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October 7, 2026 | JP Funk begins a series on the Attributes of God focusing on God's holiness as revealed through His authority, justice, and activity. He uses Psalm 99 to explore how God's kingship demands reverence, His justice declares His holiness, and His active involvement in history demonstrates His uniqueness and moral perfection. Practical applications include submitting to God's authority and cultivating a holy life through spiritual discipline.
Bellevue Baptist Church | Young Adults | Memphis, TN
But tonight we're gonna be starting a five-series sermon in Psalms, and we'll be studying some of the attributes of God. I don't have all the details yet, but I'm really excited to say after we study these attributes of God, we're gonna have a prayer and worship night together. So, think mid-November, don't know how it's gonna look, but we're maybe gonna set up the room a little different and have some kind of worship time with prayer and worship. It'll look a little bit different on a Wednesday. So, really excited to plan that out with you all. And we'll be looking at God's holiness or the holiness of God. So, if you have your Bible, go ahead and open to Psalm 99. Many of you may know, but the Bible is made up of a variety of genres. Think ancient laws, Paul's letters, wisdom literature, future prophecy, which is Revelation, etc. But one of the largest genres in Scripture is poetry, ancient Hebrew poetry. It's actually about one-third of the entire Bible, and the book of Psalms is the largest collection of poetry in the Bible. The Psalms will poetically tell the story of the Bible all the way from Genesis to Revelation, but in a way that normal prose wouldn't. There's certain attributes and things we can learn about God in this poetry that's helpful, and you may identify with that in times that you've read through the Psalms as well. So, I want to give a quick plug. If you have not heard of the Bible Project, you could YouTube this on the way home. They have a series on Psalms that will talk about the different kinds of Psalms, the different kind of literature, everything that you'd want to know as we go throughout the next five weeks and look at Psalms. Very helpful, Bible Project, just the Psalms series. But as we read the Psalms, I wanted to give you two quotes to think on before we get into the Scripture to set the scene, and the first one is by C.S. Lewis, and he's telling us how we should address the Psalms when we read them, because if you're anything like me, when you go read poetry, you don't—well, if you're anything like me, you don't read poetry that much in general, and so you don't really know how to vibe with it. I mean, I think roses are red, violets are blue. That's the only thing I think of when I think of poetry, so when I go to study this, I've really had to think of it a little bit differently. He says, most emphatically, the Psalms must be read as poems, as lyrics, with all the licenses and all the formalities, the hyperboles, the emotional rather than logical connections, which are proper to lyric poetry. They must be read as poems if they are to be understood, no less than the French must be read as French, or English as English. Otherwise, we shall miss what is in them, and we shall think we see what is not. And as we look at Psalm 99 today, we're also going to be addressing a lot of the Lord's holiness. Holy is going to be a word that you hear a lot tonight, and I want to give a proper definition, and there really is no proper definition to it, but this is John Piper, a much smarter JP than me. This is his best shot at it. So let's see what John Piper says about God's holiness. Think about this as we read Psalm 99 tonight. God's holiness is his infinite value as the absolutely unique, morally perfect, permanent person that he is, and who by grace made himself accessible. You may need to chew on that for a moment. God is infinitely valuable. He's absolutely unique, morally perfect, and he is a permanent person, and we only know him because of his grace. It's a little bit of a mouthful, but it's very helpful to think through as we read this, but if you need a little bit more simple definition, not about God's holiness, but just the word holy in general, I would just write down this if you're taking notes tonight. Holy equals set apart. So when we read this Psalm in a second, you could almost, when you see the word holy, think set apart. God, you are so set apart, set apart, set apart. That is the idea that God is so much greater than us. You can think of holy as set apart. So let's start in verse number one. We'll start with the truth from point number one. God's authority reveals his holiness. What we're going to see tonight is that God has authority over all of heaven and earth, and that is one way that we can learn about his holiness. It says, The Lord is king. Let the nations tremble. He sits on his throne above the cherubim. Let the whole earth quake. So the first verse, when we see it, that is the thesis of tonight. The Lord is king. Let the nations tremble. This is what we call, in fancy terms, a divine kingship psalm. What we go back to the whole night tonight is that the Lord is our king. He is our authority. We submit to him. He has power over everything that we do. That's the mindset that we have to have here, and the appropriate response is trembling, as we'll discuss in a moment. You may be hearing me talk tonight and say, cherubim? He sits on his throne between the cherubim? What is that? I've never heard that word. There's not a ton in the Bible on them, but those are angels, and if you need a definition, it says, the cherubim are angels who serve directly in God's presence and are greatly involved in the worship