Attributes of Goodness (4)

We've been looking at a number of the different attributes of God. In fact, I was counting back up today. We've looked at 13 of the attributes of God and the two that you have on your list tonight, on your outline tonight, are the last two that we anticipate looking at. I think I mentioned when we first started into this section of the study that various writers and theologians have different ways of looking at the attributes of God. Norman Geisler, for instance, has 37 attributes of God. But we've combined some of them, and we'll do that again tonight, especially with Mercy, the Mercy of God, actually as a combination of several qualities related qualities. So we're looking tonight at the faithfulness of God and the Mercy of God. Okay, let's jump right in. What does faithfulness mean? The Hebrew word and the Greek word for faithfulness, Hebrew being the Old Testament word, Greek being the New Testament word, both have the root idea of firm, something that is firm, firmness. And thus, something you can count on, it's reliable, it's steadfast, it's trustworthy, it is dependable. So it is firm in that sense that it is dependable and trustworthy, and that's what the word faithfulness means. When it refers to God, obviously all of those qualities are true, he is reliable, he's steadfast, he's dependable, he's trustworthy. He keeps all of his promises in other words. He is faithful to who he is, to his character, and to his own word, to his promises. I'm reminded of something I read a number of years ago about a town clock in a town hall in Copenhagen, Denmark. It's the world's most complicated clock, it took 40 years to build, well over a million dollars, many years ago when it was built, it has 10 faces, it has 15,000 parts, it is accurate to 2,500 of a second every 300 years. It obviously tells the time of day, but it also gives the days of the week, it tells the months, the years, it actually tracks the movement of the planets for 2,500 years. There are some parts of that clock that will not move until 25 centuries have passed. It's a very amazing piece of machinery, but it is not reliable because it loses 2,5th of a second every 300 years. So it is not reliable, you can't make sure that it's the right time. Obviously God is much more complex and he is fully reliable, completely reliable, trustworthy, dependable, he is faithful. Now let's look at what the scriptures teach about that, there are so many passages you can go to, and we are going to look at some of the key ones beginning with Deuteronomy chapter 7 and verse 9. So open your Bible to Deuteronomy 7. I want to set the context for this because we just jump in and read the verse that mentions the faithfulness of God, it's just there, but it adds some color and richness and tone to it if we understand why that is mentioned. In chapter 7, first of all in the first 6 verses, God is telling the nation of Israel through Moses that once they get into the land, they are to drive out all the other nations. They are not to make alliances with any of the other nations in the land. And some people have thought that to be a very harsh and cruel thing that God would require, but there were a couple of reasons for that one of which is mentioned here, the other of which is mentioned in the book of Genesis, and that is God was waiting to give the land of Israel to his people until, as he said in Genesis 15, the iniquity of the Amorites is full. In other words, the sinfulness of the people in the land of Canaan would have grown so deep and so amazing that it is time for God to judge them. And the only judgment that is adequate to their sin is just complete extermination of these tribes of people. And so that was one reason God told the nation of Israel no alliances with any of those nations. But the second reason, which is mentioned in this passage, is that if you make alliances with them, then you will adopt their gods. It's a given. If you make treaties with these nations, make them a part of yourself. They bring their gods with them. You'll be enticed by those. And you are to be my people, a pure people. And then he says, verse 6, he says, for you are a people wholly to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. Now verse 7, the Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath. He swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the land of slavery from the power of Pharaoh King of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God is God. He is the faithful God keeping his covenant. Now notice how faithfulness is described. Keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. Okay. The whole context is when you get into the land, don't make alliances with the people. You are to be my people, a separate people, a holy people, not entangled with other nations who will bring their gods with them. And so it was an issue of idolatry and pure worship. And he says, now I have taken you out of the land of Egypt to be my people, not because you were numerous or more attractive than other nations, but because two things, because of my love and because I had made an oath, I had made a promise to your forefathers all the way back to Abraham. And I keep my promises. And it is in that context that God says, know therefore that the Lord your