God's Word comes to us this morning from the 14th chapter of the Gospel according to John. John chapter 14, verses 1 through 11. Hear now God's Word. This is, as you remember, part of the upper room discourse in which Jesus is preparing his disciples for what will soon transpire, his crucifixion the next day, his resurrection on the third day, but ultimately his departure to be with the Father as he rules and reigns at the Father's right hand in heaven even now. And they're troubled, as you can hear. God's Word, John chapter 14, beginning at verse 1. Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am, you may be also. And you know the way to where I'm going. Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. Philip said to him, Lord, show us the father and it is enough for us. Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long and still you do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the father. How can you say, show us the father? Do you not believe that I am in the father and the father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe in me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. Thus far, God's holy and inerrant and infallible word. We're thinking about the second commandment today. I would ask you to turn in the back of your Psalter hymnal to page 49, Lord's Day 35, and we will read the questions and answers responsibly, I the questions and you the answers, that explain to us the meaning of the Second Commandment. Back of the Psalter hymnal, page 49, Lord's Day 35. What is God's will for us in the Second Commandment? May we then not make any image at all? God may not and may not be visibly portrayed in any way, although the creatures may be portrayed, yet God forbid his making or having such images, if it was intention to worship them or to serve God through them. But may not images be permitted in the churches as teaching aids? Let's pray together. Father, that is what we long for, for you to teach us through the living voice that comes from your word written. And so we plead with you to send among us, as you have, according to your promise, the Spirit of truth who breathed out the very words of Scripture, now to open my mouth and to open all of our hearts to receive your words and to have you, by your grace, change us in conformity with the Word. Bring us comfort as you point us to Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life. And may we see your glory as we see him portrayed in the Gospel. We pray in his name. Amen. Well, I admit that it may not be immediately obvious at first glance how the second commandment and this text from John 14, Jesus' conversation with his disciples immediately before, the night before he went to the cross, how those are connected. I acknowledge that. I want to show you that connection. And I think it's a significant connection because I think it will help you to see how God has directed us to fulfill the very purpose for which he has designed every single one of us. And that purpose is worship. In the first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me, the real and the living God tells us to worship him alone, to offer our wholehearted trust and adoration to no one and nothing other than himself or beside himself. He tolerates no rivals for our allegiance and for our affection. And so when we daydream about life as we wish it could be, when we, in the secrets of our hearts, answer the question, I would be happy if, what would make me happy? The first commandment says your answer must never be, I would be happy knowing the Lord and. No ands, no fill in the blank. I would be happy that I know the Lord and if I had a spouse to love me or if I had financial security or anything else. No other ands there. Nothing to fill in the blank. Knowing the Lord, that's the first commandment. Or when we're worried or afraid, the answer to the question, what would set my heart at rest, can never be the fact that the Lord has promised to be with me and we have a good home alarm system. And I had the car tuned up recently. and our investments are going to survive the recession. No ands, no fill in the blank. That's the first commandment. And when we ask, what is my purpose for living? The answer has to be, as another reformed catechism says, to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. To glorify God and enjoy him forever. There may be short-term goals beyond that, but ultimately that's what we're made for. Every one of us is made for that. To glorify God and to enjoy him forever, We're made for worship. Now, the second commandment tells us how. The second commandment tells us not just to worship the Lord exclusively, that's the first, but to worship Him in the way He directs us. Number one, whom to worship, the Lord alone. Number two, how to worship, as He's commanded us in His revealed Word. And that second commandment, if you think about it for a minute, just makes perfect sense. If worship is all about our purpose in glorifying God, the ultimate criterion, the ultimate way that we judge whether worship has accomplished its purpose is whether he is pleased with it. And there's no way to know about another person's desires and delights, no better way than to ask them. I've been married 40-some years, and it's finally dawned on me that that's the best way. Maybe women can pick up