Our Old Testament scripture reading is Psalm 35, and then the portion that we just sang, which is verses 17 through 28. One of the things I love about the new Trinity Psalter hymnal is the way within the stanzas of the Psalms, there's the small numbers marking the actual verses going through the Psalter. And so it makes it easy to actually sing a portion that we want to focus on from scripture. In our text from John, there's going to be a reference to Jesus fulfilling something from the Old Testament, and one of the places that that reference is citing is Psalm 35. Beginning at verse 17. How long, O Lord, will you look on? Rescue me from their destruction, my precious life from the lions. I will thank you in the great congregation, in the mighty throng I will praise you. Let not those who rejoice over me who are wrongfully my foes, and let not those wink the eye who hate me without cause. For they do not speak peace, but against those who are quiet in the land they devise words of deceit. They open wide their mouths against me. They say, aha, aha, our eyes have seen it. You have seen, O Lord. Be not silent. O Lord, be not far from me. Awake and rouse yourself for my vindication, for my cause, my God and my Lord. Vindicate me, O Lord, my God, according to your righteousness, and let them not rejoice over me. Let them not say in their hearts, aha, our heart's desire. Let them not say, we have swallowed him up. Let them be put to shame and disappointed altogether who rejoice at my calamity. Let them be clothed with shame and dishonor who magnify themselves against me. Let those who delight in my righteousness shout for joy and be glad and say evermore, great is the Lord who delights in the welfare of his servant. Then my tongue shall tell of your righteousness and of your praise all the day long. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Our New Testament reading is John 15 verses 18 through 27. It's also the text for our sermon as we continue our series in Christ's farewell discourse with his disciples in John 13 through 17. John 15 verses 18 through 27. If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my father. But the word that is written in their law must be fulfilled. They hated me without a cause. But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning." This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. Our Father in Heaven, As we pray to you, we take joy in the promise you have given that even when our prayers amount to a kind of groaning, when we do not know what to say, we may be confident that the Holy Spirit prays on our behalf, that our Lord Jesus Christ intercedes on our behalf before you. And so we pray to you this morning with a sense of urgency, knowing that we need your word. And that we need your word to be something that we do not twist and distort and conform to our own expectations. But we need your word to be something that challenges and confronts us. For that to happen, we need your blessing. You know our weaknesses. You know our failures and shortcomings. You know the ways we are tempted to resist Your Word. And so we pray that You would overcome all of that by Your Spirit, that we might receive Your Word by faith, and that it might bear fruit in our hearts. For we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have before us a text that speaks of Christ's church being hated by the world. A picture of opposition, of conflict, and Jesus saying to us very clearly, because the world hated him, the world is going to hate those who follow him. And with that text, we have before us something of a minefield of misunderstanding. A minefield of ways this text could be used and abused and misused. There are all sorts of conflicts in the world, in our own culture, in our very time and place, that the church is tempted to take these words from Christ and make them line up with those conflicts that we see around us. I have had two experiences just in the past couple of weeks of hearing theological pastor-teacher types say that a piece of legislation is the Lord's work. And what's very interesting about that is these pieces of legislation, these laws that were seeking to be passed, were quite opposite of each other. Very different concerns, seeking to do very opposite things. And yet both of these people were convinced that this legislation, this thing the government is doing, this is the Lord's work. Well, how do we sort that out? I'm leaving this all delightfully vague. I'm not telling you what the laws were, what the legislation was. I happen to dislike both of them, but the point is not the specific law. The point is this language that somehow what the Lord is concerned with, what Jesus is about in this world, is the conflict over getting certain laws passed. What if the issue is not which one of the laws was good? What if the issue is that's not the main thing Jesus is concerned with? I am reminded of a quote that I remember my pastor making when I was in high school. I think it's a pop culture reference. I actually don't know the reference, so I gotta be careful here, but the quote goes something like this. Someone is speaking to like a, a church that's bringing rock music into the worship service, and he says, you're not making church cooler, you're making rock music worse. Well, there is something to be said along those lines when it comes to bringing politics