How many of y'all sinned against the Lord? How many of y'all have done some horrible, ugly stuff? And you thought life's been worse than some of the things you've done, right? But notice what he says. Verse 18 says, who is a God like you? Is there anyone like him? He stands alone, doesn't he? Pardoning iniquity, and iniquity means wickedness, the wicked intent. Pardoning means he lifts the burden of it, he lifts it. and passing beyond or over the transgression of the remnant of his heritage. That says I know what you've done, I've seen what you've done, but I'm not going to let what you've done hinder me from doing something in your life. And that is he will go beyond what you've done and he'll deal with the issue of why you did it. He'll deal with the heart. He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in mercy. He will again have compassion on us and he will subdue. He will conquer all our what? What will he conquer? Isn't that what Jesus did at the cross? I will subdue all your iniquities. And when I do, what does he promise he'll do? I will cast all your sins in the depth of the sea. Oh, you will give truth to the deceiver, Jacob, and you will give mercy to Abraham, which you have promised, sworn to our fathers from days of old, amen. Man, you know what the cross is? It's been one long promise of what God was going to do for His people. and we get the trust in Jesus. And when you put your trust in Jesus, he makes you a new creation, he deals with the old nature, and gives you something new to walk in, to walk with him. He conquers that which separates us from him, salvages our life, makes us safe with a holy God, and then makes us safe to send out to do his work. Man, that is good news, amen? That is good news. You got to put your confidence in Him though, because God ain't going to share His glory with nobody. Amen. You got to put your confidence in Him. Trust Him. Trust Him, church. Trust Him. Amen. Trust Him. May we at Briggs Chapel put all our confidence in Jesus, in Jesus, in Jesus, and let Him be the unique God that he is in our life, amen. For his goodness, amen. Amen. And his grace. Look, why don't you take the revelation you brought. Let's take the Bibles you brought with you today. If you don't have a Bible, you can look on the corner of your pews and you can keep up with us. We're gonna be in the book of Micah. It's an Older Testament book of Micah. We've been reading through it. We're wrapping up with it today. But if you go to Isaiah Make your way to Jeremiah and Daniel, Hosea. You're going to come to Amos, then Jonah, and you will land in Micah. Micah. Micah is an Older Testament messenger that we find quoted in the Newer Testament. And it is a rich, rich word that goes in and out, in and out of what was going on in that day, as well as what God was promising would come in a future day. So that is an extremely important message. You can write down beside, if you keep things, notes in your Bible, you can write in there Romans chapter 15 and verse number four, What Romans 15.4 says that that which was written in previous days, he uses a word like aforetime, in times gone by, it was written for us. It was written for our learning. So when you read these things, the Bible tells us, the Bible as a whole, and the Older Testament in particular, was written for our learning that through the faithfulness of the scriptures, the reliability of the scriptures, that we might have hope. that resting in the fact that we've seen God do what God has promised to do is a hope builder, that we have a God who's faithful. And all God's people said? Amen. Who's trustworthy. So the high points and the low points, the good and the ugly, the difficult and the delivering, all of that comes from the Lord. And when we read these things, we see that there is the goodness and the severity that comes with God. Paul refers to it. Hold your spot in Micah and look in Romans. Go to Romans 11. I think he uses that phrase, Romans 11. Let's use our Bibles. You could use your phone too. If you have an app on your phone or an iPad, that can be, Something that is usable, you can take some of these things and refer to them because they're talking about some of the very things you're in Micah right now. For an example, let's just look in verse number 25. Look at 11.25. 11.25 says, Paul, as he writes to the church, he says, I do not desire, brethren, that you should be what? Okay. You can say the idea of being ignorant is being in the dark. That's what he's referring to. He don't want you to be in the dark on this. Because if you're in the dark on it, that is you don't know about it, what then you can only conclude you're ignorant about a thing. Doesn't mean you don't have the ability to know it. It just means you're in the dark on it. And he knew from insight that there were some things that God had done and is doing and will do that we just don't need to be in the dark on. And what you're reading through in Micah right now is things that he's talking about. that you don't wanna be in the dark on. That's why it's good for us to know them. And verse 25, he says that, I don't want you to be ignorant of this mystery. For fear, you should be wise in your own opinion. That is always an issue, that I can't walk humbly with God if I am wise in my own eyes. The only way to walk humbly with God, remember in Micah, if you're reading through it right now, Micah 6.8, he says, oh man, what does the Lord require of you? Three things he said, do what is right, love what is right, and walk in what is right. He said it