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with me to the epistle of 1 John. Just taking a short break myself,
at least from the Book of Galatians, just for one sermon, so I can
jump back into its subject matter. So this evening we're going to
look at 1 John 3.1, and the status of Christians as those who are
the sons and daughters of God. A blessed privilege that we have
as Christians, a privilege undeserved, that we can be called the sons
and daughters of God or the children of God. So I'm going to read
1 John 3, 1. We'll pray and then we'll have
a look at this blessed verse. Behold what manner of love the
Father has bestowed on us that we should be called children
of God. Therefore, the world does not
know us because it did not know Him. Amen. Well, let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you
for your word. We rejoice in your goodness to
us here this evening and worship that we can freely gather to
worship our blessed God, the one and only living and true
God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that we can reflect upon the
glories of Jesus and that we can sing of your amazing grace.
And we pray as we continue in worship in the act of preaching,
you would be with us by your spirit. Illumine our minds that
we might understand all the more the things of your holy word.
And we pray that saints would be edified, that sinners would
be saved by spirit and word, and that in all things you would
be honored and glorified. We pray in Christ's name, amen.
It's a wonderful verse that we have before us. We're gonna look
at doing five things in an analysis of sometimes one single word,
but other times certain clauses that we have in this particular
verse. And the five things we're going
to look at are these. First, the Christian imperative
to consider and be astonished. Secondly, the surpassing wonder
of the love of God. Thirdly, the unmerited love of
God. Fourthly, the Christian's status
in union with Christ, and then lastly, the result of all this
as it concerns the world. So first off, with regards to
the Christian imperative to consider and be astonished, we're going
to consider the very first word of this verse, and this word
alone, the word behold. It's not usually the case that
we just simply focus on one single word, but there's something significant
about this word, not only here, but also how it's used elsewhere
in the Bible. In fact, in the New Testament,
there are at least 10 different words for what is translated
look, or see, or behold, or the word low, as in low I am with
you always, even to the end of the age. And some of those looks
are looks of investigation. Sometimes it's a look of scrutiny. Sometimes it's a look of anticipation
of something that is forthcoming. In the case of the word that
we have here that's translated behold, it actually comes from
a Greek word that we through the ages of etymology get our
word idea. Something that is formed in the
mind, something that captures the mind, and something that
we see in the way of an idea or a significant thing. The word
base being used here is the same of that announcing angel when
he says, Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring
forth a son. As well, that well-known behold,
behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The
word form here, though, it's a little bit different than that.
It's the same base word, but the word is an imperative, a
command, call to attentively consider something of very great
significance and So this word behold is not simply a common
look or see but something wherein the Apostle John here is Calling
upon his audience to lay hold of something of great significance
Jesus Christ uses the same employ when he says behold my hands
and my feet and the The Samaritan woman uses the same word when
she says, come see a man who told me all things I ever did.
And the angels at the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, when
they say, come see the place where the Lord lay. So we have
this word behold, and it's given as an imperative. It's given
as a commandment, but not some burdensome one. It's a joyful
command. It's a joyful imperative for
the recipients of John's letter to get their mind captivated
by the subject matter that is to follow, to look with eyes
of faith upon something of great significance. And that's what
we have, secondly, in the surpassing wonder of the love of God. Notice,
behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us. What
manner of love? This blessed phrase captures
at least three things, and I think what's primarily in view is the
divine love demonstrated in the incarnation of the Son, which
is the source or foundation of our adoption as sons and daughters
of God. the soteriological, the salvific,
the saving foundation for our status as children of God. So,
we often think about that demonstration love of God, the love of God
as it is demonstrated. But the first thing we ought
to consider with this, behold what manner of love, The Father
has bestowed on us is the love of God in light of his essential
glory Notice if you turn with me in the same epistle to first
John 4 8 1st John 4 8 as we consider the love of God
in light of His essential glory. Notice in 1 John 4, 7. Beloved,
let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone
who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love
