Ephesians 1:11-14 • The Spirit's Love, Stronger Than...
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
Let me ask that you would open your bibles to Ephesians chapter 1 today, Ephesians chapter 1.
And if you've been with us the last few weeks, you know the drill now.
We're only going to look at one sentence.
[Laughter]
Actually, only one third of one sentence.
It just happens to be the longest sentence in the Bible, over 200 words, and today looking at just the last portion as Paul the apostle gushes, as it were, his enthusiasm for what his God has done and is doing in the person of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
And it is that focus upon the Holy Spirit that is our focus today as we look at verses 11-14 of Ephesians chapter 1.
Let me ask that you would stand as we would honor God's Word and read verses 11-14 of Ephesians 1.
Speaking of Christ, the apostle says, "In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory."
Let's pray together.
>>> Heavenly Father, we, as we bow head and heart before You now, do so with the recognition of facts too wonderful to absorb: that there has been from time eternity past a plan to claim Your people and also a plan that moves eternity future to give an inheritance for those who have been marked by Your Holy Spirit.
And now we want to know what that means.
What does it mean to be marked by Your Holy Spirit in such a way that the God of all creation and time would be using all events to claim us holy and His own?
Grant that we might see it, that we may rejoice in Your work in our lives and the lives of those that our lives touch.
So work in us this day we pray.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
>>> Please be seated.
A while ago following the advice of a relative, now you know this is going to go badly, right?
[Laughter]
Following the advice of a relative, I decided that what I would do is I would clean the deck of mold in our, in a cabin in the woods of Missouri.
So rented the power sprayer, according to the advice that I was given, and began to clean the mold off the deck.
Got it just looking spiffy, sweet, clean.
Went to the hardware store and said to the hardware man, "I need a sealer to put on my deck now that I have cleaned it."
He said, "Oh, you've cleaned it; you've prepared it.
That's great."
He said, "How'd you clean your deck?"
I said, "I power sprayed it."
He said, "You didn't."
[Laughter]
I said, "Yeah, I did."
He said, "Don't you know that when you power spray mold, you drive its spores deeper into the wood?"
I said, "No, I didn't know that.
That's not what my brother, I mean, my relative said."
[Laughter]
"So what do I do now?"
So he said, "Now you need to get some spore killer, and you need to spread it liberally over the wood of the deck."
But he said, "Even though you need to leave it on long enough to kill the mold spores, don't leave it on too long, because if you leave it on too long, it'll begin to work against the wood fiber and you'll actually damage the wood."
I said, "Okay, I'll put on the spore killer.
Then what do I do?"
He said, "Well, then you actually do let that dry, completely dry.
But don't let it dry too long, cause if you let it dry too long, the mold will take over again."
I say, "Okay, alright.
Let it dry but not too long."
"Then put on stain."
"Okay, I put on the stain."
"And it needs to have enough pigment in it to block the U.V. light from the sun."
"Okay."
"But not too much pigment."
[Laughter]
"Because if there's too much pigment, it'll block the sun entirely and the mold will just grow again."
[Laughter]
Now, by the end of all this instruction, I knew something for sure: That mold was going to grow.
[Laughter]
I mean, there was just too much complexity for me to think that I had really any ultimate control over it.
Now, you must know: If that's my conclusion about mold, you know, which has no brain, no conscience, no motives, certainly it's also my conclusion about the world around me.
That as much as I might think I have control, it's obvious to me every day that I don't.
The mishaps, the accidents, the trials, the pain, the suffering.
What ultimately all of us ask in our hearts is, "Isn't anybody in charge here?"
And what the apostle is answering here in Ephesians chapter 1 is he's saying, "Yes, God is in charge, and He's also working for your benefit.
And I will give you the evidence so that you will know that is true."
After all, you and I both expect me to say, I'm the preacher, "God's in charge."
But what really is the evidence of that?
There's no question that the apostle here is saying that someone's in charge.
I mean, you just have to look at verse 11 and you'll recognize that.
"In him," that is in Christ, "we have obtained an inheritance," says the apostle, "having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will."
