Living The New Life | Selena Greiner

In this message titled "Living the New Life," the message walks through Colossians 3 to unpack what it means to be a new creation in Christ. Four simple points frame the teaching: look up by setting our minds on heaven rather than temporary things, clean up by putting off old sinful habits and attitudes, dress up by clothing ourselves in compassion, kindness, humility, and above all the belt of truth (God's word) that holds the entire spiritual armor together, and live it out through how we treat our families, coworkers, and community. Drawing on Rick Renner's reflections on the Roman soldier's armor, the teaching emphasizes that scripture isn't just one accessory among many but the foundation that keeps everything else in place. A story about a muddy obstacle race illustrates how God sees us as clean and made new no matter what mess we've walked through, and the call throughout is to daily, practical surrender rather than a one-time decision.

Transcript

Opening Prayer And Welcome

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Let's start out in prayer. Father, we just thank you, Lord, for your word tonight. We thank you, Lord, that your word is powerful. It is sharp. It is alive. And so we open up our hearts, Father. We open up our ears. Holy Spirit, you are welcome in this place. We thank you, Lord, for what you're doing through our lives. We thank you, Lord, that we are living in the last days, that we are an example, that we are a light, that we are bold for you. We are bold as a lion, just like your word says. And so we thank you, Father, for what you're doing in us and through us in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

What New Life In Christ Means

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So let's see. I've been um I was going back and forth on um what uh to be sharing with you guys tonight. And if you're uh taking notes, the title of my message is Living the New Life. Um, you know, if you said yes to Jesus, uh if you made him the Lord of your life, um, the word says in 2 Corinthians that we are new creatures in Christ. The old has passed away. Behold, uh there's new. We are new creatures. And so uh we are in Christ. We don't live um according to the world and according to the world standards, but uh there's a newness about us. It's it's a new creature, it's a whole totally different uh new way of thinking, new way of doing things, new words, new vocabulary, new actions. Um, and this morning uh we had uh staff prayer. We have this little devotional uh that we sometimes use. And today's devotion was Psalm 3, sorry, excuse me, Psalm chapter 5, verse

Look Up And Reset Your Focus

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3. It says, My voice you shall hear in the morning. In the morning, I will direct it to you. I will look up. And so uh my first point is to look up, and I'll be reading out of uh really just mainly Colossians three tonight. The whole entire chapter is um really just the characteristics characteristics of the new man, who we are in Christ, and so walking that out, and so number one, look up, and so Colossians 3, 1 through 4 in the New Living Translation says, Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God's right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life, everybody say, real life, or you can type it out, real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory. And so when we belong to Jesus, our perspective changes, right? And so instead of being consumed by the things that are temporary, uh, we focus on God's kingdom. Colossians here it talks about it. It says, think about the things of this heaven, not on not things about this earth, but think about how many times we get that flipped, right? We live, we're in this world and and we go about our busy day, and uh we can be tempted, you know, we're focused on we have to get the job done. Um but here Paul is saying, don't think think about heavenly things, think about, don't think about earthly things. So we focus when we're a new creature, we focus on his kingdom, we focus on his will, his promises. And so our identity is no longer in the past, our our identity is no longer defined by our past. Um, our identity is now defined by this new life that we have in Jesus. And so look up. We should be looking up. A lot of times we get bogged down down here, right? We look down and we there's situations and there's problems and there's circumstances, and and we can get to looking down. No, but the word says, look up, look up. Um, Psalm 124, 1 through 4 says, I look up to the mountains. Does my help come from there? My help comes from the Lord who made the heaven and earth. He will not let you stumble. The one who watches over you will not slumber. Indeed, he who watches over Israel never slumbers or sleeps. And so the word says to look up. We're to look to the Lord for our answers, not to be looking down, not to be concerned about certain situations, but to look up. And I wrote down here, what captures your attention will shape your direction that you go in. And so what captures you, what you're always focused on, that's that's who you become. That's what you, even though the word says when we said yes to Jesus, we're a new creature. We've stepped into this newness, but a lot of times we live in this world and the culture around us, and so it can grab a hold of our thoughts and the way, and then the way we're thinking is doesn't line up with the word of God. And then it becomes the way we're acting doesn't line up with the word of God. But really, God's called us to higher things. He called He's called us to look up, He's called us not to wallow and not to um be discouraged and not to have not to be anxious. The Bible says, don't be anxious, but instead um let your prayer request be made known to God. And so we are to look up. And then number two, my two second point is clean

