Turn, if you would, to Matthew 11, a very familiar passage, no doubt a favorite of many of you, and rightly so. I want us to read from Matthew 11, verses 20 to 30. To get our context, the particular text will be verse 29, as we're thinking about the heart of Jesus. Matthew 11, verses 20 to 30. This is God's holy and infallible Word. then he, that is Jesus, began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done because they did not repent. Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Zidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Zidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you. At this time, Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. Come to me. All who labor and are heavy laden and I'll give you rest, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let's pray. Our Father, What a joy it is to be together on this, your day, to worship you as we have been doing, together with your people, as we know your people are gathered throughout the world for such. And now as we hear your word, Father, may the same Spirit who indicted it, who gave it, open our hearts to see and believe it. In Jesus' name, amen. Dear congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, I am gentle and lowly in heart. Matthew 11, 29. These astounding words, as I trust we'll soon see, are at the heart of the most appealing invitation ever uttered. Now I pause here unusually, I don't generally do this at the beginning of a sermon, but to note my particular debt in this sermon to Dane Ortlund's book that I'm sure many of you are familiar with, Gentle and Lowly, The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers. That's a very good and commendatory book. These few words are so remarkable because they reveal to us the heart of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Spurgeon noted that in Matthew 11, 29, in all the Gospel accounts It's only here that Jesus opens up to us His very heart. For Him to say, I am gentle and lowly in heart is for our Lord to tell us what He is, who He is at the core of His being. In essence, fundamentally. We note here biblically that heart is not something opposed to head, as is often popularly understood. Rather, in the Bible, in the Old and New Testament, heart includes head and means not only the emotions, but the whole of the inner man, who we are on the inside. That's what the heart is. is and the words that Jesus chooses to tell us who he is in heart particularly in this context are wonderful and encouraging more than we could ever hope or imagine. So here at the end of Matthew 11 Jesus reveals to us His very heart. That's our theme. Jesus reveals to us His very heart. And we see that this heart that He opens up to us is gentle and lowly and inviting. Our Lord is gentle, He is lowly, and He is most inviting. Well Jesus, after pronouncing to get into the meat of this, Jesus after pronouncing the woes that he did as we heard it on the unbelieving cities of his day and declaring the inability of those wise in their own eyes to know the Father, turns to his beleaguered disciples. and says, I'm gentle in heart. To the likes of us sinners and sufferers, this is a surprising word. We might expect Jesus as the one who reveals the Father to say something else. Given that he's God come in the flesh, we might expect exalted and dignified or something like that. Now let me just stop to say this. The fact that we know that he's God come in the flesh makes it all the more amazing. What I mean by that is, if we were unbelievers, if we didn't believe Jesus was not God, and if you don't believe Jesus is God, you're not a believer. Right? You're not a Christian. You're not even first base. Jesus is God come in the flesh. That's what Advent is all about. And to us who know that then, it's an amazing thing for the second person of the blessed holy undivided trinity to say that he's gentle. If you're not a believer, For somebody to say that they're gentle or to say they're humble or lowly or something like that, you would probably say something like, well, you should be. Why not? Everybody should be. You're just a man. But Jesus is no mere man. That's the point, you see. He's no mere man. He is truly a man, even as he is truly God. But he's God and man in one person. Again, that's what we're thinking about, particularly this time of year. So it's rather remarkable that he speaks this way. We're not even told here that he's joyful and generous in heart, but gentle and lowly. Sadly, I think we sometimes, as believers, too much see him through our own lens. And we might expect him, or we might say, if we said what we really feel, that he's austere and demanding in heart. because we're often that way with each other, we're often that way with our kids, with our significant others, our spouses, right? And we see Jesus through that lens. No, He's gentle and lowly in heart. He possesses and embodies a glory and even a grandeur, I would say, that might feel at odds with gentle. Perhaps you say, okay, pastor, You sort, our pastor, all of you guys preach all the time that he's not only great, but he's also good, right? He