does not know God, for God is love. As Pastor Butler has said
on a number of occasions in his preaching, when we consider the
Creator, creature distinction and when we consider the divine
perfections or the the attributes of God We're not to consider
those things for for our case this evening the love of God
we're not to consider these things as if God is on the same scale
or chain of being as his creation as if to say we have cockroach
dog cat Dolphin. Raven. man, angel, God. And that if we just jump in at
the point of humanity, that we have man's love, and God is just
sort of the maximal expression of human love, but on a higher
scale. When we consider the creator
of all things, his love, as he says himself, is himself. The theologians say all that
is in God is God. And this verse speaks to that
blessed reality that God is not made up of his perfections. There
aren't things that are more absolute than God, like love, like goodness,
like justice, like righteousness, that he sort of appropriates
to make himself to be God, but God is the very things that are
predicated of him. Gregory of Nazianzus wrote, speaking
of the perfection of the Godhead, foreseeing that its every quality
is incomprehensible and beyond the power of our intellect, How
can we either perceive or express by definition on such a subject
that which is beyond our ken or beyond our knowledge? How
can the immeasurable be measured and the Godhead be reduced to
the condition of finite things and measured by degrees of greater
or less? As John is writing, behold what
manner of love, he wants us to see what the Bible everywhere
speaks, that the love of God is immeasurable, and it is immutable. This is a wonderful thing with
regards to our God. He is beyond all metrics, and
we want a God who is that. The theologians of old would
say a God who can be measured is no God at all and certainly
not a God to be worshipped God is God dwells in an everlasting
and an eternal boundless now in his infinity and and his love
is boundless. He doesn't love us a little bit
more on Thursday and then a little bit less on Friday. His love
does not wax and wane, but his love is perfect because God is
love. Augustine wrote, God is not what
he has, but he is what he is. For in him it is not one thing
to be and another to be great or another to be good, But for
him to be is the same as to be great, to be good, and to be
wise, and whatever else we can say of that simple multiplicity,
or rather, that multifold simplicity. So when we speak of the love
of God, when John opens up and says, behold, that is, captivate
your minds, and for a moment, rouse yourselves, and with the
eyes of faith, lay hold of something, And when he brings forth that
something as the manner of the love of the Father, we're to
glory in, and the beholder is to look upon a God who does not
change in his love, but is most loving, perfect in his love,
with a love that cannot lessen, that cannot increase, because
it is perfect. And secondly, under the surpassing
wonder of the love of God, we should consider the love of God
in light of our sinfulness. That's something that's in view
here. When he writes, Behold what manner
of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called
the children of God, we are to consider our former sinfulness,
our present sinfulness, as far as our remaining corruption,
but our former sinfulness, that though we were marked as those
who were dead in trespasses and sins, though we were marked as
those, as Paul writes to Titus, for we ourselves were once foolish,
disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures,
living in malice and envy, et cetera, that though we were marked
by that, nevertheless, God and his unchangeable love made us
to be children of God by virtue of the blessed and perfect work
of Jesus Christ. When we consider the love of
God, we are to consider His divine perfections, and we are secondly
to consider the fact that He made us alive in Christ when
we were dead in our trespasses and sins. You can turn with me
to Romans in chapter 5. Romans chapter 5. Speaking of the glory of the
love of God in light of our sinfulness, we have this wonderful passage
in Romans 5 that speaks to the love of God in spite of the fact
that we were once ourselves marked as those who were foolish, disobedient,
deceived, etc. Notice Romans 5, beginning at
verse 6. For when we were still without
strength, In due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely
for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man
someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own
love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ
died for us. What a wonderful thing we have
here in the demonstration of divine love. The height of the
demonstration of divine love is seen in exactly this, that
His love is demonstrated towards us in that while we were still
sinners, Christ died for us. In other words, as we find our
way back to 1 John, Our status as children is not because we're
awesome, because we're great, because we've somehow earned
it by virtue of some natural greatness, but rather in spite
of our sin, and while we were still yet sinners, dead in our
trespasses and sins, God made us alive in Christ to be the
children of God. And that is what we see next,
thirdly, under this surpassing wonder of the love of God, is
the love of God in light of the incarnation of the Son of God.