of God. So these are angels who are very close to the Lord. They serve directly in his presence, and they're greatly involved in worshiping him. We see them referenced in the book of Ezekiel, and that is what we know about the cherubs. It says, let the whole earth quake. The earth quaking is this idea still of shaking, of tremors, of trembling. So the psalmist is getting at the right response of realizing that God has authority over us, or that he's king, is to tremble in fear. There's a sense of awe, there's a sense of respect that you can't help but your knees shake a little bit from knowing that God is who he is. And so I want to use Moses as a case study for just a second to see what's going on, because obviously when we prayed just a second ago, you know, we weren't necessarily trembling. So there's a time that that happens, and there's a time that it doesn't. We think of Moses. He has what I consider the epitome of a prayer life. I mean, if you write this verse about me one day on my tombstone, I'll be happy forever. It's Exodus 30, verse 11. It says, Can you imagine just sitting there, and you're talking to the Lord face to face? It's really, it's hard to even reconcile in our brain. So we see Moses talking to the Lord as I would talk to someone here tonight, as I would talk to someone after service, as a friend. And there are going to be times when we speak to the Lord like this. It's going to be when you're walking around in the park, or when you're driving your car, and you know that you shouldn't close your eyes, or when you're just really upset and flustered, and you just talk to the Lord, and you don't hold back emotion. There are going to be times when you talk to the Lord like a friend. But we also have to see what Moses does, and is referenced in Hebrews 12, verse 21. This was referring to when Moses had received the law of God, and was speaking to the Israelites at Mount Sinai. It says, So here we have Moses who had an intimate prayer life with God, and he could talk to him like a friend. But there are times in his relationship with God, and there are times in our relationship with God, when we experience Him, we will tremble. The right response of recognizing God's power and might as King of kings and Lord of lords is often to tremble. That's what we see in verse 1. Verse 2, You may be saying, hey, why Jerusalem? What's going on here? Remember, these are Jewish authors writing poetry, and Jerusalem is where the temple is, and that's where the Holy of Holies is. That's where God's spirit dwells. So what he's saying is that, Lord, you sit on your majesty in Jerusalem, where the temple is, where your spirit is, and you are, kind of like verse number 1, exalted above all nations. That's the response that he has. He's recognizing that the Lord is above all, that he has authority. Verse 3, Let them praise your great and awesome name. Your name is holy. Your name is set apart. God, you are like no other. That's what they're saying. The Israelites are praising God and encouraging others to praise God in response to recognizing how set apart he is, or how holy he is, how God is in a league like no other. That is one of the reasons why they are praising his name. Think about kingship or authority like this. Make it more practical. I was a category manager at AutoZone, so one of my jobs was making sure that putting the right inventory in the right store. If I decided that a gasket, which is one of my products, needed to be in every store, I would send an email or press a button, and then, you know, a week or two later, the gaskets would be in that store. Why could I do that? Because AutoZone had given me the authority, up to a certain dollar amount, nothing crazy, but to put inventory in the store. Think of Paul Becker, one of our live group leaders. He is a movie producer, slash director, slash I'm still learning exactly what he does with it, but I'm so excited to watch his movie. And if there's a certain shot, and he doesn't like the way the shots are edited, or he doesn't like the way that the music goes on, or he doesn't like the overall just vibe once it's produced, what does he get to do? He gets to cut it. He gets to change it, and there's no questions asked. And why does he get to do that? Well, because he has the authority. It's within his right. So the question would be, what about God's authority? And I would say, how much time do you have? Because we could spend a long time here tonight on that, but we'll read one passage that we recently studied in life group to drive it home. Mark 4, verses 35 through 41. It's a little long, so stay with me. As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, let's cross over to the other side of the lake. So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind, although other boats followed. But soon a fierce storm
came up, high waves were breaking into the boat and it began to fill with water. Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up shouting, teacher, don't you care that we're going to drown? When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, silence, be still. Suddenly the wind stopped and there was a great calm. Then he asked them, why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith? Don't miss this. The disciples were absolutely terrified, almost like trembling when they realized the power of God, the authority of God. They had, they're around him all the time. They didn't tremble all the time, but when they just for a moment thought about who he was, they couldn't help but be terrified. Who is this man, they asked each other. Even the winds and the waves obey him. See, God has authority over weather and natural disasters. He has authority over creation. God has authority over time. He has authority over earthly rulers. He has authority over war. He has authority over our peers. God has authority over our sin. He has authority over our supervisors at work. God has authority over our relationships and our desires. God is self-existing and he sustains the universe by the word of his power. He has ultimate authority and it would do us, it would be wise for us to think on that for a little bit. It would be wise for us to dwell on that in our personal time with the Lord, that he has ultimate authority. And so as we think on God's authority, a quick self-reflection question for us. Is there anywhere in your life that you believe God doesn't have authority or that you refuse to give it to him? What I mean is this. Maybe you feel, hey, I know God is the creator, but I don't trust that he has the authority to deliver me from my sin. Or I know he's sovereign, but I don't, I just don't believe right now that God really cares about my relationship with my supervisor and how I'm struggling at work. Maybe you forget that he has authority over all aspects of your life. Or maybe there's a part of life where, and we've all been here, where you're struggling to submit to his authority in a certain area. I think for me, there was a time with finances where I kind of was on this little, I don't know, pouty phase for about three years, thinking about interest rates and saving up for a house and how my inflation is more than my rate. I was just so frustrated with where money was. The Lord just kept saying to me, you need to be generous. You care about this too much. You do not trust my authority. You do not trust that I am over these things. It could be anything, though. Maybe it's your relationships. Maybe it's your time or there's a habit that isn't even that bad, but God is calling you to something greater. He's calling you to be more obedient and more passionate about him. He has authority over all of those things. If there's something that you need to submit to him on, we all need to take inventory and address that. Truth number two, God's justice declares his holiness. His justice shows us how holy he is. Verse four, mighty king, lover of justice, you have established fairness. You have acted with justice and righteousness throughout Israel. Exalt the Lord our God. Bow low before his feet, for he is holy. Here we see that God loves justice. He established fairness. He created fairness. God is absolutely consistent through all time within his character. Throughout the entire Old Testament, we constantly see God disciplining Israel because he is just and because there's a consequence for sin, but we continually see that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. And it's important to note here that the psalmist is not praising God because of earthly riches or some military might or anything like that. The psalmist here is focused on his justice and righteousness throughout Israel. The psalmist is exalting the Lord his God because he's excited because he is following the God who is perfectly just. He is following a God that it is an honor to follow the one who is perfectly consistent, perfectly just, perfectly righteous. And he is excited about that and his response is worshiped. All he can say is, God, you're so set apart. There's almost, it's hard to put words to it. And one of the joys that I have being on full-time staff is going down on Sundays and getting to pray for people. But let me just tell you, it's kind of an adventure. I've been doing it for the past three weeks and, or that's a lie, I don't know. However long I've been here, they leaned me on for a month first, but I've been doing it probably four or five times now. And it's a little bit interesting because you go down there and then someone comes down, but you're kind of supposed to be worshiping, right? So you're kind of worshiping until they get a certain point to you. And then there's always this thing, you don't know if they're going to go pray by themself or you don't know if they're going to pray with you. And then there's this thing where like a lot of times the girls gravitate toward the girls, but then the guys are the guys, but then like, it's not always like that. So you're always just kind of like, okay, what's going to happen here? And something new happened that I've called the invitation hessy, because I was over here and then there's a new college pastor around you. I don't know if you've met him. His name's Brian. So Brian was right here and then Camden, the high school pastor was over there and there was this high school student that walked down and he was like beelining basically to Brian, the college pastor. And then right when he got to Brian, Brian is like reaching out about to pray, like, hey, hey, what's your name? He goes, he hits him with the hessy and just goes straight to Camden. And I cannot get it out of my mind. So hopefully that doesn't distract you all on invitation the rest of your life, but just know, why do I tell you that? Because it's funny and it's fun. And this is the real point that when I'm down there, when I'm down there, the biggest, one of the things I'm always encouraged by is verse five. When I'm standing down there for invitation, it says, exalt the Lord our God, bow low before his feet, for he is holy. There are people who often come down mainly toward the middle of the sanctuary and they just get there and I'm not gonna do it now and be dramatic, but they'll get on all their knees and then they will most likely be crying and sometimes they'll cover their face and they will just cry out to God. Why do they do that? Why do they bow low before the Lord? There's something about changing your physical posture that can help your heart posture follow. And if getting on your knees or kneeling to pray