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00:00 Good morning church. Today's scripture reading is taken from Psalm chapter 27. I'm reading from the NIV 2011.
00:08 The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the
00:14 stronghold of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my
00:21 enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my
00:26 heart will not fear. Though war break out against me, even when I will be confident, one thing I ask from the
00:34 Lord, this only do I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty
00:41 of the Lord, and to seek him in his temple. For in the day of trouble, he will keep me safe in his dwelling. He
00:48 will hide me in the shelter of his secret tent and set me high upon a rock. Then my head will be exalted above the
00:56 enemies who surround me. At his sacred tent, I will sacrifice with shouts of joy. I will sing and make music to the
01:03 Lord. Hear my voice when I call, Lord, be merciful to me and answer me. My heart
01:10 says of you, seek his face. Your face, Lord, I will seek. Do not hide your face
01:16 from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger. You have been my helper.
01:24 Do not reject me or forsake me, God my savior. Though my father and mother forsake me,
01:31 the Lord will receive me. Teach me your way, Lord. Lead me in a straight path
01:36 because of my oppressors. Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes. For false
01:42 witnesses rise up against me, spouting malicious accusations.
01:47 I remain confident of this. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord. Be strong
01:54 and take heart and wait for the Lord. This is the word of the Lord.
02:03 Thank you. Good morning everyone. Oh, today is loud. Good. Okay, everyone can hear me.
02:10 Good morning. Good morning. Okay. Oh, thank you. All right. next week um
02:17 praying our doubts and the week after praying our doubts again by Dr. Peter um back to back and the prayer for David um
02:25 by brother Brandon. So that'll be the end of October. Right. Let's start with a quick word of
02:32 prayer. Let's bow our heads together. Our father, we know you are a God who is
02:37 beautiful. There is much about you that we can stand in awe of and in wonder of.
02:42 And father, we just pray this day as we meditate together on this psalm, this
02:47 very beautiful psalm, Psalm 27 of yours, that you will feed us, you will feed our souls, that we may gaze on your beauty
02:55 even in your house. We pray, Father, that you will open our eyes to behold wonderful things about you. And we ask
03:02 this in the name of Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Right, we have a lot to cover
03:08 today. Um, Psalm 27, praying his beauty. This is our topic for this morning. So
03:13 this is the psalm. We have read that this just now. Um just highlight a few things and then we'll move on. Verse
03:19 four. One thing have I asked of the Lord that I will seek after. This is the one
03:24 thing, one thing and one thing only that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the
03:30 beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. This is the heart of Psalm 27. That's
03:38 verse 4. And you'll see the context around it after that. Why this is so important. So today we're going to look
03:44 at three things. The first one is the beauty of God. Why do we need it? What is it? How do we find it? Three things.
03:52 Why do we need it? What is it? How do we find it? Why do we need the beauty of
03:58 God? So the first thing this in verse four, three things that we have already
04:04 considered. Dwell, gaze, and seek. But before we can go into the heart of it,
04:09 we need to look at the context. Last week it was easy to look at the context because we can just look at the beginning. Um David was running away
04:15 from his son Abselum. But this time it's just a psalm of David, right? And it's very telling if
04:24 you look within the psalm. You don't have to look around it or outside. Verse 5 says there in the day of trouble this
04:31 beautiful crown jewel is actually set around the day of trouble. So imagine
04:38 I'm having a lot of problems right? So last week we were having a lot of threats a lot of anxiety you know of
04:44 things that may not have happened yet here these are things that are already happening right evildoers assail me eat
04:50 up my flesh adversaries and foes they some army besiege encamp me. So these
04:57 are the things that are besetting David, right? He was surrounded as he
05:03 were many points in his life. This is not just on some days. Sometimes last time it was it was when he was running
05:10 away from his son Abselum. But but you realize that David was running away all of his life. And in a sense here is a
05:16 more encompassing psalm about everything that has happened and he's just reiterating his trust
05:22 there. So sometimes we find ourselves in the midst of war like now we have Israel
05:28 and Gaza and all that is happening. So so besides being encamped being besieged by an army he was also at war all the
05:36 time with the Philistines with the Amalachites or all sorts of different people. So you could say that that
05:44 points to external physical suffering right? There are two ways to look at this. First one this is the external
05:50 physical suffering. when evildoers assail me note is against me against me
05:55 you know it's from the outside then he also talks about verse 10 in the
06:01 day of trouble we have external physical suffering and now he says when or for my mother and my father forsake me it's not
06:09 just external now it's internal right internal emotional suffering if your own
06:15 family your father and mother here is the closest family member that you have at the beginning of your life you say If
06:21 your whole family were to desert you, isn't that emotional suffering?
06:26 And if we look at it from our point of view, it's not just about our parents. Sometimes our children may forsake us.
06:33 Emotional internal suffering. So he's encompassing all suffering that the human has. And that's why he was running
06:40 away from his son, right? He was running away from his son. Absolutely. His son was trying to kill him. Worse still, not just abandoned.
06:46 So the spectrum of human suffering one end you have all the external physical suffering and the other end you have all the internal emotional suffering and
06:52 David is talking about from one end to the other end one thing only I need if I
06:58 have this one thing that's all there is that I need in that one thing so there's
07:04 anything that we are facing right most of it will fall into this spectrum if
07:09 you almost all of it will any problem any opposition and all the enemies of your life here they fit in that picture.
07:17 Now there's an author called Ernest Becker. He wrote this book called The Denial of Death. It's a Pulitza prize
07:22 winning author. Okay? And he writes this very interesting statement. I think that
07:28 taking life seriously means something such as this that whatever man does on
07:34 this planet, whatever you do has to be done in the lived truth of the terror of
07:40 creation, of the rumble of panic underneath everything.
07:45 Otherwise, it is false. When you live life, you have to live it knowing that
07:51 there are terrorists. You have to live it knowing that there's a rumble of panic under underneath everything. There is always something that you will be
07:58 facing. Otherwise, it is false. Otherwise, it is phony otherwise it is inauthentic. So, if we deny the reality
08:04 of life and just say never mind, I'll just live a good life. You know, everything on earth here is just about happy, happy, happy. You know, we are
08:10 living an inauthentic life as it were. It's like an ostrich putting down his
08:15 head in the ground. You know, everything's fine. No problem. I never have any problems. You know, sometimes we do that to ourselves, right?
