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Good morning. Why is everybody all sitting in the back? Oh, for The front 3 rows are empty almost. Yeah, so consider sitting in the front next time so the people who come in late, they can sit in the back. This is the premium, premium seats up front here. All right, well, welcome to Wilmington Community Evangelical Church. As always, we are very happy to have you here. I cannot imagine it's already the end of July. I feel like I haven't done anything this summer, but Many of our summer activities and the mission trips have already ended. In fact, probably in the coming weeks, we will get to hear testimonies from some of the participants. I always find it very meaningful and inspiring to listen to the experiences that people have had in their different ministries, especially how they have encountered God in their service. Although we still have one thing left that I know of, VBS is next week. I know a lot of us are volunteering and also our youth will be volunteering as well. So, uh, it is a wonderful opportunity for our church to minister to the young children from neighboring neighborhoods. So make sure that we would keep them in our prayers, the children, their families, and also our volunteers. Psalm 1 tells us those who live by God's way will be prosperous in whatever they do. And I believe that holds true for all our ministry efforts as well. So the work is not done in vain. It will bear fruit in due time. Let's pray. Dear God, thank you for the incredible privilege of serving you and your people of sharing the good news of salvation, bringing hope to those in need, and reflecting your love and grace to the world. As we look ahead to next week's VBS, we ask for your Spirit to empower every teacher, station leader, crew leader, and any other volunteer. May their efforts be effective, fruitful, and filled with joy. We also lift up every child and family who will take part Open their eyes to see your truth, soften their hearts to receive your love, and nurture their faith so that it may grow strong in you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Okay, good morning everyone. Could you all please stand and join us as we worship together? We sing Blessed Be Your Name.

Blessed be your name in the land that is plentiful, where streams of abundance flow. Blessed be your name.

Blessed be.

Blessed be your name. When I'm found in the desert place, though I walk through the wilderness, blessed be your name.

Every blessing you pour out, I'll turn back to praise. When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say, blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your glorious name.

Blessed be, blessed be your name. When the sun's shining down on me, When the world's all as it should be, blessed be your name. Blessed be your name. On the road marked with suffering, though there's pain in the offering, blessed be your name.

Every blessing you pour out, I'll turn back to praise. When the darkness is closing, Lord, still I will say, blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your glorious name. You give and take away. You give and take away. My heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be your name. You give and take away, give and take away. My heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord! Blessed be your glorious Name! Blessed be the name of the Lord; blessed be Your Name! Blessed be the name of the Lord; blessed be Your glorious Name!

<LYRICS>My hope is built—

my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust</LYRICS> The sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus' name.

Sing, my hope is built.

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus' name. Christ alone, Cornerstone, weak man made strong in the Savior's love. Through the storm, he is Lord, Lord of all. When darkness seems— when darkness seems to to hide his face. I rest on his unchanging grace. In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil.

My anchor, my anchor holds within the veil. Sing Christ alone.

When he shall come, when he shall come with trumpet sound. Oh, may I then in him be found dressed in his righteousness alone. Stand before the throne. Sing Christ alone.

Christ alone, Cornerstone. Weak made strong in the Savior's love. Through the storm, he is Lord, Lord of all. —Christ alone. Cornerstone, weak made strong in the Savior's love. Through the storm, he is Lord, Lord of all. Through the storm, he is Lord, Lord of all. Through every trial, my soul will sing. No turning back, I've been set free. Christ is enough for me. Christ is enough for me. He's enough for me. Everything I need is in you. Everything I need. Christ, my all in all. The joy of my salvation. Heaven is hope, will never fail. Heaven is our home. Through every storm, my soul will sing, Jesus is here. To God be the glory. Christ is enough for me. Christ is enough for me. Everything I need is in you. Everything I need. to follow Jesus. No turning back, no turning back. The cross before me, the world behind me. No turning back, no turning back. The cross before me, the world behind me. No turning back, No turning back. Sing, Christ is enough. Christ is enough for me. Christ is enough for me. Everything I need is in you. Everything I need Singing, Christ is enough for me. Christ is enough for me. Everything I need is in you. Everything I need. I have decided to follow Jesus. Jesus, no turning back, no turning back. I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back. I have, I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back, no turning back. I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back, no turning back. Sing that one more time. I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back, no turning back. I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back, no turning back. No turning back, no turning back. No turning back, no turning back.

