If you have your Bibles with me or in some form you've got the Word of God with you, I'm going to read the 22nd chapter of the book of Revelation, the last chapter in the Bible, as a starting point here for me. And we're talking about worship. Biblical worship, true worship, what we people do as we gather in this room as believers in Jesus Christ, followers of the living God, those who belong to Him. Let me read this chapter and then we'll launch. I didn't say lunch, launch. Lunch follows. Verse 1, chapter 22, hear the word of the Lord. Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God, and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. Also on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations, No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His servants will worship Him. They will see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads, and night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever." And he said to me, these words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent His angel to show His servants what must soon take place. And behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book. I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me. But he said to me, you must not do that. I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers, the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God. And he said to me, do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near. Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy. and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy. Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me to repay everyone for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs, and sorcerers, and the sexually immoral, and murderers, and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and descendant of David, the bright morning star. The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let the one who hears say, Come. and let the one who is thirsty come, let the one who desires take the water of life without price." I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. He who testifies to these things says, surely I am coming soon. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen. I want to read a few verses from the first chapter of the book of Revelation, starting at verse number 9. Chapter 1, Revelation, verse 9. I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island to call Patmos on account of the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, Write what you see in a book. Send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands. And in the midst of the lampstands, one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white like wool, as white as snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace. And his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun, shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead." And we stop there. John identifying himself, the first chapter of his letter, and declaring the vision of the Christ that he saw while on the island of Patmos on the Lord's Day. Patmos was an island of exiles, a prison island. And because of his identity with Jesus and his involvement with the churches and the testimony that he bore of Jesus, he's been exiled there, though he is accountable to God all the seven churches that are mentioned, grouped together in Asia, Asia Minor area, and each of them with something to be concerned about at this stage of their journey. Let me read two verses again from the 22nd chapter of Revelation. I'm running you back and forth from the last chapter to the first chapter, now back to the last chapter. Verses 8 and 9 one more time. I, John, he says again, I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. Now these things are everything in this book that we know as the book of Revelation. This is a vision. John has seen it and he has written down as instructed what he was supposed to write down. I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things, and when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me. But he said to me, You must not do that. I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers, the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. And then the admonition, which is the title I've chosen to attach to this today, is Worship God. The angel says to him, Worship God. The vision's from God. The vision's about God at work. Worship God. All the angel was doing was carrying out the instruction that God had given him in dealing with John. And then the book of Revelation closes with these words. And this fits us as we live today, so we know that when these words show up at the end of Revelation, that there's this ongoing necessity of grace. That whenever this book is read, not to be taken away from or added to, the people who read it are blessed. And of course, the challenge then at the end is simply This, the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all, are with all the saints, some translators say. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Coming to worship on Sunday, going to work on Monday, do you ever remind yourself each time or both times or every time, I need His grace today, And I'm a recipient of the grace of the God who created me and created all this that I'm involved in and with. We need His grace every single day. It's true. We're a needy people and God's grace is sufficient grace. Now, when you look at the book of Revelation, you have one introductory chapter and that's number one. Revelation chapter one. John identifies himself, he identifies what he sees, and he's on the island in the Spirit and has it written down. It's going to be communicated with the seven churches. It's going to be communicated with churches beyond the seven churches. It's going to be communicated with churches in existence today, wherever the book is opened and read. Here, when we look at chapter 1, we get to introduction. Then you've got two chapters, and many of you will be familiar with this, chapters 2 and 3, where the letters to the seven churches are recorded. Each time the Lord Himself addresses the particular church about a particular thing and gives them particular instruction as to what can be done in response to what He has