like this, though, to do justly, to do righteousness, that is, to do life God's way, to love what God loves, he loves mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. That's the requirement of the Lord. Now, we are not gonna do that perfectly, but that ought to be an aim that we have. that I wanna do what God says is right, I want to love what God loves, because He is a merciful God, He's a kind God, He's loyal, isn't He? So I wanna love what is loyal to Him, because He loyally loves, and I want to walk in faith humbly with Him, because you can't walk with God without walking in faith with God. And you can't walk in faith with the Lord unless you're going with the Lord. And you can't walk in faith with the Lord unless you are working with Him when you walk by faith. So he's telling them here in Rome, a group of believers, that he wants them to know these things, that they should not be wise in their own opinion, that blindness in part that has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. Micah is dealing with that. Micah brings that to light as we walk through that. So Romans 11, 26 says, and so all Israel will be saved as it is written. that the deliverer will come out of Zion and he will turn away ungodliness for Jacob. That's where we was reading that God's gonna cut off everything. He's gonna cut off this and cut off that. Well, when he does that, he's gonna turn Jacob from living for useless things to living for him. This is gonna be a divine work of grace, verse 27. For this is my eternal covenant with them. That is, I've made this agreement and I'm gonna fulfill my end of the agreement. That is what a covenant is. When I take away their sins. Verse 28. Now concerning our good news, the gospel, currently the Jews are enemies for our sake. But concerning the divine election, they are the beloved for the sake of their fathers, that God made them promises. And he's gonna fulfill that promise. Verse 29, for the gifts and the calling of God are what? Irrevocable. You know that saying that you can rely upon the Lord, amen? You can't rely on people, you can't rely on things, but you can rely upon the Lord, you can count on him. Verse 30, for as you were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their disobedience, that is the Jews, how they treated Jesus. Verse 31, even so those also have now been disobedient that through the mercy shown you, us, the Gentiles, they also may obtain mercy. God's always working, isn't he? Everything he does is purposeful and intentional. Verse 32, for God has committed them, the Jew, them all, what has he committed them to? Unbelief or disobedience. That's why they don't believe as a whole. Right now, nationally, the Jews around the world do not, outside of those that trust Jesus, don't have a relationship with God. They don't belong to him. They're not his. They're spread out all over the world. That's part of the judgment of God. But see, God's made a promise one day, the Jews that are around the world, he's gonna bring back. Remember, that's what Micah's been telling. He's gonna bring them all back. And when he does, he's gonna show himself to them. And when they see him, he's gonna take away all their sins, all their transgressions. He's gonna remove every undefiled and polluted thing out of the land. And he's gonna make a people for whom he intended them to be from the beginning. But see God is the one who's going to faithfully do that They're not going to do it themselves because they can't do it themselves just like we can't do it But he can do it with us. Amen, and he can do it in us. He says verse 33 Oh, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has become his counselor or who has first given to him and it shall be repaid to him. For of him, that is of the Lord, and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever and ever. And all God's people said. Amen. And then notice what verse one of chapter 12 says. Knowing this, because I don't want to be in the dark on it. I want to know it. What do we then do? I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the way, by the loyal mercies and tender kindness of God, we then do what? Come humbly to the Lord and present our bodies as living sacrifices, wholly acceptable to God, which is our part, our reasonable service, that we be not conformed to this world. We don't let it shape us. but be transformed by what? The renewing of our mind that we may prove, verify, testify what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And all God's people said, man, what a calling, amen. What a calling. Well, that can't happen without God's mercy. That's not gonna happen without a word from the Lord. That's not gonna happen without his grace at work within us. And I just can't help but recall how important it is to put our full confidence in the Lord. There's always a danger if we trust in ourselves. There's always a danger if we trust in our society. There's always a danger if we put our trust in our government. There's always a danger if we put our trust in our military. There's always a danger. There's a danger, danger. Matter of fact, God tells us in Micah that their transgressions begin for them when they begin to put trust in their military might. and in their forces. That's where they begin to slip. And when they slip, when they fell into that, then they started putting trust in everything else besides the Lord. And the result is they reject God and then they replace Him with everything else. And that is, that's devastating for us as the people of God, to throw our