Let's bow our heads in prayer. Lord, we thank you that you are a faithful God. Lord, we come before you today, we're just humbled, humbled to be in your presence, Lord. Thankful that we have another day that we can worship you together, Lord. So, Lord, we pray that, uh, as we reflect on the words that you have for us today, as we prepare to receive the scripture that you have for us, the words that you've spoken to the people before us and to us as well, Lord, we pray that you would help us to be rooted in you, to be like trees planted in the streams of your living water, Lord. Lord, we pray that these words that we've just sung would ring true, that regardless of whatever season of life we're in right now, regardless of whatever circumstances we're going through, that we would be able to say that, Lord, blessed be your name. Blessed be your name, because you are the cornerstone that we built our lives upon, Lord. And that's what it means to have a life that's built upon Jesus. A life that isn't strayed, isn't swayed by the world, swayed by the things that life throws at us. But oftentimes, Lord, we need to be reminded. We need to be reminded of your goodness and grace and your kindness, and that we have that hope. We have a hope that can't be taken away from us because of what you've done for us on the cross. So Lord, this morning, again, Would you help us to rest in that, to abide in that hope, that we'd be able to remember all that you've done for us and give you praise for it, Lord. We thank you for all these things. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. You may be seated. Oh, before you're seated, sorry, we have a time of greeting. So if you could please just turn to the people next to you and just greet them.

Good morning. For those that don't know me, my name is Nina. Before I share my testimony, I just want to say a few words of thanks for the support I have received recently. I want to thank each of you from the bottom of my heart for the love and support you showed during my husband's illness and his passing. Your visits, your prayers, and the meals you brought, and your comforting presence gave us strength during the most difficult time of our lives. I truly felt the hands and hearts— the hands and heart of God through each of you. I would especially like to thank Minister Paul Condrell for his many visits to the hospital and to our home. Your prayers, your words, and simply your presence Your presence brought comfort and peace. I will never forget your faithfulness and compassion. Thank you. And Minister Paul came at like 5 minutes' notice many times. Thank you. Though the grief is still very heavy, your kindness has lightened the load and has become a source of strength for us. I thank God for this church, our neighbors, our friends, and each one of you. A friend recently shared something that has stayed with me and touched my heart. She told me about someone who, after losing his son, said, "God gave me 24 wonderful years with him, and for that I am thankful." I hope to hold that same spirit of gratitude in my heart. God gave me 35 beautiful years with my husband, 10 years of friendship, and 25 years of marriage.. And for those years, I'm deeply thankful. Thank you again. Now I want to share my story of how I became a Christian. Nothing spectacular happened, no divine revelation or miracles. For me, it was a very slow and quiet process. I was born in Hong Kong and did not grow up I grew up in a Christian home, although I attended a Christian elementary school there. I was too young to understand much at that time. The only thing I remember is being told that if I was bad, I would burn in hell. When I was very young, my family immigrated to the U.S. I went to public school until college, when I enrolled at a Catholic university but even then my exposure to faith remained academic. It didn't touch my heart or change my heart at all. I have a younger brother who met his future wife in college. She was and still is a Christian, and eventually my brother became a Christian as well. Together they tried to influence me. They invited me to many Christian events, even retreats, hoping that I would come to know Christ. However, it had the opposite effect on me. I felt that my brother spent so much time at church or volunteering for church activities that he was neglecting our home and our father. At the time, I didn't understand his choices. Looking back now, I remember how Jesus said to Martha, that Mary had chosen what is better. I guess my brother had made the better choice. I just didn't realize it then. Many years later, I met Mrs. Fung, a member of this church in my neighborhood. We started talking and discovered that we both spoke Cantonese. She invited me to what I thought was a family gathering, the Chinese translation to family gatherings, but it turned out to be a Bible study. At that point, I didn't know many other Asians in Delaware and was feeling really lonely, so I kept going at first just for the social aspect. After about 2 years of attending Bible studies twice a month, something changed. One day while reading the Bible, something in God's word woke me up. It just clicked, and I believed. I found out that after my baptism that my brother and his church had been praying for me for 15 years. That reminded me that God works in his own timing and we need to be patient. It also showed me that one person's faith can make a real difference in bringing someone else to God's kingdom. Thank you.

