to the book of Chronicles, 2 Chronicles. 2 Chronicles 20, and we'll go from, we'll be reading from verse 1 through 17. Before we do that, let's go to our Lord in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we come to you asking for your blessing this morning. We ask that you'll remove, remove as much of the world from our minds this morning as possible. For those listening, for me personally, remove, remove me from this if you can. I know you can. Take away my frailties. Take away my weaknesses. Take away my anxieties and my worries. Lord, don't let me be a part of this. We want to hear from you. We want this message to be from you. We want it to be yours. That is the only way it can be a blessing to anyone. We pray, Lord, that you'll do that for us this morning. We pray that because we can confidently pray for that knowing that you've promised exactly that. When we gather in your name, you will be among us. And what a gift. And what a comfort. And we thank you for the promises that you've given us. Those special promises. Priceless promises. To be with us this morning. To save every one of your people. To effectively save every one of your people and never lose any. Your promises are as precious as anything can be. And they're as solid as anything can be because they are promises by the Lord of all creation. The only one who can carry out every promise he makes perfectly. So we come to you. Where else would we go? So bless us this morning Lord. Bless all of your churches. Bless all of your people. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Okay, Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, chapter 20, verses 1 through 17. I'm just going to read those 17 chapters and then we'll get started.

2 Chronicles 20, verse 1. After this, the Moabites and the Ammonites, with some of the Meunites, came to make war on Jehoshaphat. Some men came and told Jehoshaphat, a vast army is coming against you from Edom, from the other side of the sea, and it's all ready, it has us on to Mat. This is in Gedi.

Alarmed, Jehoshaphat resolved to inquire of the Lord. And he proclaimed a fast for all of Judah. The people of Judah came together to seek help from the Lord. Indeed, they came from every town in Judah to seek him.

Then Jehoshaphat stood up in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem at the temple of the Lord in front of the new courtyard and said, oh Lord, God of our father, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand and no one can withstand you.

Oh our God did you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and gave it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend. They have lived in it and have built in it a sanctuary for your name saying if calamity comes upon us whether the sword of judgment or plague of famine or famine. We will stand in your presence before this temple that bears your name and will cry out to you in our distress. And you will hear us and save us.

But now here are men from Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, whose territory you would not allow Israel to invade when they came from Egypt. So they turned away from them and did not destroy them. See how they are repaying us by coming to drive us out of our possession that you gave us as an inheritance.

Oh, our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.

All the men of Judah, with their wives and children, little ones, stood there before the Lord. Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jehaziel, son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jael, the son of Metaniah, a Levite and descendant of Asaph, as he stood in the assembly.

He said, listen, King Jehoshaphat, and all who live in Judah and Jerusalem, this is what the Lord says to you. Do not be afraid. or discouraged because of this vast army, for the battle is not yours, but God's.

Tomorrow, march down against them. They will be climbing up by the Pass of Ziz, and you will find them at the end of the gorge in the desert of Jerul. You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions, stand firm, and see the deliverance the Lord will give you.

O Judah and Jerusalem, do not be afraid, do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow and the Lord will be with you.

So I am not a scholar in Chronicles. This is not a book I've spent a lot of time in. But I came across Joe's notes. He had a little bit of notes written down on 2 Chronicles and this specific scripture. And it was such a blessing to me. And I'm sure it will be for you too.

We talk a lot. about how it is written, and this comes up almost weekly, that whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. That's a promise. We just talked about the promises of God, the promises of the Lord. One of them is exactly that. Whoever calls on the name of Christ will not be turned away. That is a promise from God. This is a firm promise, and all who have called on the name of the Lord have every reason to be confident that in the end days, when the Lord comes to judge the world, they will be safe. Not only safe, they'll be given eternal blessing. All those who truly call on the name of Christ.

