Holy, Holy

Well, last week, as we gathered, we took a look at the fellowship meal that is contained within the writing or the chapter of Exodus 29 that concludes the ordination and the consecration ceremony of Aaron and his sons.

It was the final act that it took to certify, as it was, these men for service and to minister before God in the tabernacle on behalf of the people.

Now, as we looked at this particular fellowship meal, we looked at how our understanding of that particular meal helps to inform us what it looks like for us as we prepare to come to the

Lord's table and participate in his supper. Just as the consummation of the flesh of the sacrifice helped to remind the priest of the price that had been paid, the blood that had been spilled for them as their substitute, so too are we reminded through the bread and the cup of the

Lord's supper of Christ's substitutionary sacrifice on our behalf.

We also talked about how there was a vigorous preparation that went into these men becoming priests and the consummation of this meal, that it wasn't just something that was happenstance.

And we talked about how that talked to us about preparation as we come to the

Lord's table. We also, you may recall, spoke about the fact that this meal took place in the very presence of Almighty God and that by virtue of his presence, the place where they were, where this meal was shared, had been deemed holy.

And so in closing last week, I asked each of you and reminded each of you that you had a week now to prepare as we come together to observe the ordinance of communion.

As a reminder, Paul, writing to the church at Corinth, dealing with their mishandling of this very ordinance, writes these words in 1

Corinthians chapter 11 verses 27 through 30. Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the

Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the

Lord. But a man must test himself, and in so doing, he is to eat the bread and drink of the cup.

For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly.

And so my prayer is that you have taken time this week to prepare, to examine your hearts, to be honest and truthful with yourselves as we will in a few moments observe this blessed fellowship meal together.

But before then, let us return to the book of Exodus in the 29th chapter.

Our text for this morning is one that has been the source of no small amount of confusion and challenges in the theological world because of the structure of how it's written.

And we've touched on that a little bit at the beginning when we started looking at chapter 29. We'll talk about it a little bit more this morning.

But even though there is confusion on some of the understanding of these verses, there is no confusion or should be no confusion regarding how these verses impacted the priest in that day and how they now impact us here this morning.

So if you will, take a moment to turn to Leviticus chapter 8 as we have been doing in the past weeks.

Put your finger in Leviticus chapter 8, flip back over to Exodus 29, and we will read beginning in Exodus 29, verses 35 through 37, and we will move to Leviticus chapter 8, verses 33 through 36.

Please stand for the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, complete, and sufficient word.

Beginning in Exodus chapter 29, in the 35th verse and following, we find these words.

Thus you shall do to Aaron and to his sons according to all that I have commanded you.

You shall ordain them through seven days. Each day you shall offer a bull as a sin offering for atonement, and you shall purify the altar when you make atonement for it, and you shall anoint it to set it apart as holy.

For seven days you shall make atonement for the altar and set it apart as holy. Then the altar shall be most holy, and whatever touches the altar shall be holy.

And then in Leviticus chapter 8, beginning in verse 33 down through 36, we find these words.

And you shall not go outside the doorway of the tent of meeting for seven days until the day that the period of your ordination is fulfilled, for he will ordain you through seven days.

Yahweh has commanded to do as has been done this day, to make atonement on your behalf.

At the doorway of the tent of meeting, wherever you shall remain day and night for seven days, and keep the charge of Yahweh so that you will not die.

For so I have been commanded. Thus Aaron and his sons did all the things which

Yahweh had commanded through Moses. Almighty God, creator of heaven and earth, the one true

God who is holy, holy, holy.

Lord, we thank you for your word, the truth that is contained within, and the ways in which these truths direct our lives.

We pray that as we come to your word this morning that your spirit would illuminate your truths to our hearts and minds, that it would change us according to its truths, that it would bring about a response of obedience in our lives.

We are thankful that you are so merciful and gracious to us that by the work of Christ on the cross, his defeat of the grave, his ascension to the throne room of the father, and his constant intercession on our behalf, that we can boldly enter into your presence and make our petitions known.

Lord, we pray that as we are a people transformed by your word, that we would be a people of your word, not only in personal obedience, but in public proclamation, making you known to the ends of the earth.

We rest in the fulfillment of the promise, knowing that your spirit goes both with us and before us.

