Well, it's me again. Take your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 9. And I realize I have a couple of jobs to do. The first one, obviously, is to preach the Word of God to you.
That is, I should make it understood, and my target is everyone. Even the kids here, I have you in mind when I preach, so it might make sense to you as well as to all of us. And it should be able to make sense. So that's my job.
I see that as my job. It should be compelling as well. I'm not reading from a phone book. And then the other thing is, I understand that it's the latter part of the day.
Most of us, I'm sure, have had a very good meal, and you might be actually tired. That's okay. It's on me to keep you awake. If you fall asleep, that's my fault, not yours.
Remember Eutychus? He did fall from the second floor, I think, when Paul was preaching too long. Paul didn't reprove him. He raised him from the dead.
So. Luke chapter 9, I'm going to read a very short section in your hearing. In verse 51, I'm sorry, verse 51 through 56.
Scripture Reading: Luke 9:51–56
Now it came to pass, and the time had come for him to be received up, that he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before his face. And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans to prepare for him. but they did not receive him because his face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them just as Elijah did? But he turned to rebuke them and said, you do not know what manner of spirit you are of, for the son of man Do not come to destroy men's lives, but to save lives.
And they went to another village. Now,
Introduction
I want you to do some work tonight. Metaphorically speaking, if you could have a backpack, and I'm going to give you three things to hang on to. And then as I'm preaching through this passage, I want you to pull those things out of the backpack, because it will help make sense of the passes that we're looking at. The first thing is something I mentioned this morning.
The Bible principally teaches two things. If any of you know anything at all about the Westminster Catechism, what is the scriptures primarily teach? They primarily teach what duty, what man is to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of man. So I want you to put that in your backpack and pull it out when we need it.
In other words, what is it that we are to believe? What is it that we are to do? It should be expressed in God's word, especially what it is that we are to do. Second thing I want you to keep in mind is that there was a great prejudice between the Jews and the Samaritans.
A great difference, a great controversy, a great prejudice between them. So much so that you had the Samaritans, which were in the northern part of Israel, and they were called half-breeds, and they adopted many of the false religions of their land. And then you have the Jews that were down in Judah, they worshiped at Jerusalem. And so you have this great prejudice.
It got to a point where they didn't even talk to each other. And the third thing, which is closely related in light of this, is that there were two places of worship. One was Mount Gerizim, which is where Israel worshiped in Samaria. And then, of course, Jerusalem, which was in Judah.
That's where the Jews went to worship. So take those things, stick them in your backpack. When I tell you to pull them out like an energy bar, we'll pull it out and hopefully it will be of help to us. Now, I think it's important for us to look at this in its context.
And the context is that our Lord has had a goodly amount of miracles. He's also healed many people of their sicknesses. And so he has become well known as a prophet, but he's also been opposed by the religious leaders in this particular chapter. James and John and Peter go up to the mount and our Lord is transfigured there.
Okay. When he comes down in Mark's account, he sees the scribes, arguing with the disciples because they couldn't cast out a demon from a boy. So there we already have fussing and fighting going on right there. Our Lord heals the boy and then our Lord also predicts of his death and then you have the disciples getting into an argument about who was going to be the greatest.
So they're fussing and fighting about who's going to be the greatest. Then You have John coming to our Lord saying, we saw someone who's casting out a demon. He doesn't follow us. Should we forbid him to do that?
Again, he wants to get into a little fight with this guy because the fact that he's casting out demons in Jesus name and he doesn't follow him. And our Lord forbids him to do that. That's the arena that we're in. The atmosphere of the day is that there was just a lot of bickering and complaining and fighting going on.
And it would appear, that James and John have been affected by that. And we will see later on about that. But that's the atmosphere. That's the only word I can think of right now.
It's just one of contentions. People were always at each other verbally as well as physically. Now, verse 51,
Christ's Mission to Jerusalem
our Lord is on a mission as he has an appointment to keep. And that is the will of his father And that was his suffering and his death, which is found in verse 44 of the same chapter. It says, let these words sink down into your ears for the son of man is about to be betrayed into the hands of the men. But they did not understand this saying.
It was hidden from them. So our Lord knows that he has a mission. He is going to have to suffer the wrath of almighty God. And in order to help him with that, he has two blessings in his mind.
