If you have your Bibles, go ahead and reach down and open them up, if you will, to the gospel according to John 6. John 6. We'll be looking at verses 27 through 29 today. We looked at verse 27 two weeks ago when we were last in John's gospel. So we're not gonna go back over that ground too much, but nevertheless, it sets the stage for the next few verses. So it's helpful if we start there again and just read that verse again. So John chapter six, beginning in verse 27. If you're able, please stand in honor of God in the reading of his word. All right. This is the word of the Lord. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal on him. Then they said to him, what shall we do that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered and said to them, this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent. Let's pray together. God, we thank you for this wonderful word that the work of God is to believe in you, Jesus Christ. We thank you for that. God, we thank you for not leaving us in darkness and for telling us how we can please you. how we can do your will. God, we ask now as we listen to this sermon, Lord, that we would hear you speaking. God, I ask that I would not get in the way of the message that you have for this congregation, Lord. If I do begin to stray, God, I pray that you would just lead me back on course. Let me speak only that which is in accord with your truth. And God, everyone here, let everyone here just be pierced to their heart. Lord, cleanse us within as the song we just sang reminded us. Lord, you are the one that can created us a clean heart and I just pray Lord you would renew that clean heart within each one of us now and Bless us with your spirit in Christ's name. Amen. I may be seated Our text today opens with Jesus telling those who were following him this I He says, do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal on him. When we were last in this section of text, we looked at what it meant to labor for the food which endures to everlasting life. How salvation is a free gift that we cannot earn or merit or buy. but it is one that calls us to a life of laboring, a life of working out our salvation because it is God that works within us to will and to do according to His good pleasure. We do not labor to gain God's love, but because we have God's love, we labor in His strength to honor Him, to obey Him, to serve our neighbors, to lay up for ourselves treasure in heaven. The laboring we do here on earth matters immensely for how we will spend eternity. So naturally, this crowd that has followed Jesus to Capernaum asks Him, well, Jesus, how do we do the right kind of labor? You tell us we're to labor for this eternal bread, but how do we do this? What does that look like? They, like all men, want to live forever, but they're just not sure how they go about doing that. Jesus answered them, verse 29, and said, this is the work of God that you believe in Him whom He sent. This crowd has been listening to Jesus carefully. Many were there when He fed them of the loaves and fishes that He multiplied miraculously. They followed Him across the sea, and they're listening to Him. They're hanging on His words. And many of them, I think, maybe were starting in a way to believe. Their hearts probably were not converted, but they were latching on to these things that Jesus was saying. But here they get confused. They say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Jesus, you're pulling the bait and switch on us. First, you said we needed to work for the food which endures to everlasting life. We understand that. Work for something and you get rewarded. But now you're telling us that we need only to believe in him whom God has sent in order to gain everlasting life. Well, which is it, Jesus? Is it faith or is it works? The question of what role faith plays and what role works plays in our salvation is indeed an essential one that people have been asking for all of time, and it's one that we must get right. If you get the answer to this question wrong, it can cost you everything. This was the question that Martin Luther spent his entire adult life asking and answering. What role do works have in my salvation? And how is that related to faith? Before he was born again, Luther would agonize every minute about the state of his soul before God. He could not find peace. I have a question for our children, boys and girls that are listening. What do you do when you sin against God? Say, for instance, you disobey your parents or you hurt one of your siblings, what are you supposed to do next? You can answer. Yeah, we do pray, that's right. We say we're sorry, that's right. These are both correct answers. You pray to God for forgiveness. You repent of your sin. You say that you're sorry. In our home, one thing we've tried to emphasize is that when you sin, you don't only tell the person who your sin affected that you're sorry, but you tell them what you're sorry for. You don't just say, Mommy, I'm sorry, though that's a wonderful start, especially if it's from the heart. Because remember, being sorry isn't just something you say with your mouth. It's something you feel in your heart. You're sorrowing over your sin. But you don't just say, mommy, I'm sorry, or daddy, I'm sorry when you disobey your