Clean Up The Old Nature

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up. You see what I did there? Look up, clean up. Really? Colossians three is a lot of cleaning, cleaning up. Uh Colossians three, five through eleven. So put to death the sinful earthly things lurking within you, having nothing to do with sexual morality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don't be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming. You used to do these things when your life was still a part of this world, but now it's time to get rid of anger, rage, malice, uh, malicious behaviors, slander, and dirty language. Don't lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. Put on, or say, put on your new nature and be renewed as you learn to know your creator and become like him. In this new life, this is verse 11. In this new life, it doesn't matter if you're a Jew or a gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slavery free, Christ is all that matters. And he lives in all of us. So here he's saying, put away, put away that old life. And so I just said, hey, clean up, right? Clean up all that dirty stuff, all that filth that tries to get on you, clean up. And so Paul here um is telling believers, hey, put to death once and for all those sinful things and behaviors that don't line up with the word of God, right? And they try to creep up. If you don't, if you're not in the word, if you're if we're not uh praying much in the Holy Ghost, if we're not in community with one another, those things can creep up.

Choose Friends Who Build Faith

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Um, it matters who we hang around with, it matters uh who our faith friends are, like uh Pastor taught this past Sunday are those four crazy friends, right? And Mark, we got you gotta have four crazy friends. Maybe you don't have four. Start with one, right? You'd rather have one crazy friend than four worthless ones, right? You'd rather have one sold-out person on fire for God that is that is on your team than four that are gonna drag you down, right? And so start with one. And you can pray, you know, pray, hey God, send me supernatural relationships, send me supernatural friendships. One that are uh gonna you know speak into my life and and and believe God with me, but then also vice versa. Who are we? Like we think a lot of times we read that, and and um especially with the teenagers because they're big on you know, friendship at that age you want friends and and but really what kind of friend are we being? Are we the crazy friend? Are we the ones praying um for each other? Are we the ones praying for our coworkers? Are we the ones um you know speaking faith and life and hope to them? And so we need to bring one of the we we need to be a crazy friend. And so um here Paul is saying, hey, you have to put away all these things, it's not gonna come, it's not gonna do it by itself. You have to put away the old life, and so um we do it by reading the word, and it's already like when we said yes to Jesus, yes, we're a new creature, but again, all those habits come back. And so the new life requires letting go of some things, letting go of old habits, letting go of things um that we used to do, and maybe even just mental like like ways of thinking, right? Ways of thinking, like we have to make sure that we put on the helmet of salvation, uh the breast spade of righteousness, that we're um stepping into what God has for us.

