Well, good evening everyone. Let me invite you to turn back to Psalm 119 and to those
verses that Neil read for us. And two things we need to do just before we start this evening.
One is you need to ensure that you've got your Psalm 119 handout. If you don't have
one then I'm sure if you put your hand up somebody at the back, we'll make sure you
get one. And the second one is to pick up your knife and fork and let's put on our serviettes
and let's feast on God's words together. And let's pray just before we come to look at it now.
Let's pray.
Our Father, we come before your words this evening and our prayer is that you would show us Christ.
We ask that by your Spirit that you would teach us more about him, that you would deepen our
understanding, that you would open our eyes, that you would thrill our hearts. And oh God,
that you would increase our affection and our love for him. And this is our prayer in and through his
name. Amen. Excellent. So you may or may not be aware that Friday saw the kickoff of the Rugby
World Cup. Was anybody aware of that? Okay, John on tech. Wow. Okay, a few people. I don't know if
you were here last Sunday evening, but just at the end of the service there were four people that came
in at the back and they were tourists. And the reason I could tell they were tourists is because
they had Edinburgh hoodies on and they were all in different colours. So it was a bit of a giveaway.
And so I got talking to them after the service and I asked them what they were doing in Edinburgh.
And they said they were up from the weekend from Wales. And so naturally knowing that Wales is a rugby
daft country and knowing that they got to the previous Rugby World Cup final, I asked them if they were
looking forward to this World Cup. And so they proceeded to tell me that they were very excited.
And even though they had just lost their star player to injury, they were increasingly confident
and extremely optimistic of success. And this week in the build-up to their first match, I read an
interview with Wales' ex-captain Jonathan Davies, where he was being asked his thoughts on the upcoming
games. And here's what he said, okay?
Now feel some of this fire-breathing Wales passion, talking about their first game.
Daffodils in your hands at the ready. He says this, okay?
He said, we need to be all in for this game.
We should hit the ground running. We smash them.
Make a statement.
And put the pressure on everyone else to score points.
We need to...
We need to be all in for this game. All in. What an interesting statement, I thought.
What does it mean to be all in for something?
Well, it means to give your all to something. To give all of you to something.
To hold nothing back.
To give all-out commitment.
To give nothing but a full and unflinching devotion to the cause.
Now, I've spent all week with Mr. Sam 119.
And he strikes me as a man that when it comes to God's Word, he is all in.
He knows God's Word is true.
He knows God's Word is trustworthy.
And he knows it's good.
Because God is good.
And he loves it.
And to him, God's Word, this isn't a condemning word.
It's not a crushing word.
It's a life-giving, grace-filled word.
And he delights in it.
He loves it.
He desires it.
He depends on it.
And brothers and sisters, what a privilege it is tonight.
With joy.
That in hindsight, we know what he didn't know.
That the grace of God was so dazzlingly revealed to the world in Jesus Christ.
The one who laid down his life so that he could give life.
The one who opened the way up to all who would believe in him.
To come and be reconciled.
To be made right with God.
Let me ask you right at the outset.
Have you been dazzled by Christ this week?
Have you savored in?
Have you delighted in that life-giving, all-pursuing, freely available, undeserved grace of God that's been extended to every single one of us here?
You see, that's what Mr. Sam 119 knows.
And what he loves.
This God-breathed, life-giving word is, oh, such a sweet melody of grace to him.
And this week, as we finish our time in this psalm, we're getting our money's worth out of him these last few weeks.
We're going to ask him one more question.
We're going to ask him, what does he do with God's words?
So this is really practical this evening.
In his life, what does he do with this word?
Well, here's what he's going to tell us this evening.
He responds to God's gracious and life-giving words.
With all in worship.
All of him worship.
Now, what does that look like in his life?
Well, I'll tell you what it doesn't involve.
It doesn't involve him sitting in a dark room, thinking blessed thoughts and singing kumbaya to himself.
But rather, as he lives his life in the world in which he lives, he is active in his worship and his devotion and his love for God and his words.
Now, our verses here, the verses that Neil read out, verses 1 to 16, they are full of what your primary teacher at school used to say, doing words.
They're full of verbs.
That is, what he's trying to say is that all of him, every part of him, worships in response to God's lavish grace.
He's telling us that there's no part of him that is uninvolved in treasuring God, loving God and his word above all else.