is. And one of the chief properties of His goodness, we say God is great, and that particularly talks about Him in all the ways that He's beyond us. We use, theologians use all kind of words for that. Incommunicable attributes, for example. And then the ways that we share certain things with Him, though not to the degree He does. And the goodness of the Lord is often talked about in this second way. It's in the kids' prayer, those of you who are kids, you're actually saying something profound when you say God is great. He's beyond all comprehension. He's good. That means chiefly he's come very near us in Jesus Christ. He loves us. But often I think if we were to say of the goodness of all the properties that are a part of that, what we would most expect him to say, because we've read R.C. Sproul. We've read J.C. Ryle. It's got to be R.C. J.C. I guess you got to have those initials, you know. We've read about holiness. They've written wonderful books about holiness. And he is holy. So we could expect him to be saying, I mean, maybe if we did a word association and I said, say the first thing that pops into your mind, the first characteristic, Jesus, you're holy. You would be right. But he's not saying that here. Now you say, well, what are you saying? I'm not saying anything. I'm not saying he's not profoundly holy. But I'm saying that's not what he's saying to you. You say, well, is he saying it to me? Yes. He sends people like me, like Ken, like your pastor, like many. He sends us to tell this to the world especially. Now every Christian is supposed to in some way, but ministers of the gospel are ambassadors of Christ in a particular way. And they come and herald this so that when this is preached to you here and now, this is to you here and now. Surely at heart, we think that because Jesus is so unalterably holy, He is. Here's where I'm going with this. He must be repulsed by sinners, even justified adopted ones. Yeah, we know that He accepts us. We know that because of things like the glorious exchange. You know, Luther talks about that. Christ took our sin and He gave us His righteousness. and because he's taken our sin and given us his righteousness. He accepts us in him. We're accepted in the beloved. But he must, I've talked to people in counseling, and they say, but he must at his heart be something to us who are sinners yet righteous at the same time that's forbidding and off-putting. I mean, people have put it like this as I've drawn it out of them. I say, are you suggesting that Jesus loves you? And they say, yeah, well, he has to. I'm his child. But you don't really think he quite likes you. Yeah. Because that's the way you deal with people. You play that little game. Jesus loves you all the way through. You. Yeah, but you. But I've got a lot of problems. You. If you trust him. If you've come to him. If you're looking to none other but him. He loves you and is gentle in this way. Certainly the Pharisees in depicting and presenting God to Israel didn't depict Him that way, did they? They laid, in fact, Jesus says, unbearable burdens on their hearers, Matthew 23, 3 and 4, in contrast to Him who is the burden bearer. Jesus comes not to lay burdens on you. Since Adam sinned and you've got all the sin of your life, you've got a ton of burdens Jesus didn't come to lay burdens on you. He came to lift burdens from you. Would you say, well he convicts, the Spirit convicts. That's not laying a burden on you. That's just showing you who you are. So you can flee to Christ, to be found in Him, having a righteousness that comes not by your law keeping, but comes through faith in Christ. He wants you to come to Him. Come to Him. That's the invitation. But let's drill down a little bit into this gentle thing. The Greek word translated gentle here occurs in the ESV, that's translated gentle in the ESV, occurs three times, just three times in the New Testament. In the first beatitude, three other times. The first beatitude, Matthew 5, 5, in which we're told that the gentle or the meek, we tend to think of it being translated there, will inherit the earth. That's the same word though. Let me say this, that's the first clue that this kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ is quite different than the kingdoms of this world. I mean, in the kingdoms of the world, you don't see the meek inheriting anything. The meek get it taken from them. It's the brash, the bold, those who grab it for themselves, right? The meek, the gentle inherit. That's the kingdom dynamic. And then secondly, in the prophecy of Matthew 21.5 from Zechariah 9.9, Jesus is said to be coming to you humble and mounted on a donkey, that's the triumphal entry. And the word there is humble or gentle, it's the same word. And then this is a really interesting one. Peter's encouragement in 1 Peter 3, for wives to attend to the inner person and to cultivate a gentle and quiet spirit. That's the word here, same word. Jesus says, I am gentle. It's the same word used for wives who are to have a gentle and quiet spirit. So Jesus is meek, humble. Gentle, not trigger-happy, harsh, reactionary, easily