Josh Turansky 0:00

So we're in um we're in Amos chapter 3. If you are joining us for the first time or you haven't been with us for a while, we we're in we were in Acts 13 and 14, and now we're gonna be for seven weeks in Amos chapter seven. In Amos for seven weeks. So um last week we looked at chapters one and two. This gets us a little bit of exposure as a church to the Old Testament. And when you look at the prophets, you have to understand that the prophets map onto your Old Testament um history. So you know if you go through the Torah, the first five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, you get those books from Moses, then you start getting into your history books. And your history books cover like Joshua, Judges, Ruth, then you've got the kings, you've got Samuel, you've got all that material that's there. So if you um are familiar with your Old Testament history, then you know where those prophets fit in to that Old Testament history. So, like we said last week, we talked about how the nation of Israel split in half because of Solomon's divided heart. He was the third king in Israel, and God said, Look, because you have a divided heart, I'm gonna divide the nation. And so we ended up with the northern tribe of Israel and the southern tribe of Judah, two different nations with two different kingdoms. And Amos is a prophet to the northern nation that's called Israel. So at this time, as Amos is speaking, he's talking to Israel in the north, and then you have Judah in the south. Amos, he's from the south. He's from the southern nation, and yet God calls him to speak his mission, his message to the north, uh northern region. And so what we're gonna see is that you and I are blessable image-bearing covenant partners, now following Jesus according to his new covenant, and we want to know what the Holy Spirit have to say to us from the book of Amos. So as we're going through Amos, we're recognizing that the way God designed humans was to be blessed, not cursed. He designed them to be bearing his image on the earth. We see that in Genesis chapter one. And that they're supposed to be in a, not just, oftentimes I talk about a friendship with God, but literally you're designed to be a covenant partner with God in the world. You're a blessable, image-bearing, covenant partner with God. And so we bring that into Amos in light of what Jesus has done on the cross, and we want to ask ourselves, what does the book of Amos teach me? How does the Holy Spirit want to teach me through Amos on what it looks like to follow Jesus? I just want to show you, at least on your phones, the map of where we're at. So you see down in the southern reading, we have the kingdom of Judah on that slide on your on your phones. You see the surrounding nations, and we talked about those last week. There was a prophetic message that God gave to Amos to speak to all the surrounding nations, but then Israel was the focus at the end. We spend a good bit of time, it's like the center of the target, the bullseye was the nation of Israel. So that was chapters one and two, and now what we're looking at is uh chapter three. Just in turn, if you weren't here last week, Amos, he's a shepherd. And then we also see in a later chapter that he is a farmer of fig, sycamore figs. He's from an area of Techoa in Judah, called by God to preach to this nation of Israel. And I think it's also important to say what we said last week that you need to know where Israel is at, right? So God's bringing a message to the nation of Israel, um, and they have a uh a certain thing going on as a nation. They're well off, they're established, they have strong military, they have a vibrant economy, um, they have a vibrant uh pagan worship system that's like a um it was a mix of the surrounding pagan idolatry as well as some of like their Hebrew roots. And they would worship in a place called Bethel. Um that was their place of worship. And the king that was reigning at the time was Jeroboam II. What's important for you to understand for chapter three is relationship, reasoning, and then ruin. That's really the that's the alliteration that we could follow is relationship, logical reasoning, and then ruin. Let me read to you verses one and two. Listen to this message that the Lord has spoken against you, Israelites, against the entire clan that I brought from the land of Egypt. I have known only you out of all the clans of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquity. Let's pray. Lord, we ask that as we read through chapter three, that you would be our teacher. We ask, Lord, that the work, the active work of your spirit that's promised to us, that you would really surgically apply Amos III into our own lives. And God, we recognize there's a massive time gap, there's a culture gap, there's a language gap of how this was originally spoken and written. And yet, God, we ask that you would bridge all of those gaps right over to our lives and that you would teach us about yourself. Lord, we give you this time, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So verses one and two. Verses one and two really um brings forward that idea of relationship. What's important to understand is this this whole arena of prophecy is more like a siren before disaster than the actual trigger of the disaster. So if you think of God having a relationship with his people, he would use these men and sometimes