into the church. You're not making church more relevant, you're actually making the church less relevant. Because the church's relevance, what the church has to offer the world, the way the church confronts the world is by showing an entirely different way. It's not by joining into the world's struggles, but rather representing in the world the Christ who is not of the world. We pull Jesus down into our little particular concerns, and in doing so, we think we're making him more relevant. How hip, how relevant it all sounds when stuff that's currently in the news gets talked about and Jesus has all the answers for you. No, we make him less relevant because his relevance is in his, who he is, his identity, his work, his message being eternal, being something that is of heaven out from outside of this world, coming into the world in a way that speaks to every time and place, every culture of the world, every moment in history is his and he speaks to it. We need to hear the words of Jesus in John 15 as pulling us into that. His words, if you were of the world, verse 19, the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. It is this idea we need to wrestle with this morning, and I want to set before you that the key to getting this right about the church's mission, who we are, how we are to be living in the world, is to first of all get right who Christ is. Indeed, throughout these words, though the tone is of Jesus preparing his disciples, his church, for what they are going to experience, throughout the words he is saying something about himself. And you see, what the world needs is Christ. What we need, what you need, is Christ. And we need Him as being other than us, bigger than us, transcendent, different than us, is precisely what we need. So we're gonna see this in two steps this morning. First, the identity of Christ. And I want to show you how that is actually thread throughout the passage. And then second, flowing from that identity of Christ, the calling of the church. Both of those points are expressed in the first verse of our passage. If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. And so what Jesus is saying is that what you are going to experience, first of all, flows from his identity. Well, what is his identity in our text? brief overview here of what Jesus is saying in this passage. He gives that opening statement, and he emphasizes that the reason for that hatred, the opposition of the world, is because of the connection with him. Verse 20, remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. And so he says, all of this is happening because of your connection with him. Verse 21, all these things they will do to you on account of my name because they do not know him who sent me. Right? So here's the first part. Jesus says, because of who I am, they're going to hate you. Well, why did they hate him? Well, he says, it's because he revealed the father and confronted them in their sin. And the world does not want sin to be confronted. Verse 22, if I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Now, in the sense of sin deserving punishment, they would have been guilty all along. The point here is a matter of awareness, of extra culpability. Now they know better because Christ has been present among them. Jesus knows at this point that he's painting a picture that might be distressing for the disciples. It's one of the things he's wanting to do. He's trying to prepare them for what's going to happen. He knows that is the case, and so he also encourages them. Verses 26 and 27, he promises the Holy Spirit, and that's going to then be a focus in our text next week. Running through all of that is an affirmation of who Christ is. What is the picture painted here of his identity? Jesus is the one who confronts the world. Do not miss this. This is so often something like the opposite of how Jesus is popularly presented. Jesus here speaks of himself as the one who confronts, who demands a response, who in that response creates division, and that on one side of that division, there is constant opposition. This is who Jesus is. It's what He does. We have to understand what the word world means. The opposition, who is it that's opposing Him? Well, there's a challenge here in understanding that really world means those who oppose him, right? It's really cut to the chase because the world is also the field of mission. The world is also where there are those who will be converted, who will trust in him. The world is also the good creation God has made. That word can be used in many different ways. John's gospel often uses it to speak of precisely those who are rejecting Christ. opposing, the world of unbelief. That world will resist him, and that world he confronts. In other words, Jesus is not just about being friendly. His message is not just be nice to people. Rather, he is love incarnate. Love, the eternal love of God made flesh in one person. And love, when real love, true love, actual love is in the world, it invites the opposition of evil. And the result is a war, conflict. All of that demands a response. See, this is part of the failure of how the Christian church has so often presented who Christ is. We often present Christ as an offer. Here he is. Take it or leave it. If this works for you, if you feel the need, if you think the life portrayed looks like it might work, might be