I want to go through some lessons
from the book of Jonah today. Jonah is a book we read through
it, and we've talked about some of it. I'm going to talk about
it more. We could spend a good bit of time here, and I'm not
sure how much time we're going to be here, but I want to bring
some things to your attention. And I want to start, I was following
up with Tim Burnett on the phone the other day. And I thought
it would be good for me to do a little recap of the main point
that I was trying to make in the sermon at rescue on Saturday
morning. So look to Jonah chapter one. Jonah chapter one, the account
here is that Jonah was running away from God. He was trying to get away. He
did not want to preach to the people of Nineveh. He did not
want God to have mercy and grace and save them. They were the
enemies of Israel. They were the Assyrians. They
were cruel people. The Assyrians were known for their cruelty
and their violence. In fact, in chapter 3, the king
who was told his people, he says, let every man cry mightily to
God. Let them turn from their evil
way and from the violence that is in their hands. So you can
see here that these people were known for their violence. And
Jonah did not want to go to them. But as I mentioned in Rescue,
God had an overruling. control in Jonah's life to make
not just Jonah's words, but also the life of Jonah a message,
a prophecy. The message that God had for
his people. And so Jonah tried to get away, but God overruled
Jonah's opposition to God's will. And God brought Jonah into a
ship. Jonah thought it was all his
doing, but he brought him into a ship. And in that ship were
these men who were mariners, seamen. They were sailors, and
they were on the ship together, and Jonah got in the side of
the ship, down in the bottom somewhere, where he could get
away from the busyness of the ship, and the ship set sail,
and while they were on the sea, God sent a storm. And in the
storm, Jonah was sleeping, and all the mariners, the seamen,
were at their wits' end, because they thought the boat was going
to sink, and it was going to be busted up. And so they did
everything they could to save themselves. They cried to their
idol gods. They threw everything they could
overboard. They thought that they were going to die. And so
they began to look around on the boat to see what might be
the reason why they were in this storm. And they found Jonah. And they asked him, who are you?
What do you do? What's your job? What kind of
work do you do? And who are your people? What country are you
from? They wanted to know if there was something about Jonah
that would give them a reason why this trouble was upon them.
We do that naturally, don't we? We always look for an excuse.
Why are things going bad with me? It must be some other cause. So they did that. They were crying
to their idol gods. They didn't know God. And so
I'm going to pick it up in Jonah chapter 1. It says that they
asked Jonah in verse 8, they said to him, tell us, we pray
thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us, what is your occupation? In other words, what kind of
work do you do? Maybe his work was evil. Whence comest thou,
or where are you from? What is thy country? They wanted
to zero in on what was this cause of their trouble, and what people
art thou? What people are you? So they
wanted to know what kind of people he was. If he was an evil man,
they could say, oh, it's because of this evil man. So he goes
on to explain to them who he was. He said in verse 9, he said
to them, I'm a Hebrew. I fear the Lord, the God of heaven,
which has made the sea and the dry land. Not just the dry land,
but the sea also. And here we are on the sea. And
he has control. He's the one that sent the storm.
And he's telling them, the one who sent the storm is the one
you need to know. Because only he can save you
from the storm he sent. He has to take it away. And that's
true with all the trouble in our life, isn't it? All trouble.
Not just the good, but the trouble also. Job said, have we received
good from the Lord's hand, and shall we not receive evil also?
The Lord brings good and what we consider bad, but it's all
working together for God's people. It's working together for their
good. And so Jonah tells him, I'm a Hebrew, which means I'm
one of God's people. I'm his. I fear the Lord. He's
the God of heaven and earth. He's the sovereign creator and
ruler. And then he told them also that
it was because he was running from God as a prophet that he
came onto the ship. And so they said, ah, this must
be the reason. So look at verse 11, chapter
1, verse 11. They said to him, what shall
we do to thee that the ship, I'm sorry. What shall we do to
thee that the sea may be calm to us? For the sea wrought and
was tempestuous. It means the sea was churning.
