This afternoon, we're going to deal with the Lord's Day 12 and what we confess in there as summarized from scripture. The reading pertains quite closely to it. And so this afternoon, I would like to start with Lord's Day 12 and then do the reading afterwards. The reason for that is because Lord's Day 12 explains what it means to be a prophet, priest, and king, and how Christ is prophet, priest, and king. And once we've read that, we can go to our reading and then see how the reading reflects those elements of Christ's prophetic, priestly, and kingly role. So we'll start by reading Lord's Day 12, which is going to provide us with focus this afternoon. as we approach our reading. Here we read as follows and confess as follows. Why is Jesus called Christ that is anointed? Because he has been ordained by God the Father and anointed with the Holy Spirit to be our chief prophet and teacher who has fully revealed to us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption. Our only high priest who by the one sacrifice of his body has redeemed us and who continually intercedes for us before the father and our eternal king, who governs us by his word and spirit and who defends and preserves us in the redemption obtained for us. Why are you called a Christian? because I am a member of Christ by faith, and thus share in his anointing, so that I may, as prophet, confess his name, as priest, present myself a living sacrifice of thankfulness to him, and as king, fight with a free and good conscience against sin and the devil in this life, and hereafter reign with him eternally over all creatures. Now, having read Lord's Day 12 and understanding this threefold office of Christ, let's turn to our reading from John chapter 12, the verses 20 through 50. And as we read, let's pay attention to where in the passage we see that threefold office reflected. Where do you see Christ acting as a prophet? Where does he act as a priest? Where does he act as a king? John 12, starting at verse 20. Now there were certain Greeks among those who came up to worship at the feast. This is a feast of Passover, and Jesus is going to be crucified. Then they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, sir, we wish to see Jesus. Philip came and told Andrew, and in turn, Andrew and Philip told Jesus. But Jesus answered them, saying, the hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, let him follow me. And where I am, there my servant will be also. If anyone serves me, him my father will honor. Now my soul is troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this purpose, I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven saying, I have glorified it and will glorify it again. Therefore, the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said an angel has spoken to him. Jesus answered and said, this voice did not come because of me, but for your sake. Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself. This he said, signifying by what death he would die. The people answered him, we have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say the son of man must be lifted up? Who is the son of man? Then Jesus said to them, a little while longer, the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. He who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light that you may become sons of light. These things Jesus spoke and departed and was hidden from them. But although he had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in him, that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke, Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe because Isaiah said again, he has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn so that I should heal them. These things Isaiah said when he saw his glory and spoke of him. Nevertheless, even among the rulers, many believed in him, but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. Then Jesus cried out and said, he who believes in me, believes not in me, but in him who sent me. And he who sees me, sees him who sent me. I have come as a light into the world that whoever believes in me should not abide in darkness. And if anyone hears my words and does not believe, I do not judge him, for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects me and does not receive my words has that which judges him. The word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day, for I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me gave me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told me, so I speak. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Probably all of us have sung that song at some point in time. Children among us would probably know all of it. What about the second stanza? Remember that one. Jesus loves me, he who died, heaven's gates to open wide. He will wash away my sin, let his little child come in. It's a simple song, biblical, beautiful. It focuses exclusively though on the name of Jesus and tells us who he is. You could say that this song still falls within the scope of Lord's day 11. But now we've come to Lord's day 12. And this asks us why is Jesus called Christ that is anointed? Christ is not a name, like a last name or a surname, but it is a title. It means anointed. Now, what does it mean to be anointed? Very simply, to be set apart for an office. When a priest or a king was anointed, it meant that special oil was poured out over his head. And