When we're thinking straight, we have nothing else to glory in. But what great rejoicing we have in Christ. So glad to have the Herbsters here. For those that weren't here already this morning at our 10 o'clock hour, or don't know them, these are missionaries to Hong Kong. And so, especially if you don't know them, I trust you'll take the opportunity to get to know them today. They'll be with us this evening. And just a reminder that we have tonight and one more evening of our Summer Bible Institute. So at 6 o'clock, our Kids for Truth Club will meet, and our teens and young adults studying the Gospel of Mark, and then we have our I have elective classes for our adults, so all that will be at six. And then we have the time of fellowship afterwards. So stay and join us. And amongst other things, get an opportunity to spend a little more time with the Herbsters. And I was just glad personally that Matt could still get up and down the stairs to the platform. I mean, he became a grandpa and turned 50 in the same week. I thought it might be a double blow, you know, where he may not So, I don't know, the family, you know, there's a lot of rejoicing and mourning at the same time, I guess, this week, but we so appreciate their fellowship. I want to say thank you on the part of our family, and honestly, just from my own heart, how many of you made the trip up to Tennessee for our son's wedding, and really a blessing. I didn't hear the final count, but I think it was up around 70 people that made the drive from here. to go up and adjust, and I know others can't, so please don't think I'm thinking negatively about others that didn't, but really appreciate your encouragement and just the sense of church family. I want to share one anecdote. I wasn't going to do it this morning, and then I looked out and saw all these teenagers, but a fellow from And young adults, a fellow from the church in Tennessee just said, that part of the testimony in the wedding needs to be given again and again. And the part he was referring to was Sandra, Daniel's now wife, before she went off to school for her junior year, had told her parents. that she didn't know anyone that she was attracted to, that she had common interests with, that was a godly man, in particular, that didn't have music issues. And she told her parents that would pass the conservative test in our family. And her mom, in particular, said with her, well, Sandra, you trust that to the Lord, and don't go out chasing that. But let the Lord bring that kind of a man to you and he can do it. And mom committed to praying every day after she heard that, that God would bring someone to chase her down was her wording. And same time frame things that, you know, Daniel and Hannah, neither of them dated. And I was actually in at a function. Daniel's trombone choir was playing on campus, and I got to have lunch with Daniel and Hannah. And some guy came up to Daniel and said, who are you taking to the next artist series? And he said, my sister Hannah. And that guy, I'm standing right there, and he said, you keep doing that, you guys are never going to get married. I know who he is, and he's very single. And Daniel's very married and Hannah's just a few months away from that. But the Lord started to work in Daniel. There's some family connections and mutual friends and somebody offered to get Daniel Sandra's phone number. And she said that she communicated with her parents, Mom, should I let so-and-so give my phone number to this guy? And her mom said, Sandra, absolutely. We've been praying he'd chase you down, and it sounds like he is. Not knowing who that was, and Daniel's communicating with us, ultimately. Okay, she knows I have her number. Do you think I should reach out? And I can tell you that yesterday was just a culmination of God. I don't mean to be tried at all by God being a matchmaker. and God providentially working through yielded young people and through families, and those things are as sweet as can be. And it's been a while since I was in a ceremony when the pastor stopped, and right before he said, you can kiss your bride, he kind of stopped and said, now about that. And I was thankful. Honestly, we all got to watch Daniel and Sandra have their first kiss at their wedding after they'd given their vows to one another. And what a glorious thing. They were getting the hang of it pretty quickly, I could see, as the day went on. The Lord can take care of that as well. But I just want to say to you, young people, whatever. You know, there's not a right age exactly. I mean, there's not the exact same way. There's not a pattern and so on that it all has to be this and this and this. But what it all ought to be, somebody said to you, you know, dating, courting, what do you want to call it? And one man, and this has stuck with me, he said, faith-based mate finding. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not unto your own understanding. On all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy path." So whatever it is, let it be rooted in faith, right? Let it be rooted in confidence in God and watch Him work. But thank you so much for all of you that came and were an encouragement to us. If you would, take your Bibles and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and in our flow a message is studying this but we have come to the focus of our attention being verse number twenty six this morning 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 26 is where our text will begin. But the lead up to this text really begins in earnest in verse 17. I do want to have you go back there. Paul states in verse number 17 that Christ sent him not to baptize but to preach, and this is what we want to catch, to preach the gospel not with wisdom of words. And I am hopeful that a number of you have some