Matthew 5, 17 to 20. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Let's pray that prayer, we pray. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Question for you all. How do you guys feel about spoilers? Scale of 1 to 10. Thumbs up? I think that's like the last more that is still like you can't break that. People who have no concept of Christian ethics or any ethics of any kind still know that that's wrong to do, right? I hate that. I hate when significant plot points are given away. I once walked into my living room and made the mistake of standing there and watching the last five minutes of the Sixth Sense, thus totally ruining everything. That was my own fault for walking in and not just walking by, so I haven't had to bother watching that now. It's far worse if somebody gives something away at the very beginning. I have a very egregious example. A couple of Christmases ago, Georgia got me a great thing. It's a complete set of the James Bond novels. I've mentioned these before because they're wonderful. And they're paperbacks, but they have the original artwork, which is awesome. But my biggest complaint about these books is the introductions. Every book in the set has an introduction, and every introduction totally gives everything away. And it's not like it just gives everything away if you read it carefully the whole way through. It's usually within the first line that they give away some major plot point. So even if you're just flipping through, you almost accidentally glance just long enough, you will ruin key plot points. It'll start like, you know, like the first time I read this novel, I was surprised when the, you know, the girl died in chapter 15 of an octopus attacking her, you know, this kind of thing. And it's just like, that's bizarrely specific and bizarrely detailed, you know, like why would you put that in the first sentence of your introduction, other than to make me angry? So I've learned over time not to read introductions at all, if I can help it. And there's a bonus to that. It makes long books feel a whole lot shorter. That's a hint for students out there. And all I'm saying is, like most of you, I don't really like knowing what's about to happen. I don't like spoilers. I don't read introductions. I don't read prologues. I don't read prefaces. I don't even read instructions, if I can help it. I am a stereotypical man. I would rather experience the adventure. I don't really want to know what's going to happen. If something blows up, all the better. Now, my father was a different kind of man. He was more cautious. He insisted on reading the introduction to every book. It was the only way, he said, to make sense of what he was reading. But he was weird. He liked reading the fine print in these things. He was the only man I ever knew who would read the dictionary for his own amusement. True story. But what does that have to do with anything, you're asking? Nothing really, except that today's passage is an introduction. This little section is the preface, if you like, to the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. It conditions everything else we're going to read after it, but it also contains a spoiler. We saw last week that Jesus was starting to switch gears a little bit. He had begun this sermon by issuing a series of these nine blessings or beatitudes, right? And then he gave us a two-pronged metaphor of salt and light. Salt and light became sort of shorthand for our new identity as his disciples. This is what we are. We're supposed to bring out the flavor of the world around us while also illuminating God's handiwork to the people around us. So we're here to help people taste and see that the Lord is good. Now, according to John Stott, these metaphors, the salt-light metaphor, could be seen as a summary of what Jesus had been saying earlier. Basically, that being salt and light is a picture of what it means to live out the Beatitudes. I think he's probably right about that. If you live like God's happy and blessed people, you will be acting as salt and light, and vice versa. So Stott thinks of that Salt Light passage as the sort of conclusion of the Beatitudes. But now, Jesus is about to begin sort of the main body of the sermon. And today's passage is the preface or introduction or prologue. I don't know how many of you have ever read a book that sometimes has all three of those things in the beginning of it, and I'm like, I've never understood that. Like how many ways can you say hello, right? How many introductions do you need? But anyway, while some introductions ruin things by giving everything away, I don't think that's Jesus' goal. This introduction is meant to give us a sort of framework for understanding the rest of the sermon. So it doesn't ruin the sermon. He's just helping us read it more clearly. But he can't help himself. There is a spoiler. And if this wasn't scripture, I would skip it, but I can't do that. I'm not allowed, so. So he makes clear in this introduction, he's gonna be talking about the law. and how the law is still important. And I've said before that this entire sermon is supposed to remind you, it's supposed to be reminiscent of the Exodus. Jesus is basically setting himself up as the true Israel. and is the new and better Moses. He had just spent 40 