08:21 Nothing's wrong. Everything's fine. You know, we just deny, you know, everything wrong that's happening in our life. And
08:27 that leads to a very inauthentic life. You know, you have sort of a dichotomy. One side you live one way and another
08:32 side you live another way. You know, you are happy towards people outside but internally you are suffering. You know, so this is a very very real psalm. It's
08:41 taking life's difficulties and it's like taking the bull by the horn directly. You face it up front, you know, you
08:47 don't try to deny it. David is very real in this case and and the Bible is full of this realism in the midst of trouble.
08:55 It acknowledges the terror of creation and the rumble of panic underneath everything. So, it's not denying that we
09:02 suffer. So, in a sense, this is quite different from last week. David last last week brought all his worries to the
09:08 Lord. And it's not wrong to do that. Remember at the time what was he doing? He was processing his emotions, right?
09:14 He was praying his fears. David is not doing that this round. It's very interesting because this time he's not
09:20 dealing with the emotions. This time he's dealing with the strategy of how to
09:25 actually see his problems. He's seeing his problems through a different lens. And by seeing it in a different lens, he
09:31 comes up with a lot of confidence in God. and you'll realize he will be unmovable and unshakable. He's not going
09:36 to God and asking about the army. You know, this army is coming up against, can you help me destroy them? Please change my circumstances. He didn't do
09:42 that. So, what do we really need? And this is what David was saying. I don't need God to take away the army. It's one
09:49 thing and one thing only have I sought after. One thing do I really desire? One thing I really want and that is to dwell
09:55 in your house forever for all the days of my life. To gaze on your beauty and
10:00 to inquire in your temple. three things to seek his face. So why why is this so
10:07 important? Because in the day of trouble, note verse five, right? You can see verse five up there. In the day of trouble, sunny verse six, he says, "My
10:13 head shall be lifted up." How can you have your head lifted up in the midst of
10:18 your enemies above my enemies all around me? How do you have your head exalted
10:25 despite having troubles beset you? How can you not be devastated by it? is a
10:32 result of gazing at God's beauty and that's why he wanted that one thing. He said, "One thing I have, everything else
10:38 gouty." That's what he's trying to say. He's not escaping. All right? He's not saying, "God, please take me out of the
10:43 midst of my enemies." He's in the midst. It's with great realism that the beauty
10:50 of God enables us to cope. Not just cope, but to triumph in our
10:56 difficulties. Last week we were talking about coping. This week we talk about triumphing in a sense. So the essence of
11:02 it, God's pity. Why do we need it? Because in the day of trouble, we want our head to be lifted up. So that makes
11:09 us unmovable, unshakable. We sing about that. But how does it actually happen? So why do we need it? We already said
11:14 it's because it gives us that stability in life, right? So what is it? What is this beauty of God? And this is a pretty
11:19 long section. Let's get down to it. Okay. What is the beauty of God? First of all, let's define what is beauty. So
11:26 beauty is to have pleasure in the perception of something. We'll talk about the beauty of God after this. We
11:31 talk beauty first. So beauty is about the having the um the perception of something and finding it pleasurable
11:38 just to perceive it is already something that you find satisfying. So let's say what is perception? All right, it's a
11:43 bit difficult. You say, "Wow, you know, um this is very abstract for me. I cannot seem to understand what you're saying." Okay, I am there too. All
11:49 right, I'm having trouble understanding this especially when I started, you know, studying this. We have an idea of what beauty is. We always think it's
11:54 about the eyes. Actually, it's not. All right, the perception is about your senses. So let's let's talk about perception first. So imagine I'm walking
12:00 in a mall, right? I think this is KLCC. It looks like KLCC to me. I think you're all familiar with this, right? Okay. So
12:07 if I have perception, right? I I can't just close my eyes and walk blind in the mall, right? If I do, you know, very
12:13 likely I'll hit someone, right? So, I have to perceive. I have to keep my eyes open so that you know it gives me useful
12:19 information. So, when I see someone walking, you know, on coming in my direction, I can avoid that person,
12:25 right? So, and if it's a stranger, you know, I can just, you know, move sideways, you know, and and they will
12:30 not hit each other, you know, like I won't hit that person, right? A and if I were to perceive that the person is a
12:35 friend you know maybe I can greet the friend say hi long time no see you know so so when I perceive it gives me useful
12:41 information but if I perceive you know suddenly it's my exboyfriend or ex-girlfriend then I find for this sign
12:48 right I try to run for the ga sign so so so perceiving gives a lot of useful
12:53 information that I can work with so that's perception it's an awareness of a
12:59 fact that is useful all right so what do I do with that fact of course you know I make use of it right but to perceive
13:06 that something is beautiful is not to perceive that it's just useful for your needs is to just have satisfaction and
13:14 pleasure just perceiving that one thing I just look and then or just hear and listen or or to smell and to taste and
13:20 and that's it I I I get satisfaction out of it and that's the idea behind finding
13:26 something beautiful and I'm going to drive home this point um very much with a few illustrations But we see things.
