God's Doctrine

What is the mission of the church? This is an important question because here we are, we're gathered as a church. We're supposed to be doing something and we need to be very clear on what is our mission. Some will say that it's to ensure justice for all. We're supposed to take up the cause of the weak and the abused and the helpless. Some will say that the mission of the church is to change a nation. make sure that a nation understands the proper morals, and make sure these morals are properly instituted. Someone said the church is here to protect the family, to teach parents how to raise their children and how to have happy marriages. These are all causes that folks can make the church say, this is what your mission is, we're supposed to do these things. I think they're all off. I think they're all missing the main point. The mission of the church, I believe, is this, to equip believers to trust and obey Christ so that they are more faithful in worship and evangelism. To equip believers to trust and obey Christ so that they are more faithful in worship and evangelism. It's a little more simple. To help believers trust the grace of God and delight in the glory of God. To truly embrace the grace of God and to pursue the glory of God. Now, if we look at this, we can go back and think about the social justice cause. We can think about the national cause. We can think about the family cause. The point being, if people are being trained to be more faithful disciples, they'll be better citizens. They'll change the nation by being more faithful citizens. If people are being trained to be more faithful disciples, they will consider the helpless, the needy, and they will be more faithful in going out and promoting and caring for those who need help, the widow and the orphan. If people are being trained to be more faithful disciples, they'll be better spouses and better parents. But the problem is we often want to take our particular favorite thing, our favorite cause, the cause that burns us, we want to make the church be about that. Well, the church isn't about a specific nation. The church is about God's glory and everybody who he calls from every nation, no matter their walk of life, whether they're single, married, widowed, divorced, still a child, whomever he calls, it's about them becoming more faithful in their trust in his grace and pursuing his glory. Today we're going to keep looking through the book of Romans. We're wrapping it up. We're in chapter 15. We've only got one more sermon in Romans after this. If you're using a pew Bible, we're on page 950. I believe Paul here is coming to the conclusion of wrapping up his point. He's gonna remind us of what the gospel is, and then he's going to talk about his own ministry. We're in Romans 15. Chapter 14 again was that emphasis, the particular problem Paul wanted to address. There's divisions in the church. They're not the kind of divisions that corrupt the gospel. They're the kind of divisions that weren't allowing believers to properly love one another. There were problems with weaker brothers and stronger brothers. And there's a call to make sure that the church is united in harmony, living with one another, so they can sing with one another. And now he turns. We look at chapter 15, verse 8. I believe 8 and 9, it's a summary of Romans. Romans 1, 16 to 17, that was a thesis. That's what he said he was going to argue. He's demonstrated that thesis. Now he's coming back and he's giving a summary of the book of Romans, and it's this. For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. Christ had to be the head of the Roman church, made up of Jews and Gentiles, and they all needed to see that God is righteous. He's been true. Every promise he made to the nation of Israel, he's fulfilled. Christ has come to be that servant. And now he's fulfilling the other part of his plan, the other part of his promise, and that all nations will get to participate and the grace of Christ, the mercy of Christ, and all is for the glory of God. If we look at this passage, there's three sections, I believe. There's a call to believe the gospel message, that's verses eight to 13. Believe the gospel message, eight to 13. Embrace the gospel message, 14 to 21. Believe the gospel message, embrace the gospel message, and then embrace the gospel ministry, 22 to 33. I believe in the first section here, eight to 13, he's clarifying the gospel. It's not just for a particular kind of people. It's for all different kinds of people, everyone whom God calls. He declares his own ministry so that they can hear how the power of the gospel has changed people. And then he invites them to participate in his ministry. Let's begin, believe the gospel message. Believe the gospel message. If you look there at verse eight, for I tell you, he is connecting this to this declaration about the weaker and the stronger brothers. Let's just go back up for a moment and look at what he says, particularly in verses one to seven. He says, here the stronger, they have an obligation to bear the failings of the weak. Everyone is supposed to, the stronger brother, they're supposed to sacrifice more for the unity of the body so that all are walking together, glorifying God. Look at verse five. May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Jesus Christ. Our lives are supposed to be in harmony because we're