And here's how he expresses it to us in these verses.
He draws attention to his body.
This is head-to-toe worship.
Now, as we look at this together, this is what I found as I was preparing it this week.
What we need to ask ourselves as we look at this is, are we head-to-toe all in with our worship?
Let me show you how this works.
Firstly, see how he is all in with his mind.
Verse 7, what does he write?
He says, I praise you with an upright heart as I learn your righteous laws.
Verse 15, I meditate.
There's our word from last week, meaning he chews it over.
Remember, I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways.
So what is he doing?
He's devoting himself to learning, to considering, to meditating on God's word.
He's making every effort to fill up his mind with God's word.
To have it as the thing, not a thing, the thing that shapes his mind.
Because do you know what he's aware of?
He's aware that he lives in a world that is constantly trying to shape him into its mold.
And he needs his mind.
He knows that he needs his mind to be filled with the truth, God's truth.
And he learns it.
Let me ask you this evening.
What are you filling your mind with?
As you live your life in this world, what are the words that you are listening to?
What is shaping your values and your motives?
As my grandpa used to say, what's going on to the noggin?
Now just think about it this week.
Think about it.
What are the words that you've listened to this week?
What are the things that you've watched?
What are the images that have gone into your head?
What are the opinions that have gone into your head?
There was an Ofcom Scotland report published a few months ago.
And it reported that the average Scot, I'm not calling any of you average.
But the average Scot now spends 19.9 hours online each week.
And presumably that figure is not accounting for DVDs and television.
Now I think that's probably almost true in my life.
That exposure.
Friends, that's a lot of exposure.
What is filling our minds?
The American evangelist William Chapman, he used to say,
it's not the ship in the water, but the water in the ship that sinks it.
In the same way, it's not the Christian in the world,
but the world in the Christian that constitutes the danger.
And we have to ask ourselves, as we honestly think about what's going into our minds,
the question to be asking ourselves is,
is it helping or is it hindering our walk with God?
How much exposure is your mind getting to God's word?
What does Paul say in the book of Romans?
He says,
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Do you see what the psalmist is saying here?
That God's word is the most important voice in his life.
And so he pulls out all the stops to make sure it gets ingrained on his mind.
He learns God's word.
He learns it.
He doesn't give it a casual glance.
He doesn't skim read it.
He doesn't gloss over it.
He learns it.
And he consistently reminds himself, as he does so, of this God of all grace.
Now, why does he do that?
Well, he knows his own heart.
As we'll come on to see, he knows his proneness to wander.
He knows his ability to forget.
Do you not know that to be true in your own life?
I do.
I forget all the time.
And he brings himself to God's word as the means of constantly bringing his wandering heart back to its true destination.
Now, let me just allow you into my life this week.
This is how it's worked out for me.
There are many times this week that I have felt massively unworthy.
Massively unworthy.
That harsh word that I've said about someone.
The impatience that I've shown with Alex, my wife.
The judgmental attitudes that I've had towards people.
And that's just the stuff that's made it to my tongue.
Leather rolling what's in my brain.
And I've felt the weight of my sin.
And I've felt the evil ones say,
Now, on the one hand, he's absolutely right, isn't he?
Who am I?
Well, I've got two options at that point.
I can listen to what the devil is saying and I can wallow in it.
Or I can address what he's saying with the gospel.
For what did the Spirit of God bring to my mind this week?
This verse in 2 Corinthians 5.21.
He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf
so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
It's the verse that we made an effort of learning
at the student weekend a few years ago.
And it came to my mind.
The Spirit of God brought it to my mind.
Graham, you are not worthy, but Jesus is.
And your life is hidden with his.
You are caught up with him.
And the Spirit of God brought me to the cross.
The cross, the way of salvation that deeply, deeply humbles man.
Because this has nothing to do with us earning salvation.
And the cross that exalts the grace of God
and causes us to wonder, why?
Why?
But praise him that he did.
He looked upon us.
He loved us and he saved us.
And he looked upon a sinner like me.
Reminding ourselves of the gospel, friends.
Learning the gospel.
Preaching the gospel to ourselves
is the most important daily habit that we can establish.
Jerry Bridges writes this.
We should bathe our hearts and minds daily in the gospel
as part of our daily communion with God.
What words are filling your mind?
What are you learning?
Mr. Sam 119, he's all in with his mind.
I'm very much tied to that.