days in the wilderness right before this, right? Very reminiscent of Israel in the wilderness for 40 years. And he had also fasted for those 40 days, which is what Moses did. George discovered this. I had forgotten about it. Moses also fasted when he received the law on Sinai. So now he is standing on this mountain like Moses and declaring the law to his disciples, and he started with blessings, but now he's going to pivot to the law itself. And the rest of this sermon is basically, it reads kind of like a list of do's and don'ts, so almost like a stereotype of a sermon in that way, but Jesus will be giving essentially a commentary on the law with a few updates. And so he prefaces the rest of the sermon with this sort of introductory paragraph here. And we need to read it as an introduction, because I think if we read it in isolation, maybe it makes less sense. There are themes here that we need to bear in mind throughout the rest of this series. Because everything he says after this is conditioned by what he says here. So I want to consider how he starts off here in verse 17. He says, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. I'll stop right there for a second. Because I'll be honest, I think this is a strange way to start a sermon. The topic of the law kind of seems to come out of nowhere. Everyone is here to listen to Jesus, largely, I think, in response to the healings, right? He's been running around healing people, and that's, I think, what brought most of the people up onto the mountain. That's what gets them in the door, right? It's the miracles. And now, they have come to this mountain. They're gonna listen to Jesus. Yes, they are sitting at his feet. They're expecting to be taught. And after some encouraging words, he just kind of blurts out, you know, I didn't come here to abolish the law, if that's what you were thinking. Kind of a weird flex. Like, I would expect some of these people are kind of thinking, like, no one said you did. We're just here for the TED Talk, right? I'm not sure anyone showed up here expecting you to abolish the law and the prophets real quick, you know? And it's more than that. Jesus, the language he uses here is really strong. It's very extra. It's over the top. Abolish, even in English, is kind of a strong word. But the Greek is more like to throw down. So to overthrow, to take down, to destroy. It's a revolutionary word. It's the same language you would use for toppling a government, let's say. And moreover, when he says the law and the prophets, he means the entire Old Testament, because law and prophets, that's kind of shorthand for referencing all of the Old Testament writings. And since the Old Testament was all they had at this point, this is basically Jesus saying, I'm not here to destroy the Bible, guys. I'm not here to overthrow God's word. And when you think of it that way, it seems pretty strange if Jesus had been planning to do so, right? I mean, unless I'm missing something. It sounds like this should be an unnecessary disclaimer, should be a given. But Jesus is stating the obvious. Largely, the point he's making is that he is not a radical, regardless of what people think. He is announcing that whatever he's about to say regarding the law is not intended to undermine God's word, but to make it complete, to fill it out. He's not here to undermine the system. Nothing he's going to say is going to change the essence of God's word. And we will see in coming weeks, he does engage in a few modifications and adds a few things, but he's saying he is not a radical revolutionary. He is not now, nor has he ever been a communist. And to add to that, Jesus elaborates a bit more. Verse 18, he says, for truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. I'm going to be honest, I really like the translations that say, not one jot or tittle of the law, just because I think that's a funny phrase. But I'll settle for iota and dot, I guess. Jesus is illustrating the permanence of the law by referring to the smallest handwriting details. I don't know how many of you have good handwriting. Not I. But we do talk even today about crossing our Ts and dotting our Is. I frequently forget to dot the I on the end of my last name when I'm signing a bill or anything. It's kind of silly. But what we mean when we say crossing our T's and dotting our I's is doing it not like me. We're talking about being thorough, not sloppy. Jesus is promising us that nothing of the Old Testament will be lost, including those details. He illustrates this idea by saying that even the smallest pen strokes are going to be preserved. And he uses the example of an iota, which is the letter I in Greek. which, much like r, lowercase i, is quite small. It's just a short vertical line. The only difference is that in Greek, it doesn't have the dot, so it's even smaller, right? And when Jesus says dot or tittle in some of the other translations, that's a reference to Hebrew. Now, if you've ever taken Hebrew, I'm not saying I recommend it, but if you did, One of the things that you will learn, well, you'll learn several things. One thing that you'll learn is that Hebrew has a smaller alphabet than we do. They only have 22 letters, not 26, one of which is a yod, which is a little more than a smudge, easy to miss. And not