We'll be reading Psalm 119 verses 145 through 152. The Koth stanza, the 19th stanza. Please hear the word of God. I cry out with my whole heart. Hear me, O Lord. I will keep your statutes. I cry out to you. Save me. And I will keep your testimonies. I rise before the dawning of the morning. and cry for help. I hope in your word. My eyes are awake through the night watches that I may meditate on your word. Hear my voice according to your loving kindness. Oh Lord, revive me according to your justice. They draw near who follow after wickedness. They are far from your law. You are near, O Lord, and all your commandments are truth. Concerning your testimonies, I have known of old that you have founded them forever. This is the word of the Lord. May God, by His Spirit, apply it to our hearts and change our lives accordingly. You may be seated. As we have been going through Psalm 119 as a collection, basically, of 22 sermons extolling the word of God, We have seen a curve, I believe, beginning at the high point of the curve in stanza one of the double blessedness of the law of God, of the word of God. But then if you can remember over the last year and a half, perhaps if we've occasionally come back to Psalm 119, the curve dips down into the depths of affliction in the middle stanzas, hits bottom in stanza 11, where really the psalmist can only say, help me. And we've been there. in times of despair and trouble where all you can say is, as eloquently as it can be, is just help me. But then again, as the psalmist rests upon the word of God, and he sees the word of God as his foundation forever fixed in the heavens, in stanza 12, he starts coming back out of the depths of despair and affliction, learning to love God's word again, seeing it as a light and lamp of truth in stanzas 13 and 14. And then recently we've seen him extol the word of God as the wonderful word of God, stanza 17. Showing forth the righteousness of God, stanza 18. So that brings us to stanza 19 today. As we near the end of this psalm, we should not be surprised that there's reoccurring themes with the psalm. Sometimes it's hard to preach through all of this because you're afraid you're going to say something that's already been preached before in psalm 119. But what's what we have in stanza 19, the Kaf stanza, where there are themes of trouble and affliction again, due to the world and enemies which are far from God and his word again. And the psalmist again calls out to God for help according to his word. We've seen this before. That's okay because we need repetition because we forget and we have hard heads and it's what we need to actually learn. So in stanza 19, we see the man of God, who we think is David, who has learned how to trust God and his word in the midst of trials. And the key is the word of God, yes, but also that combined with prayer to God, a theme we've also seen throughout the psalm. The word and prayer cannot be separated. They must go together. I think this is clearly seen in this stanza in a very practical way. And we'll look at this stanza as a practical guide to how to pray according to the word of God. In recent stanzas, we've seen the wonderful word of God in general, then the specific, the specificness, if you will, of the righteousness of God's word. But now it takes us to praying the word of God. And here in these eight verses, we'll see biblical prayer. prayer by and with the Word of God, and it should be characterized as fervent prayer, frequent prayer, faithful prayer, and founded prayer. And you have that outlined in your bulletin as well, if you can't remember those four simple words. And that's how we'll divide this up, these eight verses, in fervent, fruitful, faithful, and founded prayer in the Word of God. So let's look back at verses 145 and 146. Those first two verses, I think the emphasis is on fervent prayer. And again, remember, this is according to the Word of God. And you see in those two verses, the psalmist says, I cry out with my whole heart, hear me, O Lord, I will keep your statutes. I cry out to you, save me, and I will keep your testimonies. It should be pretty easy to see a fervency, an earnestness, an urgency of David's prayer here. I cry, hear me, I cry, save me. And crying out has an urgency and intensity to the psalmist's prayer. And it shouldn't surprise you that in the Hebrew where we get the word cry, in English is the cough word in those first two verses. Remember, every line begins with the same letter of cough in the stanza of the psalm. So it shouldn't be a surprise that cry is one of those words. And also in verses 150 and 151, when the psalmist says near, that's also, those are cough words. And so we're crying out and drawing near in this stanza. And the fervency of prayer shows both the dire straits of David's trial, but also his earnestness in his relationship with his God and his pleading with him. We see the fervency of prayer because it's from his whole heart. I cry out with my whole heart in verse 145. Now our idea of heart in our society is pretty trivial. It's pretty sentimental. It's emotional. I love you with my whole heart. It misses the point. Do that heart that I've seen people do. What is that? We have these little heart things. I guess that means I love you. I don't know. But it's trivializing the idea of heart. The biblical idea of heart is