keep your bibles open there to
the book of amos chapter three look at a number of questions
that the prophet asked this morning but the one i've used as a title
for the message is can two walk together except they be agreed
now we see throughout this passage that there is a cause and an
effect to everything that happens there is a concrete reason why
God does everything that he does. Our Lord never acts arbitrarily.
God never acts randomly. That's true in all the events
of Providence. We see so many examples of it.
God created Adam and put him in the garden. Sometime later,
God cast Adam out of the garden. There's a concrete reason for
that. It's Adam's sin. The cause of Adam being thrust
out of the garden was his sin. God didn't act arbitrarily. God,
sometime later, destroyed the world with a flood. He didn't
do that for no reason. It's because of man's great sin
that was upon the earth. God gave the nation Israel judicial
blindness. So as a nation, they can't see. They can't believe, though the
Lord may save individual Jewish people, but as a nation, the
Lord's given them judicial blindness so that they can't see. God didn't
do that arbitrarily. God did that because the Lord
Jesus came into his own and his own received him not. They didn't
want to believe him, they didn't want to hear him, so God made
it where they can. He gave them what they wanted.
And the same thing is true in the salvation of a sinner. There's
a concrete reason almighty God saves his people from their sin.
It's because of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of who he is
and what he's accomplished for his people. God forgives the
sin of his people. As great as our sin is, God forgives
the sin of his people, and there's a reason for it. The blood of
Christ. The blood of Christ is paid for,
washed away the sin of God's people, so there's nothing to
charge them with. The sin's gone. And that kind of cause and effect
relationship is seen throughout our text this morning. I have
four points that I want us to see. and then I have a question
I want all of us to ask ourselves. Now my first point is this. God
is the first cause of everything. Verse six says, shall trumpet
be blown in the city and the people not be afraid? Shall there
be evil in a city and the Lord hath not done it? Now whatever
is done in God's creation, God's the cause of it. He's always
the cause of it. Now it's easy for us to say that
when something good, what we call good happens, isn't it?
We get the right amount of rain and the right amount of sunshine
and the crops grow and we have a plentiful harvest so we all
have plenty to eat. And we say, oh God did that.
God in his goodness did that. You see the hand of the Lord.
Just turn military battles because of weather or because some bonehead
mistake somebody would never make in their life. Something
happened and the Lord just turned that. Turned that military battle.
Our country owes our freedom to many instances like that.
God did that. It's easy for us to say when
that turns out, you know, to protect our freedoms, oh, God
did that. God did it. I see that. God did this. His
hand did that. One of our loved ones survives
a horrible car wreck. They walk away from it unscathed,
they had no right to walk away from that thing alive, and we
say, oh, the hand of God did that. God in his goodness did
that. A person has a life-threatening
illness, we think for sure it's gonna kill them, and they miraculously
recover. Seem like the doctors give up
all hope, and they miraculously recover. We say, oh, God did
that, God did that. The Lord is merciful. He reveals
himself to one of our loved ones here. And we say, God did that. God's so good. God, I see that.
God, it's easy to say God did that. But what about things we
call evil? What about things that hurt us
deeply? What about when there's a drought?
The crops all die and everybody's starving. What about when the
wicked conquer peaceful nations? That happened to the Jews so
many times that the wicked came in and conquered them. The Romans
conquered the known world at that time. The Nazis and the
Russians caused so much damage in the world. What about when
folks like that rule? They win the battle. What about
when one of our loved ones has a car wreck and instead of walking
away from it, they die? What about that? What about when
that sickness kills one of our loved ones? This is hard to even say. But
what about when the Lord passes by one of our loved ones like
He did Esau? What about that? Now did the
Lord do that or did Satan do that? Did the Lord do that or
somebody else do that? Who's in control when those things
happen? God did them too. That's what verse seven, or verse
six says, shall there be evil in the city and the Lord hath
not done it? Now if there's evil in the city, the Lord did it. Look back at Isaiah chapter 45.
Isaiah has told us the very same thing. God told Isaiah and Isaiah wrote
it down at any rate. Isaiah chapter 45, verse five. I am the Lord and there's none
else. There's no God beside me. I girded
thee though thou hast not known me. That they may know from the
rising of the sun and from the west, there's none beside me. I am the Lord and there is none
else. There's no competitor. There's
no one that can approach his level. I am the Lord and there
is none else. I form the light and I create
darkness. I make peace and I create evil.
