So we've come to the 10th chapter of our confession of faith, of effectual calling. It's on page 676 in the Trinity Hymnal. If you don't have a small little handy copy there, it is in page 676 of the Trinity as well. We're gonna take, We're gonna take this in two parts, so we'll have today and next week that we are covering this chapter. We'll deal with paragraph one today, effectual calling defined. Effectual calling defined, that'll be today. And then we'll take the next three paragraphs together next week. So paragraph one is effectual calling defined. Paragraph two is the source of the call. External and internal. Paragraph three is the status of those who are incapable of being called. The status of those incapable of being called. And then the fourth paragraph is the status of the non-elect. Okay, so effectual calling defined, the source of the call, the status of those incapable of being called, and the status of the non-elect. And again, we'll take this in two parts. We'll work on effectual calling defined today. This particular chapter is situated along with chapter nine. These should be taken together as complementary to one another. It's taken along with chapter nine as a bridge applying the work of Christ as mediator of the covenant of grace in both his person and his work to the benefits that are applied to those for whom he mediates. So chapter nine and chapter 10 serve as a bridge in the application of the redemption that was accomplished through the mediation of Christ in his person and in his work. So again, chapters seven and eight are redemption accomplished. Chapters nine through 20 are redemption applied, all occurring in a covenantal context. So that's really kind of the overarching context of which we find these chapters from seven through 20. I believe also we could say that this chapter all the way through chapter 20 are about the work of the Holy Spirit. Whereas we see chapter eight being the person and work of Jesus Christ the Son, chapters nine through 20 are about the work of the Holy Spirit. So we don't have a separate chapter on of the Holy Spirit, it's all of these chapters. We're gonna see the Word and the Spirit, the Word and the Spirit, the Word and the Spirit applying the work of Christ, the work of the Word, to his people. So our catechism, question 32, asks, how are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ? I love how these catechisms, they ask the question, And then the answer is in the question. How are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ? We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ by the effectual application of it to us by His Holy Spirit. We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ by the effectual application of it to us by His Holy Spirit. Apostle Paul writes to Titus in Titus chapter three verses five through six, it is not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us. How? By the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. The following question, how does the Holy Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ, the Holy Spirit applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ, by working faith in us, and thereby uniting us to Christ, how? In our effectual calling. Ephesians 2.8, for by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God. And 2 Corinthians 4 verse 6, for God who said, light shall shine out of darkness, is the one who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Just as there was nothing, there was no life, and God said, let there be light, and light shone forth. It followed the command and will of God. So our effectual calling in the work of the Holy Spirit works faith and brings light to our eyes and to our hearts, bringing us to the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. All right, so we're gonna be doing a little bit of legwork, helping us understand a few categories before we move into the details of the doctrine. We're probably familiar with the TULIP acronym. How many may be unfamiliar with the TULIP acronym? We're all fairly familiar with it. So this rose out of a group of people following a guy named Jacob Arminius' teaching in the continental Protestant churches. They were called the Remonstrants. They were following Arminius' teaching on the continent. This is late 1500s, early 1600s is when this is taking place. So this is happening before the English Reformed confessions are being written for us. Many of the teaching confused what the Reformed churches believed concerning predestination and salvation. They were teaching that men could lose their salvation. that Christ died for every single person, that regeneration occurred after conversion, that election had certain conditions, that man's will wasn't wholly inclined against God, And they sum it up basically in five points, and it's where we get the five points of Calvinism or the five points of Arminianism. It's a response. Those five points are a response by the Reformed churches at the Synod or Canons of Dort in 1618. We're not gonna get into the technical aspects of that today. We'll look at some of the affirmations and denials that come out of the canons of Dort and how we see those in our own confession explained, how we confess against some of those teachings and how we confess against those teachings. So that will be more in paragraph two. The five points for us. I know we're all familiar with this, but I just want to help us out with this. So we know, right, T is total depravity. which we've already discussed in chapter six. So we already