April 8, 2018 AM Jesus, Our Pride And Joy by Pastor Josh Sheldon

Chapter 15. We put our attention this morning on verses 22 to 29.

The Apostle Paul to the church in Rome. The Word of God to the church today is this.

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've enjoyed your company for a while.

At present, however, I'm 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.

They're 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 of 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. These verses are really very simple on the face of them.

This letter to the Romans is coming to a close. Beginning at chapter 12, Paul was saying, okay, therefore you need to behave within a church in a certain way, so he talks to them, to the church, speaking to us as a church.

And now it's sort of transitioning from them to him, explaining to them his plans, his desire to be there, and what has hindered, and what is going to continue to hinder.

He's been hindered in the past because of the work that he was doing in those regions where no one had before proclaimed the gospel of the

Lord Jesus Christ, and he's going to be hindered even further as he goes to Jerusalem to deliver this gift, and we'll speak a little bit more about that.

Very simple verses on the face of them, an itinerary if you will, demonstrating to us a few things.

One is that Rome was expecting him, that Rome did know he was coming through whatever means. Now of course they didn't have telephones or internet or anything that quick, so what this information would have been transmitted over would be horseback, donkeyback, by foot, very slow.

But in any case, they were expecting him, they knew he was coming, and we have no evidence actually that he ever got to that church in Rome.

We don't know if he ever really got there the way he expected. At the end of Acts, the book of Acts, we find that he did have this desire to go to Rome finally fulfilled, though not quite the way he had expected or was anticipating when he wrote this letter to the

Romans. He went to Rome as a prisoner after having exercised his right as a citizen of Rome to be heard in Rome's higher courts, and Acts ends with him under house arrest, though he was free to move about.

And the final chapter of that book makes clear that he knew, or excuse me, the final chapter of our book, the

Romans, makes clear that he knew a good number of people at Rome. So in that sense, he was no stranger to them, but whether he ever actually got there, we don't know.

So we have this itinerary, really, just saying where he's been, where he's going, what he wants to come through there for, where he's going next, this sort of thing, a travel plan, a travel log.

But there's more in these verses than just that. It's more than just a simple itinerary.

Embedded in them is the primacy of the gospel and Paul's determination to complete the course of life that it inherit to him.

It's going to stay the course, and nothing's going to deter him from accomplishing his mission. There's a continuation in these verses of this priestly idea that we spoke of a few weeks ago of offerings that are acceptable to God.

And there is here a lesson on the oneness of believers everywhere, perhaps separated by oceans yet bound together by the gospel.

So it's more than just his plans. It's more than just where he's been and where he's going.

There are a couple things that delayed Paul's coming to Rome, and first and foremost, of course, was his pioneering work as a church planter.

When he says, this is the reason I've so often been hindered from coming to you, this is what he means.

He was hindered because he was doing his missionary work, his ministry, the work that he knew

Christ had given him to do, which is to go to places where the gospel had not been declared, where there was no church, where there was no knowledge of Jesus Christ, or even of God and his anger at sin, or any of these things that the gospel finally resolves for us.

He was going there, and that was what hindered him from going to Rome. And it says in the passages that we read, many years he'd been wanting to go to Rome, hindered by his work.

Well, where was he when he was being hindered? What was he doing? If we can borrow from the original Star Trek series, he was going for where no man had gone before.

That's where he was building his church. A hard work, and a long -lasting work.

His wish to visit them, his desire to be there, was well enough known to them that this explanation of delays was warranted.

In other words, if you knew he's coming, just good manners would tell us to call ahead if we were going to be late somewhere for a dinner appointment, something like that, much less such a visit as what was anticipated here.

So he tells them the reason. He tells them what hindered him. This reason. And the reason was basically to finish what he had started.

It wasn't just a matter of having things to do, it was the thing that he did, and nothing could get in the way.

Paul, we know from 1st Corinthians chapter 3 verse 10, by his own self -description, he says, according to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder,

I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.

So he's a wise, a skilled master builder. And as a wise, as a skilled builder, he knew it was time for him to move to fresh territory.