God had worked it up. The wind and the waves were just
so much that they were about to break up the ship. And I want
you to notice, especially in verse 12, And he said to them,
Take me up and cast me into the sea, so shall the sea be calm
to you. That sounds like a strange way
of dealing with the problem. Why would the sea suddenly get
calm by throwing Jonah in? But Jonah was a prophet. He knew
the Lord. And he told them about the Lord.
And they understood that he was speaking to them from God. He
was expressing God's will. So, they understood what he meant. If we cast Jonah into the sea,
then God said the sea will be calm to us. He was trading Jonah
for all the lives of the men on the ship. Jonah would be cast
into the water, into the sea. Jonah would drown. All the men
on the ship would be saved. What does that teach us? The
most important principle in all of Scripture. That for Christ's
sake, we are spared the wrath that is owed to us from God.
God has, His wrath is upon us because we have sinned. And that
wrath can only be taken away if God receives a payment. And
the Lord Jesus Christ has told us he came to give his life a
ransom for many. Matthew 20 verse 28. So Christ
came as a substitute to put himself into the wrath of God, like Jonah
was cast into the sea, in order that that wrath might be taken
away from us. The sea would be calm to the
sailors if Jonah was cast in. And notice what he says here.
For I know that for my sake, this great tempest is upon you.
For my sake, this great tempest is upon you. Why? Well, when
you read this, the first thing you think of is that it must
have been because Jonah was disobedient and God is punishing him. God
is correcting him. So he turns the sea upside down
and the sailors are about to die. And so they say, if Jonah
would have just done what he should have done, it wouldn't
have been this way. And in this account, we might think that
that's what it was, but there was a deeper reason here. And
that's the reason that we must understand from all of scripture.
Why is, let me ask a few questions. Why were we created? And why
did God make it so that when Adam, our first father, was given
a command by God not to eat from that tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, why did God give that command to him? And in that
command to Adam, give that command to us, so that if he obeyed,
we obeyed. But if he sinned, if he broke
that law, then we broke it. Why did God do that? And why
did God have it so that when Adam sinned, because he did,
that God cursed the ground and his nature was passed to us so
that we were sinners in Adam? We have a sinful nature because
of our fault. Why did God arrange that? And why is it that when
we were born to our mom and dad, we came into this world, we ourselves
were sinners. Why is it that God, by His grace,
led us to know Christ so that we would see our salvation in
Him and trust Him? And in spite of all the sin of
our life, in spite of all the trouble that would come into
our life, why would He do all these things? Was it just because
He was going to Did God have a very short-sighted
view of things? Does He have this thing where,
well, if this happens, then I'll do that. But if that happens,
then I'll do this other thing. Is that the way God arranges
the world and everything in it? It's not the way He does it.
God doesn't have... When I was working, I wrote software
for computers. And one of the things you tell
the computer is, if this, then that. Otherwise, do this. An
if-then-else statement. It's a very simple construct.
We know what it means in our lives. But God doesn't have a
computer program if-then-else. He doesn't do it that way. You
know why? Because God determines what's
going to be done, straight from the beginning, straight to the
end. So everything that happens in our lives has a purpose. God's
purpose. And so I want to take you to
a couple of scriptures to elaborate on this. Look at Colossians,
chapter 1. And in the Sermon on Rescue, if you
remember, we went back and we looked at Joseph and his brothers.
Why did God allow his brothers to be so cruel and hate Joseph
so much that they would sell their own brother as a slave?
Why? Why did God allow that to happen?
Joseph told them later, it was for, God sent me here before
you to preserve your lives. So their sin was turned by God
for their salvation. Now look at Colossians chapter
one. He says in verse 16, by the Lord Jesus Christ, the son
of God, by him were all things created. That means he's not
created, but he created everything. All things in heaven, all things
that are in earth, visible and invisible. He doesn't leave anything
out, does he? There's nothing that was created
that he didn't create. That's what it says in John 1
verse 3. But here he says, by him were
all things created that are in heaven, that are in earth, visible
and invisible, whether you can see it or not, whether they be
thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created
by him. And notice the next two words,
for him. Why did God create the world?