only that, several of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet are nearly identical, and the only thing distinguishing them is like a small, slight extension on a particular line up here. It just kind of sticks out ever so slightly, and now it's a different letter. And if you screw that up, the word ends up being something totally different. And again, now I find this horrifying because I got straight C's in handwriting in elementary school, and they were generous graders there. And I think I've gotten worse. I get hand cramps when I write, and my cursive is essentially hieroglyphics. I had to destroy and burn all of my seminary notes, all that money spent at Westminster, I had to burn them because I couldn't read my own handwriting. This is a true story. But that's partly what makes this all the more amazing, because you have to consider the fact that the Old Testament scriptures were always copied by hand over thousands of years, and Jesus is saying that they are still reliable. And they're not going anywhere until everything is accomplished. Now that's kind of a cool promise, but why is it necessary? Why does Jesus lead with this? Who on this mountain is seriously questioning whether the law has any staying power? If you're a good Jew, why are you sitting here afraid that the law might go away? Well, maybe that's not what you're afraid of. I'm starting to wonder whether some people in this crowd were secretly, like many of us, quietly hoping that the law, or at least some parts of it, might fade a little bit. Like maybe Jesus is saying this because some people don't really love the law and like maybe some of them were looking for relief and thinking maybe this guy could give it to them. And this next verse kind of confirms that suspicion, because I think he's able to think what they're thinking, see what they're thinking. Verse 19, he says, therefore, Whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. I think the only possible reason Jesus would say this is because we are, in fact, tempted to do exactly what he's talking about. I've said it before, but I think God's law is tough. I think it's hard to read. I think it's hard to understand. It is definitely hard to keep. Honestly, it's true even when you're reading the prophets as well. I remember, I think it was two summers ago where Reverend Green led us through a study in the book of Joel, and at the end of the summer, it was a great study and everything else, but we all kind of confessed we didn't understand it any better at the end of the summer than we did at the beginning. Most of us who have ever tried to read the Bible straight through, we get stuck at Leviticus. And there's a reason for this. It feels clunky and cumbersome and impossible to actually do anything about. So we have a tendency to relax the law whenever it becomes inconvenient. And the law is always inconvenient when I'm breaking it. If I break the law, any law, I am faced with a dilemma. What do I do with my guilt? And I think Jesus has his finger on the pulse of one of our go-to methods. We relax the law. We make it slightly less strict. If I am guilty of a particular sin, it is very tempting to relax my reading of the law. And now I can do this by any number of means. I can kind of just ignore it. I can do it by focusing on a different part of the law where I think I'm doing better. So if I'm dealing with lust, I can focus on honoring my parents if I'm better at that, right? Or I can pretend that a particular law is a little less important. Or I can say that the meaning of the law is a little confusing, and so therefore it allows a little bit of wiggle room. Or I can say it doesn't apply in my circumstances, or that it doesn't apply in this day and age. There are a million ways to relax the law. And because sin, like misery, enjoys company, we often teach others to sin in the same way. Not just by example, sometimes we do this explicitly because sin always seems less sinful somehow if the whole crowd is doing it. It spreads the blame much thinner. This is why big mobs do crazy, terrible things that people would never do alone. Everyone in the group is sort of just kind of implying that the blame is on everybody else for my bad behavior. Kids figure this out. My kids know that if they all agree to do something, they can usually get away with it. If enough of them are involved, I don't have the energy to spank them all. But it's not just them. It's also why adults speed on the highway. And then we say, well, I was just keeping up with traffic. Because if everybody was speeding, then I can't possibly be blamed. If everyone is at fault, no one is at fault, right? It's also why people do sneaky things on their taxes. They do it because we figure everyone else is doing it too and we might as well get our piece of the pie. My father once said, and I think he was right, he said that the government will never really reform the tax code and make it simpler because too many people are convinced that they are getting away with something in the current system and they like it that way. So why would anyone relax the law? It's a coping mechanism, basically. If I can't keep the law, I need to do something to reconcile my conscience, right? And our initial gut reaction is to treat the law as the problem. The