Life Abundantly

We continue our study this evening from manuscript P45. If you were not with us this morning, I am afraid that all of the bulletins are gone and the inserts are gone. I'm not sure how it works because there were 50 bulletins and 75 inserts, so evidently the inserts went bye-bye as well.

But if you can track one of these down, the insert that was in the bulletin, I will make more of them for the next time. It won't be quite a month from now, it will be a little bit over a month from now actually, because I will be missing the first Sunday in November.

I will actually be preaching in Wellington, New Zealand that Sunday. I finally looked up where it is today and I discovered New Zealand is two large islands. Who knew? It's always good to do a little geography before you go someplace.

But probably the week after that will be the next time we are able to be looking at John 10 and I will try to put an insert in the bulletin there. But for those who maybe were not here this morning, just very, very briefly, a new sermon series based upon a manuscript.

A manuscript from the New Testament, P45. It contains sections of John, well, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts, but only sections. So, for example, in the Gospel of John, we will only be looking at John 10.

Sometime down the road we will look a little bit at John chapter 5. Those are the only two sections that we have in P45. I think it might go into chapter 11 now that I think about it. So, there is a possibility of that.

And then you have sections of Matthew, later sections of Matthew. Middle sections of Mark. I know the Transfiguration account from Mark is in P45. As well as the middle sections from Luke. And then I believe somewhere, pretty much the middle section of Acts as well is what we have left to us of what was originally the 220-page book that we call Papyrus 45.

And so that is going to be what gives us guidance in this sermon series. I am doing an extensive study of that particular papyrus and therefore translating it. The translation on the back is not my best work.

I was really having to rush to produce this. I had to get a program to take the background out of this. It takes a little while to do. I am not a graphic designer. And then formatting stuff. My Mac and the printer don't like each other very much.

So, they were fighting with each other and trying to get it all printed out. And then we ran out of paper. So, it was lots of fun. So, the translation on the back, when you see brackets, that is the stuff that is missing on the front.

You can sort of tell that there is stuff missing here and here and over on the margins over here. That is sort of what is missing. Though the translation, it is sort of hard to be extremely specific on that.

John 10 in Light of P45 and the Flow from John 9

So, turning to John chapter 10. I mentioned to you this morning that the first six verses are not found in that particular page of P45. It sort of picks up there in verse 7. And so, we do need to cover that.

We will be covering some material that is not in P45, just so we have a proper context. And I mentioned to you this morning, I think it is important. Sometimes, when we interpret the Bible, when we read the Bible, because of the chapter and the verse divisions, we tend to break it up into chunks.

We don't follow the flow of the narrative. And hence, we miss something. For example, John chapter 10 is certainly one of those texts that is one of the favorites of Christians. The Good Shepherd and all the things that are found in this chapter.

And I and my father are one. And such tremendous stuff. But because of that, we sort of tend to see chapter 10 as just chapter 10. And that is different from chapter 11. And that is different from chapter 9.

And we sort of put a pretty strong break in between. And maybe as a result, do not see the relationship between these blocks of text that was intended by the original author. And I reminded you this morning that John chapter 9 is taken up with the story of the man who was healed of his blindness.

And in that encounter, Jesus heals him and then goes his way. And there is not the kind of discussion that you have at the end of the chapter. There is a purpose for this because the man... Remember, you've got a couple of different healings in John.

And both of them probably have something to do with what's going on here. Remember the differences between the healing in chapter 5 and the healing in chapter 9. In healing in chapter 5, the man shows no thankfulness.

And immediately runs off and tells the leaders who it was that did this. And Jesus has to say to him, do not sin anymore. And there seems to be some back story to that in regards to that individual. But in John chapter 9, you have the encounter between the healed man and the Jewish leaders.

And they are saying to him, look, testify. We know this man is a sinner. And he's like, I can't tell you whether he's a sinner or not. All I know is he healed me. And it's an amazing thing. And he is clearly one of the sheep of Israel who is being mistreated by the men who are supposed to be the shepherds of Israel.

And this draws together... It is fascinating. If we had more time, it would be a good thing to point out. There are a number of themes that are woven into the Gospel of John from the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel.