The first one, we can see that from other scriptures because of the fact that he was going to bring many sons to glory. That was a blessing to our Savior. That's one of the reasons why he went to the cross. There's many other reasons as well, but there's a second reason too, the reason why he was going to the cross, and that is he was going to ascend.
He was going to ascend. Now it came to pass when the time had come for him to be received up. Mr. Hendrickson, I like him a lot for commentaries, he writes that this can be translated, instead of being risen up, he ascended.
He is going to ascend. And so it came to pass when the time had come for him to ascend. Now, we know what that is. That's after his death, after his resurrection, when he's received up into glory.
Our Lord has this in his mind to be a help to him, to be a blessing to him, to strengthen him. Remember, our Lord, while he is fully God, he's also fully man. Same weaknesses as us. I mean, think about our death.
I'm sure we're not exactly rejoiced in that, except for the fact that in the death of the Christian, we have a refuge. But still, there's that human factor that we have to die. There's suffering and death. There's just no way of getting around it.
Our Lord takes it a step further because all of the sins of God's elect are gonna be on our Savior. That's quite a burden to bear. Tough enough for us when we come under conviction of sin to bear that sin, but now to bear the sins of the elect, our Lord does it though. But He knows He has a mission as He sets out for Jerusalem.
If you want some references in regards to ascension, which verify, I think this is his ascension that he's speaking of. Mark chapter 16 talks about him being received up into heaven. 16, 19, Acts 1, 2, he was taken up into heaven. And of course, 1 Timothy 3, 16, when you're looking at the attributes of our Lord, one of them was that he was received up into glory. So now we're going to verse, 52 is my pattern is I like to explain a text and that's what we're going to do.
We're going to go verse by verse here.
Messengers Sent to Samaria
Verse 52 is even though the final destination was Jerusalem, our Lord sends messengers to find lodging in a Samaritan place. OK, I'm going to want you to give me a little bit of liberty here. I think it'll make sense as we get to the latter part of this verse. But I think that when they went there, it appears that the messengers were successful in securing a place of refreshment, a place they could spend the night, get some food, and continue on to Jerusalem.
I think they got permission to do that. It was our Lord's custom to send men ahead of a village that they're going to. Obviously, the one that comes to mind is when our Lord goes to celebrate his last Passover with his disciples, he sent two disciples to make the room ready. I think he does the same thing, and I'm pretty certain it's James and John that go ahead and get permission from the leaders of that village.
They could stay there and get refreshment. Okay. But
The Samaritans Refuse Christ
something happens in verse 53. The Samaritans change their mind. They are not going to allow Peter, James, John, the other disciples, as well as our Lord, to stay there. And I think it's because of the temple issue.
I think that's the reason why. First of all, in John 4, 20, you can turn there or just listen. Remember, our Lord meets a Samaritan woman at the well. And they get into a discussion about worship.
And in verse 20, the Samaritan woman says this, our fathers worship on this mountain, that's Mount Gerizim. And you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where we ought to worship. So the controversy of where to worship was still alive and well. However, our Lord's face was set for Jerusalem.
He was going to go to Jerusalem. If Jesus and his disciples would have worshiped at Mount Gerizim, it would have given validity to Mount Gerizim's place of worship. because Jesus is a prominent teacher. He's a prominent healer, a prophet. And if he and his disciples would have stayed there and worshiped at that particular temple, it would have brought controversy to his ministry, which our Lord is approaching a time where that is eventually not going to be very important.
Where to worship? Because he says to the Samaritan woman, John chapter four, there's going to come a time It's not going to matter where you worship because God is seeking those who worship Him in spirit and in truth. Obviously, what I'm saying here is that you're not supposed to go look for other places of worship. Your members here, you should be here worshiping God.
If you're away, you're away. But I'm saying all that to say that there was definite controversy and if our Lord and His disciples had decided to stay there, There's no need to get involved in secondary issues, which our Lord did not want to. So, as a result,
James and John's Request for Fire
verse 54, James and John are upset. When they saw this, they said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume this village? That's why I think it's, I'm pretty certain it's James and John. They probably went, they got permission, They find out that is Jesus coming.
