It is a blessing to be with you once again. I would say I'm surprised that you came back tonight. Let me turn my voice on. Is that better? Some of you were hoping I wouldn't figure out how to do it, weren't you? So I was going to say I'm surprised you came back tonight. But then you're free Presbyterians and they are faithful to the end. I know that. And so it's good to see you and good to be with you and to rejoice together in the things of the Lord. One of the brethren going out this morning, told me that he liked my humor. Well, so do I. I think it's pretty good myself. And so I make use of it whenever I can. And my first grade teacher, I am told, wrote on my first report card in the comments to parents about their children, Johnny seems to get his greatest delight out of other people's calamities. And indeed, that's an interesting way to live, and there's never any end of delight when you have that view of life. And so I enjoy myself pretty well in that regard, but I enjoy being with you as well this evening. And whenever there's the opportunity to be with the Free Presbyterian Congregation, it's a great opportunity. to be seized if at all possible. And I thank you for the opportunity this weekend to be with you, to open the Word together, and to seek our Lord together. Thank you for the invitation and for the very, very careful attention that you have given. I want to read this evening from John chapter three. We're going this evening again to another very familiar passage of scripture, not to expound that passage, but to come to one point which I believe is relevant to our consideration this evening. I did take courses in homiletics, just in case you were wondering about that after this morning's message. And one of the things that was stressed in those courses was that you never take a text and use it as a springboard simply to leap off into what you want to say. Needless to say, I took homiletics, but I didn't let it affect me in one way at all or another. But this evening we will come to one text that I want to build around and make a focus of our consideration together. So John chapter three, let us hear the word of God. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth. So is every one that is born of the spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? That will conclude our reading of the scripture. For the question our Lord puts to Nicodemus is a very potent and necessary question to him. A question for us to consider for ourselves as well. Nicodemus, are you a master of Israel and don't know these things? Let us bow together once again and ask God's blessing and help. Almighty God and Father in heaven, We can say with the hymn writer, prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. And we beseech thee, Lord God, that this evening each of our hearts might be focused by the Spirit of God upon these tendencies of our flesh that so war against our soul and against thy church and against thy truth. Grant, O Lord, humility to preach the Word of God and anointing to preach it with authority and conviction. Send Thy Spirit, O Lord, in evident presence upon the Word of God to bear its ever-living truth from the pages upon which we read it, yea, from the heart of God unto the heart of everyone present here this evening. Humble us before thy holy law, and grant that we might submit to thy truth, that the Spirit of God might be the searcher of our hearts, that we might be submissive unto his instruction. Teach us your way, O Father. Save souls. Stir thy people. Sober us in this giddy age of unbelief and blasphemy that we might walk with Thee and know a communion with Thee that is ever-growing, ever-deeper, ever-richer, and ever to the praise of our Lord. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I want to speak to you this evening about a dangerous pattern that we can observe among God's remnant, among his people. And an evidence of that pattern, an example of that pattern, we've read this evening, culminating in this question to Nicodemus, are thou a ruler in Israel and knowest not these things? The pattern, simply put, is this. God graciously reveals himself and his truth unto his people. The people of God receive that message undeserved and graciously imparted to them. Wrought upon by the Spirit of God and humbled before the God who gives that truth, they seek to do his will and seek to proclaim that message and take the gospel forth, take the truth forth, courageously, humbly, faithfully. Generations pass receiving from their parents such examples of steadfastness and conviction and determination to stand for truth. And in the process, zealous individuals develop methods by which that truth might be further advanced and further preached hither and yon around the world. And in the process of publishing that truth, putting it before mankind, there develops a necessary organizational structure to getting it done. And as that organization begins to function and successfully continue the propagation of the truth, there is a development of an institution around or out of that organization, an institutionalization. And as time progresses, perhaps several generations, perhaps several centuries, as time progresses, the organization and institution is inviting to those who are political in their thinking, so that there becomes a politicalization of the whole process. And when it's all said and done, The very instruments that are designed for the purpose