law is the obstacle, and it's the standard that needs to be made lower. If it's too hard to keep, then the law should change, not me. Now I think that's a very American attitude, especially these days. When people, for instance, just as an example, when people refer to criminal reform, if they use those words in a sentence, they never mean reforming the prisoners anymore, right? They mean reforming the drug laws, or the bail system, or the prisons. And the general consensus seems to be that if lots of people are going to jail, the problem must be the law, not the lawbreakers. That's not to say that American criminal laws don't occasionally need reform. They're not perfect. They're not God's law, right? But the attitude has become so widespread that it's almost cliche. We as Americans are much quicker to blame the system instead of the people in the system. Everyone's like Curly and the Three Stooges. Everyone's a victim of circumstance, right? But Jesus is implying that we do the same thing with God's law. We find it too difficult to keep, and therefore, we decide that the law is the problem. Something needs to change, and it's not gonna be us. So to paraphrase Chesterton, it's not that we've tried the law and found it wanting, it's that we've found it difficult and left it untried. We think of the law as the problem. And Jesus apparently doesn't look too kindly on that approach. He says that that's a one-way ticket to being a nobody in the kingdom of God. If you want to ride coach to the kingdom, that's the way to go. Alternatively, the way to be great in the kingdom is not to weaken the law, but to practice it. You have to obey the law and also teach others to do the same. So you practice and then you preach what you practice. If you don't want to be the guy shoveling horse poop in God's stables in the kingdom, that's what you got to do. You got to obey the law and teach everyone else to follow suit. The law is not the problem. You are. And Jesus is saying that there's no getting around the law. One of my least favorite children's books, among many, is a piece by, I think, a Helen Oxenberg called We're Going on a Bear Hunt. I hate that book. And I'm really glad my kids have outgrown that one. It's very repetitive. Although on the plus side, it doesn't have an introduction. So there's that going for it. But I might just ruin the plot for you anyway. You see, the idea is that there's this family that goes on a bear hunt. And they keep running into obstacles. And, you know, whatever, the tall grass, the swamp, the hill, whatever it is, right? And the constant refrain is, we can't go over it. We can't go under it. Oh, no, we'll have to go through it. And then you have to do the sound effects for the kids and everything again and again and again and again. It's a terrible book, but it is a great illustration of what Jesus is saying here. There is no getting around the law. You got to do it and you got to teach it. Can't go over it, you can't go under it. You got to go through. Okay. So how hard can that be? Well, I wanted to take some solace for a little while. this week in the fact that Jesus did not say that people who relax the law won't be in the kingdom at all. He just says that they'll be the least. And so it's like, well, can I settle for that? But verse 20 kind of ruins that for you. He says, for I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Never? And then I thought, I go back and reread verse 19, I'm thinking, maybe these law relaxers in verse 19 won't be the least in the kingdom of heaven. Maybe they'll be on the outside while the people on the inside are calling them the least. Because you could read it that way. Maybe everyone in the kingdom is like, hey, remember that guy who relaxed the law? Yeah, he was the worst. So glad he's not here. You know, like, I don't know. This final verse is the one I like the least. And when I read this passage earlier in the week, I immediately kind of just dreaded this whole thing, and this verse was a big reason why. This is a hard core demand that Jesus is making, and honestly, it seems unfair. And why would Jesus set the Pharisees up as an example? This is the same Jesus, I mean, unless I'm very much mistaken, who will be frequently attacked by the Pharisees. And the criticism will often be that they think Jesus is too lenient and that he relaxes the law. We've been going through Mark's gospel and Bible study, and that's been the running theme. Jesus doesn't take the Sabbath seriously enough. We've been looking at that for a while. And worse, he leads his disciples to do the same. The irony of Jesus using the Pharisees as an example of law keeping. And I don't think he's being sarcastic or rhetorical. He's acknowledging that when it comes to doing and teaching the law, no one has the Pharisees matched. And the scribes, that's basically the religious lawyers, the kind of guys who not only know scripture, but also all the commentaries. They live and breathe the law. They like this stuff. They're the kind of guys probably some Pharisees found annoying. The extreme rule followers, the goody-two-shoes of the world. We tend to hate extreme rule followers, don't we? We don't like the goody-two-shoes of the world. You know, I reflected on this this week, just as an aside. I never