13:33 We always think that beauty is with the eyes. Actually, it's more than that. All right. And and we see a beautiful landscape. You know, it's like, wow, you
13:40 know, I just what do you do? You you'll be there just standing and looking and
13:45 taking it all in. You know, we think that sometimes about the scenery. We we we sometimes think it's about music. And
13:51 yes, it is. It is about music. You know, sometimes you hear people playing out of tune and you know, there's no pleasure
13:58 at the perception of that thing. But if you it comes out nice you know and you just listen it's so soothing you know
14:04 okay you enjoy it you know you find it satisfying or if you look at someone beautiful in the physical sense you know
14:11 you would just say wow you know there is so many nice features to this but we will talk about this in more detail
14:18 right so perception we have two ways to look at it you can find it useful or you
14:23 can find it beautiful and and to put it in a different way if you find something useful it's just a means to an
14:30 To find something beautiful, it is an end in itself. I'm looking at something
14:35 but if I'm looking at it as something useful, it means I want to do something with it something later on or it will
14:41 give me something good later on. But if it's beautiful, I just look at it and just perceive it. I just listen to it just as an end in itself. I find it
14:49 beautiful. So I give you a good example, right? We like to eat vegetables. No,
14:55 not really. Right? I don't think some of us do. All right? Not everyone does. Okay, I I hear people laughing. Okay, so
15:02 that's good. I I I think you can relate. Okay, so we eat this because it's useful, right? Normal any normal given
15:09 day say, what's your favorite food? Oh, you know, I love capsicum, you know, or or or you know, I love celery. Some
15:14 people do, but I I don't I I I don't like celery. So, I eat this because it's
15:20 healthy. It is useful to me. Whereas on the other hand, if I were to just say
15:27 every day, if I can eat this, that would be great, wouldn't it? Right? But if you eat this every single day, you're going
15:32 to have a problem because you're going to grow really really big sideways and and and you'll have sore throat, you
15:38 know, and all that sort of stuff. It's not exactly very very useful after a certain point, right? But but you live
15:44 to eat this. It is beautiful. I I don't think anyone has ever described duran as beautiful, right? But but now you know
15:51 after today you kind of rest oh I know the definition of beauty nowaday something in the end of itself you know I can just taste it and just enjoy it
15:58 that's beautiful so you can tell your wife if she cooks for you oh your meal was beautiful you know right so that's
16:04 the idea of beauty so that's the the difference between the two the vegetables are healthy it's a means to
16:10 an end but the durian is yummy that's taste in itself it is something
16:17 beautiful traveling is another example that I like to um think about it this way. If if I go
16:22 on a business trip, right? And say, "Let's go to Hong Kong, you know, and say, okay, you know, I go there, you know, for work and all that
16:29 or or someone goes to to travel somewhere and takes a photo for Instagram, you know, and say, I need to
16:35 post this on Instagram for people to see, you know, I need to get the best picture of, you know, the Eiffel Tower and show people, you know, I need to
16:41 show my friends and my family that I'm having a good time on my trip." Sometimes you don't have to show, you can just have a good time, right? So,
16:48 so, so you are in a sense when you go on trip like this like this kind of business travel you know or you want to
16:54 take photos on Instagram all this is really something useful traveling is
16:59 useful you get to the destination and it it's a means to an end one is for so I can do business uh so I can have enough
17:06 for my family to eat and another one is so that you know I can be famous I can be popular you know it's just a means to an end traveling is just a means to an
17:12 end but what if I travel and say never mind I'm not going to use my camera to
17:18 take a photo. I'm just going to if you want, you can take one or two photos and then you just admire the view. You just see it and you just savor it and take
17:25 the view in and you say, "Wow, you know, that is really quite the construction." You know, how did they make that? You
17:30 know, it's such a you know, architecturally is beautiful. Or you, you know, you experience snow, you know,
17:37 it's like, wow, you know, the snowflakes coming down. Every snowflake is different, you know, and and and you you savor you take it all in. Is is the snow
17:45 really useful to you? No, not not really. Right. The minute it lands on your hand, it's gone. Right. But it's
17:51 beautiful. And then you know if you see the nonline, wow, you know, it's it's beautiful. Does the light give you any
17:58 health benefits? Oh, you know, if I if I see the lights for 2 minutes, I'll live another year. No, there it's not useful,
18:05 right? It is beautiful. It's an end in itself. Now then traveling becomes
18:10 beautiful. So traveling can fall into these two categories you know and it helps to to see things from these two
18:16 perspectives. Another one is not just about traveling. Another one is about marriage. All right. And this is I think
18:22 my third and final example on this perception of whether it's useful or beautiful. Robert Makulkin uh was the
18:30 president of some Bible college and seminary in Colombia. I can't remember the name of it but it was around there.
18:35 And he he he married this woman named Muriel. All right. and and and Newural
18:41 uh they were married for a pretty long time. I think it was around 50 plus years. At 50 plus No, sorry. No, at 50
18:48 plus years she was diagnosed. No, sorry. Uh they were married for a long time. I don't know how long. Can't remember. Okay. She she was 50 plus years old when
18:55 she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. All right. And you know um the problem was
19:02 it's not just any not you know it was quite severe. And it came to a point where the worst happened. She started
19:09 not just to forget people, she started to forget Robert. All right? The very
19:15 person that she spent the majority of her life with, she forgot him. All right? And Robert had a choice at this
19:21 point. She didn't continue with his work. He going to put her in a care home. And he decided not to resign. Uh
19:29 he decided to resign and not to continue with his work. He decided to care for her. And he was saying that she has
19:35 cared for me all my life and now it's my turn to do so for her.
19:42 Do you realize Robert didn't find Muriel useful? She was of no use anymore. She can't
19:48 even show love to him anymore. She may not know who he is anymore. But
19:55 he knew who she was. She was beautiful in his eyes. and he's willing to stop
20:02 his career and take care of her because he found her beautiful. Now, this is a very important thing to see in marriage.
20:08 Do you see your spouse as someone who's useful or do you see your your spouse as someone who is beautiful? All right,
20:14 it's an end in itself, right? So, he clearly didn't see her as someone that
20:19 was, you know, can give him anything anymore. She's like, you know, who are you? You know, but he still cared
20:25 because he found her beautiful. So it's not just a means to an end. It's an end in itself. Now what about God? Now this
20:32 is the most important part, right? How do we find God beautiful? I have taken this long round track of telling you
20:38 what beauty is or through the perception and you find something beautiful. Now let's talk about the beauty of God. How
20:45 do we find God beautiful? Is God useful? Is he the giver of gifts to you? He's
20:52 just a giver of good things to me and I am just a recipient. Or is God beautiful? He himself is the gift. He is
20:60 beautiful because he's an end in himself. If you have lost all the gifts that God has given you, every single
21:05 thing that you enjoy, good health, your wealth, your treasures, you know, your loved ones, you lose everything and you
21:11 know, God says, I'm the only one that you have left. Are you going to say that's all there is in in this enough
21:17 for me that I find him just beautiful? In Genesis chapter 15, God spoke to
21:23 Abraham, fear not. I am thy shield, thy exceeding great reward. I am your
21:30 reward. Me you you think you know your land is important, your cattle is important,
21:36 your family. No, I am your great reward. And if we can see that, we truly
21:42 understand then what the beauty of God is. Is to perceive who he is. And that brings delight to us. Here's what David
21:48 is saying. He's saying that the beauty of God is to perceive him for who he is. to grasp what he has done, his attributes, his names, his actions, to
21:54 read about him, to really perceive him for who he really is and find this
21:60 experience pleasurable and satisfying. You should look at it and say, "Wow,
22:05 I know this God. He's not just a God to me. He's personally my God, and I know
22:13 him in such a personal way that I know that he is beautiful." The nuances of beauty can be found in
22:19 different Hebrew words. In Isaiah chapter 33 is the word for excellent. Your eyes will behold the king in his
22:25 beauty, his excellence. And in Psalm 50:2, out of Zion, the perfection of beauty is is the attractiveness. And
22:32 then Psalm 24:7, which we are talking about today, is about pleasure and satisfaction.