But what is that? to call upon the name of Christ, to call upon the Lord. We have a very good example that we just read. Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah and Jerusalem show us exactly how to call upon the name of the Lord. Jehoshaphat had just finished establishing his administration in Judah when these armies, these three kingdoms, three different kingdoms came together to attack them. And that's not by accident. That is to show Jehoshaphat and those people of Judah were completely outmatched. They had no chance on their own. The Moabites, the Ammonites, and some of the Meunites all banded together to attack that land. The army was so large that Jehoshaphat realized they had no hope. It doesn't even say that he even tried to plan a little bit of an attack or a defense. They immediately went to the temple to seek help from the Lord. They knew immediately they had no chance to defend this attack on their own. So he gathered the people at the temple and called upon the Lord. And the result is the Lord intervened and Judah was spared.

We should use that example of Jehoshaphat as a pattern for calling upon the name of the Lord for salvation. Because that's exactly what he did. Jehoshaphat, when he first started, and we're going to kind of go through this now because there's a lot of really good examples as we go through this entire piece of scripture. At the very beginning, he talks about how they went into a fast as they were getting ready to go to the temple and approach the Lord and seek His help. Well, there's symbolism there. To call upon the name of the Lord, when you are fasting, you are cutting out help from the outside. You're not putting anything in your body. To call upon the name of the Lord, one does not need to fast from eating, but one does need to cut off all other forms of help.

You can't go to the Lord, ask for his salvation, and ask for his deliverance, and think that you're going to still have a hand in it. That is not how it works. Christ does not share the glory he deserves. Many try to call upon the name of the Lord even as they try to hold on to their own hopes. They cling to all kinds of things. Sacraments. Their morality. I'm a pretty good person. I mean, you should have seen the nice things I did for so-and-so the other day. My law keeping. You know, I'm not great at a couple of these, but these over here, I don't think I've ever broken those. These are the things we naturally want to hold on to. Church going, even. Knowing the Scriptures. These are all fine and good things, but they will not help you with salvation. They will not get you salvation at all. As a matter of fact, if you hold on to them as part of your salvation, they will do the opposite.

Some even think that their sin is something that will actually earn them a better place in the eyes of God. Their sadness, their tears, the guilt that they feel. Look at how bad I feel about my sin. They almost hold it up like a trophy. And that will grant them a better standing before God.

But if you turn to Philippians chapter three, starting in verse seven, Paul tells us what we should think about the little hopes that we have that we're trying to hold on to. It says, but whatever was to my prophet, whatever I held on to, whatever I thought was good about me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss. Everything. Compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. He is saying everything outside of Christ is a detriment. Everything outside of Christ isn't just not helping, it's a loss. It would take away. The good things that we think we hold on to are actually losses. They only hurt. We can only sin. Even the good things we do. We can't even be, we can't truly understand or be even aware of the amount of sin we have. We don't even recognize it. That's who we are. We were born that way because of Adam and we have done nothing but add to it since.

So he says, I consider surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, garbage, rubbish. that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God."

The only righteousness that really exists comes from God. We have none. The only source for goodness, the only source for righteousness, Which is what He demands also comes from Him. And that's the beauty of the Gospel. What He demands, He provides. Because we can't. He knows that better than we do. We still hold on to our hopes. He knows we have none. So obviously holding on to those things Paul tells us is pretty silly.

So to call upon God for his salvation we have to cut ourselves off from all other help and call on him alone. It is a spiritual fast.

So Jehoshaphat convened the people to the temple and that is the proper place to call on the name of the Lord. The temple in the Old Covenant in the Old Testament is simply A huge picture of Christ. In like, many ways. We look deep into the temple, they have the high priest. Which is the only one that was allowed to go into the most holy part of the temple. Who is the ultimate high priest? The only high priest. Jesus Christ. They have the sacrifice. The altar. The bread of penance. the candlestick, the table of incense, the throne of God expressed on the Ark of the Covenant. Christ is all of these things. Those have been shown as an example of Him over and over in the Old Testament.

The temple is a huge picture of Christ. Christ and his gospel are represented in all of these. He is our sacrifice. He is our priest. He is our altar. He is our bread from heaven. God with us. He is the light of the world and he is the intercessor. The one who stands in between God and all of his people.

In Hebrews 9 it says, but when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, temple. Not the one made by man. That is to say it is not part of his creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves like we saw in the tabernacle of the Old Testament and the Old Covenant. He entered the most holy place. once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. That's him going to the cross and facing the judge of all sin and paying for all of that sin. All of every single sin of every single one of his people was paid for. And it was paid for by his death. By the spilling of his blood.

