our heads briefly as we go to the Lord in prayer, praying for the needs of his kingdom and our own needs in this life. Let's pray together. Will you pray with me? Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day, a day that we are reminded of your great work, that you are a God of reformation. You reform us, and you draw us into your kingdom, back to the source of scripture itself, and transform our very lives. We thank you, O Lord, for the work of the Spirit in our own lives, and we come then as children, praying for the needs of your kingdom and the kingdom here on earth. We think of our own kingdom. We think of our own country and the Supreme Court, which represents perhaps justice in our land. We pray, O Lord, for that court. We pray for Chief Justice Roberts, and we pray that you give him wisdom and discernment to perhaps understand our own laws well. But we also pray, O Lord, for justice even greater than our own laws. We pray that the court rules in such a manner that justice will be seen in this land, and that you would be honored by, O Lord, the justice that we do see. We, O Lord, live in a world of injustice. We see the lack of justice in every sphere around us. We pray, O Lord, that our own courts and our own land would see, perhaps, change. They would see, O Lord, perhaps, renewal. And so we pray, O Lord, for all of those elected officials and those, O Lord, who have been appointed that they would rule in a manner, O Lord, that honors you. We pray also, O Lord, for Rachel Robbie. We pray, O Lord, that as she serves in Japan, that you would continue to bless her educational ministry, that as she teaches little ones common knowledge, that you would give her wisdom and discernment to teaching the truths of scripture to them as well. We pray, O Lord, that Though perhaps the mission field can sometimes be discouraging, we pray, O Lord, that you would encourage her, that you would encourage her in her ministry as a teacher in Japan. Be kind to her, O Lord, and lift up her spirits. We recall, O Lord, last year when she visited and reminded us of her work. We pray, O Lord, that you would continue to do that work. there in Japan. You'd bless it, and that many would come to faith even through it. We pray also, O Lord, for those who are lost. We think of those, O Lord, who are lost in our own country. We are thinking perhaps of an election that is coming up within just a couple days here, less than two weeks. We know that many in our own land put their faith in politics. who do not worship you as the true and living God, but worship our own country and those who have been elected over us, viewing them as our saviors. And oh Lord, we know how false a gospel can be. And how hurtful it can be to put our salvation in the hands of politicians. And so we pray, oh Lord, for those who are lost. Those who have put their faith in something other than you in this country. And we pray, oh Lord, that you would reveal to them the error and the folly of their ways. O Lord, that that lost in our own country would see the gospel, perhaps this Sunday, throughout this week, O Lord, and turn from their sin by the conviction of it, by your Spirit, to you, O Lord. We pray, O Lord, that there be revival. Use your churches, O Lord, to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, who brings the forgiveness of sins through his precious blood. We also pray, O Lord, for our own growth, that as we just prayed for the lost and coming to salvation, we pray, O Lord, that we would be a people that reach out to others, that we wouldn't become complacent in our walk with you, O Lord, but that you'd convict us to be those who represent you as ambassadors of Christ here on this earth. Help us, O Lord, grow in this grace that we would be a people that reach out to family, friends, and those whom we know to share the gospel. At the very least, O Lord, give us the courage to be witnesses of the gospel to those who are dead and dying. And give us the courage to invite our friends and families to church who do not know you, that they might hear the gospel. We do pray, O Lord, for the Walters family. As we prepare for the burial of Miss Nancy tomorrow, we pray, O Lord, for your countenance to shine upon their whole family. We know, O Lord, that they are absent from us as they are up in Chestnut this morning. We pray, O Lord, that you comfort them. that in their tears that you, O Lord, are the one who will wipe them away from them as you remind us that in everlasting life. There are no tears, there are no pains, there are no difficulties for the former things have passed away. We know, Lord, that Miss Nancy experiences this great reality today, but give the Walters family hope that they too will experience this great joy as they place their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Be with us, O Lord, as we worship You and hear from Your Word. Blessed amongst us, it's in Jesus' holy name we pray. Amen. Well, I invite you to turn with me to the Gospel of Luke. We'll be in chapter 17 this morning. Chapter 17, as we do the first 10 verses that are somewhat scattered, we'll see that Jesus takes a break, perhaps, of some of his onslaught against the Pharisees, and gives us some proverbial statements that I think are helpful as we seek to be great in his kingdom. So, turn with me to Luke chapter 17. We'll be picking up in verse 10. Stand with