exasperated like we can be. He is, as Ortlund notes, the most understanding person in the universe. The most understanding person in the universe. You can go to him when he says, come to me. And you know how it is. There are people that are off-putting in various ways. This is an interesting thing because I've had people say this to me and I've asked them, I've talked to people about this. You know, who are the holiest people you have ever known and how was your, oh yeah, okay, I can think of this person and that person. How did you feel around them? Oh, I felt very, very guilty, very sinful, very unaccepted. Well, there's something profoundly wrong there. I can think of two people that I could just name, other than my mother or my late wife, who were chief influences on me, but two people I'm not related to. One's a man, one's a woman, who were the most godly people I've known. And how did I feel around them? Very loved. Very accepted. Very encouraged. Very drawn to Christ. I wanted to come to Jesus and know Jesus more from knowing these people. Not like, oh, I'm such a sinner. Get away, get away, get away. No. You say, yeah, but Peter had that reaction. Right, but that's our reaction in sinfulness. We were just hearing over there that there's a proper way in which perfect love casts out fear. You say, what are you talking about? Well, you come here, Brother Larry, and you'll know. Perfect love casts out fear. That's what we're talking about here. There is a proper meaning for that. Oh yeah, there's a proper place for fear. Our men's group is just listening to Michael Reeves' talks on the fear of God. You may have heard of those. They're good. They're helpful. The posture most natural to Jesus is not a pointed finger, but open arms. drawing us to him and him to us. Now, drawing us to him, that's kind of the obvious part, right? That this characteristic that I'm describing as gentleness draws us to Christ, no matter how gruff or tough you are in your deepest distress, a gentle, meek, understanding soul reaching out is so reassuring. I know this aspect has been particularly precious to me in recent times, particularly last year as I lost my wife. And she's with him now. And that song really got to me about that desire that we were singing about before the prayer. What a powerful witness. What a powerful word. We want to be with a God like this. And if your reaction is, I don't know, I don't know, God, I'm like this, then you've never seen this gospel truth and you need to see it. You need to see Jesus is not one to be run from. Now the enemy says that. You know, when you sin, a lot of times, as Brooks puts it, Satan will show you the bait and hide the hook. And you take it, and you're caught. See, on the front end, he'll say, oh, repentance is the easiest thing. Once you sin, it's like repentance is the hardest thing. And you feel like, people often ask me, is this God convicting me of this sin, or is it Satan? I said, are you wanting to come to Christ? No, I want to run away. Well, it's the enemy. He wants you to run away. Jesus wants you to come. Here's the interesting part, though. I say that we're drawn to Him and Him to us. He's always, only, and ever as gentle and meek, moving toward us, never away from us. Oh, but pastor, I mean, look, look, I've been, you know, there are times where I just, I get out of the word. I'm not in prayer. I'm not really agreeing with anybody much. People are just, I'm having a hard time. I may be not going to church. And Jesus is far away. Don't you know that you're the one who's gone away from Him? Don't you have the sense when you come back He didn't go anywhere? He went nowhere! Did the Father go somewhere or did the prodigal go somewhere? The Father was always at home waiting for the prodigal to come back. So I would get, it's beautiful to see a pastor who is so musical. We were just talking, I'm co-editor of Trinity Psalter Hymnal and I try to get my seminary guys to have some musical sensibilities who are gonna go into the pulpit, wow. And he conducts the choir, bravo. That's great, I love it. But Jesus is always moving towards you. Never away from you. It's you who move away from Him. It's you who go away from Him. He's waiting for you to come. He's wanting for you to come. He's watching like the Father in the prodigal son parable. Well, He's gentle and He's lowly. Clearly this word overlaps with gentle. It's hard to differentiate it in some ways. It communicates a single reality about Jesus' heart. He's gentle and lowly. This Greek word is often translated as humble, the one for lowly. James 4.6, right? God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. There's the word. This word typically throughout the New Testament refers not so much to humility as a virtue, but humility in the sense of destitution, or being thrust downward by life's circumstances. It's translated this way in the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Psalms, the Septuagint. In the Magnificat of Mary, and we think of that this time of year, don't we? Mary's Magnificat, she sings of the way in which God exalts those who are of humble or