His Mercies Never Run Out

Thomas Chisholm was born in a rural Kentucky town, 1866. Only became a schoolteacher even though all he had was a third grade education, which was pretty common at the time, especially there in rural Kentucky. And he was delighted to do that, but always felt like there was more. And in his biography he says that at the age of 27, his life really began because that's the year that he gave his life to Jesus. Henry Clay Morrison was the preacher.

Henry Clay Morrison actually went on to found Asbury College and Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. Some of you are familiar with that school, especially with the revival that happened there a couple years ago and in the past. Ironically, that's where I was born in Wilmore and my dad was in school there at Asbury. So I was reading the story, just thinking about how cool it was to study the life of Thomas Chisholm. He continued to grow in his faith with the Lord and was delighted.

By the age of 36, he felt called into the ministry and became a pastor of a small church in Kentucky. It was really for him. He felt like the culmination of everything he had lived. He was excited to serve God in this way. But he became so ill during his one year of pastoring that he had to leave the ministry of after 12 months of full time service, went to a place to receive some healing, became an insurance salesman and sold life insurance until the day he retired.

Many people would feel like a failure. Many people would feel like they didn't fulfill their calling in life. But as you read Thomas Chisholm's account, he didn't necessarily feel that way. He felt like he did what God gave him to do and he was as faithful as he could be. And rather than harden his heart, he just continued to serve the Lord.

He never felt very remarkable. Matter of fact, he often referred to himself as just an old shoe.

Got a picture of Thomas Chisholm. I don't know that he looks like an old shoe, but I appreciate his humility.

He would just write poems to God. He no longer was able to give sermons. He would share his faith with people as he sold life insurance and he would write poems to God. And later in his life, at the age of 57, he sent a poem that he wrote to the Moody Bible Institute, where William Runyon, who led the music department of Moody Bible Institute, received that poem and was so stirred by it. This is what he said.

This particular poem held such an appeal that I prayed most earnestly that my tune might carry over its message in a worthy way. And the subsequent history of its use indicates that God answered that prayer. Years after William Runyon put music to the words of the poem that Thomas Chisholm wrote. George Beverly Shea got a hold of the song. George Beverly Shea was the worship leader for the Billy Graham Crusades.

And he began to sing this song, this poem that Thomas Chisholm wrote, the Old Shoe. He sang this song all over the world to millions of people. And today it's one of the most cherished hymns that we have. Of course, it's the song Great Is Thy Faithfulness. As Pastor Prabhu mentioned just this last week, our staff went to the Billy Graham Library.

And if you've never been, I really encourage you to go. You'll encounter the power of being among people who've just tried to live their lives faithfully for Jesus. Billy Graham's buried there. His wife Ruth is buried there. But so is George Beverly Shea.

And as I stood there, I knew I was be preaching this message. And I had been preparing for it. And as I stood there, I looked at his grave and just thought. Millions and millions of people sang this song Great is Thy Faithfulness. Because he led it on those Billy Graham Crusades.

Just going to read the lyrics to you quickly. We sang a bit of it just a minute ago. Great is Thy faithfulness O God, my Father There is no shadow of turning with Thee Thou changest not thy compassions they fail not as Thou hast been Thou forever will be. Great is Thy faithfulness Great is Thy faithfulness Morning by morning new mercies I see All I've needed Thy hand has provided. Great is Thy faithfulness Lord unto me Summer and winter, Springtime and harvest sun, moon and stars in their courses above Join with all nature in manifold witness to Thy great faithfulness Mercy and love.

The final verse. Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide Strength for today, Bright hope for tomorrow Blessings all mine and 10,000 beside no fantastic story, no great epic thing to report. A faithful man who tried his best to live his life for Jesus. And just wrote his poems to Jesus like King David on the hillside. And just allow the Lord to use his life to Minister.

At age 75, Thomas Chisholm is quoted as saying this. My income has not been large at any time. Due to impaired health in the earlier years which has followed me until now. Although I must not fail to record here the unfailing faithfulness of a covenant keeping God. And that he has given me many wonderful displays of his providing care for which I am filled with astonishing gratefulness.

Great is thy faithfulness. If you've got your Bibles, would you open them? We're going to look quickly at the book of Lamentations. Lamentations. It's in the Old Testament, kind of towards the middle of your Bible.

