Gratefulness

00:01 Read each one this morning. In the name of Jesus, keep your Bibles open there to Acts chapter 2 or 3, because that is where our text is taken from this morning. Thank you, Lynn, for reading our text for us and reminding us here of the truths; the truths that we find in Acts chapter 3. 00:20 It just lines up so beautifully with what we heard on the video series this morning and what we were singing about this morning: the truths of the Word of God, the truths of the Christian life, the truths of the Christian faith that we put our hope in, we put our trust in, 00:38 and we know and believe by faith that these things are real, yet unseen. 00:45 We didn't wake up this morning and see all these things with physical eyes, but we do know them to be true because they are rooted in God and in the nature of God and in our experience. 00:59 And so we look at this this morning with gratefulness, and we are probably--I hope we could be as grateful this morning as this lame man was. We preached about this some time ago, the first part of chapter 3, and how he had been there probably for many years. 01:19 And we don't know why Jesus didn't heal him when he was walking there in Jerusalem and visited the temple at times. 01:27 We don't know why Jesus left him, other than there must have been a reason, and possibly the reason was Acts chapter 3, that one of the two of the apostles could render that healing in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus. And that is a key statement there in this chapter: the name of Jesus. 01:49 But there's also something we see here this morning, and that is that we see how to handle the winds of adversity. You could identify this morning as possibly the lame man. Possibly you can identify this morning as the messenger. 02:08 Possibly you could identify this morning as one of the crowd's persons. But at any rate, we want to think about those identifications this morning and these key players. 02:19 Reminded of a reading that I had run across here this week, it said for two years scientists sequestered themselves in an artificial environment. It's called Biosphere 2. Inside their self-sustaining community, they built this so that they could just live in there for two years. 02:40 The biospherians created a number of mini environments trying to replicate, duplicate the major, massive world environment. They come up with some mini environments, including a desert, a rainforest, and even an ocean. About every weather condition could be simulated except one weather condition, 03:01 and that was wind, that they could not duplicate or replicate the winds that we experience across the world, around the world. Over time, over about a two-year period of time, the effects of the windless environment became apparent. A number of the trees bent over and snapped under their own weight, 03:22 and the trunks grew weak and could not even hold up their own weight. The wood did not strengthen. The environment did not strengthen. And though we shun hardship, and if we could say if we could make the wind stop blowing in our own personal lives, we would say, "Let's just kind of calm things down," you know? 03:45 But we need the wind to strengthen us, even so as much as nature needs the wind, and the environment needs the wind, and the weather patterns need the wind to make things strong and to sustain life. Well, this man on Solomon's porch certainly had some wind in his life, 04:05 and he was needing a healing. And he represents us this morning who need a healing and a touch by the name of Jesus. And as we look at the main passage, the main point of this passage this morning, the main point is to prove who Jesus is. How did this guy get healed? 04:27 The apostles say, you know, Peter and John say, "Don't think that it was by our own goodness or by our own holiness or godliness that this man was made to walk. It was Jesus, the servant Jesus." Verse 13, he calls him God's servant Jesus. 04:47 Verse 14, he calls him the Holy One and the Just One. Verse 15, the Prince of Life. Verse 16, his name. Some translations actually put the name Jesus in there. His name Jesus through faith in his name. Verse 18, 05:06 he is called the Christ or the Messiah. In verse 19, he is referred to as the Lord. In verse 22, he is called a prophet likened to Moses. A direct quote there from Deuteronomy 18. And in 26 there again, we have his servant Jesus. 05:25 So what he needed was a touch from Jesus. And the point of this passage here, this message that Peter preached and that we preached this morning is to verify and confirm the truth and the reality that Jesus is God's servant, that he is the healer, that he is the Just One. 05:47 He is the Prince of Life, and he is the one who can restore us to complete soundness, as it says in verse 16. Him has given him, that is, through him, through Jesus, has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. You wonder what's going on here? It's Jesus that's going on. 06:08 You wonder what's going on in our lives? It ought to be Jesus that's happening in our lives. 06:13 What's going on in our windstorms, in the adversity that comes our way, it's Jesus that is going on in our lives. So let's introduce these different components, different players, if you would call them that, in the message here this morning. 