Psalm 27

[0:00] And I want to invite you to turn to Psalm 27.

[0:11] Last week, this Sunday, and Lord willing, next Sunday, we're going to spend a little bit of time in the book of Psalms! Before we get into Christmas. So we're going to spend some time looking at the great, three great Psalms right here in 26, 27, and the next week, chapter 28.

[0:29] So this morning, we're in Psalm 27. I love taking time away from what we're regularly doing to spend some time in the Psalms. Because the Psalms are themselves, they're poems.

[0:42] We know that they are songs. They're poems written so that they can be inspirational. They move us at times as we look at the things that are written by David and other Psalm writers.

[0:54] They move us as poetry. But not only that, they're personal. We'll see this morning, this Psalm written by David, it's very personal.

[1:05] So that we can see that the issues that are addressed in many of the Psalms are issues that you and I are going to deal with, that we're going to run into, that we're going to encounter. And so we connect a lot of times with Psalms in a way that we struggle sometimes to connect with other places in Scripture because they are so personal.

[1:25] But then the Psalms are also Scripture. They are God's Word to us. And we know that all Scripture is breathed out by God and it's profitable.

[1:37] It's good for us. It will train us and equip us and make us godlier people. But we also know that all Scripture ultimately points us toward Jesus.

[1:49] And so this morning, I want us to be moved by the poetry of David. I want us to see him. I want it to connect with us on a personal level so that we feel that the things that we are struggling with in our lives are addressed in Scripture.

[2:04] But most of all, I want us to see how the Word points us to Jesus and equips us for the lives that God is calling us to live.

[2:15] So with that, we're going to take a look this morning at Psalm 27. So you guys, if you will stand to your feet in honor of God's Word. I want to read through the Psalm and then we'll spend a few minutes meditating on it.

[2:27] Psalm 27 of David. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life.

[2:40] Of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall. Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.

[2:54] Though war arise against me, yet I will be confident. One thing I have asked of the Lord, that will I seek after. That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple.

[3:12] For He will hide me in His shelter in the day of trouble. He will conceal me under the cover of His tent. He will lift me high upon a rock. And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around.

[3:24] And I will offer in His tent sacrifices with shouts of joy. I will sing and make melody to the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud.

[3:35] Be gracious to me and answer me. You have said, seek my face. My heart says to you, your face, Lord, do I seek. Hide not your face from me.

[3:48] Turn not your servant away in anger. O you who have been my help. Cast me not off. Forsake me not, O God of my salvation. For my father and my mother have forsaken me.

[4:00] But the Lord will take me in. Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies. Give me not up to the will of my adversaries. For false witnesses have risen against me, and they breathe out violence.

[4:16] I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage.

[4:30] Wait for the Lord. God, we thank you that your spirit inspired David to write this psalm for us today.

[4:40] We thank you that we see in it glorious truths that can change us and transform us and encourage us in our walk with Christ.

[4:55] And so we ask right now that the same spirit that inspired David to write these words would open our eyes and soften our hearts to be molded by your word.

[5:08] We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. You guys, take a seat. Most of you guys know that I was out of town this past week.

[5:19] I had to fly up to Kansas City for school. And as I was flying back on Friday afternoon, Friday evenings, I was flying back from Kansas City, coming home.

[5:30] You know, you're in the air, and I realized, hey, I have an app. I have an app for the airline on my phone, and it'll actually connect to their Wi-Fi so I can see exactly where we are in the air.

[5:42] So I opened up the app, and I connected to their Wi-Fi, and I checked, and it showed us on the map. And sure enough, we were about where I thought we were at the time. And then I glanced at the speed that we were traveling, and we were traveling like 650-something miles per hour in the air.

[5:58] I mean, it was amazing to think that we were moving along through the air, and yet all of us were comfortable. A few people around me are asleep because it's already dark outside.

[6:09] A few people are watching movies on their phone. Some people are just having little conversations. Everybody in the plane feels perfectly safe and perfectly secure.