God is God. He is the faithful God. Keeping his covenant of love. The covenant is the promises made to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and then recorded by Moses. And God will keep those. He's trustworthy. He's dependable. He's reliable. He's faithful. So he's faithful in the sense that he keeps all of his promises. Any comments or questions there before we move to another passage that sheds a little different light on God's faithfulness. Let's look at Psalm 119. Psalm 119. Now what do you know about Psalm 119? What's distinctive? What's unique about this psalm? It's the longest chapter in the Bible, isn't it? Okay, every verse except for two. Yes, you're right, John. He all different two fingers except for two make reference to the word of God, which is an amazing thing. This is really an amazing chapter. It is divided into 22 sections of eight verses each, 176 verses. There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. And the first eight verses all begin with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And then bait and then on down the line that way each section of eight verses begins with the same letter of the alphabet all the way through the 22 letters. It's an amazing piece of poetry. There are only two verses that don't refer to the word of God and our verses one of them. But in essence, the word of God is implied. And I think you'll see why. Look at verse 90. Your faithfulness continues through all generations. You established the earth and it endures. Now, the verse before that says, your word or Lord is eternal, it sends firm in the heavens. And so when he mentions God's faithfulness, what do you think he's talking about? What is what is the unique aspect of his faithfulness here? I think I heard it. He keeps his word. Yeah, he keeps his word. That's exactly in the context. He's just talking about your words. The eternal stands firm and you're faithful. It seems to be referring or at least implied he is faithful to his word. And that continues through all generations. You established the earth and endures. Your laws endure this day for all things serve you. And so God is faithful to his word. Okay, let's look at the next one. An amazing passage. Scripture, lamentations chapter three. Lamentations is the PS to Jeremiah. So if you can find Jeremiah, right at the end of Jeremiah. But then you knew that, didn't you? Whenever I do that, I'm reminding myself where to find a book. Okay, I'm kind of, you know, like it looked like you need to know. Lamentations three. What is the book of lamentations about? Somebody helped me with the theme of the book. What is it? Weeping. Yes. That's what the name means. What is the author weeping about? In the book of lamentations. I'm sorry. Is that a sign of Israel? Okay, that's a key part of it. He's weeping over the center of Israel. But what else? What did the center of Israel cause? Destruction. What kind of destruction? The destruction of Jerusalem. Yeah, see Jeremiah throughout the book of Jeremiah has been prophesying that the Babylonians were going to come and take the nation of Judah, which is the only. Part of Israel left. Gonna take them into captivity. And at the end of the book, they do. And then in lamentations basically Jeremiah is weeping and sorrowing over what devastation was brought when the Babylonian army sacked Jerusalem and burned it to the ground and took most everybody captive. And so he weeps over the city. And again, this is an amazing piece of poetry. There are five chapters. Each chapter except chapter three has 22 verses. Each one of them begins with a successive letter of the Greek alphabet. Again, these, these men were masters of writing poetry. The only exceptions chapter three, it has 66 verses. Aha, guess what? Every three verses begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It's an amazing, amazing book. And right smack in the middle of the book. It changes tone. Everything that he has done up to this point is weeping, sorrowing, crying over the destruction of Jerusalem. And it is just horrible. Its description is absolutely gripping. And then all of a sudden, chapter three, look at verse 19, I remember my affliction and my wondering the bitterness and the gall I will remember them and my soul is downcast within me. Now look at verse 21, it starts to turn. Yet this I call to mind. And therefore I have hope because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed for his compassion's never fail. You may have a translation read his mercies never fail. And we'll see how we get mercy and compassion together. Then verse 23, they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness and Jim chose the hymn that's built on this verse. Great is your faithfulness. My very favorite hymn and I love it because it comes out of such depth of despair. Great is your faithfulness. And he says in verse 24, I will say to myself, the Lord is my portion. Therefore I will wait for him. The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young. In this book of laments, which on either side of this section of verses is just horrifying. In this book of laments right in the middle, there's like a peak. It's a mountain peak of description of who God is. And in the middle of all of this devastation and horror and