7/25/21 - Psalm 67 - "Let the Peoples Praise You"

[0:00] We've been going through a sermon series in the book of Psalms, and this has been such an encouragement to me. And I think, no, there's very few more practical books that we could be going through.

[0:14] Because the Psalms, what they do is they teach us about us and God in real life. The Psalms address real human circumstances, and they teach us how to pray.

[0:28] They teach us how to think. They teach us how to sing to the Lord in real circumstances. And the first Psalm gives us, I think, a really good framework for thinking through how we're supposed to walk through the Psalms.

[0:40] Because the first Psalm gives us a picture of a tree. Saying, like, the Christian life, the faithful, the one who has faith in the Lord is like a tree planted by streams of water.

[0:52] And you can picture this. And now I'm from San Diego. So I don't really know much about, I didn't know much about seasons. You know, you can imagine. We have about nine months of sunny and warm, and then winter, winter light, which is like cloudy and warm.

[1:09] So, but when I came to Chicago and then Ohio, I got to know something about seasons, something that you'd be familiar with. And the first Psalm says that the Christian is this healthy, fruitful, full-leafed tree in any season in life.

[1:27] And it's that way because it's planted by a stream of water. And I love, the Lord's just kind of orchestrating some things. We sang about that living water that comes from Christ, that nourishes us with life.

[1:40] And this tree is planted by a stream of living water that enables it to be healthy and fruitful in every season of life. Now let's move to us. We are those trees.

[1:52] And I want to ask you, what season in life are you in right now? Trees go through seasons of health, summer, of life and warmth and flourishing fruitfulness, harvest.

[2:06] Is that the season you're in? Because we want to praise the Lord with you about that. We want to be grateful for his blessing. Are you in a season of darkness?

[2:18] In a season of winter? Winter is characterized by scarcity of resources, right? Trees retract their leaves. They stay. They get cold.

[2:28] They get darkened. And sometimes we go through seasons in life where maybe you're filled with anxiety. Maybe you're filled with depression.

[2:41] Maybe having that hope of a spring and a summer is too much for you to really reasonably ask of yourself. Maybe you're in a season of loss, losing a job, losing mobility and health, losing a family member, a friendship.

[3:03] Maybe you're separated from your family because of practical needs, distance to work, because of consequences for yours or someone's actions.

[3:14] I am very grateful that every single one of you came to church today. The pandemic has, I haven't done the numbers, but I don't think it's been great for church attendance.

[3:28] Even after coming out of it, because we get, you have a very easy option of staying home, but I'm very grateful that each and every one of you came to church today because each and every one of us is in one of these seasons of life.

[3:41] And the way in which we grow, we weather storms, we be healthy and fruitful and have hope for the future spring is by being planted by the living word, by the water that comes to God and it comes to us through his word.

[4:00] The Psalms teach us to dig into the word, to be firmly planted by the word. And the word that we're going to read today, Psalm 67, is going to teach us in whatever season you're in in life, of darkness, of light, of joy, how to take comfort in God.

[4:19] Not in your own resources, your own strength, your own capacity or in any other system or power in humanity, but how to take comfort in God, in his world.

[4:30] And then how we go and bring that joy and comfort and call the nations to have faith in him. Let's pray. God, I am grateful for the ministry of your word.

[4:46] God, to be able to sing and to gather and to refocus and center. And I'm grateful that you refresh our souls, Lord. You give us hope and comfort and joy in the midst of plentiful life and also darkness and sorrow.

[5:03] God, we are grateful that you are our hope, our sure hope in the midst of any season, Lord. And I pray you'd open our hearts, all of our hearts, to listen to your word, God, in a new way. That we'd reflect on our lives.

[5:16] That we'd come to understand you and how you provide every need that we have, God. Please help us be attentive, Lord. And we pray that this would bring you glory, God, through this time of focusing on your word.

[5:28] In your name, amen. Babe, can you get me my water bottle? All apologies. All right.

[5:40] Y'all ready? I'm not up here. It's so quiet up here, Brent. How do you do this? Come on. All right, children. No, you guys can yell at me.