Dress Up With Christlike Character

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So, number three is dress up. And if you keep on reading Colossians 3, 12 through 17, since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tender-hearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Make allowance for each other's faults and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all, clothe yourselves with love which binds us all together in perfect harmony, and let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts, for as members of one body you are called to live uh to live in peace and always be thankful. Verse 16. Let the message about Christ in all its rich richness fill your lives, teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives, sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. There's so much there, right? If you just read the entire chapter of uh really just the whole book of Colossians, like Paul's letters were always, there were themes, and um there it was always like uh faith in Jesus and love for each other. Man, if you and so here he's saying, hey, dress up. So, like, what are we dressed in daily? Do are we have we put on kindness? Have we put on humility? Have we put on patience, gentleness, kindness, and make allowance for each other's faults. That that can be a difficult one, right? That can be a difficult one, but it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be if we remind ourselves, hey, God forgave us, we can easily He forgate, like we easily forgive one another. And so we have to, and it goes on to say, let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts, right? Not this worldly peace, but the peace that comes from knowing Jesus, it rules in your hearts here, right? Here and uh, and so that's where we live from. We live from a place of a posture of peace, not of chaos, not of turmoil, not of getting our own way, not of um, you know, just having our way, having our uh whatever we think. No, we have to get God's word on it. Hey, God, Holy Spirit, what you know, what is it that you want me to do? What are my next steps? Holy Spirit, what and a lot of times we can grieve the Holy Spirit. If we're not abiding in his word, if we're not doing these things, if we're picking up that old man and carrying those dead bones, imagine going to the grave and digging up a grave. That's what literally you're doing, right? If we if we live by the old way of doing things, you are literally going to the graveyard. That that guy's dead. He's gone. She's gone, right? It's a new way, a new way of doing things, right? Year of the new. It's a new way of doing things, and so we have to make sure that that we put that on.

The Belt Of Truth Holds All

SPEAKER_00 13:35

I wanted to read to you a couple of pages. Hopefully, I don't bore you. Rick Renner has this, and I haven't read the entire thing, but just little bits and pieces, dressed to kill. It talks about um spiritual warfare and the armor by Rick Renner. Um, and he talks about the most important weapon. So let me just quickly read that to you. Now let's take some time to look at each piece of our spiritual armor in depth. Paul begins his description of the armor by saying, armor of God by saying, stand therefore, having your loins girt about with the truth. I initially thought the loin belt must have been a beautiful weapon, like the others listed in this text. But the loin belt was the least attractive and least noticeable, and the most boring piece of armor that the Roman soldier wore. When a Roman soldier was wearing his beautiful breastplate of brass, who would notice his belt? If you were to describe a man's clothing, would you begin with his belt? You can hardly even see it. You would probably start out by describing his jacket, then you'd move on to his shirt, his necktie, and even his shoes. We like pastor shoes. Those are always bright. But you wouldn't begin with his belt, would you? Your belt seems to be an insignificant little thing until you take it off. Then you discover how important that belt really is. Take it off, and your pants might start falling down. And as your pants fall down, your shirt can come untucked. And if you've lost your pants and your shirt has come untucked, you look like a mess. It's easy to fall apart when you don't have your belt on. You'll spend most of your try time trying to keep your pants pulled up. You won't feel very confident, and you certainly won't want to make any fast moves. That is precisely what the loin belt did for the Roman soldier. It held all the pieces of his armor together. He might be wearing all his great weaponry, but if the loin belt was not in place, everything would fall apart. Thus, it was said that the loin belt was the most vital part of all the weaponry of the Roman soldier that the Roman soldier wore. For example, the Roman soldier's shield was attached to the loin belt. If he had no loin belt, he had no resting place for that massive shield. If he had no loin belt, he had no place to hang his sword. If there was no loin belt, there was nothing for his lance to rest upon. If he didn't have the loin belt, there was nothing to keep his breastplate from flapping in the wind. The loin belt held it all together. The soldier's armor would have literally fallen apart piece by piece if he hadn't uh if he hadn't had the loin belt fixed in his place around his waist. That's why the loin belt was so vital for the Roman soldier. Without it, he had absolutely no confidence in fighting. With it, he was assured that all the pieces of the equipment would stay in place so he could move quickly and fight with great fury. And then let me go on um quickly. Uh the majority of your spiritual armor is invisible. For instance, you can physically see the breastplate of righteousness, you can't physically see your shoes of peace, you your shield of faith, your hammer of salvation, your sword of the spirit, and your or your lance of intercession. These are invisible weapons, but you can see one weapon. In fact, there is only one spiritual weapon that is visible to the sight, the loin belt of truth. The loin belt of truth is the written word of God. This is the only spiritual weapon that has taken on a physical natural form and has passed tangibly from the spirit realm into your hands, right here. It is the most important piece of weaponry that we possess. If you saw a Roman soldier, would you begin describing his outfit with his belt? No, you would say, Oh, look at the helmet, look at the shoes, the breastplate, look at the shield, look at the sword and the lance. Oh, I almost forgot he's wearing a belt too. However, I'm almost done. However, it was not this, however, was not the Holy Spirit's approach when he inspired Paul to write about the spiritual armor. He went straight to the middle of the soldier and began describing the armor of God by mentioning the soldier's belt. God is making a point here. He's saying that the piece of armor that is in the middle of the man is the most important weapon to the man. If you take off that weapon, the man will fall apart. Likewise, when you ignore the word of God and cease to apply it to your life on a daily basis, you have willingly chosen to let your entire spiritual life come apart at the seams. And I thought that was just so good. Um, and then he goes on to talk about just people, people, you know, they have Bibles at home, and and but we dismiss the Bible. Oh, what's the latest preacher? Oh, what's the latest fad? Oh, what's the latest saying? Go to the word. The word of God is the truth, right? It is the belt. It is so, it's powerful. When we when we're dressed in the word, yes, all the pieces of the armor are very important, but the the belt of truth, it's what holds the entire armor together, right? You won't know if you're if you're um not wearing the belt of truth, if you don't know who you are in Christ, you what what good is it? The helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness. You won't you won't know anything about the the uh righteousness, who right standing with God, because you're we're not, you know, the belt of truth. We don't know the truth. You see how like the I just thought that was so so good. I'd never seen it that way, where it holds the whole armor together, right? And so the word of God is so important. We need to to read the word of God, meditate on the word of God, get dressed up in the word of God because it's our truth, it's what holds you together, right? It's it what holds you together from becoming flaky and weird and and and crazy and anxious and and depressed and and all of these things, you gotta stick with the word. You have to stick with the word. It's basic, but it's fundamental, it's it's foundational, and so it's what's gonna keep you um to to be dressed up in the word, to know the word. And so we put on this Christ-like character. So just like we put on clothes every day, we put on the armor of God, we put on compassion, we put on kindness, we put on humility, we put that on, we put on forgiveness, we put on patience, and so we allow God's word to rule in our heart. And so then that way when when trials come, when tribulations come, you've hidden the word in your heart. The word of God says, Um, you know, hide my word in your heart that that I may not sin against you. So God's word needs to be hidden in our heart. Amen. Okay, let's see. Okay, number four. So dress up as number three. Number four is live it out.