me as we hear from the word of God here. And he said to his disciples, temptation to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one whom through they come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea, then he should cause these little ones to sin. Pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day and turns to you seven times, saying, I repent, "'You must forgive him.' "'The apostle said to the Lord, "'Increase our faith.' "'And the Lord said, "'If you had faith like a grain of a mustard seed, "'you could say to the mulberry tree, "'Be uprooted and planted in the sea, "'and it would obey you. "'Will any of you who has a servant plowing "'or keeping sheep say to him, "'when he has come in from the field, "'come at once and recline at a table? Will he not rather say to him, prepare a supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterwards you will eat and drink? Does he thank the servant because he did what he was commanded? So you also, when you have done what you were commanded, say, we are unworthy servants. We have done what was our duty. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our Lord stands forever. You may be seated. Sometimes when we think of greatness in the kingdom of God, we think greatness in our own context. We think of how we are to be great in this world. But perhaps the Lord wants us to redefine what it means to be great. I recall perhaps as a kid who grew up watching WWE, Dwayne The Rock Johnson, my favorite wrestler growing up. But when I knew him as a kid, he was just The Rock. He had no name other than the one he had in that ring. But in 2001, The Rock, Dwayne The Rock Johnson, decided he would redefine his own career. And you remember that 2001 movie perhaps, The Mummy Returns, where Dwayne The Rock Johnson, in the midst of terrible CGI, became a scorpion monster. I don't necessarily commend this bad movie. But it was a movie he used to redefine his career. He's been in much better movies since, but he's no longer perhaps known as The Rock to many of us. Especially those who were born in the 2000s and late 2000s. You just know him as that actor. But he wasn't always an actor. He was once a wrestler. Perhaps Jesus wants us now to take a breather from all the things that he has been teaching against the Pharisees. To teach us some proverbs of what it means to be great. And in teaching us these proverbs, we learn that we might need to redefine what it means to be great in his kingdom. We learn Proverbs then about temptation, about repentance, about faith, and about service. And what they reveal to us is that a great faith is a lowly faith. It is a repentant faith. It is a faith that flees from temptation and a faith that serves with meager assets. Jesus will use these proverbs today to redefine what it means to be great in his kingdom. Each of us have our own perception of what it means to be great. Deep down, we define greatness in various ways. Perhaps it's our wealth. If I secure a great amount of resources, I will be great. Perhaps it's position, the power that we take. Perhaps it's fame and celebrity. Maybe there are all sorts of things that you view as what would make you great in this world. Perhaps some of them are wrong. Perhaps what you think is what makes a great Christian is actually misguided. And so today Jesus is going to correct us. Since God desires for you to have a great faith, you must redefine greatness according to his kingdom. Since God desires you to have a great faith, you must redefine it according to his kingdom. We're going to look at four characteristics in this passage that show us what a great faith is. The first is that a great faith is an alert faith. It's an alert faith. We see this in the first few verses. Look at verse 1 with me. And he said to his disciples, temptation to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come. Jesus isn't rose-colored about sin and temptation in this world. Jesus begins his Proverbs by reminding you that temptations will come. They will come. Even in the believer's life, people will be tempted. Christians will be tempted. And as we see here, even Christians will tempt other Christians. Temptations are something that we experience in a fallen world. They are inevitable. They are an inevitable part of our experience. And sometimes those temptations, they arise from within, within the confines of the church. We're reminded of Paul to the Ephesians, the church of Ephesus, when he says this, I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among our own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away disciples from them. Sometimes, perhaps, in the Christian church, when we are thinking of temptation, we are thinking outside the church. We're thinking in society, and surely there are things that will snare us and draw us out. But Jesus also warns that there are sometimes temptations from within, sins from within that push people out. When we're thinking of stumbling blocks here or temptations here, we're thinking of stumbling blocks. That word for temptation can mean many things. It can mean that we're lured, we're snared, we're trapped, we're carted away. But it could also mean stumbling blocks. And while we think of temptation in both ways, Jesus is certainly thinking of the latter. It's not too often in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ that you're enticed