clues about their husband's preferences just by watching carefully, but husbands are not so bright. And so I've sort of taken the mystery out of birthdays and anniversaries and Christmases. I ask my wife what she wants. Sometimes I take her to the store. What color would work for you? I realize it spoils the surprise, but boy, it's a lot safer than figuring that because I need a new skill saw, this is going to speak love to her heart. So I ask her, and if that's true for another human being, how much more true is it that we need to ask the Lord and hear him use words, his words, to direct us how we can glorify and enjoy him? What will please his heart? That's the logic of the second commandment. The Lord says, worship me alone, and if you want to know what I want in worship, listen to me. No images, no idols, and as you heard in the catechism, really teasing out the implications. No other good ideas that you might have come up with that are not what I've told you to do. Makes sense. But did you notice in the questions that introduced Answers 97 and 98 that the wise framers of this catechism anticipate there's a little bit of resistance or pushback deep in our hearts to that obviously sensible rule, Do what God wants you to do and worship how he wants you to do it. You heard that, right? Question 97 basically says, so really, is God against all pictures of anything whatsoever? That's a little unreasonable. He doesn't say that, I know. But it's sort of like the serpent going to Eve in the garden saying, so the word on the street is, God won't let you eat of any tree here at all. That's a little extreme. Now, the catechism has a wise and sensible answer. Now, God's not against all pictures anywhere, anytime, But against images that are used to worship him, he's given an absolute prohibition. Very clear. But you see that? You hear that pushback, that resistance in our heart? Same thing with the next answer, question especially. Not everybody knows how to read. How about some teaching tools to help them? Just a few images. Just a few icons here and there for people who can't read to get the message across more powerfully, to keep their attention. After all, a picture's worth a thousand words. That's kind of the subtext that is behind the question, which then the framers of our catechism answer so wisely. And they needed to answer it, because after all, there were a lot of people in the 16th century who didn't know how to read. 21st century, more people, at least in the West, know how to read, but fewer of them really want to read. Oh, they read what they have to, but were so oriented toward the visual for other reasons, by the media, by the Internet, by film, by TV, that we may think reading is nothing more than hard labor and people might prefer to be communicated to through images and visual things. So we're not so different. The situation's a little different, but not so different from the 16th century. Now, as the Catechism shows, the Bible has answers to those caricatures and those objections to the second commandment. It rebukes the delusion that we can be wiser than God. And we're going to touch on those answers in this message. But first of all, it's important to focus on Jesus' words in John 14 to show that we really were designed for worship. We were designed to come to the Father and to see the Father. And then we're going to look at catechism and the commandment in the second point to see that our wisdom is not nearly able to prepare us to come as we should. And then finally, back to John 14 to really see the answer to how we can come to the Father and how we can see the Father. So John 14, beginning, we're made to worship. The context, as I mentioned, is the night of Jesus' betrayal, the night before he will go to the cross. His disciples are confused, they're distressed. He says their hearts are troubled and he says that shouldn't go on. understandably they're troubled understandably they're bothered he's been telling them for weeks that when they get to Jerusalem instead of being welcomed with open arms as the true savior of his people oh there'll be that brief thing on Palm Sunday but basically he's going to go there to be arrested mocked, ridiculed, rejected handed over to the Roman political machine to be executed even at this Passover dinner table this evening Jesus had announced that one of his closest colleagues would sell him out to his enemies chapter 13, verse 21 in fact, twice in these two previous chapters once in chapter 12, once in 13 and particularly in chapter 13, 21 in connection with that announcement John records that Jesus himself was troubled was put into turmoil over what was ahead of him and now just before our text Jesus had told Simon Peter bluntly that before the pre-dawn cock crow Peter would deny three times that he even knew Jesus. Peter? Peter the rock? Peter the bold? Peter who earlier in Jesus' ministry when everybody else was leaving and Jesus turned to his disciples and said, are you going to leave too? Peter was the one who spoke for that little band of brothers and they said, Lord, where would we go? You have the words of eternal life. Peter who had just said just now, I'll die with you. Peter was ready with the sword later that evening. Peter will deny Jesus three times. No wonder they're troubled. No wonder they're troubled. And