I invite you to turn your Bibles to Isaiah chapter nine, verses one through seven. Please stand with me for the reading of God's holy word. Isaiah chapter nine, verses one through seven, as we continue with our series during this Advent season. Joy to the world, rediscovering the true meaning of Christmas. Isaiah chapter nine and beginning in verse one. But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time, he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. But in the latter time, he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shown. You have multiplied the nation. You have increased its joy. they rejoice before you, as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil. For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult, and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end. On the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father and our God, as we come once again to your holy word this morning, we pray that you would speak to us, that we would hear your voice in our heart of hearts, that we would receive it, turning from that which is displeasing to you and embracing Christ the one mediator between God and man, the light of lights and the one who brings peace and joy and salvation. Oh Lord, speak through your word now, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. You be seated. What child is this? What child Is this who Isaiah prophesied was born to us and given to us? What child is this who brings, as our text teaches, great light, unending peace, unspeakable joy, and freedom from oppression? What child is this In 1865, a man by the name of William Dix wrote a Christmas carol with this title as he suffered from a severe illness and depression. In his recovery, he asked the question, what child is this? And then he answered this question, his own question in this, what began as a hymn called the manger throne. and then turned into a hymn, what child is this? He answered the question, this is Christ the King, whom shepherds guard and angels sing, haste, haste to bring him laud, the babe, the son of Mary. He then brings an exhortation that you'll be familiar with. So bring him incense, gold and myrrh, come peasant king to own him. The King of Kings salvation brings, let loving hearts enthrone Him. Let loving hearts enthrone Him. It really is, you can boil faith in Christ down to a lot of things. They would always need to be unpacked through a life of discipleship. But one thing you could say about what a Christian is, is that he or she is that person who enthrones the Lord Jesus Christ on the throne of their hearts. It's kind of a nice picture, isn't it? A throne on your heart. Someone or something reigning there, reigning over your mind, reigning over your heart, reigning over your will, reigning over your affections. The throne of your heart. Is it Christ? or is it something else? In observance of the Advent season, we are taking time, of course, to consider the birth of our Messiah King. The title of the series, again, is Joy to the World, Rediscovering the True Meaning of Christmas. And if we are gonna understand the true meaning of Christmas, we need to understand the development. of this theology of the coming of the Messiah. Last week, of course, we unpacked Genesis 3.15, and we saw not only mankind's great, colossal need of a Savior, but we also learned that God has provided one. and that it would come through the offspring of the woman. The coming Messiah would crush the head of the serpent, namely Satan, and united to Christ by grace through faith, we would be saved from the tyranny of the evil one and from the condemnation of sin. This week, we are going to continue in the Old Testament by looking at what is a very important and, if people know a little bit about the Old Testament, a familiar text speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, as I read the text, perhaps you were thinking of George Friedrich Handel's Messiah. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. You can hear the music in your mind, perhaps, if you're familiar with that piece. But here we come to Isaiah. Isaiah is one of the big three major prophets. He prophesied between the year 740 and 700 BC. During his ministry, the Northern Kingdom was conquered in 722 by the Assyrian Empire. The Lord, after warning upon warning upon warning, finally, brought in a foreign enemy to judge the covenant people of Israel in the Northern Kingdom. There were warnings after warnings for their rank idolatry, for their intermarrying with idolaters, for all of these things they were doing for many, many, many, many years. And the Lord brought judgment against them. And so he ministered in the Southern Kingdom at the time of the Northern Kingdom receiving God's judgment for their rebellion against God and his holy law. His mission, Isaiah's mission from God was to declare God's coming judgment upon Judah, the southern kingdom, who like the northern kingdom was obstinate and incorrigible in their idolatry and their sin. Isaiah was told by God that he was to declare the truth of God to a people who would not listen. This is pretty much how Isaiah's 