately watched as God removed his spirit from Saul, and Saul and his sons, including David's precious friend, Jonathan, perish in battle. That is the only kingship that David had as a reference point. And now he was made king over Israel. He had been a shepherd and he had watched, he had seen God work in his life. He knew that God was with him. He knew that God had helped him as he had slung that sling and cast that stone to defeat Goliath. He knew that God had been with him as he had preserved his life, though Saul sought to kill it. He knew that God had brought these things together and brought him to a place to be king over Israel. He knew that God had allowed him to bring the Ark of the Covenant and bring it into Jerusalem with him. He knew that God, and it was God, was with him in battle to give him rest from his enemies. He knew what God had done, and yet what God was promising was something far greater than what David had ever witnessed in his life. And if we're not careful, the promises of God sometimes can seem to us to be too good to be true. David though, he's been told these things. He's been told, no, you're not gonna build a house for me, not you. And God's told him and promised him these things to build his house. And so then David, he comes before him And I don't want to dissect it too deeply, but I do just want to give you a little bit of the structure of David's response back to God. And as we see it, I pray that it will help us to see David in his belief to, and as I was thinking about that, I just imagine, and you see sometimes in the scriptures where someone, they'll just, they'll grab onto the hem of a skirt, or they'll grab onto someone's feet, or they'll grab onto the mantle, and it's like they're just trying to grab ahold. And here David is, he's been given these promises, and it's like he's trying to grab ahold of what God, has just given to him. So he starts his prayer by admitting his unworthiness. Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house that thou hast brought me hitherto? And this was yet a small thing in thy sight, O Lord God, but thou hast spoken also of thy servant's house for a great while to come. David acknowledged that even up to this point in his life, he had received blessings from God that he had not deserved. all the things that led to him, his anointing to be king when he was a young shepherd. Yes, the Bible says that he is a man after God's own heart, but make no mistake, God didn't look at David and say, there's David, he deserves everything I am about to give him. David did not earn these promises. God freely gave them. And we'll see that in David's prayer in just a moment. But David acknowledged that even up to this point, he was not a man of prestige, being the son of Jesse, though a great name that his father had. He was the youngest son. Even Samuel, the great, and Samuel was a great and mighty prophet. Even Samuel, as God is speaking to him and telling him to go to Jesse, Samuel goes off and he starts to look at the oldest and then the next one and the next one. Even Samuel, as close to God as he was, didn't comprehend that David would be the one that God would select. and that God would bring David. And then God would do all these wonderful things to establish David's throne over all of Israel. To bring the ark, to give him rest from his enemies, to give him victory in all these battles. And you can read in 2 Samuel, it was battle after battle. The Philistines and the Edomites and the Ammonites and all these different ones that David and the Israelites would go to battle against and God was giving them great victories. And make no mistake, it wasn't because David was a military genius, God was giving them the victories. Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house that thou hast brought me hitherto? Even where God had brought David up to this point in time was more than what David deserved And now God has opened up the fount of his blessings. And this was yet a small thing in thy sight, O Lord God, but thou hast spoken also of thy servant's house for a great while to come. David approached God at a place of humility. As I was thinking about this, is David and is, approaching God as we often do as we kneel down in prayer. He's approaching God and we're setting the stage and as you think about, I was just thinking through this and I enjoy playing board games and there's different rules and you'll set the games up and you'll read the rules and how you play. David and God are talking with each other. It's through Nathan. Nathan has been an intermediary for God, but God has spoken to David, and David's speaking back to God. And it's like David is setting the stage. He's setting the pieces in place, and the pieces are such that he has nothing of himself to bring to the table but to acknowledge what God has done. That's the entry point of David's prayer. From there, David acknowledges the source, and I had mentioned this, he acknowledges the source of these great blessings. He says, and what can David say more unto thee? For thou, Lord God, knowest thy servant. God is not surprised. God is, he knows who David is. He knows where David came from. For thou, Lord God, knowest thy servant. And then what does he say? For thy words' sake, and according to thine own heart, hast thou done all these great things to make thy servant know them. David acknowledges that God is the source. He is the fount from where these blessings flow. It was according to, it is for God's words sake. It was for His words sake. And according