note to yourself as to what he's referring to by that wisdom of words. That is kind of his summary of the package of wit and eloquence of the philosophers in the Greek culture. The kind that would just kind of impress the crowds as he represented his school of thought, explaining the deep things in life, and can kind of hold a crowd spellbound, both with his oratory as well as with his so-called wisdom. And there's abundant evidence that some in the Corinthian church had a tendency to latch on to impressive speakers. strong leaders and become something of a fan club and and think the impressiveness of their leader actually enhanced their own stature and So they were starting to measure and rate their Christian speakers their their church leaders by the standard of these philosophers that the culture was enamored with And Paul wasn't going to go along with any attempt to look impressive in the eyes of the unsaved world, or even messed up, if you will, church members. Instead, he said, again, if you look at verse 17, if I preach the gospel that way, the way our culture, apparently some of you are impressed with, if you look at the end of verse 17, he said he would empty the very message of the cross of Christ of His power to save. He would make it of non-effect. And we've noted that the word empty is right at the heart of that. Do you know that you could keep talking about Jesus? You can use certain facts that go together to make up the Christian gospel You could talk about the wonder of Jesus dying on the cross but you could do it in such a context that you actually strip that message of its power to save and What the Corinthians had to come to understand what we today need to have settled in our minds and is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is actually a contradiction to human wisdom. And that contradiction between the gospel and what some want to call wisdom, it starts with the content of the gospel message. And if you go right into verse number 18, he then talks about the preaching of the cross. And you remember, if you've been with us, the emphasis here is not the act of preaching, but it's that message. The message of the cross, or what he's gonna go on to later say, Christ crucified. The content, that very message is a contradiction to human wisdom. And the why, and the how, and the ramifications of that we've explored down through verse number 25 over the last couple weeks. But now with verse 26. We move into another leg of support. The proposition is the gospel is a contradiction to human wisdom. First leg of support, the content, the message of Christ crucified. That's a contradiction to human wisdom. Now the second leg of support for that prevailing proposition is that the recipients of the gospel. are a contradiction to human wisdom. And you can look with me at that opening phrase of verse number 26. Paul says, for you see your calling, brethren. With that phrase he's referring to their station in life when they come when they came to Christ So so he's writing these Corinthian church members and he's saying think about where you were in life when God called you out of your sin and He brought you to Christ and and and he used you to be the founding members of this church All right, you see your calling. All right brethren how impressive And again, he's talking very personally to them. How impressive were you really in terms of prestige in the eyes of the world when Christ reached out and God called you to Christ? It's a very interesting dynamic to watch how fascinating. believers can get. I'm putting myself in that. I'll say this, how fascinated we believers can get when someone that is impressive to us makes a profession of faith. Yeah, I started to follow the NBA basketball player, Steph Curry, when he was back in college. And this previously unknown and seriously seemingly little squirt, that's the way he looked, so small, some of you know what I'm talking about. He scored 33 points and he knocked off our beloved Wisconsin Badgers out of the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. All right, that's what got our attention. He later goes into the NBA, he became known as the babyface assassin. His sharp shooting skills, his dribbling ability and all that. They're now legendary. But part of the draw to follow him is the fact that he claimed to be a Christian. He had scripture verses, you know, engraved on his basketball shoes. And every time he He makes a shot, he kinda taps his heart a couple times and then points to the sky. I mean, whoa, we got this incredible Christian and he's a great basketball player too. You just gotta cheer for him, right? You gotta be a fan of that. And years ago, he said that this little thing that he does after every shot, it basically means have a heart for God. He said it reminds me where my strength comes from and why I play the game. Again, you think you've got to root for this fine, upstanding Christian until you keep listening. And now you've got to bleep out half of what he says. And you keep watching. And you see causes he's insupportive. And you see things that he and his wife were one time celebrated for about modesty. And it's all out the door. And it's flagrantly out the door. And he's celebrated by the world's most debased and most anti-Christian. His life is far removed from anything that looks like a follower of Jesus Christ as revealed in the scripture. And honestly, at some point, we sometimes, if we're going to be honest, we have egg on our face for our superhero Christian who actually in light of the Bible is nowhere close. So many celebrities have had their kind of come to Jesus moments. Not too long ago, Kanye West had his Jesus is King album, and his concerts were something like a service, come to the Sunday night service. Justin Bieber had his season