Now would you take your Bibles, please, and turn back to John chapter 17. I hope that as Don read the chapter this morning, or part of it, that you remembered, oh yes, we are going through John's Gospel. We have been going through John's Gospel, in fact, for some considerable time, and before I left for vacation, I delivered two sermons on chapter 17 and we will spend some further time in this magnificent high priestly prayer of our Lord Jesus before we move on. Let me just refresh your memories as to what we have observed so far in this wonderful prayer and I want you to have your Bibles open so that you can look at the words referred to and remember what our Lord has expressed in this prayer and get the general context and setting. In the first message in John 17 we observed three things in the opening five verses, verses in which Jesus prays for himself basically. We saw the supreme authority of Christ as he makes the declaration in verse 2 that the Father had given him authority over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as the Father had given him, the supreme authority of Christ. And then the glorious achievements of Christ, we noted secondly, as he says in verse 4, I have glorified you on the earth, I have finished the work which you have given me to do. And then we observe the legitimate desire of Christ as he prays that the Father, in verse 5, would glorify him together with himself, that is with the Father, And indeed in verse 1, in the opening of the prayer, he prays, Father, the hour has come, glorify your Son, that your Son also may glorify you. Legitimate desires of Christ. Now in sermon 2, I had you note with me things that Jesus prays for in connection with the apostles and thy implication for all of his people. First of all, we observed in verse 11, that Jesus prays that they might know a oneness such as he enjoyed with the Father. So at the end of verse 11 he says, Holy Father keep through your name those whom you have given me that they may be one as we are. Praying that they might know that oneness that he enjoyed with the Father Verse 15, he prays that the Father might keep them from the evil one. I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. And in verse 17, he prays that the Father would sanctify them by the truth. Sanctify them by your truth, your word is truth. So this is the rich material that we find in this wonderful prayer of Christ. And as we look at it again this morning, I want you to notice again these words, I have, that keep cropping up. Now we saw them in verse 4, I have glorified you on the earth, I have finished the work which you gave me to do. And I want you to notice three other instances where we have our Lord saying, I have done this, I have done that. And these now are in connection again with these apostles and by implication and by application to all of his people. Notice first of all in verse 6 he says, I have manifested your name to the men whom you have given me out of the world. I have manifested your name to the men you gave me." Now, as most of you know, I'm sure, the word name, as it was used by the Jews in particular, basically conveyed the idea of character or being. When the Jews spoke about the name of the Lord, they very frequently meant The being of the Lord, the character of the Lord, the attributes of the Lord. What God was like was conveyed by the word, the Name. So for instance, in Psalm 20, we find a lot of this in the Psalms. In Psalm 20, in the opening words we read this. May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble. May the Name of the God of Jacob defend you. You see, there's Hebrew parallelism here, and he's saying the same thing really. in the second clause as he is in the first, but he uses the word name instead of God or Lord as he does in the first. May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble, may the name of the God of Jacob defend you. The name of the God of Jacob, that is all that God is. May the being of God, may God himself defend you. Or again back in Psalm 9 and verse 10. Those who know your name, says the psalmist, will put their trust in you. What does he mean by that? That if they know that this God is called Jehovah, that somehow that will therefore mean they'll trust him? No, no, no, there's much more conveyed by the word name than that, right? Those who know your name will put their trust in you. That is, those who know what you are like. Those who understand your attributes. Those who understand something of your character. They'll put their trust in you. So when Jesus says here, Father, I have manifested your name to the men that you gave me. He's really saying, I have shown these men what you are like. declared, I have manifested, I have revealed to these, my disciples, something of your being, something of your character. As they have been with me, I have revealed to them what you're like. Now, obviously, these men, being Jews, knew probably quite a good deal about God. But in Jesus Christ, you see, God has given to all of us a full and glorious revelations such as none of us, before our Lord came, ever experienced. In Him, says the Apostle, dwells all the fullness of the Godhead body. In Him are all the treasures and the riches of God. And so I ask this morning, what did Jesus reveal about God to these men as they lived in His presence? Remember that these disciples, these twelve or eleven as they were now, because Judas of course had left, they had lived in the presence of Jesus Christ. What had they seen about God in him? How had he manifested