Give us courage to stand firm, eyes to see, ears to hear, and a mouth with which to rightly proclaim your truth.

We ask all of these things in the name of our blessed Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus. Amen. As we begin our examination of the text this morning,

I would like to actually begin by drawing your attention to a small phrase that is found not in the version or the words in Exodus, but is found in the

Levitical writing. In the 35th chapter in the 8th verse, like all of the verses that we have been reading in parallel in chapter 8 of verse 29, like all of the verses that we have been reading in Leviticus 8 that parallel Exodus chapter 29, this verse is part of the obedience text.

In other words, this is the record of what occurred as the commands of Exodus 29 are put into practice.

The specific phrase that I want to call your attention to is the small phrase, keep the charge of Yahweh.

Now obviously in this text, and we will elaborate a little more directly around the confusion regarding this text and how exactly this ritual or ceremony was to be carried out, but for Moses and the people of God, for Moses and Aaron and his sons, there was no confusion regarding the commands that they had received and the ways in which they were to keep them, not just in part, but in totality of what

God had commanded. Here, this particular verse, this statement refers specifically to keeping the commands regarding this ordination and consecration ceremony.

So the words that we find in Leviticus chapter 8, verse 35, to keep the charge of Yahweh, the charge in reference here is the charge regarding the commands

God has given to ordain and consecrate the priest. However, even though it is specifically relegated to that, what it does do is in the broader scope of scripture, this is a timeless command that we see delivered over and over and over.

The words keep the charge refer to making sure that the commands are obeyed.

Now what's interesting here is this is not just a, as long as you get the gist of it right, it's okay.

This is a, every jot and tittle must be obeyed just as I commanded.

In other words, every single thing that God has laid out for us up to this point,

Moses was supposed to obey perfectly. And we know that he did obey perfectly.

We read those words that all that God commanded was done just as he commanded.

Now, this biblical principle that we see throughout scripture carries with it a command for God's people of all time throughout all the past, continuing into the present and on into the future, is that we have a charge to keep, a command to obey.

Some of you may recall that there is an old hymn written by a gentleman named Charles Wesley.

You can find it in 391 of our hymn book. The title of the hymn is called,

A Charge to Keep I Have. It says, A charge to keep

I have, a God to glorify, a never dying soul to save and fit it for the sky.

To serve the present age, my calling to fulfill, oh may it all my powers engage to do my master's will.

Arm me with watchful care as in thy sight to live, and now thy servant

Lord prepare a strict account to give. Help me watch and pray and still on thee rely, oh let me not my trust betray, but press to realms on high.

Last line of that hymn, we run across the word trust here and typically when we see the word trust our immediate thought goes to a reliance on something, but this is something that has been entrusted to the writer.

In other words, we have been entrusted with a charge to keep.

Now, this charge to be obedient to the commands of God is a challenging one.

It comes with a problem. The problem is us.

The issue that we face here is that apart from a life -altering change, we lack not only the ability to obey the commands of God, but we also lack the desire to obey the commands of God.

Now, if you think back for just a moment on Exodus chapter 29 and Leviticus chapter 8, if you just let your mind go back through these verses,

I want you to think about all of the commands that we see, and if you haven't paid a close attention, you'll notice

Exodus chapter 29 is literally filled with commands. Now, we may want to call it a step -by -step procedure, but it is still commands.

If you look, it says you shall, you shall, then you shall, you shall, then you shall.

You understand these are commands, and so every single one of these particular commands was to be tediously obeyed.

Now, what I want you to think about is how many of those commands were given to Moses and how many of them were given to Aaron and his sons.

Now, in fact, if you study through this passage, you will find that there are only four things that Aaron and his sons are actually doing.

Now, what's interesting here is that we read a lot of things, but there are only four things, and some of those are not even active things.

So, what I mean is active in the sense that they are truly doing it on their own volition versus passive where they are being led to do it, and so the four of those things are one, come when brought.

Now, this is a passive response. In fact, what we see the command is for Moses to bring them, but there is a sense in which they are being obedient and coming, but they would not come had they not been brought.

For us here today, this speaks to us as individuals. Listen, you will not come if you are not brought.