their questions, as you could hear them, are all about where Jesus is going and why they can't go now and how they can get there at the proper time. But Jesus seizes on their distress over his departure as an opportunity to direct them to their deepest destiny. He talks about coming to God and seeing God, coming to the Father and seeing the Father. He talks about worship. He talks about worship, our purpose to adore God and find our joy in God. So Thomas, as we see here, asks, Lord, we don't know where you're going. He's just spoken of his father's house that has many rooms, but we don't know where that is and we don't know the way. Jesus answers, I am the way. And his focus is not so much I'm the way to heaven only, the Father's house. I'm the way to the Father. No one comes to the Father but through me. And then Philip asks, when Jesus talks about their having seen the Father, Philip asks, Lord, show us the Father. That'll be enough for us. answers, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. They're preoccupied with location and experience. They want to know how we can get there. They want to know how we can encounter God directly. Jesus refocuses their thoughts on the persons of the Trinity, on the Father, how we can get to Him, how we can behold Him, and on the Son as the means. That's what we're made for. Have you found what you were made for? You've found what you were made for in life. We have different callings, different designs. Each of us, in some respects, athletes and musicians and artists, sometimes speak of having a sense that they're really doing what they were made to do. Really fulfilling their callings. Maybe not all of us talk that way or think that way. We should, but we don't always in the day-to-day of life. In the film that I've discovered is now ancient history. It came out before many of you were born, Chariots of Fire. It's still available on DVD if you haven't seen it. Eric Little, one of the two main characters, Scottish son of missionaries to China, is training for the 1924 Olympics. You probably have heard this story many times, but I'm going to tell it one more time. For one line, when he talks about, with his sister, a conversation that I'm told actually probably never occurred quite that way, but the playwright got it right anyway in theology. And his sister is concerned that he's losing his sense of calling to preach the gospel in China, and he says to his sister Jenny, God made me for China, no doubt about that, but he also made me fast, and when I run, I feel his pleasure. That gift of running fast for the glory of God, he sensed was the pleasure of God. Well, as I say, athletes may sometimes sense that, or artists or others. Some of us in our day-to-day business don't think of that that much, but today, Resurrection Day, this first day of the week, As we're here together, we're really doing what we were made for together. To worship and to glorify God. To come to the Father through the Son and to behold the glory of the Father in the Son as he's proclaimed in the Word. That's our supreme purpose. And the second commandment shows us how. Now it does it largely by negatives, doesn't it? As we read that together earlier, you shall not, is very prominent in Exodus 20. You shall not make a carved image. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. It's a lot about not. We need God's no. No, don't do it that way. We need him to say, here's the way to do it. Here's the way to enjoy my favor in worship. So once God has removed from us that silly notion that we can be wiser than God, then we can begin to hear how God has provided for us to come to him. We're made for worship, we're made to come to the Father, but our wisdom cannot show us the Father. And for Israel, this largely focuses on this issue of using images to represent God in some way, carved images, statues of some sort. Now, you could have argued, I suppose, in the ancient world, as we could argue in the modern world, that there's a lot of visual things that really communicate well. Israel and the early church, and certainly the reformers at the end of the Middle Ages, and we lived in an era where there were a lot of visual images around. And, of course, the Creator made us with five senses, And the visual sense, the sense of sight, is a very powerful sense. It can, in a sense, engrave on the screen of our imaginations images that we would even like to remove but can't. I suspect that's why most of my nightmares, maybe yours too, are a lot stronger on the visual than they are on aromas, for example. And even the audio seems to be muted. It's visual. We see, we take in a lot through sight. That's why blindness is such a terrible, terrible disability. And in fact, the Bible shows us God often communicating in visible media. The burning bush, the pillar of cloud over the tabernacle, that mysterious visitor to Abraham centuries earlier, Jacob's wrestling opponent at Peniel, The captain of the Lord's army who would stir Joshua to boldness before the conquest. Ten devastating plagues on Egypt. They're all over the place. The miracles of Jesus. Jesus mentions that at the end of our text. At least believe on the strength of the works that you've seen me feed the 5,000 and cleanse the leper and raise Lazarus from the dead. So God is a multimedia communicator. He even gives