of the propagating of the truth become that which obscures the truth, which hides and buries the truth, so that those most in need of it have no idea that there is such truth available. Now I believe we see this pattern in the scriptures, and I believe we see it in history as well. And the presentation and repetition of it is sufficiently frequent for us to realize that it is a pattern unto which any people can be very susceptible. And therefore we need to examine our own hearts, our own lives, as to where we stand with regard to this obscuring of the word of God by our methodology, by the things that we do. Let me just pick a few examples. We celebrate Christmas every year, don't we? And I'm not opposing the celebration of Christmas in any way, shape, or form. But the celebration of Christ's birth, a great reality in history to be celebrated, I would say celebrate it every day, has built around it a tradition, an institutionalization until when we come to Christmas in this country, everybody knows about it but nobody cares what it's about and in fact the celebration itself becomes the focus of all the energy and all of the gaming and Christ is utterly excluded. and the means which was put in place in order to set forth one of the most glorious truths that can ever be known to mankind, God with us, is a means which instead comes to stand in the way and obscure and take the attention away, not simply to some red suited fat guy from up north, but also take it away To cutesy little kids on a church platform acting out the scene of Bethlehem's manger. To older kids coming in with crowns on their heads like the wise men. And I'm not faulting those things in particular, but I'm simply pointing to this as a means whereby those efforts to set forth the truth in fact become that which obscures the truth, which hides it from those who most need it. We look at the patterns in the scripture. I'm not sure all of what took place between Noah and Abraham. God has not chosen to reveal all of that to us. We know about the Tower of Babel, we know about the wickedness of men, but God called Noah and revealed his truth to Noah in a wonderful, glorious, and saving manner. But by one means or another, and I suspect possibly by the pattern we've described because we see it elsewhere in scripture, by the time Abraham came on the scene, where was the truth? What had happened? Yes, men had rebelled against it. Yes, men had leaned to their own understanding to erect their own efforts to stay together as one, and God had to scatter them, but it would appear that the truth was well nigh lost. And then it was revealed to Abraham, a special revelation. In fact, that revelation included the fact that justification is by faith alone. We know that from the New Testament. And yet, by the time of Moses, the people unto whom that truth had been revealed, were in such a frame of mind that it didn't take much to bring them not only to grumbling against God's servant, but to putting up a golden calf and dancing around it. And the truth had been lost. And then the truth was revealed again by a gracious God unto Moses. And Moses, setting forth what God had revealed to him, laid the foundation for all understanding of God in the first five books of the Bible. And there followed Moses a sequence of prophets through whom God continued to reveal truth to the people of Israel. And they, unlike any other nation of all humanity and all of history, had the truth of God revealed directly to them. And some of them endeavored to implement that truth and to set forth these matters that had been revealed to their forefathers. But by the time the Lord Jesus Christ came to earth, even the means to practice and set forth that truth had become that which obscured the truth. So that a ruler of the Jews, a teacher among the people of Israel, Nicodemus, who came to Jesus, is utterly ignorant of the truth because he is devoted to a system, to an institution, to an organizational handling of the truth that is devoid of any true understanding in heart and spirit. And the very people, the people of Israel, who were the vessel by whom God would bear forth the truth and the living truth, Messiah unto mankind, was standing in the way as the obscurant, as the obstacle to knowing the truth. And as Jesus talks to Nicodemus about being born again, he had no idea what Jesus was talking about. And Jesus says, Nicodemus, art thou a ruler in Israel, and knowest not these things? And when Jesus said that to Nicodemus, one of the things it shows us is that according to the authority of God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, Nicodemus should have known what the new birth is about. we might be tempted to think that the matter of being born again is something revealed to us in John chapter three. But the fact of the matter is, it was revealed to the people of Israel long before that. The people of Israel had the truth revealed to them concerning a new life they were to have. And indeed, the Old Testament prophets knew about these things. Created me a clean heart, O Lord. Restore a right spirit within me was the prayer of David. They recognized that it took a work of God to create a clean heart and to transform and to impart life unto their souls. And Nicodemus should have known this. Jesus says so. Are you a ruler in Israel and you don't know these things? Because in fact, The means that had been developed among the religious elites of Israel