We are continuing to celebrate the arrival of the Son of God in human flesh and his birth and second coming in the season of Advent. And doing that by tracing a series of passages throughout the Bible, tracing the biblical theme of the presence of God throughout Scripture. And God's presence has been called the primary theme that progresses throughout the entire Bible. The presence of God is the primary theme that progresses throughout the entire Bible. Now kids, when I talk about the presence of God the last few Sundays, the presence of God or God's presence, what am I saying? Or what are we saying? Well, obviously, Emmanuel, it means Jesus, yes. Obviously, right? You get right to the point. This guy doesn't mess around, Duncan. Right to the point. Jesus, right? There you go. That's the best answer for every question every pastor's ever gonna ask you, right? Jesus, okay? Can't go wrong there. The presence of God. What are we saying about God's presence? How is God present? Kids, is God everywhere? Is God on the beach right now? So we shouldn't be in church? We should go down there and see him? You can hear the waves. It's good enough. You can touch your toes in a few minutes. The Lord is everywhere, right? We call that his omnipresence. He's everywhere. He's in all places at all times in the entirety of the universe, right? Is God contained by the universe? They say the universe is expanding. Is God just in the edges, the tips of our vast Unknown universe? No, he's above, he's beyond, he's greater than the universe itself. God's everywhere at once. But what we're talking about in terms of God's presence in scripture is more than just his omnipresence, that he's everywhere at once. No, we're talking about his face. The Bible, I mentioned that Hebrew term panim, it's always used in the plural, faces, it could be a translation, but it means the face of God. The face of God is his presence, his blessing, his grace, himself coming. And so we want to trace this theme of this face of God or the special presence of God that manifests itself or himself in special ways and special places to particular people in blessing, and in grace, the special presence of God, the face of God, in blessing and in grace. This is that one thing above all things, the psalmist says. One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after. What is it? to dwell in the house of the Lord, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. This is that one great thing that is the essence of Scripture, the presence of God in grace and in blessing with us, his people. So this beautiful thing, it's the most important thing, to be in the presence of God, to behold the presence of God, to see our beautiful and our glorious God. This is our religion, this is our faith, this is what it's all about. This is what Christ came to do. If you've seen me, you've seen. Okay, you've seen me, you've seen the Father. It's to reveal the Father, to reveal God to us. That's why Jesus has come, and to bring us back to God by his life, death, and resurrection. This is the most important thing. This is the most important thing for us to hear today from Scripture to us as believers, and maybe if you have yet to believe in Jesus, the most important thing is to know that the presence of God, the face of God, is the one thing that we desire most as God's creatures, and the one thing that he's come to bring us. I was told that I had to mention in this sermon today a Def Leppard lyric, okay? I was told that, so I heard some 80s music. I'm not gonna say whose house it was. Heard some 80s music last night, and the music was going. It was great 80s music, and someone said, well, you've gotta mention Def Leppard in the sermon tomorrow. The world, so the presence of God is the most important thing for us. This is the greatest thing of all, right? The greatest thing of all is to know God's presence. But as Def Leppard once sang, the greatest of rock stars, right? Their whole ethos is, it's better to burn out than fade away, as one song goes. Why? Because through rock music, we got the power, got the glory, as Def Leppard sang. I think it was just last night we heard that song. We got the power, we got the glory. No, we have, we have. We have something more than what the world can offer to us. And rock music just being one thing, right? Power and glory and pleasure and fame, riches and all the things that we can imagine. We have the presence of God in Jesus Christ. That's what we have. The lasting power and presence of God in us. in the face of Jesus Christ. So, we want to pick up this morning in our Bibles, in Exodus, and our story begins here with the presence of God in the fruitfulness of Israel. The presence of God in the fruitfulness of Israel. And we transition from those 70 believers, the 70 Israelites who went down into Egypt during a time of famine, Recall that, the end of the story of Genesis? There were 70, and they all went down under the protection of Jacob's son, Joseph. And so that 70, that small little band of believers were there, and as the book of Exodus begins in chapter one, the transition is from those 70, and they've all passed away, and now there are generations to follow. Note the contrast in verse number seven of Exodus chapter one. What does that verse sound like? We've been kind of surveying this big theme throughout the Bible. What does that sound like? Fruitful, right? Fruitful, increasing, multiplying, being filled, the land's being filled with them. That sounds exactly like what God commanded Adam and Eve. Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth. And then didn't he tell that to Noah and his sons? After the flood, the waters receded, the ark rested, they got out, and God said the same thing in Genesis 9. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. Now, in those two cases, Genesis 1 and Genesis 9, these are commands. God commands Adam and Eve, God commands Noah and his sons, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. But here's the great thing. This later on became a promise that God was going to fulfill, that God was going to do. He made a promise to Father Abraham to bless his offspring as numerous as what? the stars of the sky and the sand of the sea. It became a promise of God that he was going to do something. And so now in the story of Exodus, we begin to see God keeping his promise. God's people, or the people of Abraham, are now being blessed by God so much so that the entire land of Egypt is becoming filled with the people of God. They're as numerous as the sand of the sea, the stars of The heavens. And so that's yet another example to us of God who makes promises and he keeps promises throughout the entirety of scripture. And this is what we mean when we say that God is a covenant God. God is a covenant God. God makes promises and God keeps promises. He promises things to us and he fulfills those things. And ultimately, how does he do that? What's the season of Advent all about, brothers and sisters, again? the coming of Jesus. Ultimately, the promise of God to Father Abraham that begins to be fulfilled here in Exodus chapter 1 is revealed in the incarnation of Emmanuel, of God with us. The presence of God is already there in Egypt in the days of Now, one of the ways that we see the blessing of God upon the Israelites as they are growing so large and so vast is in this story of chapter one where Pharaoh seeks out to put to death what God has blessed. Verse 12, the more they were oppressed, speaking of the Israelites, The more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied, and the more they spread abroad. So Pharaoh's design, his plan was, well, now I'm gonna work them to death. They're becoming too numerous, we're gonna put them to work. Taskmasters, they're gonna build, make bricks out of straw, and then eventually takes away the straw, they've gotta make bricks out of nothing. He wants to work them to the bone, work them to death. But the more they were oppressed, the more God blessed. Notice that. The more they were oppressed, the more God blessed. They multiplied and they were spread abroad the land. Now when that didn't work, when Pharaoh's first plan didn't work, he then resorted to another plan, infanticides, commanding the midwives of the Hebrew women who were giving birth that when they saw a male baby being born, coming out of a mother's womb, put it to death. put it to death. And so eventually, the thinking would go, there will be no males left, they would have to resort to having Egyptian husbands, Egyptian parents, so that they would just be interbred and intermingled, and eventually would cease to exist as a people. But, notice verse 17, the midwives feared God. The midwives feared God, and they in fact disobeyed the king's edict, didn't they? And look at the note the story gives in chapter one, verse 20. They feared God, they refused, so God dealt well with the midwives. How so? He gave them families too. And the consequence, again, verse 20, was the people multiplied and grew strong. So working to death doesn't work. Infanticide, not gonna work. So then Pharaoh makes a decree to his entire realm, his entire kingdom, Anyone who sees a Hebrew child, a male Hebrew child, do what? Throw that little baby boy into the River Nile. It's one of their gods. It's a human sacrifice to God. They're gone. But you see, loved ones, the story of Exodus begins by showing that every time there's an obstacle, that becomes an opportunity for God to overcome. All the way back in Genesis 3.15, we saw that God made a promise that from Eve's seed would come a child, a son, who was going to crush the seed of the serpents. And every time that serpent would lift up its head in opposition to God and His people, it was a chance for God to show Himself to be what? To be faithful again to His promise. Every time the serpent raised up its head and it rose up in opposition, the city of the woman was raised up in contrast to put it down. God always wins, doesn't He? Jesus always wins. We know the end of the story. Jesus always wins. But we begin to see the end of the story of Revelation already here in Exodus. The story of God being present with his people in times of great opposition, of great persecution for God to overcome. Now that leads us then to a second little point here, which is this, the Prince of God and the birth of Moses. So this sets us up for this savior, this human savior