lowly estate, Luke 1.52. Here's this young woman, this young lady, who the Holy Spirit has overshadowed and that which is in her is of the Holy One. She's going to bring forth our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And she's no princess or anything like that. She's just a humble Hebrew girl and she's amazed. She said, how has the Lord shown one of such lowly states such favor? Not many mighty, not many noble, Paul says. And Paul also says in Romans 12, 16, not to be haughty, but to associate with the lowly. He specifically says that, where he's talking about all these how to live as Christians with each other. He says associate with the lowly, not the one who are the life of the party, but who cause us to cringe. How did they get into this party? Who invited them to this party? This word amazingly refers to the Lord of glory. Now this is something I want you to make sure to get. It refers to the Lord of Glory not only in His humiliation, but even in His exaltation. And I've had this when I'm, you know, you're counseling people and you're sharing different scriptures with them. And this is, of course, a great one to share because you're saying you need to come to Christ. And when I say you need to come, everybody in this room needs to come to Christ. I've run into this a lot in the South. Well, I come to Christ. What do you mean by that? Well, 35 years ago, I came down the aisle and gave the preacher my hand. And oh, oh, well, what church do you go to? Well, I hadn't been to church in years. No, you come, and you keep coming. You come again, and you come every day. In fact, at one point, Jonathan Edwards described Sanctification as continuous conversion. He took the little statement there from 1 Thessalonians, how they turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God. And he said, you know, Calvin said, our minds are idol factories. We're always producing idols. And Edwards said, sanctification is always turning to God from idols, turning to God from idols. So you say, well, that's repentance. Correct. Repentance and faith are twin virtues. They go right together. but you're to come and to come. But we're talking about Jesus in his exaltation because you could see somebody saying, and I've had people say this, well, pastor, this is all well and good. Jesus was in his humiliation. Everybody understands those states of our Lord, humiliation and exaltation. When Jesus was conceived in the womb of the virgin, that's where he entered his exaltation, when he added humanity to deity. He entered into his exaltation, excuse me, his humiliation. And he was in that humiliation his whole life up until his resurrection from the dead. That's where he entered exaltation. When he was raised from the dead. And you won't enter yours until you're raised from the dead. This is your humiliation now, not just because you're having to sit here and listen to me. That's part of it. But you're in your humiliation. And you'll enter exaltation when Christ returns. Even my dear wife in the intermediate state, she's with Christ. That's better, but that's not best. What's best is the resurrection. And she and we all await that. Back to Jesus though. He's in His exaltation. He's at the right hand of the Father. So you might say, okay, I get how he could say gentle and lowly when he was here in his humiliation. But is that true of him in his exaltation? And if it is, how do you know it? Oh, I am so glad you asked that question. I really am. How do I know it? Here's how I know it, because He who is in exaltation continues over and again to come to you who are in your humiliation under the emblems of His greatest humiliation. Here where His body is broken and His blood is shed, the symbols of the broken body and the shed blood, He comes to you who are in your humiliation and He, who is in His exaltation, communes with you under the emblems of His humiliation. My goodness. Love never stops, does it? Think about that. He's exalted. But the communion he has with you, and this is the centerpiece. I'm not saying this is all of it, but this is the center of communion. I mean, you should, throughout the whole of your life, more and more, live as if you were at the table, if you understand what I'm saying. Communing with God and each other as members of his mystical body. You should be communing with God all the time, but the heart of the communion is with you and your humiliation. and Him who is in His exaltation under the emblems of His humiliation. Here's the point in saying that Jesus is lowly, gentle and lowly, is that He's accessible. For all of His resplendent glory, His dazzling holiness, His supreme uniqueness and otherness, no one in human history has ever been more approachable than Jesus Christ, more than your best friend. You have a hard day, a hard week. You know the boss, you just couldn't please him. Your co-workers, it's hard. Difficulties in the neighborhood, whatever. And so you say, you come home to tell your wife or your husband, oh what a day it's been. I need your prayers. Let's pray together. Let's talk together. Or you call up Bill or you call up Sue. and