that oil signified that this person was set apart for service to God as a priest or a king. Generally in the Old Testament, it was priests and kings that were anointed. There is one verse that talks about a prophet being anointed as well. That's the prophet Elisha in 1 Kings 19 verse 16. But typically it was priests and kings. And so to be anointed meant to be set apart so that you could carry out a particular office to which God called you. Now, Jesus was anointed as well, not with oil, but with the Holy Spirit. We read about that this morning. He went into the river Jordan. He was baptized by John. And as he came out, heaven tore open and the Holy Spirit came down on him in the form of a dove. And then a voice came from heaven, you are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. And at that moment, Jesus was set apart for his work as our office bearer. And he was set apart not only as a prophet, not only as a priest, not only as a king, but all three at the same time. Now, Jesus bears the threefold office of prophet, priest, and king. And these are all very solemn titles. When you think of words like anointing, you think of office, government, priest, prophet, king. These are all very weighty, heavy words. And when you think about these things, love is not the first word that comes to mind. Jesus loves me, this I know, the first part, right? The name Jesus. Jesus loves me, this I know, but what about Christ? We don't always connect that love with the word Christ. We don't connect his love with the titles of prophet, priest, and king. We tend to take those things very seriously. We look at them very clinically, dogmatically. In our minds, we associate those titles with solemnity, seriousness, soberness, but not with love. And yet with Jesus, these titles are not just a role that he took on. They are inseparable from who he is. His threefold office shows how comprehensive his salvation is, how deep his love for us reaches. If you properly understand what each office does, then you understand the depth and the impact of Christ's love on us. You understand the riches of his love, and you understand how you can respond in turn. And so this afternoon, I may preach to you the gospel summarized as follows. Look at how much Jesus shows his love to you as your prophet, as your priest, and as your king. So how does Jesus show love to you in his office as prophet? Well, what is a prophet? A prophet is someone who by definition speaks the very words from God. The idea of a prophet and that a prophet exists presupposes that God wants to communicate. God speaks in order to communicate. In fact, he spoke the world into being and he did so through Christ. John 1 verse 3 says that all things were made through him. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. So you could argue on one level, on a limited level, that the very act of creation already shows us the love of God through Christ. It shows us that God wants to communicate. Communication is an act of love. It's part of his self-revelation. Psalm 19 confirms that when it says, the heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day, they pour forth speech. Night after night, they display knowledge. God is a God who speaks and he speaks through creation. That speaking is an act of love and of grace because by speaking, he wants to make himself known to you. Now, if he already shows his love to you through creation, If Christ, in a sense, already showed his love to you at creation, imagine how much more he shows his love through his word. In the past, God sent prophets to his people to give them his word. That in and of itself was also an act of love. God doesn't want to leave his people in the dark. He doesn't want them to be ignorant of who he is. All true prophecy points to Christ. If Christ is the word of God in the flesh, you could say in some sense, all prophecy is the word of Christ. It was the spirit of Christ, says Peter, that was speaking through the prophets. The catechism goes on to say that Christ has fully revealed to us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption. He has fully revealed. In him, the ultimate glory of God was revealed. And our reading from John 12 this afternoon illustrates that in a very powerful way. Jesus has entered Jerusalem. He's in the last, the closing days of his life on earth. He's going to be rejected and crucified by his own people. And even as he's being rejected, as he has been since the beginning, you get these Gentiles, these Greeks, these foreigners who come and they're drawn to him. They say, we want to see Jesus. The Bible says one day all people will come to him. will come to him, the son of man. The son of man is borrowed from the book of Daniel, Daniel 7, 13 and 14, talks about the son of man being led into the presence of God and sitting there with him. So already now Jesus is drawing these people to himself. He's receiving glory, but the path to that glory goes through the cross, it goes through the grave. And Jesus sees that coming. And he says in verse 27, now my soul is troubled. Now my soul is troubled. It's a little bit like what Matthew writes about when he portrays Jesus in Gethsemane, how he was crying out and sweating, that a sweat came like drops of blood falling on the ground. And some of that gets reflected here as well. Jesus is thinking about his imminent crucifixion. And he says, my soul is troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this purpose, I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name. And then a voice comes from heaven saying, I have glorified it, meaning in what Jesus has done so far. And I will glorify it again on the cross. So Jesus is on his way to the cross where he is going to reveal the glory of God. He's going, and I'm borrowing from Lord's day 12 here. He's going to reveal the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption on that cross. How? Because God's glory ultimately shows in that He forgives. At the cross, we see the cost of our redemption. We see the glory of God as judge. We see the glory of God and His justice as punishing sin. We see the glory of God and His mercy as Jesus dying for sinners. We see the horror of sin. We see the extremity of its punishment. We see what redemption costs. We see what God was willing to do to accomplish all of that. And all of that is God's glory. It's the reflection of his greatness, the lengths to which he goes, the way that he reveals himself. That's all included in glory. As a prophet, Christ has fully revealed to you the secret counsel and will of God concerning your redemption. So the Bible builds up to that point where the glory of God is a man hanging on a cross, dying, bearing the sin of the world. Not just that, but he's given us a spirit to understand that revelation. So it's not just what we see in scripture with Christ on the cross, but it's also having his spirit to understand that. That's part of revelation as well. And we share in that anointing. We share in that spirit, that same spirit that came down on Christ and set him apart for his office to be able to show us all of these things. There's a spirit that now lives in us in order for us to understand them. We share in that anointing and you can be sure he has not done that for everyone. Even among Jesus' own people. You imagine, imagine being a Jew in those days. Imagine having Jesus right there. Imagine having him, seeing him, doing all of these things, hearing him preach and then not believing any of it. because your eyes have been closed and your heart has been hardened. It says in verse 37, although he had done so many things before them, they did not believe in him. So the fact that you're here this afternoon, that you are engaging with God's word, that you're listening, you should not take that for granted. It's something that God gives to you. The catechism goes on to say that I'm a member of Christ by faith and thus share in his anointing and therefore also share in his self-revelation. How do we share in God's self-revelation? Well, God doesn't just reveal himself to us, but he reveals himself through us. We do that by speaking of him. If Christ has fully revealed to us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption, how can we keep that to ourselves? Now, it is true it's difficult often to confess the name of Christ. Maybe that's sometimes, sometimes it's maybe because we're too focused on ourselves in the moment. And Jesus speaks about that in verse 25 as well. He says, he who loves his life will lose it. He who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. So what does he mean when he talks about loving your life? He means making yourself and your own comfort, the focus of your existence. It means being like the Pharisees in verse 42. Even among the rulers, many believed in him, but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." That's what it was about for them. Now, often when we're in the moment, we're too focused on our circumstances, we don't speak, we don't testify to the glory of God. We focus on avoiding discomfort, embarrassment, social awkwardness. We've all done that at some point in time. I have too. And sometimes we might even be willing to speak, but we find it difficult to navigate a particular conversation. And maybe for some of us, maybe for many of us, this is an even bigger problem. It's that you think, how do we work ourselves through this conversation? And then you miss our opportunity. But then look at how much Jesus shows his love to you as your prophet. He continues to let you grow and mature in the faith. He gives you opportunities to share the gospel. He gives you courage to do so. He teaches you how to speak. He teaches you what to say. Every week you come here, every week he reveals more of his word to you. See, Lord's day 12, it's written in the past tense, who has fully revealed to us a secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption. He's revealed that. But it's not past tense in terms of our understanding. We're still growing in our understanding now. In a sense, Lord's Day 12 is a life for us all the time. Every week we come here, every week He reveals more and more to us. Doesn't that show His great love? See, in all of this, the one thing that we may not do, the one thing that is an absolute denial of our witness is to reject the self-revelation. Once you have that revelation, once it grabs you, it will not let you go. You cannot unsee the things that have been revealed to you. As he says in verse 48, he who rejects me and does not receive my words has that which judges him. He has that which judges him. The word I have spoken will judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me gave me a command, what I should say, what I should speak. So that's love. He has not left us in