Jesus Saves! But How? PART 6: Questions and Answers

Andrew Grey addresses some questions and answers that have arisen during the previous weeks' teaching in adult Sunday school on salvation, Sunday 18th January 2026.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Amen. We're picking up this morning in the Sunday School series we uh began in the middle of last term, which we've called Jesus Saves but How? So we're looking at what the whole Bible has to say about the doctrine of salvation. Last term we thought about our need of a saviour. We thought about the depth and nature and seriousness of sin and God's response to sin. And therefore why it is that God and God alone can and must save us, and also the kind of salvation that we need to save us from the penalty of sin and also the presence and the power of sin. And we began to look at the work of our mediator, our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. We thought about his incarnation, why it was necessary that we have a Saviour who is both God and man. So we thought about his coming into the world, becoming both a true man and a new man. So like us, but also unlike us, and establishing a new human race. So like Adam, the first head of the human race, but a new and perfect Adam who keeps the law, who obeys for us, but also who bears the penalty of law-breaking on behalf of those lawbreakers who are joined in union with him. And so he finished uh thinking about the work of the Lord Jesus on the cross, how it both saves uh Christ's people and does so justly, righteously, and we thought about how it was all it was the uh united work of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit. Still to come. So picking up next week, God willing, we're going to think about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and his ascension and his heavenly rule, and how it is that uh we are joined in union with Christ. We've been talking about this all the way through. The essentialness of being joined to Jesus. So if a person is not joined to Jesus, then all Jesus is and has done is useless to them. And then we're going to think about how the Holy Spirit applies the fruits of Jesus' labours to those people in union with it. So that's where we're going. And at the top of the handout, you'll see a paragraph from the Westminster Confession, which is just a lovely summary, and maybe this is a good introduction as we dive into some questions. So this is talking about the Saviour. It pleased God in his eternal purpose to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, his only begotten Son, to be the mediator between God and man, the prophet, priest, and king, the head and saviour of his church, the heir of all things and judge of the world, unto whom he did from all eternity give a people to be his seed, and to be by him in time redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified. That's a lovely summary of where we've been and actually where we'll be going over the next few weeks. And we've set this morning aside just for some questions, and thanks to those folk who have given me some questions, and we'll try and answer those and maybe pick up some others if we have them along the way. So if it's alright, we will just dive straight in with a couple of questions about God's eternal plan of salvation. So, when did God's plan of salvation begin? So, for example, did it begin at the point when Adam and Eve sinned and fell in the Garden of Eden? That's how we plan things, isn't it? We have a plan A, then something changes, and we have to make a plan B. That is daily, many times a day, perhaps, human experience. And that is not how it was gloriously with our God. It was not a plan B to send a redeemer because Adam sinned and fell, and all humanity with him. And just a couple of scriptures here to help us. Ephesians 11 speaks about the plan of God, which includes everything, according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. So all things. That's all embracing. The scriptures direct us back. So earlier on in that chapter, Ephesians 1.4, he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. So even before creation existed. So in the experience and the eternal mind and purposes of God, that's what we're talking about here. Or in 1 Peter 1.20. Here Peter is talking about Jesus as the Lamb of God who shed his blood upon the cross. And he says of the Lamb that he was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in the last time. So he's talking there about the Savior. So we're taken into eternity past and into the mind of the all-wise and all-powerful and all-good God and his counsels and his plan. And yes, it was always the plan of God to glorify himself by sending the Son as our Saviour. Now, just a sort of a follow-on question that someone asked. If you just turn over, was the disobedience and fall of Adam, therefore, something that was always going to happen. And in the sovereign plan of God, the sovereign plan of God, the answer is yes. But there are also some other things we need to say around that. And I've got a really helpful summary paragraph from chapter 3 of the Westminster Confession. It's a sort of a heavyweight answer, but we can engage with this, I think, at different sorts of levels. Let me read it. So 3.1. God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass, yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. Now, like I say, that is a fairly heavyweight but necessary answer as we reflect on this question. And you know, Christian people have always asked that question. Hence, something like the Westminster Confession feels the need to give that statement. So God is entirely responsible for whatsoever comes to pass, in the sense that he is sovereign, he wills it, and yet he is not ever or in any way the author of sin. So we are responsible for our sin. Adam was responsible for his sin. And yet God wills all that comes to pass, and it could only be like this in a universe that is formed by our good and wise and powerful triune gods. Now there are puzzles there. Some are intellectual, some are more kind of emotional, I guess. But I think my encouragement as we come to that question would be in a universe with the God of the Bible, who is the only God, who is all-wise and all good and all powerful, it could only be thus. Yeah. Just if we just pause there for 30 seconds, does anyone want to perhaps ask a follow-up question?