22:37 Excellence, attractive satisfaction. Why is this so important?
22:43 It's because you want to find something beautiful, you first need to see something that is excellent. Now we talk
22:48 about gazing on the beauty, right? So what is gazing? Gazing, right? Have you ever seen
22:54 someone handsome, right? Or or or someone pretty, you know, and then you suddenly just can't help but you know,
22:59 just stare and look, you know, you just your eyes are just trained on the person. Wow, that's such an impeccable
23:06 jawline, so sharp, you know, can cut paper, you know, or you know, the eyebrows, you know, is just so well set
23:12 in his face with brilliant blue eyes. every and suddenly 5 minutes have passed. You already stared at him for so
23:17 long already. You know that is gazing. You are looking you are gazing into the
23:22 beauty of someone or something, right? And that's what you do not just with a
23:28 person. Hopefully it's not just with people. You hopefully you do that with art, you know, you say you gaze and you look at art, you know, you just look and
23:34 just think what has gone into the mind of the person when he did this. You know, you look at the art on the left or you look on the right, you what was the
23:40 person thinking when he did that? You know, it's such a beautiful piece. And if you look at scenery like I said you know or or perhaps even you know if you
23:48 are in a conversation with someone and then you someone passes by and you see right so you first find that thing
23:54 excellent right you know excellent features and then you find those features attractive and it's so
23:59 attractive but all you need to do is just enjoy it to savor it and you find satisfaction in it that's what gazing is
24:07 and we as humans have a need for beauty if I'm restless I'm stressed and I'm happy and tired you know I'm not going
24:12 to ask What would you do? I'll do pretty much what you would do, right? And you
24:17 wouldn't put it in these terms, but you would try to expose yourself to beauty, right? To calm yourself down under the
24:23 rumble of panic of everything. How do you do that, right? If you are stressed, you are unhappy. You know, it's like, okay, you know, I had a bad day at work.
24:29 You know, what do I do? I start to listen to music, right? It calms you down because, you know, you are exposing
24:35 yourself to beauty. And if it's not about music, maybe you go and watch your favorite Netflix drama, you know, your
24:40 Korean drama. Oh, why? Because it's beautiful. It was a beautiful love story. You know, someone just landed on me and then um or or or like me, you
24:47 know, I will go for my comfort food. You know, you know, I I like to eat chips. All right? It's very unhealthy. It
24:52 doesn't it's not useful to me. In fact, it's actually unusful if I can put it that way. Is actually bad for my health,
24:59 but it brings me satisfaction when I have it. You know, okay, there's beauty in my food or or you know, you take a
25:05 walk in the park, right? So these are different ways when you expose yourself to beauty, you'll find that sort of
25:13 peace, that sort of thing that calms you down in the terror and the rumble of life, right? We are calming ourselves
25:18 down with an exposure to beauty. That's what it is. And we are always looking for it.
25:24 Whether we are looking for it in music or in movies or in comfort food or walks in a park, actually underlying it all,
25:29 we are actually really looking for God's beauty. The problem with God's beauty is that you can't see it. You can't taste
25:36 it. You can't, you know, hear it, right? It's it's
25:41 hard. It's difficult because we are sensory people. But you think about it, we have senses physically, but we also
25:47 have senses spiritually. We have to experience God with the heart and experience his beauty, not with our
25:55 eyes. It does say in the Bible, oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Yes, but you have that that is that's
26:01 imagery. Taste and see in the spiritual sense that he is good. Experience him. Why do we need this beauty so much? And
26:07 it's because beauty was lost in the garden. In Genesis chapter 2:8, every tree was pleasing to the eye. It's
26:13 another word for beautiful. The whole garden was beautiful. Adam and Eve, they were naked and under shame. That tells
26:19 us that they too were beautiful. The problem was that beauty was lost. We were made for beauty. But when we turned
26:27 from God, sin entered the picture and destroyed that beauty. So we are always craving for beauty whether you like it
26:33 or not you realize that everything that you crave for you know it's about beauty. Psalm 103 verse14 to 16 he says
26:41 he knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. It says we are like a flower in a field like a grass. Um you know if
26:48 the wind passes over it is gone because the beauty we have is very for a short
26:54 while. It's not for long. Right? We are born beautiful as babies, you know, and then after when you're youth, you're
26:59 still beautiful and and and then that's pretty much it, right? And it all goes downhill from there. Beauty is lost over
27:06 time, right? And and we feel sad because we're clinging on to whatever we can, you know, whatever beauty we can hold on
27:11 to. It's like trying to recreate a garden. You know, this is this is gardens by the way in Singapore. You
27:17 know they they try to recreate the best of the best but it's just it's a far cry
27:22 from what we actually really that will really satisfy us. Only God's beauty utterly satisfies. So we talk about the
27:31 why we talk about what and I'm going to just end this section here with this story. Alan Francis Garner is was sorry
27:40 was a British missionary to South America. All right. It's a long way off from home. All right. In 1851, Alan
27:47 Garner was on his way to um South America. All right. And if you went from
27:53 England to South America, it's a long long way off, you know. Um you you leave
27:59 you leave everything behind, your comfort, your safety, your family, you know, your career, you know, you you give your life to God. You you give
28:05 everything up. You you don't know what's going to happen next. And sadly he was
28:11 stranded at a place called Tiara del Fuego which is right at the southern part of South America. He never made it.
28:18 Why? He was stranded because the team expected ships that will come to
28:24 resupply them but they never came. These ships never came and they lacked food. They lacked resources. They lacked
28:30 water. So they eventually died of starvation and thirst. It's sad,
28:36 but that's the reality of how the expedition, how the mission trip went.