The same word used here, where we read what manner of love the
Father has bestowed on us, that language of bestowed, is the
same word used, the same word form, used in John 3.16. Pastor
Butler spent some wonderful time on that in the last few minutes
of his sermon this morning. Speaking of the fact that God
so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, it's the
same word used here with regards to bestowed. It's a gracious
divine gifting of something. But we're we're not quite there
yet in light of the incarnation of the Son of God notice in first
John 4 Speaking of the demonstration of the love of God with regards
to the incarnation And this is this is more pointedly what John
it has in view not that he doesn't have The perfection the divine
perfection of love and view and of course not that he doesn't
have The former sinfulness and the love of God visited upon
those who were dead in sins, but he probably has primarily
the demonstration of the love of God in the incarnation. And
do you notice in 1 John 4, After that portion that we read with
regards to God is love, notice at verse 9, 1 John 4, 9. In this,
the love of God was manifested toward us that God has sent his
only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved
us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. This is in essence what? John is calling upon his audience
and what God is calling upon us to behold to look upon to
to grasp with the eyes of faith It is the glory of the visitation
of divine love in the incarnation of the Son of God this this language
of behold and its weightiness as an imperative and its weightiness
as calling upon an audience to look upon something is picked
up by the early church fathers and it's picked up by Chris Austin
in a in a more elaborate or repeated way. And the language he uses
isn't necessarily behold, but in his stylish way, he would
use the language of attend to his audience, attend I entreat
you and rouse yourselves. And at the point of the demonstration
of the love of God, in the incarnation of the Son of God, he uses that
language in his exposition of Philippians 2, 5-11, which speaks
of the incarnation, the one who's in the form of God, who did not
consider equality with God something to be held on to, but humbled
himself in the incarnation, taking on the form of a bondservant.
Chris Austin says, attend I and treat you and rouse yourselves.
And then he gives this glorious picture of, he kind of personifies
Philippians 2, 5 to 11 as a warrior with a sword. And he sets up
this picture of all of these heretics throughout the ages
who have opposed the glory of the incarnation of the son of
God, his person and his work. And he calls upon his audience
to behold, to look at a spectacle where this warrior with a single
sword comes crashing down upon what he pictures as Roman soldiers
that are the heretics who are shielding themselves under shields. And the sword of the spirit of
Philippians 2, 5 to 8, the glory of the incarnation, comes smashing
down and shatters them into a thousand pieces. We behold the spectacle
of such glory. We behold what manner of love
the Father has bestowed on us in light of the blessed incarnation
of the Son of God. He died as an expression and
demonstration of the love of God as he bore substitutionarily
the wrath of God in our stead. The language of Galatians 2.20
is glorious. Remember what Paul writes there.
He writes that as far as he lives by the Spirit, he lives by faith
in the Son of God. And he doesn't say, who loved
sinners and gave himself for sinners, though that would be
glorious, and that is glorious, and that's true. He doesn't say
Christ who loved us and gave himself for us, though that's
true and that's glorious, but he says the Son of God who loved
me and gave himself for me. The connection of love to the
incarnation of the Son of God connecting to the behold, which
is to land upon the eyes and ears of Christians to cause them
to look with eyes of faith upon so glorious a demonstration Divine
love the father would send the son in the fullness of the times
to give himself for guilty sinners What a glorious expression what
manner of love the father has bestowed on us notice thirdly
the it's the unmerited love of God and What manner of love the
Father has bestowed on us. Again, that same word base employed
in John 3.16, the gracious gifting by God. Our confession of faith
uses the language that God vouchsafed us to be partakers of the grace
of adoption. That's wherein our sonship and
our daughterhood consists. Our children of godness consists
in God vouchsafing us, that is, giving us a gracious gift, unearned,
unmerited, undeserved, to be the children of God. What a blessed
thing it is. It's the unmerited love of God. The Father has bestowed on us
that we should be called the children of God. As the Bible
everywhere does, as God through Revelation everywhere does, He
calls us, the word calls us to reflect upon the fact that we
are Christians, not because of us, but because of God. We are
saints by calling, not because of us, but because of God. We
are the children of God, certainly not by nature, and certainly
not because of us, but solely and alone because of God. And
we'll notice here shortly that The reality is set forth that
we're children of God, not because of us, because we once were children
