I'd ask you now to take your Bibles and turn to John, chapter six. It is always a great privilege to stand before you and to open God's word. A great privilege and an enormous responsibility, and since Pastor Mark has been in First Samuel now for several weeks, I thought it might be good for us to go to the New Testament for a Sunday before we return back to First Samuel. I'm so grateful to be in a church that preaches the whole counsel of God that realizes there are 39 books there in the Old Testament. And that's God's word, too. And God will say things to us through that word. But today, I thought we would change a little bit, go to the New Testament, to his gospels. to the Lord's Gospel and look at John chapter six, verse 22 through 40. Now, I realize this is a pretty big chunk to try to tackle in just a short time frame this morning. And my goal today is not to so much dig real deep into this text, but to look at the whole picture. I hate to use the word holistically because it has so many weird ideas in people's minds when you say that word out there. But if we could do that to look at the big picture here today as we study this particular passage from God's word. Before we read it, though, I would like to set the context to help you to understand what was going on right before this particular incident in the life of our Lord, what all happened right before this. If you look earlier in the gospel, you'll see that Jesus and his disciples had gotten into a boat at Capernaum and had crossed over to the other side of the lake. And at this particular time in Jesus's ministry, wherever he would go, the crowds would follow and and they found him on the other side of the lake. And all of these people showed up and there was this huge throng that that was there listening to him. And Jesus was there and he preached and and he taught, he healed the sick. And I don't believe John specifically says he cast out demons, but it's very possible that that that took place on that day. And toward the end of that day, as all of this huge throng was gathered around Jesus, his disciples came to him and said, Lord, it's late in the day. These people have been here all day and they haven't eaten. If we don't send them away, they're going to faint on the way home. Now, I've always wondered if maybe his disciples were thinking, Lord, I'm really hungry. And if we could send these people away, we'd have something we could stop and we could eat, too. But but Jesus turned to them and he said, you give them something to eat. And I said, this crowd, how could we feed a crowd like this? And Jesus says, well, what do you have? And they said, well, this little boy brought his lunch and he has five biscuits basically and and two fish. And he said, bring it to me. And Jesus took the five biscuits out of this little boy's lunch and the two fish and he broke it. And the Bible says he blessed it and he put it in baskets and he had the disciples get everybody to sit down. And it's neat the picture that Mark, when he talks about this, particular incident, he speaks using a word that almost looks like a patchwork quilt where you can see all these different colors scattered across the hillside as they have gathered into these groups to eat. And his disciples went out and passed these baskets of fish and bread around to all of those who were there listening that day. And I would have loved to have seen the face of the disciples as they began to pass the bread, knowing how much was in there when they started it down the row. And then as it got through the group and came back to them, they looked in there and there was still fish and bread in there and they kept passing it out. And Jesus ended up feeding this entire group. Now, the Bible says he fed 5000 men. So that's what they counted the men, and we don't know how many women and children were there, but it very well could have been that he fed not just 5000, but 10 or 15 or maybe even 20000. We don't know how many women and kids were there. And then after they had all eaten, Jesus said, well, let's be good stewards, you know, go out and gather up the leftovers. And they did. And they had 12 basket fulls left of food. Well, needless to say, this opened all of their eyes. This was a great miracle. And no, I don't believe that what William Barclay said is true, that they all gathered around and saw this little boy sharing his lunch. So they said, well, we'll share our lunch too. So they all got to eat. No, God worked a bona fide miracle there that day. He fed all of these people with this food and they were so excited about it. It was such a mighty miracle that the Bible says they were ready to make Jesus king right then. If he can feed all of these people with just five biscuits and two fish, he can handle those Romans. We'll get them out of here and all will be well. Jesus knew what they were thinking, though. So he took his disciples, he said, get in the boat, go back to Capernaum. He sent his disciples off across the lake. He sent the crowds away. And then Jesus went up into the mountain to pray along. What Jesus prayed about, we don't know. But he spent that time with his father. And then after his time of praying was over, it was still nighttime. He started back and he went down to the seashore instead of walking around the Sea of Galilee or the Lake of Tiberias, whatever you want to call it. He just started across the