For His Son. But why did He create it for
His Son? He was the Son of God. He had everything. It was to
glorify His Son. In John chapter 17, he says,
God the Father, glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee. So God the Father had one goal
in mind in creating. He's going to set it up so that
His Son does and His Son receives all the glory that is due to
God. And I want to read a poem to
you in this regard. It was written by a man named
John Kent. I like this poem because it talks about this very thing.
Everything is done in heaven, in earth, And under the earth,
in right, in good, and in evil, everything is done for the Lord
Jesus Christ, according to His will. Listen to these words from
John Kent. He said, Jehovah, which is the
name of God, Jehovah in counsel resolved to fulfill the scheme
from eternity laid in His will, a scheme too profound for a seraph
to pry, and all for the lifting of Jesus on high. It was not
from the creatures salvation took place, the whole was of
God. To the praise of His grace and all to His glory shall tend
by and by to accomplish the lifting of Jesus on high. His wisdom
contrived the adorable plan, grace, mercy and peace and goodwill
towards man. The great three in one did the
same ratify and all for the lifting of Jesus on high. Here all the
perfections of deity shine, love, wisdom, power, goodness divine. His justice and grace received
honor thereby. It was all for the lifting of
Jesus on high. When man was created, what wisdom
we see. The whole he possessed was the
image of thee. But oh, in his fall we are led
to a spy. It was all for the lifting of
Jesus on high. When Adam to eat the fruit was
inclined, it answered the end which Jehovah designed. No purpose
or wisdom was altered thereby. It was all for the lifting of
Jesus on high. Here Satan was nonplussed in
what he had done. The fall wrought the channel
where mercy should run. In streams of salvation which
never run dry, it was all for the lifting of Jesus on high.
From hence it appears he made nothing in vain, for Adam thus
formed was a link in the chain. In him was decreed that his members
should die, but it was all for the lifting of Jesus on high.
So you get the drift. I could go on and on, there's
16 verses here. Such an excellent, this man understood that the
purpose of God in this world is to glorify his son. Such a
fundamental principle. If we could just understand this,
all of our trouble, all of our labor, all of our gifts, all
of our blessings, all that we have to give to God. by giving it to his people for
the cause of the gospel, whatever we do, it is all for the lifting
of Jesus on high. So Jonah, I want to read the
words back to you now. Jonah was a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ, so that what happened to him was to reflect what would
God was teaching concerning his son. His son would be the one
who was what? Like Jonah was cast into the
sea, God would cast in the Lord Jesus Christ, deliver him up,
for us all, as it says in Scripture. And so Jonah said this, I know
that for my sake this tempest is upon you. Remember when Jesus
came on the road to Emmaus, what he told them? He said, didn't
you know? This must happen. Didn't you know it was necessary
that Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?
And then he unfolded all of scripture to show them it was God's will
from the beginning. He spoke it in his word and brought
it to pass, all according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge
of God. This is the beauty. that God's
will will be done. Thy kingdom come, thy will be
done on earth as it already is done in heaven. And so let me
take you to another scripture to support this in Romans chapter
11. The point here is that, as you're turning to Romans 11,
the point here is that God turns the evil of man and Satan to
work for the good of his son and his people. You have to understand
this. When we speak of the Lord Jesus
Christ, we're not talking about the Son of God only. We're talking
about the Son of God as our Savior and His people with Him. So that
what He did, He did for His wife, for His people. And they're with
him, so that what God did in purpose, he purposed for his
glory, but also for the good of his people with him. And so
he says this in Romans chapter 11. Look at this in Romans chapter
11. He says, in verse 25, I would not, brethren, that you should
be ignorant of this mystery. He's talking about the fact that
the Jews, the nation of the Jews, didn't believe God, and now the
Gentiles have heard the gospel, and they do. He says, I would
not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery, lest you should
be wise in your own conceits. He's talking to the Gentiles
now. That blindness, in part, is happened to Israel until the
fullness of the Gentiles be come in. So the nation of Israel was
blind to Christ. They were blind to Christ. He
came. He walked, He lived among them, He performed miracles.
They refused to acknowledge that He was the Christ. And the whole
nation, by and large, couldn't see that He was the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of God. He went to the cross, they crucified
Him, He rose the next three days later, He was preached, and they
were still blind to it. That's what He's saying here.
