John chapter 18, I will begin reading at verse 39, and I will read through verse 16 of chapter 19. Beginning at verse 39, this is Pilate still seeking to release Christ after he has found Him not guilty. Let's give attention to the reading of God's word. May he have a custom that I should release unto you one at the Passover. Will ye therefore that I release unto you the King of the Jews? Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber. Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged him. And the soldiers plaited a crown of thorns, and put it upon his head, and they put on him a purple robe, and said, Hail, King of the Jews! And they smote him with their hands. Pilate therefore went forth again, and said unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him. Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, and Pilate saith unto him, Behold the man. When the chief priests, therefore, and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify him, for I find no fault in him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid. And he went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have the power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldst have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above. Therefore he that delivereth me unto thee hath the greater sin. And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him. But the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend. Whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gadathah. And it was the preparation of the Passover, and about the sixth hour, and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your king! But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him! Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified, and they took Jesus, and led him away. Every Sunday morning we confess that he suffered under Pontius Pilate. Why was it so important in that early creed from the second century to include those words in the universal Catholic creed of the Christian Church? Is it merely an historical fact or is it something that's quite important and crucial for our salvation? First of all, we know that we are prone by nature to hate God and our neighbor. Through his sufferings, we know that Jesus reconciled God to us. But he also reconciled us to God. With all of God's promises, there are two things that are absolutely necessary for us to know in order to believe God. God, of course, calls us to place our entire hope and trust in Him alone. But we need to know two things about God before we're able to do that. The first is, is God able to keep His promises? And second, is God willing to keep His promises? We know, first of all, that he is able because he is the creator of heaven and earth, which is why Genesis 1 is so important to Christianity, and why it is consistently under attack by the devil. But God created all things in the space of six days by the word of his power. Therefore, he's not caught up in this sea of chance, which we see down here, that he is the controller, the governor, the upholder, the sustainer, and creator of all things. He holds the sea in His hands. He opens the sea for His people to walk through on dry ground. He feeds every bird and every mammal and every insect. He unleashes the lightning. He has His way in the whirlwind. He has created the kings of the earth. And He turns their heart wherever He desires. And even the wrath of men is meant to praise Him. Every year at election time I read frequently, when I can't help it, all of the blogs about the upcoming election and the evils of the current administration. There's one thing that bothers me about it. It sounds even from Christian people as if God's not on the throne. It sounds as if we will somehow save ourselves by political process. 200 years of American history should have disproved to us that. And yet we get so worked up about it. Is not Christ still on the throne? The fact of the matter, God is perfectly capable of doing everything that he has promised, as he has shown us over and over and over again. The next question which gets us as Christians is, is God willing to keep all of his promises? For we look at our own hearts and we see how much sin is there. We see how much doubt is in our heart. The devil plays on that. Maybe we need to be a lot more holy for God to love us. Or maybe God is trying to teach me a lesson, and whenever I get on the ball and figure out what that lesson is, then maybe God will leave me alone. Or maybe Billy Sunday was right, and God has no hands but mine, and no lips but mine, and poor God is helpless unless I get on the ball. Or maybe I haven't been as faithful as I should be, and as soon as I get my act together, then He'll start blessing me. But the fact of the matter is, if God waited for me to get my act together before He loved me, I would never be loved. To all of that, the Gospel says, and we confess, He suffered. under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried, he descended into hell. What's the connection? The connection is in order for us to truly know that God is indeed willing to keep all his promises, we must know that our sins and the