There are so many beautiful pictures
in this story, so many glorious words from the Saviour. And if
you go to Israel these days to find Jacob's well, it's still
there. It's still there. Do you know
where it is? It's inside a convent. religious blasphemous place to
find Jacob's well. One of my prayers today is that
the Lord would just strip away all the rubbish and we would
actually join this woman at the well in the presence of the Lord
Jesus Christ. So we read the text earlier so
I think I'll just turn to it and what I wanted to do today
was to do a Lord willing over the next couple of weeks we'll
go back and have a look at some of the glorious pictures in it. I love verse 10, if you knew
the gift of God and who it is that saith unto thee give me
to drink you would have asked of him and he would have given
you living water. That's a message that needs to
be heard in some detail and then we have the glorious picture
of worship. But most of all in all of this Jesus Christ drawing a sinner
to himself. We do love the pictures of the
absolute sovereignty of God and the enmity of men which drove
him away from Judea has no negative impact on the salvation of all
of his people. Look how he begins in verse four. He'd left and departed the religious
people of Judea and he went again to Galilee. And it says in verse
four, he must need God. Samaria. Everything that the
Lord Jesus Christ does is a must. Everything that happens in a
sinner's life is a must. Our God is a God of absolute
sovereignty and there is no worship of a God who is not absolutely
sovereign over all things. You cannot worship a God who
is not absolutely sovereign. And what's happening in this
world is a must. There the eternal covenant in
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he promises, doesn't he,
he says, working all things for the good of those who love him.
What's that include? What's that include? All the
things that have ever happened in this world are working together
for good. 2,000 years before these events,
Jacob dug this well, erected an altar there, a glorious picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He must, needs, go through Samaria. hinder the activities of our
God he must go through. Why must he go through? Why must
he go through Samaria? He must go through Samaria because
he had a sheep there. Nothing, nothing gets between
the Lord Jesus Christ and one of his find sheep. He knows where they are all the
time. He knows every circumstance of their life. He must go through
Samaria. I love what he says of his work
in this world. He says, other sheep, verse 16
of John chapter 10, other sheep I have. Other sheep I have. Which are not of this fold. They're
not of that Jewish fold. They're also I must breed. And they shall, they must hear
my voice. And there shall be one fold,
and there shall be one shepherd. Other sheep I have. He owns the sheep, they're his.
When did he have the sheep? When were they given to him?
They were given to him according to the scriptures. Everywhere
in the scriptures they were given to him by God the Father before
the foundation of the world. That's what they were given to
Him. They are the gift of God the Father to His Son. They are
the ones loved. They are the ones who make up
the Bride of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He must have His Bride. They
are the ones that make up the Body of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Body of the Lord Jesus Christ is perfect. The Church of the
Lord Jesus Christ never grows. The Church of the Lord Jesus
Christ never diminishes. The Church of the Lord Jesus
Christ is always, in the eyes and the hands of God, perfectly
safe and perfectly secure. And just as the Jews had no understanding
of who this woman was, nor did the people in Samaria. God knew,
God knew. And he says, there is a time
when he comes. There is a time, it's called
in the scriptures, the time of love. And this is a picture of
that time, And I want us to note that the woman came. He came,
the Lord Jesus comes to her, and she comes to him, and there
is this glorious meeting. Verse four says, then he cometh
to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near the pass
of the ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's
well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied
with his journey, sat thus on the well, and it was about midday.
His journey away from religion, his journey away from those pharisaical
Jews is a journey to this particular place. And we don't have time
to go into it in great detail today, but this weariness of
the Lord Jesus Christ is a glorious picture of the absolute humanity
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was so human that people could
not believe that he was divine. And it was absolutely necessary
that he be 100% human, that he could bear our sins, that he
could be made like unto his brethren, that he could walk this earth
as we did, that he could fulfil as a man the law of God. before men and before God, and
before devils and all others, a perfect, holy righteousness
before God. A man, a man with our flesh and
our blood, a man that can be wearied, and he sat down on the
world wearied. And there might be, there's lots
of speculation about why a man in his early 30s would be weary
after journeying. That distance when he obviously
is able to send the disciples into this town to buy food for
their lunch. And there are many reasons. One
of them, of course, is in the scriptures he's often up very
early and up through the night praying. And he often gets up
early in the morning and goes off and spends time with his
father alone. One of the things that wearied
the Lord Jesus Christ as much as anything is the rejection
of his own people. He came to his own people. He
came as their God, he came as their Messiah, and his own believed
him not. It wearies the Lord Jesus Christ
to think of the rejection that he has amongst his own people.
