Turn in your Bibles to John chapter 14. John 14, I'll begin reading at verse 1. We'll read to verse 11, though our focus this evening will just be on the first six verses. The context, the larger, broader context is what's called the upper room discourse.
The Lord Jesus is getting ready to go to the cross, and in John chapters 13 to 16, He spends time with his disciples. He instructs them. He encourages them. He equips them for their ministry in his absence.
Or when he dies, he rises again. He ascends on high. The Lord Christ has specific orders for his apostles that they go out and preach and teach and plant churches and all that sort of thing. So in the context of the upper room, he is primarily seeking to encourage, to stir them on, or spur them on to faithfulness in his absence.
So beginning in verse 1 at chapter 14, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself. That where I am, there you may be also. And where I go, you know, and the way you know.
Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my father also.
And from now on, you know him and have seen him. Philip said to him, Lord, show us the father, and it is sufficient for us. Jesus said to him, if I've been with you so long and yet you have not known me, Philip, he who has seen me has seen the father. So how can you say, show us the father?
Do you not believe that I am in the father and the father in me? The words that I speak to you, I do not speak on my own authority. The father who dwells in me does the works. Believe me that I am in the father and the father in me. or else, believe me, for the sake of the works themselves.
Amen. Well, let us pray. Our Father, we thank You for this, Your Word. We pray for the ministry and the aid of Your Spirit now.
We ask God for Your blessing. We ask God for strength. We ask God that You would see us through the various troubles and the trials and the difficulties that we face in this lower world. Increase our faith in the Son of God.
Increase our faith in your glorious promises and in your purposes. Give us grace to submit willingly to your rule and to your government. And we pray through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Introduction
Well, this is a very familiar passage of Holy Scripture, the entirety of the Upper Room Discourse. As I said, we're going to just focus this evening on verses 1 to 6 under two broad considerations. In verses 1 to 3, the Lord Jesus highlights his departure and his return. He does say to them that he is going to depart, but he tells them specifically where he is going and why he is doing that.
And then secondly, as a result of what he says there, it raises the question, Thomas says, we do not know where you are going. That is then the setting for his statement concerning himself being the way, the truth, and the life. So we have the departure and return of Jesus, verses one to three, and then we have the way to God through Jesus, in verses five and six. So that is our map for this evening.
Departure and Return of Jesus
Let us first notice the departure and return of Jesus in verses 1 to 3. He begins with a command. He begins with instruction all along the way in the upper room. As I said, He is encouraging.
He is spurring them on. He is stirring them up. He is giving them instruction so that when He returns to His Father, they will faithfully execute the task of preaching the gospel, making disciples, and planting churches. In other words, carrying out the Great Commission.
And notice the nature of the command in chapter 14 at verse 1.
The Command Against Heart Trouble
Let not your heart be troubled. Now, Jesus speaks to specific issues. He doesn't just throw out commands that would never have application. The Bible doesn't just suggest things.
The Bible addresses real-life issues in real-life situations and contexts. Certainly, these men would be susceptible to heart trouble. The master they love, the master they are presently dining with, the master they've come to adore, the master they've come to trust in, is going to be violently ripped away from them. Soul or heart trouble is not something, or it is something that is frequent in the lives of God's people.
Jesus Christ in the Gospel account itself has this soulish or heart trouble. Notice in chapter 11 at verse 33 when he's at the graveside of Lazarus. Therefore when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her weeping, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled and he said, where have you laid him? And then in John chapter 12 verse 27, as he's looking forward to the cross, he says, Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say?
Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose I came to this hour. And then again in John 13 at verse 21, When Jesus had said these things, He was troubled in spirit and testified and said, Most assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray me. There is something very illegitimate, something very hypocritical, something very phony, and something very offensive about an approach to Christianity that describes it like a Disney movie, that describes it like all we ever do is skip our way into heaven. that describes it as if the bluebirds attend us with their fins, or with their wings, making our way unhindered. There is something vile about that depiction of the Christian life that minimizes the trial, that minimizes the difficulty, that minimizes the hardship.