say that we confess total depravity when we say that we and our first parents are dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of the soul and body. That's what we mean by total depravity. It doesn't mean we're as bad as we can possibly be, though some people may be. It means that all of our parts, who we are, mind, will, affections, All of those things are defiled. They're wholly inclined against moral goodness and seeking after God for salvation. Right, the U is unconditional election, which we've already seen in chapter three. when we confess that the Lord Jesus, by His perfect obedience and sacrifice of Himself, I'm sorry, when we confess that some men are predestinated or foreordained to eternal life through Jesus Christ, how, out of His mere free grace and love, without any other thing in the creature as a condition or cause moving Him thereunto. Unconditional election is just saying that there is nothing in man that moves God to display His mercy and His love. He gives it freely without any conditions. So we've already seen the L in chapter 8 when we confess that the Lord Jesus Christ, by His perfect obedience and sacrifice of Himself, which He, through the eternal Spirit, once offered up unto God, has fully satisfied the justice of God, procured reconciliation, and purchased an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, for who? For all those whom the Father has given to Him. Right, those are the ones for whom Christ has offered His life for. He gave Himself for those whom the Father has given Him. The P is perseverance of the saints. Right, so that's the answer against the remonstrance who say that man can lose his salvation. We say no, man cannot lose his salvation. If God draws a man to himself, nothing that a man can do can cause him to lose the love of God through Jesus Christ. That's in chapter 17. Today we'll, irresistible. Today we'll look at the I in TULIP, irresistible grace. So, frequently we may hear the charge if we hear irresistible grace. How many of us hear the charge that if grace is irresistible, then that must mean that God drags people kicking and screaming against their will into heaven. And by implication, the inverse is, well, if somebody wants to come to God, then they can't because they're not elect. And so God only draws the elect. That's gonna be the issue that chapter 10 helps us with today. So we don't, we're okay with the term irresistible grace, but effectual calling is really the better term for us to truly understand what is happening with the grace of God. All right, so in doing so, we'll see that that image of the person being dragged to God against their will is a caricature and it couldn't be further from the truth with what we actually believe. What we believe the scripture to teach is not that God drags people against their will. And we'll see today that how God works his irresistible grace. Right, we also confess in chapter five So I'm trying to situate us here in the confession of drawing us to those parts that we've already confessed and looked at so that we can understand what we're doing here. We also confess in chapter five, God makes all things and then God orders all things to what end. We say in chapter five that God orders all things And after a most special manner, his providence takes care of who? His church. The providence of God, after a most special manner, takes care of his church and disposes all things to the good thereof. The Reformed churches also compiled some disputations along with those canons in what's called the Leiden Synopsis. Leiden Synopsis? What's the right way to say that? I don't know. Augustine, Augustine, yeah. So, they write in their disputation on the calling of people to salvation, that the election unto salvation is carried out through certain steps and means whereby God has determined that those whom He has chosen for Himself should be blessed with His saving grace in this age. and with his eternal glory in the age that is to come. And this is what is happening for us in the effectual calls, the application of the saving grace and the future hope of eternal glory in Christ. Right, not only is there no one that God saves against their will, there is also no one who comes to God who God will then cast away. Both of those caricatures are false. Our Lord tells us that all that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me, I will by no means cast out or cast away. And this is the will of him who sent me, that of all that he has given me, I lose nothing, but I raise it up on the last day. So one final thing before we move on, I wanna bring a couple of things that will be helpful as we open up this doctrine. Where's Grayson? Grayson, you're our sheet-hander-outer. You take care of this for us, brother. There's about 20 of them there, so whoever wants one, up to 20. I did share this in the men's group chat, so if you want a color copy of it, ask one of the guys. Y'all want that one? So a couple things that'll be helpful for us. I found this little chart a while back. Tim Challies still is. I believe he still blogs quite a bit. Years ago, he was one of the first people that was just really doing a lot in the blogosphere, a lot of online articles and stuff like that. He started doing something called visual theology, and he was pulling everything together in image or visual form to make things a little bit easier to see. He does have a website, Visual Theology. I don't believe there's any Second Commandment violations. He's reformed. He's probably a little more New Covenant