of wrath, but the unmerited love of God. The whole scheme of salvation,
the whole plan of salvation, the whole blessed chain of redemption
connects itself to the fact that we are the blessed yet undeserved
recipients of the gracious gifting of God. as we reflect upon our former
selves, as we reflect upon the fact that we ourselves were once
foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures
full of malice and envy. And we reflect now upon the fact
that we can come into a place and with joyful Christian hearts,
worship the triune God, rejoice in Christ and sing the praises
of grace. We're to reflect upon the fact
that our salvation is by virtue of divine condescension and the
bestowal of love and grace and all those glories connected to
the goodness of God. Fourthly, the Christian status
in union with Christ. And this gets to the core of
this statement here with respect to Christians being the children
of God. The Christian status in union
of God, in union with Christ. Behold what manner of love the
Father has bestowed on us, that. So this is sort of the thing
that is to be beholden. The thing that is to be beheld,
rather. what manner of love is certainly to be beheld, the bestowal
of a certain status is to be beheld, and all of that comes
to this, that we should be called children of God. The language,
or we should say the theme of sonship, takes up prime real
estate in the Bible. the theme of fatherhood and sonship. Just a brief tour through the
biblical sonships that we have in the Bible, and there are a
number of them. They're all significant, and
some of them connect. More than one connect to the
theme that we have before us as Christians being children
of God. We have at least 10 types of
sonship in the Bible. We have the first and greatest
of all, which is the unique eternal sonship of the Son of God. He
is Son of God by nature. He is one in substance, one in
being, of one nature with Him who begat Him. He is eternally
begotten of the Father. In a manner that is glorious
and that is impossible to comprehend, yet is revealed truth, and a
revealed truth that we are to glory in the unique eternal sonship
of the Son of God. We also have angelic sonship. Angelic sonship. The angels are
called the sons of God in the book of Job. Not only there,
but primarily in the book of Job. And specifically, the angels
probably created on day one of creation They're created on day
one, and they behold the glory of the creation, and they sing
with joy. We have, thirdly, creational
sonship. We are, as humans, the sons of
God, by virtue of creation, but not in that special, redemptive,
and glorious, and Christian way. The Apostle Paul, appropriating
a poem about Zeus and to Zeus in Acts 17, appropriates it for
a sacred and glorious use to argue that we are all the offspring
of God in that proclamation to the Athenian philosophers. We
also have diabolical sonship. Christ says to the unbelieving
Jews, you are of your father the devil and the desires of
your father you want to do. We have Adamic sonship. We are
the sons and daughters of Adam. By virtue of our connection to
him outside of Christ, we are the sons and daughters of Adam.
We are the recipients. Our confession calls them our
first parents. We have, as well, national sonship. And this probably takes up the
larger portion of, for example, the Old Testament. It is typological
and it points forward to Christ, but the national sonship of Israel. Within that, you have Abrahamic
sonship according to the flesh and you also have the sons of
God the godly Sethite line connected to that and in Genesis 6 but
national sonship God calls Israel his son the Israelites call God
their father There is a we could call it covenantal or a corporate
sonship We have also and bear with me with this one typological
monarchical sonship We have God in the promise to David, the
Davidic covenant, that his sons would be blessed. Ultimately,
it points to the greater than David, David's son, properly
speaking, the Lord Jesus Christ, who would in the fullness of
the times perfect covenant promises. But the sons of David, according
to the flesh, the lineage of monarchs, were sons of God. We have, getting closer to our
sonship that's before us, we have the unique mediatorial sonship
of Jesus Christ. And this bears a very important
connection, as does the Adamic sonship that we previously mentioned
to our text tonight. But the unique mediatorial sonship
of Jesus Christ. This speaks to the fact that
Christ is a son in the incarnation to God. Remember that language
at the baptism of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then later at the
transfiguration, where a voice comes down from heaven and says,
this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. No doubt he
is the beloved son with respect to his unique eternal sonship
as the one who is eternally begotten of the Father, but as the last
Adam and as the obedient and true Israel, he is the obedient
son that perfects obedience for his people. We have as well evangelical
sonship, John uses the language of my little children. Paul uses
the language of Timothy being his son. The apostles would have
sort of sons and daughters by virtue of they being the recipients
of the proclamation of the gospel, and in a way, spiritual sons
and daughters. And then our last sonship is