the dark. He has not left us with something marginal. He's made it very clear to us. He's fully and faithfully revealed the secret counsel and will of God concerning our redemption. So look at how much Jesus shows his love to you. We've paid attention to how he shows his love to you as your prophet. Let's now also pay attention to how he shows love to you as your priest. Often when we think of a priest, what's the first, if I say the word Leviticus, what's the first thing that comes to mind for you? probably complexity, lots of rules and regulations. Maybe if you think about what it would mean to be a priest, you think about the amount of animals they had to kill, the amount of blood that there was everywhere. And yet the office of priest in the Old Testament was a beautiful thing. The office of priest in and of itself was grace. A priest existed for one reason only, to make it possible for you to be right with God. That was grace. God made that possible. God established a system by which people could approach him and be forgiven for their sins and walk away and still be alive. That was real grace, real love. And yet says scripture, all of that was a shadow of the grace that was to come. Lord's day 12 says our only high priest is Christ ultimately. And the ultimate sacrifice is his body. He's redeemed us through his body. And the catechism here focuses very specific on that moment on the cross or a moment that point where he's on the cross, where he's dying. But the sacrifice includes more than just that. It's more than just the moment that he died on the cross. In theology, we tend to distinguish between what we call the active and the passive obedience of Christ. So his active obedience is the life that he lived. The Bible teaches us that when we believe in Christ, God gives us all of the righteousness and holiness of Christ, because he lived a perfectly righteous and holy life. He was actively obedient to God. When we believe in Christ, God gives us that obedience. He credits it to us, so to speak. That's called imputation. And that's more than just taking away our sins. God does not forgive us our sins and then leave us to kind of work our way into the black on our own. He doesn't say, well, I've taken away all of your badness. And now it's up to you to get to the point where I start to love you again. He doesn't say that. Instead, he credits all of the righteousness and holiness, the active obedience of Christ, he credits that to us. In the words of Lord's Day 23, he looks at us as if we ourselves had accomplished all of the obedience that Christ has rendered for us. So that's active obedience. The active obedience of Christ, his life as a sacrifice to God, that's his life. His passive obedience is what happened on the cross. And that's more in focus in Lord's Day 12, but it's not the only thing that Christ did. So passive obedience is the suffering and the death that he underwent on the cross to take away our sins. His active obedience is everything that surrounded that. But all of his obedience, all of his life was a service, a sacrifice to God. Now, Lords day 12 goes on to explain, now that I've been redeemed, I too may present my life as a sacrifice to him. And you know, It's very easy for us to make that abstract. I mean, if concretely, if you think of the word to offer your life as a sacrifice to God, what comes to mind? Probably not a whole lot. We make it something abstract, but it doesn't have to be. To offer your life as a sacrifice is to simply be obedient in the large and in the small choices. In verse 36 of our reading, Jesus says, while you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light. What is the son of light? Well, it's Jewish terminology. You find it back elsewhere in the Bible, in places like Ephesians 5, verse 8. It says, walk as children of the light, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. So to be a son or a daughter of light is to reflect. the qualities of light. But what does that look like concretely? Well, if you look at Ephesians 5, which says, walk as children of the light, it makes it very concrete. And a few verses later, it starts talking about relationships. That's where the rubber hits the road for us, doesn't it? And it talks especially about the marriage relationship. It goes on to say things like, for example, husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church. And listen carefully. Listen for his priestly office here. Christ loved the church and gave himself for her that he might sanctify and cleanse her, that's what a priest does, with a washing of water by the word, that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So Christ gave himself up as a sacrifice for the church. He gave himself up to God for the church. And in some way, in some way, That is meant to be reflected in the relationship that a husband has with his wife. So this idea of making your life a living sacrifice, just like Christ made his life a sacrifice. This is concretely how Christ did it. And then it says, concretely, here's how you do it. It talks about different relationships there. We single out husband because it's in context, easy to work with. So a husband, when he loves his wife and when he gives up his life in a sense for her, he cannot take away her sins. But if you take Lord's Day 12 seriously, if you honor the call to live a life of sacrifice, then there is some way in which