Now, I don't know about you, but I like Isaiah and Jeremiah more than Ezekiel. And the reason for that is, there's some tough stuff in Ezekiel. God has Ezekiel do some rather strange things. And there's rather interesting visions and stuff, but think about it.

Ezekiel's got all sorts of stuff. You've got a lot of stuff about the new birth. And seemingly, what's behind John chapter 3, and the being born of water and the spirit, goes back to Ezekiel. And it's in Ezekiel you have this discussion, and there's some similar passages in Jeremiah as well, of these shepherds, the false shepherds, and the judgment that God is going to bring upon false shepherds.

And that seems to be what brings us into chapter 10. Because otherwise, Jesus just all of a sudden starts talking about something that doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense. But when you back up, there isn't a chapter division in the original.

And so you have the Pharisees. Those of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things and said to him, We are not blind too, are we? Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would have no sin. But since you say, We see, your sin remains.

Truly, truly, I say to you. So this is just continuing with this idea that since these men claimed to be able to see, and they were supposed to be functioning as the shepherds of the sheep, then there is judgment that lies upon them.

Truly, truly, I say to you, He who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. Now he begins to use what would be a standard, easily understandable illustration to communicate a fundamental truth.

This was a society that even though in Jerusalem you would have what would be considered in the ancient world a rather large city, still by our standards it would be a rather small place. And so there would still be agriculture and there would be animal husbandry that would be the common sight of everyone.

And even the most dedicated city dweller would still have a lot of knowledge of what takes place, especially in the keeping of sheep and flocks and things like that. So utilizing everyday illustrations.

And there would often be a community pen where in a town, a village, the outlying areas around the city, you would be able to bring the flocks into a community pen and they would intermingle with one another.

The flocks would, you know, it's not like you had GPS trackers on your sheep or something like that. And so they would intermingle and you'd go, well, that's great. How do you get your sheep back? Is that a good way of, well, I've got some scrawny sheep, but I'm going to make sure to get the good sheep out when I come back.

No, it didn't work that way. Instead, there seems to be good evidence that the shepherd trained the sheep. Now sheep are not high on the intellectual scale in the animal world, which does make me wonder why God frequently refers to us as his sheep, you know, the sheep of his pasture and so on and so forth.

That would not be something that would cause people to go, oh, sheep, some of the smartest. No, it doesn't really work that way. But somehow the shepherd would train the sheep to respond to his voice.

They would respond to his voice. Now that wouldn't necessarily just be him speaking, but it could also be certain noises, certain sounds that he alone could make that would signal to the sheep that he was their shepherd.

And so he would stand outside the community pen and would make these sounds and his flock would come out to him and the others would not. And this type of intimate relationship and knowledge between the shepherd and the sheep is what is behind much of what is said here in John 10.

And, of course, it relates to the fact that even though the Jewish leaders had been saying to the man who had been healed, we know this man's a sinner. Join with us in condemning him. He doesn't hear their voice.

He does not respond to them because they are not functioning as the true shepherd of the sheep and Christ has his sheep. They just may not be the ones that people would expect him to have. And so he refers to a thief and a robber.

And so the one who does not come in by the gate. Now, the larger pens, the community pens would have a gate, but when out in the fields, very frequently the shepherd would find a natural enclosure, maybe made by rocks, something to where there would be a place where he could place the sheep and then he himself would lie in the open spot so that if the sheep wanted to try to wander out, the only way out would be over him.

And he would actually function as the gate to that kind of a fold. So there's different ways in which this could take place. This seems to be the larger one. Climbs up some other way. He is a thief and a robber, but he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep.

To him the doorkeeper opens. This would be the larger one, obviously. And the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And so it would be something I'd like to see someday.

I'm not sure I'd ever have the opportunity of doing so, but I would like to watch this taking place. I've been told that it does still happen in those areas, but most of the tours are so highly commercialized that I don't know that you'd ever get a chance to really see it.

You'd have to spend some serious time there and get off the beaten paths to observe this happening. When he puts forth his own, all his own, notice that? All his own. The good shepherd doesn't leave any of his sheep in the community fold.