40 year ministry at the beginning, at the outset. You remember what he said, by the way, in Isaiah six, is he had this vision and Isaiah said, here I am, send me. Well, the Lord sent him and he sent him into a ministry that was gonna be a declaratory ministry of the guilt of the Southern kingdom. And so this was basically his job description. Declare God's word, even though God's people as a whole will not listen or repent. You will be heavily persecuted and be asked to say things that make a lot of people very, very angry. Then as a retirement gift for your faithful ministry, you're going to be sawn in two. That was Isaiah's ministry. Prophet. There was, however, amidst Isaiah's message of judgment, a word of hope, a word of promise. In fact, if you think about the book of Isaiah and the way that it's broken up, the first 40 chapters are almost all judgment and condemnation of not just Israel, but of all the nations. But even within those 40 chapters, you have glimpses. and promises that pop up so beautifully. And then for chapters 40 and on to the end of the book, you have God's promises of salvation for those who would put their faith and their trust in Him. You see, in the midst of these 40 chapters, in the midst of all of this judgment and gloom, we hear about God's sovereign grace, a plan to preserve a remnant of believers, a plan from that remnant of one coming, a Messiah, who is Christ the Lord. One will emerge that will be a light shining in the spiritual darkness, who will pour out joy upon the nations, who will break the heavy yokes of oppression, and who will bring a peace, it says here in our text, that will know no end. Isn't that something to look forward to one day when all sin, all suffering will be removed and we will know that peace that has no end in perfection. So let's look for a few moments at this extraordinary text of scripture, a text that is especially appropriate for us to meditate upon this time of year. The first point is this. The child king will be light shining in the darkness. The child king will be light shining in the darkness. Verses one and two. Look there with me again. But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish in the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun. and the land of Naphtali. But in the latter time, he had made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness on them has light shown." Isaiah commences this section by specifically mentioning the upper part of the land of Israel called Galilee. The Israelite tribes of Asher, Naphtali, and Zebulun were given this land when Joshua divided the land of Canaan up for the 12 tribes. You can find that information in Joshua chapter 19, verses 10 through 39. Contrary to God's command, however, Naphtali and Zebulun failed to expel the wicked inhabitants of the land, and they actually intermarried with them. They worshiped their gods and it became a place of unbelief and darkness. After the Assyrian captivity in 722, this area over the next 700 years became a spiritual and a physical wasteland. It was known by all Jews as a place you would not want to go. This was why so many were shocked at the news The idea, even, that the Messiah would be in Galilee. In the Gospel of John, chapter 7 and verse 41, we learn that people were saying this, quote, Surely the Christ is not going to come from Galilee, is he? Galilee, that God-forsaken place? Surely the Messiah of God would not dwell in such a place as Galilee, among the rabble of worldliness and sin, among those destitute people who are a disgrace to humanity, who the Jews would call dogs. No, if the Messiah were to come, the Jewish leaders thought he would be hanging out with us, the righteous, the ones who had it all together, who have their lives in order. But we know that Christ did not come to save those who thought that they had it all together. Christ did not come for the righteous, but for whom? For sinners, for those who know their spiritually helpless condition. Jesus's ministry was conducted mainly in Galilee, where these unclean ones abounded. This also was in fulfillment of God's promise that grace and salvation would be extended to the Gentiles, and therefore to all the nations of the earth. We have these prophecies right in Isaiah. Isaiah 42.6, Isaiah 49.6. These downcast and utterly hopeless and helpless people in Galilee, who viewed themselves as racially and socially beneath the Jews to the south, the Bible says that they saw a great light. These people who walked in darkness saw a great light. These people who lived in darkness, who were surrounded by idolatry, They were beholders of a light brighter than 10,000 suns put together, albeit shrouded in the flesh of humanity. This light was and is the eternal son of God, made flesh Jesus Christ. In the Gospel of Matthew, he speaks of the realization of this when he introduces Christ's public ministry after his baptism. After his baptism. And then he quotes this very text. He says this, quote in Matthew 4, 14 through 16, land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, toward the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people