See that he is all in with his mouth.
Verse 13, look at it there.
What does he write?
With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth.
Now that word to recount is not talking about politics.
This is not a recount.
I looked it up in the dictionary this week
and it means to tell the story of.
That's what to recount means.
And I think what Mr. Sam 119 is doing here
is he is speaking scripture to himself.
He is reminding himself of who God is
as he speaks his word to himself.
Let me ask you this evening,
what are you saying to yourself with your lips?
Are you in the habit of speaking scripture to yourself?
You know, there's this wonderful story told
about Martin Lloyd-Jones,
the famous Welsh preacher.
He was speaking to a member
of his own congregation one evening
and this particular member
was really struggling with the gravity
and the weight of his sin
and he was spouting forth to Martin Lloyd-Jones.
And Martin Lloyd-Jones turned to him after a while
and he said this.
He said,
Have you not realized,
have you not realized
that so much of the unhappiness in your life
is because you are listening to yourself
instead of speaking to yourself?
Speak God's word to ourselves.
That's what the psalmist is doing here.
Let me ask you this evening,
what are you saying to yourself with your lips?
What are you saying to yourself with your lips?
What are you saying to others with your lips?
Now here, I was thinking about this recently.
We were on holiday a few weeks ago
with my parents-in-law down in Brittany.
My father-in-law, bless his heart,
he found a book of old nursery rhymes
in his loft
and he proceeded to take this book
with us on holiday.
So this book of nursery rhymes
from about the 60s, I think,
was in the living room.
And I'm up early one morning
with Chloe, our little girl,
and I noticed this book in the corner
and I thought,
Well, I'll give it a shot.
I'll read her a little nursery rhyme.
And this is the first one that I read, okay?
This is called
There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.
Have you heard of that?
This classic.
This is how it goes.
I thought I'd put it on the screen for you.
This is what my six-month-year-old girl
was hearing from me.
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.
She had so many children
she didn't know what to do.
She gave them some broth without any bread
and whipped them all soundly
and put them to bed.
That's cracking, that.
So short of puzzling over
the political correctness
of that nursery rhyme
and how exactly that shoe
matches up to current building standards,
I'm thinking to myself,
What am I saying with my lips
to this young girl?
Am I passing on to her?
Am I speaking to her meaningless fluff?
Am I passing on to her empty tales?
Or in my life,
as a father, as a Christian,
am I striving to pass on to her
the words of the eternal and the living God?
Would it not be an absolute travesty
if she grew up knowing more about Jack and Jill
than she did about Calvary's Hill?
What are we passing on with our lips
to our families?
What are we passing on with our lips
to our friends?
Am I seeking to bring her up,
Chloe up,
in a home,
a Bible-saturated home
where the very atmosphere of Scripture
gets down into her bones,
gets into her lungs?
That is just what we talk about
as a family.
What are you passing on
to others with your lips?
And in our interactions with one another
in this church family,
what are we speaking to one another
with our lips?
Are we seeking to bring this word,
this life-giving word
that God has given us
to bear in each other's lives?
Wouldn't that be a wonderful thing
as we come to it each day,
we could pray and say,
Lord, help me to be nourished myself,
but help me also to nourish others
and to encourage them
with what you're teaching me.
Are we seeking to build one another up
and to strengthen one another
with our words?
Now, we've got a vision evening
next Sunday,
and we'll be telling,
we'll be launching
and discussing together
this great resource
that John and I have put together
over the summer
that's designed specifically
for us to read the Bible
one-to-one together.
And it's really designed
for this purpose,
that we can get
speaking God's word
into one another's lives.
What are we recounting
to one another
with our words?
What are we recounting
to the world
with our words?
And I was reading
on the news this week.
I don't know if anybody saw
Alistair Darling's comments
about Jeremy Corbyn.
And he simply said this,
he said,
I need to know
what Jeremy Corbyn stands for.
That's probably what you're thinking
as well.
But he needs to know
what Jeremy Corbyn stands for.
Friends,
let me ask you this evening,
does the world
know what you and I stand for?
Are we recounting,
are we telling God's word,
are we telling the story,
the gospel story
to this lost world
in which we live?
The gospel,
the good news
that is the hope
for this world.
Are we telling them
about Jesus
who is the hope
of the nations?
The God of all grace
has so magnificently
revealed himself
in Jesus.