He doesn't. He knows his sheep with such a perfect knowledge that he leads all of them out, all of his own. We can't help but think back. Remember, John chapter 10, in that wonderful thing called the numbering system, comes after John chapter 6.

And there's that whole discussion of what? No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. And the father draws certain people to the son. And the son gives his life for them and he raises them up on the last day.

And John weaves these various things together. And in some way he'll bring a thought in later on and it'll be in just enough of a different context to cast a little different light upon it. So you see it in a different way.

You see another aspect of it. It's a deeper understanding that you gain from seeing how the author is weaving these things together. And so when he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.

And so it's not going to matter if he runs into another shepherd going the other direction with their sheep. There is that relationship that exists between the shepherd and the sheep. And they are going to be able to stay together with him because they know his voice.

A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him because they do not know the voice of strangers. This figure of speech, Jesus spoke to them, but they didn't understand what those things were which he had been saying to them.

In some ways this really belongs almost in chapter 9. Because it's a continuation. It is explaining. And it's the Pharisees whom he's identified. They understand what this means. Probably because they didn't even begin to conceive of themselves as shepherds.

That very honorable position, if they had realized it was truly what they were being held accountable to, would have been very important. But their eyes were on other things. And they had become hirelings rather than shepherds.

So at that point we actually get to P45. Just up there at the top. You can actually see when you look at it that some of the words are just barely there. And there's only a few letters. I do want to point one thing out to you if you have one.

If you look at the upper left hand side, the first line. At the end of the first line it looks like an I-H with a line on top of it. You see that? See that I-H line on top of it? I mentioned to you this morning what is called the Nomina Sacra.

These are the specific words such as Jesus, Lord, Spirit, God. Depending on which manuscript, exactly how long the list of Nomina Sacra were. For some reason, we do not know why, the Christian people from the very beginning abbreviated these words.

Sometimes using three letters, sometimes using two letters and putting a line over top. And it wasn't to save space. We don't know why they did it. But it is a characteristic of the handwritten Greek manuscripts of the first centuries.

And you can see that right there. That's Jesus. That is the abbreviation for Jesus. So Jesus said to them in verse 7. So you can see that right there at the very top left side. Right before it breaks off.

And there's sort of the hole that then continues on over onto the other side. So when you're asked what you did in church on Sunday. Go to work tomorrow. You can say, we read ancient Greek manuscripts.

And everyone will look at you and go, sure you did. Right. Okay. Well, you know about your kind of folks. Jesus said to them. I'm going to switch over to the translation that I provided in the handout.

Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers. But the sheep did not hear them. And so they said, the scripture says they didn't understand.

And so now there's going to be an explanation provided to them. And that phrase, truly, truly, we sort of become accustomed to it. You know it's amen, amen, from which we get amen. It is a way of saying, I testify truly.

I am speaking the truth. This is an important statement that I am making. Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. Now, you might say, wait a minute. How can you be the door of the sheep and the good shepherd?

Well, as has been pointed out in some instances, the shepherd was actually lie on the ground as the door to the sheep. It wouldn't be in this case. We're not worried about pushing the analogy too far.

I mean, Jesus talks about being a door and the vine and all sorts of things like that. We understand metaphorical language. But he is making a claim about himself. And if he is drawing together those prophetic lines from the Old Testament, then he's saying something about his relationship to the sheep who are the people of God.

And again, I don't want to sound like a broken record, but I have mentioned many, many times in the past that we as believers often overlook some of the strongest evidence of the deity of Christ in the New Testament because we don't see things like this very statement.

What prophet of old, while standing in the line of the prophets and weaving together the themes from the prophets, what prophet of old said, I am the door of the sheep. I am the one who is the door where the sheep stay, the sheep fold.

They would never point to themselves in that way. The statements that Jesus is going to make about the centrality of the place he holds in the salvation of God's people is just going to get clearer and clearer and clearer all the way through John chapter 10 until that becomes the very context of what Jesus says in John chapter 10 verse 30, I and the Father, we are one specifically in the salvation of God's people.

No prophet of old could ever make that kind of statement. We are so accustomed to hearing Jesus speak in exalted language that sometimes we miss the weight of what he's saying and as a result tend to not realize how vast and how full the evidence is for his deity and for our beliefs concerning him.

