Desiring the Word

If I could invite everyone, man, I'm very loud.

If I can invite everyone to stand up with me

as we read God's word.

Our scripture reader.

Who happens to be my wife, is going to come

and read the word for us.

The Word of God says in Psalm one nineteen verses

nine through sixteen. How can a young man keep his

way pure by guarding it according to your word? With

my whole heart, I seek you. Let me not wander

from your commandments. I've stored up your word in my

heart that I might not sin against you. Bless her you,

o Lord, teach me your statutes with my lips. I

declare all the rules of your mouth in the way

of your testimonies. I delight as much as in all riches.

I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes

on your ways. I will delight in your statutes. I

will not forget your word. This is God's word.

You can be seated.

It's a blessing to get to be here and share

God's word with you this morning. I want to start

by asking just.

A question.

There's times throughout our lives where we run into people,

our lives run into each other and you meet them

and there's just a quality about them. There's something about them,

and I'm not going to go as far as say

that it's envy, but rather it's something where they've got

something that you wish you had. And I'm not talking

about possessions. I'm talking about running into people that in

my case, it's been people that have such a joy

in their life in moments where I'm thinking, Man, I

don't know how I'm going to deal with the day.

I don't know how I'm going to deal with the week.

And yet here's a brother or sister that I've met

that God's put in my path, and they have such

a peace and such a calm, and not just the

veneer of peace and calm, you can tell the reality

of peace and calm.

And I think I.

Want that, And so I go home and I pray

about it, and I say, God, will you give me

what you have given them? But then I want to

make sure that I am just latched at their side

so that maybe through osmosis it would just like spill

over onto me, right. And So I don't know if

that's true for all of us, but it's certainly true

for me. When you read Psalm one nineteen. When I

read Psalm one nineteen, not knowing who the human author was,

but knowing that the author is ultimately God himself, I

can't help that. Reading through the longest chapter in all

of Scripture, constantly am thinking I want some of that

because the entire chapter, the entire psalm, is written as

an acrosstick.

It's a poem, but it's not just a poem. It's

a song. Now.

I know you're like, well, yeah, all the psalms are songs,

but this is actually a song that was meant to

be memorized. That's why it's an acrosstick. Every section starts

with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and they wrote

it this way so that it would be easy to memorize,

easy to recite in the same way that the majority

of this room, including me, and please just shake your

heads that you can do this, but could maybe sing

the entire song? I size baby right or is that

just me? I'm not doing that this morning. But the

point is that songs are easy to memorize. We can say, man,

it's really hard to memorize scripture. Bible memory is really tough.

But then you can sing that random song that you

don't even like that was on the radio numerous times

the week before. Right songs make it easy, and that

was the whole point. But this song is very unique

in that it's a love song. Yeah, before Taylor Swift

made it popular, this was the greatest love song. It's

still the greatest love song because it's the love song too,

and about God's word. When's the last time you sat

down and thought, Man, I'm gonna write a song, and

I'm gonna write it about how much I love God's commandments,

God's precepts, God's statutes, God's rules, God's word.

I don't know about you.

That's not something that is just comes natural to me

to say, Man, I love the rules, I love the commandments,

I love the statutes, the testimonies, the precepts.

And yet in this.

Song one nineteen we have one hundred and sixty two

references to all of these words, which equate to the

Word of God, God's revelation of himself his character to us.

Also throughout this psalm, there are twenty two references to

the author's delight and love. In these one hundred and

sixty one hundred and sixty two references to God's Word.

There's one hundred and seventy six versus total in Psalm

one nineteen. We're not going to go through all of them.

We're just going through seven as Kim read for us earlier.

But we're going to see and I want you to feel,

and I want you to feel a longing today. Can

I just I'm going to go straight to the end

of what I want out of this time. I want

you to feel what I have felt through study in

this passage and in this Psalm for the past few weeks.

And I want you to feel a longing for God.

That's my prayer for you this morning. It's my prayer

for me this morning, that our longing for God would grow,

that we would grow in our love. In fact, we

know that throughout all of Scripture, God's Word shows us

what God's design for us looks like in our life,

and he gives it in the form of commandments. And

sometimes it's hard for us to see a commandment of

God and then make the connection to this is something

that would make me love him more. Rules in the

household don't really grow affection between children and parents, do

they like?

More? Rules don't equal Mom, Dad, I love you so

much right.