to God's own heart. It was in God's heart to do this. God's heart, God's sovereign will, God's good pleasure was the source of where this promise was coming from. And after he acknowledges that it came from God's heart, for his word's sake, that God was the source of this, then David, he then recounts to God and he takes a step back and he establishes a foundation of where God has already been faithful to his word. "'Wherefore thou art great, O Lord God, "'for there is none like thee, "'neither is there any God beside thee, "'according to all that we have heard with our ears.'" And then in 23 and 24, he says, "'And what one nation in the earth is like thy people, "'even like Israel, whom God went to redeem "'for a people to himself and to make him a name, "'and to do for you great things and terrible, "'for thy land before thy people, which thou redeemest to thee from Egypt. He's going back hundreds of years to where God had redeemed his people from Egypt. And then from the nations and their gods. God had already made some precious promises and David was taking hold of them and saying, You have already promised and look what you have already done. He's setting a foundation for God's faithfulness to his word. God had said that they would be his people and he would be their God. He had promised to deliver them from bondage in Egypt and what did he do? He delivered them with a strong hand. He promised that he would bring them into a promised land that he had promised centuries before to their ancestors. And where was David? Kneeled down, it said he sat down. Where was he sitting down? And speaking these words, he was sitting in the promised land. God had been faithful. And David acknowledged that. And then we get to verse 25. So David, he's set the stage, he's coming to God in humility. He's acknowledging what God has done. He's acknowledging that God's sovereign will and his good pleasure of his heart is where this is proceeding from. And then he has recounted how God has been faithful. And then he takes hold of these promises that he has just received. And what does he do? He prays them right back to God. And now, O Lord God, the word that thou hast spoken concerning thy servant and concerning his house, establish it forever and do as thou hast said. From a logical standpoint, sometimes telling God to do what God has said he's going to do doesn't always seem to make logical sense. If God has said he's gonna do it, he's gonna do it. He's not looking for us to tell, he doesn't need us to tell him to do what he's promised to do. His promises don't rely on us telling him and reminding him of them. He's perfectly capable in his omniscience to remember his promises to his people. But David, in my mind, this is David and this is both a part of his worship and this is a part of David as he is taking and he's trying to wrap his hands and his mind and his heart around these promises. And all he knows to do is say, God, this is wonderful what you have promised me. Do it, Lord, as you have said. How is David able to take and with boldness to say, establish to, he says, and concerning his house, establish it forever? How is David able to say with confidence and to tell God to establish his house forever? How is he able to do that? Because it's coming from God. It's God's word. And it is secure. And he does this again and again and again. And let thy name be magnified forever, saying, the Lord of hosts is the God over Israel. And then what does he say? And let the house of thy servant David be established before thee. Again, he's just repeating the promise that God has just given him. David said, I will build you a house. And God said, no, I will build you a house. And David turns around and he says, you said it God, you revealed to me saying you will build for me a house. Therefore, How has David been able to approach God in this way? How is he able to go and pray this prayer to God? It's because God has revealed this to him. Therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee. And now, O Lord God, thou art that God, and thy words be true, and thou hast promised this goodness unto thy servant. And so how does he end his prayer? Therefore now, let it please thee, to what? To bless the house of thy servant, that it may continue forever before thee. For thou, O Lord God, hast spoken it. And with thy blessing, let the house of thy servant be blessed forever. If King Saul had tried to go approach God and pray these words to God, they would have been hollow. Why? Because God had not promised Saul these things. In fact, God had clearly told Saul that he was going to take the kingship and remove it from him and give it to another. Saul didn't have a ground to stand on to present these words and to tell God to establish his kingdom forever and to establish it through his house and his descendants forever. Saul didn't have the ability to do this in the rightful way because he didn't have the word of God to stand on. But David did. David did. And so he takes hold of these promises and he believes what God has promised. And he repeats them to God again and again and again, I believe, to rejoice in it, to worship the one who promised it, and to establish it in his own heart that this is the word of God. And then the last thing I'll say is that as we go through this prayer is that David, he says these things and obviously David is, he has a player in this game, right? He's in the middle of this promise. He is, dynasty, his children, his children's children is at stake in the promises that are made. So