with his outlook on the law, but by and large, Visual Theology or Tim Challies, challies.org is where you can find some really helpful stuff. Anyway, he put this together, and I found this really helpful. But before we get to the details of the chart, A couple of things to discuss. Bear with me as my throat is just not very happy right now. Okay, the pactum salutis. Besides those who are going to be teaching, and Mike, you can't answer. What is the pactum salutis? Who can tell me what that means? What is a pact? An agreement. Good job. It's an agreement. Salutis, that's just the Latin word for salvation. Pactum salutis is the agreement of salvation. Does anybody know what the words are that are a little more technical in English that we would call this? It's the covenant of redemption. We saw this in chapter 7. Paragraph three, it's the eternal covenant transaction that was between the father and the son about the redemption of the elect, the salvation of the elect. So the pactum salutis is the covenant of redemption, okay? So this is why we're saying this happens in a covenantal context. It's the agreement between the father and the son, a solemn agreement made by way of covenant to carry out the redemption of the elect. All right, here's the next part here. And you have a cheat sheet, so what is ordo salutis? There you go. The order of salvation. Right, it's the application of the covenant of redemption through the covenant of grace to the people of God. Excuse me. All right, so this is a logical Let's say, it's not necessarily chronological. We don't need to fit particular times in here. It's more of a logical, this is kind of how it plays out in an orderly way for the salvation of God's people. And it starts at the bottom. It begins with election, right? So we've already seen in the eternal decree, chapter three, and it moves to calling, regeneration and conversion, and then it moves on, justification, sanctification, and so on, all the way through Christ coming again, us getting a new body, the glorification of us with all the saints together with Christ. And we persevere to that end. So these are the benefits of redemption. This is the promise of redemption. This is the application of redemption, and these are the benefits of redemption. And these come through the subsequent chapters here. So we'll deal more with those middle three today, calling, regeneration, and conversion. They're all kind of a part of the same category, though they're distinct things that happen. All right, so why is this important? Well, if you've got your confession open, let's turn there and let's read that paragraph one. Right, those whom God has predestinated unto life, he is pleased in his appointed and accepted time effectually to call. by his word and spirit out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ. So there's two parts to this paragraph. So that first part gives us the how of effectual calling. The how of effectual calling. It's the deliverance from sin and death to life in Christ. Ephesians chapter two, verse one and four through six. And you who were dead in trespasses and sins because of his great love with which God loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, he made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. And he raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So effectual calling is the what of God saving us. It's the benefits of union with Christ are the to what, right? God has saved us to this, but this is the what of God saving us. The what and the how. It's not just merely God quickening us so that we can have the opportunity to respond to the gospel or to reject the gospel and then move on about our day or our lives. It is It's important to note the means that God uses to do so and the to what God has called us to. It's not merely so that we can make a decision. God actually converts us to himself to a certain end, which is justification, sanctification, perseverance, and glorification. The means that God uses to do so by His Word and Spirit, we would say it's the foolishness of the preaching that God uses to apply the work of the Son or the Word through the life-giving work of the Holy Spirit. So this is our triune salvation. It's not just coming to Jesus, making a decision, got that taken care of, don't have to be afraid of God. He's not a scary God anymore. I've got life insurance, so I'm good to move on when I die. I've got that taken care of. No, this is the work of the triune God bringing us to himself. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit working together to bring us to himself. and have communion with the God who made us. And so the Spirit of God works invisibly through the reading, the hearing, and especially the preaching of the Son or the Word of God to the people of God to bring them to cry out. So He calls us. He calls us, and how He does that is through the Word. The Leiden Synopsis again says, that the ordinary instrumental cause, right, the instrument, the tool that God uses to bring, to call people to himself, or the object of the calling, is the ministry of the divine word through the preachers of the gospel. So the ordinary instrument that God uses is preaching the word of God. So he preaches to our ears. He preaches to the mind through our ears to hold Christ up to us so that he can call us to himself. That's the external call and the internal call. We'll deal with that a bit more next week as we deal with affirmations and denials, but God calls to our minds, to our spirit, through external words. We're