[5:50] You guys can shout me down, whatever you want. So we're going to learn one very key important thing from this passage. And it's how to take comfort in God and then call the nations to praise him.

[6:02] And we're going to see this by three different ways. Ways. Not the ways app, but the ways of the Lord. The ways in which God interacts with us. And each of these ways is going to give us a picture into how we take comfort in the Lord in any season.

[6:20] And then how we bring that comfort and proclaim it and share it out to the nations. We say the nations because Israel was a nation. It was a country, state. And so everyone outside of it was the nations.

[6:32] But for our purposes, when we say nations and peoples, we're thinking about unbelievers. We're thinking about people who need to hear the gospel. We take comfort in the Lord and call the nations.

[6:43] And it's going to give us three of the ways of God. And the first way of God is the way of salvation. The way of salvation.

[6:55] And after each of these ways, this psalm is going to teach us how to pray. It's going to teach us how to think about God, how to sing about God, and how to pray. So I want to give you a heads up. Because I don't want this to be, I don't want to pray in 15 minutes and then you to be like, all right, we're ready to go.

[7:09] It's time for lunch. So we're going to read through each one and pray and learn how to pray this prayer of comfort. Let's look at verse 1 of Psalm 67 and see God's way of salvation.

[7:21] It says, May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us. That your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.

[7:38] Now this is a familiar phrasing, right? It should be. It comes from Numbers 8. From the blessing that God gave to Aaron, the first high priest, Moses' brother.

[7:50] And Aaron to proclaim this truth on the people. To give the people something to hold on to. And I want to just think about this right now. How comforting this is.

[8:03] That we know that this is God's heart and attitude towards us. One of grace. One of blessing. One of making his face to shine upon us.

[8:13] And the Psalm clarifies what that is. Because you could say, all right, graciousness. Blessing. Shining face. All right. What's that tangibly mean? And it goes further and clarifies it.

[8:24] It says, your saving power. Your way may be known on earth. Your saving power among all nations. God is gracious to us and blesses us in the way in which he is a God who saves us.

[8:41] And Israel experienced this very tangibly. Israel had a very unique relationship with God. It's interesting. Because they were a country, right? They were a people group. And God had made this contract, this covenant with them.

[8:53] Saying, I'm going to choose you as my people. As a people, I'm going to bless. And I'm going to show my power, my glory. Through how I interact with you. And he made some stipulations.

[9:06] You have to be faithful to me. You can't go after other gods. And I will bless you with things like land, safety and security in the land, descendants, a nation, and kings.

[9:18] And so we think about this. All right. We're not Israel necessarily. Some of us may have Jewish descent. But this is not exactly how God interacts with us. We're not waging wars, which Israel waged wars.

[9:29] So they went out and they called on the Lord for power to actually clear out Israel of their enemies and establish a plot of land. Now, we didn't have to fight anyone for this building.

[9:41] Praise the Lord. And we don't seek those signs of ways. However, this is encouraging for us to know that this is the way God interacts with us. God would constantly, throughout the Old Testament, you're going to be reading Israel getting into these situations.

[9:56] They get into trouble because they don't follow the Lord. Their hearts turn away from him. They go after other gods. And they get into these scenarios where God says, All right.

[10:08] I gave you all the instructions beforehand. You know what's going to happen. You're going to be conquered. You're going to have calamity. You're not going to have my blessing, my gracious face shining on you. But what happens?

[10:19] Every single time, Israel turned back to repent and call out to the Lord God. Please be gracious to me. Bless me.

[10:30] Please make your face shine upon me. God did. God rescued them from the Canaanites. God rescued them from ungodly kings.

[10:42] God would go into these tangible situations and rescue them. And I want to encourage you. What season of life are you in? Whichever season of life you're in, God cares about that.

[10:54] He cares about your job. He cares about your work. He cares about your relationships. I've been thinking about families a lot recently. And I know everybody in this room can relate to that in some level.