When you read the Psalter, for instance, Psalms 42, and 43. What do you find the psalmist crying out? Why are you downcast, O my soul? Hope thou in God.
Jeremiah has been called the weeping prophet. Isaiah the prophet describes our Lord Jesus Christ as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. So the reality is, it's not that there's no trouble in the Christian life, no affliction, no hardship, no trial, but what Jesus is speaking to here is, do not be paralyzed by heart trouble. Do not let it get you down to the point of inactivity.
Do not let it get you to the point where you are ready to give up. You are to fight. You are to persevere. You are to realize that in this world, you will have tribulations.
So he ends this whole discourse. But be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world. Notice the Lord Christ is about to go to the cross. And the Lord Christ is concerned that they are not bereft of heart trouble, or they are not experiencing heart trouble.
It truly is an amazing thing that the Lord Jesus addresses here. So, I want to just suggest to each and every one of us, there will be trials. There will be difficulties. There will be hardships.
There will be seasons in your Christian life where it seems like everything is against you. In fact, this morning in our study of the confession, I love our confession because these men knew the Bible. They knew theology. They were realists.
They said, and though they may, he's talking about, they're talking about saints. The chapter is on the perseverance of the saints. And though they may, through the temptation of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of means of their preservation, fall into grievous sins, and for a time continue therein, whereby they incur God's displeasure and grieve His Holy Spirit, come to have their graces and comforts impaired, have their hearts hardened, their consciences wounded, hurt, and scandalize others, and bring temporal judgments upon themselves, yet shall they renew their repentance and be preserved through faith in Christ Jesus to the end." He certainly We cannot accuse the divines at Westminster of having been health, wealth, and prosperity preachers. We have the devil who opposes us.
We have the world that is in opposition to us, to our master, and if we represent him effectively to us as well. And we have our own remaining corruption. Galatians 5.17, Romans chapter 7. Certainly, soul or heart trouble is bound to affect us at one point or at one time or another in our Christian lives.
We see it in the Apostle Paul. We see that he received a messenger from Satan sent to buffet him. He received a thorn in the flesh. What did he do when he received that thorn in the flesh?
Did he say, hey, this is wonderful, this is fantastic, this is great? No, he says, I pray to the Lord three times that you remove it. It's phony Christianity to walk around and pretend like there's never difficulties, never trials, never problems, never issues, and that everything only ever goes your way. That's just not reality.
And Jesus speaks to that in the upper room. Notice, let not your heart be troubled. Again, he understands that it's going to happen. He knows there's issues in this life.
He knows there's trials. He's going to tell them they will suffer tribulation in this world. But he gives a remedy. He gives an antidote.
He gives something to engender faith instead of fear. He says, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me.
Faith as the Antidote
Faith is the preventative maintenance for heart trouble. This heart trouble has the tendency to paralyze us. Jesus says, do not let that happen. And the two verbs that he uses could both be indicatives or they could both be imperatives.
It's probably best to take the first as an indicative and the second as an imperative. Anybody above the age of grade 5 is probably lost now, so let me just explain what I mean. An indicative verb is the verb of reality. It is the case, you believe in God.
That is a settled fact among his disciples. The command here is, believe also in me. Now certainly they are, certainly their faith in Him is growing, but this antidote for us ought to be applied. When we have heart trouble, when there is sorrow, when there is trial, when there is difficulty, when there is hardship, when we are facing certain problems, what ought we to pray?
Lord, increase my faith. Increase my confidence in the living God. Belief is essential for justification. It is essential for sanctification.
Belief in Christ is essential for these particular disciples as they would see him arrested, crucified, dead, and buried. Faith would be the necessary fortification against despair, against being buried themselves, against throwing up their hands and saying, forget about it. You see, the Lord Christ wants His men to manifest faith, not fear. He wants His men to press onward, not to be paralyzed.