David has a lot to gain from God doing these things. But then why, why does David ask for God to do these things? And let thy name be magnified forever. saying, the Lord of hosts is the God over Israel. David was, he wasn't the source. God, he already admitted that it came from God's own heart, that God was the source of these blessings and these great promises. And so they have flowed out of God and they have flowed into David and his family, that they would be blessed and that his dynasty and his throne would continue forever. And what then is the end game? Is it so that David's name would be magnified? No. No, the end game is that it goes right back to the source of where it came, that the name of God would be magnified forever. And while we still recount David, we read about him through redemptive history, we read about him through the word of God, and we read about his life, we read about how God used him, we read about his kingship, we read about his utter and terrible failures as a man and as a king and as a child of God. It's not David's name that we lift up. These promises aren't so that David's name would ring out in this church building here in the year 2025. These promises are here so that the name of God through our Savior Jesus Christ would be magnified. David was just a vessel for the blessings of God to flow through. so that the worship and honor and glory and praise would go right back to where it belongs, back to God himself. I often find some of these prayers that we read through the scriptures to be Beautiful prayers, encouraging, strengthening even for me. Sometimes I feel like I struggle in my prayer life and the words to say and how to express and just how cluttered my mind and my heart can get sometimes with the things of this world. And you go back to some of the prayers, go back to the prayer of Solomon as he's dedicating the temple. It's a beautiful prayer. This is a beautiful prayer as David acknowledges the promise that God has just given him. But I don't want us to just look at this promise. We're not just, I mentioned to stand back and to look at the rose and the beauty of it, and there is beauty in this prayer. There's beauty in seeing what God promised to David, and there's beauty in seeing David's humble and worshipful response back to God. But this isn't just something, a rose, a flower to be admired. It's not just a story to be told. It's not just something to look back on and to think how amazing it was that this man from the past said these things. David received a promise from God. Have we received any promises from God? We may not have a prophet, Nathan. God maybe isn't, he doesn't speak to us in the exact same way. We don't have, if there was someone that came to you and said, God gave me this dream and here's all that God told me in this dream to tell you that this is all that happened, you would probably be skeptical as you probably should be. I don't believe that God is giving new revelation in that way at this point in redemptive history, but he doesn't have to. David was listening to the words of Nathan, and he trusted Nathan as a man of God that was speaking on behalf of God, and as Nathan was speaking these words to him, he took them as the word of God and he held them as truth. Brothers and sisters, we have the word of God. And we have advantages, though we don't, David had the benefit of God calling him by name and saying, David, David, here is what I am going to do for you. We don't have the advantage of these promises being directed to us as an individual specifically by name, that it is something that only Jesse Miller can hold on to. But we have something that David didn't have. We have the full canon of scripture in the word of God, and we have beautiful and precious promises throughout these scriptures. a clearer understanding of God's redemptive plan in our Savior Jesus Christ. Things that Abraham and Moses and David, they caught glimpses of and they saw through a glass darkly and there was types and shadows and figures. And we have the gospel good news of our Savior Jesus Christ that's been passed down in this word of God. Century after century after century. And brothers and sisters, these promises are meant for us. When you find promises, when you find things in the scripture, if you are one of His, if you are in the family of God, if you are a follower of our Savior, Jesus Christ, pardoned from your sins through faith and repentance, when you find these promises, and I encourage you, Dig into it. There's a treasure, there's a gold mine in here of precious words meant for us. Not meant for us just to understand as a history lesson, but meant for us to grab a hold of and grasp for ourselves, for our benefit, for our present state and for our eternal future. And when you find those promises, when you're reading through the Word, when Brother Brad or whoever your pastor is, whoever is preaching the Word of God, and in your personal study, in your congregational study, as you come upon these things, I encourage you to take a hold of them. It may be hard to grasp, you may still struggle with feelings of fear, and of shame, and of doubt, and of uncertainty from time to time. And sometimes the promises of God may seem too good, or too wonderful, or perhaps they're meant for someone else, but you don't take them personally for you. I would encourage you to pray Him back to God. You're not standing on your own two legs. You're not standing on your own abilities, your own talent, your own wisdom. You're not standing on your own