to sin. I hope you don't hear your pastor enticing you to sin every Sunday. Drawing you, snaring you, forcing you to sin. But we can be stumbling blocks to one another. We can be stumbling blocks that cause others to sin. You know stumbling blocks. I know lots of stumbling blocks in my own home. When you have three little boys, they procure these stumbling blocks called Legos. And it just takes one of those little Legos to cripple you. to cripple you. Have you ever stepped on a Lego in your home and felt the pain? The pain, the agonizing pain? It cripples a man. It brings a tear to a grown man's eye, and it's just a little stumbling block. And my kids, when I trip over these little Legos, they say, it's just a little Lego. It's not that big of a deal. Jesus is talking about those type of stumbling blocks. My sons don't entice me, at least most ordinarily, to step on those Legos. They're just left about. And as they're left about, I stumble on them and they cripple me. That is the sort of temptation that we experience in the church. Those are the temptations that are sure to come within the church, the stumbling blocks. In what ways do we stumble one another? Well, we stumble one another with how we talk about one another. We stumble when we, in our own pride, cut down one another needlessly. There are all sorts of stumbling blocks by the way we live, by the way we talk. We can cause others to stumble among us. Before we apply that further though, I want you to see the warning. What is the warning for those who cause others to stumble? We see that in verse 1, that there are temptations to come, but woe to the one whom through they come. Woe to the one who will cause others to stumble. This is what Jesus says in his dire warning. A millstone is a big, large stone that was strapped to a donkey that would rotate around a cylinder and crush all sorts of grains. A heavy stone that was hundreds of pounds. Jesus is saying to these people who have seen millstones, the heavy nature of them, he's saying it'd be better if we cast you into the sea if you cause one of these little ones to stumble, to sin. Millstone, think of just the tragic nature of such a death, a horrible nature. of those who'd be cast into the sea with a stone around their neck. Jesus is saying it's better for a disciple, better for a leader, better for a pastor to die a terrible death than to cause others to sin. To teach an errant doctrine. Better to die than to have our lifestyle that trips others up. Better to die than to have our attitudes drive others away from the Lord Jesus Christ. It reminds me of those mob movies where they would encase their victims' feet in a concrete block and then throw them into the river. Jesus is no mob boss, but he is protective of his little ones. Who are his little ones? Well, we have seen a litany of them throughout the Gospel of Luke. Lazarus that we saw last week, the one who is starving on the side of the road. Think of the tax collectors and the sinners. Think of the poor, the crippled, those who have special needs, those with dropsy, those who perhaps are insignificant in the eyes of the world. The small ones. that are as small as infants. They may be insignificant to you, but they're not insignificant to God. And Jesus is saying, if you cause the least of these amongst you to stumble into sin, it is better for you to die a horrible death than to do that. Such a stark warning. And with that warning, He gives us a command. Don't be like that. Instead, verse 3, pay attention to yourselves. Why do you pay attention to yourselves? So that you yourself, so you don't sin, but also that you don't cause others to sin. because of you. Pay attention to yourself. The literal translation is guard yourselves. Guard yourselves. Gird your loins. Be prepared. Always standing guard. Watching over your own actions. Watching over your own statements. so that you might not unwisely cause one to sin. Sometimes Christians can cripple each other. They can cripple each other. When I went to seminary, I went to seminary with a bunch of pastors, a bunch of pastor kids. They all had been through the gambit. They saw their father's ministry before them. And they often came with baggage. Why did they come with baggage? Because of the stories, the crippling stories of their own terrible situations on how their father was treated. But we don't even need to go that far. You obviously perhaps aren't pastor's kids. Think of your own kids. We can be a stumbling block for our own kids. How do you talk about the church around your children? How do you talk about the leaders? How do you talk about the elders? How do you talk about the pastors? Are you grumbling gossips? Is your self-proclaimed spiritual gift criticism? and rebuke. How do you talk about the church? Well, I need to warn you. How you talk about the church, whether your kids are in the other room and they just merely overhear you, that impacts them and can cause them to stumble. Husbands, how do you talk about your wives around other guys? Wives, how do you talk about your husband around other women? All of these can be stumbling blocks, causing others to stumble. And that's why Jesus wants us to be alert, to be on guard, to watch over our actions. To be a great Christian is to be a watchful Christian. To be one that looks out, not only for ourselves, but also for others. Building on this