[11:08] None of us have a perfect family where everyone's a believer. There's no conflict or strife. There's always things. We may be praying for a brother or sister who has not come to the Lord.

[11:21] Maybe reconciliation with a family member who doesn't desire peace with us. In whatever situation you are in, you can call out to the Lord for help.

[11:34] And I don't know why it's been on my heart recently. I know some of us are struggling with this. And it brings me great pain when I think about mental health. When I think about our mindsets, and it may be so many different expressions of that.

[11:51] It could be anxiety. It could be brought on by health, by circumstances. But bring in that dark place, that depressed state where perhaps you can't see a future spring.

[12:05] You can't see beyond the winter you're in. And I'll tell you, I've been in that place. And I regret not having this on my mind. That God is a way of salvation.

[12:18] And I want to encourage everybody in here, when you call out to the Lord for redemption, for salvation, he will save you. It may not look like taking you out of your circumstances.

[12:31] It may not be healing your chronic illness. It may not be clearing the fog and depression. It may take time. But God will do, I know, one of two things.

[12:44] He will either bring you out of those circumstances, or he will graciously come into those circumstances. And give you a saving power that will give you confidence and joy in the midst of the broken world we live in.

[13:00] God saves us in our lives. So we ought to be praising him. We ought to be calling out to him for that salvation. Now, God doesn't just save us from our physical circumstances.

[13:12] As great as that is, we know we have a greater hope. A greater way in which God shows his salvation. And I see it in this passage most clearly through this phrase, make his face to shine upon us.

[13:26] Make his face shine upon us. It's this phrase that's picked up throughout scripture. And it brings us into that extra level, the greatest way in which God shows us his salvation.

[13:38] But it's kind of a funny phrase, right? I guess a sun with a face shining, that makes sense. But if we take some time to think about it, there's a very tangible human connection, all the more so after COVID, where we're seeing people's faces and shocked at each other's dental hygiene or whatever.

[13:59] Can't get away with it anymore. You can't get away with it anymore. Got to floss again. But there's something very tangible of where you orient your face.

[14:12] The first thing that comes to mind is me thinking of like a father or a mother with their child. You know? And I can picture that. Kids drive you crazy. Kids demand so many things of you.

[14:24] But there's an extra special loving relationship that you have where when your child runs up to you, maybe as long as you're not like balancing the books, if you're present, runs up to you and is just telling you something.

[14:38] Doesn't matter what it is. What they did at the park. A joke that they think is really funny. But you can feel, I as a father have felt my face light up.

[14:49] And look at my daughter, Emma, and she's telling me about something. And I'm, I just want everything to be good for her. I want everything to be right for her.

[14:59] I want her future to be blessed. I want her to be successful. I want her to be able to experience this joy that she has right now. God's face shining upon us is a tangible, heartfelt, loving look on us.

[15:16] It's not just a cosmic being saying, I will bestow grace upon you. I will dole out my blessings. It's a God who looks down on us.

[15:28] And his heart attitude is, I'm delighted to see you. One step further with this, though, because it reminds me of something else.

[15:40] It reminds me of shame. I think about orienting our face. And disgust. If you've ever been in a fight out with someone or seen something do something, you've probably had the thought come through your mind, if not the words, I can't even look at you right now.

[16:02] Being disgusted with this situation and you have to look somewhere else. There's something tangible there. Or maybe you've been in a situation where you have been the guilty one.

[16:15] You've hurt someone in the wrong way. It reminds me of my wife, the closest relationship I have, which has the greatest potential for pain. Right? I can hurt her more than I can hurt anyone else.

[16:28] With strangers, it's distant. But this is a close relationship. And I know when I have sinned against my wife, I've done something wrong. My eyes go down. My eyes go down.

[16:43] And the tangible grace expressed to me when she's lifted my face up and looked me in the face.

[16:55] And said, I forgive you and I love you. Church, we're here because God doesn't just save us. He doesn't just redeem us through the tangible experiences we have in life.

[17:10] There's so much more to that. We sing about it, right? How deep the Father's love for us. How vast beyond all measure. That he should give his only son to make a wretch's treasure.