your wife needs to become, should become more godly from knowing you. If you're a husband, not everyone here is married. That's fine. If you think about it, if you're a husband, then there's some way in which your wife should become godlier from knowing you. And if she isn't, if your relationship with your wife is bringing out bitterness or ongoing disillusionment in her, you don't just have a relational failure or a relational breakdown. You have a breakdown in your office as priest. That's what it is. And again, in different ways, this applies in all relationships in life. And Ephesians 5 explains that very carefully. If you want to, you can go home tonight and read it again in light of Lord's Day 12. So getting back to marriage, anger in a marriage relationship ultimately comes from having what? From a sense of entitlement. Isn't so much anger in life, doesn't it come from believing that we deserve better than what we get? You get your expectations and you get reality. There's conflict between them. Conflict generates anger. And it's very difficult to look past that in the heat of the moment, the thousands of little frustrations and irritations that sometimes indignities that come with living with other people and encountering them in life. But if you really understand what it means that Christ is your high priest, if you really understand what he went through to take away your sin, and how much He shows His love to you. How can there not be a sense of deep gratitude? And that gratitude is what you have to hold on to in the moment. If you don't have gratitude, it's very difficult to present yourself as a living sacrifice of thankfulness. You can't be thankful if you're not grateful. Gratitude and thankfulness are the same thing, really. Having said that, it's important for us to remember that Christ did not only show his love to us in the past, he continues to do so in the present. 1 John 2 verse 1 says, if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. So Lord's day 12 says, he continually intercedes for us before the Father. See what he did for you on the cross was not just something that happened 2000 years ago. The benefits of that exist today at this very moment. Jesus is interceding for you. Do you realize that? Do you ever stop to think about how big of a thing this is? That you have an advocate who intercedes for you? Advocate, that's a legal terminology. What does a lawyer cost around here? What would it be? What, six, $700 an hour maybe? And yet you have Jesus and His love who advocates in the single most important relationship that will ever exist in your life and all of eternity. And He advocates for you continuously. He does it out of love. You think about how big of a thing this is. That's why we pray in His name and that's encouraging. It's encouraging to know we have a perfect high priest who brings our need for forgiveness to the Father. Our life is meant to be a sacrifice of thankfulness. And that includes the marriage relationship. It includes every other relationship in life. And when we fail, which we do regularly, we can ask for forgiveness in the name of Christ. He intercedes before the father on the basis of his sacrifice, not yours. Your sacrifice is a sacrifice of thankfulness. His sacrifice was the sacrifice of atonement. He intercedes on the basis of his sacrifice. And that's encouraging. It's possible to lose your motivation to pray when you fail. Yet again, you think, well, what's the point? Never get it right. Never going to get it right. But then you need to remember you have a savior, a priest, an advocate who's interceding for you. And God listens to you because of him. He listens because of the sacrifice of his perfect life. He doesn't love you any less when you fail. After all, he's your priest, the job of a priest. What does a priest do? He's there to repair, to restore. He doesn't judge the people that comes to them. He deals with our sins. He's a merciful, compassionate, gracious high priest, says Hebrews. He's your priest. Look at how much Jesus shows his love to you as your prophet and as your priest. And let's now also pay attention to his love as your king. God has always been king. There's never been a point when he has not been king. But ever since the fall into sin, his kingship has not been recognized by all. And that's where so much chaos comes from. Chaos is anarchy, rebellion, breaking loose from rules and restraints. That's what happens when you ignore the decrees of the king. So for God to bring His kingdom into this world, to call people out of the chaos that their lives so often are, to call them to repent and to be a part of that is an act of grace. It shows the glory and the love of God, who is now willing to govern us by His Word and Spirit. Have you ever thought about this before? The chaos of your life, if you didn't have the Word of God, try to imagine your life, try to imagine waking up tomorrow, and you have no Bible, you have no church, you've never heard the gospel, you have to figure it out yourself. You have a week full of things and no real framework to put them in other than what you patch together yourself. What would life be like if you had to live like that? You try to visualize that for a moment. And it's almost impossible for us to imagine. It's impossible for us to imagine life without the word of God to guide it. The word of God is his gift to us, it's our