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0:20 Alright, guys, let's go ahead and wrap up the week. 0:22 All week we have been in Psalm 136, and we focus on God's steadfast love and mercy. 0:27 So each day we're looking at a different section of the Psalm, and today we're wrapping it up by looking at verses 23 through 26. 0:32 I'll read them now. 0:34 It is he who remembered us in our lowest state for his steadfast love endures forever, and rescued us from our foes for his steadfast love endures forever. 0:42 He who gives food to all flesh for his steadfast love endures forever. 0:47 Give thanks to the God of heaven for his steadfast love endures forever. 0:51 So he remembered us in our lowest state. 0:54 So, guys, let's just be honest, we suck, all right? 0:57 All of us, every last one of us, none of us are good. 1:00 Okay, Psalm 14, verses 2 and 3, they have all turned aside together, they have become corrupt. 1:06 There is none who does good, not even one. 1:10 Okay, but oh, but some people have good hearts. 1:13 You may have heard someone say, or you may have even said that. 1:15 Nope, we don't get that either. 1:16 Jeremiah 17, 9, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. 1:22 Who can understand it? 1:23 Some translations call it desperately wicked, right? 1:27 But he gives us food to all flesh. 1:31 Psalm 3410, one of my favorite scriptures in the entire biblical canon, the young lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. 1:41 And he rescues us from our foes. 1:44 So we certainly saw that with the previous section of this psalm that we discussed yesterday. 1:50 But God doesn't just rescue us from our physical foes on this planet, he rescues us from our ultimate foe, which is our sin nature. 1:58 Romans 5, starting in verse 6, for while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 2:05 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die, verse 8. 2:12 But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 2:18 But let's go back to the refrain that is repeated 26 times in Psalm 136. 2:26 How can we be sure of that? 2:28 I mean, forever seems like a really long time. 2:31 I mean, how could the writer of this psalm have faith in that? 2:36 Because the faith that was imputed to the author of this psalm is the same faith that is imputed to Christians today. 2:45 And look, imputation means it's a one-way street. 2:48 And I don't, you know, understand fully how that works, but I trust that the word of God is true, and that's what it says. 2:56 But imputed to the believer is a faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross. 3:02 Because God sent his one and only Son to this planet on a rescue mission for all of humanity. 3:08 After three years of public ministry, Jesus was betrayed by Judas and delivered into the hands of the Romans at the behest of the Jewish Sanhedrin. 3:15 He was beaten, he was flogged with a cat of ninetails that would have stripped so much flesh off of his body that his internal organs were likely exposed. 3:24 His beard was ripped from his face. 3:26 He had a crown made of acacia thorns. 3:28 These thorns would have been two to four inches long. 3:30 It was crushed down onto his brow and forehead, and that's a part of the body with some of the most sensitive nerve endings on the entire body. 3:37 He was forced to carry the crossbeam of his cross through the streets of Jerusalem while he was chastised and screamed at and spit on by the crowd. 3:45 He had nails, but I mean, don't think like nails like what you would get at Home Depot. 3:49 Think like, you know, railroad, right? 3:52 You know, something that you would drive into a railroad tie. 3:55 He had something like that, driven through his hands and feet and into the cross. 4:00 He hung there on the cross in excruciating physical pain, and then he suffered the diabolical pain of God turning his back on him because Jesus had become sin for what? 4:14 And for who? 4:16 He became sin on our behalf. 4:18 And likely because of suffocation, he died, and he was taken down from the cross and placed in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. 4:25 And that was supposed to be the end of the story. 4:28 But God's steadfast love endures forever. 4:33 And to prove that, God's full rescue plan came to fruition in that after three days in the tomb, it became apparent that the tomb would be a borrowed and not permanent one because Jesus was resurrected by God and he walked out of that grave, having paid in full the sin debt that humanity owed to a holy and just Father God. 4:54 And all we have to do is put our faith in that reality. 4:58 If you have done so, you must share that with those around you. 5:03 And if you have never done so, I compel you to do that today. 5:10 Thank you for your attention this week. 5:12 Stay sharp.