That's why Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah went to the temple just as we should go to Christ. Where else would we go? So do we not, we don't call, I mean, he went into the holy place, Christ did, not the one made by human hands, but the real one. With his own blood, he was offered to God, and God accepted it. So often, I mean, it's gotta be one of the most common phrases in modern Christianity is, will you accept Jesus? Jesus didn't offer himself to you. He offered himself to his father and his father said yes. Who are you to accept him. Who do you think you are. We do not, God accepted him and that is the foundation.

This exactly is the foundation on which we can, this whole sermon this morning is about calling on the name of the Lord. This is why we can. The foundation of us being able to call on the name of the Lord is because of Christ and what he did. It is on this foundation of Christ and Him alone that we can approach God. Without Christ, we can't approach God. Sin cannot approach God, and that's what we are. Because of Christ and His work, we can approach God, and we can approach it confidently because we approach it in Christ, and Christ has already been accepted. So if you want God's salvation, you must call on Him in the foundation of Christ and Him alone.

A little bit later, in verse 6, Jehoshaphat acknowledged God for who He is. Right at the very beginning. It says, verse 6, O Lord, God of our Father, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you. Jehoshaphat called upon God as the sovereign ruler of the entire universe. He acknowledged that God rules over all, that He alone has the authority to determine all things, which is the truth. That all things that shall be, He determines. He has such power that none can stop Him from doing whatever He pleases.

Now this is a problem for people. A lot of people have a really hard time with the sovereignty of God. Because it goes against our nature. We want power. We want something to do with it. Some even say if God is sovereign, and he determines all things, well then why pray? We should turn that around. If God isn't sovereign, and doesn't determine all things, why pray? If He cannot do as He pleases, why ask Him to do anything? If He cannot do as He pleases, He is not God. What good is hope in someone who has no power?

Our hope for salvation is the one who can do as he pleases and cannot even be legitimately questioned, which we've seen in the scripture. His will and his works are not allowed to be questioned because who are we? We are the pots. He is the potter. How can a pot question how he's made? In Daniel it says, He does as He pleases with the powers of heavens and the people of the earth. No one can hold back His hand or even say to Him, what have you done? You can't even question it. His ways. The chasm between our ways and His ways is more than we can even understand.

To call on God who cannot act without your permission, whose works can be turned by the works of man, is no God at all. And certainly not one that can save someone. God is sovereign. God does as he wills and as he pleases. And God, you often hear, God is good. And that's true. But sometimes I like to turn that around. Good is God. Good isn't defined. God isn't good because he decides to do what's good. Good is defined by whatever God does.

A little bit later, in verse 7 through 9, Jehoshaphat called on God according to his promises. We talked about that a little bit this morning. His promises are everything. That's what we look to in these scriptures, the promises of God. What else would we look for? We look to what he tells us and what he promises his people. Now, we can go to him for anything. We can pray to him and call on his name for anything. Where else would we go? He's not just the God of The macro. He's the God of the macro, too. Everything that happens in our lives is according to His will, so we should go to Him. Where else would we go? I've said that like three times, but it's true. Where else would we go for anything when we know who's in charge?

But we can only expect Like I can pray to him for anything and know that his will will be good for me. We heard that this morning from what Scott read. They will work all things for the good of his people. That good doesn't mean I'm gonna get a bonus and get a bunch of money if I pray for it. Or a car or some earthly blessing that I really want. That's not the good He's talking about. The good, all things work for the salvation of His people. That is the good He's talking about. And that's the promise. So I can pray to Him for anything and just trust that, okay, whatever happens, it's best for me.

But I can pray to Him about His promises? I can go to Him and say, Lord, I need You. I have no hope without You. Please save me. And He will. Because it's a promise. It doesn't break His promise. So we don't come to Him expecting yes for every prayer, but we can come to Him expecting yes for every promise given. Because they're not dependent on us. They're dependent on Christ, and He was already victorious.