weeping, that mountain peak is standing there, unmovable. It is our great God. And he talks about his love, his mercy, his faithfulness, his goodness, his salvation, all of those characteristics and things that God does. And he talks about gives us hope when we seek him. And we wait quietly for him. An amazing passage. And the very center of it is great is your faithfulness. Now here's my point. Anybody who can say that in the midst of what Jeremiah had experienced and witnessed, understands something about the faithfulness of God. You know, it's easy for us to talk about the goodness of God and the faithfulness of God when everything is going well, but when you've lost everything. And you're still able to say, even in the midst of heart-wrenching cries of despair and grief, you're still able to say, God's faithful. He's still faithful. I can trust him. He's dependable. That is a deep understanding of the faithfulness of God, isn't it? Amazing passage. All right. Let's look at another one. Any comments or questions while we're turning to second Corinthians 1? John. What a great statement. If you don't have anybody taking credit for that, I'll take credit for it. That's a great one. What we know, Trump's what we feel. You have that written in your Bible too? Okay. Hmm. Wonder where that came from. Okay. That is so true. And it does summarize that passage very well, doesn't it? All right. Second Corinthians 1 verses 18 to 20. Again, you have to kind of set the context here because when Paul talks about the faithfulness of God here, it's in contrast to a criticism he has received about himself. He has made a promise to try to visit the Corinthians and he wasn't able to follow through on it. He wasn't able to keep it. If you'll move back to verse 15, he says, because I was confident of this, I planned to visit you first so that I might benefit twice. I planned to visit you on my way to Macedonia and to come back to you from Macedonia and then to have you send me on my way to Judea. When I planned this, did I do it lightly? Or do I make my plans in a worldly manner so that in the same breath, I say yes, yes, and no, no, because he had made these plans to visit them and then was not able to do it. And there were some of the Corinthian church that were accusing him of being insincere of just speaking out of both sides of his mouth, you know, make plans, tell them, oh, yeah, I'll be there. Never had any intention of going. And so he's addressing that he's saying is that is that what I'm doing that I really do that. And here's his answer in verse 18, but as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not yes and no. For the son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me in Silas and Timothy was not yes and no, but in him it has always been yes. For no matter how many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ. And so through him, the amen is spoken by us to the glory of God. So he's saying I'm calling upon the faithfulness of God, just as God is faithful, I'm telling you, I had every intention of coming. I wasn't saying yes and no. And all of his promises, by the way, are yes and they are amen. By the way, the Hebrew word for faithful is the word amen. Amen. And it means truly or solid, faithful. And we get, we actually get our word amen from that word and the corresponding Greek word, amen, means the same thing. Truly, truly can count on it. So that Paul uses that here through him, the amen is spoken by us to the glory of God. So even though Paul may make a promise, fully intending to keep that promise, but for whatever reason circumstances happen, he's not able to keep it. That will never happen with God. That's what he's saying. The contrast is, I really wasn't being wishy-washy when I made you that promise, but nobody can keep all their promises except God. All of his promises are yes. They will be kept. All of them have an amen with them. Truly dependable, faithful, reliable. So God is faithful to all of his promises. All right, first, that's Lonean's chapter five, another passage on the faithfulness of God, first, that's five. We need to read verses 23 and 24 to get the flow of thought. Verse 23, may God himself, the God of peace sanctify you or set you apart through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now verse 24, the one who calls you as faithful and he will do it. For God to keep us, to be kept blameless, ready for his coming, that's a matter that God does. It's based upon his faithfulness and he will do it. None of us keeps ourselves saved. None of us keeps ourselves blameless in God's sight until he comes so that we're sure we go to heaven. That's not a work of ours. It's a work of God's and he is faithful and he will do it. You can keep, you can count on that. He will do that. So it has to do with us being presented blameless to the Father when Christ comes back. All right, one more. Second Timothy 2. This is an interesting one as well. Second Timothy 2, verse 13. We're going to begin in verse 11 because verse 11 begins and most of you will have in your translations. Have it set apart differently from the rest of the text. It is a piece of poetry. It is a parallel form of Old Testament poetry put into the New Testament. And most New Testament scholars believe it was an early hymn that