[17:23] How great the pain of searing loss. The Father turns his face away. From his son, who he has dwelt with for eternity.

[17:38] He has had that father-son relationship. And the unity with the Spirit. In a way that's intangible. That we can't understand it or comprehend it. But we try and mimic it in our relationships. They've been one together.

[17:49] And God put your shame on him. Put my guilt on him. And turned his face away from him. So that he could turn his face to you.

[18:05] And make his face shine on us. God shows he has a way of salvation in our tangible life experiences.

[18:16] And through the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That gives us this new relationship with God. That deals with our sinfulness. Deals with our rebellion. Justly.

[18:26] Takes that sacrifice on himself. And it looks to us with grace. Let's take comfort in our God today. He's proved that he has a way of salvation.

[18:40] Of working in us to save us. By the cross of Jesus Christ. Of that great making his face to shine upon us. So we know with confidence that we matter to God.

[18:51] In our forgiveness of our sin. We can have confidence that he cleanses us from unrighteousness when we fall. We can have confidence that God will rescue us.

[19:02] From your anxiety. From your health difficulties. From your abandonment at work. From these really, really hard, gritty, real life stuff.

[19:14] Because you know that's his way of working with us. And it may not fly away. But every single time I have put my faith and my trust in the Lord to save me.

[19:26] He has either delivered me from my circumstances. Or sometimes, even greater, shown me his gracious provision in the midst of it. To bring about him glory.

[19:37] Take comfort in the Lord. And call the nations. Call the nations. Let's not just hold on to this way of redemption. In Israel's life, they were in the midst of all these different superpowers.

[19:50] These nations that had political interests just like them. And they would see God rescue them out of impossible situations. And that would tangibly show the world, well, Israel's God is Yahweh.

[20:02] Is the Lord that they follow. That God's powerful. You see these people. Rahab. Different people who are like, I've heard about what your God's done for you. He's a God who saves. So I'm not going to. I'm going to fear him.

[20:12] We ought to have that same kind of witness. It says, rescue us, Lord, so that your way may be known on earth. Your saving power among all nations.

[20:24] We're supposed to call the nations so that they can experience this comfort too. And I'm going to say this a couple of times.

[20:34] But what else does the world need more? People are hopeless, frustrated. And that's, I mean, in the United States, in a very safe and stable country, we're all wound up.

[20:49] Because we're wondering, why aren't the things that I want to save me saving me? The world needs to hear God has a way of saving us. So whether you are in, we could think through a couple of scenarios.

[21:04] Where you could be right now. And I think of the first step, the first scenario is a question I'll ask. We can all reflect on is how often do I call out to the Lord to save me?

[21:16] To be gracious to me? When I wake up and jet out to work in the car? Do I think through all the scenarios where I'm like, you know what, Lord? I don't have the power of myself to do this.

[21:29] Or do I think I do? Do I rely on myself? Let's grow in the scenarios in which we call out to the Lord for his salvation. It may be that you do that.

[21:41] Praise the Lord. Moving forward, thinking through how often do I recognize when God has saved me? And this one challenges me a lot. Because I'll call out all these prayer requests.

[21:52] Les is the king of keeping track and recognizing. He can teach us all. How often do I sit and think, God, you've rescued me through so many circumstances.

[22:05] You've provided me the peace in this area of my life. You've provided me reconciliation in this relationship. You've given me peace despite these difficult circumstances.

[22:18] Thank you. And if you're there, praise the Lord. Let's think through how can we be vocal about this. And this is, all right, this sermon's really for me.

[22:28] This one challenges me too. How often do I just, I'm talking about the house that God really miraculously provided for us. Because no one can buy a house right now.

[22:40] You have to have some kind of in. You can't just get on the market and pick one up. Lord provided that house in a very unique and tangible way. And my nations, my unbelieving friends, coworkers, customers at work, ask me about it.

[22:55] Maybe someone will get a little upset. But what right do they have? If you say, God provided me richly this house. Challenging us, us, was it me and was it my savvy acumen getting this house?