some of our youngest men in the church were learning yesterday, I think, from the pursuit of holiness study that the general idea of the heart from the Bible is it's a sum total of who you are, your heart, soul, mind, and affections. This is David with his whole being crying out to God. You might even picture him on his knees with his hands up and tears flowing. With everything he's out, he's crying out to God fervently and earnestly. Perhaps rather than just the hands making, maybe it's like a YMCA thing. His whole body is making a heart to his God. He's crying out with his whole heart. It's also a fervent prayer from the heart, but to God. In verse 146, I cry out, to you in the midst of a great trial. There's not much time for eloquence and prayers that are impressive to others, but the earnest servant earnestly praise with the whole heart to the audience of one. I cry out with my whole heart to you, Oh God. And so the words are fervent, but very simple. Did you catch that? I cry, hear me. I cry, save me. It's very simple. It's not eloquent. It's just, it's bare. And the word for hear me means to answer me. I want you to act now. It's to the point. And it seems rather bold and pushy, but we're able to do that through the boldness of Christ Jesus that we have through Christ Jesus. And William Plummer has said that so often our lack of comfort in time of trouble is because of our lack of urgency in prayer. He says your soul would not be so empty of comfort if your mouth were not so empty of prayer. James says in James chapter four that you do not have because you do not ask. We're called to cry out to God in simplicity and fervency. And when we do, we're like Christ. Some of you might remember in Hebrews chapter five, verses seven through eight, The writer to the Hebrews says, Christ, who in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears to Him, who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He was a son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. Our very Lord, the God-man, our Savior Christ, cried out in the same wholehearted fashion to the Father in the flesh, Perhaps we could use that example as well. So we see a fervency and urgency from the whole heart to God, but we see a fervent prayer, which is fervent for God's word. Notice at the end of both of those verses 145 and 146. Hear me, O Lord. And what does he say? I will keep your statutes. Save me. And I what? I will keep your testimonies. Both verses he's saying, hear me and answer me so that I can keep your word. I can be obedient to you through your word. It's a very obvious connection between prayer and the word here. And here his desire for answered prayers so that he can better obey the word of God. What focus this is, what we can learn through this. We're very quick, as we say, to have the give me, give me, give me prayers. I'd like this and this and this, but is our motivation is so we can know God more and obey him more and be better enabled to know his word and to keep it? That's what's going on at the psalmist here. Fervent prayer drives the servant to fervency into God's word. And if one is fervently in the word of God, it leads him to fervent prayer. These things go together. When we see the wonder and the righteousness of God's Word, as we've seen the last two stanzas, we want to obey God's Word. We want to obey the God of the Word. And it drives us, the Word does, to pray and to be educated in how to pray. Someone has said that the Word of God without prayer leads to mere intellectualism. But prayer without the Word leads to mere fanaticism. We need them both together. Fervent prayer and having a fervent desire for God's Word. And Scripture tells us that when we pray, we must pray as is summarized by our confession in the name of the Son, by the help of the Spirit, according to His will, with understanding, reverence, humility, fervency, faith, love, and perseverance. But I I would say that we cannot pray this way without prayerfully knowing the Word of God first. How do we know these things and how to pray these things unless we're in the Word of God as well? When you think of fervent prayer, it makes you think of what verse in Scripture? Maybe I could just say what chapter in Scripture? What book in Scripture? James chapter 5. Perhaps you might want to look to James chapter 5, starting in verse 15. In this section of Scripture, James says the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. In preparing for the sermon, it struck me that even in our study hours, we're looking at 1 John 5 with the sin unto death and the controversy about that. It's interesting within that, the context of that, the thing that's missed is we're to be praying for our brethren and we're to be praying especially for our brethren who are sinning. That's our first reaction. I think the same thing happens here in John chapter five, verses 15 through 20. In verse 15, James says, and the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. Then we read that famous line, the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Then he gives the example of Elijah. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And by the way, if you'd like to pray for rain, we'd appreciate that around here, fervently. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruits. And he says in verse 19, brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the air of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. I do think this is helpful as we look at 1 John 5 in our study hour as well. But again, you have the call to pray and the call to pray for brethren and the call to pray for brethren because they're struggling or stumbling or even sinning. Just to give you a practical example, it might be sort of a rabbit trail, but that's okay. A practical example, how does this work? The word and prayer, how does this work? Well, God's servant prayerfully studies the word of God. Notice I said prayerfully. So he can know God. And so he can know God's truth. And as he does that, he increases in his knowledge of God's will. He increases in his own humility before the righteous God that he continues to learn about. He increases then in loving the things that God loves, which means including loving the brethren. And this drives in them to pray for the will of God to be done, to pray for the promises of God to be carried out and to pray for the love of his brethren and the good of his brethren. So then when he's stored up like this, he's changed like this, he has the same will of his father, then he sees his brother struggling or in sin, and then his reaction is not like it usually is where we react with, well, what is he doing that for? Or bitterness or gossip. Our reaction is then with great compassion, because by the word and prayer, we're humbled before our God. We love our brethren. We've been praying for our brother. And then if we are able to speak to our brother, if it comes to that, we can speak in kindness and grace and love as a result. And so the prayer that's fervent becomes prayers of compassion and then turns into actions of compassion as well. This is the fervent prayer of the psalmist. And I think that sets the stage for the rest of the stanza. So we turn into verses 147 to 148. We see that fervent prayer is frequent prayer. And he says, I rise before the dawning of the morning and I cry for help. He's crying for help again. I hope in your word, my eyes awake through the night watches that I may meditate on your words. I think what we see here is that fervent prayer, true fervent prayer is shown in frequent prayer. Do not confuse fervency of prayer with a one-time, oh, I'm really, really intense prayer. Anybody can do that. But fervency in prayer is shown by frequent prayer. Like the bulk of the Christian life is not in the mystical mountaintop events. But the bulk of the Christian life is in the mundane, run-of-the-mill moments of life as we walk with our Lord through them. It is the fervency in prayer that is seen in the day-to-day, moment-by-moment frequency of prayer that truly defines biblical earnest prayer. And it's through the regular disciplined prayers that spontaneous intense prayers can be born properly. Spurgeon says, he who has been with God in the closet will find God with him in the furnace. So once again, it's the day to day that leads to the great fervency of prayer. And here we see frequent prayer in general. And we know this from scripture. We've been studying this in our study hours as well, but we know this in scripture that our prayers are to be constant and continuous, to always be in prayer, And again, it doesn't mean that we have our eyes closed as we're driving down the highway praying. It means that we're always seeking communion with our God and prayer should be like breathing. And our confession rightly says that prayer is part of our natural worship. For the Christian who's born again, just like the baby breathes his or her first breath, when we're born again, we start breathing in prayer because we have access to the throne of God and we have a new heart and a new nature so we can pray. And so we strive to cultivate an idea of communion with our God. constantly in general, striving to be in constant communion with Him. And as circumstances arise, we're ready and prepared as well. And here, the general prayer seems to be from the time he rises in the morning to the time he closes his eyes at night, he's seeking the Lord in prayer. But I think frequent prayer also includes specific prayers. And don't we see that here in these two verses in 147 and 148? Here, there is that constant prayer, but there's also the purposeful and specific prayer. Look at verse 147. He says, I rise before the dawning of the morning and cry for help. Now, be careful. He doesn't just pray when he gets up. He's not saying, when I rise, I pray. No, he's saying, I get up to pray. Do you see the difference? I'm purposely rising so that I might pray, not just reacting once I wake up. It's important, I think, to get up early and to pray, and have that be purposeful. Now, yes, we know that David is motivated by an intense trial here, as that encourages us. We've been there, so I need to be with my Lord. But this is a good general practice and principle, whether there's trial or not, to purpose, to cultivate a love of God the love of his word and prayer, and then a purpose, I'm going to arise and pray and pray with your word on a daily basis. We also see the specifics of prayer at night. He says in verse 148, my eyes are awake through the night watches. The point is the purpose is to pray as he goes to bed at night and keeps his eyes open to do so. Again, this is in part due to intense