But he was weary with the journey, and he sat down on the well of
weary. And it was midday. And there
cometh a woman. See, in verse five, he comes
to her. Always in salvation, the very
first thing that must happen is that the Lord Jesus Christ
must come to us. And he comes to us in the preaching
of the gospel. He comes to us today as he did
to this woman 2,000 years ago. The story is the story of salvation.
The story is the story of the Lord Jesus Christ He initiates
everything. He comes to her and he's the
one that initiates the conversation. There cometh a woman of Samaria
to draw water. We have no doubt about why she
was there. At the wells in India, the women
came early in the morning to get their water and they came
in the evening to get their water and no one went out in the middle
of the day to get water. with a reputation. She was a
failure. She had made a complete and utter
mess of her life in every possible way. She'd had five husbands.
If you had one husband or two husbands, it might be someone
else's fault. When you have five, there's no question about it.
And all the other women in the village would be very nervous
about her because she had five and now she's got another guy
she's living with. Her life is a mess. Her life is a mess. Have you made a mess of your
life? Our sins caused us to make a
mess of our lives in extraordinary ways, and she came there ashamed. She came there, you know what
it's like, don't you? When you have sinned publicly
and badly, you just don't want to be seen by anyone. You just
want to hide away. That's exactly what she was doing
in the middle of the day. She was hiding from those people. She didn't want to embrace them
in conversation. The well was a place of gossip,
and she would have been the topic of gossip in that town for years
and years and years. Five husbands are now shacked
up with another guy. He comes to her, and she is drawn
at this particular time, and what I love so much about it,
at this time of love, that God in his divine providence brought
these two together in such a way that they meet alone. The very
best thing you can do if there's any conviction upon your soul
and any work of God in your heart is to get alone with him. lay out your life before him,
like this lady had to, and says, this is what I am. This is what
I am. I've made, the mess is all my
own fault. I can do nothing to fix it. And
you're the saviour of the world. You're the saviour of the world. They meet alone at this particular
precious time, at this precise time. He must, he must, going through Samaria, he must
meet this woman, and she must meet with him. The disciples
have gone away. And the Lord Jesus initiates
the conversation, doesn't he? He says, give me to drink. That statement, as we see, would
have shocked her. Verse nine, then saith the woman
of Samaria unto him, how is it that thou, being a Jew, Ask of
me, ask drink of me, which am a woman of Samaritan." Because
the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. That word dealings
has got to do with the whole business of sharing, eating and
drinking vessels more than anything else, because the disciples are
in the town buying food from these same Samaritans. But the
dealings is that you have to not defile yourself by touching
their vessels. What a glorious picture of our
Lord Jesus Christ being made sin for us. the feelings of our
infirmities. He's touched. He's prepared to
go to the leper and touch them. He touches the blind. He's prepared
in the presence of Samaritan to actually touch her drinking
vessel. The Jews would have been horrified and she knew all about
it. Jesus, verse 10, Jesus answered
and said unto her, and we'll look more at this verse later
on, If you knewest the gift of God,
and who it is saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldst
have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.' She came to him, and then he
makes this remarkable statement. I love the way the Lord Jesus
Christ, to this He's very kind, our Saviour.
He's very blunt with her and He's very clear about exposing
her sin. But there is, I love the graciousness
of His words to her. It's good for us to remember,
isn't it? It's good for us to remember. not a sinner with adjectives
attached to it, just a sinner is how you come to him. So Nicodemus
and the woman, if you thought of Nicodemus and if you'd been
there in Jerusalem and you'd seen all those remarkable religious
activities that go on in Jerusalem and you looked across at Nicodemus
and you'd seen Nicodemus in all of his fine robes and his phylacteries
and you'd seen Nicodemus esteemed this woman who's the closest to God who has earned a place cross of the Lord Jesus Christ
at the ground is perfectly level, brothers and sisters. There are
none higher, there are none better, there are none who have done
things to earn themselves some right into the presence of God.