Already Paul has put the context of this predestined work of God to the foundations of the world and prior to that.
And now the apostle is saying God, in ways that are more profound than we can capture, is coordinating all things, so that all is working according to a plan that He laid before the foundations of the world were established.
Now, when you hear "all things being coordinated for good," maybe that begins to echo in your mind another Bible verse that we refer to a lot: Romans 8:28.
"All things work together for" what?
"For good, to them that know God and are called according to His purpose."
And, yet, as profound as that understanding is and as good as it is to remember that God is working all things for good and there is this echo from creation that it's all happened since beginning of time and even before, we immediately begin to have with our great amazement great questions.
Wait, if God is in charge, then why Ebola and beheadings and suffering and pain and war and trial and tragedy?
If God rules over all, isn't He responsible for all?
And as much as we will struggle with those issues and know we will not have final definition until we are with God in heaven, we do recognize that what His Word is saying to us is this world is not as God meant it to be.
He created all things good.
And when sin entered the world, brokenness came; evil came; suffering came.
But what God is saying at the same time is, as hard and awful as it is, it is not beyond His correction.
That God can take what is wrong and still work it for what is right.
I so much rejoice that He is not saying, "All things are good," but He will work all things for good, so that God Himself is recognizing the things that are painful and evil and wrong and allows us to recognize them for what they are.
But still say at the same moment that God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick, that He can take broken eggs and make an omelet, that He can take a broken world and still steer it however it is in the divine work of God, He can make arrangements so that particular things are happening according to His will.
And He says what His actual intent is: that humility would come from our hurts and dependence from our pain, so that we would not view this world as our final answer, would be looking to God to say, "God, You must fix this; I must trust in the One whose work is beyond my own hand."
Ultimately you recognize what the apostle is doing is not trying to answer the great questions but to create a great wonder.
If you will, look at where he says God is actually trying to accomplish.
It was earlier in the chapter, verse 4.
"He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him."
Whatever God is coordinating, however He is using our sense of dependence and hurt and not relying upon this world, it is to create a sense of holiness, that we would look to God, we would look to the work of Christ and say, "God, You must be working; I depend upon You."
And ultimately what God is doing even by our heartaches is creating holiness in us.
And not only holiness but verse 5 was saying He is intending by His predestinating work us for "adoption as his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will."
In whatever ways God is coordinating the triumphs as well as the tragedies of our lives, He's seeking to make a people who are holy and are His.
And as easy it is is for me to say that, to recognize the infinite complexity with which God must be working, to have intimate care for you and for me, is just astounding, so much so that the apostle when he begins to conclude this thought in verse 12 says, "this is so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory."
To actually think that from creation itself events have been orchestrated by a holy hand to make me a holy person so that I would live for the glory of God, that my hope would be in Christ and ultimately more in the world would know Him because of the impact of my life as there's this radiating work of the hand of God.
We only every now and then, it seems, get a glimpse of it.
But when we do, it's absolutely astounding.
Last week right here, Jacob Vest spoke to you of having been a homeless child and by the ministry of this church and the hand of God now becoming a man of heaven, that God has taken unto Himself that somehow all those events, all the horror, all the tragedy, all the pain, even the sinful things in his life that ultimately became worthless to him, were part of that creating desperation, so he began to look to God to say, "Don't You have something else?"
And seeing Christ and forgiveness and purpose, he began to chee--, to be a child of God.
We hear it and don't recognize the complexity of all the people in life who were here at that time for Jacob and for the time that he needed it and said the words they needed to say and had the experiences that they needed to have to be able to minister to him because of the experience he--.
And that's not just Jacob's story.
It's every single one of you here: that we are here as a consequence of an infinite set of events of God, that He is orchestrating by a hand that is caring and good.
So that He is ultimately creating a people who are holy and His.
And that's only as a consequence of looking backward.
But that's not the only glance of the apostle.
In verse 10, that portion of the text just before where I began today, the conclusion of the work of Christ was this: that he was "establishing a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth."