kind of appealing, here he is as an offer. But Jesus does not present himself as an offer. He presents himself as a confronter who demands response. And I said that phrase a few times now, demands response. I don't know how else to say it. The point is you can't not respond. There is no neutral ground. There is no place on which you can stand where you're sort of waiting around to see what you're going to do. Jesus is not just a spiritual guru in the world. He is the creator made flesh. He is the one through whom the world was made, and you cannot sort of take or leave that. You are either in tune with the Creator, living in tune with the world as it was made, living in fellowship with the one who made the world, or you are aligned with evil and destruction. Those are the only two options, and the Gospels If you think in terms of, first of all, how the church so often presents Jesus simply as an offer, it is almost overwhelming how the Gospels present him as the complete opposite, as the divider, the confronter, the one who demands response and permits no neutrality. That is how he is presented here. Why is that so intensely the case? Well, it's because of another part of his identity that I kind of got ahead of myself and already alluded to, and that is that Jesus reveals the Father. Okay, so remember what we're doing here. This is not theology stuff leading to application. This is what we need. We need Christ present in our midst, and he is present by his word. He is present as the one who reveals the Father. Why is that confrontation so intense, so vigorous? Why is there this need for response? Like I say, he's not just a guru cult leader, he is the creator present in Israel. And so Jesus says to them, verse 24, If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. And remember, guilty there does not mean like judicially, it means in terms of awareness, greater awareness, greater culpability. They would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my father. How is Jesus so confident they hate both him and his father? Well, because of what he said in verse 23, whoever hates me hates my father also. Well, why is that? Because of what Jesus said back in chapter 14. We go back to chapter 14, verses six and seven. Jesus said to them, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Remember when we wrestled with that text, how we tend to think of it as there's us here, and there's the Father over there. And when Jesus says he is the way, we picture him as like a road, a path that you take to the Father. Now, there are ways in which that metaphor, that way of picturing it, are fine. But that's not what Jesus is saying here. What He's saying is that He is the way to the Father because in Him, the Father is here. The Father is present. That as the eternal Son of God, He and the Father are one. That God is present in and through Jesus. And so he says in verse 7, if you had known me, you would have known my father also. Chapter 14, verse 10, do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? Running through the text, though it is saying Jesus brings hatred and opposition, he's talking about what the church is going to experience, all of that is presenting the glory of Christ. Think of all that we have emphasized in this series about Christ's humanity. The sense of affection, the sense of realness and concreteness of the events, the times where he has shown affection for his disciples, willingness to sacrifice, to confront evil, to move into the darkness for them. All of the times we have been moved by that in his humanness. Then, you've got to remember all the theology, the unity of Christ's humanity and divinity in one person, the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit revealing God. You take all of that humanness that you are moved by, as Jesus says goodbye to his friends, and see in that the heart of God. the Creator, the one who called the universe into existence, His love being revealed in Christ. Jesus reveals the Father. He does so as the one who is eternally the Christ. We have this wonderful, these are just some of my favorite places in the New Testament. Jesus says, verse 25, But the word that is written in their law must be fulfilled. They hated me without a cause. So much loaded in this. Remember his humanity. Is it fun to be hated without a cause? What a terrible way to phrase that, is it fun. Is it anything less than horrible to be hated without a cause? Hated. spoken of in the way of hatred, represented before the world in the way of hatred, brought before the magistrate in the way of hatred, falsely accused, ultimately suffering and executed and dying. That's what Jesus is describing here. The experience of being hated without a cause and doing so for you and thereby revealing the Father. But he says, it is that the word in their law, now he's not distancing himself from the Jews here, it's his law, he is Jewish. What he means by it is even those ones who are opposing me, it's in their scriptures that what I am doing is fulfilled. Meaning it's in our scriptures, they share those same scriptures and it speaks of this. But here's what is so much fun about references like this in the New Testament. What does fulfilled mean? You go back and read that psalm, David is talking about something he specifically experienced. He was hated without cause. That psalm is not promising