curse that lays upon us is completely paid for by Christ. And therefore we must know that he suffered under Pontius Pilate. To our text to continue last week, we know that Pilate found no guilt in Christ at all. He has tried over and over again to set Christ free, but of course only if he could do it and still save his own position. Pilate, the young and upwardly mobile Roman politician, was in a very, very bad position. He knew that Jesus had not violated any laws. He knew that the Jews had presented no evidence, they had no witnesses, and they were hesitant at first to even bring a charge. They merely said, he's an evildoer, now execute him. And they had no answer whenever he asked the Jews, what has he done? After Pilate pushed them for a charge, they finally trumped up three charges. All of them lies. Pilate knew that that was a farce. Pilate hated the Jews. Pilate knew that they were envious and simply wanted Jesus out of their way. He knew that the charge was trumped up and not true at all. The question is then, why didn't he throw them all out and just let Jesus free? because of politics. He knew that all the Caesar of Rome wanted was peace. He also knew that if he did not do as the Jews wished with Christ, they would cause riots like he had never seen. He had already been denounced several times by the Jews to Caesar Tiberius. He had already been linked in Caesar Tiberius' mind to a rebel named Sejanus who had recently been executed by Caesar and he was in a very tenuous position. As I said last week, Pilate was caught between doing the right thing, letting Jesus go, and appeasing the Jews. At this point, when we come to verse 39, Pilate still thinks he can do both. That he can appease the Jews, and still do the right thing. But God is about to bring everything to a head, so that Pilate will do exactly what God has decreed from before the foundation of the world. That Pilate will declare Jesus innocent, and crucify Him anyway. Before the incident with Barabbas, after Jesus had been declared innocent, Pilate hears that Herod is in town for the Passover, and he hears that Jesus is a Galilean. So he tries to send him to Herod to get him off his hands. Herod simply mocked him, ridiculed him, and Jesus wouldn't answer Herod a word. And then he was sent back to Pilate. And now we have the incident with Barabbas. John gives us the summary. There's more details given in the other Gospels. There's a custom that Pilate mentions here. The Romans put this in place to show all the people that they were really kind and merciful and that the peace of Rome was very benevolent. On that custom, every year at the Feast of Passover, the Romans would release a criminal and give him a full pardon. You think that that's merciful, but it actually is not merciful to release a known criminal, a murderer, an insurrectionist back onto the streets. But all that a human judge can do is either be merciful or be bold, or be just. He can't be bold. But Pilate thinks that he can use this custom to get out of this sticky situation. So he devises a solution. If he releases Jesus because of the Passover, then he can get a reputation as being kind and benevolent, a merciful ruler, he can quiet the mob, and get out of his dilemma. What he would like to do is he would like to get all of the mob that is now gathering outside the pavilion. He would like to get them to cry out for Jesus' release. He realizes that just five days earlier the same crowd was hailing Jesus as the son of David and welcoming him into Jerusalem. And so Pilate picks the worst criminal he could think of. Barabbas. Barabbas has already been tried. John says he was a robber. The other Gospels add insurrection and murder to Barabbas. Barabbas was a terrorist. He revolted against Rome. He revolted against authority. He was despised and hated by everyone. Completely unstable. And Pilate felt sure that if he offered Jesus or Barabbas, the crowd would say, oh, not Barabbas. We want Jesus. Pilate's psychological ploy is interesting. They accuse Jesus of being an insurrectionist. By offering Barabbas, Pilate is also saying, this is what an insurrectionist really is. You actually think Jesus of Nazareth is like Barabbas? So Pilate is thinking by offering to release either Jesus or the Bin Laden of Jerusalem, the crowd would come to their senses. But in reality, Pilate, it is interesting, is already treating Jesus like a criminal. It's appalling that Pilate would think of himself as benevolent for not executing an innocent man. But from God's perspective, it was necessary that Jesus be numbered among the criminals, as we read in Isaiah 53. In order to find out what happens next, it's necessary to go back to Matthew. Matthew tells us that exactly at that moment, Pilate gets a message from his wife. He has to go back into the judgment hall to deal with the message from his wife, and that gives the leaders of the Jews time to circulate among the crowd, and to get them all worked up to cry out for Barabbas. We don't know what they did to get them worked up. We do know what the message from Pilate's wife was. She said, Have thou nothing to do with that just