Job Hosaphat in the same kind of idea in verse seven through nine he says, oh God, you not drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend. They have lived in it and have built in it, in a sanctuary in your name, saying, if calamity comes upon us, whether the sword of judgment or plague or famine, we will stand in your presence before the temple that bears your name and cry out to you in our distress, and you will hear us and save us."

God's promises. Jehoshaphat is recalling God's previous works and a pattern in times of trouble, that they go to the temple, they go to Him, and they call on His name for help, and He delivers. And our promises are so much greater than what Jehoshaphat had. We live in the greatest time. We have the greatest, most precious promise ever, through Christ. All that God foreshadowed in the Old Covenant, in the Old Testament, He has actually come to pass. We've seen it. We have it right here. We're not looking forward anymore. It's already happened. The work is done. Christ has come. He entered into that holy place. Not made with human hands. And has actually offered Himself to God without spot. And again, God has already accepted His offering. That's our promise. That's the promise we can expect. We don't have to hope. We have a much firmer foundation on which to stand.

Our foundation is Christ. His work is done. It's finished. It cannot change. We have the firmest foundation on which to stand as we make our pleas to God. We have all the promises of Christ contained in the Scriptures. We have the full-blown revelation of the Gospel. And we have the testimony of many who have gone before us. We have the good news. God has a people. They were sinful beyond recognition. So Christ came, God made a way to save those people. And that way was to send His only perfect Son to earth. To die for them. And he did it. And he accomplished it. And he defeated death. And now he's alive. And he's at the right hand of God, ruling over the world. That's our foundation. It's as sturdy as it can be.

Moving on to verse 10, it says, but now here are men from Eman, Moab, and Mount Seir, whose territory you would not allow Israel to invade when they came to Egypt, so they turned away from them and did not destroy. I thought this was really interesting. Jehoshaphat presented the problem. An army he could not defeat. Moreover, a group that God even forbade them from attacking. He said, whose territory you would not allow Israel to invade when they came from Egypt. So apparently Jehoshaphat and the Israelites wanted to attack these people at one point. And God said no. So now this army, after they let him alone, is showing up at their doorstep. And Jehoshaphat says, you know, whose territory you would not allow Israel to invade So they turned away from them and did not destroy them. And now they're back.

Our problem is similar. It's similar in both ways. It's similar in the fact that, yes, it is an invading army. It is a problem we cannot solve. It's our sin. It is far too powerful for us. The condemnation that comes with sin is undoubtedly more than we can handle. It is a problem that God, just in the same way He told Jehoshaphat and Judah, you do not attack that problem. It is also not our problem to attack our sin. What are we going to do? Can we defeat sin? Can we remove one sin from our past? One? Then you think about all of them. It's the same with sin. We know we are sinners. So we try to devise ways to defeat sin. We think that if we can just stop sinning, or do religious works that somehow will cancel them out, or remove some sin, or avoid certain sins, that all the penalty for it will be removed and we'll be blessed. But God has told us that we simply cannot do anything about our sin. There's nothing we can do. There is no remedy that we can work. There is no ceremony that can bring about our salvation. There is no work of merit that we can do to make up for one sin.

In Romans 3 it says, all have turned away, all have become worthless, there is no one who does good. Not even one. If we are incapable of doing good, which is exactly what Paul writes, there is no one who does good. Not even one. The scriptures are plain for a reason. This cannot be misconstrued. If no one can do good, what can we possibly do about our sin? The Bible tells us we are incapable of doing nothing good at all. All of our efforts at righteousness are simply filthy rags in the sight of God. And it's sheer audacity for us to present any of our works to him in the hopes that he would be impressed. We have nothing impressive. He has expressly forbidden that.

I want nothing to do with your works. Cain and Abel, don't bring me what you've grown. Bring me a sacrifice. Don't bring me the works of your hands. I want nothing to do with that. Get out. Come to me with a sacrifice. And your sacrifice is not enough, so I've given you one. The sacrifice.