given to us here, and that is redemptive sonship. Behold what
manner of love the father has bestowed on us that we should
be called the children of God redemptive sonship and What a
blessed thing that is because what were we beforehand? We were
children of wrath we were we were sons and daughters of Adam
justly deserving the punishment for our transgressions against
the law of God. The Apostle Paul uses that language. We were once children of wrath,
just as the others. So what a blessed thing then
it is for Christians to behold the manner of love that our blessed
God has bestowed on us, that we can now be called the children
of God. As you can reflect upon your
career prior to being adopted into God's family by amazing
grace as you can reflect upon transgressions born each and
every day and and each and every second That you were children
of wrath that we are were that we all were children of wrath
What a blessed thing we can say now that we are the children
of God not because of us But because of the perfection of
the work of Christ and the amazing grace of God applied to our souls
our previous sonship, we were children of wrath, we were the
sons and daughters of Adam, the rightful inheritors and heirs
of eternal damnation, but we now have a present and abiding
sonship. We have the spirit of adoption. And our redemptive sonship looks
back then upon the fact that we once had a sonship as sons
and daughters of Adam, inheritors of the curse, But the obedient
son, the one who has a unique eternal sonship, who took on
in the incarnation our humanity to bear a mediatorial sonship,
unlike Adam, who was a son of God, unlike Adam, he is perfectly
obedient to the law of God. Unlike Israel, who bore a national
corporate, covenantal sonship to God the Father, the true Israel
Jesus Christ perfects obedience for his people who are turned
by grace from being children of wrath to children of the blessed
God. Just to briefly look at the fact
that we are sons and daughters of God by adoption, you can turn
first with me to the book of Ephesians. The language of adoption is used
with regards to our sonship because we are not by nature children
of God. You know, the common trope or
the common theme of the spiritually ambiguous and the The well-meaning
but terribly wrong Christians who say we're all children of
God and in this some sort of universal way Has emotional weight,
but it doesn't have biblical propriety. We are the children
of God we are adopted and Sons and daughters of God humans are
not the sons of God redemptively by nature but notice in Ephesians
chapter 1 we have this wonderful language of adoption being connected
to the predestinating love of God in Ephesians 1 beginning
at verse 3 blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus
Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the
heavenly places in Christ just as he chose us in him and Before
the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without
blame before him now notice in love Having predestined us to
adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself According to the good
pleasure of his will to the praise of his glorious grace by which
he made us accepted in the beloved having predestined us in love
to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ you can turn to Galatians
and Here in Galatians 2, Galatians 4 rather, the Apostle Paul here
connects adoption, our adoption, to the mediation of Christ, his
incarnation specifically, and the giving of the Spirit. Notice
in Galatians 4 at verse 4. But when the fullness of the
time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born
under the law, to redeem those who were under the law. Notice
that we might receive the adoption as sons. So one of the purposes
of the incarnation was to make those who were once children
of wrath the sons of God through the perfection of saving work
and by the grace of God. the incarnation designed to bring
many sons from wrath to glory through the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And notice the spirit connected here in verse
6. And because you are sons, God
has sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying
out, Abba, Father. Therefore, you are no longer
a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir of
God through Christ. Think of that for a moment, we're
heirs of God. Having once been by virtue of
our connection to Adam and Eve as the sons and daughters of
Adam and the inheritors, the heirs of everlasting curse and
damnation, we are now by grace those who are heirs of God through
Christ. were to behold that with the
full weight of our Christian sight, the eyes of faith, to
behold so glorious a thing. And notice in this passage that
we have the blessed triunity of God connected to our adoption. When the fullness of the time
had come, God the Father sent forth his Son, of course, the
Son, and then we have the Spirit of God sent into our hearts by
which we cry out, Abba, Father. Our adoption as sons and daughters
of God is connected to the blessed triunity of God, the trinity
of persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. are present and
abiding sonship. It is an abiding sonship. We are the sons and daughters
of God. We are the inheritors of everlasting
life. We have a blessed inheritance