I, the Lord, do all these things. Now, let's not get all bent out
of shape and take this scripture and say it doesn't mean what
it says and try to take it further than what it says. The Lord's
not the author of sin. God cannot be holy and be the
author of sin. Of course he's not. God never
commits a sin. But the Lord has purposed the
sin of man to accomplish his eternal will and purpose. You
can't say some man did something that was against God's will.
Some man sinned, did something so awful, well that's against
God's will and God didn't will for that to happen. Now wait
a minute. You mean to tell me something happened against God's
will that God didn't want to happen? Of course not. And there's
two examples that are so obvious to us that they cannot be missed. The fall of man. God created
Adam and put him in a perfect garden and Adam sinned against
God. Adam thrust his whole race into
sin and death by his one act of disobedience. God did that. God's not the author of sin.
God didn't make Adam sin, but God did ordain Adam sin, so that
he would sin, and here's the reason why. So that there would
be a sinful people for God's son to come and save, and he'd
get all the glory for doing it. See, that was God's eternal will
and purpose. Here's where there's gonna be a people made sinners
so Christ can come and save them. The second just obvious example
is the cross. The cross, humanly speaking,
is the greatest act of injustice that's ever happened on the face
of this earth. But again, now what men did was awful and it
was sinful and there's no excuse for it. But now God did that. That was God's eternal will and
purpose. Peter told us in no uncertain terms, that was God's
purpose. Those men did everything they
wanted to do. God didn't make them sin, did
he? No, they sinned. It's their sin,
their rebellion, it's their fault. They did exactly what they wanted
to do. But thousands of years before they did it, God told
us exactly what they'd do. He told us exactly what they'd
do. God ordained for them to take
his son and to slaughter him so that there would be a sacrifice
for sin. So that there would be bloodshed
to put away your sin and my sin. See, that was God's purpose.
And the same truth applies to everything that we call evil
in our life. There are evil things that happen. Now, I don't know what good the
Lord is bringing out of it. I can't see what good the Lord
is bringing out of it right now. But here's what I do know. I
always try to stick to what I do know. God's the first cause of
everything. God did it, and somehow he's
working it together for good to accomplish his purpose. And if we'd really learned that,
if the Lord would really give us the faith to really believe
that, maybe the next time somebody does something evil to us, maybe
we'd be a little more patient, maybe we wouldn't strike out
in anger so quickly and think, now the Lord did this. The Lord
did this, but let's wait and see what the Lord does. Maybe.
David gave us an example of that. Remember when David was leaving
the city, Absalom had taken over, David was leaving the city, and
Shimei was cursing David, just running along after him, cursing
David, saying all this horrible stuff. And David had a young
man, Abishai. And boy, Abishai said, Now that
dog, his head should not stay on his body. I'm gonna go cut
it off. And David said, leave him alone. And this is what David said,
the Lord told him to curse David. Well, that takes grace to say
that, doesn't it? But you know what David knew? God is the first
cause of everything. Now let's just wait and see what
God's gonna do with this. And we do well to remember that.
Instead of first thing we do, strike it out in anger, think
I'm gonna solve this problem with my sword or my fist, you
know. God's the first cause of everything. All right, number
two. God's holy, he must punish sin.
And when God punishes sin, it's man's fault. God's the first
cause of everything. But man is still responsible
for his own sin. I don't feel any desire or inclination
at all to try to reconcile those two things. Both of those two
things are just so, because God says they are. God's the first
cause of everything, and my sin is my fault. And when God punishes
somebody for their sin, they're getting exactly what they deserve. No more and no less. When God
sends somebody to hell, it's gonna be their own fault. It's
not gonna be arbitrary. It's gonna be because of their
own sin. When God sends somebody to hell,
now it's not God's fault. Somebody can't say, well, you
know, I'm going to hell because God didn't elect me. No, that's
not so. Nobody in hell will ever be able to say this. I asked
God for mercy and he didn't give it to me. It's God's fault because
he chose, you know, he wouldn't give me mercy because I'm not
one of his elect. Nobody in hell will ever say that. God will
only damn people because of their own sin, and it'll be their own
fault. And nobody can ever blame God for them being in hell now.