trial, but it's still a good general practice for us as well. When we pray this way, we're praying just like a fervent prayers like Christ. When we pray frequently like this, it's like Christ as well. Mark records in Mark chapter one, verse 35, that Christ in the morning, he rose long before daylight and he went out and he departed to a solitary place and there he prayed. If it's good enough for our Lord, it's probably good enough for ourselves as well. But just like being fervent in prayer means being fervent in the Word, being frequent in prayer requires the Word of God as well. Notice the connection here in these two verses, 147 and 148. There's a connection with the Word as he rises in the morning and he lies awake at night. In the morning, he cries for help, but he does what? He hopes in God's Word. At night, He keeps his eyes awake through the night, watches it, and he's purposely doing what? He's meditating on God's Word. That's active and purposeful. He starts his day with prayer for help, hoping and trusting on the promises of God's Word, and that directs his day. He ends his day with prayer, meditating on the truth of God's Word, perhaps recovering from the day behind him, but also gaining strength again for the next day. Again, we know the psalmist is in the midst of a trial, but this should be the pattern of our lives, no matter what the circumstances are. So I ask us all, and I mean myself included, is this anywhere close to what we do or purpose to do? Where is our heart and our mind in our lives? It's often been said that the greatest gauge The greatest measurement of our spiritual life is our prayer life. I think for many of us, that would include myself, it's much easier for me to study the scriptures than it is to be devoted in prayer to our God. And it's a sad thing, but we should devote ourselves in such a way. This is the type of fervent, frequent prayer we should purpose in our lives, seeking the Lord daily, especially morning and evening and prayerfully with his word. Turn to Psalm 63. I can't read the whole, well, I could, but I'm not going to read the whole Psalm 63. This would be a good Sabbath day practice in your homes later today. Read through Psalm 63, meditate on it, think about it. It's a beautiful psalm that reflects what we're seeing here with the prayer of the psalmist and stands in 19 of Psalm 119. In Psalm 63, look at verse one. He begins with, oh God, you are my God. That's subtle but it's very important. God is not just a God. God is my God through the Lord Jesus Christ. I am his and he is mine. Early will I seek you. Why is that? Well my soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you. Oh pray that God would change and soften and enlarge our cold hearts. Verse three, because your loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you. Thus I will bless you while I live. I will lift up my hands in your name. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise you with joyful lips. Might be a good psalm to memorize. to repeat to yourself and to preach to yourself on a daily basis. Verse six, we spoke, already seen him arising early to seek his God. And in verse six, when I remember you on my bed, I meditate on you in the night watches, because you have been my help. Therefore, in the shadow of your wings, I will rejoice. My soul follows close behind you. Your right hand upholds me. Beautiful words from the psalm that reflects the fervent, frequent prayer of the psalmist in Psalm 119 as well. So we see the examples and the teachings of fervent and frequent prayer. Now we look at verses 149 through 151. I see here faithfulness in our prayers, a faithful prayer. In these three verses, I read as this, Hear my voice according to your lovingkindness, O Lord, revive me according to your justice. They, the enemies, draw near who follow after wickedness. They are far from your law. You are near, O Lord, and all your commandments are truth. We see the faithfulness of the servant who's praying. He's already seen to be faithful in word and in prayer in the midst of trial and danger and in want of helps. When we are in the midst of trial and danger, needing helps, oftentimes we give up or just grow stale, but he's faithful to keep crying out. God often does not answer as we would see fit or as immediately as we'd like to teach us to be persistent and to continue and have a heightened sense of intensity and urgency with our God. He's faithful to meet with the Lord both in the morning and the evening, we've already seen. But I think what I see here with the faithfulness of the servant here, he's faithful to call upon the character and the promises of God. He's faithful to call upon the character and promises. As he's arguing with his God, he's saying, this is who you are. This is what you have said in your word. He knows the character of God and the promises of God from his word and from his past experiences in life. and prayer here versus 149 150 David says hear me which means answer me what according to your loving kindness he says revive me which I think means by your spirit give me life necessary for my prayers and my obedience revive me spiritually give me life according to your justice And one way of understanding what David is saying here, he could be saying, this is how you are portrayed in your word. This is what you've promised in