OK, so we are doing summer reading. So you've done Sacred Bond, right? That's a good one. You should check that out. Done The Bruised Reed, also a good one. And now, has anyone ever read this one before? The Sacrifice of Praise? I hope it's brand new, but it would be OK if you had read it before. That's fine. So this is The Sacrifice of Praise by Herman Bovink. who his dates are 1854 to 1921. So he died in the early part of the 20th century, but was very influential and in the English language is increasingly influential as a reformed theologian. So let's talk about this book, but we'll start by talking about Hermann Bavink. So who has heard of Hermann Bavink before? If you've been part of the Dead Theologian Society, the answer is yes, because you're reading another of his books, The Wonderful Works of God. But we'll talk about why you might not have heard of him so far, but probably will, and definitely will today. So Herman Bovink. 1854 to 1921, it was Dutch, obviously in the Netherlands, but there is a pretty close link between Dutch people in the Netherlands and Dutch people who immigrated to North America. There still is. I have known Dutch people who live in Grand Rapids and every year go back to the Netherlands to visit family. It's still a very close-knit community, even across the Atlantic. He was Dutch. He was a reformed theologian. So here are two people who thought Hermann Babinck was a great theologian. And I don't know. We'll see if you get why this is such an interesting statement. Cornelius van Til, who knows the name Cornelius van Til? Okay, so he was, he's in some ways one of the founding fathers of the OPC, was an OPC pastor, but also grew up in the Dutch tradition and was an apologetics professor at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. And then Karl Barth, who knows the name Karl Barth? He was a German, I guess Swiss, theologian who was very, very, very broadly reformed. And really, in some ways, not at all reformed. But very influential. Probably one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century is Karl Barth. Now to have both Cornelius Van Til and Karl Barth say, Hermann Bavink is great. interesting because that's basically the only thing they agreed on. They did not get along well. They did not really know each other, but Cornelius Van Til wrote a book called Christianity and Barthianism. And basically he would say those who follow Karl Barth, who think they are following Orthodox theology, in fact it's another religion. He wasn't saying Karl Barth's not a believer. He wasn't saying those who are interested in him are not believers. But he's saying, in effect, what this view is saying is different from Orthodox Christianity and is not worth much of your time. And Karl Barth did not like that. Obviously, you probably wouldn't like that if someone said that about you. And in this case, I agree with Van Til. I think he was accurate and correct. But Karl Barth had some scathing remarks that he made when he visited North America about Van Til. And so it's interesting that even though they agreed on basically nothing else, they both said Hermann Bavink is a really important, really influential, really worthwhile person to read. So who was Hermann Bavink? First, he was, grew up in a family that was part of what is called the Afsguiding in the Dutch Reform Church. Afsguiding, which is, I think, Dutch for secession. So, Herman Boving's family was part of a breakaway group from the main Dutch Reform Church. The Dutch Reform Church had grown fairly liberal, fairly progressive. They'd always had some issues. Jacob Arminius was a Dutch Reformed pastor. And so you can see even pretty far back, they had some theological issues, but they had grown even more progressive, more and more open to other non-reformed ideas. And so a group broke off of that called the Afsguiding. So here's how you see these groups in North America today. Has anyone ever been to a Reformed Church in America church? An RCA. There are some around here. There aren't that many, but there are much more in the Midwest and in the East Coast. So Robert Schuller. you probably know that name, was a pastor in the Reformed Church in America. So the RCA is the North American expression of the main mainline Dutch Reformed Church, which the Bavink family broke away from in that new denomination. The breakaway denomination is has its North American equivalent in the CRC, the Christian Reformed Church. And I think, Mike, you grew up in the CRC, right? So that's kind of how you see that. And I mean, the CRC has its issues as well. They've kind of departed from the full biblical truth in some key ways in these days. But for a while, they were very closely affiliated with the OPC, with just solid reform denominations. So that's kind of how you see that. Even here, you probably know of CRC churches. And you know, the most recent breakaway from the CRC is the URC. So we have the URC in Ontario, we have the URC in Chino Hills. There's some down in San Diego. So you can see kind of that heritage continuing. But Herman Bovink would have been in a family that his father was a pastor in the Dutch equivalent of the CRC, basically, the Conservative Breakaway Denomination. So if you think about Machen and the OPC breaking away from the mainline PCUSA, that's kind of the same thing happening, but much earlier and in the Netherlands. So Bovink was raised and was educated in a pretty conservative family, conservative church, conservative Christian schools. And so he had a very solid foundation. When he came to go to the university, there was pressure on him to go to study at the conservative denominational seminary, basically. But he decided instead to