In this case, though, when God gives commandments, he's not

giving a rule of don't do this, or I'll do this,

don't do that, or else this bad thing or punishment

will happen. What God reveals to us is what our

state should be in our lives, according to His good

will and good purpose, loving us completely before we mess

it all up by reaching rejecting him as King, rejecting

him as Lord, rejecting him as God, and seeking to

try in some vain way to worship ourselves. And that's

why in Deuteronomy six and the passage that we call

the Samah, that's why God commands. God says, here, O Israel,

the Lord your God, the Lord your God is one.

You shall love the Lord your God with all of

your heart, soul and might. It goes on to talk

about everything we should do habitually in our lives to

remind us of that. But really the thrust of it

is you shall love the Lord your God, and not

with part of your life, but with all of it.

In the New.

Testament we have it repeated by Jesus as the greatest commandment,

and we get a word added in there, and that

word is your mind, all of your heart's soul, mind

and strength. The two are the same. It encapsulates our

tirety of our existence. It seems natural then that if

that's what God designed us to do, to be in

perfect communion with Him, to be fully joyful and delighted

in His presence, it would make sense that Satan, the

great adversary, would target those very things, our hearts, our souls,

our minds, our strength. His plan of attack is not

a secret. We know it really well. And that's where

he comes after us. He wants to drive a wedge

in our affections from God to the things of this world,

as if it's a viable substitute. What God commands of

us isn't just to love Him, but in a part

the love of God. What it turns into is that

it makes us holy. And these are church words, if

you'll bear with me for a second, these are church

words that can be confusing to us. We can recite them,

we can say them confidently, and we can know all

the right words, but do we really grasp in our hearts,

in our souls, in our minds what they really mean.

And so when God says you shall be holy for

I am Holy, Holy means set apart, Holy means different.

In this case, holy means unblemished and pure, because everything

that is outside of God is impure. Everything that is

apart from God himself, everything that is an addition to,

a subtraction from, or something that's adjacent to or option

b to is impure. What we talk about impurity in

biblical terms. What we're talking about is sin. How much

in our prayer lives do we focus how much time

and meditation of scripture do we focus on holiness and purity?

If I had to do another poll in the congregation

today and ask you know, how many of us have

sin in our lives that we struggle with and maybe

have struggled.

With for so incredibly long of a time.

And we can't quite find final victory in this area.

And so sometimes we just try to avoid it. Sometimes

we try not to think about it. Sometimes we get

really intense and we get an accountability group and we

try to think of ways that we can combat it

and fight it. But it remains, it persists, it's there.

So the question is, well, what is the game plan?

Because in our own efforts, we cannot fight our sin.

In our own efforts we cannot reach purity or holiness

at all. We can't even move the needle. Our best efforts.

Scripture says, our best efforts are no better than dirty racks.

The hardest you can fight against sin.

Might actually move you backwards, which means it's up to

someone else to fight the fight. It's up to us

depending on God rather than doing something for God. It

takes us coming to Him to cleanse us, rather than

trying to clean ourselves before we approach him. And so

what we see here in Psalm one nineteen, the second

section of this love song to the Word of God,

what we see in verse nine is the.

Start of the root of desire, the root of desire.

There's a question and an answer right here in verse nine,

and the Psalmist says, how can a young man keep

his way pure?

How can a young man? Now? Why does he say,

young man? Young man? Isn't really just speaking to all? Right?

Stand up, if you're a young man in the congregation,

this sermons only for you. That's not what this is about.

What he's pointing to is.

That early in life, there's something that happens where we

start to feel things, We start to feel alive, We

start to feel passions. We start to find things that

we're excited about that we have a fire and an

energy about. And let's just be real, even though I

don't want to admit it. The older you get, the

dimmer that flame kind of gets you get tired.

Do you want to go out and party? No? I

want to go sit on the couch. Right.

So, when he speaks of the young man, we're talking

about the star of life, the start of the fight.

So many of us saints in the room today, we've

been in this fight for so long. We've got the

battle scars against our sin. Those battle scars remind us

of victory, not of defeat. But the young person, the

young person who's just getting started, what should they do

from the very start? But let me tell you, the

point of this psalm isn't to say, well, this is

just about when you're getting started in life. This is

really applying to all of us, those who have the

scars and those who don't.

And so the answer is.

By guarding it, that being your way, by guarding it

according to your word. So how do we fight sin?