parents. You say, mommy, I'm sorry for disobeying you. Or brother or sister, I'm sorry for hurting you. When you do that, it's called confessing your sins. Just like how each week we kneel down together and pray. And each time we do that, I say the same thing. I say, let us draw near with a humble heart and confess our sins to God our Father, imploring him in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to grant us forgiveness. Confessing your sins means naming what you did, admitting that it was wrong and asking God to forgive you. Now where am I going with all this? Our text today doesn't say anything about confession. And that's a fair point. But just hang with me for another minute here. After you've confessed your sins from the heart and prayed with your parents, usually you can move right along with your day. You go back to whatever game or chore or lesson you were doing. Once there has been confession, God says that if it's from the heart, there has been forgiveness. And once there's been forgiveness, your sin is dealt with. You don't need to deal with it anymore. You don't need to stay wallowing in your sin, just rolling around in sorrow or in anger or whatever it might be. You move on. Well, before Martin Luther was born again, Every time he sinned, he felt that God was angry at him and that he was ready in that very moment to send him straight to hell. And so he would spend every day up to six hours confessing his sins. six hours straight, constantly, over and over, confessing his sins. As soon as he would confess one sin, he would then feel pride welling up within him that he had done something righteous in confessing his sins. And so he then had to confess that pride. Or he would have to confess the same exact sin over and over and over because he didn't believe he had really been sincere enough in his confession the first 10 or 12 times for God to actually forgive him. So he was in this terrible cycle of misery where he was afraid of God and he was angry at God, too. Because how could he love someone who just hated him all the time? And that's what he thought God was doing, was just hating him constantly. We might say, well, but why was Martin Luther like this? Why was he so afraid, so angry? Why was he so obsessed with confessing even the tiniest potential inclination to sin? The reason that Luther and so many other people throughout the ages have struggled with this is because Luther was confused about how to work the works of God. That's what our passage is about today. How do we work the works of God? Martin Luther was thinking like the crowd here in John six. What must I do? What must I do to do these works? How do I please God? How can I gain this bread that leads to everlasting life? Luther knew that he was a sinner and he knew that sinners cannot please God. And he knew that if he did not get this sin problem resolved before he died, he would in fact go to hell. And this terrified Luther. Night and day he was in agony in his soul because he was afraid of the wrath of God. And so he asked the church leaders of his day. He asked them the same exact question that the crowd here is asking Jesus. He said, what must I do to do the works of God? And sadly, those church leaders did not tell Luther the truth. They said, oh, what must you do to do the works of God? Why, you must fast. And you must pray. You must work hard with your hands. You must receive the sacraments. You must not get married. You must confess your sins to someone authorized to grant you forgiveness. You must do this and do that and do this and do that and work, work, work, work, work. And if you do enough good things, then maybe God won't send you to hell. That's what you must do to do the works of God. Now, this just made Luther's problem far worse. It was worse even than he originally imagined. Now, many of those things that I just listed, not all of them, but many of those things that the church leaders told Martin Luther were very good things, things that were commanded to do, things that are good for us to do. It is good to pray. It is good to go to church. It is good to be hardworking. But without believing in Jesus Christ, none of these things will do any good for you on judgment day. In fact, doing all those things to earn your salvation will actually end up just accruing damnation for your soul. Because trying to earn your salvation, even by doing things that are otherwise good, is a great sin in and of itself. All the fasting in the world will not earn you one crumb of the bread of everlasting life. If you kneel down and pray every day until your knees wear out, until you need total knee replacement surgery, still, this will not get you the communion of God that you seek. This will not give you a glorious resurrection body one day. No amount of any good works whatsoever will earn you an eternity with Jesus. There's only one work that can get you that everlasting life. And that is believing in the one whom God has sent. Now you may think to yourself, hang on. How is believing in Jesus a work? Doesn't the apostle Paul, for instance, contrast faith and works? Paul says in Romans chapter three, we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from deeds of the law. He says we are justified by faith, not deeds of the law. And of course that's true. Romans chapter three is scripture, that is the pure gospel. So what does Jesus mean here? Is he saying something different than Paul is? What does he mean when he says that the work of God is to believe on the one whom he has sent? How is that a work? And how does that not lead to a works-based salvation? I think that what Jesus is doing here is he's contrasting the works of man And that's works of man, plural, it's deeds, acts, things that people do in their own strength. He's contrasting that with the work of God. And that's singular, one work of God. The works of man versus the work of God. If you still have your Bibles open, turn with me over to Ephesians. Great and wonderful gospel passage, Ephesians chapter two, verses one through 10. The Apostle Paul is describing the great work of salvation that God does for each and every one of his elect children. He writes this beginning in verse one. And you he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just like the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Paul here in this passage is helping interpret for us what Jesus is saying to the crowd in Capernaum. Paul said that in the sons of disobedience, those who are not born again from above, in the sons of disobedience, Satan is now working within them to do evil. Satan is working within the hearts of unbelievers. The unbelievers also themselves, Paul tells us elsewhere, are also working hard to earn the wages of sin, which is death. So they're working. But Paul also says that by grace, if you're God's child, then you have been saved through faith. And that faith, he says, is not of yourself. That means that the faith you have did not come from within you. You did not generate it within your heart. You did not work for that faith. Not of yourselves, Paul writes, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. So if you have a true and living faith, then that is because God has given it to you as a gift. And then Paul writes this, that we who belong to Christ are His workmanship. We are God's workmanship. Satan is at work in the hearts of unbelievers. But we who have faith in Christ, we are the work of God. God crafted us himself and God worked faith within us. He's the worker. He's the potter. We are just the clay. And why did God create us? Why? Why did he work this faith within us? The end of our passage here, Ephesians 2.10 says, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. So we've been given the gift of faith in Christ in order that we would glorify him and do works that are acceptable and pleasing in his sight. So we might think, and many, many people have run into the air, they think, okay, we're the work of God. We're God's creation. God then works faith within us. And then once we have all the tools necessary and we have a new heart, we're free to take it from there. God gives us everything we need for salvation. All we have to do is complete the task. God gives us the football. He clears the field of all the opposing players. And he says, all you have to do is walk it into the end zone. Is that what we're saying here? Many people have had this line of thinking. As the apostle Paul might say, if you heard this, he would say, by no means. That's not at all what we're saying here. God not only crafted us, he not only gave us faith, but he himself has prepared specific good works that we would do. And we are called to just follow after Christ, thus walking in those good works. So what is this good work that God requires? It is the work that he alone can do. God requires something that he alone can do, namely giving us the gift of faith so that we believe in the one whom he has sent. And when we truly believe in the one that God has sent, then we will follow his leading in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Augustine prayed to God that he would give what he commands and command what he wills. He said, God, grant what you command and command what you will. What does that mean? It's kind of a, it sounds maybe confusing to our ears. What is Augustine saying? He's saying, God, command me to do whatever is in your holy will. Whatever is good and right and true, require it of me. I want to be told what I need to do to please you. Command me to leap to the highest heavens. Command me to plumb the deepest depths of the seas. Command me to heal the sick. Command me to raise the dead, God, if that's your will. Command me to walk on water. But God, whatever you command, Augustine prayed, Lord, just grant me the grace to obey. Give me the strength by your Spirit to obey your commands, because without your grace, I could not do it. Without your grace, I couldn't walk a foot, much less walk across the water. But with your enabling grace, with the strength of God, we could walk across the ocean as it rages and foams. We could tell a mountain, be lifted up and cast into the sea. Give me the grace to do what you command, Augustine said, and then command me to do whatever you will. And I will follow you in the paths of righteousness. I will walk in the good works that you have planned for me. And what then are, what is the work of God? It is to believe in Christ, Jesus says. And if you truly believe in the risen Lord Jesus, that he was true God and true man, who lived a perfect life, died an excruciating death on the cross to pay for your sins, and then he rose again on the third day, never to die again, then that means that you are one of his disciples. That means that you have a new heart. And if you are following Jesus as your Lord, and if you have a new heart, then not only will you know how to please the Lord, but you will, through the Spirit, be able to do so. You'll be enabled to do those good works. You'll never be perfect in this life, and your justification before God will never depend on your obedience in this life. But if God has truly made you one of his children, then he will grant you the ability to obey him. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man. But God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it. That's God's word for us in Hebrews. What do you think that means? that with the temptation, God will provide a way of escape that you may be able to bear it. That God will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. That means that God will enable his children to obey him. Yes, you still have to go to war with the old man. Yes, you will still be tempted to sin. Every single day of your life, you will be tempted to break God's law, to turn your back on the God who saved you. But brother or sister, you are fighting a winning battle. Through Christ, the word of God tells us that you are more than conquerors. Remember the two promises that come with the great commission in Matthew chapter 28. We have these two amazing promises. Number one, all power in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus. Not Jesus might get all power in heaven and on earth. It's already been given to him. He has everything. And then number two, this all-powerful Jesus is with us always, even to the end of the world. Wonderful promises. Sometimes when we read the Great Commission, we focus on the task and forget the promise. God indeed gives His church tasks. He gives us commands even which seem impossible. They really do. Think about it. Go disciple the nations. All these pagan nations who in the world's eyes are more powerful than you little band of disciples. Go baptize these heathen nations and teach them to obey everything that I have commanded you. Think of the apostles hearing that task. What a gargantuan task. Jesus, one of these nations just murdered you. How are we to go and disciple these nations? But God says, I will be with you. every step of the way, just like Moses being told to go to Pharaoh, the most powerful ruler in all the land. Moses says, I can't do that, Lord. God says, I will be with you every step of the way and you will succeed. Now, why don't we believe him when he gives us these promises? Why don't we believe him? So it's not that Jesus is confusing faith and works here in John chapter six, or that he's doing a bait and switch to try to trick people. He's just telling them what the real work of God is. The crowd is eager to know how to get everlasting life. Everyone wants to live forever. It doesn't matter what religious or philosophical beliefs people have, everyone wants to live forever. Even the people that claim they don't. they want to live forever. Maybe they don't want to live forever in heaven. Maybe they want to live forever here and they work hard in scientific research and medical advances to make our bodies live forever. Or maybe like Elon Musk or some of those people that have these wild and crazy ideas that maybe if we move to another planet, we could figure out a way to continue to live forever. even the people that claim they don't want to live forever, that pretend to find comfort in the annihilation that they think death will bring, even they want to live forever. But without God revealing it to us, we don't know the way to live forever. So we ask, what works do I have to do to gain eternity? How good do I need to be? Who do I need to love? What sacrifices do I have to make? And Jesus says, oh, you're getting it all wrong. You're confused. What you need to do to live forever is to believe in me. You don't have to work to earn your spot in heaven. The work of God is to believe because God has already done the work necessary to earn your place in heaven. He is the one who goes before us and prepares a place for us. In his father's house, there are many mansions. already laid up for those who are called according to His purpose. The work of God is simply to believe and then follow Him. This conversation between Jesus and the inquiring crowd reminds me of Charles Spurgeon's conversion. Spurgeon was a powerfully anointed evangelistic pastor and preacher in 19th century London. I shared this exact story with many of you several months ago, but I think it bears repeating here. Spurgeon writes this as he's recalling how God saved him. Later in life, he records this. I sometimes think I might have been in darkness and despair until now, had it not been for the goodness of God in sending a snowstorm one Sunday morning while I was going to a certain place of worship. When I could go no further, I turned down a side street and came to a little primitive Methodist chapel. In that chapel, there may have been a dozen or 15 people. I had heard of the primitive Methodists, how they sang so loudly that they made people's heads ache. But that did not matter