I don't want you to be ignorant of God's mystery. so that you're
not wise in your own conceits. In other words, you think you're
wise, but you're not. That blindness, in part, has happened to Israel
until, what time? The fullness of the Gentiles
become in. Who were saved in the book of
Jonah? Well, the mariners were saved
from the storm and the sea. Who else? The Ninevites. How many was that? I'll give
you a little calculation here. It says in the very end of the
book of Jonah that God said there were 120,000 in that city who
couldn't discern or didn't know the left hand from the right
hand. So let's just run a rough estimate. Let's say that means
everyone under five couldn't discern the left from the right
hand. I just held my right, called it left. Left from right. 120,000 people didn't know their
left hand from their right hand. How many people on average are
below the age of five in a society? Well, I looked it up. And it
runs from 5.5 to 8%. If you take the larger number,
8%, and calculate the population based on that, you're going to
come up with, based on 120,000 people under five years old,
8% of the population is five or younger, you're going to come
up with a number of about 1.5 million. That's a lot of people
in a society. Jonah preached one sermon. 1.5 million, or perhaps 2.5 million,
depending upon which number you choose, people were saved. The Lord spared the entire city. Where in scripture do you ever,
or history, do you ever read about the conversion in one sermon
of a million people or more? Nowhere. Now, here in Romans
11, what does he say? That the blindness on Israel
is going to remain there until the fullness of the Gentiles
be come in. The Gentiles correspond to all
those saved in the book of Jonah. In other words, throughout history,
the preaching of Christ and him crucified, Jonah signified him,
would bring in an innumerable host of Gentiles. That's us.
Aren't you glad? But he says here that that blindness
remains on the nation of Israel as a people until the Gentiles
are completely saved. So that until the end of time,
the nation as a whole never turns to God. But notice he says, and
so all Israel shall be saved. Whoa, whoa, whoa. How can all
Israel be saved if they're blind? Because he's talking about a
spiritual people called Israel. And that's what Jonah said, I'm
a Hebrew. He was one of the Israel of God. Jesus said of Nathanael
when he saw him under the fig tree, an Israelite indeed in
whom is no guile. Why would he call him an Israelite
indeed if he was an Israelite? You say that because you're trying
to underscore that he's a true Israel. And so he's saying here
that God has an elect people out of the nations of the world
called Gentiles, and he has a people within the Israelite nation. And he goes on, he says, So all
Israel shall be saved, as it is written, there shall come
out of Zion the Deliverer, speaking of Christ, and shall turn away
ungodliness from Jacob, for this is my covenant to them. What
is God's covenant to his people? Right here it says it, "...when
I shall take away their sins." The Lord Jesus Christ made and
pledged himself before the world began to be the Lamb of God and
save his people. That was the purpose. He came
to fulfill it and he fulfilled it. And what had happened? Glorify
thy son. This was the reason Jonah was
cast into the sea. This is the reason Christ came
under the wrath of God. It was for his sake, for that
cause, that vow he made to his father for his people to save
them. That was the covenant. And so
he says here in verse 28, As concerning the gospel, the Jews
are enemies for your sakes, but as touching the election, they
are beloved for the Father's sakes. God has a people in the
nation of the Jews who are also elect. He goes on, for the gifts
and calling of God are without repentance, verse 30, for as
you in time past have not believed God, you Gentiles, you didn't
believe God, yet now have obtained mercy, how? Through the unbelief
of the Jews, verse 31, even so have these also now not believed,
so that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. So the
gospel is given to the Gentiles because the Jews rejected Christ
and the gospel. The gospel comes to the Gentiles.
God saves his people out of those nations. But the gospel given
to the Gentiles is preached again by the Gentiles and the elect
among the nation of the Jews are also saved. Through your
mercy they also might obtain mercy. And he goes on, verse
32, for God has concluded them all in unbelief. Whether his
elect are in the nation of the Gentiles, nations of the Gentiles,
or the nation of the Jews, are all considered by God unbelievers,
in order that he might have mercy upon all of his Israel of God. You see it? Oh, the depths of
the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable
are his judgments and his ways past finding out. Who has known
the mind of the Lord? As the mariners are picking up
Jonah to cast him into the sea, they're thinking, oh, if God
destroys us now for throwing this man in, it would be just.