was sung in the early church and Paul quotes this hymn in this passage because he suddenly breaks from his text into a piece of poetry. So many believe it was a hymn. He says in verse 11, here is a trustworthy saying. And here it is. If we died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us. If we are faithless, he will remain faithful for he cannot disown himself. Fascinating passage. It almost seems to contradict itself, doesn't it? If we disown him, he will disown us. If we are faithless, he will reign faithful because he cannot disown himself. What does that mean? How do those two fit together? If we disown him, he will disown us. But if we're faithless, he remains faithful. He cannot disown himself. That's a difficult one. There is a difference between disowning and being faithless or failing in our faith. The word disown is a word which literally means to completely die, turn your back on. It is the word that's used of apostates in the Bible. And apostate is one who has denied the faith. One who is obviously an unbeliever, a wolf in sheep's clothing, maybe a religious teacher, maybe claiming to be a Christian, but walk away from the faith and never come back. Obviously an apostate have turned away from the Lord. And those kind of people, the Bible teaches very clearly, especially in second Peter 3, they've never been saved. They were false professors, they've never been saved. And so if that level of apostasy is existent, then the Lord doesn't claim us. He disowns us because we were never truly saved. But faithless is a different issue. It's a different word. It's not a strong word. It's the idea that if we fail, if our faith falters, which come, let's face it. Let's be honest, that happens with all of us. To some degree, in some way, our faith fails. We fail. We sin. God doesn't disown us. He doesn't turn his back on us. He's faithful. Why? Because he cannot disown himself. That indicates we're true believers. We have the Holy Spirit's presence in us. He can't turn his back on us because he is in us through the Holy Spirit. That's a genuine believer. The one who disowns him is in apostate, a false professor, one who's not a genuine believer. But the one who's faithless is one who knows Christ, but stumbles from time to time, fails the Lord from time to time. And God does not turn his back on us. Aren't you glad of that? Aren't you glad that God remains faithful even when we're not? That he does not turn his back on us because he cannot disown himself. God's faithfulness is an amazing, amazing truth. And it is a wonderful rest for a weary soul to know that God is faithful. Always faithful. Any question about any of those passages or what God's faithfulness means? Certainly can rest on it. Can't we? Can have confidence and trust in our Lord's faithfulness? And that certainly is one of the applications of this truth. The application of the truth. What does it mean to you? How would you apply God's faithfulness to your life? What does it mean to you? We've been hibernating, haven't we? We're all asleep. That's fine. I'm going to suggest a few just in case none came tonight. Here's one. First Corinthians 10-13. Look at this verse. Is it on the screen, Greg? Do we have first Corinthians 10-13 on the screen? There we go. No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind and God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. The temptations that face us, first of all, there's nothing that you face that's unique to you. No temptations overtaking except what is common to mankind. That's a blessing to know that I'm not a special target of Satan that nobody has ever faced this before, like I have. That can easily lead to despair. But then the fact that God is faithful, he will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we're able to resist. And he will make a way for us to escape that. So God is faithful even when we are facing temptation to be able to give us victory. That's one way to apply his faithfulness. The second way is his faithfulness guarantees that we'll be protected from Satan. Look at this verse again on the screen. Second Thessalonians 3-3. So that no one would be unsettled by these trials for you know quite well that we are destined for them. I think maybe I've given you the wrong verse. Second Thess 3-3. Let me take a look at that. Maybe I'll put the wrong one on the screen. Yeah, second Thess 3-3 says, but the Lord is faithful and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one. The Lord is faithful and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one. Isn't it good to know that God's faithfulness guarantees that we will be protected from the evil one? And then one other and this is something that we all need every day. God's faithfulness assures our forgiveness. Most of you in this room will know 1 John 1 9. If we confess our sins he is faithful, faithful and just and we'll forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Now I don't know about you, but this is a verse that I am so grateful for because I may be confessing a little too much here tonight and you will be shocked. But there are a couple or three sins that I've committed more than once. I'm assuming that probably you have two. Isn't it good to know that God is faithful whenever we confess? Don't