your word. So I'm calling on you to act according to your word. This is how we're bold in our prayers. This is how we pray by faith and without doubting. We know his word, we know who he is and what he has said and we pray accordingly. Prayer is essentially lining our wills up with God's will according to His Word, and then praying for Him to act as He has said He would in His Word. I think our best prayers are those that repeat the truth of God's Word back to Him. Speaking to Him in His words and His promises. I think this is what David is doing here. Your Word tells me of your loving kindness, and your justice, or your righteousness, Therefore, I ask you to act in accordance to who you are and what you have said, because all your commandments are truth. Do you see the importance of knowing the Word of God, that you might pray aright? But I think there's not just the faithfulness of the servant here. I think there's a faithfulness of the master of God himself. There's a great encouragement to our prayers and encouragement to David's prayers. We can be faithful in prayer because our God and his word are truly and perfectly faithful to us. And the stanza shows forth the faithfulness of our covenant keeping God, I think in a unique way to the entire Psalm. Our covenant keeping God who is near to us through Christ Jesus in the new covenant. David prays in the stanza using the covenant name of God, Yahweh. In some of your versions, it has Lord with all of the letters capitalized. That's Yahweh, Jehovah, and throughout most of Psalm 119, that term of God, that name of God is not used much. But here it's used three times in one stanza. He's emphasizing the covenant nature of God. And this emphasizes the faithfulness of God to whom we can cry and be faithful to. but he also uses the word loving kindness. He prays according to Yahweh's loving kindness. And we've seen that before. This is the hesed love of God, the covenant love of God, the steadfast love of God that cannot be broken. And for us in the new covenant cannot be broken because of Christ. He's placed his love upon us in Christ and it will not be taken away. And he prays according to God's loving kindness, his steadfast covenant love. And he prays according to Yahweh's justice, which is often a synonym for righteousness. And we can do that because of Christ, the head of the new covenant in which we are in. And fourthly, he prays to Yahweh who is near. And in that verse, the koth word is the word for near. And notice he's nearer than the wicked can draw near to us, always. When enemies and trials draw near, our faithful covenant God is nearer. Because of Emmanuel, God with us, God's presence is guaranteed to us as our covenant keeping God. And because Christ has both fulfilled the righteous demands and the punishments of God's law, sealing the new covenant in His blood, Those who repent and place their faith in Him have their sins forgiven and have His righteousness given or imputed so that the promises in the person of God are guaranteed and cannot be broken. And because God is faithful to us through Christ, we can come faithfully to God in Christ in prayer and by His word through Christ alone, who alone gives us access to God because of His perfect righteousness. So I think the faithfulness of the servant and the faithfulness of our God go together to enable us to pray fervently and frequently and faithfully. One side note, notice there in verse 150, notice the unfaithfulness of the world and the unfaithfulness of the wicked. They draw near who follow after wickedness. It's speaking about those who are drawing near to persecute and to bring danger to the righteous. They are far from your law. those who are far away from God and His law will draw near to the righteous to persecute to harm them. And so why are we surprised when that happens? Why are we surprised in our society when the world is continuing to go far away from God's law that they would draw near to us to harm us because of Christ? We should expect it We should strive by the word to be protected from it and the purpose to deal with it. But remember that as we draw near to God and his true commandments, God draws nearer to us all the more. In Psalm 145 verses 18 through 20, we read, the Lord is near to all who call upon him. The Lord is near to all who call upon him, to all who call upon him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear him. He also will hear their cry and save them. The Lord preserves all who love Him, but the wicked, all the wicked, He will destroy. I hope the pleas for those of you who are outside of Christ to call on the name of the Lord do not seem monotonous to you. Don't let your heart grow cold to them. Every Sunday you're coming before the preaching of the Word of God, God's means of grace to build up his own people, but to call sinners to Christ. And again, the scriptures are saying, call upon the name of the Lord and he will fulfill your desires. He'll answer, he'll preserve those who call upon him, but the wicked he will destroy. And so I implore you to call upon the name of the Lord, place your faith and repent, place your faith in Christ and his righteousness. You might know the blessings and the preservation of God. all the wicked he will destroy." This is an encouragement to those who love God and Christ, but it's a warning