assessed. In every one of the seven churches, there is some awareness to identify what's going on. The Lord knows. And there is some instruction as to what needs to be done. Five of them are instructed to repent. So there's a lot of repentance necessary in the church in its earlier stages in this first century, in the days of John, who is looking out for them, shepherding them, pastoring them. giving them God's Word. And then there are 19 chapters of imagery that is just amazing imagery. Isn't it? 19 chapters. And when I read those 19 chapters, I think, okay, what should I do with this this time? What is my responsibility, Lord, in obedience to You? How am I to read this? And most of the time what we've done, what we always do, is try to read it in order to explain the chronological outflowing of the events. We always try to. What if it's not chronological? What if it's all about keros time, opportunity? What if it's all about a fixed time and doesn't give you any real dates or etc.? ? Nineteen chapters of imagery. I got to looking at this afresh again. And I think living creatures around the throne. We're going to see this chapter four. Living creatures around the throne and they've got, I mean they're just interesting looking creatures with these faces. Different appearances. And myriad of myriad, thousands upon thousands of angels. It's a pretty good-sized throne area here that we're seeing, right? All kinds of angels, living creatures, fire, light, thunder, sound. The Lamb! Look, there's a Lamb on the throne. It looks like He's been crucified. Look at those marks. Well, He's been identified for those of us in Christ Jesus. We don't have any trouble figuring out who the Lamb is if He's a Lamb crucified and He's on the throne, do we? He's the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Now He's a Lion, now He's a Lamb, but He's the same one. He's the offspring of David. He's the King. He's the Ruler. He's the one that finally is going to be in charge of everything and it'll be under His feet, finally. Everything. And then I keep reading and I think, seven seals. Who in the world can open this little book but get those seals? Well, don't worry about it, John. The Lamb can. He's instructed. He's told. There are seven seals and seven trumpets and seven plagues and seven bowls of God's wrath. flowing down through the book of Revelation, opening up. And then when you get farther over into that thing, you've got not only angels and beasts and four horsemen and creatures, you've got Satan in shackles. You had a white throne judgment just before that. You've got Satan in shackles. You've got a new heaven and a new earth and a new city coming down. And in the new city is a river of life flowing out. Twelve trees all producing. Every month there's fresh fruit coming from a tree. Imagery. And these images, for me, as I looked at it this time, describe one thing, and that is this. The transformation of the kingdom of this world into the kingdom of our God and His Christ. What do we see when we worship? Well, I look back and worship and sometimes I see you lifting your hands, or I see you smiling, or I see you with that look of excitement or whatever else, and sometimes I see you nodding off. But I'm just being honest right now. That's okay. This is a good place to sleep, right in the presence of the Lord, isn't it? I used to go to early morning prayer when I was working out of a church in East Texas, and they'd have prayer at 5 o'clock. We'd go pray 5 to 7. And I guarantee you, there were lots of days when I got the first 30 minutes in, and then I got an hour nap. It was just wonderful. Wake up, walk out, and they think you're spiritual. You never tell them any different, unless they ask. But anyway, it was good. It was important. Here is what it says in Revelation 11, 15, right in the middle of this book of Revelation. The kingdom of the world, exact language now, has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever. That's the statement of the 15th verse of Revelation 11. He has We still got a lot of stuff going on here in this book. But here in the 11th chapter is the declaration that it has been accomplished. The Lamb has accomplished His work. He's on the throne. Things are being opened and unraveled all the way to the end by Him. We're watching the transformation, the kingdom of the world becoming the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ. And we can't see it. Eugene Peterson made a statement. I heard him say it again yesterday on a little video I was watching. YouTuber. I was watching the video and he said, you know, imagination. To get our mind and imagination working with our mind, he said, this is how we get inside of what is hard to understand unless you just become a part of it. That you enter in rather than try to figure out how to get in. Embrace it. And it makes a good point. Oh, and the interesting thing is having this conversation with Bono. You know who Bono is? You two? Yeah. Bono got in touch with Peterson years ago when the message came out. It stuck to his heart like glue. He could not escape that translation. And he had an interview in, what was that something, Rolling Stone. I was at Regent when this happened. I remember when it happened. I was in class with Peterson. He had this thing and they gave him the book, The Rolling Stone, and said, Hey, Bono's saying something about you and your translation. What do you think about that? He said, Who's Bono? He said, I didn't work in those areas and that kind of thing. Much later, they had contact. He went to a Bono concert. Bono had him up front, hospitality really good. He spent time with him. He liked their music. And Bono came to his home in Flathead Lake and they had an interview, talked about the Psalms and music and worship. Interesting. Interesting. Peterson always had ways of saying things that got my attention as well. John's whole message is about the victory of God. over sin, over death, over hell, over everything that stands against the God of heaven. The whole thing is about victory over that. The overwhelming presence of the kingdom, as you read through the book of Revelation with an imagination that's stirred by the imagery. The incredible sight of the Lamb who was slain right on the