Lamentations, Chapter three. And as you turn there, if I haven't met you before, my name is Nathan. I get the privilege of serving on our pastoral team here at the Ref. And just honestly so grateful to get a chance to share God's word with you today. Grateful to be talking about these great hymns of the faith.

I love that Pastor J has led us into this series. You know, I grew up in the church. My dad's a Methodist pastor. My middle name is Wesley. So I'm in it for life.

For those of you that understand that joke, and I'm grateful. And it's always fascinating to me when I come across these songs that have some connection to my heritage in the Methodist Church, especially as my heart grieves for all that I desire for that church to be, and I know that God desires for it to be. And as I was reading and reflecting again, just reminding myself of God's faithfulness to his church through the years. Lamentations, Chapter three. I'm going to ask you to stand, if you would, as we honor God's word.

Just going to read a portion. Lamentations, chapter 3, verses 17 through 26. It starts out not very encouraging, so hang with me, okay? My soul is bereft of peace. I have forgotten what happiness is.

So I say, my endurance has perished. So has my hope from the Lord. Remember my affliction and my wanderings. The wormwood. The goal.

My soul continually remembers it, and it's bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning.

Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore I will hope in him. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

If you agree, would you say amen? Let's make a declaration over this word that we make every single week here at the refuge. Are you ready? Go. I will hide this word in my heart that I might not sin against God.

This word is life to my body and health to my bones. I will be a doer of the word and not a hearer. Only, and I'm confident of this, that he who has begun a good work in me will complete it in Jesus name. If you agree, would you say amen? How about you give somebody a high five as you sit down?

Maybe give them a hug.

This I call to mind. I love that. I love that. You know, the Book of Lamentations is probably not one you study often. Although I would just remind you, if it's in the Scriptures, it's worthy of our time and attention.

Thomas Chisholm found strength in reading the Book of Lamentations. If you pay attention to the name of the book, at least how we have it in English, you understand that it's a series, love laments, A lament, a sorrow, something you're struggling with and you're pouring out to God. I think some of us, when we come to church, we think that everything's supposed to be cheery and happy and good and everything's wonderful, and we feel like we have to put a spin or a polish on things. And I'm just telling you, if you'll actually read the Bible, you'll see that is not the way God deals with us. So matter of fact, over 70% of all of the Psalms, where most of our praise songs come from, laments, God, where are you?

It looks like my enemies are winning. God, what about what you promised? Like, that's what the Psalms sound like if you read all of them. The Book of Lamentations, a book in this, in the Bible, the Old Testament, five chapters, five poems written from a broken heart, crying out to the Lord. So I just want to pause and say this.

If this week you've had a broken heart and you've been crying out to the Lord, you're doing the very thing he asks us to do in his word. He never promised we wouldn't have a broken heart. He said, in this world you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world. Tradition teaches us that Jeremiah the prophet is the one who wrote Lamentations.

Five laments and the background of it. I'm just going to read a bit of this. Is that he wrote this in Jerusalem as it was being sacked by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in the summer of 586 and 587. He watched the children and the nobles be carried into captivity, and he watched Solomon's temple be left in ruins. Jeremiah would have observed the complete destruction of the city as the cruel Babylonians razed it to the ground.

Tradition holds that Jeremiah sat under a hill called Golgotha and he wept as he watched the city be sacked. Just a few weeks, we'll celebrate the resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ, who was crucified at Golgotha, the place of the skull. It's in this place of despair. Jeremiah recalls to mind the unrelenting covenantal love of God for his people. He reminds himself of the limitless compassion of a God who doesn't treat us as our terrible sins deserve.

Can somebody say, thank you, Jesus?

Jeremiah fixes his mind on the boundless fear fidelity of God to his people that can never be doubted because it has never wavered. Great is thy faithfulness. Jeremiah, in the middle of his lament, chapter three, is where he begins to turn. And he says, all of these things are true. We have broken your covenants.

We have broken your heart. We've broken your law. We have not been faithful. But this I call to mind. You are faithful.

You are faithful. I was so honored that Pastor Jay asked me to speak on any Sunday, but particularly this one, and particularly this song, because it means so much to me. I completed something recently I want to share with you.

I recently wrote my life story for my kids, and I'm only 45, so I wrote up to the 40th year of my life. It's not going to be for sale. You're not going to get a copy of this. Not that you care where I went on vacation when I was 8 years old, but I have been thinking about God's faithfulness to me because every time I would sit down in the morning and write the stories of my life down for my kids, I was just undone by the fact that he has been with me all of my life. As a young man, I struggled feeling like I didn't have much of a testimony.