hands up and say, God, we're gonna trust in our jobs, we're gonna trust in our insurance, we're gonna trust in our doctors, we're gonna trust in our medicines, we're gonna trust, because God does use, and all God's people say it, God uses things, but that's not where your trust lies. Your trust lies in who? Yet we got to put our confidence in Him. And today that's what I want more than anything else, just from Micah and what we've just read here, and in other places that are gonna remind us that we have to be extremely cautious of where we place in our confidence, who we place in our confidence in. devastating outcome, the consequences that you're reading about in Micah of what happens when a nation says we will do it our way instead of your way. And that just never works out for us in the positive when that happens. I'll give you a couple places to think about. Go to Jeremiah real quick. I'm going to show you, Michael, what I'm talking about. But if you go to Jeremiah, Jeremiah is a prophet that followed behind, come in years down the road, not too many years down the road, but enough down the road that we don't see a change happening. Micah gave a great word for us. A wondrous word of the faithfulness of the Lord. That there is none like Yahweh. There's none like God. And that's what Micah's name means. But chapter two of Jeremiah. Chapter two of Jeremiah. Notice what he says in verse number, let's just start at verse number 11. 2-11. Now he's gonna highlight something for us. And this is dealing with Judah. You have Israel and Judah. Israel's already been dispersed, Karen, at this point. All you got left is Judah, Jerusalem, and Jerusalem was a problem. And Micah's been dealing with it, but they didn't heed his message. So Jeremiah's gonna come in during the days that they're gonna take away Jerusalem. The Babylonians were gonna take them away, which Micah's been telling them it was coming. It was coming. Verse number 11. Has a nation changed its gods as a whole, which are not gods? I think Micah even brought that out. Let all the nations walk in their gods, but we will walk with the Lord. Has nations as a whole through the years, for an example, has the Ishmaelites, has the Iranians or the Iraqis changed their gods as a nation? Who do they serve? Allah through Ishmael through Mohammed, right? They still serve them, they're gonna serve them until Jesus comes back. Now, will God do works in them that they see Jesus and he saved some of them? Oh, he sure will, he has, and he's got missionaries planted there today, just like he's got missionaries in America. Is America a godly nation? No. Now, is the church to be a godly group of people? Yes, we are, but our country is not. It's not. And they serve idolatry. They serve themselves. They serve wealth. They serve power. No different than any other nation. We just got different names for who we serve as people. But he says here, has a nation changed its gods, which are not gods, but my people have changed their glory or their beauty. And who was to make them beautiful? Who was to make them splendid? Who was to make them a beautiful people? The Lord is, amen. But if you change that, that's not gonna happen. For what does not profit? Verse 12. Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid. Be very desolate, says the Lord, for my people have committed two evils. What are they? Number one, they have forsaken who? Just say they have rejected God. They've rejected him. They've forsaken me. The fountain of what? Living waters. Is Jesus not the fountain of living waters? Is not this God who we're talking about is the same God who come and took upon flesh and lived among us and laid his life down to purchase our life to redeem us? Isn't this the same God who redeemed Israel from Egypt and brought them out and gave them what they didn't deserve? This is the same God we're talking about. But what did they do? They rejected him. Well, when you reject him, what's the next thing they did? The two evils. And they have hewn themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot what? Okay, they have forsaken the fountain. In Sandean instead, they hewn out a hole to hold water that can't hold water. That is simply saying they've rejected God, but they've replaced him with something else. Now the replacement can't hold water. It's broken. Anything apart from God is broken. It's broken. It's no value, it's no good. So you see the two evils, that is, we reject him and then replace him. You see, that's the work of the Antichrist, isn't it? The Antichrist, when he comes on the scene in the future day, his objective, and the Bible tells us the Antichrist now, And there's been for a long time, you know, all these ungodly rulers, people like Sennacherib with the Assyrians, Nebuchadnezzar with the Babylonians, all these different nations, how God describes them as what? Lions and bears and leopards and all. He gives them beastly figures because beasts operate off of instinct, not off of divine providence. So these beastly contenders move in and what do they want to do? They want to what? Replace. that place that only belongs to God. And that's what an antichrist does. He rejects the authority to God, replaces that with something else, and then nullifies what God says. Well, think about how the Bible describes it in Revelation with the antichrist and the beast that's gonna come on. What does he call them? Calls them a dragon, that great beast that came out of the sea, it rose up out. Why? Because they're beastly, they contend for the glory of God. And