all following the same commands of Christ. that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you. If we really get what it means for Christ to welcome us, we realize we don't deserve to be invited in We've done nothing to deserve an invitation into the presence of Almighty God, but Christ has welcomed us. He's pursued us, embraced us, and brought us, and really the idea here is that you're supposed to be welcoming the stranger, the one who's not like you. The word for hospitality in Scripture is actually this, welcoming the stranger. Being hospitable does not mean you're really good at entertaining people in your home. It means that you embrace those who are different and you make them feel like they belong. So to welcome the stranger as Christ has welcomed you is to embrace them with love and grace. This is what Christians are to do because Christ has welcomed them. Until we get that all we have is by the grace of God and for the glory of God, we will not be the church that Paul is describing in Romans. It's all by grace. It's all for his glory. We usually think about worship as singing. We do this accidentally, we talk about the worship service. There's the worship part and then there's a sermon. No, all of life is supposed to be worship. We're supposed to be harmonizing together as we live together so that when we come to sing, the fruit of lives in discipleship with one another is a united song. Worship is not the song. The song is the outcome of properly worshiping God because of his grace and for his grace, for his glory. Notice there that last declaration in Romans 15, 7. For the glory of God, I appreciated Brian's prayer. The soul laws of the Reformation, the end, the ultimate goal of the gospel is for God's glory. Now let's look at verses 8 to 13. And again, 8 to 9, I believe, is his summary. He's declaring the one God, the one Savior, he has brought about the fulfillment of all the promises to Israel, he's brought about the mercy to the Gentiles that they need for the glory of God. Let me read the section in its entirety. For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. And now he's going to just walk through and say a few of the passages of the Old Testament that declare the plan of God has always been for all different kinds of people to glorify God. As it is written, therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing to your name. Again it is said, rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people. And again, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him. And again, Isaiah says, the root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles, in him will the Gentiles hope. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope. God has made great promises throughout the Old Testament. That's our book, Christian. The Old Testament that Paul is quoting for us, it's ours so that we can see how faithful God has been to fulfill every promise. And we, most of us here standing as Gentiles, get to realize we benefit. We're the spiritual heirs of all those promises in Christ. We're not born into it. It's not your natural inheritance. We've been grafted in. Church, right to see, there's two basic principles here. There's mercy from God. There's glory to God. We receive grace from God so that we might glorify God. The gospel tells us we need grace. The gospel tells us we live for his glory. These are two hard truths. We can't be glib over these two words, grace and glory. These are actually very offensive words if we do not have grace. See, if we say we need grace, we say we need help. When we talk about grace, we're basically saying, God, I can't do what I need to do, can you do it for me? That's grace. So if we're gonna be a people of grace, we're saying, I'm not good enough. God, will you not just help me, will you do what I need? Glory is also offensive. It requires us to surrender our own pursuit of our own glory. What it actually means is we're not as glorious as we think we are. And that's offensive unless God gives us the grace to recognize His glory is what we're really meant to pursue. His glory is what we've been created to enjoy. If you're not a Christian here this morning, You're blessed right now if you feel like life isn't what it's supposed to be. Because if you're not a Christian, if you have not said, Christ, will you forgive me? Will you heal me? Will you give me what I need? If you have not looked to him to remove the sin, which is the problem, and said, I want to start pursuing the real glory, you should be so dissatisfied. You may even feel gross here this morning. And that's actually a grace. Because here's the reality. Everybody standing in this room, apart from grace, is gross. We have chosen to pursue the things of sin rather than God. And that makes us offensive to God. It makes us gross. But here's the beautiful gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus came, he lived the life we could not live, he pursued the things of God, and on the cross when he was nailed, he took upon all the things that make us gross so that we can be forgiven, so that we can be washed of those things. They're taken away by his death. So if you feel like things are not the way they're supposed to be, You feel like it's gross, that's just you realizing what sin is and what it does. And what you can do this morning is you can look to Christ and you can