It's all my fault, my sin. Now the flip side of that is
also true. If somebody finds themselves awakening in glory
and Christ-likeness, that'll be God's doing. If I find myself
in hell, that's my doing. But if I awake in glory, that's
God's doing, isn't it? God did that. But if God sends
somebody to hell now, there's a reason for it. Look here at
verse four. Will a lion roar in the forest when he hath no
prey? Will a young lion cry out of his den if he hath taken nothing?
Now a lion only roars when there's prey to be had. I'm fascinated
by lions. They just utterly fascinate me.
I read some about them this week One of the things I read is sometimes
a lion will roar just to try to scare his prey after death
so it kind of like is frozen still for a second so the lion
has a chance to come, you know, capture it and eat it. The lion
only roars when there's prey to be had. There's a reason he's
on the hunt. There's prey to be had. Well,
the Lord only roars in judgment when there's sin and there's
guilt that offends his holiness. He doesn't roar for no reason.
It's because of our sin. There's one thing. An unregenerate
person, they sin against God. That's all they can do. They
don't know any better. They don't know God. I'm sure
they know they shouldn't do certain things, but as far as their sin
being really against God, they've got no idea. They don't know
God. It's one thing when somebody
doesn't know God sins against them. But that's another thing. when his people, who know him,
who have experienced his goodness, who have experienced his grace,
when they sin against him. Look here at verse one. Hear
this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O children of Israel.
The Lord's not speaking to the Philistines or the Amalekites.
This is the children of Israel, against the whole family, which
I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying, you only have
I known of all the families of the earth. Therefore, while I
punish you for all of your iniquities, God only dealt in mercy with
the nation Israel. He gave him his law, he gave
him his word, he gave him the prophets, he gave him the priesthood,
he gave him the tabernacle and the temple. God gave them the
true way to worship him. And what did Israel do? Every
time it seemed like they turned around, started worshiping idols. Now God never punishes people.
his people for their sin. Now, if God punished us for our
sin, we'd all be in hell right now. There'd be no worship service
here. God doesn't punish his people
for their sin. Well, let me tell you that. He'll
correct them. Now, God doesn't punish his people
for their sin, and there's a concrete reason for that, which we are
looked at. It's because he already punished Christ, our substitute,
for our sin. So there's no punishment, there's
no justice left for our sin, but the Lord will correct his
people. You know, the Lord never gives his people a spanking for
no reason. There's a reason that the Lord
corrects his people. It's to keep us looking to him.
If the Lord did not correct us, we'd start trusting in the arm
of the flesh. I mean, so fast it'd make your
head spin. We start trusting in our own
knowledge of right doctrine. Everybody else in this town doesn't
have it, we do. They don't know it, we do. We
start trusting in that, sure as the world. if Lord didn't
correct us and humble us and keep us looking to Him. God corrects
His children to produce the fruit of the Spirit in us. If God didn't
correct us, can you please tell me how we'd ever be humble? If
God didn't correct us, we'd be full of pride, pride of grace,
wouldn't we? If Lord didn't correct us, how
in this world will we ever learn patience? How would we? If Lord didn't correct us, How
would we ever learn to be loving and tenderhearted toward foes?
How would our faith ever increase if the Lord didn't correct us?
Look at verse five. Can a bird fall in a snare upon
the earth where no gin is for him? Should one take up a snare
from the earth and have taken nothing at all? You know, is
a bird gonna fall into a snare if nobody set the trap for him?
Is the fowler, is he gonna come take that snare up from the earth
if there's no bird in it? Of course he's not. The bird
only falls into a trap for a reason. Somebody set it for him. The
fowler set it for him. The earth didn't just make the
trap. The trap didn't randomly appear.
The fowler set it there. And the fowler's only gonna come
empty that trap when there's a bird in it. Now here's the
picture. The Lord only corrects his children
when need be. And he ends the trial. He ends
the correction when it's accomplished what God sent it to accomplish.
Our trials begin and they end exactly when God wills. Because
God's the first cause of everything. Now knowing that, oh if the Lord
really enabled us to believe that, it'll make us a little
more patient in times of trouble and trial and waiting on the
Lord to deliver us. All right, here's the third thing.
Salvations of the Lord. Look at verse three. Can two
walk together except they be agreed? Now, two people, they
can only walk together and have fellowship together if they're
agreed. Two people can only walk together
in union if they're friends. Enemies can't walk together because
they don't agree on anything. Enemies can't walk together,
they'd be fighting each other all the time, wouldn't they?