instructions to Moses to embed in the curtains of the tabernacle itself and on the top of the Ark of the Covenant images of cherubim, we call them, of God's heavenly attendants. They're there. God isn't against all images, but he is against images used to represent himself. Why? Well, among other things, because two and three-dimensional images just can't do justice to the Creator. You see that in Psalm 115. The psalmist there in Psalm 115 says, the pagans are saying about us, where's their God? There's no image of the Lord of Israel in the temple. And of course, the psalmist has an answer to that. Our God is in the heavens. He does all that He pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak. They have eyes, but do not see. And ears, but do not hear. And noses, but do not smell. And hands, but do not feel. Feet, but do not walk. They can make no sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them. So do all who trust in them. You see the contrast. You can't see our God, but that's because he's ruling in heaven and does whatever he wants. By contrast, the pagans can see the images of their God and they seem to have all of the right organs, but nothing works. It does nothing. I suspect that's what the framers of the Heidelberg were saying when they said, idols that cannot even talk. They're mute. What do you want that for? Voices far better. Living voices far better. Many, many decades ago, when I was in college, I endured an excruciating summer three months apart from the young lady who would, That fall, except my invitation to become my wife, that was a hard summer. She was in her hometown, I was in mine, we were each working. We missed each other terribly. We wrote each other every day. We wrote letters. Some of you have to ask your grandparents what a letter is. It's like a tweet, only slower. But you can say more. Every day we wrote letters. I carried her photograph in my wallet. But much to my dad's chagrin, in addition to that, I called her every evening. Yeah, it was long distance, of course. And no cut rates those days. I called her every evening. And you know, the photograph was fine. It was beautiful. It was accurate. But that living voice, that was great. And again, that's what we're shown here in this commandment. That's what the catechism points out. to hear the voice of our husband who loves us, to hear the voice of God in the Word, so much better than images that couldn't do justice to him in the first place. And, of course, the other reason is that images of creatures, not only can they not do justice to the Creator, but they deflect and distract our attention from him, from the Creator. They tend to make us think that he's like them, When really he's so much greater than they are. Do you ever think about why the reason attached to the second commandment is attached to the second rather than the first? Why is it not you shall have no other gods before me for I am a jealous God? Why is it no carved images for I am a jealous God? It's because the Lord knows how easy it is for us to make things, maybe even thinking they will help us worship God, but have them deflect our hearts from God. Of course, that's what was happening at the foot of Mount Sinai as Moses got these laws at the top of the mountain, down at the foot of the mountain. His older brother Aaron was putting together a feast for the Lord, for the God who brought us out of Egypt. And right at the center of the feast was what? A golden calf that deflected and distracted the hearts of the people from the Lord. So when we come up with our own good ideas, our wisdom not only fails, but it distracts us. And as the catechism observes, God's ban on visible images of himself in worship is only the tip of the iceberg. The prohibition really means that we shouldn't introduce into the church's worship any element or activity that goes beyond what he's commanded in his word. Now, that's where things get sticky. Reformed people who are serious about heeding the second commandment don't always agree on everything. Well, there's a large major of consensus. We all agree that in the worship of God's people, we need the reading and preaching of Scripture, God's Word. We need the sacraments. We need prayers. We need the singing of God's praises. But there's some differences among the churches that share so much consensus. When the Westminster Confession was written less than 100 years after the Heidelberg, its chapter on the elements that God commands and warrants in his Word and worship does not have a confession of faith, as we will recite the Apostles' Creed tonight. It left out the receiving of tithes and offerings. In fact, in the directory for worship it says, you can do that, but not in a way that interrupts worship. I think that means a box in the back someplace. Some churches believe we should sing only psalms and without instruments, or with certain instruments and not others. There are differences, and those need to be discussed. but we don't have time this morning, and they shouldn't distract us from the main point. That is, God's sovereign, living voice, not our preferences, not our best guesses, must call the shots in worship. Because whenever we prefer our inventions, our imaginations to the clear direction of God's word, our good ideas turn into distractions that deflect our focus from