Jehoshaphat goes on to say, will you not judge them? We know God will judge sin. He's promised that. The wages of sin is death. Says that in the scriptures. Sin will be punished. But calling on Him to judge them now, which is what they're doing, they're calling on Him to judge them in Christ, in that temple. We don't seek unjust salvation because God cannot be unjust. He's perfect. We do not ask God to excuse our sins. Because there's no excuse for our sins. We do not ask God to simply overlook our sins. That would be asking the judge to act unjustly. We don't take this course because God will not take this course. But he has devised a way for him to be a just God, even as he justifies the completely ungodly. And through that sacrificial work of Jesus Christ is the only way that's possible.

Paul says in Romans 3, God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement. through the shedding of his blood to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. He did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

should be so grateful. God saw a hopeless group of people that he loved. And he put together the perfect plan to be able to justify them when they deserved nothing of the sort. In Christ, the sins of all God's elect were judged. And judged completely. He didn't hold back. He didn't say, well these aren't really your sins. So I'm just gonna give you 75% of the punishment. It was full wrath. You realize that we can't take care of that. People without Christ, when they're held accountable for their sins, they are in hell for the rest of eternity because they cannot pay for their sins. It never ends. It's never paid off. Christ is so amazing and so good and so perfect, He finished paying for the sins, the innumerable sins of an innumerable amount of people. Their condemnation has been fully satisfied. Finished. Which is why He came back, defeated death, and now sits on the throne. When we call on the name of the Lord for His salvation, we are calling God to look back at the work of His Son. And accept that work as a fulfillment of justice against our sin. So it's like we're saying, yes Lord, judge my sins, but don't do it in me. I can't handle it. Judge my sins, and I almost feel like we don't have the right to say it, but judge my sins in your Son, who didn't deserve it, never deserved it, but willingly stood in that place and took the wrath of God for every one of His people. Judge them in the dear person and work of Jesus Christ.

Jehoshaphat then confessed the greatness of the enemy and their inability to deal with them. He calls the army vast. So is our sin. It is a vast army arrayed against us. Who can count his sins? Were we able to count them, we'd only be counting the sins that we recognize. The things that we think are sinful. But we miss many sins, for we often don't think, we do think that these things are acceptable. But God counts them as sin. Moreover, we would likely not include everything, for there are very few have really come to understand that all we do is sin. No one likes to hear that. We have a really tough time with that with humanity, but that is what the truth of the scriptures tells us. Nothing good. That's a hard truth to hear, but it's followed with the happiness and beauty of the gospel. Yes, you're worthless, but not anymore.

And if we did count them all, we would have to add one more for the sinfulness of our counting. Our sin is a vast army. How quickly we should confess that we have no power over such a vast number of sins. We cannot put away one sin. How then can we deal with the uncountable list of sins? Some people make a sacrament of knowing the extent of their sin. Some people talk about that like it's, like I said, like a trophy. They believe that a person must come to a full understanding of the depth of their sin and depravity before they can call on the name of the Lord. Some will not accept the salvation of anyone who has not spent months or even years groaning under their sense of sin. Nowhere in the Scriptures is that principle found. It never says anything about, you know, you really have to get to the depth of your sin and really understand how miserable and awful you are before you can call in the name of the Lord to be saved. That is simply not true.

No one knows how great our sins are except God. Because He's the one sinned against. All we need to know, all we need to know about our sin is that it's too much for us. That's it. That they are beyond our power to put them away. All we must know for our sin is that they are too serious and too many for us to stand against them.

If there's anyone who's waiting to get to a certain point of understanding before you call on the Lord, because someone has told you or you have heard that you must grieve the burden of your sin for such and such time and go about groaning and moaning in repentance before you can call upon the name of the Lord for your sin, it's not true.

Look at 2 Corinthians 6. It says, for he says, in the time of my favor I heard you. And in the day of salvation I helped you. I tell you, now is the time of God's favor. Now is the day of salvation. There's no reason to put off calling on the name of the Lord. You don't have to wait for anything.

That was my experience when I struggled those first few years like, do I believe? Get baptized? You always have to like add these like levels that you have to reach or. a certain amount of understanding or whatever it is, that's all ridiculous. The Bible says right here, now is the time of God's favor. Now is the day of salvation. The work is already finished. Salvation is already purchased. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to understand it. You just have to know, I can't do this. And I know who can. Call on Christ, that's it.