We need to keep an eye upon that. And so Jesus says, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. And so who are the all before him?

Well, are we talking about false shepherds? Or in this case, as there often is in the New Testament, an emphasis upon the fact that hey, the days of Jesus, there had been many before him and there would be many after him who would claim to be the Messiah.

They would draw people after them. They would put together little armies. They'd raise up insurrections. The Romans would come along and snuff them out. Are these the false messiahs, the people who've claimed to be the Messiah before him?

Whoever the all is, the one thing they lacked is the one thing that Jesus has and that Jesus continues to have. What's that? The sheep did not hear them, but the sheep continue to hear Christ to this day.

That is one of the evidences of the supernatural nature of the body of Christ is that that one message of the cross, that one voice of Christ continues to draw people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation even to this day.

I mentioned this morning that even happens in places like North Korea. Places where you know that to follow this message is to pretty much sign your death warrant. Well, that's what Jesus said. If you would be my disciples, take up your cross.

That's what he was calling people to do, was to join the death march. That voice continues to be a powerful voice. Remember John chapter 5? When the dead hear the voice of the Son of God, what do they do?

They're raised to life. And so the voice of the shepherd, they did not hear the false shepherds, but they hear him. He is the door of the sheep, and the sheep did not hear anyone before him in the sense of following after a Messiah who is a false Messiah.

I am the door. If one enters through me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. I am the door. If one enters through me, he will be saved. Once again, we have had to emphasize it so many times in the past, but we emphasize it again.

There is no way to conceive of any kind of meaningful Christian expression that can fit into the demand that the world places upon us that we be inclusivistic, to use their terminology today. The technical word is pluralism.

The technical term is to allow for multiple ways to God. And when that demand is placed upon us, and it is almost any time you ever seek to share the gospel message with someone, to proclaim God's truth to someone, you get hit with the demand that you compromise at this point.

Because you and I both know that immediately you will get the look, immediately the very language that will be used is, well, you're not saying that someone else is wrong about something in religion, are you?

You're not saying that yours is the only way. And this has always been part of the scandalon, the scandal of the Christian faith, is the fact that what it is saying is that there is one true God, and he has revealed himself in one particular fashion, and he has sent one Messiah, who was the very second person of the Trinity, to accomplish one singular act of redemption, and he's even going to use the language in verse 16.

And I have other sheep who are not of this fold. It is necessary that I gather them, and they will hear my voice, and they will become what? One flock with one shepherd. The demand of the world upon us?

Many flocks, many different shepherds, many different ways. This is what our society says is the only message that will be respected. And if you say otherwise, you're a hater and a bigot. Now, of course, logically and rationally, it's the person who is disagreeing with Jesus, who is showing hatred toward God and bigotry toward his message, but logic, rationality, who needs that today when you can emote, and you can feel, and you can be offended.

And once you're offended, then everyone just needs to bow down and do whatever you want them to do, unless you're a Christian, and that doesn't really matter. There is a clear statement of exclusivity, but you must understand that it is the exclusive nature of Christ's ability to save that makes him able to save.

If he wasn't capable of being the perfect Savior, then we'd need multiple ways. But the only reason that you need multiple ways is if you insist, well, if you have a perfect Savior, then what about me?

What about my role? What about my will? We certainly live in a day where human autonomy, the almighty will of man, how long is it going to be before we start seeing statues in our major cities of the will of man?

Maybe just a man standing there, or it'll probably be very androgynous. It would have to be very androgynous, so it's not a man, not a woman, it's just someone, a Z, or a Zer, something like that. And you will, by law, have to use the proper pronoun when speaking of Z or Zer, the insanity of it all.

It's become an idol. It's always been an idol, but man, now, the worship of that idol becoming incredibly clear in our society. I am the door. If one enters through me, not some other way, there aren't any other ways, there's only one door.

If one enters through me, he will be saved. One way of salvation, no others. When someone says, I just find that to be too closed-minded. So you think Jesus was closed-minded, is that what you're telling me?

You're looking at me and you're telling me that Jesus was closed-minded and you believe that he was a hateful bigot? That will raise the temperature, but it might actually give you an opportunity to say something.