Can we please rise to read God's words? It's from Psalm chapter 1, verses 1 through 6. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. May be seated. Thank you.

Good morning. Thank you, Nina. I was glad that you could do that. You had a few weeks now since Bill's passing to get over the most emotional part of the grieving process. She wondered if she could make it through without tearing up, but you did great. You did great. I was really privileged to be invited into that whole process and to be with Bill for the last 6 weeks or so. But that's not the topic right now. It is instead a formula for flourishing. Now flourishing, as we'll see in Psalm 1, isn't so much about what kind of mineral water you drink and whether you have little spritzes of lime juice to put in with crushed ice every morning by the pool. That's not what flourishing is, and we'll see what God has to say about that. But we do know that without God there is no flourishing. And in fact, we might just simply say, God bless you, or if God blesses us. That's the simple formula. We can't control it. It's supernatural. We can only ask. And yet we'll see from this psalm there is something that we can do to kind of put ourselves in the right position. You might think of an electric cord. If it's just an electric cord, will it conduct electricity? Well, it has the properties, it can conduct electricity if you were only to plug it in, right? So if we are plugged in, then we can conduct electricity. Now, looking for this formula in the Bible, as you know, the Bible is very long, it's very big, it's very old, written by a lot of people, it can seem kind of complicated sometimes. And the logic may escape us. But in the Book of Psalms, as we've seen last week and will for a few weeks more, it takes a wholly different approach. It doesn't really give formulas. It doesn't speak out a logic so much as emotions and poetry and pictures. And I don't know how about you, but I think in our society in general or our education, A lot of our education is STEM, right? How many of you were STEM majors in high school or college? That's, you know, the STEM engineering, that's what brings results. Whereas on the other hand, something like poetry or English or creative writing, that's for like a minority of people who maybe have nothing better or don't have the requisite skills, right? But we will see in the Bible, it's got both. So it has a rigid— everything from the law all the way through to poetry. And we'll see here in the Psalms, it's actually a very effective way that God communicates, and it's through metaphor. And we'll see those now. As we just read, we have basically two characters or two groups of people, and he calls them the ungodly and the righteous. And so he's setting up this contrast. And very simply, he has three— he associates these three words or three ideas with each group. On the one hand, the ungodly are those are the guys who take bad advice, they sin, they fall short, they're scornful. And on the other hand, the righteous are those who delight in God's word, who meditate on it, and who congregate together. And so we could get right to the point here. This is the formula. What you see here on the right, to delight, enjoy God's word, to meditate on it, and to congregate with God's people. And I have very good news for you today, because all of you are doing exactly that right now. So you're all at this moment fulfilling all of the righteous expectations of the righteous according to Psalm 1. And church should be, or is, or should be exactly where this can happen. So what is this flourishing and what does it look like? Well, as I said, it's described in these poetic metaphors, first being, "He shall be like a tree." But if you're a STEM major, you know that trees are very hard and inflexible and their skin is very rough and they're not very mobile. Would you want to be a tree? There's a lot of ways you probably would not want to be like a tree. But what in this case when he's saying like a tree, he's not talking about how tall you are. He's talking about how— what if we were in a classroom or maybe the Friday night youth group, I would ask you to provide all of the pictures that come to your mind if you think God is telling you you can be like a tree. What is he saying? How about I ask you, somebody call out, pretend you're just a teenager in a high school or something. What is it to be like a tree? Something good? Anything good about it? I'm sorry? Provide shade. Yeah, you can be useful to some other people or animals by providing shade. Anything else? You're sturdy. Yeah, you can last a long time if you're like a tree. You don't easily get bent over. Anything else? Anything else? You might have fruit. Yeah, a lot of trees have fruit or flowers or other things that they give out. Anything else? Shelter for birds. Shelter for birds. Yeah, that comes right in the Gospel. Jesus says that the kingdom will be like a tree and the birds can shelter in its branches. So that is a picture, a poetic picture. And we could go on talking and thinking about what we're meditating on. What is that tree? Image look like. On the other hand, we might have a lot of different views on it. And here, as you can imagine, trees come in many shapes and sizes, don't they? So the flourishing— if we are like a tree, it might look different in your household as like a tree in some other person's household. So we can't always compare what it's going to look like in someone else's household, and we can't compare ourselves all the time. But we can know that— and we can know that people have different kinds of usefulness. So just because you know someone else in the church that is particularly— like Jonathan is great at music. Those of you who were here in early July had to suffer without Jonathan and without Tony. We had the B team, the C team, and the D team. I had to get up and sing the hymns. So sorry to all of you who had to suffer through, but you could see that some people's tree, you know, has better music than other people's. But that, that's okay because we all have different kinds of talents and different ways that we can contribute to the kingdom. Well, the second metaphor used in the psalm is that of fruit that brings forth its fruit in its season. Now, of course, still referring to trees, but some of these fruit don't necessarily grow on trees. They grow on bushes and other kinds of things. But you can see fruit again as a metaphor. So if you're thinking you would like— would you like to be like fruit? Every time someone gives you a hug, then the juice will come out, right? No, you don't want to be juicy, or you don't want to have to, you know, be ripe and then suddenly go bad too quickly like fruit. There's ways that we don't want to be like fruit, but there are ways that we do. So what are the fruit that we would like to be? What do you think of when you think of fruit that we can bear? Fruit of the Spirit. Yeah, why think when we could just look it up right in Galatians? And there's so many ways that the New Testament can supplement our understanding from the Old Testament to try to come up with— who has memorized the fruit of the Spirit? Just raise your hand. OK, let's hear it. Love.