The only people that can walk together in union and fellowship
are friends. Now before the fall, Adam walked
with God in the cool of the day. I mean, can you just imagine?
Can you imagine what that was like for Adam? Can you imagine
the conversations Adam had with God? with the Lord Jesus Christ
when he was up there. Can you imagine the conversations
that they had? Isn't that such a blessing for
Adam? But then Adam fell. Adam sinned
against God and there's no more walking with God. Christ came
to him, walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Adam
wasn't coming out to him to walk with God, take his evening walk,
was he? He was hiding in the bushes. Adam can't walk with God anymore
because now God and man are not enemies. They're not friends. They're not friends because Adam
declared war on God. No son of Adam can walk with
God because God and man have two different natures. They're
walking in two different paths. They're walking in two different
directions. Man will choose the wide way that leadeth to destruction
every time. That's the direction. That's
the path that we walk in. the wide path that leadeth to
destruction. You're not gonna find God walking on that path.
God don't walk there, so you can't walk with God on that path.
A holy God, sinful man, they're gonna pull in different directions.
Polar opposite directions. Now two people can't walk together
when they're walking in opposite directions. It's impossible.
Adam did walk with God at one time, didn't he? But now Adam's
full of fear. He's trying to hide from God.
That's not walking with God when you're trying to hide from him.
Now what was the cause of all this? I mean, God will not walk
with Adam anymore, but that's not just arbitrary, was it? No,
it was man's sin that caused God not to walk with Adam anymore.
This whole mess is man's fault. The problem is it's our sin that
separated us from our God. That's why we don't walk together
with him. A holy God cannot walk. He can't walk in agreement and
fellowship with sin and rebellion. And a sinful man can't walk in
union with holiness. We wouldn't enjoy walking with
God the way we are now anyway, because all we enjoy is sin.
How can a man who drinks iniquity like water enjoy walking with
a holy God? So God doesn't walk with Adam
anymore. Man can't walk with God anymore. It's because man
sinned. If I now keep reading, They're
from Genesis chapter three, keep reading. And you know what you'll
find out before too long? Enoch walked with God. Noah walked
with God. Abraham, Isaac, they walked with
God. What happened? Aren't they direct descendants
from Adam? How is it they're walking with God? There's a cause. There's a reason that they can
walk with God. The cause. of God walking with the man,
with the son of Adam, it's God's grace. It's God's salvation. It's because God did a work in
their hearts. Enoch could walk with God because God gave Enoch
faith in God, faith in Christ. So he walked with God. God walked
with Noah because he gave Noah faith, faith to build the ark,
faith to get in the ark, faith to believe God. God walked with Abraham, he called
Abraham a friend. Abraham's my friend. Because
he gave Abraham a new nature. He gave Abraham faith to leave
his father's house and go to a land that God would show him.
He gave Abraham faith to believe God's gonna give me a son, even
though Sarah and I are told to have any children. He believed
God. God causes his people to be born
again with a new nature. Scripture calls it the nature
of Christ. Now we can walk in union with
God. Because we've been given the nature of God. See, there
can't be any fellowship without friendship, can there? Man declared
war on God. There's no more friendship. But
God chose a people to save. God's determined He's gonna walk
with a people. God's determined He's gonna have a people be with
Him. So you know what God did? God came and made peace. God
came and made reconciliation for His people. by the blood
of his son. The word agreed here, can two
walk together except they be agreed means to meet. Meet together,
peace and unity. God made reconciliation for man's
sin. Man declared war on God, but
God made peace. Man's the one who sinned against
God, separated himself from God, but God's the one who made reconciliation
for the sin of his people. Sin that was against him. It
wasn't his fault, it was man's fault. But God paid the price.
God made reconciliation. And now that sin is put away.
And God's reconciled. The sin of God's people is gone
and God's reconciled. But now where is it that God
will meet with men? It's only in Christ, isn't it?
Only because of who Christ is. Only because of his obedience.
Only because of his sacrifice. Almighty God will meet with men
and walk with men in peace but he's gonna meet him in Christ.