Live It Out At Home And Work

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And so the rest of Colossians um 18 through 25, and he addresses a lot of people wives, husbands, kids, um, wives, submit to your husbands as uh is fitting for those who belong to the Lord's husband, love your wives and never treat them harshly. Children, obey your parents, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not aggravate your children, or they will become discouraged. Um and then verse 23, work willingly uh willingly at whatever you do as though you are working for the Lord rather than for people. Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the master you are you are serving is Christ. But if you do what is wrong, you will get paid, be get be paid back for the wrong you have done, for God has no favorites. And so here he's talking about living it out, right? Living it out at home, fathers, wives, children, masters, servants. This is how we live it out, right? And so whether we're at work, in family, community, we live it out, right? We live it out as serving the Lord. Um And so faith, we live out our faith. Faith is just not for Sunday. I always say this. Faith is not just for Sunday mornings from 10 a.m. to 12, but it's to be lived out, right? It's to be lived out Monday through Saturday, all the days of our lives. And so a couple of favorite verses. I'm just going to quickly go over them in Colossians. So, like Colossians 3.2, set your mind on things above and not on earthly things. Colossians 3.13, bear with each other, and I just paraphrase these bear with each other and forgive one another. Colossians 3.16, let the word of God in Christ dwell richly within you. And then the next verse, Colossians 3.17, whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus. The kids, when they were little, they used to have this little VHS back when VHS were, you know, the thing. Steve Green, I think was his name, and he had these kid videos, and I loved it because he would sing. They were, yes, they were cheesy, but I would sing the word all day long if that VHS was playing, and one of those songs, whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus. And like he would make up all these, and kids would be in the videos, anyways. But um that always stuck with me. Um, but yeah, so so like Colossians is so full of just gold nuggets, like all of these, like let Jesus' peace rule in your hearts, right? Uh you dig into the word, let the word of Christ dwell richly in you. And so our reaction sometimes, you know, our reaction should be the word, right? Our reaction should be to certain situations. What does the word say? Right? When somebody comes up to you and asks for your advice, what does the word say? Because I don't care about what Selena's opinion, what does the word say about that situation? Financial trouble, what does the word say? Marriage trouble, what does the word say? Kid trouble, what does the word say? Let's go back to the word, right? And so um we have to make sure that we're going back to the word, go back to our uh that our armor is on, but it's all held up by what the belt of truth, the belt of truth, the word of God, go back to the word, right? And so let me just go over my points.