to me. I wanted to know how I might be saved. And if they could tell me that, I did not care how much they made my head ache. The minister did not come that morning to the chapel. He was snowed up, I suppose. At last, a very thin looking man, a shoemaker or tailor or something of that sort went up to the pulpit to preach. Now it is well that preachers should be instructed, but this man was really unintelligent. He was obliged to stick to his text for the simple reason that he had little else to say. The text was, look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. He did not even pronounce the words rightly. Well, that did not matter. There was, I thought, a glimpse of hope for me in that text. The preacher began thus. My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, look. Now, look and don't take a deal of pains. It ain't lifting your foot or your finger. It's just look. Well, a man needn't go to college to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool and yet you can look. A man needn't be worth a thousand a year to be able to look. Anyone can look, even a child can look. But then the text says, look unto me. I, said he, many on ye are looking to yourselves, but it's no use looking there. You'll never find any comfort in yourselves. Some look to God the Father. No, look to Him by and by. Jesus Christ says, look unto me first. Some say we must wait then for the spirits working. You have no business with that just now. Look to Christ, the text says. Look unto me. Then the good man followed up his text in this way. Look unto me, I'm sweating great drops of blood. Look unto me, I'm hanging on the cross. Look unto me, I'm dead and buried. Look unto me, I rise again. Look unto me, I ascend to heaven. Look unto me, I'm sitting at the Father's right hand. Oh, poor sinner, look unto me, look unto me. When he had gone about that length and managed to spin out 10 minutes or so, he was at the end of his tether. Then he looked at me, Spurgeon writes, under the gallery, and I dare say with so few present, he knew me to be a stranger. Just fixing his eyes on me as if he knew all my heart, he said, young man, you look very miserable. Well, I did, but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance before. However, it was a good blow struck right home. He continued, and you will always be miserable, miserable in life and miserable in death if you don't obey my text. But if you obey right now, this moment, you will be saved. Then lifting up his hands, he shouted as only a primitive Methodist could. Young man, look to Christ Jesus. Look, look, look. You have nothing to do but look and live. I saw it once the way of salvation. I know not what else he said. I did not take much notice of it. I was so possessed with that one thought, like as when the brazen serpent was lifted up, the people only looked and were healed, so it was with me. I had been waiting to do 50 things, but when I heard that word look, what a charming word it seemed to me. Oh, I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away. There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun, and I could have risen that instant and sung with the most enthusiastic of them of the precious blood of Christ and the simple faith which looks alone to Him. Oh, that somebody had told me this before, trust Christ and you shall be saved. Amen. Just like this crowd in Capernaum, 2000 years ago. And just like Spurgeon nearly 200 years ago, everyone today is looking for eternal life. And everyone wants to know what they need to do to get it. What works must I do? We are often like Spurgeon, waiting on 50 things to do, thinking we must conquer every goal imaginable just to earn our spot in heaven. Obedience is required to go to heaven, but what are we to obey? We're to obey the work of God. We're to obey the gospel by believing in Jesus Christ. That's it. Look to Christ with the eyes of faith. God is the one who does the work within us. God, the Father, planned our salvation in eternity past. God, the Son, Jesus Christ, accomplished our salvation by dying on the cross and rising again 2000 years ago. And God, the Holy Spirit, even today, applies that salvation to each and every sinner appointed. to eternal life. Earlier in our sermon, I told you about Martin Luther's constant agony that he went through prior to his conversion. He could not escape the feeling that, as Jonathan Edwards would later preach, that he was in fact a sinner in the hands of an angry God. He had no peace, and so he continued to throw himself headlong into the study of God's word. He knew that somewhere in the Bible lay the answers that he needed, and he just had to search for them. In later years, Luther reflected that during this time leading up to his conversion, he incessantly beat upon the Apostle Paul, or in his words, I incessantly beat upon the Apostle Paul at Romans chapter one in verse 17. He had to figure out what Paul meant when he wrote that in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith. His unconverted eyes couldn't understand what that meant. And then after persistent study, Luther realized the light bulb went off in his brain. He realized that Paul meant that he who through faith is righteous shall live. Through the gift of faith, God also grants the gift of