God is so gracious. He will meet with men in friendship
in his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that's gracious. Isn't that
gracious? Man was the cause of the whole
problem, but God fixed it for his people, didn't he? Through
redemption in Christ. God's reconciled. God's at peace. But now man's
got to be reconciled too. that man's got to be made to
agree. Man's got to be made to meet with God. And that's where
the new birth comes in. A man will meet with God and
be in agreement with God when he's born again with a new nature.
And God's got to be the one to give it to him. God's got to
be the one to purpose redemption, salvation for his people. God's
got to be the one to purchase it. And God's got to be the one
to apply it. He's got to cause us to be born
again. And a man can meet with God and walk with God in Christ. And God's people do that just
like Enoch did of old. It's by faith in Christ, by trusting
God's son. If you trust God's son, you walk
with God. Let that sink in. You walk with
God. Remember I asked you just think
about what it was like for Adam to walk with God, what a blessing
that was for Adam. Do you know it's a greater blessing than
what Adam had if you walk with God by faith? Because Adam could
lose it and you can't. If you walk with God by faith,
Almighty God will always walk with you by faith in Christ. Do you have faith in Christ?
If you do, thank God for it. If you don't, ask God to give
it to you. Ask God to give it to you. All right, here's the
fourth thing. Now God's people, they believe
Christ. They trust Christ, they love Christ. But why do they? See, there's a concrete reason
why they believe Christ. It's because God speaks to them
through the gospel. Verse seven says, surely the
Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto
his servants, the prophets. The lion hath roared, who will
not fear? The Lord has spoken. Who can but prophesy? Now the
Lord's spoken. He's spoken, he's revealed the
secret, he's revealed his way of salvation to his servants,
the prophets, and the prophets can do nothing but preach it.
We just preach and declare what God's given to us, the gospel
God's given to us. And this is our gospel. God's
made reconciliation for his people. Almighty God has made peace for
his people by the blood of his son, the sacrifice of his son. Man made himself unrighteous.
God made his elect righteous by the obedience of Christ to
the law. Not by requiring them to do something, but by requiring
his son to do it all. God has made his people righteous. He put their sin away so that
they're righteous. He didn't make them do it. He
made his son do it by the sacrifice of his son. The Lord Jesus Christ
took the sin of his people and he made that sin to be his, to
belong to him and that He died as a substitute for His people.
He died taking the punishment that His people deserve and now
their sin is put away because Christ sacrificed Himself. Body
and soul, He sacrificed Himself to put away their sin. God makes
His people holy. Holy. So that they cannot sin
by the new birth that the Holy Spirit gives them. God has given
His people an eternal salvation that can never be lost. Never. There's no point in arguing
about once saved, always saved. If God saved you, you're always
saved. You always have been. You've been saved with an eternal
salvation that doesn't have a beginning and doesn't have an ending. You
can never lose it because it doesn't depend on you. Depends
on Christ. Isn't that a wonderful story
of grace? That's God's grace for His people. This thing's
already done. God's done it. He's done that
for his people. And God lets his people in on
what he's done for them by the preaching of the gospel. You
never knew Almighty God did anything for you till somebody came and
preached Christ to you. You never knew. God didn't, aren't
you thankful God didn't leave it up to us to figure out? I
mean, I grew up in a home where Bible stories were read every
day, where the Bible was read every day, where memory verses,
boy, I tell you what, you got a memory verse, you give it to
you from your Sunday school teacher, You're going to know it. I mean,
you're going to know it by Tuesday. I mean, this is serious business. I could
quote scripture to you. I didn't know God. I didn't know
what it meant. I mean, you know, I could also
tell you all the batting averages of the 1975 Cincinnati Reds,
too. I mean, you know, it's not all
that impressive. I didn't know what it meant. How did you know
what it means? How did you ever see Christ?
God sent you a preacher. that took that Word and said,
here's Christ in this passage. Here He is. Now look at it. It's
pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. Faith cometh by what? Hearing. And hearing by the Word
of God. It's hearing somebody preach
Christ to us. Do you hear Christ in the message? Do you? God's been gracious to you. You
hear because God's been gracious to you. You hear because God's
given you ear to hear. You believe because God's given
you a new heart that believes, that loves the gospel, that needs
the gospel. The cause of any son of Adam
hearing the gospel and believing it is the grace of God. It's
not that you figured it out on your own because you've got superior
intellect than somebody else. It's not because of your morality.