man, for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him. Pilate's wife knew that Jesus was innocent, and Pilate's wife was tormented by the dreams. What this did back at the judgment hall was that it gave the chief priests time to stir up the crowd. As we read Matthew 27, but the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. So the crowd called out for Barabbas. Sure Pilate is stunned. But they have Pilate against a rock. So Pilate releases Barabbas, and Jesus eventually takes Barabbas' place on the cross in between the two co-conspirators of Barabbas, the two thieves. Why is that important for us to know? If Jesus took the crucifixion of a notorious, vicious criminal like Barabbas on the cross, Is there any sin that you have committed that Jesus could not take upon himself? For all of us are like barabbas. According to Isaiah, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. For Jesus took the place of a criminal, was counted a criminal in our place. So then in chapter 19 we come to Pilate's next tactic. Now he's getting desperate. Pilate is saying to himself, alright, the Jews have accused this man of being an insurrectionist, of inciting rebellion against Rome. They've accused him of making himself a king. They've accused him of being a dangerous man. So I'll scourge him, show him to the people. Since they were envious of him, maybe they will see now, since he has been degraded and debased and beaten to a bloody pulp, they'll see that he isn't any threat and that I can get out of the situation and get back to what I was doing before. And so Pilate scourges him. Pilate is thinking when he brings him back out front, they'll see three things. They'll see a broken and a bloody man, and surely a man like this is no actual threat to anyone. Second, Pilate is thinking perhaps the crowds will pity him and cry out for his release. And third, perhaps the extreme cruelty of a Roman scourging will appease the Jews and convince them that they have nothing to be jealous of. Pilate is saying, in effect, with the scourging, surely you can't be serious with these accusations. If he is disgraced, his reputation destroyed and broken by the Roman scourge, then he surely can pose no threat to anyone, real or imaginary. So Pilate orders the scourging. Many men would die under a Roman scourge. It was far beyond what we think of when we think of a whipping. For Pilate it was a most wicked and cruel action. To attempt to pacify a crowd for political gain by torturing an innocent man cannot be justified as the grossest perversion of justice. But God has his way in the hearts of the king. And if you read through Isaiah 50 through Isaiah 53, you can see every one of the promises being ticked off one by one in the hands of Pontius Pilate. Isaiah 50, which we read a moment ago, I gave my back to the smiters. The smiter was the one legally empowered to administer a flogging. And my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting. Isaiah 53 tells us why. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace, which means the chastisement which is for our peace, was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. Then the soldiers made a crown of thorns. They took that crown of those two or three inch long sharp thorns, they wove together, crammed it down on his head and in the other gospels they took reeds or sticks and used that to hammer the thorns down onto his head. They serve two purposes for the soldiers, first the physical torture and second the ridicule. Your life is pointless, you are a disgusting imposter, This is what we think of your dreams, your desires, your goals. They put an old ratty robe on him to imitate the purple of the royalty, mocked him for being a king, while at the same time they were spitting on him and hitting him. But God did not give us these words so that we could feel really sorry for Jesus and try to do better. He didn't give us these words even so that we would see how unjust people are and try to work hard for social justice. He gave us these words for only one reason. That we might know that Jesus truly took the curse upon himself. That's the biggest problem that we have in our life. We are at war with God. We begin to doubt and deep down inside think that God really is our enemy. Why the thorns? Why the ridicule? We know when Adam sinned, God cursed the ground. And now it brings up thorns and thistles. Because it brings up thorns and thistles, there was a lot implied to Adam, the farmer. Creation then became futile, vain, empty. Man would sweat and work hard to eke out a living, and then he would die. And what would happen to the ground that he worked so hard to cultivate? The thorns would take it right over. Our work became empty, vain, meaningless, busy work. And we would do it really hard every day until we died. In the book of Isaiah we read that when the Jews were driven into exile, the curse also came on the land because they had sinned That land which used to bring forth olive oil, wine, milk, and honey, now is going to bring over thorns and thistles. And today our work so often seems futile and hopeless. Creation is cursed. Air pollution, wild animals, diseases, viruses, waste, famine, hurricane. Because