is a really foreign concept to you, I would just encourage you and challenge you, maybe in your personal time with God, I'm not saying it has to be in front of everybody, but in your personal time with God, why don't you just allow yourself to kneel while you pray and see how that may help you submit to the Lord's authority in your life. One thing that I do that I've been doing for a little bit is oftentimes when I pray, if you watch my hands, I will just stand here like this and it's not really when I'm leading a prayer or anything like that, it's more like when someone on stage is praying and I'm almost like praying in agreement, I'm listening to what they say and just giving it to the Lord. And do I do that because I'm some super spiritual person? No, when I saw someone do that for the first time, it was when I was an MA several years ago, I was kind of judgy, I was like, why are they doing that? That's distracting me. I had the wrong attitude about it and I just felt the Lord say, are you too obsessed with yourself that you can't hold your arms out? And I was like, okay, Lord, I'm gonna do this now. So anyway, what I'll do this, and when I hold my hands out like this and I'm hearing someone else pray, it's just a reminder that I can't grab onto my own desires and I can't curl up and it's not about me, it's about giving it to the Lord. And that's just one thing that's always helped me is to pray like this with open hands. And I do that because addressing my spiritual posture by adjusting my physical posture can be very helpful. So I just encourage you, there are practical things that can help you connect with the Lord, whether it's kneeling when you pray, having your arms out, worshiping with your hands up, you shouldn't be resistant to that, that can help us connect with the Lord. So quick question, who in here likes a law movie? Raise your hand if you like a good lawyer movie, anybody? I was really, thank you, okay, thank you, Sam. I was really blank on my other analogy like three weeks ago and there was still like 116th of the room. So anyway, you're gonna see a screenshot come up here for a second. This is worth the watch, it's called A Few Good Men. It features a peaking Tom Cruise. So okay, it sounds like some of you know where it is. I'm gonna give you a quick summary and then tell you why I think it's important. Here in this movie, it's about two young Marines that are accused of the death with another Marine after a hazing incident. However, in all the investigations, it's discovered that these Marines were ordered by their colonel to haze the Marine that ended up dying. So they had someone in authority essentially forcing them to bully this guy, to haze him, and it went bad. This guy had a medical condition and he passed away. And what was going on is that the colonel's involvement was being swept up under the rug and he was not being held accountable at all. It was completely unjust what was happening. And the climax of the movie is when Tom Cruise yells at the defendant, you know, I want the truth. And the defendant yells in a crazy voice back, you can't handle the truth. And I can't do it justice, so I'm not really gonna try. And then he goes on this crazy monologue that would just get you thinking. But why do I share that with you? Because what's captivating about the scene, when you look at the screenshot, why the movie is invigorating is because Tom Cruise and his legal circle, whatever you'd call them, they are the only ones that are committed to justice. They are the only ones that said, I don't care that it's hard. I don't care that this colonel's more powerful. I don't care anything about that. I want justice. I wanna take care of these two people. You are rooting for them because they are concerned with what is right. They're concerned with the justice. He is obsessed with it. And then, you know, in this film, when he's screaming, I want the truth, you just feel something. You know, you feel it in your bones. You're like, okay, it's the best part of the movie. And the thing is, this is just a silly movie.
God is so much more infinitely obsessed with justice. He is more just than we can comprehend, than we can realize, and we need to focus on that as we move forward, as we think about, you know, later in the night. We still have a little bit more to go, but when we respond in worship and talk about God being holy, we need to think about His justice and how He's perfectly consistent in that. We trust Him. We'll go on to our last set of verses. Verse 6, Moses and Aaron were among his priests. Samuel also called on his name. They cried to the Lord for help, and He answered them. He spoke to Israel from the pillar of cloud, and they followed the laws and decrees He gave them. O Lord our God, you answered them. You are a forgiving God to them, but you punished them when they went wrong. Exalt the Lord our God and worship His holy mountain in Jerusalem. For the Lord our God is holy. Truth number three for tonight is God's activity demonstrates His holiness. God's activity shows how He is holy. Moses, Aaron, and Samuel were all leaders in Israelite history. We spoke about some of Moses earlier, and Aaron was often with him. But what about Samuel? Samuel's someone that we haven't talked much about. We won't get into his full biography tonight, but Samuel comes in later in the story of Israel. He's the last judge, and he anoints Israel's first king. At the time, the nation of Israel was obsessed with being like the nations around them. They wanted so much to have a king like the other nations did. Even though God had clearly told them, you should not have a king. Only bad things will follow if you get a king. What do they want? They want the king. To prove a point, to prove what God wants