man, there's nothing in this world that can actually legitimately substitute or replace the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. And all God's people say, there's nothing in your life, there's nothing in my life. Now, we're all prone because we have a fallen nature to cultivate that which cannot replace Him in our life. and there's a danger to it. Go to Leviticus 18. Let me show you what God told his people how to treat this when they walked into this land. Leviticus 18. I've been pondering this. I'm working on a little work to put something together around it, but I've been seeing it again and again and again, especially as we've been reading through these prophets that we've been reading about because this is what we see happening. Leviticus 18 in the first couple chapters. I just wanna introduce it to you today. If you haven't read it or heard it or even thought about it in quite some time and over a little bit, we'll pull some things together on this. But notice what God tells them, Leviticus 18. If you go back to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. We're dealing with the first five books of our Older Testament. Now, God speaks to Moses and this is what he says to the people. Now, this is what we gotta learn, Keith, right here. Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the children of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God. According to the doings of the land of Egypt, for which they just got delivered from, where they just came out of, According to the doings of what you knew in the past, for 430 years, they lived in Egypt. That's much longer than we've been a nation. Double the time. 430 years, that was their homeland. He says, where you dwelt. You shall not what? You shall not do according to their doings of the land of Canaan where I'm what? Bringing you, you shall not do, nor shall you walk in their ordinances. So we see two things here. You have your past life that you've only known. This is all you've ever known of how the Egyptians did life. You could no longer walk in that way anymore. I'm changing everything about you and how you live and how you to think. I know you lived there from childhood all the way up and that's all you know is what you've seen them do. That's all you've ever had. That's all you've ever experienced. You know, you've heard me say about my life. I told y'all last week, my mom and dad loved me and my two brothers and they poured into us. They gave us everything they had to give us. Now, was it always easy? No. Was my dad hard? Yes. Did my mama show great compassion and love toward us? She did, but it was always without Jesus. He was never part of my family. He was never part of our life. Very rarely did we ever go to a church service. If we did, it was usually around a special holiday, kind of like an Easter or Christmas. That's kind of when, if we were to go, Or sometimes they would let us go to vacation Bible school with some neighbors that would come pick us up. And I didn't like going. I didn't like anything about it. I was in a foreign world when I showed up at church. So I know how it is for sometimes these little boys and girls to come into the house of the Lord that have not ever been around God's people. I know what it's like to go into classroom where there's a teacher there telling me things about Jonah and about Noah and about Abraham that I didn't know who they were or what they had done or what they could do or talking about Jesus I didn't know who Jesus was I didn't know what Jesus had done for me and I didn't like going I didn't want him to tell me that kind of stuff I I would rather be running barefooted with no shirt on, finding a creek to get in, or having a shotgun or a pellet gun. I would rather be killing birds than go to Sunday school. That's what I did. Man, all we did was stay in the woods. We built forts and tree houses. We explored. We played baseball. We played football. We fought. Every day somebody was fighting. We was heathens. If we could get into it, we got into it. We'd find an old house somewhere and if they left paint in it, we'd paint the house. And you know what I'd get? Woe out. All the time. That was my childhood. But Jesus was never in it. Never in it. Well, there's a lot of people in our land today. That's their life too. I know that. I've been there. I know what it's like to come in and somebody say, turn to Leviticus. And it's like, where in the world is Leviticus? What is Leviticus? I don't know nothing about Leviticus. Who is he? Where is he? I just didn't know. But I'm grateful for people who were patient with me. Who were gentle with me. Amen. Gave me a little time. Worked with me. But he says here, you can't live like that anymore. I'm changing that. But I'm bringing you into somewhere. And when you get into that land, you can't live like them either. Notice that. You can't live what you used to live and you can't learn the ways of the land you're going to live in now. What does that mean? Where am I going to learn from? Who's going to teach me? God says, I'm going to teach you. And I'm going to show you how to live. But they get to a place where they say, we don't wanna live that away anymore. We reject that and then replace it with what? The very thing that he says they were not to live by, the ways of the land. And that always leads to trouble. It leads to trouble. That's where we are in Micah. Look in Joshua. Let me show you this, Joshua. Yeah, just go to Joshua. you go past Leviticus you'll come to Numbers and then you'll get into Deuteronomy and