then, when we're thinking about greatness in the kingdom, obviously we are to be alert, we are to be watchful, but we are also, as the text goes on, we are to be forgiving. That is the second characteristic. If you want to be a great Christian, if you want to be great in the eyes of God, first you must be alert for your own sins and the sins of others. But then you must also be forgiving. Look at verse 3 as it goes on. If your brother sins, Rebuke him. This verse is perhaps layered with difficulty because we don't like rebuking people. When's the last time you rebuked someone? It is much easier just to go home angry, to burn up on the inside, to never address an issue. It is way easier to gossip behind that person's back. But Jesus says, no, for brother sins you are called to rebuke him. I want to correct what you're thinking about rebuke, though. Perhaps when you think about your rebuke, you're thinking of aggression, hostility, censoriousness. Perhaps when we think about rebuke, we are thinking of the bad examples of rebuke. The person who finds their spiritual gift and contentment in rebuking others. Well, no. What is rebuke? Rebuke, in Jesus' mind here, is to be serious and frank but gentle. Jesus always talks about a gentle rebuke. And so, if a brother sins against you, you are to rebuke them. You are to be serious and frank. Westerners have no problem with that. They're serious and frank. I remember when I was candidating and I was having dinner with all of the officers' families and we were sitting around a table and they were all very frank with one another. It was jarring. Jarring for me because I had spent so much time in the South, I was just so used to the pleasantries. But not with this group. Frank and serious. But we must also be gentle. Perhaps that's the antidote for the Midwestern frankness, the Midwestern seriousness. It's also gentleness. Southerners are good at being gentle. Then they just don't like you when you're not around. I know some of you might not like me to my face. You must also be gentle. You must also be gentle. When you are rebuking someone for their sins, you must be gentle in it. But there's also a responsibility, do you see it? If he repents, you forgive him. Look at the depth of what Jesus wants you to see, the depth of forgiveness in verse four. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and turns to you seven times saying, I repent, you must forgive him. Must, shall, you shall forgive him. I don't know about you, but this seems to be a difficult command. A difficult command, seven times in a day. I don't know. Have you ever had a situation where you're dealing with someone and I guess they keep making mistakes over and over and over again? Typically, if they make multiple mistakes in a week, your patience runs out too quickly. You want nothing to deal with them. Yet, Jesus is saying, if someone sins against you seven days and seeks forgiveness, you are called by God to forgive him. You see the flow of this. If you confront and he repents, you are to forgive. That is the ordinary framework for how Christians are to relate to one another. You see, it's talking about brotherhood here. This isn't talking about unbelievers outside of the church. You are to be forgiving. You are to be a forgiving people within the community of people. The natural formula is sin, Confront, repent, forgive, wash, and repeat. Perhaps we can think through the application here is we need to give better opportunity for people to repent. How often do we just allow people's grievances against us to well up without ever confronting them until they become so large that is an insurmountable rebuke that they receive. We are called to be a people of repentance, and in that repentance we are to forgive others. It is just so easy to throw daggers behind people's backs, to stab them, and to slowly kill them with our gossip. But Jesus has a better way. Don't be a poor person in the kingdom by your gossip and your words against one another. Follow the path of forgiveness here. The third characteristic, though, we see that we are to be alert, we are to be forgiving, we're also to be genuine. A great faith is a genuine faith. And we see this in Jesus' illustration after the disciples ask him a question. Look at verse five. The apostles said to the Lord, increase our faith. You might wonder why are the apostles asking Jesus to increase their faith? Well, it's because of the first two points we already heard. Isn't it kind of hard? It's kind of hard to stay constantly alert over our own sins as well as the sins of another. It is pretty hard to follow this process of forgiveness. It is difficult to forgive people so regularly. And so the disciples, when they hear this teaching from Jesus, they say, give us faith. Increase our faith. We do not have enough faith, Jesus, to do what you want us to do in this passage. Perhaps that's what you're thinking, even as you think of these two first points. of being a people that are always alert and always forgiving. Too much for me. All you can say is what the disciples say here, increase our faith because the faith we have is insufficient. We don't have enough. We need more. Jesus, if you demand more from us like this, we need more faith. Increase our faith. And how does Jesus respond? He says that's a bad request. If you had the faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to that mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted in the sea and it would obey you. We've talked about mustard seeds before and their insignificance. Jesus is presupposing that his disciples have faith here. He is not saying, oh, you faithless disciples. He understands that they have faith, and he wants them to know the power of their faith, the faith that they already possess. Of course, we wanna grow in Christlikeness and grow in sanctification, but what Jesus is saying is that the faith that you have in me today is sufficient to do all these things. You do not need more faith, you have faith. Your faith, even the smallest faith among you, though it be like a mustard seed, could move and uproot a mulberry tree and cast it into the sea. I've already talked about mustard seeds in the past, and if you just spilled them all over my rug, you'd lose them all. There'd be no hope of gathering them up, sweeping them up. You just vacuum them up and buy more. They're so small, so insignificant. And yet, Jesus says that they can uproot mulberry trees. Mulberry tree has strong roots. It has strong roots that would not be easily dealt with. They were hardy trees. Even non-hardy trees are sometimes difficult to remove from the ground. This is a strong tree. A small faith can throw a strong tree into the water. I've been uprooting stumps. This is maybe my second stump illustration, so you just bear with me. I've been uprooting stumps. And one of you told me the only proper way to deal with a stump is to drill holes in it and throw gasoline on it and set it on fire. That's the only way that the Lord deals with stumps. And after dealing with stumps with axes and hatchets and shovels and chainsaws, I tend to agree. The only way to deal with stumps is to douse it in gasoline and set it on fire. Or to hire someone, but that's too much money. Much cheaper to go to the gas station. Environmental concerns, whatever. This is a dangerous need. Get rid of these stumps. Think of how difficult. And this is not even a good tree that I'm removing this stump from. It is one that fell over because its roots were bad. And yet I still can't remove it by ordinary means. And yet Jesus says, that little faith, that little faith can uproot a tree and cast it into the ocean. Not literally. Don't be such supernaturalists and think that now you can go out and throw cars into the ocean. No, no, no. Jesus is trying to show you the power of faith, the general work of faith. Your little faith is great enough that you have the power to forgive people. Your little faith is great enough that you can be alert for your own sins and for the sins of another. The faith is sufficient. Even a little faith, because it is a genuine faith. When you think about the power of faith, what is it in our faith that gives us the power to do great things? Well, what we learn in this passage is that it is not the quality or quantity of our faith that makes us great, but it's the object of our faith. And who is the object of our faith? It is Jesus Christ himself. It is God. Why is your faith great? It is not because of anything in you, but in God Himself that makes your faith great. You just need to be genuine. You need to have a genuine faith in Him. If you have a genuine faith in Him, you will have a great faith. Even if it is as small as a mustard seed, because the object of your faith is God Himself. That is the antidote. If you want to know how to redefine the faith and how to become a great Christian, you must sense a genuine faith. It is not all the things you can do by your own might, by your own power. It is the object of faith that makes you great. Jesus himself is the one that makes you great. There's no other parameter, no other way to view the faith and the greatness of it. The last thing I want you to see, and perhaps the most perplexing, is that a great faith is a humble faith. You need to redefine what makes you great in the kingdom. The last thing you need to know is that to be made high you must be made low. And we get this last illustration, this last perhaps parable. Verse seven, while any of you who is a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him who has come in from the field, come at once and recline at my table. Will you not rather say to him, prepare supper for me and dress properly and serve me while I eat and drink and afterwards then you will eat and drink. What Jesus is saying here is you must know your role in the kingdom of God. Perhaps it's difficult to understand what Jesus is teaching here because we don't have master and slave relations. And so it's kind of hard to pick up. What is Jesus truly teaching here? Why can't the man eat before he does other things? Well, most people who had slaves in the ancient world didn't have a lot. This wasn't the chattel slavery of the Americas where you had hundreds of slaves. If you had a slave, you had a slave. Not many slaves. And that one slave had many little hats. He did both the plowing of the field and the cooking of the meal. That was his expectation. That was his role. That was his duty. He had obligations that he must complete. as a slave. And so, when we think of the first verse, when he comes in, would he recline at the table? No, because he has work to do. He has work to do. And even more than that, the relationship between master and slave wasn't friendship. It was more of like an employer and an employee. And so maybe when you're thinking of these verses here, this illustration, it's better to think of perhaps our own employments. How do we relate to our own bosses? We're called to do our jobs. And that's what Jesus is saying here. You must do your jobs. In 2012, when I worked at Buffalo Wild Wings, I was one of the few people that worked Monday through Friday from 9 to 5. It was amazing. 