He wants His men to take seriously the demands to go there for and to make disciples of all the nations, to baptize them and to teach them. And He wants His people not to be paralyzed by heart trouble. He wants you and I to increase in faith. He wants you and I to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What is the best way to feed faith? Guess where we're going, brethren. More Bible. The best way to increase faith is more knowledge of our Lord and Savior.
The best way to steady your soul, the best way to sturdy yourself, is through the knowledge of God Almighty. When we have various trials, when we have various difficulties, the thing that takes us through it is not confidence in self, not confidence in our ability, not confidence in our prowess or power, but it is confidence in God the Lord Most High. And that is what Jesus Christ says to his disciples. Let not your heart be trouble.
You believe in God, believe also in me." It's truly an interesting way. When we increase in faith, it displaces this heart trouble. Luke chapter 18. Pastor Cam referred to this, I think, this morning.
Luke chapter 18. He spoke a parable to them that man always ought to pray and not lose heart. Notice those contrasting position. Pray and not lose heart.
So if we're losing heart, what might we rightly conclude? We're not praying. If we're being overcome by heart trouble, what might we conclude? We're not believing the Savior.
If we're being buried by our distresses and our trials and our difficulties, We ought to consider, God have mercy upon me, increase my faith, renew my repentance, and give me the grace to be a prayerful man or a prayerful woman. Jesus speaks comfort to his disciples in the upper room. He wants them to be steadied. He wants them to be sturdied.
He wants them to be confident in his ability and in his leadership and in his lordship so that they are not overcome by this hard trial.
The Father's House and the Return
Notice, secondly, with reference to his departure, it's interesting the way that Jesus now turns his attention. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. And then he says, in my father's house are many mansions.
If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go, you know, and the way you know.
Isn't that amazing? Now, if you were struggling with heart trouble, And you came to me after the service, and you said, brother, I'm really struggling with heart trouble. I'd say, you need to believe on the Lord Jesus. You need to read your Bible.
You need to pray. You need to grow. And tomorrow, I believe God will give you the grace to get through it. And I think that's a legitimate answer.
That's legit counsel. Jesus bypasses tomorrow. He bypasses all the tomorrows, and he points to the eschaton. What better encouragement than this?
Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. Let me just tell you something. I am going to my father's house.
And when I get to my father's house, there's many mansions there. And I am going to carve out one specifically for you. In other words, you need to get your mind focused, rooted in, and pressed forward to the future reality that you will be where I am. It is truly an amazing way to address this issue of heart trouble.
Yes, there'll be grace for you to get out of bed tomorrow and go to work and conduct yourself the way you ought to. But you need to focus upon the eternal realities. You need to think about the big picture. You need to realize that Christ, when He dies and He rises again, He is going to His Father's house.
He has spoken of the temple as His Father's house in John chapter 2. Here, the reference is not to the earthly temple. It is to the heavenly temple. It is to heaven itself.
Jesus says, I am going there and I am preparing a place for you. Isn't that amazing? If you've ever read the gospel accounts, you'll realize that hell is a place prepared for the devil and his angels. In the book of Acts, it says that Judas, by transgression, went to his own place.
It seems as if in penal sanctions, God prepares specifically that which is fitting for offenders of his holy law. Well, conversely, the Lord Christ prepares places for His children that when they arrive in the eschaton, they have their place waiting for them. It truly is a means by which The people of God ought to be encouraged. Do not let your heart be troubled.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and realize that after the trials, after the difficulties, after the woes, after the hardships, after the surgeries, after the cancers, after the loss of loved ones, after the sorrows, after the tears, after the challenges, there is a mansion waiting for you with the Father himself. And notice the way Christ speaks to this. He says, I go and I prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and here it is, and receive you to myself. Isn't that what makes heaven heaven?
I know we visited that theme several times in the weeks past. Christ says, I will receive you unto myself. He is the jewel of heaven. He is the chief delight in heaven.