God has a plan that's been in effect not only from the past but looking to the future, so that in the fullness of time, all things of earth would be united to the things of heaven.
So that what we pray about in the Lord's Prayer that just goes past so quickly, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven," is a reality to occur by the power of God.
That ultimately this earth in all of its workings is going to be subsumed under the power of heaven.
And what that means is that earth is even now heaven's business.
That what you and I do, whether work or play, is actually heavenly business.
That we do the orchestrations of somehow saying, "This is my church life" and "this is my play life" or "this is my work life," but before God, the plan of God, the thing that He has been working from the beginning of time, is working into the future, is for heaven and earth to become one.
So that what we sing sometimes, "This is my Father's world, and though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the Ruler yet; Jesus who died shall be satisfied and earth and heaven be one."
And that reality means that when we work, we are doing heavenly business.
The doctors who heal, the engineers who build, the moms who raise, the teachers who teach, the people who care are doing heavenly business: that earth and heaven are being united if we will but perceive what God is calling us to be and to do.
This past week I was in Canada ministering to pastors there.
And on the way back because of the heightened security in our world, getting back to the United States was just infinite security lines, it seemed like.
And I can remember having been in a security line for an hour kind of getting to a point that I thought, "We're done," and, yet, there was a security guard saying, "Alright, here's where this line divides to go to the next security lines."
[Laughter]
But as she said it, she said it with such a smile, we were surly by that point, having been there for an hour.
But she said, "Aren't you blessed to be on a trip?
Isn't it wonderful that you can walk in this line?
Aren't you blessed that you can be going to your destinin--?"
And I thought: Here's, within about fifteen feet of this woman is a little patch of heaven.
[Laughter]
She has marked it out with the dimensions of her voice and her joy.
As she did not perceive herself just kind of mushing the crowds along but actually sharing her faith in the way that she expressed the joy of her salvation the way that she spoke.
Everything that we do is uniting earth and heaven.
And when we can see our world that way, begin to recognize that the great wonder is that this is not just mystery that we go through and not just a mess that we go through, but God is orchestrating all for His great purposes.
One of the early movies of Tom Hanks that I enjoy is "Joe Versus the Volcano."
And there is that time in which Joe, who is just kind of this misfit, who's gone through misery and misfortune for so much of his life, ends up not winning the girl at one point but actually on a raft in the middle of the ocean, dying of dehydration and exposure.
And in the delirium that's caused by that one night, he looks up at the heavens and the stars that have usually just been this random pour of points of light.
When he looks up, he sees them connected, like some child has done a dot-to-dot puzzle with the stars of heaven.
And he sees all the constellations as they are connected and ordered and in their frame, and he can just see that the universe has an order that he's never recognized before.
And amazing for Hollywood, he says in observing the order of the universe that he's not perceived to be orderly at all, "Dear God, I thank You for my life.
I forgot how big You are."
And what the apostle is saying to you and to me is that there has been a God who is working beyond our trials and our hurts and our pain and our suffering and from infinity past to infinity future He is working for an eternal good for us, for those around us, that He would bring many to holiness and to His home.
And that's the work that He's doing.
And we get caught in the minute.
We get caught in the small.
We get caught in our immediate plans and pains.
And God just kind of backs up and says, "I am working My plan for My glory and your good."
Well, how do I know it applies to me?
How do I know this plan is really in effect?
Well, one way of understanding it is to recognize in verse 11, this whole plan of God's orchestrating heaven and earth, time and eternity, is called the inheritance that we have.
Verse 11, "In him," that is in Christ, we have obtained an inheritance according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the purpose of his will."
Well, how do you know if the inheritance applies to you?
Well, you need to know if you're in the will.
And the marks of being in the will are right here.
Paul says that those who would receive this inheritance, verse 12, are "we who were the first to hope in Christ, that we might be to the praise of his glory."
Now, I must tell you the commentators struggle here.
Who are the "we"?
Sounds like your teacher long ago, right?
We?
Who's we?
You got a mouse in your pocket?