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Can you just explain the last sentence? Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

The last sentence. I don't think we're going to say any of it.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Yeah, so second causes. So we've got God who stands behind everything, but then we have creatures like us, and we we do things, and we make choices, and our hearts and wills go in certain directions. So we are like we are like second causes. If the primary cause of all things is Almighty God, but there are also second causes. And uh we make choices, so contingency, we set certain things are at one level dependent on what we do and choose, we are morally chargeable for our sins, and yet none of this happens outside of the sovereign hand of God. So the will of creatures matters. And in fact, actually, the will of cre the will of the creature is actually established by the powerful work of the creator. So if the creator kind of just took his hands off everything, well, we're in an unimaginable universe then, but even our wills could not function because we rely on him to be human and to act as human, and yet we it is still to us that sin is morally charged. So that is what we're working backwards from the end, that paragraph is trying to set out. I mean, there is a there is a so this is in the original wording. So if you were to go to the website of the OPC in America, you will find sort of side by side a modern language version of it.

unknown 9:41

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

I like words, but like the second half a bit like a few.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

Yeah, it is, it does, it is a bit of a brain stretcher. It is also worth saying that down the centuries these are the precise kinds of words and ideas that the church has always used. Um, they are hard ones, they're perhaps unfamiliar to us, but in a sense, to dig deeply into it, this is sort of the vocabulary you have to use.

SPEAKER_04 10:04

Big believed the church.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Yeah, 100%. It is quite hard, yeah. Although, interestingly, a lot a lot of people are really interested in the way that things are. Big blood kind of philosophy. The Bible presupposes a philosophy. It's not a philosophy book, but it presupposes one. And this is what this is speaking to. And actually, a lot of people are really interested in that, and I wonder whether more so now than 20 years ago, through my hunch.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

And I think this is really important. Yeah, I just really get into it.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

It is not. For most people, it's not. So if you've done A-level philosophy, it probably is. Well, if you might have to hope it would be familiar to you, maybe. Um plug Van Dixhorn. Oh, yeah, good point. So um Steve has just reminded me, there's a really excellent book on the Westminster Confession by a guy called Chad Van Dixhorn, D-I-X-H-O-O-R-N. It's called Confessing the Faith. It's it's not a thin book, but it is a very, very clear book. And it simply goes through each paragraph and does a commentary, paragraph by paragraph. Um, a few years ago I taught through the uh confession in Sunday school, it's going back quite a few years, and I really just pillaged um Chad Van Dixhorne's book. So if you wanted to listen to me, largely just read out chunks of Chad Van Dixhorn's book, you'll find it on the church website, um buried in doctrine somewhere. Go on much.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