And the entire course of his life was one of determined and dedicated service to Christ, particularly in founding churches, by particularly declaring the gospel of Christ to the

Gentile world. So he was at a point where the area he had been was now satisfactorily bathed with the

Word of God, the Word of God's forgiveness, and the gospel of his Son. This doesn't mean that every person in the region had heard, much less that every person who had heard had been converted.

He meant that he had done what he set out to do. The gospel had been brought to Europe. Now that's

Acts chapter 16, if you want to read that sometime later. That's Acts 16, and you recall, he went and he found

Lydia and the women at their prayer meeting by the river. And later, when he was in jail, the

Philippian jailer and both these two, Lydia and the jailer, coming to faith with their whole household, to being baptized in the faith of the

Lord Jesus Christ. Paul could move on with confidence.

He knew that the churches he left behind were well founded on the gospel, which is the death, the burial, the resurrection of the

Lord Jesus Christ. That was their basis, that was their foundation. He knew that, and he knew that they were fully equipped to continue to grow in knowledge of the

Lord Jesus and to perpetuate this message of God's forgiveness. You know the stereotypical gunslinger in the old cowboy movies?

Remember at the end of the movie, he tips his hat and he says something like, well I've got to move on now, man, there's another town somewhere that needs these guns.

I never really saw the old Western, I love old Westerns, but I never saw the one where they actually say that. I think it came from Shane, where Shane rides off to the sunset.

That's Alan Ladd plays Shane. Rides off in the sunset after dispatching all the bad guys in the town.

It's something like that. Paul had dispatched his commission in that part of the known world, and he set his sights on Spain.

We're not told how he came to this conclusion, that he was done with that part of the world, and that Spain was next.

But I want to stop here for a moment just by way of application, and I want us to together to think about this.

How did he come to this conclusion? We might have expected something from him, such as,

I saw a vision of a man in Macedonia telling me we're all set here, it's now time for you to move on.

Then he mentioned Spain to me, and so I knew that that vision was from the Lord. Sort of the vision that he had in the beginning of Acts 16, where he saw a man from Macedonia say, come here and help us.

And Paul then knew that that was from the Lord, so it went to Macedonia, and that's what led to the events in Acts 16 that I alluded to a moment ago.

So you'd expect him to say something like that. He says, I knew I was done here because someone came to me in a vision and said come to Spain and help us, or said you're done here in Macedonia, but we don't get that.

The skilled master builder knew when to move on. There's no more room for his work in those regions.

Now we know Paul was a man of prayer. We know Paul was a man who intimately knew

God and Jesus Christ his Son. We know this by the biographical material we have of his life in Acts.

We know this by the letters that he wrote and the things that he conjoins us to.

When I look at how he moved on with confidence, and how in this case he doesn't give a basis for why he's moved on, why he knows he's done in these areas, and it's time to go west all the way to Spain, the end of the known world back then.

It makes me wonder if there are times when we can pray ourselves into complete paralysis, that we have no confidence just to move on, knowing that we have been commissioned by God to do a thing, but not knowing what that thing is, and unwilling to move until we have some sort of confidence, until we feel some movement of God within us.

We see a verse in the Bible that exactly meets our circumstance, or whatever it is that we're struggling with.

I wonder if sometimes we pray ourselves into paralysis, where we just can't move.

When we hold our ministry to others hostage to some special movement of God, a kind of Gideon's fleece.

I mean, would we ask, would we stop and pray and say, oh Lord, should I give this one a cup of water in your name, when

Jesus has already said that we should? The reason I stop here for a moment, is because I believe that churches are bereft of the services of too many of us, who agonize over things like, what spiritual gift do

I have? And never really by prayer and by supplication before God, never find the one that they feel suits them, or they're confident that God actually gave them.

And all the while, the scriptures promise, unequivocally, that it is the endowment of every believer to be gifted in some special way, a unique way, and that to the benefit of us all.

How long do we deny ministering to each other? Because I don't feel led by the

Lord. I've been praying about what my gift is, or how I might use this gift that I've discovered, and I don't have the feeling that God has moved me to do this or to do that yet.

I just wonder sometimes, if we can look at Paul in his dynamism here, his willingness just to move on, knowing that overall he has

God's commission, he knows what Christ would have him to do, and within that sphere of working, of ministry, of gifting, he seems just moved with a certain confidence.