I mean, you know.
[Laughter]
Who are the we?
It may be the Jews.
Maybe Paul is saying, "We who were the first to hope in Christ, those of us had Jewish heritage but believed in Christ: We are for the purpose of God."
But maybe it's all Christians who, before the Ephesians are being written to, both Jews and Gentiles who are receiving Christ, are receiving this inheritance because their hope is in Christ.
They are not hoping for their inheritance and their accomplishments and their earthly treasures and earthly respect.
Their hope is in Christ.
And as a consequence, what Christ is providing at that eternal level in heaven itself, He says, that is for those who hope in Him.
Now immediately the question becomes, of course, if that's for those who first believed in Christ, what about the rest of us?
And that's verse 13.
In verse 13 we read, "In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit."
This is absolutely a crucial verse for our understanding and for our peace.
Those who were also sealed, those who are also part of the plan, those who are also expecting the inheritance, are those who receive the Holy Spirit.
What's the next question?
How do I know if I receive the Holy Spirit?
That's in the verse, too.
Look closely at verse 13.
"In him," that is in Christ, "you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit."
When you heart and believed, you were sealed by the Holy Spirit.
Now, I don't know what you think about when you hear the word "sealed" in this portion of scripture.
We may think of, you know, sealing an envelope or sealing a jar during canning season.
It--, that's really not the image.
The image that the apostle has in mind is where there's been a legal document and to show that it is authentic, it is sealed.
There's that wax that's warm that's put on.
And then there is the seal of the authority put on it.
And Paul is saying that you and I are sealed by the Holy Spirit when we hear and believe.
Now, why is that so important?
Now, we just have to say: Here's a place that some churches seriously differ.
There are those who say that the work of the Holy Spirit that confirms that you're really a Christian is that there will be some signs or miracles or speaking in tongues down the road somewhere.
But I want to read to you again verse 13 and you see what is the tense of these words?
"In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit."
The sealing is what happens when the miracle of your hearing and believing occurs.
We sometimes simply forget the miracle.
Remember what Paul is about to say in Ephesians 2:1, "You were dead in your trespasses and sins."
We had hearts of stone.
We were going another direction.
We were not paying attention.
We did not want to hear these things.
And, yet, somehow the Holy Spirit, in ways that truly are mysterious to us, that involve that plan from the beginning of time, begin to soften our hearts, begin to give us truly minds that would receive the word of the Spirit and we believed.
And that is a miracle.
That cannot happen apart from the work of the Holy Spirit.
First Corinthians 2:14, remember, Paul says, "The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God.
They're foolishness unto him.
Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."
The fact that you and I would bow our knees and say, "God, I cannot be made right with You by my work, by my hand, by my goodness; I need Jesus.
He has to be the one who takes the penalty.
He has to make it right, because I cannot."
That is a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.
Had not the Spirit worked in you, you could not, would not say those things and mean them.
It is your heart's kneeling before God, yielding to the truth of the scriptures, that is the actual seal of the Holy Spirit on you that says, "That's the proof that You're mine," because apart from that work of the Holy Spirit, you could not believe and would not believe what God has done.
And it's this mark, more than anything else, that is the assurance of the people of God.
This past week while I was traveling, I got an email from a friend who was writing about another friend, Anglican pastor, Andrew White, who for many years has been a pastor of the Anglican Church in Baghdad.
And he sent out a word on Facebook, an S.O.S. that simply was this: "I.S.I.S. is now five miles outside the city.
Despite the U.S. bombing, it does not appear they will be stopped.
Please pray.
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy."
And then these words followed it: "Today I baptized five people.
They all love the Lord Jesus.
Afterwards, the eleven year old that I had baptized said, 'I feel new.'
I said, 'You are new.'"
Think of what you just witnessed.
All around is a world of death and destruction, of torture and massacre.
And, yet, here was a young man saying, "I am new.
My life is eternal now."
I believe that I am secure in the work of Jesus Christ regardless of what this world holds.
It's that great power of God to work in us to say, "This world that we observe is not ultimately all that we see and not ultimately all that we will experience."