at one point, Samuel, before he did anoint Saul, he asked God on a very dry season to just pour out rain and pour out thunder on one specific night to prove to the nation of Israel, God does not want you to do that. He prayed for it, and it happened that night. So Samuel prayed, and God answered. We see this also with Moses and Aaron as the psalm is saying. If you know anything about the Exodus story and Moses and Aaron going to negotiate with Pharaoh time and time again, Moses appeals to the Lord, and the Lord answers. His activity demonstrates that he is above all others. He is above all of the false gods. He is above anything else in this universe. God is holy. He's set apart, and his action displays that. Through the rest of the psalms here, it reiterates the first two points that they continue to praise the Lord because of his justice. So thinking about prayer and activity, I want to paraphrase Brother Steve for a moment. He would always say things like, when I pray, certain things just happen, and that when I don't pray these same things, they don't happen. Prayer matters. He would speak in that language all of the time. And so many of you may know a story that's like this, where you've prayed for something, and the Lord has done something magnificent. One of those stories that I've heard of is of Saint Augustine. So some of you may be familiar with Saint Augustine. He had a huge impact in the church. He greatly influenced John Calvin and Martin Luther, and subsequently many others. Essentially, he's impacting us today still through his work, right? If those are his mentors and those who are mentors' mentors looked at, you get the idea. Very influential. But what most people don't know is the impact of his mother, Monica. Augustine grew up rejecting Christianity. He got saved when he was 32. Think of a guy who's got all the potential in the world. He was charismatic. He was wise. He was smart. He grew up with a very godly mother, and just moved away and completely rejected the faith. From age 17 to 32, his mother, Monica, prayed for him profusely, wept with bitter tears. And after nine years of going to the church and weeping over her son in the mornings, one of the bishops said, and I'm paraphrasing because the quotes are a little different, but, go, leave. It cannot be that the son of these tears should perish. Basically saying, if you are praying for your son and weeping for him this much, there is no way that God doesn't save him. And now that's a bold statement, but it did come true. Six years later, her son would come to know Christ. It's just an example that God will act if we pray, often. God will act if we pray. And so, I promise I'm not going to copy Ben every single week, but I did want to address two questions that may have been raised while we read through this passage, so I've got two application questions tonight. The first one, a practical Christian asked, what is one piece of advice I can follow to be holy or set apart like God has called me to be? And I just want you to write three words down here, and it's that input equals output. Very simple, input equals output. There's a pastor I like in Dallas, he's quoted saying, it's more of a parenting quote, but it applies here, to change outcomes, you need to change inputs. So to change outcomes, you need to change inputs. If there is anything that dulls the voice of God in your life, it needs to be ripped out. Jesus taught this constantly. And so some practical things. Music is a huge one here for many people. If the music you let yourself listen to a lot of the time is violent or explicit or rooted in anger or promiscuous, and you're just pouring that on yourself, you cannot stop it from affecting you. You are not strong enough to have those things and hear those things and not have it affect your soul. Or it could be the types of other media you're intaking. Maybe it's a movie, TV series, Instagram mute reels you're watching. I'll just say this. It is possible for a Christian to be watching a show that you probably think you shouldn't be watching, and feel the Holy Spirit tell you, I probably shouldn't be watching this. And then to watch it again, and maybe again, and then the voice of God just gets softer and softer and softer until it is very hard to hear God's voice. You can quench the Holy Spirit if you continue to indulge in sin, because God cannot be around sin. It's outside of His nature. I'm not saying He won't forgive you, I'm not saying you don't want to be around you. What I'm saying, though, is that God cannot be around sin. And so, Satan's strategy for us to fall into sin has not changed very much over time. You're probably familiar with his original question, Genesis 3.1, that says, did God really say that you must not eat from the fruit from any of the trees of the garden? That's the original temptation. But his lies may look a little bit more like this today. Does God really want you to abstain from this? Everybody watches this series. You can read these kind of books. It's just a book. It doesn't really matter what's in it, it's just a book. Or you've always listened to this kind of stuff, it's just how you are, don't worry about it. And I would just caution you from anything, any thought that you have that sounds anything like Genesis 3.1, did God really say? I would just say, yellow flag, immediately give it up to the Lord. Lord, would you like me to engage in this? That's something you should bring up to the Lord. And I realize these are basic things that I'm talking about, but it doesn't negate the truth of what's being said. We don't outgrow the need to ask the Holy Spirit to cleanse us. That's a trap that we get into when we get older, where we base our standards based on our history, base our standards on our