[23:10] Or do I put that right, exactly the glory right where it should be? Where God has done this for me. And bringing that out vocally in our conversations.

[23:21] I really want us, I actually want us in this church to grow in this way. Because I think this is probably one of the most practical ways for us to grow in evangelism. You know, not going out to the park and looking around like, all right.

[23:34] I'm supposed to do this evangelism thing, you know. But like, we just know people. And we can bring about God's work to us in this way. And bring them into it. So we're going to do that weird thing where we're going to take a pause for a moment.

[23:47] The show will go on. But we're going to pray. We're going to practice this out. And we're going to pray through this psalm. So please, please pray with me. God, we need your power in our lives.

[24:05] I pray for the brothers and sisters in this room, God. That you would bring us comfort. Lord, bring us about a confidence, a trust in you.

[24:18] That we would call it to you in our circumstances. God, we have people going into surgeries. Lord, please bring about health and speedy recovery. God, we have people looking for houses, buying houses.

[24:32] We have people who have lost jobs. We have people who have been separated from their family, God. We have anxiety and darkness and fog and hopelessness, Lord.

[24:46] Please bring about hope. Please help us to put our hope in you that you save us. And we are grateful that you have that heart of love to look upon us, God.

[24:57] And I pray that you would do such work in our hearts and let us to be overflowing with joy, Lord. Help us to talk to our non-believing friends and coworkers.

[25:07] Help us to talk to the strangers on the street, Lord. And tell them of your way of salvation, God. In your name, amen. Amen. The first way is the way of salvation that we take comfort in the Lord and we call the nations.

[25:24] And the second way we're going to see in the center of this psalm is God's way of justice. Ooh, hot topic. All right. Let's read through starting at verse three.

[25:35] It says, Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy. For you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth.

[25:53] Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you. I think this one, more than any of the other three, it kind of took me a little bit to work through.

[26:10] Because it's saying, let the peoples praise you. All the people to earth should sing joy and praise God. And the reason it gives is because God judges those people with equity and guides the nations on earth.

[26:22] And I'm guessing this will be an easy one for you to relate to the tension because we live on the earth. We live among all these nations.

[26:33] And so for us to be confident about this, to take comfort in the Lord because of his justice and call the nations to have faith in him, we have to really, really take some time to think through and understand this.

[26:45] Because we experience the brokenness of life. We experience, we see in the world, in Cuba, rebellion against the government that's supposed to be caring for the people.

[26:56] And the people say, no. We see in our nation, two groups of people who, one sees us as saints and the other one sees us as sinners. And different ways of looking at what our country is.

[27:10] And not a lot of ability to work together. It's difficult. And we live in the real world.

[27:22] On a more personal level, God judges the people with equity. We experience pain. We experience maybe someone hurts us.

[27:33] Maybe someone hurts us deeply. We experience the tragedy of life. Maybe losing a child. Maybe losing a parent.

[27:47] We experience the worst that sin brings about in the world. And we also experience these times where there may be no justice. Maybe the evil get off the hook.

[28:01] Maybe they're the most wealthy around. We have to think about this. This is not people justice. This is not, there's a guy ruling the world with equity.

[28:13] And a guy orchestrating the nation's risk. This is God's justice. We live in God's world. And that means, with God ruling, judging people with equity.

[28:27] It means God in every single instance, every single human being that's ever existed, God has executed perfect justice. Equity, meaning rightly judging appropriately for how God ought to interact with human beings.

[28:43] And this, along with the nations, God has been rising up nations, bringing nations down. I don't even want to really try and think about all of the logistics God would have to have on his plate to decide what happens to, what's a neutral country I can name?

[29:03] Switzerland right now. You know? Unfathomable. God has been ruling this in a way that specifically we can't understand.

[29:15] So what do we do? We put our trust in the Lord who is powerful to do this. We trust that he will rescue us in the midst of our circumstances or out of our circumstances.