We do it by guarding our way and think about

a path, think about not just a path. But the

connotation and Hebrew here is actually like wagon tracks cheeriot tracks.

All right, so it's a road, but the road has

ruts in it, and that rut, those ruts, what they

do is they direct your path. You can't really stray

from it, right, But this is the path you're on.

So no matter where you're headed, what path you're on

in the ruts, this is to be guarded according to

God's word. According to God's word. He goes on to say,

with my whole heart, I seek you.

Let me not wander from your commandments. My whole heart.

You see purity and trying to defeat sin, trying to

have sen defeated in your life.

It's not an.

Outside in issue. It's an inside out issue. In other words,

if our best efforts and even in the most obedient

ways that we can come up with to fight sin

in our lives, if it starts with us just trying

to habit our way out of sin, or routine ourselves

away from sin, or cut off technology access, if that's

all we're.

Doing, it's not going to change our heart.

The game plan, the battle plan for attacking sin, doesn't

start with what we do on the outside and our actions.

It starts with the very nature of our hearts.

And so when the Psalma says, with my whole heart,

I seek you, he's saying every single part of my affections,

every single thing that I desire, this is what I'm

giving over to you. Because let me ask you, if

your whole heart is focused and zeroed in on the

face of God, how in the world are you going

to have time to show attention to sin? How often

during our days do we think about that sin that's

nagging us, that's beating us, and what we need to

do and what we need to set as our schedule

in life. And we were trying and trying and trying

to guard against it. But what if we took all

of that time and we thought about the goodness and

the richness of the mercy of God instead. If our

hearts are filled with the Holy Spirit, then victory can

come with the sin that we face. John Owen says

in his book The Mortification of Sin. He says, be

killing sin, or sin will be killing you. So how

do we kill the sin by keeping our way? By

giving our whole heart and says seeking God. Psalmist goes

on to a passage that you've probably heard a thousand times.

Many of us have memorized Psalm one nineteen eleven, which

is I have stored up your word in my heart

that I might not sin against you. There's something interesting

about this concept of storing up God's word in our hearts. See,

it's not a storing up like it's storing up ammunition.

You see, so many times we go to scripture looking

for an answer to something. We're going to Scripture to

try and get some supplemental cheat code to try and

defeat something in our lives. We want to figure something out,

and we think the Bible is just a reference book

that's going to give us the pithy quote that's going

to give us a sense of peace for that moment.

So storing up God's word in our heart, though it's

not about storing up ammunition to be able to fire

at these little oppressions that come in our daily lives.

Though it does work for that, that's not the goal.

This is more storing up like what we see in

Proverbs when when Salmon says, look at the ant oh sluggard.

He stores up, He stores up his food, He stored

up his provision, his sustenance.

He's storing up that which he treasures most, that which

he needs the most.

The connotation in.

The original language here isn't storing up so that you

can keep it. It's storing up something that is treasured

to you. This is storing up what you treasure most.

How much do we treasure the Word of God? Is

it the greatest treasure that we have ever found? A

treasure is so great that we would give anything up

for it. You know, when you serve on foreign mission fields,

you see interesting things, especially in places that are closed

countries where they don't have access to the Word. And

until you've seen the excitement of someone that's never seen

a Bible before, that loves Jesus with all their heart

just from what they've been told, and little fragments of

scripture that they've seen, sometimes while even serving in prison,

and then they get their copy of God's Word, there

are tears that are streaming onto the ground. Sometimes I

wonder in my house, where I have, personally, not even

the household, I've personally got I think five or six Bibles.

How complacent have I become? When I'm like, you know,

maybe today I'll try to get a taste of God's Word.

Out of this translation or that translation.

Sometimes that complacency turns into me not treasuring the Word

of God, but rather treasuring that which I get from it.

God's plan is for us to return to see Him

and his word as the treasure. So many times in

prairie quests in small group, and I serve here in

student ministries as well, and it seems to be this

common theme, and it's certainly common for me. It's very true.

Many times the prairie quest is, you know, would you

pray for me? I want to be in a word more.

I want to be in the word more. I'm not

in it enough. I don't feel good about that. But

if we're being real with each other, and maybe you've

felt the same thing, I think most in here, if

not all, would raise their hands. I would like to

be in the word more. And sometimes it's a scheduling issue.

You wake up, you're picking up the phone first, Well,

maybe we can not do that.