Oh, maybe we can get him to go to Mount Gerizim and worship there and then we can gain some more validity. Our Lord doesn't get involved that because he has his face set for Jerusalem. James and John get upset with these Samaritan leaders and in the spirit of their day, they ask our Lord, You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume this village?
Elijah and Fire from Heaven
Now, where did they get that? We all see it from Elijah. I'm curious. Do you know where that's at by any chance?
If not, that's no great sin. But it's in 2 Kings 1. And it's during the time of the kings of Israel continuing to fall away from the Lord. And his name is King Ahaziah.
He happens to be the son of Ahab and Jezebel. Ahab's already died. Ahaziah has adopted the religion of Jezebel. He is an idolater following the god of Ekron, Beelzebub.
He's on his roof. He falls and he's injured seriously. So he calls his messengers to say, can you go and find out if I'm going to recover from this injury? So the messengers, they are going to go to the prophets of Beelzebub, the God of Ekron.
And Elijah is on a hill somewhere and an angel of the Lord comes to him and says, this has happened to Ahaziah. We want you to intercept, I want you to intercept the messengers and ask them, is the reason that there's no God in Israel, that's why you're going to inquire of Beelzebub and tell them, thus sayeth the Lord, the king will not recover from his fall. So, Elijah intercepts the messengers, does exactly what I've just brought out. The messengers turn heel, and they go right back to their king.
King said, what are you doing here so quickly? It's taking you so long. I mean, what took you so long to get back here, so to speak? I'm using sarcasm there.
They said, well, there's a man that told us The reason are we going to the God of Ekron is because there's no God of Israel here. And this man also told us that you will not recover. Ahaziah just says, OK, I'm going to get a captain, 50 men, go get him. He says, by the way, what does this guy look like?
He says, a hairy man with a belt. He says, that's Elijah. He sends his captain with 50 men. And normally, when a king sends a captain and 50 men, it wasn't to invite you to dinner.
It was, he's going to harm Elijah. So the captain and 50 men, they arrive there at the hill. Elijah's up on the hill, and he calls out. The captain says, man of God, come down.
The king commands you to come down. Elijah says, if I'm a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you, which it does. Ahaziah doesn't even get phased by it. He sends another captain with 50 men.
They do the same thing, the same thing happens. Again, Ahasuerus, he does it again. It's like he's going to keep sending people until there's no one left in the land of Samaria. But he sends a third captain.
This third captain humbled himself before the king, before Elijah. And he said, spare my life. We come peaceably. Please come down.
God tells Elijah, he's not going to harm you. Go down and tell that king he's not going to recover. Elijah does that, the man dies. The issue is, is that Elijah did indeed call fire down from heaven to consume that 50.
James and John were very much aware of that story. And they thought, like many people think today, hey, if it's in the Bible, I can do it. Hey, if Elijah called fire down from heaven, I can do it. A lot of people say that these days.
Hey, if it's in the Bible, I can do it. You know, I can, if I can speak in tongues and it happened in the New Testament, I can do it. Great. Peter walked on water.
Go walk on the Pacific Ocean. God hasn't commanded it.
God Never Commanded This
Now let's pull that thing out of our backpack. Has God commanded us in any time to command fire to come down from heaven? Did he ever command James and John to do that? No.
However, let's not be too strict on James and John. At least they asked permission, even though I think their intention was definitely sinful. So, Now
Christ Rebukes His Disciples
our Lord is going to rebuke them. He's going to correct them by advising them that they do not understand the ministry of salvation and life as opposed to judgment and death. Salvation for lives and souls. That was the ministry of our Lord.
Look at the amount of people that He healed. Look at those who were relieved from demon possession. Look at how our Lord forgives sins. His ministry was not one of destruction of men's lives, but to preserve their lives.
He fed 4,000. He fed 5,000. Our Lord's ministry was so different than the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the religious leaders. When our Lord raised Luke from the dead.
What did those religious leaders do? Not only were they plotting how to kill our Lord, they were plotting how to kill Lazarus. This was the atmosphere of the day. And you can see in our context, they come down from the mount that our Lord was transfigured on.