women who were, they they had the title prophet, and and they were sounding the alarm. We don't really have many earthquakes here, but like let's say you were to go to Japan, and and everybody in Japan has like an early warning alert system, an alarm system that goes off on their phones, typically 90 seconds before there's a major earthquake. It's letting you know this is what's coming. And so a prophet would function like that. It would sound, he or she would sound the alarm on God's behalf of listen, this is what's up with God. When God looks at our nation, this is what he sees, and this is what he's going to do. Now, the important thing for you and I to understand is that the prophet, this role of the prophet, this gifting of prophet, doesn't stop when Jesus comes on the scene. In fact, Paul talks about how that when you and I enter into this relationship with Jesus, we accept the invitation to be his followers. When we respond, we're born again. And he gives us his spirit. We call that the Holy Spirit, or if you're black, you call it the Holy Ghost, right? Amen. Thank you. Thank you, Louise. I gotta warm you up a little bit more out there. You got the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost comes and lives in you. And Paul says that he gifts you in particular ways, right? And one of the ways that he gifts some of you is with this prophetic gift for the church, right? And you would function in that gift, it would just be very natural to you to speak the words that God lays on your heart. And it'd oftentimes be the type of truth-telling, speaking the truth out. This is the case. It's usually, it's it's oftentimes a very bold witness to what God, sometimes it's controversial. But in 1 Corinthians 14, Paul says, Let those who are gifted with a word of prophecy speak and then let others judge. So it's not like you just get to go and we just have to take your word for it, but there is an evaluation that happens in the church of like, is that from God, or is that person off their rocker or off their meds today, right? So there's an evaluation, but that is an active work of the Holy Spirit even to this day. So Amos has this call upon his life to be this early warning alert or this siren before disaster occurs. And there is a looming disaster on the horizon for the nation of Israel. They have, as we saw last week, they have been mistreating the poor. They've been thwarting the path of the vulnerable, they've been grinding the face of the weak down into the dust. And God is not happy with that. And he's telling the people who are strong and of means, I am opposed to this, and you are going to be judged because you are treating people in this way. What comes up on your screen there? It just says linked surprise, huh? Okay, we'll fix that. This is um again, verses one and two. What I want you to see, just as we go through one and two, is that God's saying, I have a special relationship with you. That you are the ones that I chose. Notice that he says that I I took you, I took you from Egypt. Like, um listen to the message of the Lord that he has spoken against you, Israelites, against the entire clan I brought from the land of Egypt. And then he goes on and he says, I have known only you out of all the clans of the earth. This is relationship, right? God's establishing for um Israel that they are unique and special. And there's a right way and a wrong way to take that special relationship. You've got these relationships in your life. You got people that are close to you. Maybe it's family, maybe it's it's friends, but people can take either that closeness and abuse that closeness and think they can get away with whatever because they're close to you, or they can steward over the closeness they have with you and realize this is a treasure, there's greater accountability. We're chosen, we're safe. That can be the mistake. We're chosen, we're safe, or we're preserved. We're preserved. And what you need to know is that when God chooses you, there's greater accountability. And that's what's happening with Israel. Israel is facing the scrutiny, the the the um magnifying glass over their treatment of the poor and needy because they're God's chosen people. There was there's a man, he went to the playground, and uh he was watching from afar these two kids messing around and they're kind of fighting with each other and started to get a little heated. Then another man walked up to these two kids and broke up the fight, and the man took one of these kids off to the side and like whooped his butt. And this guy who's watching runs over. He's like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing? You can't just go and hit some kid at the park, you know. What are you doing? And the guy that broke it up, he says, Yeah, I can't I can't hit that kid. I can't spank him, but this one's my son. And he's gonna get special treatment from me, he's gonna get that discipline from me because I have that special relationship with him. And this is what God's doing with the nation of Israel. He's saying, I'm gonna hold you accountable, you're gonna get a heavenly spanking because of the way that you're treating the poor and needy. So we have relationship, and and this is the thing being chosen by God increases accountability. It does not grant a hall pass for your sin. So we talked, I prayed earlier that we are a people that we celebrate, when we come together