I was thinking uh Proverbs 16 is just gives examples of we plan, but the Lord establishes our steps. You know, it's just a basic thing. We think we're going to do something, but actually the Lord knows, and He He's already going to work in our lives.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Yeah. That's super helpful. So, in other words, this is not sort of only out in the realm of theory. You just read the text of scripture. Yeah. Yeah, it's super helpful. Thank you. Should we go on? All right. So a question about God's response to human sinfulness. So is God's holy judgment focused especially on our actions? Someone asked. So if you've got a Bible, please would you open up Romans chapter one? So if you're in a Black Church Bible, you're on page nine three nine. So please have a look down. Romans chapter one and verse eighteen. So Paul has just said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, and he's given a kind of a one-verse uh exposition of the gospel, and then he's explaining why we need the gospel. So Romans 1.18.4. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. So when we read here or elsewhere about unrighteousness, what are we talking about? Is that mainly or specifically talking about sinful actions? And actually, the rest of this chapter shows no, it's much bigger than that. The package of sin and sinfulness is much bigger. So I just want to talk us very briefly through this section of Romans chapter 1, because it's very important. So Romans 1.18 says that we suppress the truth. See that at the end of the verse, we suppress the truth about God that's revealed to us in the creation. Now, this is talking here about the person who is not yet a Christian. They might be someone from a kind of a pagan background, they might be a religious unbeliever, a churchy unbeliever, if you like. This is what this paragraph is talking about. By nature, we suppress the truth. So the godness of God is written all over the creation, and we try and squidge it down. Uh verse 21, look on to verse 21. They did not honour him as God or give thanks to him. So that's the nature of how we want to relate to God. We don't honour him, and we don't want to give thanks to him for the good things he gives us. And that that's that's connected to our squishing down of God. We don't want to honour him, we don't want him to be in our lives as he wants to be in our lives. And therefore, verse 22, claiming to be wise, they became fools, in 23, and exchanged the glory of immortal God for images. So, in other words, we then give ourselves over to idol worship. So it's not that the human being worships nothing. We are built to worship, we cannot worship nothing. But we either worship the true God or we worship idols. As a result of which, verse 24, therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity. So when you just look at those few verses, and they do represent the whole Bible's teaching on the sinfulness of sin, they tell us that we are sinful through and through, our whole natures are corrupted. So at the level of our hearts, our inclinations, our minds and our thinking, our worship, you know, what we devote ourselves to. So we are by nature sinners, out of which then flows sinful actions. We often get bogged down at the level of actions, you know, stuff that we do with our hands or our words or our bodies, and those things matter, but they flow from heart, mind, will, and worship. And so it's that that the Saviour's got to deal with. It's not only correcting bad actions. The biggest problem is God's wrath at sin and sinners. We need a righteousness given to us from outside, we need the righteousness of Christ clothed upon us, but we also need a holiness, the Holy Spirit to work in us, to change us at every possible level. Heart, mind, will, sanctification. Does anyone want to just follow up on that question with any sort of clarification or further questions? Alright, let's let's go on then, shall we? Um, couple of questions about the incarnation. So when God the Son, at the very first Christmas, uh when he became a man. So question Jesus is God and man, so from the point of the incarnation onwards, but is Jesus really a man? Uh is human is his humanity like an outer shell? Now I think that's actually a really good question. I'm going to try and explain why that question was asked, and then how the Bible would help us respond. In Philippians 2, verse 