Jesus who could not
have gone any lower
in his mission
to save us.
And who now
has the name,
the victorious name
that could not be
any higher.
Are we using
our lips
to speak
God's word,
the gospel
to our world?
Are we using
our lips
so that the people
in our lives
know about
Christ?
Do you see
how Mr.
Psalm 119,
he is all in
with his mind
and he's all in
with his mouth.
And what we need
to see at this point
is that this word,
this knowledge,
God's word,
doesn't just stay
in his head,
but it travels
18 inches down
and it pierces
and penetrates
his heart.
Do you see
what God's word
is informing him
of,
this life-giving
God,
this good God,
is the furnace
that drives
the engine
of his affections.
John Piper
puts it like this.
He says,
it's the mind
that provides
the kindling
for the fires
of the heart.
Mr.
Psalm 119,
his theology,
what he knows
about God,
serves doxology,
so his praise
of God.
His reflection
on God's word
serves the purpose
of stirring
his affection
for God.
His contemplation
serves his exaltation.
You get the point?
It doesn't just
stay in his head,
it penetrates
and changes
his heart.
This is what
we need to see.
He's all in
with his heart.
He does not
remain static.
He does not
remain hands folded.
Look at the words
that he uses
in these verses.
Verse 7,
for example,
I will praise you
with an upright heart.
Verse 12,
praise be to you,
Lord.
Verse 14,
I rejoice
in following
your statutes
as one who
rejoices
in great riches.
He is not
unmoved
by God's word.
God's word
moves him
to worship,
to sing
exuberantly
as he revels
in God's goodness.
To come at it
from another angle.
It's just not
what Jesus said
was at the heart
of how God
told his people
to live.
To obey
the Lord God
with all your heart,
your soul,
your mind and strength.
No, no, no, no.
To love
the Lord,
your God,
with all your heart
and all your soul
and all your mind
and all your strength.
Now, of course,
obeying
is part of that love
as we'll come on to see.
But do you see
how love,
loving God
is at the very heart
of God's words?
We need to understand,
friends,
that God's word
should lead us
to love him more.
There's a great story
I read recently
about the great Bible teacher
John Stott
and somebody asked him
what his biggest fear
was for the students
that came to study
under him
and his reply
was that his biggest fear
was that many of his students
would leave
with a doctorate,
would have ceased
to be a disciple.
They would leave
with a qualification
but they would have long
stopped loving the Lord Jesus.
That many would go
from talking about God
in the second person
to talking about him
in the third.
If that's you this evening,
if the fire has gone cold,
if the fire has gone out,
then can I plead with you
from God's word
to pray
and to ask God
that he would help you
put that right this evening.
That he would install in you
a deep, deep love
for him
and his son
and his words
and that it would
transform your heart.
The study of God's word
should lead us
to love him more.
And do you notice
where the psalmist
sees himself
storing up God's word?
Verse 11.
Is it in the mind?
No.
It's in his heart.
So what starts in the mind
travels all the way
down to his heart.
God's word goes deep,
deep, deep down into him.
It gets in his bloodstream.
Now John Bunyan,
the great Christian thinker
and writer,
his contemporaries
used to say of him,
why this man
is a living Bible.
Prick him anywhere
and his blood
would bleed bibline.
And of course
what was hyperbolically
true of Mr. Bunyan
was absolutely true
in the life of Jesus.
The devil tempting him
in Luke 4,
what does he do
in response?
He quotes scripture.
He quotes God's word.
He defends himself
with Deuteronomy.
What does he do
when he's on the cross?
He quotes scripture.
Psalm 22,
Psalm 69,
Jesus literally breathed
and bled scripture.
So my question this evening is,
as his followers,
his example,
why would we think
it would be any different
in our lives?
Our Lord devoted himself
to learning
his father's words.
Mr. Sam 119,
all in
with all his heart.
Next,
see how he is
all in
with his knees.
He is one
that is so
dependent on God
and he comes
before him
humbly
and he takes
that posture
of humility.
Let me show you
how that works.
See him express it
in verse 12.
In those two
simple words,
teach me.
Teach me.
It's almost as if
he is saying,
Lord,
I recognize
my need
for you.
I need your help.
It's the language
of a pupil
before his teacher.
It's the language
of a man
who recognizes
that he doesn't
know it all.
He needs
God's help.