to preserve the truth and to set forth the truth had become so significant to them that their significance outweighed the truth in the thoughts and actions of the religious leaders, the religious class. And they were truth's greatest obstacles who should have been its greatest revealers and proclaimers. And this is a pattern that we need to be aware of. Because if holy men of old were susceptible to such errors and so prone to go astray and obscure the truth, we are as susceptible as well, maybe more so. And therefore need to be very conscious of this dangerous pattern among religionists. And so we look to the history of the church. On the day of Pentecost, once again, God mercifully and graciously revealed to people who deserved nothing but hell, the spirit of God, the power of God. And on that day in Jerusalem, as the Spirit of God descended and cloven tongues of fire anointed the heads of the apostles, and they began to preach the gospel in languages they had never heard before, God was revealing himself mightily. And within the years that followed in the apostolic age, Through the Apostle Paul and Peter and James and John and other writers, the word of God was given to those men and handed to his people to be upheld, proclaimed, loved, preached, submitted to, and in fact, in it was the power of God to salvation to everyone who believed. But it wasn't that long. Before there was developed around the truth that had been given the saving gospel a certain religious culture, a culture that included developing a hierarchy of how this whole matter of handling the truth is to be handled and how this truth is to be dispensed. And then, when Christianity, the infant church, illegal in the Roman Empire, became legal, and Constantine made it his own, he couldn't beat them, so he would join them, corruptions further came into those whose purpose was, or should have been, to proclaim and preserve that truth, and instead you have the development of the ancient church With heresies coming in, with personalities rising to prominence, a political structure becomes developed until you come to the time of the Reformation. and it is the church which is forbidding the scriptures to be in the hands of the layman. Talk about obscuring the truth with the institution, the organization, the means, the culture, and that pattern is simply a repeat of what we observe from Abraham and Moses to the days of Christ, which is why I say that it's a pattern that is repeated before our eyes for our warning, that we might be aware that there is this potential in us, and in fact, not simply a potential, but a propensity unto the obscuring of the word of God by our own religious goings on. It should sober us. It should bring us to our knees in supplication that God might give us light and protect us from doing that which is all so human. and the prayer that we might be preserved from such. So how might Faith Free Presbyterian Church, the congregation in Greenville, South Carolina, guard against this pattern, which I think is demonstrated to be something to which every congregation, every person is susceptible? I won't tell you anything new this evening. What I will say to you is that which doubtless you already know. But our problem so often is not so much one of ignorance, but of simply failing to heed what we already know. And there is the need for reminders continually regarding the things which are the most basic, most elementary, Things about which we are so prone to think, yeah, I know that, let's go to the next point, without ever really considering and searching on matters so vital. So I respond this evening to the question, how might this pattern be avoided by me personally, by you, by the church at large. And I'll mention just a few things, as I've said, that you already know. Number one, as John Wesley preached and we noted this morning, ye must be born again. I told you it would be things you already know. The simple truth which is so obvious as to be utterly unknown to so many religionists. You must be born again. This is not a matter of engaging yourself religiously in some religious organization or body. This is not a matter of resolving that you will be a different person and dedicating yourself slavishly to some kind of monastic asceticism. This is something that is outside of you that must be wrought within you by one outside of you. This is the new birth. I look around on this congregation and it is so refreshing and blessed to see so many young people. families, their children. I was once a child in a congregation hearing preaching every week. The setting that I grew up in involved what would be referred to perhaps as revivalism in some of our reformed circles. An evangelist would be brought in and he could preach as a great pulpiteer. And in the proclamation of the gospel, he could work up something of an emotional frenzy among people. And at the end, with the right psychological manipulation, could get people to respond to an altar call by which they would walk forward and kneel at the altar and perhaps be led to say a sinner's prayer. And I did so. Again and again and again. And knowing what truth I had heard, I would do it yet again when in bed at night I was thinking of all of the mischief I had gotten into that day and afraid it might be discovered and I would wake up to punishment tomorrow. Lord, if it didn't work that time, save me now. And I had some form of religion, but at the same