laid up for us. And one of the things our confessions
brings out, and we're going to close, if you turn back to 1
John, there's one final clause that we'll spend two minutes
and 33 seconds on. But as the sons and daughters
of God, our confession brings out the reality that God then
pities us as his children, he protects us as his children,
and he chastens us as his children, which are all called blessed
privileges to those who are part of the household of God. As children of God, we are under
the parentage of a blessed God who pities us, who looks down
upon us, who sees our weaknesses, he sees our trials, he sees our
afflictions, he sees that we are beset on all sides by wickedness
and he pities us and he helps us by his spirit. The blessed thing as well is
that he also chastens us. As the Apostle Paul brings out
in the book of Hebrews, we should never, he doesn't say this, but
we should never straight-arm the chastening of God, but we
should welcome it as his children. when he sends upon us the trials
and sometimes even the afflictions and the disciplines of chastening,
we are to see that as a gracious and a loving father, bringing
us through a season that we might all the more on the other side
of the trial, on the other side of the affliction, on the other
side of the hardship, be all the more conformed to his blessed
son. Closing then with 1st John chapter
3 in verse 1, lastly the result of all this as it concerns the
world. Notice the language at the end
of verse 1. There's a therefore here. Therefore
the world does not know us because it did not know him. This is
language that Pastor Butler has been bringing out very recently.
Jesus Christ, know that if the world hates you, It hated me
first. What is the reason behind, one
of the significant reasons behind the world's enmity for Christians,
the world's opposition to Christians, the world's ultimate, their opposition
to Christ's people? It is the reality that they do
not know the Father, and so they do not know us. and they look
upon us as those representing the God and the Christ that they
oppose by their actions, by their thoughts, and by their deeds.
The world does not know us. We are the children of God, and
they know nothing of us, and therefore, ultimately, they oppose
us, they persecute us, and when they have their way, they seek
to destroy us. We ought to be encouraged that
in spite of all that, and with that in light, we are called
the children of God by virtue of the perfection of the work
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is a God in high heaven
who sits above the earth, as it were, looks down upon the
earth with derision upon those who oppose his church. He pities,
he protects us, and he strengthens us for this battle in this lower
world, not a battle according to the flesh, but a spiritual
battle against the enemies of the Christian gospel. We are
the blessed children of God, and what an honor it is for us
to be able to, with eyes of faith, behold the blessed realities
of divine love, of divine gracious bestowal, of the blessed truth
that we've been adopted into the family of God. and that we
are the inheritors of everlasting life. As we go into this week,
we should engage in that high and lofty beholding of the blessings
of God, the high and lofty divine perfection of love, the reality
that though we were once dead in our trespasses and sins, yet
God in His love brought us forth to be His children, to behold
the blessed incarnation of the eternal Son of God who took upon
Himself our humanity to save us from our sins. As we go into
this week, let us be encouraged by that, even though the world
does not know us because it did not know Him, the Lord Jesus
Christ, God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, though the world
opposes us, we can rest upon the fact that the sovereign God
of high heaven protects His children. He encourages His children. He
uplifts His children. And if you're here tonight and
you're outside of Christ, know that you are the children of
wrath, the inheritors of everlasting damnation. But there is such
blessed hope in the God of amazing grace, who alone has the power
to make you a child of God. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and you shall be saved and enter that blessed household of faith.
Well, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you
for your word. We rejoice in your truth to us.
We thank you so much for the fact that we can be called the
children of God, not because of what we have done, not by
virtue of any good deed or good thought or any obedience on our
part, but solely and alone by virtue of the obedience of the
obedient Son, even Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. We pray
that you'd help us to reflect with great glory that we would
behold with eyes of faith the glories of our God in condescending
love and making us who were once children of wrath the children
of God by amazing grace. Go with us into this week, help
us to glory in Christ, help us to conduct ourselves in a manner
worthy of the gospel of Christ, and help us to return in one
week's time to enter into this place to once again Gathered
together as the saints of Christ to worship Father Son and Holy
Spirit and we pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen
We'll have a brief time of prayer when the piano