throne. Acknowledged there is the One who has redeemed us, now sitting there with the authority to open the seals in that little book that unveiled what was coming. So many ways. Light and life everywhere around the Lamb. Seven horns, seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into the world. That's how the language is in Revelation. This Lamb is seven horns, seven eyes, seven spirits of God sent out into the world. full necessity, all that is needed to establish the victory of God in the world. This is the book of Revelation. The conqueror has conquered. Now, it hasn't unfolded in the fullness, obviously, because sin is still rampant in the world and men are still being saved, women, young people, kids. God's not through accumulating His family. There are people being born again, people coming to Jesus around the world. And if we don't see it in America like we'd like to see it in America, do some reading about what's happening in other countries and you'll realize God is at work in the world in a potent and powerful way, bringing men and women out of darkness into light. Sin and evil gets in the way of what we see and how we see it. I just want to assure you at the beginning of our... We're going to talk about worship. We're going to get there. But what I want to assure you is this, the kingdom is not going to be overcome by the enemy in any way or form. What Jesus Christ has accomplished in the kingdom that has come to the hearts of men and women, and will ultimately be the reigning kingdom over all, will not lose! Will not! And there are no options for another Messiah or another Savior or another way. God's Son came and died in our place. Took our names right to the cross. Dying for you, He said. Dying for you. So the point is, death, hell, Satan, suffering do not win. Here's another way I was looking at it this week. You'll just have to take this and chew on it. It's okay. I think when you look at verses or chapters 4 through 19 or 4 through 22, the last of those chapters, Revelation, the book, is giving you a view from up above. A view from up above. Now, chapters 2 and 3, Here's John being instructed as to his churches. Ephesus, marvelous church, left its first love. Another church is suffering, deep suffering. Another church claims to be alive, but they're dead, that's Sardis. Another church, in fact, three different places there are names of heretical teachings. mentioned in that. And they put up with this stuff, false teachings that were right there. Jezebel was there in one of them. Nicolaitans and their false teachings were there. Down the line, Balaam is mentioned in the deception that worked there. all things that were these kind of spirits and teachings were affecting those local churches. And it's going to get worse down the line because what's going to happen is this great swell of Gnosticism, where you've got all these believers who think they have a higher knowledge and are seeking a higher knowledge, and all they're doing is spending their time writing about that higher knowledge, talking about God, but never worshiping God, which we still, if we're not careful, tend to do. Revelation is view from above. It doesn't tell us what we're going to see. It tells us what we can't see. You think, Pastor Dan, that some of that stuff started? I guarantee you. I did a series on worship years ago, and many of you, of course, were not here. But every time on those series of worship messages, We came in and talked about the fact that we were being lifted up today. Get ready. We're being lifted up today into the heavenlies, around the throne, worshiping with our brothers and sisters from everywhere else who've been lifted up around the throne. And there we are, gathered with all those worshipers. And that's what we do when we're gathered with all those worshipers. We worship God. We can't see it. But all I have to do is read the fourth chapter of Revelation, and I know John understood it. And when he was lifted up and saw the worship going on around the throne, he got the message. He said, that's what we're going to do. I know what God wants our churches to do. Now He wants them to deal with the falseness, to deal with the suffering and put it down, let God take care of you, to get your first love back. Come on, get the life working again. Let's worship God. Let's be lifted into His presence. And as you worship God, you're going to be restored. We said that again and again in that series, that we're lifted up into the presence of God. We're able to see the Lamb on the throne with our imagination a little bit, but what we're seeing is God is accomplishing His purpose. And there's a lot going on in the realm of the Spirit that we can't see, never could see in this flesh. Those first century Asian churches had revealed to them what they could see and what to do about it. They had things to repent of. They had things to turn from. They had things to get right. Things that had to be dealt with. When I first heard preaching about those seven churches, I heard it from a dispensational standpoint. West taught early on that Ephesus represented some certain part of the first church's history and then later on there was another stretch of history and it's represented by Thyatira and another stretch, Bob knows what I'm talking about. If you've got a Schofield Bible you can get it. Anyway, that's going on and all of that. So Laodicea was the church of the last days and there certainly may be a lot of lukewarmness in the last days. There's going to be a great falling away according to Scripture somewhere along the line. There may be a lot of lukewarmness, but I think about any time the church has wanted to read the book of Revelation and look at what is written there, they could probably apply all seven of those letters to various parts of the body of Christ at any given time. If you did it now, you'd find that true along the way. But in chapter 4, John, lifted up into the heavenlies, looks at what he sees and all those creatures and elders and angels and the glorious things that go with them, all of them. You know, if you read far enough in Revelation, almost every representative of beings around the throne finally end up on their face in worship. On their face in worship. The