28:41 Now, if you go for mission trip to Philippines, I don't think you worry that much about food and water, right? You'll be very well taken care of. I
28:48 know of people who went to Indonesia and their mission trips end up in fourstar hotels. I don't know what kind of
28:53 mission trip that is, but anyway, Alan Gardner, he wrote something in his journal. There was in his entry, they
29:00 found his body and they found a journal beside him. And the journal in the last entry he wrote Psalm 34:10 the young
29:09 lions do lack and suffer hunger. You must be thinking wow this guy must be really hungry for him to be talking about hunger but they that see Lord
29:16 shall not lack any good thing. Oh and then he was saying that right below it he wrote something very interesting. I
29:23 am overwhelmed with a sense of the goodness of God. And then he died.
29:31 God sent me on this mission trip and I'm here dying of thirst and starvation and
29:37 I say, "Oh yes, God is still good. I'm overwhelmed with a sense of goodness." How is star salvation a sense of
29:43 goodness? You you you come to realize this. He had something very important.
29:48 He had a gaze. He had a sense of the beauty of God. He had the main thing he
29:55 wanted. God wasn't useful to him. God was beautiful to him. So even if God say
30:02 I take away all these things from you, you can say yes you Lord you are still beautiful because I know you will not
30:07 leave me in this state forever. God is beautiful because he will not leave you
30:13 or forsake you. Yes it may feel like he has but in the grandest scheme of things if your eyes can see from the
30:19 perspective of eternity you realize that God will never leave you or forsake you. So this brings us to a point to
30:25 consider. Are we religious or are we real Christians? Religious people obey
30:30 and serve God to get things. Whereas real Christians, real true believers obey and serve God to get God.
30:39 Do you want what God gives or do you want God for himself? Do you find God
30:44 useful or do you find God beautiful? If you meditate upon who he is, he becomes
30:51 the ultimate excellence, the ultimate good and the ultimate beauty. And that's why Alan Garner died with his head held
30:57 high. He knew how to gaze on the beauty of God and nothing faced him. He just need to
31:04 find God satisfying and beautiful. So to see God's beauty is to really know him for who he is and find him satisfying.
31:11 That's the definition of the beauty of God. To know him for who he is and find him satisfying.
31:18 So we have talked about why do we need God's beauty. We have talked what is God's beauty. Let's talk about how we going to find God's beauty. You see it's
31:25 right in front of me. Yeah, in a sense. But it's difficult you know because I can't see. Remember we are physical
31:31 beings right? So the the the passage tells us three important things. Seek
31:36 his face. Gaze in the temple. We'll look at these three phrase phrases. The first
31:42 seek his face. And that's in verse eight. You you have said he's telling the Lord. David is telling the Lord you
31:48 have said seek my face. And then he replies and says your face Lord do I
31:53 seek. Seek me. Seek my face. And I yes Lord I will seek your face. What's this?
31:59 What's so important about seeking God's face. When when you talk about the face of God
32:04 you say I thought God's presence is everywhere. Isn't he everywhere? The face is really the relational gate to a
32:12 person or a being or even to God. Right? So when you talk about the face you're really talking about having a
32:18 relationship with him. So it says see God's face is to seek God's presence. So
32:25 in the Hebrew the word face is the same word for presence that we use in English. There is no presence. The word
32:32 presence there's no abstract term for presence in Hebrew. So he says I came into or came to his face is to come into
32:40 his presence. So the word is panim. So when you is the place where you went to
32:46 talk to someone, right? You you don't come up to someone and then you talk to their leg. You talk to their face,
32:52 right? It's the relational gate as it were. So when you say seeking God's face in verse eight is to seek God, the face
32:60 of him and not just believe in him in a general way. You want to seek him, the face of God, to know him in a personal
33:07 way. It's not just a general, yes, God, I seek you. Yeah, I know who you are. No, I want you to know him, know you
33:15 directly, personally, intimately. Seeking God is
33:20 not just about knowing about him but knowing him. And it's not just know of
33:26 his presence but to experience his presence. That's what it means to see God's face. Now let me give you another
33:32 example. To be in the general presence of someone is not the same thing as to have a personal relationship. If I'm in the crowd and suddenly you know oh
33:37 Mahhat passed by. Oh I know Mahate. No you can't say you know him right? I'm in
33:42 the general presence of him but I don't know him personally. He doesn't call me
33:47 by name. I call him by name. know or or even to see the handiwork of someone is not the same as having a personal
33:53 relationship. It's like saying, you know, I I now have a Tesla if I open up the hood. Oh, I know Elon Musk. You know, you you don't know someone just by
34:00 having someone's handiwork, right? The same way we don't just know God just by knowing and looking at his creation.
34:06 Yes, God, I know you because I see your creation. It's his handiwork, but it reveals that he is there, but it doesn't
34:13 reveal himself. We need to pursue him for who he is and not what he can do for us. And David does that. He doesn't find
34:20 God useful. He finds God beautiful. He doesn't ask for safety, for victory or comfort. Not in this case. He has
34:27 matured a lot more than just asking for the things of the here and now. He's asking, "I want to see you." So, how do
34:34 we find it? Number two, see his face in his presence. Gaze, right? Gaze upon the beauty of Lord. What does it mean to
34:39 gaze? Right? Coming back to the picture of gazing, you know, to look. Now, I we're going to take a break. All right.
34:45 Uh commercial. Okay. We're going to just pretend you're going to walk in a park now. Okay. I'm just going to Oh, this
34:50 not park. This is a jungle. Right now, at a glance, I don't think this is a very special picture. I want you to now
34:58 gaze at it. The longer you look at it,
35:03 the more you see things that you know weren't there before.
35:09 Can anyone tell me? I hear a lot of murmurings. I saw. Okay. What do you see?
35:15 Tiger cup. A tiger cup. Okay. What else? Snake.
35:20 Monkey. Crocodile. Tiger.