understood what the term goody-two-shoes was even supposed to mean. I think my mother used to use that, you know. Until I have kids now, and when you're standing there on a Sunday morning with the car running and you're already late to Sunday school, and some kid can't find her other shoe, I get it now. But while I want my kids to have some idea where both of their shoes are, I still find extreme rule followers annoying. And isn't that the American way, right? We like guys who stand up to the system. Men who defy the bureaucracy. Girls who wear long jackets and use machetes to cut through red tape. It's a cake song. Do people not remember the 90s song? The scribes and Pharisees are the definition of rule-following bureaucrats. They manufacture red tape. They are your neighborhood legalists. But Jesus points to them, not as examples here of self-righteous pride, but as examples of righteousness in action. He sets them up as the cream of the crop, and then says, yeah, you've got to be better than them. Not just to have a better standing in the kingdom, you need to be way better to get in at all. You have to outdo the most righteous people you know or you will never get in. So that leads me to reflect on the holiest people I know. Don't worry, nobody here came to mind. It's okay. But we all have our heroes of the faith that we respect. I've had some relatives that were great examples of faith. I've had some favorite pastors, some teachers, youth group leaders, some famous people like Dr. Boyce, but then even local people, people, you know, men and women whose nobody's ever heard of except for me maybe, you know. And when I think of these people and reflect on them, the people I respect the most, I know I cannot begin to hope to match some of these people for godliness. They were just good. And when you go to their funerals and stuff, you feel like you're just not gonna see people like that too often. They're just, they're unique. And here's Jesus saying that even my spiritual heroes aren't good enough. If I think of the holiest person, think of the holiest person that you've ever known, that you admire to no end, that person to whom you look and say, I will never measure up to that person. And Jesus says, you have to do better than that if you want to come live with me. Jesus is raising the bar. And I'm pretty sure he just slammed the door of heaven on all of us. So taken on its own, I think this one verse, verse 20, is one of the most depressing verses you will ever read. I read this and felt like it's already too late. So, do we wanna be considered great in the kingdom of heaven? Well, if we can't be better than our holiest heroes, does that question even matter? What is the point of following Jesus if the bar is already set so high that I can tell you right now, I'm never gonna get there, I'm never gonna be good enough, Because not only is my own track record of law-keeping lousy, I'm like many people because I resent law-keepers. I have a few spiritual heroes, but I don't have to live with any of them, right? I find most law-keepers annoying and overbearing. I don't even like people who drive the speed limit. So, why even stay to hear the rest of Jesus' sermon? Maybe this is a good time to slip out the back. If the law stands between us and the kingdom, and we can't go over it, and we can't go under it, and we can't go through it, then what options do we have? How can we please God? How can we glorify him and enjoy him forever if we can't even get started? We have a dilemma. The law is hard, it is inflexible, and over the next several weeks, when Jesus starts going into specific examples, if you feel unholy now, just wait until he has us removing eyeballs. The law is scary, and it cannot be broken, and we are obligated to obey it and teach it, and newsflash to no one, we're not doing so good. The argument Jesus will be making is that the Old Testament law, the one we already skip reading because it's too daunting, that law was already lenient. That was the easy button. So what do we do? Well, I think the key, the spoiler, is actually found back in the first verse that we read, verse 17. The answer to this dilemma is found in a grammatical change that Jesus makes. Little more than a jot or a tittle that makes all the difference. Jesus switches to the first person. We saw a couple weeks ago how Jesus went from speaking in the third person throughout most of the Beatitudes to speaking in the second person in the last Beatitude and in the Salt and Light passage, but now he goes full-fledged into first-person mode, and it's almost as if suddenly Jesus is declaring himself to be the main character. He is doing what no decent preacher should. He's making this sermon about himself. One of the phrases that we will see Jesus use again and again in the coming weeks It's a certain formula that he keeps saying. He says, you have heard it said, but I say. The law says X, but I say Y. Now, he doesn't use that formula to overthrow the law, and he doesn't make it any easier. In fact, he makes it a lot stricter, because he's going to go after the heart and the mind. But he roots these statements not on a deep argument or analysis of the original Hebrew. He bases it on his own authority. I say. Now, I use that kind of language with my kids, but that's