then you'll get to Joshua. Look in Joshua chapter 10 and 11. Joshua chapter 10 and 11. Now Joshua is the one who stepped in for Moses. When Moses died, Joshua took the lead and he's the one who led them into this new land that they were to conquer and not live by. They were not to live those ways. They were to live by God's ways. But over time and generations past, matter of fact, when Joshua died and then the next generation died, judges tell us the next generation didn't even know who the Lord was. It only took one generation. One generation, that was it. One set of parents who decides I've had enough with this thing of God and I'm gonna reject him and replace it with something else. Now you've got future generations that know nothing about God. That sounds a lot like our land today, doesn't it? There's been generations that have gone by in America that have well-taught their kids. Some of you have a long history of being taught, but I didn't, and many don't. But in Joshua chapter 10, I want you to just look at a word or two. Look in verse number 32, and I'm just gonna bring out this, because this is gonna be important for us as we look at it in Micah. Look in 10.32, and the Lord delivered what? What's that word, Lachish? Lachish. He delivered Lachish into the hand of Israel who took it on the second day and struck it and all the people who were in it with the edge of the sword according to all that he had done in Libna. Just an illustration there. Now, this is gonna be important for us because Lachish was a low-lying country that was suitable, it was a suitable place to raise horses. Ideal. You know, there's places around America and there's places in the South that are more ideal for horse raising. people who have horses and raising them in certain environments with certain types of terrain. Over in the Montgomery area is a great place for horse raising, to raise horses. A lot of horse farms over there, huh? Didn't y'all live over in the Montgomery area for a period of time? A lot of horse farms over there. Where I grew up, Covington, Louisiana, just north of us in a place called Folsom-Franklton area, is really big on horse land. A lot of horse farms are up there. A lot of people out of New Orleans, you know, you got that racetrack in New Orleans that are there, a horse racetrack. So they raised them horses over there because the land is ideal for it. Lakish was an ideal place for horses. Now, when they conquered this, there was another set of kings they were going to conquer. And notice what God told them to do. Look in chapter 11. In verse number six, and there's a reason why God done this, and this will help us understand some of the issues that were going on in Micah's day. Verse six, 11 six of the book of Joshua. But the Lord said to Joshua, do not be afraid because of them. For tomorrow, about this time, our God will deliver all them slain before Israel. Now when he does it, what are you to do? You shall, number one, you shall hamstring their horses and you shall what? Burn their chariots with fire. You're to hamstring the horse. and burn their chariots. Number, go down a little bit for verse eight. And the Lord delivered them into the hand of Israel, who defeated them and chased them. Look down at the close of that. And they attacked them until none of them were remaining. Verse nine, so Joshua did to them as the Lord had told him. He hamstrung their horses and he burned their chariots with fire. To hamstring a horse, what you do is you take and cut the tendon on the back leg. So the horses make them immobile. That was a decree that God told them. Why do you think God told them to hamstring those horses and burn their chariots? So they wouldn't put reliance upon them. Who were they to totally rely upon? The Lord Himself. Did they need the horses and chariots to fight these other nations? They didn't need them. God was delivering them in their hand. But if they held on to them, because I want to tell you, those horses and those chariots had an appeal to them. When you think about today, for an example, let's compare a horse and a chariot with today's modern warfare. That would be like a, what, an F-18 or a big tank or whatever it is. It was just a means that the military would use to fight battles with. And for a man on his feet with nothing but a sword in his hand and A chariot pulled by steeds would run by him and nothing he can do, but they would cut him in half. He was defenseless against that, but not when God fights for you, amen. But if they put their confidence in those horses and chariots, you know what that would do? They would reject the Lord and replace him with something else. Now go to Micah and let me show you how this happened. Micah, look at Micah, go back to Micah one. Look in 1.13. Micah 1.13. God had forbidden them to use horses and chariots. Matter of fact, David said in the Psalms, it's a vain thing to put faith or trust in horses and chariots. It's an empty thing. It's a deadly thing with the Lord to do it. Verse 13 says, oh, inhabitants of who? Lachish. Remember, Lachish is in the same area that these people in the promised land used their horses and chariots. But he told them, don't learn the ways of the land. But you see what they've done? They've taken the identity of the land. Notice what he says here. Go ahead and harness the chariot to the what? swift steeds, see, because they had chariots and they had horses. And notice the phrase in there that is, to highlight it. She, that is Lachish, was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion. For