But rather God Himself is at work beyond that.
And the evidence of that is He has given us a longing for Him and the proof of that is we love Him, which apart from Him we could not do.
And the apostle recognizing that actually increases the force of his words in verse 14 when he talks about the promised Holy Spirit "who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire full possession of it, to the praise of his glory."
This work of the Holy Spirit is the guarantee that heaven is ours, that that more eternal, more secure, better eternity, is our possession.
Yeah, we still have the language of seal and guarantee.
You know, if you have the "Good Housekeeping" seal of approval, that's a statement about the quality of the item.
But it's also a guarantee that for two years, if there's need of repair or replacement, that it will be repaired or replaced.
But the seal of the Holy Spirit whereby we now believe in Jesus Christ as Savior, is a guarantee not of two years but of eternity: that we are made right with God.
Now, why is it so important that it be the work of the Holy Spirit, something inside of us?
Because the perfect plan can easily be obscured from view.
Only a few times in my life have I seen a perfect rainbow.
Now, I'm not talking about the arch that goes from horizon to horizon.
I've seen that many times.
But just a few times when I've been high enough on a mountaintop that the clouds are below me or in an airplane high above all clouds that I have seen the complete circle of the rainbow.
If you're not high above all things, earth gets in the way: the mountains, the trees, our trials.
We don't see the complete picture.
And because earth would threaten to get in the way, our trials, our troubles, our difficulties, the great guarantee of the work of God is in our hearts where earth can't get in the way, where there is the testimony of the Holy Spirit that what God is doing is profound and beyond our seeing, so that we will ultimately recognize this perfect plan is ours and it's guaranteed because of the witness of the Spirit in my heart, whereby I cry, "Abba, Father!"
And I could not do it apart from the Holy Spirit igniting that love in my heart.
It's that within that ultimately is the confirmation of what is without.
You must recognize what the apostle is saying is totally reverse of most of our thinking.
He is confirming that there is a universal plan on the basis of a personal, individual understanding.
"You ask me how I know it's true: Because Jesus lives."
And where does He live?
In my heart.
It's what I pray for you.
That the realities of this world, as difficult as they may be, as much as we have to acknowledge the hurts and the pains, that we would believe by virtue of the seal of the Holy Spirit, a belief in Christ for us and a plan that is eternal beyond this world: that that seal of the Holy Spirit would give us confidence for today, would give us the hope that we have for tomorrow, so that regardless of what we have to face when the world gets in the way, we would still believe in a good God with a perfect plan who is working all according for our good and His ultimate glory.
Some years ago, Kathy and I had the privilege to do a tour in France of some of our church forefathers.
And we went to that place in France that is know as the Museum of the Desert.
Now, you don't expect deserts in France.
And it really isn't a desert in terms of geography.
It's a desert in terms of the experience of the people who are honored in the Museum of the Desert: French Huguenots who for their faith were slaughtered by the tens of thousands.
And when you go to the Museum of the Desert, you see this white marble wall inscribed upon it the names of the thousands who were slain.
And if you had gone through that experience, you know you must have questioned: Where is God and what kind of plan is this?
I'll tell you when you're just there, it's hard to explain any of it.
Some years later, I had the privilege of ministering to pastors in what was then Hungary just after the breakup of the communist empire.
And while I was asked to come and train and teach them, I must tell you: I felt unworthy to be there.
For I sat at tables with men who as they stretched out their hands to take a bowl of soup, you could still see the scars of the shackles that they'd had to wear for their faith.
And as we talked and I asked them what had strengthened them, what had given them the willingness to stand for God through all the years of such hatred and oppression and they said, "Our forefathers came from France where they were driven out by oppression, but they maintained faith until they came here and taught us the faith as we intend to teach others beyond us."
And I recognized what I had just witnessed: Kings and kingdoms had come and gone; empires had fallen, but the gospel of Jesus Christ had been maintained in His people.
And they were not only eternally safe: They were passing the message to others who would be eternally safe.