[6:20] There we are in that plane just trusting that it's going to get us to our destination. And that doesn't mean that things can't go wrong inside of the plane, right? I mean, they came by offering drinks, and I didn't want to fall asleep on the plane.

[6:34] I wanted to be awake when I got back. I said, I need some coffee. Well, I didn't know they didn't have any coffee on the tray, so the lady had to go all the way to the front and get coffee. And I felt kind of weird because I was at the back of the plane, and she had like this special silver platter with just my cup of coffee on it, walking all...

[6:49] And she walked so slowly, and she had filled it all the way up to the brim, and I just thought, she's going to trip and spill my hot coffee on some other passenger, right? Things like that could happen.

[7:01] We're in the safety of this airplane, and yet things could go wrong. You could sit next to someone who's smelly, right? They could be uncomfortable. You could sit next to a talker, and they could irritate you for the entire flight.

[7:14] Things can happen to you, even in the relative safety of that airplane. And I think that the way that David introduces us to this psalm puts us in a similar situation in the Christian life.

[7:29] He opens up by proclaiming, God is my light. He is my salvation. That there is a kind of safety and security that David has that is his foundation.

[7:43] Take a look at verse 1. He says, The Lord is my light and my salvation. And he asks the question, Whom shall I fear? And the answer is, No one.

[7:54] I'm not afraid of anything, because God is my light and my salvation. And then he says, The Lord is the stronghold, or the refuge of my life.

[8:05] Of whom shall I be afraid? Same answer. No one. David's not afraid because God is his stronghold, his place of refuge, because David is safe and secure in his salvation.

[8:20] And we can have that same foundation beneath us. If you have put your faith in Christ, you can be certain that ultimately, ultimately you are safe and secure in Christ.

[8:36] Jesus says in Matthew chapter 10, He says, Do not be afraid of those who can kill the body. Right? People can kill your body. Things can happen to you in this world.

[8:47] He says, But fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell. And you might think, Why would Jesus say something like that? Why would he want us to be afraid of hell?

[8:59] Of ultimate suffering and death? And the reason is because that is our destiny apart from Christ. Apart from Jesus, all of us should be deathly afraid of death itself because it leads to the place that we all deserve to go.

[9:15] It leads us to judgment and ultimately to hell. But the promise of the gospel is that if you believe in Jesus, you don't have to fear that anymore. If you put your faith and your trust in Christ, if he becomes your salvation and your light in a dark world, that fear can be removed because now the one who has the power to condemn you says there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

[9:43] We can rest securely upon the plane of the salvation that Christ has won for us by dying in our place upon the cross.

[9:54] And all we need do is repent of our sin, put our faith in Jesus, and we are safe and secure in Him. And like David, we can say, The Lord is my light and my salvation.

[10:07] Ultimately, I don't fear anyone. Ultimately, I don't fear anything at all. That's the foundation of a fearless life.

[10:20] But Jesus does not say, You don't have to worry because no one can kill your body. Right? That's not what He says. He just says, Don't be afraid of people who can only kill your body.

[10:34] But that's a significant threat, is it not? There are people in the world, there are things that can happen to you, even as a follower of Christ. Pain can enter into your life.

[10:45] Sickness, heartache, loss, even death itself, these still stand as threats against us. But as we face those threats, we have to begin with the foundation of knowing that ultimately they are of no threat to us.

[11:02] Oh, they can come. Evildoers can make their way into your life. Sickness can come into your life. Loss can enter in.

[11:13] But it can't deal you ultimate, final harm if your faith is in Christ. And that's where David starts in this psalm.

[11:24] He begins right there by saying, I have a foundation. The Lord is my light. The Lord is my salvation. So I'm not afraid. He is my refuge. He's my stronghold.

[11:34] He keeps me safe in an ultimate sense. But that doesn't mean that David does not acknowledge the reality of threats against him. In fact, he goes on to talk about a lot of these threats.

[11:49] Verse 2, When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh. That sounds bad. Verse 3, Though an army encamp against me. Though war arise against me.

[12:01] He's aware of external threats from his enemies. But not even just from his enemies. Look at verse 10. My father and my mother have forsaken me.