sitting in darkness have seen a great light. And upon those sitting in the land of the shadow of death, Light has dawned. But this child king that Isaiah prophesied about is not only the light that shines in the darkness, he is also the joy of the nations. That's the second point. The child king is the joy of the nations. Verse three states that God will do two things through this child king. Did you notice? First of all, he will multiply the nation. The nation that's being spoken of here in verse three is the nation of Israel. Just think for a moment. about the condition of the nation of Israel after 722 BC, the Assyrians crushing and destroying the northern kingdom of Israel and the people being exiled and dispersed. And then in 586, the Babylonians coming in and crushing the southern kingdom and exiling all of its people. Think about the devastation, the starvation, the destruction, the gloom, the utter hopelessness Tens of thousands of people driven from their land, the land that God promised. When I think about devastation, I think about two photographs I saw side by side in Frankfurt, Germany. The first picture was Frankfurt, Germany before World War II. The glory. the architecture, the beauty, and then after World War II, just rubble, flattened, devastation. If you read the prophets, you will see that this is what happened to Israel when these foreign lands came in. The beginning of verse three is teaching us that the small remnant of believers that existed in Isaiah's time would one day be multiplied into a great nation, a spiritual nation of believers. And this is already happening. The fulfillment of this promise has been and is already happening. In fact, We are participating in it this morning. There are Christians, think about from that day to this, what the Lord has done all over the world. I was sharing with the women's Christmas gathering at our house this past Wednesday night. I shared a brief devotion. I was sharing about a little trip I took to Russia, my first missions trip back in 1993. And I remember for the first time hearing God being praised in another language. It was so moving. I remember in the church that we were worshiping in, that had no heat, by the way, and it was 20 below zero outside. It was extraordinary. Everybody had the big furry hats, and I sat up front, because I was going to be sharing my testimony, and I sat in between these two giant Russian men, and they were just squishing me up front. And it was great. I'm like, don't move. And we got up to sing. And we sang How Great Thou Art. and Russian. And then I think about the different places that I've been privileged to visit over the years, to hear God being praised in Hindi, and in Spanish, and Portuguese, and French, and on and on we could go. The Lord has fulfilled and is fulfilling this very prophecy to multiply the nations. His church Beginning at Pentecost, God has been drawing millions of men and women, boys and girls from every tribe, tongue and nation, fulfilling his promise, his covenant promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, to bless the nations through his seed. We are, by God's grace, part of this fulfillment of the prophecy made by Isaiah so long ago. Isaiah goes on to tell us that not only did God multiply the nations, he also increased their joy and their gladness. Again, we are thinking this month about the joy of this time of year. Joy to the world. In Psalm 1611, it states, in your presence is fullness of joy and in your right hand are pleasures forevermore. It is through this child that will be given to us, that was given to us, that we would know this divine joy. Never, Would God's presence be more full with God's people than in the sending of His Son, born of the Virgin Mary? For all the fullness of God dwelt and dwells in Him, and He possessed the Spirit, it says, without measure. The joy that will be experienced among God's people when they embrace this child, this Messiah, Isaiah says this joy is like the joy of harvest or the joy of dividing the spoil. Look there in the text. It says, verse three, you have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy, they rejoice before you as with joy at the what? At the harvest and as they are glad when they divide the spoil. He's trying to grasp at experiences that the first readership would understand. Most of us who grew up in the city may not, and have never divided the spoils of war, we may not totally get this, but these were two of the most joyous occasions that could be spoken of. The joy of harvest, waiting for that harvest. and then going out and reaping the harvest, the joy of the harvest, the joy of defeating one's enemy and dividing up the spoils and the riches of war amongst the people who have been devastated and oppressed. Isaiah is grasping for experiences to relate the kind of joy that is coming in the person of Jesus Christ. And the reality is, if we were to take every single joy that we could experience in this life and wrap them all up into one giant joy, it would be nothing in comparison to the joy that God offers us in Jesus Christ. One of the lies, one of the many lies the devil