06:32 First of all, we talk about the lame man. All of us have experienced some sort of disability or crippling effect in our lives. Some people are severely crippled, and they can't walk at all. Some people, their hands are deformed spiritually, 06:52 emotionally, mentally, different ways of being crippled. But we all carry something with us in our minds, our hearts, our body, our upbringing, something that would cripple our walk, our outreach, our spiritual mobility. And even if nobody knows what yours is, you know what it is. 07:13 You know where it is. You know the part of your heart that needs to be touched by the Lord Jesus Christ. You know the part of your circumstances, of your situations. Oh, your wind of adversity may be blowing in smoke from Canada, or it may be blowing up sand from the Sahara Desert. 07:31 You know those are supposed to meet this year or this week in the Midwest. The smoke from Canada, the sand from the Sahara Desert, the winds, the upper-level winds are bringing those about. And it may be smoke, it may be wind, it may be fire, it may be disability, it may be depression, it may be discouragement. 07:51 Who knows what it might be in your life that comes into our lives and creates at times the perfect storm where we say, "How am I ever going to navigate this? How can I function? How can I keep going? How can I go on?" And this meets in our not-so-healthy hearts. 08:13 And the healthy condition that we wish we had has not led us to perfect soundness, but we long for perfect soundness in verse 15. Yes, the faith which comes through him has given him this perfect soundness, this perfect health or complete soundness that you all see and that we all long for, 08:33 we all desire. Maybe our relationships that are wounded and dysfunctional. It may be our inner world. It may be our circumstances that create in us a sense of despair or discouragement. But nevertheless, we can be made whole in the name of Jesus. 08:55 And sometimes in our disability, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, physically, we depend upon others to supply what we need. We wait for somebody to move us. You remember the account there with the moving of the water in the book of John. The lame man was laying by the pool of Bethesda, 09:16 and it says he couldn't get down there to get into the waters by himself. And by the time he could get down there, somebody would move him. The waters had stopped stirring. And no matter what all was happening in that passage, there was a belief that if you get down into the water first, at the stirring of the water, you could be made whole. But he said, "I have no man. 09:36 I have nobody to move me at the right time." And we sometimes wait for someone to move us. We depend on the off-fall from others. 09:46 That's what this man was doing here at the temple, begging alms, begging for somebody to put something into his cup to help buy food or clothes or help him out of his rags and his wretched condition. We may not see it in ourselves, our lack of soundness. But nevertheless, 10:07 others may need to point it out to us. And sometimes they do. And sometimes we say, "No, that's not there." And upon further reflection, we find out that we really are dysfunctional in an area of our life. What do we do with those things? Do we sit around there until hope appears to be gone? 10:26 And we come sometimes in our despair and in our self-pity, dare we say, in our self-pity, we say, "Is there no blessing for me?" I can imagine that lame man saying all of this this morning. "Will somebody help me? Is there no blessing for me? 10:43 Lord, help me." But the good news is that God has given us faith. He has given us faith to reach out the hand to the disciple, to reach out our hand to someone who can lead us to the Lord. And Peter, you remember earlier in the chapter, 11:06 reached down his hand and took him by the hand and raised him up. And it took some faith for that man to let Peter raise him up. "Peter, my leg, I don't know if I can do this. And what are you doing, Peter?" But he did it. He responded in faith. 11:23 He got up at the command and the instruction and the assistance of that one who is used of God to help him and to bless him. And the end result was that God did a miracle. He was raised up to walk and even jump and leap and praise God. It's all found there in the account. 11:43 And not believing, like we heard this morning, in faith, but believing in Jesus, believing in the name of Jesus, believing in the Messiah, the Anointed One, the one sent from God, the one sent by God, the one who was God, sent down here and these disciples and apostles in his place, 12:04 functioning under his name, his authority, his jurisdiction, his power, not their own, but they raised this man to soundness and to fullness of health. Now, I don't know how bad it had gotten for this man. Maybe some places the people were laying at the gate full of sores. 12:26 In Lazarus' case in Luke 16, Jesus didn't heal him. I believe that was a real person, not just a parable, a real person, Lazarus and the rich man, because parables don't usually have people's names attached to it. This man's name was Lazarus. He was a real man. He was a real person laying at the gate full of sores. 12:45 We don't know how bad it was for this man. We don't know how bad it was. But he took a risk. He took a chance. Sometimes the pain of staying the same needs to get bad enough that we are willing to accept the pain of change. Did you get that? 13:04 Sometimes the pain of my situation needs to get bad enough so that I will accept the pain of change in my life. Or another way of saying it is like this, that people will not usually change until the pain of their condition is greater than the pain of change. 