the name of the Lord to these men? Well, I believe he'd shown them first of all that God was more concerned about their spiritual condition than about their social and political ambition. He'd shown them that. They'd seen that. See, these men had not escaped the ambitions that gripped most of the Jews of their day. They were looking for a Messiah who was to be a political leader. They were looking for a Messiah who would lead them to victory over their enemies. They were looking for a Messiah who would make them, the Jewish nation, powerful amongst the nations. A leader that would make them the head of the nations. and make them supreme amongst the nations. They were looking for a messiah who would give them independence from Rome or any other oppressor and exalt them as a nation. And on the personal level, you take James and John as an example, they were looking for positions of preeminence within what they conceived to be the kingdom of the Messiah. You remember how James and John said, Lord, they wanted to get the inside track, you remember? Lord, grant that we might sit on your right hand and left hand when you come into your kingdom. Well, first of all, they didn't understand what the kingdom of Christ really was all about, and secondly, they did not understand the true nature of greatness as they were yet to understand it. But you see, I'm sure that all the rest were of much the same mind. I have suggested, I remember in the Bible study on Wednesday on one occasion, that when the other disciples were angered with James and John because of that, it wasn't that the other disciples were much more spiritual, I suspect it was because they were annoyed that they'd made the jump on them, they'd got the jump on them, and they were annoyed. I can imagine Peter and the others saying, if anyone gets the right hand it's going to be me, not them. Ambitious, you see, political and personal social ambition. They were caught up with these carnal ambitions, but Jesus Christ showed them, you see, as he manifested the name of God to them, that God was more concerned with their spiritual condition than with their political or social ambitions. You see, they knew very little about the state of their hearts before a holy God. They were strangers basically to the grace of repentance. They knew nothing of the necessity of faith in the Son of God. Not at least as He was to be revealed as the Saviour in New Testament terms. They had no real heart for holiness. They had no real desire for humility and lowliness of service amongst their fellow men. as most of the Jews did in terms of these political and social ambitions. And it was only as Jesus manifested the name of the Lord to them, it was only as they saw in Christ what God was really like, that they began to recognize, listen, God isn't concerned about exalting the nation of Israel and making them the top dog over the Gentiles. God isn't really concerned about that. And God isn't really concerned about whether I am the big chief in the kingdom of the Messiah. God is concerned about my spiritual condition. God is concerned about the state of my heart. This is what they began to realize. But oh, how like so many in our day were these disciples, right? Perhaps like some sitting even in the congregation this morning, pursuing all kinds of earthly ambitions. But my dear friend, the question is, is your heart right with God? That's the great question. The question is, have you felt something of the loathsomeness of sin in your life? The question is, have you turned to Jesus Christ in repentance and in faith? The question is, are you living your life in fellowship with God? These are the things that God's concerned about, and these are the things that you ought to be concerned about, and I ought to be concerned about. Not political ambitions, or social ambitions, or personal ambitions, but to know that I am right with God. to know that I am in living fellowship with God, to know that my heart is in tune with God's heart. This is what you ought to be concerned about, and me. I have manifested your name. He showed them also that God would forgive sins, but only through the cross. God would forgive sins, yes indeed, but only through the cross. You see, in so far as the Jews thought about the forgiveness of sins, they believed that they could obtain that by their own efforts. This was really the heart of their problem, wasn't it? They believed that God forgives. Oh yes. But they had come to believe that God forgives by virtue of their works, by virtue of their efforts, on the basis of their own righteousness. If they believed they conformed themselves to the requirements of their religion, all would be well with them. And so Paul refers to this, you remember, as he looks back I suppose shaking his head at his form of blindness, as he looks back he says that when it came to the law, and I think he means by that to the external requirements of the law, to the rituals of the law, when it came to temple observance and sacrifice offering and Sabbath observance and all of these things, why he says when it came to the law, I was blameless. I was exceedingly zealous for the religion of my forefathers. I was a Pharisee of the Pharisee. because they believed that salvation would be gained by their being conformed by dint of their own discipline to the requirements of their religious ritual. But our Lord Jesus Christ showed them that that was totally far off the beat, far astray from truth. God made known by Jesus Christ that He would only forgive sinners via the