of encouraging fans to consider the unfailing love of Jesus. There was a time where the Jonas Brothers were championing true love weights. Miley Cyrus talking about her relationship to Jesus and for the older ones of us here Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan had their come to Jesus phases. And we could talk about movie stars and big name politicians and attractions to you know all the celebrity conversions. And you know what, sometimes it happens. And there's ministries of all kinds that start waiting in line to be the next one. Hopefully we can get that big name to perform for us. We can get the big celebrity to speak at some Christian event and it'll be a massive draw. And for all of us, a celebrity conversion kind of seems to be some sense of validation. You know, isn't it wonderful? This rich, this famous, this super cool person has found Jesus. And too often it feels like underneath that is some kind of complex on our part. It's almost like, see, Christianity isn't so uncool. It's like this cool one is now a professing believer, so it kind of helps us be cool, right? There's some insecurity maybe about Our faith, in our secular age, and we're hoping that some famous person and their stature might make our faith a little more attractive to others, and so we celebrate this conversion. It's some legitimacy for what we believe. We don't feel out there and strange. But brother, and I just wanna say again, in this case, right from this text, that that is not the viewpoint of God. The viewpoint of God is that his calling is actually contrary to man's expectations. If you look at verse number 26, he says, you see your calling brethren, how that not many wise men after the flash not many mighty not many noble are called and the not many wise men is a reference to intellectual achievement through education the world's academically or not many mighty is a reference to someone who would kind of be a mover and shaker you know they they've gained maybe through political conquest military conquest or you know maybe they maybe they're high level in the business world I mean when they speak people jump The not many noble is a reference to the one with kind of status on account of being born into a well-known family. Their roots go deep and so they have a certain prestige because of the family that they're in. And if someone were starting a new company, somebody starting a new movement, Those are the kind of individuals you tend to target. I mean, if you were in the position and you had the choice, the type of individual you might be looking for is the well-educated. The type you might be looking for are those that have a tendency to rise to the top. Maybe they aren't educated, but I mean, they get things done and they really rise up there. Those that have a certain stature in the community, they have a platform, they have credibility. This is the kind of thing we look for. And on a human level, how would you blame somebody for that? How would you blame God if he kind of did it that same way in the church? Actually, you might kind of think that those are the very ones you'd expect that God would choose to build his church on. But that's not the type of individual God built the Corinthian church with. The Corinthian church was either, I mean, you could take multiple choices, they were either none of the above or very few of the above. They had not been the intellectual, they had not been the powerful, they were not the influential. And when he asked the question, he was like, okay, brother, you know your own calling, so we know who we are here, right? We can agree to this. And presumably none of them were debating that. And yet, Those are the very type of individuals, the Corinthian church, I mean, they acknowledge, we're not elite, we're not the movers and shakers, we're not well-bred. And yet somehow, in the midst of their Christianity, they had shifted back to trying to impress those very people. Impress them by the content, impress them by the delivery. And Paul says, look, you ought to know from your own testimony that God doesn't target those kinds of people. And rather, that's not to say that being uneducated, being a perennial loser, if I could say it that way, being from a family of outcasts, makes someone more fit for God's salvation. That's not the point he's trying to make. And there are some notable examples of wealthy and godly men in the New Testament throughout church history. I would say few over the course of centuries have the mind of the Apostle Paul. There's a unique character in the life of George Whitefield, some of the Westleys, and some of that day, the Countess of Huntington, who was a godly woman, great support to the evangelists and other preachers. She used to say that she was making it to heaven. She got saved, she said, by one letter. And she was thankful it was the letter M, Because she said Jesus didn't say it's not any, she said it's not many. And thankfully she got in by the letter M. It doesn't mean that there aren't any like that. But the truth that Paul's underscoring here is that a man's status in life neither attracts nor repels God. All men, listen, all men are equally unfit for God's grace. And the point to the Corinthian church was this, you weren't predominantly the elite of society when God saved you. Stop trying to impress and win the favor of the elite of society now by the way you're operating and thinking. The recipients of the gospel contradict human wisdom because God's calling is just contrary to man's expectation. And in addition to that, moving forward in verse 27, God's calling actually contributes to putting down of all rivals. It actually hasn't just happened, this is purposeful. Notice in verse 27, God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. You might even