35:26 Wild ball. Wow. You all caught all of it. You see what? Do you know what you all are doing right now? You all are
35:31 gazing. Do you realize what you're doing? You're gazing at the the the picture right
35:36 there. That's what it means to gaze. Okay, you get the point. You can see all the animals there, right? I'm not going
35:42 to jump in all of it, but yeah, you get the idea. All right. And that's what God is asking us to do with him, right? And
35:48 Augustine puts it this way. He talks about the word of God and how he uses these three phases, retential,
35:54 contemplatio, and dilio. Okay, big words to retain, to contemplate, to delight. We'll we'll see how that works. All
35:60 right. First is to retain. You have to find the truth out of the word of God, out of the Bible, right? Retain it,
36:06 distill it, see it, learn it, know it. It's like when you saw the pictures at first. You don't really understand what
36:12 you are looking at, but you're slowly taking it. Oh, I see a tree. Oh, I see a little branch. Oh, no, that's a snake.
36:18 You know, so you've moved on from retaining the information to contemplating after that. You mustn't stop there. Once you get to know a truth
36:25 of God, about him. Oh, God is holy. You know, he is wise. He is loving. Don't just stop there. Contemplate. That's the
36:32 next step. You have to gaze at God through the truth. You are looking at the picture just now and you're
36:38 contemplating. You're gazing at the picture. But you know, you see different things. It starts to pop out. You ask
36:43 yourself questions. What does this verse tell me about God? What does it show me about how marvelous he is? You know, how
36:49 holy or how loving. You see with the eyes of your heart being enlightened. Ephesians chapter 1 verse 18 to 19. That
36:57 this is what it really looks like. We are looking through the lens of scripture at who God is. And then you
37:04 slowly mull over it. You slowly meditate over it. That is the the process behind
37:09 the contemplation right to meditate to reflect to ruminate is like a cow you know you know psalm one talks about you
37:16 know the law of the lord in his law of he meditate day and night you're mulling over it you it's like a cow chewing you
37:22 know and he swallows and then you know cows have different stomachs right and then he regurgitates and then it starts chewing and chewing again right we can't
37:29 do that all right because we only got one stomach so so to to meditate is to chew over and over and over you know you
37:35 look at the text it's like oh yeah there's new I can learn about this. You're not chewing. But when you look at the text and say, "Okay, you know, God
37:41 is beautiful and there are so many ways I can see this." You come to realize
37:46 that it's so rich. You contemplate about who he is. And and someone has said that meditation is like the the pendulum
37:53 swing is in between the pendulum swing of prayer and Bible study. Meditation is right in between. You're contemplating
37:59 about who God is. And at some point if you are a Christian, if you are a believer in Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy
38:04 Spirit sometimes will illuminate certain things. He will make truths shine. All right? And he moves us to delight in
38:11 him. And that's where we move to dialect, right? Sometimes we find that this you know we spend enough time it gets these ideas get really really real
38:18 to us and then we delight right. So like you were gazing at a photo just now or the image just now. The same way God
38:24 asked us to gaze at him through the lens of scripture and you say no I don't really know how to gaze you know I never
38:30 really done it and guess what actually you do it on almost a very regular basis right sometimes you gaze at the beauty
38:36 of oh if you know I have that perfect spouse you know you know if I you know he can he or she can treat me better or
38:43 if you know if only I'm not sing don't you realize you are gazing at the beauty of that relationship you're gazing
38:49 you're thinking what wow if I have that you know you know it will satisfy me, you know, or or if I have the perfect
38:56 family, you know, and you know, I have grandchildren, great grandchildren, you know, all that, then or or if I have
39:02 this car, you know, wow, you know, imagine the curves on this car, you know, and how the aerodynamic air flows
39:07 over it. And oh, you know, if I can drive down the north south highway at 600 km an hour or you say, wow, you
39:13 know, I have this mansion, you know, is so nice. I can spend one day in the living room, next day I'll spend in the
39:19 study, next day I spend the kitchen, you know, or you you think of the beautiful holiday, right? You don't you realize
39:25 you're gazing on the beauty of these things? You're filling your mind with it. You're you're meditating on it, right? You taste it. You rest in it.
39:33 That's what it means to meditate. So, you see, you we can't say we don't know how to gaze. We we gaze naturally. The
39:39 question is, why don't we gaze on God, right? And you're going to say, that's it. Is it just prayer and Bible studies?
39:44 Is that it? you know, to to see the beauty of God. Yes and no. You know, no, yes, no. Okay,
39:51 let me tell you why. And uh we're going to learn how to gaze, how to see from a blind man. All right, we're going to
39:57 look at blind Bartameus. Okay, blind Bartineas, he knew that Lord Jesus was going to come down a certain road. All
40:02 right? And and he positioned himself in a road because he knows he's coming down that road and he cries out, "Lord, have
40:07 mercy on me." You know, son of David, have mercy on me. And and because he was on that road, the Lord Jesus could heal
40:14 him, right? He positioned himself. And likewise for us, if we want to experience and gaze at his beauty, we need to position ourselves on that same
40:22 road. We don't get do it. We don't get it by trying harder, right? You position yourself on the road of obedience, you
40:27 know, your prayer, your Bible study, you meditate. And when you meditate, God can
40:33 use that to reveal himself to you. That's the idea. So where do we gaze? which and and this brings us to our
40:39 third point, right? In the house of the Lord. In his temple, we talk about seek his face, gaze in his temple. In the
40:48 house of the Lord. You see this phrase over and over again. In his tent, in his tabernacle. You know, you say in the
40:54 temple. Well, during David's time, David never quite constructed the temple. It was Solomon who constructed the temple.
41:00 Where does this word temple come from? And and David actually saw the prototype of the temple as it were. It's the
41:07 tabernacle, right? The tabernacle was a tent in which God says, "I'm going to dwell there, right? I'm going to make
41:13 this my sanctuary and you can find my presence there." That's what the tabernacle is in the Old Testament.
41:19 Exodus chapter 25. God's presence, his face was found in the Holy of Holies in
41:27 a very particular section of the tabernacle right on top of the hour of covenant in
41:32 Exodus 25:22. There I will meet with you and from above the mercy seat. The mercy seat is just a platform. A lot of people
41:39 say what is this mercy seat? It's a platform between the two cherubim that are on the
41:44 aisle of testament I will speak with you. God's presence was found in this
41:49 tabernacle. Where are you going to gaze on the beauty of God? In his presence in his where his face is. This is where
41:55 God's beauty is seen. Now David was a king. He was not a priest nor a Levite.