You can go right there. I am the door. If one enters through me, he will be saved. So you're saying he was wrong about that? Have you died and risen from the dead? He did. If one enters through me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

And so there is safety in the flock that Christ is the good shepherd of. And then there is, well, I think this is the beginning of a thread that will eventually be expressed later on. That I have come that he might have life and might have it abundantly.

And there you have going in and out and finding pasture. So it's not just, well, he will be saved, that's it. Once you're saved, you got your ticket punched and you can do what you want. No, once the person becomes a part of that flock, that sheep hears the voice of the shepherd, follows that shepherd, that shepherd leads them in and out, brings them by pasture.

I wonder if possibly, maybe, I think the language of the psalmist here. Psalm 23. Certainly seems to me that this is probably what lies behind this. And so there is a promise. Safety, security, salvation will go in and out and find pasture.

Because everybody realized, and it lies behind this, and it becomes explicit here in a moment. Sheep are not good at self-defense. I really don't think sheep take any of Josh's classes. And I doubt you'd be able to teach them much.

It's not in their nature. Really not in their nature. And that means they make very tasty snacks for predators. And the whole reason for the shepherd having to lay down in front of the small enclosure out in the field or wherever else is because there were lots of critters out there that like to eat sheep.

And so going in and out and finding pasture required the shepherd and required the care of the shepherd. And this would be a very positive picture of the right and healthy relationship existing between the shepherd and his flock.

Jesus says, the thief does not come except to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. And so the thief, the one climbing in by some other way, he cares nothing for the sheep.

He simply wants to use them. He wants to steal, kill, destroy because his purposes are focused upon himself rather than upon the sheep. And in contrast to the thief, I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

And so the shepherd and sheep analogy, we know that it's a metaphor. And yes, we want to learn from the figure of speech. But it can't contain all of it. And we see here it's sort of expanding the borders a bit.

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. And so in other words, for sheep, pasture is about as good as it gets. You know, water, grass, no wolves eating at me, that's life. That's the best it can be.

But obviously Jesus is meaning much more than that. He's just illustrated it in the healing of that man. And in talking about their having life, he speaks of their having it abundantly. Abundantly. We ask ourselves the question.

They might have it and it's abounding and overflowing in their experience. Where have we heard that before? The one who believes in me, out of them will flow the rivers of life. Bubbling up. What does that mean?

Is that just something charismatics talk about? I mean, we can't talk about bubbling, can we? Not in a Reformed Baptist church. Is that not inappropriate? Well, we already put an insert in the bulletin, so we've broken all the rules already.

So we can go ahead and talk about this, I suppose. No, it has nothing to do with that. Abundance of life. So when we think about abundance, we think about having a lot of something. I like certain things.

It's great to have an abundance of those things. I really like Quest protein bars. They're really good. Do you know Quest protein? Oh, they're really good. And so I have an abundance of them. In fact, I set it up on auto-ship from Amazon.

I need to fix it. It's like, okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Another shipment? Oh, no. And it's growing and multiplying in this one spot. And so I have an abundance of Quest protein bars. And now Josh is going to come by and help me with that, I'm sure.

But we tend to think of abundance in numbers, in how tall your stack of protein bars is in the closet. But that's really... Life is not a commodity that you can think of in that fashion. I came to have life and have it overflowing.

So how do you put that together with the reality that down through the history of the church, the Christian people have often experienced tremendous persecution, suffering, difficulty? How do you put those two things together?

Well, the best suggestion that I can offer to you is that whatever abundance of life means, it should not be defined as the world would define it. It should be defined in a Christian fashion by the very words that we find so often used in the text.

Contentment. Thanksgiving. Patience. Steadfastness. Discipline. The world doesn't look at those terms as reflecting an abundance of life. But you see, we recognize we've died. Our life is hidden together with Christ in God.

And so we are now living a supernatural life. The life which I live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved himself, gave himself for me. So the life that I'm living is a supernatural life and it is going to continue right into eternity.

We've already begun that kind of life that is going to be ours in eternity to come. And what is marked, what marks that life is finding joy and fulfillment and contentment in things the world cannot begin to understand.