Some of you, that may be your story. I was six years old when I gave my life to Jesus. My mom and dad led me to the Lord.

Not a perfect life by any stretch of the imagination, but by God's grace, I never had to wander through years of addiction or years of difficulty in those ways. I've had plenty of struggles, don't get me wrong. And many times I'd wonder, well, Lord, I don't really have much to say about life transformation. And as I was writing my stories, the Lord just revealed to me. It's like, Nathan, your story that I want you to share with people is that God will be faithful to you.

God will be faithful to you. I can say with God's kindness. I've never gone through something in my life that I didn't know the Lord wasn't there. Like that is my testimony. I made plenty of mistakes and needed his grace so much, but this is my testimony.

I literally don't have a memory of going through anything in my life where I didn't know I could call on the Lord, where I didn't know I could reach out to brothers and sisters in Christ, where I didn't know that I could go to my mom and dad and ask them to pray for me. That's my story.

And as I share it with my kids, maybe one day they'll read it.

It's a lot of words. If you spent any time with me, you know, this took a lot just to keep it this short. You know, I don't share that with you to impress you. If you. If you ever would read it, the grammar alone would stress you out so bad.

All the misspellings. I just wanted to capture my stories from my kids. And the more I look at it, the more I realize it really has nothing to do with me. It's the story of God's faithfulness in my heart for you today, before my time is done. Here in this message is that you would know you will never regret having run to Jesus sooner than later.

And I don't care if you're 80 years old. This could be your sooner right now than your later months and weeks and years from now. Because he is faithful. He's faithful. As we talk about God's great faithfulness, we're essentially considering God's character.

So I've got three ideas I want to share as we look at this passage from Lamentations. But as we think about Thomas Chisholm's famous hymn, Great is Thy Faithfulness. And the first idea is this. God is faithful even when we are not.

God is faithful even when we are not. Lamentations 3. 21. 23. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.

His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. How many of you woke up this morning? This is not a trick question. We're gonna see how well we do here.

That's most of us. Okay. Praise the Lord. Some of you are still asleep. I believe you.

It's okay. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. That means if you woke up this morning, there's new mercy for you right now.

Oh, but Nathan, you don't know what I'm struggling with. He didn't ask Any questions?

Amen. Preach.

God didn't ask any questions. He didn't ask us to vote on it. He said, my mercies are new every morning. And if you woke up this morning, there is new mercy for you today. Oh, but Nathan, you don't know what I've been in.

I'm just telling you he didn't ask any questions. And he's telling you his mercies are new every morning. That means you can't use them up. Some of you tried, okay? Some of you are making efforts.

His mercies are new every morning. You can't disqualify yourself. I don't care how impressed with your sin you are. God is not impressed. He's impressed with his loving kindness towards you.

And it's available. It's available. Would you dare to believe it?

Can you accept it? Can you accept that his mercies are new for you today? A hard heart can't accept it. A hard heart from sin or fear or shame says, no, I'm too far gone. Well, then you are too impressed with yourself.

Because he says his mercies are new every morning.

A religious heart can't receive it. A religious heart says, I've got to prove that I can do it. I've struggled with that more than I have anything else. I just want to show that I can do a good job. That might even come from a pure motivation to some degree.

The problem is, God didn't ask you to do a good job. He said, Jesus did a good job. Will you accept that you need his mercies today? They didn't run out. They're new every morning.

Here's what the hymn says. Greatest thy faithfulness. Morning by morning. New mercies I see. Morning by morning.

Thomas Chisholm is meditating on Lamentations 3 as he's writing this poem to the Lord. And we've been singing it for decades since. What could happen if you just spent a little time in God's presence? Just share your heart with him. Who knows who.

It would bless Thomas Chisholm's time with Jesus. Probably a quiet time. Probably an early morning before he went out to sell life insurance. He never knew we'd be talking about it in Kannapolis, North Carolina, in 2025. Just a few moments in God's presence, sharing his heart with the Lord as he meditated on the Scriptures.

You never know what your small time with God will produce.

Steadfast love. That's what Jeremiah writes in Lamentations. The steadfast love of the Lord in Hebrew. That's one word. Chesed.