Oh, you're so much more than everybody else and you kind of
stepped into this thing. No, it's by God's grace and God's
grace alone. The only cause, the only reason
for any blessing to come to any son of Adam is God's mercy and
His grace. If you hear the gospel, if you
hear Christ and you love Christ and you need to hear Him, you
feed on Him. Your heart feeds on Him. Your
heart is strengthened. Oh, I hear the gospel and I think,
hmm, that's just what I need. I can make it to Wednesday now.
I can make it to Sunday now. My friend, that's because God's
been gracious to you. It's because God's been gracious.
And if you don't hear, and you don't understand, and you don't
believe, let me tell you again, ask God to give it to you. Faith's
a gift of God. It'd be a mighty good idea to
ask Him to give it to me. Don't you think? All right, that's
the gospel. The word's been sounded. The
trumpet has sounded. That's what he says there in
verse six. Shall a trumpet be blown in the
city? and the people not be afraid. The trumpet of the gospel has
been blown. He says there in verse 8, the lion hath roared.
Who will not fear? The trumpet sounded. The lion
has roared. You've heard the trumpet of the
gospel. You've heard the cry of the lion of the tribe of Judah
that salvation is of the Lord. Come unto me, all ye that rest
in heavenly land. I'll give you rest. Are you thirsty? Quit trying to dig your well
and come to me. Come to me. I'll give you rivers of water,
living water springing up from your heart. You've heard God
speak. This is God's gospel. We're not playing games with
this thing. This is not just something that we do on Sundays
and Wednesdays to differentiate ourselves from all the goat farms
around this area now. This is not something that we
do and preach this gospel and say, look what we know that other
people don't. We're not playing games here. We're dealing with
souls. Your soul, my soul. You've heard the message of Christ.
Now, has it affected your heart? Has it broken your heart? Your
sin against God? Has it broken your heart that
you would sin against God after God's been so good to you? And God sent His Son and punished
and tortured and killed His Son so that your sin would be put
away. Doesn't that break your heart? Doesn't that soften your heart?
Just hearing the message of Christ. Christ and Him crucified. Oh,
you loved Him when you got here this morning. You loved Him when
you came in here this morning. Does it make you love Him more?
Just hearing the message of Christ and Him crucified. His sacrifice
completely atoned for the sin of everybody He died for. He's
the successful Savior. He cannot fail. Does that make you trust Him
even more than ever before? You trusted Him this morning when you got
up, I know, but here and again, having your heart fed with the
gospel, having your heart fed with Christ, does that make you
trust Him more than ever before? Does it make you more thankful?
Oh, my goodness. Look what God did to His precious
Son for the likes of me. I can't get over it. Does hearing the message of Christ,
Him crucified, does that soften your heart toward others? Make
you a little less hard? How about those unbelievers?
They won't hear. They don't hear. They hate the
gospel. Does it make you a little more patient with them? Oh, I
remember. I remember being in their shoes.
I remember being in that boat. Does it make you a little more
determined to help promote the preaching of Christ so somebody
might hear? so God might do for them what He did for you? This
hearing of Christ and His sacrifice, His love for His people, does
that soften your heart toward believers? Toward those here
that you worship with? Does it make you love them a
little more? Be a little more patient with them and their faults
and their missteps? No, we do the very same thing.
Does it make you want to be with them and help them a little bit
through this journey here below? Does it? If not, I can tell you what the
problem is. It's us, not God. It's us, not
the gospel. And if so, if our hearts are
affected like that, so that we hunger and thirst after Christ
and we run to Him, I tell you the cause of it. It's God's grace
and His grace alone. I pray that'll be so for us here
today, every one of us. All right, let's bow together
in prayer. Our Father, oh, how we thank you for your gospel,
the gospel of your dear son, that it's all him, him and him
alone. Father, I pray that you take
your word as it's been preached through my stumbling and bumbling,
this cracked, play pot. And Father, you enable your people
to see past the messenger and see the message. To see the Savior. And Father, that you give us
faith to believe him. To fall at his feet, begging for mercy.
To be found in him and him alone. Not in anything about us, anything
we've done, anything we haven't done, but it's all in Christ. It's all because of him. Father,
how we thank you. And we ask that you forgive us
of our many sins and failures for Christ's sake. That you hear
our prayer for Christ's sake. That you bless your word for
Christ's sake. In his name, for his sake and
his glory, we pray. Amen.