[12:13] Right? Now I don't think David means that literally here because we don't know of David's parents actually forsaking him. But he knows what it is to be forsaken by those closest to him.

[12:25] In David's lifetime, his father-in-law would spend years trying to hunt him down and kill him. His own son would lead a rebellion against him and chase him out of his own capital.

[12:38] His wife would spew hate against him in front of everyone. David knew what it was to be rejected and forsaken by those who were closest to him.

[12:51] He understood that. He knew what it was like to have enemies out at the gates ready to attack. David knows that though he has the foundation of his salvation in his hope and trust in the promises of God, he knows that there is still danger in the world.

[13:12] The hot coffee can still spill in the safety of the plane. Things can happen to you in life. And the question is, how do we face those real eventualities in our life?

[13:27] I say eventualities because they will eventually come. Things will eventually happen in your life. Now some people endure a lot of things in life. You look at some people's lives and you think, oh, it's just one thing after another.

[13:42] Others endure very little compared to them. But everyone faces opposition. Everyone will have bad things come into their lives. Every follower of Jesus will have people rise up against them at some point.

[13:58] Every follower of Jesus will feel at some point that those that they trusted most have turned against them. And David helps us in this psalm to be able to fight back against the fear that would rise up in us in the face of those realities.

[14:19] So I'm going to show you what David does to combat fear. I'm going to give you two phrases that I think encapsulate the basic message of this psalm and can be helpful to you to remember.

[14:30] And that is, first of all, that faith fights against fear. David demonstrates great faith throughout this psalm. And we have to know and be confident that faith will actually fight against fear.

[14:45] Now fear is naturally the enemy of faith. Fear would want to shrink your faith, cause your faith to weaken. But as your faith grows strong, as you spend time in God's Word, as you spend time among God's people being encouraged and being pointed back to the Word by God's people, faith grows strong and faith naturally fights against fear.

[15:10] And then secondly, worship will root out worry and anxiety in your life. Worship is one of the lost keys to dealing with anxiety around us.

[15:21] When we begin to think about the things that could happen around us, we often become anxious. We start to worry. And worship will come, and worship will root out that worry and chase it out of your heart and out of your life.

[15:39] Let me show you that, those two truths from the psalm itself. David expresses, even in verses 2 and 3, we read a couple of snippets a second ago, even in the midst of acknowledging real enemies around him, he expresses his confidence first in verses 2 and 3, and then in verses 4 through 6, he tells us what are the reasons, what's the basis of his great confidence.

[16:02] So let's look at the confidence he has in verses 2 and 3. He says, When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall.

[16:15] Then he says, Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear, though war arise against me, yet I will be confident. David has confidence in the face of fear, in the face of opposition.

[16:29] He has genuine confidence in God. And then the basis of that confidence is spelled out for us in verses 4 through 6. Note what he says in verse 4. One thing, one thing, I have asked of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple.

[17:00] Now, worship is central for David. One thing I've asked, one thing I want, I want to gaze at the beauty of the Lord.

[17:13] I want to be in His presence. I want to dwell in His house. Worship is not primarily about the songs that we sing, the movements that we make, all the things that we do, whether together corporately or individually.

[17:32] Worship is not mainly about the things that we do outwardly. The things that we do outwardly are expressions of things that ought to be happening on the inside.

[17:42] Worship is mainly about a desire to be in God's presence. Worship is mainly about basking in the enjoyment of who God is.

[17:54] We should come to God as David does. And we should ask Him for things. Jesus says that your Heavenly Father delights to answer your requests.

[18:07] We should come and ask for things. But if everything has to come down to one thing, if everything else has to fall aside and one thing is left, one request, one prayer that you might utter, it should be, let me be in your presence.

[18:25] Worship is about being in the presence of God and enjoying His presence. You could be in the presence of God apart from Christ, but there will be no enjoyment.

[18:40] You will be like Isaiah, woe is me. I'm undone because I'm a sinful person. But in Christ, you can come into the presence of God who has become your Father.

[18:55] And you can have limitless joy in Him. He is far greater than all the treasures that are found in this world.