[29:28] And we recognize that this is not people justice. This is God's justice. And we can take comfort. Because that person who, I don't want, I don't want.

[29:40] I had a friend shot in Chicago. I had my first Starbucks shot up. Someone died in my cafe. That person who hurt you.

[29:51] That person who abandoned you. God will either hold them accountable in a way that no human being could. Or, as he's done with each and every one of us who believe in Jesus, he will justly execute grace.

[30:11] We can take comfort that God has right and wrong all organized. Even if we can't see it, even if we don't experience, we know God is in power.

[30:25] And we can take comfort that for us, he has not just held us accountable to our sin. He has not just meted out the justice we needed, but he has rightly dealt with the sin so that he can give us grace.

[30:38] And turning to the nations, take comfort in the Lord, but looking at the nations, what more do they need right now than peace about justice?

[30:53] On an individual level, how individual communities execute justice and bring about righteousness? On a global scale, how nations rise and fall? I don't think there's very many things that could be more attractive than us not ignoring the world, not belittling people's circumstances, but being honest about it with how difficult people's seasons are in life, and be firmly trusting in our God.

[31:19] Let's pray right now. God, we take comfort that you are God. Lord, so many people have nothing to look up to.

[31:31] They have to rely on human beings, bringing about justice, bringing about salvation for them, God. And we feel bad, we pity, we're sad for them, Lord.

[31:42] We are so grateful that we know you are the God who has created this world, who's known its beginning to end since you laid its foundation, God. And even with bitter tears in our difficult circumstances, we trust you, Lord.

[31:59] We take comfort that you are a God who cares about justice. And we take comfort that you have extended to us grace, Lord. God, I pray, make this group of people a people who's confident and smart and sharp about the way in which God rules the world.

[32:20] Let us be attractive as a philosophy, as a mindset to the world that does not like us very much. Lord, let them see what they're missing out.

[32:32] Help us to show people the peace, the comfort, the assurance that you give us because of the way in which you interact with us, Lord. Amen. Take comfort in the Lord.

[32:44] Call the nations. We have one more way in which God shows us how to take comfort in him, and it's his way of provision. Let's look at verses 6 and 7. It says, God's way of provision, the earth has yielded its increase.

[33:01] God, our God, shall bless us. God shall bless us. Let all the ends of the earth fear him. The earth has yielded its increase.

[33:14] The psalmist brings about kind of an agricultural, natural beauty to the world to the forefront right here. And that's something a little bit distanced for me, aside from getting out in Mill Creek Park and going on a walk.

[33:29] I don't farm. I don't till the land. But when he calls this out to mine, I'm like, you know what? There's more for me to learn out there than I have. Grass grows.

[33:43] How's it do that? God made it that way. That's a Brent question, right? Where did all this water come from? God made grass to grow. It's not that way on accident.

[33:57] Trees, over years and decades, sprout new branches and leaves and fruit. Maybe a more close to home example. We work and get something back.

[34:12] What did I call this? God's way. I didn't tell you what this way is. This is God's way of provision. God interacts with us in a way where he's created a world that extends his grace to us because we can work it.

[34:28] We can receive its fruit. It bears fruit naturally and provides for us. This was very relevant to Israel in its time.

[34:39] Very agriculturally based society. They had a really wacky weather pattern that they needed to call out constantly to the Lord. Please send the former and the latter rains.

[34:49] Because if we don't get these rains, we don't get grain. Please let us see this. And they saw God provides. The earth yields its increase.

[35:00] And this teaches us who God is. And we can take comfort in this. Now, I don't want to say, I don't want to say, God's going to give you a Bentley.

[35:12] He's going to give you a Porsche. He's going to provide for you perfect comfort in life. Every single one of your relationships is going to be resolved. Because that's not true. Remember, the Psalms teaches about us, God, and real life.

[35:27] But God has a way of providing for you. If you need help, if you actually tangibly need some help, come and talk to us, please.

[35:38] God's given us, his church, this provision, this resources. And we want to take care of one another. God has a way of providing for us. So if you are in those places of those lack, of that need, call out to him.