Joy. Peace. Faithfulness. Love. And self-control.

That's the last one. Good, that's pretty good. So that's— yes, we have different kinds of fruit. Some of us are stronger in the joy category, others are stronger in the self-control category. We all have like a unique blend of how we give forth and the fragrance that we give forth from the fruit that we do bring forth as we are in the group of the righteous. And this third analogy or metaphor that it uses is about the leaves on the tree. Whose leaf His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he does, whatever he does shall prosper. So why would we want to be like a leaf? What good is a leaf? I'm sorry? Somebody back there, Michael. It gives tree its nutrients. Yes, it fulfills a role in providing the energy up into the tree. That is important. What else? What does it say in Revelation about the leaves on the Tree of Life? They bring healing, that leaves are medicinal. So that's another way that they can be used. So that is how now we see this picture of prosperity. It's like a tree, like fruit, like leaves, and all of these things add up to prosperity. Now, whoever heard of the prosperity doctrine. There's a lot of criticism in the church that we're always talking about prosperity and promising, "If you come to church, God will reward you with more money somehow, so put more money in the offering and then you'll get even more money." That's like the basic sale of the prosperity doctrine in the church. But here it is right in the Bible. So as I started to say, prosperity will look different among us. It's a kind of inner prosperity. It may include include a Tesla, and it may not include a Tesla. So it's not going to look the same. It's not about what we're driving or what we're drinking. It's about what we are in our inner man, in our heart, in our soul. And so that is when it says that we shall prosper, it indeed is true and is a promise of God, but it doesn't— it takes us some time meditating on it to understand how that applies. In our lives. Now, all of these positive metaphors set against the other picture, which is of the ungodly. And you could call this the anti-formula of how not to prosper in the inner man, is to walk with the ungodly, to listen to their counsel, to stand in their path, and to sit in their seats. Because if we hang out with that other— if we congregate in that other space, we will take on those influences and we will begin to imitate those. So the choice is up to us. So to summarize then, the formula includes this first point, which is delighting in the Lord, in the law of the Lord, and secondly, meditating in the law of the Lord. But I have a question, which is, when it's talking about the laws, that sounds like rules, right? So we're supposed to delight in rules? That sounds like a— doesn't sound like the kind of person that, you know, someone at school that's always saying, "Obey the rules, obey the rules." Is that what we're supposed to be delighting in, in criticizing others for not obeying the rules? So what is this delight in the law and meditate on the law? So I want to look and drill down for a minute on this word, the law of the Lord, because that's what it says in English, and the connotation of law is rule. So what else might it be? Well, there is a website, there's several, where they list for you all the different ways that this phrase has been translated in all the English translations and paraphrases that are out there. There's like 60 of them. And I've made it small so you get an idea of how many there are. And if you drill down, it's kind of like you can do your own little AI summary By looking through the 60 translations and seeing how many ways this word law is translated, and what you find is it's usually translated the law of the Lord, sometimes the Lord's instruction, sometimes the teachings, sometimes the commands. And in a couple of paraphrases, it's called scripture. And in one, this Jewish— it's called the Orthodox Jewish Bible, I think, is that translation, OJB. They call it Torah. Who's heard the word Torah before? A Hebrew word which means— it's referring to the first 5 books of the Bible, but it means the ways or the way of the Lord, his teachings, his way, his instruction. So it's really— if you think about it as the first 5 books in the Bible, yes, there are rules there. Like in the middle of Leviticus, if you're a priest, you have plenty of rules to follow. But it also has a lot of stories. So if you're meditating, you're not just meditating on the law portion. That's a tiny bit of the whole Torah. You're more so thinking about the stories and how they might apply to our lives and wondering, what does this mean? So that is the— drilling down a little bit, we see it's not really focused on the rules. And likewise, the word delight in is translated in some other ways, like find joy in, find happiness in. "find pleasure in" or "to love it." And as I was thinking of how