is constantly telling us is that somehow, someway, I'm going to get that joy, capital J, somewhere else. that I'm going to get that deep, satisfying contentment and joy in something else in this world. It may be in another person, or it may be in a relationship, or it may be in a dream one hands, or it may be in education, or it may be in the workplace. It may be a thousand things, but we believe this line. That I can really find this deep and abiding joy, which God has created me to experience, but I am apart from if I'm not in Christ. This joy may be found only in the Son. He is our joy. It's the joy the Apostle Peter speaks of in 1 Peter 1.8, that those who know Christ through faith, quote, greatly rejoice with a joy inexpressible and full of glory. This is the kind of joy that people all over the world and every language and every tribe, they are looking for. Let us search no further, says the prophet. This joy is found in the child king. Turn from your sin. Turn from those things that you have been seeking to find joy and identity in and put your faith in Christ. Embrace him. It doesn't need to be a special ceremony. I remember several years ago when I was sharing the gospel with a friend and I was having to move from town and he said, you can't move. I was going to receive Christ as my savior at church this week. I said, you don't need to do that on Sunday. You can do that right now. And we got on our knees and he prayed to receive Christ as his Lord and savior. And he, his life has been changed since. Give your life to Christ. Why are you waiting? Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. Would you give your life to him by grace, through faith? This child king that the prophet speaks about is a light in the darkness, a joy to the nations. Thirdly, he is a burden lifter, a burden lifter. Look at verses four and five with me again. For the yoke of his burden and the staff over his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. These people understood oppression. The oppression of the Assyrians. The oppression of the Babylonians. Even way before that, the oppression of the Egyptians. And then the current Jews in Christ's time would know the oppression of the Romans. The child king who Isaiah spoke of would be the instrument God would use to deliver his people from both physical and spiritual oppression. There is a sense throughout the ages where we've seen God bring physical deliverance. Of course, we have the post-exilic period under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah. We have Constantine's fourth century conversion and the removal of great persecution from the church in those days. But you know what? The physical oppression will never fully be removed until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ for his second coming. But we also have the spiritual oppression being removed, deliverance from the bondage and oppression of sin. This is why Christ came, not initially coming to overthrow governments, but to overthrow Satan and to crush his head through his life and his death and his resurrection. He came to crush spiritual tyranny. In his second coming, he will also destroy all of his and our enemies and all forms of tyranny. Verse four tells us that the yoke of burden will be broken. Are you feeling that yoke of burden this morning? You may be a Christian. You love Christ. You are unashamed of the gospel. You love the Lord. You are living by grace through faith, and yet you are feeling a burden right now. I'm your pastor. I know every one of you in here. members of Christ Church. I know you have burdens. Sometimes I'm overwhelmed when I'm singing up here and I'm thinking about you singing with all of your burdens. I have burdens as well. It's why we need to be together, to bear one another's burdens. But let me tell you who the ultimate burden bearer is and the burden breaker is. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn't mean that life will be easy or that every trial will be removed from our lives. No, the word of God promises that even in those trials, God will use them to strengthen us and to remove the dross from our faith and to make us stronger believers. But Christ does lift the burden of our guilt and our sin and the identity crisis that so many are having. in our day. According to the Oxford Dictionary, a yoke is a wooden cross piece fastened over the necks of two oxen and attached to the plow or wagon to be pulled. Isn't this a good picture of the spiritual bondage that so many are in today apart from Christ? The yoke of sin weighs heavy as a person attempts to carry around a ton of guilt and shame and fear. Trudging along, through the hard clay, the yoke, the burden, the fear, weighing the person down. Perhaps you enter the church today and you're feeling this, and you're wondering, how am I gonna sing these hymns when I'm feeling so burdened? A burden that overwhelms you and causes you at times even to despair. Perhaps it's something that you've done that burdens you or something that has happened to you. God's Word right here in Isaiah 9 points you to the burden bearer, the divine burden bearer, and the