[0:00] Would you stand with me as we honor the reading of God's word again in Psalm 30.
[0:21] ! A Psalm of David, a song at the dedication of the temple.! I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up and have not let my foes rejoice over me. O Lord, my God, I cried to you for help and you have healed me. O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol. You restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit. Sing praises to the Lord, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name.
[0:49] For his anger is but for a moment and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. As for me, I said in my prosperity, I shall never be moved.
[1:04] By your favor, O Lord, you made my mountain stand strong. You hid your face. I was dismayed. To you, O Lord, I cry, and to the Lord I plead for mercy. What profit is there in my death if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness? Hear, O Lord, and be merciful to me. O Lord, be my helper. You have turned for me my mourning into dancing. You have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.
[1:38] O Lord, my God, I will give thanks to you forever. May God add a blessing to the reading of his word. Would you please be seated? Have you ever wanted to do something good for God when everything seemed to align for you to do it, but then your plan fell apart? My first ministry job was a part-time summer internship at a place called the House of Prayer Rescue Mission in Chillicothe, Missouri.
[2:14] After the summer ended, I searched for other internship opportunities in the Kansas City area where Danny and I lived as I was going to seminary. And so I contacted our local Southern Baptist Director of Missions, and he invited me to his office where I expressed my desire to him to intern for a local church and serve in whatever capacity they needed, free of charge.
[2:41] And the DOM told me, I just had a pastor in my office asking if I knew of any seminary students looking for an internship. He said, I'm going to call him. And as soon as our meeting is over, I'm going to give him your phone number. That sounded great. And about 30 minutes later, my phone rang. It was the pastor from the church that the DOM had mentioned to me. He asked where I was, and I was at the mall at the time picking something up. And he said, I'll be there to pick you up in about 15 minutes, and we'll go to Starbucks across the street from the mall and we'll visit.
[3:21] This seemed like rapid fire answer to prayer. I was excited. I was even more excited after meeting with that pastor. He had told me that he was planning to retire in a few years, and he laid out this vision of my taking on more of a role within the church there, eventually stepping into his place as the church's pastor if that was God's will. Well, to make a long story short, it was very clearly not God's will. That pastor asked me and Danny to visit his church before he spoke to the deacons about creating an internship for me. We did that. We went a few times, and every time he went, he acted as if he had no idea who I was. I reached out to him a few weeks later to see what was going on, and I never heard anything back from him. I was upset. It seemed like God was bringing everything together, giving me this opportunity with potential to have a permanent place to serve him in the church when I finished seminary. The wind was sucked out of my sails. I was deeply discouraged. In my Bible, there's a superscription, and I read that above verse 1. It appears above verse 1, and it says, a psalm of David, a song at the dedication of the temple. These superscriptions were added later by scribes indicating the human author of the psalm, the time and the place in which it was written.
[5:01] We're told that David is the human author of this psalm, and he composed it for the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem. And this is interesting because the temple wasn't built in David's lifetime.
[5:15] His son Solomon built it several years after David died. David wanted to build the temple, but God had other plans. We read about that in 1 Chronicles 17 verses 1 through 11.
[5:36] Now when David lived in his house, David said to Nathan the prophet, Behold, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of the covenant of the Lord is under a tent. And Nathan said to David, Do all that is in your heart, for God is with you.
[5:49] But that same night, the word of the Lord came to Nathan, Go and tell my servant David, thus says the Lord, It is not you who will build me a house to dwell in. For I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up Israel to this day, but I have gone from tent to tent and from dwelling to dwelling. And all places where I have moved with all Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel whom I commanded to shepherd my people, saying, Why have you not built me a house of cedar? Now therefore, thus shall you say to my servant David, Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel. And I have been with you wherever you have gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a name like the name of the great ones of the earth.
[6:37] And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall waste them no more as formerly. From the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel, and I will subdue all your enemies. Moreover, I declare to you that the Lord will build you a house. When your days are fulfilled to walk with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. In response to God's forbidding David to build him a temple, David didn't complain. He didn't whine. He offered a prayer of praise in 1 Chronicles 7, 26 through 27. David prays, And now, O Lord, you are God, and you have promised this good thing to your servant. Now you have been pleased to bless the house of your servant that it may continue forever before you, for it is you, O Lord, who have blessed. And it is blessed, excuse me, forever. Later on, God explained why he didn't allow David to build his temple in 1 Chronicles 22, 8. But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, you have shed much blood and have waged great wars. You shall not build a house to my name because you have shed so much blood before me on the earth. God chose a man of peace to build his temple, not a man of war. David's son Solomon would be that man. However, David's desire to build God's house didn't prevent him from making preparations for it. David, in his lifetime on earth, collected all the materials that Solomon, his son, would need to build God's temple. He also wrote this psalm to be sung on the day of its dedication. So on the one hand, this event, which prompted the composition of this psalm,
[8:45] Psalm 30, is an example of how we should act when God changes our plans, when things don't go as we planned, when things seem to fall quickly apart just as quickly as they seem to be falling into place.