pray, will you forgive me? Will you wash me? Will you heal me? Will you let me taste what the real glory is? And that is in your gospel, that is seeing the real God. Church, We're called to be on mission. We're called to be on mission and is to proclaim the grace to all people for God's glory alone. Now there's a very important phrase there. We're supposed to be proclaiming this grace to all people for God's glory alone. We're not supposed to be insular. We're not supposed to be sectarian. We're supposed to be clearly seeking to say, I want to see who I can welcome for the purpose of glorifying Christ who's welcomed me. See, the message of the gospel is that God desires all the world to be full of His glory. This has never changed. If you go back to Genesis 1, God said, fill the earth. Adam and Eve fill the earth and you, Adam and Eve, you're my image bearers. You're gonna fill the earth by having lots of babies. Procreation was the original plan that if we had not sinned, the earth would be full of human beings and that are people that reflect God's glory by instituting his order. But we failed. We rebelled. There's three fundamental truths we can see from Genesis one to three. Every human being has dignity and worth because God created every human being to worship Him. Every human being has dignity and worth because we were all designed for the purpose of worshiping He who is truly worthy. Secondly, we've all refused to worship God. We've not thanked Him. We've not honored Him. The good news is God sent Jesus to renew us so that we could once again reflect him. We brought disorder and chaos. Christ came so that we would once again reflect him and show his glory. God's plan throughout the Old Testament was to bring about a new kind of people that would reflect his glory. We see this in Abraham. The very first promise to the very first person of the promise, Abraham, Genesis 12. This promise will be a blessing to all nations. Now, it gets a little confusing as I think about Israel and the church, because they're both mixed people. Israel was a mixed people in one way, and the church is a mixed people in another way. Israel was a mixed people in the sense that there were some people in Israel that were spiritual and some were not. There are believers in Israel and there are unbelievers in Israel, but what unites them is that they're all the same people group. They all share the same bloodline. The nation of Israel was a single kind of race, a single kind of people, and they were mixed, some believers and some not believers. The church is a different kind of mixed people. The church is made up of all different tribes, and nations and tongues. But what we have in common is not the bloodline of a relative. What we have in common is that we've all been washed by the blood of Christ. The church is spiritually united in faith in Jesus Christ and being purchased by him. But we're supposed to be all different kinds of people. That's the beauty of God's plan for moving from Israel so that all the nations would come and see a people glorifying God. Now it's all different kinds of people coming together to glorify God. The gospel truth calls us to see that God has a plan for all people. Jefferson Park, we have to make sure this remains at the forefront of our mission. To be a people of grace for His glory. See, churches, we oftentimes forget that we're about proclaiming Him for His glory. Quite frankly, you stop being a church at that point. You become obsolete. When a church becomes static, it gets stale, and it tastes sour. But a church on mission, who's overwhelmed by the grace of God, who's overwhelmed and saying, I want to see the glory of God, that's made up of people who are sweet. And that church is meant to be savored. Because they're singing and delighting the things of God. Church, we must be a body, depending upon the grace of God, for his glory. Which means we're focused on saying we're going to proclaim him. We're going to follow Him. We're going to do what Christ says to do. And we're going to say what Christ says to say. And we're going to seek His glory. As we think about the mission of the church and to think about the gospel, I want to give you a couple of my prayers that I regularly pray for this church. First, my prayer is that we will be on mission to spread the gospel of grace to all of Charlottesville. Not all of Charlottesville I would consider a rich people. There's forgotten sections of Charlottesville that no one is seeking to reach, and we need to make sure that we're the church of grace that is welcoming every kind of person. Again, we can't be a blue-collar church, we can't be a white-collar church, we can't be a university church, we can't be a homeschooling church, or any other kind of church you want us to be. We're a church of Jesus Christ that welcomes every kind of person God calls. We should expect God to be changing us and growing us because if Christ is exalted, the Bible tells us his people will be drawn to him. We must be proactively seeking to welcome every kind of sinner that God is calling by his grace. Secondly, my prayer is that we have more mission trips. This helps shake us up. This helps remind us there's a bigger world out there than inside these little walls. Are they expensive? Yes. Are they hard? Yes. Are they worth it? If it's for the glory of God, yes. We need to be a church