burden breaker, the burden lifter, the one who promises to break that yoke of slavery to sin and free you from the oppression of a guilty conscience, and to free you, if you are a Christian believer, of the great burden and weight that you are feeling now and to know God's peace, which we will talk about in a moment. How does God accomplish this mighty work of salvation? Is it through a gathering of a myriad of angels? Is it through getting together the most gifted and wise men and women of Israel to organize a plan? No. No, these would be things that we would come up with. We would form a committee and say, okay, let's talk about how we're gonna work this out. But God doesn't form a committee. He doesn't ask us. He does something that seems almost scandalous. This is what Isaiah is attempting to communicate to his readers. His readers, his first readers, as they look around and they see the devastation. How is God going to fulfill his promise to us? And this is what Isaiah is attempting to communicate to his readers when he brings up the battle of Midian. Look at verse four there. He says, you have broken as on the day of Midian. You probably remember the story of Gideon. The story of Gideon, that's what this is referring to. While Gideon and his army of 32,000 soldiers were getting ready to go to war, God said to Gideon in Judges 7, verse 2, the people who are with you are too many for me to give Midian into their hands. For Israel would become boastful saying, my own power has delivered me. If I let you go with these 32,000 soldiers, you might just brag about the win. God says, that ain't happening. No, no. He says, whoever is afraid and trembling, let him depart and go home. And so 22,000 not so great soldiers said, I'm scared, I'm going home. There were 10,000 left who said, we will fight. 10,000 left. And again, God said, the people are still too many. Gideon's probably thinking, whoa, you see all the people they got? So he had Gideon separate them again according to how they drank water out of a stream. And there were 300 men left to fight against the mighty army. God gave them a victory. that only made sense in light of his divine power and wisdom. Now we must ask, why does Isaiah bring up this story in the middle of this prophecy concerning the Messiah? Well, he does so to demonstrate that God uses the weak things of this world to shame the wise, to confound the wise. Isaiah reminds his readers that God carries out his plan of redemption in a fashion that baffles the wisdom of mankind. God doesn't bring light, joy, and the freedom from oppression by organizing armies or constructing some divine self-help program. Things that we would come up with and that people are coming up with. No, God, like in the case of Gideon at the Battle of Minyan, does something that not one of us would come up with. Looking down on a people in great oppression and darkness, who continually are raising their fists in rebellion, God sends His only Son down to earth to become one of us without ceasing to be God for one moment. And then to live a sinless life and to die on the cross for our sins. The child king that Isaiah prophesies about is that light in the darkness. He is that burden lifter. He is the one finally who will be the ruler overall. Verses six and seven. To understand what is going on in verses six and seven, we must first be reminded of God's covenant promise to David in 2 Samuel 7 and verse 16. 2 Samuel 7 and 16, God gives a promise to King David. Your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever. Your throne shall be established Forever. That's called the Davidic covenant. The great promise to David that a king of Israel will rule on the throne of Israel forever and ever and ever. The question we must answer is who fulfilled this promise? Who was to forever rule and reign on the right hand of God over governments and nations? The one who would through his reign bring ever increasing peace. The one who would one day judge the world with justice and righteousness. Well, the answer is found in verse six. Look there with me. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. Son will be, child will be born to us. The son will be given to us. And Jesus, he is the one that will reign forever on the throne of David as the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He is the wonderful counselor. What does that mean? It means that he is the wisdom and truth of God incarnate. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word, what? Was God. Jesus is Proverbs chapter eight. in the flesh. He is wisdom incarnate. He is our wonderful counselor. He is, it says next, the mighty God. He is not created by God. He is not merely like God. He is the mighty God. Same in substance and equal in power and glory with the Father and the Spirit. There are 100 passages you can take people to that clearly show that Jesus Christ is not created by God, but is God, the second person of the Trinity. This is one of them. He is the mighty God. He is called the Eternal Father. Here we understand that this child king is eternally one with his Father. So that you could say, as he did himself in John 14, 7, that when you have seen Christ, you have also seen the Father. And as a father, as a shepherd king, he will rule over his people. He is the prince of peace. How? By bringing reconciliation between God and his people. He will bring peace. Not just objective peace between God and man, by bringing hostility, to remove that hostility, to bring God and man together in relationship again. through His mediation on the cross, but also after receiving that objective peace with God and being brought into fellowship with Him, experiencing that subjective peace, that peace of God that passes all understanding, that keeps our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. He is the Prince of Peace. Jesus says in John 14, 27, peace I leave with you, my peace I give you, Not as the world gives, do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, nor let it be fearful. This child King spoken of and predicted in this passage is the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God made flesh. He is Emmanuel, God with us. How will this all be accomplished? How will it all be accomplished? It says that the zeal of the Lord will do this. Don't you love that? Look at that last verse there. The last line of the final verse, verse 7, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. Think about that. This is not some aloof deity who is begrudgingly carrying out these things. This is a God who is zealous to do these things. He himself is joyful to do these things. The zeal of the Lord will accomplish these things. Think about how you use that word in everyday life. Oh, that person is zealous about that, whatever it may be. The Lord is zealous about carrying out this glorious plan of redemption. For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. He must do it, and He has done it, dear friends. And I don't care what news you have to tell me today, I know it will be not as good as that news. It's a lot of good news in the world, but nothing compares to this news. And so let me ask you this morning, does your life remind you of the spiritual wasteland of Naphtali and Zebulun? Is there darkness? Is there devastation? Is there unbelief? Do you feel the weight of the burden of your guilt before the holy God whom all men will be accountable to. Have you been found identifying more with the idols of our culture than with the one who made you and sent his son to live and to die for you? We've got some marvelous news in this passage this morning. A child king whom Isaiah prophesied about in the eighth century before Christ arrived on schedule. He was born in Bethlehem about 2,000 years ago. And those precious little infant hands that grabbed onto the fingers of Mary and Joseph 33 years later would be nailed to a wooden cross, and he would bleed, and he would die. Not some accident, not just simply some injustice in the Roman and Jewish courts, but as part of a plan. It was prophesied about 700 years before his coming. He did all of this. He did all of this so that by grace through faith in Him, you would be forgiven of all of your sins, so that your burdens would be lifted, so that light would break through the darkness, so that He could reign on the throne of your heart. Those who trust in Christ, are given a new robe, as it were, spiritually, given new clothes. Some of you may be wanting new clothes for Christmas. I remember when I was a teenager, that's all I wanted. Mom, just give me a certain amount of money and I'm gonna go buy some clothes and I'm gonna wrap them up and act surprised for grandma when I open it. Let me tell you something. No bit of clothing you get is gonna be like this clothing that's offered to you in the gospel. Because what happens in the gospel is the rags, the rags of your sin are removed from you and nailed to the cross. And Christ pays for that. He pays the debt of your sin. And he doesn't just leave you standing there naked. He gives you a robe, the very righteousness of Jesus Christ. And then you have a new identity. one that seeks to bring him glory, one that seeks to honor and to glorify him and to spread the fame of his name around the nations. And you stand before God no longer condemned, no longer heavily burdened in your sin, no longer with darkness and clouds around you, but now standing before God, justified, declared righteous in his presence and received into the beloved, adopted into his family. This is the message of Christmas. This is the true meaning of Christmas. Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given. And nails and spear will pierce him through. The cross be born for me, for you. Hail, hail, the Word made flesh. the babe, the son of Mary. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for this text, for this prophecy that was given 700 years before the birth of your son, who was then on time and on schedule born of the Virgin Mary. We thank you that he suffered under Pontius Pilate, that he was crucified, then buried, and then rose again from the dead. Oh Lord, we pray that this Christmas, we would look to him, the one given to us, the one who is our joy and our peace. And we pray in Jesus' name, amen.