Daily Practice Plus A Mud Story

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So number one is to look up. We look up to Jesus, right? This living the new life, we look up to Jesus. So I just want to encourage you, look up whatever you're you're maybe you feel like you're stuck, right? A lot of people feel stuck. No, look up to God, right? He can get you unstuck from any mess. With God, all things are possible. Not with man, but with God, all things are possible. And so look up no matter the situation, no matter the mess, look up to God, He'll get you out of it. Amen. So focus, focus on Him, focus on the Word. Don't focus on the things that are temporary, focus on the things that that that are eternal. Praying for somebody, that's eternal, right? Uh forgiving somebody, that's eternal. Temporary, getting offended at something and just holding a grudge, or uh spending too much time with this thing over here and it doesn't really matter. No, look up, look up. Number two, clean up, right? This new life. We looked up and now we've cleaned up. And you can read, and we read it, Colossians 3. All of the things, right? Our that's our old life. We've cleaned up. We're not getting in the mud pit anymore. We're not we're not doing that thing. No, we're not, we're not worrying, we're not becoming anxious, we're not depressed. We're we we're cleaned up a long time ago. We did we did this thing called the mud run. My my first and last time that I will ever do that. Uh it was fun at the time. It was a miracle I did not get hurt. Um, but uh yeah, we there was a couple Jay did not do the no. He was like, he ran the camera, yeah. He ran the camera and ran with the camera and took pictures, took video, but there was a couple of us. We did the mud run. I think it was a 5k. And liz, did you do no Roy, no, Royce did no, it was Justin, me, yeah, Rachel. There's a couple of us. Um, but but yeah, so like at the end of the race, we were so there was like obstacles, right? You ran for a while, and then you had to uh go under, I don't know if it was barbed wire, maybe not something, and then at the very end, we had to climb like I don't know how tall it was. That was a little scary, a wall, and then go down the other way, and um so uh, anyways, but at the end of the race, we were all muddy. We did that all, you know, wet, muddy, all of that. And so just like life, you know, we go through life and mud gets on us, icky stuff, but no, God here in Colossians 3 says clean up, right? When we beg when we when we said yes to Jesus once upon a time, he made us new. He doesn't see you all muddy and icky, and and what no matter whatever you had had done in the past, that doesn't matter. He sees you white as snow, he sees you clean, he sees you purified, he sees you beautiful, he sees you fearfully and wonderfully made, he sees you righteous. And so we have to make sure that that we're cleaned up every day, right? That we're cleaned up from the inside out. And so Paul's telling us here to to put those sinful things away, to put those behaviors and sinful attitudes away and to get cleaned up from the inside out. Okay, so number one was we look up to Jesus, number two, we clean up, number three was we dress up, right? Putting on the armor of God, the belt of truth is the most important because the whole armor will fall apart without the belt, right? You don't want to drop your drawers, please do not. A couple weeks ago, Jay forgot his belt. There was an issue. Just saying, we'll leave it at that. We won't go into detail, but just saying, I read you rec Rick Renners dressed to kill, and um the the the the belt, it's the most important, right? It holds up the armor, so the word of God is important. What if you like start in the morning? Like it's it's good to start with the word, it sets the tone, it sets the day, right? If you don't have time in the morning to read your word, if you're a night out, okay, that's fine. Put some praise music on in the morning because it's so important to start the day, set the tone with the word of God, set the tone with prayer, set the tone with praise and worship music, right? Because we know the enemy, he's throwing his darts, and so you want to make sure that you're you're filled up in the morning, that you've you have a scripture, you have a verse, you have a song uh on the inside of you. And so um, so that's part of putting on your armor. That's part of putting on your armor, and so it's the truth, it's the word. And so you get dressed up, and then the last point was we live it out, right? At the end of Colossians, it talks about the family, talks about wives, it talks about husbands, it's talked about kids. It's community, it's how we live this out, right? This new life, and he tells us how to live it out, and so a transformed heart is visible, right? You can't just be like, I love Jesus, and then cuss everybody else out at home. Just saying, you'd be surprised. Just saying, oh, but I love Jesus, and you know, you treat your wife bad or you treat your husband, or you treat, or you're harsh with your kids. Oh, but I love Jesus. Well, no, you don't, because a new life, and you transform life is a transformed heart, and there's a behavior behind that, right? If you say you really love Jesus, there's a behavior and a uh a character change, a character perspective that's godly. It's godly, it's not devilish, it's not fleshy, it's godly. So I just want to encourage you when we when we say yes to Jesus, allow him to transform you from the inside inside out. And it's a daily choice, right? Because you may be, you know, said yes to Jesus 60 years ago, um, but people can still be walking in the flesh, right? It's a daily, daily submission. Not my will, but your will be done, Lord. Not what I think about this situation, but what do you, what's your final say on this situation? Holy Spirit, show me, show me, lead me, guide me in this situation. I don't want to grieve you, Holy Spirit, by the words that I say and the actions that I take, right? I think a lot of times we forget about the Holy Spirit, and we just say what we want and and and maybe do, you know, take an action. And it's like, oh, no, no, Holy Spirit, what did I grieve you with at? And so I just want to encourage you with that. Um, we can live a healthy Christian life. A new uh uh um, you know, we don't God doesn't want us going through this life um down in the dumps and depressed and sad. And no, he wants He wants you victorious, He wants you to be an overcomer. He wants He's made you for such a time as this, living in 2026. And so you can do it. You can do it. Just I encourage you to read Colossians 3 um and then do the word. Do the word, right? We look up, we clean up, and we act on the word. Amen. Amen.