[19:07] He's better than the promotion at work. He's better than the relationship that you hope works out. He's better than every dream you have in this life.

[19:17] Every dream can become a nightmare. Everything can be lost. But, if you can come into His presence, it's okay.

[19:29] You were made for worship. You exist to enjoy the glory of God forever. It's what you're made for.

[19:41] And worship, when it becomes the central focus of your life, it begins to root out the worries and anxieties that come against you.

[19:53] That's David's own experience. One thing I've asked. One thing I want. One thing I will seek after. Just let me be in your presence. Verse 5, Because He will hide me in His shelter in the day of trouble.

[20:07] He will conceal me under the cover of His tent. He will lift me high upon a rock. He hasn't shifted His focus away from worship in this verse. Two reasons I say that.

[20:17] One, verse 5 is connected to verse 4 with the word for. For. Because. Right? I want to be in God's presence because He will hide me in His shelter.

[20:30] But the other reason that He hasn't left the theme of worship is because He says He will conceal me under the cover of His tent. That's another word for the house of the Lord that He's mentioned in verse 4.

[20:41] The tent in David's time is the tabernacle, the place where God's people gather to worship and make sacrifices. So He hasn't left the idea of worship in verse 5.

[20:54] Worship leads to, creates this situation and circumstance in which you can be hidden under His shelter. His shelter is not found in the things that you do to please Him.

[21:09] His shelter is found when you come to be pleased by Him. Basking in His presence. Seeing His glory and rejoicing in it. He goes on.

[21:21] In my head, verse 6, shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me. And here it is again. I will offer in His tent sacrifices with shouts of joy.

[21:32] I will sing and make melody to the Lord. One of the greatest temptations, I think, when we face trouble is to leave a place of worship.

[21:50] Sometimes we say, I just can't. I can't lift up my voice right now. I can't sing. I can't put on a smile. I can't pretend that things are okay.

[22:02] I just can't. I can't sing right now when singing is the solution. You say, I can't.

[22:12] I just can't. I can't worship when worship is the one thing. It's the thing. Being in the presence of God, it's the one thing that matters most in the midst of your troubles.

[22:27] It will root out worry, anxiety, and fear. He goes on in verses 7 all the way down really through verse 12.

[22:37] He begins to simply just pray. And this is where the psalm becomes very personal. Where we get a glimpse into David's prayer life and we begin to see these connections between his faith and the chasing away of fear.

[22:54] Between the actual practice of coming and worshiping before God and facing your worries and anxieties. Let's just take a quick look at his prayer.

[23:05] Just look quickly at the things that he actually asks for. Verse 7, he cries out, Be gracious to me and answer me. Then he says, in verse 9, Turn not your servant away in anger.

[23:20] Cast me not off. Verse 11, Teach me your way. Lead me on a level path. And in verse 12, Give me not up to the will of my adversaries.

[23:32] All of these different requests that David makes. He's not shy about asking God for the things that he needs. But all of his prayers are rooted in the promises that God has made.

[23:45] We read something like, Be gracious to me. And we think, Hasn't he already? You've already said that God is your light and salvation. Hasn't he already been gracious to you, David?

[23:57] Yes. But this is David saying, I've received the promises. I believe the promises. Now I'm praying the promises. Continue to be gracious to me and hear me out when I pray to you.

[24:09] When he says, Don't turn me away. Hasn't God already brought him in and made him one of his people? Hasn't God already made a covenant with David? Yes.

[24:19] Just as he has with us when we put our faith in Christ. But we still come and we still need to express our hope in the promises of God in the form of praying that God will be faithful to those promises.

[24:35] So you've asked for forgiveness of sins. You've trusted that Christ's blood has paid the penalty for your sins. But you continue to come and say, Forgive me and cleanse me from my sins.

[24:46] You're calling upon him to remain faithful to the promises that he's already made and that you've already received. That's what David's doing. Cast me not off.

[24:58] Forsake me not, O God of my salvation. Will God cast off David? His anointed one? The one that he made a covenant with? An eternal covenant?