Sadducees are arguing with the disciples. Later on, The disciples are arguing about who's going to be the greatest. Later on, John is upset because someone is casting out demons. It's just, they've adopted part of the ministry of the Sadducees.
Our Lord is saying, you do not know what manner of spirit you are of. As a result, our Lord is very long-suffering and he teaches them. This is not my ministry of destruction. My ministry is one of salvation.
And the greatest blessing is that he has authority at this time on earth to forgive sins. And he has authority in heaven to forgive sins through his shed blood, his resurrection from the dead, his ascension. This is the blessing of our Lord's ministry. He came during a time of great violence. and He is the Prince of Peace.
What a difference, what a difference our Lord was, and He shows it right here. Now,
The Pride and Sin of James and John
getting back to James and John, I'm not gonna lift them off that easy. They had pride, they had revenge, they did not have a holy, humble, gracious spirit, but they were sinful. And though they may have called it zeal for the Lord, They were not imitating our Lord's ministry. They had been with our Lord for a few years.
They had not learned that part of our Lord's ministry. And I've got to ask the question,
Samaria Later Hears the Gospel
can it be that that Samaritan village later on hears the word of God from Philip and is converted? I'm only asking the question. If you go to your Bibles and turn to Acts chapter eight, And I think I'm kind of a positive guy. What I mean is I'm not living in a fool's paradise where everything is roses, but I want to believe that at times when people rejected the gospel, God had mercy on them later on.
In Acts 8 5-6, Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. And the multitudes, with one accord, heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did." I'm simply asking the question, can it be that some of those here, maybe all of them here, that had rejected our Lord did not allow he and his disciples to stay, that they heard that word from Philip and were converted? It just doesn't hurt to ask that question. Can it be that they were converted?
Could be, could be. But I like the way that this, our story ends here. No fire fell from heaven. Look at that.
It says, and they went to another village. Now my Bible, right or wrong, all of our Lord's words are in red, okay? So you have all this fire, so to speak, from his disciples. You want us to call fire down from heaven?
Our Lord, you know, He gives them command. And then there's a contrast there and it says, and they went to another village. I love that. They went to another village.
Our Lord doesn't consume them. He doesn't rebuke the Samaritans. Hey, you said that we could stay here. He doesn't do any of that.
He goes to another village. You see the, I say this with all reverence, you see the courtesy of our Lord, the kindness of our Lord. He doesn't bend to the opinion of James and John, but they just simply go to another village. Our Lord is not argumentative.
He's not contentious. He has good manners, if you will. There's a time when our Lord would dig his heels in with the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Herodians. But here he shows mercy. to an ignorant village.
An ignorant village. And what did they do? They simply went to another village. Crisis averted, if you will.
Well,
Application
there's some points of application. And the first thing is, the blessing before our Lord of His ascension helped Him to go forward to the cross. The blessing of heaven of our sins forgiven, our future, the blessedness of being in Christ, of having the righteousness of Jesus Christ will help all of us in our daily walk. It will give us that shot in the arm.
We were talking with brethren, I think it was on Friday night, one of the blessings of the Lord's Day is that for six days, it's difficult. That's why it's good for us to read our Bibles, to pray, to have those family devotions. But the Lord's Day was meant for God's people because we are affected by unbelief. It does indeed have an effect upon us.
And when we come into this place, The blessing of being in Christ, of having our sins forgiven, of God being for us and not against us, Him loving us with an everlasting love, helps us in our day-to-day struggle with temptation and sin, our sickness and our death. Seven years ago, I had cancer. I did not do very well. I wish I could say, oh yeah, it was great.
I was victorious and came out of it. I crumbled to a piece of bread is what I did. It was not easy. It was just simply not easy.
But the thing that helped me get back on my feet, get back in the pulpit after years of struggling with it was the blessing of Jesus Christ. I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have saved you from your past sins. Again, going back to where I was, and I'm sure some of you have that same story, is we were headed for destruction.
And yet, He had mercy on us. And for us to receive up into glory, to see our Lord face to face, helps us in our day-to-day walk. Remember this, brethren, when the Lord Jesus comes back, these old bodies that we have that will eventually go into the ground, we get resurrected bodies. No more sin, no more remembrance of sin, and no more consequence of sin.