Or if he destroys us for our sins and our idolatry, we were
praying to these unknown gods, that also would be just. But
who could know the mind of the Lord that through throwing this
man in we would be spared? who has known the mind of the
Lord, or who has been his counselor, or who has first given to him,
and it shall be recompensed, or paid back to him again. For
of him, and through him, and to him are all things to whom
be glory forever. That's the issue, the glory of
the Son. And the glory of the Son is the
salvation of his people, and that was God's purpose. to save
his people from their sins. That's the covenant. That was
the vow Christ made. He obligated himself. to come
and bear their sins. That's why they had to throw
him in. It's for my sake. I took your sins from eternity.
They were mine then. So God justified you when he
chose me as your head in that covenant and he chose you in
me. And so we had to cast him in.
It had to happen. It was the determinant counsel
and foreknowledge of God. God brought the greatest good
out of the greatest evil. And can he not do so in our lives?
Can he not take what we consider in our lives to be horrible,
horrible consequences and bring out of that much greater glory
to God? He does. Even in our death, Christ
always gives us the victory. Look at 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians
chapter 15. I want to look at this one verse
with you. This is what the Lord Jesus Christ,
like David killed Goliath, the Lord Jesus Christ killed death.
He says here in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 54, when this corruptible
shall have put on incorruption, that's gonna be at the resurrection,
right? When this body, which is corruptible, has been raised
again and put on a new glorified spiritual body, that's what he's
talking about, when that happens, and this mortal shall have put
on immortality." Do you realize that one day the Lord is going
to give you immortality? Amazing! So when this corruptible
shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put
on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that
is written, death is swallowed up in victory, Christ's victory. We are part of that victory.
You see the union of Christ and his victory with his people?
His victory is ours. Verse 55, oh, death, it's almost
like All of God's saved family are standing and looking narrowly
at this enemy called death. Oh, death. And the Lord Jesus
Christ speaking for them, where is thy sting? O grave, where
is thy victory? The sting of death is what? Sin,
that's the suffering of Christ, the sting of death. Our sin made
His, and the wrath of God He bore for it. And the strength
of sin is the law, which Christ fulfilled and answered in His
death. But thanks be to God, listen to this verse, thanks
be to God, which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus
Christ. Not through our holiness, not
through our goodness, but through the Lord Jesus Christ. Total
victory over death and sin. Nothing else can hurt us. All
things are yours, the Apostle wrote in 1 Corinthians 3.21.
Whether life or death, things present, things to come, the
world, everything is yours because you're Christ and Christ is God's. Okay, so I wanted to emphasize
that. I wanted to bring that out with
you. We see here in the throwing of Jonah overboard. He said it
was for my sake this storm is upon you. It's ultimately for
Christ's sake that we as sinners are delivered from our sins.
It's to His glory all of our lives. We think about the details
of them. We wonder about the frustrations of them. We fall
sick. We get better. We get sick. Eventually our loved ones die.
We look at life. We wonder what it's all about.
It's all for the lifting of Jesus on high. It's all for His glory
to save His people from their sins. That's the point. That
was the vow He made. That's why He prayed in the whale's
belly or the fish's belly, I will pay that I have vowed because
it was set down from eternity. All right. That was one of the
documents I wanted to go through with you tonight. I guess I just
got a little carried away. So next time, oh, I guess we
still have some time. Okay. All right. So think on
that. Think on that before we leave
that topic there in Jonah. Now, go back to Jonah. I know
that It can it can I don't want you to get lost in the in the
shuffle of these topics, but look back at Jonah We'll take
on one more thing here. I want you to look at this. There's
many things we could do and I'm gonna it might seem like I'm
Bouncing around here. Okay, but I want you to turn
to Psalm 103 Psalm 103 I remember we read this this song and at my mom's funeral because it
was a very, it was one of my mom's favorite places in scripture,
Psalm 103. I'll read the first 10 verses
here. Actually, we'll read the first 14 verses. Listen to these words.