[25:08] The one to whom he promised there will always be a descendant of yours on the throne? Of course he won't cast them off. This is not David expressing doubt that he may be cast off.

[25:21] This is David crying out, God, be faithful to your promises to me. Do not cast me off. Do not forsake me.

[25:33] But instead, teach me. Teach me and lead me. These are the prayers that the people of God should bring before him in the midst of adversity.

[25:47] Remind yourself of the promises of God by praying the promises of God to him. You have said you will never leave me and forsake me. O God, do not leave me.

[25:59] O God, do not forsake me. You have said that you are faithful and just and you will forgive my sins when I confess them. O God, I confess.

[26:10] O forgive me. Call upon the promises of God. You have said nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

[26:22] O God, let nothing separate me. Hold me close and draw me in. Learn, like David, to use God's promises as a form of prayer before him in the midst of your troubles.

[26:36] when people come against you. Don't just pray against those people, but pray that God will be faithful to his promises to you.

[26:51] David's fight against fear takes place within his worship and within his prayer life. Or we could say it like this, because prayer really is just a kind of worship, isn't it?

[27:05] I mean, when you pray, you're thanking God for things, you're praising God. Prayer is really kind of just a kind of worship. We could say it like this, that David's fight against fear, his battle with anxiety in the face of all the troubles that surround him takes place in corporate worship, right?

[27:27] In the house of the Lord, under the tent, as we gather together and we are mutually encouraged by one another. That's why Paul says to sing songs to one another.

[27:39] That sounds weird, right? Thought we came to worship to sing songs to Jesus and Paul says sing songs to one another. Because one of the things that happens when we come together for worship is we sing and we hear one another's voices.

[27:54] We are directing each other to fix our eyes upon Jesus. And so it matters that you are tied into a worshiping community.

[28:05] It matters that you worship with other people. That's important for you. When you face anxiety, one of the places where you fight against fear is as you worship with other people.

[28:19] But that's not the only worship. Because David here offers up these very personal prayers. So there is an individual element. In other words, there is a private worship that is expected to you.

[28:32] All of your individual prayer times are private worship that you offer up to the Lord. That's what they are. And so David expresses his hope that God will help him fight against fear as he gathers in God's temple with God's people but also hope that he can privately worship calling upon all God's promises in the midst of that private worship and be encouraged and strengthened in his time of prayer.

[29:01] Worship is key to all of this. Together with God's people and alone with the Lord. Spending time in worship.

[29:15] And all of these things they lead David as he approaches the end of the psalm in verse 13. They leave David to another confession.

[29:25] another statement of great confidence that he himself has. Verse 13. I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

[29:41] I believe, David says. I believe that I shall see, I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

[29:55] One of the hardest things to do when you're in the midst of suffering is to look ahead and say, I believe that the goodness of the Lord will eventually shine through again.

[30:10] It's no shame that in the midst of the darkness of our struggles, we cannot sometimes in those moments see the goodness of the Lord. There's no shame in that.

[30:22] That's just a reality. When the darkness of depression or the darkness of despair or just the darkness of our suffering living in a fallen world, when it descends upon us, there's no shame in that moment of saying, I can't see your goodness, Lord.

[30:44] David says, I believe that I shall see it. I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

[30:58] Faith looks beyond the darkness and hopes in what it cannot see in the moment. And this is exactly what David expresses. He begins with a foundation of I'm in the Lord.

[31:13] We would say in the New Testament, I am in Christ. Christ is my light. He is my Savior. And he moves and he has great confidence based upon that.

[31:26] There at the very beginning in verses 2 and 3 and now near the end, verse 13, he has this confidence that endures even when he can't see the very thing that is the basis of his confidence.

[31:42] Because he knows that he will see it. He knows because he believes in the promises of God. He does not promise us no suffering in this life.

[31:54] He does not promise us freedom from difficulties. He does not promise us you won't have any enemies. In fact, he tells us there's a greater enemy behind the enemies that you see.

[32:06] That's what he tells us. Not no enemies, a greater enemy behind those enemies. He doesn't promise us freedom from those things. But he says, I am with you in the midst of it even when you can't see me and eventually you will see my goodness when you've come through it.