figure, this picture of Jesus Christ to come. So a Levite man, that's the tribe of, the Levites were one of the 12 tribes and the tribe from which the priests come. A Levite man and a woman had a son. And notice verse two of chapter two. How is this baby boy described? This is a baby boy, again, that should have been killed by the midwives, but wasn't, should have been put into denial. We're gonna see that as well. But how does the narrator describe this child? Verse two. Well, the ESV says a fine child, right? A fine child. Now, the Hebrew term is tov. He was tov. And we, all of us good Hebrew scholars here know what that word means, don't we? Tov. God saw that it was good in the evening and morning, the first day. And God saw that it was good, tov, and it was very good. It's the same exact word that's used in the Genesis creation narrative of God seeing what he had made and declaring it good. Our translators translate it as if he was this, you know, really photogenic baby that just, you know, he looked like a J.C. Penney baby, right, for Christmas photos, whatever. He just looked the part. A fine child, or a beautiful, good-looking child. No, good, because there's something that God is going to do, something that God has chosen him to do, to start, we might say, a new creation. God sees this child and he's very good because he's going to do some new creational type of thing. In fact, the letter to Hebrews tells us that because his parents saw that the child was beautiful, meaning again there's some sign from God that he's sent by God to deliver the people from oppression. They were not afraid, Hebrews 11 says. Because they saw that in him, they were not afraid of the king's edict. And so they hid him as long as they could for three months when they could not conceal him any longer. Verse three of chapter two. The mother took for him, the baby here, they're nameless so far, a basket made of bulrushes and daubed it with bitumen and pitch. Basically took tar and made it water, they sealed it from water, they made it waterproof. And they put the baby in it, verse three. Now look at that word baskets there, ESV. She took a, she made a basket of Bull Russians. Again, we're all good Hebrew scholars here this morning, and we all know what that word is, don't we? Baskets. Don't we? Shane, well, you're doing Greek, you're doing Greek, my bad. Reverend Baker, I'm putting you on the spot, but I won't, but I won't, but I won't. Okay? This is the same exact Hebrew word that we've already seen before, okay? Teva. It's all the way back in Genesis 6. God commanded Noah, build me a tavah, an ark, an ark, build me an ark. Now kids, what's the difference between an ark and a boat? An ark is, yeah, it's pretty big. It's pretty big, but the boats today are pretty big, aren't they? But what's the difference between an ark and a boat? An ark and a boat. There's one big difference between an ark and a boat. A boat has a rudder. A boat has a rudder, you can steer it. You, Noah, could have, if he made a boat, he could have driven, or at least as the wind was blowing it in the waves, he could have steered that boat to where he wanted to go. An ark has no rudder, why? Because it's at the mercy of the presence of God. It's at the mercy of God. Wherever God wants that ark to go, it's a floating box. That box is gonna go wherever God says it's going to go. Remember in Genesis 7 we looked at where Noah went in and his three sons go in and their three wives go in and Noah's wife goes in and all the animals go into the ark. Noah's the last one to go in and you're going in, how did they close the door? What did Genesis 7 say, how did they close the door? The Lord shut him in. right, the very hand of God, right there with them in a time of flood, closing that door ever so gently to make it nice and waterproof, and there was God right there with them. We see the power and the presence of God here as well with this baby who is going to be called Moses. And so this baby boy is put in this little baby ark, and this ark is just floating on the Nile River, this God of the Egyptians. And it's at the mercy of Almighty God himself. And this child's mother and father are trusting in the Lord, and they put this baby out there on this God, this water, the Nile. And he just happens to be found, discovered. the daughter of Pharaoh, the last person you wanted him to get discovered by, but the daughter of Pharaoh, and she raised him as her own child. There's something about that baby boy, you see, something about him that he had to be preserved in an ark from waters of judgment, just like Noah. But this time, of course, the judgment is the judgment of Pharaoh. But he has to be saved and preserved from these waters of judgments. So there's a picture here to us of the Prince of God guiding and directing Noah, but also we see here a picture of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, floating in that little ark. Moses is a type of that coming seed of the woman. who was going to be born and one day also be threatened with death, this time by his own country's king, Herod. Every boy, every male child, two years and below, put to death. How dare these magi come and say, where's the one born king of