lake, not in a boat, but just walking on the water. Now, by this time, a storm had come up. His disciples were in the boat, bailing water and trying to get to shore because these storms just come up in no time there on the Sea of Galilee. And as Jesus came walking along, they looked up and they saw Jesus walking on the water. And one of the other gospels tells they thought it was a spirit and not a spirit as in God is a spirit, but spirit as in a spook. They thought he was a spook and it was a bad omen and that now we know we're all going to drown. What is going to happen to us? And then Jesus said, do not be afraid. It is I. Jesus walked over, got into the boat and the Bible says immediately. They went to the they showed up on the other side of the lake there in Capernaum. So it is now the next morning after all of these events took place, when we began to read what our text says. So let's look. John chapter six, starting in verse 22. It's early the next morning. The crowd comes down. They're looking for Jesus. They knew the boat had gone across with his disciples. Jesus was not in the boat, but they couldn't find Jesus anywhere. So let's see what happens. On the next day, the crowd that remained on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away along. Other boats from Tiberias came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor his disciples, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum seeking Jesus. And when they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here? And Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, You are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him, God the Father has set his seal. Then they said to him, what must we do to be doing the works of God? And Jesus answered them, this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent. So they said to him, then what sign do you do that we may see and believe you? What word do you perform? Our fathers ate the man in the wilderness. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. And Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. And they said to him, Sir, give us this bread always. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger. Whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe all that the father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my father, that everyone who looks on the son and believes in him should have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day. May the Lord bless the reading of his words. As we look at this text today, I'd like us to look at two perspectives, I guess you could say. As I said, we're not going to dig real deep in looking at this, but there are basically two views here, two ways of thinking. On the one hand, we have the thinking of these people who were seeking, if I might use that word, Jesus on that particular day. They had several things in mind when they sought Him. And as they went looking for Him, there were certain things that they wanted and that they expected Him to give to them. But on the other hand, I'd also would like you to look at what Jesus does. He does not give them what they want because He knows that is not what they need. So today we're going to look at these two perspectives. These people seeking him and what they wanted and yet Jesus desiring to give them what they really need. First of all, let's look at the people, these people that. were seeking him. Now, this word seeking is one of those words that we might scratch our head a little bit. You say, wait a minute, I thought we were Presbyterians. Doesn't Romans say that there is no one who seeks after God? No, not one. Well, that's exactly true. And so we have to understand that this seeking is different than the Romans kind of seeking. The Roman kind of seeking is something that God works in our hearts, that he breaks through and he gives us that desire to repent and to believe the gospel and to look to him. This kind of seeking of Jesus is not actually even seeking of Jesus. It's not so much seeking him as it is seeking stuff that he can give to them. And as I read this, my thoughts went to James chapter four, where James says, well, you have not because you ask not. But then he says, and you ask and you don't receive because you ask amiss. The old King James, the way it says, you ask amiss desiring to take these things and consume them on your own lust. And that's what these guys were doing. They did not want Jesus himself necessarily, but they wanted stuff that Jesus could give to them. They were not seeking him. They were seeking something else. They just wanted to use Jesus to get what they wanted. One of the commentators said this, and I thought he nailed it down very well. He said they look for Jesus not because they had full hearts, but because they had full bellies. You see, he had given them all of this food the day before and they thought, hey, this is a good deal. What a deal. I like this idea. We're going to go and we're going to follow him again and see what happens. So let's look and see what they wanted. Well, to begin with, verse 26 tells us. In verse 26, Jesus looked at them and he said, truly, truly, and that's his way of saying, listen to me. Amen, amen. As he repeated that, he said, this is important. He said, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. They were seeking him because they wanted bread. What a great deal. I mean, he feeds