Maybe you're getting.

Up and you have a busy day scheduled and you

have all these things on your calendar lined up. I'm

a big digital calendar guy, and I see all these things.

Here's what my day looks like where in the world

am I gonna fit getting in the word of God?

In I think we need to get very specifically honest

with our prayers about our desire for being in the

Word of God.

And if we're being specifically.

Honest, the prairie quest isn't God, I want to be

in your word more? The prairie quest is, is God,

I want to want to be in your word more.

It's an issue of desire. It's an issue of what

we treasure. What if we were honest with God and saying, God,

would your Holy Spirit show me how great and how

beautiful and how precious.

The treasure is that is you, that is your word.

Because let me tell you, if we truly treasured the

word of God, if we truly desired the Word of

God over all things, and as Paul says in Philippians

chapter three and four says, compared to know in Christ,

I consider all things as rubbish.

If we truly reach that point.

Let me tell you, you would be sitting down at

the end of the day wondering when am I going

to have time to doom scroll? I wish I could

say only the young people know about that It's true

for so many of us. When would I have time? Man,

When am I gonna be able to build into my

schedule watching TV today? When am I gonna build? So

I'm late to work every day because I'm spending too

much time in God's Word. I don't think these are

things that we normally struggle with. But if that's really

what we desired more than anything, if God had given

us a heart to give it completely to him, and

all we desired and treasured was His word, we would

lose track of everything else. We'd be doing Bible studies

on how to find time to do all these other

things in our life. We're spending too much time in

God's word. But that's not our normal prairie quest. I

pray this morning that the Holy Spirit would make that

the reality for us, that our desire would grow so

much for God's Word that we would be wrestling with

how we make time for other things. To get to

the root of the issue a fighting sin by treasuring

God's words and letting it guard our way, we have

to get to the roots of faith, and the roots

of faith are we don't go to scripture to learn something,

but to seek someone with.

My whole heart.

I seek you, not just looking for your answer to

this question. I'm not looking for your advice to this problem.

I'm just seeking you. And also, if we get to

the heart, we get to the roots of faith, that

we find it to be true that all too often

we treat Jesus as some sort of supplement to what

we think we need in life or to our regular diet.

We live in the age of supplements.

All right.

I don't know about you, but the algorithms right now

think that I really need mushroom coffee. Did you know

there's like eight different kinds. I've read the reports that

ranked them all. I'm still drinking coffee from beans, though,

because I think it's just foolishness.

I eat my mushrooms.

But so many times we treat Jesus, you know, the

Word of God, as a supplement in our life.

And if you think.

About it from like a dietary perspective, really it's like

the way we live our lives is this meal, this

main meal that's on our table, and then we bring

a little bit of Jesus in, a little bit of

Bible in to be our favorite condiment, whether it's ketchup

ser racha ta heen.

I don't know.

Just think of your favorite condiment, favorite thing you just

put on everything to spice it up a little bit

where it takes over the flavor. But see, Jesus is

not a condiment in our lives. He is not a

supplement in our lives.

He is the main meal. And this is what he's

been trying to.

Tell us all throughout scripture when he says I am

the bread of life. When he tells the Woman and

John chapter four at the well and says, if you

would just ask me, I would give you living water.

This water in the well.

It's it's insignificant, it's irrelevant compared to living water, if

you would it's no mystery as to why Jesus chose

the imagery in the Last Supper of being bread and wine.

Says we are to live on the word of God.

It is to be our bread. It is to be

our wine. It's to be our sustenance. It's to be

the main course. It's to be everything that we're about,

everything we're feeding on. And that is the issue that

we are facing. When we talk about storing up the

Word of God in our heart, it's equivalent to us

knowing what Jesus said in Matthew six that we should

lay up our treasures in heaven and not here on earth.

It's not an issue of things. We all know that

when we die in this earthly life, all our things

just go in a box and go to someone else.

So what treasure is eternal? Treasure that's eternal is the

word of God. Is Jesus Christ himself. Do we treasure him?

There's a means of desire that are shown in this psalm.

The means of desire show us that it's not up

to us, but rather we're approaching him to do it

in us and through us, to draw us to him

so that we might desire and treasure his word over

all else. And do you know what word we use

in church world when we talk about valuing him over

everything else, showing that he is worth more than anything.

That word is worship. We worship that which we value

and treasure most. And worship isn't just singing the song though, man,

that's a way to tap into the emotion side of desire.