7, it's talking about the incarnation and the coming of the Lord Jesus, and it says of him that he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And when we think about that verse and that emptying of Christ, we need to get that right. It is not a giving up of something. Jesus did not give up his godness when he became a man. Rather, Jesus emptied himself by what he took on. By taking on humanity, becoming a man and becoming a servant. So that is the lowering, that is the emptying of Christ. Now, when I taught on that last term, I used an illustration, which I think is a very helpful one, but it's got a limitation. So imagine a Ferrari or your supercar of choice. It is very, very beautiful and it's shiny, and then it drives through a field, uh, a muddy field on a day like this, and it is caked with mud when it comes out the other end. It's humbled, uh, it's lowered itself, not because it's lost something, but because of what it has taken on. It's taken on mud. Now, that illustration is only trying to illustrate this principle that you can be humbled by what you take on. And that's the case with the Lord Jesus. He didn't lose anything, he was humbled by what he took on. That's not trying to illustrate the relationship between his divine and human nature. So we shouldn't think of Jesus' humanity as just being like a veneer or a layer, the mud on the outside, as it were, uh stuck onto the real Jesus. The Bible says just so beautifully, and the word became flesh. A real man. Yes, he is a new man, but he's also a true man. And there are so many ways that the Bible both shows that and applies that, not least in the way that he can sympathize with us. So he's not a kind of a half human or a fake human. It's not like obedience was easy for Jesus, it's not like he had a cheat code. He can sympathize with us in our weakness because he is fully and truly man. Sort of flowing on from that, how can we think about Jesus without viewing him as having a split personality? And again, I can understand where that question is come coming from because the Lord Jesus, the person of the Lord Jesus, is not like a person who we have ever experienced. We are people in one nature, aren't we? The Lord Jesus is a Person with two natures. You can sort of understand why you might be a kind to think, well, does Jesus have a sort of a split personality? He doesn't, but it's a the nature of his personhood is so alien to us. Westminster Confession, here's how it tries to articulate it, and again, I think this gives us really helpful guide rails for our thinking and our responding to Jesus, the man, of the God man, though I don't think it necessarily answers all of our questions, and I don't think some of those questions will actually ever be answered. So in the Lord Jesus, we have here two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, and they were inseparably joined together in one person without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and man. I suppose in setting out kind of biblical guide rails for us, just note here that Christ has two natures, but he is one person. There are not two Christs, there is one Christ. And that does fit perfectly with how the Gospels present the Lord Jesus to us. He can receive worship and he can forgive sins. Only God can do that. And almost in the same moment, he can be tired and need sleep because he is a man. Similarly, he experiences external temptations. Think of Jesus in the wilderness with Satan or in the Garden of Gethsemane. He is a man. Those temptations are not inner to him, that's unlike us, but he experiences outside of him temptations to sin. And yet there is never any kind of sudden flick. It's not like a sudden change of ear. Here he is as God. Flick a switch. Here he is as man. No, we just have one person, one Christ, in his earthly ministry, as recorded in the Gospels, and as now we relate to him by faith and through the Holy Spirit. Now there are extraordinary mysteries here, I mean real mind-boggling mysteries. God cannot change. And yet God the Son takes on a human nature, and in that very, very changeable nature he experiences death. And yet, as God he does not change. Now, can we understand that? No. I think we we can affirm it from the Bible and with the church down the ages. But yeah, there are there are extraordinary puzzles. Would anyone like to follow up on that? Any shape, size, or four? Don't worry if not.