Let me ask you
this evening,
when it comes
to God's words,
are you teachable?
Do you stop
and pray
each and every
day as you
open God's
words?
Do you pray,
Lord,
teach me,
teach me?
Do you adopt
that stance
of humility
as you open
your Bible?
Friends,
let me ask you,
have you settled
in your understanding
of God's word?
Have you settled?
Are you pressing
into it?
Because the truth
this evening
is that there
is more and more
of God to know,
to love,
and enjoy
in his words.
Now let me tell you
how that worked
out for me this week.
I study two mornings
a week at the
Edinburgh Theological
Seminary,
and we started up
a few weeks ago,
and I've been going
to this new class,
and my lecturer
just opened one
of the Gospels,
I think it was John,
and his lecture
for the day was
the life of Jesus
in the Gospels,
something as simple
as that.
And he just opened
up the Gospel,
the Gospel that I
have read hundreds
of times in my life,
and I came away
thinking,
I have never
seen that before.
I have never
seen that before.
And the truth
is that there is
always new stuff
to see in God's word.
There's always
depths to plumb,
heights to climb,
things to savour
and enjoy.
And you see as well
how that humility
expresses itself
in prayer?
This is what he
writes,
verse 8.
Now you'll notice
that the word
prayer isn't
specifically used
there,
but the action
certainly is,
and the words
look at verse 8.
I obey your decrees,
do not utterly
forsake me.
Verse 10,
I seek you
with all my heart,
do not let me
stray from your
commands.
In fact,
I don't think
it's too much
of a stretch
to say that this
psalm is smothered
in prayer.
And the reason
that it is,
is that Mr.
Sam 119
is so aware
of his complete
and utter dependence
on God.
And that's how
humility expresses
itself.
Closed door,
on your knees,
hearts open,
conversing with God,
praying for ourselves,
praying for each other,
praying for this world,
because the thing
is that we need
God,
don't we?
We need God.
Christopher Ashe
puts it like this,
the place of
Christian prayer
is not the armchair,
but on the edge
of a hard seat.
Dependency.
Let me ask you
the question
that I've asked
of myself this week
is,
is your life
marked by reverent
and dependent
prayer?
Are you quite
comfortable?
Are you quite set
that you've got
this Christian life
figured out?
And how that will
show itself
will be in your
prayer life.
And we went away
as an eldership
a few weeks back
and we asked
ourselves the question
if there was
one area
of our church life,
one area of our
church life
that we would love
to see grow
in the next year,
what would it be?
And do you know
what came in at
number one
from each and
every single one
of us?
It was our
prayer life.
Our prayer life
both individually
and our prayer life
corporately
as a church.
Let me ask you,
if the Lord Jesus
were to return
tomorrow,
would he find
in us
that deep
longing for God,
that deep
dependence on God
that pours itself
out in prayer,
or would he
instead find
a bunch of
self-sufficient,
lukewarm,
respectables
who are going
through the motions?
It really is,
isn't it,
the litmus test
of where we're at
as a church,
our corporate
prayer life,
our dependency
on the Lord.
Mr.
Sam 119,
all in with his
knees.
And lastly,
let's see how he
is all in with
his feet.
Verse 1,
Blessed are those
whose ways
are blameless,
who walk
according to
the law
of the Lord.
Verse 9,
How can a young
person stay
on the path
of purity?
By living
according to
your words.
So he draws
the attention
to his feet.
Did you notice
that?
And do you see
the direction
of his feet?
He's a disciple
that is deciding
to walk
in the way
of the Lord.
Now what does
that mean?
That means he
obeys God's
word.
It means he
follows God's
word.
It means he
lives his life
in accordance
to God's
word.
So the governing
metaphor of
the life of
faith,
according to
Mr.
Sam 119,
is to walk
the way
of the Lord.
That's what
he's saying.
So let's just
bring a few
of these strands
to close.
Mr.
Sam 119,
all in with
his mind.
He is all
in with
his mouth.
He is all
in with
his heart.
He's all
in with
his knees.
And he's
all in with
his feet.
He is all
in.
And I'll
be honest,
I reflected
on this
week,
having gone
the last
two weeks
looking at
this,
Sam,
and having
seen his
affection for
God,
having seen
his devotion
for God,
I wonder if
you're thinking
what I was
thinking,
that I could
never do
that.