habits and not God's holiness. It's very easy for us to say, I've been doing that for the first 25 years of my life. And that can be a real stumbling block to giving God what he desires. Last thing I'll say on that, the beauty of that is this, God's not a killjoy. We know he's not the no fun police. He has our best intentions in mind, and we know that the world doesn't. I don't want to let this world form me. I'm so scared of that happening. I do not want to let the world form me. I don't trust the world. If you believe that God is who he says he is and that he loves you as much as he says he loves you, you know that in his presence, there's fullness of joy, and that's so much more fulfilling than entertaining or flirting with sin. So input equals output. That's what I'm trying to say. A discouraged believer asked, last question, and this is a hard one, Moses, Aaron, and Samuel all saw God answer their prayers in scripture. What should I do when God is not answering mine? This is heavy. I have a few thoughts on it. I don't have all the answers. Sidney and I are walking through this a little bit right now. We have a really close friend that is leaning toward making a decision that will affect the rest of their life that is really going to place a wedge in their walk with God. And we are praying, mostly Sidney, that this person doesn't make that decision and it just doesn't look like it's going to happen. And I know there are many of us in the room that are dealing with something much more serious than that. I would say two things. One, remember the full prayer list of the leaders of our faith. I know it's kind of a mouthful, so let me elaborate. Moses prayed for different circumstances. So we know Moses, right? Moses was afraid to be a leader. In his conversation with the Lord, he said things like, Lord, send someone else. Lord, I'm too tongue-tied. I can't do this. Lord, this is not for me. And God famously responded with something that often haunts me when I don't want to get up and speak about the Lord. He said, who made man's mouth? So there are some times when you pray for things and the Lord has a different plan for your life. Samuel, that we spoke about earlier, was a godly man. We can assume that he prayed for his son. Samuel was very godly. He was a judge.
sons were not. And as I was just doing some research on him for the sermon, there is no proof or no anything that shows that his sons ever repented, and if they ever did, it was after he passed away. And so there's this really godly man, I'm sure just praying, he's the same one that he said, God make it rain and he rained. I mean he has a connection with God that most of us would envy, and still his children did not fear God. Jesus himself, and take encouragement in this, Jesus himself prayed an unanswered prayer for God's cup of wrath to pass from him, and he still submitted to the will of the Father. And so if God is not answering your prayers right now, that does not mean that you're doing something wrong. That's not a burden you should have to carry. Second thought on this, just don't lose heart and keep on praying. Don't lose heart and keep on praying. I'm gonna close by summarizing a parable that Jesus had. In Luke 18 verse 1, there's a verse that Jesus shares with his disciples to show that they should always pray and never give up. Always pray and never give up. There was a judge in a certain city who neither feared God nor cared about people, and there was also a widow in that same city who would come to him repeatedly saying to the judge, give me justice for this dispute with my enemy. But the judge continually ignored her. He did not want anything to do with her, and he finally said to himself, after she was just insistent, I don't fear God, I don't care about people, but this woman is driving me crazy. I'm gonna see that she gets justice because she's wearing me down by asking me again and again and again and again. And the Lord told his disciples to take a lesson from that unjust judge. Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don't you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Always pray and never give up. That's what I'd say to a discouraged believer. I will wrap it up here. In summary, hopefully you've written down these truths that God's authority reveals his holiness, God's justice declares his holiness, and last, God's activity demonstrates his holiness. I'll invite the worship team to come back up here. As we close, I just want to say that we spoke a lot about tonight, about exalting the Lord our God and worshiping him. That's what Psalm 99 is about. And for most of us in this room, that's an honor or a delight of ours. We are excited to worship God. That's part of who we are. But there's another kind of foreshadowing that's going on here. One day, at the name of Jesus, sorry, at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And there is no one in this room that's going to get away from that. One day we're all going to give an account, and the only thing that's going to matter is if you put your faith in Christ. And so I just encourage you, if you're in this room tonight and you have not placed your faith and hope in Jesus, would you just, as we respond and sing in just a moment, would you just slip to the back and talk to one of our leaders that are in the room? We would love to talk about that with you. I'd love to nail that down with you. If you are thinking about that, or your heart's racing a little bit, or you don't know where you stand before God, you will not regret having a conversation. And if you're in the room and you do know Christ, all I ask is that you pray for those people, as I close in prayer in just a moment, that they would have the boldness to speak with someone. Let us pray.