Hesed. Aren't you impressed with how I cleared that out just then? Chesed.

It's an amazing word. As a matter of fact, I pulled up in my Bible software. I think there's an image of the word. Study the word hesed. Yeah.

If you look just on this passage in Lamentations, chapter three, that is basically a diagram that shows you how often the word hesed is used in the Old Testament and how it's translated in each of those places. It's a dynamic word. It's covenantal faithfulness, steadfast love. We don't have an English word that is equivalent to it, so we have to use lots of different ways to translate it depending on the context. But look at the words that are used more often than not.

Love, that's the blue kind. Kindness, steadfast love, loyalty, good loyalty, mercy, merciful favor. Deeds of steadfast love won his favor. This is the idea of Hesed and it's really the biggest idea of the message today is that God is faithful because that's his character. It's who he is.

He's not asking you your opinion on that. He's just telling you you don't understand who I am. I'm the covenantal loving God who keeps his word to a thousand generations. And the Word is so important. The Bible Project does such an amazing job of helping us understand this word.

And it's essentially the whole crux of greatest thy faithfulness that I thought we'd let them tell us about. Chesed, because I want you to see it throughout the Scriptures. Check this out quickly. If you tried to describe what God is like, it could be difficult or daunting. But when the people who wrote the Bible pondered the mystery of God, they consistently described God's character in this way.

Compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, overflowing with loyal love and faithfulness. We're going to look at this fourth phrase, loyal love. It translates the Hebrew word chesed, which is hard to translate into any language because it combines the ideas of love, generosity and enduring commitment all into one. Hesed describes an act of promise keeping loyalty that is motivated by deep personal care, like in the story of Ruth. Ruth is a foreigner married to an Israelite man.

But tragically her husband dies along with his brother and his father. All Ruth has left is her widowed mother in law, Naomi, who has nothing to give her. Naomi tells Ruth she should go back to her people. But instead Ruth promises to stay by Naomi's side and take care of her. And as other people watch Ruth keep this promise.

Over time, they call it an act of chesed. Notice that Ruth's chesed is not conditional or based on Naomi's worth. Rather, it's an expression of Ruth's character. She just is a generous and loving person who keeps her word. That's chesed.

Now, Ruth's loyal love is truly inspiring. But the one who shows the most enduring chesed in the Bible is God. Like in the story about Jacob, who is a treacherous liar even to his own family. But despite that, God chooses him and repeats the promise he made to Jacob's grandfather Abraham that he would have a huge family through whom God would restore his blessings to the nations. And so, 20 years later, when Jacob realizes how undeserving he is, he says to God, I'm not worthy of all the chesed you've shown me.

And he's right. But God's chesed was never about Jacob's worth in the first place. It's a display of God's generous loyalty to his promise. Gad's chesed continues into the story of Jacob's descendants, the Israelites, when they're enslaved by Pharaoh in Egypt. We're told that God remembered his promise to Abraham and Jacob.

So God defeats Egypt and raises up Moses to liberate the people and lead them into the promised land. And in the story, this is called an act of chesed because it was about God keeping his word. Now, on their way to the promised land, the Israelites are scared of the nations around them and they doubt that God can protect them. So the people threaten to kill Moses and appoint a new leader to take them back to Egypt. God is understandably hurt and angry.

But Moses steps in and says, forgive the sin of these people because of your great chesed. Notice that Moses asked God to forgive not because the people deserve it, but because it's consistent with God's own character. And God agrees, and he recommits himself to a people that don't want to be committed to him. In the Bible, God is loyal and loving for no other reason than it's just who God is. Of course he wants his people to respond with chesed in return.

But even when they don't, God's chesed remains. The prophet Hosea compared Israel's chesed to a morning mist that's here one moment and gone the next. But God's chesedal enduring. Like in the celebration of Psalm 136 that opens by saying, give thanks to the Lord for he is good. And then 26 times repeats his chesed is forever.

And so, after centuries of Israel betraying their commitment to God, and after humanity's long history of violence and death, God still kept his promise in a dramatic and drastic way by becoming human and binding Himself to us in the person of Jesus. And the people who followed Jesus of Nazareth said that in him they encountered the God of Israel, who is full of loyal love and faithfulness. Jesus is the ultimate loyal and loving human. And in his life, death and resurrection, God opened up a new future for all of us and for all of creation. And God did this because it's just who God is generous, loving and eternally loyal to his promises.