You will not obey if you are not changed by the work of the

Holy Spirit. We have no desire to be obedient to God, no desire to come into the presence of God apart from being regenerated so that we have our desires changed.

Secondly, you will see here that Aaron and his sons are to lay their hands on the head of the sacrifices.

Now, this is an active thing in which they are to do. They are to do it with each one of the three sacrifices that are given.

Again, this is not something magical. We talked about how this represented that they were acknowledging their sins.

They were acknowledging that this sacrifice was taking their place in their punishment for their sin.

We talked about that this was an acknowledgment of them receiving atonement. In other words, they understand that by faith in this work, in this action,

God is counting to them an atonement for their sins, that there's a price that has been paid and accepted for that sin, and then finally, that it demonstrated full and total complete submission to God.

Now, just as they had to lay their hands on their substitute demonstrating faith that God would accept it, so too must we place our faith in the life, the death, the resurrection of Christ, the knowledge that He ascended to the right hand of the

Father, the reality that His full work,

His full work as prophet, as priest, as king is acceptable to God in our stead, in our place, as our substitution and sufficient to bring us fully and completely into God's everlasting presence.

So the first thing that they were to do was to come. The second thing that they were to do was to lay their hands on the sacrifices.

The third thing that they were to do, again, an active thing, is to prepare and consume the fellowship meal.

Now, this is an interesting statement because in Exodus 29, the command that God gives

Moses that we have recorded is that you shall prepare, you shall take the ram of ordination and boil it in its place.

But evidently, there's one of those things in here that we don't understand because we see in the obedience that Moses instruct

Aaron and his sons to do such. And so we know that God had commanded

Moses in that manner. And so they go through this preparation and this consummation of this meal.

Again, as a reminder, this meal served not only as this certification that the covenant had been agreed upon by both parties, but it also as a reminder of the high price that had been paid.

They were consuming the very flesh of an animal that had been sacrificed on their behalf.

Reminding them of this price, bringing them into fellowship, fellowship meal that we will celebrate here this morning serves the same purpose in our lives.

It demonstrates not only the full and complete submission to God through faith in the finished work of Christ, but it also reminds us of the high price that was paid on Calvary's cross, a price that was paid for you and for me.

The fourth thing that we see as thing that Aaron and his sons do is to obey, to obey the command to abide in me.

Our text this morning states unequivocally that they are to remain there for seven days.

When we get into Leviticus, it expands on that, reminding us that they are to be there continually.

This command contains another principle for us, one that is found throughout scripture, that as the people of God, we are to abide in him.

And this is what is going to call our attention or hold our attention for remainder of our time this morning.

Now, as I have mentioned earlier this morning and both earlier in the study, there is some confusion around this particular passage in Exodus 29 and Leviticus 33.

The confusion is something that we want to talk about, and we want to acknowledge that it exists, and we want to do so because I believe that it again reminds us, one, that Moses and the people of Israel knew exactly what they were supposed to do.

There's no question. The word says again, they obeyed.

But secondly, I believe that the reminder, there's another reminder of us here, is that the principles, that although there are principles demonstrated in this text that we here today are to obey, there is much about this text that is not prescriptive.

In other words, it is not something that we are to go out and reproduce. Now, I get it.

It may seem obvious to many of us sitting here. Why we would ever even consider that is just beyond us.

But unfortunately, in our world today, there are two ways in which this statement would be rebuffed.

Now, I'll tell you, these two ways are broken down into many other ways. So, these are the two root causes, okay?

So, there are a lot of other reasons that they would rebuff, but they all kind of boil down to these two things. First, they make the claim that if we believe we are to be obedient to the law of God, it means that we are to be obedient to the moral law, the judicial law, and the ceremonial law.

The judicial and the ceremonial both serve the purpose to the people of Israel.

The judicial law was for the purpose of expounding on the moral law of God, for dealing with specific circumstances, and for the provision of punishment in the event that those laws were broken.

You have to remember, these people in the land of Israel, the Israelites, were a theocratic form of government.

In other words, their government was defined by God. And so,

God gave them their judicial laws, much like we in the

United States of America have a code of laws. This was a code of laws for the people of Israel.

The ceremonial laws or the sacrificial system that we study in the Old Testament existed for the purpose of expiation.