the transgressions of Israel were what? Found in you. Notice that, the beginning. The beginning. You know where it began? It began when they stopped relying upon the Lord. When they stopped relying upon the Lord, when they started putting confidence in everything else, it just started with one thing. The horses and the chariots, you know what it led to? All the other stuff they were doing. Because once you go down that road, once you take that step, of rejecting what the Lord says and then replacing it with the ways of the world, now everything else is going to flood into your life and it's going to be a whole lot easier to reject Him again and replace it with something else. Reject Him again and replace it with something else. And then over a period of time, you get to a place where you look like what we're reading in Micah, where God says, I'm gonna come in, but when I come in, I'm cutting all that off. You wouldn't separate from it, so now I have to intervene and take it all from you. And when I take it from you, when I bring the rod upon you, you're gonna be more sick over what I take from you than the fact that you're not living for me right now. Now that's an ugly thing, isn't it? Isn't that what he did with Judah and Jerusalem because they put so much confidence in that temple. They loved that temple more than they did the Lord. Because they loved that temple more than they did the Lord when God took him in the Babylon He told Ezekiel you go to him and you tell him I'm fixing to destroy the temple the delight of your eyes which you love more than me because you're gonna be more upset over that temple than the fact that you have Transgressed have been sinning against me. Your heart is not to walk with me You would rather just have something that identifies you with me, but you really don't want to walk with me You see how this leads into that? That's what was going on. They just let other things replace the goodness and the grace and the glory of God in the life. Now is that something we gotta fight for? Oh man, do we live in a world that's constantly bombarding us? with putting trust in this and putting confidence in that and we can rely upon this. Hey, there's nothing wrong with having a doctor that can give you some advice on things you don't have any clue about. There's nothing wrong with getting in a nice vehicle and making a ride across America to go wherever you got to go. There's nothing wrong with this or with that. There's nothing wrong with having a good job. There's nothing wrong with having insurance, but what's wrong is when it is put in front of relying upon the Lord. Amen. That's when it gets out of balance. They were out of balance and they put their confidence in their steeds and their chariots and it just led to one problem after the other. So what is the warning for us? How can we take this admonition? that, hey, Jesus said, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and he will take care of everything else, amen? He said, don't worry about all that other stuff. I know what you need. I know when you need it. I know how you need it, but seek me first. Seek me first so that you can walk humbly with me, so that you can do what is right. and that you can love the right kind of way. Tonight we'll gather back and we're gonna look at a few other things that are laid out through this. But what you'll constantly see in the book of Micah is these warnings and these wows that God says he's gonna do and that he's gonna do for those that trust him. and what he's even gonna do in a future day that you can't help but say, wow, what a God we serve, amen. What a God we serve. And there's so much in this that is brought to light in the newer Testament that we're reading through right now. Like the promise of a birth of a child that's gonna come out of Bethlehem. Y'all know his name, who is he? See Micah tells us about him, amen. And you know what he said he's going to do? He's going to shepherd my people. You know what he said he's going to do? I'm going to feed my people. They're going to be like a flock that I lead and guide and shepherd. I'll stand among them and shepherd them and they will remain and follow me. See, Micah talks about all that. Micah also says when you do follow after me, there's going to be people not only in the public, but there'll be people in your own personal family that won't follow me. And as a result, they'll become an enemy to you, not you to them, but them to you, because they don't want anything to do with this Jesus who you keep preaching. and living for. You see, God's people don't approach anybody as a way of an enemy, but a world around us will approach us and see us as a threat because of the stand that we take upon walking with the Lord. God's people do what? Like Jesus, what did he do? He looked beyond what we've done and he deals with the issue of our heart, doesn't he? Look in chapter seven of Micah and we'll close it out with that. Look in chapter seven. I want you to go home with this thought today. And just remember that, hey, everybody in here, how many of y'all have messed up? How many of y'all have sinned against the Lord? How many of y'all have done some horrible, ugly stuff? And you thought life's been worse than some of the things you've done, right? But notice what he says. Verse 18 says, who is a God like you? Is there anyone like him? He stands alone, doesn't he? Pardoning iniquity, and iniquity means wickedness, the wicked intent. Pardoning means he lifts the burden of it, he lifts it. and passing beyond or over the