as a church, we're not in here like, wow, we are the most awesome, behaved people ever. That's not like what we're cheering about when we gather. Instead, we're we're together saying, what sets us apart and makes us unique is that we are forgiven people. We're forgiven people. Don't ever think when you're out there and you're interacting with your friends that are just maybe they're sinning up a storm, they're on a tear, they're on a run, they're doing everything you could possibly do wrong. Don't start thinking like, oh, you know what, I'm I'm so much better. What makes you different from them is that you're forgiven. You're forgiven. That needs to be your attitude, not a condescension, because you could just be as you could be just as easily running like they're running, unless God had like rescued you from that, right? God's intervened in your life, he's forgiven you. You've got to walk in that humility. So we're a forgiven people, but we're not a people who have accountability thrown off. We're still accountable before God. We're gonna go into the reasoning part next. And I have on your phones there 3-3. I'll read the whole thing from 3 3 through 3-6. And I want you to see seven questions. Seven questions. Can two walk together without agreeing to meet? Does a lion roar in the forest when it has no prey? Does a young lion growl from its lair unless it has captured something? All you young lion experts, you're gonna have to answer that one for me. Does a bird land in a trap on the ground if there is no bait for it? Does a trap spring from the ground when it has caught nothing? If a trumpet is blown in a city, aren't people afraid? If a disaster occurs in a city, hasn't the Lord done it? Amos is giving questions that have the same logical framing behind it, cause and effect. He's saying, like, well, let's go to the one that's on your screen here. Can two walk together without agreeing up to meet? In other words, can you have a meeting with somebody without agreeing to have a meeting? Well, you kind of, you mean you run into people here and there, but in general, you're not going to go for a walk with somebody else unless you agree, let's go for a walk, right? Another one that he gives here is this trumpet. He says, if a trumpet is blown, bless you, if a trumpet is blown in a city, aren't people afraid? Or, you know, if the alarm goes off. I used to live in a place where we would get like tsunami alarms that would go off to just check the system. And there was a sense of like, oh my gosh, is there a real tsunami that's coming? It's cause and effect, right? Amos wants you to grab a hold of that idea of cause and effect because he's going to justify his ministry. Please hold on to this because in a few weeks, after we're done with Amos, we're going to get to 2 Corinthians. And the book of 2 Corinthians, one of the undercurrents of that book is Paul being led by the Holy Spirit to justify and legitimize his ministry to a people who had other spiritual, so-called Christians at their church trying to undercut Paul. And so Amos and Paul kind of are in the same boat for a chapter. And here Amos is setting that defense up by showing that there is cause and effect. When we get here, to the middle of verse 6, he says, if a disaster occurs in a city, hasn't the Lord done it? There is this sense in what Amos is saying that judgment is not random. It follows a chain reaction. If we go a little bit further, verse 7, he says, indeed, the Lord does nothing without revealing his counsel to his servants. Who was I talking to about this earlier? Not not here. It was earlier this week. It was somebody in this room. We were talking about how God just gives you a sense of something before it happens. It was Friday morning. We were together. I can't remember. But but when we go together, we're going to be in the Experiencing God book. For those of you that sign up for waypoints in the fall and you're able, you've done the first two classes. When we get to experiencing God, you're going to see that Henry Blackaby uses this text to justify his framing about your spiritual experience as a principle that God doesn't, he does nothing without revealing his counsel to his servants, the prophets. And when we go through this in experience in the Experiencing God book, hopefully we have some vibrant conversation about this. Of like, is this always the rule? Is this the principle that is always the case, or is it a general principle? I would I would put it in the category of a general principle that God gives you a like being a Christian, one of the aspects of following Jesus, being a follower of God, being in touch with the work of the Spirit, is that He is giving you a sense of anticipation of what's coming. And the reason, and the way I would, I would defend that idea is when we read through Matthew, we saw all the times where Jesus was telling his disciples, aren't you looped in? Like, don't you see what's going on? He's rebuking the rabbis and the Pharisees. Remember that? He's like, you know the weather, you can discern the weather, but you're not aware of what's going on in this moment. There is this expectation that Jesus brought to the table that the people of God are keyed in on the kingdom narrative or God's story unfolding. So what does that look like for you and I? Well, we already talked about it in one sense that sometimes God gifts, like us as a church, he