go to the University of Leiden. in the Netherlands, which was much more progressive, much more liberal, and much more plugged into just kind of what was going on in Europe at the time with higher criticism of the Bible and what became Protestant liberalism. And he did that not because he agreed with that, but because he said, I want to put myself up against the best representatives of this new less orthodox approach. And I want to be able to defend the faith. And so in order to do that, I have to know well what others believe. And so that's why he went there. There was a lot of concern about whether or not he would remain faithful because, you know, you probably all know someone who's gone to a secular university and left a Christian, but came back departing from the Christian faith or going to some expression of the Christian faith that we would consider in the wrong trajectory. That did not happen. God was faithful and Bovinck stayed true to his convictions by grace and became eventually a professor at that school he didn't attend, the Theological College at Kampen in the Netherlands, which was the conservative seminary. So he was there for a time teaching theology. And then you probably, many of you probably know the name Abraham Kuyper. I know Kuyper knows the name Abraham Kuyper. So Abraham Kuyper was probably the most influential theologian and in many ways statesman and writer and journalist in the Netherlands at that time. He was a reformed theologian who founded the Free University of Amsterdam. And that was kind of the flagship school for conservative reform people in the Netherlands. And eventually Bovinck went there. Herman Bovinck became, or Abraham Kuyper became prime minister of the Netherlands, left his position as the professor of theology, and they brought Bovinck to teach in his place. So Hermann Bavink is most well known as a professor of theology. He wrote the four-volume, it takes up this much shelf space, thousands of pages, Reform Dogmatics, which just in the past 20 years has been translated into English for the first time. In fact, almost all of Hermann Bavink was in Dutch, with a few exceptions, from his death until the 21st century. So that's a long time and they're still translating new works of his. And so if you haven't heard of Hermann Bavink, that's why. It's because most of it was in Dutch. So there were some debates. Let's go back to Cornelius van Til. There were debates that Cornelius Van Til had with American Presbyterian theologians, so the one name is named J. Oliver Buswell, who disagreed with Van Til on apologetics and how it should be done. And so Van Til You can find Cornelius Van Til's copy of Buswell's work. And Buswell says, he refers to B.B. Warfield, who is a great theologian. He says, B.B. Warfield is the greatest theologian of the reformed tradition. And Van Til writes in the margins, obviously he's never heard of Hermann Bavink. And so the reason he hadn't heard of him is because he hadn't been translated into English. But now he has. And so the dogmatics are translated. You can get those if you have some. Hefty amount of extra spending money, you can get those. But if you don't have that, or if you want to start small, The Sacrifice of Praise is a great book to start with. It's very easy to read. It's short chapters. You could read it in a couple hours, but you could spread it over the course of a few days to read a chapter at a time. What is The Sacrifice of Praise? To get to this, let me read a few verses. First, Psalm 145, 21. You don't have to turn there, I'll read it. So Psalm 145, 21. The psalmist says, So you have to notice there, The psalmist is saying, my mouth will speak in praise of the Lord. And the implication is, and because of my confession, all flesh will bless his holy name forever and ever. And then Hebrews 13, 15, which is where the title of this book comes from, builds on that idea in the New Testament. Been in Hebrews a lot today. Have you noticed that? That's unintentional. It's never bad to look at Hebrews. So Hebrews 13, 15 says, through him, that is Jesus, through him, then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. So that's what A Sacrifice of Praise is. It's acknowledging His name. It's confessing the faith. So The Sacrifice of Praise is a book that is written in order to help believers to profess faith, to confess their faith in Jesus Christ. It was written specifically for Children who grew up, covenant children in the church who have been baptized, grown up in Christian families, have professed their faith, and then it's written for them to help them between the time that they profess faith in Christ and receive the Lord's Supper for the first time. That's what it was designed for. So he says it's for those before, during, and after their receiving of the Lord's Supper. And really, it's much wider than that. It is, for everybody, for every Christian who is a believer in Jesus, it's, what does it mean for us to confess our faith in Christ? And what are the challenges to that? What are God's helps to us in order to do that? That's who the audience is. In Bovink's case, and in that reformed denomination in the Netherlands, those who professed faith were often older teenagers. He, I think, was 18 when he professed faith and 20 when he received communion for the first time. That's a long time, right? Between saying, I am a believer, I believe these things, and receiving the Lord's Supper. We don't normally do it that long. I mean, for the most part, I think in the OPC and in our church, it's early, early teen years. We have, you know, 12, 13, 14, 15 in some cases. That's kind of the, there's no range. There's no established range. It could be younger