In seeing the beauty of God's creation, in deriving tremendous joy from service to others, and even in the extreme trials of life, finding consolation, comfort, and hope that the world cannot begin to understand.

That, I think, is an abundance of life. When we as Christian believers truly experience fellowship together, whether it be in joy or in sorrow, in service, whatever it might be, those moments that we have together have an eternal value that nothing in the life of the unbeliever can ever begin to approach.

When you think of the richest superstar athlete and all the things that person gets to do with their millions and millions of dollars, don't you realize? Scripture says, foolish pride of life, it's all passing away.

It's not going to last. It's empty. And how many people do you know, you've read their stories, they had everything the world had to offer. They commit suicide because they discovered there's not a bit of true happiness and joy and contentment in any of it.

In any of it. And yet, you and I, in Christ, can experience things together. Sometimes they're things that are difficult. Sometimes they're joyous things. I can't help. Have you all looked at the calendar for December yet?

Guess who's preaching Christmas morning? I'm not sure which really Christmassy bow tie I'm going to wear yet, but I'm working on it. I'm thinking about it. And not only do I love that time of the year, but I remember back to one of my very, very, very favorite Christmas Eve's.

Do you remember that Christmas Eve, Brother Soto? Wonderful evening because, well, I saw a not very tall man baptize George. And that's really, that was that in itself. That was, that was awesome. That was great.

And I'll never forget that. And the world can't understand that. Oh, you sat in a rather interestingly drab room and you saw somebody go, and then come back up. And you think that was special. Yeah. Yeah.

Because then we went home and, and we were together as a family. And it was wonderful. But then just last week we had the funeral over at Apologia Church for Sarah Arrington. And I'll probably never forget that either, but it was on the other spectrum of things, but, but still eternally relevant and valid because the same trues made both the special things that they were.

And the world can't understand that. The world never will. But there was life abundant in both. There was life abundant in both. And you know what? When we allow the world to define for us what life is supposed to look like, we miss out on all this.

You and I, as believers, we miss out on it. When our thinking is not conformed to the thinking of Christ, the revelation of Scripture, when we watch those programs and the advertisements and listen and all the things that we voluntarily expose ourselves to and we are told over and over again, this is what happiness looks like, this is what joy looks like, this is what you're supposed to be doing, we miss.

We, we, we deprive ourselves of so much of what God provides to us. The promise of our Lord is, for my sheep, I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. And even in the face of physical death, the sheep of Christ have life.

Why? Because he's the resurrection of life. That's the next chapter. He's the... Even if he dies, he shall live. Do you believe this? That's what Jesus asked. The world can't understand that you and I should, but very often we forget.

We need to be reminded. I hope as you think about the upcoming week of service and all the things you've got to do and I've got a lot of things to do too. I understand being busy. When young people come up to me and say, oh, I'm bored.

I look at them and go, I haven't been bored since July of 1978. And they just look at me, you're that old? Yep, and I have not been bored since 1978. I don't know what it means. I can't begin to understand it.

But when you're active this week, I hope you will think about Christ's promise to you. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. And ask yourself the question, as I live this life, as I seek to serve Christ, am I letting the world cheat me out of abundance of life because I have the wrong priorities and the wrong way of thinking?

I'm not looking eternally. I'm only looking at the now. I'm looking at what somebody else has, what I don't have, rather than seeing God's purposes in my life and deriving such tremendous joy from being a servant of Jesus Christ, one of his sheep for whom he gives his life, as we will see as we continue here in John 10.

Let's pray together. Our great shepherd of the sheep, we do thank you for these words that you uttered so long ago. And our Lord, we are thankful that you came to give us life, that you are a perfect Savior and you accomplished everything the Father tasked you to do.

Because of that, we have eternal life. Because of that, through you, adoption as sons, through our union with you, eternal life, forgiveness of sins. And we live now by faith in you who loved us and gave yourself for us.

We thank you for the gospel. We thank you for the preservation of your word. You said your words would never pass away. And here we are, long after you spoke these words, remembering them, living in light of them, marveling at them, loving them.

We thank you for this. We ask that you would, by your Spirit, strengthen us this week that we might bring great honor and glory to your name. Amen.