unknown 23:02

Good.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Right, we're going to go on in that case. We're going to think about the death of the Lord Jesus. So, was the death of Jesus' body essential to the atonement? Well, let's just think for a moment about what the Lord Jesus did upon the cross. So here's a confession, sentence from 8.4. He endured most grievous torments immediately in his soul and most painful sufferings in his body. He was crucified and died. Just think for a moment about how the Gospels flesh out that statement. Matthew 27, we hear the words of Jesus, you know, my soul is very sorrowful, even to death. And we can't really begin to understand those sorrows. So we know the approach of death, we know mortality, but his death obviously was a unique death. So the sorrows experienced in the soul of Jesus, well, we can never know their deaths. Similarly, Luke 22, being in agony, he prayed more earnestly. So as the Lord Jesus approached the cross, it was an agony to him. He knew what it would entail. And I guess in the cry of dereliction on the cross, we're kind of taken to the heart of that, aren't we? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So God the Son, in his human nature, forsaken by God the Father. That's thinking of the greatest of all of these agonies. So those are just some little windows into the experiences of Christ in his soul, if you like. Christ's sufferings, though, they exactly meet what we need. They meet our natures. So we are thinking about how we are. We are embodied souls or we are ensouled bodies. That's just the nature of the human creatures that God has made. All people everywhere will receive resurrection bodies one day, on the last day. So all human beings will experience either the resurrection of life or the resurrection of judgment. So the joys of heaven and the torments of hell will actually be experienced in the body. And so when we come to the cross of Christ, as well as being given these windows into the soul sufferings of our Saviour, the New Testament does emphasize the bodily suffering of our Saviour, which exactly corresponds to what we need. He's a perfect Saviour for us. So in Hebrews 10, it's in the mouth of the Saviour, this psalm is repeated. A body you have prepared for me. Or 1 Peter 2, 24, He Himself bore our sins in his body upon the tree. So there is our Saviour, our complete, our perfect Saviour. Would anyone like to follow up with a question or comment on that? Okay, well let's let's let's go on. What was in Christ's mind as he approached his death? I guess we've sort of begun to think about that. It's a rather extraordinary question to think about. The Bible does give us some little windows, though, doesn't it? You know, in the in the garden, uh on the road to Jerusalem, you know, he set his face toward Jerusalem, he knew what was coming. Prophecies and predictions to his disciples about what was going to happen to him, the cry on the cross. What was in his mind? Well, there must have been in his mind the odiousness of sin. I mean, sin is hideous, isn't it? Sin is disgusting. And he knew that as the vantage from the vantage point of the God who is sinned against. So he understands sin just infinitely more than we ever could. So it is he who is the one who is sinned against. As he approached his death, he he knew the love of his father. For this reason, the father loves me, because I lay down my life that I might take it up again. So part of part of the glory of the cross, as the son obeys and goes to the cross, well, he knows the love of the Father. He also knows his love for his own people. Think about the ones for whom Christ died. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And you know, in this we we see his love. So he says things like, you know, I am the good shepherd, I know my own. So as he walked the road to the cross, he knew those sheep for whom he was going to lay down his life. So it's a wondrous thought, isn't it? He also knew the wrath of the Father. And so in the garden, you know, those agonies, the cry of dereliction, you know, he knew that he was going to experience those particular grievous torments, as the confession puts it, bearing the consequences of sin, a sin that was not his own, and as a result, experiencing forsakenness. He also, the Bible tells us, knew an indestructible joy. Hebrews 12, 2, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame. But he knew that the other side of the cross, through resurrection, there was joy. Again, that's a wonderful thought, isn't it? And I don't know, we how can we put all of these together? Well, I guess we somehow can the Bible tells us all of these things, but don't they just lead us to love and thank and praise our Saviour? Let's just keep going. We'll maybe just stop for a moment of discussion in just a moment. Onto the back page. Who does Jesus die for? Or even for whom does Jesus die? I wrote that sentence and then needed to correct my grammar. Apologies. I think to answer that question, the key thing is to see that the cross of Christ is deeply personal. Very, very personal. So God the Father has given a people to Jesus. So he says John 17, 2. You've given to Jesus authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given to him. So it's very personal. So God the Father has given a people to Jesus. He wants to glorify his Son, the Lord Jesus, as a redeemer. And he's given him a present, sort of a gift-wrapped present. And that present is, well, it's the church. It's Christian people across the world and down the ages. And these are the ones for whom Christ died. So those verses we just looked at in John 10, he says, I know my own, I know my own sheep. I lay down my life for the sheep. In other words, the atonement is effectual. It actually works salvation for those people for whom the Father intends it to. Now it's worth saying this has been a slightly controversial doctrine down the centuries, which is a really big shame. It's often been misunderstood. It's sometimes gone by the name of limited atonement, which is a it's true at one level, it is true. It is much better, though, I think, to think of it as an effectual atonement. It's not that, as some have taught, that Christ made salvation hypothetically possible for anyone, it's that he actually redeemed a people. He actually brings people to his Father through the cross. Things that we talked about last term, things like penal substitutionary atonement, that actually requires that the atonement is definite or effectual. Divine justice, generally, it requires that atonement be definite or effectual. There is something, though, really important that is completely universal, and that is the free offer of the gospel, which the church takes to the world. So the command of the church to the church is to take the gospel to all people everywhere, and whoever believes in him has eternal life. Whoever. So man, woman, boy, or girl, they believe in the Son and they have eternal life. But it is actual people on whom God has set his free and mysterious electing love who are joined in union to Christ in the mind of God as the Saviour dies on the cross. He dies for specific and actual sheep. He bears for them sin and judgment. Does anyone care to pick up on any aspect of that follow-up question there? Go and think and then that.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

Just a comment on this. I'm reading through something by a package called Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. And he says a really interesting picture, which is on the front of the door, is whomsoever will make up. And we go in and we turn around on the other side of the same door is the father, whoever the father draws will come to me. And it's that double-sided yes and that I found a very helpful way of thinking through there.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

That's a super helpful point that Packer makes. It's a really good book, by the way, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by J.I. Packer. The chapter on this specific doctrine and its implications for the way we do evangelism. Absolutely brilliant. I can't remember what chapter number that is. Go on that.