the Jews? I'm the king of the Jews. All male baby boys put to death. And so they had to be preserved. down in Egypt of all places. They fled down to Egypt of all places. The place of the Nile River, the place of Moses there in an ark upon the Nile River at the mercy and the whim, we might say, of the wind but yet of Almighty God. We see a wonderful picture here of the presence of God, don't we? Now, all this opposition led to a beautiful description of the remembrance of God. Notice in the end of chapter 2, there's God remembering them. The end of chapter 2. The people of Israel groaned, verse 23, because of their slavery. They cried for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. So they're praying to God. They're crying out to Him. They're groaning to God for help. And then there are four verbs used of God here in verses 24 and 25. Notice the four verbs. God heard their groaning. Okay, that's the first one. He remembered His covenant He had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the people of Israel. And what's the last verb? He knew. He knew, heard, remembered, saw, knew. Just a beautiful description of the personal presence, the close, intimate presence of the Lord with his people in their sufferings. The Lord knew. The Lord knew. Later on, the prophet Isaiah is going to describe the exodus out of, or the exile, the exile out of Israel into Babylon, and then the returning back in terms of the Israelites in the exodus, going through another Red Sea, surviving affliction, surviving opposition. And the prophet Isaiah says in Isaiah 63, 9, in all their affliction, the Israelites' affliction, in all their affliction, he was afflicted. Who's the he there? The Lord. The Lord. It's exactly what We read here in Exodus, the Lord knew. He knew their suffering. He knew their oppression. He knew their opposition. He knew their struggle. In all their afflictions, He too was afflicted. Again, it points us forward to a day to come when God would step foot on this earth and He would be in our shoes. He would be tempted as we are in every single way, yet without sin. He would know our weaknesses, He would know our struggles, He would know our sufferings, all to bring us back to God, to help us to know that God loves us so much that His only Son would come and become just like you. Now, there's also an obvious application here about prayer. Gotta mention that quickly. But you see there in those verses about prayer, first and foremost, the most important thing of all, God hears prayer, doesn't He? Doesn't God hear prayer? Why do we pray, kids, if God doesn't hear us? God hears your prayers. The people groaned because of their slavery and cried for help. Their cry came up to God. God hears prayer. Pray, loved ones, pray. Secondly, notice the kind of prayer that God hears comes from the heart. It recognizes the depths of need. They were groaning, they knew their needs. God knew that they knew, right? They knew their need and God knew. The kind of prayer that God listens to and hears is the kind that comes from our hearts, the depths of our souls. And then thirdly, just notice, I've mentioned this a million times before, but it's always important to bring it out, that prayer plays a part in God's action to save us. Prayer plays a part in God's action to say, we're Calvinists, we're reformed Christians here, we believe in the sovereignty of God here, right? But we don't just say, you know, if God's gonna save them, let God do it. Your prayers play a part in the chain from the beginning to the end of a person's salvation. And your prayers for your own particular struggles and needs play a part. We don't just let go and let God. We don't just take our hands and say, well, God's gonna take care of it and God's gonna do it. You know, God's got me, I'm good. You need to pray, loved ones. It's a part of the plan of God. He commands you to pray, He promises to hear you when you pray, and He promises that through your prayers, He's gonna actually do the things that you want Him to do, right? When we ask Him the things that we need in Jesus' name, according to His will, God hears and answers. And so prayer plays a part in God's action to save. Now, that brings us then from Moses' birth and his action, he saves a Hebrew. That's what leads him out to the wilderness of Midian. We'll skip over that, but look at chapter three. God's presence at the burning bush. The burning bush. And there's Moses shepherding. And again, it shouldn't surprise us that throughout the scriptures, shepherds play a great part in God's redeeming plan. David and of course Jesus, the good shepherd. He's there shepherding. And he comes to this mountain called Horeb, which is described as the mountain of God. The mountain of God, verse one. And notice, Notice this, there's just a lot of things, notice, I'm gonna point some of them out, it's really interesting, strange but interesting. At the mountain of God, notice, the angel of the Lord appeared. The angel of the Lord, verse two, appeared. Now, the last time we read about him, the angel of the Lord that is, do you know where that was? Where is it, what's that? The last time in the Bible, up to this point, before this, where's the last point in the Bible before Exodus 3, we read about the angel of the Lord? Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac on Mount Moriah. So both are on a mountain, Abraham, Moses. Both experience this appearance of the angel of the Lord. I mentioned when we went through that, who was the angel of the Lord in Genesis 22? The Lord, right? This is the Lord. This is a pre-incarnate manifestation, a theophany as it's called, of the Son of God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Before he was incarnate, he revealed himself somehow to Father Abraham. So keep that in mind. The last time the angel of the Lord appeared, we saw that he's God, he is the Lord. So the angel Lord appears to Moses on a mountain as well, just as with Father Abraham. Now, also notice this, his appearance was in the form of a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. Again, when's the last time we read about the image of God, this vision of God, a theophany, a manifestation of God, In terms of fire, in Genesis, God manifested himself as fire somewhere. Genesis 15, right? He tells Abraham that he's going to bless him, give him a son, give him an heir, make his descendants as numerous as the sand and the stars. And the way he shows that is there's this animal sacrifice and God passes through these sacrificial animals laying out on the ground as a flame of fire, as a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch. When God appears in scripture, oftentimes it's in the form of fire. That's one of the most important theophany. So we have the angel of the Lord. The last time we saw him, he was described as, and he spoke in the first person as God. We see this angel of the Lord appearing in the flame of a fire in the middle of a bush. The last time we saw fire appear, it was God himself, the father Abraham. This was so strange to Moses. This bush is burning, verse two, but yet it's not consumed. Notice that. It's burnt, it's on fire, but it's still there. Yet it was not consumed. Church fathers in the early centuries saw this as a prefiguration of the incarnation. This is a type of Jesus Christ. How? We see the glory of the Son of God in the flame of fire, right? That's always a vision of God. The theophany, the fire is God himself. We see the Son of God in his glory in the flame of fire, but we see his humility because he reveals himself in a bush, right? A tumbleweed, we might see. here in North County. The word became flesh, the glory of God became flesh, right? The glory and the humility. We've seen his glory, John tells us. How have we seen his glory? We've seen his glory in the incarnation, in the human, our Lord Jesus Christ. And so Moses sees this strange thing and he goes to see it. Now notice this, verse four. So Moses goes to see the bush. when the Lord saw Moses doing this. So we have the angel of the Lord, we get the Lord now, just the Lord. When the Lord saw Moses doing this, look at verse four. Who called out to him? But what does it actually say, verse four? God called to him. The angel of the Lord, the Lord, and God. What is going on here? All three of these are mentioned, right? All three of these are mentioned. Now, even more than that, the place on which Moses was standing is described as holy ground. It would only be holy ground if God was there. And what does Moses hear out of the bush? God saying, verse six, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. Even more, verse six again, Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. Now, I thought the earlier verses said it was the angel of the Lord who was in a bush. Didn't it say that? The angel of the Lord was inside the bush. But then it says the Lord saw Moses going to see the bush, but then it says God spoke out of the bush to him, calling himself God, and Moses was afraid of that voice and that flame of fire, because that's a theophany, and so he hid his face. This means what? This means that the angel of the Lord is the Lord and is God. The Lord, all capitals, is the angel of the Lord, is God. God, who speaks here, is the angel of the Lord and the Lord. This is the Lord, brothers and sisters. This is the Lord. This is Jesus speaking to Moses before Jesus came to this earth, revealing himself in glory, but also in humility, speaking the voice of the very Word of God, because he is the Word. The beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. And the word became flesh and we've seen his glory. Know what the Lord says here, verse seven and eight. I have surely seen the affliction of my people. I've heard their cry. I know their sufferings and I've come down to deliver them. Seen, heard, know. Sound familiar? That's chapter 2, verses 24 and 25 again. But notice the difference. In 2, 24, and 25, we have the Lord seeing, we have the Lord hearing, we have the Lord remembering, we have the Lord knowing. And then here in chapter 3, verses 7 and 8, we have the Lord seeing, we have the Lord hearing, we have the Lord knowing. What's missing? In chapter 2, verse 24, God remembered his covenant. But now we read what? I have come down to deliver. I've mentioned to you many times, brothers and sisters, that the biblical language of remembering, remembrance, It's not a mental