Those that think they have, and those in religion who want to
cause other people to feel in some way defiled in their presence,
as this woman would have felt so defiled for so much of her
life. They're lying to you, and they
are deceived. They have a very, very serious
problem. They don't know who God is. They
have a really, really serious problem because they don't know
who He is. They don't know who they are, and they don't know
how God saves sinners. This is a picture of the Lord
Jesus coming in grace to a sinner. and you're alone with the sinner.
If you were ever brought into the presence of God, in the presence
of the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be alone with him. And what
a lovely picture it is of a well. A well isn't a receptacle for
holding water that falls out of the sky. A well is a receptacle
that gathers water that comes out of a rock. The rock that
followed Israel for those 40 years through the wilderness
was the Lord Jesus Christ, that cliff rock out of that rock.
flows water, out of him flows his living water. She says, he says to her, verse
10, just look at it briefly, it's a glorious verse, and Lord
willing we'll spend more time looking at it. If you knew the
gift of God, if you knew the gift of God, Salvation is not presented. Salvation
is not offered. Salvation is not an opportunity
created. Salvation is not a possibility
presented if you knew the gift of God. And for there to be a
gift there has to be two things. There has to be a giver and there
has to be a receiver. Otherwise there's no gift. Lord
Jesus Christ is not laid out on the table for men to pick
and choose Him at His own will. This is the picture of Him sovereignly
coming to this particular woman, leaving Israel behind and coming
to this particular woman. Christ is the gift There is just one gift, and in
that one gift, God gives all. Like Jacob, when he came back
and dug that well, he said, I have everything. I have everything.
If you have the Lord Jesus Christ, you have everything. You have
everything you need in this world. You have everything you need
in the world to come. You have everything you need
to stand in the very presence of a holy, righteous God. The wages of sin is death. That's
what you earn. The wages of sin is death. But
the gift of God. The gift of God is eternal life
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation is the gift of God. It's not earned. This woman wasn't
even seeking salvation. She wasn't seeking a saviour.
Who's the seeker? Who's the seeker? There is one
seeker. Salvation is not earned, it's
not sought, and it's not bought. She wasn't asking. There are
two fundamental things, isn't it? If you know the gift and
you know the who. Salvation is a who. Salvation
is who? This is the record, isn't it?
That God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His
Son. God has given us a record of
eternal life. He's given us a record. He sent
to the Jews. Now, one of the Jews these days
want to expunge Isaiah 53 from out of their Bibles. It says,
Isaiah 53 begins a glorious chapter of the Lord Jesus Christ and
Him crucified, and the success of all of His work. It says,
who hath believed our report? Who has believed the record that
God has given of his Son? And the answer is really simple,
isn't it? It's in the next words. To whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed? God reveals. He reveals the who,
the who of the gift. When men fell, when men fell,
they lost Man lost all knowledge of himself,
and man lost all knowledge of salvation. No wonder the Lord
said, I am the way, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am
the life. This woman had no need, no knowledge
of her need of salvation. She had no knowledge of the way
of salvation. She had no knowledge of the truth of salvation. If
you knew the gift of God, you would ask. And if he's revealed himself
to who you are, you'll be an asker. You won't be there coming
and saying, look what I deserve. I'm wanting some reward. Matthew
7 speaks of those that come to the Lord wanting a reward on
that last day. And he says, I never knew you. I never knew you. If
you knew him, you'd be an asker. You'd be a beggar. You'd be a
mercy beggar. Mercy begging is the sign of
him coming, the sign of him revealing himself. You'll ask following
the grace of revelation. Asking proceeds from knowing. People think they can come to
a knowledge of God by doctrine. And they create colleges and
all sorts of things to equip people in their knowledge of
God. If you've met the Lord Jesus
Christ you won't need to know a doctrine about total depravity. You'll know that you are depraved
in his presence. If you meet the Lord Jesus Christ
you won't have any questions ever again about particular redemption. You'll know that he's a successful
Saviour. This man who is God cannot fail. He must be successful
in all he does. If you knew him, if you know
him, he would ask. Everyone in all of the New Testament
scriptures that came to the Lord Jesus Christ as a mercy beggar,
Jew or Gentile, went away satisfied and saved. Even if they were
another filthy woman like the Syro-Phoenician woman whose daughter
was demon possessed, and the Lord speaks seemingly very rude
to her, and yet she was sent away. She said, I'm just here
as a beggar. I'm here as a beggar. You've
come for the lost sheep of Israel. I'm just here to get a crumb
from your table. And if I get a crumb from your
table, everything's fine. So we're here. We're asking. Asking. You check the New Testament
out. You ask. You ask and you will
receive. Everyone that asks is given living
water. And as with Nicodemus, the Lord
speaks to her in terms that are almost impossible for her to
understand. The woman in verse 11 says unto
him, So thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.