[32:30] I never leave. I never forsake. And you can see me on the other side of this. You can see me. And then David has a word for us. At the very end he has a word.

[32:43] Suddenly prayer time ends and he's got something to say to whomever it is that he thinks might hear this song or read this song.

[32:55] That turns out to be us this morning. Verse 14 wait for the Lord. Be strong. Be strong. Let your heart take courage.

[33:07] And then once again wait for the Lord. David says wait and be strong. Wait and be strong.

[33:20] The hardest part of the Christian life is the waiting. In every stage. in every stage it's always the waiting. When you're young and you're not married you feel like you're waiting to get married someday.

[33:35] Just waiting. Right? And then you're married and you're waiting when are we going to have children? And then you're waiting when are these kids going to get out of my house? Then you're waiting on when am I going to retire?

[33:49] Right? When are we going to have some free time? We always feel like we're waiting. But on a bigger level, on a more significant level, we're always waiting for ultimate and final redemption and salvation.

[34:06] We're waiting to see the hope that is held out in front of us in the book of Revelation. A day when every tear is wiped away. There's no more death.

[34:17] No more sickness. sickness. There are no more pandemics. There are no more downturns in the economy. There's no more increase in the price of groceries or whatever it is that's got you kind of stressed out and frustrated.

[34:32] No more of that. Someday. Right now, he says wait. But don't just wait for an end of these things.

[34:43] He says specifically, wait for the Lord. because our great hope is not simply that these things will end, but at the end we will see the goodness of the Lord.

[35:00] What is your hope? What is it that you're waiting for? If you think that the next stage in your life will fix all the problems, whether it's a career or a family or retirement, if you're thinking that the next stage in your life is going to be the solution to your problems, you're waiting on the wrong things.

[35:22] Those are not bad things. In fact, they're good gifts that God gives to us. But if that's where your hope lies, you're waiting on the wrong things.

[35:34] He says wait on the Lord. The Lord is faithful to His promises. You may not marry the man or woman of your dreams. dreams. You may not have the career that you think you'll have.

[35:49] You may not be able to enjoy the retirement you thought you would enjoy. You may not have any of the earthly things that we are tempted to wait upon and place our hope in.

[36:03] But if you put your faith in Jesus, you can be absolutely certain. If you wait on Him, you will see the goodness of the Lord.

[36:15] Let's pray. Father, we are, if we are honest, we are often tempted to look to other things for hope, to wait on other things, other people, other plans.

[36:34] things. When you have given us all the promises that we need to fight against fear, and you have called us to lives not that are fixed and focused upon the things around us, good or bad, but you have called us to lives that are focused on one thing, the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

[37:10] Let us be focused, Father. Enable us, empower us, make us into a people who are focused on that one thing.

[37:24] We ask this in Jesus' name. compassion. I know some of you might be wondering why Greg and I are matching t-shirts this morning. I don't typically preach in a t-shirt, although I don't have any problems with it.

[37:35] Piper saw me trying on this t-shirt last night and started questioning me about why are you wearing that to preach in? What's happening? Why are you doing that? I explained it to her and she said, I'll allow it.

[37:48] So it's approved for me to wear this. The reason though that I'm wearing this is because today for us as a church is Compassion Sunday. Most of you know Rebecca.

[37:59] Where did she go? Is she up here somewhere? Where did Rebecca go? Oh, there you are. It's like, what happened? Rebecca has really been the one to spearhead our participation as a church in Compassion Sunday.

[38:13] I'm going to give her the floor. If you want to grab, yeah, you can grab that microphone. That'll work. I'm going to let her tell you a little bit about compassion. I think we have a video that she's going to show. I'll let her explain things rather than me because she'll do a better job.

[38:26] All right? All right. Well, first, hello, everyone. It's great to see all of you here today. Today is Compassion Sunday and I can't wait to see what God does through us.

[38:36] Last year, we did the same event and let me tell you, God did some amazing things. He led people to sponsor 11 out of 15 children. Wow, that's incredible.