that's thinking about how are we going to go outside? How are we going to pursue those out there? We need to do more mission trips. My prayer is that some of our children will be sent out by this church to go out to the nations. Parents, do you ever pray for your children to be called into the difficult labor of pastoral or missionary ministry? Not seeking the comfortable life, but going up against the gates of hell where they're gonna be attacked. Are you praying for your children to have a comfortable, safe life, and are we preparing them for that? Or are we preparing our children to go up against the gates of hell, where they're going to be strangers? This is what we must long for. Members of the church, one of the things that I came back from the Thailand conference with, when I asked the Chinese pastors, how can we encourage you, send your members to come and live in Shanghai, and be part of our churches, and be part of the work we're doing? Are we willing to come out of comfortable Charlottesville, and it's nice and comfortable, and move to Shanghai, to be strangers for the purpose of saying, I'm going to commit my life to go where God would have me so that I will glorify Him most. See, my prayer for Charlottesville is ultimately that we have revival. And I'm aware, and it's been pressing lately, It may not actually happen right here in this church. We have to be ready to praise God that there's a revival happening in the church next door because it doesn't matter about where it happens. It matters if God's glorified, if His grace is poured out and He's glorified. We should want it to happen here. We should expect it. We should long for it. We should prepare for it. We first have to desire it. Church, in order to be on mission, we have to decide we're not going to love our comfort, we're not gonna be satisfied with the status quo. Something we preach here regularly is that you need to rest in Christ. We, as believers, we must rest in Christ. He has done everything we need to have peace with God, so we rest in Christ. By his grace, we rest. But there should also be a restlessness. a restlessness that desires to see more of his glory. Because if you are satisfied with however much glory you've tasted of God, you have not tasted the true God and his glory. Be restless. Desire more. Just say, God, let me see more of your glory. Don't be satisfied with whatever we think we've seen or experienced, no. Rest fully in Christ and be restless for His glory. Paul ends this first section, may the God of hope. He's already declared Him to be the God of encouragement. Now He's the God of hope. He will fill you with all joy and peace in believing. So that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope. One of the difficult things, I believe, the church doesn't, while the church doesn't get the mission oftentimes, is it requires hope. Hope is the desire for things you don't yet see. Hope is saying, I'm going to expect something, I'm going to pray for something, I'm going to work for something, and I don't see it yet, but I'm going to expect God to do something. Great. I'm going to expect God to show his glory. So we have to learn to wait and trust. The second section is embrace the gospel message. This is verses 14 to 21. Embrace the gospel message. Let's look at the text. I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another. But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God, to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. In Christ Jesus then I have reason to be proud of my work for God, for I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience. by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God. So that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Elysium, I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ. And thus I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written, those who have never been told of Him will see, and those who have never heard We'll understand. Paul turns here in verse 14 to really start a whole new section where he's talking about his own ministry. It flows out of the gospel declaration because the gospel is supposed to go out to all people. And there in verse 20, you see, he wants to go to where it hasn't been preached yet, so that it really reaches all people. But it's obviously much more personal, I myself. He starts speaking of his own minister, and he speaks of this church in a very personal, pastoral way. He wants to see this church thriving. He wants to encourage them. He's given them a gentle rebuke. He's given them a reminder and a correction in verses, chapters 12 to 14. But now he's wanting to build them up. And I believe that this is him trying to encourage them. This is you embracing the gospel message. When you embrace the gospel message, you become a church that looks like what I think what he's describing in 14 and 21. Let's try to summarize this. When you embrace the gospel message, according to verse 14, you are filled with knowledge and are able to instruct one another. When you're filled with the gospel knowledge, the church is satisfying and sweet because we come together with the words of Christ, building up one another, reminding one another. So verse 14 tells us you're full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another. This is what the church becomes when they embrace a gospel message. Verse 15, when you