wanna circle both those words and they stand out, repeat it, confound, confound, and they both have the idea of even shaming, not just confusing and perplexing. But even shaming and and when Paul says like God's chosen foolish things to shame the wise It's not saying that to make them feel ashamed But God has done it this way because he actually does shame them. It's like he disgraces them he strips them of all of their own pretenses and And in exactly the same way going on in the verse number 28, notice the base things of the world and things which are despised hath God chosen, yay, and things which are not, look at this phrase, to bring to not things that are. To bring to not is like to nullify, to zero out, to strike through it. All the things that are, are the things under discussion, the things that appear to have substance, the things that are highly promoted in this world, that are highly celebrated, the things that people like, oh wow, that's awesome, he's awesome, she's awesome. God just strikes right through all of that and nullifies it all. All of that is written off as having no eternal significance because there is no salvation attached to any of them. The wisdom of this world and the ability to succeed and resting in status actually stand in many cases in a position of direct competition with God. The presence of those things in life in many cases actually become a hurdle, an additional hurdle for a man to come to Christ. Jesus himself said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. And brethren, that is the case at least in part because some people feel like they are gifts to the rest of the world. And you know that whether it's a new degree behind your name or whether it's success in the business world, you know, my company has really made it great or success in the sporting world or success in the music world or whatever it is. Sometimes success in general is one of the worst things that can happen to somebody because they start thinking like they are really big stuff. You know, it's almost like if I end up in a church in that kind of a setting, it's almost like, boy, God really did a good thing when he got me on his side. And God's salvation extended to those that are far inferior in terms of their earthly privilege and their status is actually designed to put to shame those who trust in that kind of thing. It's like God is actually exalting over them the very type of low life people they despise. He does so to humble them, to see how vain, how powerless they are, to show them and all men how little he regards what men think so highly of. I didn't recognize, I didn't know until sometime later there was a test a previous ministry was putting me through. And I had been ordained. I'd been an assistant pastor. I went back to seminary. And I wanted to be involved in a particular ministry. I was asked to be involved, being in an Awana ministry. I was asked to be a worker. I can't even remember all the terminology now of Awanas. But I can tell you this, when I recognized the organizational structure, I was on the very low end of the totem pole. And the guy that was my immediate like department leader had been saved for less than two years. Okay, I'm an ordained pastor. I finished Bible college. I'm back here, you know, in seminary. And nobody's even calling me by any of that stuff. And God did a work in my heart. I mean, it wasn't the low end of the totem pole that was the hard thing. It was the Awanas that was the hard thing for me. That's a whole other topic, all right? But I actually had to recognize at that time, someday I'm gonna ask people to do things in a church if God, and I literally, if God spared my life, I was going through chemotherapy then, but if God spares my life and gives me leadership, I'm gonna ask people to do things that they wouldn't be inclined to do, and how can I deny this when there's a need? What I did not know. Until a few weeks later, as that ministry said, we would normally watch people at least six months. We would like to watch them longer than six months before we gave them teaching, preaching opportunity. But we didn't have that time for you because we were restructuring and we put you where you were and decided to watch you for six weeks because that's all the time we had. I'm so thankful for God's work in my life. It really is His grace, it's contrary to natural things. But brethren, this is the way God works. And God's ultimate reason for His choice, this choice of working this way is for verse 29. This statement, that no flesh should glory in His presence. This is why God uses foolish things, despise things. This is why God takes the things that seem to be bad to man and just nullifies them. So that no one ends up boasting before God. Not only has he shamed and nullified the world, but God takes this step to just shatter human boasting. Brethren, God acts to redeem fallen men and women because He's gracious and there's no other reason. For by grace, are you saying? Through faith. He does not owe anyone in this world forgiveness. He does not owe anyone eternal life. If, you know, God gave out all these wonderful, He gave out forgiveness and eternal life on the basis of some kind of formula, You know, like education, assortment of skills, sophistication, wealth, and so on. Then when people came to Christ, they would have kind of legitimate ground, so to speak, for boasting. But God has done it this way so that no one boasts before him. And when anyone has deep understanding of the gospel, they have to say with Paul in Romans chapter 3, where is boasting then? In light of the gospel, it's what? It's excluded. There's no room for it. The Corinthians themselves, and brethren, we here this morning, we constitute unassailable proof that God's categories of wisdom and power are radically