than that and older than that. But normally, When our covenant children profess faith, they receive the Lord's Supper the next time they can. That's why we do membership receptions usually on Lord's Supper Sundays because they stand up and profess faith and then they can receive the elements of the Lord's Supper for the first time. But, so, that's to say, this is written not, I would not put this in the hands of a 13-year-old and say, here you go, unless they're, you know, really into reading and theology. In that case, it's fine. But average, normal, Christian, covenant child, I'd wait until a little bit longer to give them this. But it's very easy to read, very accessible. Any questions so far? I'm going to talk a little bit more about it, but any questions you have about Bavink or about this book so far? Yeah. I don't know the exact reason but I think it has to do with there was kind of an expectation that you professed faith and then there was a time of waiting to see is this genuine, in what ways am I Do I doubt some of these things, or am I tempted in certain ways? I don't know that that's, I think that's the reason. I don't know that it's a good reason, but that is the reason. But yeah. And you can see that like in, if you ever read Jonathan Edwards, it's like these people, I shouldn't call them these people, they took a really, way too long to settle on the fact they were in fact believers in Christ. And that, has some benefits, but it also has the drawback of kind of leaving the door open to, well, there is something else that I have to do in order to be acceptable to God, which challenges the idea of the finished work of Christ. I'm not saying Boving would have said that, but that's kind of the tradition that he came from. Good question, yeah. Anybody else? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think he was. So Berkower was later than Bovink. I think Berkower was R.C. Sproul's doctoral supervisor. So that gives you an idea of the timeline. It was. I think he was around in the 70s, 60s, 70s, so he was later, but certainly influenced by Boving. I don't remember if, I think he may have taught at the Free University of Amsterdam, but I don't know that for sure. So they're related, but, and in that same train, Burkauer, interestingly enough, got more and more open to Karl Barth's ideas as time went by, but you can still read him with great profit, so yeah, good question. Anybody else? All right, you can certainly ask more questions, but I'm going to continue. So I told you this was written in part, and the main reason for it to be written was to give to those who had professed faith before they received communion. And that was a tradition when a child, a covenant child, became a member of the church. The pastor would often give them a book, and for many, many years in the Netherlands, this was the book that they gave you. Perfect for that and so maybe we should bring that back. Maybe you'll be getting this book sometime or but you can order it now and Then get the benefit of it The other reason it was written was because there had been a disagreement between Abraham Kuyper and people like Bavink and others. They were very united on most things, but there was a disagreement about the nature of faith and the nature of what qualifies someone to receive the Lord's Supper. Abraham Kuyper would say, and this is getting really detailed. I don't know that I fully understand it, so don't ask any questions. Abraham Kuyper would say, no, we presume that a child who's been baptized will profess faith, and so we just assume it's going to happen. And so that's the route for us to receive them into fellowship, allow them to partake of the Lord's Supper is the fact that we presume that the Holy Spirit's going to regenerate them because they've been baptized. And Bovinck was saying that's not all wrong, but it's partially wrong and it's rooted in the wrong thing. And Bovinck was saying you have to go a few steps back and say the reason that we baptize the children of believers and the reason that the children of believers do come for the most part, do really come to faith in Christ and can receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is not because we presume they're going to be regenerated. It's because God works through the covenant of grace. That's what underlies all of it. So he wasn't really completely disagreeing with Kuyper, but he was disagreeing enough to say that's a flimsy foundation for our belief in how we how we think about the children of the church, and it's really rooted in the covenant of grace more than it is in something that happens in an individual child's life. So that's kind of, yeah? Are we arguing from the scriptural text or from pragmatic experience? Pragmatic experience shows me that all baptized children, you're lucky if the Yeah, yeah, I think I think that's a good yeah, that's a good point and I think it's a it's a very different Context that they're both writing from and so there there is a little bit more of an assumption that you're gonna you grew up in this church, that's going to be your church for the rest of your life. And so we presume that's what's going to happen. That's different now. But I do think you can say on the basis of the covenant of grace, God normally, and not always, but his practice is to... If you state it that way, there's no argument. Yeah, and I think that's why that's why Bovink was right and Kuiper was wrong. Because there is a little bit more of a pragmatic sense in Kuiper's argument that, well, they've been baptized, so yeah. But God is faithful to the covenant of grace, and that's a much stronger foundation for saying those things. So I ended at 21st century