And a beautiful promise, once again, is if anyone who calls on the name of Christ will not be turned away. The Bible says that today is the day of salvation and now is the time of acceptance. Never do we read in the Bible that we are to wait to call upon the name of the Lord. If you know that your sin is more than you can remedy, you know enough to call upon the name of the Lord to be saved from it.

And then he goes on to say, we do not know what to do. It feels like every day in my life, and I'm sure we all understand that. Jehoshaphat is saying that there is nothing they can do. They're desperate. They don't even know where to turn. They do know where to turn. But there is nothing we can do. But he follows that, but our eyes are on you. Jehoshaphat expresses the essence of faith. Someone has described faith as trusting God to do what only He can do. Which is true. Are you convinced that God is the only one that can deal with your sin? Then set your eyes on Him. If He's the only one that can deal with your sin, don't look anywhere else. He said, look to me, all the ends of the earth, and be saved. The plain truth, once again. For I am God and beside me there is no other. Look to God in Christ, call upon his name and salvation will be yours.

God responded to Josephette and all those that gathered with him and said, do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army for the battle is not even yours. It's God's. When we call upon the name of the Lord for his salvation, the battle is taken away from us. It's taken out of our hands. Because it would certainly be lost if it were not. If the battle is in our hands, it is certain defeat. So when we call upon the name of the Lord for his salvation the battle is taken away from our hands where we're certain to be lost and put in the hands of God where it is certain to be won.

Listen to this wonderful truth. Listen to this sentence. The battle against your sin. Is not yours. It's God's. Think about that. We don't feel that, but think about that. The battle against your sin is not your fight. It's God's. He can't lose. Where do you want it to be? What sweet rest for believers to hear that truth. They can leave the issue with God. For he has made the battle his. And the battle's over.

2,000 years ago, it is finished. God goes on to say, we will not have to fight this battle. You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your position, stand firm, and see the deliverance the Lord will give you, Judah and Jerusalem. There will be a victory. But we will not participate in the winning of that victory. We will only watch. That's our role.

God called upon his people, called upon us to work, or God has not called upon us to work to eliminate our sins. Says right here as he's going to this battle, says this is not your battle to eliminate this vast army of sin. This is not your fight. You show up and watch. I am taking care of this. He has not called us to strive to overcome it. He has called on us to watch him do it. The Jews did as they were told, and this is amazing. We didn't read all the way up to this, but when they got there, they went to this place where the battle was to be waged, and when they got there, they found only dead bodies. They were all dead. God had orchestrated it so that they fought themselves and killed each other.

God's people show up to see the battle between themselves and their sin. They get there and their sin is gone. That's how much we have to do with it. Nothing. All we do is provide the sin. In Christ our sins are gone before we can even draw a sword against them. He calls us to trust in him for a work already finished. We go to the field of battle and all we see are the dead bodies of our sin.

Blessed be the name of Jesus Christ. This is what He has done for you. This is what He has done for His people. Both now and forevermore, defeating our sin by taking them upon Himself. He has triumphed. And the great victory that He has won, He has freely given to us. I pray that God gives me and all of us, the grace to see this every day. How blessed the people of God are.

We are faced up against a vast army of which we stand no chance against. And because of our gracious, loving God and the work of our perfect Savior, the battle's already over. Before we even get there. Again God give us the grace to set our eyes on God in Christ and find his salvation. That he has earned. And freely given.

It has to be free or it's not grace. We can do nothing to earn it. So it was made to be free. And if you need to turn to God, which you do, all of us, over and over, whether you're turning to him the first time in your life or the 10th time today, keep going back. You have every right on the foundation of what Christ has already done to go to him. And you will be listened to. You will be blessed. And if you go to him for salvation, you will receive it.

Our Father, we thank you for what you've done. We cannot justifiably thank you enough. We can't come up with the words to thank you for what you've done. But we do our best in our limited capabilities to thank you, Lord, for putting together the perfect gospel to save your people. We thank you, Jesus, for everything you are for us, everything you've done for us. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

Oliver, will you come up and hand out the bread? And while he does that, we will turn our chorus books to number eight. See the table spread before you.