may gifts. Somebody in our church with the gift of prophecy, right? And somebody may have a prophetic word about, hey, here's what's going on. We we had that, we have a lady, I don't know if I've seen her recently at the compassion center, but she's got a gift of prophecy. And she doesn't wear a shirt that says, I've got the gift of prophecy, but you go up and you talk to her at the compassion center, and she just begins to speak over your life. She comes to get food and she'll say stuff over my life where it's just like, there's no way you would say that to me unless you knew what was going on in my heart. Because it's like she's got an insider view into like the things I'm thinking about and praying about. So sometimes God's doing this where he's revealing his counsel through that gift of prophecy. Other times there's dreams. Some of you will have almost prophetic dreams, dreams where it's just like you remember them, there seems to be a significance about it, and then you just got to pray. Like, God, do you want to give meaning or interpretation to that dream? I've told you my story that three weeks before 9-11, I had had a dream that I woke up from, and I remembered vividly carrying the the side of a the stretcher of a woman who was bloodied, and she had, and it was like some war-type event, and we were taking her to a triage center. And I remember waking up that thing with this clear sense, something's about to happen in our country. Three weeks later was 9-11. Six months later, they had like the USA to USA Today or US News and World Report commemorative 9-11 edition. And I'm thumbing through it, and one of the pages is a picture. Literally, the image in my dream is the picture in the magazine. And it literally says, here's this woman being carried to a triage center, right? So God can give us that sense of like, oh, this is what's coming. Now, in Hebrews, it says that our spiritual exer our spiritual senses have to be exercised. Because when you're spiritually immature, you start thinking like every coincidence is like, oh, it's God, God's doing that. Oh, that's what it is. And it can be kind of misinterpreted or over-spiritualized. But just because when you're young in the faith, you kind of can get stuff wrong doesn't mean that you mature and to stop looking for God's patterns and signals and revealing. It just means that just like you learn to appreciate third-wave excellent coffee from like a ceremony coffee shop as you get better in drinking coffee. In the same way, the more you're reading your Bible and listening to the Holy Spirit's voice, the older you get with Jesus, the more you're able to discern that's the Lord. He's giving me a sense of what's about to happen. Man, I can't remember. Who was it on Friday? We were talking about this. Nobody's gonna offer, right? You won't you don't remember who we're who I was? Okay, maybe it wasn't somebody here. But yeah, God just He wants to give you a sense of what's going on. And Amos, what he's saying is, listen, I'm playing a role in a logical sequence. You're all screwing up as a nation. God has decreed that you're gonna be judged. And my job is to communicate to you that that judgment is coming and to tell you exactly what you're doing wrong. To open up the service, we read from Psalm 51, God put Nathan the prophet into David's life, and Nathan the prophet came to David and said, through a parable, this is what you have done wrong. And David had the opportunity to respond and repent. And then he wrote his repentance as Psalm 51, so that the nation of Israel had language to express. David provided for the nation devotional language. Moses provided the law, the guardrails, the structure, the societal framing, but then David was used by God to gift the nation devotional language to say, I'm sorry, or I love you, or I need you, do you hear me? Do you see my pain? That's what's in the Psalms. And they should have, they should have, as a nation, taken that, and they should have repented of their sin, but they didn't. And so God is decreeing that he's going to judge. You have the cause and effect. Amos is the effect. He's not the cause of God's judgment, he is the result of God's determining because God loves his people, and he is the one who does nothing without revealing his counsel to his servants, the prophets. Are you tracking with me? So there's on your screen, on your uh on your phone there, you have a chain of judgment. God plans and reveals, the prophet speaks, people ignore, judgment arrives. That is the that's the logical sequence of what's going on. And Amos is saying, hey, just like just like there's just every day cause and effect things that you are familiar with, God plays by the same rules of cause and effect. And I'm just in that sequence of chain and effect bringing to you what's about to happen. Let's look at verses 10 and 11. 