[8:59] When God closes the door, we should continue to praise him rather than complain about what we can't do. We should do what we can for God's glory. But I don't think that's the primary truth that this psalm communicates. David writes about death. He writes about going down to the pit, down to Sheol, which is the Hebrew word describing a place of the dead or the grave, and how God drew him up from the pit of death, how God brought his soul up from death and restored his life, how God turned his mourning into dancing and how he will give thanks to God for all eternity. Jesus is the interpretive key to understanding the Bible. After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to two of his followers as they were traveling from Jerusalem to a town called Emmaus. Jesus hid his identity from them for a time as he explained to those followers how his crucifixion was foretold in the Old Testament Scriptures.
[10:12] In Luke 24, 25 through 27, Jesus said to them, O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?
[10:26] In beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted them in all the Scriptures, the things concerning himself. Later, Jesus appeared to his disciples and he said to them in Luke 24, 44 through 47, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets in the Psalms must be fulfilled.
[10:50] Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and said to them, Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. To interpret and understand the Bible correctly, you must realize that Jesus, the Word of God, who embodies all of Scripture and who fulfills all of Scripture is the key that unlocks the true meaning of Scripture.
[11:27] The primary purpose of the Bible that God gave us isn't to present us with a list of rules to obey so that we may be right with him, but the proclamation of the coming, the dying, the burying, and the resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ, God's only Son, in whom and through whom we receive forgiveness for our sins, eternal life with God, and the promise that just as he was raised from death to life, so we too who are in him will be raised one day from death to life to glory with him.
[12:09] David, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote this psalm in anticipation of God's better plan, of God's better temple. God would one day provide that temple. Jesus, the Bible says, is Emmanuel, which means God with us. And John testified to him in John 1, 14, and then verse 18.
[12:35] And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. In John 1, 18, no one has ever seen God, God the only Son who is at the Father's side. He has made him known. The word translated dwelt in John 1, 14 is tabernacled, or pitch a tent. That term refers to the Old Testament tabernacle where, again, God met with his people before the temple's construction. Jesus is the true and better temple that sinful men destroyed, but that God raised again. After cleansing the temple, the religious leaders of the Jews confronted Jesus. John 2, 18 through 21 records that confrontation. The Jews said to him, what sign do you show us for doing these things? And Jesus answered them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews then said, it has taken 46 years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days? But he was speaking about the temple of his body. So this is a long way of saying that Psalm 30, this Psalm is a resurrection song. And in it, David offers praise to God for his better plan, his eternal plan, to rescue sinners from the pit, to restore life to the dead, and raise them up to praise God forever. Those whom God has been gracious to save are invited to join him in praise to the one who brings life, new life to dead things, and has the power to raise them from death to glory. And so that's the main idea for this morning's sermon. Let us praise God for his resurrection power. Let us praise God for his resurrection power. David encountered many enemies in his life and situations where his life was threatened. He also sinned in ways that crushed his spirit. He faced circumstances that caused him to mourn deeply. We can relate, can't we? In this life, we face consequences from our sinful choices. We face difficult circumstances as a result of living in a world that is cursed by sin.
[15:21] We make plans that seem to be God's will only for them to vaporize before our eyes in a moment. We grow weary. We mourn. We mentally and emotionally clothe ourselves in sackcloth.