something. It's not saying one day the Messiah will come and when the Messiah comes, he will be hated without cause and that's how you know. And then so then Jesus says, okay, hey, I wanna be the Messiah, so I wanna make sure I get hated without cause and then people will think I'm the Messiah. That's what we call the wish fulfillment. as though the Old Testament laid out all these predictions and then someone managed to fit all the predictions. No, it wasn't even a prediction. It was David talking about his own experience. So, what is Jesus saying? Jesus is saying, There is a pattern of God's way throughout history. A pattern of God's way throughout the Scriptures. Of God's way throughout the story of Israel. And that way of God throughout that story has a particular pattern, because it's been the same God there all along. The same Christ, the same Son, the same Word of God there all along the timeline, all throughout history. And so when God is rescuing His people through King David, when He is giving them safety and prosperity and deliverance and seasons of faithfulness through King David, what is the one of the things that happens to King David? He is hated without a cause. Why? There's something about, from the very beginning, God's way in the world that has this shape. The point is not just that particular song. It's that whenever God has acted in the world to save and redeem, suffering has been involved. This is what Jesus is pointing to. He's telling his disciples, this is not new. This has always been God's way. Indeed, he's saying, this has always been my way. He's saying, I was there. I was the presence of God in the burning bush. I was the one who led Israel out of the wilderness. I was the one who was present in the temple and tabernacle empowering the Messiah. I was the one whose spirit came upon people like David when they were anointed. And because it was always Christ there, there was always this shape. Whenever God rescues, suffering is involved, and that shape is the shape of the cross. Jesus is telling them that there is a cross-shaped character always to God's presence in the story. Jesus reveals the Father, and when He reveals the Father, He reveals God's heart for you, and He is the heart of the God who gives of Himself. who sacrifices, who takes upon himself what all of our sin and rebellion deserves. Jesus, in his incarnation, makes what was always the case most visible. And so that pattern of, this is why it's so important to see it not just as a random prediction that Jesus later fulfills, it is rather the presence of God in his consistency as the one who loves and sacrifices all throughout. This is what nothing less than every human being ever to live in the entire history of the world needs. This is what every nation needs in the history of the world. This is what every home, every family, every individual, every moment of suffering and affliction, every moment of disappointment and fear, this is what everyone needs. Is this Christ, this Jesus, revealing the Creator as the One who lives and gives of Himself that you might be restored to Him. That is good news. And it is that message that we so desperately must cling to as the church for the sake of the world. Anything else simply sells our birthright, sells the glory for the sake of lesser goods. We need this Christ. Well, we've said all throughout here is the identity of Jesus being revealed. He does so, though, by way of telling the disciples what they should expect. And so we have to see, secondly and finally, the calling of the church. He tells them, he's preparing them, basically with the goal being that they not be surprised. He's preparing them that they will face opposition. If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. So as you hear now what he is saying to the disciples, hear it as flowing from all of that glorious stuff we just said about who Christ is. Okay, his eternalness, his revealing the Father, his being ever present throughout the story of Israel, that's what it means to be not of the world. And he says that's also now who you are as you follow him. That is the identity he is giving you as those who belong to him. And that will result in opposition. Do not be surprised, is the message. Don't forget or neglect how much they needed that message. They know what's going to happen. As Jesus was saying, he was going to die and rise again. They're confused. They don't know what's going on. And so you can imagine that when a time of opposition comes, they're going to be thinking, okay, now wait a minute. This is the Messiah, the King. He has brought the promised kingdom. Why is there so much opposition and conflict? Jesus is saying they need to expect it. There will be, in the in-between time, the time after Christ's ascension into heaven, until Christ returns, the time of mission and conflict. And during that whole time, the disciples, the church who is built on the foundation of the disciples, will have to view themselves and understand themselves as having an identity that is distinct from the world. Now, how do we get this right? How do we interpret this rightly? There are at least two, and there's a lot more than that, but there's two I'm going to highlight ways that Christians and churches get this wrong. On the one hand, when we hear not of the world, we think of a divide between heaven and earth. As though what it means is stuff on earth doesn't matter to us. None of this matters. None of it's important. And our goal is to one day escape the stuff of earth and have heaven instead. I say that's an error. It has to be an error because the Jesus who comes into the world is the one revealing the father who created the earth. This creation was his idea. This world is his. It's the first misunderstanding. But there's a second misunderstanding, and it's the one I alluded to in the introduction, and that is to find battles that exist in the world and say, ah, that must be where this line lies. It must be that I take this side in this debate, and I'm hated because I took that side, and therefore, that makes me who Jesus says I am right now, whether it be cultural power and influence seeking to use the tools of the world to engage the world and engage in conflict in the world, whether it be political power and might, cultural influence, marketing and business and financial power, all of these tools that we are tempted to use to engage in those same conflicts. And it can feel like we're trapped between two options, fighting all the world's battles or ignoring the world. And so often churches bounce back and forth between these. They'll do the ignore the world thing for a while and then see stuff, you know, going crazy and say, we need to jump into those battles. They'll jump into the battles for a while, realize we've lost the gospel. We have no distinct message. We're just saying a version of what the world's saying. We must then have to reject all of that and then go back into the escape the world, which is it? I want to say before you the key is when Jesus will later use this same phrase. He says to you, you are not of the world. Later, in John chapter 18, when Jesus is before Pontius Pilate, Pilate will ask him, are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus, as his answer, he doesn't say yes or no. He says, my kingdom is not of this world. Right? So here we have two, again, those two possibilities I said for the church, those same two possibilities happen when it comes to understanding Christ's kingdom. But Christ explains what he means. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. So he says, what does he mean? Well, it means my kingdom comes in a different way. It doesn't come by way of fighting, might, political power. That's not how it is coming. Well, then some will say, okay, then it must be like floating in heaven somewhere and not be here. No, he clarifies even further. But my kingdom is not from the world. And the key there is that Jesus' kingdom is most emphatically in the world and confronting the world. So here's what you have to combine if you're going to avoid both of those bad options. What you have to combine is this. We are not of the world, meaning we are different in the way we engage the world, the way we engage in the struggles and conflicts of the world. But neither are we fleeing from it because we are in it. The point is not that we are escaping it, but that Christ's kingdom comes from outside of the world into the world. And one of the ways we confront is by refusing to use the tools and powers of the world. Here's what the idea boils down to. We confront the world by refusing to fight the way the world fights. We confront the world by refusing to use the tools of the world. So back to what I said earlier about my friends who are the people I've been reading who are saying this is the Lord's work. One of the ways we confront the world is not by saying none of that matters, nor do we pick sides in those disputes. Rather, we say that as much as that matters, it is not the way the kingdom comes. And our existence as the church, our very presence as those who refuse to dive into all of that, testifies to that reality in a way that confronts. Or put it this way. This is all feeling very abstract right now. If you want to change the world, go to church. The way the Lord changes and is present in the world is by the church's unique heavenly witness. The church's unique heavenly presence in the world. Okay, do you see what we're trying to combine here? It's otherworldly. but in the world. And this is what it seems like it's so hard to keep straight. We want one or the other. We want otherworldly in a way that can just ignore, or we want in the world in a way that's just like everybody else. We need our otherworldly identity present in the world. But here's what happens. When we live that way, when it invites opposition, and we see that opposition. When we live that way and when it invites opposition, we are tempted to despair. Because the thing is, preaching, the Lord's Supper, fellowship, service, sacrifice, in the eyes of the world, those things all look so weak. They look so helpless. They look almost as helpless as a Jesus who would go to the cross. And He is saying to us that these things, this presence of the church as not of the world, as from this heavenly reality, is actually the way God is at work. Because that cross to the grave would lead to resurrection and glory. And Christ is telling His disciples, you are going to follow the same pattern. And there's going to be a time when you are going to be tempted to say, this seems so pointless. It seems so irrelevant. Let's just give up and dive in to all of the economic power and political power and all of the opinions