transgression of the remnant of his heritage. That says I know what you've done, I've seen what you've done, but I'm not going to let what you've done hinder me from doing something in your life. And that is he'll go beyond what you've done and he'll deal with the issue of why you did it. He'll deal with the heart He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in mercy. He will again have compassion on us and he will subdue. He will conquer all our what? Verse 19, what will he conquer? Isn't that what Jesus did at the cross? I will subdue all your iniquities. And when I do, what does he promise he'll do? I will cast all your sins in the depth of the sea. Oh, you will give truth to the deceiver, Jacob, and you will give mercy to Abraham, which you have promised, sworn to our fathers from days of old. Amen. Man, you know what the cross is? It's been one long promise of what God was going to do for His people. and we get the trust in Jesus. And when you put your trust in Jesus, he makes you a new creation, he deals with the old nature, and gives you something new to walk in, to walk with him. He conquers that which separates us from him, salvages our life, makes us safe with a holy God, and then makes us safe to send out to do his work. Man, that is good news, amen? That is good news. You gotta put your confidence in him, though. Because God ain't gonna share his glory with nobody, amen? You gotta put your confidence in him. Trust him, trust him, church, trust him, amen? Trust him. May we at Briggs Chapel put all our confidence in Jesus, in Jesus, in Jesus, and let him be the unique God that he is in our life, amen? Father, we bless you, we thank you, We ask you to help us with this today. We look to you right now and depend on you. I pray for those that may have not put their confidence in you. We'll trust you right now that you will set them free. You will subdue them. You will conquer them. Thank you for your shed blood that forgives us. Thank you for paying the ransom for our life. Thank you for liberating us from the bondage of sin and unbelief. And thank you for setting us free to justly follow. after you. We love you and praise you now in Jesus' name, amen. Would you stand with us? What are we gonna sing, brother? 305, 305. Yes, that's him. All in all. Yes, he did. I sing another stanza. Some of you want to remember the old world will see the stain. They still see the stain of sin, but Jesus will make it white as snow. Man! Glory be! Yes. And all God's people said, Amen, you may be seated, you may be seated. Anybody have anything before we go? Y'all come on up here. Lisa's come this morning and it just says she's tired of just fighting and doing things on her own and wanted just to lay it down and rededicate her life. And I asked if we could share that publicly and she said sure, she would love that. Why? Because she needs you to be praying with her, amen? So she's come today and her brother Charles Y'all come on up afterwards if y'all would, let them know your commitment to pray for them. And what we would encourage you to do would be as Michael would say, hey, walk humbly with the Lord. Surrender day by day. Let him work in you to do what he wants you to do. and let him fill you up with his presence. That's one thing they didn't have. We got the Holy Spirit living in us. Amen. That will, his life being lived out of us. So praise ye the Lord. Amen. So she comes today in repentance and repentance is saying, Lord, refocus me, renew me, refresh me. I want to walk with you. I want to walk with you. I need your help. So what an encouragement. Amen. Amen. So we give God the glory. What does the scripture say that when one person repents and gets things right with the Lord, what does the scripture say? All heaven does what? Rejoice. Heaven. Amen. What he said. What he said. The family of God rejoices and gives God's glory. Amen. If we don't have anything else, we'll close out with a word of prayer. And before we do that, though, I wanna do something. I got thinking about it. Miss Johnetta had her 101st birthday in July. She wasn't with us, but we sure sing happy birthday to her today, can't we? Amen, let's do that. She's listening. You hear me? We're gonna sing happy birthday to you. All right, y'all ready? Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Miss Johnetta. Happy birthday to you. What's all the grandkids calling? Granny? Happy birthday, Granny, amen. 101, man, praise the Lord. Says she's only been to the doctor one time this year. That's something, ain't it? One time, one time. But she would ask you to be praying for her sister. Her only other sibling left is not doing very well right now, so we'll be praying for her, okay? All right. Well, look, I'm gonna ask if, Brother Greg, if you would say a word of prayer with us before we go today, and y'all come by and give the Nicholson's your love. Amen? Amen. Thank you, brother. Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for this time that we've been able to come together in your house. Lord, we thank you for your word. You poured out for us this morning. Take it deep into our thoughts, Lord, to study you more, Lord, and to do more of what you help us to do day by day. So most of all, I'm just looking to you and following you to thank you for Lisa this morning for coming and rededicating her life to you. Lord, we ask that you just bless her and Brother Charles from this day forward. Always thank you for our church family, and I ask that you please each and every one of them that you just give us a blessed day. Amen.