about the extent of it. I will sometimes ask them, what did I say? I ask that question because they apparently forgot what I said, but I also say it as an appeal to my inherent authority as their dad. My words carry weight because of who I am. Well, Jesus is appealing to his own authority. He is giving the law, not as Moses did. Moses was just a messenger. Jesus is giving the true meaning of the law on no one's authority but his own. He appeals only to himself and the authority of his words, I say. So when he says that he came to fulfill the law, we can ask what in the world that means. I'm sure most of his audience was asking the same thing, but suffice it to say that Jesus is making a bold statement here. You don't declare that you're not here to abolish the law unless that was a legit threat. Unless there was some reasonable possibility that you could abolish the law, it was remotely in your power. Jesus is acting as though he has the power to abolish the law and the prophets, but neither the right nor the desire to. So instead he declares that he has come to fulfill them. And that is such a huge statement that his listeners had to be blown away. Jesus is saying he is the main act. He's the big show. He's not just some healer. And if he didn't have their attention before, they had to be paying attention now. When I was in seminary, we had to read a book by a guy named Jacob Neusner. He was a conservative Jewish scholar. And in this book, it was a dialogue between him and Jesus. He imagines being in this crowd and interacting with Jesus, asking him questions. And he's actually pretty sympathetic. You get the impression that he kind of likes Jesus or wants to like him. But at the end of the book, he walks away. Largely because he feels like Jesus was dishonest in this passage. He feels like Jesus actually does have a revolutionary view of the law, and in his mind, Jesus has too big a view of himself. He's claiming way too much authority. And I had to write a paper responding to this book, and I basically felt like, actually, he's got a good point. Jesus is making some big claims here, and if anyone else was making them, I would probably agree. You probably should walk away. The question that you have to ask is, who is this Jesus? Because the authority of his words is rooted in his identity. If he's a traveling magician, nothing he's saying here matters. But if he's something more than that, maybe we better listen. Well, as Christians, we know the answer because we know the rest of the story. We know that Jesus is not just a great moral teacher. He is the original lawgiver. He wrote the law. He speaks with the authority of a lawgiver because he was there when Moses received the original law at Sinai, when the deep magic was written, as Aslan would say. Jesus knows better than anyone that the law is a picture of God's holy perfection, and so he has no interest in setting the bar lower. That would be to engage in the soft bigotry of low expectations, as some politicians have put it. The law cannot be relaxed, much less abolished. God doesn't lower his standards. So instead, Jesus sets the bar higher, and he draws the circle of holiness so tight that soon it's gonna be clear to everybody listening to him that the only one left in the circle is Jesus himself. And that's the point. The goal of Jesus's sermon is not to make you a better person. He wants you to despair of looking at yourself at all, and instead look at him, the man who was in the middle of the circle. Jesus is the main character here. The sermon is about him, as every sermon should be. And if you're like me, reading this and asking who could possibly do this, the introduction has the spoiler. It gives away the ending. Jesus can. Jesus is the one who can do this. Jesus wins. He says right up front, I'm here to fulfill this thing. Me, myself, and I. That's what I came for, and I'm not looking for your help. He's the fulfillment of the law. He's the one who accomplishes all things. He's the one who said it is finished. He's the one who keeps the law and teaches it perfectly, and he's the one who is called the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. That is not a title he shares. The problem is not the law. The problem is us, but Jesus is the solution. That's the spoiler. So stop looking at yourself and look at him. And if, as we go through the rest of Jesus's sermon, you start to feel heavy, don't fret, because you already know the ending. So be encouraged. Let's pray. Gracious God and Father, we do thank you for your word. We thank you for your law. And we thank you that you didn't lower your standards and set the bar low enough so that we could just hop over it. We thank you that you are uncompromising and that you are just as holy and just as perfect as you have ever been. We thank you that you kept it at an impossible level, but more importantly, that you sent your son to fulfill the law for us, so that he could take us to be where he is. Lord, help us not to despair as we read your law, Lord, but rather to love it because it describes and extols your beauty and perfections, and help us not to despair. Help us not to keep looking at ourselves, but help us to look at Christ. We ask this in his name. Amen. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.