He told us and gave us songs for a reason.

But when we study his word, we are showing our worship.

We are acting in worship. There's a means of worship

even in our prayer life. And in verses twelve through

fourteen we see that he says he gets into a

stage in the psalm where he's talking to God. He's

praying to God in this song, Blessed are you, O Lord,

teach me your statutes with my lips, I declare all

the rules of your mouth in the way of your testimonies.

I delight as much as in all riches. See the

means of desire here. The means is our interaction with

God himself, and He speaks to us through his word,

and we speak to him, orienting our hearts and our

minds to him.

When we pray, it's a dialogue. It's dialogue. He starts

with adoration, bless Blessed are you, O Lord.

It's a prayer of adoration. It's seeing him rightly. When

we pray rightly, we are seeing him rightly. We are

approaching him in an appropriate way by telling him who

he is. And the word blessing really is happy right.

But it's not just happy. It's the way things ought

to be, the way things were designed to be. Everything

is as it should be, as God created it blessed.

That helps us when we go through the beatitudes to

understand it.

That way, everything is right. I am happy, I have joy.

God is the source of that, and we're seeking that.

But we're telling him, blessed are you, old Lord God,

you are the source of all things. And then he

gets into asking for teaching. He says, teach me your statutes.

Now again, as I said earlier, we don't have to

use all the words like statutes and testimonies and things

like that, but rather we can say, God, teach me

your word, Teach me who you are. Teach me to

see you, to understand you. He wants us to see

him and know him. He wants that relationship. We should

be asking for him to teach because, no matter how

many efforts, if you build in the schedule in your

day and you do it saying, man, if I'm just

in the word more, then possibly my desire for the

word would grow. That's probably true, by the way. But

rather we should be praying for God to grow our

desire into teaching us in his word. We should be

asking for it constantly, for him to show his face

because God Jesus promises us in the New Testament that

the Holy Spirit is going to explain the Word of

God to us. He's going to bring it to remembrance

in our lives. This is all about the power of

God himself through the Holy Spirit in our lives as

we engage Him in his word, and we need his guidance,

we need his power, we need his revelation at work.

We should be asking for it. But he goes a step.

Further and he says, with my lips, I declare all

the rules of your mouth. It's an interesting part. This

interesting part is showing and Scripture says this that out

of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. And

so yet again we're not talking about an action. We're

not talking about just obedience of Hey, Jesus has told

us that we are to make disciples of all nations.

He's told us we are to be his witnesses to

the ends of the earth. It's not just an act

of obedience to be talking of God. But rather we

talk about God because we are completely in love with God.

Have you ever met someone that treasures something so deeply?

It's never a secret, is it?

Why?

Because they always talk about it almost like a crossfitter.

Want to know who does CrossFit in here? You should

already know they're going to tell you. All right, when

we are so completely in love with the treasured Word

of God, we are going to be speaking about it.

It's going to be a part of our daily dialogue

in our offices, in our homes. Are we talking about

the Word of God? Is it awkward in your office

for you to be talking with a coworker and something

out of the Bible comes up as a topic of

conversation out of your mouth, and you think, man, this

is such an awkward situation.

How do I get my way out of here? Why

is that.

It should be the most natural thing from a people

who treasure God's word the most, and not so that

you can try and prove your christianness. But when you're

young and in love, you're always thinking about and always

talking about the person that you have found yourself in

love with. We grow in our affections and we treasure

his word. He says, in the way of your testimonies,

I delight as much as in.

All riches.

In this type of prayer life. We see the importance

of prayer in our study and understanding of God's words. See,

there's a progression as we study God's word. That progression

is is that we hear the word. That's what we're

doing right now as I faithfully open God's word and

share it hearing it. But then we read God's Word

and then the going along this progression, then we study

God's word.

As you're studying, there.

Are passages that are just going to be downloaded into

your brain as you memorize God's Word. But then this

last step in the progression, and this is where God's

Word really calls us to get to, and that is

to meditate on the Word of God. Now I'm not

talking cross legged fingers out on. I'm not talking about

that when I say meditation. What I mean is that

we're thinking about it constantly. We're thinking deeply about it.

We're letting it invade our brain space and our heart

space and our soul space. And so you read a chapter,

if you read verses nine through sixteen here, and then

later today you're thinking, man, I really want to think

about I've stored up God's word in my heart that

I might not sin against you. What does that mean?