That I
fall so
far short
of what
he is
writing here,
that his
life and my
life,
they seem a
million miles
apart.
Well,
let me ask
you a question.
How would
you have
ended that
psalm,
this psalm?
If you were
the guy that
wrote it,
if you were
Mr.
Sam 119,
how would
you finish
this psalm?
Well,
if you've
got your
Bible,
say,
why don't
you turn
to verse
176,
it's a
very long
one after
all.
Because if
it were
me,
I would
have ended
this psalm
on a real
high.
As if to
say,
listen to
me,
look at
this incredible
bit of
literature that
I've written,
look at my
victorious Christian
life,
look how I've
got it
sorted.
I'm the
guy that
you want to
book at
your next
church weekend
away.
But where
does the
psalmist end?
Does he
end in a
real high?
No,
he ends
in real
life.
Now let
this encourage
you.
For the
man who
has penned
this great
psalm,
is he a
colossus of
the faith?
Is he a
spiritual
giant?
Well,
he may
well be
all in,
but his
confession at
the end,
do you
notice it?
He is a
lost
sheep.
Mr.
Psalm 119
is so,
so aware
of his
weakness,
of his
fragility,
and his
complete
reliance,
utter dependence
on God's
grace.
And is that
not the
authentic
Christian
life?
In your
walk with
God,
do you
know that
to be
true?
That one
minute you're
singing,
and the
next minute
you're
straying?
This is
not a
man,
this is
not a
man who's
got this
Christian
life thing
sorted.
And that
should massively
encourage us.
He is
praying,
verse 147,
what does
he say?
Seek your
servant.
Seek your
servant.
So he's
praying that
God would
seek him
out and
save him.
And how
does Jesus
speak of
himself and
the reason
that he
came?
He is the
one who
has come
to seek
and to
save the
lost.
Jesus
came to
save you,
he came
to save
me,
and he
came to
save Mr.
Sam 119.
And as we
draw this
evening to a
close,
and our
time I guess
in this
psalm to a
close,
I hope that
you've been
inspired in
your confidence
in God's
word,
that you can
trust it and
you can love
it.
And I hope
you've been
praying that
God would
help increase
your affection
for his
words,
that you want
to be
delighting in
it,
you want
to desire
it,
you want
to depend
on it,
and in
your Christian
life,
I hope after
this evening,
I hope that
we've seen
that we want
to give our
all and do
everything according
to this word.
But if that's
all that we've
taken away from
this little
series,
then friends,
we have massively
missed it.
We cannot
wholeheartedly sing
this psalm,
even on our
best days,
even on the
days that you
have your quiet
time,
we cannot sing
this psalm
wholeheartedly.
Only Jesus
can honestly
sing this
psalm.
He is the
ultimate
psalm
119 man,
the blessed
man,
the obedient
man,
the man who
was and
fully delighted
in God's
word,
and the man
who came
to seek
us out
and bestow
on us
life.
You see,
the word of
God is where
life is,
because at the
heart of the
Christian faith
is a God
who speaks,
and what
is it he
speaks about,
the heart of
what he speaks
about is
Jesus Christ
and him
crucified and
risen.
And as we
encounter him
and his word,
as we know
that forgiveness,
as we experience
that new life
and come to love
that amazing
grace,
he transforms
us.
He puts a
new heart
in us,
he takes out
the heart of
stone and
gives us a
new heart
that beats
for him.
And in
Jesus,
because Jesus
is delightful,
only in
him and
through him
can we
sing the
song of
amazing
grace,
of our
wonderful
saviour who
sought us
out,
who came to
save and
to seek
the lost.
So let's
be people
who devote
ourselves to
God's word.
Let's be
people who
love God's
word.
Let's allow
God by
his spirit
to transform
us as we
open his
words.
Let's pray
that we can
see Christ
everywhere in
this book.
Let's make
it the supreme
beauty and
the driving
force and
thing that we
value most in
our lives.
And we're
going to stand
to sing in
just a second
our closing
hymn.
But let me
read you just
the first verse
of this song
before we do.
And let's make
this our prayer
as we go into
this week.
My heart is
filled with
thankfulness.
to him who
bore my
pain,
who plumbed
the depths
of my
disgrace
and gave
me life
again,
who crushed
my curse
of sinfulness
and clothed
me in his
light and
wrote his
law of
righteousness
with power
upon my
heart.
Let's pray
together as we
close.