In other words, dealing with the sin, bringing about atonement for those sins that the people did commit and help keep them in the right relationship with God.

So, the reality here is that we are called to obey the moral law. The moral law is the law that we've talked about before that goes all the way back to creation, that was written on the hearts of men then.

It's still written on the hearts of men today. We are still accountable to God for the moral law.

The other way in which this is rebuffed, this statement, this dealing with here, is that we just absolutely need to completely unhitch the

Old Testament from the new. We need to get rid of the Old Testament. It's an old way. It's an angry

God. It's got nothing to do with our New Testament Christianity. But brothers,

I'm going to just tell you, the New Testament Christianity that they preach is not

Christianity at all. What it is, is a self -serving gospel that allows us to feel good about ourselves while demanding nothing from us, no change, no obedience, etc.

These are the primary, again, root denials of this thing. Now, there's two main confusions that we see regarding this text.

The first revolves around the way in which the entire ceremony is conducted, and basically it boils down to the conversation of, was the entire ceremony repeated every day for seven days?

Now, I talked about that one earlier in chapter 29 as we went through. I believe that this is the correct understanding.

The primary school of thought on that is that if repeated daily over that seven -day period.

The different sacrifices and offerings performed on different days. In other words, it was one ceremony spread out across seven days, and one day you would have this one, and one day you would have that one, and one day you would have the other one.

Now, there are different reasons for supporting both of these different ideas, but at the end of the day,

I believe that the right method is that the entire ceremony is repeated daily.

I believe so because I believe it underscores the importance of what was happening. But the other confusion that comes in, comes in regarding verses 36 and 37 of chapter 29.

This confusion has to do with the seven bull sacrifices that are mentioned in 36, and the purification of the altar.

And so the confusion comes in as to whether or not this is a second set of seven bulls that are used to atone for the altar itself, or was this completed during the original seven day, and the seven bulls that are mentioned in the first ceremony are also the same that are mentioned in the second ceremony.

Now, the purpose here is not to confuse you. The whole purpose of even bringing these up is one, so that we know that they exist.

Two, so that we understand that even though they exist, we can step out of that and understand the overall theme, the principle that we see and talked about regarding obedience to God.

Now, as we have walked through various texts and scripture over the course of time, we have looked at and talked about things that as we read, we should be looking for, right?

So we've talked about context, and we've talked about author, and when it was written, and who it was written to, and all of these things.

But one of those things that we have mentioned is that we should be looking for things that repeat themselves.

We should be looking for repetition. In other words, as we read a passage of scripture, there are words, phrases, themes that we see.

Hopefully, as we read through this passage this morning, there was a repeated theme, repeated phrase, repeated situation that grabbed your attention.

In fact, it is there no less than seven times from 35 down through 37.

The idea is being holy or being set apart.

If you'll notice, it began in verse 35, where it simply is talking about this seven -day period of time that is set apart for this ceremony.

Now, the reason that we do want to know a little bit about the confusion is because it may change the way we view this ceremony a little.

What it doesn't do, however, is change the fact that within seven days, this seven -day period to be ordained, something is occurring.

Now, you'll notice that in verse 35, we don't see the word set apart. We don't see the word holy. However, we do know that it is tied to the rest of the ceremony.

If you begin at verse 1 of 29 and read down through and count how many times you see the word set apart, how many times you see the word holy, you begin to get the idea that something is happening here to declare these men as holy.

Now, not one single step in all of chapter 29 by itself declared them holy.

Do you see that? None of the things that were done individually was sufficient to declare them holy.

What it took was perfect obedience to the entirety of what was commanded, and then it had to be accepted by God.

If they had obeyed to the letter, all but one little teeny thing,

God was certainly within his right to deem it unacceptable and therefore them not be holy.

Now, even though at the end of the seven days, they went through this entire process, they were declared holy, you should remember that this was not something that lasted for them.

You see, for these priests, Aaron as the high priest, his sons as the ordinary priest, the holiness that they gained was fleeting.

Remember we read in Hebrews, they had to sacrifice every day, first for their sins and then for the sins of the people.

We, as a royal priesthood, and hear me brothers and sisters, we need to be made holy in order to enter the presence of Almighty God.