And as you get older, some of you young guys don't understand this yet, us older guys do, everything hurts. That's just the bottom line. It's part of the curse of Adam. But we now, as we've gotten older, realize that these bodies that we lay down, we will get glorified bodies when the Lord Jesus comes back.
If we happen to die before he comes back, we get to go and be with our Lord, absent from the body, present with the Lord. See his face. We will see his face. And so that's the thing to encourage us and to help us in our daily walk as our redemption draws near.
When you get up in the morning, if you can do this, try to remember this. Kids, you need to do this too when you get up in the morning. Say, one day closer. You're one day closer to eternity.
We all got up one day closer to eternity. Now for the Christian, we say with a smile on our face. The unbeliever, he doesn't. Because he thinks this is all that he has is this life.
So he's got to take life and suck everything out of it that he can, because this is all he has is this life. That's why they say after their friends die, well, you know, we got to make the most of the day. Most everything that we can of this day, let's take it and grab it and hang on. That's all they have is this life.
But we say calmly, with a smile upon our soul, knowing that God is for us, Another day closer. Another day closer to glory. Another day closer to eternity. Thankfully, another day closer of leaving our remaining sin behind us, that dead body of ours behind us.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to take care of our bodies. We should. Our bodies are a stewardship that God's given to us. We should do what we can to be in, you know, reasonable shape, a better quality of life.
You will enjoy things more that way, but we want to glorify God in our bodies. Secondly,
Desiring Salvation, Not Judgment
We are not, in this life, to desire the destruction and judgment of the ungodly, but we are to desire their salvation. Christians are not to be persecutors. Let the governing authorities bear the sword of wrongs done in society, but let not the church Let not the Christian practice vengeance. May Christ's ministry of reconciliation by His death, His resurrection, His ascension, Him being King of kings and Lord of lords, may that be our message.
We have been saved from so much. And think about how gracious God has been to us And as a result, think about the one before you came to Christ, about how kind they showed, the kindness they showed to you. My brother Jim came to me and I was probably the last person on earth that someone would think, this guy is going to be a Christian one day. He's going to be a pastor one day.
You would not recognize me 44 years ago, but my brother showed kindness to me and witnessed to me And he just had to say a couple of words, God use it, and I was off to the races after that. I had to flee from my sin and flee to Jesus Christ. Many of you, I'm sure, have stories like that about how kind people were to you, even just to invite you to church, give you a Bible, give you a track, even preach to you Jesus Christ. We've been saved from much.
And as a result, Christians should not be persecutors. We don't win them with a sword, we win them with love. Love goes a long way, and if they don't hear you, go to another village, move on to the other person, or be ready to give that answer for the hope that lies within you with meekness and with fear. So take your time.
Even if they may not hear you, you keep going to them if there's a door that's open. You're not to be contentious, and you're not supposed to get into fistfights with people. My youngest brother, Mike, fell away. He made a profession of faith.
He fell away. Every time I talked to him, he just said, back off. His wife dies tragically. He contacts my brother, Jim, and I, and he talks to us every night, and he wants to talk about the Lord.
And the only advice I could give him when he made his confession, he was confessing his sins, I said, Mike, it's great you're confessing your sins, but go to the Lord for that. You've sinned against Him. And he just said, I just don't know what to do. I said, start reading your Bible.
And if you start reading your Bible, and I was thinking, I know he will be reading his Bible because he'll have questions. I mean, you read your Bible, you've got questions. And he did, and he started calling my brother and I all the time with all these questions, and the Lord saved him. We don't give up.
We pray for their good, regardless of how contentious they may be, how angry they may be. Be careful. There's no need for you to cast pearls before a swine, and you don't tell them that. You don't cash your pearls before swine, but if need be, just simply go to another village, go to another person and see if maybe an axe ate happens to them where they hear that word gladly.
Sometimes they simply will not hear us. Maybe they will hear another person. That's okay. That's fine.
We desire for their good, but we are not to be persecuted. There has been so much destruction done by those who make a profession of the Christian religion, and they murder people, imprison them. Just look at the history of those who claim to be, you know, God's people. And they're persecutors.
When you take a look at the Protestant Reformation, what Mr. Luther had to escape, I should tell you something. The Roman Catholic institution as an institution of blood. They've been like that for years.