capabilities to serve Him and do it well and be this or be that. You're not standing on yourself. You are standing on the very words of God. And as you grab a hold of those promises, believe them, and then worship Him. Worship Him. Just like David, we're not the source of any of these blessings that we receive. And we're not the end game. our honor, our glory. God's blessed us with unimaginable, unimaginable, incomprehensible things that he has promised us that we are to live by now. These promises aren't just for an eternal home in heaven one day after a while. There are promises rich and pure meant for us now. And then there are promises that we get to meditate on and dwell on and grasp ahold of and pray to God again and again and again until they are secured for us in an eternal future when our Savior returns. Praying back to God. As I was praying and meditating on this and I'll share with you a little bit. I was thinking through and one of the things I seem to struggle with so often is going through life and the promise of God's sanctification, the promise that He is going to work in us, and He is going to mold us, and He is going to make us more like Him. And it's like a bar of soap sometimes, it feels like, and you're trying to grasp a hold of it, and then you feel like things are going well, and I feel like I'm moving along, and it's like, God, I'm seeing it, I'm seeing it, and then all of a sudden, the sin that I thought I was sanctified from, all of a sudden, it comes, and it knocks me upside the head. And it's like, God, I thought I was past this. I thought you had sanctified me from this, not of myself, not that I become some great thing, but Lord, the work that you're doing, Lord, it feels like I have just fallen flat on my face again. Are you still working in me? Is it still there, Lord? I feel like I've failed yet again. So I go back and I went back as I was looking at David's prayer and I went back and I started looking at some of the scriptures and I'll just give you a couple verses here. In Philippians 1 and 6 it says, being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. And then in 1 Thessalonians 5, 23 through 24, it says, this is Paul writing to the church at Thessalonica, he says, and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly. And I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it. So I have to go back. I have to go back to his word. And if it was up to my strength, if it was up to me, I would utterly fall. So I go back and I try to grab a hold of those promises, grab a hold of his word. And so I wrote out this prayer. And I'll close with this. Who am I, oh Lord God? Why would you in your sovereign will call me, bring me to a place of repentance and faith, save me, and adopt me into your family? And yet what you have blessed me with so far is only a foreshadowing, a taste compared to what you have planned for me, oh Lord. You have made many great and wonderful promises for my present help and my eternal future. What can I say more unto you? For you, Lord God, know exactly who I am. You know my frame that I am dust. You know my sin. For your word's sake, and according to your own heart, have you done all these great things for me, and have caused me to know them through your spirit and through your word. Wherefore, you are great, O Lord. There is none like you. There is no other God besides you who can speak these wonderful things and bring them to pass. who in the earth is like your people, whom you have redeemed for a people unto you through the work of Jesus Christ, to glorify your name and do your mighty work within our hearts to redeem us from slavery to sin and turn us from our rebellion toward you. You have brought us to yourself to live for you, to live through you, and to live with you forever and ever. You have done this through your amazing grace because it is pleasing in your sight. You have given us Jesus to pay our debt and save us from our sins. And now, oh Lord God, the word that you have spoken concerning your child, to sanctify me wholly, establish your word forever, and do as you have said. Let your name be magnified forever, and let my spirit and my soul and my body be preserved blameless unto the coming of my Lord Jesus Christ. For you, O Lord of hosts, my God, have revealed to me, saying that he which hath begun a good work in me will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul was confident in this very thing, and I will hold fast to the promise of your word. Therefore, I have found in my heart to pray this prayer unto thee. And now, Lord, you are an unchanging God, and your words are true with which you have promised unto me goodness and mercy beyond my comprehension. Therefore now, let it please you to bless me and to complete the good work that you have begun in me until King Jesus returns. You have proven to be faithful in all things. You have called me, and you have promised that you also will sanctify me by your spirit and your power. For you, O Lord, God, have spoken it. With the blessing of your precious promises, may I be blessed forever for your honor and your glory. Amen. I don't know what promises you maybe are struggling to grasp onto today. But brothers and sisters, it's not about us. It's not on my word. It's not on Brother Brad's word. It's not on your word. It's not on our truth and our abilities. We stand upon the word of God. and upon the work of our Savior, Jesus Christ. There is no firmer foundation for us to believe, to believe the promises of God, and through that, to worship Him.