God himself and displace him, in a sense, in our allegiance. Which brings us back now to John 14. How are we to approach God in worship? Much could be said, but listen to what Jesus says here. We approach God in worship through the Son, and we see the Father in the Son. Jesus focuses on his unique role in our coming to God the Father and in our seeing God the Father. Verses 5 and 6. Jesus is the way. Jesus is the way by which we come to the Father. Thomas wants to know the road to the Father's heavenly house where all those ample rooms are provided so that there's a place for everyone who believes in Jesus. That place that Jesus will be going to prepare for us. But Jesus said the point is really not the house in itself. The point is the Father. And the point is that Jesus himself is the road. He's the way. He's the truth. He's the life. He's the only way, in fact, that leads to the Father's presence. No one, no one comes to the Father except through me. How offensive does that sound in the ears of so many people in the world today, in our country today? Religious pluralism likes to suggest that there are many, many paths to the top of the mountain. Tolerant relativism is willing to live and let live to say to us, if Jesus works for you, I'm happy for that. What works for me is meditation, self-realization, yoga, whatever. Jesus will have none of that broad-minded indifference. He doesn't just say my way or the highway. He says, I am the highway, the only highway, the only route, the only door and gateway, as he says in John 10, when he identifies himself as the good shepherd. The only way that conducts you into the joy of knowing the God who made you to glorify and to enjoy him in worship. Now, if we ask why Jesus is the only way to the Father, the answer is that Jesus alone can remove the great obstacle that blocks our way to the Father, which is the guilt of our sin, including the ways we've broken the second commandment by preferring our choices in worship rather than God's directions in worship. See, it was Moses' inner pollution when he was on Mount Sinai and after the golden calf and after he pled with the Lord not to destroy Israel and the Lord relented as he always had planned to do and was not going to destroy his people for the glory of his name he was going to keep them alive as undeserving as they were. Then Moses went one step further and said now show me your glory. Show me your glory. Very much the question that Philip is asking here. Show us the Father. That will be enough. And the Lord said you cannot see my face and survive but I'll hide you in a cleft in the rock and you can see my back. That's as much as you can see. You cannot see my face. Why? Because Moses was not only a finite creature, but because he was a fallen creature, a sinful creature, as you and I are. To see God unfiltered would destroy us and incinerate us. That's what the prophet Isaiah sensed in that vision that he received when he was called as a prophet, Isaiah 6. He saw the Lord in a vision, there must have been some filtering there, when the glory of God filled the temple, but still he sensed, I'm ruined, I'm destroyed. I've seen the Lord of hosts. who is so consumingly holy. How can we see God then? How can we come to God? Only because God the beloved Son has come to us. The eternal Son became the incarnate Son, our human brother. Sinless, innocent, pure, perfect. The obedient Son and servant. And then offered up himself as the sacrifice for our sins. For people like us who have violated every one of the Ten Commandments. And Jesus endured the wrath that we deserve and therefore is the way to the Father, the way by which we can approach God. The author to the Hebrews picks up this word way that Jesus uses here on the way, the truth, and the life. And the writer to the Hebrews, as you know, is so focused on the themes of approaching God in worship and how the Old Testament sanctuary and sacrifices are fulfilled in Jesus. Hebrews says in chapter 10, Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places, which is to say to come into heaven in our worship even now, to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is his flesh. Since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near. Let us draw near. Let us worship with a heart full, fully assured in faith. and with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience. Approaching God through Christ, coming to God in worship, because Jesus, the sinless Son, became the sacrificial offering for us to bring us to the Father. Now Paul says that sounds foolish to the world. 1 Corinthians 1, he says, the cross sounds like foolishness and weakness to those outside of the faith. But it's really the wisdom of God. And so when the catechism says we better not be wiser than God, it's not just talking about what we decide to do in worship. It's talking about the very heart of the gospel. Left to ourselves, we would never come up with the solution to our problem because we would not have diagnosed it nearly deeply enough. we would have come up with, as the world has come up with, all the religions and philosophies invented by the world, some of them take seriously the problem of guilt in some sense. They sense that the gods may be angry and there needs to be some way to make peace with them. But none of them see it as deeply as the Bible shows it really to be. Because they all propose some solution that is reachable by us. Something we can do to fix it. And the Bible says there's nothing you and I can do to fix it. God has to fix it. Only, only in what looks like foolishness, the cross of the Son of God, only there till we see the depth of wisdom that can bring us to the Father. And so Jesus not only is the way that brings us to the Father, he's the image in whom we see the Father. And so when Philip asked, Lord, show us the Father, Jesus, you can almost hear his sigh, I think, of a little bit of disappointment. I'm reading in a little bit, you know. Philip, it's been so long. You've spent so much time with me. Don't you know me yet? If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. You've seen the Father. Philip wants what Moses wanted. Show me your glory. He wants what the psalmist wanted in the psalm, Psalm 27, that we sing. One thing I've asked of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord. Philip says, just that. That's enough. I want to see God. Jesus says, you've seen him in the flesh, in me. John's been preparing us for this from the very first chapter. His prologue, his intro, points out that the word who was with God and was God became flesh and lived right among us and we beheld his glory. Glory as of the unique Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. In fact, John goes on at the end of that conclusion to say, actually in words that echo God's words to Moses, no man has seen God at any time. But the unique God, the one and only who is in the bosom of the Father, who is with the Father, has made him known. And we can only come to know God through the Son. When Peter and Andrew and James and John and the others saw the Son at work, they saw the Father at work. They saw who the Father is. They saw the Father's consuming holiness, his implacable hatred of sin, his passionate jealousy for the allegiance of our hearts. And they also saw in Jesus the Father's heart of compassion and his tender mercy and his self-giving love toward people who don't deserve any good thing from him. It doesn't get any better than this. Philip, don't you realize what you've seen? Now, you may be sitting there saying, well, that's one thing for them. Admittedly, they're troubled that Jesus is announcing that he's going away, but they've got their memories, right? They can remember those soul-piercing eyes. They can remember the hands that reached out to the unclean and made them clean. They can probably remember Jesus' smile. What about me? I haven't seen Jesus. How can I see Jesus today? Well, actually the gospel answers this question. You see Jesus through his words, which he mentions here in verse 10, and really through the apostles' eyes, because their testimony given through the Holy Spirit is the way in which you see Jesus as well. Jesus will say in chapter 16 that he's going to send the spirit of truth to cause them to remember what he had said to them and to help them to understand it better than they ever did during his earthly ministry. Chapter 17, Jesus is going to pray for those men who had seen him up close and personal, who had watched him and heard him, but he's also going to pray for us who will come to believe through their word. Chapter 20, after his resurrection, when Thomas, the same Thomas, who says, show us the way, says, I'm not believing until I see it, until I put my finger into the wounds. Jesus says, Thomas, you've come to believe now because he grants Thomas' doubting request. In kindness he grants it. You've come to believe because you've seen. Blessed are those who believe though they have not seen. That's you. That's me. You see Jesus in the gospel of his grace. And so John says, right after that incident, right after that resurrection appearance of Jesus to Thomas, John says, Jesus did many other signs, but these have been written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and believing you may have life in his name. You see the gospel in the living voice of the word. You see the glory of the Father in the face of the Son through the preaching of the word. and through the word written. We see as we hear his voice through the words that the spirit of truth has breathed out in the scriptures, words that he proclaims to us in preaching and the sacraments, the gospel word made visible in those signs that point our hearts beyond themselves to Jesus, the incarnate, crucified, risen, living word of God. So come, come to the Father in faith through his Son. Jesus is the only way. Come, behold the beauty of the Lord in the ultimate image He's given who is the living, resurrected Jesus Christ who is among us here by the Spirit and who speaks to us through His Word. O come, let us adore Him. Let us pray together. Father, thank You that You have not left us dead replicas but that You have given us a risen, living Savior to speak to us in the words so that we can hear his voice in the words that the Spirit has breathed out. Father, thank you for guarding us from our own foolishness, from the illusion that we could be wiser than you are. Thank you for the wisdom of the way you speak to us and invite us to meet with you in worship. Bless us as we do that. Lead us to trust more deeply in your Son, the way, the truth, and the life. We pray in His name. Amen.