He is what makes heaven, heaven. And he says, I will receive you to myself. It truly is a means by which he encourages his people and strengthens them. The Lord Jesus Christ wants His disciples to kill this heart trouble with faith.
And He wants to encourage them to this end by the reality that He is going, preparing a place for them, so that when He comes again, He can receive them unto Himself, where they may dwell with Him, world without end. Amen. And then He says, as I said in verse 4, and where I go, you know, in the way you know. And then this sets up or segues into this statement in verse 6.
Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way? There's no contradiction here. Jesus affirms that they know the way. Thomas says we don't know the way.
Jesus has told them many things. They don't always get it the first time. It sets the stage, or it makes the setting for his statement of verse 6. Beasley Murray says, the disciples' lack of understanding, as so often, provides opportunity for Jesus to clarify the revelation.
In other words, Thomas asks the perfect question. We don't know what you're talking about, Lord. Well, let me tell you. So he moves from having sought to encourage them to faith in him. with the reality that they will be received by Him, to now highlighting the way to the Father through Him.
His place in this whole process.
The I Am Sayings in John
This is the sixth time in the Gospel of John that Jesus says, I am, and then He says something. We call this a predicate. It's an I am with a predicate. There are certain times in the Gospel of John where Jesus just says, I am.
What are we to think when we read those two words, I am? We're to think about the burning bush that Moses came upon when Yahweh of Israel revealed himself as I am. We're also to think of the prophet Isaiah, which sets the backdrop for that saying, I am. God the Lord reveals himself in the prophet Isaiah as I am.
So those statements in and of themselves highlight the deity of Jesus Christ. These I am's with a predicate highlight certain aspects or certain truths concerning his person and work that are very instructive for the people of God. For instance, Jesus is the bread of life. He who eats this bread will never die.
Jesus is the light of the world. Jesus is the door of the sheep. Jesus is the good shepherd. Jesus is the resurrection and the life.
Jesus is, sixthly here, the way, the truth, and the life. And then the seventh is in John 15. Jesus is the true vine. So in each of these statements that Jesus gives to his disciples, that he gives to his church, it highlights aspects of his person. that are very helpful and instructive for the people of God.
And this one answers specifically to Thomas' question, Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Jesus as the Way
Let's just unpack these various clauses. Notice that Jesus is the way. He doesn't say, I show the way or I shine the light on the way, but rather Jesus himself is the way. In other words, we don't get to God apart from the Lord Jesus.
We don't have eternal bliss apart from the Lord Jesus. There is no salvation apart from Jesus Christ. There is a generic idea out there that if we have faith in a God, faith in some God concept, faith in a higher power, faith in something, it's somehow redemptive. It is not redemptive unless that faith is rooted in and founded upon and grounded in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Faith itself is simply the instrument. It is the object of faith that is salvific. And if we have faith in a generic God, if we have faith in a rock, if we have faith in ourselves, we can't deliver the goods. There is no redemption apart from our Lord Jesus Christ.
You see, sometimes Christians are said to be prejudiced or bigoted, not necessarily in a racial sense, but in terms of other religions. Well, you Christians preach your Jesus as the only way to salvation. Jesus preached himself as the only way to salvation. Jesus stands in the long line of prophets that highlight the reality that if Yahweh is God, serve Him.
If Baal is God, serve Him. There is no pluralism taught in the Bible. There's no syncretism. By pluralism, I mean that you can have a multiplicity of gods, whichever one you want, and that particular god will deliver the goods.
Syncretism is also Also, sinful activity. That's when we try to marry the worship of Christ, the worship of God with our idols or with other things. Jesus is alone the way. That needs to be preached.
Jesus as the Truth
Secondly, he is the truth. Jesus Christ himself is the embodiment of God's truth. John 1.14. John 1.14.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Verse 16, And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came. through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time.
The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. Look at verse 17 again. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. He's not saying there was never grace and truth through Moses.