embrace a gospel message, you're open to be reminded and corrected. But on some points, I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God. A gospel people are a correctable people. Someone has the freedom and even obligation to speak truth in your life when you accept the truth of the gospel. Verse 16, when you embrace the gospel message, you set yourself to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Now, it's interesting because he says the priestly service of the gospel of God is is to proclaim the gospel. You typically think of that as like a prophetic ministry, but here the priest, it's a priestly ministry because the gospel washes and sanctifies and makes the Gentiles more acceptable. See, Paul is pouring himself out for this people so that they become more faithful worshipers. That's a priestly service. He is seeking to equip them, to purify them by means of the gospel preached, trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit. Verse 17 and 19. When we embrace the gospel message, the work of God is what we boast of. Paul here models this well. I do not boast to be proud of my work for God. I will not venture to say anything except what Christ has accomplished. We know in other places he boasts only of what Christ accomplished, and anything other than boasting is rubbish and foolishness. When we embrace the gospel message, we speak much of Christ. And then verse 20, when we embrace the gospel message, we want to see those who do not know him believe in him. So what is our mission? What is our mission? We should be seeking to be changed by the gospel so that we are open to being instructed by one another. We're open to be reminded and confronted by one another. We're boasting of Christ and making much of him. Now, Paul is sharing his ministry as an apostle. And I want to take a moment just because of where we are in the life of our church because Paul, I believe, is presenting himself as a model of a gospel minister. And we've nominated five new elders. And I want to contemplate what it means to be an elder in light of Paul and what he's saying is his ministry because I don't think he's doing anything that an elder doesn't do here. More than that, we could actually go back to Romans 15 and verse eight. I tell you that Christ became a servant. Let's actually start there. Christ isn't by nature a servant. He is by nature God. He created servants. And all those servants led a mutiny against God. They rebelled and decided they weren't gonna serve God, they were gonna serve themselves, and that's us. So in order to redeem those people, Christ chose to make himself a servant so that he could pursue them. You see, what Christ does when the Son of God, what he does when he takes on flesh is he's saying, I am going to take personal responsibility for everybody I'm coming to purchase with my blood. That's what it means to become a servant. So when someone decides they're going to pursue being an elder, they're going to choose to say yes, I will answer the call to be an elder, what you're saying is I'm going to take additional responsibility for more people. And that's frightening. When you say I'm going to be a servant, I'm going to be an elder, I'm going to be a pastor, You're saying, I'm going to stand before God and I'm going to give an account for the people that I put, that I serve. You don't do this so that people will think much of you because that's not going to happen. You don't do this so people will listen to you and think, wow, how profound is pontification. Now you do this because you want to represent Christ and take responsibility for other people's spiritual well-being. You're taking on more responsibility. So church, you should be praying for these men. Because this is going to be a heavy task. The key responsibilities of an elder is to make sure the church stays on course, that we stay on mission, that we continue to proclaim the gospel of grace, and we continue to pursue the glory. This is why ballast is one of the primary things we look for in an elder candidate. Ballast is actually that part of the boat you don't see, it's under the water. Ballast is the weight that's under the water that keeps that boat from when waves come and hit it, the boat doesn't shake. It doesn't make everybody on board sick. See, elders, the church needs to have elders that have ballast, that have weight, that are able to keep the boat steady and on task and going forward. They need to be weighed down by scripture. They need to be able to have a clear understanding of God's word and able to articulate it and teach it. They need to have a way down, they need to be weighed down by a desire to pursue God's glory and help other people see it. So think about elders. These men are taking on responsibility, it's not something to be taken lightly. And these men are supposed to be the ballast of the church, therefore they have to have ballast. They're men of the word. They're men for God's glory. As I think about that teaching aspect, I want to just remind us, every elder is a pastor. Every pastor is an elder. Those words are interchangeable. We sometimes pretend they're different. And every elder or pastor, they need to be able to teach. But teaching takes on various forms. And we praise God for this. Because not every elder is gifted the same way. Some elders, preach. And that's their particular gift. Some