42:00 And those were the only people that were allowed into the tabernacle. How can the king say I want to one thing
42:07 and one thing have I sought you know I really see after that I will dwell in the house of the lord forever for all
42:12 the days of my life right I want to dwell in the temple I want to dwell in the tabernacle for all the how he's a
42:18 king he doesn't have access but it was there at the tabernacle that David gazed
42:25 at the beauty of the lord through the sacrifices because the tabernacle was a place of sacrifice day in day out lamb
42:33 after lamb Bulock after bullock animals were being slaughtered and sacrificed. He didn't have a vision. He says, "I
42:39 want gaze on beauty of L." Is it through a physical vision? Oh, I saw God, you know, in his No, he never had that
42:44 vision. Not like Isaiah did in chapter 6, you know, the train filled the temple or not like Ezekiel, you know, with the
42:51 the the wheels, you know, and the the platform of rainbow and all. He didn't have a vision, but he saw the beauty of
42:57 God through the tabernacle and its rituals, the sacrifices. What does it
43:03 mean? How did that happen? Animals were constantly sacrificed up to God. And he saw the beauty through those sacrifices.
43:10 Remember the tabernacle was a place of sacrifice. And this is what David saw. He saw the beauty of God's justice and
43:18 mercy. Here is a God who requires sin to be paid for. Who is so good, so holy, he cannot
43:25 overlook sin. He must deal with evil. He is a good, he is just, and he's holy. He
43:30 is righteous. He's a just God. And yet at the same time, he wanted me, David, I he wanted
43:38 me to be able to come into his presence, his people to come into his presence. The high priest which who can only enter
43:44 him once a year. He wants us to approach him. On the other hand, he says when he looked at the sacrifice, he also saw a
43:50 merciful God who wants to deal with sin, our sin, so
43:55 we can still approach him. He wants to forgive us and find us a way to himself.
44:01 That's what David saw through the sacrifices. God is essentially saying this. You cannot know me. You cannot see
44:07 my face. You cannot gaze at my beauty without the sacrifice because of your sin. Right? So once a year the high
44:14 priest sprinkled blood onto the mercy seat and it is on that mercy seat then God shows his presence. you cannot come
44:22 into my tabernacle because they offered year by year continually those sacrifices but the comers you know
44:29 whoever came could never be perfect. It was just a reminder of their sins that sacrifice these animal sacrifices cannot
44:36 take away sin. You cannot come into my tabernacle. So guess what God says never
44:41 mind. Many many centuries later, John chapter 1 verse14. And the word
44:47 became flesh and dwelt among us. The word dwelt is the word for tabernacle
44:56 to tent to pitch his tent to tabernacle among us. And we beheld his glory, the
45:02 glory as only the only begotten of the father full of grace and truth. The Lord Jesus Christ tabernacle among us because
45:08 we can't enter into his presence. He brought his presence to us. And it's
45:14 over the place of sacrifice that David saw the beauty of God. So he says, "You won't be able to see my beauty unless I
45:20 come to you." Where do we see this? Remember, he came
45:25 full of grace and truth. Let's look at that verse again. We beheld his glory, the glorious of the only begotten father, full of grace and truth. The
45:32 Lord Jesus Christ was full of grace and truth. Where do we see this grace and
45:37 truth? Remember David, he saw God's beauty. Now we can gaze on the beauty
45:42 and on the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. He came full of grace and full of truth. Why? Full of truth. Yes, our
45:49 sin has to be paid for, has to be dealt with. He's a holy and a righteous God. That's the truth. We are not able to
45:56 enter into God's presence. That's the truth. But he came full of grace, full of mercy so that we he wants us to
46:02 approach him. He finds a way for us to approach him. Full of grace, full of
46:08 truth. So when you want to gaze at God's beauty, it's over the place of sacrifice. It's at the tabernacle. The
46:15 Lord Jesus Christ was that tabernacle. If David could gaze at the beauty of God through the tabernacle, the tent. How
46:21 much more than we can gaze at the beauty of God if we gaze at him through the
46:26 face of Jesus Christ? Second Corinthians chapter 4:6,
46:34 let the light shine out of darkness. That's what God said in the beginning. And that light, the one who said that
46:39 that light has shown into our hearts to give light to the knowledge of what? The glory of God. In the face of Jesus
46:44 Christ, it's in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ that we truly see God's
46:51 beauty over the place of sacrifice. We always see say, you know, I find God's beauty in his creation. You know, oh, I
46:56 see this mountain. I see this valley or I see this sea. I see this mountain. I see this ocean. I see God's beauty.
47:03 God's beauty is not as evident in creation as it is in redemption. It is
47:09 in the cross is over the place of sacrifice that you truly see God's beauty. It is in the tabernacle, the
47:17 true tabernacle in Jesus Christ that we truly see God's beauty. The Lord Jesus
47:24 Christ lost his beauty. Do you remember Isaiah 53:2? It says there there's no
47:30 beauty that we should desire him. You know, he was not a handsome man. If he's your Lord and Savior, your your your
47:37 Lord and Savior wasn't handsome. That's what Isaiah was trying to tell us. There was no natural beauty that we should
47:42 desire him because he laid it all aside. He laid his glory aside and he became
47:48 marred and disfigured at Calvar's cross. You know, when people struck him, they smoked him.
47:55 He became disfigured. He lost his beauty. So that we who are spiritually ugly and disfigured, we can become
48:02 absolutely beautiful. That is what the Lord Jesus did. This is where we find beauty. Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that
48:08 beautiful to you? Isn't that beautiful to me? The beauty of God still happens over the place of sacrifice. Seek his
48:16 face. Gaze at his beauty where in the tabernacle. So in the day of trouble,
48:21 this is the reason why David didn't ask for safety or for revenge. He only asked, "I want to gaze at your beauty. I
48:27 only want to see you Lord because one glimpse of God's beauty was enough to quiet every fear. So the through the
48:34 Lord Jesus Christ the beauty of God the beauty of the Lord is no longer distant. You read that all the way down in verse
48:41 13. The beauty has come near. You can say now you know I can I know that I can
48:48 see the goodness of the Lord. Will you then gaze at his beauty? So that is this
48:54 verse 27:13. I'm still confident of this. I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. No, in
49:03 the day of trouble, you know, I don't need to worry. I will see his goodness because I have seen his beauty. That's
49:09 what it means to pray his beauty. Let's close with a word of prayer. Our father, we thank you that you are God who is
49:17 truly beautiful. Not beautiful, Father, because of just what you created, but truly beautiful because of who you are.