God cursed the ground because of sin. See, now we have green jobs, green industries, environmentalism, political processes that are somehow going to overcome the curse that's on the earth. That there's only one thing that will overcome the curse on the earth. The soldiers plaited a crown of thorns and put it on his head. Jesus bore the curse that's on the earth. He took upon Himself the futility and emptiness of our sin. He took upon Himself the ridicule and hopelessness because of our sin. He took upon Himself the curse that's on all creation because of our sin. Why? So that we might know that God is willing and able to keep His promises. He was despised so that we might be accepted. He was ridiculed so that we might be loved. He was isolated so that we might be in fellowship and never alone. And so after the scourging, Pilate drags Jesus back out to the pavilion. He says, look at the man! Instead of changing their mind, now a huge mob is forming. All the inhabitants of Jerusalem are there. And they're screaming, crucify him, crucify him. Pilate's dumbfounded. Pilate's never seen that kind of hatred. He again declares him innocent. And then he reminds the Jews of their powerlessness. As if it was a plea for them to back him as the Roman authority. Who's in charge here? The pilot's not in charge. The crowd's not in charge either. The one who was beaten like a criminal and standing there bloody in a scarlet robe with a crown of thorns on his head, he's the one in charge. Pilate declares him innocent and reminds the Jews of their powerlessness by saying, you take him and crucify him. Oh, that's right, you can't. What's wrong with you people? I find no fault in him. Exactly what Isaiah said in chapter 53, my righteous servants shall justify many. for he shall bear their iniquities. The Jews respond with reminding Pilate that their position is that Jewish law must be honored by Rome. Jesus already made that clear. You will honor local customs, you will keep the peace. It says we have a law which you, by the way Pilate, are bound to honor. If you don't honor it, is the implied threat, we would be happy to tell Caesar Tiberius that you can't control the peace. He made himself the son of God. When Pilate hears that, he's even more afraid. The Romans had a pantheon of higher and lesser gods. Although Pilate was a cynic, which is evident from all of his actions, He still had the sense of divinity within him. He was still in God's image. As Paul said, he knew God by creation. And the message from his wife is still on his mind. And further, John had testified that when Christ walked on the earth, we beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten Son of God, full of grace and truth. That glory was veiled. It was hidden in the flesh of Jesus Christ. But Pilate would have seen something far different about Christ. He would have twisted it and marred it by his sin of idolatry. But it was enough to leave him without excuse. He's starting to sense that he's about to be left without excuse. And he's terrified. Of course, he does not have any idea what Jesus means when he says, I am the Son of God, because he's putting it in a Roman context. But in a Roman context, gods and their offspring could die. They could marry, have children, and could be killed. The Roman Caesars controlled the gods. The pilot is terrified. He goes and says, where are you from? Jesus says nothing. There is nothing to be gained for there is nothing that Jesus could say that would be understood by Pilate and still be true. Jesus was from Bethlehem. His hometown was Nazareth. He was a Galilean. He was the son of David. He was Abraham's offspring. He was also the Son of God, begotten of all eternity, before the foundation of the earth. He was with God, and He was God. Now is not the time for that conversation, for Jesus came for only one purpose. And before the supplied truth of the gospel can be preached to the Gentiles, Jesus must first die and rise from the dead. Then that time will come when Paul will stand before the kings of the earth and tell them that Jesus was the Son of God. And so Jesus says nothing. As Isaiah said, he was oppressed, he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. We know that when a wild animal is cornered and frightened, it lashes out with anger and bluster. So that's what Pilate does. He responds in fury because he's terrified. He's fed up with the whole situation. He says, now you're not talking to me. Don't you know that I have power over life and death? If Jesus was an insurrectionist, what would his answer be? You have no power. You have violated our Constitution. You're a wicked man. You have no right to usurp the authority that God gave to the Jews. We will overcome. Power to the people, we will destroy you. That isn't what Jesus says. First thing he says in verse 11, he acknowledges, without reservation, that Pilate indeed has that power. Think about that. But Jesus also tells the truth. That that power belongs ultimately to God and it's God who gives that power to whomever he chooses. The power belongs to God and God put Pilate in that position. And therefore, there are