Final Encouragement And Prayer

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I don't know if any prayer requests came in, but I do want to pray with you guys. If the uh if you are here in person, if you'd like prayer, um, you can come up to the altar and I'll be praying over a live stream as well. Father, let's just lift a hand for live stream first. Father, we just thank you, everybody watching live stream, Lord. We thank you, Father, that their needs are met. We thank you, Lord, that as we uh read Colossians 3, Father, that we set our minds on things above. We look up, we're not gonna look to the natural for our old man is gone. We died. Our new life is hidden with you, Lord. And so we thank you, Father. We thank you, Father, that um they know who they are in Christ, that they know that the old man is gone, the new man is here, Lord. And so we thank you, Father. We put to death the members of the old man. And we we put on the armor, we put on the breastprate of righteousness, we the belt of truth, Lord, that holds it all together, the helmet of salvation. We thank you, Father, that you know every need, Father, and you meet every need, spirit, soul, and body. We thank you, Father, that you want us a hundred percent living in these last days, a hundred percent healed, whole, uh, complete, nothing missing and nothing lacking, Father. And so we just thank you, Father, that there's nothing missing and nothing lacking in their lives, Father, that you are their need meter, Father, that you uh maybe they feel like people have let them down, Father. We thank you, Father, Lord, that you never let us down. You are a very present help in times of trouble. And so we thank you, Father. We look up to you. We glorify your name, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen.