Good morning, everybody. Please turn with me in your Bibles to Mark chapter 12, verses 20-34. And again, as we turn there this morning, we're not just eavesdropping on a conversation that Jesus had with a scribe. This is actually Jesus speaking to all of us directly. And so when He's commanding this commandment, towards the scribe and towards everybody's listening. He's commanding it towards us. So we need to pay attention to what Jesus, our Lord, is saying. So, Mark chapter 12, verses 28 through 34. And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another. And seeing that he answered them well, asked him, which commandment is the most important of all? Jesus answered, The most important is here, O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is. No other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said to him, you are right, teacher. You have truly said that he is one and there is no other besides him. And to love him with all the hearts and with all the understanding and with all the strength and to love one's neighbor as oneself is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, you are not far from the kingdom of God. And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions. Let's pray. Lord God, this being the greatest commandment in the scriptures, We need Your Holy Spirit to come and powerfully expound these words to us, Lord, because who is sufficient for these things? Who is sufficient to take the very words of Christ and to bring meaning to them other than Your Holy Spirit? And so, Lord, we do not rest on our own wisdom this morning. We do not rest on our own adequacies, Lord, but we rest entirely on You. Lord, we are desperate for You this morning, that You would powerfully connect the words of these texts with Your Holy Spirit and explode our hearts with joy towards You. We pray that You would do that, for You alone are capable. So, please come now with Your presence to bless, Lord. In Jesus' name, Amen. Please be seated. In the year 52 AD, we find the beginnings of an urban church plant in the city of Ephesus. Now, this church was established by the Apostle Paul himself, and it looked like all churches in their Genesis stage. Very small and seemingly obscure to the outside world. Now, through the pages of Scripture, this church, the church in Ephesus, gets a lot of attention. Besides the fact that they had the apostle himself help instruct him, he also sent Timothy to be their pastor. In 1 Timothy 1, we find Paul instructing his young protege to stop others from spreading false doctrine. He says, do not allow men to teach false doctrine. And then he gives them the reason for this in verse 5. He says, the aim of our charge is love. that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. In other words, Timothy, don't let men preach false doctrine because that destroys love. Now, they got this. They understood what Timothy taught them. The church in Ephesus did this well up to a certain point. Now we know this because we see one more glimpse of this church in the book of Revelation. Please turn with me in your Bibles to Revelation 2, verses 1 through 7. So here we see the Lord writing letters, seven letters in fact, to the churches scattered abroad in order to correct each one of them of the issues that they are in need of correction. So the church in Ephesus had a very specific need. Revelation 2 verses 1 through 7. To the angel of the church in Ephesus write the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance and how you cannot bear with those who are evil. but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. Yet this you have. You hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. So please observe just a few things from this text before we move to what Jesus said in Mark 12. First of all, this church was laboring in the work of the Lord and they were enduring it. Verse 2 says, I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance. Secondly, observe that this church would not allow leaven and false doctrine into the church. In fact, they rooted out heresy and apostasy. Verse two says this and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not and found them to be false. In other words, they had their doctrine down and they would not tolerate falsehood. Number three, observe this, that even the Lord acknowledges that they were persevering for the glory of God. Verse three, I know that you are enduring patiently and bearing for my name's sake. Whatever the Scripture uses that phrase, for my name's sake, that's synonymous with the glory of God. So the title for the sermon today is, The Chief End of Man. Of course, if you guys are familiar with the confession, that's the very first question. What is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. So that's what this church in Ephesus was doing, right? I mean, verse 3 says, look at it. They were bearing up for My name's sake. This church was enduring for the glory of God. But what does the next verse say? Verse 4, But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. You have abandoned the love you had at first. So, what does that mean? Well, to this church, there's at least two possible interpretations. One, they abandon their love for Christ, and two, they abandon their love for each other. Now, either option is ultimately an abandonment of the heartfelt love for God. So what is the outcome if they did not repent of this sin? Verse 5, Remember therefore from where you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. So translation, if you will not love me, I will not have you. What this church failed to do is what Jesus commands of us in this morning's text. So the big idea, I really struggled with the big idea for this text because I really believe that this is the big idea of the entire scriptures. I mean, you 2240 in the parallel account says this on these two commands depend all the law and the prophets. So the big idea is just the greatest commandment, which is what we're seeing today. The greatest commandment is the big idea of all the scriptures. So let's examine the text here in verse 28. One of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, Which commandment is the most important of all? Now, what we've seen in chapter 12 so far, in verses 13 and following, is that the Pharisees and the Herodians tested Jesus with the whole thing about Caesar and taxes. And then we saw in verse 18 and following that the Sadducees then tested Jesus about the resurrection. So this test that the scribe had here is a completion of all the religious authorities testing out Jesus in the Gospels. Teacher, which commandment is the most important of all? Now, after Jesus answers this question, ultimately, he puts an exclamation point on it, because both Matthew and Mark affirm this. In Matthew 22, 46, it says this, and no one was able to answer him a word. Nor from that day did anyone dare to ask Him any more questions." So, although Jesus teaches much more than this in the Gospels, from this point on, He silences those who are going to test Him with this greatest commandment here in Mark 12. So, Jesus answers here in verses 29 through 30. The most important is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. So let's just unpack this one verse at a time, starting with verse 29. This is a direct quote from Deuteronomy 6, 4-5. So the scribe is a is an expert in the law. And Jesus dips back into the law to affirm that everything that God has always said is completely true. Hear, O Israel, this is Deuteronomy 6, verse 4, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. That is to say, the Lord is God alone and He will not have any rivals. See, nothing has changed between the days of Moses and the days of Jesus. And nothing has changed since the days of Jesus till now. God's visible people, not talking about his elect, but God's visible people are always seeking after other gods to worship. And that's called idolatry. But sometimes I think that that word idolatry is too far removed from us. We partake in idolatry on a much different level than those pagans did back in the days of many God worship. So I want to use the imagery that scripture uses, which is adultery. Whenever the Old Testament accused the Israelites of idolatry, it was synonymous with adultery. So, either the Lord sees us as His beautiful bride, who He's preparing for the day of the wedding feast, or He calls us prostitutes. So, I want to teach this, verse 29, by contrast. So, let's turn to Ezekiel 16 in order to illustrate that. So, again, remember, these are God's two categories, bride or prostitute. So Ezekiel 16.25, this is the prophet speaking to unfaithful Jerusalem. At the head of every street, you build your lofty place and made your beauty an abomination, offering yourself to any passerby and multiplying your whoring. Picking up in verse 32, adulterous wife who receives strangers instead of her husband. Men give gifts to all prostitutes, but you gave your gifts to all your lovers, bribing them to come to you from every side with your whorings. So here, you were different from other women in your whorings. No one solicited you to play the whore, and you gave payment. While no payment was given to you, therefore you were different. Do you read a text like that? It's frankly quite astonishing that that's the language that scripture uses. But in fact, God says you're worse than a prostitute because prostitutes take money for their services. You pay men to come and sleep with you. And that's how God views those who would disobey this first commandment. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. God will not share His glory. The bridegroom will not share his bride with other lovers. He will not be cheated on by his creation. If you will not have God alone, He will not have you. So that's the first answer that Jesus gave to this scribe. He goes on to say in the next verse, in verse 30, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Really, this is an unpacking of the last verse. If the Lord your God is your God alone, in the truest sense, then you will love Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. But our God condescends to our lowest state in order to communicate more of Himself to us. Remember what I'm claiming here. That the command to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength is the big idea of all the Scriptures. Now, someone may object here and say, but I thought the glory of God was the big idea of all the Scriptures. But remember what we saw in the Ephesian church. God even recognized that they were enduring patiently and bearing for my name's sake. This church was laboring for God's glory. And yet there was something higher that God was holding over their head. Now, ultimately, these two ideas are not at odds. And Jonathan Edwards helps us to reconcile them. This is what Jonathan Edwards says, quote, God created man for nothing else but happiness. He created him only that he might communicate happiness to him. Let it not be an objection to this, that God created man chiefly for His own glory. I answer, this is not different. For He created them that He might communicate glory Himself this way, in making them blessed, by communicating His goodness to them. So Edwards' first claim is that God created man for nothing else other than happiness. Now, he doesn't mean that God is man-centered and he doesn't mean that God's chief attention is on man. Edwards will not allow men, his objectors, to pit God's supreme concern for his own glory against our happiness. Those two things are not at odds. Consider what Edward says about this source of happiness. God created man that he might glorify himself this way by making them blessed and by communicating his goodness to them. In other words, when we love something, we find all of our happiness in that thing. So when we behold the beauty and the holiness and the excellency that is God, we love him for it. And therefore, we are supremely happy in him. And that brings God glory. God's design for us as his image bearers is that we would love the same thing that God loves the most, which is himself. This is what it means to be the bride of Christ, as opposed to the prostitute to the world. When we love God, according to this commandment that God, that Jesus is laying out here, our happiness is in Him alone. And that brings God glory. And that's what the Ephesian church failed to do. It's not that they were thinking too hard. It's that they weren't thinking hard enough. They weren't basing their correction of false doctrine in the love of God, in their affections exploding towards Christ. They were operating apart from loving the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. And this is the sin that we must always be on guard against. Always. Being in church for The rest of our lives, this will be the struggle. Do you love God? Do you cherish, do you value Christ? Isaiah 29, 13 warns us, this people draw near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips while their hearts are far from me. Remember that the warning in In that chapter in Revelation 2, it says, hear, O churches, what the Spirit has to say. That's to us. Hear the warning. Hear the warning that God is giving us. Don't draw close to God with your lips and with your mouth only, but God requires your heart. So what is love according to this command that Jesus is telling us in Mark 12? If we look at Luke 10, verse 27, this is a parallel of the account that Jesus gives in Mark 12. So Jesus declares this same command here, and this becomes more clear. Before each one of these components of the human's capacity to love is the preposition with. With all of your heart. With all of your soul. With all of your strength. And with all of your mind. So this Greek preposition here, when it's connected to the heart, it's different than it's connected to the other three components. When it comes to the heart, the preposition is ek, and this suggests origin or source. However, when connected to the other three, soul, strength and mind, the preposition is en, which denotes instrumentality, in other words, Loving God originates from the hearts, while the others soul, strength and mind suggest that those are instruments of that love. They are means of that love. So I think I think Piper here nails what this means. He says this, that love for God is an affair of the affections. It is primarily an affection of the heart. Love is primarily an affection of the heart. And those other things that are listed in this text are means to make the coals of those affections burn red hot. So thinking about God is not synonymous with loving God, but it's means. If you don't think about God, you're not using the means to love God. In fact, the psalmist says in another place, while I mused, my heart grew hot within me. As you think about God, you're using means for those affections to culminate to an affair with God. So remember that those instruments cannot replace the origin. Otherwise, that's when we get the Ephesian church. So I think the best way to define what this love looks like is to give examples of it from Scripture. Please turn with me to Psalm of Solomon, if you will. Now, no doubt, this no doubt this book speaks about the love between a man and a woman, but ultimately it speaks about the love between Christ and his bride. So we're going to go to chapter 2, verse 14 first. So have in mind, I picked out some places here where it's the bride speaking. So this is how the bride, the church, speaks to her husband, Christ. Chapter 2, verse 14. Oh, my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the crannies of the cliff, let me see your face. Let me hear your voice. For your voice is sweet and your face is lovely. Please turn to chapter 5, verse 8. Listen here to the desperation that the bride is crying out to for her husband. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him I am sick with love. The bride is sick with love towards her husband. And then one more place in this book, chapter eight, verses six and seven. So as this book closes, we discover the bride's idea of what this love looks like. Verses six and seven. Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm. For love is as strong as death. Jealousy is fierce as the grave. It flashes, are flashes of fire. The very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love. Neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would utterly be despised. So love for God is an affair of the affections. So this command to love God with every component of our humanity, from our heart, from the source, with the soul, with the mind, and to do this with all of our strength. So to sum this up in a different way, we're commanded to love Christ most intensely and entirely holistically. This is why the psalmist can say, whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing I desire on earth besides you. So we describe what this love looks like. But sometimes we can get caught up in different foundations for that love. Jonathan Edwards in his book, Religious Affections, talks about two types of foundations for love of God. And as I'm saying this to you guys, he talks about this as both of these groups being in the church. Both of these foundations are found in the chairs of the church. So the first foundation is the foundation of the hypocrite, and then the second foundation is the foundation of the true saint. The hypocrite's foundation is that they love God because they feel as if God makes much of them. And that is the foundation of their love towards God. They come to the master's table because what is on the master's table, not because of the master. God is useful to them of sorts. On the other hand, we have the love of the saint. The saint loves God because God Himself is excellent, because God in Himself is beautiful and lovely. And He is a delight to them. In fact, they can say things like this from Psalm 73, 28, But as for me, the nearness of my God is Good. The foundation of the saint is just to be with the Master. The stuff on the Master's table gets thrown in. They enjoy that, and God made that for us to enjoy, but it's not the foundation of our love for God. The foundation of our love for God is that He is worthy, that Christ is excellent, and because we see His excellence, we love Him for that. The affection of the true saint says this, Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. The foundation stone for loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength is the excellency of Christ himself. We love him with our affections most intensely. and entirely holistically. So let me ask you a few questions as we close on this verse here. What are you most passionate about? What drives you out of bed in the morning? What thing do you spend the most amount of time amount in your mind obsessing over? That is what you love. That is your God. Verse 31, Jesus goes on. The second is this. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. This is obviously a summary of the last six of the Ten Commandments. For if you love your neighbor, you will honor your father and mother. You will not kill. You will not commit adultery. You will not steal. You will not lie. covets. But even in this command, there is a greater foundation than simply following a list of do's and don'ts. Following a list of do's and don'ts will only always result in failure. In Matthew 15, 19, Jesus says that those type of sins have their genesis in the heart. Jesus says this, for out of the heart come evil thoughts. murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. So to truly love your neighbor as yourself, it must include an affection from the heart. Otherwise, you'll still be breaking this command. Actions apart from affections is legalism. Actions apart from affections create self-righteous people. And the reason why this is true is because the motive is revealed. If one doesn't have affections for their neighbor, the question needs to be asked, why are you doing what you're doing? If you say, because I love God, that would be correct. However, that's why these two commandments are put side by side. That's why they're linked together. If you love God, you will love your neighbor. The command to love God and your neighbor are united by the same motive. So we're not to love God for the sake of men alone, because that is idolatry. were to love men and women because it says something great about God. Because they're made in the image of God. And that type of love is a megaphone to the world. John 13.35 says this, By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. The opposite of that idea is the antithesis of Christianity. Jonathan Edwards again says this, quote, An envious Christian, a malicious Christian, a cold and hard hearted Christian is the greatest absurdity and contradiction. And it is as if I could speak of a dark brightness or a false truth. So loving your neighbor means loving them holistically. Loving both their physical needs and their eternal soul. And the early church did this especially well. We read in the book of Acts that they took care of each other. They took care of each other's needs. They even gave to the point of their own poverty. Paul commended churches for this on a regular basis. And I would commend that to you as positive work. We do a lot of positive work with our own assembly. When women have babies here, we seek to take care of them and their families. When people are moving, we seek to take care of them. That's good. That's positive work. That's work that many of us like to do. However, sometimes loving your neighbor looks like negative work. Because so much more is at stake. When Paul opposed Peter, in Galatians 2, because Peter was separating himself from his Gentile brothers with the Jews because he was afraid of the Judaizers. He was lying about the Gospel. And Paul loved Peter. So what did Paul do? He said, you are not living in accord with the Gospel. He put his finger in his face and he did it publicly. And he did it universally because we have this text for everyone to see. Now, I realize as I'm saying these words, everything I'm saying could totally be misunderstood this morning in so many ways. All I'm trying to do is point out examples of sometimes work that we don't like to do. That is confrontational. That is edgy. But Paul loved Peter, and Paul loved the church, and he would not allow the gospel to be whored out. That is dishonoring to Christ, and it's dishonoring to the people of Christ. So if you love your neighbor, you will love them in the most positive sense, caring for their physical needs, nurturing them like you nurture your own flesh. And you will care for them in a negative sense, to where if you have an infection, you have to clean it. You have to put hydrogen peroxide on it and it burns sometimes. But that is what is necessary because God and the gospel is more important than our uncomfortableness. If you don't love your neighbor, you don't truly love God. 1 John 4, 20-21 says this, If anyone says, I love God, and hates his neighbor, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, whoever loves God must also love his brother. John does not pull any punches in his letter. If you want evidence for your new heart, you will love. If you do not love, you are a liar. So Jesus goes on in verse 31, back to the text. There is no other commandment greater than these. So this statement, coupled with the statement recorded in Matthew 22, 40. Matthew 22, 40 says this, on these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. That's where I get the idea this morning that this is the biggest idea in scripture. To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And to love your neighbor as yourself on these rests. All the law and the prophets. So this is how the scribe answered him in verse 32 and 34. And the scribe said to him, You are right, teacher. You have truly said that he is one and there is no other besides him. And to love Him with all your heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as one's self is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that He answered wisely, He said to him, you are not far from the Kingdom of God. And after that, no one dared to ask Him Any more questions? So here we see the scribe agreeing with Jesus here. Lord, you're right. Everything you said is true. But how did Jesus respond? You are not far from the Kingdom of God. This is where I want to challenge everyone sitting down right now who can hear these words. If you agree with what I'm saying, You are not far from the Kingdom of God. But that is not enough. Agreeing with facts, agreeing with these true statements that Jesus said is not enough to be saved. The scribe rightly responded. But this agreement was not enough to enter into the Kingdom of God. Remember earlier that I said that this commandment that Jesus is quoting is directly from Deuteronomy 6, 4, and 5. Now that is significant, that origin is very significant, because throughout this book of Deuteronomy, it's kind of ironic because Deuteronomy means the second reading of the law. So you would expect, okay, that's what the title means, so I'm going to open up, I'm going to read, la, la, la, la, la. That's not the case. Over and over and over again in the book of Deuteronomy, the command is to love the Lord your God. Fear God. Treasure God. Value God. Love Him. Love Him. If you don't love Me, I will curse you. Because you did not obey My statutes with a right heart, I will curse you. Because you did not enter into the joy of your Master, I will curse you. So this origin is significant because after all these commandments to love the Lord your God, in chapter 30, Moses gives us what this scribe was lacking. Please turn with me to chapter 30, verse 6. Something is more necessary than simply agreeing with these facts. Chapter 30, verse 6. The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you might live. Apart from this circumcision by the Holy Spirit, we cannot love God. So Jesus is, in effect, commanding something of us that we are completely powerless to do. Completely powerless, apart from the Holy Spirit, taking out a heart of stone and giving us a heart of flesh. The commandment is to love God, but you can't. Love God, treasure God, value God, but you cannot. Not because you are physically handicapped from loving God, it's because you are morally handicapped. Everyone in this room, before the Lord God took out our heart of stone, hates God from birth. We're not handcuffed on our wrists, we're handcuffed in our hearts. Because instead of... You know, when I was out this weekend in Portland, Preaching the Gospel. All people heard was law. Don't be a homosexual. Don't be a liar. Don't be a murderer. Don't be an adulterer. That's all they heard. So consequently, I would keep on reminding them, no, no, no. The problem is not those things. Those are symptoms of the problem. The problem is that the command is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, but you won't love Him. You don't want to love Him. You want to love yourself. Love for God is an affection from the heart. And this is impossible to do on our own. And that's why we are preaching the Gospel. In order for this circumcision of the heart to happen, God cannot do that and remain righteous. When God decided to elect people according to His mere good pleasure, and then save them through the circumcision of the heart laid raw by the Holy Spirit, it cost Him His Son. The only person who loved the Lord God with all of his heart, soul, and mind. Jesus Christ embodied this perfectly. And that's what we needed. And that's what God the Father, God the Father saw that he saw that perfect life that Jesus was living and he was pleased with it. In fact, he said, this is my son whom I am well pleased. And because Jesus had that perfect record, he sent him to the cross. And he punished him. He punished Christ because we hated God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. Everything out of us was hatred towards God. Everything out of us was prostitution towards God. But God wanted to reconcile. This is love. God is love. This is how God demonstrates His love for us, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly. So for those who God elected, Christ purchased on the cross. And then in time, the Holy Spirit decided to circumcise your heart so that you can love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. If you are here today and you're saying, gee, God's commanding me something to do that I can't do, that doesn't sound fair. You're proving that you don't love God. If you think that election and redemption and calling will prohibit you, call out to Him. Cry out to God. Cry out, God, give me repentance. Cause me to love you, to treasure you. If you find yourself doing that, guess what? God is circumcising your heart to love Him. So one application today is in John chapter 14, verse 15. Jesus said, if you love me, you will keep my commandment. Obedience is evidence that you love God. Love is not synonymous with obedience. In other words, I don't get into the kingdom by obeying God. No, Christ obeyed perfectly on my behalf. But if you love God, you will obey Him. So where are God's commandments found? In the Scriptures. This is a drum I beat all the time. Be people of the Word. Be a man of the Word. Be a mother. Be a daughter of the Word. Love God's Word. This is where God's love is found. It's a means to communicate to our hearts so that we can have this affair of the affections. If you don't read the Scriptures, you can't see the treasures of Christ. The Scripture says that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of knowledge and wisdom. So open up the word, open it up and see what God has. So let's pray and close. Lord God, like I prayed at the beginning, Lord, who is adequate for this task on? Or words are vehicles that that transmit truth and transmit information, but they are finite at best, Lord, and You are infinitely worthy. God, I pray that as You are continually honored here this morning, that You would honor Your Word, Lord, and cause love for You. Lord, in spite of the insufficiency of the preaching, I pray that You would take Your words and give a vital experience of the Holy Spirit with them and connect them with people's hearts. Lord, keep us from the sin of the Ephesian church. Lord, keep us from doing all these other things well and then failing to love You. Lord, I know these words can be misunderstood this morning. I pray Your Holy Spirit would take them and impart truth to Your people. Lord, help us to be the bride and cause our hearts to not prostitute after other things. So we bless You this morning, God, and ask that You would continually come and bless Your people. In Your name we pray, Amen.