and conflicts. That seems to be where the action is. That seems to be where the difference is made. That seems to be the tools that make a difference. And this is a constant temptation. to look at what we uniquely have as the church, and to kind of agree with the world about how weak it is, and to say what we really need is all that other stuff. Why is this so constant a temptation? I want to say that moments of frustration, moments of near despair, I'll even say for myself moments of fear, when it looks like the church, and I mean this in the broad terms, wants to do everything but this. But when the picture is painted of this heavenly colony on earth, of word and sacrament of ancient Christian practices that have existed through the centuries as this constant presence on the timeline, testifying to who God is in Christ, of fellowship and service and sacrifice. It sounds so beautiful. And so I want to say, why isn't it good enough? Why are we not satisfied with this? Why is there more that we need? Very simply comes down to the fact that we do not believe Jesus. We don't believe him. What did he tell us he's gonna do? So he knows this is gonna look weak and frail, and it's gonna look helpless, and you're gonna be tempted to think, surely if we just stay this course, it's gonna all dwindle to nothing. Verse 26, but when the helper comes, it is the Holy Spirit, the paraclete, and we talked about that word a few weeks ago. whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about Me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning." These words are full of confident and bold hope. He says, yes, there's going to be opposition, and there's going to be people, bearing the name of Christ, begging you to use the world's tools with them. And He says, you know what? I'm sending you the Holy Spirit. And by that Holy Spirit, you will bear witness. And the point to this is that it will be effective. It will be the means by which God acts. And what all of this comes down to is, do we believe Christ's promise of that? Do you believe that from that point on, for thousands of years to this day, the Holy Spirit has been present and at work in the world? There's more promise even than that. When he says to them, because you have been with me from the beginning, he's speaking to the disciples in their unique role as the foundation for the church. That from the beginning is that foundational role. And so we have in that the promise of Christ building his church. He says, you don't have to figure out the best way to do this. He's building it. It is his work, his doing, and our confidence flows from that promise. And then, back in verse 20, it's easy to skip. There is this note of hope and promise. Yes, he's promising opposition. He says, if they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. But then he throws in this extra phrase, if they kept my word. They will also keep yours. And you see, there were also many who received Christ, who acknowledged Him as the Messiah. And He's saying to them, that also is going to happen, that that mission is going to be successful. Just as there are those who rejected Christ and therefore persecuted, so there are those who received His word, and that also will always be the case. He's saying that also will never cease to be. Why? Because he's sending the Spirit and he's building the church on the foundation of the apostles. This is not something that we say, okay, let's call that our five-year plan and try it out. This is something that has been the case for 2,000 years. 2,000 years. It is something that has been the case. Remember that eternalness of Christ in the story of Israel for way more than 2,000 years. This is God's plan all along. And you see the challenge for us, the challenge Jesus was preparing us for is that we are in the time of waiting and have been for 2,000 years. And one of the things running through everything Jesus says here is that he knows that time of waiting is hard. It's difficult. The conflict between faith and sight, the opposition of the world, the feeling of being weak, and the temptation to use the tools of the world, and you are called to keep waiting, to be present, in the world as that pointer, that expression, that colony of heaven, of eternity. As Jesus said, that the world might know you are my disciples. Keep waiting. The day is coming. The day is coming. It might be 4,000 years from now. You don't know how many more God has to gather, but it is coming when waiting will no longer be a thing. Can you imagine that? That that conflict between faith and sight, no longer a thing. Waiting to see more, no longer a thing. Isaiah 25 verse nine. After the description of the great messianic banquet on the mountain, of all nations benefiting from it, of death itself being defeated, of the great feast in God's presence, we read these words. It will be said on that day, behold, this is our God. We have waited for Him that He might save us. This is the Lord. We have waited for Him. Let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we praise you for this identity that you have given to us in Christ. Enable us by the Helper, the Spirit that you have sent, to persevere in refusing to be of the world. but to maintain, to love, to be committed to, to show to the world the heavenly ways that you have given to us in Christ. For we pray in Jesus' name, amen.