anchor. And it goes together with the spirits because again, you can only understand and submit to the word of God when his spirit enables you to do so. And so what that means is when we hear the word of God, which is really his authority exerting itself over our lives. The word of God is God's decrees to us as king. When we hear those, when we submit to them, that is thankfulness. That's not something you do to make yourself right with God. And this is what every other world religion insofar as they believe in a personal God gets wrong. You do not obey God in order to make yourself right with him. You obey God because you're grateful to him. Obedience is your grateful response to the work of the Spirit in your life. There's a sense of amazement that obedience is possible at all, that God actually takes people out of the chaos and the dysfunction of their lives and reshapes them into people that can relate in a biblical way to each other. It's incredible. We get that sense in places like the canons of Dort, chapter three, four, article 16. There are people out there who hate our confessions. And these are people that have never, I think, really fully understood or grasped the sense of awe and amazement and joy that you find even in places like the canons of Dort. Chapter 3, 4, Article 16, when it marvels It marvels at the fact that we're quote, formerly the rebellion and resistance of the flesh fully dominated. Now a prompt and sincere obedience of the spirit begins to prevail in which the true spiritual renewal and freedom of our will consists. So in the canons of Dort you get the sense of amazement that obedience is actually possible, that God is really doing this, that he is taking his good kingship and applying it in our lives and exerting his authority over us. It's a beautiful thing. Why did people want to have a King? Why does anyone want to have a King? Because a good King will fight for you. A good King will lead you. A good King will guide you. And that's what Christ does for us. Lord say 12 says, He defends and preserves us in the redemption obtained for us. He doesn't leave us to work it out alone. Instead, he governs us against the attacks of Satan because you are under attack. Do you realize that? That you are under attack. If you share in Christ's anointing, you're going to fight with a free and good conscience against sin and the devil in this life. That presupposes that there is a fight to be had. Is there a fight in your life? Are you aware that you're in a conflict? Maybe there's a question you should discuss tonight over tea. What does the fight against sin and the devil look like in your home? Maybe you should begin by discussing where is sin and the devil at work in my home or in my life? And then what are we doing to fight? What does it look like? What does the fight against sin and the devil look like in your home? How has Jesus shown his love to you? His kingship in your life by equipping you for that fight, leading you, not leaving you to hash it out on your own. Lord Zay 12 asks us this burning question. Why are you a Christian? It's an important question. And it goes on to answer, because I'm a member of Christ by faith and thus share in his anointing. What greater way to reflect the glory of Christ than to actually imitate his works? What greater way to reflect his glory than to say, this is not just something that I want to do, this is something I want to be in every aspect of life. I want to be a prophet, priest, king. There's no part of my life that falls outside of the scope of that call. I want to be like Christ. I want to reflect Him. I want to be in the image of God. That's what we were made for. It takes time to learn to fulfill that office. It takes time to learn to apply it in life. It's like watching children grow up. If you see children, Each child in a family is different. And we all have certain milestones. There's milestones that kids are expected to meet. Ideally, they would say, be able to use a pencil by this age, be able to maybe kick a ball by this age, be able to say or do certain things at certain stages, but everybody gets there at a slightly different speed. And some kids are really good in one area, maybe a little bit slower than others. And in the same way, if you think about that, analogous to us in our threefold office, maybe some of us are very, it's very clear to us the kingly side of things, but maybe the priestly, the self-sacrificial side is not as clear to us. Maybe prophetic, we're very good at speaking the truth, but maybe not always good at serving others. Or maybe we love serving others, but we're not always clear on the kingly side of things. We all grow in those areas at different speeds. And it's important to see that as a process of growth and not focus on one moment in time and then see yourself as a failure because you don't live up to the ideal in that moment. It's a process, it's organic, it's growth. And it will take time to grow into your office. There will be frustrations, shortcomings, but don't stop there. Focus on Christ. Focus on his love. Focus on the grace that he shows to you, the love as your prophet, your priest, and your king. And it's not just his love. It's the love of the Father who sent Him and of the Spirit who lives in our hearts. So let's honor that love in the best, the only way possible by imitating it. And in that love, let's enter this week. Amen.