13:25 And we see that as we work with people many times. Do you want to be made whole? Jesus asked people that. Do you want to be made whole? Are you willing to take the risks? Are you willing to go through the things that are necessary to go through in order to change? Because sometimes we get comfortable in our disability. 13:41 And I'm talking now about emotional disabilities and spiritual disabilities and struggles and mental disabilities, because then if we changed, if we really changed, then I wouldn't have a problem that I could blame it on anymore, that I could blame my problem on anymore. Have you ever done that? 14:00 Sure we have. Sure we have. Well, you know I have this label. I have whatever. I'm not doing well because I have filling the blanks. And if we actually didn't have that anymore, then we'd have to maybe take responsibility for ourselves and our condition and our situation and our responses. 14:19 And we go through the motions. We look good on the outside. We dress up. We play the part. We act the part very well. We put a smile on and pleasant personality so that all may think well of us. But inside, we need the touch of Jesus on our lives. We need a touch from the hand of Jesus. 14:41 What are we having faith in? We're having faith, verse 16, in his name, the name of Jesus. That's what our faith is in. Now, we may not hear about it quite as much anymore because it's so ingrained in our culture. But when I was a young man, 15:01 we would hear a lot about positive thinking. Positive thinking. Think positive. Think positive. And Norman Vincent Peale came out with that concept back in the '70s and said, "Positive thinking." Well, it is true. You get further with a positive thinking than you do with a negative thinking, right? Amen. So there's some humanistic value to it, but that's not faith. 15:23 That's not faith. You can have positive thinking all day long and not have faith in Christ. Or as we heard on the video this morning, faith in faith. No, we're not talking about faith in faith. 15:35 The difference is, I have thought about it through the years, the difference between positive thinking and faith is that positive thinking lets man be in the agenda, set the agenda. And so I will think positively so I can create the agenda that I want to create. Faith, 15:55 biblical faith, says, "I will allow God to set my agenda, and I will believe in him and trust in him and his will, his plan, his resources. I will put my faith and trust in him and let him set the agenda, and I will respond to it." Big difference. Big difference. Is man in charge? 16:15 Is man going to pull himself up by his faith? Or is Jesus the one in whom our faith resides? And it is faith because we cannot see it. It doesn't mean that it's not real. It doesn't mean that it is make-believe. It doesn't mean that it's just fairy tale. It just means that you can't see it. But there's a lot of things that are real that we can't see. Amen. Anybody see the wind today? 16:35 No, you see the effects of it. Anybody see electricity today? No, you see the effects of it. Did anybody see the bacteria that you washed off in your shower this morning? Or did you wash off in your hands? No, you don't see them, but they're there. They're real. And so we have faith in the name of Jesus. 16:54 You can't see it, but it's real. You can't see him at this time because verse 21 says, "Whom heaven must receive." And heaven did receive. We think about it this past week with Ascension Day. This is a verification of the Ascension. 17:12 Heaven received him until the times of restoration of all things. And so we need a touch from the hand of Jesus. And what a blessing it is not to have experienced that touch and then to be able to tell others about the touch of the Lord and to be able to touch them in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus. 17:32 So we have the second group here, and that's the messengers, the messengers. We have John and Peter, John and Peter, verse 11, all the people running to them to find out how they would explain what has happened. These were the messengers used of God to administer the healing. This morning, 17:51 if you have been healed in your life, if you have soundness of body, soul, and spirit, you realize you have a responsibility. And that responsibility is to tell others and to minister to others so that they also might come to that place of soundness and health spiritually, emotionally, physically. 18:11 And so we see that happening here under the control of the Spirit in chapter 4, verse 8. "So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God." They were ministering under the authority and power of the Spirit. This was not their own doing. 18:31 This was not that they had some innate of themselves spiritual ability. It was the Spirit of God working through them. They had found the answer. Yes, they had found the answer. That was Jesus. The prophets predicted him in verse 24. 18:53 All the prophets from Samuel on down, he quotes Moses in verse 22, and then all the prophets from Samuel and those who follow spoke of this Messiah, this Messiah figure, this prophet who would come and set things right. 19:12 Not only did the prophets predict it, the Father anointed him, verse 18, "But these things which God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets..." See, God knew what was going to happen. 