not mystics where we get a vision or we're not hyper-Calvinists where somebody just comes to faith because they're elect and God will save all his elect. He uses means to do so. So the Spirit of God works invisibly through especially the preaching of the Word of God to the people of God to bring them to cry out, Abba, Father. So these are the first motions of God bringing us and securing us to himself. So there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God. This is the golden chain of salvation. It works out here in Romans 8, 28 through 30. To those who are called according to his purpose, those whom he foreknew. This is just Romans 8. Those whom he foreknew through his act of election in eternity. He also predestined, that's also a part of election, to be conformed to the image of his son, that's redemption, so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren. And those whom he predestined, he also called. So this is the order in which God brings his people to himself and applies the work of Christ to them. He called those he called, he also justified those he justified, he also sanctified those he sanctified, he also glorified. This is the logical ordering. And so this is not just us rationalizing the way in which it works. Scripture gives this to us, that this is the manner in which God works. So the how of effectual calling is, the ministry of the word and spirit to dead people through the preaching of the word. All right, the way of effectual calling. And this will be taken in four parts. The way of effectual calling is the second part of paragraph one in our confession. Beginning there with enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh, renewing their wills, and by his almighty power determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ, yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace. If you'll look back at chapter six in your confession, Paragraph 2, our first parents by this sin fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and we in them, whereby death came upon all, all becoming dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body. And then look again in chapter 9, that man has wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation. Okay, not only does man lose any ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation, logical conclusion is that a natural man, a natural fallen man is averse from that good. He's dead in sin, and he's not able by his own strength to convert himself or to prepare himself thereunto. So, we need to bring this over with us into paragraph 1. So, we confess those certain things because we we're saying that God is working through those faculties of body and soul to bring us to freely choose. So last week we saw that man has the capacity to freely choose, but his inclinations in a state of the fall are opposed and inclined against the things of God. And at the moment of regeneration, God changes our wills by changing our mind, by changing our affections, quickening our wills, so that our wills are now free, and we say that our will is now determined. So the faculties and parts of the soul of man are renewed. They're imbued with faith, hope, and love in four ways. So we already saw the first way. God enlightens our minds. Ephesians 1, 17 through 18. The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him of your understanding." How? Being enlightened. What is the being enlightened for? That you may know what is the hope of His calling and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. So first, the faculties of the soul. The heart, the soul, the mind, the strength is the way the scripture refers to it. The faculties of the soul, the mind is enlightened. Psalm 36, nine, for you is the fountain of life. In your light, we see light. So in the light of the glory of Christ, we see. And it comes through the preaching of that gospel, God working through that and lightening our minds, bringing light to our darkened minds, whereby we come to see where our life comes from, where the fountain of life resides, namely, the work of Christ. Our affections, our confession says that our affections are quickened. Right, they're made alive. They're not hardened against what is good. Ezekiel 36, 26. A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you. You have new desires. Your desires are now not what they used to be. They're new desires and they're informed by the light of the gospel of the word of God. I will put a new heart within you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh. Instead of a stone that is cold and has no proper affections, he gives us a warm beating heart where we have affections and a heart that desires what is good, our greatest good, namely God himself. He renews our wills. The will is renewed. Deuteronomy 30 verse 6, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your seed to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live. So these are the faculties of the soul and the body. whereby God renews the will, he enlightens the mind, and he makes alive the affections so that they freely choose what they ought to choose, which is Christ. And when our mind and our will and our affections are renewed, God determines them to come to himself. Where we saw in chapter nine that in the state of creation, man was not determined either way to good or to evil, he had the freedom to choose. He chose what was bad and so his will, his mind and affections became corrupt and they were set against God. And all that they ever did, did not bring good in a salvific