[38:47] To all of you who sponsored children last year, thank you. That is a big deal to these kids. Thank you for giving your sponsored child a chance to know the Lord and a chance to better themselves.

[38:59] I can't even begin to tell you how big of a blessing your sponsorship is to these children and how big of a difference you have made in their lives. To start, I want to share my family and I a sponsorship story.

[39:09] About five years ago, my family and I, well, I guess it was just my parents and I, were at a concert after having a particularly trying year. We had been approached about a little boy in Haiti who was medically very fragile, need American medical help, and a loving family to adopt him.

[39:26] Needless to say, my family adopted him, but by then it was too late. He passed away a few days after we got him to the U.S. At the concert, the artist talked about Compassion International.

[39:37] I don't remember exactly what was said, but I do remember my parents letting me pick which child we would sponsor. I chose a little boy from the same area of Haiti and age as my brother, Josiah. His name was Ronnie.

[39:48] It was so much fun to get to know him through letters that his family would send and through pictures that he would draw for us. Unfortunately, a couple years later, we were told that Ronnie had moved and his family had failed to re-register him with the program in their new province.

[40:03] Compassion had another child that they said we could sponsor in the place of Ronnie. His name was Josiah. We decided to sponsor him and have ever since. It has been so delightful to get to know him as well.

[40:15] He's now 14 years old. He loves playing soccer, playing with his pet, and swimming. He wants to be a police officer when he grows up. These past two years have not been easy for him and his family. They have had to be mostly in isolation, but thanks to Compassion International and their team of workers, he has not had to go hungry, neither physically nor spiritually, and for the most part, has not had to stop his education.

[40:38] Compassion has been working hard to ensure not just Josiah's, but all of the children in the program's health safety while making sure that their everyday needs are met. Isaiah 58, 10 says, And if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry, satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in darkness and your night will become like the new day.

[40:56] Sponsoring a child has allowed me and my family to answer God's call to care for the poor, and that's another reason why sponsorship is so meaningful to me. Let me share some unbelievable poverty facts with you.

[41:08] When you hear that these children are living in extreme poverty, that means they are living on less than two U.S. dollars a day, many of them a lot less, making them very vulnerable to natural disasters, food shortages, and instability of any kind.

[41:22] But it's not just that they barely have any money, it's the everyday essentials that they don't have. 2.1 billion people don't have safe water at home, and an estimated 821 million people globally are undernourished.

[41:35] Unfortunately, there are also staggering facts that have to do with children, a few of them being each day 7,000 newborns die, around 45% of deaths in children are linked to undernutrition, and every two minutes a child dies of malaria, a preventable and treatable disease.

[41:54] Next week, we as Americans will celebrate Thanksgiving. It's a time when families get together, we eat too much, and we celebrate and give thanks for all of God's many blessings in our lives. So after you watch a short video, I'd like to tell you how you can give a child something to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

[42:09] current statistics indicate that nearly half the world's population lives in poverty, defined as less than two US dollars a day, and that one in six people live in extreme poverty, less than $1.25.

[42:36] But poverty is not actually just about a lack of money. It's about a lack of opportunities, a lack of choices, a lack of access to all sorts of things that many of us consider essential to life.

[42:49] Poverty is about a lack of hope. Poverty doesn't have just one facet, and so we cannot fight poverty with just a single solution, and understanding this is at the core of Compassion's holistic child development program.

[43:07] Picture all the different aspects of your life, your family, your work, your home, your faith, your community, as spokes on a wheel, and then think about what might happen if one of those spokes were broken or missing.

[43:23] It's no different for children living in poverty. If they are to develop and thrive, the spokes that make up their lives need to be strong and uniform. It's what drives Compassion's holistic approach, focusing on the spiritual, economic, social, and physical needs of every child in our program.

[43:43] There is no question that poverty is a complex matter, and so solving it is complex too. Complex, but not impossible. We can end poverty.

[43:53] We are ending poverty, one story at a time. Basil's happy birthday. Basil's happy birthday.

[44:05] Basil's happy birthday. Thank you.