From whence hast thou this living water? Where do you get this
living water from? greater than our father Jacob,
which gave us this world, and dragged thereof himself and his
children and his cattle." Where do you get this living
water from? This living water He's the One. There's no shortage
of ability with the Lord Jesus Christ to dig the wells and to
create the water and to create the need for the water and to
quench the thirst of those who ask. Knowing God is not the reward
of you asking, but you asking is the evidence of His grace
in your life. You must be born from above to
ask. He says to her, whosoever drinketh
this water of this water shall thirst again. Men have been digging wells for
themselves, haven't they? garden. We were digging wells.
In fact, we started digging wells in the garden. We started digging
wells there by stitching fig leaves together to make a covering
for ourselves. We started there by digging away
to establish our righteousness and to blame God for our circumstances. He says to these Jews, have just
as well said it to the Jews that he left behind in Judea. He says,
for my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken
me, the fountain of living water. almost always in the plural regarding
the Lord and His salvation. You've forsaken me. Who's the fountain of living
waters? You've forsaken me, the Lord
Jesus Christ, and you've dug out cisterns, you've hewed out
cisterns, you've made these great bottles in the ground, and there
are enormous bottles in the ground that they made to collect the
water when it rained so that they could survive the drought. It's like a bucket without a
bottom in it. All that you pour in at the top
just runs out the bottom. You, like me, have been to those
wells, haven't you? Every single one of us has been
to those wells of this world, the well of materialism, the
well of wealth, the well of position. You think of them. They're all
digging, aren't they? You listen to these philosophers
philosophizing about life, and it's an empty conversation. I
taught philosophy in India, and I hated it. The more I taught
it, the more I knew about it, the more I hated it. And I thought,
this is just empty nonsense. I'm sick to death of men Chewing
on these things like a piece of chewing gum is as useless
as a bit of dead chewing gum when you've finished on it. You've
learned nothing out of it. And what it does, it just puffs
up the ego of men and thinks, well, I can say these fancy words,
and I can use these fancy phrases, and I can look down on other
people that aren't as fancy as me. It's empty, brothers and
sisters. It's empty. And only the Lord
can empty it, can't he? Men have died. in sin, sadly. There's the wells of pride, of
place, and for pride of race, and even in religion there's
pride of grace. If you earn and never thirst
again, there's only one place you'll You'll never thirst. You'll never
thirst. See, man's religion, it doesn't
matter what variety it is, it doesn't matter what denomination
it is, it doesn't matter what colour it is, it doesn't matter
where it came from, all of man's religion is a religion of works
and not a religion of grace. The one difference, the huge
difference, is the person, it's the Lord Jesus Christ. There
are just two religions in this world. There's a religion of
do, do, do, and there's a religion of the Lord Jesus Christ that
says it's done. It's finished. That's what he
says here. He says, I've come to finish the work the Father
gave me to do. So man's religion can never, ever,
no matter how fancy it is and no matter how highly esteemed
it is and it doesn't matter how many people follow it, man's
religion can never satisfy the justice of God. Nothing man ever
does can satisfy the justice of God. Man's religion can never
satisfy the holiness His great characteristic in the
scriptures is his holiness and his righteousness, and man has
perverted that to try and say that God loves everyone. That's
not a word, that's not a phrase that's used in the scriptures
ever. Man's religion can never satisfy divine justice. Man's
religion can never satisfy divine holiness. God is holy. When you
leave this world, you will meet a holy God. Absolutely, unquestionably
holy. And man's religion will never
ever satisfy a guilty conscience. Even the law was designed and
all those sacrifices were designed to show them that this sin of
the law just says guilty. You bring your sacrifice to the
temple and it pronounces, you're pronouncing your guilt and you
leave there and you have to turn around and do another sacrifice
again and again. The law just says guilty. man-made religion will ever satisfy