different from the world. So again, verses 18 to 25, God chose a method of salvation, the scandal of a crucified Messiah. Then verses 26 to 29, God chose the recipients of salvation, the lowly Corinthians, that confound the wisdom of the world. The message and the recipients, disgrace, they do away with human pretensions. But then he can't leave it there. Because there is one kind of boasting that is permitted. And in fact, this one is actually demanded. There's a boasting that's right and called for. And true boasting, now verses 30 and 31, is rejoicing in what I've been made in Christ. And you, as you look at verse number 30, of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God has made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. I know the way we have the four terms and the ands connecting them, we kind of have seen them as parallel virtues, the four of them. But that is not actually accurate in terms of the grammar and what's been happening in the whole flow. It's actually that wisdom That's the primary concept under discussion. Wisdom is the primary virtue that is being highlighted. So God has made us, in Christ, wisdom. That's what's there. But righteousness, sanctification, and redemption are all qualities of that wisdom that is found in Christ. You can say it this way, when a man receives Christ, who is the wisdom of God, Christ then accomplishes the righteousness, the sanctification, and the redemption in that recipient. Now, why would that be a glorious thought? Because he said, you want to glory in something, glory in this. Well, let's just talk about those briefly. You could glory in this because righteousness is Christ imputed. to the believers that count before God. Righteousness is conformity to God's standard. A conformity that is lacking in every man. A conformity rather than that without which a man will stand condemned before God. But it's a conformity no man is able to fulfill on his own. There is none righteous, no not what? Yeah, in fact, all of our righteousnesses, our attempts, are as filthy rags. But on the cross, a transaction was made where God made Christ to be sin for us, though He knew no sin. that we might, the sinner, might be made the righteousness of God in Christ. And when Christ is imputed, God's account with the sinner is satisfied. The sinner's account with God is satisfied when Christ is imputed there. The wisdom of God in Christ is glorious secondly because sanctification. Sanctification is the life of Christ imparted. Imputed righteousness, imparted sanctification to the believer's daily life. Sanctification is the life of holiness and purity. It's set apartness from self in this world and separated under the will and service of God. That is not just a status imputed to a believer's account. That's a process of development and growth. So when we have it the way we have righteousness is set off in this verse as a positional matter. And it's a glorious position, but sanctification is a practice. This is a practice of the believer actually conforming more and more each day in thought and word and action to God. I just talked to a parent. I said, yeah, I know something of your daughter in their case. And they were saying, oh, she's got a lot of room to grow. It reminded me of running into a pastor, and I said, I spent a little time with your son, and then he named his son, and he said, oh, I am so thankful for the doctrine of progressive sanctification, because he's got a lot of progressing left to do. And so do we all. But brethren, listen, if you have taken Christ in response to the call of God, then this process is being worked out in your life and it will continue to be worked out in your life. It may be slow. Honestly, if you have a tender heart, it may be mournfully slow. But if you are in Christ, you're growing. You're growing as a Christian because of the life of Christ imparted by the spirit of the living God is being developed in you. Do you know that we don't grow primarily because of our decisions? And that doesn't mean that we aren't accountable. It doesn't mean we can make excuses for how slow the process is. I just was reading a comical thing, two men having a conversation, and one said, well, you know, thank God, He knoweth our frame, He remembers that we are but dust. And the other man replied, yes, but we don't need to be any dustier than necessary. It was like, stop excusing yourself. I must make decisions. I'll be held accountable for the decisions I make or don't make. But listen, growth in my life is primarily because faithful is he that hath begun a good work in you, who also will perform it till the day of Jesus Christ. That's why growth is happening. And I do want to say there's a strong warning in this. If the life of Christ is not progressively being seen more and more in your life, there is serious room for questioning and wrestling. Your whole profession of that. Here he is. He is your righteousness and he is your what? He is your sanctification and he can't be that without it showing up in you in some way. And if righteousness is Christ-imputed, sanctification is Christ's life imparted, it may be appropriate to speak of redemption as Christ-implanted. I'm not often down that path, and I'm always wrestling whether I'm going to use it or not, all right? But it's not exactly precise. Maybe the alliteration can help aid your memory. But redemption is in this case, it is the salvation of Christ and the life of Christ completely realized in the believer in glory. Redemption in the New Testament sometimes speaks of the opening, that entrance into the Christian life. Sometimes it talks about being delivered from the rule and reign of sin, the bondage and oppression of sin. But do you know that often in the New Testament, redemption speaks of ultimate victory that is