Not without prayer. I'm not advocating no prayer. Not without consulting others. This all began,

Paul's whole missionary journey began in Acts chapter 13, when as they were praying, the church was told, set up beside Paul and Barnabas for the work

I have for them. And the church then confirmed that and sent them. So I'm not saying not prayer, but once sent.

Once sent. Once placed in a church. Once the gift that he had, that Christ had explained to him and how he's going to use it, had been made clear.

There's a certain dynamic confidence that he had. Well, he just moved. You see, for us the question isn't whether God has placed you here as it pleased him, or whether he has endued you with a gift that benefits everyone, because the scripture, 1st

Corinthians 12, comes to mind. That's the most detail we have on this topic. Romans 12 would also address this.

The scripture says clearly that God has certainly done this. Do you believe in the

Lord Jesus Christ? Is your faith in him? Do you know salvation before God by faith in the cross work of the

Lord Jesus Christ? If these sorts of questions are answered, yes, I do know that he saved me, I know that I am his,

I know that he is mine, then the question is not whether you've been gifted.

The question is not whether you have a sphere of ministry. The scripture already says you do.

The real question becomes whether you see God as powerful enough and the gospel as big enough to make you, yes, you, you whose voice quivers too much when you sing, you whose thoughts get jumbled when you talk, yes, you, you who are happier to be one of the private parts who are given more modesty and hidden away in the corner, to make even you a blessing and a benefit to all of us.

The scripture says despite your lack of confidence, you've been placed here by God.

You've been given a sphere and a gift to exercise within it. I wonder if Paul's example here where he doesn't stop and give us an excursus and say

I had a circumstances came together in this way,

Paul just knows what his ministry is and he's a skilled master builder and he just goes and does it within that scope, not off on his own, commissioned by the church after prayer and the

Holy Spirit confirming all this, then he just moves. If you hear me talking to you here, if you're saying, oh he must be speaking to me, if you're right now building up your defenses,

I need to tell you something, God does gift us all differently. Some of us, we have to admit,

I often have to admit, some of us are smarter than the rest of us, some of us are better spoken, some of us are more confident, some of us are a lot of things, but not one of us is better than the other.

Not one of us is better than the other. It's not my feeling that it's time to move on and to exercise my gift, because if we wait for our feelings, we'll never get anywhere.

One sense we get from the scriptures, it doesn't matter what we feel, it matters what God has done in you through faith in Christ.

It's not your confidence that matters. I must seem very self -confident to some of you because I can stand here and speak publicly.

It's not confidence in myself, let me tell you. My wife will tell you when I was going to seminary, I had no idea to do this.

I had other plans, but my confidence is in Christ who called me to this, and your confidence is in Christ.

It must be. I just wonder if we can get away from this inertia, these things that hold us down, more like Paul.

Using Paul right here in this itinerary he gave as an example. He knows what he's supposed to do.

He's not jumping around and doing different things in different places and just figuring it all out as he goes.

He knows what Christ sent him to do, and knowing his commission, he moves with a dynamic confidence.

We're all necessary for the health of this body. Do you one day want to be a master builder?

A skilled builder like Paul? You know the first thing you have to do is pick up a hammer, and maybe you don't know how to use it.

Maybe you don't know how to swing it. There's somebody here who does. Maybe somebody can show you how to hit the nail each time you swing.

If you can show me that, I'd appreciate a lesson right after church. I've never been able to do that. I can't hit the nail three times, but you get my point.

If God has set you here, he set you here for a reason. Join Paul. Move with confidence.

Say, I'm going to Spain next. Why are you going to Spain? What's the vision?

I am just supposed to be in places where the gospel has not been proclaimed, and it hasn't been proclaimed there, and I'm going, and you're going to help me, by the way.

That's why I'm stopping. Paul didn't walk out of the baptismal and suddenly found churches.

He became a master builder, all to the glory of God. And here in this single verse, he blazes this path for us all.

Don't wait for your own self -confidence to lead you to saturate your sphere, be it church, home, neighborhood, wherever, with this gospel.

Trust Christ in you to help you, which is what I believe Paul did. Don't hold yourself to a theological dissertation to defend what you think you might do.