elders on their face in worship. the living creatures on their face in worship, the angels on their face in worship, those righteous ones that are there at home on their face in worship. And so John, when he writes it, no doubt is showing us churches in chapter 4. There's something else going on that you can't see. The Lamb has suffered and died and been raised and is at the right hand of the Father. And the next thing for him is to possess it all, to rule over all of it, to have his own home and to have everything new once again. Wow, that's great. Revelation is about what is happening now in the realm of his spirit at work. Our present, this life we have in the present, is pregnant with the future. We are not hopeless. We are not left to fend for ourselves. We are not left behind. We're headed toward home. And Christ Jesus is the guarantee of it. And He is in authority there, even now. You know, if all we do is live by what we see, then we're not going to have a lot of hope. If we live for what we know to be true as revealed in Scripture, we will never be hopeless. We'll see the bigger picture. Time is near. Right at the end where I read that text a while ago from 22nd chapter, Verse 8, I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me. And he said, You must not do that. As he knelt and bowed before him, he said, You must not do that. I'm a fellow servant with you and your brothers. prophets and with those who keep the words of this book, worship God." And then he said, do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the, quote, time is near. Time is kairos, not chronos in the Greek. It is a matter of a fixed time or an opportune time. It's not a matter of dates in a line. In the process of our living, we've got to know that our Lord is accomplishing what He set out to accomplish, seated at the right hand of the Father until all authority submits to Him and is under His feet. That's happening. It doesn't look like it, Pastor. Yeah, well, there we go again. What are we looking at? Let's look at Revelation again. Let's look at what's already available to see, as John revealed it A worship experience around the throne, a Lamb who is in place with His scars there, who has redeemed us, is seated at the right hand of God the Father. All authority is going to be His. It's already given Him. He will have it all. And He is there while we worship here, while we take advantage of the opportunity of entering His presence, worshiping Him, while we live in this opportune time, Kairos. anticipating the coming of the Lord. Participating in worship in the presence of the triune God. Wow! What should our attitude be when we come to worship? Joy! All the fruit of the Spirit is going to really get pulled into total focus when there's no more junk hanging on our lives along the way. I've been looking at this probably 20 years. The same trying to grasp in my own mind and life. I've been looking at it back here for 18. That's how long I've been back working on 19, so it's been a long time. I don't preach it all the time, but I remind you every once in a while that the King is on the throne, that the Lamb of God has conquered the enemy, that sin has no more dominion over those in Christ. No dominion! over those in Christ Jesus. We do not have to decide every day when we go out, I'm going to get knocked flat this day. Don't start that way. Just go saying, thank you Lord for a great day. I'm going to walk with you, whatever it is. And don't get nervous when you do get flattened. Just trust by the power of the Holy Spirit working you to get back up and go again. And know that He's guiding your step and leading you. What we do when we come to worship The centerpiece of our services is the preaching of the Word of God, whether I do it or Bob does it or anybody else who's been preaching here does it. We come to sit and listen and hear and respond to the Word of God. We just come to take notes to make sure. I took a lot of notes in the past when I heard sermons. I'm not sure where they all are yet, but I'm sure that in most cases I never went back to look at them. I thought I would, but I haven't, and I've got a bunch of them stacked around in a box somewhere. We're not coming just to learn more facts about God. We're coming to worship God. We're coming to say thanks. We're coming to say, I need you every hour. I need you. We're coming to be in His presence for a while. that He might send us out and use us as He wants to. We've been given an Old Testament and a New Testament. That is our text for preaching. That's the revealed Word of God. Everybody understand that? This is not a book about God. This is the Word of God. Now, not every statement in here is obviously God speaking, so you've got to keep your contexts in place. But it is revealed by God. People wrote it down as they were inspired by the living God to write it down. So it is the Word of God when it is read, it's the Word of God when it is preached, it's the Word of God when it is heard, it's the Word of God that can change your life and keep you strong when you're weak, and true when you're being led in an opposite direction. We're given the Old and New Testaments, and we who have preached it, I remember, in ordination, we are vowed to faithfulness to that text. That's where we find the Word of God. That's the Word of God that we want to preach. That is it. We can't make up things. We've got to work with the text. I believe that grace is received through the preached Word. That's a source of grace from God. It's the preached Word that gave you the gospel. It's the preached Word that fed your hungry soul. It's the preached Word that corrected your journey. Whatever else goes on, we are changed and shaped by the Word preached because of the grace of God at work. I am coming more and more to realize in my own life and in our life as a church and in the church as a whole, how impacted we are by the culture we live in. Are we moved by the culture? Are we impacted by the culture? We're culture-shaped saints in America in many ways. I am, you are. The Sabbath day has gone because of the influence of our culture. We do not keep a Sabbath day. We do not keep a Christian Sabbath day or first day of the week. We don't stop for a whole day and make