time, was simply a wicked, ungodly rebel in heart, a rebellion that was manifest in multiple ways. You might not observe it when I'm sitting in church. I was there for every service like many of you are. But the fact is this, for all of my religion and professions and walking the aisle and repeating a prayer, I was lost. I was dead in trespasses and sin, and in fact, had fooled myself into thinking, sure, I'm saved. As I got into the 11th and 12th grades in high school, I became very, very, very, very, very interested in a young lady in my class who happens to be with us this evening. I'm so happy my wife can be here. And so I calmed down and settled down a bit because I knew I couldn't be too rambunctious and rebellious and still keep her respect. Knew in my heart that one day I was to preach the word of God. and would tell anybody, yes, I'm saved. But as I went into college over here at the university, a Bible major, a ministerial student, I began to suffer doubts. And they were not doubts about my salvation. They were doubts of a far different order. I was thinking like this. You mean there are six billion people on this planet, and there is a God who knows the number of hairs on the head of every one of them? It's too fairytale-ish. That's just more magical than I can grasp. And it wasn't that I was saying I don't believe, but it was the fact that I didn't believe. And the more I tried to work on that, there was some hypocrisy attached. Here I am, a ministerial student, when I get home for the summer, I'm probably expected to preach because I'm a preacher boy from Bob Jones University. And I'm not sure even that God exists. And I had become what I'll call an unprofessed atheist. And it is entirely possible. that there are young people here today born by God's grace into a Christian family where the scriptures are read and revered, where prayer is had, faithfully brought to church Sunday morning and Sunday night, here to hear the word of God, and yet there has never been a work of God in your heart. Maybe you have said a sinner's prayer and made a profession But the question is, have you ever come to know Christ? Have you received from him the life which comes only from him? I was born once the child of my father and mother. But in that state, I would never believe the gospel. What had to happen was this. I had to be born a second time. Born again. The first time I was born, I received the genetic input from both of my parents, which made me physically what I am today. But I was born that time of corruptible seed. My father and mother are both in their graves. And it's not that much longer before I will be in mine, because I was born of corruptible seed. I needed to be born of incorruptible seed, of seed that could not corrupt, of seed that begat A life that never ends. And that is what being born again is. Receiving from God a new life. Born again. And how I recall in my misery as I began to pray, oh God, if you are in existence, reveal yourself to me. And for months, Praying in that frame, there was nothing that I could grasp as faith. I couldn't make the unbelief go away. And I finally secretly snuck off to a faculty member in whom I had a great confidence and quietly explained to him my dilemma. And he responded to my thinking that everything was too fantastic to be true, a God who knew everything. He responded simply by quoting from Isaiah 55. My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, saith the Lord. As the heavens are high above the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts, my ways above your ways. And hearing that, the unbelief was gone. It was no effort of mine to pry it out. It was rather a fulfillment of the scripture that says, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And it was by the word of God, not by the arm twisting of some religionist that I came to believe. And the unbelief vanished because God gave me a faith that is its opposite. and I was born again. then and there. I didn't understand the theology behind it, didn't have to. A person does not have to understand all about obstetrics to know that he was born, nor does one have to understand all the theological details to know that he's born again. He simply has to be a partaker of the life that God gives, and that is a life that he gives through his word of God, his scripture, for the word of God is living and powerful. And that day, God saved me. Have you been saved? Adults, aged believers, professors, I should say, young children, do you know that you've been born again? That is the first guard that I want to set before you against becoming an obscurant to the scripture, against hiding the truth when in fact we should, a guard against this tendency. Until you're born again, you will never be able to properly handle the scripture and set forth its truth as it ought to be set forth. and may well indeed obscure the truth, ye must be born again. A second guard that I would mention is this. Love the Lord Jesus Christ. Love the Savior who has saved you. In this age, there can be a lot of talk about love for Christ. I remember so often the gospel song that was often sung, especially at the end of certain evangelistic services or services proclaiming the need to be consecrated to Christ. A song you've probably sung yourself at one time or another, my Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine. For thee, all the follies of sin, I resign. And I have to say I've never