19:23 And if you look back on Acts chapter 2, verse 23, speaking of Jesus and his relationship with the Father, him, Jesus, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, God was all over this thing. God was all over this thing. He determined the purpose of sending Christ, and then he knew all about it. 19:45 This was anointed by God. See, the word Messiah, the word Christ in verse 18 means the anointed one. Anointed by who? Anointed with what? Anointed by the Spirit of God. 19:59 "The Spirit of God is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach and to teach and to heal and to set at liberty and all those things." The Spirit of God anointed him. And so he was anointed by God for this work that he, as the Christ, as the Messiah, came to do. And so the Father anointed him. 20:20 The leaders rejected him, verse 17. "Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers." The rulers did it in ignorance. Didn't make them not responsible for what they did. It just helped give a little bit of grace on the back end that they really did not know what they were doing, 20:43 but they were still responsible. They did it in ignorance. "The multitudes had a part in it also. You denied the Holy One and the just and asked for a murder to be granted to you." Can you imagine having the answer to man's problem and trading him in for a death row inmate in Michigan City Prison? 21:05 Can you imagine that? And yet that's what they did. The multitudes denied him. The Romans nailed him to the cross. But the apostles knew him and had been called by him, commissioned by him, to go and minister to the nations. 21:25 We have that same call. They preached in the name of Jesus. They did not preach themselves. They did not preach their own experience, their own power, their own background, their own educated abilities. They did not preach. They preached Christ. They didn't even preach doom and gloom. 21:44 They preached the hope of the resurrection. We find in chapter 4, verse 13, that they were uneducated and untrained men. We'll deal with that later. They were uneducated and untrained men. The people marveled, and they realized that they had been with Jesus. That was their power. That was their resource. 22:05 That was their personality. It was all wrapped up in Jesus. They were willing to suffer for his sake. Chapter 5, verse of Acts, chapter 5, verse 41, "Another time when they got themselves in trouble with the authorities and the authorities let them go, 22:26 and they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name." They didn't sit around saying, "Well, I wonder what's wrong with us that they're persecuting us." No, they rejoiced that they were able to suffer for the name of Jesus, for the name of Jesus. 22:47 They were so taken up with the name of Jesus, the person of Christ, the power of Christ, the presence of Christ that they were willing to suffer for his name's sake. They preached his name, chapter 3, verse 16, his name, Jesus. 23:06 "Through faith in his name, this man was healed." Chapter 4, verse 10, "Let it be known to you all and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man stands here before you whole, proclaiming the name of Jesus." Chapter 4, verse 30. 23:27 This is going ahead into our next message, but chapter 4, verse 30, "By stretching out your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of your holy servant, Jesus." It was all about the name. You read the New Testament. You read the Gospels and the Epistles. They did ministry in his name. 23:46 They cast out devils in his name. They offered repentance through his name. They prayed in his name. We have eternal life by his name. They baptized in his name. They spoke boldly in his name. They disciplined in First Corinthians chapter 5 in his name. 24:05 They anointed with oil in James chapter 4 in his name and experienced forgiveness of sins for his name's sake. They learned the power and authority of his mighty name. And oh, if we could understand just the power and authority of the name of Jesus when we come under his authority, 24:26 when we live in obedience to him, and we put ourselves under the obedience to Christ, and we have access to the mighty name of Jesus. We used to sing that little chorus, "In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, we have the victory. In the name of Jesus, demons will have to flee. 24:48 Who can tell what God can do? Who can tell of his love for you? In the mighty name of Jesus, we have the victory." I don't know if people still sing that song or not, but we used to sing it a lot many years ago. I think you probably still know it. We learned the power and authority of the name. 25:04 Psalm 118 says, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." Psalm 124, "Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth." What Lord are we talking about? The one who made heaven and earth. 25:19 And so Proverbs 18, verse 10, one of my favorite passages of Scripture that I come back to regularly when I need to remember the power of the name of God, the name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run into it, and they are what? Say it. They're safe. They're saved. When you run into the name of the Lord, I'll tell you what. 25:41 If you run into the... you take the name of the Lord in vain, you're going to run into a brick wall. You take the name of the Lord as it's intended to be used, you will run through an open door and be safe. The blessed privileges to speak God's word in Jesus' name, to see souls set free and lives changed, 26:02 to share it with children in VBS, Sunday school, to share it with the lost in our communities, to share it with new believers in a new believers' class, to share God's word and the power of Jesus' name with the addict, the prisoner, the depressed, those who need encouragement, those who need wholeness and correction, 26:23 those who need to know the mind of the Father. "For if you see