That's who he is. That's who he is. That's why I had to take a minute for us to really understand this word, because it defines God's character. This is what First Timothy 2 says. This saying is trustworthy.

For if we have died with him, we'll also live with Him. If we endure, we will also reign with Him. If we deny him, he will deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny Himself.

Great is thy faithfulness. Some of us are wanting to get to a place of faithfulness so we can come to God. He's saying, I'll take you right where you are because I am faithful. I will cover you. So the big idea of today, more than anything, is that God is faithful even when we are not.

Here's the second idea. God does not change and can therefore be trusted. God does not change and therefore can be trusted. James 1, 16 and 17. Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of Lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. This is what the hymn writer said. Great is thy faithfulness. O God, my Father. There is no shadow of turning with Thee.

Thou changest not thy compassions, they fail not as Thou has been. Thou forever will be. The idea that James is using and this verse is what Thomas used to draw that verse from. Great is thy faithfulness from. In James, the idea is this.

The shadows that the sun create because it shines its brightness can create shadows on the ground. But the sun itself has no shadow. The light itself has no shadow. It does not change. And where we will see things change in our lives, we may go up and down and ride the emotional rollercoaster.

Our God is still steady, faithful and consistent. And because he does not change, you can trust Him. Today, the truth is, a lot of us feel uncomfortable with the idea that God doesn't change. Because so much of our prayer is trying to manipulate God to say yes to the thing that we would like him to say yes to. We would like him to be with us on our page.

God, let's get on the same page. Which what mean is God. How about you get on my page? The problem is God is steadfast. He can't get on your page.

Your page is not big enough for Him. But he does invite you to get on his page. I would just tell you, I've been doing this for 45 years. The whole living thing. It's worked out okay so far.

Get on his page. It's better than your page. And yet somehow we want to change God.

And we're frustrated because we don't want to change. But can I tell you, today you find hope in the fact that he doesn't change. And because he doesn't change, he's the same yesterday, today, forever. And if that makes you uncomfortable, that he doesn't change, as if you know, he's not getting hit with the time when you are perfect. There's nothing to improve upon.

There's nothing to change. So anything that is lacking in our lives is an opportunity and invitation for the goodness of the Lord to come in his great faithfulness that transforms us. We need to change so that we can be in his steadfast love, his chesed. Here's the good news. Today, all you have to do is reach.

From wherever, the bottom of the pit. All you have to do is reach on top of the mountain. All you have to do. And he is always that far away. It doesn't matter where you are.

He is a breath away because he cannot deny himself. This is what Malachi said in Malachi 3. For I, the Lord, do not change. Therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. Let me help you understand what God is saying there.

The only reason you are not consumed. That's what he's saying. The only reason I haven't wiped you off the face of the planet is not because you're doing such a great job. It's because I can't deny myself. I said I'd be faithful to you, and therefore I am going to be faithful to you.

You. Can I tell you something? When you allow that reality to just draw close to your heart, what it does is it make you. Makes you not want to take God's grace for granted. It makes you say, oh, God, I can't believe you'd do that for me.

So what can I Do. How can I respond? I don't want to stay in my stubborn ways and just say, well, his mercies are new every morning.

No, because his mercies are new every morning. Oh, God, I don't want to hurt you again.

I don't want to wound you continuously. Here's the beautiful thing. Even if you do, if you just reach, he does not change. Oh, but Nathan, I've gone too far. Maybe for you, not for him.

If you will, but reach. Today, great is. Can we just stop for a minute? Can we just thank him for his faithfulness? Great is your faithfulness, God.

Your faithfulness. Not my faithfulness. I don't even have any faithfulness, God. What? I'm barely getting by as it is.

Great is your faithfulness. Maybe you don't know what it's like for him to keep you. To keep you. It's my favorite part of the Aaronic blessing. May the Lord bless you and keep you.

Man, I need him to keep me. I'm a wiggler, Constantly screwing it up and trying and overthinking. And he just keeps you because it's who he is.

And I feel good about that. I just want to tell you the third idea today, as we consider the faithfulness of our God. Great is thy faithfulness. Jesus is the friend that sticks closer than a brother. What does that have to do with lamentations?

What does that have to do with Great is thy faithfulness? Here's what Proverbs says in Proverbs 18. There are friends who destroy each other. But a real friend sticks closer than a brother. Here's what Thomas Chisholm said, and great is thy faithfulness, Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide.