Am I storing it up? Do I treasure the Word

of God? And all throughout the day, you're thinking, man,

how is the word of God going to impact this

struggle that I have with this sin? What is God

doing for me and in me to combat this? How

is He drawing me to himself? And then maybe thirty

minutes later you think about it again. As you think

and think and think and marinate in this, this is

what we call meditation. You are meditating on the Word

of God. You're letting it invade the very heartbeat of

your daily life. And so he gets into this as

we get into the actions of desire. As we close up,

he finishes with some I will statements. All right, and

these I will statements. There's four of them. There's only

three I wills if you're fact checking me. But I'm

going to claim there's four of them. He says, I

will meditate on your precepts. I will meditate on your precepts.

This is focusing on our minds in on the Word

of God. We are thinking through them and not just

thinking through them to try.

And rationalize them to ourselves.

But rather we're inviting a discussion with God, knowing that

the Holy Spirit is present in dwelling in us, seeking

to engage with us as our minds are contemplating the

things of God from the word of God. We are

communing with him as we think through and meditate on

the word of God. And then he says, next, and

fixed my and fix my eyes on.

Your ways, fixing your eyes.

You see, Scripture talks a lot about fixing your eyes

on things. In the Old Testament, and even in the

New there's a lot of mentions about lifting your eyes.

Lift your eyes, lift your.

Eyes Joshua five, Joshua's told he lifts his eyes from

Jericho and sees a soldier standing next to him, and

Philippians four six and seven, we see that we are

to lift our eyes to see the things from above,

to see how God is going to guard our hearts

and our minds in Christ Jesus, when we're battling anxiety,

we are to lift our eyes up from what's happening

here in the same way that Peter does when he

steps onto the water with Jesus.

With your gaze fixed on the face of.

Jesus, we are fixing our eyes on him and him alone.

This is a soul orientation. This is our entire being

being oriented to God and his word. He goes on

to say I will delight in your statutes. We don't

use the word delight a lot, do we. If you do,

I don't know, just make you a little weird, he said,

I delight in the sam sandwich. It's not something that's normal.

We can work on that. Try it and small group.

Not this week because we have first Wednesday, but next

week try and small group. Just try to delight three

times and see. I'll people look at you, all right,

But what does it mean to delight? It means to

find joy in It means to have such affection for

it that you desire it so much because it delights

your soul. This delight is a total heart change in

heart attitude.

And then he finishes with this, I will not forget

your word.

And if you're keeping track, and if you're making the

connection yet, you will see here that there are four

different parts of.

Us that are being addressed here. This last one is

that we will remember his word. And this is our strength.

This is our strength, you know, I said at the

very beginning, and imna invite the band to come up.

I said at the very beginning that Satan his plan

of attack is to come after our heart, soul, mind,

and strength. And here we are given the answer. How

does a young man keep his way pure by guarding

it according to your word? And at the end he

gives us the actions that lead to that. I will

meditate on your precepts, fix my eyes on your ways.

I will delight in your statutes. I will not forget

your word. But let me tell you, when we talk

about the Word of God. Here in the Psalm there

is not a name given other than statutes, rules, precepts, law, word.

But we get an answer in John chapter one. In

the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God,

and the word was God. This word, this lagous, is

not just a book.

He's a man. And he's not just a man, he

is God himself.

So can I tell you that when we read Psalm

one nineteen, it's not reading it as just a.

Love song to the Word of God for us.

Yes, it's a love song to Jesus himself. Oh, would

the Holy Spirit lead us to treasure Him over all things,

seeing him rightly and capturing every single part of us.

If we are going to want, at the end of

our lives to say I've fought the good fight, I

have kept the faith.

To do so we must also be able to say.

I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth

of knowing Christ.

Jesus, my Lord, would you stand and pray with me?

God, we are so thankful for your word. God, We

are thankful for your son, knowing that your word became flesh,

dwelt with us, lived perfectly something we can't even touch

or get close to, and yet took our punishment, our consequence,

on the cross for our sin. He rose from the grave,

conquering death, conquering sin, so that we might be reconciled

with you, so that we might be one with you again.

God, would you remind us.

So often of the gospel of your son Jesus, so

that our affections would grow, so that we would treasure

you most, that we would treasure you alone.

God, work in our hearts and our souls. Today in

your Son's name, we pray Amen.