Southern California is really different from 19th century Netherlands, right? In many ways, but that's a big one. Okay, so some highlights. This is to get you to get this book and to read it. I know Craig Trock will pass it around, but I can't do that because I underlined stuff and didn't type it out. So if you want to see it, you can come back afterwards and see it and hold it. But he does. So there is every chapter is about. confessing faith in Christ and some different aspect of what that means and what it involves. I thought one very helpful chapter, it's chapter two, it's called the bringing up of a child for confession. So how do parents, how does the church, how does, in his case, we probably wouldn't say this necessarily now, how does the school help bring a child to that point of confessing faith in Christ. And I think it's really helpful, what he says is that it starts very, very early. Things that you do when you think your child does not understand what's going on does bear fruit later on. So for example, he would say, And this is also part of the Dutch tradition that we should probably consider bringing back I don't think we do this nearly enough, but they do is Not just daily but multiple times a day having scripture readings in some still these days in some Dutch reformed homes Before every meal the father will read a short passage of scripture and pray and then after every meal the father will pray again, and that's repeated at least twice for two meals a day. Now, obviously, that's less and less, and that's probably to our detriment, but that is part of that Dutch Reformed tradition. And so Baving would say, even before your child is old enough to understand words, you should be reading God's word to them and in their presence because There are things that they will catch even before they get the concepts that are very important. And so I think that's something worth thinking about. I think often when parents think about family worship, I know we have no very little kids here, they think, well, I'll do that when my children can understand what's going on. And that makes sense, especially I know what that's like to have a screaming two-year-old who doesn't get the concept yet. But I still think that's worth considering, that there are things that happen that aren't just about information transfer, that are about being shaped at the heart level to understand That this is something really important. This is a thing worth listening to and to have that habit shaped really early on. So that's one thing I really like about this book. And he does emphasize that it's not just about your mind, but it's about the heart. And that's crucial for us in the OPC to understand. So I think when we consider shaping our children, we almost always prioritize learning the right thing, learning the truth, and that's important. It's about your mind, but it's also about your heart. You're not just a brain on a stick. You're not just someone who receives the right information and everything's good, but to see that put into practice by your parents, by your older siblings, or by other family members, to see the heart at work as well, and to see those two things together, not apart, is really Really crucial. When he talks about the key question of what is it to confess the faith, let me ask this question. Where can you think of times that we, when I say we, I mean as a church, in worship, in other times, in your families, where are times that you, we, all of us, have opportunities to confess the faith? As we get at what that means, When you hear that word or that term, confess the faith, what are times you think of that we do that? Whether individually, as a family, or corporately. I'll tell you, we did one just a couple minutes ago. With the exception of the Lord's Supper Sundays, we do that every week. We do the Apostles or the Nicene Creed. We say, this is confessing our faith. That's definitely one. Anything else? What about a time where we say, I say, standing right in this very spot, we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Proclaiming is confessing. When does that happen? communion. And that's why this book was written specifically for preparing people for the Lord's Supper, because that is a time when we confess our faith. It has visible elements, but it's a confession of faith just as much as reciting the Creed is a confession of faith. There are other times Baptism. Yep. The other sacrament that's it's a time when we confess our faith and parents take vows to raise their children To know the Lord what about other times what about when baptism comes to fruition? We hope and pray we've seen that happen several times at our church in the past few years and When does an infant baptism come to full flowering? Much later on than usually infant baptism, yeah. So a public profession of faith for church membership? Yep, that's right. Yeah, so when we receive the children of our church, they are members. If you are here and you have been baptized and you're not yet a communicant member, you're still a member of the church. But full communicant membership happens by profession of faith. And so that's why there is a distinct time, like you know, If you are a child of the church, you know before this time you didn't partake of the Lord's Supper, and after this time you do. That's a time when individually we profess faith. Can you think of other examples? Maybe outside of the corporate worship of the church. Those are all key ones. But what about, and this is getting a little further afield, but any other examples you can think of? Yeah. Yeah, that's why scripture says always be prepared for that exact thing, to give a reason for the