to those who are outside of Christ. We see a fervent, frequent, and faithful prayer. I think the last two verses show us a foundational prayer. You are near, O Lord, and your commandments are truth. Concerning your testimonies, I have known of old that you have founded them forever." We've seen this already, haven't we? This prayer is founded in the truth. We've already seen how this prayer, this cry for help is founded in God's word as he fervently cries out to his God so that he can keep God's word. He frequently rises early and he stays awake late at night in prayer, placing his hope in the word and meditating upon the word. And he faithfully prays to his faithful God, according to the promises and the person of God that he knows from the word. And in verses 151 and 152, we see that he has founded, these prayers are founded on the truth of the commandments that God has founded in eternity past. Therefore, we found our prayers on the Word of God were praying founded in eternity. Stanza 12 tells us that God's Word was forever fixed in the heavens. You remember that? That's been a long time ago. Here, the Word is said to be founded by God forever, eternally. And the psalmist says he's known this of old. It means he knows this from his past experience through his prayers and his life and his walking with the Lord prayerfully and biblically by the foundation of the word. He knows that the word of God has been founded of old and he's experienced it himself. And it shows in his fervent, frequent and faithful prayers in time of trouble, which flow from and are founded upon the solid rock of the word of God. And so we see the fervent, frequent, faithful, and founded prayer in the scriptures. As we close thinking on Christ, which seems to be the best way to close, we've already seen how Christ is perfectly, how he's perfectly exemplified such fervent and frequent prayer on earth. And scripture tells us that Christ as our advocate and faithful high priest now continues to faithfully fervently and frequently intercede on our behalf, those for whom He has already interceded in atoning for our sin and providing His righteousness. Those who have cried out to Him alone in repentance and faith for salvation. John says in 1 John 2, I write to you so that you may not sin. If anyone sins, he has an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins. Christ is called faithful in Revelation 1 verse 5. And as God, He is faithful to His people. And so John says in 1 John 1, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Christ is the only fervent, frequent and faithful Savior and God for the sinner. but He is ultimately the only foundation for us as well. And Paul tells the Corinthians that there's no other foundation that anyone can lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. And like the psalmist, your life must be founded upon the written Word of God, yes, but ultimately and eternally your life must be founded upon the living Word of God, the living Word who is Christ, which the written word of God leads you to and speaks of. So we ask you to confess your sin and to place your trust and faith in the rock of Christ. Find rest and safety in the rock who has brought peace between sinners and God. Find rest in the cleft of the rock, that cleft that has been dug out of him because he's suffered and he's absorbed the wrath of God for his people already. Find rest in that cleft of the rock who's a shelter from the wrath your sin deserves. If you don't cling to Him and rest in Him, you will suffer the wrath of God your sin deserves for eternity, future, and it will never be absorbed. We ask you to be clothed in the righteousness of the One who knew no sin, but became sin for those who had come to Him that they might become the righteousness of God. Let us pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the written word. Lord, that we can learn of you, we can learn of Christ, we can learn what you have us to do. We ultimately thank you of the foundation of the living word, Christ himself. As the hymn says, on Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. We pray, Lord, as we study the word of God in Psalm 119, we wouldn't be so, so stuck on the word without seeing the God of the word. And then ultimately the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the word and who is the foundation, who is the rock. And we praise you that he is fervently interceding for us. He is faithful to us. And he is that firm foundation on which we stand, on which we rest. And Lord, we pray that those who are outside of Christ today, Lord, that they would see the depth of their sin. They'd see the ugliness of their sin. Then they'd turn to the beauty of Christ and see what he has done for sinners like them to absorb the wrath of God for sinners. That those who had come in repentance and faith could exchange their sin for the righteousness of Christ and have access to you, O Lord, and then begin this process of prayerfully seeking you and your word in their life and knowing and loving you, not just in this life, but for eternity. Lord, please do a great work in those who are outside of Christ this very day. And as we said at the outset, those who are in Christ help us to be more and more like him, prayerfully and through your word. And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.