thing. It's not because God forgot something that God has to remember and be reminded of what he told us before, no. Remembering is a biblical phrase of describing action. And so God says in the end of chapter two that he remembered his covenant. Now he's going to act, that's what it means. How is he going to act? Just what the Lord says here out of the fire of the burning bush. I have come down. to deliver. To remember the covenant is to deliver, is to act, is to do what God said he would do. Again, God's a covenant God. He's a covenant making God and a covenant keeping God. He's come down to deliver. But Moses, but Moses says, who am I? The Lord says, you're gonna go to Pharaoh, you're gonna go to the Israelites, but Moses says, who am I? Who am I to go and speak? What's the Lord's reply? Look at chapter three, verse 12. Who am I to go to the Israelites and to the Pharaoh and speak? The Lord says, I will be with you. See that? Sound familiar again? When the Lord appeared to Isaac, chapter 26 of Genesis, the first time the Bible read that phrase, I will be with you. And again in chapter 26, verse 24, the Lord said to Isaac, I am with you. The presence of the Lord is the key to Moses' fear. I will be with you. But that's not good enough for Moses. He's a sinner, just like you and me. He's weak, he doubts, or he feigns ignorance, he pretends like he's just not this eloquent man, although he's trained in all the wisdom of Egypt. He's fearful. And so he says, well, when I go to the people of Israel, they're gonna ask me, you know, what's this God's name, and what am I gonna say? The Lord says in chapter three, verse 14, I am who I am. That's what you're gonna tell them. I am who I am. In other words, I'm the God of your fathers in the past, I'm your God now in the present, and I'm always going to be this God. It's not just that God is immutable, that he's unchangeable. but it's that he's unchangeable for his people. I was this God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and now to you, Moses, and I will always be to the Israelites and all who call upon my name forever and ever and ever. And so we can take God at his word. We can take him to the bank because he is the same yesterday, today, forever. And for us as believers, the name of God, I am who I am, I was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses, and the future Israelites, this is Jesus. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And he's with us. And he's with us. And so, to bring it to a conclusion, I'll let you read chapter 12 on your own, the Passover, and see wonderful pictures there of the presence of the Lord with his people. But we see the presence of God once again this morning, brothers and sisters, we see it in the time of the Israelites in Egypt. God's not only present, God doesn't only show up when times are good. God is right there in the lowest of the low of Israel's history. And he was there blessing them with fruitfulness. Joseph died, all those patriarchs died, and matriarchs died, that original 70, they all died in Egypt, but yet God was there blessing. And God was there blessing with new creation out of the water in the birth of Moses. And he was there remembering them, and hearing them, and seeing them, and knowing his people's cries. And he was there at the burning bush promising to be the same God as he was to Abraham and all the way into the future of Israel's many, many generations. And he was there in those living rooms on that Passover night, right there with them, right there with them. This wonderful God, brothers and sisters, the God who was there with those midwives protecting Hebrew baby boys, the God who was in the ark, steering the ark to the right woman, to the right family, to provide for Moses and for the Israelites, that same God who was in the bush, that same God who was with Moses, and when Moses was too weak to do it, he raised up Aaron to do the same thing, That same God, loved ones, who was in the living room of the Israelites, passing over because He saw the blood of the Lamb, has come near to us. He's drawn near to our world in the form of our Lord Jesus Christ. And He's come to bring life to dead sinners like us. He's come to bring hope to our hopeless world. has come to bring us the light and the life of the gospel of Jesus Christ, amen? This God is with us, we sing to Him today, we pray to Him, we celebrate Him, we look back upon Him, we look forward to His coming again. This wonderful God was present in Egypt and He's present with us this morning here in Carlsbad, California, the good old US of A, amen? Let's pray. Lord, thank You for the blessing of Your Presence, as we see it in your word, and we ask that you would now open our hearts and our minds, Lord, to receive your truth. Enable us, Lord, now as we sing to you to prepare our hearts and minds to receive this Lord's Supper, this visible sign and seal of the covenant of grace, which for us is the very body and blood of Christ. And so we pray that you would strengthen our faith, encourage our hearts, fill our minds with your truth and our hearts with your love and our mouths with your praise. And we ask all this in Jesus' name and all of God's people say. Amen.