If the Old English slows you down, here's what he just said. You forgive my sin, and you give me peace that stays with me. And it's your presence, you personally, that cheers me up and guides me. Strength for today and bright hope tomorrow. Blessings that are all mine.

10,000 beside means that would be enough for me. But there's 10,000 more where that came from. Who needs strength for today?

I do. Who needs a bright hope for tomorrow? It happens. It comes from the faithfulness of God. It comes from his chesed, his covenantal loyalty.

And it comes in the person of the man, Jesus Christ, whose own presence will walk with you, will encourage you and guide you. And without it, you are on your own.

That's just a fact. I'm not happy about that. But I'm just Telling you, without Jesus in your life, you are completely on your own, trying to figure out how to have strength for today and how to have any kind of hope for tomorrow. And I'm just telling you, I don't think you're going to find it outside of the man. Jesus, who is a friend, friend that will stick closer to you than a brother.

His presence is the prize.

And if we're going to really behold his covenantal loyalty, his covenantal faithfulness, we've got to spend time with Him. You will be able to realize just how faithful God's been to you. Maybe you think there's no way I could write a book of stories of God's faithfulness? I bet you could. If you started thinking about all the times, all the times that it was supposed to be over.

All the times that the rug was pulled out from under your feet, all the time. And yet here you are. Listen, it's not because you're so great and I think you're awesome. It's the covenantal loyalty and faithfulness of our God that has kept you here. If you don't know Jesus, he has kept you so that you could encounter him today.

I'm telling you, it's the reason he kept you. It's the reason. And if you've known him, you have an opportunity today to remind him and yourself of his faithfulness to you. I love that Kalani led the song. All my life you've been faithful.

All my life you've been so good. I haven't all my life been faithful. And I haven't all my life been so good. But he's been faithful. If you'll spend time in his presence, you'll draw near to him.

And here's the best part. Then his chesed will start to become part of your character.

I've got a famous quote from a very important person. I give it to you now. You become like those you spend time with. Mom. Okay, that could be my mom.

That could be your mom. That could be really any mom on the planet reminding her kids. You become like those you spend time with.

Jesus is the friend that sticks closer than a brother. If you will spend time with him, his chesed will start to be formed in your life. We see it in Hebrews chapter 13. I'm just going to read this before we pray.

Hebrews 13 says this.

Let brotherly love continue.

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers. All of these are forms of chesed. We love our brothers well. We don't neglect to take care of people. Some have entertained angels unaware.

Remember those who are in prison. And I just want to say for all our brothers and sisters that are in the prison system, that are watching on the Pando app, we remember you today. We're praying for you today. We're standing with you today. Remember those who are in prison as though imprisoned with them, those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.

Hey. Let the marriage bed be held in honor among all. Let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Keep your life free from the love of money. Be content with what you have.

For he said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Because it's chesed. It's covenantal love. And we start behaving this way the more time we spend with Jesus, who is chesed incarnate, and we experience his covenantal faithfulness. So we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper, I will not fear.

What can man do to me? Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life. Imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

That's who he is. And if you'll spend time with him, he will begin to form his character in your life. Nathan, I don't know how to do that. If you'll get quiet before the Lord, here's my challenge to you. And I'm not joking.

Seven minutes in his presence. That's my challenge to you. I don't care if you set a timer on your phone. Seven minutes. Why?

Seven sounded good when I wrote it down.

Seven minutes in his presence. What does that mean? No phone, no notifications, nothing buzzing on your wrist. Seven minutes. Just quiet.

Just quiet. It can be in the car, it can be in the shower. It could be early in the morning. It could be late at night. It could be on your lunch break.

Seven minutes. And here's all you do. Jesus, I just want to be close to you.

But, Nathan, Jesus, I just want to be close to you. Seven minutes. All of a sudden you'll start hearing things in your heart and mind. All of a sudden you'll think of things. You're like, well, I wasn't thinking of anything.

Seven minutes in his presence. Just let him have your full attention for 7 minutes. See what God does. If you need a step, that's a step for you to take. Do it every day.

Do it every single day. What if I want to spend more than seven minutes? Go ahead and get some extra credit. Go ahead.

But what if we just at least gave the king of the universe seven minutes of our undivided attention? I don't feel like it's too much to try. Let's just ask him, and let's allow him.