hope that you have. And does that mean that if someone says, hey, why are you always so calm? You say, well, let me sit you down and read through the Westminster Confession of Faith with you. Well, if they're willing to do that, maybe you could do that. But it doesn't have to be long. It can be very brief. Say, well, I'm a believer in Jesus and I trust him. And that's a time when you confess your faith before the world. Anything else you can think of? What about in our families? Are there times as a family that we can do that? Maybe we don't do it as much as we should, but there are at least times when we could do that. Do your kids ever learn catechism questions? Sometimes? I don't speak as someone who is, I'm not saying this to say, oh, the Canavan family is amazing at this. Rebecca's really good at teaching our kids the catechism questions, but if you do that, that's an opportunity where your children are learning to say with their mouths the truths that we believe. So that's a time when we confess our faith. What about if, and we've talked about this a little bit, Daniel gave the example of someone always be ready to give an answer for the reason for the hope that is in you. What about when it's a little bit more pointed, if there is persecution, and I don't mean just the worst possible example of persecution you can think of, but being made to feel foolish for the things that you believe. That's a time when you have an opportunity, and it can hurt at least emotionally, to confess the faith before the world. So all that to say, and I think the person who wrote the introduction to this brings this out, is that the Christian life is in many respects about confessing our faith in Jesus at every opportunity that we have. It's about other things, but that's a primary thing. And that's why this is so important. So let me, I think he touches on some things that are really important for us to hear. So when he talks about this idea that is true is that it's not just for believers to confess faith in Christ. We are to call everybody to confess faith in Christ. We would say that's the free offer of the gospel. to say, this is for everybody. There's no one who, if they come and believe in Jesus, there is no one who will come and be turned away. This is for everybody. And there's also the flip side of that, is that you will one day confess Jesus as the King, but it will not be as one who belongs to him by faith. It will be as one who has been conquered and only is it looks forward to condemnation because you didn't do it sooner in this life. You will profess that Jesus is truly who he said he is, but the question is, will you do it now willingly in this life, or will it be something that you are subjected to do, though it is true, though you spent your whole life denying it? When we think about the issues of this day, this passage really struck me. Let me read it. He says, the gospel may be for man. It is not in any respect according to man. Whoever desires to fashion it according to the spirit of the age, according to the opinions of the day, robs it of its power and experiences nothing but disappointment. If he believes, he will provide an entry point this way. For Christ has been neither a political leader nor a civil reformer. His gospel is not suitable to serve as a social program. The scriptures are neither a legal code nor a handbook for art or science. The handling of the word is not a preaching of human wisdom. The government of the church is not dominion nor an exercising of authority. The diaconate is not an organization to solve the problem of poverty. I think that's really important to hear because there are voices in the church today and churches that are closely associated with us that want to say almost the opposite of this, to say that, no, if we really believe the gospel, we will do this social thing or this political thing. And that's on both sides, both right and left. And we should have none of that. You do not come here to church, I hope you do not come to be confirmed in your political beliefs because it's not about that. It's about something much more important than that. It's about the gospel that is life or death. It is a matter that transcends every other topic you could think about. And so I think that's a really helpful thing about this book is he keeps the gospel front and center and says this is much more important than anything else you could ever have dealings with. He does talk about opposition to our confession. and I think helpfully says, because we can sometimes think about opposition in terms of the world out there or the devil, but he says the place where you get the most opposition to your confession of faith in Christ is from inside of yourself, from your own sinfulness, from your own efforts to justify yourself, to have as little to do with Christ as possible. And so when you think about opposition, you should think primarily about the opposition that exists inside of you, regardless of your circumstances. He does say when we face opposition from outside or from within, there are resources that God has provided for us. And here is what he says they are. He says, first, there's the example of Jesus. And we saw that in the sermon passage today. He's a faithful witness confessing the truth about himself before the world, before the forces that were arrayed against him. He says, Jesus remained faithful to his father and was obedient even at the point of death on a cross. So there's Jesus first. Second, there are also the many thousands of angels into whose fellowship believers have come through Christ Jesus. And you can find all sorts of weird stuff about angels out there, and don't believe the weird