cross. That the cross is at the very center of the great disclosure of Jesus Christ. The God made known by Jesus Christ is the God of the cross. He is the God of Calvary. And this was the tremendous Son and substance, the heart of all that Jesus revealed of God, that He was the God of Calvary. He was the God who would give His Son to be the propitiation, the atoning sacrifice for sins. He was the God who provided the Lamb for the sacrifice. He is the God who says, without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. He is the God who would lay on Christ the sins of the world, the cross is at the very heart of God. The cross is in the heart of God. It was there from all eternity. And our Lord made known this as He manifested the name of the Lord, as He revealed the character of God, what God was like. He said, As it were, he said by his life, by his teachings and by his actions, he is saying, listen, God is a God who forgives but only via the cross. You can never know the forgiveness of God save you come through my cross, through my sufferings, through my redeeming blood. It's only when we come by way of the cross to the Father that he receives. And this is vital, this is crucial for us to know. In this day when people are saying, well, you know, it doesn't really matter how you come, just so long as you come. That is a lie, my dear friend. That is not true. We must journey home, as the old hymn says, by the way of the cross. The way of the cross leads And when our Lord said, I have manifested your name, I have showed them what you are like as God, He had revealed to them and disclosed that God was the God of the cross. And not only that, but He had manifested the name of the Lord in this sense, that He had shown them that God was not only a powerful sovereign, but also a loving Father. And this was one of the greatest aspects of the revelation of God in Christ. That God, I say, was not only a powerful sovereign. He is that. Yes, says Jesus, but He is also a loving Father. Now the word Father is very seldom used in the Old Testament for God. It is used a couple of times, two or three times, but very seldom in the Old Testament. But that is the name that is most frequently on the lips of Jesus as he speaks about God. Indeed, as he begins his own great prayer here in chapter 17 and verse 1, you will observe how he begins it. He lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, Father, the hour has come. As he addresses him throughout the prayer, he speaks of him as Holy Father. Holy Father. And again, righteous Father. But it's Father. And when the Lord Jesus Christ teaches His disciples how to pray, when He gives to them the model prayer in Matthew 6 and other Gospel places, I'm sure most of you know so well. You know how He begins, don't you? He says, when you pray, say this, Our Father, which art in heaven. And later on, at the end of Matthew, when he was speaking to them about not being anxious and fretting, he says, your heavenly Father knows you have need of these things. And I say again that this was one of the great aspects of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, that he was a Father. A heavenly Father. A gracious Father. And so you remember that Jesus told that wonderful parable of the prodigal son, and he depicts God as a father, and a father who is anxious and concerned about his erring children. He depicts him as one so totally different from the hard-hearted, stiff-necked Pharisees, who had no time for sinners, and who would put stumbling blocks in the very way of sinners Jesus says, no, God isn't like that. God is a Father. And when God sees men and women turning from their sin and coming back to Him, He is delighted. He rejoices. He runs out to meet them and welcomes them. And in that parable, of course, He's always using that word, and the Father saw Him coming afar off, and the Father ran out to meet Him, and the Father said, bring out the robe for me. And sometimes, you know, in some circles of the Christian Church, there is an imbalance, and I'm going to touch a little bit on that theme tonight in the message, but we sometimes emphasize so much the Sovereign Lord, the Potentate, the Great Creator, the Mighty King, And He is that, and you know me well enough to know how frequently in my ministry I have stressed that. We desperately need to reclaim that vision in the Christian Church. But we must always guard against the devil, you know, pushing us over into the extremes. And we must never forget that the wonder of our faith is that this One who is the Supreme Creator and the Sovereign Lord and the Mighty God is our Father, who cares for us, who cares for us. You know in these days of course it is so tragic that even the perception of Father now is for some children and young people a negative connotation. But all that is excellent and all that is right and wonderful about that word Father, is to be understood as it's applied to God. Happy are those of us who have had good and loving fathers. I'm grateful for a loving father. I can remember very distinctly, it's a picture that I guess is etched upon my mind, I had had a very, very bitter and disappointing experience as an eleven year old. And you know when you're 11, you kind of think you're getting pretty big, right? Hey, you're all teenagers just down the road. And you don't like to cry too much, but boy, I was really crying inside. And I can remember, I can see it right now as I'm talking to you in my mind. My father standing with his back to the fireplace. There was no fire in it, though