me," Jesus said, "you've seen the Father. You know me, you know the Father. You listen to me, you'll be listening to the Father. Oh, take the name of Jesus with you, child of sorrow and of woe. It will joy and comfort give you. 26:42 Take it then wherever you go, precious name. Oh, how sweet. Hope of earth and joy of heaven." And then we have the crowd. We've talked about the lame man, representative of us all and our brokenness and disabilities. And we've talked about the messengers, 27:01 those who have been healed by the Lord and now minister in his name. But lastly, we talk about the crowd, the crowd. We see their response. Some responded. And in chapter 4, verse 4, the number of the men came to about 5,000. This was just a few days after that. 27:22 The number of the men were 3,000 on the day of Pentecost, chapter 2. The church grew to 3,000. By here, chapter 4, verse 4, it's 5,000. People are believing in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. But there's the Sadducees. They're upset because they're teaching about the resurrection, 27:43 chapter 4, verse 1. "Now as they spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them." Notice it came upon them. We're going to be all over them like a wet blanket. I mean, we're going to crush this thing. "Being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead." If you recall, 28:04 the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. They did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. They did not believe in miracles. They did not believe in the resurrection of Christ. They did not believe in the miracles that he accomplished and fulfilled. But not only that, the rulers, the elders, the scribes were calling these messengers into account. 28:26 These men were seeking sinners. "Came to pass on the next day that their rulers, elders, and scribes came together with Anas, the high priest." We have the Sadducees and the scribes and the rulers upset about what was happening here and as the Messiah was being made known. 28:46 We have the crowd. What is the crowd going to do? What is the crowd supposed to do? Well, Peter told them what they needed to do in verse 19, "Repent, therefore, and be converted." Simple message. Repent. Turn away from your sin. Turn to God. 29:05 Turn to Christ. Be converted. Out of your blindness into marvelous light. Out of your deficiencies into the sufficiency of Christ. Out of your sin into his righteousness. Out of your unbelief into faith in his name. I want you to notice, 29:24 I heard someone preach on this passage a number of years ago. And verse 18, some translations say that the Christ would suffer. Some translations translate that, that the Messiah would suffer. "He has thus fulfilled these things." And the message that I heard preached, 29:44 this was probably 30 years ago at another church, where the Messiah, he went on to say, you know, what is the root word of Messiah? It was his mess. "The Messiah came to clean up our mess." Now, I'm not sure that's the totally accurate way to handle that word. 30:07 But nevertheless, it did make an impression on me, and I've never forgotten it. So when you think about the Messiah, think about the mess that he came to fix and to save if we will repent and be converted. The result of repentance and conversion by the name of Jesus is that our sins would be blotted out. 30:29 That's the first need in any restoration, in any healing, in any reconciliation, 30:37 in any regeneration is... in any refreshing, verse 19 says. The first thing is that our sins need to be blotted out. We need to deal with the sin issue. That's our biggest problem. Psalm 32, verse 1 says, "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, 30:59 and in whose spirit there is no guile, because he's been forgiven." He's been forgiven. Matthew 25:28, "This is the blood of the new covenant, which is shed for the remission of sins." Romans 3:25, "Whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith." There it is again. 31:20 "Through faith in Christ and in the blood of Christ." Ephesians 1:7, "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace." Micah 7:19, 31:34 "You will cast all of our sins into the depths of the sea." When you repent and confess and are converted and trust Christ, where do your sins go? They're blotted out. They're wiped away. They're completely erased. They're canceled. Canceled. 31:55 Micah says, "You will cast all of our sins into the sea, into the depths of the sea." And Cory Tenboom used to say, and that's where he puts up a no fishing sign. You cannot drag through the sins, the sin graveyard. 32:12 You don't go fishing either for your own sins and imperfections or someone else's. Psalm 103, "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us." "This is the way to receive refreshing," verse 19, 32:32 "so that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord." You know, the antidote for depression is to have a time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. 32:42 The antidote, the the the remedy for our disfigurement spiritually and emotionally is to come into the presence of the Lord for times of refreshing. That's why we come to church, is it not? One reason, 33:03 that we might have times of refreshing. Hopefully, when you leave here this morning, you are refreshed in the presence of the Lord. Your sins are blotted out. You're converted. You've repented. You may now experience refreshment. The word refreshment here, the amplified version, 33:24 puts it like this, "Restoring you like a cool wind on a hot day." I kind of like that. That goes back to our wind analogy at the beginning of the message. A cool wind on a hot day. How refreshing to reinvigorate. There is no refreshment in sin. 33:41 There is only labor and and and and heaviness and a heavy burden that comes from sin. But there's refreshing in the presence of the Lord. Vines says of this word refreshing that it means obtaining relief. Would you like to have some relief today? Some relief from the oppression? 