non-biblical stuff you find out about angels. The opposite problem is one that I think we can sometimes have, and that's not really thinking about angelic forces at all. And I think that the best reformed theologians have always said, no, angels are actually important. Angels do have a role to play in the work of Jesus in guarding and keeping his church. And we don't want to get weird about it. It shouldn't be like the Frank Peretti novels, if you've read those, which are very exciting, very readable, but very inaccurate. But we should say, no, I actually believe we are, Hebrews 12 says, we're surrounded by innumerable hosts of angels as we come to Mount Zion. So there are angels. There's the cloud of witnesses. There's believers who have gone before us who have been faithful. That's why you should read Christian biographies. Read about Meechan if you want to stay in our own denomination and his he was defrocked. He was kicked out of his office as pastor he lost his job at Princeton Seminary because he refused to go along with the agenda of Liberalism in the church and was faithful through all of it by God's grace It's not to lift up him but to say that by God's grace. He was faithful. So we have the faithful witnesses who have gone before us. And then he says, finally, there is also the church militant on earth, which strengthens us by holding fast to the confession of our hope without wavering. He says, in this paragraph that I'm reading, he says, now it is possible for God to sustain you himself. So that even if you feel like you are the only one left, even if you feel like you're the only Christian left on earth like Elijah sometimes felt, even if you do feel that way, he can sustain you himself. But he says, generally, God keeps us standing in and through the communion of saints. He says, the ones who confess Christ are never alone. You have this room, and when we are gathered for worship, you have more people here in this room. You have people who you know are believers, who you do have fellowship with, and do you take advantage of the fact that they have been given to you as gifts from a gracious God to keep you standing, to keep you faithful? And the last chapter is called the Triumph of Confession. And this is where he says, let me read this last, it's not the last paragraph, but. He says this is our plight right now. He says, Today, that confession of faith in Christ can be contradicted and opposed, for it holds a world of invisible things as its contents. To have insight into its truth, faith is necessary, faith being the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. We walk by faith and not by sight. The world, which reckons only with things visible, can contradict the Church, considering its faith foolishness and looking upon its hope as an illusion. Even this appearance is against us. For from the days that our fathers died, all things remain the same. Even from the beginning of creation, all things remain the same. So mockers can ask, where is the promise of His coming? And then he says, but a change is coming. Maranatha, come Lord Jesus, and talks about the vision of John, of Jesus coming as the one who is faithful and true, seated on a white horse, coming to judge the living and the dead. And so that is, I don't know if you've ever felt that, probably have, that the things that we believe right now are invisible. We do not see Jesus physically present with us. We don't see the Holy Spirit. We don't see what's happening when we receive the Lord's Supper. But those things are real. And one day, The veil will be taken away, and all of those things will be shown to be as real as they really are. And that is the triumph of our confession. Right now, we're in that time of testing. We're in that time where we're made to feel dumb for the things that we believe. But that is not the way it's always going to be. In fact, a change is coming quickly, and we'll be here before we know it. So I hope that gets you excited about this book. It's really good. I think you should read it. I think you should get it. I get no commission for any copy you buy. But any questions as we close? Well, I'm not supposed to say Amazon. But Amazon. So when you think about some of the books we've talked about, they're a little bit hard to find, because they're not super, you know, it's not a New York Times bestseller. Hendrickson Publishers, it's not like Alfred A. Knopf or whoever. So Amazon usually has them. And if you want to get it quickly, that's the best place to get some of these. Reformation Heritage Books is really good. They publish their own books, but they also have an online store that has a lot of other books as well. And they're almost always as cheap or cheaper than Amazon, the problem is the shipping is not as fast. So Reformation Heritage Books is good. And then sometimes Christian booksellers, or Christian book distributors. But you'll find all sorts of weird stuff there, and not always the stuff that you want to read. So yeah. If you want it fast, Amazon. I got it from Amazon. Any other questions? All right, well, let me pray and we'll be done. Father, thank you for gathering us today. We thank you that we can, by grace, be those who give our sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess your name. We thank you for the work of Jesus. We pray that we would be faithful to that confession through our whole lives, and that you'd help us to raise our children, to encourage one another, and to be your church that confesses Jesus Christ No matter what the circumstances are, we pray for your help to that end, because we can only do it with you. So we pray that you'd be with us now and through this week. In Jesus' name, amen.