SPEAKER_04 34:03

Any encouragements for us in talking to children about these things? I think we're now very much into the realm of our kids having the questions where the answers to the questions are. Sometimes the Bible holds two things to be true: God's sovereignty, human responsibility. Any tips from anyone, I guess, in the room really of experience of talking kids, our kids through those big questions?

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Talking to kids about big questions. I think one of the challenges is that they ask questions that are bigger than their capacity to understand the answers. And acting. Yeah, yeah. Well hope hopefully as we grow up, there is a bit that that gap is closed a wee bit. But I do think that is one of the challenges as a as a parent. And just being, I'm not sure I've always done a very good job at bearing that in mind. I suppose whatever we say, we want it to be true, even if it's not sufficient, such that you don't have to unpick it in five years' time. I mean it's the like, it's the it's the sort of why on earth would you ever tell your children that Santa Claus is real? It's that it's that sort of thing. If in five years you actually have to go, oh, he's not really. So whatever you so whatever you say, I guess, even if it's a small bit of the truth, it needs to be the truth. Um I remember, I think one of our teachers used to describe it as the principle of staircase learning. It's like imagine a spiral staircase. You're at the bottom, you're you're learning very simple things, but as you go on in the Christian life, you go up, you're still going up, you're still on the column of truth, and you're sort of adding to it bit by bit. So that's not really specifically answering your question, but it's just saying, yeah, bear in mind creaturiness, small truths, and then you sort of suck them up gradually over time. Um, any other uh folks want to chip in on that?

SPEAKER_00 35:55

I think sometimes as as people we just need to acknowledge that we're not God, are we? Isaiah 55, my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. So we're never gonna fully understand God, are we? Because we're just finite humans. I think Job as well, God says to Job, who are you? Let's just get the relationship right. Um and I think that's sometimes helpful, isn't it? Just humbly come to God and say, I don't understand, but I know that I can trust the Lord Jesus. Um you know I have enough to have faith, have enough knowledge and understanding. Thank you, that's really helpful.

SPEAKER_03 36:32

I think there is a book by Bruce Ware, who's the guy who gave you your illustration of the Ferrari, specifically um for to try and help us talk to kids about the teams called Big Trees for Young Hearts.

unknown 36:46

For that day.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

That's a good call. So, Bruce Ware, Pig Trees for Young Hearts. I mean, another another resource that was designed with this in mind is the Westminster Shorter Catechism. So at the same time as you know, in the 1640s, the the guys wrote this rather difficult. You know, I quoted from the Westminster Confession, it's full. It's certainly designed for thoughtful adult Christians. They also designed what they hoped would be a child-friendly or family-friendly version, kind of breaking it down into a series of about hundred and maybe nearly 200 questions and answers. So I would commend that as a resource. You can find it both in its original wording and slightly modernised language. Um, yeah, just sort of break breaking it down, bite-sized bits. Anyone else want to give us some helps before we finish up? Well, look, shall I pray? Um, as ever, if if you do have other questions, please ask them. It's good to ask questions. And then, God willing, we'll pick up next week with uh the resurrection. That's the plan for next week. Let me pray. Father in heaven, you have given us in the Lord Jesus so great a salvation, and we bless you for it. The things of which we've been speaking this morning, they are wonderful things and big things, some of them much bigger than we can really wrap our minds around. We pray for uh more light, more truth, more understanding. We pray that for the sake of our trusting and our obeying and our joy. Deepen our understanding in these things, and we do pray for our children and young people for their growth in grace, their growth in the faith. We pray for the young ones of our church to grow up in these things. Would they be known, understood, loved, uh second nature in the best sense. We pray for our gathering to worship this morning. Thank you for your presence with us. Uh bless and strengthen your church. Pray that you would uh show the Lord Jesus to us all, and especially perhaps to any gathering who don't yet know him. We ask that for Jesus' name's sake. Amen. Amen.