misunderstand that. That doesn't mean that we just glibbly say, okay, I'm sorry, it's automatic, you know, I get forgiven. I have no intention of turning from that sin or trying to grow to where I'm getting victory over that sin. I know I'll do it again. I intend to. I know I will, but I can always just confess it and get forgiveness. That kind of an attitude is not true confession. But God is faithful to forgive us. In other words, over and over and over again when we fail, he's faithful to forgive us. He never, he never stops. And he's just in doing that and he's just in forgiving us because Christ's blood has covered our sin. And so forgiveness on God's part means that we're restored to a family relationship and fellowship. The issue of salvation has been forever taken care of. So God is faithful and just and forgives us our sin. I'm so thankful for that. Yes, we have to be sincere. What is it? Proverbs 28, 13 says, who so conf- he that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but who so confesseth and forsake of them shall have mercy. Confession is coupled with forsaking. And it certainly means there is the spirit, the attitude and the desire to overcome that sin. And that every time you may fall in that way, you may get angry and and and blurt out things you shouldn't say or you may treat someone unkindly or whatever your besetting sin is, the sin that easily entangles you Hebrews 12. Well, it means that whenever that happens, you're troubled by it. It it it grieves you. You don't just say, well, it's just me, you know, it's just me. I don't care. Yeah, you do care. That's that I think is the genuine spirit of repentance and wanting to forsake sin. But there are sins that as as I mentioned, the writer of Hebrews says easily entangle us and we all have certain things that easily entangle us. And we need to identify those and be praying about them and asking God to give us strength and victory, but we all have those those areas of our lives that we struggle with. Yeah, thankfully God is faithful to forgive. Okay. Isn't there an amazing degree of mistrust in the world today among nations, even in our own nation of of politicians or corporations or whoever it might be? We just there is so much wickedness that goes on and so much deception and sinful entanglements and people's relationships that you find yourself saying, I don't know that I can trust anybody anymore. Who can you trust? You can trust God because he is faithful. He's faithful. It's so good in a in a world where there is so much distrust. To know that you can trust God because he's faithful. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is so true and so good, Carolyn. God is faithful because of who he is, not because of what we do. It's not based on us. And the same can be said of all of his attributes, right? His love. God does not love us because we're good. You know, we do God loves us because he is love and he could not love you anymore and same thing with God's faithfulness. He could not be any more faithful. His faithfulness is not driven because of the fact that I'm faithful or I'm good or I'm obedient. He is still faithful. And that's what we saw in in second, Tim too. Even when we're faithful, he he remains faithful. Okay. We're just going to get started and touch on the fact that God is merciful. And by the way, I love all the attributes of God, but I'm so excited about what we're going to do next. And that is the Trinity. We're going to get into the triunity of God and talk about that. But we need to we need to focus on the mercy of God first because this is a tremendous attribute. Let's at least talk about what merciful means. This is a an attribute of God that has a broad scope. In fact, there are three Hebrew words and two Greek words that are translated mercy in our English versions. So you can tell just from the fact that the original languages were more precise and a different shade of mercy would have a different word for it. You can tell that this is a broad range of attributes. And it really is. Let me give you the basic idea and then we'll talk about some of those nuances. The basic idea is tenderhearted, loving compassion. That's the basic idea in God's mercy. But there are lots of shades of that and different ways to translate those words. And that's the reason why we saw the word compassion a little while ago, where some of you in particularly in the King James in Lamentations 3 had mercies. The words can be translated tenderness, mercy, compassion, pity, kindness, goodness, loving kindness, and in different translations, you'll find all those words used for words that sometimes can be translated mercy. But mercy incorporates all of those ideas, all of them. But the core idea, the basic idea is that God is a God who has a tenderhearted, loving compassion. I know that when we think of mercy, sometimes we think of the standard definition, grace gives us what we don't deserve, mercy withholds what we do deserve. That is a very slim piece of the pie. That's a very slim part of understanding God's mercy. At the root of God's mercy, yes, he does withhold what we deserve, but at the root of God's mercy, it's much more emotional than that. It's much more tenderhearted and feeling than that. That's why loving kindness, pity, those