the justice and the holiness nor the guilty conscience of
a man or a warrior. But if you drink this water,
if you drink this living water, you'll never thirst, of his son, and God was satisfied. And God's people who look in
exactly the same place as God the Father are satisfied. We're
satisfied. We're satisfied. You never thirst,
the child of God, never thirst for righteousness. Never thirst
for acceptance with God. Never thirst for knowing what
is happening in this world. We don't need to know what's
happening in this world. except to know that our God is absolutely
sovereign and his purposes are being fulfilled perfectly. We
never thirst. In the new birth, we never thirst
for peace with God. We never thirst. He says we'll
never thirst because our sins are put away. We'll never thirst. He speaks to her of living water,
the water that is Him Himself. And the Lord exposes her sin. It's really interesting to see
what she says. She goes to two refuges, doesn't she? She goes
to the refuge of trying to figure out what's going on. She's trying
to figure out spiritual things in a natural way. Listen to what
she says. The woman said to him in verse
15, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. Not only was she a sinful woman,
she was an ignorant woman. She didn't know, just like Nicodemus. And Jesus says to her, go and
call thy husband and come hither. You go and call your husband. The woman answered and said,
I have no husband. And Jesus said unto her, thou
hast well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands,
and the one that he whom thou now hast is not thy husband. In that thou saidest truly. And the woman said, listen to
this refuge of lies. Listen to what she says. As soon
as she's exposed, and as soon as her sin is exposed, what she
does, she says, I want to have a religious discussion. I'd like
to have a discussion about doctrine. I'd like to have a discussion
about historic theology. I'd like to have a discussion
about Calvinism or Arminianism. I'd like to have this discussion.
She says, Our fathers worshipped on this
mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place that men
ought to worship. Jesus says this unto her. What a glorious statement this
is. She wants to talk. She wants to talk religion with
the Son of God. She wants to have a discussion
about religion with the Lord Jesus Christ, who knows everything
about her and everything about her heart. He says, That's a command in the original. It's a command. The warrant for
believing is the command of God. The command of God. He speaks
to her of worship. He speaks to her of true worship.
He says to her, you won't worship on this mountain, nor will you
worship You worship what you know not.
We know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. The
origin of salvation is of the Jews. The Jews were given the
scriptures, and from the Jews came the Lord Jesus Christ. But,
verse 23, but the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father
seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit and they that
worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. And the
woman wants to talk religion again. And the Lord Jesus Christ
reveals himself to her. It's glorious, isn't it? Here
is a picture of sin exposed. Here is a picture of her running
to a refuge of lies. And here is the Lord Jesus Christ
taking away that refuge of lies. Fig leaves have no efficacy in
the presence of God. men love darkness because their
deeds are evil and they're brought to the light by the grace and
the power of God Almighty. He says, woman believe me, believe
me, there thing as true worship. Therefore
there is such a thing as false worship. And most of what goes
on in worship in this world today and called worship has got nothing
to do with the worship of the true and living God. You go to
those so-called worshippers and tell them about a God who is
absolutely sovereign, You tell them about a God who elected
a people and put them in his Son and put them in the Lord
Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world. You talk to them
about that blood that was shed before the foundation of the
world, that they were saved before the foundation of the world.
You talk to them about a sovereign, successful Saviour and you will
have the same response that we've had again and again and again. I'm not going to worship that
God. There is true worship and there
is false worship. There is ignorant worship. That's
what the Samaritans had and the Jews were no better. They just
had ignorant worship. But true worship is spiritual. And true worship is in truth.