Do as Paul did, and do trust God and not yourself, as did the

Apostle here. You know,

I think back to ancient Israel, and they had some very direct guidance, didn't they?

Just think where they had a cloud by day and a fire by night, and the scripture says that when the cloud moved, they moved.

When the cloud didn't move, they stayed put. And when the cloud turned left, they turned left.

And if the cloud made a U -turn, they made a U -turn. They followed that cloud. But once they saw that cloud, they did move with confidence.

When they saw that cloud come up over the tabernacle, they packed up. Then they looked at that cloud and said, which way is it going today, or this week, or month, or whatever the case is, and they followed it.

Are you less directed than that? No. Today we have the

Holy Spirit. We know from Scripture, Paul says in 1st Corinthians 10, that rock was

Christ. Speaking of that whole leadership, the pre -incarnate Christ showing them the way.

We have the post -incarnate Christ by His Spirit leading us, showing you.

Be confident in Him and not you. What would a church be like if each person in this church agreed with what the scripture already says, and says, well if I believe in Jesus, I pray you do.

And the scripture says, He has gifted me in a unique and particular way, which it does, and therefore

I must exercise this gift to the good of my own walk with Christ and those around me.

If each of us stood up orderly, yes, we do need to be somewhat organized about this.

We can't be jumping around and one person's going to be painting walls, another person is doing some other thing. But if each of us with confidence, faith in Christ, came forward and served each other with this special gifting,

I just wonder what flourishing church would we then have. Not to complain about how the church is,

I love this place, but I do fear sometimes that we hold ourselves back. There's a lot of opinions, there's a variety of opinions on Paul's purpose in the gift that he spoke of, or that he wrote of.

I read about this in 1 Corinthians 8, or is it 2 Corinthians 8, where he's gathering up this gift, he wants to bring it to the poor in Jerusalem.

What was the reason behind it? Was it a symbol of the unity of Jews and Gentiles? Perhaps he meant it as a wrecking ball aimed at the final layer of stones in the dividing wall between them, which was the law.

Was it a reminder to the Gentiles of their spiritual indebtedness, which is explicit here in these verses? Some think that Paul had in mind the

Jewish idea that real piety was proven by generosity to the poor. And back in the day,

Gentile proselytes who converted to Judaism would be judged by how they treated the poor.

And some think that Paul had in mind the prophecies of Isaiah chapter 60 verse 11, Zechariah chapter 14 verse 14, both of which speak about the wealth of all nations flowing into Jerusalem.

Well there's a word there in verse 27 that kind of helps us here, where he says they ought also to be a service to them, the

Gentiles to the Jews, in material blessings. That word service is the

Greek word letergeo, and it's where we get our word liturgy. And it has to do with cultic or temple worship.

Now I use that term a lot, cultic, the cultic practices. Don't confuse that with cults or the occult.

Cultic, the way we use it here from this pulpit, simply means the practices ordained by God for the priests in the temple that bears his name.

Cultic simply means to worship God in the right way, within the procedures, the laws that he had given.

So this word here in verse 27, being of service to them, is that word liturgy, to be of cultic, to be of holy service to them.

Caring for Christian brethren who are in dire straits is service to God. It's even priestly service to God if we back up to, was it verse 16, we talked about making the

Gentiles an acceptable offering to God. A few weeks ago we talked about that priestly language of that sacrifice, that offering to God be made in a priestly and an acceptable way.

This language is much the same, and I think it continues that idea. So caring for the poor is service to God.

I think that's one reason why this was so important to Paul. The unity between the

Jews and the Gentiles in the church was very important to him also. Exodus chapter 22 verse 23 says that when this service, this service to the poor, this liturgy that we are to do for the poor is ignored,

God's special attention is on that poor man whose needs were carefully avoided. It reminds me of the parable in Luke with Lazarus and the rich man, where the rich man basically trying to keep himself from tripping over Lazarus as he ignored him day in and day out.