these thousands of people. I get tired of trying to scratch a living out of this Galilean dirt. And here's a guy that's going to care for me. Here's somebody that can take care of me. I want him to give me this bread. I want him to provide all of these things for me. You see, they wanted a living. They wanted him to give them provision. And that was common in that day. And it's not much different this day. There are many, many people out there who would never give God a second thought until they get in a pinch and times are tough and they don't know what they're going to do. So they turn to God or they turn to God's church thinking that here I can I can find some relief here. Christ will provide for me. I know Pastor Mark, when he's back there studying in the buzzer buzzes. I can guess what goes through his mind. Either someone has a real need or there's someone here needing gas and groceries, right, or or somebody to pay their rent or or something like that. And it's amazing how how you try to get down to their real needs and you begin to talk to them and you say. On the one hand, why are you here? You know, have you talked to your pastor about this? Well, I don't have a pastor. Oh, I'm sorry, your pastor. You must be between pastors. Have you talked to the people in your church about this? Well, no. Well, I really don't go to church anywhere. Oh, and you begin to dig deeper and deeper. And and they're not interested in God. They're not interested in Christ. They're not interesting. You know, they're not coming here to repent, to believe, to look to Christ, to have their lives changed. They're coming to here because they think here They can get some provision to take care of them. And it's no different from what these guys were doing back then. They came because he had fed these 5,000 and they wanted bread. They wanted him to provide for them. How many people have called out to God from a hospital bed? Or we talk about foxhole conversions out there when you're in the armed forces and times are really tough and you're looking for some kind of provision in your life, but yet You want provision. You don't really want Christ. That's not all they look for. He didn't say they were just looking for bread. If we look down in verse thirty one, we see that not only were they looking for bread, but they were looking for, I guess you could say, signs or as as I was thinking about this, goosebumps. So, Lord, we'd really like goosebumps. Look at verse starting verse 30. So they said to him, then what sign do you do that we may see and believe you? What word do you perform? Our fathers ate the man in the wilderness as it is written. He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Sure, Lord, yeah, I know you fed over 5000 here one day, but you know, in the wilderness, the Lord fed us for 40 years. Let's see you do that. You know, we want to see these signs. We want to see more of the miraculous. We want to see more of all of these things that are going. You know, we love watching the people being healed and the demons being cast out. And don't get me wrong, Jesus did that. Our God is a compassionate God. And He did reach down. He touched people's lives in many, many ways. But it always went deeper than just the body. Jesus always was looking at the soul, and these people could not see past that. They wanted these signs. And today, everybody, they want to see the miraculous. They want to see power. They want to see supernatural things going on all the time. And if you just need evidence of that, all we have to do is turn on the TV. There are entire networks that have made just bookies and bookies and bookies of money by providing goosebumps for people to watch and to see on TV. You see, it's not so much that people are after Christ. And I'm not trying to paint everybody with the same brush here. But the bottom line is there are too many out there that want the goosebumps. And if we're not careful, we as a church will fall into that trap. Well, everybody out there wants goosebumps. I guess we need to provide goosebumps and we'll get them in here and then we'll give them the gospel. So we'll do our smoke machines or what? You know, we'll do whatever we can to get them in there. And we're doing no more than what these people were wanting. So they wanted bread. They wanted signs. If we look up in the in John, chapter six, they wanted a king. They wanted a political answer to this, you know, we get these Romans out, we get the right guy in Washington, D.C., or we get the right guy in Jerusalem and everything will be great. And somehow we think that there is this political answer that Jesus is Franklin Delano Roosevelt up there talking about a chicken in every pot and every man his own fig tree and all of these things. And we think that somehow there is this political answer and that Jesus is that political answer. And the church jumps right in there. Now, don't get me wrong. Christians need to be involved in politics. I'm not saying that. You know, especially in our country, it is a good thing that we can have some say in what is going on. But we also have to realize that the answer to the United States needs are not to be found in the voting booth, but they're to be found in the churches as we look to God to send revival and to send change in all of our hearts. People desire health and wealth. And Francis Schaeffer said it so well back several