34:01 You get that relief in the presence of the Lord, asking him for that time of refreshing. "Lord, refresh my soul and spirit like a cool wind on a hot day. Give me relief." Strongs defines it as recovery of breath, a revival. "Revive my my spirit, Lord. 34:22 Revive my spirit." Ezekiel 34:26, "I will make them and the places around my hill a blessing. And I will cause showers to come down in their season. There shall be showers of blessing." That sounds like times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. Hosea 6, "Let us know. 34:42 Let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord. His going forth is established as the morning. He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth." The rain. 34:57 Isaiah 58:11, "And the Lord shall guide thee continually and satisfy thy soul in drought." Don't you feel sometimes like your soul is in a drought? I just read this week, I think it was, that we're in the early stages, the low stage of drought conditions here in northern Indiana. I don't know how they figure that if you get rain, but evidently, they measure the water table and they measure the... 35:18 I don't know what all goes into that. But they say we're in a drought. Don't you ever feel like you're in a drought? Well, God's word says, "The Lord shall guide thee continually and satisfy thy soul in drought and make fat thy bones." How many like to have fat bones? Well, that was a sign of health, evidently, to Isaiah. 35:37 A sign of health. "And thou shalt be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters fail not." Refreshing from the presence of the Lord. I want you to see just here yet in verse 21, "Whom heaven must receive." That's speaking of Christ in verse 20. 35:58 "Until the times of restoration of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of his holy prophets since the world began." The restoration. You follow up that times of refreshing in the presence of the Lord with times of restoration. What is he talking about here, restoration? Well, he's talking about the end of time. 36:18 When God says in Revelation, "Behold, I make all things new." And he will. And he does. And he's promised that he will make all things new. So whatever you're experiencing today will not last forever if you know Christ. There are times of refreshing, 36:38 and there's coming a restoration of all things. I don't think God wants to wait until the return of Christ to restore us. I think there's some restoring that happens right now. And so he wants to restore, renew our strength. 36:58 "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness." That speaks of restoration. "That the bones you have broken may rejoice. 37:18 Hide your face from all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me." That's restoration. That's refreshment that leads to restoration. "Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me by thy generous Spirit." Hosea said it in chapter... 37:37 Hosea 6, "Come and let us return to the Lord. For he has torn, but he will heal. He has stricken, but he will bind us up. He will revive us. He will raise us up that we might live in his sight. Let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord. His going forth is as established as the morning. He will come as the former and latter rain." Hosea 14:11, 37:58 "I will heal their backsliding. I will love them freely. For my anger has turned away from him." That's what Christ has done in relation to our relationship with the Father. "He has turned away the anger and the wrath of God. I will be like the dew of Israel, like the dew to Israel. 38:17 He shall grow like the lily and lengthen his roots like Lebanon. His branches shall spread. His beauty shall be like an olive tree and his fragrance like Lebanon. Those who dwell under the shadow shall return. They shall be revived like grain and grow like a vine. Their scent shall be like the wine of Lebanon." I don't know what Lebanon smelled like, 38:37 but evidently, it was something that you wanted to smell. You wanted to get up close to. And you wanted to experience as a picture of what will happen in the life of a person who's filled with the fragrance of Christ. So whatever wind is blowing in your life, remember, it takes wind to create strength. Strength in the midst of adversity. 38:58 But I'd like to leave you with this little thought. I read it a number of years ago in a Daily Bread devotional. And I remembered it and have remembered it ever since. And I don't remember the adversity of the person that they were going through that made this statement. 39:17 But at some time of adversity, and someone asked them about this adversity that they were going through, and the answer that they came back with, "For this," whatever it was they were going through, "For this, I have Jesus." I want to leave that with you this morning. I come back to that from time to time. 39:38 "For this," whatever this is, whatever your this is, "For this, I have Jesus." Take it. Take him. Ask the Lord for times of refreshing. Get into his presence. Share your faith with someone else. 39:59 And in so doing, you'll find that that faith has a way of growing and coming back around.