say, dear friend, hey, hey, I need to share with you. Look, that's a blessing. Christian fellowship is a blessing. We should speak to each other and pray for each other. But don't ever put that in the place of coming to Jesus. There's no one who understands you more or better than Jesus. No one. No one. And he is also accessible. You know, even the line that we have in the Friends, Though friends despise, forsake thee. And sometimes that happens. Jesus sticks closer than a brother. He never will. And you say, well I'm really being misunderstood. There was nobody more misunderstood than he was. I mean, really? He's God and he gets treated, he doesn't even get treated well for a man. And he takes it all and dies for us because he loves us. Jesus is acceptable. There are no prerequisites to come, no hoops to jump through. Simply open yourself up to him. This is one way of what does it mean to come? People often say what does it mean to trust him? I mean this is clearly a metaphor to say come to him because it's not about physically doing something. Now some churches want to make it that way, right? Like I just said a moment ago. But what it means is to open yourself up completely to Him. To fall on Him. Fall on the everlasting arms. Lean on Him. He's accessible. When you've failed again, when you've done your worst, when you've blown it big time, you're not getting this from Him. You're getting this. Come in. Come on. The only fitness we sing in that beautiful hymn, He requires us to feel your need of Him. And then that same hymn so wonderfully says this. If you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all. If you tarry till you're better, you will never come at all. Now, I have to pause here to note that Jesus does not show himself as gentle and lowly to all indiscriminately. The broader passage is clear about that. Jesus is not mushy and frothy. He's lowly and gentle. He does not present himself this way to those who remain stubbornly impenitent. Matthew 11, 21, 24 shows that he is a judge to the persistently unbelieving, to those who will not come. Matthew 11, 25 makes it clear that those who fancy themselves as wise and understanding, thank you very much, not needing Jesus, will not find him and will not know him, are not his. come. For the penitent, for those who see their need and flee to the Savior, his heart of gentle lowly embrace is never outmatched by our sin. This gentle and lowly descriptor is not how he occasionally acts if we're lucky as would be true with Allah. I really shouldn't have said that because now I want to do a little Muslim apologetic. It's another time. But Allah is totally capricious. Jesus is essentially gentle and lowly. It is who He is, like we heard in the other hour. Love is not just how He acts, it's who He is. Well, that brings us to the last point, but we've been making it all along, right? This gentle and lowly one is so inviting. I mean, to say He's inviting, I hope it's been clear. up to this point. It is to me. Jesus appeals to sinners and suffers. Now again, if you think, you know, if you're a good religious person and I follow the rules, He didn't come for you. He didn't come for you. He came for sinners. To all who labor and are heavy laden, that's who He came to. He's just what we needy most need. You are needy, aren't you? You're needy, aren't you? Who are these weary and heavy laden ones? Those who have a realization of their crippling sin and suffering. May you come to have it if you've never had it and may you not lose your sense of it. We typically often try to cure ourselves when we see something of our heavy load of sin, right? We don't necessarily come to Jesus right away. We self-medicate with food, drink, drugs, entertainment, sex, work, shopping. These are all the kinds of things that we do to fill the void. We won't fill it. I always, it's still, you know, I'm in my 60s and there's, it's still fascinating that thing you get with a new thing, you know, the, oh, here's the UPS or the, here's the Amazon truck, you know, and you got this new thing and you're like, oh, isn't that nice? And you know, you get a little whatever out of it for a little bit and then it just enters the shelf with all these other things you got. But we try to fill, I'm not saying we're not supposed to get things. You know, let's not play games here. You know, somebody says, well, are you saying we can't shop? No, I'm not saying that. You know I'm not. So I don't want that conversation. I'm saying, don't do these things instead of coming to Jesus. And we do it. I do it. I do it. I'm here. Why did we get? Ken, what did you get this guy for? I mean, this guy's a sinner. We wanna, yes I am. Saved by grace. When you say, well I'm, okay, maybe you're better than that, I'll grant that. You try to be good, to do more, to be a good wife and mother, to be a good husband and father. But the more we try in the flesh, and we so often do it that way, we just fail. And we feel like miserable failures. To you, Jesus promises rest. He promises rest. As in calming the storm at sea. I love those accounts. Jesus says, peace be still. And that's one