would I summarize that, I say the righteous are people who are attracted to God's ways. We're interested in God's words. And then the word meditate is also translated several other ways. It's translated to think about, to reflect on, to focus on. And in these last two examples I gave, those are called paraphrases, the Message and the Amplified Bible. It says to chew on, or in the last one, to habitually ponder and study. These are the activities that we do in building time with God, spending in intimacy or devotional time, private time with God, to go into your closet, so to speak, as it says in Matthew chapter 5 or 6. So that's it. That's the formula for flourishing. So if I were to rephrase it, or to try to edit it down to a simpler formula would be: enjoy God's words, contemplate his ways, and hang out with his people. And again, that said, that is what we are doing right now. Now, if you've been working with me or heard other sermons that I've done before, you know that I like to use scripture to illustrate scripture. So instead of just personal anecdotes, I'd like to go to a couple of places in the Bible that very well illustrate this contrast between the righteous and the ungodly. And I don't think there's any better example than that of Daniel and the politicians. And as you remember the story, the politicians are jealous about Daniel because he gets all this attention and he's given a lot of position in the government. And so they plot against him. And we're not going to go through the whole story, but I know most of you know it. They plot against Daniel, and the result is that he gets thrown into the lion's den. He gets thrown in, but what happens? God sends an angel and closes the mouth of the lions. The lions won't eat him. And when the king sees a whole day later that Daniel's been in there and the lions haven't eaten him, the king realizes this is like a miracle. So he says, "Okay, Daniel, you come out and let's throw those politicians in." So they all got thrown in, and then the king says, "Daniel's God is the real God." So it's this huge turnabout that takes place. But in this, you can see, can't you, how everything Daniel does prospers in the end, and that those ungodly, the scornful, and those who are taking bad counsel and giving bad counsel, they end up in the judgment. They end up in the pit. And guess what happens? The lions were real hungry because the angel had not let them eat for a whole, you know, 24 hours or or more, and they ate them right up. So that's one illustration. But there's another one when Jesus tells the parable about two men who built houses. And he summarizes at the end of the parable, he says, "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the wind blew, but it did not fall." fall. Unlike, as you know, what happened to the other house, which I put in that dot, dot, dot, because we don't have to reread the entire parable. Because I know many of you know that if you build your house on good foundation, it takes more money, it takes more time, it takes bigger investment, but also it'll pay off. But if you build it quickly and on the sand, it will not. So that is is another illustration of this formula where if we will do that inner part, it's not how we behave, it's getting the inner part, how we think, how we meditate, what we love. If that part comes right, then the behavior will follow it, but it won't happen the other way around. Now, before we end, I did have one other question that will take a little while to answer, but the question is, Why is this psalm placed first? Was it written first? Well, we don't know for sure, but we're pretty sure it's not placed in the order that they're written, as you can see from the whole 150. But somebody put it first, and there's a reason— or there's one result from putting it first, which is that there was a reading pattern that in the Israel— Israeli or the Jewish tradition, they would re-read the scriptures on a 1-year or on a 3-year cycle. And when they would begin, they would begin Torah, which would be like the Book of Genesis would be the beginning of the year, and they would begin Psalms, and they would begin in the other writings. They have 2 or 3 different places they'd be reading simultaneously, which means they're reading Psalm 1 side by side with Genesis 1, 2, and 3. So these are being read and analyzed and discussed in the Jewish in the synagogues at the same time. And if we go there and we ask the question, why is it placed first, we can take the lens of Genesis 1 and look again at this psalm and find something very interesting, which is that in Genesis 1, as you remember, God begins with a dark world and he brings light to it. He begins with this wet world, this chaotic world, and he separates out the dry land. And in that, I'm saying we can compare that to how God is taking ungodly people and making them into righteous people. So in other words, if we just read this psalm on its face, it