[15:41] But we can endure with hope, knowing that in Christ, the enemies that we don't have the strength to defeat in our own power have been defeated by him. We endure in hope because we know that death is not the end. Because in Christ, we are rescued from the eternal consequences of our sin because Jesus endured them on the cross for us. We endure in hope because we've experienced God's resurrecting power when he called us from spiritual death to life in Jesus Christ, when he saved us through the hearing of his gospel. And we endure in hope because we know that we will experience another resurrection, a greater resurrection when the dead in Christ. When the dead in Christ arise and our eternal souls are united with an eternal, glorified, sinless body. And we will dwell with the Lord in the house of the Lord forever. No matter what you have faced, are facing, or will face, let us praise God today and every day for his resurrection power. If you're here this morning and you don't know the Lord, if you've not trusted in him for salvation, the Bible says, friend, that you will experience a resurrection when Jesus comes back too. Jesus talked about that in John 5, 28 through 29. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out. Those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. Those who have done the good refers to their believing and trusting in Jesus and who as a result of their salvation exhibit the fruits of that salvation. They will be raised to eternal life with Jesus in heaven. But those who reject him will be raised for judgment and will be eternally separated from God in hell where Jesus said, there will be endless weeping and gnashing of teeth. Friend, God has brought you here today to hear the good news of the gospel, to be rescued from your sin and his judgment. I've prayed for you and I hope that today you will experience the resurrection of your soul, that you will join us on earth praising the Lord for his resurrecting power and that you will be with us in paradise as we praise him forever. Death was not the end for Jesus and death is not the end for those who trust in Jesus. And so there's three components here of what it means to praise God for his resurrecting power. The first is to praise God for resurrection. Praise for resurrection. That's what David does in verse one. I will extol you, O Lord, for you have drawn me up and I've not let my foes rejoice over me.
[19:01] God drew David up and because of God's drawing him up, David lifts up God in praise. The phrase drawn up describes water being drawn from a well. It pictures someone like a bucket below the surface of the water, down in the dark depths of sin, powerless to lift themselves out. But then God reached down and pulled them up into the light of day. Ephesians 2, 4 through 8 describes salvation in this way.
[19:42] But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us up with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages we might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God.
[20:13] When God saves someone, he draws them out of the darkness of their sin. He pulls them into the light of his grace and his truth. How does this happen? Look again at verses 2 and 3. Oh Lord my God, I cried out to you for help and you have healed me. Oh Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol.
[20:31] You restored my life from among those who go down to the pit. When I was in high school, I drove a little four-cylinder rear-wheel drive Ford Ranger. And one morning I was driving to school late as usual, going to get there just in time or maybe a minute after the bell rang and my teacher would be gracious to let me in the class and not send me to detention. But it snowed the day before. And so as I was driving, I came to a four-way stop and my tires lost grip of the road and I slid into a ditch.
[21:14] And I tried to put it in reverse and tried to reverse out of that hole, but my tires just spun. And as they spun, I dug myself deeper into that ditch. I didn't have a cell phone. This was before a lot of us had cell phones. There wasn't a pay phone nearby. There wasn't a place where I could go to use a phone to call for help. And so there I was. My efforts to pull myself out of the pit just put me deeper into the pit. I didn't have the strength to pull my truck out of the ditch. I had no phone to call anyone for help. But thankfully, I wasn't stuck for long. A man in a bigger, more powerful truck with four-wheel drive pulled up behind me and came to my window and he said, stay in your truck.
[22:11] I have a cable. I'm going to pull you out. And he pulled out my little truck from that hole like it was nothing. I was out in a second. He unhitched his cable and he waved to me as he drove off.
[22:28] And I saw a little Jesus sticker on his bumper sticker as he went on. Friends, that's what God does for us when he saves us. When he opens our eyes to see our need for our help and then he provides that help. I did nothing to get myself out of the ditch. And that's what God does for us. He does all the work. All that we can do and should do as a result of what he's done for us is give him praise.
[23:04] As David continues in verse four, sing praises to the Lord, O you saints, and give thanks to his holy name. In verse five, he says, for his anger is but for a moment and his favor is for a lifetime.
[23:16] If you've read the Bible, if you've read about David's life, there are times when he endured God's anger. There was his sin with Bathsheba. There was the time he took a census that God didn't command him to take. There were other times. But God's love and grace for his children is greater than the sins of his children. The ultimate example of God's anger and love is the cross of Jesus Christ.
[23:48] Around 800 years before Jesus died on the cross, God gave Isaiah a prophecy that foretold it. Isaiah 53, 4 through 6 says this, surely he has borne our grief, speaking of Jesus, the son of God, and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
[24:08] But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
[24:31] Isaiah 53, 10 through 11. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days.
[24:47] The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. On a dark Friday afternoon, Jesus, the son of God, bore the wrath of the Father, the anger of God the Father for our sins. And from around noon to 3 p.m., Jesus atoned for our sins as he who knew no sin, the Bible says, became sin, that we would receive his righteousness. For his followers, seeing Jesus crucified, no doubt was a time of weeping for them.
[25:39] Their sinless Lord had died at the hands of sinful men. But this was the Father's will. This was his plan.