He is not saying that there was no grace in Exodus 34. This morning it was pointed out that it was Exodus 34, quoted by Jonah in chapter 4, verse 2. And I said Exodus 36, and I knew it was Exodus 34, but I looked at my notes and it said 36. So I guess my mindset was, my notes can't be wrong, but they were.
It's Exodus 34, where God manifests, or God reveals Himself as gracious. He doesn't judge the idolaters who were dancing around that calf. He shows grace. He shows mercy.
When Moses went up to Sinai, and he received the law, and he came back down to the plains of, to the base of Sinai, or to the plains of Horeb in Deuteronomy, and he spoke those 10 words, were not to conclude they were false. What he is saying in verse 17 probably speaks to larger covenantal concerns. But it's probably a comparison to highlight that in God's redemptive plan, in his dealings, in redemptive history, we have his son now. We have the one in whom dwells all the fullness of deity bodily.
When he speaks, it is truth. When he speaks, we are to listen. When he speaks, we are to bow down. When he speaks, we are to respond.
Jesus Christ said, I am the way. I am the truth.
Jesus as the Life
Thirdly, he says, I am the life. Again, he himself. To love the way the scriptures embody Christ with these attributes. Last week we considered Christ himself is our peace.
Simeon, cradling the babe Christ in his arms says, mine eyes have seen your salvation. Christ describes himself as the way, as the truth, as the life. Christ in John chapter 5 at verse 26 has life in himself. In John 6, there's a group of people that were following Jesus because He fed them.
And then Jesus started to teach them Reformed theology. I'm reading that into the text. It is Reformed theology. He didn't call it that.
But when He teaches them that, what do they do? A lot of them stop following Him. And then Jesus looks at the 12 and He says, Do you also want to leave me? And Peter makes this declaration, Lord, to whom shall we go?
You have the works of eternal life. John 6 verse 68. Jesus says in John 10 that he gives life and he gives it abundantly. Truly amazing.
People look at Christians like they're miserable beings. There is no greater joy than to be a Christian. There is nothing more abundant than to have Christ as Lord and Savior, to have your sins forgiven, to be counted not guilty, to be those who have a right and inheritance to heaven above. What is bad about that?
That is abundant life. And then Jesus, According to John 11, 25, the graveside of Lazarus says to Martha, I am the resurrection and the life. First John 5, 20, the apostle signs off before a caution against idolatry. He says that Jesus Christ is the true God and eternal life.
So those are the things that Jesus commends to his disciples. He says, let not your heart be troubled. The famous news commentator that oftentimes cites this particular verse. I wonder if he means what Jesus meant when he says it.
I sort of don't think so. Jesus meant, look to me, trust in me, steady yourself against the trials and the difficulties and the problems of this life. with a confidence and a certainty in Jesus Christ the Lord. He encourages them that he is going to his father. He is going to prepare a place for them so that when he returns again, he may receive them unto himself.
And this then sets the stage for Thomas to ask this question and Jesus to answer in a most blessed and wonderful way.
Eschatology and the Hope of Return
In conclusion, first of all, we learned something about eschatology. You say, what do you mean about eschatology? Eschatology is the doctrine of or study of last things. And most of the times, the discussion concerning eschatology revolves around the thousand years mentioned in Revelation chapter 20.
And when we talk about that thousand years, we talk about beasts, and we talk about antichrists, and we talk about perilous times, and we talk about eschatological meaties, We talk about all sorts of things. But if we look at the eschatology of our Lord Jesus, highlighted in John 14, verses 1 to 3, it really is quite simple. Jesus goes to heaven. He prepares a place for his people.
He returns in glory. He receives them unto himself. That's eschatology. That's eschatology that promotes hope.
That's eschatology that promotes comfort. That's eschatology that promotes, hopefully, faithfulness in our lives. 1 John 3. The apostle speaks this way. 1 John 3. Verse 1.
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. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him. For we shall see Him as He is, and everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself just as he is pure.
I'm not suggesting we ought not to search the scriptures and ask the question, who is the beast? Who is the Antichrist? How do these personages fare in the discussion of eschatology? But we ought not to complicate matters.