looks like it's just a judgment. You guys are the good guys, and you guys are the bad guys. But if we look at it in light of creation, it's like God is wanting us to move from— to develop from the ungodly to the righteous. Or another way of saying is, we're all on the spectrum. Have you heard the phrase "on the spectrum"? We're all a little nuts, right? We're all a little bit on the spectrum. In other words, we're somewhere in between that, you know, ultimate ungodly, like politician in Daniel's day that was ready to throw Daniel to the lion's den, somewhere between that and Daniel who was willing to pray in the window even though he knew he when he was going to be thrown into the lion's den. We're somewhere there. And God's goal, God's purpose for his wanting to prosper us means wanting us to move in that direction, just like he was saying, "Let there be light," or separating dry land. He's wanting to separate out or to bring his people into that area, to move in that direction. And so congratulations, I think today we've moved a little bit in the right in the right direction. Amen. Now, in Genesis 2, if you remember, it tells a story of how Adam was all alone. And at being alone, God said, that's not good, we need to do something about this. And Adam looked at all the animals and he didn't find a single one that was going to be a good companion until God made Eve and they got married. And so going from alone to being married. And in marriage, this cleaving that they do, and this intimacy, and they're naked and not ashamed. That is this awesome transformation. And that, again, is— I think we can see that now as a picture of how, as we delight in God's words and as we are meditating on it, this is how we can be intimate with God. Because he's a spirit, and so this— our heart or our inner thoughts, that's where we have communion with the Spirit. So that's— and he describes it as a covenant. Now the word covenant we usually hear in churches, but outside of churches we would call them contracts, or in this case, a marriage contract. And so the marriage contract is that we have this intimacy between man and wife, and the same way between us between us and God. And so I hope we will be able to take away that little bit from Psalm 1, that as we do meditate on his word and we delight in him, we are enjoying him just the way that Adam and Eve would enjoy each other. And finally, in Genesis 3, we can also see a little bit of application to the latter part of Psalm 1, where he says, "Of every tree you may freely eat." Whatsoever you do will prosper. But, he says, on the day you eat that fruit— no, no, no, no, no— that fruit, you will surely die. As he says at the end of Psalm 1, the way of the ungodly shall perish. So he's had all this patience for us to move from up the spectrum from the one side to the other. And he's given us the instruction, and he's offering this this way, and now it's up to us to follow it. But if we want to stay like Pharaoh, and he says, I will not let you go, and he's so stubborn, then he says, if you eat that fruit, you will surely die. And if you see this garment at the— when they did eat the fruit, God made garments for them to cover, to cover over and let them live longer. And this, this garment is— a picture of the— whose garment is that? The coat of seven colors that Israel or Jacob gave to his son Joseph because he loved him. We don't deserve this garment, but this is what God has given us and allows us to meditate on him and to experience this flourishing. So let's end there with a word of prayer, and Jonathan, You can come back up. Father, we are thankful for the grace, not because we deserve it, but because you have made a way. You've provided your word. You provided so many stories that illustrate for us right and wrong, up and down, right and left, dark and light, chaos of the oceans and the dry land. Father, I just pray that it will be clear as a bell, and that that will translate into moment by moment from the time we wake up until the time we're sitting on our bed waiting to go to sleep, when we're with ourselves in our thoughts and have a chance to speak to you, to hear from you. Just pray that these illustrations and your word will penetrate into our meditations and our thoughts, and that we will see indeed you have a goodwill toward us, that you accept us with the garments that Jesus has provided, a sinless, clean garment to replace anyone that we've sullied, and that you do have grace, accept us into your your presence despite the things that we've done or thought. And so, Father, I ask that you will accept us as we are because we confess that we are unworthy. We confess that Jesus is worthy. Thankful for his sacrifice and for for his raising from the dead. We rejoice in the life. I just pray that we will see flourishing all around us, inner flourishing as you've designed it. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Could you all please rise?