49:26 how you redeemed us from the depths of hell. How you redeemed us so that we can
49:31 see your face, so that we can truly gaze at your beauty in the tabernacle. Pray, Father, that you will help us that
49:38 through our storms in life, that we will seek like David, this one thing and one
49:43 thing only, that we may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our life to gaze at your beauty, to inquire
49:50 in your temple, to seek you. Pray father that you will help us catch that glimpse of that beauty of yours that it will
49:56 steal and quiet every fear in our hearts and we ask this in the name of our lord Jesus Christ. I'll pass the time now to
50:03 Dr. Peter.
50:13 We come together to gaze
50:20 upon the beauty of the Lord as William so brilliantly preached. It's just not
50:26 looking at the cross, but looking at what the cross means,
50:32 how it's impacted our lives. That's the beauty. I was hearing the
50:39 sermon. It a story came back to me years ago. Oh, and it's amazing because this
50:46 was a book I read. I was a total bookworm when I was young. uh read
50:51 voraciously and it was a book by I was about eight or nine or 10 years old by
50:57 Init Blighton about a young orphan who was cold,
51:03 deserted, lived on the streets, had nowhere to go, no one to love.
51:12 And every day he would watch some children walk past and they would go
51:17 into this house. And there were lots of children in the house. There are about five, six children. And he would watch
51:25 through the glass panes how they would interact with each other.
51:32 They would laugh, they would eat, they would play with each other, they
51:37 would tease each other, they would fight with each other. Then the parents would scold them and get them to calm down and
51:45 not be quite so rowdy. And then Christmas was the best time when they looked at them. It was the Christmas
51:52 tree. They were giving presents. It was warm. It was cold outside because it was snowing and he was freezing and they
51:59 were warm and the fire was and lit up the room with a warm glow that sort of
52:05 told you what the love was like inside. in you always thought
52:10 what if I could have a family like that. One day
52:16 a miracle happened. They spotted him and he got adopted
52:23 to that family and that Christmas
52:29 he came back from a event or a church service
52:34 and the whole family was in the room and you know what he did?
52:41 He stood outside and through that familiar glass pane
52:48 he looked again the children laughing the parents hugging. Someone heard the knee and some
52:56 mommy was kissing that knee and it was that glowing embers of the
53:03 fire there. They're having Christmas meal. He stood there and looked
53:12 and he remembered the cold. He remembered the pain, the loneliness.
53:18 And you know what? He got the key. He walked through the
53:24 door and he became part of that picture.
53:30 And you know what beauty is? Beauty is the cross
53:35 where once we were lost, alone, afraid with no h future, no hope,
53:43 no life. And we look in and see the beauty of God. We can't see or touch it.
53:52 But one day Jesus Christ came to us and all the longing
53:58 to belong, to love, to enjoy, to laugh
54:03 with our care in the world became available to us
54:08 through the cross. Brothers and sisters, as we look at the Lord's supper,
54:16 we look like that young boy through that foggy glass pane window, we look at what
54:23 it is. And because of the blood and the bread given to us this morning, the
54:31 years ago, we can then open the door and join the family. And
54:39 you are part of this family. You are part of God's eternal family, the God of
54:45 this universe. You are going to be swallowed up in his beauty and become
54:51 part of that beauty. Do you know that? You're not going to see the beauty far away. You being part of it. And as you
54:58 go back home too, we're going through the book of Psalms. Psalms so beautiful. It it shows you how you can have the
55:04 intimacy with God. And as you gaze upon his word, gaze every day and pray, you
55:10 become swallowed up by God's beauty and you reflect that beauty
55:17 through your spouse, through your friends, through this world. So they can
55:23 also look through that glass pane and say, "I want that. I want that too." And one day when they
55:32 ask you, you show them the key. The key that unlocks that door to join God's
55:38 family. And that key is the blood of Jesus Christ.
55:43 So let's spend a minute in contemplation of these words. And then we'll take the bread and the wine together.
55:53 [Music]
56:02 Let's open the package of God's beauty. [Music]
56:15 Paul writes, "For I receive from the Lord what I've also delivered to you."
56:22 The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed, he took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said,
56:29 "This is my body which is for you.
56:36 Do this and remembrance of me." Let's take this
56:42 bread together. [Music]
56:50 In the Bible, whenever they talk about blood,
56:56 it's always about a violent death. It's not a natural death on your deathbed.
57:03 It's always about a violent death. And that violent death has resulted in
57:09 us being part of his family. As we take this blood, this partake of the fact
57:15 that he sacrificed his life for us, we can look forward for one day we will be
57:21 part of the marriage supper of the lamb. Let's drink this together.
57:32 Let's pray. Father Lord, we just thank you for this
57:37 day. We thank you that although many many of
57:43 us have not even experienced a fraction of what your
57:49 beauty and your love is. We are excited this day.
57:55 And we're going to resolve as we go home and read this psalm again that we want
58:01 to Father Lord. We want to seek your face, Father Lord. come into our lives, come
58:09 into our families, come into our workplace and touch us with your beauty. That
58:15 every day as we gaze upon your face and look into your word that this word becomes more and more real as we are
58:22 transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit and the blood of the lamb. We ask this for Jesus' sake. Amen.
58:30 Hallelujah. Uh we thank you oh Lord for the goodness that you have shown us all
58:36 the days of our life and it's based on that goodness that we come before you
58:42 this morning before we leave. We ask that we will be surrounded
58:50 covered by the blood of the lamb the beauty of God in our lives in this
58:56 coming week. And we're going to ask for Lord each of us draw us closer to you.
59:02 Help us see you through all the difficulties and distractions of the world. Help us see your beauty. Be
59:09 enraptured by your beauty by transformed by your beauty and let us shine your
59:14 beauty for the world. Each of us we ask you of this. And then the Lord said,
59:21 "Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think
59:28 according to the power at work within us." That's a power, brothers and sisters.
59:34 The power of the Holy Spirit is inside every single one of us. He can do far more than what we can even imagine. Let
59:42 this day be a beginning of the greatness to come. To him be glory in the church
59:51 and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever. Amen.
59:58 Amen. For some of you who want to be prayed over by our elders and pastors and William, just come forward. The rest
60:05 of you have a great week.