years ago, he said, we're all looking for personal peace and affluence. You know, that's what we want. We want to feel joy down in our heart, deep, deep down in our heart. I'm sorry. The old Baptist comes out in me every once in a while. Those little choruses just kind of bubble up. You know, it's something we want down deep inside. You know, we want to feel good. We want affluence. We want a comfortable life. But, you know, we just there's this emptiness inside and we know it's not so much that we want Jesus. We just want to be happy. You know, and it's a dangerous thing to just desire to be happy. That's what these people were wanting. They were wanting bread and provision and goosebumps. They wanted to see all kinds of exciting things. They wanted a political king to get rid of those Romans so everything would go well. But Jesus ignored all that and he turned to them and he said, let me tell you what you need. Look at verse 27. What does Jesus say they need? He said, listen, guys, do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him, God the Father has set his seal. What do they need? They don't need bread. They don't need biscuits. They don't need fish. They need the food that endures. It's as if Jesus turned to them and said, I fed you a few hours ago and your bellies are empty again and here you've shown up. You know, he said that food does not last. What you need is the bread that endures. And to make sure they understood what he's talking about, look down in verse 35. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger. Whoever believes in me shall never thirst. And if we look up in verse 33, we see that it says, for the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. All of a sudden the light comes on and we say, oh, they don't need bread. They don't need political power. They don't need excitement. They need life. And they don't even know it. Here they are, they're living their lives and they don't realize that they are actually dead. They did not know that they were dead in their trespasses and sins. It reminds me of Jesus once when he talked about them being slaves to sin and the Jewish leaders were all huffy and they said, we've never been slaves to anyone. They didn't realize that they were slaves. And people in our world today, they don't realize that they are dead in their trespasses and sins and they need life. Folks, our inability is so real. Because we are dead in our trespasses and sins, we are unable to respond to the Lord unless he first does something in our heart. As Paul said in the book of first Corinthians, the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God, for they can only be supernaturally discerned. Only the spirit can open our hearts to understand what God is saying. Jesus said, don't labor for the food that perishes, but labor for the food that endures. Well, do we need evidence that they didn't get it? Well, they didn't get it. Look at verse 28. Notice what they say, they said to him, well, then what must we do to be doing the works of God? Jesus is talking about a gift here. He is talking about grace and they're saying, oh, what do we need to do and how often are we like that? We think we need to do. We need to straighten up or we need to start going to church or we need to quit going to some other place or we need to stop doing this and start doing these other things. And we think, you know, our being right with God is determined by all of these things that we do. And he says, no, it is something that the Son of Man will give to you. And it is here where we turn from looking at what these people thought they needed to what it was they really needed. We see God's plan for redemption in this passage of Scripture. He just spells it out so clearly for us, and He shows us again and again that it is all, all, all by God's grace. To begin with, this plan of redemption, this life, this bread that endures forever is to be found only in Christ. Look at verse 27. He says, do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on him God the Father has set his seal. Now, he says two things here that we need to latch on to. To begin with, the Son of Man will give this to you. We have to understand salvation, justification is a gift from God. It is not something that we can earn. It is not something that we can work for, but it's something that God, by his grace, gives to us. And then we turn that around and not only does it say the son of man is going to give this to you, but on Christ, the father has set his seal. Now, today, we don't think much about seals. And, you know, what is a seal? Well, in that day, 90 percent of the people couldn't read. So you would look at a piece of paper and you wouldn't know if it was authentic or not. And the way they would prove it was authentic is they would seal it with wax and then they would take their signet ring with whatever their symbol was, and they would press it down into that wax. And that would prove that this, whatever it was, was authentic, that it was real. Well, the Bible says that God placed his seal of authenticity on Jesus Christ. And you say, well, what was God's seal of authenticity? That's easy for me to say. His seal of realness. How's that? Authenticity. There, I'll get it out. What was that? Well, number one, it was his life. It was perfect in every way. He never sinned in thought, word or deed. He was perfect. He kept God's law in