9 to 5 job at Buffalo Wild Wings. No one could have it. No one's had it since. I can guarantee you that. It was utterly unique. But it was because I was good at certain things. As you'd expect, I was really good at portioning food to the exact gram of weight it needed to be. A value in saving money. And so I would always be tasked, Monday through Friday, nine to five, I would just portion food all day. You never perhaps think of how crazy the job is until you're breaking onion rings in half to make sure that you don't over portion them. Oh my golly. the work, the labor, the mundaneness. On the side, I would also cook all the food. So you're portioning food while cooking all the food for the lunch and then you unloaded the truck. That was my job. That was my full job. Every day I would wake up, I'd go to the kitchen and I would portion onion rings and I would cook your wings and unload the truck when necessary. I did my job. I thought I did it well. Did my managers ever thank me for doing my job? And I thought I was the best onion ring portion wearer ever. Instead, you know what they did? They would walk by me and they would grab a random bag of broken onion rings, and they would throw it on the scale, and they would say, hmm, five grams off, Scott. always ready to correct. Because I had a job. My job was to ensure that I portioned things correctly. Perhaps even more. It would be like, perhaps, in my current job. If the session came in on Sunday this morning, right before we prayed, and they said, Pastor Scott, we're just so happy you're at worship today. It's expected. It's expected. And those who are servants of God, they are expected to do their jobs. They aren't serving because they will get a good job. How are you doing? And you're doing great. No, we serve because the Lord calls us to serve. We all have jobs within in the kingdom and they are lowly jobs. They are portioned onion rings or french fries. They're small. Minuscule, often with few realms for thanks. They are lowly jobs. Last characteristic of a great Christian is one who serves as a lowly servant. One who isn't looking for thanks. Who isn't expecting that, well, I will only stay at Providence if the session gives me the right accolades, commendations, and titles. We are called to be stewards. We are called to be stewards, doing what is expected of us, and that's where Jesus ends the passage. We are to say we are unworthy servants. Because we only do what was our duty. It's so easy to do our duty. But as we think in this last characteristic, how I want you to apply it is to think about how you serve. Do you serve the Lord Jesus Christ? Or are you a Christian who just comes on Sunday mornings for one hour, checks off your box and goes home? How are you serving the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you expecting something from that service from us? What is the motivation of your heart? Remember that this passage ends the passage on the motivations of our hearts. In order to be great in His kingdom, you must be humble. You must be lowly. That is how we redefine greatness in God's kingdom. Do you want to be great? Do you want to obtain a great faith? Well, you must redefine greatness. You must be a person that is alert, forgiving, genuine, and humble. But the good news for you, even in the difficulty of that, is that the Lord offers you grace. I don't know about you, but you might fail at any one of these or all of these, even this morning. You feel like a crummy steward. You feel like a fake Christian. You feel like you haven't forgiven those whom you've bottled up bitterness in your heart. You're letting sin run rampant, not only in your own lives, but in the lives of your family as well. You might feel low. But the good news of the gospel here is that it is by His grace that you are able to obtain these things. Remember the object of faith. You are not what make you great. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who came in the form of humanity and died a sinner's death that you might be great today. And so place your faith in Him, even when you're discouraged, even when you feel like a lowly servant, even when you feel like a disciple that says, increase my faith, O Lord. Remember that he has given you a faith that is mighty, a faith that can uproot a mulberry tree and cast it in to the ocean. Perhaps today, what is encouraging is that we have a table prepared for us. And at this table, those who are discouraged might find encouragement for your souls. If you want to be great today, come to the table as the Lord prepares it for us. Let us close in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we thank You, O Lord, that You provide us a great faith. A great faith that is not something that we own in our own right, but a faith that You have given to us freely by Your Spirit. Help us, O Lord, to be great in Your Kingdom by Your means, not our own. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.