[25:53] For two days, Jesus' followers grieved. But on the third day, on that Sunday morning, the grave that housed Jesus' body was empty because he rose from death. God's anger was for a moment. The disciples' weeping was momentary. On the third day, they saw the tomb was empty, and they later saw and they touched Jesus who had raised from the dead.
[26:29] The rest of verse 5 says, Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning. Brother, sister, you may be weeping today.
[26:45] In fact, I know that some of you are. And that weeping may tarry, and that weeping may be hard to shake. And sometimes it seems like it'll never end.
[27:00] The average life expectancy in the United States is 78 years. And that's a long time. But in comparison with eternity, it's a very small span of time.
[27:13] It's like a grain of sand compared to the Sahara Desert. Our time here on earth compared to all of eternity. In this life, we weep.
[27:24] We long for a better and brighter day. And the promise that we have from God is that that day will come. That day will come.
[27:36] A day will come when all of our troubles in this life will be in the past. They'll be over. And we have this promise from our Lord that on that day, he will wipe all of the tears away from our eyes.
[27:54] Revelation 21, 4. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.
[28:10] Praise God. Until that time, though. Until that time, we have reason to praise God because we know that that day is coming.
[28:21] We have hope because our God has resurrection power. If you think of David, David had lost children. David lost friends.
[28:33] David sinned in ways that cost the lives of other people. David experienced betrayal. Well, he was well acquainted with grief, but he trusted that his darkest days would be swallowed up by a much greater joy.
[28:49] Jesus' resurrection started with tears on Good Friday, but they ended with joy that first Easter morning because the Son of God has risen and has power over death.
[29:05] Now, the second component is a prayer for resurrection. Verses 6 through 7, David says, As for me, I said in my prosperity, I shall never be moved.
[29:17] By your favor, O Lord, you made my mountain stand strong. You hid your face. I was dismayed. Now, there's some disagreement over these verses among biblical scholars.
[29:27] Some see this as David confessing his sin of complacency for times when his prosperity led him to be confident in himself instead of God. Others interpret these verses as David's expressing his confidence in God, who made him strong and who kept him and would keep his promise to establish David's throne forever.
[29:51] Whatever the case, I think it's safe to say that God's not letting David build the temple because of the blood he shed for a time felt like God was hiding his face and caused him to fear that God would maybe not grant him the joy of living in his presence.
[30:14] I think we can all agree that there are times in our lives when God says no or when we endure hard things and we are tempted to think, God, have you hidden your face from me?
[30:30] In such times, David sets an example of what we are to do. David prays, verses 8 through 10, to you, O Lord, I cry and to the Lord I plead for mercy.
[30:41] What profit is there in my death if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness? Hear, O Lord, and be merciful to me, O Lord, my helper.
[30:52] A couple of things here will sharpen our understanding of these verses and give us deeper insight into who they refer primarily to. In verse 9, the word death is actually the Hebrew word blood.
[31:08] The word pit can also mean corruption. So we could translate this verse in this way. What profit is there in my blood if I go down to corruption?
[31:20] As it pertained to David, he asked God to keep him alive, to praise him. As it pertains to Jesus, we think about that moment in the Garden of Gethsemane when faced with the cross and the reality of what he would endure on the cross, our Lord, our Savior, our Lord, in his grief, in his anguish, in his trouble, sweat drops of blood and anguish over what he would endure on the cross.
[31:56] Yet, trusting the Father that his blood would atone for our sin and trusting Psalm 1610 that his Holy One would not see corruption.
[32:12] In time of despair, we turn to God for help, for healing, and to remind us of the reality of the good work that he began in us in salvation when he was gracious to save us, that he will complete that work in glory when we are glorified like Jesus with him.
[32:35] Remembering that just as Jesus rose, so we too who are in him will one day rise. Now the third component, the purpose of resurrection.
[32:47] Verses 11 through 12. David ends this Psalm as it began with praise. You have turned for me my mourning into dancing.
[32:57] You have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever.
[33:12] God turned David's mourning into dancing. You hear that, Baptists? God turned David's mourning into dancing.
[33:25] This is amazing. This is only something that God can do. God turns funerals into weddings. When God saves you, he transfers you from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light by uniting you to himself in his death, his burial, and his resurrection.
[33:52] In salvation, he takes the grave clothes off and he clothes us with his righteousness. He rose again and will raise us one day too.
[34:04] When you grieve, when you mourn, when your good plans seem to fall apart, remember the joy of your salvation as David did and keep your eyes on the one who conquered death.