We ought not to make it so difficult that we need a newspaper in the one hand and a Hal Lindsey novel in the other in order to try to figure out what's going to happen in our future. Jesus makes it very clear. When I die, when I rise again, when I ascend on high, I am preparing a place for you. I will come again and glory to judge the living and the dead. and I will receive you unto myself." Let that thought, my dear brothers and sisters, encourage you.
Let that thought, my dear brothers and sisters, help you and increase your faith in the Savior so that it will displace this heart trouble and you will not be paralyzed by a fearfulness, but rather emboldened by a faithfulness.
The Remedy of Faith
Secondly, The Antidote to Heart Trouble. We've already touched on this. Just want to read a quote by J.C. Ryle.
He says, we have in this passage a precious remedy against an old disease. You see, that's another thing. You read the old writers. You read the Puritans.
You read the Reformers. You read the guys post-Puritan, post-Reformation. You read men that know theology. They don't minimize the reality of difficulty in the Christian life.
They don't say, hey, what's your trouble? Just buck up. The sun will come up tomorrow. You can bet your bottom dollar.
Just be encouraged. That's not going to help the Christian agonizing. Ryle says we have in this passage a precious remedy against an old disease. That disease is trouble of heart.
That remedy is faith. Faith.
The Exclusivity of Christ
And then thirdly and finally, the importance of John 14 and verse 6. It defines our allegiance to Christ. He is the way, He is the truth, and He is the life. Our allegiance must be to Him.
It demonstrates our confidence in the gospel. If in fact Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, I can hang my soul on Him. I can rest assured that what I commit to Him, He is able to keep until that day." 2 Timothy 1.12. As well, it highlights the exclusivity of Christianity as the redemptive religion of the true and living God.
John 14.6 is crucial in a pluralistic age. John 14.6 is absolutely essential in a day where everybody has their way, everybody has their ideas, and everybody's is as valuable as the next. No, they're not. If they do not preach the gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord, if they do not maintain and insist that He is alone the way, the truth, and the life, there is no truth in them.
Brethren, we have to realize that when the church is watered down, it is precisely at this place. We don't want to be so narrow. We don't want to be so exclusive. We want to be broader.
We want to be more inclusive. We ought to be broad and inclusive when it comes to ethnicities. We ought to be broad and inclusive when it comes to economic status. We ought to be broad and inclusive when it comes to genders.
In other words, we ought to be concerned for every tribe and tongue and people and nation. But we will never, God helping us, be broad on the way of access to God Almighty. If we compromise here, may Christ rip the lampstand from us and cast it far away. We are not going to play the game of trying to tear off rough edges to make the unbeliever happy.
We are not going to try and look more appealing to the masses. We will preach continuously, and I hope consistently, Christ and him crucified. to the Jews, a stumbling block, and to the Greeks, foolishness. But to us, who are being saved, Christ, the wisdom and the power of God Almighty. We are in an exclusive religion.
We are committed to the Lord Christ, and we are not given license or opportunity, and we shouldn't even want to tamper with. or distort the message of acceptance with God through Jesus Christ the Lord. If you have not believed, if you have not looked to Him, He is the way, He is the truth, and He is the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. It is exclusive, but Jesus saves.
The Father receives. The Father has purpose to save a great multitude. So believe on Him, come to Christ, and as the Bible says, He will not cast you out. Let us pray.
Closing Prayer
Our gracious God and our Holy Father, we thank you for this passage of Scripture and for what it teaches us. I pray for each and every one here that we let not our hearts be troubled. Believing in you, we would believe in your blessed and dear Son. That we would look forward to the future when Jesus comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead, to receive his children unto himself.
And our Father, we pray for this generation, for this age, we pray for churches that they would emphasize the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ as the alone way of acceptance with God. We pray that this message would be proclaimed from sea to sea and that Christ would have dominion. And we ask in His most blessed name, Amen.