way, a way that would commend men to God. And in the state of grace, we confess that our wills are renewed and determined to that which is good. And that's really important, that idea of determining the will. So to determine something is to make it sure that it is on a particular path, it is going in a particular way and it will reach that which it is supposed to reach. So that's really important technical words that show us that we do indeed persevere because God has done all of these things. He doesn't just renew these things, again, let us do whatever we want with them and then we can determine ourselves, God is the one who determines where our wills are set. And he does that through calling us effectually through the work of his spirit. So we freely choose, both our capacity to choose, our freedom to choose, and our inclinations, our freedom to choose what is our greatest good, are determined to lay hold of that which is good. And so we do freely choose by God's sovereign grace to come willingly to Christ and to lay hold of him and all of his benefits by faith. Our Lord even hints at this. This is not just a Pauline doctrine that Paul was making stuff up. This comes from our Lord himself as well. He writes in Matthew 11, or he says in Matthew 11, Matthew writes this, that all things have been handed over to me by my father. No one knows the son except the father, nor does anyone know the father except the son. and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal the Father." This is my favorite part of the section. He's just talking about who knows Christ and who Christ wills. And he says, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in spirit, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So we have the outward call, and yet we confess also that those whom Christ reveals himself to, reveals the Father to, will come and will find rest for our souls. And so next week we'll take a look at the source of the call. We'll look at the status of both those who are incapable of being outwardly called along with the status of the non-elects. And we'll get into some of the affirmations and denials. The effectual call is of God's free and special grace alone, and then it goes on and it's gonna answer different views of what's called Pelagianism, and we'll get into that down the line. Basically, the argument is that Arminians are just a form of Pelagianism, which was an ancient heresy that was supposedly answered long ago, but as we know, Old heresies just always pop up in every single age, and which is why we confess certain necessary conclusions from Scripture to protect ourselves from heresy. Kind of like the heresy of the Roman mass. We need reminders of that frequently. Thank you for that. And then we'll look at paragraph three. And this one is always odd, because people always wonder, why is that paragraph in there? I always thought it was the Baptist answer to how do we treat our infants. And that is a part of it, but it's a lot broader than that. It's dealing with elect infants dying in infancy, and those who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the word. So we're confessing in paragraph one that God works through the preaching of the word, right? So there's, you gotta have the sense to hear, okay? You've gotta have the rational faculty that can process and understand certain things. Not all children at certain ages can understand logically these things. And then there are some as well who can't hear. What about those with mental deficiencies? Autism, Down syndrome? There's all different kinds of answers or questions that come up in our mind if God uses the preaching of the word in the ear to the mind through the heart. What about those who can't hear and don't have a mind capable of doing such things? That's what paragraph three is about. And then paragraph four, we will deal with the non-elect and how the external operations of the spirit don't always work internally in the minds and hearts and wills of people. And then we'll look at that old word light of nature again as well. That's gonna be very important to us that the light of nature Though it brings certain knowledge of God is insufficient to bring men to a saving knowledge of God, and therefore we need to understand how God uses the light of nature for certain judgment and justice. So we've got quite a few minutes here. Do we have any questions so far? If not, we can enjoy a little extra time of fellowship, but we can do some questions too. if if if No, because we're gonna have to understand what about the adult person who hears just fine, who has all the rational faculties, the gospel is preached to that person. We will see this later on, right? Temporary believers, right? So that that's going to be put in there as well. Though they may have some common operations of the spirit, they're not actually effectually drawn to Christ, so. Yeah, I think our confession is saying that for those who are incapable of being called, whether because they're infants and they haven't learned what words are yet, or those who can't hear, what happens with them versus what happens with those who can hear and yet aren't a part of the elect. So almost two sides of the same coin. Okay, Isaac. Yeah. I found this doctrine to be very helpful to me when that is leveled against the reformed faith. Well, if it's just determined already, then why even preach? Well, I mean, Romans 10, if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved. It's that certain. With a heart, a person believes. With the renewed affections, with a renewed will, with a renewed mind, a person believes, resulting in righteousness, justification. How does he confess? He confesses outwardly with the mouth, resulting in salvation. So God regenerates, brings new life into a person and converts them, rather being inclined against God, he converts them toward God and man responds effectually. It happens certainly. And then you go on down Romans 10. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? How are they gonna call if they've never believed in Him before? Right, how will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? If we've not heard the gospel, how are they gonna believe? How will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they're sent? So we're not anti-evangelism. There's an order in which we see these things. It's why we're so committed to church planting. It's why our worship is so, so revolves around the preaching of the word and the application of word and sacrament to us through baptism in the Lord's Supper, bringing confirmation and encouraging people to come to Christ by faith, to join in those benefits, right? How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things, right? So it all, God has ordained all these things. He uses means to bring himself to us. And so this doctrine should bring us great joy and comfort and the desire to send missionaries, church planters, commit ourselves to the preaching of the word, to worship. Everything we do revolves around God calling sinners to himself and then keeping us until the day of glory when Christ comes again. Thanks. Anything else, Mark? So it would be right to say God entrusts the gospel proclamation to the church, the external call is entrusted to the church, and through that external call, the internal call is worked out based upon God's eternal purposes. When and where the spirit blows and gives that understanding and sight of the kingdom of God. Yeah, John 3 is one of our proof texts here in paragraph 2. We don't know, we can't see the Holy Spirit. We can't see exactly what he's doing. That's why it's internal, it's invisible. But we can see the evidences of the work of the Spirit. And we know that the Spirit uses means to show how he works, and when he works, and why he works. Yeah, that was good. Anything else? Mike? Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah, that's good. That's good, Mike. Yeah, we will get into that more with paragraph three. It is the ordinary way that God uses. But God, as we've seen previous as well, that although he uses means, he's free to act how he pleases, to carry out his purposes, and he can and does, and that's what we ultimately will rest on is the goodness of God. Yeah, yeah, that's good. It does work together. It's all a whole unit. It all fits. It's a web that, it's just a beautiful web that God uses to draw his people to himself. Yes. Yes. Yes. And he's talking about the effectual call there. Because Jews and Greeks are all called, but to some it's a stumbling block, to some it's foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Yeah. And it's not one message to the Jews and one message to the Greeks. It's the same message to both. Some are saved. others are not, because it's either a stomach block, like you said, or foolishness. We'll take the foolishness of preaching, because that's what God has called us to. Thank you, that was helpful. So yeah, next week we'll look at the source of the call, the status of those who are incapable, along with the status of the non-elect. So, let us go back to the words of the psalmist. The Lord says to my Lord, sit on my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies. Your people will offer themselves freely. Your people will be effectually called because of your rule out of Zion. And holy garments, that comes with justification. The Lord has sworn, it's factual. He's not gonna change his mind. It's certain to happen. You're a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. It's through the priestly work of Christ on behalf of his people that brings this free offering of ourselves and thanksgiving to God in worship. With that, let's be dismissed and we'll prepare for worship. Our Father, we do praise you that not only have you ordained our salvation, you have ordained the means of our salvation, and Lord, you have worked the work of salvation through foolishness. Lord, we praise you that for those of us whom you have drawn to yourself, it was neither a stumbling block or foolishness, but it was the wisdom of God and the person of Christ showing us our sins showing us your goodness, your glory, your power, your justice, your mercy, imbuing within us faith to look to Christ and to trust in Him, hope that one day He will come and finish His work, and love to carry out in Thanksgiving and all of our lives, that which you have called us to, to love you and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We pray for our worship as we prepare for a time, Lord, that Christ will be preached in our ears to our minds, that our hearts will be enlarged, and that you would cause us to take great joy. And Lord, we pray also that you would be pleased to effectually draw and call people to yourself, even today. Take out stony hearts of rebellion and put in beating hearts that desire you, that want to come to you, that want to profess faith in you, Lord. We pray and we cast all our cares and hopes on your goodness and on your sovereignty and on your work that you will call people to yourself. In Christ's name we pray these things, amen.