I think that parable where the rich man ends up in torment is a good picture of just how seriously

God takes that. So there's a liturgy, there's a priestly service to this offering, and I think there's also

Paul's idea of joining the two together, Jew and Gentile, because in the church there is no more

Jew or Gentile or male or female, any of that. We're all one in Christ. John Stott writes here, when we

Gentiles are thinking of the great blessings of salvation we are hugely in debt to the Jews and always will be.

He refers back to Romans 3 and Romans 9, those two chapters where by God's design the

Jews were custodians of many of the types and the figures that reveal Jesus Christ to us.

They had the law, which exposes what? Exposes our sin and the righteousness that we cannot attain to, the law making us yearn for an answer to that, to that righteousness that we can't ourselves attain.

They were custodians of the temple worship, which everything prophesied in there of Christ's ultimate and final sacrifice.

Every furnishing in the temple granting a view, excuse me, of what heaven is like.

They had the prophets, their convicting words, and the prophets with their laser -sharp beam set on the

Lord who brings it all to a conclusion, who gives purpose and coherence to all their words.

All this kept faithfully by a nation who at their core really didn't believe, but we have an indebtedness to them.

We open the Old Testament or find our comfort in the Psalms or repentance in the prophets.

There's a debt to that nation who guarded all this. Think of how important this was to the

Apostle. His desire to visit Rome wasn't feigned at all. I mean, we look at chapter 16, which we'll get to in a few weeks, it lists more people that he knew personally in Rome than we have even coming here to Providence.

To go to Rome for Corinth via Jerusalem is about as circuitous a route as you could ever find.

It delayed his trip to Rome by months, maybe years, if the weather wouldn't cooperate.

One estimate is that his route would add 2 ,000 miles to his travels. And I looked up a

Boeing 737 passenger jet flies at about 600 miles an hour. How many of us, if we had to do something in Hawaii, and that was important to us, would go there by way of I think

Columbus, Ohio. It's about 2 ,000 miles from here. We're traveling at 600 miles an hour now, not on foot, not with boats with oars.

Important as it was to get to Rome, though, Rome had no part in the gift.

That interests me, that Rome had no part in the gift there. They might not have even been founded as a church when

Paul was collecting the money for it, but no matter. Everybody does their part.

The Macedonians provided to Paul satisfaction. He was more than satisfied. He rejoiced at their sacrificial generosity, and Rome was not criticized for not having been involved.

Their role was different. Their role would be to send him off to Spain. No reliable record that ever got to Spain.

A church father of the first century, a man named Clement, he wrote to the whole, he said this, quote, to the whole world

Paul taught righteousness, and to the limits of the West, which Spain was at the time, to the limits of the

West, he bore witness before rulers. And some take this to mean that Paul actually at one point got to Spain.

We can't be sure of this, but if he did, then he must have been released from the prison that he was in at the end of the book of Acts, gone off to Spain, and somewhere been arrested again, and finally executed.

We can only be sure, though, that he wanted to go to Spain, and that had he, the church at Rome most likely provided him the material support for doing it.

But first he has to get there from Corinth via Jerusalem on his way to Spain.

There's more to his visit there than just garnering their financial aid to his church -building program.

He says, I know when I come to you I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. That's at the end of our passage this morning.

And that brings us right back to the beginning of this book, chapter 1 and verse 11. He said there in the opening, he said, for I long to see you, but may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, by yours and mine.

I want you to know, brothers, that I've often intended to come to you, but thus far have been prevented, in order that I may reap some harvest among you, as well as among the rest of the

Gentiles. I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish, so I am eager to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome.

You know I sometimes hear, brethren, that are concerned when we have our missionaries come here during their furlough time.

The last time we had one here, he taught Sunday school and then he came and preached, which is a lot of work. And we sometimes are concerned that during their furlough we're taking up too much of the time, we're impinging on this time of refreshment they're supposed to have.

Time to visit with family, time to visit with friends, and here we are taking up their time and making them come here and teach

Sunday school and give pastor a break from their preaching. Well, we have among our missionaries men who are primarily church planters, and one of them, by the way, will be here in July.

More about that later. Their opportunities to come and to visit relatives and friends are few and far between, so we know it's a precious time for them, and we do well to be sensitive to that, but we do need to have them come.

They do need to be here, and they do need to speak to us in that formal way. The way they see it, and I've spoken to them personally on just this score, the way they see it is that they receive from us as much spiritual blessing as they give to us.