This is God's word. He speaks it to his people. Bless
the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his
holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
forget not all his benefits. Notice what he says in verse
three. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy
diseases. See how God puts iniquities and
sickness right next to each other? Because sickness teaches us that
only our heavenly physician can heal us from our sin. 4. Who
redeemeth thy life from destruction. We think our life is wasting
away. The Lord Jesus Christ redeems
our life from destruction. 5. Who crowns thee with lovingkindness
and tender mercies. 6. Who satisfies thy mouth with
good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagles. 7.
The Lord executes righteousness and judgment for all that are
oppressed. 8. He made known his ways to
Moses and his acts to the children of Israel. Listen to this. The
Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous
in mercy. That's what Jonah said too. He
will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger forever.
Listen to these words. He has not dealt with us after
our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. Don't you
know that's true? I messed up again. Not surprised. The Lord has not dealt with us
according to our sins. He has not rewarded us according
to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above
the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him. As
far as the east is from the west, how far is that? They are never
going to meet As far as the East is from the West, so far has
He removed our transgressions from us. Amazing! Like as a father
pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For He knows our frame. He remembers
that we are dust. You see the course here? It's extolling God's mercies
and his goodness to a sinful people. He set his favor upon
them. Our sins are forgiven us for
Christ's sake. God did this. And so he's just
praising the Lord for this. And so Jonah understood this. He understood this. He says here, unto them that
fear him. I want you to ask yourself this
question. Do you fear the Lord? If you really think on that,
you're going to have to conclude, I do and I don't. Isn't it true? I do and I don't. That's always
the answer we must come to when we analyze ourselves. If you
examine yourself, what are you going to come up with? A sinner
am I? A sinner am I? There's no good in me. And yet
I find in me, I find a fear of the Lord. I find that I am trusting
Christ. Both of them are true. But what
are you going to do? How are you going to produce
this fear? Can you produce it? You cannot. You cannot. You are
right. You cannot produce what would be pleasing to God, can
you? The Lord has to do it, doesn't he? Everything that God is going
to glorify himself with is going to be his work. Remember in creation,
he looked upon everything that he had made, it was very good.
What are we? We are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works. So if it's the work, the good
works we do, or the fear of the Lord, the faith we have, anything
that we have, we love the Lord Jesus Christ for his goodness
towards us, all those things are God's fruit. And so when
the Lord says here that he is a father, he pities them that
fear him. Don't expect to find that fear
that gives you the assurance that you're the Lord's, but ask
him for it. Look to him to give you that
thing that you need, that fear of the Lord that begins with
our complete guilt. under God's holy law and in our
conscience, and that sense of our own condemnation and utter
helplessness, and yet seeing that God has given us grace in
Christ. That's the fear of the Lord. Always in respect to God's
salvation in Christ when we were nothing. So Jonah understood
that. He said, I fear the Lord. There's
lots of other lessons here. We're going to get to those next
time, but I don't want to take up too much of your time tonight.
Consider this, everyone in the book, I mean in the city of Nineveh,
what did they do? They believed in the Lord, they
called on the Lord, they turned from their evil ways. Isn't that
God's mercy? He did that. He gave them that
faith. He gave them that fear. He caused
them to call. And you know what? Everyone that
calls on the Lord, what is the promise in Scripture? Whosoever
shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's God's grace, isn't it?
Call on Him. He never turned away a sinner
calling on Him. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for
your mercy to us, for the Lord Jesus Christ who, from the beginning
of time, before time began, pledged himself, obligated himself for
his people so that everything God requires of us, everything
we did in sinning against the Lord, our God, the Lord Jesus
answered for that. He made himself the One to whom
God would go to, to receive from us all God required, and to fulfill
for us all of His righteousness, and also to answer for all of
our sins. And this is His cause, He did
it, and Lord, we thank You for it. We pray, Lord, that we would
be able to look to Him and stand in absolute awe and admiration
for His goodness to us, His mercy. that he would take our sins away,
make them his own, and suffer for them, and put them away forever,
and make us holy and perfect by his one offering of himself
to God for us. Thank you for this grace, Lord,
and this faith to believe it, because we know we call on you
because you called us first. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.