two things that are true. The first one is, Pilate will be accountable to God how he uses that power. And the second thing that is true is all men, including Jesus, are bound by God to submit cheerfully to that power and submit to Pilate's authority. Those are not the words of an insurrectionist. In this we are to imitate Christ. All authority is given by God, which means that God will hold the rulers of our country accountable. But God will also hold us accountable for how we respond to the rulers of our country, wicked though they may be. To Pilate, remember he's just had a trial of Barabbas and two other insurrectionists. He knows what an insurrectionist is. These are not the words of an insurrectionist. A madman perhaps, but not an insurrectionist. This is not a man who is a threat to the peace of the state. Jesus' words throughout his life are astounding. Whether he was talking to an adulterous woman, a woman of Samaria, or a tax collector, his words were always fitting, peaceful, true, and wise. He knew what to say, and when to say it. He spoke with authority, and not as a scribe. Exactly what we read in Isaiah 50. The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear, as to learn, the Lord God hath opened mine ear. And I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. Verse 12, Pilate still tries to release him. We read in the other Gospels that this is where he washes his hands and says, there is no guilt on me, it's on you. They're still shouting for crucifixion. And now we read in John, in verse 12, that the Jews draw the final battle line. If you let this man go, you are not Caesar's friend. And Pilate would have understood immediately the threat. As I said, Caesar Tiberius had recently crushed a rebellion and executed all those who had plotted against him. Sajanus and hundreds of others throughout the entire empire were plotting to overtake Caesar's throne while he was in a self-imposed exile on the Isle of Capri. All of those people were declared not Caesar's friends and were executed, exiled, banished, and removed from power. There was a small and debatable connection between Pilate and Sejanus. Remember, Tiberius would need no excuse to remove Pilate from power. Pilate had already received notification from Rome, if you can't control these Jews, I'll send somebody who will. And the Jews now made it very clear that they would be more than happy to denounce Pilate to Caesar. And Pilate knew what that meant. Banishment and possible execution. Pilate now knows that he can either do the right thing and the just thing, or he can keep his position and his life. In fact, Jesus did indeed say that whosoever loves his life will lose it. Pilate loved his life. and would eventually lose it. In just a few years he will be disgraced and banished and according to tradition he committed suicide rather than face execution. The Jews loved their lives and their position and very soon they will lose it and their nation will be ruined forever. The book of Proverbs, Solomon writes, the fear of the wicked will come upon them. When you turn your back on Christ to save your life, you will not gain anything. You will lose your life. So Pilate sits down now in the seat, the official seat of authority, to give the final verdict. Read in verse 14, it was the preparation of the Passover, which causes undue speculation by a lot of people. We know that Thursday was the day of Passover. Unbelievers say, see, John says Passover was Friday or Saturday. That isn't what John says. Preparation day was the day before the Sabbath. The day before the Sabbath was the day to prepare for the Sabbath. The preparation day of the Passover week would have been the Friday after the Passover to prepare for the Sabbath on the next day. Which fits with what all the other Gospels say. It also fits with what John himself will say a little bit later on. In verse 31, the Jews therefore, because it was a preparation, they didn't want the bodies on the tree before or during the Sabbath day. So they asked Pilate to take them down. This preparation day simply means the Friday of Passover week. The day before the Sabbath. The Passover Sabbath. Pilate sits down. He knows what he has to do now. That he has some further insults and tweaks against these Jews. He absolutely hates them. They've put him in this position. He can salvage it in his own mind a bit by making a statement to them, here's your king, here's what Rome thinks about you and your people. All your stupid customs, your petty little squabbles, boil down to this being your king which I'm about to crucify. And the Jews know what he's doing. They protest, take him away and crucify him. Pilate continues to push them. Shall I crucify your king? Trying to shame them into realizing how monstrous they had become. How petty and insignificant and ridiculous they are now looking in the eyes of the world. And then the Jews reveal their true character. We have no king but Caesar. By making that statement, they have declared that we are not God's people, and He is not our God. Just as Hosea said in chapter 1, verse 9, he named his child, Loame, which means, not my people. For ye are not my people, and I will not be your God, saith the Lord. And to say, here's an interesting thing, John writes that the reason that they crucified Christ was because Christ said, if you don't know me, you don't know God at all. And here they prove that he was right from the very beginning. Jesus said, you neither know me nor my father. If he had known me, you should have known my father also. When they rejected Christ, they rejected God. Is that just Jesus saying things? Here we have it from their own lips. They rejected Christ. They've rejected God. As Alfred Edersheim writes, they've carried now around with them the dead carcass of their religion for centuries. For Judaism without a king becomes what we have today. An empty shell. And so Pilate gives the sentence. In summary, here's what Pilate did. Not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty. Scourge him, ridicule him, mock him, degrade him, hurt him. Not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty. Crucify him. We confess every Sunday that we believe in Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, suffered under Pontius Pilate. What does this have to do with our lives? Question 37 of the Catechism. What do you understand by the word suffered? That all the time he lived on earth, but especially at the end of his life, he bore in body and soul the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race. In order that by his suffering, as the only atoning sacrifice, he might redeem our body and soul from everlasting damnation. and obtain for us the grace of God. Question 44, why is it added he descended into hell? That in my greatest temptations I may be assured that Christ my Lord by his inexpressible anguish, pains and terrors which he suffered in his soul on the cross and before has redeemed me from the anguish and torment of hell. Is the price really paid? Is our work still futile and empty? Or did He take the thorns? Are we still God's enemies who have to convince Him to bless us? When Jesus took the curse that laid upon me and the whole world? But there is still one more enemy to be destroyed, and that is death. So we read in verse 16, He delivered him to them to be crucified. They took Jesus and led him away and crucified him. It's exactly what Isaiah said. He was taken from prison and from judgment and cut off from the land of the living. All for my sake. For God said that if we break His covenant, all the curses of the covenant would come upon us. But if we keep the covenant, all the blessings of the covenant would come upon us. We broke that covenant. We still break that covenant. We were born covenant breakers. With guilty stamped all over us. But Christ kept the covenant and that wicked politician pilot was set up by God to declare Jesus righteous. So that we might truly know that his perfect righteousness is ours. And then he suffered and died as a criminal which my sins deserved. How do we respond to this? Look back to Isaiah chapter 50. Isaiah chapter 50, the last two verses. Who is it? Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant? To fear the Lord and to obey Christ are the same thing. But on this earth we still walk in darkness. We're still in the turmoil of life. If we fear the Lord and obey the voice of His servant, and we walk in darkness and have no light, what do we do? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay or rest upon his God. Or, there's the alternative. Verse 11. All ye that kindle a fire, encompass yourselves about with sparks. Walk in the light of your fire. And in the sparks that ye have kindled, this shall ye have of mine hand, ye shall lay down in sorrow or torment. You only have two options. You can come to Christ's rest in the Lord and say that Christ took all your sins upon himself. Or you can still try to light your own fire and walk in your own light. Well, I can fix things. Things aren't that bad. We just need better education. I just need a little more money and things will be fine. I just need better this or better that. I just need... What do you need that Christ has not provided for you? You can rest in that or you can walk in your own fire. But for us who believe, what does it mean to believe? Christ took all this upon himself, which we deserved. And here is the most profound thought that you will ever have in this life. There is now no more offering for sin. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we are again dumbfounded at your grace and your mercy In your wisdom, you have provided the perfect sacrifice so that we can stand before you in Christ's righteousness. Teach us, Father, each day to trust more and more in you because we know that you are able, being Almighty God, and willing also, being a faithful Father, to give us all we need, all we desire. The earth is ours. The new heavens and the new earth is ours, and everything that comes upon the blessings of the covenant is ours for the sake of Christ. And so we offer ourselves in thanksgiving and joy to you. Teach us each day of our life to walk in newness of life according to your promises, and to quit grasping after the baubles and trinkets of this earth. and to rest in you. In Jesus' name, Amen.