And some of us say without that two -way spiritual blessing from us to them, from them to us, they'd be in despair.

To see and to shake hands and to even hug the people who have their back in prayer and in financial support is more important to them than we sometimes credit.

And here the Apostle Paul has exactly that attitude. He wants to exchange spiritual blessings.

Think of this. Think of this in relation to what I was telling you a moment ago about each of us being important and gifted by God and having ministry that we need to just get out and do with each other.

I lost that train of thought. Excuse me. Yes. Think of the

Apostle Paul in Rome. The Apostle Paul who saw the third heaven and uttered things that are not to be uttered, uttered things that we're not going to hear until the

Lord calls us to himself and we're there with him. Think of the Apostle Paul, this one who faced down kings, called out blindness upon pagan sorcerers.

He's going to go to this church. He'd come to a church just like this one and come to any one of you and he would be saying he's going to receive as much from you as you from him.

It's not a false humility. He's the Apostle who taught us that, the importance of each one of us.

When our missionaries come to us, we need to be sensitive to their time.

They don't get away that often, but it's as important to them to be here and to receive from us and to see us as it is the other way around.

That's what the Apostle Paul says. He's going to receive and he's going to give. Like Paul, these men are no mercenaries.

They're not hard -headed businessmen. They're men whose lives are given over to the singular mission as was

Paul's, one which without the Lord's blessing is impossible. Without it being

Christ building up his church by and through them, the results, impressive as they might be, are just things that get done.

Not anything that is a gospel accomplishment in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing that would have eternal benefit.

The benefit to the sender is to see and hear and touch the scent. It's to remember that they are flesh and blood men with spirits like ours who need to see and hear and touch the brothers and the sisters who pray for them.

You see, this fullness of Christ's blessing is a two -way transaction. In Rome, they're waiting for this famous Apostle, the one who some thought if they touched the hem of his cloak as he walked by, they'd be able to be healed by him.

And what a joy it's going to be. What a joy it would be. How much they would gain. And Paul circumvents all that.

Any elevation of himself, he insists that the exchange is mutual. Well again, there's an important lesson here.

You know, we work hard to bring the Word of God week in and week out. And when

I say it that way, week in, week out, it sounds like maybe there's a bit of a trudge to it. It's not that at all.

It's a glorious thing to be entrusted by this church to preach the glories of our Savior and the blessed gospel that we proclaim here.

But you're not the sole recipient of this spiritual food. I am too.

When our brother Conley preaches, he is too. We bless each other. If I happen to be a famous preacher, let's say

I was a John MacArthur or an Alistair Begg or a John Piper, which of course I'm not, but if I were, it would be no different.

If we're just a one -way street from me to you, then I'm nothing more than a hired hand. I'm not an under shepherd of our

Lord Jesus Christ. Well I praise God that that's not the case, that we're a family bound together by a single faith who seeks each other's good.

Let's remember that the spiritual blessings are something that have to be received both ways.

The pulpit is up here just a couple of steps only so it's visible, not because the man is anything special above anybody else.

Whoever comes here, guest preacher or faithful deacon, a missionary, whoever comes, let's always remember that it is

Christ that must be lifted up and glorified and that the ministry we embrace flows two ways.

It is the blessing of Christ that he anticipates and that we should always expect. Our letter to the

Romans is wrapping up and Paul makes it very clear how much he wants to be there and even telling them,

I'm only passing through. Whether they ever got there or not is really not even the case.

It's the heart. It's his desire to be there, his desire to exchange with them these spiritual blessings.

Let's pray that as we look at this, as we think about these verses, as we consider this book of Romans and as it closes for us, as it's coming to its summary and its conclusion in a few weeks, that we understand that God has placed us here.

God has given us, as he did Paul, a work to do, a mission field.

And while we do pray and we do fall down before God in supplication, I would pray and join all of us to not let that become an excuse to not move forward and do what

God has certainly gifted and brought you here to do. Amen. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day once again.

I pray, Father, that you continue to bless us and watch over us and be with us. Lord, that we might continue in worship throughout this day in a way that is honoring and pleasing to you.