10 and 11, well, nine. Proclaim on the citadels in Ashdod, on the citadels in the land of Egypt, assemble on the mountains of Samaria, and see the great turmoil in the city and the acts of oppression within it. So what's going on here? Amos is calling to these two foreign nations. He's calling to Ashdod and Egypt. And he's saying, You guys are the bleachers. Imagine like an arena. You got Egypt on one side, you've got Ashdod on another, and they're peering down, and on the field is the nation of Israel. And he calls them as a witness. Remember, Amos is kind of like a lawyer making a using the covenant language to make his indictment against the nation. And he's saying, I want you to observe what God does with his people in this arena. I want you to see the great turmoil in the city. I want you to see the guilt of the people, what they're doing wrong, their acts of oppression. That would be embarrassing. He invites them to see what's going on. Do you have a thing there that pops up on your phone? I don't know why that's popping up there in that spot. That's from Honey. I shrunk the kids. Did you ever watch that movie? Cause and effect, right? He shrunk the kids. There was a cause, and you ended up with these like microscopic little kids running around in the movie, right? Cause and effect. And what Amos is saying is like, listen, you need to understand. I bet that broke my slides too. It did. Oh yeah. What you need to understand, you're gonna have to turn. If you don't want to look at honey, I shrunk the kids for the rest of the sermon, you're gonna have to turn your phone off. What you need to understand, what Amos is saying is listen, God is, He is up, there's like this impending judgment that is about to happen. I want the nations to watch it, I want them to observe, and I want them to be aware of what um I how I handle the violation of the covenant. He goes on, he says, the people are incapable of doing right. This is the Lord's declaration. Those who store up violence and destruction in their citadels. In that amazing language, the people are incapable of doing what is right. It reminds you of like Noah before the flood, when when um when God's about to send the flood, there's like there's no one that does any good. He says there you you as a people are incapable of doing what is right, and the Lord's declaring it. They're storing up violence. Here's one of the things we hit on this last week, we're gonna hit on it every week. If you're a person that's facing violence, destruction in your personal life, God sees it. It's easy to read this and feel like, man, that guy's Amos, he's beating up on me. But maybe that's not what you're supposed to hear from Amos. Maybe what you're supposed to hear is that God sees your suffering. He saw the suffering of the vulnerable in the nation of Israel, he saw the poor, he saw the needy, and God's about to go ham on these rich people in Israel that are just like destroying. Like literally, the imagery last week was like pressing their face into the dust. And you know, if you've been in that place, that you're if you're vulnerable the essence of being vulnerable is you're powerless to change your circumstance. And yet here's God showing up with his prophets speaking, saying, This is what's about to happen to you. Verse 11. Therefore the Lord God says, An enemy will surround the land, he will destroy your strongholds, and plunder your citadels. Amos, man, he loves this word. This was all over like one, two, and now here we have it again. It's like the your palaces, your fancy rich houses, basically. They're gonna get destroyed. The Lord says, as the shepherd snatches two legs or a piece of ear, this is like a poem, okay? A piece of an ear from a lion's mouth, so the Israelites who live in Samaria will be rescued with only the corner of a bed or the cushion of a couch, right? Imagine a shepherd is like the sheep gets grabbed by the lion, and the lion runs off with the sheep, and you're the shepherd, you chase him down, and you're like, you get there just in time to just grab like a piece of an ear out of his mouth. But pretty much he ate the whole thing. There's gonna be a remnant, there's gonna be a small leftovers after this judgment occurs, but it's only gonna be a fragment. Or if you had a piece of furniture that you threw into the back of a garbage truck, and that garbage truck door comes down and is crushing it, and you're like, oh, I wanted that. Try to grab a piece, it's like, oh, there's only a cushion, half a cushion left, you know. He says, That's what you're gonna be like as a nation. There's only gonna be fragments of you that remain. Listen and testify against the house of Jacob. This is the declaration of the Lord God, the God of armies. I will punish the altars of Bethel the day I punish Israel for its crimes. On the day I punish Israel for its crimes, the horns of the altar will be cut off. The horns of the altar was, so this was their worship place. They went, wouldn't go to Jerusalem, they would worship in Bethel with a like a false religion. And the horns were like handles, so they would rub the blood of the the um animal sacrifice on the horns. It was the most important part of the altar. And so God says, I'm gonna cut off the horns of the altar and fall to the ground. It's gonna be broken. You're like the the the the central place of your worship is gonna be destroyed. I will demolish the winter house in the summer house. Like these guys are rich, right? They got the winter house, they got the summer house. Yeah, no, I'm gonna dis demolish it. The houses inlaid with ivory. We've we've found these, we've found these ivory pieces. Archaeologists have seen that they were sold out of Egypt, brought to this uh northern Israel area. Uh the houses inlaid with ivory will be destroyed, and the great houses will come to an end. This is the Lord's declaration. Remember, God we started off with relationship, and then we get to reasoning. Why is