met a person who can say that without lying. Do I love the Lord Jesus Christ? For thee, all the follies of sin, I resign. Maybe you can say that, but I certainly cannot. And there has been talk about love for Christ which substitutes hyperactivity for love. And we imagine that because we are busy in the work of God, we are therefore manifesting a love for God, a love for Christ. And the busyness itself begins to not only be an obstacle for others to see Christ, But it begins to fool us as well, because there is something in every one of us that thinks, if I'm really working for God, I'm probably okay. Do I love the Lord Jesus Christ? I think it's significant that we read there in John 21, that as the Lord was recommissioning his disciples, he asked Peter three times, lovest thou me? Christ has an interest in knowing our love for him, but beyond that, he knows that a love for him is utterly necessary if we are to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, if we are truly to be bearers of his truth rather than barriers of his truth. Do I love the Lord Jesus Christ? That's a question that you would do well to ask yourself every day, multiple times. Do I truly love Christ? Jesus asked Peter three times. So evidently it is a question that he would have penetrate his people's understanding and thinking. Where is my love for Christ? You recall that incident that is recorded in the seventh chapter of Luke, where Jesus was in the home of a Pharisee named Simon. And a wicked woman from off of the streets came into that home and began to anoint our Lord's feet, to weep over them and wipe them with her hair. And the Pharisee, self-righteous, self-vindicated, self-commandating, seeing it thought within his own heart, if he knew what kind of a woman she is, he wouldn't allow her to do this. And our Lord spoke. revealing to this man that he knew not only who this woman was, but he also knew the secret thoughts and intents of his foul heart. And he gave him a parable. Simon, there were two debtors. One owed a great, great debt, which he could never repay. The other owed not so much. The creditor forgave them both their debt. Which one of those debtors will love him most? The answer is obvious. The one who was forgiven most. And the lesson doubtless began to become clear as Jesus spoke and said, I entered your house, Simon. You didn't wash my feet. You didn't anoint my head. But this woman has anointed me with oil and with her hair dried my feet. This woman has exhibited that she's forgiven a great debt. And you have not exhibited even a consciousness of indebtedness. She has exhibited a great love because she is the recipient of a great forgiveness. And you, Simon, have exhibited nothing. And I tell you that to make this point. Your love for Christ will be measured in proportion to your consciousness of your sinfulness. The greater you perceive your debt of sin to be, the more you will be compelled to love the one who bore your sin in his body on the cross. Love for Christ is not something that you resolve to do and then crank up the energy to put it forth. Love for Christ is something that is inescapable to the one who realizes how much he's been forgiven. And that is where the people of God need to recognize that not for the atoning blood of Christ, they would be lost and condemned and need never lose a sense of that and recognize, I the chief of sinners am, but Jesus died for me. And when we recognize something of the magnitude of our sinfulness and recognize then that of which we've been forgiven, It can only result in loving the one who has forgiven us. And in the continual prayer, such as the songwriter has given, more love, O Christ, to thee, more love to thee. I cannot love thee equal to your goodness and grace and mercy and forgiveness to me. Have you been born again? Do you love Christ? You see, one who has truly been born again and who loves Christ with all of his heart and soul and mind and strength is not going to be given to seeking to climb some political ladder in a religious organization. He's not going to be endeavoring by some flamboyant means to be seen of men. He will recognize increasingly one as sinful as he is forgiven needs to be hidden and indeed hidden in Christ and manifesting such a Savior as we have. A third guard against this dangerous pattern to which we are so prone is a love for truth, a love for the truth of God's Word. We're remembering the Protestant Reformation and we look at this time of the year to Martin Luther. who was caught up in the tradition of the machine, the institution of religion, the medieval church, which had buried and obscured truth. Which would Luther love most? the institution which presumably had been established through the ages to promulgate the truth or the truth which that institution was burying and obscuring. And you recall how Luther stood there and was asked, will he renounce what he has written? And he asked for a day to consider the matter, for it was a weighty thing. And he came back to say that unless he's convinced by the word of God, he will not recant. And in that statement, Luther was saying, I love truth more than I love life. I love the truth of God's word, and it is for that that I live. And if I do not live for that, best that I not live at all. Oh, may that be the heartthrob of this sinner who preaches to you this evening. A love for the truth of God's word. The psalmist wrote, Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in God's law doth he meditate day and night. One whose delight is in the law of the Lord, will have the law of the Lord in his heart and in his mind. It will course through his being, meditating thereon day and night. And when he does so, the promise is certain. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. When he loves the truth of God's word, he will prosper in the truth of God's word. He will prosper in its proclamation and in its application. When he loves the truth of God's Word, that love for the Word of God will want to promote the truth of God's Word, not to obscure it, not to bury or hide it. And that pattern of history shown in Scripture and since Pentecost will have yet another check against it, guarding God's people. from simply making religion the very opposite of what Christianity truly is. And then a fourth guard against this danger. Psalmist David had sinned mightily against God But in his psalm of confession, he prays, a broken and a contrite heart, O Lord, thou wilt not despise. This certainly fits in with the love of truth as well. A heart that is recognizing my own innate corruption and prejudice against God and is broken. by my own transgression, broken because I've transgressed the law of God which I love, broken because I've transgressed the law of a God whom I love. And so, that was the psalmist's prayer. And I recall David's predecessor, King Saul, who had been commanded by God to annihilate the wicked Amalekites, who had been the unjust enemies of God's people for generations. Saul received that truth from God, but he clearly didn't love that truth. For he didn't annihilate the Amalekites, their cattle, their sheep. He kept the best for his own self-interest. And when Samuel the prophet was sent by God to confront Saul with this transgression, the beginning of the rebuke was, when thou wast little in thine own eyes, In other words, there was a time when Saul recognized that he was not the great man he had come to think himself to be. A time when humility and brokenness had characterized him, and when he was in that frame of mind, he was in a position to do the will of God. But now, He seemed to have a pretty good impression of himself. He thought that he had a pretty respectable standing and such who are possessed of that delusion will not value the truth of God's word and will ever be in the position to hide and obscure it whether intentional or not. a broken and a contrite spirit. And in connection with that, I think of what the Spirit of God instructs us to there in the second chapter of Philippians. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind Let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own thing, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, or something to grasp after, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." There is no argument about it. Divine truth shown forth perfectly and utterly unobscured in the Lord Jesus Christ. At no time and in no way did he do anything that would distract from the truth. He was the living truth. And this was his character. Made in the form of God, he was not grasping after glory for himself. He made himself of no reputation. He took upon him the form of a servant, made in the likeness of man, subjected to the sinless effects of the curse of sin, brought to fatigue, to thirst, suffering, insult, and spittle, and eventually crucifixion. and such self-abnegation was the means by which the truth was set forth in its greatest radiance, its greatest glory, its unrivaled beauty. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. And so I leave you with these things. recognizing that pattern of hiding the truth that clings to humanity, evident both in scripture and in history. Let us be sure of this. I have been born of the Spirit of God. I partake of the life of God by his grace, and if you do not know that, Make the knowledge of that your most consuming desire and purpose. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near. Know that God will hear the cry of the broken and contrite spirit that he will not despise. love the Lord Jesus Christ, and love the truth, and in brokenness stand before him with the cry, O Lord, let me only manifest thy truth and never be an obstacle to it. God grant to us that each of us might be like a city set upon the hill, radiant for truth, Never a stumbling block to another, but only a living manifestation of the very life of God, which lives in his people and lives in his word. Let us bow together as we pray. O Lord, our God and our Father in heaven, we give thanks that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. We thank you that there is salvation in thy eternal Son. We thank you for the Spirit of God who brings the life of God via scripture into our being and begets us again. Grant to us, O Lord, that we might know a love for Christ which we have yet to have manifested. A love for truth that binds us continually and joyfully to that truth, living the very truth of God. A broken and a contrite spirit that does not boast in self or things, but recognizes that the only purpose for our existence is the advancement of the truth of God's word and the glory of our great Savior. and grant that each of us might live unto this. Will you save sinners among us, give them life eternal, and make each of your people radiant manifestations of that light. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. So, So,