They've changed now. They're a chameleon. They will continue to change. My dear brethren, let's pull out that backpack.
What has God commanded us? What has he commanded us to believe? What has he commanded us to do? We are to be kind. gracious, compassionate, just as God was kind and compassionate towards us.
So hopefully, if we ever burned a bridge, let's try to go back and repair it, if you will. I was a black sheep of my family. My family threw a party when I left home, but I was an ungodly man. Things did not go well with my parents and I.
When I became a Christian, things changed. I went to them, told them I was wrong. I should have obeyed them. They were the authority that God had given to me.
And I asked them to forgive me, and they did. And we patched up. Sad thing is, is that because of the fact we were no longer Roman Catholic, they eventually kicked us out of the family. It happens.
But that doesn't mean I closed the door on them. The door's open. And then my dad saw that I was not the man that I used to be. I had my wife.
I loved her. We have kids. We were raising them. They couldn't argue with the results that was going on in our family.
And so he opened the door. We gladly came in, even though I think I rejected that. My wife said, we should go back. I was real upset with my parents because they had kicked me out of the family because of my religious convictions.
And then I just said, well, I don't want to go back there again. And my wife said, no, you should go back. I disagreed with her. She said, let's go talk to our pastor.
I know what he's going to say. So we met with him. He said, you should go back and be reconciled to your parents. And I did.
And I'm thankful that I was. But God's word teaches us about being winsome. He who wins souls is wise. So we want to have wisdom and being of help to one another.
Our interaction with others is not to be physically harmful, not to be calling names. I do not go on social media. I just, every now and then I pirate Karen's account. But what I see that goes on is an embarrassment.
Guys fussing and fighting over things in a public arena. Oh, shouldn't do that. They're obnoxious and contentious. is you just go to another village. Stop the fighting, stop the bickering, especially among brethren.
Or sometimes books are published and it's because one teacher has a vendetta against another one. I think we do a lot better when we're united. And even though we may have differences, if those differences aren't enough to lose a flee over, let them go. Let them go then.
You'll find that with family. You'll find that with friends. And we want to be gracious to them. We want to be that one that they come to, if need be, because we've been kind to them.
We've been gracious to them. We should make the main truth be the main truth. And don't get involved into debates. I am against debates.
I'm against any public arena where you allow your opponent to spew his filth out of his mouth and then you come in afterwards and try to disprove it. I just don't see debates being commanded from God's Word. I just don't see it. I think there's a lot of harm doing it.
Granted, some may be converted by it, or some that do believe may fall away from it. But I don't want to give a false religionist the platform to spew out his filth. His mouth should be closed. We should preach.
We should teach. We should be ready to give that answer that's within us. I think our Lord's example here is phenomenal. There is that prejudice.
We pull that thing out of our backpack again. The prejudice between the Jews and the Samaritans. In my country, the prejudice is against the Democrats and the Republicans. It's amazing what goes on there.
Those prejudices should be put asunder. It's not an issue of the gospel. At times it is, but we need to be very, very careful of fighting. Fight for the right things, but make the main truth the main things.
Especially the ministry of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So he turned to them and rebuked them and said, you do not know what manner of spirit you are of. Here's the blessing. The Son of Man did not come to destroy man's lives, but to save them.
And they went to another village. Let's pray.
Closing Prayer
Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for how you have changed our heart. You've given us a new nature and you've granted unto us the righteousness of Jesus Christ in heaven. Our account is blessed. We are blessed.
We thank you for the righteousness. We thank you for his wonderful work of regeneration within us. Oh Father, we at times fall over our words out of thankfulness for how kind, merciful, and gracious you have been to us day in and day out. Even when we sin, oh Father, we sin against great light.
We acknowledge our sin before you and trust you will forgive us and grant unto us a new spirit. Hear our prayers. Grant unto us a blessed week. Preserve your people from temptation and sin.
Save our young, our children. Have mercy upon their souls. And we pray, O Father, that the word that we have heard this day, morning and evening, would remain within us, that we might grow in your grace and knowledge to begin to form more and more to your Son's image. hear our prayers, answer our requests for your glory, and for the good of our souls, for we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.