English men like to stand with their back to the fire, we know that. There's no fire there, but he was standing with his back to the mantelpiece, as we call it, there in the fire. and I just got my arms around his legs which is about what I came up to at the time and I just cried and cried and cried and he put his arms around me and it was good to have a father. Now some young folk don't have that privilege I realise now but you see all that is excellent about that word we must read into the scriptures when they speak about God as Father. Do you care about your children? Well, if you're a father, of course you do, if you're a proper father. But do you think God doesn't care about His? Of course He does. Your Father knows, says Jesus, you need of these things. Cast all your care upon Him, says Peter, because He cares for you. He's this great God, He's your Father. And so when our Lord said, I have manifested your name to the men you gave me, He's speaking about these things, you see. God's love and his wisdom and his grace and his power, his righteousness, his holiness, his justice, all of these things took on new and marvellous significance when these men saw God in Jesus Christ. And so he has given us, you see, to see the glory of God in himself. I have manifested your name Now I want to point out two other things though, I'll have to take less time on them, but I want to point them out in this passage. That's the first, verse 6, I have manifested your name to the men you've given me. But in verse 8 he says something else, I have, here it is again you see, I have given to them the words which you have given me. And again down in verse 14, I have given them your words. Now remember that Jesus speaks as the Servant of Jehovah, the Servant of the Lord. He speaks as the second person of the Trinity, who humbled himself and became a man, and who put himself under the authority of the Father, received willingly and submissively commandments from the Father. He is the Servant, and he speaks on earth as the Servant. He was not only under orders in terms of giving his life. Remember he said this commandment I have received of my father that I lay down my life. He had not only received commandments to lay down his life, but he had received words from the father to give to his disciples. That's what he says continually. And he emphasises in his ministry that the words he was giving to these disciples, these words, these tremendous words. And I've said to you as we've been going through John's Gospel, and it's just a powerful conviction with me, how much these words of Jesus have meant to me. I hope they've meant a lot to you. As we've been looking at his teaching in this wonderful Gospel, The words I speak to you, he says, are spirit and they are life. But he makes the point of saying, listen, these are not my words, they are words that I have received from my Father. So, for instance, back in John 14. In John 14 and verse 24 he says, He who does not love me does not keep my words. And the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me. Going back again into chapter 12. And verse 49 and 50. I have not spoken on my own authority. He says. But the Father who sent me gave me a command what I should say and what I should speak. Isn't this remarkable? And then verse 50. And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told me, so I speak. Jesus Christ is saying here, I have not said one word to you, my disciples, which has not been the words of God the Father that he gave me to give to you. And he said it to us as well, he is saying that to you and to me this morning. The words of Jesus Christ. We are to remember, you see, that he is our great prophet. Prophet, priest and king. He is our great prophet. He is God's spokesman. You see, the prophet was the spokesman of God. In the Old Testament, the prophet stood and spoke in the name of the Lord. He said, thus saith Jehovah, thus saith the Lord. This is what God says to you. And you know that Moses in Deuteronomy 18 and verse 15 gave this ancient prediction. He said, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him shall you hear. Him you shall hear. Now Peter in Acts 2 at Pentecost, he picks this up by the inspiration of the Spirit and he says, Jesus is the prophet that Moses was talking about. God has raised up his supreme, final, divine prophet. And it's interesting that what Moses said there in Deuteronomy 18 about him you shall hear is picked up again and again through the Bible. So you remember on the Mount of Transfiguration? You remember what the Father said on the Mount of Transfiguration? The voice came out of the cloud. And the voice said, this is my beloved son. And you know what it said after that? You young people who are heading for a Bible quiz, I hope you're all getting all the hold up here. He said, this is my beloved son, hear him, hear him, hear him, listen to him. And throughout the New Testament you find this repeated, listen to him. And especially in the book of Hebrews, we are given profound warnings about not listening to him. Let me just read one of them to you in Hebrews chapter 12. Because you see the book of Hebrews is pointing out that Jesus is the superior one. He is the superior priest, better than Aaron. He is the superior prophet, greater than Moses. He is the superior sacrifice, greater than all the Old Testament sacrifices. And so he's presented him as the great superior priest. Now listen in Hebrews 12 to what he says, verse 22. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, who are registered in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel." Now notice verse 25, "...see that you do not refuse him who speaks. For if they did not escape those who refused him who spoke on earth," that's a reference to Moses, Much more shall we not escape if we turn away from him who speaks from heaven. The writer here of Hebrews is saying if the Israelites who refused to take heed to the teaching of Moses were destroyed by divine judgment, and they were, what do you think, he's saying, is going to happen to those who do not hear the very Son of God Himself, the Divine Father. See that you do not refuse Him who speaks, is the warning of the book of Hebrews. Father, I have given them the words you gave me. Now, what are these words about? Well, let's just think about the words we've seen in John's Gospel. What are they about? Well, you know how many times I've been drawing your attention to this. That in John's Gospel, Jesus is continually pointing men and women to himself, right? I am the light of the world. I am the bread of life. I am the way. I am the good shepherd. I am the true vine. It's Himself. He speaks about Himself. Because He is the One that we need. He speaks about our relationship with Himself. He speaks about how we are to be right with God. And He speaks about how we are meant to maintain our walk with God. It's these tremendous things that He speaks about. And, you know, Jesus does not soft-pedal the unpleasant aspects of his teaching, does he? Jesus is not a proponent of what has come to be called the health and wealth gospel of the TV evangelists. No, no. Our Lord does not soft-pedal on the unpleasant aspects. In chapter 16 and verse 2, for instance, he said to them point blank, they will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think he does God's service. And these things they'll do to you because they've not known the Father nor me. Nor says Jesus, if you're going to follow me, you must deny yourself, take up the cross and follow me. He does not soft-taggle these things. Jesus is faithful. Faithful to these first disciples. Faithful to you and to me this morning. But all this and his words are the words of the Father. His words are divine words. His words have been given to Him by God the Father to be given to His people, and He has faithfully given them to His people. How crucial then is it that you and I should study the words of Jesus? And how utterly foolish is that person, whether young or old, who neglects the words of Christ? When did you last personally read your Bible, my friend? When did you last spend time in the Scriptures? Or did you set out perhaps a year ago, you heard a sermon and it convicted you and you began to have daily times of reading of the Bible? When was the last time you had a consecutive stretch of three days when you read your Bible consecutively? How foolish we are when we ignore the words of Jesus. I have given to them the words which you have given me. And then lastly, the third thing he speaks about is in verse 12. He says in verse 12, while I was with them in the world, I kept them, or I have kept them in your name. I have manifested your name to them. I have given your words to them. And I have kept them in your name. Now when he talks about keeping them, he's obviously by the context speaking about keeping them from going back on the profession of faith and obedience. That is clear from the context because in verse 12 he speaks about Judah, who did exactly that. He is speaking about keeping them from going back to being on Satan's side after professing to be on Jesus' side. That's what Judas did. Now, of course, whilst Judas was part of the apostolic band in outward attachment, we cannot, in the light of all the rest of the teaching of the Bible, believe that he had a true spiritual attachment to the true vine. He was the son of perdition, and Jesus said way back, He said, have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? He knew all along who he chose. He was the son of perdition, and he went to his own place. But nevertheless, you see, he did profess for those three years to be part of those who belong to Jesus. He professed to love them as, indeed, he betrayed them with a kiss. He professed to love the Master. He moved with the apostolic band. He followed Jesus when he moved throughout Palestine. But the time came when he manifested himself and revealed himself to be the son of perdition, the traitor. And he went to hell. But our Lord says, now I know about him, Father. None of them is lost except the son of perdition. He, of course, is lost that the scripture might be fulfilled because he was the son of perdition. But of those that you have given me, I have lost none. I have kept them in your name. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. And well might those apostles, those disciples rejoice that that was the case. And well might Christian people today rejoice that that is still the case. that he still keeps his people. Now, quickly, what things would tempt these disciples and professing disciples today, what things would tempt them to abandon their profession of faith and to remove themselves, as it were, from allegiance to Jesus into the camp of Satan? What would do that? Well, the fear of man would do it, wouldn't it? The fear of man There were those in the days of the apostles who, if a person professed faith in Christ, expelled them, they excommunicated them, they put them out of the synagogue. The man born blind got that, do you remember? They put him out of the synagogue. So it could have been possible that these men would have feared these Jewish authorities and leaders, but they were kept from that. Or on the other end of that spectrum, you know, the desire for the favor of men has killed many a soul. the desire for men's favour. And so here's a person who professes to be a Christian, and he goes to work, and they learn that he goes to church, and they begin to mock and to ridicule and say, why, you don't believe that stuff, do you? And because this person wants the favour of these men, because he wants their approbation and their endorsement, he abandons his He abandons his profession. Now he begins, like them, to say, I don't believe this stuff from the Bible, I don't believe all this Christian stuff, and he abandons his profession because he wants the favour of men. Paul says, if I sought to please men, I wouldn't be the servant of Christ. All the love of this world will do it. Judas himself is a classic example of a man who was greedy, and was ready to serve to betray his master, rather, for thirty pieces of silver. And there's many a person in these days who has abandoned their Christian profession because of the greed that was in their heart for the things of the world. Desire for security will do it. I wonder when the disciples heard of some of the things that Jesus had in store for them, if they might have said, listen, that's not for me, I want security. I want to stay with my job or with my fishing net. I'm going to stay here. Or I'll go back, one might say, to the tax collecting job. There was security there. But no, they were kept from these things. And of course, unbelief. Oh, that terrible monster of unbelief. I could have taken them down, couldn't I? But our Lord says, I've kept them in your name. Those who you gave me, I've kept. And my dear friend, all of these things which these early apostles had to face, we have to face, don't we? Are you not fearful of men sometimes? Do you not sometimes find yourself wanting to curry in favour and have their endorsement? Doesn't the world allure you sometimes? Is there not a desire for security? Doesn't unbelief rise up in your heart? Oh, Jesus Christ says, I keep my people. What a blessed and glorious truth it is. Thank God that he still does that. Now I want you to notice this just in closing. We've seen these three things where what Jesus does. I have manifested your name. I have given them your words. I have kept them. But you will notice that in speaking about his faithful 11 disciples here, that these men responded positively to Jesus. So, in closing, just look at verse 8. Let's close with verse 8. When he says, I have given to them the words which you have given me, then he goes on and says, and they have received them. and have known surely that I came forth from you, and they have believed that you sent me." I have done these things, says Jesus. I have manifested your name, given them all your words, kept them. They have done this. They have received your words. They have believed that you sent me, and they have received me. They have responded positively to me, to my teaching, to my mission, they have responded to it. And my friends, it's important for me to emphasize again and again and again and again, that to hear the word of God will be of no profit to any of us, if we do not respond to it, if our hearts and souls do not go out to it, so that we follow the law. We receive His words, we embrace Christ as Saviour and we follow Him and we give ourselves to Him. There must be response, the response of faith and repentance. And I ask you this morning, has there been this response in you? As we have been expounding the Gospel of John and speaking about the words of Jesus and the things that He's done, has there been a response of faith in you? in these days, weeks and months. For that's what the Gospel of John is all about, what the whole of the Word of God is all about. We'll see when we get to the end that John says, these things I have written that you might believe on the Lord Jesus. And believing is a response to Christ, right? Have you responded? And if you have responded, let me ask you a further question. Have you acknowledged that in the waters of baptism? Have you openly, before all your world as it were, before all the world, your world, the people here, the people that you know, your friends and relatives, have you stepped forward and said, listen, I am going to confess in our Lord's appointed way that I have indeed by His grace responded to his gospel, because that is right at the centre of what baptism is all about, isn't it? The confession of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. We own him in the ordinance of baptism. What a wonderful saviour he is. We'll come back again next Sunday morning and see some more of this tremendous teaching of this extraordinary prayer. But always we see him as the one who manifests the name of the Lord to us, and who gives the words of the Father to us, and who keeps his people. I pray that you will respond to him positively, like Thomas in this very Gospel, crying out to him even this morning, my Lord and my God. Let us pray. Oh, Father, we thank you for the Lord Jesus. We thank you for this wonderful prayer that he offered in the presence of his disciples, which is such a blessing to us. We thank you for his wonderful ministry. Oh, give grace, we pray thee, mighty Spirit of God, work in our hearts that we might be responsive to him this day and every day. of our lives. Hear us for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.