That God was working what was evil, not causing it but working, even that which was wrong, and He was working it for an eternal good.
And we recognize that good when it applies to us when we say, "I believe in Him.
If He loved Jesus enough, if He loved me enough to send Jesus for me, then I will trust Him even through the hard things, because I have the testimony of the Holy Spirit in my heart that tells me I am His and He is mine."
Listen, if you had stood at the foot of the cross and you had seen the mutilated body of the one that you loved hanging there, you would say, "This is wrong.
This cannot be right."
But we know it was part of the eternal plan: that God was working even evil for good, your salvation and mine.
And I believe that because of the Holy Spirit who is the seal of the gospel upon my heart and the guarantee of my God that he eternal goals that are of Christ my Savior will be fulfilled in me, in you, in this church as we are faithful to Him.
What God calls us to do, even as we partake of this meal, is to say, "God, I'm not trusting in what I do: I am trusting in what Christ has done."
If that is the confession of your heart, that is the seal of the Holy Spirit and the guarantee of heaven's plan.
May God give you its hope and its peace, even this day.
Let's pray together.
>>> Heavenly Father, thank You for what Your Word tells us: that the world as we experience it is not the world that You originally made good.
Death and suffering and evil are invaders.
But in a sovereign God's plan, You take even what is wrong and steer it to the correction of a world and the submission of our hearts.
Father, I don't know all who are listening to my voice right now, what their experience is.
I recognize simply accepting that there is a God who loved them from eternity and for eternity.
But if their heart is beginning to sense that, that there is sin that would deprive them of You and yet Jesus took it upon Himself so that they would not bear it, would You let those hearts even now recognize that is the work of the Holy Spirit?
That there may be peace there and confidence and joy for whatever may be faced because of the confirmation of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
This we ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.
>>> When the apostle Paul described this meal, he did it in the context of people who knew great suffering.
But he knew this was the confirmation of something beyond their suffering, of a God who would save for eternity.
I'm going to read the passage from 1 Corinthians 11 where Paul instructs us about this Supper.
>>> Those of you who are serving us, as I am reading, would you take your places along the wall that you might prepare to serve us?
>>> Paul writes this: "I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, 'This is my body which is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.'
In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.'
For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death 'til he comes."
Something awful leading to something eternal.
It was in the plan of a sovereign God who testifies to us now by His Holy Spirit.
That Holy Spirit, I pray, is at work in your heart as you look at these elements and you recognize there is nothing magical about them.
This Lord's Supper is a sacrament wherein by the giving and receiving of bread and wine according to Christ appointment, what Christ instructed us to do, we would receive spiritual nourishment, not in a corporal way; that is not fleshly.
Not in a carnal way, nothing magical.
But by faith alone we would receive the benefits of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I don't know what you do when you taste the wine or crunch the bread.
Do you think: Jesus' blood spilled; Jesus' body bruised for me?
For when you believe that, that is a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.
Apart from Him you could not, would not.
This would seem foolishness.
But when you say, "I recognize the One on whom I feast; He is my nutrient; He is my life; He is my hope; He is my future," when that's what you taste and drink, the Holy Spirit is doing His work.
If it's not what you believe, don't do this.
You don't need to do what you don't believe in.
Not show for us, not show for the Lord.
If it's not what you believe, in your bulletins there's a prayer that you might just want to read and see if it would lead you down a path that might answer some questions that you have.
But for the rest, to your spiritual nourishment and growth in grace, we take these elements.
I'm going to pray.
As I do, I'm going to ask you to repeat with me the Lord's Prayer.
And I will ask those who are serving us to come forward.
Let's pray together.
>>> Heavenly Father, we set apart these elements for a holy purpose.
We know they are nothing but mere earthly elements, but as Your Spirit applies to us the truths that they represent, they become to us true spiritual nourishment.
We remember again the God who planned, the Son who gave and the Spirit who applies the truths of the gospel to our hearts.
Help us, we pray now, to prepare our own hearts for this as we use the words our Savior taught us, saying.
>>> Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
Amen.