this message happening? And it's Amos saying, look, this is how God works. And then we get to the results or the ruins of the people. And you just need to know that the way that Israel felt as they were listening to this guy was, Amos, you're crazy. Look at how much money we have. Look how strong our military is. Look at, I've got a winter house and a summer house. Like, are you kidding me? Like, who's gonna overcome this? And yet, when we step back, we look at history, God's word came to pass. When God speaks and God declares, there's no escaping from it. So, where do we fall as believers? And we'll we'll end with this. Where do we where do we land as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ? Because this is um this message was given to people who are under the old covenant, but you and I are followers of Jesus under the new covenant, which we'll celebrate in just a minute. And I just want to give you four quick things because the pieces, do you ever play the game Tangos as a kid? T A N G O E S Tangoes? You'd get these geometric shapes and you'd get a card, and you had to make like the geometric shapes look like what was on the card. Anybody ever play that game? Was it just me? Oh my gosh. I'll bring it. If my if my phone app was working, I would show you a picture of it. It's so fun. It's like a puzzle. You gotta put it together with the pieces. The reason, the reason I I wanted to bring that up is because it's the pieces under the new covenant get rearranged. You still have, you still have covenant, you still have the idea of relationship, privilege, responsibility, judgment, warning, consequences. All of those things still exist, but they're rearranged. They're rearranged. And the center of gravity under the new covenant, it shifts to Christ and his finished work on the cross. So the nation of Israel was in a covenant relationship with God based off of Moses' law. So there was a covenant relationship, but but the covenant was not the same covenant that you and I relate to God with. We relate to God under the new covenant. And so the first thing you need to know is that as we finish out this chapter, there's this declaration of a curse, basically, that destruction is coming on your homes. And you need to understand that Jesus was cursed and destroyed for your sin and your rebellion. And so you don't live in a place, you're not living in a place where you're afraid that these things, God's not dealing with your life in the same way. Jesus took the curse of the law so that you do not have to face the same curse outlined under the law. There is still a form of judgment, but it comes as discipline in our life. The way that God relates to us is not like Zeus, I'm gonna smoke you with a lightning bolt. That's not how God deals with us. When we are walking in sin in our life, what he does is he disciplines us like a father does with a child. Like if you really love your kids, you're gonna discipline them. And that's the relationship that we have with God. Not a smoke them, destroy them, tear them down, but more of a corrective. I'm gonna let you experience some pain, not because I'm super mad at you, but because I deeply love you and I have given you the resource to change that pattern in your life. Third, the final judgment, the final judgment like this moves on to this, what we call an eschatological horizon. That's a fancy word for the end time events. So, judgment like that, this is still a reality under the new covenant, but it's anticipated as a future event that will happen with the return of Christ. That there will be this ultimate judgment that occurs. So in the old covenant, in the old covenant, the covenant people themselves absorbed the brunt of the judgment in history. In the new covenant, the mediator, who's our mediator? Jesus, he absorbs that judgment, the curse. We experience instead fatherly discipline and sometimes temporal consequences, but not wrath. We can think in terms of direct parallels as well as Christ-fulfilled differences. We don't have time this morning to go through all of those, but we have, we are a privileged people just like the people of Israel were privileged people. We have responsibility just like the people of Israel had responsibility. God gives us warnings just like he gave them warnings. There are consequences just like there were consequences for them. But the differences are just this the curse. Jesus has taken the curse on himself. He's taken the curse on himself so that you and I can be in this place of abounding grace, where sin abounds, grace abounds much more. That God has got a reservoir of grace for you that will always outdo your sin. And so stop sinning. Right? Stop walking in dumb, stop walking in rebellion. Let the work of the spirit in your life move you towards those patterns of living as a kingdom person. All right. Let's pray together. Lord, we do thank you for the fact that all these curses here that Amos spoke of for the nation of Israel, for us, you took on those curses. You were destroyed so that we could experience life. And Lord, as we take communion together as a church, I just ask that you would help us, Lord, to repent of our sins, just like David did in Psalm 51. I ask, Lord Jesus, that you would give us a sense of your mercy and that you would renew our vision for the new covenant life, the life empowered by grace. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.