And they are nouns. True worship is worship that's
generated by the Holy Spirit, revealing the Lord Jesus Christ
to people. True worship is in the truth. True worship is not related to
a place. True worship is related to a
person. True worship is the worship of
God the Father. True worship is Trinitarian worship. You worship God the Father by
the power of the Holy Spirit revealing the Lord Jesus Christ
to you and you worship Him in His Son. True worship, according
to the Lord Jesus Christ, is the result of the Father's seeking
and finding and giving. Everyone that's drunk this living
water is an asker. Worshippers are askers, aren't
they? They're asking from Him. True worship. We worship God
in the Spirit. We are the circumcision, says
Paul. We are the circumcision which
worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have
no confidence in the flesh. Wherever there is true worship,
there will be truth. Wherever there is true worship,
there will be the worship of God in truth, isn't it? Paul
says to the Thessalonians, we're bound to give thanks always to
God, to you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God has
from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
of the Spirit and belief of the truth. Wherever there is a sanctification
of the Spirit, there is a belief of the truth. Wherever there
is a belief of the truth, there has been a work, a sanctifying
work of God, the Holy Spirit. Sanctify them, is the Lord Jesus
Christ's prayer in that upper room before he died. Sanctify
them through the truth. Your word is true. In Hebrews 10, we have a glorious
description of worship. We are sanctified through the
offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. We are sanctified
by the truth. And what's the truth? The truth
is always related to the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, what
he did and what he achieved on Calvary's tree. There is just
one spiritual worship. There is just one. We worship God and the Father
seeks. Do you think he finds? Do you
think he has any problem finding them? Do you think he has any
problem bringing them to a place where they will ask and where
they'll drink this living water? Christ reveals himself. Finally, he says, she asks a
question. She asks a great question. She
says, I know that Messiah hath come with which is called Christ.
When he has come, he will tell us all things. Jesus said unto
her, and this is one of the clearest declarations in the scriptures,
the fact that he is God, that he is God's Christ, that he is
God anointed, and he said, I that speak unto thee am he. Verse 26. I that speak unto thee,
unto you, am he. I am the Christ of God. And the end result of it, the
end result of it is, we'll look at it more in future, she just
leaves her water pot there, doesn't she? The thing that was absolutely
essential for her life, her water pot and her rope, she just leaves
them there and she runs back to her village, that village
in which she'd been ashamed of before because of her sin and
her wickedness. They'd looked down on her all
of her life and she runs back into that village to tell them
about the Christ. And then, remarkably, the Lord
Jesus Christ, as a result of her witness, has this remarkable
harvest in that place. So that's what true witnessing
is, isn't it? We've seen something. We witness
to what we've seen. We witness to what we've heard.
We witness to a whom. And he comes. So let's look. journey to salvation, this journey
to rejoicing. He comes to where you are and
meets you there as you are. He always does, the Lord Jesus
Christ. He initiates and creates an interest
and He draws sinners into His very presence. He exposes sin,
He destroys the refuges of lies, the wills that men drink at,
and he reveals himself I am God. I am thy great salvation. I am the Christ of God. I'm God's anointed priest to
take you into the very presence of God by myself. I am God's
prophet. I speak the very words of God
to you. And I am God's king. I sovereignly rule and reign
over all of them. Great comfort, brothers and sisters.
What a glorious Saviour. What power in His blood to touch
a sinner and take her sins upon Himself and give her His righteousness
that she can be in His presence. And He abides, He abides with
them. Let's pray. And Heavenly Father,
we do. you for the revelation of your
Son, and we thank you, Heavenly Father, for this glorious picture,
and we pray that you would cause us, like her, Heavenly Father,
to be brought into the presence of your dear and precious Son,
that we might know who he is, that we might hear his glorious
words of presence in your dear and precious
son. O our Father, we do pray that
you would cause us to see his blood as precious, to cause us
to see his broken body as precious. were done for his people and
for his bride. Oh Father, we thank you for the
way you gather your people in this world. And we thank you
especially, Heavenly Father, that when you gather them, you
abide with them. And we pray as we go through
this week, Heavenly Father, we would be reminded of the glories
of redeeming love and wonderfully successful salvation. And we
pray in Jesus' name and for his glory. Amen.