[35:54] Call out to him. No, he will either deliver you from those circumstances with provision, praise God, or he will be present to you in a way that I can't even understand.

[36:07] I've had my needs met. Praise the Lord. Everything about my life has been provision. Even when I felt it tight, you know, and when my wallet shrunk, my bank account's empty, I could go to somewhere.

[36:19] I could go to church. I could get on a couch. God has a way in which he cares for us in these circumstances. And if you're in that place of blessing, of provision, you're experiencing, not the fruits of your labor, the world that God made.

[36:35] God gave you a job. He gave you arms that work. He gave you a mind that can think most of the time. Not after 2 p.m. without a cup of coffee. So, praise the Lord for his way of providing.

[36:51] But God doesn't just show us physical provision. God has provided a greater wealth of fruit, of harvest.

[37:02] He's implanted the seed of the gospel in our hearts. And that bears the fruit of new, eternal life. The psalm, it does this.

[37:13] I wish I could, I don't have the words to say it, but I'm going to give it a shot. It's beautiful. All right? Trust me about it. This is a beautiful psalm. It's got this, it's like, I figure I'll say it.

[37:26] It's like a mountain in these last few lines. It says, the earth has yielded its increase. So, that's the idea. The earth brings forth fruit.

[37:36] Even though there's exceptions where Christians experience need, drought, famine, loss. In general, we know God provides. And the result, the right response to that is to understand God has blessed us.

[37:53] And then it's got God right at the center. Right? The earth has yielded its increase. God shall bless us. God. And then it parallels it.

[38:03] It says, God has blessed us. Right? So, we know God has blessed us. What's the right, proper response to that? And it says, let all the ends of the earth fear him.

[38:19] This is evangelistic. We can take comfort because we know the fruit, the harvest that God has given us through Jesus Christ. We have a hope for eternal life.

[38:30] And we're not talking about spreading crops around the world. We should feed the hungry. But we want to spread seed of the gospel so that the earth will yield its true increase, which is faith and good works done for the glory of the Lord.

[38:49] New life. I told you, it's beautiful. I gave it my shot. The earth has yielded its increase. God shall bless us.

[39:00] God. God shall bless us. So, let all the ends of the earth fear him. If you are in one of those difficult seasons, if you're in winter, put your trust in the Lord.

[39:15] Take comfort in him because God is a God who provides. Whether that's physical, whether that's spiritual, God is a God who provides. If you're in that season of blessing, of joyful new life, new babies.

[39:31] We've got a lot of new babies. Praise God. God has provided. God has provided life for us. If you're in a place of spiritual ambivalence, we'll be honest.

[39:47] I don't know. Is that fall? If you're in a place where you're not seeing a lot of oomph for the Lord, a lot of this work in your life, take comfort.

[39:59] You may be in a season, but God is God who will rescue you, who will work in you, and will provide new life. And you know what? Even if that period is a long period, there's a sure hope that you can hang your hat on.

[40:14] You can put confidence in that God has promised us eternal life. He rescues us. He executes justice, fortunately, upon us in terms of grace.

[40:27] And he provides. He provides a new life, and he's going to provide an eternal kingdom that you know what? Is fruitful. Let's be a part of that harvest.

[40:40] Let's sow these seeds of the gospel. Let's tell people about what God has done to us. Let's call the nations to praise the Lord. Will you pray with me? Let's whistle this 이번에ес 천 pauses to pray for the Lord.

[40:50] Let's send them to thee. Let'sLAN leaf. SayWho contains through the gospel and your light. Let's, give us a favor of the gospel and luke. Let's say company. Let's pray for the Lord. Let's close it. Let's ET. So thank you later times will��는 story of the Spirit, you can hear me, that you have one. You can hear the people that you know why you love, and have a voice for the God and your holiness. Don't give us a time.

[41:01] If you��. Why don't you首 have a voice for the grace card, you can hear me. You can hear the Word. If you take too much less than not the Бог has done it in today's ordinance, I hope you can hear them in today.