We cannot enter into his presence apart from being made holy, set apart, declared righteous, made just.

We talked multiple times about this effect that we see in Scripture of people who enter into the presence of Almighty God.

And of course, my favorite is Isaiah as he calls out, woe is me for I am undone.

You see, they had to do this daily. Daily, they had to sacrifice to maintain.

We, we simply turn to Christ, the one true sacrifice, the one who even now stands in the presence of Almighty God, ministering, interceding on our behalf.

This command regarding this seven days has to do with abiding in the presence of Almighty God.

Now, in our worship conversation on Wednesday nights, we've been talking about that as we draw near to God, he draws near to us, our relationship deepens.

We, as a royal priesthood, do not bear the sins before God in the way that Aaron and the

Levitical priesthood did. But here's what we do bear.

And here's something you'll hear in very few places in the world today. We bear the responsibility for our sins.

We bear the responsibility of repenting for our sins.

Somehow in Christianity today, we have redefined what it means to be a believer.

We have developed this idea from somewhere in outer space that repentance is a one -time event that as soon as we can check that off the box, we don't have to worry about it anymore.

That scripture, that is so far away from what scripture teaches. What we see demonstrated is that, man, if we can get people on an emotional high, if we can get them to come to the altar with tears streaming down their face, that they will profess their sorrow, they will repent, they will sign a membership card, they will let us baptize them, we can all celebrate because we did it.

And brothers and sisters, this is a false gospel and is a lie.

In fact, this is specifically what Paul was addressing in his letter to the church at Galatia when he wrote in Galatians 1, 6 through 10,

I marvel that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is not really another gospel, only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to the gospel we have proclaimed to you, let him be accursed.

Let him be an anathema. As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is proclaiming to you a gospel contrary to what you have received, let him be accursed.

Let him be an anathema. For now, am I seeking now the favor of men or of God?

Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a slave of Christ.

If we read scripture, what we see is a continual call for us to repent, to examine ourselves, to obey in response to the work that has been done.

Listen, as a Christian, we should desire to repent and be able to do so in such a way that we understand that our sins are forgiven.

That is the beauty of repenting as a Christian. If you are truly a believer, if you have truly by faith been brought into the family of God, you have been adopted, you have been justified, you repent knowing that your sins are forgiven.

But then you turn and you walk in the direction of Christ.

You are like the lady that they brought out and threw down before Christ, stating that she was an adulteress, wanting justice.

Jesus squats down and begins writing in the sand. One by one they eventually leave.

I am obviously shortening the story. But finally all the accusers are gone.

And the woman tells Jesus, when he asks, where are your accusers? She says they have left.

And he says, well, I do not condemn you either. Now what is funny is our quote unquote brothers and sisters, they want to stop the message there.

No, Jesus did not condemn her. We should not condemn her either. But Jesus also told her, go and sin no more.

Do not continue to live in that life. Change that life.

Be obedient to me. Obey my commands. We tend to as humans have a very short memory.

This is why I think the ceremony was repeated daily. I believe the ceremony was repeated daily because we as people have a short memory.

In fact, we are very, very quick to forgive ourselves and forget.

But usually we are very, very slow to forgive others. But I want you to think for just a minute what it would look like to abide in him.

Think about the words that we have written for us regarding this abiding, this action that they are to take, whereby they are to maintain this place for seven days, night and day, scripture tells us.

Leviticus 8 verse 35. At the doorway of the tent of meeting, moreover, you shall remain day and night for seven days.

Seven days they were to stay at this doorway of the tent of meeting in the presence of almighty God. And we've talked a moment, just a moment ago about all of the times we see in scripture, the effect that being in the presence of God has on people.

We know that later on as Moses interacts with the presence of God, his face will literally glow as he comes out to the point where he had to put a veil over his face so that he didn't frighten the people because the glory of God, just this reflection, this presence, not even the full real face -to -face glory of God so affected him.

Now Aaron and his sons are supposed to sit here in this presence with this ceremony on their mind continually night and day for seven days.

Can you imagine what was on their mind? Can you imagine the thoughts that may have gone through their head continually being confronted with their sins, with their disobedience?