yet future. I'll just give you these without turning. Romans 8 and verse 30 says that we groan while waiting the redemption of our body. Ephesians 1 and verse 14 indicates the Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance that is going to be enjoyed upon redemption. Ephesians 4 and verse 30 says that the Spirit seals us until the day of redemption. All right, so redemption as the apostle is using it here is something that is future but is certain. And brethren, the day is coming when even this body, this mortal body is going to put on immortality. And the Bible refers to even that experience as the body being redeemed. If you are in Christ, there's absolutely no doubt this will be your experience. I want to tell you, I just shared with Samuel up in the choir life. We are at the wedding and there was an older man. I didn't even catch his name. He was kind of helping with some of the audio. And he was a layman, and I talked to him a little before, I had to rehearse, so I talked to him a little before the wedding. I came back in to help clean up some things. I don't know how he even got into it, but he just started talking to me about how wonderful it is to know the Lord. And he said, you know, in this life, you have some ups and you have some downs. And he said, but boy, do we have some incredible promises about what's coming. And I thought this older layman that's just doing what he can just stirred my heart about what awaits us. Righteousness is the foundation. Sanctification is the process. And full and complete redemption is the ultimate end. Righteousness is a past completed transaction in the life of the believer. Sanctification is a present reality. worked out in the believer and redemption is the future assurance and the confident expectation for every believer. Now, the Greek philosophers are unable to produce anything like that effect in a human life. But think about this, at the mere reception of a simple message by common people, A most glorious process was begun, and the glory will go all to God, who is the author and finisher of our faith. Now, brethren, that's wisdom on the highest level. I know we've said it sometimes, but we've never been in a text where it was more appropriate to say this. It is right for me to say, I am saved. And I can even tell you when God saved me. It's right to talk about that as a past thing. But it's right to say, I am being saved. And it is very much appropriate to rejoice in and to glory in. I will be saved. I am saved from the penalty of my sin. I am being saved from the present power of my sin. And someday I will be completely saved from all presence of sin. And all of that is real on account of the death and shed blood of the crucified one. I am nothing except what he's made me. So let him that glorieth glory in the Lord. And the Christian who's thinking straight knows that the only reality of transcendent importance to human beings is knowing more of God through Christ. We are as foolish as the Corinthians when we make much of what can't endure. The better we come to know God, The more we see that the only goals and the only plans that really matter are those that are somehow tied to God Himself and to God's eternal glory and to our eternity with Him. So brethren, today and every day, glory only in the Lord. But do it! Glory in it! Rejoice in it! Rejoice that you've been redeemed. Would you bow your heads and close your eyes? And we really could warrant some extended time of just thanking the Lord for what he's done, just even reflecting on the fact that we aren't the movers and shakers, we aren't the impressive ones, we aren't the elite. That we have nothing except for what He's given and everything that He's given, He's given in Christ. We weren't much time today, but I do want to say just even by invitation in terms of response that my being captivated by other realities and my glorying in so many other people and achievements and successful entities and all of that. All of that is a witness to how little I really know God. In some cases it may be a witness to how backslidden, if I can say it that way, I am. I know better than that. How did I get to the place where I'm so disconnected from where my real glory is and ought to be? So I give a minute for us just to spend some time with the Lord. Our Heavenly Father, this is far from the first time I take comfort in Paul's thoughts, but on many occasions I'm reminded that he even wrote, under the inspiration of the Spirit, thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift. We have occasions like this where words really fail us, of being able to thank you and praise you as we ought for all that you are, all that you have been, all that you will be to us, and all of the riches that you've bestowed upon us in Christ. And Lord, we do ask you to forgive us for whatever it is that we've allowed into our lives, whatever other things we've been distracted by, that allow us to somehow glory in the things of this earth and this world. We ask that you would graciously draw us to you again. Lord, even in the context of ministry, we know your own disciples, the first ones, were coming back giving reports to Christ Himself about the things that they saw and they did and He corrected them to just say, Rejoice that your names are written in heaven. And Lord, we pray that you would adjust all of us and make yourself and your work in Christ to be the fullness of our joy and rejoicing. We thank you for your goodness to us to use your word today to show us your son. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. I wanna ask, we're gonna sing a verse of, at least of number 394. The Herbsters, I did not, I wasn't aware of what you were gonna sing, but is there any chance you could sing again? I know. You got, all right, you have the music.