[34:20] Hebrews 12, 1 through 2. therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy, this is what I want you to see, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
[34:58] Church, God has set a joy before us, hasn't he? We have this promise from him that the good work he began in us when he saved us is a good work that he will complete when we are glorified with him because God has a power that no other being has, the power to raise dead people to life.
[35:32] If you're here this morning, again, you haven't trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you've heard what he said in his word, that a day is coming, a resurrection is coming for you, for all of us.
[35:48] For some, that will be a great day. It will be the greatest of all days. Our Lord has returned and all the other promises that have not been fulfilled will be fulfilled and we will be with him in glory and you've heard about that, no more tears, no more death, no more pain, no more mourning.
[36:04] And it's not because of who we are or what we've done, it's because of who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. And it's because God has opened our eyes to see the truth, the reality of our need, that we're like that bucket in the well.
[36:18] We can't draw ourselves up out of the well. Try to put a bucket in a well and see if it will come up out of the well on its own. It won't. It can't. It doesn't have the power. But God in his grace draws us out of that pit.
[36:33] He brings us into the light of his truth, of his grace and we're saved and we have salvation in him that's forever. It's eternal. And that's what he's offering to you today if you have not trusted in him.
[36:49] You are a sinner. We've all sinned. We've all fallen short of the glory of God, way short. We're all like that bucket in the well that has no hope of being pulled out. It has to be God who does it.
[37:02] And if you realize that that's you, that you're a sinner, and if you realize that that's an eternity you don't want, who would want that? to be judged by God and separated from him in hell where there is pain all the time and it never ends in weeping and gnashing of teeth.
[37:22] And I hope that today you turn to Jesus, that you would cry out to him and he will save you. For those of us whom God has been gracious to save, I think this is how we adjust according to what we've heard.
[37:38] Ponder anew, what God can do. It comes from the song, the hymn, Ponder anew, what God can do. Ponder means to think, to dwell on.
[37:50] It's also a P and you know they all have to be Ps. Otherwise you'd think, what's wrong? But our lives are so busy, aren't they? We live busy lives.
[38:05] We're constantly having our schedule filled with things and when our schedules aren't filled with things, we fill our schedules with things, don't we? We're so busy that we don't have time to ponder these things that God has done and who God is.
[38:22] And so here's my challenge to you. Spend time pondering, thinking over, dwelling on, what heaven will be like.
[38:35] Spend time, carve out time in your day just to think about the resurrection and what that day will be like. Dwell on this new body that you'll have, that the Lord will provide, a glorified body, a sinless body in a new heaven, in a new earth without the presence and effects of sin.
[38:58] And if you ponder well, if you think hard enough and are prayerful in it, you'll experience a contentedness, a peacefulness, a hopefulness, and a joyfulness, and a reason to praise God for His resurrection power no matter what situation or circumstance you're facing.
[39:34] I want to close this morning by reading Romans 8, 10 through 11. And I hope this will encourage you. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness, if the spirit, and here's the promise, if the spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
[40:05] Let's pray. Lord God, what a wonderful truth, reality to reflect upon from your word this morning.
[40:22] That the dead in Christ will rise. That Lord, what no eye has seen or what our minds can't even comprehend. Lord, the great things that you have in store for those whom you've been gracious to save.
[40:36] To give new life to us in salvation and to keep us, to sanctify us, and to finally glorify us when we are with you in heaven in a place where there will be no more sin, there will be no more death, there will be no more pain, no more anguish, and it will be eternal bliss and glory with you as we praise you for who you are and what you've done.
[41:00] But God, we have reason to do that in this life because, Lord, we know that you are a promise keeper, that the promises you give are promises that you keep, that you're not a liar, that you do not in any way go back on your word, Lord.
[41:18] These promises to us are sure they're safe and they're secure. Lord, you know each one of us, you know the different struggles that we're going through right now in this life, and God, I pray that you through your spirit would comfort us through the words that we've heard this morning, through this truth that we've had the chance to reflect on, and that, God, we would know that our mourning by you will tarry.
[41:47] Joy comes in the morning, and you give us reason to dance. God, for those who are here and they don't know you, I pray that they would struggle with this. Lord, I pray that they would wrestle with you on this, that they would think about eternity and what eternity means and what an eternity apart from you would be like, that they would cry out to you for help, that they would repent of their sins and turn to you, and that they would be saved, and that their mourning would turn to dancing just like the rest of us, who you have been gracious to save.
[42:22] Lord, we love you. God, thank you for your resurrecting power. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[42:33] Amen. Amen. Amen.