every way. He went to the cross on our behalf for our sins, not his own. But the main, the primary seal that God placed on Jesus Christ was his resurrection from the dead. That was the evidence that I have accepted his sacrifice. I have accepted his word. He is mine. And that is why Jesus could go and say, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father. but by me. Now, folks, don't get me wrong. Once our lives have been changed, we will desire to be with God's people. We will want to worship God. We will want to set some things aside and we will want to take up other things. But we do those things not in order to be justified, but because we have been justified through Jesus Christ and through Christ alone. So this food that endures comes to us through Christ alone. Secondly, this food that endures comes to us from God. And we see this all through this passage. Look at verse thirty three. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Look at verse thirty seven. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. You have the Father giving. Look at verse 38. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. So Christ came to do the Father's will. This grace, this food that endures, this life that can be ours comes to us from God. Too often, people in our day and age have this This strange picture of we have this Old Testament God who's very austere and stiff and determined and righteous and in all of these ways. And then his son comes and says, wait, father, cut them some slack. Boys will be boys here. Take me instead. And that Christ somehow convinces the father to change his mind and to allow us in the family. That's not the picture we have of scripture. That is not the picture we have of redemption in Scripture. We have a God in heaven who before the foundation of the world determined that He would save a people. It all begins with God the Father as He called us and as He has chosen us. And then He sent Christ to purchase our salvation and then the Spirit to apply it to our lives. No, it all comes from God. Every good and perfect gift proceeds down from the Father of life. Always understand that Christ and the Father are the same in essence, and they are the same in purpose. They were going forth for their own glory, for God's glory, to save a people for Himself. So this redemption, this food that endures, it is found only in Christ, and it comes from God, but we see also that it is received by faith. Again, several places in this passage, we will see this spoken of again and again and again. Look at verse twenty nine. This is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent. You see, that's what God has called us to do, not to work, but to believe, to rest in him. Look at verse thirty five. I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. Verse 40, For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. You see, it is all by faith. We trust and we rest in him. The Bible says we look to him and we believe in him. That's not talking about two different things. It is saying we look to Christ and by looking to him, we are believing in him. We are resting in him. We are trusting in him to save us. Someone once said that grace is an acrostic for God's riches at Christ's expense. I'm not sure that is a true statement. I would like it better. God's righteousness. at Christ's expense through what Jesus Christ did for us. His righteousness is placed to our account so that we can enter into relationship with God. And it is all done not by working hard, not by becoming more religious, not by doing this, that or the other, but by simply resting in the promises of God. What does Ephesians tell us? For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And that is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. What is this faith? It's not intellectual knowledge. A lot of people believe that Jesus lived here on this earth. A lot of people believe that he was the son of God. A lot of people would say, yes, I believe everything the Bible says. Jesus came and he died for sinners. Yeah, I believe all that. You know, the devils believe that the Bible says and they tremble. because they believe all these facts are true. But true saving faith, as we looked at in our catechism question today, is resting totally and completely on Christ alone for our salvation. It is looking to him, not in what I do, but it is looking to him and what he has done. And last of all, as we think about this plan of redemption, it is so good to know that God promised that he would finish the work that he has started in us. Now, if it's something that we do, we could fall away. That's just the way it is. But if it's something that God does, we can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he will finish what he has started again, starting in verse 37. All that the father gives to me will come to me and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. Isn't that good to know? When your life and you're battling sin and you're just so frustrated, it's so good to know that all that the Father has given to Him, that we will not be cast out. Verse 38, for I've come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day. God is going to finish the work that He has started. in our life, and he will lose nothing, and he will lose no one that the Father has given to us. And it is so good to know that on that last day when the