elders are going to be more particularly gifted to lead a Sunday school class or facilitate a home group. Some elders will be better at the bedside, in counseling and comforting and caring. And we praise God that there's a variety of gifts. And we believe that this group of elders is going to give us a well-rounded ability to care for this church together, united, keeping us on mission. We get to our third point, and it's much shorter than the first two. Embrace the gospel ministry. Verses 22 through 33. This is the reason why I've so often been hindered from coming to you. But now, since I no longer have any room for work in these regions, and since I have longed for many years to come to you, I hope to see you in passing as I go to Spain. and to be helped on my journey there by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a while. At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem, bringing aid to the saints. For Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to make some contribution for the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. For they were pleased to do it, and indeed they owe it to them. For the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be a service to them in material blessings. When therefore I have completed this and have delivered to them what has been collected, I will leave for Spain by way of you. I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. Now if we're gonna continue to see Paul as a model, he invites himself over. I'm coming to you. I'm looking forward to spending time for you. He desires to be with them. Paul invites this church pastorally and lovingly to participate in his ministry. So he says, pray for me, welcome me, send me away. I appeal to you, brothers, by the Lord Jesus Christ, verse 30, by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf, that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints. So by God's will, I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company. May the God of peace be with you all. Amen. Here's how churches participate with one another. We participate in other people's ministry. We pray for them. As Brian has modeled, we are praying for First Baptist Church as Pastor Rob Pojack is preaching his first sermon. We pray for him. We're participating in that ministry. We send folks out. When Rome receives Paul, they're going to send him right back out. What was amazing about the Church of Antioch, when there was a question about the gospel, they sent Paul to find out what's going on in Jerusalem. They didn't send an intern. They sent the apostle Paul. When people need to be sent out, they sent the apostles out. That's actually what their name means. They're sending, they're sharing their people. They're saying, if you need a pastor, we will send this one to you. So churches, we participate with other ministries and other churches by praying, by sending people and by giving money. This is what he's primarily asking for here. Give to people who are not like you in any way except for they believe in Jesus Christ with you. Gentiles give to the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. See, people only do this when they realize that everything they have is by grace. and everything they have is to be used for the glory of God. We don't hold on to what we've been given. We realize we hold it loosely because everything we've been given has been given to us so that we might use it for the glory of God. So church, our mission is to make disciples. This means we depend upon His grace, we obey His commands, we proclaim His gospel, we pursue His glory. We look and we say, can we trust God? Can we trust that if we really put our effort into depending upon His grace and pursuing His glory, is He trustworthy? The whole book of Romans has been declaring, God is righteous and trustworthy and truthful. The summary, for I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness. How much we give, demonstrates how trustworthy we think God is. How much we're willing to give up shows how much we believe God is trustworthy. This is where faith is essential to being a Christian. It isn't just, God, will you save me and forgive me? God, will you help me see what I need to do? And I'll pursue you by faith. I'll depend upon you. Christian, the summary I believe here of Romans, rest fully in the righteousness of Christ. Restlessly promote and pursue his glory. Yes, rest in Christ. He's purchased your perfect forgiveness. Rest in him and the work he's done for you so that you have a right standing before God. Be restless in pursuit of his glory. Because as soon as we stop being restlessly and wanting to desire more of his glory, we're looking for our own, and we start getting into sin, and then we must pursue him again by grace. I pray we'll be a church that rests in Christ, in his grace, and I pray we'll be a church that restlessly pursues his glory. Will you pray with me? Father, we praise you that you have spoken You've given great promises. You've kept every promise. You've given us promises that Christ is coming back. Help us to live for that. Help us to know how to hope in that which we do not yet see. To believe that you will do what you say you will do, that if we exalt Christ, you'll draw your people to him. Help us to depend upon your grace and pursue your glory. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.