kinds of words can be used for some of those Greek and Hebrew words. The idea is that God has a tenderness in his heart toward need and he acts to do something about it. And that's an important part of understanding mercy. Mercy is not just a feeling of pity. Mercy moves a person to respond, or it's not genuine mercy. For instance, in the spiritual gifts, the gift of mercy is the fact that people are moved by hurt by hurting people and they are moved to the point they can't help but respond. They've got to do something to try to alleviate need. That's the gift of mercy. The mercy of God means that he has a tender heart of compassion for hurting people and for needs and he does something about it. Let me just give you a couple of illustrations because this actually one illustration that has a couple of sides to it. God is concerned both about physical needs and spiritual needs of people. Sometimes in the church we have addressed only one of those and that is people's spiritual needs. That obviously is the greatest need. You can meet people's physical needs and make them healthier and better off and they're still going to hell. That hasn't solved their ultimate problem. The ultimate problem is spiritual and the greatest need is spiritual. But God is also concerned about other needs. People's physical needs, people's material needs, all of those kinds of things. There is one account in the gospels, the feeding of the 5,000. It's interesting to me that in one gospel it speaks of his compassion and the response is he starts healing people when he sees this great crowd and later on he'll feed them the feeding of 5,000. But his compassion moves him to heal and in the same story in one of the other gospels it talks about his compassion caused him to be motivated to teach them. Look at these two passages. First of all Matthew 14, 14. When Jesus landed, when he was crossing the sea and the crowd followed on the north shore of Sea of Galilee, when Jesus landed and saw a large crowd he had compassion on them and healed their sick. So he was compassionate for their physical needs and one of the ways he responded out of his pity, out of his loving kindness, out of the tenderness of his heart was to start meeting those physical needs. Start healing people. But the very same story is recorded this way in Mark's gospel. In Mark 634, when Jesus landed and saw a large crowd he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. Now who got it right? Matthew or Mark? Well you know that the answer don't you both. Both. He did both. Remember you have to put all four of the gospels together to get the full picture. Mark focuses upon him meeting the spiritual needs of people. He began teaching them the word of God because he realized they were like sheep with no direction, no shepherd. They needed God's direction from his word. So he began to teach them. Matthew's gospel focuses on the fact they began to heal the sick. Both are important and both are in evidence of the mercy of God, the mercy of Christ. He is touched by what he sees. But he's touched on at least two levels. He's touched by what he sees in their hearts. That they have a spiritual need. They're like sheep with no direction in life, no shepherd to tell them the way to go and to guide them and to give them nurture for their soul. So he begins to teach. But he's also concerned and moved by what he sees by human suffering. And so he also begins to heal. Both are in evidence of his heart being touched and tenderness and mercy. And so if the church is to is to have the same heart of love that God has, it has to have both. And I'm thankful to the Lord that there is evidence of that here. We do believe strongly in teaching the word of God and preaching the word of God to meet people's spiritual heart needs. But we also believe in reaching out to other needs. Celebrate recovery is a huge example of that. And so our other target ministry started tonight, divorce care and grief share. People are hurting. And their lives are devastated and broken by their sin or by events that have happened to them that are not related to sin. And if we are moved like God has moved, we will not only be moved to teach to reach the spiritual need and the heart of people, which is the most important. Obviously. We can fix people up and they still go to hell. So obviously that's the most important thing. But we also are moved to reach out to meet people's other needs that have devastated their lives. And if we are like the Lord Jesus will be moved in both ways. It's not one or the other. It's both. That's the way Jesus was moved. That's that's mercy. That's tender hearted compassion. And that clock is not being very merciful to me right now. It's yelling at me our time is up. So we've got to stop. Okay. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your faithfulness. And thank you for your mercy. We are amazed that as awful as we are, as sinful as we are, as faithless as we are, that you are still faithful and you still love us and you have a tender heart toward us. Thank you, Father, for all that you are. Where would we be without you? We know Lord we would not be in a good place. So thank you for who you are. We will forever sing the praise as great as your faithfulness, great as your mercy in Jesus' name. Amen.