From the moment that I wake up until I lay my head, I will sing of the goodness of God.

All my life you have been faithful. All my life You have been so, so good.

With every breath that I am able, I will sing of the goodness of God. I love your voice.

You have led me through the fire.

In darkest night, you are close like no other. I've known you as a Father.

I've known you as a friend.

And I have lived in the goodness of God. All my life.

And all my life, you have been faithful. And all my life, you have been so, so good. With every breath that I have made.

And I will sing of the goodness of God.

Your goodness is running after, it's running after me. Your goodness is running after, it's running after me. With my life laid down, I'm surrendered now, I give you everything. Your goodness is running after, it's running after me. Your goodness is running after, it's running after me. Your goodness is running after, it's running after me. Me. With my life laid down, I'm surrendered now. I give you everything. Your goodness is running after— it's running after me. All my life you have been faithful. And all my life you have been so, so good.

With every breath that I am able, I will sing of the goodness of God. All my life.

And all my life you have been faithful.

Faithful.

And all my life you have been so, so good. With every breath that I am able, I will sing of the goodness of God.

I will sing of the goodness of God.

You may be seated.

All right, we have a few announcements, and if you would like to see the details of the announcements, please do see our website, wcec.churchcenter.com. All right, next page. So do we have any new visitors today? You raise your hand. That's right. All right, um, so we do have a little gift we can give you later.. And as far as the announcements, next slide. There we go. Our, um, VBS will start Monday and go through the week. Um, we do have enough people volunteering, so just pray for the VBS and its success. Uh, we do have our youth and family camp trip coming up on August 9th. Uh, there is a going away party and that will be at, at Condrell's house. If you would like to join them and if you would like to take something, please see the link that's on the website. The Salt and Light Fellowship will be August 23rd, and I think that's it. So please rise for the doxology.

Okay, remain standing just for a minute. We did have a couple of new visitors in the very back row that came with my son Abraham. So I'm sorry, you guys, you don't have to stand up now because you're already standing. My son Abraham just arrived yesterday. He rode with his, his buddy Ben all the way across the country on their bicycles, and they just got back. So congratulations, guys. Praise God for bringing you here safe and sound. They're high school buddies, and also Aiden is is Abraham's college buddy, so he's here too. And they speak a little Chinese, so if you speak Chinese, you can test them. Not Ben, but Abraham and Aidan speak some Chinese, so please test them and see how they're doing. Now we'll have the benediction also from the book of Psalms, Psalm 23, adapted from Psalm 23. It says this. Now usually I don't raise my hand when I do a benediction because I always thought it was kind of dorky to raise your hand when you do a benediction. But this morning I was actually reading about Moses when he delivered the 10 plagues. He started out using his staff, and the staff was the thing that would call down God's authority. But then towards the last few plagues, he just put up his hand. So I thought, hmm, maybe I should put up the hand, not because it's my hand, it's because we're evoking God's power and authority to bring a blessing on your lives. So let's do that. May the Lord shepherd you and make you lie down in green pastures. May he restore your soul and lead you in paths of righteousness. May he be with you and comfort you. May he anoint your heads with oil and bestow his goodness and mercy on you all the days of your lives. Thank you for being here. Go in peace. Amen.