of those places, you know, when I'm reading the Bible, I just have to really stop and think, peace be still. That's what he wants to say to you in your life, in your crazy busy life. Peace, be still. Come unto me, all you laboring and heavy laden. I'll give you rest. You say this day is really emblemized by that. You're right, that's what the Lord's Day is. It's a day of rest. Particularly there should be a focus on spiritual rest in Christ. Now I used to tell my kids this when they were little because I taught them we just don't do everything on the Lord's Day. We have movies that are Christian movies and we do these kind of Christian activities. This is a day we're gonna really give to the Lord. And of course they would say, well can't we do this, can't we, and I said, let me encourage you kids. Rather than thinking about challenging a priority for yourself on the Lord's Day, why not think about taking something of the Lord's Day into the other six so that you live in a resting mode. Wouldn't it be better to live in a more meditative, contemplative, prayerful, biblical mode on the other six days? Bring the Lord's Day into those days, singing. I'm getting an amen from the pastor over here, I can see it with his eyebrows. That's a Presbyterian amen, or a slight shake of the head. I was brought up as a Baptist, by the way. Sometimes people say, were you Presbyterian all the time? And I say, no, I was a Baptist, that's how I can preach. At least you're laughing. Note that our sin and suffering is our burden, as I said earlier. He invites you to come and unburden yourselves to cast your cares upon Him who truly cares for you. He provides the basis for such rest in the peace that He purchased for us in His life and death, particularly in taking upon Himself the burden of our sin and paying its penalty. That's what He did for you. He was born and he kept the whole law for you. And then he went to the tree and paid for all of your lawlessness. Well, I mean, that's almost like, I don't know, Jesus paid it all. Yeah. But we often don't act like that. We act like, you know, if we sang what we really believed, I'm not sure what it would be. Jesus paid it mostly and I have to do the rest. No, Jesus paid it all. it all. All to Him I owe. So the Christian life then, you say, yeah but we're supposed to walk in obedience. Absolutely, that's the only way of joy. Absolutely. But you see, I want you to be clear here. All that you have in God, the acceptance that you have with a holy God, you who are sinners, the perfect acceptance you have with Him, is not because of your obedience, it's because of Christ's obedience. Your obedience is not so that God will accept you, your obedience is to be because He does accept you. All the difference in the world between those two. It's supposed to be gratitude. If you know anything about the Heidelberg Catechism, and Wojnarowski can teach you if you don't, maybe you guys talk about it here. There are three parts, guilt, grace, gratitude. or sin salvation service. And that's where the law is exposited under that third part. Because all of your law keeping is not to give you a right standing before God. Are you kidding? You can't do it. But it's because you have a right standing before God. Jesus invites us in coming to Him to give Him our burdens so that we might take His light yoke. Sin is the heavy burden. It's all these not walking in His way sins that you do that's crushing the life out of you. That's the source of your slavery and your misery. Not His light yoke, which is freedom. Walking in His way in what we call the third use of the law. As we say, not to gain His favor, but because you have His favor is true joy and delight. Though it's a fight in the flesh, to be sure. Come to Him. Here's where we end. Come to Him. Not to have heavy pharisaical burdens laid upon you, but to have your sin lifted off and His mild yoke placed upon you to guide you as a yoke guides an ox in plowing a field, a yoke that's light. And thus is a non-yoke compared to your heavy burdens. How do we come? By the means appointed. Word, come as you hear the word proclaimed. Sacraments, come to the table. He wants to sup with you in your state of humiliation. And prayer, that dependent crying out to Him. Come then as invited and partake of Christ. Trust in Him alone. You can't save yourself. Rest in Him and be drawn to Him who says to you, at your worst, come, I'm gentle and lowly at heart. Amen. Our Father, there's so much here and we just touched the hem of the garment. May your Spirit again that gave this word give us ears to hear it and draw us to Christ. Draw us to Christ, Father. May everyone in this room come either for the first time or once again to Jesus. And may any here who don't know what that means or have questions talk with the pastors and elders of this church about this, Lord. Father in heaven, grant that especially in this season, you who gave Jesus for us, and we say thanks be to you for this indescribable gift, that all you want from us is this trust, is this coming to you and resting in you. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.