worship the center of it. And I've talked to you about this before, too, because we get into this. You know, when you look at the early church, of course, the Jewish nation had a Sabbath and, of course, they lost God while they were keeping the Sabbath, too. That can happen. But the early church When they shifted from seventh day to first day, as far as worship is concerned, they did it because the resurrection was on that first day of the week. That became their day of worship. Sabbath. I wonder if it would make any difference if we just made the day different and we didn't go to Kroger's. I know a lot of people do this. We're going to go to the grocery store after church, Pastor. I know. Just like everybody else in America. All I'm saying is we lost our day because we didn't preserve our day. We found it more convenient to do what we needed to do on Sunday if it was a Monday work. It didn't matter. It's just another day. That's the way America lives that way. We work four or five days and we have a break! It's a weekend. Not for Christians. It's not a weekend. We have another day on Saturday and then we have this marvelous privileged opportunity for worship. Sitting together in the presence of the Lord, thinking about what it means to be redeemed by Him. What it means. And our worship has pretty much changed since my being a kid. It's hard to hang on to it. Our conversation is another way to check and see how much is influenced by the culture. Our small talk. What is in our small talk and our gossip? Gossip used in a good way. Our chatting back and forth. What do we talk about? I'm not going to add into that. Let's let you think about it. What do we talk about? That's where our hearts are. That's where our minds are. Our imaginations are drugged by media. We're media drugged. So our imaginations can imagine whatever has been planted. But it's hard to pick up the Bible and imagine much, so we have a hard time reading it. And a hard time listening to it preached. Because it doesn't sound as easy as other things do. I'm not fussing, I'm just telling you this is true for all of us. For all of us. So we gather here things on our mind, I usually spend a lot of time getting ready for Sunday. It may not seem like it, but I do. A lot of hours, a lot of time in prayer, a lot of it. And you sit and listen to me preach very politely. And you tell me, that was a great sermon, Pastor. Are we hearing it? Are we making application to our lives? Are we being changed by the Word of God? Those are important questions for me. for me. Do we understand the gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation? That the Redeemer died for sinners, which we are. We needed a Savior. There was no way to be right with God without a Savior. And God so loved this world that He sent His Son into the world to redeem us who could not by any means negotiate for a right relationship with God. We had no negotiating power. So Jesus came and died for Dan and Hartley and Beverly and Sean and Bob, for every one of us. And we thought we found Him, but basically He found us and got our attention. We responded, and here we were, first time ever. You might have heard the gospel a lot of times, but you didn't respond. And all of a sudden, you woke up one day and found He's here, and I'm new, and you're different. Boy, time goes fast when you're having fun. A new kingdom, a new order. A new day. A new city. A new people. That's what's going on. And when we don't see it here, we have to keep looking up and worship and come back to here because here's where we get to bear witness to Jesus. We get to live down here yet. We're not done. But we're not going to stay here forever. One day He's coming back again and we're going to meet Him in the air. and go with Him to where He is and be changed to be like Him. One day we're going to have a new glorified body that you right now probably can't imagine. I can't either. I want to try showing up on the other side of the wall without opening a door. Don't you want to try that sometime? Lord, this is great! This is great. Not putting you to the test, but let me go over and talk to those people over there. Okay, here we go. Now, if I flatten against the wall and fall out on my back, I'll know it didn't work, and I must be in a human body yet. But if it's a body like Jesus, those kind of limitations are not there. There's universes out there that belong to God. I don't know what He's got planned, but I know for us, the redeemed get to keep saying so. I'm going to stop right in the middle of the sermon because it's too long. And I've wandered around just a little bit in it. But I think every once in a while in our churches we ought to ask that. I don't know if other pastors do it or not. Do you understand what the Word of God is saying? Do you understand what's going on in heaven? Do you understand what the gospel is? that once you have been brought into Jesus and you're born again and He's your Savior, confessing Him and living for Him, and His Spirit's dwelling in you, come on, turn up the engine! Let's go! We can live in this! We don't have to go running, looking for help in man every time something changes, which we often do. We're not going to find answers to the deepest needs of people. in anything other than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When we are changed, and we can declare that we are changed, we're ready to bear witness to family and friend and neighbor without worrying about how they think about us, but only concerned about how He thinks about us and what He wants from us. We'll finish it, but not today. Let's pray. Father, I want to thank You for the opportunity for worship. I want to thank You for precious lives of people who've been born from above. And it is true, Lord, as I looked across this congregation earlier, I saw men and women who've been through hard places, who've battled physical things that were tough, were almost dead. But you never, ever gave up on them. And you had a plan for them. And your work continues in them. And I'm thankful for that. Help us to meditate on the idea of kingdom come, the beauty of gospel good news that we get to bear and share with people. Help us, Lord, to see Jesus better all the time. In Jesus' name, amen.