righteousness. How Luther could lay down his works. He could lay down his incessant labors. All who trust in the Lord Jesus are regarded as righteous in his sight. Luther then wrote these words. He said, Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. Luther had been released from the great burden upon his back of trying to earn his own salvation. He was free to obey God. And freedom is what leads to obedience. He was free to obey God and live in light of his saving truth. So Luther began to preach and teach and pray differently. Being born again will do that to a man. If you have a pastor who's unconverted and then he receives the new birth, there will be a change in what he teaches you. But Luther never forgot his struggles and he knew they were not unique to him. The natural man always, always, always believes in works righteousness. The natural man cannot understand grace. Sometimes that's why when Christians are so nice to unconverted people, like after a disaster, the lost people are confused. Why are you being so nice to me? They don't have a category for true biblical grace. But Luther also knew that saved people continue to struggle with this type of thinking also. If you are God's child, it doesn't mean everything in your thinking or in your feeling is perfect. We have many deficiencies still within us for all of our days of our life. So he knew that the people in his church struggled with this. So bringing things full circle here with our church history stories for today, Spurgeon preached this in 1855. And Spurgeon is, he talks about Luther here. And I think it sums up both of these men's stories. Spurgeon says, the whole Bible tells us from beginning to end that salvation is not by works of the law, but by the deeds of grace. Martin Luther declared that he constantly preached justification by faith alone because, said he, the people would forget it. So that I was obliged almost to knock my Bible against their heads just to send the truth into their hearts. So it is true, Spurgeon concludes, we constantly forget that salvation is by grace alone. Two of the greatest preachers ever to walk the face of the earth. And every week they made sure their people did not forget, salvation is by grace alone. What is the work of God that you must do? Believe on him whom God has sent. So if you're slipping into that type of thinking as you're going through your week, that you have to earn your way to heaven, That God has given everything you need to please him, but now it's up to you to do the rest. That you can do the works which will merit everlasting life. If you are slipping into that type of thinking, then first of all, brother or sister, you need to repent. Apologize to God that you thought you could earn his favor. Apologize that you thought the blood of Christ wasn't enough to pay for your sins. And then secondly, whether you are falling into works righteousness type of thinking or not, take time right now in this service to renew your trust in the work of God. Renew your trust in the work of God. Proclaim to God that you believe Him. You will take Him at His word. If you ever wonder, is Christ really willing to save me though? Because if everyone else knew the thoughts that I think and knew the desires of my heart, they wouldn't think that I could be saved. If you've ever wondered that, could Christ be willing to save me? Look to the cross. That's the measure of Christ's willingness to save to the uttermost. Even as he was being crucified, as he was hanging there in enormous agony, Jesus prayed that God would forgive those who caused his death. Jesus was perfectly fine and content in his majestic splendor in heaven. He had no need in himself to come to earth. He came because our triune God was willing and able to save the worst of the worst. He desired even to save sinners. And Jesus would do everything necessary to save you. So God is willing to save us. Even if you feel like nothing but a hypocrite, like you're an imposter, that one day someone will find out you don't really belong with all these nice people. Even if you feel angry at God or scared of God, even if your heart sometimes feels cold and unfeeling to the gospel, the cross proves infallibly to you and me and to the whole world that God is willing and able to save all of those who would call upon him in faith. So pray that God would open your heart anew and trust in the work of God that alone can bring us everlasting life. Let's pray. God, we thank you for your wonderful work of God. Lord, we thank you that as we scramble around, trying in our flesh, to save ourselves, Lord, that you have done everything necessary for our salvation. We thank you, God. Then, as we return to your word after being saved and we look at your law, that is a delight to us, that is no longer a burden upon us, that your law is a lamp to our feet, that we can joyfully and freely follow you, Jesus, in the paths of righteousness for your namesake. We thank you, God, that you work faith within us, that we are your workmanship, that you have prepared the good works beforehand, that we should walk in them. Spirit, enable us, enable us now to honor you, to love you, to trust you, to believe that you really are our Lord and Savior and the giver of life. God bless us now, in Christ's name, amen.