dead are raised from their graves and we stand before God, we will hear those words, well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord. And why will we hear those words? Because of what Christ did. As we have trusted in Him, His grace works in our heart to finish the work that He started before the foundation of the world. So let's bring this all to a conclusion. What does this mean to us? And if all of this stuff is true, you know, these people want this, and sometimes we want this, but this is what we really need. What does this mean to us, first of all, as Christians? Well, I believe, first of all, it's important for us to be reminded again and again, as God's people, that we are saved by grace alone. We know that in our heads, but I think sometimes we forget it in the way that we feel and in our hearts. What does it do for us to be reminded again and again that our salvation is a gift from God? Well, first of all, it makes us humble. We won't look down our noses at the pagans around us in the world and say, how can they be that way? Well, we were that way, don't you remember? Before Christ came and changed us, that's who we were. But because of God's grace and His mercy, He broke into our hearts so that we could be saved. So when we look at people out there in the world and their lives are in shambles, we're not going to look down our nose at them, but we will feel compassion for them. And we will desire to point them to Christ, if possible, and to pray for them that God, too, might break into their heart the way He broke into ours. Secondly, Even while we're striving to be holy, and the Bible commands us to do that. What did Paul say? I've buffeted my body. You know, he's striving to be holy. He said, I press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Yes, he tried to be different. We see all these commands in scripture that we should be holy, that we should strive to live holy lives. Even while we're doing all of that, we rest in his grace. And we realize that even our striving to be holy, Even as we try to cooperate with God in our sanctification, we realize that all of that work that is done in us is a work that God provided for us on the cross. Our strength to defeat sin in our daily life comes to us through the finished work of Christ on the cross. And last of all, it reminds us to be very careful that we don't turn Christ Church into a therapeutic group teaching people how to gain political power for the glory of God or how to be good husbands or how to be good kids or how to be successful businessmen. And there's nothing wrong with any of those things. I mean, politics is a part of life and we ought to be involved in all of that. And we ought to be good husbands and we ought to be good wives and we ought to follow the plan that God has placed in his word. But that's not our focus when we gather here. When we gather here, our focus is on Christ. and who He is and what He has accomplished for us and what He is doing in our lives right now. And then to simply take comfort in the fact that God will finish the work that He has started in us. I love that passage of Scripture that says, He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. When we are frustrated and when we feel like we have failed, we can always look to Christ and know That the game's not over yet. That He is working in us to change us and to mold us into the image of Jesus Christ. Well then, what does it mean to those who are non-Christians as we look at this passage of Scripture? Let's look to Christ. If you're here today and God has yet to quicken your heart, look to Christ. See who He is. See what He has done. That He came and died for sinners. Call out to Him for His mercy. Call out to Him for His grace. Say, Lord, I want to believe in You. Lord, give me the faith. Grant me repentance. Give me faith that I may be saved. Look to Him, to Christ alone, for there is your answer. That is what you need. You don't need provision. We'll get provision. God takes care of His own. That's going to come. Don't worry about that. Don't worry so much about the politics. Do what you can do. Leave the rest in the hands of God. You know, that's fine. But focus on Him. We need Christ today. Look to Him, for He is the bread of heaven. He is the food. that endures. Let's pray together, please. Our Father in heaven. Too often. Too often, we want the gift more than we want the giver. We get so wrapped up in peripheral issues, Things that would be nice, but things that aren't necessarily important or lasting. The Lord, even as your children, remind us today that you are who we need. That it is you who gives life through your son, Jesus Christ. that He is the bread of life, that He is the food that endures, that it is through Him that we have all that we need. And if in following You, Lord, in following Your Son, Jesus, we have to do without things, then Lord, so be it. May we learn to rest and trust in You alone. And Lord, today I pray for those here within the sound of my voice who are not yours, who have not yet had their hearts open to understand and to desire the things of the Gospel. Lord, I would ask that in Your perfect will, You would call them to Yourself, that they might be saved. Thank You, Lord, for Your goodness and Your grace toward us, Your children. And may we live our lives accordingly because of what You've done for us. In Jesus' name, we pray.