I used the example a couple of weeks ago of Aaron's adventure with the calf, the idol that he had just made for these people.

While Moses was receiving these instructions, Aaron is down here building a golden calf, the one that God said is going to be his high priest.

Can you imagine sitting there in God's presence recalling these things, knowing that the first commandment was demolished, the second commandment likewise?

And then quite honestly, if you want to, you can really just go from there because it's like dominoes. I wonder if we were to abide in God's presence like that for seven days.

If we were to go home and for seven days spend time reading

God's word, praying, and just abiding in his presence, how would that impact your life?

How would it view the way that you see yourself? My prayer is that it would be bittersweet.

Bitter because you are being continually reminded of the sins that you have committed. Sweet because you are also reminded that those sins by faith in Christ have been forgiven, that we see who we are, and that reminds us all the more of who he is and what he has done for us.

So as we come to the closing of our time in God's word together this morning, and as we continually prepare our hearts for coming to the

Lord's table, let us hear and let us heed the charge of Yahweh.

Just as Aaron and his sons were commanded to keep this charge, so too are we charged to keep the trust that has been delivered to us.

Paul in his beautiful writing to Timothy writes these words,

I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and in the presence of Christ Jesus, who is the judge of the living and the dead and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word.

Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction.

Church, listen. Here, you are not a passive observer in your faith.

Your faith is not a show. It is not something that you sit back on the couch and you watch it pass by.

You have been consecrated by the blood of Christ. You have been set apart as a royal priesthood.

You have been called as such to abide in him day by day, moment by moment.

You, you, the church, the body of Christ, the royal priesthood, the family of God, have each been charged to proclaim

Christ to your children, to your neighbors, to a world that will not endure sound doctrine, but instead heaps upon itself teachers that they want to hear because they have itching ears.

Even in the midst of all of these things, we are called to proclaim the truth. To do this, you must test yourself.

Listen, we've talked about preparation and testing and thinking about all of these things before we come to the table, but this literally should be a daily occurrence in the life of a believer.

You should continually be evaluating yourself. You should continually be aligning yourself with God's word.

You should continually be laying yourself against the word of God and then adjusting yourself as necessary.

This is a call not just to avoid hypocrisy. It's a call to remember the holiness of the one who has called us, the one who is holy, holy, holy.

It means that you and I reject cheap grace, grace that excuses sin rather than confessing and confronting sin.

It means living lives that demonstrate we have been truly brought near by his blood, that we know and understand the cost of the fellowship meal that we are about to share together.

So again, brothers and sisters, in the presence of almighty

God, I exhort you to examine yourselves, that each of us should truly repent, to truly continue daily in this repentance.

Abide in his presence, not just in this hour, not just in this moment, but through his word in your homes, through prayer without ceasing, through obedient lives and in our love for one another.

Let us keep this charge. We not turn aside to myths or to comforts that dull our spiritual senses, but that we stand firm on the truth once delivered for all the saints.

And so I close with this question. Will you keep the charge of Yahweh?

Will you remain at the doorway of his presence, refusing to wander away into complacency, into half -hearted faith, into a

Christianity that costs nothing and demands nothing? Will you, by his grace, abide in him, proclaim him, present yourself as a living sacrifice that is holy, acceptable, and pleasing before God?

As we come to his table in just a few moments, let that question search your heart.

For he is worthy of nothing less than our wholehearted obedience, our wholehearted abiding love.

May we keep the charge he has given us until the day that we see him face to face.

Let us pray. Gracious and holy

God, we thank you for your word, the word which pierces our hearts, calls us to holiness.

Help us, Lord. Help us to keep the charge that you have given to us, to abide in you daily, to proclaim your truth boldly, and to live lives worthy of the calling.

We have received. Almighty God, we pray that you cleanse us from our hidden sins, that our minds are renewed by your word, that we are strengthened, and that we follow you with undivided hearts.

Lord, we come now to your table. Grant that we would do so with reverence and with gratitude, remembering the sacrifice of our

Lord Jesus Christ, who made atonement for us once for all.

Father, may we walk in obedience, love one another deeply, and make your glory known to the ends of the earth as a result of your spirit's work in our life.

Father, we pray that we make your glory known, and we ask all of these things in the precious and holy name of our